The Catacombs of Scara Brae

[Sh33p'sNPCs]

CLANG echoed harshly through the chamber, like a cannon firing point blank into a gong. Monica had stalled the Arcaknight, if only for a moment, as its uprisen mace came right back down on the space between its own shoulders in an effort to stop her from getting to its head. Or perhaps more accurately, just to stop her entirely. Whether the actual strike hit the catgirl or not, it bears mention that the Arcaknight's own armor went unscathed.

It also bears mention that Teric and Aeraul, for all Monica's distracting tendencies, did not go unnoticed. While the Arcaknight had no visible eyes -- or even a visible face, for that matter -- it was patently obvious that it was glaring at both of them...

...and then came the small, cyclopian flicker of light from one corner of its pitch black visor to the other.

The Arcaknight buckled to one knee when Teric slammed into it, but that seemed to go well with whatever plan it had formed. Its massive shield was brought into place over the other knee, and Aeraul landed on it hard enough that for all of a split second, the half-orc was literally crouched sideways against gravity with his dao sparking off the rim of the Arcaknight's shield.

This was also the amount of time it took for the Arcaknight to twirl its mace upside down in hand, then drive it straight down. Over the shield and into the half-man crouching on it. Aeraul went down without so much as a scream; only a little spurt of blood from his mouth and the sound of ancient stone giving out where living bone would not. At the same time, the Arcaknight shoved its way upright and swung out with its shield -- like a golemic wrecking ball. The target this time was Teric. A hit probably would've meant a trip all the way across the chamber.

Then the Arcaknight stood, wobbling a little as though offbalanced by the strike to its knee. By then, Aeraul was starting to sit up, though his chin was covered in blood from whatever injuries he'd taken during his impromptu landing.

Football doesn't exist on Althanas, at least not yet. If it did, Teric and Monica (and possibly Aeraul, when the stars finally clear from his eyes) would've recognized the kick to follow as a right and true punt. It was delivered with a great deal more speed than something the size of the Arcaknight should've been capable of, but it was still just slow enough that anyone watching would've had ample time to see Aeraul's entire body all but contort around the thing's metal shoe. He went flying all the way into the wallspace above the chained door, hit the stone with enough spare force to send a spiderweb's worth of lines cracking into it, then fell back down to the floor with an ungainly thud.

Needless to say, brute force wasn't going to win this one.

[Bloodrose]

The sound that emanated from Teric's body as the shield struck it was something akin to a side of beef being throw against a wall. There was a dull thud, accented by the crunching of bone and squish of flesh, and the result of all of that was one old veteran knocked completely off his feet. His journey through the air might have been longer, had Teric not tried leaping away from the path of the swing, but even the moderate blow to his side sent him sailing several feet before dumping him onto the smooth stone floor. He even slid another dozen or so paces before skidding to a stop somewhere near the wall where the Arcaknight had originally been standing.

"By the Void..." The mercenary managed to mutter as he shakily tried to rise. There was a horrible burning sensation from under his ribs any time he tried to draw in a breath, and his right arm wouldn't move his weight as Teric struggled to roll off his stomach and onto his back. It was like one whole side of his body had been paralyzed, and while nothing felt broken, that didn't stop his muscles from refusing to do their part...

One hell of a way to go out, old man. The veteran was talking to himself silently, pondering the likelihood of his own demise as he tried to convince his body that it wasn't as injured as it thought it was. Possibly a few pinched nerves from the crushing force of the blow, a few cracked ribs...nothing that should have seemed new or surprising to a body long weathered and toughened by battle. Are you honestly going to let it all slip away in a dank hole like this? Down here where no one will find your body and your skull will likely be used to build up that wall back the other way?

The thought of his skull adorning a wall somewhere for legions of animated armor, fungus-men, and reptile savages to admire seemed to galvanize Teric's muscles. The burning in his chest remained, but the weak sensation in his arm and leg faded, allowing him to scramble up off the ground and survey the damage. Aeraul was piled in a heap against the far wall, looking very much worse for wear. The Arcaknight, having expertly dealt with the two more powerful opponents, seemed to be turning its attentions back to the catgirl. Teric couldn't see her, but Monica wasn't anywhere to be found elsewhere in the room, leading him to assume she was still clambering all over the big suit somewhere.

How are we supposed to take care of that thing? Teric wondered, dismally. Attacking it straight-on didn't seem to faze the Arcaknight in the least, and the mercenary didn't relish tangling toe-to-toe with the surprising quick golem again just yet. There has to be something. It has to have a weakness, right?

The other glowing objects in the room, those other than the mace of the Arcaknight, caught Teric's attention as he thought. The veteran had been too busy to notice the red, blue, and purple glowing apparatus adorned with green-glowing chain tentacles upon first entering the room, mostly because the adventurers had almost immediately had their gazes drawn to the massive threat of the Arcaknight. Now though, the glowing mechanical contraption seemed to call to him, almost as if to say 'What about me?'...

