Healing Potion heals Cassandra for FIVE (5) | HP at Max

Following the tunnel, once Cassandra had drunk down the viscous red fluid—peh, she’d said, bitter and sour, would not order at a restaurant—and healed herself back up, brought the party around to the end of the mineshaft.

That wasn’t to say that it was the end of their path. Rather, the shaft opened up into a cavern just around the curve from where they’d had their extremely brief battle. The dirt floor of the mineshaft gave way to stone, with a stream running shallowly across most of the uneven flooring before draining away into the dirt to turn uneven patches of it into treacherous mud.

Stalactites covered the high, vaulted ceilings of the cavern’s different galleries, and stalagmites rose from the stone as the tread-worn path wove around them.

“Query,” Cassandra murmured, “environmental components with mechanical effects?”

TABULATING QUERY

TRANSLATING

Effects of ambient sound from running water: additional difficulty of perceiving sounds from adjacent chambers (Perception DC +5).

Effects of stalactites: UNKNOWN

Effects of stalagmites: rock formations provide half cover to Medium creatures, two-thirds cover to Small creatures.

Cover

Walls, trees, creatures, and other obstacles can provide cover during combat, making a target more difficult to harm. A target can benefit from cover only when an attack or other effect originates on the opposite side of the cover. There are three degrees of cover. If a target is behind multiple sources of cover, only the most protective degree of cover applies; the degrees aren't added together. For example, if a target is behind a creature that gives half cover and a tree trunk that gives three-quarters cover, the target has three-quarters cover.

A target with half cover has a +2 bonus to AC and Dexterity saving throws. A target has half cover if an obstacle blocks at least half of its body. The obstacle might be a low wall, a large piece of furniture, a narrow tree trunk, or a creature, whether that creature is an enemy or a friend.

A target with three-quarters cover has a +5 bonus to AC and Dexterity saving throws. A target has three-quarters cover if about three-quarters of it is covered by an obstacle. The obstacle might be a portcullis, an arrow slit, or a thick tree trunk.

A target with total cover can't be targeted directly by an attack or a spell, although some spells can reach such a target by including it in an area of effect. A target has total cover if it is completely concealed by an obstacle.

“There’s a path up here on the left side,” Cassandra pointed out. “But the main path is down the stream. Fork rules, or do we pass on the side rooms because we’re not getting experience from the kills?”

“It smells like shit,” Harriet observed bluntly. “But it’s dry, so at least it’s not smelling like damp shit?”

“Not exactly dog,” Jason mused. “Closer to dog than cat, though. Kinda close to dog, kinda not?”

“Yes, dear.”

“I can’t pick it out, though.” His brow furrowed. “Feel like I should be able to.”

“It’s okay, honey.” Cassandra patted the vastness of his bicep, smiling at him. “We can just take a look.”

“You can take a look,” muttered Trio. “All three of you fuckers, pardon my language, young miss, I’m sure you’re pure of heart and soul—”

“Hey, I resent that remark, I’m pure of body and only that—”

“—have Darkvision, but I ain’t even got a torch now. Guess what a Commoner who’s a miner might have been carrying ain’t the same as what a Guard has.”

There was a sheepish shuffling of feet, and then a spark of flame from a tinderbox as Jason lit the torch that he’d been holding. He handed it over with an awkward cough, and Trio glowered at him.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

“What took ya?”

“I, um.” Jason scratched the back of his head, embarrassed. “I thought you weren’t bringing it up because you had a reason? I didn’t want to be rude.”

“It genuinely didn’t cross my mind.”

“I thought it was funny.” Three pairs of eyes tracked over to Harriet, and she shrugged, smirking. “What? Come on. Guy tagging along by holding onto my dad like a lost puppy, but he’s a big-ish dude in armor with a spear who I just saw utterly merc a goblin. I mean, it could have been funnier, I was hoping mom or dad would read it as flirting, but whatever.”

“Whom,” the girl’s mother admonished her absently. “He’s the object of the sentence, because the subject is you—you see him, he kills the goblin.”

“Mom, we’re in a superficial fantasy world that’s incredibly lethal, especially to you specifically, and you’re correcting my—you know what, never mind.” Harriet scowled, but it was undermined by the loving amusement in her father’s eyes. “It’s totally you to do that.”

