Aliseya grows suddenly quiet. Then, "Was that, like, TMI? Sorry. I can just rattle on and on when I'm tired..."
Looking down into the chamber to see how the Speaker is doing, Aliseya's eyes droop from exhaustion. It's been a very long day.
"I really can't, like, wait to fall into a nice cozy bed..."
She then giggles to herself again, the memory of the spinning Speaker coming back to her.
"For me it's a long hot bath, that I'm looking forward to the most." Rhia chimes in, while watching The Speaker's actions.
"No no, we all have things we deal with, and you can't really help who your parents are. Just took me by surprise." Istivan responded.
He grinned, "A hot bath and a cozy bed sound like a good plan to me, I'm ready to get out of these flooded chambers for sure."
With a sudden intake of air, Aliseya's eyes open wide with excitement at Rhia's mention of a long hot bath.
"Ohmygods like, I have these really soothing bath salts. And scented candles. You can totally use them! If you like."
She begins to rummage through her rather packed satchel, realizing a moment later that now is probably not the best time.
"I'll show you la..." She then also realizes it might be a while before they find a bath again, other than in a creepy flooded castle or a river perhaps. "...ter. Huh..."
She smiles at Istivan. "Yeah, it took me by surprise the first time too."
"Ugh," she releases her emotions with a grunt from the gut to Istivan's last statement, "Like that would be sooo... nice." A dreamy look comes over her.
Naught listened quietly as Aliseya explains her heritage, her aberrant eyes flicking like a hawk inbetween their comrades as she waits to see their reactions.
When the conversation moves on Naught nods and sighs. ”Agreed, I hate this place. I’d settle for a warm bed or fresh straw pile but tonight? Tonight I’m being greedy, warm bath to soak in! My tendrils are getting uncomfortably greasy.”
If Christoph reacts to the humor directed at his predicament, he shows it by scowling. That he's already scowling makes it impossible to tell if he's bothered by the party's amusement or not. At least my stomach isn't ready to empty at the drop of a hat anymore.
He listens a moment to Aliseya's story as it is told again to the newcomer. No more control then before either, not that I'd expect much progress in a day. Heaving a sigh and resigning himself to more worry, he focuses for the moment on his task.
He stares suspiciously at the doors. Despite having heard nothing, the stench is almost overwhelming. With everything else we've seen so far, this can be nothing good. He glances upward and nods to Zelda as she appears, "Yes, I think it would be best if all or most of you join me. There's something awful smelling on the other side and we should be ready for trouble."
Rhia takes a step forward, off into thin air, extending her arms to her sides, ghostly images flickering around her as they slowly lower her to the floor of the room below.
The companions make their way down to Christoph's side, whether by ancestral air travel or by rope. Those who are not levitating find themselves in about three feet of frigid water, just as cold as the water on first entering these towers.
All of you notice the foul stench coming from the crack in the twin doors to your south.
"EeeYAAAA! That's COOOLD!" Though she hesitates a long moment, Aliseya manages to plop right into the frigid waters. She shivers and folds her arms across her chest to get warm.
"Ew!" Looking up at the double doors with a frown, she pinches her nose at the stench.
"Why did we c-c-come down here again?" she asks with chattering teeth.
Naught reflexively hops in after Aliseya. "Brrrrrr, like kneeing bricks. Really cold bricks."
Another comment was lost on her tongue as she felt, or rather smelt the door and what laid behind. "I don't know... this was a bad idea..." she says while taking a step back further away from the door.
Hovering above the water protects Rhia from the cold for the moment, but definitely not from the smell. Looking toward the door, she makes a gesture, uttering a spell, as her eyes begin to glow.
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The insightful, albeit shivering, Aliseya takes notice of Naught's sudden discomfort.
"W-w-what's wrong?" She places a trembling yet comforting hand on her love's shoulder.
After thudding into the water last, Sookie steps closer to the doors and peers intensely at them.
"Stinks like the loo, but I see no evil. Not on the first floor, at least."
