Triel picks up her real scythe as her spirit one dissipates.
"Right--I'm going to check on the scrolls."
Devie stares down at the bubbling squirting moist mess of pinkish flesh, and wonders WHY? The question is really open-ended. After a moment of no answer from her head, she says "Thanks for that magic protection, I think it saved me." Devie thanks Ahyoka with a smile, as she follows the others to the scrolls.
"My pleasure!" Ahyoka replies, using magic to send the acidic gore cascading off of Devie to the ground as she flies along after Triel, leaving the battle oracle spotless, the magic leaving a vague arcane tingle.
You rush upstairs to the vault, arriving to see a hole has opened in the southern wall of the third floor. The door to Clegg's bedroom is open, and several cultists are ransacking it, attempting to find the hidden entrance to the vault! Two human cultists flank a third, a scarred half-elf woman with purple skin signifying drow heritage. This must be the cult's leader, Leptonia! The woman snarls and brandishes her halberd. "You will not deny me my prize!"
Seeing the assembly of invading cultists, Ahyoka calls upon the magic coursing through her blood, sending a ripple of altered temporal energy washing through her companions, accelerating thier actions.
Devie thinks this would be a great opening for some kind of witty banter about her wish, or something. Her brain tries to find something, anything, but she just ends up saying "Well, that's what you think." which is lame, she knows, and it makes her cheeks go all rosy.
She tries to recover by charging at leader, sword up in the standard hacking motion.
Triel glares at the half-drow before levelling her scythe at her--
--and nearly ends up spun around as Devie charges past her to start chopping.
"...right." She clears her throat before lunging at one of the human cultists.
Hope finally quite retching as the qlippoth fell and took a moment to wipe her mouth off shakily. When they went up to check on the scrolls and found the cultists rummaging around in Clegg's room Hope felt a wash of cold anger. These were responsible for making her so sick to her stomach, particularly the purple skinned b*+~@! Hope wasted no time in pulling together a blast straight from the void and lobbing it at the half elf and tangle her up.
Ahyoka hastens the party, then Hope blasts Leptonia with a powerful burst of void energy. The half-elf is badly hurt but avoids being weighed down. Devie charges in to melee, slicing Leptonia twice, but coming shy of scoring a critical hit. Triel moves to occupy the other cultists, slashing one with her scythe.
Leptonia casts a quickened healing spell on herself before attacking Devie with her halberd. The battle oracle parries the attacks with her blade.
The other two cultists strike out at Triel, slashing her once.
Out of the corner of her eye, Devie sees Triel getting cut into. "STOP HURTING HER!" she roars, raising her sword to black the cultist leader's weapon, then hacks into her flesh like a mace into a watermelon.
Triel retaliates with scythe blows of her own!
Seeing Devie and Hope unleashing on the cult leader, Ahyoka draws upon dark energies, sending a shadowy bolt at each of the other two cultists.
Realizing the blast had not entangled her foe Hope pulled together another blast, this time of raw gravity, and filling it with the weight to weigh her victim down once more.
Between Hope's blasts and Devie's powerful blows, Leptonia goes down hard! Triel and Ahyoka take down the remaining cultists swiftly and efficiently. And with their defeat, the threat to Clegg Zincher’s scrolls has been neutralized!
Clegg Zincher is overjoyed when he returns from the auction to find his precious scrolls are untouched. "I truly can't thank you enough for what you've done here tonight! Please, take one of the scrolls as a reward--you've more than earned it! You can also choose any two items from my armory."
"Thank you, we're happy to have helped, and more so to have put down those lunatics. We appreciate your generosity, Mr. Zincher...it was a pleasure doing business with you." Ahyoka responds charmingly as the group makes their selections.
Feeling more than a little underwhelmed by how easily the cultists were bested, Triel gathers up the cultists' loot in silence.
With the Yamasoth cultists defeated, you won't have to worry about that polymorph plague spreading any further. Not to mention the resurrection of Runelord Krune!
It would seem, then, that the time has come to take up Runelord Sorshen's invitation to meet her in Korvosa, and find out what her plans might be...
Triel dusts her hands off. "Well, job well done I'd say."
She looks to the others. "Anyone have any ideas for how to celebrate? I think we can afford to spend a day here..."
"Cake?" Devie says, with more enthusiasm than is warranted.
"Wine, good food to start!" Ahyoka says with a smile.
Classy establishments in Riddleport are few and far between, but you manage to find a decent place to stay in the form of The Mystery of the Gate, an impressive inn and tavern in the Leeward District of Riddleport. It is favored by sages and scholars who visit the city to study the Cyphergate. Its walls are decorated by glyphs and diagrams of the ancient monument. There, you are able to share a few drinks and some tasty food without having to worry about getting caught up in a bar brawl or having your pockets picked.
