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[DoctorMcTaalik]

Poke the clouds with my deer shank.

[piecewise]

"Just ... hang on a second."

Get out the van and from the farthest distance I can, poke the cloud with my armbone torch. Is it solid? If not, get back in the van and cover my nose and mouth with my robe just in case.

You're in a JEEP.

"I'm gonna try something."

Go poke a cloud with my spike to see if it has any effect.

Poke the clouds with my deer shank.

Since you're all doing the same thing:

The deer shank and arm bone penetrate the cloud without issue, passing into it as you would expect for a normal cloud. However, the second it goes into the cloud, the begin to be ground down, as though being shoved into a rotary sander. There's no sensation as this happens, no vibration or tugging you'd expect from something being forcibly abraded into non-existence. The metal spike, however, gets smacked to the side like someone hit it with a sledge hammer. It straight up refuses to enter the clouds.

[Comrade P.]

As you look ahead, at the mountains, you realize that it's not that the mountain peaks are vanishing into the clouds, rather that the mountains end in abrupt plateaus at the cloud line.

((So here's an explanation to that.))

- Oh. This can't be good. Guys, remember when we saw mountains ending in plateaus just at the cloud level? Well, here you have the same thing, I guess. So, we are not going through the clouds. In fact, let us get back to bridge and not stay up here, so we can think our route over without abrasive clouds anywhere near us.

While we are up here, take a look around, see if the road has any detours we might have passed without noticing, and is there any way that would lead us down rather than up from where we came.

[Parisbre56]

((I wouldn't assume so if they scream a lot and then don't come back though. But we'll just see how it goes.))

((no, no. that means it's extra safe!))

((Screaming is nature's way of telling you "You should run now that the monster is busy killing your friends".))

[DoctorMcTaalik]

Help John look for roads, keep hands, feet, and deer leg inside the vehicle.

[Xantalos]

"Motherfucker, I need this thing! Dammit, I guess I'll have to steal someone else's arm bones."

Jeep, van, they're both cars

Get back in jeep and assist in looking for detours and such.

"It is interesting that the clouds reject metal, though."

[Beirus]

Back in the jeep. Look for a way around the mountain.

[piecewise]

As you look ahead, at the mountains, you realize that it's not that the mountain peaks are vanishing into the clouds, rather that the mountains end in abrupt plateaus at the cloud line.

((So here's an explanation to that.))

- Oh. This can't be good. Guys, remember when we saw mountains ending in plateaus just at the cloud level? Well, here you have the same thing, I guess. So, we are not going through the clouds. In fact, let us get back to bridge and not stay up here, so we can think our route over without abrasive clouds anywhere near us.

While we are up here, take a look around, see if the road has any detours we might have passed without noticing, and is there any way that would lead us down rather than up from where we came.

You look around: The road continues on, straight and branching. It seems to skirt just under the cloudline, low enough that you could probably crawl along it, but it doesn't deviate from it's straight path anywhere along the visible length of it. You look back the other way and notice that, while the road itself doesn't go anywhere else, there is what appears to be a very VERY rough road or path branching off from it just after the bridge. Taking the jeep down it would be nuts, but it would be walkable, at the very least.

[Comrade P.]

- Oookay. So we are dangerously close to the situation where we have to abandon vehicle. Because we are not going anywhere with it. Without it, however, we have two ways, one is rather safe, the other is very unsafe. There are four of us, Xan is not in condition to do the scouting. Out of three of us, most likely it would be just me who could crawl beneath the cloud without touching it, anatomically. So. Here's what I suggest, - John stresses that word, and glances at Tarmac - Tarmac could stay with Xan, I believe together you can put up some resistance in case of emergency. I try to crawl under the cloud and check what's there. Hyenakles - is there a short for that name, by the way? - goes down that rocky road over there. If I do not return from behind the cloud, don't go after me, abandon jeep, take what you can and go down, where Hyenakles went.

