Missing Caravan

[Selina Parcellus]

Selina holds a hand to her mouth and nose, hoping to filter the smell. Goddess protect us! If they are all dead... She doesn't even finish her thought. She cannot see anything and must rely on Betimi and Jonath to light the way.

[Gilley]

Following behind, Gilley sees the slight increase in tension to Selina's shoulders. Pulling his bow and readying an arrow, he whispers "It takes longer than a few minutes for a body to smell like that. This is older decay."

[Selina Parcellus]

Selina turns and whispers back in a voice muffled by her hand "True as that may be, it would also mask more recent death."

[Jonath]

Jonath knits his brows at the stench, but continues on, focused on his task. Seeing the three-way fork, he chooses to go right, mostly at random. He hoped that, being a smaller passage, it wouldn't lead too far and would reveal either their enemy or a dead end so they could quickly get back to another path.

[OoC: Jonath actually has both low-light and darkvision as well, but seeing as how someone behind him is likely holding the light source, it probably doesn't do much to help him see any further.]

[Betimi]

As the group moves forward towards the right passage Betimi deliberately looks to the left (south?) passage to make sure nothing lies in wait around the corner.

[Nacesh]

[OoC:  This is what was said:  Piper listens to Jonath and when he asks about what lies beyond the tunnel, the kobold pauses for a moment and then says, "Our future.  And I don't know of any traps my people might have set at the behest of the creature.  But I implore you to hurry.  If you are not careful Unreth will escape our grasp and then who knows what he might do.  My knowledge of the creature tells me Unreth won't go away quietly.  If he does escape, he will be back with likely more numbers.  He will destroy everything we've built!"

No one asked Piper further questions. ]

(OOC - I think Jonath has, highlighted red below:

"I apologiz for the misunderstanding Piper," Jonath says earnestly. "I did not intend to mislead you into thinking the beast was dead. I only wanted to let you in so that you could begin to free those captives in this room while we chased down Unreth to finish it off, and in hopes of valuable information. It fled down that tunnel," he says, pointing to where Tomeal had pushed his way through the webbing. "Do you know anything about what lies down that way, such as traps or hiding places from which we could expect an ambush?"

I would've expected more about the layout but at least a feedback like "there are lots of hiding places all around, even for something that large". Anyway, Nacesh is not the talkative type, so he took it as if Piper didn't take the effort needed to talk that much (mental note: or didn't know the layout at all? or didn't want to share this info?)

/OOC)

Nacesh reacts on Selina's muffled voice with similar whispering tone.
"I'm not convinced that she doesn't watch our every move so why sneaking and whispering?"
That said, he tries to remain as silent as possible which is almost as silent as a heavily armored troop of zombie horses on cobblestone.
Move silently [1d20+3] = 6+3 = 9

If Jonath looks north and Betimi south he takes a little detour to the west (just about enough to look past the narrow section 30 feet west) and strains his eyes to see as much as possible in the dim light provided by the torch behind his back. He quickly scans the ceiling as well for any spiders or other stuff of interest.
Spot [1d20+1] = 15+1 = 16

[GM Marvel]

[OoC:  Piper told you that he doesn't know what traps the creature had his prisoners create.  Nor was he privy to their ambush plans.  The spider might not have bothered because he didn't think anyone would get this far.  But he did say, "our future" is down there.  Which was kind of an invitation to ask more questions.  (What do you mean by, your future?) Piper's mind is focused on saving lives so in his head, there is no time to have a long conversation.  Sometimes when someone is freaking out, they need to be told to slow down, take a deep breath and answer a few questions.  But you haven't seen the last of Piper.  He's just supervising the rescue of his people who are stuck to the ceiling then he will catch up.]

[I'm at work right now.  I hope to post replies to your actions in a little bit.]

[Gilley]

As people split up to take a look down corridors, Gilley glances at each then take the center, so his bow can be ready for whatever might threaten all three.

((OOC: I just assumed "our future" meant it was the place where children/eggs were housed.))

[Selina Parcellus]

Selina, holding the torch, decides to stay put in the middle so she can be ready to assist whomever gets into trouble. She slips her shield onto her shield arm and braces for whatever comes.

((OOC: I just assumed "our future" meant it was the place where children/eggs were housed.))

((OOC: I thought the same.))

[GM Marvel]

[OoC:  I can see how you might think that but I was just using that as an example.  Please don't think I'm wagging my finger at any of you.  I'm just saying you could have continued asking him questions.  But Piper is overjoyed that you all decided to pursue the creature rather than wait.]

Everyone moves into position but everything is eerily calm and quiet.  Along with wisps of webbing you see a few pairs of mine-cart rails missing most of their tracks, a couple of turned over wooden wheel barrels and some broken wood boxes.  The stench of decay is stronger here but the smell is mixed with the dampness of the cave and mold which makes it all the more putrid.  

[FYI: The blue circles is the light radius from Selina's torch.  Anything inside the thicker blue line is normal vision.  Between the thick and thin blue lines is shadowy vision.  Betimi's low light and darkvision is within the purple circles.  At the far reaches of her vision I muddied the picture a bit to indicate her shadowy vision.  And finally, Jonath's darkvision is represented by the black circle which you can hardly see but it's there within Betimi's shadowed area.  I will clean this up a bit on the next map.  I may have to make separate maps for some of you.]