The Tanius Campaign Journal – Chapter 12: Nooks and Crannies

I continued investigating the scorch marks, blood splatters, and tufts of fur scattered around the cave, and piecing together the events was easy enough. I started to notice that each warrior left a very distinct footprint. For example, a bat crushed against the ground was obviously Rkard’s work, and arrow holes and scorch marks in the crawler were clear evidence of its suffering at the hands of Meesh and Bellamy.

Confident I was getting an accurate picture of events, I continued on, but began to think it might be time for me to get my stories directly from the party. It would certainly be easier than performing an autopsy on every corpse I came across…

Snakes In A Cave

Campaign Log Day 5 – Part 2
18th day of Kythorn – Morning
Year of The Rebuked Storm – 1574 Dale Reckoning
Endgar Undercity – The Dig

As our heroes ventured onward, they noticed two more openings along the northern wall, which they cautiously investigated. Unlike the hole that housed the crawler, these tunnels seemed to lead deeper into the cavern. A brief discussion ended with their decision that their first priority was completing the Mining Guild’s contract, and they left the tunnels for another day.

Venturing east, the party noticed a large trench carved into the cavern, descending downward. Hoping to avoid getting caught from above or below, they split up, with Elle and Rkard walking the trench while the rest of the party covered them from above.

Soon Elle spotted a waist-high (if she were in elf form) hole on one side of the wall. She stuck her nose in the hole to see if she could smell anything of interest; unfortunately, her dire wolf form’s heightened sense of smell didn’t make up for her lack of dark vision, and immediately a creature was upon her.

A large constrictor snake leapt out of the hole, catching Elle by surprise. As she was being wrapped up, several large snakes emerged from holes scattered around the cavern and descended on the party. Not long after, an enormous constrictor snake emerged from the trench. Rkard tried to fight the larger beast on his own, but was immediately wrapped up and dragged into its nest.

Our heroes sprung into action and took down the snakes one by one. Rkard struggled, but never managed to escape the snake’s grasp. Though the orc seems to have made it out intact, I imagine his pride was somewhat tarnished by the ordeal. Eventually the party slayed the enormous serpent and freed Rkard from his scaly prison.

Packed Rats

The cave was now fully lit, save for the shelf in the southeastern section. Emboldened by their progress to this point, they climbed the shelf.

There was nothing of note on the shelf’s top, but they did notice a sheer drop in the cave’s corner. At its bottom was a small cavern, which they figured might house some baddies. Without a moment’s hesitation, they slid down the drop and started squeezing through the hole.

It seems their confidence may have gotten the better of them.

At the drop’s end was a large group of Giant Rats. Individually these creatures pose little threat, but ten can be dangerous to even the hardiest adventurers. Meesh recognized the threat for what it was and tried to charge in quickly to unleash a Hail of Thorns. For some reason she was unable to unleash her spell before the horde descended on her.

Kiddo ran to the rescue and unleashed fiery retribution on the rats, but not before several members of the party received some nasty wounds.

With the rats dead, the party planted their final torches and returned to the entrance of the dig site. I imagine Brogan was very surprised by the contents of the cavern, but based on his generous rewards he was very pleased with the results.

With the dig site secured, the Mining Guild workers could block off the tunnels on the northern side of the cave. Soon digging crews were back to extracting riches from the earth.

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