Escape from Ironheart (IC)

[Voth]

Voth

"Stupid bitch isn't as helpless as she looks." Voth snarls while glaring at the guards.

[WhiteKnight777]

Umber

The vampire smiled as he fell, rolling as he hit the ground. He felt the tentacles wrapping about him, terrible and strong, but he slipped free, thanks mostly to the fact that he'd long ago learned the little trick of dislocating certain bones. Being undead helped in that regard.

He watched as the two females eyed each other like cats even as they fought, and spoke up with a little chuckle as he ducked under the blow of a tentacle. Come now, ladies... there are far better uses to which to put your energy than fighting each other. He chuckled boldly as he stepped up behind one of the creatures, his eyes gleaming And if you must fight each other, let's do it properly and sell tickets!

With that, Umber himself waded in, striking out with fists like iron, feeling the soft squish as he drove it into the hump on the back of one of the cultists, watching as his allies fought on. It was over shortly, as the cultists, with their weakness exposed, were little challenge for the group. He wiped his hands on one of the fallen. He had been watching the others, studying them during the fight as much as he had their enemies. Victor... well, he still didn't trust him. He felt like the man was sizing him up for a coffin, and frankly that was one convention Umber had never found fashionable. The other.... well, he didn't know about him yet. His impassioned cries made interesting listening, though. Cassandra seemed well enough, but even she wasn't yet to be trusted. Some of those monastic orders had... quaint views regarding the undead.

[OverWilliam]

~Tare

Tare nodded in approval of Garm's efficient, silent kill, though the wolfling had his back turned and could not see it. The guard was dead before his eyes widened in shock. Predicting the messy collapse that the injured elf certainly did not need, he skirted around Garm and one side of the guard with startling speed, plucking her out of the man's arms with as much ease as if he had been taking something out of the man's pocket. Her face was frozen in surprise; maybe in too-good-to-be-true disbelief. She still had not reacted by the time Tare had nimbly sidestepped the guard as he fell to the floor. He knelt and set her down easily just as the male began to shriek. Tare flinched. Thusfar the only sound in their attack had been false, or the low crunch of Garm's swift justice. Now the other guards would likely be on their way back.

Tare glanced up at the elf, his pride still burning, though his eyes showed exhaustion to rival or surpass the duo's own. The language flying from his lips was none that Tare recognized, and he did not have time to see if the reverse was true. A plan was beginning to swirl around in his mind, one that he could not afford to consider fully. One that he would have to ask both elf's forgiveness for afterward, provided it succeeded.

He scooped the maiden back up again and motioned to Garm. They exited the room as quietly as the came, though the elf's shouts which had before seemed curious or demanding explanation rose to the crescendo of rage freed from the exhaustion that had tempered his shouts before, now surpassing those with renewed energy. The maiden merely whimpered, too tired and in too much pain already, it seemed, to offer resistance. Tare looked over his shoulder at the elf, nearly tearing the heavy wooden restraints apart with his bare hands to get at them and smiled tauntingly. "Do us a favor, tell them which way we went, eh?" He muttered too low for the elf to have heard, even if he understood. In his mind he was analyzing the rooms ahead of him looking for opportunities for an ambush.

[Iethloc]

Sohssal

"Oh? What would happen if the controls were to be smashed?" Sohssal said as one of the rocks floating around him landed in his open hand. A maddened grin decorated his face as he turned to face the man directly. "I AM the type who always wants to experiment..." he revealed menacingly, tossing the rock up and down in his hand. While it was not one of the larger rocks floating around him, it was still sturdy, and around the size of his own hand.

"However, I can't help but notice that you seem to respond to our thoughts. Just why is that?" he inquired, sounding somewhat innocent. Dealing with mindreaders has always been an annoying affair... he thought while he clutched the rock tight in his hand, it vibrating noticeably as the magic around it still tried to make it fly. Sohssal either didn't notice or didn't care, as he was busy narrowing his eyes at his adversary.

[The_Snark]

Mar

Edging around the circle of light, Mar's attention was captured by specks of floating golden dust in the air. Despite herself, she stared: she'd never seen those before. There were little flecks of gold floating in the light, vanishing and appearing as they slowly drifted across the edges of the patch. She had planned to get by the odd thing on the floor as quickly as she could, but the sight arrested her. And once she had seen that, it was inevitable that her gaze would creep upward slowly, despite her trepidation.

The hole in the metal framed a vivid blue, which she looked at uncomprehendingly. There were a few white patches on it, looking a little fuzzy against the solid blue. What was it? She knew what the ceiling was—metal, like the whip or the guards' swords and armor. She couldn't tell what the blue thing was, at all. It didn't look like anything she'd seen before—she couldn't see how large it was, or how far away, or... anything about it.

Armor. That was right—she had to keep moving. Mar looked down again, checking to make sure the monster hadn't caught up to her while she looked at the blue thing, and moved onwards, a little slower now. It couldn't see her anymore, which meant she could find somewhere it couldn't see and follow her to. An iron door presented itself, and she went in, repressing a shiver of trepidation—she'd never been here, and probably wasn't supposed to be here. But she couldn't go ba—

She started back into the door when she first saw the armor, and almost turned to open it again and start running; maybe she would have if she hadn't been so tired. But it was fairly clear even before she'd screamed that this wasn't the same monster. It was less black, less spiky, and didn't have the eerie green things for eyes that the other suit of armor did. Also, it was chained up; it couldn't reach her.

Its voice made her start again, pressing herself against the door and unconsciously fumbling for the latch. But that wasn't really the same either; it had sort of the same echoey sound to it, but it also sounded more like a person, and less like a, well... thing. She couldn't remember anything else that had sounded quite like the black-spiked living armor. This was pretty clearly a person inside the armor.

She didn't really know what to say to him. "Um..." she tried, trying not to breathe too loudly. "Who—who are you?" For a moment, because this was an unfamiliar room and because she wasn't thinking straight, Mar forgot quite where this was, forgot that this was where bad people were taken for their punishment and that this was probably one of them, and so she spoke to him.

[ubersquid]

Elkwin - The Catacombs

Running as fast as he can, Elkwin can't help but grin like a boy who just had stolen some candy from his older brother. As they reach the junction where they first heard the screams of the girl before, he stops for a moment to catch his breath and orient himself.

"Ya know... At least we die while trying to do some good. We definitely stirred things up back there. Now let's see..."

Elkwin looks down each of the hallways and sniffs, and although he doesn't smell anything different, he quickly decides for the left.

"This way... The air seems fresher here, and we wanted to go this way before anyway, aye?"

Motioning Marv to follow, Elkwin takes off.

[Baerdog7]

Ander Windrivver

Ander chuckles, almost laughs despite himself. He shakes the hood of the cloak back off of his head before continuing.

As luck would have it, I am Ander Windrivver. I killed the acolyte responsible for bleeding me and was able to escape from my cell. I honestly have no idea why I was being bled, although it wouldn't be far fetched to think that they were using it as a reagent in some dark ceremony. Truth be told, the only reason I came down this way was because I heard your screams and thought that somebody might be in need of help. I was obviously mistaken.

He pauses for a second, trying to work a crick out of his neck.

I must say, thank you for killing that elite. I was beginning to wonder if I'd have to keep up this charade as I led you both back to my cell and find a way to kill the bastard there. Say, you wouldn't be able to get these other restraints off, would you? He asks, showing her his bracelets and collar.

[Inspectre]

The Spires: Ironheart Research

Voth

“I guess so.” One of the guards muttered, edging still closer to you, the set of manacles now dangling from his hands.

“Yeah, better watch out!” The girl said, whimpering slightly at a cold stare from the other guard.

“Well, however you did it, we’ll take it from here. I’ll be sure to tell Alphonse you did good.” The guard said, reaching you and leaning down to snap one of the manacles onto your right wrist.

“Just hold him still until I manage to put these on him.”

