The Ruby Caves

Back at camp, as the group was showing off their loot to the goblins, Slothrop, Rya, and Po, they heard a muffled explosion coming from back toward the labyrinth entrance to Myth Sveldin. Soon enough, two lean, hard looking fellows emerged in light arms and armor, carrying packs, a little singed at the edges. They were a twitchy and arguing with each other, and introduced themselves as Splint, a mousy-haired human, and Temple, a beady-eyed half-elf with half his pierced ear missing. They were talking in some kind of rhyming slang, saying they were happy to have stumbled upon the group, they were trying to get back to where at was their "Carrot Stew" so they could keep mining where at were their "Rooster Scoobies." They kept saying that, "where at," some affect of speech.

Ironica translated from their version of a thieves cant. They were trying to meet back up with their "crew" that was mining "rubies" down at the Ruby Caves, but when they took the latest haul up to the surface a massive insect-like abominable monstrosity crashed through the tunnel behind them, and they were worried it was still lying in wait. They promised the party gems, many, many, gems, from their boss Remy, if they helped them get back where at was the mining operation.

One look at the drooling Xorn and the glint in 'ol Prex's eyes was all it took for the group to agree. So off went (count with me) Splint (1), Temple(2), Captain Prex(3), Lieutenant Falz(4), Quartermaster Kargi(5), Dunny the Wolf(6), Rya Rezna(7), and Zireael(8), Ironica(9), and Dala'gse(10, count em, 10), to help escort the two twitchy fellows back to their crew. The goblins were excited to see some action again. The Xorn was hungry. They weren't quiet.

They came to the place whereat the creature had burrowed a new tunnel into the corridor wall, and whereat Splint and Temple thought it might be hiding out, waiting to ambush further down the corridor. The group ignored the tunnel entrance and kept going. Sure enough, about 100 feet further down the corridor, a massive creature burst through the walls with terrible claws massive mandibles, and a confusing, hypnotic gaze. It compelled everyone in the group to look it in those pools of eyes, a person could get lost in them, lost describing them, their strange yellow glow through the gloom of the tunnels, it was comforting almost, odd, but comforting, and so interesting, just to look at those eyes, deep liquid gold, so nice to swim in it would be, it would be so easy to forget what you were doing and just stare at those eyes, to just explore their depths and forget about the world, to see how many hues of gold they contained and what shapes and contours they revealed, so perfectly blissful to just keep looking looking looking looking looking...

AND THEN SUDDENLY YOU'RE AWAKE AGAIN and you have a massive gash across your chest and you're missing a pink from a claw and Prex and Falz are both knocked out at your feet, rapidly bleeding out from mandible wounds, and holy crap it's trying to get you to look into its beautiful comforting eyes again, those delightful deep amber pool--NO--you will it away and jump astride the creature's chitinous back, riding it like a saddle away from its devil eyes as you pound it's head with your Warhammer of Swirls. And Zireael is firing deadly arrows into the beast's forehead from beyond the edge of the torchlight. And Ironica has wrapped a cloak around her face to cover her eyes and is stabbing blindly at the thing. When suddenly you see whereat are the others and notice Temple and Splint suddenly turn into rats and scurry away off into the dark down the corridor. 

The wolf, Dunny, makes another devastating bite and a couple more hits from your companions and you realize you are actually winning! The creature screams an eerie, high-pitched, awful scream as it realized that what it thought was easy prey had sharp sticks and pokey edges. It rips open the nearest wall, tunneling away in escape. You manage to hop off its back before you slam into the rock wall and your cooling Tundra aura stabilizes your companions...

The group managed to limp back to the camp where Nancy rushed to heal them and everyone took a long rest. The goblins limped up to pee on the hour every hour. In the morning Prex gave an impassioned speech about making a stand wereat them creatures who promised rubies ran off to. He said he came to find treasures in this dungeon city and he took an Umber Hulk mandible to the chest, by golly, he intended to get some rubies out of em! 

So off they went. 

