[New thread!] You all haul yourselves out of the chasm, carrying the automaton. The House Magissa folks [I accidentally called them Burclynth Company earlier, that's my mistake] in the temple seem to have bought the ruse long enough for you to make a hasty but steady escape. Gegren isn't sure what happened to them in the library, what with the shadows in that area, but if nothing else, you at least have the automaton, which Nia is carrying. You are able to make use of the ropes the party entering the temple left at the hole in the mudroom. Nia is up first, and sees that the evening has yielded to early pre-dawn light, a cool damp haze blanketing the forest. She immediately gets a whiff of earth and ozone again, as the change in environs serves as a reminder to her senses. Peeking her head up, she sees that the House has established a makeshift camp. The hole at the bottom of the area remains uncovered, but that it's sunken in a bit from the earth around it seems to have, at least temporarily, given you a bit of cover. No one is currently close enough to the sunken hole to see you, though they easily would if someone came to the edge. The depression you are in is slight, no more than 15' deep, a shallow bowl-like mound of sunken ground. Nia (and everyone, if they follow her up) can make out some tents, and a couple magical land skiffs. You are not certain how many people are up top, yet, but by the number of tents, you wouldn't be surprised if there's at least another party's worth of House Magissa scholars or arcanists up here, waiting for the party below and/or a go-ahead to enter. The clearing, as you recall from when you entered, quickly gives way to the forest, making the whole area a relatively self-contained area. [We're going to call pretty much everything up here right now difficulty 3 by default; you are probably interested in some kind of stealthy movement to either get the jump on whoever's here, or investigate further, or make your way to a means out. If you're interested in operating a skiff, you could all easily pile on one, or try to take more (there's five in total), but operating them is more of a magical knowledge check. These are meant to be operated, though, so it's only a difficulty 2 Intellect task to operate those, and aided by magic stuff.] -- bss (Brian S. Stephan) | https://bss.zone/ | GPG: 0x80895FCB