To Find a Mourner (Part 8)
Log Info
- Title: To Find a Mourner (Part 8)
- GM: Verna
- Place: Caracoroth's Teeth
When we last left our heroes, they had cleared the hall of adversaries. Some were cut down. Some disintegrated. Some received holy arrows to the face. Others surrendered.
And then there was Szerak, who rebelled (and aided with the cutting down) after Chimali (and his current status as elsewhere) was spoken of. He now eagerly awaits clarification on where his youngling was whisked away to.
All told, matters were rectified rather quickly; more time was spent traveling to the room and preparing than was involved in the actual confrontation. Still, those minutes since Cor'lana flew the keep are now enough for her to have made her special delivery and return to Charn-space.
Simony suddenly shrinks back down to her former diminutive stature with a loud pop. Her expression is wistful and sad at the same time. "That was fun!", she exclaims. "I am going to do that again!"
She moves past Szerak, offering the Sith a little wave. "Good work! Everyone, good work, that was incredible!"
Szerak may not know precisely where Chimali is, but that he is anywhere but here is enough for the moment. He does, however, know where the Mistress has kept to herself (and guests). "Come."
He leads the group up the stairs to the double doors previously guarded by many. Beyond them is a simple, if wide, hall that leads to hexagonal room that appears a dead-end. That is, until one notices that the smooth stone walls do not quite touch neither the floor nor ceiling. The latter is supported by six columns (one at each vertex). There is a single lever protruding up from the center of the floor.
"Pull lever. Go up. Mistress private hall." He stops short of the lift to remain in the hallway.
There's a nice little empty space next to Telamon--and then there isn't. It's occupied with Cor'lana, who's arrived precisely where she intends to: in the crook of Telamon's arm. She smiles widely at the gathered party.
"Hello again," she greets everyone. "The little one is safe and secured. I tracked down the Sunguard Zeke and asked him kindly to help locate a home for him to stay in. The Sunguard was gracious in his aid."
And, of course, Cor'lana claims her prize: one kiss on the cheek from Telamon (that she has to get on her tiptoes for). "Let's resume the course, shall we?"
GAME: Ravenstongue casts Greater Teleport. Caster Level: 20 DC: 25
The momentary rush of the fight ebbs away as Rune takes a moment to make sure the last of the archers has fully fled from the scene. She looks across to Aelwyn, giving him a quirk of a smile before looking over the edge of the upper level towards the others. From her vantage, she watches the Makari lead them up, waiting briefly to join with the others, her hands still poised on her weapons.
She blinks in momentary surprise at the re-appearance of Cor'lana, but just shakes it off after a moment. Mages.
"How many guards can we expect up there?" She asks the Makari, focusing on the task at hand.
Auranar turns her attention to Szerak, meeting his gaze steadily even as she fiddles with her bow. In that moment, before she can move to the center of the space that will lead her to her wife, Cor'lana reappears and she breathes a sigh of relief. "Cor'lana!" She smiles and looks at Szerak. "The Sunguard is in Alexandria, and he is quite reputable from what I've heard."
She however, is more than a little impatient to be on her way to where Verna is however, so she moves toward the lever and looks at Rune a bit nervously. "One last check for traps?" Thankfully Rune and the others are thinking to ask the smart questions.
Telamon had this funny little smile in the minutes leading up to Lana's return. As if he knew exactly what was about to happen. And when she appears next to him, he happily allows her to claim her reward. "Excellent! I can't think of anywhere he'd be safer than in the care of a devotee of the Dragonfather."
He gives Szerak an abbreviated bow. "When our business here is concluded, you will be reunited." There's no 'hopefully' or 'maybe' there. Just stated as fact. And with that, Telamon leads Cor'lana towards where the elevator awaits, along with the others. He gives Simony a fistbump as he passes. "You look interesting when you're bigger, Simony."
With the direction addressed, Harkashan follows right after Szerak. The sight of the lift is met with a tilt of Harkashan's head. He has been on elevators before, but they are still very much not common to him.
