PrP: Blood From Stone
Log Info
- Title: Blood From Stone
- Emitter: Lenore,
- Characters: Ormud (Rog2)* Virton (Art4)* Niara (Swb5)* Ezekiel (Inq2)* Arnora (Ftr5)* Jokul (Ftr5)*
- Place: Deephowl Ravine - Redridge Mountains - Alexandria
- Time: May 4, 2016
- Summary: There are things that wizards should not tinker with, and tinkerers should not entertain. There has been a call to aid put out for a hermit wizard in the northern reaches of Alexandria, stating that he has made a 'most tragic error' and is unable to rectify this mistake, for reasons not mentioned.
- APL: 4
- Encounter 1: CR9, 3 Crimson Basilisks
ST:
You've seen the bodies, with their parchment thin and stretched-taut skin; pale and streaked with bloody tears that have by now turned to rusty trenches burrowed from every opening. The withered skin pulls the jaws open as though they were screaming, but there is no sound, and less that remains of what life may once have been. Their eyelids have been sewn shut, but still the eyes bulge beyond them, straining against the reinforced skin as though they would burst free to witness that which they've been missing in the days since they last woke.
Their limbs are curled as though in atrophy, and they have done their very best to bend their bodies into a fetal position by force, frozen in a perpetual seek for comfort that obviously never arrived. The priests of the Vardamite Temple in Alexandria have been preparing the bodies for their rites, doing their best to clean their faces and dress them in funeral gowns, grim-faced practitioners of the arts tending what knicks and tears remain visible beyond the cloth.
"It is not undead." A Priestess informs those gathered, her eyes cast down to one of the bodies on a stone slab, both equally as cold, a frown tugging at the corners of her mouth. "And I know of no religious ritual that could result in..." She pulls a sheet of fabric up over the man's howling face reverently, placing her hand just about where his forehead would be, nodding down at it. "This."
There is a moment of silence before she continues, moving away from the body and guiding the group toward the exit of the temple as she speaks. "If you wish an opinion, I believe it is animals, or... disease. I worry that it might spread, if such is the case, like a plague. We must know what did this. Please." She digs around in her satchel, withdrawing a map before handing it over. "This is the map of the survivalists that found their bodies," She opens it, running a fingertip over a red marked trail, "In Deephowl Ravine, right... here." She circles it with her finger, tapping it a few times before refolding it and handing it off to whomever's taking it. "With haste. If this is a disease, we must get ahead of it." With that, she turns and paces hurriedly back into the Temple, the bells overhead giving a thundrous chiming as it tolls for the fallen housed within.
There is, of course, a wagon awaiting our adventurers to take them out toward the ravine. It's pleasant, if dry and a bit too warm, a breeze sweeping in off the mountain range to make it more bearable as they venture on. It's not long before their destination is reached and they are bid farewell for now by the driver as he explains that the path is too narrow for him to go any further, but it's barely half a mile to the mouth of the ravine. It is steep, and shaded, uneven and difficult terrain to maneuver, but the party will manage. After all, they're adventurers.
Nay. They are -heroes-.
Arnora has her helm off so she can drink steadily from a skin full of ale "Bet it is some fucking wizard" she mutters after another long swallow "If I end up with a fucking plague I will be well pissed" the short but hefty dwarf adds
"Guess we're on foot, then." The mercenary emerged from beneath his tipped-down hat for the first time since they'd left. Ormud secured his pack over his shoulder, yawned, and stretched luxuriously in the warmth of the sun before he stood expectantly waiting for the others to finish their preparations for the approach.
"You have a problem with wizards, don'tcha?" questions Virton as they're aboard the wagon. Plague doesn't bother the Golem entirely too much from a personal point of view -- after all, it's not as if he's got any skin to get boils or anything, but he has ensured that his personal contraption kit of healing dosages for his fellow adventuring flesh-sacks is kept primed and ready. As well as old betsie. Old betsie being the Thunderbelcher that's poking out of his torn, burnt, ragged, gore-stained, goo-stained, oil-stained and tattered poncho, that somehow still has bright patches of colour flowing off of it.