To Rhia, "How about you, dear?"
”I don’t know, something’s not right, this isn’t right. There’s something bad behind that door.” Naught quickly mumbles as she stops moving, Aliseya’s attempt to calm the storyteller having some success as she gently and gratefully take’s her lover’s hand.
"Not detecting the presence of undead directly ahead either. Whatever is creating that stink is ether not undead, or on another floor." Rhia replies, sparing a brief smile down at Sookie.
Christoph nods his thanks to Sookie and Rhia. he gives his own answer to Aliseya's question, "Hopefully just my paranoia, given what else we've seen in this place." With the tight quarters, he puts his bow into his magical quiver and fetches shield and morningstar. He looks to the rest of the party once, asking, "Ready?"
If no one objects, he opens the door.
Istivan grimaced as he once more found himself waist deep in cold, stagnant water. He was regretting suggesting that they look for the source of the scratching, though he still knew it the right thing to do. He checked his sword in it's sheath before readying arrow to string and nodding the Cristoph that he was ready.
Christoph has trouble pushing the door open from the air (nothing to push off from). Ali lets out a partially suppressed giggle, but Sookie and Zelda step up to help him out.
The door is opened. Similarly to the previous chambers, another short hall of some 5 feet extends to a second set of double doors.
Pushing one of these doors open, Christoph and Zelda are the first to enter, with Sookie and Istivan close behind.
The source of the rotting stench becomes apparent to those who first enter: a trio of headless, apelike creatures rest and rot inside heavy iron cages. Flies buzz around them as the waters lap against these corpses.
Floating in the decrepit waters or resting atop one of the cages are several batlike creatures, a few larger than the others. They appear deceased at first glance, judging by the signs of violence against them. But it's hard to tell without closer inspection.
Also in this chamber, the twisted remnants of an iron walkway lie half-submerged in the water. Two doors sit high in the north and east walls, thirty feet above the floor. Another pair of twin doors stand straight ahead on the ground floor in the south wall.
One of the varguilles then, to your great horror and disgust, kissed you on the lips and afflicted you with a disease that would have turned you into one of them! But you were thankfully healed.
You also recall finding Naught in one of the cages: she had disappeared days earlier, only to be found once more here. Though very odd to say the least, Naught said she had no recollection of how she'd gotten inside.
"Ugh..."
Even the battle-hardened, tweed-clad warrior cannot help but react in revulsion to the abhorrent stench, now so acutely pronounced near the source. Frowning, she maintains her calm composure, scanning around the room from behind Christoph and Zelda.
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Deep concern washes over Aliseya's face as she listens to Naught. But then, she smiles back at her.
"C-c-come on. Maybe if you face what's stirring this inside, it'll help you to face the source of it."
Still holding her hand, Aliseya gently nudges Naught to enter the chamber with her.
"That doesn't mean we can't freshen the air a bit, though."
With her free hand, Aliseya gestures a few quick sweeping motions. Suddenly, the air begins to smell like fresh cut flowers. After several seconds though, the scent of decaying rotting flesh begins to mingle with it once more.
She then adds, "You're very strong. Inside, I mean. I believe in you."
Despite her instincts telling her otherwise Naught let’s Aliseya lead her to the doorway behind the others. ”Thanks Ali. I’m strong AND terrified.” Naught manages to reply, a her words a reflex to subdue the dread.
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"Terror increasing. Increasing..."
Stepping down into the icy water, Rhia gives a small shiver as the water immediately begins seeping into her clothing, infusing her with its chill.
As she enters the room, the noxious odors assault her senses with full force, causing the ghost whisperer to gag, despite a professional familiarity with the scents of death and undeath. She staggers forward, trying to think past the revulsion, to focus on the task at hand.
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Squeezing Naught's hand comfortingly, "I'm here."
Ali helps Naught approach the next chamber. Her face scowls more and more as they approach after Rhia into the next chamber.
