Where'd They Go? Part 4
There is a Taaran.
Excruciating pain. Things outside that shouldn't be. So much blood. So much.
There's the murderer, collapsed and bereft of the blade that compelled them. A blade that radiated hate.
This sumptuous shrine and retreat reeks of death and sorrow, blood and tears. Even for Taara, this place is now fouled, profaned. A place to seek one's innermost wants turned abbatoir.
Aryia lets out a sigh of relief as the blade is secured and stashed away in safety. She hefts the murderer, bound and gagged and hoists him over a shoulder. "Should we turn this place over?" she asks with a free hand. Motions slow, due to the off beat dragging of time here. It's clear she's reluctant but willing press on. "Or just get out with these two and get them conscious enough to talk?" <Handspeech/Tongues>
Seldan, who had taken charge of the blade of hate using a mage hand and dropped it into his haversack without ever touching it, turns to the others. "I would not miss something perhaps essential," he murmurs, after a moment of thought. "This place is terrible, and yet would I be sure that it holds no more than horror."
Aya just stares, for the most part. She is not a religious sort, nor does she have any reason to find any of this less horrific than anyone else. "I'm not convince I want any of them conscious... but we should no more." She pauses and glances around. "Before burning this all to ash, I would hope."
Schara sets her gear back as the dagger is stowed away, and the artificer looks between the two unconcious figures they now had, and back to the others. "If that one person did all of this, that is horrible, and concerning." The elf notes quietly. "I want to make sure they are safe, but I don't know if we'll be able to come back here. And I don't want to investigate this place more, but we should, to get to the bottom of this, as we are running out of leads."
GAME: Aryia rolls perception: (2)+34: 36 GAME: Seldan rolls perception: (20)+25: 45 GAME: Schara rolls perception: (10)+11: 21 GAME: Aya rolls perception: (8)+31: 39
... more bodies. All of them caught in the midst of things, it seems. All were enjoying their interlude until at last the end came.
But how could one person with a knife do so much grievous harm? How coiuld they end so many lives so swiftly with so little alarm raised by the others? You do see signs that they tried to defend themselves, retreting as a group towards more defensible positions as they became aware, but it seems whatever magics they intended to use failed them when they needed them most.
Absent are the marks of any kind of gate as you saw in the last place, that didn't happen here, but it seems readily apparent that they were intending to conduct some kind of rite before long, judging from the supplies and reagents scattered about that you've identified. Bits and pieces.
... and secrets. Even here, secret doors. Passages between rooms, soaked in the blood of the bodies you fiond in them, caught midflight and slashed until they were left only with legendary suffering here to keep them company.
At last, you find your way towards a center of this place, the heart of the ritual that might once have been intended in this time. A shrine to Taara, profaned and empty, her statues broken, her servants ... the less said of what's left of them the better. It is the sort of sight that is by design intended to haunt one's nightmares. All of those present have an unfortunate familairity with atrocity, and this is but one more thrown against the agents of a Goddess few present are inclined to have much love for
Aryia sighs and adjusts their captive. "Schara is right, probably can't come back here. Let's clear this place, together, one by one, just in case we some other shit we run into. It may take a while, but... time here is weird. So we probably have time."
And they search. Aryia steeling herself to look down, under, around, past, between.
She's a resolved woman, but even she was a shade green by the end of it. Even still, when she gets up to the shrine to Taara, she's looking up at it with a long, long thought. "They sure threw some kind of rager. Like it was all going to shit and they knew it. Hm... Taara may be a cruel mistress. But nightmare fuel is not her domain." She perks. "Is another dark god... fighting? Are the dark gods infighting?" she posits. <Handspeech/Tongues>
Aya never expected that a manor... safehouse... lair(?) of Taarans would be at face value and as it seemed. After locating a hidden passage or three (the bodily fluids oozing out through the nearl-invisible seams made some more conspicuous), and nearly twice as many corpses (or parts of), she returns to the central gathering. She rubs a hand across her face, once, having very, very purposely not touched -anything- and exhales a breath.
"I ... pity them..." she then frowns at her own admission. "I think." Aya nods to Aryia. "They knew their end was near... and still they were surprised?" Then her sister's final comment gets a hard frown and slightly less hard look. "We all know someone who hates Her, or hates Charn and Her through it. But this..." She makes a vague gesture at the ...mess.
Seldan takes his time, poking around, the stench of death and blood having long since filled his nostrils to the point where the smell is barely noticeable. Never does he touch any of the bodies, save with a complaining Reunion or a _mage hand_, and after some time and listening to the others, he turns away, his eyes lowering. "Nay," he murmurs to the others. "This is - greater, I think, and it is in my mind that the Lady Belvade knew of this as well. For what other purpose would she lead us so? She wishes us to know what it is that her people feared."
GAME: Seldan rolls spellcraft: (18)+18: 36
He looks up, and surveys the items in the area, then lowers them again. "They meant to open a gate. I would find one thing, that would permit me to confirm-" He turns away abruptly, and renews his search of the area, this time searching for a specific thing.
