The Father of Waters

Game Master Fighting Chicken

Round 1 of madness

When the voices start softly, Istiel is not surprised- she was used to the voices by now, and could silence them instantly. She focused her mind, and made it still as a pond on a windless day.

Before the voices are silenced, though, she catches a single phrase, floating through her mind...

they're coming...

The stillness of her mind is shattered in an instant as the babbling consumes her thoughs, shattering any mental barrier. She cannot think, even to achieve the meditative state she found such comfort in.

"NO!" The monk shouts, grabbing her head and thrashing it wildly. "THESE ARE NOT MY VOICES! MY HEAD IS FULL! THERE IS NO ROOM FOR ANY OF YOU!" She begins to punch herself in the side of the head, head blow knocking her neck sideways as if it was hit by a brick. "GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!"

He interposes himself between the monk and the others and shouts You will come to your senses immediately. We must retreat from this place. NOW!

Round 1

The group turns - almost unanimously - on Istiel, but their addled minds make the monk a poor target. Drazan's baneaxe sails clear over Istiel's head, and Imix's pick sinks into the ground between the warrior-monk's feet.

In the end, Istiel proves the most damaging to Istiel, the monk's fist connecting solidly with her own neck.

Always fresh, never frozen! Drazan growls through clenched jaws, his madness unrelenting.

Imix blinks as Oios interposes himself between Istiel and the pick. Hesitant thoughts run through his head, struggling in the storm of madness. 'Wait. Oios does not want this. Oios wants me to... stop.' the thought is waylaid 'He's trying to stop me from helping Istiel!'

Retreat! We must get away! he says as he channels healing energy into the wounded monk.

Round 2

The world is a swirl of colors, shapes, all undulating with the babbling voices occupying her every thought. When Oios touches the staff to her she whirls and advances on him, brown eyes nearly completely obscured by fully dilated pupils.

"FOX PRIEST!" She yells while Drazen's axe swings by her, missing her neck by inches. Istiel pays it no mind. "You will pay for your crimes! I know what you did to your family! What you have done to the Three Peoples! Die!"

The warrior-monk's right hand coils into a fist and lashes out like a snake, intent on killing the nebulous and malformed Fox Priest in her immediate sight. Oios feels a strong rush of air pass by his ear and rustle his hair as she misses his face by a thread's width.

Round 2

Even as Istiel's wounds close, the monk turns on Oios, swinging a stone-hard fist at the Shadow. Luckily, the warrior-monk's addled state causes her to just miss Oios.

The Shadow is not so lucky with Drazan however. Distracted by Istiel, Drazan slashes at Oios, slipping the axe blade under Oios's stone pine armor, and leaving a viscious gash along the Shadow's hip.

Imix then steps into Drazan, planting his pick into the Mountain Man's bicep. Blood spurts, and the Man From Fire Peaks locks eyes with Imix, his gaze an errupting fury of soon to be violence.

Round 3

Istiel winds up another punch towards Oios, when all of a sudden her other hand slaps her across the mask.

The assault doesn't stop there- her left hand continues to slap, pinch, and rake her nails across her shoulders and neck. Startled and thrown off balance, she reels under the constant attacks of the phantom hand.

"Fox Priest has possed my left hand! MY LEFT HAND!" She shouts, grabbing the spasming "possessed" hand by the wrist and pulling it off her body with what seems to be titanic effort.

"ARRGGGHH!!! I WILL NOT LET YOU CLAIM MY BODY!" Sliding her right hand up to her left elbow, the yelling and exertion continues as she pulls on her entire left arm as if trying to remove it from her body. Indeed, under the sounds of babbling and moving about, a sickening pop rolls through the room as Istiel dislocates her own shoulder, left arm suddenly falling to her side in a useless dangle.

The warrior monk throws her head up to the ceiling as if to scream, but no sound emerges from her gaping mouth.

Drazan swings wildly at Imix, but misses, a blessing in the unexplained and sudden madness.

Imix blinks as Drazan suddenly attacks him. 'Why?' he wonders in the whirling mass of confusion - then grasps hold of a fact 'If Drazan is attacking me, I must be the problem.'

The pick rotates in his hand as he brings the point towards his head - at speed.

Oios gasps as he stumbles back. He has to find some way of getting them out of the place but how? How long could the madness last?

Round 3

Stumbling out of the melee, Oios witnesses the madness still gripping his companions. Drazan swings wildly and misses the Suriname... who also attacks the Suriname, Imix's pick thankfully bouncing off of his helmet and just grazing his own face.

Istiel as well is wracked with the impulse to self-harm, the pop from her dislocated shoulder echoing around the room.

