Charles' eyes widen again. "Guy was just carrying this around! It's worth 50 gold! Why would he bring it here?!" Charles is incredulous.
Wulf stands as still as he can, shocked at what just happened. "I had hoped to keep these ones clean for a little longer thanks, Zeke..." He says through gritted teeth. "I've got the more important thing right now Charles. I need to go back to the stream and clean myself." He starts to walk forward stiffly not wanting to move too much and get the ooze even more worked in.
Zeke shrugs, also surprised. He regards the corpses sadly, then turns-- assuming the party is leaving the corpses behind for now.
Garfaulk shrugs at Charles's question "May have been useful fer castin a certain spell-not that it did em any good, it would seem. I ferget, these were tha outta towners, right? Maybe we ought to give em a proper burial, but I don't think these are the ones we were tasked with bringin back"
Ton shakes his head.
"Just cos no one in town is lookin' for them, doesn't mean someone ain't." he gestures with his bow, pointing with it like it were a teacher's cane. "They might have..."
Sons, Ton. Sons who don't hate their guts?
"....families out there somewhere. Once we're done, we should take them back up, even just so they don't rot down here."
Charles nods. "Agreed. For now, let's proceed."
The party walks past the cave-in where Garfaulk told his crazy tale of the three-legged cacti thing, and continue to head south a bit down the tunnel. [roll20 updated]
The tunnel drops 10 feet abruptly, but the party sees it in time, and stops before toppling over the small cliff.
The temperature drops noticeably in this passageway, and a rime of white frost lines the walls and floor leading into the cavern beyond. What seems to be a light layer of brown dust carpets the cave floor beyond- a body of some sort sits slumped against the eastern wall.
Charles creeps forward.
Charles peers into the gloom. After the 10 foot drop, the floor below is flat, and covered in a brown dust. Everything feels cold, but he does not see any mechanical devices or ropes or blades that could prove dangerous. You see the body on the far wall, but even with Charles' terrific eyesight you would need to get closer to make out what killed it.
Wulf changes out of his ooze drenched clothes making sure to be quick not wanting to show off his scar pocked skin and mental scars. He changes into his wet clothes the sensation of the material drives him crazy as he moves forward with the group. "I should have bought two extra pairs of clothes." He bemoans.
When they get to the clearly Wulf steps in slowly, taking smaller evenly spaced steps before getting to the edge he takes a step back and then forward then back once again. He turns back and notices the tracks he's leaving and makes sure to step into the tracks already left as he moves forward once more. Heading towards the body.
"Hey, is anyone else cold in here? What's all this dust crap, you guys seen this before?"
Moving up past everyone, Garfaulk looks around the room while rubbing the bridge of his nose, wishing his headache would let up for even a second, but no such luck. "Lemme take a look, I've seen a lot... Well now, what have we here..." He takes a look at dust, and tries to focus on both where that could have come from, as well as why it could possibly be so cold in here.
Charles pours a bit of water from his canteen onto the dust below.
Charles pours water over the cliff, and as it touches the ground it freezes from the bottom up, forming a little icicle.
As soon as that happens, Ton'iel grabs Wulfs arm before the barbarian can swing his feet over the ledge and drop into what would almost assuredly be certain death.
After study, Garfaulk recognizes the dust as form of brown mold. Brown mold and grows by flourishes by sucking all of the heat from its surroundings; hence the drop in air temperature. Fire makes it grow larger, while cold destroys it.
Wulf locks up as he see's how the water reacted. "Um, what is that." He says stepping back away from the edge.
"Old Caskgrip family saying. 'Don't know what it is, don't step on it.'"
You've gleaned as much as you can from thinking of the brown mold.
Garfaulk shakes his head. "Definitely don't want to go down there unless ya hot the area with some cold magics, or that stuFF will suck the heat from yer body tool ya look like that. Zeke, Ton, either of ya have any tricks like that? If not, we may need to come back with liquid ice or sumthin."
Ton just shakes his head.
"Let's move on then, come back here tomorrow."
There are two metal doors; one to the north that you didn't really look at, and the one you went through. You can inspect the northern door if you would like, or proceed back to the desert.
Otherwise, you have seen the whole cave area.
"Let's go north. Check that other door."
You backtrack a bit and take the next tunnel on your right, bringing you past the abandoned skulk camp. It takes some stooping and cursing to get through the narrow confines of the tunnels where you fought the gremlins, and you get to the northern door.
You recall that the purple-haired lady headed through this way with her small army of orcs and ratman, or at least, that is what the skulk leader said. She also said that the purple-haired lady had a red rectangular card, similar to the brown one you now possess, except for the color, obviously.
The door set in the wall has the small slot for a card, with a small dot near the slot colored red. Otherwise, it looks just like the one you went through to the south.
Charles produces the e-pick and tries using that to open the door.
