Open Chronicles Thirst of the Ascended

[Alicia Blackbolt]

The Vestra Aqueduct

​

The vista view of Allira was spectacular. So spectacular that even the lone shadow of a thief had to stop in her tracks, and take it all in.

At daybreak, Alliria's gargantuan walls veritably glowed, white and uniform. But at night, their radiance morphed into silver. The full moon cast a glimmering edge to each spire and balustrade, as if they sought to rival the stars. Veins of imprisoned starlight funnelled into the city via its grand aqueducts, flowing like quicksilver.

Alicia stood on one of those tall, arched aqueducts, boots firmly planted on either side of its canal. The Vestra Aqueduct led all the way from the south-west of Alliria Reach, piercing through each layer of the metropolis: Cresting arrogantly above the slums, imposing gateways in the packed plazas of the Outer City streets, before finally ending in the Inner City, where it faded into obscurity among the much grander architecture. For much of its twenty mile path, it didn't share any water. Instead, it exclusively distributed its supply in the Inner City.

To the average citizen, it served little purpose. But to someone of Alicia's inclination, it provided a perfect gateway to these paradisal stone gardens. A road unobstructed by gatehouses or walls, minimally guarded. Its main danger remained the act of scaling it.

And now, it had led her to here. The Aeon Plaza - currently little more than a construction site. As she tore her gaze away from the vista view, she crouched on the edge, peering down.

The cobbled plaza looked like a volcanic crater, spewing cobblestones and loosened earth instead of magma. Impressive stone mansions and houses surrounded it, but an encapsulating palisade of wood marred its features.

The Merchant House Iskander was developing this plaza. Part of that development involved the Aeon Cistern, a grand complex of water storage built underground. And since construction could take a while, one particular nobleman behind the project had decided to store some of his rich valuables in the cistern, including the Eyes of Tathras, a pair of rubies supposed to be as large as human skulls. No doubt he had run out of space in his home, and simultaneously, he could dazzle patrons and friends by making his construction project look a little more grand with his collection.

She unfolded a weathered map from an inner pocket of her cloak and consulted it.

According to her tip, there were two ways in. The first and obvious one remained the stairs built by the street masons, leading down by a ciruclar stairway from the worksite to the cistern. Only problem was the guards that House Iskander might have loitering around their site, protecting their work equipment.

The other, more circumvent route was down through the castellum - the building where the water gathered into a main basin before being distributed to fountains, baths and mansions in the area. The pipes to the cistern should still be undergoing work. As long as that remained the case, they could fit a human.

Alicia stuffed the map back in its place and let the folds of her cloak envelop her again. A long exhalation left her, nearly funnelled into a drawn-out whistle. The hardest part of any job was to start it. In many ways, it felt like jumping off a cliff. Once she had begun, there was no turning back, no time to reconsider, only time to work around the situation at hand. But the first plunge always took some persuasion.

She unhooked her wieldy and enhanced crossbow from her back. Cranking a small lever, its reinforced arms snapped out, so oiled they hardly made a sound. Her hand hooked backwards and found the lid to her quiver, unclasping it. There, her fingers brushed over feathers of different colours - but by now, she could tell each bolt and its purpose from the texture of the feather itself. Once she found the smooth and distinctly stiff quality of a goose feather, she pulled it free and closed her quiver again.

This bolt connected to a rope tied at her waist. Unhooking the rope into a neat pile and placing the bolt in her chamber, Alicia took sights on a nearby building. A building with a wooden beam above its balcony.

A quiet shot, and the rope grew taught. She tested if the broad arrowhead had pierced the wood thoroughly and sunk its steel teeth deep enough, pulling in the rope. It held.

Moments later, she scaled the aqueduct on the other side of her rope, the line crossing half the plaza and the aqueduct. Fortunately, few people ever deigned to look up.

Aeon Plaza​

Descending to the bottom, she allowed the rope to remain dangling by the wall, should she need a quick escape. Her thumb pulled up her mask to her nose, revealing only her gray eyes, dissecting the worksite for any threats.

Surprisingly, she saw no guards. Not a single soul.

Peculiar. But not unwelcome. Still, she wouldn't risk the stairs - there could still be guards there. She went for the doors to the castellum as originally planned, a part of the very column she had just descended.

Quickly enough, she found a door. Predictably, it was locked.

She sighed wearily, and knelt down, hoisting out her satchet of lockpicking tools. But just as she had put in her tension rod and pick, her fingers froze mid-action.

There was a sound coming from below. Faint, but just there. Music. From the stairway she had neglected to use. Alicia grumbled quietly to herself and glanced over her shoulder. She hated lockpicking. It always left her exposed to creeping danger.

The swelling of a violin, it sounded like. Perhaps a lute or two. And drums. Like a spectral orchestra playing from some deep netherrealm, beckoning her to join them. A shudder went through her at the thought. She thought she could even smell faint smoke and cooked meat

No visible guards, but some manner of festivities, then. This did not bode well. She had planned for a few, vigilant eyes, not a host of drunken fops. But so long as they drank deep, they would be none the wiser.

Charming the lock, Alicia slipped inside the door and into the darkness of the castellum. She let her outstretched hands guide her in the pitch blackness, slowly creeping her way to the tunnels that would take her deeper into the cistern , , , and closer to the sounds of music and warm light, beckoning her in this realm of cold, damp stone.

 

[Zyndyrr K'yoshin]

Darkness. For most folk, it was the difference between swinging the hammer or staying under the sheets, walking between trees absent of moonlight or sitting by the campfire, never mind life or death. Bereft of light, one was rather limited in their means of activity. They needed flame before their face, whether in the form of a torch or naked candlelight. Darkness was the bane of eyesight.

Yet not for everyone. Some had come accustomed to it, adapted to the shadows, or were perhaps blind to begin with. Others? They were different in another sense. Darkness was their friend, for they were born for it as much as in it. The shadows were where they dwelt. There beneath the earth. Underground in the under-realm of the drow.

It was no wonder, then, why one of them might find peace of mind at night. They could see and sense in ways others were unable to. Their vision was even limited in other degrees when it came to light. Tonight? The darkness was exactly what one of them needed.

Armed and armored, with dark plate over his forearms and chest yet not at the expense of movement, and a grey cloak hugging his shoulders with its hood pulled up, the figure did not simply move within the shadows. Rather, he became the shadow; a lone sliver of darkness that slithered like a snake.

