The group made camp for the night and were thankfully able to get a full night's rest free of tornadoes or monster attacks. In the morning as we were preparing a delicious bean breakfast, Fango spotted two dog-sized, bipedal creatures with heads in the shape of axes that seemed to be sniffing at the air and wandering toward our camp. We tried to scare them off, but they seemed intent on something in the camp and just kept coming toward Fango, focusing on the bow he carried. These were axe-handle hounds, creatures who fed specifically on worked or machined wood. Not willing to let them devour Fango's bow, which has sentimental value for him, we somewhat reluctantly entered combat with the creatures. We managed to avoid the charges with their axe headbutts, and slayed the beasts. Figuring their axe shaped skulls could be fashioned into something useful, the party took their heads, and also some of their meat to replenish our food stores.

Outside the copse of trees where we had made camp, the prairie started sloping sloping downward toward a river. The river forked at one point and then rejoined further downstream, and in the area between the forks there appeared to be a marsh. The tracks we were following were headed toward the river, but they curved to the southeast away from the marshy portion. Beyond the river we saw hills in the distance. The weather still appeared to be indicating the possibility of tornadoes, however the sky had not turned green, which would apparently indicate an immediately impending tornado. The tracks we followed indicated the group ahead of us had made several short rest stops during the night, however it did not appear they ever camped for a long rest, so we were now substantially behind our quarry.

As we rode, Bud suddenly felt a sharp pain on the back of his neck, followed by a wave if poison-induced nausea. The rest of the group saw a small snake dropping down into the grass as Bud slapped at the back of his neck. Bud shot the snake where it crawled for daring to assault an officer of the law. We all looked back up the slope, and saw a group of 3 more of the snakes up the slope, with their tails in their mouths and rolling rapidly downhill toward us in a hoop formation. We all opened fire and gunned the snakes down at range, but then a second wave of 6 hoop snakes appeared out of the grass behind them. As they got close they would let go of their tails and go sailing through the air at people to bite them. Several people took wounds, including the horse Whinny Houston, who was badly injured. We fought off this second wave of snakes, and then a whole swarm of baby snakes poured down the hill after them. Margaret lead Whinny to safety, and then we all opened fire again, The swarm of small snakes was hard to target, so our shots were not as effective as they would have been against a single creature, but the trick shooting from Bud, taunts from Lorek, Tomahawk chops from Fango, flaming potions from Margaret, and rapid fire from Gon felled the swarm.

After the battle, Bud laid hands on Whinny to bring her back from the brink of death. About this time we also noticed the air had gone very still, and the sky turned green. We were out in the open prairie, but down toward the river we spotted some ditches and boulders that might give some cover, so we all mounted up and started galloping for this shelter as fast as we could. As we rode, we spotted another group of riders far to the north who were riding parallel to our course, toward the swampy section of the river. Fango and Gon's sharp eyes picked out that these were natives, but not from a tribe we had encountered before. They were members of the Koyatche tribe from the far south, which was the tribe that had originally owned the talisman of ultimate evil. The group was comprised of 3 women who were painted in a gruesome fashion, with bones in their hair and what appeared to be sharpened teeth. Their group spotted us as well, however they seemed just as intent as we were on escaping to the cover afforded near the river.

We lost sight of them as the wind suddenly picked up again and dust obscured our sight. We reached a dried creek bed with sharp banks offering some shelter, and hunkered down just as we spotted a twister form and touch ground down by the river...
 

Koko Numees Informed us that the camp we were in was called Camp Splitskull, named for a marker placed int the middle of the river nearby: a buffalo skull, split down the middle, mounted on a stick. The camp was currently pretty quiet, with only about 6 Opowee there at the moment, but we were told the camp would fill up much more during the winter. Grazing nearby we saw 12-15 horses, most of which looked pretty exhausted and kind of nervous, likely from their recent proximity to the double-faces and the evil talisman.

Since Koko was a trader by profession, we took this opportunity to sell some of the loot we took from Caleb and Reverend Ableson. The flask the reverend had in his fancy flask turned out to be a philter of love. We sold the potion, but Margaret decided to keep the fancy flask. We also sold the reverend's derringer, and Caleb's fancy cards in the mother-of-pearl card case, since these turned out to be non-magical. The Axe-handle Hound skulls also fetched a good price for us. The fancy bullet's Caleb had were magical, so we held on to those. The group also used this opportunity to trade to resupply on more mundane bullets.

