Journey in the Dark

[Dirac Lotus]

Nysan takes in the sight before him, hand on hilt. "I'm not much one for water." he exclaims, checking the sand beneath his feet.

If nothing strikes him as odd about the sand, he then closes with the water, getting within a few feet of it to inspect how murky it is.

"Well, one things for sure. Ain't nothing moving in that water. Sleeping, maybe." With that he picks up a rock from nearby, displaying it to the party.

"Got a light?"

[RaggedAngel]

Vassi gives Nysan a cold, hard look. She slowly, pointedly, draws a dagger, weighing it in her hand. "I do not, in fact, have a light, since I can see in the dark. I do, however, have a question; are you about to throw that rock into this water? This water where, I might add, just about anything could be?" Her temper is clearly rising. "Are you a complete idiot, or do you just like to playact as one? How could throwing a stone into a dark, subterranean lake ever help? Did you ever read any stories as a child? All you're going to accomplish is waking up something horrible and tentacled, and then we'll all be dead."

[Circle of Life]

Tsal places a hand on Vassi's shoulder, squeezing just hard enough to get his irate traveling companion's attention.

"I have a light."

He gestures to a hooded cylindrical object hanging from his belt, the cloth covering thick and finely woven to prevent any light from spilling out.

"That is, if you don't think I'm a complete idiot for bringing it." He smiles merrily and goes back to studying the water.

[RaggedAngel]

Vassi rolls her eyes, clearly frustrated. "It's not stupid to have a light, but it would be foolish to use one now. We have no idea what's in this lake, and bringing out a light or tossing a rock is only going to let everything in line of sight know where we are. I just don't want to get swarmed by anything. I like my flesh right where it is, and I don't see either of those actions helping matters."

[OMG PONIES]

Konig closes his journal and speaks for the first time since leaving the tavern. "I fear that sending something into the water is the only way to soundly prove or disprove your hypothesis that something evil lurks within, little gnome," he says to Vassi. "Granted, a rock may make more of a splash than intended. Hmm, experiment 17 may be useful..." he trails off, lost in thought as he flicks through the pages of his massive tome in the darkened tunnels. "Ah yes, I could summon a creature to toe the waters if we'd like...perhaps one that can slip in a little more quietly than a stone."

[Dirac Lotus]

Nysan regards Vassi steely, tensing before replying. "It has been my experience that it is better to know what you are facing. I'd much rather lure it out now whilst we can find it on our ground rather than it's. Whatever IT is. Failing that, we can recoup and come up with a different plan."

He shrugs, dropping the stone to the floor. "Have it your way though. I'd very much like to see your take on the matter."

With that, he smirks before shying away from the water's edge.

[RaggedAngel]

Vassi sighs and begins looking around the edges of the walls and the lake, looking for an alternate route around the dark waters. "I feel like the magic man back there would have mentioned something like this; he seemed fairly on top of things. I feel like there has to be something around here, even if it's just a raft or such, that'll make getting across this lake less than suicidal." She makes sure not to move too far from the group, but she looks carefully for anything that might be of use.

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Derp. We haven't done anything but stare at the lake; of course no solutions presented themselves.

Spot: (1d20+2)[4]
Search: (1d20+8)[23]

[Daftendirekt]

At a quick glance around, Vassi sees nothing that would help. However, as she continues around the edge of the lake, small quick feet crunching light in the fine black sand and eyes scanning all around, she catches sight of something off in the distance. It appears to be a long outcropping of rock, jutting into the lake like a lone, spidery finger. It extends out into the water past the extent of her darkvision, about two or three feet above the surface of the water.

[Obscurejones]

Glon looks about for some sort of cover. Regardless of the method the consensus seemed to be that they were going to dislodge something vile from the water. Better to be shooting from a defensible point when that happened.

