Outside 50: Meeting nature halfway

[Hattish Thing]

[The Plantation - Foyer]

The unusually bound tome is unsettlingly warm to the touch, as if it's only just been read.

But by whom? Beyond that, how could someone have read the thing, having previously been confined to the shattered glass case?

Of course, the likeliest solution was that Seraphina was simply imagining things, her mind already subconsciously put on edge by the eerie atmosphere of the abandoned manorhouse. Once opened, the leather groans and cracks, the paper within nearly crumbling away. The title page is somewhat damaged and yellowed with age, and yet, the adventurer is able to just barely make out what can safely be interpreted as a title: "The Mah-Thenge Codices".

Flipping through the pages will reveal that the book is some sort of imperfect translation of a particularly inscrutable language into English. Just looking at the bizarrely shaped runes and letterings associated with the foreign language likely causes Seraphina's stomach to churn.

Ahead, an opened door spills out into the common room.

[Terumitsu]

[Dimensional Troubles]

Ambrosia decides to follow Riss rather than staying with her counterpart and goes so far as making a short jump and slide over the dragons serpentine body to catch up. "That- that won't be necessary. We should all go there together in case more dangerous entities emerge."

The dragon claps her claws together and slowly the bent trees around them start to slowly bend back into their original shape. Then she too follows, moving past Riss in a matter of seconds and then casually floats in front of the drone like someone backstroking through water. Seemingly able to dodge past the trees and other obstacles (like small hills and bushes) without as much as looking at them.

"So you're just a nerd too, huh? I should apologize for how I acted earlier then. You just reminded me a lot of those spy-birds above us." The dragons tilts her head upwards for empathize as there are indeed a metal construct flying above them even now.
Then she stares right back at the drone and tilts her head while giving it a curious, or perhaps suspicious, look. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about them, would you?"

The temple is not far away now. Perhaps they will met those strangely clad warriors that passed them earlier there?

---

Jaccal nods and gestures towards one of the golems. "She will, assuming of course you're speaking of the dragon?"
The golem in question shifts its head towards the floor and projects light from its eyes which somehow turns into an moving image on the floor. It appears to be taken from above and shows Ambrosia, the dragon Ambrosia and another kind of golem that are making their way towards the temple.
"Quite dangerous company." Jaccal remarks as they watch the floor projection.

[Dimensional Troubles]


"I believe we had what might constitute a 'stare down' earlier but beyond that, we have done nothing to intervene with each other. I do not know if they are surveillance for some kind of force or acting in a capacity similar to my own but neither side has given reason nor chosen to invoke hostilities and at this point I believe that to be a mutual, if not formal, agreement." she said. "As ever, though, I would not mind a sample. Even if I gain nothing from the technology itself, the composition, serial numbers, any number of things might at least prove to be interesting." Ever attentive to our M.O. I suppose. And speaking of data acquisitions.. "Out of curiosity, was that arboreal manipulation a function of the innate or an acquisition of some kind?" A pause. "Pardon, in plain terms: did you learn to do that somewhere or is it something you are, ah, just 'able to do' on your own?" A little conversation while approaching the temple, really.

[5a Violista]

[The Plantation - Foyer]

That is weird that it's warm, Seraphina concedes, but there's probably just a normal explanation for it. Like, the case was heated with some sort of automated system to help preserve it. It definitely is just her mind jumping to conclusions about how spooky this place is, and making everything that should be normal in any other context seem unsettling.

The Mah-Thenge Codices. "What even is a 'My Thingy'?" she mutters to herself. Not to mention, the words look gross, even though that's probably a produce of whatever kind of powdered mold has gotten on the pages and she's now breathing in by turning the pages.

She hears the door open.

Seraphina shuts the book quickly, and holds it close to her chest to make sure she doesn't drop it. It looks rather fragile, so she'd rather not ruin it until it gets to a museum or some other person who can transcribe it or whatever.
And she goes towards the common room, where the sound came from. It's almost certainly either that probably-a-cat again, or just the wind blowing or something, but she needs to go look at it to find out.

[Hattish Thing]

[The Plantation - Common Room]

Fortunately for Seraphina, the book appears strong enough to persist being handled.

With every step she takes towards the now-opened door leading to the common room, the floorboards creak and groan.

