Kyte frowns. "Rest assured, friend, the spell will not fail. However, it lasts but a short time and you and your fellows would do well to keep an eye on the hour of your return."
He looks around the group. "And, while I admire your sense of urgency, it will probably take several forays into the caves to map and clear them and to discover the point where Khonnir took whatever step he took into the unknown. Bear in mind he was already quite familiar with the early part of the cave. I refer you to my earlier comments about the importance of acquiring knowledge. Nevertheless, nothing is achieved standing here debating it. Well then, shall we go to the lake?"
"If we do become trapped, worry not. The spirits can provide me with similar magic for breathing water, though it would take time to prepare."
"Spirits? I have not heard of such superstition conferring genuine magical aptitude," Tio notes, though she clearly speaks more to her own curiosity than any suspicion. "We possess an emergency alternative then? Excellent. Though I would prefer we do not find need of it at all."
Arkady nods as he looks at Tio and Onna. "The wise woman of my clan claimed a similar connection to the earth and its spirits, though I did not possess the aptitude to sit at her feet to learn more of it. Her insight and gift with healing arts seemed to be enhanced by this claim, and so there was no reason to doubt off ts truth."
"It is a fool who doubts the spirits' power," Onna remarked. Like Tio, she seemed to be simply stating a fact, rather than expressing any malice toward the arcanist. To Onna, spirit-magic was simply a way of life.
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"Or places blind faith in the unknown," Tio added smoothly, still wearing a smile. "Though I am sure to be enlightened."
Father Kyte takes a cloak from a nearby hook and wraps it around himself. "Well, then, follow me," he says.
The road from the Temple runs around the base of black hill and to the right, along to the imposing building that is the Crowfeather Palace, the construction erected by Kyte and by Khonnir Baine to purify the tainted waters of Crowfeather Lake and to supply water to the growing town. The structure is a tall and impressive agglomeration of high metal tubes, combining a matte grey with polished chrome, reflecting the placid waters of the lake and giving the building the shape that lends it its name.
"Wait here one moment, please." says the priest. He hurries inside a chamber at the base of the Palace and emerges with a large collection of leather sacks, coated in some way as to make them shine. He's also carrying a rod of some kind, made of smooth wood and with runes written along the side. He hands the bags to the adventurers.
"These bags have been coated with pitch, so that they're waterproof, for a time at least. Khonnir and I spent a good few days preparing them for the expeditions, so keep good care of them; they're not expensive to make but they're not free either. They'll protect paper and other perishables for around 10 minutes before you have to worry about the water getting in. Now, let's get to the Weeping Pond"
The Weeping Pond sits further round the base of the hill, along a shallow stream that follows to the north-west from Crowfeather Lake. The pond is a far smaller body than Crowfeather, and is separated from the surrounding area by a crescent-shaped escarpment. No vegetation grows by its banks, and the waters carry a bitter stink of sulphur and other chemicals, so that the adventurers' eyes begin to sting as they stand by its shore.
Father Kyte takes the rod and, while holding it in both hands, chants a brief supplication to the goddess Brigh. As he does so, the rod glows slightly. He then touches each of the adventurers on the forehead, tracing with his finger the symbol that adorns the forehead of Brigh, on her worshippers' masks. As he does so, the individual in question feels a tingling at the base of his or her chest.
When done, the priest turns to the group. "You can now breathe underwater; the spell will last until it's time to return. Don't cut it too close, of course. Khonnir said the tunnel is around 45 feet long and totally submerged. You can get to it through the cave over there."
He points to a dark cave at the edge of the escarpment.
"The best of luck to you, and may our mistress of invention bless and watch over you. I will wait here for your return, and be assured that I shall pray on your behalf."
He steps back, and sits against the escarpment with his cloak wrapped tight around him.
Seeing no need to delay, Onna checks her weapons and equipment to ensure nothing will come loose in the water. That the water is tainted is obvious, though she does not suffer the same discomfort as the others. Ensuring that Ôka, her skunk companion, is secured, she wades into the water and begins to swim ahead, checking as she does to make sure that the little animal can breathe as well. The darkness beneath the water's surface does not impede her, and she does her best to swim directly through the submerged passage.
