(Generic)
(( Morning, 23rd Obsidian 263
Mission Z120: Expedition.))
(( Indigo (UPM), Oil Macepony (UPF), Jaxler (PPM), Midnight (EPM), Generic (EPM), Castiron (PPM). ))
(( This was supposed to be a long scene or series of scenes with dialogue between Indigo, Jaxler and Midnight, but it doesn’t look like we are going to do it. On the plus side, this is the TL;DR version. ))
Indigo woke up with the sun, hastily washed, dressed up and ate his breakfast, then went about the final part of his preparations. He collected all the bins and barrels, he set aside earlier, leaving them with one of the guards to watch over at the archery range. (Possibly Kit) He gave the key to the armoury back to Halberd and the keys to his room to Amor. She tried to talk to him, but he just left her to her work, telling her, he was in a hurry and would speak to her later.
The rest of his squad gathers as he checks his supplies one last time. One barrel of wine, one of water, one with food, a bin from the armoury with what equipment they were allowed but didn’t keep in their rooms, as well as 100 metal bolts. Two bins from the warehouse with measuring tools, hammers, smoke sticks, lamps and fuel, chalk, writing utensils, blankets and a few other necessities. This is a lot of supplies for a short expedition and Indigo didn’t get any cart to carry all these things, which means they are going to have to carry them on their backs. The reservists don’t look forward to that.
The reserves gather one by one and by the time Indigo is done checking the bins, most of them are present. They talk to each other a bit, but Indigo silences them with. “I’ll explain soon.” When the last one shows up they pick up a bin or barrel each, with Jaxler carrying the barrel of wine and Indigo the one with measuring tools and follow their captain. Much to their surprise, he isn’t leading them outside Dawnpick, but east along the walls and into the mines. Amor works at one of the mason’s workshop at the time and notices them. They pass a soldier posted at the entrance, who nods in annoyance and lets them pass.
They enter the big chamber that serves as the primary iron mine with some veins still visible.
Indigo leads them in a corner. “Leave your load here. This will be our temporary camp.” When they do and look at him, he continues. “I owe you some explanation. As you know ever since the miners first found these caverns we had a few monster attacks per year and a few casualties. Even considering many of those were due to faults in the airlocks, designed by Stiletto, if you’re curious,” he adds, frowning, “there is a very strong possibility that there is some unknown way from the caverns into the mines. Our mission is to find it with any means necessary. I’m not exactly sure what we’re looking for, so we will use a few different methods. The maps I got are likely to be inaccurate, so I’ll be updating them. I don’t expect this to be dangerous, but there may be some lurking monsters somewhere, so we have our weapons, just in case. While we are down here, the mines are closed, so we won’t be disturbed. It is possible that there is a saboteur in Dawnpick, so I don’t want him tampering with whatever hidden passageway may be down here. I also want him to talk to the guard on the surface and be noted for it. Alos, I made sure we are getting paid as guards on patrol. That is all.” Indigo answers a few of their questions and they set to work.
The reservists spend a better part of the day checking the iron mine. They divide in teams of two: Midnight and Generic, Oil Macepony and Castiron, plus Indigo and Jaxler. The captain mostly deals with maps and measures as well as coordinates the other two teams. He also checks the walls for sigils and spell residues, but shares that responsibility with Oil Macepony. Jaxler sometimes holds a stripped pole or the other end of measuring tape, but for the most part acts as a lookout. He has the sharpest senses among them after all.
They look for hidden doors, hit the walls with small hammers and listen for strange sounds, Indigo and Mace use their horns to detect any lingering spells. All they manage to find are some old alarms. They also cover the floor in the big room by walking side by side and hitting it with hammers. It takes them a few hours to find a rhythm for their work that strikes a good balance between speed, accuracy and not getting into each other’s way. Listening to the sounds the walls make, is easier when they don’t hit them with hammers at the same time, so they alternate.
Finally they use open lanterns and smoke sticks to look for air currents. When they are done with the main iron mine, they climb the old stairs and check them out, together with the old entrance to the mines and the underside of the dodge trap. There is nothing out of the ordinary, but the trap hasn’t been used in years, has some tree-sized mushrooms and it still being connected to the mines is a hazard. Indigo and Jaxler measure the big chamber and the blue pony makes some corrections to his map, because some more ore was dug out since it was last updated.
