Stepping through the portal was... bizarre. All of his senses told him that he had just stepped off of a cliff and was falling and that he was standing on solid stone at the same time. Alex's grip on his hand tightened briefly, then he suddenly stepped through after him with a hissed "Shiiiiiiiiiiit..."<br/><br/>And then suddenly, the phantom sensations of falling were gone. The two men stood in a rectangular stone chamber no more than a dozen feet on a side. The floor was smooth and even. Definitely not natural.<br/><br/>"Well that was... anti-climactic." Alex muttered.<br/><br/>As Dan played the light around the room, he noticed an opening in the ceiling at the far end of the chamber. The wall adjacent to it was very rough, and looked climbable. When they walked over to look up however, they saw that the opening extended into a long vertical shaft of at least several hundred feet. "Good hand and foot holds... Narrow enough to brace against the other side... but that's gonna be a hell of a climb. Gimmie some light, I'm gonna take a closer look."<br/><br/>Alex climbed up the ten or so feet to the opening and wedged himself against the rock. "Ok, yea. This is doable. If you get tired, just wedge yourself in like this and we'll figure it out from there." With that, he began picking his way up the chimney.<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">OOC</div><div class="spoiler_body">Skill challenge time! The shaft is easy to climb but <em>very</em> long. It will take 3 successful climb checks at easy difficulty (40). However, each attempt costs 1 fatigue.</div></div>