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Post by Spookery π on Jul 27, 2019 15:04:58 GMT -8
Valeria glowered at Semyon for kicking the man in the ribs, but opted to save any scolding for later. This wasn't the time for it. She nodded at Taas before slipping behind the rest of the group, halberd in hand, to keep watch behind them as they moved forward. So far, nothing seemed to be following them--but she had hardly forgotten the room down the hall where they had run into...aberrations. And whatever it was that burned Leoman to melting flesh, and whispered venomously in her ear.
"I'll hold you to it. Tread carefully up there." Valeria glanced at Sarak and Semyon briefly. "Whatever is down here with these cultists...When Talea and I came before, it attempted to trick us. There is nothing here to harm you yet," she said as evenly as possible, then nodded again at Taas. "I am ready."
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Post by EloHim on Jul 28, 2019 10:18:36 GMT -8
And so they pushed onward into the tunnel leaving the old decorations behind.
Through the dark they followed into the light at the end, and at one point in time a faint humming, accompanied with the ringing of bells entered their ears.[VC HERE] As they walked the humming was getting louder,and the torches roared ahead, burning out in some unknown agony. The sand was eerily flowing like a river to the hall ahead, gathering.
Before them - what looked like a giant church hall, akin to that of the Abbey...except all the windows were shut off by stone and all the pews were turned into piles of wood covered with even more sand. The blood decorating every stone on the walls was made into signs of the unholy worship, further cementing the mockery of the Light that was so worshiped above the ground. The hall itself was brightly lit with torches and candles placed all over the hall.
At the end of the hall - an Effigy...A totem made out of human bodyparts, old and new, rotten and fresh, torn and cut. Torsos, heads, legs, hands, fingers...male and female. All of it was tied together by pieces of rope, thick and thin. The very air around it was sweet with decay and looking at it was bringing any man foolish enough to stare closer to the brink of sanity.
To Talea it was even worse. The Effigy in her eyes was alive, moving, shifting. It was filled with souls...not full souls, not what she used to see, but torn bits and pieces of moaning, pleading, cursing, screaming, whimpering souls kept apart by the binding of red see-through chains. And the souls... they were not pleading for help or vengeance, no... They wanted to be whole again so they could consume her. They wanted her dead, they wanted the group dead, they wanted to feast on their corpses, to rip them apart, break their bones and suck the marrow out... All those wishes were sent directly to Talea's head, making it known to her - those souls will never know peace, for they were tainted by the very darkness that was all around them behind the walls of that unholy chappel. Others could hear it too...should they chose to focus on that abominable creation long enough.
And the source of the humming? He stood before the effigy, his back turned to the group. He was clad in some metal armor, multiple belts connecting the pieces. It was adorned with straps of red cloth, though it did not cover his whole body, as evident by a giant bleeding stab-wound in his back. On his back there was a sheathed curved longsword, waiting to be used. On his left hip - a horn, maybe for drinking maybe for sounding the alarm. His left arm was covered by a clawed gauntlet, while his right was holding a dagger. He was admiring the effigy, captivated by its monstrous design.
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Post by Bloodtrailkiller on Jul 28, 2019 12:09:47 GMT -8
/Taas/
She stopped at the precipice to the black hall of blood and sand, of bodies made effigy. A haunting sense of repitition, of cycles, of deja vu clicked in her mind; the supporting buttresses of the Hall like trees in a wood, the low pews and sand like soft rolling hills of a glade... yet the Effigy was always the same.
Memories didn't often come to her... and that was what frightened her the most. She could almost taste the blood, smell the musk of blood and wolves. Taas' held a bated breath and shut her eyes from seeing, if but for a moment.
"Sarak..." She whispered, crouching low so she might rest a knee, as a hound to pounce upon a hare. She motioned with her ax for Talea to move to the side as well,
"... can you make that shot?" Taas' eyes were shut, but she faced the Effigy and heard those murmurs... in a way, their occult chanting was sobering. A difference from the Pale Woods and the wolves that lingered in its ashes.
