RA Side Quest, Cave Quest 2: The Cavening. This Time, It's Personal

[inexorabletruth]

The rain bludgeons you like a mallet as you slog through the mud in your search to find a suitable replacement cave.

Lightning sears the sky, scarring the earth with its wrath, leaving behind small clusters of flame that are quickly doused by the heavy downpour, but it seems to be enough to light your way. These mountains are honeycombed with caves, but most of them are too small, or too high off the ground for the horses and supplies to fit.

OOC:

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Please Roll a Fortitude Save, a Spot Check, and a Balance Check while your at it.

After traveling for only a short while, you can hear Felix's dog, Alfie, barking at you. Looking back, you can see the silhouette of a rotund halfling riding a sopping wet dog as they bound toward you.

[missmvicious]

OCC
The title is golden.

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Fort (1d20+3)[11]
Spot (1d20+2)[20]
Balance (1d20-2)[1]

"Felix!" Gwen calls out relieved that she wasn't actually alone in this battle she waves an arm out to them. "Glad you can join me! Hopefully we can find a place to rest that doesn't require tearing babes from their mother. I mean can you believe those idiots thinking that sleeping there is just gonna work dandy? Ugh its unbelievable." Gwen continues ranting half under her breath, so there fore completely inaudibly in the storm, about how much she wanted to slap some sense into the party and tell them to man up and stop ruining the lives of innocent bear cubs.

[Lexin]

Saves/skills (I assume Felix needs them too)

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Felix
Fort (1d20+6)[22] +5 if it is about cold weather
Spot (1d20+7)[19]
Balance (1d20+3)[6]
(Survival, for cave finding rolled earlier - I think it was 22)

Alfie
Fort (1d20+5)[6]
Balance (1d20+6)[18]

"Not really a good idea to stay there...
But we need to find shelter as fast as possible, the weather is not getting better and the bear can be back anytime."
Shouts Felix, with worried expression on his face. While he walks towards Gwen, he looks around trying to find a suitable cave.

[inexorabletruth]

OOC:

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Gwen fails her Fort Save. You take (1d6)[3] points of non-lethal damage.

Gwen fails her Balance Check (DC 9). Felix is riding Alfie, I presume, so he passes.

The mud and the scree make for a difficult and slippery march, but you manage to stumble your way along the mountainside inch by inch. You find a scorched and dead goblin lying near a tree that also has a lot of scorch marks on it, as if struck by lightning. Further on up ahead, you see where the goblins have made their new shelter in a small cave slightly up the mountainside. They shiver in the cold as they struggle to make a new fire using rain-soaked wood. The cave is too small to be of use to your group, though.

After about 30 minutes of searching, you come across a few options. There is a cave occupied by wolves, huddled in their pack for warmth, that would theoretically suit your needs, and another large cave that is teeming with smaller animals, like packrats and raccoons, apparently making the best of their unpleasant alliance to stay out of the storm.

Many of the other caves are either too small, too high off the ground or too dangerously guarded to consider as a shelter. But wherever you go, it looks like you'll have company.

[missmvicious]

"Felix this cave with the rodents is going to be the best choice. They should just move into the cave more, not look for a fight." Gwen shouts over the roar of the storm. "We need to remember where exactly it is and get the others."

[Lexin]

"Wouldn't it be better to check if there isn't anything deeper inside first? We rushed into bear cave too."

[missmvicious]

"Thats a good point let's check it out!" Gwen shouts water dripping into her eyes and she moves to the cave.

[Lexin]

"Ehh, I hope you know what you are doing." Felix says as he follows after Gwen.

[inexorabletruth]

After a few steps, Gwen's leg gets stuck in the mud. Before she can pull herself out, though, she falls through the ground as if a trap door had opened below her.

The ground around her collapses and falls away, leaving a 15' wide sink hole where she once stood.

Agile as ever, Alfie springs free of the unsteady ground, leaving dog and rider to peer at a black hole where a paladin once stood.

@Gwen:

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You don't fall far, but you land hard on solid rock, taking (1d6)[2] fall damage. You're about 10' down now. The impact startles a nest of rats, which scurry angrily away from the mud that is now pouring in from the sinkhole.

Beyond that, it's black as pitch, but echoes from the rain reveal that this may be a tunnel.

[Lexin]

"Grab the rope!" shouts Felix, tying it to Alfie's saddle and throwing one end to Gwen.

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Would the merchant's wagons be able to get inside the cave? Or is the hole in a place they would not be able to avoid?

[missmvicious]

"Ouch!" Gwen winces, she is feeling pretty beat up. "Why is this here?"
Gwen stands up and brushes the wet hair off her face before setting her hands on her hips looking at the trap she was in before grabbing the rope Felix lowered to her.

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Climb check (1d20+2)[14]

[inexorabletruth]

OOC:

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Gwen is in a sinkhole, but it's not a very big one. The horses should be able to get around it with no problems, but even with no ranks in Dungeoneering or Geography, this would imply two things:
1: There are subterranean caverns nearby.
2: Something like this could happen again.

Gwen manages to scrape her way up the rope.

The two of you get to the cave at last. The rodents hiding out in the cave aren't overly happy to see you, but they retreat further into the caves recesses with your approach.

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The cave is teeming with life. It seems that this is a cave for exiles, those who were forced out of their homes from the rain. A skulk of foxes are tucked in one corner, trying to keep their young warm, while in another corner a nest of rabbits scurry away at your presence. You nearly walk right passed a frustrated badger who hisses at you angrily and bunkers deeper into its cubby.

Some inspection of the cave reveals that it's not as big as the first one you found, but it has a deeper chamber and is still big enough to house the horses and carts, though they'd have to enter and leave single file.

[missmvicious]

"I think this will work Felix. Well have to watch out for further sink holes but with no bears here I think its preferable." Gwen says hoping that Felix will agree and they can move the caravan.

[Lexin]

"Better check first though."

Felix walks around, poking the ground with a stick or throwing rocks to see if there are more surprises there. He also checks the cave further inside to see for sure if there aren't bear cubs or hornet nest or... anything else that would make them move to another cave again...

[inexorabletruth]

As with any cave, there are bugs in it.

With each poke of the stick, you send centipedes, pill bugs, spiders, ants, and a variety of other vermin scattering. You also make enough of a fuss to get the animals to stir nervously, but you find nothing explicitly dangerous.

As you go further down the cave, you lose the benefit of light and can no longer see, but you do hear the nervous fluttering and chattering of bats.

[Lexin]

Felix lights a torch to check the darker corners of the cave, but keeps his head low so he doesn't get swarmed with bats.

[inexorabletruth]

The dim torchlight is like the rays of the sun in contrast to the deep dark of the cave. The ceiling is peppered with bats who shrink and chatter irritably at the invasion of light.

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The cave itself is really more of a natural tunnel that just digs deeper into the mountainside. A small stream winds through the middle of the cave floor, then digs further underground once it gets about 60 feet from the mouth of the cave, which might explain the sinkhole earlier.

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A strange creature looks up from taking a drink from the stream when the torchlight hits it, then it scurries away deeper down the tunnel, back into the safety of the dark.

[Lexin]

"Yes, I think this would work, Gwen. Let's go back." says Felix, as he walks back towards the entrance and puts out the torch.

[inexorabletruth]

You head back to the initial cave. Round trip, you spent about an hour. As you approach the area of the cave you hear multiple roaring sounds. They sound like the bear you fought off earlier, but there are at least two of them. The roars are shorter, but more than loud enough to carry over the roar of the storm.

Please rejoin the main campaign.