With the stop of the wagon, he heaves himself off. "Alright, thanks, son. You best be keepin' yer distance for now, since none of us are to be knowin' what's goin' on up round these parts just yet. We'll be headin' back along this path anyways, so you just find yourself a nice spot around here to sit an' wait. Reos keep ya." He buzzes, before rolling his right shoulder - the joint still creaking from the encounter with those hopping kung-fu-monstrosities of furious-fighting. "Dang joint."
Niara went along with the others, her cloak up, mostly for warmth, but it isn't hiding her dark skin and silver hair. SHe shakes her head, "No clue what this might be, maybe it is something as simple as what the priest said." she shakes her head again.
"Can ya blame her?" Jokul's voice comes from the back of the wagon, where he's sat down with his massive sword turned facing-up and clutched with bboth arms to be leaned against himself. " What with all the shit that they can manage sometimes, just because they're 'curious'. Good ones out there, too, but still. Lotta them can earn a good punching. Or slicing.
When the wagon comes to a stop, he does tumble his way up and off of the thing along with everyone else, sword turned to being clutched with just one hand by the tilt, but still held upwards and propped along his shoulder. "Whatever it is, we just do what we always do. We find it, we finish it off, get paid."
What party would be complete without some sort of healer, investigator... you know, no one is ever certain what Ezekiel is. The man pulls at his collar, bringing it up to his chin while he looks over the body with those sharp eyes. "Disease, perhaps," he says softly. His mind whirls as he stares at the bodies, head tilting very slightly. "Not a spell that I'm familiar with."
Arnora drops down out of the wagon and takes a last long swallow from her skin. Securing that away she closes her stone visor of her armor and pulls out her shield and huge axe. She manages the latter in one hand as she moves towards the front "Of course I do. Can't trust a fucking wizard aye"
ST:
Sun filters down through the trees, the wind picking up as the adventurers make their way into the ravine proper; as it whistles through the valley below, it lets out a wailing moan that tells the tale of where this place got its name. The leaves above rustle and flit about in shadows across their meandering forms as they traverse the rocky, unstable path heading down, down, down...
The sounds of birds of prey crying above only add a punctuation of desolation to the red-rocked area, the whispering of the leaves masking what animals might skitter about in thick underbrush with their idle murmuring. As the group is nearing the bottom, however, some ways down the more perceptive of the group will notice a shifting in the underbrush and a scrabbling of something over tiny rocks that fall with a near silent bounce the rest of the way into the valley before splashing into a tiny river that is in dire need of refreshing, almost completely dried out as it is.
There is also a soft hissing, like air escaping a tire, that Ezekiel and Ormud are acutely aware of, behind the party.
"Over there, a noise." Ormud, indicated with a jut of his head and its accompanying dusty leather hat as he limbered the bow from amongst his equipment and threaded an arrow cautiously and prepared to fire if something threatened the group.
Niara just moves along with the others, not really paying attention at the moment to what might be around them, mostly focusing on what is ahead. She turns as the mention is made, "A what?"
Ezekiel narrows his brows at the sound and opens his mouth to speak before snapping it shut as Ormud makes mention of it before he does. He raises a finger to his lips, the universal sign of silence.
On cue, Virton once again doesn't hear nothin', doesn't know nothin', doesn't see nothin' and won't be sayin' nothin'. He could be in a criminal organization for how little he knows or see's. Especially considering he's going to be some sort of adventurer, or is trying to be. His footfalls clunk along as he paces, head turning from left to right until someone mentions the location of a noise. He comes to a stop, head turning as the rest of his body follows, until he comes to a complete stop. He peers. "I don't see nothin', folks."
He does, however, take out a small aerosol can and begins to spray the air before tossing the canister aside, as it crinkles and dissolves before flaking away into small bits of ash. "But I don't see nothin' most of the time.."
Arnora falls silent as something is seemingly spotted. She moves towards it, showing a fair amount of grace for a dwarf under that weight of stone plate and arsenal of weaponry. Of course she is -not- equally silent, but her eyes are watchful under the helm.
