The adventurers readied themselves for another wave
of attackers.
From the light of his
guttering torch and the glow of the paladin's sword, Theryn could see that he,
Varien, Radagast, Erwen-Spider and the Owlbear were standing on a wide ledge on
the west side of a great cavern. Stone steps had been expertly carved into the
steep escarpment linking it to the bottom of the cavern some ten feet
below.
Two long, stone tables with
low benches were set in the middle section, along with a pair of old braziers.
Across the cavern was another steep escarpment and another set of carved stone
steps leading up to another ledge, upon which was a stately stone table,
smaller than the ones at the bottom of the cavern.
This must have been a mead
hall and common area for the miners, but there was precious little time to
admire the dwarven craftsmanship. Scattered on every surface were the skeletal
remains of dozens of dead warriors - dwarves, gnomes, orcs and ogres, judging
by the size range of the skeletons - which attested to the fierce battle that
had taken here long ago.
Those old bones were now
being disturbed by the rabid running feet of a number of ghouls that were
bounding towards them, their clawed hands grasping at the air and their jaws
snapping in anticipation.
Radegast remembered a tome
on tactics she had flipped through in Silverymoon long ago. "Should we
lure them up the stairs and take them down one at a time?"
Varien, his eyes shining
with vengeful fury, began to move towards the stairs.
Xylon took half a step
back. "Ulp," he said.
Bob and Alec emerged from
the tunnel to the south. Both brothers were covered in ooze that slicked their
hair and dampened their clothing. Bob’s arms were crossed and he wore an
expression of anger that could have cracked stone.
“Oho, so there’s another
fight going on up here?” He said, his words dripping with sarcasm. “Well, I’m
sure you brave folks have it all under control. I’ll just stand right here
and-” Bob froze as he saw the glittering eyes of Erwen-Spider regarding him.
The colour drained from
Bob’s face, and reappeared in a dark bloom on the front of his pantaloons
“Nope! He shouted, turning on his heel and dashing back into the south.
Alec smiled a knowing
smile. “Guess we’ll act as rear guard in case something sneaks up on us. My
brother can’t stand spiders, you see.”
He turned and followed his
brother.
Erwen-Spider clicked his
mandibles in an attempt to share his strategy with the rest of his team and
then shrugged with two of his eight limbs as he began to scale the side of the
cavern wall on his barbed spider legs.
Who was too busy eating the
corpse of a dismembered ghoul to care about the next challenge.
Theryn gripped his staff
and stood his ground.
Erwen-Spider, now on the
roof of the cavern, aimed at one of the approaching undead, who looked more
dangerous than the others, with a tongue lolling out of its mouth that whipped
back and forth like a snake seeking its prey. He let loose with his spinnerets,
sending a glob of sticky, white webbing lashing down towards the gibbering
creature below.
The creature ran heedlessly
into the rain of goopy tendrils and was instantly snared.
Theryn took a leap off the
ledge and glided down towards the webbed creature, which thrashed about
furiously. As he approached, he encountered a nearly impenetrable wall of
stench emanating from the creature. He wrinkled his nose and kept his lunch
from visiting.
He struck the undead with
his staff and followed through with an unarmed strike, rocking the creature where
it stood. He then turned about and dashed up the stone steps. "I left him
in a good spot for you," he said to Varien as he rushed by, giving the
paladin a high-five as he did so.
Varien strode over towards
the snared undead and raised his sword. He faltered momentarily at the
creature's rancid stench, but steeled himself and delivered a radiant strike with his sword, slicing
deep into the creature's torso.
"Vengeance for
Lorelei!" Varien shouted triumphantly as the undead creature, which he
recognized as a ghast, sagged back into his webbed snare.
"I ain't afraid of no
Ghast!" he laughed.
Then he realized that the
rest of the ghouls in the cavern were now converging on him.
He stood firm and raised
his shield. "Now, the dark, caves, or ghouls, on the other hand…"
Then the ghouls were on
him. Claws and teeth flashed as he defended himself. One of the ghouls wrenched
his shield aside and raked his claws deep across Varien's chest, and a second
ghoul vaulted over his companion to sink his teeth deep into the paladin's
outstretched arm. Varien bit down a blasphemous curse but cast a hellish rebuke
against the ghoul who had torn into him.
Varien felt a wave of cold
shiver its way through his body, but refused to yield.
Radegast jumped off the
ledge. "Varien, shields up!" she called to the paladin.
Varien obliged, lifting his
shield overhead.
Radegast landed atop the
shield and struck her fist down upon it, ringing it like a gong as she cast thunder wave .
