Lafiel reaches Rin's body first. Quickly considering her options, Lafiel deems Rin more useful alive than dead after he proved his worth for quite a few times already during the dangerous mission they are on. "Besides, having someone in one's debt never hurts" she thinks to herself as she starts bandaging Rin's worst wounds and bruises to stop him from losing more blood . She keeps trying to help Rin in every way she remembers . After she's sure she has saved Rin's life, she smiles to herself as he opens his eyes, confused.
First Aid checks (1d20=18, 1d20=16, 1d20=9, 1d20=2, 1d20=19)
DM, what do I have to do to stop this nitwit from swinging onto the rope I'm carefully lowering?You tell me.
Lafiel's technique is brusque but effective. Rin opens his eyes and smiles up at her.
"Remind me not to try that again."
He grasps her hand hard and pulls her close for a second. "I owe you and I will repay the debt if I can." he says, very serious for once.
Pulling himself to his feet, using Lafiel as a support, he looks around. "Now that we're here, let's take a look shall we." He waves upwards, hoping the others will see.
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The remaining adventurers are athletic enough to succeed at descending the rope, or even the chasm wall. Rin and Lafiel are just a short climb (about 10') from what was once apparently intact land. There are a pair of matching portals set into opposite walls of the chasm on either side of the waterfall (about 25-30' apart).
There is no immediately obvious animate threat.
Lafiel,
Lafiel nods shortly to Rin, then joins the rest of the group. She looks quite bad, with lots of bruises, cuts and wounds all over her body, which is also quite dirty with mud from all her falls. Somehow, she manages to smile weakly at the rest of the group and says : "Obviously the apemen come from this underground tunnel, and there we must go for our mission. We can do this the noisy and violent way, or we can try to do this silently. The important thing is we can't let them raise the alarm, as we don't really have the luxury of running away anymore. I can scout ahead as soon as I feel better".
"Sounds good, Fargrim. Stay here with the wounded..." Drivish pauses to give a perplexed stare at Rin. "...while I go check out that opening. Care to join me, Qadim-sul?"
"Father, Lafiel needs your help. Urgently I'd say."
Turning to the others he shrugs. "She saved me. I'm a moron. Can we leave it at that?"
The cleric prays for Pelor's healing blesses.
Healing word on Lafiel (1d6+3=9)
Healing word on Lafiel (1d6+3=9)
"I'd suggest we proceed as a group than have some of us explore ahead of the rest. After all that falling and yelling, I truly doubt they don't know we're here already."
Barshevy looks apprehensively at the tunnel openings.
"Let's hope those Zain creatures are the worst of it."
Lafiel's wounds disappear after Barshevy's use of holy magic. "I agree with Barshevy. There's strength in numbers" she says.
Rin feels Pelor's grace wash over him as his wounds close over and his bruises fade. He clasps Father Barshevy's hand gratefullly. "Thanks. I don't deserve it, but thanks."
To the others.
"At this point, I'll just tag along and do what everyone says."
"Hush! Don't say such things, good elf. We are simply glad we did not lose another ..."
Qadim-sul claps his hand on Rin's shoulder, not ungently. "You must have some genasi blood in you, friend," he says with a smile. "Leaping before looking is almost a racial trait for us."
He turns to the dragonborn. "I'm right with you, Drivish, but I agree with the others. Best not to split up in the face of unknown danger. Let's take point, Fargrim can bring up the rear. Let's go kill some apes."
Qadim-sul kindly lets Drivish go first, then follows him inside the tunnel.
The familiar grin crosses Rin's face at Qadim-sul's words. "Firesoul genasi. Why didn't my parents think ahead a little more?"
He takes his place towards the rear of the party and falls silent.
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After a brief rest, and an allotment of Pelor's grace, the party moves on.
The opening on this (east) side of the waterfall is into a 10' wide corridor. The dark corridor is lined with worked stones, each engraved with scores of runes inset with gold. After about 20', the corridor ends abruptly before a pile of boulders and debris.
Lafiel looks around, trying to find anything unusual. Thinking aloud, she says : "The apemen came from this side of the chasm, which means this cave entrance, so there has to be some other way to get deeper in this cave."
Does the debris look moveable ?
"Look at this", Lafiel focuses on a loose piece of broken flagstone set into the floor. She tries pressing or pulling it, believing it to be some kind of mechanism to open a secret passage.
