We leave Old Durnick and travel towards Phantom Hollow, despite Josephus’ warnings. It takes us a few hours to get there. We see in the distance a huge tree as we approach the town. We estimate that it is between 200 and 250 feet just to the bottom branches. The roots are spread out all around and there is quite a lot of slashes and sap covering the trunk of the tree.
We get off the cart to explore; Sarthisis tastes the sap of the tree and it tastes very bitter. Eilenos and Sathisis see that there are small burrows underneath some of the exposed roots. We also see a skeleton laying on the ground nearby. It is clothed in leather armor which is in perfect shape, and he also has a backpack on his back. In the backpack we find 3 torches, 50 feet of rope, a waterskin and a pouch with 17 gold at his belt. He has a longsword, a dagger and an undamaged wooden shield next to him. Also in his belt he has a pouch with 3 leaves and 2 healing roots in it. Porodo identifies the leaves as Brye leaves, which counteract poison from a creature called a Mevoshk (a 12 foot long snake with black and yellowish coloration and a cobra-like hood).
Sarthisis smells the water in the waterskin and it seems to have a film on it. He decides to dump it out in one of the burrows nearby. As he does this he sees something slithering down the side of the tree — it appears to be one of the Mevoshk snakes! Sarthisis fires a magical icebolt at him and scores a hit. Krodmich also scores a hit and the mevoshk strikes back, biting him in the arm. The dwarf goes immediatly rigid and falls to the ground. Sarthisis kills the snake and Eilenos rushes to Krodmich to administer the cure. The first leaf doesn’t work so he uses the one the Dwarf had, and he is no longer paralyzed.
We notice a large one of the burrows in the ground and go to explore. We sense the stench of death emanating from it. We decide to descend and see what is down there. The ground is slimy and muddy, there are various insects here. Eilenos lights his lantern and Porodo pulls out his peysha mold to help light their way. Looking around, Krodmich sees small heat signatures above us. In front of and below us there is a huge opening where there is only darkness, except for torch lights that we can see. The area expands to a huge area. We see also hordes of bird-like creatures with huge spanning wings and large stingers protruding from their beaks.
Our torchlight seems to have attracted them, and they fly towards us to attack. They hit Eilenos, Sarthisis and the lizard with their beaks and they begin bleeding out. During the fighting, Eilenos loses grip on his sword and it falls into the darkness. There is no sound of it hitting the ground. Soon afterward Krodmich loses the grip on his axe and it also falls into the void. The creatures are defeated and we bind our wounds so we do not continue bleeding.
As we look below we see a small sliver of white light among the torches. It looks to be the same white light that Eilenos’ sword gives off when it detects those loyal to Grom. Porodo confirms that it is the sword with his excellent vision, and also sees a wooden platform down below with several goblins on it. They are looking curiously at the sword and have picked up Krodmich’s axe to look at it. Porodo fires an arrow at the one holding the axe and it goes through the top of its head, killing it instantly.
Sarthisis has an idea — he will tie all of us to him and cast his levitation spell so we can all be carried over to the platform. We do so and jump off of the platform, even though Eilenos is wearing plate mail. We freefall for several seconds and then Sarthisis casts his levitation spell so we float to the ground. As we are falling, Porodo catches a glimpse of niches in the wall behind us, and there seem to be zombies in them. We float in and begin attacking the goblins with missile weapons. We land at the center of the platform and continue attacking them. They are all killed except for one inside a small structure on the platform. It does not attack; it is cowering behind a box in the corner. Sarthisis decides to try and communicate with it but cannot. He puts it on a leash. Eilenos sees that his sword does not glow white around the creature so he may not be loyal to Grom.
Eilenos checks the items around that the goblins dropped, and the short sword that Eilenos was stabbed with appears to be magical. The blade is very cold. (The sword does standard short sword damage but when it hits it will do an extra D6 of cold damage. There are no bonuses to hit or to damage, etc.)
In the wall adjacent to the platform is a cave that lies in the cavern wall. We explore this area and see that it also smells rather rank. There are five large rats, one of them an extremely large “stink rat.” We run towards and attack, however Krodmich cannot because he is overcome by the stench. Eilenos, in the heat of the moment, loses his composure and pulls out his evil sword to attack. As he does, he thinks to himself “I could easily kill all of these rats in this room by myself. Hmm.” We quickly dispatch of them and Krodmich kills the stink rat after several more tries.
We check a dead adventurer that is nearby. He has a short sword, a light crossbow with 6 bolts and 9 gold. None of his items are magical. We see that there is a cavern that goes down further, and outcroppings to help climb upward to the next level. We decide to descend and see what lies below. There is about 50 feet of tracking back and forth and we see a fork where we can either go out the side of the cave or continue down. We come out the side and see torches and another building. There are two goblins guarding the area and we take them by surprise. There are more goblins on the platform, and one of them has a staff and robe like a magician. He leers at us and begins attacking with magical power from his staff. We manage to kill him and we search the area. His staff is certainly magical, Eilenos gives it to Sarthisis. (The staff has 26 charges of Ice Burst, with a range of 70 feet).
We return into the tunnel in the side of the cavern and go down another level. It is about 150 feet down. This area is completely empty. The next one down goes across the entire width of the cavern — we crawl across to the other side into another cavern the size of a small room. There is here, piled to the ceiling, an enormous amount of gold coins from all over Juravia. Sarthisis searches through it and finds a burgundy colored robe inside it. Eilenos ascertains that it is indeed magical. Krodmich finds buried on the opposite side a Dwarven axe — it is also magical. Sarthisis puts on the cloak and can suddenly see in all directions and heat signatures as well. The rest of us see two gold clasps appear that are eyeball-shaped. Soon eyeballs of different shapes, sizes, colors and races appear all over it. The party members are repulsed; Eilenos pokes his sword at one of the eyes and it blinks in pain, he recoils, disgusted. Sarthisis decides that he cannot wear it and gives it to Porodo.
The axe that Krodmich found seems to want to leap out of his hands. He tosses it and it returns to his hand after sweeping a wide arc.
Porodo, with his newfound powers of sight, sees a large dragon crawling through the hole. His scales are black and slimy. He says “Find anything interesting?” Eilenos says “Away, creature. We are protected by my lord Berethenu!” The dragon laughs and says “You live and die by my leave while you are here. Why are you here?” Eilenos says “We came to investigate the evil that is said to be in these caverns.”
Sarthisis begins casting a magic spell, and the dragon, seeing this, says “How quaint. I’m not an unreasonable dragon. Just leave all of your things in the pile and I will let you leave.” Eilenos says “I took nothing from your stash and I don’t mean to take anything, I just came here to kill you!” With that both sides attack.
Eilenos rushes forward and the dragon spits out a disgusting slime attack onto him. The initial impact causes damage, but the slime immediately sloughs off of his armor. The rest of the party moves to attack. After several moments of heated combat he falls down, dead.