“Both Cinderclaws, bludgeoned unto death,” Ellaeaanda reports her initial observations of the boggards, seemingly oblivious to the silent threat that lurks unseen.
Ardoinel marches into the room and approaches the table from the other side, hoping to catch the construct in a flank.
He focuses his mind to wrangle the burning, destructive power within and hone it to a refined, controlled edge.
Then he raises his shield in case the doll notices his arrival and goes for him instead of Cerrus.
Reeling from the doll’s scream, Ellaeaanda stumbles and steadies herself against the table. Her head swims, dazed and disoriented as she feels her very life force shredded by the piercing cry. Finally she stumbles forward around the table, driven by an instinct to protect her companions from further harm. As soon as she is close enough, she lashes out with her whip, wrapping the thong around the doll's legs and pulling it to the ground. Then she tries to pin the miniature hellknight down, so that it can’t cast any more spells.
Resa comes in, but she was too late to really do anything before the spell hit her, and it really hurt. There was also this feeling she could have done more here. " Wait, can't we save it? Certainly that is worth trying?" Her question and her lack of attack on the creature gave way to her ignorance of the creature.
Cerrus sees that the other party members are trying to reason with the doll. He relaxes slightly and lowers his weapon to show that he isn't currently threatening the doll. Then, he takes a step back.
◆ Step
◆◆ Ready a Strike if the doll attacks Cerrus
"What tongue is this thing speaking?!" Ardoinel wonders aloud.
Resa goes to translate for everyone before Alak cuts the creature in half, and she flinches back, her words dying as she started " He was saying that he was left...." but she cuts off, a strange sight of emotions playing across her face as she watches this.
She picks up the gem that fell out, her large eyes looking in to it as if it could somehow tell her more about the story it had to share. She was not sure the worth of it, but maybe as a memory to speak first, because she had failed here. She knew she could not save everyone or everything, but she could have tried harder. She was sure of it.
After that she would search the next set of doors to the south, but kept quiet on her thoughts.
“A tale untold is not a tale at all,” Ellaeaanda admonishes Resa to finish her translation. “Inevitable fate is—not all can be saved, but stories last beyond death.” The elf shows no remorse at the doll’s demise, accepting whatever fate has in store, though she glances at Alak, as if desiring that the hellknight translate the doll’s last words should the tiefling refuse. She moves next to the table, examining it and the map of Isger.
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Cerrus' eyes follow the gem as it clatter to the floor and Resa picks it up. "If my notes are to be believed, soulbound dolls are animated by a soul fragment which is contained within the focus gem. I don't know enough about things of the soul to be sure, but I'm not sure I'd want to be missing part of my soul in the afterlife. Maybe the best thing is to destroy the gem so the fragment can find the rest of its soul."
“I'm not sure I'd want to be missing part of my soul in the afterlife. Maybe the best thing is to destroy the gem so the fragment can find the rest of its soul."
“Not all souls wish the same fate,” Ellaeaanda interjects placidly. “Alak said the soul chose to remain, to serve beyond death. Mayhap a new body fulfils its desire … or at least provides a means to ask its will.” Her unusually large pupils shimmer with a distant light as she turns to Netkin. “Kindred spirit you are. Tangled threads woven together, I sense its fate is yours to decide.”
Having said her piece on the gem, the elf takes some time to tend her injuries.
Ardoinel sheathes his sword again, now that the danger has passed. He turns and approaches Resa, a pensive look on his face.
"May I?" he asks, nodding to the gem in her hand while holding his own hand out.
Resa takes a long moment looking at her new friends, clearly feeling as if she could have done more. She sadly says "He was just lonely really. He was left behind, like whoever was here left their comrade to his fate alone. I don't want him hurt, but it may be for the best. I don't claim to know much of the God's and their plans." she does let the group look at the gem, still conflicted over the lose of the doll and whatever story it has.
Ardoinel takes the gem from Resa and holds it up to his eye, turning it in his fingers as he studies it silently. Then he murmurs an incantation and looks at it again with arcane eyes, to see if it still holds any shape or color of magic after its removal from its body.
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“Kindred spirit you are. Tangled threads woven together, I sense its fate is yours to decide.”
"Me?!" Netkin splutters. "Why?!?!"
He turns the gem over in his palm. "Well.. This definitely seems evil. So I guess the best way is to... destroy it." He hands it to Alak. "I don't know how solid this is, so... Please?"
"A wise choice, Netkin. A captured soul should be set free."
As Cerrus paces the room, he winces slightly from his recent wounds. "Ellaeaanda or Netkin, are either of you able to take a look at these wounds?"
Ardoinel sighs as he sees the obvious workmanship of the gem.
"Yuelral weeps. Cutting and shaving the natural, eternal beauty of the stone to conform to some mortal's arbitrary and fickle tastes," he says disdainfully. "Shame. Using it as a vessel for fragmenting a person's very soul only compounds the unnaturalness of it."
When the others inspect the gem and discuss releasing the spiritual energy within, Ardoinel nods.
"I should have brought my hammer."
When Ardoinel mentioning a hammer, Cerrus pulls one from his belt and hands it to Ardoinel.
"It's not a large hammer, but it should break the gem."
