The small band of travelers bury the gruesome prize and remove the skin from the slain beasts before discussing their next course of action. The wind shifts and brings the fetid stench of the predators entrails to the members of the group. The Gnomeish wander considers what he knows of the Naerenth Forest.
The old gnome smiles to himself, hopeful that their search takes them to the fabled caverns. Perhaps I could be the one to map it. ‘Umros the Cartographer’... He ambles closer to Sparks and Tainesh, careful to stay clear of the tracks they inspect.
“Is the path clear, Clearpath? Heh. I had hoped for more clues here in the clearing, but such is life.”
Once a way is decided, the worshipper of the Wanderess keeps his gaze a little higher than normal, looking for birds in the branches.
"Right then," Langblade rests her hand on hilt of sword. "Lead on, Hunter."
The trail is old, but it's a trivial matter for the experienced woodself to note the broken limbs and trod underbrush. The group follows along behind her a pace, each with their own thoughts on the situation. The going isn't especially difficult, and the weather remains pleasant. But the group walks for several hours without finding anything of particular note.
The sun looks like it's about to begin settling behind the horizon when Sparks arrives at a small clearing next to a tall cliff. From where the five adventurers stand it appears to be about one-hundred feet high and stretches from the Southwest to the Northeast through the thickly wooded forest.
Strange that the birds would hide on such a nice day… Mildly disappointed, the small gnome stays near the middle of group, well aware that predators cannot resist the weak one that trails a pack.
As they come up to the rock face, the thrill of new places pounds the wanderer’s heart. Could this be the entrance to the caverns, or just a hidey-hole for bears? Already in a habit of looking up all day, he squints at some hanging vines nearby. His boot bumps the tip of the shortbow in his hand, and the string-hum in his palm reminds him of the crack shot he used to be. With a small smile, his fingers bring up an arrow, draws it along the bow, and slowly exhaling, releases.
"Is that a cav..." Sparks begins to ask when the familiar twang of a bow firing interrupts her question. In the blink of an eye she has her own bow in hand. "What is there?" she asks with concern as the arrow arrives at a target that she cannot spot.
Umros arrow flies through the air and appears to strike the rock face. But oddly it doesn't bounce off like one would think a metal arrowhead would do on stone. Instead it stays suspended about eye-height for a human, apparently stuck in something on the cliff face.
Closer examination reveals the object to be a wooden board, or plank nailed into the wall next to the, now apparent, cave entrance. In sun-faded lettering one can barely discern lettering in the common form of low-Elvish.
SIGN: Tahadhari athari hakuna eneo ramani
Caution hazard no map area
The diminutive Gnome is pleasantly surprised that, though his arrow failed to dislodge the board, it did cause some local birds to rustle out from their nests and take flight. The Cleric noticed some Sparrows, Finches, and at least one Raven. Ravens are known to have a long memory, though it's generally considered that they are more than insufferable.
“Well, now that's something… What do you make of this place?” the fighter asks, pulling the arrow from the sign and handing it back to Umros.
"I would suppose this is the home of those bears, but this far away? That seems very odd to me. I am not sure about the sign. That it is in Elven seems odd as well. Perhaps..." Sparks says, thinking for a moment.
Though... then again, she supposes it's just as likely somebody could post signs around any sort of place they don't want examined too closely...
As for the language, Sparks feels confident that all the main known languages of the world could be used in different areas. She thinks it would all just depend on the person writing it.
...no," Sparks says after a moment's thought. "I thought I remembered mention of similar signage from one I have hunted with but I was mistaken. Our only way forward would seem to be to enter the cave. I would like to volunteer, if no one has any objections. I can see fairly well in dim light and exploring new caves and tunnels is something I have enjoyed all my life," the elven maiden says with an excited gleam in her eyes.
As the others puzzle over the sign, the beladen gnome whirls and chases after the flying raven. He squawks once, twice, and the third one actually sounds very much like the caw of black birds. Waving his arms, he tries to get the attention of the raven, calling up in avistongue.