"Oh my stars..." Without another free hand, she covers her nose with an elbow, resisting the urge to blow chunks.
"Oh Rhia, you ok?" she asks in an concerned, elbow-muffled voice.
Looking around the chamber, recognition dawns on Ali as Zelda recollects being here before.
"How could I forget that stink," she remarks, again in an elbow-muffled voice. "I think it's worse now!"
The wave of stench that washed over them caused Istivan to blanch. More horrors were on display here, though fortunately they seemed to be deceased. Still no sign of the scratching sound though.
"Ugh. This is disgusting, but I think Zelda is right, the scratching sound was above this level."
Christoph takes in the sights of the room well enough. There was nothing here that he hadn't seen before. But the intensified stench as he enters, perhaps combined with his fatigue, is enough to cause him to retch. Seeming to master himself before he can stumble, he takes a few panting breaths through his mouth as he concentrates on avoiding losing whatever of his last meal that might remain. "Right... not here. Up it is. Any idea where we haven't looked up above? Just across, right?"
He suppresses another urge to vomit and adds quickly, "I'd prefer to move on quickly and discuss where else to search outside the room if we can."
Already walking out the door, Istivan responds, "Good plan. Wasn't there a door across the way where the black... blob thing... was?
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As Rhia gags and Christoph loses some of his last meal, it's enough to cause the storyteller to retch a bit as well.
As Istivan walks out the door, Naught seems to become transfixed for a long moment. By her expressions and body language, it's obvious to everyone that she's come to recognize something she finds deeply disturbing...
She walks over to the nearest cage. Opening it, she enters before anyone can ask her why... Naught then slumps over inside the cage, passing out into the frigid water therein.
...You're back in Lepidstadt. It's a cold snowy day, the day of your first arrival when you and your friends Aliseya, Zelda, and the late Govannon and Aleks managed to slip out of that mental institution you'd all woken up in, after Harrowstone prison had collapsed around you.
The joy on finding fresh air, however cold it may be, is palpable. A snowball hits you in the face. Aliseya grins guiltily back at you. You toss a snowball back at her. The laughter brings more light to your hearts than has been there in a while, lighter even than the brightness of that cold winter day.
You follow behind your friends as you approach the coffee shop to warm up. But the black-gloved hand covers your mouth from behind.
"BUUBHOSH BRZ'ASH G'MBUUK..." you hear a creepy voice whispering into your ears from seemingly nowhere and everywhere at once. It is the dream speech you share with Aliseya, "The great one devours you all..."
And all goes dark...
...You're jarred back to the present moment now, standing in front of the cage that Aliseya and Zelda, along with the late Govannon and Aleks, had found you trapped inside. Your mind had no memory then of how you'd gotten there. Inexplicably to all, the last time you'd seen each other was after leaving that mental institution in Lepidstadt. After that joyful snowball fight...
The cage...
...You awaken in the dark. But you see and feel your wrists and ankles tightly manacled to a table. A dark figure stands off to the side, at the edge of your sight. Your head is held in place by something very, very strong. A vice? Some kind of ooze dribbles onto your forehead... no, it's not a vice. It's a pair of large, cold hands. You face the dark ceiling above, but can only move your eyes to see that dark figure in the corner... and the pale face staring down at you from above. No, not staring, exactly... for behind those dead, blue eyes, it seems there is no intelligence there at all. The stench of old death fills your nostrils, as a trickle of goop dribbles from its partially opened mouth...
The shadowy figure from aside then approaches, silent as the night. Completely draped in black robes of velvet, it coldly stares back at you through an ornate iron mask. You feel a dark presence... old, and very powerful. The dark power behind the mask beckons your very soul.
You feel like running and hiding under your bed again. Just like you did once before, back at Kendra's, the night it visited Aliseya and implanted that... thing, in her. Yes, yes... you recognize the figure now. Is this the same cultist that violated your lover? It's certainly dressed the same...
