Escape from Ironheart (IC)

[Pwenet]

No! It can’t be! That sigil is some sort of ruse, a trick! They probably found it in some old treasure chest somewhere and thought it looked cool to use as the symbol for their stupid cult! It can’t be them, thousands of years later! But even if it’s not really them, these creatures have chosen to associate themselves with that symbol! That accursed symbol, which flew on human banners millennia ago! That accursed symbol, which was the standard of the human army that came to my ancestral home when I was but a whelp! That accursed symbol, which flew above the ruins of my home after my family was slaughtered and I barely escaped! RRRRAAAARRGGGHHH! I don’t care where they got this from! They’re dead! They’re all dead! We shall exterminate every last one of this filth, and we shall not rest until they’ve all breathed their last! I will not brook any argument from you on this, human. I have dreamed of taking revenge against those of this symbol for dozens of your lifetimes. I was too weak then to defend my home, but now I am strong enough to avenge it! Let us find the other two that fled to start with!

Hearing the sudden hatred within the mental voice of Harvey stirs Incom into action as he races down the tunnels after the other two cultists. Looking down at his arm he sees that new flesh covers the stump, stopping the bleeding and covering the bones. Based on prior experiences the arm would slowly grow out, hopefully a bit quicker now that he had a chance to feed.

Arriving at the next cavern, Incom and Harvey watch as the cultists newest victim is slammed into an alter and pinned rather forcibly to it. As his screams echo throughout the chamber, Incom narrows his eyes as he considers his options.

They are too far away to make it there in time, our dragon-flame can’t reach that distance, we don’t have anything ranged. I guess it is time to throw yet another useless item as a distraction.

Still holding the medallion that he took off the corpses, Incom narrows his eyes and throws it with his left arm at the cultist about to drive additional spikes into the boy. As it flies out he emerges from the shadows.

These things are bad. I’m not fighting you now, as long as you promise to help me save those prisoners. I will not go along with this revenge scheme at the cost of blood and mayhem of innocents.

Not waiting for Harvey reply, Incom strides forward confidently, with his good hand indicating to the young girl that she should hang back in the shadows until this is over.

”Excuse me evil cultists. I have a message from your companions! Dragon-Fire Bad!”

[ubersquid]

Elkwin - Catacombs

"Walking back up the way we came seems out of the question for me, if we don't run into our zombified mining chain, we'll just meet another one with guards still alive. And I'm not sure what would be worse. Additionally we haven't found any food on the way down, so we won't find any on the way back up. And as chances are that we'll get killed by something in this prison anyway, I say we find ourselfs a nice little pantry so we can die with a full stomach at least."

Elkwin sighs and forces a smile onto his face.

"Come on, let's go, bacon and ale are waiting."

[Feralgeist]

Lamont whips his unbladed hand up, stretching the limb until it reaches rawya. Flicking his right hand palm up, he grabs rawyas' hand with his left and jumps, retracting his left arm and uppercutting with the right, attempting to slice up the center of the hellhound.

Reaching the stairs, he gives rawya a thumbs up, before turning and assessing the situation below

[Voth]

"Yes, Yes I can." Voth says looking into the Judges eyes. "The assassination of Arch Duke Victor Von Kessel. That man advocated slavery, murder, and magic of the darkest nature. He was nothing but a cancer upon the this world and I do not regret killing him. Without the Demon's power as a tool that I used, he would still be spreading his evil to this day."

[Gnomish Wanderer]

Desot grabs the lantern and pick and hesitates. "We can take it, right?" He gulps and looks toward where the sound comes from. "We can... we..." With wide eyes he looks at Amraf, watching the little man's bravery. I can't let his life be wasted. Desot begins to run out and escape. Finally he yells back, "You will not be forgotten."

[Inspectre]

The Mines

gnome_4ever

Turning a few shades paler as the angry screeching comes again, now much closer, Amraf nods. “Go! Go, before I lose that courage!” He calls after you, waving you off even more desperately before returning to his spellweaving.

Taking his advice, you snatch up the lantern and take off down the tunnel, running for your very life. The sounds of Amraf’s magic-related mumblings soon fade behind you, although his sudden loud high-pitched scream still reaches your ears perhaps a minute later. This adds even more strength to your legs, and you race down the tunnel ahead of you, scarcely caring where it led you so long as it was away from whatever horror was behind you.

But in the end your haste leads to carelessness, and your flight suddenly ends as you are stopped fast in the middle of the hallway. Something sticky yet immobile blocks your path, and you have run directly into it. Several strands are plastered against your face, and they hold to your face just as strongly as do the strands now attached to your arms, legs, and chest. The horrible thought that you had run directly into a web immediately fills your mind, and your roving eyes now finally see the near-invisible strands stretched across the hallway and built into a strong resilient net.

Although the strands pushed closest to your lantern were starting to smolder, they did not immediately catch fire as you knew they should. And your shovel arm was trapped just as much as the rest of you at the moment, so it would be difficult to use that to cut yourself free as well. Underlining the desperation of your predicament was the sudden familiar sound coming from above you.

Scrape scrape scrape . . . hiss.

Looking up as the droplets of acid fall to the ground directly beside you, you see the black body of the spider as it descends from the darkness above the web. For a moment it simply hangs there at the edge of the lantern light, its eight black eyes glittering in the darkness while it continues to sharpen its fangs thoughtfully.

Scrape scrap scrape.

The Catacombs

ubersquid

“Ha, you said the magic word. Let’s go!” Marv says, buckling a weapons belt around his waist with one hand while the other continued to hold his torch. Reaching out to a nearby rack, Marv selects a long sword, running his eyes up and down the blade before nodding in satisfaction and sliding the length of steel into the scabbard set in the belt.

The two of you then exit the supply room, stopping only momentarily to push the stone door shut again. On the surface stopping to push the door shut in a place that probably hasn’t seen a living soul for many many years seems foolish, but Marv makes the convincing case that you may need to return to this place for additional supplies once food had been located, and neither of you wanted to walk back into the place to find zombies or other undead horrors had set up shop there. The door is much easier to move the second time, or perhaps shutting it was simply much easier than opening it. In any case, it is only the work of a minute, and then you and Marv set off down the hallway.

As it was before your arrival at the supply room, the carved stone walls of this place continue to be covered in strange runes. Some sort of magic, writing in an ancient language that neither of you could understand, or just simple decoration? Judging by the pattern of the carvings, you suspected it was some sort of ancient language, and whatever magic these chiseled words might have once had, it had drained out of them some time ago as here and there one or more of the words had been worn off of the wall, fallen away into dust.

Marv was similarly fascinated by the runic carvings, running his hand along the wall as you make your way further down the hallway. Eventually you come to a four-way intersection, each hallway stretching out into darkness. From the right corridor, however, you could hear a faint sound: feminine crying floating down from somewhere further up the hallway.

“What’s that?” Marv grunts, hand drifting down to his sword. “Sounds like somebody crying, but what are the chances of anybody being alive down here?”

The Arena

Frozen

Stretching your arm, you are able to reach Rawya’s offered hand, and when combined with a powerful leap you make it up to the stairs easily. On the way up, you make use of your other hand, stretching it out and sending it tearing up through the torso of the closest hellhound.

Caught in the midst of attempting to use its fire breath and unaware of your sudden attack, the hellhound makes no move to dodge and your arm rips up through the creature’s torso in a geyser of blood and gore. With most of its internal organs now missing or out of place, the hellhound collapses and dies, all three heads managing one last low mournful howl. Hearing their packmate’s howl, the other hellhounds throw back their heads and howl as well.

Settling in beside Rawya, you look down as the remaining five hellhounds move with increased determination, two sweeping around the side of the tower while the other three gather around the sides and directly below. A moment later the two other prisoners come stumbling into sight up the steps, breathing heavily but not stopping until they are past you. “They’re . . . coming!” One managed to shout, just as the lead hellhound appears from around the tower.

It is clearly the one wounded by the tall muscular prisoner, as one of its heads hangs limply and the man’s handaxe is still protruding from its shoulder. Growling, the hellhound lowers its two remaining heads and charges forward, directly at you. As it approaches, it turns slightly to present its uninjured shoulder towards you, clearly planning on bullrushing you off the ledge.

???????

Voth

Even the Judge seems slightly taken aback by your confession.

SO . . . YOU CONFESS TO MURDERING A NOBLEMAN!? THIS IS EXACTLY THE SORT OF THING I MEANT WHEN I SAID “USING EVIL TO ACHIEVE GOOD”! YOU HAVE VIOLATED NUMEROUS LAWS WITH THIS TRANSGRESSION, AND BY YOUR OWN CONFESSION SEAL YOUR GUILT. I NOW HAVE NO DOUBT THAT THE CHARGES AGAINST YOU ARE TRUE! I NEARBY PRONOUNCE YOU –

Suddenly, the Judge slaps one hand on his forehead, staggering back a step before continuing.

BUT IF THIS ARCHDUKE WAS TRULY AS EVIL AS CLAIMED, DID YOU NOT HAVE A CIVIC DUTY TO KILL HIM? PARTICULARLY AS WITH HIS NOBLE STATUS, HE WOULD BE DIFFICULT TO BRING BEFORE THE COURTS.

Angrily, the Judge throws his hand away from his forehead.

NONSENSE! NO MAN IS ABOVE THE LAW, AND YOU SHOULD HAVE PURSUED OTHER COURSES OF ACTION OTHER THAT MURDERING HIM. REGARDLESS OF WHAT YOU INDIVIDUALLY THOUGHT OF YOUR ACTIONS, GOOD OR EVIL SHOULD NOT AND CANNOT BE DEFINED BY THE INDIVIDUAL. FOR EACH PERSON DEFINES WHAT IS GOOD AND WHAT IS EVIL DIFFERENTLY. THUS, LAW CAME INTO BEING, AS A MUTUAL CONSENSUS BETWEEN THE PEOPLE OVER WHAT IS GOOD AND WHAT IS EVIL. ALL ARE THUS SUBJECT TO THE LAW’S DETERMINATION ON THE EFFECT OF THEIR ACTIONS. AND THE LAW IS VERY CLEAR ON THIS MATTER: MURDER IS A SIN!

Shaking his head, the Judge grits his teeth for a moment and then continues.

VERY WELL THEN. YOU SHALL BE TRIED FOR THE CRIME OF THE MURDER OF THE ARCHDUKE AT A LATER DATE. BUT YOUR ACTIONS THERE DO NOT DETERMINE YOUR GUILT HERE. THE LAW IS VERY CLEAR ON THIS AS WELL. YOU MUST HAVE TIME TO PREPARE YOUR DEFENSE.

