"I don't think I can take another sewage bath here...therefore YOU may not..." Thom mutters to himself as he lets fly a burst of force at the rot slinger.
The rot slinger ducks aside from Thom's attack, but the required movement makes another small part of it break off and splash down into the sewage.
"If one of these things dies on my boots whoever killed it will get to clean them." Arishat stabs angrily at the sewage. "Great horned ancestors, I have this horrible feeling someone is going to have to go into that muck to fight them."
James wisely says nothing to Arishats words.
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"I don't think he minds." Raya says offhanded to James. "He's the only soul here tougher than me. Speaking of which..."
The nimble slingers use their flight well, intent on harassing the party. Raya frowns as she considers how long they could simply stay out of reach. She inverts Ruinblade, driving the blade towards the stonework floor, "Come forth and fight my Ruinblade!." A blast of divine light shudders out in a radius. Smaller images of the paladin, ghostly and ethereal seize the two slingers, and haul them over to the party. With Ruinblade reared back now ready to strike, Raya does a fierce overhand attack at R1.
"This is...."
Knight's Defiance
"The end!" Her blade slices deeply into the Rot Slinger, Ruinblade punishing the undead with his own wrath.
damage
Moved Rot Slingers closer to me as part of KD's effect
Minor: Mark R2 with Divine challenge.
Move: Retrieve the Battle Standard of the Hungry Blade.
save vs -2 to saves
Arishat stabs irritably, but fruitlessly at the rot slinger, but Raya goes on the rampage, invoking Ruinblade and hauling both repugnant creatures within easy reach. R1 now looks very bedgraggled as more body parts flop off and sink into the sewage beneath.
From around the corner, Vocar's voice turns agitated again. "It's a pet, a pretty pet to guard me"
"Ooooh ..."
Vocar lets the new idea permeate.
"You'll bring me sweeties and you won't hurt a poor lonely old lunatic?" he weedles.
Vocar calls out something to the rot slingers and they fly upwards once more, pulling themselves towards the ceiling and preparing to retreat.
James closes his eyes hating that he has shared a link with the decayed creatures. However he keeps his links with the creatures open, causing his stomach to roil in despair.
Thom watches the rot slingers retreat, muttering "I don't like this one bit..." He does not attack them however.
James cautiously moves forward; "Vocar, we have sweeties and we just want to talk to you. We are not like those others..." He tries to locate where the voice is coming from and move across towards it slowly. "Can we speak to you?"
"We might even take you to a sweet shop and let you pick your own sweeties." Arishat glares at her filthy spear as if it is at fault for the environment.
Lanthair continues to regard the fetid rot slingers with quiet disgust.
Barel is still slightly confused as he finds himself in a new position behind everyone else. He agrees with Thom and eyes the departing stinky bastards as evilly as Lanthair..yet he too holds his actions for Raya to preach some sense to the senseless.
"Talking, talking, sharing secrets, giving sweeties. Come into my parlour and say you're sorry for hurting my pets. Ooooh it's so hard to keep friends down here because they will get me. Have to be protected. Can't go and buy sweeties."
Vocar's voice rambles self-pityingly, but the rot slingers keep their distance. It is probably as close to an invitation as you will get.
"It's alright, I have some pear-drops, liquorice, black-jacks and others for you." James walks forward. "I profusely apologise for any damage and harm that has occurred to your friends." he bows his head keeping his attention upon his feet and keeping his stomach from revolting and spilling it's contents.
"So, these are you friends? I take it you are hiding from the leader of your guardians above ground?" James asks in a soft compassionate voice.
"Fruit salads? Fizz-bombs?"
James looks at the bridge before him and quickly nips across the bridge as lightly and taking as few strides as possible; "Of course I have some fruits salads, what else would I have with black-jacks. Though who likes them? Fizz-bombs the sherbetty ones? Yeah, there's a few of them. No, sherbet dib-dabs - I couldn't find any of them. Maybe next time, or we could go to the surface; if you are not too afraid." he says smoothly and confidently.
James looks for the older gentleman.
Crouching in the corner of an unpleasant lean-to squats the party's quarry. Vocar is not an attractive sight. Lean, shabby beyond what seems possible and adorned with a ragged red cloth covering one eye, he holds out his hands greedily as James approaches.
One of those hands is a stump, roughly covered with a foul bandage and hygiene is clearly not high on his list of priorities.
"No dib-dabs. Shame and pity on you. Why are you hunting old Vocar? He's harmless now and everyone wants to kill him."
James looks on the old man with pity; he had seen similar cases in the army. Old soldiers who could fight no more and couldn't take care of themselves, usually the Major had set them up with a domicile. However many can back to hang around the fringes of the legion.
"Sorry, would you like to come back to my loft. It has a bath to clean you." James offers "Do you know why they want to kill you? Something to do with the one-eyed man?" A shudder of revulsion goes through his body as he remembers the Gods visage.
"Aloft. We don't fly any more. Everyone knows that. Sweeties keep me safe and so does the lady. He doesn't like sweets you know. That's a failing. They do say that winter will come early this year if we but knew."
The stench of decay and old sweat fairly hurls itself from Vocar as James mentions a one-eyed man. He reaches hopefully for the promised sweets.
"Just a few blackjacks and fruit salads for a poor old man," he wheedles.
James hurriedly rips the paper bag in half and places it before the old man. Then he turns away and drops to his knees; his face over the stream of effluent and disgorges the contents of his stomach. Vomiting caused by a mixture of the foul breath of the man, the souls of his minions and the general location. Quickly he wipes his mouth looking back to the others ashamed and apologetically.
With a shrug he turns back to Vocar; "Must have been something I ate! I need a sweet." He takes one from the other half of the bag; whilst the part left for Vocar has quickly disappeared from the ground.
