Crown of the Kobold King (days 5-6)

The heroes faced a horde of yapping kobolds and other foul denizens in the cramped warrens and mining shafts below.

On level two, masonry gave way to rough-carved tunnels with low ceilings and gaping caves full of jutting stalagmites below and looming stalactites above. The passageways between most areas, while comfortable for kobolds, were tight quarters for medium creatures, and several accessways require medium heroes to squeeze.

The shaft dropped down into a large, mostly square chamber. A doorway opened in one wall, while two other walls had been broken through from the outside. Cramped, narrow tunnels beckoned from beyond the breached walls. Two bloodscales awaited the heroes, mounted on the backs of disgusting toadlike monstrosities called slurks. As soon as anyone descended the shaft they attacked, but the heroes had no trouble dispatching them.

The next dour stone chamber was filled with empty crates and splintered barrels. Stone rafters criss-crossed the ceiling above. This area was once home to a family of chokers lurking among the old crates and boxes stowed in this dark chamber. When the kobolds rose up from the warrens below, war broke out between these two groups of monsters. After a week fraught with casualties on both sides, the kobolds won out, slaying all of the chokers but one, who fled to the shadowy rafters above. Now the poor creature lay between some boxes, barely alive, a kobold's barbed spear still stuck in his back. The choker gurgled pathetically when approached, unable to defend himself. When Hrol took pity on the choker and removed the barbed spear, the thing looked on him with confused, grateful eyes, and dragged itself into the corner to rest.

The cramped passageways ahead opened to a large cavern filled with rocky overhangs and jutting boulders. The boulders offered a lot of cover for anyone who wanted to take advantage of them. Merlokrep's cruel mining foreman, Lekmek, worked a gaggle of slaves to death in search of "shiny good-good" for Vreggma. Sadly, gold is not on the menu in these glum mines, whose walls are riddled instead with veins of iron ore. Lekmek was short for a kobold, with spindly little chicken legs that contrasted bizarrely with his tremendously muscled upper body. His broad shoulders and thick python arms were perched precariously on his wobbly stick-legs. His face was squat and mean. His snout was stunted as if pushed in by a shovel. Heroes familiar with Boss Teedum back in town were disturbed by Lekmek's striking resemblance to the ugly human. When the heroes ventured here the foreman ordered his slaves to attack with their picks as he waded into melee with his. Lekmek wielded his pick two-handed. He was too ornerly to flee. The slaves fought like devils against the heroes. After this fight, the heroes decided to rest before they moved further into the warrens.

The walls and floor of the chamber they entered after resting was covered with a semi-transparent slippery gray slime that resembled mucous. Two narrow tunnels led south out of this cave, while a flight of steps led up to the north. The walls of this cavern were covered in the foul-smelling crusty slime secreted by slurks, and the floor was slick with their nasty belly grease. The floor was slippery, with anyone moving through here risking falling prone. Kapmek, the Honored Slurk-Wrangler of the Truescale tribe, spent most of his time here with his goo-slick charges. Kapmek, a green-scaled kobold with an overly long snout and swathed in black leather armor, was mounted on slurk-back. Another slurk also roved about the slimy cave. It had the corpse of a bloodscale kobold stuck to its back. Kapmek and his slurks leapt to attack the heroes when they enter this chamber. Kapmek kept his distance on slurkback and pelted foes with shots from his crossbow, managing to kill one of the heroes' kobold allies before he was defeated.