Joanna finally lets go, wiping away the last of her tears as she lets out a watery chuckle.
"I think we have another problem. What's Zee going to wear now? she's almost taller than Shadlah like this," the paladin laughs.
Halli, still confused, snuffles Zee's feet for a moment before giving up in a huff. Joanna seemed to be doing better now, even if she seemed confused. The new person didn't smell like Zee, but as long she was friendly, Halli wouldn't mind. She bumps into Zee's leg and butts her head against the woman's hand.
C'mon, pet me! You know you want to!
After picking up her sword and shield, Joanna turns to see Halli trying to extort some petting and just shakes her head.
"So, um, do you still, you know, can you still cast spells like you used to," she asks Zee.
"I think I might have to wear this ridiculous dress for a while yet... I don't think any of my own clothes will fit me anymore. As for what to do with my... body... I have an idea. The sarcophagus that held this clone body preserved it for millennia. I believe that effect might still be running. We could put... me... in Sorshen's tomb. That way, my body will still be preserved until I can figure out a way to return to it."
"And, yes, I still have my magic. But some of it is... different. I seem to be able to fly now... but I am less able to see the strands of fate."
She pauses and adds, in a much smaller voice, "And I have flashes of a fragments of Sorshen's memories."
"That sounds awkward," Joanna grimaced. "I mean, she was the Runelord of Lust, right? So, um? Wouldn't you, ah?"
She looks away, her cheeks reddening as she stumbles around what she was trying to get at.
"Anyway," she mutters trying to change the subject as her face practically glows from embarrassment, "how is that even staying on?"
Gah! That's not much better Jo!
Come on, Jo, I think miss Z has enough troubles adjusting to her new body without having to pay much attention to her wardrobe, or whatever kinky things Shorshen would have done in ages past.
With a sigh, Arsith adds
It's quite a shock, you know Zee. I'm glad your death was so... temporary. It's you without being you. We're still all in shock, between your.. state and Teldon disappearance. But give me a hug anyway. We both need it. In fact, I'll say we all need a group hug.
Joanna's too busy staring at the toes of her boots as her face turns so red that it practically glows to notice Halli moving behind her until it's too late. The wolf bumps the backs of Joanna's knees hard enough to send her stumbling into Arsith and Ziomarra. She manages to catch herself, but only by grabbing hold of both the taller women. The height difference only served to make things more awkward.
When Joanna glares at the mischievous wolf, the pup only sits there with her tail wagging and her tongue out as if she's laughing at the situation.
"I think Halli believes she's a trickster," Joanna grumbles as she stands up straighter. Looking to Briana and Shadlah, she grins.
"Well, come on. There's already three of us in it, might as well make it all of us before we figure out how to get Teldon back," she says.
After the hug is done, whether or not Shadlah joins in, Joanna covers Zee's "corpse" with her blanket and gets some help from Arsith or Shadlah in carrying it back to where they'd set up camp, figuring that'd be the safest place for the moment.
That done, she begins fishing out the other outfit she wore when out in the ruins or expecting a fight.
"Here, Zee. It's going to be short, but hopefully it'll fit well enough. And won't bare everything for all to see," She says as she tosses the outfit (vest, tunic, and trousers/pants) to her.
Turning her attention to Briana she sighs and sits with her back leaned against the wall.
"Well, I think the most pressing question is what do we have left? I can't help heal any more wounds or give anyone a blessing, and if we run into a demon, I don't think I can pierce their hide. I can still fight, as can Halli, but if we find some evil that steel alone can't vanquish, we're in trouble if none of you have a way to make our blades keener."
"I still have most of my spells. But I feel a bit... distant from them. I can't quite put my finger on it, and it will likely pass once I get used to being in this body, but I feel diminished somehow."
"What about everyone else," Joanna asks looking to Arsith, Shadlah, and Zee. "I know Arsith has some divine blessing of some kind, and I know that Zee's able to cast spells, but what about you Shadlah? Are there any limits on your abilities?"
Sure, I can still provide some Healing, with the blessing of my goddess. i'm a modest spellcaster, through.
"Okay, going to assume that Shadlah's stony stare means that no, there aren't," Joanna says in a small voice.
Taking a deep breath she looks to Briana and hesitates, biting back what she is about to say before closing her eyes and diving in anyway.
"We could push a little further. If we can clear another room of this place, that's one less we have to do tomorrow. It sounds like we can push a little further, but we should probably try not to push ourselves. We also might want to see if any of us can help Zee feel more like herself tomorrow."
She looks to Ziomarra and grimaces a little.
"I know you don't want to be stuck like that, but we don't have much of choice right now. Hopefully when we all get back to Magnimar we can figure this out," she says, sounding as much as if she's trying to reassure herself as Zee.
When Briana looks back, she sees Joanna and Halli right behind her.
"We'll make sure nothing bad happens to you," the young paladin quietly reassures her.
