Aydan turns quickly but his attention turns quickly away as Tanner's stick clatters off his shins. Aydan swears under his breath and smiles back and Tanner before a serious expression retakes his position on his face.
'Okay. Everyone stay close together. Akuz'ai, lead on, lets stay sharp and not get caught off guard this time.' Aydan follows his own advice, staying just far enough behind the half-orc not to cramp him.
Run nods and steadies herself as best she can. In easy reach are her bombs, and in her current state her accuracy is much improved...
The group stalks out where they came from, lead by the silent Azuk'ai. His eyes, far sharper than anyone else's in the dim light of their sunrods, sharply saw the figure quite clearly for a brief moment. It was a translucent human female with a faint blue glow. Her beauty was nearly transfixing as she silently floated inches above the ground. She wore a tattered blue dress, one out of style for generations in Ustalav with thick boning on the corset. As Azuk'ai rounds the corner, he spots the faint outline of the ghostly figure as it passes through the northern door. She looks back at him with a look of unspeakable sadness on her face.
Tanner's flask warms him, both in spirit and in body. There are not many problems that can't be made less intimidating by proper alcoholic motivation, he rationalizes. It may be the eerie ambiance of this place playing tricks on his mind, but when he takes a sip from the flask, Tanner can hear a faint jovial laugh in the distance.
Aydan's eyebrows raise and he leaves his cautious half-crouching stance his mouth slightly open. The haunts and glimmers were as real as the fire that burned them, he knew that. But to see a ghost so plainly out in he open shocked him deeply. After a moment he superficially regained his composure and looked at Akuz'ai eyes still wide before rolling his shoulders and saying. 'Well that's a clue... I guess...'
Moving forward he makes Pharasma's symbol and mutters 'onward, ever onward' to himself before moving to open the northern door with gritted teeth expecting some new horror.
Runyon blinks a couple times as she watches the ghost glide through the door. "I...did not expect that. I am not going to assume that because she did not attack the ghost means us no harm; the texts are loaded with examples of ghosts that could not or would not attack the living unless they trespassed on some place of power, or tripped some secret trigger. So I believe we should remain on our guard. Nonetheless...this is fascinating to me."
The experience of this new interaction -- however brief -- seems to have settled the elf's nerves rather a lot, giving her something besides imagining new horrible ways to perish to keep her constantly churning mind busy.
The sadness in the ghosts eyes stings in Azuk'ai's heart as he wathces her, half-mezmerized, pass through the door. Coming to with a start as Ayden passes him he quickly follows, pulling a ghost-bane arrow from his quiver. "Nevertheless, we should follow." he says, staying a step behind Ayden as he opens the door.
Melk, slow to react, pivots his head from side to side as if to shake loose an errant thought. Finally he decides to voice it, in case everybody else knew something he did not, "Ich... um... I don't remember, when we looked through information on prisoners here. Was a woman mentioned...?"
Aydan carefully opens the door, just in time to see the ghostly figure disappear in the second door on the left. His sunrod illuminates most of the hallway in front of him, though the shadows pool ominously towards the northern doors. There are another several doors: two on the left, spaced far apart; two on the right close together, with another farther up; and double doors at the end of the hallway. Like every other room, the gathered dust of fifty years lays on the floor like a thick rug, barely disturbed by the rush of air from the door's first opening in decades.
Aydan looks around as his comrades and shakes his head. 'Should we follow? Or take that last unopened door, keep searching for the surgery?'
He stares after the fading ghost, eager to give chase but fear a trap.
"Aydan my friend, when presented with an opportunity and a coincidence such as this, it seems folly to ignore it. If anyone could give us information about a dead person who continues to murder, it would be a ghost, no? I say we follow. Besides..." The alchemist gives what she assumes is a winning grin, but is probably closer to a grimace. "I'm just too curious not to."
Run sets off after the retreating spectre.
Tanner give the sturdy door a hard rap with his stick. "I agree Aydan. We will need to come back to this door. But I always seem to find myself chasing after women, and it is always worth it." He gives Aydan a smile as he heads off after Run, leaving it vague as to whether he was referring to the ghost or Run.
Melk is momentarily taken aback, then just mumbles to himself, "Women? Shouldn't he be chasing criminals?"
