Abandoned By Time

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What a waste of an arrow, Orthion chides himself silently in the dark. He quickly checks to see if anyone is injured and finds the devil canary holding his side and calling for a medic. Rolling his eyes Orthion kneels down beside the injured tiefling and takes a second to look at the wound before staring directly into the eyes of X'or. "Look at me pup, raise your arm and I will not hear a single noise out of you whilst I am tending to you, or I will leave you half stitched up and kick you in front of the next one of those things that we see." He takes out his weaver's kit and tends to the wound, making sure it is sealed. "Next time I tell you to keep an eye out, make sure that you do. Your knowledge of maps could be useful, but I will not suffer incompetence again. Do not disappointment me." He stands and nods in respect to the druid, who had done so well for a mere bush elf. "Impressive work druid."

Hearing Carmen's words he steps forward, taking note of the brook in case they needed clean water. 'Or I could just dunk the eladrin in it,' He thought to himself with a wry smile, 'maybe that would dampen that little...' He takes a breath and focuses himself. There would be plenty of time to fix the problems with his little fey touched cousin and he supposes he can thank Selune that this one is at least somewhat civilized, give the gadgets that he used in the fight. He gets to the nest and looks through the debris, careful not to damage or shift the last remaining egg too much. "There is clothing here, so something was taken. However a lot of the bones look to be months if not years old. Definitely predatory so keep your guard up incase there are more of that hooked beast."
 
“Ai, that thing was ugly, huh?” Rhys nudges it with his boot once before he focuses on the firespitter. It’s a nifty device, with the brass head of it shaped vaguely like a dragon. He presses his fingers to his gadget with a frown. <“Cool,”> he commands the device. Feeling around the edges of the dragon’s mouth, he tests if the metal is cool. Once he’s done he puts it back in his place.

Rhys rolls his eyes at Orthion’s harsh words. “Chill out, Ortho. X’or here made a minor mistake. It happens to the best of us. If you don’t wanna ‘suffer our incompetence’ then feel free to lead the way next time.” He flashes X’oreen a wink before following the others over to the nest.

The eladrin kneels down to the side, but lets the others examine it. He knows where his strengths lay. The boring nature of the material plane definitely isn’t it. “The mine doesn’t operate anymore, does it? Maybe this is why. That’s my guess anyway.” Rhys straightens up, crossing his arms behind his head in a posture of sheer confidence and casualness. “Forebossman makes a good point here. Should Send something if we go on. ...Will we?”
 
Nerirel shifts back into her normal body and breaths a silent sigh. Seeing the hook horror this way was almost kind of sad, as all the other ones she had seen in her life were well fed. As she walked towards the nest she wondered what had happened around it's habitat to cause it's starvation. Once she got to the nest she crouches down to examine the egg, but it didn't look like much to her, as she never really saw the nest of a hook horror before. She then looked at some of the remains, which just raised more questions. "Some of these are dwarf remains, they are about half a year old, possibly more. There also seems to be some dog remains, but they aren't like any I've ever seen. They are off in some way, but I can't tell why for certain." Once she was done she got up and dusted off her legs. "We should leave the egg as it is, we have disturbed this area too much already, as if it wasn't disturbed enough...."
 
"We aint far from the entrance, So unless we think these bones are the curious folk who walked in before. We should continue on. At least cover some ground. We haven't been in here long." Loyd pats X'or on the back, giving a glare to Orthion. He looks to the others. "We dont need to send a message up yet actually. Not until we encounter more. Lets keep it ready for more dire information."
 
As much of a good idea as it might be, Nerirel's advice makes Carmen grimace. "Well, yeah, we have, but..." She reaches into the nest and gently lays her fingertips on the egg. "If we leave it, it'll just hatch and starve, right? That seems... kind of harsh." Having talked herself into it, she slips her bag off her shoulders and lifts out her bedroll and a length of rope. Then she carefully picks up the egg and puts it deep inside the bedroll, which she then wraps up and ties in a secure bundle once again. "Just taking responsibility," she murmurs, apparently to herself, as she eases the thing back inside her bag.
 