Peering into the common room reveals a chamber packed with all manner of strange artifacts stored within dusty glass cases or mounted upon crumbling walls. Crowded bookshelves filled with a variety of bizarre titles line the walls of the room, which are themselves obscured beneath tattered black tapestries. Unsettling abstract paintings hang beside the tapestries, an apparent collection likely created by a singularly disturbed mind.

The southern wall is dominated by an enormous fireplace in the shape of a belching gargoyle. For now, there's no sign of whatever may have cracked open the door.

Perhaps a draft of some sort? If Seraphina is particularly perceptive, she'll notice something.

One of the bookshelves appears to be slid partially into an adjacent wall.

A secret door? Long since left open?

[5a Violista]

[The Plantation - Common Room]

Seraphina scrunches her nose, looking at the decorations here. Strange artifacts, she gets. Bookshelves with whatever books, okay.
But ugly paintings? A gargoyle fireplace?
People just have weird taste, sometimes. She doesn't get why the owner of this place liked them, but okay.

Rather than investigating any of the weird or unsettling-looking things, she goes straight to the bookshelf-door. Secret doors are neat, and maybe by going through it she'll find secret documents detailing why this place was abandoned and why the owner had such weird tastes.
That's how secret rooms work, right? If you go in the secret passageway, you'll find all the secret confessions in plain view, and all the relevant details or whatever.

With one hand holding the book, she uses her other hand to try to open the bookshelf all the way. She even puts her back against the doorframe or other things to help push, in case it's rusted and won't open all the way, or it's stuck or something.

Once she feels like the 'secret door' is opened far enough, she goes through it to find what secrets it holds.

[Hattish Thing]

[The Plantation - Secret Chamber]

Just as Seraphina predicted, the bookshelf is somewhat stuck in place.

Pushing the shelf aside to access the secret chamber beyond proves to be a difficult task, for it's quite heavy.

Eventually, it starts to budge! Just as the shelf starts to slide along, something horrific occurs: a spectral face passes right through the shelf, surging through Seraphina in an instant! There's no associated tactile sensation, no coldness or numbness, yet the experience of having whatever it was pass through Seraphina likely renders her somewhat ill. Shortly afterwards, it may become apparent to Seraphina that she was not, in fact, dealing with a disembodied head at all!

Rather, there was an entire body below: that of a severe looking woman in a labcoat. She continues to step forwards before vanishing out into the foyer, each step silent.

[5a Violista]

[The Plantation - Secret Chamber/Common Room]

Oh! It's a ghost!

After the lady passes through her, Seraphina bends over and feels the intense urge to vomit.

Luckily, she manages to hold it down.

Once she recovers, Seraphina stands upright again. Sure, she can go down into the secret room, but following this ghost suddenly seems more important. After all, the secret passage will stay there, but the ghost might get away.

She goes back to the foyer, hoping the ghost didn't already get away.
What's she even planning on doing when she catches the ghost, anyway? She's not sure; there's probably nothing she can do, anyway.

[Recaiden]

The pair struggle their way out into the fields. Stalks of wheat try to grasp Myriam and pull her down, but she resists. "Not now! I need to help people!" She shouts at the ground, to little effect. She'll need to pull herself together and maybe stop the plants from trying to grab her if she wants to actually bless these fields though.

"Myriam, can you do something about these? I mean, if you'[re going to help the fields, you must be able to tell the plants to listen somehow."
"Go on, show them who's in charge." But probably not with just words.

[bc56]

Rivergreen

Myriam tries to shake off the wheat entangling her. "No! Stop!" The plants pull her down to her knees and begin cocooning her again. "Not now! Help!" She doesn't seem to have the composure necessary to do anything significant. Is there any way Anchor could help her?

[Shadowcaller]

[Dimensional Troubles]

Thariza huffs.

"You're one to talk. I'm talking about the one which isn't a dragon right now. But I know what she is and I'm fine with that. I trust her."

[Dimensional Troubles]


"I believe we had what might constitute a 'stare down' earlier but beyond that, we have done nothing to intervene with each other. I do not know if they are surveillance for some kind of force or acting in a capacity similar to my own but neither side has given reason nor chosen to invoke hostilities and at this point I believe that to be a mutual, if not formal, agreement." she said. "As ever, though, I would not mind a sample. Even if I gain nothing from the technology itself, the composition, serial numbers, any number of things might at least prove to be interesting." Ever attentive to our M.O. I suppose. And speaking of data acquisitions.. "Out of curiosity, was that arboreal manipulation a function of the innate or an acquisition of some kind?" A pause. "Pardon, in plain terms: did you learn to do that somewhere or is it something you are, ah, just 'able to do' on your own?" A little conversation while approaching the temple, really.