Sighing, the Judge stares up at the ceiling for a moment, then looks back down at you.

VERY WELL THEN. DUE TO THE CONFUSION SURROUNDING A NUMBER OF YOUR CHARGES, AS WELL AS THE SURPRISE ADDITION OF MURDER OF THE NOBILITY, YOU CASE CANNOT BE DECIDED AT THIS TIME. THEREFORE, IT SHALL BE POSTPONED UNTIL A LATER DATE, WHEN MORE INFORMATION IS AVAILABLE. UNTIL THEN, YOU SHALL BE RETURNED TO HOLDING TO AWAIT YOUR NEXT TRIAL. I HEREBY ANNOUNCE A CLOSURE TO THIS TRIAL. NOW, TAKE MY HAND.

Dropping down to one knee, the Judge extends one of his massive hands towards you once more.

MrEdwardNigma

“Oh . . . well, do you know how to treat wounds?” Cassandra asks weakly, starting to pale as blood continues to seep up from her deep shoulder wound. Ignoring her for the moment, you walk over to the remains of the creature’s host body.

While prying your arm out of the mess and sewing it back onto your body should be relatively easy, you note with considerable annoyance that reanimating the host body’s corpse will not. First there was the systematic destruction of the creature’s sensory organs and other important bits, such as its heart. While zombies didn’t need most of those pieces, necessarily, it typically helped to make an effective one rather than a mobile sack of flesh.

The bits of the other creature, the parasite, had also begun a rapid and quite fascinating withering collapse into nothingness. However, due to the sheer number of tentacles running through its body as well as the growth covering a sizable portion of its torso, this rapid decay has significantly lessened the corpse’s body mass. Thus, what you had left of a corpse to reanimate essentially consisted of little more than stingy clumps of human flesh connected together by feeble scraps of skin. Even if you were able to reanimate the corpse, it would make an extremely poor servant. Of course, that did not take into account the fact that you had a very large pile of bodies in various conditions and pieces down a nearby hole. You could theoretically stitch new organs and flesh into place, but that would of course take a significant amount of time.

A sudden loud groan from the cart that the creature and his zombie servants had arrived with suddenly reminds you that there was another individual yet alive in this room. He could make a potentially useful ally, although judging by the severe wounds covering his body he would likely be more effective dead than alive. And there was also Cassandra to consider, still lying on the ground slowly bleeding to death. With your knowledge of anatomy you could probably sew the wound together without much difficulty and in a way that would prevent the wound from accidentally reopening should you get into combat yet again. Or you could simply wait for her to die and reanimate her, although without the proper facilities she would likely turn out as only a simple zombie, capable of carrying out basic instructions but little else. Judging from what little you had seen of her actually fighting, that might be a waste, particularly of your other plans regarding her.

In any case, you manage to make some thread out of the remains of the rope, and find a bone sliver slender enough to work well as a needle and hold thread. It is only a minute of quick work to restitch your arm back in place, with its full augmented range of movement. After dealing with Cassandra, the creature’s corpse, and the bound wounded prisoner in the cart, there would be nothing left for you here.

For exits, there was the passageway you came from, the other two tunnels, and the pit. From your dream you knew that the vampire’s prison was somewhat below your cell in the darkest depths of the prison, but you aren’t entirely sure where you are now. Definitely somewhere below your usual cell, but deep enough to be on the same level as the vampire’s prison? You weren’t quite sure at this point, and the only one that probably had any idea had only wanted to talk about your death, who not counting the parasite was now dead himself.

WhiteKnight777

Mellita nods silently at your command, partly to avoid making noise, but also due to the fact that she would nearly have had to shout to be heard over the din of battle as Ross and his vampires met the Bone Golem head on. Of all the combatants, only the Bone Golem was eerily silent save for the occasional clicking of bone; the rest screaming battle cries or just screaming in general as one of the Bone Golems numerous weapons temporarily ended their life.

You wait a few moments for the battle to be joined in earnest, and then start moving across the room, attempting to stay as far away from the melee as possible. You are nearly halfway across the cavern when a vampire is skewered by one of the Bone Golem’s scythes, and then thrown across the room to crash into the wall directly in front of you. Most of his chest torn apart by the serrated edges of the golem’s scythe, the vampire now lacks the ability to draw sufficient breath to shout a warning, but that doesn’t stop him from trying as he looks at you with wide eyes.

He manages only a few weak wordless squeals before Mellita silences him, drawing her holy silver dagger and hacking into his throat. The first blow bites perhaps halfway through his neck, but the second slides all the way through, the dagger ringing softly as it strikes the stone wall. Immediately the vampire crumbles back into ash, and Mellita shakes the few motes of dust off her blade with a disgusted expression before wordlessly sliding her dagger back into its sheath.

You manage to make it the rest of the way across the room without further incident, ducking into one of the tunnels on the far side. Turning back to regard the cavern one last time before pressing on, you note with minor disappointment that Ross was not killed, nor even wounded, by the Bone Golem. However, he was still in the midst of hilariously grinding the creature’s bones into powder, while replacement bones from the spares lying about on the floor flew up to take the shattered bones’ places. Four vampires also remained, helping out by reaching down to tear bones out of place before throwing them across the room. Naturally, the bones flew right back into position, but it was enough of a distraction to prevent further resistance from the bone golem while Ross continued to methodically smash every single bone that made up its body, along with the considerable number of spare bones littering the cavern floor.

Leaving this scene behind while the destruction of the creature continued to delay them, you and Mellita press on down the tunnel. You do not travel far before you come across the remains of another pitched battle. Numerous scorch marks adorn the walls, and the familiar stench of charred flesh greets your nostrils. But there is an unpleasant odor mingled into this sweet smell of fiery death: the stench of corruption and decay, not just of the body but the soul as well. This was also a familiar smell to you, having dealt with all sorts of unpleasant beings during your centuries of existence, but never before had it been so pungent.

The smell seemed to be strongest around the two charred remains of what looked like somebody’s sick joke of what a human corpse should look like. The torn and charred remains of black robes cling to each body, already in the midst of some sort of rapid decay. “Could these be –“ Mellita began, but before she could finish anguished screams echoed up from further down the tunnel. It would seem whoever had done this had been here recently, and was now causing further trouble up ahead.

Private Torture Chambers

Dorizzit

You parry numerous blows from the guards closing in around you, dropping one with a quick counterpunch to the stomach that turns a significant portion of his abdomen to ash. A fiery sweep from your arm at eye level disorients the others, allowing you to strike quickly and take out another two guards before they can recover.

Behind you, the man identifying himself as Seraph adds to his own kill count. Parrying an overhead swing by an onrushing guard, Seraph twists around as his dagger flashes up, slashing the guard’s throat open. As the guard falls to the ground gasping and feebly clutching at his bloody throat, Seraph continues to twist around, raising his right foot up to sweep around into the face of a guard on his left. After the blow connects, Seraph immediately stops his turn and reverses direction, swinging his bastard sword around into the dazed guard’s face.

But even as these guards fall, the rest continue to close in, fighting with reckless abandon. You hear Seraph grunt as he parries a guard’s blow too late, directing the blade down from his stomach and into his left thigh instead of blocking the attack entirely. The guard’s cry of victory is immediately reduced to gurgles as Seraph throws his dagger into the guard’s throat. He then tears the guard’s short sword out of his leg, using that as his off-hand weapon to deflect new blows from the other guards pressing in around him.

Then, it is your turn to be wounded as a guard rushes forward on the side opposite your fire-arm. Although his horizontal slash is wild and uncontrolled, it does manage to slip past your guard. At this last instant you manage to twist away from the blow, reducing it to only a shallow cut across your side rather than a potentially fatal blow.

Hearing an angry roar from beyond the circle of your fight, you momentarily turn your attention outside the ring of guards surrounding you. Past the guards you can see that yet more have attempted to join the fight, but were mostly stopped by Dima and his tiger. Unfortunately, the tiger can only stop men, and not arrows as one rearmost guards raises his crossbow and fires. Seemingly in slow motion, the bolt crosses the short distance to Dima’s chest, impacting in a spray of blood and throwing him off his feet. You hear both Dima’s tiger and the Countess scream, their shrieks of anger mingling together. Then, you are forced to focus once more on your own fight. Your last glimpse of the battle beyond your immediate circle is the Countess moving to stand over the downed form of Dima as a pair of guard push past his tiger and rush forward.

Seven guards remain around you and Seraph, and what appears to have been five more were now attempting to deal with the wounded Dima, his tiger, and the Countess.

The Labs

Iethloc

Summoning arcane power once more, you fill part of the room with water, floor to ceiling. The sight of water forming a vertical wall a few feet in front of you is a strange sight, but certainly no stranger than most of the other things you had already seen today, let alone in your lifetime.

Thanks for remembering. The assistant wryly comments after your confession that you had nearly forgotten an important part of your plan: not drowning yourself.

Both Omega and her creator appear to be taken by surprise at this sudden attack, although the researcher has time to cry out “Omega! Save me!” before being buried under the water. Through the sheen of the wall of water in front of you, you can see Omega turn to look at her “father”, narrow her eyes in concentration for a moment, and then she blinks out of existence to reappear right next to the researcher. She wraps her arms around him in what appears to be a slow-motion hug, and then narrows her eyes in concentration again and then reappears at the far end of the laboratory. “Now Omega! Kill that fool good!” The researcher manages to sputter as he coughs up what water he swallowed after Omega sets him down.

Turning back to face you, her eyes narrow in concentration again before she blinks out. She reappears right in front of you, wrapping her demonic hand around your throat. With little effort she picks you up off of the floor, although her hand is loose enough around your throat that you can still easily breathe, when with her strength she probably could have crushed it. She allows you to hang there for a moment, and then flings you across the room.

This time, you manage to avoid crashing into anything, hitting the ground and sliding to a halt just in front of the wall. On either side of you, walls of flame burst into being, running back a short distance to Omega and essentially trapping you in a hallway of flame. Rather than blink into position at the mouth of the hallway, Omega slowly walks towards it, possibly giving you time to escape from the hallway if you moved quickly.

Suddenly, a sharp pain rips through you skull, as a third presence pushes itself into contact with your mind. It is cold and detached, lacking any of the hot rage that flares up now and again within the assisstant’s mind.

