Imazael adjust her hood, blue eyes downcast. Phraanz isn't wrong, it was a hasty action... but she was undead, a zombie, or a revanent, or a vampire. She would have hurt someone, maybe you, or Gul, or someone else out there. It had to be done. she mutters, maybe to Phraanz, maybe to herself.
I'm going back up to the cathedral proper. I understand if you don't want to come with me. I'll re-activate the trap on my way out, if you'd like. she says, a slight quaver in her voice.
When Imazael leaves the pressure plate to make her move on Phraanz' Jenny, the trap releases. The spikes retract into the ceiling, and the door in swings free, releasing of the gold-touched, including the robed and wizened figure who is still asking for alms. They amble into the room, headed for the door out. The rest continue to mumble variations on Muirkhom's name that Phraantz can't seem to recognize.
As long as Imazael is cool with that, the female gold-touched is dispatched without incident. Her movements are weak and predictable. If Imazael hesitates, even for an instant, there will have to be some risk of injury, fighting Hand to Hand.
The torch is fine.
Peering into the room, Phraanz sees a bunk room for the monastery staff. There are small racks of equipment and a locked coffer at the end of one bed. The room fluctuates between lit and dark as potential realities diverge.
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Muirkhom peels the gold off the icon, and places the flakes into the basket, thinking about its owner. If I'd known this was all the thing was, I'd'a jus' given it 'er.
...'ow the HELL is she Phraanz's brother?! I STILL don't get it! It's pretty obvious to any set'a eyes she ain't a man, and she ain't actin' like one either! It's jus' the usual pretentious fanger b++~+$$&! It ain't even a bondin' thin' or somethin', that damn idiot talked like she was 'is actual, related, brother!
It doesn't make sense. There's somethin' goin' on wi' those two. There's somethin' they ain't tellin' me, and I ain't goin' ta get any sense from either'a 'em! THEY ARE HIDING SOMETHIN', AND I AM FIGURIN' THIS OUT, ONE WAY OR ANOTHE-
Muirkhom is summoned from his thoughts once the situation unfolding about him finally manages to bludgeon through his confused vows to reveal the truth. Gul looked like she'd been shot, Kyrill had a bow, and oh dear Midas Gul was talking to another fanger. He only had to hope this one...Hagred! He called himself Hagred! Actually was as sophisticated as most of those bastards thought they were.
But for now, he wasn't touching the fanger. He had something else to deal with.
Gul looks up at Muirkhom. Are you serious? That god's damn racist mother-curser shot me? Gul can be seen restraining herself. Her face turns a dark shade of green.
The memory floods back. Gul and Ginger were happily hunting for dinner. Ginger felt like sea food. In actuality, it was river food. The river winds through the forest for miles. Pristine waters and deep. Ginger sees something. It's a river monster the size of a cow. Ginger is swift. Her tentacles entwine and pull it out of it's comfortable home. Ginger swings the beast to where Gul stands with a hunting knife. In one swift thrust, Gul guts it alive. It's innards fall unceremoniously to the ground.
No! Stop! Screams Kyrillosr at the carnage. Why? Why would do that? A Manatee is gentle and intelligent.
Gul eyes the water-dweller for a moment then shrugs her shoulders. He's dinner now. Ginger throws the food into the air and catches its head in its teeth. Ginger bites it's head off and chews.
You Son of a Motherless Whore.
Turning back to the present, Gul yells at the walking fish. Make yourself useful and collect some peaches.
Kyrillosr sees something strange through the doorway. At some angles, the room is dark and full of shifting shadows. It's hard to tell Gul and Muirk from anything else in the room. At other angles, however, the room is filled with light cast from a bountiful array of glowing peaches hanging from a tree that fills the room.
Importantly, in the lit scene, Kyrillosr can see a dhampir in the room, but not the one Gul seems to be talking to. Kyrillosr sees female who is stealthily closing on Muirk's position.
LASaROS leans in. "A lot of important choices are being made, Krilly, and the people making those decisions are too close to see how their choices have changed things. As the obvious leader here, it's up to you to lag behind--away from danger--and tell the others how they are wrong, dumb, and/or doing things wrong."
