the house of manouk | test drive meme

[groundrules]

Hello, hello! Our latest event — doubling as a test drive meme and stretching until 12 August — is a one-off incursion in an uncharted time pocket dimension — the House of Manouk.

Anyone can hit up the test drive meme, but you will need an invite from an existing player to apply on 5 August. Have fun!

THE HOUSE OF MANOUK

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THE TERRACE

Old or new, you wake up on a white-stone terrace dominated by a twisting hedge maze that houses great columns, tattered statues, ponds, rivers, gazebos and pergolas — and high looming walls of thickly bound ivy, bloomed roses or thorny vines. Walking the Terrace somehow always brings you deeper into the maze, while a flushed, sunless sky stares down, unblinking.

You experience no thirst, hunger or language barriers here. Old translation & communication pendants can nevertheless be found scattered across the Terrace and Grounds.

New arrivals encounter the sorceress Karsa, who explains you were likely summoned by one of the undead lords who seeks control of Akhuras — and reached, along with the party she leads, a pocket dimension outside of time. Karsa’s associate, the Merchant, instructed to exit the time dimension by finding Ellethian waypoints — typically stone tokens engraved with the carvings of an eye with a sun for a pupil. Karsa may activate them for you to leave this place.

Your mission is to search the House and find the waypoints of Ellethia or of the rival Dawn’s Reach Trade Company without attracting the ire of the local exiled overlord(s).

■ Some of the statues you discover on the Terrace seem crudely carved, gaining the features of your loved ones, the longer you stare at them. Some seek to throttle. Escape them by having someone else stare at them, becoming their new target, or by leading them in a crowd of other statues.

■ Beware getting pricked by thorns: covetous vines can quickly ensnare and pull you into the maze’s green walls, or bind your hand to that of your companion.

■ The maze’s weather often mimics your mood: nice and balmy for contentment, cold for fear, torrential rain for sadness and a heatwave to answer anger. Smile.

■ Every now and then, you hear screams from other parts of the maze. Run, and you might find pairs of steel manacles or rusted chain on bloodied grounds, from where fresh rose bushes quickly rise up. Investigate.

■ Go deeper in the maze, and you find a heap of small stone tablets. Most list names, ages, occupations and include loving remarks, such as the finest husband or she smiled ever bright. Alarmingly, when your companion’s back is turned, you find tablets engraved with your handwriting, saying, don’t turn your back to them, blood reeks strong on them and that’s not their name. There are no waypoint tokens here.

■ Spend enough time in the maze, and you discover an old, red-eyed, white-haired and hunchbacked man with two chainless shackles on his wrists. He ignores you, muttering to himself about how the House must keep moving, moving. The House doesn’t like you. The House is awake. The House should sleep. The old man hits or trips you with his cane, or you might wake to find him hovering very closely over you. Engage him.

■ Now and then, he seems suddenly alert, if not outright fearful, shrieking that he comes and rushing to tinker with pulleys and stone mechanisms hidden within the maze vine walls. The maze’s architecture abruptly changes, with the ground quaking, walls shifting, while old plants wilt and fresh ones rise up within heartbeats. As the House changes, you might spot a long, spiralling staircase at short distance. Go down into…

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THE GROUNDS

The ground level of the House is splintered in dozens of decaying rooms, many locked. There are no windows here, dust thick in every corner, while faint scratches and canine footprints mar the floors — the marks of dozens of great skeletal hounds that haunt the corridors.

The dogs lead, chase or drag you towards a shuttered hall room, where a middle-aged, red-eyed and white-haired man furiously searches through haphazard mounds of tousled tomes. He too wears shackles. His manner is perfunctorily polite, as he calls back his dogs.

”…not from around here, are you? Must have broken time. Hooligan. Well, you’ve travelled centuries to be disappointed. There are no mysteries here, no epiphanies. All the great wells of myth and magic? Some other pigs have drunk them dry. Blame your luck, for bringing you to the shambling hut of — …the fine House of Manouk. Taravast’s greatest necromancer, til his mind turned to slaughter.