When Garfaulk asks about cold magic, Zeke shrugs and shakes his head. "I have nothing prepared, I'm afraid."
Zeke frowns and tries to hide his frustration with the party relentlessly pursuing side tracks. "We know Mr. Khonnir went the other direction, and finding him is worth a lot of money," he thinks. "Surely we don't need to go this far off our exit path to make sure we won't be attacked as we leave?"
"Never leave your back open."
"Yeah but I reckon we need a different one of those cards." Ton says, recalling the story the skulks told them about the purple-haired woman. "Besides, Zeke is right, we came to find Baine and I reckon we're taking long enough about it already."
He checks his arrows and finds his quiver well stocked.
"Let's head back to that desert and see if we can find any sign of where he went."
Charles tries his best, but he can't seem to get through the security on this strange lock. Either the lock is beyond his skill, or it is simply impossible to get through without the proper access card.
Unable to do anything else, the party returns to the southern door and prepares to go back into the strange desert. [Roll 20 updated]
Charles: +1 to locate traps
As you get to the point where you fought the strange tentacled creatures, where the desert opens up into the large room, Zeke is the first to notice something wrong, and frightening. He shines his flashlight over the expanse of sand and realizes to his horror that the skeletons are back on their feet, about 60 feet to your north. He quickly hides his light and whispers what he sees.
The skeletons don't move toward you. At least for now, you have escaped their notice.
"Oh for fu..." Ton sighs, the last of his words drowned out by the swoosh! of the metal door closing behind them.
"Reckon we can sneak past them?" he pinches at the bridge of his nose as if his headache had returned. "But then if we need to retreat through here we'll have to do it through a bunch of ruttin' skeletons."
Wulf stops himself from moving in. "I don't want to fight them again, let's stay on the right wall." He points with his hammer, lowering it adjusting the grip on his hammer a few times and then pointing again.
Everyone agrees the Wulf has the right idea. The best thing to do is keep your distance, stay quiet, and hope they don't notice you. The groups quietly sneaks around to the right, hugging the wall. Once you go another 50 feet and Garfaulk's light no longer illuminates the undead four-armed monstrosities, you begin to relax a bit and have a chance to pay attention to your surroundings.
Ton takes a look around, looking for any sign of passage beyond those left by the skeletons.
"There has to be something here. Bhine came this way, I have to take something back to Val later and Zeke is chopping at the bit. He is careful to move about searching for anything that could point them in the right direction, dragging his feet as he goes to make his tracks equal.
Indeed, there are certainly tracks. Wulf doesn't have a hard time seeing them in the soft sand, but given all the battles previously no one had thought to look.
There is a line of footprints actually, created by several humanoids, and you could get to them by walking to your northeast. From there, they head to the east, thankfully away from the skeletons.
"Let's take this nice and easy...." Ton says, shuffling off toward the tracks, leaving his own disjointed, limping ones behind.
Wulf points out the tracks and then smiles. "Just like that time in Arrakis." He nods to Ton, moving behind the elf making sure to step into his tracks.
Zeke stares at the skeletons in consternation. Are those the same ones we fought yesterday? How is it possible they are back?
He looks around to see if there are any other signs of ambush on their path.
Wulf points out the tracks and then smiles. "Just like that time in Arrakis." He nods to Ton, moving behind the elf making sure to step into his tracks.
"This is nothing like Arrakis." Ton growls. "We aren't running for our lives for one. Yet anyway..."
"And you aren't naked for another." he looks at the way Wulf keeps adjusting his clothes and rubbing dirt from them when the dust of the desert kicks up. "Yet anyway..."
Zeke considers the skeleton as the party travel east across the desert for several hundred feet. What are skeletons but bundles of bones held together by some type of necromantic energy? If the skeletons reform, it must mean that the necromantic energy must still exist. Which means it probably comes from something external to the skeletons themselves.
The party travels for several minutes, taking it slow to avoid any surprises. The desert is very big, if you think of it as a room, but it only takes a handful of minutes to cross and to reach cliffs on the east side. So on the scale of a natural environment it feel very small, and you can see how the Kasatha living here must have felt trapped.
The tracks head toward a small cave at the east end, but when you walk into the cave, the tracks end at rocky wall!
Charles: +1 to locate traps
Charles is canny at people attempting to hide things. He sees a narrow beam of light coming from the wall. His eyes narrow in suspicion, and he sticks his arm right through the wall. An illusion! Charles realizes there is a door behind it! He quickly checks it for traps before hitting the nearby button and opening the door.
You see a room that looks a lot like the other entrance to the desert-- small, with closed doors leading out on the other side of the room, and the sides of the room have several machines made of coiling tubes and pipes.
You notice the spiral tubing and nozzles twitch and hum... You begin to hear a high pitched buzzing in your ears...It is building and building... Unlike the other room...
This machinery is active! And something is about to happen!