Oozes top snakes in curiosity towards Nasar. Apprehensive but curious. Did you... did you just respond to me?
”Well yea...that’s how conversations work. I hear you say something then respond.” Nasar notices Ooze wiggle while hearing that voice ”Uhhh am I talking to you...Ooze?”
I prefer Club that was my name in li... wait you really can hear me!? Club oozes around in happiness as he reacts to this newfound discovery.
Smoke trails appear behind Llamrei and the shadows farther back on the horizon.
Nasar feels more comforted with someone/thing to talk to ”Yea this is quite the...discovery huh Club. What the hell is this place.” Nasar tries to move as to get closer to Llamrei and the other shadows.
Club sloshes around after Nasar. Heck if I know. Uhhh you went to sleep, maybe this is a dream? But why are we both here?
After a minute or so of walking they reach the shadows and Llamrei. The Grippli lays on his back, eyes closed. Tortuga turns towards Nasar and Club and opens his jaw and a voice emanates from him. A low deep and old tone can be heard. I don't believe Blank Grippli is with us yet Clubbed Ooze and Nasar Ikmeer. Llamrei Pendragon and I have been waiting patiently before we proceed to the disturbance ahead. A plume of smoke seems to be rising over the horizon.
”Marissa isn’t here either...i wonder if that disturbance has something to do with her...i dont know which is prefer honestly.” Nasar looks at the two before the unconscious blank ”Are we going to wait for him or go on without him?”
Tortuga glares at Nasar, The Heretic of Hearts dragged Marissa Belladonna towards the commotion not too long ago. Serpent of Spades also left as he is very stubborn. Blank Grippli should be waking any second. If you prefer to wait so be it. Should you be stubborn like the other two you may proceed.
”Well if it’s any second...guess we can wait a bit longer.” With the moment to collect himself he starts seeing if his gear is with them too or just a likeness of his physical form.
All Nasar finds on his person only his commoner cloths. Blanks eyes open slowly and his big bulging eyes look dazed. He sits upright and holds his head in confusion. He quickly looks to Club and Tortuga then looks at Nasar and his face looks a bit sour. He looks to Tortuga and his voice sounds like a teenage boy, What the H E double HELL happened? I was just watching them sleep and I like blacked out? he then turns to Nasar. Woah hes here too? and Grippli slowly stands.
”I am here, and now that all of us are, it’s time to group up with the rest and see what is going on up ahead.”
He should have said H E double FU’CK instead...
Tortuga slowly blinks before he gets up and begins trotting towards the smoke. Llamrei also follows behind Nasar and Club.
As they make the approach to the plume they see a town start to come into vision. It looks like Sandpoint and it also looks to be ravaged and under siege.
Nasar puts his hands in his pockets as they make their approach "I hope I don't need to fight...don't have much in the way of helping. Any of you know what this shadowy realm dream-state is?"
Grippli looks around. Last time this happened, my user died. He then died 3 days later in the same fashion. Whats that called again. A visor?
Tortuga says slightly dissapointed, A vision Blank Grippli.
"That's not ominous whatsoever. So whatever brought us here is giving us a glimpse into the future?" Nasar looks around for Marissa as they push further, concerned for his separated partner.
Tortuga follows behind and replies, I would suppose so. If Blank Grippli has experienced this before then he would be the point of reference.
As they reach the edge of Sandpoint it seems to be void of people but everything is either destroyed or on fire and being destroyed. Crashing and thrashing can be heard north or their location deeper into town.
"Well...if this is just a vision then I guess there isn't much to be afraid of. Let's find our friends." Nasar pushes on into the sieged city, still wary of rubble that could fall down onto them. Still unclear if they can be harmed here but would rather not find out the hard way.
As they press deeper the sound of crashing and thrashing increases. Behind Nasar murmuring can be heard and staticky sounds come from behind the party.
Man I don't like the sound of that, but I have to know what the hell that sound is Nasar looks back to see what the source of the static sound is.
As Nasar turns around he sees dozens of shadow figures closing in from behind. Walking slowly like zombies towards them. As their mouths open the staticky sound emanates from them. There seems to be around 20 of them.
"HOLY SHITE WHAT IN THE UMBRAL DRAGON IS THAT?!" Nasar now being absolutely jump scared by these shadows is a bit not ok with their predicament.
