The three mongrels move to stand behind Rowena to listen to her short funeral rite. Drya is openly weeping, her sobs muffled by her disfigured face. As Meriui speaks, Lann looks over his shoulder, his strange half-reptilian face expressionless.
"We expect you to stare. Just be polite as you are and we will be fine." Lann's eyes move to Horgus, who has done nothing to hide his open disgust. "That goes for all of you."
"I, for one, look forward to meeting your tribe. I hope we can be of service to each other."
Sarkast hefts his gear and is ready to move on.
The room you are in has at least six exits, but thankfully the mongrels have a good idea of where to go and the group strikes out to the southeast. Aravashnial, having recovered from his scolding, begins to ask the mongrels a few questions and after around fifteen minutes of walking he is an unending torrent of inquiries. It is after he starts to ask about mating habits that Anevia whacks him with her makeshift cane. Horgus simply lurks near the back of the group, muttering about how nobody can trust the bastards to Jinxx, the only member of the group who will listen.
Crel scouts ahead of the group, creeping silently along with Sarkast. After something like a half an hour, Crel lets out a bark of frustration.
Ahead, a wide chasm splits the tunnel floor. The floating rock dust in the air and the groans as the tunnel walls settle indicate the tunnel split recently.
The party moves a little closer and shine their lights on the chasm. It is 10 feet across. The light spells do not reach the bottom but Crel guesses it is around 30 feet deep.
When Crel called out, Ayesha saw that the ground in front of them was crumbled away. She looked left and right to asses the extent, then down into the chasm. It wasn't that wide, maybe ten feet across, and she should be able to jump it easily. Of course, there was no way to for Anevia or Aravashnial to make the jump.
"What if a couple of us jump the chasm with some ropes? We could lower people down from this side, then haul them up the other. That way we can safely traverse this without undue risk." She firmly settled her backpack on her shoulders, grabbed her scimitar in one hand, nd took off with light steps. she ran ahead teen feet, then launched herself across the gap. She landed lightly just beyond the chasm's far edge.
Sarkast nods. "Agreed. I even have some equipment to help."
The Kellid scout unslings his pack and pulls out a length of fine rope made of braided silk, along with a grappling hook and a set of small poles that he slots together into a single 10 foot length.
He ties off the rope, then turns to the group. "Thora, can you see the bottom to ensure it is safe before we begin? If it turns out going to the bottom isn't possible, there should be enough rope to allow us to make a sling and ferry everyone over."
"That's a marvelous idea, Ayesha. I'll help as best I can. After we get a couple across, you might have to come back and stay on this side until everyone else is across, though."
Rowena kicks a rock into the chasm, waiting to hear the inevitable "thud" of rock hitting ground. The sound never comes.
"Long drop down there...Thora, what do you see?"
Thora wanders over and looks into the chasm.
"Dark down there," she says ponderously. "I see plenty of dark."
Thora peers over the edge of the chasm. It goes down around 30'. A skilled climber could probably make it.
Anevia limps her way over to Sarkast, eyeing his gear warily. "So... what kind of ideas do you have? No way I can climb that."
"Our choices are to lower you down one side, then lift back up the other, or to make a sling, run the rope straight across, and pull you from one side to the other. Does either sound better to you?"
Anevia sighs miserably. "I'm really [i]good[i/] at climbing when I have both legs. Lower me down, that seems best. Although a sling sounds pretty fun..."
Jinxx makes a low growl sound and starts running and makes a leap to the other side.
"Jinxx, what the hell I didn't tell you to do that!!" Ronan looks around to everyone else and says "Well he made it, we can throw him a rope."
Ayesha took her rope from her pack and began tying knots in it every 2-3 feet. It didn't take long, and she tied a stirrup in the bottom end of the rope in cases anyone needed to be hauled up. She looked over at Horgus and tied another hand stirrup about 5' up the rope. Then she anchored the grappling hook in the stone before her and tossed the loose end of the rope into the chasm.
Sarkast mirrors Ayesha's actions. Once done, he looks around. "Alright, who wants to be first? We should work it out so that we have enough strength on each side as needed. Those of us who can make the leap may need to go back and forth to help out."
