Dark Places

The digging does not take long, as the two miners have done most of the work. With the extra hands clearing debris and shoveling, you quickly realize that you're breaking through.

Foreman Loryth says, "Alright, good work. Stand back you lot, and get ready to move. I don't expect anything to burst through when we open the way, but that's when they get ya." He passes a water canteen around for you to rinse out the dust. When you are ready, he signals to Hasima and Dayne. "Do it, boys."

They bust through, and rapidly enwiden the hole. Lights shine through, showing swirling dust in the darkness beyond.

Who goes first, and how are you prepared for the unknown?

Jaz will step forward, dagger and shield in hand. "Can someone cover me with light?"

Lyle takes out a glow globe from his pack and with one hand holds it high to give off as much light as possible. "Right behind you." With his free hand he takes his battle axe from his belt and holds it at the ready.

Emmett bends backwards, stretching his back before taking the canteen. He pours a mouthful for himself, swishes and gargles, and spits it to the side and passes the canteen to the left.

Emmett's face is dripping sweat with a combination of effort and a complete lack of air movement, but the lawman calms his breathing stoically.

He sees Jaz prepare to go through and bends to grab his polearm. He stands it on end, leaning on it, and nods at Jaz encouragingly.

"I find the safest place to be in the middle, so that's where I'll be if no one minds." She pulls out her razor ring to be prepared.

Once again Turana was amazed at Jaz’s bravery, but since he had a shield it made a lot of sense taking the front line, so she decided to stand to the side of Y’breg and grab the club with both hands after a few moments that she needed to regain air after helping in the cave with her mask on. She decided to whisper "Good move taking the shield to the front line Jaz, funny that we are all prepared to engage at short distance but none is drawing a ranged weapon so far, maybe is for the best , its not very helpful to be ready to shoot if we find someone in need of help instead of a treat inside"

Emmett ducks into the dusty, darkened space after the others. While he's supportive of his fellow diggers and the miners working here, he's suspicious of the foreman's intentions and the entire mine as a whole.

His eyes dart about as they try to take the entire space in at once as his body tenses for some sort of danger or mischief. His nostrils flare as he sniffs, sure that there's some way to detect what's actually going on.

"Let's take it slow. There's no one here to save, so there's no hurry and no reason to make mistakes. I still feel like something isn't right here."

"Thanks Tunara." Jaz nods without turning from the tunnel ahead. "Nice and easy. Heard."

Jaz can certainly make a Perception check. Roll 1d20, difficulty 3, with an asset. That means, roll a 6+ to succeed.

D'Jazyt pushes through the hole, the lights behind them shining. Within, they see beyond, a flash of light around the corner. They hear the grunt of someone straining, and a fleshy sound, a little bit like you might hear at a butcher shop as a new carcass is rended for processing.

In a shadow against the far wall, what first looks like rubble D'Jazyt sees is a person as still as death. They have unusual clothing, even for the area, and some kind of tool or weapon -- maybe a speargun? -- lying beyond their lifeless hand.

"Something's not right. "Jaz whispers, "I just heard...something meaty. And there's the body of someone not from around here. " He pauses, disturbed by the sound of flesh, of meat coming from the mine. "Careful... "

Lyle slowly steps into the room, eyes scanning left to right. He walks in far enough to light the room (if possible), leaving the glowglobe hovering and gripping his axe with two hands. "Meaty? That doesn't sound good." He then carefully walks over to the corpse and begins to examine it "This one from town?"

If Lyle moves to the corpse, he will become visible around the next corner of the tunnel. How far do you go?

Jaz will move to cover Lyle.

Lyle moves ahead ten paces stopping before the corner behind cover. From there he can't see anything, but hopefully nothing can see him, either. He begins to hear what Jaz was talking about, a wet, tearing sound from somewhere farther around the corner.

The darkness and shadows near the body obscure the details. It doesn't appear human, but maybe no more inhuman than Jaz.

Y'breq steps through the portal and behind the men. "So far so good. Well, not for that man," she murmurs, indicating the dead body.

Emmett sees the body in the dim light ahead of Jaz and can see in the mutant's body language that there's something wrong. The way his head is cocked and his weapons are up, making Emmett think there's something ahead they can't see.

The older man stands behind the others stacked against the corner. He can feel his nerves beginning to fray, and decides to take some action to prevent fear from settling too deeply in his spine."Fortune favors the bold, right?"

He takes a step from around the corner, polearm at the ready, to find out what is making the noise and possibly what killed the person on the floor.