"Well, I guess we'll see if this leads out of here," Joanna says as Teldon places the eyes in the sockets.
As Teldon places the orbs into the snakes' eyes. the mosaics start glowing with a warm light... Ziomarra's keen eye confirming what is already quite obvious - that stepping onto the activated mosaics will trigger a teleportation effect... and so, with Oriana grimly taking the lead, the group step onto the southernmost decoration...
...and are transported.
The walls of this oddly shaped room appear strangely molded, their surfaces like sweaty pink clay infused with bits of glittering crystal. The floor looks like dry, cracked mud dark red in color, and the ceiling arches a mere eight feet overhead. A disturbing sound fills the space, resembling the endless exhalation of some bizarre, hulking beast. A mosaic of a coiled snake sits on the floor in a small alcove to the side, where the group - one by one - step through, while all along the walls of the strange room sit numerous interesting-looking objects — but none more intriguing than the triangular shard of red metal that sits alone on a shelf at eye level.
Teldon grabs Briana’s hand and heads straight for the new shard. After checking it for traps he says, ”you should take this one, at least for the time being.”
"...there's only one person here that I'm comfortable with becoming more lustful..." Teldon mumbles back to Briana in a barely audible whisper.
"Teldon," Joanna says, her voice rising as she draws out his name in concern. "Where's the stone for this one?"
”I don’t have the stone...” Teldon answers with his face teetering between concern and curiosity, ”I spent several days enchanted or unconscious... maybe someone else could be responsible for having it?”
"Perhaps I should keep it for now. It may be already attuned to me... or at least to this body. But before we boldly take it..."
Zee casts detect magic, and peers at the shard through her Harrow-lens.
Halli, crowded and anxious bumps into Joanna who stumbles into the shelving that holds the shard as Zee is examining it. The jolt causes the shard to fall from the shelf and tumble for the floor. On reflex, the young paladin reaches out to catch it before it before it can hit the floor. As she does so, a single thought runs through her mind as she realizes what she's doing.
Oh no! Not again!
What are you doing, Jo?
you’ve got to be kidding me...
There are - unsurprisingly given its proximity to Sorshen's boudoir - many treasures here. From her spellbooks to trophies collected from some of her favourite past conquests, they are arranged in an aesthetically pleasing manner through the chamber. The books sit on shelves to the west - and a quick glance confirms that these tomes contain the secrets to many spells... above and beyond the arcane words, there are other writings within the pages... in a slightly different script, they appear to be memories and thoughts - up to and including a rumination upon the arrival of Oriana and her troops at the Lady's Light.
Other items are found on the other shelves, including a large pouch containing a dozen tourmalines worth 100 gp each, six black pearls worth 500 gp each, and two blue sapphires worth 1,000 gp each, as well as a containing an , a pair of red leather , an , a , a pair of , a , and a
An examination of the room - both mundane and arcane - reveals little else. It seems that this chamber is a dead end... and the only way to proceed is to use the still active teleportation fields and backtrack.
Joanna stumbles through the crowd and sways a bit as she comes to a stop before she can crash through a pile of treasure. She holds a hand to her head as if dizzy.
"I'm okay," she tells the others even as she shuffles over to a wall for support. "I'm okay. Just feeling a little dizzy is all. I'm glad I caught it. It'd be a shame to damage something so beautiful."
She wraps the fine silver chain of her holy symbol around the shard to secure it to her neck.
"Where do we go after collecting the rest of our prize?"
Joanna isn't nearly so graceful as she trips over her feet and lands hard enough to knock the breath from her. She groans as she looks up and sees that she's no longer in the Lady's Light, but a richly decorated room full of pillows and curtains arranged in pleasing and graceful shapes. It takes her a moment to regain her bearings and balance well enough to stand.
"Oh good, you are not dead! That would be quite inconvenient," Josephina chortles, bringing a groan from Joanna as she recognizes the style as being like the ballroom she'd found herself trapped in when she'd picked up the Shard of Greed.
"What are you doing here." Joanna growls as she turns to the source of the voice. There she was, dressed in a resplendent ball gown of blue and silver and sitting on what looked to be the most expensive chair Joanna had ever seen.
"Oh, that. Well I am a part of you." Josephina gives Joanna a demure smile.
"A very small part," Joanna grumbles as she turns to look for a door.
"Still a bigger part than the floozy is," Josephina grumbles, matching Joanna's tone and taking the paladin off guard.
"Floozy?" Joanna half turns back and raises an eyebrow, now becoming curious.
"Oh yes, you are going to love her," Josephina says, her voice and smile dripping with venom and sarcasm.
"And why wouldn't she?" A third voice, coming from behind the two, rings uncannily familiar in their ears. Turning about, they see a third version of Joanna dressed in sheer silks, delicate and graceful jewelry, and leaving little to the imagination.
"Okay, I hit my head and I'm having a nightmare," Joanna says, turning around and trying not to panic.
"Oh come now! A beautiful woman like we are deserves to have fun!"
Joanna buries her head in a pillow and screams.
Arsith attention is drawn to the red leathery boots
I wonder what these boots are made for?
Unconciously, she starts to hum a song.
