We meet our adventurers as they recover from the shock of seeing an old man transform into an ageless sorcerous woman and then into a fully grown dragon. As the dragon roars and takes flight, it crashes through a rock ceiling hundreds of feet above them, and they must rush to escape the collapsing cavern around them.
Running back through the chamber and up the large spiral staircase hewn from stone, Spiphy is struck by falling debris multiple times and must be rescued. During this time, a large section of the staircase is destroyed, and the party has to crawl through a crack in the wall to find an alternate route out.
Down the slim passageway, they emerge into an ancient series of rocky tunnels. The party travels down a fork to the west, where they discover signs of a fight and a two handed sword lying in the dust. A small underground stream trickles nearby, and they are left to wonder what might have occurred in that small chamber.
Back up further to the east, they travel down another fork to find another seemingly dead end. This time, however, they discover a small locket on the ground. Rift picks up the amulet and opens it to find a small message inside:
Take this gift and my love –
I will wait with the Black Tide for you to return with your own gift.
-M
Suddenly, small spiders appear from a crack in the wall, and while the party quickly dispatches them, they are on alert for other threats…
They return to the previous fork and enter a large open chamber, dark with a whispering current of air rustling around the room. Almost every surface in front of the group is coated with some silvery thin thread, like webbing. The cavern floor inclines upwards, and the party sees stair-step plateaus building up towards the unseen cavern ceiling somewhere far above.
B and Vyranys, the first to enter the room, see an enormous wriggling ball of the webbing next to a similar, if smaller and unmoving, ball. Vyranys slices open the wriggling ball to find a half orc barbarian. Grateful to be rescued, he immediately demands his sword back from Kaladin the dwarf.
They then slice open the other ball of webbing to find the corpse of a small gnome, long withered.
However, they hear a loud skittering that interrupts the investigation, and two enormous spiders enter the chambers. A battle ensues, with the spiders crawling up walls, across ceilings, and the party fighting through webbing and poison sprays from the eight-legged beasts. Ultimately, with the help of their newfound barbarian friend, the party was able to defeat the hideous creatures.
As they hacked their way through the webbing, up through the natural plateaus of the cavern, they emerge from a gaping hole in the cavern wall into an ancient ceremonial tomb. A golden sarcophagus, emblazoned with images from battles long ago, lies on a raised dais with a sword in scabbard atop the sculptured figure on the coffin lid.
They have but a moment to take this in before also noticing a giant moving form in the corner. A horribly decaying zombie ogre, trapped in the room for unknown centuries, turns towards them and begins to attack in a dumb fury.
Back and forth they fight, but the party is simply too strong for the ogre. At one point, Grugg, the half-orc that has joined the party, throws Spiphy towards the giant hulking creature – a source of curiousity and contention later. Once the dust has settled, the zombie lays dead, and Vyranys reaches towards the sword.
Upon unsheathing the sword, Vyranys hears a quiet whisper, “weeeaakkkk…” inside his head, and then the sword falls silent. He releases the sword with a warning to the group, but Kaladin decides to try it himself. At this, the sword responds, “yeeesssss… strength!” and the dwarf fighter feels a sense of power from the blade.
The group is able to push past the giant boulder that partially blocked the entrance, and they emerged back into the familiar entrance chamber of the cave. They begin to hurry back to town in order to save Burlap and Ned from their impending execution.
On the way through the woods, they neatly sidestep a group of goblins who have made camp. They overhear the goblins discussing reinforcements and scouting parties, and realize that the goblins they have been fighting up to this point may be simply the beginning of an army.
Once back on the road, they find farms ablaze, presumably from goblin raiding groups. They pick up the pace to reach Brinewood even faster, and come to the town square during the night.
Burlap and Ned, previously in the stocks, are nowhere to be seen, and the group begins looking for any sign of the two arrested men. Meanwhile, Grugg attempts to jam the trap door of the gallows.
Vyranys begins to confer with one of the guards in front of the council hall, asking about Burlap’s location. The guard is resistant to share information, and Grugg joins the group, grows impatient, and stabs the guard. Pandemonium sets in, as the guard retreats behind the door screaming for reinforcements, Kaladin restrains a confused Grugg, and Spiphy runs around the back of the building in order to find an alternate way in.
Vyranys is somehow able to convince the injured guard to let him in and allow him to tend to his wound. The guard then takes Vyranys to the back of the council chambers, down a small flight of stairs, and into a small basement room.
Vyranys emerges to see Jerreth Wains, now captain of the guard, swinging his fists into the bloodied and chained form of Burlap. Jerreth turns and smiles at the new visitor.
We end our chapter with Vyranys in a basement with two guards, the rest of the party trying to talk down anxious guards outside, and an impending execution in just a few hours…