They descend below the main iron mine. There is another room here. Still huge, but several times smaller than the one above. There are a few long exploratory corridors here. Again, they find nothing out of the ordinary. Apart from shale, there are big clusters of magnetite here, as well as some Cinnabar and red tourmaline gems. Below that there are more exploratory tunnels.
Finally, after a long day of work, they come back to their camp and sleep, leaving two awake guards at all times. They use an hourglass to measure time of their 3-hour watches. After 6 hours of sleep each, they eat, do their business on the side, take what they need and go back down. Generic wanted to pull an all-nighter, but Indigo ordered him to rest, so he could work tomorrow. The earth pony grudgingly agreed, but seemed to just be lying there with his eyes closed during Indigo’s watch.
------------- Day 2 -------
As they go deeper, shale is replaced by gabbro and they find yet more exploratory tunnels. While the rock formations aren’t very interesting, in one corridor close to the stairs, there is still some smeared blood and a broken bolt from an old fight.
After a long descent, they reach a set of floor hatches leading into the first cavern. There is also a corridor to the next staircase. Indigo fiddles with the hatches. He forgot to ask Virtue for keys and the locks look solid enough. Jaxler volunteers to pick them and does so in minutes, but not before they look closely at the locks and find no traces of tampering. When he opens one of the hatches, Jaxler is sent to look at them from below with Castiron. They find no evidence of tampering, but nonetheless Indigo writes that the hatches are a vulnerability that can be broken from below or the locks can be picked and recommends building solid floors instead. It is the only way to be sure. Indigo also has much more doubts about Jaxler, his past and his role in Dawnpick, after seeing his skill at opening locks, but doesn’t put those thoughts in his report. They close the hatch back and move on.
They pass occasional old smears of blood as they go down the stairs. They reach another large room, with slits carved in a wall overlooking the cavern floor. This is the mine of gold and nickel as well as stone used to secure a part of the caverns, which is connected to the mines by the oldest airlock and monster trap. A second, much bigger and better designed one, leads into the cavern beyond the wall. The reserves check all the walls, test the traps and the floor spikes and three of them even briefly go into the cavern to look around the new airlock. Everythings seems to be in order.
When they are done, they move their camp here, to a corner east of the stairs.
------------- Day 3 ---------------
They go yet deeper down the stairs. Gabbro is replaced by Slate, then Quarzite with occasional Pinfire Opals. They reach another set of hatches blocking the way into the second cavern and do the same as with the first ones. There is another exploratory tunnel here.
They descend the next staircase. They find yet another blind, exploratory tunnel, at least according to Indigo’s map. Unexpectedly Jaxler notices that the flame is flickering and the air is sucked out of that tunnel, which is strange. Indigo carefully walks there first, with the rest of his squad in sight. He looks for anything out of the ordinary. The corridor hasn’t been used for quite some time. When he looks around the corner, his jaw drops, he tells his squad to have a look for themselves and focuses his light spell into a beam. The tunnel ends in a gaping hole into the second cavern. It is well above the floor. Jaxler and Castiron are sent into the breach to investigate and find some rubble at the bottom.
Indigo puts up an +alarm sigil+ in the tunnel and writes a letter, describing the circumstances. He uses his secret seal. Midnight and Generic are sent to deliver it to Virtue. They emerge from the mines shortly after 8 on a cloudy day. After they go to the keep, the pegasai start flying like crazy, miners are rounded up for questioning and masons told to build a wall. Jury and captain of the guard go look at the tunnel. They get a few soldiers as an escort. Amor panics and asks “Where is Indigo”, but calms down when she hears “Alive and unharmed, by the breach.” The second expedition takes bins with stone blocks and gravel with them and goes down with Midnight and Generic as guides. By the breach they meet the rest of Indigo’s squad, who are checking the walls of the tunnel. There is nothing interesting here, apart from the obvious hole. The two groups talk, Jury and Kat check the tunnel and look for clues, but don’t find any, apart from some claw marks on the floor and lots of fresh hoof marks in the thin layer of dust covering the floor. When they are done, a wall is built to block passage, while Indigo’s squad continues their mission and goes deeper. After this point their goal is no longer secret, but the mines are still closed.
