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

[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?

[uncurse]

[ nat 20 spot check. ]

More of those ent-things. We've got company, guys ...

[sternshield]

Except they don't seem to have responded to the goblin's call. Perhaps we could sneak through them.

[unhand]

[Hook doesn't see jackshit with his spotcheck of 14. He frowns.]

Sneak through where exactly?

[bittersweeter]

And you noticed Emma isn't exactly subtle, right? [ oh spot = blind. aka 5 ]

[uncurse]

[ a scowl finds its way onto emma's face as she glances over at lila, but she doesn't say anything because it's unfortunately true. instead, she'll just move on. ]

So, what's plan B?

[untethered]

Otherwise there's about... ten of them, by my count.

[undealt]

Only ten.

[Gold chuckles darkly.] Well, if we want to continue it Ms. Swan's way, there is a silver lining. Wood burns.

[Gold, you really need to talk to someone about this pyromania problem.]

[uncurse]

Not so fast. [ it physically pains her to say this, because setting gold and his hellfire loose would be so easy. but. ] The apples are down there, we don't know how far. We can't risk damaging what we came here for.

[unhand]

So we take them down the old fashioned way. [Hook slides his hook along his sword and grins.] Let's be woodsmen.

[uncurse]

[ emma's eyes drift down to his hook, eyebrows raising for a moment. she swallows and her gaze darts quickly back up to his face. ] Six on ten. We've done worse odds.

[bittersweeter]

[ unimpressed, lila moves over to the goblin erky knocked out and... look, if y'all don't know what is coming by now you haven't noticed the pattern. she shoots it. (atk 20 total, dmg 10) she pauses before looking up. ] Just making sure it won't be six on eleven.

[undealt]

[Gold tightens his grip on his cane. I guess he's gonna save his magic and beat some trees with it. He starts to say something, starts at Lila's shooting, and then just... stares at her, before shaking it off. Okay, then. That happened.] When you're ready then, Emma.

[Look at him, letting you take the lead. Go earn your promotion, door-kicker.]

[uncurse]

[ ok then. since it's not gonna get better than an express verbal invitation from gold, she turns towards the trees and levels her gun, firing off a shot at one of them (atk 18, dmg 6 if it hits). ]

[untethered]

[ belle uses her surprise round to change her short sword out for her excalibur, stepping forward to take a clear shot at the twig blight directly south of her (atk 21, dmg 5). both of the trees that the women shoot out go down. ]

[undealt]

[Yeah, Gold is hoping that Cat's Grace does something for his bullshit aim. He takes a step beside Belle and fires at the nearest tree and... hit (atk 17, dmg 10)

So yes, Cat's Grace is awesome and everyone should try it sometime.]