Myrna grumbles, frustrated with the conflicting parties in the complex situation. "So we press the woman Annavinia to summon this imp. She must be a wizard of some sort. Chelaxians always consort with dark magic, and she is here specifically to speak with a devil. If she knows this imp's name, shouldn't she be able to call it directly to her?"
Unafe shrugs at Myrna's suggestion. "Old Aye taught me nothing about devils, and how they can be summoned.
"Anna, thanks for the offer. I think we could get backed up pretty easily in that well, but I'd appreciate you staying nearby."
Fenton nods, placing a firm hand on Nordvick's shoulder. The gesture appears comforting, but it also serves the purpose of keeping him from making any sudden movements. "Please call for me if you need me, Lady Hinagiku." He then flashes her one last smile before taking his leave, leading Nordvick in the opposite direction just as Hinagiku turns her back on them both.
Annavinia seems pleased with Sana's response. Her face un-puckers and she lowers her voice. "Very good. Please, do hurry. It would be terribly unfortunate to have wasted so much time here, only to have it ruined by a load of bumbling Crusaders."
Sana thinks that, at the very least, Annavinia believes her own words to be true. But just about anyone knows that Chelish nobility aren't known for their transparency.
Myrna's dancing lights bounce one after another down the well, revealing that the well is very deep, at least 200' deep. However she does not see anything other than the magically carved walls of the well, leading down into a large pool of water. Three large copper pipes line the well all the way down into the water.
Myrna and Ehren then get to work digging into the dirt. They dig until they reach 3' deep into the ground. Myrna's shovel bumps into a large, burlap sack. Ehren's shovel, in contrast, hits something hard with a thunk. A few more shovelfuls of dirt later, and he unearths a small chest of lacquered cedar lined with layers of brass. The chest is about a foot wide, a half foot long, and a half foot tall. There is no visible lock.
It is at that moment that the heroes hear a dramatic slow clap coming from somewhere above them. Standing on one of the pipes near the ceiling is an imp - a tiny, red-skinned devilish looking man with a long tail and small bat-like wings. He wears a small, obviously tailored, black and white striped formalwear outfit, and there is a smirk on his face.
"Bravo, bravo! I gotta admit, didn't think anyone'd come this far. Sorry for not having faith in you soldier-types to creatively problem solve. In any case, you look like you could need some help. I feel like you got questions, well, I got answers for ya."
Straddling the edge of the well, Hinagiku was about to leap into it when the imp makes its appearance. Perhaps it was out of some kind of mean sense of humor that it had decided to appear at that inopportune moment.
Remembering Li’an’s hatred of devils, Hinagiku’s gaze move between the azata and devil as she gets back on the solid ground. Watchful for any sign of engagement, she approaches her companion.
”Please, you are welcome to tell us what we need to know. But, we do not take kindly to entities who encourage murder, especially those whose very soul is made from evil.” Hinagiku says, her calm voice less gentle than usual. With a bit of luck, her words would make it clear to the devil that it had one opportunity to escape an imminent return to hell.
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Li'an spent most of the time in the basement simply looking around for the demon. She wasn't particularly interested in dealing with the graves or anything else until the main problem had been addressed. It would probably require a concerted effort to draw the devil out, given it had been skulking around as a mouse for some time apparently.
Needless to say Li'an is quite surprised to see the thing deliver itself directly to her. She feels her blood begin to boil as she looks at its smug smirk perched upon a pipe above them. Li'an's eyes literally light up shining brightly with fire, and her hair takes on the character of flames, glowing red hot and waving in the air above her of its own accord. Her brijidine nature clearly evident, she returns the imp's grin and responds to it, "I have a question: Do you prefer to be cooked medium well, or well done?" Reaching out, she gestures wordlessly at the Imp, motes of fire gathering at her fingertips. Though she takes note of Hinagiku's attempt to interpose herself between Li'an and the Imp, Li'an takes a quick step to the right, unwilling to allow anyone to come between her and educating yet another devil on the nature of fire and torment of immolation.
