Cruroar pulls aside the door to reveal a small antechamber - also mostly worked in stone. A stone bench lines the south wall of this room, and at the far end, a small stone basin rests at dwarf-chest-level, filled with glittering and fresh water.
To the north, a stone door marked with the image of a hammer stands.
The room is silent and empty, and most of the surfaces (excluding the water in the basin) are covered in a thick layer of dust that stirs as Cruroar enters.
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"No, Lysbeth, it does not look like anybody is here to receive us," Isilma deadpans. She leads Aravashnial to the bench so he can sit down and rest - and support Anevia if she does the same - then takes a good, hard look at the basin. The surface of the water should have filmed over with dust. Since it hasn't, something must be preserving it.
The basin radiates divine magic.
The basin radiates a low-powered aura, but the aura of a currently functioning spell. Isilma can't tell exactly what spell it is, but she can tell that it's transmutation [good] and that the spell is still functioning.
Mulluq is a little confused by her request, uncertain what she wants him to check, then he puts it together with making sure it is Torag's. "I will help as much as possible, but sadly, I am only able to recognize if something is evil. As long as it isn't that's all I could tell you." With that, he does as asked and prays for Iomedae's blessing in showing him the presence of evil in the area, namely the basin.
[ooc]Detect Evil, he will focus as long as he needs, in order to examine the whole room. (up to his 10 min duration that is)
Mulluq detects no evil auras in the room - his detection spell, however, doesn't extend beyond the walls. They are too thick to penetrate.
He glances around the small space, then informs "I see no sign of evil here, within the walls of this room. Beyond those my ability wanes."
"It is unfortunate that a shrine to Torag is in such bad shape" Cruroar starts toward the water."I think the water to be safe from evil."
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"Perhaps, then," says Isilma, patting the top of Aravashnial's hand to let him know she will return soon, "it could be a healing draught?" She takes a cup, carved from a golden-red wood, from her pack and dips the edge just below the surface of the water just long enough for a few drops to collect in the bottom. Isilma looks back at Anevia and Aravashnial, then decides to test the drink on herself instead of asking one of them to take the risk. It is what Tinwë would do.
It tastes just like regular water, if a little tastier than any water you've ever had before.
Mulluq watches with mild interest, before suggesting, "If there is not issue with the water, please Cruroar, lead us further in."
Cruroar nods and heads toward the stone door to the north. He opens the door and steps in, looking around the room for any followers of Torag.
Broken stone benches line this narrow room. The air is cold and stale, and thick layers of dust cover the floor, benches, and a large altar at the far end of the room.
On one of the benches sits a hunched figure. Stocky and bald, what is obviously a robed dwarf is covered with a thick layer of dust.
Cruroar approaches the dwarf. "Hello brother. Are you ok? What has happened to this temple?"
Softly, and without turning around, the hunched figure whispers. "I am fine, as is this temple...the only one in danger is YOU."
It slowly turns around to reveal a rotting face and a crooked grin of exposed teeth. "Share my grave!", it intones, while reaching around a clawed and black hand to grasp at Cruroar's throat. He jerks back and out of the way, but before anyone can react, it spins up and lashes out at him twice more. Both claws drag along his armor without penetrating, and Cruroar goes unharmed.
Initiative:
Mulluq - 20
Isilma - 15
Lysbeth - 15
Cruroar - 14
Huecuva - 23
Mulluq'tar is a little surprised when the thing jumps up to attack Cruroar, even more so by its appearance. The rotting flesh, exposed bone, and mention of sharing a grave is too much for Mulluq to excuse. Moving in defense of his new associate, he makes a vow to destroy it, rushes up to the thing and swings his blade hard. "Vile, deathless creature. You shall not harm anyone I have accepted under my care."
Lysbeth lets out a small yell of surprise as she jumps backwards, taken aback by the creature's appearance. Arms shaking, she lets fly a bolt from her crossbow at the undead nightmare.
Blazing with divine power, Mulluq charges forward to smite the undead monstrosity. Bringing his blade to bear on the creature, the deep wound he carves leaves a long, white line in its flesh, but it does not fall.
Ducking out of the room, Isilma rushes back to the font of delicious water she's found a moment before, holding a cup out before her.
Lysbeth jerks her crossbow up and lets a bolt fly, catching the thing in its chest. It growls dryly but does still remains standing.
Initiative:
Cruroar - 14
Huecuva - 23
Mulluq - 20
Isilma - 15
Lysbeth - 15
"You have desecrated this temple long enough!!" Cruroar calls out as he swings his Warhammer at the foe.
Cruroar's hammer impacts harmlessly on the creature's thick hide, having been swung too haphazardly and with not enough force.
The creature turns to Mulluq, the man who did it so much harm, and lunges at him with his claws. He is, however, more than a little bit blinded by the holy aura emanating from Mulluq, and the creature cringes away from him, holding its arms up in front of its face.
Initiative:
Mulluq - 20
Isilma - 15
Lysbeth - 15
Cruroar - 14
Huecuva - 23
Mulluq almost beams with pleasure at the thing being repelled by the glory of Iomedae, "You cannot bring your testament of evil against those under Her care." He swings again at the deathless being, his attack fairly precise, but lacking his previous rage. He is somewhat relaxed by the ineffectiveness of the creature's attacks against them.
