Although it's hard to sort through the jumble of information the terrain imparts to her, Chess ala'riina easily realizes that the blocked cave won't have any ice in it as the formation if ice in a cave requires a certain amount of air circulation. Of course, the cave could once have had ice, but the information she has outside of the spell would seem to indicate that it's a continuing feature of the landscape and it's probable that Esmeralda foresaw that it would still be here when it was needed.

Chess ala'riina has plenty of time on the spell to move around to the various caves and 'sense' if there's any ice within.


Tyrol takes a more prosaic approach. He approaches an unblocked cave entrance first just to see if he can feel any cold coming from it. It would have to be a significant difference from the surrounding mountain air for him to notice... probably.

With each of you taking half of the open tunnels, it doesn't surprise you that you wind up meeting at the same tunnel without having any success at the others. This one does feel significantly cooler as you stand in front of it. And the whispering spell informs Chess ala'riina that there is, indeed, ice within.

"Why couldn't we have started with this one?" Tyrol grumbles.

"NOW it occurs to me that if this was a popular place to visit, there's probably a path leading up to it. Then again, we didn't exactly get here by foot, did we?"

"Got your woolen mittens handy?" he asks his companion as he starts to step into the cave.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:56, Mon 02 May 2022.

Chess ala'riina gave Tyrol a smile when they both came to the same cave and his comment about starting there.  "Now that would of taken all the fun out of finding it. she continued to smile till he mentioned about mittens.  As she thought about it, she didn't have anything or spell to keep her warm if the area is freezing cold.

Her mind raced as she thought of spells that might help in this moment.

"Would you like to lead?  I can produce light if its too dark for you.

"Oh, I can produce light, too, but I suppose it depends on how deep we have to go into this cave," Tyrol responds.

"However, I can cast Endure Elements on you so that any cold we have to deal with--unless it's abyssal cold--won't bother you."

If she lets him, he'll cast his spell on her.

He then leads the way into the cave.

After going into the cave about 20 feet, it veers off to the left. The light gets dim going down that way, it starts to feel colder, and the floor slopes downward at a slight angle.

It twists and turns a bit for another 50 feet, but never narrows sufficiently to make passage difficult. And then it comes to a larger cave, though only about 40 feet wide while the ceiling height remains the same--about 10 feet barring the occasional stalactite.

In the center of this irregular-shaped cave is a pit about 10 feet in diameter and 10 feet deep, and there is ice on the walls of it as well as a column of ice sticking up in the middle of it for about 12 feet.

The walls in here glistening with ice crystals and a few icicles hang down from the ceiling.

Chess ala'riina was glad to accept Tyrol's spell to help aid her in dealing with any cold that may befallen upon her.  As they moved into the cave she summoned a globe of light in the shape of a small fey creature.  It hovered next to her in the air and sometimes moved a bit ahead to illuminate the cavern walls.

"Thank you for the Endurance, I'm sure my delicate skin might just blister so quickly. she said with a smile as they continued to move onward.

Once they got to the larger cave she allowed her eyes to gaze over the area and mostly the ceiling.  If its some sort of illusion then she might be able to detect it.  Never know what might be hiding above your head.

Chess ala'riina doesn't detect anything magical in the area... no illusions that she can detect.

With the light, she estimates that there is about 3 feet of ice on the bottom of the pit.

"It's not like I was expecting them to just be sitting out in plain sight or anything," Tyrol says as he looks down into the pit.

"This is the ice cave alright, so they must be here somewhere. Under the ice maybe? We don't really know if this upside down icicle was here a hundred years ago. It could have formed over all that time."

"Same for the ice on the bottom. I think this is a natural phenomenon, so the ice maybe gains a fingernail's thickness every year."

"So, do we melt the ice? Chop away at it?"

Melting the ice is probably the best option since it'll then refreeze if not actually removed.

Although, there doesn't seem to be any real reason to keep the ice. It doesn't look like anyone's visited this site in many many years and probably won't do so again for a long time... time enough for the ice to reform. Since the pit isn't filling up with ice--or at least hasn't so far--then it's probably sublimating almost as fast as it's forming.

"Okay. Guess I'll climb down and see what I can find down there," Tyrol volunteers.

"Did you Detect Magic on the ice? Probably won't do any good... I think the most of the other Wonders were wrapped in lead to keep anyone from detecting them magically. But... you never know."

He then fishes a rope out of his backpack, ties it off around some rocky protuberance in the cave, then climbs down the rope.

Once down there, he starts looking around, peering at the ice column from different angles.

The obvious place to look first was the walls of the pit in case there was a niche hidden behind the thin ice coating, but Tyrol doesn't find any.

He then examines the floor and the ice column. It's only when the light hits it at the right angle that he can see a darker shape seemingly buried inside at the base with centuries of dripping ice water on top of it.

