Session 27: Emberil

= Everything. Is. Moist. =

"“She who knows all the answers has not been asked all the questions.”"

I am over this cavern. The mystery. The darkness. The stench of death. If I bottled the air in here, I would market it as the “absolute opposite of fresh air with a side of Viter flatulence.” Not only must I contend with this obnoxious Druid who acts like they’re better than my companion Ivasar, but now a dwarf has entered the mix. How have I never met Ghimhert… Glumsquirt… Gimurt… before—we literally share a childhood best friend. He seems nice enough and handy in a fight, I am just over this cavern. Stalactites and stalagmites are for the birds, I remember once being enraptured with the tales of adventurous spelunkers who explored the depths of our great realm. Now, if I see another stalagmite I’m going find the sharpest one and thrust myself on it and just end it all.

No. No, I won’t give the Amethyst Academy the pleasure.

It would seem Gimursh… Glimfirtz… Gimurt. It would seem the dwarf was helping the Hooded Lanterns party. He was looking for Petra’s girlfriend. Curious, we definitely have information to share and a mystery of Sara's fate to unravel yet.

Right now, we’re trudging through this underground hell, with its winding, twisting, turning, dripping, dirty, tunnels. The glimmering mushrooms sometimes light the way, casting ominous shadows on the porous walls that consume us on all sides. If I didn’t know any better, we could be in the bowels of an eldritch terror. I'm not sure if that could be worse.

We turn one corner and see a pocket of the cave filled with cobwebs and dead bodies, what platemail we could make out of humanoid forms has very dated insignias of Sacena’s noble families and wards. Ugh, and where there are cobwebs there are spiders. Luckily, we let them lie.

We walk by a river, although the liquid seems corrosive and highly acidic. We must look for stone bridges to cross—and we must dodge smoke mephits as we go. Bloody things. Ivasar is handy with some kind of spell that blows them far enough away so we can pass safely.

The soil sometimes looks tilled in the tunnels we pass through. Something is burrowing and clawing below.

Perfect. I was thinking, how else could I die down here with this motley of misfits? Looks like bullettes are in our near future.

Of course, Viter does the bullettes a favour by jumping down a 20 ft. cliff edge and we rope down after him.

Right as I go in for a good scolding, my senses pick up on a trail of dry blood and viscera throughout the entire corridor we just roped down into. We see bodies have been dragged through here, evidenced by traces of hairs, bits of flesh that have rubbed off all on the stone.

Naturally, we round a new corner and are presented with new horrors. A pile of dead bodies stacked on top of each other. Gimley.. Gimshenra… Gimurt recognizes one of the tragic souls—when he was travelling with the Lanterns there were a couple of scouts with him and one was in the pile.

We move on but not before Gemheart…. Gammark… Gimurt (I’ll get it) stumbles on a loose rock and smashes his heavily armoured body into the wall resulting in a large and echoey clanging sound. It seems we've announced ourselves.

Moments later we’re met with a new cacophony but this time coming from underground—the bullettes have arrived. Like Viter, like Gimurt. They definitely shared formative years.

We lay waste to the gaggle of bullettes—despite Galan trying to take credit. We have EYES, Galan. We made quick work of the beasts and move forward. I hate using my Blight spell, but sucking the juice out of a monster is often the best way to survive in such situations.

Venturing deeper into the cavern—definitely the direction I want to go in—we find a new sprawling area and come up to a large pool of very dangerous looking liquid. What’s more, there are giant frogs with melted flesh occupying the area (riddled with dead bodies floating about). AND OF COURSE, Ivasar goes to try and communicate with them rather than moving on and trying to quietly make it through this gods forsaken hellscape.

And WHO COULD HAVE PREDICTED THE RESULT? The frogs meet Ivasar’s request for friendship and understanding with justifiable screeches and screams—alerting the others to our presence.

I want to throw them all out.