Chapter 8

Still regaining their breath from the recent skirmish with the four goblins, the adventurers investigate the chamber before proceeding further inward. It’s roughly forty feet by forty feet and seems to be of natural origin, better at preventing wayward animals than armed foes from entering the goblin’s caves. While investigating the chamber, Grindlefoot ponders out loud, “why do frogs have darkvision?” Only silence answers.

The group looks to the opposite end of the cavern from where they entered and see that the tunnel continues onward. Xantic sends McGillicutty to explore ahead of them, looking out for danger of any sort. The tunnels appear to become more natural, smaller in width and height, and less like they were shaped by tools. At some exceptionally short points, Gven and Dolor are forced to crawl in order to continue forward. Eventually, the tunnel opens up enough for the group to stand up and stretch their limbs, although they must continue walking single file.

Gven is following behind McGillicutty and notices the floor has a peculiar feeling to it, even though McGillicutty hasn’t reported anything amiss. Suddenly, she falls into a pit that had a thin covering over it, obscuring it from view. Feeling more embarrassed than hurt, Gven takes 2 damage from the ten foot drop and then crawls up the far side, ten feet away from where she fell.

The remaining group members snicker at her failure to detect or navigate the naturally formed pit. As though Joli (jaa·lee), the God of Pooping Crows, is looking down upon them at that very moment, each of the others also fall into the pit—even while knowing it’s there—with Xantic taking 4 damage, Grindlefoot 3, and Dolor 3. McGillicutty shrugs their tiny shoulders and half-grins at the others inability to navigate the pit as easily as McGillicutty had.

Continuing onward, the group encounters another cavern that opens up from the tunnel. Dolor sneaks up to the opening and can see two bugbears on the far side of the cave. The adventurers ready their weapons and begin sneaking towards the bugbears, hoping that they’re sleeping or unaware. They cover 30 feet, about halfway across the cave, when Xantic and Dolor trip over the tiniest of cracks in the floor, alerting the bugbears to their presence. One of them sounds the alarm, clearly alerting anyone or thing in the system of tunnels.

Dolor shrugs his shoulders and says “Oh well, here we go.”

Fight choreography

• Dolor misses with his shortbow.
• Xantic fires his Force Ballista Eldritch Cannon and misses.
  • He then fires Frostbite and misses.
• A bugbear attacks Gven with a spiked club, causing 8 damage.
• The other bugbear attacks Dolor and misses.
• Gven invokes her barbarian rage and misses a bugbear with her longsword.
• Grindlefoot sprints towards a bugbear and takes a large jump, flinging himself at the creature while shifting into a giant constrictor snake …and misses.

• Dolor is able to perform a sneak attack with his shortsword for 10 damage.
• Xantic fires the Eldritch Cannon at the bugbear in front of Dolor, causing 7 damage.
  • He then attacks with his shortsword and misses.
• A bugbear attacks and misses Gven.
• The other bugbear attacks and misses Dolor.
• Gven takes a wallop out of the first bugbear with her longsword, causing 23 damage and leaving it looking very wobbly.
• Grindlefoot, recovered from his missed flying snake attack, slithers over to the bugbear by Dolor and grapples it around the neck, causing 5 damage and killing it.

• Dolor attacks the final bugbear with his shortsword, quickly giving it the death that fate has dealed it this day.

Although the alarm has been rung, the group takes a few minutes to investigate the bugbears and their surroundings. Looking at their sparse and dirty pieces of armor, Gven notices a symbol, like an insignia, that is shaped like a yelling mouth. They recall that the four goblins in the first cavern were wearing the same thing on their clothing. Dolor begins to hear an uptick in the sounds coming from the inner tunnels, as though goblins, or something, is responding to the alarm.

The adventurers continue on for about an hour, noticing that the tunnels seem to delve lower and deeper into the ground. Finally, they reach a point where McGillicutty doesn’t return from their short exploration. Xantic can tell that they’re still alive, yet doesn’t know why they haven’t returned.

Grindlefoot, as a snake, moves ahead to scout and discover what’s become of McGillicutty. As the tunnel bends to the right, he can see McGillicutty standing still because he’s caught in a gargantuan web. The webs extend in every direction, encompassing all possible paths through a very large cavern. Grindlefoot is able to wiggle McGillicutty free from the sticky webs and they return to the group.

They decide to move forward and see what’s involved with all the webbery, only to discover that they’re so thick and ubiquitous, that they can’t move past or through them. They light a torch and throw it at the webs, hoping it will burn away enough for them to move ahead, but it burns out after only going a few feet.

Xantic declares that he has an idea! He disassembles the Eldritch Cannon and creates a Flamethrower Eldritch Cannon. Spewing a stream of fire tens of feet in every direction, he’s able to clear the area quickly and they move forward, discovering several goblin corpses. After they’ve gone through half of the extensive cavern, suddenly a large screeching comes from above them, somewhere up in the darkness that extends beyond their vision. They’re all thankful that they don’t have to see—or fight—what’s attached to that horrendous sound.

The group finally makes it to the other side of the large cavern, having extinguished all the webs, and enter a smaller chamber that’s illuminated by torches. In the center of the chamber, a stalagmite has been flattened and carved into an alter. Painted on a wall close by, above the stalagmite alter, is a large version of the yelling mouth symbol they saw earlier on the bugbears and goblins.

There are four goblins standing around the alter, all focused on a fifth one wearing ornate yet very dirty vestments, obviously scavenged from somewhere. A human male wearing raggedy clothes and an odd-looking floppy hat is chained to the side of the alter and looking scared.

The leader of the goblins, obvious pride in their power—and regalia—looks at the adventurers and yells “Welcome! You shall now become one with the Great Mouth!”