DM:Geo
Gau
Markan
Oxalis
Saoch
Titus B.
Somewhere to the southwest of White Moon Cove, there is a large crevasse in the ground, which had been cleaned a while ago, mostly because of its proximity to the city.
Because the situation with the gnolls has been deteriorating lately, people became concerned that the gnolls might try to tunnel into this crevasse, in order to surprise the defensive forces of WMC and make it easier to destroy the city. Therefore, a group of relative newcomers – who had never before been in the crevasse – were tasked with finding out whether the gnolls had done so or the crevasse remained safe. [Here follow several pages, each one giving the bio of one of the participants and needing a reload of about a dozen ads.]
Of course, the group was worried: a large hole in the ground, even if it would not attract militant antagonists, might easily become infested with all kinds of creepy-crawlies. So they prepared themselves for a short outing and departed WMC one sunny morning.
The area around WMC is known to be quite peaceful, and would not disappoint this time. Up to the general area of the crevasse, nothing untoward was found. (Several pages with pictures of the land and more ads)
At the crevasse, the group was surprised to find what looked like a Hot Spring from Kara-Tur, complete with pavillon-like entry and three little lights, with a spire nearby that was covered with runes. As our heroes had never been in the area, they had relied upon hearsay, none of which mentioned a Hot Spring. Cautiously, they approached the location of the spring and noted a dead horse and rider nearby. Instead of going to the spring, they decided to first investigate horse and rider.
When they got closer, though, they were ambushed by what appears to be a typical Kenku ambush, consisting of two swarms of vipers, two of the things best described as a cross between a flesh golem, an ogre and a pile of lard at the butchers, and three Kenku, this time supported by a group of four dretches.
Even though the group was smaller than the last one that encountered a similar ambush, the results were very similar: one member of the group had been downed during the fight, but brought back to his senses, the others were successful in finishing off all opposition. After this, the dead rider was given a thorough once over and it was found that he was wearing one of the white armbands identifying him as coming from WMC.
Why all this was going on, the Hot Spring had started to shimmer and finally faded away, like any good illusion.
While the group had been apprehensive about resting for the night, considering they had not enough manpower or womanpower to staff four shifts with two guards each, it came as quite a surprise when one of the members of the group called dibs on one of the guard roles in each and every one of those shifts. This person seems to have become completely unable to sleep, a development that progressed quite far on the silent and finally culminated in this phenomenon.
To the complete and utter surprise of everyone involved the night went without any interruption whatsoever, not unheard of event on our island.
The next day, the group decided to venture into the crevasse, following a dirt track leading down, well-trodden and cleaned meticulously, so that it was impossible to tell whether there had been people – or gnolls – walking along the path. This path led to a cave entrance, which in turn would lead to the tunnels the group was sent to investigate.
ble to tell whether there had been people – or gnolls – walking along the path. This path led to a cave entrance, which in turn would lead to the tunnels the group was sent to investigate.(purple circle: entrance)
Here, a weak point in the planning reared its head: none of the participants belonged to a race generally blessed with darkvision. . Again, the one who had claimed no need to sleep would prove to have race-atypical dark vision, also, one member of the group knew the magical incantation for temporary nyctovision:
After the group had started lighting their way with torches and light spells, the first intersection was quite treacherous: the right hand way stood out a bit because there were several golden coins (golden squares) lying on the floor, phenomenon that had several of the participants channel the leader of Waterdeeps exploratory feet, Admiral Akbar and exclaim, “it’s a trap!”
As there were no dwarves in the group, they did not feel compelled to go for the gold, but elected to take the other branch. As she turned away to look into the other branch, our never-sleeping member of the group noticed in the darkness several spiderwebs; if these spiders were as intelligent as those encountered a few days ago, they probably laid out those gold coins to lure suckers into their lair.
Not far after that, the group ran into a group of four gnolls, with whom they immediately began a pointed [and pointy] discussion about who was allowed to be how close to WMC and who wasn’t.During these altercations, one of the group somehow managed to turn himself into a large dinosaur, and almost did that fit into the tunnel anymore. This discussion ended with the flight of one of the gnolls and the death of the others. A few steps later, the group ran into an escaped prisoner/slave of the gnolls, who, together with several other victims, had been forced to reopen the tunnels into the crevasse and reinforce them.
The group managed to find and rescue a second slave – both of these were citizens of WMC. In addition, the group was able to procure a written log of the gnolls’ activities in these tablets. Finally, the group decided to leave the tunnels again, mostly because they found the adventurer-turned-dinosaur quite cumbersome, because it steadfastly refused to listen to reason and insisted on exploring further tunnels. The aforementioned records,, plus a few potions, were the final product of this little outing, because, just like the approach to this place, the way back itself proved to be quite uneventful.