Makara IC

"Well there are a few safety features, but one in particular I found is set so that if an elemental gets free of its' bindings it'll be dismissed back to the elemental plane of earth rather than set lose on the world. I wonder if that was intended to prevent an accident or a specific feature against someone deciding to be stupid and evil that day...hmmm. I'm trying to purposely trigger that effect on...about half of them... I'm not sure exactly how many of them are down there, but I don't think there's less than 10 or more than 30...probably. Either way half that many ancient earth elementals plus... whatever we find down where the one in the wall leads should count as a 'successful outing' I think!"" She says a little chirpily as she works on the device, busying about the console twisting knobs and pulling the occasional lever. Between the way she speaks as she moves about the device and how her tail is idly wagging like a dog's you get the impression she's kinda excited to be messing with the device in general.

Stuff:

Adelinde manages to essentially trick the device into dismissing the elementals, since she can't figure out how to just tell it to do it directly. She's pretty sure she succeeded, but there was some magical interference going on making it a bit unclear how many were actually dismissed. She also feels like it might be risky to try that again based on the magical reaction she got from the device.

"....Right. Well I can't be certain how many I managed to dismiss since I'm not sure how many there were in total to begin with, but I'm counting this as a success! I am pretty sure that's as good as we're going to get from it though, so it'll have to do regardless. So I guess all that's left now is to see where the one in the wall leads or not? And what to do with the potions while we're on the topic." She says as she turns back towards the others.

Parveth returns a satisfied thumbsup, waiting for Adelinde to direct them about the earth elevator.

Steam eagerly raises a hand, raising up onto her toes briefly with the momentum. "Ooh! I'll give 'em a go! I don't have dark sight normally, so this might be nice for me to keep around. Y'know, unless they're poison, in which case they might be nice for me to keep around."

Steam
"I'll drink it, you'll drink it; someone's gotta." She gestures between herself and Ketha before shrugging. "I'm happy to get in there; they don't call me 'Literally-a-child, don't-put-that-in-your-mouth' Steam for nothing!" She beams.

Adelinde can't help but snort at Steam's title as she opens the panel where the potions will come out and examines it to make sure nothing is immediately, obviously wrong before she sets the machine to produce the batch of potions. "Well, no one can fault you for enthusiasm at least!" she says with a laugh as she offers one of the darkvision potions to Steam and holds onto one of the antidotes before giving a teasing grin. "Just tell me if you think you need the antidote...or gurgle if you find yourself unable to say anything!"

Steam gurgles in agreement as she downs the given potion.

At first nothing seems to happen. Then Steam notices that she can see a bit better past where the light from her armor shines. Gradually the light from her armor begins to hurt her eyes more and more.

"Blehhhh, get out of here" Steam mutters as scrubs at her armor, dismissing the light spell on it. Once the room is bathed in cool darkness, Steam glances about a bit, before grinning at the rest of the group. "Is this how things usually look to you all? This is so cool!" Her arm raises in front of her as she examines it for a moment, before an idea strikes her. She sweeps around and points at the wall, before a fire springs to life.
((She's Conjuring Bonfire in an empty space))

For the brief period where there is no light in the room at all, Steam can see as if she's outdoors on a bright summer's day. When she conjures the fire it's like looking straight up at the sun on said day.

Steam stares at the fire, eyes increasingly watering, before eventually letting out a "Feh!" and chugging the antidote potion. "Fire is like, 80% of what I do. Can't stand not being able to stand it," she sighs.

Fairly quickly, Steam's vision returns to normal.

Steam addresses the others sort of sadly, "Well, it's better vision, but not for me. Light's way too bright, and I gotta have that sweet sweet burning brightness in my existence."

Parveth is not particularly phased, and gestures vaguely towards the elevator. "Onward ever, hmm?"

"And you did not feel ill or unusual?" Ketha enquires to Steam about the potion as she moves to the panel, hand hovering over it trying to find whatever opens the hidden door to the elemental-carried-crate-thing...

She shakes her head. "Mm-mm. Well, I did at the start, but then I got rid of my light and it was fine. But then I summoned my fire and it wasn't fine again."

Steam recasts Light on her armor, and the group uses the rod to move down to the default location.

