Loryndahl moves closer while drawing out a flask, and she lobs it through the air at the ground under the mosquito swarm. The flask misses its target, but still lands within the swarming mosquitoes, thankfully!
Janira lifts her voice, praising your courage and your steadfastness, and telling tales of famous Pathfinders from history.
"Bold May Post"
Loryndahl
Janira
Egil
Vlazis
Theon
Swarm- 5 dmg
Zarzuket
~Pip
Active conditions: Bardic Performance +1/+1
Before the swarm can even fully coalesce into a threat, Loryndahl and Vlazis manage to disperse it. One with acid, and the other with a wave of foul energy. The buzzing mass breaks apart and disappears just as quickly as it formed!
Janira runs up to the group, exultant in your victory! "You did so well! I can tell that you are all going to make great pathfinders!! Is anyone hurt? Do I need to look after anyones wounds?"
"Now, my adventurers, we need to press on. This delay is going to be problematic.. if we don't reach the cave tonight, I am afraid that we will miss the Gillmen and then the trip will be wasted!"
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"Owww!" Lorÿndahl whines as she stumbles on an old tree root. "Where, in the name of all the ascended gods' names, are we going?" The young warpriestess looks to Zarauket and then Pip. Realizing that only Vlazis has a clue as to the general direction they are headed, she shoulders up to the cleric and puts her hands upon his arm for support. "Your arms are quite a bit larger than I thought, Vlaz."
Yet, her pace slows, and letting go of Vlazis, she slowly falls behind the group. Spotting a fallen tree and a soft bed of moss surrounding it on the north side, she stops and plops herself down. "Wait! I think I have a blister..." No sooner had the words left her pouty lips, she pulls off her left boot to reveal a rather large red patch on the bottom of her foot. "Pip, could you come rub my feet? They ache so badly..." Lorÿndahl bats her eyes at the eidolon.
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"Boy, are we there yet? Does this even look like a path? Here, I am pretty sure it is this way..." A moment later, you hear a splash.
"Nope, not that way..." Skai says, as she comes out of the brush shaking a wet foot.
"Shouldn't we have a guide or something? Hey, this guy seems to know what he's doing." Skai slides up next to Vlazis. "You know where you're going?"
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Vlazis smiles at Skai, Always forwards. He turns towards the rest,
I know we aren't used to working with one another yet. I know some of you are used to going your own way in life. But I also know that the Pathfinder society was founded on three simple tenets.
Explore, Report, Cooperate.
There are things in the world that need to be found and put right. But we will do that best by working together, to use the knowledge we find in this cave for the greater good.
First thing's first, let's find the path.
Vlazis 21
Theon 17
Egil 14
Skai 10
Zarzuket 10
Lorÿndahl 5
Janira 19
The party bumbles along, lead mainly by Vlazis and Theon and aided by Janira and her maps. Unfortunately, the three leaders find that leading this party is more like herding cats. Finally, Janira calls for another break, trying to get her bearings with her wayfinder and her notes from the last trip. The suns rays slant through foliage, the late afternoon angle giving more light through the trees. "I am terribly afraid that we will not get there in time at this pace.." she worries. "We need to be there by sundown. If we press on hard, and I mean really pick up the pace, we should be able to make it. If you agree, we should force march the rest of the way. I can use my magic to keep you from getting too exhausted, but it is still going to be hard on everyone. Since this is your Confirmation, I will leave the choice up to you. What do you say?"
The group presses on, despite the blisters and weariness. Skai finds that with the help of Janira's magic, she is able to keep up but not without difficulty! Finally, just as the suns rays slant down towards the horizon, the dense forest opens to a wide clearing at the base of a sheer cliff. Thick vines cover the surface of the cliff stretching 30 feet overhead. “Here! The cave entrance is behind those vines,” Janira says with a broad smile as she walks to the cliff’s face. She pulls back several layers of vegetation to reveal a narrow crack in the cliff’s surface. “This is where I saw the gillmen enter.”
