Loxley smiles and nods at Yeda’s words, politely ignoring the slight stutter. Taking comfort in the warrior’s contact. She happily accepts the elk’s company too. Dewdrop’s stature offering some sense of security.
”If I never stepped foot in buried ruins again it would be too soon.”
She sighed briefly before she admitted with a chuckle.
”Oh let’s be honest, my curiosity would drive me back in before long. Best to have the company of strong arms to protect me.”
yeda takes several steps forward...and then stops. her face grows pale, her eyes wide. she begins to look towards the front of her, and then the rear, up high, to the left and right. Her body begins to shake, heavy beads of sweat covering her forehead. the sword held in her hand begins to waver, falling slowly towards the floor...
"Yeda?"
Loxley asks when the warrior stops mid stride. When she starts to shake and sweat the arcanist becomes worried. And when starts to collapse she quickly puts an arm around her, trying to steady.
"Yeda!"
Loxley starts looking her over for a visible cause for Yeda's sudden 'illness'.
Seeing Yeda take a turn towards possibly being ill, Zeldana moved up, holding the torch high. "What is wrong?" She asked worriedly.
When Yeda fell he cursed in elven. It was very uncouth.He hurried forward and slid down beside her pulling the berries miss Amieko had given him and using his druidic magic he managed to turn two of them into magical berries.
With a scowl he put a blueberry and rasberry to her lips.
"How are you miss Yeda? Are you okay? do you feel ill. Did you eat breakfast this morning, eat these berries they will help."
He began his common rattling off a mile a minute.
She shudders just as she recovers and grasps her sword just before it would all to the floor.
That was... intense. I feel better now, but something was affecting me very specifically. I'll be fine, but we should remain watchful and aware. I don't know if it could affect anyone or just those without darkness vision...
She continues onward.
The group leaves the strange prison chamber, and regroup outside, at the base of the statue that seems to have, at one point in time, guarded this entire area.
Standing tall and proud, the statue is incomplete, as you guys have in your possession the ranseur that was a part of the statue.
To the east, at the edge of the torch and magical light, you see a set of stairs descending into the darkness.
"Let's be careful. Could be some more of those sinspawn about." Sazzat says.
He listens for trouble in the darkness.
"It wouldn't be out of place. As the pool made sinspawn who knows how many have been made before we got down here." Zeldana pointed out.
He paused looking at the statue for a moment. With a slight frown he took the statues ransuer he had tied up with his pack and replaced it. Maybe if the places statue guardian was still armed it would feel less dark. If that didnt chamge things well they could always take it again on the way out.
Tbat done he head for the set of stairs at the edge of the darkness.
Yeda stands next to Corrin eyeing the statue. I wonder if we should have left the weapon with it...
She shakes her head and dismisses the idea, striding forward past it to listen at the descending staircase.
you stand at the top of the stairs, looking down into the narrow beam of light shed from the light sources. 20 feet beyond, the light ends upon a set of stairs that descend into darkness.
Yeda takes the lead, pointing the way with her lit greatsword..
He paused glancing at Sazzat and tilting his head to see if the man wanted to go next. If not he followed along a dozen or so feet behind Yeda with Dewdrop slowly slinking in behind him. He kept more of an eye on miss Yeda, whatever was in this place seemed to be really effecting her, and it wouldnt do for something bad to happen to her.
Loxley follows behind Yeda and Sazzat, staying near Zeldana. She keeps one eye ahead and the other on Yeda.
Zeldana followed after Loxley, keeping the torch hight for other to be able to see. "You know if it wasn't for the fact things keep trying to kill us I would really be enjoying myself." Zeldana said.
Tamm follows along close behind Yeda as she descends.
Yeda watches for traps in the darkness as they go...
”Me too.” Loxley replied with as much of a chuckle as she could manage.
descending the stairs, a couple platforms down, the light reveals a wood door at the end of the hall, standing vigil upon the hall, preventing egress between the hall and the unknown beyond.
The warrior glances over the door momentarily...
and then turns the handle, pushing it open.
yeda performs a cursory inspection of the door, and finding no traps, twists the knob to open it. Yet her inspection fails to reveal the concealed wood spikes embedded into the door itself. With her twisting the knob to open the door, the trap activates, causing a couple narrow wood spikes to spring out, collapsing upon her exposed hand.
fortunately for yeda, the trap fails to properly engage itself. the spikes open up, but upon making contact with her forearm, the contract back into their "closed" position, barely leaving any type of scratch upon her.
with the trap sprung, the door opens into a circular room with a circular stone pool set within the center of the room. As you step over the threshold, you easily see the humanoid skulls set upon the lip of the pool, cemented in place. The pool itself is filled to the brim with water, still and unmoving.
Hmph She appears nearly disappointed as the wooden spikes scratch at her scale mail.
After what we've seen this is almost cute.
Stepping into the room she first notices the skulls squinting for several moments to make sure they're truly stationary.
She waves in the others. Who can tell me what religious significance this has, or what plane it may summon a foul creature from?
She gestures at the pool with her pointer-sword.
Loxley jumped with an audible startle when the door’s trap snapped down on Yeda’s forearm. She had already taken a step forward when the spikes retracted, leaving the warrior unharmed, if not untouched. The arcanist sighed in relief as the other woman opened the door.
In the room beyond Loxley looked over the skull lined pool with grim caution. Entering the room she carefully stayed within the light shed by Yeda and Sazzat’s weapons. Drawing her own sword Loxley inspected the pool, raising a hand she first checked for magic.
