The Golden Cave
The characters followed the tracks left by the fleeing Mites and reached the old sycamore tree under which, according to the rumors heard at Oleg's, the Mites had their lair. Along the way they found many skirmish sites, with looted corpses of the miserable creatures and kobolds, the pitiful sight of a pitiful war.
They discussed whether to immediately storm the lair or try to strike an alliance with the Kobolds with which the Mites were fighting, and decided themselves for the second course of action. Not knowing where the Kobold lair was, they kept exploring towards the northwest of the old sycamore and found a crevasse in the face of a hill of the Kamelands. A strange golden glow emanated from the crack, so the heroes decided to explore it.
The crack gave way to a steep slope which the characters descended making a lot of noise. At the end of the slope there was a cave with walls that glittered under the rays of the midday sun that managed to enter the crack. The cave was big, more a series of small caverns than a single cave, and while exploring one of the side tunnels, Kii was attacked by a strange crab-like creature hiding on a high ledge. The creature ensnared Kii with a sticky web strand and pulled him up the walls; Kii had some very scary moments, but his shouts alerted the rest of the group and thanks to Am's arrows the creature was badly wounded and was forced to flee.
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| Crab Creature |
Other points of interest in the caves were a small rivulet of water that entered through one low crack, and a crude altar with strange symbols (which seemed Draconic and made by small creatures, probably Kobolds); the altar had been used to offer some sacrifices, as it was surrounded by small animal bones, probably of chickens, ducks and other birds.
The Ambushed Merchant
At this point, the group was running low on rations and ammunition, so they decided to return to Oleg's to replenish supplies and possibly hear more rumors.
On their way back, the group arrived at the site of an ambush. Four corpses were strewn around a looted wagon, its horse dead and half eaten. In a group of nearby bushes they found, injured and scared to death, Jonah. He was a merchant from Restov that had been ambushed by a couple of Trolls. Jonah was bringing some musical instruments, ink, paper and other goods to the recently created Academy of Arts of Pitax. He and a group of merchants (one of them was lying dead at the ambush site) had invested some money in these goods after hearing that Pitax was willing to pay good money for them. Now most of the goods had been stolen or crushed, and Jonah was not only scared but very sad.
The characters helped bury the corpses and escorted Jonah to Oleg's. While on the road, they discussed with him different possibilities to develop the Greenbelt and obtained much information from him (detailed in another entry of the blog).
Letters from Kii's family
When they arrived at Oleg's, Svetlana was waiting with two letters for Kii. As they had important information, the Gnome decided to share them with his companions.
Kii's parents, Majet and Zarzuket , were happy to hear that his son was in good health. They told him that they had shared the information sent by him with their clan, and that many Gnomes seemed excited by the amount of fey activity in the area and were preparing to visit the Greenbelt with the aim of exploring and even colonizing the area if it was not too dangerous.
Roomalaiskatollinen Pappi, Kii's cousin in Jovvox, had written that some agents of the Stag Lord had lived in the town in the last months, buying equipment and weapons for his bandits. Just a few days before Kii's letter arrived, a new agent, Reaver Pete, had arrived. Apparently the Stag Lord was angry with a group of troublemakers that were disrupting the activities of his men and had offered money to any able fighter and mercenary that was willing to help the Stag Lord carve a kingdom in the Greenbelt. The agent said he would depart the 20th of Gozran with any people that decided to take the offer. Pappi wrote that already an infamous group of 20 or so mercenaries had signed an agreement with Reaver Pete, and that at least another 20 were in conversations with him. Pappi mentioned that the trip to the Greenbelt from Jovvox would take 8-15 days, so unless something delayed them, they would reach the Greenbelt towards the end of Gozran.
Those news were troublesome, as that meant the characters would have 3-4 weeks maximum to storm the Stag Lord's fort if they wanted to avoid fighting an army of mercenaries.
XP:
- 100 (exploring Golden Cave hex)
- 600 (crab like creature)
Total this session: 700XP
Total campaign: 9445XP
Loot:
- silver masterwork dagger; found at Golden Cave.
- identified wand found at hidden cache. It is a Wand of Burning Hands (CL 2nd, 4 charges).
Time Passed:
- A bit more than 3 days.
The time now is 4th Gozran (April), in the evening. The group is at Oleg's Trading Post.
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