He steps onto the lift and awaits for the rest to get on along with him, ready to pull the lever the moment everyone is on. He's not too concerned at this point with how many there will be at the other side of this elevator. Whatever it is, they'll have to deal with it.
GAME: Rune rolls perception+7: (8)+33+7: 48
At Auranar's suggestion, Rune edges her way through to the front to take a look at the contraption quickly. Her brows furrow. "Nothing that looks like a trap." She starts, and then gives a once-over of the room. "But this thing is ancient. I'm pretty sure it's cut from the mountain stone." She lifts a shoulder slightly in a shrug, not one for archeology. "Still... safe enough on the surface.
"This one not know," Szerak answers the question, even if it is not the ideal answer. "This one not always allowed up. Mistress, others, can come and go from circle above. Not need step here. This one not see Mistress for two day."
Aelwyn flicks his glaive out, as if to flick away the blood from the burning tip. "Tch, sellswords, bent like a cheap copper coin." The ruddy sith-makar says with distaste, then flashes his teeth at Rune. "Ah, this one is grateful for the assist, Twin." He flicks his tail at her, before joining the others.
Following the others, he tilts his head. "Do Charn not have their own blades? Whyfor the rent blades?" He asks, looking at the corpses. "... surely well paid, this one assumes."
The Goblin giggles as she returns the fistbump. "It looks so different from up there, Telamon."
She eagerly hops into the elevator, "Floor two! Verna. And one boss bitch who needs her ass kicked!"
With Rune's verification, Auranar nods and once everyone is gathered on the elevator, she pulls the lever. She readies her bow the moment that the lever is pulled though, ready for anything - or so she tells herself. She knows that Verna is hurt... She's not that sure she's ready for that.
Pothy, who has been here the whole time, comes to flap over to Cor'lana's shoulder. He looks up at her expectantly, and she leans down to kiss him. "Go back to Auranar," she tells him. "You're her little warrior-buddy."
To this, Pothy nods. And he opens his beak... And everyone can hear his true voice. The little boy with an elegant manner of speaking... says something a bit unexpected. "Let's give them hell, Rana!" He lights onto Auranar's shoulder and nuzzles into her hair.
Telamon takes a deep breath, and gives Auranar a confident smile. Whatever happens, they are bringing Verna home -- regardless of the state she's in. The half-sil sorcerer flexes his fingers, and looks at Lana. "My money is on bound fiends for bodyguards. What about you, dear? Any bets on what our opposition will be?"
His starry eyes glitter, as he looks upwards. "Personally, I'm hoping to pulverize Varyssa myself. No one assaults my family with impunity."
A reverberation travels through the stone floor before it begins to rise. It does so rather smoothly for something deemed so ancient. How far it rises is difficult to tell;the featureless stone walls of the shaft make speed or distance impossible to track. The only indication is time, and even that may be distorted by perception.
After what is only a minute or so, but may feel far longer to the anxious, a pair of large double stone doors come into view on the side opposite the hallway below. Shortly thereafter, the lift halts even with them. This appears to be their stop.
"It probably doesn't need saying, but... right now, we're a whole group of enemies neatly lined up in an enclosed space." Rune sets herself so that she isn't directly in the first line of sight when the doors open. "And they know we're coming. So I wouldn't suggest saying in one place too long and making ourselves more of an easy target."
That warning offered, she seems to wait for someone else to do the honors of opening the door.
Harkashan releases the lever in order to let Auranar attend it, and listens to the others as they speak. He's being fairly quiet now that they're all standing on the elevator. Watching, listening. Trying his very best to heed his own perceptive abilities - that have for so long gone unheeded.
"Let's bring her home, shall we?" He rumbles to Auranar.
Aelwyn rolls his shoulders as the conundrum of the closed door is presented to them. "This one shall assume the door shall not swallow this one." This time. "As Twin said - it is better to fill out the wider space with haste, rather than stay together." Holding his shoulder and rolling it, he walks over the door.