Mulluq's second attack leaves an imprint in the air as he swings, carving both a rent in the undead creature's flesh and a severance of its connection to the Negative Energy plane. Disrupted by holy power, the creature's eye-holes fade and it collapses.
Mulluq'tar scans the room for any other evil threats, before he turns to Cruroar with sadness in his eyes. "Please forgive me. I had stolen your chance at vengeance against one who had desecrated a shrine to your god. My anger at its wholly evil animation had overcome me, as is the wont of my birthright. I will try to make it up to you."
Mulluq finds no evil in the room, but he does find a few items of note. While the shrine was a humble one, a few items of wealth still rest here along with him. On one knotted finger sits a gold ring. A pouch on his belt contains a pair of full vials, with softly glowing white liquid sloshing around.
On the ground near where he knelt, covered with a liberal layer of dust, lays an engraved, well-weighted warhammer.
"How about next time you just let me get a hit in, then we will be even."
With that Cruroar picks up his crossbow and looks around the room for anything they might have missed.
After Cruroar inspects the room a bit more he heads over and picks up the Warhammer. He grabs his waterskin and pours some water over it to get rid of some of the dust. "Quite a nice warhammer here, it is unfortunate that it has been laying here as long as it has." Cruroar then walks over to the Huecuva and grabs the vials holding them in the air as he talks. "Anybody good at telling what these vials are full of? They could be of use to us."
Lysbeth's eyes are still wide as the creature turns to dust. "What was that?" she asked, her voice shaking, wondering if she was really up to the task of joining the Crusade. She had seen the aftereffects of such attacks before, but never had she imagined that the creatures could be so frightening.
Shaking her head at Cruroar's question about the vials, Lysbeth put her crossbow back on her back and peered around the room with a new sense of wary.
But she finds herself unable to focus, imagining that there are evil things hiding in every shadow, waiting for a chance to spring out and catch them unaware. "M-Maybe we should leave." She said quietly, her eyes darting back and forth.
They are indeed potions of cure light wounds.
Cruroar grabs the remaining gold ring and then walks over toward the young elf and hands her the vials. "Keep these with you, a time will arise when we will need them. As for this gold ring we might as well try our luck at selling it when we get back up top" Before Cruroar leaves the room he takes his old warhammer and lays it on the shrine.
As the others discuss the vials and their contents, Mulluq'Tar begins to gather all the pieces of the now certainly dead thing they fought. He lays out the robe it was wearing, and piles all the pieces into it, before gathering the ends of the clothing up into a makeshift bag of bones. As they prepare to leave, he hoists the 'bag' over his shoulder.
Mulluq'Tar looks surprised by the question, "My apologies, I do hope I did not disrupt anything you had planned. I just thought that it would be wrong to leave the corpse of a wicked undead horror laying right in the middle of a temple to Torag. I was going to ditch the remains a reasonable distance from the site, maybe fifteen or twenty yards." concern grows on his face with realization "Oh, is this foul and inhuman of me? I hope carting off this body is not indicative of my baser nature. Why, why can I not separate the evilness from my being?"
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"Nay, nay, nay!" says Isilma, shaking her head and shutting her eyes. She does not want to hear any of this from Mulluq; he does not deserve it. "It was courteous and thoughtful. More thoughtful than I was. It never occurred to me that we might try to clean and restore the shrine. I thought we were leaving this place forever, and could not think why you would want to bring...that with you."
Isilma opens her eyes and finds Mulluq giving her a crumpled look of mixed fear and resignation. She steps up to him and takes his free hand, seemingly unperturbed by the paladin's coal-black, scaly flesh. She lays his palm on her forehead in a way that suggests a ritual. Her next words sound like she has spoken them a thousand times. "I have hurt you. I apologize." She looks up Mulluq's arm, into his eyes. "Please believe me when I say I was merely curious, that I do not believe you capable of anything base..." She swallows. "...and that I have a good reason to say that."
Even in the midst of their own conversation, the group emerges from the temple of Torag to find their compatriots in the middle of an argument. Horgus and Anevia are testily throwing remarks at one another while Aravashnial passively listens.
Anevia's taken a seat and is irritably rubbing her leg, while Horgus showboats just a bit. "...to her fate! She can't be doing anything but slowing us down at this point! She's a liability! Surely the others will - " he says to Aravashnial, until he notices that "the others" have already returned. "You're back. Apparently men afraid to acknowledge their own faith aren't moved by old temples like I am" Anevia says, turning to the group as they exit the temple.
He withdraws his hand, curling his hard nails in to ensure he doesn't scratch her, tucking his arm away as if it would burn her to continue to touch him. "Dear child, I envy the innocence of your youth, an innocence I was not born with. Despite being elven and possibly older than I, you still have some time to grow wiser as an adult. You did not hurt me, my pain will always derive from being the spawn of the Abyss I truly am. I just worry that I can not control whatever blackness lay deep within me." With that he picks the 'bag' back up, and continues outside.
