Lann smiles apologetically at Valaria. "I am sorry, I did not mean to insult you. It's just that....I guess I always imagined that actual Abyssal-blooded persons would look...more like us, more or less. You are beautiful."
To Ary, he replies, "Nothing like yours. They dressed more plainly."
By this point the heroes had been walking through the tunnels for twenty five minutes. The tunnel widens into a larger cavern. Ahead, a wide chasm splits the tunnel floor. The floating rock dust in the air and the groans as the tunnel walls settle indicate that the tunnel split recently.
The chasm is ten feet across, seventy feet wide, and thirty feet deep. At the bottom is what appears to be an underground stream - it is shallow, but swarming with tiny, green lizards. Every now and then what appears to be slivers of miniature lightning erupt between pairs of them, running in a current through the water.
On the other side of the chasm, there appears to be an entire building from Kenabres crashed from the surface to the underworld. There is a great deal of debris, including long planks of wood, and a mostly intact roof, shingles and all.
Lann and his companions appear dismayed. "Oh no. It appears the tunnel continues onward from this chasm, but I had hoped the tremors did not reach our home. I hope that our tribe is all right..." Dyra, the hunchbacked, tumor-ridden woman, sobs into a handkerchief.
"I... uh. Well, this looks nasty." she looks around. "We... could climb across, or try to slip across... but that's not gonna work for some of us. We have some rope that might be of use." Ary offers, dragging out both coils of rope, one frayed and one ordinary. "But it's still not going to be fun for anyone.."
Valaria shakes her head, though she blushes softly when he calls her beautiful. "I'm not insulted. It's just a... sensitive subject. Many places wouldn't treat me much better than they'd treat you because my blood is more important to them than my face, or my heart. Though I'm glad you think I'm beautiful." She gives him a smile.
She looks out at the massive ruined cavern. "I hope this is the extent of the damage. You shouldn't have to lose more people with to these tremors."
She glances around for a way ahead. "Personally, I'm more likely to manage going along the wall up here than climbing." She looks down into the chasm carefully. "Yeah, climbing isn't my thing. I can try to shimmy across and then throw a rope down the far side to make climbing up the other side easier."
Ehren eyes the precarious chasm, biting his lower lip.
"I could use Terendelev's scale twice more. As I am now, I don't climbing would be... feasible."
Anevia peers down the chasm at the lizards. "Seems like jumping it would be easier than risking it on an unsteady ledge," she offers. "...Not that I'm jumping or balancing anywhere soon."
"I mean... we could run the lizards off, too. The water doesn't seem to be moving too fast... if we have time to start a fire, we could probably get them out of here... but I'm not sure what we'd burn."
Valaria nods. "Fair enough. I could probably make that with a good start. Maybe we should make use of the scales for anyone that can't make the climb or the jump easily."
Ehren nods. "I know nothing of what those creatures down there are, but some smoke might ward them off. It makes it difficult for smaller creatures to breathe."
"These creatures are just babies, they shouldn't be too harmful." says Markus, examining the creatures in the stream. "They're shocker lizards, creatures who join together to create ever-more-powerful electrical storms."
"I too have one more use of Terendelev's scale, but I think we should use those for climbing up, not down. And we have two people who are incapacitated such that they cannot climb either up or down - we'd need four charges from the scales in order to get them both up and down."
Lann shrugs. "They're submerged in water, I don't know how harmless they can be..."
Li'an listens to the discussion of building fires and smoking lizards out, climbing up and down and whatnot, focusing on the problem of crossing the chasm when a thought occurs to her. She takes off her pack and digs out a neatly coiled, fine silken rope. Undoing the coil, she unwinds about half the rope and hands one end to Valaria. "Would you mind holding that for a moment?" she says with a wink.
Li'an takes off in a flash, her foot pushing off of the edge of the chasm. She leaps across the void stretched out, with the coiled rope on her shoulder and the slack trailing off behind her. As she nears the other side she curls up, landing in a tumble and coming to a stop kneeling with one knee on the ground. Standing up she dusts herself off and looks back at the group across the chasm.
After a moment she begins looking for a place to tie off the rope, trying to find a sturdy rock near enough to the wall to allow use of the rope as a guide for those going across.
"Maybe I should've explained the idea *before* jumping, Lleuad," she thought to herself as she looked back across the chasm.
"Tie it off on your end! We can use it to get the others across without needing to have them climb down. Aravashnial can pull himself along it with levitate as well!"
Anevia hands Li'an her rope. "Y'know, I have some rope too, if you need it," she offers.
Li'an could have probably bunny hopped that 10 ft chasm, she's so nimble!
