The Elemental simply glides underneath the building and appears next to Pai.
He waves at the excitable Gnome.
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Pai waves cheerily back. "Hi Pebble! Okay well guys, you're a silent bunch! I'm going across the street to check if they saw anything or whatever. Anyone want to come with me?" She pauses for a moment, then soars over to the building across the street. Rapping her knuckles on the door, she calls out: "Knock knock! Anyone home? Investigator with questions about the craziness. So we can help you guys and all!"
[b]Let's go, Droogi. We can play in a bit...got work to fo first. [/,b]Lini says as her little legs go as fast as they csn to catch up
Tiny Pebble follows Pai's lead. He glides effortlessly through the floor of the building reappearing outside.
The door to this modest cobbler’s shop hangs open and a pool of rainwater has collected in the front room. Shelves of shoes line the walls, and a small counter covered with shoemaking tools sits near a narrow flight of stairs to the south that leads up to a second floor.
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"Hello? Is anybody here?" Pai shouts into the room, trying to sound like she's a nice person and not a mean person, which tends to be hard while shouting. She flies into the shop and takes a look around, checking behind the counter for anyone hiding back there. Hmm... Is there anything here that could help us find answers? Or discover the right questions?
She hovers near the bottom of the staircase and shouts up: "Mind if we come upstairs? We wanna talk about what happened across the street. So we can help you guys!" If there's no answer, she'll gesture for the others to follow and fly up the staircase.
Lini looks around and then sees the shoes and boots on the shelf.
Hmm...I could use a new pair of boots...they take such a beating in the bush. Maybe we can get you sone too, Droogi...what do you think...remember when I had to take that big thorn out of your paw?
This abandoned shop has little of interest except proof upstairs that Tarrig is a flayleaf addict, and a sizable amount of the hallucinogenic drug is hidden in the bottom drawer of his nightstand.
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Pai stamps her foot, forgetting that it's a useless and ridiculous-looking gesture while floating in the air. "Well, shoot. I'd hoped someone here would be able to tell us something. And by the way: gross!" Indicating the flayleaf, Pai curls her lip in disgust. "I've never understood that." With a dismissive shrug, she heads back downstairs, out the building, and back to the scene of destruction.
"Oh! Guys! We forgot to talk to the guards!" She smacks her forehead, then floats over to the guards, who are probably thinking this conversation is a tad overdue. "Hey, guards! Pai Shecks here. You've had more time to look around than us. What've you noticed, besides, like, the super obvious stuff?"
Those that failed are sickened while in the vicinity of the smell. After leaving the area, you do recover fairly quickly.
Let's go, Droogi...be on your guard..no telling what big nasties we'll find. Lini says as she follows the others.
Tiny Pebble follows the party and is given instructions to retrieve his master should there be anything but a simple investigation of an abandoned room.
The guards have been of no further help.
Raynard leads the way, and finds the stairs lead down . After the first turn in the stairway's descent, traces of dust and debris indicate that the stairs may have once been clogged with rubble but were recently cleared; by the second turn in their descent, the architectural style changes to an older one involving stone arches and brick-lined walls.
This chamber’s brick-lined walls are supported by fifteen-foot-high stone arches. Between each arch, circular alcoves have been cut into the wall, each containing a stone sarcophagus. One sarcophagus on the southern wall has toppled over, spilling its long-dead occupant partially out on the brick floor. A dry swath of black sludge nearly ten feet wide runs down the center of the room, connecting the west and northeast stairs. The far end of the hall seems to have collapsed long ago.
The smell of the black tar here is much more bearable—the stuff is mostly dry.
This chamber appears to be all that remains of a long-lost shrine, and the bodies are little more than bones dressed in fragments of armor and bearing ancient, rusty swords.
Pai flies ahead to see stairs leading down further into the depths. This long stairwell descends several hundred feet, passing through multiple architectural styles as it winds deeper into Carrion Hill’s past.
Swaths of dried and foul-smelling (but not sickening) black slime cake the entire length of the stairs. Water drips down along the walls here and there as well, leaving narrow trickles along the stairs.
