Reaping 12, 594 CY
Dwarven mines

Elizair and Munthrek decided to equip themselves with the magic ring and axe that we found— figuring the dwarves probably thought them to be useful. We headed back to the ground level of the mine, and checked out one of the water-filled passages. My 10’ pole indicated the water to only be a foot deep; nevertheless, I put a fishhook on a line to see if there was anything in the water. Nothing biting in there! We opted to try the rest of the “dry” tunnels before walking through this one.

Babble flew ahead of us into a large cavern, and disturbed some creatures; once again, the ant-scorpions chose to attack. I’ve been hit by their venom-filled stingers so many times now that I believe I am immune, which no doubt causes the big bugs some dismay. We quickly dispatched two while one chose to slink away down a mine shaft. Elizair dropped a feather on it, and we heard a loud “whump”— apparently, the feather was a heavy ship’s anchor in disguise. We tossed the other bug bodies down the shaft as well, in case there was any question which of our bands was the victor.

Later we found another group of bugs and Janet and Elizair lit flasks of oil to throw at them (only catching Munthrek on fire once or twice in the process). That killed the bugs quite nicely, though I’m somewhat disturbed to mention that Janet went up and sampled one of them afterwards. She said it tasted like chicken.

At this point, Elizair decided he could actually cast a ball of fire without the aid of oil and proceeded to fry a few more of the bug creatures. Each time we repeated this process, we made sure to dump the bodies down the nearest shaft. Elizair must be immune to the poison now too, as he’s been struck by the venomous tails several times without much ill effect.

Janet and Elizair did run out of spells though, so we opted to rest for a while. Thankfully it was an uneventful while; I taught Munthrek some Terran even though the bugs don’t seem to respond to it.

After resting we went back to bug-killing. We have it down to a science, but are starting to get a bit sloppy with the execution; I’ve managed to tumble right under a bug twice, and Janet got herself entangled in her own trap. I think we’ll have to go back down one of these shafts if we want to have any hope of finding any dwarven or human survivors, or at least a way out….