The next wave of poisonous energy sends Ventus reeling but he regains his feet long enough to strike at the woman again. In the aftermath he thought he heard something snorting in the background.
Pirknok roars angrily as the ugly tingle crawls over his skin. He ignores his gaping wounds and slashes again.
Pressing her hand to her chest in response to the wave of negative energy, Ysme murmurs a quick prayer,
& swings her Flail once more.
Eli, his senses heightened by his alchemical extracts and his life force buoyed by Ensu's divine aid, hurls a bomb at Nualia.
Eli and Ysme's combined attacks are enough to drop Nualia and with a final shriek of rage, she falls to the ground bleeding but alive.
Pirknok disarms the girl and then leans against the wall, staring at her with a thoughtful yet uncomprehending expression.
"You've used these before, yes?" Ysme asks Doran as she hands him the Manacles, stepping around Nualia's unconscious form to set a hand on Pirknok's semi-dazed brow.
The dwarf shudders a bit at the tingle, but relaxes as it does its work. "Thet... she's not... nat'rul. Is ther enny hope fer sumwun like thet?"
He doesn't seem to be addressing anyone in particular.
"Until such time as 'She who is garbed in Blue' passes final judgement, there is always hope. The greatest question is if knows there is hope..." Ysme answers Pirnknok's statement.
Pirknok scratches his head thoughtfully at Ysme's words. Finally he shrugs. "Ah gess we shud fin' out if ther ar ennymor humins down here? Maybe Orik wud know."
Suddenly, a titanic savage roar shakes Thistletop.
A moment later a snarling hate-filled voice telepathically drifts through the air.
So you've disabled Nualia... It's no matter... I've waited centuries ... I can wait a little longer...
Pirknok grasps the katana in both hands and glares around, every muscle tense.
Eli jumps, rushing into the room and huddling among his allies. "Uh... what was that?" he asks. "I think we have something... older and more dangerous to worry about. Do we... try and deal with it? Ensu, do you have some more of that healing light to give everyone?"
"We need to look deeper here, Nualia was just the tip of the iceberg it seems," Ventus said, leaning against a wall and panting slightly.
"Ensu, let's review." Ysme asks in response to the Telepathic voice & the other's statements.
"We knew she was intending the attack for reasons, at least. She wanted revenge for the slights she felt the townsfolk had inflicted upon her & she wanted...
More of those fleshwraught things."
"Didn't that Imp down in the tunnels say something about some servant of the Mother of Monsters down here?" Examining Nualia's form more closely, "She wanted the constant reminder of her heritage expunged as well, it seems."
Pirknok listens to Ysme and Ventus, and frowns. "Wull, so wut shud we do?"
At Pirknok's query, " we should search this chamber & see if there is anything else here we may find to answer our questions." Putting word to deed, Ysme begins doing just that.
Pirknok helps.
A search of the room reveals that the water from the fountain appears to be clean and drinkable and that the burning skulls providing light appear to be magical as no heat comes from them.
The objects on the shelves look to be various holy texts, scrolls, relics, and objects sacred to some sort of dark deity.
Nualia is carrying a well made bastard sword, a suit of breastplate, and under it, a shirt of some shimmering green material.
"Oi, Ensu, what do you make of this?" Ventus said to the arguably the most knowledgable member of their group before standing to look the room over as well.
Ysme gathers up what she can of the religious paraphernalia she is able to fit into her pack murmuring, "Just as well I was on my way to Windsong. will know best what to do with these..."
Doran sighs heavily, letting his weapon hang across his chest as he watches the others discuss the contents of the room. "I still don' like 'is place," he grimaces, taking a furtive glance at the exit.
" of us like this place, Mister Quickstep. That is why we want to have to come back later."
"Wull, what're we gonna do? We can't jus' leave thuh gurl, even tied up..."
The dwarf looks uncertainly among his companions.
"We ended the threat from Nualia." Eli says, then pauses. "But as much as I hate to admit it, if she's cooking up something down here, we need to look into it incase it turns out to be worse than her and her Goblins."
Ensu frowns at the religious gear as he lets out one final wave of positive energy. He wonders if he has finally found the purpose that Nethys had laid out for him and if he has the strength to see what was obviously going to be a long and troubled road through to it's conclusion. "We need to find out just how far she got in her attempts to find something down here before we leave. I doubt the goblins are likely to be capable of handling whatever it was on their own, and not dealing with it now will simply cause more headaches down the line."
The children wish to see what Lamashtu's puppet thought she could control? Come and find me. I'm not far...
Checking to be certain Nualia is properly secured, Ysme stands back up. "That brings another thought to mind. Should we perhaps deal with that Bugbear the Mercenary mentioned first?"
"I mislike the notion of him & possibly a harem of Goblin women sneaking up on us from behind..."
" when this thing can communicate Telepathically. Who is to say it hasn't already informed one of them of these events?"
The dwarf shakes his head. "Ah don't think it wud. It's proud... it wud want ta fight us itself." He sighs. "An' ah gess yer right," he adds, glancing from Ysme to Ensu, "ah gess we need ta finish this thing. C'mon, let's do this."
CLW 1
CLW 2
CLW 3
CLW 4
CLW 5
CLW 6
CLW 7
"Thenks, Ensu. Let's do this." repeats the dwarf, hoisting himself to his feet and moving back toward the hall.
"Yes, let us. We might attempt not to slay all the members of the Harem if possible. Once his...
distraction,
is removed, I'm sure the Chief will be more properly attentive to them." Ysmerelda smirks slightly at an errant thought.
Pirknok scratches his beard, confused. "Ar we goin' after thuh Voice, or thuh bear-thing?"
He shudders a bit at the word "bear", then frowns. "Thuh goblins kin take care uv thuh bear-thing. We need ta go after thuh thing thet's akshully a danger."
Pirknoks heads south and opens the doors to find that they open into a short hall. On the other end of the hall is a room with three sets of double doors - North, East, and South.
The southern doors are especially elaborate. Like the others, they're made of stone but bear no handles. An indented outline of a seven-pointed star, its shape covered by hollows and slits, graces the spot where handles should be.
The dwarf looks at the big doors with a thoughtful grunt. "Hurng."
He looks around at the others and shrugs, as if to ask now what?
"Looks like we need some kind of very pointy key to get past this door," Ventus said, frowning and rubbing his bald pate.
Frowning perplexedly, Ysme muses. "I don't suppose any of us searched Nualia..." At the others collective glare, "This is my first time actually taking a prisoner & we all know I'm not so good at finding things!"
Eli sighs in exasperation. "What did we miss?" he asks.
He then looks at the other doors. "Maybe behind one of those?" he says.
Pirknok shrugs and approaches the eastern door, listening carefully before opening it and entering.
This room contains three low tables, their tops covered with a strange and chilling selection of tools, saws, long-bladed knives, and objects whose purpose is not readily apparent. A strange collection of bones lies near the southern table—too many to be one skeleton, but too few to be two.
Sitting on the easternmost table is an object that, upon closer examination, isn’t a tool at all. It appears to be a silver-and-gold seven-pointed star; one surface is studded with nodules and blades, and the other features a thin, curved handle.
"Well, there we go," Ventus said, coming in behind Pirknok, "If this were some bard's tale, the moment we pick it up, something horrible would ambush us."
"Gud thing it's not sum story then, huh."
Pirknok walks over and picks up the star by the handle.
Pirknok finds that the handle is cold to the touch and unexpectedly heavy but nothing strange or horrible occurs.
Looking over at Ventus with a grin, the dwarf carries the implement into the hallway and attempts to fit it into the door.