"Kris sees my thinking. Shrine."
Thomas, tired and decidedly uninterested in the whole affair, gives up easily. "Very well then, once we find nothing of interest, we'll turn in for the night. Let's get this foolishness done with, before the rain ruins my clothes."
"Fine, easiest thing first then."
You head down towards the docks to investigate the shrine. As the guards said, the old hut is a burned-out shell of a building. Debris chokes the interior, where a defaced altar still stands against one wall. Searching through the building reveals no clues. It doesn't even look like anybody has been here in some time--perhaps the reports of chanting were exaggerated.
However, as you are finishing your examination, you notice a woman striding across the water of the bay as if it were dry land. She is completely naked save for bits of seaweed draped upon her and would be lovely if not for the pallid hue of her skin and the telltale bulges of something moving within her body. She saunters towards you, a coy smile on her face.
Oh Shavra, protect us all! Kris whispers to herself, withstanding the horrific visage walking across the water towards them.
She immediately pulls out her censor and holds it in front of her as if to shield herself from this strange creature.
Chiruut stares at the fascinating form before him.
"Oh, it just her. We keep searching-"
"No work on Chiruut!"
The woman's spell broken, Chiruut immediately raises his mental guard!
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For a moment, Thomas was dumbstruck. "You! Are you the woman that's been appearing in my dreams!?" He slowly shook his head. "No, she was not a creature so terrible as you."
He stood as close to the shore as he feels comfortable, his weapon at the ready.
"Tch, guess you were right, Thomas. It was a waste of time. He said, walking around the temple.
When they stepped outside his eyes caught movement of the woman. "Huh, who's the-"
"She's not in my dreams, but I sure want her to be. Guess it wasn't such a waste after all, Thomas."
Raven stands there slack-jawed as the woman saunters closer. Thomas slices at her with his blade as she comes near,
His sword slices her head clean off! Her body falls to the street, numerous eels slithering out of the hole in the corpse's neck.
Didn't know you were into eel-women, Ven. Learn something new everyday! Kris chides.
Personally, I found her a bit stomach turning. Something was off with her smell.
Kris peers around the area, to see if there is anyone else about. Anyone who might know what happened here.
Thomas growls back to Raven. "Get ahold of yourself, fool!" As he cut into the eel woman, he felt it just give way, like a ceramic shell rather than a creature of flesh. It was revolting.
He sprung backward as the eels poured from inside the woman, no wanting to touch them. "Those eels cannot be natural creatures, we should kill them if we can." The old man kept his guard up, sword held at arm's length.
"It used mental trick. Need strong mind to resist. Kill eel creature on sight before they try trick. Now, Shrine."
That sounds very dangerous, Chiruut, Kris says, putting away her holy symbol and taking out the rifle. She preps it in case they need to use it.
Raven shook his head as the eels spilled out of the body of the entrancing beauty. "What? Uh... oh no. I see how the man in the tavern fell for that. I may need some training in that area regarding not getting my mind addled."
He glanced around the night nervously as the others talked.
"Chiruut, there's no point in going back to the shrine. Unless you saw something rest of us didn't, it looked abandoned for some time. We should probably move on to the merchant quarters... unless you want to go to that ship we heard about."
People first. Let us check on the merchants before some abandoned collection of wood.
Chiruut quickly examines the shrine, then confirming its state to his satisfaction, turns and replies.
"Done. Now merchants."
Thomas shook his head. "Aren't we done? We've slain the eel-wench and found nothing of interest in this dingy shrine. Or shall we continue to spoil our rest chasing idle ghosts?"
"Bah, you fools will never let me rest until you've scoured every shadowy corner, will you? Let's get on with it then. To the merchant's quarters." The elderly man takes off on his own, eager to inch ever closer to bedrest.
You head into the town, making your way towards the merchant quarter. You can hear shouts and cries of pain coming from the market square ahead. As you approach, you see a group of four of the strange eel-infested women is attempting to devour a group of guardsmen! Most of the men have strange looks of ecstasy on their faces, even though several eels protruding out of the women are gnawing away at their genitals! One of the eel-women turns to you and groans, alerting the others to your presence!
Kris immediately takes aim with her rifle, having prepared it earlier. She tames aim at one of the eel creatures currently devouring a guard. The report echoes through the streets.
Chiruut has already shielded his mind, now he shields his body as he advances!
Thomas snorted. "More of those eel-women. This town is infested with the foul creatures!"
He stands at the ready, once more preparing for the enemies to come closer.
Seeing several of the guardsman suffering the same fate as the man who had ran to the tavern earlier, and what had nearly happened to him, had Raven not wanting to get anywhere near the eel infested women.
"It's been a long time, but not that long." he said with a dark humor to try and alleviate some of what he was seeing.
Unfortunately his aim was off and his shot sailed into the darkness.
Kris and Raven both miss with their shots. Chiruut raises a telekinetic shield while Thomas readies to strike.
Two of the eel-women stride toward Thoams, dodging away from his blade before biting him. The other two converge on Chiruut, one scoring a hit.
Ah! Blasted thing! Kris curses. She shoulders her rifle and pulls out her stone egg, hanging from the thin chains. She stretches out to touch each of her companions, laying down the blessing of the Shavra upon all of them.
Chiruut doesn't even flinch from the blow, seeing it bounce from his shell of focused willpower.
He extends his focus out, out, and and around the eel-thing that dared to land a blow!
"Get off me wretch!" Thomas bellowed as he swung his sabre for the creature's neck.
Raven took aim and fired his bow while still moving about the desperate battle. Something about the horrifying, and yet sensual, eel women continued to throw him off despite Kris's calming touch.
