Stealth 21
Perception 19

Badger had considered sending the kobolds away, but with them following behind, at least their rear was protected.

Kari creeps forward and sees the passage opens up ahead into a room. Glancing into the room, she sees a hole in the west side of this chamber opens into the central shaft, letting in the sound of the waterfall. The floor in the far end of the cave is five feet higher than in the near end, with a rocky ridge separating them and a slope on either side leading to the top of the ridge. The walls above the ridge gleam with gem deposits. Just before she steps further into the room though, her eyes catch a lazy motion above. The ceiling is 30 feet high, and floating near the roof are several evil looking creatures. They look like nothing more than floating brains with sharp beaks...and numerous tentacles floating down beneath them like some sort of airborn jelly fish.  She counts, three..four...five of them float near the roof, silent as ghosts...long tentacles waving slowly about. They don't seem to have noticed her as of yet. 

Glancing around the room, aside from the hole that leads into the main shaft, there appear to be no other exits. 

 Kari retreats back to meet her companions. She briefly describes the room and the creatures. I suppose we should clear those out of the mine too, but I can't reach them up there. And I doubt the Kobold would be safe in a fight. How do we want to do this?

"Well we have a couple of options." Mal whispers back, "We send in the kobolds first to draw those creatures down from the ceilings and then once they are in the middle of battle we can attack and be done with the lot of them." Then she looks about at the kobold sand sighs, one hand moving up to massage her temple, "Or Badge, Kurik  and I strike from range to drag the creatures close and then you enter the fray to finish them up.

Badger contemplates the first option, but then decides that using the kobolds as bait is probably a waste of resources. Yes, let's just attack from range. It seems... tidier.

The gnome will prepare to cast Fireball at 5th level when Kari leads them back in.

 Kari will lead them to the entrance and point up at where she saw the creatures.

Kurik heft his sword and lights it aflame.  "Maybe with the light I'll be targeted and while that happens you all can strike it," Kurik says as he follows Kari.

As the group approaches, the light they require to see leads the way. The creatures see the dim glow and are alerted to the groups approach. Kurik's fathers sword bursts into flames as he rushes into the room with the hope to become a target. 

Everyone roll initiative. 

Enemies: 7 

(if you go before 7, feel free to take your turn. A fireball can cover the entire top half of the room and get all of them without hurting the party.)

Initiative 18

Kari steps forward just inside the room, staying behind Kurik if she can. She grips her glaive and assumes a stance that looks like she is ready to explode into motion at the right time. (She holds her action to attack if one comes within 10 feet of her)

Mal Initiative: 11

 Mal will move up to the entrance and crouch down and then fire at the first of the creatures that she can see.

H. Crossbow: Attack: 27 Damage: 8 Necrotic: 11

H. Crossbow: Attack: 20 Damage: 13 Necrotic: 9

Kurik initiative 19

Kurik raises his flaming sword.  He points the tip at the the floating creatures and draws his magic through the blade.  The flame flares dramatically as it pulls the heat from the before it.  Frost starts to accumulate on the creatures, then ice.

Moving to where he can hit the most of them.

Action: Casting Cone of Cold

DC 16 Con save required.  Take 27 cold damage. save for half

The group moves smoothly into the room.  Kurik moves his hands, weaving magic and a glowing blue begins to form, and then erupts into a bright blast of icy cold striking all five of the flying monstrosities. His flaming sword in one hand is out and ready. Mal slips into the room, her crossbow clanking loudly two times as bolts slash up into one of the creatures.  Covered in frost, and now with two bolts in it, the creature drops from the air and hits the floor with a messy explosion splat of meaty brain tissue and the crack of its sharp beak hitting rock. 

Kari moves into the room, her weapon out, ready to defend herself.  

Badger moves into the room next and unleashes a plume of fire....a rush of hot air pummels everyone below but the fire is contained to the upper part of the room and as the flames clear four more scorched bodies plummet from above and slam into the ground, sending purple brain juices splattering as they crack open like overly ripe carved pumpkins being tossed onto rocks. 

The smell of sour cooking brains fills the room as the dead bodies smoke....the battle over before it had begun. 

(out of initiative) 

Kari relaxes and then moves further in, up to the first frozen one that fell. She squats down and looks at it. What is this thing? She pokes at it with the end of her glaive, avoiding the messy parts.

Medicine 6

Mal will move around the room to see if these creatures have any type of nest or see if anything else is hidden about the room.

Perception: 18

Kari moves into the room and looks at the body. It appears to be oozing some sort of liquids, and is quite dead...wait...no....the beak moves. She thwacks it. There...dead now.  It has long tendrils covered in spikes. Otherwise, she can't glean much from the body. 

Mal moves in and looks around. She finds a small neatly stacked pile of bones...likely from a kobold.  Otherwise the cave is free of insects, bugs, moss, or anything else really.  With the cave walls looking quite 'clean'....you can see tourmaline gems sparkling in the rock.  Likely the source of wealth for this town and the reason for its name. 

Grells! says Badger matter-of-factly, having been warned about such creatures from his early years growing up in a burrow. Good riddance! 

Badger tries to recall anything he can about grells, including whether any part of them can be harvested for useful components. INT 18 or WIS 20 check (+4 if any of Badger's proficiencies applies).

Oh indeed, their tentacles contain a fairly potent paralytic, the glands that secrete it found up in the main brain, as well as the sensory organs which don't rely on light, but instead feel vibrations in the air....are also sought after.  Badger spends a few moment harvesting bits of the Grells, including their poison sacs and the sensory organs. 

Mal leans against the wall waiting for Badger to finish up with his grotesque work, "Are we done now to move on? Was there something about some special rock we wanted to look at across those bridges, or are we leaving the rest of this work to the townsfolk?"

The kobolds have crept forward until they are now huddled around the entrance to the room.  Their voices all meld together in a constant chatter (in Draconic), "Funny rock!  Ya, we found funny rock downstairs! OOooooh, look, you killed brain things. Good, brain things eat us. We don't like it. Stupid brain things. No wonder he no come back. Got eat by brain things. We so smart for not using brain passage. Brain passage bad. Your brain passage is bad!  Is that a insult?  If your brain passage wasn't bad you'd know.  Haha!  HA!  I'm going to make you a new brain passage, with my fist!"  They chatter on for a short time, getting lost in side topics.