Chapter 65
Behind the boar-like creature with tiny wings, there is an iron door made of thick vertical bars. Clearly the creature is guarding a prison cell. They’re holding a long trident, its butt resting on the stone floor and a ring of keys hanging from the middle tine. The group stands silently, somewhat dumbfounded that their disguises are working.
Grindlefoot looks around at the cavern and notices that the ceilings are quite high, probably twenty feet or more. To their left as they entered, a passageway extends to the east into darkness. The creature, obviously a guard of some sort, and the cell are on the west side of the cavern. The halfling can’t see much past the large boar-headed guard, but thinks the cell looks quite large.
While his eyes take in the room, the druid hears a chittering in the air, barely audible enough to reach his ears. The sounds are coming from all around the room, but seem to be louder towards the passageway. Looking at the others, Grindlefoot sees that they’re focused on the guard and don’t appear to hear anything. Focusing on the sounds, he realizes they’re actually words. “Eight legs. Dance in the dark. You know the dance.” Looking up, into the corners of the room, he becomes fascinated with the small webbing he discovers. He suddenly needs to touch it, to feel the sensation of the web. And then the need is gone. The druid shakes his head softly, wondering what just happened.
Bilwin, ever the social butterfly of the group, sports a large smile, and approaches the guard.
“Hail, friend! This is an amazing place you’re guarding here. And that is a great trident! I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a nice fishing-tool-turned-weapon. We’re looking for our friends and we think they passed this way. Have you seen them?”
In their minds, the group hears the creature’s response. “I’m Maltok and this trident is part of my duty, but yes, it is a nice trident. Feels sturdy. It would work in battle. And kill fish. Yes, it would do both well.” Glaring at Bilwin first and then the others, “Are you here to relieve me or looking for your friends?”
Gven moves forward in a menacing manner to within a few feet of the guard, who stands at the same height. Staring into its face, eye to eye, she glowers at him. “Yes, I’m here to relieve you, because only the strongest of us can guard this area. And I’m the strongest one I know.” She tightens her fists and the muscles in her arms ripple, visible through the taut leather sleeves of her long coat.
Returning her stare for almost ten seconds, the creature eventually shrugs and hands her the trident with the key ring still looped around the middle tine.
“Good, I shall go pray.” And it lumbers off through the door the group entered.
“Shall we?” Gven lifts the key ring from the trident and looks to her companions. Dolor gestures towards the iron door.
The half-orc unlocks the door and enters a large cavernous chamber, easily sixty feet from side to side in both directions. A sizable chest sits on the floor along the north wall, with a gigantic club leaned up against the wall next to it.
Evenly spaced along the south wall, the group sees four cells. The first one, in the southeast corner of the cavern, holds a giant cyclops that barely fits inside its prison. It looks at them with interest. In the next cell, an elf lies on the floor, not moving. A bugbear sits on its haunches in the third cell, despondent and seemingly unaware of their entrance.
The last cell, in the southwest corner of the room, holds a figure wearing grey robes, similar to the ones worn by the party they saw enter Web’s Edge. A male drow, he looks at them through his cell’s bars, an unnerving intensity to his stare.
“You’re not followers of Lolth.” With a sneer, he rises and grabs hold of the door’s iron bars. “Let me out of here and I’ll help you.”
The cyclops mirrors the drow, also standing to hold the bars and asks to be set free, saying they’ll help.
Dolor responds to the drow. “How exactly would you help us?”
“Obviously you’re strangers here. Those fake markings will only fool the dumbest of the followers, not those like myself. My name is S’ril and they betrayed me. You search for something, don’t you? I can show you the way through the caverns. I’ll help you if you set me free.” His demeaner and voice are calm.
Bilwin closes his eyes momentarily and mouths a prayer to Hanseath before returning his gaze to the drow. “You speak the truth about knowing Web’s Edge, but you lie about helping us. You would lead us into danger and a trap to ingratiate yourself to Lolth. You would betray us to regain your mistress’s favor.”
Gven meanders over to the cyclops, “And how would you help us?”
“I’ll smash for you!” She points at the gargantuan club leaning against the north wall. “Mine,” and she mimicks smashing a club in her hand.
Studying the fifteen-foot tall, one-eyed creature, Gven feels a sense of sincerity and believes her. “Do you have a name?”
“Gertrude.”
As Gven unlocks the cyclops’ cell door and opens it, the towering cyclops ducks her head to miss hitting a low-hanging stalactite and stops in front of the half-orc. Standing almost twice as tall as Gven, Gertrude looks down at the half-orc, forcing her head into a bow, and slowly closes her eyes for a moment, expressing her gratitude.
Watching Gertrude retrieve her club, Gven loses herself in thought. There is more to this beast than meets the eye.
S’ril suddenly begins banging on his cell bars and yelling, “Prisoners are escaping! Prisoners are loose! I serve you, Lolth!”
Bilwin sighs. A radiant flame appears above the drow’s head and slowly sinks around him. He screams in agony while continuing to yell, “Prisoners! Get the prisoners!”
