The Cube (IC)

[hexonxonx]

In game terms, the vegetation provides "total concealment" to you guys. That is, it does not provide a physical barrier, but it blocks all sight beyond it. You could Detect Evil through it, no problem.

[Taffimai]

Well, can we say that she did then (before Hotaru made her turn around)? If there's no evil she'll let him go in first if he wants to.

[hexonxonx]

There is no evil that you can detect.

[Halna LeGavilk]

OOc: Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean there isn't anything in there. Many monsters are neutral. Also, I should still get a listen check. I don't think the foliage is thick enough to block sound, though it might add a modifier to the DC.

IC:John cursed the thick foliage in front of the opening, which was impairing his hearing and vision. He turned when he heard Hotaru speaking. After a few seconds, John figured he was invisible.

"That is indeed very handy, Ru, but will you actually be able to see anything? I mean, even if you had an invisible torch, creatures would still see the light, wouldn't they?"

John nods his head. "Linon has a point Hotaru. Unless of course, somebody has a spell that could grant the ability to see in the dark? I'm sure one of you guys could do it."

[webgem]

Jarek

Jarek tries to concentrate enough to hear what might be going on behind the wall of vegitation. After a moment he suggests that the party clear the vines in case somebody needs to get in or out quickly, rather than trying to squeeze through. If they agree he moves to help pull apart the leaves, cutting with his dagger if necessary.

Spoiler

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(1d20+3)[13] Listen check.
(1d20+1)[11] strength check
(1d4+1)[4] dagger damage

[Halna LeGavilk]

Johnathan helps move/and or cut down the vines/vegetation. He looks and listens again for anything.

Spoiler

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(1d20+4)[23] That's the strength check.
(1d8)[7] That's the damage roll.
(1d20+2)[21] Second Listen.
(1d20+2)[9] Second Spot.

[hexonxonx]

You guys easily cut through the screen of leaves concealing the entrance to The Cube. Inside is a dark space of rotting organic matter that seems to have fallen into this chamber over the centuries. You see about twenty feet of somewhat level ground, then a chasm of space descending beyond your line of sight after this. (I'm assuming none of you wanted to walk into The Cube just yet.)

[Otakutaylor]

Loretta

Huh, no trap on the front door... well it's overgrown, maybe it's gonna be a few more steps inside. Loretta thinks to herself as she recalls other adventures that started with this type of enterance.

She pulls out her axe and hammer and stands at the ready for the plethora of traps, monsters, and other rather nasty and lethal things that could confront her and the party. Hoots actually stays behind Loretta, he's trained rather well that the best spot for him (and safest) is behind the group and out of the middle of combat. Who's better eyes to be on guard behind you than an owls?

Loretta moves near the doorway and awaits her turn to enter, since someone has decided to go first.

"Watch yer footing, majority of traps are pressure plated."

Even after she says that, she makes a quick check of the ceiling of the enterance. It's happened before that a spider decides to take residence up there...

For self reference, Loretta is putting off casting her lightfoot spell for today. Gauging the amount of combat time they may be spending in the cube.

[Taffimai]

Linon

"Watch yer footing, majority of traps are pressure plated."

Linon looks hesitatingly at Loretta, then asks:

"Uhm, Loretta? You don't think Hoots would be willing to scout for us, do you? I mean, I wouldn't normally suggest sending an animal into possible danger, but if Ru can make, uhm, him or her invisible... It's just that Hoots wouldn't set off any traps, owls can see much further than most of us and they're as good as soundless when they fly..."

If not, she waits for Hotaru to let them know he's gone in and then follows shortly after (but not on his heels, since she doesn't want him to feel like she has no faith in his scouting abilities).

((OOC: I know not everything is evil, but if there had been something, there's no way she'd have let him go first))

[Bender]

Hynerst

Hynerst stands around, listening with half an ear to the conversation of the others and runs through his prepared spells in his head. As everyone else seems to be more eager to enter than he is, which isn't too hard, he probably enters last.

[hexonxonx]

This room in The Cube has gradually filled in, over the years, with organic matter that has filled in from the outside. The result is that most of this room is filled with the foul smelling miasma of rotting vegetable matter. The entrance to The Cube is a gaping hole near the top of the side wall, and it is about ten feet across in the middle of the wall. The room is about 40 feet across, so there are fifteen feet to the right side of the entrance and fifteen feet to the left of the entrance (for a total of 40 feet.) A ledge of mud and Light Undergrowth leads twenty feet to a chasm in front of you. Nothing happens as any of you walk into the chamber.