Not many people at the Mystery of the Gate seem to be decked out in steel from head to toe. Devie notices this and then with some unease, has her armor shift into a tunic and slacks. In armor and a solid helmet, Devie looks like a warrior, but in simple clothes, she looks like, well, Sorshen, the Runelord of Lust, since that is where her body came from. A rather awkward, nervous, runelord of lust.
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By contrast, Triel looks quite at home, even without her mask on. Her bodysuit shifts from its skin-tight form to a flowing white backless dress of fine silk, at once both modest enough to be acceptable for being out in public and sheer enough to offer tantalizing glimpses of skin beneath. Her smile comes to her lips with practiced ease, the conversation coming easier, and her glances at both Devie and Ahyoka seem to be invitations to join her in her fun.
Devie has a REALLY hard time keeping her eyes off the tantalizing glimpses of the skin beneath Triel's flowing white dress. One would think if someone had two genders in their melted-together brain, they would have an easier time NOT staring, but Devie is... well... hells, Devie has no idea what Devie is, but the graceful slope down the drow's back toward... ... ...
"Oh, um, that looks tasty!" the voice of the poor confused warrior woman cracks as she attempts to distract herself as an order of decadent creamy luscious CHEESE passes by on a tray.
Triel glances at Devie, noticing her… difficulties in keeping her eyes off of her. She can’t help but give her a mischievous smile.
”Miss Grey, I would be inclined to agree.” She says, her eyes taking in Devie’s own form.
”…you know, I never did apologize to you for ruining that lovely dream you had back in the Sculptor’s studio.”
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Hope wasn't comfortable talking to Zincher so she let the others handle that instead. When it came to celebrating and the suggestion of eating Hope was more than happy to do that. She liked eating, she liked it a lot, both because she had been largely starving and homeless when she first met everyone but also because the piece of the void in her was always hunger.
As they all sat eating Hop noticed how Devie kept looking at Triel and tried not to get caught. It was obvious she was into Triel, and Hope didn't get what her hang up was. Grinning mischievously Hope pulled together a tiny ball of gravity, one that wouldn't cause any harm, and launched it at Devie's back to try and make her stumble into Triel. Hope then pointedly looked elsewhere like she had no idea what had just happened.
Triel could already tell what Hope was up to, but she made certain to keep quiet.
Vindir, would you be so kind as to thank her in a bit?
...Triel...
Please?
...fine.
The mention of THAT dream makes Devie's cheeks flare up as if a sudden heat storm erupted in her. Without having any idea how to respond to that, she still opens her mouth to say SOMETHING, but then something pushed her into poor Triel.
Poor unfortunately the correct word. A tumbling of soft hill and vallys would not require that word. BUT her lack of armor is just an illusion. Under that illusion is still layers upon layers of steel making up her full plate armor.
What could have been a memorable moment is more like getting hit by an anvil.
"What? Oh, why, I mean, I'm sorry, Triel, how..." she looks around for whoever made her stumble, but sees no one, her cheeks are near melting now, this time from embarrassment.
"OOF!"
Triel remembers a fraction of a second too late that Devie's armour situation is much like her own--and the differences between them are at once both stark and burdensome.
By some miracle, Triel manages to stay on her feet, catching Devie and barely managing to stop the two from going down in a crashing heap.
"...oh, don't worry about it. Stumbling happens." Triel grunts as she steadies herself. "Perhaps we can see about, well, finding a place for you to change into something less heavy."
"That... yes, makes sense." she looks sheepishly at the drow, realizing quite suddenly she is super close and in the other woman's arms. Her dark eyes blink slowly, surprised and slightly lost, not sure what to do in truth. Her mind is sluggish at the best of times, but now it seems to have decided to go on vacation completely. Her heart though is working more than enough for every other organ, thudding like a hyper giant in her chest.
It doesn't take Triel long to secure the two of them a room--the innkeeper directs them up the nearby stairs to a particularly well-decorated suite of rooms at the hallway's end. A lovingly-kept four-poster bed with curtains, a few soft chairs and books lying about, even a private bathing room through a nearby door.
"If I had known you felt that embarrassed about it, perhaps I'd have kept my smart remark to myself." The drow says, helping Devie inside and closing the door behind them. She glances at the full-length mirror across from the bed before looking back to the confused girl.
"...are you feeling alright?" Her expression turns from glib to concerned.
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Devie's eyes look all over, before they returned to Triel, avoiding but finally facing. At the question of Are You All Right, she answers truthfully "Rarely" she sighed but smiled despite that. "I'm just a mess still, sorry for being a bother."
Her illusion slips away until she is in her armor again, complete with her horned helm, which she takes off to shake out her sweat-dampened black hair.
"Devie, you're not a 'bother'." Triel puts a hand on her shoulder.
"Do you want to change out of that armour?" She asks, glancing towards the bathroom door.
