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Nox hesitates after him and Hildy escape the creature's grasping jaws and turns to see all of the others losing large chunks of flesh to this thing, doing a quick assessment of who was hurt the most he wove his fingers into a cross hatch pattern pulling them tightly causing Sylva to feel her wounds bind up.
Nox ducks down atop Hildy's back but gasps as the fangs of the worm serpent still catch him. Almost without thinking he reaches back and draws his hand through his own blood coating his hands with the crimson substance before it turns a sickly oily color and he flicks it at the beast. The cursed blood would seep into any wound and turn jagged, ripping open blood vessels and prying open whatever flesh it could like a sinister acid. Afterwards Hildy darts back away from the beast granting him some time to breath and assess the situation a bit, "Hit it hard and make it bleed!"
Earlier:
Nox tries to hold on, but sobs in Sylva's arms. "I just miss her so much, and I'll be damned if I let this chance slip through my fingers. Weather it consumes me or not I'll keep going down this path till I see it to the end." Snapping out of his state of contemplation about what everyone had learned Nox points to Ravenna, "Light em up quicker than mercury, before they burn us."
Nox falls silent and stares off into the distance. "We are on an adventure. We've been in harrowing situations since the beginning, before that I..." The older sprite breaths in and steels himself for what is to come. "I was happy. I was different than I am now. I had love and everything I ever needed in life Sylva." His shoulders stiffen with resolve, "I don't feel for more loss, because I don't honestly believe I can anymore. Do you know what it's like?" The elder sprite looks at her, "To never feel the sun shining on your skin again? To begin to forget their face, their smell, their touch? To be burdened with the image of the face of your true love forever twisted by a slow painful wasteful death burned into your mind?" The sprite continues on growing ever more exasperated, the very air around him becoming cold, and alien. "Do you know what it's like to hold the love of your life as she bleeds out in your arms? To go on through your long life after you've lost everything? Only for some strange magics to give it back for a too short fleeting moment. Then pull you along some string to kill and defend yourself against abominations, godlings, aliens, mutant plants, demons, devils, ghosts, through freezing climates, and hellish landscapes. To watch death after death after death become more and more meaningless, to feel it less each time until finally you just don't. To watch those who you still have some flickers of care for fall into a different kind of despair while you feel absolutely powerless to carry their burden? To watch a fellow sprite lose touch with what made her good because she saw an evil to great to ignore and can now not only not forgive herself, but lament everyone, even those they never even interacted with as if they were that same love that you lost? All in the hopes that at the end of the tunnel you'll feel that sunshine, you'll smell their sweet hair, you'll hold her in your arms one last time?" Nox shakes upon his saddle and the very air near him feels thick like tar. "All the while you develop strange magic that no one understands. Understand things that don't make sense to a mortal mind, see the slow unwinding entropy of the universe with a level of clarity not even spoken of in the deepest texts? I AM hurt, and I am struggling to find a way to prevent that same hurt from happening to you. I am telling you not to let every single person be an Eijanna. If you let them all hurt you like that, especially the ones you don't know you'll break into a million pieces and I can't handle that." He stares at her clipping off his little rant expecting her to have a reply.
Nox seems to snap to as Sylva approaches and asks him about something, "Hmm? Oh I'm.. fine, just tired." There is a long pause from him, despite not being able to reach up under his helmet or really see his eyes you get the impression he's having an extra long blink. "I managed to determine some information about the bloodline of those who summoned these gods. I'm not sure if it'll be useful to our search, but maybe. Maybe it'll help somehow." Nox falls silent again for a bit, mostly waiting to see if Sylva has other questions. He does eventually attempt to deflect her attempts to worry about him like some aging mortal. "I need you to know... it was more than the cup. Back at the den, it was your entire attitude, your willingness to just forgo any attempt at diplomacy. That man and his flower may not have been good people, but that doesn't mean they can't seek redemption eventually. Now.. i'm not sure exactly how one would go about seeking redemption for what had been done, but I'm also no expert on the matter either."
During the trip something about Nox just seems off, he's even quieter than usual and during very long portions of the trip he just seems in a daze upon Hildy's saddle. But other than his detached nature he doesn't seem any less healthy than when they left the hovel in the meteor pit. His reigning silence and dazed state of being continue much into their first foray into the town, until it comes to breaking up the group for tasks involving searching for information. He decides to go along with Sylva to the hall of the gods, perhaps they'd have records on the bloodlines that were particularly well versed in communing with the gods. Something that ran deep in the veins of certain families making them particularly adept at the task and where their ossuaries might have existed. He doesn't seem to pay her any mind, but beneath the beetle helm it's difficult even with her gaze to tell if he's still upset at her or just not in the mood for conversation.
