The story so far… The adventurers – Lotho, the secretive Ranger, Whizzbang the talkative cleric and Nar’rick the fighter – took a job escorting a troubleshooter, Don-Jon Raskin, to a far off gold mine. They’re accompanied by Talon the fighter and Galandro the Bard. There have been no shipments from the mine recently and the owners are worried. On arriving at the mine, they discover it’s been taken over by wererats driven out of their home by raiding orcs. They tell the party that they chased off the miners and are just looking for a home. They’re lead by Zeleen Varnaster and call themselves The Whiskered Gang. The last session ended as the party, granted an audience in the room the rats are now nesting, decide what to do next.

(Nar’rick disappears, being summoned to a different plane of existence for some real-life adventures involving a new human baby.)

“Here’s the plan: we tell the rats we’re leaving and will help them clear out their old home. But we regroup and come up with a way to take this mine back.” Whizzbang suggests. “There are too many of them for a head-on confrontation.”

“Mines like this often have more than one way in and out – in case of tunnel collapse. Let’s take a wander around and see if we can get back in somewhere.”

The mine is called Mountain’s Toe Gold Mine because it’s formed of a large promontory jutting out from the side of a mountain. The party take their leave and after being escorted outside by the two sentry wererats, they wander around the perimeter of the outcrop, looking for ways in.

A graveyard. Ten freshly dug graves. No headstones, but instead pick-axes planted in the soil. “There were sixteen miners here. I guess they didn’t leave as peaceably as the rats claimed.” Don-Jon surveys the scene, no emotion in his voice. Some 20ft above there’s a cave that could lead further in. A little further on an easier entrance, partially obscured by bushes.

“We should go through the cave, more chance of sneaking up on them, less likely it’ll be guarded.” It’s an easy climb, only the heavily-armoured cleric slipping at the first attempt. The tunnel curves and twists downwards. There is an overbearing smell of rotten stuff, a stench of death. A few tens of feet in, a door. But in front of it a hideous creature: a large yellow and green mostrosity, looking like a squat centipede with eight long tentacles protruding from its jawline.

A battle ensues – the centipede’s venom paralyzing Don-Jon as it climbs the walls and makes its way to the back of the party along the roof of the tunnel. The bard breaks into an impromptu version of the great elven ballad: “Dancing on the ceiling.” It’s no match for the adventurers though and it’s uickly dispatched. It seems it hasn’t been able to get through the door but rammed up against it is a charnal pile of its past victims. Poking round the pile there are a few gold pieces and a signet ring – bearing the image of a pick-axe. “This belonged to one of the dwarves”, Lotho thinks, “as he puts it on.”

Stealthily they move through the door into the mine proper. No-one anywhere – they find offices, ransacked, gold stores, emptied, sleeping quarters unused. They make it to the door of the rats nest room – listening confirms that the rat-people are still inside. “Let’s keep searching, but we should be quiet, they have no idea that we’ve come back.”

At the east end of a east-west passageway lies a storeroom, full of dried goods and water butts. But to get to it they need to sneak past the passageway off to the south where the two wererat sentries are posted. The sentries don’t notice them, but it gives them an idea.

“Maybe we can lure them here and get the jump on them. Perhaps if we set out a trail of food.” The plan works and the two wererats follow the food into the ambush. The bard starts playing the Ayn folk tune: “Thunderstruck” in anticipation of what comes next.

“We need to keep quiet, so they don’t alert the others”. The cleric is oblivous though, casting again and again Toll of the Dead, leaving a ringing sound in the air. These two are killed, though they’re tougher than they were expecting. In death they seem to lose their rat-like features and become human again.

But the surprise is gone and three more wererats are approaching to investigate what’s happening.

The cleric nods at the Bard who starts his appegiated crescendo: “Thunder… Thunder…” Throwing caution to the wind, the cleric takes a chance to hit them all at once with a ferocious Thunderwave. A booming noise reverberates through the mine. Still they approach, and after that clamour more are no doubt on the way. How many were there in that nest? “I counted eight” “No, nine.” No-one is quite sure.

An untidy melee – one of them bites Don-Jon deeply. That’s unlikely to be good. Three down now and another three badly injured. More coming. Two large rats scuttle down in the corridor. The one ahead stops and the party gasps as it transforms into one of the hybrid rat/human creatures. “There are too many of them. We need another approach”

“Surrender. We intend to fight to the death.” The cleric’s words have bite, the wererat is listening. “That’s right”, chimes in Don-Jon, “You can’t win. Bring your leader here. It’s time to talk” His words persuade. Lotho moves to one side, still in a defensive stance, to let the wererat past. A brief lull in hostilities. The adventurers tired and injured. What the Faerun are they going to say?