“You there! Wait! I have a sparklie for you if you answer my questions.”
It's been a long journey for people not acclimated to cross-country terrain, and Tainesh Ludor is covered in a layer of sweat, dirt, and pine needles. Her crossbow has acquired some true scars where she'd dropped it or plowed it into a tree trunk, and she's looking forward to a well-deserved night of rest.
"If you want to take the risk, feel free. The only spell I have that can be of any help to you is this."
Tainesh picks up a weather-worn stick and mutters "Lumos!" under her breath. A cantrip is called forth from her mind and entraps a sliver of arcane energy within bonds of her will. When the cantrip manifests in the stick, it shines like a lantern.
"There you are," the wizard says as she hands the torch over to Sparks. "It's good for twenty minutes... er, maybe we should wait until Umros finishes whatever he is doing?"
"This is wonderful, thank you," Sparks says, very gratefully. "I... I don't much like using torches... unless it is absolutely necessary," she admits.
"That's right, you can see further in dim light than Humans can," Tainesh says with a pang of jealousy. "I forgot Elves could do that."
"That... is true." Sparks replies, her grateful smile fading instantly to an unhappy frown. She takes a breath and then, realizing full well that she is not very good at hiding her emotions, offers an explanation. "...though it is more that I would rather carry a harmless glowing stick into an unknown situation than a lit torch that might cause additional trouble if accidentally dropped or mishandled."
The word 'harmless' sticks in Tainesh's mind and unlocks an idea. "What if I applied the spell to your bow?"
"As long as it would not hurt it," Sparks says, tentatively unhooking her custom designed, lovingly built, hand painted, masterwork, strengthened, composite longbow for Tainesh's inspection
One of the birds in the tree comes down and starts squawking at the Gnome
"Caw caw caw?"
Umros’ head moves in small, quick angles, twitching his gaze as many birds tend to do. He reaches into a pocket, and holds up his shiniest copper piece. He squawks back as he closes his hand around the treasure.
“Shiny I says! Is there a boy in this forest? In this cave? With a shiny woman?”
The bird Umros appears to be conversing with begins to bounce. "Caw caw caw caw, caw caw? Caw caw caw caw. Caw!"
Langblade raises an eyebrow as she watches the clearly insane Gnome prance about cawing at the heavens. Turning back to the rest of the group she considers Sparks offer and nods. "Better you than me if there's something nasty in there." She smiles wryly before finding a rock to sit on.
Umros blinks, surprised, but presses his cawing inquiry after offering another glimpse of the shiny copper coin.
After he hears an answer, he tosses the shiny coin onto a clear spot on the forest floor a few feet in front of him. Smiling at the raven’s impatience, he fishes out another copper coin, one that still catches the light, though less so than the first treasure he offered. He squawks again.
“Last question! Where are they?”
“More shiny for more speak?”
It regards the new, less shiny, coin somewhat dubiously after the clearly superior treasure has already been obtained. But, as it often does, greed wins out and the Raven replies.
The black bird flaps down to the ground then back up again.
"Caw caw caw? Caw caw caw."
You can almost see a mocking glint in it's eye.
"But you are looking for one, yes? Yes! For one! For one!"
The small gnome, already so close to the ground, considers lobbing a dirt clod up at the cawing raven. But the temptation passes and he squawks back.
“Yes! One in forest, many days ago, not with family. Where is he?”
Whatever Umros just said seems to agitate the bird as it freaks out for a couple minutes before standing stock still.
"Caw caw caw."
Almost as if it senses Umros' hidden desire it quickly adds;
"I don't know, but he might have gone in the cave."
It hops off the limb and swoops down towards the Gnome, grabbing for the coin with it's talons as it flies past. It flaps and picks up speed and flies out over the tree tops calling back;
"Might have! Might not! Might have! Might not!"