Myrna is surprised when the devil appears, supposedly to generously supply them with information. She had expected the cowardly creature to hide in the corner, invisible, fearful for its life. That it had appeared before them spoke to a boldness that she did not predict in such a tiny thing.
Perhaps they could have spoken to it for a time, if the fire-elf had not been among them. The Green knew that it would try to manipulate them, but perhaps they could have learned something. Still, it was clear that Li'an hated these devils when she immediately summoned fire against it.
Before battle, she whispers into the communication spell she shares with the others. "Anna! Get down here now, the devil has appeared. We may need you."
Too slow to react before her, Myrna just turns in unison with her against the devil. In an instant, her hands fill with her weapon and shield. She cries out for battle, fixing her gaze on the creature. "You picked the wrong set of people to manipulate, creature. Surrender for confession or meet your end!" Perhaps she could push her allies into destroying it once and for all, instantly and without recourse. Perhaps they could disable it and haul it upstairs for interrogation.
Meanwhile, Lt. Medici is upstairs, busy at work cleaning the body of the housekeeper and preparing her for honorable burial. She agreed with the Archdruid that they deserved a better burial place than anywhere in this cursed land. There was no better way to prevent an unrestful undeath than to treat the dead with the respect they deserved, so Beatrix carefully washes the corpse. She confers with Nordvick to find better clothes for her, and she tries to make the body look presentable.
"Wait, what?! Let's at least hear what it says."
Unafe considers restraining Li'an, but the caster is too quick.
"By the Ancestors, Ehren, you claimed that not all witches are this reckless. Hang on, Li'an!
"I'll grab it if you don't want it to get away but let it talk!"
Ehren hardly has time to give his discovery a cursory look before the devil oh-so-brazenly reveals itself. He looks at the tiny, well-dressed man with a frown, well aware that he alone might possess all of the answers to the questions he just asked. Questions that, if Li'an has her way, he might not get the chance to ask again. Too slow to act even if he wanted to, he watches as the sorceress launches a fusillade of firey beams at the imp. All in all, he does not look too torn up about her sudden offensive.
"That devil is at the root of the evil that has befallen this place," Ehren replies calmly, as he casts the shovel aside. Unafe was not wrong about Li'an being reckless, but as far as he is concerned, she was merely accelerating the inevitable. In a blur, his body becomes that of an earth elemental once more. "I see no good that can come out of allowing it to wag its treacherous tongue at us. We have other ways of uncovering our answers."
Before anyone else can act, Li'an immediately fires three fiery rays up at the imp, leaving it ablaze with a large scorchmark on the wall behind of it. Inside of the scorchmark is a silhouette in the shape of the imp's form. It screams, its voice tiny and shrill, until the fires go out. Then the imp coughs once, completely blackened to a crisp, but not dead. Its nice suit completely burned off, it stands in a small loincloth, its flesh rapidly healing from the onslaught. It is obvious that the creature was thrown off-guard by this assault and it attempts to regain its composure with a haughty little hem hem!
"Now if you're done behaving like a little barbarian, I was talking to this nice young lady here," he says, gesturing at Hinagiku.
"Oh, we're hardly done here, fiend," Li'an says, her hatred burning as clearly as the flames engulfing her hair. She floats up off the ground and drifts up towards eye-level with the imp, continuing to address it, "You're far sturdier than an imp should be, but if it burns it can be cleansed of evil, and as everyone can plainly see, you burn just fine--Though I can see that came as a shock to you. No, there are no discussions to be had here. I intend to incinerate you so thoroughly they'll be sweeping up your embers in Hell. And when that's done, we'll purge this house of the remnants of your evil and destroy whatever cursed item your master created."
Reaching out again, she unleashes a second volley of rays at the imp. It was exceedingly frustrating to be so limited in what she could deploy in this little basement, but the only other option would be to try to dismiss it, and she was hardly going to let an imp get off so easy.
Meanwhile, up in the main room, Auraelia jumps into the air, somewhat startled. Her empathic link with Li'an couldn't tell her specifically what was going on, but the intensity of the unadulterated loathing she felt made it clear nevertheless. "Well, I guess Li'an found the imp," she announces to no one in particular, "Nothing gets her quite as angry as a devil."
