Emi's opponent twists around the attack and comes away unscathed. His expression darkens when he sees the half-orc smashed into the wall by Nebbin. A slip in his mask of confidence.
Tassira gasps for air as Kayleigh's healing snatches her back from the brink.
Her thoughts spin for a moment before she remembers where she is.
She forces herself back to her feet, her eyes blazing with green light and sending a surge of electricity running down her arms.
She then takes a step back behind the shelves, trying to dodge any more incoming attacks.
Regeris looks up through the haze of blood up at the battlefield, and realizes he has two enemies standing right overtop of him, and one swing could send him back to near-death. With the tide of the fight potentially turning, he takes a little to try and grasp the layout of the battlefield before he suddenly twists on the ground with Emi's movements to get to his feet.
The cultists wade back into melee with the party. One slips between Nebbin and Emi to bracket-in the barbarian. He strikes home with the sharp point of his sickle, gouging Nebbin in his side.
The half-orc shifts his oration to a different piece. The cultist behind Nebbin echoes the phrases as he fights. His rapier attack fails to touch Nebbin.
The second cultists attacks Kayleigh who blocks the door. Neither of her attacks penetrates the cleric's defenses though.
The half-orc's disturbing chant causes Kayleigh's blood to run cold; the sudden reappearance at her back of the cultist woman she'd feared she'd let escape adds to her anxiety. Though it's become a bit personal between her and that villainess, the smart move's to attack the other female cultist. Unfortunately, the cleric's strike is tentative and more than a bit pathetic.
for
HP 59/59 (pending reroll of crit)
AC 16, touch 11, flat-footed 14 (-2 to all when raging), DR 2/-
Fort +8, Ref +4 (+1 vs. traps), Will +2 (+2 Will when raging) [Defiant luck]
CMD 20 (22 vs. grapple)
Rage: 4/18; Harrow points: 2/3; Auspicious Mark (1d6+1) 0/1; Defiant Luck: 0/1
Effects: fatigued 9 rounds (-2 Dex and Str)
Nebbin hesitates for a second, wanting to protect Kayleigh, but knowing there are other threats. She's clearly able to take care of herself, and has yelled at him enough times for trying to protect her. So he turns his attention back to the half-orc, face still grim as it's ever been even as he continues to gasp for breath.
Neither Nebbin nor Kayleigh are able to land one of their blows but the 'organization' of the curio shop degrades further into calamity as little tables are broken, mirrors and pictures are shattered, and ancient books come sliding off shelves, half their pages flying free.
Ishan slides over to stand next to Tassira. He reaches out tentatively, obviously unsettled by the lightshow the mage is putting off, but still places a hand on her shoulder and mumbles the words of a prayer. The healing power of Abadar surges into the young mage's body.
Emi holds her spot in all the shifting confusion. She tracks her opponent through his (incredibly stupid to her mind) move to pack tighter into the scrum. Once he's well pinned in she strikes against him.
Regeris is a frightful site. His face is a red mask of blood and he is wild-eyed and furious. Throwing his sword to the ground he pulls out his bow before trying to put an arrow through the eye of the orc.
Tassira fixes her eyes on the cultist fighting Kayleigh. "Straighten up. You won't be able to hit her with a limp wrist."
Regeris's arrow grazes the top of Jorgun's head, causing a fine red flow that comes down over his ear and runs down his shoulder.
Emi wounds the cultist but he continues to press his attack on Nebbin's flank. There's a look of sheer madness in his eyes. It's unclear if he felt the wound that stains his tunic and robes. His sickles bite into Nebbin's unprotected back while the blood-mad warrior stays fixed on the bard.
After his attacks land, the cultist wheels back out of the middle of the scrum in the direction of the backdoor.
At the door between the rooms, the other cultist is able to sneak a sickle attack past Kayleigh's guard.
Jorgun lashes out with his rapier, nicking Nebbin so that he barely feels the wound. The half-orc dances out of the corner, trying to keep his blade between himself and Nebbin's mortal weapon.
Oh hell no you don't!
When Emi sees her target and the half-orc start moving toward the door she decides to block them. Emi expects it's going to hurt, but she steps up onto the stair beside her and hops down at the foot of the stairway and in front of the door.
"Getting too crowded for you? Don't go just yet!" She snarls at the pair before taking another swing at the cultist.