The group makes the second batch of potions and antidotes and opens the door to the cylinder and then gets inside. They activate it, sending it to it's default location.

Steam's light spell is kind of bright in this fairly cramped (for four people in armor) quarters.

They soon get a sense of moving downwards and they note they can see through the walls once the cylinder begins moving. They see dirt and rock and stone seemingly moving upward at a pretty fast pace. The visual and sensation of this movement is pretty strange at first. But soon becomes rather tedious as it's just the same for minutes on end. And tens of minutes. And more.

Eventually, finally!, they see and sense something different. The movement seems to slow down and there is the brief sight of the top of a cave ceiling and just.... empty space and darkness. They can even see darkness down below. Ah but there's something else now! Looking in one direction there is earth and stone and the cylinder is moving downwards along this. They also notice what they think are very dim lights in the distant darkness, but it's hard to tell with Steam's light spell brightly illuminating everything around them. After about a minute the cylinder finally stops, reaching the cave floor. Then one of it's sides open (the side opposite of the one facing the rock wall of this massive cave).

Stepping out they can see that behind them is the cylinder and the rock wall of the cave, a bit to the left of them about at the edge of the light is a steep cliff edge, and to the right of them is another rock wall of the cave. Ahead of them they just see flat-ish natural rocky cave floor and nothing but darkness. However Parveth can hear what sounds like multiple sets of approaching footsteps from ahead of them.

Steam lays on the floor for most of the elevator trip, letting out repeated, dramatic sighs. Her light goes out briefly as she falls asleep; Parveth allowed her to sleep for a time, before putting a stabilizing hand on her as they entered the chasm. With as much fanfare as can be expected from her, Steam relights her armor as they continue descending.

As she notices the footsteps approaching their group, Parveth puts a cautious hand to her cutlass and looks towards the sounds, her face still placid. In a hushed voice she says to her fellows, "A group is approaching from this direction. Steam's light has likely brought quite a bit of attention our way. Caution is rarely ill-advised."

Adelinde takes a step back closer to the group and angles herself sideways so as to better cover herself with her shield if she has to, hand resting on the hilt of her saber but not drawing it yet as she peers out into the darkness. "Do you think we should try turning off the light then? Considering how dark it must be down here though more lights might be blinding for anyone used to it if things go poorly..." She whispers to the others while squinting slightly trying to see who's coming.

stuff:

Ketha reaches for her sword, but then recalls the potions. She pulls one out and shows it to the group. "I will look out for them. Steam, kill the light."

If Steam does, she drinks the potion...

Steam gives a distraught sigh, but does as requested. She then just stands in the darkness without darkvision or drinking a potion.

Parveth (and Adelinde) drink their darkvision potions.

After drinking the potions the group (except Steam who can't see anything at all now except the super dim lights off in the distance) gradually has their sight improve. At first they can only see the area immediately around them and look to each other and while it's very subtle, they notice that their eyes are very very very dimly glowing blue. (Well that is they each notice this is true of the other two and can assume this is true for themselves.)

A few moments later they can see a group of elves approaching them. A moment later they can see these elves are in fact drow. There are five of them. Two of them have bows drawn and arrows nocked. Two of them have their hands at scimitars at their hips. These four are all wearing dark leather armor. One of each pair is male, the other female. The fifth is wearing a dark blue* dress and seems to only have dagger on her belt. The four stop at about where Steam's light would have left them barely visible and the fifth approaches and says in Common, "Greetings travelers from the Surface. I am Zarethria Nailo**, Lesser Councilor of the City of Lo'Toth. We would welcome you to our city if you come in peace." Then she waits for a reply.

*Interestingly compared to your regular darkvision, you can see color in the darkness now.

**Those who speak elven know this name translates to Nightbreeze.

Steam gives a genial wave and smile in the general direction of the voice. Unable to accurately estimate the distance, she calls a little too loudly, "Hello! I am called Steam; it's nice to meet you!" She is very obviously blind at the moment.

Parveth looks to Adelinde and Ketha to gauge their feelings on this situation, if they just want to immediately leave or go back up the rock elevator.
Provided they indicate they're amenable to going with the dark elves, Parveth relaxes her guard and removes her hand from her sword. She returns polite greetings in Elvish, "We are honored that you would have us, Zarethria Nailo."
Her face is still very stolid.