"30 feet won't pose too much of a problem, that's true. Let us go quickly then. The sooner we find Khonnir, the better for everyone." Fal heads out with the others, following Father Kyte towards the shore.
Llinellau glares at Tally for such an horrible suggestion while Cruodh's face slightly twitches at the mention of Brigh. He had not expected an elder of the Kellid nation to be worshiping a foreign goddess. But that only last and instant, the instant it takes for Cruodh to wonder what could have led a kellid to worhip this goddess. The gnome follows the others.
Being the frail old man that he is, Father Kyte walks with a hobbling gait, but does so with an energetic pace that is at the very least, not agonizingly slow. He leads the group back to the other side of town, but soon takes everyone off-road, instead walking along the riverbank. While the water in Crowfeather Lake was almost crystal clear, the water flowing here is cloudy and brown. The water gives off an odor not unlike that of rotten eggs, an odor that only grows stronger as the group gets closer to the source.
Soon enough, the party reaches Weeping Pond, a small body of water surrounded by a crescent-shaped escarpment. Though the land in and around Torch is fairly verdant, this area in particular is devoid of plant life. There is a strange stillness to the pond, which is obviously unable to support any kind of life.
"Here we are," Father Kyte remarks, his nose wrinkled. With a nod he approaches the members of the group one by one, gently tapping them each on the shoulder with his brass rod. The gears engraved on it give off a soft glow as he bestows everyone with the with the ability to breathe underwater. He then makes a second round, giving Tally's head a quick scratch of familiarity, but being reasonably more cautious with Llinellau Haul and Dar'Shyn.
"Well, that should do it," he says with a smile, slipping the rod back into his tool pouch. "Those spells should last for a few hours. But should they expire while you are down there, I am afraid that you will have to find your own way out." Looking at Era, his smile wavers, and he hesitates before continuing. "I, ah, recommend coming back to the surface whenever the opportunity presents itself. If only to reassure the townsfolk that have not all gone missing - morale is low enough as is."
"Thank you kindly Father. We'll do our best not to go missing." He wrinkles his nose at the pool and quickly pulls out a handkerchief to stuff his nose before he gets any closer. If he's going to go into that, at least he's not going to smell it at the same time. He huffs a little and starts to wade into the water. He had always preferred to be above the water, rather than in it, but there was no helping it.
Dar'shyn growls at the unfamiliar priest trying to touch him, but Anna says, "I law, Dar'shyn," firmly and he stops, though he is still tense at the contact. Once he is done, she again thanks him for her blessing.
Anna frowns at the sight of the pool. "Whatever cursed things lay below must have cursed the water here. Disgusting."
She takes a deep breath, a gesture largely made unnecessary due to the blessing from Father Kyte, and wades into the water. "Sawdl, Dar'shyn," she calls, and after some hesitation, her great wolf follows her in. Once she is waist deep, she scratches her wolf on the top of the head reassuringly before diving in and seeking out the entrance.
"Heel."
"Thank you again, Father Kyte," Fal says as she begins to head into the water.
She doesn't seem to hesitate at all on the shore, stepping into the water boldly, even though through her mask she can still make out a whiff of its sulfurous smell. As she submerges completely, she stops and tenses up as her mask itself fills with water. It was, after all, primarily to keep out dust and poisonous gases, not water.
Once it has filled, she presses on forward into the water towards the entrance, not quite swimming so much as simply walking on the bottom.
Cruodh accepts the blessing from councillor Kyte with a nod of respect, which is reluctantly mimicked by Llinellau. And, while the others one by one dive into the lake, the gnome shaman takes the time to properly thank the old man.
”We thank you for your help and this blessing from your goddess. We will do our best to bring back Khonnir as well as the flame to the town. And, although I cannot promise that we will be quick, I will keep in mind the people of this town. May the spirits guard your steps.“
As a salute, Cruodh once again brings his left fist to his right shoulder.
Cruodh then turns around to face the lake, and after a nod to his weasel companion, he walks into the lake. Once he is waist deep, he dives in.
"Thank you, Father. I will be going now." she says, but pauses.
"I am likely to need aid, as I have never swam before." Era says to the others, before staring down at the water for a few moments, as the others begin to get in. Her faces screws up slightly, before she pauses and her hands follow a few quick, practiced motions. "Lumină" she intones, as she holds her tattoo'd hand in clear view. When she's done, the glove on her other hand glows with the light of a torch. Finally, she moves down into the murky water, wincing at the squelching noise as her feet get wet. Tally tugs at her hair for a bit, changing the colors of a few strands, which manages to distract her enough to move forward.
The first moment her head dips below water is deeply disorienting, and Tally's attempts to guide her in the proper direction with her only disorient her further, leaving her flailing. After a moment, she gets her bearings, and tears her eyes open against the burning long enough to swim further.
