Musical Canoe

The group rests the night at Jared's...dealing with the burden of Anduria's greatest gifts to its new heroes. Jared provides them with directions to Bhal-Hamatugn and speaks of the Pit of Seven Jaws which leads to an underground fissure that will take them to Bhaul-Hamatugn.

The group travels further north for another day and a half when they arrive at a hole in the ground...presumably the Pit of Seven Jaws. An invisible Jonl sneaks down the stairs of the pit and finds the pit's namesake, a seven-headed hydra waiting in the fissure below.

With a mountain of prayers and spells to strengthen the group, they descend on the hydra. In response, the creature lets loose with blasts of freezing cold from each head, almost killing Morgan outright. As Morgan scrambles back up the stairs, Snake and Chul melee with the creature. Snake manages to dodge two seperate blasts of cold from the hydra before he is forced to retreat as well. Chul stands all alone, but Modisto manages to get a straight line of fire on the hydra and lets loose with a lightning bolt, blowing apart the hydra. Modisto looks about at his awed comrades and simply says "Can we please stop goofing around and get this done."

Due to the large amounts of damage suffered and the lack of spells left, the group decides to rest for a few days in the wilds, regaining their strength. Salla does the healing bitch routine.

Following the fissure for miles, they finally arrive at a vast cavern. A half mile away on the other side of the cavern is a huge stone structure shaped like some giant prehistoric fish, covered with phosphorescent fungus. Stairs from the floor of the cavern ascend into its wide open mouth. The rest of the mist filled cavern is covered in water. A trail switches back and forth down to the water's edge from the ledge they stand on.

Shortly after proceeding down to the water's edge a large canoe approaches out of the mist, a fish-man standing on the stern with a paddle in one hand and a spear in the other. The canoe comes to rest on the water's edge. The boatman lays his spear on the ground and croaks out something unintelligible to the party, beckoning them into the canoe with its webbed hand.

Various attempts are made to communicate with the boatman, but none are successful. After much debate in front of the canoe about if the boatman should die or not, and people hopping in and out of the canoe, the entire party gets into the canoe. The boatman takes the canoe across the cavern to the large fish structure.

Once the group is off the canoe, they begin to proceed up the stairs. They are met by a group of four fish-men, brandishing spears and shields. The fish men croak more unintelligible words at them, and start to become frustrated at the group's lack of an appropriate response. Jonl decides to get things moving along and attempts to stick a blade in the guts of a fish-man, but finds their rubbery hide a bit tougher then he had imagined. Battle erupts, only to be quickly stalled by Modisto throwing a charm on the assumed leader. But this proves to only help Modisto, as the fish-men continue to attempt to kill Jonl. From the eyes of the fish structure above, crossbow bolts rain down on the party. Snake jumps into left eye and quickly dispatches the two fish-men he finds in the small guard room. Then quickly moves to the right eye to dispatch a sleeping fish-men, courtesy of Modisto. Down below, Salla starts off the fight with a sound burst, stunning two of the fish-men, while Morgan cuts them apart. Jonl and Chul tag team the last fish-man.

Continuing up the stairs and into the giant fish-shaped structure, the group arrives at the entry chamber. A pair of stone doors stand opposite the main entrance, and a lowered portcullis to their right. Frescoes adorn the walls. A frog-creature holding a strange two-tined staff is drawn to the left of the door, while a squat male humanoid in plate is drawn to the right. Spread across the remaining wall space are drawn hundreds of red, spear-wielding fish-men marching through caverns. What proves to be large egg shells are scattered across the floor.

Investigating the portcullis, they find a lever just inside hallway that Jonl believes opens the gate. Modisto uses a mage hand spell to pull the lever, and as the portcullis rises it creates loud screeching and clanging noises. Inside this new room they find four prison cells. Two of them are occupied. A halfling is found in one, who claims to be a wizard that was captured by the fish-men when he came below to study and write about them, but he was made prisoner instead. The other prisoner, a skinny tall human, claims to have been here after the fish-mens treasure. Both prisoners tell the party that the other is a spy for the fish-men and not to be trusted. After quite some time of attempting to get more information out of the prisoners the party decides to leave them in the cells, they are afraid of betrayal and complications.