Old Cusa continues his story.
We all hesitated, but the next thing I knew, everybody else was crawling into the cocoons the spider had wove. When I crawled in, the many tiny spiders bit me many, many times, and I let the poison pull me under. I immediately awoke in a different cave. The new cave was huge. It had no visible exit. There were crystals embedded in the walls, and large mushrooms growing from the floor. There was a 100 foot wide ball of webbing suspended (by some unseen means) 20 feet off the ground with many small holes.. A stream of green liquid streamed from the ceiling onto the ball, and apparently flowing though the ball and streaming from some of the holes in the ball of webbing into a small pool on the floor.
We quickly determined that this was some sort of dream world. Whenever we took a breath it burned our lungs horribly, so we held our breaths and spoke as little as possible. I examined the pool of green liquid. It looked like an acid of some sort, and I determined that it was a mild poison of some sort. The reverend Rowen was looking at the crystals, and determined that they could be attached in some way, but neither he nor I could figure out what could be constructed from them. Alvin determined that the mushroom shafts were very highly sticky, but the caps could be handled safely. He quickly started sticking them to a wall in the form of a ladder, which Bernhard started to climb. He got to the roof, and continuing to plant mushrooms and use them as climbing holds got above the ball of webbing and dropped down onto it. Alvin followed but instead of climbing across the ceiling, swung on a rope made of mushrooms. He then lowered a rope for the rest of us.
We all climbed into the ball of webbing and it quickly became pitch dark. We navigated by feel toward the center of the ball, and soon we were all able to talk to the spirit who lived inside the ball.
The Spirit "kisses of spiders", after some prompting, told us the story of the curse upon Lake Caldirae. It seems that about 120 years prior, a tribe of Aquatic Saurid had lived in the lake. This tribe had raided the Spider Silk villages excessively. To put a stop to the raids, the Spider Silk Shamans and Kisses of Spiders enslaved a very powerful water spirit and encased it in a vessel made of ceramic, glass, and wood. A team of warriors carried the entrapped spirit to Lake Caldirae, and activated a compulsion to produce great cold, then dropped the artifact into a deep part of the lake. The lake froze almost instantly, killing all members of the aquatic tribe (this was done when all members of the tribe were likely to be in their homes) and also killed the Spider Silk warriors who delivered the spirit vessel. This sort of attack was considered extremely dishonorable, and the spider silk shamans now have an extremely poor reputation with all the local elemental spirits, and also with any Saurids who know the story (which the Spider Silk tribe has managed to keep fairly quite, such that few other Saurids know of it).
Kisses of spiders told us that if we could remove the "anchor" from the lake, the lake would recover. And if we could Destroy the anchor, the spirit would be freed unharmed. But until any of that happened, the spirit was likely to be very hostel to everybody. I figured that with creative use of some spells, I might be able to move ice and carry air under the water. We returned to the Spider Silk Elders to ask their Shaman to teach me the spells needed.
AP: 600 + 400 + 100 = 1100 + journal. Spent all (8970) AP.
Notes:
The Control Water spell allows Cusa to move (at spellcasting rank 6), six times his own volume of an element.
Assuming Cusa weights 150 pounds and assuming he has about the same density as water, he can move 900 pounds of water or 828 pounds of ice (0.92 density of water).
1 foot cube of water weights 62.4 pounds, and 1 cubic foot of ice weights 57.37 pounds, so whether you calculate by ice or water, he can move 14.4 cubic feet of ether (the true measure is volume, but had trouble finding volume of a human in cubic feet).
At 50 unc rating, and 3 strain per casting (due to my strain discount by having to buy all the spells separately), I can cast it 16 times before needing to do recovery tests or healing. If I use all my recovery tests and Rowen keeps casting healing on me until HE is out of recovery tests we should be able to quadruple that. Call it 65 castings per day.
WWII escape tunnels were as small as 24 inches square. Assume Bernhard will need 30 or 36 inches square.
at 24 inches square, need 4 cubic feet per foot, so 3.6 feet per casting. Which will give a 234 feet of 24x24 inch tunnel per day.
at 30 inches square, need 6.25 cubic feet per foot so 2.3 feet per casting. 150 feet of 30x30 inch tunnel per day.
at 36 inches square, need 9 cubic feet per foot, so 1.6 foot per casting. 104 feet of 36x36 inch tunnel per day.
Needed materials:
Cold weather gear for everybody else.
A lot of rope. At least the length plus depth of the lake. 3 times that would be better.
draft harness for the horses (very different from riding harness and includes horse collar).
A small sled for drawing cusa out of the tunnel.
Other ice working and moving tools. axes, saws, wheelbarrows, etc.
At least one very large, very tough leather sack that can hold 900 pounds of ice, with a strong yet quick drawstring closure.
At least one large sled to carry the full sack.
Needed plan: how to locate the actual artifact under the ice.
I have one or two ideas, but they probably will not work, Will ask the Elders for the name of the spirit their ancestors bound. (this is the sort of thing that shamans would teach their apprentices). Will also ask the elders if they have any ideas for locating it. Cusa is not the sort to think of scientific ideas for measuring temperature, but maybe somebody else can come up with a clever way to actually locate the thing?Statistics:Posted by ChrisDDickey — Sun Sep 12, 2021 10:47 pm
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