OOC: Wow, we got some great rolls this round. Information all around! ...well, mostly.

IC: "That'd be my guess, Dogura," Horren says as he joins the samurai and Altair in the Kitchen. "Not just here, either - my little group and I spent most of the last few days scouring the entire city, and there isn't a drop of blood to be found anywhere. No signs of battle or resistance. It could have been washed away by the flooding we've seen evidence of..." He glances around at the puddles of water spaced out upon the [mostly cracked] tiles on the floor. "...but you'd think something would've remained behind."

As the Brigadier moves over to take a quick glance around the rest of the house, Dogura's sharp senses begin to detect something relatively bizarre (18+9 vs. 15 Pass): the temperature in the room is off in certain places. To be specific, it seems that the closer he gets to the doorway that Altair had entered through, the chillier the air feels, especially around his feet. It's a very mysterious sensation, especially since there isn't anything overtly cooling the air in that region.

Altair's Awareness Check is also successful (16+3 vs. 15 Pass), and gives the man a good feel of his surrounding environment. In the center of the room is the island counter, as mentioned before, which has been burned too harshly to be of any note. Around the walls of the room had once sat a total of fifteen cabinets on the ground and seven cabinets hung from the ceiling, with a window taking up most of the wall space of the southern side. Now, though, nine of the ground cabinets have been burned out of recognition, and only the northernmost cabinet lacks any apparent burn signs. Same goes for the hanging cabinets; the majority - three, in fact - have been burned apart, two have scorch marks, and the northernmost one on the west wall appears mostly unharmed.

Back in the entry room, Aria's mind is quick to study the part of the room where the stairs had once stood and deduce the height that they would need to be able to reach in order to get up there (18+3 vs. 15 Pass): precisely 13.5 feet stand from the unstable pile of burned stairwell remains covering the ground to the flooring of the second story. The pile of wood is definitely not the sturdiest of things to be standing on and attempting to jump from, but if one wanted to take a risk they could try putting some weight there.

As Alpha moves to peak through the rightmost doorway, he finds he has entered a chamber unlike most of the others on this floor. It looks to be a Study: the remains of a thick wooden desk is the centerpiece of the room, with bits of paper scattered about its scarred but still intact self. A few metal cabinets have survived the fires in the northwest corner of the room, while the bookshelves that cover the majority of the north and east walls have been burned along with their contents; most of the tomes were caught in a blaze that turned them to ash.

Alpha's Awareness Check works as well, fortunately (19+5 vs. 15 Pass), and his crimson eyes settle on the southern wall in particular, spying two items of note. There is a torched couch along the southern wall underneath a broken window; atop the tattered remains of the sitting space lies several cracked bottle that seems to emanate the smell of burned alcohol - probably the method of setting these fires. He should watch his feet; there is likely glass littering the ground. The second item he spots is a painting frame hanging peculiarly in the southeastern corner. Its painting burned away, a metallic gleam is seen reflecting the sunlight from behind the tattered remains, and it seems to be hanging on...hinges. Very interesting.

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Unfortunately, Leth doesn't spot any possible paths which the group could take to reach the second story (2+3 vs. 15 Fail). It seems that at least in this room, the stairs were the only way up, and with them gone the path is blocked.

FIRST FLOOR MAP COMPLETE!

(OOC: I'm not even going to try describing how cool I think this is 8D)

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|DINING ROOM -------------||--------------FAMILY ROOM|
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|KITCHEN---------___--ENTRANCE--_--------------- STUDY|
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Eyes traced the cabinet on the far side whose stature had a sheen unlike the others which were painted awful charcoal colors. If it were of any aid, he'd most likely assume that should there be other pieces of furniture like these, him and the others might be able to create the remnants of stairs. The frames of couches and chairs stood nicely in the corner of his eyes and would also prove useful Rosen imagined.

But then again, flooding had worn the wood and there would most definitely be some degree of danger in playing around with splintered things. He leaned his weight on the frame of the couch as he let his eyes rummage through the room once more, a visitor to the strange upholstery that decorated the ghosts of women and the touches that caressed each scorch mark of the room.

He wondered how the others were doing, if their searches were baring and insight into the conundrum that has rooted them to the ground floor. All of these ruminations fell to the thoughtful watch of the grandfather clock standing nearby, a tall and gaunt friend to keep him company in his appraisal of the room.One could only imagine if it were still counting off the seconds in its deterred state where age and travesty had worn away its glamor just as it had Rosen.

