"You think they'll share information with us?" Bosh thinks for a second,
"Let me try something.." Bosh tries to get a position on where they are remembering what is up in the surface and then he cast a spell to sense magic and the arcane waves,
láta mér líða galdur
Bosh looks ahead, and though he detects no magical auras, your newfound knowledge of underground flora and fauna registers this as likely being caused by brown mold, a virulent fungus that feeds off of heat, but can be damaged by cold effects.
"Why wouldn't they? We've helped them, they've helped us. We drank together, they shared secrets with us before. I trust them." Oleg says in regards to the suggestion of talking with Sef about the cold. "Not that I mind exploring carefully, never know what useful thing you might find"
"Wait! I know this...reading books has its benefits. This cold is caused by this mold" Bosh alerts everyone and points to the walls of the cave,
"This thing feeds off of heat...it may be dangerous. If I remember, it eats cold but it's vulnerable to it. Bosh thinks for a second,
"If Oleg can, we could talk to the skulks to see what they know about it..then try our luck in this path." He sits and pulls out his spellbook, he goes through the pages for a second looking for something "I only have 1 spell of ice element and I can't summon it's power a lot of times and...it's mold...Oleg punching the wall and Scarlet firing at it?" a small laugh comes out when he says the last part.
"So... it's a plant... thing...?" Scarlet replies.. sounding unsure.
"There's some alchemy stuff we could buy that freeze as things. Something like liquid ice. It's like water in the glass but turns cold and solid when you open it up...?" She suggests.
"Though, since we'd have to go back out to town to get it...." Her voice trails off since she's pretty sure people arent' going to turn around and swim back out.
"Something to warn them folks who olive here about it now an' we put it on tha' 'To do' list fer later..."
"I vote let's keep going the same way." Bosh put his left hand in the air, and looks at the others waiting like if there was a votation.
"The mold does not like cold? And you can damage it with magic without danger of hurting yourself?" Cinder pauses, then looks down the path to the skulks. [b]"Perhaps we should inform the nearby denizens and ask them what is down this path before we go through the trouble."
Scarlet nods and gets r4eady t move on. Though she does keep an eye out on the other corridor, perhaps thinking some sort of mold monster might now leap out of the darkness a them.
No mold monster leaps out, but the skulks eye you quizzically when you describe the chilly effect in the side tunnel. Sef crosses her arms defensively and says, "You do not have this mold on the surface? It is deadly, and we have no means of countering it to avoid it. Unless you can clear it out, you should avoid it, or it will kill you, like it did one of the earlier explorers. I have seen that his body still lies there, consumed by its effects."
"Thank you, Sef, I promise that we will clear this mold out. Your willingness to share information with us will be repaid by making this place safer for you and your people." Oleg promises solemnly. Then turns to his companions "What bad luck. We haven't found anyone alive yet. I hope that changes."
Oleg takes out the Holy Weapon Balm, ready to apply it to his Cestus the moment he sees a skeleton as described by Sef.
Scarlet blinks, "Hey! Wait a minute!" She steps away from folks,
"It's sad that some one else has died in here, but we don't have to go get 'em right now, do we?" She looks from the Skulks to her companions, "I mean... they aren't going any where, right?" She looks to Sef, "No, really, they are not moving now, right?"
She shrugs,
"Let 'em lie.. we go an' search out through the thing we're here to search through. Heck, maybe we'll find something cold to smack this plant thing with? But getting rid of this.. stuff? Yah, we come back with weed choppers or something later." She folds her arms.
"What about if Khonnir was killed by that mold and his body is there? That will shorten the search..." Bosh suggests, "My magic can hurt the mold, it will be slow but it will do the job." He scratchets his messy hair, "Argh! too many choices.."
Scarlet frowns as she thinks on Bosh's words, "Aye. Th' feller could have been done in like that." She rubs her chin thoughtfully,
"Though he did make two trips in and got at least as far to get his own metal men." She adds.
"Still... As you say, t'is better to leave a safe passage at your back, than have something that can bite ye in th' @rse." She adds a smile to her words to indicate an attempt at humor with what she is saying.
Cinder nods in agreement. "Have at it, Bosh. We can stay here or let the skulks know what' we're doing. Hopefully that mold isn't sacred to them."
"Then, let's get to work.." Bosh hurries and starts summoning his ray of frost, making a safe path in the cave killing the mold..
After half an hour of hearing the same incantation and watching the same gestures, the rest of the party may be fairly certain that they have acquired mastery of this particular cantrip. Yet when you are done, this chamber is completely cleared of mold. The chamber itself is on the level with the Skulk's lair, but about a ten foot drop from the passage leading north. There is a body slumped on the ground against the southern wall...
The figure appears to be wearing traveling clothes, a fine chain shirt, and a fine hand crossbow with five bolts, and a pouch of coins. An assortment of vials are scattered around his person, all empty.
Scarlet stays 'On point', keeping a look out for anything which tries/might jump out and attack while Bosh is busy mold whacking...
