"I suppose leaving him in the street is better than leaving him on Anevia's floor." She moves to give Li'an a hand with the body. "If there's nothing else she needs here, I agree with Li'an. We should get moving. No use wasting time if we want to get our lovely couple reunited sometime soon."
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After sticking his dagger back into its sheath, Ehren picks up his broken club and hangs it off his belt. One of the children back at the manor could use it for practice, perhaps.
"Yes... we should get going," he agrees, staring down at Vagorg's corpse.
Anevia nods, looking around at all the blood stains across the floors and walls of her bedroom and living room.
"Oh well. Least this old shack is intact. Irabeth might actually be disappointed - she has this family farmhouse out in the countryside, she's been dying for an excuse to move back out there. Maybe when the crusades are won, eh?" She grins.
After the corpses are moved from her house - dumped unceremoniously out in the street - the group moves back to the Temple of Sarenrae to leave a note for Captain Rawley's band of crusaders about Defender's Heart.
Between moving the corpses, assessing treasures, and discussion - followed by travel - the sun is setting when they arrive back at the Temple of Sarenrae.
As they approach the temple they notice two things. The doors are wide open - when the heroes had left them closed. Secondly, there are lights inside - flickering candles.
Klarah tilts her head. "Maybe the crusaders came back already?" she offers, in a whisper.
Li'an gestures for everyone to stay quiet. She summons up her magic for communication again , and then whispers to them "Val and I should check it out before we head in."
Li'an waits for Val and then moves up towards the door, trying to listen and keep an eye out for anyone that might spot them approaching. She tries to get close enough to peek in, preferably from the side instead of through the main doors.
Val groans as the temple comes into sight. "That's more than likely a bad sign," she sighs softly. She recieves Li'an's message and simply nods at her before moving up to cover her as they approach the temple.
"Were there any other priests in the temple before we had arrived?" Ehren asks Klarah, focusing on his spirit sense as the others approach the door.
Markus helps out where he can, and when the sun begins to set he furrows his brow. "Our sleep schedule is pretty backwards.." he says. About the temple when they arrive, he accepts the magical communication. "Candles. Not demons, probably - they don't need light to see. So...humans or elves or the like, but that doesn't mean friendlies. We can hope that it's Rawley."
Ary stays quiet, simply ready to move quickly if something dangerous occurs or draws her attention. "That's the most likely thing. They'll let us know what's going on, as usual, and I'll pass it along to you guys."
Klarah tugs gently on Ary's cloak, looking up at the much taller woman. "About the armor... I think I'd like that very much. Though hopefully there will be safety at Defender's Heart and I won't need it, right?" She smiles.
Meanwhile....
Li'an and Valaria move up to the temple. The elf scout's movements are fluid and practiced, while the long day seems to be showing its toil on Valaria- she is clumsy and continues to knock things over as she moves.
They look inside - and see a horrific sight - the temple has been desecrated, the once proud statue to Sarenrae laying on its side. The brazier has been tossed aside, and in its place, the same red pentagram-symbol that the heroes saw in the alchemist's basement is drawn on the floor in blood. In its center - a little girl - who should be familiar to Ary - lays unconscious. The cultists chant ominously in Abyssal - at their lead is a man in green robes with a number of vials and potions on a belt around his waist, and a sinister woman in a black cloak with her eyes swaddled in cloth. Around her head floats a pink crystal. In addition, there are four cultists of Baphomet, outfitted with glaives.
The woman twitches, turning to face the wall where Li'an and Valaria are hiding - as if she could see through the very walls themselves. She smiles.
"Aigon, my dear. We have company."
Initiative!
Round 1
1. Li'an
2. Markus
3. Anevia
4. Warpriest 2
5. Aigon
6. Warpriest 3
7. Valaria
8. Ehren
9. Warpriest 4
10. Hrut
11. Julania
12. Klarah
13. Ary
14. Warpriest 1
15. Psion Woman
Li'an is up.
Any time you would go through a wall, that isn't obviously a door, stepping through the rubble is considered difficult terrain and costs twice as much movement. So the answer to that depends on the route you want to take.
What Li'an saw ahead of her horrifed her. The cultists were in the process of desecrating the temple and sacrificing a child. She whispered to the others in a panicked tone "GET UP HERE NOW!". She tried to get a feel for the situation, but felt like her options were sorely limited. "If I had magic, Lleuad... My father would've had a trick for this... Darkness or invisibility... Or if we had time to prepare..."
