scotland ♔ yet how the wind revives us here

[untethered]

♬ Presentiment - Manami Kiyota

WHO || Belle, Gold, Emma, Hook, Lila [closed]
WHAT || Several Knights take a secret journey to try to help Amara...
WHERE || Oakhurst, Scotland
WHEN || January 15th, 2014 [forward dated]
HOW || Actionspam

It's probably a very good thing that Gold sweet-talked them a car in the nearby tiny Scottish village of Oakhurst, because it is freezing cold out and snow blankets almost everything around. Walking the seven miles up the Old Road to the ruins would be a bitch and a half.

Instead, they comfortably drove past rocky downs, near stands of old-growth oak covered in snow, and past two farms that looked abandoned. No other travelers were visible on the lonely road, which finally curves, passing east of a narrow ravine. Belle signals for them to pull over here, where, at the road's closest approach to the cleft, several broken pillars jut from the earth where the ravine widens and opens into something akin to more of a deep, but narrow, cavern. Two of the pillars stand straight, but most of them lean against the sloped earth. Others are broken and several have apparently fallen into the darkness-shrouded depths. A few similar pillars are visible on the opposite side of the ravine.

Comments

[undealt]

[Gold follows Lila after procuring the scrolls from Belle, apparently hunting for something a little more specific (search 19). That power boost the statue gave him was nice, but maybe there's something else...]

[untethered]

[ well, his searching pays off: he locates one mostly unscathed tome of dragon lore written in Draconic. it provides a +1 to any knowledge checks made about dragons or dragon related things. ]

[undealt]

[GONNA BECOME THE DRAGON MASTER.

GONNA DO IT.

He carries the book over to Belle so she can get a look at it, even if... he's the only one here who can read Draconic. Look Belle, a book. You like those. It's pretty. To the rest of the group, he says:] I doubt we're going to find anything relevant to our current problem here.

[unhand]

Then let's move on. [Hook strides towards the next set of doors, shoving the doors open with his shoulder. He's gotten really lazy about looking for traps by now (spot 5).]

[uncurse]

[ yeah, you don't have to tell her twice. she sets off beside hook, keeping a more watchful eye out (spot 24). ]

[untethered]

[ belle's eyes light up at the tome, and she reaches up to run a hand across the cover in a gesture that's pretty intimate with gold still holding the thing. god, belle, you and the book need to get a room. ] "The Lore of Dragonkind". [ she reads off the cover, because YOU'RE NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN READ DRACONIC, GOLD. ] Think of what might be in here about the Shadow World that no one here has ever read before... [ oh right, erryone else is moving on, boo.

when hook nudges the door open, he'd find himself looking down a set of damp and crumbled stairs, that descend sharply for about fifteen feet. at the base of the steps, there seems to be a way to go right, underneath the last room where they encountered a bugbear gardener. ]

[undealt]

[Gold smirks at Belle, clearly impressed.] All the more incentive to get out of this intact. [They can be romantic and gross over Draconic literature.

Gold shoves the book into his bag, because he's chivalrous like that and Belle's is probably full of things and peers at the stairs with a dissatisfied grimace, before pulling out the Cat's Grace potion he still hasn't used. No time like the present. He is not gonna break a hip going down those stairs, thank you much. Glug glug.]

[unhand]

[Hook glances back at the party, then tentatively starts down the stairs.] I must wonder how we'll ever get out of here when we do find that apple.

[uncurse]

We'll worry about it when we get there. Just keep moving. [ nat 20 dex she's got this staircase apparently. she follows closely behind him. ]

[untethered]

[ belle takes gold's arm as they all head down the stairs, potion or not. she cautiously picks her way down, as erky presses onward undeterred by the dungeon's condition.

everything down here is moist, and the dampness has the place half-falling apart. the underpass cuts below the rooms above, and then takes a sharp right, leading down a very long, abandoned hallway. near the end of this, there are two doors on the left. ]

[bittersweeter]

Should've brought string. [ bc jfc if they find a minotaur behind one of these doors she will not be surprised in the slightest. ]

[uncurse]

[ emma stops near the first door on the left to listen at it (listen 18) and insure there's nothing waiting for them inside. she holds up a hand to quiet lila. ]

[undealt]

[Because they had SO MUCH LUCK with this the last time they tried it, Gold does the same with the other door. (listen 16). Aw yeah. Apparently, he's not selectively deaf when he's awake.]

