Rushing forwards, Joanna easily avoids the spear that is being swung around to stop her charge... and sinks her blade into squamous flesh. Daefu shrieks indignantly... and glares at the friends, "You will all sing the sweetest song now... kneel now so I can play my tunes of agony in your bones". Even the sight of her beloved 'Sorshen' does nothing now to stop the hag's curses...
Leering, the sight of the hag - sodden, inhuman, savage - is quite unsettling.
Zee rushes into the pool, wading quickly through the water. Lightning crackles from the image of the cyclone next to her, then it vanishes back into the card, which returns to Zee's hand.
Zee recoils from the hag's hideous visage, and feels her strength weaken from the fright.
Flashes of electricity paint the cavern in a vivid white for a moment or two... and the smell of ozone mixes with rising steam...
Joanna sneers at the hag's attempts to frighten her.
"Is that supposed to scare me? I am unimpressed," she growls.
Growling at the lack of a proper firing line, Shadlah wades into the water, flinging a test blast at the hag's legs.
not Sorshen?!? She does talk like Zee... maybe she's finally using illusions to gain the advantage too... or maybe this whole set up is Sorshen's newest play to bend me to her will...damm, maybe my minds not as clear as I thought...
Two of the gremlins are caught by Ziomarra's spell, silhouetted by the lightning for a moment before they flop into the water... the hag, a more fearsome opponent, seems barely affected - laughing hideously about the pain that she will shortly inflict... her diatribe is cut short though by Shadlah's blast - smashing into the hag, and sending her flailing on her back...
Daefu, her cackling stopping for a moment, looks up towards Joanna - and instantly, Joanna feels a sense of doom clawing at her mind...
The gremlins, gathering around the hag, jump at Joanna... claws clacking ineffectively at her...
"I am one of Iomedae's knights. I have faced demons and devils. You do not frighten me!"
Joanna's voice rings out as she hacks away at the vile sea witch.
Angered that the hag was somwhow unaffected by her lightning bolt, Zee fixes her with a baleful glare and makes an odd gesture.
Arsith moves towards Jo, and fight side by side with the Young paladin, trying to fend off the ugly hag
if my senses can't be trusted then perhaps I shouldn't trust myself with a weapon... of course, if that really is Briana and our friends I need to help them... I guess killing the gremlins and the hag will be fine either way...
Teldon splashes forward to the island and grabs his longspear from the pile of his belongings. As he raises it he charges it with a spark of arcane energy.
Joanna, looming large over the hag, sees past its grim stare and brings her sword down... and when Arsith rushes to the Iomedean's side, the white-haired warpriest ends Daefu's awful song. With the hag's blood spilt and tainting the waters around the island, the remaining gremlins flee...
The woman bound to the post has remained unconscious throughout the fight... it is immediately obvious from the grievous wound that Daefu inflicted upon her is likely a fatal blow if not addressed.
Joanna cuts the injured woman down and carries her to a relatively dry place that she can tend to her her immediate needs. Once she is stable, Joanna turns to Teldon, takes a step towards him, then stops. Tears stream down her face as she sees Teldon and her voice quivers as she speaks.
"T-teldon. A-are you hurt." she asks.
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Teldon's lower lip quivers as his eyes dart back and forth at the people who appear to be his friends. His normally sharp eyes are obviously less clear than usual, and he seems unsteady on his feet. His mouth opens as if to answer Jo but then he stops...
With his spear still raised, his eyes lock on to Briana's and begin to well up as if he too is about to cry. "What did I draw for you?" he asks uncertainly.
Seeing that Joanna is moving to aid the unconscious womn before she can react, and that Teldon seems wary and confused, Zee mostly stands her ground.
"We're so glad to find you, Teldon!" She holds her arms out and looks at herself. "Yes, it is a long story, but I'm really Ziomarra. Here, let me see if that incubus left you with lingering effects..."
Zee then draws a Harrow card, casts a spell, and holds the card to her eye, as if it were a lens. She scans the room... especially Teldon... looking for lingering magical effects.
Arsith come closer to the the dying woman, readying a spell
Should I heal her, Jo?
The hag's spear lies on the floor next to her - an aura of magick swirls around its serrated tip and it takes little deduction from those with the relevant knowledge to confirm Daefu was wielding a . There is a second aura coming from the dead hag, a conjuration aura that slides around the neck of the cooling corpse... examining closely, the group see that it is an amulet of some form...
Turning her attention away from the hag and towards Teldon, Ziomarra sees the residual effects of a Charm spell... bearing similar characteristics as the ensorcellment that dogged the dhampir that 'slew' Ziomarra, it seems to be far less pernicious - as though Teldon had somehow resisted, or shaken off, the worst of it...
