"It can only have so many arms." Rudabeh says optimistically about Litta's observation. "Even counting for 6 to 8 tentacles, we still have it outnumbered."
A solemn nod, swallowed by her helmet and pauldrons, follows the archer's hope they could fight the creature on land. "Me too. I have fought many monsters in the past decade, and each holds its own surprises. Several have come dangerously close to claiming my life. If there is one thing I have learned, it is having someone watch your back is the best defense against surprises, so I hope we can fight it at our advantage for as long as possible." Her limpid gaze turns to Litta, and the paladin motions for them to return to the makeshift camp.
Working through the afternoon in the sun was not Rudabeh's idea of a good time- her gambeson was soaked through with sweat and more than once considered jumping into the lake to "scout". Yet there was meaning into work, and she was happy to see the mercenary company cooperating, showing their individual strengths, and putting their minds towards a singular goal. This was a community, and she meant to lead it using Alseta's guiding principles.
The moon begins to rise in the east, and Rudabeh wonders if it has any relation to Groetus, the ever-threatening moon hanging over the Boneyard. Maybe even moons had families, and Groetus simply died long ago, possibly after not being invited to any holiday feasts.
Nearby, soldiers find idle time in the dying light- cards and dice games pop up, and rings are tossed onto an excess, slanted archer's spike that didn't make the cut for the fortifications. She goes to each small gathering in turn, alleying fears or answering questions about the operation, saying nearly the same thing every time:
"Drive it back to the waters carefully, and strike when you know your weapon will swing true. for I am relying on all of you to support my final charge. Though we find it our living, our duty, to put ourselves in harm's way for the sake of others, I will not willingly throw any of you into excessive danger, and a cornered monster of this size is the most dangerous of foes. I plan to face it in its lair not for glory, but for all of you to see tomorrow's dawn. Together, our overlapping strengths make up for any one person's weakness, and we will overcome this."
The reactions to her little speech is mixed. The younger or more educated soldier react with sober and serious nods, understanding what she is saying. The more jaded however merely grin and one comments, "If the gnomes keep providing free food, we'll stay and slay all the angry turtles you want."
Turtles? It wasn't a slur against Alseta...was it?
Ractus nods when he overhears Rudabeh's recitation and follows up on it, as both of them stare westward toward the sinking sun. Rays of orange fill the sky, and make Rudabeh's armor a burnished flower of red and gold for a few moments, before the shadows reach out to claim it.
"Excessive danger is...debatable." The elf comments dryly, "We could just leave, after all. Very little danger in that. Odds are someone will get hurt tomorrow and I'm sure they would consider it 'excessive' even if they just stub their toe." But then the mercenary shrugs, "But as you say, it is our stock and trade. I've fought for worse reason then slaying a deadly monster."
In her mind Teken adds, A worthy cause. Also, perhaps the hide or teeth will be worth something.
True night starts to fall and Rudabeh orders the Company into position. Men and women take up their appointed places behind small barriers of brush and scrub, with more then a little grousing as they bump into each other or foul up spears. Rudabeh can see they need more closer-order drill, but what Company didn't? Archers crouch behind the polearms and swordsmen, and stick plenty of projectiles into the dirt around them.
Rudabeh takes up point, with Ractus on the other flank. She turns her steady gaze onto the still water, the deepening darkness no barrier to her vision. Apart from possibly Ractus, if anything appeared the undine would see it first.
The night deepened as they waited. The last glimmers of sunlight faded and the stars came out over head, swirls of icy blue and dim reds. Bats flapped overhead, swooping over the water to catch the evening's first crop of biting insects. The moon rose ever larger and brighter, bright enough to cast dim shadows on the lakeshore. And the water remained still.
Then...she saw something. A disturbance in the water, where the surface seemed to bugle up, like a hand pressing up a sheet. Long experience with the water let Rudabeh know something was shifting, just under the surface. Before she could signal to anyone, she saw another bulge alongside the first. Two arms? Two beasts? Distance and size was hard to make out in the color-blind gloom, with no object to provide scale. Was it small and near the shore or very large halfway across the lake?
Just as she opened her mouth to whisper to the closest mercenary the thing breached the surface. A rough carapace sluiced water away as it surfaced, making a glittering curtain of falling droplets. A high domed shell broached, making small waves. Rudabeh at first thought it was perhaps a crab, with the deep furrows in the hard shell but quickly saw it was not a crab.
It was a giant clam. A massive, swimming clam. And massive was the right word, the thing was bigger then an horse or an ox, far larger. It was as big as a small fishing boat, fully as large as the elephant Rudabeh once saw in a Taldor traveling menagerie. The barnacle encrusted shell grated nearly silently over the sand as it essentially started to roll and crush their stakes.
A second clam began to breach behind it, sliding up the shallows.
Rudabeh is unsurprised about some of the soldier's reactions. After all, they all had their own minds and agendas, and not everyone here believed in the Pact of Years, its mission, or bringing order to the land as she did. She just wanted them to know that as their commander, she was there with them, and would not throw them into a situation that she herself would not be in front of first.
As the sun dips below the horizon and Ractus goes on about how they could just leave or beat up some gnomes, she does wonder if, in time, she will be able to convince all of these newly minted soldiers that fighting for the Pact of Year was a just cause in itself. Surely they would lose a few more as time went on and the pay stayed the same... perhaps she should start recruiting, but they really needed some unifrms first...
"We were ordered to go to Outsea by Veleda, and I intend to follow that order." She says to Ractus, just to show him that she was listening. "If there are a few monsters threatening burgeoning villages that we can eliminate along the way, I'd say that's a bonus."
That is awfully pragmatic of you, I didn't know you had a mercentile side. I'm fortunate you haven't demanded a salary from me. Is her response to Teken, with a hint of teasing. Though, an idea occurs to her. Though, if you ever want me to purchase a book or two for you, just say something. We don't always have to be reading the same thing, and I owe you that much at least.
Night falls and the watch begins, Rudabeh next to Ractus, the distant grazing sheep's lead tied off to a stake nearby. The camp was quiet except for the occasional uncontrolled cough or harsh whisper from a checked hip, but she had to note that they kept to silence as much as could be expected from a group of professional fighters.
At the first sight of their crowning prey Rudabeh's mouth opens, but her voice catches in her throat when she realizes it was a giant clam. Giant octopus, crayfish, maybe even an ooze of some sort she had mentally prepared for, but a calm?. The barnacles dotting its surface informed her it was indeed a calm and not a freshwater muscle, but that merely raised more questions that caused her great confusion.
Had this thing... these things, now that she saw the second one.... come from outsea? How did they get here? How were they surviving and WHY, why in the name of Alseta was it rolling around on the shoreline for locomotion?
Rudabeh had no time to be ashamed at the lack of answers. They had to stick to the plan and draw them inland. "Two giant clams just breached. Do you see them? Start pulling the sheep in slowly." She says quietly to Ractus, so unsure of everything she didn't know if these clams to hear or not. To the nearest soldier she turns and whispers. [smaller]"Two monsters. Ready for my signal. Pass it on."[smaller]
The paladin reaches down with her left hand, finding The Sixth Peak's leather-wrapped grip where she had propped it up. Yet she does not yet draw, and waits to see if Ractus will need assistance reeling one of the clams into their trap. They had discussed and drilled in the possibility of several of the company's strongest taking up the rope to literally drag the creature ashore if it clamped onto or swallowed the sheep, but could they match strength with such a huge creature?
The men grab the sheep rope, hands gripping the rough hemp in the dark. Rudabeh's eyes, not cheated by the dark, watch the operation with growing concern. Some of the men seem listless, groggy. Surely they hadn't already fallen asleep? She knew night watches would wear but really it had only been a few hours since dusk.
Surely they hadn't been drinking.....but no. They hadn't been drinking, Rudabeh had worked with these men all day. The paladin had nothing across an honest drink after a day's labor but not before a fight. Rudabeh knew captains who encouraged so-called Andoran courage but she (and had found Ractus as well) was one of them. What was going on? Magic? Something with the moon? bad luck?
Well, whatever it was, it was enough to derail her plans. The men seized the rope and started to gently pull on it. Off in the dark the sheep bleated annoyingly and trotted with the pull, being used to such lines.
Behind it the dark shapes of the clams loomed, struggling forward over the wet grass at the lake's edge. There was a heavy sloshing noise as they reached dry land and wriggled forward, creating the wide slides Litta and she had seen that morning. One slightly opened the massive 'jaws', revealing a pearly white interior for a second, before closing it again. Rudabeh winced at the idea of such a trap snapping on her leg or torso. These beasts were big enough to swallow a man whole, if they had a mind too.
Best end this quickly. Worse luck, arrows would be useless unless she managed to keep their 'mouths' open. The hard carapace likely would be as thick as a brick wall, and as tough. Not even any eyes to aim at. Damn mollusks.
Rudabeh spends a second or two longer than she should have watching the soldiers work, noting their listless behavior and wondering why a group of seasoned professionals used to long watches and hard marches would suddenly feel tired after a few hours of no sleep. If it were some sort of magic, why wasn't she affected?
The sounds of giant clams sloshing on the lake remind her it was a mystery for another time. Stoically she stands, one hand on her sword's sheath, gauging whether or not it was safer to stick to the plan or if a change in tactics was in order.
Upon seeing the glistening white interior of the house-sized mollusk for a moment she considers charging forward with knifein hand, and together her and Teken could shred one clam from the inside like a zebrafish inside a grouper's mouth while the company takes care of the other clam. Yet, knowing these clam ate entire sheep gave her pause, for even if she were to manage to miss its crenelated jaws, how else might this creature have adapted to eating meat?
If only they could summon a giant octopus, or crab...
Sucking in her breath, Rudabeh grabs the leather strap of The Sixth peak and throws it over her shoulder, quickly turning to Ractus and speaking in a normal voice. The time for stealth was over. "They're too big to fight in the open. We will fall back to the treeline and get them stuck on the stumps or wedged between trees."
She lifts an arm and points across the cleared field, treetops visible in the moonlight a short distance away. "Take the lead, I will take the rear and, Alseta willing, ensure none are left behind."
And then, with a single phrase, the machinery of cooperation begins to grind. "FALL BACK!" Rudabeh shouts, causing the sudden movement of dozens of bodies. As a cacophony of jangling weapons, armor, and curses erupt all around her, she takes a quick step to the sheep's lead and grabs it, shooing away the men that had taken up the task of pulling. "Go! I'll bring up the rear."
Quickly she unties the sheep's lead from the stake, wrapping the rope about her vambrace and forcibly pulling it along with her- dragging the creature through the mud if she must. As the clam's slow, sloppy, and thunderous movement echos behind her, she sweeps her darkvision from side to side, looking for lagging or disorganized soldiers and instructing others by name to help them through the stump-laden field. They had drilled for a tactical withdrawal to the treeline, but that was in the daytime. She had to keep this perilous change of positioning from turning into a rout.
Rudabeh has one great advantage in helping her men withdraw from their established positions. An elephant sized clam was terrifying and very easy to run away from. In her head, Teken, whose grasp of her mental knowledge was always fluid commented, This beast...you know it? You seem to both recognize it and yet be surprised by it. Is it not normal? A pause and then, It is large.
It was indeed, the lumbering shapes were surely larger then some of the houses her mercenaries had grown up in. Men and women broke cover and darted for the trees around her, gray wraiths in the dim light. A few of the more clumsy tripped and fell in the gloom, but others stopped and helped. It was a quick retreat, but not a rout. Rudabeh was proud of them. The paladin runs along side them, bringing up the rear and helping the slowest. Her armor glitters like frost in the night, a beacon for others to rally and use as a lighthouse.
Then something surprising happens.
One of the sliding clams pauses slightly, rising like a looming mountain against the starry sky. The huge hoary lips part slightly, revealing the pearly inside for a moment. Then there is a wet, spitting sound as something white shoots out of the clam and heads directly for the undine paladin, sailing over what must be fifty feet of ground.
Something very hard clangs against Rudabeh's shoulder plate with a sound like broken crockery. There is a shower of sediment as the clam's projectile shatters against her steel armor. It makes the metal ring like a bell but Gezzerbial's skill saves the undine again, and her metal shell holds.
Ractus pauses and glances back, "They have range? That complicates things. "
Clams are not supposed to be this large. Or here at all! Rudabeh thinks towards Teken as she hooks one arm underneath a dwarf's armpit and hoists them back upright with an effortless grunt.
She hears the slopping movements of the clams stop for a moment and briefly spins around, looking into colorful maw of the clam for a brief moment before something comes flying out. The undine was so surprised she does not move until her shoulder jerks backwards from the force of the blow, and a curse dies in her throat with a backwards stumble. How?! Is all she can think, completely mystified by these surely magical creatures.
Rudabeh turns and keeps dragging the sheep towards the trees. "All the better we have cover. They see quite well for having no eyes." She remarks for Ractus once they reach the trees. Letting go of the sheep's lead, she directs turns around and pulls her sword from over her shoulder.