The air in this large octagonal chamber is dreadfully hot — the very air shimmers with heat and almost drips with humidity, leaving every surface within shiny with condensation. The walls, floor, and thirty-foot-high domed ceiling are of polished white marble. Ten feet into the room, the floor rises up in a three-foot high step, then again at twenty feet in. At the center of the room, a strange grey flame dances in a central firepit.
Two smaller octagonal chambers lie to the south and west, while to the east a ten-foot-square section of wall is a dull gray, contrasting with the white of the walls surrounding it. A single torch - unlit but heavily charred as if it has been burnt many times before - in a sconce protrudes from the middle of this grey square on the wall.
...and, as Briana steps into the room, the grey flame flickers and gutters - and as the strange fire burns brightly once more, a handful of small and crimson red creatures seem to issue from the flame itself. With ever-gnashing maws, each filled with row after row of mismatched teeth, the frightful creatures' orb-like bodies take flight towards the opened door - and Briana.
Swarming towards the door, the small creatures are on Briana and Joanna before they can react...
Joanna gives a yelp as one of the flying balls of teeth bites into her arm.
"What the heck is a Coco Demon," Joanna asks as she tries to cleave the strange fiend before her.
Halli has more luck and manages to grab one of them in her jaws for a moment.
Arsith tries to defend Briana, bashing the skull of the otherworldly (and probably ugly as Hell) creature
Between them, Briana, Halli and Arsith stop the sudden tide of crimson beasts... smashing, biting and crushing, their attacks easily find their targets. Screeching and buzzing inhumanely, the flying creatures - none of which is larger than a small bird - regroup and prepare to strike once more... And then Ziomarra, no longer the Varisian mystic that she once was, strides in to the room. Instantly the buzzing subsides... and the beasts fly back towards the grey flame in the centre of the room - one by one, they phase out of existence.
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Halli keeps shaking her head and scraping her tongue against the roof of her mouth as she tries desperately to get the taste of nihilism out of her mouth.
Joanna, though, is too stunned by what just happened to function for a moment.
"Uh, what?"
She holds ready, blade poised to strike and shield raised to defend for a moment longer before she turns to the others eyes wide in disbelief and shakes her head.
"Okay, I think that's all our good luck for the day. Bloody hells, wizards are always muckin' up things," Joanna mutters as she starts moving for the door.
The walls and floor of the room with the grey flame are slick with humidity, the heat and closeness of the air a dreadful discomfort... this room is certainly no place to linger. And so, Joanna inspects the door to the west - it is a grand wooden affair, carved with images of lustful succubi - and, insofar as she is able to tell, Joanna believes it to be unlocked.
After the death of Gnaeus, Shadlah sinks to her knees, bare skin sinking into the earth and accepting its texture, leaving her legs pebbled and stained. The anguished cries of her friends sound to her as though they're coming from the bottom of a well, pitiful and distant.
Then, Sorshen. The Shoanti woman stands swiftly, already calling the earth around her into a whirling, orbiting mass of dirt and stone -
And... Sorshen isn't Sorshen? She pauses, confused, the mass around her hovering, bobbing slightly in place as she waits to see what happens. "You're dead," she says flatly, her own voice sounding awkward and far away to her.
Her name. She blinks at the sound, glancing to Joanna, realizing the other woman had made a joke. She forces a smile, hoping to lighten her own mood. "Not quite, though," she responds, instinctively straightening her own spine.
At the young woman's next question directed at her, she responds with a usual stony stare, which softens shortly thereafter into an unreadable expression. "I... am not sure," she says finally, looking down at her hands. "I have been calling on these strange powers for some time, but even I am not aware of the extent. As far as I can tell, no-one else has such ability, such mastery over the strength and sturdiness of earth and stone. It makes learning difficult. As I exert myself, I grow weaker, but the power itself remains unchanged." Looking back up, she admits, "I have not yet found the furthest I can push myself."
As the group presses through the next room, she tries not to think about the implications of Ziomarra's new body. The room is stiflingly hot, not at all the cool, soft earth and unyielding stone she is used to. She is grateful when Joanna starts moving for the next door.
With no great desire to linger in the humidity of the large room, Joanna pushes on the door... to reveal a magnificently tiled and frescoed corridor. A total of ten wooden and iron doors line the walls of this long hall — five doors to each side. Examining each door, the friends realise that each bears an identical inscription etched into the steel plates of the doors... as indeed does the blank wall at the western end of the hall.
Only the easternmost door along the northern wall of the corridor seems to have a different inscription on it — intriguingly, this door is also caked with a sheen of frost.
"Thou wouldst enter? Then thou must touch?" Joanna mutters as she reads the inscription on the first doors she comes across. Feeling a little leery of traps, she takes her sword and holds her shield between the door and herself and Halli. Once she's sure that everyone else is safely behind her, she tells them, "I'm going to see if I can open this. Are you ready?"
Joanna taps the door with the tip of her sword.
Joanna, ever cautious at the front of the group with Briana standing close behind, brings the tip of her steel to the door... and exerting a little pressure, finds the door is firmly closed. Intriguingly, there are no handles on any of the doors...
