Lost Lab of Kwalish

Actually, I need to make that be scissors from Huarache's Thieves' Tools in order to do Magical Tinkering. And if those don't fit with "tinker's tools or other artisan's tools," then he will use Tinker's Tools, which include "hand tools," which I will read as including something sharp, like a box cutter or scissors.

Anyway, Huarache pulls out something sharp from his tools, and he moves to take a lock of Leann's hair. When he turns around to give the hair, he will trip and fall to the ground. He grabs some blades of grass in his scissors hand as he stands up, and he uses Magical Tinkering to make it the color of Leann's hair. He will swap the hair for the magickified grass, and hold out the grass to the leader of the Yuan-Ti hunting band, mentally saying every prayer to Gond (god of craft) he's ever heard in hopes of making this crafty plan work. And I suppose he hides the real hair in his sleeve.

"Can you describe him?" Dorian presses. "If we are being employed for malevolent reasons, I would prefer to know, so I can judge for myself whether I wish to keep an association with such a being. And if our employer is not Cimber, would you not wish to know of a new potential threat?" (Hopefully this will help keep the yuan-ti's attention away from Huarache.)

Yaztlia takes the hair with a barely restrained hostility.  The second it's in her hand she hisses sharply and slithers quickly away.  Before departing she looks back over her shoulder, only to say, "Your friend was taken by fire newts. They dwell in the mountains ahead.  Try not to end up like him, at least not before you've given Cimber a new lead."

With that she and the other Yuan-ti disperse once more into the jungle.

As you continue travelling south, you see more tracks like the ones you spotted where Vernell's stopped.  The tracks lead in the general direction you're headed,You reach the base of the sky lizard mountains the next day.  The rocky slopes are mostly barren, making tracking more difficult, but occasionally you can still see signs of the half dozen creatures that presumably took Vernell as you travel through the pass between the peaks. 

As you travel, Ctenmiir relates to the party the following information: "The snake back there was wrong about the Cartophile.  He's not this Cimber fella, nor does he work for him.  I've overhead a bit and I don't think anyone would mistake our gnomish patron for that human if they'd ever met either man.  I've heard this Artus is searching for a naga who can tell him of the fate of Mezro.  When Ras Nsi's zombies overran the city, Cimber's wife was lost with it.  He came to Anoxi's looking for a map, that's when Xephries sent him in search of the naga.  I'm guessing he's the reason those frost giants are here in Chult, as well."

It takes three more days to cross the mountains.  As you head down the south face, you see several small  caves to the east.  Some have smoke billowing from their entrances.  Just outside one such cave you see what on close inspection (should you opt to investigate) turns out to be a gnome, spitted over a burned-out fire pit and thoroughly overcooked, but not eaten.

When Huarache is certain that the Yuan-Ti are out of earshot, he waits another sixty seconds to be safe, and then he lets out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. He taps Leann on the shoulder with a relieved grin and pulls out the hair from his sleeve. "I was saying every prayer I knew, hoping that that would work and that you'd understand. She's got some magical grass, but I do want to make sure that it doesn't have much connection to me. I'll wait to end the magic so that she doesn't realize we gave her grass when she's a one-minute sprint away." After an hour (to make sure the Yuan-Ti won't catch up soon), Huarache will pull four pitons out of his bag and use Magical Tinkering on all four to make them cast bright light within 5 feet and dim light for an additional 5, thus ending the Magical Tinkering on the grass (OOC: you have to touch an MT object to end MT, or make the maximum MT objects you can make; when you do the latter, the least recently magically-tinkered object becomes mundane). He will keep the glowing pitons covered in his satchel so that they don't attract attention.

Flash forward to the mountains. Huarache has spent his entire adult life around gnomes; does he recognize anything about this gnome that would tell him anything? Any identifying marks on his person, like a holy symbol of Gond?

Also, once a day, Huarache will apply an electric current to some welding goggles to cast See Invisibility, just to make sure that at least during one particular hour of each day, nobody is scrying on them.

OOC: Is "scry" a transitive verb? In other words, would the Yuan-Ti be scrying us or scrying on us?

Also, another question: You said that you assumed that the scryer is "casually familiar" with Leann, but Scrying requires that the scryer "know the target well" in order to subtract five from the target's wisdom save. On the other hand, "Firsthand" would mean that they had only met the target, which could include having met them multiple times but not knowing them well, like Timothy at work, with whom you occasionally talk at the water cooler, but wouldn't invite to your birthday party just because you don't know much besides a vague idea of his family's health and his current workload. My point is, a) I would like to either give Leann a better chance of succeeding the save or at least learn the juicy gossip of her backstory with Yaztila, and b) I have an extreme tendency to make long, drawn-out analogies to properly illustrate my point, even though there's probably a set of words to explain myself that doesn't cause everyone to forget what my original point was.