When the female cultist Tassira threatened steps away, Kayleigh briefly considers pursuing to put some hurt on the woman...but that would allow the other cultist to pass through the doorway and threaten the mage and Ishan. Waving first her buckler and then her glowing morningstar in the face of the woman to the north, the young Milanite shifts effortlessly, casting a spell and touching the hand of her buckler arm on Nebbin's back before bringing it back into a defensive position.
Finally, with his feet planted and a target in sight, Regeris focuses on Jorgun.
"The Everbloom protects me! Despair is our enemy and your blight will be destroyed!"
HP 44/59
AC 16, touch 11, flat-footed 14 (-2 to all when raging), DR 2/-
Fort +8, Ref +4 (+1 vs. traps), Will +2 (+2 Will when raging) [Defiant luck]
CMD 20 (22 vs. grapple)
Rage: 4/18; Harrow points: 2/3; Auspicious Mark (1d6+1) 0/1; Defiant Luck: 0/1
Effects: fatigued 8 rounds (-2 Dex and Str)
Still gasping for breath, Nebbin tries to power through the half-orc's guard to cut the man down.
Jorgun deftly turns the bigger blade away from his flesh and towards his fetish-lined shelves.
Ishan reaches over and lays a hand on Kayleigh's shoulder, casting Aid upon his fellow cleric.
Jorgun begins to spin away from combat with Nebbin, but as he turns toward the stairs he takes a pair of expertly aimed missiles from that direction. He crashes back against the wall in surprise and pain.
Emileva gets away with her risky move. The cultist misses with his attack as she clambers over the stair and her slide down the steps is smooth enough to avoid any further exposures in her defense.
Tassira digs her spellbook out again and exchanges one spell of hers for another with a burst of green light.
Emi's attack narrowly misses the lithe warrior, but he's not grinning anymore. The words of the half orc have triggered some manic faith response in the man. His eyes roll wide and spittle flecks his chin. He fights with the total abandon of a man ready to die.
At the prodding of the bard, the cultist leaps up onto the stairs where his cohort died and presses an attack against Regeris, standing there firing arrows from the landing.
The sickles come flashing from multiple angles, too fast for the inquisitor to counter with his bow.
Jorgun follows the man onto the steps, making a passing attempt at Emi as he does so. His flashing cut is parried away - he's good with the light blade, but he's no Vencarlo.
In the other room, the female cultist manages to pry Kayleigh's buckler arm away with one sickle, just enough to sneak the second in to wound the cleric.
Regeris goes down -again- under a bloody assault, crashing onto the stairs. His bow clatters from his hands as everything goes dark.
Kayleigh stifles a gasp as she's cut again, but the wound isn't as severe as she'd feared, or at least hurts less than expected; whatever magic Ishan had cast upon her moments before had aided her greatly.
"Hold her off for a few seconds!" Kayleigh tells Ishan as she scoots away from the doorway to better centralize herself for the positive energy channel to come.
Emi is surprised when the cultist and half-orc go for the stairway. She had been expecting them to try to force their way through her.
She pleased enough with the change in adversaries though, she's even more pissed off at Jorgun than the cultist. After blocking his blade, Emi thrusts with her own trying to run him through.
"Here's for messing with my head you bastard!"
Regeris groans as he hits the ground and is healed once more by Kayleigh. This is becoming an inconvenience. Realizing that he's in a bad position he grabs his bow as he stands, defending himself.
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Tassira aims at the other cultist on the stairs and lets an arcane incantation fly. Her eyes flare with green light, and three green missiles of force launch from her finger to blast the cultist.
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HP 44/59
AC 16, touch 11, flat-footed 14 (-2 to all when raging), DR 2/-
Fort +8, Ref +4 (+1 vs. traps), Will +2 (+2 Will when raging) [Defiant luck]
CMD 20 (22 vs. grapple)
Rage: 4/18; Harrow points: 2/3; Auspicious Mark (1d6+1) 0/1; Defiant Luck: 0/1
Effects: fatigued 7 rounds (-2 Dex and Str)
Glancing over to see that Kayleigh seems to be fine, Nebbin follows the half-orc -- though he hopes she won't be upset by that decision.
She told me this is what I should do...
Nebbin's distracted attack misses Jorgun.
The cultist fighting Kayleigh slashes at her backside as the cleric disengages. . The cleric then fills the room with Milani's healing power, stirring Regeris and the creep at the feet of the stairs (and the feet on Emi) back to consciousness.
Ishan slides into place behind Kayleigh, focusing on defending himself with his little dagger. Around him, the protection of his Sanctuary prayer glimmers subtly.
