The first sight to greet Andakos's eyes is a near-skeletal corpse. What little meat remains is tattered and ragged, and absolutely lousy with flies, despite clearly being very fresh. If not for the relatively untouched servant's livery, you'd never have known it was Renard, the family's faithful, wizened butler. He'd been in the Videns' employ since before Andakos was born.
Alecta draws in a huge gasp, and Andakos is almost certain she'll scream, but even in her terrified state, she keeps herself more collected than that. She simply elicits a single whimper behind a cupped hand and stumbles backward, down the front steps to wait in the yard.
Andakos slips further in, and almost immediately hears a groan viciously cut off by a wet crunch. Following the noise, he creeps up to the door to the drawing room and cracks it open as quietly as he can. Through the crack, he sees the limp corpse of Hadvar, the captain of the house guard, his twisted neck gripped tightly by a familiar monster. The surly dwarf's visage is contorted in agony and fear, and facing entirely the wrong way.
The daemon Graekimus, still apparently nursing injuries from his fight with the party at the House of Blessed Maidens fully a week before, looms over his fresh kill. Two other house guards lie in pieces around him. No sign of Andakos's father, or Lyse. That's something, at least.
Without looking up, Graekimus hisses, "I can smell your foul mixed blood from here, boy. May as well come in."
He tosses the corpse aside and looks directly at the door crack. "Or are you going to play hide-and-seek with me like the little brat?"
Andakos knows he is being baited. He doesn't care. He steps into the room, spear at the ready. "I am here. Why are you here?" He spits the words at the foul beast.
- 1/12 inspiration used
- shield (8 minutes)
- AC 23 | 13 | 21
Graekimus would be considered an abomination even by the standards of other daemons. He is an unholy amalgam of a leukodaemon (plague-bringers and servants of Apollyon, Horseman of Pestilence) and an erodaemon (daemons representing death by heartbreak; they do not work for any one specific Horseman). Such a union is rare and usually killed outright by other daemons. For him to even be alive, he must have a powerful patron. Probably not a Horseman--both of his parentages make him too weak for the notice of demigods such as they--but likely a daemonic lord of some flavor, perhaps even a Harbinger.
Graekimus doesn't move from his spot, watching the investigator approach with amusement despite being injured himself. "Your little gift from our last encounter has made you impossible to lose again." He draws something from a pouch on his ratty leather belt: a small vial full of dark fluid. Andakos's blood. "You will never again hide from me. Once I have killed you and your mother, the tainted line will have ended, and my master's shame removed. And perhaps I will finally be rewarded for my service."
The beast's misshapen head, long and beaked like a leukodaemon but horned and blue-tinged like an erodaemon, cracks into what Andakos can only imagine is a grin.
Then the air behind Graekimus ripples, and the beatific young face of Andakos's adopted daughter stands about ten feet behind the hulking fiend, holding... a bucket?
She lobs the contents of the bucket, and a shimmery, semi-viscous fluid splashes all over the daemon's back. The stuff immediately begins bubbling and smoking, boiling the creature's flesh. Andakos's keen alchemically trained nose smells a sharp, tangy, and strangely sweet odor, along with something that makes his nose twinge. She just dumped holy water on him, but it's mixed with something else.
Graekimus whips around in shock, but before either he or Andakos can react, there's something in her hands. The creature hisses in anger and confusion, clearly not recognizing the small spherical object--but Andakos does.
"You suck at hide and seek," she drawls, then smacks him in the face with an alchemist's bomb.
The proceeding eruption of fire very nearly singes both Andakos's and Lyse's hair, but they are otherwise unscathed. Graekimus, however, shrieks in shocked agony as his flesh begins to melt from the combination of holy fire and concentrated kerosene oil.
Despite being resistant to fire, the daemon screams his fury. Lyse ducks around the corner, making a break for it, and the enraged daemon seems poised to chase.
Andakos almost whoops with excitement at Lyse's display of awesomeness, but then he realizes just how much danger she is in.
Shit. Slow him down.
As his mind races to figure out where Lyse might go and how to steer Graekimus in any other direction, his body leaps into action, charging at the daemon with the intention of reminding him who the real threat is.
- 3/12 inspiration used
- shield (8 minutes)
- AC 23 | 13 | 21
Turn: 1 | A: 0 | G: 1 | L: 0 | C: 0
Andakos rushes after the fleeing duo, trying to stab at the daemon's legs as they all go crashing down a hallway, but the spear is a little too long and clumsy in such narrow quarters. Graekimus, still sizzling and scorched from the holy-fire bath, as yet has eyes only for Lyse, who ducks into the dining hall. The large, elegant banquet table is currently not set with places, but is spotless as ever. That all changes as Lyse scampers under the table to try and stymie the fiend, but Graekimus isn't having it. He lifts the table bodily and lobs it effortlessly aside, exposing her. She yelps and skitters off to the side, just barely ducking his vicious claws, and backtracks toward the main hall and foyer.
Physically, Andakos feels fine (if a little tired), but the moment he lunged out with his spear, a terrible vision of Andaisin's scythe startled him and threw off his aim.
Dammit! Focus!
While chasing the duo, Andakos turns his analytical eye to Graekimus's movements, trying to anticipate what he is going to do next.
- 3/12 inspiration used
- shield (8 minutes)
- AC 23 | 13 | 21
Turn: 2 | A: 0 | G: 2 | L: 0 | C: 0
Andakos slows just enough to try and watch the daemon's movements, looking for a pattern, but his mind is racing too fast to think straight. Where is his father? How did Lyse even hide from this thing? Where did she get an invisibility spell? Would Graekimus even be here to kill his child if Andakos had just stayed dead?