I swear, if you don’t do something soon, I will. I didn’t make this pact of ours with you to be stuck inside some sissy who lost his will to fight in the middle of escaping from a place that actually makes where I come from actually look pretty pleasant.

The Main Tower

Lonna

You quickly slip out of your prisoner garments, trading them in for the silk dress. As promised, the small jar of ointment covers up the cell number burned into the soft flesh of your arm, although you end up using the entire tiny jar of ointment in doing so – which no doubt seemed to be the point. Turning back to face Edward, you see that he is now seated at the desk, rapidly scrawling notes into a book. Of course, this did not mean that he hadn’t sneaked glances over at you while you were dressing, and his quick glance in your direction as you started speaking suggested he was still quite aware of your presence in the room despite the music and the distraction of writing in his journal.

Holding up a finger, Edward sets the quill back into the inkwell at the corner of the desk, blowing on the open page for a moment before snapping the book shut. “You are right, of course, and while I enjoy the occasional distressing of a damsel as much as the next guy, it doesn’t tend to be satisfying. This is a prison: most beautiful inmates such as yourself are used to abuse and mistreatment. Or they’re simply insane.” Edward adds with a shrug, pushing himself up from his chair to wander back over to the closet.

“Speaking of your collar, I would appreciate it if you covered it up by wrapping this scarf around your neck.” Reaching into the closet, Edward pulls up a long blue silk scarf, which he balls up and tosses over to you before shutting the closet and returning to his desk.

“The collar will still work perfectly fine even if covered up, and as we’ve both seen it works perfectly. I don’t think either of us have to worry about you turning me into a toad.”

Smirking at his joke, Edward snatches up one of the two wine glasses from the nightstand and then settles himself back down into his desk chair. He takes a deep sip from the glass and then sets it aside, gesturing for you to sit down on the bed. “Please, sit down. This next part requires your cooperation, and I really would prefer not to have to coerce it. So I’m willing to help you understand by answering whatever questions you want to ask – provided those questions aren’t going to break the mood by being about Ironheart. I won’t insult your intelligence – after our hopefully lovely evening together you’ll go back to being a prisoner here. There’s nothing I can do about that, although I do suppose I could make things a fair bit easier for you afterwards. But for tonight, Ironheart is somewhere else than this room.”

Stopping to take another quick sip of his wine, Edward smacks his lips appreciatively. “I love Donovale wine, it simply is the perfect blend of sweetness and bitterness. In any case, my brother and I came to Ironheart several years ago.” Edward sets the wine aside again, clasping his hands together and leaning back into his chair as if telling the story to a group of children.

“The night before our departure from our home, we threw a magnificent party – everyone who was somebody was invited. Oh, it was truly a night to remember: we had a troupe of minstrels much like what you’re hearing now; exotic wines and spirits from throughout the land; and many, many beautiful lady guests. I danced with a number of them, but one in particular caught my attention – oh she was a model for sculptors of beauty everywhere. Mmmm, like I said, a night to remember.” Edward said, frowning as he reached out to take another sip of wine.

“Anyway, even after all these years, I have not once returned home. The Baron does not want us to go, for even though we are his trusted servants he prefers to keep us close, perhaps so that we are consistently reminded of the price for treachery or simple failure. Alphonse says he does not miss it, but I tire of this disgusting place. Everything here is hard, and ugly, and brutal: only a true sadist could call this place home. So I try to forget, but wine and soundproof walls only get you so far. And so I try to recreate the past, the start of that one beautiful night I had before I came here. So we shall listen to some music, drink some excellent wine, dance, and see where the rest of the evening takes us from there. Do you have any more questions?” Edward asks, looking at you over the rim of his wine glass.

The_Snark

“Uh, me?! I – I’m Julian!” The suit of armor responded, creaking as it attempts to turn enough to get a good look at you, but the chains hold it fast. “J-Julian of the Knights of Vallon!”

Suddenly, a hatch beneath the chained suit slides open, revealing a roaring hot fire. The heat billows up at the suit of armor, and you can see it begin to glisten as if it was starting to melt.

“Oh no! They said they were going to melt the suit around me, and I’d be turned into a living statue! H-hurry, turn it off! There should be a set of controls nearby, they were using it earlier! Please?!”

Looking around, you can see a nearby stone pillar jutting up out of the floor, the top surface of it covered in runes. But as you look at it, the runes twist and shift, resolving themselves into recognizable writing.

• Continue Experiment
• Terminate Experiment
• Release Subject
• Terminate Subject

The Mines

Burrito

Hoping to go down this side tunnel, but without becoming spider food, you reach up with one end of the broken shovel. You manage to gently scrape off a few strands of the webs covering the ceiling, and then carefully pull them down to ground level, slowly unraveling the sheet of webbing. As you carefully dip the strand into the lantern, setting it alight, when Tattoos roughly bumps you. “Uh, Askov. Company.”

Scrape scrape scrape hiss

Looking up, you can see one of the spiders hanging from the ceiling’s webs, no doubt attracted by the pulling down of the strand. Its eyes glitter menacingly in the lantern light, and its serrated dagger-sized fangs scrape loudly together, followed by a hiss. Although the hiss is not from the spider, but from the floor where drops of its saliva land.

The three of you stare at each other for a moment, and then without another sound the spider pushes off and leaps down at you, twisting about in mid-air to orient itself back to the ground. Fortunately, the sudden flash of fire as the strand bursts into flame momentarily startles the creature, and instead of landing on top of it, it actually lands two feet to your right.

Expecting to find your soft flesh rather than the floor, the spider nonetheless bites down, driving its acid-coated fangs about an inch into the hard stone floor. With a loud cry, Tattoos rushes forward, stabbing at the creature with his badly damaged tool, but the spider manages to work its fangs back out of the floor and leaps to one side, deftly avoiding Tattoos’s attack. It then prepares for another leap at you, gathering its legs under itself.

Torture Chambers

Dorizzit

At your sudden appearance and approach, Katrina’s eyes widen in surprise and she takes an involuntary step back. But that is all, and she manages a slight smile as you rush over to envelop her in a one-armed bear hug, careful to keep your still-smoldering fire arm away from her.

“Hi Dad.” She says simply, throwing her manacled arms up over your head to return the hug. Unentangling yourselves from each other, you both quickly return to the safety of cover behind the nearby rack with Seraph.

“So you are his daughter?” Seraph asks, eyeing her cautiously before shaking his head. “I guess I expected you to be . . . younger. In any case, now our thoughts must turn to getting out of here. Young lady, how many guards did you see out there?”

Katrina throws Seraph an annoyed look for a moment, but then shakes her head. “I didn’t really count them. Two, maybe three dozen? Most are just regular guards, but a handful of them have that black chainmail and red sash on – does that make them important?”

She then turns back to you after your barrage of questions. “Easy Dad, I’m alright – really. I just got here, so the guards haven’t had a chance to rough me up too badly. I saw the way a couple of them were looking at me though. Gives me the creeps.” Katrina manages a slight shiver, then shakes her head.

“Anyway, long story short, I got caught stealing from a fruit vendor. One thing led to another, and after they found out who I was, I got sent here. So umm . . . Dad? Can I ask you a question?” Katrina pauses momentarily to nervously brush a few strands of hair out of her face.

“Even if we do get out of here, where can we go? Is there anyone in the village who would help us, any place in the forest we could hide?”

OverWilliam/Adlan

As Garm swiftly executes the guard, Tare rushes over and manages to catch the female elf. She doesn’t seem to react at all as Tare gently lowers her to the cold floor, and she seems to be hovering between life and death. As the male elf begins to scream commands at them in his foreign tongue, an idea forms in Tare’s head.

Very carefully scooping the elf maiden back up into his arms, Tare moves to exit the room. As he does so, the male elf flies into a frenzy, throwing himself at his restraints with such reckless abandon it seems assured that he will either gravely injure himself or rip the chair apart. “Adamè! Adamè!” He manages to choke out, before returning to guttural growls and whimpers of pain as he pulls against the straps holding him to the chair with all his might.