With Father Kyte's blessing, the party dives into polluted depths of Weeping Pond. It is not at all a pleasant experience; the chemicals in the water burn your eyes and make your skin tingle. Thanks to the priest's spell it is breathable, but only in the sense that you are not drowning outright. Those of you not holding your breath quickly discover that the water tastes bitter beyond all belief.
The murkiness of the water makes visibility very poor, but with Wrixx taking the lead, you are all able to find the entrance to the underwater tunnel. Inexperienced swimmers that they are, Cruodh and Era initially struggle to keep up, but the water breathing spell gives them all the time they need to get their bearings straight. You make your way through the dark tunnel, which gently slopes upwards for about forty-five feet before opening into an air pocket.
Reaching the water’s surface one by one, you find yourselves within a large cave, with a stalactite-covered ceiling that rises up to 10 feet. Dampness clings to the foul-smelling air, condensing into heavy moisture on the cave’s stone, slick 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. Outside of the tunnel, the water averages only two feet deep.
You soon realize that Era’s light spell is not the only source of illumination in the cavern. Littering the beach are the carcasses of several gigantic beetles, each about the size of an average housecat. Some of them appear to have been smashed into pieces, but those that are more intact emit a bright, green-yellow glow through two holes on their carapaces.
Wrixx drags himself out of the water and dry heaves a few times, his stomach rolling. "Ugh. And we have to swim out through that too..." He gags again and doubles over. "Give me a minute please."
”No need to worry Era, with this blessing you’ll able to walk at the bottom of the pond.” Cruodh says, right before he follows the human into the water.
Water was not the element Cruodh was most comfortable with. He had swum a few times in shallow ponds or lakes, but never really had the chance to perfect this skill. Living in a land locked village really did not help. And now, the taste and stinging sensations made it worst. Interesting, but worst and enough to prevent aiding Era as he himself spent . So, when Era experiences difficulty of her own, Cruodh is just too far behind to help in any way.
Still, the gnome manages and, as soon as he emerges in the cavern, his weasel companion scurries on the ground rolling itself around to try and get the water off his skin. Though less frantic, Cruodh robs his eyes with his sleeve, to little effect, and combs his hair back with his hand. His sight cleared, the shaman, takes out his longspear and slowly advances forward on guard.
Tally looks around with interest at the room that they found themselves in. She absently flutters down to pick at one of the corpses, testing whether or not its inner meats were tasty, while simultaneously the water began to roll off her feathers vigorously. While she feasted, she kept her eyes on Dar'shyn, fully expecting it to share its bounty of moist fur at any moment's notice. Dogs were the worst. After Tally was dry, Era's hair was next, then each member of the party, in alphabetical order, before the process began anew, targeting their clothing. While the two-legs spoke and planned, she would eat, and once they were ready to go, she would flutter back to Era, cleaning her beak, before returning to the process of spreading comfort amongst the group.
"Mmmm, fire beetles." Era says, absently. She watches the ratfolk with a small amount of curiosity. "The water was harsh to breathe. Perhaps next time it would be best to hold our breath. It tasted strongly of smelting smoke, if you stay near the city you will grow accustomed in time."
Fal climbs out of the water and moves off to the side for a moment. Turning away she removes her mask carefully, dumps the water out, and hangs it from a loop on her belt. There wasn't much else she could do given that it had filled with the toxic water they'd gone through. Lowering her hood she whips her coat off in one smooth motion and snaps it, giving a wet crack and sending water spraying to the floor. With the coat gone, her shoulder-length platinum hair is visible, as is the pale and slightly unnaturally grey skin of her shoulders. She reaches up and wrings out her hair briefly before Era's magic does the work for her, drying her off completely.
"Thank you Era," she says, turning around for the briefest of moments, revealing the face of a normal human female, apart from the odd skin tone. Her lavender eyes flash briefly to each of the others in turn before she turns away again, donning her coat, raising the hood, and replacing her mask efficiently. "I would appreciate candor from all of you regarding my appearance and identity," she says after she turns around. This was an abnormal situation to begin with, but she felt this was clearly the better option than attempting to aggressively hide her appearance, especially with Morgan and Anna being seemingly hostile members of her race. Since most people couldn't tell an android from a human up front, they were more likely to assume unusual heritage as a human, than that she wasn't human to begin with.
Grabbing her spear off the ground, she falls in behind the small gnome. "Keep an eye out for those creatures we were warned about," she says, honestly not remembering the name. Looking around, she finds it easy to see within the cavern, her eyes having been designed to function both in low-light and darkness with ease.