"LIGHT!" The paladin shouts as she grasps the hilt of The Sixth Peak with one hand and the plain leather sheath with the other. Pulling the blade free and tossing the sheath to the side, she raises the greatsword into a high guard. The edge of the blade suddenly bursts into flames as Aurelia (hopefully) lights up field of stumps before them, with Rudabeh standing some ten feet from the treeline ahead of everyone else.
"We make our stand here! Archers, fire into their mouths when they open! Ractus, ready to the footmen to flank!" Though she stands alone in the field, flaming sword and gleaming armor hopefully drawing the clam's attention, she does not fight by herself. She tries to draw the clam's ire for the moment, opening their mouths for arrows and bringing them closer so they might get stuck on a stump and overwhelmed from the side.
Rudabeh turned around, facing the giant, elephantine clams. She set one armored foot on a tree stump, bracing herself as she rallied her troops. Her sword burst into sudden flame, the brilliance reflected a hundred-fold from her armor. For a moment she seemed like a beacon on a clear night, shining and clear.
And then the sun came up.
Or so it seemed. From somewhere behind, just among the trees, there was a flare of light so bright, it easily matched that of the noonday sun. Instantly both Rudabeh and the pale moon overhead were shaded into insignificance as the shoreline flared into stark view. In that moment Rudabeh could see it all, colors bursting to life around her.
Tree stumps cast obsidian hard-edged shadows, arcing toward the distant lake whose surface glittered like a rich man's dining plate. The towering clams were revealed to be a dark, smoky grey, veined with streaks of deep purple. They seemed to waver in the bright sunlight, evidently surprised by the sudden dawn.
Things had gone well, actually. The clams were slow and clumsy, and were now trapped in a wreckage of stumps and brush. She could stand off, pepper the clams with arrows until they were injured. Then she, and the best armed fighters, could move in close for the kill.
Then Rudabeh saw something that made her heart stop.
Not all of her troops were behind her, or at her side. Fully one quarter of her force still lay in front of her, scattered across the beach and prepared positions like scattered twigs. For a horrifying moment she thinks they are all dead, somehow struck down in an instant. But no, they are not corpse. They are simply lying down, as if asleep or drunk. She had missed them in the scramble of the retreat, for the undine had only had eyes for moving targets in the gloom. She had assumed even the most panicked and rough recruit would at least move. Rudabeh had never rally looked at the ground.
But now she sees them, prone men ripe for devouring. The clams are dazed for a moment but surely they would find Rudabeh's fallen comrades in a moment. Worse, it meant the archers and infantry would be weaker then she planned. They would have to be far more aggressive then she initially planned. Keeping range would be a death sentence for the men left behind.
Rudabeh was very glad Aurelia had maintained her position at the back of the formation when the world around them seems to go from midnight to midday. Had the young sorcerer been ahead of them, Rudabeh might have been blinded instead of inconvenienced by a momentary squinting. Through her eyelashes the undine's predator-like vision picks out all sorts of details on the clam's mottled shells, and she is calculating if she should attempt to bait the calm into revealing its soft innards and poking at it with her sword or to bash her pommel against its calcified exterior and crack it when other shapes start to coalesce beneath behind the long shadows of stumps.
Her jaw falls from a confident, square position to slightly agape when she notices nearly 25% of the soldiers were strewn about the ground from their staging position. Not in her most anxious calculations had she anticipated a loss of over 10% of their troop, and now more than twice that was already lying on the ground in front of the entire company to see.
"They're alive! Quickly, now!" She shouts upon noticing the haggered movements of those lying on the ground, some struggling to stand or move. With little thought, she yells the first plan that comes to her mind. It takes only a sweep of her eyes across the assembled soldiers to pick out the huge kellid "Danngu, with me!" "Ractus, take every footman and swarm the smaller clam! Archers, take any shot you get into their mouths!" It was hard to see farther back in the ranks, but she knew the young girl was there. "Aurelia, save your fireball until you can make one of them swallow it!"
Pulling up her bevor as Danngu lumbers to her side, he catches one last glimpse of her cool sapphire eyes before they disappear behind the shining slats of her visor. "We're going to distract the big one. Maybe get its mouth stuck open so Aurelia can roast it." Her muffled voice is unsure of the plan itself, but there is no wavering or whimpering in its tone. She knew their job was the most dangerous, and needed someone both tough and brave to help. "If your people have any songs about slaying clams, I'd like to hear it." Are her last words before she waves him forward towards the dazed mollusks, flipping her sword upside down so the flaming guard is set firmly over her right shoulder and pressed into her gorget.
Boots start in motion over the ground in a testing plod, and the paladin quickly finds her footing in a righteous charge. The languid bodies of her comrades pass by her, pumping blood and clanging steel filling her ears while the massive bivalve fills her vision. Running right up to it she hefts her sword by the blade and brings down the burnished steel guard of The Sixth Peak right on the clam's crenelated mouth, transferring all of her momentum into the hammer-like blow.
Ractus shouted back in agreement before turning back on the men. "Look alive, men! Straighten up! You there, come along! We going to let the Commander charge by herself?" Under his goading the soldiers checked their retreat and turned about, readying weapons in the last moments before charging.
To her dismay she didn't see Litta among the archers, and that was a sore blow. The red-haired hunter was a not only a good shot, her calm demeanor was a rock to the other, more flappable men. Was she down among the bodies on the shore?
Daangu looms like a rock, face oddly shadowed by the still brilliant brightness. Unlike most of her men he doesn't grin or crack his own joke at Rudabeh's jest but merely nods and raises his odd, spear like weapon. The point glitters like honed ice.
Then they charge, the big man just behind her to her left. They cover the uneven ground quickly, booted feet stamping into the soft earth. Clods of sand and soil fly into the air, and Rudabeh simply crushed any bracken in her way, thorns and twigs snapping against her hardened steel coating.
Leading from the front. Teken says approval in his thoughts. This is good, it will encourage the others to follow.
Then his voice was drowned out by the hiss of steel swinging through the air as the paladin brought her sword down in a massive, overhand stroke that could have decapitated an ox. Sixith's Peak shining steel, outlined by flame, swung down in a perfect arc.
And bounced off.
The clam's thick outer shell was more like rock, then living flesh. Rudabeh was familiar with shellfish and had even seen clams nearly this size in her youth, with bowls big enough to sit in. How many had she cracked over the years? Hundreds? Thousands? But she had never tried to slice one open with a sword. She might have been better off with a hammer. Her blade merely left a scored mark in the clam's armor, a bright streak of exposed purple.
Behind her she heard the rest of the Company start to run, screaming and yelling. She imagined it was an imposing sight, dozens of men running out of the blinding light of Aurelia's spell but the undine saw none of it. Her view was just a wall of clam, arcing like a cliff face above her.
The clam did not seem to react to either the charging horde or her own attack. Rudabeh had seen such behavior before in apex predators. They were so accustomed to dominance, they did not even recognize danger. The paladin doubted anything lived in this river that could bother one of these leviathans, apart from a dragon. Even the mobogo she had fought would have had a hard time tackling these bivavles. That said, the clam wasn't unaware of her presence. It just didn't regard her as a threat.
Merely as food.
The clam doesn't have to move fast to catch Rudabeh, the paladin is standing right in front of her. It merely opens its massive jaws, the crenellated opening revealing mass of fleshy white. Rudabeh's view through the visor goes very white as the clam looms over her, mouth agape. Then goes very black as the clam snaps shut with the speed of a snake.
There is a almighty clang as the clam bites down on Rudabeh's armor, the forced nearly staggering her to her knees. It is followed by a crunching sound as the sheer force bends the metal and squeezes her body. Her entire upper half is held in the clam's jaws and her vision is just a chaotic dark field. Then she hears someone shout near at hand, and a spear is thrust past her.
Dannagu twists the blade and a thick purple spray of blood fills the inside of the titanic mollusk's mouth. Clearly the man had readied his blow for just such a case, striking at the tender inside of the beast. The clam lets out a gurgle bellow and drops Rudabeh, releasing her back to the bright light of the shore.
Above arrows wine and skip off the clam's hide, few causing any harm. The mouth closes but a dribble of purple blood drips out, like someone biting a raw tomato.
At her side Danngu merely salutes her with the tip of his spear, before facing the clam again, knees bent, spear at the ready.
Rudabeh's arms feel numb as her first blow is akin to hitting a rock, and if she weren't concentrating on saving the lives of the soldiers under her command she would be concerned for the integrity of her sword.
Within the limited view of her visor she was unable to see the clam shift and catch her side with one of its crenelations, scooping her up and smashing her torso within its hardened maw. The undine feels her guts crushed by the house-sized creature, and her unmitigated cries of pain echo out of its gaping maw. If it wasn't for Dannagu's quick strike that briefly stunned the calm she would have surely been squeezed in half.
Stumbling backwards with a gasp, Rudabeh's tear-distorted vision registers Dannagu's salutes and she reflexively lifts her left hand to signal she was okay. This hand quickly goes to her midsection, where a blast of white light stops the pain and partially heals her bruised intestines.
With little though her hands go back to the hilt of her sword, bringing her sword down to assume a boar's tooth stance , tip low to the ground. She waits for the clam's next attack, ready to bring her blade up and into its soft insides as it attempts to crush her once again.
The divine healing merely banishes the crushing pain to the background, it does not dismiss it. Deep down, the undine knows she is still quite injured and another such attack may not end so easily. Still, what else can she do? Politely ask the giant, growling clam to retreat?
Sixth Peak flashes in the artificial sun like a jumping trout as Rudabeh again attacks. Her first blow manages to slide past the gnarled, knotty lips of the beast and slice into the softer insides. Deep purple blood spurts out like a geyser, splashing her glittering armor as if a mad painter had suddenly erupted into inspiration. The clam lets out a gurgled roar of surprise and pain as this new spike gouges its softer inner core. Closing its mouth, Rudabeh second strike clangs harmlessly off the apparently impervious outer shell.
At the edge of her field of view, partly obscured by her visor, she can see Ractus leading the attack on the other clam. While none of their attacks are quite as potent as hers, sheer numbers seem to be making a difference. It is hard to tell but it seems the massive mollusk may be retreating slightly, confused by the total barrage of swords, axes and arrows.
The paladin's own combatant seems uncowed however, showing no signs of retreat or even distress. Instead, even as Rudabeh watched, it bore down on them, falling like a great ship's prow. It first lurched toward Rudabeh and then toward Dannagu.
The huge shell slams into Rudabeh, making her whole body ring like a bell. The force is so strong it actually drives the armored paladin into the soft ground, as she were a glittering nail. Her greaves vanish into the muddy ground for a moment, and she topples and falls prone in front of the huge monster. At her side, Dannagu also takes a blow but manages to keep his feet.
The tall man looks down at Rudabeh, up at the clam and then reaches down to touch Rudabeh's shoulder. At first she assumes his is about to help her up, and he does do that, but she also feels a sudden surge of power and vigor enter her limbs. It is as if liquid fire has been poured directly into her muscles. They flex and grow, straining under her cotton and leather padding. In her mind Teken exults.
It was a strange sensation, being driven into the ground.
Rudabeh had been sucked downward by undertows and the like, but the water had a natural flow and continuation of force that made it predictable, even useful.
The sudden start (of force, and pain) to the top of her high-crested helmet, down her spine, and into her boots made her want to retch up anything the gnomes had given them, especially when her stomach hit the bottom of her diaphragm at the sudden stop. Confused and unsteady, Rudabeh topples to the ground in a clatter of steel, visor hitting churned earth but keeping her face out of the mud. Besides her The Sixth Peak continues to burn, scorching grass and making muddy water sizzle along its length.
It took a moment for her brain to restart, but she had only one thought: Move. Instinctively she uses her sword as a lever, propping herself up and her pressing her hand to her chest. The paladin floods her body with positive energy and rids herself of the pain that had just started to register in her neck. Simultaneously Dannagu touches her shoulder, and a rush of power fills her with a greater strength than she's ever known.
Before, she might have been content to slug it out with the clam and wait for reinforcements, but now all she can think about is its soft, meaty insides, waiting to be pried open by a giant crab. A common Alsten saying runs through her mind: Some doors only open from the inside.
A muddy but firm hand reaches out to take the skald's, and she grips it tightly. She pulls her legs out of the mud with a slorp, and as soon she she's raised herself high enough her flaming sword is tucked under her left arm, guard over her shoulder.
While this would be a socially appropriate time to let go of Dannagu's hand, instead she holds it tight. "Help me jump into its mouth!" Rudabeh instructs, though she knew it was no small feat. Even if she were partially propelling herself, throwing 200 pounds of flesh and steel was going to tax even the big man at her side. But she could get inside and wedge her sword in the clam's mouth, it would be vulnerable to their archers and more importantly, Aurelia.
Use the spikes when we're in! She instructs Teken, who would provide traction and a deterrent to any tongues inside the clam's slick interior.
Rudabeh surges to her feet, even as the clam's huge body bears down on her again.
