Reprise: Of Mice and Men
| Reprise: Of Mice and Men | |
|---|---|
| Date | 7/31/2026 |
| Storyteller | Doug |
| Tier | Trainee |
| Player Characters | Busiate, Raiya(Egg), Hilda (Marshmallow), Lifeblood, Mahra Flamewalker, Theodore (Yera) |
| Rewards | 250xp, 300GP |
| Result | Success |
| Author | Evan (Mahra) |
| Downtime | 11 days |
The party met at the entrance to the mines North of Onadbyr. There we met Cyrus where he explained that their has been issues with the teleporter to the grove. He tasks us with finding the interference going on in the caves below. He also explains the stench that is now found at around 1000 ft below. He gives us the explosives and warns us of the dangers associated with them. He also mentions that we were there specifically to investigate and should retreat if we come across something we couldn't handle.
We then began our descent into the mine. After a while of descending, we finally came across the smell Cyrus mentioned to us beforehand. We continued to follow Cyrus's instructions, heading deeper into the mine until coming to collapsed part of the mine. We quickly passed through, but similar situations meant for slow going for the next 2 days before we finally arrived at the Chasms area of the mines. The smell continued to intensify every day as well.
During our descent, there was an eerie lack of any creatures or signs of habitation. Every sign we saw were months or years old at least. We encountered the vine of the plant that links to the grove. It seemed to have some kind of sickness so I got closer to inspect it. The vine was not dying, but clearly had an infection. A kind of mold seemed to be growing all along the vine.
We found that the mold could be washed away with water, but would require a lot of water to do so. Upon closer inspection, I found that the mold wasn't actually a fungus, but instead was some kind of creature, maybe a worm of some sort that seemed to be slowly eating the vine. Something like a massive version of bacteria were eating the vine.
After a few more days of travel downward, larger pieces of the vine began to be covered by these creatures and the smell grew stronger and stronger. We did our best to clean off these creatures as we descended. We still saw no signs of life besides the vine and the creatures all along it. As we got deeper the smell became much more of a rotten smell than higher up in the caves, as if something has gotten foul. Myself and Theo tested the creatures to see how they reacted to fire, cold, lightning, and acid as we descended. Acid and lightning, predictably killed the bacteria, but the acid interestingly created a nasty black smoke so it would not be recommended to use it. The cold produced no noticeable effects but the heat produce a positive effect on the mold, causing it to produce humidity and grow a little bit. Between myself and Theo, we deduced that the symptoms of this bacteria seem to resemble that of tuberculosis. Though it usually does not affect plants so we were a bit confused. WE proceeded to all don face masks from this point forward.
At this point, we had traveled for 7 days and were nearing the bottom of the cave system. Through a mix of spellcasting and ingenuity, we manage to reinforce a bridge to cross a chasm that we needed to cross. We then used some explosives to clear the way forward. Busiate had a little too fun doing so it seemed. Unfortunately, this created a massive shockwave of sound that echoed through the caves. The explosion cleared a large amount of rocks, but there was still more to clear. We also heard the sounds of digging we previously heard on the other side of the rocks intensify. We made a small opening in the last bit of the rock so we could communicate with whatever was on the other side of the tunnel. It turned out to be a group of Caligni. They appeared to be in a terrible state and as I tried to assist in heling them, they healing seemed to tear their own bodies apart until they died. On the other side of this tunnel cavern seemed to be a large collection of various plants and whatnot that might be related to it.
Lifeblood went into the cavern with some vials to try and take some samples for us to bring back to Cyrus. He reported later that the rock below was squishy to the touch, despite still being rock as confirmed by Hilda although she said that the feeling was confusing, as if the rocks themselves were diseased.
Lifeblood recovered some yellow mushrooms, some moss, some of the Caligni flesh, and some of the squishy rocks along with a few other items from the cave before retreating back out of it. We decided that this was beyond our capabilities and returned to the surface to report our findings to Cyrus.
While heading back out we needed to stop for 2 days temporarily to help cure egg of tuberculosis.
We continued our return to the surface, a bit behind the rest of the party but manage to leave without further incident.
We also passed off the samples we collected to Cyrus before returning to Onadbyr.