Shaking his head at the sight of his mace dissolving before his eyes. He calls over his shoulder, "Back up, I have another idea."[/dice] Before he retreats, he points to the slimy thing filling the opening in front of him and chants in prayer, [b]"Noble Lady of Graves, hold this foe in judgement."
An ethereal barb shoots from Christoph's hand at the heaving mass beyond the door. Once the path is clear, he steps back and stows his weapon away once he's behind the relative cover of the wall.
Rhia extends a hand, directing a stream of soul energy to strike the ooze creature, ethereal images of faces and weapons, flicker in and out as she strikes.
Istivan, seeing the events unfolding, quickly looks around for any broken rubble to throw.
The Speaker's ethereal barb plops into the creature's dark form. Its amorphous form shudders for a moment.
Zelda's second stone plops into the black form next, causing another ripple.
Rhia's ghostly stream of warriors manifests, descending upon the creature. A barrage of translucent war hammers and heavy maces batter the black mass before the spirits depart back to the beyond.
Noticing a bit of loose debris on the rocky face near the bridge, Istivan finds and picks off three small stones that look serviceable enough.
Unable to get a clear line of sight into the room beyond where the creature is, Aliseya, Naught, and Sookie wait at the ready.
The amophous creature then begins to slip into the hallway. But with a muffled bang, it stops before much of it can get through. A black tendril then suddenly emerges through the doorway, smacking at the only target within range: Christoph. But the Speaker manages to dodge back out of the way in time. The tendril smacks the wall inside the hallway instead. The tendril retracts as the wooden paneling starts to sizzle and smoke where it touched, burning away enough to reveal bits of the stone wall behind it.
Christoph suppresses a grim of triumph as the surging creature stops at the entrance to the hall with a metallic clang. There's the first step.... Drawing out his bow again, he reaches over his shoulder for an arrow. As he does so, his finger flicks to the side and anyone watching carefully sees the fletching of the arrows change from white to grey. Drawing one of his blunt-headed arrows, he chants a prayer to Pharasma as he nocks, draws, and looses at the mass just ahead of him. I hope step two works...
Naught proceeds to glare at the evil glob of licorice jelly.
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Aliseya stares too, with a wide-eyed, dramatic expression of feeling helpless to do more.
And also, her brow furrows for a moment. She wonders to herself, why the sudden hankering for licorice...
Sookie stands at the ready. Unsure that her own weaponry would accomplish much against this particular foe (other than melt), she prepares to batter the creature with the blunt end of her spear in case it gets inside. And then, she hears the bonk as the creature fails to slip inside the hall...
She defers to Christoph. He appears to have a plan. And it appears to be working, so far.
"Give it hell, Metz."
Christoph's blunt-tipped arrow makes a more pronounced plopping sound than the previous arrows had, causing a momentary rupture of blackish ooze to dribble. While this arrow also begins to fizzle and smoke, it made a more satisfactory impact first.
Zelda's last enchanted stone as well makes a satisfying plopping noise as it smacks into the blobby creature's body. A bit of blackish fluid also oozes from the spot where it struck.
Undaunted, the black oozing ooze attempts to grab its next meal once again. Its black tendril goes for Christoph... and the Speaker is unable to dodge it this time! He gets smacked, right in the chest, with a sudden and most surprising thrust. Like alchemist's glue, the black tendril sticks to the Speaker's chest. And as the now-familiar sound of sizzling and sight of smoke begins to emanate from his chest armor, he feels the creature beginning to pull him into the chamber...
Istivan rears back and tries to aim a throw that wouldn't hit Cristoph, letting lose a stone
Christoph nods approvingly at the sound of his arrow plunging through the amorphous mass through the doorway. At least that worked. Before he could repeat his success, he found himself buffeted and coated in painful, burning slime. Uh-oh. Years of training takes hold and tamps down panic as he concentrates and chants a prayer. The burning instantly is reduced as he channels Pharasma's power protectively. Struggling fiercely, he tries to free himself from the binding grip of the creature.
"Metz!"
Seeing the black tendril burning and dragging the Speaker in to what would be a horrible death, Sookie drops her spear, rushes in, grabs him by the waist, and pulls!
