Are we in a hurry, or do I have time to re adjust my armor?
"I believe the oversized rodents are in no rush." responded Vanessa, as she held her defensive stance as the others moved in to actually kill the things attacking her.
Adishana looks away from the rats she's shooting and looks at Gregor. She says, "When the rats menacing Vanessa are dispatched, I also would like to take a short break to fine-tune and recharge my equipment. Shooting ice out of this rod uses up its energy."
After clearing some of the gore from his face. Oh, how did I miss those?
The rats leap at you, Vanessa. Their sharp, ripping teeth gnawing as the climb around you. How do you respond?
As the rats leap towards her, the first gets a handful of her fist, even as she's ducking out of the way of the second... but beyond that, her ability to handle just that many becomes steadily more limited.
As the swarming rats threaten to overcome Vanessa, Adishana decides to try something she's never done before.
She reverses the view in her goggle to just before she "teleported" to the stair step, then she moves toward Vanessa, wrapping her arms around her friend. She jumps to the present. Any observer would simply have seen her disappear from the stairs and appear with her arms wrapped around Vanessa. "Pray to Chronos this works," she says to a startled Vanessa, as Adishana turns a knob on the goggles.
As she turns the knob, an ethereal glow emanates from the goggles, then Adishana begins to glow and finally Vanessa. Adishana once again reverses the view in her goggles to just before she moved from the stairs and freezes the view. She and Vanessa enter the time slipstream. She tries to speak to Vanessa, but no sounds can be heard. Adishana leads Vanessa by the hand across the floor to the stairs, and they jump together back to the present, standing on the stairs.
"Okay, boys," she says, they're all yours."
The rest of the swarm scatters after the second incident of prey simply disappearing. Even the hungriest rat will find easier meals.
The rats' nest was piled up on the other side of the door, explaining the welcoming reaction. A gleam catches your eyes, and a carved jade amulet, worth 200 coins is found in the rats' collection of trash.
Whoever takes point should roll 2d6+WIS.
With the threat gone, Adishana says, "Watch out for the ice. I'll see if I can remove it." She sits sdown on the steps and takes out her toolkit. She begins tinkering with the rod as she mutters, "If I reverse the polarity ..."
She sets one end of the rod on the icy floor, and the rod absorbs the ice.
She tells the others what she saw in the past. "This man," she says, pointing to the corpse, "was with a group of others. They were Templars or something like that. They discussed something, and the others left. This man stabbed himself and sealed this door shut with his blood as he died."
She takes a short break to fine-tune and recharge her Gadgets.
"How does one use their blood to seal a doorway?" Vanessa asked, holding the parchment out to Adishana. It didn't really give them much to go on, and she didn't see how it had any more information for them than what Adishana had already found.
Whatever she'd seen during their trip, she was quiet about.
"Oh, yes, and he wrote that message with his blood. I was watching this in reverse, so I may have misinterpreted some of what was going on. He did, however, smear his blood along the doorway as he was dying. That he was sealing is my interpretation. That he was smearing, the bare facts. What does the message say? I didn't get a look before my goggles fizzled out."
"That the door must stay sealed for the good of all. That it was barred by blood. Unfortunately, I did not get to it until the door was already being opened." she stated simply. "I was unaware that blood alone was enough to bar a doorway. Perhaps we should seal it in similar fashion as we enter?"
Adishana looks dubious at the idea of using her own blood. "Perhaps if one of us is a Templar?"
Vanessa shrugs... Then shares what she does know. Most likely it would have simply came up in her search for ways to -break bindings- and permanent spells. In the interest of me not holding others up, everyone can just read what he shares.
"The only thing I know of this I learned from a venerable monk far to the south. Death, like life, has its own power. It can be used to sustain powerful magical feats. Templars in particular are trained to utilize this, placing seals and using their own deaths to power spells even in death. Breaking the seal means that we have likely released something powerful." Vanessa said quickly, as she looked down the hallway. "The damage is already done. I do not believe it is wise for me to lead."
Listening to Vanessa, Adishana looks through her goggles to see if she can spot anything coming through the door while they were occupied with the rats.
Adishana views the scene in reverse quite quickly, keeping an eye on the door until she sees Gregor breaking it down (or breaking it back into place, since she's watching it in reverse).
Adishana, nothing seems to have slipped by while you were busy with the rats.
A short ways past the door, the tunnel opens up into a room decorated with murals and mosaics on the walls. The artwork is of blasphemous design, and the scenes depict dealings with hideous entities.
Four figures are chained to the walls with long, stout chains. As you approach, they look to you, crazed looks on their muzzled faces. One end of their chains are not hooked to the wall, and they take a guarded stance, swinging their binds menacingly.
What do you do?
Adishana is uninterested in gods, so blasphemy doesn't bother her. She stays back out of reach of the chained figures as she studies the murals and mosaics.
The murals detail a Sorcerer who bound demons into men's minds, making them immune to pain and hungry for blood. It seems he then used them guard dogs.
Adishana says, "Informative artwork," as she looks around the room to see if there are any exits or entrances other than the way they came in. "It appears these poor devils are just that, demons in men's minds and bodies. That doesn't help us get past them, but it's interesting nonetheless. Perhaps it tells us a bit about who we're dealing with in here."
"Poor bastards," Mark comments, the druid staring at the men chained to the wall without blinking. "We ought to put them out of their misery, yeah? Kill them while they're still chained so they may get some measure of peace..." he glances over his companions, wondering if any of them could do the job while remaining out of arm's reach.
Vanessa shook her head. "I can't really hurt people. It's not one of the things I've studied to do. I... could attempt to undo the damage that has been done to them, but my magic may not reach that far... and likely it would be perilous to attempt to even do so."
Adishana brandishes her Cryogenic Amplification Rod. "I can shoot at them, but I'd have to recharge after every few shots. It takes a lot of power to harness the elemental energy."
Mark glances at the demon-infested humans doubtfully. "Looks like a powerful magic put the demons in there...think yours is strong enough to undo the enchantment? I don't mean to doubt you, I just don't see how monsters like those could go back to normal people."
"And if that fails...we have her ice." he comments, gesturing at Adishana.
"I don't. But if it's possible, I have a duty to try... Maybe. Compared to outright slaughter..." she shakes her head with a shrug. "My magic is generally able to break the magic of others as they are willing it forward... but magic that is already set... I do not know. I suppose it is better to try than wonder... though I may only make things worse." she stated, as she began to work her magic.
A complex weave of magic is worked as the woman before them moves in time to an unheard beat. Steadily, she moved, flowing with time as she perceived it, until she began to unweave it. She fell back in time, moving her motions in reverse, slowly speeding up as she weaved her spell faster and faster against the stream of time. All the while, she chanted. This time, her use of haiku to channel time became more apparent.
"Eternal mercy
Give these madmen some respite,
Free their darkened minds
Unweave binding ties,
Cast their demons from our sight,
Unburden their souls
Unbreak bones, weave flesh,
Return them to comforts rest,
Relieve their bodies."
Adishana is eagerly watching through her Clockwork Reversal Goggles!
Mark, too, watches with a fascinated look on his face. Despite his newfound druidic powers, the lad is little more than an alchemist's assistant, and has never heard of magic that is effected through poetry.