Dec 7, 2023 5:59 pm
Following the young man's footprints, Joseph approaches an ancient metal gate that breaches a stone wall. The thick ivy covering the gate has been partially pulled aside, though the thick, woody trunk of the ivy suggests that it's been growing over the wall and gate for a long, long time. The gate is of wrought iron, tremendously rusted, and is held up as much by the ivy twined through it as by the disintegrating hinges. A scrape in the thick layer of decomposed earth shows where the gate was wrenched open a few inches...just enough for Devek to squeeze through. As Joseph considers whether a torch will be needed, Theran joins him. They both poke their heads through the gate, Theran's head over Joseph's, to look at the courtyard beyond. Some trick of the wind combined with the screen of trees growing up inside the walls (or perhaps some kind of caretaking magic?) has kept part of the courtyard relatively clear of debris and plant growth: some of the flagstones lining the courtyard are visible. In the center there is a large decorative basin - what was probably once a fountain, but now filled will stagnant water barely visible through a thick carpet of water plants. Past that, a stone building rises, obscured by trees and mostly covered by ivy and other creeping vines. Peering through the gate, they see that the stone building appears to have three distinct levels: a ground floor accessed from leaf-strewn stairs leading up to a single entrance door bearing a heavy iron ring in its center, a narrower mezzanine level above it bordered by stone columns almost completely covered with plant growth, and a stone, iron, and glass dome above it, overgrown with blackberry canes and topped with ferns and shrubs. If there are any windows on the ground floor, they have been completely obscured by foliage, and though some light might filter through the grime on the dome, deeper parts of the building certainly wouldn't receive much light. Gazing at the ruin, they detect no movement, nor any birdsong, but there are faint markings in the stone above the door which might be writing. All is still.
Meanwhile, Kragga and Aanbo have made a circuit of the complex. It is surrounded by what appears to be a hedge, half again as tall as Kragga, overgrown with creeping ivy, thorny berry canes, and flowering vines. The only obvious break in the wall is the gate where Theran and Joseph are. The monk and wizard stop at a point where the foliage is thinner, in the shade of a tree that grows over the wall, and poke and cut at it with their weapons. There is a thick layer, nearly as long as Aanbo's arm, of old, brown, dry ivy and thorny brambles under the surface layer of current growth...but picking through it carefully, so as not to get snagged by the thorns, they find that it is mortared stone underneath. Cutting away at the thick, woody branches to clear a bit larger space, they recognize that each of these stone blocks bears a carved imprint matching the one that Devek brought back with him: what Albertus had identified as the stylized sun-and-serpent eye of Pae. Stepping back from the wall a bit, from this angle (about 90 degrees around the complex from the halfling and half-elf) the half-orc and dwarf can see the side of the building. Through a narrow vertical gap in the branches of trees growing up inside the complex, they can just make out what appears to be a trellis roof that slopes out from the building, weighted down by a similar mass of vines as the wall. They can also make out about half of what appears to be a statue of a humanoid figure with an upraised arm, with only a few vines on it, standing in the shade of the roof. By shifting around and squinting, they can see (from the orientation of the hand and shoulder) that the humanoid statue is facing away from them, carved from a lighter stone than the wall, and has a very long, thin neck but no head. The little gap between the trees doesn't allow a view of the rest of the statue, and moving further in the other direction gives a view of the side of the building, but nothing else.
Xana and Albertus talk amiably some distance away with Ogbar fingering his axe, filling the expectant silence with their companionable chat. They can see the shape of the complex in front of them, but the mist is thick enough that they can only just make out the two pairs of their companions at different points in the wall.
