Arsith lowers her weapon too, and speaks softly.
We've meet Helanda and her troops, earlier, and we've done what we could to avoid a bloodshed.You aren't alone here. There are other survivors. There is no need to fight
Zee leans a little heavier on her Varisian accent than usual. "It is true. I am not Sorshen. My name is Ziomarra, most recently of Magnimar. I am a Varisian fortune-teller. We found a sarcophagus in this complex, housing a clone of the true Runelord Sorshen. I tripped some kind of magical trap, and found myself in this body. I have to admit, it has been a useful disguise so far."
She fans her Harrow deck.
"May I read your fortune?"
Even though Joanna had warned Oriana, when Ziomarra strides into the room the tension suddenly builds, the Maiden's gauntleted hand tightens around the hilt of her sword and her body weight, quite imperceptible to those without swordsmanship training, shifts to her forward foot, "Is this another of your tricks Mistress? Have you come here to torment me one more time? ...and what of my Sisters? When will you free us?"
...but Ziomarra's words, kind and heavily accented, quickly defuse the situation, "You? You... you are not you... somehow, I just know it... you feel somehow different, I don't get the same electric sensation from you as I do from Sorshen herself. She will not be pleased to see you like this... to think that others may look upon you with the same lust as they do her. Your fate.. I am sorry... Sorshen will not be kind".
When a reading of the Harrow is offered, the Maiden refuses outright, "I have no future... none of us do unless we escape the Light". She sheathes her blade at last, and lifting her helmet free, reveals a once beautiful face now marred by savage scarring to the cheeks and forehead... and a shock of amber hair.
Zee nods in understanding. "We are nearly certain that this 'Sorshen' whom you have already met is likewise not the true Runelord. I would not think that such an impostor would welcome another look-alike. Alas, I am trapped in this body for the time being, and I don't have any magic to alter my appearance.
"Will you join us to defeat the mistress of the tower? With her removal, you would be able to round up the survivors of your regimen and leave this place."
"And Sorshen is the one that should be worried, not Zee," Joanna says with cold, unexpected venom, "Once we're done with her, we're going to take care of her 'pets.'"
We've been as much victims of the REAL
Arsith emphasize the word
Sorshen's tricks than you, believe us. This place is full of deceit and trickery.
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yes... a fine bunch of pathfinders we’ve become... always putting strays before our assigned mission... of course, father wasn’t really on a mission any of the times he saved Sandpoint... and it does make Briana, and the others, happy to help... and, we do always finish the mission eventually, so far... maybe this is a case where efficiency isn’t necessarily a virtue... still, when we finish in here we better make sure we’re making allies and not enemies when they leave...
The offer, friendly and genuine as it is, is met with a cold heart, "What happens next... is for me and my sisters to determine. But for now an alliance against Sorshen is in all of our interests... you are ready? She will fight... and, if the stories of the Runelord's power are true, then the best we can pray for is an honourable death".
...it seems that the Maiden is unwilling to accept the fact that the mistress of this place is anything other than the true Runelord of Lust.
Grim-faced, she slides her helmet back over her face and gestures towards the snake, "Align those snakes such that they face each other... it will initiate the teleportation magic of this chamber". The blade is half-drawn from her scabbard already...
"Well Halli," Joanna says to her furry friend, "seems like we've got a job to do."
Putting her helmet back on, she turns the snakes towards each other, then draws her sword. The runes burned into the blade begin to shimmer with silver light.
"Iomedae guide my sword. Today we end this reign of terror."
it doesn’t look like she has my shard, though it’d be difficult to tell if she had it under that armor... maybe this Sorshen is carrying mine and the one we seek... ridiculous- she’s not fit just to carry mine, muchless a second one...
Teldon looks around to make sure his companions are ready, then aligns the snakes.
Zee interrupts. "Just a moment... Let me examine the magical auras here before we proceed. I'd like a better idea of what we are getting into..."
Zee mutters some arcane words as she fans her Harrow deck. One of the cards glows faintly, and she takes that one. As if the card were a lens, she holds it before one eye and closes the other.
Teldon turns his attention back to the Grey Maiden before turning the snakes. ”Will the fight begin as soon as we arrive?” he asks while reflecting on all she’s said thus far and trying to gauge her response to Zee and Briana’s magic.
