---

Scorsey assures the ladies it's not far, though Maggie sensibly darts in a moment to fetch a hat and light scarf for her neck/bust region, her fair Gael skin already taking a flush from the heat. Scorsey looks a bit apprehensive of Brigitte whilst left alone with her, as though uncertain if French nobles were quite the same kind of thing as human beings.

Still, he's rescued soon enough by Maggie's reappearance, and leads the trio in a cautious track through the tawny and dessicated strip of grazing between the house and the creek, then down across the front pasture. Grasshoppers ping away from their steps and sizzle a soft understory of sound to the relentless screeching of cicadas in the trees. Everything smells of hot earth and dry grass: a land shimmering and unknown to rain.

---

Having brought them through the tall copse that screens the area from direct view of the house (a host of rainbow lorikeets chattering high up in the branches, hiding from the heat) Scorsey leads them about five paces further. He points mutely at the weird excavation of earth as though the others might not notice it, or he doesn't know what to say. It looks almost as though something had exploded there, dried trails of dirt flung wildly around, and quite deep. There's not much more can be told about it at this distance, but it's definitely a hole.

For some reason, Brigitte feels faintly drawn to it.

First she has a look around the surrounding bush before approaching the hole. Taking a knee Brigitte examines it as she tries to determine if something was buried or dug up. She has a look for tools and then for the patch that someone may have laid on their front to extract something.


-

The stand of spotted gum they passed through shows only one unusual streak of earth against a pale trunk, the halfhearted undergrowth of a few straggling prickly banksia and Christmas bushes not visibly disturbed. There's little but kangaroo grass and dried prickly weeds left in the pasture itself, and the creek somewhere before her is sheltered by a gently shifting canopy of river she-oak, blueberry ash and various gum trees. Though mostly unseen, the chorus of insects continue to yell.

It's Maggie who finds what was probably the soilbreaker, picking up the slightly more jagged rock after cautiously toeing it over in case of scorpions. She studies it with a faint frown as Brigitte kneels. Close to, Brigitte can see that the greater part of the hole seems to have been frantically scooped out barehanded, though enough time has passed that the soil has returned to a rock-hard state on any surface exposed to air.

It's easily as deep as her arm, and leaning forward a little she can see dried mud cracking at the bottom, as though there once was moisture. It's very tempting to try and pry those big chunks away, to lie between the piles of dug-out soil herself and reach down, find out what might be at the very bottom...


[[may I have a POW roll, please.]]
_
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:12, Thu 26 Mar 2020.

Brigitte sat back up from looking in the hole and scanned the faces of those present "Any ideas as to the purpose ?" she asked the two watchers. She swatted away a couple of flies, but it was a pointless pursuit as she had come to learn from all her years in the country.

Brigitte d'Anjou rolled 55 using 1d100.  POW = 60.



-

"I thought it was peculiar, ma'am, that's why I wanted to show someone," Scorsey replies, looking anxiously between the ladies. The hole seems to unsettle him.

"Perhaps he was still delerious when he dug this," Maggie says uncertainly. "If he wanted creek water it's no more than a minute to be at the stream that way, I don't understand it. It's like a thing an animal would do, or the natives when they go for buried water, but..." she twists to look at the trees serenely screening the way down to the creek, the healthiest looking plants in this parched landscape. "Why? No, for the life of me I don't know that. I'd wonder if he knows he's done this."


...and Brigitte finds she has instinctively pulled her hand away from the soil, left only with the impression of something rising. Something big and ancient as rock.

_-
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:06, Thu 26 Mar 2020.

Brigitte did her best to try and hide her shock at what she had just experienced. She lent forward as of examining the hole again as the other spoke and only righted herself once she was somewhat collected, she stands as well and turns.

Feigning cleaning the dirt from her skirt Brigitte takes a few more seconds to get her breathing under control before turning back to Face Maggie and Scorsey. "Yes I think you have the truth of it Maggie it seems to be the work of someone under the duress of illness. Let us leave it for now..."

She prepares to follow the others back to the homestead.


-

The hole looks darker in Brigitte's shadow, like a well of rust or a dead throat long choked with mud. The little parrots chatter happily in the stand of gum beside her and the insects shriek as they have always shreiked, as though the pitiless summer sunlight had a sound.

She stands, and the ground is solid under her. She steps, and the sandy soil, the plants and trees stay in their places. Maggie and Scorsey make their few, confused comments and gratefully head back towards the shade and the house. They walk, Scorsey looking out for snakes and Maggie holding her skirt above prickles, and they do not plummet screaming through the surface of the world into dimensions as strange as the moment of perception.

The air is warm. Once Brigitte emerges through the trees the house's outlines are solid. A dark horse ambles to another patch of shade in the far distance. It is very nearly as though everything is all right.



[[giving Jack a chance to get a post on your original thread, then I'll get you a little intro there.]]