"Let 'em go!!!" Naught growls as she latches onto the Speaker and yanks.
At a loss for how to fight the creature, Rhia reaches out, willing her ghostly companions to deliver the speaker from the ooze's grasp. Ghostly figments manifest around Christoph, taking hold of him to lift him out of the roiling black mass.
"Oh! No!" Aliseya looks worried as the Speaker is hauled in towards the blackish ooze monster. She struggles to think of something else she can do in the moment, thankful the others seem to have a plan.
As the amorphous creature drags Christoph to horrifying prospects, a stone plops through the black tendril from Istivan. Though blackish ooze dribbles from the wound, it remains firmly affixed to its prey.
Then Zelda, Sookie, and Naught leap in to help pull Metz away. With the aid of Rhia's ectoplasmic ancestors, their combined effort breaks the creature's tough grip. Though its acidic touch leaves a smoking hole in the chest area of his order's tabard, his armor beneath is not damaged.
Christoph also finds himself levitating a few feet above the ground. The ephemeral figures of Rhia's ancestors appear to be keeping him afloat. And while the smaller frames of Zelda and Naught, while still holding him for dear life, struggle to keep him grounded, Sookie and her solid tweed suit manage to keep the whole lot of them from floating away.
With several targets within its reach, the blackish blob now shoots a black tendril at... Naught! It hits her from behind, landing with a loud, painful smack. Smoke rises from her upper back as the burning black tendril now drags her backwards into its great black burning mass...
"NAUGHT!!!"
Aliseya's hazel eye instantly shifts to blood red. Commanding rage replaces empathy and concern. Baring her teeth, widening her red-glowing eyes, her closed fists draw blood from her palms as she squats, releasing a blood-curdling scream from the bowels of the abyss within.
The sonic assault threatens to shatter everyone's eardrums. Glass bottles on a shelf 30 feet away shatter. The blackish ooze's body begins to ripple at a high frequency, resonating with, and ripping apart from, wicked Ali's high-pitched, ear-piercing scream.
"Augh, No, NOPE, NADA." Naught growls as she struggles against the licoriced pseudopod.
Christoph grunts in pain as he's tugged free from the grip of the amorphous thing. Gathering himself, he mutters a prayer to Pharasma and nocks an arrow. As he prepares to draw, Naught is caught up by the creature. "Help her! I'll try to destroy this thing." True to his words, he looses a pair of arrows at the creature as fast as he can draw, aim, and release.
No sooner is Metz is freed than Naught is grabbed. Sookie releases the latter's waist to immediately grab Naught's, pulling with all her might against the black tendril's.
The creature chooses Naught as its second choice for a late night snack. As it begins to drag the storyteller closer into its black body, her friends rally around her.
Aliseya's ear-piercing scream violently shakes the creature for a moment.
While Christoph's first arrow bounces off the edge of the creature's... flesh (?), his second arrow pierces right through the massive body with a crackling thud, causing ripples throughout its amorphous form. He finds himself floating backwards a bit from the force of his shot, so he steadies himself with a wall.
Zelda's blade is as swift to clip the grappling tendril, spattering burning ooze on the fine wooden floor. Sookie simultaneously helps wrestle Naught out of the creature's deadly grip.
While the others are more accustomed, Istivan is momentarily distracted by Aliseya's disturbing shift and piercing scream. After removing his hands from his ears and dropping a quizzical look, he lets loose another stone into the lingering black tendril. It emerges from the other side, spattering a bit of acid.
Shuddering from the impact of arrow, stone, and scream, its massive body's vibrations reach a crescendo. A stinking black fluid dribbles from its wounds as it vibrates. Slowly, the amorphous black blob begins to slump... then suddenly, it collapses into a liquidy mass with a loud "sploosh". Everyone nearby ducks back as the blackish liquidy mass of its tendril splashes to the floor in a puddle, while most of its bulk drops to the ground 30 feet below in the chamber with a splash. Sizzling a large new gap in the floor boards, the sizzling and smoking dies down in short time, leaving behind a gunky black slick over the now exposed stone.
