"Are you really going to allow your... bodyguard to ingest it now that we know it is not flammable, Mr. Krostumolis?" The tone behind the question belies the tailor's genuine curiosity and interest regarding the somewhat strange substance. "It could be poisonous after all."
"Perhaps it is the blood of the island-prison? The blood of an Old One. . ." Shinjuko utters somewhere between a joke and a guess.
Penance watches this all warily. He doesn't know jack-diddly about strange liquids, but his instincts still tell him to be wary of caves like this. Too comfortable to be uninhabited.
"Well, can we take a sample of it?" he mutters as Telemakos conducts Arasmes-aided experiments. "Maybe Nimlaidas will know what it is, or the hobs, if we make it back to base. I don't have anything to hold it in other than my waterskin, though." And he's not sacrificing that to the cause.
"I don't want to set up our camp by it though, not without knowing what it... is. I say we lay our bedrolls and such out in the entrance tunnel we came in by."
The half-orc picks up some small loose pebbles from the cavern floor and chucks them out idly into the middle of the pool of oil as he speaks.
The pebbles sink slowly into the viscous liquid.
“Mmm… these tests are discomforting. And here I was hoping we had found something valuable!” Telemakos scratches his head “Well, I do agree with Master Penance. We should set camp by the entrance. A good meal, albeit frugal, and a night’s sleep will help us face tomorrow’s challenges.” the gnome looks visibly tired. “We can resume the tests tomorrow, or mark this place on a map and come back later.”
Then he turns to Arasmes “Just out of curiosity, a moment before I go to sleep… you can take a sip. Just one. Nothing that bad can happen to you anyway while you’re on this Plane, right?”
Arasmes dunks a finger in the stuff, and licks it. He immediately gags, clawing at his tongue. "AH! AH! AH! Tastes like burning metal...ptuh! ptuh!" he nearly screams, spitting the oily substance back out.
Devram gives the genie an incredulous look. "You actually did it? What, just because he told you to? I don't think you should go around tasting weird things." He laughs. "Ok, so now we know it doesn't make for a good mixer. Still seems like a decent place to rest for the night."
"...yeahhh...." Penance says, with a little shake of his head as he sees Arasmes spitting and coughing.
"Right. So nobody's got any extra bottles or anything? Hmmm... let me dig through my pack..."
Penance slings his worn-but-sturdy rucksack off his back and hunts through until he finds one of his three tin containers of the cream he bought before they left port from a man who swears it keeps off the gnats and midges. He's already used most of one dose, trying to keep his nose and mouth clear of the small, irritating jungle flies-- he's not really sure it's that effective, honestly-- and he wipes the rest of the cream out, rinsing the tin out with some water from his waterskin before gingerly collecting some of the oil.
"Let's see if we can carry some in this. That way, hopefully Nimlaidas can take a look at it-- he's the one who was so crazy to sample every bit of the local plants and stuff."
Penance puts the lid of the tin back on and carefully tilts the tin to see if it'll hold the liquid. Or if the stuff's going to corrode through the container, for that matter.
Assuming this works, Penance digs out his map-in-progress of the area, the one helped out by Arasmes's aerial surveillance, and marks where he thinks they generally are. -Cave with oily stuff-
Penance has no problem containing some of the oil, and marking their location on his map.
Penance puts the tin away in his pack and then wordlessly starts to unbuckle pieces of his armor as he moves back towards the entrance. He is damned tired and his ribs still hurt.
"I'll take middle-watch," he throws over his shoulder to the others.
At the cave mouth, he lays out his bedroll and sits down on it with a heavy whuff, dropping his dented and battered armor in a pile by the foot of his bedroll. Is that his blood on it still? Groan. He'll clean it in the morning.
A swig of tepid water from his water skin, and a handful of dried strips of beef and berries... not exactly a feast, but he chews doggedly on it, wondering how many more times he's going to get too close with Abadar over the duration of their stay here.
"I can take the morning watch. I think some sleep now is a good idea." Devram unpacks his bedroll and drops unceremoniously on against the cave wall. He looks back towards the pool of not-water.