We also showed Koko the black crystals that had fallen from the Night-Names wisps when we shot them, and Koko recoiled from those and was definitely not interested in purchasing them. He recognized them, and told us that Night-Names were a sort of proto version of a more powerful undead creature called a Nalusa Falaya, or Long Man. Koko described these as long, dark beings, more intelligent than animalistic undead like ghouls. They were enemies of the native elves, and were apparently worshiped by the double faces.

Koko was also aware of the mound of bone, and said it was across the river in the hills, about 3 hours ride away. It was an old Tahokia burial mound. The Tahokia were an older native culture that are not around any longer. At one time the Tahokia people also lived in the mound, but now only their bones are left. The mound was apparently riddled with tunnels that lead to the burial chambers. At one time some settlers established a mine near to the mound, to the on Northeast of the mound, dug into the side of the hill, but the settlers got chased out when they broke through into the burial mound and then evil stuff started getting into the mines. Koko said there were rumors that they were chased out by Long Men and Tommyknockers. Since Tommyknockers is a general term used by miners to refer to spooky things, they probably were not referring to literal tommyknockers, which were goblin like creatures that would knock on things to warn miners of danger. After the settlers moved out of the mine, Jenny Gypsum took it over, so that is where she spends most of her time when she isn't wandering the plains or wrassling with tornados.

Given this description of where we were going, Bud purchased a bullseye lantern and some oil so he would be able to see in the underground passages we would be entering soon, and Gon and Fango each purchased a flask of holy water for dealing with undead.

We also asked Koko about the people who had come into the camp to trade horses, but he didn't know anything about that, because they had traded with a different man in the camp named Smoke Talker. We went over to Smoke Talker's tent to speak to him, and when he came out he looked super guilty and tried to play dumb at first about having traded with anyone. While we were speaking to him, we heard a loud crash from inside his tent.

Fango and Lorek moved to flank the tent so no would could sneak out, while Gon pulled his gun on Smoke Talker and told him not to move. Bud walked up to the tent and threw open the door flap, and inside we saw one of the Stick Flinger Stickmen, similar to the ones we had fought the previous day. The stick flinger, true to form, threw a stick at the group in front of the tent, and when it hit the ground it exploded with a very loud sound that threatened to deafen us. The Flinger then ducked out the back of the tent just in time for Lorek to put a bullet in him. The Stick Flinger yelled for help in ti's birdsong language, which summoned smaller Yaya stickmen to stand up from the grass all around the camp and start attacking both our group and the Opowee.

Despite Gon's warning, Smoke talker drew his pistol, but since Gon already had a bead on him he enacted Bird Justice and blew Smoke Talker's hand clean off. For their p[art, the Yaya stickmen started pelting us with rocks and moving in towards us, but luckily they all missed.

The Stick Flinger was still on his feet after the shot he took from Lorek, so Fango stuck an arrow in him, wounding the creature further, and then Lorek taunted him with an insult that cut so deep that the creature just decided to lie down and die.

With that threat eliminated, the group turned our attention on the large group of Yaya stickmen. Gon and Bud each gunned one down, and Margaret cast a protective Shield of Faith on Gon before she tossed a Sacred Flame vial at another Yaya.

The Yaya kept up a barrage of rocks as they advanced but their attacks were largely ineffective. Fango shot at one and missed, Gon shot and killed 2, and Lorek took careful aim and scored a critical hit, plugging a stickman right between the eyes to kill it. Bud holstered his pistol and waded into melee with the remaining two Yaya using his NCO sword. While Bud missed with his attack, Margaret splashed one with sacred flame flask, and Fango put an arrow through the chest of the other one to end the fight. Around the camp we could see the Opowee had also finished off the other stickmen.

After we tended to Smoke Talker's hand-stump so he wouldn't die, Lorek made a very persuasive argument as to why it would be in his best interest to tell us everything he knew. Smoke Talker admitted to being a member of the Red-face Society and working with Verna. He revealed that their plan was to deliver the Talisman of Ultimate Evil to a particularly powerful Long Man, and perform some sort of ritual that would give the Talisman to him in some way. He said the group with the Talisman had come through in the middle of the previous night to trade horses. He further revealed that Verna's group knew we were following them and so they were expecting us to arrive at the Bone Mound, and they would be protecting it so there would be no way we could get through the mound to the ritual site, which was in the chamber where the Tahokinan chief was buried.

What Verna's group hopefully wasn't expecting was that we would use the back entrance into the mound which Koko Numees had so kindly informed us of, through Jenny Gypsum's mine...
 