Let me heal myself first..Last fight was tough...
Arsith seems a little disappointed after her curative spell
That will have to do..
Zee also uses a charge from her wand of mage armor on herself.
With noises like rolling gravel, Shadlah proceeds to crack her knuckles, then her shoulders, then her neck. Even as she does so, she checks her internal reserves of fortitude, coldly calculating how far she can push herself this time.
Stepping through the mist swirling between the aligned snakes, the group are once more transported...
This ovoid, white marble chamber is an opulent, domed affair, with a ceiling of polished silver peaking twenty feet above. A pair of mosaic snake patterns decorate the floor to the north and south. Polished black marble pillars rise up along the edges of the room, metal manacles hanging from their inward-facing sides at a height of five feet. Articles of armour and clothing lie scattered on the floor, while to one side of the room an upraised platform sits a foot above the rest of the room. This platform is strewn with furs and blankets, and at its back near the wall sits an enormous canopied bed.
The body of a woman hangs from manacles attached to the pillar just southwest of the bed. Her body is strangely dry, and is shedding flakes of desiccated flesh even as the friends look upon it... the dead woman was clearly tortured for quite some time before her violent demise.
Standing from her position reclining on the bed, the mistress of the Lady's Light - the woman who would call herself Sorshen greets the friends in a seductive tone, “Oh, this is a delicious surprise! Greetings, new supplicants, you’ve arrived just in time. My latest lost her allure when she lost her life. Perhaps you can keep me entertained a bit longer?"
And then, with genuine excitement as Oriana steps through the portal, "Oriana, my love, this is unexpected. Am I to take your return to my boudoir as indication you’ve had a change of heart after our previous... conversation?"
Teldon's keen eyes scan the woman, and then the clutter strewn about, for any signs of his shard. And, he channels a spark of arcane power into his spear while he waits for Oriana, or 'Zorshen', or the often impetuous Jo to answer the imposter.
Joanna feels white-hot fury coursing through her, begging to be let loose on the woman that had caused so much pain and torment in the Gray Maidens, who'd almost gotten one of her best friends killed, and who had tortured Teldon. She tightens her hands on her sword, ready to close the distance and unleash her rage to smite this one. Brilliant, silver light blazes in her eyes as she opens her mouth to call out the object of her ire.
Halli's whine of fear pulls her back. Joanna looks behind her to see the wolf trembling, looking more like a pup than any time since they'd met. She knew that Halli had not been herself since fighting the worm, but she couldn't dismiss her companion's fear.
"Would you have me," Joanna asks, stepping forward and to the side, hoping, praying that Teldon would figure out what she was doing and get the others to follow along. "Would you like a closer look?" Her free hand takes off the helmet concealing her face and tosses it aside.
That's right. Come to me. I'm just a small girl with her mother's necklace. Nothing to worry about, nothing to worry about at all.
Nothing in Oriana's demeanour, either before she stepped through the portal or now, suggests that she is duplicitous in any way... her rejection of 'Sorshen' is complete - and absolute. Assured of his new companion's honour, Teldon turns his attention to the location of his shard... and sees nothing... and when Joanna's appeal for attention goes ignored, he finds himself the target of the Runelord's attention, "Ahhhh... my lost plaything, you left before we were finished... and I had such plans for you... such delights!!! I must confess, and I am sorry my sweet Oriana, that I have hungered for the feel of a man for too long now". Her tongue licks across her lips as she runs her fingers through her hair...
Okay, ignore me. That's fine too. I'll just get closer to you while you do. I won't be chasing around evil flying sorceresses this time. Oh, no. Not this time.
Joanna slowly moves closer to the false Runelord, moving obliquely in an effort at not being too obvious.
Teldon opens his mouth to turn the pretend Runelord’s desire against her but doesn’t get a chance before Briana makes her view on the matter clear. He can’t help but smile in response.
Drawing a small vial from a loop on his belt and quickly downing its contents, he adds, ”It seems you have a rival, Runelord.”
Joanna grins as Briana makes her views on the matter crystal-clear. Changing tactics yet again, she starts rattling "Sorshen" as much as she can.
