29 Kythorn thru 2 Flamerule, 1493
❧On the road from Elturel to Baldur’s Gate
After retrieving our horses, we hit the road toward Baldur’s Gate. About 3 days along the way we came upon a couple of broken-down wagons that looked to be of decent quality, at least until someone trashed them. The blood on the driver’s seat was recent, probably within about 2 hours. Near the edge of the road was a spot where someone had done a piss-poor job of trying to hide their tracks. We took a moment to search the 6 unopened crates in the wagons. They were mostly full of cabbages or rough wool. One crate was full of spices so we did toss that into the portable hole before handing out the headband gems.
Kalama sent her owl to scout the area from the sky and found some broken branches to the Northeast. T-Bone used his master tracking abilities to follow the trail. It was about half a whole damn day before we came upon a cave entrance. There were 2 dragon claws in cultist garbs near the entrance. It wasn’t some shallow cave either, we couldn’t see how far it went, but it definitely went deeper.
We tried the drunken ruse again, but one of the guards ran into the cave, returning a few moments later with half a dozen friends! They wouldn’t let us leave so we dropped our ruse and leaped into battle. Everyone except T-Bone was knocked down, but at least we killed those suckers!
Kalama sent her owl into the cave to see what was up, but the cave went a whole 100ft and that’s about as far as she can send the owl. So, we took another minute and tossed all the bodies into the portable hole, and retreated into the forest for a nice long, healing rest. Of course, we looted the bodies first, squirreling away the scimitars, cultist cloaks, and leather armor they each had.
Morning, 2 Flamerule
The next day, after we’d healed from the disaster of the night before, we decided to tackle the cave itself. We reset the gems and started into the cave. We found a room with giant fungi and mushrooms in a damp area. A few of them, maybe 4, look weird compared to the rest. We know they’re not mikenoids, but we’re also pretty sure they’re violent and will attack if we get too close.
We hugged the wall along the outside of the room until we found another area. As always, when in a cave, we all kept our eyes open for any traps. The next area was full of sleeping bats! We tried tossing some rocks and pebbles into the room, but they didn’t react at all. Lhel entered the room and the bats started to chitter. When they swarmed, and the fire didn’t bother them, we ran for it! It took a few minutes to realize that 4 of the bats were stirges! Thankfully, we made it out of the room.