(Troy/Luca/Canny Adventure 3): The Basilisk Graveyard

[Kenjosephus]

Troy

The information tells us to follow the slithering trail. Not the slime trail.

He then chuckles

If i have a map, i would've know that this ruin is occupied by goblins and avoided it all together. So, no. Unfortunately.

[Charybdis Richelle]

{Canny}

Canny shakes her head. “Most maps have the geographic features or floor plans, not troop movements – before the scouts report anyway.” She grins. “So, do you have a direction in mind, so do you want me to choose randomly?”

[Kenjosephus]

Troy

Troy looks down towards the stairs, heading beneath the temple.

We can start down ahead. If there is any more than one pathway, we should follow where there is a smooth slithering path.

If all of the path are covered with slithering track. Then, pick the closest one, unless you find it to be more dangerous than the other.

[Charybdis Richelle]

{Canny}

Canny pays close attention to the directions. When Troy has finished, she nods. “If we get separated, and you have no other sign, go left. All things being equal, I always go left. Unless up is an option. Then I go up.”

With that, Canny gets low down on the ground and begins crawling in the direction Troy indicated, moving as quietly as she can. She keeps her eyes open and her head on a swivel, looking for signs of traps, wards, sigils, enemies, or any other anomalies.

[archolewa]

Beverly Torch: 55 minutes

Find Traps roll behind the scenes.

Canny, Troy and Beverly make their slow, careful way down the hallway and down the stairs. Gwen grips her halberd nervously as she watches the trio disappear into the darkness. The stairs are steep enough that the two need to slide down on their bottoms rather than try to crawl facefirst, but the steps are not especially slick or dangerously steep, so they have little trouble. Before long, they reach the base of the stairs in a small, rectangular stone room. The walls and ceiling are covered in elven runes, but she finds no sign of anything that looks like it might be nefarious.

At the far end of the room, right across from the stairs, Canny finds an archway leading deeper into the caverns. The archway is elaborately carved with twisting snakes, stone eyes gazing into the room she's in, across the archway, and deeper into the corridor. Worked into the pillars and top of the archway are elven runes. The runes are so masterfully melded into the twining snakes that it takes Canny a moment to notice them.

Intelligence Check: 1d20+16-4 = 16 < 20 Canny is unable to make out enough of the runes to piece together any sort of meaning. It doesn't help either that this seems to be in a slightly different dialect than what she's been exposed to so far.

Letting Canny have a chance at reading some of the runes, because she's close to gaining her Read Languages ability. Seems to me she should have some limited ability to do so now, so she's refining an ability she already has, rather than having a new one spring up out of thin air! Of course, once she gets that ability she'll be able to read the entire thing on a successful check, rather than snippets.

[Charybdis Richelle]

{Canny]

Canny makes her way back to where Troy and Beverly wait for her. “All clear for now,” she says. “Do either of you speak Elven? Or, more importantly, read it?”

---

OOC: Cool about the sort of getting the read languages things starting.

[Kenjosephus]

Troy

Troy shakes his head.

What did you find?

[archolewa]

"Doesn't Luca know a smattering?" asks Beverly. "Elves have a long and very influential musical tradition right? I think he might have mentioned something about picking up a little bit here."

[Charybdis Richelle]

Troy

Troy shakes his head.

What did you find?

{Canny}

“Nothing that looks dangerous, which worries me if there are supposed to be wards,” Canny admits. “Because if they are hidden well enough that I missed them, their trapsmith must have been burning good.”

“But I think I found your ‘slithering path.’ There's an archway with these twisting snake carvings. The pillars and the top of the archway have Elven runes subtly etched into the snake carvings. They are cleverly worked; I almost missed them. I know a tiny bit of Elvish – mostly food words and cuss words, and I can sometimes puzzle out the gist of their writing. But not these. These are some unfamiliar dialect I have never seen before – an ancient form, I guess.”

"Doesn't Luca know a smattering?" asks Beverly. "Elves have a long and very influential musical tradition, right? I think he might have mentioned something about picking up a little bit here."

{Canny}

Canny shrugs. “I can show him the runes if you like. We need to go that way, anyway. At least that’s my best guess.”

[Kenjosephus]

Troy

He nods while turning his attention to Luca.

Can you help us?

[archolewa]

Torch: 50 minutes

"Of course dear Troy, why ever would I not? Oh sure, there might be hideous, rotting undead monsters lurking in the shadows but I have no doubt between Canny's keen eyes, your great swordsmanship, and Gwenny's stalwart courage I will be safe as a babe in his mother's arms..." Luca goes on like this for quite some time, until Gwen rolls her eyes impatiently at Canny and Troy. She gently but firmly grasps Luca's shoulder and pushes him into a sitting position on the stairs, and gets him moving. "Come on Uncle Lucky, let's take a look."

The group crawl across the room to the archway. Luca peers at it in the flickering torchlight.

Intelligence Check: 1d20+9-4 = 24 > 20

"Ah yes, yes I know this dialect. Or well, some of it. It was used to write a most glorious song about a beautiful maiden with her glimmering skin, shining eyes, long, flickering tongue..." Luca trails off for a moment as he studies the snakes on the archway. "Perhaps the song was not about a woman. Natasja was such a fan of that one too. Ah well. Let's see here. Ah yes. It says something, quite eloquent and chilling I'm sure, about sacred ground, basilisks, eternal guardians and tombs of heroes. Quite wealthy heroes too I'm sure. Though either they failed to mention that, or I can't make that bit out. Perhaps it is this rune here that implies great wealth. Or perhaps they were merely gifted with flowing golden locks. Really, quite hard to tell..."

