Chase In The Tunnels
The group one by one, exit out of the dugout and join the chase until they hear the sound of rushing water. Turning the corner they find they have come to a rushing river crossing the path of the tunnel. The kobolds can be seen running across the bridge above the rushing river.The bridge is a rickety wooden affair made from mold and mildew ridden wood. Some of the group stop at the foot of the bridge, while Mystora, the dwarf, pursues the kobolds across. One of the koblds, already badly hurt, stops at the far end of the bridge. He kneels and pulls out a device from his belt. The kobold presses a button on the device and the bridge is engulfed in flames and explodes into mold and mildew ridden wood dust. The kobold is engulfed in the flames and dies as Mystora is plunged into the cold waters below and begins to be washed down river.
Mystora is then pulled back to shore by Princess Elora, aided by Gunter.
When the adventurers finally regroup back on the side of the bridge, away from the kobolds, they discuss how to pursue across the river.
Crossing The River
Eda, takes off the broom she found back in the nothic's disgusting lair. The broom looks like any other ordinary broom, save for the arcane engravings along its shaft and the word "Brum" engraved in large ornate letters. Eda holds it out at arms length and shouts "Brum!"....with no effect. She then shouts, "Broom!" and the broom pulls at her hand and she lets go, the broom hovering in front of her.
She begins taking, any of the others who cannot fly already, across the river one by one until they all stand on the other side. They continue the pursuit down the tunnels as they hear kobold hissing and laughing further down. Messick, now holding a torch aloft, sees a couple of kobolds down the tunnel ducking around a corner and peeking out at them.
Sylvannas, watches along with Messick, and now once seen, the kobold cannot escape her magical arrows. She lets one fly, even though the kobold ducks back around the corner, the arrow finds the kobold and pierces its shoulder. The group can her the kobold cry out in pain as the kobolds can be seen and heard running away.
Watch Out For Traps In A Kobold Warren
Sylvannas pursues, unleashing arrows as she runs. Unfortunately, her weight is much heavier than a small kobold and as she runs she hears a click and the ground she is running on springs up, as the hidden catapult under the tunnel's floor launches Sylvannas up and into a series of wooden spikes anchored in the ceiling, angled just right to catch a body flung from the catapult.
The rest of the group cautiously approaches, most taking time to skirt the edges of the tunnel, clinging to the walls. As they come up underneath Sylvannas, who is still impaled upon several spikes, her feet dangle a few feet above their heads. The group looks around at each other and give a collective shrug. Messick jumps slightly to grab hold of Sylvannas' feet and pulls. Together they fall back down, Sylvannas getting injured even further in the rescue.
After a bit of first aid and healing, the group moves on, even more cautiously now.
A Mysterious Figure Stealing Souls
The tunnel eventually opens up in a large cavern. Just inside the cavern is a large drake, drool dripping from its snarling fang-filled mouth. It looks directly at the group. As they move slowly into the cave they can make out a pile of bodies, some of which they recognize as members of the doomed caravan. They are clearly dead, save for one slumped body chained to the wall on the far side of the pile of corpses.
Around a corner they find another chamber, a kobold stands ready to fight and defend a hooded creature that stands on a small raised natural dais, behind it a large open shimmering portal. Cat like features can just be made from under the hood of the creature, as it stands with one arm raised above one of the caravan people, Junia. She lies motionless upon the steps of the dais. A silver shimmering energy is slowly emerging from Junia's body and flows into a censer the creature holds above Junia's body.
As the group moves into view, the cat like hooded creature raises its head towards them. Shimmering eyes glow slightly as its eyes meet those of the group. Its face is only partially covered in mangy patchy fur. It's free clawed hand, with the same patchy mangy fur, points at the group as a raspy ancient voice whispers, "Stop them".
Each in the group begins to fight off the drake and kobold, while Sylvannas draws back her bow and points it towards the creature standing upon the stone steps of the dais. But she does not fire on the creature, instead she takes careful aim at the censer it holds, the silver ethereal stream still flowing from Junia, the halfling, into the censer.
The arrow strikes true and hard. With a loud metallic clang, the censer is spun on it's handle, still held by the creature. The silver stream of energy pulls, thins, then snaps and rushes back into Junia. The creature looks up at Sylvannas, its eyes glaring in anger. It then mutters words of incantation and raises it hands. In front of Sylvannas, a circular portal shimmers on the ground and a large fire demon raises up out of it. It charges the group.
