Red takes a rock from Cain, and uses it until it goes out, at which point he pockets the rock. After that he keeps Light cast on the bottom end of his staff, and uses it like a flashlight near the ground. Edi wanders around (though no more than 50 feet from Red) like dog exploring on his own. Red assists Cain by lighting up any areas he's trying to read tracks. Other than an occasional yawn, Red and Edi are pretty much silent unless Cael says something. Red really doesn't want to draw any more attention that necessary.
It only takes about an hour to find the horses, and another hour to bring them back into camp. That makes it only about 2 am, plenty of time left for sleeping before the morning. Adriana sleeps in till 8 am, past her watch, but she did say that she would need her sleep if she were to be able to use her spells the next day.
The morning dawns bright and warmer than the past few days, Spring finally starting to show through in earnest.
Cael pulls several sticks off the fire and lays them to one side as he starts to smother the fire with dirt. "Last call for breakfast fire cooked egg and bird... found a couple nests last night while i was rounding up the horses got the bird and the eggs" The birds have been plucked and roasted on a stick and the eggs as well have been threaded on thin sticks through holes in both ends and are cooked all the way through. surprisingly very little of the egg was lost from the holes. Cael peals a couple of them, they look about like hard boiled eggs, to go with his bird as he puts his gear on his horse and prepares to search for the Kobalds.
Waking up in a much better mood than when she went back to bed, Adriana actually heads to the fire first, a blanket wrapped around her for some pseudo-modesty and eats breakfast. She even compliments Cael on his cooking.
As she finishes up she looks over to him. "As you are so gallantly concerned for my safety, I will try not to venture out of sight during my study time. However..." She lets the word hang in the air for a moment as her tone becomes more serious. "I do ask that while I am, withdrawn, that I not be disturbed for anything but the most desperate of emergencies. Would that set your heart at ease?" She bats her eyes at the half-elf, somehow managing to shift from firm and intimidating, to soft and vulnerable in a heartbeat.
Popping the second egg into his mouth he grins and swallows. "While I appreciate the need for a bit of peace and quiet, from what i have heard it is especially important when studying magic, any one of us alone in this area makes me nervous. Heck I don't really like going out by myself alone just isn't safe." shakes his head smiling "If you need to set up just outside camp or pitch a tent a bit away from the rest of us and study I am sure no one minds. I just feel better when we all know where each person is! the smile wipes from his face as he remembers the rest of the group standing around. "Aaa that being said we should really get going and see what the vermin have in store for us."
Smiling sweetly, Adriana stands and gives a languid stretch, letting her blanket shift strategically around her. "Then I should get my studying for the day in so that we can get going." She starts to head back to her tent then seems to remember something and turns back around. Walking up to Cael she leans in close to give him a kiss on the cheek, lingering by his ear long enough to whisper, "And thank you for finding my horse for me." She gives him a smile and a wink then turns and saunters back to her tent.
She emerges a few moments later in the same dress you met her in, apparently having cycled through all of those she has, and her satchel. She walks a short distance out of camp to the east, still within sight, and sits down with her back to the camp.
It isn't until three quarters of an hour later that she finally stands, stretches and walks back to camp, a pleased smile on her face. If no one has packed her things for her, she then goes about doing that, humming to herself as she does.
Is busy about the camp, putting out the fire checking the horses and the supplies but keeps glancing over to where Adriana is studying. When she is done and starts to pack her stuff he leads her horse over to her, but lets her pack her stuff the way she wants to as he returns to his own horse. [b]"Remember we are in going to be searching today as the faint path I was following is more than gone by now so keep your eyes open and weapons at hand every good to go?"[b] If no objections starts out in a general south east direction leading his horse as he searches for signs of kobolds.
+2 if human =
As the five explorers make a late start out once again to the south-east, the tracks of the four kobolds are practically erased. Stopping every once in a while to do a quick search reveals nothing in the way of newer tracks and by lunch you estimate you've moved about six miles with little to show for it and no sign of a kobold camp. However since you could have missed it behind a hill, that doesn't mean a whole lot.
Sighs stretching his legs as they stop for lunch. "Well I would say we down to just exploring again and if the kobolds make an appearance we handle it from there. So do we want to continue to the south east for a couple days and see whats out there? Or does someone else have another idea cause I am pretty much out of them at this point." Snacks on some trail rations along with water from his water skin waiting for a response.
It is nearing the end of the day and though you have performed a thorough exploration, you have yet to find any sign of kobolds.
However as the light fails and you find yourselves looking for a good place to camp, a particularly large rocky crag captures your attention. Looking about it, Cael spots a five foot wide crack that leads down into a cave below. A quick look around shows no signs of kobold tracks, but then, who knows?
Climbs back down from a quick look into the cave mouth. "Well I would hate to try to start exploring something this late at night. How about we make camp here a bit away from the cave mouth and keep an eye on it until tomorrow."Glances back over to the rocks "It is probably nothing but I would hate to not look into it and then find kobolds or worse springing up behind us some day. If there are no objections Cael will start to set up camp.
The night passes without incident, save for the constant sounds that seem to be coming from the cave entrance. It could just be everyone's imagination, but it seems that every five minutes or so there is some kind of sound, yet with each inspection, there is nothing to have caused it.
Morning dawns with Adriana's usual round of nudging everyone awake with her foot before heading off to do her studying. She sits in sight, if far removed.
Red yawns, stretches, and then summons Edi. The two work on picking up their camping implements, and then just stare at the cave for a bit.
