Session 16 - The Cave of Wonders

General Summary

With the party reunited down in the tunnels (minus Chlothar Jäger who had been killed and partially eaten by rats), the group decides to head back up. First, however, they search the room for an exit (and some spoils). The room contains goods, either smuggled or stolen (maybe some organized grave robbing operation has been going on). For Totengraber this is like a cave of wonders.
Searching the smaller ratman that died, Totengraber picked a belt with two unidentified clay bottles with some liquid swooshing inside, two necklaces adorned with skulls, as well as a coin pouch. Belak gets the rat-man’s crossbow and a quiver with six bolts. Belak had also taken a falchion (covered in a substance that may be rust protection oil).
The room contains an abundance of crates. One is filled with religious artifacts and adornments (crosses, rosaries, and such), another has falchions and daggers, all covered in an oily substance. A gruesome discovery is made with a crate fill with human limbs, parts, and organs. Hopefully unrelated to the crate filled with human parts, another shows a treasure in condiments and rare spices. Among the other crates and barrels, various liquors, coin purses, books, cloths, and potions are discovered.
Bertrand takes two coin purses with marks resembling crosses on them. Totengraber pockets three coin purses that jiggle the happiest to him (he can’t but think of the good times as a grave robber). He also grabs a few crosses from a chest and throws them on top of the human parts stored on another crate.
Since no other exit was found (unless you were the size of a rat), the party grabs books, sables, minks, silks and bolts out back to the house. Clothar’s body is also taken with them. At the cellar, they leave the body of Clothar, then nail shut the trap door from the cellar to the house and go to sleep for the night.
The next morning the party decides that while they desperately need a long rest, they must first take care of giving proper burial to Clothar. When they get to the cellar, however, there is no body. Belak finds human rat size footprints. After some debate, where some expressed concern for their overall health status and others really were trying to get to market to sell the goodies and take some down time, it was decided to go back down to find Clothar’s body.
They first go to the room of the four corpses lying on slabs, but find no Clothar, nor anything changed. They continue to the ‘Cave of Wonders’. They find the door to it closed and the pit trap open. With Totengraber ready with an arrow notched in his short bow and Belak’s magical hand they try to deal with the situation. Bertrand is also in the front. Woda stays behind to watch for attacks from the back, and Klein is between the two positions to reinforce either vanguard. Bertrand asks Belak to use his magic floating hand for the door, and nice, friendly, scholar Belak, rather than opening the door, proceeds to knock. A voice is heard inside. Belak then opens the door, and a poisoned arrow is shot that hit Totengraber's side. Totengraber is unable to see the shooter and Belak closes the door.
Bertrand tells the person in the ‘Cave of Wonders that they are here just to get Clothar’s body back. The voice tells him he is willing to ransom the body back in exchange for the things taken by the party from the room. Bertrand seems willing to do the exchange, but his eponymous former employee shows a simmering rage at the prospect. While Bertrand and ‘the voice’ negotiate throwing the loot in the pit and allowing Bertrand to see the body, Klein comes up with a plan. He takes a rope and ties a loop to it which he then passes on to Belak’s magic hand. Klein then descends into the pit. While the group thinks they have prepared an ambush, the 'voice’ had heard that some armored enemy has taken position in the pit and suddenly it starts closing. Panic. Belak opens the door and throws some soil from a magically made hole into the pit. Bertrand rushes in and jumps and makes it into the room, with total disregard for his own safety, he goes for the trap mechanism that had been discovered previously and stops the trap from closing shut.
Now Totengraber takes position by the tunnel wall and readies his short bow in case he can see the enemy in the room. Belak and Bertrand try to deal with the Giant Rat-man with a big mustache. Woda sees some rats from his position, but they are acting normally, so she too runs towards the ‘Cave of Wonders’ jumping over the pit where Klein is trying to keep opened and to get out of. Totengraber manages to rearrange his hernia and fires an extremely poor shot at the Rat-man.
In the ‘Cave of Wonders’ Bertrand and Belak get attacked by a pack of rats. While they fight them, Mustachioed Rat-man keeps attacking them and hiding. When Woda enters the room, Belak, Bertrand and Woda manage to dispatch that first horde of rats. Woda sees the Rat-man and moves to melee him. Totengraber, feeling his hernia is luckily under control jumps into the room and tries to hide before attacking. A second pack of rats enters in response to Rat-man’s call. Down in the pit, Klein can hear rats approaching from the north and west.
The new rats in the ‘Cave of Wonders’ are dispatched, and Rat-man is surrounded. He manages a dangerous bite to Woda’s right shoulder but cut by cut, magical smashing and group effort, he is finally brought down. Klein dealt with the first wave of rats in the pit and then managed to jump back into the room, set the pit trap and thus eliminate the second wave that were advancing on the group, some of which were Rodents of Unusual Size.
A new round of salvaging takes place. Totengraber searches the Mustachioed man that the dying Rat-man transformed into. He takes another belt, with four clay bottles swooshing with an unknown liquid, a gold colored big ring and also his coin purse. While the frustrated Riese tried to tear off the whole mustache, he was only able to grab some hairs from it. More books, purses, crosses, rosaries, potions, spices and weapons were gathered.
Of course, the body of Chlothar, stinking and rotting perhaps more than it should is rescued again. Bertrand inquires from Klein what he knows about the burial customs of Clothar’s order or people, but Klein says he knows only that he was from Darbenheim. The party then returns to the house and decides to go to St. Gertrude's where they may get instructions as to how to properly dispose of the body.
Outside the house, inconveniently, some Town guards were watching and demanded the party wait, and instead report to the Burgomeister. When the Burgomeister arrives and is told about the rat-men, Chlothar's death, the apparently smuggled goods, he starts giving the party a hard time about the need to go and bring the remaining things up, and needing to produce evidence of the dead rat-men in order to claim the reward for dealing with them. He wants the party to go down and to gather everything (including the heads of the rat-men) without delay. But Woda’s presence also peaks his interest.
The Burgomeister inquires about Woda's identity. She tells him her name, but that did not satisfy the confounded man. He insists that something is not right (and stank) about Woda, so he further inquires where she was coming from. Woda seems to be trying to dodge that line of questioning. Totengraber, with his usual charm, defuses the situation by bringing up the stench of the body, its rapid decomposition and suggesting they may just leave the body out there on the street if now they had to go collect the proofs and goods from down the tunnels.
The Burgomeister allowed them to go on to the Abbey with the body and seemed to consider the suggestion of having his own people go down and do the collecting themselves.
As the party started on their way, he menacingly gestures at Woda, pointing with his fingers and his own eyes, then pointing at Woda and back at his eyes…

Report Date

11 Mar 2025