"Can-dor?" Anna repeats, unfamiliar with the word. Dar'shyn follows her out of the water, and with a low whine, begins to shake itself aggressively, spraying everyone with wet dog. Anna doesn't seem to notice or mind, following up with an aggressive shake of her own hair, her blue tribal paint running down her face. The wolf miserably sits next to her, whining softly.
"Mae'n ddrwg gen i, Dar'shyn," she murmurs, scratching behind his ears. Drawing Dilynwyr, she peers around the cavern, but quickly loses interest when she doesn't notice anything untoward. "Dar'shyn, chwiliwch," she commands, and the wolf stops whining and starts sniffing at the air, his ears flicking and forth hoping to detect some unheard sound.
"I'm sorry, Dar'shyn."
"Dar'shyn, seek."
Tally quickly hops away from Dar'shyn when it starts to shake, just as she'd expected. Stupid furball.
She continues doing her job with a friendly hoot to Fal when she's thanked, before continuing her meal.
"Should we carry on with our mission or do you feel yourself recovering?" Era asks of Wrixx as she investigates the beetles more closely. Could the chemicals be used for glowing ink, perhaps? Would they have some other purpose? She curses herself for not having brought phials down with them for samples.
The ratfolk shakes himself, splattering a little water from his fur onto the cavern floor. "I think I can see straight again. I just hope there's nothing more like that. Otherwise the rest of this little job is going to be miserable." He groans and looks around. "Don't let me hold us up any further. I can at least walk."
Asides from the dead beetles, there is little of interest on the sooty shores. However, you do find a few burnt up torches near scorch marks that dot the shore.
Thanks to Tally, everyone's hair and clothing is completely dried, though a slightly more tolerable sulfurous stink stubbornly clings you like a rank perfume. Given enough time to enjoy some "fresh" air after their dip in the pond, the sickening sensation that Wrixx and Dar'Shyn were feeling fades away.
Anna paces forwards a few feet and kneels down into the dirt. "Tracks headed towards the ledges. Humanoid. Old torches, here." She stands back up, unimpressed. "Many have come before us. This place will be filled with restless spirits, of that, I am sure. Come, let us go."
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Morgan shakes her hair free of the corrupted water as she emerges into the small underground cavern. She pulls her bonecarved hammer free from its sling and waits for the strange large-eyed bird to dry and clean everybody off. Bending down towards the tracks, she inhales deeply, trying to determine if any magic-users might have passed by recently.
Unfortunately, there are no real traces nearby, so she has no scents to go on.
As the conversation moves on to moving forward, Morgan moves to the forefront of the group. As a hunter and warrior, she is the most suited to her rightful place at the forefront of the group. Putting a clawed finger to her mouth to indicate quiet, she creeps ahead into the next chamber.
"While I doubt there are any 'spirits' here, proceeding with caution is ideal," Fal says. Fal falls in behind Morgan, giving her a good 20' ahead so that she can see what the orc-thing does, without being first in line should something happen, given the fact she doesn't wear armor.
Wrixx shakes himself again and moves forward, sticking a bit closer to the middle of the group. "Always good to have some reliable muscle."
Anna narrows her eyes at Fal's comment, but doesn't say anything. Typical southerners, only believing in what is directly in front of them. She trails behind, standing 10' behind Wrixx, hoping to protect the more vulnerable members of the party from a surprise ambush behind them. Dar'shyn remains loyally at her side, tense and alert for any danger.
Taking the lead, Morgan has little trouble quietly pulling herself onto the ledge. However, she quickly finds that she is no longer able to stand at her full height, the low ceiling forcing her to stoop low. A collection of stalactites and stalagmites choke the passage leading east, giving the impression of a maw of needlelike teeth bearing down on one another. Squeezing would be required for you to proceed further.
"Thanks tally."whispers Cruodh when his body and clothes are suddenly dried through magic. Successfully fighting the urge to inquire about the power of the owl and her magical power, the gnome remains on guard near the ledge. Finally, when everyone has climbed, he follows, keeping an eye on Anna.
Wrixx sticks close to the group, hauling himself up onto the next ledge as they move deeper into the cavern.
"I would not be quick to doubt, Fal. I am certain you have heard a material sing to you of what it wished to be at least once in your life. Inspiration? That is the spirit of it speaking to you." Era was clearly not Kellid, but somehow kellid influence had made it into her work on technology.
Tally bobs her head, fluttering up to the edge, and sitting in a shadowy corner.
"Watch out for traps." Cruodh responds with an audible whisper.
If the ledge is low enough, but still too high for him to climb on his own on all fours, Anna helps hoist Dar'shyn up the ledge. She then follows, hoisting herself up with her her strong arms. Once that is taken care of, she follows the others deeper into the cave complex. She glances at the stalactites and stalagmites, the jagged shadows they cast due to Era's light making them look even more like the jaws of some great worm. And for all Anna knew, that was what they were, once upon a time.
