"I would prefer to move as well and to try to find the nexus. Solvi, can you sense it from here?"
Solvistania stares at Gilian, a haunted look in her eyes.
"I...I will try..."
"I think we should know our, terrain. Besides I don't want something big and nasty climbing out of this lake while our backs are to it."
"I think we should know our, terrain. Besides I don't want something big and nasty climbing out of this lake while our backs are to it."
"If there is, we could feed it some delicious organ meat!"
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Solvistania is startled by Duncan’s scream, and she rushes to his side. ”Duncan! What happened ? Speak to me!”
Duncan falls to his knees, almost sobbing, no longer aware of his surroundings.
Finally managing to focus his eyes, but still with a gaze of almost a madman, Duncan first picks up Sorrow, drawing comfort from the weight of the blade in his hand, and searching with his mind for her presence.
"The Mushroom Queen knows we are here, they are coming for us." He manages to utter still, shaking and slowly getting back on his feet. " She reached me from a cave chamber, not really close. She prevented me from reaching something, something closer but still away from us. A fiery name is the only thing I noticed before her will crushed mine... We must defend."
He stands his ground, trying to chase away the cobwebs that still cloud his mind, but resolved to do his best in a fight.
Shaking away the drowsiness that overcame him, he takes his stance, trying to determine how many enemies are there.
There is a hint of madness and bloodlust in his frantic thoughts, something that wasn't there before, like some deep rage waking
Sorok stares for a moment at Duncan as he lays on the ground crying out. Then when the mass of mushroom men come into view, he moves forward to meet them head on. He feels the wash of poisonous spores in the air but is ready for it this time, he breathes shallowly and doesn't even feel the effects of the poison as he readies himself for the coming offensive.
"Duncan! You are stronger than this! The spirit of the knights of old inhabit your heart. This place will not break you."
Ragnar watched Duncan's collapse, and then his maddened reaction with detached concern. Ragnar understood even if Duncan did not. This was so unlike the Knight. It was new. He was vulnerable becuase he was unprepared. The breaking of his weapon had been more than just a simple accident in battle. It wad changed him somehow. Opened him up, made him vulnerable. That much was obvious.
Duncan was all the things Ragnar had wanted to be as a child growing up in Nalford, back when the world was a place where a child could grow up to be a decent sort of person at all, back when there were stories and dreams worth filling a child's head with. As such, Duncan was at the mercy of those same expectations and duties. For him to be what he was meant to be there had to be rules. They gave strength and focus. They were there to force the world to make sense, and they did their job well. They were powerful and convincing, like all the best lies.
Ragnar had become used to things simply not making sense. He spent most of his time following the advice of corpses and talking to animals. He understood far too well that sometimes the only response to a world gone mad is the abandonment of rationality, the embracing of fear and pain. His dead brother had taught him well. When the sleeper wakes to realize the truth of things, that is when one is most easily confused. Remembering that the streets were empty save for ghosts and monsters. Remembering that you would always be a frightened child hiding in a corner praying to uncaring ancestors for one more day. Remembering that the best you can hope for in the world is to find one thing worth having and fight for it clear through to the abandonment of all reason and logic. That was the truth that dreams revealed.
Fatigue, sorrow, frustration, hopelessness, and every other twisted tool or magic the world could come up with could hammer them all they liked. Duncan would remember the things he needed to. For him the dream would live on.
Ragnar, on the other hand, simply would not sleep.
A new wave of exahustion washes over Lyj, combining with his wounds to try to drive him to his knees. He staggers, passes a hand over his eyes, and nearly falls, his hand resting on his leg for a moment - where it encounters the steel of his dagger. He blinks, confusion flitting over his face, and then comprehension dawns as he remembers where he is. He looks up, hand gripping the handle of the sturdy knife, and cold rage suffusing his features.
"I'm beginning to dislike these creatures," he remarks, in a tightly controlled voice.
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"Ware!" Pebble suddenly cries from the stone. "There are more of them! Coming through the cavern floor!" Stony tendrils rise beneath you and they slash the air, trying to capture you and drag you through the cavern floor to your doom.
There are six tendrils in all, but they are thick and covered by suction-cups.
"The tentacles look like the ones I saw on Mushroom Queen's crown! Only made of stone."
Weakened, Duncan watches the tendrils, waiting for them to strike.
"Oh, come ON!" Muni squawks in frustration. "Honestly, this is just getting silly. Muni, wake up the fleabag. I don't think Solvistania will like it if her new pal gets yanked under down here."
The raven lands on Chops' head. "At least it's not the damn dwarf this time..." and brings his beak down sharply.
Hugi flaps down to the unconscious feline. "Wake up the slumbering feline. I feel as though I'm losing credibility as a bird."
"I tire of all this." Ragnar says stepping forward with a growl and raising one gloved hand toward the mushroom people.Ragnar's eyes and the runic Dornish tattoos on his head and arms light up like the spirit torches that surround him. The tiny pebbles and chips of stone rattle and twitch by some unseen hand and the laughing of happy children becomes louder. A cacophony of whispers of Norther echo through the chamber.
"That's it Ragnar!"
"It's about time!"
"Only a little more, and then you'll be through! Keep pushing!"
"You can do it!"
"Feels kinda good, doesn't it?"
"I told you it was all just holding you back."
"It's about time you started listening to us."
The shadows coalesce out before them into a sprinting skeletal form moving with such grace as only supernatural things are able.
The skeletal figure trails smoke and shadow into the darkness, only the pale blue pinpricks of spirit-light inside it's eyes and burning on the edges of it's ghostly knives give hint to it's position.
The movement is as dramatic as it is sudden, the tentacle risng beneath her feet she reacts to the disturbance below, riding the movement, it's eruption throwinging her into the air, her body twisting into a diagonal spin, once, twice, Requem sings through the air in an elegant arc, the aerial momentem directed into a scything strike at the suctioned monstrosity.
Solvistania calls on her arcane well of power as it flows and sings in her veins. She know she has much energy left and she is ready to use it all here, if need be. She sees Ilona and Duncan moving to intercept the suction tentacles on one side, so she turns her attention to the ones behind the fellowship.
Her magic flows from her and soon thick spidery webs flow from the ground, moving to entangle the tentacles.
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1d20+9
1d12+6The movement is as dramatic as it is sudden, the tentacle risng beneath her feet she reacts to the disturbance below, riding the movement, it's eruption throwinging her into the air, her body twisting into a diagonal spin, once, twice, Requem sings through the air in an elegant arc, the aerial momentem directed into a scything strike at the suctioned monstrosity.
With one strike of her blade, Ilona cuts one tentacle clean away.
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Solvistania calls on her arcane well of power as it flows and sings in her veins. She know she has much energy left and she is ready to use it all here, if need be. She sees Ilona and Duncan moving to intercept the suction tentacles on one side, so she turns her attention to the ones behind the fellowship.
Her magic flows from her and soon thick spidery webs flow from the ground, moving to entangle the tentacles.