Laurence snaps their head towards Hin as she finishes in but a few minutes, astounded. They turn back to continue writing but sneaks a few glances at Hin once in a while and raises their eyebrows in confusion seeing her appearance change every time they turn around. Disguise self? No… there were no verbal components. Not to mention the amount of spells she’d be using… Despite being distracted, they continue to write, accustomed to multitasking.
Finishing a bit earlier than Barburry, Laurence notices his broken quills. They clear their throat, “excuse me, may I have a look at your quill? I can mend it if you’d like?”
All set, Laurence packs up their new spellbook and other belongings, following behind the group wordlessly. Though their excitement is evident as they grin and hold up their opossum familiar in celebration when they think no one’s looking.
Barburry shares his peer's enthusiasm for going to a dig site. He is eager to get his feet and hands in fresh dirt again. He collects his things, holding the broken quills separately and offers them forth to Laurence. "That would be mighty kind of you. I've mainly been a reader up to this point, and perhaps I can find a iron quill in the future to prevent this clumsiness. Oh gosh, where are my manners!? I'm Barburry and this is Scritches." The ferret familiar pokes their head out of the central chest pocket of the thick leather apron Barburry is wearing. Scritches begins chattering in a fast unthreatening manner to Roquefort. "I am excited to have another member added to our tower. It's a pleasure to meet you Laurence, and you as well Mr. Roquefort."
Something about how Barburry talks to Roquefort has a strange melodic sound to it, similar to how he talks to his own animal familiar. His demeanor shows a supreme comfort with animals (or animal like beings) and his communication gives off a certain knack for speaking to them.
"Excited for the dig site? I'm eager to to be outside in the dirt and turf again myself. Hopefully there won't be too many flies so I can save Hin from having to save me from choking again." It's a self depreciating joke, but a light one meant for banter and delivered in an openly comfortable and friendly manner.
Laurence gingerly holds the quills in one hand and takes out a smoke pipe from a box hanging on their hip. Without placing anything in the pipe, they draw a breath from it and slowly blow onto the quills, careful to not send the feathers flying. A shimmering cloud appears over the quills and fades away moments later, revealing the quills, still bent but less so than before. Over the next minute or so, Laurence repeats the same motion and speaks in-between puffs. "Pleasure is mine, Mr Barburry, and little Scritches." Roquefort grins back at Barburry and Scritches but it's a little unnerving how wide his mouth is opening. Seeing Barburry's affection for Roquefort, Laurence makes a quick mental command and the opossum hops from their shoulder to Barburry's, reaching out its little paw to pat Scritches. "You were not a reader? I could not have known, you were very efficient in copying spells earlier."
As they near the dig site, Laurence clears their throat and try their hardest to not look like a child going to a carnival for the first time, "Of course, I'm quite excited, I have never been anywhere like this before." Smiling with Barburry, they add, "Let's hope the flies leave you alone now, though I believe there will be no shortage of unbelievable things we will be seeing while studying here." The last shimmers of the mending spell fade and Laurence hands the quills back to Barburry.
(ooc: @Kenneth_Locke heads up you used my username instead of character name in the last line of the first paragraph)
You are all lead out to the courtyard, where Professor Maz opens the portal that brought you to the academy itself. "Please, step through, let's get going" you all one by one step through the portal, landing once again in the ruins where you originally met each other, the professor stepping through after everyone else. "Now, follow me, and watch your step." The dragonborn leads you away from the ruins, towards an old bridge that spans from the cliff face of this island to the next island over. One by one you cross, continuing on, you island hop four more times, until finally you come across a grouping of tents on the edge of this island "right, welcome. This is the surface and staging area. Let's move on down, and I will show you the dig itself." He leads you to the edge of the cliff, where a rickety-looking platform has been built that hangs over the cliff, with a equally scary looking path seems to go down the side of the cliff to the mouth of a cave. Looking down or over the edge, you see about 200 feet down, waves crashing into the cliff and the scattering of jagged rocks below.
