ATD: 037 Up and Down

Saeldur rested and plotted. While he did so, Lydia and Garth Ironhand asked him to wait until the morning before acting. If he could watch over them until then, they would make a dash for the river and Dunstone. Once they got to town, they promised to raise the alarm about the adventurers’ plight.

The next morning, the duo slipped out of the monastery, and Saeldur slipped into the ruins. Moving to the storeroom, he took three coils of rope. The whole level seemed to be deserted, and he reached the pit trap without seeing anyone or anything. The elf noticed the pitons he and Ozloc had hammered into place the day before were missing. However, the trap was open. The ranger wedged his staff into the gap between the wall and pit lid. Then he tied the three ropes together, fashioned a harness and abseiled into the hole.

It was lucky he had brought so much rope. The steep shaft seemed unending. He made it all the way to the bottom of the rope—300-foot worth—before spying a natural cave at the bottom of the shaft. Even then, he had run out of rope—the floor lay tantalisingly only 20-foot below his legs. Luckily, Saeldur had his normal coil of rope, which he dextrously tied off.

Thus it was that Saeldur reached what turned out to be an extensive network of natural caves. As he explored, the signs of his companions’ passing were everywhere: scuff marks and bloodstains on the floor, hacked humanoid bodies, the remains of some kind of gelatinous creature and more!

Luckily, Saeldur was a skilled tracker, and he found it simple to follow his companions’ meandering pathway through the labyrinth. Eventually, he spied flickering lights ahead and heard familiar voices raised in familiar argument…