Heatmonth the 4th, 289 of the 29th age. 10:55 AM. The party discussed plans. Déjà vu all over again. This time? Get past the Cave Bear but in such a way that we avoid conflict. We still had Hide from animals up and the thought was to cast it on the animals as well, and Shim was going to need an invisibility spell as well.
We settled on a two fold plan – summon a trio of monsters with Shim’s spells, and hide from animals, carry the small ones, and sneak past the bear while it’s fighting. 11:40 AM – we set the operation in place. In succession, Shimlagesh managed to summon an Ogre, a Giant Weasel, and then a Giant Tick. He ordered them all to charge ahead of us and engage the bear, forcing it to the north and east if at all possible. An invisibility followed and we snatched up every animal and ran through the bear lair.
It was big. The bear was huge, it was tearing the tick to shreds. We ran past bones and carcasses of moose and deer. The chamber was sizable but as per Shim’s older map of the Donnegarten Stronghold, the east end of the cavern did indeed split east and north, and east and south – we took that direction as the battle raged on behind us, the bear was decidedly winning.
The rough cavern also showed more odd signs of burns and melted stone. Originally there were lots of webs here like curtains, but in this time, it was just rough terrain. Eventually we arrived at a larger cave. To the west was a 15’ cliff and a smaller chamber up there. In our time it was the lift control room. To the east where we knew the deep square stair lined pit was, was instead a sloped area and then a 20 to 25’ diameter hole that went down into the gloom.
We lit a real torch to go along with the ever burning one and split up to check the area out. Up on the cliff area was a cave barely 20’ diameter, the ceiling made the clear area only 5 or 6’ high. Lots of beetle carapaces were here, brown and iridescent green. Whatever beetles they were (2’ oval?) the meat had been scooped out. Wilhelm guessed something caught them elsewhere and brought them here to eat them, leaving 20 or 30 shells behind.
As for the rest of the room, nothing of note but the pit area. The slope was 30 degrees and the hole went down for a bit. We augered a hole in the wall and then Darius drove a piton deep and home. We ate lunch and then looked at the hole. Lighting a pebble, we dropped it down. It rang off the wall after 30’, then maybe again, the light was dim and gone and it rang maybe 3 or 4 times before bouncing to a stop. Shim frowned. According to his original notes, the hole was almost 300’ down to the bottom, but this rock didn’t even go maybe half that distance.
It was guessed that before the dwarves got here, the gap down to the crack was not a straight line and digging was most likely going to be needed. For now, we needed supplies from the hut and Shim was very low on spells. Going through his blessings, Captain Asher had a “nap” spell – puts someone in a very deep unwakeable sleep for an hour, but it’s the equivalent of 8. Our gnome would get his spells back.
We did that, Captain Asher could put 5 people to sleep – a few that had some damage from the wyvern fight rested as well after we took out the block and tackle, pick, shovel, sledge hammer, and all the rope. Shim mended 4 of the ropes to one continuous length, knowing after his nap he could do the rest.
When the nap ended, Shim did his spells – but no one actually healed. Weird. We doled out some healing and then went to the pit. We hooked the block and tackle to the piton, fed the ropes through the pulleys and it was going to be Shim and Connal riding it down. A light spell was cast and Darius took over the block and tackle lowering ability. It was 3 times the rope feed but only needed half the strength to move them. They went down slow. The chimney did indeed rock back and forth often. And the stones were sharp in many places. A difficult and dangerous climb for anyone.
By 2:40 they made it to the bottom. Shim shot off a dancing lights to signal they were safe and they looked about a little bit. Ceiling was 25’ tall here, chamber was barely 25’ diameter, and in the dim light, looked like it sloped off heavily to the east. Also some sort of breeze was blowing towards us. “They coming down?” Shim asked. Connal shrugged.
Up above Captain Asher said after 10 minutes, “Now what?” Darius was bringing the tackle back up. “We’re not going back down there now, that’s stupid. What was the plan?” The Captain shook his head. “Didn’t exactly think this part through.” When the tackle was back at the top he climbed on and said, “Lower me, I’ll go tell them to come back up.”
It took time and when down there, Captain Asher let the other 2 know that it was late enough in the day and to not risk everyone going down now. So it took time to cycle the 3 of them back up but one done, we unhooked the block and tackle from the piton and then dragged it and the 80 pounds of rope to the base of the cliff. The conversation then touched on – how are we going to get all the animals down tomorrow? Ugh.
