"Well you aren't alone now. I'm sorry you had to grow up feeling alone." Rhavenna says making her way back towards the shallower area. "Wallace......he likes to meddle....in damn near everything. I think he gets off on saying $#!+ that gets a reaction out of people. He probably likes the attention almost as much as the sound of his own voice. But he's one of us and when it's all said and done, we all have each other's backs." she says wringing the excess water out of her hair.
Tidus's movements jerked at Rhavenna's apology momentarily before resuming quickly to his near sweat inducing pace. "Thank you Rhavenna. Though my time with you all has been short, it has been enjoyable. Aside from lord Adrian I knew nothing more then being a warrior. It is nice to be of use. Even with the meddling..." He gives a chuckle as he gives a ferocious final jab at his unseen opponent.
As Rhavenna approaches into shallower waters he sheathes his blades and resumes looking outward into the dark cavern with the torch flickering behind him. Casting a number of dancing shadows ahead of him.
The gladiator was quiet for a long moment before adding. "What happened to your parents? If I may ask..."
Wallace nods at the elders words and seems to scan the den for spots Tim would be most comfortable. "I'll keep your words in mind Falldirk, hopefully with allies we can keep each other safe."
Wallace takes Tim in from the cold, rapidly brushing the clumps of snow from the beast at the entry way and encouraging the creature to rest by the fire for a small bit. The human removing the various packs, tools and straps attached to the yak, guiding it to a comfortable spot.
With that the human gives the elder a wave as he shoulders a coil of rope. His armor and dragonbone mace having joined it in the objects he was bringing with him along with a single vial of alchemist fire.
Wallace casts a glance to the weapons by the fire and retrieves Tidus and Rhavenna's weapons as well.
Wallace skips a convenient rock down the rocky side of the refuse pit, giving the damp hole a passing glance the man continues walking.
Jingling slightly Wallace returns, somewhat damp and smelling of yak. He bears a tremendous coil of hemp rope, his mace and armor.*
"So, are you both ready for a bit of a journey?"
"They were both rangers, I suppose that's where I developed my love of nature. They were part of a group investigating some local bandits not fat from where we'd settled. It turned out the group was larger than anyone had anticipated and included an ogre and a few magic users. No one survived." she says quietly.
Maiathreen fixes his eyes on the open flames, his body seemingly absorbing the heat and storing it. He lifts one hand, shifting his eyes to his palm while flames flicker across it only to be extinguish with the closing of his hand. What did you do to me? He thinks as he glances down at the bladeless hilt, still in its scabbard.
His eyes flicker across both newcomers halting longer on the harpy wondering what her game is and when she's to reveal her hand. A warmth settles along his arm at this thought and he has to shake it before flames begin to form along it. He still has much to learn about this new "gift"
He feels the sensation of talons flexing in his shoulders almost as a reminder but this feeling dissipates as he feels a cold hand caress his shoulder and neck. He tilts his head and feels those fingers glide up to his face and into his hair. "Sia Itov." He says as he turns around to see the face of Livain; the only one capable of soothing his spirit. "What's happening? I still feel the fire inside begging for release." He whispers, his voice showing the hints of fear he dares not share with their comrades and friends.
She stands silently contemplating what to say. She stares at his face for a moment then looks at his hand. For the first time she didn't know what to say to comfort him. She too is confused about his new gift. The scent of scorched flesh, smoke and earth filled her nostrils while the crackle of the flames lulled her into almost a soothing trance. In a way standing next to him in front of burning bodies was oddly and surprisingly relaxing. She simply leans against his arm and wraps a wing around him while lacing her hand into his. "Everything will be alright. You did roast the miserable pigeon after all. That miserable chicken had it coming." She says with a small chuckle.
Maiathreen leans into Livain's embrace simply standing with her. It's like this that Wallace finds the two Silastri. With a glance of annoyance he shrugs his shoulders and looks over to Livain, at her nod the two agree to join the exploration.
Tidus was quiet for a long time. "If you had power to seek re..." He stops short as he hears something his hands slowly drifting to his blades before pausing. After a couple of tense minutes he relaxes and steps forward.
"Hold there Wallace, Rhavenna is getting herself dressed. Let me help you with that..." Seeing Mai and Livain he nods. "Hope you are ready for a swim, a lot of water lies down this way and the cave we are going to descend into has a downward slope."
