Session 11 – The Ogre’s Cave

In the morning, the group gathers and Granny D cooks them breakfast, a huge feast of eggs, pancakes, pastries and other delicious breakfast items. All of the Digglebottom family members (cousins, uncles, aunts and grandchildren including Bun and Hector) show up and it turns into something of a party.

Before they leave, Uncle Weasel says that he wants to speak with them and gives some advice on being sneaky to Voran. He gives he and Swiftmark both a set of Thief’s Tools. Also, he says that the ogre’s cave is set in the coastal rocks on the north of the island. Also, he notes that the ogre has a very good sense of smell and hearing, but his eyesight is quite bad. The item they are looking for looks like a small, smoky crystal ball that glows faintly white. It has carving and metal inlay on the sides.

As they go outside, the friends see that their horses have been brushed and fed by the boy that maintain’s Swiftmark’s pony. They mount their three rented horses, and Swiftmark his pony.

The friends start traveling north, and the weather is nice as it’s late spring/early summer. There are rolling hills, some patches of trees, and some areas of larger hills before they reach the northern coast of the island.

As they are approaching the northern area of the island, the friends see a group of people ahead of them. Voran sends his wolf to scout ahead and it hides in the grass on the side of the road.  Voran uses his Ring of Animal Sight to see through Fluffy’s eyes and checks out the people coming toward them. They appear to be an adventuring group with two humans and two elves. The friends decide to let them approach.

As the others get nearer, the lead warrior says “Ho there!” and then a moment later, “Who goes there?” Daladium immediately blurts out “We’re adventurers!” but declines to say anything further. The two human warriors identify themselves as Calaan and Dryden, and they are with Elamath, an elf warrior, and Neesa, a female elf with a longbow. They ask the group what they are doing here, but Voran and Daladium don’t know what to say as they don’t want to give away their objective.

Sensing that the others are uncomfortable, Swiftmark rides to the front and tells the others that they are his friends, and they are helping to take him home. The adventurers wish them luck, and say that their main goal is to find magic items. They were looking for an ogre’s cave near here which is said to have some riches, but they can’t find it. Before they leave, they ask the friends if they would like to buy any of their magical items, if they can offer other magical items in trade. The friends consider and Voran says that he would give up his magical torch. Calaan asks to see it, and Voran gives it to him. Calaan thinks that there isn’t anything magical about it, but Daladium says that it can be turned on and off with a thought and it never burns down. Calaan tries hard and finally lights the torch. He is very impressed and says that he could offer a set of extremely fine thief’s tools for it. Voran agrees and the trade is made. The adventurers bid the friends farewell and go on their way.

Mid-afternoon, the friends finally reach the coast. It is very rocky, with cliffs that descend to the lake dozens of feet. Strong winds here cause the waves to crash quite high on the rocks. Voran starts looking around for signs of the ogre, and after a while spots some old tracks that are large enough. He follows them for quite a ways but they end near the rocks.

Looking closer, the friends see that a few of the rocks are worn down as if they had been handled a lot. Looking down from these rocks they see that there is a steep drop-off of 50 feet or so before the water. Daladium and Switftmark decide to go down and check things out. The others (even Fluffy!) hold the rope so they can descend. After a few minutes of climbing, they find a large opening in the rocks that appears to be a cave. It is almost 20 feet wide and definitely large enough for an ogre.

Voran ties off the rope, and he and Elysant descend to the cave. Fluffy cannot come down and stays to guard the rope. Torches are lit and they move into the cave. It is completely dark, but Voran can still see well with his elf-eyes. They proceed almost a quarter mile through the corridor until they see that it breaks off into three branches. There is light coming from all three.

In front of the fork in the cave, there is a large pile of bones. Checking carefully, the friends see that there are tripwires here–any motion on them will bring a boulder crashing down on their heads, which is probably what happened to the people whose bones are underfoot. The wires are too close to the ground to go under, and too high to jump over. Thinking for a moment, the friends finally agree that Voran should try to disable the trap. He uses his new thief’s tools to work on the mechanism and Swiftmark helps. After a few minutes there is a “click” and it appears to be disabled. Daladium tests this by pushing his staff on the ropes. Nothing happens when he does, so everyone proceeds carefully through.

The fiends proceed to the left tunnel, which winds around for a while and then opens up into a cavern. Since she makes a lot of noise with her armor, Elysant stays back, but the others push forward into the room to see what is there. In the room are a large bed and a chest of drawers, along with lots  of miscellaneous items scattered around. On the bed they see a horribly ugly animal that is not quite a wolf, and not quite a bear, and not quite a horse. It is sleeping soundly and does not hear them approach.