Isilme inspects the other door hastily, but finds nothing, just as Hinagiku did a moment before.
As their search upstairs turns up more and more of nothing, Ehren sighs and stoops down toward the floor. While he is still invisible enough for his dignity to be preserved, he experimentally dives into the floor to see how deep it runs, and if possible, to peek into the chamber below them.
Isilme waits for Ary and Val to approach so they can search the room, then opens the door.
Ehren resurfaces, shuddering at the sensation. Earth gliding was far more useful than he had initially imagined.
"The chamber below us is completely empty. The hallway as well. Not a sound."
Ary moves over, expecting this room to be empty as well.
"Good to know. It sounds like they've already been routed. Hell hath no fury, maybe?"
Val joins Isilme. "Ready to get this open?"
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Hinagiku continues looking into Annabelle's eyes, her expression still unchanged.
"Annabelle, I am sorry I did not mean to say that you weren't you. I can see and I know that you are the same cheerful girl that I have know for the past days. I simply don't want you to be too disappointed if you can never sleep again... or to be unprepared for any particularities your new body might bring." she stops, and looks down the stairs.
After Ehren says that, he suddenly reappears. Annabelle's eyes light up, but she doesn't smile, not like she did before. "Awwww! You're so tiny! And cute!" She kneels down next to him and stares into his gemstone eyes. "Can I touch you or will you like," she wiggles her fingers, "crumble into mud like a dirt clod?"
Isilme opens the door to the final room, and finds it to be a large library and conference area. Torches line the walls, keeping it well lit, as there are no windows. Bookshelves line the walls, though many of the tomes have been torn to shreds, and smoldering piles of ashes fill the room with an acrid stench. One small stack of books on a circular table seem to have escaped destruction. Isilme scopes the room with detect magic and hones in one of the books.
A long table engraved with a relief map of Mendev stands to the nearest wall of the long room. A dozen bodies lie scattered about the room, each bearing a gaping empty hole in the chest.
Ary takes an involuntary step back from the people who have had their hearts ripped out.
She closes her eyes for a moment, and recenters herself, before going into the room. "They destroyed a lot of knowledge. Just in case we can't keep this place, I'm going to collect the books. Avi would hate us all if we left it behind and it was lost somehow."
She sweeps into the room to do just that, trying to ignore the grotesque scenery as she does.
The corpses are in plain clothes, and are mostly human, except for one half-elf and one dwarf.
Ary finds that there are only six books that survive, in addition to the one Isilme holds. Ary's are a mix of history texts, tomes on geography, and tactical manuals. All together they weigh 5 lb.
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Isilme walks into the room and heads straight to the book that appears to be magical. As she walks up to it she gets a strange feeling... like it should be trivial to identify such a thing. She focuses for a moment on the sensation, and as she relaxes her posture seems to change. Her mind was still fogged, but there was a path there to what she once knew. They were no longer her memories, but somehow hidden amongst the myriad of stories she knew were pieces of the knowledge she had once held. She picks up the book with an almost preternatural grace, tracing her fingers over the spine and the cover slowly.
As she opens the book and flips through the pages, stories come unbidden to her mind. Her voice almost musical, she speaks in a reverie, "A great warrior, veteran of a thousand battles. He forever confounded his foes by changing his tactics. Undefeated in life, his legacy was writ upon these pages."
She turns to Valaria and hands her the book. "This might come in handy for you," she says with a smile. She meets Val's eyes, but somehow doesn't seem entirely there.
Ary finishes packing the books up, and heads out to check the other table. She still felt uneasy with the entire place having emptied. She hated not being able to see outside, too. She needed to know what was happening. But it was a good thing they couldn't, for at least one of them.
Instead, she focused on what she could do. She headed for the table across the room. She doublechecked the things that were there, as she prepared to move them into smaller collections. She doubted their value to the enemy, but you never know what people would leave behind in a rush.
Ehren looks back at Annabelle with dismay before bringing himself to shake his head. "No, I won't crumble into mud." Turning to everyone else, he adds.
"It looks like we have a clear way out of the garrison, but... I don't like this."
Val takes the book carefully, turning it over in her hands. The rough leather feels worn and old in her hands, showing the age of the tome. She opens it and carefully examines the book for a few moments. "Thank you. There aren't many books left in the world with this kind of knowledge in them." She carefully tucks the book into her backpack next to the Tome of Epics from Neathholm. She cocks her head slightly, noticing how the celestial almost looks spacey. "Are you alright?"
