Session 27: The Dark Highway

General Summary

Two rusty, metallic, dragon-like heads emerged from the large pile of rust, each with a pair of rusty wings. They screeched like a fork scraping along a metal plate. It was unnerving and threatening.
Atreena immediately ran to the wall in hopes of them keeping their attention on the rest of the party. Pooka rushed around the opposite side of them and his Lash bit into the metal hides of these drakes, tearing the rusting metal to shreds severely wounding one of the them. Atreena then let fly an arrow which pierced one of the drakes. Zanthros let fly a ball of fire, engulfing both drakes but letting the fire and heat washed around Pooka and the others. Brother Les moved to the side near Atreena and conjured miniature suns of Pelor around him. Eglantina attempted to make one vulnerable to the elements, but they resisted.
Then the drakes attacked. Before they could though, the brightly lit area around Brother Les burned at the drakes and hurt them both. Then one turned immediately on Pooka and vomited fragments, slivers and shards of rusted metals directly into his and his echo's face. But Pooka managed to jump aside enough to avoid most of the pieces and only caught a bit of the blast.
Brother Les was not so lucky. The other drake rushed to him and the rusted metal eruption from its mouth caught Brother Les directly, piercing him with nearly deadly effect. Shards of decaying metal stabbed him across his body. He couldn't concentrate enough on his guardians of Pelor and the effect ended.
Atreena then ran up behind Brother Les' drake, stabbed it, then dodged away to hide in the shadows again.
Zanthros lit up the dark space again with a blast of fire.
Pooka made the first drake pay for the metal blast by tearing it apart with the five pairs of magical snake fangs until they wrapped around the neck of the rusty drake and drained the life from it. Then drank a potion of healing, some of the wounds closing.
Brother Les channeled his divine will and forced those metallic shards out of him and started closing up his wounds, then spoke the holy word of Pelor and helped heal up Pooka.
Eglantina bound the last drake in a hex of fex energy, corrupting his constitution, and then threw two more beams of fey energy at it, causing more damage and the hex adding a little extra on top.
That drake turned on Pooka and bit him with terribly rusty teeth and swatted him with a large tail.
Atreena followed up by shooting a magic arrow through its neck, followed by Zanthros sending 4 bolts of energy collapsing into its body, and then Pooka ripping it apart with the Lash.
Then all went quiet.
The party took a moment to recover, healing up some, then took a look around the small cave. They found some boxes in the back which were destroyed and only held not metallic objects.
Brother Les and other sifted through the large pile of rust though and found, near the bottom, an untouched shield shining brightly against the light of Zanthros' brightly lit staff. It had a large open palm hand displayed across the front of it with the obvious sun of Pelor etched inside the palm of the hand. He immediately, Brother Les dropped his mostly ruined shield (still holding several shards of rusty metal in it) into the larger pile of metal and donned the new shield, to learn about it later.
The party found a pair of man made tunnels leading in the cave walls and Atreena snuck off to recon them. She found a small storage area where a pair of mutilated bodies were dragged and more boxes and crates. There were two more rooms where a destroyed bed could be found and a small wardrobe with a bit of coin could be found.
Searching the boxes, Atreena found a shiny gold ring with a large amethyst set into it. Etched in the inside of the ring were the words, "For your health. -MM"
The party not finding anything else, they went back up the entrance, found Vesh and told her what they found. They led her back down into the cave and showed her the place and the bodies, which she recognized as the two who came here to investigate. She decided to leave them here for now, but Brother Les insisted on burying them and found a decent location near the tower to leave their bodies in peace.
Since it was late afternoon, the party made the trek back to Yrossa and went back to the Stylish Hound, where Vesh said they should stay for the night and will be contacted in the morning. All food and rooms to be covered.
Overnight, the party inspected the items. Brother Les found the shield to be quite protective to him and could also protect against those in his party from a distance. The ring provided a ward against poison to whoever wore it. That was given to Eglantina.
The next day, the party got some breakfast and were approached by an older human man with a greying, bushy beard. Eglantina recognized him as the man who called himself the Unseen Man in the magically darkened room, but he called himself David here and talked about the Unseen Man as someone else.
He thanked them, on behalf of the Unseen Man, for their efforts. He told them about some other people in town recently, before the party showed up, asking about a group of people that sort of matched the party, including a large bugbear carrying an obviously snake theme whip. They then moved on.