Devie smile turns grateful. Then with a nod, she heads into the bathroom. Minutes pass, accompanied by thuds and clashes. Then the awkward but lovely young woman comes out in a long tunic and slacks, much like her illusion before.
She doesn't even have her sword strapped to her back.
While Devie gets changed, Triel sits on the edge of the bed and wills her bodysuit back into its original shape. She winces at the sounds of metal clanging and crashing against tiled flooring.
When she emerges from the bathroom, Triel stands up and starts gathering up Devie's armour and sword, neatly stacking it together and putting the bundle in a corner of the bedroom before turning back to its owner.
"And for the record, I mean it--your hugs may be prone to crushing the wind from me, but you're not a bother."
The word Hugs makes her flustered a bit again, but she still manages a proper "Thank you." though she got lost in the drow moving about and feels bad about not helping to clean up her own mess. "Evie was clumsy, but Deven was even worse, like a bull in a candy shop, so I guess I'm better than both were, but nothing like any of the rest of you. Graceful I mean."
Triel shrugs and sits at the edge of the bed, inviting Devie to do the same. "Oh, I don't know... I think you can be quite graceful when you really need to be."
"It's a..." The drow pauses, searching for an appropriate point of comparison. "...well, it's something that can be trained, much like muscle." She looks between her own toned arms and Devie's. "All it takes is dedication and practice."
Devie sits next to the other woman, her eyes following where Triel looks, her eyes drifting before she manages to pull them. "I... okay, how?" she asks honestly. Part of a memory from somewhere has a book resting on ones head while they try and walk, but she has a hard time understanding why that would do anything other than make you want to throw the book.
"There's a few ways to improve one's sense of balance and coordination. Dancing, for example." Triel shrugs. "Different sorts of exercises to stretch the muscles and keep one nice and limber..."
"...I could show you some, if we ever had time to spare." She sighs. "Right now, I suspect such moments will be few and far between."
"I still haven't figured out where my feet are all the time." Device agrees with the problem, stretching out her leg and flexing her pretty foot out and back. Her boots are in the pile of armored bits. " I'll practice though, I promise." then hesitantly adds "Should we... get back to the others?"
The question--and Devie stretching out her leg--causes Triel to blink.
"...we could, but I quite like these sorts of moments." She replies, folding her hands in her lap.
"I'm not making you uncomfortable, am I?"
Devie looks at Triel in alarm, "No! You are the most comfortable person I know, I mean being around you is comfortable, not meaning to say you are like a soft couch or anything, but I mean, they are snuggly and all but... um... I" she floundered in her analogies that might be insulting and the fact she almost said she'd like to Snuggle into her like a soft couch.
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Triel giggles. "Oh, Devie..."
"...you get flustered so easily." She slides an arm around Devie's shoulders. "It's one of the many things I find so attractive about you."
As the arm slides around her, she seems to be prepared to stiffen, but then melts a bit and then positively Glows at the words coming out of Triel's mouth.
"You do?" her voice can't seem to believe it as her toes curl in out themselves to keep from the desire to bounce. "I... do too, I mean you! You are attractive." she forces her words to say what she means, then adds "But you don't need me to tell you that, you are beautiful and everyone can see that." she looks up at Triel (her gaze before concentrating on her toes), her dark eyes beaming, a truly lovely curve on her lips.
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Triel smirks. "Of course I am."
Her expression turns serious as her other hand slides into Devie's. "And that remark I made about not apologizing for interrupting your dream before... I mean it."
"You are a very earnest person, Devie--your... directness has a very refreshing breed of honesty to it that makes you endearing." She looks Devie up and down. "You stumble over your words, yes, and you may not have the same level of comfort as I do when it comes to being social..."
Triel's face turns somber. "...but you're sincere. Something I feel I have... trouble remembering how to be."
"I hadn't noticed." Device answered softly, before trying to explain. "With me. Or Hope at least too, you seem sincere. You seem at care bucket loads." she smiles sincerely, making sure Triel sees it in her eyes as well as her words. "We'd be lost sevens days to sun down without you. And miserable to boot."
...to be fair, she's not wrong. We've been the ones keeping the group on track.
Triel feels a pang in her chest and sighs. "...I'm sure you would have gotten by without me."
Her hand curls in Devie's. "Now, I have to ask... where are you hoping this goes?"
At that question, Devie's eyes go all sorts of worried, surprised, hopeful, and then settle in confusion. With a long sigh, she looks away and admits "I don't know."
Triel waits for Devie to answer her question, and nods when Devie eventually gives her an answer.
"Well, maybe we can clear some things up." She looks at the bathroom door, then back to Devie. "Right now, I'd love to do something I haven't had a chance to do in a long time..."
"...would you like to join me in the bath?" She tilts her head with interest.
Devie looks all sorts of a variety of emotions, embarrassment and desire being the top two though, she still has no idea about way too many things, but she stands up and follows "I do smell" she reasons aloud.