Eventually, you all finally make it down the pathway, to the cave. The very first thing you're greeted with is two large, half open stone doors. They have ornate and intricate carvings in them, but appear to be severely damaged. Beyond the doors you see four others moving around within the cave. It's well lit, by magical means. You see orbs of light floating about. Moving ever so slightly when one of the people in here moves. Looking around, the walls, and even the ceiling are covered in writing of all different languages. All of you, Barburry, Hin, Laurence, Mythe, and Vera, see scripts written across the walls in quite literally every language you know, and so many, you assume, more languages you don't understand. "We have a few hours until our class is officially over. Please, take your time, explore this cavern. Take in your surroundings. We'll reconvene back here at the doors in an hour to go over your discoveries and begin travel back to the academy."
This initial chamber is large, while only about 40 feet wide, it extends about 100 feet beyond the doors. There are several sections along the walls where it branches off into smaller caverns within.
(OOC: At this point, my posts will become smaller, as I will be reacting specifically to what each character does instead of the group as a whole. You have been given free range to move within this cave and find out what you can.)
Laurence very quietly mumbles, “very well…” and with two sharp claps they summons Roquefort back, who disappears in a puff of smoke and reappears in Laurences arms. “You have done so well helping me get here, go on, do your thing.” And with a good belly rub, they send the opossum to check out one of the closest side caverns, while they wait for the others to start exploring. (They will help the next person with their action.)
While the others are showcasing their excitement for the chance to explore the dig site, it only serves to amplify Hin's excitement for the opportunity. With an enthusiastic "Yes, sir!" she quickly acknowledges the time allowance, and steps into the cavern. Despite the orbs of light giving off adequate light, as she intends to explore the other areas of the cave, she uses the brooch pinned onto her poet's shirt to produce a light source of her own. She lets down her long red hair from it's bun, and it cascades over her back. She notices that she feels very comfortable where she is right now. She steps up to the walls and tries to read the writing on the wall in the first language she find that she understands. As she's searching for the first sight of legible writing (or any other information, for that matter---carvings of symbols, drawings, glyphs, etc.), she traces over the textured wall with her fingers.
(ooc: let me know if there's a skill check or anything I have to roll.)
Laurence, give give me an investigation check using your opossum's scores, please. Also, are you wishing to look through Roquefort, or just have them report back what they see?
Hin, give me an investigation check as well. I'll say you get advantage from Laurence's attempt to help.
Mythe saunters around the initial chamber, moving with seemingly natural elegance typical of someone of her status. She has no need for her own light source - the magic lighting allows her just as much sight as broad daylight, thanks to her elvish heritage. She continues to waltz through the chamber for a few minutes, eventually coming to a stop before one the walls and attempting to read one of the many languages that catches her eye.
Barburry, go ahead and give me an investigation check as well!
The four archeologists who were down here prior to you getting here, do their best to stay out of your way as you all move about the cavern, but don't pay you much mind, unless you get close to what they're currently working on. You see two of them huddled together near a section of the wall, they appear to be transcribing what is on the wall, while the other two are split apart and appear to be searching the floor for something.
Hin
As you begin moving down this branch of the cave, you run your fingers over the writing on the wall. You in fact find lots of writing you understand. The first is undoubtedly related to common. Every fourth or fifth word, you can make out. You remove a vowel here, add a vowel there and it becomes a correctly spelled word in common. It almost seems like this is an ancient form of common. Or a language the common language is based off. As you continue on, you notice the change from common to draconic, but again, only a few words are words you understand. Again, it appears you're looking at some form of ancient, long forgotten draconic dialect. Finally, with a 21 investigation as you continue further down, you notice a very faint glow. There appears to be a word written on the wall. The longer you stare at it, you begin to feel as if it's a common word, then an draconic word, followed by an orcish word, a sylvan word, a celestial word, and finally the fact that it belongs to no language. How can that be though? How can your mind tell you this word belongs to all five of these languages, but also doesn't at the same time. How can a word be of no language? It's at this moment, you feel a faint draught of air from the ground. Looking closer, you notice there is a gap between the ground and a part of this wall.
Laurence
You send Roquefort out down one of the tunnels, and they do the best they can to look around and observe things, but when they come back, they tell you there is lots of scribbles on the walls, and they thought they could hear something further in.
Mythe (OOC: Good to hear from you!)
