Ivric, Verget the 15th, 838 ID
The PCs are beset upon by a number of spiders of various sizes, all equal or greater to a man, and they seem to reflect a steely tint from the lava below their strangely thick, rubbery webs. Though the creatures seem to be resistant to numerous forms of attack, they are quite easily dispatched by magic from Baro and arrows from Badger, to the point that the melee fighters barely got to engage any of them. Gruulsh explores a ledge near the webs to find a few old boxes, one of which is still locked and contains some loot and an interesting script. As the heroes pick their way across the rest of the great web to a new area, they notice a gargantuan spider beneath, rolling in the roiling magma, possibly a more mature end-stage to the vermin they just destroyed...
They end up in an egg-chamber, loaded with 100s of the spider-things in their embryonic state. Some are destroyed, but they notice that there are tools lying about, a sign that other humanoids had come along and removed some of the things. A nearby tunnel has a strange ribbed appearance, and as they travel to the end of it, they find the corpse of a dwarf who must have escaped one of the miners' many struggles above (or below). Wendel suspects the tunnel itself might be the maw of some great beast, so they are hasty to pass through. Pressing on, they find a number of strange stone statues which seem a little too realistic for comfort, in a large cave where there is also a pool of strange gray sludge. Neighboring caverns contain a number of additional statues...humans, dwarves, troglodytes, and larger creatures. They decide to avoid the larger concentration of the things and enter a chamber marred by steaming magma fissures which must be connected in the deeps to the lava pool beneath that massive spider's web. They carefully wind their way through to avoid being scalded.
In the next area, a rocky cavern with uneven ceilings, they run across a trio of other 'explorers', unusual squatting giants which have the ability to 'unfurl' and grow more powerful wherever the ceiling is high enough. A gruesome conflict erupts, and though the PCs are eventually able to bring down the violent beasts, Gruulsh is battered to death...and upon her death, the damnedest thing happens...her womb splits open and a dwarven babe spills forth. Baro recalls the strange 'pricking' incident from the Sunken Forge, when they were exploring the shrine of Sharindlar, and puts two together...believing that the same gender-swapping magical trap must have simultaneously impregnated Gruulsh with what might be the avatar of the newly-rediscovered dwarven goddess!
Ivric, Verget the 15th, 838 ID
Thankfully, Solveig is skilled enough in her natural magic to reincarnate the bugbear, only into a new form...that of a halfling, the next day. Gruulsh must adjust to her new form...which is wildly different than the previous.
PCs: Badger, Ballyhoo, Baro, Gruulsh, Solveig, Wendel
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