Turning her attention to the injured woman, Zee responds to Arsith's question. "Let me."
Zee takes out her wand of cure light wounds and uses it on the former prisoner.
Ziomarra's magicks bring the restrained woman's breathing back to a more regular, deeper rhythm... stirring, her eyes start to flicker with the beginnings of a return to consciousness.
Teldon drops his spear and staggers forward towards Briana. It's obvious that he's been putting a great deal of effort into appearing more alright than he actually is. When he reaches her, he falls to his knees, wraps his arms around her waist, and buries his face in her chainmail.
For a moment he is silent and then the words come, quickly and inarticulately, "she tried to make me do things, things we haven't done but I want to do with you, but I wouldn't, I didn't; they kept putting enchantments on me and I couldn't think straight, and I'm not sure how long its been, days maybe, but they didn't break me... I never gave her what she wanted... although she took what I need..."
"I missed you too," Teldon answers, squeezing Briana one more time, "more than you can know."
Letting go, he lowers himself to the ground and lies down on his back. "I'm not sure how much sleep I've had..." he reflects, "everything's a blur... my mind is exhausted though... I don't know how much longer I could have kept that up."
Joanna returns to the battered woman they'd saved and pulls out a spare change of clothes for her. There was nothing she could do for Teldon now, and perhaps with him back, things would return to normal.
That's silly, she thinks as she channels some of the divine power Iomedae had granted her into the woman regaining consciousness and healing her wounds. Things will never go back to how they were. We've survived, but this place has taken its toll on us. Each of us may survive, but will we all? Or will this place fracture us too much?
As she waits for the woman to awake, she sits against the wall on a small patch of dry land and looks alone. Halli had stayed on the beach, daring not to come any nearer to the tunnels that smelled of death and decay. She couldn't talk to Briana and Ziomarra, not now, and it looked as if she would have to wait for a long time before she could talk to Briana now that Teldon and her were reunited. She did not regret that, but she could feel the tension between them now, and more than ever she wanted to fix whatever had broken between them.
She just couldn't. This is not the time nor the place, and so she sits and waits for the woman to wake, hoping that things will work and that when they leave they will still be the friends they were when they walked in.
"I think so, she's alive at least," Joanna answers.
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Respectfully keeping her distance, the woman who looks like Sorshen but talks like Zee says, "We are all so glad we found you, Teldon. But as Brianna said, much has happened." She gestures at herself. "And I apologize for this ridiculous dress. It's all I have that fits me now."
She continues, "Teldon, are you injured? I did see that you had been the subject of powerful enchantments, but they do not seem to have taken. Your will is admirably strong!" She pauses, unsure if she should say something, then takes a deep breath. "And we all know that you are not in any way at fault for it...but she mow has the Shard of Pride, does she not?"
Joanna's healing pulls the rescued woman from the edge of unconsciousness... her eyes flicker open, beautiful sapphires of blue within a tremendously scarred face, as she gulps deep breaths of air inwards... slowly sitting, she focusses on Joanna and on Arsith, "The hag? She's gone... you saved me?" The look of relief upon her face is swiftly replaced with one of horror as she sees Ziomarra, "No... not you... no!!!" Suddenly panicked, she has the look of a trapped wild animal... trying desperately to escape her doom.
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"I'm not injured," Teldon answers, "she wanted me physically fit when my will broke."
He manages a bit of a smile when Zee praises his resolve and offers, "When my father first started teaching me to fight he told me it was pointless to push back against someone stronger than you--to meet force with force--but if you can redirect their force it becomes much easier to resist. I applied that to her... temptations, remembering that the sin of lust is just a twisting of the virtue love. Every time she filled my mind with visions of lewd acts with her and others I would imagine lovingly doing very similar things with Bria..." His face suddenly flushes bright red; whether its because of the memories surfacing or the realization that he has divulged too much is unclear.
His expression sours when talk turns to the shard. "Yes," he replies dourly, "she took it from me even though she's not fit to wear it. That means we now have two shards to recover before we can leave this place."
Joanna, seeing the woman’s distress, moves to calm her down.
”Easy! Easy! It’s a long story, but the woman you think is Sorshen isn’t. Her name’s Ziomarra, and yes, we killed her,” she says as she reaches for her holy symbol and holds it before her so the woman can see. ”My name is Joanna. I’m a servant of Iomedae. I promise that I’ll cut you free, but I need a promise from you that you’re not going to attack my friend or go running off on your own. This place is dangerous and I’d hate for you to get hurt after I patched you up.”
Joanna does her best to give the woman a comforting smile as she waits for her answer.
The woman, clutching her abdomen where the hag speared her... and feeling how the skin has knitted together already, looks at Joanna with pleading eyes. "You'll cut my legs and hands free... and its not a trick?". She promises, after looking at Joanna's symbol for a few moments, not do anything rash...
