The Catacombs of Scara Brae

[Aeraul Smythe]

Open! (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=95232#post95232) Join in that thread, then post away!


Prologue I

Meet Redwell Heiderik Arnhem Lorngrin Lamont, better known to family as Red, better known to friends as Raitch, and better known to his fellow Scara Scourge by two names: The one they give him to his face, Rhall, and the one they use whenever they actually think of him, which is Decoy, which is another word for Utterly Expendable Cannon Fodder.

Which is just a shame, really, seeing as how Rhall went to all the trouble of getting a proper hooded mantle and a suitably thuggish mask for his lower face. Even went so far as to throw on a stylish, well-cleaned set of red pants and the shirt to match, with heavy black boots to match his mantle. He carried a proper assassin's short sword everywhere he went, and he was an adept urban acrobat -- evidenced by what he's about to do to get away from the City Watch. Who noticed him very easily because he sticks out like a sore, bloody thumb.

"STOP!" one of them had the audacity to scream, because you kind of have to when you're The Law.

Rhall responded with the ever-so-cliche, "You'll never take me alive!"

...and he had no idea how right he was.

Up he went, onto a barrel and then onto a flagpole. He used it as an anchor while freerunning up to a window, then somehow managed to make the flourishing leap up to the roof of an apartment building. The landing wasn't so glorious; he fell over backwards on a chimney pipe and almost got set on fire, but nobody saw that so it was okay. Back in the streets, the Watchmen were sounding their bells and calling out for back-up. Rhall couldn't stay put on the roof for long; they'd be up after him in a heartbeat.

So he kept running, and the Watch kept following. From rooftop to rooftop, through an awning and down an alley and around a corner. A Watchman was waiting with a smug grin and a heavy, spiked metal club. He took a swing; Rhall ducked it and killed him with a stab to the throat -- and this is when the shit really hit the fan because now Rhall wasn't going to be able to surrender. He watched the body sag and drop and he knew, very suddenly and very coldly, that the Watch weren't going to give him the chance for due process. The moment they found this guy's corpse was the moment somebody started boiling the late night oil.

So he turned and he ran to a fence that seperated two buildings. He jumped high and pushed over it with one hand, sliding rather gracefully through the air and back out into the streets. Someone screamed rage behind him, and Rhall could almost hear the fires being stoked beneath a rather large iron pot...

Don't be afraid, he thought, They haven't seen your face! At which point it occurred to him, But I haven't got a change of clothes! And there was much profanity as the Decoy lost his cool and somehow ended up in Scara Brae's Temple District; a place that sat on the far side of the Dajas Pagoda, consistent of a large number of humble churches and shrines resting rather somberly in the shadow of the Queen's Great Temple -- itself a considerably larger, more gothic looking structure with certain pagan elements; like gaping open windows and crudely shaped doors.

At the center of the District, Rhall finally lost his will to keep running. He staggered to a halt against rather large Fountain of Al'Thayne. It was an ancient thing; stopped working decades ago. It consisted of a massive circular pool, deep as a dozen wells and centered around a single statue of all six proper Thaynes standing shoulder to whatever passed for shoulder. The water no longer flowed, but it still stood, and Rhall decided that if he wasn't going to run then he may as well hide.

He backed up. A running start, a leap, and he barely made it far enough to smack into a statue of old Jomil the Hermitess. One splash later and the Watch was gathering around the fountain by the time Rhall scraped himself out of the water. He stood between the shadows and held his sword up with a faint grin beneath his mask.

"Come get me," he dared them.

To which Captain Durris replied by raising a crossbow and saying just one word: "No."

Thwip. Scream. Bafflement. The arrow landed somewhere at the resident Church of Ethereal Sway's doorstep, taking with it most of Rhall's hood -- but the thief himself was nowhere to be found.

[Aeraul Smythe]

We skip now to the grand and regal Royal Chambers, where the end of the report read like so: Upon closer inspection, we were able to confirm that the suspect did not teleport out somehow. He simply fell into a deep, narrow, well-like pit hidden between the statues. We're not sure how it stayed concealed for so long, but our forensic wizard won't go near it and all the local priests and clerics keep dumping enchantments into the fountain like it's a big, she paused, rolled her eyes, and continued reading, thingamajig-waving contest.

We erected a makeshift scaffold over the water, then tried to lower men down the well. It took half an hour to put together all the ladders we needed to get to the bottom. At the bottom is a huge stone chamber, eight-sided and covered in what our wizard says is Sideways Inverted Diamonic, which he refuses to explain in detail. We have henceforth been unable to get him out of the Watch Barracks, where he's locked himself in the privy and can be heard mumbling incantations of a most distressing sort.

Also, we found what's believed to be traces of the suspect at the bottom of the well. Consistent of: Blood, a severed hand, and a trail leading to a hole in one of the walls. The hole bears certain similarities to the front door of the Queen's Temple, but we have yet to obtain a comment from any of the local Priests and are understandably lacking an available source of Lore. The hole leads to a tunnel, but I await orders as to whether or not it should be explored in search of the suspect.

It was signed with Durris' left-handed scribble. The man spent so much time writing that he was ambidextrous and could pull off multiple bounties and reports at once, but that didn't mean it'd be very readable.

All the same, Queen Valeena put the report down and gave the Watchman who delivered it -- a hapless rookie who'd drawn the shortest straw -- a very square, unimpressed look. He replied with a salute that was equal parts silent terror and absolutely robotic obedience. To his credit, you could hardly see his knees shaking.

"Well?" she asked.

"...beg pardon, Her Majesty?" the Watchman asked without soiling himself.

"Why does this warrant my attentions?" she asked again, and then continued without giving him much room to breathe, let alone answer. "Has Captain Durris taken a look around lately? The world is going to several Hells in a very large handbasket. There's full-blown civil war wracking two potential allies, Raiaera is on the verge of total collapse and Alerar, as ever, looks ready to swoop in and make genocide out of whoever survives. And chances are, we'll be with them when that happens. I'm juggling Y'edda-knows-what on a hundred different fronts, and the good Captain thinks I've got the time or the patience to be asked what to do about a hole in the ground?"

Queen Valeena is noted for, among other things, being a patient, gentle, kind and noble ruler. This is largely because few people actually get to see her at work. She's on the benevolent side, but still as machiavellian as any ruler; the Barons would've completely supplanted her decades ago if she wasn't, and if they didn't then the Goblins and the Orcs and the Scourge and the Everything-Else-That-Can-Possibly-Go-Wrong-On-One-Little-Island would.

So she glared at the messenger, and with her eyes pretty well shot him a hundred times in every vital organ you can think of. Then she set him on fire, in her mind, just to be thorough about it.

"W-w-wwwwwell--"

"Out with it. You've got thirty seconds," which is considerably more than most over-stressed, ovulating Queens would give someone.

"AllthelocalPriestsaregoingtotallybatshitaboutthisa ndnoneoftheWatchmenwanttoinvestigateandDurriswants permissiontosendinabandofadventurers, prettyprettypleasewithacherryontopdon't kill me!"

Credit where it's due: Queen Valeena actually understood every single word of that. You can tell be the way her eyebrows aren't twitching and there aren't any uprisen veins on her pretty little forehead.

"Permission granted. Tell the good Captain that he needn't have sent you in the first place."

-----

Some time later, the badly shaken Watchman returned to the Barracks and gave Captain Durris the Queen's answer. Then he calmly went to the other privy, directly across from the wizard's, and spent the next three hours vomiting up everything he'd eaten in the past seven or eight years.

Back in his office, behind a desk of solid iron-oak, Durris snuffed out a cigar fatter than his thumb. He laced his fingers together, thoughtfully rested his chin on his thumbs, and then nodded to himself. "We've got 'em," he said to his assistant, "So we may as well make use of 'em."

The posters went up not one hour later, glued and slapped and stuck on every single guild and tavern's wall and door, two to a building, one to a post. All were an ugly, faded yellow parchment showcasing Durris' better right-handed writing and the unusual talents of the Watch when it came to hand-copied forgery. They read quite simply.

ADVENTURERS WANTED FOR CATACOMB EXPLORATION
Risks (probably) great, pay (certainly) minimal, pride (unbearably) overwhelming!
Possible rewards: Everything you've ever wanted!
Ask not what Scara Brae can do for you, but what you can do for Scara Brae!Nobody ever accused the Captain of being very imaginative. Incidentally, nobody ever said Adventurers were very smart. He'd have his quota by sunset at the latest.

[Aeraul Smythe]

Prologue II

Out went the call, up went the posters, and the barkers came a-shoutin'. Durris' rather cynical assumption proved accurate. Very accurate. The first group was set and ready well before sundown; a pack of six able-bodied men and women. Two wore full-plated armor, most carried swords and daggers, and one of them was a relatively mad looking alchemist who kept twitching and hefting what he called his Boomstick.

They were briefed like so by the commanding officer on duty at the fountain: Since you lot're going in as proper explorers, see, we're gonna give ya one of these. He held up a blank scroll. It's called a Maker's Map. One of our contacts at Alchemists Anonymous came up with it. Long 'n' short of it: This thing here'll track your progress in whatever tunnels're down there. Wherever you go, it'll be added to the map of the place. If you don't go somewhere, it won't be on the map. We'll be using it to keep track of you from above ground, but we're not gonna be able to provide you any assistance besides that. If you stop moving for over an hour, we'll have to assume that you're not gonna make it out at all.

Considering that, it's only prudent of us to give you a few things you might need. And he lead them to a rather large tent that served as the on-site command center; a large table with another Maker's Map and a rack of standard Watch weapons and armor, itself standing next to a rack of miscellaneous gear. The officer directed them to the second rack.

You'll each be receivin' one o' these stylish-but-functional backpacks -- heavy leather, see, but clasped and with a few extra pouches for whatever y'might need. Each of you is free to take up to three o' these little buggers, he held up what looked like a vial of green sludge. Just take it out, twist the cap and then shake it up a few times for an hour or so of uninterrupted light. Flammable stuff even after its light's been exhausted. Each of you is also entitled to a twenty-foot length of rope, like so, and a grappling claw -- careful with'at or you're break your finger off. Things work like bear-traps on alcharoids.

'Sides that, we're given each o' ya a proper torch and an iron lantern. Lantern hooks to your backpack like so, careful not to burn yourself, and we've included a bit o' flint and a bottle o' oil in case you need to re-light it. You're on your own, 'bout the torch; it's just a wood stick with a metal cage and straw.

Now, since you're all startin' to look bored, we get to the part that should getcher panties in a wedge -- Watch humor ladies, terribly sorry. You're all free to take one weapon or shield, and some armor, from this rack here. Quality varies -- it's all stuff we've confiscated from criminals, but you should be able to find something to suitcher fancy if ya feel the need. We'd give ya stuff from our own armory, but Watch's a little strapped for cash right now; every man and so on and so forth.

He waited while the lot of them set themselves up.

Right. Ready now? Good. Right this way!

He lead them back out through the rear exit of the tent, and into what had become of the Temple District's Al'Thayne Fountain. There were crude bridges all over the water now; long wooden boards laid side by side and nailed together in layers so that people wouldn't have to swim the Fountain's waters to get to the statue. It wasn't really all that large, all things consider, but the Fountain still had width comparable to a swimming pool on all sides. The statues now shared space with what looked like a crude scaffolding meant to support two ladders; one on each side of the well.

Said-well was deep. Very, very deep. Light faded to complete darkness long before it ever reached the bottom, and the only glimmer down there was a single orange speck.

We've got a startin' point set up for ya; a lanternpost and all that. Once you go down, the room'll have eight sides. After that, you'll enter a tunnel and we don't know Jill about whatever's next. G'luck, and remember: The packs're big 'cos you'll be allowed to keep anything ya find down there. Any questions? None? Good then!

And down they went. The officer stayed just long enough to salute them once they'd gone completely out of sight. Then he went back to the tent, sat down with a few other Watchmen, and waited.

About half an hour and three lengths of tunnel later, the ground shook. The Watchmen exchanged glances. Another hour after that, the commanding officer decided to start taking in more volunteers.

For reference: Everyone is entitled to the following equipment for the sake of this RP. If you manage to save your stuff all the way to the end, then I expect it's up to a Judge as to whether or not you get to keep it. Anything marked with an asterisk goes to the group as a whole; the carrier is simply the first one to grab it or whoever that person hands it to/whoever swipes it from them.

Watch-provided equipment
Up to 3 Alchemic Lights
1 Iron Lantern
1 Torch
1 Bottle of Oil
1 Flint stone
1 25-foot Rope
1 Grappler
1 Backpack
1 Maker's Map*

Watch-provided Weapons and Armor
1 Average sword, knife or axe of any make (Tier 1 or 2 metals) OR 1 Average Shield of any make and shape (Tier 1 or 2 metals, Tier 1 to 5 woods, or ordinary animal bone)
3 pieces of Average armor; Plate, Chainmail, or Scalemale allowed (Tier 1 or 2 metals)

[Aeraul Smythe]

There are any number of reasons why a man like Aeraul would or wouldn't volunteer for this job. Among others, the Watchmen viewed him with no small amount of suspicion, which Aeraul managed to excuse and even rationalize on the grounds of Scara Brae's problems with Goblinoid raids. They edged out of his way as he stepped into the tent, and more than one looked ready to raise a crossbow or draw a sword. He didn't know what, exactly, they were thinking, but it probably involved some play on, Now we've got a monster of our own to throw down there.

...which, technically speaking, they did.

He looked around and took stock of the situation. Aeraul was apparently the first one to answer the call since the first expedition went in. That was a little disheartening, but he could handle it.

He was given, more or less, the same briefing as the first expedition. When it was over, Aeraul slipped on the backpack, hung his lantern in place and set the unlit torch aside for a moment. He took a pair of Average Platemail bracers and a single Platemail shoulderplate, hiding the bracers under his sleeves and wearing the shoulderplate openly on his left shoulder. He took an Average Steel Shield, heater-shaped with a fresh coat of stark white paint over whatever heraldry it used to have. He slid the straps to his right arm, tested his range of movement and finally crammed the unlit torch into what little space remained between his arm and the straps.

"And now I wait?" he asked.

"Outside at the scaffolding, yes," said the Watchman, and he had the air that just screamed, I don't want to be near you.

Aeraul simply gave him a nod and left the tent. He beelined for the scaffolding, crossed the bridge with a few too many creaks for his comfort, and then stood over the dark, cool pit. The torch at the bottom still burned brightly, like an eerie star in the undernight of forever. What little air wafted up from below stank of moss, dust, copper and humidity. It came and went in time, and after a while...

It's like something is breathing, Aeraul thought to himself, and tried to ignore the terrible emptiness he felt coming from whatever lay at the bottom of the well.

It was a losing effort.

For reference: Aeraul took the whole kit-and-kaboodle, plus a Steel Shield, Steel Bracers, and one Steel Shoulderplate; all Average quality.

[Xen]

Caught unaware by the experience of patriotism, Xen did indeed wish to see what he could do for Scara Brea. Also, he wished to be rewarded with everything he wanted. That would be pretty good, it’d save him a lot of work and travel. That’s what the poster had promised, and Xen was still a little too new to the world to know better.

After receiving the standard spiel from the guards, Xen was told to wait by the scaffolding outside. Halfway there, the sight of a huge man halted him in his tracks. The man’s skin was slightly discolored, but otherwise he appeared pretty normal. What halted the elemental was just a concerned gut feeling that something was off about the man, though he had no idea what it could be. From his limited experience with people, it seemed entirely likely that there could be a group with green skin.

Crossing the scaffolding, Xen stood slightly apart from the half-orc. Careful to keep him in the periphery, Xen checked over the equipment given to him. In the pack were the three vials of mystery substance, a bottle of oil, a rough stone, some rope, a mechanical claw of some sort, and the unlit lantern strapped to its side. On his feet were a pair of surprisingly well fitted steel boots and tucked under his arm was an open faced iron helmet with two short horns pointing out of the front. He had declined the torch, finding it cumbersome and not being too fond of fire. Together with his bow, Xen felt ready to take on just about anything.