(OOC: Every room in the Cube will be like this. It is an 8 X 8 X 8 three dimensional grid. That is, it's a chess board. Right now you are at "30 feet" of elevation, or thirty feet off the ground. The standard Chess conventions work here. From left to right, the horizontal pieces run from A to H, and from bottom to top the numbers run from 1 to 8. Right now, you are at the western side of the board, that is, A4 and A5. If you want to make my life and your life alot easier use this method to determine where exactly your characters are. Google "chess board" if you want the coordinate system used in chess.)

The chasm runs from D8 to D1; beyond that you simply see the opposite side of the board and nothing of what's underneath the board. (ooc: If you walk anywhere, simply say "My dude walks from A8 to A4," just as you would in chess. The rule that diagonal movement counts as two movements counts here, too; so moving from A8 to B7 would count as ten feet. Understand?)

[webgem]

Jarek

Jarek looks over the edge into the pit as he pulls the foilage apart. He blinks in suprise "Watch the first step everyone," He says with a chuckle. He reaches his hand into his backpack and concentrates for a moment. "But more seriously I think I forgot my rope and grappel, does anybody have some with them."

OOC: Is that a house rule that diagonals count as two, because in the srd, and my ph I think diagonals work this way. "When measuring distance, the first diagonal counts as 1 square, the second counts as 2 squares, "

[hexonxonx]

(ooc: you are right, webgem.)

You see very little down the chasm. There is almost no sunlight down there. You make out the vague outlines of ancient rotting tree branches and other detritus that must have been swept down into this room of The Cube during a storm.

[Otakutaylor]

Loretta

OOC: correct me if i'm wrong, but it'll only take a small 5 foot jump to get across this little gap.
Loretta makes her way to the edge of the gap (let's say C3), and listens to Linon's question. Sigh, always the owl first... should have left him with the druid.
She gives a light whistle to Hoots, who was still sitting at the enterance, which tells him to move to her and then she guides him to cross the gap slowly and land on the opposite side. Then, if he sees anything particularly weird, fly back immidiately. Loretta also looks down the gap, since she's got dark vision sunlight won't change her ability to see. Either this gap cut's the whole of the cube in half (almost) or we've already got some extradimensional magics or whatever that's called.

As Loretta let's go of Hoots, she points out to Linon, "Hoots is a guy."
A thought crosses her mind, as Hoots flys to land on the opposite side. Maybe "nothing here" means there isn't really a floor. As she recalls an illusionary wall that kept a hero from finding her way in an adventure story she once heard.

She also jests that maybe she could try finding the paths that the people who drew the map took, and follow in their footsteps (as far as the not dieing part is anyway) but tracks that old even Ehlonna herself might have trouble with.

[hexonxonx]

Hold on. The chasm occupies the entire second half of the room. You don't know what depth it is exactly, except it is much lower in altitude than they platform you are standing on. That is, from F1 to F8 it drops at a 90 degree angle, and the half of the room after this is a pit. Sorry for not describing this in better detail. (I'm going into so much detail so we can avoid problems in description, and because we don't have a game board to look at.)

[Grrth]

Hotaru:

"No, no, it was a joke!" insists Ru, waving his hands to decline the 'honor' of going in first. He'll mutter, "Paladins!" under his breath.

He will offer his rope. "I don't have a grappling hook, but I can snake-charm my rope into life!"

And "If there's any light at all in there, I should be okay as far as seeing what's there."

((half-elf, he gets low-light vision))

[Otakutaylor]

Loretta

OOC: my mistake, I thought "The chasm runs from D8 to D1" meant those were the only squares it occupied.

In that case, I'll have Hoots fly down to investigate a bit. Then when he can make out some ground to fly back up. Which since Hoots can only fly up so fast she can get a fair gauge for how deep this hole is. If he sees anything other than ground, he's to fly up as fast as he can regardless but it's fairly obvious when an owl is agitated from finding something or bored because all he did was land and take-off again.

[Taffimai]

Linon

Linon walks around their platform, detecting evil in all directions (including down the chasm) without expecting to find anything. She follows Hoots with her eyes as far as she can while he flies down. (C5)

I really would have felt better if she had waited for Hotaru to make Hoots invisible. What if something shoots an arrow at him?

Suddenly realizing that she hasn't seen any doors yet, she turns to Hynerst.

"Mister Whistkingstone, do you have any reason to believe we're actually in the first room of this Cube, and do you know where the exit should be? In fact, do you think that maybe it could have rolled on its side, or upside down or something?"

