Opening Scene, a Fracas in Frakas

[geniussavant]

Grugruk takes the shirt and turns to his pets, if it can be tracked, they'll find the scent.

[VennDygrem]

(click to show/hide)

Well, I suppose now's a good time to determine what's in the tea! I suppose that would be a Scholarship roll, right?

Scholarship: 1d20(17)+10=27

[ariasderros]

(click to show/hide)

Well, I suppose now's a good time to determine what's in the tea! I suppose that would be a Scholarship roll, right?

Scholarship: 1d20(17)+10=27

(click to show/hide)

In the honey is some refined extracted peppermint oil as well as the oil of a plant that would be analogous to eucalyptus.
This is how I drink my tea. Enough honey to make a diabetic die just being near the steam, with a few menthol cough drops in it.
She skipped the Vodka. I will too about 1/2 the time.

Prepared like it is, the honey can be used as either a food additive to help with being sick, or topical to help with local pain (really good cough drops + cold medicine if ingested / Icy-Hot or Ben-gay if applied topically). Handy stuff for an old woman to have.

It would have been, I think, more a Natural Lore roll. But Scholarship works, at a penalty.

[geniussavant]

(click to show/hide)

i posted the tracking/scent checks in the dive roll thread

[ariasderros]

@ Fina
Mrs. Yanques sits there, sipping her tea. After a minute or two, you realize that, while she is still holding her tea in hand, she is quite asleep.

@ Party.

As you head off after the dogs, you hear behind you:
"Okay, well I'll just wait here then... I guess? Or, at home?"

The rain causes Grik to lose the scent before you even get to where the attack itself happened. Upon getting within sight of a street bazaar that seems to be a mix of permanent stalls, and ones more temporary, the dogs seem to focus in on one area of the ground for a few moments. By the time you lean in far enough to see it through the dogs, they are already done getting the scent from the blood.

You are quickly led down an alley not even a full block down from the attack area, but this alley is a dead end. The dogs stop heading the way here, and even they seem confused, smelling all around the walls, the ground, even just sniffing the air. It doesn't seem like they've lost the scent, but rather this area is covered in it with no trail leading away.

The lack of rapid movement of trail following lets you once again take full appraisal of where you are and what is around.
Even here in a back-alley, the ground is very well cobbled, as it has been all along. Your legs do not hurt, being used to such exertion, but nonetheless, it is quite noticeable that going up the slope that the city is was more taxing than going down (towards the water).
The wood of the buildings is actually quite well cared for, from what you've seen. The wood used was quite well smoothed over, and the lacquering of these buildings seems to be well set-in. The roofs of the buildings all have slants that direct the rain into drainage tubes, that then go into the ground (the ends of the gutters are buried).

All of these observations are all well and good, but it leaves one question that would be in anyone's mind: Why does the trail end here?

[Concerned Ninja Citizen]

Korth had been following at the back of the party, taking in the town. Human settlements were still somewhat strange to him. As he arrived at the dead end he noticed the dogs and wolf were circling and sniffing.

"Does the trail end here?" he asked Grugruk, "If it does, maybe there is a hidden passageway leading out of here."

He began scanning the walls and ground of the dead end, searching for any sign of a secret door or any signs of someone going out the dead end without going back the way they had come (marks on the walls from a rope, for example.)

(click to show/hide)

Taking 10 on Engineering for 20 total. Will continue searching long enough to take 20 for 30 total unless interrupted by the party or something else.

[phaedrusxy]

Grey says "Let me help you with that."

(click to show/hide)

Aid another

Rolled 1d20+8 : 1 + 8, total 9

[geniussavant]

"Let me see if I can find anything," says Grugruk as he watches his dogs for any indication of where to start looking.

(click to show/hide)

Grugruk

Rolled 1d20+10 : 20 + 10, total 30

+results from dogs' aid another checks

Aid another
Korth

Rolled 1d20+9 : 17 + 9, total 26

Bast

Rolled 1d20+6 : 8 + 6, total 14

Lux

Rolled 1d20+6 : 3 + 6, total 9

Grik

Rolled 1d20+9 : 2 + 9, total 11

[ariasderros]

As Grugruk searches the alley's width (20ft) and length (50ft) for any possible remnants of a trail to follow, Korth sets about beginning to search the proximity for any other ways out of the dead end, concealed or otherwise marked.

Grugruk quickly finds that much of the alley has slight wearings in it. Some are deliberate to direct water down the barely perceptible incline into slits in the downspouts, the water being rushed underground. However, down most of the alley is a barely perceptible worn area down the center, from the path being used and worn by feet passing upon it. This stops about 30ft in, like that was all as far as was needed to go into this alley.

Using this as a clear marker for where to look for the path to continue in odd fashions, Korth intensifies his searches upon this area of the alley.

The cobbling of this area is set oddly, lining out a 5ft square in the middle of the alley, with a slight slit in the side of a single large-ish stone. The slit is barely 1/8th of an inch by 1 1/16 inch, the width along the inside edge of the square area. The width of the slit seems as though it was originally cut into the stone, but it has been widened by tool use.

