Yeah, sorry about that. I kept forgetting to post. I've got it up now, and I appreciate giving me the time to get that post out. I'm glad I was able to do that the way I did, rather than having to ruin it by half-retconning.
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Marianne freezes at the elemental's words, a look of shock and a twinge of horror on her face. Choose. Dead Sky! Family or God. She told me to choose! Family or God. I... she told me to choose. Family or God. That means she can't be as bad as the dragon, right? Family or God. This is an air elemental, a servant of Dead Sky, she can't be dangerous to us... assuming that's what she is. Family or God. From Wamblee's story, dragons should be our allies against the Dark, or at least against the ifrits. Family or God. And yet that thing was as Dark-ridden as they come.Family or God. She is still frozen when Samoon attempts to bluff the being. Why? Family or God. Why would she hurt a sylph?! Family or God. Impudence yes, but she knows he loves Bree, she's shown it. Family or God. But, who am I to judge an elemental? Family or God. Who? An ele. A fletcher. A ranger. A zealot. A sister. That is who I am. That is all I am. Head pounding with uncertainty and fear, she gazes at her trembling brother, and sees a nightmare in those eyes as he falls into the deathlike sleep. The sister turns away, and the zealot's eyes blaze. "Enough!" the sylph with eyes like flame shouts in the silence, as much at herself as the being she now faces. "You are no thing of His, no servant of Dead Sky, bringer of nightmares and pain. You told me to choose, and I have. Leave, abomination. I call you a thing of the Dark and denounce you. If you were His once, you are not now. When Sky turns His Eye upon this world once more, he will see you, and find you unworthy of His grace. The roar of a tempest. For the briefest moment, so slight even she might not have noticed, the raging winds around her lift her off the ground. Just an inch. In a place without wind, far from the surface, a young ele makes her choice, and the winds answer.There is no choice. What is the point of gods if they would force that choice? No. I serve Dead Sky, and I love my family. I will not relinquish that. And woe unto anyone who would try to make me. Family and God.
This situation calls for a lot more from Marianne than I will have time to do for a while, but I should have time to get a proper post up this afternoon.
"I would ask you the same question," Marianne says respectfully, dipping her head towards the air elemental, clearly unsure of how to address it. "You guided us here, but may I ask for what purpose? What were we supposed to see?"
"Disgusting monstrosities," Marianne grimaces as she cautiously bends down to examine the corpse at her feet. "These things are somehow made from elen ears, look," she says in revulsion a moment later, holding up the spawn for the others to see. After a moment, she calls up to Samen. "Hey! Samen! What were you shouting about!"
"Those thrice-damned, lava-eating, fire-obsessed blasphemers!" Marianne roars in response to Wamblee's story even as she spins and begins to fire, arrows shooting into the swarm in hopes of whittling their numbers down.
Warily, Marianne stalks up to the appendages. She glances around once more for danger, before lifting one of them to examine it more closely. "Dead Sky," she breathes in horror. "Are these..."
That is just unnatural, Marianne thinks, seeing the air-elemental-possessed woman go deeper into the cave. We had to go down there anyways, but couldn't she have at least waited until we got them out? Some fresh air... but of course not. Despite her thoughts, Marianne smiles excitedly. It is hard to stay upset for long knowing that an air elemental is so close. Hurriedly, she reinforces Samoon's command to stay put. "Do not split up under any circumstances. There are a few weapons on the ground out there, arm yourselves. Barricade yourselves in here. We have to go after her, but we will be back." With that, the ranger gives Old Bertrude a brief, fierce hug, and hurries over to her brothers. "What are we waiting for?! Let's go after her!" she asks, a hint of excitement bleeding through, overriding her fear of the cave. With only a brief glance of longing at the quickest path to Bree, the fissure, and without waiting for a response, she marches out to start looking for a path that her brothers can actually follow.
”It is fine, Bertrude, worry not,” Marianne tells the old ele. Turning to the rest, she says ”You are all we have found so far. There were a number of enthralled ifrits above ground, but that is all we’ve seen. We haven’t fully explored this place, and I am confident we will find the rest,” she lies. ”I hate to say this, but we need to hear your stories now, before we move. The dragon is dead, but we haven’t seen everything yet, and we need to know what is going on before we start running around blindly trying to play heroes.” Noting Samoon and Albreane’s interaction, she walks around and sits down back to the wall, so that the former prisoners have to look away from the pair in order to watch her.
