Discovery of a New Land

Arthur, the guard captian, promised each party member that ventured down into the cave 50 gold pieces each. For me this was a chance of a life time. I needed the money, desperately. And all I had to do was go down into some caverns and search for a couple of guards that had been missing for a while down there. How hard could that be?

So the party set off, and we successfully scaled down the gaping pit that formed the cave mouth. Upon reaching the cavern floor, we noticed a tunnel leading off into the rock. Being forced with only one direction of travel, we progressed down it. Not far down the tunnel we reached an issue; there were three crevaces along the floor that were all roughly 10 to 15 feet in diameter, with two small platforms that could hold roughly four or five people each. We had to cross these, but how?

Some of our party were skilled enough in their acrobatic skills and thus attempted to jump the distance. The first being the Bard, Thomas. He didn't really seem to understand that such a distance to jump was fairly difficult. He sort of just flung himself at it. Surprisingly he actually made the first platform. This seemed to shock everyone really; no one expected him to get across. With risen self-confidence, he launched his body at the next platform. And naturally, he fell.

Thankfully, due to fast thinking, Nicholas managed to cast a 'Feather Fall' spell within time to save him. This caused his fall to slowen, and a rope succesfully be used to hoist him back up to the second platform.

During all of this time, Sai also attempted the jumps. He cleared the first one easily, being skilled at jumping, however only just manage to reach the second platform by grabbing the edges with his hand. Sai finally made it over to the other side, despite much concern from the rest of our party for his safety.

It was at this stage that Nicholas had a rational thought, something that I wished he thought of earlier. He realised that he was carrying a ten foot ladder in his pack, and that could be used to lay across the crevaces to climb across as if a bridge.

From there we were able to reach the next cavern...