It seemed like Temple and Splint had plenty of time to set up some traps because Dala'gse ran into around 10 of them. In an otherwise clean corridor, every now and then there were piles of rubble off to the side, wereat there was a thin filament spread out between them. Tripping the wire caused two crossbow bolts, from crossbows hidden in the rubble, to fire. Dala'gse kept tripping, dodging, and collecting the trap materials. Ironica eventually took over and did the same. After a wile they stopped trying to generically perceive traps and instead just watched out for two rubble piles, wereat they would jump over the space they imagined the filament to be and then inspect the area more closely. In that way, they reached the opening to the Ruby Caves, and the stone span bridge Po described. 

Ironica slipped quietly out into the open platform from which the bridge emerged to scout out the scene. She saw a delicately arched stone bridge spanning a 70 foot gorge that was around 50 feet wide and another 50 feet deep. Around the edges of the gorge and lining its walls were evenly spaced torches every couple of  yards. Most of the torches were lit, some were not. No one bothered to ask which ones. At the other end of the bridge were six upturned wheelbarrows wereat there was a good deal of scattered rubble and gravel, apparently some of the mining lode was dumped in the pit. 

Zireael passed her a gemstone to throw for the Xorn to go chasing, in the hopes that whatever was on the other side of the bridge would confront the Xorn out of fear. Ironica tossed the gem and at first the Xorn chased it but then he melded into the stone and sunk downward toward the floor of the chasm, wereat Ironica glimpsed a strange red glow reflecting off the torchlight. Ironica was also pelted with five crossbow bolts originating from behind the upturned wheelbarrows, and she saw five arms extending out attached to said crossbows. 

She slinked back to the group who formulated a plan: Dala'gse and Zireael would make shields out of Dala'gse's bulette hide and the others would form into a two by two phalanx formation behind them. In that way they would storm across the bridge and confront the creatures behind the wheelbarrows. 

As they set out they got around 30 paces when they noticed something heretofore hidden. Two large, transparent, gelatinous cubes were closing in on them from behind, where they had been lurking on the platform. They were also bombarded with a volley of ten crossbow shots--evidently these foes had multiple attacks! Also ahead of them were two giant rats, leading the charge across the bridge. With the cubes closing in they decided to retreat and fight them first. They quickly learned that the cubes' strategy was to simply try to engulf any creature near it. And the cubes themselves were very acidic and painful to be inside of. Prex, Po, and Dala'gse felt that acid burn.

Dala'gse spun his new robe of summoning and two blink dogs appeared at his beck and call. He sicced them on the rats, which they made short work of. In the meantime, the group went after the cubes and after kiting them down the hallway, managed to make short work of them, out of range of wererat were the crossbows. 

They then turned back to the bridge in the phalanx formation and set about crossing it. Except again, there were two new cubes on the bridge this time, and they noticed the torches by the bridge had been extinguished, in some kind of effort to corral the cubes. The entire group then lit up torches in one hand and held crossbows in the other, shooting out the torches in a pattern so that they cubes would slink from their torches toward wererat were the entrenched creatures. 

It worked. The shooters stood up and ran for the corners of the platform, revealing themselves to be Temple, Split, Remy, and two other of the crew. Stuck in the corner, they scrambled and in the last moment transformed again in to rats, scurrying over the edge of the chasm to escape the cubes. The party picked them off easily, all but two of them, who managed to scurry up to the bridge wererat they transformed themselves into...Wererats! 

Having no where else to run, Splint and Remy came at the group savagely--going for bites on the first victims they encountered: Dala'gse and Zireael. Both were bitten, and both felt a strange metallic posession course through their veins, as the wounds festered. Z knew what that meant...

The goblins, Po, Rya, Dunny, and Ironica grouped together to push the wererats off the bridge, shoving them to their death in the gorge below. 

The group then looked down and saw the Xorn happily swimming in what looked like a massive pool of rubies, that littered the floor. There were at least 100 rubies in there, and there must have been at least triple that before the Xorn got into them. The Xorn welcomed his ruby friends down into the chasm and showed them that they too could be happy eating the gems! 

The group also managed to corral the cubes back into dark corners under the chasm, keeping the appropriate torches lit. The cubes ate well on the corpses of the fallen wererats. 

Finally, the ragged company checked out the caves, where they saw the remnants of the mining operation and a smooth stone chest that contained a sapphire, two familiar potions, and a strange red square textile. 

Oh, and Zireael and Dala'gse were infected with wererat Lycanthropy.