Explore the Havens - I13 Underground
General Summary
Hadrian and his friends returned to explore a previously discovered undergound hex in Hex I13. They easily located the entrance to the cavern below by following the trail of goats disappearing into the ground. Once inside, Azim pulled out his shepherd's crook and proclaimed his intention to keep this flock safe and relocate them to a more appropriate home.
The first part of the cavern was much like they'd seen before. A wide open space with various large rocks and about a dozen or so goats jumping around carefree. The goats found the freshly picked grass from Azim's bag much more delicious than the fungi they were used to eating and he had no issues corraling the goats in the first section.
The next section of the cavern revealed more goats. Some of them being the size of a very large dog or a small pony. The goats in this section seemed to be playing a game of sorts. The party noticed they kept jumping back and forth over a particular area of the cavern floor. Upon closer inspection F'nor noticed that the ground was very weak in that area and potentially posed a threat. Hadrian thought it best to test that theory by throwing the largest rock he could find out onto the suspicious area. The rock created large cracks as it rolled across the floor before catching in a divot that opened up under its weight. Another test with another rock increased the number of cracks and revealed the floor to be ready to give way to what appeared to be a crevasse underneath. Thinking to speed up this process, Milo intimidated the goats on his side of the area into stampeding across, resulting in successfully collapsing the floor. This came at the expense of the lives of a dozen or so goats, who fell for almost a full minute before hitting the floor below with a dull squishy thud and a sad bleet.
Azim and Milo then began discussing the value of saving the lives of these cavern goats over eating them for dinner. This discussion continued throughout the rest of the day. They were never quite able to come to an agreement.
Now that the this chasm had been revealed, F'nor attempted to ascertain how far down it went. Even with 120ft of darkvision, he could not see a bottom. So the party went about discussing options to get across the 25ft expanse.
The first, not so great, idea was to tie one end of rope to a large rock, tie the other end to Azim, and have him jump across. He would then assist the others in doing the same.
After seven failed attempts and some bruising, Azim was about to give up hope when on his eighth attempt, he succeeded. Securing his end of the rope to a rock on that side, he prepared to help the others shimy their way across. A harness was constructed from additional rope and both F'nor and Hadrian managed to slowly make their way across the pit. Milo, not confident in his ability to use the rope and harness decided to rely on his innate abilities and jumped the pit with ease, bruising Azim's ego just a bit more.
Moving into the next section of the cavern, F'nor stepped right into a Gray Ooze that attempted, but failed, to grapple him. The ooze was quickly disposed of but not before dealing acid damage to Hadrian's sword. The party noticed that the bleeting of goats seemed louder in this portion of the cavern and it wasn't just the additional goats Azim had brought along from the last section.
Coming around a bend the party saw the source of the loud bleeting. Almost two dozen, six foot tall goats that were not happy to see them. Azim immediately went into action attempting to bring these goats into his flock but some resisted. Hadrian was gored by a couple of goats when aiding Azim. Both F'nor and Milo agreed not to kill the goats outright but readied their actions to fire on them if they attacked. All in all, about a third of them were killed and Azim mourned their loss but added the rest into his fold.
Once these goats had been corralled the party continued on to find a giant, sleeping goat with an object stuck in it's horns. Azim cast silence so that he and F'nor could attempt to sneak up on it and pull out the object. Before doing so he also cast Bull's Strength, which unfortunately has a vocal component, and woke up Billy, King of the Goats.
Billy was not pleased and immediately began to attack. The object lodged in his horns gave off bursts of energy that created a sphere of darkness on one side of the cavern and spontaneous leafy growth on the other. It didn't take too many blows before poor Billy was down. Azim stabilized the animal and shepherded him into his ever-growing flock.
Upon searching the cavern thoroughly, the remains of a wizard, long dead, were discovered. His journal described years of living underground with this goat herd after being outcast from his village. What was his name? How long had he been there? No one knows.
Satisfied, the party went their separate ways while Azim spent the next day and a half shepherding 50 goats back to Stag's Ballad.
Rewards Granted
Loot:
68 pp
807 gp
1,035 sp
1,590 cp
[165 gp] masterwork hide armor
[200 gp] masterwork madu (steel)
[1,170 gp] +1 heavy steel shield
[200 gp] masterwork scale mail
[50 gp] potion/oil of sanctuary (CL 1)
[300 gp] potion/oil of spider climb (CL 3)
[300 gp] potion/oil of protection from arrows (CL 3)
[25 gp] potion/oil of resistance (CL 1)
[25 gp] potion/oil of virtue (CL 1)
[700 gp] divine scroll of dimensional anchor (CL 7)
[375 gp] divine scroll of water walk (CL 5)
[150 gp] arcane scroll of create pit (CL 3)
[25 gp] arcane scroll of magic weapon (CL 1)
[150 gp] divine scroll of aid (CL 3)
[150 gp] divine scroll of flame blade (CL 3)
[13 gp] divine scroll of light (CL 1)
[750 gp] wand of sanctuary (CL 1)
[750 gp] wand of deathwatch (CL 1)
[2,300 gp] +1 sling [clue indicates function]
[308 gp] masterwork glaive
[335 gp] masterwork bastard sword
[1,730 gp] dust bolt [no light or external clues]
[???] narrow handheld metal object [no external clues]
Experience:
F'nor[11]: 894 xp = 413 (Collapsing Floor) + 68 (Bleeting & Oozing) + 413 (Goat King)
Hadrian[9]: 3,432 xp = 1238 + 1519 + 675
Azim[6], Milo[6]: 7,175 xp = 2975 + 2850 + 1350
68 pp
807 gp
1,035 sp
1,590 cp
[165 gp] masterwork hide armor
[200 gp] masterwork madu (steel)
[1,170 gp] +1 heavy steel shield
[200 gp] masterwork scale mail
[50 gp] potion/oil of sanctuary (CL 1)
[300 gp] potion/oil of spider climb (CL 3)
[300 gp] potion/oil of protection from arrows (CL 3)
[25 gp] potion/oil of resistance (CL 1)
[25 gp] potion/oil of virtue (CL 1)
[700 gp] divine scroll of dimensional anchor (CL 7)
[375 gp] divine scroll of water walk (CL 5)
[150 gp] arcane scroll of create pit (CL 3)
[25 gp] arcane scroll of magic weapon (CL 1)
[150 gp] divine scroll of aid (CL 3)
[150 gp] divine scroll of flame blade (CL 3)
[13 gp] divine scroll of light (CL 1)
[750 gp] wand of sanctuary (CL 1)
[750 gp] wand of deathwatch (CL 1)
[2,300 gp] +1 sling [clue indicates function]
[308 gp] masterwork glaive
[335 gp] masterwork bastard sword
[1,730 gp] dust bolt [no light or external clues]
[???] narrow handheld metal object [no external clues]
Experience:
F'nor[11]: 894 xp = 413 (Collapsing Floor) + 68 (Bleeting & Oozing) + 413 (Goat King)
Hadrian[9]: 3,432 xp = 1238 + 1519 + 675
Azim[6], Milo[6]: 7,175 xp = 2975 + 2850 + 1350
