Session 6: Saving Joe Bigley Report

General Summary

Before the party lies a long tunnel that curves to the right, but farther away back again to the left. Even from this distance you can see about 200ft away before the curves. The floor itself is fairly flat, with a grainy texture of semi hardened sand. Smatterings of debris line throughout the corridor making it tough to navigate. Along the walls and ceiling of the cave, small icicles of stone hang down, made of natural lava rock, eroded by time and the occasional traveler. Overall, not much to see, but there is an echo of some small creature, squeaking in the darkness.
Naomi whispers wearily. "W-why would anyone want to come down a tunnel like this anyways? There's nothing here..."
Ayame ponders for a moment as they continue. "Greed...lust for money and such...people will take risks fo-"
"Treasure!" Eleanor says, chuckling while moving forward.
"Yeah... treasure." says Ayame.
Naomi tilts her head "Would an old lava tube really have treasure?"
After reaching the first bend in the tunnels, the party can see that the floor is starting to get higher up, and the roof of the cave is covered in a layer of bats, slumbering in the daytime, and squeaking to one another. The rest of the 300ft long corridor winds left and right with a patch of heavy rubble piled up midway through, just before another turn in the cave that they can't see past.
Eleanor spins on her heel to look back to Naomi and shrugs, "Who knows, its ours if we find it though accordin to that lady!" She gives out a grin and turns back around to walk back forward, watching her step with the rubble strewn floor.
"Someone might have put something down here to hide it...smugglers maybe?" Ayame says sounding unsure, her tail swaying as she keeps alert.
Naomi she bites her lips, unsure of this situation, but decides to just keep quiet for now...No need to wake up the bats.
The party reaches the patch of heavy rubble without issue, and while looking over it, they determine that it would cause quite a bit of noise in the echo chamber they are in.
"Well, if there's anything in here with us other than the bats, they'll here us approach." Naomi says, "...If they haven't already."
Ayame nods "Well...nothing to do but move forward I suppose"
Eleanor hums and looks around, "Yeah bats aren't gonna kill us." she thinks, "Well.. not fast anyways, so lets make it quick!"
"Lets make it QUICK!" "Quick" "quick..." echos throughout the cave, Eleanor in her excitement being just a tad louder than normal.
Eleanor coughs, "whoops." she whispers.
The sound of squeaking is now louder, and echoes throughout the cave as the bats on the roof above start to move around and start taking flight. The swarm is awake.
Thinking fast, Ragia climbs up the small pile of rubble and casts Combardor, getting a good amount of the swarm cleaned up in a single spell.
Meanwhile, Eleanor and Naomi start flailing their weapons against the swarm, trying to kill as many of them as they can, but being mostly unsuccessful in their attempt.
Ayame takes a long draw from their pipe, exhaling a black, noxious smoke throughout the swarm, which causes them to be slightly disoriented.
From there, the swarm descends upon the party, with Ayame and Ragia becoming nauseous at the swarms around them, making it difficult to do anything.
With their only spellcasters able to do anything about the swarm unable to cast spells, the cleric and wizard freshly wounded, and Eleanor unable to do anything other than swing at the swarm pointlessly, she calls out to the group. "Fuck this is stupid, yall good with just running?"
At which point the rest of the party immediately runs deeper into the cave. The bats quickly lose interest as they pass by the rubble, leaving them alone while Naomi heals Ayames wounds.
Ayame herself pants from running. She groans and stretches out "Thanks for the healing Naomi, they really did a number on me."
Eleanor lets out a sigh when the swarm's noise seems to settle, "Good, they got more annoyed by the chase than it was worth."
Naomi notices that she is bleeding from the attack, patching herself up quickly while Eleanor rubs her head. "What do bats have against us anyways, gods." Ayame just shrugs in response while Ragia squints at Eleanor.
"You should know to keep your voice down in the caves, as a fellow cave dweller."
Eleanor pouts with her hand on her hip, "I know. I just got excited about treasure. Speakin of, lets keep going." she says before the gropu proceeds further into the cave.
After exiting the long echoing chamber, the floor starts to slope up, and the ceiling that was nearly 30 feet away now seems to have declined to only 20 feet since the enterence, and based on how things look ahead, looks to get even closer. The lava icicles are now completely absent on this section of cave, but the bats no longer appear to be an issue.
Ragia thinks to themself, and before proceeding, collects a bunch of guano on the cave floor before proceeding. The party taking their time to look for tracks.