She'd spent a long time thinking about revenge, but Tidus's suggestion, or t least what she thought he was about to suggest took her by surprise. Even more so was his motion to stall the others so she could get dressed. Happily accepting his help, she dons her armor, strapping her swords around her waist, with a bit of a flush in her cheeks.
She was relatively sure her bow would be useless in the water.
Wallace waits outside the bathing area and shrugs.
"Maiathreen, Livain, can one of you generate light spells today? I did not prepare such magic myself and it will make our journey downward much easier if we have light to see by."
Tidus was quick, his hands moving with practiced ease at straps and other accessories that would have possibly proven stubborn for Rhavenna alone. It took a quarter of the time it normally would to don her armor surprisingly enough. While he worked he was quiet, never losing momentum and never seeming to stumble at which strap went where. When she was ready he calls to the others to approach. "I am not sure what lies down there, most likely an opening since the water is steadily flowing down the tunnel. Which could pose a danger to us. How would you like to proceed?" He takes up his sword from Wallace, strapping it to his side while the two were strapped to his back crossways. "Thanks Wallace."
Wallace seems to have a thought, looking at his weapon and then back to the room itself. "Hang on just a moment."
Wallace takes his rope and ties a loop through the handle of his mace, he then drops the object head first into the waters.
Due to the constant flow and high temperature of the water the weapon ices over around its head but the ice it produces isn't very stable and becomes brittle in the warm humid air of the cave.
Wallace frowns, walks over to a diviot in the cave and summons his own water away from the main mass. Freezing the tiny pool Wallace slings the flaking ice into the water and shrugs.
"Well can't say I'm surprised, if the first attempt fails and we see something down there valuable enough to have us go back I'd suggest we head outside and haul in some ice for Livain to manipulate. using ice to make some stairs for that decent would be nice." The human complains as he walks over and begins examining the features of the room.
"Lets go ahead and tie off the rope coil on one of the larger features in here, then we can use it to easily exit the pool once we are done looking down there. I know we have more rope between us in case there is another drop like this one into a different set of caves but for now lets just hope there is not. I don't have any magic to help in an entirely flooded cave anyway."
Tidus nods speaking up after Wallace. "If you want I can go ahead first, just in case we encounter something."
"Though it may be better for one of us that can see in total darkness to go first, or at least be right behind you to see past in case of any threats." Rhavenna suggests.
Wallace shrugs "I'll hold onto our light source then, you ought keep your hands free in case whatever we encounter is particularly unkindly."
Tidus nods in agreemet to Rhavenna and Wallace. "That is fine by me if you are behind me with the light. Just didn't want to see you get twisted up in the halls since we don't know what we could be walking into." He spoke mainly to Rhavenna as she was taller then them. "So..." He looks to where the rope is too be secured. "Lets just hope we don't run into anything unfriendly."
With the rope secured and Tidus, Rhavenna and Wallace secured to it as they begin the descent into the flooded caves off the deep water side. Tidus was treading water and even Rhavenna was in deeper then the previous cave. The water was rushing into you armor and things you are wearing.
You bob your way-down the slanting cave walls, feeling the pull of the water increasing as you go. Rhavenna's dark vision shows the twisting walls of the cave as it turns towards the right suddenly though she can feel something odd beneath her hoovf's that were barely touching bottom at this point. Some sort of curved and strangely shaped stones were along the cave floor. Looking down into the wirling silt you were stirring up you can make out what must have been stairs carved into the floor.
Rhavenna felt a tug as Tidus started to get pulled away, around the corner as the cave juts to the right and Tidus rushes past the corner.
The rope strains and rubs against the rough cave wall as Tidus gives a bit of a grunt, the sound of his body thumping against the wall easily heard. "Didn't expect this."
The mighty centauress wasn't about to be pulled so easily and she maintained her ground despite the increase flow and Tidus suddenly pulling her more.as she rounds the corner she is able to see that the water pools once more roughly thirty feet ahead. Pooling in a room which the stone walls appear to have been smoothed and worked by an unknown hand.
The rooms entrance was weathered by the running water and the built up silt and sand was deeper here. Though everyone had to remain swimming to avoid drowning, save for Rhavenna really as she was far taller standing on her rear legs. At the center of this room was what appeared to be a stone well. Which the water was actively pooling around before rushing off into the darkness below. Part of this well appeared to have a sliding piece of stone that could be, with difficulty, pulled out of the way and allow the water level to lower to your feet...
