Cat places stones along the path to mark the boundaries of the path, so even if blinded, she could come back this way without falling into the pits.

Upon seeing the slime covered crystals, Alice attempts to take a sample using her dagger, but all she manages to do is dull the tip.

While traversing the gap, Alice attempts to see if the burrow is fresh.

[Investigation/Nature 1d20+2=9]

It's hard for her to tell.

Yulya places her hand on one of the crystals and tries to find out if magic flows through them. Her hand sinks into a gelatinous mucus like slime.

[Type 1d4=2][DMG 1d4=2]

Magic indeed, she takes 2 necrotic damage from the living substrate.

[Optional Interaction]

Ashley is appalled by Yulya's action, "Why don't you have gloves?! I wouldn't touch that eww!"

Yulya then casts LIGHT on a small rock and tosses it into the hole to see what happens. The pebble descends into the hole and bounces off a sloped floor, descending down further to the west and out of sight. The hole is at least deeper than the 30ft dim radius of the spell.

Cat readies her bow to shoot anything that would react to the light, but nothing comes of the test.

This place is rife with monsters! Was it always like this? I question how the Rockseekers could work here...

Ashley is thinking as Cat further pulverizes old bones.



"Didn't they say something foul was happening here? Necromancers, summoners, opportunists coming in out of the cold. I bet half this stuff wasn't here before that snowstorm, but yeah, that means they must have known about the other half; so sending low level adventurers against this onslaught seems very suspicious to me. First against a hoard of goblins and hobgoblins with wolves and a dragon, now bandits, bugbears, and ghouls? You'd almost think they didn't want us to survive, but maybe that's just me." She gesticulates with growing distaste.

"Then Sildar didn't want us dealing with Harbin, but Harbin seems like the most helpful guy. So we know he wants to process the ore so he's looking out for profit,it figures he'd be nice, and wants to be the royalty of Phandalin to the dismay of Elmina Barthen, figures she wouldn't like her rival, and the Rockseekers just want to mine the ore, that I believe, and I don't take the dwarves as being intentionally deceptive; furthermore, why send us to our deaths if that means they still need to clear the mine? Good luck with that!"

Her frustration intensifies. "Sildar though, I don't trust him at all at this point. My bet is he's working with the bandits. I bet he wants to be the royalty of Phandalin, and what better way than to control the mine and set up a local slave trade. But a mine isn't the best base of operations, so there must be something else going on in here than just mithril ore. Something the Orcs wanted, something the powerful want. That plaque said:"

In the throat of the Forge of Spells, forevermore known as Wave Echo Cave, our greatest treasure was taken from us in the Year of the Empty Hourglass 951... To this day they come to claim what was long lost and strike a new fortune, for the riches of the sword mountains remain a beacon to those who seek wealth and power... but to all who come, show respect for those who forever dwell here as a reminder of what once was...

Ashley pulls out the dark crystal from her pack. "I bet this is worth something, I know this is the thing Tharden wanted, I bet it's worth a lot more than just ore, and powerful people could use this to speak to their demonic gods. The plaque said their greatest treasure was taken, yet people still seek what was long lost. This was lost, but not necessarily taken, so what was long lost? That's my first question for the Rockseekers. What would someone come to this mine for?"

As Ashley's unexpectedly long diatribe laden monolog rattles on, Yulya casts Guidance on herself and searches for traps.

[Perception 1d20+5+1d4=20]

With fair certainty, Yulya finds no traps in this area so Yulya begins to lead her party further south, and before she follows, with further curiosity, Alice takes her 10ft pole and pokes the puffball in the NW corner. It releases a puff of spores but she stays out of the cloud.

Cat shakes her head at her alien friend's tastes then the fun is interrupted by a hissing sound. Coming up seemingly from the shadows, smoke rises like a silky veil around you, several draconic serpents rise from the smoke.



[Lore 1d20+5=CR]

Both Cat and Yulya recognize these as Fume drakes, a powerful creature of the Underdark. The foul scent from earlier makes sense now, there's a passage to the Underdark in this region of the cave, perhaps why there was no false floor over these pits, this part of the mine, beautiful and undisturbed, was likely set off-limits.

[Initiative 1d20+3=13 vs 1d20+1=14]

They attack!

[Round 1]

Traversing with lightning speed, the drakes approach to attack. One is exceptionally large, the other is stunted, the large one attacks Yulya while the other attacks Cat.

The large one breaths a sulfurous poisonous gas enveloping Yulya, Nixie and Ashley.