[Concerned Ninja Citizen]

Korth indicates his find to the party, "What do you make of this? Anyone have a sword or something that could wedge into this gap? I'd try it myself but I don't carry such things."

[phaedrusxy]

Grey looks at the barely discernible mark after its pointed out to him, then says "Secret door? I could pass underground to see what's on the other side... but I'd rather not do that, if we can instead figure out how to open it."

After looking at it a bit more, he says "Is it just a matter of prying it open? Let me see what I can do here..."

(click to show/hide)

Since you said it's pretty easy, can taking ten on engineering for an 18 get it?

Rolled 1d20+4 : 10 + 4, total 14

wisdom check to shape his sand

He pulls out a clay flask from somewhere inside of his sleeve, and pours some of it out into his hand. Instead of passing through his fingers, the grains begin to form themselves into a shape.

[ariasderros]

Upon Gray making his tool and moving the slab out of the way, you all see that it reveals a ladder that goes down 40ft, but after just 4ft down, the hole opens from a 5ft square, to wide open space.

You can, surprisingly, see easily down to the floor, as if the stone used is designed to be slightly reflective, or mayhaps barely luminescent on its own. The light is quite dim, however. You cannot, from this angle, tell the length or width of the area about the floor, nor can you see anything other than the dulled metal ladder that extends downward.

(click to show/hide)

I don't like following through on a course of action for another character, especially as a DM. Even if it is an obvious one. Sorry about that Phae, just trying to keep things moving.

If anyone cares what the deal is with the lighting down there, you can try Scholorship, or Arcana.
(For those that have ranks and 'take 10' to get a 17 (S) or 21 (A), it's been washed with an oil derived from phosphorescent moss. For 1d3 weeks after application, it will glow to produce shadowy illumination to a 10ft radius. Svir run the market for this oil 'rocklight', and none of the other deep races can seem to produce enough of it to make any kind of market on it.)

@ Grugruk
If you go down first, you can then command your dogs to jump down and let you catch them. This requires an Athletics check on their part (DC= take 10 and they'll get it). No problem on that.
Your Wolf, though, weighs 800lbs +, your max carrying capacity is 400lbs. I will leave it up to you / the group as to how to deal with this. FWIW, yes, he can squeeze through the opening. It will not be a graceful fall after that, nor comfortable up to when he gets through to where it opens up, but he can do it.

[phaedrusxy]

Grey says "Rocklight. Svirfs make it. Tunnel is definitely well used by people in the know. Expect trouble."

[Flay Crimsonwind]

He had hated simply reassuring the girl and leaving in such a hurry, but business was business, and the sooner he could help save these poor victims, the better. Even so, when the door was discovered, and the possibility of danger presented, it was hard for him not to hesitate. "I volunteer to try and spearhead the group. I can be quiet, and the dark should help me see things before they fall upon us..." He didn't like the idea of walking into trouble, but not all zones of danger could be avoided. If that were the case, he'd rather be tactical and quiet about it, slip in if possible. That'd be hard with this many people, and all those damned dogs, so he had almost kept his mouth shut.

But then he wouldn't be much assistance, would he? Besides, he was on a mission, and if he took no risks, he would gather no strength.

[Risada]

"Get ready everyone. We are going inside."

With that said, Sckhar gets ready for the descent.

[Concerned Ninja Citizen]

"We should let Fina know what we found. Can you do that, Grey?"

[phaedrusxy]

"Do you want her to join us?"

Grey tells Fina of their find.

[geniussavant]

Grugruk looks down into the hole and then at his dogs. Sometimes they weren't always practical to bring with him. "Guys, watch our back." Grugruk waits for the others to head down before him.

[Concerned Ninja Citizen]

"If she wishes to, she should have the option. We definitely want to keep her up to date, in case something goes wrong down there." Korth replied to Grey.

[ariasderros]

Descending down the ladder:
While the hole for the ladder does widen just after 4ft down, it does not do so abruptly, opening downward in a cone. Upon reaching the bottom of the ladder, you notice that there are grooves for the ladder beneath it, along with a 6-inch metal gear with groves to grab it by sticking just out of the ground next to the ladder. An assumption would be that turning the gear would lower the ladder into its groove.

The tunnel itself is over a hundred foot wide, but only actually fifteen foot tall at this point, not counting the cone through which the ladder currently extends. It seems as if the tunnel extends in directions heading towards or away from the bay (generally east / west), but the roof of the tunnel slants as the terrain itself does above ground, whereas the floor is laid out flat. In the direction going west, as the tunnel goes on and the roof gets higher, you cannot any form of end to the tunnel. In the direction going east, as the tunnel goes on and the roof gets lower, the tunnel has an appearance of having a drop-off as the roof gets down to being only ten foot above the floor, not even sixty feet in that direction.

Some of the piping that you had noticed going down into the ground comes down here, along the walls, but the pipes are purely vertical here, continuing down further.

You notice some further things, the fist of which is an absence of any signs of life. There is no sign of tracks or refuse from any form of vermin or varmint. Indeed, the entire area seems kept clean. Also, judging from the structure of the roof and how solid that stone is, it seems more like the roof was built above this tunnel, rather that the tunnel having been dug under.