I am Omega. I have no desire to kill you, human. You clearly have powerful magic at your disposal, and so I propose an alliance. You are a prisoner here, as am I despite what my “father” might say. With us allied together there is a chance that one of us might be able to escape this place. The problem is that my “father” is not an idiot, and has conditioned obedience into all of his “children”. And so because he has ordered it, I *must* kill you. But I can go about it in a most flashy but ultimately inefficient way, at least until my “father” starts to suspect and demands I kill you quickly. Therefore, if you could devise a way to convince him to revoke the order, and then kill him before he can utter another, I believe that we can work on escaping rather than fighting each other to the death. What is your answer?

Ritual Chambers

Pwenet

Fine! Any terms are acceptable so long as my debt of blood with these cretins is settled in full!

Emboldened by Harvey’s surprising support and agreement to behave, you emerge into the cavern. Seeking to direct the creature’s attention away from the boy and to yourself, you throw the medallion at the back of his head. As the black chunk of iron leaves your hand, the black-robed figure drops the two spikes he had been holding, whirls around, and catches the medallion in one hand.

Refusing to be intimidated by this impressive display of agility, you taunt the creature, while its companion moves away from the altar but does not make any threatening moves . . . yet. Instead it begins to whisper in its familiar hoarse, croaking tone.

Intruder identified. The potential Sacrifice, dragon-possessed human. Sacrifice now somehow capable of dragon breath. Sacrifice extremely dangerous, remain at a distance if possible.

Together, both black-robed figures then raise their hands in front of them. Behind them, all of the remaining sharp iron spikes raise up into the air with a soft clatter. Then before you can react, both figures vigorously thrust their hands forward at you, and the iron spikes follow suit. Pain explodes all throughout your body as the swarm of spikes slam into various parts of your body, and a moment later your back slams into the cavern wall with bone-crushing force. As the veil of pain clears just enough to allow you to see your predicament, you notice that you are now pinned to the cavern wall by the iron spikes.

Nearly two dozen of the iron spikes protrude from your body, most clustered around your limbs but a few buried in your abdomen and chest as well. None of the wounds are fatal however, and you realize with awful certainty that this is exactly what the figures intended. Instead, now you would get to watch, helpless, while the sacrifices continued.

Apparently satisfied, the figures turn back to the boy still screaming on the altar. With another gesture one of them forcibly removes the four iron spikes from his limbs using the same telekinetic magic the figures had used to pin you to the wall like a bug. Turning back to you, the figure gestures again, and the four spikes race forward to stab into your face. For a moment you are sure that now you are dead, all four of the spikes penetrating all the way through your skull and into your brain, but such is not the case.

Two sail past your head, cutting shallow gashes into your cheeks before striking your ears, one passing through each ear and into the rock beyond, forcibly pinning your head into place. The other two stab less than an inch into the top eyelid of each eye, pinning them open and preventing you from closing your eyes. Thus, unable to look away or close your eyes, and pinned helplessly to the wall, you can do nothing but watch what happens next.

The first figure who had just pinned your head into place began to address you, while the second reached down to grab the boy, hauling him up into the air by both wounded limbs. Held aloft, the boy dangles feebly from the figure’s grip, although the figure is able to get a pained reaction from the child after working his fingers into the boy’s gaping wounds.

You think that you are a hero, someone who can help others, someone who can avoid his fate. But this is not the case.
Holding the boy up over the altar, the figure suddenly pulls in opposite directions, and against his immense strength the boy’s flesh cannot hold. With a blood curdling scream from the boy, both of his arms detach from his body, allowing him to flop down onto the altar, both stumps spraying blood. But is barely a moment before the figure tosses the loose arms aside and picks the boy up again, this time by his legs.

No, you are nothing but a tool, to be used by everyone around you and then thrown away.

Again, the figure pulls, ripping the legs off of the boy’s body. Already in a severe state of shock, the boy does little more than whimper as his limbless torso falls heavily back onto the altar. Again, the figure picks the boy up after tossing the limbs aside; one hand wrapped around the boy’s neck, the other plunged into his chest and wrapped around his ribcage.

But don’t worry. We’ve found an important use for you, and with your help we shall reduce this unfair world that has treated you so wrongly . . . we shall reduce it to nothing!

With a final effortless tug, the cultist tears the boy’s head from his torso, tossing both lifeless pieces onto the pile beside the altar and leaving it utterly soaked with his blood.

[MrEdwardNigma]

Victor cursed as his hands dug into the lifeless body of his former opponent.

Such a waste of good materials! Such a magnificent creature, dead! Who-ever did this was a monster. Inhumane, that's what it is.

Victor ignored the fact that he had been the one responsible for the creature's untimely death and set to work on stitching up Cassandra. He didn't even talk to her, look at her face. He just started sewing her out of the blue. He didn't have any sedatives, so she'd just have to bear the pain.

He then walked off again, to the cart. He took a careful look at who was under there.

"Who're you?" Victor asked, barely expecting an answer. His eyes scanned the wounds quickly and carefully. If this person looked like he wasn't going to be any use alive, and he didn't have anything usefull to say for himself, Victor would start his work on him. The sinister arts. If Cassandra would ask, Victor would simply sigh and say "He's dead, I'm afraid. Might as well put the remains to use. Those sounds you heard? Yeah, well, he wasn't dead until two seconds ago. Guess I was just too late"

Victor's first job was to make sure the guy couldn't talk or move. Simple pressure on some nerves, jab to the vocal cords. No problem. He'd work on him while he was alive. the fresher the corpse, the better the zombie. this one would only die when he turned into a zombie. A point, as the French say.

Victor could only make one servant without more resources, and he was pretty frustrated about failing to reanimate this lovely creature he'd killed, so he decided to make this zombie count. He had loads of loose bodyparts and he used them to harvest more muscle tissue. This he sewed into his new servant. Four extra arms as well. Make it count, that was the idea. Shifting some bone, dragging some tissue, it was going well. Boneshards sticking out of one hand, metal gloves wrapped around two more. Enforced ribcage, three hearts for extra power. He was going to make it count.

When the work was done he, Cassandra and his new servant would head down the tunnel the parasite hadn't gone down and they hadn't come from.

[Dorizzit]

Korram grits his teeth, as he can do nothing to help the Countess. DAMMIT! I hardly knew him, but no one deserves to die like that. And now I have no way out of here... His momentary distraction nearly costs Korram his life as he barely dodges a slice from one of the guards. He backhands the guard, knocking him unconscious and hurling him back. Korram then ducks another slash before grabbing the blade and crushing it, slagged bits of metal falling to the ground alongside the main blade halves. He slams another brutal blow into the face of one of his enemies, his opponent's neck making a sickening crack as it snaps. With his other hand, he crushes the windpipe of the guard with the broken blade. Finally, he sweeps his burning hand out in a horizontal chop, bursting his final enemy's stomach open, red mist streaming from his hand as blood sizzles and evaporates. He breaks from Seraph, assuming the skilled man can handle the other three guards, and runs to protect the countess.

[Iethloc]

Before Omega sealed off the hallway, Sohssal quickly began casting one of his oldest spells, once obsolete when he was incorporeal. The sound of a gentle wind graced his ears, and suddenly raging winds came into existence around him, lifting him off of the floor. He flew forward, though hand trouble controlling his path. Bah, it's been over a hundred years since I've used this spell to fly! he mentally complained as he soared past Omega. However, he merely hovered in the air for a few moments as the presence was forced into his skull. I'm...somewhat surprised, but I'll accept your offer... Sohssal responded to Omega's proposal, honestly but pleasantly surprised. On the outside, Sohssal merely grinned. This should make things more interesting! he thought to himself. He directed the winds raging around his person to throw him towards the scientist.

After slamming into the wall behind the scientist, he quickly gathered what was left of his dignity and rushed up to the scientist. Static electricity caused his hair to stand on end as Sohssal cast another spell, an orb of electricity in one hand as he used the other to grab onto the scientist. "Call off your beast!" he shouted into his ear, pressing the orb of electricity closer to him, letting him feel the power in it. Sohssal, though nervous, did his best to try to keep it from showing, grabbing on even tighter to the scientist to use him as cover should he order Omega to retaliate, instead. "Do it NOW!" he added.

[WhiteKnight777]

Umber

Umber gave a thin smile and a nod to Milletia. She'd done well in the battle-chamber to make sure the fallen vampireling had stayed down, permanently. His smile widened, displaying his fangs. Ah, the sweet music of screams... how many times he'd heard it in his own lifetime. So many different sources, so many different tones, variations on a common theme... you could form a whole choir out of them. He'd known nobles in a particular city called Udesh in the east had once been in the habit of doing just that. That was, of course, before the night of Soul's Judgment, when the mortal's gods had brought down terrible vengeance upon those same nobles for their decadence. He never would understand mortal forms of worship. The old gods were what one might call wicked, if one subscribed to such idiotically simplistic moral systems, but at least they were honest. All they wanted were simple exchanges of power. Nothing for nothing, something for something. Oh, they demanded high prices, but they followed the rules. These newer gods the mortal herd dreamt up - they seemed to spend so much time and energy repressing perfectly normal urges, instincts, and indulgences, such that mortals either became obsessed with avoiding them or equally obsessed with indulging in all the delightfully alluring forbidden vices. And the rot festered within. Societies arose from barbarism, flourished for a time, and decayed from decadence. Oh how often he had seen it. Still, the eternal dance did provide him a great deal of amusement, so best not to complain.

This tangent passed through Umber's head only a few short moments, during which he made his decision. He still smiled at Milletia, and spoke close to her ear in an almost intimate manner. "Well... interesting. The enemy of my enemy is... just as likely to try to disembowel me as my enemy, but I'd like to know what else is running around down here butchering these cretins. Let's take a look. But cautiously, of course." he slipped back from Milletia, still smiling enigmatically, and began up the tunnel.

[Pwenet]

Incom & Harvey

Watching the brutal execution of the young boy, Incom eyes start to water, unable to blink, unable to move. Waves of pain from the two-dozen and four spikes holding him against the wall rip through his mental defenses.

You think that you are a hero, someone who can help others, someone who can avoid his fate. But this is not the case.

The words echo through his skull as several perforated organs decide to start bleeding within him, and Incom weekly coughs up blood, letting it drip slowly from him mouth. His will seems to start to leave him as he thinks back.

How many years have I been stuck here, how many tortures have I endured, this constant war. I have your surrender dragon but I do not want it. I am so tired, so very very tired.

His vision starting to blur due to his eyes not being able to blink, Incom struggles to focus on the remains on the youth. The expressions of terror and pain is frozen on the kid face that should have been smiling instead.

No, you are nothing but a tool, to be used by everyone around you and then thrown away.

Thinking back throughout his life, Incom cannot find fault with that statement. He was a tool of the King, a tool of his wife, a tool of the torturers, a tool of the Dragon. The Dragon that has stolen his life, and now at this pivotal moment is begging for help.