Too much is happening at once, and before Andakos knows it, the pair are gone, out of the dining hall and into the foyer. He hurries after them and is just in time to see Lyse drop something on the ground before roiling smoke fills the room, throwing both her pursuer and her adoptive father off. Unfortunately, Graekimus recovers first, cocking his misshapen head in the smoke cloud before Ducky, before darting off to the other side of the smoke. Ducky follows after and just catches the fiend's form slipping down the opposite hall, toward the west wing of the estate.
Andakos can't believe how badly he is failing Lyse right now. His family should never have brought him back. On the other hand, if his mother hadn't been at the Bank of Abadar for his resurrection, there's a good chance that she is dead right now too.
He shakes the thoughts away. He can't afford to be distracted right now.
And that's when he realizes where Lyse is leading them: to his--their--alchemy lab. His mind quickly races on possible advantages this could give them over Graekimus.
- 4/12 inspiration used
- shield (8 minutes)
- AC 23 | 13 | 21
Turn: 3 | A: 1 | G: 2 | L: 0 | C: 0
There are certainly any number of possibilities in an alchemy lab, but most of them take time to prepare--time Lyse almost certainly hasn't had. What in the world could she be planning? She's clearly very clever; Andakos knows that already, of course, but if he hadn't, the holy water/kerosene combo would have cemented it. But Andakos is having trouble locking onto what it is while racing pell-mell and watching this monster wreck his childhood home trying to kill his daughter.
--wait.
Oh.
Oh dear.
Okay, that's bad. She wouldn't...?
But maybe she would. As much as she loves her new home, she loves her adoptive father more (he hopes, anyway) and might do something drastic to save him.
Alchemy labs are many things. Industrious. Messy (usually). Fonts of creativity and innovation. But above all, they are volatile.
If she were to mix just a few ingredients together, or even cause one of the many shelves to crash onto the kerosene barrel, it would cause quite an eruption. It would certainly cause excessive damage to the house, but it just might be enough to destroy Graekimus even with his fire resistance. There are all kinds of chemicals in there to cause reactions beyond the caustic and inflammatory. Hells, the fumes alone might poison him to death. But how is she planning to keep Graekimus in there long enough to cause this mayhem and escape?
With no way to communicate with her--at least, not for the moment--he can only hope she has a plan. Unfortunately, Graekimus is gaining on her. Ducky knows she needs more time to get there and set up whatever she needs to set up to hit the daemon.
Hardly without even thinking, Ducky snatches up a flower vase, dumps out the begonias Alecta had placed into it from her garden out back, and dumps in a corrosive agent from his belt pouches and flings it at the fiend's feet up ahead.
The acid does nothing to Graekimus--Andakos is well aware he's immune to acid--but that wasn't the purpose. The corrosive agent becomes inert in water... inert, and viscous. Clear, slimy goo schlorps around Graekimus's feet among the shards of pewter, cutting his feet and making him stumble a bit.
The daemon glances back and snarls at Andakos, as if noticing him for the first time, and hesitates, but quickly resumes his chase. The murder in his eyes is for Lyse and Lyse alone at the moment, but at least Ducky helped slow him down a little.
Knowing he probably has one last chance to slow Graekimus down enough to allow Lyse to do whatever it is she is planning, Andakos takes a big risk. He is pretty good with his spear, especially once he has had a chance to study his foe, but what he intends to do now is far from a sure thing. He reaches out with his spear and sweeps, attempting to hook one of the daemon's feet and bring him to the ground.
- 6/12 inspiration used
- shield (8 minutes)
- AC 23 | 13 | 21
Turn: 4 | A: 2 | G: 2 | L: 0 | C: 0
It's so close. He can just see the gap in Graekimus's gait to trip him, but he's not quite going to make it and he knows it.
Not, that is, until a bloody figure comes barreling out of Lord Thaddeus's office and slams into the side of Graekimus. Thaddeus Viden, gored in the stomach, ropes of intestine dangling out, is on the verge of death, but manages to slam into the daemon. Graekimus is a hulking figure, and barely moves, but it's just enough to slow him down so that Andakos gets the spear between his legs and drop him to the floor.
Graekimus bellows in rage and lashes out in fury, smashing a clawed fist into the side of Thaddeus's head. Ducky's father collapses to the floor and stops moving. The fiend looks back in rage at Andakos and takes a long, frustrated second to consider, but finally scrambles off the floor and goes after Lyse once more.
Now Andakos has a dilemma. Does he stop to see if he can help his father, or risk him bleeding out so that he can rush to help Lyse? Thad's guts are sprawled out, and it was a miracle he was alive before. Now, what chance does he have? But can Andakos leave him behind without checking...?
Andakos anticipates the moment Graekimus stands up and thrusts his spear while the daemon is distracted.
As Graekimus evades yet another spear strike, Andakos only briefly considers his father. If he doesn't stay on Graekimus's tail, the one raise dead scroll they found won't be enough to raise the two dead family members he will have. Still, as he speeds away after Lyse, his tail whips up, snatches a potion of cure moderate wounds from his bandolier , and leaves it on the ground next to his father. Maybe he will be conscious enough to take it.
He looks ahead of Graekimus and sees the chandelier hanging from a chain, which in turn is run through a pulley at the ceiling and connected to a hook at floor level to allow the chandelier's height to be changed. It's not quite as grand as the one in the main foyer, but it is still cast iron, which means it's heavy. He considers how he might quickly cause it to fall.
- 7/12 inspiration used
- shield (8 minutes)
- AC 23 | 13 | 21
[spoiler=Behind the Screen]
Turn: 5 | A: 3 | G: 2 | L: 0 | C: 0
The ancient wrought-iron chandelier comes crashing down, with an ear-splitting crunch and the tinkling of glass, smashing Graekimus to the floor.
Candles fly in every direction. Most of them simply wink out with the force of the blow, but a few roll away somehow unscathed. Thankfully none roll against any wooden furniture or under a tapestry. Then again, it may not matter if Lyse does what Andakos thinks she's doing.