"I probably shouldn't be enjoying this as much as I am," she admits, swinging her sword about in lazy arcs, loosening up her arms. "I really shouldn't be taking any pleasure from this, but I've been hating this place more and more. Mother Dearest would love it here. You're both alike, really. Petty. Cruel. Fake. I'm going to enjoy seeing you get taken down a few pegs."
You're blinded by lust. But love is so much more than pure carnal pleasure... Enjoying someone's presence, hearing his or her voice, eating, sleeping, dreaming, hoping, caring for,helping, sharing a future...
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Ziomarra steps forward, her face clearly visible. Her Harrow desk is fanned in her left, with one card in her right that now crackles with magical energy. Still clad in the dress her clone body had been buried in, she wears several Varisian scarves, including her kapenia... and one that is bladed.
"And as my friend has said... you are a fake. I am not Sorshen either, but her blood literally flows through my veins. We give you one chance: Surrender now, or face our wrath!"
The groups' words, their rejection of the Runelord and all that she stands for, they have little effect... until Ziomarra, declaring her own appearance to be as false as this new Sorshen, strikes a savage chord in the Lady of the Light's mind. She shrieks, in harsh retaliation that, "It is I!!! I am Sorshen!!! No other!!!"
...and, springing backwards from Teldon, she takes to the air.
Shadlah squeezes her eyes shut for an instant, trying to block out Arsith's words. Trying to block out memories of strong arms, of a rough woollen cloak that always smelled of the soil buried under snow, no matter how long it had been worn, and of a smile framed by a beard the colour of rose-gold.
When her eyes open again, they're hard and grey as flint, and her skin cracks like veins in marble. A rumble seems to emanate from the foot of space immediately around her, as she begins to open her body to the planes.
"Enough wasting time," she growls in a voice deeper than her own, rough like a mountain's groan. "We will get nowhere with this talk."
"Move," the Shoanti growls, twisting sideways and snaking between Teldon and Arsith, trailing dirt and debris in her wake, which ripples in unseen eddies around her. Without even taking a moment to gather herself, to draw energy from her surrounds, she opens herself to the planes and hurls a barrage of matter at the imposter, her face twisted but static.
As she sees "Sorshen" taking flight, Arsith grumbles
And now I feel useless again...
The rubble wrenched upwards from the ground scatters against the airborne Sorshen... but, for the most part, is deflected without harming her...
Teldon moves directly below the imposter Sorshen, studying her as he moves. Once below her he stabs at her with his longspear.
,
Joanna sighs as she has to pull out the crossbow.
"Nope, you're just an actor playing at being Sorshen, though you're more convincing than the giant. If I had to bet, I'd guess you were one of the succubi she bound to this place. I wonder what it was you were supposed to do," Joanna spouts off as she loads and readies the crossbow.
Gliding elegantly to one side as Teldon's spear glances just wide of its mark, the woman who is surely not Sorshen utters a mantra of discombobulating words... echoing around the domed chamber, the vocalisations undulate and oscillate maddeningly...
Shadlah's eyes glaze over, like stones in a riverbed. Her fist, moving almost of its own accord, slams into her jaw; she moves it back into place almost as an afterthought.
Shaking off the spell effect from the Sorshen imposter, Zee casts a spell of her own. A Harrow card rises from her fanned deck, crackling with dull red magical energy.
"Prin sufletul strămoșilor mei, te blestem!"
Zee then hurls the glowing card at her opponent.
Arsith tries to whack Oriana, but fortunatly misses
Teldon feels the imposter’s magic begin to cloud his mind but he reasons his way through the labyrinth of conflicting thoughts and images and shakes off the effect.
,
Just as Joanna is loading the bolt into the crossbow, her eyes grow dull and the small flickers of holy fire beginning to burn gutter down and die. Without warning, she takes the bolt and stabs it in the seam of the plate around her thigh. She screams as she goes down on one knee and shudders in pain.
Halli comes bounding over, putting herself between Joanna and the false Sorshen. She bares her teeth in a defiant snarl, but anyone can see her shivering in fear and that her tail is low, between her legs.
Gliding elegantly to one side as Teldon's spear glances just wide of its mark...