Chapter 21: Finishing the Exploration

October 9

The group decides to go down but notices that the floor of the corridor below is still quite warm, so they decide to wait for half an hour for the floor to cool. After that, the group heads down. Kieron takes off her armor and flies down. After that, others lower her armor in a backpack after her, and then Kieron starts putting on her armor. Agnarr asks what she can see down there, to which Kieron answers that nothing, there’s no light here, at which point Agnarr throws a light coin down, so Kieron can better see to put on her armor, but doesn’t go exploring before she gets it on.

Neiia comes after and gets stuck by her breasts. Neiia tries to take off her chest armor but doesn’t succeed, so she flies up. After that, she tries again and gets down. When Kieron gets her armor on, she goes to retrieve the coin Agnarr threw from the hot area and notices that it has already melted somewhat. She throws it away with her glove so that it flies to a cooler area. Next, Agnarr tries to come, but he gets stuck again, a curse of wide shoulders in tight places. He tries a couple of times, and after that, Ertak goes to help. He tries to grab Agnarr by the legs, but Agnarr doesn’t allow him to grab his legs. When Agnarr doesn’t get free, he agrees to accept help from Ertak and Kieron.

They tell him to be relaxed, and after that, they supposedly push him upward, but in reality, they pull him down. They get Agnarr loose with a few bruises. Next, Jaysek lowers the rest of the items down and tries to fly after. The flying doesn’t go well, so he decides to climb down. He climbs down and falls the last yard because he doesn’t get the flying spell activated in time.

Jaysek doesn’t get damaged but runs quickly away from the hot area. After that, he puts on his armor, and the group sets off. They go 100 feet forward and come to a place where stairs would go up, but the stairs have collapsed. Ertak wants to dig his way through, so he starts digging. Others look for secret doors but don’t find any. After half an hour, the others get bored and want to leave. They manage to talk Ertak around, and the group leaves. They get out of the cave without problems because most of the group decides to climb out using a rope rather than trying to fly through the opening.

The group goes to where the collapsed stairs go upward. They mark down on paper all the distances and directions with the intention of trying to calculate where in the city it is. They can’t calculate the location properly. Ertak goes to sleep while the others go to tell the sheriff about things. After that, they return to Ertak, and Ertak casts healing spells on the group, and the group then stays to rest.

October 10

Kieron and Jaysek go home to sleep and take care of equipment, while the others go to the tavern. From there, Ertak and Agnarr move to the church. At the church, Ertak writes a report for the adventurers’ guild, and they take it to the mailbox.

Ertak returns to the church, while Agnarr gets Jaysek, and they go outside the city trying to calculate where the stairs might be according to Jaysek’s step count and Agnarr’s bearings. They end up concluding that the underground complex is between the garrison and the town hall. They go to the sheriff to talk about it, and the sheriff asks and tells that in the garrison, there is a northwest tower under which there are collapsed spiral stairs. They go to look at these and determine that the stairs are made of a different material than the rest of the garrison building. These stairs look exactly the same as those underground, so this is probably the upper end of those stairs.