Unafe glances uncertainly at Hinagiku, but even the monk looks at peace with killing the imp, rather than letting it speak.
With a shrug, the clan-chief once again allows the saurian spirits to transform her into their avatar. She attempts to shove, smack, and grab the imp before it can get away.
The scorching hostility of Li’an’s words and her fiery spell come as a surprise to Hinagiku. Even though she knew of the azata’s hatred for devils, she had not expected it to be so deep-seated. Looking up at the imp dispassionately, the monk takes one deep breath and steps aside to fully open the space between her companions and the devil.
”You will have to speak quickly if you want them to stop.” the monk says, just as Unafe grows into her enormous form and leaps at the malicious creature.
Hinagiku starts to speak, but at the same time Unafe grows to an enormous size and backhands the imp with a hand the size of a wagon wheel. She busts open the pipe he is standing on, causing water to spray out and drench her face. When she retracts her hand there is nothing left but a gory smear on the scorched wall. It tints water dripping down the wall from the pipe-spray a pinkish-red color. Meanwhile, the rest of the heroes in the basement are forced to squeeze against the walls to properly accommodate Unafe's great girth.
There is a valve to the bottom right that you could turn shut to stop the water spilling out of the pipe.
Unafe blinks when she realizes she has splattered the imp, and uses the flow of water to wash off the gore.
As she returns to her normal size she says, "My apologies for the broken pipes. And the broken imp."
After a moment, she adds, "Do any of you have the means to stop this leak? And should we take a look in the buried sack and chest?"
Hinagiku lets out a brief inaudible sigh when Unafe opens her clawed hand to reveal the bloody smear. Even though this had been an evil creature, there was a small part of her that wished they had not resorted to violence so quickly.
With that done, Hinagiku looks around and searches her mind for a way to stop the pipe water, but does not come up with anything. One of her ears droops to the side.
"No idea Mrs. Unafe."
"I suppose that is that," Ehren rumbles, contemplating the bloody smear on the wall. As it turned out, it was about as powerful as its stature suggested. Of course, it was the imp's knowledge and not what it was capable of, that Annavinia was after. Despite what he said before, the druid was not entirely certain that they could uncover the whole story themselves.
When Unafe asks about the leak she caused, Ehren looks up at the broken pipes and follows their path across the ceiling and wall. While far from a plumber, he can easily determine where the water is coming from and deduce that the valve must somehow control the flow. Carefully grasping it between his stony fingers, he twists it experimentally, gradually bringing the spilling water to a halt.
"Well then. With that interruption out of the way..." Ehren turns to regard the small pit he and Myrna dug.
"Alright, there in a fl-" Sana responds via the message as she's already moving down the stairs, just in time to come to a stop midword as a fireball the size of her arm arcs across the room. "-Ash." she finishes.
She's surprised to see the imp still alive, given that Quasits weren't fireproof, so why should it be? And then a fist reconstitutes it as part of the ironworks beneath the house.
"Imp's dead, Arie." she whispers, perfectly pronouncing the last vowel, despite the lowered volume.
"Well... there goes a lot of explanation of what's going on. Do you guys have any ways to make ichor tell a story? Or a way to look back into the past?" she says leaning on the stairs. "Hole, box, and bag. You guys have been busy. What was that about getting backed up in a well?" she asks, quickly jumping from point of interest to point of interest.
Hinagiku simply shakes her head at Sana.
"I can look a few hours in the past here, but I doubt the devil was here the whole time. There would most likely be really little to see."
Casting a glance to the well, she continues: "We were thinking of going down there, maybe we can find something hidden by Linnaeus. But, I think we should wait to see what the box contains first."
"Mm." Sana says, eyes still on the 'loot', some of which was likely dead bodies. "If you can look a few hours back, we should probably hurry to view the bathroom. We don't know that the haunt killed her. If you're okay with viewing that sort of thing, that is..." she adds, trailing off as her eyes move to Hinagiku.
Reaching down, Ehren grabs the cedar chest by its sides and carries it out of the pit. After setting it down again, he peers at it closely, noting that it does not appear to be locked in any way. Not without caution, however, he inspects it a bit more closely, going so far as to cast detect magic, unwilling to dismiss the possibility that it might be trapped somehow.
