A lock of hair winds from Ceres' mop and loops itself around Tawg's ear, squeezing with just enough force to make a lesser being wince. Tawg, of course, having faced much worse in his short life may not even notice. "I'll go in as well. I'm good at smashing."
Not one to be the hero, Gildevar awaits the outcome of his companion's foray into the darkness.
Sarela, you walk through the opened door into a hallway. It goes left then left again and ahead you see shadows and darkness and familiar voices.
Sarela walks down the hallway towards the darkness. Her eyes are normally able to penetrate such inky blackness, so their inability to do so concerns her. Seeing Gildevar standing there, she says, "Gildevar, didn't anyone ever tell you it's rude to leave a lady for dead in a prison? If I weren't so resourceful, I'd likely have been executed by now. Now, where's everyone else?"
Sarela has caught up to the group and everyone is staring into the darkness. There is something in the middle of the room and possibly something under the floor.
Araton's head perks up when he hears the strange crystalline sound from the darkness, another arrow notched and loosed into the darkness but without the same effect.
"There is something there, straight ahead, in the darkness. Most spells that create darkness require some kind of focus and the riddle adds a greater chance to it. If we destroy it, we may be able to see again." Drawing his longsword, Araton steps up to the entranceway and takes a breath. Asmodeus had no need for cowards. "I will return momentarily." He says, stepping into the darkness.
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"Well, a giant globe of darkness? Let's see if I can do something about that. You might want to look away."
Sarela concentrated a moment, then her scimitar began glowing as bright as the sun.
Ceres does as recommended, looking aside as Sarela's heritage manifests. It was a painful experience, not just in terms of the sudden light throwing the woman's senses askance, but also a reminder that Sarela was everything that Ceres would never be - beautiful, even divine in her ancestry, and with a charisma to match. Her face hidden and pinched in jealousy, Ceres forces the unpleasant emotion deep down and turns her gaze back to see if the darkness has been dispelled, expression calm.
Araton walks through the doorway with his sword drawn. Stepping into the darkness that blinds him. He can hear the hissing below him and something touches his leg briefly.
Sarela has moved into the doorway and uses the power of her celestial ancestry to enchant her scimitar. It glows as bright as the sun, pushing back the darkness, allowing you all to see normally.
In front of Araton is revealed a waist high podium of stone in the center of the room. Upon it sits a smooth globe of black stone a foot in diameter from which shadows move, pushed back by the daylight spell.
The black stone is obsidian. Obsidian is a naturally occurring volcanic glass formed when lava extruded from a volcano cools rapidly with minimal crystal growth. It is quite fragile and would shatter if dropped on the ground, ending the spell cast upon it.
Beside Araton a cloud of crimson vapor reeking of fresh blood hangs in the air, reaching out with lashing claws for Araton's legs. It hisses as the daylight appears, preferring the darkness in which it can hide.
Across the room are barred doors in the north and east walls. It won't be easy to unbar the doors.
Hearing Araton's proclamation of walking into the room, Tawg tells him to hold for a second. He shoulders his bow, quickly picks up the lantern and reaches out to grab onto the back of Araton's shirt so he can follow him into the room. When Araton reaches his destination, Tawg taps his back and holds the lantern to Araton's hand. "Burn thy adversary..."
As he offers the lantern to Araton, Tawg hears a familiar voice cast some sort of spell that breaks the darkness to reveal the room, the podium, and a cloud seemingly made of blood.
Not knowing anything about it, he raises the lantern above his head and yells at the cloud. "I guess you're an adversary!"
Ceres snarls, stepping into the room. Could blood vapor be strangled? Ceres intended to find out. Then her eyes alight on the stone sitting on the podium, and a painful memory comes back. A painful, but useful memory.
"The only nice bit of jewelry my husband ever bought me was a necklace made with obsidian, like that stone. We had a fight and I smashed it. Breaks easy enough. Probably ends this darkness too."
Tawg and Ceres follow Araton in to guard his back, unsure about the blood-red creature of semi-solid mist. With a mighty wack, the lantern hits the creature, hurting it less than a goblin would expect. The lanterns flame turns a small part of the creature black as it reacts unfavourably to the fire. It also seems to be temporarily blinded by the daylight spell as it doesn't attack anyone.
The creature in its blinded state retreats below the floor, through the many hundreds of coin sized holes in the metal grating.