I was his disciple. Lisanther. Must’ve come from high on, did you? These cursed shackles… he senses everyone in his House through them. If he feels us on his scent, he works his little screws and wheels and moves the House stairs. Impressed? Don’t be. He’s a wreck, who feasts on time echoes of the anguished. That’s him. Paints a picture, doesn’t he? Stay out of his sights, or you’ll wear his chains soon too. Same as me, same as the dog he keeps in the dungeons. Dragged back every time he wanders.

If you want to make yourself useful, help me. I traded fairly with a caravan of the Dawn’s Reach Trade Company. They say they left behind scrolls in these grounds, with the words to free me. They overcharge, but they don’t lie. Help me find them. Break my chains, and I’ll break us out. I can. I swear it. ”

Deeper into the claustrophobic Grounds, you find specters of men and women, chained just like Lisanther — their skin translucent, their gazes lethargic. They feel neither dead nor alive to the magically sensitive. They are either very present in the moment or barely recall their whereabouts. If asked about tokens, they say the Dawn’s Reach Trade Company left scrolls in the Grounds main quarters:

▶ Bathing quarters

At times pristine and delightful, at others blood-marked and torn. The waters abruptly run very hot, cold or silty. The spectre of a wo/man might appear in the tub, staring unblinkingly or murmuring that people do all sorts of wickedness in this bathroom: they have even witnessed stabbings, treasures being hidden beneath tile boards, and even a birthing!

▶ Kitchens

Sprawling and soot-laden, bursting with supplies of stale wheat, eccentric cakes, exotic fruit and spice jars, these kitchens were built for long service. A heavy cauldron bubbles and boils a green broth in a cold fireplace, where ash and stone drown wood. A circle of spectres troubleshoots how to improve the meal — just as the kitchens’ doors slam shut, and they cordially invite you to do the legwork for their recipe. They instruct you to chop, clean and prepare the most unusual ingredients: hair of a dog, salt, moulded thyme, arsenic, one of your finest love stories… they’ll tire of their creation and release you within the hour. Don’t dine, dash.

▶ Sleeping chambers

There’s rest for the wicked in these deserted sleeping quarters, which boast exceptionally well-stuffed cushions and pillows, blankets and ‘reading materials’ — torn pages from books of history and magic. Some speak of the desperate attempts of the rulers of Taravast to flee death. Others talk of using spells, the elements and even mass sacrifice to achieve immortality. Enjoy your rest, only perturbed by occasional distant screams —

…or perhaps by a large, feral white bear that bursts in to briefly chase you, before disappearing. Veteran travellers may recognise him as the creature of Anurr.

Some of the chain-breaking scrolls of the Dawn’s Reach Trade Company can be found in each of the main rooms, along with some of the Company’s talismans, marked as waypoints, which should be brought to Karsa. See what your character finds.

Finish up here, or meander down a final stairwell to —

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THE DUNGEONS

Cold, deteriorating, crumbling — difficult to say if this is a tightly bound knot of underground tunnels, or a torturous weave of lost dungeons. Parts of the floor crumble to reveal abyssal depths below — or suddenly appear beneath your feet, to help your progress. Emptied, creaking bookcases abound. Here and there, you see your reflection in shattered wall-length mirrors, moving differently than you, or just slightly older or younger than you are.

■ Revived skeletons patrol the corridors, scantily armed with base blades, stones and torches. They largely ignore you, only blocking your path if you near a magically-locked stone door in the back of the Dungeons, from where you hear… human pleas.

■ Door engravings instruct to speak out the three truths of each day. Nearby, you find a mound of crumbled stone tablets, along with three golden ones raised on pedestals that read:

▶ with morning, my body is a weapon, sun-seeking, righteousness-bound

▶ by midday, my flesh has bent and battered, a shield of justice for young life to come

▶ come evening, I am blood and bone, a humble house to hope eternal

■ Tip bookcases into the narrow corridors to prevent the skeletal guards from reaching you, as you search diligently through the stone debris beneath the golden pedestals. You might even find Ellethian waypoint tokens: palm-wide, marked with a sun pupil. Take them to Karsa immediately… or open the now unlocked dungeon door as a man calls out.

