Previously, on the Adventures of Team BAJA, our heroes stumble upon trouble in the small town of Greenest during a bandit raid. The raid was discovered to be a front for the Cult of the Dragon to retrieve mysterious relics found near the town. The cult has been pushed back into the mountains by the team and some reinforcements by the local militia. What lies in store for the party? Find out! (If you missed it, Episodes 1 P1 & P2, Episode 2 P1 & P2). 

          The team retire in Elias’ cottage home while the militia deal with the remaining cultists from the Cult of the Dragon. The half-elf artificer grants the party access to the Archive, an informational crystalline device of repository knowledge. Each of the party members try to unearth their separate dilemmas, but did not yield a lot of information. After resting for a couple of hours and getting a short sleep, Elias awakens the party to news that Brimstone needs their assistance with flushing the remaining cultists.

            It is early morning, the light of dawn began to break through the night horizon. Before departing the wooden cottage, the artificer bestows the group with some additional gear and weapons that may improve their odds. An old wooden staff of entwined oak for Jimmy, a wand to detect traps for Breadon, a bracer that projected a magical shield for Arcaelus, and a gauntlet of arcane power for Aydan.

            The team returns to the mountain basin, there they find armored soldiers standing vigil along with the dwarf commander, and the tiefling, Illya. Brimstone tells the party that they pushed back most of the cultists but need more assistance in drawing them out. The party agrees to assist the dwarf and head past the cave mouth and into the dark unknown. The first chamber they enter seemed rather lackluster though there clear signs of combat. The occasional echo brought sounds of shouts; they decided to explore the quieter areas of the cave system.

           They enter into a larger chamber after traversing through a small tunnel, at first they find some bats sleeping though they failed to remain quiet enough and ended up disturbing them. The bats frantically sought their exit, which happened to be through the party, though they did not notice the larger-winged creatures that were nestled with the bats. A swarm of stirges (think large bats but with mosquito like heads and more insect-like) engulf the party and latch onto them. Their proboscis began digging through their armor and clothing, thankfully the party were quick to react and kill off the parasites, though not before some collateral damage in the form of the wizard, Arcaelus. 

           After resuscitating the wizard (2nd time at this juncture, noticing a trend?), the party decided to take a short breather before continue further into the cave. Meanwhile, Jimmy G decides to explore ahead and to the next chamber, discovering a small clutch of mushrooms along with a giant fungus in its center. The druid surveys the fungi, noting their poisonous attributes and sought to extract some of their oils onto his scimitar, unaware of the alabaster tentacle coiling slowly around his foot. Luckily the druid managed to notice the tentacle but not in time for it to establish its grip around his ankle, the fungus released some poison spores into the air. Jimmy withstood the spores and pulled himself away from the fungus. The druid’s struggle alerted the rest of the party who came to investigate the noise. The fungus eventually subsides its flailing after the druid and the party depart. 

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Deeper down the caves they go. Image: famalchow
                     The group tries another tunnel that eventually led to a wider chamber, worried of traps, Breadon pulls out the wand he had acquired from Elias prior to their departure to the mountain side. The wand spins on the dragonborn’s open palm, eventually pointing downward onto a step or so midway along the tunnel as it descended. Jimmy finds a large enough rock and tosses it toward the suspected step, as feared the steps along the tunnel turned smooth and the rock slide downward into the dark cavern beyond. A closer inspection by Arcaelus revealed that the dark cavern beyond had a dim hue at its edge with a domed piece hanging along the walls. More fungus, the light a product of bio-luminescence; the group decided to find an alternative route, searching along the walls of the cavern.

         After a hefty search, the wizard finds a protruding surface which revealed to be a doorway. With some teamwork and elbow grease, a secondary passage is revealed and some lit torches are stationed along the tunnel and at the exit. Ever cautious, the party advances the tunnel until they reached the exit, revealing a larger cavern stretching more than a hundred feet. A darker region persisted beyond the cavern, though protruding adjacent the opposite end of the cavern were two tunnels. The group continued their march forward, Breadon took to the front and then a slimey drip fell on his head; looking up a slithery figure moved through the shadows of the stalactites above. They had stumbled upon the hunting grounds of a grick, a nearly serpentine creature with four tentacles and a large bird-like beak. A creature native to a darker region, it would seem that it found its way closer to the surface. The team fought hard to fend off the tentacle menace. After some failed misfired bolts of fire, some of the party was covered in rock and dirt, while the dragonborn was covered in blood and grick goo.

           After cleaning up, the team continues to explore the rest of the caves, one of the tunnels lead to a storage locker of some sort and the other path lead to another cavern. Along the way, the party experienced the horrors off well hidden traps, from hooked curtains to bladed floors. After narrowly avoiding some of these hurdles, the team finds a contingent of kobolds ready for reinforcements. The kobolds proved to be a fair challenge until Breadon unleashes his warlock powers and slay the remainder quickly, avoiding any friendly fire this time. The scuffle alerts more kobolds as they head down an adjacent tunnel, they toss one of the surviving kobolds into its brethren with Arcaelus igniting the hurling kobold with a fiery spell. Thus the sport known as ‘Flaming Kobold Bowling’ was formed.

           After clearing the kobolds and ransacking whatever belongings were left behind, the party set forth down a narrow tunnel. The sound of chanting, faint at first, began to grow in volume as they crawled closer to the exit. Anticipating a lengthy fight, the party casts their spells of empowerment and ready themselves for a final confrontation.  

           With their foes unaware, the team unleashed a barrage of spells play upon the unsuspecting cultists. Immersed in thorns and an encroaching flaming sphere, it looked like the cultists’ days were numbered. But the chanting continued, with desperation, they sought to disrupt the ritual altar to the dragon queen. One of the relics, unbeknownst to the party, contained a fabled spirit of intellect. The small golden sphere fell upon the ground, dislodging one of the seals on the artifact. Instantly, the thorny enclosure was incinerated by black flames, from the dark smoke emerged a flaming skull with red orbs of light in place of its eyes and bellowing black smoke. Two of the guards were turned to ash, while the half-dragons remained; Cyanwraith, the blue half-dragon lieutenant the party had dealt with previously, and Remaiz, a Cult of the Dragon Wyrmspeaker. Shielded by their divine protections, the two were unfazed by the spirit, but they knew that the spirit was angry and containing such undirected anger proved a daunting task. Remaiz recommends for the party to cooperate with him in order to insure their mutual survival.

           The party counsels the disenfranchised spirit, learning through mental images of a great war and terrors beyond comprehension, as well as the abandonment of the gods. The party vow to do right for the vengeful spirit, after calming the spirit , it returns to its vessel. The party managed to avoid a cave-in catastrophe, once the bellowing black smoke settled, the two half-dragons were nowhere to be seen. Distant chanting could be heard from another adjacent tunnel, the ritual was only postponed, the team was running out of time.

Wowzers! So last week I posted a short narrative, I think this one more than made up for it. Thanks again for reading along our adventures. If you have anything you want to say, please use the comments section below. If you like what you have read so far, please give us a Like on our Facebook page or follow us on Twitter. We also have a donation button, we are looking to expand our options for Season 2 (since we are about wrap up Season 1 at the time of writing this article) with maybe audio records along with narrative recaps. So any contributions will be amazingly helpful. We want to grow and share more of our adventures with you all soon. Enjoy the rest of the week!