Chess ala'riina looked at Tyrol as he moved into the pit.  "I can cast a Levitation spell upon you if you like. she smiled and waited for his findings if any.  If nothing was discovered here then they would need to look in another cave.

"I didn't detect any magic which is odd

"If the floor of this pit gives way, I might need that levitation," Tyrol calls back up and tells Chess ala'riina what he found.

"I'm pretty sure all this ice is a natural phenomenon. It's about the differences in temperature. The warmer wind blows in with water vapor which then condenses on the cooler rocks above and drips down over time to build up this icy stalagmite."

"If the gloves are under all that, they've been wrapped in lead to prevent detection by magic."

She smiled to Tyrol as she invoke the spell of Levitation upon him. "We don't want you falling into an endless pit.  Now do we.

Listening to him she wondered if the Lead encasement was preventing her from detecting the gloves.

"If that is so, then she was truly a Seer beyond her time. she replied as she wished to only have a small fraction of what powers of a Seer could hold.

Be careful.

He spends a few moments considering the problem before he advises Chess ala'riina of his proposed course of action.

"I'm thinking I could probably use one or two of my bombs to shatter the ice along one side of the column. That might give enough clearance for me to reach the bundle."

"I'm also thinking, though, that it might be our last resort."

As he talked, he reached into his handy haversack and pulled out a 12" metal bar with protrusions on it. He immediately began twisting, pulling, unfolding his Traveler's Any-Tool into a pick.

"If this doesn't work, THEN I'll use the bombs!"

He began applying the pick to the ice, slowly chipping away just enough ice so that he could get to the dark spot in the base, which he hoped was the gloves wrapped in lead.

Chess ala'riina stood at the edge of the pit watching closely and making sure that Tyrol was safe.  There wasn't much that she could do at this moment but wait to see if he was able to pick his way to the dark item in the ice.

Damn! Thought I'd replied to this!


The ice doesn't seem to be any harder than normal ice, but it does take a few minutes for Tyrol to chip away the ice to get to the bundle. It takes a bit more effort to free it up from the icy grip, but it comes out eventually.

It appears to be leather wrapped around a harder item within.

Happens to me all the time!


After hacking at the ice for an hour (sure seemed like it!), Tyrol finally got the bundle out. It wasn't all that big or heavy, but it felt like there was something like a box wrapped inside the leather.

He carefully made his way over to the side where Chess ala'riina was waiting, and handed the bundle up to her. He then levitated up to the cave floor and was able to step across to the floor.

"I'm going to be really annoyed if the gloves aren't in there!" he said as he watched Chess ala'riina unwrap the bundle.

Chess ala'riina watched as Tyrol worked on the ice, it seemed that it was not that long but it all finally came to pass.  Elves don't seem to worry much about time as the shorter lived beings do.

"You did a wonderful job, Tyrol.  I'm sure if they are not here then we will find them eventually. she offered him a smile.

"Shall we check the item here or wait.  We don't know what it might do in this cave. once Tyrol was next to her she offered him to open the leather bound item.

Tyrol was quite aware that the bundle could be trapped somehow, but he had a hard time believing Chess ala'riina wanted him to open it for that reason.

He wasn't really surprised that the bundle wasn't tied with rope or string, just folded up. So he unwrapped the first fold, just barely not flinching when nothing happened.

Then there were two end flaps that he unfolded, and finally he had to roll the bundle over so that the last flap could be unfolded.

And then there they were: gloves. Well, a bit heavy for gloves but not quite gauntlets.

"So how do we know these are the gloves we're looking for?" he asked.

Chess ala'riina smiled to Tyrol "I can detect if they are magical and I can see if they are special with a spellcrafting check.  I don't have Identity spell prepared for the day.

Detect Magic active.
19:46, Today: Chess ala'riina Nasadra rolled 31 using 1d20+19.  Spellcraft.

Casting Detect Magic on the gloves, Chess ala'riina easily detects a strong aura of Evocation with a subtext of electricity. Her Spellcraft knowledge readily identifies the spells Shocking Grasp and Lightning Bolt but she also detects some deeper magic that she can't quite fathom. She isn't sure if it's more spells that deal with electricity or that there's something else there.

It's almost like there's a trigger or switch that needs turned on to activate that magic.

Chess ala'riina looked to Tyrol with a wide smile "Yes these are the Gloves we were seeking.  I can sense a strong aura of Evocation and a few spells but there is something deeper or hidden like the rest of the items.  she looked back at the opening.

"Shall we return and inform the others of what we she paused you found. with a giggle.

"Of course!" Tyrol replied. "If you are sure that those are the gloves."

"I'm not sure how else to determine that. I guess we'll know when it comes time to use them."

Chess ala'riina waited for Tyrol to be next to her as they walked out of the cave and toward the portal to take them back to the Temple of the Green Star.

"I'm sure these are them.  Have a bit of faith in yourself. I do. she smiled to him.

"I do hope that the others were successful as well.


====> Wonders Investigation