[Dimensional Troubles]

The dragon tilts her head as Riss speaks. "Yikes, no offense lady, but talking to you isn't easy. It's like trying to read a dictionary or something. But I did get that last question though and to answer it, it's simply a matter of being authorative and as a dragon I'm pretty amazing at that. The trees don't want to get burned down y'know?"

"Let's focus on what's ahead of us, shall we?" Ambrosia suggests as they have just now reached a clearing and from here they can see the temple. But they can also see the warriors which ran past them earlier.
It appears like they're preparing to assult the building with how they're positioned.

"Oh hey, those dudes!" The dragon remarks as she turns around to face the warriors who now all turn to face them.

We are ready begin the battle. Is telepathically projected to them as the beings are seemingly finding at least the dragon familiar. Their eyes regarding Riss's drone and Ambrosia with far more suspicion. The question is if Riss drone and receive telepatical signals at all.

---

"You mean the 'demons'? The drones? They look dangerous for good reasons. Though right now they're not serving their designed goal. If we had the time a redesign would be in order however... time is now one of the many resources that we're lacking."

By this point they can observe the two Ambrosia's and the drone encountering those warriors they ran into earlier. It appears they were just getting ready to launch an attack on the temple.
"As demonstrated here. Most beings natrually assumes we are evil because of what we look like. Not that it's a completely unfounded assumption. The mental toll is quite apparent in most of our warriors behavior. Not to mention our war breeds. I suppose they are little more than monsters now, but they do still follow orders and they do still protect us from intrusions like this if need be." Jaccal gestures at the screen, at the alien warriors in peculiar.

[Recaiden]

Myriam tries to shake off the wheat entangling her. "No! Stop!" The plants pull her down to her knees and begin cocooning her again. "Not now! Help!" She doesn't seem to have the composure necessary to do anything significant. Is there any way Anchor could help her?

A way to help her? Sure. A good way? Maybe not.
"Get back, wheat! It's not your time yet."
Anchor materializes her second sword, the black wave-bladed one, and goes to slice through the plants forming the cocoon. Then with her other hand she tries to pull Myriam out of their grasp and back to her feet, and at the same time, working a sort of magic. Making Myriam the sort of person who is confident and composed enough to deal with this, who wouldn't give up before fulfilling her promise to the farmers, who is a friend to Anchor and wouldn't disappoint her by getting caught in a cocoon.
"Here. Try again. I mean, you were a farmer; you can handle a few plants."

[bc56]

Rivergreen

"Right. STOP!" Myriam raises her hand and the entire field goes still. "It's not time yet. I'm going to stay in the world for now. I can help these people more if I'm awake." She sits down surrounded by the crops. "Now you all grow big and healthy and bear lots of fruit. I'll be back soon to check on you. Okay?" The plants almost seem to quiver in affirmation.

[Morty]

[Dimensional Troubles]

"I'm talking about everything. There's not a single thing I've seen here today that's not creepy or dangerous." Thariza opts for being brutally direct. "We ran into those blue guys outside. I don't know if anyone's going to have much luck persuading them not to attack you, but I hope the two Ambrosias and... whoever this lady is... try anyway."

[Recaiden]

"There you go. I mean, you just have to know how to talk to them." Anchor congratulates her.
Then she brushes off the sword and mimes returning it to a scabbard, whereupon it vanishes from her grasp.

"So, is that it?"

[Ashen Lilies]

[Caravan Search]

The cave wide enough to get a wagon through, tall enough for a rider on horseback, or more likely lizard-back as Wren has noted. The climb up isn't too difficult, following more of the marked runes through the trees and scree. It probably had been cleared by previous travelers. The Cave itself was dark, very dark. Squeaks could be heard, coming from bats from above. The sun had not yet set far enough to invite them out to feast on insects. The floor of the initial cavern stank of bat guano. Strangely, though, it wasn't too thick. Someone must have been clearing or collecting it periodically.

[Caravan Search]

Wren doesn't find this surprising enough to make special note of it, beyond his initial notice. Bat guano was a common magical reagent for those who relied on such - both Raril's and Cass' memories can tell him that. It'd make sense that people would come to the cave mouth to harvest it. Wren peers about the cave, using his magically enhanced vision to look for the passage deeper in.