She did have the potion, she recalled. "I could wake the child up and give it to her, she could probably make it to Val." The cost would likely be her life though, as she had neither the skill in swordplay nor magic to hold off those three, even with Val at her side. "Kül, Kül, Kül!" she looked down at her blade, desperate for some solution. "I know you wanted me not to risk dying for something so unimportant as the life of a single person, Lleuad, but I can't let them do that. Of course technically all I ever swore was that I'd fight to my dying breath." she thought to herself.
Markus is up.
"Move in. Quickly." Ary said, communicating Fen'wen's message to everyone else. She had a bad feeling about all of this, but resolved herself to hold up the rear for at least a moment longer.
Markus, who actually got Li'an's message, moves up as fast as his legs can carry him while he also draws his newer wand. Against creatures that lacked spell resistance, the lower caster level wand would be a better use of resources.
He points it at the psion and prepares for the tell-tale signs of psychic casting.
He calls out, "Psionic! Steel your minds!"
Li'an turns and puts her hand on Valaria's shoulder as she digs a potion out of her belt. "I'm going in to get her Val. I'll grab her and bring her back out this way," she whispers to her. She smiles at Val, and before the tiefling can respond, Li'an downs the potion, vanishing from sight.
"Now I just need to hope that the woman with the crystal can't also see me while I'm invisible," she thinks. Knowing that time is of the essence, and that sitting there will just create more doubts in her mind, she takes off, moving quickly but as quietly as she can manage to the child, stepping over her to try and shield her if one of the cultists attempts to kill her.
The woman turns towards the open temple door, at Markus and smirks. "Well, aren't you the perceptive one?"
Meanwhile, Anevia moves towards the door. She can't move very fast, unfortunately, so up to where Markus is is as good as she can get. She draws her shortsword as she moves.
Unfortunately, Li'an is in too much of a hurry to be very stealthy - her footsteps echo through the chamber. Aigon and the psion stand alert at the intrusion.
"Hmmm," Aigon sniffs. "Someone's sneaking about, it seems."
"There's still another spying at us from up there. Mera, if you would."
One of the cultists, a woman with tangled blonde hair, nods and heads towards Valaria. She slices forward with her glaive. Valaria ducks behind the wall and away from the demolished opening just in the nick of time.
Meanwhile, Aigon pulls out one of his vials and downs it. His features suddenly change, his flesh contorting and becoming more muscular and lean. He grows several inches in height and width, his clothes appearing too tight on his body.
Another cultist, a male with dirty blonde hair and a facial tattoo, readies his glaive for any incoming intruders. "Your souls will be a suitable offering to Lord Baphomet!" He grips his glaive tightly, and it appears to glow briefly with a red aura before dissipating.
Valaria is up.
Val dodges the strike and rushes after Li'an as she hears the cultists' talking, ducking her head and trying to keep out of the way of the glaive wielding woman. She frees one of her starknives as she moves toward the large enough gap to enter the building.
Valaria is just barely faster than Mera can react - her glaive chops off a tuft of hair as Val ducks and tumbles away.
Ehren is up.
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Nodding at Ary's words, Ehren moves forward quickly, deciding to risk getting a better grasp of the situation before casting any spells.
The other cultist in the hallway - a short, fat, bald man, likewise braces himself and prays to Baphomet for strength and power.
Hrut is up.
Hrut maintains the silver crane waltz - his motions fluid and graceful. Silvery wings emit from his back, but are only seen in one's peripheral vision. He strides forward purposefully, standing in the doorway to block off access to Markus and Ehren. Julania moves with him, her battleaxe and shield at the ready. Klarah stays in the back, standing next to Ehren. She tugs on his sleeve.
"Do you know what's going on? I can't see," she whispers to the druid - though he is technically a full year younger than her, you wouldn't know it looking at the pair of them together.
Ary is up.
Ary slips forward past the others, stumbling over the various rubble as she goes.
She starts to stay behind Hrut, but she remembers the effective layout of the church and realizes that if they can't get a hold on the hallway, it will be damningly dangerous to try to press inwards. She moves quickly into the hallway, taking the vital ground that is the crumbled interior wall. If she'd only been a little closer she could have adopted a defensive stance but...
"Dammit, Grim. What did I tell you about Pipsqueak?" Ary says, voice coming out with a harsh edge as she spots the little girl lying in the circle. Her hair stands on end and her eyes narrow, even as the muscles in her arms and legs tense.