It slams off her steel armor, nearly knocking her over again, but she manages to stay steady this time. Then she asks her question.
Even in the midst of battle, smeared by mud and blood, with her field of view confined to a tiny slit, Rudabeh can see she has surprised Dannagu. The man's usual solemn, sober mask slips when the paladin asks for help to be swallowed.
"What?" he stammers, "Are you...sure?"
In her mind Teken replies in his usual dry tone, Inside? Curious.
But there is only that moment of hesitation. Dannagu kneels down, and joins his hands together into a makeshift step for Rudabeh to climb on. Like a child getting a boost over a farmers fence, the armored paladin stands on one leg, waiting for the right moment. Above the huge clam looms like a barnacled wall of stone. A shower of arrows cracks off the harden carapace, doing little but gouging tracks in the algae. Then the mollusk's mouth edges open slightly, revealing the soft white interior.
Danngu reacts in an instant. With an suddenness that surprises the undine, she is launched into the air as the big man heaves her upward. At the same time, Rudabeh flings her gauntleted hands upward, hoping to find purchase on the cliff-like clam's mouth. With a ringing sound of steel on stone, she finds the lip, hanging on like a mountain climber to a new hold.
Using the last of her momentum she swings up and inside the huge beast. The world whirls around her in swirls of color as she flops over the hardened lips and into the interior. Even as she clatters her way in, the huge mouth snaps closed with shocking speed.
It cuts off all light and all sound. Rudabeh is suddenly alone, floating in a strange world of water and slime. Utter blackness. She has no purchase in any direction, just the same, uniform formless mass of soft flesh. A reek of decaying fish and stale water fills her nostrils, making her stomach heave. For a second she almost panics, losing herself in confusion.
Then she raises her sword and fire bursts into view. With a sizzling crackle Sixith Peak flares to life, casting a red glow in that strange place. Rudabeh realizes she is on her back, facing upwards toward the smooth inner shell. White with deep veins of purple, like gems locked in hard rock. Beneath her an undulating morass of writhes.
Then in her mind Teken, coughs.
Razor sharp tines spring out from the armor, gleaming mirror bright. They slice into everything they touch, deep purple blood fills the tiny chamber. There is a gurgling, sucking roar from somewhere deeper into the clam. Rudabeh's entire world rocks back and forth, sloshing her around.
A harsh chemical tang enters the air and a rush of new fluid pours onto Rudabeh. A searing painful, burning sensations weeps over her body. Acid!
It is like someone has coated her in liquid fire, and it seems she can feel her skin melting and fusing to the inside of the armor. Perhaps jumping directly into the thing's stomach was...unwise.
Rudabeh was trying to commit Dannagu's surprised face to memory for a laugh later, but she decides to focus instead on landing her feet in his kip-up. Launching through the air like a some sort of muddy, glistening beetle taking flight, gloved hands grab onto the crenelated mouth of the clam and she hoists herself inside.
The snap of its closing mouth makes her ears ring, cutting herself off from the fresh air outside. It reeked, and she nearly heaves in the confused darkness, before grabbing her sword and casting The Sixth Peak's flaming, holy light across the inner chamber of the beast whose belly she had invaded.
Beautiful, and disgusting. Is her last coherent thought to Teken as he wills her (their?) armor to sprout think burrs all over its surface. Scrambling to find purchase amongst the sloshing, she manages to flip over and dig her spiked couters in purple flesh just as a sour tang fills her nostrils and burning liquid falls over her back.
Yelling in surprise and pain as acid drips into the joints of her armor, she quickly places a hand to her chest- the warm light of Alseta regenerates her burnt flesh as quickly as the acid burned it away, but the pain is a harsh reminder that she did not know everything about clams.
Quickly, desperately, Rudabeh crawls her way to the mouth of the clam, seeking purchase with her elbows and pushing herself forward with the barbed kneecaps or greaves of her armor. She leaves a trail of purple blood in her wake, tearing apart soft membranes and exposing white clamshell beneath.
As the "ground" begins to slope upward and the slit of the clam's mouth becomes visible Rudabeh lunges forward with a triumpant yell, grabbing her sword hilt with two hands and thrusting the burning steel into the clam's upper "lip". She strains and pushes past cooking purple flesh to get the sword stuck in deep and begins to push with her legs.
Her right hand stays clutching The Sixth Peak's hilt, while the left quickly switches grab one of the 6-inch guards for extra leverage. Teeth clench, and every muscle of her body strains as she tries to pry open the clam's mouth, slowly pushing forward and up.
Three hopes coexist equally in her subconscious:
The clam, as clams are wont to do, would try to protect itself and only attempt to close its mouth against her sword.
She was stuck in place by Teken's spikes, and the calm wouldn't be able to shake her loose.
The clam's stomach, and its acid, was far behind her.
Ruabeh has crawled through some unpleasant places in her life, before. Muddy battlefields, dusty basements, disused Outsea maintenance tunnels and one memorable night in a Bastard Brigade latrine. But nothing was quite like this.
It was like crawling through a water barrel full of vinegar while it was being rolled down hill. The clam shook and swayed as it, presumably, continued to fight or flee with the rest of the Company. The acid sloshed around her with the motions, splashing her painfully. Then she started to climb upwards, like a child trying to roll up a grassy hill. It wasn't easy but the long shards of metal helped her maintain a grip in that slippery hellshole.
As she climbed and sought her foot, she found, much to her surprise, sudden beauty. The clamshell, here on the inside, was shot through with rows of glittering colors, layered like sediment in a rock wall. As the massive mouth opened and shut above her, colors flashed into view. Ribbons of mauve, cerise and burgundy were sandwiched together, trailing off into the blackness of the clam's depths. Fuchsia, chartreuse were put under her heel as she climbed. One streak seemed a utterly, totally black, onyx.
Then she reached her destination, the lower 'lip', which was really a hardened ridge of stone-like shell, sharp as a knife. It was iridescent in the shifting light, glittering like jewels. Ruby, sapphire, emerald green, it reminded Rudabeh of the ocean floor. But the paladin had no time for that. She took her sword and rammed it into the upper lip, the sharp steel grating on the slab-like shell.
It slid for a moment, and Rudabeh worried she would not have purchase but then the point caught in some crevice or crack, holding firmly. Then, using her pointy body, Rudabeh placed her strength under the blade and pushed it upward. It is like pushing a mountain. Rudabeh heaves with all her strength.
It isn't nearly enough. Their is a deep roar from the depths of blackness behind her as the huge beast finally notices her. With a force like a man crushing an ant, it bears down on the paladin's sword. There is no hope of combating such strength by sheer will alone. Her feet start to slip and then...something happens very quickly.
The sword is wrenched out of Rudabeh's arm and thrust downward...where the hilt catches on the lower lip. In an instant the sword becomes a steel pillar, fixed fast in both the top and the bottom. The clam's mouth freezes in place, unable to close. behind her the growling roar grows in intensity, fueled by blind rage. With renewed fury the clam bears down, trying to crush whatever annoyance laid between its hardened jaws. But Sixth Peak was not an idle thing, made by some village blacksmith's apprentice. It was dwarven-made of hardened tempered steel, and it did not break or bend under the strain. It held firm and merely cut deeper into the clam.
For a moment the clam is stuck, mouth held agape by the sword. Acid sloshes around Rudabeh's feet, splashing her painfully.
Rudabeh feels her calfs shaking, hamstrings burning on the inside and out, and her shoulder chafes against the burnished steel of her sword as she desperately attempts to resist the crushing force of the clam's bite. Panic fills her mind as she starts to slide out of place, and she stumbles backwards on her knees when her sword is wrenched from her arm.
She stands up, alternating between coughing and gagging at the acrid fumes burning her wet lungs, marveling at the Maheto craftsdwarfship holding the clam's mouth open. Rudabeh had felt what that crushing mouth could do, and considering The Sixth Peak was holding it open on its own made her briefly consider giving thanks to both Alseta and Torag in equal measure, but there was little time for prayer.
Grabbing her Iron Key with her left hand, she wills her visor and bevor open while jumping forward to grab the razor-sharp clam lip. Ignoring the pain of the rock-like protrusions biting through the thin leather of her gauntlet's palm, she pulls her head up and over the edge. Fresh air fills her mouth as bright light fills her eyes as she looks out of the clam's mouth, trusting her sword to hold steady- else she would be decapitated.
"AURELIA!" Rudabeh shouts from the clam's mouth, throwing her voice as far as it can reach towards the blinding light emanating out of the forest's edge. "FIREBALL! FIREBALL IN ITS MOUTH NOW!" She couldn't see anything, really, but she hoped the sorceress and their archers heard her instructions.
Expecting a fiery explosion at any moment, Rudabeh drops back down behind the clam's lip, bracing herself on the inside to avoid the coming hail of arrows and magic. She reaches out to grip The Sixth peak's guard, causing the divine spirit within to reconnect with her soul. Flames re-ignite and light shines forth from the greatsword, warping the multitude of colors within the clam. Emeralds turn a sour purple-black and the onyx hues seem to glisten, while the tip of her sword burns ever deeper into the clam's mouth as the worst splinter of its life. She hoped her flaming, glowing sword would serve as a beacon and a target to gauge shots.
Her other hand reaches for her holy symbol, and she grips it. The paladin's facial armor slams shut at her will, and the symbol glows white as positive energy fixes her wounds. Alseta, Rudabeh prays as she waits, the seconds seeming to stretch into minutes. I had no intention of dying here, before my purpose is fulfilled, but if I do please forgive my foolishness. I now acknowledge clams are not to be underestimated.
To the ifrit soul in her armor, she thinks: If we make it out of this, don't let me do something this stupid again.
With one hand grabbing the flaming sword, Rudabeh crouches behind the clam's lower lip like a soldier hiding behind a castle's parapet, awaiting siege weaponry. Above her Sixth Peak dances with holy flames, looking like a nail from hell, being driven into unfeeling shell by the sheer force of the clam's great muscles. Her prayer drops into the chaos like oil on turbulent water, smoothing it out for a moment. For a second the paladin has clarity again, the roaring sounds muted and crazy colors dimming. The sickening sway of the clam reduced to a gentle cradle. Peace, of a sort, for a heartbeat.
Then fire!
Like a rising sun, light and heat suddenly blossomed around Rudabeh. A fireball, so loud it blotted out all sound into an all-consuming roar that drummed her ears. It was almost like falling off the wall in Pitax again, sheer fire. Flash of orange and red streak past her, searing her flesh.
Reminds me of home Teken remarked drily, even as Rudabeh's skin burned in pain.
As quick as it appeared the fire dissipated, vanishing like a magic trick. As Rudabeh's eyes adjusted, she saw the full extent of the damage. The entire inside of the clam's mouth had been charred and burned, blackened like a chicken left too long on the communal campfire. The supple flesh was cracked and flaking, the acid bubbling below her. Colors were seared away, replaced by sooty streaks of charcoal black.
But the clam still lived. In spasmodic pain the vast mouth opened wide, and Sixth Peak was suddenly dangling over head, the fires oddly dimmed, as if in awe and respect of the greater fireball. The point was rammed home, thrust into the crusty upper lip.
Rudabeh reflexively lifts her hand to cover her face as fire erupts inside of the clam's mouth, though it was little use. The heat makes it way into the holes of her bevor and the joints of her armor, cooking parts of her skin that had been untouched by acid.
She hated being burned. Even standing in direct sun for too long started to make her skin prickle as if she were walking through an open-air briar patch. Burns, she swore, hurt physically and spiritually, as if something within her soul was reacting negatively to the flames as an undead reacts to positive energy.
Yet here she was, calling fireballs down on her location to take down a greater foe. Rudabeh was sure her mentor had said something about this once, but all the paladin can ever remember thinking was Who would ever ask to be hit with a fireball?
Calling upon an immense, perhaps bottomless reservoir of religiously-instilled politeness, Rudabeh does not tell Teken to shut up or any other number of rude comments comparing his home to hell, the abyss, or a flaming city dump.
Instead she drops her hand when the worst of the heat subsides and coughs raggedly, blinking away the tears and looking up as her arm is lifted into the air by the still living clam. Healing magic flows from her hand to her breast as she feels the divine pool within her empty. Every bit of healing she imparts to herself is one less life saved outside, but she couldn't save anyone if she was dead.
Setting her teeth, she jumps up and grabs her sword on each side of its guards, using her weight to pull it free from the clam's mouth. Landing with a squelch and nearly losing her balance, she swings the flaming sword around to catch herself, burying it in the clam's gums. Grabbing the hilt of The Sixth Peak with both hands, she rakes her faithful sword across burnt muscle and membrane, spurting purple blood onto blackened surfaces.
The paladin stabs, hacks, and draws her flaming sword across every surface within reach, and a 4 foot blade wielded by a warrior with a 3 foot reach could carve up a lot of clam.
Despite it's recent role as clam-barrier, Sixth Peak feels as it ever did in her hand. Perfectly balanced and sharper then cut class. The flaming razor edge makes short work of the burned and acid-ridden clam flesh around her, slicing off huge hunks as if she was a mad chef. Dark purple blood gushes around her, literally pooling around her ankles, like a bloody warrior in a battle saga.