[Xantalos]

"I resent your nonpermitted shortening of my name - I am Xankarvo, not ... not Xan. Not Xan. But I appreciate your suggestion that I stay here, so I will forgive it."

Stick with the jeep, prepare a few Molotov cocktails but don't light them. Unless you can't do that, in which case don't and just sorta chill.

[Beirus]

"Works for me."

Guard the jeep. Maybe practice my pimp walk using the spike as a cane.

[Comrade P.]

"I resent your nonpermitted shortening of my name - I am Xankarvo, not ... not Xan. Not Xan. But I appreciate your suggestion that I stay here, so I will forgive it."

- Noted, Xankarvo.

"Works for me."

- Thanks man.

[DoctorMcTaalik]

"That is the short version; my full name has far more cackles and epithets. It would be taxing for your human throats.

Don't get yourselves killed while I'm gone."

Wander down the path, see what I can see. Take note of natural cover, and try not to make too much noise.

[Comrade P.]

- Got it. Okay guys, see ya in a while I hope.

Go ahead and try crawling under the cloud. Slowly. Carefully. Get my gun with me, mind it while moving, so it won't get sanded or I won't get a kick from it touching the cloud.

[piecewise]

"I resent your nonpermitted shortening of my name - I am Xankarvo, not ... not Xan. Not Xan. But I appreciate your suggestion that I stay here, so I will forgive it."

Stick with the jeep, prepare a few Molotov cocktails but don't light them. Unless you can't do that, in which case don't and just sorta chill.

X grumbles about having his name shortened and then sits down to make Molotov out of the various booze and flammable liquids they have around. [5] He makes 4 brand spanking new Molotovs.

"Works for me."

Guard the jeep. Maybe practice my pimp walk using the spike as a cane.

You practice walking like...well..a nonchalant idiot. [5] You are very good at it!

- Got it. Okay guys, see ya in a while I hope.

Go ahead and try crawling under the cloud. Slowly. Carefully. Get my gun with me, mind it while moving, so it won't get sanded or I won't get a kick from it touching the cloud.

You carefully stow your gear and hold your pistol in one hand before walking off down the road. It takes a while of the road slowly ascending before the clouds are at head level, forcing you to duck. Then a bit longer till you're bent over. Then hands and knees, then army crawling along on your belly. The pace is excruciatingly slow and the entire thing is, well, frighteningly claustrophobic thanks to the ceiling of grinding mist just above your head.  Luckily, the clouds don't seem to be getting any lower now, or maybe the road just stopped ascending. In any case, the pace is slow, but the road is clear. It will just take hours to get anywhere.

"That is the short version; my full name has far more cackles and epithets. It would be taxing for your human throats.

Don't get yourselves killed while I'm gone."

Wander down the path, see what I can see. Take note of natural cover, and try not to make too much noise.

You lope back down the road and over to the side path that John saw. The entrance to it is hidden behind a large bolder, which made seeing it from the side you passed it on nearly impossible. As it is, it's not much more then a small natural crevice, a gash in the stone of the mountain, thats been cleared enough to allow foot traffic. It winds raggedly down and around  the mountainside, sometimes five or six feet wide, other times barely wide enough to squeeze through sideways. Eventually, the natural path ends and is replaced by one that is...far less safe. The crevice ends several hundred feet before the bottom of the canyon area created by the mountains, opening up straight onto a cliff face. Someone has created a makeshift stairway along the cliff face by hammering flattened metal rods into the stone. There's no superstructure, no handrail or railing, just a succession of hundreds of long metal steps down into the shadowy valley below. You also notice that the bottom of the valley seems to be flooded by water; not that there's a river, but that the entire area seems flooded. As though the mountains are great stone icebergs and you're nearing the sea they're floating in. You can see that the stairs wind their way down to a carved stone path that doubles back, following the cliff wall above the water, back in the direction of the bridge and back towards those geometric things you saw earlier.