We came back to consciousness in a small room with nothing in it but a single railroad-tie pillar supporting the roof. Paco the pack mule was there, already wide awake when we came to. Bud and Margaret regained consciousness first, followed by Lorek, but Gon and Fango seemed to be under the effect of a magical sleep and could not be roused. The room was dimly illuminated by some sort of odd, non-directional light source, by which we could make out a single door in one wall. We found our equipment was mostly missing, however Margaret still had a derringer that she had concealed on her person, and both she and Bud still had their holy symbols.

We could hear a knocking sound coming from the east, and then an answering knock further off. Bud tried to open the door, but something on the other side of the door resisted his attempt to open it and pushed it back shut. When Bud tried this, the closer knocking stopped. Margaret called out to our captors, and as she did so we started hearing knocking sounds coming from all over. She told our captors that we were only in the mine to stop a great evil and intended them no harm. After she said that all the knocking stopped.

Margaret handed her derringer over to Bud, but after he searched through the rubble in the room he located two broken pieces or railroad tie that could be used as makeshift weapons, one that could be used as a club, and another that was more narrow with a shard of metal along one edge that could be used for poking. Bud took the poking weapon and gave Margaret back her pocket-pistol.

At that point the knocking all started up again, and something smashed heavily into the door twice. At that moment the lights went out. Bud was left blind in the darkness, but Margaret and Lorek were able to see well enough in the dark that they saw when three large centipedes squirmed out from underneath a pile of rubble against one wall. Margaret emitted a horrified scream of warning. Gon chose this moment to wake up, but Fango was still snoring in one corner.

With combat joined, Bud channel divine energy into his pointy stick, transforming it into a sacred weapon that emitted light so we could see. Gon snatched up the clubbing weapon off the ground and infused it with a natural energy so that when he smashed it down on the centipede in front of him the creature was restrained by thorny vines. Lorek used a bardic taunt, informing one of the centipedes that it was stupid to have so many legs, but the centipede seemed untroubled by this. Paco tried to stomp on a centipede but missed. Perhaps due the noise from the fight, Fango finally managed to shake off the effect of the magical sleep, and he snatched up a rock to use as a weapon and hid behind the pillar. Margaret , still screaming bravely, launched a handful of sacred flame at one of the centipedes, and incinerated it.

With the death of the centipede, we heard the knocking suddenly start up again from all over. As the knocks sounded, the centipedes fled back into the hole from which they emerged. Margaret rushed to plug up the hole so the centipedes could not reemerge.

The door creaked open, and we could hear the knocking sounds moving farther away. As they grew more distant, the knocks eventually stopped. Bud went over and opened the door, and outside he found the hallway that was right around the corner from where we had all lost consciousness. In the hallway was all our gear, so we all recovered our equipment. Also in the hallway was a small pile of rocks and feathers. Fango recognized this as a sacrifice left to honor us, and reasoned that the fight with the centipedes had been set up as a test for us. Margaret used her knowledge of the arcane to further puzzle out that creatures who had captured us were native fairies known as Jogah or “drum-dancers”, and specifically they were a sub-species of Jogah called Ohdow. The Ohdow are invisible subterranean spirits whose purpose is to keep underground creatures from escaping to the surface. Apparently by passing their test we proved that we were sufficiently powerful to safely pass deeper underground.

Margaret called out to the spirits, thanking them and telling them that they could have her precious barrel of sarsaparilla, which of course she desperately wanted to keep and was not at all eager to dump on someone else at the first available opportunity, so this was a mighty sacrifice for her. Fango left a wooden carving he had made on the sacrificial pile in order to honor the Odow, and following suit we each placed a token for them on the pile: Margaret leaving a penny, Bud leaving some mustache clippings, Gon leaving one of his feathers, and Lorek leaving a bullet. Paco, being a total ass, left nothing.

With that we pressed on further into the mine. We found the door on the far side of the miner’s kitchen we had discovered earlier just lead to another side passage off the main shaft. That passage was also carved unnaturally smooth like the one Fango had explored earlier. We headed farther down the main shaft, and near the end found a couple of passages sloping steeply down to the left, and on the right it appeared the mineshaft had broken through into a natural cavern. Around the entrance to the natural cavern was a collection of bones with miner’s helmets and picks amongst them, and the whole end of the mineshaft was caked with a thick layer of guano that seemed to have come from some very large creature. The guano also contained bones.

