Under the Ash|Libourg, Iver, Sicherlein, Nasuada

[relentless]

"Oh great."
Libourg sighed in a dismissive manner, shaking his head as Sicherlein barreled off. His lack of enthusiasm to approach this monolith was greatly reduced. He'd much rather let the spirtually inclined to deal with it, rather than a bawling maiden desperate for adventure. Though his mind was dead set on rescuing Celeste or whoever, he couldn't really be arsed to charge toward a block of stone.

Sniffing the air and shaking his head from left to right, he looked down to Iver, posing himself in a somewhat casual posture, before looking back ahead toward Ibrahim and Nasuada.
"I'll bet you ten gold crowns she gets ripped apart by... something down here."
Libourg bitterly promised as he started to take steps forward.
"Apologies, Ibrahim, appears some of the more immature ones are eager to take charge."
Libourg said toward him as he approached, shouldering his flanged mace across his pauldron.

[Unter]

Iver grinned as Libourg pronounced his bet. This Sicherlein woman sure looked nimble, she could probably survive getting sawed in two.
"Alright friend, you've got yourself a deal ! Ha ha ha !"
Still, he laughed but he couldn't take his eyes off the monolith.
"Maybe she will lure the thing off the shadows, and then we take it down."
He murmured to himself some swears.
"That skirja will kill us all!"

[The Carrying Blade]

Nasuada's concentration was broken as she heard Sicherlien began her sprint. The woman who she thought was smarter than the restr was clearly an impatient and dangerous buffoon. Not only did she not seem to realize there was something supernatural ahead, but that there were probably countless things hiding in the dark.

She could trip her, try to tackle her down, or use a tentacle to stop her. Seeing as though she was about to pass her, and that a tentacle wouldn't be able to keep her down. Nasuada turned to the woman, already almost having caught up as they had only moved at most half the distance to the Monolith. As best she could, the Shadow Weaver lunged at Sicherlien, arms outspread to go and grab her so that she could be brought to the ground.

[Vanitypirate]

Nasuada:
Sicherlein proved to be much too swift for the mere likes of Nasuada to pounce on.
Arms outstretched, Nasuada might find the wind knocked out from her as she fell onto the stone floor, her hands only grasping air.

Sicherlein:
In the gloom, even, more minute details could be seen on the chain and the monolith.

Most frightening was the object pierced onto the hook: it was slick, and moist. It dripped into a puddle below it. Leather-like on the top of it, below was a steak-like chunk of fibers, ruby red.
If Sicherlein had any experience with basic anatomy, or even cooking, she might recognize it as muscle tissue.

A basin, like an open mouth, jutted prominently out from the monolith. A single tooth, sharp enough for one to prick their finger on, waited hungrily above it.
The starved maw of the monolith awaited, begging for satiation. Even Sicherlein would detect the sensation.

All else:
It was quiet for a moment, after the dust settled from Nasuada's fall. Then there was the rhythmic beat of hooves.

A scream, human, high-pitched-- it belonged to either a child or a woman-- sounded from the right-most side of the room, in the dark.

As though on cue, or out of fright, a rain of frighteningly meaty chunks fell from above and cascaded over the three: Libourg, Iver, and Ibrahim, and Nasuada's boots, left in the dust of the rushing Sicherlein.
Even more frighteningly, the stream of vomit never ceased. The dog-like creature, which emerged from the shadows, was a veritable, heaving spout.
Despite the many limbs that seemed to be randomly attached to the creature with no thought on function, it seemed that its sole purpose was to vomit infinitely over the party.

So it kept vomiting. It was the worst fountain in the world.

[Bloodtrailkiller]

/Sicherlein/

The grizzly display was enough to make her dance back a step; the sight of red was always a warning sign, especially so when the red belonged to such a vile exclamation of gore.
For a moment of macabre fascination, she leant in to inspect the hook, then hopped back again; spying the toothy protrustion with some fright, her head flicked about like a bird before the veritable squeal pulled her back into the danger.

Her heart almost spilled out of her throat as she saw the vile peachy form spewing vomit. The grotesque display was almost too much, though the distance and malformed shape of it all through her ported visor gave enough leeway for her to keep the flowers she'd eaten well and settled in her stomach.

