Thursday, 12 July 1280, Afternoon (Momma, Look Sharp)

After being certain that Ollie is okay, the Mage asks the others to tend to the boy after he is brought around. He then turns his attention to the dying lad.

Oloc tries to do what he can to save the boy's life, although it looks to him like it may be a lost cause. The young bandit has lost too much blood, and his skin is already pale and cold. Still Oloc tries to ease his suffering. He tells the lad that he will make to see his mother.

Gaven aids Oloc in taking care of the boy. He rips up some more of his cloak to try to bind the wound. It seems however that Oloc's assessment is right. The bleeding just won't stop.

Gaven asks the boy his name and tries to keep him talking by asking him questions about how he was hurt and about the bandits and Mackey and about his mother.

The dying bandit doesn't say much, and a lot of what he does say becomes rather incoherent. You are, however, able to piece together this much by connecting the fragmented statements with the physical evidence you've seen.

The young bandit heard the commotion of the fight and went out to investigate. He tried to snatch Ollie as the latter made his break from Swede. The bandit overpowered the hireling and dragged him back to the cave but, coming over the rubble at the entrance, Ollie must have grabbed a fragment of stone and resumed struggling. Ollie stabbed his captor in the leg, giving him the wound you now see. The bandit knocked Ollie out before he himself fell to the ground. He tried to drag himself toward Mackey and the bodyguards, but he couldn't make it, and managed to get only to where you found him.

When Gaven asks about Mackey, the boy just says he's sorry, he tried, that he hopes Mackey won't be too mad with him. "Tell Mackey I tried, I tried."

When Gaven asks the boy about his his mother, the youth sobs some more, and says something about Yuletide, and cookies, and mumbles "I'll go to the forest mum, and get you the best tree ever..." With a final intake of breath, the young lad expires.

Gaven says a prayer in the boy's name.

While Oloc tends to the boy Duran restarts the fire in order to shed some more light into the cave. He keeps his bow close and is ready to react should any enemies come in sight. He gets the fire relit with no problem. It makes surprisingly little smoke, and sheds enough light to keep the entire area illuminated.*

Varros keeps a watchful eye over Duran as he goes about his work, his bow at the ready. Varros motions to Swede to keep focused on the corridor the air is coming from while he keeps watch on the other.

Swede nods in agreement, and positions himself at the entrance indicated by Varros.

Varros, looking north, can see a twenty-foot-wide tunnel that extends north, and then curves east. Some feet up the tunnel, along the west wall, is a pile of rock and rubble that reaches almost up to the ceiling some fifteen feet or so high. Apart from this nothing else can be seen without moving further up the corridor with a torch.

Once his prayer is done, Gaven suggests that the party check out the area with the pool of water to make sure nobody will be able to come at the company from behind.

The party follows Gaven's advice and moves past Swede's position, into the eastward tunnel. The tunnel shortly opens out into another cavern, this one about seventy feet across, with a large forty- to fifty-foot-wide pool of water in the center. The water appears clear and dark, but unmuddied, as you might expect in a stony cave.

The rocky floor around the pool is fairly smooth, hard, wet and slippery. On the slick north bank, you see a waterskin abandoned on the ground. Closer inspection reveals that the skin has a hole torn in it, and was likely just tossed aside as useless.

Around to the southwest of the cavern is a small stump of a tunnel, which extends about forty feet before coming to a dead end.

 One square equals ten feet. The party is in the room with the pool.

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OOC: Actions?

Time is 3:30 p.m.

*I assumed that your sweep with the torch earlier was complete and that you had seen everything there is to see, so no new detail becomes apparent. However the firelight does have the benefit of keeping the entire cavern visibile continuously, unlike the torch.

25 XP Bonus for the first person to name the source of the "Momma, Look Sharp" reference. :)