On Sunday, August 3, 2025 8:42 PM murph via Emerald Flame wrote:
She will take some time to secure a rope at the mouth of the cave and drop the length of it into the cave opening. It looks like the light situation isn't too troubling so far, so she will forego lighting a torch just yet.
She will gear up in her armor and tell Gegren that she's willing to go first. "But keep an eye on things down there as I go."
Nia will try to make a quiet landing on the floor and immediately scan her surroundings for movement.
The blue glow of the chamber makes it easy for Nia to check on her surroundings. Dropping in from a hole in the ceiling, she immediately notes that the larger chamber seems to be man-made in a dark gray worked stone, and old enough to have begun to have lost small chipped areas and to crumble in the corners. The ceiling is of the same construction, aside from a hole roughly ten feet in diameter, through which Nia descended. The original purpose of this room is unclear; there are no obvious furnishings found in it, but moreover, the room is caked in a layer of blasted mud, almost clay, which coats the entirety of the floor and some of the walls in inches of a thick viscosity under the outer shell of earth. It is unlike anything you are likely to have seen before, and traveling over it takes a bit of care. No movement disturbs the mud room other than your own, and the occasional bit of debris getting knocked inside from up above. Nor is there any sign of recent activity before your own, at least not that which disturbed the mud. The chambers continue to the north, through an unassuming open hallway, but beyond it light sources of your own will be necessary, as the unnatural blue light seems to stop outside the room, perhaps cast by the mud itself. The rest of the party makes their way in with no particular trouble, if they choose to, be it by rope or by blinking in. Nothing else going on topside, anyway. The chamber is unexpectedly warm, but not in any kind of troubling way, just not what you would expect of a stone chamber underground in autumn. The odd sense Gegren felt in the approach remains, but is not any stronger than before. [No particular deceptions or underworld magic/lore here just yet, but feel free to ask questions and/or sally forth.] -- bss (Brian S. Stephan) | https://bss.zone/ | GPG: 0x80895FCB