With one final thrust, she hears a deep rasping gurgle from the back of the clam. A death rattle as some secrets lung or chamber empties of vital air? Was it finally over? The acid bubble and sizzled from residual heat.
And then the top of the clam fell with moribund finality, slamming shut with a vast treasure chest, locking Rudabeh inside. Just the thought of trying to prize it open exhausted the paladin. She slumped down on the inside of the vast clamshell, to gather her strengh.
You fought well. Teken said but then added, Was going inside altogether wise?
A few moments pass and then Rudabeh hears a dull banging on the side of the dead beast. Muffled she can hear a voice, Ractus, saying, " Knock on the side if you are all right! We'll get you out!"
In a few moments the inside of the clam is echoing with a canopy of noise as the Company works to free her. This is not an easy task. Just the top of the clam must weight literal tons, and the razor lips locked together like twin teeth of a vise. But, lucky for her, Ractus seems to know what he is doing.
There is a great sound of hammering steel and , as Rudabeh watches, she sees wooden wedges forced through the clam's mouth. Small at first, apparently driven by willing Company arms. Slowly the gap grows as the wood is smashed through, and each inch won allows for bigger wedges. It is a slow process but eventually the mouth is rasied up, bit by bit, until a gap big enough for the elf to look through is forced.
The tanned fighter looks down at a very burned, charred, battered and bloody Rudabeh.
"Alive?" He shouts down, before turning to the side, "Keep at it, you lazy louts! I want to be able to stroll inside in five minutes!"
When Rudabeh's blade falls out of its position inside of some mother-of-pearl, the mother had already passed. The undine breathes heavily, the all at once rancid and acrid air stinking her nose and causing her to exclusively huff through her mouth. She sinks against a heavily burnt wall which freshly coated in a new layer of clam blood like some kind of rushed paint job, leaving a streak down its gored length.
Very diplomatic of you considering I nearly killed us both. Rudabeh replies to the ifrit in her mind, though she wasn't sure of the truth of her statement. Would a Fire Whale Heart survive a giant clam's stomach acid? Surely it would be turned into a pearl like any grain of sand and Teken and Seqhi would sit on someone's mantle for millennial until being re-discovered by accident.
But no, it was not wise. I have witnessed crabs and octopuses tear apart clams with such ease I never considered this one could be a threat beyond its size. She admits, placing the blade of the still-flaming, but harmless to her, The Sixth Peak across a knee. I thought it would be an easy victory inside. It just shows I am no monster hunter.
The flicking flames of her sword catch her attention as the blood stuck to her armor starts to sizzle and burn onto the silversheen steel. She never figured had out how to turn the flames off. The divine spirit inside of her sword that she knew was bonded to her soul somehow must be on some kind of non-negotiable contract she was not privy to. Maybe that would be her job one day at The Argent Gate, setting up paladins with weapon spirits all over Golarian. That might be nice.
Thumping and Ractus' muffled voice knock her out of her daydream, which alongside the adrenaline had been distracting her from the pain throughout her entire body. Her feet burned in a way she had never experienced, her face was warm from being burned in a way she was all too familiar, and she was certain she had pulled a muscle in her back. Lifting a hand, Rudabeh pounds on the inside of the shell three times to let Ractus know she was alive.
Should I be all right? Rudabeh thinks to herself, knowing how stupid it was to jump into the clam's mouth. She had acted like some idiot, greenhorn adventurer that would have died like the hundreds of others Finn had seen meet their end in stupid ways. She hoped Finn wouldn't hear about this somehow. Ractus was going to give her enough of a chewing out as it was.
Minutes pass as Rudabeh reflects on her actions, which lately seem to end up with her covered in blood, burns, and in a great deal of pain. Maybe she was the one that needed more drills. How could she have abandoned Dannagu outside to contend with the clam alone? Would he be able to trust her to watch his back again? At some point her sword extinguishes itself with a smallpiff and she is left in the black-and-white darkness until a bit of light seeps in from the slowly expanding clam's mouth.
Her elven second-in-command calls down to her, causing her to shift her neck up and to the left. She couldn't seen anything with her visor still down, so she slowly lifts it to note a bit of Ractus' handsome face peering over the corner.
"Yes, by the grace of the gods." Rudabeh replies calmly as she starts to slowly get up. "I'm thankful for the pity Alseta took upon me-" She is cut off by a sudden pain in her back that causes her to groan, but she keeps moving. "But remind me to do something for Torag later. This sword has saved my life too many times now."
Climbing up to the gap, she extends the hilt of her blade up to Ractus' head for him to take out of her mollusc prison. "How many casualties did we take? Injured? I still have some healing left if anyone is hanging on." When her sword is out of her hands she reaches for her Bag of Holding and extracts a foot long iron rod from its confines with a thought.
With a few twists of The Traveler's Anytool she has doubled its length; the magical item is shoved into the gap made by the wedges, and despite the protest of her back she presses her weight down on the end in time with the hammer blows outside to ease the placement of the wedges.
With Rudabeh pitching in, they managed to lift the clam mouth enough for Rudabeh to half climb, half roll out of it. The bedraggled paladin sprawls out onto the muddy ground with a clatter like a child tossing a drawer of silverware onto a cobblestone street.
As she recovers her wits and balance, Ractus helps her the report.
"Five dead, one of which was one of the sleeping...drugged ones." The elf says, face not revealing any emotions. He gives the names, none of Rudabeh's inner circle. "I did by best to engage at range, but the damn shells are tough. The one we fought got away but it was bleeding very badly. It'll probably die at the bottom of that lake."
And indeed, looking around, Rudabeh can see torn up ground, tossed logs and other signs of battle but no other looming shell. She notes the Company has drawn all their 'sleeping' comrades together in a group, attending to them.
Ractus sees her glance, "They are starting to come around, groggy but I don't notice anything premement. I'm not healer though. We should hire a cleric or at least a surgeon." The mercenary makes a face at the idea of hiring no magical healing, but there was a time and place for them. Namely, when all other options are missing and you are desperate.
"Injuries are fairly minor. No one is dying, last I checked. A few broken arms...except for Dannagu." Ractus says, pointing to the gathered Company. "He'll live," he adds hastily, "He just took a considerable amount of acid to the face. You should be able to heal it up, but I'ms ure it wasn't fun."
Ractus face clearly reveals he wishes to say more but just as clearly that he knows now is not the time to say it.
Rudabeh hits the muddy ground with a wet slop and a loud bash. She rolls over onto her back, making the same noise as an upturned barrel of nails. THe paladin was a mishmash of purple blood, burns, and mud, but there were still spots where her silversteel armor shone brightly. With a bit of polish it would look as good as it did on its day of forging, but that was some time from now.
Cool water seeps into the soak-and-blood soaked cloth lining on her burnt skin, washing away acid and making her yearn for the nearby river. She had to go look for any other clams soon, it would be a good excuse to dive in.
Taking a few more seconds to stare up at the sky (which reminded her of a play backdrop- a black sheet covered with bright light from elsewhere), Rudabeh starts the belabored process of getting to her feet.
"Five?" Rudabeh repeats, a touch of anger tinging her voice before expunging a sigh that turned into a racking cough. When she recovers she looks up at Ractus, her face a tinged, burnt, green-purple. The paladin notes the names of the fallen so she can give them proper rites based on their religion later. "It could have been worse. Let's have them wrapped up, I will conduct a funeral tomorrow." Her expression again flashes with anger and frustration. "Possibly in the middle of the village. If we had not been sabotaged to half strength we would have lost none. We will need to collect statements from the sleepers when they are awake. Which gnomes they spoke to, what food they ate. Someone wanted us to fail and I intend to find out who it was."
Talk of healers, and Dannagu's injuries, makes her shake her head at her own foolishness. "I was having the same thought. We should hire a healer when we reach Outsea. Or an alchemist. Both, ideally." She turns and points a finger at the dead giant clam. "I did not search for pearls, but there is a small fortune's worth of mother-of-pearl inside this clam. We can harvest it in chunks and sell it in Outsea. There are many tradespeople that work in it, such as my mother, so we are sure to find quick local buyers to finance a good healer and give everyone a cut of the spoils... Especially if we work through my father." Surely he wouldn't cut his own daughter as raw a deal as she had seen him do to others in the past?
Rudabeh looks away for a moment as Ractus continues to look at her like he wants to say more, and she feels ashamed at the words she knows is coming. "And... we should conduct a tactical review of the battle. Later, when there isn't so much to do." There is an awkward pause before she looks back, draws a breath, and speaks again with confidence. "I will tend to Dannagu. The broken arms will have to wait until the sun rises and I finish my prayers. Next I will take a quick swim around the lake so I can make sure the other clam is dead and I can mark its location. If we can dredge and tow it to Outsea intact some General will want to turn into a bed or something and we could fetch a large sum... they get eaten before they grow that big in Outsea. In the Shallows, anyway." The Shallows refered to the places the sun touched in Outsea, where the vast majority of its underwater inhabitants lived. The Twilight was the next layer deeper, where the brave and dangerous hunt or are hunted. The Darkness was the crushing, cold domain of Danglosa, and few ventured in on purpose, or returned, without the dual god's involvement.
"When I return, we have some gnomes to question." Rudabeh nods to Ractus and starts to walk away, towards the mass of soldiers so she can find Dannagu. It was the start of another long day.
Ractus nodded, "I'll ask around and see if I can figure out who worshiped who, so you can put a good word in with the right gods." Golarion's polythiestic faiths could sometimes lead to complicated joint rituals. Few objected to mass ceremonies, but people often preferred a little something tailored to their beliefs. "And I'll start figuring out who drugged our men."His calm voice faded away as he added, "And they better hope you find them first. I'm not going to waste time with any laws."
The elf stomps off to issues Rudabeh's orders.
A valuable man. Teken remarks, But perhaps we should keep a close eye on him.
Still carrying her own extensive wounds, Rudabeh shambles off to the knot of injured soldiers and those tending them. It is painfully obvious that while many of the Company have picked up bits and pieces of first aid, no one was trained. There was no one in charge, nothing systematic being done with the hurt. Rudabeh knew, better then most, that good intentions could only go so far. What would happen if they had to fight a real battle?
She goes to Dannagu first, and finds the man worse then she expected. He is laid out on the ground, while a few other soldiers somewhat helplessly bathe his wounds in cool water drawn from the lake. Said wounds are extensive, taking up much of the leg side of his body, including his face. Skin is bubbled and flesh half melted. The man is semi-conscious, repeating the same phrases over and over again in some unknown language. Even as Rudabeh kneels down, she spots something out of the corner of her eye. A shadow? leaning over him? The paladin glances up but sees nothing but the pale face of another soldier, dabbing at the man's wounds.
Below her, Dannagu keeps chanting, blistered lips moving in a fixed rhythm.
"Just remember, you represent the Pact of Years now." Rudabeh cautions Ractus at his threat to take justice for their lost soldiers into his own hands. "You too enforce the laws of the land now and set precedent. So be mindful the precedent you set can be turned back on us." The paladin wasn't looking to argue, but to advise caution and rigor in his actions- rich advice coming from someone that just jumped into a giant clam's mouth and nearly died, but Rudabeh had much stronger and well-thought out opinions on law enforcement and society than she did monster hunting.
I should, but he's one of the few people I can delegate to. Rudabeh replies to Teken. At some point I just have to trust him.
Grimmacing at every other step towards the throng of injured soldiers, Rudabeh briefly wonders where her sword went. She last handed it off to Ractus through the mouth of the clam, and it disappeared. Well, she didn't need it right now, and she was surrounded by competent weapon-bearers. Surely someone would wipe it down and oil it. And where was its leather sheath? It had been tossed aside in the inital engagement, and probably trampled in the mud. Between her own thoughts and the observations of the company's poor medical response, it was clear chaos reigned.
They had to get better, more organized. For the Pact. For whatever was to come in the future.
The sight of Dannagu knocks Rudabeh's thoughts out of her head and into her legs. She moves quickly across the ground towards him, politely barking "Please step aside!" to the soldiers in the way. They certainly knew she was coming, not just from the clattering of her armor, but from the smell of clam stomach, blood, and rotten sheep juices that preceeded her arrival.
Stopping in front of the man her eyes sweep over his body.The damage was unbelievable to her, and she wondered what her own feet looked like. No wonder if hurt to walk. Dropping to her knees, she prepares to lay hands upon his chest when the shadow catches her eye. Turning her head fully, she looks over to the pale-faced soldier in confusion before briefly looking past him. Nothing. In the brightness of Auriela's light shadows were cast long and strong, but steady. What was that?
Shaking her head she looks back down at Dannagu and presses the partially ripped leather palm of her gauntlet to his chest, the other gripping her Iron Key tightly. "Please, my Goddess, grant Dannagu the same succor you have granted me."
