After dodging beneath Naali's glaive, the mongrelman turns to bring his strength to bear on Gwyn again, seeing the bruise already forming on her jaw. Fortunately, his strike goes very wide most likely due to the fact that he is only able to use one arm.
Therrik wordlessly strides forward to help deal with the next mongrelman.
It's gory work but the chance for quiet has definitely passed, what with Naali's fall and Sadron's cymbals. Therrik figures the best thing they can do is move quick and keep the mongrelmen from mounting a defense that might mean more lives lost. Like, say, those of he and his new friends.
Sadron continues to play his cymbals, but appears more focused on observing the motions and positioning of the party members as a whole.
Gwyneth's longsword catches the mongrelman under the arm with a sickening crunching sound that trails off into a weak gurgle as he falls to the ground. Despite the fairly obvious warning that your now-dead assailants gave prior to their attack, silence reigns in the tunnel. The only sound that can be heard through the half-open door is dripping water and faint shuffling. A peek inside shows a large, mostly empty room whose center is dominated by a fire pit surrounded by furs and animal skins. As well lived-in as the room clearly is, there looks to be no one within.
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Gwyn frowns as her sword unsheathes itself from the mongrelman's side, the near-blue tint of cold-iron stained red with too much needless blood.
"Utter waste," she spits, a line of pink froth running down her chin as she wipes the blade against her tabard to no effect; the blood of three mutated men clings awkwardly to her cloth, leaving what few white spots remained a sordid mesh of crimson that only, if anything, makes the sword worse.
"Someone...someone wanna lend me a vial?" she asks, the words slurred as she attempts to communicate with a rapidly swelling jaw.
Without much hesitation, Gwyn forces the really-not-all-that-pleasant liquid down her throat.
Even less pleasant is the feeling of her teeth realigning themselves, but she strives to ignore it as she strides ahead, spouting apologies to Iomedae for the violence to come while her eyes gleam over the room...
...to absolutely no avail. The Paladin's righteous fury knows neither bounds nor this room apparently.
Therrik nods with a little frown on his face at Gwyn's words of 'utter waste'. "Sometimes you gotta go through people," he says flatly.
He beckons the others to follow up to the barricaded area, at least, then looks to Horgus, Aravashnial, and Anevia. "You three, dock here while we clear rooms, alright?"
Slipping into the room after Gwyneth, Therrik makes for the first door on his left, and listens at it a moment.
Noting the lack of urgency, and the party beginning to search rooms, the elf finds it prudent to stop making noise. Placing his cymbals in their straps, he then draws his longsword and buckler.
"I have doubts that the creator of that idiom intended it to be used quite so literally Therrik." The elf pauses, "Koschei, perhaps a living one could tell us more about the cultists here, and how pervasive their persuasion is within the village."
Naali rifles through her bag to hand Gwyneth one of the potions from the village, finding a foggy glass vial with a crumbling cork top that'd probably do the trick. "They would probably be more willing to talk than any cultists we'll find, too."
"Do you think Neathholm would be able to take prisoners? It might help getting them to talk if they don't think we're going to kill them afterwards."
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Edging a nod of thanks for the vial, and seeing that Therrik has the northern exit covered, Gwyneth wipes the last of the pink froth against her sleeve and eyes the eastern doors, praying Iomedae might reveal something beyond her mortal senses.
"Maybe some of them have sense. That'd be nice," she wonders dryly, gaze unflinching as she speaks. "Whether you think it or not, Vaneth, I don't particularly like this any more than you do. People lose their way. Become misled, misguided; and for them, at least, surrender's always an option."
The paladin shrugs a little, bouncing on her toes as the potion takes full effect, neglecting to comment on the genuine and insane among Mendev's enemies. Bluntly put, she's not sure how else to save them. Heck, given their current situation, she's not sure Kenabres can save itself--but hell if Gwyn won't die trying.
"Personally," she sighs, "I'd just like to keep my teeth."
Anevia and Aravashnial nod silently, but Horgus pipes up a bit uncertainly. "Do you think we might be able to join you inside? Who knows what else might be roaming these tunnels..."
While Gwyn's detection sadly detects little of value, Therrik's keen ears do better. Through the northern door that he listens at, he can hear the sounds of shuffling and hissed whispers on occasion. It is difficult to determine what is being said, but it seems to be coming from two distinct voices.