Marianne rushes in and sets about untying the captives, starting with Old Bertrude. ”Everybody stay calm” she says, somehow the picture of calm herself, only dusty to her family’s bloodstained attire. ”We are going to get you out, but you are all in less danger if you stick together and don’t go running off.” The calm words continue as she works. When she finishes, she moves among them distributing what food she can, along with saying prayers over sylphs and anyone who asks, and generally working to provide comfort.
”Sit back down you oaf!” Marianne snaps at the warrior. ”Just because you are conscious doesn’t mean you are ready to fight. Give it a couple more minutes, else you’ll be useless if we get into another fight!”
Go right ahead
Sorry about the disappearance. Things are going to be hectic for me for a while, and it’s easy to lose track of the game. I should’ve warned you guys about that. It’s going to be like this for a solid month, but that means I’m more likely to dip out for a day or two, not that stuff like this should become regular.
Marianne hurried back down the tunnel to check the beast as soon as Wamblee is stabilized. She tenses when she hears Big Sitter go flying, but relaxes when no more sounds of distress come from back down the tunnel. Having returned, she relays to the others what she saw. ”It is, *huff* ”definitely dead,” she pants, winded from the exertion of fighting and sprinting back and forth a couple of times. ”It’s eyes have,” *huff* ”turned to black sludge.” Once she has caught her breath, she eyes the bars, trying to ignore the prone oread ringed in torches. He’ll be fine. Not that I care about heathen sand-brain, but he’s too tough to die that easily. ”What is this gauntlet?” she asks, having seen no obvious ways through the bars. ”Did it cause that blast of sound we heard during the fighting?”
"Samen! Crack its head to be sure and get moving! Big Sitter only starts laughing like that when fights get deadly!" Marianne calls, sprinting down the tunnel after the other group. When she arrives, she immediately drops to her knees next to Wamblee. "You're tougher than any of us, so why are you always the one we are pulling back from the brink of death?" she mutters angrily as she tears off part of his clothing and tries to bandage him. As she does, Marianne raises her voice, roaring into the darkness.
”I hate caves,” Marianne moans, sitting up a little blearily. Shaking herself, she kicks Bree none too gently before standing. ”Come, let us slay this Dark abomination!” she snarls, readying her bow.
Marianne sits poised, like a taught bow. She jerks a hand to direct Samen into position, letting Albreane find her own place, and then lifts her bow. Smoothly, silently, she draws two arrows from her quiver and puts one to the string. A breath, faint, escapes her lips, barely audible to those near her. ”Bás le mo naimhde.” Death to my enemies. A beat of silence, and then a roar like a storm wind, Unheard within the roar, a bowstring twangs twice.
Marianne tenses at the mention of a witch. Bertrude! She starts to follow the ifrits with Wamblee, but pauses, eyeing the scaled arms of the dragon. Her eyes harden. Marianne drops a leg to halt Wamblee and anybody else's progress, gesturing to the large trough, before scuttling down the wall, and drawing her bow.
Marianne creeps as close as she can to observe what is happening from the ceiling.
"That works. This way at least we don't have to worry about being caught defenseless if there are enemies near the spikes," Marianne says, clearly still nervous despite her words. "What is that sound? Is somebody still mining?"
"I think they are just enchanted Samen. And I am not going through that crack."
Marianne also checks for a path through, or any evidence of other ways elen passed through here.
”I could crawl across the ceiling, but that isn’t any way to clear them. We should see how easily they are removed,” Marianne suggests, eyeing the spikes nervously.
Not to be outdone, Marianne drops into the hole as well, her willowy frame easily absorbing the minimal shock. She creeps forward a few feet, and then glares at her friend and brother when they cause a ruckus. ”I cannot bring you people anywhere,” she says through gritted teeth. It’s hard to tell if she’s mad at them, or trying to crack a joke despite her nerves.
Marianne eyes the hole nervously, and groans. ”Wamblee is right. We don’t have enough information to really even sabotage it. Our only options are to disrupt the flow of silver, which might be the idle fancy of a being playing deity for all we know, or to pick them off villagers one by one, which seems unlikely to have much effect overall,” the sylph groans and then finishes. ”We have to go into the mines.”