Arkady also ensures that his belongings are secured and as waterproof as possible. He up strapped the longsword and scabbard from his belt and dives wades into the tainted water. Despite the breathing spell placed on him, he instinctively takes a breath before ducking his head under the surface and takes a test breath. Satisfied that the spell is indeed in place, he spies the kicking feet of the spirit talker as she makes her way to the underwater cave entrance and he begins to swim forward toward it also.
Once her various perishables and spellbook are tucked neatly into one of the waterproof bags, Tio dares to first test the water with her fingers, the consistency appearing to her a touch more oily and befouled than she had previously anticipated. If she has any measure of disgust for the stinging pool, then Rust overshadows it, squawking nervous objections--"Ni allwch fod yn ddifrifol. Ydw i'n edrych fel pysgodyn?! Ni fydd fy gwddf goroesi!"--as Onna and Arkady disappear beneath its surface.
He isn't able to complain for long however, as Tio plucks her Raven from the air and plainly walks, deeper and deeper, till the buoyancy of her body and gear keep her from fully submerging.
From under her fist, Rust's metallic neck gives off a lone, arcane spark. "Peidiwch â ydych yn meiddio--"
The raven finally silenced by the Weeping Pond's murky water, Tio blinks a little, letting herself sink, watching bubbles float back to the surface as her lungs steadily fill. A moment later the floundering raven bobs into her vision and (more by accident than intent) kicks a wing abstractly towards the fluttering feet of those swimming ahead.
Onwards it is, the Android decides, discourteously dragging her feathered companion in tow.
"Don't you dare--"
Ulok stands puzzled as he gathers his belongings in his waterproof bag. "How does that spell work? Does it change lungs into gills, or perhaps changes the water into air as it enters the lungs? Hmm, no matter. I guess that's why I've always had more of a talent with mechanisms than magic..."
Thüm wrinkles his nose at the stinking water. "Foul well no dog would drink from, but we will breathe it? Faugh." He wades into the cave, his muttered curses muffled when his head sinks below the surface.
Adrien walks up to Ozymandias, clamoring up onto the automaton's back with some amount of difficulty. "Alright, Ozzy. You ready to head down? We need to find Councilman Baine, and get that fire burning again." Adrien pats the robot on his one shoulder affectionately, holding his walking stick ahead of him.
"I am ready to descend," Ozymandias replies, and begins walking towards the rancid water. He does his best to keep Adrien out of the sludge unless fully submerged, but he otherwise moves through the water as fast as possible. Upon entering the caves from the water, Ozymandias crouches so as to allow Adrien down onto the ground easily.
With the aid of the spell, the party is able to breathe comfortably as it makes its way through the tunnel, but even so the contaminated water leaves a nauseating taste in the mouth.
At the end of the tunnel is a cavern, about 10 feet high. Dampness hangs in the air of this cave, condensing into heavy moisture on the slick, stone walls. The calm, dark waters wind around to the east up north, along a stony, soot-scarred beach. A five-foot-high ledge sporting several stalagmites rises to the east, beyond which a low-ceilinged cave beckons.
The air is bitter and stinks of mould and vinegar, but it is breathable despite its unpleasant flavour. The water here averages about 2 feet in depth. There's a bubbling to the north of the cavern from what seems to be a submerged spring.
The cavern is surprisingly light, even without torches - the light seems to emit from cracks and crevasses in the wall. There are minor scorch marks on the stone banks, running alongside the stream.
Bent over, Thüm hacks water from his mouth and nose into the pool. Still gagging, he takes a waterskin from his pack and drinks thirstily from it, then inhales a mouthful and coughs it up again. "Gah! Better now. Friends share water?" He offers the bag to the people in arm's reach--Onna, Adrien, Ulok.
"First thing is to..." He draws a deep breath, swelling his chest, then bellows mightily down the strangely lit passage, "KHONNIR BAINE!" He pauses, listening to the echoes and for a reply, then shouts again, "KHONNIR BAINE! HEAR ME AND CALL OUT! YOUR DAUGHTER SENDS AID!"