"I think it might be best to leave it in its habitat. You can check on it all you want, just dont take it away from its home. Ill come with you if you do come down. But we dont know what might damage the egg." Loyd waves his hand, telling Carmen put the egg back in its place. "Plus we should make sure everything is safe for the little guy, and if you were to bring it with us. Who knows what will happen to it."
 
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Moving up to Carmen, X'or suggests to Carmen, "As horrible as it might sound, you should take the arm of the mother or some other pieces, and put in the nest. If you are serious about giving it a chance to live. They are meat eaters. Mom was starving cause there wasn't enough meat in the area. Most likely, if I had to guess, she didn't want to leave the area and her egg unprotected, but she 'hunted' the area too much. Also, if you are going to do it, better do it on the sly from Orty." Feeling like he must sound like a horrible monster, he moves away from Carmen, before she can see the inner turmoil. The critter is going to be a killer and vicious and have to be dealt with at a later date. However, at the same time, he knew what it was like to not have a part of his own family. Besides, he was hired to map out the area and Loyd needs to know that they can move on.
X'or starts examining ways to depart the cave and making final measurements.
 
Nerirel scoffs and turns away as Carmen proceeds to handle the egg. She understood the sentiment but nature is harsh, sometimes you have to let a creature die to preserve the surrounding life. Nerirel left everyone to talk while she followed the wall, looking for a way out of the room they were in. After 10 minutes she found an opening, and when she peered through it she saw an even larger room, with some stone buildings in the distance. She knew that these buildings came from the Snirvniblin, but they also looked like they weren't seeing much use. After seeing all she needed to see Nerirel ran back to her group to relay the information. "There is a passageway to a larger room over there." She says as she points over to the hole in the wall. "I saw some stone cut buildings in the distance from there, most likely made by the Snirvniblin, or Deep Gnomes as you might know them. They looked like they were pretty abandoned however." She then glances over to the dwarf looking corpse. "Their territory may have gotten too hostile for them...."
 
“Alright, moving on and not sending. Got it, aye aye forebossman.” Rhys clumsily salutes at Loyd’s decision. He didn’t have a real opinion either way, but he also wasn’t the one hit.

He watched as Carmen eases the egg in her bag. For a moment he considers the pros and cons, and then he has a single thought— How’d you like it to wake up all alone, Rhysie? The eladrin scrapes his throat and shoves his hands in his pockets. “Who knows, maybe a baby creepy crawly will come in handy.” He flashes Carmen a somewhat odd smile. “Better start thinking of names.”

Rhys listens to Nerirel’s report, humming. “You think there’s anything hostile there? I can’t decide on the odds. I mean, if there is anything alive, why’d this thing here look like it was well past starving, right?” Hook horrors and dead Deep Gnomes. Rhys wonders if he should start worrying about encountering his least favorite type of cousin.
 
Orthion ignores the glare from Loyd and turns to Rhys, a slight frown on his face. "The whelp's minor mistake led to him being injured. Just because it happens doesn't mean we should not strive for it not to, if I was to make such a mistake then I would expect to face ramifications as well. No-one here is more important than the team as a whole. Something you would understand little cousin, if you had any concept of responsibility. As for me leading the way to prove you wrong, why would I be so foolish as to put this team into danger when we have people, such as little X'or here, who are on this expedition for their ability to read terrain and scout ahead?" Gods above the Eladrin was an idiot, as if he would stoop to a pissing contest when it could damage the team. How painfully inefficient that would be. He watches Xor carefully for a moment, noting any soreness or continuance of the injury, before nodding in satisfaction. The pup would learn from this hopefully, all dogs needed a scolding at some point in their training.