The three mongrels grab the anchored rope with a lot of extra slack, and take turns leaping across the gorge, ensuring they can hold onto the rope in case they fall. This means Sarkast, the three mongrels, and Jinxx are on the opposite side.
Anevia makes her way over to the chasm and haul up a rope before hooking her good foot into a stirrup, shouldering her bow, and hanging on tight.
"Alright, lower me down!"
Meriui will simply spend time working with the rope until one of the skilled jumpers tells him otherwise.
Ayesha and Sarkast's system works perfectly. With the knotted ropes set up on either side, traversing the chasm becomes relatively easy for everyone. Aravashnial and Anevia go through a nerve-wracking experience of being lowered down, clinging to another rope, and being dragged up. Anevia bangs her leg against the side of the chasm repeatedly, which draws a few yelps of pain but otherwise she is unharmed.
Horgus takes a good twenty minutes to descend and climb back up the other side, the 30 feet of climbing being far more than his body has ever handled. He collapses, gasping like a fish on the other side while the rest of the group carefully climb down and up.
With everyone in place and Horgus somewhat recovered, the group gathers their gear and heads off towards Neathholm.
-----
As the group travels, they come by a caved-in tunnel which draws a curse from Lann. He mentions a second way and leads the group further on. Around twenty minutes later, they reach a circular cavern. With Sarkast scouting ahead, he sees no danger and the group approach the edge.
The group stand at the edge of the cavern, their light flooding in. Thick sheets of fungus grow in the cave, and several tunnels branch off. All of these save one in the north wall lead downward; the northern one leads upward. What appear to be two dead bodies lie on the ground in the middle of the cave, next to a strange heap of ropy green fungus.
"Beware," says Lann, pointing out the plant. "The spore-cougher lies ahead."
The plant is a basidirond, a dangerous underground plant noted for spores that cause powerful hallucinations.
You now all stand at the entrance to the cave. What do you do?
Rowena spots the bodies and fights an urge to run toward them to pray for a safe journey. The fungus looks nasty.
"Do the spores eject at a high range? Will we be safe if we simply inch our way around?"
"Let's just go in. This pussyfooting around takes too much time. And I, for one, couldn't ever show my face on the surface again if anyone found out I was afraid of some stupid mushroom."
Thora glares at the fungus as though it once gave her a bad haircut.
"Besides, we shouldn't leave those two just lying there for all eternity. Or for however long it takes the fungus to eat them."
She stumps off toward the bodies, holding her breath.
"I don't think that's a good--" Lann gives up as Thora charges into the room.
Still holding her breath, Thora makes her way over to the bodies to examine them. It doesn't take long to get over to the dangerous fungus and the bodies. The fungus remains inert as she approaches, and on closer inspection appears to have been cut in half.
Lying down beside the fungus are two bodies with crazed, wild-eyed stared fixed on their faces. They appear to be crusaders of Iomedae according to their garb, armed with spiked gauntlets and glaives.
This is an odd choice of weapon for Iomedean crusaders, who almost exclusively use longswords.
Wide-eyed, Horgus watches Thora enter the room. He grips Meriui's shoulder.
"If she goes mushroom-crazy, can you take her down?"
Sarkast watches Thora as she moves in. He tenses up, preparing to hold his breath and run in to grab her if anything happens.
Crell stares at the spore-cougher for a moment before calling out.
"It's not throwing out spores! It should let out a big burst around now! You may be fine!"
In response to Horgus:
"Why? Do you think she'll target you specially?" Meriui sighs. As he continues, he indicates the rest fo the group. "My apology. If it comes down to it, I think that WE can stop her without anyone suffering too badly. I'm uncertain if that's what you were asking, though."
After Crell's call:
Meriui raises his voice and calls out to hora "Can you pull them free? To clear ground?"
Rowena inches toward Thora and the spores. She must pray for those soldiers. She stands next to Thora, and notices that the stores are slashed in half.
"Maybe they're deactivated somehow...Perhaps it is a sign from Pharasma to continue this journey and put these dead to rest." Rowena takes out a half-rotten wooden relic and prays over the dead.
Rowena strides into the room, breathing the air but nothing happens. Thora lets out her breath and begins gasping for air. It seems that the fungus was killed. The mogrels seem quite relieved and make their way into the room.