“Teareal.” The maiden murmurs, weakly lifting one of her deformed hands before collapsing and falling completely limp in Tare’s arms. Her breathing becomes shallow and irregular, and it seems certain that she does not have much time left on this mortal coil.

Moving into the previously empty room in between their own and the elves’ room, Tare and Garm consider the best place for an ambush. Luckily, screams are so frequent that few guards would actually check out this new disturbance, although it seems likely that the two guards previously in the room would come back at a run if they heard the elf screaming like they did. Of course, the guards not wanting to leave their own victims to investigate was also a problem, as it implied that many of the other nearby rooms they could move to in order to set up an ambush would result in blundering into still more guards.

Behind them, Tare hears a loud curse as one of the two guards returns, staring at the scene in front of him in shock. “What the hells happened here?” The guard snarled, approaching the male elf, still howling wordlessly in rage and struggling to get free.

“Shut the hell up.” The guard growled, jabbing the butt of his club into one of the male elf’s temples, causing him to slump back into the chair; dazed if not knocked out completely. “Bill! Get in here! We gots a problem!” The guard shouts, and it seems that in only a few moments the other guard would be in the room and then the hunt would be on.

(From the empty room, there is a choice of Tare/Garm’s old room, the elf’s room, and two previously unexplored rooms, should you wish to move on instead of waiting inside the empty room in ambush. Also as a note, when I say empty I don’t mean devoid of furniture – there’s various pieces of torture equipment set up around the room that you could probably hide behind if you so chose. And there’s always a dark corner or two. )

The Cells: Maximum Security

Baerdog7

The woman gives a short bark of a laugh as you re-introduce yourself. "I must say, I've never met a paladin who is as comfortable with deceit and killing as you are. But then again, I don't think I've ever met a paladin who was on my side of the prison bars before either. Come on, let's get out of here before the Warden sets another, less people-friendly playmate out."

The woman uncrosses her arms, the one bloodsoaked one continuing to drip a few remainning drops of the elite's blood down onto the floor occassionally. As she pushes past you, the woman stops.

"I suppose I could help you out with your jewelry problem, but what's in it for me? And don't tell me the satisfaction of having helped someone less fortunate - I hate that feel-good bull****."

Without waiting for your answer, however, the woman reaches down, carefully taking one of your shackled wrists in each of your hands. "I'll give you a little time to think over an appropriate answer. Until then, I'll take your hands in trade. Now hold still, this might feel a little wierd." The woman smiles one of her demented smiles, and then simply pulls, one hand going up and one hand going down.

For an instant there is a flash of pain through your two wrists as they are jerked against the unyielding metal surrounding them, but then with a soft squeal of metal they come free: the strip of metal holding your manacles together torn apart. Both wrists are still surrounded by the metal cuffs, of course, but those are little more than a fashion statement now that your hands can operate independantly of each other.

"There, that wasn't so hard, was it?" The woman says simply, releasing one hand but keeping an iron-hard grip on the other. "Now let's go - we can talk while we walk." The woman then proceeds past you, walking up the winding pathway back up to the Maximum Security level, dragging you along behind her by the grip she maintains on your one wrist.

"So, you said you were considering leading us both back to your cell. You said you would have killed the elite, but what about me? Particularly if I had proven . . . uncooperative? Not that you could have done anything to me if I hadn't wanted you to, but let's talk hypothetical here. Killed me? Knocked me out and locked me in your cell with the dead elite for company? Forced yourself upon me? Well, that last one seems unlikely since you really are some kind of holy man, but I imagine even holy men get lonely in prison."

The Catacombs

ubersquid

“Yeah, I’ll say! Whatever it was back there, it’s pretty pissed off! You really sure that’s a wise thing to do though, considering we’re still wandering around in the dark beneath a supposedly inescapable prison?” Marv asks, but shrugging. “Ah well, what’s done is done. Now let’s get the hell out of here before that thing back there decides to chase after us and finds us dawdling around out here.”

Choosing to go left this time instead of right, you move quickly down the corridor, Marv following at a short distance. Unlike the previous deathly silence that pervaded the corridors when you first arrived here, now and then you could hear faint murmurs, cackles, and someone speaking, too low for you to make out the individuals words although you were sure you’d now be able to understand what was being said.

You had not gone far down the corridor when you came to another intersection. This one was a four-way intersection, and down the left and right corridors you could see regularly-spaced doors on both sides of each of the corridors. However, what was perhaps most interesting, and interesting only because it was quite terrifying, was the soft, eerie greenish glow suffusing most of the doors. The source of this glowing quickly revealed itself, however, as ghostly figures slowly stepped out through the closed doors and out into the hallway.

“Oh ****, oh gods. I think we’ve got a whole lot more ghosts now Elkwin!” Marv shouts, seemingly frozen to his spot on the floor as the ghosts began to slowly shuffle towards you from both corridors.

The sword . . . give it to us fat man. Give the sword to us . . . NOW!

The ghosts all hissed this at you in their ancient tongue, and it seemed certain to you that these ghosts would not be nearly as friendly as the one you had previously encountered. As one, the flock of ghosts suddenly leapt up into the air, flying towards you with considerable more speed than the slow shuffle they had been using a moment before.

“I don’t know what they’re saying, but they sure as hells don’t look friendly! Come on Elkwin! RUN!” Marv shouts, his momentarily paralysis apparently shaken off as he charges ahead of you down the corridor directly in front of you, which was, for the moment, free of ghosts.

The Labs

Iethloc

“Try it.” The man said with a widely grin, spreading his arms wide. “This room is just a copy moved outside of time – the real controls are safely located in the desk still part of the timestream. You can’t break them from here. Only I can set you free. As for being able to detect your thoughts, I am the master of this place. Nothing is beneath my notice here.”

Sanctuary of the Prophets

Pwenet/WhiteKnight777/MrEdwardNigma

Moving to assist Incom as he begins groaning, not from current pain but apparently a sudden flashback memory of pain, Victor swiftly drives his hand through the creature’s damaged shell. It tries to stop him with more tentacles, of course, but Victor had already seen this trick and so was able to use his razor fingers to quickly cut through to the core. Pulling the strange creature out, Victor speaks to it, taunting it as its host body falls limp and Incom tears his way free of the now-limp tentacles wrapped around him. Yet, as the strange parasite melts away into ooze as before, its tentacles wrap around Victor’s arm, and gifts him with a vision.

You are chained to a stone altar, cut up into all your separate bits but with chains holding each separate piece down. You have been disemboweled with all of your internal organs removed, carefully laid out on the altar beside you and held in place with iron spikes driven down through them into the alter. Something like this would probably be enough to kill you, but for the moment you aren’t dead. Instead you are still very much alive, screaming loudly and thrashing about blindly in agony. Around you, dozens – no, hundreds, of the black cloaked figures stand in the darkness surrounding the altar, impassively watching as one of their brethren continues the ritual by approaching the altar and drawing a small, sharp knife. Holding your head still with both clawed tentacles, the figure leans down and uses his human hands to wield the knife, cutting out one of your eyes. He holds it up for you see, and then crushes it in his hand, cutting off your sensory perception from that eye. As he leans down to repeat the procedure with your other eye, your vision goes dark and hideous gurgling laughter fills your ears. Finally even this fades out, and you snap back to awareness – back in the supply room with the others.

Victor comes to just in time to watch Incom finish breaking free of the tentacles, stabbing the corpse with the stake on the end of Ross’s warhammer. Screaming angrily, Incom drags the corpse up into the air, carrying it on the shaft of the warhammer as he runs at one of the other cultists. This one happened to be the one Cassandra and Mellita were fighting, and as Incom approached it from behind, it was busy holding both of them aloft in the air. Gripping each one by the neck with one of its powerful clawed tentacles, the cultist seems amused as it swings the tentacles around, sending both ladies slamming into each other. As it pulls them apart for a repeat performance, however, it sense Incom’s rather obvious approach and turns to face him. Just in time to receive the still quite sharp point of the warhammer’s stake right in the stomach as Incom drives the point all of the way through his body. Pushing the cultist back, Incom shoves the tangle of bodies into a nearby crate, pinning the still-alive cultist to a nearby crate.

