The group stands at the pile of lost things, tucking away their oddly apt discoveries. Arman buckles on a Belt of Hill Giant Strength, and feels new power flow into his limbs.
The comrades turn their eyes to the two largest exits that open out from this chamber. One plunges down a sheer ice wall into black, though those with dark vision can see rugged bottom that a jump or rappel might bring them to. The other also disappears into darkness: rough-cut stairs hacked into the icy rock leading into unknown depths. After a moment’s deliberation, they choose the drop.
Vali uncoils his rope, securing it firmly. “I’ll anchor this. Should make it easier for everyone.”
Arman goes first, descending with practiced ease. Kiki follows, then Reklaw, their boots finding purchase on the slick ice. The chanting grows louder, more distinct, though the words remain incomprehensible.
As the trio get their bearings, distant voices begin to echo up from below—rhythmic, repetitive, like some ancient prayer. The sound bounces off the ice walls, making it impossible to determine whether it comes from friend or foe. Below, massive piles of objects litter the cavern floor, glinting here and there with the promise of treasure or at least valuables lost by less fortunate travelers.
From the far end of the chamber, two figures rise from behind the largest pile. They’re strange, unsettling creatures—fish-like humanoids with slick, scaled skin. Before anyone can react, one raises a clawed hand. A sphere of white arcane energy crackles to life in its palm, shot through with jagged black streaks like dark lightning.
The creature hurls it.
The sphere explodes within the circle made by the group. Arman stands firm, unaffected, but Kiki staggers as a bone-deep weakness floods through her limbs. Her muscles feel like water.
“Down!” Thunk slides down the rope, landing heavily, followed by Vali who descends with bardic grace.
The second creature now holds another sphere—this one burning crimson, pulsing with barely contained power.
“Kuo-toa monitors,” Reklaw breathes, recognition dawning in his eyes.
Arman raises both hands, palms out. “Wait! We don’t want trouble!” His voice carries clearly across the cavern. “We can talk about this!”
The creature responds, its voice wet and burbling, the syllables alien and harsh. No one understands its words.
“Maybe they’re friendly?” Kiki suggests weakly, still fighting off the magical exhaustion.
“Or maybe they’re guarding something,” Arman counters.
While they debate, Reklaw makes his choice. The strumming of Vali’s inspiring song swells around them, notes of courage and strength, and Reklaw strides forward with purpose. He reaches for the nearest kuo-toa, attempting to grapple it into submission.
The creature twists with unnatural fluidity, its scaled skin impossibly slippery. Reklaw’s hands slide right off—and in his surprise, one hand accidentally strikes the red sphere the creature holds.
It detonates instantly.
Searing, burning light explodes outward. Reklaw is engulfed as the magical fire painfully scorches him.
Kiki steps forward quickly, her hands weaving an intricate pattern. A Haste spell materializes and flies toward the other kuo-toa. The creature’s eyes widen in surprise as the magic settles over it—unexpected, but accepted. For a heartbeat, the monster moves with supernatural speed.
Then Kiki drops the spell.
The sudden dismissal of the hastening magic leaves the creature frozen mid-motion, its body locked in temporal backlash. It can only watch as Thunk approaches, the massive bugbear’s shadow falling over it. The kuo-toa’s eyes track Thunk warily, filled with suspicion and fear.
Thunk reaches out slowly and pats the frozen creature gently on the shoulder—a clear gesture of friendship, of peace.
A wet, slapping sound echoes through the cavern. More kuo-toa surge from a smaller tunnel, their webbed feet making sucking noises against the stone. They brandish tridents and nets, their bulging eyes fixed on the intruders.
Arman steps forward, making broad, exaggerated gestures—hands open, weapons lowered, attempting to mime peaceful intentions.
Something about his movements sets them off. The creatures erupt into rage, their burbling voices rising to angry croaks. The largest among them—a massive specimen with a distended throat sac—lurches forward with terrifying speed.
“That’s a gulper!” Reklaw shouts, but it’s too late.
