Play@YSDC

Clive takes another stone as well as the tongs, handing off the last stone to whoever wants to carry it. "It's still hot in here," he says. "I'd hate to think about what it would be like if the fire were still lit."

Cross quickly. Mike says
I will lead the way

Clive follows Mike down the tunnel.

The tunnel opens out into a narrow ledge that wraps around the walls. This place makes no sense. It's like something from a story book. Something glows lightly in the hole beneath them, casting enough light to put their faces in silhouette but leaving everything more than six feet away cast into darkness. The walls themselves are carved with words but it's impossible to read them when pressed up so close to them.

"I guess we have to go around that ledge," says Clive. "They went to all the trouble to build this place, you'd think they'd have put a rail in." He shrugs. "Well, we'll just have to be careful not to fall, right?"

Clive gulps when he looks down the hole. "We need a rope," he says. "Something we can tie to all of us in a line, so that anyone who slips and falls can be pulled back up. I guess we could tie belts together or something if we can't find a rope."

There's no rope on this side but there are more hot ovens on the other side of the corridor so perhaps there might be something worthwhile on that side.

"It looks a little hairy. Or should that be airy? There's no point in us all risking it. One should go, see if there's anything useful on the other side." Jack says simply.

"Maybe we'd better check the other side of the corridor first," says Clyde. "There are more ovens that way, and we have two stones left. There could be a rope behind one of them."

"Lead on, Master of the Stones." says Jack to Clive, smiling.

Clive strides down the corridor towards the ovens, the tongs gripped in his hand and one of the remaining stones gripped in the tongs.

There are three hot ovens to the right, two to the left. Was that how many there were before? It seems so very hard to be sure. There seems to be a diary burning in one of the ovens. Clive is pretty sure it wasn't there before.

"That one!" shouts Clive, already running for the oven with the burning diary. He extends the tongs with one of the stones into the flames and onto the burning book to cool it off before it is further damaged.

The fire is extinguished immediately, the coals go dark, and it's easy enough to pull out the diary with the tongs. The front of it is badly charred, as are the edges, but the book falls open to two relatively pristine pages that have been written in a very precise and feminine hand that seems oddly familiar to those who have been in the orphanage long (Idea roll, please).

Clive tries to recall whose handwriting this is as he reads the diary. It seems familiar.

OOC,I succeeded with a 51 (Idea 55). I rolled on Dark and Moody, as Invisible Castle is down and dice are not enabled for this game. If the link does not bring it up, you can click on Dice Log at the bottom of the page.

Good catch Clive. let me see.
Mike says as he leans from the back

The diary is clearly written by one of the matrons though their handwriting is all so similar its impossible to tell which one. A quick perusal reveals the diary contains logistical details, ordinary day-by-days, with a tally in the corner that slowly ticks down. Interspersed between the other pages is a vague story told through little hand drawn pictures of a rat, an owl, a dog, and a little boy who looks rather like Perry. Later there's a picture of a tunnel with Perry walking along it alone. Finally there is a fairy arrives with wings like Tinkerbell from the illustrated version of Peter Pan. It seems to catalogue their adventures together.

"One of the matrons wrote this," says Clive. "But how could she have known what would happen to us? Or did she make it happen by writing it? Jack is Tinkerbell? I'd have rather thought he'd be Peter Pan. I wonder which one I am? Prolly the owl, because it flies. I wonder what the book says will happen next? Let's look ahead!"

OOC,Is the stone I used still intact, or did it dissolve too?