Tiger People, Giant Toads and Caverns Oh My!

The group travels quickly to the north as the magic compass starts to spin and points them in the right direction, their travels take them up through Googers Pass. An old hunting ground that has all but been abandoned due to reports of strange things happening especially at night. At the end of the first day they find a rope bridge that has been cut by the far side. The bridge still seemed to be intact on their side, but it was a good 30 foot gap to the other side. Using his quick witts Te'Wig goes to work. Having Mutt use his lumberjack skills to give Te'Wig the needed supplies Te'Wig manages to create a small Catapult! Meanwhile the rest of the group manage to haul up the rest of the bridge and tie it to the large rock they have placed on the Catapult. Te'Wig takes aim and fires the boulder across the gap and it lands with a large thud on the other side of the gap. Te'Wig then pulls out the necklace he pulled off of Captain Slade of focused his will on the other side of the boulder,and in a flash of green light he appeared standing on top of the boulder, although now a little fatigued from the use of the foreign magic! Te'Wig proceeds to secure the bridge to it's original anchors and the rest of the party comes across the bridge with no issues. Te'Wig exhausted from his work and heavy use of magic requests the group rest for the night. There is a bit of tension at the request as time is short, and they must get the magic rock back to the volcano before it erupts and time is running short for Grifdale!

In the morning refreshed, the compass shows the group a more difficult path, yet it seems to be a more direct route to where they are going. The group decides to take the risk and although a bit battered from the journey, they find themselves at the mouth of a large cavern going into the side of a large mountain. Inspecting the ground they find what looks to be a single set of human sized boot-prints entering into the cavern, and numerous large animal paw prints. Since no one is a hunter in the party, they assume it could be anything from a wolf, or a bear, or a large cat.

The cavern goes dark quickly, but Te'Wig with his trusty minors helmet strikes his candle and combined with his dwarven vision makes out a large intricate scaffolding in the middle of the cavern. It is not of any dwarven construction or anything Te'Wig has ever seen. The wood is rough cut branches strapped together with what looks like vines. Very crude, but looks somewhat stable. Curiosity gets the better of Te'Wig and he moves forward for a closer look. As he approaches he notices that the Scaffolding is not attempting to hold up the cavern at all, it seems to be a free standing structure serving another purpose all together. Also upon looking at some of the cross supports, Te'Wig notices large claw marks cutting grooves in the wood. At this point Te'Wig is completely consumed at the mystery and takes a step towards the scaffolding and that is when things go horrible wrong! The floor gives out below poor Te'Wig and he plunges down into the dark pit below! There is a large thump and crunch as Te'Wig hits the ground hard. In the fall he managed to lose his crossbow which went skittering across the ground of the pit, his candle went out throwing the group into total darkness, and the magical compass he worked so hard on creating broke under his weight during the fall and shards of it are protruding from his side!

Kirin hearing the fall heads back to the mouth of the cavern to grab the rope from the pack mule to help haul out their dwarven ally. Elia gets suspicious and starts looking around intently. She can't seem to quite make anything out in the pitch black ( curse those human eyes ), however she is certain she could hear something moving up in the scaffolding! At this point Te'Wig manages to strike his candle on his mining helmet to get an idea of what happened and how bad it is. After insuring that although a bit broken, he is ok, he scans around for his treasure, his crossbow. He finds it across the pit, just in front of the biggest toad he has ever laid eyes on! Upon seeing Te'Wig the Toad licks its lips and starts to move forward!

At his point the room is slightly illuminated by Te'Wigs Minors helmet and the rest of the party see the real thread in the room. Giant Cat men (Rakashin) with razor sharp claws are scattered across the entire scaffolding and are starting to move in to attack. Kirin rushes forward and tosses the rope down into the pit to give Te'Wig an means to escape the giant toad. Then to free up his hands he summons his ability to burrow through rock and shoves his hand into the stone in the ground and embeds the rope inside! Elia steps up next to Kirin and attempt to use the Scaffolding to her advantage and tries to entangle the mass of Rakashin with her entangle spell. However the Rakashin prove to be to fast, and dance across the Scaffolding as if it was simply flat ground. The leader of the Rakashin, a large formidable looking Tiger leaps down and attempts to slice into Kirin and Elia. Elia manages to move out of the way, but Kirin gets grazed and causes him to stumble back. And as quickly as he leaped down the leader lunges back up to the scafolding avoiding any chance of attack from our heros! Mutt seeing Te'Wig unarmed and in trouble leaps down into the pit to stand in front of his fallen friend and protect him from the giant toad. He lands in a tight roll avoiding most of the impact of the fall. keeping the toad at bay long enough for Te'Wig to grab his crossbow and make his way back towards the rope to crawl out!

Kirin shrugs off the attack from the Rakashin and decides that this whole leaping attacking and leaping away thing is nothing short of annoying and sends a powerful blast of force directly through the center mass of crossbeams. The shot is right on target and reduces the scaffolding's center to flinders. The entire scaffolding begins to collapse and the Rakashin quickly attempt to jump to the safety of the side of the pit. 4 on the outside were lucky enough to make it, but the leader and 3 others manage to fall into the pit with Mutt, Te'Wig and the Toad! Te'Wig and Mutt manage to dodge the falling scaffolding and in the confusion Mutt sends Te'Wig up the rope to the edge of the pit. Meanwhile the Toad finding one of the nearest Rakashin warriors close enough to eat, whips out its giant tounge, grasps the poor Rakashin and swallows him whole! The screams of the Cat man echo through the Cavern, and causes everyone a little discomfort! The remaining Rakashin in the pit managed to have rubble piled on top of them so while they were preoccupied Mutt starts heading for the rope himself, slicing through a Rakashin on the way, leaving him a spot of goo on the floor. Mutt climbs the rope with such speed, most of you figure he just leaped up to the side!

At this point the Rakashin that managed to not fall into the bit have rushed our heros and proceed to start hacking and slashing. The group fends them off well, taking a few wounds in the process but with Mutt and Elia's fancy fighting the Cats go down like flies. At this point the leader of the Rakashin manages to make his way to the edge of the pit and looks furious! Just as he does however, Te'Wig slides the lever back on his crossbow causing all three strings to draw back at once. and with a release of the bolt, a giant arrow hurls across the room tunnling through the center of the Rakashin leader, leaving a hole the size of a basketball in his chest! And with that he falls limp to the ground. Meanwhile Mutt is attempting to deal with the final Rakashin warrior who seems to be the only one that has 9 lives. Managing to dodge and parry like a true warrior, he seems to be giving Mutt a run for his money! Te'Wig smiling to himself as he looks at the remains of the leader across the room, suddenly feels something sticky and strong wrap around his leg! The Toad's tongue firmly grasped around Te'Wigs leg pulls him down and gulps Te'Wig into his mouth!

Elia screams in frustration and without even thinking leaps off the side of the pit and hurls down on top of the toad dagger firmly pointed at its head! Using all her strength and momentum from the fall Elia slices through the head of the toad, not only splitting its skull, but following allt he way through slicking open the bottom of the toad, severing it in two! and crashing into the ground. The impact was quite hard and left Elia with a nice dislocated shoulder in the process. But looking around soon finds Te'Wig covered in what can only be described as "toad goop", but alive.

At this point Mutt decides it's time to end this game and throws all his weight into a final blow on the remaining Rakashin warrior and sends his head splatting against the nearest wall!

With all of the enemies gone, the party decides to take this time to lick their wounds, and cook up some tasty frog legs! Once healed and fed, the group cross the pit a final time and emerge from the cavern to see what is on the other side!