Morgan moves closer to the body, finding that it is that of a dead female half-orc, in the early stages of decay. Scavengers of various sizes have already started to pick at the corpse, and beneath the sulfurous odor in the previous chamber, you pick up on the stench of death.
Anna's nose wrinkles when she picks up a waft of the dead body further up the passage. She glances at Dar'shyn, keeping an eye on her partner's body language. Whoever killed this person may still be close by, and her companion would likely hear or smell an unseen predator before she saw them. And they were likely intelligent - a beast would not leave a perfectly good kill uneaten, and in the open for others to steal.
Squeezing her way through the tight passage, she first turns the body over, looking for any valuables or weaponry that would be worth scavenging. Then, she looks for any signs or tracks left behind by the half-orc's murderer. She assumed anything she found would simply lead deeper into the caverns, but perhaps she could glean information about their size or shape, or if they attacked alone or in a group.
Fal takes a few attempts to scramble up onto the ledge before making it onto the ledge. She moves quickly to rejoin the others after making it to the top. Squeezing through the gap behind the others, she steps forward to examine the body.
"That is Parda, she'd fallen in with the wrong sort recently. She was a good person otherwise. I can't imagine how she would've wound up here, however."
"And wound up dead for that matter," Wrixx says, glancing forward at the corpse. "It must have been one of the things lurking down here. Let's take care not to end up like that." His eyes dart around the chamber, checking for signs of ambush.
Anna searches Parda's pockets, but comes up empty. Asides from the leather armor she is wearing, she is carrying nothing of value.
Anna frowns, kneeling down to close her eyes. Her grandmother had taught her that a body left with its eyes open would not be able to sleep, and could become a restless spirit in death. "Hm. Her body should be returned to her people, when we are leaving this place," she says, making sure to keep her voice low, lest it reverberate through the caves. Straightening back up, she adjusts her grip on her axe. "What do you make of this, dynan?" she asks the gnomish shaman, looking down at him.
Dynan = "little kellid" literally. An endearing term, rather than an insulting one.
Cruodh nods in agreement at Anna's statement regarding returning the body.
"It is a sign of danger for sure." Cruodh answers with a gravely whisper, apparently not picking up on the term Anna used. The shaman passes a hand through his hair eyes looking toward the ceiling as he things before he gazes back on his fellow Kellid.
"Fal, you said she had fallen with the wrong kind, was she part of the expeditions sent down here? What other reason would there be for someone to come... Morgan, anything else ahead?" Cruodh continues whispering.
"Danger was a certainty before we arrived." Era says, flatly, not looking at the body and instead averting her eyes towards the depths that awaited them. Hunched over as she was, the entire thing was very awkward. "If we are attacked here, we will be at an extreme disadvantage. Two handed weapons are not meant to be used in this sort of location." she informs them, hoping to usher them towards less cramped conditions. "Underground specimens would not be uncommon, and would likely be valuable. Did she disappear before Khonnir left?"
"I hadn't heard she was involved," Fal says, thinking back. "Perhaps someone decided there was something to be earned by sending someone in after Khonnir's group? Can anyone hazard a guess as to how long she has been dead? That would be helpful in determining what she might have come for."
Era gives the body a cursory glance and then shakes her head. She'd never dealt much with the living, much less the dead.
It happens so quickly and quietly that you see it only by chance - a smooth, gray humanoid head briefly peeks around the corner, peering into the cave your party currently resides in.
"I can't tell you much about her state... I've never spent much time with the death. My tribe has been in the past few decades, no one's body has been left in the open for much time." says Cruodh, as his gaze returns to the surroundings, looking for any possible traps.
"We should continue moving for now," she says to the others, gesturing deeper into the cave. "When we return we can retrieve her body and take it with us."
Without anything further to gain from the half-orc's body, Anna stands up straight (well, as straight as she can manage in the tight cavern) and peers around. Whatever it was that killed this woman was certain to be lurking somewhere nearby.
"Dar'shyn, chwiliwch," she murmurs. The wolf snaps to attention, his ears darting this way and that.
"This woman was not prepared. We will not repeat her mistakes. Come, let us move forwards. We must find this skymetal door the elders spoke of. Wrixx, dynan, Era, I will watch your backs."
"And I have your back Anna." Cruodh adds right after his fellow Kellid.
As Cruodh passes the dead woman, he lays a hand on her forehead and whispers:"Rest in peace in the knowledge that we will bring you back to your people."
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Era follows after the others, keeping light present and available for those who had difficulty seeing. She kept perhaps too much focus on the stalactites and stalagmites, wondering what minerals they were made up of.
"I doubt they're going to be the last one we find dead in here," Wrixx says with a sigh as he hurries to keep up with the party.