IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

SESSION 11A: INTO THE CAVERNS OF THE OOZE LORD

November 11th, 2007
The 30th Day of Amseyl in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

Tee turned and looked at Itarek. “Do you know which way we need to go?”

Itarek shook his head. “There is no living memory of this place among us. Those who have come here have never returned to us.”

Tee turned to Agnarr. “Is there any sign of their trail?”

Agnarr grunted and began examining the ground. After several moments he shook his head: “The ground is too hard here. And our battle has wiped out any traces that might remain.”

Tee took the sunrod from Elestra and moved forward to look down the center passageway. Perhaps thirty feet away the corridor began a precarious decline, angling downward steeply – perhaps dangerously so.

She rejected that course and turned her attention instead to the passage off to their left. It quickly curved out of sight, but standing in its mouth she could dimly hear the sounds of running water.

“There’s water this way.”

“Maybe they needed drinking water!” Elestra suggested.

Agnarr shrugged. “It’s as good a way as any.”

Tee spoke briefly to Itarek. He agreed and motioned his warriors into motion. Once again, two of them went to the front while two provided a rear guard. Tee moved out with the warriors taking the lead, her eyes probing intently into the murky cave darkness ahead of them.

As they moved away from the entrance cavern, however, the need for their light sources diminished – a sickly silver-green light, running in thicker bands like veins within the rock surrounding them, began to permeate the caverns. Ranthir identified this as a thick deposit of sickstone and, indeed, many of them were feeling waves of weakness and dizziness beginning to plague them.

This tunnel did not go far, however, before it rounded a corner into a much larger cavern. The walls of the cavern were covered with sheets of mold and wet moss. A swiftly flowing river emerging from the wall off to their right disappeared into a low gap in the wall to their left, completely blocking the route to the other side of the large and gently curving cavern (the far end of which was out of sight).

The goblins moved forward as if to cross the river, but Tee held them back. Not only did the water itself appear dark and foul, but where the cavern floor met the river the rock had been corroded and blackened. There was nothing healthful about this underground river.

The ever-eager Elestra came up to get a look for herself, and by the clearer light of the sunrod Tee was able to see that the cavern floor on the other side of the river was wet and slick with moisture. She also saw that where the river flowed in and out of this cavern there was enough headroom that one could wade through the water. She guessed that this river frequently flooded, spilling over its far bank.

But the more she saw of the river, the less she wanted to deal with it. Agnarr confirmed that there were no clear signs of anyone passing this way, and – after a brief discussion with the others (Elestra: “Maybe they came this way so they could wade the river and throw off trackers!”; Tee: “I don’t think it works like that.”) – she decided that, as long as they had a clearer path to pursue, they shouldn’t risk this one.

They returned to the entry cavern and took the last of the three passages leading away from it.

This passage took two quick turns and then spilled out into a small chamber. Tee’s sharp eye spotted four goblins standing in the middle of this small cave. They were staring at each other with dazed expressions, gently swaying back and forth on their feet.

Tee called softly to Itarek, but waved the others back. “I thought you said none of your people came here?”

“Those are not my people,” Itarek said. “They have been claimed by the ooze.”

Tee nodded and then waved him back, too. She started creeping forward, but then banged her shin painfully against an unexpected outcropping of rock. For a moment, her heart leapt into her throat – she thought that the goblins ahead of her must have surely heard her.

But they had not. Or perhaps they were entirely oblivious to the world around them. Whatever the case might be, Tee was able to creep ever closer, quietly loose her bow, and draw an arrow.

The arrow flew straight and true, striking one of the goblins in the back of the head. The pure force of Tee’s draw smashed the arrow through the creature’s skull, so that the tip of it emerged out of its eye.

Even as the goblin’s body collapsed to the ground, Tee rapidly drew another arrow and fired. But this shot went wide of its mark as the other goblins all whirled to face her.

At the same moment, two of the greenish, ooze-like creatures dropped from the ceiling of the chamber and landed in front of the passage. They were not as large as the creature they had just defeated, but between the two of them the entire width and much of the height of the tunnel was filled.

Agnarr, his body already tense and ready, bounded forward. Racing past Tee he unleashed a furious blow that ripped through the turgid flesh of the slime creatures.

The three goblins, meanwhile, shambled forward. One of them passed directly through one of the slime creatures, emerging from its far side with a gentle sucking sound and swinging a clumsy blow at Agnarr. The barbarian was surprised, but easily pivoted on his feet and parried the goblin’s sword.