"Remember the one what took Mourner had unnatural stealth and looked like nothing - try not to be surprised." He warns, before waiting for others to get ready.
Telamon lifts his eyebrows at Aelwyn's remark. "You know, that is an excellent point. Why don't I take steps?" Deliberately, he touches his eyelids, tapping a bit of silvery paste onto them. "Irhandi, igi-kar namzu, igi-bad." A shimmer of magic, and then Telamon's eyes blaze with a cool light, shimmering and powerful.
"I'm usually pretty good at prying through illusions, but no reason to tolerate any shenanigans." With that, Telamon waits for the door to be opened.
GAME: Telamon casts True Seeing. Caster Level: 20 DC: 24
Cor'lana nods solemnly, looking at her husband as he casts the spell to see through illusions. "Let me know if you require backup, love," she says, "but it's also probably worthwhile for one of us to remain without arcane sight for the moment. Remember the 'mountain' in the Vast? And Tanith?" She shudders.
"What's a little temporary blindness to remember not to stick your magic peepers everywhere you might put them?" Pothy quips from Auranar's shoulder, still talking in his actual voice outside of the borders of the Lupecyll-Atlon home. Which is unusual. And... shouldn't be happening. "Not talking about you, Telamon, I'm talking about Lana. You're fine. She's the one who needs to remember--"
"Shhh, chatty," Cor'lana shushes Pothy.
The Goblin simply stands in place with her eyes closed, a look of discomfort on her face. "I don't think I have it in me to grow that large again.", she says softly. "But I'm ready for whatever up there."
Her eyes flick open then, as the lift slows to a halt, and she lets out a slow breath. "Ready when you are.", she says with a sideways glance to Aelwyn. She pushes when the ruddy-scale Sith does.
Auranar looks at Pothy curiously, clearly wondering why it is that he is being so talkative where he normally can not be, but she doesn't have the time to worry about it. Instead she moves to stand a bit to the side. Like Rune she doesn't want to be in the direct path of anything when the doors open... just in case. She pets Pothy's head nervously.
Despite their mass, the great doors open easily and near-silently upon multiple adamant hinge-pins the size of Harkashan.
The room beyond the doors, implied to be Lady Varyssa's private hall, makes the 'great' hall below seem small. As well, the entire space seems a void carved from the mountain itself as the walls and ceiling lack any seams or joints in the stone. The great doors leading in, despite likely weighing tons each, fall short of the thirty-foot ceiling. The room is easily more than twice in width and length as it is tall.
Numerous wall sconces, mounted high and glowing bright with magical illumination, keep the skyless space from darkness. The most central features of the room are two huge statues near the center of the room made of silvery-white metal. Both are distinctly feminine, conspiucously designed in classical nude style, and highly polished. Like the stone of the room, there are no apparent joints nor seams, suggesting they may have been cast whole. Each has one arm lifted to the ceiling (possibly in support), while the other partially extends towards the center-line of the room. From each extended hand hangs a glowing brazier for additional light.
At the far end of the room, the floor raises to a modest (comparatively) dais. Upon this is a sizable ... throne, carved of the same stone and possibly a part of the dais and far wall. Sitting upon said throne is a woman. One familiar to the Lupecyll-Atlons. She is clad in black leather breeches, a white ruffled blouse and black vest combination, with black, scaled calf-length boots. Snow-white hair is gathered in numerous braids to her scale before they inter-twine to fall far down her back in a splay of nine ends. She seems wholly unsurprised, even bored, and glances to her left. "Come now, Vivi. Chin up and shoulders back. We have guests."
To the right (from the view of the doors) of the dais is a small table, set with two chairs and food for the same, though the food appears barely touched. Behind the table is a rack with a rather exquisite dress.
Further to the right, in the corner of the hall, are four small stone pillars in a square. Chains hang from them, with shackles at the end. Suspended by these shackles are a petite woman in little more than a shift, hanging angled forward rather than upright. Her head is further drooped forward, leaving her staring at the floor rather than the entrance, and she does not respond.
