Dragon	-	Monsters	-	Dragon #135
-	-	Notes	-	-

Arlach cursed as the flickering torch
stub burned his fingers. He dropped it on
the cavern floor and lit a new one from
the dying flames. It was just one more
annoyance on this wretched adventure.

He checked his remaining torches.
Three left. He had spent an entire day
exploring these tunnels, and he had found
nothing but animal droppings and torch
stubs ? many, many torch stubs. These
caverns were well explored, indeed. He
could imagine the jeering laughter he
would hear if he came out empty handed.
But he would show them! He would show
them all!

He had to, now.

Arlach sat down heavily on a nearby
rock and pulled the map from his pouch.
The Caverns of Gold Light, he read at the
top. A bitter joke. Seventy gold autorachs
just for a copy of this damned thing. But
the map?s name had promised treasure
beyond all imagining. He had spent the last
of his inheritance on this accursed map
and the equipment to make the journey:
his armor, horse, sword, torches, food,
and waterskins. But everything had gone
wrong from the very beginning. His armor
rusted, his horse went lame, and half of
his food rotted before he even reached the
little village near these caverns. The only
real shop in the whole hamlet was the
stable, though it was full of fine horses for
decent prices. Arlach decided to buy one
when he finally found the treasure, when
he could laugh in the face of the innkeeper just as the innkeeper had laughed in
Arlach?s

?Perchance, could you direct me to the
Caverns of Gold Light?? Arlach had asked
him, knowing no better.

The innkeeper had roared with mirth.
?No, can?t say that I?ve ever heard of them!
Unless you mean the Caverns of  Cold
Light, eh?? The entire tavern had joined
the innkeeper in his laughter. Arlach?s face
reddened at the memory.

Arlach cursed and kicked at a patch of
the slightly luminous fungus that grew all
along the cavern walls, giving the place its
true name. Without wanting to do so,
Arlach looked closely at the map once
again and saw where someone had altered
the letter ?C? to make it appear to be a "G."
Sucker bait. He had been a fool not to
have seen it before he?d started out, but he
couldn?t back out now. There was nothing
left to do. Wearily, he clambered to his feet
and began walking down the tunnel.

There, what was that? Arlach peered
ahead into the dimly lit darkness. Was that
a glint of gold up ahead? His depression
forgotten, Arlach hurried forward and
dropped to his knees in front of a pile of
equipment and armor. He pawed through
it. The gold was a brass buckle. Nothing of
value here but three silver deneri ? and a
leatherbound book. Arlach held the torch
high in one hand and opened the book
with the other. The script was surprisingly
large and sloppy, but it was literate. A
diary . . . He flipped to the last entry.

I now write this testament not for my
own salvation, but as a warning to others
who come this way. If you find this book,
take it out with you. You are in the gravest
danger.

I have spent three days, as nearly as I
can determine, in this sunless dungeon. In
that time I have learned much of the creature that holds me prey — a cave fisher. I
have heard little more than tavern rumors
of these creatures. What I have heard
gives me little hope; what I have seen gives
me less.

There are two of these creatures: one
that holds me and another on the far wall.
The one that has me also captured Gastron
and Marb; the one across the tunnel
caught nimble Desell. Almost as soon as
we were snared, Marb was butchered and
eaten. His armor was stripped away like a
corn husk by the monster’s claws while he
struggled and screamed, then it cut off his
limbs and are him in pieces, devouring
even his bones. The other fisher consumed Desell at the same rime, his shrieks
of agony ringing in my ears. The fisher
that caught me left myself and Gastron in
its strands, securing us to the ledge on
either side of it. By chance, it left one of
my arms free. It does me little good.
Although I retained my dagger, I cannot
cut through the strands. I can at least
write this message by this living light.

Many long hours after our capture, the
creature devoured Gastron. First, the
monster dissolved his bindings with a
liquid discharged through its snout. Gastron attempted to defend himself, but the
creature dismembered my friend with the
same ease as it had Marb. I watched him
die. I know that I am cursed to be the last.
You who read this beware: Make no
sound as you leave this area. I have discovered that the creature is blind. The great
membranes that appear to be the cave
fisher’s eyes are actually ears. If I move
my free arm as if to throw something at
the creature, it makes no response — yet
my pen scratches on this page agitate it.
Were I to rap my knuckles on the ledge, I
fear it would attack me. The one across
the tunnel seems able to unerringly capture bats; perhaps it can hear the high
pitched cries they are reported by wizards
to make.

I have noticed that these fishers have
piled the gear from my dead comrades
beneath them in the tunnel, as if they
realize that such materials will attract
prey. This indicates a greater intelligence
than I have heard rumored of them,
although it may simply be coincidence.

The last matter I must relay to you
involves the possibility of escape. When
Gastron was fighting the creature, he
scored a blow on its head. The blood that
dripped down fell upon his remaining
bonds and dissol—

Arlach cursed as a glowing spark from
the torch landed on his fingers. The torch
dropped from his hand, hit the ground,
and went out. Complete darkness fell.
Continuing to swear, Arlach felt for his
pack and began to rummage for his flint
and tinder. He never felt the strand fall
across his back until, with a startled cry,
he was snatched off of his feet.

