Titania shakes her head as it clears, Once she sees that whatever madness had taken them is gone, she begins shoving the others to the door, though she does try to mind Murassa's wounds.
"Out! Outoutoutoutout!"
Her voice isn't one of command or authority, but high and panicky as she gets everyone out of the mist-shrouded room and back into the passage that leads to the chamber where they fought the strange elementals. After she pushes everyone out, she slams the door shut and braces against it. Her breathing is short and rapid as she breaks out into a cold sweat. Now, more than ever, she appears more a young, frightened girl than a veteran Hellknight. Her eyes, glowing red, are wide, and it's easy to see her trembling as she remains braced against the door.
...and Titania's voice, as high and panicky as it may be, is nothing to Rallos and Murassa - just the vacuum of deafness...
Yasmin is disappointed that her spell fails, but is glad that nobody got fried. With her sanity restored, she wonders if she can tell the cause of this haze.
.
Still, she absolutely agrees not to stand Inn it further.
-Posted with Wayfinder
As Yasmin - slightly disappointed with how the fight turned out - retreats from the room, she notices that the blue fog within the seugathi's chamber is flowing with an unnatural sluggishness - as if time was somehow running slowly in the room. Something for her to ponder then as the group retreat back to the corridor outside the octagonal chamber...
Falling way, way back, Yasmin then shuts the door to the fire room, hoping that'll put a stop to its interference. Understanding that some of her friends might have suffered mental harm after encountering those strange creatures, Yasmin pulls out a wand she had for the situation and attempts to restore them.
"Crud. My first time trying this, and I think I might've messed it up. Ea, do you want to give it a go? I think it'll work better for you."
Whilst Yasmin tries to work out how to wield the wand she has been carrying, a stone-deaf Rallos watches on... the poison of the seugathi still coursing through his veins and denying him dominion over his senses. Murassa too is lost to deafness... and worse, seems to be suffering an aftershock of the confusion. Wild-eyed for a moment, he shrinks back from Yasmin as she waves the wand... and, moving into one of the side passages, seems to distort perversely... as if he were being stretched through the dimensions. Utterly unperturbed and unhearing, he continues to walk into the corridor... extending, stretching and extending until - like a piece of hyper-stretched elastic - he suddenly and rapidly contracts... and blinks out of existence!!!!
With Murassa's sudden disappearance, barely controlled terror turns into unrestrained panic as Titania begins trying to bash in the door that had sealed them in this place as she whimpers, "not again," over and over again. Unless someone physically tries to stop her, she keeps at it until the door is broken down or, more likely, she collapses from exhaustion.
The hellknight's head snaps around to face you as soon as you touch her. her eyes are wide and glowing red, showing that despite her otherwise normal appearance, save her height, she isn't human. Tears well in her eyes and it's clear that she's clinging to control by her fingernails. For several moments, she stands there, looking at you as her breathing continues on at a rapid, worrying pace.
The tempo of the furious pounding slows, bit by bit along with the tempo of her whimpers, until exhaustion takes the hellknight. She batters the doors with one last blow and slides down to collapse at the bottom of it. A moment later, Titania begins to sob softly as she lies on the ground.
Let's see how this wand works....
Ea uses the wand on Rallos, but before she can try to heal Murassa, he disappears in a side corridor
...and, as Ea uses the wand, Rallos is pulled from the muted silence that he endured - and out to the deafening sound of Titania smashing, somewhat fruitlessly, the door from this fell place...
Yasmin is busy tinkering with the wand before handing it over to Ea, and is stunned when she sees Murassa wandering listlessly towards the dangerous edge. "Murassa - what are you doing?" she cries, her words unheard by the deafened man. As she sees Murassa stretch out and vanish, she's not at all sure what to do.
"Should we follow him?" she turns and asks the others -- only to see Titania by the door as she begins to bash it n terror.
"Titania -- wait! Calm down. We don't even know what just happened there. . . . we need to figure out what to do next." Yasmin doesn't try to physically stop Titania, though, fearful that she might unleash her fury on her allies. She looks to the others. "Do you think Titania's still confused? This is getting out of control."
I fear Murassa is gone, at least for now. Fate will tell if we meet him again.
Ea's tone is nearly emotionless, but she puts her hand on Yasmin's shoulder, trying to confort her. She finally adds
We have no proof that he's dead, so we must keep the hope in our hearts that he's still alive, Yasmine. I'll pray and ask Pharasma later about our friend,but for now we have more pressing matters at hand.