She finds some heavy pieces of the destroyed building that she could use to tie the rope off to create a guide rope (assuming you don't have hammer & pitons). However, the rubble is very heavy, and unwieldy, to drag from the wreckage to the cavern wall.
Having not thought to pack proper climbing gear, Li'an instead tried to find a way to move a few pieces of rubble over to serve as an anchor. Despite her earlier success in aiding with the boulder however, she was unable to get any of them to budge.
When she realized she'd be unable to set it up without help she turned a bit red. "Well so much for that plan, Lleuad," she thought. Giving a resigned sigh she turned around and looked back across the chasm.
"I don't suppose someone could toss over a hammer and pitons, otherwise if someone could come help move some of this rubble to make an anchor..." she said sheepishly.
"Hrut has some pitons and a hammer." Ary suggests. "Do you have enough to anchor it on this side, then still have enough to toss them across to Li'an, or should I go ahead and climb?"
"Yes you may use my pitons, that is why I have them cannot ever be too prepared, especially when you can carry everything you need!" Hrut says with a grin.
Hrut hands Ary one piton and the hammer, climbs down the rock wall, then back up the other using another piton to secure the rope and his "old" warhammer to bang it home.
"No comments about my backside as I climb ladies!" Hrut says trying to make light of the situation with a chuckle.
"This should work for just about anyone if you want to try it without the scales, we may need that magic later."
"If that's the requirement to get to watch you climb across, I guess that's just what's going to be required." she says as she pounds it into place and runs the rope through it, tying it off.
"Good call, Fen'wen!" she calls over.
She waits for the others to cross, and then brings up the rear, once more.
Hrut clubs down into the stream full of shocker lizards. The stream only serves to amplify their current, and along with Hrut's metallic armor, delivers a potentially deadly shock to the unprotected...
Meanwhile, Ary gracefully jumps over the chasm.
Ary, rope still in hand, lowers -her- rope down into the chasm for Hrut. "Hurry! Grab on!" she says as she slips out of her pack so she has more strength to heave him up on the proper side.
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"Hrut!" Li'an calls out as the poor Ulfen gets seriously injured for the third time today. Working quickly to help Ary, she takes hold of the rope, and when Hrut's ready Li'an pulls with all the might her spindly elven arms can provide.
Valaria watches things unfold, then groans as Hrut manages to get injured again. "He has no manner of luck at all."
She take a couple of steps back, then rushes the chasm and gives a good leap across the gap, landing not far from Ary and Li'an. "Alright, let's see if we can't rescue our unlucky friend."
Valaria wraps the rope around her wrist for a better grip and heaves, displaying surprising strength as she hauls Hrut up. "He's coming up! Markus, we're going to need that magic life touch thing."
Ary's quiet as she heaves on the rope, just putting her effort into dragging him out of the drink, focusing on steady breathing.
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With the help of his friends, Hrut is pulled up the sheer cliff face and falls unconscious from the exertion.
Hrut is dying, and losing life at the rate of 1 HP/round.
"Uh... I." Ary stammers. "I have no idea how to wake him up. Is he okay? Medic!" she calls out.
She then realizes something rather important, and moves to hold the rope in place on this side. Just standing over Hrut and calling for help won't do much of anything. She forces the debris Li'an had been working with into place and then ties off the rope, holding it taut, just in case.
"We should see what we can do for Hrut while we wait for Markus and the others to cross over here," she said.
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That would be me... Ehren looks down the chasm again, wishing they had done something about the lizards first. There would not be any time for him to do things the safe way.
"I need to get to him," he tells the others on his side of the chasm, wearing a grimace. Ehren backs away from the chasm and casts his guidance spell on himself, knowing that he would need all the help he could get. Just like the rooftops, he tells himself, bracing his feet against the ground. Without further ado he breaks out into a run in his attempt to replicate the ladies' feat.
When Ehren made it over, Li'an got ready to aid him, figuring she'd be more useful assisting than trying to perform first aid on her own. "If there's anything I can do to help, tell me," she said, setting her pack aside and kneeling down by Hrut.
Left with little time to catch his breath after that stunt, Ehren nods his head at Li'an as he retrieves the bandages from his pack.
Ary, realizing she really couldn't help out any more with the situation slips away and back across, testing the guide rope as she went, so that she could be sure no one else would go that way. Then she just tries to get out of Markus's way. "We need to hurry, it should be sturdy, Horgus, Hawk, Avi?" she waves them forward, "Lann... other people whose names I cannot remember in a panic," she motions forward.
Ehren leaps over the chasm, and manages to stabilize Hrut's condition, bandaging up his numerous electrical burns. He remains unconscious.
