The “Rusty Cave” is rumored by everyone around Goldvale to be the habitat of a rust monster. Given that everyone frets about their metal items rusting in an encounter with one, the cave does not get many visitors.¹⁾

It turns out however that this cave is not the home to any rust monsters. Instead it is a gold vault once owned by gnomes. Gnomes who left mechanical and magical traps behind. The Rusty Cave hides additional lore. Gnomish in nature, with a huge amount of gold sitting around and possibly other surprises for some future time.

In this campaign eventually Skip goes to the Rusty Cave believing there to be treasure, for which he is very correct, but he gets trapped in a vault where the gold is acting like quicksand.

The Party of Jules, Eyrun, Urist & Alimir head to the Rusty Cave when they are informed by none other than Wyrd Uncle Lugo that Skip has not been seen in many days after partaking of this treasure hunt. There they stumble into the gold vault only to have a portcullis trap them inside and a gnomish mechanical construct with spellcaster abilities suddenly attack them to defend the vault. They find Skip still alive but things get worse for everyone, very quickly.

• Eyrun dies here in the original timeline, essentially drowning in a room full of gold that functionally works the same as quicksand. This removes a major player character from the campaign
  • Alimir uses his ability to “misty step” through the barriers of the room to freedom, escaping death. Truth be told, Alimir fares better than anyone else involved.
  • Jules, Urist & Skip all escape but only because Wyrd Uncle Lugo sends them a magical contract to sign right before they're about to die, contract terms unseen, but signing it obligates him to save them. So they all do. This was offered to Eyrun as well, but she declined, thus pride killed her. It is worth noting that Skip is part of the contract.
  • In the rounds leading up to the near TPK, Urist took the most extreme action and drew cards from the infamous “Deck Of Many Things.” He got the Skull, Knight & Jester cards. A little of which has lasting implications.

• In the original timeline Jules, Urist, Alimir, NueNue, Phoebe & Vesper all head to the Rusty Cave the day after Eyrun's death in the hopes of retrieving the body & Eyrun's loot.
  • While there they learn that the gnomish constructs regenerate / self heal and reset traps.
  • Eyrun's body is recovered, possessions looted, and in the process Phoebe Nephele is murdered by everyone else. Thus the second Nephele sister dies at The Rusty Cave.
  • Phoebe's body is dumped in a shallow grave just outside of the cave.
  • Eyrun, or rather what is left of Eyrun, is hauled off by the others.

• Due to the Nephele Timeline Branch Event original party members Urist, Jules, & Alimir all manage to gang up and murder their alternate selves here. Meanwhile the alternate Eyrun is rendered unconscious after Urist drugs here with some Mistwood Sap and left alive, even carefully taken safely away afterward.
  • Skip is never rescued by The Party in the new branched timeline and unknown to everyone else still ends up signing a contract with Wyrd Uncle Lugo to save himself and Lugo remains unaware that Jules & Urist signed as well in the original timeline, making only Skip indebted to Lugo now.