As time has worn on with their travels, checking for tracks and other animals, the ceiling has become extraordinarily low, being only 5ft tall from floor to roof. Everyone but the kobold have to squat to continue on. However, Ayame smells the musk of the wolf that passed by not too long ago, as well as the stronger smell of oil that she had smelled earlier on, making it hard to pin point where the wolf had passed by. Ragia however, manages to find an old bear trap, partially covered in the hardened sand, the trap being activated long ago, no longer posing a threat. In its grasp is the leg of some sort of large animal.
Ragia picks up the leg, removing it from the rusted bear trap to examine it.
"Well the smell of oil is getting much stronger." Ayame says as Eleanor spots the kobold picking up the trap. She makes grabbing hands towards Ragia, who seems to be having issues identifying the type of leg it comes from. "If you can't figure out anything about it, I would like it!" she hums. "IT was probably used for protection against the wolves though."
When Eleanor touches the leg, her Silwea ancestral powers kick in. The items history passed down through its generations, starting from the very beginning.
Eleanor sees in her minds eye a tiger, strong, old, and would jump from tree to tree. It found its way into the cave, and fell into the trap where it couldn't escape. After another short blip of time, the tiger is starving, and was set upon by a group of undead, what she can only assume to be zombies, who ate the nearly defenseless creature, after it took out three of them. From there, she sees that the limb was severed by the tiger re-animating, and leaving the cave without the The limb stayed there for a long time, twitching while it decayed, before ending up to be a skeletal claw.
The party witnesses Eleanor spacing out, her eyes glazing over for a few moments while she witnesses the history of the item. She snaps out of the history lesson, shaking her head. "Well that was about as weird as they come..." she says before pulling up the skeletal tiger arm. "Weapon." she says, looking to it in a kind of awe.
"it's grappling hook is what it is i say." says Ragia.
Ayame blinks in surprise. "Huh, Interesting."
Naomi raises her brow. "I should clense that."
Eleanor gasps and holds it up to her chest like she's hugging a baby, "Noohhh."
Naomi raises her staff, ready to blast the claw with holy energy.
Eleanor pouts, "Whats wrong with necrotic energies? It's not like I can make undead with it or somethin."
"Well, usually it involves suffering. Did the thing that came from suffer? It could still be suffering."
Eleanor nods, "Yeah it probably is still suffering." She says while waggling the claw, "But this paw aint' the cause, it's a result! A symptom of suffering, not the cause. Some weirdo undead were in this cave and killed a tiger is all, cause of this thing." Eleanor now says waggling the bear trap in the other hand. "So, if anything, blame the undead and whoever placed this. It wasn't originally in this cave, so this Joe guy aint' even settin traps."
"Hnn... Well..." Naomi says, lowering her staff. "Whatevs." she says, giving up her insistance on destroying the claw.
Eleanor scratches her head with the claw, "I'm starting to think Joe is dead," she gasps, "Oooh or undead! Since those were apparently here once! This was super long ago that the tiger got killed here, so they might be long gone."
Ayame sighs, "The poor thing..."
Eleanor points to the claw, "Claw here told me so, it's been pretty long." She places the newfangled weapon on her belt, continuing on. "I'll hold onto it for now, since I already have half a dozen other weapons with no problem, lets keep goin!"
Ragia looks unfazed at the news, but still maintains a slight distance between her and Eleanor.
"OOH I need a good name for this new one... I'm usually good at names." Eleanor says, spinning around, looking to the party before muttering to herself, listing out several mishmash words as names but continues to move deeper into the cave.
"What about.... The tigers fate? Or the tigers end?" offers Ayame.
Eleanor looks to Ayame, "It's not some three legged undead roaming around."
"She was giving you a name for the weapon, Eleanor." says Naomi.
"Oh!" she pouts. "I was thinking like... Nala! or something..." says Eleanor.
"Huh, I suppose that works." says Ayame.
"Nala?" says Naomi.
"You tall ones alright in here?" The kobold calls back to the rest of the party.
"Im fine for now..." sighs the Kitsune.
Eleanor nods, "Maybe not Nala... not, 'weapon' enough to represent her story... Oooh Shiva! Also yes, I think I'm fine for now."
Ayame shrugs, as the rest of the party marches forward.