[City Out of Time]

The skeleton's head does not move again. It simply stares at the pair with its dead, empty eyes. The door to the shelf will open easily enough, revealing a scattering of books and notes. They're all written in the same ancient language, but all seem to concern fey.

In a central place of the shelf, protected by a pane of glass, is a small book. A booklet, really. It was hand-written without much care, but every page of the booklet contains a drawing and some commentary. A black bird with haunting, bright eyes. A tree, smoking and blistering, but without any fire. A regal-looking woman, whose beautiful body and face are underscored by pitch-black eyes and claws on her hands. A slim, androgynous masked figure with horns and wings, grasping a hunting knife. A scarecrow-like shape with its cruel, jeering face crudely painted on a sack covering a wooden log.

On the last page, all these pictures and their names are arranged in a circle, its center empty.

"Name..." The sound seems to be coming from the giant skeleton. It's a whisper, carried through centuries through sheer, desperate determination. "Find... name... under titles. We... could not... in time."

[City Out of Time]

Electra waits and watches carefully for a few moments, before gesturing towards the shelf, being careful to keep herself between Cass and the skeleton.

"What do you make of it?" She asks quietly, before the whisper filters through. She raises a skeptical eyebrow and glances at Cass after it passes. "....Any idea what that's about?"

[City Out of Time]

Cass attempts to gently take the booklet, lookin over the picture and words carefully. Some of the pictures certainly remind her of imagery she's seen before, in dreams.
"It's in regards to the fae," she says, looking between Electra and the giant skeleton. "Names, proper names, have special power for them. They hide their names behind titles and epithets, and when dealing with them you usually do the same, to prevent them from gaining power over you through knowledge of their name."

[Artemis97]

[Caravan Search]

Wren will see a fairly wide passage in the back of the cave, angling downward, deeper into the mountain. If the map's shared, it looks to be easy going for this first stretch, just very very dark. Hopefully everyone can see in the dark, or brought a light. However, cave-dwellers will know that light's a danger in the Underdark, if one's not careful.

[Recaiden]

Tao waves up at the bats as they pass into the cave.
This is a good sign, literally if you consider the markings outside. People come through here not uncommonly. He gets a compass from his pack's pocket and checks it, before they go any further into the lightless spaces below.

[bc56]

Rivergreen
"I don't know. I guess I can stay around here, watch that company to make sure they don't do anything bad, and keep helping with the crops?" Myriam doesn't sound like she has much of a plan.

Caravan Search
Selekhael plugs her nose and heads inside. Her night vision is pretty good, so she's not worried about lighting this close to the entrance. She smiles at the bats. They're cute, really. She doesn't understand why some people are so scared of them.

[Hattish Thing]

[The Plantation - Secret Chamber/Common Room]

The phantom figure does not appear to react to Seraphina's presence.

Instead, she proceeds forward for several steps before pausing before a particularly unsettling landscape painting.

She looks up at the thing with a somewhat troubled expression. It's hard to tell what the flickering figure may be thinking, but she certainly didn't seem to be in a confident state of mind. After a brief second, she mutters something under her breath. Interestingly, she fails to produce any sort of sound whatsoever. A second or two later, she blinks out of existence, as if she were never there at all. Seraphina is left alone in the creepy common room once again.

The secret door across the room appears to reveal a chamber dominated by a massive iron hatch. A large crack has nearly split the hatch in half, yet it remains closed.

[Earl of Purple]

Caravan Search

Jack's normal eyes are possibly worse at seeing in the dark than a baseline human's, but the eyes located in her wings are very good at seeing hidden things. If it's dark, everything's hidden, right? That's the logic she's going with, at least, and their other ability to see using more esoteric wavelengths and energies than mundane 'light' will likely also prove useful- even if she rarely figures out what, exactly, they're telling her like that.

"I'm pretty sure I killed that weird coral reef thing, back when I found this shovel. Growing 'round the edges of a flooded tunnel, with breathable water. After, the tunnel was dry." If that doesn't count, Jack... hasn't really killed much. She's more thief than fighter, but I might be misremembering something.

