Most of the party follows Janira through the trails and around boulders. At some point, Mirima becomes separated from the group, walking the obvious better path. She calls out to everyone "This way, not that way."
Janira follows her advice and proves Mirima correct.
|
Earlier that day...
"M'name's Krixit! I used to be a guard... of sorts, but now I'm with the Pathfinder Society. I'm looking forward to even more trompin' 'round the wilderness!" She grinned widely. "As for what I do, I generally hit things with these weapons here, and try to protect this lil' one from any mean things that come to get her." She waved her hand towards Mirima.
Krixit gladly accepted the paper and pen from Janira, remarking to Mirima about how they could 'practice their letters'. And then she ran off to make last minute purchases after hearing Janira ask about their preparedness...
The present...
Mosquitoes Are Bad Krixit carefully notates with labored pen strokes, before realizing the group had almost left her behind.
"Good eye, Mirima!" she calls out, trotting to catch up with the team. "Did you know about this way, Janira? Or you, Diego?" Krixit had been listening to his tale about guard duty - it sounded much more interesting than the type of guard work she had done. Maybe he knew something about the lay of this land too, even if it wasn't swamps.
|
|
"Thanks! You know us Elves and our Woods!" Mirima says as she continues to skip through the trees. She starts to hum a song to herself.
"Oh! Janira, tell us the story of your Confirmation! I bet it was SUPER awesome! Did you go in a big group? Was there fighting? OoooOOOooo was there a mystery? You met a boy didn't you. (whispering) It's ok, you can confide in me girl."
Janira smiles at Mirima "I already told you about my confirmation. I was directed to scout and map the Kortos mountains around the Gilman's cave. The Centaur tribe was amicable... but those harpies are no fun at all."
|
|
Mirima returns Janira's smile "Harpies?! There we go! The real story, not that glossed over scouting version! A fierce battle, hot romance, light comedy, then dashed with tragedy!.. The only mission I've been on was watching this old guy sleep, and boy did he get into trouble with where his dreams went...whew." Mirima rambles on until her train of thought takes a turn with no warning.
"Hey, a couple of you are guards, huh. I feel pretty safe now, I guess. Carolla do you guard things too?"
|
|
Hearing all this talk about guarding things from Mirima and Krixit causes Ver'Yanion's face to go a little pale. Perhaps this is not the kind of group that he'd like to be in... even though he thought the two were kind of fun to be with the last time they adventured together.
Need more gear to adventure. Perhaps talk others into getting that gear so I don’t have to? Stuff is heavy, and I want to remain agile.
The mosquitoes here are pretty bad… and very large, evidently. But, they burn nicely. Perhaps waiting to see if swarms like this get closer is a good idea when you are throwing vials of fire, but they are pretty scary!
Have to be careful about my teammates. Evidently they are a bunch of guards, and I never get along well with guards. They always think that I have taken things that don’t belong to me… but how do I know that things left out in the open aren’t for the taking?
|
"Well, Mirima, I'm not a guard per se. More like I found a lead into the man that betrayed my father and was short on coin. I found a merchant who was heading in the direction I wanted to go and they needed a sword to accompany her caravan. Her name was Dardiana Beestinger, a gnome merchant who dealt exclusively in all things bee related. Honey, mead, honey mead, etc. A curious woman indeed. She was a very good judge of character, as evidenced by her hiring of me."
Diego turns and looks back at Beechbar.
"Beechbar. You might appreciate the strength of mead she made. It's no dwarven ale, but it would knock a half-orc on their butt.
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.
|
|
Without any hesitation, Ver'Yanion darts into the cave entrance, grabbing for the backpack with a grace that only an elf could pull off, given his state of near panic. He pushes forward into the cave, for at least 50 feet... not stopping until he feels safe from the rampage of the minotaur. At that point, panting, he pulls out his papers, jotting down, quickly, Finally found cave entrance. Hideous minotaur shows up. Janira saves us, and gives me her stuff.
He then starts rummaging through the backpack.
|
|
Krixit too first goes for her weapon, but Janira's insistence that they get to the cave convinced her to play rear-guard (not to mention Ver'Yanion's quick exit tied their hands as far as options went).
"I'm sure she'll be fine," Krixit says with false bravado. "She only wants to lure it away - she doesn't have to fight it. Besides, small-folk are tough."
She leans over to look into the bag.
The backpack contains:
potion of barkskin
potion of cure light wounds
potion of cure light wounds
potion of feather step
potion of vanish
scroll of entangle
scroll of gust of wind
scroll of identify
scroll of mage armor (CL 6th)
scroll of obscuring mist
wand of burning hands (CL 3rd, 4 charges)
wand of cure light wounds (CL 3rd, 8 charges)
acid
alchemist’s fire
alchemist’s fire
holy water
smoke stick
tanglefoot bag
thunderstone
|
|
"Wow! This is all really handy stuff!" Krixit exclaims while doing her best to keep Ver'Yanion's hands from pocketing it all.