Pinned to a crate and with both claw tentacles full, the cultist only has its normal human limbs to defend itself with, and these prove largely useless as Incom shifts around to its backside, driving his bare hands into the hump. Twisting and struggling, the cultist begins pulling apart the crate it was pinned to with the end of the warhammer still sticking out of its back, but it doesn’t manage to work fast enough. As the crate finally disintegrates, Incom completes his own work, driving his fist at last through the armored shell with a loud meaty crack. With a loud unearthly screech the cultist crumples to the ground, the tentacled, mandibled, floating eyeball thing emerging from a spot just above Incom’s fist. It clacks its mandibles together for just a brief moment, and then flies off, heading out into the corridor.

Upon the creature’s death, the clawed tentacles also relax, dropping the two ladies unceremoniously to the floor. Fortunately, neither is seriously harmed, and both rush off to help Umber with the third cultist. Distracted by the two ladies slashing and punching at it, the cultist is unable to also deal with Umber quickly enough to prevent him from punching through the armored hump. As with Incom, the floating eyeball parasite manages to wiggle out of the corpse just above Umber’s arm, and rapidly flies off out of sight out into the hallway.

This fight apparently over, the five victorious combatants share a look with each other, wondering how long it will be before even more arrive. The sounds of battle now over, the ones of the little band with sharper hearing can detect the faint sound of crying below them. A moment later, the nameless girl calls up from the bottom of the steps, “Is everything alright up there? Did you guys win? Is it safe?”

[OverWilliam]

~Tare

Biting his lip, Tare skidded to a halt in the unoccupied room. He could feel the elf slump in his arms, as though being within eyesight of whoever that other elf was to her, lover, brother, who could know, was the only reason she was still trying to fight. He knelt again and laid her out flat, greviously aware of the guards reassembling in the room they had just left, even closer than they sounded. An ear went to her chest-- she was alive, but it scared him how irregular the beats came. He fumbled for one of the stoppered vials, and caught himself halfway through uncorking it. His eyes went to her legs, still angled at points the bone was not supposed to bend. If he gave her the potion, and it began to instantly heal her wounds, it would likely cement her shattered bones in that mangled position. But if he did not reverse her condition quickly, there was no guarantee that she would survive at all.

Here lied by far his least favorite part of his profession. The snap decisions.

He snarled at himself futilely, and then made up his mind. He fully uncorked the bottle, and then pawed her tunic far enough up her chest to expose her stab wounds, but not so far as to expose her, though a corner of his mind begged which was more important-- her modesty, or her life. Then, relying on a trick he had learned a while back on the streets where such potions were expensive and rare, but not unheardof, he poured a small amount of the potion directly into each of her stab wounds. He used up about a third of the bottle that way, and then checked her heart rate again. Too soon to tell. Setting the potion, unstoppered, down beside him, he slid on his knees down until he was positioned next to the maiden's knees. Being as ginger, but as quick as he could with his gloved hands, he braced and then forced each break in her legs that he could recognize back until the fractures fit against each other, hoping and praying that whatever drops of adrenaline her poor, ravaged body still held in reserve would keep her heart from stopping long enough to give her the rest of the potion. Once the major fractures had been addressed, he slid back forward, grimacing at her hand, which he had not noticed was broken as well. However he had neither the ability, the know-how, or the time to re-align the multitude bones in her hand.

As he snatched up the potion and cradled her head against himself to keep her from choking, he considered that if they got out, a more skilled healer would likely be able to repair it correctly. By the same token, the very potion he now eased past her parched lips might be more potent than he thought; perhaps it would mend bones properly, and he had risked delaying the potion for nothing. Either way, if all four of them died here, which if the rumors were to be believed was likely, it would matter less in the long run than it seemed.

[Dorizzit]

Korram breathes a sigh of relief when Katrina answers him. "Good. I'm glad you're okay." When she asks him about a place to hide afterwards, though, Korram bites his lip. "Always thinking ahead, eh? Yes, there are. Me and my band had numerous safe spots in case one of us got found out. I didn't know I'd been tagged, which is why we didn't go to one of them before I wound up here. Several of the safehouses are places no one else knows about; we can be safe in one of those. Now then, let's-ARGH!" Korram doesn't finish his sentence as his arm flares with renewed flames, which he quickly gets under control. He grins. "Hey, that's convenient." he says. "Perfect. I'll be right back..." carefully moving away, Korram stays behind cover until he is near to the group of guards. Popping out from cover for a second, he hurls five sparks out into the crowd. Ducking back behind cover, he opens his hand. Five thin flames shoot out, each unneringly finding one of the sparks. Upon contact, each spark explodes violently. Korram slips back into cover. "That should give them something to think about. The Five Star, I call that one. Figured it out about a year before I got captured."

[Iethloc]

Sohssal

Sohssal, at first, only hovered to the other side of the desk, though he kept an eye on his frustrating rival. He clutched the rock very tightly in his hand, and then, with a slight grunt of effort, hurled it with all of the strength of the body he inhabited, sending the rock soaring towards the supposed copy of the desk. "A room sent outside of time without anything to maintain it just seems off to me..." he commented right after he threw it, also conveniently emptying his lungs, should the need arise to inhale the magical energy to send himself back in time once more.

[MrEdwardNigma]

Victor von Ravenstein III

"Well... that was interesting" Victor mumbled as a broad smile appeared on his face. The vision had given him an urge for another surgical update. Victor started sewing some extra muscles into his arms.

[Pwenet]

Incom Morgan

Panting as he shakes his fist loose from the back of the cultist Incom looks down at the scaled talons that have replaced his fingers. Luckily for him they are still flexible enough to work like fingers and somehow he is controlling them just as well. Shaking off the various bits of gore he turns down towards where the children were hiding.

"It is safe to come out now little ones! More evil ones have been killed and sent to the land of rainbows and chains!"

Looking down at the three bodies Incom sighs and starts the grim task of searching the bodies for anything useful and stripping one that has the most intact cloak to replace his own tattered clothing. After doing this he recovers the Warhammer of Ross, cleaning it off as best he can and examining it for any damage from his attack using it.

"I must say this Umber, from what I saw of Ross he was not a shining example of a Paladin but at least he used quality equipment."

[WhiteKnight777]

Umber

Umber snorted a bit at 'Incom', his face contorting into a disdainful little smile. Ross, like most paladin's I've known, is an egocentric moron who slavishly follows the commands of a petty godling for no reason, and with the apparent capacity for logical thought of your average puppy, not to mention having worse manners than the aforementioned canine. I can only imagine his keepers supplied him with decent equipment. After all, there's no point in using substandard tools if you have the option.

The vampire chuckled a little as Incom indicated it was all right to come up. Already he was moving purposefully towards the other end of the room, ready to move on. Safe being a relative term in this place, of course. Best we move on as fast as we can... I have a feeling those little devices that escaped from our foes will bring reinforcements shortly.

[Adlan]

Garm

Garm hides in the shadows and watches as another guard arrives in the room, again his instinct is to run out, and rip the throat out, but he knows this would give the second guard warning of his arrival, instead he waits, leaving the male elf to his fate while he hopes both guards will enter the room he stands in.

If they enter simultaniously, Garm will Tackle them both, going for any injury to take them both out as soon as he could.

If one enters before the other, Garm will try and grab him as quietly as possible, and, his snout, lengthening, changing, his canines growing ever more prominent, he would silently go for the jugular.