"The blood.. the blood.. something in.. in... the.... blood." He mutters as he traverses through the holy halls seeming to slip in and out of his strange fugue state.
Nox lets Sylva say her part and allows her to leave. Speaking mostly to himself after she's gone. "Why can't you see it's far more than the cup that you've done." With a weary sigh he goes back to trying to decipher the mistletoe and the stone. After determining it was indeed not harmful he brought it with him back to the surface. "I know none of us wish to linger here longer than we must. But in order to protect ourselves from the elements, perhaps we utilize the shelter one last time before we journey forward. We have already been on the road for a long time and a roof would be wonderful for at least one night."
Nox rubs his eyes for several moments after the fight to finish getting his sight back fully and upon exploring the rest of the cave and finding the plant growing from the meteor he can't help but be a little angry. With a sigh he slaps the mistletoe out of Sylva's hand, "You don't even know what that is, it could be dangerous just standing near it let alone picking it up! Stop being reckless and go to the others. I need to think and you need to figure yourself out." He stands abstinently till the others leave giving small grumbles of frustration here and there at the reckless abandon a certain someone has displayed recently. As well as the disrespect for living beings, even ones that were evil-doers.
Nox wants to speak to Sylva but before he gets any chance to she is already facing more threats and taking off into gods knows what territory, ignoring his earlier comments about her being brashly forward. He lets out a chuff as she rushes forward without talking to the group about her obviously erratic behavior in response to the patch man. And he finds little room for words until she finally pauses to ask about the pet. "Did you happen to get any look at this creature? A decription may help us in our pending battle against it. And we've little time to waste if it's hungry it may try to find it's own me-" The sprite is cut off as the plant flashbangs the room leaving him and his mount dazed.
Once again needing to bind Sylva's wounds with the cloying dark in the area the sprite weaves his spell. It's clear that they are having diminished effects though on Sylva's rapidly deteriorating body. She also seems unlike herself in the moment, but a topic for another time.
"~Maaybe let's not beat the s!*@ outta my friends, All the Tiiiiiiime~"
Nox was caught off guard by the sudden appearance of the thug and his bug minions even though he tried to be ready for a surprise attack. Hildy and him kept their distance and he started to weave the shadows in the room together in a protective soothing shell for Sylva while she shouted about not being willing to accept this man's possible surrender. He frowned under his beetle helmet and made a note to speak with her again.
Nox slumps with a long aching pain, "Sylva... we are adventurers. It comes with many costs, including the knowledge that we can't save everyone no matter how hard we try." He lets out a long tired sigh born from knowing the pain she's going through in his own way. Straightening in the saddle he looks at her, "We must save ourselves in the conflicts that find us before we can have a chance to help others in trouble, even then we may not save everyone. But we can still do our best to save who we can, and right now that means we have to get to deal with the master behind the missing moment." Hildy and Nox both move over to Sylva where Nox dismounts and places a hand on his fellow sprite's shoulder. "I know how it feels to lose someone... to lose a part of yourself. I also know if we aren't strong now then so many more will be subject to that same pain. We can stop that, you can stop that."
Nox sighs under his helmet once again and turns on his saddle to face Sylva. Taking on the tone of one who's trying to help instead of just yell at someone for finding terrible ways to grieve. "You and I have been together long enough to know well enough that you are lying. You haven't been well since we faced that incident with the deranged fey and all of their lackies."
Nox paces around the room for a bit examining various items as Sylva goes and deep dives on everything before anyone else has a chance. He also listens as she delves further into this apparent murder mystery that she's built up in her own head. "Sylva... what are you on about? There is no indication that she lived here, you have no evidence that she wasn't killed by wild animals or some lasting band of devils or demons. People in this world die, and plenty have been by our hands. Why is it you suddenly have particular issue with this one person, living in perhaps one of the most inhospitable places in the world?" He rubs his tired eyes underneath his beetle helmet, "Even if we find the woman's killer what then? Are you going to bring them to court for justice or are we going to kill them as we have every other being that has been an inconvenience in our journey since the missing moment?" He begins collecting the things from the crates together stuffing a pair of sunrods as well as one of each potion bottle into Hildy's saddlebags.
Continuing on Nox wonders what wounded the elf, soon enough they come upon the grand hole and he marvels at the wound in the earth as well as the shocking speed at which someone set up a descent to it. "I don't have any such ability Sylva. Also your wounds are still fresh, perhaps we wait a while until Batman here can tend to them all? I could stand to catch my breath as well after such a trek." One might wonder how he could claim that when Hildy's been the one walking, but maybe he's just saying it so everyone else can have an excuse to rest a moment.
