I'm going to forego making a map.
Through the west entrance, past the shrieker room, Engelhart will find that a short tunnel, but fifteen feet long, opens into a sloped shaft, about 30 feet wide and 15 feet tall, like an elongated letter box slot that drops diagonally into the deep. At his feet, a switchback path, four feet wide, will start off towards the right, make a hairpin turn and descend to the left, at a 30-40 degree angle downwards. There's no railing, but a fall would be along a steep slope to the path below as it switched back again; perhaps 4d6 in damage.
The stone floor of the path is dry, cut from the natural stone, but has cut stone tiles placed along the outer edge of the path, to make the path level to the edge.
There's a slight breeze, cool, drifting up from below, which makes but a faint impression on your face as you feel it. Certainly nothing to make a descent difficult.
It is painfully quiet, particularly after the shouting match of the fight.
81 comments:
I propose we go along the path.
4 feet wide means we have to go 1 by 1, no?
I suggest at least 1 melee fighter that is in good shape goes first.
I'm okay with being second or "rear-guard".
To continue from the last post. I didn't think through the money, consider it in my bag. Can I have my spellbook and 5 darts?
I take the point, of course.
I scan with the lamp for anything out of the usual, both above and below, and proceed to descend.
I take middle. I have infravision if that helps.
[Mikael: don't forget you can take one or two additional darts in your hands, to be dropped at a moment's notice.]
[The money weights SO much...]
I follow Engelhart, observing my surroundings.
[Alexis, pardon my nudging, but the total xp table from last post, does it include the ticks?]
I'll take 1 additional to stay in my hand. Thanks.
So to clarify: my carry weight is 14.78 lbs. I have my clothes, 3 belts, 6 darts (5 on belts, one in hand) and my spellbook.
I move cautiously 1 hex behind Engelhart, wanting to give him room to maneuver. I am light on my feet and dextrous, but falling would be quite bad.
Spellbook and 6 darts it is, with one in Mikael's hands.
Lothar and Embla have infravision as well; but Engelhart needs his lantern.
Engelhart, I did give experience for the ticks, you'll remember. It put you 8 x.p. from going up a level, which you commented upon.
And now the DM metagames a bit ...
"If a breeze is coming up, that means there is another passage to the surface down here, no?"
On the second switchback down, moving single-file, you'll find, inscribed into the rock next to the path, an extensive collection of symbols, very like the symbols you encountered upon finding the book on Mimmarudla's second level.
Ha. I'll cast Comprehend Languages.
Lothar, who has caving skill, will explain that the breeze could be drawn out, rather than pushed up. If the cave is large enough to have elements that would create its own heat, in one form or another, that heat would rise while cold air sank into the depths.
I, ahm, call for Lothar and Embla to at least pull up the rear.
Don't want to split the party with a teleporting nasty around.
"Hold on, Engelhart, I can read this."
To clarify further: that "heat" could be cooler than the temperature above it, but be forced up through pressure and churning of air below.
I'll wait our unexpected interpreter out.
Mikael will read the following words:
The sacrifice must reach the bottom alive.
It will struggle and resist, but it must be pushed on.
It will fight in the hopes that you will kill it, but you must not.
It will try to flee, but it must be caught.
It will leap to its death if it can, so it must be held tight.
It will bash its own head with a rock, so it must be watched.
The sacrifice must reach the bottom alive.
Wight-a-here-we-come...
I resume my descent.
Although a bit afraid, Rob follows.
[I really did not get that "heat" and breeze stuff... At the moment some cold air is going up, no?]
[Nay, Rob: *comparatively* hot air ascends, even if it feels fresh on our skin, cold air descends to take its place.]
I follow Engelhart as before.
[mhmm yeah, I see. I got confused.]
[If there is even colder air gathering down below, and it piles up, that pile will very slowly push up a cushion of cool air that sits just below it, upwards. If, in turn, air is seeping down from somewhere else in the cavern complex, that will create turmoil, which will relocate the fluid of air like water flowing up the inside wall of a glass when it is poured into the vessel. That's the idea, anyway]
The sense is that this cavern could be a large atmospheric enclosure.
Engelhart, after the fourth switchback, you will see a bottom, about two switchbacks, or forty feet, below. Embla, on watch, will relate that there is some movement around you; most likely the rats, that were put off when the mud-creature appeared.
I continue along, I don't think they'll be a threat by now (unless I'm mistaken).
Take us to the bottom.
Just a reminder that Lothar still has my Armor spell, since it sticks around til sunrise and he never got hit.
I'm concerned about what is going on. None of the froglings had the ability to raise the dead, as I recall.
[OOC: just so I don't have to scale through tons of content, what was your chosen study, Mikael, and you, Rob? It'll save me time if you just tell me]
Animal Physiology
Mikael : Alchemy (if it hasn't changed)
Yep, still Alchemy.
[OOC: you can find your totals on the drive. Engelhart, your only significant gain is that your Beasts went from Amateur to Authority. I shall throw it on the pile of things that have to be created; but it should be pretty easy. If I don't do it by a week today, poke me with a really guilty comment at the start of campaigning and I'll get it in place that day. I won't say you won't need it by then, or that you will, but I'll have it before you need it]
[OOC: I only see "Lukas" and "Demifee" in the Mage tab of the Sage Abilities sheet]
Should be there now.
Got it, thanks.
[My apologies - I grossly overslept]
I follow Engelhart to the bottom.
I follow them to the bottom as well.
