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While Bulroar, Korin and Brother Yorrik look at the ground Fidgit climbs up a tree to look from above. Fidgits sees the path continuing a few hundred feets from your position and tells the others where to look. Korin, Brother Yorik and Bullroar find older hoofprints of horses in dried mud and are able to identify the old path. You contine your trip to the cave.
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"Hurrah! A Path," Bulroar yells in excitement when they find the path.
"We found a path. Of course we did. We're Pathfinders." Bulroar laughs at his own joke, then looks around to see if anyone else does. "Still not perfect," he surmises. "I should probably stick to fiddling."
Bulroar continues along the path with the rest of the party, bouncing a bit with every step. He considers trying to get a peak of Fidgit's journal, then thinks better of it.
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Yorrick nodded as the cave mouth came into view. As they slipped into cool darkness, the dwarf intermittently reached a hand out to touch the cave walls. He had not been so completely surrounded by stone since he came to the city, nearly half a century before. But each touch of the cold stone beneath his heavy fingers stirred dusty recollections of life in the keep.
He remembered playing among the passageways, and how the older boys knew of hidden doors and alcoves. This was a different kind of stone, having not been hewed by tools, but Yorrick wondered if it might not have such similarly hidden surprises. As they traveled deeper into the cave and the color faded from his vision, the dwarf decided to keep an eye out for anything of the sort.
All the while, he muttered to himself under his breath. Anybody standing near enough to hear, or otherwise bothering to try, would hear that it was not a prayer or even a deranged self-conversation. In a mixture of Dwarven and Common, he was memorizing their travels.
Although he did pause for a moment to chuckle when the Halfling's joke hit him.
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As you continues to travel through the wilderness, you find trails blocked by fallen objects, shortcuts overgrown, and other minor delays that cost them time but you reach the cave's entrance in time.
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, "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!" She heaves her backpack into the cave, casts a spell, and darts off toward the minotaur before turning to lure it away.
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Fidgit puffs up his chest and places his hands on the hilts of his swords. Obviously thinking about engaging the minotaur. But when he hears Gailen confirm Janira's instructions and head into the cave, Fidgit reconsiders and dashes into the cave behind Gailen.
"I'm sure we could have taken it! I suppose part of being a pathfinder involves following our leaders' commands. She MUST know what she's doing."
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Bulroar takes cover with the rest. As Janira leaves, he looks off in her direction wistfully. "Someday, that'll be me. Saving my fellows no matter the cost," he mumbles under his breath, a little louder than he'd like to admit.
Seeing that Gailen has already gathered up their leader's pack, Bulroar darts into the cave after her. He looks around, trying to adjust to being underground as quickly as possible.
In response to Fidgit's comment, Bulroar kicks him lightly in the shin. "Of course she knows what she's doing. Now puff your chest down so you can see your feet if we need to run again." Then he realizes the height difference and larger swords of the human make a confrontation rather a bad idea and backs away.
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Even as the others push past him, Yorrick pauses. It feels wrong to leave Janira to the minotaur, but when she gave the order to forge ahead, there was a determination in her voice he had learned to respect. It was the same tone his superiors at the Order had. It was a tone, he had learned, which could save a life—but seldom that of the one who spoke in it.
Reluctantly, he follows the others, but before he breaks away, he whispers "Janira," as if she, too, may soon be only a memory.
Catching up with the others he enters the damp cave. Drawing both kamas, he keeps an eye open for whatever may be hiding around a corner, or whatever the cave itself may be attempting to conceal.
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You see the minotaur chasing after Janira through the trees, fighting its way through the dense undergrowth. Soon the cacophony of the chase fades and the sounds of the forest slowly return to normal.
Gailen and Fidgit search Janira's backpack. It contains:
a potion of barkskin, two potions of cure light wounds, a potion of feather step, a potion of vanish, scroll of entangle, scroll of gust of wind, scroll of identify, scroll of mage armor (CL 6), scroll of obscuring mist, wand of burning hands (CL 3rd, 4 charges), wand of cure light wounds (CL 3rd, 4 charges), acid, alchemist’s fire (2), holy water, smokestick, thunderstone and a tanglefoot bag
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.
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"Really I have all I need right here."
