Let's Go Steal a Dungeon (MotBM IC/Campaign Log)

"... So, I'm guessing... It's not supposed to do that?" Stella asked, words coming out awkwardly for a moment as she settled. Things were fine, everything was fine, things were dead, things were done. Here and now, right? Here and now.

But here and now was off. Or at least the painting was off. "... Maybe we need to hit it harder." Stella asked, cocking her head to the side. "Or call Chanterelle to give us a hand?"

 

Lyriae cocks her head, listening intently, and makes out Cloak Lady(?)'s muttering to herself... in what she thinks is Draconic. "Godsdammit all to the Abyss," she mutters, then turns carefully on her heel and pads over to Liron. She takes a moment to consider the wizard, already bent over her notes, then interposes a hand between nose and paper and snaps just loudly enough to get Liron's attention. "Liron," she says lowly, "there's some cloaked motherfucker over there, and I tried to eavesdrop, but she's speaking Draconic. Mind giving it a listen?"

 

"Little gods, no, don't hit it. We might rip it, and then where would we be?" Sarnai exclaimed, patting Alabaster on the shoulder before joining Stella by the painting.

She studies its dark blankness, squinting for signs of faint details of the safehouse. Compared to the brightness of this room, that old shack had been very dim indeed. "Maybe... it got cloudy? Chanterelle said it's the moonlight that opens it."

 

Liron reluctantly looks up from their notes, stands, and steps carefully over the corpses. They cock their head toward the end of the hall from the doorway, but can't hear anything over the possibly impending bad decision from Alabaster. "Give me a moment, please. I need to get a bit closer."

 

Lyriae waits, bouncing on the balls of her feet, as Liron takes a few steps forward, and winces as their foot comes down with an audible plop. "Okay, new plan," she says softly, reaching out to tug the back of their robe to get their attention. "I can hear her, you can't, and I'd like to think I'm not completely incompetent. I'll relay what she says and you translate." She concentrates and whispers along as best she can with Draconic's strange phonemes and occasional random clicks.

 

Alabaster turns at the sound of badly mangled draconic being whispered on the other side of the room, and goes to see what the fuck Lyriae thinks she's saying.

 

"It would be a... something something" Liron begins translating, then pauses. "Uh, I think, [burn?] it all... something something... nothing" Another pause. "That sounds almost like [left?] behind." They shrug, and wince. "I'd give you better if I could get closer, but I very much doubt I could do that without getting their attention, and I'm inclined to think that that would be a very bad idea." They look over at Alabaster. "You speak Draconic as well, right? What do you think?"

 

She hums and dithers and hesitates, considering the waterskin still in her pack, but it's a painting. There's just not enough cause to jump to dousing the portal in water just yet."Well. I doubt this will do a thing, but... for completionism's sake."

Decided, Sarnai gets her shield back in hand and taps a gentle beat on it. Head nodding to the sound, she gestures between taps. "Man, didn't you want us to pass through again? Do us a favor, and mend again."

Spoiler

Mending on the canvas. Yes, it doesn't fix broken magical items. But she can dream.

 

Nothing changes, probably because the canvas is not physically damaged.

 

Not yet, it's not. But if they keep poking at it... Sarnai blows a stray tuft of hair out of her face, glaring at the canvas with hands on her hips. "Well! That didn't do anything. If we're going to risk breaking it, I don't want to just hit it. Let's do something more interesting."

She reaches around the edges of the canvas, and attempts to take it off the wall.

 

It's a little heavier than expected, but nothing Sarnai can't handle. The hooks from which it hung stand out in a slightly-less-dusty rectangle of wall.

 

Stella rushes over in surprise, not expecting her to take down the painting, "Whoa, hey!" She says, arms out to help brace her if the painting gives her any issue, "Wait, would moving it help?"

 

Alabaster walks over to Lyriae. "Okay, what? I was pretty sure you didn't know how to speak Draconic."
They pause.
"Actually I'm still pretty sure you don't."

 

"Probably not!" Sarnai replies with all the cheer that answer shouldn't hold. "But this way, when it works again, it'll be at hand!" She jiggles the canvas and winks.

 

Liron looks at Alabaster. "She doesn't, but I've heard worse. One of my professors only learned Draconic from books, and had never actually heard a native speaker until my class had a dragonborn who needed an easy elective. She got tired of his dismissal of her corrections pretty quickly, and had another friend of ours make little listening spells to capture his lessons to send to her family for a laugh."

 

"Why, thank you," says Lyriae to Liron, a little tartly, and turns to Alabaster. "I would have let somebody who speaks Draconic listen, but Liron couldn't hear her well enough from here, and sneaking closer would be, uh—" she eyes the hem of Liron's robe, frayed from all the times they've accidentally stepped on it—"risky. Me giving it a go's better than nothing, right?" She pauses, lowering her voice a little. "What was she saying, by the by? Since I went to all that trouble and all."

 

"It was close! Mostly. I've certainly heard worse, at any rate." Liron said cheerfully. "And you did it without alerting them to our presence, which is more than I could have done."

 

Rigging up the harness for Sarnai to carry around... Moonlit Hideout? Freed Chanterelle? Back of a Cloak? ...the untitled painting/portal is the work of a couple of minutes, thanks to Lyriae's quick hands.

As the party catches its breath, though, even less alert ears can hear a rhythmic scrape and plink, as of glass on stone. Strange footsteps.
They come down the corridor outside and stop. Something noses its way through the door. To all appearances it is a tiger -- a tiger carved from rare blue stone, with exquisite care and precision. Stone muscles shift under stone skin. Stone eyes blink.

"Greetings," it says. Its resonant baritone is rather spoiled by a flutey wheeze on the sibilants, as if its nose is whistling. "Could I trouble you ladies for an artistic opinion?"

 

"Well, I'm no lady, but by all means!" Alabaster says.

 

The tiger steps over the threshold. Are real tigers this large when you get up close?

"Very well," it says. "What do you think of me?" Its gaze passes over each party member in turn, head cocked expectantly.