Taking a deep breath, Xen stretched out a hand towards his spelunking companion. “Hey, I’m Xen Dasen. I guess we’re in this together, so we might as well get to know each other.”

[Bloodrose]

"I should have been on the last ferry back to Corone." Teric mumbled to himself absently. A sleeveless steel chainmail shirt was draped over his shoulder like a towel, and he was busy testing the edge on any decent looking blade he could find in the pile of junk the Watch had littered all over the table. Had he not just spent good money on a shield when wandering the docksides earlier this very afternoon, then he may very well have been searching for one of those as well...

Why Teric hadn't stayed at the Docks and hopped aboard that ferry was a question that had been bothering him ever since picking up a flyer at a local watering hole. The warrior had come to Scara Brae to test his mettle in the Dajas Pagoda, and having failed that - wounded to within an inch of his life at the hands of the ghoul Lorenor - there was no real reason for him to stick around. Exploring caves wasn't exactly a skill high on the veteran's resume, but if he was going to stick around the island for whatever reason, he was going to need to do something to occupy his time.

Grabbing up the backpack leaning against a table leg - another seemingly free gift from the town Watchmen - Teric strode out of the tent with the chainmail shirt and a rather worn looking longsword in tow. He felt rather weighed down really, carrying so much stuff around. The chainmail, his own breastplate, his shield, the sword, his own sword, and the backpack weren't all exactly the lightest things in the world, and Teric had to keep shifting all the things carried over his shoulders.

The scaffolding that spanned the fountain creaked in irritation as the old warrior walked calmly towards the two men already waiting alongside the eerie statues of pagan gods. At first both men seemed rather non-descript, but as he came closer Teric was wrong about one of them. From a distance he had just assumed one man to be rather short, but it turned out that he and the short man were relatively similar in height, and that the gent with the complexion of pea soup was simply huge.

Stopping well enough away from the very black hole in the center of the fountain, Teric dropped most of his gear at the feet of birdie-looking woman who stared dully out across the landscape in the general direction of the Pagoda. I'm going to have to sort through what I want to take down there with me. He thought strategically as he paused to nod at both of his companions.

"I take it none of us had anything better to do today?" He offered up as an icebreaker.

[Aeraul Smythe]

Aeraul was not a man of many words -- which is about what you'd expect of a Half-Orc, nevermind a rigidly disciplined scholar. When introductions came, he met Xen with an eerily light handshake, rather like what you'd give to a child to avoid crushing their fingers. He gave his name with a gruffly spoken, "Aeraul Smythe," and then remained quiet until Teric came along.

"My rent was due," is how he answered the old man's icebreaker, and his voice was neutral leaning towards tension. It was literally one of the only reasons you'd find a guy like Aeraul in a situation like this. More importantly, he could just barely feel the group dynamic shifting into place already. There was unease from the one, and general discontent from the other. He looked to the older man, quietly sized him up, and then spoke with an almost military air of politeness.

"Do you need help getting all that down?" he asked.

[Streetrat]

Pay? Exploration and pay? Meg grabbed the flyer down and took a minute to decipher it. Ergh. Whoever wrote this must have been drunk. True, some of the drunk writing she'd seen had been surprisingly legible, but that's because those particular writers were almost never sober and had a lot of practice doing things with considerable alcohol in their systems.

But still... this could be fun.

In a few minutes she managed to get to the tent, where the guards didn't even pay attention to the small girl; the recruiters ignored her as well until she placed herself directly in front of them.

"Hey!" She balled her hands on her hips, poking her face into one of the men's own. When he recoiled, she presented the flyer in place of where her face had just been. "This is yours, right?"

"Yes, it is. Are you here for someone, boy?" The watchman seemed calm enough given that he'd just apparently had a child in his face.

"No, I'm here for me, thank you. I'd like to go down there. There seems to be nothing else to do in this town but drink or gamble. Exploration seems like the best of the three, even if it is dangerous," she looked around, noting an array of weapons and armor, even though all looked too big to fit her. There were some nice knives, though.

Both men turned to stare at her then, with some time passing while they both seemed to size her up. She shifted uncomfortably under the scrutiny, hoping they'd stop soon. "That is no place for a child," one of them finally said, "you should go run home now, and stop playing hero." He looked ready to drag her out by her ears if she refused.

She sighed, "Look, I'm not a kid. I'm seventeen, old enough to go and battle, get myself killed and fixed... just let me down there, okay?" Glancing back at the weapons she continues, "Unless you want me to go down there without any extra equipment..." She trailed off, hopefully leaving the no doubt she was going down one way or another.

A few minutes later she had secured a steel dagger and what they had called "standard equipment," with all the armor being - as she had thought - too big for her frame. The backpack was nice and large though, which she inspected for a minute before giving approval.

Humming softly, she made her way down to the fountain, where the three men who were ready to go down themselves waited. Judging by their heights, she thought two would be somewhat near her size, but as she got closer she recognized one of them and remembered him to be quite a bit taller than her. She stared at the taller one then, realizing just how big he was - plus, he was green. Holy - I could probably bite him in the stomach without having to bend at all.

"Ugh. How I managed to run into you here, of everywhere I could've avoided you, I don't know. I thought I was done with you," she addressed Xen, with an obvious look of distaste. Turning to the other two, she continued in a slightly more cheerful voice, "Hi. I'm Meg. Who are you?"

[Bloodrose]

"If I were carrying all this down with me, I'd be glad for the help." Teric replied to the stoic giant's offer graciously. "But I think I'll be leaving some of it up here."

He shrugged off the heavy coat that he wore everywhere and slid the sleeveless chainmail on over his shirt and vest. That done he put his coat back on, followed by the new backpack. The Eklan shield he had purchased not five hours ago he strapped to his left arm, and he checked the plynt dirk in his boot. His old breastplate he left sitting upright under the Thayne statue beside him, and he pulled Thorn out of his belt to set it gingerly beside the armor. It was doubtful that the Watch would run off with his equipment, and it was unlikely any would-be thieves would be sneaking across the scaffolding in what essentially had become a Watchmen's camp.

Of course, I could be wrong. The old warrior thought as he happened to glance back down the scaffolding and saw a fourth individual making his or her way towards them. While from a quick look it was difficult to tell if the person was male or female, it was relatively obvious that s/he was quite diminutive in size. One giant, and one dwarf. The veteran pondered aimlessly.

She introduced herself as Meg shortly after joining them on the platform, but not before making it apparent that she was acquainted with the man standing to Teric's right; and not pleasantly acquainted if he judged her tone right.

"Teric Bloodrose." He introduced himself to the group simply, mostly responding to Meg's question but also for the sake of the others.

[Xen]

Xen found himself leaning somewhat sleepily against the stone statues as the two remaining group members arrived, an old man and the young sneak from Salvar. Smiling broadly, he responded with a wink. “Oh, runt. Well, I would think that’s rather obvious why you found me here. You are stalking me, and I can’t say I blame you. I am rather dashing.”

Laughing on the inside, the ice elemental rounded towards the elderly man equipping himself oddly. Why the man would need two swords to go along with his shield was a puzzle, especially as there was not any visible third arm that could be seen. Then again, humans were sometimes very surprisingly odd, never quite the same. Suspecting there might be more than meets the eye to the old guy, he introduced himself.

Repeating his name once more and extending his hand, Xen prepared to depart. Rolling his shoulders beneath the weight of the backpack, the elemental determined not to comment about it until the others did, or at least not until after Meg did. Noticing the relative size of the bags, and that they each had nearly identical ones (Teric’s has more straps, completely unfair!), it occurred to him that he had no real idea about what they were expecting.

Moving away from the hole, Xen voiced some of these thoughts. “Well, I’m ready to go. Do you guys have any idea what the guards think we’re going to find? These are awfully large bags.” Waving towards those in front to move down the hole, with him being last, Xen continued. “I’ll bring up the rear as I’d rather the big guy didn’t fall on my head half way down. Not that I think that will happen, but you never know.”

[Aeraul Smythe]

Act I

As a whole, the group didn't exactly go clickity-click and start working together. A few barbs were shot back and forth and side-to-side, and everyone took part in it whether they were giving or receiving. After a few rounds, the barbs sank deep enough and started to contract, and where the Raiders did not click, they simply congealed together. After a while, a Watchman's stares and incessant throat clearing drove them down.

Two-by-two they went, two to each ladder. Even at what seemed like a quick pace, it took them almost fifteen minutes to get down to the bottom of the well, and by then the only light from above were a handful of distant, pitifully inadequate stars. What greeted them was an eight-walled chamber centered around an ancient, and very recently lit and stoked torch. Its four sides were each shaped like a stack of skull faces.

Across seven of the walls, ancient words were etched in; some crude, others so elegantly that it looked as if they'd been traced with a pen. Everything was written in the archaic tongue of Old Diamonic, but all the letters and glyphs were off somehow; as if literally turned sideways so that you could only recognize the language in the same way most people know that a gigantic wood-based plant is, probably, a tree. If you stared too long, the letters looked as if they might move. The only wall without these runes was instead dominated by a druidic seeming archway; three huge rectangular blocks shaped in the likeness of a doorway.

"Well," someone said; it didn't really even matter who, "Whoever put this together knew how to make it look cozy."

And on they went, into a darkness that literally felt old. It was a chilled, eldritch kind of darkness that looked like it'd host all sorts of horrible things with glowing, slit-shaped eyes -- something that probably caused a few skipped heartbeats the first time any of them exchanged looks with the phospher-eyed Half-Orc who, by hook, crook, or stupid luck, had snagged the map. Halfway down the hall, and the group stopped.

The light from the torch behind them literally stopped with them, in a perfectly set line. Undeterred, hand-carried torches and lanterns were lit in its place, but even their light seemed almost feeble and strangely detailed down here. As if the darkness wasn't bad enough, it was also becoming more and more humid and cold, and it didn't take long before each of them noticed an unpleasant smell that, at this point, was simply too complex to pin a single metaphor to.

They arrived at last to the end of the first corridor, and there they stopped. It forked, and with a little squinting, Aeraul was able to confirm that both of the new hallways forked as well. The original expedition had gone to the left, then the right. It fell to someone, anyone, to ask the obvious question.

"Which way now?"

...and it fell to everyone to decide.

[Streetrat]

Getting down the ladder had been trying, to say the least. The pack sat almost frighteningly weighty against her back, threatening to pull her straight off the ladder, and she moved faster than the men directly beneath her, constantly almost running into them; she was used to climbing rickety structures in a hurry, and this was much more stable than most than she'd been on.

Although the writing at the bottom had been interesting, what was more interesting for Meg was finding out what was further in. Maybe there's some long-lost treasure, or an abandoned underground temple... or a whole bunch of things waiting to kill us. The last sounded the most plausible, but she wanted to try and think positively.

When they got to the fork in the tunnel, she muttered something about the builders not being considerate of explorers in the future and tried her best to see what was beyond. Unable to see much, and noticing that the tunnels looked pretty much the same, she looked up at the others to see if any of them were moving decisively. Realizing they were pretty much as still as she was, she poked her head around the waist of the large green man - Meg figured he was some sort of Orc, having seen more than a few come through Rabanastre during her stay there - glanced both directions, closed her eyes and spun in a quick circle. Opening her eyes, she was facing the leftmost edge of the hallways. "Left, then left again?" She suggested, "Start at the far edge and work our way to the right."

However, she didn't move, mostly because she couldn't see worth a damn and was far from the most likely to survive any traps that might be in the tunnels ahead. In fact, she was probably the least likely, due to her small size and lack of armor.

[Bloodrose]

Teric gripped the metal ring at the top of his lantern as tightly as he could, trying not to let it show that his hands were still shaking. About a third of the way into their ridiculously long descent the old warrior's acrophobia had started to set in, and the feeling had almost been surreal. Teric, had he not been gripping the ladder like a miser to a copper, might have been compelled to crack a joke about having a fear of heights while being, in fact, underground...

"I was going to vote we go right, and then right again." He piped up from the back of the group. When everyone else had set off down the only hall exiting the octagonal...foyer, if you will...Teric had lingered behind for a few seconds to privately "stand sideways and try to read the wall."

Or at least that was the excuse he had quickly formulated should anyone in the group have turned around and caught him trying not to wretch...

"But left and left is just as good I suppose." He added with only a second's pause. Since Teric was not in possession of the map, an honor somewhat questionably bestowed upon the biggest target in the group, he had a distinct interest in sticking along one wall. A hasty retreat, should one be called for, was better facilitated by knowing how to get out.

You should have just gotten on the ferry back to Corone. A voice inside the recesses of his mind intoned quietly. There was a musty, unusual smell lingering in the air down here that was both familiar and unknown to the old warrior at the same time. Standing still, waiting in the gloom for the group as a whole to make a decision, Teric got the sudden sensation that he knew that smell, but it was one of those things that he just couldn't put a finger on...

[Xen]

Having reached the bottom of the ladder safely, blessed be the thayne, Xen found the darkness slightly disturbing. It wasn’t that he was afraid of the dark, but more that he just couldn’t see what was down there. And there was something down there. He knew that quite viscously. Not two feet left until the bottom of the ladder and his hands slipped, landing him directly in a puddle of mostly dry blood. It wasn’t fresh, nor was it old enough not to be very, very sticky.

As they moved down the tunnel, the smell seemed almost as though it was intensifying, though perhaps this was in correlation to an increased proximity to the glowing eyed giant. It occurred to Xen that he should warn of the others of their larger companions scent, but it also occurred do them some people became violent at perceived insults, much less intentional insults.

Shaking one of the alchemic vials to refresh the eerie green light it gave off, Xen didn’t have any real opinion of which way the group should take to get somewhere. At first inclined to argue for the opposite directions as Meg, for the precise reason that she wanted them, the ice elemental was forced to reconsider when Teric spoke up. Breaking the seeming harmony would be pointless, if perhaps pleasing.

Looking to the big guy, Xen spoke up. “Hey, you’ve got the map. My understanding is that it shows which way the last group went before they died. I vote we go the way they didn’t go.” Altering his voice slightly, Xen spoke again as though a different person. “Excellent idea Xen. Very sound reasoning. Let’s try not to die.”

[Aeraul Smythe]

"I'm inclined to vote with Teric and Meg. Left and left," Aeraul decided, just before rolling the map up and resealing it into a lacquered wooden sheath. He then tossed it over to Meg or Teric; whomever happened to be close enough to catch it first. "I'll take point, for obvious reasons," he added, switching the torch over to his right hand and finally drawing out Mankind. The Dao all but gleamed in the unwarm light of orange-red torch and cold green alchemy.

First to the left, and down the path that they knew (more or less) to be safe. It wasn't quite as long as the first, but it was certainly messier. Scorch marks lined part of one wall, and a steel short sword stuck out of the floor, mostly undamaged except for a few distinctive purple stains on the blade. Not long after that, they arrived to the second turn and again came to a stop.

To the right was a strong enough smell to overpower the background scent of the Catacombs; something not all that far removed from gunpowder. The first expedition had included an alchemist; he had obviously gone down fighting somewhere down that hallway. With any luck, he'd taken out whatever had ambushed the group...

...but there still weren't any bodies.

They turned to the left though, and kept moving. Barely a minute or so later, it was like they were truly stepping into another world -- one complete with its own, doubtlessly arcane ecosystem.

There was grass all over the floor. Hollow and crystalline until one of the partymembers stepped on it; it didn't matter who. Then, as if in a massive tide, the grass lit up and began to rustle and wave about in harmony with the air currents of the Catacombs. The pale blue light it gave off was far too weak to be useful, at best it could be seen from ten or eleven feet away, but still just bright enough to be ethereal and outright ghostly.

