Beetling About

Turning their attention to the heavy wooden doors of the dwarven mine, the adventurers plied their muscle power to try and force them open, but to no avail. Akara the Kobold watched the dawrf Thorkil sweat, struggle and turn purple for some minutes, and then diffidently said, "Why you not use secret passage?"

Thorkil swivelled slowly to face the little reptillian. "What 'secret passage'?" he ground out with agonizing patience. Akara trotted to the edge of the bridge and pointed down. "That one," he said. At the bottom of the chasm, under the water, the lines of a submerged grille could just be made out.

Thorkil's rope was easily long enough for the job, so they secured it to the ruined bridge and climbed down into the stream. Thigh-deep in the water, they tried to smash the lock off the grille without success. Animir looked at Akara. "How did you get this open last time?" she said. "I not come this way", said Akara, "it need key."

"Have you got the key?"

"Akara not trusted with key! Dwarves have key." He peered at Thorkil. "You have key?" There was a sound of grinding teeth from Thorkil. He began trying to wrench the grille bodily out of the opening, again without results.

Animir remembered at this point a potion of Bull's Strength that she'd obtained on an earlier adventure. Unpacking this, she swigged it, and felt enhanced power flow through her muscles. Gripping the gridwork, she added her efforts to Thorkil's, and together they hauled the gate off its' mountings.

The passage on the other side was completely submerged for the first twenty feet, but rose steadily with steps underfoot, and after that distance, Animir's head broke the surface and she took a deep breath.

She found herself in a large cave, cluttered with stalagmites and stalactites, and with a thin sheen of water covering every surface. The only feature of note was a natural chimney in the floor to the east, above which were the rotted remains of a wooden winch and rope.

None of the group trusted this, and the surface of the shaft was slippery enough to be a dangerous climb unsupported, so Animir went outside and retrieved the rope while Thorkil hammered some spikes into the floor to tie it to. The vibrations of his hammering dislodged the winch, which collapsed into the hole with a loud crash. The three stared at each other for a few moments, but nothing happened, and with a shrug Thorkil finished knotting the rope and threw the loose end down.

Animir lowered herself cautiously down the shaft. After ten feet, it opened into the ceiling of another cave below, and she paused, looking at the floor 20' below her. Nothing was moving, but she could see a large wet mass on the floor near the northern of the two passages leading out. She also noticed that many of the stalagmites on the floor had been sheared off, as if knocked into by something heavy.

Descending to the floor, she drew her sword and donned her shield before calling the others down. Carefully, they investigated the object, discovering it to be the gutted and de-shelled carcasses of two large beetles, each more than two feet long.

As they pondered this, they heard a skittering sound, and a few seconds later a fire beetle came trundling out of the eastern passage towards them. There was much nervous gripping of weapons, but the creature ignored them completely and made for the northern passage, where it started eating its' late and presumably unlamented fellows.

Unfortunately, it was now blocking the passage. Animir made an attempt to sneak past, but it stopped eating and reared up, antennae waving and mandibles clacking. There seemed no alternative but to fight it, so Animir and Thorkil advanced on it while Akara backed off to the side and spun up his sling.

Thorkil and Animir both attacked with confidence, and were dismayed as their strikes bounced off the insect's carapace without effect. They were beginning to understand why the carcasses had been stripped of their shells! Akara sent a stone whizzing across the cave which struck the beetle with a loud crack, putting a split in the shell and releasing a flow of vile yellow fluid. The beetle, enraged, struck back, and its' mandibles slashed a wound in Animir's sword arm.

Thorkil changed his aim, and this time his mighty flail struck home, crushing a leg. Akara repeated his success with another well-aimed slingstone, but Animir dropped her sword and backed out of combat, drawing a painful parting blow from the beetle and a worried glance from Thorkil. Her move worried Akara, too, for he missed this time, but she knew what she was doing; changing weapons for her trusty longbow, she drew and loosed. The arrow disappeared entirely inside the beetle, which dropped instantly, dead.

Not hesitating for a moment, she slung the bow on her shoulder again, dug out her wand of Mage Armour, and applied its' magic to all three of them.

They could already hear more skittering sounds from the eastern passage....