Nevin could feel Aphrael's alarm as she watched from the skies as Elthas clashed with the Goblins. They had seem amused by his arrival from what the bird could make out - and Nevin snarled in frustration as he realized he would not be able to make it to where the Elf had gone in time to help. A command to Aphrael - to harry and distract when she could, raking claws on the Goblins as Elthas fought to survive.
But then his attention was pulled away from his friend's fight by a weird bubbling sound. It wasn't normal - it sounded like a strange popping sludge, thick and viscous. The Alchemist's eyes snapped open and he looked around. There hadn't been anything around him that could make a noise like that except for —
The totem. Almost unwillingly Nevin looked back to it. The reddish aura that had been surrounding the thing had thickened while he was focused on his familiar, and now it was a tangible thing, a sludge that corroded the air and earth it came in contact with. The popping sound was coming from it - bubbles were forming in the sludge, and as another popped it released a foul odor. The man rolled back as the gunk surged outwards - and as he stood up, he was witness to the sludge shivering and pulling inwards, back to the totem, and wrapping around it.
Nevin watched in mute horror as the sludge formed into a loose approximation of a human body - only about half again as large, and with no head. As he stared, faces formed in the goop, screaming wordlessly, their expressions rictuses of agony and misery. It charged at him with a gurgling bellow, one slimy arm raising high into the air as it prepared to crush him into the ground.
