The afterimage of the flaring Sunstone hangs over everyone's eyes as they scramble for the cavern floor in search of any who might be wounded. Most crews split up as they descend hoping to cover more ground. Their shouts and the cries of the injured echo around the cavern.
Belleros
Three of the dwarven crew members trail behind you as you scramble up and down across the cavern floor weaving through patches of thorny rockfruit bushes. The low, twining limbs are heavy with fruit, no one had collected here yet.
As you draw nearer, your hair stands on end, like in dry-cold weather... or near powerful magical fields. A deep, thrumming vibration resonates through the air and the stone of the floor. It hums in your bones and tickles after a fashion. It is painful to look directly at the light, but you can make out some silhouettes moving against the bright backdrop. Squinting, you can see a figure that appears to be trying to pull another figure up from the ground.
OOC: This is a Hazard. The area around this largest cluster of Sunstone fragments drains Healing Surges (it's exhausting to work in the heat). Staying in the area long enough to make a Skill Check will cause you to burn a Healing Surge (so to speak) unless you make Endurance check against 15 to endure the heat.
Make your first Endurance check at +2 because your keen senses alerted you to the temperature changes and allowed you to steel yourself. Then make your Primary Skill check.
Mask
This area of the cavern is a mixture of smoothed, natural stone and hewn block constructions. It is hub of the irrigation system - locks, canals, and some emplacements for mechanical devices and other equipment that regulate the flow of water. Canals radiate away in a few directions.
The chain is a massive affair, heavy and stout, rather like the dwarves. It has been flung clear of the SunStone's impact and is draped, if anything so heavy can be said to drape, across a canal near a resevoir.
Unburdened by the emotional and world-changing impact of Naedur's sun falling from the 'sky,' the
why of the crash is of more interest. Neither end of the chain is visible, it seems piled on itself, bent back away from you. You can't quite see. Links of the chain have shattered the stone of the cavern floor in places and - you notice too late - the stoneworks of a floodgate mechanism on the canal. As you watch, the floodgate cracks and shifts, it will fail any moment.
Downstream from the floodgate, a dwarf and a human carry another human between them across a low, flat bridge that spans the canal.
You need to act quickly - but what to do?
OOC: This is a Trap/Hazard. The water will sweep the people off the bridge if it reaches them (which will change the nature of the rescue effort thereafter). If you need more info to determine a course of action just ask.
Krik
You lope to the remote plinth where clusters of shards radiate light and heat. Two of the dragonborn from your work crew followed you. The smaller shards flicker and pulse. Against the light you see a form and movement. A strange, low movement. It's hard to make out against the light.
An inarticulate roar of fear or pain or... who knows... comes from the direction of the movement.
The musky smell that you'd caught whiffs of earlier is stronger now. It fills you with a vague alarm...
OOC: One Nature and one Perception check please.
Heskrash
The Zlatan blinks and squints, squeezing more bright-spawned tears into his beard. He turns his head to the side and sees Heskrash's odd, blind movements.
"Here, I'm--" he grunts in pain,
"I'm here. The... the Sunstone."
The other two dwarves are on the plinth as well, the ones who'd been addressing Zlatan. "Gods' breath..." They don't sound like they're moving.
OOC: You're pretty sure you know which way the ramps (and drops) off the plinth are and that Zlatan is a clear and safe shot ahead of you. The other voice came from nearby, but further.
---
Quick modification to how I'm handling the challenge (so, nerdytenor, Krik's failing Athletics check is a freebie!). Each area you're searching for survivors has a different sort of challenge inherent in it. I'll be handling each differently and asking for different checks as we go. I'll let you know when it's a Skill Challenge check.
Skill Challenge: Dark Harvest - Part II (6 success before 3 failures)
Difficulty Moderate (DC 15)
Primary Skills: Endurance, Athletics, Heal, other(explain your rationale)
Secondary Skills(for +/-2 to Primary checks): Perception, other(explain your rationale)
0 Successes
0 Failures
Map with tabs for each PC. It's called 'Combat Map,' it should really be called 'Tactical Map.'
) where a round is an attempt by each PC for a success in the challenge.