"Everyone take what you best think you can use, and I'm sure Ver'Yanion will hold onto the rest for us."
Krixit goes to take a potion of cure light wounds and an alchemist's fire.
"You and Beechbar would be best to sort out the scrolls and wands I think, Mirima."
|
|
Mirima almost completely forgets the past trauma as she stares at the trove of goodies. "Oh god oh god oh god vanish?! Gust of wind?! Burning hands?! Ok, ok so I think I should fire one off, right? Yeah, just to get a feel for it, don't want to get surprised by it.. yeah, just get one out of my system. One can't hurt. One would feel good. Good's good, right?"
As she looks at everyone she realizes she's being a little crazy, the wand of Burning hands trembling excitedly in her hands, "Ahem, yeah. Of course Beechbar, however you see fit, I mean, I'm not sure what you have prepared at the moment so whatever complements your plans best. That said, wands come a bit more naturally to me."
'Fire fire fire fire.'
|
|
Beechbar looks over the contents.
"Hrm. I think I shall take every scroll except for the Entangle scroll. If you wish to have the wands, go ahead."
That one is a little too excited if you ask me. Surrounded by gnomes and elves what should I expect?
"As for the alchemical items, I am happy to carry anything the rest of you do not."
|
|
After watching the minotaur and Janira take off toward the forest, noting Janira is keeping a safe distance in front, Carolla heads into the cave.
If there are any cure potions in Janira's bag that no one else has claimed, I'll take one
He also makes a quick note: Janira is either one of the bravest halflings people I have ever met or she's crazy. Just lured a minotaur away from us.
The party hear's Janira's taunts quiet in the distance. After dividing her bag contents, they continue on.
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 among large spikes.
Mage hand fails
|
|
Ver'Yanion moves up to the pit, and takes a look down.
He thinks about it, then takes a piton, is about to pound it into the stone, and realizes he never bought a hammer. He thinks about it a moment, and then tried to determine how tough this would be to just do freehand...
"Anyone got a hammer, and some cheap rope?"
|
|
Listening to Beechbar, Mirima has an Oooooooh moment. "That's a pretty neat trick. I don't know Prestidigitation though, not that it would help. The hammer and rope would just break anyways. BUT I can Detect Magic!" She says happily.
Looking through her pack she pulls out fishing line and a hook. "We could snag the cloth with this, see what it is. Might be useful."
|
|
"Mm," Krixit says in agreement. She pulls out her parchment, while they have a bit of downtime, and takes some notes on how they got to this pit, and what exactly Ver'Yanion did.
"I only have expensive rope," she adds, grabbing some silk rope from her pack. "I'll anchor it here for people to climb down, and Ver'Yanion can climb up the other side and do the same for people climbing up? Assuming you can climb up the side of the pit as gracefully as you entered it, Sir Elf."
Ver lowers himself from the edge of the pit and launches himself down...
He realizes in his acrobatic drop... that spikes are bad.
|
|
"Well! That's one method I suppose.. I'd prefer not to do that though, are you sure it's safe to climb down with the rope?" Mirima is hesitant as Krixit prepares the rope. "Maybe there's another path back there?" Looking behind her there's only dark cave. "Hmmm. What are you seeing on the other side Ver'Yanion?"
It is a simple 10 foot deep, unhidden spiked pit trap.
Ver will be able to easily climb the 10 feet up the other side.
Ver finds a plank that would make a good bridge.
|
|
Need more gear to adventure. Perhaps talk others into getting that gear so I don’t have to? Stuff is heavy, and I want to remain agile.
The mosquitoes here are pretty bad… and very large, evidently. But, they burn nicely. Perhaps waiting to see if swarms like this get closer is a good idea when you are throwing vials of fire, but they are pretty scary!
Have to be careful about my teammates. Evidently they are a bunch of guards, and I never get along well with guards. They always think that I have taken things that don’t belong to me… but how do I know that things left out in the open aren’t for the taking?
Finally found cave entrance. Hideous minotaur shows up. Janira saves us, and gives me her stuff.
Inside the cave, we find a simple pit. At the bottom is a lovely cloak, so I hop down to grab it. Who would have though that the cloak was covering spikes? Those hurt!
Across the way from the pit, someone left a perfectly serviceable board… good enough for the non-elves to make it across the pit. Who would leave such a thing here?
|
|
Mirima follows Carolla across the bridge, bouncing along on the plank. "Humans like to give nicknames Ver'Yanion! It means they like you! Stuff like Ver, Yanny, Yansky. I think it's cute that Deigo has taken to ya!" she adds teasingly and in good fun.
When she reached the other side she takes a closer look at the cloak.
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.
Mirima looks around... but is unable to decipher anything relevant.
Diego finds some faint humanoid tracks leading south.. but is unable to discern anything further of the walls.