Round 4

Feeling as if she is being sucked back into reality, Istiel is suddenly completely coherent. The voices still babble on the edges of her mind, but in their rampaging they seem to have accidently walled themselves off from her conscious thoughts for now.

She looks at her dangling arm with despair, clutching it momentarily as the pain flows over her. Yet, the self-pity passes very quickly and she focuses on remedying the situation. With her one good arm she throws her bag from over her shoulder and onto the ground, franctically digging through the contents. The warrior-monk pulls out a corked gourd from the bag, places it on the floor, and stomps on the neck while pulling on the body.

The fragile neck crumbles into a hundred fragments, spilling some of the cloudy liquid onto the floor. She can hear the voices returning, crowding out her desperate thoughts.

The broken container is lifted to her mouth and poured through the mouth hole in her mask; some liquid splashes over the sides and drips down her wooden chin as she quickly gulps the substance.

Blood and Bones, what is happening? Drazan hollwers, shaking his sanity back into his head. Foul wizardry, it must be! Drazan charges ahead in effort to find sign or trace of a spell casting mongrel to unleash his rage on.[/b]

If you are in your right minds then RETREAT! We can come back later if we must but for now we LEAVE!

Oios starts backing away towards the entrance while shouting.

Isitel. If you are well then drag Imix out. Force him out if needs be. He will kill himself! Oios shouts and reverses course as the Suriname forces his pick into his skull.

Round 4

Clarity washes over both Drazan and Istiel... and stays with Istiel, even as the voices addle Drazan once again. Imix, in the throws of madness, digs his pick into his own head, almost ending the Suriname's life. Oios, quick on his feet, saves the Suriname however, his curative magic forcing the weapon back out, the wound sealing as the pick is spit from Imix's head.

A few seconds of running ahead to find the suspect of the maddening spellcaster, Drazan stops to shed his own blood on Bane, cracking himself in the head with the haft sending streaks of black through his vision.

Round 5

Just as the voices seems to be peaking again, the tea kicks in. The multitude of yammering and moaning spectres in her mind dissolve away, and she only catches a few tidbits of nonsense that make her feel like something far, far away is watching her.

Lucid once more, she looks to Oios and nods. First, she has to do something about her shoulder.

Mind once more a still pond, Istiel focuses on her left arm. Demonstrating a complete control over every muscle in her body, she completely relaxes everything from bicep to shoulder blade. Pulling back her left shoulder, the warrior monk's left arm shudders and the joint softly snaps back in place without even a sound.

Flexing her left hand a few times and shaking off the numb sensation, she turns her attention to Imix. It wasn't hard to close in on the suriname, and he would suddenly find tree-trunk like arms wrapped around the insides of his armpits, left hand on the back of his neck, forcing his down down. Meanwhile her right hand snakes around his right bicep and grabs his forearm, pulling the pickaxe away from his face.

Oios rushes forward to use up more of his waning reserves to heal Drazan.

Round 5

Imix, still gripped in madness, struggles against Istiel's grapple, but the Suriname is unable to break free. The welt on Drazan's head is immediately healed by Oios, who feels his connection to Damballah breaking...

Round 5

Tightly constricting Imix's upper body, Istiel does not let go of the suriname's struggling form. She begins to move backwards, dragging him towards Oios and the canoe landing.

Trying to direct Drazan's madness. Oios tries to smack the barbarian across the face with his staff and then backs away towards the exit. Come then. Come and get me Drazan!

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Sarenith 23, 4:01pm
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Imix struggles against Istiel's grapple, but it is of little use; the monk's finely honed body prevents the Suriname from doing any more damage - to himself, or others. Drazan, retreating from his companions to the balcony, finds the madness once again grip him...

And then, the voices fade as quickly as they came on, receding quickly to a whisper and then just silence, as if they never existed to begin with. The water lapps gently at the balcony just beyond the windows of the room, its sounds now amplified in the absence of the madness.

A closed door greets you to the south, another to the east.

I am spent, and it has been a long long day. Oios says, his voice heavy with weariness. It would not be wise to continue. We must rest and recover. Pray and heal. Before we go deeper into this place.

Before that I will try and divine what this place holds. Protect me while I beseech Damballah for insight.

Oios sits at the entrance of the building and takes a deep breath to enter a trance, focibly banishing the fatigue of the day as he probes deeper into the place.

Once Imix has come to his sense, Istiel releases him from the hold she had placed on his arms and allows him to walk free. She tentatively steps into the library, looking for something, anything, that could have been the sources of the voice.

"I am still well." The monk announces as she slowly paces about the room. "I can scout the area. Search for signs of creatures."