As Runyon and Tanner lead the way, they open the door to see a wide central corridor bisecting the smaller corridor they are in now. Several doors sit to the sides, including several after a curve straight ahead. There is no natural light, as this area is entirely on the interior of the building. Their sunrods are the sole source of light, causing them to cling to them like a lifeline. The ghostly figure is nowhere to be seen. Being able to walk through walls makes it difficult to follow a ghost through a byzantine abandoned prison haunted by the dead.
"Well, drat." Run peers around in the dim light, strangely emboldened by having something to pursue. She is looking for any sliver of the light given off by the ghostly woman.
Oh well, if we've lost her we can just turn right around and check the doors we passed. Perhaps she will turn up again, seems likely if she's trying to lead us somewhere. Maybe she wants to show us something helpful! Maybe she's not trying to lead us to a grisly doom!
The elf sighs. Yeah, right. And thanatoxylbutiferone won't burn underwater in April.
(Alchemist aphorisms tend not to be popular.)
Tanner sniffs down each passageway. "Huh. I mostly smell damp mildew and chemicals. For a second there I thought I smelled perfume. Had to have been from her, no?"
Run's eyebrows shoot up. "Well it's certainly not from me." She says testily.
"I thought we were looking for the property storage area?" Azuk'ai mtters as he follows Ayden. "Maybee we should see about that security door? It looked promising."
Absentmindedly over his shoulder, "Oh, no. I didn't smell this perfume around you earlier."
Giving up hope of seeing or smelling her, Tanner turns to the group. Well if she were trying to lead us somewhere, she didn't do a good job. Unless she is behind these doors right here. But otherwise I liked the systematic approach we had going."
Melk isn't entirely won over by the idea of chasing after ephemeral women, pleasant smell or otherwise, "Oh, ja! Systematic is gut, ya." He cautiously looks around the next corner. "Is it bad that I worry for the room turning cold or warm again?"
'Well while we're in here, and this seems to open into much of this level. Let's explore this little area first.' Aydan shrugs in response to himself, and moves into the room, turning left and finding the first door, he tries to open in, not letting Melk's little reminder of this places dangers make his hand shake.
Aydan opens the door with a creak, though it is only attached on a single hinge. Suddenly, it collapses with a loud crack, unable to support the weight of the door on the single point. The rectangular chamber beyond seems to have once been a chapel, but now thick sheets of what appear to be cobwebs drape everything within in gossamer threads. A few chairs sit facing each other in the middle of the room, while an ancient altar to Pharasma sits silently on the north wall.
As the door clatters to the ground, there is a quiet scurrying inside. Aydan peers in, waiting for Melk or Runyon to bring a sunrod over to peer closer into the darkness. Unfortunately for him, his eyes are not sharp enough to pick up the creatures stirred by the noise he accidentally caused. Azuk'ai's ears twitch as he hears the noise, a skittering that causes his stomach to clench. Melk, simply used to the noises of an abandoned prison, hears the unmistakeable sound of a vermin infestation from the newly-opened room.
A spider springs out of the webbed chapel, launching itself viciously on Aydan's chest. It is massive, almost the size of Aydan himself. It gnashes its hideous maw at him, spewing a bubbling poison onto his breastplate as it tries to latch onto a bit of exposed flesh. Fortunately for Aydan, his breastplate is very well made, and the giant spider slides back to the ground without successfully biting him. Behind it, three more spiders scurry in the webs, hungry for the flesh of this new prey.
Azuk'ai can feel the hair on the back of his neck rising as the chitanous noise seeps under his skin. "Vermin!". He snarls as he reaches for an arrow.
Lining up his shot he wishes the creature a swift death as he loose his arrow.
. ,
A smile creeps accross his face as he's rewarded by a soldid thunk as the arrow sinks home, drawing a long hiss from the spider.
Aydan's sharp eyes drop for a moment after he realizes that the arrow only grazed the spider. Its thick furred hide caused the arrow to bounce off without penetration.
'Aaarrrgghhh! F!%~!' Aydan yells as the spider leaps atop him, his eyes wide with shock, and widened further as an arrow grazes the things carapace. 'Careful! Careful!'
Melk rushes forward before most can gather their wits. His gait is strangely looping, arms extended slightly - but when he uses them to smash down on the spider he horribly misses, the swing goes wide and does little more than ruffle the stale air around them.
Three small spiders chitter out of the room, swarming around Aydan as their mandibles chatter. Fast and nimble, they rush through his legs and surround him from all sides. Their long spindly legs climb up on his legs as they seek to feast on his flesh.