[Bender]

Hynerst

Hynerst watches his feet carefully as he moves in. Lighting his way with his torch. When he breathes in the foul air, he starts coughing silently in his arm. He continues to breath rapidly with the occasional gasp and cough.
First, he pays little attention to the chasm, staying well away from it. He holds his light to the walls, hoping to find any carvings, and to study the material the walls are made of.

When he is addressed by Linon: "There are two doors in every room. If we are in the first cube and entered through the entrance, there should be one other door. If this wasn't the originally intended entrance, there should be two doors. Since every room is cubic, the chasm can't be more than about 30 ft deep."

(Ooc: what would be the chessboard coordinates of the other door according to the map?)

[hexonxonx]

The door should be at coordinates H4 and H5. At that region, you see a lot of mud and tumbled tree trunks laying against the wall. Hoots the owl flies down; he circles around for awhile, looking for a place to land. He tries to alight on several tree branches that have fallen into the chasm, but they sink under his weight. Apparently there is no dry ground anywhere at the bottom of the chasm. You gauge how deep the chasm runs, and it's about 25 feet from below the level you are standing. Hoots lets out a squawk of irritation and flies back up to his master. Hynerst looks around, but sees nothing resembling runes or drawings on the walls at this level. In fact, all of the walls are covered by what seems like an inch of caked-on dirt. Linon does not detect any evil at the bottom of the chasm.

[Halna LeGavilk]

John, carefully stepping on the ground, wary of slipping, glanced over the edge of the pit.

Spoiler

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(1d20+2)[5]
(1d20+2)[22]

[Halna LeGavilk]

OOc:Sorry. First is my listen, second's my spot. Also, I'm using darkvision.

[hexonxonx]

John hears or sees nothing.

[Halna LeGavilk]

John backs away from the ledge carefully, and continues checking around the room for anything.

Spoiler

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(1d20+1)[2] That's my search.
(1d20+2)[11] That's a spot, in case I need it for anything.

[webgem]

Jarek

Jarek looks around the stable area of the ledge, and trying to find some clue as to what to do next. He stays close enough to john to keep the spell going (35ft) but other than that just looks. He actually takes the time to scrape some of the mud off the wall if it is feasible. Assuming he finds nothing of interest he begins to formulate a plan.

"I think one of us should go down there, probably one with lighter armor. I'll volunteer if necessary, though I do need to stay fairly close to John to keep our spell up. We could tie the rope to the person who descends and pull them up if they start to sink too much. Another possibility would to go outside and find a big rock and tie the rope too it I suppose. I also have a spell that grants flight for a short time, though I think we should save that if possible, plus it decreases my healing ability each time I cast a spell. With that he pauses to see what everyone thinks.

Spoiler

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(1d20+3)[6] spot
(1d20+3)[20] listen
(1d20)[6] search

[Otakutaylor]

Loretta

Loretta catches Hoots on her arm, then sets him down on the floor. (to keep her axe at the ready)

"20... no maybe 25 feet down. Least from whatever kept Hoots from finding a spot to land. You might be right about that 30 feet Hynerst."

Loretta takes a moment to think things through and calm down Hoots.

"Ok, so... I'll head down first if'n ya want, unless ye'd prefer the dwarf be the anchor for the climb. I can certainly take the drop myself going last if need be. Provided somebody's got a good 50 feet of rope or so that isn't invisible." She says as she turns to the rest of the party, making a silly hand gesture of using invisible rope.

[Bender]

Hynerst

Regretting that he forgot to take proper tools, Hynerst takes out a crossbow bolt and tries to remove some of the dirt from the wall. He isn't really trying to uncover a large section, just checking how difficult it is to remove and what the wall is like.

still facing the wall: "Getting down is easy, I can get us all down, but then we're stuck down there. And I don't want to be stuck in a smelly place like this. *cough, cough*"

[Taffimai]

Linon

"Well, we have Ru's rope, and I have one too, so I'd suggest using both. That way if one gets caught on one of those branches we can use the other one to pull Loretta up. How about Ru and I team up on one rope, and John and Jarek on the other, would that distribute our strenghts about equally?"

While saying this, she takes her rope out of her backpack.

[hexonxonx]

For all you searching: you find nothing of interest in this room. It obviously has been filling with organic matter for centuries, and all that is now in the room has come in from the outside. Hynerst studies the walls of the place. After scraping off some of the mud and caked-on dust, he reveals a very strange metal alloy making up the wall. You can't tell what the metal is made of off the top of your head; you'll need to roll a Knoweldge Architecture roll (versus DC 17) to figure out what it is.

[Bender]

Hynerst

He concentrates on his knowledge of materials...
knowledge architecture - (1d20+10)[18](28)