Hathun, Second-Week, Third-Day, the Now Year
After several days at Briar's Edge, Lord Barnowl and Nahar have assured that Eagle Klah sends out messenger birds to the other Ten-Tribes, and stocked up on some supplies. Once the chieftain has successfully scryed out the location of their companions, he arranges transport by a strange spell that warps them to a tree in the vicinity of the City of the Carvers. Surprised to see them, the other PCs get them up to speed on what has transpired with the dragonborn, and the group as a whole decides to explore the underground City to possibly find an easier access point to the monastery where the rogue dragonborn and their masters have abducted the rest of the Place-of-Scales populace.
They find a 'warning' sign left to them by the Blue Lantern Society of Misthome, but proceed through to encounter a trio of strange, fungal creatures which deliver devastating tendril slams and also drain their victims of their life's essence. Many forms of attack seem ineffective, but they manage to turn the threat around and eliminate the things. Barnowl empties out some crude ceremonial urns which have been placed nearby, and then the party heads into the cavern proper, a large underground city composed largely of squat stone one-story homes, stagnant aqueducts and wells, and several larger, anomalous structures and plazas that stand out. The city is built both horizontally and vertically, with homes and stairways claiming purchase on the walls of the cavern. They decide to go around the edges and, for the meantime, avoid the large plaza area at the City center.
Their first stop is a base camp that was left behind for several years by a team of halfling and dwarf explorers, and after consulting a diary that Nexos finds in a ruined tent, they discern that the leader of the expedition has gone mad, and the rest of their number have disappeared or been slain while exploring and researching the place. They next decide to follow an aqueduct to its source, which strangely winds up one of the wells on the floor... Nearby, they find a series of large bas-relief stone slabs which seem to depict various cataclysmic events throughout the Carvers' ancient history, though the PCs themselves don't recognize much of it, except Cynjak, who notices a similarity between one figure in the fifth slab and the bizarre humanoid they fought called Diedeath the Mad, whom was originally mistake for some sort of elf or doppelganger. The Carver artist responsible for these masterful sculptures is known as 'Lumus'.
Next they discover a mausoleum of sorts, with a large spiral stairway that leads down hundreds of feet into the depths of the Underdark. They decide to vacate the space, since it's headed in the wrong direction than the one they intend. They head over to another anomalous structure, originally walled off from the rest of the City, and find a large armory with specialized stations for creating stone and bone weapons. A concealed cache of high quality ('masterwork') weapons is then unearthed, and the PCs arm themselves, including Barnowl's acquisition of stone plate mail. Afterwards, they continue to skirt the outer edges of the City, finding a massive stalactite in the Northwest corner, which descends to 60' off the cavern floor. A stone ladder that once granted access has been shattered, but since this was apparently an escape route with a spiral stone stairway leading to the roof of the cave, they decide to get themselves up there with some ropes and a flying dragonborn warlock.
While scouting the stalactite, SlakeThirst notices some sinuous, strange creature climbing about its exterior, and then is ambushed when a lightning bolt is hurled at him...he manages to dodge much of the blow, and then hears a female cackling voice...Nahar and Barnowl scurry up the rope with potions of climbing as the rest of the party prepares to deal with this threat that might block their access to the mountains above.
PCs: Barnowl, Borracho, Cynjak, Nahar, Nexa, SlakeThirst, Un'Krug, Vraal, Yukkbutt
XP rewarded: 2550
Inspiration rewarded: None
Renown: None
