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Post by Capster on Aug 6, 2019 17:46:02 GMT -8
Sarak hesitated and shook his head before returning to the group, his eyes dead on the inside, the look of a man who stared an oncoming charge of enemy combatants, a borderline battle fatigued look that penetrated the very psyche. He was not physically tired however, just a man who felled another willingly.
"I do not sense the need if we wish to not approach it. If they were to...reliven themselves then we best save that energy for the more serious guards that we may face. Come let us continue downwards." He says looking to them, attempting to lead while being himself, a mere follower.
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Post by EloHim on Aug 7, 2019 1:10:29 GMT -8
Sarak's back turned to what appeared to be the corpse of the pale man was a mistake he paid for as the very same arrow found its purchase in his left shoulder, sinking the arrowhead into the meat, almost getting to the bone.
The body itself was now standing on its feet again facing them, a medium-sized pile of sand at his feet... His eyes were white, his face scarred and pale...smiling. It was mostly concealed by the helmet but not enough.
The man - if such a word could describe him - started humming, as if he had no care in the world... just as the noise of bells from deep within the dungeon marked the coming of the night. It wasn't midnight yet...just another hour closer to it. [VC here]
-Talea and Taas-
They could both hear the laughter of the Effigy as the wave of aching pain attached itself to their heads. To Taas it was something that a man could never hear from any man or animal in the world, undescribable... and therefore somewhat horryfying. Then the words were simply put in their head, no voice behind them."YOUR EYES BETRAY YOU, LITTLE SNACK. YOU AND YOUR LITTLE SKELETON ARE IN MY DOMAIN. WHAT YOU SEE IS MINE TO SHAPE. WALK SOME MORE, SEE DEEPER...AND WE SHALL LEARN HOW LOUD THE HORNED SKULL SCREAMS."
And this time - Talea didnt see ANYTHING. As if a veil of fog was put upon her inner sight, not letting her gain any information about their enemy.
The sand piles around the place livened up,taking shape and colour to copy the exact man standing near the Effigy. There were at least 7 of them all over the place...with more no doubt waiting to rise from other places. Those that were already formed stepped out,pulling the swords out.
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Post by Kidney on Aug 7, 2019 20:05:27 GMT -8
"No. No. No!" Semyon yelled, taking a quick backstep, raising the gun again to aim at the original figure. His eyes locked on the humming apparition, a boggart, a troll...a daemon. Semyon yelled something guttural, no language could interpret it, just resounding gibberish that dared describe how to the Rus felt. He leaned his head down, and planted the rifle's stock into his shoulder tight.
Without further ado.
There was a calamitous boom, and suddenly the rifle was alight, a bright flash propelling a mighty lead ball across the room at speeds untouchable by man. Aimed at the first man to exist, not his sand borne copies.
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Post by EtherealNoire on Aug 7, 2019 23:32:58 GMT -8
Its words snapped a chord within her and fury broiled forth from the agony. Malice could not stop her with its paltry threats, she knew this. Despised it. Her fingers pointed towards the creature, and her song raised in opposition, poised to rent it asunder when, amidst the tides of her enveloping wrath, all she had seen evanesced into white.
Blindness? The weight of it left her gasping till her notes faltered into cacophony.
How? What power granted it dominion o’er her sight?
Noises flared. Sand hissed like vipers beneath her soles and the torches crackled in morbid glee. Yet so too did the song of armor and singing steel spill out into the room and its melody stirred a different sight. Visons born from darkness and glinting metal, illuminated by the fires of pain.
‘Twas folly to presume sight could bind her when her battles tasted tenebrous.
Shadows pooled about her figure, fueled by her defiance as she faced the creature reborn, and before her outstretched hand the ground began to boil.
They would not relent. They would not cease. Not when their fight had nigh begun. Night’s powers burned within her soul, and she called it forth with a song louder than she had raised before.
She called the sands to writhe and lash, the tendrils about her arms to sharpen to something darker, lethal. And as another harmony joined with hers, the ground erupted into a sonorous hymn of death. A mesh of thorns.
The briars shredded through the sand afore her, ensnaring two while she aimed for he who called the grains to walk. Weaving her hands, Talea’s body moved sightless to guide them, ne’er relenting till the thorns destroy all those that strove for their demise.
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Post by Capster on Aug 9, 2019 16:15:19 GMT -8
Sarak fell, his arrow piercing his own shoulder. His knees buckled slightly before he grasped at projectile. Despite not intending to cause significant bleeding, he felt hot blood stream down his skin, soaking into his jerkin. With a sharp grasp he quickly just fell back onto the wall, yanking the arrow out of his arm.
However this only worsened the bleeding, looking about he quickly slipped out of his jerkin, exposing his bleeding arm and looked about before improvising with his flint and tinder, quickly igniting a fist full of burning tinder that smoked, glowing brightly. Pinching his wound he shoved the burning material onto the relatively small puncture wound, with a loud audible exhale of pain as he did.