■ Enter, and you discover an dimly lit dungeon alcove, with animate skeletal heads hanging on each wall. They cackle, Mind your step. Heed them and look for holes in the floor tiles — needle-thin spikes emerge from there periodically.

■ Go deeper, and you discover a large bare stone room, scantly livened by torches bearing green fire. A small hole — barely enough to fit a grown man standing and lying down — has been dug into one of the walls and secured. This inhumane prison’s bars crackle and sizzle with magical electricity. A skeletal hound waits by, with a set of keys fastened to its collar.

■ A white-haired, red-eyed twenty-something young man sprawls haphazardly in the prison: battered, swathed in rags, shackled and wild. He holds out his blood-tipped hand between the bars, but fails to lure the dog close — and calls out to you, instead:

”You must be mad to come to me. The old man sent you? Finally? Good. How wonderful. I’ll spit on you, and I’ll spit on his grave. He left me here to die. And now he’s remembered me? What does he want? …no. It doesn’t matter. Rip the keys off that mutt and get me out of here. ”

You can engage or release him, if you coax the key from the recalcitrant dog. Or leave him be and see Karsa with your waypoint token.

Image source.

NOTES:

■ There are multiple waypoint tokens to leave the time dimension: the Dawn’s Reach Trade Company talismans, hidden in the Ground rooms, and the Ellethian tokens, found in the dungeons. Bring whichever one you discover to Karsa.

■ You can optionally solve the mystery of Lisanther, the prisoner, Manouk and the spectres.

■ The House’s layout changes periodically, but characters can find the stairs to travel across the three levels every few hours.

■ Mention in your top level if you play an old timer or a test driving tourist. TDMers can make both logs and network prompts here!

■ QUESTIONS & NPC INBOX!

Comments

licyn mansbane | original character | old timer

[bravelyrunsaway]

like the wolf
cw: he can be nude in one of the below scenarios

He trots, odd figure he makes as an overly large wolf with a bundle tied across his back, and a sword sheathed and carried in his mouth, but he doesn't like the look of this new place, a place out of time. Magic continues to do no services in his estimate, first the relentless shifting of time and dead in the place they'd left, Yuncai or whatever it'd been called, to this. He's reminded of the disturbing time on the island that was no island at all, on the back of a whale, only if this all begins to sink, there's no ships to carry them to safety.

Everywhere he trots, a chill follows, even as the vines snake out from the foliage covered walls of the maze he's in. Scent alone brings him across another living soul, where he pauses depending on their circumstances.

a. if vines have captured you, he pauses. The outline of the wolf loses clarity, and soon following the blink that it takes to resolve if one's eyes have started to blur a man holding an unsheathed sword and its sheath, with a bundle tied tightly across his chest and resting across his back, moves with no semblance of modesty to attack the vines with precise, methodical distaste. At least things begin heating up. Or flashing between heat and cold. Vines, at least, fall apart when struck with tempered steel.

b. dodging the old, red-eyed, white-haired and hunchbacked man who is toddling after him attempting to sweep the wolf's legs out from under him with the cane he's carrying. Ill equipped for speech in his current form, Licyn instead leads a marry dancing leaping game of dodge, ultimately darting around behind you. Take care of talking to the old man, will you?

( ooc note: with the second option, I'll start us a thread in the NPC section for any conversation had, and roll the answers into my tags in our thread if you wish! )

down, friends

He's back to being dressed after descending the stairs, now carrying his pack and sword more traditionally, and with increasing irritation as he faces down the skeletal hounds.

"What storm-struck nonsense is this?"

He never encountered the hellhounds of Alem, having been too wise to descend to those depths of Hell, but this display is... unpleasant. Licyn grimaces, using his sheathed blade to nudge back one of the skeleton hounds pressing into his immediate personal space. With a spectral whine, the hound mouths his sheath instead, attempting to tug him down the hall.

"I'll note I don't find this comforting, Old Bones. Leave off," he says, baring his teeth as he does, almost growling, "And lead the way like a good dog."