[untethered]

[ while emma's room is silent beyond the door, gold hears the unmistakable noises of multiple goblins conversing in their disgusting mother tongue. hooray. ]

[undealt]

[Gold points to his door and makes the universal gesture for 'keep your voices down or I'll light you on fire.'

You can use your imagination for exactly what that gesture looks like. THERE ARE GOBLINS OVER HERE, BASICALLY.

But if you wanna investigate the other door, no one's stopping you. Gold can just... continue to waste his spells on goblins before the boss fight.]

[uncurse]

[ while we are all making baseball symbols at one another, emma will direct belle into the door she's at, because it's silent and belle is precious. then she will move to the door gold is at and ...





kick it in, brandishing her gun. ]

[sternshield]

[ realizing what she's doing, belle tries to open her door at the same time...

but it's locked. that was anticlimactic.

emma kicks her door in, however, after a couple tries. four goblins sort twig and root piles on the floor of this sagging chamber. the collapsed southern wall opens on a vast cavern. pustules of luminescent fungus on the rough walls and high roof loom over a twilight grove of sickly briars, bushes, saplings, and other woody plants. ruined walls and hollow towers protrude from the briars like islands in the sea.

the four goblins gleefully abandon their task when emma appears and leap to their feet. hey gurl. ]

[untethered]

[ belle uses her surprise round to draw her sword, which she loudly bangs against the door she's standing in front of to try to confuse some of the goblins into thinking there might be more of them that way. it works for one of them (gob2), who is dazed for the round. aww yis. ]

[uncurse]

[ well, you know. guns blazing. she steps inside the room, but doesn't advance towards the goblins - she just moves far enough in to press against the wall and allow the others room to enter as well. then she fires off a shot (atk 27, penetration damage 17) at goblin 1. ] I see plants. [ wow good job a+ very charming. she's trying to tell them that the grove might be near, for the record. ]

[bittersweeter]

[ lila moves in behind emma and fires a single shot at goblin 4. (atk 25, dmg 14) ]

[undealt]

[:|

Gold is holding action, because he's annoyed that it came to this. Also maybe he wants to see his squire handle a situation without him lighting it on fire.

Maybe he's debating lighting his squire on fire. We just don't know. We do know he is remaining outside the door for the time being.]

[sternshield]

[ yeah ok two of the goblins are already dead, and the others one don't seem too keen on sticking around now. gob3 cries out: "Aid us, Protector of the Twilight Grove!" while gob2 stands there like a moron because of belle's trick aww yis. erky moves forward to attack him, cracking it hard across the skull (atk 23, dmg 6), enough to knock it out. ]

[unhand]

[Hook moves forward, drawing his sword, and slices it through gob3 (atk 19, dmg 5).]

No way that's good...

[untethered]

[ as the last of the goblins falls to hook's blade, belle moves inside with the others, looking south through the collapsed wall into the cavern beyond. she points towards the tip of a gargantuan tree, just visible over the less crumbled walls in the southern recesses of the large cavern. ] Look...

[ but she frowns as her gaze lowers to the ground of the grove in front of that giant ass tree. pale, spindly briars coated with tiny barbs press close. the violet light above casts nauseating shadows on the earthen floor, creating the illusion of movement among the branches, though no wind blows here. ] Does anyone... see what I see? [ a spot of 19+ does: there's a hint of another kind of movement through the grove, as if some of the smaller treelike growths are moving.

that seems familiar. ]

[undealt]

[Gold doesn't see shit (spot 11), but to be fair, he was still lurking outside the door like a bitch and is only just now following Belle inside.]

See what?