«Up? A-hed?» Arni asks, pointing to the shaft in the ceiling.
[tab][/tab] The cavern is a giant pipe that gradually turns to the left, filled with sparkling stalagmites and stalactites the color of creme. The air is chilly, moist and with a fine mist of particles being dispersed by your passing, while the floor is smooth and dusty. There are three visible exits; the cave continues north westwards to the left and slightly down. To the south there is a wall of solid stone (two types of stone separated by a crack) and high above a hole from the fissure your party came in. And on the eastern part of the ceiling, there is a small fissure going up, too small for a man or a child to go in and narrowing fast (its a vertical fault line that quickly narrows going up, even the eagle would get stuck in it eventually).
[tab][/tab] The stone formations are unusual and quite beautiful, but otherwise they hide nothing unnatural. The area is permeated by a low level of a magical aura that Scylax can sense, but he cannot make out any directionality, it seems to be emanating from the locale itself.
"Miklos? Do you want to lead going down to the left? I've secured a rope so we can get back up, and that other fissure is far too small." says Alexios.
Yes, follow me" come the reply from Miklos, setting off carefully probing the floor as before.
Scylax walks amid the stone formation and gestures Ahead from there, here!. Jumps once, waves arms around. Gathers carefully a piece of a stalactite/stalagmite as hopefully an arcane connection. A place undisturbed by man he mutters reverently.
<OOC can Scylax determine the strength of the aura with Comprehend Magic? If it has other properties, awesome. And if there's vis nearby, woohoo! If Comprehend Magic fails, Spont the spell suite described before. OOC>
[tab][/tab] The magic aura is minimum (aura 1). There no smell of vis. To get a piece of stalactite/stalagmite you will have to break one out, there are no pieces left lying around. The only shale in this room is the debris on and below the small ledge Arni is on.
Arni is no longer on the ledge. He flew down and changed, to be able to talk to Scylax. Now he prepares to stroll after Miklos, but he lingers a bit and asks, «Scylax, find anything? Ready to go?»
Alexios follows Miklos, taking care not to damage any stalagmites. He keeps looking around to make sure there are no hidden hazards.
<he has the strength to chip off a piece, but won't unless specifically requested>
"Yes, yes, of course, let's go! I am eager to see what may be ahead." <OOC Since the aura is so weak and there's no vis to be detected, Scylax will hold on damaging the columns for the moment OOC>
[tab][/tab] Cautiously, you move the length of the underground cave marveling at the glittering formations. The gallery slowly turns towards the left with a slight incline. About a quarter of a circle rotation later it reaches a natural ending in a form of a well. You approach the vertical hole from the east facing west, looking into an expansive void several paces across.
[tab][/tab]On your side of the chasm, the rough stone of the cave falls abruptly down for thirty paces into another part of the cave. You can barely see the floor, yellow stone turning to aquamarine, forming ceramic looking sculpted pools like the ones you saw before. Above your ledge, the wall continues, but takes a distinctive curve towards the other side, making a half dome covering the natural well, barely distinguishable above you by the torchlight and devoid of stone formations. On your right (north) the cave seamlessly ends into the stone wall, but on your left a small ledge continues to the other side, easily traversible by humans.
[tab][/tab] The western side is a change in color, dominated by every conceivable shade of bright yellow. A balcony has formed over the well by years of deposits from above, huge almost circular ''plates'' of stone that at some point might have contained water. Their surface is smoothed over with a rounded, finished lip, making consecutive tiers like a cascading fountain. In fact such plates have been formed on the opposite, downward wall as well, large ochre looking ledges and smaller bright yellow lily pads up and down the melting wax surface, a cacophony of all the yellow you could ever imagine. These could provide a simple but effective way of climbing down to the bottom of the well. The back wall of the balcony is a few feet behind, filled with yellow deposits as well, but far fewer pool structures. It would be difficult to climb it but not impossible. It seems to go straight up, but does not reach the half-dome; instead there seems to be another ledge just above, where water in ancients times used to flow down.
[tab][/tab] There is moisture here, small droplets sparsely falling into the well, yet you feel most of the moisture comes from below, not above. You can even hear the sound of water dropping into a pool reverberating.
[Going down is a Str+Athletics 15, 12 with rope. Climbing down the ledges is much easier, no roll even needed. Going up the wall opposite you is a 12 again. This is Perama today btw. The cave complex is inside that hill]
Arni is behnd both Alexios and Miklos, and cannot quite see. «Miklo,» he asks in slav, «can you see to the left? Is there a corridor? Or just a ledge around the well?»
Having inspected the options Miklos will suggest we descend using the easy ledge option as most of the party seem to have little climbing experience. He will, however, attach a rope to the wall using his pitons to give people something to hang on to incase they slip.
[tab][/tab] Miklos quickly hammers the long nail in the cave wall, drops another rope down the hole. There is no corridor to the left nor right, just the hole going down and maybe a ledge far above you.
«Is there a ledge up, there?» Arni asks and points. «Is it worth checking it out? I think I can fly up to look around.»
