Roll an Investigation Check... (1/2)

The toys stepped into the courtyard, staring around at the weathered and crumbling stones. The entirety of the space was covered with fallen roof tiles, fragments of the walls, and mortar that had been eroded of otherwise gouged from its seams.

There was nothing living in this space. No grass grew between the cracked remnants of flagstones. There were no signs that anything had ever lived here, not even bones.

“It's going to wait until we get further in, then jump us,” Glub said, speaking the obvious. “You all can feel it too, yeah? Like something's deep deep down in the ocean, waiting for juuuuuuuust the right time.”

“No splitting up,” Threadbare decided. “Not even for a second. Oh, and invite me back in to the party, please. All my mice are gone.”

And that told him something. They hadn't gone all at once. It had taken them out over the course of the approach. Either this thing wasn't very smart, or it couldn't entirely see what it was attacking, and was just striking at the motion or vibrations or whatever sense it was using to track the intruders.

“All right,” Apollyon breathed. “Do we take the front door, or do we check out the towers? Or maybe those rubble piles? What are those anyway?” He was talking faster. Threadbare knew this meant the adrenaline was kicking in.

“It looks like those are what's left of the outbuildings,” Fluffbear said. “I picked up the mason job a year back and those sure look like the foundations I made when I was starting out and didn't know how to properly use supports.”

“I can see dirt between the stones,” Threadbare said, quietly.

The group fell silent.

“There's exposed dirt here. And many marks of water,” Threadbare pondered, using words to sort his thoughts. “There is grass right outside the gate, and the courtyard is large enough that the sun should be able to reach every part of it over the course of a day. But there isn't a single weed growing from between the cobblestones.”

They stared at the ground.

“It's down there, isn't it?” Fluffbear squeaked. “Plants can't grow from there because it's hiding right under there.”

“So if we go down under the ground we'll be like walking right into its mouth,” Glub said.

There was a pause while the group considered the idea.

“One thing's for certain,” Apollyon muttered. “This isn't a dragon. Or if it is, then dragons are far stranger than I've been taught.”

“Let's explore the towers first,” Fluffbear decided. “Up is good. Up is better than walking into its mouth.”

Nothing attacked them when they entered the towers, walking over the rusty scraps that had been metal doors, and ascending crumbling staircases. There had been wooden floors here at one point, but it was gone, not even splinters remaining. Only metal fixtures at the bottom of each tower and the latticework of metal rods that had supported each floor showed that each tower had once had interior rooms.

“Did it eat the wood?” Buttons asked. “Seems weird. We walked past plenty of trees to get here.”

“It, mmm... probably has to wait a while between visitors,” Dracosnack pondered. “It might get a little... munchy. While wood has less nutritional value than meat to most predators, it might, hmmmm... just be happy to get something on its belly now and again.”

Scritching noises drew Threadbare's gaze over to Glub. He was looking upward, holding a map with one hand while a free-floating quill drew with another.

“What is that you're doing?” Threadbare asked.

“Explorers get a skill called magical mapping,” Glub said absently. “I get like this little circular view of stuff around me. Now that I'm a high enough level I can have it draw out onto a real map, too.”

Threadbare nodded and went back to searching.

The metal supports in the center were still relatively solid, which was why the towers remained standing even after being hollowed of their interiors. They lined up to struts in the walls, acting almost like a skeleton for each tower. Curiously, too, the architecture seemed to continue out from each tower into the walls that bounded the structure. Someone had spent a fortune in metal on the place. They'd obviously wanted it to stand the test of time.

“It hasn't touched the metal,” Threadbare said. “I wonder if whoever made this kept the same design underground, too.”

“We may have to find out,” Fluffbear said, nervously. “There's no sign of any survivors or soulstones. So if they're not in the main keep, then we'll have to explore everywhere we can get to.”

“Why doesn't it just attack?” Apollyon muttered. He was sweating now, his face slick in the late afternoon sun as they exited the last tower. “Why doesn't it just come for us? We're right here.”

“Oh, it'll come for us,” Glub said. “Like you said, we're right here. It's got all the time in the world to come and eat us.”

“Glub,” Threadbare said gently, as Apollyon's arms shook a bit. “It will TRY to eat us. But it will fail. We're going to win this one.”

CHA+1

That helped the young man a bit, Threadbare could tell. He patted Apollyon's greave and took the lead, marching up to the front door and using his rod to slowly push it inward.

It was wood, he noticed, wood banded with twisted metal strips that had been half destroyed, and he wondered how the wood on this one had survived.

“The hinges don't have any rust on them,” Buttons muttered from not far behind him, and he realized she was right. They hadn't squealed even a bit, though the door was heavy and thick.

More wood inside, too. They were looking at a great hall, with broken and dusty tiled floors, a long wooden table surrounded by thronelike chairs, four fireplaces between closed doors heading deeper into the structure, and vaulted support beams with unlit braziers hanging lamplike from ropes that swayed in the sudden draft from the now-open door.

“Now why is the wood in here intact?” Dracosnack asked.

“I don't trust it,” Fluffbear said. “Especially those ropes. They should have rotted away by now.”

“I can barely see,” Apollyon said, holding his fiery sword aloft.

That helped a bit, but the young man was clearly having problems, so Threadbare headed over to the nearest fireplace. “You've got the right idea. We just need a bigger fire. Firestarter.”

The spark flickered from his paw and landed on the pile of logs...

...and Threadbare was surprised, as words rose up in front of him.

Firestarter failed!

You need a higher skill to ignite ???