Melk tries to kick one of the spiders that gets too close, but it is too small and quick to hit. His foot flies harmlessly through the air.
As Aydan turns slightly to keep an eye on the spiders behind him, the huge one in front of him leaps onto his torso. Its legs gripping him with their unsettling way they stick to things, it chomps on the exposed part of his neck. Aydan cries out in pain as the creature's poison runs through his veins. He pushes it back, dropping it back to the floor with its teeth gnashing for more. The bite is a hideous gash in his skin the size of a fist, bubbling with the spider's deadly poison.
"Aydan! No!" Run yells and is about to start forward but she notices the skittering horrors spreading out and vaulting past the impossibly quick Melk and Azuk'ai, which certainly gives the elven alchemist pause. Her face sets grimly. "I used to dissect spiders in class. Let's see what I remember, you overgrown filth!" She hopes her voice does not betray the hammering of her heart as she reaches swiftly into her coat, feeling for what she assumes will be the first of several bombs she'll have to unload before this day is out.
If nothing else, she's fairly certain spiders burn pretty well...
"F+~+!" Azuk'ai spits out as the spiders swarm past Ayden. 'He'll be overrun!' the ranger thinks fervently as he drops his bow by his feet.
Stepping around the side of the room Azuk'ai unfurls his spiked chain as he circles the nearest spider, coming up behind it he lashes out at it.
Catching it solidly in it's ugly torso he strikes it with such force that it bounces off the floor before curling up, dead.
Melk tries to get in a series of attacks edge-wise, sliding them in between the door and Aydan, but his movements are just too ponderous to strike the spider.
Yanking a bomb out from one of the special little bandolier loops inside her jacket, Runyon yanks the bimetallic strip out from the center of the vial, allowing the chymicals inside to swirl and mix. The vial begins popping and fizzing immediately. The elf's heightened senses and physical skills allow her to instantly draw a bead on the spiders, but Azuk'ai and Aydan are both too close and will suffer terrible burns if she targets an arachnid directly.
Instead, after charging up behind Melk to get in range, she hurls her bomb over his head, over Aydan and the spiders, and into the space just behind them. There is a split second when the air pressure of the room drops as the bomb sucks fuel out of the very air, then a massive and thudding *PFOOOOOOOOOM* as the explosion washes out from Runyon's perfectly-placed missile. Fire billows out twenty feet around and up, burning away dust, cobwebs, and stray papers, and washing over the backs of the two spiders by Azuk'ai and Aydan, scorching their hairy and rubbery hides badly, superheating their exoskeletons.
Her veins coursing with adrenaline, Run utters a simple "...yes...!" under her breath and immediately reaches into her vest for a second bomb, ready to strike again at these horrors.
Tanner come moving up the hall and sees Run's flung explosion. Wanting to stay clear of whatever that was, he moves into a position to help assist those already fighting the spiders.
With the bite, Aydan's vision clouds as he base responses kick in and his mind is buried in a tide of rage. He roars loudly, muscles in his neck straining, pouring more blood as he turns, the white of his eyes wide in the half-light of the sunrod, as he turns one thick arm draws his greatsword cleanly and raises it up before he grabs it with both hands and brings it down hard on the largest spider.
His sword cuts a huge chunk from the hairy arachnids body, but it does not collapse and spits viciously at him, rearing for another attack.
The poison courses through Aydan's veins, rushing through his system as the rage boils his blood. While his anger propels his strength, he can feel it sapping his strength. He still cuts deeply into the arachnid, though it doesn't drive quite as far as he would normally expect.
The smaller spiders, which is still the size of a dog, chitter on all eight legs towards the others. One of them snaps at Azuk'ai with sharp mandibles, but he wards it off with a circular swing of his chain.
The second skitters around the wide corridor, trying to get to Runyon before she can throw another bomb. She easily sidesteps it, her mobility enhanced by her alchemical conviction. The spider wheels around for another snap at her.
[ooc]Round 2, Initiative 21
Allowing the poison to do its work, the spider turns to the nearest target: Melk. It finds the larger amount of exposed flesh to its advantage, chomping strongly onto his right leg. Blood and the poison's ichor flow down as it looks for a new target.
Swinging his chain again Azuk'ai aims it in a downward arc toward the next spider within his reach.
The force of the blow send the cahin slicing through the spider and striking sparks from the floor, splitting it in two.
