Session Three
The party awoke one morning, the idea of venturing into the cave looming over their heads. All of them slowly began to awake as Rainn begins to search the small camp for supplies. Surprisingly, Rainn was able to find an adequate amount of supplies to make Salvage Serum, a strange green liquid in a syringe that has mysterious properties. Bishop, having a good proficiency in medicine created the Serum. The party quickly made the decision that it was time to enter the cave shortly after. Upon entering the cave Rainn and Jax lit up torches in order to see well. The cave walls were lined with flesh, tooth like growths littered the cave floor like strange crystals. As they begin to traverse the cave, something odd happens.. the light from behind them gets seemingly snuffed out, out of nowhere. Upon turning around, the party quickly discovers the path has changed. Upon that discovery they all knew something was off about this cave. As they walk through narrow passages they discover a small opening in the path, a pool filled with a mysterious red iridescent thick substance that reeked of iron. The party realized... to advance, they must swim. one by one they dove into the pool, swimming through the substance and emerging on the other side. As they continue to traverse the caves winding claustrophobic passages they come across a large room with a low ceiling. The entire floor is covered in strange vein-like growths. When Jax steps forward (now covered in the blood-substance) His foot falls into an ankle deep hole. Upon knowing that this could possibly be a minefield of holes, the Bishop goes ahead, skillfully dodging all the unstable portions of ground, helping the party across... However, last to go is Rainn, who unfortunately makes a wrong step and slips into a large hole. Thankfully the party thought ahead and had tied a rope to her just in case if she fell. She was not alone, however. A small cave crawler is sitting there squirming in the hole that Rainn fell into, quickly taking notice of her fall and hissing at her.
Upon hearing this, the party makes a group effort to pull Rainn out of the hole, which they were successful in. After pulling Rainn out the party makes a quick escape from the room, walking through another series of narrow passages. As the party begins to walk, the passage begins to dip downwards, the ceiling sloping down until the party is forced to crawl. As the party crawls, the red substance begins to pool in the small passageway, until Jax, who was leading the group falls headfirst into a deeper section of the water. once he resurfaces, he realizes the toothy ceiling is only inches from his face, barely giving him enough space to gasp for air. The party traverses the thin space before coming to a dead end. They turn around once more to find that the passage has changed. Upon this discovery, they begin to feel the water getting pulled in the opposite direction, quickly forming rapids as the pathway has opened up in that direction. The party is quickly swept away, tumbling through the water. Thankfully, there were some rocks jutting out of the fast moving rapids that the party could hold onto, the rope came in handy once again as Jax handed one end to Rainn who had caught herself on a rock, so they could catch the rest of the party. Seven had sunk to the bottom of the rapids, getting pushed along the bottom. he quickly found Bishop's foot, using him as leverage to climb up and to hold onto the rope. Now being able to actually gain their bearings, the party sees a small shoreline on the opposite end of the raging substance. The party makes their way to the shore, hiking down a sloping path into a large cavern with a deep, deep pool of the blood-substance. They could hear something from just beyond one of its walls, the sound of Cathrine crying, upon further inspection they discover a crack in the wall, the crevasse is quite tight, so the party must force themselves through, carefully traversing it
Thankfully, the passage soon opened up to reveal a long, dark hallway. Cathrine stands on the other end of the hall... but she is silent. Rainn and some other members of the party call out to her, but there is no response. Many of them draw their weapons, readying for some form of deception to be in order. As Rainn and the rest of the party step forward, they realize something... Cathrine is fused into the wall... mouth open and face twisted in a scream. She's dead. But they hear something from behind them. a very quiet... very slight sound of movement. Upon turning around they are faced with The Cave Stalker.
And the battle began. With it's eyes alone, the Cave Stalker paralyzed its enemies with fear. after taking a sizable hit, Bishop fell victim to it's horrifying gaze, hearing whispers in his head. Rainn soon found herself under the creature's influence, but soon after, Scraps charged at the beast, stabbing it with a dagger directly between the eyes, killing it. The beast fell, shuddering and seizing as black tar oozed from its maw. After taking it all in and decompressing from the battle, they could feel something warm behind them... Sunlight! The cave had paradoxically opened up! Upon turning around once more, they realized, somehow, they had gotten to the other side of Ladle Rock from a 2 foot indent in the rock... Cathrine's body was still there, fused into the rock. Bishop cries over the loss and takes her lucky keychain from her pocket to bring back to their commune. As the party ventured back, they realized something horrifying... The flesh had advanced, the machine had taken over the commune! The remnants of fused people trying to drag themselves free were everywhere... it was a bloodbath. The party soon finds Erin, Arm fused into the machine. It's clear she's fighting to stay alive. Upon finding her the party asked what happened and Erin explains that the machine began to advance so rapidly it took the commune over in the span of a couple minutes. Erin asks about Cathrine, and Bishop hands her the keychain, the party relaying the message that she had died in the cave. Erin soon begs the party to venture off to find a mysterious robot named Merlin, his location only known by a thing named Smith. with this message relayed, Erin seizes up, and slowly succumbs to the machine's grasp.
Party levels up to level 4