The party awoke early the next morning, or at least it seemed like morning, to shouting from an all-too-familiar voice. “Ms. Morrah! Ms. Morrah! Come look what Edoo findses!”
Now that they thought about it, their scaly friend had disappeared the night before. Now he was jumping up and down excitedly at the top of a small hill some way further down the shoreline.
“I findses the way! I findses the way!” The ecstatic little reptile proclaimed. The others, skeptical tho they may have been, begrudgingly pulled themselves out of their bedrolls and quickly broke down camp, hurrying to keep up with the little fellow.
Edoo was already a good way ahead of the others, but everyone had caught up to the short-legged lizard by the time they had reached their destination. It dawned on his companions then that he may have even been aware of this fact, and taken care to give himself a head start so that they might all arrive together.
“It's here It's here!” Edoo exclaimed with satisfaction, and sure enough, it was plain to see that there was indeed a path that led onward, but rather than continuing along the shoreline as they had expected, the path went straight into the water.
What was more, they had not even noticed it until they were practically on top of it. The rocks that appeared close to the surface of the water were well disguised by the reflection of the myriad of lights that cast their reflection off of the equally mystifying cavern wall above. The combined effect worked to mask any forms that presented themselves in the water itself, a trick of the light that was complicated by the fact that none who might find themselves walking along this shore would ever think to look for such a path.
It was clever, almost as if it didn’t want to be found, which, disregarding how their little friend had found it in the first place, begged the question of what awaited them down such a path.
Additionally, it soon became clear to the group that the path would prove to be as treacherous as it was secretive, with the rocky ledge proving to be particularly hard to pin down as one was moving along its length. As a safeguard against this hardly sure footing, the group took it upon themselves to tie each of them to a rope that was strung between them all. They went on this way throughout the day, like a string of pearls slowly drifting through a brilliant sparkling surf, the gentle wake of some distant wind gently lapping at their ankles all the way.
It was nearly the end of a full day of travel when they finally caught sight of a pleasant change in the terrain, far in the distance appeared a rocky outcropping in the middle of the sea that appeared to emerge from the water and then continue onward winding and twisting like the path they had been following, but now above the water’s surface.
It was a profound relief to the party, who had just about turned back out of fear of not being able to make camp out in this relentless landscape, but their plans were soon complicated by a new development.
As they drew nearer to the raised pathway they approached a patch of ground that suddenly dropped away beneath their feet. Initially dismayed, they soon rallied somewhat as one among them caught sight of the other side of the path, apparently sundered by some means none of them could discern.
The gap was about seven feet wide, too far for some, but perfectly doable for the party's fearless athlete, Rory. They resecured their line with Rory at the head and the Furbolg leaped over the gap with ease, only slipping a bit when they came down on the other side. The others continued across the gap in turn, pausing briefly so that two of them could heave the much smaller and lighter kobold over the gap until all that remained was Carric.
The hesitant wizard, never one for feats of physical prowess, gaped at the challenge set before him, delaying for several moments before being peer-pressured into a half-hearted attempt. Predictably, he fell short.
The others watched in cautious amusement as Carric splashed into the sea and disappeared beneath its surface. They were quick to real in the line that secured him, and it was only moments before a somewhat shaken Carric emerged from the water.
“There is something down there” The wizard announced, a slight tremble in his voice, and sure enough as the others looked over the edge they thought they could just make out the outlines of a rocky platform some 20’ below the water’s surface, and, more notably, a pile of something that looked vaguely shiny glittering off to one side.
“Treasure!” Morrah and Edoo exclaimed together, and they both gave each other an approving nod in response. With solid ground within sight and enough extra rope to spare the more cautious among the group were brought around to the prospect of going after the hoard, the first real boon they had found during any part of their journey so far, accepting perhaps the meeting with The Oracle.
It wasn’t long before they had a spare bit of rope secured to a jagged rock on the edge of the ledge, and the first among them was wading into the water.
Edoo eagerly taking the lead, began to swim down below the surface before abruptly stopping, apparently unable to traverse the water as he had hoped. He flailed around for several moments before being fished out by one of the others. Eventually, they figured out that the liquid of the sea was more like a buoyant soup that vaguely felt like water, but traversing it seemed to require some leverage or momentum to make any real progress.
With this in mind, Rory lowered themself into the sea and began to descend, ever so slowly picking their holds as they scaled the ridge. After a moment the furbolg stopped with an intrigued look in their eyes. They motioned for the next person to follow, and after Morrah had gotten deep enough to submerge her head Rory, astonishingly, spoke to her.
“It's not water, it's something else, and somehow I can breathe down here.” Morrah eyed them in disbelief, amazed that the Furbolg had been willing to go in first let alone attempt to breathe in the strange substance they were suspended in.
Regardless of her astonishment, Morrah emerged from the liquid and relayed the message to the others. It wasn’t long after that everyone but Carric had descended into the sea.
They found it difficult to move about at first, now that there was no cliffside to hold on to, but eventually, they devised a way to spring out from an anchor point that was secured to the wall and create something of a chain. In this way they were just barely able to get Edoo within reach of the hoard, which was now very obviously a giant pile of coins and assorted gemstones, almost comical in its presentation.
What caught their eye though was the cherry on top, a gleaming silver sword protruding from the pile’s top with a brilliant green gem set in its hilt.
Edoo reached for the sword greedily and upon touching it an earth-shaking roar sounded out from somewhere beyond their field of vision. Shaken by the noise, the group had only just regained their senses, when several other, lizard-like forms emerged over the lip of the ledge beyond.
Unlike Edoo, though, these new visitors were bright pink with glittering silver highlights worked into their scales like coins glittering in the twilight. It would have all served to complement the fantastic environment they were in if they weren’t so terrifying. They scrambled toward the exposed kobold, with murder in their vertically-slit eyes.
As was typical, Rory was the first to respond, heaving with all of their strength to lift the entire chain of adventurers up and towards the ledge above, before letting go and drawing the glittering silver flail from their belt loop.
The conflict was fierce and desperate, with Rory taking the brunt of the assault while the others scaled their way up and over the ledge, not wanting to get into a fight in such a disorienting place. Slowly, one by one they emerged and were eventually able to pull Rory after them. The furbolg was heavily injured, but amazingly, conscious. Their amazing constitution and physical skills serving them well even in such unfavorable conditions. Luckily the strange lizard-like creatures didn’t seem interested in pursuing further, apparently as weary of the surface as the party was of that strange other world.
After all was said and done, the party’s great boon sat exactly where it was before, taunting them beneath the surface, with the lizards circling in anticipation. “At least we got the best part,” Edoo said with a toothy grin, and he held up his prize, a brilliant short sword, seemingly sized perfectly for him with the aforementioned green gem to top it off.
The rest of the evening passed uneventfully, with the party making a short trek to what appeared to be a wider section of the new rocky trail some distance ahead.
The spot proved to be perfect for a campsite, with just enough space for them to spread out and light a fire using the last of the fuel they had taken from the Oracle's rest. They then settled in for an expectant night of sound slumber, too exhausted to set a watch, and unconvinced that there would be any to assail them in any case.
The thing about seemingly perfect circumstances though, is that they are rarely without cause.
