Rhianna cries out from the pain of her wound, but then grunts and pricks her finger with her dagger, smearing the resulting blood across her face.
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Rhianna seems frustrated as she begins chanting.
"Draconic spawn," says Rhianna, unfazed. "Siginicantly stronger than is usual for his species, and likely resistant to flame as well."
Rhianna's eyes flicker open, and she rises unsteadily to her feet. She looks pale and her eyes are hooded, and as she attempts to gather her bearings, she unconsciously holds Jobe tightly to her chest. For his part, the large raven seems equally determined to stay right next to his mistress, and neither one speaks much for some time. What finally draws her out, however, is Roylenna examining the magical items, in particular the flying broom. Her curiosity gets the better of her, and she begins moving in that direction, apparently having a focus for the first time since Greta finished healing her. She steps up next to the halfling, setting Jobe absently on her shoulder, and leans down to study the broom alongside Royl.
Lesser probability plays out after all, Rhianna thinks, just before the final missile knocks her backward and blackness overwhelms her. Beneath the goblin, the ball of flame continues to burn, uncontrolled and quiescent.
Rhianna staggers backward under the goblin's mystic assault. As she gets her feet under her, her face is a mask of terrible concentration underneath the blood streaming from her scalp. As she reaches into her pack again, those nearby can hear her muttering to herself. "Three missiles per casting. One expression of vo-tier; all the rest y-tier or lower. Probability: preparation arcanist, weakening spell supply. Third magic missile casting unlikely. Offense or defense?" Just then, Lyria's wave of healing energy sweeps over her, and she nods. "Decision made, then." Raising her voice as she withdraws a scroll from the pack, she reads out, "Veri ythu jevoza!" A ball of flame, four feet across, appears directly beneath the goblin and leaps upward to engulf him.
Rhianna stumbles back from the mystic assault, but after a moment, shakes her head and points it once more at the goblin. "Veri upeyo ra jeseza!" she shouts, and something like genuine anger is on her face as she does so.
Rhianna narrows her eyes, then reaches into her pack for a long, rolled-up piece of vellum, an air of barely-controlled energetic fury surrounding her. Then she looks down at the scroll, murmurs, "No, wait, that's not it." She pulls out a couple more, looks between them with a furrowed brow, then digs into the very bottom of her pack. "Aha! Here it is!" The rest of the scrolls get shoved haphazardly back into the pack, and she unfurls the last one she found and reads from it quickly. "Di ypeyo!"
"Well, this is rather uncivil," Rhianna says, annoyed, looking up at the flying goblin. "If you choose to initiate hostilities, as there are not one but four clearly visible arcanists in our party, you are obligated by the Creed of the Nine to formally declare a challenge to the Duel Arcane! Humph!" The tirade is delivered as she stumbles away from the swelling fog (back up the road, away from the giant) and points her hand upward. "Veri yslou ra jeseza!"
Rhianna arrives at the wagon, absentmindedly tossing Jobe into the air for some hunting as she begins looking for a place on the wagon to set her books and notes. As she does so, she notices the pained, red-eyed state of her comrades and frowns. "Conjuctivitis?" she murmurs to herself, then shakes her head. "No, no discharge... Ah yes. Toxic side effects from alcohol in excess. Light sensitivity, noise sensitivity, fatigue, possibly nausea." She leans over to where Tika and Roylenna are leaning painfully against one another and says, "Can you try not to vomit on my notes, please?" Perhaps surprisingly, she has lowered her voice to a non-agonizing level.
Rhianna suddenly realizes Tika has returned. She opens her mouth as if to say something, then shakes her head and closes it again. Instead, she murmurs something quietly to Jobe, who lets out a large sigh and nips her ear.
"What?" says Rhianna, looking up at last, and seemingly entirely unaware that either a) any time has passed or b) most of her associates are completely and utterly inebrieated. "Oh, yes, of course." She helps Artival to his feet, then looks around politely. "Did someone say something about Seahill? I've always wantd to visit there! I've heard about a specific kind of beetle that is native only to the few square miles around the village - the limited range is practically unheard of in such an open country! Personally, I believe it is merely a local coloration variation, but only samples and study will say for sure. Are some of you..." She blinks, then frowns, then blinks again, and finally says, "Are you all right?"
Rhianna chews her lip as she studies the altar. "Trinue forces are metastable in a host of contexts, from the phyiscal to the metaphysical to even the political, allowing both balance and rapid alteration depending on circumstance. Clearly, however, one of the three forces has been removed, and the resulting vacuum has produced noticable and unfortunate consequences. In combination with the unusual ethoform contacts Master Akensarenrae reports from the totems, I would conjecture that the missing piece is a deliberate defiling, removed as part of a larger program of religious disruption that also including the construction of the totems. It might be that replacing the lost heart would undo some lingering effects within the caverns." She pauses, then adds with a shrug, "Or it might undo all our work and create something even more vile. We lack sufficient data to make a determination."