[Baerdog7]

Ander Windrivver

Killing is something every paladin must be prepared to do, and the deceit was necessary to keep the Warden from noticing me.

Ander grits his teeth as she breaks his manacles, reveling in his new ability to move his arms independently of each other before getting pulled up the hallway by the wrist.

Thank you.

He gets his feet back underneath him and begins to keep up with her of his own accord instead of being drug around. He fights down a laugh when she brings up the possibility of him trying to force himself upon her.

Please, I'm married. Besides, you're not my type. As for what else may have happened if I had been able to lead you both back to my cell, I doubt it would have ended in me killing you. Locking you in the cell was one possibility, but I would most likely have tried to persuade you to help me escape.

She was walking quickly, but Ander could tell it would not be that way for long. The Lady's limp was bad and getting worse. It looked as though she had sustained an injury that had never been allowed to fully heal.

That limp looks serious. I'd guess that you injured the tendons and ligaments in your hip and knee, which means that you won't be able to keep this pace up for very long. It's also an obvious weakness should we run into a group of guards. Any one of them with half a brain would try and go for your bad leg. I could heal it, but this collar and these manacles block my powers. I could also take care of those nasty cuts you have all over your body. I can't imagine that they're comfortable for you.

[Voth]

Voth

Staring at the manacles, Voth chuckles to himself.
If I could get out of those magical things, these ones should be a piece of cake.
No. No more of this. I'm tired of just sitting back and watching you be more of an idiot that I believed was possible, even for humans.

Voth begins to feel a sharp and constant pain, growing larger and larger in the back of his head. His facial features begin to shift, becoming more feral. A change begins to over take Voth but not like anything he has felt before. White hot agony fills Voth's body. He begins to shake, sparks of dark energy coming off his body. Through clenched teeth, he manages to say one word to the shaking girl holding him. "RUN!"

[The_Snark]

Mar

She jumped at the sudden flames, the panicky note in the man's voice starting to spread the same feeling in her. She couldn't see—no, there it was! She moved over to the pillar, raising a hand over the controls. The words were hard to understand. Release—that meant letting him go, she knew. That was good. Except there was a pit leading into a fire underneath him—what if it just dropped him in? She draws her hand sharply back from those words.

That left her with the others. Continue was probably bad, that meant keeping going. Not that one. The other two were similar—she couldn't think right, though. She could hear the sound of the fire, and imagined she could hear the armor starting to melt and burn the person inside. She didn't want that, could almost imagine her own legs starting to burn—the unpleasant sensation as one of the bugs scritched across her shoulder was a real echo to the imagined pain. She couldn't think what the difference between the two was.

In desperation, she stabs a finger at the one marked Release, not liking the sound of the word Terminate. "Let him go!" she says at the stone pillar, realizing she has no idea how to actually get it to release. "Release! Don't melt him!"

[Lonna]

Pyrene

Though curious about what the mage was writing, Pyrene gave the desk only the most cursory glance before fixing her eyes on her captor's face as he spoke.

When Edward tossed the scarf to her, she caught it, but deliberately made her movements slower, more clumsy. The result was the illusion that she had average human reflexes, rather than the enhanced reflexes that were the result of her elven heritage. With a little luck, he would underestimate her physical abilities enough to give her an edge.

As Edward continued to answer her questions, she sat on the bed and slowly wrapped the scarf around the magic-inhibiting collar, tying it to the collar itself so that it couldn't be used to choke her even if it slipped off the metal and onto her throat. After the comment about the wine, Pyrene allowed a wry smile to break through the expression of polite interest she had maintained up to that point and picked up the second wine glass. Taking a small sip, she found he was correct. Though on the whole she had never cared overmuch for wine, the Donovale was quite pleasant.

“Do you have any more questions?” Edward asks, looking at you over the rim of his wine glass.

"Indeed I do; two in fact," answered Pyrene with a hint of a flirtatious smile. "One is practical, but the other is downright impertinent. The questions are these: How would you prefer that I address you? And what were you writing a moment ago?"

[Inspectre]

The Spires: Ironheart Research

Voth

Eyes wide with fear as she watches your new transformation, the girl releases you with a squeak and takes off down the corridor after you manage to grate out the command to run. Even the two guards look taken aback and shuffle back away from you as you rise back up onto your feet and smile at them, all actions completely not of your own control. In some ways this was like one of your usual transformations when you surrendered partial control over to Shadow and merged more fully with him to gain some of his own power. But this time, you hadn’t surrendered anything – Shadow was taking control.

I think you’ve forgotten the specifics of our little pact. So you just get to watch for a little bit while I clean up this mess you’ve gotten us into.

As the guards scramble back, trying to open the door and make it through to escape and warn others, you leap forward. One of your legs flashes out in mid-leap, striking the guard high on his chest and throwing him back against the wall. As you land your hands twist and grow into long bladed claws, which you thrust through the second guard’s back and out through his chest as he attempts to frantically pull open the door in front of him.

You’ve started to think you’re a person again. But you’re not.

Twisting your claws inside the man, you cut off his pained screams, and then tear your claws back out in a fountain of gore. As your claws emerge, you whirl, slashing open the second guard’s throat effortlessly with one clawed hand, while the other snatches the set of manacles from the guard’s hands.

You’re a monster. A big scary murderous monster with demon filling.

Twirling the manacles over your head once, you pull back and let fly, throwing the manacles with unerring accuracy into the back of the girl’s head, who had managed to get about a third of the hallway’s length away from you – an impressive distance in such a short time frame but clearly not far enough. From the impact of the manacles the girl crumples, lying motionless after hitting the floor.

Oh don’t worry, she’s not dead yet. She’s about to play an important part in your lesson for today.

Shadow clearly enjoying this as you slowly march down the hallway towards the prone form of the girl.

Now, because we’re a team, Voth, and since I’m the one in control right now, I’m going to kill the girl. And you, as the little voice inside my head, are going to tell me how to do it. Try to be a little creative here, too – we don’t admittedly have enough time to properly do it, torturing her to death over the next few hours, but we do have enough time to ensure that these last few minutes of her life are certainly eventful ones.

The Main Tower

Lonna

You carefully wrap the scarf around your neck, concealing the collar but ensuring that the scarf couldn’t be later used as a garrote against you. Not that Edward likely needed to resort to strangulation to kill you, but it was always wise to be cautious. At your mention of an impertinent question Edward quirks an eyebrow, but inclines his head nonetheless. Smiling, he takes one last sip of the wine, and then sets the glass aside on his desk.

“You may call me Edward or simply Ed, whichever you would prefer. As to what I was writing, the book is my journal. And so far today’s entry simply reads that I met a truly beautiful woman and that I hope she’ll do me the privilege of dancing with her. So, shall we dance?”

Smiling, he pushes himself up out of his chair, extending a hand towards you while sweeping the other around and over his head. “This room isn’t particularly big and with your legs still manacled we won’t be able to do anything fancy. Still, we can turn in circles and sway to the music, and that will have to be enough.”

The_Snark

Rushing over to the stone pillar, you nervously examine the various options. You couldn’t really decipher the meanings of all the various options, and you were certainly afraid of what the consequences could be if you chose poorly. “Release Subject” certainly seemed safe enough, but the sudden thought of it dropping the man, suit of armor and all, into the roaring fire beneath him caused you to pull your hands back from that rune. Unsure of what to do, you wince at the imagined pain of what the man must be feeling right now, and the real pain of the bugs starting to crawl along under your skin.

“Ow! H-hurry!” The man cries, and his shout snaps you out of your daze. Realizing that anything was better than continue to let him just hang there, you pound your bound hands down onto the “Release Subject” rune, striking it several times while shouting for it to release the man. Surprisingly, the pillar actually listened to you, little Mar, who was often ignored by everyone except Daddy unless they were punishing you.

