Meili did not see the flash directly but the reflection of it on the wall was more than enough. She had to blink a few times before moving back to the room to check on others. It seemed, Velan was faster in his reaction and already left but Inete was still on the stairs. Meili stepped in front of the acolyte in case the danger was not over yet and then ran inside the room.

"Is everyone Ok?" Echoed she Mica's question. Obviously, not everyone was. Hew seemed no worse than when he entered but Danica was blinking too much for someone in "Ok" conditions. Others were at least standing or trying to do so. Meili helped as she could (at least she could do that), finally noticing that someone was missing. "Where is Velan?" The cracked open door could mean the wizard left to explore and Meili returned to Danica.

"Here, some herbs you can still use. Though they are for stopping blood and easing the pain. Does it hurt?" Danica could take care of herself (and others, actually) but there is a time when a doctor needs help too.

Danica watches attentively, unblinking as Ran and Mica strain against the pillars before they finally give. Light. All she saw was blinding light and she thought she had heard a whisper behind her, but the sting in her eyes was too distracting. Rubbing her eyes, the elf blinks and looks around at Meili's voice. "Ok here. So did it collapse? Seems darker than before." She re-activates her Light cantrip before pausing and cursing, blinking rapidly and looking around as the reality of the situation was sinking into her. "Well. I can't seem to see anything. Let's hope that's not permanent." 

Mica and Meili were good at least, judging from their voices. "You alright Hew?" She asks, attempting to face where she thought he was behind her before hearing Meili's voice ask where Velan was. "What? Velan! Stop mucking about and keep together! Damn wizards staying so far back. Looks like it wasn't so bad of an idea though." 

Shaking her head at Meili's question, the elf answered, "Stung just a bit when it happened but nothing now. Don't feel any blood or anything else wrong. Eyes aren't red or black or white or anything, right? I don't think I can health this. Eyes are a sensitive thing and if this was caused by magic then it's a bit beyond what I know now. How's everyone else?" She asks the last question in a louder tone of voice, waiting to hear answers. 

Ran laughs at first when they get the door open, but the brilliance and the pain that came with it shuts him up quickly. At least he can see.

”So only a touch worse than expected. Maybe we should home up here for a little bit to see if the captain’s vision clears.”

When he realizes Velan is missing, Ran looks out the doors to see if he can spot the wizard, or anyone else for that matter.

With the doors open, you have a glimpse outside.  Just past the doors is the bottom of a stair.  It is filled with standing water and plants... and several dozen charred and smoking poisonous snakes, victims of the trap you triggered.  Five steps lead up to the open air.  It is still pouring rain... the grey light suggests the sun hasn't set yet but it must be quite near to nightfall.

Velan is indeed missing.  Hew, able to avert his eyes before the blinding flash, backtracks down the stairs.  After a few minutes he returns.  "There's... no sign of him."

Meili energetically nodded to Ran's words even if Danica was not able to see it. "Ran is right, let's try to wait it out here. The brightness of the flash was just too much but the effect will be gone in no time." She tried to make her voice sound confident. "At least we have a clear way out and a shelter from the rain."

She looked around in search of a relatively dry spot to sit the illness out but the opened doors and a gasp of fresh air changed her plans. "Or maybe we can leave that water hole and climb up the stairs?" She came closer to the door too and looked outside. "Oh... Looks like the trap worked both ways." She leaned forward to get a better look at the snakes when the whiff of smell of roasted meat made her blurt a sudden question. "Are those snakes eatable?"

Danica was actively trying to keep a lid on her emotions, unease prickling down her spine at being unaware of her surroundings. Her pointed ears keen to any and every sound around her as she tried to stand normally, but couldn't help but splay her fingers out even as she held her arms to her side. 

Hearing Ran say that it was worse than expected she asks, "Anyone hurt? Don't have to see to heal if you need it." 
But Hew's voice left her feeling a drip of cold down her spine. "What? No sign at all? You're a tracker Hew, surely you'd be able to see where he went. Maybe just wandered off and got lost underground? Inete, did you see where he went?" She was attempting to hold out hope, despite feeling ill at ease. 

"If those doors lead to outside, then that's good but I'm a liability if we go out again and risk the possibility of running into anything hostile. But we don't know when that trap will reset again either without Velan to be able to help tell us. Unless anyone else can make sense of them?"