The blast of energy echoed
throughout the cavern and into the corridors beyond. There was a crack of
thunder and four of the ghouls were suddenly airborne, spinning their limbs
wildly as they crashed back to earth ten feet away. The fifth ghoul was blasted
back against the stone bench before him with force that would have liquefied
his innards, had they not already been turned to jellied goop in death.
Dazed by the thunder
attack, Varien was unsteady on his feet as blood leaked out of him.
"Nice move," he
said weakly to the bard, who hopped down and brandished her rapier as she
nimbly backpedalled up the stairs.
In the debris of the cavern
floor, the four ghouls began to pick themselves up.
Erwen scuttled overhead
until he was directly over the ghoul in front of Varien. Then he dropped out of
wildshape, diving to the cavern floor. "Look out below!" he shouted
joyously as he wildshaped into bear form at the last second.
The ball of brown fur
landed square atop the ghoul, crushing it in an instant.
Theryn stepped to the
nearest ghoul and swung his staff. Though he missed, he followed through with a
kick that knocked the ghoul to the floor.
Varien half-stumbled back
up the stairs, casting cure wounds on
himself.
Two ghouls attacked Theryn,
who dodged their claws easily.
Varien parried a slam from
a ghoul with his shield, who began gnawing on it.
Radegast stabbed at a ghoul
with her rapier.
Xylon stepped to the edge
of the escarpment and cast chromatic orb
at the nearest ghoul. He turned the ghoul into an unliving torch that thrashed
about for a moment before dropping.
“Oh, fireworks!” Radegast
shouted.
Erwen-Bear turned and bit
into one of the ghouls, killing it.
Theryn struck a ghoul with
his staff, striking it on the top of its head and splitting it like a ripe
coconut. Brain fluid leaked from the cracks as the ghoul's head came apart. He
then pivoted to the last ghoul, sliding forward with an open palm attack that
hit with such force that the back of the undead's head actually touched its
back. There was the sound of rending flesh as tendons, empty blood vessels, and
the creature's windpipe split open at the strain of its hyperextended neck, and
the ghoul's head dropped to the stone floor between its already falling legs.
From somewhere to the
northeast, the booming of waves provided a coda to the melee as the last
ghoul's corpse slumped to the ground.
"That. Was. So.
Cool!" Radegast gushed, clapping her hands. "That thing with the
spider, and then that fire orb? Wow!"
Varien offered her a pained
palm, which she eagerly slapped.
"That was my first
real battle!" she said proudly.
"So happy for
you," the paladin said through clenched teeth, favouring his injured arm.
“And would you just look at
this place?” Radegast spread her arms out and spun around, taking it all in. “A
dwarven stronghold, perfectly preserved just as it was 500 years ago before the
Orcfastings War.” She inadvertently stepped into a skeleton’s ribcage and
winced as bones splintered beneath her foot. “Well, maybe not perfectly preserved.”
Theryn and Varien exchanged
a look.
“This is a historic find,”
Radegast said as she wandered about the cavern. “Why, someone could write a
thesis about-”
Erwen stood up atop the
head table, holding two stylized silver beer steins in each hand by their pearl
handles. “Hey, I found some loot.”
Radegast was aghast. “Loot?
Those belong in a museum!” She snatched one of the steins, which still had a
working topper attached via a machined hinge and displayed fine silver filigree
around its surface that depicted happy dwarves cheerily marching off to work.
“These are artefacts of a forgotten age!”
Erwen shoved the steins
into a sack, grabbing a few more where they lay discarded beneath the stone
benches.
The rest of the party
fanned out in search of treasure. Most of the corpses in the cavern were
warriors who had carried little in the way of coin in their ditty bags.
However, they did recover ten of the silver beer steins.
“So I’ve fallen in with
grave robbers,” Radegast said to herself as she admired the ruins. She looked
down at the stone floor and saw something shiny half hidden beneath a cracked
shield.
It was a nugget of
platinum.
Radegast looked about to
see if anyone was watching, and picked the shard up, pocketing it. She had student
debt to think about, after all.
Theryn was walking near the
northern side of the cavern and spied an exit. He saw a body on the ground that
looked a bit fresher than the others.
“Uh oh,” Theryn said.
“Found something!” he called to the rest of the group.
It was a corpse of a
bugbear that had been savagely mauled by the pack of ghouls. Fish-sized chunks
of its flesh had been chewed out of the creature’s limbs, and its ribcage had
been forced open by clawed hands, its innards scooped out and devoured.