(( Maklak says: I got a roll of 97 with a skill of 2 on that alarm sigil. Indigo really did his best, despite the circumstances. He could have gotten a *sigil* on 98-100 ))
The reserves check the airlock into the second cavern level. Three of them go look at it from outside and even go to investigate the tunnel and the pile below it, from the cavern floor. There is nothing wrong here apart from the trap being too small. Apparently the miners were using this place to get rid of much of their rubble, then forgot about it and it left it insecure.
They go deeper and quarzite is replaced by granite. The reservists examine the airlock and trap leading into the third cavern level. It is getting late, so they go back to their camp close to the first cavern, checking the newly built wall on the way.
-------- Day 4 -----------
They descend the stairs again and find still more old smears of blood. The mines have quite a bloody history, which makes their mission that much more important.
They find a wide gabbro corridor that leads nowhere. It is strange; not as narrow as exploratory tunnels, yet too small and deep to be a Gabbro mine. It would make a good place to move their camp, if they were to stay for another night. There is a second, similar but smaller corridor below.
Eventually they reach a big mined-out chamber. It is very hot in here and they sweat. A part of the stairs is broken, but it is not a problem, as what’s left is wide enough. This is the marble quarry. Some of its walls are hot to the touch and earlier dowsing revealed magma and molten rock close by. If there is a breach here, it would have to lead to hell itself, so the squad complains, that they already found what they were looking for, but Indigo insists on being thorough. His decision is rewarded by more corrections to his map from mined out marble and their flasks going dry quickly.
Below there is another, smaller marble mine. After checking it and predictably finding nothing out of the ordinary, it seems that the opened tunnel was the doozy. They return to their camp by the first cavern entrance and breathe the cool air with relief. They drink a lot and prepare everything to go back to Dawnpick.
They emerge from the mines just after 18. Since it’s winter, this is already after sundown. Everypony in the reserves gets the next day off. Indigo and Generic make sure their equipment is returned to appropriate stockpiles, while the rest of them scatters.
After that Indigo and goes to the keep for a de-briefing. There were some inconsistencies with the maps, but they are corrected. A breach is walled off. If the miners used it to get rid of rubble, floor grates and narrow dumps in the cavern ceiling are proposed instead. Just before 21 Indigo is finally free to go talk with Amor and go to sleep.
(( NOTE: In real mines, big empty spaces are often used as rubble dumps. That way only the useful rocks need to be transported to the surface. ))
===========================
Indigo's report, short version:
* Found one breech into the caverns.
* The airlocks are obviously dangerous, but work for the most part.
* The floor hatches seem solid, but could be unlocked by a saboteur. I recommend to floor them over and dig stairs elsewhere.
* Marble deposits have some warm walls. If somepony breaks them, we are going to have an active volcano here. I'm not sure what to do about it.
* There is just a thin wall between the mines and the moat. That is also dangerous. As to that, the dodging trap should be disconnected from the mines and have an exit outside instead. Oh, and there are trees growing down there, so it could use a stone floor.
* Many of the high traffic passages are too narrow and should be widened to be easier to pass each other when walking in opposite directions.
* The place where the fortifications have pierced the floor over the old moat should be floored or at least put some grates there. It is a way for swimmers to bypass the gate and somepony could fall in there.
* Install weapon and cage traps behind the airlocks for increased security.
========================
During the Granite 264 Captain’s meeting, a few ponies argue about Indigo’s secrecy. His idea of “beating the grass to flush the snakes” didn’t work, but made things difficult for Virtue for a few days instead. There are future expeditions like this, but they don’t look for secret doors, just check all the tunnels and machinery and update maps. They return to sleep in Dawnpick and the mines aren’t closed when they work. The general conclusion is that monster attacks originate from honest accidents rather than sabotage. Miners can’t really be trusted not to pierce holes into the caverns or report them if they do.
The idea about a mole being in the town is regarded as much less likely. The bin incident is accepted to be a work of somepony from outside. The suspicions calm down.
Indigo’s reputation gets better, just as planned. Well, at least until Stiletto’s death, but that was from leaving open one of the airlocks, not from some uncharted passage into the caverns, so Indigo’s expedition was still something of a success.
(( NOTE: Telgin built the wall on 1st Hematite 264 in-game, but this happened earlier in-RP. ))
))