The further they continued into the corridor, the more detailed it became. To either side were four dead-end hallways, each terminating with an old wooden chest in front of suit of rusted armor; all the ones on the right were armed with ancient Coronian broadswords and shields, and all the ones on the left bore crossed Aleraran scimitars of similar age. Every suit differed, though most had helms with swept back horns and a mono-eye motiff for the visor.

"I believe this is the part where someone has a one-liner and we all get killed," Aeraul pointed out.

Poor sodding green-skin obviously wasn't very familiar with Murphy's Law, divided into the Three Cheap-Tarnished-Brass Rules: If it can go wrong, it will go wrong. Murphy hates you. Murphy is always listening.Incidentally, about two seconds before someone (likely Xen, but let's not count out the other two, eh?) could actually give that one-liner, there was a set of ratty squeaks in the distance. One, two, three, and then a fourth not long after that for the maximum amount of time you can survive with your heart skipping beats. Each one was accompanied by a brief, brighter flicker of light than the grass.

Silence followed. Aeraul, at least, eased up a little. Even went so far as to slump his shoulders.

And then he went keeled over as one of the suits of armor crashed into him from the right, shield against shield and sword held high. The others were already moving to attack as well; two moved to cut off the party's chances of escaping the way they'd come, and the two attacking Aeraul moved to position themselves so that the partymembers couldn't just flee further into the Catacombs.

That left two attacking Teric and Meg from the right and the left, mano-a-mano, and two attempting a double-team on Xen; one from each side. The one attacking Teric brought a shield and sword, the one attacking Meg brought dual scimitars. Xen had to contend with both such opponents simultaneously, presumably because he and Aeraul represented a bigger threat: A Half-Orc and an Ice Elemental were bound to be more dangerous than a girl and an old man. As to the attacks themselves...

Teric was met with a lesser attempt at the same type shield bash that felled Aeraul, followed in kind by a wide sweep of the sword.

Meg was confronted with a left scimitar thrust and a right scimitar sweep to follow-up. Her attacker was a little faster than the others, but not by much.

Xen got both. Simultaneously.

Welcome to the Catacombs, Raiders.

re: The Short Sword: Its make and style is entirely up to whoever grabs it first. Just know that it's an Average Steel Short Sword.

re: The Map: It goes to whoever catches it first. Xen is allowed to grab it if he wants; Aeraul just meant for it to go to Teric or Meg.

Feel free to take as much liberty as you'd like in how much time your post spans (from the first hallway all the way up to your responses to the attack), and give me a PM/IM if you'd like to choreograph your respective fights to any extent. I'll update the Map once this skirmish is over :)

[Xen]

Creeped out by eerie grass that shattered beneath their feet, the strange lighting, and a sudden claustrophobia, Xen’s thoughts were becoming quicker and shorter. No. No, no, no. The plan is to not die. Not die here. Maybe somewhere with snow, but not here.

His internal monologue cut off entirely with the squeaky sound that came at irregular intervals. The brief glimmers of light from further down the tunnel made his heart leap up his throat each and every time. Then there was silence for a moment, almost as though nothing were going to happen. Gulping air thirstily, Xen blushed at realizing he had been holding his breath the entire time.

Just as he started to relax, the half-orc in front went down beneath an armored foe, or perhaps a foe of armor. It wasn’t really bright enough to see which. Brought to focus by the monstrous clanking of their armor echoing from the nearby hallways, Xen was forced to focus entirely on himself and his two metallic foes. His survival came before the groups after all.

Throwing the alchemic vial at the suit with two swords, Xen took the second suit’s shield straight in the back, knocking him to the floor. The shielded foe’s sword swung harmlessly overhead, luckily enough for the ice elemental. Unluckily, the full force of the shield had been overmuch to knock Xen down and the armor careened right into him with a painful collision of metal shoes and bone ribs.

Laughing breathlessly with the pain, Xen yelled to the others. “And I thought the Knights of Scara Brea ruled with an iron fist…”

[Streetrat]

Being right next to the big guy helped Meg get the map - even if being short put it in reach of everyone else first. Sticking her staff up in the air, she stopped the tube's momentum and dropped it near her. Before it could hit the ground, she scooped it up and secured it in a belt loop.

Maps are always useful. And if Xen gets it I'll probably never make it out, knowing him.

The crystal grass first intrigued Meg, then made her jump after her boot brushed a few blades and it lit up. After that, she avoided the oddly glowing substance as if it had the power to stab her through her boot's sole and would inject her with something nasty. Ergh. This is less than happy, although it is rather pretty. What the hell is it, anyway? Even though the hallway were interesting, she was for too paranoid about the grass to pay much attention to it.

When the tallest member of their party utterly jinxed their luck, Meg was just about to comment on how that was probably the worst thing to say at this point when the sounds came. Her lungs feeling full of lead, she forced herself to calm down and breathe - which was surprisingly difficult.

When the suit of armor came at her, her first action was to throw herself forwards, between its arms in order to avoid both the thrust and sweep. Unfortunately, it didn't seem as constrained by the real of normal movement and its right arm continued around to crush her against its breastplate - but her diminutive size proved an asset, as the small spikes on it completely failed to stab her. Still, having the breath crushed out of you is less than a pleasant experience, and the armor was bringing its hand around for another blow.

Trying desperately to wriggle free, Meg only managed to get her bag stuck above the arm pinning her. The next attempt led to pulling her legs in, digging her toes into the waist plates and pushing hard, giving her the leverage and height she needed to mostly avoid the next blow. Her legs replaced her torso, and the blade just barely missed impaling one of them.

Adrenaline racing through her system, Meg snapped back at Xen, "Obviously not. I'm guessing this is why we're down here and not them."

[Aeraul Smythe]

Battle was joined; Xen went down and the Dead Maullers went right after him. One sought to plant a foot on his chest and keep it there, while the other did a quick but elaborate twirl of scimitars before trying to plunge both swords right into his shoulders. It didn't go quite how the two Maullers wanted though, and for a very specific reason.

Teric Bloodstone is old, but he's not that old. With the elegance of experience, the senior Raider took out his own attacker in short order (sidestep around, flick the wrist to disarm, buckler to the face to offbalance, thrust through the visor to finish) -- and then he intervened on Xen's behalf with an almost artful twist of his sword. The scimitars stabbed down into the grass to either side of Xen's head, but they didn't actually touch him at all.

As this was happening, and as Xen and Meg traded barbs back and forth, the streetrat turned into an acrobat and her attacker responded in kind. Once the first round of attack-and-evade ended, the Mauller twisted away from her and came back for another go. This time it did a scissoring attack; first from side to side, then up and down. The follow-up was a double thrust; both scimitars. It pushed forward with every attack, trying to take away her ability to evade and, if at all possible, disarm and kill her in the process.

And as this was happening, Aeraul let out a war-cry that was downright human. As the first Mauller pinned him on the floor, shield to shield, the second tried take his head off. He blocked with his Dao's handle, then heaved the shield-Mauller off to one side and rolled to his feet. Where Teric was elegantly quick, Aeraul was quickly brutal; he spun hard and smashed the scimitars out of the second Mauller's hands, then took its head off with one hard swing of the Dao.

As two of the eight Dead Maullers fell, their bodies quite literally crumbled to dust in their armor; itself suddenly rusting so much that it might crumble if touched. The magicks animating them were old, and as the fight wore on, it began to become visible; lines glowing along each suit in sharply angled, mostly symmetric patterns. The lines on Meg's particular attacker glew brightest and quickest, whatever that meant...

Bunnying pre-approved; urge to write Teric like a Sean Connery character resisted. If only just. :D

[Bloodrose]

The ladder, the daemonic scriptures on the wall, the eerie glowing grass; these were all things that passed by Teric as they continued into their underground expedition. While all were momentarily frightening, interesting, or creepy in their own respects, none of them really stayed with he warrior as the group pressed forward...

When the group was attacked from every side, however, the veteran's interest and expertise were immediately brought to light...

With decades of practiced experience Teric dispatched the first of the animated sentinels, rapidly turning his attention to his companions as they came under superior numbers. Now this is something I can understand. The warrior thought in passing as he spared the double-teamed young man behind him from an unfortunate skewering with a quick thrust of his own sword. It wasn't as if Teric savored and sought out the dangers of armed combat - it was just that he was more than comfortable dealing with those dangers whenever they arose...

The big mix-breed's war cry was enough to draw Teric's attention as the towering swordsman swatted the head off his own attacker. At least I have one compatriot capable of taking care of himself. Was Teric first thought, and a pleasant one at that. Meg and Xen were doing less spectacularly against their respective foes, but you can't expect everyone to be a trained fighter...

"Help Meg!" Teric shouted at the big guy. At the same time that he yelled that, he turned and kicked the second of Xen's attackers into the back of the leg. With its other foot in the air to try and pin the boy to the ground, having its other leg buckle under it sent the sentinel falling backwards; a process helped along by Teric taking hold on the back of the armored chest piece and slinging the walking suit to its back. Once down it was simply a matter of Teric jamming the point of his sword between the helmet and the top of the chest piece to send another foe rusting and crumbling into the dirt...

[Streetrat]

While her companions fought the other suits of armor, Meg focused completely on the one hell-bent on skewering her. Spinning to evade the first swipe, she dipped and scooped up her staff, using it as a buffer for one of the swords coming at her chest. Out from a belt loop came the Watch's knife, which she held out to catch the other scimitar before it impaled her, managing to get away with only a single shallow cut across her upper arm. Just as abruptly as it came, the armor relented only to come at her from an angle she wasn't used to. In dismay, she watched her knife skitter away from her, hand slightly numbed from the force of the blow. Now she had only the one weapon, but as soon as she could get a hold on her reactions it would work better than trying to fight this thing with an unfamiliar tool. She backed up as it advanced, feeling for a wall. Once she hit one, she began to think again, and fell silent.

Alright Meg, breathe. This can't be worse than that prick of a trainer at the Fighter's Guild. Remember, judge the distance, watch the speed...

Not all of the advice she'd been given were of use against this thing - dead as it seemed - but enough seemed to have bearing. She coiled against the wall, watching for an indication that the thing was about to swipe again. As it neared her again, she pushed off and sidestepped, crouching under the blades and sweeping low, aiming for the ankle of one leg and knee of the other. A satisfying thud met her ears as one of its legs was knocked forward, throwing it off balance and giving her more time to dart out of range. Trying to ignore the glowing lines as much she could, Meg readied herself.

It twisted, the wall preventing it from falling to the ground; she dropped into a low stance and braced herself. While it was no longer between her and her companions, the wall had been nice to have at her back. A blade swiped over her head, followed by another slightly below that, which she again deflected with the staff, leading the scimitar down and away from her body before reversing the strike and bringing the other end to impact one of the hands. While it didn't drop the weapon as she had hoped, its swing was halted.

Changing stances again, Meg looked for a weak point. If she still had a blade, there could be straps to sever, limbing it. However, her knives were either too small to do anything to it or sitting on the ground beyond the thing. As its blades scissored towards her again, the girl struck out and up for the head. This time her lack of momentary panic served her well, as the helm cracked backward, severed whatever neck was left inside, and the entire thing collapsed, head rolling a few feet from he rest of the body.

For a second, Meg stared at the inanimate form before her, then let out the breath she'd been holding, hoping it didn't get up again.

[Aeraul Smythe]

The battle moved with the Three Speeds of Chaos and Disorder: Fast, faster, and try not to vomit. Which accurately describes a lot of what's about to happen.

Teric took control of the group for the sake of the battle; experience made him the de facto commander of the bunch, and he played the role well. In short order, he dispatched the Shielded Mauller that was pinning Xen down, allowing the Ice Elemental to free himself and spring upright in the process. Though lacking a sword, he still had a bow and arrows, and he knew exactly how to use them. The Scimitar Mauller pulled back, then came in for another strike.

Xen blocked both swords by catching its wrists on his bow. Then he drew an arrow, angled his bow, then fired point blank into the Mauller's slitted visor. The head, or at least the empty helm, went flying off on impact, trailing dust as the rest of the golemic warrior collapsed under the weight of ages.

And as this was happening, Aeraul answered Teric's order with: "Just one moment!" and in tandem with that moment, the half-orc smashed aside his remaining Mauller's shield, then cleaved down into the thing's head with enough force to split it from helm to beltline. There was a great puff of dust, he twisted through the melees of Teric and Xen and then--

Meg dealt the killing blow.

Aeraul slowed down with a perplexed look, and for that matter, so did Xen. Anywhere else, there might've been golf-clapping involved. Here and now, however, there was an explosion. As explosions go, it wasn't that big or bad. It had force like a tackle from a linebacker on steroids, it came with a brief flash of yellow-green light, and the racket it generated echoed for what felt like miles in the underground. Someone Meg's size would've been chucked a good six or seven feet down, winded but otherwise unharmed.

...except for the smell. Which is literally impossible to give justice without experience. It's one of those things so complex and horrifying that no mortal language has the words to describe it. The only real way to explain such a scent is to focus on its effects, and while Aeraul himself is not the best measuring stick for how a human would take it (due in no small part to his increased sense of smell), it's still saying something that a 6'6", 300 pound, half-human freak has just been brought to his knees in under three seconds.

He literally knelt in place, vomiting until he'd run out of things to spew and then wretching and gagging on thin air. He wasn't going to be of any use in dealing with the remaining pair of Maullers, who were now starting to advance with the Shield leading the way and the Scimitar staying close behind.

Bunnying pre-approved. Meg is free to take the blast however she'd want. The stink cloud will linger for another ~10 seconds, tops, before losing its potency and being more of a visual hindrance than anything else.

EDIT: And I'll put up a Bestiary post for the Maullers once this fight has ended :)

[Bloodrose]

With the big orc-ish fellow doing his best to rend each of his opponents in half, and Xen back on his feet with weapon in hand, Teric allowed himself a bit of a smile. The melee around him was as familiar as the taste of apple pie, and that feeling a man gets when such a fight is going well for his side is akin to a heaping spoonful of whipped cream. It's all very delicious, unless of course the cream turns out to have gone bad...

Teric happened to glance over and check again on Meg just in time to see the petite young woman crack the helm off her opponent with the butt of her staff. Hmm, well done. Was Teric's first thought. Maybe she can take care of herself after all...

BANG!

Teric instinctively turned away from the noxious colored flash of the explosion as the blast rang in his ears and echoed like a screaming herald up and down the underground passageways. That sound will bring every living, or nonliving, thing beneath the ground down on our heads! Was the old warrior's reactive thought as he shielded his face, waiting for the debris that usually was thrown by an explosion. Instead of flying shards of metal and soil, however, Teric found himself enveloped in a cloud of gas.

"By the Goddess!" The veteran half coughed, half choked on the words as they tumbling out of his mouth. The smell was reminiscent of the odor they had encountered earlier, only exaggerated and magnified a hundred times over. It was potent enough to cause Teric's eyes to burn, and his innards recoiled. Amazingly, Teric found himself less worried about the smell, and more worried about whether or not the yellow-green gas was poisonous. Thusly, the veteran employed an old technique he had learned in Fallien for dealing with mustard gas - he quickly exhaled every bit of air he could get out of his lungs, and then firmly clamped his left thumb and index finger of his nose. He almost lost it, so badly did he want to regurgitate this morning's breakfast, but his stomach quickly settled once the offending stench was locked out of his lungs.

The metallic clank of jerky footsteps quickly brought Teric's attention from himself back to his surroundings. Aeraul was kneeling helplessly, emptying his insides onto the ground in front of him. In the confusion of the explosion Teric had lost sight of Xen and Meg, but the footsteps advancing on him didn't allow time to look for them. Two animated suits, the remnants of their attackers by the looks of it, advanced in single-file formation - the shield intelligently leading the charge.

