With Kip's healing spell at her back, Victrix puts in one last effort of strength to rip the leader's tongues out of her neck!
Then, realizing they're outmatched, attempts to fly out the window towards the front of the building. She's no longer running on rage now--just visible fear.
Kip glanced left and right, with horrible monsters all around and the blood of his friends splattering the walls. If they were going to get out of it, he needed to keep them on their feet.
Wary to keep his distance, from the downed faceless stalker, Kip filled the rest of the room with healing energy to give his friends a fighting chance.
"Vicki, I know you haven't flown much, but keep off the ground; they can't surround you if they're all below you!"
The stalkers reach out and slash at Ema as she rushes into the building. She takes a slash across her side as she drags Medrinnah back out to the door. Her elemental manages to extinguish the rest of the flames burning the government building.
Simon gets the window open and slashes ineffectually at Not!Carver, the powerful stalker parrying his blow again. Kip heals Victrix and then move through the open window, getting cut for his efforts.
With a surge of strength, Victrix breaks out of Not!Carver's grasp. She flies through the window, managing to dodge all of the attacks aimed her way!
"After them! Don't let them escape!" Not!Carver shouts. He and one of his minions attack Simon, though they are unable to get into flanking positions and the half-orc's shield protect him from harm. The other two move to attack Ema, cutting the arcanist with their swords, though she manages to avoid the first's grasping hand.
Kip channels healing energy, mending his wounds and those of his friends.
Victrix fishes one of the potions of lesser restoration she purchased from her backpack.
...good thing I got them. Gotta have something to get my blood back.
She uncorks the bottle and chugs it down...
...and, combined with Kip's channeling, feels much more invigorated! She roars in triumph and fixes her gaze on the government building again, this time with more respect for her opponents.
"When we get back in there, kill the mooks first!"
Ema gritted her teeth in pain as the stalkers assaulted her but she managed in her mission, even when they came close enough to lash out again. She felt Kip's healing wash over her before she finished dragging Medinah out the door to the edge of the steps and then, much as she hated to do so, let her fall down the steps to the ground. She would apologize for Medrinah's injuries later but at least now she was out of the way.
Ema faced the two stalkers coming for her now and gave them the most vicious look she could as she began to cast a spell. When she was done the coal in her hand turned into a myriad of tiny diamond slicers and lashed out at the two creatures in a furious flurry of cutting shards.
She called out to the elemental in a bubbling language again and it moved to the nearest stalker and lashed a watery arm out at it. It seemed that it had caught the stalker off guard as it hit and dealt a solid blow despite the lack of water to assist it.
Ema's diamond spray tears through the faceless stalker her aether elementals battered earlier, sending it sprawling to the floor. The other one dodges the worst of it, then barely seems harmed as the water elemental's slam attack bounces off its rubbery hide.
Victrix takes a breather, her potion restoring her health after suffering from the blood drain. Simon goes on the defensive, his sword scraping harmlessly against the other stalker's body.
Oorka comes flying back up to the government house, landing beside Victrix. "I brought help!" she declares, reaching out to heal the wounded aasimar.
Behind her comes Eliza Haniver, the psychic's eyes black as night as she embraces her dark half. "Leave my friends ALONE!" she snarls, two fingers pressed to her temple as she concentrates on the stalker attacking Ema. Her psychic assault melts the monster's brain. It wavers unsteadily on its feet as blood seeps out from between the whorls of flesh on its face, then it crumples in a heap on the floor.
"No! NO!" Not!Carver howls. He and the remaining stalker do their best to try to murder Simon. Though his minion misses, the lead stalker slices and slams the investigator, then grabs a hold and starts to drink his blood!
Victrix gives Oorka a smile. "Great job! We've got this now--think you can help Kalikk?"
Then she flies back in through the front door, swooping over Ema. "OI! MATE, DID YOU FORGET ABOUT ME?" She roars as she swipes at the stalker minion.
And whiffs.
With the battle turning in their favor, Kip helped press the offensive. After a moment concentrating, a spectral rapier flashed out to harass Not Carver.