When every one gets a good look at the remains Scarlet's comment is,
"Here.. that in't right..."
"Is that what killed him?" Cinder points out the fibers. "Should we not touch him?"
"Don't touch him" Bosh quickly answers to Cinder and tells them to keep their distance, I know him...he is Gerrol Sonder, he was to marry a girl..poor lad and now poor girl..." Bosh inspects careful the body looking at the rust-looking fibers,
"Now, this is what worries me. I've read about this thing, this rust will make the body turn into a monster. I'm not sure how long it takes to take control of the host but I'm sure this body we can not take back." Bosh as he inspects the body he will search for something that seems like a way to identify him to his family, like a ring, a neckles or something.
"I have a another spell that can take care of this, it will be nasty and the body will likely to dissapear but it will not raise to bother other people." Bosh comments to his teammates and searchs for his acid base spell.
As you give the corpse another once over, you see that he has a leather cord around his neck, from the small lump on his chest, you guess that it leads to a pendant of some type, but for now it is hidden behind his chain shirt, and you'd have to dig it out.
Scarlet keeps a look out for some 'other' monster this mold has supposedly spawned.
"So... his gear? We can take it back? Or do we melt it down along with the rest of the... growth?" She asks over her shoulder to Bosh.
Oleg looks sadly at his new chain shirt and the fine chair shirt on the corpse. "Don't worry Bosh, if something comes crawling out of that chest you just shoot it with a crossbow. Seems a shame to waste that nice armor he's wearing with whatever horrific means you can conjure up. Is there any other way to make it safe to move the body?"
Cinder motions to Bosh. "You'll only have to burn a little I think. Here, look at these spots, see if you can aim along these lines." She gestures to a few primary spots of mold. "These are the problem areas. Take care of them, and we should be able to take the rest of him back for proper rites."
"I'm more worried about tha' bits of him what didn't wait around fer any rights..." Scarlet mutters as she keeps scanning the darkness for any plant/mold/fungi *Damnit* critter to maybe jump out and attack them...
"Nice catch, Cinder. No offense, but you got better eyes than me." Bosh conjures his spell aiming for the spots Cinder pointed, trying to not to damage too much the body.
Bosh is able to work well with Cinder's guidance, and the body is now acid scarred but free of the russet mold infections. The rest of this cavern is still cool, even after cleaning out the brown mold, but you think that it would be safe both to leave the body here for claiming on your next return to town.
-----
You move ahead, entering the circular opening in the wall and moving into the first pair of rooms. It's been almost twenty hours since you left, and the construct is still making repairs to the room. It has bent the cages back into what you expect to be some kind of normal shape, and has moved on to organizing the pile of rubble that dominates the south end of the room with the cages. It looks at you, and it's glowing eye pulses once, then turns back to what it is doing.
You move past the room that has tubes and protrubances coming out of the walls (they still do nothing) iand nto the next passageway. The hard carapace of the tentacle monster is still on the dirt floor, unmoving and undisturbed.
When you round the corner past it, a marvelous sight presents itself before your eyes. At first glance, this cold cavern presents a strange and disconcerting vista—that of a dimly lit desert valley under a starless, night sky. It's difficult to say where the illumination comes from, but you can just make out the barest of details. A stretch of sand covers the ground, a vista broken here and there by bits of strange, spiky shells or contorted, dead fronds that look like branches. It is enormous, the cavern spanning over two hundred feet to a far wall of high cliffs, dotted with darker depressions. Between here and there, a ridge emerges from the sand perhaps a hundred feet from your current location, and rises for a while before tapering and meeting the sand again at the foot of the far cliffs. It is as though an entire ecosystem has lain here, buried, unknown to the town of Torch above.
You look nearby you, and see that you are emerging from what appears to be a cliff face, though you know that there are chambers of metal behind you. On the ground, you see clear a clear pathway, trod by many feet, leading further into the desert landscape.
Cinder stops upon entering the room. "This place feels different..." she reaches down to feel the sand, then looks to her companions. "What is this room like? I can tell its bigger than the others, but I really can't see that far. Where does this path lead?"
Scarlet, possibly disconcertingly, is still wearing her goggles... even in the dark. She looks around at the vista arrayed before her for a while... before coming back to the present.
"Oh.. it's big... it's like, really big... like, dang the whole hill of the town is simply dirt and rock covering this... thing..." Scarlet stammers, her words failing her as she looks down and notices the terrain,
"Whait? Why would there be a gor-am path? How many people have walked around here..?" She kneels down and looks at the sand, comparing the 'path' material to the other 'sand'... for a moment pulling her smoked goggles down,
She sits her goggles back on her nose, "Okay... we have a path. That means we have critters or people who make paths..." So saying she resumes watching out for any such things...