Annabelle reaches out and touches the top of Ehren's head. "Ooooooooooh. That's so neat."
Ary goes to the other large hexagonal table on the far end of the hall, and finds it covered with stacks of scrolls, books, maps and more. The nearby walls are painted with detailed maps of Sarkoris, over which features of the Worldwound have been painted.
"I am quite fine dear, thank you for asking..." she says with a distant smile. Her eyes focus on Valaria for a moment, gleaming brightly. "My mind is so full of stories right now it's hard to concentrate. You have stories flowing about you as well, though I doubt any of those I know are yours. It is quite a wonderful feeling, though, to recall so many. Let us go join the others, shall we?"
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As Ary is gathering everything, she starts to realize exactly how bad it is that all of this is not only here... but had been here for more than a week.
"Commander..." Ary says after a moment. How best to phrase it? "All of this is showing where our troops are. What they're doing. What they have, how to fight them. The entire table is basically a sizable portion of our entire military."
Irabeth looks up. She moves towards Ary, putting a hand on Annabelle's shoulder as she passes. "Kir, watch the stairs," she says, then arrives at the large table. Her eyes widen at the documents on the table.
"They must have been in a hurry to have left this behind." she says. She looks both pleased and relieved. "Good work, Ary."
Val smiles softly. "We're all at the center of our own story. If your mind can see someone else's, then you're truly blessed. Yes, let's go. I believe we've cleared this floor out now."
Commander Irabeth looks to Valaria. "So you are ready to go downstairs?" she asks.
Ary simply nods to the Commander as she continues gathering all of the information.
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Isilme smiles at Valaria and walks out with her to join the others She heads over to the pile of papers and things they were looking at. Rifling around mindlessly through them for a moment, she stumbles upon a piece of arcane writing.
She picks it up and glances it over, and in the same melodic voice as before proclaims "The prince fell over, drained by the touch of the terrible shade he'd fought. Though they were able to destroy it, he languished, wasting away. The high priestess of the temple of Sarenrae called out to her goddess and begged for her to restore him, and her prayers were answered."
"Here, Ehren, take this. If someone is similarly afflicted, perhaps it will come in useful. Or would you prefer I held it until you return to your normal form?" she asks him.
"I believe we can proceed, yes," she says to the commander.
Ary gathers up the documents, lingering behind while Irabeth leads the way down the large stairs. At the foot of the stairs is an open door that leads into a hallway. There are two doors leading out from the hallway, both are ajar. The garrison is quiet, and there is no one moving about. There aren't even corpses downstairs.
Irabeth gestures to the open door at the bottom of the hallway. "That way should lead us to the entrance. I would like to see what time it is outside, so that we can decide what to do about..." She falters for a moment, having trouble choosing the words. "...your problem, Kir."
Annabelle looks uncomfortable. She stares at her feet.
"What do you think? Should we head for the front doors?" Irabeth continues, turning to the heroes.
Val shivers as they march through the essentially abandoned building. "Okay, is anyone else starting to get worried. This does not look normal."
She turns to Irabeth and nods. "A check might be smart. But I'd say we should do the same thing we did upstairs and clear this floor as well. Checking the time outside while we're doing so shouldn't be too difficult."
Ehren smiles up at Isilme gratefully, though perhaps it was a tad difficult to tell with his lack of a truly functional mouth. "I should assume this form for a while longer... at least until we are out of here. But no pockets, I am afraid."
Commander Irabeth nods. "Right. How about Valaria and Isilme, you check the room at that upper end of the hallway, and I'll move down towards the entrance. Does that sound fine by you?"
Irabeth then moves towards the door she indicated earlier, and pushes it further open. She quickly moves down to look around the corner, then calls back to the group, "Empty down here."
Irabeth stands in a room that was once a magnificent display room of the museum. Now it has been looted and desecrated - the display cases smashed apart. The decapitated bodies of two knights, their armor and bodies broken and mangled, lie in the ruins. Proud, on one wall, is a beautiful mural of a woman, wielding Radiance, Ary's beautiful longsword that is apparently made of solid gold... but if the mural is to be believed hard enough to rend a babau in two.
