DCC DotSK: Act 1-3

Trying to find Ty’s actual eyes to look at while talking to him, Dufgal replies agreeably, "That door ain’t been moved in ages. I’se figurin there’s anotha way in"

Dufgal retrieves the other old, mostly rotten packs easily enough, and he discovers they have very similar contents: worthless coins or tokens, pitted bronze blades, and old, soft skulls -- each showing signs that they were split by what must have been a killing blow.

The thief is not wrong about the door; green with moss and lichen, it does not look like it has been moved in an age. It is not so large, though, that a pair or three of them couldn't budge it, perhaps rolling it to the side.

"Not torn apart by the hound by the looks of those blows." Anora remarks, at the split skulls!

She moves to place a hand on the door and looks expectantly at the three men sent to accompany her!

"Let us be the ones to open it then. Time is of the essence here!" she reminds them, knowing they have little time to entertain superstition!

Used to being ignored at home, Dufgal felt an ironic twinge of nostalgia. He had developed fairly good instincts about human behavior and the risks of ignore-ance. However, his current situation has been quite distinct. So here he was in a pickle. Should he rely on his intuition honed from his past OR learn to lean into the different nuances of his present?

He wrinkled his nose and stepped forward, tossing the remaining watery grave loot aside. "Uh, Lady, you’se best let me do that for ye."
And he takes up a position where he can get the best grip.

The elf casts an uneasy glance at the packs Dufgal has tossed aside, moldering there in the silvery water. Beneath the blindfold, his gaze shifts to where Anora now stands with her imperious hand upon the door.

Well. Touching the spiral stone hasn't killed her, anyway. Yet.

With a little sigh-- offered up to the Fates with whom his life has been an endless and cutthroat negotiation-- Tyravasiel sloshes across to the door. He shoves his cane into the strap of his pack, then turns to lend his shoulder-- and such weight as he possesses-- to the effort.

Aldric leaves the mundane heaving and shoving of stones to his allies while he continues to try to draw upon Pelagia's spirtual power.As Pelagia's blessing takes hold of his mind, he witnesses the light shift, as though someone had submerged it. The golden light of the setting sun fades, replaced by a pale, diffused glow that made everything seem distant, dreamlike. The once-sharp edges of the ancient tomb and the glittering pond begin to blur, objects appearing to shimmer as if viewed through a layer of rippling water.

Pelagia graces her waveborn priest with rippling truesight as Anora, Ty, and Dufgal position themselves around the old, circular stone. They are out of the water and dripping as they put their hands on the cold, weathered disc, but Aldric is knee-deep in the stuff as his senses waver and bristle.

It's the water. There is something about the water... it is not evil, but it is dangerous... protective. As his companions bend their backs, the stone shifts and grates in that deeply resonant way that only heavy stone can... and another sentiment overwhelms the Witness. That of give and take. Of... reciprocity.

"WAIT!" Aldric bellows, his voice thrumming with an otherworldly resonance. "Pelagia stands with me, now... My eyes pierce the feeble veil of this world... An offering must be made before the tomb is breached ..."

If looks could kill, Anora would have cut Aldric in two.

"By all means, you and your Pelagia can stand there in the wet muck!" she says, as if the woman was standing their alongside the priest at that very moment.

"We are trying to make some tangible gains before nightfall, rather than advancing the cause of some deity whose domain couldn’t be farther from here if she tried!"

Then the woman becomes flippant:

"This steam here? Is that it? The Sea Bitch wants… what? Our waters? Would she like us to drop our garments and piss yellow before the tomb? Or would she take our silver?"

Then the woman fetches up her own purse! Ninety six silver pieces lay within.

"No! It’s always the silver when it comes to the righteous!" she says, hysterical now! She fishes out five silver and tosses them into the stream!

"Will that silence the wailing of the water wench? Might we go forth?"

Stepping from the water onto the small patch of land before the entrance, Aldric pauses, allowing Anora to drop her coins and wag her tongue.