"We're almost there!" says Lann happily. "With the spore-cougher dead this is a new, safe way open to Neathholm."
Rowena begins her rites over the dead, and notices a small symbol on a chain in the fist of one of the dead men. It is brass bull's head with tiny red gemstone eyes.
This is an unholy symbol to Baphomet, the Demon Lord of Minotaurs. His followers are known for forming secretive cults to dabble in politics.
Thora gasps, sucking in as much air as possible. Then she turns and beams at Horgus and Meriui.
"See? Nothing to worry about. I knew that the whole time! It's because I'm a dwarf. We know this sort of thing by... what's the word? It's inbred? Yeah. Inbred. My knowledge is inbred."
The party advances on the bodies to investigate them. Meriui immediately spots the symbol and recognizes it as a symbol of Baphomet, Demon Lord of Minotaurs. Anevia looks horrified, but when it is brought up Aravashnial lets out a whoop of joy.
"Yes! I was right! I knew there were cultists of Baphomet in Kenabres. Nobody believed me and here they are right here! We need to bring these bodies with us so they can be identified. Imagine what we can uncover!"
Anevia looks over the bodies, white-faced.
"Oh Goddess, Irabeth may be in danger... we need to keep moving. The cultists may have struck at the true crusaders during the attack!"
"Cultists of some Femon Lord?" Rowena looks concerned over the bodies. She frowns.
"What exactly would we uncover if we brought these bodies with us? Anevia may be right..."
"So they can be identified? What do you expect to gain by having us carry two decomposing corpses with us as we continue to climb our way to the surface? We can take the unholy symbol with us for proof, and provide testimony about how it was found. I don't know how much effort to identify these corpses we should expect. Things were not going well up there when we fell through the crevasse. I expect that whoever is in charge right now has their hands full with many more urgent problems."
"Meriui is right taking the bodies with us would be to much, the symbol is proof enough, also the faster we can get moving the better I say. Lets move on to where Crell and Lann's people are. Maybe we can have a bit of a rest there and push on in the morning."
Sarkast nods. "I agree. We should not burden ourselves. Say any prayers you feel are needed, but then allow the dead to care for the dead. We must see to the living."
Aravashnial shakes his head rapidly, the blind ruin of his eyes looking slightly off-centre from the rest of the party.
"If we can identify who these people are we can find more cultists! Don't you see? This is proof that there's a massive conspiracy - one I've been trying to uncover for a while! But I suppose I'm not going to be the one carrying the body. Still, we should search them for more evidence."
"It is blasphemous to search bodies like they're some kind of...pawn shop!" Rowena frowns. "We must move on. I have prayed over these dead. They are in good hands now."
"But it's not like they need whatever they've got on them now," Thora complains.
"Sure, their souls are in good hands, but their stuff is just laying here! They might have more clues about them. Or if they have some nice weapons, we don't want those falling into the hands of our enemies, y'know? It might be more blasphemous just to leave it here."
She starts poking at a body.
"You have obviously not been to war. You do not leave things that you need on the battlefield. That means that you search the dead for intelligence you can use against their side. You can search a corpse while respecting the person it used to be. Discussions about doing this were part of my training."
The bodies of what the party now presumes are the two cultists are searched thoroughly. The following is found:
- Two masterwork chain shirts
- A potion of cure light wounds
- A divine scroll
- Another, different divine scroll
- 194 gold, 3 silver
- two glaives
- two spiked gauntlets
- unholy symbol of baphomet
If sold, the unholy symbol would be worth around 50 gold.
Ronan picks up the scrolls to see what they are.
A quick read magic spell, and Ronan identifies the scrolls as cause fear and comprehend languages. However, as both scrolls are divine they can only be cast by a practitioner of divine magic. Rowena or perhaps Meriui could use them.
Ayesha eyes the chainshirts with an admiring look. "I could use one of these chain shirts, if no one else needs it. It might help deflect a blow I can't dodge fast enough. And the potion will likely be useful before we get out of here."
"Could someone maybe claim one of the other shirts? I seem to be accumulating a lot of, er, inventory. I could probably set up my own store once we leave this place. Also, I would kill an orc with my bare hands for another turkey leg."
Thora chews her lip and points at the glaives.
"I'm not carrying those."