"Come on you bastards!" Teric wanted to shout, but he had no air in his lungs with which to do so. Instead he intercepted the advancing drones with a step and a massively powerful sidearm swing - unleashing a Slash across waist-height. The visible arc tore through the air and successfully unhinged chest piece from greaves on the opponent in front, sending the drone collapsing into a pile of its own armor. The Scimitar behind, however, protected by the Shield in front, kept advancing...

[Aeraul Smythe]

Down went the Shield Mauller, simply collapsing backwards as if struck by the Teric Bloodrose of yesteryear. As this was happening, Xen swung into action. The wretched stinking smoke had effected him as well, but nowhere near as bad as Aeraul or Meg. He just looked a little frosty and green, but his arrow was steady all the same: It caught the Scimitar Mauller squarely in its helm's visor, poor visibility be damned.

Afterwards, there came near-silence. Except for the part where Aeraul was still heaving vomiting and Meg, who'd been point blank with the exploding suit of armor, promptly followed suit. It was only through sheer force of will that either of them managed to stop it, and after that the big green half-orc finally stood back up.

"Sorry," he said, "Don't know what came over me." He picked his sword back up, then took a look around. They'd won the fight, but it was just the first skirmish and both Meg and Xen didn't look quite as sturdy as he and Teric. It was, at this point, that Aeraul decided to make a suggestion.

"Perhaps it'd be best if Xen took Meg back to the surface. With any luck, they'll send someone else down after us."

Still breathing hard, Aeraul stopped and leaned against a nearby wall. He didn't look like he'd volunteer to take the girl back up.

Refer to this post (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=97765#post97765) for further instructions.

[Bloodrose]

With the last sentinel vanquished, and the horrific vapor on the air dissipating, Teric allowed himself a small hint of breath. The 'fresh' breath - if you ignored the rank, still noxious odor lingering on the air - quickly alleviated the oxygen-starved burning in his chest. Preferring the smell of his own sweaty, leathery palm to the current stench, Teric held one hand over his face as he surveyed the damage.

A half-dozen or more guardians lay strewn about on the ground, the now tangled and lifeless bits of armor dark against the eerily glowing grass that still dimly illuminated the room. Lanterns, briefly forgotten in the struggle, cast pale yellow light across the blue to aid the eyes in the underground gloom.

Still alive? Check. All in one piece? Check. The old warrior's brain habitually ran through the checklist of questions a man asks himself when the fighting is done and over. Given their numbers, and how some of the party had reacted to the onslaught, Teric was pleasantly surprised at just how well they had manage to come out the other side of the conflict.

Although a couple might be a little worse for wear. He thought, even as Aeraul voiced aloud his concerns about Meg and Xen continuing forward. Teric found it mildly humorous, even if no one else did, that the oldest of the bunch (by far) was also the least phased by the Maullers ambush. And so it would be me and the psuedo-orc tromping around in the dark together. Came an afterthought. The idea was by no means a pleasant one, but Teric had only two options: Stand toe-to-toe with the hulking swordsman at his back against whatever creatures the dark could throw at them, or go back and face that ladder again so soon.

Sticking with Aeraul won that decision by a landslide.

"Whatever people decided to do," Teric said simply, retrieving his lantern, "can they decide fast? I'd really rather not stick around in any one place for too long."

[Streetrat]

After she got to her feet and finished retching, Meg looked up – way up – at Aeraul. “Go back? Not happening. Especially not with him,” she jabbed her thumb towards Xen, “If he wants to go back, that’s fine. Don’t send me back up - I’ll just come back on my own later.” She glared defiantly at the men in the room, but the effect seemed somewhat lost in the dim light. “Plus, I think I’ll be alright as long as I have this ready – for whatever reason, I wasn’t ” thumping her staff once on the ground for emphasis.

That sounded a lot like my argument to the Watch to let me down here in the first place.

She briefly considered poking around the corridors by herself, and just as abruptly decided against the idea, her reason reasserting itself at the right moment. Meg, Meg, Meg. Don’t give in to pettiness. He’s just concerned – no need to get angry. Plus, you’ll probably get killed down here on your own.

Poking at the remains of the armor littering the floor, she began muttering to herself about being caught off guard and things that don’t move the same way living things do. Remembering the knife that had been knocked away, she went to hunt that down, and then see if the chests were openable. If they weren’t unlocked she’d try and pick the lock with the Watch’s knife.

[Aeraul Smythe]

Aeraul looked at Teric, then shrugged. There wasn't much else he could do beyond saying, "Well, you're a spirited shrimp at least."

That left all eyes on Xen, who remained quiet. He didn't meet any of their gazes. About the only thing he said on his way out was, "I'll send help." Then he left them there, and his Alchemic Light slowly faded out into the cold, foul darkness as he moved back towards the chamber. His steps echoed softly a little while after that, and then he was gone.

Which left it to Aeraul to say, "Well, that could've gone better. Or worse," he added the last bit with a look to Megan as she went looting. In the meantime, Aeraul sheathed his sword and recovered his torch. Thankfully, it hadn't gone out or been damaged in the fighting, but it was worth noting that, "The grass doesn't burn."

It was about two and a half seconds after this, maybe three, when the half-orc felt it. So would anyone standing in line with him, if they were paying close enough attention. A short, quick breeze, like the wake of someone's hand moving through the air. What made it noticable, besides the lag between any two people feeling it, was that it moved against the slow and steady, back and forth gusts of air that made up the place's usual 'atmosphere.'

Aeraul spared a look to Meg and Teric without saying anything, then he listened closely...

The grass crunched in the distance, as something moved away from them.

"Should I say it, or does someone else want to jinx us instead?" Aeraul asked, staring down a tunnel full of eerily glowing blue grass, into a darkness it failed to illuminate.

Megan gains 3 leather pouches with 25 gold each. Kudos to her for actually going for the loot :D

Xen is out and his slot is now open. Refer to the recruitment thread for more info.

[Bloodrose]

Did you feel that? Aeraul's eyes practically begged the question as a gentle breeze wafted across the group. At first it had been hard to discern from the normal air currents they had encountered upon entering the caverns, but as it drifted past it became unmistakable as something else. Teric certainly didn't want to say it, but that didn't prevent his mind from thinking it...

Why does it feel like someone is breathing in my face? The voice in his head asked cruelly, sending a shiver down the veteran's spine. Had Teric been able to see what it was out there in the gloom that created such a breath of air, the growing tension in his stomach might not have been so bad. Unfortunately, though, he couldn't see anything outside of the small circle of light that had dimmed around the group with Xen's departure...

The crunching footsteps, like a weight shifting around on the crystalline glass somewhere out in front of them, only exacerbated the fear of the unknown...

"Something doesn't want us down here." Teric intoned, taking Aeraul up on his offer to jinx the group. The words seemed to ease the tension in his gut as he said them, and Teric began to realize that the amiable half-orc might prove to be useful for more than just his sword. While their time together thus far had been short, and few words had been exchanged between them, the veteran was starting to appreciate the large swordsman's company. He had a sort of grim, dry humor to him that was excellent at breaking up the melancholy that had descended over all of them since entering the caverns.

Reaching into his backpack, Teric pulled out one of the alchemical lights supplied by the Watch. Shaking the thing to get it glowing, the warrior wound back and pitched the small glowing beacon into the darkness in the direction from which the footsteps had emanated. The light hit the ground and bounced a couple of times; a bobbing star in the blackness ahead of them.

Whatever it was that was out there, it wasn't out there anymore.

And here I was half hoping it would still be standing there. Teric sighed. At least then we could've seen what it was...

"Seriously," Teric tried not to sound too gruff about it, "I'd really rather not stick around. A moving target is a more difficult target, and obviously something already knows where we are."

[Streetrat]

Ignoring Xen’s exodus, Meg continued poking around. Her body was half inside a chest when the noises came, making her glance up uneasily and stretch in odd ways to get her head over the edge. “What in Varda’s name was that, and why did it move away?”

Leaving the other chests alone, she pulled herself free and crept back up to the men. Something about large masses of muscle and bone that could crack skulls whenever they wanted was incredibly comforting – when they were on your side. Luckily, both seem capable and willing to not let me die, she thought wryly, a slight smile playing on her face. With any luck, I’ll appear to be mostly non-threatening to anything coming our way – and they’ll have the first wave to take on.

Wrenching her thoughts back to the moment, Meg decided that perhaps she didn’t really want to know what that thing had been, and fervently hoped that it wasn’t going for reinforcements.

“This place already feels like it’s breathing and kinda alive. I completely agree with Teric on the moving part,” she looked ahead at the alchemist’s light sitting on the crystalline grass and shivered. “The sooner we get going the less likely we’ll get stuck in this particular hall. Another one, sure, but not here.” The last bit was attempted with a lightly sarcastic tone, which came out a little more strained than she would’ve liked.

And hopefully it’ll come back here rather than wherever we end up.

[Aeraul Smythe]

Act II

Agreement being unanimous amongst the Raiders, they started moving again. Deeper into the Catacombs, which soon began to live up (or die down) to their name. They went in the same direction as that shallow breeze from before had been moving. The tunnel began to widen as they moved further into it, and the sensation of being breathed on by something cold, old and gigantic became more pronounced with every step taken.

After a while, the Tunnel didn't widen so much as it exploded -- in the architectural sense, that is. First came the stairs, simultaneously hidden and outlined by the grass and what looked (hopefully) like a kind of pale blue, neon fungus. Meg was the only one fortunate enough to not make the firsthand discovery that there were glyphs carved into the masonry beneath the fungus, chiefly because she was the only one who didn't step in it. Aeraul and Teric trailed neon goop the whole way down the stairs -- and it was a long way down at that.

Not only was the room steep though, its walls were wide. Eight-sided like the chamber at the entrance of the tunnels, and its walls composed of layer after layer of humanoid skulls; every single one of which bore a different symbol etched and painted into its forehead.

Something's moving, one of the lot said, and it didn't quite matter who.

A few seconds ticked by, and then they heard the echoing cries of rats at war with each other; two of them. Ordinary in almost every way but two: They were as large as housecats and glowing the same blue as the grass and fungus. Their fight, probably for territory, had the added effect of showcasing one of what turned out to be four other hallways leading in or out of this new chamber. Meg and Teric spotted that one, but it was Aeraul who pointed out, Look at how the stairs get bigger, like seats...and this thing at the center of the room.

The group inspected it. It was broken and aged beyond belief; ancient as the place they found it in, unevened by inches at almost every point, but still very easily recognized: An eight-sided stone bed with four rusted shackles still anchored to it.

Ideal for a sacrificial altar, and as someone noted, probably Teric with the gifts and curses of experience, it had been used recently. The bloodstains were dry and crusted on it, but nowhere near as old as the rest of the place.

"Well," Aeraul mumbled, turning a weary blue-glowing eye to the four open paths out. Shadows and torchlight, fear and adrenaline can play tricks on the mind, but he could swear he saw movement in each. "Anyone care to hazard a guess what this place is?" he asked, keeping his voice low to avoid the echo.

[Bloodrose]

"I certainly don't." Teric replied off-handedly. He was slowly turning, casting the light from his lantern about in wide circles to try and illuminate or scout out as much of the room as possible. The hundreds, possibly thousands, of fleshless skulls built into the walls stared back with dark eyes. A man couldn't move anywhere in the room where those lifeless gazes would not fall heavily upon you. They were in front, to the sides, and behind you, watching silently. "Whatever this place is, though, I doubt we're welcome."

The air was another matter as Teric stopped circling in place and began wandering around the large, octagonal altar in the middle of the chamber. A thousand years of wear was visibly etched into its surface, and the corners of the geometric shape were dulled and chipped. Eight sides. Teric pondered, chewing absently on his lower lip as he continued his inspection. Always eight sides. Where we first came in, this room, this altar. What's the significance of eight sides?

While he was no theological scholar, the main tenants and general beliefs of most of Althanas' major religious institutions were common knowledge for any seasoned adventurer. It was the kind of information you picked up randomly through acquaintances, or through general word of mouth. Even with the information he had, however, Teric couldn't call to mind any well known religions or cults that placed any particular importance in the number 8, or in the octagonal shape, or that practiced sacrifices for that matter. Minor sects and underground sub cults the veteran had less information on, but he dismissed those.

Whoever, or whatever, had constructed this place had done so with great time and energy. You don't collect the volume of skulls necessary to build the eight-sided walls of a massive sacrificial chamber overnight. Besides, the skulls that made up the lower sections of the wall were much older, and much dirtier, than the skulls higher up.

Distracted by a sudden noise, Teric glanced over at the two large rats that had been fighting on the other side of the room when their small troupe had entered. One of the eerily glowing rodents, the smaller of the two, lay dead at the entrance to one of the four tunnels while the other rat glared balefully at the adventurers. Teric hadn't paid the two creatures much attention, just as they had ignored him and the others initially.

Not overly worried about the rat, Teric stepped up onto the octagonal altar and crouched down near the center where the ancient shackles lay rusting on the stone. The clink of his shod boots on the cold stone echoed spookily throughout the chamber, and Teric pulled his lantern a little closer as if trying to draw warmth from the dull light.

Crouching down, Teric picked up one of the shackles cautiously, half afraid the metal might come to life like the armored sentinels in the last room and lock itself around his wrist. Even if it had, though, the metal was so degraded and brittle that one good tug would likely break the short chain into a half-dozen pieces.

"So are we choosing tunnels again?" Teric asked, setting the shackle carefully.

[Aeraul Smythe]

"Looks like it," Aeraul answered back. Torch held high, he climbed the seat-sized stairs to get a closer look at the walls. Upon closer inspection, "They're all real," he concluded. Not that he needed to. "Times like this, I wish I'd bothered learning more languages. I can't make out any of this. It looks half-similar to and half-different from the engravings at the entrance..."

He passed the torch over a stretch of wall, and there came a slight red glimmer from several of the higher skulls. The main reason Aeraul didn't jump out of his shoes was rigid discipline. This was underscored, of course, by the lingering expectation that something dreadful was about to happen. Aeraul took a deep breath and tried to get a closer look at the sources for the red glimmers.

Something metallic had filled in each symbol and glyph on the foreheads of this bunch. Aeraul followed it, and the further he went the more skulls had metallic fill-ins to match. Then there were gaps, and then there were more. Pull out far enough, and they formed patterns. The inevitable conclusion was, "They...if I'm not mistaken, that's another set of letters. I think."

He started moving quicker now, along the largest unbroken stretch of these makeshift letters. He couldn't read them, of course. Aeraul, and probably neither of the others, were trained to read something like Old Diamonc -- nevermind whatever sideways variant this was. Perhaps the only thing it conveyed at all was a warning. What kind? Well, that fear was up to each of them to put a face to.

Or in Aeraul's case, to take a face from.

He stopped now, right at the corner of the 7 o' clock exit. Stopped and stared. Worked his jaw from side to side a few times, and finally took some steps back with his torch shifting grips and his newly freed hand quickly going to his sword.

"I think we just found the Scourger that started all this," he declared.

Chiefly because there, at the top left-hand corner of the 7 o' clock tunnel was a skull, just like so many others except for one key detail: It was fresh. Horribly, messily fresh, with the eyes still staring out of the sockets and everything else meticulously peeled away to leave it with a slow-drying paintjob made from blood. Try not to look into those eyes, ladies and gentlemen.

You might see someone else -- or something else -- screaming back at you.

"I say we avoid that tunnel," Aeraul decided with an unnervingly casual certainty.

[Bloodrose]

"No arguments here." Teric agreed, hopping down off the cold altar. There was an uneasiness in his gut that made him want to get out of this room and getting moving again. In the dark recesses of his mind he could envision evil specters descending from the blackness obscuring the ceiling to add their skulls to the monumental collection. It was not a pleasant vision, and just thinking about it made the flesh of his scalp tingle nervously.