Fire and Water
Looking at the censer in its hand, the creature seems to think for a moment as it evaluates the group as they fight. Muttering a single unintelligible word, the group sees the world grind to a slow halt, as the creature continues to move at a regular, and now seemingly incredibly fast speed. It approaches Messick who is the closest of the group and it looks closely at his face, "You better hope we never meet again.", its breath on Messick's face, that of something long dead.It walks back to the portal upon the rough carved dais. The creature steps through and is gone.
The battle is hard fought with finally the fire demon defying the damage the group does to it. Messick is felled by the fire demon but is brought back to life by Princess Elora. Finally, the fire demon, damaged by Gunter's green-flame blade spell, is put out by Princess Elora's tiadal wave spell.
Moving about the room, the group is able to revive both Junia and the chained human. They find the chained human to also be a part of the doomed caravan. His name is Fodel Sbilans, he has an eye patch over one eye and has an old scarred up arm. With a gravely voice he thanks the group and asks when they may depart. The group wants to take time to look around.
Through The Portal
Eda has her cat familiar, Harry, pursue the escaped creature through the portal and watches through its eyes as it walks through a large warehouse with stacks of crates. The crates are stacked such that one cannot see very far, so the cat climbs up to the top. It sees a few humanoids walking through the warehouse, seemingly unconcerned.
Meanwhile, the others have built a funeral pyre for the fallen caravan folk. Gunter then decides to use gust of wind to waft the massive amount of smoke through the portal. As the few people in the warehouse begin to realize the building is starting to fill with smoke one of them runs out. Soon a well dressed dragonborn enters the building. Harry watches as the massive, even for a dragonborn, creature stride up to the portal, perform some movements and the teleportation circle shuts down.
Back in the kobold warrens, the group finds two odd looking crates. They are made of blackened wood with white arcanic symbols etched into the edges of the crate. The symbols scroll and swirl and sometimes join to make crude skull figures. They are locked and when shot with an arrow of Sylvannas' move and jitter with odd noises.
Removed from the bodies before they were placed upon the funeral pyre, were several odds and ends along with quite a bit of coin. The caravaners were travelling for business and as such had coin for purchasing supplies. Some of the more interesting items were two keys, one of iron and one of brass as well as an ornate ceramic ocarina.
A Hidden Ship
Finally, they pack up and begin to move back through the tunnels. When they approach the remains of the bridge, they find the kobold who set off the explosion. He is just a burned husk, kneeling, his hands still holding the now burned out trigger. Gunter angrily kicks the kobold corpse into the river. It falls into the rushing waters below and bobs up and floats quickly down the river. As the group watches the hated kobold bob and soon round a bend in the river out of sight. Immediately a flash of arcanic white light accompanies a loud explosion. Princess Elora flies along, following the path of the river and around the bend sees a thin veil of energy blocking the way further down the river. A glyph of warding is cast on the energy barrier. Beyond, in the darkness of the subterranean river floats above the river, a massive ship.
Spoiler Inside
The group decides to investigate but in order to bypass the glyph of warding they decide to let Justice dig a hole through the side of the tunnel closest to where they believe the ship to be docked. Soon enough Justice has dug a tunnel that emerges directly across from the ship.
A Demon Too Strong
The ship seems to be constructed out of some black type of wood or metal composite. There are no visible sails, but 4 massive dark globes hover above the ship, anchored to the ship by a web of robes. As Gunter and Messick look upon the ship, a faint fiery glow can be seen emerging from below. Gunter decides to go across. Messick decides that's just crazy. As Gunter throws a grappling hook across, the loud noise alerts the creature in the hold of the ship. As the creature climbs up and out of the hold, the group, most of whom stand in the dark safety of the newly dug tunnel on the side of the river, watch as a fiery demon, a balor looks around.The balor looks down and sees Gunter on the side of the ship, fast as fire, the balor grabs Gunter and grunts, "Who are you?", but Gunter within its fiery grasp and so near it's blazingly hot body, dies before he can answer. The balor drops Gunter, dead upon the ship.
Mystora, grabs her magical spear and throws it directly through Gunter's chest, the spear grabbing the body and Mystora reels in the dead body. Once back with the group they revive him and Gunter just gives them a nod and a wink, and they're off again.