Therrik waves a hand for quiet. He holds up two fingers, pointing at his door, and beckons Gwyn closer. He points again at the door, silently holding his blade up with the other hand, and then tries to ease the knob noiselessly open...
Sadron watches the sailor and the paladin move to the door. Don't let there be an axe-man at the door.
He tightens his grip around this sword and waits to see what happens.
The hushed murmuring draws to a halt when the door opens before Gwyn and Therrik, but the pair sees little more than an empty room. Fortunately, the silence does not last as a pair of battle cries ring out from either side of the opposite side of the door. A pair of glaives sweep forward to try to skewer Gwyn!
Fortunately, only one seems to find its mark on the paladin.
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An empty room strikes Gwyn as strange, initially, given that she has no reason to doubt Therrik's keen senses; and for a moment, the Paladin lets down her guard, mouth open with a jest on her tongue.
Then there's these sounds--loud, very loud, if the hiss in her ears is accurate--but she can't quite spare the brain power as some other feeling takes hold; an awfully raw, tingling sensation at her midsection, and the sense of something hard riveting off the armour at her shoulder.
Looking down to the source, Gwyneth finds the wrong end of a glaive piercing her abdomen, undoing all the work of her prior potion as it withdraws, tearing at flesh and cloth. She's still too numb from the concoction to care, but her muscles spasm in disagreement, and it's only by sheer resilience--and a desperate demand to channel her Goddess's strength--that she doesn't drop to a knee from the wound.
"...s#%+," she curses as the pain makes itself known, and in retaliation her sword lunges forward, hoping to return the favor in kind--realizing that these opponents are not their mongrelmen adversaries , but likely something much worse...
Regardless of whether the blow lands, Gwyneth soon falls back on her heels, filling the space between herself and the enemy with several feet of tall, green, warhammer-wielding Half-Orc; the Ranger seemingly standing in for her own shadow while coarse, bitter words ebb from her lips, senses focused on the foremost enemy in her sight.
"შენი ღმერთები არიან უმადური...და აქ, თქვენ მოკვდება."
"Hanspur's hairy ass!" Therrik blurts as Gwyn gets hit, and hard. He retaliates, trying to give back as hard as his companion just got hurt.
Rather than follow her back into the once-abode of the mongrelmen, the cultist murmurs words of power under her breath. The wound that Gwyn left on her torso slowly begins to knit itself back together and the flow of blood stops. Regardless of the effects of the spells these cultists are using though, the paladin is able to detect that these two are the worst kind of evil.
"Come on Sadron, they need help!"
Naali moves up behind Gwyn and Therrik and tries to get sight of the cultists through the doorway. Therrik is entirely too opaque for this to be effective, so she brandishes her polearm towards the door.
"Well, I've got your back!"
Round 1
"Then our help they shall have!"
Sadron moves across the open room to the far adjacent corner and peers over his buckler into the room.
The elf readies his sword, should anyone come to attack through the door.
for
The cultist, seeing her friend topple to the dirt floor, tries a different tactic. Namely, one that involves reaching out to try to poke Therrik in the chest with a finger that crackles with black formless energy. He feels his hackles rise and a great deal of forboding, but no actual pain.
"Sonofa--"
Therrik growls as he gets poked, expecting pain; his brows knit together a little at the lack thereof. Shrugging to himself, he doesn't hesitate-- he just swings again.
To Therrik's bemusement, it seems like fate itself conspires against him. He has a brief mental image of striking, but the reality makes his blow swing wide. Though he's discomfited by this, Therrik stays where he is, unwilling to move with Gwyn so hurt behind him.
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Gwyneth holds her sword in unsteady hands, eye twitching as the wound in her torso continues to scream. She winces a bit as a third glaive enters her vision, but the sight of their Tiefling ally on the opposite end of the weapon softens her scowl despite the pain.
"Iomedae..." she groans between heavy breaths, forcing her left side to cooperate and advance. Don't count me out yet...!
Because the thought of Naali, or Sadron, or anyone taking a sweep like that hits much harder than any Templar blade.
Despite the group's best efforts, the cultist remains standing and even lets out a delighted cackle at your failings. She gives her glaive a confident twirl before slashing it at Therrik, who seems to have earned her ire.
Therrik growls low in his throat and once again swings his hammer in both hands. "You know, my mother always said it was wrong to hit a lady..."