Definitely magical. One aura, strong.
The aura is from the universal school of magic.
The magic that was used to enchant this item came from a wish spell. It doesn't seem to be a magical trap.
After several seconds of staring at the chest with a furrowed brow, Ehren closes his eyes and shakes his head, unable to discern the true nature of its dweomer. The druid hums before explaining his findings to the others. He knows for a fact that Li'an is better suited for this than him.
"Hm. The chest itself appears to be magical somehow - it has a strong aura. But I can't figure out what it does. It could still be a trap, for all I know."
"It is not really pleasant, but it was less awfull than other things I have seen in the worldwound. So, if it will point to the culprit, I do not mind doing it. And, it can work for many hours, so time is not an urgent issue." Hinagiku replies to Sana.
While the Archdruid investigates the chest that he found in the hole, Myrna lugs the burlap sack out of the ground and into the center of their circle. She pays the dead imp not one more thought as she moves on with the investigation. Such a creature would only have manipulated them into evil or been foiled and slain at a later time.
She regards the strange, magical, unlatched chest. "I don't know much about magic. My grandmothers taught me some of their practices, but I never cared much to listen to the theory." She holsters her axe back in its loop and flexes her fingers. "I could hurl it into the ground, but that might break it. I don't know if we should be keeping magical boxes intact."
Meanwhile, she opens up the sack and pours its contents onto the ground.
"I do not know much about magic, but I believe some type becomes activated when an object is open... it does not matter how. So, it might be wiser to try the more complex way. I think Li'an has experience with it."
While the others investigate the box and the bag, Hinagiku takes a closer look at mud directly below where the imp was slain. Perhaps he had dropped some valuables to the ground.
There does not seem to be much left of the imp, after he was incinerated and squished.
Myrna opens up one of the sacks and pours out a large amount of dust, dirt, some ratty clothing that appears to be a priest's habit, and what remains of a humanoid skeleton, almost entirely wasted away.
Sana leans over to get a better view of the burlap sack as Myrna begins to open it. She was pretty sure there was going to be something weird in there. An entire person was certainly something weird. A very old, very decayed person was just one step further. She raises a single finger and opens her mouth as if to speak, then tilts her head and closes her mouth.
"So... uh. I guess that means this place predates the 'Wound reaching out this far? I can't imagine turning to dust is what happens to most bodies buried out here nowadays."
"Guess that means the first ghost was a real ghost... and may actually have been the source of us being locked in..." she pauses for just a moment, "Which also means he was probably being literal about the imp's master still being here, at least in some form."
Unafe frowns at the bones. "They deserve a proper burial. We can see to that, once the doors can open. First though, do we have any way to determine whose bones those are? Or how long they've been dead for?
"If not, perhaps Linnaeus' granddaughter--or whatever she is--might know who this would be?"
Then she turns her attention to the chest, looking for more mundane traps.
Li'an looks quite pleased when the imp winds up crushed by Unafe, the signs of rage and her brijidine features fading as quickly as they'd appeared. "I suspect he'll remember that for a long time," she says smugly as she eyes the evaporating remnants of the imp.
"I can look at it, yes," she replies when Daisy suggests she have a look at the chest. She casts detect magic, one of the cantrips that had once been exceedingly difficult for her with barely a thought. She had started to get used to it, but sometimes she was struck by how far past her father's magic she'd progressed since her return. She was capable of far more than he'd ever shown an aptitude for. She looks up at the ceiling, lost in thought for a moment, wondering what her father would say if he were around today.
The discussion about the dumped sack's contents snaps her out of her brief reverie. "It's not a trap," Li'an says as she approaches the chest, "but whatever it was required a wish to create. Likely the item Linneaus created? If it helps, this might be the time to call down Arie to have her commune with Pulura. We would need to decide upon the questions ahead of time, however. I could also use divination if need be."
Crouching down, she takes a closer look at the chest, looking for any obvious traps.
"Shall we open it?" she says, looking to the others.
The chest does not have any noticeable protrusions, nor does it seem uneven in weight. You don't think it is trapped.
