As the fighting lulls, Horn and Suchak catch the sound of something large breaking off to the east.
"That's not good."
"Get ready. There's something big heading this way."
Suchak, for his part, readies one of his special attacks.
Aught takes a deep breath and releases the energy he had built up. He sets his polearm on his back as he readies his shield and warhammer.
"What horrors plague Hollowfeld? What could have possibly happened to these people? To this place?"
"Hrmph; I wonder exactly how far gone these poor souls are..."
Taking a breath, a well-practice series of notes hum through the air, coalescing in the form of a large prison of ice, snow walls and icicle bars hovering in the air, ready to slam down should an enemy appear. Podrick nods with satisfaction.
Podrick casts a spell of illusion, holding a crystalline ice cage above the village square.
Horn-the-whirling-wind continues to float above the town. He readies to direct his Ghoan Plainsrunners to trample whatever emerges from the building.
______________
Suchak continues readying himself to use his maneuver on whatever pops out.
Suchak tenses his muscles, ready to respond when whatever made the sound shows itself. Horn commands his summoned Plainsrunners to follow the sky-priest's example, floating high above any of the buildings. Aught braces himself, hand poised in the beginning of an arcane gesture and words of power ready on his lips. Podrick, focusing on his illusion, suddenly hears a low, growling drone - almost like the sounds his greater kin make, but with no semblance of harmony, and making foul chords that send a shiver down the cetakin's spine.
Then, with a great crash, a gigantic ocher slug with seven tentacles tears out of a house, knocking out the front pillars and collapsing the lower floor. As it moves, the group bursts into action. Podrick drops his cage around the house, followed by Suchak's prepared maneuver. Horn urges his Plainsrunners forward, and one manages to charge forward and gore the gigantic fleshy monster. As the slug lashes out at the oncoming foes, Aught completes his spell, growing to more than fourteen feet in height.
As the aurochs tears open the monster's rubbery, slimy skin, the monster retaliates with a tentacle and secures a grip around its leg.
Suchak disappears from his current position, and reappears 60 feet to the west, then quicksteps forward one more.
Suchak teleports towards the melee.
Podrick's memory fails him as he surveys the creature; concentrating, he sings a note and his cage drops from the air to the ground, encasing the creature in stone, unable to move or use its limbs but with enough gaps in the bars for his allies to attack through. "Illusion, dear companions!"
The squirming slug-like creature does not seem to be affected by the figment - unfortunately, it seems not even to notice it. Though it is dark and far away, Podrick cannot immediately pick out any eye-like organs on the beast.
Fading Leap keys off base speed, yeah. I think Ether Gate just keys off speed though.
"Ah, blind, of course. I should have guessed."
Taking a breath and letting out another chorus of notes, Podrick calls down the sun in a mighty fire-storm to engulf the creature, black embers flickering through the blaze.
The drone in Podrick's ears increases, oscillating in seeming urgency as the creature burns. Behind it, the house bursts into flame.
Suddenly, a second drone joins the first. Bursting through the front porch of the building to Horn's south, another gigantic, slime-coated slug-monster tears into the Ghoan Plainsrunners.
The slug secures a hold around the plainsrunner's neck, dragging the animal towards its maw.
"Woah!" Suchak cries, eyes widening.
He takes his offensive stance once again and starts flinging his Starknife at the nearest worm creature.
Suchak tears the new slug creature to ribbons, sending oozing fluids splattering over its now ex-captive.
The two plainsrunners focus on the remaining slug, attempting to gore it.
The first horn tears a hole in the creature's soft underbelly, but the second glances off. The slug-monster looks to be near death, but maintains its hold on the grappled plainsrunner.
Aught runs towards the slugs with his shield raised high, waiting to absorb any blows that come his way.
Aught moves towards the remaining slug, anticipating its movements. It does not seem to be interested in him, though - instead, it attempts to choke the summoned plainsrunner down its gullet.
Somehow, the plainsrunner squirms away.
Suchak shifts over slightly to get a bit closer, and focuses himself.
Striking (aptly enough) like a serpent, he begins throwing his Starknife with surgical precision at the remaining worm creature.
"Once more it is, then."
Another medley of whalesong, another blast of flame from the air streaking down from the sky, black cinders encircling the creature.