Flexing her fingers, however, she swiftly sheathed her spatha and turned to run at the creature; diagonally, at least. Angling to hide behind one of the pillars, she would swiftly throw out a curved throwing dagger at the doggish monster, before skidding to a halt behind a pillar.
\\

[relentless]

Libourg seemed to meander in place for a bit, though as he watched the others navigate themselves around, his eyes caught the sight of the dog, and with wide eyes would he watch as the waterfall of puke was sent his way. Immediately his stomach turned upside down at the sight of ghastly dark green, with the dogs past lunch coming his way. So instinctly, he shuffled awkwardly out of the way with his back hunched over. Of course, in his plate armour it wasn't the best way to escape, and so the rain of vomit would splatter against the back of his chestplate mainly, whilst other parts were drizzled with it not so much.

The smell was simply unbearable, and as if this day couldn't get any worse, the vomit was leaking into his armour and down his pants. Instinctively, he started to dry retch and gag as he stumbled away in complete horror, lifting his faceplate up so he could spit out anything that had accumilated. Thankfully his immune system seemed to have negated that vomit attack, despite it resembling sewer gunk.

After he was done with his quick dry retching, Libourg bared his teeth and gritted them from left to right, before he straightened himself back up and proceeded to charge at dog, red in the face as he bubbled with rage. As he sprinted up to the dog from the side, he would attempt to bring his plated foot down on the creatures back.

[rumsztyk]

The vomit was all over his robes. Disgusting, slimy, smelly. Ibrahim retched, the grip on his skull charm tightening.

For a mere split second, the eye sockets of the skull flared red. It was gazing at the dog-creature. Eldritch power flowed, cursing the wretch to a swift, painful and, more importantly, imminent death. "Kill that thing! Now!" Ibrahim commanded his allies.

All the while, Xuul would cackle maniacally at his host's dismay.

[The Carrying Blade]

Nasuada sighed to herself as she missed, her stomach hurting as she belly flopped unto the stone floor. Although she wouldn't get to rest as the dog like creature speed chunks onto her feet. It was disgusting and she could already feel Ibrahim using his magic on it. So she simply albeit hurriedly got up from the ground, quickly moving forward to get out of the range of the vomountain. Being careful to watch around so that there were no other damned things surprising the group by coming out of the darkness.

[Unter]

When Nasuada fell, Iver thought this was the funniest thing in the world. This highly woman just got a taste of her own medicine. Let another one bite the dust, for once. He didn't even finish laughing that the heavens burst into flying heaps of vomit. Vomit ! What on earth did this cesspool have else for him ? The vomit stirred up all the anger he kept back since he started this miserable search. Bloody pigs. Bloody Nasuada. Bloody place where everything seems to shit on you !

"Gah ! I'm done with this ! Meyla krafla mikli thur syr (Child born of a long dead sow) !"
He flourished his throwing knives in a very fashionable, and satisfying, way. 
He ran in front of the spewing beast, nearly hitting Libourg in his dash, and spat on the ground. The sky was still vomiting this horrible, disgusting rain. 

Anger giving him strength, he gathered everything in this throw. He threw his knife, the particular feeling of the disturbed air confirmed his shot. 
"Bloody hell !" he shout.
"Die !"

[Vanitypirate]

The worst fountain in the world:
The pummeling it received well more than made up for the trauma it created through its emesis.
First came the hex: it buckled, and the neverending geyser of vomit seemed to flicker a touch as the creature buckled.

However, the dagger that Iver threw next sank deeper into its flesh than any ordinary, hex-less circumstance would warrant. It was as though its flesh were made of soft gelatin-- though, no doubt the company of mercenaries wished to avoid all thoughts of that comparison.
The dagger cut through the space between its eyes and exited out the back of its skull, tunneling through all tissue inbetween.

Likewise, Sicherlein's dagger operated much the same way. It sank into the creature's flank and nearly exited out through the opposite side of its belly; though it seemed to slow, at last, just before the skin.

Libourg's boot did significant damage to its bodily integrity, as well. It crunched through the creature's spine and seemed to cave its weakened flesh inwards underneath the steel of his boot.

However, perhaps it was not so wise as to completely obliterate a creature of infinite vomit. Whether a dagger pierced some vomit-bladder, or Libourg's boot crushed it, the remainder of its contents were explosively released all at once.
And there was quite a lot of it.

There was a wet burst of material that exploded out in a radius so wide it was almost ridiculous. Innards, teeth, and vomit would rain down on the entire party.
Some particles must have flecked the maw of the monolith, as the basin had begun to pulse with an unnatural red hue.

