The The Green Dragon Brotherhood dusts themselves off and use their ropes and grappling hooks to scale the mountain up to the mouth of Dreadwhisper Tunnel, which is blocked by an enormous stone wheel. After a couple of close calls, they successfully summit and get the lay of the land.

The stone wheel is far too large to move, and is seemingly operated by some Serpentfolk-style mechanism attached to a giant winch; there are two giant skeletons still chained to it. There are also two banks of giant-sized cells and a tumbledown stone outbuilding - likely guards' quarters.

Kraz Formalhaut sets to work and soon quickly jury-rigs the strange mechanism so that the party can apply their strength and move the stone wheel. With some sweat and grit, the party is able to open a pathway juuuuuust big enough for them and their horses, which they begin winching up using the same apparatus.

While Sooney-Crow of No Family handles the horses, the rest of the party investigates the cells, where they find two more giant skeletons who died holding hands. Inside the guardroom, they find a couple of locked and trapped chests (which they ID and deactivate, much to the GM's chagrin) which contain a fair amount of gold and an arcane scroll, which lands in Greer the Betrayer's backpack like most of the treasure they find.

They also find the key for the cells and a control panel that looks like it was installed much later and which calls to mind the technology of the Old Ones - there's even an The Uxul-sized slot just begging to be used. They actually consider activating it but choose caution, for once, and unknowingly avoid some real problems...

Kraz Formalhaut suddenly senses a tremor from beneath the ground and alerts the group. Sooney-Crow of No Family begins to shimmy back up the rope (having successfully winched up two horses) while Kraz and Cleansing Waters heroically go hide in the tunnel. That leaves Shiv Drinkstep and Greer the Betrayer to deal with the bulette that explodes out of the earth. Greer gets a good-sized chunk bitten out of his shoulder before he summons a griffon with his magic ring. Unfortunately, the griffon does jack squat against the bulette, but that's okay because with one mighty swing of the The Blade of Graxus, Shiv beheads the thing, sending its frightful visage bouncing down the mountainside.

The griffon flies off to devour the rest of the horses, natch.

Greer, Shiv and Sooney scavenge some bulette claws, which Kraz plans to fashion into some kind of dewclaw gauntlets at a later date, completing the dragon scale/sabertooth tiger pelt ensemble they're currently sporting.

That done, they head into the Dreadwhisper Tunnel, clearly built during the Second Age by Serpentfolk and still in very good repair. The tunnel is huge - enough room for two carts and a cart between them, and a well-paved road. It's too large for their lanterns to illuminate much, but they can hear the distant flap of wings somewhere in the darkness, and they catch the occasional glimpse of egg sacs and/or slimy cocoons on the walls.

They come upon a huge crevasse in the road - 50 feet across and running wall to wall. Kraz Formalhaut revealed he knows a little magic and flew to the other side after anchoring a rope, thus creating a way for the party to shimmy across. Greer had another close call (and thank Graxus for that reroll mechanic) but eventually, they all got across, though they had to leave their horses behind. That griffon's loving you guys.

Once across, they soon stumble upon a Tentacle Beast, in the tunnel for unknowable reasons, but ready to scrap. Cleansing Waters has a brush with death as two tentacles latch onto his mushroom-addled brain, but Greer pulls out his ray gun and wastes the thing.

As the dust settles and they continue their trek - the group finds their way blocked. The tunnel is filled with debris and buttressed. Greer makes a point that it looks like "they were trying to keep something out..."

Luckily, they spot a door. And that is when the Giant Vampire Moths attack...