They worked as a group to scour the hillside for the entrance. The going was slow however as Claire's butler, Duponte wanted to make sure no one ventured off too far by themselves. While they had not found anything threatening them so far, they were in the Forest, and there were predators that wanted to take more than just the meat on their bones for a meal. Looking at the northern slope they set about with long poles trying to push through the dirt, as if to sound out the depth of the sand. Only being able to push in a foot or two meant that there was more material beyond and not worth digging into, but if they pushed in farther, there was a pocket of air possibly and with careful digging, they could make a wider hole to see into the hill side.  They methodically checked every couple of feet for who knew if they missed an extremely narrow entrance. Towards midday, Dupont and Elise, the maid, went back up the hill to the camp to make supper and to pitch the tents, leaving Claire and her squire to continue the work.<br/><br/>Just after High Noon, with aching muscles, the squire pushed the long pole into the dirt and nearly fell over as the pole kept going in! "Miss Claire! I think we have something!" She had just been over that area and sure enough, there was a pocket to clear out. Relief was visible as they no longer had to search for the entrance, but now the real work began as they took shovels and began to clear out the eroding soil. It was maddening that for every cubic foot they managed to dig away, they had to pull out three feet of dirt that slid into place. Toward the late afternoon and early evening, Claire and her squire, soaked with sweat and caked with dirt had managed to dig out a sizable entrance that wouldn't be threatened by a sudden small slide of sand and dirt.<br/><br/>The entrance they made belied the size of the tunnel they dug into, after the piles of sand was a rather cavernous room. It was about twenty paces wide and tall. What little light made it into the tunnel let Claire see that the tunnel dove about thirty paces in before fading to blackness beyond. Even she would need a torch or a small light to see further inside. Inspecting the walls and ceiling shown that they were hewn rock that were fitted into place. The floor was cobblestone with no real pattern save to fit the rocks neatly into place. The air smelled stale, but still had the loam underpinnings common with dirt, it did smell of caverns and the underground, at least it didn't smell wrong or had a foul odor to it. If ever there was an entrance to a tomb, this was it.<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">OOC</div><div class="spoiler_body">Hmm, trying to think of a way to represent their work effort. Exhaustion is too much of a penalty.<br/>Just remove 3 hit dit dice from Claire's and her squire's reserves. <br/><br/>Since she's level 8, she has 8 dice to spend for healing in short rests if she didn't want to spend spell slots. So with the excavation, she has 5 hit dice left to spend in short rests until she takes a long rest.<br/>Claire's squire has zero hit dice left to spend. She's not as strong as Claire, yet, and she feels like a wet noodle with all the digging they did.</div></div>