Looking down into the opening you can see stone steps that appear to have been carved and spiral downward into darkness...
After getting a general sense of the room and its contents Wallace bobs once and pulls out his anytool. "Alright! If that works the way I think it does we want to avoid being near it while opening the hole. The water will rush right in and pull us along. So I'm going to turn this into an oversized hook, once we have a good grip on that lid we all move back to the corner of this room and use the wall to brace against." Wallace suggests hardly seeming to strain to speak over the noise of the falling water.
"If either of you can see something we could tie a rope off to on the lid we could do that instead and I could turn the tool into a winch to help more with lifting."
On the inside of the lid their is a lip that matches up with the inner part of the opening all the way around. It appears to be deep enough to get a tool under it and begin leveraging it. However to remove it completely wpuld require someone lifting itanually...
Unless you come up with a more efficent means of lifting.
The water falling down between the stairs below is constant and leaning over the edge of the surrounding carved area you can here more water below, though do to the echos and ambient sounds of the cave it was hard to tell how far below. This area had an abundance of fish and plant growth as well, only visible now that you were all were stirring up the silt. Thankfully none of what lay down here appeared to be a threat to anyone.
The situation wasn't lost on Tidus as he looked into the darkness and even with a light revealed nothing useful in the way of landmarks. "How deep do these go? Should we rest up and try again tomorrow?"
Wallace shrugs "Who knows? I'd say finding out is our best bet to getting the truth of that. We need to regroup with Hawk tomorrow, assuming the snows lighten even slightly we will likely never get the chance to explore this place. I'm intrigued, lets see if we can't get this drain open, once that is done we can get a better idea of what we face here." With that Wallace forms the Anytool into a long handled crowbar
"Alright, make sure you tie yourself off to the rope so we don't have to worry so much about anyone falling in this pit. We all use the crowbar as a lever and open it, then we jam some daggers in to keep it still for a minute. After that one of us can reform the anytool into a steel wedge big enough to keep the drain open with a larger edge t keep it from getting sucked into that. We wait for the water to lower some before trying to move the lid any further."
"That might be the best idea. At least now we know what we're dealing with to an extent. We can comeback rested with whatever additional gear we need." Rhavenna suggests.
Tidus shrugs as he follows Wallace's suggestion. "If Rhavenna doesn't mind pressing down on the crowbar I can jam one of my swords in to keep it lifted up." He draws the blade that Wallace had recovered for him. Its black blade nearly invisible in the gloom. "Always useful having a spare."
Wallace nods to tidus's comment then looks with minor annoyance to his magic implement "I can certainly say lacking one is easily felt. I'm going to need to press hawk for some supplies. I need to make more of these."
Rhavenna puts her effort behind the crowbar, the exhausteing events o the entire day to this point clearly taking a toll on her.
Between the three of you it was a struggle and the stone didnt budge for several long aggravating seconds before Rhavenna's weight full settled on the crowbar and in turn started to slowly lift the stone slab from its resting place. Once it broke free of the water it was far easier to manipulate, much to Rhavenna's relief.
In their haste Tidus and Wallace nearly lose their footing and both eventually end up face down in the silty water as the vortex causes the sandy bottom to kick up. However both 'wedges' slide into place and the slab remains raised which causes the pool to start draining lower then before.
Wallace spits silt out of his mouth and grins at the progress. "Now lets see what has been hiding in here."
"Mai, Livain could you give that pit over there a pass? it would be good to know what if anything is down there."
"Well it will likely be a little bit before the water drains, we might want to go and grab most of the rope from up above. The length I have might help down here but it certainly won't be enough."
Caves are a natural dead zone for flyers as the air is still and requires more effort to stay aloft. Its not impossible to fly only more difficult...
The Elder finally finished his cleaning and was enjoying a soak, amused at the antics of the group before he heard them doing something down below. He arched an eyebrow and then grunted in annoyance as the water rushed away. Now fully exposed the Elder grunted and moved to deeper water, unconcerned about who saw him. "Damn kids, can't I get a bath in before you drain the tub..." Settling into the deeper pool he gives a pleased sigh before settling in and rubbing his sore muscles.
The water continues to surge past, taking several minutes to run low enough to finally allow you to retreat back up to the now far lessened pool. The pool hower at its deepest part was still around the height of Rhavenna's Human half. Though it was getting to the point that fatigue was starting to set in for most of the group. Mai and Livain were the few with enough energy to continue further but for Rhavenna, Tidus and Wallace it had been a long day.