There is a pulse of purple light, faint in the blinding Daylight, from Rudabeh's hand, along with the barely perceptible scent of almonds. The energy cascades over Dannagu like a wave on a flat beach, racing across his form. Even as the paladin watches, bubble skin smoothes and heals, cuts fill in and bruises fade. She didn't heal all the damage but at least he doesn't look like he us dying anymore.
His chanting stops and his body relaxes. Not in death, as Rudabeh fears for a moment, but sleep. A good sign, probably.
"What happened?" Rudabeh hears a groggy voice from her side and turns to see Silvui, lying on a hastily made bed of bracken. The young man is rubbing his head, as if he had gone too many rounds with the beer barrels the night before. "Why am I lying out here?" Litta still lies next to him, unconscious, red hair fanned out over the grass.
Farther away Rudabeh hears Aurelia shout, "It's going out!" The startling bright Daylight flickers once, twice and then goes out, as totally as a covered lantern. Nightfall returns, and the world seeps into a colorless grey collection of shapes and outlines. Above the stars return, no longer banished by magic. A few birds, confused into singing, subside back to sleep.
Then, in the gloom, she sees a small figure creeping across the grass. No , not creeping, just walking very carefully and slowly, like an old man. Brother Braxis, alone, leaning on an old staff as he picks his way across the battlefield. Out of the corner of her eye, she spots Ractus suddenly straighten, spot the gnome, and makes his way toward him at a quick pace.
Rudabeh is no healer, but she had seen her share of battlefield injuries and knew Dannagu was not only going to make it, but he will probably develop some scars that would further enhance his intimidating atmosphere. It did little to alleviate the guilt she felt for leaving him alone to briefly fight a house-sized clam by himself, but the man had certainly lived up to her expectations of toughness and bravery.
She would make it up to him, if he didn't hate her.
The paladin's attention shifts to Silvui, and Rudabeh is relieved to see him well. "You and several others passed out when the clams emerged. Some kind of magic or poison." She says matter-of-factly, hands moving to her knees to assist them in a slow and noisy rise upright. "The big clam is dead, and the smaller one rolled back into the lake bleeding out. We lost five." A hand extends, and just before the light goes out the young man can see Rudabeh is a mess of blood, mud, and burn marks from head to foot. There were zombies that looked (and smelled) better.
"THANK YOU AURELIA." Rudabeh shouts in the direction of their resident sorcerer's voice. They should probably pay her more- some battle mages charged by the fireball and it got expensive fast.
Helping Silvui to his feet under the pale light of the moon, she continues to talk. "Ractus is going to start figuring out what happened to everyone. He could probably use your help." Catching some movement past the clear black-and-white outlines of her darkvision, she sees Broter Braxis leaving the scene with a large, angry elf now on his heels. Stiffening briefly, the paladin lets go of Silvui's hand and starts to make her way towards Brother Braxis.
Wait. She thinks to herself, shuddering to a halt. No, I should let Ractus handle this. He's already upset with me, and I asked him to do it. He can handle it There was something nagging at her- something that flashed an image of Brother Braxis's fist-broken face in her mind, but she decided she had to stay out of it for now.
"I'm going to go finish off the smaller clam, like we planned. I'll be back soon." Is her last sudden remark as she turns on her heel and starts to make her way towards the gentle lapping waves of the lake. Retrieving her spear from her bag of holding as she walks around the dead clam, she removes the oiled wooden block protecting the point and turns her eyes to the ground.
The soil was a mess of boots and clam tracks, and it wasn't difficult to tell where the other clam had traveled up to the water's edge. It was past the boundry of air and water she would need to rely on her other senses- the taste and smell of blood in the water would guide her.
Humans would never, could never understand. Sure, some learned the surface of the water and Rudabeh had been impressed by many sailors and watermen in her time. The River Kingdoms held any number of pilots that could even teach her a thing or two. But to them, the water was something to be respected, tamed if possible and feared if not.
To Rudabeh, it was home.
The proof of it was obvious as the cool liquid swirled around as she strode into the lake. Instantly it began healing her, bring forth life itself. Her burned and torn skin re-knit, turning back to a healthy azure. Aching muscles were soothed and even her stinging eyes cleared from sweat and acid. It felt so good!
Meanwhile, in her head, Teken did his best to imitate a drowning man, despite lacking lungs.
Shortly though, Rudabeh's own calm command reassured him and they sent off in pursuit. Trailing the clam wasn't as hard as Rudabeh had feared. A trail of acid and blood hung in the water, as clear as colored string for a child. Even more, parts of the muddy bottom were torn and crushed, as if the clam had struggled past without the slightest concern, crushing logs and weedbeds.
Fish, shadow-like in the gloom, darted around the paladin. She knew them all, of course. How could she not? Bluegill, trout, sunfish and even a very old catfish, appeared and vanished in the dark. Thankfully nothing larger, but that was not surprising. What could share a pool with the giant best she hunted? She gripped her spear and headed for the deepest part of the little lake.
Thankfully, this was no ocean. The water was not endlessly deep and the dam even stopped the usual river current. All was still and serene, and if it hadn't been for the clam ahead, Rudabeh might have considered this as fair evening's stroll.
Then the lake-bed bottomed out, to what must have been the old riverbed. Weeds and logs were left behind as the ground underfoot became true sand and silt, dotted by the odd outcrop of rock. Peering ahead she saw something looming out of the darkness. A rock? No, a shell. The clam!
It was dead. It sat lifeless on the river-bottom, mouth half-agape. A trail of purple blood floated out of the huge maw, twisting in the still water. Beside the motionless mollusk is a small pile of driftwood and stones that appear to be...a house? A small shack?
"You killed my child!" A voice shouts from behind her, strained to breaking. Rudabeh whirls, even as her mind processes that the shout had been in Aquan.
There, among some low rocks, sits a a human form. It is hunched with long, tangled hair like fine seaweed. Filthy, yellow nails rest on her crossed knees. The face is hidden by the waving hair but the voice rings out, "Murderer! My child, that I raised! Killed! Monster!" The figure could only be one thing, a sea-hag.
It was the salt that saved Rudabeh. She smelled it suddenly, out of place as a seahorse in clam chowder. Why did she smell the sea...The ground! Teken shouted in her mind.
The sand below her feet writhed, parted to reveal hundreds of tiny legs and carapaces. A swarm of biting, clinging crabs erupted out of the sandy bottom as the hag howled in laughter.
The biting crabs swept into her armor, no more defeated by the hard steel then a column of ants would be. Instantly they begin tearing at her clothes and flesh, with more pincers and mandibles. Her freshly healed skin offers little protection. Pinpricks of hot pain, like dozens of tiny needles being driven into her legs and feet.
Blood, sweat, acid, mud all washes away as Rudabeh calmly walks up to her head into the waters of the artifical lake, leaving behind blackened scuff marks on her armor that would come off with a bit of work with a cloth. It was quite impressive how both her armor, and Rudabeh, cleaned up with a bit of work.
The cool, refreshing waters of the River Kingdoms welcomed her back home even if Teken's theatrics ruined the moment a bit. Oh, hush. She thinks teasingly at the ifrit. We have went swimming together dozens of times by now.
She walks along the bottom of the lakebed following the clam's trail, looking down as well as one can in a helmet. Her bevor, even when folded down, obscured the sight of her greaves, but it did nothing to mask a trail of devastation left by a giant fleeing clam. Spear held tightly between her two hands she descends deeper, flickering moonlight above her growing more faint with every passing moment.
Mud and weeds turn to sand and rock, and only the laziest strugeon or ancient catfish catches her sight among the sudden flatness of the old riverbed. The clam soon materializes in her darkvision like a quick chalk sketch on a blackboard, dashes of color filling in as she continues her steady approach.
Her hand falls from her Iron Key, grabbed reflexively at the sight of her quarry, when she realizes she did not need to prepare for battle. It was dead, and perfectly intact. Someone in Outsea would pay handsomely for this, and it had been quite some time since Rudabeh had a chance to make some money and refill her personal coffers. Perhaps she could even afford some Landlubber seating (a giant air buble) at Pitario's Theatre and take the Company to an Outsea play. They could use some culture.
Then, the small shack came into view and a voice screamed at her in sudden Aquan. The figure, who was mostly hair, nails, and boney arms shocks her with accusations of murder while an old rhyme bounces through Rudabeh's mind:
Do not listen to the whispers in your sleep.
The one that beckons you to the deep.
Do not stray from mother's wake.
From withered hands do not take.
For once you bite the offered kelp,
noone can come to help.
Your fins and face will be turned to stew,
and the Sea Hag's hunt begins anew.
Childhood monsters manfiest in front of her, and she cannot help but think in astonishment- Teken, that's a Sea Hag! Those clams were her PETS! It may have been obvious to him, but she was aghast and her mouth slightly agape.
The smell of salt and a sudden pinching at her shins makes her jump, emotions flipping from shock to anger in an instant. Fifty years ago Rudabeh may have soiled herself and swam away from the crabs swarming around her and into the gaps of her armor, but she had grown up. The paladin grabs her Iron Key and holds it aloft, grimmacing at the cackling hag.
Rudabeh didn't hide under the bed crying about how a Sea Hag was going to eat her anymore, and fantasizing about how someone would surely save her if she ever saw one.
No, now she was the one that protected the children from the shadows in the seaweed. She was a savior to herself and others.
"YOU and your clams DO NOT BELONG HERE, SEA HAG!" Rudabeh shouts in Aquan. "By the power invested in me by Alseta I shall see you slain!" This scenario had played out in her mind dozens of times as a she grew up, though it was Desna she was invoking. There was also far less crabs and she never got hurt in these scenarios. Unfortunately the reality of the situation meant the crabs were hurting a lot.
Jumping from the rocky riverbed with a burst of bubbles, the paladin kicks with both her feet pushed together, gliding through the water like a shining armored whale. And just as the horned whales of legend spear Kraken in the deep, Rudabeh grabs her darkwood and cold iron spear in two hands and holds it in front of her, rushing to impale the Sea Hag.
As she rockets forward a single shaft of moonlight makes it to the lake bed, and the hag's horrible face is illuminated for a brief moment. Her muscles jelly as the image burns in her mind, the truly monsterous ugliness beyond her comprehension. She wants to stop, lay on the lake bed and curl into a ball, but a part of her long since matured urges her on- something so horrificly ugly CANNOT be of the natural order and MUST be removed from this world.
So she swims on, gaining speed and shedding crabs, risking even looking the hag in the eye if it means another agent of chaos was banished from this plane.
It was not only a childhood full of spooky hag stories that made Rudabeh's stomach heave at the sight of the unwholesome creature. In a very real way, hags and their ilk were the anthesis of Alesta's teaching and worldview. They formed no community or place, but merely preyed on the weak and innocent of other societies. And not even the mindless hunger of the hunting animal, stalking the sick, but an all too intelligent desire to do harm, to twist and create suffering. Evil, in other words.
Which was exactly what Rudabeh had been put on Golarion to stop.
It was that knowledge, that she was doing the right thing, that girded her when she looked on the dreadful creature. No magic could pentatrate that righteous shield, forged by a lifetime of duty and service, as strong as any full plate.
Water rushed past her as the paladin threw herself into a swimming lunge. Crabs and silt both were flung up around her, in billowing wave, radiating out from her surging form. The hag's look of anger shifted slightly and an undercurrent of fear crossed the twisted features, the fear of an evil creature come face to face with a lifetime of reckoning.
At the last moment, like a rock climber, Rudabeh booted foot found a rock outcropping and pushed off of it, giving her a final thrust as she rammed the cold-iron spear home. The hag barely had time to blink, let alone dodge, as the razor-sharp weapon plunged into her chest. Dark blood flowed out in ribbons, like curtains waving in a breeze.
The hag screamed an evil, hateful scream and that made Rudabeh's head ring. She withdrew her weapon, pulling it with the simple half-twist Finn had taught her many years ago.
Around her, the crabs caught up with her, again investing her armor as if she was a castle under siege and being stormed by legions. Biting, hacking, cutting legions.
The hag's blood cleared, and Rudabeh got a better look at her wounded foe. The wound was deep and large, slicing right into the creature's wizened chest. It was not dead, but nearly so, with life's vitality oozing out with every beat of that hateful heart. Clinically, Rudabeh watched the twisted face and saw the hag's realization that this was the end. The hag could not escape, no creature save a dolphin or sailfish, could escape Rudabeh at sea and the hag could not stand against a fully armored paladin. No spell, no darkling prayer, no trick of magic would save her now.
So she decided to die fighting.
With a screech, the wounded figure threw itself at Rudabeh, rending, yellow nails like claws, reaching for the paladin's face and eyes.
The attacks scrabbled uselessly on the shining, gleaming armor. Like a warrior out of myth, Rudabeh stood tall and let evil batter at her uselessly, helplessly, even as she raised her spear for the final blow.
In her haste and surprise Rudabeh had forgotten to close her visor, which unfortunately meant she not only got a good look at the hag's otherwordly ugliness but her razor-sharp claws as well. The living nightmare was fast but impercise- disgusting nails slide off the side of her helmet, and ironically one gets lodged in the hinge of her undeployed visor.