Ema was relieved when Eliza entered the fray and knew they might just stand a chance now. With Medrinnah safely out of immediate danger Ema stepped in to get a better view and cast a spell and sent an arrow of acid lancing up and over to drop down atop Not-Carver. She then focused and consume dyet another spell to replenish her reservoir.
The stalker slashes at Victrix with its long arms as she rushes in, but it misses her just as surely as she misses it. Simon breaks free of Not!Carver's grasp. Kip's spiritual weapon pierces empty air, and Emma's acid arrow, fired into melee, is narrowly deflected away at the last second by an aura around the stalker.
Oorka flies up to Kalikk, healing her and stopping her bleeding. Eliza scrambles the mind of the stalker mook, making it bleed.
Shrieking in rage, the remaining stalkers flank Victrix. Not!Carver gets past her guard and scores a light hit across her legs.
Victrix grits her teeth and ignores the bleeding, swiping her machete twice at the remaining minion. This time, she focuses more on precision.
The stalker falls to Victrix's machete, leaving only Carver's impostor standing!
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Simon smiles as Carver's allies are eliminated.
"I have to apologize for not taking up your banter earlier, Carver. I was a little preoccupied with saving my friends.
As you can see, they are all alive and fighting now, while your friends are quite dead. You didn't even manage to burn down the building. Maybe if you had actually trained with the Society, you might have been more effective.
Surrender. Tell us about your master. We will treat you fairly."
Focusing once again on Carver, Simon tries to drive his point home.
The elelmental, seemingly befuddled by all that was happening, finally began to move. It slipped up behind the stalker nearest the strix and lashed out while using Victrix as a distraction.
Ema was aggravated at the failure of her spells to land and waited until her elemental had finished before tearing open the gate and sending it home burbling at it how good a job it did.
Kip's rapier continued its attack even as the grippli climbed back up the window and launched a wave strike with his tongue.
,
,
Simon and the elemental both miss, but the spiritual rapier strikes true, and Kip's wave strike knocks Not!Carver to the floor. Eliza blasts his mind with psychic power, leaving him bleeding and badly damaged.
On the floor, he lashes out at Victrix, slicing into her legs!
Victrix actually cries out as her legs get cut again. "Kip! Healing!"
Then her rage overcomes her, and she descends upon the prone stalker in a berserk fury.
Ema, hoping this would be enough, focused and tore open one last rift. From within emerged a rather large ant right opposite of Simon. The ant, seeing the evil thing before it, drew down divine wrath upon it as it attacked. it lashed out first with it's stinger and quickly followed up with a bite of it's powerful jaws which tried to latch onto Not-Carver and hold it down.
Ema's giant ant bites the faceless stalker, then Victrix carves him up with her blade! The monster finally falls, blood pooling beneath him.
It sounds like the fighting has stopped across the colony as well. The attack of the faceless stalkers has come to the end.
Exhausted, bleeding, and with her vision beginning to darken, Victrix swigs down a potion to heal herself.
"...check... check to see if any of them lived. We'll need to find out where their lair is." She gasps, no longer bleeding but still aching all over.
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Simon begins checking the corpses for anything of interest, paying especially close attention to Carver.
"Based on our previous experiences, I am not sure how effective questioning them will be. We can certainly give it a shot, if any of them survived.
I also wouldn't put much stock into anything they told us. Hopefully, there will be some form of communication we can use to piece together more reliable information."
With Not-Carver down and the fighting over Ema managed to hold back the tide of emotions for a moment and directed her ant outside to free Medrinnah. Once that was done she leaned forward along the edge of the building and tried to vomit again as the realization of what had happened tore through her in combination with the remnant of her past she had recovered.
Finally, with nothing left to come up Ema collapsed on the stairs and began to sob brokenly. She'd done it again, she'd let one of those things trick her her into trusting it. She felt filthy and vile at the thought, especially with what she remembered of her past and how this wasn't the first time. The memory of what those things had done to her previously made her ill again but there was nothing left in her to come out so she tried to get through it as best she could.
The ant, being an ant, really didn't understand what was wrong but it lay one of it's feelers on her shoulder anyway and butted it's head against her gently. After a minute or two more Ema pat it's head and opened the rift for it to go home again before she continued to try and come to term with everything she'd just learned.