"I'm fine, I promise. I guess I was just being a little silly, wasn't I," Joanna says with a laugh as she walks back to Briana and slips an arm around her friends shoulders, then gives her a soft peck of a kiss on the cheek.
"Ooh! She's so cute! I just want to nibble her all over," Joanna's doppleganger in the sheer nightie squeals in delight. Joanna looks up and sees herself giving Briana a kiss in an illusion playing over one of the wall. She jumps to her feet and launches herself towards this newest tenant of her mind.
"Leave Bri alone," she snarls as she tackles, well, herself and starts trying to pin her. Surprisingly, Joanna feels the tables slowly turning on her.
"Help me! I'm sure you don't want her in control any more than I do," she calls out to Josephina.
"Would that I could, but..." Joasephina says with a grimace as she hikes her skirts up to reveal the silver fetters and chains around her ankles. Joanna, realizing that she doesn't have long tries to take back control of her body and send the shard well away from her. Unfortunately, she finds herself pinned on her back.
"My, aren't you feisty! Oh yes I think we're going to have lots of fun," her doppleganger again squeals in glee. "We really a beautiful woman, so why do you hide it under all this armor? Don't we deserve to show off our own gorgeousness?" A bunch of fluttering fairies appear, each giggling as they flit about. "Relax a little. You're so wound up that I'm surprised that you haven't killed people out of sheer frustration!"
...sh!t...
Teldon looks disapprovingly at his friend’s chest and shakes his head. ”Jo, have you no standards?” he asks with disdain. ”You who could be the envy of every woman...”
As he speaks, he locks eyes with the much shorter paladin, ”you who could be the desire of every man... we would worship you and provide you with whatever manner of pleasure you desired... but you would mar that perfection with such a ridiculous looking necklace?!?”
”I have a gold chain and a gemstone for that fitting... let me have the shard for a moment and I will make it a necklace worthy of the beauty who is more worthy to wear it than Sorshen herself...”
Joanna, gives Teldon a quizzical look as he calls out the subpar necklace, seeming more put off by his comments than Briana's discomfort.
"Jo? No, that name's too, ah, too terse. Lady Annabella flows much more nicely don't you think? Or if that's too long, I think Anna would work, even while deep in the throes of passion," she says, narrowing her gray eyes and giving Teldon a positively smoldering look that hints at all sorts of things. "But you do have a point, I'm not going to be turning heads dressed like this!"
She starts undoing the straps of the armor and taking it off, all the while looking through the piles of loot for something more worthy of her beauty.
"Arsith? Would you mind terribly helping me out of this," she asks the white-haired priestess before rummaging around in the magical bag for something more alluring to wear.
Caught and helplessly pinned, Joanna looks from the giggling fairies to her doppleganger, who'd apparently decided to steal Joanna's middle name for herself.
"You wouldn't," she half-demanded as the fairies grinned wickedly at her.
"Oh but I would," Anna assured her, "but not yet. I've got more important things to deal with. How do you stand wearing all this armor and looking like some page boy all the time? I've got to get out of it!"
"What? You're going to,"
"Change into something more comfortable, yes," Anna interrupted.
"In front of everybody?!"
"At least charge them first," Josephina grumbled from her chair.
"Oh, don't worry, it'll be both your turns soon enough!" Anna cackled with glee as she turns her attention back to the scene.
"Oh boy," Joanna mutters as she watches the disaster unfold with no way to stop it. She can already feel her cheeks heating up as piece after piece of armor clatters to the ground.
"At least she's too flighty to take advantage of your friends," Josephina mutters.
"Oh like you did," Joanna snaps, still remembering the episode rather clearly.
"I just hope the boy toy manages to get her focussed on the shard long enough to put the stone in, and soon."
"That makes two of us."
Arsith smiles, amused by Jo antics, and plays along.
Just don't forget to tell me when you want me to stop undressing you, Jo.
A thought from somewhere... else crosses Zee's mind. Well, this is getting interesting...
It takes her a moment to stop herself watching Jo take off her armor as she has a silent argument with herself.
...Sorshen again? Great. Perhaps not claiming the shard was the right decision.
...but it would have been fun!
...Ugh! Stop it! Not that it wouldn't have been fun... Argh!
Zee snaps out of her reverie, and smiles coyly. Playing along with Teldon, she adds, "But, Jo...Anna... Leaving more to the imagination builds anticipation for later, does it not?"
She leans in and whispers into Jo's ear, "Keep it on. You can show me what's underneath later."
Having not one but two beautiful woman come up to her surprise Anna for a moment, but she gives both Arsith and Zee a grin as Arsith offers to help, though Zee tries to argue for other methods.
"Why wait? We are here now and there's a bed just through there. I think the three of us could have a wonderful time, don't you," she asks as one hand caresses the back of Arsith's head with fingers twining in the priestess' thick white mane and the other plays teasingly with neckline of Zee's robes, almost as if she's asking permission to slide the robe off of her shoulder. The bag she was rummaging in lays forgotten on the floor. "I could even play coy, if the two of you wanted. A shy, blushing virgin for you two to play with and tease as you wish before taking the flower of my maidenhood," she adds in a soft, breathy voice at once innocent and sinfully seductive, "doesn't that sound exciting?"