"Trying to usurp the Bitch Queen's throne, are you? You should be grateful no curse from this tomb has taken hold! Such disrespect to the dead rarely goes unpunished!"

With those words, Aldric studies the waters again, checking if the danger has truly passed.

The five scattered coins plop into the shimmering, sunlit waters. Aldric does not have to concentrate to know that danger still lurks...

"The danger isn't gone," Aldric murmurs, voice low and foreboding. "Every satchel Dufgal dragged from the water held the same contents: a sword, a few coins, and a skull. They must have been offerings to the tomb, sacrifices demanded by whatever power lurks here. Anora has given the coin. Now we need a blade… and a skull."

Not sure if he understands what’s happening nor why everyone is looking at him, Dufgal hopes they mean for him to procure the blade. He wrestles his spear from its bindings and holds it across his his outstretched hands like a serving tray. He sees the eyes hinting at the water and then he tosses it in with as much reverence as he can muster.

"And what do we do about the skull?"

"Obviously we don't have a skull," Ty replies peevishly.

For he is aware of something vaguely like a skull, lurking in the confines of his travel pack: a delicate child's crown, fashioned of silver and chased with platinum. The thing might cost a fortune in the coins that humans hoard like the clever squirrels they are; more importantly, it might be connected to some fanciful tale that would delight Tyravasiel's own people, and therefore serve as a worthy memento or object d'art. But the little group has nothing else even approaching a human head-- at least, not one disconnected from a human body.

The elf shifts his gaze up-slope and spends a few terrible, quiet moments contemplating the Skald Lloré. Would it be so awful...? After all, the man is a sort of rival for Morgan Haverson's affections, even if Ty's interest in the maid is thoroughly different from the skald's. But no... Dolsten would surely object, and even Tyravasiel's human comrades might quail at bald-faced murder.

Even the murder of a bard.

With a sigh, and muttering something the sounds vaguely like, "Maybe this will serve," Ty rummages in his pack and produces the crown. He stares at it for a moment, as if bidding the pretty little thing farewell, and then drops it into the glittering water.

Aldric leaves the number of skulls within a sword's reach unspoken. He nods to Ty as he tosses the crown in the glittering water, and regards the still waters for signs of danger. Privately, he wonders what the story is behind the small crown, and what other treasures the faux beggar has in his possession.

Aldric feels a stirring in the spring when Dufgal unceremoniously dumps his spear into the water, and when Ty steps forward and offers the crown... all witness the result.

Silvery waters rush and swirl, bubbling, foaming -- forming. Out of that effervescence rises a watery serpent, drawing up fifteen feet in height! It's body shimmers and roils, its massive jaws part... but the thing does not surge forward to attack, nor move to guard the tomb against these looters in any fashion.

They have satisfied the guardian, and as they watch, shocked by the thing's sudden appearance, it sinks back into the waters, disappearing.

After the serpent subsides, Aldric gestures to Anora and says, with the biggest, self-satisfied smirk, "You may go forth."

After the dramatic, yet impotent display from the guardian, Dufgal sets his mind and muscle to the task of heavy lifting. He positions himself in the key position and makes room for Ty and Anora to lend their strength. With a deep breath and an audible huff as a cue, the burly Dufgal shoves the stone with all his might. Only needing enough room to grant passage single file, it suffices to move the massive stone just five feet to one side where it can rest against the tomb’s structure.
Satisfied, Dufgal rinses off his hands in the water demonstrating his goldfish memory. The thought of a fifteen foot tall serpent had already swum through his mind.

Tyravasiel looks from the silvery serpent stream-- quiescent once more-- to the Pelagian priest. When Aldric gives Anora the Blue leave to proceed, the elf can't help grinning beneath his blindfold at the smug look on the human's face. The blind clever squirrel has found his nut!

Ty then returns to shoving on the door stone, along with Dufgal.