ST:
Boss music!
It's only moments after Ormud makes mention of the sound that two large, reptillian, crimson-scaled creatures fire their clunky bodies out of the bushes, their fat bodies not waddling nearly so much as they should with that girth. Great tails whip around behind them as eight legs carry them forward, eyes glowing a brilliant blue as the spines along their back lift and shiver in anticipation. From the opposing side of the path comes one more, flanking in the group with a hunter's grace.
Clever ... girls?
A quiet curse passes Ezekiel's lips as the creatures burst from the bushes. He whispers a quiet word of the divine, skin shimmering with white motes that absorb into his skin, bringing life to his otherwise pale skin.
Ormud loosed an arrow at the closest one as it surged out of the underbrush. He seemed to judge the effort of fighting them in close quarters wit h the weapon futile and immediately went for the basket hilt of his rapier.
"Oh hells. I don't know what them things are, but they sure don't look nice."
Comes the stunning realization of Virton. His cannon has already snapped up onto his shoulder, and as his hands come up to brace the cannon, a small nozzle extends where normally there would be crackling energies, there is a sudden stream of obnoxiously green-glowing goo -- which coats Bas3 and leaves it suddenly stuck to the ground as it begins to harden.
Arnora's armora clatters as the steps up towards the nearest reptile thing. A nasty grin crosses her face under her helm "Run back tae yer momma ye scaley fuck" she says as she slams her axe into it. It seems a solid hit but the thing takes it.
"WHOA THERE!" Jokul growls when a lizard... thing? comes right at him, and he just has the time to unslung his massive sword from his shoulder, bracing one hand against one blunt side of the blade when it's directed into the way of one of the incoming stabby limbs. "You little shi--" He growls at the thing and pushes at his sword to knock the thing back with it just long enough that he can grasp his weapon's hilt with both hands and bring it into a spinning motion that guides the wide, massive blade of his sword into the creature in an arc from below.
Niara moves towards the creature that was goo'ed. She pulls her scimitar as she moves and whips it around slashing into, the blade crackling with electricity.
ST:
What is this nonsense?
It can't move.
The beast seems momentarily confused by the situation it's found itself in, all eight of its legs straining and stretching at the goopy mess that's stuck it to the ground. It snaps its jaws, wails its head around in frustration, and stops only when the arrow clatters nearby, its piercing gaze turning sharply toward Ormud. It would be intimidating, where it not sticky-pasted to the rocky underbelly of the ravine.
Oh wait. It's still...
Ormud begins to ooze blood from his eyes, nose, and gurgles up a crimson froth that forces a staggering, wracking cough as his body begins withering beneath the wounding stare of the reptillian beast, like the man-flu washing over him in some crippling, soul-draining fatigue that leaves his health suspect.
Another is struck by Arnora, fresh deep black blood oozing from the wound as the blade manages to get its way between some of the broad, red scales. In retort, the great beast turns its massive head and opens wide to bite down on the heavily armoured dwarf, a teeth-numbing screech heard as their fangs pierce the metal to dig deep and seek the fleshy meaty bits below. And then, it begins to burn; the sizzling of acid through iron, bleeding through the holes its teeth made, frying the skin below with an audible crackling that rises into her helmet.
Crikey. It burns.
Jokul's blade also finds its target, tearing a gash in the final beast on its mad swing upward, a sharp hissing and rumbled vibration pounding through Jokul's inards like the sickest dirty bass drop this side of Dran.
I've never heard their music, but I bet it's TOIGHT.
Something begins to stir in their gaze; their eyes grow a little brighter, their movements more animated, anxious, angry. It's when Niara's blade slices and shocks that it comes to its final stage, and the beasts roar out in unison, their muscles bulging and straining beneath their hides as they go into a bloodborn frenzy.