The priestess turns toward Titania, and tries to find the steely, warlike tone she's accustomed to.
Hellknight,I demand you to cease immediatly this disordely conduct. Compose yourself. You're admist ennemy territory.
Rallos shakes his head and looks about furtively, his eyes focused and clear.
What in the hells was going on...my mind...so clouded...wait, where is Murassa? We must find him...anyone see what happened? He then realuzes that Titania is still smashing against the door.
You'll never break that door...ah for the love of the gods... He walks over to her and slaps her in the back of the head, trying to rouse her out of her bloodlust.
Titania doesn't seem to hear anyone as she continues to try breaking the door down. The slap to Titania's head, though, snaps her out of it. Her sword falls to the ground with a clatter before she turns around and looks at the others with eyes glowing red and wide with terror, the glow clearly showing that while she looks human, she's something else.
She just stands there, looking at all of you, her breathing coming at a worrying pace. She's terrified and while she's in control now, it's only just barely. Slowly she backs up to the door and then slides down it. Her hands cradle her head as the young woman tries to get herself back under control.
Yasmin decides for the moment to listen to Ea's advice and not attempt to follow Murassa. Let fate be she hears, imagining Ea's voice, cold hard reality intervening on her desperate desire to reverse what she just saw.
Shaking off her feelings, Yasmin turns to Titania and is taken aback by the warrior's glowing red eyes.
.
She knows at once what they mean--Titania was actually a devil. The revelation is surprising, though it becomes less so when Yasmin remembers that they were dealing with a Hellknight. In any event, she decides she needs to bring Titania back from the brink.
"Tot, I don't know what kind of devils you have haunting your past . . . but you just cut your way through a bunch of shadowfire creatures, and held together your sanity against whatever those other things were, while the rest of us started fighting each other. You're a strong warrior, and even though we didn't exactly get off to a great start, we need you right now, more than ever. Whatever magic seals this place isn't impenetrable; otherwise we wouldn't even be in here. So we just need to stick together and find it." On the inside, Yasmin didn't feel quite as hopeful, still stung by Murassa's disappearance. But sure wasn't going to let this Hellknight know that, because they really did need her.
...and Murassa, not having left a trace within the corridor, seems to be truly gone. There is no sign of him returning... but, on the bright side, at least nothing has followed the group out of the mist-filled room.
Slowly, painfully, Tot brings herself under control. After a few minutes, she sniffles and slides down the door to sit on the ground. Her tears glitter like rubies in the dim glow of her eyes.
"I thought I was over it," she says in a weak and frayed voice, "and I'd almost forgotten about it since it happened almost a decade ago."
Another long moment of silence passes before the hellknight speaks again, her voice strained as she gives the others a rictus-like grin.
"What do you know of Lamashtu?"
Yasmin lets out a sigh of relief as Tot comes back to her senses. Although that grin she flashes is a bit disturbing. "Lamashtu . . . Mother of Monsters? A faith to be avoided or put down, don't know much beyond that. Sounds like you know more, though."
The grin, thankfully, fades, but the haunted look in Tot's eyes isn't much better. The glow that had taken them is little more than a faint ember now, allowing the blue of her irises to be seen.
"I do," she says quietly, "I've never been liked. Others are more charismatic and popular, but I am the low one on the totem pole, even green recruits get more respect than I get most of the time. I guess that's why I got assigned to go in with the beaters when the inquisitors found a nest of those damned deviants. I knew, even then, that I had to watch my back, but even the most ambitious person won't try to stab the person keeping them alive in the back, or so I thought."
"Heh. It's funny how naive isn't a word people ever use to describe a hellknight," she laughs mirthlessly before continuing her tale.
"It started well enough, kill some goblins and ogres and force them back. Try not to pay the carvings and murals of women being eaten alive by their own monstrous children any mind. Very standard, very much by the book," she says in an eerily calm voice before a manic giggle bubbles to the surface, "t-t-too bad the damned book never prepared us for having our squad leader suddenly ripping the throat of his second out! I-I-I was right next to him when it happened, too. Then he killed himself on his own sword. That's when everyone else went mad! Killing and babbling and screaming. By the time those of us left regained our senses, they'd sicced their pet monsters on us. We ran, and I was the only one that made it out alive."