And so the helpless hag now acted just like the hag of her youthful fantasies, standing there like some kind of training dummy screeching pitifully.
Rudabeh's spear tip flashes forward and up with the speed of a barracuda directly into the spot where the hag's neck meets her jaw, driving the shaft of her spear a full foot up into her head and only stopping when it met the inside of the hag's skull. Following through as she was taught to do, the paladin's blow is strong enough to lift the foul creature's body off the ground and even break the nail stuck in her visor with a crack that stung her left ear.
Blood billows out in spurting ribbons, dispersed by the hag's last futile death throes. The crimson river jerks downward as Rudabeh lowers her spear, lifts a foot, and kicks the monster's body off to send it floating to the rocky ground in an arc.
Taking no chances Rudabeh steps forward and stabs the hag's body again as it drifts to the riverbed, piercing its chest on the other side all the way through.
As the sunken hag touches down with a bounce and a bloom of fresh blood, Rudabeh quickly approaches and places a foot on the monster's hip.
She leans down and rips her boot-dagger free with her right hand, keeping it in a reverse grip. Lifting the dagger above her head, a mighty heave forces her entire weight down and buries the foot long piece of steel down to the hilt into the hag's heart.
Leaving the dagger embedded, Rudabeh takes a a wary step back while clutching herspear tensely in both hands, She watches the body with an osprey's eye for any other signs of life.
The undine knew the water revitalized her, what could it do for a sea hag? Rudabeh had to make sure it was dead, and stayed dead.
'Never do things by halves.' a voice floats in her mind. Finn, although Rudabeh couldn't recall if the woman had been talking about fighting, cards or love. 'Have you goal in mind and get it, no matter what.'
An imposing woman Teken commented, apparently able to at least get the gist of the memory. She would have made a great paladin.
Meanwhile, Rudabeh watched the dead hag closely. How many stories had that twist, where the fallen monster suddenly revived? There would be no resurrections under her watch. The dagger glints in her hand like the scales of a silvered fish. The sea hag merely bobs there, lifeless in the barely detectable current.
In her armor, the crabs keep biting. A gnawing, clawing pain, now reaching up her back and chest.
Then, just as Rudabeh wonders if she has to retreat, the crabs start to fade away. Slowly dissolving into mist and ether, lost in the dark water. And it is this fading of magic that convinces Rudabeh, she has truly slain the hag. She is alone now, at the bottom of the midnight lake.
I don't think you'd say that if you met her. Rudabeh thinks to Teken, who has become unnervingly good at accessing her concious memories. One of these days she's going to think about something very embarassing and...
Thankfully, a sharp pinch to her chest pervents her from thinking about embarassing thoughts which would certainly lead to actually recalling embarrassing moments.
Not so thankfully, she was fairly sure the crabs were drawing blood at this point, and it was getting harder to ignore.
Rudabeh starts to dance about and smack her armor to try and crush the crabs, but there were far too many and Gezzerbial made the armor far too well- as if a simple smack would do any damage to one of the solidly-forged plates! She had started to punch the joints of her armor in a desperate attempt to kill crabs and was considering taking off her armor when they all suddenly disappear.
All that was left was pain, blood leaking from gaps in her armor, and the expansive lake bottom. It would have been a lonely moment if Alseta was not always with her, but the paladin's goddess blesses one of her devotees with a final burst of healing to stop the bleeding.
Also, there was still a voice in her head, so it was impossible to be alone even in her own thoughts.
Taking a side-step, Rudabeh watches the hag carefully for a few more moments as she inches her way towards the ramshackle hut. She decides to leave the dagger in the hag, just in case, but eventually takes her eye off of it to look at the monster's former home. Her spear wafts the hag's blood into the surrounding waters as she points it at the entrance and peers inside.
The dark underwater landscape is lit, every so faintly, by Rudabeh's last divine gift of the night. A healing pulse that staves off the pain induced by the crabs. But even with that merciful spell, Rudabeh is feeling her age right now. She has been bit, slammed, acid splashed, fireballed, clawed and now pinched. She held a rather painful collection of wounds despite her constant healing, and even the muscles that were healed ached with that deep-seated pain that only time and rest could cure.
Clams were no laughing matter.
Leaving the fallen hag alone, Rudabeh kicks over to the Hag's Hut. A reeking scent of rot wafted into her nose, her sense of small enhanced, as always, by her immersion. The smell reminded her of stale water, left behind in grimy tide pools. No, worse, the noxious areas where humans dumped their effluent. Eyes stinging slightly, the paladin pushed on.
The rundown structure is little more then a ramshackle collection of piled driftwood, loose stones and heaped mud. It has a round, domed roof and lacks any windows. The only entrance is a open door, lacking door or even veil curtain (a door style popular in Outsea). The Hut was dark but that did not defeat Rudabeh's eyes, as she warily bent in for a closer look. What she saw disgusted and horrified her.
The floor of the Hut was covered with bones.
These were not the small piles made by large predators in their dens, the cast-offs of predator hunting, yellowed and covered with algae. These bones were pure, startlingly white, as if they had just been cleaned that morning. They were arranged in disturbing patterns and piles, mockeries of their natural forms. Here was a turtle given a fish head, here a kingfisher with a serpent's tail. The gaping maw of an enormous pike studded with human teeth.
The walls were covered in wooden and wire cages, both large and small. A few stood empty, gently bobbing in the murky water. Most however were filled. She saw fine mesh nets stuffed with schools of tiny fish, jammed beyond all reason. Others held tired frogs, desperately trying to break free. A row of crabs nestled in a wall, the shells gouged and cut, as if dug at with a deranged knife. Eels, forced to slither alongside side each other, in glass tubes.
It got worse. One cage just held a drowned otter. Surely she hadn't just trapped it and watched it die? Another held a turtle, the arcing shell etched with hateful signs and graffiti. It was, somehow, still alive, due to some magic. Other animals seemed mid-dissection, with their inside visible and pulsing.
In her mind Teken muttered an oath, something the usually dry paladin had never done before.
We have hags on my plane, but very different ones. Never in my city though. This....this is horrible. A pause, I thought you were foolish to chase the clam alone, but killing that thing was worth it. This is Chaos. And what worse curse could their be then that? This Hut was an assault against nature itself, revulsion given material form.
Their was more to the Hut, a dingy and dim roof that was out of sight unless she went inside.
Rudabeh's face twists into a disgusted frown at the smell of the Hut, an expression that only deepens as she comes to terms with the sight inside.
There was an overwhelming amount of cruelty and a mockery of order on display, but she settled on looking over the bones first. The skeletons were so deliberate, so patiently crafted she finds parts of herself battling to decide if she was horrified to her core or impressed by the artful creativity. Unfortunately her art critic was on a barge a few miles away.
In the end she decided to let both feelings exist simultaneously and looks elsewhere.
Elsewhere was only home to despair. Rudabeh was no druid or animal lover in particular- in other circumstances she would be happy to pluck half of these creatures from the water and eat them without a second thought. But all her limpid eyes collected was torture, and her heart sank at the wanton and wicked cruelty arrayed before her. It made the stories she was told as a child seem tame, for all the hag's victims in them died at the very least.
We should have brought a bard. Is all she can think to Teken, grip tightening on her spear. Because I'm going to destroy this place.
Rudabeh swore an oath never to trespass upon the door way of an occupied structure unless invited inside. Out of personal belief and devotion she extended it to unoccupied structures as well, but a caveat permitted her to bypass this oath if it was to stop a great evil or chaotic event. This was certainly a great evil.
The previous occupant also had her dagger through its heart and lacked the legal precedent to claim ownership due to You Have What you Hold.
Morally and legally in the clear, the paladin starts to take a step forward but before her foot reaches the bone floor she hesitates. Even if this was a doorway to a realm of chaos, it was still a doorway, the second most sacred Alsetan symbol after the archway. No, she had to do this right. A silent plea to her goddess to help her right the wrongs of this abode, and then-
"Is anyone here? May I enter?" Rudabeh calls out in Aquan, casting her voice into the unseen recesses of the hut. If no response was given she takes a step inside, spear at the ready for any other horrors the hag has created or raised.
You are more forgiving then I am. Teken replies, and falls silent leaving Rudabeh to reflect.
The paladin leans in and announces her desire to enter. Not only to assuage a slight twinge of conscience at entering uninvited but also to possibly make contact with any captives capable of speech. Many hag stories talked about children trapped in small cages until fat enough to devour. It had always struck Rudabeh as silly before but now, looking at this Hut...not so far fetched.
Silence is her only reply, save for the rattle of some of the cages. The Hut is either empty or anyone who can speak is unable to. Images of torn tongues or gagged children flash through her mind. Shaking her mind free of such horrors, Rudabeh floats over the doorway, mentally offering a small prayer for forgiveness from Alseta.
The smell is even worse inside the Hut, with the water being confined, unable to be cleaned by the currents. Rudabeh starts scanning the walls and upper levels, making sure their are no hidden surprises. Unsurprisingly, the entire Hut radiates Chaos, so much it clouds her vision. The cages, the creatures, even the bones under her, all glow with chaotic energy. An unholy place indeed.
Near the curving roof, she finds some other items of note. Shelves of dirty jars, stolen knick kacks, bits of copper and silver. No real treasure hoard, more like the leftovers of a magpie's nest. Broken mirrors, cracked daggers, glittering stones, some gnarled fossils. Only two items really stick out. One is a Cloak of Human Guise, tied up in a clumsy bundle.
The other is a symbol, freshly carved into the stone of the building. It is of a crude noose, being sliced by a blade. Chaos ripples from the carving, making Rudabeh's bile rise in her stomach.
One thing suddenly strikes Rudabeh. No gnome bones.
Rudabeh steps carefully through the hut, the noises of the many metal plates covering her body narrowed in frequency but amplified in volume. The amount of chaos energy inside the hut is unnerving, and she had only seen such a place once before, where fey had gathered for hundreds of years.
Pointing her spear at every glowing source of energy, she slowly turns and scans her surroundings. The cloak was interesting, and she flipped her spear around in her hands to poke at the bundle with the butt of her weapon. Scooping it up with the end of her spear the paladin slowly brings it up and takes it with a hand, shaking it out with a wave of bubbles.
Do you think the hag used this as some sort of disguise? I bet even I could wear this and appear human, though I have no reason for such deceit. She thinks to Teken while looking the magical cloak over.
It was then the the other symbol catches her eye, making her whince as the bright chaotic aura stabs at her soul. Rudabeh folds the cloak over her arm and forces herself to look at it intently, even as her stomach churns.
She starts to move back out of the hut, sweeping her head back and forth at the polished bones on the floor. No gnome bones. Did Brother Braxis have some sort of deal with the hag? They build the dam, increasing the size of her lake, and feed her clams... in return she didn't prey on them. Rudabeh's "out-loud" thoughts stop as she returns to the Hut entrance, where she turns around.
Lifting her Iron Key with one hand, the paladin is about to give a speech about how many of these animals will die from their wounds and lack of magic to sustain them, or be eaten by one another in a few short moments, but she closes her mouth. They were animals, and she was no druid. Her words did not matter to them, but sure was sure it was better to give them a chance with the uncaring hands of Gozreh rather than immediately collapsing a building on top of them.
So Rudabeh focuses her will one at a time on each bag, cage, or bottle. Doors open, knots untie explosively, and corks pop off one after another. Fish break free in clouds and tortured frogs swim in pointless loops from cut tendons and damaged brains. When she can no longer see any containers of animals she lets her Iron Key fall back to her waist, grabs the edge of the doorframe, and pulls herself up and over to the open mouth of the dead clam with a quick kick of her legs.
The River Kingdoms are a diverse land and it's people worshipped many gods. Alseta and Hanspur were the majority faiths but most of the main Golarion gods had followers here. Gozreh and Gorum in particular, but Rudabeh had run across all types through the years. Her travels and career choice also lent themselves to more inter-religious contact then most. It was a rare conflict or arbitration where someone didn't drag the gods into it.
And yet this symbol meant nothing to her. And yet...it seemed like a holy symbol in some way. But did hags have religion? Not in the stories she knew. Lamashtu, she guessed, Mother of Monsters. But that Gods symbol was a three eyed jackal, nothing like this. The paladin committed it to memory for future reference. It seemed important.
Eyeing the cloak, Teken replied Deceit can be useful. Even more useful if you are well known.
However, Rudabeh felt she made a mistake, even as she touched the magical item. A pulse ran through the water, the aquatic equivalent of a stiff breeze. A magical trigger. Instinct took over and Rudabeh drew her spear, sense alert. What trick had the hag left behind? A torrent of icy water, or perhaps a seeping blindness? Again, the dark stories of her childhood filled her mind.
The white shapes clacked and rustled, pulling out of their carefully constructed patterns. The artful (if disturbing) designs fell away and a cloud of murk swirled up as the bones piled onto themselves, creating a vague shape.
Undead Teken said redundantly.
