The party awakes to the faint sounds of moaning and cries for help. Rick opens the door to the main chamber and sees a small man lying prone in a small pool of blood. He approaches with caution, prompting the man for his name and situation. The halfling responds that his name is Cael and he’s been separated from his group. They were attacked by fowlspawn and he barely escaped with his life. He doesn’t appear to have any weapons other than a quarterstaff. Rick offers the man some basic first aid to staunch his bleeding and asks how he managed to escape. Cael says he’s a wizard and was the last into the room filled with fowlspawn, attacking from the rear of the group. One of the fowlspawn managed to get ahold of him and rendered his wounds before Cael could retaliate and kill it. Rick confers with the group and they decide to assist the halfling and let him come along with them through the caverns.

With a new member in the party, they set about deciding what door to open and traverse deeper into the caves. They decide to take the eastern door. A flight of stairs once descended 20 feet to a rough cavern beyond the door, but these have collapsed beneath a fall of rubble from the ceiling. Beyond this rocky slope, the rough stone walls are blackened as if by fire, and patches of rust-colored moss dot the smooth stone floor.

The darkness ahead is briefly broken by a flickering light like that of a candle. A ghostly figure of a goblin warrior appears, beckoning you to approach. The ghostly goblin’s face is a mask of pain and yearning, showing signs of a fiery death. Beneath that yearning, they sense a dark malevolence.

Encounter 20: Burning Vengeance
Goblin flame vent haunt
2 goblin fire phantoms
Fire bat
Flame vent trap

Throughout the battle, flames shoot from the vent in the middle of the room, harming the party members who stand  near it. The fire bat is stirred from its rest only when the flame vent trap first activates. It uses fiery swoop to attack before ending its move within the area of the flame vent trap, which it does not fear.

When the other combatants are dead, the party goes after the fire bat, attacking it with ranged abilities as much as possible, until Sabraxa finally throws an axe at it. And misses. And the axe gets stuck in the wall under the bat. They finally kill the bat and retrieve the axe.

The reenter the chamber in which they slept, and open the western door. They go down a staircase and the path widens. A wide, slow-flowing river divides the cavern they are in from another chamber to the west. On the opposite shore, a pale goblin in filthy skins crouches at the edge of the water. When it sees you, the creature hisses, drawing a pair of stone knives from its belt as it fades back into darkness.

Encounter 21: Lost Clan
Deep goblin curser
3 deep goblin stoneblades
6 deep goblin wretches

They cross the river and Cael casts a light spell to illuminate the cavern. The goblins fight to the death as long as the goblin curser is alive. As soon as the curser is killed, the remaining goblin stops fighting and tries to escape. The party runs him down and interrogates him. They find out that the goblins were until mind control by the curser and that they’ve just killed his entire clan. They let him go and he runs off into the caves. The party turns back and loots the bodies.  The deep goblin curser has a gold necklace with red garnets and 2 potions of healing. He also carries an ancient book with the Gentle Repose ritual in it. He has some residuum as well.

From the passageway ahead comes the sound of distant combat. The clash of weapons rings out over shrieks, some in Goblin, others in a guttural tongue.

This huge chamber appears to have once been a barracks. Bones and debris are scattered across the floor, as are the rotted remains of what might once have been furnishings and weapons. Rotted purple draperies hang at intervals, some of them obscuring a number of stone benches. In the center of this chamber, a group of ghostly goblins engages in melee with a trio of hideously deformed creatures that have four arms and two mouths on their goblin-like bodies.

Bands of rusted iron seal these stone double doors. The massive mummified corpse of a creature that looks like a flayed ape with huge hands stands before the doors. A dusty spear is rammed through the corpse and into the crack between the doors.

Encounter 18: Barracks Brawl
Goblin Ghost Boss
2 Goblin Phantoms
3 Dolgrim Warriors

Alain steps into the room and surveys the battle. He critically succeeds in being stealthy and is unnoticed by the goblins and dolgrims. He lines up his target, the warrior in the middle, and shoots a faming crossbow bolt at him. The fire explodes on contact, setting the surrounding creatures aflame. Five creatures die screaming and burning in Alain’s flameburst of doom. The room now has one goblin and a bunch of flaming piles of ghost. Rick steps up next with his bow, still catching the remaining goblin by surprise, and misses. With the help of the team, the last goblin is defeated.

Some of the wealth of the warriors and explorers who died here over the centuries is scattered about the room. A search reveals a bone battle horn filigreed with gold hanging on the wall, and a broken game case and board on the floor. Scattered around the board are 20 bloodstone playing pieces and some gold.

The spear in the western door appears aged until it is pulled out of the door and the dust falls from it, whereupon it gleams with a dark hue. It is a +2 vicious spear.

They exit the area to the north. The cavern ahead is bisected by a rubble-strewn bluff. From beyond the downslope comes the flicker of torchlight and the echo of harsh voices.

Below the slope, the cavern opens northeast to a narrow fault passage and northwest to a set of open double doors. Prowling the darkness ahead are two deformed creatures like those you encountered earlier. With them is an enormous hulking foulspawn, its flesh glistening pink as though its skin has been flayed away.

Encounter 19: Foulspawn Scouts
Dolgaunt
3 Dolgrim Warriors
Dolgarr Berserker

After some ranged attacks from her teammates, Sariel jumps down the hill, somersaults in the air, and lands perfectly. Everyone stops and watches her with awe, then gets back to fighting each other. The berserker hurls Sabraxa at Rick, knocking him down and crushing him with the dragon. The Dolgaunt keeps grabbing the players and holding them with his tentacles with suction cups of doom.

Finally they break free and defeat the monsters. They exit the room to the east into a long skinny passageway.

Encounter:
Foulspawn Berserker
Foulspawn Seer

They lure the monsters back into the main room, attacking at range when possible. It is a long and arduous battle, with Gennal healing people so much that eventually they’re overflowing with health and practically barfing rainbows. Gennal also casts consecrated ground and puts it under the foulspawn. It follows them as they move like a holy hoover of death. With all of that, they defeat the foulspawn and rest in the lockable chamber for the night.