"Cultists of Baphomet," Ehren says to Klarah, recognizing their telltale glaives. His eyes then flick further into the temple, where Li'an and Valaria are. "I think they were trying to perform some kind of ritual."
Which probably means there is a sacrifice here, he thinks, not vocalizing the point. The druid glances at Hrut as the warder passes by, before blinking.
Klarah raises a hand to her mouth, shocked. "That's horrible! Why would they need to do that in the Dawnflower's temple? That's just mean-spirited!" she murmurs.
Meanwhile...
The final glaive-wielding cultist, a man with long, matted hair and hazel eyes, charges forward at Valaria. Valaria sweeps forward with her starknife, catching his glaive between two of the blades and forces it away.
The psionic woman raises a hand to her face, and Markus reacts almost instantaneously, firing a pair of magic missiles across the temple at her. They slam into her, but the woman smirks and maintains her focus - suffusing herself with power and vigor. She smirks and heads into one of the partially collapsed side-rooms afterwards, interested in breaking the line of sight between herself and the wizard.
"Cute parlor trick," she scoffs. "Arcane casters, always think they're so clever."
Round 2
Anevia puts her shortsword away and starts moving slowly around the temple, looking for a vantage point to hopefully fire on the cultists from afar. She winks at Markus before heading off.
Li'an is up.
Li'an whispers to Val and the others, "Bringing the kid to the front. Val, Vanish and we can hunt down the caster once child is safe."
Li'an waits until the alchemist is turned towards Val and then grabs the child, heading down the length of the temple to try to get her out to safety. "Lets hope invisibility is enough to keep me from getting skewered. Desna, please see me through this, for the child's sake."
The shock of the little girl suddenly appearing to levitate in mid-air and float down the hallway prevents the man next to Li'an from slicing her in two with his enormous glaive.
Aigon smirks, the smile lopsided and droopy due to his horrifically mutated face. "Ah. So there you are." He pulls out a small vial full of a green, viscous liquid. "You're going to make me ruin our little guest of honor. Oh, well," he drawls. He hurls the vial at Li'an - it explodes, inflicting horrifically painful acid burns all over herself and the girl in her arms.
The male cultist then savagely swings across the area beneath the floating child- ripping through the elf's vitals. The magic on Li'an vanishes, and the elf falls to the ground, dead.
Aigon chuckles. "Nice try."
Meanwhile, Mera, the female cultist, steps closer to Valaria to deliver another attack - her deft swing cuts a shearing path across Valaria's thigh, leaving a shallow wound.
Valaria is up.
Ary watches for a moment, elated that Pipsqueak is making her way forward, and looks back to Markus for just a moment, wishing she had some way to give him a sign to use his floaty scale, then remembers they're connected by Message; she doesn't want to reveal what's going on, after all. "Think you can Levitate Fen'wen?" she whispers towards Markus, and then turns her attention back to the front, just in time to see a ball of flame erupt around the little girl, terribly scorching her and doing Iomedae knows what to Fen'wen. And now Ary knew who she was going to be killing today.
She's readying herself to try to slip past the guard of the glaive weilder when Valaria gets nearly cut down. "Dammit.." she manages to mutter, then she sees the glaive fly through the air, with a bloody streak behind it, the little girl collapsing in a heap on the ground, followed by Li'an, and she feels something snap. This wasn't how things were supposed to go at all. It should have been her up there. But it wasn't.
Val nods briefly at Li'an's suggestion, but winces as the alchemist hurls the flask of acid at her. Everything seems to stop for an instant as the cultist steps forward and the glaive plunges in Li'an's chest. "No. No Li'an, please." Her breath catches in her throat and her eyes drop. "Ary. Get the girl and go."
She growls clutching her knife in a vice grip. "You'll all pay for that," she hisses. Her eyes come up, glowing brilliant gold, her pupils reduced to slits like a wild animal. "Every last one of you. "
She steps in to the nearest cultist, her dagger going straight for the man's neck.
Ehren smiles sadly at Klarah's innocent protest, but does not take his eyes off the event unfolding in the temple.
"Evil is always at its strongest when it has violated something sacred and pure," he says to her, his voice low. He had learned that lesson not all that long ago, from the very thing he had sworn his life to protect. Perhaps that was the real reason he had been able to remain so calm and collected, even after Kenabres' destruction; he could wear a mask of stone because he knew the world had already endured far worse.
