"That suits me fine," says Felder as he leans on his staff. "Better than walking aimlessly for hours more."
The group gathers its belongings and heads back down the trail to the location they had noticed earlier in the evening. The short trek goes without a hitch, and the group sequesters itself at the camp site, well out of sight from the main path.
”I think we should set a watch, given the goings-ons Kymil witnessed. I’m happy to take first or last shift.”
Only a fool doesn't set a watch. Doubly so with cultists in the damn area!
He takes his turn too
Accustomed to this sort of task, he remains alert for his watch.
"My kind needs little in the way of sleep so I will go after Emmett and can stay awake for the rest of the evening if needed."
[ooc]OK, I am trying to remember if OSE elves need only 4 hours of rest, or is that something new??[/oc]
"I'd like to get some sleep as soon as I can... it's been a long day... but I'm happy to wake up with the dawn and keep an eye out while I'm studying my books," says Felder.
The night passes without major incident. The people on watch see or hear the occasional wild animal checking out the sleeping humanoids, but they all eventually continue on their way and seem to have no unnatural interest in you.
The next morning dawns with low-hanging clouds and a mist that flows down from the mountains to the north cloaking everything in a thick fog. After a brief breakfast, you continue north on the trail, heading back toward the occupied party you saw last night.
”Look here.” Osseus points to a section of trampled undergrowth. ”My guess is whomever was at that cabin last night has since headed south. Hard to tell whether the elemental spirit accompanied them.”
”I say we investigate the cabin. Given its communal use, I doubt they left anything dangerous.”
"I confess I too am curious what these people might have in there...it might even tell us a little more about why they were out here in the middle of the night summoning elementals"
Kymil follows Osseus towards the cabin
As you expected, you find the area around the herder's hut abandoned, although there are signs of last night's inhabitants strewn everywhere: a pot with some kind of gruel remnant was left over the fire, a fire wood pile behind the hut was raided and wood was left strewn about, and boot prints can clearly be seen inside and outside of the hut.
Int (14):
"Hey, look over here. I found some sort of book...looks like a prayer book. It's to some god called "Offler the Crocodile God" and seems to ask for the wisdom of the deity and to praise the many holy birds that visit him and clean his teeth. Weird!"
He shows the book to the others.
”Crocodile god?” Osseus takes a look at the book. ”Are there crocodiles in the northern rivers? Or perhaps the faith is spreading from the Misty Swamp?”
lol
After briefly searching the area around the cabin and finding little, you continue your journey along the route that your guide had directed.
The next two days involve some hard climbing that make you glad you packed some climbing gear. The nights become much colder and you have to keep a fire going all night long to keep from freezing. There are no more strange encounters along the route until you reach a very old stele at the side of a trail that zigzags into a valley seemingly surrounded by mountains on all sides. The monument is weathered but upon closer inspection reveals markings that resemble that of a cut gemstone.
Across the valley from you, you can see a crumbled, ruined castle built upon a narrow promintory that juts from the opposting mountain side. The overgrown path you see before you seems to wind its way to the base of the cliff the castle is built upon, but you should be able to reach it before nightfall.
The path zigzagging into the valley is quite overgrown, but shows some signs of recent use. Although it has deteriorated from lack of maintenance, it looks like it once was wide enough for large wagons to travel upon. It is still that wide in some places, although most of the path has crumbled and narrowed to now only allow people to pass two abreast.
Kymil takes a better look at this monument.
Kymil studies the stele for a moment and gets the strangest feeling, the feeling that there is something familiar about it, that he has seen it before. His ancient elven mind suddenly is thrown back to the very early days of his childhood hundreds of years before. He remembers a beautiful summer's day when his parents took him to an ancient elven ruin, a place where his people had lived centuries or even millennia before. Kymil remembers seeing a stele very similar to this one in that place, decorated with depictions of cut gemstones. He remembers his mother telling him that the elves who lived in this place had strayed from the true path, had gotten lost in their magic until they could no longer control it, and that it had eventually destroyed them and consumed the structures they had created in a storm the likes of which had never been seen before or since. A storm where fire fell from the sky and burned everything it touched. The fires thus started where whipped into greater life by fierce winds, and the group itself shook in protest while the rivers and lakes overflowed and drowned everything and everyone.
"Look at that - a symbol of a gem! I'll take that as a good omen," Osseus remarks with a smile. "Let's hope the inspiration behind it still sits in that castle."
He notices a strange look upon the elf's face. "What's wrong, Kymil? The way's overgrown, but surely not past your skills as a woodsman? Or perhaps these signs of recent use concern you..." The cleric rubs his chin. "I think the best we can do is stay alert and push forward. I'd rather make camp in the ruins than in the wilds."
The area sorta put the large warrior ill at rest... something here just gave him the willies.
I'll be happy just to push on.
"This...this is bad! I remember seeing a similar stele long ago."
He tells the others what he can remember about it.
"We need to be very careful going forward!"
"I admit, Kymil, that's a less promising precedent than my 'They had a gem so famously big they put it on their wayposts' theory. At least we're agreed on our course of action: Proceed, with caution."
Osseus proceeds towards the castle, letting the elf lead the way if he's so inclined.
Kymil takes point, moving slowly and as silently as possible. He has his bow out with an arrow at the ready. He keeps himself about 5-10 feet in front of the group, stopping frequently to listen and examine his surroundings.
Osseus keeps his eyes and ears open as he follows Kymil.