Victrix limps out the door and sits next to Ema, practically collapsing onto the steps.
"...good job takin' care of the fire." She says between breaths. "...you alright?"
Most of the faceless stalkers have bled out, but one of the lesser creatures is still alive if you wish to stabilize it.
The normal stalkers only have mundane longswords on them, but Carver's impostor has quite a bit of gear on him. In all, Simon finds: oil of darkness, potions of cure moderate wounds (2); +1 glamered leather armor, mwk light crossbow, mwk longsword, boots of elvenkind, bottles of messages (2), dust of tracelessness, ring of protection +1, wayfinder, belt pouch, flint and steel, mirror, spyglass, waterskin.
Examining the items closely, Simon gleans a few clues. The crossbow and longsword bear the initials "C.H." and other personal markings that strongly suggest the items belonged to the real Carver Hastings. The pouch of dust, oil, and potions are of an unknown origin and are stored in strange containers, suggesting the faceless stalker owned them before it assumed Carver's identity.
The muddy boots the stalker was wearing have a few purple flower petals stuck to their soles. Simon remembers that these flowers grow in patches in a number of places on the beach.
The mirror is square and palm sized and has a hole in the center. Markings on it suggest it belongs to another colonist named Saymor Landis, a former sailor. Indeed, Simon identifies it as a signal mirror generally useful for long-distance communication in relatively open terrain.
The spyglass bears a number of dents and its lenses have small scratches on them, but it still seems to be completely functional. Simon finds a small golden symbol on the spyglass that indicates it must have been issued to a high-ranking crew member of the Liberty's Herald, the ship that brought the first wave of colonists to Ancorato.
When Victrix sat next to her and asked if she was alright all Ema could managed was a chocked out, "No." She turned and grabbed hold of Victrix and held onto the woman as she began to sob some more. It wasn't as rough as before but it was obvious that something was very wrong and given her relationship with Carver it wasn't hard to guess at least a part of it was due to him.
Victrix doesn't say anything, letting Ema hang on to her.
She puts her arms around her in a comforting embrace, resting her head against her collar.
Medrinnah huddles next to Ema, arms wrapped around her legs as she sobs quietly. Oorka helps the wounded Kalikk to her feet. Both strix are quiet as they survey the carnage in the government house. Eliza casts her black-eyed gaze about for more enemies to slaughter until she finally gets a handle on her dark half and staggers against the wall, breathing heavily.
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Though untrained, Simon has some basic knowledge of stopping bloodflow, so he attempts to stabilize the stalker.
Gathering the supplies he found into the center of the room, he looks up and realizes that he is being rude again. He gets up and seeks out Eliza.
When he finds her, he takes a deep breath and blurts out. "Eliza, thank you for rescuing us.
I have to apologize. I thought great ill of you, and was quite suspicious of how much you were actually being controlled by that thing. I lobbied to execute you.
It is quite fortunate for all of us that Kip had the faith and good nature to see through the veil into your true intentions. If he hadn't we would all be dead or worse now.
I see now that your true heart has only the best for the colony in mind. You have been a great boon. I hope that you can forgive me for thinking so badly of you."
Uncertainly, Simon holds out his hand as a peace offering.
"Your suspicions were well-founded. Were it not for your intervention and aid in removing that monster's taint from my mind, I no doubt would have remained firmly in its thrall. You saved me, and now I've saved you. How about we call it even?" Eliza manages a wan smile and accepts Simon's offered hand.
Feeling Medrinnah grasp her legs sobbing helped bring Ema back to herself, at least a little, as the girl was in her charge. She managed to collect herself enough to let go of Victrix and pull her apprentice up to sit beside her before wrapping her arms around the girl.
After a minute or two Ema began to speak, "I know now why I reacted so badly to those things," she gestured back towards where the fighting had been. "Back before I lost my memories I loved a woman named Ana and it turned out that it was one of those monsters all along. It played me for a fool and betrayed me before it and the two that came to help capture me..." Ema paused and shuddered at the thought, "They raped me, repeatedly, drained my blood, but never enough that I would die. I don't remember the details but," Ema shuddered again, "I know they were going to turn me over to their Master when they were through."
