c02s04e04 - Naturewalk through Khyber day 84 Dhrak explores the space of the cavern and sees that clans tribes organize the hulks the more prominent eyes on a hulk denotes status and they have status markings that grow in size like rings of a tree as they develop. Larger eyed hulks have snaller rings and marks the further they radiate on their heads; larger eyed hulks have bursts of larger and smaller marks. At one point Dhraksis caught an altercation between two of them which was basically a staring contest. The little framed, BIG eyed hulk stared down a much larger framed, small eyed hulk, making the larger one topple backwards stunned. He also takes a day to explores the area in more detail.. the river feeds an "origin" lake to the north along the wall where water pours down the wall, pools into a 10 mile diameter freshwater lake before pouring out a river to the south the team first spotted within the mushroom forest. day 85 The ranger takes time to scout ahead while the team contemplates how to salvage the downed cyran ship. Following the river, some 30 miles downstream, patches of oily substance dots the bare stone landscape on either side of the river. Dhrak collects a sample. 2 hours west the water pools again into a massive lake being surrounded by decidious forest-- rather out of place in the darkness-- the team realizes this is under Gulg / nibernay territory and the trees grow at an incredible speed-- two years til the omushroom forest is reached. The grass sprouts hourly, withering away minutes after releasing a heavy burst of pollen that is collected by massive amounts of eyeless bumble bees. The trees sprout behind this like a wave, pulsing leaf grouwths into mulch feeding their own roots in a cannabalistic monging under the roots that snake about everywhere, slowly shifting and curling around themselves asn the forest pushes forward. Playing with magic, Dhraksis finds that sunlight spell causes fast growth for the mulch weed and the bees have no response to the light because they got no eyes. Dhrak follows bees back to one of what must be hundreds of hives. the bees have a deep thrum that resonates in the barrel-like hives booming from the bse of the hive. Dhraksis gets himself a sample of honey-- which pisses off the bees, stingign the hell out of him. The tone of their buzzing changes to an angry klaxon that causes the forest to respond-- treants are in the forest (always appearing as prime numbers) to shoo dhraksis from the barrel sized hive where he got honey but they are mesmerized by sunlight spell and chase airship floodlight dots like cats... keep them distracted and they aren't a threat. The roots are massive going up the northwest wall nearly a mile to the ceiling where the roots bore out from the northwest corner. After spending the day exploring the cavern, Dhraksis muses that the forest could potentially fill in the 2000 square mile area given enough time... which may be a way to stabilize the ceilings. There's THREE punctures in the ceiling leaking water now that they've found.. (1)at the edge of the spider's webs, (2)east of the floating stones, (3) mushroom cave... its possible that the fractured surface above is filtering water down into these caverns that may eventually cave in entirely... forest "packing" the chambers may be a means of preserving the Khyber caverns. the river doesn't extend further than here, but the passage southward is much smoother than the earlier terrain, and has a slickness to it. an hour further and the slickness is evidently the same oily substance collected earlier between the shroom forest and gulg treants. heading south of the lake dhrak feels darkness pressing around the skiff. going to a wall there is a sheen around the wall floro etc. he casts a sunlight spell and a pseudopod immediately snatches the light like a frog's tongue grabbing a firefly. Once the spell expires, the tendril relaxes and recedes into the wall. Deserving further experimentation, Dhraksis backtracks around the lake and lures 4 treants into the darkness with flood lights pointed to the ground, flying 100 feet above the floor. 40 miles away from their forest. This far into the darkness, the treants get inky inert sludge n their feet and don't want to proceed-- same stuff as between forest and shrooms Dhrak reckons its either the beginning or end of the rolling darkness life cycle. He drops a sunlight spell right over the treants-- about 60 feet up. the darkness immediately envelopes the ball of sunas well as the treants under it. Dhraksis touches the jiggly jello-mold of liquid Bad and gets some necrotic damae for his trouble.. causing the jellow mold to pulse and quivver to his touch. When dhraksis turns out the light the darkness collapses -- but the treants have become... ROLLING DARKNESS ANGrily flicking psuedopods towards the low-floating ship, D decides they gotta go and hoses them with angelic radiant lasers until they are no more-- the oiliness evaporates under fire as well.. like butter on a hot skillet. Turning off the floodlights, the darkness feels menacing and enclosing.. but there's no seeming immediate threat. He backs out and checks out the inky puddles all the way back between the forest and musrhooms.. radiance burns it away, but on the surface the rolling darkness attacked the mekillots in direct sunlight back in season 2.. so he's still fishing for answers. Retracing his path entirely, Drak parks in the mushroom forest where he enchants a rope with Sunlight and tosses it down to a pack of umberhulks while they carve at the mushroom trunks. This startles them and they respond by stomping on the rope until they start bleating at each other in argument. This is when Dhraksis notices the staring contest dominance thing, but the winner of the contest actually leaves the pack. the other 3 hoosier stomp the rope til end of duration. Keeping an eye on the shunned hulk, Dhruaksis drops beneath the canopy to follow on foot with the skiff following darkly above. When Dhraksis catches up to the shamed leader of the hulk gang, he's being snared by a myconid trap-- halfling sized mushroom warriors with a massive, immobile mushroom creature with reaching tentacle vines that are lashing onto Bright Eyes the Lonely Umber Hulk. dhrak fires on the tentacles to help free the hulk, causing a troop of myconids to threaten Dhraksis while other stab at the entangled hulk's eyes and legs. eventually hulk breaks free and runs to a outcrop where it digs under ground 40 feet before Dhrak can get close enough to heal it and squeek peace, calming the hulk; but it does not follow dhrak out. Feeling vulnerable underground in a collapsing tunnel, he returns to the skiff, and to the felled cyre ship to consider the team's next move. End of day 85 <end of session> 2/3 to level 13 Loot acquired ---------------- khyber honey sample of Dark Oil