Graekimus hauls the mangled chandelier off of him with a groan, but quickly recovers. He looks to Andakos, then back down the hall, then back to Andakos. "I WILL HAVE MY PREY!" he bellows in a hissing roar. "BUT YOU ARE BECOMING AN IRRITATION! Perhaps this will stymie you!"
He takes in a deep, deep breath. Andakos suddenly remembers the horrifying power Graekimus unleashed in their last fight just as a sickening wave of locusts and botflies explode from his lungs and pour over the investigator.
Andakos has a brief memory of Renard's flensed, skeletal corpse in the main hall before stinging, lashing insects try to do the same to him, dealing slashing damage. The nauseating sensation of crawling and biting makes Ducky retch. The insects continue buzzing and swarming around him, making it impossible to see the daemon only fifteen feet in front of him.
Andakos grunts at the intense pain wracking his body, but continues his pursuit. He barfs once or twice, but doesn't let it slow him down.
He figures Lyse has got to be in the workshop and preparing by now. The pain and his rebelling digestive system keep him from thinking clearly, so he takes a last-ditch attempt at an attack.
- 7/12 inspiration used
- shield (8 minutes)
- AC 23 | 13 | 21
Turn: 6 | A: 3 | G: 3 | L: 0 | C: 0
Andakos pushes through the stinging swarm out the other side, and blindly swipes his spear--but no one is there. He's lost sight of Graekimus entirely. The only upshot is that he knows roughly where Graekimus is going...
Andakos rushes after the obvious trail of destruction, daemon blood, and bug guts that Graekimus is leaving in his wake.
- 7/12 inspiration used
- shield (8 minutes)
- AC 23 | 13 | 21
Andakos doesn't need to follow Graekimus. He knows where the daemon will be, and that means if he's already lost sight of him, he might as well get ahead of him.
Ducking through a servant's corridor, Andakos hauls ass and reaches the lab from a side entrance. Just as he thought, he arrives moments before the daemon. With his keen eye, he catches sight of Lyse from a corner. She nods meaningfully off to one side before disappearing into the shadows.
Andakos easily follows her gaze to the barrel of spare kerosene kept under lock and key. Lyse used a makeshift pulley system to place a crude trap there: when the main door to the lab opens, it's going to drop a lit torch onto the barrel. It will take several moments to burn through, but it's an amazing trap for only having half a minute or less to throw it together.
Andakos will have to hold Graekimus off, at least for a few moments, before the explosion. And how will Lyse escape? Has she thought that far ahead?
Before Ducky can ruminate on that, the door practically erupts off its hinges in a shower of splinters. The torch drops onto the barrel, and licks dangerously at the fumes leaking from the narrow opening on top--but doesn't ignite yet.
In his red haze, Graekimus doesn't seem to have noticed yet. He does, however, see Andakos, and his beak clacks furiously. "How?! How did you--never mind! I'll kill you, then I'll kill that little angel-blooded brat! I'll make her watch as I gut you!"
[color=green]ROUND 8
Andakos (36/74 hp, sickened 8 rounds)
Graekimus (?? dmg)
Lyse (0 dmg, hidden)
[/color]
Now that Andakos is stuck in a room with Graekimus, he suddenly really wishes he had taken the time to heal. He can't beat this thing in straight up combat. Instead, he hopes to give the trap a little kick-start: he pulls an alchemist's fire from his bandolier and tosses it at the barrel.
Then (if the barrel didn't explode immediately) he moves in the opposite direction he saw Lyse go, while trying to stay out of the blast radius.
- 7/12 inspiration used
- shield (8 minutes)
- AC 23 | 13 | 21
Andakos helps the process along. It doesn't ignite just yet, which is actually good. He is wise enough to know that the barrel will start a chain reaction in this room that will be rather... final. The problem is, he needs to keep Graekimus in the room long enough for it to happen without him and Lyse getting caught in the crossfire.
He has one very important thing going for him right now: Lyse has spent so much time in this room these past couple months that she knows its ins and outs, while her opponent does not.
For example, she knows about the large grate in the center of the ever-so-slightly sloped floor that leads down to the sewers, as well as how to unlock it. In fact, he can just make out her form slipping under the many tables filling the room, trying to stay out of Graekimus's sight as she moves toward it. So far he hasn't seemed to notice.
Graekimus eyes the barrel suspiciously, finally starting to understand he may be in a dangerous predicament. "Whatever you're planning, it won't work," the fiend hisses. "I have survived uncounted aeons. I will not be ended by a weak-blooded mistake like you!"
He starts to head toward the door, drawing a hideous, massive longbow off his back as he goes. He pulls the drawstring back and a gnarled black arrow, tipped with something that looks suspiciously like bile, appears as if from thin air. He launches it at Andakos, and the huge arrowhead buries into the investigator's shoulder, nearly knocking him off his feet from the force of the blow. He doesn't immediately feel any secondary effects from whatever it was coated with, but whatever it was, it can't be good for him.
The daemon hisses in pain after firing; several of the scorched portions of his half-melted flesh crack open with the effort, oozing pus and other vile, unnameable fluids.
Lyse pauses mid-scamper to squeak in fear at her father's wound, and Graekimus bellows, "THERE YOU ARE YOU LITTLE MAGGOT!" Lyse yelps and fumbles frantically at the drain, looking over her shoulder at the burning barrel with a look that clearly says she's second-guessing the soundness of her plan to entice a massive detonation with her still anywhere at all nearby.
- 7/12 inspiration used
- shield (8 minutes)
- AC 23 | 13 | 21
Andakos is desperate, but he knows he and Lyse only need to get through that grate and keep Graekimus from doing the same. He rushes to Lyse's side and helps her with the mechanism.
If he gets it open, he ushers her through first. "Get down there and RUN!"
Andakos gives himself a second to watch his daughter escape, pride bursting in his chest. Then he slams the grate shut and stands in front of it. He looks at Graekimus with a sneer of defiance.