Arkady emerges from the water, his translucent blond hair matted to his face and chin. As his eyes adjust to their environment, he spies a number of tracks leafing to the ledge. "Appears that some number of folk have been through here. Made their way up the ledge and likely through them stalagmites there," he states, pointing at the tracks in the dirt.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Rust is first to exit from the water, his little prosthetics bleeding rancid liquid as the bird hops up the shore. A hurried attempt to shed the water from his wings proves distinctly unsuccessful, and so he relies upon more arcane gifts to do away with the scum and muck; a faint shimmer of violet energy that scrubs and warms as it goes.
Tio herself, once free of the pool, settles on merely wiping her sodden hair aside, awkwardly readjusting to the air, weight, and light of their surroundings. "Stalagmites?" she echoes, voice still water-clogged while her eyes follow Arkady's line of sight. "Ah. Stalagmites."
Onna clambers out of the water, shaking herself off. The first thing she checks is her skunk, who proves he is much more accomplished at drying himself, sending a shower of water onto everyone nearby. She politely declines Thum's offer of water. I've had enough water for one day, she thinks.
"He'll certainly hear that if he's anywhere near the entrance," Onna remarked. It did not occur to her that anything else lurking in the caverns might have overheard.
There's no reply from the caves to Thüm's call, it simply echoes through the distant caverns. On the other hand, it seems to be sufficient to disturb some local inhabitants of the current cave - three beetles, glowing oddly, crawl from the crevasses in the cavern wall, and move menacingly towards the adventurers.
Spinning around, Arkady stares down the length of his longsword at one of the strange glowing beetles that appears to be clicking it's mandibles at his companions and him. "What else does this town have under it? First it's walking contraptions and now glowing bugs," he exclaims incredulously, his raspy voice echoing faintly around the stony chamber.
Grabbing the sword in both hands, the dwarf grunts and steps toward the nearest bug, swinging the blade downwards.
"Strange lights and tainted waters breed foul creatures," says Thüm.
With surprising speed, the old man chops at a beetle before it can pull itself free of its crevasse, then moves to put the threat of his longaxe between the vermin and the frail members of the party.
Ulok draws and loads his sling.
"These are not native creatures?" Onna inquires. Focus. Remember the Hawk's lessons, she thinks to herself, recalling the many nights she has spent in communion with the Hawk Onna, the most ferocious warrior among her spiritual ancestors. She grabs her weighted spear with both hands, bringing the point down on the beetle's back.
Arkady, Onna and Thüm all react quickly to the beetle's arrival and quickly dispatch them. The lights from the crevasses are absent now, having been obviously provided by the beetles' fire glands; it looks as well like these were the last.
"They may very well be. Species unknown. Curiously high level of bio-luminescence, though." Tio answers Onna's question with an even tone, barely even aware of the sudden violence their party has befallen into as she narrows still to the stalagmite-ridden path ahead, water running from her sleeves as Rust begrudgingly turns his magic upon her person; if only to dry his perch at her shoulder. "Might make for an interesting fluid lamp."
Their apparent enemies quickly dispatched, the Android crooks her neck to the others, not at all bothered by the lack of light ahead. "I believe some additional exertion may be in order."
Onna quietly cleans off her spear. Her face doesn't show it, but inwardly, she's excited by her combat prowess so far. She's sparred with members of her tribe, but has little actual experience in battle.
Thüm grunts at Tiø's curiousity. He stoops down, cuts the luminescent organs from a beetle with his dagger, and passes them to the android. "Lamp to light way. Hold high, so Thüm has hands enough?" The barbarian hefts his poleax in one hand and grips a shortspear in the other. "Now follow we the footprints Arkady found."
The party scrambles up the wall and into the stalagmite forest, ensuring to reach back to help up the less agile members of the team.
A collection of stalactites and stalagmites choke this low-ceilinged cavern, making it difficult to squeeze between them. Matching stalactites close in from the five-foot-high ceiling, giving the impression of a maw of needle-like teeth bearing down on one another. A dead half-orc is sprawled on the ground near the cave’s eastern entrance.
"Passing this way may prove difficult, perhaps, especially with not knowing quite how deep these go. And it'd appear they may have claimed a toll already," Arkady says, nodding his bald head toward the corpse in the stalactites. "Were any of Khonnir's companions a half-orc by way of chance?"
"Might be from one of the other expeditions," Onna remarks, looking for a way forward through the cave formation.