Then David, as per part of the deal, told the party of a means to reach the Menagerie Coast without having any Imperial entanglements. It was by the means of something called "The Dark Highway". It was a long smuggling tunnel running under the Cyrios Mountains originally used by them to get contraband and other goods from the coast to the Empire. But their group has grown more influence with certain empire elements that the tunnel fell out of use decades ago. The party was told where it could be found and where it comes out of, but that no one knows what dangers now exist in it now.
The party asks if he could arrange to get them a small cart and a pair of mules to pull it, along with some traveling provisions. They provided the necessary coin and David agreed. And before they left, Vesh handed Pooka a small book on harvesting creatures called, "Hammonds Harvesting Guide" and told him to visit again sometime.
The party got settled up, snuck out the back and made their way around town to head southwest along the Pride's Call Way. After two days, they found the turn off onto a largely unused trail heading west. That led around the hills of the Cyrios Mountains until it connected with the rivers coming out of the mountains and they followed that up river. Eventually, they reached a huge waterfall cascading down from over 100 feet high, causing a beautiful set of scenery in the evening light. Atreena took a look around immediately and found, behind some large overgrowth of bushes, the large entrance to a cave. The entrance was roughly 10 feet wide and over 15 feet tall. The smell of earth and rock hit their senses.
The party, led by Atreena at the front, moved inside. Their mules, named Lunch and Dinner, were not happy, but had no choice. Before long, the only light emanated from Zanthros' staff and the occasional light that Eglantina provided when extra was needed.
A few days went by. The long dark tunnel was sometimes just wide enough for the cart to make it through, sometimes even slightly smaller that required rocks and dirt to be moved, and sometimes opened up into a large cavern that the path twisted and turned around huge stalagmites and stalactites (that reached from the ceiling). Nearly the entire time the only sounds they heard were the repetitive hoof beats of Lunch and Dinner, their own feet, the creaking of the cart wheels and their voices. The seemingly never ending tunnel echoing back on occasion.
One cave opened up but a little larger than usual. Before them lay a chasm that no amount of light or magical site could reach the bottom. To their right, the cave reached into the darkness as well, while to their left, a slight ledge could be seen a potentially another tunnel. And across the chasm, a rope bridge just wide enough for a cart like theirs.
Brother Les made the first attempt at crossing by himself. All along the way, he looked to find each and every frayed rope or cracked or broken wooden plank to cast the spell Mending on to essentially fix it. Roughly an hour later, he made it to the other side with quite a bit of the bridge fixed. The chasm and bridge being over 100 feet, he had to yell back to get the rest of the party's attention to cross.
Atreena went next, but she went lightly and with nimbleness. Then went Zanthros pulling on Lunch, followed by Eglantina pulling on Dinner.
Pooka went last pulling the cart. The bridge creaked and croaked the entire time as the weight of Pooka and the cart was more than everyone else. But the bridge did not break and they all made it safely across.
Another rest, and sometime after that (it being hard to tell what time of day it was in the never ending dark), the tunnel opened again but to a huge, long chamber that reached over 60 ft in height and seemed to stretch for miles. And through this cavern, giant 10-15 ft. tall (and some only inches high), blue glowing mushrooms sprouted everywhere like a forest.
Atreena took a moment to climb the walls of the huge cavern to see that it indeed stretched far, but at least with the glowing mushroom forest, she could see that it did reach for to the underground horizon. There didn't seem to be a specific path but the cavern was narrow and really no place to go but straight. She rejoined the party.
As an additional test, to make sure the mushrooms were safe, Atreena shot one with an arrow. When the arrow hit, the light went out. When she retrieved the arrow, the light came back on. And then every time a mushroom was touched, if it was lit, it went out. If it was out, then it relit.
They party continued on, winding their way between the mushroom trees for a few hours. Until Atreena's sensitive ears picked up a distant, faint cry from behind.
Atreena pointed it out and soon the rest of the party heard it in the distance as well, and it was slowly growing louder. She ran to the wall again and climbed up to see if she could spot anything. In the distance, she could see mushroom trees turning off and on quickly from far, far way, but the pattern was moving their direction. She guessed that it might be 5-10 creatures. She climbed back down and reported what she saw.
The party started moving but realized that maybe they had to make a stand against whatever was coming. The growling screams increased in volume. They moved Lunch and Dinner to a safe distance, laid down caltrops between mushrooms and then set up a line of defense.
The creatures cries got louder until they could see that some mushrooms in between others far off were turning off and on again. Then the party could see the limbs and the red eyes coming for them.
What creatures have befallen the underdark trekking party? What more awaits them under the Cyrios Mountains?

Rewards Granted

4000xp for the Manticores, Rust Drakes, and general coolness.

Report Date

10 Apr 2021