They move closer slowly but surely. Grippli hightails it farther into town. Im getting the hell outta here! and he dips to a corner and high jumps up a ledge onto a building. Tortuga begins galloping into town and Llamrei follows behind him.
Club gets close to Nasar, What are we gonna do!?
"I suggest booking it fast, can you...coil onto me and I'll run for the both of us?" Nasar waits on Club to hopefully follow suit so he can take off.
Club coats Nasars shins as Nasar takes off deeper into town. He catches up to Tortuga and Llamrei as they stumble upon a 10 foot grey golem absolutely tanking dozens of the shadows. With an arm sweep he sends 6 of them flying across the way. Marissa stands under him mimicking his movements. Serpent of Spades darts around the street striking down shadows.
"Marissa!" Nasar calls out to her, waiting for a clear point to move in and regroup.
Marissa turns to look at Nasar and gives a wave that in turn makes the golem wave. In the split second she lets her guard down however a swarm of shadows dogpile on her and her shadow. About 10 of them pile on top of her seemingly mindlessly slamming under them.
The path is soon blocked before Nasar gains a free chance to get through. Tortuga bum rushes them however and makes a clearing to get through that Nasar passes through. Spades is coiling around shadows and launching them off the dogpile as Nasar gets close.
Once Nasar gets to the safety of being by Marissa, he starts talking to her again. "How long have you been at this??" He gets a gauge of the shadows around them still and before Marissa is given a chance to answer, Nasar looks down at Club on his legs. "I'm not sure if you can but would it be possible for you to compress down and become somewhat solid? Might be able to use you as an impromptu pair of blades to help out."
Marissa and her shadow get up and her shadow speaks for her. His voice hollow and echoey. It doesn't matter how long weve been at it, just that we make it out alive. There has to be an end to this somewhere! to which he and Marissa both turn around and hook a shadow making him shatter into stone.
Club lengthens himself into rope like size with a thick piece of him at the end. No but you guys call this a whip right?
Nasar takes Club into his hand and gets a feel for his new weapon. "Not my cup of tea but yea alright Should we push through the city, doubt going back the way we came will do any good and standing here just leaves us open."
A shadow attempts to jump from the side at Nasar but Llamrei rushes it sending it flying forward. Tortuga looks to Heretic and Marissa. We should push with them. We need to find the source of all this.
As soon as he finishes though they hear a giant booming voice maniacally commanding the shadows. YES YES LETS START A RIOT IN THIS PLACE, TEAR THE CITY APART UNTIL WE FIND THEM! THEIR SHADOWS WILL SOON BE OURS!
Club says, That must be him.
Grippli hops from a nearby building to the one above the crew and he points North. Some bald dudes over there! Shadows are straight pouring out from that watch tower!
"Well we either push into their spawn under the assumption that they are trying to stop us from getting there OR we go south away from them under the assumption that we just need to escape."
Grippli jumps down with the group. Dunno, my old user woke up once he died. Maybe he sealed his own fate though like that?
But after he finishes his statement Nasars eyes feel heavy as if drained of all energy. Club drops from his hand sand splats against the ground and quickly reforms into his usual form and looks up as Nasar drops to his knees. Nasar? NASAR?! Dude get up! but Nasar cant fight it. He blacks out after dropping to his knees then to his face.
-------------------------------
Nasar wakes up in the inn at the crack of dawn. The sunlight shines through the window abruptly casting light into the room through the thin curtains. Nothing seems to be tampered with. Though he seems to have tossed and turned so much his pillow and bed sheets have fallen off the bed.
After collecting himself quickly, Nasar makes a bit of a mad dash to Marissa's room to check on her as well. He almost barges through into her room before realizing how that could go wrong so he gives it a quick knock before making entry.
Marissa can be heard falling off her bed and after a second she opens the door. Her hair an absolute mess of blonde wildly sticking all about. Her eyes wide with stress as if she had just wrestled with an angel all night. She just stares at Nasar before yanking him into her room by the shirt with brute strength and flinging him a few feet past her and slamming the door shut. What... was that!?
Meanwhile, nasar looks like a damn bum with very loose fitting clothing that he's definitely had for too long. His snow white hair tied back in what was probably an acceptable manbun looks more like a rat's nest at this point. "What makes you think I know?! I wanted to make sure you woke up too first because I have not a clue what that was at all!"
