Action Thread 5

[rredmond]

Day 11 – The Crypt Entrance Hall

After very careful goings, Till leads the party (in Marching Order) to the end of the hall. The spike and rope hold, the hallway (about 100' long) eats up about 70' of your rope. The hall just simply descends slowly from 50' on, and then at about 100' ends, but now that you are at the end, you can see that there is a descensing. (I'll attach a pic, though I drew the descending hall slope a bit steep). Even though the hall started descending, you could walk on the wet stones without help from the rope, though no one chances that. The dripping noises are irregular and constant. From the lip of the end of the hallway you can see, about 20' down, a more earthy slope that continues past the light radius of Till's torch. You have enough rope to get you to the earthen slope, but really no further.

entrance hall.JPG (9.18 KiB) Viewed 7874 times

Edit: the DARK line is the stoneworked hall, the lighter line is the earth slope.

HPs: Jeloon - 27/29; Till - 31/36; Yosef - 10/10; Bruard - 19/19; Derek - 40/40
MO: 1- Till; 2 - Jeloon & Derek; 3 - Ancor; 4 - Yosef & Bruard
Consumables: Torch (Till) 20 minutes left, 40' radius.

[Alethan]

Till sets Ancor about to lighting his lantern.

Then he calls for quiet as he turns his head to the side, trying to listen for what might be below them. After a moment, he turns back to the group, "I can hear water... like a large body of water, not just a stream or something. But... I don't know. It might not be right below us, but it's definitely down there somewhere... Maybe the tomb is in the middle of an underground lake?"

Once Ancor gets the lantern lit, Till will pull up the rope dangling over the edge, tie the lantern to the end of the rope, and slowly lower it down so they can try to get a view of what is below them.

[Argennian]

Yosef stands near the end of the hall as Till and Ancor prepare to lower the lantern into the forboding darkness below.

He'll be keeping a watchful eye out for trouble of any kind.

[Vokarius]

"Or under a river?"

[rredmond]

Day 11 – The End of the Hall

OOC: Hooded lantern, correct? Don't think anyone has a bullseye... also, there is about 60 - 65 feet of rope left over at the end of the hallway, miscalculated in my previous post.

Unhooding the lantern, Till is able to manipulate it so it scoots a little down the slope. You can just see the edge of the slope where it meets water, also the lantern causes some shine off the water. Still unsure how big the area of water might be, but as the hall is 10' wide, the ledge seems to have about 5' more on each side (equalling about 20' wide) before it hits cavern wall or water. The earthen slope from where it meets under the hall goes about 80' to the water, which means from the end of the hall edge, if you dropped straight down, it would be 50' to the water.

It is earily silent, and quite dark. Even the eyes of the halfling, elf and half-orc cannot pick up any real variations in temperature, but it's neither too cold or hot here near the end of the hall.



HPs: Jeloon - 27/29; Till - 31/36; Yosef - 10/10; Bruard - 19/19; Derek - 40/40
MO: 1- Till; 2 - Jeloon & Derek; 3 - Ancor; 4 - Yosef & Bruard
Consumables: Torch (Ancor) 10 minutes left, 40' radius; Lantern (Till) 4 hours left, 30' radius.

[Alethan]

Till says, "cover me, if you would..." and puts out the torch before climbing down. Once he gets to the bottom, he'll light the torch back up and stand watch while one other person (preferably someone with a magical weapon) joins him in the advance team.

[Alethan]

... Till continues climbing down the loooooong rope to the bottom.

[Argennian]

... Till continues climbing down the loooooong rope to the bottom.

...and Yosef continues to keep his sharp, elven eyes peeled for any danger.

If anything dangerous (?) so much as moves or breathes near his halfling companion, the elf will cast his Magic Missile spell at it!

[Vokarius]

Hmm... I believe I will prepare my shortbow....

[rredmond]

Day 11 – The Waters

Though quiet and dark, everyone is able to get, uncomfortably onto the shore. You all think "shore" because now that you are close and looking out into the waters you can see it goes a long way. You look out on a big body of water. It extends past the edge of the torchlight in every direction. Ancor sighs in a disheartening manner bringing audible worries about what the next step might be. If a finger is dipped in the water it is cold, cold enough that you wouldn't want to be in it for long.


HPs: Jeloon - 27/29; Till - 31/36; Yosef - 10/10; Bruard - 19/19; Derek - 40/40
MO: 1- Till; 2 - Jeloon & Derek; 3 - Ancor; 4 - Yosef & Bruard
Consumables: Torch (Till) 10 minutes left, 40' radius; Lantern (Ancor) 4 hours left, 30' radius.