The skeletal hounds hunch their shoulder-blades, giving no regard for any companion of his beyond an initial glance and then subtly sidestepping closer, to see if they might take hold of a sleeve that doesn't belong to the overly-magical werewolf confusing their senses.

wildcard!

( ooc note: hit me up with anything from the tdm prompt! Licyn can be found in human and wolf form, as you like. )

like the wolf - a)!

[nachocheese]

Nacho grits his teeth, trying and failing to yank at the vines that holding him with increasing desperation. Beads of sweat, form by exertion, pool on his shaved forehead and roll down the sides of his temples. His heart starts to pound in terror at the sight of what looks like a huge fucking wolf approaching him. The struggling, which had slowed from exhaustion, picks up the pace furiously until...

The outline of the wolf melts away into a man. Nacho's brows twitch in confusion, and his eyes widen when he sees the sword. Before he can protest, though, he sees the silvery flash of a metal weapon and he feels the vines loosening as he collapses to his knees.

He rubs the red marks where the vines had grabbed him, panting, taking a minute or two to collect himself. There are faint indents on his wrists from where the vines had grabbed him, a little circular depression working its way around his wrists. He looks up at this rescuer.

"Thanks, man," he says, breathing a little easier. Then, a double take. "...uh. You don't have any clothes. You, uh, want my jacket or something?" A buried part of him is darkly amused by the fact that that is more of a concern than the fact that this guy just changed from a goddamn wolf. But here, the idea of somebody turning from a person to a wolf and back to a person seems completely normal. How long has he been here to accept that kind of logic?

[bravelyrunsaway]

Licyn pushes his hair back off his face, rolling his shoulders to loosen them further, sword still in hand. A cursory glance toward Nacho is checking no more vines are slipping closer, and that the man's not inconveniently bleeding out, which his nose confirms isn't happening. He darts forward to cut through another vine before he turns around, no sense of body shame visible, and moves back toward Nacho.

"Not a cold day, love, I'll be fine if you're not close to fainting at the sight." He smiles, quick and amused, moving toward the dropped bundle on the ground.

"No chance you have a handkerchief or anything of the kind available?"

[nachocheese]

Nacho flinches when he cuts the other vine, just out of habit. The swift motion takes him slightly off-guard. A little dizzily, he pushes himself upward, muscular arms stretching towards the ground to hoist his body into a sitting position.

He's a little surprised by Licyn's lack of shame, but willing to follow the other man's lead. His eyes, though, stay pointedly on the other man's face.

"A handkerchief? I, uh. No. Here. Maybe this'll work." He reaches out to tear a strip of fabric from his shirt with a schriikcct! noise, and hands it out to Licyn.

[bravelyrunsaway]

His eyebrows quirk up at the tearing of the shirt, but he doesn't object, instead flashing a smile and a wink at Nacho when he accepts the strip of fabric.

"Thanks, love, kind of you to sacrifice your tunic for the cause."

What cause? He immediately uses the strip of fabric to wipe his blade clean, in case the juices from the vines have some quality that might degrade the state of his steel. Once done, he treks over to the pack left in the dirt, tucking it into the front portion. Nothing's started being devoured, so he figures for the moment, it's safe enough. He can always burn all the fabric later if it's contaminated.

"There's a staircase if you get far enough, past the muttering, cane-wielding old man lurking in the heart of this nonsense."

[nachocheese]

Despite himself, Nacho looks a tad...bamboozled?...at the wink, like it's a little bit of a bridge too far. He flinches, shakes his head, and briefly holds up a hand as if to say, No thanks. without actually speaking.

But he's at least polite yeah enough to say, "Yeah, uh, no problem."

He does look impressed at the sword-wiping, though. Nacho maybe even seems a little bit in awe. Nobody has weapons like that where he's from, and if he's honest with himself - Nacho doesn't even really like the feeling of holding a gun. Doesn't mean he won't do it if he has to. But this man makes it look easy.

If he had wolf ears, Nacho's mine perk up at what the man says next. Alas, he does not. "I haven't seen any old man yet. Which way's the staircase?"

