"Oh, that'd be great!", Kroshav perks up at the thought of not being damp and cold in the morning.

Perception: 21 (Not having darkvision, Kroshav would prefer a watch not in the dead of night.)

Ernos does a closer inspection of the hole in the ground and determines that it is a hole in the stone and further determines that it is probably very warm water in the hole. His natural resistance to heat allows him to get closer than the most and try and see the water but the steam is too dense to really see what is down there. It certainly smells like normal steam.

Thir watch: 10

((Watch rolls from Cladmir, Ernos and Jaq?))

Kroshav takes the first watch and finds the night next to the warmth from the hole to be somehow both relaxing and focusing for his senses after having been cold for...pretty much months. It certainly isn't warm in the Archives, just less cold.

Gazing over the darkening expanse of white around them, he doesn't see or hear anything. Even the icy wind isn't strong enough to shift the hard frozen snow around them. What he does notice about halfway through his watch is that there seems to be less steam than when he started his watch. By the end of his watch he is sure there is less steam, only really a few wisps rise from the hole and he can look down and see, well, darkness but figures steam wouldn't block the view anymore if there was light. He also notices that, while the ground around the hole is still much warm, it is also starting to cool.

Ernos Perception: 5

Kroshav will wake Ernos next, even if it isn't the agreed on watch order. "The hole seems less hot now, I don't know if it gets cold every night, but if it gets chilly and we're wet, it's gonna make for a rough night. Don't know how much it takes to do what you were saying, but making sure folks have dry blankets over them might be good?"

Cladmir definitely needed that sleep as he was pretty spacey (and maybe is still).

Perception: 11

Kroshav skips Thir to wake Ernos to work his magic. Ernos, for his part, seems very hard to wake despite the dragonborn's persistence.

Cladmir snores softly and shivers, still deep asleep.

Ernos blearily nods at Kroshav, and waves the dragon to bed.  Every five minutes or so, he goes about the group casting Prestidigitation to keep them comfortable.

Ernos finds he only needs to dry the group once and there is no more moisture to magic away. The edges of the melted ground quickly start to freeze and by the end of his, otherwise completely uneventful watch, a thin layer of ice has reached the edges of the hole.

Everyone is curled tight now, clearly noticing the difference even when asleep.

Ernos supposes Thir is up now, and on waking her and explaining,

"Why hot gone?"

Falls asleep again, against now icy ground.

Thir wakes Cladmir at the end of her watch, the hole still cold.

As Cladmir rises with a shiver in the still very dark morning, he does find the hole in the ground to no longer issuing steam.

An hour into his watch he does notice that the ice around hole has begun receding and by the end of the watch a small amount of steam has begun to rise again.

The rest of his watch is uneventful.

((Weather! 82 93))

While the sky is still dark Cladmir wakes everyone to what looks like it is going to be a clear day, only a few heavy clouds slip past the peaks of the mountains above.

((New day! You going to kills some griffons? Attack a dragon? Take a swim in the hot pool? So many options!))

Kroshav, on waking, runs through some of his exercises and training to get warm, and checks in with Ealu, updating her on the hot wet hole that got less hot, but seems to be getting hot again.

Ernos glowers at the hole in the ground as he wakes, "Gets cold when it's needed the most...  So, do we hunt the griffons, or use them to our advantage?"

(Just to be 100% before I click buttons, long rest completed?)

((Long rest for all))

In regards to the hole, Ealu sends back a,

"Huh...neat? I'm glad you're okay Kroshav!"

See Korshav warm up Cladmir decided to join -- but more as a bodyguard keeping an eye out to make sure no one sneaks up on our hero.  Of course being old and it being cold means that he also needed to get some stretching in.

And of course he will not volunteer his opinion one way or another.  Just waiting to follow the paladin's lead.

Thir suggests only,

"Kill dragon now, big...bird cat things only attack here."

She gestures broadly around her.

"Hide in trees from birdcats. Mostly."

"True, but at least they are only animals, yes?  Well, I doubt we can fight a dragon, regardless."

"I don't like the thought of doing her any favors either... but she knows where our people are now... the griffons are a danger too, if we take them out, maybe we get a better shot at her if she thinks we're tamed."

What Kroshav says must be right!  So Cladmir is just going to nod in agreement rigorously.

"Let's get moving for the mountains, then."