"Just be careful." Cassandra notes. "Place like this, who knows what's bobbytrapped or cursed. Including the body."
In fact, Cassandra begins looking around the room, searching for magic but not touching anything.
Especially the statue.
Victor verifies that Terri is affected by a magic spell, though it appears he's not versed enough in spellcraft to identify it.
Cassandra's scan about the room finds quite a bit. There's an evocation spell effect centered on the statue that she cannot quite identify. The basins around the room all radiate some sort of conjuration and necromantic magic. And several pieces of Andaisin's gear appear to be magic as well - her armor, her scythe, her cloak, and a headband she wears.
A short time after Terri is affected by Andaisin's spell, she does finally shrug it off.
When Terri is finally free of the spell, she half-collapses, half-leans on Victor as if she was a puppet whose strings had been cut.
"Wh-what did she do to me," she asks him a small, terrified voice.
Removing the woman's equipment, Amira separates the items that Cassandra identifies as magical. "So I think it's safe to assume the statue is dangerous for now."
Wednesday looks down at the statue he's standing on before looking to the others and shrugging.
Shock overwhelmed Victor when Terri half fell forward. His arms barely reacted in time to catch her petite form, and his left leg fell backwards in an attempt to balance his unprepared catch.
"Don't know, looks to have wore off" He answered plainly, a silver of relief noticeable in his otherwise gruff baritone.
The closeness of their bodies was unexpected but not unpleasant. This position reminded him of just how small she was, for outside of these moments her bravery and willingness to do what right could easily make one forget that. It was a midst these thoughts that Victor remembered that their could be some after affect to the spell Andaisin has placed on her.
"Ya feeling strange? Anything that seems wrong? Anything at all?" The questions came in rapid fire succession, each forged in urgency and seriousness. While Victor knew that he was not an expert on how spells works, despite him slinging them when ever the mood hit him, it would be best to know if their were any lingering affects and have someone more learned in these matters assist should the need arise.
As Amira is starting to separate Andaisin's equipment from her body, she feels a sudden increase in the body's temperature. Then it shudders and twitches. The woman's eyes open wide and a grimace crosses her face - a face that just a second ago was slack and unmoving in death.
"Hmmm." Cassandra begins pointing. "The basins are all necromancy and conjuration. Maybe where they brew the plague from the daemon bits? There's evocation built into the statue. I don't get that. Maybe it explodes."
And, of course, Cassandra points out the magic items the priestess is wearing. Right up until she opens her eyes.
"Okay, who didn't bother to make sure she was dead?"
"We're in an temple of the Pallid Princess fighting a devout priestess of hers. I'm surprised more of them haven't been getting back up."
"Ya feeling strange? Anything that seems wrong? Anything at all?" The questions came in rapid fire succession, each forged in urgency and seriousness. While Victor knew that he was not an expert on how spells works, despite him slinging them when ever the mood hit him, it would be best to know if their were any lingering affects and have someone more learned in these matters assist should the need arise.
Terri shakes her head in answer to Victor's question. She was still a little unsteady on her feet, but that was more because of her own shock than the spell.
"She stopped me. I was calling for help, but she cast that spell, and it was gone, the blessing I'd been given and the divine power to make it work were both gone," the Shelynite tells Victor as she stays close to him, drawing comfort from the presence of the shadow mage. What had happened had obviously shaken her, but she was finding her footing, physically and mentally, again.
===
When Cassandra mentions the priestess not being dead, the first thing to pop into her mind was that she was rising as some kind of undead.
"May the Eternal Rose guide our hands so we may protect the beauty of this world by destroying the unrepentant that would defile it," she prays as celestial runes briefly shine in golden light on everyone's skin and weapons. She moves closer to the fallen priestess and raises her symbol high, her courage returned.
"Go back to your sleep," she says in icy tones, "you've caused enough pain and sorrow."
White and silver fire flows from her symbol and her eyes, filling the room with divine power and holy fire.
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No reply came from Victor, the words to console the blond eluded him. In all fairness he never did find himself in a position to encourage those disheartened very often. It was at a time like this where he would run his hand through his hair or massage his own neck, but now he couldn't even do that as both of his arms were busy holding Terri who didn't seem to be moving away anytime soon...and he didn't finding himself minding that.