Armor rattles as she shivers and giggles softly. She's grinning once more, and it does nothing to lessen the dead, horror-filled look in her wide eyes.
"I guess the commander thought he'd get a different result if she put all of us in that pit of horrors. The deeper we got, the more depraved the frescoes and statuary got. The monsters became more hideous, and more and more of us went mad. I had to fight off my comrades more often that I was fighting something we were actually supposed to kill. And then! You wanna guess what happened then? They start trying to douse us with this vile, rancid water. We didn't think anything of it, until those of us that got splattered with it began to turn into monsters and attack us, too!"
Tears run down her face as she continues to giggle softly and smile that dead smile at the others.
"We succeeded. There were only five of us left, five out of over a hundred and fifty, but we killed the priestess and all of her followers. We tore ourselves apart, and I had to murder fifteen of my comrades in arms when they tried to kill me, but we did it, by damn!"
The giggles begin to turn to sobs, and the smile crumbles into a twisted mask of pain and terror as she buries her head in her hands and weeps.
I have seen the damage of Lamasthu. Monstrous newborns, out of the womb of their poor mothers, ravaging them from the inside. I sympathise. Sometimes, it seems it's better to be dead than to be caught alive. Especially when you are a woman falling into the clutches of a Lamashtu sect.
...and now, having retreated into the corridor where a locked door prevents their escape and Murassa's disappearance tells of eldritch powers, it dawns on the group that they are trapped... truly trapped - and the way out, so absolutely not here at the grand doors, must be further in...
Yasmin comes over and gives Titania a rather awkward half hug. "Listen, Titania, you're a survivor. You've fought through unspeakable horrors and lived. No, triumphed. I know you're feeling like you want to run away from this place, but you're probably the most qualified person to lead the charge. Seriously. After what you went through, this place will be like a stroll in the park." Yasmin tries to smile as she says this, though her expression is tinged with sadness and empathy. But her voice rings true--she really believes Titania's past experience can be a strength in this situation.
When Yasmin hugs her and offers words of encouragement, Titania looks up at the mage with eyes puffy from crying, but wide with surprise.
"Y-you don't think I'm weak or useless?"
I would hardly call you weak or useless.....a bit rash perhaps...nothing more... Rallos says as he sits for a while, his strength obviously drained.
I'll use the wand to restore your strength, and the blessing of Pharasma to cure your wounds.
Yasmin is genuinely taken aback by Titania's remark. "You're a fantastic warrior. Like Rallos said, just don't let that get to your head." She was a pretty good stand-in for old Grayface . . . once you worked through the mood swings.
"So, I don't think we're gonna get very far sitting around and waiting to be rescued. Ready to try the passageway to the south of the flame?"
Thanks for the thousandth time, Ea. I'll lead off...mkght be traps or Gods know what.... Rallos stretches as he gets up. Onwatds we go...hopefully we can find Murassa...
Rallos heads to the northwesten hallway and check the door.
Titania wipes away fresh tears from her eyes as the others voice their opinion of her. She'd expected ridicule, even outright hatred, but this was something she'd never had, the support of her peers and comrades. Ea's waves of healing did more than just mend her wounds. It also helped soothe her fears and calm her. As the others stand to find the way out, Tot joins them, and something about how they'd come together has her thinking.
"Th-thanks Ea, I– I needed that. Um?" she looks nervously to the others for a moment before she continues. "C-can I get a hug?"
Feeling more like her normal self, indeed, feeling much better, the young warrior follows Rallos to make sure that he has someone watching his back.
If it looks like Rallos is heading toward the same effect that sucked in Murassa, Yasmin immediately grabs him to impede his progress. "Rallos, snap out of it! We can't follow Murassa that way, it's too dangerous!" Yasmin shakes her head, bewildered at the continuing confusion and disarray. "Come on, we're going this way, back into the octagonal room and then south." Which is where the sorceress will insist on leading the party.
Ahh...I thoight he went the other way....that spell really knocked me for a loop...point me in the right direction...I dpn't want to repeat of earlier...
"Yeah, I've already broken my promise to Grayface. I don't want to break it any more."
The pint-sized swordswoman follows Rallos and Yasmin to make sure they don't get eaten or something else like that.
The group, reinvigorated by Ea’s healing yet still reeling from Murassa’s disappearance, move onwards… what else, after all, can they do?
