Dammit.. Rezivah didn't want to have to get here with this dialogue. "If you'll allow me." Another smile widens. Dammit, Rezivah. "I have documentation of my.. position. It will clearly show I have no allegiance with these betrayers. It's in my pack."

Surely these people are smart enough to understand a missive from Vielara. Hopefully, they knew of her. Her name has been growing as of late.

"We are arguing loudly right outside of a large nest of vampires," Vesra said softly. "Everyone needs to be quiet for just a moment. I hope you understand, we're concerned for our friend. My name is Vesra, what is your's?"

"As long as you mean us no harm, we will not hurt you." Vesra produced a small flower cautiously in her hand, holding it out as a small peace offering. What's in the pack? She signed to her sister.

Kayn digs through the pack, handing one of the rations from the pack over to his gnarlid. The gnarlid promptly inhales the ration, gobbling it up like it hadn't eaten in days. No wonder everything smelled so tasty. 

Eventually he pulls a rolled scroll from the pack and unfurls it. He reads it quickly and places it in one of his many scroll cases before saying, "She's one of Vielara's pets. Signed and stamped by her... she's here to kill them." He points down the hole before adding, "I guess that would explain why she didn't attack us on sight... she probably needs our help." 

After a moment of thinking he adds, "I don't think Vielara will be pleased if we feed her to the vampires." The gnarlid; however, is drooling for vampire flesh. 

"I would like to have that missive back, goblin. It isn't yours to handle." Rezivah actually felt a slight sting in her chest as the little thing smuggled her letter.

She saw the Kor girl make a flower from her hands. She must be some sort of child of green mana.

"If it is a symbol of peace, I'll take it." She grasps the flower gently with her writing forefingers.

"Vessie asked you a question, vampire," Kayn responds. 

He sets the pack in front of the gnarlid, who promptly guards it. Vielara had already proven she holds at least a little value to the lives of her property, but to send a single vampire out to clear a den was another matter altogether. "How did you expect to kill them all by yourself?" He finally asks. 

"Is ok, Vashie. Sear has been scouting this whole time." Kayn smiles at her before turning his attention back to the stranger. 

She could have sworn she had answered the question earlier. Maybe she had just been thinking. "My name is Rezivah."

She turns to the goblin, "I didn't plan on going in there alone. I don't know their exact number. I've been scouting them and I just discovered their lair. I've been hiding since to determine their capability. Evidently, they have a friend of yours, and the longer we bicker," Rezivah now turns to Vasha then, "the less likely he is to be alive." She grins. "So, shall we?"

This had to be it. If they wanted to see their barbarian alive, if he was their ally, they'd have end this little soiree.

Just as Vasha asks where Sear has been, he flutters past her and lands on Kayn's head. "The hole is about seventy feet down... the floor will collapse if we're not careful. There's a... what Sear? A ruin on the east side of the hole with an opening," after saying this he gives Sear a loving pat.

"Goodnight Sear... I will call you again when there's no danger," he glances at Rezivah after saying that.

"So we climb down, try not to break the ground, and get to East side of the hole. This is the most stable side, so Sear says we should use rope here. But he said big strings... he means rope though." With a nod, Sear pops out of existence. 

Kayn gestures to the pack, "I'm not carrying this..." He then walks past them to look down the hole, "And I will give back your scroll when this is done." 

"What do you know of this lair, Rezivah?" Vesra asked, her voice remaining soft and even. "I do not want my friends and I to die in that hole because we don't know what's waiting for us at the bottom."

The druid gave her sister's hand a small squeeze, standing beside Vasha. She couldn't even begin to imagine what her sister was going through, all she could do was be there for her. 

"I have not gone down there, Kor." Rezivah felt a pity for this girl as she held the other's hand. Poor thing, so attached to others. Such frailty. "What I know is that there are more than one. They must have some measure of skill if they took your friend as prisoner with only one casualty. They know the area. We don't. It will more than likely be dark, and they will see just fine."

Rezivah picks up her belongings and tallies them, reminded that the thief of a goblin took her letter. "You'd better, goblin." She straightens herself. "I repeat myself, shall we?" and gestures towards the huge, black pit.