- 10/12 inspiration used
- shield (8 minutes)
- AC 23 | 13 | 21
Lyse hesitates for only a moment, clearly about to argue, but as soon as she sees Andakos's face, she sobs and dives into the darkness of the sewers below.
Graekimus snarls and tries to reach toward the grate, but gets a spearpoint in his shoulder for his troubles. The wound does almost nothing but he does glare at Andakos. "Fine. I wanted to kill you in front of her, but I'll settle for just killing you. She is clearly not of your blood, anyway."
Graekimus drops the bow and rushes at Andakos and latches his beak onto the investigator's arm. Sharp needles lining the beak tear into his flesh and latch on . The daemon groans in pain from the movements as more of his hideous burns crack and tear.
This is it. He's going to die again. He wonders if the raise dead scroll will work this time, or if he's permanently marked by the blade that first killed him. Will it finally do the job it couldn't before? Perhaps someone will find his body and use the scroll on his father, if he didn't make it.
Maybe it doesn't matter. Lyse will live. Graekimus might be right that she's not of his blood, and in many ways is sort of as far from his blood as she can get, but she's his. He taught her so well! Look at what she was able to do! Lyse is going to grow up to be an absolutely stunning alchemist. But most importantly, Lyse is going to grow up.
Andakos can't wield the spear anymore, not with only one hand. He readies the gauntlet for a final blow before Graekimus rips him apart with that hideous beak. And then several things happen at once.
First, Graekimus drops Andakos, who plops unceremoniously to the ground.
The investigator looks up at his attacker, and it takes several seconds to recognize what looks so off about Graekimus. There are several small, pointy things protruding from his chest. Why are those there? Those weren't there a moment ago...
Graekimus stumbles slightly, jerking to the side as if to try and dislodge something from his back. Then the scene really clicks into place for Andakos's blurry, blood loss and adrenaline-addled brain.
Alecta Viden crouches on top of Graekimus, her arm buried deep in spiny, distended back. But she looks wildly different than Andakos has ever seen her before: her auburn hair is raven-black, her skin an angry red like a welt, and horns protrude from her forehead.
Just like Andakos.
Yet, for all her daemonic visage, she seems surrounded in a halo of soft yellow light, like sunbeams reflecting off a thousand polished gold coins. The claws at the end of her left hand is buried in Graekimus like pitons in a mountainside, while her right hand is buried deep enough to jut through the other side.
She looks at her son with a mixture of rage, guilt, fear, and shame, but she calls out, "I can't hold him forever! Take Thaddeus and go! NOW!"
It's then that Andakos sees his father, looking like death warmed over but just barely alive and clutching the empty potion vial his son left for him, leaning against the door frame. He stumbles across the room, pinballing against the various tables, to collapse at the grate at Andakos's feet. He heaves with all his strength, and pushes the grate up, but is having trouble keeping it open long enough to slip through.
Meanwhile, Graekimus thrashes and shrieks, hissing and snarling curses in Daemonic. He's badly injured, but Andakos can tell he still has a lot of fight left in him--and that barrel's going to blow any second.
[color=green]ROUND 10
Andakos (4/74 hp, sickened 6 rounds)
Graekimus (?? dmg, grappled)
Lyse (0 dmg, fleeing)
Alecta (?? dmg, grappled)
Thaddeus (?? dmg, essentially staggered)
[/color]
Andakos has no idea what's going on, but the inquisitive part of his mind snapshots this moment so he can reflect on it later.
He was ready to die here. In fact, it felt like he was brought back specifically to save Lyse. In the fractions of seconds that have passed since he made the decision, he had become resigned to it. Accepting of it. But now he was being given yet another chance to live? Why? WHY?
And then his logical brain b%*+!-slaps the emotional part. While you are standing here asking stupid questions, your mother is saving two of you. Now, you can thank her, tell her you love her, and get the hells out of here, or you can allow three to die when only one has to!
He looks at his mother, committing this side of her that he never saw in his 36 years to memory. "Thank you." Then he grabs the grate, helps his father down, and jumps down himself. Before he lets the grate close above him, he looks at her again. "I love you." Then he lets go of the grate, puts his father's arm over his shoulder, and moves as quickly as he can away from the impending pandemonium.
- 10/12 inspiration used
- shield (8 minutes)
- AC 23 | 13 | 21
Andakos certainly has information about this in his brain somewhere, but it's all just too much right now. His thoughts freeze up, and it takes another command from his mother of "GO!!" before he springs into action.
The last thing Andakos hears before the grate slams shut is his mother calling, "I'm sorry! I love you!" There is a horrible ripping sound, and a bellow of pain and rage and defiance that could absolutely not come from his mother, yet it's undeniably hers, and it's met with a roar of agony from Graekimus. The sound begins to muffle as the trio rush down the filthy, muck-slick tunnel, Andakos and Lyse practically dragging the wounded Thaddeus along.
Then the world erupts into light and noise, and the three are lifted off their feet. Andakos instinctively wraps himself around his daughter and wounded father, twisting as best he can in midair to cushion them before he is flung bodily against the wall of the sewer tunnel. His final sensation is tasting the sickly-sweet tang of kerosene, and inhaling the vile dust of powdered brick, and then the world becomes darkness.
----
When Andakos opens his eyes, the world looks washed-out. Gray. Empty. His limbs still shake as if with distant earthquakes, reminding him of what just happened.
It takes a few moments to realize it's his darkvision pitching the world in monochrome. Lyse sits next to him, shaking his arm to try and wake him. Her cherubic cheeks are caked in grime, with two trails of cleanness where her tears are still pouring down.
"Dad! Dad, wake up! Please!" When she sees his eyes open, she sobs uncontrollably and throws her arms around him. "I-- I--" She sniffles, not raising her head from his chest. "I gave you potions I found in your stuff, I s-smelled them to make sure, like you taught me... I thought for s-sure I got the right ones, b-b-but they didn't seem to-- to do anything! B-but now you're awake, but--Grandpa isn't! He won't wake up!"