The big bird divebombs the Gnomish wanderer before flying off into the distance squawking the whole way.
Seeing the bird swoop in, Umros holds the second coin behind him, and shields his eyes with his other hand. When he hears the wings flap away, he caws after the departing bird.
“Too greedy to know nothing! Come back, tell me what you know about the woman who calls the boys to the forest, and the second shiny is yours!”
Umros last caws echo out into the forest but nothing responds. The dull buzzing of insects fill the small clearing before the cave and the sun sinks that much lower on the horizon.
"Did you learn anything from the bird?" Sparks asks. "Any reason I should not peak inside this cave?"
His feathers, beak, and innards would’ve been more useful… Umros holds a dark look at the bird for a moment, but then sighs and shrugs as he turns back to the group. He slips the copper back into his pocket as he idly kicks a fallen pine cone, pondering the conversation with the raven.
Realizing the hour, he raises his eyes to find any sustenance growing near the clearing.
There are a few moments of quiet before he answers the elf girl. “I’m not sure.” He looks up from his search, first to the cave mouth, then to her, and then more specifically, her magically glowing bow.
"Give me a few minutes, and I'll go with you," he smiles, his mind once again buzzing with the newness of whatever might be inside the cave. Before he resumes his search for edibles, he notices Cath holding the arrow he fired earlier. The small gnome thanks the warrior and returns it to the quiver.
Sparks graciously accepts Umros' blessing then proceeds into the cave with her now glowing notched and ready bow held low so as not to disrupt her vision with its glare.
"Now this feels familiar," she comments. "In my youth the five Dymestl-aeron children and myself would explore any cave we could find. Your mannerisms are sometimes quite similar to theirs, at least from what I have seen of you," Sparks says with a smile in her voice.
Wonder what happened with her and fire. Seems like that could be a problem.
Having stayed mostly quiet through the ordeal with the raven, Cath finally speaks up when Sparks begins to venture into the cave. “Soo, what's the plan here, exactly?”
"We will look in the cave. If we come out running and screaming you and Langblade should step in and put a stop to whatever is chasing us," Sparks says half jokingly just before ducking into the cave.
With just a moment to forge the Gnome isn't able to procure much. But he does find a berry bush only half stripped of it's fruit. He's able to harvest the rest, which turns out to be enough for a meal for one.
As he follows the Elf into the cave mouth he casts about looking all over the place. This cave seems like many he's explored before, mostly dirt and stone. Some moss clinging to the roof and walls in places. The distant drip, drip, plop of water echos through the earthen halls. He can see that this arm of the cave seems to tunnel forward about fifty or so yards. From where he stands it looks as if it might bend there, but it's hard for the Cleric to be certain.
Also of note is the darker shadows of the cave, some of which might hide turn-offs and alternate routes. Though unless he thinks of a way to light them up from here, he won't be able to tell until he approaches them.
Also of note is the darker shadows of the cave, some of which might hide turn-offs and alternate routes. Though unless she thinks of a way to light them up from here, she won't be able to tell until she approaches them.
At the very far end, right where she thinks the tunnel turns, Sparks could almost swear she saw some sort of movement. But it was swift and if anything, moved further away from the entrance than towards it. She hesitates to trust her mind simply since she just came in from the still-bright sun setting.
The Elven archer and Gnomish wanderer take a few tentative steps into the cave entrance and disappear behind the overgrowth. Outside the Wizard and two Fighters wait as the sun continues to set...
Drawing an arrow from the quiver at her side, Langblade picks at her fingernails with the arrowhead while regarding the wizard out of the corner of her eye. Shaking her head, she turns back to Cath asking; "So, you think we're gonna be out here all night? Maybe we should get a camp set up or something... I'm not used to traveling in a group."
"This cave is fairly large. Like a tunnel. We might be a few minutes," Sparks says to those waiting outside before proceeding cautiously forward.