Victrix lets Ema go once the mage regains her composure enough to speak.
She listens quietly, her understanding expression gradually turning into a stony one. Whatever exhaustion she felt is burned away by a cold flame in her chest, spreading throughout her body until it's all but begging to be unleashed on the faceless...thing that survived.
Victrix looks back at Simon stabilizing the fallen stalker, briefly regretting asking him to do so before looking back at Ema.
Before she speaks, she fishes out another healing potion and quaffs it.
"They can't hurt you anymore. We've seen to that." She quietly says to Ema, her voice clear and her expression determined. "...thank you for sharing that with me. I understand."
"I'm planning on interrogating that..." She nods her head at the prone aberration. "...to find out where their lair is. And maybe the answers to a few other questions too. I'm not going to force you to accompany me for that."
"If you need anyone to talk to, I'm here."
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Relieved, and smiling broadly, Simon clasps Eliza's hand tightly and shakes it slightly too long before releasing.
"Even, certainly. Let me thank you as a friend, then. I'll buy you a glass of wine tonight, once all this has been cleaned up."
Motioning to Kalikk and Oorka, he includes them. "I'll buy drinks for you as well. Your aid saved us all, and I won't soon forget it."
Looking around, he finally notices that Ema and Victrix aren't in the building. "Odd... I wonder where everyone went. Ah, well, let's take a look at some of these clues NotCarver left for us."
Stowing the mirror and spyglass in his Haversack, Simon leaves the rest of the items out for now, then moves the stabilized Stalker into one of the chairs. He retrieves his rope and ties the creature as securely as possible.
Soon after the fighting has stopped Ramona comes running up with soot on her face and blood on her jacket. "It seems like all of the monsters have been dealt with. Are you alright? What happened here?"
"Carver was replaced by one of them. They took some hostages. We got reinforcements, we dealt with them." Victrix replies.
"One of them's still alive. I'm going to interrogate it. Preferably in a basement or something."
"By the way--does anyone have some healing for me?"
Victrix grimaces and fishes two more potions out of her bag. "Never mind--I'll do it myself."
Two more potions heal Victrix completely.
As other colonists arrive to help repair the damage the faceless stalkers did, Victrix drags the tied-up stalker into the private office. A little bit of healing from Oorka restores it to consciousness, and it raises its bulbous head and glares at the barbarian. At least, she thinks it's glaring at her. It's hard to tell since it doesn't have any facial features.
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Before the Stalker is awoken, Simon confers with Victrix about their findings.
"We have flower petals stuck to his boots. Specific flowers that grow in only a few places on the beach.
We also have a spyglass and a signaling mirror.
I would say that one of these locations on the beach is near to an island or other structure in the water where NotCarver could signal to bring in reinforcements and to pass along information.
Even if we don't get anything from this creature, we still have a good lead on where to find the others. The best that we could really get from this thing would be a description of the signals they use."
Victrix nods once. "Good to hear. I'll still try to get what I can from it... and maybe some answers to questions of my own, too."
With that, she drags the bound stalker into the private office. Once Oorka has healed it, she ushers anyone else out of the room before turning her attention to the creature.
"Well, this day didn't work out the way anyone hoped it would, did it?" She shrugs and sets her backpack aside before digging a few potions out. "Do you have a name?"
As she speaks, she starts to take off her armour and neatly set it aside. "If you're not interested in healing, then I'll offer you something you would be interested in." She briefly eyes the potions of lesser restoration next to her before looking back at the creature. "I'm curious about you. I'm curious about your people. I mean, I've never had a chance to speak with another shapeshifter before."
Once her armour is off and neatly put aside, she lays her machete in her lap. "If you cooperate, and answer my questions, I can offer you blood--and maybe even a chance to get out of this alive."
Victrix pauses, then puts her machete back at her side and leans forward.
"I promise I will do all I can to ensure your freedom and life."
She gets out of the chair and kneels before the ugothol. "Gently, if you please. I'm not going anywhere."