Under the School IC

[Marker Mage]

Niko Tezza

Niko looked up from his note taking. He had started over in his reading through of the book when he entered the cave. He had heard once that if you have your senses experiencing something while you study, that having them experience that again will help bring back the memories. This was easy enough to take advantage of with some flavored hard candy being sucked on during a study session and later during a test. A few wizards in the school would even use Prestidigitation to add a distinctive flavor to one of their fingers or a piece of their robe and lightly gnaw on it during both the studying and test. Niko hoped to achieve the same thing with the sights, sounds, and scents that surrounded him in that cave. If possible, he might want to convince another in the group to try sparring with him while he tries to read up on the more dangerous creatures. However, that would have to wait for the moment.

"I would rather go with the path that everyone's more comfortable with, but if I may point out something. The wider path allows room for wider creatures. If we take the narrower path, we would be less likely to encounter anything bigger than ourselves. However, we would have more to worry from swarms of smaller creatures due to our lessened maneuverability."

Niko studied the two paths closely. "Of the two paths, the only one that I can think of a clever strategy for would be the narrower one. We would have our goblin friend scout it out for either danger or a wide-enough section, then come back. If it's a wider section, we head towards it. If it's a dangerous creature, we wait at the wider section and try to lure it out into an ambush. For the wider route, I'm afraid that we would have less opportunity for starting any confrontation in an advantageous position, and I've heard that a fair fight is a sign of poor tactics plenty of times."

Niko eyed the crumbling rock face that separated the two paths. "For now however, how about we set up the first of the rods? We are going to have to set them up for the paths we don't take anyway, and we know that one of them will go right there." Niko points at the wall separating the two paths.

[shugyosha]

Ceraphina

Finishing up her writing she packs her things then comments, "Didn't they say they wanted the detect devices as far out as possible. If they wanted it here they would have done it themselves." After saying it she realized that she would probably be ignored. She wondered if was because she was a girl.

[Prince Zahn]

"Serefineh's reht, we shud cov'r some grehnd befur settin' the rods, if something did come chergin' heer, thehr'd be no time to pripehr."
With a small pause, The lug continued:

"Hevving cleen'd mennee vishus mess's in smill currid'rs, ye shud know the leck of movemint c'n burd'n us greitlee shud it get too nirrow. most impurtintly to those in the middle."

Gurlin nodded to his words, and then poked Niko's shoulder and whispered as he gestured with his hands:

Niko, Shud the Kevve beists stert'l ye, ye'll be surree her hed Wes in e book the wholl tehm, so eis-frunt frum ev'ryone is best."

[Marker Mage]

Niko Tezza

Niko turned around to see Ceraphina. "We were also told to cover all entrances to the school. If something comes through a route that doesn't have the rods set up for them, the school's first warning will be when that stone door back there is opened or broken. We can always move the rods later, can't we?"

Niko turned to Gurlin. "I was just reading up on the kinds of beasts we're likely to come across. I was also doing some ma..." A realization hit Niko. "We never decided who would be responsible for making a map, did we?"

Spoiler

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Niko hasn't been paying much attention to what's behind him. So he hasn't noticed Cera making a map.

[Grytorm]

"I'll move down the smaller tunnel for now, follow if you wish after a few minutes. If I encounter a fork or anything alive I will come back." Chaff says as he begins to move down the tunnel. Stooping at the entrance to look for any signs of something passing through before going forward into the darkness as he readies his shield.

Spoiler

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Survival (1d20+4)[22]
Hide (1d20+12)[14]
Move Silently (1d20+12)[17]
Note moving forward without a light. Relying on dark-vision.

[AugustusGloop]

IJudit

Judit listened to the debate, and finally found an opportunity to speak up when he was certain he wasn't going to interrupt anyone else. "I think we should put three of the rods here, even though it's so close. Nothing says we can't move them, and since we'll be returning to the school at some point we can pick them up on our way out again, once we understand the layout of the tunnels better." He peered around at their surroundings and shrugged, "I've never been in caves before, but I don't think there's anything that says these two tunnels ever have to meet up again. Does anyone know if they're naturally formed, or if they've been dug by creatures? There are certain types of worms that grow this large, and they are known to burrow through solid rock."

[Man on Fire]

"Large worms? They doesn't happen to eat uncareful explorers, right?" Stinky quickly gettis scared over simple rumor and starts to panically thinking if there are any large worms known to live under school grounds.

