Nasar sighs at Marissa’s look ”Yea yea we can take him back. I wouldn’t be surprised if the guild was prepared for us to come back with survivors. Lily could you please tell him we’ll take him back with us after we finish searching.”
Lily looks at him, the man then nods rapidly and runs out the sanctuary barefoot in his tattered cloths. I told gim to wait in the town square for us to finish.
Deract looks where he sat, He dropped a silver piece sweet!
Nasar rolls his eyes and continues the search. ”I don’t know how I forgot about your telepathy power thing Lily, you even used it the other day. Maybe I’m not focused enough.”
Next up after leaving the curch they find the jail. Which seems to be for the most part stable and intact. They walk up to it and open the door to find a room like a lobby, a chair and desk woth papers strewn about sit on the right side and a small empty cell sits behind it. To the far left stands a hallway leading downward.
”Guess its worth checking on the cells to see if any prisoners survived. Can’t say if I care or not.” Nasar looks at the papers in the room first, maybe something interesting will catch his eye.
The various papers read of the inmates and their length of stays and reasons for incarceration. Funny enough he finds a paper for Lester the Kobold from the guild. His paper reads of a heist pulled on the Sandpoint Merchants Guild and his length of incarceration is set for 6 years. However a footnote details his apparent escape from jail a year or so back. The footnote reads Please keep out for records in case anything should turn up for suspect again.
Marissa calls from the hall. Uhhh... guyssss... come hereee... to which the cells are all seen and a few of them are inhabited by the black eyed civilians once more. All of them donning jail attire they press themselves slowly against the cell wall scratching, pushing, and tapping on the walls looking for escape. There eyes all pitch black void of any emotion the huffing of breaths are heard and the occasional moan.
Nasar puts away the paper of the kobald’s jail sentence, hanging on to it for the memes. He then comes over and looks at the prisoners. ”Oh nooo we can’t save the prisoners oh nooooo. Shame. Ready to move on?”
Marissa turns to look at Nasar, What is your deal? You don't even care to ponder why there acting this way? If thats the case what are we even here for?
Lily and Deract look at Marissa then to Nasar for rebuttal.
”Of course I wonder why, but I don’t have any way of figuring it out. Nor do I have magic to remove the control they are under if magic would work. Do you? We can let them out and see if they are complacent like the last one. My initial concerns lie with people that are alive AND are free of mind. If they are just going to wander aimlessly we can leash them up and escort them back after we search. Sorry I’m more worried about people that we don’t have to tie up or babysit. What if we let these people out and then we end up in a fight with whatever did this? Now we have enemies and people we have to protect. They are safer here until we leave.”
Marissa glares at him, I guess your right... sorta... fine we can keep moving.
And with that they find themsleves at the bazaar, Deract immediatly runs over to a shattered stand and scrapes up a few bannanas and coins he finds. He tucks them in his bag. Not much to be found around here.
With that they return to the square after combing through much of the citys districts they come to the conclusion that not much is able to be found besides allot of wreckage. The only person thats sane is the deaf man who greets them now with shoes on. Lily asks, Back home we go then?
”Guess so, let’s swing by the jail and pick up those prisoners and try and daisy chain them together. Hopefully that’ll make the escort easier. We just need to be careful, just cause they seem docile doesn’t mean it’ll stay that way so being on guard is ideal. We can take them back to the guild and see what to do with them once back. Hopefully they can be freed of...whatever is holding them.”
Nasar and company head back to the jail and strap each prisoner to eachother with manacles found in the jail. 8 prisoners in all stand chained together one arm clasped to the nexts arm. They all attemot to walk out the door in unison. Mindlessly bumping and tripping over one another. They manage to reach the city walls to head back home and spy the lady from before stumbling and skulking a few miles ahead towards Magnimar's general direction.
”Does anyone find it weird that she’s already heading towards Magnimar?”
Deract points excitedly. Now thats the kinda evidence were looking for!!
The chain gang of walkers also seem to be walking instinctivly in that direction as well.
Nasar scratches his head. ”I’m...suddenly not sure if we should just carelessly bring them back. I obviously want to help these people but what if they are going to Magnimar and when they get there it triggers something you know?” he then takes out his boutny call orb thingy ”I never really use it for calling the guild but hey its something.” Nasar attempts to call Azirel to get input before walking the people into town.
Azirel answers the orb. Hello? Nasar is that you?
”Yes it is, I have some news. We found some survivors in the city. All but one seem to under some weird hypnotic state and their eyes are blacked out. What’s more is they seem to be naturally moving towards Magnimar. We were going to bring them there ourselves but found it odd that they already were making way there themselves. Do you want us to continue and bring them back or...?”
Azirel stay silent for a minute. At this point the chain gang is ahead of the gang but are weak enough that a tug from Deract and Lily topples them backward all onto the ground. Hmm... bring them to the guild. We may be able to see if a shadow is affecting them. They would make there way here either way but we wouldnt have the advantage of observing them.