A peek inside the chamber reveals nothing but a black greasy pile of goo directly below, moving nevermore.
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”I really, truly hate this place.” Naught says while face down on the floor after being yanked free. ”Also love you guys, appreciate ya.”
Istivan drops his rather useless remaining stones, "Well done. That levitate may be handy to get over there and open the door."
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Aliseya blinks the hazel back into her one eye. Releasing her clenched fists, she rushes to help Naught back onto her feet.
Once back up, Naught is momentarily smothered by her love's warm embrace. She then notices a bit of fresh blood on her own hands. Droplets of blood, Naught now realizes, are trickling from Ali's palms.
But Ali doesn't seem to notice the blood. She's too busy fretting over Naught's burnt leather outfit. She has that look Naught's come to know very well: 'Time to go SHOPPING!'
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At first caught off guard and fretting being taken shopping by Aliseya, she was always so enthusiastic about it to the point that Naught would get flustered from the attention and options to choose from, her eyes soon look on to the droplets of blood falling from the Dancer's palms. "Ali! You're hurt!" Naught squeaks before grabbing one of her palms and brining it up to her lips.
Though muffled everyone is pretty sure the storyteller tried to shout Medic! while sucking on the wound in an attempt, in her head, to keep it clean.
Christoph heaves a sigh of relief as the amorphous thing collapses back into the hole where it came from. "That was bad, but could have been worse. I think we did well, especially given we didn't know what that thing was." Fetching a wand from his pack, Christoph proceeds to chant the commands words and a soft light emanates from the wand as the raw skin and bruises of the creature's attack are healed.
Having finished closing his wounds, Christoph tries to walk (on air) to Aliseya in answer to Naught's call for a medic. Moving nowhere, he flails at the wall for a moment and succeeds only in spinning himself around. Clearing his throat and looking over his shoulder at Rhia, "Can you lower me to the floor until we're ready to explore this room? Istivan's idea is a good one but I think I'd prefer to be secured by a rope so I'm not floating helplessly in the middle of the room."
With a nod, Rhia directs her ghostly ancestors to slowly lower Christoph to the floor, though they stay near the speaker, should he need to be lifted again.
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Ali looks quizically at her own palms for a moment before shrugging it off.
"Oh, don't worry about me! Look at you..."
As Naught holds her hands to her lips, Aliseya touches the top of Naught's forehead with her lips. An effervescent green light cocoons the storyteller's serpentine hair first, traveling down her body. She feels a tingling sensation as the burnt flesh on her back is rejuvenated.
Wrapping light bandages from her satchel around her hands (once she frees them from Naught's grip), she smiles and shoos off any further attention to them.
"Really, it's nothing. How's everyone else?"
Once everyone is healed up, Ali halts Naught. "Let's patch that up, for now..." She sings a brief but catchy tune in Varisian.
"Trageți și reparați, coaseți și coaseți. Nu a fost momentul, Desna vă rog să o rezolvați."
Weaving her hands fluidly, a faint effervescence envelops Naught from top to bottom. Where the dancer's wrapped palms direct it, the burnt and torn leather magically moves and mends.
"Oh! You too?"
Taking notice of the big hole in Christoph's tabard, she turns to him. Likewise, an effervescence envelops his chest area: the hole shrinks away as the material fills back in, just like new.
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Sookie gets a reminiscent look in her eyes as the changeling couple carry on.
"Righty-o, Metz."
Returning her attention to the task at hand, she takes Christoph's proffered rope and holds it firmly. She gives him a go-ahead with a sharp nod.
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"What? I'm fine I'm fine, it was just an overgrown serving of jam," Naught tries to say before her brain turns off as Aliseya kisses her, causing the life and warmth to immediately rush back to her face, healing helping notwithstanding.
Standing there drunkenly for a moment she comes to her senses once she realizes the Dancer is still casting spells. "Oh? Oh!" she lets out before twirling around, looking over her mended outfit and armor. "Thank you, Ali!"
"Thank you, Miss Belododia" He nods appreciatively at his like-new vestments.