Bud stayed back to provide some indirect light from his lantern while Gon and Fango moved silently into the natural cavern. The cavern was narrow at first, and the walls and floor were covered in what appeared to be claw marks from some large creature. There was also a trail of offal in the passage, and mixed in with it were some very large feathers. The passage curved further to the right and opened up into a wider cavern. This cavern contained more bones, and there were two passages exiting on the far end. In the mouth of the left-most of those two passages was a large nest made of sticks, railroad ties, and chunks of gypsum. Sleeping in that nest was a large creature that looked like a cross between a bird and a lizard. It was long and thin, with wings and 4 legs. The front legs ended in large talons, and its body between the 2 sets of legs was a mass of tentacles. Its head only had one eye, which was thankfully closed, and a large beak that looked to be made of metal. More tentacles came from the mouth. This was a creature of legend known as a snallygaster.

We were hoping to cover our approach so we could all surround the monster and attack simultaneously, so Lorek tried casting silence on the creature to allow the less stealthy among us to get into position. Unfortunately, the sound of him casting the spell woke the creature, so we all simply ran in to engage.

Bud, Gon, and Lorek all fired at the creature and hit, and with Bud’s shot there was the sound of banging gavels as he focused the power of The Law into a divine smite. After this Fango fired an arrow into the beast in a sneak attack, damaging it greatly before he snuck around the corner to conceal himself in the 2nd passage leading out of the room.

After this barrage of fire, the Snallygaster surged forward to attack Gon. Up close the creature’s breath was foul as it pecked at Gon with its pecker and lashed out with its tentacles, but Gon deftly dodged all the attacks.

Margaret hurled one of her patented sacred flame flasks at he creature, and more gavels rang out as Bud again focused a divine smite through his pistol and fired a golden bolt of energy into the beast. Lorek found himself too close to the monster to take an effective shot, so he tumbled past it to get far enough away to shoot it. The Snallycaster scored a hit with its metal beak as Lorek parkoured off the wall to get behind the beast, but once past it Lorek fired a shot directly into the monster’s heart, killing it.

Fango right away started skinning the beast, and other members of the group harvested its metal beak. During this process it was noted that the tentacles of the creature appeared to be covered in venomous stingers. Margaret used her alchemy skills to harvest 3 vials of poison from the stingers, which was then given to Fango so he might use it to coat his arrows. The creature was also sliced open, and a large ruby was found in its gizzard. Bud searched through the creature’s nest and while most of the contents were worthless things such as tin cups and miners hats, he did find some coins which he placed in the party funds.
 

The next morning, the group headed back into the mine. On our way in we double-checked the collapsing ceiling trap to verify it hadn’t been reset (it hadn’t).  We headed past the Snallygater corpse, which was starting to stink, and peeked in that side passage where the oily ooze was and didn’t see any change. Once we reached the barricade that was immediately past the side passage that lead to the room where the tinpot terror had been, we were greeted by a voice from beyond the barricade.
 
Behind the barricade was a group of 5 Welsh miners, 4 men and a woman, who squinted uncomfortably at the light from Bud’s lantern.  They told us they had been trapped inside when the Snallygaster moved in and had been surviving since then eating bats.  When we told them that we had killed the Snallygaster, they were relieved, and Bud started helping them clear a path through the barricade so they could come out.  While clearing it, we asked them about the bone mound and any undead threat may have broken through from there into the mine, but the claimed not to know anything about that.  We also asked them about the glowing stream, and they indicated an aversion to that and warned us to stay away from it. During these questions, they kept trying to steer the conversation toward the side passage where the oily ooze was located, claiming that was a secret way to escape the mine and encouraging us to go through there. We said we thought it was too small for some of us, and expressed worry about touching the slime, but they said you could fit if you squeezed and that the ooze was harmless, and if it got on you it was just refreshing like rosewater.
 
As they continued to bring up that passage, we got suspicious of how obsessed they seemed with it. Once a path was cleared in the barricade, Bud blocked their exit and insisted that before they come out that they allow Margaret to examine them. At this point the lead miner, Hugh Davis, said “Throw him in the hole, boys,” and tried to grapple Bud.  Bud was able to avoid the tackle, and struck back using the flat of his NCO sword to try to incapacitate the miner. After the initial failed grapple attempt, Hugh started punching Bud with unnatural strength behind his blows, and the rest of the miners either tried to scramble over the barricade or spit nasty looking goo at the party. The rest of the group opened fire with their guns, Fango jumped on Paco’s back to gain some visibility to fire arrows over the barricade, and Margaret moved forward to back Bud up. Margaret managed to spray one of the miners with a restoration potion, at which point he vomited up a pool of oily black liquid and then passed out. The black liquid started moving on its own and fled back toward the rosewater passage that the miners had tried to lure us into. With every miner we knocked out or gunned down, a similar ooze creature exited their body and started fleeing toward the side passage which presumably contained the mother organism. We gunned down a few of these oozes, but they were surprisingly hearty, and several ended up escaping back to their lair.
 