Picking their way past the detritus of the smashed clockworks and moving into the octagonal room with the ever present magic-fuelled fire, the group are mindful not to use any of the arcane ability that they have… for fear of raising the fire once more. And so, deciding not to move against the mind-affecting worms of the northern room again, the group head southwards - along a narrow corridor that ends at a solid wooden door.
Rallos, cautiously examining the door and confirming it is free from traps, cannot hear any noise from beyond it… and so, weapons in hand, the group creak the door open and move into a room lined with statues. Broad steps lead up to a horseshoe-shaped platform in the eastern half of the room - that stands 10 feet higher than the western portion of the room. In the middle of the eastern wall stands a large bronze door inscribed with mystic symbols, whilst far plainer doors exit to the north and to the west. Ancient seals of lead and wax on the eastern door appear to have been broken long ago.
The statues along the southern wall depict people in their finery… each of them looking to the skies in a reverential state whilst, along the northern wall, there is a tableau of a man striking down his enemies. The heavily armoured man is almost impossibly handsome and holding a steel sword, which it looks like it has just swung. The two statues nearest to the attacker appear to have had their heads severed as though in one sword blow and each holds its own shocked head in one hand. The one closest to the sword-wielding statue holds a steel shield that appears to have offered it no protection. The last statue, at the northwest corner, cowers in fear.
Rallos whispers to the group. Those statues are watching us...and no, I am not imagining things...be careful.
. Yasmin has no idea what Rallos is talking about. On the other hand, he was quite insistent. She searches for magic auras, while seeing if she can recognize any part of the scene she was witnessing.
- The handsome man with the sword is a statue... although it is not one of those that Rallos thought to see moving. Yasmin is more attentive to things of the arcane though... and she sees an aura, strangely shifting and defying analysis, pouring from the statue's shield.
"That's making me nervous," Titania says as she readies her sword, "anyone know why their eyes are following us?"
Because Something will Attack us soon, probably. We're in the Spire , after all, where everyone and everything can be a potential foe.
Certainly it seems that the eyes of a pair of the statues, from their decapitated heads, are following the group... and it is more than the kind of effect where a paintings gaze follows someone around a room - this is more definite than that.
But, for now at least and despite Ea's pessimism, their is no sign that the statues are about to animate and attack...
"There's some sort of magic on that shield, though it's very shifty and hard to analyze. It could be a trap. It might be another time to send something into the room and see how it reacts."
Yasmin digs into her pack and finds one of a set of torches she frankly never uses. From a distance, she begins moving the unlit torch around the room, and particularly near the shield and sword.
Floating across the room, held aloft by Yasmin's magicks, the torch hovers near the statues... and, as the group tentatively watch, nothing happens...
Thry might be linked to a spring kr trigger somewhere....I'll look around...
Rallos looks for a possible trugger.
Titania walks further into the room with her sword ready for trouble as she looks about trying to find anything that could be a threat.
Walking out into the room, Rallos and Titania are ready for whatever nefarious traps have been laid in this part of the Spire... yet, despite their misgivings, nothing happens - and the more that Rallos looks around, the more he is convinced that there are no traps here... and still, subtly moving, the decapitated statues 'watch' the group.
Can Yasmin recognize the scene at all? Perhaps it is of some well-known noble figure? She's interested in figuring out whether the iconography is supposed to be good-aligned or evil-aligned.
Yasmin retrieves the floating torch and sets it aside. She's still wary of entering the room.
"All I can think is that these statues are going to attack us. So, should we do a Titania special?" Yasmin hasn't explained what that means, but it's pretty clear given their history, and Yasmin's own posture preparing for spellcasting, that she means a preemptive strike.
If there is agreement, Yasmin will begin by speeding up the party's movements!
"What? Oh nevermind, if they aren't doing anything, let's leave them alone for now, and check the other doors to this place," Titania says before heading to the western door and checking it for anything dangerous.
The door to the west is quite grand (although not as imposing as the equivalent door to the east) and, insofar as Titania is able to tell, is free of traps or other hazards... it is however, noticeably cold to the touch - a lingering frost smears the edges of the door in an icy glaze.
...and Yasmin's consideration of the statues reveals nothing of value - it is unclear to her whether the figure with the raised sword is meant to be revered or feared... although it is pretty obvious from the care expended in carving the piece that the sculptor, or the person who commissioned the sculpture, believed the subject to be a man of great beauty.