Kyra's expression of concern for Flibble and Rhanloi quickly turns to a glare as they recover and Flibble suggests abandoning the search. She opens her mouth to speak, before remember that A'letta is nearby - and no longer one of them. After opening and closing her mouth a few times, trying to find the right words, she settles on some, and turns to Flibble coldly. "His Lordship would certainly think less of us if we were defeated by things that aren't even real. He may go so far as to decide that we are no longer worthy of his gifts."
She turns face to the room as a whole, anger rising up within her. "We are not children to be scared away by parlour tricks. I am Kyra, of the Arkona's. I am The Hammer, the Slayer of Goblins, and the Mayor of Sandpoint. You have had your fun, and now I demand an audience."
The house echoes with Kyra's voice, and no creature shows up to answer her. There is silence.
Kyra frowns, cocking her head towards a sound. "Of course." She mutters. Turning towards the others, she grins triumphantly. "She's upstairs." She looks towards A'letta, clearly still displeased with her, but less so with her own ego inflating. "Do you know the way? I might be able to follow the sound of her cries if not."
A'letta shrugs, her muscular undead flesh rippling. "I've never been up to the third floor - mostly, I waited in the foyer or dwelt below. I'm following your lead as long as we're up here - just like I always have been."
Rhanloi will follow Kyra, warily watching for something else to happen...
Kyra's smile falters slightly at A'letta's statement, and for the first time since encountering the altered form of A'letta, Kyra feels the full weight of what had happened. As much as she doesn't want to, she feels somewhat responsible.
'She should have been smarter, more careful.' Kyra reminds herself, but it hardly settles her mind. She'd never even bothered to go looking for A'letta, someone who had stood by her side. And now...
Breaking eye contact first, she turns with a swallow, and heads in the direction of the quiet sobs. Seeing Rhanloi moving to follow, she turns her head slightly, looking sideways over her shoulder at him. "It's likely to get worse before it gets better. Be careful." She speaks loudly enough for all of them, but keeps her focus on Rhanloi, who had already seem to be the most susceptible to the dangers of the house. She knew it wasn't much, but that it was more than she had ever given A'letta, and hoped that maybe it would be enough.
The group heads upstairs, with Kyra at the head of the group, following her lead while she listens to the faint sound of sobbing.
The top floor is an attic with a number of doors, but Kyra zeroes in on one of them and opens it. Inside is not a lavish bedroom or anything exciting, but rather a simple closet containing nothing more than a cupboard. The cupboard faces the opposite wall and behind it clearly comes the sound of sobbing.
Rhanloi enters the room behind Kyra, a spell on his lips in case it is needed...he wants to call out to the sobbing creature, but decides to let the Hammer do the talking, and he would do the spellcasting.
Pick looks to Hammer, his namesake weapon drawn as he edges closer to the cupboard.
Well, it appears to be nothing more than a regular cupboard, albeit both an example of very fine craftsmanship and moldy and poorly-taken care of. The crying woman behind it is completely obscured by its girth but takes no notice of any of the people in the doorway, nor of Pick creeping into the room.
A slight glint off of the opposite wall indicates that this cupboard has a mirror on the side with the door, and that the crying woman is likely staring right into the mirror.
Perhaps cupboard isn't the best word. Wardrobe might be more accurate.
Pick pauses, looking back towards the others. He spreads his hands in a universal gesture that one needs no sign language to understand: what do I do now?
He knows how to ambush drow scouts, not deal with crying women.
After a second's thought, Pick slides his pick back into its belt loop. Then he sticks his head around the edge of the armoire-cabinet-wardrobe-vanity-thing.
"You are noisy."
Kyra nudges Pick out of the way. "Don't startle her." she chastises. "Are you all right?" she calls out to the woman, equally unsure of what to do in this situation.
As Pick and Kyra speak up, the crying subsides. But only for a moment, as it's immediately followed by a bone-rending shriek. "I can smell Aldern's fear from here! He wants to pretend that he doesn't want me, that he would be better off...but he'll be in my arms soon enough!"
She quiets down again and begins to sob, lightly. "But no, I'm not. I'm hideous - Aldern would blanch to look at me." She begins to cry harder, her voice escalating as she does so, though her words are broken by sobs and gasps. "He would hic call me hideous and gasp throw me out but not before I "
You hear the sound of forehead contacting glass. "Oh, but I miss him so much..."
Kyra frowns, her heart beating loudly in her chest. 'This was the plan.' she reminders herself. She moves slowly around the armoire, coming closer to the woman. "I'm sure you're not hideous. And I know he misses you, too. How long has it been since you saw him?"
