Cave Diver Dilemmas – An Adventure Brimming with Luck, Action, and Humor
From the adventures of the bard, Kibbolt Pillinger
Adventuring comes with its fresh share of challenges. Sometimes, finding the right group of people in itself is the challenge. What happens when a bard joins a group with a drunken fighter and an idiot wizard? Hilarity ensues!
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Cave Diver Dilemmas
Joining an adventuring group is often like betting on a goblin wrestling match. Sometimes you pick Sneed and he pulls through winning you gold. Other times, you pick Snod and you “win” a sack of manure. And then there are the days you get royally screwed, yet by some miracle, end up on top.
A mining prospector offered a fat purse to clear a spider-infested cavern near Stonehelm, a mine dug deep into the mountains and abandoned since perhaps the last dragon sighting. Rumors of labyrinthine tunnels and treasures, on top of the high pay, hooked me almost as fast as a free harlot at the Ruby Rose brothel. The Artemis Guild Hall swore the B-Rank team was more than capable. Frankly, I don’t how an alcoholic brawler, a naïve storm cleric, a rogue who trips over air, and a sorcerer with a brain of stones clawed their way past C-Rank.
Signs of ineptitude weren’t apparent at first. I was even shocked Grogzor, the half-orc brawler who bleeds booze, was of more sound mind than other meatheads I’ve trekked with. Over a campfire, he slurred a gem of wisdom about his drunken martial arts:
“What’s wrong with most fighters is they think too much. They hesitate. When you hesitate, you’re dead. Booze? Frees the mind, adds a wobble to your dodge that enemies cannot predict.”
The journey to the mine was suspiciously peaceful. No bandits. No wolves. Not even a squirrel with a bad attitude. But when we reached the site, my gut churned something foul. The entrance was boarded up, mine carts toppled and rusted into sad sculptures, and the railings looked like they’d crumble if you sneezed.
Things were fine until our sorcerer, Vance, bearded like a bird’s nest, sensible as a sack of hammers, boldly decided a swarm of bats (which we could’ve ignored) needed a fireball. No warning, just boom! The cavern quaked, smoke choked the air, and we bolted outside, coughing like we’d inhaled the breath of a volcano. The bats fled, but we lost a couple hours waiting for the haze to clear.
It was a miracle the supports didn’t cave in – thank the heavens!
Back inside, the mine was a crumbling maze of greed and ambition gone wrong. More warped tracks and rust speckled carts, pickaxes and shovels lay scattered like a giant’s dropped cutlery, and quartz-flaked ore veins catching our torchlight in mocking winks, as if the mountain itself was laughing at our foolhardiness. Narrow tunnels forced me to sidle through, lady gurdy banging against my hip in an unflattering manner. As we went further, the lingering scent of charcoal was replaced by our brawler’s booze. Through the fumes of liquor, the mine’s air grew damp, heavy with the musty tang of decay and something… webbier? I could sense the nerves of the others unsteady, so I strummed a soft tune to calm the group’s jitters. Even then, the prospector’s “clear the cavern” quest now felt like code for “die for my profit, suckers.”
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“Oi, Kibbolt!” Grogzor slurred, waving his flask. ““How ‘bout a song? Maybe about these spiders we’re ‘bout to slay, eh?” He hiccupped, then belched loud enough to wake a hibernating troll – potentially alerting these blasted spiders.
“Fine,” I forced a grin, cranking my hurdy-gurdy with a lush sonata. “Oh hairy legs, beady eyes, they’ll weave your doom in silken ties.
Others have run, and many have cried.
Heroes bold, we’ll make ‘em fry,
by blade and spell, those bugs will die!”
Lirien, a paranoid elven storm cleric who thinks she sees divine omens in every shadow, gasped. “Bard! Don’t mock fate! The gods are listening!”
“Gods or spiders, someone’s always listening,” quipped Terbel, a halfling rogue, hacking at webs with her dagger, muttering curses as the thick strands stuck to her blade. Distracted, she promptly tripped over a shovel, face-planting into a sticky mess.
The drunk roared laughter, sloshing booze on the floor. “Graceful as a drunk ogre, that one!”
The tunnel opened into a cavern so vast our torches couldn’t pierce the dark. Stalactites loomed like jagged fangs, dripping into a black reservoir below. A rickety bridge swayed over the chasm, draped in webs that turned it into a grotesque art piece. Mine carts huddled in a corner, rusted to their tracks. The cleric clutched her holy symbol belonging to her storm god. “This place feels... cursed. The water’s too still. It’s watching.”
“Foolish lassie. Water doesn’t watch,” Grogzor burped.
