Above & Below

Yes, Kurama is the last one.

Burik, Brask, and Pip give Cadmael a sideways look as he first brings the grappling hook up to the top of the wall. The owl cocks his head to the side as if to say, "you could have waited."

Kurama will finally make his way up the wall to join the others.  

Acrobatics check: 8 (HA wow that's bad :p)

(Wasn't sure what skill to use so I used Acrobatics with advantage because of the rope.  If it's Athletics, subtract 3 from the roll)

You can still add another 1d4 from guidance!

(LOL also sorry for posting too slow, ... everyone... XD)

(Also, I'm calling bull on the dice roller... I got 2 19's and you got 2 4's?  Next time roll advantage separately, maybe something is messing up with the advantage / disadvantage double roll code.)

Acrobatics is fine...let's hope you roll a 4... :)

Guidance: 4 (Woo nailed it lol)

Kurama leaps up, grabbing onto the rope. He gets a nice foot hold and starts to ascend. Confidently, he races up the wall - and suddenly slips. He scrapes against the stone for a moment, reaching out a hand...and barely catching the rope again. He takes 4 damage but finishes ascending without further incident. Everyone has made it to the top of the wall.

As Cadmael had pointed out, a huge entryway is evident toward the center of the castle. There are windows and balconies built into the rock throughout the mountain, each as gray and silent as the next. Off to your left, away from the main gate, a set of stairs leads down to the ground along the interior of the wall.

Main entrance or small stairs?  Brask asks.  I say we walk in through the front door.  No point sneaking around.  We're here to talk or fight, let's get to it.

Unless anyway stops him or objects, Brask will take out his maul and walk with it in one hand right up to the main entrance.

"We're here to find Promise, who is hiding.  And it seems like his footprints have led us to here. It's not about walking in and calling out for him to show himself," Effort says.  "Besides... we would have to climb back down this wall and backtrack the way we came to enter through the front.  Why not see where we can get in from up here," she adds, gathering up the rope and the hook for future use, most likely in climbing down to the interior of the ruins.

She casts guidance on herself and begins to survey the area,  weighing where a tiefling on the run would best find shelter in these ruins.  (also can we get a clearer picture of where we can move to from the top of this wall?  Are we level with the interior now?  Do we have to climb down to get on the other side?   

Investigation for the hiding place check  12 + 3, if insight -3

Sorry - the wall is guarding the main entryway and all other points of entry into the castle. Now that you're up there, climbing down those stairs is the way to the "ground level", which would grant you access into the big main entrance. No need to scale the wall again. I didn't mean to make it seem like there was a big choice there, haha! There are smaller doors everywhere that seem to have been single-room store fronts or something else. If you're interested in exploring those, feel free. They all pale in comparison to giant entryway, though.

Effort, as you look around from atop the wall, you're a bit overwhelmed by the scale of this place up close. Whitehold isn't just some ordinary castle plunked down on the side of a mountain - it looks like it was more of a small city built into the rock itself. Doors and windows and sculptures extend for at least half a mile in either direction. As for a hiding place...well, there are seemingly infinite nooks and crannies where someone could be holed up. The entry, while you can't see that deeply into the darkness, looks to be a cavernous grand hall, with pillars of stone extending upward to the ceiling and hallways branching off in every direction. 

"Well, we're in now," Effort says after a moment of silence.  "I think we should go down those stairs and check for tracks along the way, once again.  This place is so large that Promise could be hiding anywhere."  She reaches out and lays a hand on Kurama's shoulder, granting him guidance in case he wants to try looking for those footprints once again.

She herself moves down the staircase slowly, keeping pace with the group.

Brask is happy to follow Effort, if she is taking the lead.  He will keep an eye out for trouble.

"Well that was more painful than I was expected.  I'll have to ponder on how to..."  Kurama begins once he finally makes his way to the top of the wall before stopping himself short.  Taking a few moment to look around at the city-like castle, he eventually grabs another journal from his bag and, while jotting down some notes, adds, "This place grows more interesting and peculiar with each passing instant."  Forgetting himself for a moment, Kurama eventually notices the others continuing forward and hurriedly replaces his notes before catching up to them and beginning to look for the humanoid tracks once again.

Survival: 9 + Guidance: 1

25, sheesh!

As Kurama begins to search for any further clues, he feels a strange pull from within him - perhaps the strange mystical energy he has been channeling. It seems to direct him to the base of the wall, almost directly below where you had climbed up. There, pressed into the pebbles and rocks, are two distinct footprints. They turn and head toward the main entryway, and Kurama follows. They aren't as obvious as the pair that had been firmly planted at the base of the wall, but the monk is able to catch little bits of scattered rock and debris. The footprints enter the grand entry hall, and you all look up.

The hall is the size of a small town square, with room for - you could imagine - hundreds of people to go about their day. There's a chill from outside, but the wall seems to guard the interior from any harsh gusts of wind coming off the mountains. While some small chunks of rock and debris litter the floor, it's mostly smooth stone. Around the interior of the hall are large tunnels leading deeper into the cave. There are four of them, spaced evenly, with smaller openings in the hall that seem to be individual rooms. Larger than those on the outside of the mountain, some seem as large as a tavern dining room or some other community meeting place. Bits of broken wood litter the floor as well, petrified and frozen in time by the dry air of the White Wind Mountains.