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Phraanz carefully scans the racks of equipment. In truth, he came here with little enough, and would not mind some greater kit.
After taking stock of the racks, he peers at the locked coffer. He's heard such things can be trapped. He has little eye for such things, and doubts that the people that had inhabited this would use such things...but you never can be too careful.
...in the end he decides that after he's done with the racks, he'll just hit it with the ax.
He would come up with another rhyme, but he doesn't have the time.
Imazael runs ahead of the mindless husks, throwing the door open the right way this time, and seeing Phraanz has moved into the far room, slams the door, hoping the trap will kill them more effectively than it killed her and Phraanz.
When she hears the trap click, she will move forward toward the Orc and Dwarf. What's going on here?
Confronted by Muirkhom, Kyrillosr becomes nervous. He was usually a straightforward person, but as the dwarf glared at him, he looked for any kind of excuse for his crime.
"I was... uh..." he says, seeking some reason why Midas would have approved his action, clearly unsure of himself.
"I need to go gather some peaches, urgently," he finally answers, happy that Gulirk to had provided an excuse.
One step closer to the newly-sprouted peach tree, contemplating the octopus's advice, Kyrillosr turns back around towards the angry dwarf. To his surprise, he suddenly spots the mysterious dhampir closing in on Muirkhom.
"Look!" he says, trying to communicate the danger. "There's a dhampir behind you." Setting peach gathering aside, temporarily, he rushes over to pull Muirkhom away from her, unsure whether he would be able to get out of the way himself.
While listening to Hagred drone on and on, Gul kept her hands busy threading Lassiter's nails into the business end of the Bellsringer's rope.
Damned peach loving squid *Thread*
The tree was pretty convincing. *Thread*
Ok. Let's take a holy relic and add it to a weapon to see what happens *Thread*
I hope he appreciates the irony of a Tentacle like whip delivering his will *Thread*
When Kyrillosr raised the alarm, Gul reflexively lashes out at the dhampir.
You gather up what you feel is useful from the available priestly equipment and move on to your careful examination of the coffer via axe-splosion.
You’re met with a disturbing case of deja vu.
The top of the coffer collapses like butter under a thousand degree knife, and your axe splashes into a pool of acid beneath. The metal axe head might be okay, but you’re going to want to avoid the spray you’ve kicked up.
When the initial surprise passes, you can see that the outer layer of the coffer has melted away. Inside is a padded gambeson with an insignia embroidered across the chest.
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Gulirk feels a hand wrap lightly around her wrist, as well as a slight pressure on the back of her elbow, and the next thing she sees, she’s being held in a fairly compromising position by Hagred Wraithsire. Not to mention the ten inches of finely carved hickory pressed against her throat, sharp enough to freshen up the orc’s morning shave.
Ginger pounces forward, blinking across the space to play pin the dhampir on the floor tile.
Kyrillosr attempts to pull Muirkohm away and is bowled over by the pouncing displacer beast. The cat, the merfolk, and the dhampir fall into a heap on the floor of the veneration room. Each possessed of quick reflexes, they get to their feet in a flash. The dhampir looks down at her empty hand, then up, in shock, at a place just above Kyrillosr’s shoulder. Glancing to the side, the merfolk can see a long dagger protruding from his shoulder.
“You were always my favorite, Murk. You know that right?” LASaROS is on the dwarf’s shoulders as if he had been there the whole time.
As activity settles, so too does the kaleidoscope of reality forcing itself back together. In the veneration room, Gulirk is being held at knifepoint by Hagred, a dhampir. Another, unarmed dhampir stands Close to a wounded Kyrillosr a dumbfounded dwarf, and a very agitated Ginger. “There’s a goodfellow! Nice and easy, and no one has to . Now-” There is a noise from the other room down the hall like a very deadly trap very killing a small group of very unhappy people.
Meanwhile, Krenin’s petition is answered.
-and his fingers develop tiny suckers like tentacles have. If he can survive the intense shame (if there is any) he might try to figure out what use they might serve.
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Gul held still. She looked at Ginger.