[RaggedAngel]

Vassi moves back to the others, grinning with a bit of smug pleasure. "I've found something, off to the side here. It's a stone path; not high off the water, but a hell of a lot better than swimming in it. If we're quiet and lucky it should take us over this without ever finding out if my fears are valid." She punches Tsal lightly on the arm, still happy about her find. "You'd be lost without me, shorty." She seems to pointedly ignore the fact that Tsal is several inches taller than her.

[Dirac Lotus]

Nysan shifts, uncomfortably. "Something seems off to me." He gazes for a while in the direction of the outcrop. "Still, it's better than nothing I suppose. Though my point still stands, I would much rather have to deal with whatever is in those waters whilst we are here, on a wide expanse of land, as opposed to that narrow ledge over the water."

He looks thoughtful for a second, before shaking his head and coming back to reality. With that, he looks around the rest of the party, eager for their opinion.

[OMG PONIES]

"I'm amenable to either option," Konig says apathetically. "Naturally, if one of you proceeds first, I can test the validity of all presented hypotheses. If I were to go first, there would be no scientists back here to validate my findings."

[Obscurejones]

Glon chuckles softly.
Let the Gnome go first. Test her own theories about the safety of the stone.

[RaggedAngel]

Vassi shrugs, and heads toward the stone bridge, her eyes and ears perked for trouble. "Don't worry, I have no trouble putting my life where my mouth is. I'll make sure to keep you big strong men safe from harm." She says the last bit sarcastically, but with enough humor in her tone to keep from being overly offensive.

[Dirac Lotus]

Nysan reaches out a hand in front of Vassi, motioning her to stop. "I'll take point, being the 'big strong man' that I am," he exclaims snarkily. "Besides, If we're going to get ambushed I'd much rather be on the front lines where all the action's at."

With those words he unsheathes his greatsword, flourishing slightly before he wields it. He returns the sarcasm, smirking, "Anyway, I don't think you'll be doing that much damage with that big pig-sticker of yours."

[Daftendirekt]

With the muscular, devilish-looking man taking point, the group heads cautiously out onto the rock bridge, which is perhaps six-and-a-half feet wide. Their scuffling footfalls echo strangely off of the cave wall behind them, and they can hear the screeching of bats away in the distance, apparently roused by the group's movement. The surface of the rock is slightly slick with slime, and all five move with care.

As they head out further and further, they lose sight of the shore and it now appears as if they are on the single, thin piece of land in an endless black ocean; quite a disconcerting image. And, if the situation was not tense enough, they come to a point where the bridge dips down into the water; for Glon and Nysan it would come to perhaps mid-calf, but for the gnomes it would be nearly up to their waist.

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If you choose to walk across, give me Balance checks.

[RaggedAngel]

Vassi looks out at the water with growing dread, and she begins to breathe a bit more quickly. "I... know that we need to go on ahead. I know that. It's the reasonable thing to do. We're walking past a flooded point, not swimming. Nothing is going to grab our ankles and drag us off into some writhing..." she puts her hand over her mouth, shaking her head from side to side, as if she was brushing off cobwebs.

"I'm sorry, I can't. This is exceptionally embarassing, but can one of you carry me? I don't weigh much, I promise, and it'll just be past this water. Please." She sounds rather afraid, and her eyes never leave the water. "Sound travels very quickly underwater; when we slosh through it it'll carry to anything in a long, long distance, and we're stranded out here. I can still all of the sound around us for about twenty feet; it'll only last about two minutes, but hopefully that's enough."

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I've never had a character with a phobia before, but she just sort of spoke to me. She has a +8 to Balance, though, so if someone carrying her is going to be an issue she'll walk through the water; she'd just rather lose a hand than have to.

Oh, and she is distinctly not mentioning that Tsal can use Silence too; his powers are his own business.

[Circle of Life]

Tsal looks at Vassi with an unspoken question in his eyes - Vassi was twice the acrobat he would ever be, and if anyone was to lose their footing in the water, it would be him, not her. He lets his thoughts go unspoken however, and produces a section of rope some ten feet in length from his backpack.

