It wasn't visible at all. The layer of dirt, or more appropriately the dried mud, was thick enough to obscure the detail completely.

Telorn frowns and moves away from the circle, backing up entirely to the wall. "This seems bad, right? Everyone else thinks this is bad too?"

"It..." Alarven hesitates, and sighs as he responds to Telorn, still looking like he doesn't trust whatever it was the group had stepped on, over, and around in their "Yeah, no. I have no argument for anything other than bad. We don't know what it is, and we've had abyssmal luck in dealing with the unknown so far on this trip."

Alarven looks to Menden with a sour expression, clearly looking like he hates what he's about to say. "Look, this seam in the wall... And the rune on the floor. I seriously don't think this is coincidence. Now, I don't want to say this is a tomb of an ancient king... But it's possible that this dead end, isn't. Especially with Mentine's pendant caught between the stones of the wall. You said that the rune says something about water... And it was hidden in dried mud. Is someone meant to pour water into this ... rune carving?"

Is there mud anywhere else in the corridor?

Now that you are looking for signs of mud and water flow, you notice that the floor of this tunnel is dried mud of various thickness. There are water lines a few centimeters up from the floor on every wall surface except at the end of the tunnel, where the water lines are completely missing from the wall where the pendant is hanging from.

And how far up the tunnel do the watermarks and mud go?

They go all the way to the beginning of the tunnel, from there the water marks stay on the floor, but go all the way outside the mine, like a stream flowing from outside the mine, through the main "room" then down 'Mentine's tunnel'.

"I don't know what we've found here, guys... But one thing is apparent. When there's water here, the wall isn't here. The carving here isn't here by chance...

"I hadn't considered that, Alarven, Neldi says.  "Ok, do we want to check the other tunnel, or see if Alarven is right about the carving on the floor?"

"I think we should look everywhere else before messing with this." Telorn gestures to the sigil with the pick. "Do you think they blocked off a stream with magic?"
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:40, Tue 01 June 2021.

"If it works how Alarven thinks, it opens the wall when it's wet, not closes it."

"No, I agree- We should look everywhere else before messing with this." Alarven looks to the others, and then back to the floor. He gestures to the rune, and the water line on the walls. "This place has no flowing water running through it, but it had water before. We've been in the middle of a dry season... There's no telling how much water this might need, or how long the wall might open for if we poured a bucket into it. And besides, the only nearby sources of water are those brackish fetid pits outside. We would need to sacrifice drinking water, or carry buckets back here from the mining office well."

"This ... symbol, on the floor, right now it's an oddity we can't explain. But if we aren't careful, we can easily end up with a situation where we're on that side of the wall, with no way to open it back up until the rains return." Alarven points a finger at the seam that still holds Mentine's pendant trapped. "I think we should go check out the steeper path in the middle, and come back to figure this out after. We might find water down there, or something that can help us explain this- Not just a madman's journal with notes about a tomb."

I would love to find Mentine alive and healthy but that doesn't look like it will happen this way through solid rock or with a carving of some water signs, agreed let's check steeper path, right now this is a dead end.

Replacing your torch before you head back to the middle tunnel, you are greeted by the steep irregular incline. The party picks their way down, the incline switching back and forth, leveling out before steeply inclining again.

The journey is difficult, sometimes even treacherous, requiring the use of rope to tie each other together and to brace individuals as they climb down. It's hard work and the use of another torch before you at last reach the end of the cavern. The end is a pool of water approximately 4-5m across, it's surface as smooth as glass and the torch light barely reaches below it, showing only more rock a few inches deep along the pools edges before descending into blackness. How deep the pool is is impossible to tell.

The pool can be carefully circumnavigated, though there is nothing else in the small cave aside from rocks, a few signs of coal, and ceilings that are barely 1.5m above the floor.

Alarven sits on the floor, near the passageway that leads back up, and pulls out his waterskin to take a break.

"Water. Water, water, water... almost a spooky coincidence, that everything we find seems to revolve around the stuff. If only we had a fishing kit, we might've tried to see if there are any carp."

"now I see why nobody has worked this, like Alarven says spooky

Alarven looks around for a piece of debris stone from the floor, something of easily thrown size. Glancing to the others, he comments dryly straight to Neldi- "Boss, I don't particularly want any surprises coming out of the water, and we can't see down very far. Do you want me to throw a rock in at the far side of the pool to see if there's any response? Or do you want us to just be extra careful, and try to not disturb the water at all?"

From Alarven looking for a rock, his opinion on the matter is clear, and he is just waiting for permission.

"So are we supposed to take water here back to the other room?"

Alarven see how many times you can skip it

"Not much of a pool for skipping- if I even tried, it would just clatter off the far wall there. The water is only ... two? two and a half? men wide."

Alarven looks at the pool appraising again, before sidearming the piece of rocky detritus toward the far side of the pool. If there was anything to disturb in the water, he would certainly want it's attention over there instead!

do I get any skips, Jason? :-p

The rock skips once before hitting the back of the cave and bouncing around before falling into the pool. The clattering of the rock echoes through the cavern before silence returns.

If the rock was supposed to disturb something, it has either failed or there may not be anything to disturb.

"...Well then! That was satisfyingly uneventful. Alarven continues watching the water for a few moments longer, trying to divine of the remaining ripples were from the stone...

With a glance to the others, Alarven clears his throat and tries to address the task at hand. "Trying to get worthwhile levels of coal out of that ... Ridiculous, near vertical, climb... Would be a fool's errand, with just the five of us. But that doesn't mean there isn't something else hiding here. Who was carrying the pick? I want to get some pieces of coal ore from the seams on the wall over there, for Kalve and Telorn to inspect.." Alarven gestures to the nearest of the coal signs buried in the wall.

Telorn shuffles over and looks around before trying to dig out some coal.

Alarven follows Telorn over to the seam, helping collect bits and pieces into one of the sacks they had brought.

The collection of coal is easily accomplished.