A glance over and Andakos can see his father curled into a ball on the filthy cobblestones of the sewer, clutching his stomach. He can hear Thaddeus's shallow breaths from several feet away.
It's likely Thaddeus has severe internal injuries, maybe even hemorrhaging. It's clear Lyse must have fed him additional potions, but he remains unresponsive. He's going to need serious healing, beyond just health potions. He likely needs a restoration.
You do know a church where a friend works...
----
Andakos sits up and pulls Lyse into an embrace. "I'm so glad you're okay." Then he leans over to check over his father.
He retrieves his shiny new restoration wand and taps his father with it.
- 11/12 inspiration used
- shield (8 minutes)
- AC 23 | 13 | 21
Thaddeus groans and rolls into a sitting position. Physically he looks relatively fine, though still heavily battered, but emotionally he looks like an absolute wreck. He has heavy bags under his eyes, and his cheeks are sunken. He looks as if he hasn't slept or eaten properly in days. His eyes suddenly widen and he starts, waving his hands frantically around him. "W-where am I?? Alecta? Lyse? Lyse!!"
Lyse pounces on the older man and hugs him tightly. "Grandpa! I was so scared, you were hurt bad!"
Thaddeus returns the hug, still staring blindly into the dark. "I'm okay. Andakos? Are you here? Gods, please, tell me you're here..."
Andakos grabs his father's hand and squeezes it reassuringly. "Mo-- mom helped us escape." He reaches out to Lyse with his other hand. "She didn't make it." He doesn't say anything about her transformation or apparent badassery. Right now their priority is finding somewhere safe and getting healed up. Andakos knows of one place that could provide both: The House of Dawn. He has no idea if Golloriel is still there, but he thinks Mother Fatia knows him and will help him.
He has no idea how to navigate these sewers, not to mention he can barely walk himself, much less help his father. Speaking of his father...
"Dad. Are you blind? What happened to you while I was... away?"
- 11/12 inspiration used
- shield (8 minutes)
- AC 23 | 13 | 21
At the question about Thaddeus's eyes, Lyse gives her father a look of condescending patience that only a teenager can truly master. "Dad," she says, "it's pitch black. He's n--" She stops, flushes a little, and amends, "human."
Ah. Right. Thaddeus doesn't have darkvision like he and Lyse do. Well, considering the harrowing events of the last hour, he aught to be forgiven for the slip-up.
As to the sewers themselves, he hasn't had much cause to go traipsing around in them before, so he has no idea where to go, except that the church is vaguely south of their current position. However, Andakos thinks he might at least be able to navigate closer before having to surface, thus minimizing the chances of a certainly disastrous meeting with a Gray Maiden patrol.
After gingerly testing his footing--and with significant help from Andakos and Lyse--Thaddeus manages to stand shakily. "I'm alright, I'm alright," he says a little imperiously. "I can walk, I think. But unless you have a light source, you will need to guide me. We should make for the street; I know we aren't exactly the Queen's favorites right now, but I have no idea where to go down here. Do you?"
After a few moments Thaddeus answers his son's other question with a heavy sigh. "We waited all week for Darb to have time to resurrect you. Apparently, the High Priest was the only one available. I would have been fine going to another church, but you know how devout your mother is." His face twists in grief. "Was." He leans heavily on his son's shoulder. Despite having two inches and maybe twenty pounds on Andakos, in that moment he feels wispy-frail as a man twice his age. "After this morning's debacle with the Queen, I stayed home with Lyse to pack our things and be ready to leave as soon as you were awake. Then the doorbell rang, and the next thing I know, Renard is screaming bloody murder. I ran downstairs to see what was wrong, and saw that... thing on our doorstep. Lyse came too, and when it saw us I tried to hold it off while Hadvar mustered the guards. I... made a poor showing I'm afraid."
Lyse squeezes his hand. "I thought you were really brave, Grandpa."
He beams down at her, and though it's clearly strained, Andakos suspects it's very genuine. "You are an absolute sweetheart, dear girl." When he looks up at Andakos again (or rather, just a bit past Andakos's nose) his face drops again. "He just... dangled me. In the air, by my head. No matter how I struggled, I couldn't escape his grasp. It wasn't just terrifying, it was... humiliating. He kept taunting Lyse, threatening to hurt me if she didn't come out. And well that you didn't, " he adds quickly. Despite being in the dark, he likely guessed at her current ashamed look. "He would simply have killed us both. Anyway, Hadvar and the others showed up and chased him downstairs, but not before he gutted me like a fish. I thought I was done for, but then I woke up with your mother over me, feeding me a potion. She helped me up and we went to find you two." He shrugs, still leaning on his son's shoulder, clearly exhausted. That's alright; Andakos knows the rest.
"He rang the doorbell?" Andakos shakes his head incredulously.
They reach an intersection, and he looks down the various passageways. "I think we need to head this direction."
- 12/12 inspiration used
- shield (8 minutes)
- AC 23 | 13 | 21
A somber silence fills the dank tunnels, broken only by erratic drips of unknown vile fluids down the sluice parting the tunnels' two walkways, occasionally connected by narrow, arching stone bridges. The upshot to a sharp nose honed from years of alchemy is the ability to identify strange chemicals by smell. The downside is that sewers are basically their own special brand of Hell. Everything reeks of rotten meat, feces, urine, and mildew.
The ten foot high ceilings mean Andakos often has to crouch to keep his longspear from catching on the occasional arches dipping down from the ceiling. Eventually, Thaddeus's breathing becomes louder and more ragged, but he waves off any concerned looks. "I'm not very physical on my best day. Just... winded is all. I can rest when we reach our destination."
