CH. 2: Bear in Mine

[JadedDM]

The party stands before the entrance to Bear's mine. The sunlight from above only illuminates the first few feet of the shaft, revealing little. It's fairly narrow--just wide enough for people to walk through one at a time. It's deathly silent and seems more than a little ominous.

"So..," Bear says. "Who's first?"

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It is currently Eighth Watch (2:00 PM).

(OOC: Try not to read too much innuendo in that description. )

[HorizonsDream]

"Well, don't everyone jump at once," Kendra says as she looks at the pack of men in the group. With an amused shake of her head, she takes the lead. "We are going to need some light, so someone needs to light my lamp," she adds as she holds the lamp out behind her for someone to take.

[Just_Ice]

Clearing his throat, Kynaston follows behind the bold woman and states his position, "I was hoping one of our friends who could see in the dark would volunteer, so we wouldn't basically be yelling our location before we get anywhere. Since it's come to this, I'll back you up."

[Haahque]

Haahqae seems to come out of a daydream or something of the such. "Whoa, wait for me. I could be useful for like, stuff, I guess. I have a sling!" Haahqae pulls out his sling and twirls it around a bit to show off how useful he is.

[djhyland]

Darga steps up. He certainly isn't eager to go into the demon-infested mines, but he volunteered to come along. And while he's not a brave man, he figures he might be able to keep his companions safe by scouting ahead. With obvious reluctance, he says, "I suppose this is where I earn my keep..."

[mgbevan]

Gregeddin takes the lantern from Kendra. "Ill bring up the back with a torch." He sends a quick glance towards Coroccoco to see if her nose wrinkled at its mention.
Kneeling down by a wooden panel which was covering the mine entrance he takes one of his knives from the back of his breeches and flakes off a small splint. He rummages through his pack to produce his flint and steel and a torch, while replacing the knife into his clothing. He strikes the flint into the top of the torch, which seems to take hold fairly quickly, they weren't too wet after all, then uses the small piece of wood to light the wick inside the lantern.

Straightening up he seems rather pleased with himself and hands the lantern back to Kendra. Catching sight of the dark shaft quickly wipes those emotions from his face, his lips thinning and taking a long breath through his nose, he comments, "No time like the present then"

[JadedDM]

With Darga in the lead, the party enters the mine shaft. It only extends ten feet, before veering to the right. This path then extends 25 feet, at which point it opens up into a small cavern. There is some old mining equipment lying about here, but they are in terrible shape. There's a tunnel to the left and another straight across.

"Never actually came down here much," Bear admits. "I was more of the supervisor, you see. But I knew the first level well enough. There was a lift we built over there," he explains, pointing to the tunnel across the way. "It went down to the third level. But, that was destroyed just before the demons showed up. Come to think of it, it was probably their doing." He points to the tunnel on the left. "That leads to the long way down, I think."

[Haahque]

"Well we do have rope and pulleys, right? Tell me someone brought the rope and pulleys so we can repair the lift."

[HorizonsDream]

"Our job was to clear out demons, not repair the equipment here," Kendra points out while looking around. "Besides, if we take the easy way down, we might miss something."

[djhyland]

Darga looks at the ruined lift doubtfully. "I got some rope, but I don't think it's gonna be near enough ta fix that." Shaking his head, he asks Bear, "Is there some other way down ta where the demons are?"

[Just_Ice]

Kyne weighs in on the matter, "Any way you look at it, going down a shaft is a great way to corner yourself. We can worry about fixin' it later if we need to- isn't that right, Bear?"

His mannerisms are hard to make out given the mediocre lighting and limited vision, but he shakes his hands to loosen them up for a fight.

[mgbevan]

"My vote's with Trench, no shaft." Gregeddin says from the back.

While he waits for the others, he walks over towards the nearest piece of mining equipment (hopefully nearby a few or so), and bends at the waist to get a better look. He's trying to see if there are any signs of the previous mercenaries, dried blood or claw marks, say for example.

[JadedDM]

From what he can tell, it does not appear to Haahqae that anyone brought along the pulleys.

Bear repeats what he said to Darga, about how the tunnel on the left leads to the long way down. Then he shrugs to Kynaston. "I leave it up to you folks; you're the experts. I'll follow you, either way."

Gregeddin finds no sign of battle or conflict. The instruments here appear to have just been abandoned after over use.

[HorizonsDream]

"Come on," Kendra says as she starts walking for the left tunnel.

[djhyland]

Darga starts after Kendra towards the lefthand tunnel. "Better a long walk than a short fall..." he mutters.