"I detected evil upon the creature. I suspect it is a demon."
"I detected evil upon the creature. I suspect it is a demon."
Kaygan’s face pales. He does not relish facing another demon so soon after the schir, especially being so short on spells. Nevertheless, he wants to know exactly what they are up against. “Did you get a good look at it? Are you able to describe it?” he asks the paladin.
Mulluq reacts slowly to Kaygan's question, "It is a hunched creature, about the size and shape of a dwarf." As he gives the brief description of what he was able to recognize, he focuses on trying to glean what he knows of what he saw himself. He keeps his eyes forward, watching for any signs of threat or attack on Jod.
Around the corner Hannik listens to Mulluq's suspicion description. With her back against the wall she shakes her head violently and hisses, "Demon? No, no, no, no. This... No. This is a holy place! Ghroth! I want you to rip that pit fiend limb from limb!"
Ghroth juts his toothy lower jaw out and rolls his neck. The webbed spines down his back rise when he tenses from his crouch and growls in Hallit, "Thought you'd never ask."
"Lady Valerious, and Hannik too, please stay back for your own safety, as the thing could try to target you directly." He stands ready to rush in, his sword and shield ever at the ready.
Kira looks at Mulluq with an "Are you frelling crazy?" kind of stare.It's not pleasant. She loads a cold iron bolt as she does so.
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"Between the combination of my sword and shield, I have a better chance of facing this foul spawn." Mulluq reminds the others of his adequate defenses, and the special properties of his weapon to bypass the enemies' defenses.
Quietly, "If all hell breaks loose, I will throw the rock at the most likelyl target and get out of your firing lanes. Ready your slings and arrows."
Jod holds the glowing stone up like a torch and begins to move into the temple slowly and carefully. And non-threateningly.
"Hey, man, I heard you in here. I'm guessing you're new here. Do you know where the priests and the children went? Are they safe?"
"What are you two going to do, bore the demon to death?" Rhok pokes his spear towards the dark interior. "Sometimes acts speak louder than a thousand words."
“Did you see where it went?” Kaygan whispers.
Jod will scan the room as he enters, then move 30' generally in the direction that the demon seemed to retreat. Once the whole party is past the difficult terrain of the broken doors, he will start moving quicker.
Jod looks about the darkened temple. What might have been wooden furniture of some kind - perhaps pews or tables - have been smashed to unrecognisable splinters. Paintings on the wall are defaced, either by claw marks gouging out the plaster or by being spattered with blood and other bodily fluids. Shelved have been ripped down and books shredded, paintings torn to pieces and ceramic and glass pulverised into tiny fragments which crunch underfoot. The destruction has been thorough and comprehensive.
Worse are the mutilated corpses, three of them that lie slumped in the room. Their faces have been horribly disfigured and the bodies mutilated. While they seem to have been gnawed to some extent, the damage they have sustained is far in excess of what might have been necessary simply to kill or feed. Instead, like the temple itself, they have been torn to render them hideous. The whole place stinks of blood and opened bowels.
As he takes in the scene, Jod notices a figure lurking in a doorway to the north-west. But his sharp ears also pick up the sound of movement behind a closed door to the east.
"This is the Apocalypse, Sol. Everything will be like this, and soon. It's up to us and others like us to try our hardest to stop that from happening. Until that happens, we'll see a lot more scenes like this." Rhok seems strangely detached and matter-of-fact as he walks into the temple - the exception being his hair, which is fluttering in an otherwise unnoticeable wind. "Is this your grand statement, demon? Breaking windows and disfiguring the already-dead? I thought your kind were fearsome immortals perpetrating grand evils, not pathetic little dregs given to acts of petty vandalism."
Kaygan looks about in horror, fixated on the destruction wrought to this beautiful place (a place strangely familiar, though he doesn’t recall having been here since he came to this city) and the mutilated bodies … he doesn’t seem to immediately notice the lurking figure.
“Grand evils, petty vandalism … I think both are equally valid ways to pass the time for demons,” he mutters.
The demon gives a hiss of anger as Rhok derides its work and shows itself. A pathetic-looking hunched thing, small horns projecting randomly from a pate surrounded of yellowing white hair, its face combines rat and human in ways which are flattering to neither. Its head slouches lower than the hump of its twisted shoulders and it flexes large claw-like paws with too many fingers. It fixes Rhok with piggy eyes and gurgles in a wetly slobbering voice.
"What's your next big act, buddy? Driving a buggy really slowly on the left side of the road? Come over here so I can make you into a real statement piece."
Ghroth stalks through the destruction with claws flexed and looking for a chance to use them while Hannik trails behind in some combination of shock and rage.
"It thinks you're its new sweetheart Rhok. It said something about you being as pretty as it is."
"What's your next big act, buddy? Driving a buggy really slowly on the left side of the road?"
With a few words and a rune traced in the air, Hannik opens a conduit to Ghroth's home world and siphons power to protect him against the demon. She passes it on to him by touch while trying to avoid looking down at the mutilated bodies.
Jod looks over his right shoulder and says, "Mind that door on the right. I heard something over there before you came in."
Turning to face the demon, he reaches up and draws his falchion. He readies an action to meet the creature's charge with enchanted steel, "Come, demon. Come see if you are so tough with living targets."
The demon lumbers towards Jod with a shriek. Jod's blade slashes the creature horrid, cartilaginous hump, but it is still fit enough to reach for him with its claws.
Jod grunts from the very solid blow as much as from frustration at his own miss, but says gamely, "Now we're getting somewhere!"
Kaygan steps up behind Jod and casts a spell of protection on him.