Dolor turns toward the shouting drow and raises his hands. A shaft of crackling white energy blasts from the tiefling’s extended palm, silencing the drow forever.
Through all of the commotion, the bugbear remains despondent and unmoving in their cell. Grindlefoot takes the ring of keys from Gven and sets it on the floor outside of the cell door, within its reach.
“In case you decide to give it another chance, friend.”
As the adventurers leave the room with Gertrude, Gven and Mond can sense the cyclops’ downcast mood. Neither is certain why, whether it’s her slower movements, slightly lowered head, or lack of excitement at being freed.
Feeling a connection with the cyclops, Gven asks why she seems sad.
“Roxanna is gone. My only friend.” She pauses for a moment, working through her grief. “We worked mines together with many of her kin, the svirfneblin. Roxanna found out Lolth will attack deep gnomes in the mines. She’s gone now. I miss her much.”
The group has learned the secret of Gertrude, Lolth’s cultists are planning a raid against the svirfneblin (deep gnome) mining complex.
Gven and Mond attempt to comfort the mourning cyclops, both resting a hand on its back as they stand in the antechamber, where they relieved Maltok from guard duty.
The only other exit from the guard room is in the northeast corner where a passageway leads to the east. Dolor leads the group into the corridor and after twenty feet, he can make out a pile of bones lying on the floor and a larger room beyond them.
As they make their way down the eighty-foot-long corridor, an opening to their right reveals an empty sleeping chamber. There are five bedrolls along the western wall and a single desk pushed up against the eastern wall. A narrow entryway at the southern end of the room opens into a lengthy room, from east to west, with a long, crudely built table for eating.
Dolor turns into the sleeping room to investigate and Gven remains at the entrance, keeping an eye on the tiefling while the others continue down the main passageway, towards the bones.
Intrigued by what the desk might hold, Dolor walks to it cautiously, peers around and doesn’t see any visible traps. As soon as he touches the drawer, a mass of spiders swarms from all around, crawling over his hands, arms, and shoulders. Their bites are intense and painful. He jumps backward and swats at each of his arms in defense, but the arachnids suddenly dissipate into nothing. Looking around and at his arms, the tiefling sees no physical evidence of the tiny swarm and the bites, but he feels the poison seeping through his body.
From her vantage point at the doorway, Gven only sees Dolor jump back in shock and pain. The small spiders were a spell, only affecting the tiefling who touched the magically protected desk.
Opening the drawer, Dolor discovers handwritten notes describing different missions, but he cannot make much sense of them. Alongside the misson notes, he discovers several gold pieces and gem-encrusted knick-knacks. Touching them cautiously, ready for another swarm of magical spiders, he retrieves them without any further hindrance. Briefly weighing them in his hand and inspecting the gems, the tiefling determines the lot is worth five hundred gold.
Meanwhile, Grindlefoot continues down the long corridor towards the pile of bones, with Mond, Bilwin, and Gertrude in tow. They make quick work of the pile blocking their way. Mond studies the pile for several moments, peering at it from different perspectives, and then pulls out a single bone towards the bottom. With that, the whole pile disperses, tumbling to the ground around them.
Grindlefoot begins to hear the murmering again. “Sister. Brother. Kin. Come home. Mother awaits you.” Looking around through his darkvision goggles, the halfling doesn’t see anything or anyone that could be whispering the words. Turning to his companions, he can tell, once again, that they don’t hear anything untoward.
The halfling feels compelled to move forward, into the large chamber beyond. The ceiling is much higher in this cavern, most likely eighty to one hundred feet high. The walls, stalactites, and stalagmites are full of webbing, similar to the butt yarn he is able to spin when he Wild Shapes into a giant wolf spider. He can see several piles of bones strewn about the area.
The cavern continues to the north, into deep darkness, where much of the webbing comes together. The halfing sees an enormous reptilian, spider-like creature with eight armored legs ending in sharp pincers, a twenty-foot scaled tail, and a dragon’s head at the end of a long scaled neck making it fifty feet tall.
The druid finds himself unwittingly transformed from his halfling body into the giant spider and he feels content. This body feels right, unlike the awkward bipedal halfling form. It’s a beautiful, carapaced body with eight legs that move with fluidity and strength. Eight eyes that can see everything around, two large, downward curving fangs for biting into enemies and food, and spinnerets at the rear of his abdomen to create the thick, sticky, strong webbing.
Excruciating pain envelopes his body and he’s suddenly transformed back into his native halfling form.
“You walk between worlds. Are you spider? Are you halfing?”
Grindlefoot looks at the creature in astonishment. “Ker-arach?”
“Yes. We are kin in our wrongness. You are caught between spider and halfling. I am caught between spider and dragon. The struggle is neverending.”
The rest of the companions see Grindlefoot walk into the cavern, look to the north, and pause for several seconds. He suddenly transforms into the giant spider form they’ve seen before, and then back to his true halfling form.
Bilwin sees an even larger spider emerge from within the massive web of thick silk.
“You must be here to serve me!”