Walking over to the fourth opening out of the room, the tunnel farthest from the bloodied skull Aeraul was admiring grimly. Casting his light around in a circle, Teric confirmed that there was no blood, meaty visage staring down from above this particular doorway. What did come down off the archway was the dull odor of a millennia-worth of decay. However long these skulls had been here, they had been lingering and piling up long enough that the dry, musty scent of old death far outweighed the stench of recent additions.

"I think if we're trying to stay away from that tunnel, we go this way." Teric offered, pointing his sword down the dark passageway emphatically. The tunnel he was indicating and the tunnel Aeraul had disqualified split off it different directions from each other entirely. Barring any long turns or sharp corners deeper into the darkness, it stood to reason that they were unlikely to get much farther from the fresh skull by going any other way.

I wonder if that boy made it back to the surface. Teric found himself contemplating as the others contemplated his choice of direction. If he did, I hope the Watch decides to send someone back down here quickly...

"Also," he added as an afterthought, "we should mark whichever tunnel we agree on. That way our reinforcements, should they ever arrive, which know which way we've gone."

[HikariAngel]

Such a wonderful tailor. Not only was her outfit done sooner than she expected, but it fit perfectly. Every other window the silver-haired girl passed, she stopped to admire the odd tailor's handiwork. A rather fashionable leather tank top altered to fit her like a glove was the most important piece of the ensemble in her mind. The capri-length jeans wouldn’t slow her down when she ran and also hugged her figure. She put her arms out to the side and leaned her head back to rest in her interlaced fingers. Yes, she looked decidedly nice now.

When her eyes focused on what was else was on the window instead of her own image, a smile spread like wildfire across her face. It was not the yellowed parchment covered with an almost legible scribble that caught her attention, but rather three words on it. Adventurer, exploration, and pay were very large words in her mind, large enough to warrant a trip to this catacomb. It would definitely be worth the trip back to Scara Brae if she could get new clothes and make off with some loot the legal way. Because everyone knows that catacombs are ripe with ancient, unguarded treasures.

And so it was that the catgirl wandered around for an hour or so, getting utterly lost in the process and distracted by many shiny things on the way. When she finally found the fountain with the Watch shack set up and strange scaffolding erected around the pit, the twinkle in her eyes couldn’t have been brighter. With a determined step she marched up to the counter, placed her hands on the wooden table, and smiled.

“Yeah, what do you want?” The guard on duty asked, apparently too preoccupied with watching the sun pass over head to actually do his job.

“I want to explore the catacombs!” Monica shouted, entirely much too loud given the situation and with more enthusiasm than should ever be necessary for an answer so expected.

It was about this time that someone emerged from the pit and walked over to the guard. He looked a little worse for the wear, but he was still alive. After hushed words that Monica was too busy to hear otherwise, the guard managed to grab her attention and hold it long enough to give his overused speech. Looking over the weapons and armor available, the catgirl furled her brow. Everything was made for men.

Thoroughly explaining why she wasn’t going to take any of their weapons or armor would have taken much too long, so the silver-haired girl just grabbed up three of their glowing light-sticks, her allotted coil of rope, and tucked both into her small traveling backpack. She didn’t need anything much larger than what she already had or she’d get unbalanced.

She stole a glance at the map while the guard was still explaining about the catacombs themselves and figured that the longer trail was the one that the current group was exploring, especially since a new room appeared while she was looking at it. Quite the handy contraption.

“Do you have everything you need?”

“Yes!” Again, much too loud and completely unnecessary. The soldier rested his forehead in his right hand and Monica smiled.

With her arms swinging like weighted pendulums and legs stiffer than boards, she mechanically walked to the plank in such a mockery of a soldier’s march that she had to juke one who didn’t appreciate her humor while she was still crossing the plank bridge. A dark glimmer in the corner of her right eye was the only reaction she gave to his dive into the pool, though she walked normally the rest of the way to the entrance. Bending over to look down, a slight bit of vertigo assaulted the catgirl’s stomach, but she quickly suppressed it. She had never seen a hole she couldn’t see the bottom of before.

“Well,” she said somberly, “I’m off.”

And with that, she jumped in.

[Aeraul Smythe]

"I agree on principle," Aeraul said, looking to the tunnel Teric had picked out. "The only problem is that we'd also be leaving a trail for would-be attackers..."

Aeraul stilled after saying that, as if losing himself in thought for a moment. To Teric's experienced eye, or even Meg with her street savvy, the half-orc would've looked spaced out enough to have a great big bullseye stamped on his general area. The airflow in the room slowed not long after, as if something huge and unseen was paused in the space between inhaling and exhaling for the first time in countless ages.

...and there was the breeze, and if they listened closely enough they might've heard sounds to accompany it. Echoing things without definition, somewhere between wet and elastic.

Aeraul looked to his comrades, nodded as if to communicate to them through sheer body-language, I'm going to test something now.

"I say we do leave that trail."

The sounds faded away, as if untensing.

"After all, the only resistance we've come to so far are rats and statues. Defenses, nothing else."

Still nothing, but the airflow returned to normal.

"What's the worst that could--" Ktang, ktang, ktang, and three arrows snapped off of Aeraul's shield. If not for his hearing and reactions, he would've taken two to the throat and another to the collarbone. "Well, that settles that," he decided as another trio of arrows went clanging off of his shield. Every single one came from the same corridor where Rhall's skull happened to be lodged.

"Besides the fact that this place is starting to feel jinxed," Aeraul pointed out as he moved to take cover behind the altar. More arrows kept clanging off of his shield. "I think I can accurately say we know what or who happened to our suspect."

On the relatively bright side (all things considered), at least all the arrows were coming from that single corridor.

[Bloodrose]

He's useful and entertaining to have around, Teric found himself thinking, but every time he opens his mouth something bad happens. It was a strange thought to be having while blood-thirsty arrows came whizzing out of a dark tunnel. The old warrior kept close to the wall, first ducking into the closest arrow-free tunnel and then worming his way along the edge towards the source of the danger. Arrows, unless of a variety Teric had yet to encounter, had a nasty bit of trouble with turning corners mid-flight, so anywhere not directly visible from inside the tunnel was a good place to be. Aeraul seemed less interested with getting out of the way so much as he was with getting behind cover, holding his shield in front of him as he moved to get behind the grisly stone altar.

Standing in the neutral zone between the tunnel from which arrows came flying and the tunnel next to it, Teric tightened his grip on both sword and shield. His back was pressed against the wall to offer as small a target as possible should the foe come around the corner into the open, and the veteran habitually looked back over to the other side to ensure nothing surprised him from the opposite tunnels.

Cowards. Teric wanted to shout out at whoever, or given their experiences thus far whatever, was lurking in the dark of the tunnel. He contemplated spinning out in front of the passageway between volleys to send a Slash arc thundering down the tunnel to teach the ranged foe a lesson, but that idea was quickly dismissed. You have no idea how far down the tunnel they are, he told himself, and that's the quickest way to catch an arrow where you don't want one.

Chainmail was all well and good from protecting the torso, but the last thing Teric needed this far below the ground was a wooden shaft growing out of an arm or a leg. How would get back up that ladder then?

[HikariAngel]

It was quite a ways to fall, but Monica had no intentions of going *splat* on the floor. Shortly after she fell out of the immediate light, the catgirl wrapped her hands around the sides of the ladder and placed her feet wide on the sturdy wood. Her body jerked to a stop, but it was little different from a high jump landing. From there, she climbed down one rung at a time for what seemed to be an eternity.

Natural light faded with each minute until it was only her feline eyes that allowed her to see at all in the darkness between the sunlit entrance and the torch-lit exit of the shaft. When she finally stepped onto the floor, she stared up in awe at the gargantuan chamber. She probably would have fallen over backward had she not been assaulted by a putrid stench. Her breath caught in her throat and refused to budge out of instinct- people had died down here.

Finally releasing her self-induced suffocation, Monica shifted her backpack and headed toward the only doorway. The map said the group branched off left and then took another left, so that was exactly what she was going to do. The soft soles of her boots whispered along the decrepit floor until she reached the very tangible line between where the torch illuminated and where the darkness consumed the light. Even squinting she couldn’t see anything more than ten yards away. Good thing the guard hadn’t noticed that she had taken her allotted glow-sticks with each hand. Taking one of the vials out of her pack, she shook it up and waited. And she waited. Then she waited some more. After three seconds, the alchemic mixture was glowing bright enough to light the passage up ahead and she was already walking into the unknown. Or at least the known unknown.

Four steps into the darkness she boldly went, then four steps out as fast as she could. Her heart was pounding in her chest. The walls were closing in! She closed her eyes and slowed her breathing, focusing on a crystal of ice within her mind. Her heart slowed and the walls moved back to their rightful places; she could do this.

Four more steps in, then another four. The wind blew at her face and back rhythmically, almost like the cave was breathing. Eventually she found the first crossroad and took a left. The breathing wind was slightly stronger now. Reaching the second fork, Monica’s nose was equally offended to the left and right. The right smelled of explosive powder and the left smelled of decaying bone. Well, since the latest group went left, she was going to have to put up with the caustic stench.

The glowing grass was definitely a unique twist, and for the space of a couple minutes, the curious catgirl poked at it with various articles before stepping on it. It had a unique crunch under her soles, but other than that small noise she felt almost perfectly safe on the grass. Then came the piles of dust and the aftermath of an obvious battle. The caustic stench was strongest here, and it didn’t take much to deduce that this was the source. How much farther ahead were the others in the group she was chasing?

[Aeraul Smythe]

Ktang sounded, a half-dozen times in such rapid succession that every shot may as well have come at once. This was followed by a short pause, filled with a distinct racket that sounded like a mixture of chirps, warbles, and misspent bodily functions. Listen closely enough and there was a certain cadence to it; language, and utterly inhuman at that.

Another chorus of ktangs, and this time all the arrows were coming at once. Six of them at least, but it was hard to tell in this lighting and with most of the arrows snapping to bits against Aeraul's shield. The aim was expert though, and for every volley they were making dents. Lots of dents. Small at first, but it was starting to add up. In more modern terms, they had him pinned in place and were taking their sweet time to wear him down.

They either hadn't seen or simply didn't care to factor Teric in, whatever that may be worth. On the list of Completely Miscellaneous Information Tidbits, Aeraul shouted, "This group is alive!" over the ktangs, the subsequent enemy warble-chirp-fumigating, the sound of Meg divebombing into cover behind the altar with him, and the racket of broken arrow bits flying in every direction. "I can feel minds! At least eight of them and--"

It bears mention that Aeraul does not speak quickly. Which is the main reason the rest of his warning to Teric was cut short, as their enemy finally came into view -- from the empty tunnel to Teric's left, lead by the swing of a large falchion-like weapon with a scythe-shaped tip. That was not the real freakshow though. What held the Bone Falchion, however, was.

They were about as inhuman as you could get without completely ditching the basic template of four limbs, a head and a body. They looked as if they were made from a combination of blubber and rot, bulging out beneath layers of hardened chitin covered in fungus that only now started to glow in strange, rhythmic pulses. They had no eyes, no ears, no mouths or noses; their faces were like blank slates. Growing like manes around their necks, if they even had necks, were sloping things that looked like mushroom heads. Each one had four fat fingers, though their odd texture made it hard to tell where one digit ended and another began.

Even as the first made its attack, the second swept around from behind to try and take advantage of the element of surprise. For fat, blubbery things, they moved with jarring speed and a calculated rhythm; almost like iaijutsu as done by cavemen made out of fungus. The second took a swipe with a bone axe. They moved in perfect harmony, trying to drive him into the next hailstorm of arrows.

Well, Aeraul thought, even as another volley of arrows slammed into his shield and shattered to bits. Didn't see that one coming.

[Bloodrose]

It turned out that constantly glancing back over his shoulder saved Teric's life, allowing him to both see and evade the scythe-like blade that came swinging out of the tunnel. The veteran took a quick step away from the opening to his left, allowing the wide swing to crash into the wall of skulls. Bits of aged skull collapsed under the bone blade, giving the visages beneath an even meaner countenance...

Whoops! Teric's hips shot forward in a furious pelvic thrust toward the ugly monster that came skulking out of the tunnel behind his weapon. An arrow, one of several still coming in waves from the first tunnel, ripped clean through the tail of Teric's long coat where his ass had been not a second before. "Clever," Teric quipped at the pseudo-gelatinous hulk pulling it's blade from the wall, "I wonder if you meant to do that."

The veteran learned again, almost immediately, that it isn't wise to open your big mouth in the middle of a violent altercation. A second creature, as if summoned by Teric's toying words, swept out from behind the first swinging a grisly looking axe and obviously seeking to force the veteran back into the line of fire.

Pretty smart for a...whatever the hell they are. Teric sidestepped to his right, his nimble feet carrying him out of harm’s way as the axe went streaking by at a downward angle. They were fast too, these masses of fat and rotting flesh enclosed in bone, but their movements were simple and predictable. The swing of their arms, their stance, and the direct forwardness of their assault all relayed information to anyone knowledgeable or experienced enough to look for it.

Teric took a swing at the second of the creatures, the one with the axe, as it followed through with its initial swing. The blade in his hand cut a chip into the dense chitin skin that seemed to hold the fleshy, featureless blob together, but did little else. Teric expected a counter, some sort of retribution from the uninjured creature, but instead it just stepped out of the way...

...again revealing the first creature, which had by now recovered and came in swinging his scythe-sword down in an overhand chop.

"By the Goddess!" Came a hasty exclamation as Teric barely managed to sidestep this second blow. The two creatures moved and reacted in sync with one another, playing off one another to their advantage. The second creature came around the first with uncanny speed, taking another swing as Teric evaded. First one, and then the other, and back again they came; a perfectly choreographed assault that kept the old warrior evading and not attacking. The duo, oddly enough, reminded Teric of twins acting as assassin's he'd once fought travelling through Akashima...

Now how did I win that fight? The veteran kept evading and dancing to his right, trying to stay as well out of the line of fire as possible. Oh, right... he was reminded as he circled around the creatures and their simple yet effective attacks, parrying a weapon or a blow here and there as he went, I didn't win that one. Robert bailed me out...

"A little help!" Teric called out as a heavy axe glanced off his well placed shield and struck the stone floor near his foot.

[Aeraul Smythe]

Right then, Aeraul thought, noting the incoming presence of yet another mind. Emotions were clashing in every direction, but he was still in control...and it was about to get so very much easier. Arrows smashed and broke against the shield, but the damage just kept adding up. If he stayed in place, it'd only be a matter of time...

"Megan," he said in a perfectly calm voice as he slid his arm free of the shield, careful to keep it in place on the altar and to hold his torch in place next to it. "Hold this for me, would you?" She complied, and Aeraul slowly edged away from her. Back, down, to the side...

...and then he was up in a leap that carried him clear of the line of fire, onto one of the seating rows. Then came the run, seemingly heedless of the fact that he was scaling stairs with at least three feet of height between each row. Out came the sword, Mankind's steel gleaming orange in the torchlight of his other hand. The dao swept tight as he leapt over the last row and issued a bellowing cry.

It hit the Bone Saber of the first Fungan, plowed through it and kept going. Chitinous armor cracked and imploded at the point of impact, something green and oily squirted out around it and through other openings in the Fungan's armor. Even as the sword seemed to vanish into the Fungan's body, Aeraul shoulder-checked into it with his other arm. It slammed back into a wall of skulls and its entire form distorted, as if it were made of soft gel barely contained by its armor. Another squirt of green, this time accompanied by a terrified whistling sound. Aeraul ripped his Dao free, finishing the cut in the process. When he was done, he jammed the torch in its face -- presumably for the sake of being thorough.

This had the added effect of almost flash-incinerating the Fungan right on the spot. It also had the bonus of a rather powerful wave of heat that knocked Aeraul over, down by a row of seats and left it to Teric and/or Meg and/or the eventual newcomer to finish off the remaining Fungan, which lead its way back into battle with a series of swift, jarring, backtracking axe-swings. It was retreating back towards the tunnel it came from.