Or perhaps he had just been lying to himself. Why else would seeing a mere individual fall pain him so? He could feel his heart sinking in his chest, no longer held aloft by his sense of purpose. In its place was not sorrow, but seething hatred. No amount of righteous anger could bring Li'an back from the dead, but Ehren could help make sure that these people never hurt anyone again. He did not have the strength to grind these cultists into pulp, but he still had the power to summon something that could.
Barely able to hold his concentration, Ehren drags out a portion of the Green's power, weaving it into another summoning spell.
"Stay back, Klarah," he says to the girl, futilely attempting to maintain the illusion of calm.
Klarah cries out in anguish as she watches Li'an fall to the ground. "Oh! You monsters!" Her eyes overflow with tears, but she stays back as Ehren requested, holding on to his arm tightly - only letting go as he begins to gesture to begin his spell.
Markus, observing the fight, is focused on the psion, who must be hiding somewhere. He begins to move up towards Ary when he sees Li'an get tag-teamed by a pair of the enemies.
He frowns, fear and regret and anger bubbling up from inside him. If only he had healed her. If only she had drank a potion before the battle. If only they hadn't split up.
He begins a low growl and raises Vagorg's wand to fire a pair of missiles at the alchemist in the back - that man would pay. And that cultist there - he would pay too. Markus only needed to get close enough to give them a taste of how he was feeling. A pair of missiles ricochet over the heroes' heads like twin shooting stars, slamming into the alchemist's back.
Valaria's deft slice cuts into the cultist in front of her with mauling force. He staggers backwards and growls, returning the swing.
The short, fat cultist in front of Ary smirks. "Don't you worry your pretty little head. You'll be joining her soon enough!" He swings at her midsection, and though his attempt to gut her fails, the thin line across her midsection reveals the accuracy of his assault. He then backs away to stand over the fallen child, glaive at the ready for anyone who approaches. He smirks tauntingly.
Hrut moves forwards recklessly, a fire in his eyes as he attempts to close ground on the cultists before they can harm the little girl, who lays next to Li'an's dead body unconscious - her back soaked in the elf woman's blood. The warpriest who killed Li'an swipes at him, but he waltzes effortlessly around the blow. Julania quickly moves with him and behind him while the tattooed man is still distracted with Hrut. Ary skulks forward quickly on the Vudrani woman's heels, circling around. Resolve is apparent in her face as she lunges forward with a low swing. The quiet passing of her strike surprises her enemy as it sears across his side, rending through flesh, muscle, and organ alike.
"Ighuzg! Hi glug bi snal'l digha irbol, i kurz. Bil krúshak bishdi dil ashânk pashik ai roshosh." snarls the psion woman. Aigon frowns, but his hand moves away from his waist for the time being. She gestures towards Valaria, and her psicrystal glows brightly - Valaria's very mind is assaulted by the woman's psionic onslaught, leaving her in agony. Afterwards, the pain lessens, though its influence is still clearly there. The woman turns and heads into the adjacent room, vanishing from sight.
Round 3
Anevia skulks quietly through the temple, drawing her shortbow as she goes. She witnesses Li'an go down, but she doesn't make a sound.
The female cultist, Mera, leaves Valaria to move to Aigon's aid. She stands by the short, fat cultist, nodding at him once before taking a swipe at Julania, but the crusader woman bashes the glaive aside with her shield.
Aigon moves forwards to the side of the fat cultist, grinning. He chucks a bomb into the melee, not caring if the other cultist is caught in the blast. It detonates on Hrut, spraying all around him with acid - leaving horrible chemical burns... including the cultist who killed Li'an, who falls unconscious from the explosion. The mad alchemist laughs maniacally.
Valaria is up.
Val barely flinches as the blade cuts into her, but can't bite back a scream as the psychic blast tears at her mind. Feeling her vision going fuzzy and her head pounding, she reluctantly steps out of the cultist's reach and pulls out a potion. Ripping out the cork with her teeth, she downs the elixir.
Valaria's wounds fully heal anew - she is reinvigorated and ready to fight!
Ehren finishes his spell, and a small, stony elemental erupts from the cathedral floor.
Ehren is up.
The moment it manifests, the earth elemental glides forward, driven by little else but the desire to assault enemy closest to it. With the closest cultist already eating dirt, the deformed little creature scoots past Hrut and Julania, making way for the next enemy.
Ehren meanwhile nods once at Klarah and Markus, indicating his desire to enter the temple. He steps through the entryway, clueless as to what else he could do now to sway things in their favor.
Klarah dashes after Ehren and Markus, not wanting to be left alone outside.
