Alberic nods to Lyel. "Wary of hidden crevasses, definitely. There's enough debris here to conceal a pit. As to which drection?" He hesitates and then gives a frown, as if concentrating. Then he points East, further into the unknown, and suggests: "This way?"

He then heads off, tapping the ground in front of him with the clock hand, to test the floor before he steps on it...
This message was last edited by the player at 21:38, Thu 09 Apr 2020.

Lyel pauses a moment, waiting for direction from Alberic. His ungainly clockwork mechanisms seemed to not be as much a bother to him and could in fact be a useful asset, though Lyel had other reasons to have concern about the man. For the moment, however, Lyel put those concerns to rest. "Allow me, I should be able to do this a bit safer than merely testing the ground ahead by foot..." With that, Lyel made a gesture in the air, tapping into the ever present nanite structure that powered some of his esoteries.

As far as Lyel can tell, at this point, the path path ahead is merely walls of stone and a "floor" of dirt, decaying leaves, tiny critters, and bones.  There is a bit of metal here or synth there, but he'd need to go digging to get a better sense of what these mean.

"Well, something's certainly making my gears chatter." Alberic muses as he watches Lyel performing his esotery. "I'm not detecting any active Numenera though. I wonder what it can be?"

Zalbane sees that the other two have made it down safely, and climbs down herself with ease.  However odd her body looks, it's clear Zalbane's wanderings have made her strong.  Looking about at the synth and bits of metal, Zalbane goes to find a likely bone to use as a shovel and begins to excavate the nearest few pieces.

"Perhaps there will some piece that matches the force field room where we were the other week down here!" she says cheerfully.

OOC: 19:37, Today: Zalbane rolled 14 using 1d20.  Climb (1E).

Zalbane's excavations here reveal primarily animal bones and bits of torn synth cloth at her first "dig site".  Nothing that resembles a humanoid (unless those bits with the tooth marks are?) and no crystals or similar items. Perhaps closer to the mouth of the cave would be "luckier".

The idea is as good as a deed, and Zalbane will move as close to the cave mouth as she can before doing another excavation, eyes peeled for anything interesting.

Alberic studies the bones and cloth with clear interest - but clearly little idea about biology or zoology. Once Zalbane has completed her excavation, he moves on behind Lyel, alert for danger, or opportunity.

Keeping up with the line, but not trying to rush it Nalla watches the terrain move by only casually, her primary focus as always on the information she is manipulating on the translucent screen before her eye.

Lyel notes with some slight irritation the warped woman working on excavations into the detritus of the chasm floor as he continues his scans, trying to predict where she is going to excavate next to scan for dangers beneath her feet while also looking ahead.

Lyel's careful advance finds no traps, and Alberic finds no odd effects in operation.  Occasionally a small mammal will dart, squealing, from the party, startling most.  At one point, a collection of flying lizards, perhaps scavengers, takes flight from the rock face above and chitters off into the woods obscuring the sky overhead.  Eventually, perhaps a hundred feet from where you think the cave is, Lyel stops.  Below him is a much denser collection of bone, as well as some other materials, including at least one crystal and some odd bits he's not entirely sure of, but seem to be some type of synth.

Stopping to contemplate the information being fed to him through his Esotery, Lyel's eyes flash a bit. Confident that there would be no danger, Lyel calls to Zalbane.

"Hey, I have something here that may be what you are looking for. Some numenera buried beneath this bone. Probably swallowed by a creature before it died...seems to be encased in bone more than just what is scattered about here. Did you say you think there might be something having to do with a force field? If so, this could be it. Crystal and some other scrap. The crystal might be relevant even if it isn't to do with the force field anyway, and if needed I could take a look at it and try to find out..." He taps the crystal matrix that is embedded over his eye as if to emphasize.

"Well then, let's take a good look!" Zalbane says, shining her light over the area and rifling through it carefully.

OOC: 01:02, Today: Zalbane rolled 7 using 1d20.  Perception, S, 1E.

Alberic stands back, and watches with interest as Zalbane begins to search the area.

OOC: If Alberic can assist without getting in the way, he will do so - if the space is too constrained, then he'll stay out of the way.

Nalla looks up from her screen when the possibility of new numenera is mentioned and goes about the process of finding or making a flat and relatively clean workspace from rocks and the canyon walls.
”Let me know when you get most of it free, I will see if it can be quickly repaired or safely powered up.”

Zalbane's excavation quickly slows in pace, as a human(oid?) skeleton is revealed.  While there is little flesh left, the bones seem to be in relatively good condition (not gnawed or dragged away) and there is some connective tissue remaining.  The skeleton is wearing clothing of a style unfamiliar to anyone present, although it's difficult to get a clear view in the dim light, through the dirt crusting it.  Zalbane works to carefully extricate the remains as intact as possible, and more than half of the body remains yet buried.

Alberic leans forward to get a better look at the skeletons. "Hmm... I wonder who this unfortunate was? No signs of animals interfering... were they buried? And if so, was it by chance or design?"

Alberic looks at the ground and body to see if he can spot any signs of violence, or indications that the body was buried here by an avalance or rockfall rather than deliberately.

While there are some signs of small animal gnawing, no large creature seems to have disturbed the body.  Alberic's assessment of the corpse and its surrounding seems to suggest that the body was not buried here deliberately, but rather by time, the weathering of the rocks above, and the sticks and branches that blow into the crevasse.  To determine a possible cause of death, it would likely take a full excavation and assessment of the remains.

"We should certainly dig it out." Alberic muses, as he studies the ground. "It wasn't buried deliberately, so knowing more about how it died might tell us something about the dangers hereabouts. Or at least we might glean something from its uniform..." His use of the term "it" shows a distinct lack of regard for the fact that these bones were once a living person.

Clearly a bit surprised and quite disappointed to discover that the thing they stopped to dig in the dirt for was nothing more than an old body Nalla tries to remind them of the purpose of their outing.

”It has been safe here for a long time, and we aren't going to carry it with us while we continue our exploration, just mark where it is for retrieval later we don't want to be standing around out here for very long before we have secured the area, unless you want to join it in the ground.”

Zalbane nods and marks it with a stray bone and bit of synth to make a flag, and continues to carry on towards the cliff, searching for anything else interesting...

As Lyel leads through the crevasse, the pace continues to be slow, but the search is fruitful.  After another 75 feet or so, he senses a "deposit" of composition similar to the body Zalbane began excavating.  This one seems a bit deeper  and ... less massive, perhaps?

Alberic raises an eyebrow. Well, the only eyebrow he has left. "Interesting - and I'm certainly tempted to dig, but being mindful of the need to secure the area, as you rightly pointed out, Nalla, perhaps we should just stick a marker in the ground and come back once we're sure the area is safe?"

Keeping his concentration on his task, Lyell merely nods in agreement with Alberic's suggestion. Sparing a moment between scans, he shares his thoughts with the group over the matter, his common lighthearted nonchalance uncharacteristically missing as he speaks. "Unless these pockets of slight Numenera and corpse husks pertain to the task we are here to complete, I think marking them is enough. I can continue this task of scanning, but it seems that the most dangerous thing we have to worry about is a twisted ankle over misplaced footing. Most of my scans seem to just reveal bone, rock, more bone, more rock, and the occasional novelty trinket that we may want to investigate at some point, but the urgency...is up for debate."

Alberic nods, and uses his clock hand to crudely scoop the earth and debris into a recognisable pile, into which "Very well - let us move on."he sticks a branch to mark the spot.