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Post by Bloodtrailkiller on Aug 10, 2019 8:33:43 GMT -8
/Taas/
The sudden pressure of the words, in conjunction to the enemies and explosive declaration of battle from Semyon, brought Taas' teeth together in a vicious grind as she took a step back; only to watch those thorny brambles of Dark swirl and work to sunder the sand doppelgangers.
"Fucking hell..." she muttered as sweat beaded on her brow with narry a second into the battle. Already she felt unfathomably over her head; the horrors of the Weald were a different beast entirely to these whorling sands and magicks.
There was a gruesome reality to seeing a man reanimated by fungal growths, but there was aught to work with a man simply risen back to Life. To sands that stirred with barely a whisper.
There was a reality lacking in these damned halls that unsettled her gut.
She still had people to protect though; between Semyon and Sarak and Talea... she moved to Sarak, who'd taken a vicious, if not late, riposte in the shape of his aggressively returned arrow.
Taas moved and held the torch out still, as she moved to position herself between Sarak and the doppelgangers, adopting a wide stance as she looked to her comrades;
"Stay close! We've got range; keep behind me and Valeria. We need to get our back's to some'n..." She barked out, her brow furrowing as a nagging migraine sprung up at her temple.
Much as she'd like to repress those sourceless words that echoed in her mind, they haunted her like a fog in a harbour. There was an undeniable wariness growing against Talea... What machinations stirred between the damsel and these Cultists? Between the "guards" and the murmurs from the effigy, the witch may have more secrets than Taas might have anticipated...
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Post by Spookery 💉 on Aug 11, 2019 10:55:52 GMT -8
Seven of them rose from the sand as Valeria dashed to guard Sarak with Taas, wielding her halberd. She gritted her teeth. Taas was right; they needed to protect their backs somehow. Using the tunnel would be forcing them into an enclosed space. In the meantime, it seemed that the others hoped for the same thing she did--that injuring the original would dampen the forces rising from the sand scattered about the room. She readied herself, standing firm as she stared at the man they had hoped to kill, and called out to the rest of her colleagues.
"Do not lose sight of him among the others! If we can wound his front, it'll be enough to set him apart." The paladin glanced over her shoulder at Sarak. "Are you alright? Can you still shoot?"
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Post by EloHim on Aug 12, 2019 3:02:24 GMT -8
The bullet simply disappeared into what heroes perceived as "the original", with a little splash of sand. The little ball of metal appeared in his hand and was dropped to the floor as the man quickly moved out of the way of skull-girl's thorns. The other copy was torn apart in seconds, the sand flying everywhere.
Their eyes laughed at them as two of the group moved to protect their wounded boy. At least three of them went forward with attacking Valeria and Taas, trying to get to Sarak, clawing to finish him off.
(Three attacks: two on Taas - 18 and 10 and one on Valeria - 11)
Another tries to assault Talea but is failing miserably, her magic - too much for the copy.
(rolled a 1)
And Semyon? Russian man was left fending for himself, as another one came at him, blade high above his head aiming to slash him into two equal pieces...or cut his hand off...or something to that effect.
(rolled an 18)
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Post by Kidney on Aug 12, 2019 20:21:04 GMT -8
The farther his friends flew from him, the greater the fear in Semyon grew. He was going to run, this was decided. But, as he watched his one and only attack fail at the most crucial point of all the battles Semyon had fought, he soiled himself. With a grand shriek, he turned to run as the Sand Copy rushed him.
The attack was swift, and with a sound like a sharp knife cutting across the spine of a salmon, Semyon's back was cut. He let out a bloodcurdling screech, falling facefirst, rifle clattering to a stop on a nearby wall, back wound bleeding hot red down his body.
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Post by EloHim on Aug 13, 2019 0:06:28 GMT -8
-For Talea-
The Night was not an easy picking for a shadow of the real thing. The overwhelming power lay in the gentle hands of His Puppet. The power that the Effigy did not yet fully understood.
The veil upon the eye of the Maiden of Thorns is lifted... partly. The fog was still covering the attacking figures: The Effigy protected them, and the Horned King was still fighting against that protection. But... If she were to look... A familiar beaked figure was standing near the big sand pile on the right side of the hall, pointing its skeletal finger on it...with two thin pitch-black figures in white masks standing on each side of him, digging into the pile with imaginary showels.
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Post by EtherealNoire on Aug 13, 2019 16:58:19 GMT -8
(Rolled Nat 20 for attack)
Nay had the sand advanced and the mortal fallen in scarlet spouts when the wight's blade shattered mid-blow. For where hands and wrists once warred, remained naught but grains of sand sifting to the writhing soil, feeding the shadows that howled below. While further down its shattered body, thorns blasted through its viscera, shredding up its throat to sprout sable blossoms from its dying wails.