Kurama leads the group off to the right. It seems the footprints were heading toward one of the big tunnels, although they slowly become tougher and tougher to track. Eventually, the ground is so clear of debris that they completely vanish. Thankfully, by then, you are standing in the opening to the right-most tunnel. There are some stone scones along the walls that formerly lit the path, but the only thing you can see peering down the tunnel is complete and utter darkness.

I got torches, says Brask, if anyone needs torches.  He waits to see if Effort or Burik have plans to do anything magical, and if not he will light a torch. 

Been a while since we were underground.  Hey Burik, remember that spider thing in the mine by your village?  You hacked that thing pretty good.  Brask grins at the memory and then peers idly down the tunnel, then looks at Pip to assess his mood. Insight 9

"Looks like the trail ends here..." Kurama comments to the group.  "We best be on our guard, who knows where these tunnels will take us."  Then seeing Brask pull out a torch, he rummages through his bag while mumbling to himself, "I might need some sort of light as well before entering the tunnel or else I'll be fairly useless...Ah found one." Grabbing one of his torches, he lights one for himself waits for the others to prepare themselves before slowly making his way down the tunnel.

(Edited after seeing Brask's post)

Effort reaches into her pack and pulls out her hooded lantern lighting it.  She then uses thaumaturgy to make the collected light of the fully opened lantern and the lit torches blaze like a rising sun, illuminating the tunnel as much as possible for the next minute.  Then her eyes cloud over as she gives her senses to Cadmael.

Taking Effort's cue, Cadmael launches off of her shoulder and rushes down the tunnel, making the most of the minute of bright light that Effort's spell is granting.  He flies as far out as possible, relaying to Effort exactly what he sees, until she recalls the bird to its pocket plane right before the limit of their bond can be reached.

(Not sure how deep the tunnel would go, but Cadmael has a max broadcasting range of 100ft.  He also has darkvision, so hopefully with the blast of magic light he might have enough ambient dim light flooding in to be able to see what was down the hall in color.)

Brask's comments bring a rare albeit short smirk from the dwarf. He reaches down to his hammer, casting Light on it and holding it out with the other sources into the entrance of the tunnel.

Pip stands tall to the right of Brask, although the minotaur notices his smaller companion shuffle his feet a bit as they are preparing to head down into the darkness. He seems a bit nervous but is doing a fairly good job of putting on a confident front.

The combined light is almost blinding, and it illuminates the large tunnel walls that have been carved and smoothed to look like a fine marble hallway. Running down the center of both walls is an elegant pattern of shapes etched into the stone. Cadmael zips down the hall, slowing as he comes to a pair of open doorways on either side. Keep going? Or should I see what these side rooms contain? 

(Cadmael will keep going straight down the hallway till he reaches range and then teleport out, but he's not exploring the side rooms.  He's going fast and his flight speed is 60 so he should be able to cover 100 feet in under 12 seconds or so.  He's also got flyby so hopefully he'll be going fast enough to dodge any nasty surprises if there are some, before Effort bamfs him.)

As Cadmael flies, Effort begins to narrate what she sees to the others, being as descriptive as she can.

The owl quickly glances right and left as he passes the first two doorways. The rooms inside seem fairly large - not like the grand entry, of course, but still surprising for the interior of a mountain stronghold. They're about forty or so feet down the hall, and the light is strong enough here to illuminate parts of the rooms. Cadmael notices shadows cast against the walls - stationary shadows, but shadows nonetheless. As he continues down the tunnel, two more large doors appear another forty feet down. It's darker now, but he catches glimpses of shapes on the floor. Debris, it seems, but he can't make out what. Finally, at the edge of his range, as the tunnel is starting to become fairly dark and gray, he notices significantly smaller doors start to appear along both sides of the hall. They're spaced more closely together, with only room for small stone sconces on the walls between them. Some cling to the stone, some have shattered onto the tunnel floor. Finally, Cadmael poofs from the tunnel, returning to the pocket plane.

The wind dies down for a moment and you're all left standing in an eerie, absolute quiet save for the occasional crackle of a torch flame. 

Effort continues to narrate, her eyes only returning to their normal hue when Cadmael disappears.  Looking at the others, she tilts her chin down the hallway.  "Well... let us begin, then.  We should see what was inside of the two great rooms that Cadmael passed -- we do not want any surprises following us down this hallway, after all."

She lifts her hand, and Cadmael reappears on her arm.  "Thank you," she says, stroking the bird's head a few times with a rare smile.  The smile drops, and she lifts her arm, and Cadmael takes roost on a stony outcrop near the beginning of the hallway.

"Cadmael shall watch here for us for the time being, and inform me if someone approaches from outside.  Shall we?"  She beckons at the hall, before starting to walk.