The group does not waste any time. Erict teleports to the small cavern that he found, carrying Cal, who immediately scouts out the area, including a peek outside. Meanwhile Rock changes to his mud form and heads there on his own.
Next is Shooter who helps secure the area. Then the lieutenant arrives and, as before takes charge of this end of the operation while Captain Insecki remains in charge at the previous cavern. All goes relatively smoothly and presently everyone is in the new cavern. It is still very foggy outside.
The group waits only long enough for Erict to recover from the ordeal of teleporting everyone before moving on. The ground is still flat and low, preventing the use of tunneling. The two makeshift carts are dismantled to speed travel.
The rest of the day passes and, late the following day, the ground begins to slope upwards towards a range of low mountains that form the spine of the land bridge on the southern side of the barrier. The group breathes easier as Rock tunnels into the low hills and forms a cavern for the group to spend the night in.
The next two days are spent mostly in tunnels. The carts have been reassembled and the pace is reduced to a more leisurely walk. Outside, the fog is still there, varying in intensity between pea soup and light mist. On the fourth day, the fog finally lifts for most of the day, though it is still heavily overcast with low-hanging clouds.
Over the course off the next twenty five days, the group continues south along the land bridge, staying primarily underground and eating stored food. The land above remains mostly mountainous and getting even more so as the land bridge widens and eventually becomes the beginnings of the southern continent. During this time, the sky has been continuously overcast. The foraging party ventures out on occasion and Yed's appraisal is that the overcast skies are probably the norm based on what he sees of the vegetation. Those with radiation counters also note higher levels of radiation but still not enough to be dangerous to humans. The readings are nevertheless somewhat alarming as they are getting higher as the group travels south. If they continue to climb, they may soon reach a level where they will not be immediately dangerous, but prolonged exposure could have lasting consequences.
The overcast skies make it impossible to navigate by the stars and so you are left with dead reckoning. Caerlina estimates that you are within a hundred kilometers of the emergency shelter that is your destination. The shelter is supposedly located high in the mountains.
ROCK: Rock has direction sense while in contact with the ground. Thus he'll always know the group's bearing. I would assume that he could communicate that accurately to Caerlina and thus compensate for the lack of a starry sky.
The group continues traveling underground. A few days later, the group exits the tunnels onto a grassy hillside that presumably overlooks a wide valley. However, the group's current location is about 2500 meters above sea level and well into the thick overcast, so visibility is very limited. Erict's spatial awareness allows him to sense further down the gentle slope and he can tell that the slope and floor of the valley are thick with wide, squat trees and large, rocky boulders. The valley fits the profile of where the emergency shelter is supposed to be located.
INSECKI: "This might be a good place to split our forces a bit. The women and children can remain here at the tunnel entrance. We can leave a military detachment to guard them while a scouting party goes down into the valley to try to find the shelter."
GM: For the sake of convenience, we can say that the scouting party consists of all of the PCs while the NPCs remain behind. Let me know if everyone is fine with that or if there are some NPCs that you prefer to have with. Also let me know what other precautions you wish to take before investigating the valley. Presumably you will want Marko to put up a mind link. Who should be included in the link?
ROCK: If we can include enough people Rock would like to be connected but is fine not being in if we're limited. I would definitely recommend Erict, Peter, Captain Insecki and Marko for starters. Rock and Shooter would be next in my list.
MARKO: Marko offered, "I've been working on my mind link, I think I can link to more than 4 minds now."
PETER: It might be prudent to bring Caerlina with us. She's probalby the best cartographer in the group, and the one with the most knowledge about the shelter. (Though after several months of travel, Peter has probably learned a lot of that information.) Peter is okay at navigation, but I suspect Caerlina is better. And two heads are better than one. Also, it's just possible that the shelter is not as empty as we might think. It's a long shot, but there might be other Zhodani hiding out in it. If so, I'd like to have a Zho with us. To that end, it might be prudent if we had something signed by Insecki in his capacity as a captain/provisional baron that recognizes the truce between our groups.
