Twin-Thread Grotto

These limestone caves contain the confluence of a pair of small streams that have cut through the rock for untold ages. The streams connect in central cave and then flow down through the wall to enter the southern cave in a narrow deep ravine with narrow and thin natural stone bridges spanning it in a few places. The whole site would be nothing more than a curiosity to spelunkers if it weren’t for the strange creatures that now dwell along the banks of the streams.

Spudlings live along the banks. They are squat, tuberous humanoids with mottled skin and tiny white leaflike hairs. They sit with their toes submerged in the stream and draw nourishment and water through their feet. They are slow to anger and quick to gossip. They trade small polished stones and fermented root paste for stories and songs.

Blind cave fish and pale craylings swim in the streams. Small colonies of glow-silk spiders hang from the ceiling and harvest insects that drift in on the current. A pair of territorial drakes nest in the southern chamber where the water runs far below the floor. Having grown accustomed to the constant chatter of the spudlings, they are more curious than hostile unless provoked.

The spudlings harbour a great treasure. The Glass Heart is a two-inch smooth white crystal that pulses with a pale light like a gentle heartbeat. The heart glows brighter when the spudlings touch it, and it is usually found in the water where many spudlings are gathered, taking turns touching it with their toes to make it glow. When attuned and set into a keystone of a stone bridge, it will slowly mend all cracks and damage to the bridge (the keystone must still be connected to the bridge proper, so this doesn’t work on bridges that have collapsed already, or where the keystone has fallen - unless someone fixes that part of the bridge manually). Sometimes these repairs are accompanied by sprouting pale root-like tendrils within the cracks of the bridge that writhe and twist under moonlight.