"I will walk, I think. It might be prudent if one of you could, er... tie this to your belt, though. Just in case." Holding one end of the rope out to anyone who will take it, he busies himself with tying the other end to his own belt.

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I am not being piggybacked across a stream of water, no sir. *stubborn foot stomp*

[Dirac Lotus]

Nysan raises an eyebrow quizzically at Vassi before kneeling down in front of her. "Climb aboard shorty, and try not to throttle me." He makes an awkward attempt at sounding sympathetic whilst offering the ride, "Besides, you'd probably end up head-high in this pond - we don't want you drowning now do we, who else can I mock?"

He takes the proffered rope from Tsal and begins tying it to his waist. "Might as well take you too, I'm not in much of a fighting state anyway, so it won't do much harm. Although it would be prudent if someone else could take the lead now, as I say, I'm not able to swing a sword very easily like this."

Finishing tying the rope around his waist, Nysan stows his sword away in its sheath. With that, he turns to the dwarf: "Say, you wouldn't happen to have some form of noise-cancelling contraption would you? Or maybe something to provide a distraction whilst we cross?"

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Nysan will take 10 on the balance check, for a total of 15. However, should I feel this is not stable enough (i.e. the penalties for carrying two people in stow are too high) he shall take 20.

[Circle of Life]

"Nobody listens to a gnome..." Tsal mutters under his breath. Louder, he says: "Did you not hear the fine example of gnomehood upon your back just offer the very thing you asked for?"

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Objection! Tsal is not being carried. He's walking with a safety line.

[Dirac Lotus]

"Aye, though it is my understanding that the water will still be disturbed by our presence? I was hoping for something more... global, and Konig seems a resourceful chap. Though I guess twenty feet is a start. Nysan archs his head round to face Vassi, "May I inquire as to how you achieve this?"

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EDIT: I will be taking 20 on the balance check, just realised I forgot to account for armour check penalties

[Obscurejones]

Glon prepares to slip into the water without a word. He'd be to slight to carry the gnome even if he wanted to, but he's got no particular fear of water as long as he's got something to rest his feet on.

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Taking ten for a 19 with ACP.

[OMG PONIES]

Konig grins and waves a bony finger at Nysan. "Quite astute, chap," he says in a near-whisper, "very shrewd indeed. I am a man of some ingenuity, and I have just the bait to cast elsewhere."

The dwarf fumbles about in his pack for a quick moment and pulls out a small sliver of bone. In his other hand, he clutches an unlit candle and a very small bag. "You see, the marrow and wax can repropogate thanks to the bonding agent in this bag so that the skeletal framework is basically whole in..." As he speaks, the small sliver grows into a full human frame before the group. The skeleton stands at the ready and tilts its head to the side, causing a sickening CRACK to echo through the caverns. "...no time!" the dwarf concludes.

Spellcraft DC 16 to open:

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Konig casts Summon Undead I...but don't tell him that!

Turning to the skeleton, he says "walk into the water away from us." He turns back to the party, his eyes nearly popping from his skull in glee. "Should prove an apt distraction, if only for the few crucial seconds we need. Carry on then, little ones." With that, he gestures for them to cross the watery part of the path. As he moves in the back, he tries his best to stay balanced. Whether Vassi's words were getting to him or what he could not say, but he had no desire to fall into the black water. He grabs the rope and swings his arm in a short circle, wrapping the rope around his wrist.

Taking 10 on Balance for a result of 11.

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Hmm, I like your concept of a phobic character, RaggedAngel. On a semi-related note, do we have an OOC thread that I'm missing?

[Daftendirekt]

OOC thread is here, also linked in the OP of this thread. Curious how you missed it, since I only ever linked to IC thread from there, not from recruitment thread.

The crack of the skeleton's bones creaking reverberates throughout the cavern, taking nearly twenty seconds to fully die down. The group stands with breath held for a moment afterwards, but the silences goes unbroken save for the small splashing of the skeleton as it quickly sinks into the water, its jerky movement insufficient to keep it afloat. The water is clear enough that, were anybody to look, they could follow its progress down for quite a ways.