Andakos has no idea how far south they need to go. The sewers are, thankfully, rather grid-like, making navigation straightforward, but distance is nearly impossible to gauge down here. After what feels like an appropriate amount of time, he stops at the next ladder and, after hefting the lid off a manhole, helps Lyse and his father onto the street.
The afternoon sun feels harsh and jarring after spending almost an hour in the dark, and everyone has to take a moment to blink away the glare. It appears the trio has come out only a couple blocks away from the church. If they go quickly, Andakos is confident he can keep Maiden contact to a minimum.
They must paint quite the picture: a tiefling absolutely lousy with holes, covered in dried blood and less dry sewage, supporting a human who somehow looks even worse, and a young aasimar girl. Still, he thinks they are able to stay out of sight as well as can be expected. He sends Lyse ahead at intersections to scope things out before crossing and they move as quickly as possible.
- 12/12 inspiration used
- AC 19 | 13 | 17
There is a brief, tense moment where Lyse doesn't return for several minutes. Just as Andakos's panic rises enough to go searching for her, she slinks back to the alley where they were hiding, looking visibly shaken. "Those armored ladies were on the corner. I think one of them spotted me. I had to go to another alley and they followed me, but I finally lost them and came back around! Gods, they're scary." She peers around the corner, back the way she came. "I think they left, but we should hurry in case they come back."
The trio wastes no time, though the going is increasingly slow as Thaddeus loses more and more energy. His years are showing, particularly the past twenty-some that were sedentary, and despite an easy, loping pace, he's wheezing by the time the three reach the doors of the House of Dawn.
Andakos pulls them open, and ushers Lyse and his father inside. A young acolyte strides up with a beatific smile and says, "Welcome to the House of Dawn! We aren't currently holding services, but--" His face falls at the sight of them. "By the Dawnflower!" He turns to one of the other clergy. "Sister Rihanith!"
A tall, slender half-orc woman with luxurious auburn locks turns and blinks in surprise, then turns back to the young man. "Brother, go fetch Mother Fatia. Then go tell Sister Golloriel her friend is here and could probably use a hand." The acolyte darts off, and Sister Rihanith sweeps in to help Andakos lead Thaddeus down a hallway and into a large room with several beds. This is likely the church's infirmary, though when Ducky was here last, the whole church had become an infirmary, so this room is new to him. Shelves lined with blankets, rolls of clean bandages, and jars of various unknown unguents line the walls between the beds. She sets Thaddeus down on one of them. "Take off your shirt, sir. I want to clean your wounds before an infection sets in." She then gently but firmly pushes Andakos onto a bed. "And you look as if you took on a bulette bare-handed and lost." She looks like she's going to ask questions, but at the look on Ducky's face, her mouth snaps shut and she simply begins tending his wounds.
----
A series of frantic knocks on Golloriel's door drags her unwittingly from a deep and dreamless sleep. "I'm sorry Sister Golloriel," comes the meek voice of Brother Halfast, one of the more newly-appointed acolytes, "but there's a friend of yours here and he's in pretty bad shape!"
Her windowless room is pitch-black; her candle burned down to the stub long ago, meaning she's been sleeping for at least six hours, yet her body cries out for more.
Once he is inside the House of Dawn and has handed off his father to someone (anyone) else, Andakos finally allows his condition to hit him . He collapses into the bed, closes his eyes, and lets semi-consciousness take him.
Golloriel is instantly awake at the mention of her "friend". Could Brother Halfast mean her father? Why wouldn't he say 'father'? So if it's not Caladaer, then who? Andakos? Last she heard he still was awaiting resurrection at the Bank of Abadar. Cabe? Did he ever even come by the House of Dawn?
These thoughts race through her mind as she frantically makes herself presentable. Then she notices Halfast standing there, awkwardly averting his gaze. "Friend? Who is it? A tiefling? An older man?"
"The tiefling, yes," Brother Halfast says. At the question of 'older man,' he flinches a little. "Not... not him, I'm afraid, but an older man is with him. I've never seen him before, though. Nobility, I think, based on his clothes--such as they are. They both look in pretty bad shape. Sister Rihanith is tending to them, but she asked me to seek you out, and Mother Fatia." He smacks his forehead. "I knew I was forgetting something!" He rushes off to go find Mother Fatia.
He never did say where they were at, but she can guess if they're in 'bad shape' that they're probably in the infirmary.
Andakos! Golloriel feels a surge of emotion at seeing him alive and (literally) in one piece. But he was just brought back! How is he already hurt again?!
She is tempted to run out of her room right now, but if Rihanith is looking after him, he is in good hands. She has time to finish putting on her pants.
Once she is decent, she rushes to the infirmary as quickly as she can while still maintaining some decorum. When she arrives, she quickly takes in the scene. Andakos's bright red skin is hard to miss, but then she notices the other man: that's Thaddeus, Andakos's father! And Lyse is here--though seemingly unhurt, thank the gods. What in the world happened?
Seeing that both men are still quite hurt, she almost instinctively grasps the holy symbol she wears around her neck (for when she isn't wearing her breastplate) and pops off a few channels. Then she attends to whichever man Rihanith isn't working with and checks him over.
While she works, she talks over her shoulder. "Lyse! What happened?!"
- aura of courage (all allies within 10 ft +4 morale bonus to saves against fear)
- immunity to fear/disease
Healing light bathes the two men, and their wounds rapidly begin to fade; both look significantly better. Sister Rihanith gives a grateful nod and continues preparing cool cloths and more comfortable (and, more importantly, cleaner) garments.
Lyse rubs her arm and stares at Andakos for a few moments, then says, "I... I'm not sure... Dad was--was--d-dead..." Her breath hitches for a moment. "But then Grandma was leaving to go to the church, said they were doing the resurrection today. I wanted to go with, but some lady came by and talked to Grandma, and she got real scared, and said I had to stay home with Grandpa and pack. Then she left, and--" At this point she breaks down into sobs and wraps herself around Golloriel, unable to continue.
