A Mountainous Exploration Part 9

There's nothing coming up out of the pit after Malik and Kore. There was darkness down there, and pain, but nothing /pursues/ them.

While your brace yourselves for it, nothing does in fact come from the pit.

It simply remains a yawning darkness of quiet.

It's probably a bit creepy.

When the pair come flying back out of the pit, Seldan immediately straightens, frowning darkly and with some worry. "Malik, what happened?" He takes a step forward, toward's the pit's edge, but does not yet peer in.

Munch waits for something terrible to leap out of the pit! And waits a little more... and a little more... "....okay, I'm going in after it."

Olek peers into the abyss. If it peers back, all that happens is Olek gets a creepy feeling. "Now what?" he asks the others. He's got his shield up and his axe out, but there seems to be no need for it. When Munch suggests going down, Olek says, "I will go, too, if you want?" He's got the flying carpet....

"Magical darkness and strange traps. I... WOuldn't... Fly down there. But I can't really stop you either?" Kore has just finished bandaging her arm and she takes a few seconds to swing it about, testing the extent of the damage. "If the way forward is full of traps and the way back is hidden I guess we have to ask ourselves which way they want us to go less?"

Malik just holds an arrow ready for awhile, waiting -- and waiting. Finally, he seems to relax. "Darkness," he says. "Not even magical light can penetrate it. Something powerful, deep. And -- a whoosh of air, and then the smell of blood." He glances over at Kore, bandaging her arm. "Are you sure it was a trap?" he asks her. "We've already seen beings of darkness hunting in these caves. There's no better choke point for it to wait us out. Especially..." He nods back at the illusory wall, the one they're supposed to be fooled by, blocking their exit.

Munch is many things. 'Pacient' is not one of them. Impulsive, however, is. The golem totally starts down the pit.

Garak peers down along with the others. Then he sighs as Munch begins to climb down. "I suppose we could let him try," he says to the others. "He's practically unkillable. Less of a scout, and more of a storm troop." Garak circles the edge of the pit so that he can watch from a different angle. "Try not to get too far ahead!" he calls down at the golem.

Olek watches as Munch leaps without replying to him. He can only shrug, but he will work on unfurling his carpet so he can prepare to follow.

"Try not to fall too far behind!" Munch calls back.

GAME: Munch rolls rflex: (16)+rflex: 16

GAME: Munch rolls reflex: (12)+10: 22

GAME: Whirlpool rolls 5d6: (23): 23

GAME: Whirlpool rolls 10d6: (39): 39

GAME: Munch rolls strength: (8)+7: 15

GAME: Whirlpool rolls 10d6: (30): 30

Munch is fine. FINE! ...really! We hope.

Munch takes sveral minutes, but ventually makes his way back up the pit, looking rather worse for wear. Ther's at least one metal spike sticking out of him he has't removed just yet. "Tunnel at the bottom. Hard to tell which way is which, but looks hand carved, straight line two directions. Spikes all teh way down, not certain if they move or just sitck upward as you go down."

Olek looks up as Munch comes back. "That looks painful," he observes dryly as he mounts up his flying carpet. "Just the spikes, then? It may simply be something that must be perservered through."

GAME: Seldan casts Dispel Magic. Caster Level: 12 DC: 18

GAME: Seldan rolls 1d20+12: (6)+12: 18

Garak listens. When Munch reports the tunnel, he nods to himself. He begins the somewhat lengthy process of transforming into vapor, preparing to float down and then reform once he reaches the tunnel. "Yes...if we can find a safe spot we can always heal our injuries." Provided no one dies, he thinks to himself.

GAME: Seldan rolls spellcraft+1: (18)+12+1: 31

"A moment." Suddenly thoughtful, Seldan strides forward to the edge of the pit, raises a hand, and begins to draw several sigils in the air, chanting in an arcane language as he does so. It takes him but a moment, and all three sigils that he draws burst into life with a silver-blue glow, and hang there for several seconds before winking out. When they wink out, he still wears a thoughtful frown, but he tilts his head as if listening, and the frown becomes laced with satisfaction. "There are multiple spells upon this pit. I was unable to dispel the darkness, but I believe that I have dispelled two more. A silence effect ... and one more."

Olek nods to Seldan, "That's good. Now we can scream aloud as invisible razors slice us up in the dark." But if we're going to go, he'll go, and no point loitering. He'll hop onto his carpet and fly down quickly, passing through whatever the danger area has to offer to come out below.

Malik nods, looking down at the darkness. "The silence was keenly enough felt," he says. "The other --" He stops, thinking about it. "I'm not sure that I realized there was another." That thought, in particular, seems to bother the wizard a great deal.

WIth the magics dispelled, and your ability to hear on the way down at least now semi assured, you're soon making arrangements to descend into the pit. It's easy enough for two people to slide down it sidee by side, but given what happened to Malik and Kore on the way down, you probably don't want to.

WIth Munch clearing the way physically -- you do hear a few screeching sounds as he slams into spikes he missed the first time on his way down, you descend down a good ninety feet deeper into the mountain, soon enough arriving in the aforementioned tunnel.

It is narrow. /Very/ narrow. Single file, at best, and it's gonna be a tight fit for some of you given varying sizes.

One way leads back the way you came, the other deeper into the nmountain.

There is .... rumbling from beneath you. The ground quivers with vibration. Once.

Stjepan stares at the tunnel. "Oh. Balls. I'd better go last..." He fishes a small vial out of his belt pouch, eyeing it up.

GAME: Olek rolls survival: (17)+16: 33

DEciding, perhaps, that discretion is the better part of valor, you take yuour mostly resed selves and begin to push through the tunnel in the direction whence you came, or at least you think so.

The tunnels are tight, and even with a salve, it's really unpleasent for Stjepan in particular. Occasionally, there's some screeching as Munch is rubbed along the walls. There's really not much to do about it. It's just... narrow.

At one point, Olek identifies marks on the walls that have come from someone else passing through, faint scrapes marks of the sort you've left so far yourselves.

Eventually, the passage starts to go... down?

Not up.

This could be a problem. You're heading /down/, and its getting steeper and then things FINALLY begin to widen... sort of.

It's more like the walls are transitioning to qa more clay like substance, oozing with some kind of pus, or melting like wax. The floor too begins to feel more... mushy. It's like this is a rawer section of tunnel that hasn't quite...set.

That's when the eyes in the walls open and look at you.

So.

Many.

Eyes.

GAME: Seldan casts Grease. Caster Level: 12 DC: 16

Stjepan pokes an eye, accidentally, with his pauldron. It's almost enitrely unavoidable. "The hells!"

Seeing that the tunnel is quite narrow, Seldan, about to opt for armor, thinks better of it, and instead pauses long enough to cast a simple spell, the single sigil enveloping him in a layer of thick, glistening grease. Having so done, he looks back at Malik, then at the others, to see if others might also want such an assist.

When the eyes open, he stops short. "Aaah!"

Olek is fine with pushing through in his armor, and though he scrapes and grinds in places, he pushes on. Any particularly obnoxious or obstructive bits get a whack from his axe, which cuts through stone without much effort. It's not long before the passage opens up and ... eyes. "Well," he says. "Looks like you fellows picked the wrong way. Want to try the other way now?"

Malik clamps a hand over his mouth when he sees Seldan cast the spell, looking for all the world like he's trying to hold back a comment that has a will of its own. But he finally manages to choke the thing down, and follow quietly, just snickering a bit. That is, of course, until the eyes in the tunnels open around them. At that? He just lets out a longsuffering sigh.