The other two goblins passed into the slime creatures and… stopped there. Their swords lashed out from within the protective coating of the slime, further harrying Agnarr.

But now the party’s goblin allies had moved into position. Arrows flew and the oozed goblin which had emerged from the slime quickly fell as multiple shafts pierced its body. Agnarr shifted his stance forward again and, easily batting aside the crude, slow thrusts of the encased goblins, continued tearing at the slime creatures.

Tee, meanwhile, had dropped her bow and drawn her dragon pistol. Its bolts of pure force found openings wherever Agnarr could not.

While his warriors waited for a target (knowing that their bows would do little good against the amorphous slime creatures), Itarek drew his sword and charged forward, holding the line at Agnarr’s side.

Elestra, not wanting to be left out of the fun, ran forward and performed a tumbling leap through the narrow gap between the slime creatures and the ceiling of the passage. The slime creatures extruded pseudopods, trying to batter her down, but she braced her shoulders and smashed through them. Landing on the other side, she dropped her python viper – who immediately began trying to bury its fangs in gelatinous slime — and drew her rapier.

With the slime creatures completely surrounded and contained, it was only a matter of time before the mighty blows of Agnarr and Itarek reduced them to shuddering death. And without the protection of the slime creatures, the two runty goblins were easily dispatched.

THE RUINS OF A FUNGAL GARDEN

Dominic looked at the goblins they had killed and confirmed that they, too, had the strange tendrils of green slime on the backs of their necks. While he looked at the corpses, the rest of the group moved into the small cave.There was another passage directly opposite the one from which they entered, but this ended after only a few feet in what appeared to be a very old collapse.

A larger opening in the wall to their left, however, emerged onto a ledge overlooking an immense cavern at least eighty feet long. The floor of the cavern was a sheer 40-foot drop from the ledge, and it – along with the walls and even the ceiling of the cavern – was coated with thick outgrowths of fungus. A thick, pungent stench of decay hung in the air.

The entire cavern was illuminated by four large outcroppings of rock which reared up from the cavern floor. They glowed strongly with the sickly silver-green light of the caverns, and even the fungus seemed to avoid their touch.

Agnarr and Tee moved out onto the ledge. Neither of them could see any sign that their quarry had come this way, but Agnarr thought he might be able to tell more if he was actually down on the floor of the cavern. Tee nodded and began tying off a rope.

Agnarr easily rappelled down the rope and began poking around in the fungus at the base of the ledge. It didn’t take him long to confirm that there was, in fact, a well-traveled path leading south through the cavern. It appeared to pass between the rock outcroppings on a straight path for a large passage on the opposite side of the cavern.

Tee explained the situation to Itarek, the goblins, and the rest of the group. They couldn’t be sure if the path Agnarr had found belonged to the spellcasters they were pursuing, but it was the best lead they’d found.

Everyone followed Tee back out onto the ledge. Looking out over the vista of the cavern, she asked Itarek if he had any idea where the spellcasters might have been going.

“No,” the goblin shook his head. “What these caverns were we know but dimly. What they have become is beyond knowing.”

“What was this place?” Tee asked.

“One of our fungal gardens,” Itarek said. “Although they have been ruined now.”

“Fungal gardens?” Tee said. “Why would you grow fungus?”

Itarek frowned. “For food, of course.”

“For–?” Tee turned to Dominic, Ranthir, and Elestra. “Don’t eat goblin food.” She thought for a moment. “All right. We don’t know where they’re going. Or where we’re going, for that matter. There are clearly more of the slime creatures down here.”

“And some of them might be bigger,” Dominic said.

“Right,” Tee said. “So we need all the help we can get.”

“We should get Tor,” Elestra said.

“But we can’t spare the time to go back for him. Ursaal is a powerful spellcaster. Maybe too powerful for us. But he’s already used up a lot of his most powerful spells for the day. So if we catch him today, we might have a chance. Right, Ranthir?”

Ranthir nodded.

Tee thought about it for a minute. “All right. We’ll send him a letter. Ranthir, can you write it?”

“Of course.”

“And we’ll send one of the goblins to deliver it.” Tee turned to Itarek and explained what they needed to do.

“You believe this to be the only way we can succeed?” Itarek asked.

“I do,” Tee said.

“Then it must be done. The caverns beyond the Final Watchpost are forbidden to us, but we shall go and may the Queen forgive us.”

Tee thanked him. When Ranthir had completed the brief missive, they selected the most badly injured of the goblins – the one whose broken leg had been healed by Dominic – and sent him on his way.

With this done, Tee crossed to the rope and rappelled down to the cavern floor.

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