...Back in the present, you think (it's all blurring together now for you...), you find yourself holding the cage from the outside. Your friends seem distant now, though Aliseya comes up to ask you what's wrong. You cannot mutter a word; you cannot turn to look away from that cage...
...you try to break free, but those large, strong, cold dead hands hold your head in place. You cannot move. You cannot budge an inch. Then the robed figure raises both hands towards you. One hand is closed, palm up. In the other, it holds an instrument: some kind of finely wrought forceps, for handling small items: a medical instrument maybe, or a torture implement perhaps. It approaches and reaches for your right eyeball. You want to run again, fearful for what's about to happen. With every fiber of your being you want to escape. You try to scream even, but find yourself gagged. Panic sets in as the forceps latch onto your right eyeball. Tugging it from your socket, your muffled screams through the sheer pain accomplish nothing as a small, and familiar-looking, black object is slipped in behind your eyeball. It then releases your eyeball. But you feel something slithering deep inside your head: painfully, it slithers behind your sinuses. You think it might crack your inner bones the way it so excruciatingly painfully squeezes down, down, down and into your neck now. The pain somewhat eases as it makes its way into your torso... the cold object continues to slowly swim through your gut, down into your left hip. The pain is sharp there now, as you feel it lodge into your thigh and come to rest...
"C' THARANAK L' N'GHFT R'LUH. ZHRO MGN'GHFTEPHAI," it creepily whispers again, almost like a dark prayer.
"Bring us to the dark power. Complete the prophecy," you understand.
The black-gloved hand covers your eyes, and all goes dark once more...
...You awaken inside a cage. The stench of death surrounds you. The shadowy figure is there, watching you. Though you cannot make them out, a few more figures are exiting the chamber as you awaken. Looking around the chamber, you blink twice as this day, which just could not imaginably get any worse, just got worse. You see a sight, another horrifying encounter so uncannily personal to you, you wonder if the shadowy figure knew and did this on purpose... You see three large apelike creatures in the room... but it's the three vargouilles attacking them that horrifies you so. Though the ape-like creatures make a good challenge for them, each eventually succumbs to the vargouille kiss of death. And you know very well what their fate will now be...
Satisfied with the outcome, the dark figure turns to look back at you one last time before departing the chamber. It leaves you there, locked in that cage, surrounded by three vargouilles and three soon-to-be giant ape-headed vargouilles...
...Moments of dark dread pass. And the inevitable occurs. One by one, the bat-winged ape-like heads detach from the bodies, accompanied by the final, disturbing sloshing and bone-crackling sounds that accompany the birth of every vargouille. You bear witness to these three large vargouilles then attack and decimate the smaller weaker ones, before they horrifyingly then turn their deadly gazes upon you. Though they seek to do upon you what was once started but never completed, the cage, fortunately, keeps them at bay. Eventually, they retreat to the darker recesses of the chamber. But the horror lingers on for you...
Overwhelmed, you fall into unconsciousness once more...
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"What's wrong?" Ali asks as Naught enters into her trance-like walk towards the cage, deep concern rising quickly as she sees her open the cage.
"OMIGODS!" she rushes to the cage to grab her before she drowns in the frozen water. Aliseya, stronger apparently than she might appear, manages to lift her love above the water line and carry her back out of the cage. She looks around for help, wondering where to lay her down as her own trembling body begins to falter from the cold and the strain of carrying Naught and all her gear.
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Stilled, Naught begins sluggishly twitching as Aliseya carries her before she groans. "F-ffff-f!+&. I hate this this place." she murmurs.
Istivan turns to look back in the doorway. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
"Are you skilled in invasive surgery used in the removal of cursed parasites?" Naught mumbles while rubbing her head, her tendrils drunkenly writhing and patting Aliseya affectionally.
"This place is truly horrible." Rhia says, still looking ill. "Does anything hurt?"
”Only my everywhere.” Naught responds.
|
This is the last place you need to be! Zelda shacks her head in furry. Leaving the room she begins to climb the wall back up. Strongly she to climbing when wall closer to where the sound was coming from instead of where to hallway was.