Podrick's song of the sea conjures another part-illusory fireball, which at his direction engulfs the slug monster in shadowy flame. As it collapses, Podrick hears it send out one last frantic drone, and the rest of the party sees the windows of the buildings around it inexplicably shatter.
Apart from the housefire roaring some thirty feet away, the village seems very quiet now. Even the tips of the eastern peaks are dark now, and the whole valley is washed in twilight. Looking to the west, you spot a large manor perhaps a mile up the mountainside, along with small farmhouses similar to those you passed on the way up.
And Take 10 on Kn. Local.
Suchak walks to Wallace's body and reaches out to close his eyes, before realizing he has no eyes to close any more.
Suchak sighs.
"I'd like to take the time to bury them, but I'm not sure it's a good idea to stay around here much longer. Something strange is going on, and it's twisted innocent people into...this. I think we should try to discover the source, though I have no clue what could do this. For now, however, up the hill is Telthin Manor, it may be a good place to seek refuge for the night."
Still in the form of a small whipping wind with crackling electrical eyes and mouth, Horn examines the plaza.
"Hold on Suchak. Do you see these prints here? They seem like the only un-mutated ones, four sets of them. All seem to have headed South two days ago.
"I'm not opposed to a visit to the manor, but if we don't learn anything there I'd like to push on along these tracks. We could likely very fast progress compared to them and might catch them before too long.
"There's something horrifying going on here...I doubt I'll sleep well until I understand more of what's going on."
The four of you hike up above the sleepy farmland on what amounts to a horse track, coming to Telthin Manor as the sky turns orange with the dying sun.
The Manor looks to have been built about midway through Thaw - forty years ago, perhaps - and those with the ability to see in darkness can pick out peeling paint, a sagging roof, and a weedy, unkempt garden. Despite its dilapidation, it seems to still be in use - there are fresh-looking shyrtak stalks on the midden heap, and the windows are clear and dark. After checking the outbuildings and scouting the rooms from the outside, you enter through the front door. The house smells slightly of leather and ink, and appears to be both dark and devoid of inhabitants.
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Suchak knocks on banister.
"Hello the house?" he calls, not particularly expecting a response.
"Perhaps we should split up and search for clues?" Suchak suggests.
He heads to the library and begins searching there.
Enjoying the spacious corridors of the mansion, a rare treat for someone of his girth, Podrick lazily swims through the air alongside Suchak, pointing his head into various rooms in turn. "After the last such encounter, I'd rather not risk it, dear Suchak; as well, denying ones companions glory by going ahead and risking dugonging (hogging) it to oneself is most disrespectful."
After Suchak searches the library, he suggests the kitchen next.
There is a small section of the library devoted to novels and plays (many of which are penned by Sophia Lasilaran herself). The majority of the books are associated with the occult, ancient history, and the influence of art on magic. A fair amount of these books are controversial, and many have been banned in larger cities. For example, you find a thirty-year-old treatise by Garen of Indar called Ethics of Cadaver Transmogrification, a collection of horror stories written under the pseudonym of The Stranger, and a Draconic scroll that cracks as you open it, which discusses the inexplicable disappearance of a thriving Ningese city six and a half cycles ago, if the date is to be believed.
Podrick, following Suchak, draws a similar conclusion from his research. He recognizes Garen's book as an earlier work from before the two met. Ethics sold less than two dozen copies, for which Garen blames the Territories' intellectual elite rather than his choice of subject.
Trotting behind the three others, the bear-like winter guard keeps his eyes peeled, looking for any signs of life through out the manor.
He veers off from the group out of curiosity. While Suchak and Podrick check out the library, he goes to the study.
Aught searches through the desks and shelves in the expansive study. Peculiarly, many of the papers and books have a yellow symbol drawn in the margins - the same three-pronged symbol you saw on the front of the General Store. Whenever the Winter Guard touches one of the wavy symbols, he feels a shivering nausea pass through his body.
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Aught's mouth hangs open while he takes a step back. A sense of dread accompanies the nausea as he realizes that he recognizes the sign.
I...I know th-this symbol. Oh, no no no. We cannot be safe. Who could be dabbling in this? Surely they are responsible for what has happened.
Lost in thought,he stumbles and knocks into another part of the study.
"A sign of madness? What is its source, do you think?"
Horn makes his way through the house slowly and methodically, looking for clues, staying in the basement and then working his way over time to the study and the bedrooms.