Hearing Carmen's delightful little speech about saving the life of a ravenous killing machine, as if that is what the group needs right now, Orthion sighs a little and gives a side glance at X'or. The group already had a pet, couldn't Carmen be fine with looking after that for a while. However he does understand the impulse she has, cruelty for cruelty's sake was meaningless and provided no benefit. "If Miss Sangiovanni believes strongly that she is doing the right thing by taking the egg, let her have it. Better in her care, or broken, than left up here where it could be a nuisance as long as she is willing to deal with the consequences. However Miss Sangiovanni it is worth noting that sometimes things have to starve for others to live, as cruel as it is. That is just nature." When the druid came back with the information Orthion nods respectfully and turns to Loyd. "Foreman, do you believe that this Snirvniblin occupancy is worth investigating?" Orthion looks to Rhys in surprise, oh Corellian alive he was actually going to have to say it. "Our little tinkerer makes a valid point, I doubt the Snirvniblin are still there. The only worry is that something more predatory is, which is why the monster moved further up here for it's nest rather than in the dwellings."
 
Loyd looks up at Orthion when he speaks to him, "I see no harm in checking it out, though we should be careful as to not alert anything. If anything is in there." Raising an eyebrow at Rhys and Orthion agreeing on something. Loyd shakes his head, before walking over to Nerirel. "How far out is the buildings?"
 
Hesitantly, Carmen nods and follows Loyd's advice, unwrapping the egg and returning it to its nest. She takes a minute to fish through her trail rations and pick out all of the dried meat, which she then scatters around the egg in case it should hatch anytime soon. The adult's corpse is left alone. Finally she stands up, returning Rhys's smile and giving Orthion an odd look. She'd been half-expecting him to just smash the egg then and there, but it seems the councilman isn't a total bastard.

By the time Nerirel returns to give her report, Carmen is itching to scope out the rest of this tunnel system. Hearing about the abandoned town only gins her up even more. "Should we go out and see for ourselves? The last group could've camped out in one of those buildings," she suggests, though it starts to sound ridiculous the moment the words leave her mouth. Why would they shelter so close to the entrance of the mine but not leave...? Well, maybe the wildlife made that difficult, she muses, glancing back at the emaciated Hook Horror.
 
As the party begins approaching the buildings in the distance, they step into the mouth of a much larger cave, the ceiling disappears above them and the cave drags on for what could be miles. The temperature here is cooler, there are less of the large mushrooms and the landscape could almost be described as a "field" of small mushrooms with paths through them where there is only the stone of the cave below. It takes a little while to walk to the buildings, and once the party gets there, they see that at one point it was most likely a functioning albeit small village or mining settlement. In the center of the town is a central message on a noticeboard that is written in an odd language, it looks choppy yet somewhat similar to common, there are a few other papers as well, each one looking older than the main one. There are four houses in the area along with two other buildings, one most likely a storage shed and the other, possibly a shared kitchen. None of the houses have doors, either because they weren't needed, or they've rotted away
 
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Rhys tries not to snicker as Orthion has to agree with him. “Hope you realize this is the first of many valid points I’m going to make, Ortman.” He sighs and glances at the direction of their new goal. “Alright, let’s get moving.”

He takes a moment to turn around once they arrive in the center, observing the building before he ducks into one house, then the other. A thorough investigation shows a notebook, the second a— “Fuck, corpse alert, fuck, that’s gross.” Rhys ducks out of the house again, waving at the air in front of him with a grimace. “That’s some gross stuff, oh god.”

He opens up the notebook, frowning at the squiggles. Bringing the notebook closer to his face doesn’t help, so he raises his head and calls to the others. “Hey, anyone able to read this?” Once he receives the translations, Rhys slams the notebook closed. “Thanks, Orthion. I’ll keep ahold of this.” He might as well keep it to write down their own progress. A legacy thing, of sorts.
 
loyd reads out the old sign to the others, allowing Nerirel to read it herself. "Well, this is certainly a place." He walks around for a bit, looking at the dust and rot of the town. He nods at Orthion as he relays how long its been since the place has been occupied. "I see..."

Seeing Rhys walk out, obviously disgusted by whatever was in there. He watches the colorful elf interact with Orthion. Raising his eyebrows when Rhys says the politicians full name. He shakes his head once again. Before he decides to investigate, seeing the dead body he begins to look it over. Seeing how peaceful it rests, he goes back down to the others.
 