"What, pray tell, is that?"
Lafiel moves the stone, revealing a small leather pouch and a mummified hand locked around a star shaped amulet. Not touching anything yet, Lafiel looks for anything else unusual in the cavity.
Perception Check (1d20+5=18)
Lafiel picks up both items. She opens the pouch, looking for anything of interest. "The amulet could do something with these runes," she tells Rin, "I'm not touching that disgusting mummy hand though".
Rin shakes his head. "The runes on the walls are to do with ancient magic I think, they're not magical in themselves. These, on the other hand, probably are." He looks at the amulet and mummified hand.
Noting Lafiel's dislike of the mummified hand, Rin offers to carry the objects. "You can have them back whenever you want." he adds, in case she thinks he might refuse to part with the gem in particular.
The cleric regards the glittering jewelry with suspicion.
"It is the sun, each ray a rampant dragon. What a bold, haughty statement of power."
"It doesn't seem have a religious meaning."
He then turns his attention to the golden runes.
"I don't recognize the language, but I have a ritual that can unlock its meaning to me. This won't take long"
Effects:
Category: Exploration
Time: 10 minutes
Duration: 24 hours
Component Cost: 10 gp
Market Price: 50 gp
Key Skill: Arcana
When beginning the ritual, choose a language you have
heard or a piece of writing you have seen within the past
24 hours.
Using this ritual on a language you have heard allows
you to understand it when spoken for the next 24 hours
and, if your Arcana check result is 35 or higher, to speak
the language fluently for the duration.
Using this ritual on a language you have seen as a piece
of writing allows you to read the language for the next 24
hours and, if your Arcana check result is 35 or higher, to
write the language in its native script or in any other script
you know for the duration.
Using this ritual on a language you have both heard and
seen as a piece of writing within the past 24 hours allows
you to understand it in both forms for the next 24 hours,
and an Arcana check result of 35 or higher allows you to
speak and write the language.
"Are you sure the ape-men came from this tunnel?" Qadim-sul asks Lafiel. "I see nowhere they could have come from." He takes a look at what the other have found: the runes, the hand, the sapphire, etc.
History (1d20+9=29); Arcana (1d20+9=18)
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Qadim-sul:
Barshevy:
To Qadim-Sul : "No, I'm not sure at all now. On one side, the apes climbed up this side of the chasm, which means they should have came from somewhere on this side. Maybe there's another cave around though. This mummified hand could be a key of some sort to open a secret passage or door around here, but even if it would be a secret key, I find it hard to believe those apes would just leave these coins lying around here. Also, notice that these coins are ancient. I'd wager both the coins and the hand were forgotten here a long time ago."
To the rest of the group : "I say we should have someone carry all the treasures we find, then split it all up when we go back. As much as I like the finders-keepers rule, better for us all to worry about that later".
While the rest of the group huddles around the treasure (that somebody already lost a hand for), Drivish will poke around the cave, tapping with his axe haft and listening for hollow spots.
If he doesn't find anything, he'll go outside and do a thorough search for Zain-kin tracks.
"Hmm. It seems that this tunnel is what is left of a Parhokan city. I wonder what connection the zain-kin have with that old empire? "
"Would anyone mind if I removed the, uh, hand from the amulet? To take a look at the back for inscriptions."
With a look of discust on his face "Do what ye will, just keep it away from me." He continues along with them, keeping an eye on the rear.
"Indeed, these runes are from ancient Parhok," Qadim-sul agrees with Barshevy. "Perhaps these zain-kin are servitors, or even soldiers, of that lost empire."
While the rest of the group continues searching the passage, Qadim-sul joins Drivish outside looking for more clues.
"The more I see of ancient Parhok the less I like it." Rin joins Barshevy looking more closely at the mummified hand.
"Can you tell if the hand was human?" he asks.
"Let me look", Lafiel offers, and examines the amulet herself.
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Further inspection of the hand and amulet reveal nothing new -- it is impossible to tell what race the hand was from, beyond humanoid and probably medium.
Drivish's investigations, meanwhile, result in a partial collapse of the rubble heap. Miraculously, no other party member is in the vicinity at the time. Drivish himself is banged up pretty badly, but even so can be counted fortunate (-9hp on trap miss).
There is still no evident passage beyond the collapse.