The Colony - Turn 51 - You Go First!

Start Date: August 21, morning
Start Status: Search and rescue
Start Location: Silverstream Mine

Adventuring: Rennard, Jinx, Mendel, Smoke, Zenobe
At the Tulip: Adrienne, Brigg, Hagan, Xon, Aaron

The Turn

The party waits a while longer before concluding that Smoke may need some help. Brigg, using his magical amulet that enables him to see in the dark, moves ahead of the group as a scout, with Zenobe, Rennard and Jinx forming a loose triangle behind him, using Zenobe's glowing holy symbol and Rennard's sword for light. They follow Smoke's vaguely worded directions – going right. Down the first passage, into the larger junction, then right, down a tunnel that leads to a dead-end filled with heaps of rubble, some with dark veins running through it. Backtrack, then right again. Brigg pauses ahead of the group, listening. "Smoke?" he whispers in response to the faint scrabbling noises.



"Careful!" comes the muffled reply. "There's a trap door in the floor. Here."

Brigg hears faint tapping and moves toward it slowly. Soon, he can see disturbed debris outlining a 5-foot square section of floor. "I see it. Hang on, there's a..." He feels around the edge of the slab and finds a stub of a metal lever. Snick, the panel swings down and in, nearly sweeping Smoke off the ledge below. Wasting no time, she scrambles up the side of the pit and out, as a heavy counterweight begins to pull the trap door shut again [please mark off one stickum potion]. Brigg jams a piece of loose timber into the opening.

"Who puts a pit trap in a mine?" mutters the soaking wet Smoke.

"Are you OK?" asks Rennard as the others come forward.

"Wet and battered, but I'll live."

"This latch looks improvised. I think it is a recent addition," says Brigg, peering at the mechanism. "Maybe this was a waste dump and someone turned it into something more dangerous. I take it there's water below?"

Smoke nods. "It's about 30 feet deep all told. I bounced off a ledge about halfway down." She winces as she kneels down to wipe off her pistols and remove the now-useless loads. "Luckily my powder flask is watertight."

A few minutes later the party is ready to move on in their usual formation. They continue down the passage beyond the trap and find a rubble-strewn room. Some of the fallen rock here looks fresh, there is more of the dark-veined stone present and the dust here is disturbed. "I think this is coal," says Jinx, scraping one of the exposed veins in the rock face.

The group backtracks again and takes the next right-hand passage, which runs north, more or less. It slopes down and the splits three ways. The scent of water fills the air (although it might be coming from Smoke), and in the dim available light, you can see a glowing green mass up the left corridor. "What the heck is that?" asks Zenobe.

"I don't know, but someone else can go check it out," answers Smoke.

Jinx takes a few steps up the corridor, then stops and backs away. "Nope!" he says. "It's some kind of oozing reddish goo, and it's pulsing. I'm not going near it. Maybe we should try another direction."

End Date: August 21, mid-morning
End Status: Smoke in the Water
End Location: Silverstream Mine