(BECMI D&D) Adventures in Gulluvia #22 - No Laughing Matter

The river leading from the Moorfowl Mountains has been contaminated with a toxic green sludge, threatening the Mere and the towns beyond.  A kobold contingent has arrived in town and ask for help... along with the news of the recent earthquake cleared a new entrance to the former kobold lair. 

19 Mai 535 - Village of Mere, Barony of Gulluvia

Hugo Swam'Pas - The popular local hedge mage from Mere known for more successes than failures in helping the village out.  

Beulah Cragmuffin - A halfling that hates adventuring, but hates seeing Hugo get any credit, whether he deserves it or not.  

Galastia Axenmeld: Disgruntled acolyte of The Church

Gwendalyn the Bright - Another disgruntled acolyte of the Church, sent to solve issues within this podunk village, but overlooked for the parish priest role.   

Carya Illinoisis - The former merchant has joined the Baronial Guard, with a focus around Mere.  She's still a mountain of a woman that's even stronger than she lets on. 

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The arrival of the diplomatic mission from the kobold tribes brought even more concern to the village.  They knew the source of the contaminated water, but delving further into the Moorfowl Mountains would require further help:

Dim Cragmuffin -  It's unsure what relation he was to Beulah, but the halfling was ugly as a dog bashed in the face with a mace, but also old enough to have been bequeathed an old set of armor from the Cragmuffin family ancestors.  The rest aren't sure if he's volunteered for hero duty, or he's following a firefly in the same general direction as the 

Jonerir Drake - Younger brother of Belaquan Drake, who disappeared about a year ago. Fallen in with the likes of Clifford Loprete 

Hugo took control, grabbing rations for everyone (on each person's individual account at the general store) and leading from the rear.  

Following the guidance of the kobold chief, they cross the river near town, a dark green streak dominating the center of the river.  No one appeared to become sick as they forded at the chosen spot, their footsteps breaking up the flow, but the green material seemed heavy enough to reform the flow further downstream. 

Jonerir tried to evaluate the material, but it he could only ascertain it was a poison on an unknown material. 

Beulah needed to hold Dim back to prevent him from drinking from the river.

Working the far bank of the river meant they avoided the Hall of the Mountain Lord, and only ended up encountering a few dead animals, squirrels, deer, and even some mountain goats.  Dim wanted to eat them.  Jonerir suggested NOT eating poisoned animals.

21 Mai 535 - The Dwarven Structure of Heek-Hallak (The Laughing Hollow)

Two days walking and they entered a small wooded vale between the mountain peaks.  Along the far edge of the valley lay a recently cleared iron door in the growing hills leading up into the mountains.  

Galastia:  Shouldn't we look for the giant crack with the green liquid leaking out?  

They travelled west, and found the kobolds were at least semi-honest.  

They found the giant crack in the stone, surrounded by dead, brown trees, a large glowing crack. 

Beulah: All the trees are brown, and the sky is gray....

The crack ran 15 foot high from the ground.  The green liquid sort of oozed out on a spot in the crack, somewhere two to three feet above the base.  The liquid pooled at the base of the crack, although it finally overran the thin trail, until gravity led it to an abandoned stream bed... and into the other mountain streams.  

Hugo wondered if the crack could be filled, or at least that smaller spot the green was flowing. 

Hugo: Find some stuff to fill the hole, harness your inner beaver!  

They set up a fill line, to use branches, rocks, and leaves mixed with mud to attempt to plug the hole.  

It appeared to be an utter failure, a few of them, no having a their outfits stained green, but no one became sick.  

They returned to the iron door, surprised to find it able to be opened, right into proper dwarven construction.

The dwarven mine, eliminate the light sources. 

The first larger chamber they fell upon had a massive crack running across the area.  There was nothing leaking from the crack.   

The spots around the walls in the chamber and subsequent halls were covered in kobold graffiti.  Most of the graffiti was juvenile, even by kobold standards, with a few helpful, "Beware", "Danger", Trespassers will be tortured!"    

Most of the the rooms they explored were empty, for filled with corners of kobold excrement.  

Going into the last chamber in that direction, Dim led the group and stepped on something...

Crossbow bolts went flying injuring Carya and Beulah, and turning Dim in a pin cushion.  Upon further investigation, Dim set off nine of the ten holes with crossbows in the trap zone. One either didn't go off, or perhaps one of the kobold vandals fell victim to it, and the others simply avoided the area.  

Dim Cragfoot, Preferred Crossbow Target

Galastia used her Cure Light Wounds to rejuvenate the halfling, but Dim decided to fall back to the rear (2 total hit points healed) .   The group turned in the opposite direction, and came upon a ramp going down.  The passage was restricted to five foot wide, another devasting spike trap sprung at some earlier time, killing the two kobolds whose desiccated corpses were stuck to the spikes now embedded in the wall.

Galastia grabbed Jonerir's quarterstaff and began tapping the floor going down to the next level. 

Next: #23 - The Hall of Death