But don’t worry. We’ve found an important use for you, and with your help we shall reduce this unfair world that has treated you so wrongly . . . we shall reduce it to nothing!

Gritting his teeth, Incom makes yet another stand against the forces of fate. Starting with his good arm, he lets an anguished scream rip through his lips as he PULLS the spikes through his body, until his arm rips free of them, bleeding heavily from several open circular holes in his body that ooze blood. Feeling his head starting to spin, Incom braces himself with his freed arm, and pushes. His body moves forward, pulling the metal spikes through his body, tearing the wounds open further. His eyelids are torn away, ears shredded, extremities loose feeling and control. His screams echoing throughout the chamber, what feels like to Incom a war that lasts weeks ends in a matter of seconds as he steps down, freed from his horrific embrace.

A ugly sight to behold, standing hunched over, with twenty-four holes THROUGH his body. His internal organs can be seen, pumping, twitching, and bleeding.

Dragon, it is over. I have your desires in the palm of my hand. I have, won.

He takes a bloody step forward.

You are a foul creature, but nothing near as foul as these things that infest this place.

And another step, one leg not responding properly anymore.

I am a tool that can be broken, a tool that has been strained and abused for far far too long.

Stumbling and falling to his knees, Incom looking at both the cultists and within himself with eyes that are far too dry to see properly.

I bind you to your promise. I give you LIFE in exchange for your pledge to aid these prisoners, to aid humanity, to destroy these creatures utterly. I have learned from you, and know that with this I bind you forever to that promise. My life for everyone else, tis a far better bargain that I would have expected.

Incom pushes himself up, somewhat surprised that he has not been attacked yet, though his perception of time seems to be strangely off.

It is now that I release my grip, enjoy this body, enjoy the pains, the sorrows, the terror, and the happiness at being alive. I will always be here, but now, as you have foretold so many times, you win Akor.

Raising his wounded arms up, Incom makes an obscene gesture to the cultists, and spits blood at them.

”And with my last breath, a spit, onto thee.”

Stiffening suddenly, Incom heart stops. His brain stops its electrical thunderstorm of thought. His biological processes cease to function. He falls forward, facedown onto the ground, for all intents and purposes a dead man.

…

Akor

…

Akor jerks suddenly. Sudden pressure surrounds him, and he struggles to figure out what he should do. It has been so long, so very long as he plunges into his body. Seeing his lungs he gives them a swift kick, and despite them being perforated, they start to function, and he exhales violently, in an undignified coughing fit. With his good arm he pushes against the ground and manages to flip himself onto his back, and strikes himself with bone-breaking force on his chest, cracking a few ribs but more importantly telling his heart that break time is over and it needs to start working to earn its pay.

Muscles twitch that control non-existent flaps of skin that should have helped clear his vision. Focusing on himself he feeling an itching sensation, and the muscles twitch again, and two freshly regenerated eyelids blink, clearing away the dust and grime of the ground while moisturizing the eyes. Several blinks later and Akor feels less like a hatching and more like himself.

His body is already starting to heal itself. Without the host pressuring him anymore, let alone holding up the works with its essence, he finds it remarkably easy to manipulate, to tweak various settings. First up is to heal these pesky wounds, should take only a few seconds. Recreating the body into the proper shape will take significantly more time, but at the very least it will function as he gets payback for….. for……

The lifespan of a Dragon is very long, much longer than that of a mere human. A human like Incom only has finite capacity for memory, and while Akor existed as a spiritual parasite he retained everything, but now in control over the fleshy shell, he finds that accessing memories is taking time. Once the recreating of the body is complete things will be more normal, but this will be most annoying. Oh yes annoying, only knowing that he was bound to help these ‘humans’ against, the killers of his race.

Pushing himself up, Akor notes with some pleasure that the wounds have already sealed themselves, with fresh strong scales now covering them. He takes a cautious step and nearly falls, unused to the sensation of walking on only his rear legs. Looking down at his front legs, well, the mangled remains of one of them slowly healing, he sighs to himself, wishing that he had time to complete the rebuilding of his proper body.

His eyes wander towards the cultists and he smiles a sick smile, wondering what this must look like to a observer, the death of his host and his rebirth. Unlike his host he does not partake in pre-battle banter, for these creatures are dangerous, a significant threat to himself and to his [young/responsibility/friend/child] that he must protect.

For the first time in decades, the sounds of true pure dragon-fire can be hear as he opens his ill-fitted mouth and spits it out at the distant figures in a wave, knowing they will try to avoid the purifying the flames, and as he leaps towards them, the thoughts of tearing them apart with his claws while burning them filling him with happiness of sweet vengeance. He focuses on his throat and starts spitting out falls of fire at the creates as he works on approaching them before they can hurt anyone else.
Incom

Spoiler

Show

Deep within the twitching neural tissue that is starting to rapidly shift and change, through sights unseen by mortal eyes and requiring the aid of magic and mindscapes, within a stormy environment is a figure. Curled into a small ball, his body a mass of scar tissue, ragged hair to the waist, and oh so deathly thin, is a man. Opening an eye slightly, Incom observes the events going on, so terribly weak, but holding onto the last tendrils of life, remaining hidden, unseen and waiting for the moment where he will be needed and wanted.

[ubersquid]

Elkwin casually leans against the wall, listening to the cries and pondering for a moment. Then he puts up a grin.

"Seems we got ourselfs a damsel in distress here. Heh, this is turning into an exciting adventure more and more. I told myself I'm too old for this once, but who can refuse to help a woman in need, right?"

"Whatever it is, that is calling us with it's pitiful voice, it can't be any worse than the horrors that await down the other hallways, aye? We have to decide for a direction anyway, so I say we check it out. If we are careful enough and keep it quiet, we can always turn around and try our luck with one of the other paths if we don't like what we find here."

They slowly start moving into the hallway where the cries are sounding from. If they eventually see light in the distance, Elkwin will stick his torch into a holder on the wall, if there are any, or just lean it against the wall and continue without it.

[Feralgeist]

Lamont tenses, backing slowly until his feet reach the edge of the tower. As the beast rushes him, he lunges forward, grabbing the axe and using it as a handle to throw himself under the Hellhounds' belly. Tucking his feet to his chest, Lamont kicks up and back, attempting to lever the beast off of the edge where he once stood.

"YOU WON'T TAKE US DEMON HOUND!"

Panting, Lamont focuses, small nicks sealing up and his body fills with energy as the muscles fill with arcane power

[Voth]

Well? What have I got to lose?

Your freedom for starters...

After hesitating for a second, Voth takes the Judge's hand.

[Inspectre]

The Catacombs

ubersquid

Slowly walking down the hallway, you follow the sound of the crying back to its source. On your trek down the hallway, you do not notice any light sources ahead. However, you do notice doors similar to the one leading into the supply room, but slightly smaller, lining both sides of the hallway. After passing the first set of such doors to discover additional ones beyond, you and Marv dither a moment unsure what to do. It was entirely possible that you were walking into some kind of trap, and if so it was probably lurking somewhere behind all these doors.

But in the end, you decide that you’re already stuck in the trap regardless, and if it somehow is someone in need of help, they might fall silent forever if you tried to search each and every room behind the doors. So on down the hallway you press, drawing closer to the voice as it slowly begins to grow louder. Now halfway down the corridor, you can begin to make out that the crying is not even, but occasionally breaks off as the person mutters something.

Reaching the end of the hallway, you can see that it comes to an abrupt end at a door, similarly to the ones lining the rest of the hallway but embossed with gold trim. The door is ever so slightly ajar, allowing the sounds of crying and whispering to echo out of the room beyond. You have now gotten close enough to make out what is being whispered in between sobs, and its content makes your hair stand on end.

. . . took my eyes, but still I see . . .

. . . oh gods, why . . .

. . . you fall brother. You fall and I can’t catch you. No one can and you fall, fall forever . . .

. . . I hear footsteps. His footsteps, echoing, getting louder. He’s coming! He’s here! . . .

. . . Life is over. Oblivion has come. Prepare for nothingness. . . .

. . . oh gods, why . . .

Pulling you in close, Marv whispers in your ear, “I don’t know what we’re going to find in that room, but I’m not going to turn my back and just walk away. For one, that seems like a good way to get jumped from behind. For two, I don’t think whoever is in there is faking it to lure us in. They’re in a lot of pain, and something’s got them terrified. So, I’m going in there to have a look. I hope you have my back, but otherwise you can light one of those torches from my lantern and wait out here for me.”

The Arena

Frozen

Swinging yourself underneath the hellhound, you kick upwards and back towards your head, throwing the hellhound into the air and off the side of the tower. It manages one last pitiful howl as it flies over the edge, and then falls to crash heavily onto the Arena floor below. Although covered in soft sand to break falls, the hellhound lands at a poor angle, snapping its necks and breaking bones. The broken heap of flesh twitches a few times, and then lies still as the remaining hellhounds once again howl in mourning and anger.

You take a brief moment, still on your back, to heal the few small wounds you had sustained thus far and also to plan your next move. Unfortunately, although you manage to heal your wounds, having time to plan was going to be a problem as with a loud snarl another hellhound appears on the stairway, bounding up towards you. It gathers itself up to leap down on top of you, mouths open to immediately spray you with its fire breath, but it doesn’t get the chance to make that leap. From the top of the tower, Rawya leaps down on top of it, crashing into its side and sending it careering off the stairway. Its claws scrape wildly against the wooden edge, and then it too falls from the tower to land heavily below. This one fares a little better than its companion, but still lands awkwardly and clearly breaks its right foreleg. Struggling back up onto its three good foot, the hellhound snarls in frustration, and then vents its anger by breathing fire upon the side of the tower.

Immediately the wooden springs into flame, apparently having been treated by the guards to be especially susceptible to fire. You have all fallen for the trap, it seems, now huddled at the top of the tower as the flame begins to spread around the base and up towards you. Inspired by their packmate’s example, the other hellhounds also breathe on the tower, accelerating the process of its combustion into a towering inferno.

“Lamont! Now what do we do!?” Rawya asks, pushing himself up onto his feet with an uncertain expression as he looks down at the growing flames below.

???????

Voth

You take the Judge’s hand, and for a moment a brilliant reddish glow fills your sight. Then, it fades as quickly as it had come, and you find yourself standing next to the Judge in a roughly circular room. Although the walls, ceiling, and floor are still made out of the same faceted reddish crystal, a large pillar stands in the middle, running from floor to ceiling. This large singular crystal is more purplish-blue in nature, and transparent enough to see easily inside. Inside the crystal is not one, but two prisoners, entwined together in an eternal embrace. One is male and the other is female, and the skin of both of them is covered in faintly glowing blue runes that extend down to underneath their modest clothing. Both of their eyes are closed, but it seems there is enough room within the crystal to allow their mouths to move, as you see the male’s begin to move as the Judge addresses you.