"Well, whatever that creature is, it certainly doesn't like my little party trick. Let's see...'Know your enemy. Shatter all that blinds you, and then burn thy adversary to ash.' Well, I don't know much fire magic, but I do have a little something that might be helpful."
Fixing her gaze upon the creature through the vents it could easily flow through, Sarela pulled out a flask from her pack, then stepped into the room and prepared to throw it at the creature.
"Someone feel free to smash that globe!"
Likely unable to hurt the blood darkness, Ceres instead steps forward and brushes the globe off the pedestal with a hard swipe from her hair.
As Araton begins to press into a darkness, a shining light emerges from behind him. The half-elf looks behind him and, as the aasimar's ancestry shines brightly for a moment, his eyes turn to slits and shrink inwards to protect himself from the sudden brightness. The daylight shines through though, pushing back the darkness into the room and revealing the grate flooring and the smooth, black stone upon the podium before him. The paladin of darkness grins inwardly towards himself that he was right in his estimation that something laid in the dark before them. Sarela's light shined brightly, like the flames of hell pushing back the dark tides of non-believers, and Araton sought to take advantage of it.
"Sarela! I thought you dead!" The woman had suffered mightily at the hands of their captors. She looked like a broken toy when he last saw her. To see her alive and in the dungeon beside them gave him great hope. Greater numbers meant a greater chance of success. His attention is quickly pulled to the red mist that appears in his peripheral. He steps away from it as it begins to retreat back down underneath the grates once more. Taking a step away from his comrades, Araton leaves himself open to appear as prey.
"<If it comes for me again, use your fire against us both. I will endure.>" Araton says in the tongue of fiends, the Infernal hissing off of his tongue. He steps away, waiting for the enemy to approach from the dark below.
The cloud floats away from Tawg, and Tawg calms without the immediate threat. Hearing Gildevar ask someone to smash the globe, growls at the cloud while opening the lantern. "Someone else can push it over! I'm going to burn this thing!"
Tawg sees the holes in the floor and attempts to pour the burning oil through them onto the cloud.
The creature slides away from the blast of flame from Gildevar but still gets burnt.
The globe rolls off the pedestal at a push from Ceres. It lands with a crash, shattering into many smaller pieces. The shadows that seemed alive on its surface are gone, the magic in the sphere ended. The lantern hanging from the middle of the ceiling is however extinguished.
Araton tries unsuccessfully to intimidate the strange creature.
Tawg smashes the lantern on the floor. It breaks open and the oil inside spills out and ignites, dripping down on the creature. Angry sounds come from the creature as it burns. It moves below Gildevar and slides up out of the grating to attack with strange blood tentacles.
Sarela lets loose her readied alchemist's fire but misses the creature and also Gildevar.
It's sharp bloody tentacles pierce Gildevar's skin and causes him to bleed. The fresh blood also heals some of its burns. It is now above the floor.
The mortal reminder that this test most certainly is neither a joke nor to be taken lightly, Gildevar stumbles back as his vitality ebbs away. It is when a few feet separate the otherworldly entity from him that he calls upon the Divine to stop the bleed.
Sarela's eyes widen as she considers the creature. "You're a creature of blood. You know, I share an affinity for making things bleed to. Maybe we should be friends. Can I make you bleed, I wonder?"
Her gaze fixed upon the creature, she circles behind Gildevar to move into a flank with Ceres and gracefully strikes at it with her daylit scimitar in a twirling motion.
Ceres suspected that her supernatural strength may not be the key to killing the mist creature, but it was still worth trying out. Smiling as Sarela moved to flank, Ceres hair whipped around her head, its tendrils smashing and grappling at their enemy.
Eowithe watches a the others assail and are assailed by the crimson creature. Not having a readily available source of fire, she opts to what she does best...attack!
She pauses for a moment to study the creature's movements, then moves to surround the creature.
Araton steps in closer towards the floating, red mist with his weapon drawn. Amplifying the inquisitor's aura of fear and Sarela's hypnotic stare was his own terrifying presence. It pushed the enemy to flee, to succumb to the terrible powers that now surrounded it.
"Our blades are not piercing it well. We need magic!" Araton hissed between clenched teeth as he dodged a claw to the side, cursing his own mistake at not preparing for the battle better. He steps in to the south to flank with the inquisitor, striking at the thick mist of this creature.