“Tales of long ago,” Ellaeaanda murmurs as she runs her fingers over the outdated map. When Cerrus mentions his wounds, she moves over to treat them. “A wide berth should we give,” she cautions as they prepare to destroy the gem. “Breaking the chains of magic is seldom certain.”
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Netkin notices Ellaeaanda standing at a safe distance from the gem, and quickly imitates her.
Monstrous as the animated doll is, he can't help but be taken back to the strange creatures he'd imagine as a child, and doodle when he was stuck sick in bed. Things of cogs and wheels that would drive him or Grandma around when they had trouble standing up, , clean the house or do the cooking. A guardian to protect him, or simply a forbidden pet that did not need food or shed fur. Contraptions of a sort, very similar to the walker that Grandma now needed to get around the house.
It had always been sort of a given, in the Bigpot household, where everyone was either sick or old, and the outside world was designed by way bigger people who almost never thought of making things accessible for you at all. If your body couldn't do the job by its own, you looked around for tools. If the right tools didn't exist, you made them.
He couldn't imagine giving them a soul - and after all, if their gears were finely crafted enough, why would it be needed to harm someone and imprison them there? Objects could, to some extent, be treated like people. But not the other way around; it never worked.
"Thank you, Cerrus!" Ardoinel says as he accepts the hammer. He places the gem upon the stone floor, figuring it a better anvil than the wooden table, and waits for the group to take Ellaeaanda's advice to stand back.
"May Yuelral soothe your pain and Torag protect you as you return to the River of Souls," he intones reverently before bringing the hammer down upon the gem with all his might!
Cerrus nodes to Ardoinel. "There. We cannot undo the harm that was done. But we can rest easier knowing that a captured soul has been freed."
Cerrus walks to the edge of the room and sits down for a moment. "Speaking of rest, how about a quick breather here?"
“Yuelral’s blessing upon you,” Ellaeaanda says to Ardoinel after the dust and chill dissipate. She calmly gathers the scattered hellknight figurines, examining them before placing them back on the more vivid circles on the map. “Time flows both fast and slow,” she remarks idly to Cerrus. “A bored man’s minute is a busy man’s day. How quick is your rest?”
Ardoinel stoically endures the keening of the departing soul and takes a moment of silence afterwards for it. Then he stands and approaches Ellaeaanda looking at the figurines.
"Tactical models," he comments. "Probably their last battle plans before they left."
He turns to Cerrus and Alak.
"Do either of you want these? They haven't done much down here besides collect dust, and no finely-crafted piece deserves that fate. Even if they don't have any sentimental value to you, Alak, Cerrus could probably use them as some kind of...sympathetic icon against particularly chaotic or unruly enemies. Or devils, even. Hellknights do battle with Hell's soldiers to prove their mettle, do they not?"
Ellaeaanda nods in agreement with Ardoinel, then spends some time tending to Netkin’s wounds before listening at the northeast door.
Upon hearing two voices, and a slight serpentine accent, Ellaeaanda opens the northeast door and speaks boldly in a sibilant tongue.
Resa had little to offer here but kept an eye out for anything interesting of note or alarm for the group.
Ellaeaanda enters, bows, and answers the kobolds.
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"Do either of you want these? They haven't done much down here besides collect dust, and no finely-crafted piece deserves that fate. Even if they don't have any sentimental value to you, Alak, Cerrus could probably use them as some kind of...sympathetic icon against particularly chaotic or unruly enemies. Or devils, even. Hellknights do battle with Hell's soldiers to prove their mettle, do they not?"
"Ah, a good suggestion. I'm always adding new items to my bag of collections. I'm sure I'll find a use for this some day." Cerrus scoops up one of the dolls and adds it to his bag of esoterica.
"Time flows both fast and slow," she remarks idly to Cerrus. "A bored man’s minute is a busy man’s day. How quick is your rest?"
"I'm still hurting a bit, but I expect these wounds will take some time to heal. Let's continue."
Hearing conversation in a language he doesn't understand, Cerrus stays quiet.
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Netkin really wants to focus on the kobolds, but they don't seem that threatening, and his eyes are really drawn to the whatever pile of metal bits lies in the corner.
"I fear this citadel was already inhabited when you came in," he says politely. "Surely you've noticed?"
"Did you come from the Mwangi expanse, by any chance?"
As he talks, curiosity takes the best of him, and he almost irresistibly begins moving towards the discarded metal pieces to have a closer look at what might be useful.
Ellaeaanda scrutinizes the kobolds with a curious, sidelong glance. “A horde, as in an army of minions? Or a hoard, as in a vast treasure?” Both options seem unlikely, given the state of the room.
“How did the cultists pay disrespect? No love bear we for them—I sense fate binds us in a common cause. Mayhap we could serve you, by serving justice to them. What know you of these cultists, or of the citadel below?”
Cerrus speaks up when the conversation transition to Common.
"Who disrespected you? Certainly not us. And, we are certainly not friends of any cultists. We are actively fighting against them, in fact. As my friend suggests, we could help each other against them."
Ardoinel smiles a bit as Ellaeaanda discovers the kobolds and begins speaking to them. He walks up and bows to them.
"ভাল দেখা, ড্রাগন এর মহৎ সন্তান!" he says to greet them.
"You look like you haven't eaten well in days. Would you like to share in some of our rations? What are your names? I am Ardoinel of the clan Oreflame, at your service."