The creature’s jaws unhinge impossibly wide. It lunges, bites, and in one fluid motion, swallows Reklaw whole.
“Reklaw!” Arman yells, but his friend has vanished down the gulper’s throat. Inside, Reklaw struggles in darkness, unable to breathe, suffocating in the creature’s gullet.
One of the original kuo-toa confronts Arman directly, making sharp, aggressive gestures at his weapons. The message is clear: drop them.
Arman points frantically at the gulper, gesturing at where his friend disappeared. The kuo-toa pauses, then raps the gulper hard on its distended side with the butt of its trident.
The gulper heaves. With a grotesque retching sound, it disgorges Reklaw onto the cave floor. He emerges covered in slime, gasping desperately for air, his face pale and his hands shaking.
Arman unbuckles his sword belt. The blade clatters to the ground—and then begins to slide across the floor, drawn by some invisible force toward the central pile. The items seem to absorb it, pulling it into their mass until it disappears completely.
Thunk watches this, then drops their magical mace. It rolls across the uneven floor, picking up speed, until it too is swallowed by the pile of lost objects.
Moving carefully, Arman slips his rapier from his belt and slides it beneath his cloak. The kuo-toa’s attention is elsewhere, focused on the surrendered weapons. It doesn’t notice.
Neither Kiki nor Vali carry weapons. The kuo-toa’s gaze lingers on Vali’s lute, but the fish-creatures don’t recognize the instrument as anything dangerous. It’s a small comfort as Vali’s fingers rest protectively on the strings.
The kuo-toa gesture sharply toward the smaller tunnel. The meaning is unmistakable: move.
Surrounded by the strange fish-people, their tridents pointed inward, the party begins walking. The tunnel mouth swallows them one by one, leading deeper into the ice, deeper into the unknown. The kuo-toa press close on all sides, their webbed feet slapping wetly against stone, their eyes unblinking and cold as they escort their captives into the depths.
The narrow tunnel opens suddenly into a vast cavern. The party stops, taking in the sight before them.
In the center of the chamber, the ruins of an airship lie torn in half, resting on its side like a broken toy. The metal hull is twisted and scorched, its gondola crushed beneath the weight. Beyond it, luminescent crystals ring a flat stone plinth, their eerie glow casting dancing shadows across the walls. More kuo-toa fill the space, dozens of them, their wet breathing creating a humid fog in the cold air.
A robed figure approaches—clearly a priest of some kind, judging by the ceremonial garb draped over its scaled body. It stops before them, regarding the group with bulbous, unblinking eyes that reflect the crystal light.
“What do you here, now?” The words are thick and slow, the Common language clearly a struggle for the creature’s throat, but comprehensible nonetheless.
Arman steps forward. “We’re looking for our friend’s friend—a bugbear named Clunk. And our vehicle, a large truck. We came to the Chasm of Found Things to recover them.”
He tries gesturing, describing. Kiki jumps in with elaborate explanations of the truck’s engineering, her hands tracing the vehicle’s profile in the air, detailing every mechanical innovation and weapon she’d crafted with her own hands, and with the help of the now lost Mr C.
The priest’s head tilts, confused. He shakes it slowly. “Not seen.”
Disappointment settles over the group, but the priest continues, his tone shifting to something almost eager. “You witness? Resurrection of God. Gjaaki the Blood Drinker.” He gestures toward the plinth with reverence. “Join ceremony?”
Arman, Vali, Reklaw, and Thunk exchange glances. Disarmed, surrounded by a horde, they don’t have many options. They nod.
“‘Blood Drinker’ doesn’t sound friendly,” Kiki mutters under her breath as they’re ushered to the back of the chamber.
The kuo-toa arrange themselves in concentric circles around the plinth. The chanting begins again—low, rhythmic, chilling in its alien cadence. The sound reverberates off the ice walls, growing in intensity. From somewhere in the darkness, a drum begins to beat—deep, primal. A low-pitched whistle joins it, the sound making the hair on Kiki’s neck rise.
