Descent into the Underdark

Nothing much happens with Oliver's experiments. Again, the slime works slowly, so nothing happens fast. However, the two wine components do not appear to harm the slime.

With effort, Ishzu is able to get enough of a grasp on the object to drag it up and out of the slime to their side of the cavern. As the object is pulled out, the slime just slides off of it. It has kind of a lumpy main section, with three long tentacle like things out of the main section. No one really recognizes what it is at first, but finally Oliver's eyes go wide and bright. "It's a dead mimic!" he exclaims. Ishzu did not find any loot around it, so apparently if it had any, whoever killed the mimic already took any loot.

As Oliver investigates the dead mimic, he can see it is far from fresh, so any ichors or other extracts are long since lost. However, aside from the natural deterioration caused by being dead, it seems remarkably unconsumed ...

The cavern is roughly circular, meaning the ceiling looks to reach as high as 60 feet or so. While it is hard to tell, there appears to be nothing lurking up there. (The remaining darkmantle does not appear to have settled here.)

Grin makes his way along the southern cavern wall without finding anything. When he reaches the opposite side of the cavern from where they entered, he finds an opening (which they already thought was there). However, he finds a distinct lack of anything even hinting at goblins on this side. He does see that some activity has happened at the opening, but they don't match the goblin activity they saw on the other side. In fact, they look as if those who made the tracks treated the pink slime as a barrier. The opening does seem to continue on down as far as his torchlight will carry. However, rather than exploring on his own, he loops back around along the northern wall. About a third of the way back, he sees a relatively small opening that does show signs of goblin activity. Presumably, this is where they put on their boots to cross, so the marks of activity are quite evident. Humorously, the opening is impossible to see from the side of the cavern from which they entered. In fact, if Grin had moved around in the opposite direction, he could have missed it. (Well, not Grin, he's a dungeoneer!) But, since he was approaching from the "correct" direction, he could easily see it.

He quickly waves Ishzu over and they both take a look. They agree this is likely where the goblins entered from.