Having arrived at the worksite, he crouched low to the ground, found a crate and hid behind it. There were no defenses at the perimeter. The lack of guards in the interior, however, was certainly curious. He didn’t expect workers at this hour but surely at least somebody would be stationed to make sure no unexpected guest descended the staircase.

No matter. That simply made this easier and quicker to begin with. Quietly, Zyndyrr K’yoshin approached those stairs, having heard the music coming from below before he even reached them. There. A pair of figures emerged into view, rounding a corner of the stairwell as if having just taken a break. With no one around to supervise, that was no surprise.

They were posted on either side, suddenly given to duty as sentries. Remaining stationary, Zyn stayed behind a barrel, peering round it. A scimitar on either hip, he debated the best way to take out those two obstacles. He was patient but had no need to wait. Besides, his target wouldn’t be up all night. Drunk, perhaps, if those drums are anything to go by.

Blades strapped, ones to take in hands or throw, he picked up a stone instead and chucked it into the distance. That distracted one of them. The other didn’t move. Zyn did. The guard that stayed behind kept his gaze trained his partner’s way. He didn’t see the knife and didn’t feel it until it was too late.

The blade scraped across his throat, turned his scream into a quiet gurgle the same moment, before his corpse fell backward on the dirt. Wasting no time, his killer followed behind the other guard and, as he turned, a hand covered his mouth in the dark and a blade found his heart.

The bodies were hidden. Sure, Zyndyrr could have sneaked by them one way or the other and this wasn’t simply taking out the competition. It was reducing the numbers he might have to face if things went the wrong way down the staircase he began to descend, and he came with death.

Alicia Blackbolt

 

[Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher]

Karskgorak stood atop the roof of a building that overlooked the half finished plaza. He stood there with arms outstretched with hands closed as he gazed up to the dark and cloudy sky.

He had come to Alliria on a tip that had been circulating around the adventurer’s guilds and had even reached the ears of Noct Yaegir. Rumors of strange sounds and missing persons in the poorer districts of the city.

Sensing for hidden evil, Karsk had been drawn closer and closer to the plaza.

“I hear it. The dark song of temptation. Festering ‘neath this glowing city of stone. An open wound has giving entrance, and thus a steady hand is come to clean this wicked infection.”

Karsk breathed deeply, as he released crushed herbs and ground bones to the wind.

Suddenly, a scream was heard from down below. Karsk knew it to be a scream of death, snuffed just as quickly as it sounded.

The orc leapt from the roof and landed on the street below, cracking the stone tiles beneath his feet with a heavy thud. It was a short sprint from there to where the scream had sounded. When Karsk arrived he saw blood staining the dirt and mud with a drow starting down a nearby sraircase.

“Hark, Underelf!” Karsk called, caring nothing for the hour or the possibility for surprise. “I am Karskgorak fiend crusher, butcher of all things wicked! In who’s name do you kill tonight, and know that as of right now I intend to kill you.”

 

[Alicia Blackbolt]

Quite unbeknownst to Alicia, two souls of this midnight meeting had already been sent to the Gods. As far as she was concerned, this remained a simple snatch and grab, with minimal bloodshed and headaches.

But gradually, this preconception whittled down for a tightening ball of dread in her gut, instincts screaming that something was terribly off.

Her palm traced the wall beside her, leading her to follow the gentle flow of water. For every step, she could see more of her own fingerless glove, outlined by the weak illumination beyond. The water gurgled and chuckled mysteriously below her boots, merging with the music. It felt like a summons to join a forbidden dance - like some morbid ball held in this watery crypt.

Sneaking to the end, the unfinished tunnel led her to the back of the grand cistern. Stone paths and wooden bridges ensured dry footing between rows of magnificent columns. Candlelight glinted like the eyes of cats in the shallow waters of the floor. The grandiose hall could easily be mistaken for some underground temple, even though it was little more than a glorified well.

She noted a few lonely candles among the feet of columns, and made a scornful sniff below her mask. It never ceased to amaze her the amount of waste indulged by the upper crust of Alliria. Surely they would hardly mind a few trinkets to go missing, then, when they could clearly afford to waste expensive wax.

Dodging and weaving in between pockets of bothersome light, Alicia steered clear of the music at first, scouring the darker parts of the cistern. But when she didn't find what she sought, inevitably, the music drew her in.

She took a long step from a bridge to a nearby column and crept along its foot - her lithe figure a splash of leather and black cloth against gray stone, illuminated by shimmering water below. She hugged the darkness and stone alike, and snuck a glance into the center of light and music.

The sight widened her eyes, her damp dread giving way to ice-cold fear, and her breath caught in her throat.A congregation of robed figures gathered around a central altar, raised on an island of stone. A horde of candles surrounded them, throwing the enigmatic acolytes into a warm, sickly pallour, revealing their blood-red robes and bone-white masks. Some carried horns and vague, bull-like contours, while others looked merely like faceless deathmasks.

The greatest set of horns, however, featured on the center-piece on the altar. A massive, bull-like skull, raised on a wooden mount fashioned to appear like a regal and veined neck. A pair of horns rose from its cranium, demanding supplication, and its hollow eyes were filled with red, crystalline light, glaring banefully at all present.

It took a moment for her to recognise its eyes for what they were. The Eyes of Tathras - biggest set of rubies on this side of the Allirian Reach.

Alicia withdrew into the safety of her column, raising a hand to hold her brow. Her contact had succeeded in locating this treasure, all right. But they had failed to mention the teeny, tiny detail about a gathering of bloody cultists surrounding it.

There was only one proper response to this turn of events, and it left her in a muffled curse:

"Herald's balls . . . Just my flaming luck, this is."

Zyndyrr K'yoshin

Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher

 

[Zyndyrr K'yoshin]

The scream. The thing with having a blade placed to your throat the same instant as it slid meant that there wasn’t much left in the way of a scream the next second. The throat was torn open before the shout could come out. However, perhaps all it might take was a split second release for someone with trained ears of hearing to detect a silent scream.

Whatever had happened, what happened next was the unmistakable arrival of another figure within Zyndyrr’s midst. Things were going well for him so far, he thought, but the darkness offered no fable. Not so close to the city streets here in a worksite, it was yet no wonder that others might lurk nearby.

For his part, however, Zyndyrr had no mind to stay and wait for predator or prey to chase him down the stairway. Even a short sprint toward his position would have been detected from feet further away. Sound meant everything and a big orc with all its weight was as loud as a boar, make no mistake.

It wasn’t fear. It was simply the desire to not linger here and waste time fighting some oaf with his blades so Zyn quickly dipped down the staircase. The drow was likely faster than whatever might be his attacker. Quieter, he imagined.