Melk reels from the sudden poison influx, his limbs simply not able to follow his commands.
Aydan does not even feel his arms weaken so lost is he in his anger as he swings wildly at the spider again.
A feral grin takes over his face as he hacks the creature into submission, and turns searching for more foes with another brutal cry of rage.
Run watches with satisfaction as Aydan has his revenge, then hurls another bomb behind the last spider. The concussion of the blast roars through the room and the flame burns the dog-sized creature to a crisp, ending its life.
Tanner steps up and pokes the spider, oh yeah. It's dead.
Melk groans as the poison finishes its course through his system, but doesn't feel any more pull on his muscles. The hallway is quiet as all the spiders lay dead, except for the faint sound of popping as the webs crackle with fire. The legs of the monstrously large spiders twitch occasionally, but they are most definitely dead.
Aydan stands, bleeding and breathing heavily, his shoulders heaving almost violently, sword still gripped in his hand, trying to calm down, to clear the red from his vision, as his breathing slowly levels out he shuts his eyes, gritting his teeth as if at a painful memory, the spiders fluids running down his blade over the names engraved in its side.
"Hey, Ayden. You ok? You got bit pretty bad, do we still have any healing potions?" Azuk'ai step up to Ayden, giving him a steddying hand as he asks Run for the healing potion.
What the...? Tanner isn't sure he saw what he thought he saw. He moves closer to Aydan, still suffering from a spider bite. He adjusts his position until Melk's light is angled just right...There it is, the spider gunk is thick, but Illengrin is engraved on the blade...or something close to it..its mostly covered in gore...but...why is my name on his blade?
His mind goes back to the memorial statue and the names washed in blood. And here is his name awash in spider blood. A bit of a chill runs down his spine. He gives himself a shake to clear that thought. There are other things written there...its probably a trick of the light.
He thinks of asking Aydan, but it sounds silly when he tries to form the question. Instead he pulls out the flask and takes a sip. These companions are tough and competent. Hells, they cleared out that spider infestation before I could barely run up...who am I to question them...must have been a trick of the light and shadows.
Holding his walking stick before him, Tanner enter the room, previously the spiders' lair.
"Entschuldigung," Melk apologizes, "I should have fared better, the spiders. After all the spirits and ghostly things." He hardens his fists, "I will try harder, no holding back." He looks to the west, a door is just a little ways off and he decides to take the initiative and open the door.
Melk opens the door, holding the sunrod in front of him to peer inside. The bright light touches all spots of the room, showing it to be a large triangular room in a state of shambles. Old wooden benches lie in ruins along the walls, while rusty chains and bits of rotten rope lie scattered on the floor. Several rotted sets of clothes that are little more than sackcloths lay in a corner. There is a feeling of despair in the room, of hopelessness and shame.
Melk jumps backwards from the door, pointing and flustered, "There! A voice! Watch out! It says: you'll fight when I say. The Warden ain't here to protect you." He lifts his arms forearms protectively in front of him, trying to ward of the undefinable as well as physical attacks all at once.
Run gladly hands a potion over to help Aydan. She then double-checks her inventory and pulls out a small vial and a stopper for same. She bends down by one of the spiders and looks thoughtfully at its fangs and mandibles.
"Hmmmm... wonder where the poison sac is." she pulls out her dagger and pokes around a little bit and looks about to make a slice when Melk calls out and she looks up, startled. "never any time..." she mutters to herself.
Thoroughly distracted, she turns back to her work but finds she can longer concentrate sufficiently to remember particulars of megavermin anatomy. With a sigh she sheathes her dagger and stands up, approaching the new room cautiously.
"What?" Azuk'ai tenses at Melk's warning, quickly making his way to him and peering into the room, his chain at the ready, trying to make out any figures or movement.
Tanner hears the faint echoes of the long-dead taunts. Aydan, still trying to break free from the lingering effects of both the spider's poison and his own anger, can't hear anything over the pounding of his blood.
INITIATIVE
Aydan
Azuk'ai
Melk
Runyon
Tanner
Target
There is a sudden dip in temperature, as the breath of the five suddenly turns to mist. There is a haunting in this room, just as when they were entering the prison. This, however, feels malicious and cruel rather than the fiery terror that greeted their entrance. The psychic echoes of whatever happened in this room dig deeply into the minds of the adventurers, invoking a sense of angry helplessness.