Black Barry whispers to the others "Let's go check out those stairs," and leads them in that direction. When they get to the cavern with the stairs, they stop and look around in the dim light. At the bottom of the stairs, they can see another large cavern, this one full of fungus. There are two trails through the fungus, to the left and right, which converge on the other side. Hooflepoof notices that near the trail on the right, there is some violet fungus, which can be dangerous, even deadly, so they should probably take the trail on the left. He descends the stairs.
Black Barry follows, but when he steps on the bottom stair, it gives way - a trap, requiring that you step only in the right place - and throws him directly into the violet fungus. The fungus attacks him with its rotting touch, and nearly kills him before he is able to escape back up the stairs, where he warns the others in a whisper to avoid the bottom step, because it is booby-trapped. The two dragonclaws in that cavern are starting to imagine that they hear whispers.
Bilbo gives Black Barry a healing potion which gives him at least a little bit of health. The three of them descend carefully, avoiding the bottom stair, and taking the left-hand path, well clear of the violet fungus.
Hooflepoof leads into the next room, the main feature of which is that there are a number of dead bats on the floor - a clear sign, one would think, to examine the ceiling, but apparently not clear enough. Elfo and Bilbo don't seem very interested in exploring, but Black Barry finds a tunnel in the southeast corner of the room, leading down a steep stairway. A spear leans idly against the wall near the tunnel. He peeks down there and sees that a heavy leather curtain covers the passage not too far down, but he doesn't venture further, being too low on health. Instead he checks out a large opening to the south. There is a steep drop-off of about 10 feet, then a ledge, and another drop-off, and then another large cavern. That cavern is full of small objects, but whether trash or treasure, hard to tell from here. He can see the gleaming of some shiny metal, and maybe some baskets, perhaps rope? It'll take a closer look to tell what all is down there.
Hooflepoof explores to the north, where a fairly large passageway gives way to a long narrow cavern. Toward the north end of the cavern are four kobolds and one winged kobold, just hanging out and chatting, as if taking a break. Along the east side of the cavern is a steep cliff, down to a lower cavern. There are stairs down there, but they are gated with a cagelike structure, which is locked, but the key is hung prominently at the top of the stairs. Apparently it's to keep someone - or something - locked in down below. On the opposite wall are some strange objects: long poles with lassos on the end, sharp prods, and fake weapons made of wood. Venturing a little further, Hooflepoof sees the something - or somethings - locked in the cavern: three young guard drakes, apparently in training.
He ventures further, down a stairway in a passage to the west of the chamber with the drakes, and finds a messy chamber with straw mattresses and moldy wineskins thrown around on the floor. In this room are a dozen kobolds, lounging and resting. Hooflepoof sees a passage exiting to the south, but he doesn't explore it as his internal clock tells him that his companions are probably running low on invisibility, as their spells only last an hour (in his cloak, he has nothing to worry about), so he makes his way back toward where they parted company.
None of the adventurers know where each other are at this point, but they are all in the same room, the one with the dead bats on the floor. Black Barry whispers "Our invisibility is wearing off" to whoever can hear him, and Elfo answers enigmatically "Hi, I'm Elfo". Unfortunately this noise is enough to rouse ten stirges who are lurking on the ceiling, dining on the occasional bat. The stirges fly around the room, blindly attacking anyone they can find. One of them attaches to Black Barry, but doesn't do much damage before he can tear it off and run back through the fungus room to the stairs, and the stirges don't follow.
Elfo also finds himself battling the stirges, but he stays and fights them with his Ray of Frost. He kills three of them but the remaining six keep attaching to him and making it difficult for him to fight, so he too runs away into the fungus room. Bilbo stays in the doorway and the stirges don't find him.
Hooflepoof returns from his exploration to the north and passes through the room with the stirges. One gets attached to him but he tears it off, and keeps moving to the tunnel with the curtain, to the south. He pushes on through the curtain, noticing as he does so that the strips of thick hairy leather are embedded with sharp hooks, which somehow manage to miss him, just by luck. He finds himself alone in a room pungent with the smell of blood and rotting meat. Between four columns are strung ropes like clotheslines, and hanging from them are the gutted and skinned carcasses of goats, deer, antelopes, what might be big cats, and even small bears. It appears from the smell that some of this meat is not very fresh. There doesn't seem to be anything else of interest in this cavern, and it's not the sort of place one would hang out for very long.
Having now seen these sharp hooks embedded in the curtain, he is not sure how to get through it, but he remembers the spear that he saw at the top of the passage - well, it's on the other side of the curtain now, but a similar object might be used... digging in his pack, he finds the broken staff that he got back in Greenest, and uses it to part the curtain so that he can duck through. He climbs the stairs and runs quickly through the stirges before any of them can get a bite on him.
Elfo says loudly "let's go" and everybody runs for the mouth of the cave, though nobody can see anybody else and everybody is now separated. |