The music crept closer as he lowered. Torchlight guided the way but Zyn didn’t need it. He listened also to the words of Karskgorak fiend crusher but paid him no mind. If he followed, he would still be far enough behind and probably did not see in the dark.

That mattered. As he ran, Zyn grabbed two braziers from the wall and tossed them backward from his position. Fire roared forth in the tunnel and would provide some trouble for the orc who stormed toward him.

Meanwhile it was time to find his target. The music was even closer. In only moments, Zyn would arrive and his mark would die. The drow would carve his heart out of his chest and that would be the end of him.

And any idiot who thinks he can contend with me.

Alicia Blackbolt
Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher

 

[Emmeline Hildebrandt]

Emma was exhausted; she wore it well though. Long nights, training that wore her to the bone… it all paid off well, to ensure that the family she’d lost would be taken care of when she finally found them. And yet here she was, watching as others frolicked carelessly amongst the ashen walls of a city she longed to love as dearly as those that did. The music brought joy to her weary soul, the thieves that ran rampant taunted her very core. And it was through this steady heartbeat of the cities she knew so well that the Noct Yaegir swordswoman blended in so well with others that hunted the monsters that roamed at night.

Non-chalantly, she leaned against one of the walls. Silver blades hung lazily at her hips, a gift from Eren when he’d helped her finally lose the family heirloom that’d pierced so closely to her own heart so many cycles ago. Heh, she’d loved that guard damn near to death and all for naught. A soft smirk toyed with the corner of her mouth, a strange thirst for something bitter almost driving the woman to push herself free of the wall upon which she stood guard.

She’d grown to thirst for battle, to thirst for excitement and it was something that brought a dark fear into her once pure heart. Something had changed deep within her in the most recent battles she’d faced. An excitement that stirred, a need to see every battle through to the end.

It wasn’t until a familiar voice, a taunt upon the winds called out amongst the notes of the plaza that Emma was finally pulled from her own gentle slumber. Those soft, green eyes hoisted from under a pale blue cowl and the woman drew to join those present.

“It always comes,” she said, and that was all. Her gaze turned toward Alicia, and there was a sort sadness deep within them that belied only the madness of deep loss. As if the evil they faced could only be Emma’s own demons. The swordswoman feared for her own life.

Then, there was the scream. That momentary weakness in Emma’s own armor punctuated so pristinely that the Noct Yaegir woman could only pray Alicia had not seen the empty hopelessness in the woman’s stare moments before.

Her hands fell silently to her blades and she pulled them from their scabbards with a quiet hiss, not with the stealth of a trained spy or strength of the brutal warrior, but the carefully honed prowess of a guardsman meant to protect, serve, and die in the line of duty.

All she offered was a nod, no name or anything else to be remembered by should their journey below turn fatal.

---

Tags:
Alicia Blackbolt
Zyndyrr K'yoshin
Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher

 

[Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher]

“A killer and a coward?! One must hope your cave gods ashamed of you Kur!”

Karsk charged down the stairs after the drow, shouting at him as the two ran down a dimly lit tunnel.

The music crept closer as he lowered. Torchlight guided the way but Zyn didn’t need it. He listened also to the words of Karskgorak fiend crusher but paid him no mind. If he followed, he would still be far enough behind and probably did not see in the dark.

That mattered. As he ran, Zyn grabbed two braziers from the wall and tossed them backward from his position. Fire roared forth in the tunnel and would provide some trouble for the orc who stormed toward him.

The contents of the braziers lay scattered across the tunnel, reaching from the floor all the way to the ceiling. These did not deter Karsk in the slightest, who laughed as he ran through the fire.

“Gya hahaha! You think to stop a proud son of Bhathairk with cinders?! I have known both dragon’s breath and mountain’s blood!”

As he ran, Karsk reached down and grabbed a handful of burning coals with his bare hand and threw them back at Zyn with orcish strength.

The wooden scabbard hanging from Karsk’s waist clattered against the tunnel walls as the hulking Orc shouted mockery and insults at Zyn in orcish.

“Dhor! Dhor! U’s nalek bas nil vekall eten nur!” (Flee! flee! The roaring flames of hell are chasing after you!)

Karsk’s calls and shouts echoed through the passageway and into the nearby rooms, even reaching the chamber that Alicia had just found herself in.

 

[Feyrith]

Being gifted of Night vision often lead one to draw the short stick on night duty.
A small bonus might have been paid to the watch, given how her superior had impressed upon her that this additional stop on her route was of the utmost importance. The guard ought not keep an eye on private endeavors she secretly thought, who cares about some wealthy man's building blocks. Even so she doubted any of the bribe would find it's way to her paycheck.
Yet, even if the task was to simply check up on some nobleman's investment Feyrith was eager to prove herself valuable in the ranks. It wasn't so unusual that some large mostly empty investment might be added to the rotation. The space was rife with potential for minor vandalisms or greedy hands.
What was unusual was how few of House Iskander's guards were present when she arrived.

The guards at the entrance had assured it was a quiet night with no sign of mischief. Their words seemed....perhaps too eager to be rid of her, too assuring. Still, she couldn't very well demand to storm into a wealthy man's property off dread and foreboding alone. With knitted brow and a tight frown she had just turned away to resume her rounds when she heard a thudded shattering of tiles.
This was followed by a murderous battle cry.

“Hark, Underelf!” Karsk called, caring nothing for the hour or the possibility for surprise. “I am Karskgorak fiend crusher, butcher of all things wicked! In who’s name do you kill tonight, and know that as of right now I intend to kill you.”

As her head whipped around to seek sight of the voice she half expected to see someone charging at her.
Instead she saw a hulking figure rampaging down a stairwell. Well... She supposed she couldn't ignore that.
Feyrith adjusted her sword as her belt and pursued the rampaging Orc.

For an Orc it had really been thundering into the cistern at great speed. By the time she arrived the Orc had found his query.
She had took a steadying breath an commanding in the most confident tone she could manage.
"Halt! This Area is under property of House Iskander. State your bu-"
Her words died away with a tight frown as the noise ahead of festivities reached her ears. Nobles were eccentrics indeed but the watch had been paid a little extra to keep an eye on the site due to it being unused. She had no intention of getting caught up in some idle festivity if it was only the eccentricity of a nobleman to play underground. If only it were that she could look away but there was something not very jovial at all about the noises echoing back. Something a little too familiar.

Zyndyrr K'yoshin
Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher

 

[Alicia Blackbolt]

Sounds of commotion reached Alicia - and the gathered assembly.