"Did you check if it was magical? It's not going to rise up in the middle of the night and strangle us is it?" He begins to remove his chain shirt and then unbuckles his sword belt. As he lays down, he keeps his sword close by his side.
Camping 'here' in the mouth of the cave, yup-- Penance wants to be as far from mystery oil as they can be while still having the shelter of the cave.
<< | | | >>
The Agents spend the rest of the afternoon, evening and night napping and resting in the relative coolness of the cave. Nothing physical disturbs their rest, but during the night each of the agents has a dream. They find themselves in a dark place, unable to see anything. Their internal sense of balance tells them they are laying flat on their backs, and they can feel that they are floating in warm liquid, naked. Dripping sounds from far away replicate the acoustics of a cave. When they try to move, they find that they cannot. Not even to speak. After an indeterminate interval, the feeling starts to become oppressively claustrophobic. It's then that they feel it. Something cold, and slick touches the bottom of their left thigh. The slimy thing tickles as it wends its way slowly upward to their buttocks. Then another of the muculent, writhing things touches them, at the nape of their necks. Panic builds in the Agents as more and more of the cold ropy appendages make their way slowly, ever so slowly, across their exposed flesh. They weave around the Agents' limbs and necks, and through their hair, slowly constricting their paralyzed bodies. The tips of the unseen tentacles feel their way slowly towards the Agents' faces. Like the cold tongues of long-dead lovers, the tips of the limbs caress the Agents' earlobes, before plunging into their ear canals. Still paralyzed, the Agents scream in their minds as more of the slick, rubbery things forces themselves into their nostrils and mouths. The stifling feeling should be overwhelming, but the peaceful relief of unconsciousness is nowhere to be found. Finally, gagging on alien flesh, the Agents feel two of the muscular appendages ram themselves into their eye sockets. They wake with a start, soaked in cold sweat and shaking with adrenaline.
As soon as he finds himself actually able to do so, Penance lunges to his feet in a panicked stagger, nearly tripping over himself and into the wall as he swears a blue streak in a hoarse voice. Weapon, weapon, where's his sword--
He claws at the yielding, horrible things wrapped around him for several seconds before it fully registers that they're gone, that they were never really there in one sense. He can see, he's standing on his feet, there's nothing clinging to him or gagging him.
Gods.
"The F*$% was that?" he snarls to the other agents, looking around him with his teeth bared in a snarl and his fists balled ready to strike at anything that so much as twitches in a fashion he doesn't like.
Devram's body begins shaking in his sleep as if he's having a seizure. The man makes choking sounds. Something is cutting off his air, strangling him! It's all around him! The Aldori wakes with a shout and in a flash, his dueling sword is in hand, ready to slice something open. It takes several moments for him to realize there's no threat. "A dream," he says panting.
He drops the sword and tears open the front of his shirt. There, in the center of his chest is a nearly perfect circle of completely scarred skin about the size of a human fist. Devram touches it gingerly as if he expects it not to be real. It's solid. Asmodeus' gift still holds. Panic gives way to relief. The swordsman sags against the rock wall.
"I don't know. I felt it too. Something trying to invad-" And the coughing begins again. Devram leans over and blood froths at his mouth. It takes nearly a minute for him to stop. He wipes his mouth with his sleeve, leaving a trail of blood and spit. He merely shakes his head.
Iliante awakes in a cold sweat desperately wanting to return to the sea. Squid and octopus, he can handle. This was something totally different.
“Aah! AAAH!” Telemakos wakes up screaming in the night, fingers at his own throat and eyes, trying to scrap away the oily substance “AAAH! Help! I need help I’m...” he pauses for a moment, finding his skin sweaty but otherwise free of oily substances, his breath fast and irregular but unobstructed, his eyes functioning in their place. “Oh dear Gods what was that now?” he looks around, seeing his fellow Agents similarly awoken and shaken all of a sudden. “That was horrifying. I’m sorry I woke you up, but if you knew what I just dreamed! Horrible! There was the oil, you see, and…"
He stops “Oh. So... you all experienced that?"