I have to get out of this Thinks the doomed orc. She rocks back violently, while grabbing for the knife. Unfortunately, the vampire was quicker.
Drawing the knife long and deep, opening up Gul's throat, the father of Lontash executes her. Blood pours out of her like a fountain. Gul's eyes roll back into her head. and her slack body falls to the floor.
Ginger attacks with no mercy.
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Aware that any move on his part might put both himself and Gulirk at danger, Kyrillosr stays in place. Moving only his eyes to look at the drow above him, he tries to understand the dhampirs' motives.
"What do you want from us?" he asks. "Why are you tying us up?"
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Absorbing everything going on, Muirkhom takes a deep breath-
And utters a stream of foul, foul curses of the kind that demand to be censored. Normally the universe does not give into such demands, but with its current state of flux and the sheer foulness of the language, it makes an exception this once.
Only LASaROS is capable of comprehending the language uttered here, and it's for the best that everyone else either heard nothing, or something akin to the fury filled speech of an elder god that has just found out its intended entryway to the mortal realm was in a plane of reality that they destroyed last week.
Needless to say, these words consistently stun those who hear it censored or not, and are especially stunning to stuck-up fanger a$@$*~*s who pretend they're all civilised and proper when they're even worse than the beasts that most compare their kind to.
Bloody Hagred.
With the f+!@ing fanger marked for death as Ginger pounces and the dhampir's distraction makes Gul's ploy work far more favourably, Muirkhom drops his basket and bashes his staff into the other fanger that stabbed Kyrill, because for all the fact that idiot shot Gul, at least he had the decency to be ashamed of what he'd done and also stop him from getting stabbed.
He was going to have to teach Kyrillosr the acceptable way to wield deadly weapons once he was done pounding in the heads of anything remotely undead nearby.
Phraanz and Em currently excepted, because they were currently not the stabby kind of undead bastard and he still needed to know what was happening there, dammit!
Once he'd made a sufficient paste of the dhampir whose weapon had been buried into Kyrillosr, he turns to Hagred, staff held and watching as Ginger mauls him. "Fanger bastard. Ya don't try and take hostages that belong ta someone else. Yer a bloody idiot, ya know that?"
"Ya know, apparently I'm octo-god's favourite. I think it's goin' ta be interestin' seein' if I still am once I start playin' ball wi' yer 'ead."
Imazael arrives from the back, in a position to see everything go down... kinda. It's confusing, but Gul is trapped, and held hostage by a dhampir. She rushes forward, footsteps quiet, and a moment before Rhistel or, apparently Ginger pounces.
The knife into his back separates him from Gul, giving her the opportunity to escape, but The Displacer beast pounces a second later. the knife is still lodged in the bastard Dhampir, and she was pinned. Damn it Rhistel. she says Yu won't be my thrall, but would you at least be my ally?
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As the trap slams down in the other room, Phraantz closes his eyes. A mixture of regret tinged with satisfaction infuses him as he remembers the moments those people's fate was sealed.
The male of the gold-touched was John Lancaster, once a close friend, but a lacky of Borak. The girl had been Alanna, John's daughter, and Phraantz had lusted after her from boyhood. Alas, he recalls the last time he saw her.
"Dammit, Borak," Phraantz heard Lontash say from his hidden corner near the Elder's tent, Alanna's tiny form snickering beside him, "The Midas cult is but a fool following a fool! They're no threat to us! Why send--"
"I am NOT here to discuss semantics with you Lontash!" came the deep bass, loud and threatening, as if Borak ever spoke differently. "I've not told you everything because you don't need to know. Suffice that I'm sending a group to infiltrate them, win their trust, and kill their leader because WE HAVE TO! I will NOT wait for the dagger to be thrust into my back while still wield a sword in my hand!
John's band is trustworthy. He will not fail.
And when they return I promise to lord my victory over you."
"Goodbye," Alanna whispered.
Phraanz shook his head. 'Another loose end ends nicely,' came the thought, unbidden.
He shook his head to clear the cobwebs and his the top of the box with the axe. A simpler problem with a simple solution.
The acid sort of caught him by surprise.