Spoiler

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Knowledge Local (1d20+4)[17] + bardic Knowledge (1d20+3)[22] to see if there are any rumors about giant underground worms. Yeah, Stinky jsut got scared.

[Marker Mage]

Niko Tezza

Niko takes a look through "Johnson's Guide to Caves". "Cave types... Ah, here it is! Hmmm... The lack of stalagmites and stalactites rules out a limestone cave... If this cave is a natural one, then it's probably a lava cave formed during an eruption."

[Prince Zahn]

Gurlin is impressed by Niko's deduction, perhaps all that book reading wasn't for nothing, or maybe this place they stand upon now might have just been two corners of something much, much bigger than themselves:
"Lehvveh, ye sei, if thets the cehs the pruffess'r Meh hevve just fehnd a feir-spell guld-mehn..." Gurlin, holding the goblin's torch as well as his own lightly shook the light sources in his hands as he uttered the words "fire-spell gold mine".
Gurlin Drew two rods from his backpack, and turned toward Judit: I've bin thinking, Rith'r then plentin' three rods, weh nit just behree one in the cent'r of eich peth? Sum one Lind me e shov'l?"

[Sampi]

Chaff disappears in the left-hand passage while you discuss the nature of the cave.

[Marker Mage]

Niko Tezza

"I may have misheard that. Bury them in the CENTER of each path? It's a good thing that I took notes on how these rods work." Niko went to the notes he took on the rods.

fld Btwn; alrm ps thrw anml/schl; obst=mnr; lng rng?=test; NtRcnct.

Niko translates the notes into common. "The rods create a field between them. The alarm activates when something passes through that field, unless that something is just an animal or school personnel. They basically act like a tripwire. Burying them in the center of each path will leave half of each path unnoticed by the rods. If we want to cover both paths with only two rods, then we are going to have to put them somewhere behind us. Ideally, we would want to place them so that the only way to reach them without passing between them would be to approach them from the direction that we came from."

[Man on Fire]

"Guys, anyone knows anything about geology? It would be good to know how old those tunnels are." Stinky says, then he immiediately bites himself in the tounge, realizing that's a stupid idea. He also realzies that he's quite nervous. Last time he flet that way was when he was about to attack Beard. Slowly a terrible realization crawls into his head - he is scared. Those are two nasty, bad tunnels in front of him with they don't know what waiting inside. He really feels like he needs some booze. But he haven't took any. Poor him.

[AugustusGloop]

IJudit

Judit felt as though he had to continue to disagree, as much as he wanted to just be quiet and go along with the knowledgeable Niko, and the terrifying Gurlin. "There's no reason to be stingy with the rods right now." He continued quietly, eyes firmly on his shoes. "We know nothing about the tunnels, or where they lead, and we don't know what information will be valuable. What if it is vital we know which tunnel a threat emerged from, but we only used two rods? If we take the time now, and use three as we should... I mean, if you think it's a good..." He trailed off, his confidence forsaking him.

[shugyosha]

Ceraphina

She watched Chaff go alone and wondered why Chappe let him go off by himself. Was the goblin supposed to do all the exploring all by himself while they argued about placing the rods here or not.

[Prince Zahn]

Gurlin nodded and grunted lightly after Listening to Niko and Judit, he used the shovel handed to him and he scooped off the initial dirt from the left corner from the entrance, dug up a Hole about a foot-and-a-half in diameter, and a few feet deep, it should suffice to cover the rods entirely, while the rods will be placed shallow enough in the dirt should they need to retrieve it in a matter of minutes,
He then did the same on a corner closer to the other path.
despite his clumsy appearence and hasty work, the observant among us might have noticed Gurlin being quite...orderly with the digging and placing, it seems clear he's done similar jobs before.
Once the two rods were buried and each concealed under a rock Gurlin picked up on the spot. Gurlin drew out a rugged chalk stone, walked to the center of the fork and wrote a white "X" on the ground while holding the torches in one hand and the chalk between two fingers in the other fist:
"Here, ye sei?"
"Ilreht, I'll get to it next."
He placed the stone in his apron pocket, laid the torches down, pulled his third rod from his pack and resumed the job, picking up a light sweat doing so.

[Man on Fire]

"Guys, how will we know when it's time for gates to open again? Stinky points out. "None of us thought about any way of measuring time."

[Marker Mage]

Niko Tezza

Niko just stares at Stinky for awhile before speaking. "I'm assuming that you have thought of some way that knowing when it's time for the gates to open will benefit us. Would you mind sharing it?"