Fidgit taps the handles of his 2 short swords.
"But I suppose I'll hold on to this in case any of you might need it later."
Fidgit secures one of the potions of cure light wounds to his belt.
"Maybe this one too... unless someone else wants to hold onto it for now?"
Fidgit also grabs the one of the flasks of alchemist's fire
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"Thanks for the torch light, oh gallant Sir Gailen. The holy water is yours until the leader of the hour returns, at least as far as I am concerned."
Bulroar looks over the assorted items that Gilen and Fidget have revealed, paying particular attention to the scrolls and reading the first lines of one or two. "I have some experience in the magical arena. Not always a sure thing, mind you, but at least there's a chance."
When the party seems ready to move on, Bulroar follows the path until he stands a few feet back from the edge of the hole and looks around for a rock. He readies himself to drop it , peering at the sack of cloth with trepidation. "Well, there's no use waiting for something to happen. What do you say we find out how deep this hole is?"
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The tunnel here is 10 feet wide and 10 feet tall with a ceiling mostly devoid of stalactites. Bulroar drops a stone into the pit. It is about 20 ft. deep with a flooded bottom. The bundle seems to be a lost cloak.
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"I should hope so, esteemed Lady Gailen. I've had to jump out of more than a few hellish frying pans, if you take my meaning." Bulroar eyes the other side of the pit, trying to make out what sort of situation he'll be getting himself into and if there is somewhere to secure the rope on the other side.
Bulroar waits until everyone looks ready to go. Need to make sure I don't end up all alone and in trouble over there. Then he motions to the others to clear a path so he can get a running start and makes a long running leap at the other side. He almost slips, which messes up his takeoff, but he still doesn't look completely incompetent.
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Bulroar glares at Fidgit and his jump, which looks so graceful after his own previous failure. Under his breath he mutters something about "Long legs."
Bulroar rummages through his pack and pulls out 50 feet of silk rope. He looks around for something to tie it to. "Now that you're over here, would you mind giving me a hand?" he asks Fidgit. "I'm a bit small to be lifting folks this height."
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"Thank you for your help, Fidgit," Bulroar says as he passes the human the rope. "I'll try to catch you if you fall, but I'm not making any promises that'll stop you."
Once everything is secured, Bulroar raises his voice to say "Ready to receive rope climbers," stopping short of a yell. He looks around as soon as he speaks, hoping no one uninvited heard his voice, but he is too worried to actually observe.
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Fidgit and Bulroar jump across the pit while Gailen retrieves the bundle of clothes and climbs up to the other side. Then Brother Yorrick tosses the hook to the other side where Bulroar picks it up and secures it at a rock. While Bulroar secures the rope Fidgit takes a look around and finds a 3-ft-wide plank.
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"Hmm, that was a rather convenient plank," Bulroar says, scrunching his face to one side. "Someone is expecting visitors, even if we can't see them."
Bulroar watches his fellow pathfinders cross, expecting at every minute that something will go horribly wrong. When all have made it, he breathes a deep sigh of relief, then coughs at the smell of underground. "Well, let's best be off. The sooner we get out of this place, the better. Do we want to take the plank with us, to make sure someone else doesn't dispose of it?"
He eyes the bag Gailen retrieved carefully. I expect there's bones in that.
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"I'm not sure it means someone is expecting us. It does mean there is eather someone/something further inside, or there is a different way out of here besides the way we came. Either way, I don't plan to carry a 3' wide plank around with me. It's just not very stylish. I would say leave it in place, in case we need to make a quick escape back."
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"Well, I might as well do this well we've already attracted attention from shouting across a hole in the floor. Wouldn't want us carrying around a cursed cloak," Bulroar says as he takes out his fiddle and plays a short tune. He tries to play quietly, but the music still has an eerie echoy quality.
Bulroar peers into the darkness ahead, his posture growing smaller and more scrunched. "Oh, I didn't mean they were expecting us, just someone."
He looks around for a good hiding place for the plank. "Well, I can make that jump, so if the rest of you are willing to take the risk of the plank disappearing, we can certainly leave it here."
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Korin draws his axes with a flourish and takes point 15ft in front of the party
"well whatever is ahead of us will die, if need calls for it..."