"At this point if we plan to explore this any further I'd rather do so over a night's rest." Rhavenna says tiredly.
Tidus looks at his silt leaking armor and chuckles tiredly. "So much for bathing earlier." He nods to Rhavenna. "Drying off would be nice."
She smiles in response, "Yeah it would be
Besides, she still wanted to make sure his wounds were properly bandaged.
Tidus strips down to his underclothes and spends time feeding the fire and drying off while others bunk down.
Across the small of his back is the injury that is crudely stitched, it doesn't bleed like the others from the recent struggle but it looks raw and inflamed. It was particularly deep though splitting the skin easily and held together only by the stitches. Any work done on it doesn't seem to affect Tidus much, he doesn't so much as flinch if the stitching is pulled out.
When Tidus heads to bed finally he sleeps with in the entrance to the cave where everyone is sleeping. His swords are drawn and tucked neatly across his legs.
The Elder bunks down, pulling out a beautiful skin to wrap himself in and choosing the furthest corner of the room to snore quietly against. His weapons were unseen as he snored facing the cave corner.
As Tidus strips down and tends to the fire, Rhavenna studies his wounds paying close attention to the crudely stitched vicious gash. Though she can see it is inflamed, she is unsure of the extent of the injury. Taking the healer's kit from her gear, she begins the process of treating the wound, surprisingly gentle in her approach, she removes the stitches, replacing them with her own after cleaning the wound and applying a poultice. Taking the better part of an hour, she goes over his other smaller nicks and cuts as she does occasionally marvelling at his ability to withstand punishment, while internally thrilling at the contact and the exceptional condition of his body.
Maiathreen hunches his shoulders unconsciously as they stand in the cave. It feels far to much like his and Livain's first "home" to truly allow comfort. He settles into a corner in the cave and Livain curls up against him her head in his lap as he gently massages her scalp and holds her. His draconian eyes continue to scan the cave as they prepare to sleep.
Wallace shrugs walking over to the now much less dangerous edge and glancing at the darkness the waters rapidly rush to. "I can't imagine whatever that might be down there would be ruined for waiting a bit longer."
The human shrugging at Tidus's comment
"Just crushed up rocks and fish poop, its good for ya. That's the old fishwives tale at least. I could also always do this for you." With that the human removes his chain armor and shirt, both still soaked and dripping silt before he summons a sphere of water above then rapidly removing the wet muck.
"Fortunate that this all appears to be fresh water, so at the very least we don't have to worry about salt. Livain made this armor for me and I fear to think what she might do if I was seen treating it badly."
Wth that he looks around for a sizable rock
"Rhavenna, Tadis. Could you both hold the lid up a moment while I replace my traveler's tool with a big rock or something like it? I'd hate to have to leave it down here"
Wallace flops into the upper pool after the climb up the rope
"You know, that seemed a lot shorter, on the trip down." The human complains, pausing for breath in between words.
" Ah, Elder Falldirk. We went looking for trouble and found an adventure. theres quite a bit more to this cavern than meets the eye."
Wallace tells a few tales by the fire side and sets his effects off to the side to dry. He glances to Rhavenna and Tidus but seems to leave off whatever help he might offer. "If any of you are still wounded let me know and I can heal some of it. I spent very little of my power today."
The human then taking a few moments to check his yak over for stubborn rocks or other dangers in the creatures hooves or on its legs. He then grabs a bedroll from the assorted gear he had pulled off the pack animal earlier and sets up next to the great beast, comfortable with a light sheet and something to blunt the cave floor.
The Elder chuckles as he sits in the still warm water. "Mountains across this continent hold more then one can see. Though it is curious what else may lie below. Though... be warned Wallace, great terrors lie in the deep dark of the world and don't get lost." He leaves it at that returning to soaking up the warm water to relieve sore muscles.
Wallace's trick isn't lost on Tidus who was apprecitive to have some of the sand removed from his armor."Sand inside ones leathers is beyond uncomfortable."
Rhavenna's work bears fruit, reducing the severity of the wound but even after Wallaces magic it remains, a long gash across the small of Tidus's back. As the last stitch tightens Tidus sighs in a pleased way. "Thanks you two. I can't say how long its been since that was done by skilled hands." He slowly stands and tests the resilience of the thread. "Much better."
He pulls his dry clothes back on shortly after, concealing the stitching once more.