"I am doing the best that I can!" Shadlah growls through clenched teeth, pulling another barrage of rock through her own body and at the misty creature her companions had weakened.
"Vulnerable to fire, you say?"
Zee moves into the room while fanning her Harrow deck. Stepping beside Teldon, she throws the cards at the misty monstrosities. The cards burst into a cone of flames around the creatures.
[Ooc)Casts burning hands.[/ooc]
With one of the mists utterly obliterated by a storm of stone from Shadlah, there are only two remaining when Ziomarra sends her flurry of flames pouring through the last of the bloody abominations... seared they may be, but they still continue to fight - their claws digging deep into Arsith and to Joanna's flesh...
Feeling weaker and weaker, Joanna desperately tries to beat back the mist.
Woozy and pale as a ghost, but no longer hemorrhaging blood, Teldon cautiously moves behind Jo and Arsith. Studying the mist that Jo had just hit so powerfully as he moves, he reaches over Jo’s shoulder with his longspear and stabs at it...
,
Feeling dizzy, Arsith misses completely her blow, crushing only some dust. She feebly says, her voice barely above a whisper
Come on..we can get them!
Between the two of them, by sword and by spear, Teldon and Joanna slay yet another of the mists... its engorged form splashing to the floor as its life energy fades. Whilst Arsith, struggling with the blood loss is too wild with her blow...
Zee moves over for a clearer shot, draws a Harrow card, touches it to her forehead, and utters an arcane word. The card glows slightly, and she throws it at the remaining mist.
Somehow, surely blood loss is to blame, neither Ziomarra nor Briana can land the final blow... and when Shaldah's stone blast rages across the chamber, the mist still remains - and, diminished as it was, grows as it pulls as Arsith's lifeforce...
Once again, the white haired warrior fails to hit...
"Just die already!"
Teldon quickly studies the last blood cloud, then stabs at it twice: once when Briana strikes to make an opening for her, and once in an attempt to damage it himself.
,
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
"A what?!" Shadlah asks in surprise and confusion, before shaking it off and tugging at the wall behind the creature, pulling stone into its body and bursting it like an overripe red grape.
...and finally, after Joanna and Arsith fail to connect with the elusive mass of blood that hovers just beyond their reach, Teldon and Briana manage to land their blows - and then, with a tremor that crashes dust all around, Shadlah pulls another volley of rock from the ceiling... and, once the dust has settled, the mist has been reduced to stains in the rubble.
Now able to explore, the group see that the mostly completed mural radiates strong conjuration magic — for the blood depicted in the mural is quite real. The magic of the mural causes it to weep blood, constantly refreshing the substance. The original intent for this effect is unclear, but today it serves as little more than a grisly curiosity to most, and to the creatures who had been dwelling here, a constant source of food. A single pot of marvellous pigments lies amid the ruined scaffolding — from the number of empty pots scattered around, it is all that remains of a large amount of the stuff...
Teldon sets the butt of his spear on the floor and then leans against it. He looks around for a moment as his head swims. ”I’m sorry...” he mutters ”I don’t think I can go on. We should head back to our safe place so we can rest and recover...”
"D-don't..." Joanna starts to say, but sways precariously for a moment as her head swims from blood loss. She shakes it off, but she looks paler than usual.
"Don't," she repeats as she leans heavily on the wall. "Don't be sorry. You look worse than I feel, and I feel pretty bad. That could have ended a lot worse."
We must heal and rest. This battle was really hard to won.
Arsith's face is as pale as her mane of hair
”Thank you,” Teldon says with a weak smile. He reaches up and rubs his forehead as the room stops spinning.
”I’m not sure we should go back to our previous encampment though...” he offers with some concern, ”the Grey Maidens seemed pretty earnest about starting new lives, but if we limp back there so quickly after leaving, and looking like we do right now, some of them may decide that a little revenge for their sisters is in order before they do... perhaps we could barricade ourselves in the room across the way where the last party of them had been waiting?”
"That should work. I just hope the lightheadedness goes away," Joanna says as she shuffles over to Halli and gives the wolf a reassuring petting.
"What were those things?"
Shadlah rolls her neck from one side to the other, scooping her pile of blood-spattered stones from the ground and animating them on her shoulder. "Then we rest there, and hope these do not come back."
Despite the dire situation, Zee snorts at Brianna's joke.
After the last mist is dissipated, Zee remarks, "For whatever reason, those things avoided me... but they seem to have really taken a toll. I agree that we need to rest for a while before we press on."
”Actually...” Teldon says hesitantly as he considers Shadlah’s words, ”while we’re here we should examine the wall... if those things are going to coalesce again we should know about it, and maybe there’s a way to stop it.”
Teldon approaches the bleeding wall and takes a minute to examine it closely. ”What can you see from its aura, Zee?”
Standing next to Teldon while examining the bloody wall, Zee nods. "I was considering doing just that."
Drawing a Harrow card, she utters an incantation, and the card glows with an eeire light. She then holds the card in front of one eye, and closes the other, as if looking through a lens.