Thaddeus glances mournfully down at his ragged clothing and then to the garments on the end of the bed. "I can tell you the rest, milady," he says quietly, and proceeds to fill Golloriel in on the day's events, including the news of the horrific decree by Queen Ileosa early this morning.
Sister Rihanith now stands near two large basins of hot water and washcloths that have been brought in by a quartet of initiates she'd apparently called for at some point during Lord Thaddeus's tale, but waits patiently for them to conclude their discussion before resuming her tending. She also looks stricken by the news from the castle, but doesn't interject during Thaddeus's recounting.
Golloriel can't hide the shock on her face as Thaddeus speaks. After all they've seen, she would be a fool to not suspect the Queen of some wrongdoing, but the reality is much worse than she'd dared guess. And, if that wasn't bad enough, now they have a powerful daemon after them? She remembers how Graekimus shrugged off Andakos's spear to the heart like it was nothing. How can they stand up to that and the entire government of Korvosa?
...especially without her father?
Once Thaddeus finishes speaking, she works on Andakos's wounds in silence for quite a while, her mind racing with shock and despair. Finally she musters the will to speak, and she is ashamed when her voice comes out barely above a squeak: "Andakos, I am so sorry about your mother. What are we going to do?"
Andakos squeezes his eyes shut at the mention of his mother, then shakes his head at Lori's question. "I don't know. Rest here for today, I suppose, but then we need to leave. Our being here is putting the House of Dawn at risk. We need to go. Where, I don't know. But not here." He sighs. "Probably not Korvosa." He looks at Golloriel. "Will you and Cal be ready to travel tomorrow?"
There is it... the question she was dreading. "He-- my father is gone. I don't know where." She recounts the details of Cal's disappearance. "I don't"--her voice catches in her throat--"I don't think we should expect him to join us, whatever we do. He didn't tell me where he was going or when or if he would be back."
And then something she didn't expect happens: she gets angry. Until now, she has been mourning her father's disappearance. But, whatever happened, she somehow knows that he went willingly. And, yes, he didn't bother telling her anything. She has known for most of her life that he is selfish and self-serving, but she also believed that he loved her. That he cared. But they are in crisis and he just f@#@ing LEFT!
When Andakos grunts, she realizes that she is inadvertently squeezing his arm a bit too tightly. "Sorry. He isn't coming. We're on our own."
Things just keep getting better. F!&%ing Cal.
"Oh. I'm... I'm sorry to hear that." He isn't sure what else to say. The silence in the room is deafening.
"I hate to ask, but our list of allies grows thin. Do you think Mother Fatia can smuggle us out of the city somehow?"
Lori shrugs. Now that she has realized that she is angry and not sad about her father, she doesn't really trust herself to speak. She has never understood the phrase "blood is boiling" until this moment. Her entire body feels hot, especially her face.
She looks down at Andakos. He's going to live. She risks a few words: "I need a minute."
She steps out of the infirmary, intending to take a walk. She knows now that she can't go outside, so she heads to her room to grab her scimitar, intending to go to the basement and take out her anger and frustration on some training dummies.
Thaddeus watches the paladin leave before speaking. "I... didn't want to interrupt. The talk of her father seems, erm. Sensitive." He rubs his chest, which was earlier one roiling mass of bruises, but is now just a single large dark splotch between his pectorals, visible through the huge tear in his ragged shirt. "As for the Queen, I don't know what to do about that. But as for that... thing that attacked us, it looked to be in rough shape before your mother put her whole bloody arm through it. And that explosion..." He shakes his head. "In the very unlikely event that thing survived, I suspect it won't come at us again too soon. My main concern is the Queen."
"A valid one," Mother Fatia says from the doorway of the infirmary. How long was she standing there? "I heard some of what happened. If someone could fill me in, please."
Thaddeus looks at his son, who still looks a bit like ground beef, and volunteers to recount the tale again.
When he starts to tell her of the Queen's decree, she holds up a hand. "I have already heard." She turns a solemn face to Andakos, but he can see behind the stoic veneer she's furious. "You have suffered much, both personally and in the name of our city. I will allow no enemy to touch you here, neither political nor extraplanar. If this daemon tries to come for you here, it will find itself in one Hell of a fight. Your house guards were doubtless good and competent soldiers, but we are specifically trained to battle such fiends, and several of us have faced down leukodaemons before. Combined, I am confident we could repel such a creature if it even still lives. Nor will I allow the thugs of tyrants onto our sacred ground."
She sits down on the edge of the bed, addressing the all the Videns at once. "As to the Queen, do not let her spook you. While she knows you had something to do with the plague, but unfortunately for her, word has spread quite quickly and now so does everyone else. She would doubtless like to cause you trouble, but she'd have a city-wide riot on her hands if she came at you directly. If you still wish to leave, I'll not stop you. But I fear the city will need you again. Things will only get worse until Queen Ileosa's power trip is brought to heel."
She fiddles with her garments for a moment, as if debating whether to say next what she means to say. Finally she sighs and says, "Things are going to get worse, for everyone. We at the House of Dawn will do everything in our power to help mitigate the damage, but you and Golloriel are some of the most accomplished heroes this city has produced in many years. I fear if you do not help, we have no chance to make it through this." There is no anger in her face anymore, only anxiety. "I will not stop you, if you wish to leave. I certainly will not blame you. But if you choose to stay, the House of Dawn will protect you to the last blade against the Queen's predations. Lord Thaddeus and Lady Lyse are most welcome too, of course." She gives the girl a small, reassuring smile. She doesn't drop the smile even after Lyse doesn't return it; the girl is staring morosely at the floor.
Andakos listens to Mother Fatia. A range of emotions pass through him as she speaks: guilt at being a burden to Fatia and her temple; fury and bewilderment at Caladaer for abandoning his daughter; relief that Lyse and his father are okay and (seemingly) safe; rage at the Queen; and then finally sorrow at the loss of his mother. Not to mention the trauma of his horrible death that he is less and less able to hold back.