Ormud wiped the blood off of his face with his sleeve and snarled, forgetting his well taken care of bow in favor of wading into the fight. As one of the creatures was distracted dealing with the sturdy dwarf woman, the scout in the heavy green coat swept around to take advantage of the opening provided. Though he pulled a long, thin blade with his free hand, he led with the basket of the rapier extended outward and ran the first few inches of his rapier through the beast's hide.
Inhales sharply, eyes glowing with zeal as he begins to recite, "'And unto the darkness, light shone, rolling over the wicked and sending fear into their hearts.'" The symbol about his wrist glows brightly, a smoldering red, lending to the fearsome aspect of his recital.
The nozzle slides back into the cannon with a 'shnk' noise, and as Niara goes to engage Bas3. With a loud 'ooum', the cannon rapidly charges up before giving a loud 'BZZKRT' of noise as the weapon discharges, scoring a burning wound on the creature's flank. All the while, Virton's armour gives a buzz of its own as magitechnical essence blossoms in his pistons and gears, sending his body into a temporary overdrive.
Arnora hisses in pain at the bite, but she still seems up and mobile and pissed off. Some nasty wrods in Khazad escapes her as she spins the large axe in one hand "Fook you you scarly fucking shite" she says then smacks the axe down solidly into it.
Niara dances with her blade and whips around slashing at the creature, cutting into it, its blade still crackling with lightning.
After Jokul receives a stab through his armor right into his shoulder, he doesn't try to shove the beast away from himself this time -- but instead just tears himself off of the offending sharp limb and stomps CLOSER. Enough that when he crouches, he's almost right underneath the creature. And with a mighty, loudly rumbling battle cry of "RrrrrooOOOAAAAHHH!", the Aesir warrior spins himself around in the same motion he springs himself back right, and in a whirlwind of SWORD the massive blade he has chose as his weapon cleaves clean through the lizard's neck from below, carried easily through it by a further sideward step that also gets him out of the way of the head that falls down onto the ground a second after. "Huff!"
ST:
Nngh! Leggo!
The first of the Bas-tards squirms against the goop now, pushing one of its front feet with its snout, which ... promptly also gets stuck in the goop.
Sigh.
And as it sighs, it blows goop bubbles through its nostrils, and gasps through its gaping maw. It is now eating glue. This is not its day.
The beast on Arnora is also not having the best of luck with her, and so it turns around and ragdolls the rogue; like's like a dog with something dead. Well, dying. Lizard with something dying. Its head tosses back with the now unconcious rogue in its locked jaw as it flings him back and forth, before unceremoniously spitting him onto the ground like a toddler might broccoli.
Or however that's spelled.
It does so even after it's been chopped like lumber by the now angry, khazad-cursing woman, its tail swiping back and forth in unspoken threat as the rogue lay bleeding to death on the ground, sizzling and smoking away.
And then there's Jokul.
The lizard he's fighting practically explodes as his blade makes contact, tearing it down and splitting it in two; more wizards should learn to cast SWORD, as it appears to be very effective. It did, however, manage to wound him with its mouth before it exploded, mind you, its teeth still digging in, a putrid ooze pooling out around them as they melt into his armour. It's a few seconds before the muscles finally stop clenching and his leg is released from that bear-trap skull.
The head of the beast trapped in the goo now yanks up and out of the tangling gloop as Niara strikes into it, dotted with rocks and dirt, bits of grass here and there, but pulling open into a hissing threat that exposes its seemingly endless row of teeth, dripping with acidic toxin that hits the ground with a telltale 'pffss!' with every drop. It looks like she has its attention.
Ezekiel watches in rapt attention as the basilisk grabs his companion and thrashes, tossing him unceremoniously aside. He moves, kneeling down and whispering the words of the divine, white motes swirling furiously from his hand as the holy symbol about his wrist shimmers.
"OI! fight someone yer own size ye reptillian fooking arsehole" Arnora calls out tauntingly at the thing. Her teeth grit as she leads in with her shield but strikes her her axe, the blow sinking deep as thing at last seems to be showing some damage.
Niara rips into it again with her blade after it trying to bite her. She isn't having any of that and so her blade cuts deep but not enough to drop it.