Ran looks at the crispy snakes, picks one up and sniffs at it trying to decide if it's merely venomous or if it's truly poisonous.

Survival: 12  

"The glyph went off when the doors opened." Ran says to Danica. "As long as we don't close them again we should be okay."

He looks over at Mica and then back to Danica.

"Mica and I got whacked pretty good by the light," Ran adds. "As long as we don't run into anything that wants to eat us before we camp for the night I'll be okay."

The antechamber you stand in is several steps higher than the pool outside the door.  When you opened the door, much of the water inside drained out into the pool with the snakes.  The stone floor of the room is still slick with slime and old organic residue, but you could probably scrape enough out to make a spot to camp.

The other options would be to go outside into the storm, or head back down underground.

Hew seems cut by Danica's words.  "I don't know!  He was (cough cough) he was behind us by the stairs and then he wasn't.  He didn't fall down the stairs... I just don't know."  At first seeming to be angry, he quickly runs out of steam and is left looking defeated.

Inete only shakes her head.

Hew moves over to examine the snakes.  He picks one up.  Sniffs it.  "Yeah, these'll do.  Need (cough) need to get a fire going and cook them off a bit first.  I don't trust that water they are floating in.  Speaking of water, if we are going to camp, lets all drink (cough) up and then get some catcher's out to make use of this damn storm."

Ran makes use of the broken beams that were holding the door to start scraping some dry space for them to camp. Once that's done, he'll help either get the fire going or hang the snakes up to let them drip dry before cooking them. He'll help Hew with the rain catchers too.

He keeps looking outside for any sign of Velan but eventually just shakes his head.

"Wizards, eh?" Ran says. "Just hope he wasn't really one of those red wizards and has gone off to join his buddies."

Meili helped with sorting out snakes from the debris outside the doors and tried her best to find a couple of big enough rocks that could work as stoppers (to prevent the warding rune from re-assembling).

When the preparations for the night were finished and yet not a word from Velan was heard still, she finally said. "I might be able to search for Velan ... safely. If the cloak works as I think it does I can try to fly around." She was not able to explain the details - it was more of a feeling than solid knowledge at this point - but could show. If it works, of course. Should the evening light become dim enough, Meili walked to the top of the outside stairs, gripped the edges of the cloak with both hands and flapped them like wings half expecting that nothing would happen.

“This is as good as a place to camp as any around here, keeps us out of the rain at least.” Mica works with the others to clear a space free from mud on the floor and get camp organized, including setting up their remaining rain catchers.  As camp gets set, he helps the others look for any sign of Velan as well. “I was focused more on the door than anything else.  He was here one second and gone the next, not even any gear left. Strange.” 

Mica carefully climbs the stairs, looking for signs of any additional traps, and looks out from the top, trying to get a sense of their surroundings, including if he sees any sign of the plateau that holds M’bala. As he moves back down the stairs to rejoin the others, he squats and watches Meili experiment with the cloak with interest, waiting to see if she takes off into the night.

Perception to see surroundings from top of stairs: 21.

Survival to get a sense of direction: 7.

.

Danica nods at Ran's assurance that the trap likely wouldn't go off again unless the doors were shut and then re-opened. But at hearing that they got 'whacked' by the light, the elf's mouth twists in a grimace. Half their group sick or injured, one of them lost or vanished and their 'Captain' blinder than a deep sea lobster.  "If either of you want a heal, just come over." 

Danica couldn't help but feel a spark of irritation at Hew's initial tone but her frustration tempered down at how defeated he sounded between his coughing. "Just...just keep a look out." She says weakly, fists gripped tight, bitter at her own inadequacy. 

Hearing what Ran said about Velan, the brown haired woman's head snaps up in his direction as she calls out, "Oi! We don't know what happened, so let's not go 'round makin' baseless accusations, eh?" 

Danica does her best to try and get things out of her pack, one of which was a raincatcher, but obviously couldn't set it up. She settled for taking a swig of her own water and hoping that her sight would return soon. "A rain free night doesn't sound bad." She agrees with Mica. 
"Maybe he...f***in' teleported or some s%!te, I don't know." The elf mumbles from around her water skin. "Don't let anything eat you." She calls out in useless warning to Meili. 

Ran raises an eyebrow when Danica snaps at him, but then he just laughs.

”Aye aye captain” Ran says with a quick bow, which makes him laugh again when he realizes that Danica of course can’t see the bow.