She tensed and hefted her crossbow, while the masked figures turned, glancing off to the other end of the cistern. The atmosphere of profane intimacy died with the music, shattered like fine glass. Her eyes found the band - a group of minstels hidden behind a curtain stretched between two columns, wild shadows thrown by candlelight.

One cultist wearing a horned mask grabbed a tall man in a like mask and robe. This imposing cultist wielded a staff shaped from the same wood that mounted the skull with glowing eyes.

"You said we would be alone tonight. What if someone--"

The staff-wielder freed himself of the other's grasp, then smoothed down his robe.

"Fret not, my dear lord Yskis." The heavy, silky voice that came from his mask was overly soft and consoling, dripping cloaked disdain. "It is likely but a drunkard who has stumbled his way here. Fortuitous, really. It will only hasten His return."

Alicia frowned. His 'return'? She hoped she had misheard.

The ceremonial proceedings took on an added fervour, as if each member could sense time running short. Masks lifted to drink deep from golden chalices filled with crimson liquid, toasts given to the glaring skull, and a half-dozen of stupified, naked people were dragged into their midst. Beggars and vagrants, they looked like, and Alicia recognised the sluggish movements of someone drugged.

What was this twisted performance? She wondered what they had promised these naked nitwits for them to have come here.

She overheard the two from before again, the one with the staff grabbing Yskis by his shoulder:

"And should there be any, hm, unwelcome guests here, I say we make them welcome. Our Lord will protect us - you will see, my dear fellow."

A pat on his back and he left him for the altar, his soft tones gainer a harder edge as he addressed them all.

"Bring me a volunteer. Pour your higher energies toward me, brothers and sisters. And I shall show you wonders, indeed."

One 'volunteer' was shoved forward, an old, mumbling man with a long beard, hands landing on the altar. The large bull skull wobbled and the old fellow insensibly raised his hands towards it, but a backhanded slap from the lead cultist deterred him. They forced his arm on the altar and drew a long, twisted kris, cutting deep, spiralling gashes into his arm. The man hardly protested, moaning weakly, eyes rolling madly in his skull with pain and delirium. A chanting drone rose from the cultists instead of the music before - its melody much simpler, primal and dark.

The lead cultist uttered a liturgy of words, staff raised at the skull with both hands.

"Lord Tathras! Master of the Ebon Maze, Deceiver of Starward Gods! We call upon you to increase your flock and speed your resurrection. Quench your thirst in this offering, oh Lord of Torments, and reveal your magnificence!"

Spoiler: Music

For a long, few moments, the chanting continued. In this period of time, Alicia's hopes of reaching the rubies dwindled - but perhaps these 'unwelcome guests' could afford her the distraction she needed. She was just about to leave her hiding spot for a more advantageous position, when she noticed something strange.

The water covering the cistern sizzled, as if multiple cooking fires had lit below the floor. A steamy mist rose from those waters - and the warmth of candlelight drained to a gray, graveyard gloom.

Her gaze drew back to the gathering, where the congregation shifted. Cultists now bent down towards the water, still chanting. They reached out for their mirror images in the water's surface, like children discovering their own reflections.

And the reflections reached back.

Impossibly, shadowy gray arms emerged from the boiling waters of the cistern, grasping mortal hands. Their touch scalded and burned flesh, the rancid smell of cooked meat intensifying, but the mortal cultists cried out in ecstastic pain and joy, and pulled these pale, shadow versions of themselves free regardless, inviting them into their world.

In this manner, a host of quasi-real wraiths emerged from the waters, faces hollow below their identical masks, twitching, clawed arms burned and crisp as if cooked in a cauldron.

They needed no orders - no gestures or directions. They floated leglessly above the waters, spreading out into the cistern and seeking prey to offer their glorious lord.

 

[Afanas]

Alicia Blackbolt
Zyndyrr K'yoshin
Feyrith
Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher
Emmeline Hildebrandt

Afanas ran with the red men at his back. Plate clinked. Boots rang. The night blew cold across his face. His eyes silvered and slit—chrome over coal, knives for pupils—and the world bled its secrets. Stone thinned. Sound sharpened. Heat pooled where it shouldn’t: below, in water.

“The assailants, my Lord?” a helm asked, all fangs and hammered sneer.

“Mortals,” he said. “And worse.” He felt the worse. He tasted it on the air like old coins sucked wet from a well.

He hit the wall shoulder-first. Marble cracked like ice on a spring river. Blocks jumped. Dust boiled. He went through with the crash and took the drop in a crouch, his weight splitting a flagstone when he landed. His knights poured after him, a red tide with chalk-white faces and rune-bitten steel.

A shade came with hiss and heat.

Afanas's sword leapt first.

It sprang from the scabbard on his back, no hand on the grip, turned in air, and took the thing across the middle. Black light climbed the fuller. The edge sang. It cut the shade once, neat as bread, and flew through the fall. Another brushed close. The sword took its wrist, then the head, and kept the line.


The red helms answered with work. One locked a ghost to his boss. Another split it clean with a long sabre. A pair in dragon-faced visors made a door of shields and held it, step by iron step. Where claws found gaps, steel held. Where heat licked plate, old glyphs turned it aside.

Steam rose. Water trembled. Afanas set his will and the blade slid to meet it. He cut the boil to ribbons. Sparks skittered on stone. He set his weight; the floor complained.

“Press,” he said. “Stay tight.”

 

[Zyndyrr K'yoshin]

In the tunnels above the chamber

Spoiler: Music OOC

Damn. It seemed that this giant lumbering man at his back was determined to be a nuisance. Zyndyrr figured he could outrun the lumberjack with the sword or axe or whatever the orc preferred. However, his pursuer had proven to be unperturbed by the fire. No matter. The drow wasn’t one to be undeterred. He was also no man to be undone.

Dragon’s breath and mountain’s blood. “What’s that, proud son!?” Zyn scoffed as he jogged on. “You’ve got bad breath and pounded your mum!?” He didn’t care if his opponent wasn’t scared. Anger was better than fear at the moment. Though hopefully there were no others to contend with. The drow didn’t want to be surrounded by idiots.

Just then, burning coals scorched toward Zyndyrr. Figures. However, he ran fast and far enough ahead for said coals to scatter behind his feet without reaching him. Unfortunately for him, he could not afford to have this brainless orc ruin his operation. The assassin had a contract to fulfill.

“Come, then!” Hilts in hands at his hips. Music filled the tunnels below, stranger by the second. Yet, for the moment, Zyndyrr had more urgent business. He wasn’t interested in being this orc’s slayer but would not let him reach the door of his mark’s chamber.