It was also, perhaps more importantly, issuing a similar whistle to the Sabered Fungan. Language barriers be damned, you don't get much closer to a call for help than that one...

...and let's not forget that some of the bows just stopped firing, which could be either a very good thing or a very bad thing, depending on the Why? of the situation.

[Bloodrose]

"Not so brave without your friend, are you?" Teric berated the retreating creature as he advanced upon it, staying just out of the range of the jabbing axe. It was funny how the tide of a battle could turn so abruptly; one second you're ducking and running for your life, and the next you're on the offensive. You had to press any advantage you got...

Chink! was the sound of the bone axe meeting the steel blade Teric gripped in his fist as the veteran parried one particularly hasty jab and stepped inside of the creatures reach. They must really have a problem with fire... Was the thought running through the warrior's mind as he leapt onto the bony, chitin chest piece covering the monster's 'chest' and plunged his hand into the gooey, fatty flab beneath.

"You're not getting away that easily!" Teric grunted, his voice competing with the shrill whistling noise emanating from his foe. A second's hesitation, and then FWOOM! The loud bang and the white flash of light illuminated the creature and send shockwaves rippling through the fleshy, rotting body. The Flashbang, as Teric liked to call it, was quite literally a fireball spell minus the fireball, but the lack of a condensed projectile didn't stop the technique from having the intended effect. The axe-wielding creature went up in a flash just like his friend...

The heat and rush of air that accompanied the incineration of the creature forced Teric backwards, in addition to stamping a confidence draining grimace of pain across the veteran's face. Gripping an obviously burnt left hand close to his chest, Teric almost didn't notice the third creature that had emerged from the arrow-firing tunnel.

"Oof!" The creature swatted Teric in the shoulder with a heavy shield comprised from the ribs of a few too many unfortunate souls. The blow sent the smaller Teric reeling, ultimately sitting him down on his butt just a few yards from the stone altar in the center of the room.

[HikariAngel]

While watching the fight was all well and good, Monica knew that she was going to have to join the melee sooner or later. She preferred later and waited as the brutes took the brunt of the damage. Apparently they hadn’t walked too much farther after their first fight before getting into another one, which made the catgirl slightly nervous. She wasn’t good with endurance battles.

One wave of heat barely reached her, peering from the doorway, then another one quickly and lightly followed. It was uncomfortable, even that little amount of heat, but still easily bearable. The bigger of the two men seemed to be holding his own quite well, but the older-looking one… he had to be at least fifty or sixty from Monica’s guess. He would most likely need some assistance. Out of habit, the silver-haired girl tugged her gloves tight to her hands and re-strapped them to remove the built-up slack before bounding from the top of the steps toward the old guy.

It took a little while, but after his shout for help came, Monica entered the fray with a flying jump-kick over Teric’s head to strike the final fungus in the “face” as the warrior tumbled backward. Now grateful that she was wearing shoes for once, she sprang off the naturally-armored monstrosity, knocking it only slightly off-balance. Toned legs and natural agility graced Monica with a flowing landing while the same afforded her a leap high into the air and over the beast’s wobbling head. Twisting like a gymnast, her left hand straightened and a quartet of blades slid out from the tips of her glove, frost trailing the strike. Unfortunately, the shell was much too hard for her wimpy strike to do any damage to, but at least it got the thing’s attention away from the downed man.

She figured she could avoid anything the mushroom-covered thing threw at her for at least a little while.

[Aeraul Smythe]

Aeraul groaned. He regained enough control over himself to look up right as Teric went tumbling by, down one row of stone steps after the next and all the way to a stop near the center of the room. By all rights, he probably should've had the presence of mind to at least shout heroically as the third Fungan went blubbering by him and continued after Teric with murder in its...well, if mushroom-neckbeards made for an adequate substitute for eyes, this one would've had killing intent radiating out in every direction. The vengeful sort that translates even when there's no suitable medium for it.

It bears some mention that the Fungans did not truly move like human beings. They jiggled too much, and when this one literally leapt down from one row of seats to the next, it all but compressed to half its true height even while crouching. There was the distinct sense that the only thing keeping it intact was the armor.

Which, about three seconds before the Fungan could come in for a bludgeoning kill with its rib-shield, almost failed entirely when the catgirl leapt into the frey. Its head snapped back at an angle that would've been fatal for any vertebrate, sending stray mushrooms flying and dusting to front and back. It remained standing though, and only Monica's quick reflexes and good luck kept her from plowing right over the thing's 'neck' and shoulders and wiping out on the ground behind it. While she was backflipping, the Fungan just stood there. The visible portions of its skin rippled, either from an actual shockwave or from pure force of effort. With the echoes of the Altar Room, you could hear chitin clicking against itself as it struggled to stay in place.

Then the head snapped upright, squirting a gooey moss from what passed for its chin, with an actual footprint where its forehead should've been. Mushrooms were missing from its neck, exposing patches of pale skin interrupted by tiny holes that could've been anything.

Monica struck it with claws, leaving a series of matching trails of frost just millimeters deep in the chitin of its back. The creature shuddered a little bit, issuing a series of linguistic clicks and hisses.

Then it struck back, its entire body contorting into a twist that couldn't be done by anyone with bones in their body. The shield came swinging for Monica like a backhand battering ram from a drunken master, and its limbs seemed to stretch impossibly to try and make the hit. Even as it did this, the creature lifted one leg and struck out towards Teric by literally extending it over the distance. The further it stretched, the thinner its visible flab seemed to get, until Teric and Monica could both get a clear view of the tendon-like binds holding the armor plates in place.

Aeraul, in the meantime, spent the time trying to recover. Propping himself against the side of the top row of seats, he used his Dao to stand again. His torch was M.I.A., probably destroyed anyway. He couldn't see Meg anywhere, nor was his shield lying around. All he could think to say was a half-hearted, "Damn it."

Empathy and reflexes kicked in less than a second after that. It's hard to explain exactly how, but he blindly up overhead and sidestepped into another swing of the sword. It was a quick, artistic and above all circular looking maneuver, but the important thing is the result: A Fungan, who had been standing in place to put a bone axe through Aeraul's head, promptly collapsed with most of its chest, neck and face missing and its legs severed at the knees. There was no time for Aeraul to bask in his token moment of glory though, as three more Fungans now stood in open view with bows drawn and aimed.

He dove to the side, and had the ridiculously good fortune of slipping, going off balance and falling over just in time for all three arrows to go flying within six inches of his face, upper arm and shoulder. If not for that luck, he would've taken two to the chest for his heart and a lung, and a third to the throat. He landed hard, and finally had the presence of mind to shout: "Archers, and the rest seem to be running away!"

Cue hilariously awkward declarations of victory, like so: "I think we're winning!" Technically, Aeraul would've added, if he weren't a little crispy around the edges and bruised up besides.

[Bloodrose]

Where the silver haired cat girl had come from, Teric couldn't say. One moment he was sitting there helpless on his rump, clutching his burnt hand and staring death in the face. The next he found himself still sitting helplessly, but at least now the mossy juggernaut had a new target...

Or at least it seemed to...

The impossibly long limb came snaking towards Teric even as the majority of the creature seemed completely fixated on swatting aside the pesky newcomer. While his hand may have been burnt, that fact alone didn't mean the veteran's entire left arm was out of commission. The Eklan buckler came up in front of Teric's face, absorbing the spongy blow from the fungus-like creature.

"I don't know who you are!" Teric called out to the cat girl, even as he whipped his sword around and cut the extended limb away from between two chunks of the creature's bony armor. "But I'm certainly glad you seem to be on our side!" The tip of the enemy limb, a good 12-14 inch length of fat and fungus fell uselessly to the floor, completely severed from the main body structure...

What are these things? The veteran was forced to ask himself as he risked climbing back to his feet. They're obviously not big fans of fire, but what is it that makes them tick? Are the golems?

The last thought brought uncomfortable images of a cackling sorcerer lurking in the shadows down one of the nearby tunnels to mind. Magic users, predominantly, had brought Teric closer to death than any number of arrows, swords, or maces could have ever hoped. Magi and their ilk were unpredictable, unquestionably powerful, and most often unhinged to boot. Please don't be golems! Teric prayed as he launched himself back into the fray. I don't feel like dealing with anyone powerful enough to congeal and animate these piles of...whatever they are...

Leaving his most recent attacker to continue dealing with the feline newcomer, Teric made a bold and furious charge for the tunnel best known for the arrows darting out of it. Sometime between getting knocked down and standing back up, a trio of the flabby foes had emerged from the tunnel and were keenly focused on trying to spit Aeraul with their barbs. Their interest gave Teric the opportunity he needed to get within several feet of the triplets before they noticed his coming...

Too late! Teric might have grinned but for the deadly serious determination stamped across his features. His swordarm rocketed around in a vicious arc, unleashing an almost invisible blade of air that streaked through the open gap between warrior and monsters...

[HikariAngel]

Up against most humans, and a majority of the other natural races of Althanas, Monica was quite apt at not getting killed. Case in point, she was still alive to fight the fungus neck-beards that wanted to do just that. There were a few times that the idea of not getting into situations that could easily rob her of her life flashed across her mind, but none was quite as clear as the message that made her triple-check her reasoning for entering a long-abandoned and utterly unmapped crypt.

Well, if you don’t have reasons, it’s hard to check them.

The fungan, however, wasn’t anything resembling human in anything but form. It shouldn’t have been able to spin its torso half-circle to bash the silver-haired catgirl with a strong backhand, but it did. It shouldn’t have been able to bend its arm entirely the wrong way, but it did. It shouldn’t have lost its entire forearm holding the shield from one very lucky and very well-placed strike, but it did.

Wait… how did that last one happen? Shaking her head to keep the feral instincts she occasionally gave into from taking over, Monica did a quick mental recap of what just happened. The shield was coming, yes, and it was going to hurt when it hit. She had just regained her balance from the stab at the chitin armor. Judging from the reaction of the creature to the kick versus the stab, she quickly deduced that the goo was the vulnerable part on the way down to her landing. It was quite the deduction given the time she spent thinking about it.

So the shield was coming. The thing’s arm was bending in all the wrong ways. The animalistic part of Monica’s brain took over in the pinch and she quite literally went feral. While the animal inside her knew enough to not bite the thing, claws were still a very viable option. She pounced and scurried onto the thing’s body, and when the shield changed trajectory to strike her, she leapt off and left the thing a terrible going-away present. Namely a trio of slashes on the inside crook of its shield arm where the armor was beveled to allow for movement. Landing on all fours, she cringed when the limp limb flopped to the floor.

Her empty stomach retched caustic air. There was a sight she did not need to see.

[Aeraul Smythe]

A lot of things happened in a relatively short amount of time. Arrows, decapitated limbs sailing through the air, sprays of ichor and gore, and old men being spry on a level comparable to young, nubile catgirls.

Welcome to the Catacombs of Scara Brae, where stuff like this happens every single day.

The Fungan with its arm severed by Monica let off a shrill, grating cry like a whistle gone to rust and mold. It turned away, staggering and bleeding dark green all over the place as it ran for the very same tunnel it'd come from. Up the stairs, bounding inhuman distances and--

Stopping cold with Aeraul's dao smashed hilt-first through its mushroom neckbeard and down into its chest cavity. A swift kick later and down it went, all the way back to the center of the altar room, where it did not move again. Aeraul took a moment to consider it and said, "They don't explode if you hit them."

Mind you, he was only able to do this by virtue of Teric, who went bounding up the bleachers and steps like an irate mountain goat before singlehandedly killing two of the three remaining archers and cutting the arms off another one. The survivor immediately turned tail and fled.

Silence fell, immediate and overwhelming. The dark was a little heavier now, with torches missing or destroyed. Aeraul's eyes were among the only things visible now, and he fumbled around a moment before a few clicks and then light. He raised his lantern with a sour look on his face.

"Anyone still have a torch? Alchelmist Lights, even?" And he looked to the catgirl, nodded, and introduced himself. "I'm Aeraul, by the way. He's Teric. Welcome to the Catacombs, hope you're not having second thoughts or anything." Pause. He glanced back at Teric. "Did you see where Meg went? I think she stole my shield."

[Bloodrose]

Teric snorted, emptying the air out of his lungs and then slowly drawing in a deep breath. The beating of his heart, pounding in his temples during the battle, slowed and faded, leaving the warrior tired and sore. His burnt hand tingled and stung with each minor movement, and his weaker knee ached from exertion. We'll be in deep trouble if there are many more of those things. The veteran thought darkly to himself as Aeraul's voice caught his attention...

Glancing around, Teric searched the area where he'd last seen Meg hunkered down. Behind the stone altar he found her backpack, and a couple alchemical lights to boot, but the short street rat was gone. The orc's shield was gone as well, although Teric imagined Meg wouldn't get far lugging that big thing around.

"I've no idea where she's gone off to." Teric replied to Aeraul, rifling through Meg's abandoned Guard gear for anything useful. He shook one of the lights vigorously, mixing the components to make them glow. "She left us her lights, at least."

The silence in the room now was almost eerie compared to the din of battle that had occupied the space not moments before. The two monstrosities Teric felled with a Slash lay oozing in piles by the tunnel entrances, and the arm of a third lay nearby. Where that last monster had run off to was anybody's guess at this point, but Teric was interested in waiting around to see if the wounded creature would come back with more of his friends.

"I think the quality of our options is deteriorating at this point." Teric added to the conversation. "We can either press forward, or we can wait here for more of these things to come looking for us. Or," Teric glanced up the way they'd come originally, "we can get the hell out of these catacombs and leave its secrets to the monsters."

[HikariAngel]

Someone said something. It was the orc-like man from the sound of the voice and that fact it hadn’t come from the old man. Monica paused for a moment to think about what he said looking around cautiously. Then she realized that the only things still moving in the cavern were the three people out of place down there.

“Are you sure about that? Because I’m pretty sure that one popped slightly when I kicked it. Maybe you just didn’t hit it hard enough.”

Of course, that was probably her over-active imagination talking and not her halfway-intelligent mind. No, that was her sarcasm talking.

“Aeraul, Teric, I’m Monica. And if you’re talking about someone short as me carrying a rather beaten-up shield, I think I noticed her running toward the entrance shortly after the arrows stopped.”

Slinging her backpack off her shoulders, the silver-haired catgirl opened the front pouch to reveal a stash of lights bigger than the number of lights the other two had combined.

“I figured they weren’t going to need so many extras… so I grabbed a couple extra. As for our options, I just got here. I’m not leaving so soon.”

Monica righted her backpack between her shoulders and clasped her hands behind her back, rocking from her heels to her toes as she waited impatiently.

[Aeraul Smythe]

Act III

Teric looked at Aeraul. Aeraul looked at Teric. As neither of them offered up a concrete Decision, Monica more or less made up their minds for them and that was that. At a minimum, it complied with Rule #787 of Catgirls: The bigger and/or older you are, the easier it is for a young, cute catgirl with weirdly colored hair and kleptomania to influence you. And yes, that is a rule, available to anyone willing to cut deals with awful things that have lots of tentacles in order to get their hands on the Tome of Nyaan, which is reportedly able to drive most men insane within about two pages or less. Word in the sacrificial circles is that it was written backwards by Nekomaru Kurotsume Akaito, the Homicidal Lunatic Cat-Sage of Akashima's secret liviol rainforests. Rumor also has it that Nekomaru met a horrible, chilling fate at the deformed paws of Haro'Kitiruru.

In any case, the matter was settled and Teric wound up pointing the way (wittingly or otherwise) for the lot to go deeper into the Catacombs. And deeper they went, using the two o' clock door and finding themselves in the longest, tallest tunnel yet. It started off at the same height as the others, yes, but in no time flat it grew taller and taller and taller still -- until anyone with half an edge of common sense could tell that it was spacially impossible to fit beneath Scara Brae, even at the depths the Catacombs were located in.