As she motions toward the aperture, the surrounding woods come alive with the sound of small animals fleeing some unseen danger and a large creature crashing through the undergrowth.
The halfling worriedly remarks, “Quick, take cover before whatever it is spots us!”] As if she’d summoned the creature with her words, a massive horned monstrosity emerges from the trees. Standing eight feet tall on a pair of cloven hooves and wielding a tremendous axe, the bull-headed creature roars with unbridled anger when it spots the group.
Wisely assessing that a minotaur is beyond her charges’ capabilities, Janira screams, “A minotaur! There’s little chance we can stand against it. Take this bag,” she continues, pulling off her backpack, [/b]“and head deeper into the caves. Finish your mission. I’ll lead it away from the caves, lose it in the forest, and join you as soon as I can. Now go! GO!”[/b] She heaves her backpack into the cave, casts a spell, and darts off toward the minotaur before turning to lure it away, calling out in another language. The minotaur hears this, and gives a mighty roar of anger before charging at the little Halfling. You may not be able to understand what was said, but you certainly are able to discern the tone of the taunt.
The Halfling darts off into the forest without responding to Egil, leaving the rest of the team to make up their minds.. follow the minotaur or follow janira's command..
The entrance of the tunnel is dark, but a little ways in, a dim glow can be seen. The tunnel is variable; as narrow as 3 feet in places, and as wide as 10 in others. Water trickles down the walls, leaving the floor damp and somewhat slick while echoes of dripping water reverberate around the stone walls. About 20 feet in, you find the dim glow to be radiating from a curious fungi on the walls. These illuminate curious petroglyphs depicting marine animals or spiral shapes. Sparse at first, as your exploration takes you deeper into the tunnels and small caverns of the complex, they slowly begin to grow more numerous.
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Theon immediately rushes protectively towards Janira with his glaive leading the way, but falters briefly when she orders them into the cave. He is torn between following her orders and leaving a comrade to face such a beast alone... Vlazis' conviction seals his reluctant decision and grabs the discarded bag and quickly follows behind the cleric. "Vlazis is right, Egil, I do not like leaving her to face that creature alone, but she's in command." He tarries at the cave entrance and waits for the rest of the group to follow before ducking in behind them. He then immediately moves to the front the check for hostiles.
While moving forward he glances at the strange, glowing fungus, which provides him enough illumination to spot the tracks in the soft sand. "Ah! Gillman tracks here and not more than a day old. We are not too late. Let us be weary."
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Skai takes the bag after the others take what they like. "So do any of you know anything about these golden?"
-Posted with Wayfinder
The narrow tunnel twists and turns for several hundred feet before slowly opening to a wider passage. A large hole spans the cave’s width and stretches ten feet down the path. At the bottom of the pit lies a small bundle of cloth. The sides of this pit are smooth, and the corners rounded making it very difficult to climb up or down without some kind of aid.
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Theon examines the pit with an appraising look. "This pit is not natural and was dug by hand and there appears to be something at the bottom." He immediately unslings his backpack and pulls out a coil of silk rope. "Help me find an anchor point, I would like to climb down and examine that bundle below. Perhaps it has something to do with whatever is going on inside these tunnels."
Theon has the rest of the team hold the rope while he shimmies down expertly. Reaching the bottom of the pit, he holds up what is obviously a very well made cloak.
Theon finds nothing else of interest in the pit and climbs back out to rejoin his team, cloak in hand where Vlazis casts a spell over it. It produces a faint aura, but Vlazis is unable to determine the effects of the cloak.
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"A strange riddle indeed, but I did not locate anything else within the pit. Let us continue onward once we navigate passed this obstacle."
Theon spends a few moments removing his leather armor and buckling it to his backpack, which he easily tossed over the pit. He then gives himself enough room for a brief running start and easily leaps across! He then drops a rope down into the pit and hands the other end. "Just in case anyone misses the jump!"
Theon easily jumps the 10' across the pit, landing safely on the other side and prepping a rope.
As Skai moves down the tunnel, she stumbles across a couple of stout boards about 15 ft in length and wide enough to walk on.