AD&D Session 56 - Slip, Snare, and Sigils

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A definitely not trapped chest

22 Quen’pillar 835 PD

Pressing on from the kobold sentry cave, the party advanced up a stone staircase. Reeves triggered a hidden mechanism that converted the steps into a slick chute, pitching him back down the passage and alerting the kobolds ahead. By the time Bibi’s rope hauled him up again, Whisper and Koro had already helped finish the brief skirmish that followed the alarm.

Farther in, the tunnel opened onto a crude “bridge” of lashed poles and dried mud spanning a steaming fissure. Whisper attempted to cross first, but even her light frame collapsed the structure. Reeves, still holding the safety-line, kept her from plunging into the boiling runoff. While Reeves and Koro backtrack to below the other end of the bridge, Bibi tried to follow Whisper down via the cavern wall, slipped, and took an unpleasant fall.

Forced to circle below, the group climbed the opposite side with ropes. Despite the earlier racket, Whisper pushed ahead to scout and set off a second kobold trap—this one blasting gravel like a shotgun from concealed holes in the rock.

Deeper in the warren they located a lone wooden chest in a side alcove. After thorough inspection, Whisper pried it open and recovered a handful of coins, but her success stirred a lurking predator: a living stalactite dropped from the ceiling, narrowly missing her and confirming the chamber’s hazards were not all kobold-made.

The natural tunnels soon gave way to finished stone. A pair of cracked doors already hung ajar, leading to a worked stairwell descending into a square chamber. On the floor lay an unfamiliar rune-circle, and each corner housed a sealed stone coffin—evidence that whatever lies beyond the kobold territory may be far older, and far more ominous, than the warrens themselves.

The party secured the room and prepared to press on, wary of both kobold ingenuity and the deeper dangers hinted at by ancient sigils and silent sarcophagi.