Magic, someone observed, and though it doesn't particularly matter who said it, it does matter that they weren't particularly thrilled with the assertion.

Eventually, the tunnel widened too. It also started to grow deeper along the sides, until they were moving across a bridge above other bridges, and below more still. The bridges were all fairly narrow; just wide enough for two horse-drawn carts to pass each other by if the coaches were very, very careful about it. None of them had any supports.

While there were no torches burning anywhere, there was still the feeblest and eeriest of lights churning in the distance; ethereal greens and blues of moss along the walls, curiously barren near the bridge entrances. A floor, covered in the strange blue grass, could be spotted far below them, with strange, darkened shapes moving about it. The tunnel's ceiling simply was not visible. At all. It was either that high, or it branched off into some other dimension and may or may not come back in time for them to leave the tunnel at its opposite end.

The atmosphere was different here as well. The sensation of something breathing was more pronounced, and the airflow was strong enough that the Raiders could feel wind resistance from the front and back. It stank of a rot so powerful that a whole ecosystem had decayed into place around it, and the fact that there were more neon rats running about didn't disparage the notion. Neither did the eventual presence of glowing insects that, upon closer inspection, had no visible eyes. Here and there, if only in the shapes constructed by the mind, a Fungan could be seen going about its unknowable errands.

...and if the mind's constructs were accurate, there were a lot of them scattered about. They worked the walls like farmers, reaching out far beyond what their flabby, chitin-plated limbs should've been capable of as they scraped moss from the walls. They either didn't notice the Raiders, ignored them on purpose, or simply didn't care.

Who can really say what sentient fungus thinks?

Eventually, the Raiders stopped. Be it from exhaustion or caution or simply awareness of the racket a bridge beneath them. Aeraul was the first to hazard a look over the edge, if not because of his own courage or recklessness, then because Teric hadn't gotten to the ripe old age of 52 in one of the world's most dangerous professions by being stupid, and presumably because neither of them was rude enough to make the catgirl do it.

"...huh. Well that's disturbing."

In the way that such comments do, this one drew the other Raiders to look over the edge.

What they saw consisted of fungans, three of them, in the middle of what looked like outright warfare with a bunch of tiny, lizard-like humanoids with stiff tails and raptor heads; three feet tall at the most. They swarmed the fungans one by one, and it was only in the pauses that the actual details of them could be made out: Bony ridges along the head and spine, glowing blue or red, and eyes that were bright venom green with stark white slits for pupils. Each had just four fingers per hand and three toes per foot, all ending in short, sharpened claws. What differentiated them from being mere wildlife, however, was that these things wore clothes. Ragged, dirty, grimy, filthy clothes, but clothes nonetheless. Pants and shirts, with holes and sleeves cut or sewn for their tails. Most were armed with spears the size of half-staves and swords that would've been short by human standards.

And they literally did swarm the fungans, moving as a coordinated group with their own language of screeches, hisses, barks and what sounded like horribly butchered, heavily antiquated Common words; so utterly obsolescent and twisted from their original meanings and pronounciations that Aeraul was the only one who recognized them as Common at all -- and only because he'd received a Scholar-level education. But their language worked, and they acted in the perfect unison of seasoned veterans of Hunt and War; they singled out one fungan, then three of them speared into its chestplate and ripped it off, then two or more of them rushed in with gnashing teeth and swinging swords.

They were so quick and cohesive that it was hard to tell exactly how many there were. Their weapons and tactics were purpose-built, with the spears being shaped to catch on chitin plates from the inside when pulled out, and the swords being balanced for thrusting and slashing attacks. They appeared to be iron weapons, but it was hard to tell at this distance. Either way, Aeraul was perhaps the first to point that, They're the most frightening little things I've seen in ages.

Look into his eyes as he says that, and you'll probably see the big green man's reason for admitting it: He could very easily see the little monsters dragging him down in the same way, through sheer force of numbers.

Needless to say, the fungans didn't last long. And perhaps it bears mention that none of the other fungans on any of the other bridges paid any mind to what happened. When it was over, Aeraul stood and backed to the middle of the bridge with a resolute look around.

"We should avoid those things," he concluded, quite readily.

Probably a testament to good luck (or future bad luck) that nothing immediately happened to him for saying that. Except for the part where, in the moments between the breath-like gusts of wind, you might hear a low chortle that was as close as it was terribly distant, punctuated by the sounds of bare feet slapping the ground and an occasional click or tap. It was accompanied by an even more pronounced chill than the Catacombs' "normal" unpleasantly cold temperature. It was also gone just as quickly, leaving Aeraul staring the way they were headed.

He held his lantern up. Drew his sword again. Grimaced and asked, "Do I really need to say it?"

[Bloodrose]

Aeraul's comment drew Teric to look over the edge of the bridge, and the veteran did so in a manner familiar to anyone with a small fear of heights. The warrior got down on his belly, splaying his legs flat against the bridge to keep his weight firmly planted to the ground, and inched his way forward until his head hung over the edge, allowing him to see the battle below.

Ugh. Teric kept his groan to himself as the Raider's proximity to the ground and the bizare juxtaposition of the bridges and arches made his stomach lurch. In a way the battle between the chitin armored creatures and the lizard men was calming, of only because Teric could actually focus on the fight and not on the ground so very, very far below. The speed and the intelligence of the lizard creatures was impressive, Teric found, and there were few comparisons the veteran could draw to opponents he was familiar with. Teric very much wanted to correlate the miniscule hunters with the draconian lizard men of Dheathain, but those only went so far as to call both "reptilian." Where draconians were big, burly damage soaking brawlers, these little guys were designed for a much different style of combat. They were more like pirahnas than their lizard cousins, attacking in swarms with brutally quick efficiency.

Aeraul made a comment about avoiding the little bastards, and seeing how easily they dealt with the fungus creatures, Teric was inclined to agree wholeheartedly. We'd need the whole City Watch down here to fight those things. The veteran thought miserably as he got to his feet, dusting age old dirt and grime from the front of his pants. The three of us don't stand a chance down here if we get swarmed by anything, let alone those lizards...

With that pleasant thought burning a hole in the back of his head, Teric led the trio forward along the bridge. The cavernous halls of the catacombs passed at an agonizingly slow pace, each step a question. Will they hear this step? How about this next one. What happens if I kick a rock off the edge? The questions ran circles in Teric's head as he kept a tight grip on his sword. Time seemed to slow as they moved along, it's normal flow seemingly halted by the tension in the air. Who knows how long the three of them could have been walking along that bridge...Five minutes? Fifteen? Thirty?

We've got to be coming to the end. Teric thought to himself, weary. The farther along the trio marched, the lower the ceiling came - sloping back down from some peak lost to the darkness far, far above. The farther along they went, the narrower the bridge beneath their feet became as well. The veteran also couldn't help but notice that the multitude of bridges and passages criss-crossing path's beneath the bridge they strode upon was thinning as well. It was almost as if the adventurers had taken the express travel lane directly over the top of the catacombs more populous areas, and were now reaching the other side of some foreign, underground city...

"Uh-oh." The veteran paused in his tracks just as the trio was nearing the very end of the bridge. The path ended in an archway illuminated by blue torches burning with an otherworldly light. The blue flames swayed to and from in their wall sconces, influenced by the almost physical sensation of being breathed upon. The to and fro of the breaths was far more pronounced here, like the archway were the mouth of some great beast, and Teric would have sworn there was a moist heat on the air...

All of that wasn't what gave the warrior pause, however. Instead it was the two sentinel Maulers standing at arms on either side of the arch. Compared to the musty, rusting golems the party had faced early on in their journey, these two suits appeared to be in far better shape; twin suits of heavy plate armed with hand-and-a-half bastard swords.

Almost as if on cue, as though they had been waiting patiently for the trio of adventurers, the two suits shifted to life and advanced confidently towards the narrow bottleneck of the bridge...

"I should have gotten on that ferry back to Corone." Teric spat off-handedly, raising his shield and almost instinctively taking a step closer to Aeraul's comforting bulk...

[HikariAngel]

Smiling once more as the group walked off into the (further) unknown reaches of the catacombs, Monica couldn’t help but stare in awe at everything that surrounded her. It was much easier to look around and actually pay attention to the inside of the cave in a larger group. The walls were very smooth, artificially planed and sanded with only the cracks of old age spider-webbing here and there.

Yes, it was clearly made by magic, especially when the walls opened like one giant maw and the tunnel turned into a bridge. The lighting changed into something reminiscent of luminous mushrooms. Moisture was thicker in the air now than it had been; the atmosphere tasted… old. It was one of those tastes that most people don’t realize they taste but still recognize as something. This something was far older than it should have been.

“What’s disturbing?”

Even though she had a tendency to be obnoxious, random, stupid, bull-headed, difficult, and outright stubborn at times, this was definitely not one of those times. Crouching down to all fours, the catgirl peered over the edge of their bridge as though she were looking into a pond a few feet below to search for a juicy fish to catch.

Her tail swished lightly to help her balance as she watched the tiny lizardmen swarm and kill three fungus neckbeards. Used to high-speed combat, the catgirl’s eyes easily followed the intricate movements of the dance-like battle.

“I’m not sure… they looked kinda cute to me.”

Even so, her response was hesitant and quiet, as to not draw the wrath of Murphy. Maybe because of that, when Teric said the one thing nobody liked to hear, Monica silently took back everything stupid she had said and done in the past day; it was quite the list, so she barely had the time to get halfway through it before two shiny suits of armor started their approach.

“Does this kind of thing happen to you guys often, or is it just down here?”

Flexing her claws, the comforting shink of her glove-blades slipping out of their interdimensional hiding places echoed just a little too loud for comfort. The catgirl took up her position to the left of Aeraul’s bulk, crouched down like a spring compressing, just waiting for some excuse to explode.

[Aeraul Smythe]

By now, Aeraul had an almost casual air about all of this. The fighting did more to relax him than hours upon hours of meditation. Admittedly, it was the sort of relaxation that most people get after realizing that the God of their choice pretty well hates them so they may as well get used to it. And admittedly, he was probably going to have trouble sleeping after some of the things he'd seen and felt in this place.

But that didn't stop him drawing his sword, setting his lantern onto the bridge and declaring, "You get used to it, eventually. Hopefully none of this batch explode like the first ones did."

The Maullers started forward in perfect, unnatural unison marred only by their differing stances; one sword held high in a classic kendo position, the other held low and a bit to the side. Everything about them screamed a combat coordinated Bad Cop Worse Cop routine where no matter which one you hit or what order you struck in, the other would nail you for it. That wasn't the worst of it though.

The worst of it was that two more, this pair wielding matching sets of swords, emerged from the other side of the doorway. Like the first two, they moved in perfectly calculated unison, and even fell in step with the leading pair once they crossed the threshold onto the bridge.

Thus did it fall to Aeraul to make the obvious assessments. Presumably, at least one God had determined this to be his lot in life.

"This isn't very good. They've got us outnumbered again, four to three, and this lot's not seperating like the last one did so we probably won't get as many chances. More standardization this time too. The last batch varied a bit..."

He considered the matter. And then, probably about the same time Teric might come to the same conclusion, he gave an order. Which is about as close as Aeraul's come to being The Leader in this whole mess.

"Back up. Let's draw them out a little more..."

And Aeraul lead the way, enough paces that the four of them were indeed drawn out onto the bridge, complete with the great not-so-bottomless pit it had been built over. With that, Aeraul flipped the dao backwards and stuck it in front of Monica. Whether through a few seconds of curious guesswork, incoherent babble or pure intuition, the catgirl sprang on and that was that.

"Teric," Aeraul said. "Step aside and be ready to attack. We're going to need to make this quick. I'll go right."

And that's what amounts to Strategy in the midst of a real, honest-to-something-or-other Dungeon Grind.

Aeraul waited a moment longer, drew the Dao back a few degrees and then swung forward -- hard and high, in a manner not unlike a catapult or a trebuchet. At the pinnacle of his swing, Monica finally let loose with all the built up strength of her legs. The result was a leap that carried her right over the first two Maullers and into -- or maybe even beyond -- the back row.

"Now," Aeraul said just to be saying it, though his legs were already carrying him forward. He smashed into the right Mauller and the battle was joined...

[Bloodrose]

Teric hit the second Mauller on the left just as Aeraul joined the battle with his adversary. Both animated suits were halted in their tracks as the two warriors struck like an advancing army - one swinging a mighty two-handed sword while the other raised his shield into a shoulder charge. Whatever powers held the suits together was apparently stronger than the last golems, because while the armored suits buckled and looked ready to break apart under their respective blows, the Maullers quickly shook themselves back together and fought back.

Can never be that easy, can it? Teric grumbled silently, ducking as his Mauller hacked wildly with sword in hand. The blow whizzed over the older warrior's head, but still found blood. His half-orc companion's sharp hiss of pain drew Teric's attention almost immediately, and the mercenary realized the just how closely packed the battle on the bridge was. The Mauller may have missed him, but the tip of his passing sword had managed to land a cut on Aeraul's bicep while the big warrior was busy with his opponent.

Dammit! Teric was fuming now, a guilt knot growing in his gut. He wanted to apologize to Aeraul, knowing full well that while the cut wasn't a fight-ender in the least, the momentary distraction of getting hit out of nowhere could have easily cost the half-orc his life. The swordsman didn't seem overly phased though, for which Teric was grateful, and both continued the fight anew. Can't let any more strikes past me. The mercenary vowed. We're too close for that...

A second strike found Teric's shield this time, the sharp edge banging off the solid buckler harmlessly. It was what the shield was designed to do, but Teric didn't like to think about what the Mauller's sword could do if it found the edge and bit into the wood, rather than struck off the flat surface. Teric returned, swinging his sword in low, but the animated suit parried easily. In addition to being stronger bonded than their earlier cousins, these suits were more skilled as well.

Back and forth Teric and the Mauller swung at each other, parrying and deflected blows turn by turn as the battle raged for what seemed like hours on the bridge. A span of sixty seconds felt more like sixty minutes down here, especially when your life was on the line, and the battle didn't seem to be going anywhere. The Mauller was too smart to get caught easily with a strike, but not smart enough to get around Teric's shield. Back and forth they traded blows, until the mercenary's shield arm started to tire from rising to meet descending strikes...

"Enough!" Teric shouted into the face of his opponent as he switched tactics. The Mauller's latest attack glanced off the warrior's buckler as he stepped forward, and rather than return with his sword, Teric kicked the animated armor in the knee - just above the shin greaves. It was a sweeping kick, not the straight on variety, and it knocked the heavy suit's leg off kilter just enough to force a correction. It was the kind of correction that would have required a sidestep to save balance, but on the narrow bridge there was nowhere to sidestep to...

The Mauller made a queer whining noise as it pitched itself sideways off the bridge, the free gauntlet grabbing uselessly for the edge as it dropped over it. Down and down the suit plunged, emitting that whine - like rusting gears complaining as they turned - the whole way down. At the bottom, in a crash, the suit broke apart on the stone floor of the catacombs like a cabinet of porcelain glassware striking the floor. The noise was the similar, but for the metallic clang to it, and it seemed unnaturally loud against the backdrop of the caverns.

By the powers... Teric sighed. That noise is going to bring everything in these caverns down on us.

"We need to move!" Teric warned Aeraul as he lunged by to aid the cat-girl facing two Maullers in front of them on the edge of the bridge. "I think we're going to have more company than we want soon enough!"

[HikariAngel]

When faced with the proposition of what to do when you have a nimble, nubile catgirl waiting for something to do, the answer is often quick, simple, and dirty. And no, it does not involve sex in this instance. The beast of a man with a blade that probably weighed more than she did knew what to do with Monica when faced with the opportunity: he lowered his massive flat sword and invited Monica onto it. A small hop brought her onto the makeshift platform and the agility inherent in her genes allowed her to balance with one foot directly behind the other. She knew what was coming next, and the face-splitting grin she wore in preparation should not be referenced in the case of her sanity.