“Bring your roaring flames, orc!” The drow called across the floor, turning his enemy’s way and drawing his swords from their scabbards. Scimitars scraped against wood and leather. “I’ll use them to burn your ugly face after my blades carve it apart!”

Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher
Alicia Blackbolt Emmeline Hildebrandt Feyrith Afanas

 

[Alicia Blackbolt]

The mighty crash of stone tore Alicia's attention away from the cultists. She climbed as far up the base of the column as it would let her, gaining an overview.

At the far end of the cistern, a distinctly familiar host of rattling, red armours caught her sight. And an even more familiar shape marched ahead of them, dressed all in black like walking midnight, disturbingly idiosyncratic with his wide-brimmed hat, armed with a blade as long as her tally of sins.

The knight commander of Alliria's guardsmen. Some people called him a bloodsucker cloaked in rank, while others named him a walking steel revenant, an iron fist of the law. In other words, a huge pain in her rear.

Ghouls, guards, and gibbering gentlemen. It was as if all her worst nightmares had decided to mingle tonight for the same party.

"Oh, to hell with this," she muttered, just as a hollow-mouthed spectre drifted below her, almost spotting her dark form.

"Oh, by the hells!" someone echoed her sentiment, and she recognised lord Yskis from before, hands raising to his mask in a surprisingly human gesture of distress. "We are discovered! We must--we must make away, ensure none see our faces."

His voice added to the general panic of the cultists, many other affirming voices mingling with him. But a braying laughter cut through them like a knife, and the staff-wielder forced their attention upon him:

"Have you so little faith in your new, ascended lord? I told you before - this will only hasten His arrival! There will be more sanguine wine for his altar. Look!"

He pointed towards the small army, and Alicia's head turned with the other cultists. Indeed, it seemed more shapes were wriggling free of the waters. Not as fast as the first wraiths, whom the cultists had aided in their arrival. But nonetheless, new forms, like papery imitations of those who treaded the waters, laboriously pulled themselves free.

Her fingers reached for her hip-belt, pulling free a smooth, dark stick split in half by an indentation. At the same time as her hands cranked and primed the smokestick, her mind reached a firm decision.

She would stay away from the water. And since those cultists didn't seem to leave her treasure . . . perhaps it was time to make some room.

Flinging the stick, it sailed through the air, a plume of smoke in its wake. When it hit their island, it crackled like fireworks, the alchemical compounds within it violently mixing. A throat-gouging, thick smoke ballooned among the cultists, drenching them in obscurity. Coughing and screaming echoed from them. Only the red Eyes of Tathras managed to pierce through her manufactured cloud, demonic gaze seeming to fix her with a deadly stare.

She stared back at it. To her, it was of no concern whether her obstacles were mortal or otherwise. Danger remained danger. And far as she knew, demons needed eyes to see as well.

Opening her quiver case, her fingertips found a velvety and wide swan-feather, pulling free a thick-shafted bolt with a strange, multi-linked head.

Time to claim her prize.

 

[Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher]

“Bring your roaring flames, orc!” The drow called across the floor, turning his enemy’s way and drawing his swords from their scabbards. Scimitars scraped against wood and leather. “I’ll use them to burn your ugly face after my blades carve it apart!”

As soon as the words left the young Drow’s mouth he was slammed into by 390lbs of charging Orc. Karsk had not stopped when Zyn turned to stand his ground, seeing no reason to give up the momentum that was built by running down the stairs.

The two tumbled down the remaining steps and into the main Cistern chamber, with Karsk trying to grab onto his prey’s collar and Zyn needing to hold tight to his scimitars lest they be flung from his hands.

Several of the remaining cultists gasped at the sight as a trio of wraiths flew towards the entrance with haunting wails and shrieking breaths.

Back across the cistern, Karsk had Zyn in a pin against the ground. The orc had the drow’s lower half straddled, with his chest held down by scar covered arms. There wasn’t much hope for Zyn to escape as Karsk stared down with a devious grin across his face.

“Impressive for a killer to show even a drop of bravery! Yet what is a drop, in the presence of AN OCEAN?!”

Karsk pulled back one of his arms with his hand clenched into a fist. but, before he could throw a devastating punch, one of the wraiths swiped at Karsk’s shoulder with its long ethereal claws.

Karsk recoiled as his shoulder hissed like a slab of bacon tossed onto a pan. He tried to swat away the wraith with his hand but it felt as if the blow simply passed through the wraith just as much as it was struck.

“Vile spirits from beyond the mortal realm!” Karsk exclaimed.

Another wraith came forward with claws outstretched. Karsk swung again, but this time a flowing white glow enveloped his hand. This punch blew away a chunk of the wraith as it howled in unexpected pain.

“My hands burn with justice fiend! A legacy of those who came before that reject blights such as you!”

 

[Feyrith]

From beyond the flames Feyrith heard shouts that sounded very little like halting.
She would have liked to put the flame out seeing as it felt a neglect of duty to ignore it. Alas dealing with whatever the two trespassers were doing seemed a higher priority, and finding out what in the hells might be happening below seemed even higher priority than that. She hopped through the flaming obstruction and came immediately upon the sight of an Orc hurtling into a drow. The bold and foolish move flung both of them below into the chamber.

There was only a momentary pause in Feyrith's step as she frowned at the now open chamber door. The Orc's shouts again echoed up at her. She might have sighed if she wasn't filled with unease.
She unsheathed her sword and stepped cautiously down the stairs after them.

She was met with a scene of yet more than a simple bit of vandalism. She had to applaud the tenacity of the Orc. His focus seemed lacking but she couldn't deny that seeing a wraith take damage to a bare fist was impressive.
She entered a warding stance imbuing her weapon with moonlight. Feyrith drew forward to take up a defensive stance beside the Orc with her warded blade.
Her face hard set knowing that ,even imbued as it was, her blade may as well have been a bread knife against this matter of creature.
"What in the hells is going on down here...."
She grumbled through grit teeth and swung on an encroaching claw. The sword connected but only knocked the long claw away rather than slicing it's incorporeal flesh. It was progress. Albeit it confirmed that she too might have inelegantly bludgeon the dark winded spirit to death.

Behind the wraiths (and a little through them) the cistern was filled with a haze. Not even her dark keen eyes could cut the haze fully. Unnatural. Even without seeing it in clear detail, she could tell there was a commotion of some kind going on. Panicked noises were bouncing off the marble.

