The family of sylphs and oreads settles down for the night. Samen, either due to sullenness or inexperience, has not volunteered to take a watch. The wind turns cruel in the cold night air as Volcano's dim presence slumbers.
Samen, you awaken to a searing pain as a tiny black blob touches you with its tendrils. Your skin breaks out in thin red rashes where the thin, stringy pseudopodia have contacted you.
At Samen’s cry of pain, Marianne jolts awake, hands flying to fasten her quivers on as she scans for danger.
Samoon's eyes snap open.
"ow."
Samen groggily attempts to whack the thing with his stick.
Samen handily squashes the cat-sized thing. You notice a few of its now-still tendrils hang limply in your pack, as if they were searching for something.
Marianne, you notice three other blobs - one each next to Samoon, Wamblee, and yourself.
Wamblee snaps awake.
Sansetsukon.
His hands reach for his three-section staff and drives one end towards the nearest blob.
Round 1 Results!
Samen squashes a blob.
Wamblee similarly crushes a blob with his heavy chained staff.
The remaining blobs are starting to open Marianne's and Samoon's packs.
"Hey! Psuedopods off! Whoever is controlling these things, reveal yourself!"
Samen moves up to Marianne's pack and tries to beat the blob.
Samoon fires an arrow at point blank range at the blob.
”Yeah, get away from my stuff!” Marianne shouts, firing an arrow at the blob.
The blobs are skewered and smashed, leaving an oozy ichor behind.
Oddly, Uncle and Mother are still asleep, despite the clangor.
A friendly voice, with a hint a laughter in it, says, "Very well, if you insist!" A deathly pale sylph saunters out of the wheat, about forty feet away. His short black beard is trimmed strangely, full of whorls and hooks, almost like pseudopodia. He is dressed in clean, white traveler's garb. "What is the ifrit saying - 'Fret and he will appear'?"
He is unarmed, holding his hands slightly away from his body.
“I hate that saying,”[/b] Marianne comments, leveling an arrow at the sylph. Keep those hands right where they are,” she adds coldly.
Samoon draws an arrow as well.
"Explain yourself or dine on arrows," says the sylph evenly.
Looking at the sylph's face more closely, you are taken aback - it is the same eleni you killed on the road. The same smug smile, the same calm demeanor, and the same subtle traceries of black veins on his hands.
Not moving his hands, the sylph says, "Well, it is very simple. If you choose to give back the trinkets that do not belong to you, then you will stop being attacked by darkspawn. A simple trade, no?"
Wamblee looks at the slyph.
"And who are you, that can command darkspawn?"
"Kothaal i Erret. I once went by a different name, but one has to give up many things for the touch. Now, I will give you a moment to confer amongst yourselves, but I am not an el who tolerates wasteful conversation."
Samen rolls his eyes with an attitude of 'I told you so'. "Put your weapons away, guys. If he's confident enough to reveal himself upon request, we likely represent no threat to him."
He pulls out his carving and holds it up for all to see. "Our concerns are twofold. One, that you intend to kill us anyway once you have your tokens, and two, that you're a vile monster intent to use these things for greater harm. Satisfy us that neither or these are true and you might have a chance of convincing them to relinquish the troublesome things voluntarily."
Erret's eyes, black and shiny like a crow's, focus intently on the carving. He says nothing for the moment.
"You're dead. This isn't possible."
Samoon keeps his bow drawn. "Let's kill him again. It will at least slow him down. Samen, I'm not relinquishing anything without a fight. Mar, on two."
"Really Samoon? When did you get so bloodthirsty?"
"Samen, your defeatism is senseless. We are not beaten until he bodily overwhelms us. This Erret is proving himself unlikely to tell us anything useful."
Samoon looses the arrow.
”Ó spéir Oíche Mhór, d'fhéadfadh na réaltaí snasta soilsiú a dheonú dár gcosán Dorchaigh.” Marianne murmurs as she lets her arrow fly along with Samoon’s.
This is not a battlefield prayer, but... Sky’s grace could I use the guidance anyways.
Seeing his siblings let loose, Wamblee's hands go to the bandoliers of shruiken on his chest.
One zips through the air towards the el.
The two arrows and the shuriken all fly true, landing with a strange squish into Erret's narrow chest and arms. He does not bleed, or give much of a reaction beyond a grunt.
Samen, your woodcut has been snatched out of your grasp by a larger, thicker blob, about the size of a dog. The creature is only five feet away from you. Erret is farther away, but he is not moving - his hand is outstretched toward the carving, willing the blob to bring it closer.
"All of you suck."
He wanted to handle things peacefully, but that seemed impossible now.
"Time to beat on some more darkspawn, I guess."
Samen growls and taps his staff on the ground. Runes of elemental magic
appear on it and glow faintly in the darkness.
