Tl;dr: Honest to goodness y’all there is an entrance to the Underdark near the goblin village southwest of Port Mirandia. Some of our adventurers trekked all the way down just to make sure. They “talked” with some myconids, and fought a few hooked horrors to test their strength. Everyone made it back safely including Friend the Zombie, who usually doesn’t. What this means for the safety of Port Mirandia we will surely keep you up-to-date on.
Future Adventure Notes:
•The Myconids encountered near the Underdark entrance seem friendly, and communicate through spores.
•A drow named Dekker is in the area, he warned of spiders, hooked horrors, basilisks and a “stalactite.”
•Recent campsites with three medium sized humanoid tracks leading to the road southwest of Port Mirandia.
Session Title : Chapter 11: Doing Some Exploration
Session DM : Waylander
Session Date : 15 Jun 2021 @ 17:00 UTC
Characters:
•”Chronicler” and “Cartographer” Barren (Sorcerer 3)
•”Leader” Gorstag (Grave Warden 4) with Friend The Zombie
•”Trailblazer” Imogène (Fighter 3)
•”Scout” Martineth (Wizard 2) with Galen the Familiar
•Zanovar (Warlock 1/ Wizard 3) with Who the Familiar
A retelling of Our recent journey
~Barren
We meet more new people. We plan to go explore further in the cave tunnel We fought werebats recently. We leave Port Mirandia and travel southwest, We find a campsite with cold ashes near midday. We find three sets of footprints leaving the campsite, the same size as each other, that go southwest in direction of the road. We get lost trying to find the cave entrance, so We make camp here too.
We find little food and people realize We should get some before going into the cave. We have a quiet watch, and sleep undisturbed through the night. We wake up and head southeast to the goblin village who inhabitants are happy to see Us. We see Chief Madaran and exchange brief pleasantries, then negotiate for some food. We leave the village and then go find the werebat cave.
We go into the cave, and then go deeper into the tunnel. We keep going further and further, and the tunnel twists and turns. We are unsure of Our position relative to the entrance and goblin village as We get deeper. The Gorstag entity seems to know somehow where and when We are, and says with confidence our general direction is southwest and down. The Gorstag entity says We went two hours underground when We find the tunnel leading to a open area.
We see the area is roughly fifty feet high, and has some stone steps over a shallow pond leading to a staircase. We see dimly glowing mushrooms. We think they are beautiful. We fill our waterskins with fresh tasting water. We follow the stone steps and find another tunnel that eventually leads to a large cave.
We see around the cave, a ledge beyond which the next level seems like a mushroom forest. We see some mushroom people walking around the forest. We see in the distance a furry four-legged creature roaming around, the Martineth entity names it a Quaggoth.
We travel along the right side cave wall, trying to avoid the ledge. We go far, roughly, three-quarters of a mile before finding the other edge of the cave. We see more walking mushroom people, they are closer, so We try to get their attention. We hear no response, but after We hail them they slowly approach Us. After some silent moments, the creatures begin to emit some yellow spores, the larger one making more.
The Gorstag entity sends Friend into the spores to see what happens, and seeing nothing, steps in himself. We check the Gorstag entity with mindspeech and he says he is not hurt and is communicating with multiple entities. We are envious so we step forward too. We hear many voices all at once, some louder than others. We feel harmony with them. We greet them and ask them about their world, and if there are any settlements nearby of humanoids who look more like Us than them.
They show Us pictures in Our minds of interesting things. A picture of a drow village. A picture of quaggoths that steal their mushroms. A picture of small, fat humanoids, maybe dwarves? or gnomes? A picture of large bipedal beaked creatures with hooked arms. We are shown that this cave has one other, bigger exit, and in the water of a deep pool is another exit. They show us the location of other tunnel exit.
We hear as we get closer to the exit a tapping, echoing throughout the cave. Suddenly, We feel cold pressure at Our neck and hear whispered words We do not understand. We ask for help from Our party. They turn around and see a drow with a rapier on Us. We hear the Martineth entity respond to the drow. We talk mindspeak to the Martineth entity to translate for Ourselves.
The drow names himself Dekker, and says we walked right by him without knowing he was there and that we should be considerably more careful in the Underdark. Dekker says the noise We are hearing is being created by Hooked Horrors and we might want to change our direction. He names the mushroom people Myconids. Upon being queried as to local hostile creatures, he mentions a large spider, some hooked horror colonies one of which having twenty creatures, a basilisk group and a large stalactite over a pool of water.
We start using the owl familiars to scout, and continue forward towards the tapping. We approach an intersection of tunnels, with many possible exits. We are getting closer to the tapping sounds. We find one hooked horror and try to lure it away to test its strength. It makes the tapping sound by banging it’s armhooks on its legs and more arrive than We expect. We fight and We prevail.
We feel we have pressed our luck enough and decide to retreat and go back to the friendly Myconids, hoping they allow us to rest with them. We are pleased they do so, and show us a spot to sleep. We spent Our watch in the Myconid spores, enjoying their multitude. We wake with no incidents. The Gorstag entity says in the morning the Myconids tasked him to remove a wooden crate in their domain, showing him the location near the pond.
We find the crate, it is below the ledge, sixty feet. We offer our rope to the Gorstag entity, who ties it to his and sends Friend down. Friend falls but get’s back up, and drags the crate over then ties the rope around it. We pull it it up and open it, finding moldy clothing and some coins. We drag the crate out of the Myconid cave, leaving it by the pond, then move on.
We leave the Underdark, briefly blinded by the daylight, and return along the path We came. We find more tracks that appear to be the same as the ones from the campsite We found a few days ago. We continued back to Port Mirandia to rest and recover from our adventure.