With how the others have moved, Tawg knows his best spot is opposite Ceres, and he rushes into position, even knowing his Goblin teeth won't damage this blood cloud as much as he wishes. Regardless, he takes a large bite at the weird...creature?
Gildevar stumbles back, away from the creature and heals his wound to stop the bleeding.
Sarela does much less damage to this creature, its amorphous body making it hard to hit a vital spot.
Eowithe's blade drips with blood as it goes right through the creature and Tawg's mouth fills with the taste of rich blood.
The creature hisses furiously as it is surrounded and its sharp, bloody, claw-like tendrils attack Tawg after he bites it and pierce his goblin skin and feast on his blood.
Sarela eyes the creature and says, "It appears this creature's anatomy makes amplifying its pain difficult. Let's see if we can make it bleed."
Sarela begins striking high at it, then suddenly reverses course and swings low, hoping to throw it off balance.
"It is a real pain to fight." Araton growls out, securing his grip on his longsword once more before swinging hard at the mist-like creature.
"If the battle begins to turn, we take the northern door. We cannot fail here."
"It won't turn," Ceres growls, voice more confident than her feelings. She was poorly equipped to fight something so amorphous. Still, she'd do what she could.
Blessed with the ability to manipulate fire, Gildevar tumbles into an advantageous position and calls upon Asmodeus' profane anger to will into existence hellfire. Conjuring it is the easy part. Hitting a single creature in the thick of combat is the hard part.
Eowtihe nods as Sarela's observation, "Indeed! It lacks those delicously deadly areas I so love! But it bleeds! " she crows, slicing at the creature once again.
A feint from Sarela confuses the creature and her attack causes it to bleed.
Ceres attacks strongly and tries to grapple the semi-solid mist, blood splattering all over her but its mutable form slips from her grasp.
Eowithe also strikes true, slicing through the creature.
A bolt of hellfire from Gildevar sears the creature again, turning parts of it black where the fire hits.
It strikes out at Sarela for making it bleed, causing her to bleed instead . Absorbing her blood stops its bleeding. Though reduced, the multiple burn, concussive and cutting wounds it has suffered makes it retreat and it seeps back through the grating in the floor.
The bloody mist hides under the floor as far away from you as it can get. The obsidian sphere is destroyed as well as the enchantment of darkness that was placed upon it. Sarela's light still lights up the room, the lantern hanging from the ceiling unlit, Tawg's lantern smashed and useless now. The north and east walls have a door that is barred from this side. Now that the danger of the creature and the darkness is passed it would be a trivial matter to get them opened.
Sarela and Tawg are bleeding.
Sarela feels a little weak as she bleeds. "Could someone try to bandage this wound, please? I'd rather not bleed out."
Tawg pulls away from the tendril and sees a stream of blood pour down his arm. He wipes the wound, but the blood continues to pour out. He looks at Sarela and sees she also has a bleeding wound as she asks for healing. He raises his hand. "Uh, me too?"
With pain in his heart Gildevar sacrifices a flappy part of his shirt and tears it off so it can be used as a make-shift bandage. "Pull, Sarela, and make sure to keep some pressure on it."
"Thank you, Gildevar. I'll be sure not to take the sacrifice of your shirt in vain."
Araton moves quickly towards Tawg, not knowing how truly heal a wound but trusting in his magic. Placing his hand upon on Tawg's arm, the wound would burn for a moment much like how his old masters would cauterize the wound. When his hand pulled away, only the barest mark remained.
"Let us move before it grows hungry again, shall we?" Araton mutters, moving towards the northern door and lifting the bar off of it. Once the others had a moment to compose themselves, he would open it.
Tawg recoils slightly at the magic emanating from Araton's hand, the Goblin still somewhat wary at the magic his new friends can produce. Once the wound is healed, Tawg runs his fingers over the mark. "This is better than the other ways I've been healed," he says with a toothy smile.
At Araton's suggestion of moving on, Tawg growls at the blood cloud. "Made me waste my lantern." He jogs up next to Araton and helps lift the bar off the northern door and prepares for whatever challenge comes next.
The creature doesn't move to attack, deciding to hide as far away from the light as it can get without leaving the room.
With teamwork, the bleeding is stopped and Tawg is healed.
Araton and Tawg remove the heavy wooden bar from the north door. Finally the door is free to be pulled open. It reveals another hallways, this one roughly 30ft. long at the end of which is another wooden door with another lesson inscribed atop it.