Footsteps were heard beyond the hollow walls of around him, soft bellows of secret passages traversing the broken floor panels that breathed softly with the creaks of each bend. Rosen couldn't help but connect with this place, almost as if he were to stay there, cemented to the couch he leaned on, he too would become part of the upholstery that decorated this place. Perhaps too soon.

Awareness Check

Spreadeagled upon the ground, the mercenary's weary eyes stared up at the sky. Well, that plan had failed. The ladder must not have been horizontal enough to transfer his momentum substantially. If only he had a ramp of some kind...something gradual enough to allow shifts in inertia. Or if he only had a way to raise the base of the ladder another seven feet. Or five. There really wasn't much required. In fact, all he really needed was some flat wood from somewhere to make a platform. Yes, that would suffice.

Getting to his feet, he began to look around the town for any fences or other planks of wood that he could salvage. He didn't need much, and perhaps he needed even less than five feet; if he used his saber's sheath, he could probably hook that around the windowsill to pull himself up. [Awareness Check]

OOC: Anybody wanna be a party pooper and point out how this plan would fail too?

It was a Study of some kind, the Sheikah reasoned after seeing the layout of the room he had chosen to investigate. A large desk, some metallic cabinets, and some bookshelves littered the walls, as well as a broken window and a burned away couch by the south wall. His eyes fixed on the bottles resting in the remnants of its frame, guessing that this was the method through which the fires had been started - monsters had filled bottles with alcohol, corked it with rags that were lit on fire, and then tossed them through the windows before the flames could reach the liquid. And when the crimson tongues had at last reached, it had set the whole building ablaze.

It was a standard tactic for starting fires from a distance, the Sheikah thought with a nod before turning back to the rest of the room, eyeing the desk incredulously. If this was the room in which the flames had started, then it was nothing short of miraculous for the wooden structure to have survived. Maybe it was the type of wood used . . .

He shook his head, glancing back at the southern wall before noticing the peculiarly hanging frame. Hinges? That often was a cliche hiding place for safes, but being cliche didn't mean that the tactic was ineffective. He'd probably have dismissed the frame entirely if its picture had not been burned away, revealing a glint of metal reflecting the sunlight that shone in through the window. He'd check that desk and the metal cabinets shortly; for now he carefully made his way towards the picture frame, watching his feet most of the time to avoid stepping on any glass bottle shards. When he arrived at his targeted corner he raised his hand upwards, intending to slide the frame aside and check out whatever was hidden behind it.

Thirteen and a half feet....That wasn't too bad. The ladder was ten feet tall, and most people Aria knew were more than three feet six inches in height. The wreckage at the bottom, however, would be a problem. It didn't look entirely stable...but maybe a lot more stable than combining two ladders, supposing someone held the bottom of her ladder. However, that would mean leaving someone behind...unless he grabbed unto the ladder while the others pulled him up. That would certainly rule out Rosen as a candidate for holding the ladder still. Well, it was her ladder; the ranger would just stay at the bottom and have the others haul her up.

But first, she'd have to make sure the ladder had something the top could lean on. Aria took her ladder out again and extended it. With care, the Gerudo placed the bottom on the wreckage and slowly let the ladder fall back, guiding it with her hands. [Um, Place Ladder Check?]

OOC: RG, as soon as you said, "Well, mostly" I knew everyone had succeeded but me. I didn't even have to look. I have terrible luck with checks.

IC: When Leth didn't spy anything of interest, he got an idea. Instead of looking for a way up, he started looking for the most recent signs of life. Where had the people gone? How had they escaped? What exactly had happened here? Leth scanned the ground and area around him for footprints or anything else that might tell him exactly what had happened here. track L3, 2 will. just in case.

The cool air wrapped around his feet, and took him by surprise. He knelt down, and felt the cool air that hung over the lower region of the doorway. This could mean one of two things:

1. The air around this place is completely erratic.
2. There was wind blowing from an area exposed to the outside flowing from a hidden room.

Dogura put his money on #2, and inspected the wall that separated the dining room from the family room. It's possible that a hidden passage lies between the two rooms, leading up a second set of stairs that would run parallel to the main stairs (which were still in shambles at the entrance. If the mapping of the house was right, this would be the most likely place for a secret room.

