Borderland of Adventure #46: Delving Too Deep

At the end of last session, we left our heroes retreating to Roake to rest, recuperate and to gather reinforcements for a return venture to the mysterious subterranean island.

Resting overnight in the village the party reequipped themselves and recruited two more adventurers (the halfling Temmo and the redoubtable, heroic Krorz both recently arrived in the village in search of adventure).

The next morning, the party set out back for Clear Water and reached the now abandoned hermitage without any problem. Making their final preparations, they dared the sunken tunnel leading to the caves – Oreal taking the lead. Once in the caves – and having discovered obvious signs of troglodyte activity including many footprints and missing rope – an argument broke out. Oreal wanted to investigate the lake while Klara wanted to explore the as yet unmapped section of dwarven mine.

Eventually, a compromise was reached and the party agreed to explore one part of the mine before returning to the lake. Signs of ancient battles were everywhere – the dusted skeletons of dwarves and troglodytes lying mixed together. The party found some minor treasures, but then another argument broke out when Klara went back on her agreement and refused to go to the lake.

Taking Krorz and Maban with her she went off to investigate the rest of the mine while the others returned to the lake.

Klara discovered a chasm and a bone-choked passageway on the other side, which after some climbing the much reduced party managed to reach. As they poked about the bones, the area went suddenly dark and two large darkmantles hurtled down from a mine shaft in the ceiling. Klara was briefly engulfed, but after a few minutes of desperate battle the creatures were slain. A fine helmet of dwarven artifice was found among the bodies and attention then turned to the mine shaft in the ceiling. Klara lofted a lit sling bullet into its dark recesses and discovered that about 70 ft. up the shaft was hopelessly blocked. She briefly tried to dislodge the blockage with sling bullets but the look of sheer terror on her companions’ faces as the rubble began to shift finally dissuaded her from this suicidal tactic.

Meanwhile, the rest of the party returned to the room of carven tentacles they had discovered during their last foray. Here they discovered four troglodytes and battle was joined! Two of the creatures charged the party while another ran to the other exit – probably to fetch help. The fourth troglodyte revealed itself as a spellcaster of considerable power. Although injured by Ulmo’s magical powers, it managed to blind Temmo and almost blind Ulmo as well. By this time all the troglodytes were badly injured, but Rend, Tzaran’s ape companion had also fallen. As the injured troglodytes advanced Tzaran himself fell and only two desperate arrows shot by Oreal moments before the troglodyte warriors reached him saved him from a similar fate. The spellcaster was still active however and after having wreathed the party in magical silence blasted the area with negative energy. Eventually, the spellcaster also fell rendered helpless by an arrow daubed in sleep poison. Teemo took great delight in slaying the helpless enemy.

After the battle, sadly, it was discovered that Rend was indeed dead and that Tzaran himself hovered at death’s very door. Considerable healing magic was expended returning him to consciousness and with their resources much diminished the party decided to return to the surface…