DAY ONEWe're back for day one! The games begin! We send our squad of 2 loyal men down the stairwell. They are to explore the first cavern level and make it out alive... what? Ineth is not coming. Where is he?

SLACKING OFF IN THE TEMPLE? I said before he's not going to make it, but I think he might just be
disqualified if he does not come down to the stage right now! He will face execution by Magma, so I have sent a goblin assistant to go get him.
... I just got word that our goblin assistant has been murdered by Ineth. Ineth is also coming down as we speak. Good news! That might just change my opinion on his ambitions if he keeps up the good work.
We will now go live to our CaveCam feed to show you exactly what is happening in the caves! Should the explorers go out of view, we will have a low-resolution camera mounted to a Hungry Head that will make sure that we can have a direct image of our contestants no matter where they go.

As we can see here, the contestants have gathered at the enterance. They are about to discover the horrors that lurk the caves!

Shortly after setting foot in the caverns, our contestants find themselves surrounded by blood. Closer inspection reveals that the blood belongs to a Giant Olm! *gasp!* Clearly an intense fight has taken place here. Maybe the survivors are still lurking around here somewhere! Unfortunately, the path ahead is an underground lake, so we might never find the survivors, depending on their ability to swim. We also find the remains of a Cave Swallow, but it is unlikely that it died because of a fight with a giant olm. It is more likely that it was caught in the Cave Spider web that it is next to.

As our contestants progress through the caverns, discovering rich caches of ore and minerals as they go, they find themselves in another bloodied part of the cave. Closer inspection reveals that this blood belongs to several (that's 5 to 10) trogdolytes! Or Hungry Head Drone might not have the best sense of smell, but it has not failed us before. We will take a sample for analysis later and provide you the fine details in the discussion, tonight at 11!
But what's this?

One of our contestants, Zasit, reports being
thirsty! The backstage personnel tells me that we have not provided them with any waterskins (or any equipment at all, for that matter), so we might have to cut short this episode for the dwarf to head all the way up into the fortress and take a sip. Such behavior is not the example a worthy Baron needs to be making for his subjects! If this dwarf is to be the winner of this installment of Ignobles, he must press on.
Meanwhile, if we take a look on the map of explored cavern so far, we can see that the boundaries of the fortress have been reached! It appears that Zasit got lucky and will be able to take his drink without suspending the episode. Joke's on him, though, we have sealed the entrance for the 18 hours that the dwarves are to stay in the caverns. Fortunately for him, there is water on this level of the caverns, so he will have something to drink.
I wish I could say that this has been an action-packed episode of Ignobles, but there have been no encounters! The only predators our drone has detected were two pond grabbers who were sitting in the same underwater spot the entire time. I guess that means that all our contestants will make it to the second round!
That's it for this episode of Ignobles! We will be back tomorrow at 7 PM sharp to report our contestants' progress through the second cavern layer. As always, my name is Latias1290 and I will see you tomorrow!