Emerald starts when the gaurd yells at her (and the rest of the party). Wait, what do I have to be nervous about? They didn't catch me doing anything... "Oh, I'm sorry, Guard. It's just that I saw these amazing flowers here, and I simply had to check them out." She flashed a smile. "I'm a botanist, you see. My friends and I weren't trying to cause trouble, honest." She glances past the guard to a clump of ordinary-looking grass. "Say...is that a clump of Graveroot I spy there? How fascinating!"
Silver thought to himself that perhaps it would react to something organic. He looked around, and noticed the mushrooms. Hmmm... perhaps if he placed one of those onto a blob? He relayed this thought to Arc. "Hey, maybe one of those mushrooms over there would do something."
The guard looks at Emerald with a curious glare and (Willpower) stammered. "Botanist, wait wh- what?" Looking down, he raised a hoof to see what she was talking about, apparently completely unexpectant of her response.
Doing her level best to maintain her charade, Emerald excitedly flutters closer to the gate. "Why, that is Graveroot! Guard, do you know what you very nearly stumbled upon? Graveroot, or Gravi Radix, is extremely rare as it only grows in a few places in the world. You see how it looks like ordinary grass? That's it defense mechanism! You see, Graveroot has extremely deep roots, to absorb the nutrients of the interred deceased. It won't grow on a regular corpse, oh no, you need just the right mixture of grave dirt, temperature, and decomposing bodies. Can you see now why it only grows in a few places in the world? I wouldn't try pulling it out, though. I've only studied a few samples in my life, but let me tell you, you do not want to try pulling it out. Do you want to know why?" She edged even closer to the gate and began speaking in a conspiratorial tone. "It screams." "It's true. I didn't believe it myself when I first heard about it either, but...well, let's just say I've been on the recieving end, if you know what I mean. Gosh, my ears are ringing just thinking about it." She then chuckled. "It's not because the plants have vocal chords or are haunted or anything spooky like that. You see, the roots are covered in these chitonous scales. Kinda like a dragon. When you try to move the plant by pulling on it, the roots scrape together to make this terrible screeching noise." "I could give you a demonstration, if you'd like..."
Zephyr smiled as Emerald kept the guard preoccupied with what he felt what useless knowledge. Now it was time to act. Zephyr step out of his hiding place and slithered up behind the distracted sentry. He decides to dig around inside his belongings, hopefully snatching up something valuable and definitely some bits. The thief secretly hoped there was some sort of baked snack inside his pouch.
Spoiler: Zephyr Picks a Pocket Roll Result:98+45+5=148 (Geez... talk about critical during a time of tension.) Zephyr finds the guard's "travel pastry" along with 12 bits that he swipes while the guard keeps craning his neck and watching the other guard at the gate with Emerald. The guard (Willpower) is still muddled by what's coming out of Emerald's mouth. As she asks him the last question, he shakes his head quickly. "Oh, no-no. Perfectly alright. You just..." He steps back from the entrance a little more and looks down at the grass. "Uhh... sorry. Anyway, you should be on your way. This area is off limits right now." He nods firmly and retakes a proper posture. "Orders and all."
"Oh, of course," Emerald coos. "I completely understand." She then pouts slightly. "I would really like to explore the various fauna in this cemetary sometime, but orders are orders, I suppose. Oh well..." She kicks a nearby pebble as she turns to leave.
The guard (Willpower) nods. "Yes. It shouldn't be more than a day or two. They turned up security a lot yesterday, and nobody's sure why." He admits; "All I know, is that nobody... and I mean nobody except us as guards... is allowed in this graveyard."
"Hmmm...I wonder how they react to magic." Without waiting for an response from Arc, he pulled out his book and sent an icebolt spell hurtling at the unsuspecting blob.
GROUP 3- Masquerade smiled. ''Depends if the food is good, and if the room is clean. How much do you want for us to stay... let's say, two or three days?''
The mare at the front desk continued to stare at the mask, and made no attempt to hide it. "For ya, I have a room with two beds available on the second floor for 15 bits a night. Breakfast in the morning is 3 bits per, and lunch or dinner is 4 bits per pony. So if you stayed two nights and had dinner here tonight and through tomorrow, you'd be at 60 bits. Another night would make it 82."
Zephyr holds the pastry above his head in victory. He goes to sneak off into the shadows once more, but decides to leave a noticeable pile of crumbs at the scene. The perfect crime. It's so perfect in fact that if he were to get caught and thrown into jail they'd have to throw him into it again as he gets out. The blue Pegasus dives back into the safety of the darkness and crams the pastry into his mouth. Maybe that might trigger something, if not, then he'd have to try a similar gambit once more.
Masquerade turned at LoveStar. ''What d'you think about those prices? I used to find places who asked 5 bids a night. We can sure afford this, but should we negociate the price?''
"Gah!" Arc darts back at the spell hits the blob. He snaps at Shield for his sudden ice spell: "So, we're just going to play a little game of 'Stick stuff in the Blob' now? It doesn't do anything interesting, Boy-Scout and it's not coming for us! Leave the damn thing alone! We need to check the rest of this place."
"But it's entirely undiscovered! This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!" he pouted. "I just have to experiment!!"
Ahem... GROUP TWO!!! The ice bolt hits the blob for a moment, and for a few seconds it stops completely. Then, without warning, it begins to boil quicker. The bubbles that come to the surface pop and spew out a rank odorous gas. As the first one begins to do this, the others begin to boil quicker and pop out this nasty gas. A gas which starts to make both ponies feel woozy, (-1WP this round,) and easily light headed. They can also hear something down in the cavern moving, something that sounds like jolts of energy.
Silver looked around with alarm. "What in Equestria?!" he shouted. He stumbled towards the exit of the cave, but tripped over his own hooves as he backpedaled and flew head over hooves backwards. As he did so, all he could think was: I was right! They are magic-sensitive! I wonder what exactly is going on right now... Even as he tumbled, he was forming theories on how these curious things may have worked. At least, until he smacked into the opposite wall.
Throw, who had taken it upon himself to remain silent through the whole ordeal, as he had no idea how this stuff worked, jumped back in alarm as the blobs began expanding and releasing some sort of toxin into the air. He quickly felt the effects of the gas on his body as he became lightheaded. "What the hay did you do to it!?" He shouted in alarm. He perked his ears up and turned around. "Bigger problems!" He exclaimed. "Something's headed our way! Brace yourselves, it must have been strong enough to bipass Silver's shields!"
Silver got himself up off the floor. "We've gotta get out--wait, what? Something's outside the cave, too?!"
