Re: X82-37R: Waterfallter Return
OOC: Well, that was a strange set of rolls...
I didn't want to post it ahead of time so as not to discourage anyone, but the Spot DCs were 30, 28, 26, 24, 22, and 20... to represent the likelihood of the exit being that close to the site. If no one had found anything, another six rolls would have had reduced DCs of 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, and 8! Someone was bound to have found one then!
As it turns out, only one person actually found anything!
I was thinking Search was more appropriate for searching a room or dungeon, looking for secret traps and such. It didn't seem right for searching a wilderness area. I'll have to read the skill descriptions again and re-think it in any case.
As the teams search outward in an ever-widening circle, it's starting to look like their guess about an emergency exit was wrong. Being able to keep in touch via radio was very helpful, though, as one team could encourage another. The farther out, the more area there was to search, and the more time it took. Focusing on the task, essentially exploring an alien planet, and a bit of determination carried everyone through the ten hours of searching. It was about time to regroup before darkness, make camp, and reconsider their next move, when Carter found it.
At first, 'it' was just a rock. It was only about 2 feet high, 4 feet in diameter, and rough and irregular like a real rock would be. It was in an area where there were a number of similar stones scattered across the area. What triggered her suspicion was that there didn't seem to be a source for the stones. The only explanation she could think of was that they'd been deposited by a glacier at some time in the distant past. Wind and rain erosion would keep them uncovered.
From there, she'd examined the stone a bit more closely. It actually didn't quite look like the others. Not that the others were all the same, but the coloration seemed to be off.
She used the old tried-and-true tapping method. If she hadn't actually been listening for it, she might not have realized it sounded slightly hollow, somewhat like a geode.