'Well...this is gonna suck.'
Taking his deserved lumps from the acid, he bends low to inspected the insignia before donning the shirt of padded armor.
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Looking at the gambeson, the insignia depicts a lion in riposte. It resembles the stance and style of the Dispoiler’s coat of arms, but lacks the hawthorn bough. Had it been the Despoiler’s mark, you would know the sort of qualities the armor possesses. You might ask Imazael later.
As the last of the gold-touched bleed out, your connection to LASaROS’ bubble of stability falters.
Kyrillosr’s inquiry pierces the maelstrom of flensing reality, and for a moment, he and Hagred speak as they watch the combat unfold. “Funny you should ask, old sport. It’s a bit of a cultural faux pas that happened in the depths. One of the Despoiler chappies got the old drop and jab on my son… none of us is too sure of the outcome, but it’s put us all in quite the sticky wicket, wot.” Unfortunately, standing outside the action means trying to look around just makes the merfolk a little dizzy.
Gulirk falls to the floor, bleeding out her last. Muirkhom shouts, and Hagred steps inside Kyrillosr’s guard, pulls the dagger from the merfolk’s shoulder and throws it to his companion. The dwarf responds with a swift strike to the gut. Ginger snaps the dhampir’s arm from the air and rolls, taking him down to the floor where he resumes death. The other dhampir ducks, and the thrown dagger strikes Imazael before she can execute the woman.
Then, Krenin’s miracle brings reality crashing back together.
Gul kneels, fully healed, watching as Ginger tears Hagred’s thigh free of its socket. This experience has brought out a vicious character in the beast. She has seen loss.
The female dhampir desiccates in Imazael’s hands, who is now healed and healthy. Her dagger clatters to the floor after being pushed out of Imazael's wound.
The room fills with glorious peach-light. Harvesting the tree will produce Glow-reous Peaches . The room is still filled with offerings. The circular stone slab leading in is still shut tight With the door removed, and the side-rooms unexplored, this room is not safe. The cowed villagers all kneel at Krenin’s feet, some more zealously than others. LASaROS starts singing a song about millions of peaches, who they are for, and what sounds like a desert insect.
He’s tone deaf.
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As the acid eats through his shirt and skin, Phraantz rips it off, prudently flexing for only a few minutes.
He inspects the device and grunts in acknowledgement. He's never seen the devive without the hawthorn, so the suit might be quite old. Still, ever since that incident at the sausage-maker he's learned the lesson about walking around naked, so dons the gambeson.
After doing so he collapses to the ground, unable to remain standing as the room spins and memories from a thousand lifetimes crash into his head. Now he sees himself standing in front of a mighty host, his wings keeping him aloft. Now he's climbing a building, firing rapidly at men on the roof, his large breasts only spoiling his aim slightly. Now he's taking fire from the ballista of an invading human army, his goblin thralls running about in helplessness. Now he's biting the neck of a dozen men who's only crime was loyally manning their space-station. Now he's killing a host of hobgoblins, and his companion is calling him Borak.
He shakes his head violently, trying to find his own heavily-muscled self amid a deluge of alternate realities.
Reality collapses into a small ball that he can grasp and understand. He gets back to his feet, the room resting in a mostly level-shaped form.
The orc feels herself fall. The floor was cold. She could feel it. The smell of her blood fills her nostrils. A sense of well being rushes over her. She could sense herself moving, but by will alone. The grey succumbs to light. People. Hundreds of them. They mill around her.
She has never seen them before, but all of them seem so familiar. What looks like a dark skinned human witchdoctor walks by. Your not supposed to be here. Another in a white coat and wearing items she could not identify. We are eternal. The orc is on the edge of an epiphany.
Cruelly, the sense of well being is replaced with the real world. Cuckolded by the universe.
Gul stands from the floor. She points at LASaROS. You are no god. I don't know what you are, but You are no god.
Those who went to kneel last look up from their reverie with an apologetic shrug. None of them would dare break from the herd of of sheeple, but they're not exactly convinced of anything more complex than Lassiter's inflated importance to their immediate survival. The gnomes especially are looking for another post to hitch their faith on.