"Almost makes me wish we had a mage with us." Teric grumbled as he bolted for the chains and the contraptions at its center. A mage could probably discern what those glowing colors are about - or could at least blast that armored monster with a fireball...

[Aeraul Smythe]

After what felt like two or three months, Aeraul finally shuddered up onto his elbows and started to scrape himself off the floor. He did so while blood bubbled from his mouth, one coughing fit at a time. Orcs are made of sturdy stuff, but humans aren't. Aeraul always did consider himself human.

Now, it seemed, he was close to finding out just how human he really was.

"Damn," was his terrifically belated response to Teric as the Arcaknight -- for any reason or no reason -- gave them the time needed to get back to their feet. Though the elder swordsman had a great head start, Aeraul shoved himself upright at around the same time. He also slumped back against the wall and laid a hand to his stomach.

Whether Monica was keeping the Arcaknight distracted or not, it was something of a moot point by now. Victory seemed to be defined by phrases like long shot, snowball's chance, and Nelson laugh.

"Hey, Teric" Aeraul called, though his voice sounded a little wet and thin compared to its usual bass qualities. "I think this is the part where you do some Genius Old Guy thing and save our lives." Note the haggard, bloody-mouthed smile he said it with. The Catacombs apparently had a funny way of instilling graveyard humor in some people.

Nevermind the whole bit about the Catacombs probably being a graveyard in the first place...

[Bloodrose]

Chuckling had a way of aggravating the sharp pain in his ribs, and it really didn't seem all that appropriate for the situation, but Teric chuckled anyways. "Genius Old Guy thing" wasn't exactly how the veteran would have described any of the actions he took. Any smart old man would have been sitting at home in front of a warm fire, sipping at cider and rocking in a comfortable chair right now - as opposed to scurrying around a dark, foreboding cavern filled with animated suits of armor. No, everything Teric had done since setting foot in this damned place was most certainly a "Stupid Young Guy thing", and the mercenary was forced to mutter the one phrase he never liked to let slip...

"I'm too old for this shit." Teric commented matter-of-factly as he started searching the glowing odds and ends of the mechanical beast that dominated the wall. Their adversary, the big suit, appeared completely oblivious to Teric and Aeraul's reunion by the far wall - stomping about and flailing around as if to get the cat-girl crawling around on his back. Whether or not Monica was even still there, Teric couldn't say - he hadn't caught a glimpse of her in the last minute or so. For all he knew, the catgirl could have been laying dead in a corner somewhere, and the Arcaknight was trying to swat off a figment of its imagination.

"Besides," the mercenary continued, half talking to himself and half to Aeraul, "it's not Old Guy stuff that's going to save us. It's this thing."

"How?" Seemed to be the question forming on the half-orc's bloodied lip, but Teric didn't have an answer. He actually didn't know anything about the mechanical contraption before him, or how it worked. He didn't even know if it would work, or if it would stop the Arcaknight like he hoped it would.

I really have no idea what I'm doing. The mercenary groaned internally. He was no mage, so the glowing colors didn't help him decipher any useful information. He was no gnome either, so he couldn't surmise the system's importance just by looking at its interlocking gears and chains. Teric had quite literally no clue about the machine whatsoever...

Firmly knowledgeable of the fact that he possessed no helpful knowledge, Teric did the one thing males everywhere do when they want something to work, but don't know how to work it - scowling, he kicked the machine square in the gears...

[Aeraul Smythe]

Aeraul was too busy laughing his head off to contribute much to what happened next. Just as well, since someone of his size and weight would've just gotten in the way. The too old for this shit comment did more to disable the half-human than anything the Arcaknight had done thus far. This kept him clear of Teric as the Arcaknight finally got its act together and straightened up. A lot of things promptly chose a span of about three seconds to happen in.

The first is that Teric performed the time-honored Ritual of Masculine Futility. His kick to the massive set of chains and the singular lock that bound them achieved absolutely nothing, really -- except for the jarring rebound as his foot was pushed away with such force as to flip him over and send him skidding along the floor for a few yards. At exactly the same time, the Arcaknight turned, wound up and took a swing with that massive warhammer. Said hammer was thrown at the end of the swing, departing from the giant automaton's hand in a blur of forged metal that would've made your average major league pitcher blush with envy.

As you've probably figured out by now, the space previously occupied by Teric was now suddenly (and violently) occupied by the Arcaknight's mace. In much the same way Teric's kick had hit the chain and gone on the rebound, the mace hit the great big skull lock and also rebounded -- albeit with an accompanying lightshow of purple electricity and screaming, disembodied voices of a decidedly eldritch nature.

An instant later, and far too quick for the Arcaknight to dodge at any rate, the thing slammed into its former wielder and knocked it flat. No great skid, no tumbling collapse into a wall, not even a spray of gore or some satisfactory denting. It went from a perfect post-pitch stance to lying flat on its back in less time than it takes to blink, and the only indication of the forces involved was that the floor cracked into an oddly spiderweb-shaped pattern all around it. The aftermath even consisted of the warhammer bouncing off and lodging itself three or four feet deep into the wall opposite the locked door.