Vance, meanwhile, stared at the ceiling like a virgin’s first time at a brothel. We were almost at the end of the bridge before we realized how far behind he lagged. “Vance? The hell are you glaring at?” I called.
He pointed upward. “Those are some pretty lights up there,” he mumbled. They were indeed a bunch of glowing yellow lights – until they started moving.
“You idiot! Those aren’t lights!” I yelled as they scuttled closer, the torchlight revealing them to be hairy, dog-sized monstrosities. The giant cave spiders made their approach as their furry legs clicked against the stone. One released a hiss, revealing long fangs that could easily punch through leather. “Back to the bridge, now!”
“Good idea!” the sorcerer announced as we made our sprint – a warning I should have heeded.
When we retreated, the idiot wizard fueled his staff with the power of the arcane and poor decision making. “No – wait!” I tried to stop him, but the fireball already screamed toward the bridge. The blast obliterated the bridge; the explosion shook the cavern and splintering the stones. The bridge collapsed into the reservoir, leaving us stranded on one side of the chasm. The spiders, unscathed, scuttled onto the walls toward us.
“They climb walls?!” Vance squeaked as he retreated behind us.
“Of course they can climb walls! They’re spiders!” I snapped before strumming a spell of courage to steady our group.
The half-orc grinned like a kid at a pie festival when he noticed a buried pickaxe. He chucked it with drunken precision matched by his half-orc strength. His foot nearly sent himself into the chasm. The pick nailed a spider’s abdomen, sending it shrieking into the depths. “Ha! That’ll teach ya, ugly mutt!” he spat, raising his flask in triumph.
“Great. Nice,” I replied sardonically. I narrowly dodged a spider that lunged at me from the ceiling. Its fangs grazed my cloak, and I smashed it across the face with my club, grimacing as ichor splattered my boots. “Just a few dozen left!” I then realized the fang dug deeper than I thought when my hand pressed against my thigh – it was coated in a pool of blood.
Terbel flung a dagger, missed spectacularly, but somehow dislodged a rock that squashed a spider flat. Lirien fried several of them in chain-lighting, but set webs ablaze, choking us with acrid smoke. Vance, predictably, lobbed another fireball, cracking a stalactite that crushed two spiders but nearly flattened the halfling. “Do you know any other bloody spells besides fireball?!” she shouted in natural frustration.
“It’s my favorite spell!”
“Find a new favorite!”
We held the line. Grogzor’s alcoholic brawling shined as he pummeled away a bunch of spiders that surrounded him. His kicks alone were able to cause some of their eyes to fly out of their sockets. The storm cleric summoning electrified gusts to blow smaller ones into the drink. Terbel finally landed a dagger in a spider’s thorax, cheering like she’d slain a giant. My music bolstered their spirits throughout this rigorous battle, and even utilized a hallucination spell to distract one spider long enough for the half-orc’s mighty boot to turn its head into paste.
We watched the last spiders flee after an exhausting bout. The reservoir became spider soup, the clear crystal water turning foul with their blood and ichor, dozens of bodies floating to the surface like some wicked witch cauldron. Liren helped with her unique healing magic, sizzling my flesh and muscles as her spell closed my gash – first time I was healed by an elemental cleric. Wonder how Grogzor would have felt if he was sober, when she patched up the dozens of gashes and wounds he suffered.
Vance’s demolition leaving us no choice. Sticky, singed, and reeking, we backtracked. We did find a side tunnel that took us deeper. The webs thickening until they muffled our steps. I plucked one, and it hummed like a lute string. “They’re fresh,” Lirien muttered. “The webs are fresh. Oh dear...”
“Fresh is better than stale I s’pose,” the brawler teased, yet with unease in his voice.
The tunnel opened into this strange, stone cathedral. Webs formed swaying bridges, and ore veins were left untapped – we seemed to have entered an unexplored part of this cave. However, the center glowed faintly as sat dozens of barrel-sized spider eggs rested, pulsing like a nightmare nursery.
“Oh, gods,” Terbel whimpered. “We’re in their nursery.”
“Or their pantry,” I quipped, gripping my hurdy-gurdy. “Anyone up for some scrambled eggs?”
“All this running has gotten me hungry,” Vance added, only to be jabbed in the rib by the sneak’s elbow.
“Focus. The mother spider should be around here,” she warned. As if on cue, a shadow stirred. It appeared to be another dog-sized spider at first. Then it abruptly stood upright, its legs bending unnaturally. Naturally, Lirien yelped – it was an uncanny sight, as it stood on two…or four legs, the abdomen shrank, and taking the form of this estranged humanoid/arachnid appearance.