[bravelyrunsaway]

Licyn doesn't care about most the unspoken language, but that's as much part of his nature as the rest. He's an easy flirt, and easier lay, but the latter is only relevant to those interested. He himself has never bothered chasing after anyone, and won't be starting now, lucky for Nacho.

"The maze shifted, so I don't know. You have to find him first, it shows up nearby. He's guarding his house. His underground house. The old man dens as badly as any badger."

Sword clean, he resheathes it, sliding it across the tied sections of the bundle. He stands up to roll his shoulders and briefly stretch his neck, before the whole of him seems to go blurry at the outlines, out of focus. Almost silver, and then he's not standing as a man, but the silver is falling, resolving as a wolf, and congratulations, now you have a wolf as large as a great dane, even bigger, standing right there with you, Nacho.

down, friends

[somebadnews]

This prison they built sure seems more like a game than anything. First the maze, and now a scavenger hunt. Five could gripe about time-offenses and how the Merchant conveniently predicted this exact scenario, but he'd rather put his energy into getting out and back to their timeline. His abilities give him an unfair advantage when it came to navigating the maze, but the unbearable heat hasn't improved his mood. The dust in the air has already started to cling to the sweat on his skin when he descends the stairs and explores the house. Uncomfortable, but thankfully cooler.

Licyn getting ahead of him is unexpected, but not as much as catching him subdue a skeletal beast without lifting a finger. All this time, he hasn't seen him use any powers, beyond the odd comment about smelling something. That doesn't mean he hasn't been suspicious.

"You got here quick," he remarks while keeping an eye on the hounds that hover nearby. Five would like to ask what he just did to them, but instead he gives it a beat or two of silence before he moves closer. "Find anything interesting?"

[bravelyrunsaway]

"Followed the scent of things." He says dryly, turning his head away from the skeletal hounds to fix an eye on Five. He'd heard him coming, but it's as much a matter of when the human decides to speak as when not, and Five has a tendency to simply vacate a premises when he so wishes.

Right now appears to be a moment for consideration. Five's, and Licyn's.

"Escort hounds. Leading that way. Something of metal, and bodies, likely to be living. No hint of decay yet."

[somebadnews]

There he goes about scents again. Five looks between him and the hounds and that truly insane conclusion Licyn just made. They're here to lead the way, and the logical choice is to follow them. If Five weren’t capable of blinking out what we they walk into he might use more caution, but curiosity over where the hounds want to take them does keep him from jumping ahead.

“No rotting corpses, great.” That doesn’t count out skeletons, but Licyn seems weirdly certain about something being alive. Then again, he wasn’t the first getting here. “One of ours?”

[bravelyrunsaway]

He shakes his head, very certain of that point.

"Tied to this place, by my guess. Care to see?"

The bone hounds whine again, one offering the wave of a bone-whip tail. Licyn ignores it, and the rest, beyond holding his ground as he had, shoulders back, teeth still too visible for the hounds — less so for humans. A number of cultures show their teeth quite often, don't they?

[somebadnews]

It’s hard to miss a skeleton wagging its tail.

Five nods, though not without a frown at the odd way Licyn and the hounds seem to be communicating. He’s distracted enough by it that after stepping forward, he decides to ask.

“Are you controlling them?”

[bravelyrunsaway]

"Not at all," Licyn says, smiling a bit too broadly still. "Dogs have always had a way around me."

A way of wanting to appeal to him or challenge him directly, but he suspects whatever Wrath sensed in his magical nature is more imposing than the dog's dead sense of what he is.

They do get an escort of dogs, however, feet clacking on the ground as they walk, a few whining and looking toward another avenue, toward the man Licyn hasn't bothered himself to speak to so far.

"What they really want to do is drag us down that way. I don't feel the need to go quite yet, and so, here they remain, trying to convince us."

[somebadnews]

That answer is deeply unsatisfying. Five can tell he's hiding something, and not very well, he just can't decide exactly what it is. He scowls as he follows at Licyn's side, still eyeing him more than the dogs until the whine grabs his attention.