As you look at the wall in the main chamber multiple words catch your eye. You catch a word here and there in celestial, draconic, and elvish. But only a word or two. Not enough in each section to make out anything of importance, yet. The other words near the celestial word seem structurally celestial, but don't mean anything. Similarly the other draconic-structured words don't mean anything. It's not until you get to the elvish, that you realize what's going on. The elvish words don't mean anything either, but you have seen elvish similar to this none sense. It's an extremely ancient elven dialect. Long forgotten. Your family's keep has some of these long forgotten elven words carved in its stone, not many, but a few.
As you push down your own path in the cave. It's hard to focus. The walls are completely covered in markings, symbols, and languages that you absolutely don't understand. You do however find a few words in giantish. The words surrounding it don't make sense to you though. They're giantish-kin, but don't mean anything in giantish, and staring at it longer is causing your head to hurt.
Vera presses the palm of her hands against the length of her skirt to straighten it. She is equipped with adventuring gears like crowbar, torches, waterskin so that she can immediately deal with any kind of difficulties which may arise. But, she's more concerned with the possibility of encountering hostile creatures in the archeological sites. As a result, she has decided to bring her chest that contains several equipments of monster hunter's pack.
Once the party is left to venture into the cave, Vera will huff in relief since she's not accustomed to the prospect of being monitored by mentors. She will attempt to switch between the normal vision and enhanced vision to figure out the general outline of the initial chamber (Detect Magic). After that, she gradually moves closer to the two archeologists who are busy with the creation of transcription, making sure that her bronze badge is visible to them. "Morning! May I help you in your task? I might be able to decrypt signs and languages that are difficult to recover."
Barburry uses practices his Minor Conjuration, and conjures a bulls eye lantern. He moves one of the orbs inside to allow better and more focused searching. Stepping back a moment, he tries to see the forest through the trees, and to think how the caves may have formed naturally and or been changed due to humanoid interference. Maybe knowledge would provide insight into where caverns may lead or be hidden.
Vera, you cast detect magic and begin looking around the room while approaching the two men currently transcribing. As you do one the of them speaks up "oh, we're taking exact replicas miss. The historians at the academy are more set up to translate the meanings of these words and symbols." As he takes note of your eyes "I bet you would make a fine addition, and be welcomed to help decrypt these though. You should seek them out when you return to the academy. They're located in the Observatory Hall." As you continue looking around while he's speaking to you.
Vera
There isn't much magical presence in this room. The glowing orbs, a faint conjuration aura from Professor Maz, and an aura from each of your group members. This main chamber just doesn't have much in the way of magic. You can indeed stay with these two archeologists and write down the symbols and text you see on the wall, or you could continue moving about the cave.
(OOC:Barburry, it sounds as if you're trying to figure out the history of this cave. It would be a toss up between a history or a nature check. I'll let you decide.)
Hin stands there. puzzled. It's written in all sorts of languages... Common and Draconic, and others I can't understand. As she reads what she can on the wall, she yells, "Come everyone! I found something interesting!" Her eyes, following the text on the wall, falls on this particular glowing word. It seems to shift from one language to the other, belonging to all languages and no language at the same time. Perplexed, she tries to decipher what it's saying.
(ooc: Is there any way for Hin to know what is on the wall, not just to see what language the text is in? What would I have to roll for that?)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jack, a Changeling Artificer/Bard/Cleric/Fighter/Rogue---RynnElocin'sFrom Dusk to Dawn Amon, a Fairy Arcane Trickster---ShieldHero_'s Fractum
Laurence snaps their head towards Hin as she finishes in but a few minutes, astounded. They turn back to continue writing but sneaks a few glances at Hin once in a while and raises their eyebrows in confusion seeing her appearance change every time they turn around. Disguise self? No… there were no verbal components. Not to mention the amount of spells she’d be using… Despite being distracted, they continue to write, accustomed to multitasking.
Finishing a bit earlier than Barburry, Laurence notices his broken quills. They clear their throat, “excuse me, may I have a look at your quill? I can mend it if you’d like?”
All set, Laurence packs up their new spellbook and other belongings, following behind the group wordlessly. Though their excitement is evident as they grin and hold up their opossum familiar in celebration when they think no one’s looking.