Margaret used a Suggestion spell to tell the woman miner to go bathe in the glowing stream, and the woman asked Margaret to clarify “inside or outside?”  When Margaret said outside, she headed past us toward the exit.  We allowed her to go, and after knocking out one more of her companions and gunning down the other two, we grabbed the unconscious ones and followed her out.   Outside, the woman entered the glowing stream and then started vomiting up another one of those ooze creatures,  When the ooze hit the water it disintegrated.
 
We noticed that Jenny had built a makeshift paddock for our horses using various scrap material like broken wagons and even what looked like the side of a house. After we tended to the miners, Jenny returned, and she seemed very excited that we saved some of the miners.  Right away she took them under her wing and started scrubbing them clean in the river.  With the wounded in good hands, we headed back into the mine.
 
Just past the barricade Fango managed to find a secret door that lead back into the room where we had fought the centipedes after the Tommyknockers had captured us.  This gave us a faster way to the exit if we find that we need it in the future. 
 
The passage beyond the barricade headed straight ahead to some stairs, and on the wall opposite the secret door was a regular, non-secret door.  We took that door into a storage room.  It appeared to be cleared out of any food, but there were still tools in there, and two fur coats hanging on one wall.  There was also another door in the room on the opposite wall from the one we entered.  We figured the coats might be worth something, so Margaret went to grab them.  As soon as she touched one the coats both animated and attacked. These were apparently creatures called Rumtifusels, and inside they were lined with spiky tentacles.  One wrapped itself around Margaret and started smothering her, but Gon ran up and managed to pull it off her.  The group then gunned down both coats.  Inside the pocket of one coat we found 5 silver dollars and a fancy pair of ermine gloves that looked to be worth about $20-25.
 
We examined the other door leading out of the room, and Gon spotted a latch at the bottom.  We theorized that this latch needed to be engaged before the door was opened to prevent a trap from going off, so Bud stepped down on the latch before opening the door.  No trap went off when he did, so our theory may have been correct.
 
Beyond the door was some sort of armory containing tables piled with guns. The table in the center of the room contained what looked like a heavy iron ammo box. In the SE corner of the room was a hole about as big around as a barrel that bisected the wall. The hole emanated a stench like death, and looking down the hole it was about 30 feet deep and then appeared to curve to the south.  There was a matching hole in the ceiling right above it.
 
Margaret examined the ammo box and spotted the corner of what looked like a paper money bill poking out from under the chest. She also found what looked like some sort of arcane symbol on the latch.  She was able to figure out the arcane symbol had something to do with animation magic, and so figuring that this might trigger a trap that would animate all the guns in the room she went around and unloaded all the guns. We got 42 handgun bullets from that.  There were also 2 shotguns in the room, so Margaret took the shells from those for her own shotgun, and there was one repeater carbide rifle, which we took and placed on Paco, because rifles are expensive.   Margaret then managed to disarm the trap on the latch, and opening the box found it was full of handgun bullets, which we took and loaded onto Paco. Underneath the box was $65 in paper money, which we also took, and a note that said “petty cash.” Bud argued we should probably return that money to the miners, but everyone else disagreed.  
 
A single door lead from this room, so we took that into a room with a single table in the center that was covered in books and papers and a dusty blueprint of the mine. The books included geologomancer reports (apparently a subject that combined geology with the study of ley lines), employee logs, a business book, and one titled “The Rees-Stauch Mining Company Spellbook”.  The employee log indicated that the mine supervisor was Aled Henries.  One of the miners we fought earlier was a simpleton named Dertel Henries, who was apparently his brother. The papers indicated that the miners had been mining gypsum here, but they were apparently looking for something more valuable.  They had not been successful so far, however, and just kept finding some mineral called boxite that was useless.  Margaret was very interested in the business book, so she took that, and she took the spellbook as well.
 