"Fear not, unwashed masses, for in my present divine form I shall require no sustenance! So all of these highly useful, highy edible peachs that I made saving The Lady Ketodur's life twice but it's no big deal we're just friends like that." Even a divine octopus needs to breath. "Are for you! Yes! You get a peach! And you get a peach! -not... not you. Somebody's gonna have to eat some of the bread. We've gotta be polite to Mr. Ketodur and his kind, conditional contributions." The indicated villager looks surprised, then crestfallen, then like they weren't sure they'd picked the correct emotional response since everyone was looking at them.
The LASaROS warming Muirkohm's chops whispers to the dwarf.
Gul listens and almost laughs at LASaROS. I didn't say you weren't useful, but you need us more than we need you.
The scout searches the area with Ginger helping. Hey. she says to the un-enthralled villagers. Take these oak tables and block the entrance.
Gul bows to Muirkohm. I recommend that we sweep the rooms as a unit
The villagers look at eachother, then between the orc and drow. It would seem they like getting stuff rather than being asked to do things. They do stop to see if Gul has some kind of leverage to offer. The three gnomes begin clearing one of the tables.
Gul turns through offerings, coming up with a bottle of wine and a cast iron lid
Ginger returns with a silver bracelet . Fine chains lead to five rings. The chainwork loops around an opal that lies suspended over the palm when worn.
You dare to strike me, Fool! the vampire-soul within her shrieks, but she ignores it, rushing over to Gul Are you okay? she asks, taking the orc's hand.
Still uncomfortably in the mercy of the assassins, Kyrillosr swears, "By LaSaROS and Midas and whatever deity you might worship, I don't know what happened to your son. What do you want from me... and from her?" pointing at the badly-damaged Gulirk.
Before reality realigns, and and the consensus on Hagred's survival is made, Kyrillosr gets one more answer: "Out alive would have been rather keen."
Gul tosses the wine to them one after another. Faith cannot be bartered for. She shoots a look at LASaROS, only to look back at the villagers. Faith only has value when it's tested. It gives you strength, when all you feel is weak. It gives you hope, when doom is all you see. It is a beacon of light in the darkness. Gul places her hand on the table and says, Do as you will. I only ask you have faith that My request is for your safety as well as my own. I only ask that you trust in me. Trust that I will do all in my power to make this world whole again, for all of us.
Gul smiles I'm fine sweetie. She takes the offered hand. This seems like a good place to camp...as long as Muirkhom agrees. Where's your psycho brother?
Muirkhom nods, and replies in similarly hushed tones as he picks up the gold again.
"Gul! Can I get the oculus back? Don't want'cha gettin' gold fever."
Muirkhom walks over to Gulirk and nods. "Good idea, Gul. Wi' everythin' lurkin' here, best ta stick together." Muirkhom then looks to the currently inactive villagers, and glares. "What the hell are ya doin' standin' about?! Ya wanna get attacked by somethin' from the dark 'cos ya couldn't be bothered to work? Block the entrance!" Muirkhom bangs his staff on the ground to punctuate the order.
I agree, we should rest, regroup, figure out what's going on. she says, looking around at the others. We should get back to the main chamber, barricade up the doors, make some tea. It would also be lovely if we could leave the creepy skin-changer's church. she lowers her voice, so that only Gul, muirkhom and Kyrill can hear her and adjusts her hood and, i want to compare memories, because I think we all remember the past differently, and I don't know what's real
"Neither do I," Kyrillosr whispers back. "Could you figure out what would convince Hagred here to drop me? Or if he exists, for that matter?"
In response to Kyrillosr, Ginger offers Hagred's disembodied leg It would seem that the dhampir did not survive the fight in this pruned limb of probibility. There is no one to hold the merfolk.
The villagers ferret off with Gul's wine. A few sensible folk help the gnomes set up a watch post from tables and containers which bars the doorway without blocking a possible escape route.
Overall, once the revelry loses its steam, talk of a rest turns folk toward the familiar tasks of the homestead. The gnomes can feed themselves. The villagers will start with the peaches and the bread they are carrying. It looks like they are intent on taking a rest here while they share out the wine.
