A Sanctuary Defiled IC

[13_CBS]

Act I: Sight of the Sightless Eye

A tavern, boozehounds and mercenaries, cheap ales, cheaper whores...

A cloaked man, a sword too heavy for him to lift...

A table, a seat, a sanctuary...

Strange looks...

The sword driven into the floor...

A fire spirit, dancing...

The tavern, burning...

Pillars of flame, skeletons, shouts of alarm and terror...

Clash of steel on steel, crunch of bones, rending of flesh...

Silence...

Silence...

Silence...

You all wake up from you dream breathing heavily, with cold sweat dotting your face and body. You notice the damp chill of the moorlands while you gather your senses around you.

Where were you again? Ah, yes. The Rogue Encampment.

The Sisters of the Sightless Eye was once a monastic order of fighting nuns, archers without peer on the mainland. Only the Amazons in their far off isles could dare to approach these Rogues in bowmanship. The last you heard of them, they were doing fine, if a bit agitated at the sudden silence that befell Tristram.

You might have seen the Monastery once, or perhaps heard of it. It was a grand structure constructed by the Horadrim ages ago, and given to the Rogues once that old order fell to ruin. It was majestic and practically exuded safety, strength, and guardianship. After the fall of the Black King, the Sisters maintained the strongest grip over the land.

Now that you have come here, however, you have heard that the monastery is a breeding pit for demons, and the few remaining rogues have holed up in this wretched encampment, a "fortification" made up of a few tents, a ditch serving as a crude moat, and some wooden walls. There are probably more stranded merchants and children there than warriors.

A dim light shines through your shelter's opening, signaling the morning.

[Koga]

Jacken gets up, groaning at the thought of facing another day running from demons. He rolls out of bed and decides to see if there's anything to eat around here.

It's hard to pick fruit off the tree with demons monopolizing the outskirts of town.

And fallen ones meat tastes pretty nasty.

[13_CBS]

As Jacken steps outside his shelter, he notices the squalid, rotting wooden fencing that surrounds the encampment. The battlements, some of which are merely upturned wooden boxes, seem to be in disrepair, some of them soaked black with demon blood. A few merchants mill about, all of them looking as though they'd like to complain about the situation if it were not for the strict disciplinarian attitudes of the Rogues. Speaking of the Sisters, most of them are off duty and are cleaning their armor and weapons or helping themselves to whatever meal is available. Akara, the aged high priestess, is in her tent studying some kind of moldy tome, while Kashya, the Captain, is standing in the middle of the encampment. With so few Rogues to command, and with most of them off duty anyway, she seems to be occupying herself by glaring at the civilians and, occasionally, at you.

The food quality is obviously as poor as the encampment itself. Over by a group of merchants a fallen one, a small imp-like demon, is slowly roasting over a fire, attended by a sullen looking cloth trader. The only other bit of food seems to be a dead quill rat being plucked by a rather grumpy looking young rogue. She mutters curses as yet another prickly spine punctures her finger.

As for drink, there is a tiny stream nearby filled with fairly clean water. The demons, fortunately, haven't gotten to defecating this one yet. One of the other merchants seems to have a stock of wine in his wagon a few yards away from the roasting fallen one, but in these harsh days a sip of wine is harder to attain than hope.

[Koga]

Jacken scratches his chin with a slight sneer, he goes toward the merchant with the whine with a skip in his step.

A few soft words can earn someone's trust, a few stolen bottles could earn enough gold to have him set for life in this rundown demonic world.

[qube]

When the gray clouds part for a split second, and a line of sunshine touches the waypoint - a old relic from the Sin War - a humanoid for materializes in the center of it.

Blue sparkles form a human, an armor, a shield, a sword ... but it doesn't stop there. The blue sparkles generate transparent extentions, forming from the new creatures shoulders and generate winglike tandress. This was no mere human. this was an lesser angel ...

[Koga]

Jacken feels the presence of something unhuman, but not demonic, but it doesn't stop him. He's gonna be rich!

[Zombie pixe]

The paladin sits in his cloister in the local church, feeling the precences around him change. Something holy is close...

[13_CBS]

As the...being...materializes in the camp, waves of surprise, fear, and horror ripple through the camp. Rogues immediatly notch arrows, Akara takes out her magic staff and holds it out defensively, and merchants scatter for cover (though a few stand in awe, recognizing the being for what it might be). Kashya demands, "Who are you?! Speak quickly, or we WILL open fire!"



The wine bottles are left completely unguarded.

[Zombie pixe]

Senceing the change from good to Horror, Erald grabs his two handed sword and hurrys to find the cause of this disturbance.

[Koga]

The wine bottles are left completely unguarded.

Jacken skips over and takes a few of the whine bottles and hides him under his clothes and kindly tries to sneak away. Thinking "too easy teeheehee!"

[qube]

Kashya demands, "Who are you?! Speak quickly, or we WILL open fire!"

The materialized cowled humamoid directs himself to the amazon. As his wings flow with the winds and his armor reflects what little brigth light there is a calming aura is radiates from him.
he slowly replays "My name is Uriel ... though I do not know if that does you any good. I am a member of the angelic choir, and thus not an enemy of you, as you are not yet corrupted by the forces of evil. You must not fear me, for I have come to your aid against the struggle with those tempted by darkness." After this he slowly puts his sword in its sheet on his left side.

[13_CBS]

At the sight of Uriel's shining face, several merchants and a few rogues immediately fall to their knees and weep, either out of joy or of fear. Others, however, look confused and frightened. All eyes dart to either Akara or Kashya.

Kashya is the first to speak, her voice full of suspicion and wonder.

"How...how do we know that you are an angel, and not another demon in disguise?"

Somewhere in the background, one could hear a merchant's cries of sorrow at his suddenly missing wine bottles.

[qube]

Uriel

the shadowy darkness under the hood does not reveal uriels face, and thus nothing can be read of it, but a short silence follows, as he is thinking of an anwser ...

then again he speaks in his calm, unnatural souding voice
"I can not present proof. No more then the person next to you can prove she is who he claims she is ... Nor am I a full fledged angel. As lesser angel of the angelic choir, my powers are very much dampend outside the celestial realm of heaven.

All I can give you is my word. I am one called Uriel, and I am a member of the angelic choir."

[13_CBS]

Kashya doesn't look like she can quite get her doubts out of her mind and seems to want to continue to argue, but Akara cuts in with her wizened, sagely voice:

"Hold, Sisters. I sense no demonic taint within him...I believe he truly is of the Heavens."

"I'm still not sure, High Priestess...could we not test him?"

"A test? But...ah, yes, the Den of Evil.

I am Akara, High Priestess of the Sisterhood of the Sightless Eye. I trust your honor and honesty, but I must still impose upon you a test to fully gain our trust. There is a place of great evil in the wilderness, the Den of Evil. It is a foul cave filled with terrible monsters, and I believe that they are mustering an army there to strike against us. If you could cleanse that Den, then not only will you gain our trust but I will also grant to you a boost in your prowess, a reward greater than mere gold."

[qube]

Uriel

The hooded homanoid turn to the elderly woman. As his wings glide with the wind calmly speaks
"I thank you for your interventsion. The last thing our side of this apocalyptic war needs is quarrel between allies. As it will help the cause, and help to gain your trust" he slightly turns his head/hood toward Kashya and back "I will gladly accept this task bestowed upon me, for I hope that it will also dampen the gnawing feeling I have."
he pauses for a few seconds and then continues
"But how shall you be sure of my actions. If no-one is present to witness my actions, one still would require proof that I defeated them, and not yust asked them to leave ..."