[Awareness Check]

OOC: Sorry the post is short and late. I've been out all day, I'm exhausted, and I've got more on my mind than I care for at the moment. It's possible I'll look back on this shameful post tomorrow and edit.

Rosen's search around the room reveals nothing of immediate importance, though his eyes do focus in on the two pieces of furniture that, unlike almost everything else in this building, do not seem to have been damaged by flames (14+1 vs. 15 Pass). The cabinet and grandfather clock are rather surprising in such a torched building; heck, the clock is still working even! Though the time does seem to be a bit off, almost three hours fast, it still appears to be keeping perfect time, just tick-tocking along like it hasn't a care in the world. And the cabinet looks to be wet but not burned; it has several drawers to it and large larger door near the bottom. Wonder what's stored inside it?

Back outside, Saber is unlucky once more (2+4 vs. 15 Fail). Saria Town seems to have been a very opening, inviting place back when it still had people, and unfortunately that means there are no fences or gates to be found. Maybe if he broke off a board from one of these houses...but they're already unstable as it is. Pulling out one of those boards could send the whole building collapsing on top of him.

Returning inside, Alpha's curiosity is rewarded as he moves the picture frame back, swinging it out on its hinges and revealing that, yes indeed, this family, whoever they were, had followed the cliche and stuck a safe in the wall behind the frame. It looks to have a standard spinning dial with numbers etched onto it; one would need to know the combination to get inside it. Unless the Sheikah plans on blowing it and half of the building up with a spell of some kind...

(Hint: that is not recommended)

Aria's Um, Place Ladder Check? is thrown off, unfortunately (9+3 vs. 15 Fail); as the Gerudo attempts to lean the ladder back the stairwell ruins beneath it suddenly shift, causing it to slip from her hands and crash to the ground near the Family Room entrance. "Everything alright?" Horren calls out as he quickly rushes back to the Entrance chamber; obviously he's still a bit jumpy, and having that ladder clatter about on the ground isn't helping his nerves any.

Leth's Tracking serves him well (12 + 5(L3) + 2(Will) vs. 15 Pass), but as he looks around on the ground he finds nothing worth noting. It becomes painfully obvious that no one has been in this house for a long, long time - be they Hyrulean or monster. At least the group should be able to rest safe in the knowledge that they won't likely be ambushed in this building.

Dogura's choice of walls to check is a bit odd, seeing as how he had sensed the cold air coming from the southeastern corner of the kitchen, by the as yet unexplored side-door. But he is still very strong in terms of observation skill, and he is swiftly able to deduce that the wall is just a regular old wall (18+9 vs. 15 Pass). While it does seem a bit thicker than normal walls, there is still not enough space for it to be holding a passageway; indeed, it probably isn't even wide enough for any humanoid species to squeeze through.

Rosen waddled towards the drawers. As interesting as that grand father clock was, he'd imagine that it wouldn't be nearly as accessible in regards to those drawers. So he rummaged, fingers lapping against the handles and the splintered skin of each knob as he forcefully attempted to empty all of its contents. He moved towards the bottom, eyes widening as the largest of the doors began to creep up the peripheral of his cataracts. Hopefully, none of these drawers would give him any arguments as he pillaged what was once someone's possessions and now just assume a state of stagnant slumber beneath the humid water clogged drawers that he imagined also played home to moss and bacteria.

Awareness Check

Why does every thing, living or no, seem to be conspiring against me today?

A heel ground against the soil, a poor manipulated victim of the youth's bitterness. The people of Saria clearly cared nothing for safety. No wonder the South was overrun, when they lacked even the most basic of defenses. So maybe there wasn't a fence or other source of wooden planks...well, without devastating a house in the area. Though that option was not yet written off; if all else failed, he saw nothing wrong with a little remodeling. After all, who here would care? Nobody lived here anymore, it seemed. At least, not in most of these houses. Still, it'd be a mess trying to pull wood out from the remains of a fallen dwelling, so he continued around town, searching for anything at all--a cement block, a ramp, maybe even just a taller ladder. [Awareness Check] [Nomadic Awareness L2]

When Leth failed to see anything worth noting, he abandoned his search in the main room. Frustration began to prickle at him, as it seemed that no one had discovered anything useful. Maybe they wouldn't be able to get up to the second floor after all...

"Anyone found anything yet?" Leth called out to the various people scattered throughout the house. It was possible that someone had found something and not notified anyone... he hoped that was the case, or else they may have hit a dead end...