Seeing the buildings, and the sign really is a fascinating sight for Orthion and he tries to take as much of it in as possible. Orthion then spends some time studying the sign and informing Loyd about how long the area has been abandoned for, who would have thought those filthy caravans would come in useful at some point. When Rhys asks for volunteers for a translation he steps forward and gives the odious little toymaker a summary of the diary and a word for word account of the last entry, not stopping to any sort of pettiness and he almost smiles when Rhys uses his proper name and gives the Eladrin a respectful nod in return. This felt a lot more like home for the councilmember, bouncing between people with little comments here and there, making sure everything was moving smoothly. He looks for his latest pet project, the little devil boy, and finds him making some maps. Co-incidentally exactly what Orthion had wanted him to do, it seems his training has been working out so time for a reward then. He puts his hand lightly on X'or's shoulders and says lightly, making sure his voice carries no aggression at all, "That really is rather good mapmaker. You have an impressive set of skills, I'm glad to see them put to use. Very good indeed." There, that should drive that pup forward. Now, who is next...
 
Carmen tries and fails to hide her awe as they head into the ramshackle town. "This is what a mining town looks like, then? Never thought you could get them underground. But I guess that's what these deep gnomes prefer. I mean, I wouldn't really know what they like. Do you think we'll meet any?" She finally shuts up when Rhys ducks into one of the houses and she catches sight of the body. She's seen dead people before, but never in quite that state of decay. Suddenly compelled to make herself useful in the investigation, she pops her head into the two houses Rhys left alone and, finding nothing of major interest, moves on to the storage shed.

When she opens the door and is struck by the overpowering smell of death, she gasps and stops in the doorway, reflexively clamping her hands over her mouth. She doesn't give herself time to register anything significant about the body slumped against the far wall before turning away. "Oh, blimey. Another one," she calls, though not too loudly. She makes sure to keep one hand over her mouth as she leans by the door. "Ugh. Just what went on here...?"
 
Finishing up recording the data about the gnome village, he checks in with the Councilman relaying his findings. Additionally, while the mining camp is extremely small, the few gardens would have supported them, and would also explain why they didn't need to tap into the larger mushrooms in the smaller room. It also explains part of the reason why they may not have tried to take on the Hook Horror. There just wasn't enough of them in the area to fight it in a concerted effort. The last bit of the discussion revolved around the questions of what and where were they mining? As he hadn't found any marks in the immediate area.
After getting some thanks from the haughty elf, he joined Carmen searching the other two houses and shed. While nothing was in those two locations, the reeking stench greeted them from the shed. Inside, was possibly one of the missing human miners
. A huge gash in his arm, and a piece of paper in his shirt. Trying to help Carmen, and get the body out of the shed, he pulled the gnome out by his clothing.
"Are you okay Carmen? That was pretty ripe!" X'or said wincing at the smell. "Hopefully getting it out here will allow the smell to dissipate a bit." Thinking sadly, he'll have to put the body back into the shed, as the smell would attract critters and monsters.
 
Carmen manages a small smile. "I'm all right. Just a bit..." As X'or pulls out the reeking body she quickly turns away. "...Not really used to this," she finishes, choking out the words. Though the smell isn't as strong as before, looking at the body still feels repugnant to her. Maybe it's just a squeamishness she'll have to overcome -- the thought makes her cringe a little. Of course, there are two miners still unaccounted for...
 