As you near the bottom, Embla first, and Engelhart soon after, then the rest of the party, begin to hear the very soft burblings of water in motion. At the bottom of the switchback stairs, the party finds themselves at the top of a sloping, slightly weaving tunnel, about nine feet in diameter and reaching forty, fifty feet down, at a slight angle, that has been created by a small stream of water no more than a few inches across.
The water seeps from the wall on your right, presumably a spring according to Lothar. The water accumulates for the next seven feet until it begins to run on top of the rock; and then, some twenty feet further along, it forms a very shallow trough, which it follows until it, and the tunnel, are out of sight.
You see no other means of passage.
How slippery is the tunnel floor?
Thankfully my boots are in good condition!
Seeing nothing remarkable, I begin trudging down.
Not slippery. The floor may be smooth, but it is made of limestone that chips away rather than polishes under water, there's no drip from the ceiling and only the narrow rivulet is actually wet.
Engelhart, you trudge along for twenty-five rounds, about five minutes. The passage just continues. Good with continuing?
I follow Engelhart.
I'm for going to the bottom of this.
I follow Engelhart, behind Embla. I am using infravision to keep an eye behind us
Well, not on my own, but yes.
I pause on occasion to keep an ear out.
Walking on, the party plums down another five minutes before coming across another apparent spring. This doesn't increase the size of the original stream much, but the existing water now seems to be flowing in the groove of a crack in the rock, two or three inches deep, and two or three inches wide.
Continue?
Yes
yes
Yes
No!
(yes)
Very well. You understand, as you make your way along, the lack of change is noteworthy. I am compelled to treat every length of the passage as a decision on the party's part; I can hardly force you to keep walking forever without obeying the contractual obligation I have as a DM to ask.
So when I say, as it does, that the passage continues in this way for another ten minutes, before you all take a breath and one of you is bound to ask, "How long do you think this goes?" It is only right of me to say as a DM, after twenty minutes of walking down, do you wish to continue?
Embla confirms that there seems to be nothing moving down here. The stream is obviously going somewhere. Lothar, the caver, can confirm that passages like this can reach on for tens of miles. Your swords are getting heavy. The unevenness of the floor is felt on your toes, particularly on the druid's toes.
Do you wish to continue?
OK. Let's head back and inform the foreman what we've dealt with.
But... the sacrifice chamber?
There seems to be a disconnect between the bit of text Mikael deciphered and the tool marks at the switchback path, and the natural aspect of this tunnel.
Also, a few things have pointed toward this being a very large cave.
I think ther may be something of interest there, but one can always come back another day.
C'mon, let's give it a third leg in, just ten more minutes. I'd hate to go all the way back up when all that was needed was a final push.
There's bound to be a sacrifice chamber at a practical, workable distance on in.
(Of course, on the way back, we'll *have* to look for a hidden chamber at the base of the ascent).
Not necessarily if that's the entry way to an underground kingdom ...
But 10 more minutes can't hurt.
Fair enough. Let's press on
I keep an eye out for secret doors or areas as we travel. I see no harm in walking 10 more minutes.
[We, of course, call it by quorum here, I'm frankly good either way. Just don't want to hear our most esteemed DM prod us in a later dissectional post about how "the players easily folded when faced with the weight of description"(/tongueincheek)]
Well, I figured if we strike out, we can as always come back with provisions so we are prepared for a possible multi-day trek.
10 minutes and beer's on me when we get back topside, my braves.
ok let's go onward then.
As a mage without the relevant sage ability, Mikael, you wouldn't recognize a secret door if it popped out of the wall and introduced itself.
You end up walking another fifteen minutes, not because it gets you anywhere, but just because it is hard to let go of a thing. You've been down for 35 minutes now.
The crack that the stream follows widens deepens. so that the water is pouring below the level of the passage now, but just inches below. The stream is about six inches wide and as deep. The passage itself widens by about three feet. And you've begun to notice some things that suggest something different from what you thought minutes ago.
Engelhart spies a white shape in the water and bends down to fish it out with Embla's dagger. It is a piece of broken pottery, bleached by the water. It does not look much different from the earthenware that you've seen used as roofing tile at home. At another place, further along, the lantern picks up a glint of something in a dip near the right wall ... it is three links of wrought iron chain, with half-inch links, ground at some point in the past, proving it was used.
Do you wish to continue?
Absolutely!
I show the evidence to my companions, fairly bewildered myself.
The stream's width is our compass of distance... I'm still up for going the extra mile.
Now yes, that's some evidence that's were getting near.
I'm also for continuing a bit more. (that'd get us about 45-50 minutes in this tunnel)
Very well!
Two things:
- I don't want our looting operation to go belly up again due to some cleanup crew getting our cheese ahead of us.
- We wouldn't be much of an adventuring party if the first thirty minutes of caving got us wet in the knees.
Another ten minutes does not produce any interesting results.
Now 45 minutes in.
How likely does it seems that a clean-up crew gets there with stories of giant rats and undeads?
Anyway, it is still morning, or maybe around noon no?
(frustration sets in)
I'm willing to go on.
I am as well
It is my only rational preoccupation at this juncture: that beardless runts will come by and sweep out a fortune from under us.
If it becomes apparent that these folks won't dare come down here just today, I'll have no qualms about turning back and tucking in for the day.
Same here.
Let's continue with a new post tomorrow.
(I mean, we're still pretty much full to the brim of spells and Hp and steel...)
[Good morning. I'm going to take some time, half an hour, to drink some coffee, eat some breakfast; then I'll write up a new post for this. The comments thread is getting long]
[aknowledged]
^
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