[FORT vs DC 16 1d20+5,+3,+2=18,10,4][DMG 3d6/2=8,3d6=16,4]

Nixie coughs from the fumes taking 16 poison damage, Ashley gets enough of it to take a minor 4 damage, Yulya manages to protect herself somewhat but still takes 8 poison damage.

The smaller one attacks Cat with Draconic Fury

[HIT vs AC16 1d20+8,+4,+0 (20,CM,16)][DMG 2d8+3+1d6 poison+2d6+5=33]

Cat takes a devastating blow and chokes on poison fumes released by the drakes bite.

[Make your moves]

In Germany Police would storm the house and arrest everyone for terrorism.

I did this kind of thing back in my esrly 20's because I'm crazy like that. The things I made were cereal brands
Grape seeds and Nutshells (grape nuts) because those things are hard as rocks.
Oops nothing (capt'n crunch oops all berries) because I was upset that once it was all berries, the berries tasted different
and Sad'ohs (Cheerios) because the plain ones taste like sad.

I can't find the originals, I know I actually printed them out and put them on the boxes, those are long gone, but the files are missing too. Google "oops all" and hot pocket flavors meme and you see this is a well loved hobby.

Whoa, and here I thought I was the only one doing this!
I remember Kellog's Cornflakes -> Chaos Khorneflakes with a Greater Demon of Khorne behind a bowl full of blood instead of milk.
My favorite work was Nasi Goreng -> Nazi Göring with a picture of Herman Göring in his white Reichsmarschall uniform and a speech bubble saying Wenn euch DAS nicht schmeckt will ich Meier heißen! (If you dislike the taste of this, I'll be called Meier)
Background:
Göring was chief of the airforce and said that if one allied plane ever reached Germany People could call him Meier (one of the most generic German names). Needless to say, German cities were bombed to ashes and people called the air raid sirens 'Meiers Jagdhorn' (Meier's hunting bugle) because Göring would rather go hunting or on holiday than do his job. People still liked him just because of that. He didn't give a fuck.



In pre-internet times and before printers existed, I memed by collecting and cutting out all sorts of exploitable pics and text from newspapers and catalogues. I'd assemble collages from that and send it to friends in a letter. Good times!

Nowadays I have to keep funny pictures on multi-encrypted drives and use uncrackable high security devices that leave no evidence in case police raids my home for some bs reason and finds 'potentially divisive content' / 'possible copyright infringement' / 'Nazi codes'. Alice disposed of all physical evidence including my real life paper meme collection because we can't have nice things here. When did everything turn into such an Orwellian nightmare?

As you walk East past the old ale barrels now repurposed for ore, you see several areas where the false floors have collapsed.

Alice peeks down into the abyss
This mine is riddled with holes! We must be more careful with explosives...
Memorize the gaps! I don't want anyone to fall down there if we gotta retreat fast.

Cat is also more concerned with the holes than the crystals.
Nyaa that won't do Nya. We need some good markers Nya.

On the way, Cat picks up rocks and places them on the floor, cordoning off dead ends and holes.
Now even in bad visibility we should safely find our way back Nya!

Yulya is not fond of wobbly bridges over chasms with potential monsters lurking below and crosses as fast as possible. She casts LIGHT on a small rock and tosses it into the hole to see what happens.

Cat readies her bow to shoot anything that would react to the light.
Stay clear from the edge Nya and be ready to fall back Nya!

Cat looks at the orc remains
We should destroy any skeletons that look like they could rise up again and cause trouble Nya!

Alice takes her 10ft pole and pokes the puffball in the NW corner, ready to move back should it release spores or something. If it does nothing, Alice uses Phagocytosis on a fungus to determine if it is an ordinary living being.
Cat, is this edible?

Cat shakes her head at her alien friend's tastes.
Nya maybe for you Nya! I wouldn't eat that Nya but you try first Nya! But be careful Nya!

lol wut?
ive never herd of that but i like the idea

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GsYfDMdBPs

I did this kind of thing back in my esrly 20's because I'm crazy like that. The things I made were cereal brands

Grape seeds and Nutshells (grape nuts) because those things are hard as rocks.

Oops nothing (capt'n crunch oops all berries) because I was upset that once it was all berries, the berries tasted different

and Sad'ohs (Cheerios) because the plain ones taste like sad.

I can't find the originals, I know I actually printed them out and put them on the boxes, those are long gone, but the files are missing too. Google "oops all" and hot pocket flavors meme and you see this is a well loved hobby.