We then all climbed up there and by 6:30 PM, set up the hut. We ate, had Wilhelm use a spell to refill everyone’s water skin, and then went to bed.
We awoke pretty early the next day on Heatmonth the 5th – and again – we did not heal anything while resting. At this point we had a work around but the timing was going to be tight. The hut could be opened for a total of 12 hours, up to 3 times a day. We hadn’t closed it. Wilhelm and Eoghan talked to their pets that they were NOT to leave the hut and would be taking a nap, then would be woken up by Wilhelm within the hour.
Agreeing, we napped them and closed the hut. Time was ticking. 1 hour they would wake up and if they were still in the hut while it was hurtling through the dark recesses of Astral space, they would be insane. The block and tackle was rehooked to the piton and Shim and Connal went down. Then the tackle was raised and Wilhelm went with the hut. At the bottom we looked at the time and in 20 minutes, he opened the hut before the animals woke up and then led them out. Crises averted, pretty close to 12 hours time (11 hours 15 minutes), and 2 more openings of the hut for today.
The last one was Darius when went down by 6:35. Then, Connal and Shim self propelled themselves with the tackle slowly hand over hand to the top. They unhooked the block and tackle, Connal coiled the very heavy rope around himself and pretty damned close to over loaded, Shim riding on his chest, they stepped out into space and fell.
At 30’, the monk ran his hands against the passing wall with alacrity, slowing his descent enough to get past the first jog but was then falling too fast. That left Shim to enact one of the feather falls from his ring, dropping their velocity and they slowly floated down the remaining 84’ to the bottom. 7 AM.
The east side of the room was a 60 degree angle slope, and according to our guess, 100’ linear, 85’ vertical. Shim’s map showed a bridge over a chasm with falling water somewhere down there, and maybe a passage south? Darius took a torch and went to go first. Shim had enough feather falls to power everyone a safe trip down.
The fighter turned, faced the slope, and Shim cast on him. He slid easily to the bottom. But on the way close to the end, he heard flapping and turning, he could see 2’ wide insectoid looking birds with huge needle like noses flying in at a rapid pace from the high ceiling here. 10 of them. Stirges.
“Hey! Stirges! Be careful!” he said as they attacked. A few managed to get through his armor, nose deep into his flesh, and they started to suck, drawing his blood out. “On my way!” Captain Asher called, tapping Shim who Feather Falled the half elf. Darius smashed two of the stirges in him while another 15 stirges flew out of the cracks in the ceiling to join the others down here. The battle was joined, the 2 fighters with their superior armor avoiding most of any possible attacks.
Trusting his cats to handle the slope, Wilhelm went next racing down there the help, also feather falling. The fight was expanding as it seemed 40 or so stirges were now in the fray. Darius and Asher were methodical though, slaughtering a stirge or two every round. The cats got in on it, 4 of them leaping up and engaging more of the flying fiends. Wilhelm was fighting as well but his lesser armor was not as effective in stopping the stirge’s assault on him. Eoghan came down next, Nate was to follow and then Rhygar, with Shim and Connal having to be last.
Eoghan was doing his best but while tracking one of the stirges, he let go, missing as it corkscrewed out of the way, and critically shot Darius in the back. “What the!?!? FUCK!!””
“Damn it,” Eoghan muttered, taking another arrow out. “Let me try again.” Even in pain, Darius fought on. The mountain lion, the lynx, Lou, Wilhelm, Asher, Eoghan, and Darius all had stirges in their bodies, drinking their blood, weakening them round after round. BUT – enough of them had been slain that the remaining 12 still able to fly took off, racing up in order to escape. Eoghan shot two of them fleeing and the rest of us tried to pull the stirges off those still in the fight. Darius’ inadvertently did squeeze one too hard, making it vomit inside Wilhelm’s gut wound – that was going to be very bad later.
Finally it was over, we all were down here. Some of us were in terrible condition, a few hit points left. Wilhelm was able to remove the arrow from Darius’ back with only a small extra wound. We regrouped, grabbed what arrows we could, Darius giving Eoghan the stink eye, and discussed what was to go next. 7:20 AM, Heatmonth the 5th.
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