The blueprint showed most of the regions of the mine we had already explored, plus two additional rooms we hadn’t reached yet, one very large room beyond the staircase in the main hall, which was also connected to the room we were currently in by a short hallway, and one small room just beyond another short hall from the room we were currently in. The “rosewater hole” side-passage was not on the map, and neither was the secret door. A question mark was marked in the map on one corner of the large room we had not explored yet.
 
We headed to the smaller room, and found the door was apparently barred form the other side. Margaret was able to unbar it using her thieves’ tools. The room beyond appeared to be a bedroom, and it stank of decay. There was a dark oil lantern on a bedside table, and in the center of the room was a dead body seated on a chair.  The corpse held a ledger, and on the floor beside it was an inkwell and quill.  The ledger has apparently belonged to the mine surpervisor and told how a quake had opened a crack in the large chamber that lead to a stream.  It also told of how disaster struck the mine about 3 months ago when the snallygaster moved in. The miners were trapped, and several had tried to find other ways out. One woman apparently tried to follow the stream and never returned, and one guy came back not seeming right in the head.  After that, the supervisor suspected that miner might have killed somebody.  The ledger ended telling how the miners, including his own brother, turned on the supervisor and he was forced to barricade himself in this room where he eventually died when his food and water ran out. The room didn’t seem to contain anything else of interest.
 
We then headed to the big room from the map.  The room contained a lot of thick wooden posts being used as support pillars.   Also inside were 6 bedrolls which looked like they had not been slept in in months.  Against one wall was what looked like a deactivated tinpot terror. In one far corner of the room (the same corner marked by the question mark on the map) a large burlap curtain was stretched between a couple of pillars.
 
We took a wide berth around the tinpot terror and headed to the curtain, and behind that found a crack that split the wall open. It looked like it had been opened by the stone shifting. From the crack we could hear the trickling of water and see a glow.  We headed through the crack, and then down the natural passage beyond it. The passage was coated in damp moss A short way in, the passage was crossed by the glowing stream, which tricked in through a crack in one wall and then out an additional crack in the opposite wall. Bud took some time to soak in the cold water, and after a few minutes felt invigorated (apparently gaining an extra hit dice he could roll during his next short rest).  Margaret took some time studying the water to determine the source of the glow, and figured out that the water itself was glowing. She was able to determine that this was the result of some sort of old-style shamanic blessing that had been placed on the stream.
 
Continuing on past the stream, the party spotted what appeared to be a non-natural side passage.  There were carvings on the walls, and we spotted on the side of the wall beside the side passage some writing in ancient Tahokian, and beneath that a symbol that looked arcane.  None of us spoke that language, but calling on our knowledge of other native languages we puzzled out that it maybe contained the word for peace. As we approached the writing, the arcane symbol on the wall flared up, and instantly Bud, Lorek, and Margaret all dropped to the ground in extreme agony.  Gon, Fango, and Paco dragged their down companions back to the stream, where we took a couple minutes to recover. On recovering, Lorek asked “Which one of you cowards took a shit in my pants?”
 
We made a second attempt to get through the passage, with the help of a Bless spell and a bardic inspiration on Margaret, and this time only Bud succumbed to the pain.  Margaret was able to push forward and unbind the magic of the glowing symbol.
 
As we traveled down the worked side passage, Bud spotted some footprints leading in, but not out. We guessed this was the missing miner the mine supervisor’s ledger had referred to. The passage ended in an unusual door that appeared to be made of very thin stone, and when opened by sliding upwards into the ceiling. Beyond the door the passage smelled of earthy decay, and we found another room that was crossed the stream, and which contained a lot of loose earth and plants.  It appeared that an earthquake some time ago had caused this to fall into the chamber from above. We spotted what looked like a skeletal foot poking out from the mass of plants. Margaret threw a rock into the room, and when it landed a very large plant in the room came alive and started lashing vines towards us.  At the same time, five mushroom-like creatures shambled slowly forward.  Lorek bravely charged forward and hit all the creatures a thunderwave spell, before backing up and taking out his rifle. We all opened fire with our guns and bows while Margaret tossed in flasks that erupted into radiant flames, and when the smoke cleared all the plant creatures were dead.
 
Searching among the dirt and plant matter, we found a suit of Tahokian armor that appeared to be a sort of magical scale mail made of feathers.  We also found 6 dollars, which the dead miner had presumably been carrying.  We left off at this point without deciding what to do with the armor.
 
Also, author’s note here, I have a note in the margin of my main notes that just says “KLAUGHNONNY”.  I forget where we saw this word.  Was that in the mine supervisor’s journal?