Blackhart Woods

Is where Natalie has brought Karasu. There's an old stone cabin in the woods, long abandoned and derelict, but there's a door that leads into a basement that looks quite promising. And she's also talked to someone else who has been here, so she's pretty sure the basement hasn't been explored, and isn't inhabited by anything too dangerous. None of the neighbouring farms or villages have stories of monsters in these woods, and there's no bandits around.

The cabin itself is very derelict; it's also not stone, but concrete. The walls are vast slabs of concrete propped up against each other, though the roof was probably wood or wooden-framed, and has since collapsed. Inside the concrete structure, there's corroded sheets of tin, once the roof now collapsed and fallen inwards, and against one wall, where a short rusted steel beam still supports a section of the metal sheeting, is a square hole into the ground, an aluminium ladder bolted to the wall. "So I heard about this place from Bramble, who lives in Balsa Cabin? He and his friends go exploring and salvage what they can and sell it on as antiques. He's visited, but not gone down the hole. Anything worth taking he couldn't get out from that hole, he thinks. What do you think?" Natalie smiles as she turns to her girlfriend.

[5a Violista]

[The Plantation - Secret Chamber/Common Room]

Seraphina doesn't say anything to the ghost.

She waits for the ghost to acknowledge her first. That is probably the right way to do it.

Of course, Seraphina can't hear what the ghost is saying. She tries to read its lips once she realizes she can't hear it, but isn't very successful. There just isn't enough time to figure out what the ghost is saying.

Seraphina sighs.

Okay! She slaps her cheek. Time to go back to that secret passage.
She turns back around and goes to the bookcase door.

She goes in to the secret room. She has to find out what is through that hatch!

She places the book into her cloak pocket so that she has both hands available.
Then, she grabs the hatch and tries to open it with all her strength and all the leverage that she can produce. (While she is a little athletic, she still is a normal human woman with a still-healing chest injury. So....yeah.)

[Gnrlshrimp]

[Fort Aegis Resort]

"Oh, well if you're in no rush, would you be interested in a-" Lucy winces and shakes her leg as the dragon bab starts climbing. "Ow! Nasir, no! Bad dragon!" She exclaims, awkwardly picking up the little dragon and putting him back down on the floor.

"U-um, sorry, as I was trying to say, would you care to take a dip in our hot springs? At least one of the owners is quite fond of excuses to take a soak, so I'm sure I could convince him to join you down there."

Lucy nods to one of the nearby kobolds, who hurriedly straightens herself out and stands ready to lead Ambrosia and Thariza, if they accept.

[Nova_Eclipse]

[City Out of Time]

Electra seems to consider for a moment, though it's obvious she's still wary; her gaze continues to wander cautiously as she speaks.

"I see. What do you think? Is this what we need? Or do we need to do some cross-referencing? If the latter, we probably should do it now. The way our clients were talking, we might not get another chance."

[Recaiden]

"I don't know. I guess I can stay around here, watch that company to make sure they don't do anything bad, and keep helping with the crops?" Myriam doesn't sound like she has much of a plan.

"You could." Anchor agrees.
"You don't know how long you slept, right? I mean, could you still have family around?"

[bc56]

Rivergreen

"Maybe I could. Or maybe descendants? I had four kids." Myriam thinks about it. "I'd probably have to ask around a lot to find them, though. Especially if it's been more than a generation." Of course there's one place which is an easy place to find out if someone's still alive... A graveyard. Myriam isn't thinking of that though.

[Shadowcaller]

[Fort Aegis Resort]

"It seems like you do need all the hands you can get with this lot." The little dragons are awfully cute, she has to admit. But they're as clever as any child and have wings on top of it.

Fort Aegis Resort

Nasir is not to be dissuaded and attempts to crawl up Lucy's robed leg so he can sniff through one of her pockets.
Meanwhile, Imbaeris' brothers make peace and resume munching upon their given sausages. Rather noisily.

[Fort Aegis Resort]

"Oh, well if you're in no rush, would you be interested in a-" Lucy winces and shakes her leg as the dragon bab starts climbing. "Ow! Nasir, no! Bad dragon!" She exclaims, awkwardly picking up the little dragon and putting him back down on the floor.

"U-um, sorry, as I was trying to say, would you care to take a dip in our hot springs? At least one of the owners is quite fond of excuses to take a soak, so I'm sure I could convince him to join you down there."

Lucy nods to one of the nearby kobolds, who hurriedly straightens herself out and stands ready to lead Ambrosia and Thariza, if they accept.