The sound of bones falling to the ground draws Hinagiku’s attention away from imp splatters. Concerned for the body’s respect, the monk kneels by them and tries to arrange them as respectfully as she can. While doing so, without looking up, she responds to Sana.
”I don’t know… we are still on the edge… maybe there are still influences from the wound here… we could ask Mr. Nordvick about these people. ”
”Humm…. Such powerful magic. I think you are suggesting the wise way Mrs. Li’an. Divining whether it is good to open it.”
"I don't think we need to divine whether to open it, but we might need to in order to find out what truly happened here. Whatever is inside shouldn't pose an immediate threat just from looking at it."
Without hesitating, she opens the chest, curious to see whether the item held within had the runes she'd seen in Narikopolous's notes.
Li'an opens the chest, and finds it empty. The insides are lined with irregularly shaped sheets of bronze.
This chest has insulating properties against wish spells. You theorize that placing a wish granting artifact inside of the chest would nullify it, ending any ongoing effects that may be occurring due to a wish.
"This chest itself appears to have been created to nullify the effects of an artifact capable of granting wishes. The artifact must have been in here originally," Li'an says as she examines the interior of the chest. "Or it was meant to be stored here but never was..."
Li'an stands back up, picking up the chest as she does. "We should search the room thoroughly. In the meantime it might be good for you and Sana to go check out what happened in the bathroom before our arrival," she says to Hinagiku.
"While Hinagiku looks into what has happened here recently, Archdr--errr, Ehren--why don't you and I go down the well?"
Myrna hums with contemplation. "This box must be very powerful indeed, to be able to nullify the effects of a wish," she muses. While the others busy themselves with various modes of investigation, Myrna considers that she might do. She turns to their friendly mysterious stranger, Anna.
She asks, "You mentioned that this box, the curse, and the theoretical wishes are connected to that Chelaxian scholar upstairs, right?" Gesturing up the stairs, she adds, "I might take the box and go interview her some more, if so. I'm sure she'd be curious to see it, and I'm curious to know her reaction. Besides, the people upstairs might want an update, and Nordvick can answer for the corpses down here."
She bends down to collect the remains she had poured on the floor. "I'll take these as well, and see if I can identify them."
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Ehren is sadly unfazed by the contents of the sack, if only because it feels like they have uncovered so many bodies already. Perhaps it is a poor reaction to have, considering that there remained more to be found. However, the contents of the chest - or rather, the lack thereof - do elicit a surprised expression from the earth elemental's stony face. While he was able to tell that the chest itself was magical, he did not expect it to be empty, especially considering how hidden it was.
"That sounds very potent," Ehren agrees, recalling things Isilme has said about wishcraft in the past. Indeed, the former azata owed her own continued existence to a pair of conflicting wishes. Before he can dwell on his absent friend for too long, the druid looks over at the well - Li'an was right.
"I'll see about checking the bottom of the well," Ehren says, approaching the well and peering down the bottom. A potentially treacherous drop under normal circumstances. Instead of simply taking the plunge, he simply phases into the stone wall of the shaft and begins to glide downwards, seamlessly melding into dirt, rock, and stone alike. All the while, his head protrudes from the wall of the well, glancing about as he descends.
Finalizing the organisation of the heap of bones into a respectable display, Hinagiku gently responds to Myrna's suggestion to take them and show them to others.
"Until we have found a way to carry the remains in a respectful manner, maybe it would be better to have people come and inspect them. That might also limit the commotion these might caused if brought in the main room."
"Yes... I think you are right, if Sana does not mind keeping an eye on me, I can look into Mrs. Olwyn's death. Although, isn't it strange that a box would be created to cancel such magic? If someone can make this kind of powerful magic, would it not be able to cancel it without the box... or not have to worry at all about it?"
When Hinagiku finally leaves the room, she gives a single look to Ehren, her eyes silently wishing to be safe and careful.
Upon reaching the room with the dead snake. Hinagiku sits and lets her connection to the world to empoparilly disolve her ego and peer into the past few hours.
