Mount Archus is quite impressive from the base of the mountain - its spires coated in perpetual white snow. At the top, in plain view, is Snöfjell Academy; it's difficult to believe the trip down took three days. Winter recently arrived as well; it has never been cold on the mountain, but the snow has poured down almost excessively, and while the sight is beautiful, it was the reason for your delay down the mountain.
At the base, Snöfjell village offered a warm night at the inn; in the morning, you prepared for the expedition into the Snowmoss Caverns by purchasing supplies funded by the Snöfjell Academy: torches, rations, rope and grappling hooks, flint and tinder...everything necessary for the caverns!
The entrance of the cavern is quite a sight; its walls seem to be made of silver, with moss stretching from one wall to the other. Less than a hundred feet in, darkness consumes the pathway. Luckily, Frum Cruss knows the way through the caverns to the place where he found the crystals...
...or so he thought. After the tunnel split for the fifth time, the path is oddly obscure. The torches are still burning strongly, yet it's the moss that seems to grow thicker with every glance. You almost decide to return to the entrance when the earthquake hits - the torches fall from your grasp into the moss, which extinguishes them immediately. After a small eternity, the tremors stop. You all feel shaken...
Muttering curses under his breath for not preparing Light before going into a cave of all places, Coross tries to feel around for the torches on the ground.
"Skender! What happened? Are you ok?" he shouts from the ground, looking around blindly and frantically. And then a little louder "Can anyone see anything?"
You can all see the faint glow of two eerie eyes. They blink once or twice, then you hear Zachary's deep voice form magical words. The cavern brightens.
Oh my my my.. Darche mumbled to himself, pulling out a small glass vial out of a slightly larger metal vial the liquid inside gave a small glow. It was barely enough to illuminate him in its neon green color. Students, who is here still?
"Yeah, Coross, I'm fine.Is everyone okay?"
Skender looks around, finds his torch, and stows it into his backpack for use later.
in response to Darche: "Yeah, I'm still here."
Zachary blinks as the darkness suddenly shifts to light. Squinting, he looks around the group. "No worries, it looks like we're all still here. What in the world was that?"
The small cat man stood up, dusting off his cloths and readjusting his wide brim hat. It was a sudden and violent release of kinetic energy creating seismic waves within the ground as a result of translation within the world's crust or volcanic action.
Now that there is light, Coross easily finds his torch and returns it to his pack, brushing off his knees as he stands. He pats himself down to make sure that his spellbook and sword are still on his person.
"Must have been some sort of earthquake. Is the path out blocked?
It was a sudden and violent release of kinetic energy creating seismic waves within the ground as a result of translation within the world's crust or volcanic action.
Zachary scratches his head and furrows his brow. "Uhhhh..."
"Must have been some sort of earthquake."
"Oh. Right."
As Zachary's light spell illuminates the area, the silver moss seems to carry the light a lot further than expected. Despite there having been a solid earthquake, it is difficult to tell what has changed - if anything has changed - thanks to the shimmering moss.
Coross looks around the cave, looking for the way out, or any way out which has not been blocked.
@Coross: Your senses seem slightly dulled by the spontaneity of the earthquake - the passages look and sound the same.
Skender helps others gather what they dropped during the earthquake.
"No sense in sticking around. Might as well keep on keeping on. Unless any of you have any better suggestions, which way is ahead?"
|
Frum curses under his breath as he the dust settles around him, a habit he has picked up from countless explosions in his lab. "This might be a bit of a problem."
His owl, Gilroy, looks at him with an accusatory squinting of the eyes, twisting his head around towards the exit and billowing as if to say, "OK, get me the hell out of here, buddy."
Frum smirks back and adjusts his backpack. Having come this way many times over the last few months checks for any changes in the cave system, first checking to see if they can return the way they came, then checking to see if they can continue along the route they had planned to take, and thirdly looking for any new options that might have opened up.
(perception check 1 - exit)
(perception check 2 - forward)
(perception check 3- alternate route)
Rafael dusts himself off as he stands up. Grabing at the reigns of Donte, the Pony, he says, "Whoa boy!! Calm down. Everything is ok." Rafael strokes the pony's neck trying to calm him down.
Students, who is here still?
In response to Darche, "I'm here."
Skender helps others gather what they dropped during the earthquake.
Speaking to Skender, "Thank you my friend."
Rafael says to everyone. "Careful where you step. It could be your last."
Not to anyone particular, "Let's hope another one of those don't rattle this cavern or else this will be the shortest expedition we've ever made."
I dust off a book that fell out of my hands and turn to the first blank page. I write the following:
Day 2: We entered the Snowmoss Caverns following a gnome by the name of Frum Cruss. He is leading us to where he last found the crystals. There we hope to find more clues as to their origin, hopefully, answering more questions than begging new ones. An unnatural earthquake stuck. Undeterred we continued on.
@Frum: There does appear to be a third road that has opened after the quake; the shimmering of the moss seems to stop abruptly on one side of the wall deeper into the cavern. You also hear the rattle of debris behind you; from the sound of it, you are almost certain it was a cave-in.
|
|
Frum can't help himself - a smile spans his face as he notices the new pathway.
"Hey Darche," he says, motioning with his hands, "bring those cat eyes of yours over here and check this out! We've got an opening to whole new branch in the cavern system."