[Fort Aegis Resort]

Ambrosia's eyebrows raise at the offer and glances to Thariza. "Well..." She begins, seemingly waiting on her response before making a decision. Did Charr's even like bathing?

[Purple Eagle]

Blackhart Woods

Is where Natalie has brought Karasu. There's an old stone cabin in the woods, long abandoned and derelict, but there's a door that leads into a basement that looks quite promising. And she's also talked to someone else who has been here, so she's pretty sure the basement hasn't been explored, and isn't inhabited by anything too dangerous. None of the neighbouring farms or villages have stories of monsters in these woods, and there's no bandits around.

The cabin itself is very derelict; it's also not stone, but concrete. The walls are vast slabs of concrete propped up against each other, though the roof was probably wood or wooden-framed, and has since collapsed. Inside the concrete structure, there's corroded sheets of tin, once the roof now collapsed and fallen inwards, and against one wall, where a short rusted steel beam still supports a section of the metal sheeting, is a square hole into the ground, an aluminium ladder bolted to the wall. "So I heard about this place from Bramble, who lives in Balsa Cabin? He and his friends go exploring and salvage what they can and sell it on as antiques. He's visited, but not gone down the hole. Anything worth taking he couldn't get out from that hole, he thinks. What do you think?" Natalie smiles as she turns to her girlfriend.

[Blackhart Woods]

The seventeen-year old medic ninja school almost-graduate looks around the cabin, her eyes big and wide in wonder. It's just like the stories of her big bro Mirai's adventures with Zither, but in the flesh! "Woah... don't know what to say!" It's definitely a surprise, beyond her every expectation.

She almost skip-walks towards the hole, letting go of Natalie's hand as she gasps in wonder. "Thank you, Talie!" Generating an ink platform, she steps off it and turns to Natalie. "Together?" It's one of the rare times she has a Zara-level smile on her face as she serenely offers Natalie her arm.

[Holy-hunter]

Caravan search

Raeh let out an audible groan as the smell reached her nostrils and another as she stepped in a rather large pile of guano. She was making no effort for stealth at this point. Her concern instead on the state of her clothing. Her elven heritage meant that her pale blue eyes could pierce the darkness but still, the limited colourless sight was not the same.

She went over and placed a hand on the cave wall. From beneath her cloak a large spider appeared and ran down her arm. ”Go see.” she whispered to the creature as it scurried ahead along the wall. It was too big to be bothered by a normal bat. Also, the spider was already dead. The unseen negative energy the only clue that it was instead and animated corpse.

As Raeh caught up with the others she was grumbling about polishing her boots. Every now and then she would pause and close her eyes to share the view of the spider that was now scouting ahead.

[Ashen Lilies]

[Caravan Search]

Wren grimaces as he notices the spider scuttling off. Ugh, spiders. Why did it have to be spiders. The darkness, as mentioned, gives him no issue with his magically-enhanced dark vision. Nevertheless, he taps the hilt of his smallsword nervously as they proceed deeper into the tunnel. Being in the Underdark always makes him nervous.

[Earl of Purple]

Blackhart Woods

Natalie is wearing a pair of denim jeans and a warm blue hoody. Her repaired red rucksack is slung over one shoulder, and for once she's wearing shoes- a pair of white trainers, still quite new-looking, though she's still without socks. Strapped to her left forearm is a mechanical slingshot, and a knife has been strapped to a belt at her waist.

Natalie takes the arm and grins back. "Absolutely." She'll step onto an ink platform with Karasu and descend down the hole. It's a very tight fit; the hole is large enough for one average-sized person using the ladder bolted to the wall, not really two teenage girls descending together. It's also quite long, descending quite far into the ground. They arrive in a dank concrete room, poorly lit by light emerging from the narrow shaft the two girls travelled down, with more faint illumination from the strange fungi growing upon the walls. There's very little in the chamber; a pile of bones in one corner, draped in a rusty old mail shirt, and the fungi. The floor was tiled, but it's been covered in grime fallen from above, rotting wood, and other detritus. A single door leads out of the chamber, the wood covered in shelf fungi. The chamber smells thick and musty, the fungal spores emitted by the weird growths adding a sickly-sweet odour to the room, like rotting fruit.

Natalie looks around and pulls a face. "Ugh, I did not expect adventuring to smell this bad. Oh, don't talk. It gets on your tongue." Natalie grimaces as she's now tasting the air as well as smelling it.