19th Dravago, 999 YK
- They rest up and tend to their wounds, having decided they want to go back into the Glitterdrift and visit the village.
- Naze cannot find a stick, this is an underground tunnel with no trees. "This place sucks."
- Runmae is still injured, but cannot have first aid performed on her again for an hour because she did it herself, rather than Naze doing it. Now the whole group has to suffer due to Naze looking for a stick. (Which they give him shit for, affectionately)
- Runmae tries to cook the Darkmantles they recovered from the drift, curious to find out if it is edible. She's cooked squid before, so she applies the same techniques to these.
- Valaari is concerned that the darkmantles might be poisonous? They refuse to eat it, as getting sick could jeoperdize the entire mission.
- Valaari says if Runmae gets the shits, they're leaving her.
- Runmae bites down. It is Not Good. It's rubbery, bitter, and it tastes dark. She spits it out, and it has stained her mouth and teeth black.
- Valaari comments that at least she's not dead.
- Runmae swigs some whiskey to wash the taste away, and it interacts interestingly with the whiskey. Hmm, maybe it would be okay if they brewed it into alcohol?
- They wait for a couple of hours, with Naze getting over his tantrum and tending to their remaining wounds.
- The group then return to the Glitterdrift.
- Valaari leads the way back to where they first met Tinvak and Two Rusted Gears Grinding Towards Progress, and asks Bhaltair to call them with their drum.
- Bhaltair plays the sound once, and then they wait. They don't want to give anything else more information on their location.
- After 15 minutes, they haven't heard anything. Bhaltair plays the sound again, and Valaari instructs them to do so every 30 minutes.
- On the third time, (45 minutes since first), they hear the clicking in response.
- Warren's player wants us all to know that Warren is fine with being quiet for this long. He's fine.
- They periodically hear the clicking as they wait, sometimes it is Tinvak's pitch, sometimes it is not.
- About ten minutes after they heard the response, Tinvak arrives with Gears on his shoulders. Tinvak signs, but Bhaltair's spell has worn off and nobody understands it. Bhaltair casts the spell again on Valaari.
- Tinvak signs that the village is willing to meet the group.
- Valaari asks if there's anything they need to do or know, Tinvak responds that they need to be quiet, all of them.
- Valaari huddles with the group to minimize the noise, and whispers that they agree and that the group needs to be quiet.
- They follow the Expert (Warren) and follow Tinvak. Naze is struggling with moving quietly.
- Frustrated, Tinvak picks Naze up and places him on the platform on his upper back, next to Gears.
- They proceed, until Tinvak stops. Gears signs that there are Cave Fishers. Valaari turns to the others and makes crab claws with their hands.
- Gears asks if they can hunt it, as they're currently empty handed. Valaari nods and draws their weapon.
- Tinvak silently walks forward, grabs the filament, and yanks the cave fisher out of its perch. He catches it as it falls, and gently places it on the ground.
- It changes everything when you're bigger than the crab.
- Naze lights the crab up (with light) and then fails to light the crab up (with damage).
- Warren sneaks up and stabs the cave fisher in its mouth parts, silently. Terrifying.
- Tinvak notices something off to his left. Something unseen bites Zaphkiel, and then tries to bite the cave fisher.
- The crab hits Tinvak quite hard, but then Tinvak brings his maul down and finishes it off.
- Valaari moves up and lights up their surroundings, revealing a giant scorpion!
- Something silently moves up and begins mauling Bhaltair, who is not quiet about it.
- Warren assists, and reveals a shadowy, almost intangible dog-shaped creature. He stabs it.
- Bhaltair crawls away, kicking at the hound, and uses magic to entangle it and slow it down.
- Between them, they manage to take down all of the creatures that attack them. It's an exceedingly dangerous encounter, with many people being severely injured.
- They harvest the corpses of the shadow hounds (which have been reduced to an ectoplasmic goop), the scorpions, and Tinvak takes the entire cave fisher corpse.
- Tinvak apologises that he didn't hear the hounds, and then takes what's left of the scorpion corpses (for food).
- Naze tends to Valaari, who is the most injured, and they keep moving.
- Tinvak leads them to their village, a description of which is below.
Description of the Village
It doesn't take very long to reach their destination, a tunnel that has been blocked by bricks that differ from the surrounding stone, framing a large, rounded slab that seems to be made of the same material. The minotaur steps up to the slab and leverages their strength to roll it out of the wall. Strangely, it doesn't make the sound you expect, it's almost spongey and very quiet.
On the other side of the slab is a strangely well lit village. Tinvak ushers you through quickly, before rolling the slab back into place behind you.
The village is located in a large, open cavern. The same bricks that blocked the tunnel have been packed against all of the walls of the cavern, and they've also built small dwellings out of them. The bricks glow as if soaked in the light of the Glitterdrift, though the light doesn't seem to fade, making the entire village visible, though the inhabitants appear as shadows blocking that light from view.
The walls of these dwellings have multiple tiers of planters attached to them, growing a variety of bioluminescent fungus, which likely makes up part of their diet. In the center of the village is a wide open space, where there are no buildings. Instead, there is what seems to be a large, tactile map carved into the floor.
The inhabitants are a mixture of minotaurs and the same small humanoids that resemble Two Rusted Gears.