The group winds its way down the zigzag path into the valley toward the outcropping with the ruin. Once you reach the bottom of the valley, you notice the foundations and ruined walls of stone structures that must have once formed a small village on either side of the path. All are overgrown by grasses, bushes, and even trees. The path becomes a winding street through these ruins with the occasional paving stone still visible off in the underbrush. As you approach the cliff with the ruined castle at the top, you can see that whoever built it chose its location well, as there are no visible easy approaches. The path/street finally terminates in a dark cave whose mouth is covered with hanging vines. The smell of moisture and dank earth emanates from it, but nothing can easily be seen through the vine curtain.
The cool tunnel runs under the cliff for about fifty feet, but is interrupted by a closed portcullis after about ten feet that completely blocks the thirty-foot-wide passageway. Two doorways branch off from the main corridor just past the first portcullis. Further on, Gildreak sees two smaller portcullises that lead to two separate passageways that lead deeper into the dungeon.
A breeze is gently blowing from inside the structure, carrying with it the smell of dust, decayed stone, and rotting flesh. Occasionally humanoid sounds of pain, fright, and hunger can be heard, but they are far away and sometimes muffled. Occasionally a single scream interrupts the silence, after which nothing can be heard.
After the climb up the hillside, Felder took a good twenty minutes of sitting just to catch his breath; even the trip down into the valley leaves him a bit winded.
While Gildreak makes his way into the tunnel, Felder squints out at the valley itself and the remnants of the village.
"Never a good sign when a whole village is abandoned like this..." he murmurs. "... and what is that crumbling structure there? The front archpiece is still intact, but the back half is about to fall over. From the remnants of the trellises in those overgrown bushes, I'd judge it to be a vineyard. That means it might still have a wine cellar, though depending on how long this place has been abandoned, there might be nothing left but vinegar and rats."
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Osseus frowns at the smells and sounds emanating from the tunnel. Once the dwarf has done what he can by way of exploration, the priest motions a withdrawal so they may speak without fear of being overheard by anything beyond the portcullis.
”It would seem the castle cellars - or more likely dungeons- are neither vacant nor idle. Unless we find some way to open that portcullis speedily or quietly, I fear attempting to breach the castle here may only result in alerting whatever’s in charge of the dungeons to our presence before we’ve made our way in.”
He turns to the wizard. ”Is there a chance these sounds and smells are an illusion? If this place met its end due to magic gone wild, as Kymil suggested, it seems probable those who dwelt here would use magic to defend it.”
”If not, we can search for alternate routes, though I doubt the daylight will hold long enough for a climb up the cliff. If need be perhaps we can camp overnight in that vineyard’s cellar to avoid detection, if it hasn’t collapsed under the weight of years.”
He turns to the wizard. ”Is there a chance these sounds and smells are an illusion? If this place met its end due to magic gone wild, as Kymil suggested, it seems probable those who dwelt here would use magic to defend it.”
"It's possible, but I wouldn't rely on it," says Felder. "The best illusions are ones for which your context predisposes you to accept them, so it would be a good defense, but... given this place's history I'm not sure I'd risk it."
Kymil moves forward slowly, keeping his elven senses searching the area for anything that might seem out of place or hidden by a glamour. His sword is drawn as he moves forward.
Kymil steps into the darkness, pushing aside the vines that block the entrance. Walking up to the closed portcullis he looks it up and down and decides that it seems to be a very mundane, yet very sturdy piece of engineering that will take some effort to lift, if it can be accomplished at all from this side.
The large warrior falls in behind the dwarf...
"I wonder if there's a crank or release elsewhere around here..." says Felder. He starts checking around the entryway, looking through bushes nearby, trying to see if there might be a lever or wheel that's partially buried or concealed.
Emmett looks to the dwarf.
Reckon we can budge it? Let's look for something to prop it up once we do lift it, so we don't have to do it twice.
As you stand in the twilight of the tunnel entrance before the portcullis, you continue to hear occasional muffled screams or other sounds of pain coming from inside.
Felder searches the inside and outside of the tunnel entrance but finds no mechanism to open the door. Logically he guesses that it is probably located on the far side of the portcullis. A portcullis that can be opened from the outside is not of much use defensively, after all. While examining the bars of the portcullis, however, Felder notices that several adjoining ones are covered in a thick grease of some kind that most likely was applied recently, as it has not hardened.
Emmet takes a quick look around outside of the entrance to the tunnel and sees several possibilities for a wedge to prop the gate open once you lift it:
1) While walking through the ruins, Emmet noticed large stones that were once used in construction scattered about. One of the larger ones could serve well as a wedge, but one big enough to serve would probably take two people to carry, as doing so alone might throw his back out. Finding the right stone and carrying it back would take two people about 10 minutes.
2) Several of the local trees have branches or trunks that are large enough to serve as a wedge if they were cut down and trimmed to the proper length. Emmet guesses that using a fallen branch or tree might be faster, but also assumes that finding one that isn't rotten might be tricky.
Cutting down a living branch or tree will take about 15 minutes and generate a bit of noise. Finding the right fallen branch would take 10 minutes, but would require an Int check at -2.
Moving one big stone? That's a bugger... and given the noises within? Another problem all of its own.
What say we grab a few of the not so heavy stones and use those? Might not hold it up so high but hey, less work and faster...
"Hmm. This grease on the bars is probably both a means to make sure that the gate doesn't get stuck, and a way to prevent people from grabbing on to it to lift it from outside," says Felder. "I was hoping we might get lucky and find a hidden emergency release, but alas."
"Give me a lever long enough and I will move the world," he paraphrases, "so maybe a sufficiently strong piece of fallen wood can lever the gate up, using a rock or another log as a fulcrum, and then you can shove those rocks under it to keep it partway up."