The revived monk rolls off the side of the steps and remains prone by the shattered remains of the armchair.
As Regeris tries to stand, the cultist rushing up at him uses his sickle to loop behind the inquisitor's ankle and pull him off his feat.
Emi's sword finds the half orc's belly and she slides the weapon through to the hilts. His ugly face twitches in death as he slides off her weapon.
In the other room, by the fireplace that's unlit, the old clock that's not wound chimes one mournful tone.
Tassira's missiles twist about one another on their way across the small room to their target. They slam into the cultist with satisfying force, but fail to bring him down. He dances past Regeris and disappears up the stairs.
"In case you and Regeris want to give chase to that creep that just ran upstairs...," Kayleigh tells Nebbin as she touches his shoulder blade, removing his post-rage fatigue. Then she moves to engage the newly-arisen cultist.
When she sees Jorgun run through on Emi's huge blade, the cultist in the doorway turns heel and runs out the front door of the shop. Once outside, she turns left - in the direction of the flat that Nebbin and Kayleigh searched, and disappears from view.
Regeris' supreme irritation with just everything that is going on is only compounded as he is sent falling to the ground -again- by a sickle swipe before the half-orc bounds past him. Scowling, he grabs his bow, gets to his feet, and just takes off after Jorgun.
Tassira points her fingers at the prone monk and unleashes a blast of lightning.
"Stay down." She growls, rather uncharacteristically.
Emi bounds up the stairs after the monk. She doubts she can catch him in her armor, but it won't be for lack of trying.
HP 44/59
AC 16, touch 11, flat-footed 14 (-2 to all when raging), DR 2/-
Fort +8, Ref +4 (+1 vs. traps), Will +2 (+2 Will when raging) [Defiant luck]
CMD 20 (22 vs. grapple)
Rage: 4/18; Harrow points: 2/3; Auspicious Mark (1d6+1) 0/1; Defiant Luck: 0/1
Effects:
Nebbin flashes Kayleigh a smile, though still a pained one even as he sees a bloody Tassira get up. Feeling like he has his breath back, and seeing Emileva head upstairs, he takes off running after the woman fleeing out the door!
Not wanting to cut her down in the street, he tries to grab her!
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When Nebbin gets to the shop door he spots the cultist crossing the empty street and running for the back of a group of market shoppers. Even with his longer stride, she's going to make the crowd before he can grab her.
Inside the shop, Tassira steps around the bookcase and fries the remaining cultist before he can stand. Ishan steps close and lays a hand on the back of hers as she stands staring at the smoking corpse. He opens his mouth to say something, but stops when the clock behind him chimes a third mournful note.
He turns back to Tassira with a question written on his face, but before he can ask it, the room behind them explodes.
---
Regeris regains his feet as Emi comes charging up the steps. Together they take the second flight and find themselves in a dim third floor corridor. There's a hall immediately to the left and a closed door straight ahead. From down the hall the sound of an opening door draws their attention.
The cultist stands there, two steps into the room at the end of the hall, the knob to the door still in his hand. Beyond the cultist is a candle-lit room with all the furniture pushed to the walls. In the center of the room is a wild pyrotechnic display of blue and purple, with strobes of white like lightning going off in distant clouds.
The light show is spell-binding, and cultist and hero alike are transfixed by it for a moment. There's a moon, cold and huge, hanging over a windless sea. Sharp, dark mountains with sides sheer and lightning-blasted.
In the foreground of the scene something huge moves, raises itself up, dark and menacing, and comes crashing down into, through the cultist. There's no blood. Like the tendril that's transfixed the man is only an apparition, but the man starts to scream nonetheless. The sounds of his screams get sucked away into the swirling storm, along with all the rest of his vitality. He shakes involuntarily as his body shrivels into a desiccated husk on the floor.
As the cultist is consumed, the swirling flashes move faster. There's a slow-building whine that increases with the velocity of the storm to a howling scream. But while it strengthens, its center also shifts down, through the floor, until the room in front of Emi and Regeris is left calm and candle-lit. Through the floorboards, they can hear the storm rage through the shop.
---
The screeching, keening sound of the released phenomenon starts by the ceiling, just above Tassira's head. As it moves down into the room it shifts to the back corner, by the old clock. The whole room is filled with pulsing purple light. Beams from a foreign moon.
Tassira wheels around in shock and briefly tries to identify the purple light.
She doesn't linger too long, though. "Move!" She yells at Ishan and Kayleigh, running as fast as she can out the shop's door.