Nasar looks at the pile and just ._. ”Sure, hopefully we’ll have no interruptions on our way back.” Unless anything else needs to be said, he goes to put the orb away and is ready for the journey back. He does make an effort to catch up to the woman and add her to the daisy chain using his rope. That way she cant stray at all as they head ti the guild.
After a few hours of walking they arrive outside Magnimars gates on the eastern part. As they near the gates the daisy chain of people drop like sacks of potatoes.
A small black spectre jumps from each of their mouths into the ground and sinks like spilled water, dissapearing.
”huh...that’s odd. And could be bad. Are they dead?”
Lily touches one of them. Yup... they are all the way dead...
Marissa's body goes pale. But but... we were bringing them to safety... that's impossib-
Deract yells at her. No it's not! Nothing impossible for a shadow user you have NOOO idea what these guys are cpaable of! That is just the tip of the iceberg of what could happen. That could've been you! It very well could be if you don't watch what you do! he walks over and uses his talisman on one and siphons a soul out. But nothing happens. There see thats a clue. They were dead or were killed before they got puppeteered.
”Great, so they could have just been vessels for what wanted to come to Magnimar. We need to get back to the guild now and explain what happened.”
They all take off to get into town, Genesis glances behind them at the dead chain gang. Were just leaving em there?
Deract yells in front. Well your not gonna carry 2 bodies are you? There dead!
The dash through town is extremly quiet. Only an eighth of the population is out and about, but they seem very worried about where everyone else is. Nasar and his crew get to the guild in half the usual time due to there being no foot traffic whatsoever. They rush past the front gate with the sleeping dwarf and make there way inside to find most of the guild personnel nowhere to be found. The Bone Brother sits in the mess hall area cleaning his instrument (again). He waves a hello before returning to his cleaning. Lily looks around, Should we goto Azirels house?
Nasar answers frantically continuing to run to Azirel’s place ”Less talk time more sprinting to her house!”
They all dash up across the empty training ground and arrive at Azirel's front door. It swings open and...
A tentacle grabs each person and drags them swiftly to the back through the front room into the basement. Nasar sees through this drag the tentacle shut the door as they all sail downward.
They all arrive at a small room completely dark due to there not being windows. A small candle turns on to find Azirel and the Warlord sitting in wood chairs. Azirel looks to the deaf man, So why is he ok... theres something very wrong here... shadows are jumping from person to person like some kind of virus, half of our guild members were out and about when it hit, anyone that couldnt handle the shadow went under some kind of control. And they secluded themselves we have no idea where they are. The people who made it confined themselves to their guild rooms.
Nasar looks around after the roller coaster ride they just went on ”Hold on wait woah...what happened at the guild now?! We just got here so we are a bit out of the loop. The ‘survivors’ we had collapsed at the front gate, already long dead. So whatever happened here is certainly linked to that.”
The Warlord begins, It began early this morning breifly after you left. The hustle and bustle of people downtown was regular. And then almost like an explosion of shadow energy started circulating from person to person. When one spoke the surrounding people became under the effects of the shadow. Almost like a ghost jumped down someones throat. Nobody could tell what was happening and thats how I knew it was a shadow. People silently gave it to others and then they all went home. It is now 2 PM and the town is quiet. This has to be some sort of mind control. Waiting to be unleashed with the full force once everyone that can be dominated is taken over.
”So who do we have left in the guild? Shouldn’t we all group up and get ready for whatever is coming our way?”
Azirel sighs in dismay. It seems only people with shadows would be able to stop this mess. Anyone that gets too close to the manifester would just be subjected to his shadows mind control. Were going to have to find him in town, is there anything you figured out from the visit to Sandpoint that could help in finding him?
”Well it everyone we encountered were possessed except the deaf guy...” Nasar sits in focus thinking through the time there for anything he may have overlooked.
The deaf guy raises his hands calling for attention to him. He tries using sign language and looks around for a response. To no avail however so he tries to dumb it down as best he can by signifying drawing on his arms and chest.
Deract looks confused, Uhhh sleeves, scars, oh right he can't hear me. Lily ask him if its sleeves, scars, or tattoos?
Lily telepaths the conversation and he jumps and holds 3 fingers up, Tatoos by my guess.
The man also pulls his hair and stretches his wingspan from his head. Azirel says in a low tone, Long hair...
Marissa chuckles. Well theres plenty of people with long hair and tatoos. Does that narrow it down?
The Warlord pipes up. Well if its affecting others by sound as we can surmise by this deaf man being fine. He must be out still trying to dominate the remaining wandering townsfolk. He'd be trying to blend in.
”So if we were to hunt him down, shouldn’t we have something to protect us. It’d be a nightmare if on of us got possessed but this thing.”
The Warlord raises a hand dismissing the worry. Only a shadow can truly combat another shadow, if he is really using a manifested shadow to overtake people your shadows should be able to stand a chance. Kind of a tug-of-war between the shadows in one vessel. Your own willpowers will be the defense against this threat.
Deract pouts, So what I just think really hard and it'll magically kick the shadow.
Azirel deadpans and looks at the small candle illuminating the room. No demon, it means don't fall into any of the traps he has probably laid for you.