"Hey Scarlet, why not try on that armor. It's a nice looking coat you have but what he's wearing looks to be much lighter and easier to move in" Oleg points out, then adds "You're not afraid of a little moldy rust, are you? I'm sure Bosh and Cinder did a good job"
Looking at the small but elegant crossbow, Oleg picks it up and loads it with a bolt, holding it in his free hand. He turns to Bosh and with a smile goes "Heh, now I'm like a little version of you!" Then Oleg giggles some more at his huge frame wielding the tiniest crossbow he's ever seen. He can barely fit his fat finger in the trigger guard. He secures the crossbow as best he can to his belt, ready to be drawn into his free hand.
"Don't worry, if his relatives want the equipment back I won't put up a fuss, but if it saves my hide down here, it's worth borrowing for a while"
Oleg, having thrown away the rotting organ of the beetles, is not carrying a light source as the group enters the nighttime desert deep underground. Looking at the sand and the tracks visible in it, he says "Well, looks like we have a path to follow." and then after a few steps adds "How did a desert end up underground, and why can I see the stars?. Remembering Sef's warning, Oleg looks at Scarlet and asks "Do you think the dead that Sef warned us about live in this desert?" while making sure his vial of holy weapon balm is still in hand, just in case.
Scarlet shakes her head at Oleg's offer of the chain-mail, "Thanks. If creepy-crawlies get that close?" She shrugs. "I'll look into buying something later..." Perhaps she is a little leery of wearing the mail taken from the dead, moldy, stinky, body....
At Oleg's comments 'inside' she continues to look around, "Aye, this whole thing? It's inside something. It's been 'made', right? As fer those undead critters? Yah, maybe they shamble about on this track?" She suggests.
"Don't you mean a Big version of me?" Bosh laughs with Oleg,
"Woooooooooooooooooow!!" Bosh is amazed by the sight of the cave, he removes his hat and pulls one of his hair to check if he is not dreaming,
"How is this below Torch?" Bosh grabs a fistful of sand and inspects it, looking for something unusual.
He takes a look at the path,
"Definitely not alone in here, why didn't the skulks told us about this place?" He checks if there is a complete footprint in the path, maybe the other expeditions made it through here, Bosh puts his feet on one of the footprints to check the size of it.
"Give me a second to inspect this.." Bosh will then look at the wall of the cave, he touches the wall, takes a little taste and knocks on it a few times, he puts his cheeks on the wall,
"This place is amazing.."
He will try to draw and take some notes of this place in the little paper he has.
The enormous cavern opens up in front of you.
Scarlet, there are perhaps nine sets of tracks in the sand, all pointing the same direction: forward.
Bosh, you note that the stone is quite real, not a manufactured surface by any means, but you're distracted by the immense scope of the place.
"Here... that's odd. There's prints... but they all lead away... Don't see nothin' comin' back. Maybe the missing Khonnir made it this way?" She points out,/asks/suggests.
Oleg is happy to take the lead or the second position, if someone with a good perception wants to be front lead.
Bosh is fine in the back or the middle.
I've got folks covered. :)
The four of you begin down the trail of footprints, leading you deeper into the desert setting. In any other environment with the same features, you would have been accompanied by the stirring of a breeze, the far cry of a hawk, or the scurry of small rodents. Yet in this cavern there is only dull, lifeless (and possibly eerie) silence.
Suddenly, the silence is broken, as emerging silently from the ground are two ghastly figures - each a skeleton with enlongated skulls and four grasping, claw-tipped arms. One emerges near the corner of the spur of rock just north of you, the other behind you near the rock wall.
The creatures resemble the cave paintings you saw much earlier, and one rushes each of Oleg and Bosh
In their zealous attempt to get close, both miss, but you can see that their other three arms are poised to strike on the next round!
Scarlet wastes no time and shoots with her x-bow.
Then pulls her goggles down and begins to reload.
Oleg starts to inch over towards the wall of the cavern, then uses his boot to give two solid kicks at the skeletal creature while shouting "Keep away from me!".
Oleg's first kick misses the skeleton, but the second lands with a solid crack, hitting the creature square in the breastbone and sending bones scattered across the sands.
Scarlet turns and fires, but her shot goes wide past Bosh.
"finnst rafmagn!!" Bosh faces the skeleton summoning electricity from his hands and tries to shock him...
The skeleton is blasted to pieces by Bosh's lightning!
The sands quiet again for a moment...
...but Scarlet hears the scraping sound of skeletal feet on sand, heading in your direction. One set comes from the northern side of the spur of land, and another from the south.
"Anyone hurt by that? It seemed almost too easy." Cinder looks at the bones. "I wonder how the skulks learned of these things?"
As Cinder checks in with the rest of you, those without clouded vision can see two forms emerging from the dim light to the north and south. They appear to be similar to the four armed skeletal beings that you have just fought, but the one to the north is markedly different. It's eyes glow with green light, as though illuminated from within the skull. Both are clearly closing in on your party.
Oleg pours the holy weapon balm all over his cestus and checks the range of his punch with a practice jab. He looks to his companions and pointing north says "I've got the lady with the pretty eyes!"