[Argennian]

As soon as Yosef gets down the rope, he asks Ancor to lower the lantern so that they might look around the "shore" for any signs of footprints or animal tracks of any kind.



OOC: Ron, what are the approximate dimensions/size of the shoreline area we are now standing on?

[rredmond]

To stand on comfortably it's about 15' to the water and 70' wide. You have more room behind that 15' but it slowly gets more and more cramped until it meets the underneath of the hall.

[Alethan]

With the party assembled on the "beach", as it were, Till follows Yosef's lead and begins examining the ground for signs. He is looking for footprints or indications of any activity, any unusual indentations or lines in the ground (is this sand or gravel or... what?) near the shore that might indicate something was ever dragged into the water, and he'll also take a look at the underside of the ledge they descended from to take note of details there (has it been smoothed by hand or is it rough? Or is it more like loose shale? Is there anything of note there? Mayhaps the water is a shill and the true path is right behind us).

Using his smaller stature to his advantage, Till will also examine the areas where the ceiling slopes down to the ground in great detail, as well. Seems like it would be a good place to lay down a bedroll and make camp, so he'll look for indications of just such activity.

[ToniXX]

OOC: Regarding the water: is it flowing in a certain direction, like a river? Can we discern a current if any? Are small waves lapping at the shore we are on, as if it were a lake?

[rredmond]

No current that you can tell. The shore is rocky. It's definitely the inside of a large cavern. So no discernible footsteps or other marks. The shore seems to steeply drop off into the water. None of it worked. The hall is real nice stonework but the shore is not. Where rocks meet the bottom of the hall Till can see the lever system in place for the hall to flip up. Definitely looks as if the hall would flip up hitting the ceiling and jarring folks on it thus perhaps causing them to fall down into the water. You can also tell that you all have wedged it pretty solidly.

[Alethan]

Till studies the trap from below and takes note of the depth of the water just past the shoreline.

"It might not have done much to the likes of me, but I recon someone in heavy armour," Till looks at... pretty much everyone else in the group, "who found themselves tumbled down the hill from that trap would have been thrown into deep water where they would have been weighed down by it and probably drowned."

He gives the general area a perplexed look for a few minutes.

"What, did they haul everything back up when they were done with... whatever it was they did out in that direction?" he asks, waving his hand in the general direction of the underground lake. "There has to be something down here to help us access the tomb. How else would this guy's family be able to visit his tomb?" he adds innocently.

Borrowing the spear from Yosef, Till uses it to prod the depth of the water just past the water line along the entire shore in the alcove, checking to see if there is a walkway just under the surface of the water at some point, leading along the wall of the underground cavern or even straight out to the middle of the lake.

He also makes a mental note to have Ancor carry the 4-section 10' pole at all times from now on... or maybe he can stow it in his own pack, instead.

OOC: Aside from going back out and building a boat, I'm running out of ideas. Anyone else? May be time to cast Detect Magic, ToniXX, and see if that does anything...

[ToniXX]

OOC: May be time to cast Detect Magic, ToniXX, and see if that does anything...

Yeah, I think you might be right. I assume in the direction of the hallway, and not towards the water, right? Unless you have something else in mind...

OOC: Ron, once Till replies to this question of mine, consider the spell cast in that direction, and let us know if Bruard sees anything.

[Argennian]

Before Bruard casts his Detect Magic spell, Yosef offers up an idea.

"Friends, let us light a couple more torches or perhaps another lantern. Mayhap the extra light given off will let us see a bit farther or maybe see something in the water we couldn't before?"

The elf will ask Ancor for one of his torches and after getting it lit, will begin looking for any clues of any kind, on their rock beachhead, at the waterline and out in the shallows. He looks for any kind of fish or insects in the water. He'll also check around on the landing for a potential secret or concealed door of any kind/type. He'll also look back up where Till was studying the trap and see if he notices any suspicious lines or breaks anywhere.

Assuming we get others holding multiple light sorces and increasing our luminary output, can we see any farther into the cavern on the water? A wall in the distance? Anything reflecting back like giant water snake eyes or diamonds?

[Alethan]

I think casting detect magic is a good idea.

Let's go ahead and do that and see what the probing of the water with the spear results in, as well, before we do anything else...

[Vokarius]

"All good ideas" says Derek. "If need be, could one of you casters put light on one of my arrows? I could then launch it a great distance and provide some light."