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As it begins to darken Igor half exposes his blade from the sheath allowing the light to spill into the room.
"I can be near the front if you like. I tend to notice things. But we will need to take it a little slower."
Igor will be looking for any traps or pitfalls along the way.
(Take 10 on Perception is 31)
The Earth Elemental smiles as he is happy again to be underground.
He speaks and it sounds like rocks softly grinding together.
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"Oh cool! Thanks, that light helps a ton!. I'll just hover near you, okay?" Pai positions herself to fly along the ceiling just above Igor so her shadow doesn't impede her view. I guess I could cast Dancing Lights in a pinch, but that never lasts very long. Huh. Is there a way I could get darkvision? That would be sooooo coool! Or, I guess, I could buy a sunrod or something. Just in case. I don't like being tethered to someone just 'cause of light issues. Her mental chatter bounces around in her head as the group slowly moves forward.
I'll watch the rear...I can send Droogi running into battle if needed. I don't want any big nasties sneaking up on our butts.
OK, I think we are still waiting on some to decide where they are. I don't want to move forward until we have a marching order.
I moverd Lini to the back and added Droogami to the front.
Ancient stone pillars support a stone ceiling here. Thick sheets of pale fungus and mold cake most surfaces. To the south, the hall has collapsed in rubble, but to the north it opens into a vast cavern in which eerie glowing light flickers. A thick, dry smear of black slime and strange circular prints in the mold runs from a flight of stairs in the west wall north into this cavern.
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"Whoa. What kind of footprints are those?" Pai racks her brain, trying to figure out if any animal she's ever heard of makes circular tracks like that.
She flies into the center of the chamber, assuming that everyone is following along with her. Noting the collapsed rubble to the south, she keeps her eyes peeled for anything notable as she begins heading northward at a cautious pace.
They look vaguely familiar...let me think on it for a moment...
The Elemental looks quite content swaying back and forth rhythmically as he pushes forward in the wall.
None of you can hazard a guess as to these footprints. It seems despite your vast knowledge, there are still mysteries in the universe for you to discover.
An immense cavern sprawls here, its floor an uneven jumble of loose stone and fungus, its ceiling rising like a church cathedral to a height of nearly a hundred feet above. Glowing fungus grows thick on the walls, bathing the cavern in ugly hues of purple and pale blue. Toppled pillars and mounds of rubble dot the western half of the cave, while to the east a mound of fungus, bones, and rubble rises. At the mound’s apex squats a flat-topped altar stone, with towering barren trees rising on three sides, their leafless branches twisted and groping toward the ceiling above as if in search for a sun’s warmth they shall never feel. A trickle of what appears to be sludge runs thickly and slowly from a hollow under the altar stone to gather to the northwest of the hill in a swampy pool. Four cave passages branch off from the cavern, but only the one to the southeast has not been blocked by a series of relatively new-looking iron bars. A swath of black slime and round footprints winds from the wide passageway to the southwest up to the southern bank of the pool of sludge.
Lini looks at the surroundings, trying to find any clue.
Droogi...guard...good boy!
This is not natural by any stretch of the imagination..Dark magic is involved here...evil...be on your guard!
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Nectanebo takes his gloves off to run his hands across the surface of one of the trees.
"Ahh, come on, just because it's unnatural doesn't make it wrong...you're certainly right about it not being natural, though; 'better groves and gardens through necromancy' - imagine that! It's been decades since..." He trails off, as if lost in reverie, then returns abruptly to his senses. "This is remarkable, feel this; it's like iron!" He raps his knuckles on the tree to demonstrate what it sounds like.
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Pai shudders as she hovers about 10 feet off the ground. She doesn't recognize what Lini and Nectanebo do, but is totally able to believe they're not fibbing. "Uggh! No wonder this place gives me the creeps!" She slowly glides through the air to hover just above the altar. Casting Dancing Lights to help her see, she flies around it, inspecting it for runes, writing, or anything that might give more information about its specific purpose here.