Tassira's intuition tells her there's a connection to their own investigation. That thing is an outsider. Incorporeal and intelligent. Given how dreams keep popping up as a repeating theme, she guesses it might be a manifested nightmare from the plane of dreams. If so, it is very dangerous. Hard to hurt and innately resistant to spells.
"Some kind of living nightmare--attacking it is only going to make it mad! RUN!"
HP 44/59
AC 16, touch 11, flat-footed 14 (-2 to all when raging), DR 2/-
Fort +8, Ref +4 (+1 vs. traps), Will +2 (+2 Will when raging) [Defiant luck]
CMD 20 (22 vs. grapple)
Rage: 4/18; Harrow points: 2/3; Auspicious Mark (1d6+1) 0/1; Defiant Luck: 0/1
Effects: Charging (-2 to AC)
Unaware of what's happening in the bookshop, Nebbin continues his pursuit after the woman.
"Thief!" he yells, as he races after her and tries to tackle her.
Kayleigh notes that Ishan's white robe has turned a lovely lilac...as have the whites of his widened, fearful eyes. She numbly realizes that, dressed in her healer's whites, she likely looks the same. Even her strawberry blonde hair's probably a pretty lavender shade....
For an instant, Kayleigh faces the...whatever. On some level, the priestess realizes that right now the purple illuminating Ishan and herself is just a reflection of sorts, but if she tarries any longer it might stain her very soul. Tassira's order to "RUN!" snaps her back into the moment. Pushing Ishan after Tassira, Kayleigh races outside, intent on following after Nebbin.
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Regeris stares at the scene he just saw before him, his face a red mask of blood. He turns and looks over to Emi and then realizes the storm - whatever it is- has gone down to the lower floor where the party is. He quickly chants a spell to heal himself.
He sucks in a sharp breath as the healing magic of his beloved goddess soothes his wounds. "Remember what you just saw, it will be important. We need to be with the others - whatever just happened cannot be good."
Regeris turns to Emi and sees a bug-eyed, slack-jawed Emi starting back at him waiting for some kind of guidance. The thing they have seen is well beyond anything she's ever been prepared for. She nods wordlessly and follows him.
Nebbin brings the woman down hard on the cobbled street. A crowd of shoppers, some of whom have been watching since Nebbin kicked the door off the building moments ago, rush up to see the excitement.
The cultist twists as she may, but can't escape Nebbin's grip. Her cowl slips in the struggle allowing Nebbin's first good look at her. She's young. Pale-skinned and brown-haired. Probably much prettier when her face isn't twisted up in hate and curses. She tries to bring one of her bloody sickles to bear. Tries to bite.
"Let go of me!" she screams in the big man's face, spittle flying.
She struggles to look over at someone in the gathering crowd, sticks out an arm to bare a tattooed wrist where others can see.
"Tell the spiders!" she barks at anyone who might listen.
Someone else in the crowd can be heard saying, "The Market Guards are coming."
Some of this is visible from afar to Tassira, Kayleigh and Ishan as they spill out the door and into the street.
Inside, Regeris and Emi come racing down both flights of steps and cross enough of the wrecked back room to see into the room with the fireplace. The gloom there is pierced by the glowing hands and face of the clock in the corner. Standing in front of the clock is a spider-form monstrosity. Its legs and abdomen are that of a huge spider but the upper body is more humanoid. Its almost-human face is marred by a pair of mandibles and black, undersized eyes like chips of coal. It raises its 'arms', two muscular appendages ending in spikes, and issues a rattling call that can only be a war cry.
Regeris looks at the spider-monster, mentally goes through the spells he has left after this hellish day, and also realizes that the group have exited the house.
"Milani is with me, her blade is my blade, the oppressors will fall and a new world shall bloom from the blood of the fallen..."
Raising his bow, Regeris shouts out. "NEED BACKUP!"
"Stop fighting me!" Nebbin tells the woman, looking around to make sure no spiders are actually coming. "Someone get the guard! She's ... We need the guard!"
He hopes they come quickly so he can turn this woman over and then all the fighting will be done. He looks over his shoulder to see whether the others will be joining him soon. Fortunately, it seemed like all the fighting inside was over.
The woman in Nebbin's grasp suddenly relaxes. She twists back to look into Nebbin's face and says, "Please release me, I can hardly breathe."
Back inside the shop, Regeris's shot deflects off the chitinous armor of the monster. It charges forward to attack Emi. The monster is faster than it looks, and one of its spikes gashes Emi's arm.