The bugbear hadn’t gone
down without a fight – its bloodied axe looked like it had felled two or three
ghouls, whose twisted corpses had been flung aside into the shadows.
They judged that the
bugbear had been dead about a week.
“Didn’t expect to see
bugbears down here,” Varien said.
Theryn was rifling the
creature’s pockets. He spied a satchel, sticky with dried blood, and opened it.
Inside was a pair of boots,
stained with fresh blood, but otherwise in fine condition. Theryn pulled them
out to show the rest of the group.
Varien took a close look at
them. “They’re very well-made,” he said.
Xylon nodded. “I’ll bet
those are magic boots,” he said. “Possibly boots
of striding and springing .”
“Hey,” Theryn said. “Wasn’t
Gundren’s brother barefoot when we found him?”
Varien was already lacing
the boots onto his feet. “Poor Tharden,” he said.
Straightening up, Varien
took a tentative step and felt renewed vitality seeping into his legs. He
hopped an experimental hop, and jumped so high that one of his companions could
have walked underneath him.
“Nice,” he said, eyeing his
new boots.
Bob and Alec returned from
the mine tunnel.
“We need to find a place to
hole up and rest,” Bob said. “I’m all out of spells.”
“I agree,” Erwen said,
climbing the stairs to see if Who was doing all right.”
Varien looked around. “Why
not here?”
Theryn frowned. “Looks like
four entrances we need to guard, and no doors to barricade,” He turned to
Radegast. “You seem to know a thing or two about dwarven architecture. Where
should we go?”
Radegast frowned. “Well,
dwarves tend to build these things to suit the type of rock they’re tunnelled
into, so it’s hard to say where a redoubt might be located.”
Varien pointed at the
corridor beyond the dead bugbear. “Why don’t we go where he was going?”
“And run into his friends,
in our condition?” Theryn said. “No way. We can come back and check it out
later.”
“I need to sleep,” Erwen
said.
“Fine,” Varien said. “Let’s
try the southeast entrance.”
They moved south into a
corridor of worked stone. Varien lit the way with his glowing sword, finding a
side corridor that branched eastward.
The eastern wall of the
chamber had collapsed into a mass of rubble. To the north, a door stood ajar,
leading to a good-sized storeroom. Dusty kegs were tucked neatly against the
walls, all of them cracked and split open from age.
“This is the place,” Varien
said. “We can have Xylon cast alarm
on the corridor entrance, post the owlbear as a guard, and barricade ourselves
inside this room until we’re back to full fighting strength.
The party saw no reason to
disagree.
Xylon cast alarm, Erwen made sure the Owlbear was
still charmed , and they entered the
storeroom, barricading the door shut.
“So,” Radegast said to
Varien. “Where do you hail from?”
“A small town in the north
called Lorelei,” Varien said. “It was overrun by undead two years ago, which is
why I have sort of a raging hatred of zombies, ghouls and the like.” His face
took on a faraway look. “Everyone there is dead, and I won’t rest until they
are avenged.”
“I’m so sorry,” Radegast
said, and began strumming a song of rest
based on a Loreleian lullaby on her lute.
Varien blinked back sudden
tears at the tune, and put on a stoic expression. “I haven’t heard a song like
that in years.”
Bob put a final box atop
the barricade and turned around, a fierce expression in his eyes.
“Don’t go looking for
sympathy, paladin,” he spat. “Not after the stunt you just pulled. What the
hell is wrong with all of you?”
Radegast’s song ended with
a confused twanging sound.
“You abandoned my brother
and me in the heat of battle!” He rounded on Varien. “Who does that?”
Varien shook his head “I
do, Bob. There was evil in that cavern that needed to be cleansed.”
Bob threw up his hands in
disgust. “There was evil right in front of your face!”
Varien clapped a hand on
Bob’s shoulder. “Bob, I know there’s great power in you. I knew you were
capable of handling it.”
“Oh, we handled it, didn’t
we?” Bob said, nodding in Alec’s direction.
Erwen snored atop a sack of
desiccated grain.
Theryn squatted next to Bob.
“I wasn’t going to do you any good in that fight, Bob. You don’t use oil to
clean water.”
“What does that even mean?” Bob asked, kicking a loose stone in frustration.
Xylon chuckled.
Bob turned to Xylon,
stabbing a finger at him. “And you!”
Xylon’s laughter died.
“Mister
I’m-Going-to-Barbecue-My-Friends, I told you not to do it, and you did it
anyway!”
Xylon waved a dismissive
hand. “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen, then!”