Barburry shares his peer's enthusiasm for going to a dig site. He is eager to get his feet and hands in fresh dirt again. He collects his things, holding the broken quills separately and offers them forth to Laurence. "That would be mighty kind of you. I've mainly been a reader up to this point, and perhaps I can find a iron quill in the future to prevent this clumsiness. Oh gosh, where are my manners!? I'm Barburry and this is Scritches." The ferret familiar pokes their head out of the central chest pocket of the thick leather apron Barburry is wearing. Scritches begins chattering in a fast unthreatening manner to Roquefort. "I am excited to have another member added to our tower. It's a pleasure to meet you Laurence, and you as well Mr. Roquefort."
Something about how Barburry talks to Roquefort has a strange melodic sound to it, similar to how he talks to his own animal familiar. His demeanor shows a supreme comfort with animals (or animal like beings) and his communication gives off a certain knack for speaking to them.
"Excited for the dig site? I'm eager to to be outside in the dirt and turf again myself. Hopefully there won't be too many flies so I can save Hin from having to save me from choking again." It's a self depreciating joke, but a light one meant for banter and delivered in an openly comfortable and friendly manner.
Laurence gingerly holds the quills in one hand and takes out a smoke pipe from a box hanging on their hip. Without placing anything in the pipe, they draw a breath from it and slowly blow onto the quills, careful to not send the feathers flying. A shimmering cloud appears over the quills and fades away moments later, revealing the quills, still bent but less so than before. Over the next minute or so, Laurence repeats the same motion and speaks in-between puffs. "Pleasure is mine, Mr Barburry, and little Scritches." Roquefort grins back at Barburry and Scritches but it's a little unnerving how wide his mouth is opening. Seeing Barburry's affection for Roquefort, Laurence makes a quick mental command and the opossum hops from their shoulder to Barburry's, reaching out its little paw to pat Scritches. "You were not a reader? I could not have known, you were very efficient in copying spells earlier."
As they near the dig site, Laurence clears their throat and try their hardest to not look like a child going to a carnival for the first time, "Of course, I'm quite excited, I have never been anywhere like this before." Smiling with Barburry, they add, "Let's hope the flies leave you alone now, though I believe there will be no shortage of unbelievable things we will be seeing while studying here." The last shimmers of the mending spell fade and Laurence hands the quills back to Barburry.
(ooc: @Kenneth_Locke heads up you used my username instead of character name in the last line of the first paragraph)
Vera will summon her familiar 'Zodiac' from the pocket dimension, then she activates Detect Magic as a preparation for field project.
InkedBee (Undead_Analyst)
Covetous, Dragonish Thoughts - Jenviel Tsumara: Fallen Aasimar- Monk|Crimson Sands of Time - Navarra Iltazyara: Human- Druid/Warlock| Bleak Prospect - Ermasnietsz: Reborn- Clockwork Soul Sorcerer
You are all lead out to the courtyard, where Professor Maz opens the portal that brought you to the academy itself. "Please, step through, let's get going" you all one by one step through the portal, landing once again in the ruins where you originally met each other, the professor stepping through after everyone else. "Now, follow me, and watch your step." The dragonborn leads you away from the ruins, towards an old bridge that spans from the cliff face of this island to the next island over. One by one you cross, continuing on, you island hop four more times, until finally you come across a grouping of tents on the edge of this island "right, welcome. This is the surface and staging area. Let's move on down, and I will show you the dig itself." He leads you to the edge of the cliff, where a rickety-looking platform has been built that hangs over the cliff, with a equally scary looking path seems to go down the side of the cliff to the mouth of a cave. Looking down or over the edge, you see about 200 feet down, waves crashing into the cliff and the scattering of jagged rocks below.
Eventually, you all finally make it down the pathway, to the cave. The very first thing you're greeted with is two large, half open stone doors. They have ornate and intricate carvings in them, but appear to be severely damaged. Beyond the doors you see four others moving around within the cave. It's well lit, by magical means. You see orbs of light floating about. Moving ever so slightly when one of the people in here moves. Looking around, the walls, and even the ceiling are covered in writing of all different languages. All of you, Barburry, Hin, Laurence, Mythe, and Vera, see scripts written across the walls in quite literally every language you know, and so many, you assume, more languages you don't understand. "We have a few hours until our class is officially over. Please, take your time, explore this cavern. Take in your surroundings. We'll reconvene back here at the doors in an hour to go over your discoveries and begin travel back to the academy."
