The Dragon Hatchery

The group is approaching the cave near the back of the horseshoe valley where they believe the treasure was kept as well as the dragons eggs. There is movement just within the mouth of the darkened cave. The group strides confidently inside. The cave is cool, moist and deeper within becomes dark. They are not far inside when they encounter two humans dressed in black wearing dragon masks over their faces. It is not long before these two are dead.

Sure they look cool but they die just like the rest

The Cave Entrance and a Concealed Passageway
400 XP

As they move further into the cave they notice below them a dense forest of mushrooms growing in a cavern several feet below them. As they ponder the reasons for the mushroom field, Danifae notices a concealed passageway in a darkened corner of the cave. It is in a deeply shadowed corner hidden by a cleverly cut fold in the rock. They decide to go that route.

They come across a large empty cave. Empty except for a few scattered coins and a very drunk cultist. After searching his body, finding only a handful of corks belonging to the numerous empty wine bottles surrounding the man, they move on down another tunnel. Danifae scouts ahead and enters a cave. The cave is full of cultists who all turn to look at the drow standing in the entrance to their barracks.

Guard Barracks and an Empty Treasure Store
300 XP

Danifae quickly retreats throwing up magical web behind him blocking the path behind him. The others catch up to him and try to kill some of the enemies on the opposite site of the large web filling the tunnel. Both sides quickly realizes the stand-off occurring. Several of the cultists run off through a tunnel on their side while the adventurers concoct a plan.

They retreat to the drunk cultists cavern, readying themselves while Danifae releases the web spell while using prestidigitation sounds leading as many of the enemies off down the wrong path. It works fairly well and the group has no difficulties in killing off the remaining cultists, using Smallfang and T'an to block the path while the two wizards throw spells from behind.

Check before you eat this mushroom. May be poisonous

A Fungal Garden
200 XP

Deciding to pursue the other escaping enemies brings the party back to the cave at the entrance. There they find no one, so decide to press on through the mushroom fields. Arno, the grumpy old rock gnome surprisingly takes the lead climbing down the very large steps. Unfortunately for Arno, the last step collapses down turning into a slide while dumps the gnome into the field of mushrooms and lying prone at the base of several huge purple mushroom looking creatures which proceed to try and kill him.  They are doing a good job at it until the others who have witnessed the attack, jump down to come to Arno's aid. They soon find out the while the violet fungus may be easy to hit they are formidably strong. T'an is able to fell one of them by hacking through its stalk but soon enough it rises again and its tentacles leave necrotizing wounds on all of the characters.

As the group moves out of range of the violet fungus' tentacles they find that the creatures move incredibly slowly. Finding they are taking so much damage that they have run through a lot of their precious healing potions, they decide to run.

The Stirge Lair
250 XP

T'an's movement is so fast it takes him almost through the entire next cavern. It is not until he skids to a halt that he finds scattered across the room dozens of bats. All dead and drained of fluid. Not long dead but desicated nonetheless. He looks up and sees hundreds of bats all sleeping hanging from the ceiling. As the others finally enter the cavern he raises his finger to his mouth to keep them from making too much noise and waking the bats. Too late both Danifae who is still huffing and puffing from the previous battle and Smallfang clanking as he runs, wake the bats all at once.

MetaGame Spoiler Inside

(DM Note: Here T'ans amazing move ability was killing me. The character kept running so far ahead that it would trigger the next encounter. At one time I had 3 encounters running at once. I had to pull out pencil and paper to keep track. (Yes I know it's a paper and pencil game...but I'm a computer nerd too, so I like my tablet. Perhaps the program could have done that but it would have taken time to figure out. Either way it was awesome and fun)

The room becomes a whirlwind of black bats and screeching noises. The group, following T'an's lead, moves to the wall of the cave to protect themselves as much as they can. Soon though each one feels a piercing pain stab into the back of their necks. Barely being able to see, T'an looks to Smallfang and screams through the cacophony that Smallfang has something attached to his neck. T'an grabs at it and pulls it off. In his hands he holds a squirming red creature, a cross between a giant mosquito and a bird of prey. Stirges! He throws it to the ground and stomps on it killing is with a blood spurting splat. The others try and remove the creatures from each other, but quickly as they can pull them off and kill them more attach themselves. Arno collapses to the ground from blood loss and is only revived with the aid of more healing potion. Try as he might the old gnome finds the small creatures large enough to him to pose a dire threat. Finally, the group has removed and killed the creatures attached to them but are unable to find T'an.