With a loud hiss the chains holding the man’s arms and legs release, snapping open and falling to hang loosely from their anchor points in the walls and ceiling. Meanwhile, as you feared, without the chains holding him up, the man begins to fall down towards the waiting fire pit below. Fortunately, as the chain holding his right wrist snaps open, the man manages to twist his gauntleted hand around and grab the chain. Sparks flying from his palm, the man slides down a number of links in the chain before he manages to catch himself, which places his legs directly into the fire.

A loud shout of pain echoing out from within his helmet, the man nevertheless manages to swing his other gauntleted hand around to grasps the chain, and with both hands manages to pull himself up hand over hand until his feet are back up over the lip of the pit and he manages to swing himself out over solid ground. Letting go of the chain, the man throws himself onto the floor right next to the fiery pit, grunting from the impact and clumsily rolling himself along the ground further away from the pit. A few minutes later, the doors to the fiery pit swing shut. But you aren’t really paying attention to the pit anymore, instead focused on the sharp itching of your skin as the bugs crawl around in your back, and on the sight of the armor-encased figure lying on the ground before you, limbs flailing at it tries to right itself.

The arms of the suit appear to be fine, but the leg joints appear to have become at least partially fused together, the separate sections of armor melted together and possibly even melted down into the man’s skin underneath. Finally, however, the man manages to push himself up into a sitting position and look around.

He quickly spots you, standing over by the stone pillar, and although he still looks as unfriendly as ever, as least his voice still sounds nice. “W-Woah, hey! I-I didn’t think girls were part of this experiment team. I certainly don’t remember seeing you before with the rest of my captors.”

Reaching up uncertainly to his helmet, both of the armored figure’s gauntleted hands feel out the contours of his helmet, twisting now and then, as if attempting to remove the helmet. Finally, the man seems to have figured it out, as with one last twist he lifts the helmet up off his head. As he tosses the helmet aside with a loud clatter, you finally get your first look at his real face.

He seems to have fairly average features for a human male, and so perhaps the most shocking facial feature he has is the fact that he is young, perhaps even your age, and certainly a teenager. He has short-cropped black hair, and bright green eyes that seem to dance and smile even though he currently is not. In fact, his mouth appears to be twisted into a frown of concern as he looks at you.

“Hey, are you alright? Thanks for saving me there, they said that this suit of armor was going to be melted around me, fusing the joints and trapped me inside it forever! I owe you my life! But umm . . . why did you help me? D-Did the other knights send you to rescue me!?”

Torture Chambers

Dorizzit

As your arm re-ignites with a wild burst of flame, Katrina winces and skitters back a few paces, clearly caught off-guard. “Geez Dad. They told me about your arm, but seeing is believing I guess!” She mutters to your retreating back as you carefully crawl towards the door. Popping out from behind your cover, you launch five sparks of fire through the doorway, following momentarily afterwards by five short streams of fire which detonate into impressively large explosions. From the room beyond the doorway, you hear shouts of alarm, followed by more than one scream of pain as the flames detonate. In fact, as you duck back behind cover you catch the sight of one guard’s smoking corpse being thrown forward into the doorway, lying motionless partway in both your room and the room beyond.

“Perhaps.” Seraph replies to your comment with a slight smile, although he is quick to add, “But we should be thinking as well – figuring out a way to get out of here and further down into the prison. I believe we’ll find these cultist freaks and my wife in the darkest depths of this place, and we must get there quickly before they have time to complete this ritual of theirs.”

“Dad?” Katrina asks, moving in close to whisper to you but still shooting nervous glances at your fiery arm, “In case we get separated, umm . . . where should I go, which one of these safe houses? Is there any that I would know about from childhood, but didn’t recognize as such? Or someone still outside here that I could talk to, and who would show me where to go to wait for you?”

OverWilliam/Adlan

Fearing for the elf maiden’s life, Tare sets her down as gently as he could, out of sight from the doorway. There was no time to move further away to set up an ambush – this would have to be it. While Garm makes ready to attack the guards from surprise should they appear in the doorway, Tare pulls out one of the vials he appropriated. It was a dark red, similar to the color of blood, but much less viscous and with the occasional air bubble floating up from the bottom. This was the color of the weak healing potions the guards had occasionally fed them during their ordeal, and Tare knew from experience that they weren’t particularly strong. Hopefully, it would still be enough to keep the elf alive.

Lifting up the elf’s shirt, Tare winced as the fabric clung to her skin thanks to the large amount of blood soaked through it, some of which had already dried. But he continued gently pulling, knowing that if he didn’t treat the elf’s stab wounds she likely wouldn’t survive much longer anyway. Finally, he managed to lift the cloth up enough to get a good look at the wounds, and winced again. A little over half a dozen stabs wounds, each only a little bigger than Tare’s thumbnail, were strategically placed across the maiden’s stomach and back.

Although not an expert in knives (he might be a thief and a vagabond, but he was not an assassin), Tare could tell that these wounds had not been made by one of the clumsy guards with one of their bulky daggers. No, somebody with great skill and care had made these wounds with a very long, very thin knife. The wounds were therefore deep but not individually traumatic – they would quickly scab over but heal slowly. Of course, the scabs would be fragile and prone to breaking open again if disturbed – which made Tare wonder just how long the two elves had been abused for the maiden’s shirt to be soaked in so much blood.

In any case, although Tare was not certain how serious the internal damage was – such a skilled user could easily perforate or completely avoid major organs according to his whims with each stab – it was clear that the ashen-skinned elf could ill avoid to lose any more blood. Carefully, Tare poured a tiny amount of the healing potion into each stab wound and although none of them healed fully, at least each of them scabbed back over to prevent any further blood loss.

Turning his attention to her other injuries now, Tare resets the maiden’s broken leg bones as best as he is able. Even on the verge of death, the pain inflicted by Tare’s helpful efforts is enough to briefly rouse her, causing her to weakly whimper and cry out.

As it turns out, these cries are just loud enough to reach the ears of the two guards, and silently motioning to each other they approach the empty room. After appearing in the doorway, they have just enough time to notice Tare and prepare to shout a command before Garm is on them. Tackling them both, the wolfling drives them both to the ground, throwing himself bodily upon one while snagging the arm of the other to drag him down to the ground as well. The one that Garm bodily tackles falls quickly, and doesn’t even have enough time to throw out his arms to catch himself before his face connects with the floor with a wet crack. The one, only grabbed by one arm, manages to twist as he goes down and so merely lands on his side, quickly moving after he lands to defend himself.

With one guard at least momentarily dazed if not dead, Garm turns his attentions upon the other, and despite the guard’s best efforts Garm is able to quickly overpower him. Leaning in close, Garm savagely tears the man’s throat out with his teeth, leaving him to gurgle and bleed to death while the wolfling finishes off the dazed guard.

His nose broken and part of his forehead already started to turn an ugly purple, the dazed guard is just beginning to weakly try to push himself up when Garm returns. With almost no effort at all the wolfling reaches down and wraps his hands around the man’s throat, squeezing and strangling until he hears the soft telltale crunching of the man’s neck as it breaks.

Meanwhile, Tare has managed to shift around again, now cradling the elf maiden’s head on his knees and gently forcing her parched lips open with a finger to pour the rest of the healing potion into her mouth. Almost immediately a small measure of color returns to her face, and her eyes flutter open for a moment before she falls back into unconsciousness with a soft sigh. But now this is a restful sleep, and while still soft her breathing comes regularly.

A low moan comes from the room that the guards had just vacated: the male elf slowly coming around from the blow to his temple. With the maiden’s injuries at least momentarily cared for and the guards dealt with, the male elf was now the sole remaining issue, and bound as he currently was, certainly no threat to your escape save for the attention his loud screams of rage might draw to your little section of the Torture Chambers.

The Cells: Maximum Security

Baerdog7

Dragging you along while only half-listening to your response, the woman stops with a snort as she turns to look you up and down again. “Typical. Do you know men used to kill each other over my beauty? Now? With this face?” The woman gestures up at her face, leaning in close enough that even in the dim lantern light you can make out every detail of the interlocking brands now seared across every inch of flesh. Shaking her head, the woman lets go of your arm, leaning against the wall with a groan as her bad leg twists awkwardly under her.