Beyond the eastern entrance to the stalagmite cavern, you can see a further, high cavern, its ceiling dotted with tall stalactites, and hear the sound of the stream running alongside.
Ulok steps up to examine the body.
"Oh no... Parda? Is that you? By the Wound, how many times did I tell you not to get involved with them! You... you were always so much fun to be around..."
Ulok looks Parda's back over and swallows hard. "Her name's Parda Garr. She was a brawler in town, she and I would carouse at the Foundry on occasion. Everyone liked her, but she started hanging out with a bad crowd. They sometimes went into these caverns. They said it was for exploration, but I... was never so sure and didn't join them. Not sure I ever trusted them. And look... she was stabbed multiple times in the back. Looks like it was with a dagger, while she was running back to the entrance... No clue if it was from something down here or her new mates. Maybe both."
He wipes away tears as he whispers, "I'll avenge you, Parda."
Onna makes her way over to Ulok, placing a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry you lost a friend," she said. "She was a fighter - her spirit will be strong. It will find its way to the next life." Holding her hand above the body, she began to chant softly. "Spirits of the Garr clan, your daughter joins you. Welcome her, guide her, show her along the winding path. Parda, whether it be glory or peace you seek, may you find it."
Having thread a little spare wire about the luminescent glands handed to her, Tio stands dry as tinder, only now with something of a radiant halo bobbing ever so slightly above her head. From on high, Rust appears keen to spout complaints, but his focus is nevertheless kept on keeping the light up as instructed. The bird is perhaps not as knowledgeable as his ward but he is far from stupid, and gladly thinks the better of disappointing a gruff warrior with two weapons in his hands.
Coming across the body, Tio herself remains perhaps unusually mute. Bodies (at least those of humanoid creatures, she recognizes) are not things she is entirely used to seeing, and even then one would have to assume she ever has done before now. Observing things come to life by mortal means, whether magical or mechanical in nature, has never truly left the opportunity for it to strike her as strange; she is, in her present state, too young, and too accommodated with spellcraft and smiths of Brigh. But to see a thing (A person, she corrects herself, Made of flesh and nerves and bone) utterly deceased puts the faintest crease of confusion to Tio's brow, a feeling that only grows as Onna's curious ritual spills into her ears.
Bluntly put, Tio simply doesn't understand how to deal with something that cannot be repaired. Nor particularly wants to.
"Perhaps..." she muses, the word a little quieter than her usual monotone, neither wanting to interrupt nor let her own thoughts get the better of her, "If it is possible, later, to return this one to the surface? More than you would know her, Ulok?" The android leaves it at that, blinking stoically, uncertain of what else to say beyond suggestion to make progress before Khonnir is found in a similar state.
"We will bring her to her family on the surface. None deserve to be lost under the ground." Arkady's raspy voice is quiet, as if he is talking about more than just the unfortunate half-orc and her fate.
The party moves on into the next chamber - a dark cavern featuring a twenty-foot-high ceiling, thick with stalactites. A rocky shore overlooks a placid pool and stream, fed by a trickle of water leaking from a narrow fissure to the north. A small garden of toadstools and dark mould grows along the banks. There's something lying in the pool.
From the darkness at the end of the cave, a frog-like creature, short and stocky but with a general humanoid shape, tumbles into the cave and approaches the party threateningly. The creature bears a brand on its flank as well as a tattered leather hood that hangs in strips from its head. Beneath the hood, large, round, amphibion eyes glow bright in the darkness. It totters forward in a somewhat deranged fashion, but its intention is clearly malign.
"Har!" Quick to accept the creature's challenge, Thüm weaves past Arkady, past Oz, stepping to the side to give his allies a path. He prepares to cover their advance with his poleaxe, freeing up his spear hand simply by throwing the missile at the frog-thing.
Luckily, the explorers had gotten the drop on the creature. Onna joined Thüm in battle, bringing her weapon to bear on the amphibious newcomer. "So much for a warm welcome," she began, thrusting the weapon's point home with a grunt, "I wonder if Baine encountered this much resitance."
Looking the frog-thing over, Ulok muses, "I don't think this is what killed Parda."
He draws his sling and loads it.
Hearing the confrontation occurring on the other side of the cramped stalagmite cavern, Arkady moves through and gets his buckler out and in hand, drawing his longsword as he goes.