Zyndyrr K'yoshin
Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher

 

[Petrus Ritus Iskandar]

House Iskandar



The commotion caused by the various flavors of ne'er-do-wells intruding on House Iskandar property had not gone unnoticed. This, of course, did not include the lord command Afanas and the hired sellsword Feyrith as she was in the House's employ. Those selfsame guards she had approached earlier had not rested on their laurels upon her passing and had, instead, reported this incident to more well-equipped soldiery to address the trespassers.

Spoiler: House Iskandar Soldier

The loud, distinct clatter of heavily armored footfalls would be added to the din of combat and mayhem. Of screamed threats and challenging swears. A dozen men, eight of which were armed with broad shields and halberds and four with pavise shields and crossbows, and each of them bearing enchanted gauntlets, would march toward the sound of danger, violence.... and lawlessness with what promised to be ample reinforcements for the lord commander's own. Though they had not arrived yet the ample glow of their combined torchlight and far-from-shy barked orders left no room for doubt that they would arrive within a few moments.

The mice, it seemed, had played a bit too loudly while the cat was away. For now down here came the claws.


Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher
Alicia Blackbolt
Zyndyrr K'yoshin
Emmeline Hildebrandt​

 

[Afanas]

Alicia Blackbolt
Petrus Ritus Iskandar
Feyrith
Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher
Zyndyrr K'yoshin
Emmeline Hildebrandt

Spoiler: OOC music

The Blood-Knights locked shields. Red plate rasped. Dragon-faces glowered from etched steel. They moved as one. Slow steps. Tight ranks. Fel-blades rose and fell, neat and sure, pruning whatever reached, shade or man alike.

Afanas stood at the fore. Hat low. Eyes silver and slit. His sword drifted near, point eager. A wraith surged; the blade slipped through it, crown to groin, and its shriek went thin and empty.

“The island,” Afanas said. He did not shout. His voice cut. “The altar. Break it.”

“Advance,” he said to the line. “By the step.” The wall obeyed. Boss met boss. Edges worked. The red tide crept toward the water.

Afanas dropped to a knee. Fingers stabbed the floor. Stone yielded like curds. He found the seam and tore. A flagstone came free—man-long, half a man thick. He rose under its weight. His hat flew. He did not look back.

He heaved.

The slab spun. Dust trailed it like a comet’s veil. Torchlight struck its edges and ran in brief flares. It sailed over the black water, low and true, the air holding its breath as it went—toward the island and the waiting altar.

 

[Alicia Blackbolt]

"I hear them!" Lord Yskis wailed, head turning and searching for an exit he couldn't find. "They're coming! They're all coming! Gods have mercy on us, this is--"

The flagstone smashed into the panicking cultist, turning him into a bloody smear against the stones. It careened further into the altar, scattering a flurry of candles, their lights dying in the smoke.

The red-eyed skull wobbled. Alicia's crossbow sights, trained on its wooden neck, shifted to follow it. But before she could fire, the whole cranium fell and clattered to the floor. A single ruby plopped out of its socket, rolling towards the end of the island.

"Shit, bollocks, piss--"

Her stunted swearwords left her in venomous hisses. In a snap decision, she decided to aim her thief-hand bolt straight at the rolling ruby instead. The bloody gem was probably too big for the retractable claws of her bolt to fix, but damnit, she had to try!

She fired, and while her aim was true, the claws failed to grasp the ruby. It did, however, knock the whole thing in a different trajectory, like striking a billiard ball. Unfortunately, this particular ball happened to roll further into the cloud of panicking cultists.

The boils on her face twisted painfully with her infuriated gurn. Damnable Lady Luck.

The rope to her bolt grew taught - likely caught in someone's leg in the cloud. She pulled out a saw-toothed knife from her boot and cut the line. Slinging her crossbow over her shoulder, she hefted the rope, and gave herself as much of a running start as the base of the column allowed her, pulling in the rope to afford her more forward momentum.

A mighty leap later, landing and rolling over her shoulder on the hard flagstones, she found herself on the island. Bewildered feet thudded around her, and the confusing silhouettes of several cultists stumbled past.

She had to be quick. The smokestick would only last for so long.

Hunting the loose ruby, she found it by its red light, its glow already dimming. A stray foot kicked it further towards the center. She bit her lip and pursued the cursed gemstone, weaving between flailing arms and fluttering robes. Once her hand landed on it, she quickly scooped it into her pack, and whirled, seeking its twin. The other ruby was still stuck in the cranium - now a felled, one-eyed beast.

Her focus on the last ruby left her open to the vice-grip that suddenly caught her wrist, shooting a jolt of fright through her.

"What have we here? A black fox in our midst?"

She recognised the heavy, silken voice of the leader - and the blood in her arm burned with his touch, his grip tightening. Immediately, she whipped out the saw-toothed knife again, but before she could thrust it into his groin, the agony of his touch intensified. The heat scalded through her leather, burning her skin, shooting shards of pain through her veins. Alicia collapsed with a snarl, the knife dropping from her hand.

"Your fangs mean nothing to us, vixen." He toppled her with a mighty pull towards the obscured altar, her feet dragging after her. "But your blood shall serve nicely. I need another charitable soul."

While Alicia was about to forcibly donate her young blood to Tathras, the removal of one gem had a curious effect. The creatures summoned out of the waters seemed to weaken, wailing and writhing as if struggling to retain their existence. Many of the cultists sought an escape, attempting to run past the increasing multitude of guards and other intruders. If stopped, they would resist before their identities could be unmasked, which would be as good as death for many of them.

Afanas
Petrus Ritus Iskandar
Feyrith
Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher
Zyndyrr K'yoshin
Emmeline Hildebrandt

 

[Zyndyrr K'yoshin]

Spoiler: Music OOC

“—Carve it apart!” And, like that, the drow found the dark and the ground with an audible “GAH!” It was impossible to stop the orc. Sure, Zyndyrr was strong if short for his elven kin, though it was evident that he was no match for the strength of his foe. So he tumbled into the deep and landed in the rubble and the heap.

A cacophony came of moans and groans, of chants that were as distant as the sea, the clinking of plate and screeching of chain, and everything in between that made Zyndyrr remember that this was no dream. Into the cistern chamber, it seemed, but not knocked unconscious despite his enemy’s efforts.

“This is no ocean,” Zyn corrected his opponent, words spoken in a tone as composed as a quiet lake with no wind or wave. “It’s a sewer.” Just then, violence came but not from the drow on the ground. However, the latter watched as the former, the orc, was scraped by a wraith.