I'll activate arcane pool as a swift action, cast magic weapon, then try to hit the blob with a stick.
”Dead Sky’s fetid winds Samen!” Marianne snaps, seeing the blob snatch the woodcut. ”If you were going to be a coward, you could have at least been smart about it and struck your deal with the Dark before showing It Its prize!” She turns her bow on the blob, and calls to Samoon, rage still evident in her voice. ”It appears Samen did have a point about him not fearing harm. Let’s kill the darkspawn before it gets to him!”
The blob is smushed by the staff, then cut in two by the arrow. It quivers, and is still. Erret lurches forward, toward the dropped woodcut. The physical damage to his body shows in his awkward movements.
Wamblee moves to near the woodcut and draws his twinned kamas and sends one lashing on the chain towards Erret from ten feet away.
"The point is to cut him into pieces and bury them under seven different rocks," says Samoon.
Samoon moves up 20' and makes a series of rapid twisting motions from his bandolier. He tosses a flattened cylinder at Erret. "Unelen thing."
It splashes into a flower of liquid fire.
"Well if he didn't want to kill us on general principle before, I'm pretty sure he does now."
Under the assault of kama and flame, the sylph simply falls apart, as if made of paper. The kama severs his right arm, and the fire burns away a good portion of his legs. Erret's face looks utterly unperturbed by the damage. "Inconvenient. I suppose I will see the four of you later." A small smile, then the remaining body loses shape and begins to melt and darken into a tarry pile of mush.
Marianne sighs. ”Well, I think he’s gone.” She picks up the woodcut and turns to Samen. ”The Dark wants this,” she says, shoving it in his face. ”If you aren’t willing to give your life to keep it from Him, then you don’t deserve it, regardless of whether Father gave it to you or not. So which is it?!”
Wamblee examines the mush from a few feet away to see if it changes at all, kamas still in hand.
Without turning to Samen, he adds:
"Our sister is correct. An el who would shirk from facing the Dark with sibling allies, should not be relied upon if ever caught alone. I hope that is not the case in truth."
"Wamblee...Marianne...we are all caught up in something very dangerous and emotionally taxing...please do not judge Samen too harshly."
Samoon sighs. "Our enemy relishes seeing us divided," he says. "Let's be better prepared when Erret inevitably manifests again. Well, you've probably guessed that he was the one who waylaid me on the road. Him and a few others, whose faces I didn't see. He has allies and a means of tracking me--and us. I bombed him to Fallen Sky and back, but here he appeared again. Níl Tada Níos Measa Na Bód Ina Seasamh" He kicks the dirt where Erret poofed. "Hang on."
He pulls out alchemical vials and a tiny long canted spoon. "I'm going to keep some of this mush and see what it is." He squats down, carefully prods it and carefully wafts a hand towards his nose to make sure it isn't corrosive or toxic.
Samen shakes his head at his siblings as he takes the woodcut from Marianne. He knows he'll never convince anyone, but he tries anyway. "If he wanted a sandwich, should I defend that to the death too? Personally, I don't trust Uncle any more than Erret, and neither one of them has given us a clear answer, despite plenty of opportunity. It's not right to deprive someone of their property regardless of their religious inclinations, and from everything I can gather, father and Uncle stole these items like common thieves. I needn't remind you of the racist holy wars of the past, must I? Do you really wish to be a pawn in repeating those tragedies?"
He returns to his bedroll, flicks away the dead blob with his staff and curls up to sleep out the rest of the volc forsaken night. "If you want to sign up to be inquisitors, go for it, but I'd rather live a life of peace."
”A life of peace, ha,” Marianne snorts. ”That must be why I’ve only seen you use the most basic of noncombat spells in the time I’ve known you, which is, if you will recall, longer than you’ve known magic. You are right, we have not gotten any straight answers out of Uncle. That will change in Forge, if not before,” she throws a glare at the el with that, but continues quickly. ”But as for that sandwich analogy, I would indeed not give it to him, unless I knew for certain that it was impossible for him to use it.”
Samoon, you retrieve a small sample without trouble. It does not appear to be corrosive, but it is likely toxic to consume.
Mother and Uncle are still asleep. Uncle gives a snorting cough.
"Ssscryyyying---" hisses Samoon at Samen. "Straight answers aren't so good out in the open. Ugh."
"I would shed no tears over a servant of the Dark starving, or bereft of anything they seek. To my mind, bending and not standing is what has gotten our peoples to this point. But Samoon is correct. We are strained and not in good humour."
”They better have been ensorcelled,” Marianne mutters audibly, noticing Uncle and Mother upon the cough. She goes to wake Mother first, shaking her lightly.
She does not respond, continuing to sleep. Their faces are serene and untroubled in their deep slumber.
”They’re not waking up,” Marianne says, worry creeping into her voice. She quickly searches the two for wounds or signs that they might have been poisoned.