And so, free at last when Joanna cuts the last of her bindings, she tries to stand... but exhaustion, as well as injury, have taken their toll. Remaining seated, she wonders, "Who? Who are you? What are you doing here?"
Turning to the prisoner, Zee says, "I did not mean to scare you, sister. I assure you that despite my appearance, I am not Sorshen. My name is Ziomarra. I am Varisian. While my caravan turned their back on me, these people are my new family. As Joanna follows the Inheritor, I follow the Starsong." She touches the large silver butterfly pendant around her neck. "As for what we are doing here... we are explorers, seeking a treasure we think is kept here somewhere. Now..." She approaches cautiously, trying not to appear threatening. "...my caravan was at Trail's End just outside of Korvosa when the Blood Veil swept the city. Half of my family died. Back then, we saw many warriors like yourself, clad in mail, with scarred faces. You are a Gray Maiden, are you not? I had wondered what became of your order after the fall of Queen Ileosa... my caravan was in Kaer Maga when we'd heard that news." Zee then opens her wineskin and takes a deep swig, and then offers it the woman.
"What do you call yourself?"
Teldon smiles at Briana's new found boldness and squeezes her hand in return.
that's easy to say now... I hope you feel that same way when you learn about the things I experienced... saw, I only saw them... it felt so real though... I hadn't considered how hard it might be to go back to not acting on some of these desires once we were reunited...
When she calls him 'my love' he draws her hand to his mouth and kisses it softly. "I was a prisoner too, until just a few moments ago," he adds. As the women talk he hauls himself back to his feet and begins gathering his belongings: putting his armor back on, repacking his bag and putting back on, putting his potions and scrolls back into the loops and pockets of his explorer's outfit, etc.
The woman takes a healthy draught of the wine offered by Ziomarra, even though she still seems cautious about this woman who is not Sorshen, before confirming that she is "...Was... a Gray Maiden. My name, even though I have not been called it for an age, is Helanda Mertien. There are many more of us here in the Lady's Light - we followed Commander Oriana here when she heard about ancient magicks that would help us reclaim the Crimson Throne". She stops for a moment, maybe self conscious of her role in events in Korvosa, before continuing, "...and then we met Sorshen..."
Helanda stops as her gaze fixes on Ziomarra, "Only... I don't think it was Sorshen... not the real one".
Joanna holds out a bundle of clothes to Helanda and says, "sorry, they're all I have, and I'm not sure the others have a spare set of clothes, but it should be better than going around half-naked." The young Iomedaean's cheeks are pink with embarrassment now that the emotions of combat and finding Teldon is wearing off.
"Helanda, you came in through that shaft that lead to the room with the pillars and the big stone coffin, right? Did you happen to look inside the coffin?"
"...dead. I know." She looks at both Teldon and Helanda. "It's a long story."
"Sorry. I guess I should..." Joanna starts to say before trailing off and just shaking her head.
Be silent. This is how you managed to get Briana mad at you in the first place.
Helanda gingerly puts on the clothes offered to her by Joanna... they are ill-fitting, for Helanda is a tall woman, but they go someway to protect the woman's modesty and to hide the wounds inflicted by Daefu. As talk turns towards the coffin at the entrance to the Lady's Light, Helanda admits that they did not dare open any sarcophagi or tombs, "We had a hard enough time without risking the ire of the gods... or the undead. Two of my sisters were slain by a glass golem not long after our arrival and, they were barely cold in the ground when we attacked again - this time by incubi. It was then that 'Runelord Sorshen' appeared to us. We were so pleased... so relieved... it was like our prayers had been answered", Helanda's voice trails off as she remembers...
"Inviting us in and agreeing to discuss an alliance, 'Sorshen' teleported us through to what would become our quarters... I don't know how long we've been here now, time seems to move differently when there is no sun to track the passage of the days. Our leader... Oriana, her second-in-command Quenelle, and some others were taken away to serve “Sorshen,” although..." Helanda looks disgusted, "I think many of them ended up in the sea hag’s clutches".
"That's what happened to me... when I raised my suspicions of 'Sorshen' to my sword sisters, one or maybe more of them sold me out. It was the false Sorshen herself who led me to this cave and left me in the clutches of the sea witch".
Seeing Helanda was still hurt, Joanna reached out for her shoulder and once more there was a brief glow that helped seal her wounds.
"I think you may be right. There's another tunnel that leads off from the shore we landed at. The smell from it is ripe with decay. I'm... I'm sorry," Joanna says awkwardly.
Not willing to wait around and make things still more awkward, Joanna leaves to check on Halli who had not followed and to see if there was anything she could do for anyone in the other tunnel.