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Hi all - Sorry for the radio silence. Things have been hectic here and I've not got much bandwidth for gaming right now. I've appreciated gaming with everyone and love your deliciously evil PCs. Take care! GM, please mark me inactive on this game, and thank you for running it for me and the other PCs!
It has been fun, and I've enjoyed gaming with everyone. I second Sarela's best wishes for the GM. Hope things are going okay!
Ceres shrugs. She was personally always up for a fight, but perhaps time was of the essence? "Ignore it in my opinion. Perhaps our lord and savior will appreciate us not destroying some of his guardians." She pauses at the door, placing her hand under the bar, ready to lift. "I'm fine with destroying the rest though." While the others deliberate, Ceres looks over the door, looking for any cryptic messages or other things of interest.
Oh, glad you're back GM! I'm sorry to hear of the issues you've been having in eastern Australia.
Oof, hope you feel better soon, Gildevar/Solicitor. I'm here.
Stepping forward, Ceres' hair whips forward, grasping at the animated creature, twisting and enveloping it. The creature's metal hide was tough, but Ceres' hair would prove tougher.
Ceres waits, her hair twitching in the room's still air, as instructed. It felt good to be crushing things again, even if they were only mindless automatons.
Ceres scowls and waits for the next cobra to fall apart under the group's viscious onslaught, her body tense, ready to spring into action once it does.
File submitted, buried in an avalanche of work but I'm digging out. I'll get caught up soon. Thank you all for your patience and please continue to bot as needed.
FYI I've got my year 3 tenure file due in a couple of weeks, so posting is going to be slow on my end. Please bot as needed. If botting is needed, Ceres will squeeze things with her hair until they are dead. In between squeezing things she has a couple of healing spells at her disposal.
Something wicked surges through Ceres's body, and the woman shudders and snarls as her hair twists. The cobra, not surprisingly, shows itself to be both hardy and elusive...
"I suspect my abilities will be more useful, on the other hand. Let's see if they move when touched" A flicker of light, yellow and strained, alights from Ceres' hand. Holding it aloft, Ceres steps into the room, circling south along the wall towards the nearest statue, her hair snaking out, a hammer in search of a nail.
Hope everyone gets better quickly.
Ceres simply shrugs and placing a firm hand on Timeon's shoulder, pulls him to the rack for further bondage. If need be, she'd turn the crank until he squealed.
Happy holidays all!
"Hey! You are in a cage right now. I lived a lot in a cage. It was small and not fun." Hahaha, Tawg, master of understatement. Thank you for the chuckle. Just checking in. Ceres doesn't have much to add as she's not the type for deception or flattery, so she's going to be staying in the other room for a bit :)
Getting walloped over hear too. Hope things calm down for you, GM!
Ceres remains in the other room, out of sight and earshot of the boy. Her crab skitters along her shoulder as if agitated. Patience, Ceres thinks, and the crab settles, as if settling in for a nap. Let the sweet-talkers do their thing.
Ceres just ever-so-slightly rolls her eyes as Sarela moves to comfort the boy, the witch's hair twitching in agitation. Were it up to her, she'd simply choke what the boy knows - if anything - out of him, but... Ceres had to admit there was a use to less direct methods. Turning she moves towards Eowithe and the torturer's table. They may yet be needed.
I had a death in the family and will be leaving town, trying to tie up some loose ends at work, etc. over the next week. Posting may be slow going for a bit.
"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.
"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.
Greetings, Eowithe! Looking forward to playing with you.
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.
I'm Ok with it as well.
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.
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."
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.
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."
I'm back and catching up on life/work. Sorry for the radio silence - turned out I didn't have internet after all, which was pretty lovely actually. I hope to get caught up today/tomorrow.
I'm going out of town tomorrow for the next week and posting will likely be intermittent. Please bot as necessary.
Ceres shrugs, tamping down a rising tide of anger. Stymied already! "I don't know what to do," she mumbles, cracking her knuckles and staring into the darkness.
Ceres clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth and her braids wave, agitated, as she steps back out of the darkness. "More magic than my bauble can punch through. I've got no coins." "Perhaps we missed something? Or one of the other doors will lead us to a tool helpful here?"