The Drake Nursery
1,500 XP

T'an, after removing and killing his stirge, moved to what he thought was the safety of the next cavern. There he encounters a group of kobolds in the midst of training. He is able to hack through most of them but he is injured from the stirges before and soon succumbs to the kobolds daggers. The group is able to kill off the remaining kobolds who come into the cavern where they have just finished killing the stirges. When the group rounds the corner they see the body of the unconscious T'an lying in the middle of the floor. Revived again using their quickly dwindling reserves of healing potions, T'an returns from the brink of death.

Scanning the room they find training weapons, straw dummies and animal restraints along one wall and a caged off lower section which Danifae proceeds to tell them contains creatures that are on the move. He sends a shower of dancing lights into the  lower part of the cavern and the group witnesses 3 guard drakes jump out of the shadows chasing the magical lights. The group stands at the safety of the ledge and rain down damage upon the drakes which results in the drakes howling in pain.

It is not long before their howls brings several kobolds as well as winged kobolds from an adjacent room. The group again finds it difficult to fend off yet another wave of enemies as they've had no time to rest and recuperate. T'an though is able to show his companions his skills at catching and redirecting the winged kobolds bolder attacks. One of the kobolds runs down and tries to open the cage and release the drakes to attack the party but Smallfang has already found and pocketed the key to the cage door. The kobold resorts to simply bashing at the lock and almost has is open when Danifae is able to kill him. The scene is soon quiet with bodies of several of the kobolds still slowly melting from Arno's acid attacks.

Able now to kill the drakes without interruption the group continues to send down damage into the pit with the drakes while Smallfang decides to throw the drakes a meal, consisting of kobold bodies. Unfortunately, as he throws the bodies down into the pit, the bodies create a nice ramp which one of the drakes decides to use to climb up and out of the pit to attack.

 After a few harrowing seconds of renewed battle the drakes are finally dead and the group turns to look at Smallfang. He apologizes. His bad.

Retreat!

The adventurers are hurt and have run out of most of their powers. They all debate as to where best to rest and regain at least some of their health and spell powers. They decide the darkness of the drake pit and behind a locked cage would be best. They all find a shadowy hiding spot and rest. It is not long though before a group, probably part of the group of unaccounted for cultists who were walked in on near the beginning of their cave adventure, comes through the cavern looking for the party. They use a bullseye lamp hanging on the wall to search the pit but the group is able to stay hidden. The only injury is to Arno's hand as he uses it to stop Smallfang's armor from loudly hitting the cavern wall behind him.

They finally emerge from the pit rested and, at least a little, ready again. Plus Smallfang thinks the bullseye lamp is a nifty contraption and tucks that away in his pack. The rest of the party may be able to see in the dark but he isn't. They decide a full on night's rest is what is called for. They retreat through the caves back to the entrance.

Back in the valley they find their horses and heavily modified, thanks to the tinker Arno, wagon still where they left it. They rest for the night while T'an meditates. T'an during the small hours of the morning notices moving torch light somewhere inside the caves entrance. Nothing comes of it so he lets the rest of the group sleep.