27

Hew works to build a fire, struggling with the damp kindling available and his trembling fingers.  Inete goes to his side and crouches on the slick ground, helping hold the tinderbox.  Soon there is smoke and shortly thereafter, fire.  With the campfire started, they begin the process of cleaning and applying a slight char to the dead snakes.

Mica climbs up to the top of the stairs outside.  Its clear you are elevated off the forest floor, at the top of a small hill, but the storm is still to thick to gain any sense of direction.

With the door to the tomb wedged open, Meili ascends the steps.  Clutching the edges of her cloak in her hands, she activates the power of her new garb.  Mica sees her lift slowly off the ground... and then soar away, at a faster than walking pace.  Soon she disappears into the rain.

Meili:

 Meili returns.

There is food, shelter from the rain, and protection from very large things (based on the size of the opening into the chamber from outside).  As far as things go in Chult, this may be the safest camp you have found yet.

After an hour, Danica's eyes begin to clear.

[Anything else before bed?  Do you set a watch?]

Meili landed at the top of the stairs and slowly walked down. She looked wet (wetter than those waiting around the fire), a bit cleaner (after flying through the rain) and sort of "thoughtfully excited" - absorbed in thoughts one can not explain.

"I did not find Velan," Meili began with the main news, "however I saw the creatures you talked about. They are right near that hole we fell through. Two giant dinosaurs, one is dead and another is eating it." She shuddered remembering the gruesome picture. "And I think I was able to see M'bala's plateau. It can not be farther from here than a half-a-day journey provided we do not run into one of these dinosaurs."

She sat by the fire, happily noting Danica's returned sight. "Can I take the first watch? Don't think I will be able to sleep right now."

It was a very long and very tiresome day but flying through the rain was too exciting and she needed some time to calm down.

(If needed Perception: 16)

Ran offers to sit second watch.

Perception 22  

Mica helped Danica get settled around the camp as her sight slowly returns, passing her a hunk of charred snake before taking one of his own. He listens to Meili’s report as she returns from her scouting trip.  While he could not get his bearings from the stairs, she had a much better understanding of the surrounding jungle.  He looks up sharply as Meili describes the dinosaurs by the sinkhole.  The predator sounds like the one he seeks, a match to the skull he saw above the bar way back in the Port..  “How far away?”  He looks over at Hew and the others  “Maybe can I just slip on over and take a look. I can take the beast while the others sleep,  a great catch to be sure.  Maybe something to trade with the villagers” 

Danica sits to the side, feeling rather helpless as she is unable to help prepare the area to set up camp without her vision. "How did your grandfather get by without his sight?" She asks Inete. Every second that Meili was gone, she felt restless, fingers tapping or knee bobbing, hoping that another member of the group didn't mysteriously disappear. A bit more jumpy than normal, she starts when Mica occasionally helps guide her, or hand her the snake dinner before murmuring her thanks. It was fairly good. 

But hearing approaching footsteps, the elf sits up straight, glancing towards the noise with wide unseeing eyes as the Monk headed off any questions with the answer to the foremost one in her mind. Lips pursed as Meili expalins what she did see, the sailor nods. "Glad they didn't linger up there..." Referring to Inete and Velan. 
Hearing Mica's idea, Danica can't help but huff an incredulous laugh. "Not that I doubt your skills as a hunter Mica, far from, but what...Velan had said earlier and Meili now, it sounds like this is quite a predator. Probably not best to challenge just on your own. Not trying to poach your kill, just back you up should you need it." She wasn't eager to loose anymore people. 

Nodding silently in agreement to the other woman's request of taking first watch, Danica sets up her bed roll next to a wall, sitting up with back against the stone rather than lying down. "I'll take last watch then." Trancing and praying to Selune that when she next opened her eyes, she'd be able to see again. 

Fate, Selune or perhaps both were with her, as after completing her four hour trance, the wood elf blinks open her green eyes and sees clearly finally.

Perception for Watch: 14

Mica frowned at Danica’s words, but he saw the wisdom behind them and the party was in no shape to go with him at this point, especially Danica as her blindness wore off.  “Aye, Cap’n. You're the boss. There will be time to hunt later.  You are in no shape to stand guard. Rest tonight, I will take the last watch, or at the very least let me stand guard with you.” 

Perception: 19.

.