The Forgotten Smugglers' Cave #23: Shrieking Pool

This is an installment of a new dungeon adventure set in the Portown milieu, which I'm writing for Holmes Basic D&D. You can find the Introduction to the dungeon here: Area 1.

Each entry includes part of a "pointcrawl" map showing the area & any exits, which include links allowing you to navigate the dungeon:

Area 7  C==	23. SHRIEKING POOL	==S  Area 22

23. SHRIEKING POOL. This natural cavern, with irregular walls, stalactites and stalagmites is much longer than it is wide (about 110 feet by 30 feet), and is bisected by a pool of water about 20 feet across, fed by water dripping steadily from the ceiling. On each side grows a profusion of oversized mushrooms, some of which are up to 3 feet in height.

Exits. There are two exits: at the west end, a narrow and but mostly walkable tunnel (3 feet wide, 6 feet high) leads 180 feet to the back of the niche in Area 7, and at the east end, a narrow tube (3 feet wide and 3 feet), which must be crawled through, leads 170 feet to the back of the secret door in Area 22.

Mushrooms. The mycoflora grows within 10 feet on either side of the pool. While most are harmless, the colony includes several shriekers, which will begin shrieking for 1d3 rounds in the presence of light or movement. There are 6 shriekers total; assume 1d6 are one side of the pool and the rest are on the other.

Shriekers (6): DX 1, AC 7, HD 3, hp 11, AT 0, SD shrieking. 

If the colony is inspected closely, it will be noted that several mushrooms near the edges of the water appear to be partially melted.

Pool. The pool is broad (30 feet north-south by 20 feet east-west) but shallow (only six inches deep). It can forded easily, but is home to a Large Grey Ooze, which normally survives on the mushrooms as well as vermin that drink from the edges of the pool. It generally rests on the shore or a cavern wall just above the water line, camouflaged as stone, but when alerted by the shrieking it will settle on the bottom of the pool and wait. There is only a 2 in 6 chance it will attack a character standing at the edge of the pool, as they are much bigger than its typical prey, but there is a 5 in 6 chance it will attack anyone passing through the pool. 

Large Grey Ooze (1): DX 3, AC 8, HD 3, hp 21, AT 1 strike for 2d8; SA dissolves metal; SD immune to cold and fire; weapons will damage but have 50% chance of breaking due to corrosion

Chronologically on this blog, the previous installment described Area 22 and the next posted installment will be Area 24.