Salla's Wedding Gift

As the small cave where the flying creatures nested is searched for valueables, Salla recovers from the effects of the poison. It is decided to press forward, and the group proceeds to the next cavern entrance marked on their crude map.

They find that the second cave entrance is much smaller, only 5 to 6 feet wide and tall. Plus it does not actually sit on the trail, instead it is about a 10 feet climb to get to the entrance of the cave. Jonl climbs up to the entrance to scout it out, but hears a low growl turn into something much more fierce. Morgan climbs up next and is immediately set upon by a small golden furred, six-legged, copper clawed, sharp-toothed beast. The creature deals massive damage to Morgan, who only lives through the encounter from Salla's constant healing attention.

After the creature is finally put down, Salla explains the creature is a "golden gorger". A deadly foe of the dwarves, it literally eats gold and other precious metals. It was custom for a dwarf to hunt such a creature before their wedding. The fur would be used as a wedding cape for the bride, or as a wedding bed fur. The teeth and claws would be used as jewelry in the ceremony. Hearing this, it is decided to skin the creature and take its claws and skull.

An exposed gold vein is found in the main cave. Salla picks away at it for a few, but believes that there is a few hundred gold worth of material just exposed that he can see that a properly outfitted crew could mine. Depending upon how far the vein continues, such a crew could mine many times this amount.

With no obvious exits out of the main cave, the party moves on to the next cave entrance. Out front of this entrance are a number of trees, where vultures have nested. Worried they may be some sort of alarm for the creatures in the cave, Salla throws a silence spell on a stone and hands it to Snake. Miming is had by all as Snake tries to figure out what Salla would like him to do with this stone.

The party moves forward into the cave under the silence. The cave tunnel is natural, carved by years of water action. An overwhelming stench fills the tunnel, the same stench of the dead lizard creature found in the kitchen at Whitefang. A short distance down the tunnel and Salla detects traps ahead, right near a number of smaller natural tunnels on their right wall. Jonl goes to check it out, discovering multiple traps. The most potentially dangerous one involves a net holding loose rock up above on the ceiling of the tunnel, a rope connects to the net and leads into one of the small tunnels. Jonl follows the rope and is greeted by an ugly small humanoid with large round nose who cackles gleefully as it pulls the rope bringing the rocks down on Jonl. But Jonl is just too quick for that, he jumps headlong into the tunnel with the creature, avoiding the rock fall, and stabs it. Its grin turning upside down as it dies.

Out in the hall, more of the creatures come out of the tunnels, including two in the back who attempt to steal a dagger of Snake's. The party quickly disposes of the attackers.

Further in a long fight is had with creatures who appear as stalagmites. They have a tough rock shell, with squishy bits under it.

East of this a small cave is found where eight feet of blue-green slime hides in the shadows of the ceiling. Salla uses his excellent ground rolling skills to evade...something. The mud covered Salla has Modisto use an unseen servant to collect some crystals under the slime. He gathers eight of these quartz crystals that Salla estimates to be worth a handful of gold each.

A second cave is found in this direction contaning only mushrooms and giant fire beetles. Nothing of real interest occurs here.

To the south they find a human skeleton clad in a velvety black cloak, with an old ratty backpack and boots still attached to it, and a sword in its hands, the blade resting on the ground. Using the unseen servant they gather the sword and backpack. The sword has a silver edge and detects as magic.

The party continues down the southwest tunnel, going deeper and deeper underground. They come to a crossroads, where a large mushroom-like plant is growing off to one tunnel. The party destroys the evil mushroom, sure that its evilness would have destroyed them had they gotten too close. Snake takes a few minutes to steady the intersection and determines man-sized lizard-like tracks see heavy traffic into and out of the west tunnel, some of the tracks going down the north tunnel, while some going down the south tunnel. The eastern tunnel is quickly investigated and appears to be a dead end.

The party decides to go south.

Further down they go, and come to a branch. They hear a male voice, in broken Common, pleading for help down the branch tunnel. This branch goes down at a steep grade, and they can see a dagger sheathed in leather, about 20 feet down the branch tunnel. Chul spider climbs down with Salla using the magical spool of rope to keep him on a tether. Chul picks up the dagger, and the tunnel continues down, twisting and turning, getting steeper ever few feet. It finally ends about 60 feet down, where it opens up into a small cave.

In the small cave Chull spots a man in full plate armor not moving. One of his legs is splayed out at an odd angle, and his torso is coated red with blood. He wears a white and blue surcoat over his body. His helm lies next to him, and a broken longsword not far away. Chul glances around the room a bit more, noting an oddly shaped and colored patch of rock in a corner near the entrance.

Chul gathers up his nerves and decides to make a dash for the injured man. He pounces into the room, jumping over to grab the man...but the man proves to just be an illusion. Chul quickly tugs at the rope to get pulled back up, but not before a number of viciously barbed tentacles slap across him, one of them manages to catch hold. Chul wrestles with the tentacles to pry it off his body, and with the help of the crew above, he manages to get the disgusting thing off of him and he shoots up into the chute.

After Chul explains what he saw to the group, it is decided to lower Modisto and Chul down. Modisto is lowered to a point where he can see into the room and he unleashes two fireballs. However, as the second one is cast, the creature (think an oval blob with a face on it and nine long barbed tentacles) comes down the wall and into the chute, attempting to wrap up Modisto. Modisto and Chul are quickly pulled up the chute, but Modisto comes up a bloody mess. Snake and Morgan prepare to confront the creature as it comes scrambling up the chute. Snake fires a bolt of ice through the thing as it crashes into Morgan. Morgan disappears from sight for a few seconds as he is engulfed by this creature and its long tentacles. The sword tip of Morgan's appears out its backside and drives out, splitting the creature apart as Morgan steps out of it.

It is decided that resting in this cave might not be such a bad idea. So the party scrambles down the chute, and find that where the man had been that Chul described, is now a large pile of refuse. Modisto throws a detect magic and gets some hits within the pile. The party spends an hour searching through the refuse and finds a metal flask with some bubbly liquid inside and a dusty rose colored, crystal shaped stone.