Play@YSDC

Duc's Palace Grounds, Hedge Maze - Vyones, Auvergne, France
4:00 PM - Monday, April 20, 1517

Gui led the way, trying to head directly for the center of the maze, but the twists and turns weren't taking him where he wanted to go, and before long he and Jean Luc were hopelessly lost.

You may both roll Idea.

Gui could hear voices talking about a statue. It must be a waypoint, something to distract the unwitting as the struggled to find their way through the maze. He laughed and looked around, stepping off in the opposite direction to the way they had come… or was it? He looked around - he had allowed himself to become distracted and wasn’t sure from which direction he had approached! Cursing under his breath, he looked around once again, trying to determine which way to go…

65% - 1d100

”This is intolerable,” grumbled Gui. He looked around carefully then beckoned Jean Luc closer.

”Monsieur, we can wander around here aimlessly while the Chevalier amuses himself with the young ladies or we can take a shortcut!” he said quietly. ”If you can lift me up, I might be able to see over these accursed hedges and find us a way through.”

"But of course," said Jean Luc, giving Gui a boost so that he could see over the hedges, which were ten feet high. From here he had a decent view of the layout of the maze and could find his way to either the center or the exit, as he wished.

By the way, you can't hear what's going on in the other thread. You're not even supposed to be reading it.

Oops, sorry! It wasn’t intentional. I get notifications for all the updates across TMoN and I’d read it before I realised it wasn’t the thread I’m in. I looked to see if I could switch the notifications off but still get them

From his lofty vantage point, Gui studied the layout and quickly worked out the way to the centre. He climbed down again, straightened his doublet and said to Jean Luc, ”Follow me!”

Gui and Jean Luc made their way to the center of the maze, though it took them longer than Gui had thought to actually get there, due to the fact that they had wandered so far off course. But get there they eventually did. At the maze's heart stood a marble statue on a plinth in the middle of a fountain. The statue was of a tall masked figure in flowing robes.

Gui looked around for any sign that the others had got there first. He had so wanted to show up the cul de cheval in front of the ladies, to expose him for the preening cock that he was. He looked to the floor near the statue - were those ladies’ footprints in the dust?! Merde!

His mood soured, he scowled at the statue. What was so special about that, anyway?! Hardly the most attractive welcome after you’d slogged your way through a damned maze!

The statue was no doubt very valuable, being made of fine marble, but it was also much too big and heavy to steal.

"I've never seen anything like it before," said Jean Luc, examining the statue. "Of course, sculpture is not my medium."

Gui looked at the statue with a more critical eye, walking around it to see if there was an inscription on the base. ”Seems a bit of a strange one,” he said to Jean Luc. ”From my experience, most of these rich folk just want statues of women with their loloches on display!”

There was no sign of any inscription. Maybe there was one underneath the base, but the statue was much too heavy to lift.

"Yes, very odd," agreed Jean Luc, examining it. "The style is unfamiliar to me. It isn't Roman, nor is it from ancient Gaul."

Gui shrugged. ”What a waste of time!” he declared. ”Why go to all this expense for a nondescript statue? Come along, let’s see if we can find our way out of here!”

Everyone is moving to the thread linked below:

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