High up on the wall above the mural is an empty bracket where a longsword once hung over a stylized gold sunburst painted on the wall. Lines of strange runes are carved into the walls on both sides of the sunburst in Celestial.
Under the bracket is a brass plaque. It is engraved: RADIANCE, SWORD OF YANIEL. It sits on a low bench for kneeling on the floor.
The mural has been defaced with blood and excrement. Adjacent to the mural is a closed door.
In any case, the display room leads out to another open room with the front doors - they are unlocked, and slightly ajar. Sunlight streams in from the outside, illuminating floating dust motes.
Meanwhile, Annabelle lingers in the hallway close to the stairs leading back to the upper floor. On the walls are many paintings, and in some places, empty spaces where paintings once stood but were taken. She moves to one in particular, an oil painting of a group of mounted knights readying for battle on a grassy plain. It has been torn apart with long, sharp claws. She stares at it sadly.
Meanwhile, Annabelle lingers in the hallway close to the stairs leading back to the upper floor. On the walls are many paintings, and in some places, empty spaces where paintings once stood but were taken. She moves to one in particular, an oil painting of a group of mounted knights readying for battle on a grassy plain. It has been torn apart with long, sharp claws. She stares at it sadly.
While the rest of the group searches the building for signs of life, Markus approaches Annabelle. "Annabelle, I'm sorry for what I've done to you. Hinagiku is right. It might take awhile to get re-adjusted to your new condition, and I'm prepared to help you. You're unlikely to find anyone else who knows as much about undeath as I do." He thinks of something else before amending his previous statement - "Unless Ary really does raise Jeslyn. Then we might have to have some sort of competition about it."
Annabelle stares determinedly at the painting, but then she jerks her head to look at Markus. "Woah. Did you just crack a joke? Mister serious business?" She grins, flashing her fangs thoughtlessly for a moment. She quickly grows self conscious and her smile vanishes, though she is in a better mood.
"It's okay! I'm not mad. Things could be worse, and you saved me from that."
Isilme seems to return to the present as the effects of her reverie wear off. "Alright, I'll keep it then, along with this other scroll. Being able to adopt an elemental form certainly seems quite useful," she says to Ehren. She walks down the steps along with the others and then nods at Irabeth's suggestion she check out one of the rooms with Val. Isilme heads over to the room she'd pointed out, waiting for Val (and possibly Ary) to join her, and then heads into the room to have a look around, summoning up detect magic again.
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"Kul." Ary says as she comes in behind. "This is why I asked about people dying when Radiance vanished... way back in the cave. This is what I dreamed about. Both of them. The room." she shakes her head, as she motions to each. "And just before we found Radiance, too. I think I would have hated this room had I ever been to it... but dreaming about it made it manageable." she says quietly, then nods to Isilme as she crosses the space, ready to watch her back.
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Hinagiku, who was still by Annabelle's side when Markus approached her, gives a gentle pat on the cavalier's shoulder before giving her and the necromancer some space.
Waiting by the door between the hall and the chamber where Radiance used to be, Hinagiku keeps guard. As she has learned through meditation, she keeps her senses honed not by focusing on any, but by attending each and every sensation at once. However, this time is different, she can feel more, sense the flow of "being" more strongly than ever before. It is as if she could once feel the wind caressing her body, but now she is almost swimming in water. She looks toward the pile of rocks that is now Ehren. Once he catches sight of her, she motions for him to approach.
"Mr. Ehren, you seem to be an expert on the wardstones. Do you think some of its magic could still be lingering? I have this strange feeling... this changes in my senses... if feels like the peace that washed over me when the stone gave use these visions."
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"Expert...? I am not so sure about that anymore," Ehren says with a wry grin, which can be seen more in his eyes than on his face. Indeed, though he had rarely thought of it that way, there was perhaps no one in Kenabres that knew more about the menhir than him. But what they had experienced was new ground, even for him; and though he had yet to fully comprehend the immense wellspring of knowledge the stone had bequeathed to him, he was all but certain that what had happened was unprecedented. Nonetheless, he had something resembling a definitive answer.
"But yes. What we felt was not just the ley beneath Kenabres, but the power that flowed through the entire wardstone field. It is impossible to come into contact with such an immense force and not walk away changed forever. A portion of that power clings to our very souls, making us something... more."