Marissa asks, Would earplugs work?
The Warlord ponders, They might... but you'd be quiet handicapped in hearing other things that might be important. If you supposed they'd help we might have some.
”I probably should have earplugs, I know how much I struggle with shaking off someone else’s control over me.” Nasar speaks with a bit of shame as he puts that weakness out in the open
Azirel stands and heads to the steps of the basement to head up. Well I can at least help you with that. I should have a few earplugs upstairs. And then you guys can dispatch to find this foe hopefully before he starts this onslaught of dominated citizens. she walks upstairs and the rest of the team follows as she grabs earplugs from the cupboards. She lays out cottony waxed buds for everyone to grab.
Deract looks at his in disgust, Heyyyy I think mine are used...
Lily grins in a vengeful fashion, Maybe if you would've slept good you would have the energy to grab the clean ones first. Deract tries to retort but is cut off by Azirel.
Any last questions or concerns before you make your way to the town square to start searching?
”When we find him, do you want us to contact or just take him on asap. And do you want him dead or captured?”
The Warlord looks to Azirel then to Nasar. To ensure he cant keep causing damage with his shadow he should be contained as quickly as possible. We trust you can think well enough on your feet to take him on without our assistance. However he might have information as to who else is working with Jurastist or his whereabouts. So try to get any info you can before you finish him off.
Nasar quickly makes sure he has all of his gear ready before looking over his team, ”Guess there isn’t much time to waste, let’s get out there and show this guy that he picked the wrong crew to make an enemies with.”
And with that they hurry out into the guild yard, leaving the deaf man behind for Azirel and the Warlord to keep watch.
They make there way to Magnimars center of the busiest districts. A place usually bustling with activity now only occupied by a few civilians wandering about confused as to why the area is so empty.
Those who pass the Perception spy a skinny figure atop the church belfry, they quickly notice being seen and backs away further into the belfry to avoid further detection.
A homeless man seems to be sleeping underneath a blanket with several crates beside him that seem to be his things.
Nothing much can be found by first sight.
Lily asks the group, You think these people are under the Shadows hold? Maybe we can tell from there eyes.
Nasar eyes up the figure on the roof, keeping his other movements the same as to not alert the person that he’s been made.
”I got him, church rooftop, skinny guy that hid when he saw us. If we’re lucky, he wont notice that I spotted him.”
Genesis grips her staff and looks above. Should we go in the church to get to him? Are you sure its him?
The homeless man emerges from the blanket some 30 feet away from the group and groggily calls the team with a wave of his hand. Excuse me! Might you have a coin for a lowly beggar! Please, anything will do!
Marissa opens her coin purse and pulls a few coins out and prepares to break off to give the man the coins. Oh my... he dosen't look drugged up or anything so I'm usually ok with sparing a few coins to help someone. Here before we go to the church let me help him.
Nasar glares at her a little bit ”How about we focus on saving the city before giving charity. Who cares how much gold you give if he ends up dead. Besides unless he’s dead or a shadow user...I don’t trust him.” He finishes that last sentence while gripping the handles of his blades. ”Now let’s move to the church, bound to be a way up to the roof inside.”
Marissa puts her moneys away, Fine...
As the group nears the church they see the large wooden door ls slightly open for visitors to enter as they please. As they enter through a small entry room they hear from a door ahead a church service going on. The loud booming voice of the preacher echoing through the building. A odd feeling washes over Nasar as he hears the service going on. But that door ahead seems to be the only way deeper into the church.
Deract looks a bit weary as he reaches for the handle. Guess theres only one option here huh... unless we can't figure out a way to go from outside?
Nasar grabs Deract by the shoulder to halt him in place ”Let’s...look for an external way up first. I’m not getting a good vibe from the inside.” Nasar goes to look around the building for a way up.
Many different ledges and handholds make up this churches exterior. One could effectively Assassin's Creed their way up the backside.
The homeless many once again calls out to the party begging for money once more. Marissa looks up at the obstacles before them. How am I supposed to get up there... I'm no climber.
Nasar grabs some rope out of his bag and loops his arm through the bundle. ”Could lower a rope as we ascend, that’ll make it easier on you, or you could stay down here in case he tries to escape so you can cut him off. I would prefer to not split up though...”
Marissa nods at the rope thing. An odea pops into Lilys head. Here wait give me the rope really quick. she looks up to the top of the belfry. Probably like... 100 feet up. Could you knot both ropes together? I could fly to the top and knot it to something!
”That’s a great idea, let me tie them up and you can do your thing.” Nasar ties the ends together before handing one end to Lily. He stands with the rest of the rope to make sure it doesn’t knot up as she goes up to the top to find a sturdy place to attach the rope.
She hovers up flapping her wings as she ascends. She flies up to the belfry and surveys it for a breif second before she flies up a few more feet and clongs tk the top of the church. She ties the rope to the point on top the church and tugs it to make sure its stable. She lands and looks to Nasar. I didn't spot him anywhere up there. And from a quick survey the door to get in the church is bolted shut from the outside.