If the sheer mass, artistry, and polish were not sign enough of possible vanity, there is also the fact that the statues bear an uncanny resemblance to the woman on the throne.
GAME: Telamon rolls perception: (10)+33: 43 GAME: Simony rolls perception: (1)+15: 16 (EPIC FAIL) GAME: Harkashan rolls Sense Motive: (1)+24: 25 (EPIC FAIL) GAME: Rune rolls perception: (7)+33: 40 GAME: Simony rolls perception: (17)+15: 32
Let it not be said that Telamon is not dressed for the occasion. His starry eyes glow with light, his ruffled white silk blouse over black leather trousers and boots. If not for the sleeveless robe worn over it, his garb would be a near duplicate for the woman on the throne.
"Lady Varyssa Calana'el," he says in a cool, distant tone. "I am here for Verna Lupecyll-Atlon." His eyes flick to the chained woman, then to the statues, almost disdainfully in the case of the latter.
Harkashan lets out a sneering sound as the gates open, and amidst all the opulence, there's Verna. That's what his eyes focus on, before he even realizes that someone is seated upon the throne. Those golden eyes turn towards the woman on the throne - who so cruelly has done something to her very own daughter. Speaking to her in that way...
The Sith-makar huffs, fumes of dark smoke exiting his nose as he moves towards the front and points his blade to her. "You have made your final mistake this day." He declares with a growl.
GAME: Harkashan rolls Sense Motive: (19)+24: 43
The Goblin is chattering to herself. "Hmm, the doors are well hung to move this smoothly, they must weigh several tons at the minimum." Her eyes move from detail to detail. "Ah, excellent choices in color. Nothing says full narcissist like two giant statues of one's self holding up the room."
"Hmm... they might actually be Golems? They are made from one solid piece of metal."
"Ah, and screaming LOOK AT ME is the raised dais."
Then Verna is spotted, and Simony frowns. "You'd better arm yourself lady if you're going to decorate your temple to yourself with our friend."
Auranar lets Telamon speak for now, but the sight of Verna... It takes all of Auranar's not inconsiderable will not to rush to the other woman regardless of the fact that it would probably be dangerous. She moves a little even so, drawn by the lure against her better judgement. "Varyssa. I have a gift for you." Her voice carries in the wake of Harkashan's near-threat, hoping that she can distract the woman from the incensed sith.
Let her be the one to take the risks here. With her allies arrayed behind her, she moves in further.
There are moments in a person's life where they are amazed at the sheer size of someone else's ego. An ego that is demonstrated not once, but twice, at a ridiculous size. "You know, I feel really bad for the artists who had to make those. Imagine having to look at your naked ass for what? Months at a time? It must have gotten so tedious. I mean... at least you could have given them the pleasure of looking at someone pretty."
Rune's blue eyes sweep the room, though, as if she were looking for other signs of threat. The fact that nothing stands out is only that much more suspicious, especially given the warnings that have already been offered.
Then, with Simony's comment, Rune blinks. "So... they could be giant statues meant to beat us to death with the ugliest tits I've ever seen? I mean, that's a really sad way to go."
"You wear it better," Cor'lana informs her husband, her glare on Varyssa a barely-contained cinder in her eyes, glowing softly with the forever-trace of a spell to see invisibility. She looks at Verna. Poor Verna. She remembers...
Chains. Similar to those. Being held captive. Unsure if her beloved and her friends would come to rescue her in time or not. But he's gone, and she is part of the rescuing party now.
"No evil shall pass into this space," she speaks with magic words, a protective aura against evil emanating from her then as she watches Auranar go into the room, Pothy on Auranar's shoulder. She hopes for all that is good in the world that they keep each other safe.
GAME: Ravenstongue casts Magic Circle Against Evil. Caster Level: 20 DC: 21 GAME: Rune takes ten on bluff: (10)+28: 38 GAME: Auranar rolls Perception: (2)+5: 7
Aelwyn walks into the throne room after Telamon, his expression turning grim as he strides within. There was a moment of recognition when he sees the woman in the distance - but his eyes instantly lock into the woman in the corner - and his teeth audibly grind against each other. Yet - this charade of talk shall play out, and their chance shall come. Indeed, many of the others in the room had more gripes with the woman than he did.