An Ambush Newly Made
500 XP

In the morning, the group fully revived proceeds back inside the cave to hopefully find the dragons eggs they were tasked with finding and destroying. They soon find out what the activity was here in the caves entrance last night. T'an and Smallfang come across a large part of the caves floor which seems different enough to warrant caution. After testing the floor with a spear attached to rope and then finally a thrown bolder, they find that kobolds have dug and buried spikes in the floor and covered it with parchment and hide camouflaged to look like cave floor. The trap discovered the kobolds and some cultitsts rush in to attack. The kobolds release from their slings several fire pots but most go wild and for one unlucky kobold T'ans arrow kills hits him before he can release it and it sets the kobold on fire.

The rest has done the party well and T'an proves himself to be a kobold killing machine. It is not long after that the group moves further on until they are at the ridge overlooking the fungal garden. After throwing a dead kobold down into the trap which Arno was surprised to find last time the violet fungus show themselves again. This time the group is prepared and send damage from the safety of the ridge. Arrows, spears, acid and fire eventually bring down the fungal giants.

MetaGame Spoiler Inside

(DM Note: After the groups unexpected retreat I had to figure what would the residents of the cave do, since they obviously know that they have potential intruders. I figured the cultits would instruct the kobolds to make a new trap during the night, since that's what kobolds do. I thought it would go a little more dangerously but the group just sliced through them like they were hardly there.

Kobold Barracks
400 XP

Moving quickly and quietly through the caves they have moved through before they retrace their steps back to the drake training cavern. From here they climb up the stairs that leads to the next cavern. They had captured a cultists in the last battle and questioned him. He had warned that the kobolds had been busy setting up more traps. So no the party is cautious about every turn and step. Smallfang carefully inspects the way as he moves along but discovers that the last step on the stairway is trapped by stepping on it and hearing a loud rocky click.

Smallfang looks back at the group only to witness them look up in horror as a large collection of boulders and rocks, which have been collected and place above the stairwell, are now released and drop  on the group below. Most of them are able to jump to
relative safety taking only a fraction of the damage they would have.

Making their way to the top of the stairs and into the next cavern they find the kobolds barracks from which the kobolds had attacked while the group was trying to pick off the drakes in their pit. The room empty now contains only the kobolds extremely filthy living quarters and various supplies. Smelly straw beds, pots of rotting food and small bags of pilfered treasure.

The Dragon Shrine
2,000 XP

Moving extremely cautions over a narrow land bridge which looks down on previous entered caverns the group finds itself in a dark cavern where the rock formations have been smoothed to a molten glassy finish. There in the room knelt in prayer before an shrine to Tiamat is the blue half-dragon, Langdedrosa Cyanwrath. The group does not hesitate. They release as much damage as they can before the half-dragon is aware of them.

He casually stands up, holds his two guards,  and addresses the group belittling them for such un-honorable actions and  challenges them to a more honorable one on one fight. To everyone's surprise Smallfang speaks up and accepts the challenge. Half-dragon and dragonborne face off and Smallfang is quickly dropped by a couple of swings from Langdedrosa's greatsword. The rest of the group jumps back in the fight and eventually defeat the half-dragon as well as his 2 berserker guards.

After defeating the 3 strong enemies the group inspects the cavern. They find a shrine to Tiamat with carvings of 5 dragon heads emerging from a volcano. T'an notices that each mouth of a dragon is a deep hole. After inspecting a treasure chest which seems to be connected somehow he asks Arno for the wine corks that they had found from the drunk cultist in another cave. He plugs each of the mouths with the corks making sure of a good seal. He then picks the lock expertly.

MetaGame Spoiler Inside

(DM Note: Full credit goes to T'an for an ingenious way to disable the Acid trap that was the Tiamat shrine. There wasn't even any corks in my original planning. It's just when they searched the drunkard, I figured what would he have one him?....wine corks. Good on you T'an!

There is a loud liquid gurgling and the sounds of pressure from behind the dragon shrine but nothing further happens. Potential disaster is avoided. They find a nice small treasure that was obviously withheld from the rest of the hoard.

Is this the worst the caves has for the group?


MetaGame Spoiler Inside

(DM Note: Also for additional XP for disabling or bypassing 2 traps, 200 XP. Giving a grand total 5,800 XP.