Frum thinks hard about what he knows about these caverns - both from his personal experience, and from the locals he has talked to. how far did this cave system go? what did he know about it? Suddenly these details became of grave importance as Frum started to weigh his choices: dig their way out or go forward to find another exit.
knowledge local
Before waiting for Darche to respond, Frum calls out to Rafael:
And Rafael, you mind mapping this thing as we go? I'm not excited about digging our way out back there, and if the earthquake opened up new tunnels it probably opened up new exits. But we should probably know how to find our way back here.
To the students, and as a playful burn to Darche, his academic friend, Frum quips: Well, welcome to the world of research. I hope you didn't expect anything safe.
Frum considers what happened in an attempt to figure some of it out. There was the moss, the fact it stopped at a certain point, there was the earthquake -- did any of it make sense? What was that moss?
(knowledge nature)
(knowledge arcana)
"Well, if there is nothing safe, then we may as well move on. I'd rather be moving in unknown territory than sitting down, thinking about our situation. In any case, these caves aren't going to spit us out by themselves."
Skender moves forward as well, scouting out the branch Frum found.
I'm not a dwarf. Those bloody mutants have developed abilities to see in that darkness. Darche growled at Frum.
And we are still quite safe. Working with aqua regia, now that's dangerous. Even if you don't melt your hand off, whatever it does melt tends to produce fumes. Highly poisonous toxic fumes.
Coross relights his torch in order to have his own light source and follows Skender cautiously down the passage.
@Frum:"Well fortunately safe isn't what I was looking for down here."
@Skender and anyone else ahead of me in the passage:"Does this passage lead out, or farther into the cave?
@ Frum Zachary gives an annoyed snort. "If even the earth itself is trying to kill us, I dunno if I like this researching stuff all that much. Suppose I don't have much of a choice now, though."
Zachary carefully walks among all the debris towards the entrance the others are congregating at.
Frum and Skender finds that the new passage is moss-free; the walls are a fantastic sea of transparent jagged crystals as the tunnel seems to stretch upwards at a reasonable angle, and it even seems to be illuminated ever so slightly around two hundred feet up the tunnel. These crystals bear an eerie similarity to those of Frum's research, but after close examination, they do not have the same qualities. On the other hand, this does seem like where the crystal fragment came from...
@Frum: You faintly remember the day you arrived at Snöfjell village, before you were to be instituted as a researcher at Snöfjell academy, there was a bard at the inn singing a song of a legend pertaining Snöfjell Mountain. However, you only truly remember the melody of the song: an earworm that was almost impossible to get rid of then, and it haunts you again now.
|
|
Frum takes a mental picture, trying to internalize all the details of where they were as he started humming a melody that popped in his head.
"Alright everyone, let's see where this leads, eh? But first, let's grab a few of these."
Frum reassures his owl with a soft coo as he searches through his bag for his tools. Frum then returns to softly humming the tune as he starts to remove the easiest to reach, easiest to remove, biggest and smallest, most diverse set of crystals he sees from the walls.
As he works he continues to hum the tune, repeating it several times.
Skender will remove his hooded lantern from his pack, light it, and advance down the corridor, gazing at the myriad of crystals.
Out of habit, Lucca tries to decide if the crystals would be worth anything (he doubts it), but leaves collecting a sample to Frum. "Hmm... has anyone been down this way in the cave, do you think?"
"That seems just a bit ominous."
@Skender and anyone else ahead of me in the passage:"Does this passage lead out, or farther into the cave?
@Coross:"It looks like the passage changes a lot this way. There's no more moss, but there are a heck of a lot of these crystals. It looks like there's some light some 200 feet down the tunnel."
Well Come come, we shan't worry here all day lest we perish from starvation. the small catman walks down the hole holding out his vial of glowing ink. The tock tock tock of his little cane echoing through the chambers.
Skender follows the small catman close behind.
"You don't mind if I take the lead, do you? I have a larger light source than you."
Are you calling me short? Darche glares at Skender, his tail flicking in irritation.
"I suggested nothing of the sort, sir. I was merely suggesting I go ahead of you, as I have a lantern, and you have your vial of ink. I think it might be beneficial for me to lead."
Ah you are a smart one! Very well go right on a head. Mumbling to himself a little bit.. One point for him in avoiding dangerous social encounters while not feigning his own ineptness.
"I'm glad you agree." Skender leads on toward the light coming from down the tunnel.
Coross looks in wonderment at the crystals as he follows Skender. They almost seem to match the one embedded in the hilt of his sword. He concentrates for a a moment and his eyes glow a pearly white. He begins scanning the crystals more intently, and lags behind the group for a moment.
"Facinating. Skender, hang on, can I get some more light on this."
He motions for Skender to bring the lantern closer to the crystals that he is examining.
I move and bring the light up to the crystals Coross is examining.
@Coross: Despite all your expertise on the subjects, you cannot quite decipher these crystals and their purpose. They are magical, no doubt, yet their purpose eludes you utterly. No doubt, this is what Researcher Cross dragged you all here for.
The further you all climb up the tunnel, the more it elevates into a seemingly flat pathway - though it does rise every so slightly. But what is truly eerie is the way the crystals seem to ... stare. And every sound you make now, whether by voice or step of foot, echoes like a song deeper into the cavern.
Perception:
Zachary mutters quietly to no one in particular, "I don't like this place. Something about it just doesn't seem right."
To Frum, he says, "You must be the most tone deaf gnome I know. Would you stop that horrible humming?"
He plods along, careful to avoid getting nicked by the crystals.