Marissa flings her hands back and forth, AHHHH I don't know! My thing talked to me and then it just like took me. It guided me through the town and showed me how to use my fists. But then it just became so overwhelming! Who the heck was that turtle and frog guys?!
”So the turtle was Lucky’s shadow which she used for defense a lot and the frog was crowe’s shadow but he never used him to my knowledge. But I don’t know if their forms will change if they receive new owners like yours did. It used to be Alex’s...but it wasn’t like that.” After explaining the shadows a new question that is a bit off topic comes to mind "Speaking of shadows, when you are enraged, is the person responding you, your shadow, or a combination? I was able to prevent getting pummeled into stone talking to you. Having a working way of bringing you back from that state is important to me"
Marissa holds her hands out trying to count/process everything Nasar just said. Uhhhh I blacked out the first time this happened in the Shadow Plane when that spider lady took us. Then when the baby thing happened I only remember parts like yelling at Mr. Bones. And well now in the snake den its like I was sitting inside my head piloting myself like some kind of carriage. But sometimes the controls just jerked and did something I didnt want? she pauses before asking, So you knew beforehand I was gonna get this thing? And you only told me a minute before it happened? And now I'm stuck like this.
Nasar shakes his head "Didn't know it was going to happen, and if I did I certainly wouldn't have thought it would have been that fast. I wish I knew as much as you assume I do but a lot of this is me having to just figure it out as I go."
Marissa pouts, Well these other shadows. If their so important why didn't they 'infect' Deract or Lily? Does it have to do with who you pick and choose? That's a little biased towards one shadow." she says this oblivious to the fact she has one of the most brutal shadows out of the 5 in the set.
Nasar puts his hand onto her back, gently giving her back a rub to calm her down a bit. "I'm not sure why, maybe they know. I haven't asked them that even though I've certainly thought about it. Maybe it has something to do with them being demon blooded? Or something else entirely."
Marissa kinda nudges the hand away and pats down her unkempt hair. Did you recognize the place that was? Maybe its trying to tell us something. That kinda reminded me of a vision I always get when I goto sleep. Back before you came along Arthur and his team killed an Aboleth and it had this sigil on its back and I touched it. Now I get visions about this... hoard of treasure... and an underwater Atlantis with slaves everywhere. she readies her armor and inspects her sword. I wish I could find that place. Free all those people from that Aboleth prison.
"Well not to be an alarmist but one of the other shadows said that they experienced that sort of thing before. It was like a vision into the future or something because their controller died in the same way within a few days. Who knows, maybe your vision is somehow connected in a way." Nasar makes his way to the door, before he leaves to go back to his room and gear up he speaks again. "Regardless, we need to get back on the sea and get home. We can talk to the warlord about it and see if he knows anything since he seemed familiar with this whole shadow business before."
Marissa gives a nid of acknowledgment as he leaves.
The team all gathers and without any obstacles makes it back to the ships. The pirates are still tied to the post as they were left and the wheelman is cooking a fish over a flame on the beach.
Before they leave Nasar leaves a note with the innkeeper.
Signed, Nasar I.
Nasar walks up next to Lily, out of earshot of the captives. ”So uh..what should we do with them again? Leave ‘em here or somethin?”
Lily ponders the question. Well to be honest I lied when I said id let them free at Riddleport if they played nice... so lets just push em off once we depart so they can't catch us.
”Hmm...I guess that’s best. I don’t really want to leave them here cause they might f@~@ that village up and I don’t trust them to not try something back home either.”
Lily crosses her arms. Well not if they dont have weapons. They try to start a fistfight I'm sure the small village will beat them to bits. Dont overthink it Nasar.
”I’m sure we could take down a small kingdom even if we start without weapons, but I guess we are just that good eh?” Nasar makes way onto their ship ”And my overthinking tends to make our jobs easier in the long run, but I’m not going to worry about the lives of pirates that chose us to be their enemies. Now they must own up to the consequences of that.”
And so with that the team shoves off and pushes them overboard to swim back to shore. They scream curses at the team who lied to them of their freedom but alas the waves block out the sounds. The boat tows the other and the team makes it back to the Descalers hideout without a problem. They arrive at the beach and a few people are surprised to see 2 boats return.
Nasar searches out for Nepal back at the central building so he can help decipher the documents he recovered.