“Not to interrupt,” Trio interrupted, and both Harriet and Cassandra snickered. “What?”

“Carry on,” Cassandra said, smiling. “You’re just not the first person to say that this week, in that exact tone of voice.”

Trio shook his head. “Not to interrupt,” he repeated, “but who’s gonna take a look up the shit-path?”

“Me, obviously,” Harriet said firmly. “Stealth is more important than perception, and we’re making trouble, so I should have Advantage on seeing what’s going on. And like, I’m the stealthiest even in scale mail. Though I could—”

“Harriet Joan Claire,” her mother interjected flatly, “I know the next words out of your mouth are not going to be ‘take the armor off’.”

“Yeah, um.” The girl’s eyes shifted one way, then the other. “I’ll just… go check out the path, yeah?”

Not waiting for an answer, she scampered lithely—or as lithely as it was possible for a dexterous girl to scamper when wearing medium armor—up the leftwards side-path.

Rolling Stealth (Dexterity) | 1d20+7, Worst of 2

Rolling Perception (Wisdom) | 1d20+1, Best of 2

Not a single chip of stone was disturbed by her passage, and her footfalls didn’t seem to make the slightest sound as she made her way up the rough-cut steps of irregular stone. Each came up to her chest, though none of them were the same height relative to the one before, but she was able to move steadily and silently nonetheless.

After a few moments, she hopped down from the mouth of the chamber, still just as quiet as she’d ascended.

“It’s a small room,” the Ranger said without preamble. “No humanoids, just three of what looked like big-ass badgers or moles or something, but I’d guess badgers because of their coats. It stinks unbelievably in there; I wasn’t able to figure out exactly how many animals were usually penned in there, but I think it’s more like nine than three. They’re all harnessed, and the harnesses are chained to pitons driven into the rock. No water and no buckets or troughs, no food, I don’t know what to expect from that except that maybe animals get ration just like we do. And in the back there’s a crack in the wall and some light leaking through, torch or fire.”

Rolling Investigation (Intelligence) | 1d20+3

Rolling Investigation (Charisma) | 1d20+7

“It’s a shortcut,” Cassandra said firmly.

“I figure it’s a—hey!” Harriet pouted. “You’re stealing my lines! Also, why do you figure?”

“You first, junior. Juniormost rule.”

“Ugh, Mom, leave the dad jokes to Dad.” Harriet slumped against the wall of the cave, keeping her voice low. “The light isn’t sunlight, so it’s not a route out of the cave. But there’s trash down there, and food scraps, and chips in the stone. Someone’s been lowering buckets of water down and throwing food down, and also random trash, so the light is probably a cooking fire and that’s how they’re feeding the badgers. Popcorn, you’re up.”

“Good logic,” Cassandra said approvingly. “Personally, for my evaluation? Narrative contrivance rule. This is a perfect place for a shortcut, because we’re unlikely to take it but it would short-circuit most of the dungeon. Plus, the badgers are a perfect thing to just sort of stick there and use as a combination of excuse why we don’t want to go there plus a cleverness check—we can dodge around them using the fact that they’re chained. Solid encounter design, which is a refreshing change from the world in general—mechanics and setting alike.”

“So,” Trio said slowly, “because you think that this would be the way to where we’re eventually going if this were a game, you want to take this path?”

“Fuck no!” Harriet glowered at Trio with undisguised animosity. “What kind of logic is that? We don’t leave enemies behind us. Or to the sides, ready to come in as reinforcements.”

“No skipping the loot,” Cassandra added. “Shortbows and scimitars hardly count; usually there’s going to be something better around, something more saleable.”

“The two guardsmen are in here somewhere,” Jason pointed out soberly. “I know my girls better than to second-guess them, even when I hardly understand the words they’re saying. But I do know there are a couple of folks here who could use a hand, and we’re the ones who’re gonna give it to them.”

His words got a moment of silence, and then an awkward cough from his wife. “Of course, dear. Yes. The rescue mission, none of us forgot that.”

“Thanks for the reminder, Dad.” Harriet, unlike her mother, was shameless in her grin. “It’s good to have you around.”

“It’s good to be with you, kiddo, honey.” He smiled. “And I’m glad you’re with us, too, Trio.”

“Yeah, well.” The miner-turned-Guard snorted. “Fuck it. Let’s go do some good deeds.”