Areas to sit are set up in the diminishing glow of the peaches. They've set up a fire pit, but dry paper won't burn for long. The villagers reminisce about home over their meals. The tales spun are wide and varied, pinned together by a few consistencies. A man named Lassiter had led the villagers into the forest temple, fleeing the collapse of reality. Artifacts were retrieved from the crypt, an elemental was trapped along with a depressingly high number of villagers.
About their beloved village, there is one thing they all remember: a water mill sits at the base of the river's falls. At the top of the falls is the bridge across the river.
The room might be safe enough for a light watch, but if all the peaches get eaten, it'll get dark again.
Gul turns to Muirkhom and hands over the Oculus. If we don't get more light, you might need this to see. The scout is about to turn away, then hands over the Shield You are more frontline than I am. Take it off my tab should you find it acceptable.
Gul cocks her head and says, Doesn't Midas fill gold with his inner glow? She ventures no further with the holy man.
It was interesting how dhampirs blood crystallizes into red sand upon their death. She looks down on the desiccated corpses. Gul borrows Imazael's ax for only a few moments. The orc hacks off the dead's limbs and throws them on the fire for fuel.
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The fire grows, bright and smokeless, and the morale of the camp tips toward carousel.
Imazael places some wood on the fire, and takes a seat by it, turning to Gul. Why do you listen him? she asks her quietly.
more overtly, she turns to the Dwarf I really do need that necklace... Especially if there's vampire activity around here. I doubt Borak has forgiven me she puts a kettle on.
There is an abundance of valuable teaware, crockery, and containers of spice in the veneration room. The villagers dine like landed gentry.
Kyrillosr blinks, seeing that Hagred wasn't holding him. He accepts the leg from Ginger, quite confused. Not sure what to do with the leg, he gives it back to Gulirk. "Would this be of use?" he asks, hoping to get it off his hands.
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Phraanz ties up the last of the straps and turns about, checking his form. Nodding at what he sees, but disliking how he can not move with cat-like reflexes as is his habit, he drops a pair of shoes on the pulpy pile of putrescent departed. "May these carry you to the peace this life denied you, Alanna," he says as he navigates the pressure plate-and-nasty-jaws-of-death trap, easing the door closes carefully behind him.
Tromping out to where everyone is, he enters, wearing a new gambeson, the insignia depicts a lion in riposte. It resembles the stance and style of the Despoiler’s coat of arms, but lacks the hawthorn bough. He looks about how the scene has changed. "Ya, did is a ting dat is not da same und ist different und changed a leetle but since I haf last been da seeing it, ya."
That said he, famished, notices 2 glowing peaches. He grabs one and chomps upon it mightily. He walks over to Imazael and whispers,
Phraanz is able to follow his nose to the room at the end of the hall which he has not been in before. It's a large room filled with shelves of offerings. Pots and crates litter the floor. Near the middle of the room, a peach tree has grown. It has a few unripe fruit still hanging in its branches, but it has been harvested. There are two large, unlit alcoves on either side of the room, and a circular stone slab covering the way into the crypt proper. The villagers have constructed a mantrap in front of the ruined door into the room, and greet Phraanz with a hearty "Ho there!" and let him pass.
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Listen, Gul, I don't remember much about the past. I remember bits and pieces. ajuvenile displacer beast, wounded and in your care, though I remember the beast name as Rhistel. I remember the traders Fair, where your remembered treasure is from. and I remember, after my attack, waking up with you and Phraanz watching over me. She Toys with Guls hair behind her head I do't remember the rest. Tell me about us. she croons.
And Phraanz bursts in, talking about a gambison. she looks at the sigil, and the voice in her head fills her in. It looks like the parasite's sigil because it it the sigil of his predecessor, lord Clavarius the Sanguine. He ruled the Howling Hills before Borak slew him, and took his lands for his own.
Kyrillosr has a bit of bread from the floor, not quite ready to try out starving. In any case, he had other things to do right now.
He turns to Imazael. Somewhat nervously, he requests, "Regarding that chalice you found, would you mind if I had a sip?"