Upon the plinth, pale green fog begins to gather. It swirls upward, growing wider and taller, taking on an almost solid form. The luminescent crystals flare brilliant white, and in a flash of blinding light and a choking cloud of brimstone, a massive figure crouches upon the stone surface.
It’s a devil. Not a god—a devil.
Its feline face surveys the worshippers below, lips pulling back to reveal long, tusk-like yellow teeth. Its eyes—intelligent, cruel—find the party at the back of the chamber. It grins wider. It’s furred knuckles, black and red, ball into enormous fists.
Then it leaps.
The devil soars over its followers and lands directly in front of Thunk, who stumbles backward in alarm.
“No!” Arman shouts, throwing himself between them. “Leave them alone!”
Rage twists Gjaaki’s features. It lunges for Arman, clawed hands grasping. They grapple, Arman’s Belt of Hill Giant Strength lending him impossible power. The devil snarls in surprise as it fails to overpower the human. Thunk reinforces this with a series of friendly grunts, trying to diffuse the situation.
Gjaaki disengages, drawing back. The kuo-toa worshippers part like a wave, giving the confrontation a wide berth, their eyes fixed on their newly summoned god.
Arman raises his hands again, palms out, making the same peace gesture he’d used with the kuo-toa. “We mean no harm. We’re just passing through.”
Something in his tone, his posture, gets through. Gjaaki pauses, its body language shifting from aggression to profound frustration. It turns, searching for an outlet for its rage.
Its eyes land on the priest.
“No—” Arman starts, but it’s too late.
Gjaaki seizes the robed kuo-toa in both clawed hands and tears it in half. The wet sound of rending flesh echoes through the chamber. The devil swallows the priest’s head and arms whole, its throat distending grotesquely. It tosses the legs beyond the plinth like garbage and stalks toward a narrow tunnel in the north wall. The kuo-toa on the far side of the cavern scatter before it, following their god into the darkness.
Silence falls over the chamber.
“I liked that guy,” Arman says softly, staring at the remains.
The group waits, hearts pounding, until they’re certain the coast is clear. Before retrieving their weapons, they approach the broken airship. The hull groans as they climb inside, but it holds.
They search quietly, efficiently. Gems glint in the scattered cargo—enough to make the journey worthwhile. Kiki’s eyes light up as she carefully salvages parts from the vehicle’s flight mechanisms, her fingers tracing the enchanted components with reverence. She can already see how they might adapt to the truck—if they ever find it.
They slip back to the first cavern, moving as silently as possible. The piles of lost objects shift and settle as they dig through them, the sound seeming impossibly loud in the quiet. Hours seem to pass. Finally, Arman’s fingers close around his sword’s hilt, and Thunk retrieves their mace from deep within another pile.
Armed once more, they steel themselves. They have to go deeper, which means passing Gjaaki and its followers, who have returned to the plinth and begun chanting again.
The group move stealthily back into the ritual chamber, stepping carefully over the priest’s remains. Thunk’s massive frame glides surprisingly quiet. Kiki holds her breath. Vali’s feet find the silent paths. Arman moves like a shadow.
Then Reklaw’s boot catches on a loose stone.
The sound of his stumble echoes through the cavern like a thunderclap.
The chanting in the northern tunnel stops abruptly. Silence, terrible and absolute, stretches for a heartbeat.
Then Gjaaki roars. The sound barrels through the stone passages, making the very walls tremble. The wet slapping of kuo-toa feet grows rapidly closer.
“Run!” Kiki shouts.
They sprint across the chamber. Ahead, the ground drops away—a large ice slide angled steeply downward into the bowels of the cave. They can’t see the bottom. They have no idea where it leads.
Behind them, Gjaaki’s roar grows closer. Torchlight flickers in the northern tunnel as the kuo-toa pour through.
The five reach the precipice together. There’s no time to think, no time to plan.
“Go!” Arman yells.
Simultaneously, they all jump.
The ice rushes up to meet them, and they’re sliding, falling, plummeting into darkness. The temperature drops as they descend deeper and deeper into the unknown.
They will soon find out where the ice slide goes.