Along the walls, the trapped animals started to panic, with cages banging loudly against the walls. The smell of fear filled the chamber, wafted from dozens of confused animals. The silt cleared for a moment and Rudabeh got a glimpse of a hulking skeletal shape that took up much of the ground floor of the Hut.
A powerfully built human, complete with a bone spear and shield made of bone. The skull is encased in a double crown made of enameled ivory, glittering white. It looks up, eyeless sockets spotting Rudabeh instantly. The paladin raises her spear but is stopped when the undead speaks.
"You have slain her." The voice echoes oddly in the water, sounding as dead as the bones should be. Flat, with no life. Yet...perhaps a hint of confusion. "My maker is....dead." A long pause and then, "Why?"
The skeletal figure hesitates but in her mind Teken shouts "Now, strike it down! While it is confused!"
Rudabeh is disturbed by the unknown symbol on the wall. It seemed too simple to be anything but a symbol of divinity, but she wonders if her bias is getting the better of her judgement.
The pulse that runs through the Hut causes her to jerk her spear back, clenching her teeth and stifling a very unpaladin-like curse. She flips her spear back around into a fighting grip and spins around on her heel, distracted by the panicking animals surrounding her.
The skeleton was over half formed by the time she noticed it, and the paladin slid her right foot back to brace herself for the incoming attack just as the skull focuses on her with an eerie intelligence.
Her face betrays her shock when the skeleton speaks, though she does not move from her stance. Why is a skeleton confused? She thinks back at Teken while the undead's question floats in the water before her. Ghosts could often talk, maybe some zombies, but skeletons? Rudabeh had never smashed one with any sort of agency. Something was different, and even though the fact it was standing between her and the doorway and was making both the instinctual part of her mind and Teken scream at her to attack, she could not. What if this was its... home?
"I was tasked to kill the monsters in this lake by Brother Braxis. Myself and my soldiers killed your master's clams. She attacked me to avenge them, and I killed her." With its question answered, she introduces herself in an even tone. "I am Rudabeh of Outsea, Paladin of Alseta. Who..." Rudabeh forces herself not to say were, to be polite. "...are you?" She asked carefully, watching the skeleton for any sudden moves.
Teken sighed, very loudly, in the deep recesses of her mind. At least he stopped shouting however.
"Rudabeh, you can't be serious."[/b] the paladin argues, sternly. [i]"Look around you. Just feel it. This is a place of Chaos and this...thing, was created by that hag. Their is no law here, no respect. Just mindless destruction. It is your job to end it!"
And then something new happened. Her armor, that lovingly made full plate, twitched. One arm moved ever so slightly, as if it could feel Rudabeh's instincts. Or Teken's wishes.
She was distracted when the skeleton spoke again, "I was...I am..." The warrior paused, for a long time. The only sounds were the animals rattling their cages, desperate to be free. Next to Rudabeh the unholy symbol seems to glower at her, making her skin crawl.
"I do not know." The undead finally intones, voice filling the hut. "I was given commands by my creator. To protect her and this place. To follow her orders."
"You killed her." The grip on the bone spear tightens. "I am...unconnected." Oddly the phrasing becomes clearer and more distinct like a man waking from a deep sleep.
"I have not seen others like you, Rudabeh of Outsea, Paladin of Alseta. These names mean nothing to me."
Rudabeh was trapped in a vortex of sound and thoughts. Animals panicked, Teken lectured her, an undead has an existential crisis, and the symbol of some unknown god kept opping up in the corner of her vision, as if it was pulling her eyes towards it. Then her armor twitches, and she fears that Gezzerbiel's warning that she should not lose herself could be coming true, that Teken was trying to force control over her- but it stops as soon as it starts.
Taking a deep, pointless breath of putrid hag water, Rudabeh thinks back at Teken, wavering on the edge of calm. You are right, this IS chaos, and I AM sworn to fight it. But I am ALSO sworn to bring Order and Peace. Listen to this skeleton. It is... thinking. Wondering. It is a blank slate. I gave a disembodied Ifrit speaking in my head a chance. Let me give this skeleton a chance. Change. A holy aspect of Alseta that many forget, the venerated, slow, and predictable progress of the seasons. Within the chaos, Rudabeh saw the potential.
"Then the first important choice of the rest of your existence lies before you, unknown soul." The paladin says calmly, though she has to raise her voice to be heard over the spasming animals. "Do you follow the orders of your maker and attack me, a clear intruder? Do you attack me not out of loyalty, but out of vengence for her death? Do you allow me to leave? Do you leave yourself, or do you demand I leave and you stay to make this your home? I intended to destroy this place, but perhaps you could change it."
An aquamarine tongue darts out to lick her lips- not because they were dry, obviously, but merely a nervous tick. "Whatever you decide, the choice is yours. You are free to decide."
"Absurd." Teken huffed, but grew silent. At least her armor didn't twitch again. At the same time, the former paladin of the Plane of Fire seemed unimpressed and unconvinced by her arguments.
"Choice..." The skeleton said carefully. "A powerful word." Silence.
Then the skeleton cocked his head, like a dog hearing a distant whistle. "Do you hear? A voice. It calls to me, or those like me. Those who do not know...who they are." The skeleton seems to listen intently for a long time. "How very strange, this voice. Whispers in the dark. Between life and death. It says...many things. Promises, lies....answers?"
The skeleton raises the spear and Rudabeh tenses, but instead of throwing it, the undead warrior gravely salutes the floating paladin. A strange gesture but Rudabeh guesses it may be a link to some forgotten martial past.
"I leave you, Rudabeh of Outsea, Paladin of Alseta. I follow this call and see what I am. Choice." And with these enigmatic words, the skeleton turns and strides out of the hut, still armed with bony shield and spear.
"You going to let him wander off, after that?" Teken suggested, acidly. "Basically admitted to joining a cult."
Rudabeh knew Teken was going to be mad at her as soon as he huffed out the word absurd. It was going to be like the Fire Drake all over again, and he probably wouldn't talk to her for days. She knew it must be hard on him- Teken seemed like an ifrit of action and all he could do was shout at her.
"A voice?" She says as her face twists into a confused visage. It was clear by the mannerisms of the undead it was listening to something, and Rudabeh assumed it must be magical to make it over the cacophony of panicked animals. "No, I hear nothing."
As it decides the words she ruminates only briefly, again catching sight of the symbol to her side. "Does this... symbol speak to you?" She asks, briefly shifting her spearpoint to indicate the cut noose on the wall. "I do not recognize it. Is it a god?"
She grits her teeth and tenses, then relaxes all in the span of a second when the skeleton salutes her, expression quickly flashing between concern and relief. Slowly her feet shift, and her spear drops in her arms.
"May you find your answers, and help others do the same." Is her final words to the enigmatic skeleton. Instinctively she wants to add some blessing of Alseta, or well wishes, but that was probably going too far.
In The Sacred Keystones there was a parable about a mother who died with such worry and concern about her children's future she raised from the dead. She secretly helped her descendant through many hardships over decades until she was discovered and destroyed, and the family fell on very hard times without their ancestral benefactor. It wasn't exactly an endorsement of the undead, for such words would draw the wrath of Pharasma, but it made Rudabeh think that Alseta was willing to turn a blind eye to undead that caused no harm.
Yes. She thinks at Teken, and then tries something new- Rudabeh remembers reading the parable in her mind, tries to project it, even, with all its feeling and lessons, to see if he understands. Maybe it was a bad idea. But maybe it was not. But it didn't seem like other undead. Something was different... besides, it might have killed me. Finn always told me fighting something that can't bleed with a spear is like trying to drink soup with a fork.
The paladin scoops up the cloak that caused the whole kerkuffle, hoping there wasn't a back-up guardian, she makes it into a bundle and starts to leave.
Lifting her Iron Key with one hand, the paladin is about to give a speech about how many of these animals will die from their wounds and lack of magic to sustain them, or be eaten by one another in a few short moments, but she closes her mouth. They were animals, and she was no druid. Her words did not matter to them, but sure was sure it was better to give them a chance with the uncaring hands of Gozreh rather than immediately collapsing a building on top of them.
So Rudabeh focuses her will one at a time on each bag, cage, or bottle. Doors open, knots untie explosively, and corks pop off one after another. Fish break free in clouds and tortured frogs swim in pointless loops from cut tendons and damaged brains. When she can no longer see any containers of animals she lets her Iron Key fall back to her waist, grabs the edge of the doorframe, and pulls herself up and over to the open mouth of the dead clam with a quick kick of her legs.
The skeleton seems unmoved by Rudabeh's question but he does tilt his head toward the unholy symbol. Ebony scars in solid rock that seem to suck all light in. The undead warrior doesn't move or react to the crudely carved chaotic symbol but he does say two words.
"Ishe Vakanaka" The words mean nothing to Rudabeh, frankly they don't even sound like Common. Then the skeleton leaves, ignoring any further questions.
Teken is outraged and while RUdabeh slowly frees all the trapped animals, he let's lose.
"It is undead. A violation of the world's law. Pure chaos, undermining everything about society. You want to build a strong and effective society in this land, Rudabeh. I know this. How many hours have we spent working on law for it? And now this? At the first real test, you let your compassion and feelings distort your views! That...creature is the perverse construction of utter chaos. Not only that, it openly declares to an unknown and possible dangerous allegiance and you let it walk away! Rakorth left eye, can't you see the problem here?"
The last animal, the deformed turtle, circles Rudabeh for a moment in seeming thanks and then wafts out the empty door. Which honestly seemed like a good idea. The paladin kicks down and finally exits the disturbing hut.
Being back in open lake is a relief, and the clear water washes away the lingering stinging stench. The lake bed stretches out around her in all directions, quiet and calm. Shards of moonlight create ephemeral, shifting columns of light, constantly moving and vanishing. Out on the dark flat, she can see the dim shape of the skeleton warrior, striding upstream, head held high, marching with a soldier's experience and ease.
'There is sill time!' Teken grumbles, 'You can still undo your mistake.'
But making Rudabeh change her mind is like forcing a river to flow uphill. Her mind shifts as she reaches the gigantic slain mollusk. With an instinct born of years in the field, she surveys the damage and starts to piece together the battle that killed it. Unlike 'her' clam, this one had been killed from the outside. The attacks seem focused on the lower shell, punching through the hardened carapace until the soft innards were exposed. Arrows and spears were still stuck in places, wedged by cracked armor.
Eyes widening she spotted a an area dotted with cracked craters, like someone dropped a hardboiled turtle egg. With shock she realizes she is seeing where someone punched through the clam's shell with their bare hands. Ractus surely.....
Rudabeh is not a merchant and cannot directly assign a gold value to the dead beast in front of her, but she did grow up with artists and any of them would give up their eye teeth for such a hoard. Colored bands of shell loop the entire interior of the clam, in every tone from flaming orange to burnt sienna. A small bed of rough pearls rests near the back of the mouth, jagged and flat white. Even the shell itself, pitted rock hard, would be useful in the right hands.
It was a great deal to harvest though, even for someone armed with a razor sharp sword.
"Ishe Vakanaka?" Rudabeh rolls the words around in her mouth as if they were stones. "What does that mean?"
Her question went unanswered as the skeleton left the Hut, and she was left with a frown on her face. Was Ishe Vakanaka a god? Person? Religion? Idea? Philosophy? It was something to go on, at least.
Teken is ranting inside of her mind as she frees trapped animals one after another, and she lets him finish going off on her until she responds. I know, Teken. I'm letting my gut do the thinking. I acknowledge it, and if something happens it will be my fault. But something was different about that skeleton. It was unlike any undead I have ever encountered. It didn't want to take revenge on the living, or eat brains, or cause suffering.
She exits the hut and sees, off in the distance, the skeleton marching away. It just wants to know why it's here. Why does it exist. It's the same as everyone else, and is looking for a purpose. To destroy a non-violent sentient creature for no reason other than my pre-existing assumptions that it will cause harm goes against the principles of faith.
Kicking off from the Hut's door, she floats downward to the front of the clam. I know you're upset, I'm sorry, but there is no compromise to be made here. We either let it go or destroy it. I have made my decision and will take responsibility should anything untoward come of it.
Knowing Teken would not be satisfied, she just listens to what he has to say while surveying the smaller giant clam. The damage the company had inflicted upon the creature was quite grievous, and she was impressed. Even at half strength they managed to wound such a monster into retreat and death with only four active combat loses and several injuries. It was quite good, though she was still upset they lost anyone at all.
Climbing inside the open mouth she looks over the mother-of-pearl streaked interior, and unlike the clam she fought it was a perfect continuous unit on the inside. The top half of the clam, which was nearly untouched, would fetch a handsome price if they hauled it to Outsea...
There was much to harvest, but for now she swims casually to the back of the clam, gauntlets closing around one of the "small" pearls to lift to her face for inspection. Passing muster, Rudabeh ties the Cloak of Human Guise into a bindle around her spear, loading up the pearls one at a time. If we can separate the top shell from the bottom and haul it up intact, it will be worth a small fortune. She thinks, though she would be surprised if Teken wanted to talk to her anymore.
