The Ekibi Caverns are designed to be a low level adventure area near Offestry.  The area was built on ideas and suggestions for a new area between Offestry and Tabor to provide room for experience as well as a place to continue reinforcing commands for new players.

A small mini-quest will be here.  A young gnomish scholar named Rosinden who is looking to prove herself will tell adventurers the story of the caverns.  Essentially, the caverns were discovered by a band of halflings who named it "ekibi," which in their language means simply "bad."  What the halflings found there - and what adventurers can still see - are monstrous insects who have grown to enormous size.  There will also be a few molds, lurkers, and the like.  Rosinden has developed a theory - she is sure that the mutations derive from a strange magic-infused stone the drow refer to as faerzress.  Large deposits of such stone in the deep underdark have been used to create beings of all kinds, and Rosinden feels that they must be here in such small amounts as to affect the creatures inside without affecting the surrounding area.

Rosinden will ask travelers to help her obtain a sample of this stone from deep within the caves so she might study it further.  She would go herself, of course, but she is a scholar, not a cave-delver.  She will offer a minor reward.

Rosinden has built a small hut just off the road where she conducts her experiments.  She will be a "shopkeeper" who carries a few random items as needed.  Nothing too great, but things such as climbing tools and possibly a few kits.

From her hut, adventurers will travel down a short path leading to the caverns themselves.  They will have to use climbing tools to descend into the dank darkness below.  The faerzress they are seeking will be deep inside the cavern, near the tail end of an underground lake.