'Hm, maybe I could blow the safe's door off with a spell of some kind . . . Nah, that'd probably take out half of the building with it.' The Sheikah shrugs and turns away from the safe. He doesn't have the combination, and can't think of any reason he'd need to get into it anyway; probably best to ignore the thing for now. He simply turns and shakes his head at Leth, reporting a negative response to the man's question; if it ends up being necessary then he can bring up its existence to the others.

For now, though, he takes another look at the rest of the room, spying the desk and metal cabinets in particular. They probably have some documents stored in them - maybe a journal of some kind could be found. If that ended up being the case . . . the mage's eyes widen. What if there is a recounting of what had happened here hidden amongst the documents? Probably not, but there might be - maybe someone had left behind a message that would tell what had happened to the inhabitants of Saria - if that is the case then it definitely merits investigation.

Quickly, but still watching where he steps, the Sheikah moves over to the desk and drawers, careful examining them for drawers that might contain something [Awareness Check], and opening up any that he finds for further investigation.

As Leth's call for a group exchange of information resounds through the chambers, Rosen's rummaging through the cabinet turns up nothing that has any obvious significance (18+1 vs. 15 Pass). Though it had gotten quite wet in the months since its abandonment, the cabinet seems to have been rather resilient and not allowed its contents to become waterlogged. The top few drawers contain random pieces of jewelry, papers, and other once-important items. The bottommost region of it, where the door had stood, has several board games stashed away; the top one, Time Dungeons, is a popular game where players retrace the route of the legendary Hero of Time in order to save Hyrule. It looks like this one was thrown back into the cabinet in a hurry, as the top is only partially secured.

Saber's attempts at looking about the town for something else to help bolster the height of his ladder at last proves to have some results (12+2(N.A.)+4 vs. 15 Pass), though not nearly so much as the stubborn Nomad was probably hoping for. Glancing around the other side of the street, the Tantari Mercenary does indeed spot a cinder block sitting in the recesses of an alley between homes - two of them, in fact. They look to be about two and a half feet lengthwise, meaning they could either add 5 or 2.5 feet, depending on how careful Saber wants to be; it'd surely be safer putting one under each foot of his ladder.

Alpha's checking through the metal cabinets and the desk finds him with only three different drawers (18+5 vs. 15 Pass) - only one remains with unburned contents in the desk, and all but the top two drawers of the metal cabinets have been fused shut by the heat of the flames. While he does not spot any diaries, and though the cabinets seem to only contain business papers, he does find a scheduling book amidst the drawer of the desk. It's from last year - the last entry the Sheikah finds inside it is from a good thirteen months ago. This could mean that either the people vanished thirteen months ago...or maybe the keeper of this book was a poor planner.

The last entry, though, is for a Tuesday - "Game Night w Kids", it reads.

"Everything alright?"

"It's fine," Aria replied, stowing her ladder back into her bag. "I thought we could use a ladder to get up these ruined stairs, but the ground wasn't stable enough."

From here, the Gerudo wondered what next to do. The ranger hadn't been keeping tabs on what the others were doing, focused on her own idea as she was. Looking into each room, it seemed as if no one had found anything of worth. She was fresh out of ideas.

Aria strode over to the entrance and sat down next to it, leaning against the wall. "I say we give up for now," she said loud enough for everyone in the house to hear her. "It looks like we can't get into that house with our skills. Best thing we can probably do right now is go back and see if we can't find some other people to join us. Unless someone else has any bright new ideas; I can't think of anything else."

Rosen left the last drawer open leaving the caricatures of advertisements to stare into an abyss that apparently floated over head. His rummaging had left him with barely an ounce of esteem left on his brow as the goron was surely not amused by the board game that sat crooked before him. It's not to say that he'd leave it there to go unnoticed but he imagined something a little more obvious in its importance to greet him.

All of this led him to the grandfather clock, still ticking, leaving in its wake three hours of time to run after the shadow of its hands. Rosen couldn't imagine why it'd be three hours ahead; no laps in time could be that great without the helpful hands of another...but why? He hoped those answers would become more apparent as he left his body to become stagnant and decorate the room while his eyes dove into its countenance, searching madly for answers in the sentient allure of most sage-like time keeper.

Should this search leave him dry, the goron would most definitely return to answer questions that echoed through the corridor.

Awareness Check