Searching the Caverns

“Searching the Caverns”
Rise of the Runelords episode
Episode no.	Episode 33
Date	2009
Game Master	Abbe
Characters	Nathaniel Nell Velicia
Episode chronology ← Previous Next → "Alderns's Cave" "Foxglove's Secrets"
Rise of the Runelords chapter list

In this chapter the caverns below the Foxglove manor are searched.

Searching the Caverns

At last we left that awful room where Aldern lay slain. Honeypot stayed behind. She wanted to clean him up. It was not a good idea to be alone in this haunted house so we thought that someone more should stay. Dorothea agreed to keep her company. I, Nathaniel and Velicia went back to the big cavern. We decided to take a better look at the pool. Even though the ghoul goblins had hid in the water it was quite clean so I washed my hands. I was happy to get rid of the dark mold and blood from Aldern. Velicia looked at the water for some time and then said that she thought it was seawater. There was a small heaving of the surface that she thought was created by currents from the waves of the sea. We talked about one of us diving in to try to swim out to the sea and one holding on to a rope, but while I took out my rope Nathaniel and Velicia had dressed down and dove in. That was when I realized that they brought all the light with them.

When they eventually returned I had lit my own lantern and put back the rope in the pack. They told me that they had swam through an underwater tunnel out into the sea. From there they had seen the high cliffs up to the house and above the vague shape of the huge bat circling in the fog. They had also heard ominous sounds that they thought came from more ravens.

When they had dressed we returned up the slope and looked into another cave we had passed on the way down. There was a stench equal to that of Alderns cave. It was filled with the remains of a lot of people that had fallen victims to the ghouls. The only thing left were just bones, and even those had been cracked open and gnawed on.

Continuing to another cave there were more mold and I thought it wiser to leave it alone, but Nathaniel and Velicia wanted to search it. Even with handkerchiefs over their noses and mouths they didn't dare to enter as even small movements brought up massive amounts of spores, but Velicia used her magic hand to bring out a pick that had been left in there. Nathaniel thought it might come in handy and brought it along.

Returning to where the stairs came down, we went into the last passage we hadn't searched. It smelled as bad as the worst places so far. It turned out to be where the ghouls lived. There were three corpses that hadn't been eaten. I recognized the wanted pirate Shadz "Rodshaw" Bilgar. We searched the body and found that he had some interesting things. He had a hat of disguise, a pearl necklace, 56 gold and a magical dagger. Very practical things if you're a wanted pirate. We noted that another of the corpses had been killed by a blow to the head rather than a ghoul bite or claws. In the other end of the cave there was a shaft that turned out to be the well. From above we could hear the sound of an unkindness of ravens, but all you could see was a dark fog and below was the water.