With her hand in Kelda's, Lysithia follows the river hoping for a better crossing or some other way to navigate the river.
As you walk along the side of the river, you hear the sound of rushing water getting louder. After a short hike, you come to a large cavern where the river turns into a waterfall. Down below, in the inky darkness, the water deposits into a plunge pool. Beyond that point, the water becomes serene.
Kelda looks down into the inky darkness with trepidation, "Well, it's not my first choice, but I don't know how many we actually have. Does anyone have any ideas?" She asks, unsure of how to proceed at this point.
"We'll likely need to climb down. If we can do that, then beyond the pool seems calm enought to swim across." Lysithia says studying the cavern beside the drop.
Kelda looks down into the darkness, "I'm not sure how far down that is, but I've got fifty feet of rope. I just don't have a grappling hook, or anything else to secure it to. If we can find something to tie it to, it could help us get down a little more safely." She postulates out loud, trying to think of the safest way to get down as she tries to determine how far it is to the bottom.
"I have fifty feet of rope as well. If we secure them together, and find something to tie the end to up here, it should be enough to get us to the bottom." Sapphira adds as she looks around for something to secure the rope to.
Kelda and Sapphira plainly see that there are plenty of sturdy stalagmites which have formed over the centuries from the moisture in this cavern. They can easily secure a rope around one of them.
The cavern wall around the waterfall has some decent ledges and might not be awful for a casual climber to navigate. It appears to be about a sixty foot descent to the lake below.
"I've done a fair bit of climbing and am pretty sure I can get down from here myself. I'll keep the rope secure and come down once the rest of you have reached the bottom," Basil offers.
Kelda nods and secures the rope around one of the stalagmites, "Alright, that sounds like a plan to me. I don't know about everyone else, but I never was that great at climbing, so I will definitely use the rope. I think one rope will be long enough. Do you think that's long enough?." She asks of her companions, wanting a second opinion of whether or not they should tie another rope to this one or not.
"It looks about a 60ft down to the lake from here." Kysithia says looking down onto the lake. "With 50ft of rope, less what we have to tie off around the stalactite, we would have about a 15ft drop from the end, if we only use one. Better to tie the two together." she reasons.
Sapphira nods and takes out her length of rope as well and hands it over to Kelda, "Go ahead and tie this to it. That should give us more than enough to get down three safely."
Kelda takes the extra length of rope and ties it to the other one, "Okay, that should do it." She says, testing the rope that she secured by tugging on it.
Going to the ledge, she prepares to climb down. Kelda looks around at her companions, "I'll go down first, then the rest of you follow one at a time. Once everyone is down, Basil will toss down the rope before climbing down himself. Just take your time and be careful."
With one final look at her love, Kelda starts climbing down the rope.
Once Kelda reaches the bottom safely, Sapphira follows her down.
While her attempt is more clumsy than Kelda's, she at least makes it to the bottom.
Lysithia begins her climb once Sapphira makes it all the way down, glad for the aid of the rope.
Jade makes her way down the rope next, stepping away at the bottom and waiting for Basil to drop the rope before collecting it.
Basil undoes the rope and tosses it down. He then makes his way down the cliff face.
Once everyone is down, and they've separated and stored the lengths of rope, Kelda goes over to where the water is and tries to figure out the best place to cross.
A few feet from where you landed, you see a shallow path through the water. The water looks like it would come up to Kelda's waist, but other areas look like they would be much deeper.