Shortcut through Mushrooms
After the flight of the Stirges, our party investigated what they deduced to be the old entrance to the mines. Finding some neat carvings but nothing much else, they set off to the east towards a glowing green illuminated tunnel.
The tunnel opened up into a sizable cavern whose floor, walls, and stalagmites are covered in various mushrooms. Some of these mushrooms glowed pretty brightly in an unwavering green light.
Approaching them to investigate, the green shrooms started emitting a noxious cloud. Torrfig and Hada felt a bit ill after feeling their throats burn from the contact.
With some sideways thinking, the party decides their best course of action is to light the mushrooms on fire. Kronk makes a fuse of oil along the floor of the cavern for some 70 feet. Lighting this causes a small explosion as the cloud was beginning to disperse. The smell was awful and pervasive, but the fire was pretty effective at clearing out the center of the room's glowing mushrooms.
This allowed Kronk to tiptoe across the room and check out the other side. He was greeted by a spacious cavern with walls that twinkled with gem-like mineral deposits. The floor of this cavern was covered in ancient skeletons denoting a similar battle scene that the entrance revealed.
At this moment, a trio of Ghouls managed to sneak up on the party's rear, possibly drawn the acrid smell created by the mushroom blast. Droop was dropped mid-scream as the toxins in the goul claws exacted a terrible price on his small body.
The ghouls' paralyzing strikes caused much grief to the party as they struggled to fight in the close quarters of the tunnel. With effort and some divine healing at a precise moment, the party prevailed, though heavily injured.
Retreating a bit, the party found a safe place in the form of an old Assayer's Office to hole up for 10 minutes while Torrfig healed their wounds more. On the way out, they decided to poke around in the old barracks across the hall. Skeletons rose from the long dead bones here and attacked. The party was able to quickly dispatch these meager foes.
Having done so, the party decides to take a short rest and catch their breath. During this rest, a pair of bugbears was heard poking around outside. Droop informed the party that they mentioned finding the Ghoul bodies and hearing/smelling the commotion.