"Sure. I'll guard you." Sana says, as she steps away from Amber, leaving the candle in place. "If there is trouble, this can bring you to us." she says firmly, reiterating what she'd said earlier, remembering that it seemed to have been forgotten previously, nearly resulting in one or more deaths. She then simply follows after Hinagiku, stopping near the door and keeping the priestess and her surroundings in clear view.
As the Archdruid descends through the wall, Unafe uses the magic belt he'd given her to pours herself down the wall, staying near him while sniffing, listening, and looking for anything of interest...only to be distracted as she accidentally inhales a cloud of dust.
With Ehren and Unafe scouting the well, and Sana and Hinagiku heading up, Li'an decides to stay in the basement with Myrna. She wanders around the room looking for any signs of magic or secret doors that the group might have missed in its first search.
Myrna collects the remains back up into the sack she had emptied, while Ehren descends down the well in the form of an earth elemental. Unafe follows behind him, her form filling up the well entirely and blocking any light that had come from above. In this way, she isn't that much unlike the snake they had fought in the bath room above. Thankfully, Myrna's blinking lights still illuminated the way, though they are momentarily obscured by the cloud of dust that Unafe abruptly sneezes out.
The well is over 100 feet deep and ends in a large pool of fresh underground water.
At the same time, Sana follows Hinagiku back up the stairs to the bath room. Lann waves at them as they arrive, a mop inside his scaly fist. Fenton is busy helping cut the enormous snake into manageable enough chunks while another female Crusader puzzles over what remains of the snake that is wedged inside the drain.
"Aye it'll take some sort of miracle to unclog that drain, that thing's gotta be backed all the way down to the Abyss!" remarks the woman in overalls.
Meanwhile, Hinagiku chooses a place to sit, lotus-style, and begins to meditate.
Opening her eyes, Hinagiku sees the Crusaders vanish from the room, then observes the short, intense fight that had only transpired several minutes ago between her friends and the enormous snake. The snake then vanishes, and Hinagiku sees Fenton enter the room first, before exiting, leaving the woman face down in the water.
The woman then stands back up all of a sudden. She moves over to the basin of water, and proceeds to drown herself in reverse-time. Prior to drowning herself, she stands back up, a vacant, spaced-out look on her face that reminds Hinagiku of Fenton's face in the fight prior. She seems to snap out of it, in reverse time, her eyebrows creased together and her eyes huge and round. She has a small switch-blade in her hands, which she had drawn from somewhere hidden around her waist. She stands in the room, staring around uneasily, clearly frightened of something unseen. She then sheathes her blade, her expression relaxing to a calm, neutral tone, as she exits the room and vanishes from sight.
Hinagiku watches for several more hours, observing nothing but an empty room.
Finally, only Li'an and Myrna remain in the basement. Li'an paces in a circle, inspecting the bare wooden walls for anything else of interest. She looks on top of the pipes, as well as behind the pipes. She goes through a shelf that had been knocked down by Unafe when she transformed to punch the imp. It contained some dirty rags, some smaller spades and tools, and a few empty burlap sacks.
At that moment, a small rift appears in the middle of the room. It shudders and contorts, expanding outwards to form the silhouette of a tiny humanoid. From there, details emerge and flesh out - horns, hair, red skin, a face. The little imp from before stands on the floor, naked. He cracks his neck and groans.
"Ugh. Rude."
When she gets to the bottom, Unafe rubs her nose vigorously and shudders. Then she tries again to see if there are any interesting scents.
If that doesn't lead anywhere, she'll hold her breath and dive into the pool to see what she can see.
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Li'an looks over with disgust as the imp pops back into being, despite having been rendered a smear only moments ago. Clearly it was significantly more powerful than a normal imp if it had not only pulled itself back together already, but managed to travel here from Hell directly so quickly. Killing it again, while satisfying, seemed to be pointless.
"It's back," she says, her disgust and hatred clearly audible in her message to the rest of the group. "I am heading back upstairs before I am overcome by the urge to burn this place down to ensure it doesn't return again. The rest of you should come do something with it."
With that Li'an gives the imp a dirty look and steps into her own portal, appearing upstairs in the living room.