Having secured the rope to himself by tying it around his middle, he hands it to Sookie and nods his thanks. "I'll let you know if I need to return."
The Speaker takes a moment to study the floor of the room carefully to ensure nothing else is waiting to surprise them.
Once he's satisfied, he gingerly puts a foot out. Once it stops descending and he's sure he won't fall, he pushes off along the wall towards the door. Once there, he listens again to see if he can hear anything aside from the shuffling.
Assuming he hears nothing concerning, he pulls out his morningstar and opens the door.
Carefully scanning the cylindrical chamber before stepping into it, the Speaker of the Voices notices no other signs of an immediate threat. Rhia's faintly visible ancestors are seen gently carrying him across the chamber through the air to the other stone door, some 20 feet across and to the left of where the others remain, peering in. Without anything to stand upon, Christoph remains hovering in front of the door, some 30 feet above the base of the chamber.
Once there, he carefully listens. He hears the muffled scratching once more, but louder now. He even hears the faint sounds of knocking. He pinpoints it more accurately to several feet to the right of the stone door, though, and not from directly behind it.
He also notices something peculiar. A patch of wall to his right, behind which he hears the sounds, is very smooth. This contrasts with the rest of the chamber's more textured stone wall.
Opening the stone door with his morningstar at the ready, Christoph finds a short hallway of about 15 feet in length. It ends in a closed wooden door. The walls here are wood-paneled, like the main hallway. At the far right, he spots a small shelf in the wall. And from behind the wall to his near right, he continues to hear muffled scratching and knocking sounds...
Perplexed, Christoph peers back and forth from the hallway to the unusual patch of smooth stone for a moment. He calls back to the others, "The scratching is coming from here." He points to the smooth patch of wall. "And this stone looks unusually smooth. Could something have sealed them in? I'll tie this off and another of you can come over? Worst case you can climb up and down if you have more rope."
Taking a moment to focus, he chants two prayers in quick succession and studies the wall.
Suspicious, Christoph puts away his morningstar and fetches the short spear he had earlier enchanted against undead . He takes a moment to search for a place to secure the rope he'd tied around himself to ease the passage for others.
With that done, he looks for some indication there is a way into the wall. Something is back there, but how?
Christoph detects neither an evil nor magical aura coming from the wall. He however does realize that his ability to detect the peesence of either of these cannot pierce beyond one foot of stone, and the wall is indeed stone.
He studies the area for a way to access the area hidden behind the wall. Alas, he finds no apparent means of entry.
He does however notice a faint-to-moderate magical aura coming from 15 ft. down the hall. From the shelf, just right of the far door. On closer inspection of the shelf, the Speaker discerns a pair of auras emanating from a small bottle and a polished wooden stick. He is able to discern them to be a potion of nondetection and a wand of charm monster.
Naught saunters over and grabs the rope as Zelda clambers up after Christoph.
Istivan smiles at the banter and care expressed between some of the members of the party, clearly indicating some strong bonds between them. As a newcomer, he still felt a bit on the outside, but that will fade with time.
He was curious about the Speaker's findings, and agreed that Zelda was best suited to take a look. He kept an eye on her as she climbed, ready with a feather fall should she slip.
Zelda makes her way down, across, and then up to meet Christoph in short time. Though Rhia's ephemeral ancestors only levitate the Speaker, he gives her a hand as she leans in closer to examine the smooth stone patch of wall.
In spite of the intense scrutiny of the keen-eyed jeweler, Zelda finds no more evidence of an entry here than the Speaker's own keen eyes have spotted. That is to say, no evidence whatsoever.
The scratching and knocking continue, muffled through the stone wall. They sound faint, pathetic, weak...
Perhaps there's an entrance from the unexplored next chamber? There must be. How else could anything get inside a sturdy stone wall...
Stashing the wand and potion in his pack to be dealt with later, Christoph contemplates their dilemma as the even more keen eye'd Zelda fails to find the source of the sound. He calls over the chasm to the others, "There doesn't appear to be a way to the sound in here. Perhaps the other room will, but it has the violet fungi and basidrond. If we're going in there, it'd be best to be together. I think we need to try if we want to find the noise's source."