While she carefully examines the leg with both hands, you lecture her and offer to help if you could regain your healing powers. Unfortunately, your hope of being free from the rest of your restraints dies as the woman shakes her head. “No, I don’t think so. See, breaking limbs free is easy, it’s just a matter of putting enough pressure against whatever it is that’s holding the limb in place. The manacles and collar are solid metal bands, however, wrapped around tight against the skin. You can’t just pull those off, and there’s not enough space between your flesh and the metal to wedge something under to pull the bands apart. And I don’t think you’d enjoy any of my other methods for removing them. You are right, by the way. Idiots didn’t reset my leg properly – only one thing for it.”

Shifting all of her weight onto her “good” leg, the woman stretches her “bad” leg out in front of her. She grasps the outstretched thigh of the leg with one hand, balling the other one into a fist and raising it over her head. Here, she pauses to shoot a glance at you. “I hope you aren’t stupid enough to try anything here. While the distraction of having to deal with you would be a nice way to focus on something other than the pain, afterwards I’d have to kill you. So just stay right there, this shouldn’t take more than a minute.”

Turning her attention back to her leg, the woman drives her fist down onto her thigh, and the entire leg falls limp with a loud popping sound. The woman grimaces, but shows little outward sign of the pain as, balanced on her one leg, she grasps her hip firmly with both hands and shifts it around until with another soft pop the joint falls back into place.

Experimentally the woman turns her relocated leg a few times, and then sets her foot back down onto the floor and shifts her weight around. Finally, with a loud shout of anger, the woman steps forward and flashes her leg out in a blur, demolishing a sizable chunk of the right wall with one kick. Nodding, she turns back to you.

“Better, much better. I heal fast, and I’m pretty sure your little holy magic won’t even touch these brands burned into my body. So don’t think I’ll keep you around because of that – in fact, you’d better start thinking of ways to keep me entertained, because I’m already starting to get bored of you.”

Starting to walk up the twisting tunnel again, the woman suddenly whirls back to face you and grins. “I don’t think I’ve properly introduced myself yet. I’m Katashiko, Mistress of Earth. And I’m the woman who’s either going to set you free from this place, or bury you here.”

The Labs

Iethloc

You manage to notice the man’s face contort into a mouth-agape look of shock a moment before the rock plows into the desk, converting it into an explosion of rock and wood splinters. Immediately the room around you begins to blink out of existence, but this time you are ready and inhale deeply, drinking in the strong magic as it rushes in to return you to the time when you first entered the room.

The magic is strong, too strong for you to drink it all away in the split-second you have before you’re back where you started, but you do manage to get a good taste of it. Although you hadn’t yet had the opportunity to drink in much temporal magic, this was certainly nothing like you had expecting it to be. Although you couldn’t quite put your finger on exactly what this magic *was*, it was almost definitely *not* temporal magic.

Looking into the room inside reveals a startling contrast to the one you were just leaving. Instead of a cluttered arcane laboratory filled with beakers and man-sized tubes of frosted glass, the room beyond the door was set up much like a comfortable study. A thick soft carpet covered the floor, and along the left wall from ceiling to floor was a bookshelf stuffed with leather-bound tomes, the titles would which you could not read from the entrance. Positioned in the middle of the room, between you and the door was a large wooden desk. Sitting in a well-padded leather bound chair behind the desk was a slightly-pudgy, balding man. This time, however, everything shifts and blurs as you look at it, the room seeming to undulate of its own accord as if you were looking at everything from underwater.

Looking up from his book at the two of you, he smiles. “Drink to something both you get I can. Friends eternity to welcome.”

Sanctuary of the Prophets

Pwenet/WhiteKnight777/MrEdwardNigma

The battle now effectively over, everyone quickly busies themselves in their own unique way. Hearing Incom’s shout that the danger had, at least for the moment, passed, the nameless girl and the gaggle of children ascend, a few of the younger children gasping and crying at the carnage that has been wrecked. Mellita and Cassandra dust themselves off, moving to help with the stripping and searching of the bodies.

As usual, the cultists have nothing of any real value on them, and Incom quickly takes the least damaged cloak off them to wrap around himself. As it turns out, the huge holes torn into the back of the cloak by the cultist’s tentacle arms actually work well, allowing Incom to carefully slide his wings out through the holes instead of trying to contain them against his back with the cloak.

Checking the warhammer reveals it has suffered little if any damage, although the wooden stake at the end of the hammer’s grip has lost its previously sharp point. A sturdy but worn catch near the point where the wooden stake gives way to the lightweight metal shaft of the warhammer suggests that such stakes are changed out often.

Using pieces of flesh carefully cut from the cultists, a difficult process given the wormy tentacles present in nearly every piece of the cultist’s flesh, as well as choice bits from the various crates of slaughtered animals, Victor begins stitching the muscles onto his own arms. The process is fairly slow, requiring Victor to cut open his own arms to slip the new muscle in under the skin and attach it to the already existing muscles. At one point Cassandra comes over, curious to see what Victor was doing and what she could do to help, but upon seeing his strange work she gags and stumbles off, leaving the mad alchemist surgeon alone with his work. He is perhaps halfway done when Umber wanders off and approaches the door to the hallway outside.

Although the door has since swung itself shut from when the two reinforcing cultist barged in, Umber’s sharp hearing can still detect the soft sound of footsteps in the hallway outside. Although he can’t quite tell how many there are outside, Umber can deduce that more trouble has already found them and is on its way – if not now then when they try to exit into the hallway beyond the door.

[Iethloc]

Sohssal

Whoa, did I just break time? Something seems wrong here... Sohssal thought to himself after working out what was just said. Then he shook his head and tried to focus on the bizarrely undulating world. Experimentally, he floated over to the bookshelves, and looked over the titles, seeing if they got effected the same way the man's speech did. "All right, what's going on here?" Sohssal impatiently asked aloud. He looked over at Omega, then glanced at his hands, and, finally looked over at his adversary, a grimace upon his face. He floated over to the desk, and, slamming his hands down on it, got right up close to him.

"Something here isn't as it seems. There's no way that this could be a room outside time..." he said in an ominous tone, making obvious his willingness to resort to violence. His fingernails raked across the surface of the desk a bit as he floated up a little, and gave the man a few more inches of space. However, his eyes wandered from the man's face to the marks he made on the desk, and then to the desk itself. Just what does this desk have to do with it? he asked himself in his mind.

[Voth]

Voth

I won't allow this!

A bit to late for that isn't it?

Not... Even... Close!

With that final thought, Voth manages to loosen Shadow's grip on his body and mind. The sheer amount of will power needed for such a task causes Voth's legs to buckle and cause him to fall prone to the floor. His eyes beginning to gloss over, Voth and Shadow retreat into Voth's mind.

Darkness. Its all around Voth. He opens his eyes to find himself on a barren field. A low wind is blowing as Voth struggles to his feet. Looking around he sees nothing but darkness and the barren field. The sky is a deep purple with a hint of red.

Turning around in a full circle, Voth spies a disturbing site. Himself. Standing less than 10 feet from him is a exact image of himself, with a few changes. His burning red eyes stare at you as if peering into the depths of your soul. His skin is tinted purple and as he smiles, you see his mouth is filled with razor like teeth.

"Well isn't this interesting." chuckles Shadow.

[ubersquid]

Elkwin - The Catacombs

"Who are you calling fa... Ah screw it, you're right. My flesh and bones might have grown heavy with the years, but at least i still have them."

Elkwin grunts in his native tongue before chasing after Marv again.

He doesn't know himself what drives him to run on. The ghost was right basically. He was a fat old man, but still, the adventurous and heroic spirit had seemed to lift him up once again, like in the days before he opened his tavern. But maybe it was just pure instinct for survival. Staring death in the face more than once in this short time can make you run quite fast as well.

