Ryl

Examining the cave formerly occupied by the kobolds, Animir and her companions found little of interest. The eggs they considered briefly.

"Should we break them, or take them with us?" wondered Animir. Thorkil shrugged and went back to pulling crossbow bolts out of dead kobolds. Akara looked bemused. "I don't know," he said, then brightened. "Dwarves will know!" he said. "Leave it to dwarves."

For lack of a better idea this was what they did. Moving on, the passageway opening in the south side of the large cave came into view. They looked at this for a moment, and considered the fact that the enemy reinforcements had come from that direction. Looking at their own fairly serious wounds, Animir decided that they really could do with not going that way, and led the party north instead.

Here, the rough cave walls gave way to a short section of cut and dressed stone blocks. Examining them, Thorkil declared them to be dwarf-work, and reasonably recent; a hundred years or so. All Animir could tell was that it was too blasted low for her; the ceiling was 5' high, fine for Thorkil who was a foot smaller than that and Akara who was even shorter, but not enough for a 5'8" elf. She hunched over and shuffled along.

One passage was blocked by a rockfall, which Thorkil told them had been deliberately caused by the dwarves, to block whatever the passage led to. There was no way through there; so they took the other route.

This brought them to a 30' section of inclined passage, sloping upwards at 45° and descending down below their feet for 3' or so. At the top a wooden platform of some sort was vaguely visible; at the bottom were what looked like bones. (See the map for a cross-section!)

Animir scrambled down for a closer look, and found the bones to be those of kobolds, several rather badly broken, she surmised from a tumble down the angled slope. Looking up, she reckoned that, though it was tough, she could climb the incline; so she slung her shield on her back and set to it. A few minutes' scrambling saw her at the top, where she found a small wooden platform, perched above the chute on one side and opening out over a 12' drop to water on the other. She secured a rope and threw it down for the others, and examined the next cave as they climbed.

It was a large cave, about 50' across, and completely full of water. Peering down, Animir could see handholds cut in the rock leading down, into the water. Sighing, she shed her armour again, and started down the rock face.

Halfway down, she lost her grip, and fell off, to plunge with a splash into the water. Slightly stunned, she struggled for a moment to stay afloat, before sheepishly realizing that the water was only 5' deep.

Standing up, she wallowed off across the cave, heading for the exit on the other side. As she approached it, it got shallower, and finally she was practically walking as she left the cave and started exploring beyond.

A succession of more caves shallowly filled with water ensued, at the end of which she emerged into one with a shallow beach at the eastern end, as well as the inevitable water-floored passage leading off to the south. She stopped and shrank into the shadows, for she was not alone in this cave.

Sitting in the dry area, next to a heap of nasty-looking barbed javelins, was a reptillian creature that she recognized from tales as a troglydyte. It appeared to be mumbling or maybe praying, and was equipped with some sort of mace as well as the javelins.

It looked significantly tougher than the kobolds they'd fought earlier, so Animir decided to go back for her friends before tackling it. She sloshed back to the deep cave and swam back to the platform.

After some thought, it occurred to Animir that she had two potions of Water Breathing in her bag. Feeding one to Thorkil, she watched as he clambered down the steps and vanished below the surface, leaving a trail of bubbles as he walked along the bottom of the cave towards the other side. Hoisting her armour and Akara's breastplate over her head, the elf walked across, while the little kobold swam splashily beside her.

At the other side, while she and Akara were tackling back up, Thorkil fixed her with a grumpy expression. "Perishing elves. Always going on about yer eyesight. Missed the boat, didn't you?" Animir blinked. "Boat? What boat?"

Thorkil took her back into the cave and they looked at the sunken boat. It was stoved in on one bow, but with repairs would have got them dry through the caves. "Never mind," said Thorkil, "we solved it anyway."

Moving carefully up to the Trog's cave, they examined their options. To reach him in melee combat would require sloshing loudly across 40' of 2' deep water; calf-high on Animir but chest-deep to Akara. They'd be exposed to javelin-cast all the way and unable to retaliate. It seemed a much better plan to remain where they were and use missiles themselves.

Stringing their bows, they drew beads on the crouching reptile and let fly, catching him completely by surprise. They did not get the quick kill they hoped for, though; he seemed more enraged than injured. Leaping up, he siezed a javelin from the heap and let fly.

The duel of projectiles continued for a few more tense minutes, and then Thorkil scored a stunning hit, straight in the forehead for maximum damage, and Ryl the Trog dropped dead on the spot.

Examining the corpse, the elf and dwarf eyed his possessions uneasily. Apart from the black mace designed to look like a spider, he had a black stone pendant also embossed with a spider and with writing in a peculiar script on the back. Neither Animir nor Thorkil could read it, but it made them both nervous.