Radegast looked sheepish.
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do in a situation like that,
and just followed along. That was shameful of me.”
“Fine,” Bob said. “I’ve
said all I’m going to say. But how am I supposed to have your backs, if I’m not
sure you have mine?”
Alec laid a hand on his
brother’s shoulder. “Okay, brother. It’s time to sleep on this. You’ll wake up
feeling better, I promise.”
“Whatever,” Bob said, and
curled up in the corner beneath his robe.
With Erwen and the human
members of the party asleep, Xylon and Radegast found themselves alone, needing
only to meditate for a short while.
They struck up a
conversation, and Xylon put his lecherousness in check for the moment to fill
Radegast in on how he had met the other members of the party, and the chain of
events that had led to the discovery of Wave Echo Cave.
Radegast was surprised to
find out that the party had included a Dragonborn, and Xylon warmed to the
subject, telling stories about Ragnar’s less than savoury activities.
“I highly doubt he was as
stupid as you’re describing,” Radegast said. “Dragonborn are a noble,
thoughtful people.”
Xylon shrugged. “Guess you had to be there.”
Hours passed, and the party
members roused themselves, eating some of their rations and making sure their
weapons and armor were in good repair.
“All right,” Varien said
after a time. “Let’s go cleanse the dead.”
“Just as long as we’re not
giving those ghouls sponge baths,” Radegast said. “We’re killing them, right?”
“Even better,” Varien said,
removing the barricade.
Erwen checked on Who, who had
curled up and rested during the night.
“We’re going north,” Varien
said. “I want to take a closer look at that cavern and its exits.”
Theryn nodded at the
corridor, which continued south. “I’ll take Xylon and the Treveylan brothers
and scope out this section of the stronghold in case there’s anything waiting
to sneak up on us.”
“Sounds good,” Varien said,
giving the monk a fist bump before he, Erwen, and Radegast headed back to the
great cavern.
Theryn lit a torch and
began exploring the southern section of the mine.
Varien, Erwen, and Radegast
re-entered the cavern and immediately halted.
Something was moving in the
cavern’s interior, and Varien could almost smell the taint of evil in the
vicinity.
Radegast’s sharp half-elven
eyes picked out the forms of at least four skeletons, still clad in rusted bits
of armor and carrying the weapons they must have wielded in life, walking
listlessly about the cavern, dragging their feet through the broken bones that
littered the floor. What foul magic had animated these corpses in the hours
since they had first cleared the cavern, she couldn't say.
One of the skeletons, tiny
pinpricks of light glowing in its eye sockets, turned and began lurching
towards them.
Erwen kicked his heels into
Who’s flanks and the Owlbear leaped into the cavern, climbing the stone steps
of the escarpment to the east and snapping and clawing at the first skeletons
it could reach.
Varien was about to let
loose a battle cry when an arrow thudded into his midsection.
From across the cavern, two
skeletons raised battered shortbows and pulled on their bowstrings.
“Varien, you should watch
out for-” Radegast said before she felt a sudden, sharp pain pierce her studded
leather breastplate. Stunned, she stared down at the ancient arrow that
protruded from her chest.
“I’m – I guess I’m hit?”
She said, the cavern suddenly spinning around her.
Theryn led Xylon and the
Trevelyan brothers deeper into the mine, scouting out dead ends and new tunnels
before happening upon a chamber with a half-open stone door.
Theryn crept to the door
and peeked in. He took in the sight of old stone bunks lining the walls of the
chamber in orderly rows, with a corroded iron brazier full of old coals
standing near the middle of the room.
The bones of half a dozen
dwarves and orcs lay strewn about, clad in scraps of brittle armor.
Theryn’s attention was
drawn to the three gray-skinned, hunched figures that squatted among the
remains, pawing at the scraps and gnawing on the bones.
Theryn turned to his
companions and held up three fingers.
“Let’s do this,” Theryn
hissed and forced the door open, leaping into the room. He swung his staff at
the head of the nearest ghoul, who hadn’t heard his approach, following through
with an unarmed strike that knocked the ghoul down into the mess of bones and
rotted bedclothes on the floor.
Alec was next, swinging his
morning star and caving in the chest of the second ghoul.
Bob let loose with a scorching ray , firing three bolts that
found three targets.
Not to be outdone, Xylon
cast fire bolt. The flaming bullet
went astray and impacted directly on Theryn’s back.
“Dammit, Xylon!” Theryn
shouted in pain as cinders rained to the floor.
“Whoops,” Xylon said.