Kyra is faced with quite the sight - Iesha Foxglove, wife of Aldern Foxglove, stares balefully at her own reflection, crying. Blood runs out of her eyes in place of tears, and her nails have lengthened to wicked claws. Her skin is pale and she gives off a cool aura.
Without breaking eye contact with her own reflection, she responds to Kyra... "It's been.... too long. I don't remember."
"We came up here to rescue her?" says Khalbar doubtfully. "We are ones who may need rescuing. Carefully Hammer. Carefully."
"Khalbar is right, Kyra. Iesha has been transformed into a revenant, a corporeal undead remnant of a living creature, bent on taking revenge. Revenants are unusual among evil undead in that they usually do not target those other than the source of their hatred. Usually..."
Pick's skin crawls a little at the sight of the blood running from the dead woman's eyes, and he is not someone who spooks easily, as a rule. (Well, not with things like this, anyway...)
He bares his teeth unconsciously, pulling back against a wall of the room. For a few moments he is silent, then he says... "You want... us lead you... to him?"
Kyra nods to Rhanloi without turning from the horrible creature in front of her. She looked different than A'letta did, but certainly not any better. Kyra decides very quickly that once Aldern is dead, she'll burn this entire wretched place to the ground. Like the Goblin stronghold. Like all things that are unnatural and wrong.
Moving slowly, she comes closer to the woman, glad that her years of training her body are helping to keep her hands from shaking. She holds one out. "Come with me." She says, simply. "I can take you to see Aldern, and help you get revenge for what happened to you."
She doesn't look away from the mirror, continuing to cry. "I'm just too hideous..." she moans. "He'll never want to see me. He probably wouldn't even recognize me."
"Love sees the world differently. We always see the worst in ourselves, afraid everyone else sees the same things. But the ones who love us see only the beauty. Come - see yourself through the eyes of love..." Rhanloi tries.
Her eyes are still fixed on her own reflection, and still she cries. "I...I just don't think I can. Truly, if you were turned into...this...would you admire yourself?"
Pick squints at the dead thing and her protest. Physical vanity is completely foreign to his mindset-- among the people, there is no concern for looks.
"Maybe stop looking at self," he says.
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"Love sees the world differently. We always see the worst in ourselves, afraid everyone else sees the same things. But the ones who love us see only the beauty. Come - see yourself through the eyes of love..." Rhanloi tries.
"Stop looking in the mirror and seeing only the bad in you. Come, see yourself reflected in Aldern's eyes! We are going to see him right now - we can take you with us." Rhanloi tries one more time. If Iesha still refuses to leave, then he will desist his efforts and head for the door...Carefully...Without taking his eyes off of her...
Iesha just continues to stare at her reflection. "I can't... I can't look away." she moans. "He'll never love me ever again."
Her voice changes to a low grumble. "He'll never love anyone again. He'll be dust in the ground."
Kyra follows Iesha's eyes to the mirror and looks at herself in it for a moment. She looked ragged. Being awake nights with worry over the murders, sleeping in a tree on her way all the way out here. Iesha wasn't the only one who'd have trouble attracting someone. Still, there were things to be done. "I was always taught," she ventures, still looking at her own reflection, "That it wasn't what you looked like, or even who you were, but that it was what you did."
She frowns, and takes a step closer to the mirror, putting her hand on her reflection's face. "Something has been taken from you, part of who you are." Kyra opens her mouth to say something else, and then remember's A'letta's presence. 'Can't be helped.' she thinks to herself, and opens her mouth again.
"He has done this to others, too. Taken beauty, taken strength. Many of them cannot even be here to defend themselves. But you can. You can regain control, for all of them, and most importantly, for yourself." Her arm moving in a blur, Kyra reaches out and punches the mirror.
After watching the mirror shatter, shards of glass falling to the floor around her feet, and trails of blood running down her knuckles, she turns back to Iesha. "Are you ready to get your revenge?"
"Yes."
Iesha seems to gain strength from the mirror's destruction. Her dress bulges atop her putrid musculature and she stands, freed from her reflectory compulsion. She opens her mouth and a piercing growl escapes her lips as she throws her head back. Her open mouth exposes long, sharp rows of needle-like teeth. "ALDERN!" she screams "YOU'LL BE IN MY ARMS SOON, YOU BASTARD!"
With that, she begins to run past the party, down the stairs, and towards the bottom floor.
A'letta stands aside to let Aiesha pass, one eyebrow arching. "Do we follow?"
"Wouldn't miss this for the kingdom!" Rhanloi quips as he quickly follows Iesha...
Iesha pounds down the stairs to the second floor, and then to the first floor and it's all the party can do to keep up (Pick and Flibble in particular have to work particularly hard in order to keep pace with the quick and implacable undead bride).
Going into the main room on the ground floor, she crosses the hallway to the opposite door, flings it open to reveal a staircase going down, and begins to advance down it.