Still he couldn't just stand there saying nothing, and there was no lying his way out of this one, so without giving anymore delays a chance to sour the mood of his shaken companion, Victor took a breath and refocused his vision on Terri "Yer still here, yer back to normal and that's what matters, I bet ya could still bring down an army of these lunatics after ya took a chance to catch yer breath..." The sorcerer paused, exhaled and made sure to look her in the eyes "Look don't let what happened spook ya, I know yer bloody stronger than that, ya showed me that many times tonight and ya got me focused on the job when I started whining about things that I didn't need to worry about" The sorcerer placed his left hand on Terri's shoulder, but said nothing more.
*************************************************************************** *********
In an instant the shadow mage turned towards the direction of the 'corpse' of Andaisin and prepared for the worst.
Terri smiles and closes her eyes as she wraps an arm around Victor's chest, hers going under his.
"Thank you," she tells him quietly as she gives him a brief, friendly hug, "thank you for telling me that."
Instead of Victor's solitary shadow reflecting on the floor, there were two silhouettes merged into one by the current closeness of their owners, and for a few moments it seemed that nothing would change that, but soon Terri released her hug and almost instantly Victor's hand went to his messy, raven black hair and rummaged through it, making it even more of an unkempt mess than it was before.
"Don't thank me too often, I may get used to it" Replied the sorcerer as he climbed back to his common tone of speech, but then he fell to silence once again before looking to the petite blond once more and then changing his view to another area in the room.
"Yer a good person Terri and the world can't afford losing people like ya, so lets make sure ya come out of this alive and sane...but with companions like us I can't make promises on that second one" A half smile appeared on the shadow mage's face as he walked past his armored companion and tried to find some way to help the rest of the party with what they were doing.
"Argh what the @#%^&??" Amira yells, slamming a starknife down into the priestess' body.
Terri chuckles and follows Victor to the others.
"Oh, I dunno. remind me to tell you about some of the shenanigans Trinia and I got up to while we were growing up."
Tolen reaches out a hand and assists Wednesday in climbing down the statue. She then takes the time to wipe her scimitar clean ,then looks about the unholy temple.
She hears the exclamations of surprise from the area of the Priestess' body, and turns slowly to see what was the matter.
An eyebrow raises as she sees the former corpse begin to move, her scimitar frees itself from its scabbard once more and Tolenn begins to stride forward to see what the Priestess has become...
Andaisin appears to do a lot more than simply become a zombie - her body expands in grotesque ways, one hand becoming considerably larger than the other and her whole form becoming taller and bulkier. The remaining straps of her armor pop and snap as she bursts anything too small. Whatever transformation she is going through, it's considerably more than simply to a reanimated corpse. The very air around her seems to become fouler - not so much to the lung as to the spirit.
Initiative
Caught off guard Wednesday gladly accepts Tolenn assistance in climbing down, at least this way he wouldn't break an arm again. But if he did she could fix it so the thought did war a bit inside his head.
His body started to heat once the priestess made her grand reentrance though, and while there wasn't enough in his blood to work him into a frenzy he could still feel the searing pain running through his flesh and veins.
Attacking the cause usually helped with that he found.
"Put down one evil, only to find it risen in more powerful form." Tolenn murmurs to herself, "Saranae, guide and protect me in our righteous work."
Tolenn feels Saranae's power once again infusing her with her glory, she takes the last few step to bring her within melee distance of the horrible creature the Priestess has become.
Seeing the danger of the new version of the enemy, Amira takes a step back, chanting in the ancient language as she calls up the essence of the trees that once grew where every stone now lay.
Wednesday's first attempt to slash Andaisin's transformed body bites deeply, but his second fails to penetrate her hardened skin. Tolenn, on the other hand, manages to slash Andaisin twice. Meanwhile, Amira's own skin toughens via her own magic.
The creature decides it would be better to fight at disadvantage rather than give up her vulnerability while trying to stand. She slashes with her oversized claw, with its scythe-like nails, at Tolenn. The sharp edge cuts through Tolenn's defense for 17 points of damage.
She also strikes out with her smaller claw with talons not quite as terrible. This time she strikes at Wednesday. The awkwardness of fighting from the ground, however, saves him from being cut.