The cave suddenly breaches to an overhang after the next turn, and a tall ceiling rises above you, about 40ft tall from what you can see, with ledges overhanging the path you are on. Alongside that, the ledges overlap one another, making bridges of hardened sand in front of you, requiring you to squeeze through for a normal person, and duck your head from the 5ft overhang in the middle of the pathway.
The kobold attempts to check overhead as they continue forward, but it is too far to see above the rock line, and nearly impossible to see over the edge. Eleanor stops right before the overhang, humming and thinking to herself for a moment before jumping up and trying to get a good grip on the top of the ledge. Which she does.
However, as she grabs on, the wolf from before quickly jots forward, grabbing onto her arm and yanking her up the short overlap, slamming her into the wall. It lets out a quick bark that sounds more humanoid than a normal wolf, and three more wolves that were hiding in the overhang spring into action, two of them jumping in to assist the first wolf in fighting Eleanor. The final one staying out of sight from down below, but preparing to attack anyone who shows their face.
Ayame snaps her fingers, crying out "Sebastian!" After the briefest delay the tall strange man from before bursts out from the wall behind Eleanor, A sword already in motion aiming for the neck of one of the wolves. The wolf manages to hop around his swing, but they are surprised about the new combatant.
It was at this point, Eleanor realized the exact foe they are facing. The white fur, the very efficient pack tactics... Eleanor remembers everything there is to know about Frost Wolves. Eleanor leers at the one that threw her into the wall, and uses her telepathic powers to send a message into its mind in common. {Stop! We're just here to retrieve someone and leave! I promise nothing if you attack!}
The wolf gets this message and gets very, very angry, all three of the ones within melee reach of Eleanor are now snarling.
Still leering at the wolf, she cries out loud, "Well you leave me no choice." she says twirling out her greataxe, casting a spell upon herself and standing ready to fight. She focuses her mind and goes into a rage, letting out a growling taung to all the wolves. "COME AT ME!"
The rest of the party starts casting their defensive spells, Ayame with Loricas, and Naomi with Duratae. Ragia however, casts Coating on the ceiling, giving it a flamable slick.
One of the frost wolves, the one they had seen before, still a small singe on its fur where Ragia had hit it before, breaths a cone of ice onto Eleanor, who side steps the blow, psychicly slapping the wolf with her ardent powers as the other one attacking bites her leg, taking the weight out from underneeth her and sending her to the ground. The third wolf above tries to bite in on sebastian, but fails to get through his defences, while the final wolf just continued to wait.
Still enraged, Eleanor stands up, growling out at them. "That all you got? You'll need to do more than that to scratch me!" she says before swinging her axe at one of the wolves, the one who bit her before, and lopping off its head like it was made of butter, sending it half the cavern away.
Completely surprised by this, coupled with a jet of fire exploding behind them as Ragia lets forth a jet of flame to the cieling, engulfing the roof of the cavern with bits of flame, the wolves look at Eleanor as more of a demonic figure as she locks eyes with the wolf they had encountered before, clenching her teeth before pulling her axe ready to fight. "I warned you." she says dryly, through clenched teeth. the wolves, being completely unable to handle that amount of raw terror, shimmy to their stomachs and crawl backwards, away from Eleanor, their tails between their legs. "M... Mercy..." says the wolf in common.
"E-EH? You can speak?" Ayame says, surprised by this.
Eleanor wipes her axe clean on her cloak, "Mercy will be granted to those who accept it. I told you when we first started this" she says, a bit breathy and seemingly manic, but gathering herself enough for this. "I will grant it if you yield."
Unlike Ayame, Eleanor seems unphased by the fact that frost wolves can speak common.
The wolf eagerly nods in approval. "We yield. Just... Just don't harm the pups."
Eleanor holds out her axe to her side and it just kind of slips into her form, looking back to her group, "Everyone stop attacking." she looks back to the wolf, "We're here for a man that came here recently. To retrieve him. That's all."
Ayame nods, with Sebastian now standing down as a result.
The wolf Eleanor was talking too, looks to the wolf that stayed out of the combat the entire time, who quickly jumps down and runs deeper into the cave system.
The wolf looks back to Eleanor as the other wolf trots off, "If thats all... we were scared you were here for the pups."
"No, just him." says Ayame.
"Have you had problems with pup stealers?" asks Ragia.