Ary gingerly moves across the
"This is Dyra, and this is Crel," Lann reminds, gently. "Miss Bishop? Is your friend alright?' He adds, looking over at Hrut, who is partially obscured by Ehren and Li'an.
"I still have two healing potions available, if someone needs them," Aravashnial adds.
Anevia moves across the rope with Aravashnial, guiding him across. Even with her injury she is agile enough that with the guide rope she could probably do this blindfolded. She gestures to help Aravashnial across, but is distracted by watching Hrut's progress.
...unfortunately Aravashnial slips and falls into the chasm. He grabs out blindly for a ledge...
But without his sight it is of no use.
He falls in a heap on the ground, and is electrocuted by the lizards in the process. "hnnnng," he groans
"Oh no! Oh, my lady Desna! I'm so sorry!" Anevia gasps.
"Kûl," Valaria mutters as the wizard drops like a stone. "Aravashnial! Can you grab a rope if we throw it down?" She's not certain if he'd be able to grab it blinded as he is. "Actually, never mind. Someone's going need to go down and bring him up with them. He's not in any shape to climb alone."
"I... uh. Yeah, Dyra, and Crel." Ary nods in agreement. "Sorry, frazzled." Then she sees Avi take a dive and just makes a small sound, before slipping into the water behind him.
She lands down in the water, and moves over, "Just throw it in! Hurry, I'll get him out!"
She leads him quickly over to the opposite edge. "Hurry!" she calls up, urgently.
As Ehren ties off the last bandage, he looks up to wipe the sweat from his brow, only to see Aravashnial take his fall. His manages to go even more pale than it was before.
"Millorn's scroll," he says quickly, scrambling to the ledge to look down, "It would let someone get down there without needing to- oh."
Valaria doesn't waste a moment, grabbing the rope and tossing one end down to the pair in the chasm. "Someone help me with this. I can't help them both up alone."
"I'm gonna give you a boost, I want you to keep a firm grip on the rope, which I'll wiggle into your hand. That should make it significantly easier for you to make it up." she explains.
Ary guides the wizard to the rope, then rather than helping him climb, gives him a boost up as high as she can. Given how much of a slip he is, it shouldn't be overly-difficult for her... especially as she's unburdened herself quite a lot already.
Li'an looks mortified as Aravashnial slips and falls down into the water. "Aravashnial!" Without any hesitation, she rushes past Ehren and jumps down into the pit, rushing to where Ary is helping Aravashnial.
Her panic, however causes her to misjudge the jump and land off balance on the wet, rocky ground. Unable to stop herself, her leg finally slips out from under her, sending her face first into the water and rocks. "Ugh..." she muttered for a moment as she started to stand back up, trying to take care not to slip again. "Be careful! Tie the rope around him!" she called, her voice clearly betraying her panicked state.
Ary leaps into chasm, falling a full thirty feet without any regard for her life. Unfortunately, the shallow stream is not enough to cushion her fall. She makes a splash, sending several tiny lizards skittering, alarmed.
Li'an also falls into the chasm.
Markus stands with the mongrelmen as the situation devolves, soon with Li'an, Aravashnial and Ary all in the pit with the shocker lizards, he hopes that he can make it across alright.
Markus is actually pretty hurt, so he expends the last of his spell energy on inflict light wounds, grasping at his chest to infuse it with negative energy and heal his bruised limbs.
First, he asks the mongrelmen, "Do you three think you can make it alright across the chasm? I need to go perform first aid on our friend over there." as he is backing up down the cave tunnel. "I'll be right over there. Shout if you need help." Then, he takes off at a run and attempts to leap over the ten-foot chasm.
Markus lands heavily in the water with his three friends, cursing in Necril from the pain and from his failure.
He coughs a bit, having underestimated just how much that hurt, but stands up alright from the water. "Ouch." he moans, just before passing out.
Markus lands on the far side, stumbling a bit and hitting his knees when he arrives, but he quickly moves to Hrut's side (who is unconscious and dying). Summoning the power of the Positive Energy Plane through his hands (and gritting his teeth through the tingly-bad-sensation), he touches Hrut and pushes the power into the big man.
When Ary reaches the top of the cliff, pushing Aravashnial up before her and then collapsing in pain, he moves to assist her as well.
"Hold tight, Avi." Ary says as she slips his arms over her shoulders and begins to scale the rope, figuring out that she can't get good enough footing to help him, rather quickly. Luckily, battered as she is, the climb isn't nearly as bad as she was expecting it to be. The adrenaline of discovering that the water wasn't nearly as deep as she thought playing a key role in doing so.