Sparks makes her way deeper into the cavern, the soft light cast by her magic-infused bow illuminates the dank chamber. The air is close and clammy with the warmth of the day and moisture from the damp rocks.
With her ability to see in the low light, the hunter is easily able to spot the bear-sign littering the cavern. Bones and small amounts of rotting flesh litter the sides and seem to trail off into an offshoot on the right hand side of the cave.
“Not sure. Seems like a safe enough place to set up camp,” Cath says to Amber. Glancing to the cave mouth, he adds, “Provided they don't find anything dangerous in there, that is.”.
“Dymestl-aeron? Never had the pleasure. I wonder what they call themselves now that they are grown?” Umros muses aloud as his eyes look over the dirt and rock. Presently, the explorer finds a patch of moss and starts poking it with his finger.
“This must be the system of caves people told me about. We’ll need to be careful not to turned around if we explore this further -I like sleeping under stars more than stone.”
The small gnome is careful to stay relatively close the glowing bow, so that he is not left in the dark. Used to traveling alone, and finding food and water along the way, the wanderer’s ears perk at the sounds of dripping water. Used to the surface, the overground? he habitually sniffs for plant life that might grow near an abundance of water.
Umros is quiet for a few moments as they proceed deeper into the cave. This place was a perfect home for many different animals, otherwise he would be calling for the missing boy right now. One of those animals could be more bears. The thought of stumbling across such another bear gave his feet the step-itch. But it also reminded him of the violence in the clearing, and the elf’s part in it. He turns a curious sideways look up at her. He could never tell if an elf was thirty years or three hundred.
“Sparks,” he asks, in a low voice that wouldn’t echo far, “how long have you been hunting?”
"It does not rain inside caves," Sparks offers with a cheerful whisper. "As for my friends, they scattered one by one several years ago," she explains as she slowly proceeds down the bear's side passage.
"On my own? Roughly forty years. Maybe half a decade or so longer if you count instructional outings with my father," Sparks says, answering Umros' question about hunting. "Why do you ask?"
Tainesh Ludor watches the Elf and the Gnome disappear into the cave, shadows dancing around them like leaves in a whirlwind. It shouldn't take too long to explore the cave, but she wonders if she should have told Sparks that the Light cantrip will only last twenty minutes.
She can feel the cantrip in the back of her mind, what she calls her 'mental shelfspace'. Like any other cantrip that acted for a duration after casting, it relied on a sliver of her willpower to keep a construct of arcane energy going; in this case, a simple lattice of commands that converted background thaumaturgical energy into visible light. Not enough willpower to require concentration like the Silent Image spell she'd cast earlier, but enough that a part of the cantrip had to remain in her mind so as to keep drawing on that willpower.
She could examine the cantrip, take a metaphorical look at it as it sat on the metaphorical shelf whistling like a mental teakettle and get a rough idea of how much time was left. Knowing that the spell was about to run out scarcely required any effort at all, like noticing that her hand had strayed too close to a fire. But that wasn't good enough, was it? In the thick of combat, it would be easy to lose track and let vital spells lapse.
She thinks back to the fight with the bears and tried to remember how she'd felt then. Panicked, sure, but then what? Bravado? Desperation? It was like a word of power had been spoken, and all the careful plans and forethought that were so important to her now had become irrelevant. No, irrelevant to her. Which was scarier.
There had to be a way, some sort of spell that lasted days or weeks and granted perfect cognition of the spells one had active.
This wasn't a new topic for her. She'd brought it up with Halungalom, and his response still made her face flush. That much laughter hadn't truly been necessary.
She looks over at the two warriors outside the cave. Wizards tended to dismiss the art of swinging a sword as a pastime best taken up by stupid farmboys. She knew better. There was a Hell of a lot of finesse that went into swordplay, which itself was just a subset of the tactics that a man mastered lest he perish on the battlefield. How did they keep it together when they were fighting for the preservation of life and limb?
Wait, one of them just asked a question, didn't she?