This initial chamber is large, while only about 40 feet wide, it extends about 100 feet beyond the doors. There are several sections along the walls where it branches off into smaller caverns within.
(OOC: At this point, my posts will become smaller, as I will be reacting specifically to what each character does instead of the group as a whole. You have been given free range to move within this cave and find out what you can.)
Laurence very quietly mumbles, “very well…” and with two sharp claps they summons Roquefort back, who disappears in a puff of smoke and reappears in Laurences arms. “You have done so well helping me get here, go on, do your thing.” And with a good belly rub, they send the opossum to check out one of the closest side caverns, while they wait for the others to start exploring. (They will help the next person with their action.)
While the others are showcasing their excitement for the chance to explore the dig site, it only serves to amplify Hin's excitement for the opportunity. With an enthusiastic "Yes, sir!" she quickly acknowledges the time allowance, and steps into the cavern. Despite the orbs of light giving off adequate light, as she intends to explore the other areas of the cave, she uses the brooch pinned onto her poet's shirt to produce a light source of her own. She lets down her long red hair from it's bun, and it cascades over her back. She notices that she feels very comfortable where she is right now. She steps up to the walls and tries to read the writing on the wall in the first language she find that she understands. As she's searching for the first sight of legible writing (or any other information, for that matter---carvings of symbols, drawings, glyphs, etc.), she traces over the textured wall with her fingers.
(ooc: let me know if there's a skill check or anything I have to roll.)
Jack, a Changeling Artificer/Bard/Cleric/Fighter/Rogue---RynnElocin's From Dusk to Dawn
Amon, a Fairy Arcane Trickster---ShieldHero_'s Fractum
I'M BACK
PFP credit goes to Mo Willems
Laurence, give give me an investigation check using your opossum's scores, please. Also, are you wishing to look through Roquefort, or just have them report back what they see?
Hin, give me an investigation check as well. I'll say you get advantage from Laurence's attempt to help.
Investigation: 21
Jack, a Changeling Artificer/Bard/Cleric/Fighter/Rogue---RynnElocin's From Dusk to Dawn
Amon, a Fairy Arcane Trickster---ShieldHero_'s Fractum
I'M BACK
PFP credit goes to Mo Willems
Laurence is just having Roquefort scout ahead a little and then report back. Investigation for Roquefort: 7
Barburry moves far back into the cave and uses his brooch to cast Dancing Lights. In doing so he'll pick a side cave to explore.
"I'll take this cave everybody! If you hear a loud 'SWEET CHERRY BLOSSOMS' or something like that, well come running!"
Mythe saunters around the initial chamber, moving with seemingly natural elegance typical of someone of her status. She has no need for her own light source - the magic lighting allows her just as much sight as broad daylight, thanks to her elvish heritage. She continues to waltz through the chamber for a few minutes, eventually coming to a stop before one the walls and attempting to read one of the many languages that catches her eye.
Barburry, go ahead and give me an investigation check as well!
The four archeologists who were down here prior to you getting here, do their best to stay out of your way as you all move about the cavern, but don't pay you much mind, unless you get close to what they're currently working on. You see two of them huddled together near a section of the wall, they appear to be transcribing what is on the wall, while the other two are split apart and appear to be searching the floor for something.
Hin
As you begin moving down this branch of the cave, you run your fingers over the writing on the wall. You in fact find lots of writing you understand. The first is undoubtedly related to common. Every fourth or fifth word, you can make out. You remove a vowel here, add a vowel there and it becomes a correctly spelled word in common. It almost seems like this is an ancient form of common. Or a language the common language is based off. As you continue on, you notice the change from common to draconic, but again, only a few words are words you understand. Again, it appears you're looking at some form of ancient, long forgotten draconic dialect. Finally, with a 21 investigation as you continue further down, you notice a very faint glow. There appears to be a word written on the wall. The longer you stare at it, you begin to feel as if it's a common word, then an draconic word, followed by an orcish word, a sylvan word, a celestial word, and finally the fact that it belongs to no language. How can that be though? How can your mind tell you this word belongs to all five of these languages, but also doesn't at the same time. How can a word be of no language? It's at this moment, you feel a faint draught of air from the ground. Looking closer, you notice there is a gap between the ground and a part of this wall.