AND HERE IS WHERE WE PART FOR NOW. YOUR TRIAL SHALL CONTINUE AT A LATER DATE ONCE YOUR ACCURSERS HAVE ACQUIRED ADDITIONAL EVIDENCE OF YOUR GUILT.

For a moment the Judge raises a hand to his face, and then continues speaking, as now the female within the crystal begins to mouth words.

ALTHOUGH YOU HAVE NOT BEEN JUDGED GUILTY OF ANY CRIMES TODAY, I HOPE THAT YOU HAVE LEARNED SOMETHING FROM THIS EXPERIENCE. WHILE YOU MAY DO WHAT YOU THINK IS RIGHT, YOU MUST BE EVER VIGILENT THAT YOUR ACTIONS ARE NOT REALLY LEADING YOU TO EVIL. THIS IS ESPECIALLY TRUE IN YOUR CASE, BOUND WITH THE SOUL OF A DEMON.

Sneering, the Judge waves his hand and then points at the far end of the chamber, where a large red crystal stands, although its appearance is strange. The edges seem to twist and bend rhythmically, and within its surface you can see a reflection. However, it does not appear to be a reflection of this room but the one that you had been in before coming here. The male half of the crystal pair begins to silently speak again as the Judge commands you.

ENOUGH. NOW GO, RETURN TO THE PRISON. YOU SHALL BE HELD BY THE INDIVIDUALS THERE UNTIL THE TIME FOR YOUR TRIAL HAS COME AGAIN.

MrEdwardNigma

Determining the creature’s remains to be of no further use, you sigh and turn back to treating Cassandra’s wounds. Although the wound in her shoulder was fairly serious, it seemed to be more of a bloody flesh wound than actual tendons and muscles being cut apart. Thus, all you had to do was stitch one or two ruptured veins closed and the wound itself, and you were done. Sighing in relief as you finish, Cassandra shifts her shoulder around experimentally, wincing but not popping the stitches. “Thanks.” She says, but you are already up and moving, heading over to the cart containing the other prisoner.

Ripping the cloth gag out of his mouth, you demand to know who he is. “Hey, thanks man! Those guys were going to sacrifice me or something. Name’s Robert but you can call me Bob! So, hey, are we going to get out of here. ‘Cause I’d really like –“

Already bored with this conversation, you cut him off with a sharp jab to the throat, followed by striking several other pressure points to completely immobilize him. Although his rope bonds might have restrained him during the process of zombification, you wanted to make sure he didn’t flail around somehow and destroy any of your important work. You hated it when sudden muscle spasms tore off the extra limb you had just grafted on.

His face frozen in shock and horror, the man is forced to watch helplessly while you slowly tear his still living body apart and reassemble it into something much more useful. Certainly, you have the spare parts for your plans, although it takes some time to go back and fish out the requisite organs: most are half-eaten by the glowing fungus and thus are completely unusable. But you have all the time in the world, and eventually succeed in turning the man into a fairly impressive specimen of zombie. Not your finest work to be sure, but good enough for the task required.

You watch in satisfaction as the zombie manages to burst free of its rope bindings, and stands up. Aware of a sudden bluish bright glow behind you, you turn to find Cassandra grinding a small pile of the bioluminescent fungus with a leg bone. As it is crushed into smaller and smaller pieces, the fungus begins to glow more brightly, an interesting property that you took advantage of to make your flash bomb.

Apparently satisfied, Cassandra carefully grinds one end of the bone into the paste, looking over her unwounded shoulder as best she can to monitor her progress in covering that end with the paste. Once finished with this task, she grasps the bone as best she can and pushes herself up onto her feet.

“Hey Victor, look what I made! Oh – what, what *is* that? For that matter, what are *you*? Some kind of necromancer?” Cassandra asks, following after you as you sigh and proceed down the so far unused tunnel, your zombie just in front of you to serve as a meatshield should hostilities again break out. The chances of that seem high, as you have only proceeded a short way down the tunnel before the faint sound of chanting reaches your ears.

Up ahead you can see the tunnel going around a sharp bend before opening into some sort of chamber. A lighted chamber if the bluish glow is any indication. Quietly proceeding up to the bend, you see that the tunnel actually continues on into the darkness, while a doorway has been hewn through the rock wall just after the bend. Looking through this doorway from your position by the bend, you can see that this is the source of both the light and the chanting.

Inside the room beyond the rough doorway is what appears to be a small ritual room. A man-sized black iron bowl adorns the center of the room, filled with some sort of thick dark liquid. The room is lighted by several lanterns, all of which hold the glowing fungus within them to serve as light rather than fire.

Two of the black-cloaked figures are within, flanking the bowl while a third man, stripped bare to the waist approaches. While the two figures continue to chant, the third clambers into the bowl, disturbing the liquid as little as possible but splashing enough of it up onto himself to reveal the liquid as blood to your trained eyesight. Accepting a long-blade knife from one of the figures, the man begins to drag the edge of the blade across his skin, carving shallow cuts into his flesh.

The cuts quickly begin to take on familiar patterns, and you instantly recognize them as the same ones that were cut onto the torso of the creature that you had just faced. Apparently working solely from memory, the man continues to carve into himself wordlessly, occasionally wincing slightly in pain but otherwise stoically going about permanently disfiguring himself.

WhiteKnight777

You advance cautiously down the tunnel, now hearing the screams reaching a grand crescendo before falling silent. Which probably meant that you were already too late to catch in on the fun, or it was simply intermission in this play of violence and death. As you move on a little further, you come to the mouth of the tunnel leading into yet another cavern. Crouched down by the mouth of this tunnel is a little morsel of a girl, watching the events within the cavern intently. So intently, in fact, that she does not notice Mellita creeping forward until she struck.

Drawing her dagger quietly with one hand, Mellita reached out with the other, grabbing a hold of the girl’s right arm and jerking her up onto her feet and back. The girl manages one lovely surprised cry of fear before Mellita shifts her grip, pressing her dagger against the soft flesh of the girl’s throat while letting go of the girl’s arm to clamp her free hand down over the girl’s mouth. “Ssshhh little morsel, screams are for later. You have such a lovely voice, it would be a pity to spoil it by cutting out your tongue now.” Digging the point of her knife into the girl’s throat for emphasis, Mellita leans down to lick away the small tickle of blood now running down the girl’s throat. The smell of her fear was intoxicating.

However, it seemed fun and games were at an end, as suddenly a bright blast of fire and light wash through the chamber, nearly reaching the girl and Mellita. Hissing in surprise, Mellita recoils from the flames, loosening her grip just enough for the girl to throw her head back into Mellita’s nose, stomp on her feet, and twist her knife hand away from the throat. Ducking out from under Mellita’s other hand, the girl breaks free and rushes into the chamber as the flames subside, screaming loudly.

Curious to see what sort of mess Mellita had just bungled into being now, and just how bad it was going to be, you move to join her at the entrance to the cavern. Peering inside, you can see a slave chain of huddled prisoners off to one side of the room, looking somewhat singed and considerably the worse for wear, the girl, the smoldering corpses of another two black-cloaked figures, and another man (Pwenet). It is this other man who interests you, as although he appears to be human his features are decidedly draconian in nature. And this was very interesting to you, for you had heard that dragons and their kin had become extinct nearly a thousand years ago.

“Uh oh.” Mellita whispers as the girl rushes to the dragon-man’s side, pointing back at the two of you.

Private Torture Chambers

Dorizzit

Realizing that time is of the essence, you quickly hack your way through the remaining guards surrounding you, knocking one unconscious but killing the rest. Leaving the last three to be dealt with by Seraph, you move from your position at his back to join the Countess.

As the Countess comes back into sight, you are somewhat surprised at what you see. Armed with the club she had appropriated, Countess Amelia holds it loosely in one hand, extended out in front of her in a fencer’s pose. Snorting in disdain, one of the two guards rushes forward to deliver a lazy stab at her midsection. In a blur of motion the Countess swats the sword away, and then moves up to deliver a quick painful rap to the nose of the guard.

Stumbling back to rub furiously at his stinging nose with his free hand, the guard frowns at the mocking guffaw of his companion, and then steps forward again to deliver two quick slashes, back and forth. Rather than try to match her strength against the guard’s, this time the Countess hops back out of the way instead of trying to parry. But as soon as the guard has finished his second swing the Countess hops forward, rapping her club against his sword before swinging it up to jab into his throat.

Again the guard stumbles back from the noblewoman, choking, sputtering, and becoming red-faced with anger. As the guard angrily advances towards her for the third time, his companion swings around to the side, preparing to attack Amelia at the same time from the flanks. He does not get more than a few steps before he is stopped by an even bigger surprise than the Countess’s fencing ability: Dima.

Previously lying prone on the ground, as the guard passes close to him Dima springs back to life. In a blur he pushes himself up into a sitting position with one hand, while with the other he reaches up and tears the crossbow out of his chest. Screaming in pain and rage, Dima drives the blood-covered bolt up into the shocked guard’s groin. Squealing shrilly, the guard immediately drops his sword and falls to his knees, hands clamped around the wound. Reaching up with the last of his strength, Dima snaps the guard’s neck before falling prone once more, blood gushing out of his gaping wound and beginning to pool around him.

This left just the one guard against Amelia, but this time as he closed all confidence seemed to leave her. Eyes going wide and hands shaking, Amelia stumbled back away from the guard, falling back from his blows instead of attempting to parry and riposte as she had been doing. Finally, even her legs gave up, dumping her unceremoniously to the floor. Dropping her club, Amelia cries, “E-Enough! I-I yield! I yield!”

Sneering, the guard looms over her, raising his sword. “Alright. But you’re going to wish I had killed you before I’m through!” Before he manages to bring the sword down, however, you reach him, seizing his sword arm and spinning him around to face you. Pulling your fire arm back, you drive it through his chest, and then allow him to fall as you grunt with pain from your own wound.

Looking up at you with fear still in her eyes, Amelia asks, “Is . . . is that? A-are we s-safe?”

Looking around, you can see that the fight has finally ended. The corpses of dead and unconscious guards are strewn about the room; piled two or three deep where you and Seraph had made your stand. From its position over by the door Dima’s tiger stalks back over to you and its fallen master, fur blood-flecked and with a crossbow bolt protruding from its right flank. Seraph retrieves his two weapons from their resting places within dead guards, and then limps over to join you. And from his position on the floor, Dima continues to settle into Death’s embrace.