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Post by Kidney on Jul 28, 2019 22:45:06 GMT -8
Semyon plodded forward with a look of concentration. His mind drifted, eyeballs shifting in his skull like a chameleon checking for insects. He was wild even in idle travel, head jerking from place to place, bow and arrow still held in shaking hands. Though, as they continued once more, Semyon began to pull his arrow from the string, and sheathed it into the quiver again.
With a practiced and quiet hand, Semyon replaced his bow and with a bit of a shuffle, pulled his gun from its resting place and back into Side Saddle.
Then came the next room. Semyon's mind wandered, and as they came upon the effigy, Semyon vomited into his mouth. Eyes bulged from his skull, and he swallowed bile back down his gullet while he couched alongside Taas. He shook his head, exhaling putrid breath before staring at the figure ahead. Listening to Taas, he offered his assistance.
"I...can shoot also. Two chances at kill."
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Post by Spookery π on Jul 29, 2019 5:01:06 GMT -8
She had seen ungodly things before--but not of this magnitude. Nothing so...so inherently obscene, so grotesque. Valeria gripped the halberd tightly as they lingered in the doorway of the chapel, all of them staring at the effigy at the end of the aisle, and the figure standing before it. She reached out with her free hand slowly and placed it on Sarak's shoulder gently, trying not to startle him.
"If it doesn't die, and comes toward us, we will be ready for it," she reassured him. "Its armor is already pierced there. It bleeds. We can handle it."
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Post by EtherealNoire on Jul 29, 2019 7:58:15 GMT -8
Horror, sorrow, terror, wrath. It all consumed her, roaring through her veins like a tempest set against the world. Had Talea found her voice she would have screamed her fury, yet Night withheld her. His power seeped into her bones, frigid and bristling with an ire that spanned eons, yet confined her will within his own.Β
No! I will avenge them. Let me fight!
Her eyes were wild, feral beneath the lashing torrents of her hair. She would decimate them! Bathe in their carnage until their vile screams rang on for centuries in that forsaken Tophet.
Thorns tightened around her neck though she strained to rush the Beast afore them. They pulled her backwards, away from Sarak and the others as if she had relented. But stinging furrows and dripping warmth spelt her displeasure in scarlet letters on her skin.
Relent to me! His command burned within her mind.Β She fought the flames. Bitter, desperate for vengeance.Β
No!
To those that watched, she moved with ease, yet inside her mind she was an animal clawing for release. Begging for blood.
Cease! Now is the moment to calculate, not grant hatred thy sight. When the time arises, all shall know our wrath.
His words held her, sharp as the thorns that cut into her veins. Night alone could contain her. None other could make the stars set on her fury. But when the hour came, their vengeance combined would devour all that dare stand in their path.
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Post by Capster on Jul 30, 2019 9:34:39 GMT -8
Sarak was silent, looking at the sick monument and as he heard the request, he simply nodded. Ven's words echoed in his mind as he slowly placed a hand on his bowstring. In one smooth slick sounding wooshing motion, his bow was pulled back, he aimed and fired right towards the exposed monster of a man's back.
The black steel bodkin point, a nasty thing that pierces through ringmail and scale mail with ease soared through the air with the black and red feathers fluttering behind as it moved towards the point.
Sarak caught his breath, a hand going to his dagger, ready to see what the man would return with.
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Post by EloHim on Aug 1, 2019 6:10:10 GMT -8
The arrow flies through the air, cutting it apart with a whistle.
It finds its purchase in the back of the man⦠he falls face first into the ground with a loud thud, his humming...silenced.
-To Talea-
The Effigy⦠smiles. Smiles like a hungry beast about to get his fill of fresh meat. The chains draw upon the body.Twisting out what little soul the monster of a man had and swallowing it whole.
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Post by Kidney on Aug 2, 2019 21:02:03 GMT -8
Semyon did not like that. With terrible concern he shook his head, looking to Sarak with deep, profound fear. "I did not like that." He spoke, aiming the rifle at the man's corpse. "I do not trust him." Said the Rus next, who shook his head.