Laurence
You send Roquefort out down one of the tunnels, and they do the best they can to look around and observe things, but when they come back, they tell you there is lots of scribbles on the walls, and they thought they could hear something further in.
Mythe (OOC: Good to hear from you!)
As you look at the wall in the main chamber multiple words catch your eye. You catch a word here and there in celestial, draconic, and elvish. But only a word or two. Not enough in each section to make out anything of importance, yet. The other words near the celestial word seem structurally celestial, but don't mean anything. Similarly the other draconic-structured words don't mean anything. It's not until you get to the elvish, that you realize what's going on. The elvish words don't mean anything either, but you have seen elvish similar to this none sense. It's an extremely ancient elven dialect. Long forgotten. Your family's keep has some of these long forgotten elven words carved in its stone, not many, but a few.
Investigation 22
Barburry
As you push down your own path in the cave. It's hard to focus. The walls are completely covered in markings, symbols, and languages that you absolutely don't understand. You do however find a few words in giantish. The words surrounding it don't make sense to you though. They're giantish-kin, but don't mean anything in giantish, and staring at it longer is causing your head to hurt.
Donavera Isemist
Vera presses the palm of her hands against the length of her skirt to straighten it. She is equipped with adventuring gears like crowbar, torches, waterskin so that she can immediately deal with any kind of difficulties which may arise. But, she's more concerned with the possibility of encountering hostile creatures in the archeological sites. As a result, she has decided to bring her chest that contains several equipments of monster hunter's pack.
Once the party is left to venture into the cave, Vera will huff in relief since she's not accustomed to the prospect of being monitored by mentors. She will attempt to switch between the normal vision and enhanced vision to figure out the general outline of the initial chamber (Detect Magic). After that, she gradually moves closer to the two archeologists who are busy with the creation of transcription, making sure that her bronze badge is visible to them. "Morning! May I help you in your task? I might be able to decrypt signs and languages that are difficult to recover."
InkedBee (Undead_Analyst)
Covetous, Dragonish Thoughts - Jenviel Tsumara: Fallen Aasimar- Monk|Crimson Sands of Time - Navarra Iltazyara: Human- Druid/Warlock| Bleak Prospect - Ermasnietsz: Reborn- Clockwork Soul Sorcerer
Barburry uses practices his Minor Conjuration, and conjures a bulls eye lantern. He moves one of the orbs inside to allow better and more focused searching. Stepping back a moment, he tries to see the forest through the trees, and to think how the caves may have formed naturally and or been changed due to humanoid interference. Maybe knowledge would provide insight into where caverns may lead or be hidden.
Vera, you cast detect magic and begin looking around the room while approaching the two men currently transcribing. As you do one the of them speaks up "oh, we're taking exact replicas miss. The historians at the academy are more set up to translate the meanings of these words and symbols." As he takes note of your eyes "I bet you would make a fine addition, and be welcomed to help decrypt these though. You should seek them out when you return to the academy. They're located in the Observatory Hall." As you continue looking around while he's speaking to you.
Vera
There isn't much magical presence in this room. The glowing orbs, a faint conjuration aura from Professor Maz, and an aura from each of your group members. This main chamber just doesn't have much in the way of magic. You can indeed stay with these two archeologists and write down the symbols and text you see on the wall, or you could continue moving about the cave.
(OOC: Barburry, it sounds as if you're trying to figure out the history of this cave. It would be a toss up between a history or a nature check. I'll let you decide.)
Hin stands there. puzzled. It's written in all sorts of languages... Common and Draconic, and others I can't understand. As she reads what she can on the wall, she yells, "Come everyone! I found something interesting!" Her eyes, following the text on the wall, falls on this particular glowing word. It seems to shift from one language to the other, belonging to all languages and no language at the same time. Perplexed, she tries to decipher what it's saying.
(ooc: Is there any way for Hin to know what is on the wall, not just to see what language the text is in? What would I have to roll for that?)
Jack, a Changeling Artificer/Bard/Cleric/Fighter/Rogue---RynnElocin's From Dusk to Dawn
Amon, a Fairy Arcane Trickster---ShieldHero_'s Fractum
I'M BACK
PFP credit goes to Mo Willems
Hin, give me a religion check. Also, as you attempt to decipher this one word, give me a constitution saving throw.