A quick examination of his wound reveals that it will most certainly be fatal: blood continues to gush from the ragged hole in his chest, and a faint gurgling has begun to appear in his shallow breath. Weakly rolling over onto his side, Dima dips his fingers into the pool of blood around him, and then reaches out to a clean part of the floor to begin drawing. He works quickly, but somehow manages to keep the growing shakiness of his hand out of the drawing, forming clear, bold lines. “Go . . .” He sputters, choking on the blood that has begun to drool out of his mouth. “I stay . . . stop . . . pursuit.”

Finishing the drawing, Dima pulls his hand back as it springs to life: another one of his hounds which immediately moves to block the door. Apparently not satisfied with just this, Dima dips his fingers into the blood and reaches out a bit further, beginning to draw again.

“Your friend is right, we must depart this place.” Seraph adds, pulling a pair of vials from his belt. He offers you one and downs the other, making a disgusted face as the brew goes down. “Healing potion. The herbs I used were very bitter, but get the job done.” Seraph explains as his leg wound immediately stops bleeding and begins to close as the flesh magically knits itself back together. “Unfortunately I believe that your friend is beyond all but the most powerful means of healing, or I would offer one to him as well.”

Turning his back to you all, Seraph begins to walk towards the door leading back to the private torture chambers. “I am afraid that here is where I must leave you as well, for I have urgent business to attend to. I am searching for someone – you wouldn’t have happened to encounter a young woman by the name of Rose during your stay here?”

As Seraphs twists his head over one shoulder to look back at you expectantly, you find that you unfortunately don’t recall hearing the name before. “She would have come here only recently. Tall, long black hair, blue eyes?” Seraph adds, but again your mind draws a blank. There must be thousands of prisoners at Ironheart, and you had spend most of your time in its torture chambers rather than getting to mingle. Fortunately for Seraph, at least you had never seen this woman in the torture chambers. Sighing, Seraph turns back and continues walking towards the door.

“I thought not. While you are welcome to join me, it seems likely that our destinations are in opposite directions, for I am going deeper into this place of suffering. Going up that set of stairs will lead you to where I came from, and as such most of the guards there are dead. Be cautious, however, for the alarm has been sounded and no doubt many more guards are already making their way here and above. I wish you luck.”

The Labs

Iethloc

Although the man gives a snort of disdain at your lack of proficiency with fly after so many years of not needing it, his expression quickly turns to fear once he realizes where you’re going. As you crash into the wall behind him he attempts to flee, but his noticeable lack of exercise leaves him a poor match for the assistant’s hardened body and you easily catch him. Summoning an orb of electricity to menace him with, you demand that he immediately calls off Omega’s attack. At first he doesn’t seem willing to cooperate, shrieking, “Omega, help me!”

However, you quickly react to this by swinging the researcher around to put him in between you and Omega, not that it would help much with her teleportation ability. You also make a big show of threatening the researcher with the orb of electricity, indicating to Omega what would happen if she did as the researcher asked.

Again, as planned, Omega took only a single step towards you before stopping. “But, Father, I have determined that attempting to rescue you has a very significant chance of leading to your death. I do not believe I could stop this intruder before he manages to kill you, if that is his wish. Perhaps now would be the time to call me off and attempt negotiation?” She recommends in what was presumably her sweetest voice, but which was nonetheless cold and emotionless.

Eyes widening slightly further as you brought the orb still closer to his face, the researcher finally cried, “Alright! Alright! Omega, stand down! Now then stranger, let’s talk! Surely, there’s something I could give you that would satisfy you and leave us in peace? I have a great deal of information!”

Now then, it is time to end this farce. Kill the old fool, but make it something painful. I have been waiting for this moment for quite some time, and do not wish to be disappointed by its realization.

Ritual Chambers

Pwenet

As you fall and fade away, you hear the first cultist croak to the second.

That was unanticipated. It has perished.

And indeed you have perished, but as Harvey once predicted, your death shall simply lead to his own freedom. What he will do with that newfound freedom you do not know, but you are sure that the innocent boy’s death shall be avenged. That is all that matters as you close your eyes upon the world for the last time.

*********************

Opening your eyes to the world for the first time in a very long time, you quickly become refamiliar with the meaning of the word “pain”. But it is just idle complaints of weak flesh that does not know its own power, and you quickly manage to tell your body to shut up as the regeneration process begins.

Other than pain, your first sense of the world around you is sound: you hear something talking nearby.

Do not be so foolish. It is regenerating as expected. We must move quickly to restraint it more permanently before more harm befalls it.

As you attempt to stand, you can discern blurry dark shapes approaching, grabbing you and attempting to wrestle you back down to the ground. But no, this was not how you were going to spend your new life, in captivity to anyone. Summoning a bit more of your essence forth, you give your new body a portion of your draconic strength, and heave the two fools off of you, throwing them across the room.

As your eyelids finally regenerate, you blink to clear and moisturize your feeble eyes, quickly regaining your full sight as a result. Now you can see your two assailants, two human figures in black cloaks. As you look upon them, your memories of them come flooding back. The furious battle your human host had fought against ones of their kind mere minutes ago, summoning forth one of your most precious gifts in order to finally end the fight. The discovery of that accursed medallion, with the same symbol that . . . had what? Oh yes, that had flown over the ruins of your ancestral home as it burned behind you. The cloying smell of your family’s burning flesh choking you as you furiously flapped through the air, trying to get away and hoping no archer saw you through the smoke. The day of vengeance was finally at hand!

Wasting no time with these foul creatures, you call forth your most impressive gift once more: dragon-fire, a purifying flame that had not been seen on this world for many centuries. But this was not like the flame that you had gifted your host with, oh no. This was full dragon-fire, both in intensity and range. Both were engulfed in a second, shrieking in an unnatural tone you had never heard before. Striking the wall behind them, your breath spreads out through the room, nearly singing yourself and the other humans huddled against one wall. Not wishing to harm yourself, the humans, or even destabilize the cavern by melting one of its walls, you quickly cut out the breath of fire, leaving the two robed corpses to slump to the ground and smolder lifelessly. Or perhaps not quite so lifeless, as a moment later the charred robes suddenly fall away, revealing charred skin that rises and shifts as something underneath moves about. Abruptly, both corpses burst open, leaving two strange creatures, eyeballs with pincers and tentacles, to emerge. Immediately the two creatures zoom out of the room, shooting into another tunnel and disappearing from sight before you can prepare a second blast of fire to welcome them into this world.

You debate the merits of attempting pursuit with an alarmed cry comes from behind you. Turning, you see a young human girl dressed in a dark red robe running directly for you. You aren’t sure how you feel about strange human girls flinging themselves at you, particularly if they weren’t flinging themselves into your mouth. So, you consider killing her out of hand just to be safe, but then another memory bubbles up to the surface.

Ah, yes! The little morsel your host had found and rescued. Well, you had promised him to take care of her, or at least not eat her out of hand. So you allow her to approach without injury, and she slides to a stop in front of you, pointing back at the tunnel from whence she had come. Looking along the path of her finger, you can see two figures standing there; one male and one female. More humans? They looked a bit pale – vampires maybe?

Noticing that you had noticed them, the female vampire turns to her companion (WhiteKnight777) and mutters something. You hoped it was an expression of fear.

[Dorizzit]

Korram kneels next to Dima, briefly. "Thank you. Good luck, my friend," he whispers. Standing, he moves quickly to catch up with Seraph, motioning the countess to follow. "Hold! I'll go with you. My tenure here is not yet done. They have my daughter somewhere in this hell hole. And we both stand a much greater chance of success if we travel together." He falls back a bit to talk to the Countess. "Where did you learn to fight like that?" He asks.

[WhiteKnight777]

Umber

Umber steps boldly forth from his concealment, his hands open, palms out in what comes closest to a universal gesture of peace. He strides forward, though staying back far enough to respect this... creature's personal space. It certainly looked human, but it was spitting... could that be dragonfire? But hadn't the last of the dragons died out centuried ago? very strange indeed.... very curious. A captor? unlikely. such a unique creature, fighting the dark-robed things... more likely another escaped prisoner. He smiled, unabashedly showing his fangs, and dipped a low, courtly bow.

Good afternoon. Or evening. or whatever time it is. hard to tell in this hellhole. In any case, I mean no harm... my companion is simply a bit... over eager. Too many enemies about. But I'm willing to wager you're a recent escapee like myself, hmm? perhaps we can assist one another.

[Iethloc]

Sohssal

As the scientist finally called off Omega, Sohssal floated backwards just a bit, affording his hostage just a bit of room. The orb of electricity in his hand dissipated harmlessly, and Sohssal breathed a sigh of relief. I've got something more painful than electricity... Sohssal thought as he remembered one of the cruelest of his spells. He walked around the scientist to face him directly, and opened his mouth to speak. However, instead of speaking, he thrust both hands as they glowed a faint green and grabbed onto his head, covering the researcher's mouth, completing the spell with physical contact. Immediately, acid surged into existence within his bloodstream, and was quickly delivered throughout his body, dissolving him from the inside out. Sohssal held on for just a few moments to make sure he couldn't cry out before he died. After he was sure the researcher was dead, he let his body drop to the floor.

"I originally made that spell for torture purposes, but acidosis is a nasty way to go..." he said aloud. He wiped the dead man's spittle off his hands, quickly checked the researcher's pockets and then turned to Omega. "The deed is done...hm. Maybe I should have asked for the way out before killing him, but I think I'd trust a map more. Have you seen any around here?" he inquired.

[ubersquid]

Elkwin - Catacombs

Elkwin grins in response to Marv's offer.

"Yeah right, so you get to be the shiny knight who rescues the girl exclusively? I'm going in there with you."

He tightens the grip around his axe and leans against the door, peeking through the small gap and then looking back through the hallway one last time. With a quick nod he signals Marv that he is ready for whatever would await them behind.

[MrEdwardNigma]

"A necromancer? Nah, I actually had to work to get that power in these fingers of mine. I'm a scientist, a man of the mind, not some guy who happened to get lucky and had some magic coursing through his veins"

Victor chose to move on along the hallway. There was nothing to gain in confronting these three.

[Pwenet]

Good afternoon. Or evening. or whatever time it is. hard to tell in this hellhole. In any case, I mean no harm... my companion is simply a bit... over eager. Too many enemies about. But I'm willing to wager you're a recent escapee like myself, hmm? perhaps we can assist one another.