Schara is, not doing particularly well, even as she resolves herself to help search. The elf does pause to remove her helmet for a moment, confirming that she is indeed a her and an elf, and very, very queasy looking, to take some cloth doused in mint oil and wrap it around her nose and mouth, before the helmet is donned yet again. "At the very least there is nothing left in my stomach for this." The artificer offers after a time. "There is killing, and then there is, this. I don't particularly like clerics, but they didn't deserve this. What would lead to a slaughter like this?"
GAME: Seldan rolls perception: (13)+25: 38
"Greater than infighting gods? Well fuck," Aryia sighs after signing, her idly looking around the space at the reagents mentioned. Another gate? Hrm.
She shakes her head at Schara. "Something really, really fucked up," she answers. But then Seldan is looking for something? She perks, peering across the way. One to cover him, another to sate her curiosity. And, well, to look at something else than other of all this. <Handspeech/Tongues>
"So more than hate, or... that, sister..." Aya shares Aryia's concerns and doesn't look to find any comfort in this possibility. Quite the opposite. Her eyes follow Seldan, now, rather than the ... scenery. "A gate to where? For escape? To bring some dark thing here?" All present are the most adoring fans of things being summoned, afterall.
"To the plane where Taara herself resides, do I not miss my guess." Seldan is still searching the area, with swift and purposeful intent, but at length, he ends his search, and turns back towards the other. "The final component of the ritual is not present. It either had not yet arrived, or had been spirited away when trouble befell. I cannot say which is so, and would speak with our survivor when they wake. They will know."
The artificer tilts their head in Aryia's direction, but they sigh and return to looking. "Another gate? I guess they could have one here as well. So they had something working, or interrupted? I hope that will explain what is going on here, even if it was or still is horrible."
...floating discs and scrubbing with magic, and soon enough you have one of the rooms presentable enough to use. You still feel 'weighed down' by the magic, like your experiences are slightly stretched, but it's not so much an issue you can't work around it. With magical aid, the Taaran's grievous wounds are quieted enough to allow them to rouse from their injury induced torpor.
Aryia opts to drag bodies out of the room and lay them out in the main hall as her way of helping with cleaning, eventually stepping out to keep hold the of the murderer. She can be found sitting on a chair nearby, as the mute was neither a cleaner nor a healer. Well, she could do the former rather well, just not... this.
She's mostly at hand to jump in and keep problems from happening. Kicking her feet idly, still trying to feel out the weighed down feeling of everything.
So much for taking care not to touch anything. Not to mention she can't appear squeamish or, worse, -lazy- in comparison to Aryia. So it is that Aya helps with hiding, or at least moving, bodies. She will gladly let magic tend to cleaning and healing, of which she has none. After the dead are handled, she tends to the not-so; while then rather idle, she spends it eyeing the murderous captive for a time.
The healing itself falls to Seldan, who proves himself both patient and skilled at it, and if he handles it with a quiet reserve, it could be chalked up to the identity of the one he heals. Aside from producing and moving a floating disk to aid in the cleanup, uch of his focus remains on the patient, and thus the brunt of the work is left to others.
Schara lets the others deal with the bodies, while she instead focuses on clearing up the frightening amount of blood in the area. One hand placed on walls and furniture for a moment, causing the crimson stains to vaporize on the spot, leaving a faint smell of ozone behind. Unfortunately, it can not clean up the larger bits, which the artificer gathers up after the place is mostly clean. "I think that's as good as I'm going to get it or want to get it, I can't recognize half of the things I'm picking up."
The healing is slow. Slower than it should be. That experience, too, is being stretched out.
...but it's enough that Seldan knows not just the magic, but where to target it, how to heal someone in this dire a condition. Typically, wounds this deep would require an extended convalescence even if you survived them. At the hands of a talented healer, the time-to-speak is cut.
... his eyes flutter open, fat tears rolling down his cheeks almost immediately. "...how?" he rasps.
"How many.... how many others?" he asks.
Aryia keeps a hand on the bindings, even if the captor is unconscious. She was glad she had her sister's company, at the very least she could quip, "After this shit, I'm so going to the bathhouse," her hands say. A glance to Schara through the ajar door, watching her remove things. "... you really don't want to recognize it."
But, a silver clad grey ear twitches as she hears a voice stirring. Asking. Rasping. Her signs fall still as she opts to take in any information she can about these atrocities. <Handspeech/Tongues>
Aya straightens as Seldan's patience benefit's Seldan's patient and the latter stirs. She takes a step towards, but halts before a second and decides to just observe. The Silverguard may be able to offer better encouragement in his role as their healer. If he desires help, Aya is sure he'll speak up. Maybe. She glances to Aryia. "Save me a spot in the water."
"You are the lone survivor of which we know." The voice of the man sitting on the edge of the convalescent's bed, his gauntlets resting in his lap, is even and sober. Seldan's blue-eyed gaze remains on the man. "Do not move more than you must. You should rest yet."
-To be continued-