Tynan meets at the chosen location shortly before 8 bells, and keeps watching towards the town to make sure Khellek and his companions aren't planning to follow the group.
”Good morning! How is everyone feeling today?”
"Doing quite well today, thank you. Were you able to acquire any alchemy fire? I bought some flasks of oil, torches, and a length of rope."
Mortimer shows up 7 minutes before the appointed time, looking somewhat refreshed and clean shaven. He appears to be travelling very lightly.
"' Morn'. Do we need anything else? You all have splash fire? I have some rope too, but nothing really in the way of ranged fire."
No worries, regarding the alchemist's fires.
There is no poop to pick up. The pups don't seem to be engaging with food. When Thistle is acquired, the stable girl, Arryn, awkwardly considers the pups, but relents, claiming an empty stall should suffice to keep them away from the other animals, and dry at least. She grouses a little about bringing them in, due to their smell.
Oathday starts off bright. Not a cloud in the sky, and the sun well on its way to its apex. For now, the sun does its best to discourage you from looking directly above the horizon as you travel eastward. Looking back on the town, it already seems to be a livelier day than yesterday.
There appears to be no one following you out of town, for the time you spend checking.
With everyone equipped with their various new purchases, and the sisters accompanied by a gray donkey. The donkey is missing part of its ear, and there are ribbons tied into its tail, which does nothing to improve its looks. It occasionally stops, investigating grass patches, but it seems to heed Raella well enough.
With Dourstone Road behind you, then the abandoned mine office, you take in the hillside once more. The rains of yesterday make it relatively easy to locate the entrance. The light winds blowing across the countryside are enough to awaken sounds through the hollow tubes once again.
Having a feeling that he really doesn't want to know, the heavily armed Mort points to Donkey and inquires "What's that for? Is it coming into the cave with us?"
Sol lets Rae answer the questions her large, smelly ass is generating.
She enters the cave again, torch lit. She has not yet drawn a flask, but is ready to. She uses her elvenish eyes, a gift from her mother, to cast about for the swarm.
"Do you think they went outside?"
"Let me have a look, Sol."
Tynan kneels and checks the foliage around the entrance of the cavern for signs of acid damage that might indicate that the swarm may have passed out of the cave.
The swarm, or remnants of it, did pass through the entrance. The acid trail, though subtle, becomes easy enough to detect as you realize it's discolored the stonework lining the floor, removing the dust where it trailed. There are occasional beetle shells as well.
"It seems the swarm did leave the cave sometime after we left. There are also signs that it began to dissipate. Khellek told you winds could disperse them, no? I'm thinking the rain and wind broke it up."
Tynan stands, and peers into the cave. "Still, we should proceed with caution. There could have been more than one swarm that found their way up from below."
Tynan suddenly realizes that Solrisa has already wandered off into the cave.
Or don't proceed cautiously, I suppose...
"Rae, you may want to reign in your sister."
Ascaria looks at Mort's wounds, "This won't do. Won't do at all." he turns to the others, "Anyone else injured?"
Ascaria casts light on another hairpin and sticks it in his hatband.
"Good eye Tynan, good eye! With a little luck there won't be another swarm, but yes we should be careful. Sol wait up!"
Ascaria trots into the cave a little.
"Thanks -- that ought to do it."
Still wondering about Donkey, Mort reluctantly follows Ascaria into the cave.
"Were you still going to write those children's names down?"
Still wondering about Donkey, Mort reluctantly follows Ascaria into the cave.
"Were you still going to write those children's names down?"
"Oh right! I even brought extra paper!
Ascaria digs through his sling bag for some rumpled paper and a tiny stub of pencil. He stops in the first alcove and jots down the children's names scratched on the wall. Done fairly quickly, he gets up and continues on with the others into the caves.
After a brief discussion with Rae, the halfling slips her second backpack onto the donkey, non-essentials out-of-the-way for now. Tis nothing like the House's fine steeds, or even their proud draft teams. Fallen to squirreling common items onto a... whatever this is. She smiles softly in thanks to Rae.