There is a not so brief moment as Corridan wakes up that he can feel the pain in his eyes, in his ears, in his mind. And during that moment, his mouth is open in a silent scream. It takes him a little while to realize that it was a dream and that he is now thankfully awake. And, looking down at himself, he realizes he is also thankfully dressed. Closing his mouth, he clears his throat, feeling it impossibly dry, and reaches for his waterskin.
"That... What...," is all he manages at first before taking a sip of water and then another. It takes several seconds before his characteristic composure returns and he manages to control the fear the dream caused, the fear and the revulsion. Still, that control is tenuous, as his hands holding the waterskin still tremble somewhat.
[ooc]That was... disturbing. Well done.
Shinjuko, in the dream, attempts to find her center—a measure of stillness. She closes her eyes and attempts to meditate, but the very darkness around her seems to resist. As the cold, alien tendrils begin forceful intrusion she begins chanting low, "Yama wa ugokanai mono to shimasu. Yama wa ugokanai mono to shimasu."
Her eyes snap open, and she remains still. "Yama wa ugokanai mono to shimasu. Yama wa ugokanai mono to shimasu."
It takes her a moment to regain her bearings. She becomes distantly aware of the others around her, their own cries of alarm and confusion. She begins to want very much to be out of this cave. What seemed like a gift of refuge the evening previous now looms all around like a stifling prison.
Rising to her feet, Shinjuko says "I need some air." Gathering her ciphers and waterskin, she begins to head outside.
______________________________
Penance frowns at the sound of Coates's hacking coughing, and unhooks his waterskin from his pack with fingers that are steadier than he really feels. He crouches by Coates and wordlessly offers him the waterskin, his eyes darting from one agent to another.
"...I fell asleep," he says hoarsely, because he has to confess that. "It was my watch and... I don't know if something snuck up on us or..."
He watches Shinjuko step outside and frowns again. "Don't go far," he rumbles, because who knows what's out there lurking in the thick foliage.
Penance sighs and scrubs at his face with his hands. "Yeah. So. We all had that damn dream, sounds like. Either something's crawling around out there making us have... dreams... or it's something to do with this cave and that pool of gunk."
He rocks back on his heels. "I don't really want to go back to sleep here," he admits to the others.
When the coughing fit stops, Devram takes the waterskin and nods. He pours a bit into his mouth and washes the blood out of his mouth. Then he take another sip to calm himself. "Thanks."
"So where do we go? Still night out and we'd be fumbling around in the dark, easy prey for a lot of things. But I agree. I don't want to sleep here anymore."
Penance nods away Devram's thanks, and sits there on his heels, glaring towards the pool.
"Well, several of us can see in the dark," he points out. "At least enough to get us somewhere... not here, maybe. I don't like the jungle but I'm liking this less."
Penance grunts and gets back to his feet. "I'm going to look at that pool again," he says. "Telemakos, don't you people have some spell for finding magic?"
Penance stares towards the pool of oil, moving down the short tunnel towards it if necessary to have a clean line of sight to it. His eyes glow with a pale golden light...
He looks over the ground between them and the pool as well, though his gut tells him he'll see no tracks or signs of passage. He doesn't think anything physical actually came out of the pool towards them.... he just wishes that it had, because then it might be something he could cut, something that could bleed, something that could die. And he doesn't think they're that lucky.
Penance walks back, shaking his head. "I say we stow gear and put some distance between us and this place. If those who can't see ride the lizards and those of us who can guide them, we shouldn't get too many limbs in the face. We don't need to go fast, just... a bit from here..."
Penance pauses, then curses. "--hell, if that dream got to the lizards too, I bet they've broken their tethers and ran the hell off," he snarls as this idea occurs to him, and quickly darts outside, looking around for where they had tethered their riding beasts to a jungle tree for the night.
"We can just sleep outside the cave. It'll give us somewhere to retreat and defend if something attacks." Iliante offers.
