Jewel Mine

Description

A gaping hole in the mountainside northeast of the village marks the entrance to the jewel mine. Several carts sit outside the cavern. One is filled with rock and dirt pulled from the mine, the others piled with large beams of wood—new supports that were never installed after the collapse.
If the characters explore during the day, the first 30 feet inside the mine are dimly lit, and anything beyond 30 feet is in darkness. Cart wheels have carved shallow ruts in the dirt floor leading to the back of the mine, where the cave-in was never fully excavated. Smaller tunnels branch off from the main shaft

M1. Main Tunnel

The mine is dark and damp, and you hear the sound of dripping water echoing from deep within. The light fades faster than it should as you move deeper, until you’re wrapped ingloom and shadow.

The main tunnel heads into the mountain, ending at a pile of rubble left over from the cave-in. Secondary hallways branch off to the left and the right.

M2. Southern Wing

This tunnel ends at a small chamber that holds worn picks, rusty shovels, and two hand carts filled with debris and rags.

The tools were left behind by the workers in the wake of the disaster.
Characters who look up see scores of bats hanging from the 20-foot-high ceiling. If bright light is shone at them or if someone makes a noise louder than a whisper, the bats coalesce into three hostile swarms of bats.

M3. Northern Wing

This tunnel winds back toward the entrance, and the south wall of the chamber at the end has odd divots and alcoves within the rock at various heights.

This tunnel ends abruptly. The miners intended to keep digging here, but it was abandoned after the collapse occurred.

M4. Cave-In

As the characters approach the rubble of the cave-in, they see large rocks in the pathway that they can easily move past. The tunnel gets tighter and tighter until they come to the main body of the cave-in.

Mounds of broken rock block the tunnel, piled from ceiling to floor. The other parts of the cave-in were passable after the collapse, but this seems an impenetrable wall of earth.

Traveling farther down the tunnel is impossible here. A character who attempts to move any of the rocks must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or take 7 (2d6) bludgeoning damage as the rubble shifts, falling on them or sliding out from beneath their feet, sending them tumbling.

M5. Entrance to the nautral caves

The opening of this tunnel is nearly circular. Black moss covers the walls, floor, and ceiling of the tunnel as far as you can see. Within this tunnel are several branches, all of them covered in the same black moss.

The notable aspect of this tunnel is the uniform layer of black moss over everything. Characters who scrape the moss away from the rock see that the walls are smooth, not rough-carved by pick and shovel like the rest of the mine. Those tunnels were discovered after the cave-in. The moss muffles all sound, causing a lack of echoes and creating a sense of claustrophobia.

M6. Chamber of Weeping

Thick, velvety black moss covers every surface of this eight-foot-high chamber. Set into the far wall is a deep alcove.

Whenever a creature that isn’t native to this cave enters the alcove or starts its turn there, tentacles of black moss sprout from the alcove’s walls, forcing the creature to succeed on a DC 14 Dexterity saving throw to avoid being grappled by them (escape DC 14). The tentacles are an otherwise harmless magical effect and can’t be harmed, though a dispel magic spell causes them to disappear.

M7. Mossy Maze

Monsters use this moss-covered maze of tunnels, to ambush prey.

M8. Pools

This dead-end cavern opens wide, and the lingering dampness of the tunnels is pronounced in here. Moisture leaches through the moss ceiling above, forming fat droplets that fall into pools of dark water around the chamber. A sharp scent of minerals fills the air and mixes with the earthy smell of the moss. The sound of dripping doesn’t echo, but is immediately dulled by the moss-carpeted surfaces.

The pools here vary in depth: the smaller ones are a few inches deep, and the larger pools measure 2 feet at their deepest. In the subterranean darkness, the pools look black. Light sources reflect off the water as if it were a dark mirror, and the characters are unable to see below the surface.
a black pudding ooze lurk on the surface of one of the pools like an oil slick.

M9. Transformation Chamber

New scents greet you here: the musty funk of decaying fabric and old furs, and the smell of rot lingering in the stagnant air. Thick pillars of moss-covered stone support the twenty-foot-high ceiling, and waist-high stone slabs dot the cavern.

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