"I think it would be best if we made camp in the cave. Some shelter is better than no shelter, provided it's completely unoccupied. Er, that was your question right? Was there anything else?"
Meanwhile, Tainesh turns her eyes to the forest around her...
Langblade stands and continues picking at her nails as she begins to pace. "Yeah, I suppose we could, assuming there's nothing wrong with it." She walks closer to the entrance and sticks her head inside, yelling. "HEY! LISTEN! HOW'S IT LOOK IN THERE? GOOD FOR A CAMP?"
While waiting for a response the swordswoman turns to Tainesh. Scratching at her scalp with the arrow head she takes a moment before responding. "Well, ya see, you're a Wizard, right? And, well, not to put too fine a head on it, I thought it took a long time to learn all the secrets of the Arcane."
The warrior flips the arrow in her fingers and points at Ludor with it. "So, aren't you kinda young to actually be a Wizard?"
Turns out, Langblade was more right than she knew.
"Yes, I am young, and the secrets of the Arcane take a long time to learn. Lifetimes, in fact. But I am a wizard."
She pinches a tear in her vest, gestures with her off hand and utters a word. Constructs of arcane energy flow from her hand, wash over the fabric and latch onto the ragged ends of the threads. In a heartbeat, the spell knits the threads together and fused the loose ends, with only a slight mismatch in the weave to tell that there had been a tear in the first place.
"I am a wizard because I have sufficient training in working magic to continue learning after I have left my master. I may not have the breadth of knowledge or the strength of the Gnome who taught me, but all I need is time and experience."
The worshipper of Desna inhales to answer Sparks’ question about his question when he is interrupted by the Langblade. He snickers quietly as he turns and cups his mouth toward the cave entrance. “NO! IT’S DEFINITELY FULL OF DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS!”
Umros calmly turns to keep up with the elf, acting as though his outburst was completely normal. For him, perhaps it was. He clears his throat and resumes his conversational tone. “I just wondered. People’s stories interest me. If this becomes tale worth telling years from now, I’ll need to have the facts right. Exaggeration is an art, you know.” He turns a grin up to the elf as they explore a narrow turn off to the left.
Sparks giggles at Umros' silly reply.
"While you are exaggerating, she says just a bit more seriously, "perhaps make me a... a beautiful, mysterious heroine who had the means to pitch in for no other reason than the sake of mother and child."
"Mounted cavalry?" Langblade mutters under breath before turning her back to the cave entrance. Returning the arrow to her quiver she replies to Tainesh.
"So you're saying you're a wizard learner? Like an apprentice or something?" She draws a flint and striker steel from her pack and begins to start a fire. Speaking up to include Cath in the discussion she says; "You can camp in the cave if you want, me I'd rather sleep under the stars."
The Gnome moves deeper into the cave as the light from Spark's bow guides them further into the pitch black. Umros can see that the cave seems to split in a few different directions up ahead. Aside from the low light there doesn't seem to be much that could cause him or the group as a whole harm.
The two make their way further into the cave, sticking to the main shaft. Eventually they come across a larger cavern, it is here that the main line of the cave appears to terminate.
Outside the cave, a small cheerful fire begins to burn and Langblade rests by the light as the last of the suns rays dip below the far horizon, not visible through the dense foliage.
The quiet sounds of night begin to fill the air.
"No, I'm more of a journeyman wizard. A wizard apprentice is pretty much helpless without their master. Send them out into the world, and they won't learn anything more of note, not until a demon ambles by calling out 'Getch'er forbidden knowledges here, getcch'er knowledges of the arcane 'n divine and show them all! Jus' one soul fer the whole lot, 'n I'm cuttin' me own throat!'"
"That's where most magic shops and hedge wizards come in, by the way. The person running them was trained by a mage who assumed that seven years of instruction was all you need. They're useful, but it's like becoming a carpenter and only know how to build fences."
"Might as well take them in order," Sparks comments as she quietly heads down the smaller passage to the left.