Desmond and Aengus quickly regrouped with Vara and Urs, whose memories had just been wiped by the tentacle monster that disappeared with the necklace containing Tobias. Fortunately, their memories returned after just a few minutes of awkward arguing. Vara was certain she was about to receive another beating from Urs for the Command spell she was forced by their enemy to cast upon him, but Urs was driven instead by his most important ‘sponsibility: protecting Tobias.
The group scanned the area for any signs of where the monster might have fled to, and they encountered again their suspicious acquaintance, Bekay, creepily observing them from the treetops. As they approached to ask if he’d seen where it went, Urs and Aengus were charmed and became disposed to trusting his every word. Bekay said he believed the monster resided in a cave and would lead them to it.
With a general heading given, Urs bolted ahead of the group and encountered a massive male bear along the way. Urs quelled its initial aggression with his Sylvan tongue and recruited the bear in pursuing their enemy. Meanwhile, Aengus’s short legs caused him to fall behind their elven guide, so Desmond fell back with him and summoned fey spirits in the form of a pair of dire wolves that hastened the stragglers on their backs.
A bear-mounted Urs arrived at the cave first and wasted no time entering. Mindful that his lingering grievous injuries from the previous encounter would limit his battle prowess, Urs counseled his newfound ursine ally to flee or at least seek aid if he should fall. As the pair ventured deeper into the foreboding cave, Bekay called for Vara, Desmond, and Aengus to halt outside it. He explained that their quarry was a powerful manifestation of a great evil god so feared that he would refer to it only as That Which Lurks. Certain they could not turn back now, they pressed forward warily into the dark maw of the cave.
Urs was assaulted by, but ultimately bested, an invisible (and bland-tasting) creature. He continued with the bear until he found a room guarded by a pair of scaly, taloned, large-eyed creatures. Willing to let no obstacle stand between him and Tobias, Urs fought bravely, but without the aid of his friends he was defeated. Twice brutalized in such a short time, Urs’s spirit could not cling to his body for long, and he exhaled his last.
When the others heard the sounds of battle ahead, they disregarded Bekay’s recommendations of stealth and caution and left him behind as they rushed to help Urs. They quickly found the creatures looming over his corpse, with no bear in sight. Squeezing through a narrow passage, they surrounded and destroyed their enemies. Fearing he was too late, Aengus prayed over Urs’s body for the return of his soul. Father Bear apparently saw still more potential in his disciple, as Balador relinquished Urs’s spirit into the hands of Moradin’s servant, and the young zealot breathed once again.
Now quite acquainted with the cycle of resurrection and unperturbed by his brush with death, Urs once again thought of little but recovering Tobias. With only a brief pause to search the room which held little for them, they backtracked to a fork in the cave tunnels. They were surprised they had not regrouped with Bekay or the bear, but decided they should press on. They entered a room that served as the intersection of eight diverging paths. One tunnel stood out as drier than the others. With no other leads, they decided to try it first.
The tunnel descended an incline and ended in a very strange room. The floor was covered in piles of treasure, but more mesmerizing were the numerous fish that swam about the air as though in water. Their forms were highly varied, yet all appeared to be in some state of decay. This occupied their attention only briefly, as the massive purple tentacle monster in the corner — the object of their hunt — quickly charmed Vara and Desmond and compelled them to move in for a slimy embrace! Urs rushed forward in a rage, recklessly swinging his warhammer at the oozing monstrosity, and Aengus cautiously hung back to cast healing and offensive spells. They were all still weak and nearly tapped from their several battles over the last couple hours, so they were doubly alarmed when the air in the room suddenly transformed into water. They held their breaths and continued the fight, even as each attack that missed the creature was diverted towards an ally. Urs and Vara both fell repeatedly as Desmond and Aengus struggled to restore them to consciousness. Somehow, against all odds, they destroyed the creature, and the water returned to air as slime erupted from the monster’s body, covering those nearby. Urs rage-searched the remaining gooey viscera and was relieved to find Tobias’s necklace unharmed.
Utterly exhausted, the Wild Rovers collapsed amongst the coins and treasure littering the floor. A new voice appeared in Urs’s head that urged him to drop his prized warhammer and pick up a new, golden warhammer. Urs complied and understood the hissing voice to be coming from his new favorite weapon, which identified itself as “Lixar”. Lixar spoke of the great treasures they would soon amass together, and Urs for the first time began to understand a lust for gold and wealth. Lixar insisted that Urs leave behind his old, “inferior” hammer, Short Rest. This resulted in a quarrel between Urs and Vara, who had funded the purchase of Short Rest and wanted to at least resell it instead of leave it behind. Only Urs was strong enough to lift it, so Urs’s refusal to put it in the Bag of Holding outraged Vara. Desmond planned to solve the problem himself after a short rest, during which Aengus worked to identify the magical properties of several found items.
Following his rest, Desmond summoned a giant constrictor snake strong enough to move Short Rest. As the snake awkwardly coiled around the hammer and attempted to move it into the Bag of Holding, a blue lizard-like humanoid monster entered the room and began brazenly attacking. This annoyance quickly escalated to alarm when they heard the sounds of possibly dozens more of these creatures charging through the tunnels. Certain that staying put was no longer an option, they rushed past the lizard man and backtracked as quickly as they could to the entrance of the cave, then continued running for as long as their legs would carry them into the dark, hostile forests of the Feywild…