"You're not that much larger!" Jokul's voice roars out from just behind ARnora, JUST before his sword comes stabbing through the air next to her to be guided deep into the basilisk to shred through the thing's innards. By the time he's starting to pull his massive blade out, the beast is already starting to slump down from all the accumulated damage, and this Jokul apparnetly decides to be a good time to flash a grin to the dwarf next to him.
ST:
As Ezekiel approaches what this Bas has claimed as a meal, once he's dispatched the walking stone planter over there, he becomes enraged at the intrusion. Teeth dig into the Inquisitor without question, haw, and the acid begins to burn away his flesh. He does, however, manage to stop the rogue from bleeding out.
For now.
It is immune to the taunting of the loud dwarf, as it does not speak common, and is more interested in the meatier, less-stony things that are in its area. Even her slashing doesn't make it turn away, a hot and foul breath washing over Ezekiel as it gives another long, drawn out hiss; like rotting meat and baby food poops. In short, not the best smell in the world. There may be a hint of sage.
Elven sage.
It's Jokul that once again comes sailing in with the victory, robbing Arnora of her hard-earned glory by slicing up the overgrown salamander into so much chopped liver. There is but one remaining, and it is still struggling with the artificer's gloop that has kept it locked down the entirety of the battle. It growls and howls as Niara strikes it once again, its body covered in gashes from the scimitar, its scales glistening with its blood in the searing sunlight from above, eyes blazing with all the hatred it can muster.
As the teeth pierce into Ezekiel's skin, he howls in pain, acid burning his skin. The power of the divine are the only thing that save him from truly falling from the bite, letting him fall to the ground. Oh, the smell of that fetid, terrible breath! It nearly makes his eyes cross before he flings a hand out, touching Ormud's foot as a word of the divine passes his lips, teeth clenched tight.
Ormud, struggling against the mauling he'd taken at the hands of the basilisk a momeny earlier, caught a second wind when Ezekiel's magic restored some of the damage that had been done to him. Gritting his teeth, he nodded thanks before he lunged at the last basilisk only to have his sword turned aside by its scales. Luckily he was fast enoug to be just under the creature's jaws a moment later when it hauled around to respond to his prodding with rows of gnashing fangs.
DANGER, WILL ROBINSON, DANGER.
Virton abandons his cannon-firing for a few seconds, the weapon hissing out steam as he pounds across the ground towards Ezekiel. There's no chanting, no conversing. Rather, he simply skids to a stop beside Ezekiel and raises up his right arm. From that right arm, a small hypodermic needle appears - jutting out from the forearm. It's promptly fired into Ezekiel's thigh, where it discharges the viscous contents that reside within said needle, before the needle falls out and begins to disintegrate. Immediately, the energies go to work, healing the man's wounds.
Arnora snorts at the barbarian Jokul "Why don't ye grow a real fooking beard and get back to me laddie. Looks like ye are growing a crop of moss aye" she adds as she trundles over to the last thing standing, heavy armour clattering all the way underneath some nasty sounding laughter. Her eyes are rather more professional then her comments as she gazes over it briefly then chooses the spot to bring her axe down, sinking deep into the thing and sending it crashing down to the ground.
ST:
It's desperate, that last beast, as it lashes out at the one that scored a hit the most recently. The rogue is only barely too fast for the snap of its jaws, but it still flails its head around as though it got ahold of something, thrashing like its life depended on it.
Which it did.
Arnora finally gets her chance to save the day as she hacks into it with her axe, its body finally collapsing with a loud thump of burden to bedrock, its head pounding hard against the dirt with a heavy bounce before the light in its eyes dies out, and its acids leak out over the sandy grit below.
A scan of the area shows no signs of a continued assault from more beasts, but the blood that still stains Ormud's face give the adventurers a good idea of what happened to those that were found here days ago; it was that accursed stare of the crimson basilisks, that wounding gaze that forced life from his eyes like a weeping statue, bringing an end to the mystery of magic or miasma.
The priestess will be most pleased.
~ Fin