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Seeing her companions injured. Terri begins a litany of prayer to heal their wounds.
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"What in the nine realms of f+@& is that?" Cassandra asks Park. Park shrugs his little monkey shoulders.
"Is our giant paladin fighting a giant undead priestess monster? Because I think we may have inhaled something on our way in here..."
Cassandra then reaches out and pokes Victor, casting Guidance on him.
As the energy washes over you, healing a substantial portion of your injuries, you can almost feel more than hear a gentle, beautiful music.
Moments ago Victor believed that the worst was behind them. Even Andaisin being alive couldn't bring that much trouble to their door...being wrong and falling for mirages of hope seemed to be a thing with him today. Still if he was going to be discouraged or annoyed he would have to find a better time, for now they had to fight to the death with someone who just didn't know when to stay down.
The umbral patches strewn around the chamber they were in grew darker as slithering rivers of darkness crawled out of them and made their way to the sorcerer. Once they reached him they covering his body, veiling him in an outer shell of morbid ebony. When the shadows finally reached his face they covered most of it behind a lightless and featureless facade, the only thing still visible from his face was his grey right eye which looked to be focusing on something only it could see. For brief moments Victor floated half a foot above the ground and darkness came over his companions and himself. Every now and then the world would flash back as they remembered it but every once and again they would see a pale, grotesque imitation of it that soon disappaered behind the shadowy walls Victor had summoned.
Finally the darkness did not return after they caught a glimpse of their own world, making the whole affair seem like they had just traveled through a long, and unusual tunnel that brought them back to where they were to begin with...except everything save for themselves was much slower than it was before.
Everybody feels their pulses quicken with the application of Victor's haste spell. The creature that was Andaisin feels the change as well, and snarls in defiance.
Tolenn smiles as she sees the now familiar penumbral tendrils envelop her and the others, her movements growing quicker...
Amira erupts into a flurry of action, her starknife spinning out toward the woman, followed by a pair of kunai as she presses the attack.
In a haste-infused flurry of activity, swords slash and knives bite. Under the hail of violence, the undead creature that Andaisin had transformed into slumps to the floor unmoving. Again.
(Wednesday hit twice, Tolenn and Amira each once)
As relative silence takes over, and it becomes increasingly apparent that Andaisin's corpse will not move or transform a second time, you are able to give the setting a bit more attention. The armor Andaisin was wearing in life, decorated to look a bit like a corset, will need repair before it is wearable again due to broken straps (broken condition). Her scythe is in excellent shape, though. She also wore headband that radiates as magic, as does her cloak. Her (un)holy symbol of Urgathoa is an art piece carved from onyx.
The reeking basins around the room each seem to contain different fluids - blood, bile, milk, and others that aren't so easy to identify. None seem wholesome. The scattered coffers are much like the ones found on the sunken Direption at the bottom of the river. None have infected coins as far as you can see, but each seems to have varieties of other specimens ranging from rats to stained vials and bits of flesh and scabs.
"Your goddess loved you enough to bring you back once, may she still accept you even as your second life ended before it began," Wednesday muses, his upbringing showing through.
Staring a bit longer at the poor broken creature before him he'll shake his head before picking up the scythe. The manufactured one. Were you brought back due to your devotion or some ritual we interrupted, or did The Pallid Princess merely wish to spite us?
"Shame about the corset." Cassandra notes to Amira. "You would rock it."
She, once again, points out the magic items so they can be separated out.
"We need experts in here. People who can decontaminate this place properly."
"Fire decontaminates pretty well."
Several, quickened flashes of steel finally ended whatever Andaisin had morphed into. There she laid, motionless, silent and lifeless. Yet Victor could not help but keep staring in her direction, almost as if he was expecting her to rise up into an even more hideous looking monstrosity. After a long minute it seemed that the likelihood of this scenario occurring were close to nothing, so with some hesitation Victor swayed his vision elsewhere and decided that for the moment at least he would fling his worrying away and let the chattering of his companions fell his world before they eventually exit this place of pain and misery.
I think I'll just sleep away the rest of the week.
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"Fires spread. Quickly." Cassandra says, firmly. "Burn this place down and we might end up doing as much damage as the plague. And there's a potential cure here too, remember?"
Cassandra sighs.
"Maybe Terri's temple or another temple will help."