Ehren scrunches up his rocky brow - it felt strange saying such a thing out loud. After a moment he asks the question that had been nagging at him since their vision. Or, in a way, since he had first laid his eyes on her.
"Tell me, before all of this happened, were you aware of how you... came to be?"
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Hinagiku looks down at the rocky humanoid now standing next to her.
"Mr. Ehren, thank you. It's just so strange how the stone is connected to... the very Life and Existence... what you described as the experience you had when you touched the stone the first time, the ब्रह्मा. I have always felt the flow of ब्रह्मा through living beings, but now it is stronger, much stronger, I can almost touch it with my fingers." Hinagiku pauses for a moment before answering the druid's question. The events following their visions had forced her to put aside any thoughts about her origin, but now that they had some time, it all came back to her vividly. As she remembered her first adoptive parents, the hint of a smile appeared in her eyes.
"No, I did not know. The first memory I had before witnessing the vision was hiding in caves with my mother and father... the two crusaders who saved me. she smiles a bit at the memory. I did not even remember ever meeting the oni Vorlesh. Still, it all makes sense. Me being born from the ब्रह्मा, me being drawn here, the healing of the wound being my one goal in life. It truly is destiny."
"I wonder, why did ब्रह्मा revealed itself to you. Did it know that all this would happen?"
Val shakes herself and hurries after Isilme, catching up with her at the door. "So, let's see what we've got. Maybe we'll actually find some sign of what happened in one of these."
Now there is a name for it that I've never heard, Ehren muses to himself after repeating the word. It did not exactly surprise him that Hinagiku called it something different. He was not exactly the most worldly person.
"Destiny? Hm. Perhaps. I am only here because of what I experienced at Fort Portolmaeus, after all. As for why the Green chose to show me those things... I cannot say. It works in mysterious ways."
"Good. I'm glad." says Markus, to Annabelle. "Regardless of whether you're mad or not, your new form will require adjustment though. Let me know if you ever have any needs that I can help you with. Or if you get injured - you'll need inflict magic to fix it now that you won't be healing naturally."
Valaria and Isilme peer around the corner from the open door and find an empty, long room. On the near end of the room is a closed door. Blood and filth smear the floor, and six white stone statues of famous heroes line the hall -- each clawed, bloodstained, partially smashed, or otherwise defaced. At the far end of the hall, a raised dais holds an upturned alabaster altar. Sitting atop the upside down altar is a hideous mass of severed human limbs that have been stitched together into a vile, monstrous, insectoid shape. Before the dais, several ratty bedrolls have been laid out on the floor and over the pews. At the very end of the temple is a large bas relief of the holy symbol of Iomedae.
Ary's lips purse as she looks at what has been done to the room. She looks back out to Irabeth. "How many hours of daylight do we have left"
Without waiting for an answer she closes her eyes and kneels, allowing radiance to shine through her shield once more. 'Lady guide our hands.'
"She hasn't left entirely, and I'd like to do what we can to clean up, like we did in Torag's temple... if you'll all oblige me." she says, once she has risen, and moves into the room, warily watching everything that she saw as she moved forward.
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Val nods. "Unless we want to let Not so Gloomy get turned to dust, I think we're going to be hanging around for a while. Let's get this cleaned up. It's the least we can do and this place really doesn't deserve to be left... like this." She steps into the room carefully, a bit disturbed by the mess of limbs hastily constructed by the cultists. "No different from cleaning one of the way shrines. Though I've never seen one desecrated this badly." While Desna's shrines could be violated by bandits or the like looking for an easy few coins from the offerings, she'd never seen one truly violated like this.
Markus frowns at the treatment of the corpses in the room that they'd discovered. This wasn't the way the dead were supposed to be treated...
"I will help as well." announces Markus, entering the room and walking towards the corpse-bits.
He'll spend whatever time they have disassembling the corpse-construction and trying to match up the pieces with each other.
A look of disgust crosses Isilme's face briefly as she looks at the mess the cultists had left on the altar. "I will help you and Val in this. If we cannot move out from here yet, we should at least attempt to undo some of this vileness." Isilme moves in behind Ary and Val, trying to get a feel for why they would have created such an abomination. "Was it part of some ritual they were attempting to complete? Were they unable to finish? Is it just meant to despoil the altar and horrify those who see it?"