[Man on Fire]

"Well, mister smart, knowing exactly when gates will open may benefit us if we wouldn't be able to make the marks to open them ourselves and would have to head back, we would plan our road back differently with that knowledge, especially in case we need to get out quickly. Really, somebody could have tought you think I'm crazy or something."

[Marker Mage]

Niko Tezza

"So we wouldn't just take the shortest route back and begin waiting in the event that we needed to go back but couldn't use the marks once we got to the door?"

[Man on Fire]

Yes. But what if we would run out of food or be pursued by something? I don't want to die because we raced back here only to find the doors locked."

[Marker Mage]

Niko Tezza

"If we can't find enough mushrooms and bats down here, we'll just have to resort to eating our shoes. And if that isn't enough, we'll resort to eating each other. And if whichever of us is left is still hungry, they'll just have to eat the rations we brought with us." Niko may have been joking, but not by much. He would probably miss a meal or two before his stomach got loud enough to convince him to eat any of the rations he brought with him. He was honestly hoping that they could find mushrooms or something. "But seriously, we can use the number of meals that we've eaten to decide when to go back. If we are pursued, then I would really like to know how we would go about timing our arrival at the door. Even with something to use to know how much time we had until the door opened, it would probably be very difficult. We'd probably have a better chance of luring whatever was pursuing us through a route that went between two of the rods with hope that the alarm convinces them to open the door sooner. Taking the effort to measure time will take some attention away from other tasks like mapping, looking for food, and my memorization of this book."

[freebiewitz]

"Hmm with the issue of food as long as we can procure the raw ingredients I'll be able to make it edible." It was a long winded way to say 'I can cook' but he had to show that he was the leader and not their personal chef.

"As for the problem with knowing when the door will open or not I have a few ideas." Pointing at one of the rods he continued. "The rods make a note of when things pass correct? Assuming the doors open inwards then the rods should be able to detect this." Of course the problem of knowing how much time before this happened was still an issue.

"Otherwise we'll simply continue to explore the underground and if we find anything valuable that we should not risk we'll come back up ,simply wait and camp out until it opens up again." Chappe honestly wasn't that worried.

If there was something dangerous down here then they would need to eat something right? And if there was nothing to eat then there would be no monsters. Though now that he thought about it he wasn't so sure which was the worse option.

Imagining each scenario was worrying but then he realized that undead didn't need a food source.
Shivering he clenched his glowing sword tighter.

[shugyosha]

Ceraphina

[COLOR="Orange"]
"As for the problem with knowing when the door will open or not I have a few ideas." Pointing at one of the rods he continued. "The rods make a note of when things pass correct? Assuming the doors open inwards then the rods should be able to detect this."

"The problem is that these rods don't tell us anything. They are meant to give those on the other side notice." She did understand the problem of time Stinky brought up. Not everyone could make a mark she assumed.

She didn't like the idea that anyone of them were left alone, "We really should make sure Chaff is alright," she suggested.

[freebiewitz]

"I admit I am worried but you should have more faith in him." Pausing for a moment he then added. "But I suppose it wouldn't hurt to check his progress none the less, if everyone is ready we'll move up."

[Grytorm]

Chaff worries a little that the group has not followed as he returns until he reaches the party. When he sees them arguing he smiles and shakes his head. "The tunnel goes up after a ways. And it reaches a point where I would have had to crawl. Something is definitely something past their though and the tunnel widens."

Spoiler

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Sampi, about how long was I gone?

[Sampi]

Chaff was away no longer than two minutes.

[Man on Fire]

"Then I don't see much choice. If Goblin had to crawl, then even I, with my muscular body, may not be able to get through, not to mention you, very large big bad humans." Stinky says, clearly ignoring the fact that he is anything but musculat.

[shugyosha]

Ceraphina

"Or we could check the other passage first," she countered. She did not like the idea of crawling but tried to hide it as much as possible.

[AugustusGloop]

IJudit

"Perhaps we should move the rods for this passage as far forward as we can, and try the other way." Judit wanted the school to have as much warning as it could get, but he really didn't want to have to crawl and squeeze through a passage. Anything could happen while they were stuck in there!

[Marker Mage]

Niko Tezza

"I'm all for Judit's idea. It might also be a good idea to leave some way for us to identify the other end of that tunnel should we ever come across it again. The rods could work for that. We'd just have to use the monocles to notice them."