Cruelty is a tool not a pastime. Be ruthless to thy enemy but reward those who serve thee well.
Sarela frowns at the message. "I don't understand. Why would anyone be cruel to someone who serves you well? If you are cruel to those who do a good job, they'll never do a good job when you give them a task. That's just common sense."
"In the Asmodean faith, everyone has a place where they should be. Sometimes, one steps out of line and must be reminded of their place. Yet the cruelty must fit the disruption; too much and the individual will quietly rebel. Too little and they will find you weak." Araton says in response to the Sarela once they are within the possible safety of the hallway. The message didn't allude to any hidden danger but that didn't mean they should let their guard down nonetheless.
Sarela slowly nods. "I've never been particularly religious, but given the contract Thorn had us sign clarifying our positions in relation to him and each other, that does make a certain amount of sense. You certainly can't reward failure, after all. At least the showing no mercy to your enemies part is straightforward - I have no intention of being anything but ruthless towards those who stand against us." Especially that spoiled little brat, Bellinda. Her I'll kill regardless of whether or not she stands against us.
AS the others tend to Sarela and Tawg's wounds, Eowtihe peers through the holes in the floor, evaluating if it was practical to pour oil down below to finish the creature off.
She shrugs, a creature cowering and hiding , was no longer a threat.
She reads the words on the next door and smiles, "Indeed, " nodding at the Araton's words, "Sometimes the softest touch is the most painful! "
Shall we?" she asks no one in particular, and advances towards the next door, vigilant for any suprises.
"Hnng," Ceres murmers as she shambles up to the door. "I prefer the hard touch." She reaches out, hair bristling slightly in the still air, and opens the door.
With the door already being opened by Ceres and no entry door having being the host of a trap or other form of danger so far, Gildevar hangs out in the back while the others get to eye the next challenge first.
You could pour oil down there, but you're sure the creature would continue to avoid you. It seems to be somewhat intelligent.
The door ahead is unlocked. Eowithe enters first with the rest of you not far behind. The room is again lit by a singular lantern on a hook in the ceiling in the center of the room. Beneath the lantern is a torturer's table. This cruel implement is functional and ready for use but currently empty. Around the room are also other implements of torture. A tall metal cage in the northwest corner that would prevent lying down to sleep. Several sets of shackles attached to the walls. A table near the door covered in all sorts of pain-inflicting tools. There are also two stretching racks.
Eowithe's sharp eyes notice a small discoloured section the size of a hand in the southwest corner of the room.
Tawg hesitates entering the room when he sees the torture implements. While comfortable in a small cage, the memories of his beatings flood back, but he's able to suppress them and pushes forward. "I prefer no touch..."
He keeps to the door, but when Eowithe says there's a discolored section, Tawg follows her over to the corner and checks his hand against it to see if his hand matches the size of it.
Sarela looks around the room and considers the table before looking at Araton and saying, "Implements of cruelty, perhaps?"
When Tawg heads over to the discolored spot on the wall, she gets ready in case something happens, making sure she isn't next to the torturer's table - just in case.
Tawg's hand isn't quite as big as the roughly circular spot on the wall. When he touches it, the spot gives way a fraction of an inch and a click is heard. Part of wall slides away automatically to reveal a small holding room designed to cause extreme discomfort, pain, and after exhaustion, surely death. Each wall is lined with hundreds of long pointed spikes. In the middle of the room is a young man, barely of age, crouching down in the middle to avoid the spikes. He has been crying, evident by the tears on his face and several spots of blood soaked patches of his clothes where he bumped into a spike.
He looks into the room, eyes squinting as they adjust to the sudden light. "Who are you? Is the old man gone?"
Eowithe breathes sharply in as she sees the implements of torture arrayed around the room. She hums happily as she runs a finger along the utilitarian torturer's table, stopping at the nearby table arrayed with tools. Picking up a wicked looking knife, she wonders aloud, "I haven't seen this kind before...hmmm, a flaying knife perhaps..."
Still holding the blade delicately between two fingers, she watches from behind as Tawg reveals the hidden room, exclaiming, "Ingenious!".
She ponders the young man's questions for a moment, then answers, slowing twirling the knife so that it catches the light from the lantern, "For the moment, I believe, we are your Masters and Mistresses. Govern yourself accordingly. "