Krugga laughs a deep gutteral laugh, "THIS SONG IS AMAZING!! I FEEL SO ANGRY BUT SO GOOOOOD!" she says as she brings her axe down at the orange enemy as it slinks on by her,
reducing another of these things to little more than chunky blood paste before bringing the axe up and over her head to crash down on the grey one that just approached as well,
vaporizing this one as well.
"AAAAARRRRRRGGGGHGHHHHHH!!!! YYAAAASSS GORUM IS WITH US TODAY!!!!" she says, mad with glee and covered in a 2 coats of blood and guts.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Bos let out a chuckle as the cultist at his feet twitched. Look at her go! Bos thought as Krugga decimated two more of the things. He almost felt bad at how these things were coming to their end at her hefty axe. Almost.
He turned his attention to the one who had slipped by and lashed out with his blade.
While not as impressive as Krugga's it did the job just the same.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Jane throws a quick slash at the one who's trying to climb up to her, inspired by the song to unleash butchery and gore.
With eyes gleaming red she runs down one of the side stairs and towards the northern door in search of more enemies.
The thrum of battle continues to tantalize as Krugga and Bos cut down the approaching horde. He takes a stutter step back from the living one still closest to him, then spins around and sends another blast of gravel to eviscerate the cultist.
There's too much going on, though, so his blast shoots past the cultist to no effect. He looks over at the screaming human. "Care to show us what you're made of, Jediah?"
Jediah flinches as something resembling a liver smacks off his head and steps to the east to strike at the one to the north
10/12 Inspired Rage
The living manifestion that is a meat grinder has taken form within this room, and the cultists are the chunked up bits. Slahses and hacks, and piercing, all of the efforts of everyone brings down the cultists in a gory display, blood painting floors, walls, ceilings, bodies.
And yet, for Jediah, his swing is a miss.
the cultist roars defiantly, and attacks the skald!
and both attacks fail to hit!!!
Hoping to make for his two heinous previous misses, Nokhir takes another stride back to put a little more distance between himself and the remaining non-red-misted cultist. He watched as the skald and cultist trade blows while he gathers power around him. Rubble trembles, rising into the air, and Nokhir fashions it into an enormous spike.
"You have overstayed your welcome on this plane of existence," the hobgoblin says, sending the spike flying past the skald and impaling the cultist into the wall beyond. Nokhir grins, his pointed teeth gleaming white. He rolls his shoulders back and cracks his neck. That felt good.
He takes a moment to look a little more closely at the room they're in now. A chapel? A throne room? It was hard to tell. "Well, do you think Gorum is pleased?"
Jediah gets splashed with more blood and stops singing. Ack! Pbbttt! I guess so.
"What, human, you don't like the taste of blood?" Nokhir laughs, striding forward and clapping the skald on the back. "I don't either, which is why I keep far away from my enemies when I choose to open my mouth." He laughs again and then narrows his gaze. "Worry not: we'll get you a kill yet."
Only when a tooth almost goes down my throat. Otherwise I like it mixed with mead. Jediah deadpans.
The hobgoblin narrows his gaze, scrutinizing whether Jediah was being sarcastic or not.
"Blood mead," he muses. "It sounds interesting."
He takes a moment to look a little more closely at the room they're in now. A chapel? A throne room? It was hard to tell. "Well, do you think Gorum is pleased?"
"Most likely not, he prefers a battle not a slaughter," Krugga replies,"but I do not make such distinctions!" she adds as she smiles and follows Jane to the door to the north.
"Then let us give him a battle," Nokhir concurs. [b]"We will cut and stab and crush and rip and tear our way through these weaklings until we find the one who drew us here. And before we mount his head on a spike, we will experience glory." He takes a step back to allow Jediah to move ahead.
They were no well-oiled machine yet, no troop, but their savagery had not yet been found wanting.
Jediah moves up behind Krugga.
"Now hold up a moment," Bos said. He wiped his blade clean on one of the corpses. "There were an awful lot of them in here. Are none of you curious about this thing?" He moved over and to inspect the center of the dais.
a soft groan, subtle hissing whispers softly through the cracks under the large, closed double doors.
upon the platform, at the very end, a rounded platform stands. upon it, another platform, with an off centered star pattern inlaid of copper and pearl pieces. No two pieces are alike, none are the same size, yet the pieces are held in place, as if glued to the surface.
the door, opposite the entry door everyone walked through, stands shut. wood and iron bands bar passage to any who would wish to cross. A scratching and hiss comes from opposite the full sized wooden barricade.