"So do you guys think the cave is haunted, bewitched, or just filled with creatures really good at hiding? And who's interested in finding out which is accurate?"
pokes up the fire a bit to warm some food. "Good question, Am hoping for the creatures really good at hiding really don't like ghosts and undead type things! Eats up some leftover meat and a hardtack biscuit softened by the meat's grease. "And as to your second question I for one have always been way to curious to leave something like a good cave unexplored! So as soon as Adriana is done with her studies i say we check it out" Looks over at the cave entrance "As a matter of fact I think I'll go up there and poke around a bit" Grabs his gear and leaving his horse loosely hobbled to keep it in the area Cael goes up to the cave, he will be checking out the entrance and as far back as he can clearly see.
"Personally, I'm voting for Mites. Just like Fey only creepy instead of wacky." Cain stretches and looks Adriana's way before packing up his things and loading them on Able. "Besides, I've hard that some caves contain decoration even the gods would be envious of. I'd hate to miss out on something like that just for not succumbing to curiosity. Wouldn't you?" Cain winks at Red before heading to follow Cael.
Peering into the cave, Cael spots something he hadn't last night. Perhaps it is the new angle of the light, but there is definitely something sparkling down there. He can also see that the floor of the cave is only twenty feet down, an easy climb with a tied off rope.
Adriana finishes her studying as Cael is coming back from his look into the cave. She gives everyone a wide smile and a wink to Cain, as she gathers up her things and picks up a quick bite of food.
Scowls for just a second when he catches the wink sent in cain's direction then visibly shakes his head. "So all ready to satisfy some curiosity? Point one, we are going to need some light and point two we are going to need some rope. I do have some rope in my pack but was hoping to save it for a possible longer drop we only have to go down 20 feet here. So anyone have a section of rope about 20 foot that we can tie off? If not we can use mine and will check to see how easy it might be to climb the 20 foot on the way out so we don't have to leave the rope behind. Or it might actually be really easy if one of you magic types have way to get a rope up a 20 foot cliff and tied off when we come back... his voice trails off in question as he stands beside the cave enterance.
Adriana shrugs slightly. "I don't have anything that would accomplish that at the moment. Though I can certainly see the use of it." She wanders over to the cave entrance and peers down. "Of course, it might be a good idea to send one or two people down first just to see how extensive the cave is. I'd hate to get everyone down there and find it's a dead end." She looks over to Cael, "As for light, I don't think that will be a problem. I believe several of us here can handle that." She looks pointedly at Cain and Red.
Cain smiles at the wink he receives but stays focused on the issue at hand. Offering up another 50' of rope, he says, "Cael and I'll go down first and see if it's just a small opening or a full blown cavern. We'll call back up to you when we know." With that, he ties off the rope, and with a pat on Cael's head, he makes the elf's hair glow quite nicely. "After you oh shining one." He says with a smile.
Raises his eyebrows as if trying to look at the top of his head. "REALLY?" shakes his head "Thanks for making me the target of anything and everything down there..... really thanks. he slips down the rope carefully and once hits the bottom takes a few steps away from the rope to allow cain room to come down as well. "Well at lets see what is down here and remember when you have to heal me that you made me the target! Starts looking around the cave entrance for possible traps, footprints and obviously exits deeper into the cave.
Raises his eyebrows as if trying to look at the top of his head. "REALLY?" shakes his head "Thanks for making me the target of anything and everything down there..... really thanks. he slips down the rope carefully and once hits the bottom takes a few steps away from the rope to allow cain room to come down as well. "Well at lets see what is down here and remember when you have to heal me that you made me the target! Starts looking around the cave entrance for possible traps, footprints and obviously exits deeper into the cave.
Red watches the exchanges until Cael's target comments, at which he snickers. As they decent into the cave, Red remarks to the others still at the entrance, "Okay... so we send our Cleric and Tracker, who incidentally can't seem to hit anything with his bow, into a cave with a bright light on the latter's head... yeah they're as good as dragon chow."
Red then looks at Edi for a bit.
Adriana snickers at Red's comment. "Too bad neither of them have anything I want," she answers dryly. It's hard to tell if she's joking or not. Could be she just has a rather dark sense of humor. Could be she just doesn't care if they live or die. "Of course... If they did, I'd have to go down and get it."
The light from Cael's head illuminates the walls of the cavern as he walks around, revealing it to be little bigger than forty feet in diameter. What immediately catches his attention is the glinting sparkle that he saw from the cave entrance, coming from the wall directly opposite. Moving closer he can see that the glisten comes not from any foreign object on the wall, but from the rock itself.
Red blinks a few times at Adriana and tries to get a read on her statement.
Red rebuts with a sly grin, "Not only would you have to go down there, you would also have to contend with whatever did them in, and your wiles probably wouldn't be as effective at disarming whatever is in there, as they are at discombobulating our Cleric."
Catches his breath and then pulls out a dagger to see if he can chip off a few small nuggets for further appraisal. softly he calls Cain over "Well cleric of feeble jokes this is quite an eye opener! He bends his head down to fully illuminate the vein of gold in the wall and slowly rolls the small nuggets he chipped out around in his hand. I suppose we have to tell the rest of our companions about the pretty rocks we have down here don't we? He says in a almost disappointed voice. "But if word of this gets out we will have more than just a few bandits in these here hills, a deposit of the size this one looks to be could start a regular gold rush!" He stands up waiting for Cain to respond while rolling the gold nuggets around in his hand.
Cain's face does not look excited. His comments tell you why. "Ok, so if we followed Kobold tracks to this general area. Even if not directly here, we assumed their lair would be around here somewhere. Why then have they not already taken core of this?" Ok, so he's a little worried, but that may just be because he really doesn't know Kobolds that well.
Looks around the cave one more time "True, you would think that a kobold tribe native to this area would have found this place by now. Lets share our good fortune with our companions and see what they think." With a final glance around the cave he goes back to the rope and climbs out."Look what we have here!" he exclaims to everyone in general as he pulls the nuggets out of his pouch and displays them in his open palm.