Aurok follows

Anzir's shoulders sag as he sighs. But he straightens up and draws his war pick and shield, catching up with the others in a not-so-quiet manner.

Mel scouts ahead with Poole as well.

Stealth: 22

Some of you begin to move quietly towards the south end of the plateau, making your way between rubble and bones of various animals and some cracks in the rock itself.

Some of you do the same, but not that quietly.

All of you arrive at the same conclusion though - there is nobody keeping watch and the nest seems to be about 50 feet down the cliff. There is ledge there and 20ish foot high entrance goes directly into the mountain.

Moving back away from the edge to regroup and discuss your options Melanthios almost falls into a hole. He catches himself, but then takes a better look and the hole seems to go pretty deep. It's fairly narrow though and about 70 feet away from the edge of the cliff. It's possibly connected to the nest, but there is no way to know before taking a look.

Would Poole be able to fit down the hole?

Poole can fit down the hole. As the sensible adventurers you are then someone hands her one end of a rope to secure herself just in case.

The chimney turns a bit here and there, but can be wiggled through. After about 30 feet or so it ends though. The cave seems to be open to the outside as light filters in from the side and Poole can see floor of a cave about 20 feet below her. Orienting herself for a bit it seems plausible that this indeed is the back end of the cave they saw looking down the cliff face earlier.

She can also hear some sounds coming from below - shuffling around and something similar to a spoken language. She can even pick up a few words in common, "your turn to .." and "but I did already..".

Melanthios mutters something about "as long as it's not me," and settles back to watch for trouble up top.

Perception: 24

(OOC: yes she would have secured a rope to something and someone at the top before trying to climb down, thank you!)

Poole tries to get a bit of a better vantage point, clinging to the rope and supporting her weight at the end of the chimney. She tries to see who is speaking and what's around them. She'll wait there, listening for more snippets, for another 5 minutes, before climbing back up.

(stealth check for Poole: 14, perception check: 22)

Poole settles herself in for a good few minutes, finding a fairly comfortable spot where she can knee-bar with one leg and then switch to another when needed. She's able to lean down and pull herself upright again with the help of the rope from time to time to get an actual visual.

What she can see is that she's at the very back end of a fairly large cave. It indeed seems to be the same one she spied earlier from the cliff edge. It widens gradually towards the opening.

There is quite a few of the birdlike creatures shuffling around in this area, but she's not sure of the exact number as some come and go and she has a hard time distinguishing all of them from each other. Somewhere between 4 and 6 smaller ones and 4 or 5 larger / adult ones.

The scene is that of mix between a hen coop and a throne room. There is a higher rock that has the largest creature lounging on it and the rest are mingling about in the lower area. The chat reminds her of a large family being bored. The larger one seems to be the matriarch and the smaller ones are avoiding some kinds of chores, like throwing bones out of the nest or going for a flight to bring back fresh water.

Poole slowly pulls herself back up to the rest of the group. "Well, it's the back of the cave alright. Seems a family of these pterafolk. Maybe a big mother, some smaller adults, and several younglings. 10-12 altogether? I honestly don't know it's worth the risk to try to harm them. They're bothering a creepy old lady from decorating her hut with more bones. Seems if Captain Grumpypants wants to set up shop here, there's room, and he can negotiate with her, and just avoid the pterafolk like she does. Maybe even work with them to keep away the other fun things in the jungle." She looks to the rest of the group, eyebrows raised, lips pursed. 

“I think it could be worth it to negotiate with the pterafolk. They might know a lot. We need info. Don’t forget our ultimate goal.” 

(also as everyone is near the southern end of the rock/mountain then make a perception check to see what else may lay further in the jungle. This will cover all the sides, but makes sense to do now as you are at the side previously unexplored)

Aurok perception 12 

Anzir perception: 18

Perception: 19

(+2 if we're in a forest.)

Poole perception: 13

Perception roll for Irma: 9

What you see:

There is a ziggurat to the west (the blue triangle)

There's a floating rock to the southeast (the blue diamond)

And Melanthios thinks there's something really far to the south as well, but impossible to tell at this distance (the blue question mark)

Aldani Basin marchland is roughly the shape and size of the green oval.

There is tiny legend in the lower right hand corner: 1 hex = 10 miles.

FYI - Ataaz something-something are massive canyons.

Map:

How do you propose to approach talking to the pterafolk?

Quote from Winenose >>

How do you propose to approach talking to the pterafolk?

 With... words and a threat of force? I’m not sure, I haven’t thought that far and I think I was hoping for some input from the team 

Melanthios would preference just leaving them alone if possible.