On the south side of the room, a narrow alcove is cut into the wall. upon it, the carving of a man holding up a scroll, lines connect the man to the scroll. Opposite the man and scroll, a larger humanoid shape seems to leer over the man, a deep, heavy smile upon the things face.
"Curious, sure. Knowledgeable, no. And unlike the amurruns down south, I doubt elves have nine lives." Nokhir shrugs. "And I know goblins don't. I'm not going to let my curiosity get me killed."
The hobgoblin strides slowly forward as he speaks, looking over at the barred door and listening to the scratching and hissing behind it. They want to get in to kill us as much as we want to get out.
When he is able to see the carvings, he sneers. He knew not whether any of this held religious connotations, but the scroll spoke of some magic, perhaps even a ritual. The copper and pearl star, too, are probably indicative of something. But what? That wasn't Nokhir's wheelhouse.
He takes point next to the orc, moving chunks of stone around to serve as his ammunition for the groaning and hissing awaiting them on the other side.
Jediah is not schooled in the hows and whys of magic. Only that it comes when he sings.
"Now hold up a moment," Bos said. He wiped his blade clean on one of the corpses. "There were an awful lot of them in here. Are none of you curious about this thing?" He moved over and to inspect the center of the dais.
Krugga looked over her shoulder and up at the dais towards Bos as she grunts,"Looks like something the Shaman's would talk about for days. Boring!" she says petulantly,"Besides, I hear more fodder on the other side of the door!"
Krugga stands ready to open the door.
Not one to waste time when in a bloodlust, Krugga kicks in the door!
Krugga sees the other cultist's and rushes in delivering another terrible swing of her axe,
shredding through another cultist with ease.
"One more in here for whoever is feeling lucky!"
Bos looked up from the star pattern just in time to see Krugga cutting down another one of the things. "No time to rest, I s'pose."
He stretched and moved back down the catwalk.
Heedless, the hobgoblin surges into the room after Krugga.
"I'm usually feeling lucky," he quips.
He slams a chunk of stone against one of the pillars and sneers. "But you can't rely on luck."
Heedless, the hobgoblin surges into the room after Krugga.
"I'm usually feeling lucky," he quips.
He slams a chunk of stone against one of the pillars and sneers. "But you can't rely on luck."
Jane also gets inside the new room, slashing at the remaining cultist.
Her thirst for blood, however, makes her strike a second too early.
Jediah is really desperate to get blood on his axe and charges up.
Hearing the tell-tale sounds of more creatures being cut down, Bos made his way down to the room with the others.
[b]"What's all the commotion?[/ooc]
Bos walks into the sight of two more cultists cut down to shreds. blood flows from both Krugga's and Jediah's axes.
The room itself appears to be a a storage room of some kind. Benches bolted to the walls and shelves set into the stone above on metal brackets. Each flat spot is covered with random items, yet all are coated with thick layers of dust and cobwebs. Several spots show signs of disturbance, as if whomever these cultists were, they were clearly searching for something upon the shelves.
"whatever they were looking for, I can't find it either." Krugga mutters as she stands guard at the door.
"I knew I could count on ya'll," Bos said as he stepped over the bodies.
He leaned over the shelves, clearly these things had been looking for something.
"Looks like there are...black lines..." Bos muttered as he wiped away some of the caked on dust.
Jediah sees nothink!
"What do you mean? Where?"
Jane can't see anything, but if Bos did, it might be worth a double check. Picking a piece of cloth, she helps him remove some of the dust.
Jediah helps brush dust.
Why are we being maids when we can get to the bottom of this? Jediah kicks down the secret door.
Shortly after Bos speaks, but just before he moves to wipe away the dust, Nokhir sees the dust for himself. He mentally pats himself on the back: outseeing (or near-seeing, at least) an elf was something to make his kin proud.
"Allow me," the geokineticist says, reaching his hands forward to focus on the dust and lift it off.
the dust, both caked on and barely clinging, falls off freely, raising a slight dust cloud to cause a moment of discomfort within the chest.