Arsith waits patiently while her partners look at the wall, and checks her Healing kit
You know, that's in situations like this you understand how powerful magic is. I do have some useful stuff in there, which might help us to regain our health, but it would be time consuming. We should do Something for "normal" people too, we can't keep such a gift for ourselves. Think about how many lives we could save in a week, just using the power of our gods... Is really the thrill of adventure and the stolen wealth Worth it? We should do our best to create joy and beauty in the world, even if I agree that fighting the monstruosities of Evil and cruelty is beneficial to the community too.
The mostly completed mural radiates strong conjuration magic — for, as the friends had already deduced, the blood depicted in the mural is quite real. The magic of the mural causes it to weep blood, constantly refreshing the substance even as it is eliminated... yet what the original intent for this effect is lost to history... it seems that there really is nothing more to be learnt here.
"We'd be overwhelmed," Joanna says sadly to Arsith's argument. "People who can cast spells that heal are rare. I asked Brother Titus about it once."
Retreating to the chamber which the Grey Maidens had used as a forward post of sorts, the friends take stock of the situation... and having determined that they are, as fas it is possible to tell, safe here - they camp up. A full rest, and some magicks from those capable, and the ravages of the blood mists are finally repaired...
”No, I think that’s wise, actually,” Teldon reassures Briana, ”we shouldn’t leave unknown potential threats behind us if we can avoid it... especially once we’ve made our presence known like we did in that mural room.”
”Shall we head back there now?”
"I agree. We may also uncover more of Sorshen's secrets, which may be invaluable when we face the imposter. "
Do you really want to uncover more of Shorshen's..secrets, Miss Z? That's an interesting thought
says Arsith sheepishly
"Should Halli and I lead the way, or would we prefer someone more sneaky," Joanna asks from where she and the wolf are, her hand idly stroking the wolf's ears.
Untold hours pass whilst those most affected by the mists regather their strength - as far as they are able to tell, hidden away within the Grey Maiden's quarters as they are, there is no movement or evidence of them being searched for... even though it is certain that this 'Sorshen' is more than aware of the group being down here.
When they are finally recovered, the friends decide to return back to the concealed chambers - to see whether there are any further secrets hidden away from the world... passing the bleeding mural, which continues its gruesome display as it must have for an age before, the friends move along the corridor to the east. The walls, floor, and ceiling of the room that they discover at the end of the passageway are rough and unfinished, as if the construction of the chamber had simply ended the step before these surfaces were smoothed and polished. A single pillar, within the centre of the room, supports the coarsely hewn ceiling twenty feet above.
But it is the decor of the room that draws attention... the wall to the east depicts a detailed carving of a stone pyramid looming over a coastline with the lower half of the carving seeming to depict a cutaway view of the ground below the pyramid, indicating several levels of chambers and caverns. Blood appears to be flowing down these channels into a chamber deep below the pyramid in which an enormous nude woman reclines, her back arched as though in the throes of sexual ecstasy as the blood runs down into her open mouth.
...there can be no doubt in anyone's minds, as they look at the carved woman - and then turn to Ziomarra, that the woman beneath the pyramid is Runelord Sorshen.
"Well," Teldon announces with a scowl, "let's hope none of the shards are there... that's the Grand Mastaba, below Castle Korvosa. I wonder if this has anything to do with all this Sorshen's talk with the Grey Maidens about returning to Korvosa... its possibly-not likely, but possible-that she's not an impostor but a simulacrum... it could have lain dormant for eons until something awoke it..."
whatever she is, she better have my shard when we find her...
"How would they have gotten past the mists of doom," Joanna asks as Briana posits her theory. "It makes sense, but it didn't look like that mist was very discerning in who it attacked."
Halli's ears twitch as she stays close to Joanna, her eyes looking about at anything that catches her attention.
”The door didn’t show any signs of having been opened in a very long time,” Teldon remarks, ”if the Grey Maidens knew that Sorshen was the real mistress of the castle then they must have known it already, or learned it from ‘their’ Sorshen...”
As the group consider the carving on the far wall, what it depicts and the possible implications, the stone seems the shimmer... and, as if it were nothing more than a veil of smoke, three crimson-skinned creatures - their flesh glistening with wetness and each brandishing a savagely barbed spear - step through...
A babau typically carries a longspear or other weapon with which it can strike at foes beyond its normal reach, but given the opportunity, a babau prefers to fight with its teeth or claws. The foul, caustic sludge that constantly seeps from their flesh prevents them from wearing armor unless it is specially treated or resistant to acid.
The entire chamber, previously well lit, becomes noticeably dimmer with the shadows cast by the jagged walls giving everything an ill-defined edge...
Joanna lets out a cry, more in surprise than pain. Not that there's not some pain, the spear head doesn't get deep, but it did leave a nasty gash where it did find its way through Joanna's armor. Steel rings out as she draws her sword and a more inspiring growl comes from her as she steps up and lays into the demon.
An even more inspiring and throaty growl comes from Halli as she stays by Joanna's side and tries to tear a chunk out of the demon's leg. She doesn't manage to topple the demon before she has to jerk back to avoid the foul slime that coats the fiend, but her teeth do maul the demon a bit before the wolf stands beside her partner, hackles raised and teeth bared in defiance. For now at least, it seems that Halli is back to her old self.