A good perception check found them: human commoners at the bottom of a drop that steps down about thirty feet in six-foot tiers, huddled against the wall. They saw the party and signalled for silence — not for rescue. The party took the hint, signalled back that it would come once it had gathered everyone, and pulled out to regroup rather than fight on a cliff edge with civilians underneath it.
That was the right call at the time. It has since stopped being a call and started being a debt.
The Logic
The rats explained the arrangement before the fight: their master was starving them, and the thing they were being fed was people, one at a time, as the food ran out. The last one had been a hairless child who "didn't fight back much." Asked how many humans were down there, the answer came back as a few — two or three.
The party then killed the rats and killed the master. Whatever was feeding those people to something has stopped, but nobody has gone down to confirm it, and the people at the bottom of the drop have no way of knowing any of it happened. From where they are sitting, the party looked at them, said it would return, and disappeared in the direction of a fight they could hear but not see.
There is also a plain tactical argument. This is the safest that descent will ever be. The boss is dead, its warriors are dead, and the rat pack that was being fed from that pit no longer exists.
Setup Before Moving
- Send Skrillex down first. Nysera's familiar already scouted the tunnel that opened this session, and it can look over the edge without putting a body on the rope. Confirm what's at the bottom before anyone commits to a thirty-foot climb.
- Solve the way back up before anyone goes down. The tiering makes descending easy and makes returning with frightened, underfed civilians the actual problem. Two or three people who cannot climb turn a six-foot step into a six-foot obstacle, repeated five times.
- Elaris opens the conversation. She is the reason there was a promise at all, she has CHA 20, and these are people who have watched their group get smaller. Somebody has to convince them the party is the rescue and not the next thing coming down the hole.
- Selena holds Healing Word rather than spending it. If anyone down there has been mistreated — and the rats' account says at least one already didn't survive it — she wants a bonus action available on arrival, not a slot already gone.
- Theren holds the top of the descent. No bow, but the Scimitar of Warning gives the whole party immunity to surprise within thirty feet, which is exactly the radius of a rescue happening in a hole.
- Go down quiet. They asked for silence before they asked for anything else, and they are the only people here who have been living with whatever enforces it. Light and noise on the descent throws away the one piece of advice the party has actually been given.
Pros
- Closes the one thread this session opened that involves living people
- The party gave its word, in view of the people it gave it to
- Freed captives are the only remaining source on this dungeon now that the rats are dead — how many goblins there were, what else is down here, what the master was actually doing
- The boss and its warriors are dead; this rescue will never be cheaper
Cons
- Costs the short rest, and Barzer's slots are down after three Magic Missile casts
- The party has seen the pit from above exactly once and has no idea what is at the bottom of it
- Civilians in a dungeon become an escort problem, which caps how much deeper the party can push afterward
- If the drop needs rope the party doesn't have, this becomes a logistics session
Best If
The party would rather keep its word than sort its loot, and wants the living out before it starts pulling cards from a Deck of Many Things.