His shot went wide again. 'Damn it all!' he thought to himself.
As he caught his breath as one of the snake women slid unnaturally up to Thomas, was he jealous? It bit deeply tearing a chunk out of the other man's flesh. Then he lopped it's head.
The scene shook him out of his mood.
'Nope, not of that. But damn it all if I'm not going to need a drink, or three, once we're done here.' he thought, turning his attention towards Chiruut.
"Hold on, Chiruut! We'll get them off you!"
Thomas decapitates one of the women, while Chiruut crushes another with psychic power, wounding her. Raven's attack goes wide. The remaining monsters attack again, one biting Chiruut.
Realizing that he just can't hit them by moving around so much with a bow, Raven falls back on more simple tactics and waits for an opening.
"Gotcha this time!" he said, releasing an arrow for one of their heads.
Chiruut's shield begins to buckle, soon to shatter.
But not yet!, the Yerathi thinks gleefully!
Chiruut focuses again, readying another assault of telekinetic force!
Kris focuses a beam of empowered light at one of the eel women.
With one eel-creature felled, Thomas turned to clean up the other that had attacked him.
Chiruut finishes crushing his chosen foe into a crumpled, gory ball. Kris blinds the eel-woman attacking Thomas, then the warrior slices into her belly. Raven fires on the other one that is attacking Chiruut, driving an arrow into her brain and killing her instantly! Seizing the opportunity, he fires on the blinded foe, just managing to hit and deal enough damage to take her down as well!
The guards call out their thanks, those who are wounded groaning in pain and holding their bloodied groins.
Chiruut questions the guards as his mental barrier begins to flicker away.
"Are there more? Where did they come from?"
Thomas cleaned the eel woman's blood off of his clothes and weapon. The rain was at least useful for keeping him clean, he supposed. Taking a moment to Catch His Breath, the old man spoke. "Enough of this foolishness! If we're going to keep traipsing about town with these creatures, then I'm fetching my bodyguards. I've had quite enough of getting these wretch's filthy blood on me."
Raven looked sympathetically and uncomfortably at the guards who had lost a part of themselves.
"You're welcome of course. Things could have been worse if we hadn't shown up. Sorry we didn't get here sooner. You'll likely be marred for life after that."
"Right, you go get your men, Thomas. We may vary well need them this evening if things haven't calmed down."
He then turned to the guards as they regrouped. "I can help ease your pain now, but I expect to be paid in full later." Raven said, as he opened a bag to reveal several healing vials.
"Has anyone else been attacked in this district, or have you managed to contain the monsters to the street?" he asked, mirroring Chiruut's questions.
Kris reload her rifle. Have you seen any more of them? We must eradicate these horrific monsters from the city.
"They were coming in from the docks... From the harbor," one of the less injured guards says. "Those were the last ones here, but more were marching on the merchant's quarter!"
Thomas is able to retrieve his two bodyguards and return to the group without incident.
Poor sods. But I ain't running a charity here.
As the guards took a pair of Raven's proffered merchandise, he closed the bag.
"Hate to say it, lads, but your work's not done. I'd like to hunker down too, find a safe place for the night. But we got a lot more folks in trouble if the lot of you were taken by surprise. Unless you think you need to stay here and guard this area for some reason, you're going to go back to your nearest armory and grab all the long range armaments and reinforcements of whoever else is still on watch post. Doesn't matter what they're doing, you grab em, then you all hurry yourselves back to the merchant's quarter."
"Right. Come on, men. Let's move out!" Despite their injuries, the guards hustle off to do their duty.
After the guards have left, Chiruut hucks.
"You had to tell them to do job. We better go to docks. Stop eel-things."
Raven shook his head at Chiruut. "No, we don't need to worry about the docks right now. The Merchant's quarter is already in trouble. We need to help those people now! If things go well maybe we can push our way to the docks with any guard reinforcements.
If everyone's recovered from your injuries, we should leave now. If not, I have a few potions I could spare."
Kris moves with Ven towards the Merchant's Quarter. Ven is right. We need to focus on people. We need to be the shining light.
Thomas chuckled humorlessly. "I'm sure the sailors that haven't died yet will thank you. I suppose we might as well check on our client, I'd rather we get payed at the end of this little adventure."
The noble motioned to his bodyguards to follow him and trudged off.
Raven glanced at Kris as she spoke. If it was anyone else he might have thought it would be annoying. But she was so serious that he couldn't help but want it to be true.
He was about to respond but Thomas's provocations interrupted, he held his tongue.
'There's no winning with that man.' he thought as he trudged along.
'Can't blame him though, he's right. I want to get payed for risking my neck.'
"Right, Kris." he finally said. "Let's go try and save who we can."
Hurrying towards the merchant's district, you come across a group of a dozen commoners who have barricaded themselves in an alley behind a pair of overturned wagons. No fewer than six of the eel-woman have beset the townsfolk, hammering at the wagons while cooing to the men in the group. It doesn't look like the barricade will hold much longer...
Chiruut takes a few moments to establish his defenses, and advances towards the melee.
Krys moves to be in the middle of the crowd of men. [b]Here! Take this![\b] she calls over the roar of the battle, handing her rifle to one of the men. Then she hold aloft her stone egg handing from the thin chains and starts to chant, light emanating from beneath her scales. A pale gray light glows from her egg to a radius of five feet.
Thomas waved his bodyguards forward, not wishing to get his hands dirty. One and Two trudged forward, flanking Chiruut, and struck with their weapons.
Neither had much luck though.