So at least for the moment, it was not a matter of exhaustion, but just a matter of speed if they could shake off their chasers or at least find a safe place before they could catch up.

[Dorizzit]

Korram sobers up at Seraph's comment. "You're right. We had probably best get going. What to do..." his thoughts are interrupted by Katrina. "Hm? Oh, yes of course. Remember how each year after your birthday I would take you to a house that was in the middle of nowhere? Every one of those was a safehouse." He withdraws back into thought. We need a way out, but what? He carefully weighs his options. "Seraph, how many of the guards do you think you could defeat?"

[Lonna]

Pyrene

"In that case, Edward, it would be my pleasure to dance with you," answered Pyrene, setting her wine glass back on the nightstand and standing to give as large a curtsy as the chains would allow.

Accepting his hand, she placed her other on his shoulder. As the strains of a waltz began, she followed easily as he led her through the basic steps, shortening his stride to accommodate her handicap.

"You clearly have an appreciation for fine music," she said after a moment, "do you play as well?"

[WhiteKnight777]

Umber

Slipping on catlike feet over towards the door, Umber gestured silently towards the closed portal, contriving to convey with his hands the presence of enemies outside the door. Still moving stealthily, he hauled himself up the wall, his fingers and toes finding tiny cracks in the stone, a predatory grin crossing his features. Settling himself, he perched over the door like a leering gargoyle looking downward, gesturing with a shake of his head for someone to open the door.

He would have laughed if he was not trying to disguise his presence. As with most enemies, once they were known, they were little threat.... though his smile disappeared when he reflected that it was likely they would soon be facing something unknown again. It was Umber's private conviction that Fate, like Death, was a person, or something like it, and had a rather perverse sense of humor.

Of course, he could empathize.

[Pwenet]

Incom Morgan

Looking at the dulled spike on the Warhammer Incom shakes his head at it. Having been dulled by his previous actions he estimates he has at least one use left in it before it would be useless. Stripping one of the corpses he clothes himself properly in the first time in decades. The thought of finally being decent clothed is wearing a used bloodstained robe makes him start to chuckle to himself as he dresses.

Having gotten himself clothed once again for simply modest he turns to see Umber gesturing at the door in the language that all understood, enemies at the door. Narrowing his eyes the insanity that is bubbling along the edges of his mind rushes away in a flood as ancient instincts kick in and he prepares himself for battle.

As he watching Umber climb like a man who is a spider Incom waves at the gaggle of children to stay where they are. Taking care to be as silent as possible he approaches the door as Umber waves at someone to open it up.

Smiling Incom lifts up one of his hands, clenches it into a fist and throws a punch towards the first top hinge he sees. Metal screams and his fist screams in pain leaving behind streaks of blood where the flesh splits. Winding up he strikes at the next hinge with much the same result, both of them now looking pretty damaged and not supporting the door easily.

Bracing himself Incom gets a solid grip on the Warhammer, raises it high and strikes at the top center of the door, sending it crashing to the ground. His wings beat as he jumps backwards quickly clearing the entrance for Umber to launch his attack on anything that enters. Skidding to a stop Incom twirls the Warhammer as he sprints back forward once an enemy appears. If the enemy looks squishy, he will stab it with the dulled stake, and if they look crunchy he will clobber them with the Warhammer of Ross.

[OverWilliam]

~Tare

While he attempted to treat the elf's wounds he was almost completely oblivious to what was going on around him. Trying so hard to save her life, he had put his life completely in Garm's now-bloodied hands, and had done well to do so.

As the color returned to his patient's face, Tare dared to breathe a sigh of relief. She would not die tonight. Or at least, not from any wound she had received so far. He shook that thought out of his head. Then noticing the two guards that Garm had so efficiently dispatched, he shook his head. They would likely have thundered up right behind him shouting and yelling and he would not have noticed until they had already struck. "Thank you, Garm." he breathed. Then suddenly angry with himself, he realized that he was almost fallen asleep. The drugs were beginning to wear off, he could feel it in his aching shoulders as the invisible weight on them crept in. He forced it back off. Not yet.

Reaching to pull her shirt back down, he realized something that he had not seen the first time. These wounds... They were different. And they were terrifying. Tare had seen only one person in his streetlife that could inflict such terrible, wonderful wounds. These seemed to be made by a dagger, or rather a stiletto, and he had seen them made with a rapier. But the effect was little different. Tare's blood ran cold. If there was someone in this wretched den of snakes that had the skill and the training to cause something so simple, but so impossible... And someone willing and able to use it on prisoners, not guards... Tare could not but let himself lean heavily against the wall in despairing realization. But he could not think of it now.

Forcing himself to stand, he dragged the weights in his legs over to the fallen guards. The echoes of the sole remaining issue to be resolved trickled into the room. Tare searched the pouches and beltloops of these freshest of victories for a key to loose the male. He hoped that they would be able to communicate somehow, and for a split second he considered leaving the crazed creature where it could not harm him. But he knew that he had little choice but to free the elf, whatever consequence it had; no one deserved the fate that they all found themselves receiving, not even the most vile of murderers, which he doubted this elf was.

[Baerdog7]

Ander Windrivver

((Does the name ring any bells for Ander? Anything he may know about her from religious texts or hearsay during his travels?))

Ander watches as Katashiko, Mistress of Earth, resets her leg, ignoring her jape about him not wanting to bed her. He toys with the dagger he stole from the dead acolyte, using it to pry and cut at one of his manacles more out of need for something to do than anything else. Suddenly, overcome by a mix of pent of rage and frustration, Ander drops the dagger and grabs his collar with both hands. His arms bulge as they strain against the ensorcelled iron, attempting to rip it from his neck. Beads of sweat form on Ander's brow and he begins to glow with a faint golden light as he channels his Gods' power through sheer force of will.

Miriam, grant me your strength so I may remove this accursed thing from my body.

The unholy runes on the collar flicker and dim against the onslaught of holy energies that Ander channels through his body. The iron collar begins to stretch and weaken around the joint and it seems as if the unkempt leper may actually be able to rip the think off of his neck.

((Whether or not he is successful, Ander will go on to say the following to Katashiko.))

You know what? I'm not here for you Gods-damned amusement, Sweetness. I'm here to escape with or without your help and while I am thankful that you freed my hands and while I would much rather have a partner during this escape attempt I will not exist solely for your own amusement. And if you seriously think that killing me out of spite is really going to help out your own situation then go ahead and do it already. Kill me. Send me back to my gods, my family, my wife, and my children. If you really think it'll make you happy, kill me and send me home again.

[The_Snark]

Mar

She started to shake as the person in the armor spoke. Not that he looked cruel, like some of the guards; his face actually looked sort of nice, especially his eyes. It was a strange contrast with the armor, which looked harsh and rigid—except where it looked twisted; that bit was just odd-looking. He was young, too, which was a little reassuring—although she didn't know why. She was young, and she had certainly deserved to be brought here.

And that was the source of the dread welling up inside her, what she was trying not to think about: this man (boy?) was probably a prisoner, like her. Wicked. And she'd just interfered with his punishment and freed him. Daddy wouldn't have punished her for running like he told her to, but if she freed somebody else, that was BAD. She'd never done anything like it before (had she? Surely she'd never been that bad, she would have remembered the punishment), and right after Daddy had been angry with her. They might even think she was trying to escape—

"No, no, no," she said, starting to shake. "You're a prisoner, aren't you? No, I'm not supposed, to, I'm not supposed to be here, I shouldn't have... they'll be angry..." She trails off in a frightened whisper and slides down the stone pillar with a shiver, staring ahead of her and coincidentally at the young man in armor. At least, partway down; the single lash mark meets the cold stone painfully, after which she half-falls, half-lowers herself into a sitting position and puts her arms around her knees, huddling.