Forest cave laboratory

The forest cave laboratory is a hidden underground workplace in the forest of Sınır Sapı, in the campaign Zincirsiz ("Unchained"). Jonathan River found it by the forest's own senses, granted him under the Pact of the forest's heart: from far away the place felt like a fouled, foul-smelling knot, foreign to the natural forest. As the companions came closer, the good smells of the forest seemed sweeter and the bad ones harder to bear, and animals drew close to them.¹²

The entrance

Close up, it was no animal's den but a large cave reaching downwards, partly widened by hand. A rabbit climbed onto Jonathan and then led the way. At the entrance Olaf caught his foot on a rope, and a mechanism in a metal pipe went off with smoke, a smell like gunpowder and a noise. It was recognised as drow work; no one was hurt, for it was a warning signal meant to be noticed from some distance, not a great blast.³⁴

The first chamber was narrow, about thirty feet deep. When Olaf moved some rocks aside at Jonathan's word, a steep rope ladder came to light beneath them. A glowing coin dropped down showed a depth of about twenty metres, and below lay a space too regular to have formed naturally.⁵⁶

Below

No living animal was to be seen below, only hundreds of dead insects, bats, snakes and other creatures, and the plants too had been cleared away. The place had been purged on purpose, to cut off any reach that the fey or Teresa might have had through nature. Jonathan, helped by Teresa, called fireflies down from the entrance; not a swarm, but enough to light the hall a little.⁷⁸

By their light the companions saw a space about a hundred and twenty feet across, with worktables, cages, frames like surgeons' beds, glass tubes, and a practice board stuck with hand-crossbow bolts. Human bodies lay in the cages, on the beds and along the walls, and they gave the impression of having had their brains eaten.⁹

Besides the ladder there were other ways in: a narrow hole high up, and a natural cave passage leading off near the worktables. The upper entrance was the best-kept and most used, but not the only one. In a chest with its lid open lay a great deal of gold in bars, clothing and gear suited to the drow; the place looked like a shared base.¹⁰¹¹¹²

The battle

The attack came from two places at once. Out of the side darkness two drow with swords sprang at Teresa, who met them in the shape of a bear. At the top the rocks were thrown open, and as a drow climbed down the ladder, Blink, who had taken the place of its upper ropes, let go; the drow tumbled and was hurt in the fall. The mind flayer showed itself at the upper entrance.¹³¹⁴

Spoiler: The end of the fightRevealSpoils: Zincirsiz #18 · Say what you have read

Jonathan killed the mind flayer with five darts of force. One drow fled through a narrow side passage into the dark; the other was cornered by Teresa as a bear and by Olaf, enlarged by Jonathan's magic, and taken alive. Jonathan later let the unarmed prisoner go after it described where the bodies of the taken lay, in the dry part of a flooded cave near one of the lakes, and said it meant to return underground. Teresa said she would rather it had died, but understood the wish to bury the dead.^1516171819

The notes

A key found on the mind flayer opened a locked chest. It held notes on experiments: drawing out the essence of the fey and the spirits of animals, using them in dark rituals, strengthening bonds of the mind, and breaking the forest's defences. Among them was a ritual for sensing living things nearby, which explained how the whole place had been cleared of small creatures.²⁰²¹

The chest also held six bars of gold, which were taken. When the witch hunters arrived from above, the victory was announced. Jonathan took the important notes; the ladder was mended, and the rest of the material and the body of the creature were left to the hunters.²²¹⁹