Joanna's eyes widen as she watches the scene unfold. Part of her is furious at how this trollop, this degenerate part of her mind more concerned with carnal pleasure and self-gratification, is offering up her body in a way that she never wanted, nor would she ever choose, but a far larger part of her is enraged at how Anna was manipulating her friends, and more specifically these friends who she knew were facing their own demons about this kind of thing.
"Leave them alone," Joanna growls, surprising both Josephina and Annabella.
"What? And miss this fun," Lady Annabella replies, her voice mocking and incredulous.
Joanna growled again, straining against the bonds that held here as she recited a litany of strength and will. She would not give in. Not this time.
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After trying to stay silent and trust the others for what feels like hours, Shadlah finally snorts derisively and shakes her head. "Would one of you care to explain what in the name of the earth is happening here?" she asks, folding her arms across her broad chest with a scowl. "This is neither the time nor the place for such antics!"
Hearing Shadlah, Anna looks up and sticks her tongue out at the earthsinger.
"Aw, is Shadlah jealous? I wouldn't mind having another friend to help warm the sheets," she says lasciviously.
"Mmmm. Perhaps that would be fun..."
Zee leans in and kisses Jo, hard, while caressing the side of her face and neck. She traces her finger down Jo's neck.
And then she hooks her finger sround the chain holding the Shard of Lust, and surepitiously slips it off of her.
Anna's eyes widen, then close as she returns the kiss with all of the passion she could muster.
Then Joanna stumbles back and leans heavily on Arsith, badly shaken and blushing with embarrassment.
"Damned thing cost me my first kiss," is about all she find the words to say without breaking down into half-relieved, half-terrified sobs.
Recovering a little more from the influence fo the Shard, Joanna reaches up for her holy symbol, and finds that its no longer around her neck. Panic begins to set in as she looks for it on the floor of the chamber and doesn't see it.
"Wh-where is it," she asks in a small, scared voice.
It is maybe a sign of the lustful atmosphere in which Oriana has been steeped since arriving at the Lady's Light but her expression barely flickers at the sight of Joanna being so overtaken by the effect of the shard... instead, clearly wanting none of the treasures within this trove, she stands at the spot where she teleported in - her sword hand ever ready against ambush.
"No, I never put it in my pack. I always wear it around my neck," She says as she begins picking up the few pieces of armor that had been taken off of her, hoping to find her holy symbol under one of them. "She— No— I used it to hold onto the shard and... and then what," she moans with a sniff. She begins putting the plates of her armor back in place as she tries to think through the jumble of emotions and memories as she huddles close to Briana.
"I'm so sorry about the kiss and the touching." she apologizes, feeling positively miserable at this point.
"I hope we do, Briana. It was my mother's and my father gave it to me." Joanna looks with Briana, but it seems that her mind is elsewhere after the events that had just transpired.
Zee holds the shard by its chain, letting it dangle before her. She gazes at the broken-off arm of the Sihedron with a faraway look for a long moment. She then seems to notice the silver sword hanging next to the shard. She slides the symbol of Iomedae off the chain.
"Joanna, I think this might be yours." She holds out the symbol of the Inheritor to her friend.
At the same time, tempting thoughts cross Zee's mind...
You can wear it without danger: your Thassilonian blood will protect you from its curse. Obviously, it will think that you're the real Sorshen...
"Perhaps I should hang on to this for now..."
Zee slips the shard of lust around her own neck.
"Oh, my... That's... Mmmm..." Zee runs her hand down her own body.
Yes... you are in control of it. You command the power... because anyone who looks on you desires you now. And that is power..."
Joanna's eyes widen as she sees her holy symbol in Zee's hands. She takes it in trembling hands that bring it close before she wraps both arms around Zee in a tight embrace.
"Thank you, Zee! Thank you!"
After a tearful moment, she lets got and steps back to put the symbol back around her neck. She notices how Zee is acting now that the shard is around her neck and Joanna can't help but wonder.
"Zee, are you feeling okay?"
Arsith stands between Miss Z and Jo, wondering what will happen next…
Maybe it's a good thing I never tried that shard of Lust..I might be the one most confortable with carnal things, but miss Z seems to have some first hand experience too..
The white haired woman shakes herself out of her reverie, realising she was staring at Ziomarra's wandering hands with a little too much interest.
Zee breaks out of her reverie.
"Hmm? Oh, yes... I'm fine. Better than fine. I think I have overcome the curse of this artifact. It must be due to Sorshen's blood, combined with my traditional Varisian stubbornness. I think that might be a powerful combination!"
She looks around Sorshen's boudoir. "While that bed does look comfortable, we should claim what we want of the fake-Sorshen's treasures, and then track her down. She must still be somewhere in this complex!"
"So kind of Sorshen to leave us a bag," Joanna quips before helping the others to stuff it as full as they can.
As they work, Joanna edges closer to Briana and whispers in her ear.
"Does Zee seem off to you?"
Joanna can only give a worried shrug in reply.
"I don't know. I don't remember Zee being prideful. At least, not in that way, but it sounds plausible."