“Ew! Ew! Stay away! Stay away!” she cried, stepping back.
“I don’t think legs are supposed to bend that way,” Vance observed, helpfully.
Even Grogzor was confounded, taking a look at his fourth liquor bottle, already halfway empty, “Hey! Did one of you spike my drink?”
I had to think quick of a song to inspire focus and determination. The words evaded me at first, so I let ol’ gurdy to the talking. The creature skittered abruptly and spat a web, pinning the cleric to the ground. The mage went over to try to free her (thankfully using a spell that didn’t involve flame.) Our drunken fighter struggled to close the distance with his drunken waddle but the beast caught him off guard and smacked him into a stalactite. Suddenly we heard it reel wildly in a wicked, ear-bleeding shout – Terbel came out of hiding and landed a solid strike! Or, rather a messy, ugly gash across its abdomen. Seemed she tripped again right as she tried for a clean stab. At least it looked painful.
However, it did something none of us expected: it shapeshifted – into an armored mole-spider chimera. My taunting spell narrowly made its claws miss the rogue, but I was now its target. The damn thing then chased after me, and I ran towards the half-orc drunk, who seemed unaffected by the previous blow when he called, “Ahh. Come here shorty! Aye-a will protect you!” In a heroic feat of martial prowess, Grogzor dodged the beast’s claws and landed triple-bout of cratering punches straight into the soft belly. “C’mon a lug. Shapeshift into something fun!” he taunted.
Sadly, it obliged. The form morphed and it extended into that of a towering snake creature. The many spider legs made it look more like a centipede. What was most horrifying was the countless spider eyes above those towering fangs, it’s mouth curved in a wicked, haunting smile.
I had to think quickly as it flexed its form. “Booze in the blood renders the flesh into iron. Liquor in your veins, will render the enemy’s fangs, profane!” Nearly fumbled my words with how fast I sang. The snake monster shot out like a cannon towards the half-orc, pinning him into the stone walls. At first I was afraid my spell failed, but he was there holding his own, preventing those teeth from clamping down with his raw half-orc might, enchanted by my stoneskin spell.
Lirien and Vance finally were up now, and Terbel struggled to find an opening as she lied wait in the shadows. Almost wanted to swear at him for how long he took, but him summoning another fireball caused the hairs on my body to stick up. “Wait!”
“Nah it’s okay, I got it this time!”
“Vance, I don’t think –” the cleric failed to reason with him in time. The fireball launched straight for it, but its head bobbed just narrowly avoiding the explosion. The stones crumbled by the wayside, but suddenly an eruption of water quickly drenched the beast. What became immediately apparent was the water was steaming – he struck a hot spring. The monster cried once more as it was showered by the scalding water. Grogzor, while getting caught in the scorching waters, thankfully had my protection still active, feeling unaffected.
“Everyone get back!” Lirien warned before her eyes turned white-blue, static churning throughout the entire chamber, closing in around her metallic rod. Chanting in a language I didn’t understand, what came forth was a powerful stream of lightning and thunder. Its muscles and veins quaked, popped, and charred from her god’s magic, compounded by the rich mineral waters.
The beast felled, by a string of luck in spite of gross incompetency.
The rush of boiling water subsided – another twist of fortune as Vance only struck a small pocket of the hot spring water. The true form of this estranged arachnid monster washed up towards us as we rested after that massive fight, and its true corpse revealed it to be of some abominable breed, taking the tall frame of an elven man, notable by the pointed ears and frayed, long hairs, but maintaining those creepy spider eyes. Parts of his skin were blotched in black arachnid bits and furs.
I envy any scholars who’d study this. I’ve only read about this happening to druids, who sometimes can become erratic, feral, and lose their sense of self when learning how to shapeshift. This was the first time I’ve encountered such a… creature. I wonder how many errant druids there are.
We staggered back to Stonehelm, reeking of ichor, booze, sweat, and ozone. A good portion of my share will have to go to a new outfit (again, but that’s the life of an adventurer I suppose.) The first thing I write about at the tavern were these words:
“Always.
Vet.
Your.
Companions.”
It was a cautionary warning I posted on the job board there, which I pray is still up. If I were Lirien, I’d consider worshipping the god of luck instead.
How’d you enjoy the tale? Let us know in the comments what you thought of Kibbolt’s adventure!
And if you liked this short story, consider reading this other adventuring tale involving our bard!
Professional Standard: Kibbolt Pillinger’s account of an S-Class Guild
Enjoy this marvelous story by our bard, Kibbolt, as he ventures with a group of esteemed, professional adventurers!