Joanna's attempts to open the door get progressively more and more forceful as she presses harder and harder against the door using her sword, then shield, then her shoulder before bumping her forehead against the door in frustration.
"It won't open," she mutters to the others as she does so.
It is the softness and warmth of skin, rather than the cruel hardness of Joanna's steel that the door seems to require... as Briana pushes on the wooden panels, it glides open on silken smooth hinges. The room beyond is a bedroom or, more accurately maybe, a boudoir... floral scents linger in the air - stimulating and tingling the senses, a large bed in the centre of the room has its sheets turned down invitingly and the temperature, far cooler than the sweltering room with the cacodaemons, seem 'just right'.
...and around the room, the walls are decorated with sensual frescoes - images of men and women, semi-naked at best, cavorting with each other and with a menagerie of demi-human beasts. There seems to be no other exit from this room...
Each and every door opens up into a room that pronounces this, in the most practical of ways, as the domain of the Runelord of Lust - there is a raw sensuality here, between the frescoes and the scents that hang erotically in the air, that the ages have not dimmed...
...and, having examined each of the doors along the corridor, Briana finds herself at the frost-rimed door - where the panel appears to ask whether the person at the door would wish to spend time with Sorshen herself.
"Something cold? What else would make the frost," Joanna asks. Briana's cheeks weren't the only ones burning red and the paladin had taken to keeping her eyes on the floor.
"I think the last. You look beat, Bri."
I'm not sure thèses beds in the previous rooms were used for much sleep, if that conforts you. A healthy love Relationship does include sex, you know, Briana, if you don't mind me stating the obvious. Of course, I can't help you much if you have questions about that part of your love with Teldon, as you know my ..preferences.
Arsith gives a quick look at the frescoes, and even gives a closer look at a painting depicting two women together.
The raw sensuality of this one is astounding. It's beautiful. But not for everyone.
She manages to blush, a little.
I do not only understand, but support your views, Briana. I loved my Lenore, just like you love Teldon. I wasn't interested in anyone else.She was my whole world.
On the discussion about clothing...
Zee smiles at Jo's offer of clothing, seems to consider it, then shakes her head. "Honestly, I think I'll just keep this dress on for now. It is ridiculous... but it is also far more comfortable than I would have thought. Plus... it could be an advantage if I get mistaken for the real Sorshen. Teldon used a glammer to that effect earlier..." She then cuts herself off, briefly forgetting Teldon's absence.
On seeing her own corpse...
Zee kneels at the shrouded body that, until less than an hour ago, had been her own. She pulls the shroud away from the face, and looks down at herself... dead. She reaches out and caresses her old body's face, then strokes her hair. The body is still warm. She then takes her satchel from her old self, and unwraps three Varisian scarves from her corpse's neck, draping them about her own. She then takes her starknife and silver holy symbol, leaving the wooden one about her corpse's neck. She then takes her spell component pouch and Harrow deck.
"As I said earlier, I believe that the preservation effect in Sorshen's sarcophagus still functions. Let's take my body back and place it there. The Thassilonian magic should continue to preserve it, until we can figure out how I can return to it. Will you help me?"
After the cacodaemons retreat...
At the sight of the tiny daemons, Zee assumes a defensive position, drawing a Harrow card from her deck. But the daemons take one look at her and retreat.
She looks after them quizzically, then relaxes. At Brianna's question, she replies, "So it would seem—they retreated when they saw their master. I thought that getting mistaken for Sorshen might prove an advantage. The only part about that which worries me is what Gnaeus said before his enchantment returned: 'Sorshen' had ensorcelled him. That means that I may not be the only person who appears to be the long-lost Runelord! I fear that if we do encounter whoever or whatever that might be... she would not be pleased to see me."
Now...
Examining the various bedrooms, Zee looks for more mystical auras. Looking at the frozen door, she reads the Thassilonian inscription aloud to herself, then translates, "Thou wouldst enter to enjoy the company of the Runelord of Lust herself? Then thou must touch!"
She pauses at that, then muses, "Hmm... This is some kind of obvious magical effect. I would imagine that this is some kind of trap..." She then gets a brief image in her mind of approving its construction. "I think we should leave this door alone... No one but Sorshen herself could choose her lovers!"
She then looks at the bedrooms again, and up the hallway. "Brianna, I understand your concern. To be honest, though, I don't think we'll find a better place to hole up for the night. There's only one entrance to this corridor, and it's guarded by those cacodaemons. And these beds do seem very inviting. We could pair up for safety in the rooms, and whoever is on guard could then watch the corridor itself."
"Okay," Joanna agrees quietly. "Zee, would you mind if you, Halli, and I take a room and Briana, Arsith, and Shadlah take another?"
The rooms, as mused by Briana, are indeed more than distracting... the enticing scents that seem to encircle the beds, the murals and the scenes of lustful frenzy that they depict, even the soft lighting seems to emphasise the curves and best angles of everyone resting in the large beds... but the rooms are safe, the friends sleep undisturbed... and dream more vividly than they have for months.
...and when 'morning' arrives, and provisions are assembled to make breakfast, talk turns to next steps...