"You don't feel the need? You're trying to alpha-male the skeletons?" His rubs a hand through his hair and draws back in disgust at the dust that seems to be clinging to every inch of him. This entire situation is so removed from reality that he can only be annoyed. Do teenage bodies sweat more than a grown man? He really needs to see if this house has running water once he's done satisfying his morbid curiosity.

"It'd have to be whoever owns them. Maybe they're trained to fetch whoever comes to see him. Her. Whatever." The odds of them being useful are slim, but it might give them a bigger picture of what got them imprisoned in the first place. "Probably someone who would do anything to get out of here."

[bravelyrunsaway]

He leads around the edges of the halls and rooms the hounds want them heading toward, leading them instead to... a collection of... huh. His metaphorical hackles rise, and Licyn pauses at the threshold, observing the semi-transparent peoples who wandering inside the room itself.

They all bear chains, not chained to one point, but dangling from wrists. Most of them wander without purpose, eyes unfocussed, no words spoken, but a few are aware, turning and staring at the two of them and the bone hounds, expressions turning shades of hopeful to grim.

"Whoever owns them, it's not this lot, love." Where the conversant dead begin to approach, to the clangs and clatters of their bindings.

[somebadnews]

Why he’s following Licyn is anyone’s guess, but Five’s patience lasts long enough to take him to a room full of ghosts. He frowns as he watches them listlessly mill about. After living in a lighthouse full of them, he’s over the fascination. He’s had enough karma for all the grief they gave Klaus as a kid.

“Probably not.” So why are they here? “Explains the pile of epitaphs in the maze, but it doesn’t help us unless you’re that interested in how they died.”

Five isn’t, so he does the sensible thing and starts poking around the walls for something to use as a weapon when they run into whoever the hounds are trying to point them at.

The spirits seem intent on getting in his way until he has to address one.

“No. We’re not here for you.” He attempts to move around the bodies. Let the necromancers deal with them. “If you want advice, I’d suggest heading into the light.”

[bravelyrunsaway]

The spirits shudder, weighed down despite their semi-unsubstantial existences. Why, they ask, and what, they ask, and who, before some fall silent. Another murmurs, the scrolls? The scrolls. You must be here for the scrolls.

Licyn tries ignoring them, but the repetition eventually gets him to turn his head. "What scrolls?" He considers his own question, then: "From the Dawn's Reach Trading Company? The one for breaking chains?"

Not, he thinks, the ones for heading home. Or are they? He glances toward Five. "The man you haven't met was asking others for scrolls. They're old, that company. Not anything new, if these people know about them. Or so I'd guess."

like the wolf - b

[reparo]

She turns a corner, putting the odd statues behind her rather stubbornly (let us not linger on who they looked like, she hasn't seen Harry or Ron in such a long time that it had been tempting to stay and look, longer), trying to make her way through the gardens to somewhere more useful.

Out is the general desire, but it's hard to guess which way that is. She cannot Apparate now, which is frustrating. She can only walk. Turning the corner, she comes upon an old, hunched back man harassing a wolf. A big wolf, but a familiar one - the type that likes to follow her to bed and occupy most of it when possible - so the bullying will not stand.

"Now you hold on there a minute," she says, to the hunchback, her hand held out in warning. Her wand is out, but held in her right hand, which rests against her side under the cloak she wears, hidden until she needs it.

"You leave my friend alone, sir."

[bravelyrunsaway]

Licyn ducks around behind Hermione with zero hesitation, neither for the fact she's a smaller person than he is in a more general sense, or because he, who certainly could try handling the old man waving around his cane, simply doesn't want to. What's the advantage? What if harming him causes some sort of imprisoning? No thank you, he's too smart for that!

Meaning he's peering around from behind Hermione as the old man frowns distractedly at her, muttering about the House, the House... and then goes still.