Ooc: see response in the ooc thread.  

Is anyone going to check out the caves? I'm sure you saw the roasted gnome with your telescope, so even at a distance you can probably guess there's something nasty with opposable thumbs dwelling therein.

(Actually I'm not 100% sure about the thumbs, but they can at least sharpen a stick and start a fire.)

"We need to find out what is in that cave."  Leann says, her voice tight with anger as she sees the cooked gnome.  "Something more than an animal did this..." She glances to the others.  "Are you with me on this or are you wishing to pass by?" She would not go in alone, as she gave her word to see this task through, so the group can decide to pass it by. She will mark the area in her mind though, since she would plan on returning to look into this.

Dorian, also being a gnome, is trembling and pale. "We should -- do ...something," he says at last. "I should like to know what kind of creature -- and numbers -- we're up against before we venture in, though."

Well, according to the OOC thread, I have a telescope that lets me see heat.

Huarache will steady Dorian, having many gnomish connections himself and understanding that Dorian is shaky right now. "We'll find whoever or whatever did this. I promise." Huarache pulls out his Spyglass of the Pit Viper and peeks into the cave with it.

The whole cave is very warm. This is a geothermally active area. Several of the other caves appear very warm as well.  As you look right into the darkness if the cave, keeping one eye closed, the eye on the spyglass sees an undefined area of red with swirls yellow and white as hot air escapes the cave.  If you look without the spyglass, you can just make out the flickering orange torchlight on the wall deeper in the cave.  There are numerous tracks on the ground, but it would be very difficult to say how many creatures there were as they all look the same.  On second glance, there are two distinct types of tracks: smaller, 4-toed tracks and a larger variety with 3 long toes.  The step length of the 4-toed creature is similar to a human, while the other type are considerably further apart.

"Alright. There's a lot of geothermic activity in these caves, so I can't make out much, but there's definitely something inside that cave other than hot gas, as the tracks and torchlight will attest. Two different sets of tracks, with different numbers of toes and a different gait for the different sets of feet. Nothing that looks like a human's footprint, but there is something with a human's gait. The other set has a much greater stride. How do we want to do this? If we wait until tomorrow morning, I can prepare something to make someone invisible, but I would assume that we all want Vernell back as soon as possible, and waiting a night may not be a viable option." Huarache turns to the others. "Thoughts?"

Anyone can try a skill check. Investigation could be useful.  Or you could just jump right in and confront whatever is in the cave.

I like to think I have a good Investigation score irl, but I don't know how to draw conclusions about tracks in a fictional world, so I'll leave that to Huarache.

INT (Investigation): 18

Looking at all of the cave entrances and noting that the billowing steam is pouring forth from smaller openings faster and in greater quantities with more elevation suggests that they are all connected at some point, as by a network of tunnels and caverns within the rock.

(Please overlook any potential inaccuracies in my description of branched-system fluid dynamics and focus on the latter point, which you can take as true.)

“My thoughts are to go in and deal with whoever would eat another thinking being like that gnome.”  Leann says with a nod to the firepit they had spotted.  She moves to the cave enterance.  “Shall we go in and see if they have our friend as well, before they do the same to him?” She is prepared to go in now, rather than wait for more investigating.

"I'm with you Leann," says Shutorn. "We can't allow decent folk to go on being cooked like that poor gnomish fellow there, and Vernell might be next, so there's really no time like the present. Shall we?"

Shutorn surveys the terrain to see if there's a path of approach that will allow the party to remain unseen from within the caves.

You enter from the top right.  If you are trying to hide within the cave, you could do so by that rock.

Grey areas are solid rock outcroppings a few feet above the cave floor
The floor is either rock or dried mud, (they behave more or less the same and may be hard to distinguish)
Steam billows over the shallow water of the hot springs
'Lava' is actually hot mud. It's hard to represent temperatures, so for simplicity it's red, but don't expect things to melt or combust on contact with these areas.

The cave has some rotten logs in it, which will support the weight of an adventurer, (maybe 2). 
There is an alter on the peninsula
There are some giant fungus and several piles of humanoid and bestial bones scattered about.

Place yourselves or I will place you.  Not sure if Tel is still with us, but I haven't heard back since Friday, so maybe down to a manageable 5.  

Huarache and Echo are at G- and F-22, respectively.

Leann would be behind the boulder, keeping at least a bit behind cover as she looks the place over.