They pause just beyond the entrance of the cavern and spend a few days cataloging the various and sundry treasures they have collected. Ioun stones are handed out and various items change hands and once this is done, they resume their journey. This end of the large cavern seems to be the scene of much mining activity with pesky goblins swinging picks and collecting ore – which explains all the ore they found in the troll’s lair.
They decide there is little profit in chasing goblins about in the dark and cavernous regions of the underground, so back onto the river they go. They steadily row upstream until they reach a large underground lake. There, a giant pike surfaces and nearly capsizes the boat in which Kingsley, Goldpiece and Malchor are seated. Kingsley is pitched out of the boat and swiftly sinks into the depths – being plate mail clad and burdened with shield, sword, helm and backpack.
While the cleric, elf, mage and fighter try rowing to shore, the paladin downs a potion of water breathing and – carrying an extra dose for Kingsley – she jumps into the water…and is promptly swallowed whole by a second giant fish.
By the time she manages to cut herself free, she is on the bottom of the lake. The mage has entered the fray – polymorphing himself into a slightly smaller fish. While they manage to wound and drive off the remaining predators – but not before the paladin has been swallowed once again!
Eventually they haul Kingsley’s corpse out of the lake and return him to the land of the living. Then, once fortified, they resume river explorations – going further upriver and closer to the sound of the waterfall. Deciding that rafting over the falls might not be a good idea – if it is the same 200 foot drop they saw earlier – they turn away from the sound and find themselves drifting along a tributary that is heading towards a large set of (apparently) mithril gates that span the river.
There was a mention of mithril gates in a poem discovered in the lair of the river trolls near the manticore lair – so maybe these are those…what did that poem say again?
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