[relentless]

Libourg recoiled immediately as he felt a hard splat hit his face at full force. At first he thought he was having a very heavy nosebleed, but in fact his face was covered with mostly vomit, though bits of gore was mixing in there. His eyes were closed and his mouth was shut, he didn't dare to open them as he held his arms out to feel for objects.

"I can't fuckin' see!"
Libourg shouted in hoarse panic as he wiped his face down desperately with his gauntlet, focusing on his eyes and mouth so he could see and breath. Eventually his eyes would flutter open, with the majority of his face still stained with slicks of vomit and offal, and he braced his hands against his kneeguards as he hunched over spitting onto the ground.
"This is fucked, w-why the fuck are we down here still?!"
Libourg coughed and sputtered, dry retching a tad before he wiped his nose and turned to face the group.

"Oh, and good job to whoever startled the bloody thing! That was just a cherry on the cake!"
Libourg sarcastically snapped at them the party, taking out a handkerchief from a pocket beneath his plated skirt fold and spitting onto it as he began cleaning his face with it.

[Unter]

Iver didn't even have time to have a victory cry. The vomit "explosion" shut him up, and he was knocked down by the sheer weight of vomit being hurled at him. He laid there, sighing. He used this "respite" to catch his breath for a minute.
"Fuck, I'm so tired of this shit."

For a moment, he just thought about nothing. He was just lying there, in mud.
Then he was back in the shithole. He got up, fearing another attack.
"It just never ends. Are these warrens always like this ? This is horrible.
Let's find those people quickly and be done with it."
He tried to wipe some vomit off his face, but he had nothing to. He kept looking for some "clean" clothes lying on the ground, but this was probably impossible in this place. He tried to shake himself like a dog to brush away most of the litteral shit.
Then, he looked around to gather information about what happened.

[Bloodtrailkiller]

/Sicherlein/

She cringed... Hard. Like a spider, she curled her limbs inwardly as she desperately pulled her hat down over her head as she more smelled and heard the droplets of vomit patter atop her.
The moment didn't last as she quickly remembered and, quicker yet, moved the torch-bound hand away from her hat before anything caught fire.

With a harumph, happy to have not been sprayed, she spun out from the pillar and spied the grotesque display and shuddered. Swiftly wishing she hadn't seen it at all.
"Right then; good work everyone!" She declared, and turned away, offering a quick thumbs up as she moved back over to the Monolith with a hungry 'ahh'. As though the scene behind her was all but history.

She took a deep inhale through her nostrils, as grotesque as the acrid scent was, there was a livid curiosity in her core that had her examine the teeth rather briefly, before moving onto the hook and chain.

"We have some sort of... sacrificial monument, dear kinder-kamarades." She mumbled and reached out to the chain and its morbid decor in an attempt to reach it; with either the torch or her hand...
//

[Vanitypirate]

Chamber:
It was quiet again in the chamber, dark, save for the circles of torchlight.
The scream heard from earlier had tapered off to a barely-audible sob before going silent.

The floor, saturated in all manner of bodily fluids and bodily... chunks, was rather unpleasant to look at, and offered no further information than what the swine-dog had eaten for breakfast that day.

Mercifully, the group might find themselves joyfully nose-blind to the scent of the tunnels.

Monolith and Chain:
It continued to beat a steady red pulse. It glowed like lightning, but not as fleeting; like hot embers.
The glow undulated rhythmically, like the beat of a heart; begging, starved for some sustenance, having tasted only a teasingly few droplets from the exploded swine.

[The Carrying Blade]

Nasuada was pelted with bits and chunks of the explosion, which sent a massive shiver down her spine as she could just feel the gross bile and undigested food from the creature. Thankfully nothing got in her hair but god did she smell horrible now, which she was thankfully oblivious to somehow.

Now there was the choice of going after whatever scream there had been to her right, or investigate the monolith herself and perhaps reap the rewards from an offering instead of Sicherlien if she decided to sacrifice a bit of herself. The answer was quite simple honestly, the rest of the group could investigate giving her ample oppurtunity to focus on the monolith.

"Don't touch that hook! There's a spirit in that Monolith, it's hungry, it wants a sacrifice. Please, let us do this, it is safer for someone with experience and magic who can protect themselves from a curse if the deity is....destructive for lack of a better term. Compared to, a more, normal and....pure person than us." Nasuada spoke out to Sicherlien, being careful in her words and explanation so that the woman wouldn't do something rash again.