As Nysan wades across the sunken section of the bridge, all five hear a sound off in the distance; too far beyond their darkvision to see anything. It was two small splashes in quick succession, as if something broke the surface and then quickly went under again.

Nysan makes it across safely, followed quickly by Glon and the strange old dwarf, and they stand a moment more listening for the sound again, but the silence drags painfully on as Vassi clambers down off of the tiefling's back and Tsal catches up, bringing the slack of the lifeline with him. Just as Tsal exits the submerged section, the group hears a new sound, difficult to put into words -- it is like a bubbling, clicking growl, and it is followed by another splash.

[Obscurejones]

With a slow practiced motion Glon slides the crossbow from his back and quickly checks it's action sliding back the stirrup and laying a bolt in wait. He looks out over the water carefully, scanning it at crossbow's length.

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Hide(1d20+11)[31]
Move Silently (1d20+11)[20]
Rolled to load his crossbow as unobtrusively as possible.
And throw in a spot if it's appropriate.

[Dirac Lotus]

Drawing his sword once more, Nysan glances around the room in an attempt to discern where the noise came from. If he thinks he can determine its point of origin, he motions to the others in that direction.

"Let's keep moving," something obviously has him disturbed. "Hopefully not much farther now, by the hells this is a big lake!"

Before setting off he motions to Tsal, "Perhaps I should lose this rope now, we seem to be through the worst of it, and I don't want either of us dragging each other off if we get gotten."

[RaggedAngel]

Vassi is terrified and furious, and once past the flooded section she begins moving along the bridge as quickly as she can. "I told you," she says in a harsh whisper, "I told you no good would come of randomly sending undead into the lake, or making unneeded noise and splashes. And what happens? So horrible thing is now going to rise out of the depths and eat us." She narrows her eyes at Tsal, as if it were all his fault. "If I die, I'm going to come back and haunt you."

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Hide: (1d20+17)[24]
Move Silently: (1d20+13)[31]

[Dirac Lotus]

Nysan lowers his voice to a quiet hiss as he lectures Vassi, "It is my belief that that skeleton just saved our lives. Were it not for the distraction posed by it, we would have been the only thing in the water for it to munch on." He sighs, before continueing at a softer tone, "That said, it would be a grand idea to make haste across this bridge. Hells only know whatever's out there."

After a quick weapons and armour check, he chuckles grimly to himself. "So much trouble posed by such a grim lake, I dread to think of the challenges to come!"

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I cannot see this ending well at all:
Hide - (1d20-1)[17]
Move Silently - (1d20-3)[13]

[Daftendirekt]

With the female whisper gnome now frantically leading the way, the group moves the rest of the way across the rock bridge, which takes perhaps four or five more minutes. Vassi heaves an audible sigh of relief and relaxes noticeably when they reach dry land. Their tense crossing of the massive lake being concluded, all take a minute to relax and catch their breath.

Once they decide to move on, they enter once more into a tunnel that is wide, but not so wide that they cannot see its walls and ceiling -- perhaps twenty feet wide and fifteen feet high, with occasional stalactites hanging down like giant fangs of rock. The tunnel continues on for hours, twisting and turning but never branching. Eventually the tunnel opens again, but a different sight greets the travelers this time.

Below them spreads a large cavern, most of its recesses lost in shadow, but one corner stands out due to the fact that it is actually illuminated, although its distance makes the source of the light impossible to determine. The group stands on a ledge perhaps 100 feet above the cavern floor, and a ramp that follows the wall heads down from their position to the bottom.

[Circle of Life]

Tsal looks around, mouth agape. "Have you ever had one of those moments where you just feel very, very small, Vassi?" he asks, head swiveling to take in the cavern. "Moreso than usual, I mean? I am feeling that way right now..." He pauses, squinting at the distant light. "What do you suppose that is?"