"What? The Godless Wander—" Marianne starts to snap back, almost by reflex, before sighing heavily. "You know what? Why not? At least I know where you stand in all this. There is some sort of dragon in there, as far as we have gathered. It controls people through the embedded brass, which you already seem to have figured out. We've been getting conflicting information on the metal associated with it, which seems important. Rentwyrth said it was brass, but Carl over there described it as a Silver Bringer herself, and I saw some townsfolk trying to melt down silver for it. Mysterious blue lights, animals turned to brass... I think that is all we have at the moment. Do you have anything to add to it?" she asks the warrior
Wait, did I just happen to toss that in right before you introduced him?!
”Tie him,” Marianne demands, another arrow aimed at the el. If she seems more angry than is warranted, everyone remembers the only el dumb enough to shorten her name. Come to think of it, Big Sitter always ended up with an arrow or two in him too, or at least cuts from those oversized arrows Marianne insists on using as daggers.
Marianne’s hands were already moving as soon as the fool started talking about a silver goddess. She had her bow up and ready and started firing as soon as he started moving.
"Carl, what do you remember last?" Marianne asks, bending down to look him in the eyes as she passes him a waterskin. "You were, the quickest explanation is that you were enchanted, and we need to know what happened."
Whoo! I love worldbuilding!
"I think it's the metal," Marianne whispers. "They were frantically melting silver, saying "he" needed more. It has a part in all this."
"We still have too little information to go on. I am going to take a look, everyone wait here," Marianne whispers, slipping off into the night.
How much healing do we get from rest?
Marianne takes her attention from her vigil for a moment to blink at Wamblee and Samen. "Was this ever in question? He needed to be put down, Samen put him down. I wasn't aware anyone had or felt there would be an issue with that," Turning away without waiting for a reply, Marianne yawns and stretches. If we are heading to that Sky-forsaken hole in the ground tonight, I need to get some rest now.
I forgot about the other two powers to be completely honest... Scatterbrained player aside, I like the update, thanks for doing that! Don’t think you really missed anything either. One suggestion from my own meager GMing experience though is to try and avoid coloring what you say. It never occurred to me that the dragon could be some other sort of elemental until you brought it up as a suspicion we had. That might not be doable over pbp just because it is already hard enough to get a point across sometimes even without worrying about that, but it’s something to think about.
"She stopped!" Marianne calls. "She looks rather confused!"
"She's back, and I think she is tracking us somehow!" Marianne calls into the house. "She's following our exact path, I think that whatever is happening has invested more than a touch of magic into its victims!"
"I'll watch, you search," Marianne says shortly, clearly still upset over Bertrude's disappearance.
”The estate first, those supplies.can wait until we have a better handle on the situation,” Marianne says breezily.
”It is like that hunter when we first came. Remember? He was acting strangely too.”
Is her question as strange as I think it is, or am I missing something? It seems completely random to me.
Marianne frowns, taking up a defensive, but nonthreatening position out of immediate reach of the young ele. She has her bow out, and an arrow nocked, but is holding it down and hasn't drawn yet. The ranger waits for Wamblee to respond, clearly confused by the question.
"Fresh tracks over here!" Marianne calls to the others. "They're not Bertrude's and people only come up here if they have a very compelling reason. They lead back to Rockerenge, but I can't follow them into town."
Marianne shoots Samen a heated glare, but ignores him to respond to Samoon. "I will try, but there is not much to go on. Almost nothing was disturbed. My best guess is that the dragon flew in and took her where she stood, I will search with that in mind."
”Oh no. Bertrude?!” Marianne calls worriedly, hurrying forward at a pace that threatens to leave her siblings behind. She slows when she sees the door, too hardened from constant danger to rush right in. The ranger limbers her bow and listens, giving the rest of the party a chance to catch up.
Oh, Marianne was that low assuming full health, no extra healing from sleep last night to he had here.
Marianne's cloak turns a brilliant sky blue as she puts it on, but it takes her a moment to notice. "Blue, huh?" she notes, nonplussed, before shrugging. "The winds blow as Dead Sky wills them."
As her battered body shivers in the cold, Marianne remembers the cloaks, and passed them out from the belongings of whoever had them, casting Albreane an apologetic look as the ele is excluded. A little warmer now that’s she’s actually wearing something, Marianne groans. “I feel like Dead Sky Himself right now, battered into uselessness,” she moans, displaying the severity of her condition by sheer fact of making a slightly irreverent reference to Dead Sky. ”Anyone have another one of Bertrude’s healing potions?” |