Date: 1/5/05

XP Awarded: 1,150 (to 5th level characters)

Start: Troglodyte warrens under the southern Druarwood

As the adventurers continued exploring their way deeper into the stinking cave system, Celowin noticed an approaching light, and Kai rejoined the party. He and his tracker had followed the troglodytes path to the lair, where he met up with Heardan and learned what had happened so far. As he was relating this to the party, some acid-spitting cave lizards rushed from hiding to attack. After dispatching them, the group ventured deeper into the lair, descending to a larger cavern with a series of clear, ice-cold pools. As Theodar led the way towards a passage to one side, a low bass hum was heard coming from a small blue lizard perched on a wall over the pool. Fei was able to identify it as a magical beast that could deliver powerful electrical shocks. Moving cautiously, the party was able to get past the lizard into a cavern holding a muck-filled pit containing many troglodyte eggs. After destroying the eggs, the party found more troglodytes in another cavern and dispatched them quickly with the help of Kai and Fei’s magic.

Returning to the cavern with the pools, the adventurers found that the lizards had moved positions while they were gone. Fei disabled them with his wand of sleep magic, and they fell from their perches into the ice-cold waters. Then, protected from the cold by his magical ring, he dove into the ice-cold water to investigate the bottom of the still, deep pool. Finding nothing, he surfaced to find one of the lizards recovered from his magic and emitting a threatening series of sharp, fast clicking sounds. Theodar was able to move cautiously past the lizard, but when Fei went to do so, the lizard reacted with a powerful electrical discharge. Fortunately, the lizard was not in the water , and Fei was far enough away that the shock did not harm him. While this was going on, Theodar thought he heard a scream come from the tunnel he was standing near, and started to head in that direction. Kai summoned a crocodile to deal with the lizard, and the party rushed down the tunnel to find a series of small, twisty caverns.

Suspecting an ambush, Theodar cautiously moved forward to find a large troglodyte crossbreed hiding to one side. Celowin moved up to help, but the creature bellowed a cloud of caustic, nauseating gas and moved to attack Celowin. Badly hurt, Celowin moved past the creature to fire arrows at it from behind. Fei used magic to seal the other cavern entrance with a mass of strong, sticky webbing not a moment too soon. Its ambush foiled, the other hidden troglodyte covered with wicked barbs and elongated claws began slashing its way through the web towards Theodar. Kai and his horse Whisper (magically reduced in size to fit into the caves) moved up to attack the barbed troglodyte just as it tore itself free of the webbing and launched itself at Fei, unharmed by Fei’s firebolt. Badly wounded but out of spells, Fei struck back with his longsword before falling beneath the troglodyte crossbreed’s onslaught. Surrounded on all sides by enemies, the enraged troglodyte continued attacking Theodar, but Whisper’s repeated blows wounded it badly enough that Kai was able to kill it with a mighty blow from his katana. Theodar rushed to heal the critically wounded Fei while Kai and Whisper hurried to help Celowin.

Meanwhile, Celowin had successfully distracted the other troglodyte crossbreed and lured it deeper into the winding tunnels, away from the rest of the party. Fleeing down a curving, descending passage, he came to a room separated by a steep ledge that dropped into a pit of muck. Cornered, the badly wounded and outclassed archer deftly slipped past the draconic creature to return to the party. He had just clambered up a four-foot ledge when the miniaturized Whisper came charging down the passage and leapt off the ledge to attack. Turning its attention to Whisper, the troglodyte badly wounded the horse before the others could arrive. Celowin somersaulted past the troglodyte and lopped off its head from behind, saving Whisper from imminent death.

With the last of the troglodytes dispatched, the adventurers found a cavern where the weakened villagers were being kept. One of the villagers bore a strong resemblance to Kai, but spoke only Illuskan. Escorting them to Heardan at the edge of the clearing, the party returned to the caverns to finish searching. In the muck-filled portion of the cavern Celowin found, they discovered a large treasure cache of gold and silver, but not much else. That night, while camping in the woods, one of the rescued Red Tiger barbarians took Kai aside and spoke to him about the Talosian priest Aelthas. The barbarian was once a follower of his, but after Aelthas allowed him to be taken by the troglodytes, he felt no further devotion to the priest. From him, Kai learned of Aelthas’ visits to the troglodytes lair where he used lightning magic to provoke the troglodytes into attacking the nearby hamlets. The barbarian also spoke about a mysterious crate Aelthas had recently purchased from some shady merchants and hidden in a cave near Beorunna’s Well. He suspected Aelthas was going to use the contents against Alina the Spellwarder, his adversary. The barbarian finished by asking Kai not to tell anyone that he learned this information from him, out of fear for his life.

After camping in the woods overnight, Kai’s magic fed and healed the beaten and wounded villagers enough to travel across the hilly, wooded terrain to Beorunna’s Well. While traveling, Kai took the opportunity to speak with the villager (named Tó) and learned that his mother had arrived in the area when she was a child and was adopted by the Black Lion tribe. Unfortunately, he did not have any further information useful to Kai.

Arriving in town a few hours before dark, the group was met by a large and excited crowd. Although some in the crowd seemed to be unhappy with the presence of the adventurers, they were greatly outnumbered by thankful and relieved relatives. Hask Bloodaxe also appeared to express the gratitude of Andar Heartwood. Retiring to the Rising Star for much-needed hot baths, the party then traveled to Alina’s tower to consult with her on Kai’s information. She did not have any further insights, but asked the party to get proof before taking the accusations to Hask Bloodaxe.