Eleanor calms herself down from her rage, her body starting to feel sore. "I would never hurt pups." she rubs her head, "gosh, I did just say I wouldn't hurt anything that didn't threaten me back." Eleanor says, her tone relaxing. "Sorry about that one.." She says, motioning to the one she beheaded, "We'll be out of here, for good once we find this man."
"You said you were here to retrieve someone." said the wolf, to which Eleanor nods in response. "If it was your own family that was in danger of being taken away..." he says before looking to the decapitated wolf as well, in sorrow. "You would do the same..."
Eleanor groans, feeling guilty, "We all fought for our lives I suppose. Rule of the wilds." she says, looking solumnly at the wolf, "I get it."
Ragia pouts, having been ignored by the wolves. Meanwhile, Ayame notices that not too much farther past the narrow hallway, was the source of the smell of oil throughout the cave, a broken lantern.
"If you know anything about a man coming through here within the past few days that would help us be out of here faster." Eleanor says before a short pause. "If there is an issue with a threat to your pups as my scaly friend questioned, we might even be willing to aide too."
"Frost wolves are... exceptional allies to those who rear them before the pack can train them. Frost wolves are hunted by adventurers such as yourselves for our pelts. We are always in danger of trappers and hunters. It is our life. We fend for ourselves and protect ourselves." The wolf says with agreement from the other wolf next to him.
"I don't know if I can fix widespread issues of demand like that. I hope our lost man didn't come in here for that." Eleanor thinks aloud.
Almost on cue, a dragging sound is heard as one of the wolves returns, a man in his mid thirties held up by his shirt, looking extremely weakened and near death. Naomi instantly knows that should they have waited another hour, he would have been dead.
Eleanor gasps, "What a bastard, was he here for that reason???"
Ayame grunts, looking at Eleanor, "We still need his help."
Eleanor chuckles, "Hey that don't mean im going to kill him. Still gunna call him a bastard though."
"He came looking for riches, so I would assume so since he was by himself." The wolf growls. "We didn't kill him, in case he had friends."
"Did we come here for a supposed treasure or for this shell of a guy?" Ragia ponders, poking at Joe while Naomi uses a cure spell to heal him.
Eleanor shrugs, holding out her hands. "We're not exactly friends, he does something none of us can that we need him for."
It was then that another wolf, twice the size of the other ones makes their way into the section of cave from deeper within. The other three wolves look surprised, but bow their heads in respect. Even for her size, and even from an untrained eye, the larger wolf looks weak, and Ragia can see sheens of silver in her fur instead of white. The wolves all look between each other wordlessly.
After several long moments of silence, all of the wolves begin a deep, sorrowful howl, which resonates throughout the chamber. It was then that Joe started to stir, while the larger wolf made its way back deeper into the cave, making slow and methodical movements.
Eleanor bows her head, unsure how to deal with the guilt, knowing that this was a major member of a small group of people. As they finish their sorrowful mourn, she looks to the waking joe, and then to the rest of her party, muttering, "Lets go.." she says as Sebastian picks up the still waking Joe, throwing him over his shoulder.
"She says you can take the warrior with you." The wolf says, looking to Eleanor. "Use it to prove that the cave is no longer occupied by frost wolves, and start a rumor that there are undead in the cave."
Eleanor looks back to the wolf, "I'll do that, whatever I can to help and prevent more deaths like this." she looks to the lump of a man on Sebastian, "and idiots like that from venturing in here" she says a bit hushed incase he's awake enough to hear her. She holds up Shiva, the undead tiger arm, "The undead rumor will be easy to spread with something like this as proof" She smiles before harnessing it again.
"Also..." says the wolf, "Stay away. Next time you come, our ranks will be twofold. And we will not show mercy again." he gives a slight snarl, as the rest of the wolves retreat to leave the party alone.
Joe begins to wake up as they leave, looking around but seeing nothing. "Th....the light.. I can't see anything."
Eleanor chuckles, "It's alright Joe, we'll get you back into light soon, we were sent here by your crewmate to get you."
Ragia whispers to joe "Hey, joe is it? be quiet, we're going torchless to not attract the undead you disturbed, so try not to give them other reasons to go in our direction."
Joe immediately quiets as Sebastian fixes his hold on the human, the sound of clinking coins getting the partys attention coming from Joe himself. Ayame looks at joe, rifling through his pockets, and comes out with a bag of gold, and a pair of magical gloves. With that, the party makes their way to the entrance of the cave, with daylight showering over the dirty, tired, and sore adventurers.