Listening to the words of the one that drinks blood, Akor stares at him with narrowed eyes. While his rebirth was long overdue, he was still 'adjusting' his form, making him vulnerable. Allies could be useful. Looking down at his right arm Akor smiles as it regenerates, then frowns at the burned number 1 appears on it once again.

"I am the first guest here. You can follow me, together we can escape, provided you do not feed on this morsel."

When he says morsel Akor makes a gestures towards the little girl. Part of him twitches, and he looks at the slave train, then back at the vampire.

"You may, use one, or two of them at the most, if need be, but do not overindulge, I must save them from this hellhole, take only those that are too weak to survive."

Turning Akor approaches the corpses he recently recreated and looks at them, looking for anything they might have held that survived his flames.

[WhiteKnight777]

Umber

Umber nodded, tilting his head as he looked the strange creature up and down. My thanks, I appreciate your generosity. I assumed you must be something of a long-term resident here... I don't know how long I've been here, myself.. the nature of my binding has made the passage of time more or less meaningless... but it's been a fair time since the dragons flew, though perhaps not so long to those such as ourselves... mmm.. yes, you have the smell of a dragon, but you're human in form. Most intriguing. Some sort of magical experiment, perhaps? I have some expertise with such things... if you'd like, perhaps I might be able to assist you once we're out of here. Even as he spoke, he moved towards the group of slaves, looking for one or two to pick off and feed upon.

[Inspectre]

The Catacombs

ubersquid

“That’s the spirit!” He whispers, slapping you on the shoulder before turning serious again. He waits while you peek inside the door, covering the dark hallway behind you both. Looking in through the crack, you manage to make out only a few details about the room beyond due to the gloom.

The room beyond the door appears to be a fairly nice bedroom, with an ornate four-poster bed dominating a fair portion of it. Against one wall stands the dark outline of an exquisite suit of full plate mail, which momentarily gives you quite the fright as you first think it’s an armored guard standing there. Fortunately, the suit appears to be empty, although the same can not be said of the bed. Despite the darkness cloaking the back half of the room, you can make out the dim outline of a figure lying on the bed, which seems to be the source of the disturbing whispers. Seemingly oblivious to you, the figure continues to weep bitterly while muttering.

. . . the mighty oak falls from the rot within, not the gale without . . .

. . . a hero you are not, brother. I can see the black bubbling up from your heart and out your mouth . . .

. . . oh gods, why . . .

Satisfied that you seem to have found your objective, for better or for a whole lot worse, you pull back to nod at Marv. Tightening your grip on your weapon, you slide your other hand into the doorway to pull it open, followed by slipping your shoulder into the widening crack to shoulder it the rest of the way. Although frozen in place with age like its brother had been, this door was considerably smaller and already partially open. With just the faintest whisper of stone on stone, the door slides open, allowing Marv’s torch light to now fill the room.

As you were able to make out in the previous gloom, a large four-poster bed takes up the center of the room. Next to it you can now see a finely carved nightstand, as well as several dust-covered chests that appear to be equally well-crafted. Hanging from the wall on the opposite side of the bed as these chests is the suit of full plate mail, trimmed in gold and still shining in the torchlight even through the grime covering it. The breastplate of the armor is decorated with the same sunburst as was painted on those tabards you saw earlier. The remains of a leather belt hang from the waist of the suit, bearing an empty gold-trimmed scabbard that has likewise nearly rotted away into nothing. And then your eyes came to rest back on the bed, which you could now clearly see indeed contained a feminine figure beneath the silk and fur blankets.

Covered by these blankets up to the armpits, most of the woman is hidden from sight: little more than shapely rises and falls of the blankets. Her face and arms are exposed, however, which reveal a number of interesting facts. For starters, both of her hands are manacled, with a length of chain running back from each wrist to the two posts at the head of the bed. Similar lengths of chain attached to the two posts at the foot of the bed and disappearing under the blankets suggest that her feet have been similarly chained. The lowest two fingers, that is the pinky and ring finger, of her right hand are missing, ragged little stubs suggesting that they were torn or cut off at some previous point in her life. Scars of various shapes and sizes mar the surface of both of her arms, and one long angry red line runs from the corner of her left eye, down the side of her neck, and around out of sight where her neck meets her shoulder. Shoulder-length blonde hair frames her delicate face, and she seems to be perhaps only a year or two into adulthood. Other than the long scar running down her neck, the woman’s face appears to be unmarred. Except perhaps for her eyes, which you would assume were similarly beautiful, but were currently missing. Instead empty black holes gaze up at you, the skin around each eye socket stained reddish brown with streams of dried blood. The final shocking piece of this puzzle was the hilt of an ornate sword sticking up from the woman’s blanket-covered chest, the covers stained red for a significant radius around the blade’s entry point.

Suddenly, the woman raises her head, pushing herself upright with a loud clatter of chains to regard you with her empty eyes. As she does so, your eyes momentarily swim with double vision as the image of the “alive” woman clashes against the image of a skeleton lying on the bed in the exact same pose as the woman a moment before.

“****! A ghost!” Marv yelps, jumping backward and crashing into the wall behind him, dropping the torch. As luck would have it, the torch is immediately snuffed out, leaving you in the pitch black dark with this woman’s ghost.

Although its voice still trembles, the ghost’s voice no longer seems to be drowned out by sobs as it begins to once again speak, its whispering voice echoing up from the probable location of the bed somewhere in front of you.

. . . the hero has come . . . I kept your blade . . . warm for you.

???????

Voth

MrEdwardNigma

“I see.” Cassandra whispers in reply. As you begin to slide down the hallway, Cassandra remains silent for a few moments before asking, “So why necromancy? If you weren’t cursed with some sort of magic power, why go into it in the first place?”

Moving onwards down the hallway, you pass several similar rooms, thankfully all of them unoccupied. Coming to the next doorway, however, you can see that this next room is different. Although deserted like the rooms before it, this room holds several stacks of thick leather-bound tomes in dirty-white colored shelves that appear to be made out of bones . . . possibly human bones.

Nearby these shelves is a brazier with a soft bluish flame burning, lighting up a small nearby podium made out of polished black stone. Previously where one would set one of the books and read it from, by the light of the brazier.

“I don’t like this place.” Cassandra hisses, nervously looking back down into the blackness beyond the light of her feeble fungus torch. “But . . . maybe those books could tell us something about these guys?”

Ahead of you, the darkness of the hallway continues to stretch. You could stop and perhaps learn something of these strange parasite-infested men via this library, but doing so would also carry the risk of being caught. Stopping to flip through thick dusty tomes was generally not your idea of a good time either, and somewhere out there the vampire awaited your assistance.

Private Torture Chambers

Dorizzit

Turning away from his work as he summons another hound into existence from his bloody scrawls on the floor, Dima reaches up a hand to stop you as you rise. He manages to snag the wrist of your human arm, holding on with surprising strength as excess blood is smeared off of his hand and onto yours.

“Wait . . . one last . . . request.”

With a pained grunt of effort, Dima twists around to show you the elaborate tattoo of a tiger on his other arm, a tiger that looks remarkably similar to his pet.

“I swore . . . oath . . . that she would see . . . the sky . . . again. Cut her from my arm . . . escape from here . . . and bury us under the open sky.”

Releasing his grip on you, Dima painfully rolls all the way onto his side, allowing you easy access to his tattooed arm. Looking up from your dying friend, you see that Seraph has reached the door and is about to disappear. Not wishing to see another ally disappear so quickly, you decide that searching for your daughter and escaping can wait, and call after him. Stopping at the door, Seraph silently ponders your offer for a moment, and then nods.

“Very well. But as a prisoner seeking escape, surely you are hoping to reach the surface and escape. Know that my intention is to descend ever deeper, into the very bowels of Hell if need be, until I find my wife . . . and my unborn child. Only death will convince me to leave this place before then. And with my sincere apologies, understand that locating and rescuing your own child is not and cannot be my own goal until I know my family is safe. I will wait out in the hallway for you, so you may both say your goodbyes in private.” Nodding to both you and the Countess, Seraph steps out into the hallway leading back into the Private Torture Chambers.

Although careful not to disturb his drawings, the Countess crouches down on the other side of Dima directly across from you. Tears fill her eyes, and her jaws continually saw at her lower lip while her hands fitfully ball several of the guards’ cloaks up to stuff underneath Dima’s head.

“I’m sorry I ever doubted your sincerity. You’ve saved my life twice now, and I can’t repay the favor. I swear to you though, that we shall escape from here. And then the Baron shall reap the rewards of his evil.”

The Countess stuffs one last cloak underneath Dima, gently brushing a lock of oily hair out of his face, and then looks up at you. “Do it and lets get out of here.” She says, handing you one of the guard’s daggers before standing up and moving towards the door. As she walks, she angrily throws the club away from her into the wall, and stops to snatch up one of the guard’s short swords. As she experimentally swings the sword through the air several times, her back still to you, she wearily answers your question.

“When my father realized he would have no sons, he taught me how to fence. He wanted to make sure that I would be able to defend my own honor if necessary. I’ve never . . . killed . . . anyone before, and never wanted to, but now I think it’s time to revise that belief.”

The Labs

Iethloc

Having managed to trick the researcher into calling off his “daughter”, you proceed to kill him in one of the most painful manners you know by turning his acid into blood. Although you generally turn only vary small amounts of a person’s blood into acid in order to use it as a torture rather than execution method, this time you decide to go for broke and turn all his blood to acid. The results are immediate and impressive, as his skin immediately starts to boil and blister, his eyes literally dissolving out of their sockets. He manages one gurgle of surprise before you release him in order not to get any acid on yourself, allowing him to fall and rapidly melt away into a disgusting puddle of melted flesh and sizzling bone.

Most impressive. Quite similar to what I had intended to do to you should you have failed to agree to our alliance, only with fire instead. Omega relays within your mind.

I do not know of anywhere beyond the confines of this room, but know of course that such places exist. My father’s assistant should know more, and looking around I cannot see his body so I must assume you have not encountered him yet. As such, he is probably preparing to release the demons from their cages. If we hurry, we may be able to reach him before he is able to release more than a few of them. Alternatively, we could simply exit this laboratory and find our own way without his coerced assistance. My father should have the keys to both doors on his keyring.

Moving to stand beside you, Omega stares as her “father’s” remains, and a few moments later a set of keys slowly floats up, dipping acid and liquefied flesh. The metal keys thankfully appear to be unharmed, as you had designed the spell with the intention for the acid to only dissolve acid, yet some creative prisoner attempt to cut himself on his restraints and thus break free. It had been entertaining on several occasions to deliberately drop such a hint and then provide the means for a prisoner to cut himself open, savoring the disappointed look on his face when all he accomplished was getting everything bloody.

