Chipluck
"Truly a frightening monster!" She laughs and lowers the bow.
You demolish the wall after an hour of work making an enormous racket.
Three tiers of benches rise along the walls covered with mounds and heaps of white bones.
There are exits going to the north and south.
"It's... some kind of crypt? Or an old catacomb?" says Fadilah.
"How strange. It does explain why it was plastered over, though!"
Nura waits to hear what, if anything, Chipluck has heard.
Chipluck
"I'll trust your senses." says Orven, not really bothering to listen.
"Animals? Very odd." She glances to the north then the south. "One is as good as the other. North?"
"I suppose," says Fadilah. "Ooh. This seems dangerous! But exciting."
You open the door to the northern room and Three tiers of benches climb the walls of this short chamber, covered with thick dust. The walls,floor, and ceiling are covered with ceramic tiles that give the chamber a dark, heavy feeling. The air is stale and smells faintly of decay.
IN the center of the room is a pool lined with ceramic, heat-retaining tiles, arranged in hexagonal patterns. There is a similar pipe leading out of the pool from how you came into the location.
Orven will take a few moments to sweep a path in the dust towards both doors before following the group, being careful to only walk on the cleared area. He will then close the door behind him.
Nura enters trepidatiously, her scimitar at the ready.
"Hmm. I am not too keen on getting wet again so soon, and for all we know that is a dead-end," Nabila thinks out loud. With a shrug she turns back toward the way we came. With a grin she turns to address the others. "Perhaps I was wrong? One way is not as good as the other!"
"Tally ho then!"
Fadilah crouches slightly as she tries to be quiet, though she glances alarmingly at Chip when his stomach gurgles.
You go through the room you had just left and continue in a southerly direction and open said door.
In the center of this chamber, kneeling on a hole-ridden carpet, sits a withered old woman rocking slightly from side to side, all the while humming to herself unintelligibly. Three tiers of benches rise up around her, covered with strange objects. On the lowest bench sits a ceramic bowl. The ruby-scaled fish lies in the bowl, its mouth and gills gaping in labored breathing.
Nura starts for the fish, then thinks better of it. "Better to ask. Manners, my mother always said. Woman! We would like this fish. How much?"
"Perhaps a more diplomatic approach?" offers Orven, the scene harkening him back to the ghost stories of his youth.
The woman looks up and says, "Dnats rednu tnod em."
And after a quick second says, "Nommoc keaaps tnak?"
She first looks bemused at Chipluck not really understanding what the beggar is trying to convey, she understands the word but their pertinence seem to evade her and the she responds to Maudril, "Srovaf owt em od...."
Seeing what is going on, Orven says ".sdrawkcab gnikaeps er'uoy ,osla ;tnecca ddo yrev a evah uoy"
The old woman does not look pleased and says, "tnecca...hsirebbig si kaeps ouy lla. yppah,srovaf eerht won!"
Nabila scratches her head and frowns. "Does everyone understand her? Nonsense to me. How did she even get that fish so far from the pool? With walls blocking the way?" Feeling nervous, she keeps her grip on her shortbow and gradually walks to stand where she would have a clear line of sight in case this old woman were really some sort of threat.
"What favors?" Nura asks, clearly annoyed. "I mean... srovaf tahw?"
Fadilah shrugs helplessly. "Might as well be backward-speak for all the sense it makes to me," she says.
"That is exactly what it appears to be Fadilah."