Luca goes on like this for a fair bit of time.

While Luca is musing about the possible meanings of various runes, Canny sees faint movement in the shadows. Gwen follows her gaze, and smothers Luca's mouth with a gauntleted hand. A faint shuffling, and moaning can be heard in the darkness just beyond Beverly's torchlight, but after a moment the shuffling and moaning fade away into the shadows. Silence returns to the room.

Gwen lets out her breath, and she reaches up to touch the wooden amulet around her neck.

[Charybdis Richelle]

[Canny]

Slowly so as not to draw attention, but smoothly, Canny draws her bow and nocks an arrow in a single fluid motion. Silently, she waits to loose if whatever is making that noise approaches too close.

When it disappears, the scout waits a few seconds to be certain its sudden silence is not a ruse. Then she replaces the arrow into her quiver and her bow into it holder on her belt.

[Kenjosephus]

Troy

Noticing the shadow, Troy draw his sword and a mirror, acting as a shield, waiting for the shadow response of the nocked arrow. If none, he will urge the party to resume the slow crawl march.


Will having a slow or no response until 3rd of June. Got myself a tour guide gig with a lot of important people.

[Charybdis Richelle]

{Canny}

Canny nods, not saying a word and begins crawling through the archway with the serpent carvings. She moves as quietly as she can, doing her best to stay in the shadows as well as low to the ground.

[archolewa]

Will having a slow or no response until 3rd of June. Got myself a tour guide gig with a lot of important people.

Thanks for the heads up. Will assume that Troy is staying close to Beverly, and will follow Canny's lead until/unless things go from creepy dungeon crawling to something more heated.

Torch: 48 minutes

Canny eases through the archway, hovering right at the leading edge of the
torchlight, where she can rely on the flickering shadows to try to obscure her,
but still see where she is going. She keeps pace with Beverly's awkward movements.
Troy stays close to Beverly at the center of the circle of light, while Luca and Gwen
bring up the rear. All of them are crawling on all fours.

It isn't long before Canny reaches a four way intersection. There's a corridor
extending to her left, one to her right, and one straight ahead. The worn groove
of countless basilisks slithering to the graveyard extends to the south.

[Charybdis Richelle]

{Canny}

The path to the south beckons as the way to the graveyard. It is probably the ‘slithering path.’ But that doesn’t mean Canny can just ignore the other two corridors. She stops and gives the rest of her companions the military hand signs for ‘stop’ and ‘silence.’

I wonder if they know those, the scout wonders. They seem universal, but maybe when I get a chance, I should teach them at least the basics.

Whether her traveling companions stop or not, Canny will hold and look down the start of each of the side paths. Are there traps? Are there tracks? Is there dust? At the same time, she listens for any sounds from either side. While their goal lies ahead, the scout knows all-too-well the dangers of leaving enemies behind them.

---

OOC: It's a ways out yet, but I will be having cataract surgery on my left eye on June 9, and then the following week, I will have cataract surgery on my right eye on June 16. I am not sure how much that will affect my ability to post. They say that working from home, I can probably go back in 2-3 days, and I am allowed to read, watch tv, use the computer when I get home the day of the surgery. But I know you get halos and things until the eyes heal.

[archolewa]

Torch: 45 minutes
Some behind the scenes detect traps rolls...


Canny studies the intersection, and a few feet in all four directions. She finds no signs of any sort of traps. She does see a thin layer of dust on the ground that has been recently disturbed (and not by her). Careful study reveals what looks like humanoid footprints, but smeared. As if whoever was walking didn't quite lift their feet all the way off the ground. The smeared footprints seem to come from her left, and vanish into the darkness on her right.

---

Thanks for the heads up. That'll be a busy time for me too, so we may not move very quickly anyway. Depends on how much time I can steal away for posting on the internet!

[Charybdis Richelle]

{Canny}

Canny gestures for the others to come close. For those who do, the scout whispers. “Your basilisk graveyard is likely straight ahead. That’s where the slithering trial goes.” She pauses and then points to the left. “But shuffling footsteps come from the left, humanoid... like someone didn’t lift their feet. That’s often a sign of undead. They went off to the right. Leaving enemies at your back is risky. But we could try to keep going and hope our trinkets continue to keep us hidden.”

“Your choice, hunt the enemy before they hunt us?” Canny asks, “Or push forward, staying focused on our objective, but walking with an itch between our shoulder blades?”

[Kenjosephus]

Troy

Undead..

Troy gulps, a glimpse of his experience with them makes this an unpleasant news for him.

I suggest we go to the left to check how many of these undeads as well as if the left connects to the graveyard in the front. Less than our number, we can shoot them immidieately. More than our number, we either lure them out back to the stairs where they can only fight one at the time or we sneak up, heading towards the graveyard.

[Charybdis Richelle]

{Canny}

The scout frowns. Whispering, she says, “The ones that left tracks went from left to right, so we would need to go right to pursue them.” Canny pauses to let that sink in. “Though it might be possible there are more to the left as well.”

Canny studies the tracks for a moment, trying to evaluate how many went from left to right and whether or not there are older tracks that go towards the left as well.