Her load lightened a bit, Pillette moves quietly into the cave with the others, several vials and flasks handy in her bandolier. She moves forward to Ascaria, peering ahead, crossbow knocked and at the ready.
"The voice in the blue lantern alcove. Could be one of the etchers, no?" If I remember correctly, 'Bridgette', 'Mel', 'Tabitha', 'Stevie.'
"Need a light?" Holding her loaded crossbow in one hand, she tugs out a sunrod, ready to strike it if the Gnome needs more.
"Rae, you may want to reign in your sister."
And you your tongue, little man.
Rae makes quite a show of thanking Ascaria, "I'm sure that Mort...and Pillette... and even Tynan appreciate your healing of our wounds. I know that I do. It seems only Solrisa was wise enough to avoid the damaging swarms."
She sighs, refusing to admit any truth to his snipes, still it would be better..."Sol! Perhaps you should stay closer, in case Tynan needs your help."
With that, she leads Thistle ahead of the prissy doorman and follows her sister.
Sol nods and goes to look in the left alcove.
If there is nothing there, she'll go look in the right alcove.
Sol's torchlight illuminates the left alcove, the strange, broken apparatus sitting on the raised marble platform at the end of the alcove. The glass shards that once rested on the floor are no longer there.
The right alcove demonstrates no change in the collapsed rubble, from floor to ceiling.
The torchlight also lights upon the broken down form of the mother wolf. The dissolved fur and exposed bone tells you that the beetle swarm made it this far, at least.
Tynan advances, keeping Ascaria, Pilette and Mort within sight. Solrisa, it seems, has disappeared somewhere ahead down a side corridor.
"Sol! Perhaps you should stay closer, in case Tynan needs your help."
"No, that's fine. If you're comfortable with her scouting ahead, we should definitely let her do that."
Of course, maybe Rae would be happy if something happened to Sol... it would certainly take a lot of pressure off of her.
After waiting for the scribers to scribe, Sol moves up to the next intersection. As others move up, she will explore left, then right.
"Rae, look!"
Heading further down the hallway, Solrisa passes a beetle-stripped wolf carcass, before coming upon the bodies of both spider creature, sans flesh, and wolf pup bereft of lint and life.
As Solrisa enters the further left alcove, she is drawn to a wide dais spanning the back half of the western wing. The light calls attention to a faded fresco upon the south, west, and north walls. From a vantage point at the center of the dais, the wall painting makes it look like you stand within a massive room with seven short hallways radiating outward from a central point. A chain dangles from the ceiling at the end of each hallway, and each chain bears a gleaming colored lantern. Clockwise, the colors are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
Passing from western to eastern alcove, and stepping through the rubble-strewn doorway, the animal spoor is greatest here, a mixture of urine and feces included in the scents. Lying on the floor at the eastern most wall is a Lantern, Indigo in color.
All is quiet.
"Rae, look!" Sol comes back holding the Indigo lantern. "A lantern! I think it's just so pretty!" Sol holds up her torch near the lantern, letting the light mix with the coloring.
Sol spends a moment or two with the cascading lights before remembering other things.
"Oh! And over there, on that side, is a few murals of lit lanterns, just like if we were in the next room! That's interesting, huh?"
"Good find!"
Ascaria heads over to the murals. He examines them to see if there are any clues in the murals as to the working of the actual room.
The mural is quite vivid, for the time it's managed to stand. Light blows of air to remove dirt seem to bring even more color to reflect from the paints. For all its glory, the mural seems unified, with each color being equally represented. All Lanterns hang at equal lengths on their respective chains. All colors appear to have the same intensity in their paints.
Tynan joins Ascaria in examining the mural.
"Excellent find Solrisa. That makes me even more sure that the red lantern is still around here somewhere. We'll need to keep a sharp eye our for it."
Mort waits for the little people to continue moving up the hallway before placing himself in the middle of it between the mural and wolf den.
"So, what is the plan, hang all of the lanterns we can find in the Sarcophagus room, light them and see what happens?"
"Or -- " he shudders,"climb down the green lantern cylinder tube?"