It is all too much. He can feel that he is about to lose it, so he quickly nods to Mother Fatia. "We will stay. Thank you."
Then, he stands up and shakily walks to his father's bed. He sits next to Thaddeus, falls into his arms, and sobs.
Golloriel is (perhaps blissfully) unaware of what's happening in the infirmary. As she gets closer to her room, she finds herself walking with ever-growing purpose. She barely notices the surprised and concerned looks on the faces of everyone she passes. She reaches her room, grabs her scimitar from its sheath, and carries it naked down to the basement.
Once there, she absolutely wails on a training dummy. There is no finesse, no training, no care in her swings; she feels only fury, and it flows through her into the blade. When the dummy refuses to go down, she takes the blade in two hands and bludgeons it with overhead swings. This proves sufficient, and wood shavings and stuffing go flying. When she has destroyed the first dummy to her satisfaction, she moves to the next. She doesn't even realize that she is screaming.
She also doesn't realize that ragged cuts have opened on both of her palms and blood flows freely, onto the hilt of her sword, down her forearms, and onto the ground, where the sand of the fighting pit greedily drinks it up.
Andakos knows it's a monumental task for an Outsider to manifest on the Material Plane. Barring a direct summons via spells like planar binding, it requires unusual and rare circumstances for extraplanar creatures to reach the Material Plane. Otherwise, demons, daemons, and qlippoths would simply invade Golarion and roll over it like a tidal wave of annihilation. One need only look at the Worldwound to understand this: though impressive in size at roughly a mile across, the Worldwound is relatively small on the grand cosmic scale, yet is a source of constant threat from the Abyss and has been for over a century. If it were so easy all the time, the fiends of the Outer Planes would have wiped out life on Golarion eons ago.
In addition, it's impossible to say just how long it will take for Graekimus to reform, and whether he will even be a threat by that point; the politics of Abaddon are ruthless, and failure is not looked upon kindly. It's possible even after he reforms, Graekimus's superiors will simply obliterate him. Even if not, it will probably be months before he reforms, and who knows how long before he finds another opportunity to enter Golarion once again? For the foreseeable future, at least, Graekimus is not a threat.
Lord Thaddeus is not a man used to emotional honesty, so he's clearly uncertain what to do when Andakos collapses on him, weepling. In the end, he settles for putting one awkward hand on his son's back and staring into nothingness with a blank, haunted expression.
Andakos feels a small hand (but not so small as it was when they met, he could swear) snake its fingers into his and grip gently but firmly, warm reassurance. Lyse rests her face on her father's back, and the three sit on one bed, united in their grief.
----
Several initiates take one look at Golloriel's open blade and give her a very wide berth, but she takes no notice. She has only eyes on her path to the training room, and then for the dummies.
A parade of faces dance across the dummies' blank visages as she hacks savagely: the sea hag who cursed her friend, the necromancer who abetted the mass murder of civilians, the vile woman who orchestrated it and split Andakos in half--and her father, Caladaer.
With a bellowing shriek, her final blow takes the last dummy's head clean off, and Caladaer's head flies into the air, spraying blood from the stump as it arcs gracefully. Wait--that's not right. It's not really his head, why is there so much blood?
And why... why is the room spinning...?
Golloriel swears she sees the sorrowful face of an ugly child staring at her as her eyes roll into the back of her head and she falls unconscious.
----
When Lori comes to, the ugly child is hunkered over her, and she realizes perhaps a bit sheepishly that no, it's not an ugly child, it's Brother Ephraim. The halfling is currently pouring healing magic into her, but stops when her eyes flutter open. "You alright there, Lori? 'ere, have a nip. S'alright, it's jes' water." He puts a gray pewter cup to her lips; the water is cool and refreshing.
He helps her sit up, then looks mildly at the shreds of wood and cotton stuffing strewn across the ground covered in small spatters of blood. "You, uh. Havin' a bad day, sis?"
Golloriel sits up, takes in the state of the room around her, and immediately feels a flush across her cheeks. This time, though, it is not from rage, but shame. "Oh. Oh, Brother Ephraim, forgive me."
It is then that she notices the burning pain across her palms. She holds her hands up to look; they are no longer bleeding, but the wounds are still raw, bloodstained, and now filled with gritty sand. "Flames preserve me... Brother, what is this?" She shows Ephraim her palms, a frantic look on her face.
Ephraim waves away the plea for forgiveness. "We all get bad days, love." When she presents the wounds, he frowns, studying them for a long moment before answering. "Well, I ain't a bettin' man no more, but if I was, I'd put good money on stigmata."
He looks at Golloriel again, then at the carnage in the room. "I reckon She's chosen you for more'n jes' paladinhood, Sister. I'd say She wants you to be a Holy Vindicator." He sees the look on her face and shakes his head. "Ask the good cap'n about it. I think she'd know better'n anyone." He stands up and offers a hand. He's surprisingly strong for his diminutive size. "First though, you need sugar. You lost a lotta blood. Let's raid the kitchen for some cookies, eh?" He starts heading for the kitchen without looking back, clearly expecting Lori to follow him. He passes a gaggle of terrified initiates, and leans in to them. "Be a peach an' go fetch Cap'n Brokenev, will ya? Tell 'er we're in the kitchen an' need a word." They hesitate for a moment, but he pats one on the arm and heads off; they seem to lose their fear for confusion, and wander off to go complete their superior's request.
In the kitchen, the duo has no luck finding cookies, but there is fresh-baked flatbread and strawberry jam, which Ephraim insists Lori dig into. Soon after, Talia enters the kitchen looking rather cross. "I heard you made a disaster of the training room," she snaps. "Explain yourself."
Ephraim nods to Golloriel encouragingly. "Go on, lass. Show 'er."