"Sorry, I should have noticed that trap." Tamm say apologetically.
Looking at the room "Another well. Hopefully this one isn't as bad as the last one."
"Is the water fresh or stagnant?" he asks.
(+1 for traps)
The fascination of the pool draws everyone's attention to it's calm surface, its dried and well preserved skulls, its fine features.
Loxley cried out in surprise as she catches sight of the abomination. Instinctively she swung her hand around and shouted.
"Shii-nea!"
The ray of frost spits forth from Loxley's hand, ice crackling into existence and forming into a hard pointed bullet. It streaks out and misses wide of the floating head.
The floating monstrosity opens it's weirdly shaped mouth into a hideous macabre show, disjointing like a snake and hanging impossibly low from its skull. A long, purple tongue dangles limply from the large opening, globs of saliva drooling hideously from the abberation. A loud, nigh impossible sound erupts from the cavernous mouth. It fills the room, echoing off of it's stone walls, and rebounds into your ears, vibrating your eardrums to painful levels, rattling your bones, twinging at your soul.
What is that?! Everything down here seems to be a perverted form of some more familiar creature...
Yeda's tone doesn't match the surprise her words would imply by this point in their time underground.
"Owwww....my ears." Tamm says as he bends over in pain.
The raccoon bends over to cover his ears as well.
He wasnt sure what that thing was, but it wasnt good by the shriek. He responded to the loud roar by hefting one of his spears and throwing it at the monster. Dewdrop reacted to the noise badly.
Zeldana quickly cover her ear as the creature screamed. "That thing... I'm not too sure..."
"Arg..."
Loxley staggered under the assault of the unearthly cry. Her legs threaten to buckle as the bone rattling attack.
He glanced back and snarled at the sight of his friends dropping to the ground. With a feral very uncivilized roar of anger and rage, he pulled out another spear and rushed forth past Zeldana stabbing the spear at the creature.
Loxley tried to stay standing but her knees quickly gave way and she collapsed against the well. Her hands ineffectively covering her ears, she felt her cheek against the cold stone floor for the second time in these unforgiving tunnels. The sound of several of the other bodies following suit did little to comfort her, but from her position she was able to see could see a few of the others still able to move and that did give her hope. If only the creature's cry would cease reverberating through her very being.
Yeda continues around the room until she's opposite it from Corrin.
We have it where we want it now!
The flying creature flaps about, crooning its horrendous tune, dropping loxley and sazzat to the ground. Corrin shakes the effects and lunges with his spear, stabbing it from below. Yeda hurries around the pool, getting behind the creature. She lines up her blow and swings in an overhead arc, the blade descending in an glowing strike. The flying head, unable to move out of the way, is hammered nearly in two from the strike; the blade cutting into the flesh but catching the mass and bringing it with final determination upon the hard rock floor. The bulbous head splats upon the floor, popping like an overripe pimple upon a persons face, innards and viscous blood bursting out from the mouth and eyes.
Though it looked like it was down and destroyed the elf darted forward and stabbed it again just to make sure.
Eww.
Yeda gets out a spare rag and begins wiping off her sword.
It's a wonder their aren't more demon stains on the floor.
Once it's clean again she tosses it in the center pool to let it soak.
Nodding at the next door she asks the group Onward?
Tamm rolls over and shakes his head, trying to clear the cobwebs.
"What was that thing...." he asks.
The raccoon sits up and cradles its little head in his forehands.
Loxley first draws herself to all fours and shakes her head. To which she immediately regrets. Using the edge of the well she climbs to her feet as she rubs her temple.
"I am seriously going to need a hot tea, cold ale and a long bath after this."
She looks around at the others, making sure no one looks injured. Not seeing any she shakes her head again at Sazzat's question, all be it a little slower.
"I can't think right now, so I couldn't tell you. Maybe once the ringing stops."
She manages to joke.
"Unless someone else got a good look at it?"
She asks as she readies to follow after Yeda.
"That was a Vargouille! Zeldana said with a bit of shock. "That are an extraplanar creature. How did it get here?" Zeldana wondered. Then she looked to Sazzat and Loxley, "You two are very lucky. Having fallen victim to it's breath, you were in the most danger. After it paralyzes the person it then kisses them. And in doing to you become one of it. You skull ripping from your own head." Zeldana explained.
"I'll buy you all a round of your choice of drink when we return. To make up for how I froze in this combat." She promised with a small smile. "But first, we must finish this." Zeldana agreed with Yeda's onward.
He smiled at the pretty witch tilting his head slightly when she offered to buy him a drink after she froze. Such a silly thing to be worried about. It's not like the creature was some sort of natural thing, clearly foul magics were at work.
"Come Dewdrop you big lug, to your feet."
He began softly patting the elk while it took a moment to figure out what it was doing. He kept enough space though to not crowd him. Heartened that his friend was okay he moved and gathered up the spear he had thrown and moved behind Yeda ready for what other horrors this place might conjure up
Hmm, where indeed did it come from. We dealt with one portal already. Clearly either this place was stocked from another place, or there are more gateways to get shut down.
Loxley shudders at the thought of that thing ‘kissing’ her, then shoots Zeldana a quirky smile.
”Careful, I might take you up on that offer.”
She manages a chuckle before turning somber again.
”Yeda’s right. There must be either another portal or someone who can draw them into our world,”