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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Carlo-One" data-source="post: 8063927" data-attributes="member: 7015827">Now that the action was over, Shanni started shivering in earnest from the bitter cold of the cavern. She untied the rope from around her waist and handed it back to Dermot. As she recovered her pack on the ground, she commented on how useful the ropes Dermot carried were and half-jokingly wondered what else he had in his pack. The ranger responded thoughtfully to the question, saying that other than what he was wearing, he was carrying his life in his pack. Shanni became equally thoughtful and said she was the same way. (Such is the way of our Order as well. This is an interesting insight, as I had not thought that what we consider as part of the practice of asceticism could be reflected in the lives of such kinds of adventurers. While the ones described here are not ascetics, they are similarly wanderers with no fixed abode, or at least not one they return to often. Once I leave this house of the Order, I shall be in a similar position. I should meditate more upon this commonality. --C)Departing the cold chamber, the two humans struck up a discussion about their original homes as Darrow tramped ahead, aiming to return to the central chasm. Dermot and Shanni were still talking as they arrived, while their dwarven companion looked over the rim of the chasm wall, impressed by how deep it was. Darrow decided to drop a quarrel over the edge to try and gauge the depth, since the bottom was not visible in the dark. As the cavern was mostly silent, after about a five-second wait all three could hear the soft plink of the item landing on a stone surface.Darrow observed that it was a long way down and wondered if Aerikoth had any spells that could levitate them to reach the level below. Dermot guessed that it was at least an eighty-foot drop, from the time it took the quarrel to fall. The three companions all moved to stand on a rock shelf above the chasm, which seemed the most convenient place to survey its depths. After a short period, all of them noticed that the shelf itself was more smoothly worn than the rest of the cavern floor. Shanni observed that it was as if something had been going backwards and forwards a lot on that spot.Given that they had explored all of the cavern by this point, with the exception of whatever was at the bottom of the chasm, Darrow started going over with the others what they knew about the place, holding up a finger with each statement. He mentioned the prison cells on the upper level with prisoners who starved to death – Shanni helpfully reminded them of the people who ate each other in the one room - crates in the entry room that looked like they came from the Underdark, and the white and red dragonscales scattered around the area. The dwarf was less sure what the large bones belonged to inside the cavern, perhaps either a white or red dragon.Dermot, having done some thinking about the situation, opined that at one point whoever lived here either served a white dragon, or had built the place first and the dragon had come along afterwards. He then speculated that a red dragon had come along, fought the white, and both had died, the red somewhere outside and the white crawling back inside first. Whoever else had occupied the place left, perhaps due to the rock-colored creatures they had encountered. (It is a plausible story, but it is also premature to declare the death of a dragon until you have in fact seen its bones. They recall this fact soon enough. --R)Shanni, as she peered over the chasm rim looking for claw marks, thought that made sense; the dwarf said it fit with what they knew. As he and the ranger were talking further, Shanni excitedly called them over to look at the chasm wall, where she had spotted some handholds carved into the rock. Darrow had trouble seeing them in the torchlight, until Shanni moved to stand directly above where they began, leading down into the dark.Both Darrow and Dermot thought it would be a hells of a climb, although perhaps doable; the dwarf suggested real climbing tools would be helpful. As the three talked about how best to go about it, gusts of hot air started coming up over the lip of the chasm. At first Shanni appreciated the warmth, but she soon started backing away as she and the others realized something new was happening – and that they had not actually found a red dragon corpse. Dermot suggested that they run and Darrow agreed that it was time they got back to the others.Shanni scooted ahead, stopping when she reached the room on the upper level with the portcullis mechanism. Once Darrow and Dermot joined her, they agreed with Shanni’s suggestion to remove the spike holding the iron gate open, in order to keep anything from below from coming up, as they knew how to get back down. The three adventurers made their way to the small chamber with the ladder to the surface and emerged into darkness, the sun having gone down while they were exploring the cavern below.</blockquote>

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