 "As far as I can tell, this pit was born of this life bloom. Or, perhaps, the other way around. I've scouted along its outskirts, and found a safe route to climb down, though it's on the west side, with the ruins on the east, so you'd have to trek through the rubble below. The ground is still unstable, and is prone to sudden quakes, which have dislodged boulders and sent them below. There are deep chasms with boulders sandwiched together between the gaps. I think we could them them as bridges across those gaps. Also, some areas will more than likely contain heavy pockets of gases, and should be avoided."

Looking down into the hole and through the foliage at the bottom, Kayn says, "I think maybe we should just go down from that side." He points to the East side of the hole. "I can make us all float to the bottom... we won't need to worry about crossing the broken ground." He turns around to face the group, "Sear said we can't climb from there... but we can fall slowly." 

He hops back on his gnarlid and leads the group to the best looking area on the east side of the hole. There, he pulls a feather from his component pouch. "When I point at you, you jump! Simple!" He's grinning as he says this. He's only done this on a few occasions, and only for fun! He was excited to see it work in a real life situation.

"I hope this works," Kayn says as they plummet down. The spell was nearly instinctual in its casting. He pulled from the mana around him to make the air thicker and they floated to safety. Seeing the light of the hedron safe on the ground, he began pointing to the rest of the group. One by one they hopped off the ledge and floated down. He was sure to have Rezivah fall somewhere in the middle until it was finally him and his gnarlid left. "Ready?" He asked the gnarlid. "Rooroo," it responded. And they jumped. 

The rest was comforting as Veythe got time to get her affairs in order and clean her instruments and weapons to make sure the water hadn't damaged them. While she felt a bit distant from the group now, despite everything, Veythe at least slept comfortably. When the morning hours finally dawned and she'd awoken, well rested with the feeling that she could probably put together more words to bring about inspiration to the group at the least, came Vasha's cry of Ellangil being missing.

Kidnapped.

Veythe wanted to pull at her hair. The barbarian was the only other human of the group, and one she respected a fair deal from what she'd seen--although she rarely had the chance to interact with him. Her own failing, she knew, since she'd barely spoken a word. Normally Veythe would be more of a chatterbox, but this group--something about them made her almost...afraid? She couldn't quite put to words the reason for her hesitance. Perhaps she'd merely been alone for far too long. At any rate, silent and a bit distant from the group but clasping at her lyre as compared to her pan flute, Veythe followed after them on the hunt for Ellangil's captors. She prayed the man was alive--to loose a member of the party now...at such a point in time, and the only real large defense against being slaughtered despite healing magic, Veythe didn't like their chances.

As time passed and they came across the nest--vampires, of course it would be vampires of all things--Veythe had far grown annoyed. First the elves, and while Veythe understood she wasn't the most diplomatic there something about them just rubbed her wrong, and now vampires. Veythe expected something more than just treasure at this rate. While the world was dangerous as she well knew, this seemed to just be bordering on ridiculous.

And then...Razivah. More and more Veythe found herself frustrated with Vielara and this Expedition House of hers. She couldn't be bothered to mention one of her underlings would be in the Life Bloom as well? Or that there was a nest of vampires that she wanted to remove--which Veythe could understand easily enough. This group seemed to be scum worse that scum and while she hated taking life unnecessarily she could view this as a necessary cleansing. She'd apologize later.

Razivah, though, Veythe could do without. She kept her distance from the vampire and slid her way over to Kayn.

"I'll follow. In case they need any healing," Veythe said lowly. "Do you think we can trust her?" she added, eyes narrowed. She'd rather speak in a language the vampire couldn't feasibly understand, but Veythe didn't know Kayn's native tongue and she'd rather not make a fool of herself even trying.

Something to learn for another day.

Before sending Veythe down with the amazing Kor twins, he whispered back, "Nope." The goblin shook his head simply before giving her the all clear for her to jump. He wanted to tell her more, but now was not the time. He was pretty certain that if Razivah were shadowing this group of vampires, she watched as Ellangil was taken. He wanted to see how this new vampire performed in combat and whether or not she could really be trusted to watch over his companions as they slept. The group knew where Vielara would be after all of this, and he assumed the vampire would want to travel with them to get there. Safety in numbers and all that. It meant she would at least be loyal until they met up with the vampire queen.