"Or -- really go wild and pry off the sarcophagus lid?" his eyes gleam a little.
"Are we going to try and contact the voice thing in the blue tunnel for a sketch before doing anything else?
Finally he adds:"... and Rae -- what's with Thistle? How far did you intend on taking this barnyard creature?"
Ascaria stops and thinks a moment, "I think we should talk to the blue-haunt and then climb down the green lantern tube. See what's there."
"Then, if we can find the red one, we should light all the lanterns. I'd like to leave the lid alone as long as we can. You know, out of respect for the dead."
Ascaria grins at the thought of all that light down in the dark hole. He wonders what it will look like to him, standing in the middle of the room with all the soft light bleeding through.
Sol takes the indigo lantern into the star chamber and re-hangs it where she thinks it should go. She takes out her roll of torches and lights all the ones that need it, starting with the far left and going around.
"Oh, I can't wait to see this place all lit up! It will be like the Winter Hoarfrost Ceremony! So many colors!" Sol seems almost giddy to unleash the rainbow.
Having a feeling that he really doesn't want to know,the heavily armedMort points to Donkey and inquires "What's that for? Is it coming into the cave with us?"
"*This* is Thistle. She's going to help us carry things, should we need her. Otherwise, she'll wait here, just inside the opening." Rae straightens on of the Mules braids, tucking the pink bow out of the mule's eyes.
Rae rolls her eyes as Mort continues to disparage Thistle. If he only knew all the adventures this valiant steed had already had between here and Kaer Maga, the girls' home town.
"She should be fine here."
She nods at Ascaria's plan. "That is a good idea, Thistle isn't going to want to get anywhere close to any haunting, and I can't say I blame her."
After the lanterns are lit, Sol will approach the green hole where in the beetles came from.
"Do we think they are still there? Are we ready for them?" Sol asks, tiptoeing closer clomping up to the green hole.
"You know, out of respect for the dead."
Or our own safety.
The halfling moves after the Gnome, peering into the alcove, curious to see if the voice will return to her. "If the dead could only speak?"
"Of course, a voice said, what was it." And then she remembers. "Hopeless. Sacrilege. Enemies. So we might not like what is said."
"I'll check out the red corridor."
Tynan moves to the alcove that should contain a red lantern, and examines the area for any signs of it, particularly broken shards of red glass.
I hope this lantern is still intact, and that it wasn't destroyed.
After searching it, Tynan moves to join others near the green corridor.
Ascaria walks into the blue tinged tunnel and stands quietly where he found the bones earlier.
"I'm here." he says, his voice barely above a whisper.
Sol edges up closer to the hole, holding her torch behind her so that the light doesn't interfere with her vision. She steps carefully as she can as she looks down the hole.
If she can't see the bottom (20' torchlight + 20' low light), she will drop her torch within.
"I wonder if there are more bugsies down here?" Sol says. "Rae, come look!"
As Tynan sweeps for signs of shards of red glass, he finds nothing of the kind in the Red Lantern tunnel.
As several folk gather around the Green Lantern tunnel's hole, only a light amount of time is required to understand that the collapse of the cylinder has provided an easier means of descent, with various handholds and footholds peppering the sides of the shaft. As Solrisa drops the torch, the shaft appears to end sixty feet down, the reflection of metal from the cylinder allowing its outline to be seen.
The faint sound of beetles clicking can be heard echoing down below. The shaft plays with the strength of the echoes.
A familiar voice, directly above your head, responds. "Well, yeah, that's obvious enough, but you need to climb now, just a little further... hurry!" The voice trails upwards at the end of the exhortation. The tunnel's end seems to warm up a little as the voice departs.
Ascaria pokes his head into he main chamber and talks loudly to the party so everyone can hear, "Hey, the voice is back, and he wants us to climb up this shaft a bit. I think there's a ledge or something. Want to check it out?"
From his position near the Sarcophagus, Mortimer hears Ascaria call out:
"Hey, the voice is back, and he wants us to climb up this shaft a bit. I think there's a ledge or something. Want to check it out?"