He looked to Taas, The Boogeywoman she was, for advice. "What should we do now?" He whispered, eyes watering and hands shaking.
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Post by Capster on Aug 3, 2019 9:07:04 GMT -8
Sarak was silent once again before looking to the others as he began to nock a second arrow. His initial instinct was to walk over and retrieve the arrow he had fired but he paused, a gut feeling told him something was off with the body but he didn't know what.
Perhaps it was the large Effigy that startled him, however Sarak slowly began to approach, stopping before he approached to far from the group, now in the lead.
Unnocking the arrow and setting it back in his quiver, he produced a dagger from his hip as he looked to the others, almost asking for reassurance to continue approaching to retrieve the arrow.
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Post by EtherealNoire on Aug 3, 2019 10:03:42 GMT -8
Night relinquished her to the darkness as the body fell and queries raised and Talea swayed upon the sand as though her consciousness faltered. Fury boiled beneath her skin, bubbling up like each russet bead that dripped beneath her armor of thorns. Ne'er had she felt as whelmed to its currents as she did facing the anathema afore them.
Only the hint of motion drew her forth from its tides. She lifted a hand to the mortal whilst he passed, blind to the crimson streaks upon her skin that marked her own vain attempts to decimate Malice's chthonic horror.
"Entreat it not. Thy arrow proves nay price to pay for thy soul. Grant it not devour thee as the pneuma of he who lies vanquished."
Her lips curl into a bitter sneer, one unseemly for her placid ways and she drifts yonder to the BeastSinger, searching the woman's solus eye with her own ablaze by ire.
"It seeks sustenance on our corses, vile hatred manifested in incorporeal chains. I beseech thee, venture no further towards its purlieu. Know I not the breadth of its might, yea that none shall cleanse its corruption with peace."
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Post by Spookery π on Aug 3, 2019 12:43:12 GMT -8
Valeria straightened up a bit, lifting to her chin to get a better view of the fallen man. The silence was almost unnerving. She couldn't help but feel something was still deeply wrong. Talea spoke up as Sarak moved forward to retrieve his arrow, though she couldn't quite understand her beyond the gist of "Don't do that." She turned to her with a look of minor desperation.
"Could you please speak more clearly? I can't understand what you're telling us most of the time," she admitted, "and you're the only other one that's been down here before." She wanted her input, but she wanted to be able to actually make sense of it--and to make sense of the bizarre nature of the woman. There were...thorns about her that she did not remember seeing earlier.
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Post by Bloodtrailkiller on Aug 3, 2019 12:57:47 GMT -8
/Taas/
"Kh, get back here you bloody shieldbiter..." She scoffed, happy the boy made the shot but less so with the unceremonious end. She expected... maybe wanted an ambush to spring, some relief from the tension building in her shoulders and about the nape of her neck. With a soft snarl she rose from her crouch and raised the torch, head bowed away from the effigy still.
"... Bonehead's sayin the effigy's got magic abouts it. She dunno what sort, but I reckon it's the bad type." Taas huffed, daring to open her eye to look back at the party and the good Vengeance.
Her half-open gaze shot open as she spied Talea's thornsome binds; a rush of action flew across Taas' face as her amber eye darted over the black bramble, Torch swinging about for a moment as she took a step back.
"Fuck's that on your arm?!" she barely contained her shout to a whisper as she pointed to those tendrils with her ax,
"S'at what those cunts at the door were on about?" Taas' brow furrowed, blinking a few times as she suddenly remembered the Effigy again and turned halfwise only to doubly remember its gnarly appearance.
Stuck between wyrd magick on either glance, she sighed and steeled herself to look at Sarak's boots, if but to make sure he wasn't ambushed by anything.
"Sometimes..." She began with a bitter chuckle, "... I forget this place is a proper sodden circus."