"The Lady, tell me, does she live in the shadows?" James softly questions.
Thom watches the exchange between James and Vocar silently, and nearly gags while watching him vomit. He moves behind the warlock and passes a hand over him. James feels a bit cleaner, if not better.
Vocar's one hand moves towards the bag like a spider after its prey. Tipping the contents on the ground, he becomes lulled and almost lucid as he starts to sort them into a circle around him.
"Fizz-bombs go here and then I always put the fruit salads in the middle to protect me. Can't always tell with liquorice it's black as his heart but tastes like secrets," he explains.
Head down, he finally remembers James's question.
"Silly warlock with the bad tummy. Lady of Pain. She keeps me safe from him."
He finishes making his circle and stuffs the unused sweets wholesale into his mouth, his manner changing as he stands up.
"Safe now until I get greedy. What did you want to talk about?"
Coming from Vocar this is strangely direct.
He nods a brief thanks to Thom not wanting to break the strange ritual of Vocar's. 'So this is how he performs his magic, with sweets? Well I suppose they he have a strong emotional attachment, provide energy.'
James then racks his brains thinking what he knows about 'The Lady of Pain', of course where he was from she wasn't one of the obvious Gods.
"Glad to here that you're safe." He then waits for the others to ask the questions slightly unsure of what they were doing, however knowing that since his meeting with Him James needed to leave.
Thom waves off the thanks. "Don't mention it."
He eyes the old man uneasily as he stuffs his face with the sweets. "Glad to see you like the sweets. Just be sure to brush your teeth afterwards. Amyway, we are searching for the lair of your former master, the one known as..." He hesitates here, unwilling to mention Aceracks name aloud.
"Teeth?"
Vocar smiles, revealing unlovely mess of raw gum.
"My former master took them you know. With my eye and my hand and I gave them happily. All the birds in his little nest agree."
'Oh, by the Shadow. Is this what'll await me if He takes to much more of an interest in me?' James thinks revolted. "They...we...need to find the home of the Architect of Death. Vocar, please do you know where he is....Acerack!" He nearly bites his tongue, lightly he rubs the holy symbol hidden around his neck.
"Dead and in the dead land of the dead."
Vocar looks blearily at the sweet circle surrounding him and reaches for one of his protective blackjacks.
"Oh this is bad. He'll be looking for me now. Tsk tsk not the birdies. The one before the birdie."
"It's alright, Mr Vocar. You have your friends." he motions to the putrid golems.
"Can you tell us more....of the birds? The Lady?" James asks softly trying to fish for information. 'The Birds? Are they Angels or his protectors' He fishes for insight into the old man; despite the fact that the insane made him feel uncomfortable. 'Touched by the Gods' - they were called in his home-land and used by unscrupulous Magisters as prophets for their own profit. He shudders which completely distracts his thinking.
The Lady of Pain, as James now remembers, rules the city of Sigil. Seldom seen, always feared, she alone holds the power to keep warfare and deities alike at bay. Quite what she is, nobody knows, but no being in the known muliverses has ever managed to bypass the wards on Sigil without her permission. Vocar could truly have found no safer hidey hole.
Flummoxed though he is, James does not think the birdies and the Lady of Pain are connected at all.
Thom watches the former exarch closely, trying to wrack his extensive stores of knowledge to see if he can make sense of his rambling nonsense.
Thom cuts easily though the obscurity to the kernal of the matter. Before The Raven Queen was granted dominion over the dead, another god held that role. Long forgotten by most, Nerull was Lord of the Dead and the The Raven Queen usurped him. If Vocar is right, Acerack is in Pluton, Nerull's former realm.
Thom whispers softly to James, "I know where our next destination is. Please make sure Vocar has enough sweets to tide him over."
Getting the half out of his pocket he places the remnants of the sweeties bag on the stone before Vocar. "There you go." His voice soft and slightly afraid. 'He must have great power once, to be reduced to this...'
"So, Vocar how did you leave His service? And if I had a friend bring you sweets?" he asks hopefully.
Looking back to Raya, James mentions. "I'll see if I can get Hester to buy some sweets and leave them for him daily."
"Like to like." James says quietly almost to himself. Whilst still deliberating why someone would mutilate themselves so.
Shocked James realises his curses have been lost, and the aura of death has gone away. Is it just being near the paladins reassuring presence? "Do you like it here Vocar? Or would you prefer somewhere above ground."
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Raya studies the miserable ex-exarch. Surely there's madness there, but how much was manufactured. Oddly, she finds herself wanting to see Vocar lying, to at least show the man still had wits.
"I believe it is not so much where he would 'like' but what garners him the best safety. A city of a million doors is as good as any....Vocar, when we return from all this. If there is nothing more that can be done for you, at the very least, you shall have enough sweets in gratitude that I can muster." With that she turns away, there was work to be done and precious little time.
Lanthair feels little pity for a creature that surrounds himself with such vile abominations and looks on impassively.
Seeing his companions leave; he gives the ex-Exarch a bow. "I'll try and arrange sweet delivery by the man-hole. And I think you for your time." Looking to the departing group he hurries and catches up; "Where next, friends?" he asks hopefully. Hoping that they have forgotten the blinding excrement showers and his attacking the angels.
His eyes roam the streets looking to see a familiar face, especially Hester, so as he can get regular sweet deliveries to the lunatic.
"Well at some point I'd like to have a wash and collect the remains of my things." James empty stomach gurgles at him, but he resolutely ignores it. "That is before we go galavanting to His lair." He smiles quietly at himself that the beautiful young lady as accepted him as a friend, or at least not decried it publically.
Thom wrinkles his nose, "I think we could ALL use a bath. Anyway our next destination is Pluton. That is where our foe lairs now."