I... I am feeling... myself, Drazan calls between deep breaths and self mending his self inflicted wounds. After channeling his divine powers channel to regenerate his health and vigor, Drazan remains on the balcony, unsure if the madness would return if he returned. For now, he waited; content until he was either fetched or until he had no other choice to go back.

"We need a plan, in case the voices return." Imix argues, and rubs at the mark on his mask where the pick so recently penetrated "This respite may be as temporary as it is welcome."

The room is blanketed in a dim aura - two of them, actually. the subtle green of an enchantment aura is darkened almost to black by that of necromantic energies. It seems like the voices, though now quiet, are not gone for good...

Istiel turns up another long copper-like tube with a clear lens at each end, laying within a pile of debris spilled against one wall. Though discolored, it seems to be in good shape.

"Another metal tube." Istiel announces as she pulls the device from the pile of debris. It didn't seem as ornate as the one she found earlier in the day, but it was made of copper, furhtering solidifying her idea that it was some kind of strange weapon.

"Tribute." She concludes, placing it in her jute sack.

As Oios continues to divine the magics of the place, she continues to poke around. With the steady and stealthily motions of a deadly predator, she quietly peers through any cracks in the doors to the south and east, gently opening them herself if no such openings exist.

south door stealth: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (12) + 10 = 22

south door perception: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (9) + 10 = 19

east door stealth: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (19) + 10 = 29

east door perception: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (9) + 10 = 19

Enchantment and death magicks... from foes that are not visible. Oios grouses. If all of us had fallen to the madness then we might have killed ourselves at those voices behest.

"I suggest when we come back we come prepared." - Imix's 'suggestion' sounds more like an order. "Oios leads the way - his divine connection appears to protect him. He does so armed with every warding we have, without weapon, and with a rope to connect him back to us in case he is compelled to run. Only when he indicates it is safe does one more of us enter. If that person is also safe, then we all enter."

Istiel returns to the group as they discuss possible counter-measures against the strange voices, arms folded over her chest.

"The east holds a bedroom. It is devoid of life. It may hold tribute." She says while gesturing in that direction. "The south is a balcony. It overlooks the flooded center of the building. There is a downward staircase into the water. Windows to the outside line the balcony. I noticed bits of scales. Like snake skin. Signs of the lizard of legend."

Clearly not on board with leaving, Istiel gestures towards the previously mentioned bedroom. "I will search the eastern room." She announces, mocasins making little noise across the moist floor as she heads in that direction.

"I fear no lizard. We should continue on." Is her last comment on whether or not they should stay or go.

In the bedroom, the pile of furnishings turn up nothing but ruined and moldered wood. The bed seems on the verge of collapsing itself, but the nightstands - the nightstands, even soaking in the humid air of the room and no doubt splashed with occasional storms over the ages - they remain in fine condition, and their drawers slide open easily. They contain little of interest to the monk, however.

Istiel briefly puzzles over why the nightstands in the bedroom seem to be in such fine shape while the resst of the room resembles a forest floor. By the time she has rifled through their contents, she has concluded they were not only too heavy for tribute.

Returning to the main room empty handed, she decides at least least mention the strange furniture. "There are a pair of strange nightstands in the bedroom. Untouched by time. Unscarred by nature. Suriname, could they be magical?"

The madness will return and my connection to the grace of Damballah and Loco have all but diminished. Oios says. The voices might come back at any time and until we know what they wish we can NOT put their haunting to a rest. The nightstands are a clue certainly but for now we take the tube as tribute and leave.

"Possibly" Imix concedes "Though it would take a diviner to truly know."

He acquiesces to Oios's command with surprising alacrity.

A balcony lined with ruined paintings and massive windows overlooks the mansion's foyer, which is now filled with water. Rotten sofas and armchairs slump along the southern wall, their once rich red upholstery faded from ages of disuse. A marble staircase descends into dark, churning water. Bits and pieces of scaly flesh lie strewn here and there on the balcony.

Round 1

As you approach the balcony, a great beast rises out of the water, long-necked with hundreds of pointy teeth lining its reptilian maw. Yellow eyes blink once at you before it lets loose a long hiss.

Drazan still grappling with his own sanity finds himself on pins and needles when he is instantly able to react to the teething fisher beast as it rises from the water, his body collapsing and surging into his large water elemental form and then leaps into the water to close the distance to the long necked lizard fish.

Oios replaces his staff with his long branch spear. Bring it close so I can try and stab it. he calls out to Drazan not willing to enter the water.

The reptile lashes out as Drazan enters the water, before its head skips past the Man From Fire Peaks and snap at Imix. The creature's breath is fetid; its head is covered with leisions and tumors - however, its teeth seem razor sharp, just punching through the Suriname's armor. The creature grabs hold of Imix, and begins pulling him into the water...