Day 9
The decision made, you trudge along in the early morning's rain. What mist accrued during the night clings to the ground until nearly midday when a break in the clouds allow some pale sunlight in. As the rain continues to dwindle the cacophony of it is replaced with birdsong and mating calls. The forest is thick around you and somewhat lively with small critters and flitting birds. Once a rabbit surprises itself by bolting right across your path, seeming to ignore whatever it thinks you are. A few hours past midday and the temperature seems to drop with the sunlight. Everything the three of you are wearing is laden with moisture, if not from the rains then from the air itself.
It's hard to tell how much progress you really made today. There's no trail and there aren't any landmarks that you could recall from your time on the mountainside. All you know for sure is that you're heading steadily downward, slowly, towards where you think the lake is. All you can really do is gauge your position from the mountains around you. To this end, you're pretty sure you're going the right way. As night falls, though, you lose sight of even them and must settle down to make camp. Supplies are hung, a fire is lit, and shifts are agreed upon. What food you do gather is serviceable, but by now you're really missing hot stew and fresh bread from home. It's better than being stuck on the water for weeks at a time, but only barely.
Day 10
Come morning the sky is blanketed in clouds and a strong wind is blowing from what you think is the southeast. You're pretty sure that the lake is in that direction and so a strong wind makes some sort of sense, right? Well you don't have a bevy of options as of right now, and so the three of you reclaim your supplies and start making your way to the Southeast. The rains fall in spurts and flurries on and off for the rest of the day. What wildlife seemed abundant yesterday is mostly hiding today, and the early morning mists hold nearly as long as yesterday.
It's about early evening when you at last break from the trees and find yourselves on a small rock bluff overlooking the lake. The sun is just slipping behind the western mountain's southern ridge at this point but you get a clear view of the open water shimmering in fiery gold before you. The lake's waters feed into the river to the west and you're surprised to see it so far away from your position. To your immediate left, you can see quite a few streams and rivulets pouring off the mountain you scaled into the northernmost shore of this lake. To the south a massive mountain rises up and you can see a waterfall coming down from it to crash into the trees far below. More eastward you see a game trail rise up away from the south side of the lake and disappear into a natural canyon between the two southern mountains. To the far east of the lake, you see what must have been that southeastern mountain when you saw it from the peak a few days ago. Many of it's streams and freshwater melt have formed into another middling sized river, feeding into the lake from there.
There's no sign of Lim's creature, but you do spot a small herd of deer across the lake to the southern shores. To estimate the size of this lake, you think that if you were able to walk across it would take maybe two days at it's longest point, and a little less than a day at it's widest. It definitely looks much larger up close than it did from far above. The next real question is where do you go from here? If across, how?
Spoiler: OOCYou've reached the shores of the lake. It's quite hard to tell it's exact size from here, but the distant shorelines look pretty far off. If you're making a raft then we'll need to use some checks. No one seems particularly skilled at this, so I'll take a d20 from each person involved and use the averages. If your going around and hoping to find a place to cross, which way are you going?