And she who abided within both realms of shadows and spirit, wove her spell, raising clenched fingers towards the pinionned foe. In her words, Night echoed, and the darkness rushed against the walls. Stronger, colder, crushing every adversary with a song louder than their own command.
Her hair lashed like fire as she called the thorns to decimate them. Shadows roared. The sand erupted. Briars and darkness sprang forth from every inch of soiled earth, burrowing into the pitful creature while the thorns coiled about her own illuminated form. With one last note from she and Night, the tangles rent it asunder, scattering powdered sand amidst a field of ebony rose.
Only then did Talea turn, pupils ivory in the firelight, to face the raptor poised against the far right wall.
Blue flames pooled from the hollow sockets in her crown, the first glint of Night's appreciation ever offered to another. Thus, like the roses laced across her hair and body, twas a rare gift not soon to evanesce.
With her spectral cry, the thorns rushed towards the dunes in a tide of twisting spines, shredding all that stood afore it. It tangled around the sand, driving deep into the mass as though to pierce straight through the Heart itself. No more would she let it slander them. No longer would it find souls to claim.
She sang into the darkness as she channeled Night's abounding wrath, and nigh her outstretched hand, Night's shadow fought beside her own.
At last, with the sands and petals raining down around her, she called the others to attack.
"Our adversary hides from us no longer in the light!"
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Post by EloHim on Aug 17, 2019 5:51:52 GMT -8
The clones had bursted into the sand they were made of, attacks - not reaching their targets, their weapons - unmade.
The pile of sand pierced by thorns was...bleeding. The blood slowly seeped out in all directions, covering the floor around it. Silence covered the hall, no bells, no wind, no sand moving through the air. The Effigy was silent, only few red chain connecting it with the wall behind it.
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Post by Capster on Aug 17, 2019 15:32:40 GMT -8
Sarak who looked to Ven and simply nodded, pulled himself up from the floor proper and held his shoulder before quickly undoing the straps which held his dagger, throwing it over his shoulder, he tightened them down which only caused minor discomforting noises to emanate from his mouth.
“The fuck. Was that.” He muttered as he looked to the others, a primal flight or flight look about him, his eyes darting around.
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Post by Bloodtrailkiller on Aug 17, 2019 16:56:26 GMT -8
/Taas/ Ready for a fight, sudden as it was, she'd raised her ax and braced to weather the two strikes poised at her... only to feel nothing. As the moments drew on, she felt the silence spread like a nauseating tide. Adrenaline had her holding her ax with white knuckles as she lowered it, her movements tense, but slow and measured. She'd only seen the barest flourishes of black thorns before the men of sand were dashed away... With a wary, but grateful look, she bowed her head to Talea with a muttered thanks. She remembered hearing Semyon scream, the fact the Vengeance was here with her was all she needed to know to put together what happened to the fool left behind. She bit her cheek and looked Valeria over, giving her a look to impress that the archer boy was in her hands, as Taas turned away and made to jog back over to Semyon, her hands going to the party's medicines in preperation; from the blood splattered over the floor and wall, the fool was cut good... "Here-here chum, I'm here. Fighting's done, just stay down and--" She set her ax aside and pulled out the antler-hilt knife to set out infront of his face, "-- here, bite on this. You got cut pretty bad..." She spoke swiftly, and softly... soft as her hoarse voice allowed as she pulled off her gloves and made to lift the man's shirt and see to tending his wound...
[rolled 1d10+2 for healing : result was 8]
... Thankfully, by the sweat of her brow and tinctures and bandages in hand, she managed to clean and dress the wound succintly; she was no surgeon, but he wasn't bleeding, and it didn't look like to tear more lest he moved vigorously. "... There you are, easy does it; slow breaths and all before you try'n stand. Take my hand when you're ready, eh?" Taas offered quickly and quietly as she moved to kneel beside Semyon's shoulder, palm up and ready to help should he need.
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Post by Kidney on Aug 17, 2019 21:53:39 GMT -8
In the puddle of his own blood sat Semyon, oblivious to the world before him, the Rus found no salvation in his crawling to his weapon, leaving a slug-like trail behind him, his heartbeat rang through him, face paling before Taas arrived. He had tried to sit himself up, instead on his side, shoulder his brace from the cold ground. His face rang no recognition to her, and as she gently sat him down, and her knife was set to his face, he bit without hesitation.
As she began, screeches around the handle symbolized his pain, and at its most painful moments, a pained whimper would rattle past the handle and land upon the ground like spittle, which followed his agonizing screams.
At the end, Taas would watch the man pull away from the knife, leaving two half(?)-teeth behind, embedded into the dagger's handle. As she gave him time to adjust, he layed for a moment, before reaching to grab the knife from before his face.
He was feral.
Turning to face her, and bare hand reaching to grasp hers, the other clutching her knife close to his chest, as if she were a Valkyrie coming to take him to heaven, the wide eyed, bloodshot eyes of Semyon Ageev stared at Taas, a changed man. Broken in. Forever scarred. But, alive.
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