Nox rides up on Hildy and weaves his fingers into a web causing the very shadows that the bigger mosquito's cast to reach up towards their spindly limbs. Slow(DC22 Fort save): Critical Success The target is unaffected. Success The target is slowed 1 for 1 round. Failure The target is slowed 1 for 1 minute. Critical Failure The target is slowed 2 for 1 minute.
Nox tries his best to stay low while they remain in Egede. He also sticks to the inside of the caravan for the better part of the trip, partially to stay out of the weather, but also just to rest and think about what had happened at the last city. When the meteorite falls during their stay in the woods Nox sighs, "It seems your dream was more than just that once again. It also seems we are not destined to go all the way to the next town either."
"Whu...I."
The Sprite seems rather sluggish as the morning sets in whatever he did the other night having exhausted him slightly.
Nox grumbles and flusters at the man who now tries to escape his tongue lashing by absconding from the area. "Now you wait Right there! You falsly accuse us, assault us, and then expect that you can just walk away without proper recompense?! I'm sure the Inheritor herself would step down to explain to you just why that is a unjust. Now I demand of you to make things right, we have done nothing strange, other than be ourselves. And yet you claim we are being odd, when you yourself house a manifestation of 'evil' as you call it." Nox sits tall, for a sprite, on Hildy's back and proclaims to everyone in the square. "Is it not a bit queer that one of your own who claims to be a force of righteousness houses a being of supposed evil to unleash on any unsuspecting new comers to your town unprovoked?!" After his glowing oration the sprite seems to wilt again as if the very effort of being so upset exhausted him.
Nox spurs Hildy into action and the pair dart around the back side.. well other side of the massive ooze. Nox watches as Batman and Sylva punch kick and schlorp with the agonizingly painful jelly and it can't help but remind him of his love lost so long ago. Sensing her riders disconnection from the moment Hildy barks, to awaken Nox from his dismal revelation and the tiny sprite begins to cry, digging deep in his soul for that painful tormented feeling which enhanced by his native magics explodes outward in a baleful cry.
Nox pat's Ravenna's leg as usual she feels unusually fast in her movements. The shadows cast by the statue of Iomedae seem to linger down towards the fight happening nearby and slowly stretch towards the ooze. However in the meantime Nox and Hildy charge towards the ooze. "Hey stop hitting my friend, hit me instead you overgrown mold puddle. I'll show you a thing or two about messing with THE Bronze Batman!"
Hildy stands nobly as any mighty steed of a goodly knight may evoking the image of a tiny crusader giving a speech to his men before a valiant charge to the fronts, where lay the demonic enemy of man.
Nox and Hildy clamber into the dingy and hunker down. "Batman I'm... Look i'm not even that old compared to you right?" He looks around the boat for help, "Right?!?" With no obvious response he waves his hand with a 'feehh' and nestles into Hildy's fur as they drifted towards Egede. "So, what has been happening in the city. And what might be a good inn that you'd recommend some travelers to the region?"
Nox peers over to the dockmaster. "Um... well the ship isn't spectral all the time, I don't think the crew can leave the ship. And they are sworn to take us wherever we're needed on our quest to save this plane as well as others from an ancient evil. Is there any way we could perhaps change your mind on the inability to let our vessel dock? As you said it does need some sprucing up, and our crew isn't exactly able to do that themselves I don't think. We have coin for supplies if that is an issue."
Nox grumbles at the blasted naga thing and cups his hands in prayer towards Mazludeh, "Do not let your champion down in his time of need." Of course his words were just that, no divine magic would ever spring from this sprite instead the gloomy night wraps around Batman and he feels right as rain, except not in this fridged climate.
"And you foul Naga, leave and never come back!"
Seeing that Batman has given rise to Sylva, and that his trick with the belay pin is doing absolutely nothing against the highly mobile and evasive Naga he places a hand on Ravenna's leg. "You can't fall here."
The dark coils around him and Ravenna, kissing the scorches of the lightning burns. [b]"I don't know what else to do, they're too wiggly for me."[b]
Nox looks around for something to help with the star serpents and decides the belay-pins nearby should be sufficiently heavy. So he weaves his hands and calls upon that mysterious force in the realm between to solidify the shadows enough that they rip up and throw the belay pins at the serpent like a tiny unsharpened javelin. While trying to recall anything about these beasts that he might know.
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