Ceres' template is Broken Soul, which also isn't terribly impressive, especially for someone that has tanked charisma. but it worked with her backstory. She'll be a decent tank and excellent grappler, with some utility from her witch spells. She has a thing for priests and she's looking forward to strangling lots of them, so she'll be a focused caster killer when needed. Like Araton, I'm not worried about the melee focus of our party. It worked fine in Brandescar (great even, as we could fall back as needed when low on HP and others could step up). And we had two size L creatures then to boot (Grumblejack and our departed player).
Just realized I had not declared an action in my gameplay post, and I'm out of the edit window. Ceres is casting the light cantrip.
Sounds good, GM. Welcome to our band of misfits, Sarela! Looking forward to gaming with you.
Words bubble to mind, like steam escaping on of Ghastenhall's famed hot springs. A twitch of her fingers and a couple of harshly barked syllables later, light - sickly pale and green - bursts from one of Ceres' thick, twitching braids. It lifts and the witch steps into the darkness, curious to see the results of Gildevar's suggestion...
Ceres murmurs, her mouth moving as she reads over the inscription. Despite her supernatural cunning and patron-gifted knowledge, the witch had no formal education, and the words came slowly. Know your enemy. Shatter all that blinds you and then burn thy adversary to ashes. "Sounds like we should be prepared for a fight. Gildevar, is this door safe to open?" Grinning, the witch reaches out a wiry arm and pushes the door open, her hair twitching in anticipation of a fight just beyond.
Ceres watches Tawg now, a look of wonder crossing her face as the goblin inches towards the mold, his (bigger) little nose quivering. Will he? If Tawg licks the mold: He did! The bottomless pit of a stomach did! Ceres lets a low, cackling laugh loose, her eyes glinting, and she moves towards Tawg, her hair twitching. "What does it taste like?"
The crab skitters across Ceres' skin, agitated, though the witch can only guess as to why. "Agreed, Gildevar. I wish I knew more about such creatures, or could help find tracks." Though she has no intention to go near the mold, Ceres watches Araton with interest as he inches closer. "Hold a second, Araton. Back up everyone. Let me try something. Pay attention to the mold, let's see if it reacts." Ceres utters an arcane syllable and snaps her fingers, and the tiniest spark - as if a flint strikes steel - lights upon the mold.
Ceres, not having any knowledge of mold, stays away from the mold, instead focusing on the lantern. Again, she casts detect magic and concentrates.
"Fear not their icy derision. Instead, fear only thy Infernal Lord. Do you think that means that the lantern is a tool for us to use?"
"Good thinking, Tawg," Ceres says, enjoying the big goblin's show of frustration. "Perhaps the gem is a key of sorts. Regardless, it must be here to be used." Starting from the ceiling around the false door, Ceres begins examining the room in detail, looking for anything that seems to fit together with the gem.
"Deception, my little friend," Ceres says, her voice distant as she looks about the room, "Could mean our circlets, but in this case probably has something to do with the room itself. In addition to the trap Gildevar just found, there's magic aplenty here. An aura by the bottom of the steps, too powerful even for my patron's gift to know more. And another aura by the north wall. Illusion magic - likely part of the deception. Who wants to touch the north wall?"
Words, arcane syllables spring into Ceres' mind, her crab clawing - almost lovingly - at the rope-like scar tissue criss-crossing the back of the witch's neck under her mass of writhing hair. A sharp spoken syllable and sharper gesture, and Ceres looks over the door and surrounding area, her vision enhanced to see enchantments and other sorcery.
Haha! I live in California. What's a basement?
Getting walloped at work - hope to be back tomorrow.
Ceres frowns, once at the mention of disguise, and then again at the Cardinal's not so subtle threat. The ability to disguise themselves was of course a useful tool, but one that weighed against Ceres' urge to let everyone - the church, the nation even - know that she'd be the one bringing them harm. Still, the threat was even more worrisome. The Cardinal obviously had the means to cause them great pain, perhaps as much as she'd experienced at the hands of her tormentors. Best not disappoint the man. "Agreed. Let's get going then. Time, essence, all that."
Outfitted in a simple peasant's dress, Ceres opens the box, confusion crossing her face. The jewelry was fine, she guessed, though she doubted she'd be attending many fancy balls to put it to use. The holy symbol - well, she'd wear it if needed, though it was of little use. And the iron circle was just strange. Following the others, she slides it atop her head. "So, it is like a headband?"
OK, Ceres will spend the 375 gp on her share of the mage armor wand and another 100 gp on scrolls of charm person and identify, which she will then consume to add to her spellbook. Total of 475 gp. She'll keep the rest. |