PETER: As for precautions, I think we should still minimize our time above ground. A day or two of Peter and Caerlina (and anyone else with relevant skills) planning a search pattern mgiht be wise so that we maximize the efficiency of our search. Any rest stops should be in underground shelters, and it might be good at this point for Rock to leave a few shelters open, but camouflaged if we're going to be sticking around the same area for a while. (I'm not sure if that's the case, or if we'll be ranging across wide stretches of the valley.) We should also have Peter, Cal, and Rock use their various abilities to hide their (and other's) movements as best they can, just in case there are those looking for us. I think we should leave one radiation detector with the base camp, mostly for use with foraging and making sure hunting grounds and gathered food is safe, and take the other (others?) with the scouting team.
PETER: With regard to the mind link, it sounds like Marko can do 8 minds (plus Marko) now. That gives us: Marko, Peter, Shooter, Rock, Erict, Cal, and Caerlina in the scouting team. Our two remaining slots I say should go to Insecki and Mack, to give us the ability to communicate with the base camp without breaking radio silence. If Caerlina doesn't go with us, I'd still put her in the link since we might have to ask her questions. I understand she might be a bit hesitant to join the link, but hopefully after several months of getting to know us all, she's a lot more relaxed around us than she was at first, and has come to trust us.
PETER: That's what I can think of right now. Any other thoughts?
MARKO: Marko suggests, "I could try a mind scan of the valley to see if anyone is already there. We would want to be away from the base and ready to move, but that could tell us in advance if the Emergency Shelter is already occupied, and if it is occupied, where it is. The down side is it would also alert any Zho nobility or Magnities know we are in the area."
SHOOTER: "Sir, I would suggest leaving Caerlina behind on our initial scouting mission since we can call on her knowledge over the mind link. We don't know what we might run into. This is a Zhodani installation, which means that the Maginites may have found out about it by now through records captured in Perelane."
ERICT: Erict shrugs, "I don't see any reason why having Caerlina along will be a disadvantage, even if the Maginites have discovered the installation. She's immune to their psychic bombs, and knows how to keep her head down if we get into a firefight. There's bound to be some information that's hard to relay via mind link, and in any case I would suggest keeping mind link 'comm traffic' to a bare minimum in case the Maginites have some kind of sensors for such things.
SHOOTER: Shooter shrugs and replies, "It might be an overabundance of caution on my part but keeping your head down in a firefight isn't helpful if they start lobbing grenades or we need to do a quick withdraw. If she does come along, one of us will need to be assigned to keep her safe if we should run into trouble. Unlike the rest of us, she is not wearing body armor."
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SHOOTER: "If there is a chance, Marko, that your mental scan could be detected by either Zhodani or Maginites, then I think we should avoid it for now."
ERICT: "Agreed, if it can't be completely passive, it's not worth the risk right now. If the installation is VERY well hidden, and we can't seem to find it, then we might reconsider.
ERICT: Erict completes the last of his checkups and/or regular chores with the group stopped for shelter, and says, "I'm ready to go when you are, LT."
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PETER: Actually, I'd like to hear Capt. Insecki's thoughts. She's technically under his command. At this point I would lean towards not taking her, based mostly on Shooter's observation that she doesn't have body armor. I might change my mind if one of the Zho soldiers (or Mack) had body armor she could use. Otherwise, I'll spend extra time with her and the maps/surveys we have, planning out in great detail the search pattern we'll use for the valley. Of course, since this is a joint operation, Capt. Insecki might want someone from his team to come along with us. That could be Caerlina or one of the soldiers. In that case, we'll take that person along (and put them in the mind link).
INSECKI: "Because Caerlina is not a soldier, and this is to be a military scouting mission, she should remain behind for this mission. Once the valley has been scouted, and you have ascertained that there are no hostiles, then further missions could include her. For a scouting mission such as this, it would be most wise to use one team or the other. In this case, your team is much better suited for a scouting mission than mine."
PETER: Looks like it's just us boys then. |