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The temple to Iomedae is very thoroughly desecrated. To clean it would take at least an hour, even using prestidigitation, as there is a lot of debris the heroes would need to physically move out and lots of furniture that would need to be moved.
Meanwhile, Irabeth moves past Hinagiku and the room with Yaniel's mural painted in it. The next room has a large frieze that depicts a line of mounted crusaders crashing over a horde of twisted demons. The crusaders' faces have been obliterated and vile graffiti is carved over the entire scene. Fresh blood stains the floor.
On the farther side of the hall is an empty meeting hall. The faces of portraits that hang on the walls of this room have been slashed. Two marble planters lie smashed in pieces on the ground, and mud streaks the white stone floor. On the table is an abandoned card game - there are severed body parts such as fingers and ears scattered about the cards.
Irabeth approaches the large doors and pushes them open, looking outside. The street is empty in front of the Grey Garrison. The sun hangs heavy in the sky - it is late in the evening. Irabeth steps outside for a moment, sword drawn.
Sunlight streams into the foyer. Annabelle watches from afar, her face locked in a stoic expression. After a moment she turns to the paintings. "This was painted by Frederic Remington," she informs Markus, suddenly. "He was a cavalier in the second crusade. See how beautiful it looks?" She points at the bright, blue sky, the endless, rolling green hills. "That used to be Sarkoris." She frowns. "The demons couldn't stop at ruining Sarkoris, they have to try and ruin our memories of it too..."
The half orc paladin closes the doors and returns to the heroes. "It is fairly late in the evening but there are a few hours still before sunset. I couldn't hear any fighting. I need to find out what that means. I liked Markus' idea that we could use this as a base of operations. I would like for us to split up, some to stay here with Annabelle and some to come with me to connect with the main force. Does anyone want to volunteer to accompany me?"
Annabelle fidgets, but doesn't say anything.
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Hinagiku takes a look at the door through which Irabeth disappeared and turns back toward Ehren.
"It would seem that commander Irabeth left one door unchecked, and the others seem busy. Would you watch my back while I investigate?" she asks heading slowly toward the closed door in Radiance's room. On her way, she looks at the murals in the room, impressed by the quality of the work. Arriving at the door, she places her ear on it and tries to listen to any sounds that might be coming from the inside.
"Commander Irabeth, I believe my place would be at Annabelle's side. However, if you need me I will gladly follow you." she says in an even voice.
Hinagiku opens the door, and finds another, abandoned room. It is another wrecked museum hall, similar to the room that once displayed Radiance before it was reborn. In the middle of the room are two decapitated heads, carelessly left on the floor. There are several glass display cases but they have been looted and destroyed - glass litters the floor.
"I'll stay with Annabelle - I have lots of cleaning to do and I'd like to keep an eye on her anyway." says Markus. "And I'm not the most supportive companion when it comes to moving fast or protecting others."
Ary is torn. On the one hand... sanctifying the temple of her goddess is something of a priority... on the other, showing the others a way out, and saving... wait. There wasn't really an argument to be made there. Iomedae and Ary would rather the temple rot before they let men who were relying on them fall.
"Actually, hold that thought. Isilme, Val? Heck, Rocky too. Especially Rocky... there's a passage here, I think. It's... glowing." she says, as she realizes no one else is paying it any attention. Val and Isilme are the designated door checkers... and they're also the ones who understand mechanisms. Ehren is also entirely capable of sticking his head inside to see what's going on.
"There may be another way out." she says, loudly enough to carry down into the other rooms.
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"I will go, Commander. If the need arises, I can return to the garrison more quickly than anyone here," Ehren volunteers, looking away from the painting that Annabelle indicated. Looking at it made him feel... sad. Not like before, when lost Sarkoris was little more than a story to him. Now, it was a memory.
When he hears Ary however, Ehren turns around, troubled by the change in situation. "The cultists' escape route?"
When Irabeth suggests some of them head out to explore, she speaks up after Hinagiku. "I would prefer to stay and help Ary," she says, pausing briefly to summon a flute. "However, since you'll travel quickest with me at your side, it makes the most sense if I volunteer to join you." She gives the flute a little twirl as she moves over to join Irabeth. Bringing the flute to her lips, she plays the piece the others have become familiar with, granting them the ability to move more quickly.
"Val, do you want to check out what Ary found?" she asks the tiefling.