The burning stinger touches your breast and it sears your flesh, and you roll backwards to put out the flame that catches on your robe. Just like that, the manticore is just what it was before - inanimate.
As everyone crosses the main room, Kyra suddenly cries out in pain and leaps out of the marching order, rolling on the ground and patting her chest where a searing red welt has appeared.
Rhanloi looks about for whatever just attacked Kyra!
"Lord and Lady," Kyra curses, standing up and rubbing her chest. "I swore the manticore came to life." She shakes her head. "Gods that hurt." Kyra eyes the creature distrustfully from across the room. "Let's... keep moving. I don't want to stay in this twice damned place any longer than we need to."
There is nothing visible that might have attacked Kyra. The manticore is just that - a stuffed manticore.
A'letta rushes forward at the burned Kyra and reaches towards her. "Kyra! You're hurt - let me heal you. That looks painful."
A'letta has absolutely no intention of healing Kyra, and though her face lacks life and betrays little, it seems now is the time for her to strike.
Pick hisses at the unseen attack that leaves his leader injured. He curses his relatively short legs that have left him at the rear of the pack with the noisy one, and not in the front where he might have taken the punishment in his leader's place!
Pick's lips lift from his teeth at A'letta's offer to heal Lady Hammer. He sulkily watches, feeling as if he has failed, if even the dead thing can do more for his leader than he can. At least the momentary pause gives him the chance to catch his breath and catch up with the others.
Kyra narrows her eyes for a moment as A'letta approaches, but only for a moment. Not wanting to face Aldern in anything less than peak shape, she simply nods and says, "Thank you."
A'letta reaches forward and grasps Kyra on the shoulder. Her hand bubbles with purple energy and the burn on her chest burns anew, welts rising all over her body and her flesh shredding.
A'letta's face is grave as she casts a harmful spell on Kyra. "I'm sorry, but I must serve my master's wishes." she intones.
Initiative Order:
Rhanloi
Kyra
Pick
A'letta
Khalbar
Flibble
Kyra screams out in pain as the magic tears through her body. She knows she can't take another hit like that, but running doesn't feel like an option, either. The stuffed manticore could get her before she crossed the room. Kyra begins to sweat, thinking that this might be the end.
To have defeated a goblin army, become mayor, and possibly lose it all in the home of the first person she saved in Sandpoint, to someone she considered a friend. She looks up at the undead creature, thinking that if it's all going to end here, she may as well enjoy it. She begins laughing, her mouth stained red with blood, and launches into a vicious assault of fists of knees, determined to do as much damage as possible.
Rhanloi shouts an arcane phrase and points at A'letta, causing a bolt of lightning to fly at the undead creature! "Back to the grave! You are not welcome in this world any longer!!"
Pick gapes as the dead creature attacks his leader. He curses himself ferociously for failing to notice, for not trusting his instincts, and launches himself to join Hammer in trying to bring the dead thing down. He swings his pick hard as he circles to aid Kyra in her attacks.
He feels a swell, not just of anger, but of... retribution... seizing his senses. A'letta has betrayed the tribe... and justice will exact suitable punishment.
A'letta is very tough and very fast, though the protection that the Spirits once offered her seems to be gone - Kyra is barely able to land a single blow, though she is strong and it is a punishing one.
Rhanloi maneuvers such that his lightning bolt strikes only A'letta and then lets fly - she is unfamiliar with the new magics that he's learned and has no time to react before the electricity surges powerfully through her.
Pick's blow is similarly strong - the party has learned much since they used to adventure with A'letta, and Pick has learned a lot more about tactics and strength. His blow hits her in the leg, throwing her off-balance while Pick remains on the injured side, ensuring that she has a hard time hitting him.
A'letta herself throws her arms out, unleashing a grave blast of wind towards Pick and Khalbar. The force of the wind keeps Khalbar back but doesn't throw either target back. The wind is, however, foul-smelling and almost assuredly infectious.
Initiative Order:
Rhanloi
Kyra
Pick
A'letta
Khalbar
Flibble
Khalbar sighs remembering his sister of the people. This is not her his mind keeps telling itself. Finally, he cuts loose with his greataxe, tyring to dismember the corpse, but his first attack is not lined up properly, and his axe cleaves nothing but air.
Khalbar struggles to get to her, moving against the plague wind that she's called forth to get him back. By the time he's maneuvered out of the airstream and closed with her, his focus is off enough such that his axe blow misses.
A'letta sighs as well. "I am sorry that this is necessary - the Master requires alone time with his wife and you will only get in the way."
Initiative Order: (round 2)
Rhanloi
Kyra
Pick
A'letta
Khalbar
Flibble