The stillness explodes into action, as if the old man has no need for his odd chase by cane anymore in the face of, he cries out, he comes, darting off too fast for a man his apparent age to fuss with something buried behind the vines on the furthest wall. At the same time, the ground beneath them shudders, vines themselves start dying, and Licyn shoves his head full into Hermione's robe so he doesn't have to see any of it. No thanks! No magic witnessing for this wolf!

poor little woof woof

[reparo]

Two things happen all at once. First, Licyn - wolf form crouched in fear (she assumes) behind her - shoves his head against her back. If the sudden movement is a surprise and causes her to let out a squeak, given the precarious location of his nose vis-a-vis her actual ass, it all gets bottled up because -

Second, the old man moves in a burst of agility and darts right at her and this is it, a fight, it's a fight, the ground shakes and the vines wither and she has a big wolf cowering behind her at this and -

"Step back," she warns the old man, her wand out now and aimed at him, the tip of it aglow with a spell. "Or I will be forced to make you, sir."

he's just a lil' guy

[bravelyrunsaway]

The old man ignores her, or at least her words: he continues his rush forward, changing direction at the last moment and lurching past her, heading for the vine covered wall.

"He's coming!"

The old man doesn't so much shout as exclaim with grim determination, not even trying to strike out with his cane when he passes. Open to any magic that Hermione might cast, while Licyn, trying in no way to be helpful, grumbles as he continues burying his head in her robes. (Or her arse. It is not, at least, intentional, right now.)

Left unimpeded, or at least not significantly injured or delayed, he hits the wall with a bang of his cane, shoving vines out of his way while hunting for something. Licyn, not able to see and not inclined to look, offers no guesses.

[reparo]

She tenses up, the stupefy half out of her mouth, and then - the old man shifts direction and heads straight for a vine-covered wall. So Hermione does not attack, because she does not feel attacked - but she does feel cautious.

Is this fear? Is the old man afraid of whoever said he is? Is -

"Licyn, for heaven's sake," she snaps, swatting blindly behind her to at the very least move his wolf head away from where it's currently trying to burrow.

Speaking of burrowing, the old man's trying to find something and, her protector of werewolves duties aside, Hermione wants to find out what that is. "You can stay there, but I want to see what your friend is up to," she whispers behind her to Licyn, and walks off in said direction. If he wants to continue hiding, he can do so, but he'll have to walk with her.

"Hello," she tries again, to the old man, not as aggressively anymore. "What are you looking for, sir?"

[bravelyrunsaway]

The old man ignores and continues about his business, revealing a metal mechanism partially to Hermione. Licyn, having listened to the sake of heavens, hung back when Hermione walked over, giving himself a full body shake before his heavy head shifted from side to side, ears flicking forward, then back.

He trots after her not two heartbeats later, ears pinned flat against his head. The vines are dying at an increasingly swift rate, new ones pushing up from the ground as the world around them groans, the walls from before beginning to shift around as if dancing in a slow, drunken manner.

He's right back behind Hermione all over again, though he swings sideways, now pressing his side against her backside so nothing can sneak up and bap him on the rear. The vines will try, they're grabby, he's dealt with that already, but the walls? He hadn't seen them actively shift before now.

[reparo]

On instinct more than deliberately, she reaches behind her to pet the wolf trying to use her (small) form to hide, because that's what Crookshanks would've done when he wanted to be petted.

She takes one cautious step back to get closer to Licyn, but keeps her eyes peeled out for any changes. The walls moving, and the old man making them move, for example.

"What's he doing?" she whispers, more to herself than anything. If there's a sequence to be spied over the old man's shoulders, she's going to try to spy it.

[bravelyrunsaway]

He ducks his head under her hand for a second pet, taking advantage of the affection he appreciates when he can't speak anyway. His ears both cock forward, listening to the maze and the old man's rantings, but he doesn't know, and does his best to give an odd sort of shake with head and shoulders to try and communicate that much.

No idea, but it looks like the maze is shifting on them as he does. If the only man is doing that, or if the shifting has nothing to do with it, like he'd know.

As it is, there's not much for Hermione to see, only another cog-like device. Which is soon being cut off from view, as an area of wall to their left yawns open, and a dark slip of space on the ground offers a glimpse of... stairs? He scents something on the air, swinging his head around to look.

Then he leans into her side, a controlled body-check, and huffs out a breath. Something new to our left, love, take a look. She can't hear him, but he thinks the words regardless.