Mumbling to herself, the opening has to be around here someplace
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"W-w-where did you go...?" Aliseya wonders aloud while looking deeply into Naught's eyes. Her face exudes empathy and sorrow.
"Yes, absolutely," she agrees with Zelda. "Let's g-g-get out of this s-s-stink hole."
Shivering and trembling, she carries Naught out of the current horrid chamber and into the next horrid chamber after Zelda. She stares at the rope, bewildered by the impossible prospect of climbing with Naught in her arms.
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"You go on up first. I'll hold her."
Sookie opens her arms to offer Aliseya relief. She'll grab hold of the traumatized Naught, if willing.
"There, there."
Though she has less trouble holding Naught up than Ali, Sookie looks unsure about climbing without an extra person along for the ride, let alone with one.
As the companions take their leave of the foul-odored chamber of heads and large dead bodies, Zelda lets no grass grow under her feet. She's released the rope leading back to the long hall and tossed it up to the high east door in the fungal chamber. Climbing swiftly, she manages to pry open the door there, then drop the rope back down for the next person to climb.
Standing inside the short hallway where she and Christoph heard the scratching sounds louder, she finds she can still hear scratching sounds from within the northern wall, louder towards the eastern end of the short hall where it leads into the northeastern chamber. It sounds faint, but clearly audible.
"MM. I think that may lay outside my expertise, sadly" Istivan remarked. He was both troubled that such things exist and, for a moment at least, glad that the tragedies in his own life were of the more mundane sort. Nevertheless, he was glad to move away from the foul-smelling room.
He eyed the rope, gave it a tug to make sure it was secure, then headed up. Or attempted at least, his hands were wet and cold, and he found himself unable to securely grip the rope.
He stepped aside, "Head on up, I'm going to warm up a bit" before casting prestidigitation and warming and drying off himself.
"Tell me about it," Naught calls out to Zelda before focusing her eyes on Aliseya "Was remembering stuff, or changing the past... I'unno, didn't like it neither which way."
When they come to an impasses and the dancer has to tragically hand the storyteller over to Sookie, Naught was only slightly disheartened. Only slightly. "I think I'll be good enough to climb in a sec, just let me stretch a bit," she tells the therapist. While making no motion to actually get up, mind you.
Christoph, still retching from the stench of the room, has to focus a moment before he can say to Naught, "Invasive surgery: no. Parasites: it depends. Is this something from today, or something from..." his eyes flicker to Aliseya, "Or something from before? I might be able to help."
Christoph motions the others to return to safety above as his nurses his still recovering stomach. That hasn't happened in a while. I'd thought I'd gotten past that sort of thing. Casting another quick glance around the room, he follows the others up.
"So the sound is here, clearly, but our earlier search turned up nothing. Do you have another idea? We could take longer to search, of course."
"T-t-thanks, Sookie."
After gently handing Naught over to the stronger lady, Aliseya slowly stretches and wriggles her cold arms out. She then flickers her fingers at Naught, drying her saturated body, as well as drying Sookie's upper body (her lower half remains wet, being still submerged in the flooded chamber). She then gives Naught a knowing look, and lingers to hear what she says to Christoph's question.
After he ascends, she adds, "We can talk more later." She then takes a careful climb up the rope. Once up there, first she flickers her fingers at her own legs, drying off her soaked pants. With a final body shake and an audible release, she seems more satisfied.
"You said you spotted a smooth area on the wall over there?
She asks the Speaker, pointing to the doorway leading to the northeastern chamber, where the black ooze was.
"Maybe there's a reason for that," she muses.
"Oh Zel!" She flickers her fingers at the artful blonde, whose lower body now dries up as well.
After the others climb the rope, Rhia has her ghostly ancestors lift her to the top, taking hold of the rope to stay close and step over to solid ground.
Hands warmed up, Istivan tries the rope again