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Cassiel nudges the door upward and feels the load shift. Rubble pours down from above as the door creaks open.
From above, a small figure darts down into the room, a giant stirge, larger than any you have ever seen (though still a Small creature)!
INITIATIVE
Judah
Strige
Eleanora
Lorant
Mathus
Cassiel
"F!&!, f+!%, OW!" Judah panicked as the debris started to fall. His head was ringing. Then there was a giant bug-bird trying to stab him with it's face.
"Gha! Bug!" he desperately tried to move down the ladder, running right into Cassiel and scrambling over him.
Above him, something crawled down into the shaft after the Stirge.
The strange fleshkite was a rolling shadowy blur of shrieking talons that laid into the stirge from above.
Lorant gives out a cry as the rocks fall on his head, though thankfully everyone does not die. Then he sees the overgrown stirge, its abdomen bloated with blood, and he shakes his head a bit and tries to not look entranced by it as he licks some of his own blood off the side of his head.
"C-could use one of those potions now...I don't want to look like too tempting a target...and I'm kind of unsteady on my feet," Lorant says, still staring at the stirge's distended abdomen.
The flapping skinkite continued to flail at the stirge.
Judah went white from sudden bloodloss. He was in too much shock to make a sound. All that went through his head was getting to the ground. He didn't want to look at the needle-faced bird, or whatever it was that was attacking it. Something at the back of his mind was telling him things about the situation that he did not what to know. He ignored it and focused on going down.
Cassiel flinches as the debris and large mosquito-bat-monster come falling down, and he swings his sword at the beast!
Unfortunately, he misses.
The flapping thing seemed to fold in on itself and unfold above Judah again, continuing it's assault.
Lorant drops his morningstar and draws his the knife at his waist. Without many options, he throws it at the stirge's tantalizing abdomen.
;
Ella, having felt a stirge's sting before, knows just how bad it is. She lets out a cry and flies at the creature with her dagger.
"Ed, help!"
Edmund, grumbling, floats up to the stirge. "Alright, get off him. Go outside, there are lots of obnoxious children out there that are way more plump..."
A frustrated Cassiel swings his sword again.
Lorant draws his morningstar and takes a swing at the stirge.
"Release him!"
;
Judah was woozy. He managed to turn the stirge towards Cas and gestured feebly.
Lorant growls in anger at the stirge.
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Judah turns to Cass, gesturing feebly, but still, the paladin misses the target. Lorant growls at the strige, smacking it again with his morningstar. Edmund attacks, hoping to loose the creature, and the strige, finally killed, falls loosely from Judah's shoulder.
Still, comes the eerie piping from nowhere.
Lorant can't take it anymore, leaping upon the fallen stirge and biting into its abdomen.
Cassiel is about to say something sarcastic about bloodsuckers, but Lorant's sudden biting of the stirge causes whatever it was he was about to say die on his tongue.
"...um..." He blinks and takes a small step back before glancing at Judah. "...hey, uh, do we have anything to help with that stirge bite?"
Ella grips her dagger hard as Lorant lunges at the stirge. She backs away from her friend, but Cass's words bring her back to the present.
"...I don't have anything to help with the blood loss, but we still have this wand." She holds up the wand of cure light wounds that she's been carrying. "It will help with the bites and your other injuries, at least, Judah. Here, let me...Ed, keep an eye on Lorant."
Moving carefully, she approaches Judah and gently applies the healing magic.
She sighs as she examines the wand afterward. "I'm afraid this thing has little power left..." She grits her teeth and, seeing that Judah is still badly hurt, applies the wand again.
Edmund floats over to Lorant and hovers nearby, watching closely. He chuckles.
"Heh heh...I knew there had to be a reason you had that stick of self-righteousness so far up your ass. You're a killer...little Ella saw you for what you were, but she's been hoping to be proven wrong. Takes one to know one, say I."
...that's it. That's f#!~ing it.
Cassiel's eyes narrow, his hand tightens on the hilt of his blade, and he turns his ire on the little wretch of a spirit that's done nothing but mock them. "Lorant is still far closer to Iomedae's light than a pathetic little wretch like you could ever hope to be. If anything, the fact that he doesn't let his grave-tainted nature stop him from walking the Inheritor's path makes him stand out all the more."
"So, for one in your dull, pitiable existence, would you kindly shut up, you overrated, venomous, misbegotten c*#@?"
He lets out a breath and glares Edmund down. "If you happen to be offended by my choice of language, I would say that I am so sorry you fit the description in such an accurate and unmistakeable fashion, but we both know that'd make me a liar."
Edmund snarls when Cassiel confronts him, floating right up into the paladin's face. "Who said I want to be close to your bright, shiny, self-righteous b$$!$'s light, Sir Bibliophobe? If you're looking for someone to apply that choice of language to, I suggest--"
He breaks off with a sudden howl of pain, clutching at his head.
"Not. Another. Word." Ella growls, glaring at Edmund from down the hall. "I've let you out because you can be useful--as you've just proved--but if you continue with this language I'll lock you away and never let you out again! Your history is shameful, and you don't know the first thing about Lorant."
Edmund sulks and raises his hands in defeat. "Fine. You'll hear no more from me." He drifts back down the hallway. As he passes Ella and Judah, he growls, "And it wasn't me I was referring to, sweet sister."
"I've let you out because you can be useful--as you've just proved--but if you continue with this language I'll lock you away and never let you out again!"
"Is that a promise? Please tell me that's a promise."
Ella looks strangely troubled, but she turns to Cassiel. "If you'd all like, I'll do so now. I have no desire for his company...I just want to make sure that we're all safe."
"I'm.. not going to be good for doing door stuff for... a while. Keep him out." Judah said, looking paler than Edmond as he leaned against the wall looking woozy.
He blinked, staring as Lorant pulled the stirge's too-long beak out of his shoulder and then bit into it. "Uh, Lorant... you ok?"
Lorant savagely tears into the stirge's belly, deaf to almost everything but his own heartbeat as he buries his face in the blood, the salty-copper taste sending a shiver through his body until the shouts of his companions snap him out of it...and he looks down and realizes just what he's doing.
"EUGH!" he exclaims as he kicks the dead stirge away from him and tries to wipe his face with his tabard.
Then he turns to the others and smiles weakly, red still staining his teeth.
"I'm...sorry. I'm usually better than this."
Ella frowns. "I'd...noticed. But you're better now, I hope? If you are, and if Judah's well enough to travel, we should keep going. Ed can open the doors."
She continues to regard Lorant warily. "If you're not in a state to continue, though...I'd rather know now."
"I...I think I AM wounded from the falling rocks. Don't waste the wand's power on me, though. We can't continue if we run out of healing again."
"Honestly, I feel exhausted. I don't really want to keep going, but I will."
"I can still keep going, if needed." Cassiel looks over at Judah & Lorant (especially Lorant) with a wary eye. "However, it won't do us any good if we push ourselves too hard and get in trouble."
Lorrimor strokes his stubbly chin.
"We have a dilemma then...We can either press on while wounded, or return to the Lorrimor House to recover, and lose precious time."
Ella bites her lip. "I just can't go back already...not when we still don't have any answers to give Kendra. I say we push on. If need be..." She raises the torch and proceeds a few feet down the hall to the south.
"Ed, can you check these doors quickly?" The spirit sighs, and moves to do as he is bid.
"Well, let's not open those doors, then," Ella says tartly. Ed rolls his eyes, while she gazes up at the door that Cass was trying to open when the stirge attacked them. "Do we have any sense of what's up there? Did anyone get a good look?"