04/22/2026: The Cloaker Concludes and the Cave of Lost Things Begins

Cave of Lost Things

Nesquo's fog still hangs in the tunnel in the Cave of Lost Things, thick and impenetrable. The cloaker, on fire and annoyed, launches a thrashing attack — and misses everyone. It connects with nothing but air and its own smoldering indignity.

Inside the fog, Glumbo strikes Nesquo.

This is not a tactical decision. This is due to blindness caused by fog. Glumbo swings at a shape that turns out to be an ally, lands the hit, and hurts his hand in the process. Glumbo goes down. Nesquo — who has had enough of this tunnel, this fog, and frankly this entire situation — throws a punch in response and connects with Newt, which was not the intended target but is the one that is there. Nesquo also goes down. The fog, for its part, remains.

Freda has also had enough. She rises a modest height above the floor and beats her powerful wings, clearing the fog in moments. The tunnel is simply a tunnel again — lit by Krasnyy's torch, navigable, containing one large burning monster standing cobra-like to confront the rogue, and a party that is, except for Glumbo and Nesquo, still on its feet facing it down.

Murlack steps forward and raises his arcane focus. He has been turning a word over in his mind since the fog went up — a word he hopes will render the cloaker, at least for a few moments, incapable of harming any of his comrades.

The word is 'pancake.'

The cloaker, which fortunately does have a few words of Common, flies upward to flatten itself against the ceiling — splayed, spread, pressed — and stays there, blind and immobilized and absolutely furious about it. Pasted to the cavern roof above the party, its ghastly sharp teeth snap and its tail lashes savagely at helplessly.

Beneath, the group takes a collective breath before pressing their advantage while Murlack's spell is still effective. Krasnyy's bow shot hits the cloaker cleanly. Tick's dagger, on the other hand, clatters harmlessly down the hallway. Lynx moves to a strategic position, keeping the trapped cloaker in sight.

Cranky after being knocked down, Nesquo staggers to his feet and swings at Newt, who moves not at all. The demands for apologies from various parties are interrupted as the cloaker peels off the ceiling. The fire on its wide body, which had been on the verge of being smothered, reignites. It lands heavily on the cave floor, narrowly missing Dog Glumbo. Newt, finished with squabbling with Nesquo, rolls dexterously to avoid the cloaker's frost breath, which scatters needle-like ice crystals across the cavern walls.

Tall Glumbo, back on his feet, activates Booming Blade, unsheathing his longsword to reveal rippling blue-white arcane energy along its length, and yells out savagely. Whether it is the shouting or the thunderous crack of the blade that does it, debris begins raining down from the ceiling. The cave groans. Everybody looks up.

When they look back down, they find the cloaker pinned beneath a large chunk of stone. Lynx delivers the killing blow. The Cavern of Lost Things, at least this section of it, grows silent.

Cornelius, who has been pressed against the wall throughout all of this, edges forward cautiously, as if the cloaker might be reconsidering.

The cloaker is not reconsidering. It is dead.

Lynx, Freda, and Dog Glumbo regard the body. Freda draws a blade from her pack and gets to work on processing the creature, salvaging what she can.

She is, after all, a ranger.

⚔

The party splits into several groups to better search this vast complex of caverns. The tunnels open into a warren of labeled doors. Some say Keep Out. Some say Please Knock. Some say things that don't quite translate. Freda, blessed with darkvision despite her aarakocra heritage, moves through the darker passages easily. The others navigate by torchlight and optimism. Multiple unresolved paths open in every direction.

⚔

Murlack cautiously approaches a partly opened door. No sound comes from within. He enters slowly, arcane focus raised.

The room is lined floor to ceiling with filing cabinets, every inch of available wall accounted for. The drawers are labeled, often in alphabets Murlack cannot decipher. He pulls one at random and finds a only humble laundry basket inside, smelling vaguely of unwashed feet.

He tips it over. Mateless socks spill onto the floor — and keep spilling. Every sock that has ever gone under a bed and not come out. Every sock separated from its mate by forces no one has ever satisfactorily explained. Or so it seems. They are all here, pouring from the basket in an apparently endless stream: clean, dirty, darned, full of holes, out they come.

Still gripping the laundry basket, Murlack fights his way out of the room. The tide of socks has risen quickly enough prevent the door from closing. He races up the hallway, basket in hand, a flow of socks filling the corridor behind him until. By the time he rejoins Nesquo and Glumbo, the basket has finally stopped shedding its contents. The corridor behind him is impassable, a mountain of socks blocking it. The foot smell is considerable.

Murlack turns the basket over in his hands, considering its market value. It will obviously hold a great quantity of things. It may also, presumably, continue to attract socks.

⚔

Tick enters the room marked Keep Out without knocking.This is exactly what anyone who knows Tick could have predicted. Tick is brave and confident in all their decisions. 

Inside are two gnomish devils, small and bureaucratic, each armed with a large abacus, a ledger and a quill. Between them, a large bag of what appears to be sand gapes open in the center of the table. The two gnomes are arguing. The dispute is about numbers — specifically, which of them has the correct number. They do not look up when Tick enters.

"We need to settle this once and for all!" squeaks the gnome on the right. The gnome on the left, without breaking eye contact with his counterpart, points a finger in Tick's direction and cries: "Count!"

This is a Command spell. Tick pulls up a stool and, despite very much not wishing to, begins counting grains of sand one by one. The gnomish devils continue their argument, apparently satisfied. Trapped within the soft machinery of infernal bureaucracy, Tick has time to ruminate on this particular punishment of Hell — and then loses their place. They must begin again.

Their counting resumes from the number one.

⚔

Newt knocks. The door does say Please Knock, and Newt is nothing if not polite, as well as patient.

Within the room is an old dwarvish woman — small, precise, surrounded by a plethora of things arranged according to an impenetrable system…helmets, stuffed monkeys, rings of keys all lay jumbled on the same shelf. Beyond stretches the same type of chaos floor to ceiling.

She does not seem surprised to have a visitor. "May I help you find anything?" she says to Newt sweetly.

Pleased at the offer of assistance — for after all, this is Hell — Newt thinks for a moment. A way to keep the egg drawn from the yeti's sack of gifts would be lovely, and he says so.

She rummages through shelves, boxes, and drawers, then produces what appears to be a skillet.

"A frying pan?" puzzles Newt.

"Not a frying pan. A flying pan." To demonstrate, she places the skillet in the hearth. It hovers precisely three feet above the fire.

"But how does it cook that way?" Newt demands.

"I never claimed it would help you cook anything, my dear. It simply floats, at three feet above whatever flame it is placed near, with absolute commitment. In fact, you can't cook with it." Her face creases into a wrinkled grin.

"But," sputters Newt, indignantly, "how can I keep my egg warm?"

The old woman smiles wider with the patience of someone who has explained all of this before and expects to explain it again. "I sincerely doubt it will even keep anything warm. After all, I never said I would help you find anything that you actually need. This is, after all, Hell."

The door clicks shut behind Newt in a way that sounds very final. The flying pan is tucked into their pack. He will try to find the others.