Upon entering, the darkness of the cave was overwhelming. A couple of party members could see fine in the darkness, but the majority required a light source to see anything. Along the walls, crystals shone faintly in the darkness. Unbeknownst to the party, a small goblin was also exploring the cave for her own reasons, and was stealthmaking her way past some elementals in the room. The adventurers, however, were not so sneaky. They alerted the elementals to their presence, and a battle ensued, ending in the defeat of the elementals and the acquisition of a few fire crystals. The Goblin, Smallthings, decided to join the party for her own reasons... Gobbiespeak is hard to decipher even for someone used to the language.
To proceed further in the crystal mine, the party had to face one of their most daunting challenges yet - the dreaded 5-foot-chasm. The majority of the party made it across with little difficulty, but Lulu - her tiny body weighed down even more by the armor she carried - found herself falling into the pit. Mikey fell in as they tried to cross another precarious gap, but they managed to make it through with no deaths! As they attempted to cross, oddly alluring music floated from further down the hallway...
After the dreaded chasm, the party noticed some odd stonework that appeared to be a door, but with no means of opening it. They went further into the cave, and found themselves in an abandoned storage room, with old supplies and broken furniture, and a candle that oddly never seemed to burn out. A stench permeated the air, choking even the goblin through her mask! Eventually, the source of the smell - and the means of advancement for the party - was found. A pit, filled with decaying body parts... and the switch for the door. Smallthings climbed into the pit, hit the switch, and the party moved on.
Riju'ri, feeling jubilant at the newfound progress, rushed into the next room! As he passed through the hallway, howver, he felt an odd depression and a click, as a giant wooden beam hurtled towards him! He got hit fully with the dastardly trap's payload, but was not mortally injured. Moving forward, the party heard the odd singing once again - only much, much closer. Preparing for a fight, they cast protective wards and moved into the next room.
As they entered, the singing stop, but turned into a screech! A splash of grease spilled on the floor, making movement impossible. The creature causing this disturbance was a lamia, a Voidsent that Riju'ri was well acquainted with. A relatively weak lamia, she still proved to be a devastating foe, attacking Keshalyi with reckless abandon, knocking her out cold. The party managed to subdue her, and noticed a prisoner in a cage. With some convincing, they managed to calm down the confused man, and he thanked them for their help before leaving the cave.
The very exhausted party decided that it was a good time to rest, and various watches were established with no interruptions in rest. Mikey, however, was approached by a snake in his sleep. Feeling it crawling in his sleeping bag, he was initially frightened, but it was actually friendly - it saw him as a nice person, and decided to help him! For the rest of the dungeon, Mikey gained a new friend.
The party woke the next day and found an underground river, which they crossed with relative ease (Lulu's weight allowing her to merely walk across the bottom of the slow-moving stream). They found another grease-like substance, and cautiously entered the pool. They fell through, finding themselves caught in a spider's next. The spider who caught them, however, was anything but ordinary.
"Welcome to my parlour! Can I get you all something to drink?" A drider, another voidsent, was standing before the party. However, she was not acting like a creature of the night, insisting that the party instead drink her drinks, her spiders, and her tea. She was clearly not a normal voidsent, but a changling - one who managed to hold on to her sense of self despite her changed form and mind. The party had no choice for now but to leave her behind, but they left wondering how she came to be.
Their questions were soon answered. They followed the trap door down to a small drop, which lead to a door. Smallthings and Keshalyi opened the door with no difficulty, and they stumbled upon a gruesome scene. A mage of some sort was performing a ritual, and a fellow adventurer was being drained to death by the orb of dark energy. Keshalyi and Riju'ri quickly recognized that to interrupt the ritual, the void aether being used to siphon energy away from the adventurer would need to be destroyed.
Using a combination of corrupted aether crystals, holy water, and cure spells, the party managed to interrupt the ritual. The mage, sensing that his powers were too drained to deal with this situation, teleported away immediately, leaving behind little but the adventurer - and some gear he'd collected from others who had wandered into his lair. What reason could he have for consorting with the void?
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