Penance shrugs. "We don't know how far away is 'away' enough," he says. "Maybe this... thing... reaches for miles... or maybe it could get to us as long as I've got some of the gunk in that tin... or maybe it's not even connected to the damn pool and we just got the attention of something. There's a lot we don't know."
He rubs at the back of his neck. "If everyone else is comfortable just going out the cave's mouth, I'll not argue it."
"Look at the wildlife. Nothing would live close to it, right?" Iliante offers.
“I don’t know what came of me. That should’ve been my first test… well, since we’re wide awake now, no sense in delaying…” Telemakos gets back to the pool of oil, making sure at least Penance is beside him for protection, and casts the divination requested.
The oil glows with strong aura of transmutation magic, however Telemakos is unable to determine the oil's exact properties.
After hearing this, the young samurai approaches and asks if she may examine the substance as well. She casts a spell to open her vision to the magical spectrum, and spends several moments starting at the oil's aura.
She has seen very similar auras from the spell magic weapon during her previous studies. The oil's aura is slightly different though, and powerful, as if it were cast by a great master of the arcane arts.
"A powerful substance. This small pool alone is worth a fortune. It would be an enormous boon to. . . say, a small army attempting to bring down a dragon." Shinjuko considers for a moment before turning to regard the others. "The question that comes to mind for the moment is transporting the stuff. Do you think the tribe at Fire Mountain even knows about its existence?"
"I doubt it, otherwise they probably would have attacked us with weapons coated in the stuff. And certainly it wouldn't be here unguarded." Devram looks back to the pool.
"If we bottle this stuff, do you think the dreams will continue? Maybe just having it near you in a vial in your pack could be enough."
Penance mutters an "I'll be damned," when Shinjuko identifies the stuff. He stands there, thinking hard (mostly just doing math on the value of this pool to the Aspis Consortium, really).
At Devram's words, he grunts. "...yeah... that's a possibility," he says unhappily. "Now that we know what it is, I don't feel such a pressing need to haul some around with me, anyway. I can try leaving that bit here, and we can sleep outside the cave and see what happens."
The group beds back down just outside the cave's entrance.
The rest of the night passes without incident. Dawn comes, followed rapidly by rising heat, and the buzzing, squawking and other sounds of the jungle fauna all around the Agents.
“Well, I didn’t really get much sleep at all, ‘Ras” complains Telemakos after breakfast, once his summoning ritual is finished and the genie appears at his side “Really, we did find something extremely valuable, but we also found… confirmation about the Crawling Chaos theory the Guardian of the Volcano talked about. A very mixed bag of a night, indeed.”
Arasmes puts his master’s traveling harness on his shoulders. The gnome stretches his sore shoulders “Well then, position on the map has been marked, I guess we should fill what spare bottle we have and keep on exploring!”
Penance wakes up rubbing at his shoulders and face, and digging out his shaving kit to clear the stubble off his jaw. He's relieved that damned dream didn't come back again, but he also feels ill at ease in the knowing that... it might. It's out there, something is out there, and sleeping well is going to be a thing of chance until it's dealt with.
He listens to the parrots and monkeys chattering as he tears into a hunk of dried meat from his pack. Maybe he'll see something in the jungle to shoot, today-- rations'll keep you alive, but it doesn't really sate your hunger. Some roast pig, now, that'd be good...
He kneels a short distance from the others and mutters some short, less-than-graceful prayers to Abadar. Then he collects his tin of magic gunk, giving it a suspicious look as he puts it back in his pack. If he has nightmares tonight, he's chucking the little container as far from him as he can.
He enlists Coates' help in donning his armor-- it looks much the worse for wear after his two near-death experiences, with various dings and nicks and punctures in it. He makes a note to ask the smiths back at Fire Mountain if they can do anything for it.
"Yeah, it's a find, alright," he mutters to Telemakos's words as he moves for the lizard Telemakos has yielded to him. "Right. Back in the saddle, and all that crap. Let's get our bearings..."