Mulluq is somewhat confused by the nature of the conversation, why would they think leaving someone behind would be an option. "The minor delay that we may experience by her injury is nothing in the grand scheme of the life we must each trudge through. Would anyone want to go to their grave knowing they doomed another to die alone in this place merely out of a want for minor haste? I have declared I will keep and protect you all through this hardship. Even if it means I am slowed from carrying everyone out on my very back, I will see you all from this unfortunate of situations."
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Isilma stares sullenly at Mulluq's back as he exits the temple. He cannot have just refused to accept her apology...but hearing his words again, she cannot escape the conclusion that that is exactly what he had done. And she thinks she knows why. With the exception of the moments just after her return, Landë and the others had always taught her that she was responsible for her actions, especially for those taken thoughtlessly, and needed to take ownership of them. Who was Mulluq to deny her that? But maybe he had meant something else. He had called her "innocent." She realizes that he cannot forgive her because he believes she had done nothing wrong, that she could do nothing wrong. He believes the same of her that she believes of him.
She balls her hands up into fists, breathes deeply, then releases. Isilma is sure he is wrong and she is right about them both, that she has found him standing on his head. She is also pretty sure she knows how to set him on his feet again. But she does not want to. She bites her lip as her thoughts swirl. There are a thousand reasons not to tell him what she has done. They have burned people in Kenabres for less. But she knows she is safe. Landë's name and the prophecy can protect her. And even if they couldn't if she did need to protect herself, she knows she has to take ownership of her past. She had said so!
Finally, seeing the others pass her, Isilma follows them out of the temple...and into the middle of an argument. She cannot help smiling and sighing a little in relief. She can tell him later. A voice whispers that she is simply giving in to fear, but she pushes it away. Later. For now, there is a crisis to resolve.
"You follow Torag?" she says brightly to Horgus, doing her best to keep smiling. "What a joy and relief! Some kind of evil creature had taken up residence, and beyond removing the remains, none of us know how to make the place clean again..." Isilma stops to think for a moment about how best to frame this in terms of Horgus' need for speed. "We must. If we do not, it might spawn more horrors at our backs. And if you can help, Cruroar will not have to consult his scripture and we can go all the sooner."
"I agree Lady Isilma, we should make this place clean and it should be done sooner rather than later." Cruroar then turns to Horgus "Will you help us, Torag deserves for his temple to be restored but we need to get this done. We could use your help in this matter."
The nobleman crosses his arms and the look on his face. "I thought the agreement would be to make haste out of here? Bringing thieves out of certain death brings me nothing but delay."
He is somewhat confused at the mention of his mentioning Torag, and his irritation drops somewhat. "I...do not follow Torag. Do you see a beard on my face? Do you see he slaps his belly, a big belly on here? No. I would not know how to clean this altar any better than the fat zealot over there." he says, indicating Cruroar.
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"Then I apologize for jumping to conclusions," says Isilma, ignoring the insult. This is easy for her to do; in Iadara, the nobles cocoon their jabs in layers of subtlety and implied importance that can take days to unwrap. They exist more to waste time and occupy precious thought than anything else. Horgus, by contrast, is comfortingly straightforward in his lashing out. She sits down next to him. "I had not entered a temple to Torag before today, and I have yet to meet many worshipers.
"We are all anxious to return to the surface," she says, "but as a practical matter the temple must be made clean. Even if we were all whole, we would still be lost, and any evil that spawned here would catch us long before we could reach safety." Isilma pauses at the dire thought. She does not mean to be depressing. "Since neither of us can help," she says, a little more brightly, pulling lightly on Aravashnial's hand and beckoning Anevia to come closer, "let us pass the time while Cruroar does his work. Everybody has a story to get them through the bad times: of their god, their nation, their family or their past. Can you tell me yours?" She looks from one blank, quizzical face to another, and realizes she has been too forward. "Or, I can begin." she says, a little embarrassed. "I am sure you know the story of the Quasit's Promise, Atya," she says, looking at Aravashnial. "Please help me if I forget something." Isilma's voice modulates into a deeper, more musical tone that seems to echo as she begins.
"Ilaraviana dwelt in the land/while elven-might new-held in hand/the woven woods of Kyonin:/none ever found the path therein/unbidden, none the forest-eaves/dared pass, or stir the listening leaves.
"To South there lay a land of dread/Tanglebriar where all was dead/in hills of shadow bleak and cold;/beyond was Blasted Tarnlord's hold/in twisted Witchbole's fastness grim/where sun was sick and moon was dim..."
As Isilima begins her stories Cruroar goes back into the room where the Huecuva was and kneels before the altar with his Holy Symbol in his hand.
Horgus is about to continue griping and grumbling when he just sort of gives up, knowing that in the rush of Isilma's words, there's little chance that he can actually get anythingo out. He impatiently sits through Isilma's story barely listening. Anevia and Aravashnial, however, each seem to enjoy it, but for different reasons. It's actually a good story, and brings Anevia some small bit of comfort, but its very likely that Aravashnial has already heard it, so his enjoyment is more nostalgic in nature.