Curious creatures. Like sharks, however, their curiosity came in the form of carving apart whoever was in their path to better get to know them. Weapons. Thoughts beckoned. The orc, or what was honestly a far too talkative fool, was busy dealing with the things coming from the pool.

“My hands burn with justice fiend! A legacy—”

But before his enemy could finish his words they might be cut short. Finding the hilts of his scimitars at either side of his form on the floor, the son of K’yoshin became the shark in the ocean. He swung his head upward first to crash against his opponent’s. The orc had strength, yes, but both had toughness.

Then, swiping his blades in either direction, Zyn attempted to break the wraiths who faced them. Creating space once the orc was removed from his person, Zyndyrr was determined to treat with the others too.

Not those defenders in this chaos, whether loners or a part of some force against this darkness. Rather, simply anyone who got in the way of him and the target he came to prey on. There you are. Not bothering with twirling his swords in a flourish, the drow found the cultist with a skull-staff and advanced.

That was when the wraiths began to retract from their attack, creating an equally crazed scene where other cultists began to break away and escape. Feet danced beyond the rock of guards and the stones of those at the flanks. No matter to Zyndyrr. He would carve apart those in his way one way or the other.

Blades became a hurricane. This scimitar cut through that one’s stomach. That scimitar cut through this one’s neck. Anything and everything to get them out of his sight so that he could claim his prize. Stopped? Not quite. He didn’t care about their identities. They were just enemies for his blades like more wraiths.

Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher Alicia Blackbolt Emmeline Hildebrandt Feyrith Afanas Petrus Ritus Iskandar

 

[Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher]

As karsk defended himself against the swarming wraiths he suddenly found himself being headbutted by the drow he had chased down into the cistern. The only injury that came from the headbutt was a small cut on the underelf’s chin from Karsk’s orcish fangs.

Karsk immediately thought to return the favor, but before he could the drow had slipped away and charged forward into a pack of wraiths.

“Poor fool, he must be taken by madness!”

Just then another drow ran up beside Karsk, a female one armed with a sword which she swung at a couple of the wraiths.

“Good evening miss! There is a murderer here who must die in the name of justice.”

Karsk pointed at the male drow who was wildly swinging his scimitars. “As you can tell he has gone completely insane, but might I trouble you with killing him if he does not succumb to the evil spirits whom he has chosen to throw himself against?”

Before she could answer, Karsk was already dashing off, taking swings at wraiths as he rushed towards the dark pool. “I shall focus on the otherworldly threats! Such is the way of a Yaegir after all! Gya hahahaha!”

Meanwhile, the blood from the crushed cultists had begun to pour into the darkened pool. With one of the ritual’s crystals removed as well, the portal which had been manifested was starting to destabilized. Something else from a dark beyond was now stirring beneath the water.

 

[Emmeline Hildebrandt]

Dancing among the wraiths and other mercenaries and sell-swords was a talent Emma knew well. Though her blades lacked enchantment, it was the pure silver that saved her hide as they cut through intangible spirit. A smirk twitched the corners of her mouth upward and she kept to herself, though a glance was cast Feyrith’s way in admiration for the other woman’s grace. Clumsiness on the battlefield was dangerous and her fellow Noct’s unceremonious plowing into the drow had not gone unnoticed in their descent.

The guards that House Iskander unleashed upon them were the sort of threat that Emma loathed. Corporeal threats meant murder, and no matter the wrong a death was still a death. It caused her pain and grief to take another life, but curiosity had led her to follow these sell-swords and the rumors and phantasms that she’d already seen proved that she was where she needed to be at this time. If it meant blood must be spilled, if it meant she might find her brother, then so be it.

While Afanas snagged a flagstone and boils erupted on Alicia, one of the guards caught Emmeline by surprise, driving into her shield bash and knocking her into a nearby wall. He shouldn't have been so stealthy. She shouldn't have been that easily distracted by the commotion. She was trained better than that. The Noct Yaegir swordswoman grunted, biting back the cry that threatened to leave her mouth for fear that it might distract the others; she was not one to draw attention to herself.

Instead, her pale green eyes glanced beyond the guard's opposite shoulder as she tried to peer through the rest of the battle to gauge the field. She needed to advance once more, to find purchase again and balance. This guard only disabled her temporarily. Wiggling the shoulder he smashed out from under the board, she eased out from beneath him and twisted.

"You'll have to try harder than that," the woman hissed at the guard before she pushed off of the wall. Both blades were brought to upward, a glint in her eyes that could almost be called malicious surfacing before she danced. She made quick work, twin blades seeking every weak spot she could find in the guard's armor. And when she was done with that, and his blood joined in with the others in the pool, her pale gaze moved toward the altar in to watch in horror as the pool began to bubble.

"What." Nothing else made it past the woman's pale, lips. Her arms still stood at the ready, and she approached the edge of the dark bubbling liquid with caution, her gaze turning toward Alicia. Even with the pool destabilized, the Noct Yaegir woman was not ready to turn tail and depart. The stirring waters hinted at more danger. Her gaze turned to the orc, and she echoed, "Such is the way of the Yaegir."

 

[Feyrith]

In the midst of the looming threat of wraiths the Orc found time to yell quite a bit of strange nonsense.
She had initially assumed it was some anti-drow sentiment but it seemed that wasn't the case. It was some sort of personal grudge? Murder was a morally subjective term for someone of Feyrith's upbringing. Even reconciling old notions against her new role and life on the surface, such judgements weren't something she made on hearsay. Nor did she dole justice based on her thoughts alone.
So his booming assertions fell on deaf ears and perplexed expression. She hadn’t even time to answer before he was thundering off again.

There was no way to describe the events unfolding in the cistern as anything other than madness and chaos.
Was that the lord commander Afanas 's voice ecchoing from the other side of the cistern? She could just make out the brilliant red through the haze. What confusing web she had stumbled into.
Another woman was cutting through the wraith's ahead of them rather well. Her blade must have been silver. Something Feyrith was only mimicking with her blades enchantment.
She watched as the otherworldly fog was cut with fleeing figures and valiant efforts to thin the wraiths. Her ear caught before she witnessed the approach of reinforcements from hour Iskander.
Feyrith felt a pull to make some effort to stop some of them, but as her eyes traced the path of the fellow drow striking a path, she saw something which stirred her to action.
More than the masked participants potentially escaping justice, or the horrors bubbling forth, it was a single prone woman that urged Feyrith to move. There may perhaps have been no saving the woman from their fate on the altar. Yet the sight of a masked figure ready to draw blood for the sacrifice and the woman's struggle provoked some long since burried ire.