"...course, she usually said that to let her get in the first shot."
Perhaps Therrik would have been better served by less attempt at witty banter and more focus on his form, for the strike misses.
Seeing the narrowly missed swing the cultist threw in Therrik's direction, Naali tries to rush through the doorway to try to help Sadron, Therrik and Gwyn land a blow.
In the confusion of the fight, someone trips Naali and she ends up going straight through the cultist's legs and scrambles up before they can react.
Naali nimbly manages to duck under the clumsy swing the cultist takes in her direction, ending up "safely" on the other side of the woman.
The elf lurches his arm out, stabbing at the cultist from around the corner of the door.
for
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Gwyneth winces as the cultist takes a swing at the nimble-hoofed Tiefling, breathing a sigh of relief as Naali weaves under the blow.
To Therrik, she shakes her head, teeth still clenched as she hopes to use the opportunity to introduce their enemy to a just blade!
"Less backtalk; more backswing--!"
Between Gwyn and Sadron's well-aimed strikes, the wicked cackling draws to an abrupt close in favor of a gurgling death rattle. The cultist slumps to the floor, very much dead, and the settlement is eerily silent again.
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As the Cultist falls in a clattering heap, Gwyn equally slumps back on her knees, one arm curled about her sword, the other clenched at her wound as her brief spike of adrenaline wears off into an unwelcome ache.
She would rise if her legs willed it, check the bodies and confirm what the Gods have already implied, but when split between the choice of fueling her anger and a few moments of breathing space, the Paladin settles on the saner choice. A quick scan of the party confirms that no one else has had the misfortune of a similar fate, and for that gives a solid, earnest prayer, though she's not quite sure what to make of the rest--that there's genuine Cultists down here, that Therrik finds himself unable to hit the broadside of a barn, or that Sadron is really pressing her definition of 'musician' to its utmost limits. Of course at this point, she barely cares.
The Church teaches, 'I will guard the honor of my fellows'--and if they're not fellows now, after several bouts of combat and one massive, unfathomable catastrophe, Gwyn's not sure what else to call them. The compulsion to see that none suffer unnecessarily is not at all foreign, but there is a strength, hot and light, radiating in her bones as she attempts to draw herself upright; Guard them.
"Templars?" She asks, gazing about the presently-armed members of their troupe. At this point her fingers--glowing, hissing fingers--press firm to her abdomen. The very edge of the wound, visible through breaks in her armour, seems to knit shut, cauterized by white-gold ribbons of light that linger only a moment before dissolving. The Paladin appears none the wiser as she finishes, "'Cause that felt like a Templar."
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"I mean, I hope so." Naali looks around worriedly at her companions, though all of them seem quite fine other than Gywneth - who can apparently handle that for herself now?
She takes a moment to stop and look around the room she fell into, and listens, hoping that the clatter of more people isn't echoing down a hall.
"Did Chief Suli ever tell us exactly how many people lived in this area?"
Therrik stands, breathing hard and touching warily at the spot on his chest where the cultist had hit him. That had felt... weird. He figures he needs to work on his defense some.
"You okay?" he grunts at Gwyn. "That looked like it hurt..."
He crouches by the dead cultists, turning them over to see if they had anything of use on their persons.
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"Like you wouldn't belie...eh?" Gwyneth's complaint comes to a grinding halt, looking down at her surprisingly less painful midsection, the last whispers of divine magic vanishing from her fingers. ".....Uuuhm. What?"
She prods the area, suspicious, and jabs sharp on still-sore muscle for her trouble. "Yeah, no, ow, don't do that..."
"I'm good. I think? Probably?" She eventually settles on something neutral, flexing her fingers as if something might happen a second time. When it doesn't, she lets the thought go--preferring to get back to the matter at hand before she devolves into a giddy choir-girl.
"Sull wasn't specific, no; but I can't imagine this is it," Gwyneth says, peering over Therrik as he inspects the bodies. A light gauntlet knocks at his shoulder. "You 'kay? Fun as it sounds, I think I'd sooner take the glaive again than risk being touched up by that."
Her head inclines towards the more persistent of their two adversaries, lips pursing in an failed attempt to curb her disdain.
Sadron tries to recall the words and motions of the cultist's spell before Therrik's strange feelings.