She motioned to the Effigy with her ax,
"I says we burn it... chop it down, somethin..." Her tone chipped for a moment, a softness and care broke her rasp before she sniffed and cleared her throat. Regretting taking a breath of the insufferably claustrophobic and bloody air,
"... we can't just leave'em like that." She whispered, nigh to herself as she dared to look on the Effigy in true... it was the least she ought to do to respect the dead.
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Post by EtherealNoire on Aug 4, 2019 8:23:50 GMT -8
Ven's pleas were not lost to Talea though the sonorant of mortal speech left her mouth leaden. As dense as though mercury dripped on her tongue, she swallowed her displeasure and pondered words. Yet the BeastSinger's bite forced her to pause.
In answer, the thorns sheathed below her sleeves, even whilst Talea courted silence.Β What need hath she explain her bond amidst a den of corruption?
Nay, she beckoned the mortal male abscond his fletching, eyes narrowed at the abomination's greed that oozed forth after its feast of souls. Could mortal feats decimate that which was formed by Malice?
In the still air, whispers of annihilation stirred and she could feel the chains persist in defiance. Visions of searing iron pressed upon her mind till her breath burned from her lungs, demanding to be heeded.
Cautious, she turned to those that watched her, and tasted a language as bitter and young as fermenting wine.
"Know I not if confla--" She winced. "...fire... shall have the effect we seek. Magic worms about it. Ritual-chains yolk their shattered souls and their words denote naught but death and devouring for those whom dare approach."
An unease settled about her, for still she sensed the steady beat of Malice beneath them, surrounding them, longing to corrupt her. Only Night's thorns promised her protection from debauchery.
Yet she too craved to destroy the figure.
"As he who lay pinioned-- nailed to sand, the malison proves difficult to unbind." Noting their stares, Talea sighed heavily. Each word struggled to depart her lips.
"Curse. His iron nails were laced with crimson chains, as the effigy afore us. All must be destroyed, yet fear I it craves to be unbound. It speaks of it. It pleads union, that each soul separated by chains may become whole and consume us. Tis not the way. Eve' I as singer of souls cannot grant it peace, for the corruption beating behind these walls, amidst shade and sand, taints all that perished here."
Once more she turned to the Beastsinger, but the torchlight failed to light the shadows swathing her eyes.
"No solace shall find it till the creature they revere is destroyed. If thou--"
For a moment she froze, visibly distraught before she at last relented to the word.
"...you desire to burn it, I cannot say it will end with ease. Yea, the effigy consumed what soul remained in the fallen man, thus, verily, I caution thee to avoid it. All can be reanimated or manipulated here."
Saying no more, Talea moved afront the group, yet the sand remained silent beneath her, as though a ghost crossed its shifting surface. And in the midst of maleficence, so she was a ghost, a vengeful spirit pining for a realm restored.
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Post by Bloodtrailkiller on Aug 5, 2019 0:53:37 GMT -8
/Taas/
Her teeth ground, but Talea's songful words kept her focused and strong as she forced herself to peer into the lifeless eyes of the effigy, as if she might pry what woes and suffering they'd endured. To think such occult and ritualistic slaughter could be had beyond the Ashen Woods of her home was unsettling beyond the gore itself.
Taas nodded solemnly in respect to Talea's intonement, though she hissed and spat into the sand as she looked to the walls and then to the corpse;
"We've got a... A Lady of the Light, don't we?" she looked back to Valeria with a cocked brow, before she looked back to the man's corpse, the Pale-haired Merc's mind churning.
"... M-might be you could bless it or some such? If anything, we ought to have the path clear for the hostages..." She sighed and steeled herself, shutting her eyes as she rubbed her chin with the head of her ax.
"Y'say all can be reanimated... manipulated? I's seen mushrooms and goop in the Wealds here that do the same; dead men rise to bite and gnash and grope and spew... If's that what you mean, then we ought to butcher that boy." She motioned to the dead man with her ax now, shrugging her shoulders as that steelery of soul found its way to her eye and grip; she spoke the words with calm that only came from experience.
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