For a few moments after this, the only thing you'd hear would be stunned silence.

Then Aeraul burst out in another fit of laughter, so hard that he bled from the mouth and slapped both knees in a failing effort to keep from falling over. It hurt like hell, but every single gutter-wracked cackle was positively, absolutely worth it.

[Bloodrose]

"Heh." The sound that escaped Teric's lips was somewhere in between a chuckle and a sob. It was a painful, dismally dreary half-laugh that betrayed the timid hope growing in the mercenary's chest. His enthusiasm for this journey long since diminished, and his body bruised and battered, Teric could only stare at the fallen Arcaknight and wonder if at long last the hardships were coming to a close...

"Please," the moaned word sounded funny as Teric lifted his cheek on the cold, dirty stone floor where he'd fallen. His unexpected and unnaturally propelled back flip through the air had tossed him like a ragdoll a good distance, and the impact had only compounded steadily worsening injuries. "Please tell me that we're done fighting. I don't think I can take any more."

With a painful grunt, the old veteran forced himself up off the floor and onto wobbly legs. His right leg, the one with which he'd delivered his kick, was all tingly and numb like it had fallen asleep. His other leg, tired and sore from their journey thus far, continually tried to buckle under the weight of Teric's body as he shifted off his numb leg and started slapping his thigh to promote circulation. Once steady enough to walk, the mercenary hobbled over to Aeraul, who had doubled over in the floor with laughter. The Arcaknight's untimely, unexpected demise had the half-orc in stitches - likely the only stitches he was going to get down here.

They certainly had none for their injuries.

"I think it's just you and me." Teric offered glumly, casting his gaze about the room and finding no sign of the catgirl that had been accompanying them. In all likelihood she'd taken off for the exit - way back across the caverns - like any sane person would have. He couldn't blame her for watching out for Number 1, but in a way, her desertion caused Teric to feverishly hope she was somehow crushed under the fallen suit of armor dominating the center of the room. "And I don't think either of us is in any shape to..."

The mercenary's discouraging, yet truthful, words drifted off mid-sentence as he started to take notice of the damage the Arcaknight's massive mace had done to the contraption he'd kicked earlier. A puny act of human futility hadn't given the glowing mechanism cause to blink, but the Arcaknight's hurled weapon had seemingly devastated the thing. Where once had been a glowing purple lock there was now a cracked, ugly hunk of broken metal. It was twisted and deformed, such that if looked at from the correct angle, one would have sworn they saw the screaming visage of a human face in the metal. The chains bound to the broken lock had lost their glow as well, and when Teric reached out to touch the cold, black metal, it broke apart like links of ash beneath his fingers.

"Gods." Teric murmured, playing with the black soot of disintegrating chains between his fingers. It smelled putrid and of sulfur, he began to notice, like the mechanism had been flash-burnt into dust by some tremendous power. "Why would you build such a thing?" The mercenary pondered out loud, turning to Aeraul as the half-orc's laughter died down.

[Aeraul Smythe]

His cackle ebbing away into one of those long, Oh sweet Gods, my ribs are probably broken sighs, Aeraul stood and dusted himself off with considerably more ease compared to Teric. He was still a bloody, dirty, beaten-up mess compared to the old veteran, but as a wiser Orc once said, It ain't losin', see, 'cos we can come back lata, yeh?

He coughed a bit, spat something that looked like scab-riddled snot onto the floor, then collected himself upright in a manner more fitting of a philosopher than a half-savage urban spelunker from Hell. His sword went back to its sheath, and he spent a few moments thereafter just shifting his clothes around and putting everything back into place.

Then he looked to Teric, and said without humor, "Beats the shit out of me." It took him a few seconds to add the prerequisite, "Literally."

Aeraul didn't spend much time examining the door and its chains though. He hobbled over to the Arcaknight, his posture and gait correcting a little more with each step, and spat another bloody wad on the thing.

Then he reached down, grabbed the sword it had sheathed at its side, planted one foot and pulled.

Hard.

Whether it was actual strength or pure unmitigated spite that did the trick, the Half-Human ripped the whole damn weapon off the Arcaknight's fallen form, sheath and all. Spare bolts and a few pieces of metal flickered about in the room's dull torchlight, most skittering to a halt here or there. When he was done, Aeraul slung the weapon up across one of his shoulders and finally cracked his neck to either side.

He inhaled deep, and exhaled a few puffs of smoke from each nostril. Tack on the dim glow of his eyes and it was a rather impressive sight.

At least until he winced and held a hand to the side of his chest, favoring the space most damaged by the Arcaknight.

"I don't think the question of why matters anymore. The real question is whether or not we should continue investigating or come back later." He looked around, eyes settling on an empty space near the doorway that'd lead them in. "And whether or not we're alone right now."

[Taskmienster]

This thread has been waiting for over a year. If you would like to complete it, or work on it further, you can PM myself or another staff member and ask for it to be moved. However, till that time, it will be resting in the Scara Brae Archive forum.

Thanks,
~Task