"Tch, one should be mindful of others' insecurities." He tells Simony and Rune with a flick of his head. "Sometimes they are carved in stone."
When Auranar starts to move forward, the Dragoon instinctively does as well, obviously uncertain about her chosen approach.
"The only error made" Lady Varyssa counters and clarifies to Harkashan, "is my daughter rejecting the many opportunities afforded her. Even now." Rune gets barely a passing glance with a comment of "Base and useless words; the only recourse of base and useless beings..."
She rises from her seat; a casual gesture rather than an aggressive one. "Your arrival is rather fortuitous, I admit. You spared me no small amount of coin. Dead or traitorous sellswords cost nothing. Still, my gratitude is not so deep that I would allow you to simply steal off with my daughter, as I presume is your intent?"
Auranar moves forward further, not caring if the giant statues are about to try and squish her flat. She moves forward and she keeps her eyes on the woman holding her wife hostage so that she won't stare at Verna instead. "She's just a commodity to you. So, I offer you an exchange. Let me take her, and I will give you something in return." Her dark eyes are firm, unyielding, but purposeful. "Please."
Let her sound weak to Varyssa's ears, the lone voice of it amid the strength and threat she's brought with her; she doesn't care.
Rune doesn't seem bothered at all at being called 'base and useless'. It just shows how uneducated this individual is about who is standing at her doorstep. Her lip quirks.
However, this is not her show. This moment belongs to Auranar, and to the rest of those who call Verna their kin. She isn't going to interfere.
She steps up and moves to take a defensive position, but her posture is tense and wary, as if waiting for the right moment.
There's no words that pass between Telamon and Cor'lana, at least verbally, as they walk in the wake of Auranar's steps, following their beloved family member (who has another beloved member of their family on her shoulder). They know now everything rests on Auranar's shoulders.
Pothy stares resolutely at Varyssa. He, too, remains silent, but the blue eyes judge the woman's soul.
The Goblin also lets the 'Lady's' insults slide, instead, she makes a beeline for Verna. "Just hold on, we're coming, Verna!"
Aelwyn could barely hide the expression on his face as he turned to look at Harkashan and Rune, who were staying behind. Nodding his head at them, the glaive is raised and held over his shoulder. In truth, he was being very careful about not ruining the occasion - but regardless, he walks on after the others, trailing behind, but staying near the striking distance, in case somewhat unexpected happens.
Varyssa's violet eyes shift to Auranar as she approaches, though one gets the sense that she is not unaware of all else. Her lips curl into a smile. "Ah, yes. The wayward grand-daughter. The dalliance. I make a counter-offer. I will accept only one gift from you. Your life." The rapier at her hip easily slides from its sheath. "With your annoying little distraction removed, Vivi will be freed to take her place at my side."
From the corner comes a weak gasp and a raspy, "No." More labored words follow. "My name is. Verna. Lupecyll. Atlon."
GAME: Auranar casts Bestow Curse. Caster Level: 9 DC: 19 GAME: Auranar rolls 1d20+5+1+1: (8)+5+1+1: 15 GAME: Auranar rolls 1d20+5+1+1+1: (15)+5+1+1+1: 23 GAME: Verna rolls 1d20+11: (6)+11: 17
"You heard her." Auranar says, her dark eyes gleaming as magic power surges through her body. "FOREVER." The magic courses to her hand and she feels it darken for the first time. Not light building up but darkness. The darkness of a finger in a box. The darkness of the words that Verna had whispered in the night. The darkness of fear, anger, and sorrow. "FEEL HER PAIN."
The spell surges inside her and she curses the woman with all her might, and she punches the other woman as best she can. She's not a fighter, but there's more in her hand than just the weight of her body.
"Feel all their pain." This is a whisper, but she's got more power to curse with.