When Li'an appears, Auraelia gets up and drifts over to her, looking somewhat confused. "It's back?" she asks, to which Li'an simply replies "Ugh, unfortunately so. Lets go to the room, there's something I want to do." She then drifts out of the room with the Lyrakien in tow, heading back to the room they'd gotten.
Once there, Li'an digs out a stick of incense, which she lights by conjuring a small spark. Drawing upon her magic, she grabs the embers from the incense, scattering them in the air before her. "Sut tyela sii' 'ksh-fea yassene sina eska," she asks in elvish as the embers begin to multiply and glow brightly, rearranging themselves in response to her query.
Ehren squints reflexively as he passes through the dust cloud, though his gemstone eyes are thankfully impervious to irritation. While the well is rather cramped between himself and Unafe, he finds that he has more than enough space to work with. Once they reach the bottom, he peers at the water's surface, wondering how deep it must be. Perfect for hiding something one did not want to be found.
As he silently broaches the possibility of plunging into the pool as a water elemental, Unafe beats him to the punch, perhaps coming to the very same conclusion. Ehren keeps his higher vantage point, for now, his eyes gleaming with ley energy as he opens his spirit sense yet again. If there are more bodies to be found down here, then it was entirely possible that the well is itself haunted.
"It seems that we will have our chance to speak to the imp after all," Ehren remarks, glad that Li'an has the restraint to keep herself from attacking the devil again, while also somehow disappointed that it managed to return at all. He knew for a fact that demons and the like were functionally immortal, but that they took a great deal of time to recover from being destroyed. The fact that the deceptively fragile imp could return so soon was rather strange; the Bound Horror was the only other outsider he knew of that was capable of such a feat. "I'll be back up as soon as we're done looking done here."
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"Should be easy enough to decompose it with magic." Sana says as she enters the room, looking between the three. "Probably be left with a skeleton, so it's far from perfect. Maybe there's a better choice than just skipping it ahead." She reaches a gauntlet with pointed fingertips out to the woman in overalls. "My friends call me Anna, and you are?"
As she hears that the imp has returned, she whispers back, "Oh thank gods. I was not looking forward to the keening noises that were undoubtedly going to begin upon speaking to Annavinia on the matter."
Coming out from another sinister vision, Hinagiku is welcomed by the whispers of of companions.
"I will head down there right now." the monk says, swiftly yet gracefully unfolding from her lotus position straight into a standing one.
"Thank you for standing guard over me Mrs. Anna. Would you come with me to meet the devil, you seem to have a sharp gaze." Hinagiku continues when they are out of earshot. "I looked into the past and spirits look like they are the cause of the death... or maybe it was some type of mind control, but I would not be able to make the difference between the two."
Once Hinagiku is back in the basement, she takes a quick look around to spot the imp. As soon as she does, she addresses it with a voice that is soft yet devoid of warmth.
"Mr. devil, " she cannot stop herself from saying "I am slightly more lenient than my companions, but I still have not love for souls without sympathy. What was it that you wanted to tell us?"
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Sana says her goodbyes to those in the restroom before heading back down with Hinagiku. "I have a sharp lot-of-things." Sana offers to Hinagiku, giving her a pointed smile as the Kitsune passes.
"I think it's safe to say that it was a haunt." Sana responds, equally quiet. "Was there anything else that stood out to you about the situation?"
Once they reach the bottom of the stairs, Sana cranes her neck, resulting in a series of pops, before stretching her back muscles, lifting one arm high over her head, gripping it with her other hand, not having much to say at the moment, maintaining a look of boredom, only focusing when she looks to the imp.
When the devil reappears through some kind of portal, Myrna jumps back. Her face screwed up with consternation, she considers what they could do about an imp that couldn't be killed. It didn't seem to pose any threat to them (though no doubt it did threaten the commonfolk above), but a field that couldn't be slain was a major problem.
She considers the anti-wish box, left behind. She grips it and picks it up. Perhaps if they could stuff the imp inside before killing it, it would die. Tales of wishcraft matched up with creatures possessing strange powers.
She addresses the imp. "How is it that you're still alive, imp? The Clan-Liege smashed you into ichor."