"Is there one us here who would care to lead the digging effort?  I will be little help in this endeavor I am afraid.  I have little skill in engineering or mining and I am not all that strong either.  But I can keep myself prepared with a reduce spell in case a boulder starts to fall on someone."

Shae will throw her limited muscles into the endeavor.

Kahan looks at the situation for a time, staying quiet as the others discuss the best course of action. "If need be I could create a trough underneath the rocks for them to fall down, but it won't be an immediate fix like a Reduce spell would be. That is unfortunately the only likely purpose my magical repertoire could serve." he observes, as he prepares to help the digging situation, carefully planning which rocks should be moved when.

"how large an area can you impact? Could you reduce most of the rocks on top of them so they are not so large or heavy and easier to remove w/o causing harm to those underneath?"

OOC: It seems to me that a combination trough and reduce spell (on the PCs) would have the highest degree of success of any of the ideas I've heard so far.

OOC:  Reduce will affect one object only.  At his casting level the object will shrink by 70%.  Tahldar is willing to cast as many as two reduce spells.

Percentages of success:

Trough and reduce spells: 90% per person
Moving rocks: 75% per person (+5% if they are made slippery)

If you have other ideas, I'll assign a percentage chance of success.  Failure will result in a roll on a table of crushing effects, which will in part be based on how much a saving throw is made or missed by each individual.

Borimer prepares to move a lot of rocks...

ready to lift whatever needs to be moved if someone wants to direct the effort, otherwise we are left with borimer's 8 int and 8 wis :)

Kahan will confer with the others about which rocks to move first, attempting to get the largest out of the way after he makes the trough on the floor.

Kahan makes the trough and Tahldar casts two reduce spells.  The two humans begin to make their way out of the rocks through the trough, their bodies reduced tremendously in size.  Then the rocks begin to shift because the trough has taken away a part of their foundation.  Hatchman barely jumps through before the rocks come crashing down behind them.

(Both made it out safely.  The last roll was really close (87% rolled).)

In their high, squeaky, miniaturized voices, the two humans give thanks.

"Many thanks new friends.  Are you from this ... uh ... place?"

Shae says, "No, we are from Tienna.  We had to escape before the world blew up.  This is our first time on Allevia.  What about you?"

As you begin introducing yourselves to each other, there is a cracking and crumbling sound.  You look over just in time to see the mountain of rocks and rubble collapse around the trough Kahan had created, producing an explosive thunderous sound and making the ground shake.  You are quite sure the noise has echoed throughout the caves.

"We need to move as I'm afraid that woke up the entire mountain." Tahldar says, stating the obvious, as he dusts off his elven finery that make up his clothes.  Looking to the newcomers he adds "Which way?"

Here is a map of the caves so far:



The three humans just encountered can tell you they came from the south (where you just came from) but they can't remember the exact path in the twists and turns.  However, they can tell you that the point where they entered from the portal was at a point that climbed down and where they heard the giants (from which they fled).

The effect of the caving in of the cave in is that now the pile of rubble is low enough that you can climb over the top of it to get to the northeast side if you want.  In other words, you can continue to the northeast or go back the way you came.

"I say we continue this direction for now, get away from giants and-winged whatevers, heal up."

"sounds good to me....want me to scout ahead again?" Leo asks the group.

"I agree.  Let's pick our way through and hasten away from this cave in." Tahldar says in agreement with Borimer's suggestion.

"I say we skip scouting until we get past the cave in a little ways.  It would not do if we remain here while you scouted ahead and it caved in again and separated us." he adds in response to Leogold.

"Oh I didn't mean for you to stay behind. I meant for me to be a head abit moving to scout while you all traveled slllloooooowwwwly behind me giving me enough room to make sure I find who ever is there first, before they see or find us. See?"

Shae says, "I see two possibilities.  We can move forward into unheard of territory or try to backtrack to where these three humans came in.  They seem to know where the giants were at, and I'm guessing the giants know the way out.  If we move forward, we may find the way out ourselves since these humans apparently came through some sort of portal like we did and also haven't seen the light of day."  She will follow the others forward but wanted to get that idea out there.  "Also, the paper on that dead human seemed to have been marking the way they came in, so it might also help show us the way back."

Shae pets her new bat pet and uses her spear like a walking stick.  She will crawl over the rubble with everyone else if that's the plan.

"I'm more of the opinion of going to the place we don't know anything off yet instead of going to the place were we know giants roam"

Borimer listens to the others and nods.

"Shae makes sense, and if we can't find our own way out then going back where the others came from is our path. But I'm curious as to what lies beyond the cave in, and we need to rest and regroup before running into those giants. What if we go ahead past the rubble with Leo forward as scout?"

"Maybe we should use the rocks to block the path into ere just in case?"

"That would be good, I can do it after everyone's through."

Borimer prepares to guard the others as they move through the rubble, and then pass beyond himself. He will then cover the hole with rocks before resuming the original marching order (Leo scouting forward, followed by himself, and then the others).

Leo, nods to the rest then slips quietly over the rocks and moves ahead of the party, scouting slowly and carefully ahead keeping to the shadows created by the crystals light source.