Alexios follows Miklos down, eager to see what is on the other side.
As everybody seems to be going down, Arni prepares to follow. He watches carefully the acrobatics of the companions. Confident that he can copy the maneuver without risk, he starts the climb. We can always do the ledge above on the return.
<OOC Scylax reacts a bit late to everything, he was looking forward to Arni soaring to the ledge above! Always prudent to see if anything above can fall on our heads down below 
. If the consensus is to go down, then he will follow, although he will await to see if the bowls are safe to step upon, he is profoundly unathletic! Since he senses nothing in particular, while waiting for the others to start the descent, he will Spont cast within the stalactite aura an InVi 10 Base 3 R:P, D:Diam +1, T:2 Smell Detecting magic regios spell:
(InVi 15 + 2 Sta + 1 Aura + 1 vigorous gestures + roll)/2, extra magnitudes for Duration and then Senses. Roll: _: 1D10 = [5] = 5, so 12, success, no extra magnitudes, will last only a couple of minutes, he will not immediately rest to recover Fatigue. OOC>
[tab][/tab] Slowly but surely you climb down the large plate shaped formations towards the new cave complex bellow. There is more moisture and less heat as you go down, several drops of water falling on you from above. The last part requires a jump down as there is a gap in the ''ladder''. Finally you are at the bottom and you can look around at your leisure.
[tab][/tab] The walls of the well are encrusted by limestone looking like melted wax, years of water depositions piling up. The floor is dominated by large plates of the same type as those you used to climb down, colored in vivid yellow, smooth and lipped, but no longer containing any water. Whatever droplets fall in the middle of the shaft, run off to the west, where a cavernous opening under the wall you just climbed down leads to another section of the cave. Large, ridge shaped stalactites dominate the opening, weird constructions of semi translucent stone resembling fans in descending coloration from brown to yellow to white at the fringes. And while there are smaller stalagmites mirroring them on the floor, the ground itself has an blue hue, like azure clay. A small channel has been formed on this blue ground, a wet looking groove of streaked dirty-yellow lines, going towards the western part. A few paces later you find a step going down into a cavern of blue.
[tab][/tab] In awe, you see a huge domed room filled with water. The path you follow splits the cave into two lakes, left and right, neatly dividing the space while continuing to turn slightly left. One could almost compare the whole complex as the whorls of a snail, looking from the inside. There is a lot of moisture here and the drops of water falling are louder and echoing in the darkness. High above you the ceiling is barely seen, a domed affair of dark blue to almost black rock. While you have been seeing large stalactites so far, this cave has small, needle thin formations of dark color, resembling dark icicles with white tips, like millions of stars in a dark sky. Bellow the formations are different too. Whether large, chunky blue stalagmites or slender bone-white fingers, all water-rising rocks have thin stone fringes around them, like lily pads. The right side pool is shallow, you can see the light blue bottom all the way to the far curving wall, where it takes a dive to some depths, like a groove going around the cave at edge length. The fringes here are few, with the largest on top at precisely water level, deposits from above spilling on the water surface and hardening. The left lake is much more deep, your light revealing an rapid incline from your path to untold depths. Darkness is absolute, you cannot even see where the cave wall on the other side starts. Still there are stone formations rising up, indicating some kind of bottom down there. These formations have multiple fringes you can see at various levels, the largest being two levels bellow the current water level. It makes them look like underwater laced axles of blue-stone.
[tab][/tab] Several times your path reaches points where the two lakes meet in the center. Sometimes it is a small, smooth canal cutting the way in half, placid water revealing no movement. Others the path arches over a ditch , like a bridge over a river. However soon you reach a point where a long cut in the path reveals very deep waters, a true strait between the lakes. The edges look sharp, as if an earthquake has broken off a bridge and tumbled it into the water below. On the other side the path continues still...
(The aura in this cave is still 1. Still no smell of vis. The right side pool you can easily walk on bottom, its very shallow until it reaches the cave wall. The left side one you need to be able to swim, you cannot see the end of it even with your current magic. The jump is an easy dex+athletics 6+)
«What do you think of that lake, Scylax?» Arni asks pointing to the deep left side. «Do you have one of those lighting pebbles? Maybe we see something if we throw it in.» As Arni has been shapechanging, he has not been able to hang onto the pebbles; he tried to give one to each of the three others.
Assuming that they agree to throw one into the water, Arni sponts clear sight of the Naiad (roll 8 + InAq 5 + Sta 2 + Aura 1 = 16, for level 8). Hopefully, the best thrower throws.
Arni, I will move the stone, please allow me to concentrate. <OOC Cast soft voice, no gestures Unseen Arm ReTe 5 Mastery 1 Quiet Casting/+9 , _: 1D10 = [3] = 3 = 12+ 1 (?) Aura - 5 Subtle = 8 OOC> My enhanced, abominable, and unnatural senses he shrugs with both humor and sorrow, remembering the earlier exchange with Arni may see what is hidden!
<OOC Scylax will move the stone around the cave, within Voice Range, and into the water, if he can keep a direct line of effect OOC>