Brushing away the dust, you reveal a rather old picture painted upon the walls. You clear more and more away, and finally you see the intended scene, divided into 6 panels.
On the left wall, the first panel. you see a single man, hunched forward, decrepit. figures, crudely drawn, stand around him, arms raised and lowered, striking at him.
the second panel shows him standing upon a strange, stepped pyramid thing, arms lifted, holding something. Behind, a vague sketch of some outer being, a pair of horns upon an otherwise humanoid face.
the third panel shows the man, closer in, his mouth is wide open with lines drawn from him to the outer being, yet the outer being looks its being consumed, or diminished by the man; successive out lines drawn smaller and smaller with the other being depicted in a much smaller fashion.
the fourth panel is divided into smaller panels. 18 panels in all. Each one seems to show hooded individuals fighting strange beings and creatures.
the fifth panel shows these hooded individuals standing before the strange man who consumed the entity, their arms lifted, spread out to fight.
the sixth panel, the farthest on the right wall, is split in two.
On the left subpanel, it shows the hooded individuals standing, arms lifted with a laurel crown above their heads. the right subpanel shows a scene of fire, death, destruction, the hooded individuals locked in perpetual battle for all time in a hellish landscape...
"Seems awfully similar to the carving back in the other room, yeah?"
"this is not orcish, but it looks like something the shamans would have a story about."
The hobgoblin sneers as he loses control of the dust, but feels no worse the wear for it. He tries to collapse the dust into a concentrated ball and sequester it in a pile in a far corner of the room. Then he takes the opportunity to study the paintings. "It's certainly a story," he says. "It probably has religious significance. Whether the depicted events happened as painted, were the painter's hopes or dreams, or were metaphors, I don't know. Don't really care either. They didn't bother to leave a note, and everyone we've killed so far has seemed insane. It seems like they consorted with powerful creatures and got in over their heads."
Nokhir didn't want to have to clean up someone else's mess. But whoever these someone else's were, they had dragged him and the others in. So that was that. He'd have to survive until someone with the nerve to call themself a "hero" and a death wish came to relieve him of his tiresome duty.
...unless the effects of this were more far-reaching. They needed to get out to figure that out. "I don't remember any other closed doors that weren't barred shut. If we mean to get out, we might as well start prying."
There was a door to the north in the room we first appeared in.
"Yes, human, and it, too, was barred shut."
Krugga can kill the door just like she killed these cultists
Krugga Smiles, and says "It wouldn't be the first I made a hole in the wall with this thing." hefting her axe she goes to wall,"Just show me where to start."
"It seems like they consorted with powerful creatures and got in over their heads."
Bos snorted, "They wouldn't be the first ones to do so, I'm sure.” He started back toward the barred door with the intent of pointing their sentient battering ram at it. “Actually, it makes ya wonder, what’re we doing here?” Bos kicked one of the corpses in his path, “We’re not wearing the same robes as them and something hit us hard enough to knock some memories loose. I’m guessing we came here to stop something from happening.”
Bos paused for a moment, “Which means we probably failed. Either that, or we were meant to be sacrifices. In which case, they definitely failed.”
"A hobgoblin would not be a willing sacrifice. My brethren would die and take as many offenders with us as possible rather than find ourselves tied to an altar."
That didn't mean that they hadn't been kidnapped, but it seemed less likely overall.
He eyes the others, purses his lips, and allows one snaggletooth to hang out of his lips. Unlike an orc, hobgoblins did not (usually) have tusks. But any goblinkind ensured that their teeth were sharp: the better to defend themselves when all other weapons were lost. The cleverest among them (of which Nokhir counted himself) found ways of managing even when teeth or fists failed.
Yes, he might as well tell them.
"I know one reason I might be here. I follow a primordial inevitable named Jerishall, otherwise known as The Turning Sphere. The primordial inevitables are living forges that create the lessers of their kind and enforce cosmic law. Those who follow Jerishall often mind planar portals, especially when one plane begins to encroach on another. If I am here, then that could be why."
Portals were not, in and of themselves, a problem. Obviously. They were useful tools. It was how a person chose to use them that could lead to problems. And from the looks of...all this...
They might have some big, angry problems to deal with.
once the proper door is pointed out to her, Krugga will begin chopping away "Here we go!"