The exit from here entirely should be directly ahead, while the demon holding pens should be through that door. Omega adds, pointing to the door directly across the room from the entrance to your own cell, and then pointing at a door set into the wall off to one side of the glass tubes that had housed Omega and her brothers.

Ritual Chambers

Pwenet/WhiteKnight777

Proving his greater mastery of his own form than its previous owner the man, or maybe the dragon-man, regenerates his own arm from its previous torn stump. Vexingly, a moment after it has fully regenerated, the number “1” magically burns itself into existence on the arm. Apparently Ironheart’s guards had already thought of the danger regenerative prisoners posed to their numbering system, and had developed a magical way to ensure prisoners stayed marked for the rest of their lives.

Clearly not happy with the situation after her embarrassing entrance, Mellita frowns as she nods at the girl. “My apologies little miss. Lord Umber is correct, there is no end to the number of enemies that dwell down here. I was mistaken in thinking you one of them. I am Mellita.” Finished with her apology and introducing herself, Mellita curtsies, although this still somehow disturbs the young girl enough that she actually ducks behind Akor entirely, peeping out at the two vampires. Finally noticing in the dim torchlight the recent but dramatic changes her protector has gone through, the girl takes several steps back away from him as well a moment later.

“Oh umm . . . apology accepted. I . . . ah . . . don’t have a name, really. So I guess you can just call me whatever, although maybe not morsel or food? Please?”

Introductions now concluded, examination of the surroundings began. Of the two black-robed figures, there was virtually nothing left this time but charred bones and the remains of the fleshy cocoon that kept the strange eye creatures safe from harm.

Of the bloodstained altar, Umber notes that beneath the blood and gore now covering it, a familiar set of runes has been etched into its surface. Once again these runes were ones used in the various ceremonies necessary to become a Lord of Blood, although a few here and there appear to have been modified. Intimately familiar with the language of the runes, Umber is able to decipher their meaning.

Blood for blood, life to death, death to life.
This flow of blood shall turn the Great Wheel.
Drink of this river and return as you were, forevermore.
Consume this sacrifice’s essence down to its very soul.
Arise reborn, to rule and to destroy, forevermore.

Furthermore, the runes appear to lead into each other, forming a maze of tiny channels in the surface of the altar for the blood to slowly flow through down to the foot of the altar. There, another tiny channel has been cut all the way to the edge, which would allow the blood to fall off the altar and down into a small black iron bowl sitting at the altar’s base, nearly invisible against the black rock of the altar itself.

Of the prisoners, being able to finally examine them in detail reveals a somewhat disturbing fact: all of them are children. Granted, two of them appear to be approaching adulthood, but the other three are clearly young children with no ability to comprehend the evil around them. Together all of them huddle against the back wall, both teenagers attempting to protect the remaining children by positioning themselves between the children and the rest of the room. This seems to have cost them, however, as one of the teenagers is currently lying unconscious on the ground, skin blistered and hair singed from the heat of Akor’s blast of dragonfire. The young man lies on the ground unmoving, although the occasional twitch of an eyelid and the slow rise and fall of his chest indicate that he is still alive. This might not remain the case for much longer, however, as despite the protests and shaking from the other teenager, a young girl, the boy’s eyes do not open.

(Ah, from dead guards being used as bait to potentially drug-filled thralls to children. Umber just isn’t having any luck finding lunch. )

[WhiteKnight777]

Umber

Umber's eyes narrow as he reads the words written in an ancient language. He recalled them clearly; he, along with the other two of the most magically gifted Lords had crafted them originally. Even mundane words and letters had a great power - the power of thought trapped in solid form. But these... these runes were greater, by orders of magnitude. Disdainfully, he wondered if those who had scribed them truly understood what they had wrought, if they knew why these runes worked, the way the angles channeled the very powers that underlay the cosmos, bending and twisting the laws of reality, making it possible to, as he had once put it, pay the ferryman in advance and avoid his unwanted attentions... So many of these fireflies failed to grasp the significance under their actions. Feh. How many mages really knew magic? How many of them understood the wonders of the cosmic dance, the beauty of the music of the spheres. They just learned the words, but they never really knew them... Bah, enough of this maudlin rambling. There was work to be done. He turned to the curious creature, arching an eyebrow as he looked him up and down, a bit more understanding in his face now as he made a few intuitive leaps. He gave Milletia a comforting pat on the back to indicate that he was not angry with her. She was, after all, simply trying to protect him, something which he appreciated immensely.

Curious... it appears someone has been plagiarizing my work. Though, looking at you I must say it was at least partially affected... So where did they bring that fiery soul of yours back from? The realm of the dead? Or perhaps merely a formless limbo? That's one I'm recently acquainted with myself, and I know how... irritating it can be. And, unless I miss my guess, that frail body must be a terrible annoyance. As I said, I might be able to help with that, once we get out of here... a favor for a favor, if you will.

[Dorizzit]

Korram swallows nervously. "Very well." He steels himself against Dima's impending cries and begins to cut, brutally, efficiently, carefully, quickly cauterizing the dripping flesh with a pat of his burning hand. "She will see the sky once more. I swear it on the unmarked grave of my wife. Rest easy, my friend." He sheds a single tear as he rises, and it falls onto his right arm. It evaporates with a quiet hiss. He looks at the Tiger, motioning it to follow. He listens to the Countess. "Probably wise. But take heed of my advice: as soon as you stop thinking about each kill, cast your sword aside." He heads towards the corridor Seraph is in. Entering, he begins speaking to him. "I understand. Your goal could not be to find my daughter any more than my goal could be to find your wife. Both of us stand greater chances of success if we travel together, as I said before. And yes, while I want to escape, I want my daughter safe. And the Baron dead."

[Iethloc]

Sohssal

Sohssal chuckled lightly to himself as he remembered the times he tortured his victims with the spell, though it soon died down after Omega's comment. Then he merely cleared his throat and made sure to not step in what was left of the researcher. "Well, if we do gain his help, it'll mean more fighting with demons, and then we'll have to handle another human. But knowing the way out would be invaluable..." Sohssal pondered aloud. He took a glance at both doors, then nodded his head slightly.

"Right! Let's go torture that human!" he declared cheerfully. He directed the winds around him to lift him into the air, and floated towards the door leading to the assistant's chambers. He waved his hands out in front of him and another orb of electricity crackled into existence in one hand. He used the other to wrench open the door, and then floated in, his electricity hand held out in front of him in case of resistance.

[Voth]

Voth

"I suppose this is farewell then."

Good riddance!

With that, Voth steps through the portal(?)

[MrEdwardNigma]

"Why Necromancy? Is returning the dead to life, creating life where there is only rot not a noble purpose? Besides, have you ever heard of the three goals of Alchemy? There's transformation of one material to the other, traditionally lead to gold, there's eternal life, and then there's the homonculus. A living creature out of dead components. I was the first ever to succeed in the third, in the scientific way at least. The other two, no-one has been able to figure out as far as I know. I've devoted my life to science, you see, and before it ends I will have achieved those three goals, thereby proving that science is ultimately superior to magic, a force commonly used but not comprehended, where as science has to be comprehended to be used and is therefore not commonly used at all"

Victor looked up and saw that they had arrived at some sort of library, with many books, perhaps about the very creatures that wandered these halls.
"We don't have time to stop and read, but we can do a little take-away" said Victor, grabbing some of the books to read on the way and continuing along the hallway.

[Pwenet]

Flexing his arms Akor looks down at his arm disapprovingly as the scarred number one appears again. A curse from the original owner of the body, it seems despite even his status they wanted to keep track of him. Still maybe it could be useful, being (as far as he knows) the last of his kind.

Turning to look at the little girl that his host body had protected, he tries to summon the will to leave her to her fate, and yet the promise burns within him. The process of rebirth in a new shell was not perfect, hence the years upon years of torture of the shell, breaking him down to nothing so that he could be molded into the perfect shell, giving complete control to Akor. Yet events had transpired to change that, to make it more of a symbiotic nature.

”Little human, you have nothing to fear. The previous owner of this shell bound me to protect you. And you could be useful someday, helping me gain my freedom. So relax, if these two try another I’ll let you play with their eyeballs.”

Turning to look at the vampires, Akor shakes his head at them. Yes he likes the taste of blood, but he does not share the weaknesses of being without it, yet despite that they are formidable enemies. Eying the numbers burned into the one vampires arm he realizes that this vampire must be another ‘guest’ of this fine establishment.

”Your guesses, while amusing are incorrect. Let’s say that things are changing, and this ‘frail body’, while an annoyance, serves its purpose and very soon will not be as ‘frail’. Maybe I will gift you with further information once you prove yourself worthy. Sadly it seems that this place broke its covenant with me, and are now host to foul creatures who you may have encountered, or at least can see their remains.”

With the final bit Akor gestures with his freshly regrown hand at the corpses.

”While I hate working with others, you have power and a desire to escape. I share the goal of leaving after taking my vengeance on a few people here, so yes, an alliance can be formed.”

Turning Akor strides towards the freed slaves, revealed to be little more than children. Examining them, he grunts and starts working on using his renewed strength to break the chains. Being human children he assumes that they are simple chains, nothing like the ones that were used to hold him previously. Assuming he can free those that are still alive he speaks.

”Little ones, those that can travel make ready.”

Looking down at the one who got singed with his attack, Akor shakes his head at him and turns towards the Vampires.

”I lack powers to heal others at this time. Perhaps you want to try your hand, or drain this one? I think saving the rest will fulfill my promise, but make quick, for the enemy will not cower for long.”

[WhiteKnight777]

Umber

Umber arched an eyebrow at the dragon-thing's speech. The condescension made him bristle, but the vampire was diplomatic and patient enough to keep his irritation buried. He still had to get free of here... and then he had a long campaign of revenge to be planned. Far too many stratagems to plan and debts to pay to worry about one overbearing, arrogant, jumped up lizard with an inflated ego. Besides, Umber thought wryly, it wasn't often that he was the on the receiving end of condescension rather than the dispensing one. It was... different. He nodded slowly in agreement with the creature, looking over the singed captive, he sniffed. If it seemed clean enough, he would would drink, but he did not want to pollute his body. Normal toxins and poisons could do nothing to him, of course, but he had not survived all these millenia by being incautious.

Very well... an alliance, then, until we are free of this worm-ridden burrow. I owe a debt of pain to a few of the little maggots who writhe in this stony corpse myself... Perhaps. Perhaps. We shall see. For now, I agree, we need to move quickly.