"Sixty feet is a long way to have to climb up in a hurry, maybe we should stick closer to the surface for a little bit -- to learn more about this place. Yes, I think we should consider following the Canary's suggestion."
Tynan moves over to the blue corridor with Ascaria.
"I'll give climbing up a try. Get ready to catch me if I fall, Mort." Tynan grins. "Can I borrow your light pin, Ascaria? It'll help me see handholds."
Ascaria freshens the spell and hands his hairpin to Tynan. He watches closely as he climbs.
"Oh, you guys go help Ascaria! I'll watch this hole!"
Sol guards the hole while the others climb/explore.
Taking Tynan quite seriously, Mortimer positions himself in the blue tunnel preparing to break Tynan's fall if necessary.
Tynan makes short work of the climb, the chain providing solid handholds. The light of Ascaria's hairpin moves slowly and steadily upwards with Tynan's progress. Finally, Tynan makes a short jump from chain to ledge, and steadies himself, forty feet above the floor of the chamber.
Your light illuminates a narrow corridor, extending well beyond your sight. A young voice speaks into your left ear. "That's it... keep going..."
There appear to be several scratches along the floor, and walls, almost like scrapes.
"There's a corridor up here that goes deeper in. If anyone has a hammer and piton, I'll secure a rope to help anyone interested in joining me up here." Tynan pulls the coil of rope from his pack, and prepares to lower it down if anyone has the required items.
"Tie them onto the rope, and I'll pull them up."
Tynan sighs. I thought sure I'd remembered everything I'd need...
I can't stand heights.
Mortimer calls out to Pillette:
"Pillette -- we'll need Rickie and that grappling bolt!"
He draws in a deep breath attempting to overcome his trepidation.
When he gets to the top, he calls down: "I'll return for anyone I can carry who can't climb."
He collapses at the top in a pool of his own sweat.
Mort is currently too distracted to notice much of anything but that he's sitting in a corridor.
"Well, you did THAT the hard way." Tynan grins. "Do you have a hammer and piton? No need for you to try to carry folks up. In fact, I know we could steady the rope for someone as light as Pilette, even without one."
Well, at least I'm not alone up here any more...
In between pants, Mortimer manages to communicate.
"I lost the hammer. I do have a crowbar however. Maybe we can use that as the grapple -- or hammer for the bolt."
"That could work, I suppose. Let's give it a try."
Tynan keeps watch down the corridor, hoping nothing is attracted by the impending noise.
Sol continues to guard the hole, awaiting word of how the climbing goes.
As the larger folk discuss, the halfling efficiently ruffles through her pack to retrieve a hammer and pitons. "I've got five here, five more on the... ummm..." Whatever that beast is. "...on Thistle." She nods in thanks to Rae for animal's assistance is bearing essential supply. "We'll retrieve them if need be. However..."
Hearing Mort's urging, Pillette slips reaches back and carefully selects a grappling bolt.
After tying off the slim, silk rope to the special bolt, she loads it into her crossbow and aims for the ledge above. "Step back, Sirs."
Satisfied with the result, she waits for Mort or Tynan to make sure it's well set before working her way up the rope.
She looks over the group, none appearing to be overly encased in metal. "The rope might be enough. I don't think we'll need the pitons. But if we do, we can retrieve the others and space them at 4' or so."
"I'm sure we'll be fine. Come on, Sol. There's this interesting space up here to explore." Rae calls her sister, and waits for her to head up before following.
Tynan makes sure the grappling hook is well set before Pilette ascends.
"I noticed these scratches along the floor and walls." Pointing them out to Pilette and Mort, he continues. "I heard the voice up here as well. It sounded excited that someone found this corridor. Still, the scratches seem odd up here."
The scratches are likely the result of something being jammed unsuccessfully into the face of the rock, while moving. The marks seem to indicate strength in depth at the start, up the corridor, with shallower depths as the marks point towards the start of the corridor, by the chain.
Pillette smartly places her grappling bolt, and Tynan looks it over for solid anchoring.
Sol moves over, giving up her vigil, and removes her shield. She intends to climb up last.