Back in the cavern, Varien
rushed headlong into battle, swinging his sword overhead. Instead of running up
the stairs, he jumped up, hoping his boots would carry him the distance.
They did, and then some. He
jumped, and the boots sent him careening skyward. The cavern roof got in the
way, however, and Varien struck his head on the ceiling before falling down to
land in front of his target.
Varien smiled through
bloody teeth – he had bitten his tongue – and swung his sword.
As Talon’s blade flashed
down, it neatly bisected the first skeleton’s head, driving its spinal column
in twain. The skeleton split apart in front of him, its limbs clattering to the
floor.
Radegast pulled out her own
bow and let fly with an arrow that sizzled through the air, plonking neatly
into the eye socket of one of the skeletal archers and knocking its rusted
helmet clear off.
“Bull’s eye!” Radegast
shouted.
Still smouldering from
Xylon’s fire bolt, Theryn cracked a ghoul’s skull with his bo staff and
launched a kick at another ghoul, sending it stumbling back into Alec’s line of
fire.
The fighter swung his
morning star and took the ghoul’s head clean off.
Xylon cast another fire bolt . This one also drifted off
course, ploughing directly into the coal-stuffed brazier and igniting it.
“That’s gotta count for
something!” the wizard shouted.
Bob facepalmed.
Theryn was distracted by
the sudden burst of light and heat and a ghoul managed to plunge its claws deep
into his body. Again, the monk felt a deep cold that seemed to course through
his body towards his heart, but he shook it off.
He gave the ghoul the butt
end of his staff and as the creature doubled over, he drove his knee into the
ghoul’s face and sent it falling into the fiery brazier. Theryn smiled as the
creature screamed in pain.
As Who and Erwen ground two
skeletons into dust beneath the Owlbear’s paws, Varien ran, screaming epithets
the whole way, his boots helping his stride increase with each bound, and
sliced through the last skeletal archer. Silence once again descended on the
cavern, broken only by the far-off sound of crashing waves.
Radegast pulled the arrow
out of her chest, appraised it, and shrugged, adding it to her quiver. She cast
cure wounds on herself, closing the
injury to her breast.
‘Where to next?” She asked
the paladin.
Varien walked over. “I
think it might be prudent if we stuck together. Let’s go find the others.”
They marched south and met
up with Theryn, Bob, Xylon and Alec, who were exiting the barracks.
Varien eyed the scorched
wound on Theryn’s back and then gave Xylon a knowing look.
Xylon shook his head,
shamefaced.
Radegast reached out and
touched Theryn’s injury, casting cure
wounds .
The party followed the
corridor to the south, and entered a large chamber.
Many tunnels intersected at this natural, thirty-foot-high cavern. The walls
were carved with simple reliefs showing dwarf and gnome miners hard at work.
The floor was covered in
tiled mosaics depicting dwarves and gnomes of noble bearing, which Radegast declared
was an artistic interpretation of the parties to the historic Phandelver’s
Pact. It was clear by the attention to detail given the dwarves in the mosaic
that the mine was firmly under their control, despite whatever deal they had
made with other races.
Many mosaic tiles had been
shattered by fallen stalactites and by the brutal battle that was evidenced by
the nearly two-dozen skeletons in rusted armor scraps scattered across the
floor. Some were dwarf skeletons, and some were orc remains, many of them
locked in mortal combat even in death. Around the cavern, half a dozen large
brass lanterns stood in niches or on ledges, but none were lit.
“I’ll take care of that,” Varien said,
walking around and reverently lighting each lantern in turn.
Theryn looked up at the inverted forest of stalactites that
looked ready to give way at any moment.
Radegast looked about. “This could have been the mine’s main
entrance. Look at the reliefs about the walls – they were meant as a welcome to
the miners.”
“Well, where should we-Ow!” Alec shouted in pain and the party
members spun about to look in his direction. He was bent over, trying futilely
to dislodge a creature that had landed on its back.
Radegast covered her mouth in horror. “Stirges!” she shouted.
The party members looked up, but it was too late – tiny stirges,
four-winged abominations with long proboscises were dropping from the ceiling
like guided magic missiles, attaching themselves to any exposed flesh they could
find.
Who howled as two of them drove their stiletto-like suckers into
his body and began feasting like overmuscled mosquitoes.
Varien swung his sword and cried out as two of them flapped
their wings and draped them over his torso, seeking a point of entry.
Erwen danced about, a stirge attached to his rear end.
Theryn gripped his bo staff, ready for action, as Xylon and Bob
moved behind him.
The sound of leathery, flapping wings filled the cavern.