The group makes their way along the lip of the sinkhole, heading over to the east side. Confirming through Sear that they're just about the buried ruins, Kayn's feather fall allows the group to slowly fall below. As they make their way down, heavy roots cut through the dirt, dangling into the open air like the tentacles of a kraken, from the trees above, seeming to be the only support which keeps the ground above the ruins from crashing down into the sinkhole below. Landing on some -presumably- solid ground. The group looks over to see for themselves what they're up against. The ruins are heavily concealed by rubble, both natural and artificial, though the entrance which Sear has pointed out is barely seen.

Climbing over the boulders, large blocks of stone, and debris from the trees, the group makes the short ascent, reaching the entrance. Multiple sets of footprints are clearly outlined in the dirt leading up to the hole. To the right lays a large pile of blocks, as if the debris had been cleared to find the entrance itself. Stone statues of horrified elves and other beasts line up against either side of the entrance. The entrance itself is black and dark, with no sources of light seeming to come from within. Observing the entrance, it seems to sway and move to its own accord, is if your perception of reality was being distorted. A sickening feeling, not enough to cause nausea, washes over you as you continue to observe.

OOC: The group is currently in dim light, though the light from the driftglobe illuminates the near vicinity.

Kayn does a quick once-over of the statues that line the entry. He notes the majority of them can be saved if the elves had the proper components. His internal moral quandary just seems to have edged its way to the path of righteousness at the sight of them. 

The strange feeling coming from the cave made him feel uneasy, but he bottled it up and prepared for the next leg of the journey. They needed to infiltrate this ruin, and that meant he needed to scout it out. Sear materializes atop the entrance on a small alcove. "Be safe, my friend. Stay quiet, stay hidden..." He whispers. The small bat then flies into the entrance and begins his scouting. Stay within close distance, he stresses, if you see anything keep quiet and use your inner voice.

With the trail located, Ato let the pair of kor lead the group, tracking as they went. They did work efficiently as a team, he realized, a result of their birth bond. He'd seen how close they were already, but in all the chaos they'd all faced, the pair hadn't really worked together doing much so far, so he hadn't seen this firsthand. With their attention on the task of tracking, he thought it best if he continued his role as a scout and disappeared into the vegetation. He paralleled the movement of the rest, but off a safe distance from them, virtually unseen and unheard, his own blue-green coloration blending with the foliage and shadows almost as well as it did with the play of light and shadow underwater.

When they arrived at the sinkhole, he observed from a distance as the rest moved in closer to examine it and when the vampire dropped from the trees he grinned. His caution had payed off after all.  He listened to the back and forth of the conversation, not particularly surprised that Vielara had sent others out without sharing that information.  Typical vampire trickery. Scanning the surrounding trees, he searches for any indication there are more of them but doesn't see any, confirmed by Kayn and Sear after a few more moments as well.  The mer begins to stealthily circle around to a point behind the vampire . As far as he knows, it has no idea he is there, or is very good at hiding that knowledge if it (she) does. When the party moves to the edge of the hole, he slings his spear across his back, instead drawing a dagger, then emerges and glides up behind Rezivah. He touches the tip of the blade to her back with just enough pressure to let her know it's there and announces his presence in a low voice. "For your sake, I hope that all you have said is true, vampire, though I don't expect it's the whole truth even if it is. I've too much experience dealing  with your kind to put much trust in that, I'm afraid." Moving around her he adds, "You'll forgive our caution, I hope, under the circumstances. Now, shall we go down and see just what it is you're watching here? Lead on Kayn, we can take your route, I think."

After circling around to the other side, he watched as Kayn's magic allowed each in turn to float gently to the bottom.  When his turn came, he gave the goblin a mischievous grin, and still clutching the knife, leaped from the edge as if diving into the depths of the ocean. Twisting in the air as he fell, he lands back on his feet at the bottom, eyes immediately searching for danger.