Her boots no longer planted she cut through to follow suit behind the others who had already advanced.
She ignored the wraith's unless blocking her path and dodged around the fleeing cultists to swiftly direct her quiet fury at the cultist standing over the altar. Her eyes burning with a cold anger.
Her confusion cleared in her pursuit to intersect between the woman on the alter and drive her sword into the cultust who placed said woman there.
Her blade moving as if for the singular purpose of separating the cultist's


Emmeline Hildebrandt
Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher
Zyndyrr K'yoshin
Alicia Blackbolt

 

[Afanas]

Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher
Emmeline Hildebrandt
Feyrith
Zyndyrr K'yoshin
Alicia Blackbolt

"The altar is broken. The greater daemon they've tried clawing out of pandemonium won't manifest. We should be out of immediate danger," he said, to no one in particular.

Cobalt split the dark. Afanas flashed—here, then there—like a blade of blue light. Space pinched; distance shrank; he went through the wraith-wall, not around it. The phantoms tore like smoke.

His sword sang that crooning note, a throat-deep ululation that set teeth on edge. Blacklight wrapped the steel and thickened the edge. The blade hovered by his shoulder like a hawk at glove, hungry and still. It dipped, then rose. It trimmed one shrieker to ribbons and left no weight on the air.

He flashed again—short, sharp, exact. Blue strobe touched stone; cracks winked; rivulets shivered along the floor. Afterimages hung like chains of ghost-script, then faded. He landed between Emmeline and Karskgorak in a single tight blink. Cloak snapped. Boots bit wet stone. Magic bled off his skin in a thin cobalt haze.

Afanas's hovering blade whirled the instant he landed. It slipped past his cheek and crossed Emmeline’s guard. Silver met blacklight—and gave nothing back. The edge went through near the hilt of her sword, clean and mute: no ring, no scrape, no spark. Metal parted like still water and she was left with one less weapon to defend herself with.

"A warning. Stab another one of my men, and I'll open you from groin to chin and feed you your own entrails."

 

[Petrus Ritus Iskandar]

Finally the armored footfalls of reinforcements would make it to the cistern. Gold-on-black armor, thick and broad shields, polearms and crossbows, would be put to use picking off and safely stonewalling any of the cultists who attempted to flee. None of the troops of House Iskandar set foot wholly into the water of the room, instead acting as living plate-clad barricades to the exits in tight, interlocked formations of shields emblazoned with the golden sun of the House.

The first and most pressing matter that the squad sergeant noticed was aiding and providing covering crossbow fire for the Lord Commander. Afanas hardly needed the assistance but the sergeant surmised that any favor he could earn the House, or himself for that matter, from such a man was worth adding to the vampire's deadly tally.

As a woman unknown to the sergeant was heard to kick and scream, dragged toward an altar, two of the crossbowmen would, when having a clear shot, level their crossbows. However Feyrith was faster, cleaving the cultist to sacrifice one Alicia Blackbolt and instead their bolts found another cultist who lunged for their hired ally. Piercing his chest and safeguarding Feyrith, one even motioning to the mercenary that she could take shelter within their phalanx should she wish.

The battling of the orc, the other drow, and the wraiths was largely ignored. Only the sergeant possessed an enchanted blade and he was not over-eager to risk his life in sole combat with a spectre. But what arrested his attention as he looked for, frankly, anything else to do, was one strange woman Emmeline Hildebrandt slicing down one of the Lord-Commander's red guard. Surprise, concern and then anger in that order pulsed through the sergeant like a heated wave. The red helms were notorious soldiers and seeing one of them sliced down in the Lord-Commander's very presence made the sergeant concerned that the green-eyed woman was more dangerous than perhaps even the wraiths.

Caution overtook duty for this moment as he instead ordered his men to continue containing the cultists, to fire on them when able through the tumult, but kept a wary eye on the Lord-Commander for his reaction to what had just transpired.

Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher
Zyndyrr K'yoshin​

 

[Alicia Blackbolt]

Just as the lead cultist was about to plunge his blade into Alicia, another blade punched through him instead.

First she heard the dull squelch, then fleshy puncture, as steel found ribs. She felt no pain, half expecting the sound to originate from her. Peering up, she saw him drop his dagger and fiddle at his chest with his hands, as if he had lost some amulet.

The end of his search came when the tip of the sword speared through his solar plexus. Blood peppered her hood, and behind him, a silver-haired figure with pale, purple skin, rose like his final shadow. Twist, yank and splatter, and the assassin freed her blade, while the cultist stumbled upon his overturned altar, gasping and wheezing for life.

Alicia rose like a cat finding its feet, staring at the dark elf. For indeed, that was what she thought her to be. Long and graceful as her blade, motions a deadly dance.

"Thanks," she said to her strange saviour, biting the word with grudging admission. She didn't get much farther in her gratitude before the cultist gurgled, choking on his own blood. Took her a spell to recognise the sounds for strained laughter.

"I would have preferred the blood of another . . . hah . . . but . . . I suppose this will have to do. . ."

Smearing his bloodied hand on the overturned skull, he whispered a dark incantation with his last, mortal breath.

Magic sizzled of such high arcana it would claim either life, sanity or soul. Possibly all three.

The singular red orb glared, before its light transferred through his fingertips, forming a long string of translucent, crimson beads of tiny glyphs, travelling over his arm like armies of glowing ants.

He ripped open his robe, and his generous flesh twisted into spiralling knots, wringing out agonised and inhuman screams, impossible for his collapsed lungs. Then, his flesh re-knitted itself into new formations, as an unholy force bulged through, cracking and enlarging bone and meat into new structures.

Alicia stepped back in horror, slowly drawing her crossbow from her back. The cultist now towered above them, all while hunched over himself. New appendages burst from his sides with sickly cracks. Six fingers opened with eerie grace from each, long-limbed arm, like petals of some unholy flower. White eyes flared soullessly through his once-masked orbs, finding Alicia and Feyrith with a dim flickering of pupil-less eyes. Horns and bony protrusions spat through his back, engorging it and tearing away any last shreds of clothes, leaving him dressed in nothing but some demonic kilt and malice.

The infernal figure towered above them, each of its hands tracing different signs, like a hydra's independent heads. Its jaw opened with a long, drawn-out hiss, revealing rows upon rows of shark's teeth, a breath of blood and ash breezing their way.


Alicia paled, then hissed almost as vehemently to Feyrith:

"Could you kill him again?"

Afanas
Feyrith
Petrus Ritus Iskandar
Emmeline Hildebrandt
Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher
Zyndyrr K'yoshin