“Wheeeeeeee!”

Probably not the best thing to say at the time, but it just felt so right. It was the only right and proper thing to say, anyway. Arms like oak trees launched the kittypult and its feline cargo up, up, and cleanly over the heads of the four marauders; she managed to pull a front flip with a half-turn in midair, too, just for kicks and to ensure she’d be facing the right way when she landed. The bridge approached hard and fast and was met with soft hands and quick feet. The catgirl grinned as she sprang up from her four-point landing; the old man had just taken one of the stupid things out and sent it to its doom. Now it was her turn.

One of the maulers in the back row turned around, the one that still had its buddy in front of it, only to meet a pair of booted feet in the breastplate. The silver-haired streak had gone into a dead sprint and leapt toward the armor’s breast plate, aiming a (might as well be patented) jump kick on the way. Needless to say, it stumbled back one step straight into the living suit of armor attacking Aeraul. From there, it didn’t take much more than a lowered shoulder-charge one moment later to send it to a similar fate as the one Teric had been having trouble with.

Two down, two to go. Too much fun!

[Aeraul Smythe]

Blood slicked into the air, a paultry amount that looked worse than it was. Aeraul ignored it, which could've been a disaster in its own right if not for Teric's quick recovery. For a while, he simply clashed with the Mauller, sword to sword...

...and then the scholarly half-orc went into an almost elegant looking pirouette around the Mauller, his sword flipping in mid-turn as he blindly plunged it down, to the side, and right into the small of the Mauller's back. On a human, it would've been a lost kidney and thrice severed intestines, among other things. With the suit of armor and whatever lay decaying inside of it, there was only a spray of dust and sand, and the distinctive scent of something so old as to have lost pungence.

Swift as could be, Aeraul turned to face the remaining Mauller. He drew his sword hard, pulling free of the first Mauller and sending it flying over the edge with a blind kick. The second had his number with a slash down, and he parried it with a circle-swipe of his dao. For a moment, the two blades almost danced in a circle between the half-orc and the old suit of armor--

And then someone, be it Teric or Monica or both of them, put a kick or two into the Mauller's shoulders. A sword thrust straight through its faceplate after that, the owner wrenched the weapon sideways and literally snapped the helm off.

Whatever had been inside once, there was only another spray of dust and sand now. The suit collapsed harmlessly to the ground, dropping with it a rather neatly preserved pair of steel short-swords; ornately crafted things with blades covered in old glyphs and patterns. Nevermind the actual armor that went tumbling to the floor with them.

By now, of course, the clattering from the fallen Maullers had trailed off. What remained were echoes, still loud but not quite so much; they'd diminished enough to hear the noises moving beneath them. Like the pattering of hundreds of tiny feet, and the clicking of even more claws.

Aeraul looked around, and noted aloud, "That would be wise," in a belated response to Teric. "Whatever's coming this way isn't exactly happy, but it's not very fast either." He took a moment to gather his lantern back off the floor, then clipped it onto his belt. Glance left, glance right. It was worth pointing out that, "I can't see as many things out on the other bridges now."

Which itself precursed the sounds of something very loud roaring somewhere in the distance, a sound accompanied by an eerie pulse of light through every visible blade of grass and patch of mold along the tunnel walls. Aeraul winced at the noise, more so than he had at the falling Maullers. It was like hearing a whale singing in a choir with a tyrannosaurus, except louder and a little more insane than anything nature would've produced on its own.

A few seconds ticked by in silence. If they were going to loot anything, now was the time to do it.

After that, there came another flash of light, and then a chorus of shrieks and whistles, and finally a body crashed into the wall above the exit, splattering back down to the ground in an ugly sort of way. It was a Fungan. Dead on impact.

"Lady and Gentleman," Aeraul mumbled. "I think we're playing witness to subterranean geopolitics." Here, a thoughtful nod. "Anyone else feel like running for our lives before War falls down on our heads?"

Potential Loot Dropped:

2 single-handed steel swords, above average quality, ornately crafted and decorated with glyphs and patterns of faded color, but very functional.

1 piecemeal pile of steel platemail, average quality, full body. Helm is damaged for obvious reasons.

Next post of mine will be a transition to the next Act, due in three days or as soon as y'all post.

[Bloodrose]

"Run where?" Teric grumbled, dropping his Watch-supplied longsword in favor of the light blade one of the fallen Maullers had been carrying. Despite its obvious age, the blade felt sturdy and strong in the mercenary's hand. He twirled it experimentally, enjoying the feel and the speed of the weapon as compared to the heavier longsword. "Our options are rather limited at this point."

On one hand there was the by now long journey back to the ladder where they had originally entered the Catacombs. On the other was the journey forward of an undeterminant length. Who knows how far these caverns stretch on. Teric worried, eyeing the dead Fungan and the broken suits of armor littering the bridge. Who knows how many more of these things we'll run into...

Thus far the group had been fortunate enough to avoid grevious injury, but weariness and hunger would likely begin to prey upon their strength soon enough. The old veteran considered it unlikely that they could continue to press forward with the same fervor and strength before their swordarms waned and they found themselves overcome by whatever terrors the depths beneath Scara Brae could conjure up for them...

"Pick a direction and lead, big guy." Teric sighed, suddenly terribly weary.


Short I know, but I thought I'd put something up before you moved us forward. Took one of the swords.

[HikariAngel]

“That sounds good to me.”

In response to Aeraul’s statement of geo-whatevers and running before everything went more insane than it already was, Monica was whole-heartedly in favor of going deeper. Her happily twitching tail and cheeky grin are testament enough to that fact before you take into account that she’s a catgirl who, despite not even knowing it exists, follows the rules set forth in the Tome of Nyaan.

“Act before you think too hard. What’s the worst that could happen?”

This was rule #13, clearly important due to its nature of not being buried in the pages of the incomprehensible book. Technically it was a mesh of rules #13 and #2, but that’s not important. It also bears stating that nobody actually knows what rule number one actually is, being how the author didn’t seem to take into account the fact that numbers generally follow a sequence and the first rule is buried somewhere in the latter 2/3 of the book, well beyond the sane limit for anyone to attempt reading.

It was only moments after she spoke the second time that that awkward silence hit her in the face with a one-two-uppercut. She blinked, suddenly somber. That was definitely the wrong thing to say down here where Murphy must have been born, raised, and wrote his law.

“That is… I mean… anyone need another light?”

Reaching into her backpack, the kleptomaniac produced a pair of alchemical lights and held them out with an awkward half-grin. She really needed to work on not jinxing things, especially in a place where anything that could go wrong was inevitably bound to.

[Aeraul Smythe]

Act IV

It bears mention that Aeraul and Teric both spent a few precious moments glaring brutal death at Monica, followed by one of those glances that just has She goes first in the event of tentacles written all over it in pretty italics.

After which point, the trio made it a point to basically run for their lives. With good timing, as a dead catakobold smacked into the bridge where they'd previously been standing. A few seconds slower and somebody would've gotten a concussion. From the bridge and into a short hallway, marked by its utter lack of grass, mold, or scary little underground mutants trying to kill them. Instead, there were a lot of torches. The deeper in the three of them went, the brighter the torches became -- all without ever actually casting a glow past the three inch mark. From blue to red, and then finally to green; they were spaced almost an exact eight inches apart.

And the deeper into the hallway they went, the more apparent it became that it was shaped with eight sides as well. The diagonal bits between walls, floor and ceiling were just shorter. Eventually, there came the smell of something resting evenly between rotting corpses and morning dew.

And then nothing.

The trio emerged into another gigantic eight-sided chamber. What seperated it from all the others was that the instant they crossed its threshold, there was enough light to see by without the alchemic lights they were carrying (and had, by this point, mostly burned through). The floor was perfectly flattened, the ceiling was high enough that a crossbow bolt probably would've had trouble hitting it, and the walls were clean of everything but dust.

There were exactly three open doorways, all shaded completely pitch black, such that even the arcanely weak lights beyond were hard to see. Three walls were barren of anything but torches and that strange sideways writing, interrupted liberally by depictions of awful things locked tight in massive jaws. Where there should've been a fourth door, there was only a massive humanoid skull with ten foot canine teeth serving to frame a patch of wall that was covered in chains. All of them connected to a central apparatus with eight sides and two keyholes set in place like eyes in mid-squint.

It was glowing a mix of red, purple and blue. The chains glowed green.

And perhaps more importantly than all that was what stood along the only patch of wall not completely dominated by the sideways writing or the glyphs. It was framed at each shoulder by torches, brighter than all the rest. A twelve and a half foot tall suit of armor, gunmetal black and covered in perfectly symmetrical lines of stark white paint, the lines between armor plating further accentuated by gold edges. The helm was like that of a lancer from an era without a name, and the rest of the plates were defined by round angles and sloping edges that'd make it difficult for even the best fighters to simply plow through.

In one hand was a massive warhammer, too big for any normal man to hold but perfectly fitted for the suit to bear in one palm. It had three flanged faces and a flattened tip, heading a shaft that was longer than most men's legs. The other arm was dominated by an equally gigantic shield; a circular dome edged by a stylized triangle of gold. A smaller sword -- still large enough to class as a polearm for even a large man -- rested in a sheath on its hip.

On the whole, it looked ancient beyond reckoning. Like someone had put it there as a reminder that they could make something that big, no matter how slow or cumbersome it may be.

...and then came the swift breeze and the hushed echo of a laugh, from nowhere and everywhere...

Murphy's Law immediately caught up with the three Catacomb Raiders, as the Arcaknight jolted forward from its place in the wall. It lurched for a moment, head bowed, limbs sagging, and then shot upright with a quickness that spoke of strict, linear movements -- and speed. Lots of it.

Aeraul or Teric, it didn't matter which, again gave Monica a rather scathing look. They might've taken the time to say You just had to say it, didn't you?

Except for the part where the Arcaknight began striding towards the lot of them, mace held terribly high and gleaming with an eldritch light...

[HikariAngel]

And somehow, Monica still managed to be painfully oblivious to the death-stares of her comrades. It was probably for the better, because it meant that she didn’t have to deal with more uncomfortable silence than necessary. It also meant she was going to be placed in mortal danger relatively soon, but when has that been an issue worth thinking about?

Or at least she would have avoided thinking about it had the hike—yes the walk from the last room qualified as a hike now— had trek not taken so darned long. At least two if not three miles went by, smells that had no place being smells offended her nose for the umpteenth time in who-knows-how-many hours, and now she was thinking about things she was better off leaving alone.

Grrmmbl…

No, that’s not a monster. Yes, you should be worried anyway.

Placing a hand to her stomach, Monica stopped walking for a moment. This is where you should really worry.

“I’m hungry…”

There. That wasn’t so bad. With a slight grimace, the catgirl picked her pace back up and the rest of the expedition to the next cavernous room continued with little more than the occasional glance here and there at the impossibly bland walls. Sure the torches were neat, but they were just so common down here that they quickly lost all their appeal. She didn’t even want to see what happened when she took one down and put another in its place any more.

Of course, all that changed when the tunnel exploded into a chamber even bigger than the last one. And she thought that one was huge. Her jaw dropped, and then Murphy kicked her promptly in the face: the suit of armor walked straight at the trio and nobody was really all that surprised. It was obviously her fault, too.

This meant she was the first choice to go out and fight it. Go figure.

Grrrrmmmmmbl…

Now is when you should start really worrying because a hungry catgirl is definitely a terrible thing. Fortunately, she has bigger problems than getting food at the moment. Problems that want to squish her. She took off at top speed, making the suit of armor look like it was standing still by comparison, and headed straight for it. A juke, a dodge, and a leap later, she had latched onto the back of the thing’s lower-leg armor and started scampering up toward its head. Perhaps she could see what made it tick…?

[Bloodrose]

Another sigh, this one blowing out his nostrils in a snort, fled Teric lungs as he gazed in disbelief at the monstrosity lumbering towards them. From the way its limbs sagged and pulled as it 'ran', the veteran was almost hoping that the massive suit of armor would be pulled apart under its own weight, leaving the adventurers unharmed and free to continue on. The laws of whatever diety held sway down here however, and the obviously magical properties of the Sentinel, dictated its enormous mass cling together against the very laws of nature...

"No offense," Teric quipped, giving Aeraul an apologetic glance as the catgirl sprinted directly into the fray, "but I don't think we should ever do one of these together again. We seem to attract an awful lot of trouble together, you and I. Maybe we could do something not involving a cave or a dungeon, but you know..."

The veteran shurgged, knowing the big half-orc got the point. Even having said it though, Teric wasn't entirely convinced that he'd avoid the large swordsman like the plague if given another opportunity to fight alongside him. They seemed to work well together, the two of them, as evident in having progress this far into a foe-laden mess of a hideous ruin beneath Scara Brae. It was unfortunate that they'd had to meet under the given circumstances; Aeraul would have been a rare friend to have at one's back on a proper battlefield.

Shield and sword at the ready, Teric took off to his left, winding his way along the outside edge of the monumental room and away from the front of the massive animated armor. The shimmering blunt weapon it held high over it's head was large enough to knock in the side of a house, and Teric didn't relish the thought of being anywhere near the ground under which said weapon might be brought down upon. Even if one managed to avoid a direct strike, who knew what magics stood to be unleashed by the weapon? And that, too, was ignoring the shrapnel and debris likely to be kicked up by such a weapon instrument of death...

"The legs!" Teric shouted, hoping to galvenize his comrades with a plan. "Focus on crippling the legs!"

The catgirl was on the towering suit like a monkey on a tree, leaping onto the lower extremeties and scrambling up the armor towards the head. While not exactly what Teric had in mind, Monica's antics had the benefit of slowing the giant Mauller as it let out a low, rumbling noise. While unlikely, the veteran's mind had no trouble interpretting the gutteral groan as the monster saying "What is this?" to itself as it tried to brush the nimble catgirl off like a fly.

Let it focus on the catgirl. Teric willed, hoping. His trajectory changed from along the wall to the center as Teric came around to the Mauller's flank. Picking up the pace, pushing his increasingly tired legs into a furious charge, Teric raised his shield to his shoulder and threw himself bodily towards the foe's knee joint. A simple sword strike to the massive armor was unlikley to do anything, but a full body slam to a vulnerable joint might do the trick...

[Aeraul Smythe]

In the twilight of moments between Murphy and Merciless, Aeraul gave Teric a suitably mellow nod. In truth, the half-human was about as relaxed now as he had been at any time during the journey into this underground maze. Any more so and his eyes probably would've had a slightly glazed over look to them, in addition to the glowing.

"None taken," he eventually said, right around the same time that Monica went charging into battle with little metaphoric forks and spoons orbiting her head. Ever a man of few words, this was about as much as Aeraul said until Teric shrugged. At that point, he finally mumbled, "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you're trying to recruit me for something. Provided we get out of here alive--I'll take the right knee!"

The line between scholar and swordsman is as big as it is green. In mid-sentence, Aeraul lunged forward at the same instant as Teric. Experience showed the difference between them about as well as age and ethnic background: Where the elder swordsman favored a flanking attack, Aeraul went in head-on with his sword held back to one side. There was a measure of finesse in what he did for his actual attack, but it was probably lost in the savagery of the moment.

Just as well. Monica seemed to define youthful enthusiasm, speed and agility. Teric was the resident wiseman whose wits were probably sharper than any sword. Aeraul was there for brute power and endurance.

To that end, he leapt in foot-first at the opposite knee from Teric, Mankind swinging hard for the chest. The voice of the man became lost to the cry of the orc in his blood, and there was a fire in his eyes when it happened. In all, he sounded rather gleeful...

[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