Jobe tilts his head at Ka'kara (Rhianna is reading notes, clearly not paying attention to the conversation - it's not even clear that she knows she's in a bar), then clacks his beak a few times. After a moment, it becomes apparent that he's laughing. "Not as far as I know," he says, "and do you really think it's a good idea to find out? Do you want to see what she'd be like drunk?"
As soon as the battle is over, Rhianna almost seems to forget that it occurred, examining everything within the cave with a careful and thorough eye, taking notes and frequently casting detect magic as she goes. A number of small vials suddenly have bits of ghoul or zombie in them as well, before she is done. At the odd pedestal, she bites her lip and murmurs, "Hunh," as though staring at a picture of a vase only to realize it might also be a picture of two faces looking toward one another.
Something about the desperate nature of their situation seems to register on Rhianna. Looking around at bodies falling or locking in horrific rictus, the evoker's expression becomes pale and grim. She points a finger at the remaining ghoul and says flatly, "Veri yslou ra jeseza."
Rhianna takes the opening Badru's move provides and moves to launch her own stream of flames at the oncoming ghouls. "Veri utepra no jovose!" she shouts, and a burst of flame leaps from her fingertips.
Roylenna:
In a move that surprises even her, Rhianna jumps forward and grabs Lyria, pulling her back toward the wall and away from the ghouls. She raises her off-hand and a sudden glow of energy surrounds it, but she seems to be using it to cover the move rather than to launch a bolt.
"What's going on?" asks Rhianna plaintively. "I can't see!"
Seeing Artival's beam strike home while her own misses, Rhianna asks plaintively, "How do you do that?" She wtches his aiming technique and tries awkwardly to mimic it as she points toward one of the oncoming goblin zombies. "Kro ‘slou ra jeuza!"
Rhianna shakes her head. "Maybe this is will work this time...?" she murmurs, making a different gesture with her hand before pointing it at the remaining orc zombie. "Kro ‘slou ra jeuza!"
Rhianna sees the large zombie step into the light, and all but squeals with delight. "Their behavior is repeating with regard to similar stimuli! Excellent! Now, let's see if they continue to respond the same to my evocations!" She points her hand and says, "Veri yslou ra jeseza!" as a beams of burning fire erupts from the tip and sears through the darkness. Unfortunately, all that burns is the air, as the ray goes wide. With an angry stomp of her foot, Rhianna snaps, "Oh, for Nethys' sake!"
Rhianna follows Lyria around on her examinations of the party members. She takes lots of notes, but doesn't offer much in the way of suggestions. At Ka'kara's words, though, she nods. "A curse seems the most likely cause," she comments, "though typically such things require an intelligent, directive agent. This may be a manifestation of hypervalent ritual or even deific anger - if not, then an unusually potent necromantic expression has had a great deal of time to fester in there."
"Research opportunities!" replies Rhianna at once, looking up from the sheaf of notes that has occupied her throughout the evening. "I've already gained a number of important insights on the interactions between several common evocations and animated flesh, and that's only with one foray! Who knows what might be revealed with a longer and more thorough encounter?"
"Not without completely destroying the raw materials from which they are created," replies Rhianna at once. "However, spontaneous reanimation is extremely rare, and is typically tied to either a single thaumaturgical instability or a long-term process of necromantic infusion, neither of which is terribly likely to occur within the next twenty-four hours." Rhianna suddenly looks thoughtful, and begins muttering to herself. "Given a certain rate of change in the infusion of necromantic expressions, it should be possible to calculate the greatest probability of reanimation over a given period of time, a 'half-life' of sorts (ha! 'half-life' indeed! how amusing!) for a specified supply of inert biological material..."
"We weren't going to stay at an inn tonight?" Rhianna asks, looking confused. "But... where would we have gotten our meals?"
"Kro ‘slou ra jeuza!" Rhianna shouts again, this time pointing at one of the zombies threatening at Ka'kara.
"Kro ‘slou ra jeuza!" Rhianna cries, pointing at one of the hulking undead closing in. A beam of shimmering white light bursts from her fingertip and blasts the stones next to the ogre, making an impressive series of sparks. "Ah. Well," Rhianna says, looking nonplussed.
"Perhaps something a bit stronger is called for," Rhianna murmurs, raising her hands again. "Veri yslou ra jeseza!" This time, the wave of energy is red-hot and ripples with elemental fury.
As the ogre zombie rushes toward her, Rhianna merely stares for a moment in fascination, then with a sudden jerk raises her hands, thumbs together, and points them toward the nearest undead. Murmuring, "Veri utepra no jevose," she watches with a weird smile as a sheet of flame bursts from her fingertips to engulf the zombie. As it keeps coming, though, she squeaks in alarm and all but runs back toward the cave entrance, ducking behind the giantess calling herself Ka'kara. Only once she is safely behind the barbarian does she turn back, raising her hand to point toward the edge of the column where she expects the singed ogre to appear.
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