As the elf inspected the horse, the pudgy
innkeeper rambled about its merits. ?Yes,
sir! That?s one fine horse ? a trifle lame,
true, but that will pass in a few days.
Besides, look at the price! Fifteen
autorachs! You can?t beat the price!?

The elf considered the offer in silence.
Settling back to wait, the innkeeper
reflected that maybe two days was too
soon to be selling the boy?s horse. But he
had a buyer now, and the boy wasn?t
coming back. Young, cocky, treasurehappy ? his kind never came back. It was
not meant for regular folk to know what
sorts of things lurked in caves and such.
Why adventurers wanted to know, the
innkeeper would never understand. Not
that it mattered. Fools rushed in?

?I?ll offer you eight autorachs,? the elf
said softly. ?This poor creature is worth no
more than that?

The innkeeper sighed, returning his
thoughts to the matter at hand. ?You drive
a hard bargain, but for ten, I?ll throw in an
almost-new saddle. How ?bout it??

Notes
The ?eyes? of a cave fisher are actually
multiple ears that allow it to capture its
prey in the darkness with a high degree of
accuracy. Because of this method of locating its prey, the cave fisher receives a
bonus to hit when striking particularly
noisy prey. Give the cave fisher a +2
bonus to hit against characters in metal
armor or those who are talking. Give the
f i s h e r   + 1   t o   h i t   a g a i n s t   c h a r a c t e r s   p e r forming less noisy actions such as carrying
bags of coins or walking on hard ground.
A thief (or an elf or halfling without metallic armor, attempting to surprise) may go
unnoticed by a cave fisher if he can move
silently; if he fails this roll, the cave fisher
s t i l l   h a s   a   - 2   t o   h i t   d u e   t o   t h e   c h a r a c t e r ? s
assumedly reduced noise. Tapping on the
ground with a pole ahead of the party may
induce a cave fisher to catch the pole
instead (treat as AC 10).

The cave fisher?s ears may hear sounds
both below and above the human hearing
range. Cave fishers often use this skill to
catch bats flying nearby. If a cave fisher is
presented with a number of different
sounds associated with prey, it will fire at
the loudest first; thus, it would choose an
ogre in nailed boots over a nearby barefoot halfling. Casting a  silence 15'  radius
spell on a cave fisher causes it to freeze,
making claw attacks at -4 to hit if it is
attacked.

When the cave fisher captures more
prey than it can eat, it stores the ?extras?
in a manner similar to a spider's. It wraps
the prey in adhesive filaments, almost
always tying down all of a victim?s limbs.
The fisher then uses its adhesive secretions to secure the victim to a wall or
ledge nearby. When the creature desires
to eat, it simply dissolves the bonds of the
victim and dismembers him (this can lead
to some interesting rescue scenarios). The
cave fisher can survive on very little food,
even a few bats a day if need be, but when
there is a surplus available it can consume
up to 200 lbs. of meat per day.

The filaments, the adhesive secretion,
and the dissolving secretion are all discharged through the creature?s proboscis.
The filaments are stored in the organic
winch behind the creature?s head; the two
secretions are stored in frontal cavities.
Once removed from a cavity, the adhesive
hardens within one turn. The dissolving
secretion takes one round to work.

Cave fishers can live over 100 years.
Once every 20 years, the female makes a
high-pitched keening sound (above human
or demi-human hearing) that brings all
males within a 5-20 mile radius underground. The female mates with the first
male to arrive, then kills him, rejecting the
overtures of all others. Three days later,
she lays a group of 5-9 eggs inside her
mate?s body and moves to a new spot. The
eggs hatch within a month, and the young
live for a short time on the carcass of their
father. Three weeks after they are born,
the young cave fishers are half grown, and
they leave to establish lairs of their own.
These half-grown cave fishers do half
damage and 1+1 HD, but their armor
class and movement remain the same. The
young cave fishers reach full growth
roughly one year after they are born. 

Cave-fisher eggs 10 days old or less are
greatly prized because of their high alcohol content, though they also contain
other druglike substances. A single sip of
the liquid found within the cave-fisher egg
is enough to intoxicate a man for hours,
bringing great delusions and hallucinations (save vs. poison or be confused for
1-4 hours; victim is merely  slowed  if he
saves). Drinking an entire egg would be
enough to kill a man (save vs. poison or die
in 10-40 rounds). These fresh eggs bring
50-100 gp each in large cities. Neither the
cave fisher?s blood nor eggs older than 10
days have this property.

Cave-fisher lairs may have a large pile of
equipment and treasure lying directly
beneath them on a tunnel floor. Being semiintelligent, the cave fisher is able to reason
that this seems to attract prey, but it is not
capable of more detailed planning.