"Well done, everyone!" the elf quietly cheers the team. "Do they have any information on them about the area? Perhaps a map or a note? I doubt we'd be lucky enough to find cultist accountants with numbers and figures in a tallybook of member records... but we should search the area anyway."
"I'll go tell the others everything is alright." She carefully steps over the formerly very resilient cultist, and towards the few waiting outside, hooves sending click-clock sounds reverberating through the stone tunnels now that she isn't trying to be quiet.
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Naali soon returns with the others in tow, and begins helping out with the searching. To Gwyn she asks, pointing to her magically sewn wound, "So did you just learn how to do that, just then? Earlier."
Now that you have a moment to look around in the room that the cultists were guarding, it strikes you as a touch odd. The worked stone walls hold a number of shelves, each of which display the preserved bodies of dire rats, bats, rock vipers, cave lizards, and other creatures that pose in eerie stillness. A pair of bedrolls have been laid out to the southeast, presumably belonging to the pair of cultists. To the north, a rusted old ladder leads downward into inky blackness. Those with darkvision can tell that it is only another twenty feet down to the floor below, which appears fairly unremarkable. To the east is a closed door, through which the muted roar of a great deal of moving water can be heard.
On the bodies, you find two potions, four scrolls, two flasks of murky water, two very finely crafted chain shirts, the pair's finely made glaives, two daggers, a spell component pouch each, 20g, and two symbols of Baphomet. Upon finding the last item, it occurs to Sadron that he does not recall hearing the more long-lived of the pair cast a spell. In fact, it would not be too far of a stretch to assume that the odd feeling Therrik endured might have been a brief boon granted to her by her god.
Anevia, Aravashnial, Horgus, and Abrielle are all content to gather in the now-deceased mongrelmen's sleeping quarters, for the time being. "Better here than out in the tunnel where anything could happen upon us," Horgus reasons sheepishly.
Therrik looks down the ladder. "Floor down there, not too far. Twenty feet," he informs the others, and nods towards the closed eastern door. "Underground river or waterfall, maybe?"
He helps strip the corpses, for their armor is more finely made than murderous scum like this should get to keep, in his opinion. "Anyone know what all these scrolls and potions are? I say we check those doors in the first room, make sure it's safe for the others to stay there."
Sadron looks over the loot on display. He mumbles a word to himself to see if any of the objects are more-than-mundane in nature.
Handling the potions, he swirls them about and tries to recall his training on the nature of such liquids, their colors, viscosity, and aroma.
Mumbling some more, he picks up each scroll individually, gives it a twirl in his hand and unfurls. He spends a moment glancing over each of them.
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To Naali's question, Gwyneth blinks exactly once before admitting somewhat timidly: "I'm...not too sure. I mean I've seen it. On others. Sword-Knights, mostly. Our Lady 'Light of the Sword' living up to the name; but not..."
She rumbles a little, stifling a laugh as her fingers flex about the grip of her blade. "You get told for so long that you can't do something that it ends up feeling...weird, y'know? When you can. I mean, it's a good weird. Is there a 'good' weird?"
"And I...just called my Goddess weird, didn't I? Wow. Okay, just...just point me at the nearest cultist. Or a skylight. We clearly need out of this hell-forsaken place..."
Preparing to deal with the matters at hand, another small, thin ribbon of light, faint as mist, hisses out between the scales of Gwyneth's armour...
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"Aye to that. If we're covering multiple levels, I'd be happier to secure them as we go," the Paladin answers to Therrik, nodding as she assists with putting their possessions to more noble means. As to the symbols...Gwyneth's first act is to try breaking one with her bare hands, but the focuses prove uncooperative with this particular method of destruction. Of course that still doesn't stop her from trying as she continues, "There's enough danger going forward without inviting a glaive in the back while we're at it."
Naali nods at Gwyn as she takes a look at the new-found potions. "I understand that. I've learned a few things down here as well, surprisingly. There's some very interesting fungi down here that might be nice to read up on when we get back to the surface."
Naali pats Gwyn's shoulder with a metallic clank of the paladin's armor. "Well, we're on the way up, if the Mongrelmen know their way around - and they seemed to prove that pretty well earlier. But I guess we have to go down before we can get back up?" She peers down the pit, eyeing the suspiciously rusty looking ladder.
"Don't worry, the only glaive at your back will be mine. Err - I mean supporting you, not pointed at you."