Mera frowns as the little, stubby, rocky thing glides towards her. She takes aim, and whirs her blade into the elemental with a powerful thwack, nearly cleaving the thing in two.
The short, fat cultist backs up to address Valaria, hoping to prevent her from rejoining her group. He points at her, uttering a single command - "Fall."
...But Valaria has had enough. The spell has no effect on her mind.
Hrut steps past the cultist, roaring as he moves. He intentionally lobs your blows into an arc, allowing his momentum to cause most of the damage during collision. He slams his hammer and shield into the alchemist, brutalizing him. Julania steps protectively over the little girl's body (and Li'an's), and finishes the job. Her axe falls to her side, slick with gore. Her face is stern and expressionless - like she did nothing more than slay livestock.
Ary is up.
Ary is already shifting forward to move in behind the alchemist to finish him off, when Hrut and Julania desecrate the church a little more with his entrails. Her fists are whiteknuckled as she sees Lian's arterial blood seeping into the stone. One... two... three. One of the cultists is missing.
She slips quickly forward, heedless, as she brings Radiance around once more. The blade once more crashes into the enemy, though the strike lacks the force that had made the first blow devastating.
Ary's wide-arching swing flits through the cultist's defenses, and he collapses to the ground beneath Radiance's fury.
Meanwhile the psionic woman re-emerges. She frowns, not having expected the battle to have turned so south so quickly. She probes Markus' mind, but the dhampir's anguish is like a wall of force - she can't penetrate. Markus wheels around. Tears stream down his face as he begins to shout expletives as he attempts to assault her mind - but the psion is likewise difficult to budge.
Round 4
Anevia smirks as the two mages distract each other with a battle of the minds - she has a clear shot. She wheels out from the other side of the hallway, bow drawn. She fires off two shots in rapid succession - with a gruesome thud, they become the final nail in the psionic woman's coffin.
One of the two final cultists - the short, fat one - tries his best not to betray his fear. He steps over and takes aim at Julania one more. His glaive digs into Julania's flesh, nearly incapacitating her- she shrieks loudly,blood gushing from her thigh.
Hrut grunts as the acid burns continue to bear into his flesh.
Valaria is up.
Val closes back in on the cultists in an instant. "Die." Her cold iron knife flashes through the air once again.
The earth elemental's body barely holds together, dirt and pebbles periodically falling from out of the massive fault Mera's glaive tore open. The wound does not seem to particularly bother the outsider, which inches forward to clobber his attacker. Unfortunately, its deformed arm is already a little worse for wear.
Ehren merely stands back and watches, quickly turning his head just in time to see the psionic cultist drop. Uncharacteristically, he could not bring himself to regret having things come to this.
Ary, having slain one cultist moves to corner the other, but doing so goes against her nature; Li'an and the little girl, and now Julania seem to all be in a heap.
She's torn between letting Valaria get her revenge and trying to take down the cultists now. Fear of losing someone else drives her to take the swing herself.
Valaria's starknife whistles through the air and slams into the cultist in front of her with a thunk. She growls and backs up and into Ary, swinging her glaive once more - but Valaria parries the blow with her starknife.
Hrut watches Julania nearly get cut down,then turns to address the fat cultist next to him. He raises his hammer to Torag, then barrels the holy weapon into the cultist with an audible crunch. He channels his god's power into Julania, and the wound on her thigh stops bleeding.
Julania nods to Hrut, with a small smile - but this is no time for words. She steps over the dead alchemist's body, blocking the man's access from the unconscious child. She raises her battle axe high, and her overhead strike flows like quicksilver, rending open the fat man from top to toe and bringing an end to this fight. Only one cultist remains - the woman.
Meanwhile, Klarah hangs back, her face wet with tears. "I'm so... useless. Dawnflower, forgive me." she whispers.
Ary finishes the fight. Radiance soars through the air on wings of death, hastening the evil woman's passage to the afterlife.
Combat ends.
Klarah runs to Li'an's side, checking for a pulse. She shakes her head. "She's passed on."
Her hands glow, and she pushes her final heal of the day into the little girl. . The child's burns slightly heal over, but the little girl is still wounded. Her eyes open and she stares around the desecrated temple with confusion.
"Who are you?" Finally, she notices Ary - it takes a moment to recognize her as she makes quite the sight covered in gore and wielding Radiance.
"Ary! AryAryAry!" she cries, running up to her and hugging her. Her white dress that she wore to Armasse is now soaked brown and red from blood. "Do you have my daddy with you?"