Nerirel watches Carmen's reactions to the bodies, and she was interested in how unfamiliar the situation was to the girl. Nerirel herself dealt with many bodies, both humanoid or not, during her time spent in the wild. She would regularly find the corpse of an animal, killed and half eaten, or the rotting corpse of some person, who thought they could take on some dangerous monster in the woods by themselves. Nerirel makes her way over to check over both of the bodies, taking the notes with her as she does. "The gnome died of natural causes, most likely around 3 months ago." She talks to the group as she examines both of the corpses. She hands the gnome's note off to Loyd once she sees that she can't read it. After Loyd translates it for everyone she takes it back. "Best we hold onto this, in case we find the other gnomes." Nerirel then moves on to the second body. "This one died from blood loss, the gash on his arm helps corroborate this. His death was around two months ago." She reads the note that the miner had on him, then she puts it in her pocket. "The miners should have known better then to wander around in the underdark unprotected like this, the dangers down here are too numerous to count." She sighs as she leans against one of the buildings and folds her arms. "I suppose we will have to bring the news back to the top, we could also bring the body back as well."
 
Rhys watches Carmen’s disgust with sympathy. “Hey, don’t worry. You’re not the only one who can’t stand that stuff. The smell, just—“ He grimaces. “Well, let’s just say that thoroughly ruins the appetite, right?” He watches as Nerirel examines the corpses. The Eladrin is glad that she’s taking that responsbility on herself. Not that he’d be quite useful in determining anything with bodies.

“So...what,” Rhys says as he hears her out, crossing his arms and frowning. “We’ve got a gnome that died three months ago, and a miner that died a month later. And either the miner, or their buddies, left an ominous last journal entry about shit going wrong, which must’ve happened in that month.” He frowns. “That’s...a weird time frame. How long have our buddy Eovard and his family been mining this place? Did these people know each other?” Something was off. He didn’t know what, but he didn’t trust it. He looks at Nerirel. “We still have that Sending Stone, so we don’t have to head back topside.” His frown smoothens, and insteadhe grins. “I’m dying to see that thing in action.”

 
Loyd walks over to the investigators, squatting down besides the dead body he looks up at the others converse. He doesnt even flinch at the smell. Already familiar with it. He takes the note, translating it when asked. "Im sure that the mine to here was only just opened when the miners then felt curious enough to go." Glancing at the sending stone, he nods at Rhys exitement. "Id say this important enough. Go ahead and use it if you wish."

Sighing he looks at the bodies again. "We should hold a buriel for him. Both of them." He checks the ground around them. "The gnome can be down here, maybe a water buriel. And the miner, we can hold one on the surface probably." Going back with the others he picks up the bodies, putting them back in the shed. "Once we are done with our mission, at least." He closes the door. Placing his hand on the door, he recites a small prayer under his breath.
 
“So it’s recent, you’re saying. Weird. Do you think they knew about the stuff going downstairs upstairs?” The Eladrin’s face lights up at Loyd’s permission. Rhys holds up his hands towards Carmen, cupping them together like a child hoping for presents. He’s practically vibrating with excitement “Oh, oh, can I do the honors? Let’s see, twenty-five words, right?” Rhys tilts his head as he started thinking out loud, the words coming out rapidly. “What about...’We found two dead miners, a hook horror, and an abandoned gnome village. The gnomes were recalled to some weird place with a weird calendar, we’ll investigate further—‘ No, hm, that’s probably too long, isn’t it?” He sighs, looking at the rest of the crew. “What else should we tell them?”
 
Rhys's enthusiasm helps to balance out Carmen's nausea a bit. She takes the stone out of her bag and considers for a moment. "Well... I think we can do a bit more before we send a message through, but you can if you like. Maybe take out some of the boring words? Like..." She counts the words out on her fingers. 'Killed hook horror, found dead miner and gnome in abandoned mining village, gnomes recalled to "capital" for "proclomation" on Topaz 14, still investigating. Love, Rhys.'"

Now that she's suficiently distracted herself from the bodies, her old grin returns in force. "Actually, why don't we see what's in that last building? Give me a hand and I'll give you the stone. Sound good?" Without really waiting for an answer she takes Rhys by the shouders and pushes him in front of her towards the last of the hovels. To her relief, it turns out after Rhys's inspection to be a regular, corpseless kitchen... though the tables are a sight to see. "Can't wait to see what this was cut from," Carmen whistles. She gives the spongey wood a gentle pat while her free hand holds out the stone for the colourful elf to take.
 
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