A moment consulting the map and the position of the sun, then Penance settles in for another day of sweating like a pig. At least, he supposes, he's getting slightly better in the saddle.
Iliante struggles awake. His body always hurts when he sleeps away from his hammock. He remembers and digs out the used flask for his weapon blanche. "I've this old flask from a weapon blanche. Does anyone know what's the best way to get that stuff inside it?"
Devram digs in his pack. "I think I still have the vial from the Potion of Blur. With us being away from civilization, I think we ought not to just toss things like we normally do." He pulls out an empty vial as well as a full one.
"I also have a standard Oil of Magic Weapon. Generally, I wouldn't throw it away, but if this stuff is so much more powerful, should we?"
"I think it'd last longer, wouldn't it?" Penance says with a shrug. "This stuff, I mean. I dunno, I'm not a magician."
<< | | | >>
The day is very similar to the day before it as the group trudges through the jungle covered Iron Fist territory. The terrain is hilly and unforgiving, and the heat, humidity and insects are oppressive. Around noon the heat becomes too much and the group decides to take a break for lunch. They wander into a clearing where a large tree-like plant dominates the center. It has spike-like wooden limbs up close, and then several very long, vine-like tendrils. The tree has sickly, dark green leaves, and bright, blood-red blossoms. Around the plant stand a half dozen listless orcs, who stare at it blankly. One of the plant's tendrils is stabbed into the neck of one orc, who is making no attempt to stop it.
As the Consortium Agents become visible, the scale armored orcs turn and slowly look up with green-shot eyes, before growling and reaching for greataxes.
The plant reacts to the orcs' antagonism by withdrawing its tendril from the orc's neck. The thirty foot long sharp-ended vines raise up into the air, waving about as if sniffing the air or feeling for vibrations like antennae. The orcs look ready to charge the Agents, their hands grip greataxes. They growl with deep, choked, animalistic noises and their tusks gleam with greenish saliva.
___________________________________
Bloodsuckle 20
Party 16
Orcs 15.16
"The hell is that," Penance growls with instinctive revulsion for the way the orcs lethargically tolerate the way the plant is... embedded in the flesh of one of their number. "Something's not right about that tree! Stay back from it, let's deal with the orcs first!"
As he slides off his lizard to the ground (so much better, to stand on the ground) Penance draws his sword as well.
"Ngadeg maneh, lan kita ora kudu perang! Ayo maju, lan mati!" he snarls to his distant, distant relations.
Telemakos look through the clearing at the disgusting plant “Ugh! That is awful-looking. Let us keep our distance before we get a rash or something equally annoying.”
“Uh… master, what about the zombie orcs?” asks the genie from behind.
“Zombie? Do not be ridiculous, ‘Ras, those cannot possibly be… although… let me take a closer look…” the gnome stands on a knee on the lizard's back, trying to get a better view of the encounter.
________
Devram slides down from the lizard. "Stay here." He pats the lizard's neck. He didn't even want to think about what might happen if they got the mounts too close to that tree. Or ourselves either.
He moves toward the orcs slowly, drawing his sword. "Hey, do you guys know the Khan?"
Round 1
Iliante pulls out his revolver and spins the chamber looking around for another part of the ambush. Weirdly happy for the diversion of target practice.
He readies to shoot the first charging orc that gets within 30 feet of him.
“Ah, yes that is just as I imagined!” exclaims the gnome after squinting to get a better look at the plant “The orcs appear to be enthralled by the plant, via a mind-controlling poison injected with a tendril.” he stops for a second “Yes, that is exactly what is happening.”
“I believe that saving the unfortunate orcs from the thralldom would bode well for our relationship with their leaders, don’t you think? More allies! It may be possible to subdue them with minimal casualties…” he suggests to his fellow Agents “Whatever you do, do not get too close to the plant. It cannot move, and thus scarcely dangerous if we keep our distances.”
“Come on now, we can run circles around them! Let’s try not to kill all of the orcs… that goes for you especially, ‘Ras!”