Caverns of the Menace: History and Rumors

Brave souls have ventured into these caverns from many distant lands to seek the Menace but none have returned with its description. Below follows the tale of Harolgar, Frostblade of the White Fox Clan, and his party's travels into the Caverns of the Menace:

The first levels were all sculpted by dwarven hands with regular and smooth walls, gentle slopes, and stones alive with arcane light at regular intervals. Our dwarven companion told us these caverns were very old and even he was surprised that time had not managed to take away any of their beauty. Residents of these upper caverns were all sorts of small beasts and clans of humanoid creatures, so nothing our group of well-experienced campaigners couldn't handle.

As we descended, we came upon the last dwarven tunnel, a hallway that led to a large natural cavern. The hall was rough, as though the cutters broke through into the cavern and left their duties of perfecting the path for another time, a time that never came. Thus began our descent deeper and deeper. Tunnels were not dug by hands but burrowed or even eaten from the solid core of the mountain, leading from cavern to cavern. No more level rooms were to be found as we went down, deeper and deeper into Layonara. The simple clans and beasts from above grew scarce as fouler beasts, some of which I'm sure have never seen the sun, became common, and our group now trekked slowly and carefully.

Agheas, our cleric, felt sick after coming to a lit cavern with walls covered in a stinking gray mold. He said he felt death in the air. He felt life seeping away, stolen by the mold that surrounded us. He felt as though we were crossing a gateway from life into unlife, a feeling that none of us shared with him but we all felt as we pressed on deeper.

Beyond the gray mold room, the caverns and hallways were empty of life, and even our dwarf sensed that the stone, always so true to him, started to lie. An uneasy silence muffled the noise of our armor; not even our spellsinger's songs could keep it away. Cavern upon cavern of silence passed as we lost track of time and became increasingly worried about what lay beyond the next curve of the now grotesque tunnels, irregular as the slime of a slug's path.

As our will to press on wore thin, we reached a cavern deep within the world. Its floor was flat, solid, and glossy black to our arcane light and torches. The surface of a great underground lake separated us from the other exits on the other side of the odorless black water. Our expedition halted and breathed in relief, for we were now forced to turn back as none of us had a way of crossing the lake.

Before we began the return back to the surface, we sat on the shore sharing a quiet meal. When a subtle movement in the deep caused a single ripple that spread over the water, what was left of our courage vanished and our party of weathered adventurers, which had braved dragons and armies of unliving, ran for our lives like frightened children.

We regrouped in a cavern far above the lake and started our trek upward, unsure of what we had seen but sure that it wasn't a good omen of what lay beyond.

I'm still not sure what the Menace is'perhaps it is a thing lurking in the black depths or perhaps it was nothing but in our heads.