Swimming from the clam's mouth like a cleaner wrasse after scouring a shark's teeth, she lands next to the hut and briefly stares at the structure, chaos still radiating from its innards. She sets her spear and bindle to the side to retrieve her Traveler's Anytool, quickly configuring it into a crowbar. The edge is shoved into the nearest piece of driftwood, and she starts to rip the dwelling apart piece by piece until the roof collapses on itself.
"You're gut is leading you into a mistake." Teken thinks bluntly, "Let's just hope it doesn't set a precedent." And then he retreats into sullen silence.
So Rudabeh is left alone to slowly gather up the pearls into her makeshift carrier. The pearls are a hazy, milky white with sizable streaks running through them. None of them have that luster that seems to excite the hearts of jewelers and merchants, but Rudabeh still guesses they could gather a good price, for the right buyer. Gegdev's daughter was quite sure of that.
Small bit of treasure in hand (and feeling a bit like an adventurer) Rudabeh swims back to the Hut and starts to dismantle it. Between her considerable strength and the crowbar it doesn't take long until the unwholesome building is little more then a pile of rubble and driftwood. The faint current starts to blow the rancid tang of the habitation away, like smoke from an extinguished fire. Dissipating and fading. A few of the animals and bones remains but the evil feeling is banished, and Rudabeh knows those remains will be scavenged by other animals and plants, as they should be.
The way up was much harder then the way down had been. Not only was she now carrying a load of stones and a corpse, but gravity was fighting against her. Instead of a gradual swim down into the depths, it was a slogging trek up the shallow slope of the lake bed. Gradually she gained ground, trudging toward the rippling surface. Finally she broached the surface, and flung the hag onto the sandy beach.
Water gushed out of her armor on all sides, roaring loud to block all sound. It slowly faded away to be replaced by...nothing? Rudabeh blinked and saw, to her surprise, the beach was empty. No one was here, wounded, whole or dead. Just an expanse of burned and trampled grass, and the looming clam shell outlined by the stars.
Where was everyone?
"Commander!" a voice hissed from behind a tangle of cut trees. A figure emerged and resolved into one of Rudabeh's mercenaries. "Commander, are you all right?"
Seeing her face he went on, "Things, um, things have gotten a little crazy since you left." the pause grows awkward until the soldier realizes he is going to have to brief his commander.
"The Captain and the gnome in charge were talking, and well...it didn't go well. The Captain accused them of sabotage, the gnome denied it and, you know how the Captain is. He, er, pushed the old gnome over. His stick went flying and everything. Everyone started pushing and shouting, and some gnome threw a rock. Then someone stabbed with a spear. Finally, some gnome cast a spell toward Silvui, and Litta saw and...well, you know how she is. She fired an arrow right into his throat. It all went to the Hells after that, a whole scuffle. The gnomes drew back toward their houses, throwing rocks and magic as they went. The captain ordered Draze to take the wounded and dead back to the boats while he and the rest pushed on. I was left here to fill you in." He sounds nervous, and he should be. Rudabeh left them alone for, what, half an hour? And they managed to get into this much trouble?
"Um, who is that?" The soldier says suddenly, staring at the dead hag. "Was she working with the gnomes?"
Rudabeh is wondering if this is what Finn feels like after every success; returning triumphantly with a bundle of treasure and the knowledge they were leaving a job well done behind them. Despite Teken's protests that was certainly how she felt as the collapsed Hag Hat vanished from her darkvision and the lakebed began sloping upward again.
The feeling began to degrade halfway up the slope the third time the hag got caught on a sunken log and she had to jimmy it loose. What was she thinking? Had she forgotten how difficult, dangerous, and exhausting adventuring was after spending time with the Bastard Brigade? No, this was awful, and adventurers caused all sorts of trouble for local authorities... Rudabeh glances upstream, the way the skeleton was heading. And sometimes (most of the time) adventurers, did things that had unseen repercussions.
First, the crest of Rudabeh's helmet breaches the surface of the water like a shark's fin, cutting ripples into the water that shone in the moonlight. This clean wake was annihilated by her spear and bindle tied to the end of the spear, followed by the rest of the undine's head. Rudabeh starts shedding water quickly in the air, gallons pouring out of her helmet, pauldrons, and mouth in a rapid transition to land.
She stops and blinks, still sabaton-deep in water, at the empty beach and a looming clam shell that was not being worked over for mother-of-pearl. Her eyebrows shoot up at a voice from the cut of trees, and she steps the rest of the way out of the water to toss the Sea Hag onto the land, where she intended to let the monster dry out. Surely, that would make sure it stayed dead.
"I am well enough, thank you." Rudabeh replies to the soldier as he approaches her position. Kneeling down, she takes the bindle off of her spear and pours out the remaining water, unties it, and starts putting the pearls on the ground. A questioning look shoots up to the soldier's face when he says things have gotten crazy, and she stares at him while events are recounted to her. Alseta preserve us... why, Ractus? Why? She waits for the "I told you so" from Teken and lets him have it without comment. Clearly her and Ractus needed to have a talk about who should be in charge of what in the company, because they had both made serious mistakes that cost lives today.
Sucking in air through her nose and letting it loose in an exasperated sigh, Rudabeh quickly re-ties the shoggy bundle and stuffs it inside of her bag of holding. "That's a Sea Hag. The kind of monster mothers tell stories about to scare their children into behaving." She replies calmly, throwing the bag back around her shoulder and tightening the strap. Maybe there was a path out of this violence. Maybe. "I suspect she is the one that put half of us to sleep when the clams emerged, not the gnomes... she certainly tried to kill me with spells, and was quite upset we killed her pets. She might have had a deal with the gnomes... they feed sheep to her clams, she doesn't feed them to the clams. I don't rightly know at this point if Brother Braxis wanted us to fight it out, he really wanted her gone, or if he was telling the truth and had no idea she was in the lake. We'll find out."
Standing up with a rustle of steel and a few spurts of water from her vambraces, Rudabeh gestures the soldier over. "Please, help me carry the body to the village. It's not much in the way of proof, but maybe Ractus will stop this madness if I show him the hag." Quickly, Rudabeh walks over to body and wraps the hag's hair around its face. "You may want to breath through your mouth, she smells like a dead week-old tuna left in the sun." With a grunt, she lifts the top of the body off the beach. "And do not look at her face."
"A hag?" the young soldier says in a mixture of fear and fascination. Of course, he turns to glance at the corpse's pale and haggard face.
And promptly retches all over his own boots (Rudabeh having smartly stepped away to save her own). The reek makes Rudabeh's stomach churn slightly, but only slightly. After being inside a giant clam, a little vomit is not worth mentioning. The paladin gives him a moment or two to re-gather himself before striding off into the darkness, carrying the dead horror like a sack of potatoes.
The ground squishes wetly under her heavy body, forming tiny temporary puddles in the soft earth. Still, by River Kingdoms standards this is good soil and quite capable of being farmed, given the right crops and techniques. Rice, asparagus or even cranberries would thrive here. Rudabdeh was not a farmer but after several decades of arbitrating agricultural land disputes, she had picked up a few things. The obvious potential of the gnome's settlement were obvious and was part of Rudabeh's reluctance to destroy the gnomes' efforts entirely. Not that Ractus will necessarily give her that choice.
Her hopes do rise, somewhat, as they approach the gnome holdings. The undine's quick ears do not make out the clash of steel, the sizzle of spells or the shouting of wounded men. Even better, there is no angry red-orange glow of burning buildings ahead. So either the gnomes put up a better fight then Rudabeh expected or Ractus was having second thoughts. Good, maybe there was still time.
As they reach their destination, one thing becomes clear. Rudabeh's new troops have never run a siege before. The scene is clear enough to her magically enhanced eyes. The gnome village is surrounded by a loose circle of her own men, standing in knots and clumps behind trees or bushes. The gnome buildings are barricaded with the streets filled with timber, carts and other debris to create roadblocks. However, there are no outward facing pickets and Rudabeh, her pale faced solider in tow, is able to stroll right up to the lines even while clanking like a walking cutlery stall.
She is just about to announce her presence when she hears voices, arguing ahead. Curious she listens.
"We can't just sit here!" It is Silvui, his accented Common plain as day. The man sounds unhappy, that much is clear.
"I'm surprised we have to argue this," A female voice says, flat and cold. Litta. "I thought you cared for the Captain, Aurelia."
"I do!" A younger, almost girlish voice says, although it is strained with emotion. "I just...this doesn't feel right. We are supposed to protect people, not hurt them. We should wait for someone else..."
"There is no time for that!" Silvui barks, loud enough to make Aurelia yelp, "This is war! If we don't strike first and strike hard, we might lose And then were will we be? No, it isn't nice but we need to be ruthless."
There is an edge in the man's voice that Rudabeh knows all too well. The sparkle thrill of taunt emotions, wound to the breaking point. A potent combination of danger, excitement and violence that the undine has seen many times. It is that toxic cocktail that turned good troops into plunderers and looters (or worse) when a city fell to a long siege. An orgy of destruction could be born of even the otherwise nicest and calmest men.
It was time to nip this in the bud.
Rudabeh is impressed with her own reflexes as she steps away from the retching soldier, though her mouth still flattens out into a thin, disappointed line. This must be what Teken felt like while watching her make decisions. Probably all the time.
"It was even worse while she was alive, if you can believe it." The paladin dryly comments as the lad recover shis wits. Still, he was good to help her share the load and the two of them trudge off over the clear-cut towards the village.
The soil had caught her eye before, but she could look at little else while walking over it right now. The River Kingdoms was known to chew up and spit out new settlements like a crab tearing apart and eating a shirmp. She had seen plenty of campsites, farmsteads, and even an entire town completely torn apart with only scattered bones and ruined structures to mark the presence of civilization. These gnomes would have ot fight hard if they wanted to keep this land against the monsters, the terrian, and the druids. Maybe she was just delaying the inevitable by trying to protect these gnomes.
SOldiers come into view soon enough, and the paladin is appalled she isn't so must as accosted by a single pair of eyes. If the gnomes had somehow managed to slip behind them and attacked, it would have been a slaughter. There is no way Ractus would have ordered such a shoddy formation... where was he?
The voices ahead cause her to slow as she listens to them, and Rudabeh politely shushes the soldier behind her. Aurelia, Alseta bless the girl, was one of the few that seemed to understand their purpose. It will be heartbreaking when the sorcerer is forced to people for their own good, and Rudabeh suspected that heartbreak would come. Sometimes violence was the only langauge some creatures, even humans, understood.
But today it was not the only langauge being spoken.
"This is NOT a war, Silvui." Rudabeh bellows as she approaches their position, one arm wrapped around the hag's shagging arms and shoulders. "A war is two sovereign, recognized entities of society conducting orderly martial campaigns against one another for land and resources." Rudabeh had never been part of a war herself, but she had read enough about them and seen their effects before the Pact of Years.
"And the Pact of Years is not at war with a small, independant village of gnomes attempting to settle the banks of a moderately popular trade route." She had gotten close enough to their position that her armor could be seen gleaming in the moonlight, though one had to ignore the dents and blackened marks covering her upper body.
"This is a misunderstanding turned into a skirmish. Like any misunderstanding, it must be clarified and rectified with discussion, not further escalation."
She stops and points to the ground. "Put it here, please... face-down." She says to the soldier behhind her, and the two kneel down to deposit the hag's body on the ground. The corpse didn't sit flat, what with a dagger sticking out of its chest and all, but putting it prone made seeing the horrific face much harder to see.
Rudabeh wipes off some of the creature's long, kelp-like hair off of her pauldron and stands back up. With a tired sigh she turns her head to the group. "I believe this Sea Hag was responsible for putting our friends to sleep, not the gnomes. She lived in the bottom of the lake, had raised those clams, and was quite upset we had killed them. Based on the lack of gnome bones in her dwelling, I think she was extorting the gnomes for protection."
Her head swings back and forth , chainmail-covered joints crinkling. " Where is Ractus? This madness needs to end."
"Rudabeh!" Silvu says with a shock, his blush visible in the dim light. He takes a step back, stammering slightly. Litta is standing off to the side, holding her bow in her hands. She doesn't stir at Rudabeh's sudden arrival, but simply nods to the undine.
Aurelia however smiles so warmly, Rudabeh half-expects the sun to rise. The young girl dashes over and gives the armored paladin a hug so tight that it's detectable even though full plate. "Oh, Rudabeh! We need your help. Ractus is gone!"
Gone?
"He went into the town." Litta said, pointing to the barricaded gnome village.
"After we surrounded the town, we got into a few scuffles." Silvui explained, still looking very embarrassed. "We fell back into basic siege lines and the Captain told us to hang back. He gathered up the two captives we had and went in himself. He told us to wait for him to return, or for you." Silvui swallowed, "And that was all we saw." he lowered his voice, "What I said, I...didn't mean anything by it. I was just worried about the Captain."
"What should we do?" Aurelia asked, doing her best to not look at the hag on the ground.