Looking ahead korin says
"let's see what will die first"
-Posted with Wayfinder
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Yorrick strides forward, over the plank, along with the party. His short legs make him slower than most of the party, so he hangs in the back and keeps his eyes open for an ambush.
His muttering takes on that near-musical, praying quality for a moment, and suddenly stops.
Yorrick is quiet. He has a kama in one hand, and the thumb of the other hand is hitched into his belt, his stubby fingers halfway in one pocket.
He is watching.
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In a dark, tight place like this (even better if there were twists and corners) how easy it would be to find a hiding place and come up behind a group.
Yorrick glances up at the halfling. Small fellow like that, and a caster, too. Sure, he can take care of himself, but he'd have to do it quickly. His skills make him a target, and his short legs make him a favorite target.
If he replaced these caves with some of the tighter alleys in the city, it wouldn't be too much a stretch of the imagination to see some tough making his way up, grabbing a caster, pinning his arms back to keep him from getting off any spells. That's when the rest of a gang would come in and clean up the others.
Yorrick knew this trick, because this had been his job.
He wasn't sneaky, and he sure wasn't fast. But he was steady. They would take swings at him, fire shots at him, but even if their attacks found purchase, he shrugged them off and plowed ahead. He remembered the magic student—Dav had taught him to pick those out from their noses in the air, the overconfidence. Yorrick got up on him and held him. The apprentice wizard convulsed in the dwarf's arms but couldn't get his hands free. Yorrick might as well have been a set of tight iron hoops wrapped around him.
When the rest of the gang started slaughtering the wizard's (outnumbered) companions, the apprentice started chanting.
"Mind that mouth, Shrub," Dav said. And then, with a quick twist, the dwarf's ham of a hand was covering the young face. Catastrophe averted.
"Hold 'em steady!" Dav admonished while the others surrounded the last survivor. The student thrashed harder and screamed through Yorrick's unmoving paw.
When the others were down, Dav sauntered up to him in his usual way. "That's some good work there, Shrub." Yorrick smiled and blushed through his beard at the recognition.
Then Dav slashed the caster's undefended throat, and he slowly stopped squirming.
Glancing ahead at the halfling again, Yorrick sniffs, puffs his chest protectively, and thinks [i[Not this one.[/i]
Looking behind him again, Yorrick retrieves a shuriken from its pouch on his belt and turns it over in his hand, as if a large coin. Comforted, he slips the weapon back into its pouch—keeping his fingers on it and the others like before.
"Heh," he chuckles quietly—the one interruption in his silence. "Pathfinders."
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Bulroar finds out that the cloak is not cursed. It's a cloak of resistance +1.
The tunnels continue on, leading deeper beneath the Kortos Mounts until they eventually open into a large cavern. What must have once been beautifully carved reliefs and inscriptions have since weathered heavily, their features dulled and softened to the point that it is hard to distinguish what each once depicted. A wide tunnel exits the cavern on its far side, and blue-burning torches line the passageway’s walls. Deciphering the images and writing is difficult because of their eroded state.
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"Esteemed Lady Gailen," Bulroar says with a bow after he puts away his fiddle, "it looks like the bundle itself is useful: A lucky charm of a sort that reduces the chances of falling, poisoning, and being driven crazy. Of course, it only works if you wear it. Why don't you try it on, great lady?"
Bulroar wonders at the paintings around the cavern, letting out a single "Wow." He's no artist, and he has to do a lot of jumping to even see the top of the weathered paintings, but he tries to make a thorough inspection of all of them, attempting to memorize their details so he can report on them and maybe write a fiddle piece inspired by them. He also inspects the nearest torch on the path to come, trying to determine why they burn blue.
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"It's all gibberish and unrelated symbols and pictures to me." Fidgit finishes copying a few last details in his journal, slaps the binder closed and shakes it. "Probably why Janira told us to record the events of our confirmation. In case we found something important, but were too inexperienced or lacked the skill to figure out" Having duely noted his journal, Fidgit takes a seat on a rock and waits for his fellow initiates to finish their study of the painted walls.
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"you all can do that I too have never much cared for old writings the fact that I find it is enough for me. Let someone else spend all there time in this place"
Korin keep a look out as the few who can try to read the old script
-Posted with Wayfinder