Unausprechliche Kulte

[Gorgondantess]

Success! To a point. The first ritual to bring the sleeper back has worked flawlessly, and it has done as your lord said- bringing a freak chill upon the earth, destroying crops everywhere. It has been passed off by most as simply a ridiculously cold winter, but they are blinding themselves- it never gets this cold, anywhere. Currently, Janiros is huddled in a corner, covered in blankets to beat the cold, and Jakaira is even wearing heavy furs. Fedeiron has chosen to go naked, reveling, and has lost some toes and fingers. There is more than that though- many of the bleakborn have frozen solid, and have lost all signs of unlife, toppling over, sometimes breaking when they hit the ground. All that work, wasted. The bleakborns aren't all- the enchantments over the cave have warped, spawning random and most often dangerous, random bursts of power. Janiros refuses to leave the cave, and for good reason- one of the bursts of magic hit a bleakborn, and now there isn't much left. Worst of all, you've ran out of your stock of food- the ritual took days, and the others are hungry. You need corpses, money, food, supplies, material components- and worst of all, the town you've been raiding these things for has hired a militia, and a mage of some decent power is staying there, presumably under the hire of the town's ruler. Serves you right for stealing from the most powerful mining colony in the world, though theyu did have lots of good loot.

[The_Snark]

It is very cold.

Thats the point, of course. That's what we have been working towards for the past... week? Month? Somewhere in between, maybe. The days blur together here, and the past few days have been especially bad.

At least we are allowed to have light again; the ritual required pitch blackness. I can look at the lanternlight without flinching now, though I still feel I have not gotten enough sleep to make up for what must have been days of chanting, stopping only to doze restlessly as others kept the ritual going.

Sometimes I wonder whether I really will be thankful when we succeed, simply because it will end this nightmarish summoning process. If this one portion of the ritual is anything to go by, I won't; now that we're done, I'm hungry, and cold, and the cave's magics have gone awry so that we can't even walk about in safety. I think even he's mad about that last part. Maybe I should say it; I know I won't give him his name anymore, and I don't think he would take it if I did. He has stopped telling me that I must fetch supplies from Hadril for now, and for a wonder it looks like he has actually listened to what I said: he is whispering incantations in the center of the cavern, trying to undo the damaged enchantments. Maybe if he succeeds, I will go, though I'd rather not travel; I'm hungry too, and if I'm the one to enter the town, I eat that much sooner. Not to mention that I wouldn't mind being away from the others and in a real town for a day or so, and that I really am the one best suited to enter town without getting myself arrested or killed.

"You coward, Janiros."

... as my darling sister insists on reminding me. I notice she hasn't moved around the cave much since we saw that icy, shambling corpse—one of our icy, shambling corpses, mind you—distort, swell, and shatter. She is right, though. Fedeiron would be killed as a lunatic in the state he's in, the goblin and our master are both out of the question, and Jakraia...

"Do you want to just sit here until we all starve? Did you not realize we're out of food? He told you to go."

... is very ardent, nowadays; she has trouble not attracting notice. Jakraia is clothed in heavy furs to keep herself from losing fingers, but if the chill affects her like it does me she's ignoring it. She folds her arms and glares; that last sentence is surely the most grievous sin in her eyes. I stop listening as she starts to go over the reasons I've already acknowledged to myself, in detail. I always found religious fanatics rather amusing; hearing my sister sound like one is depressing.

"Patience, dear sister," I say through chattering teeth, pointing towards our master as he continues his incantations in the center of the cavern. "Look—he is clearing the chamber of its magic. Once I can be certain I won't be killed walking out of the chamber, I will go."

She is placated a little, at least enough to stop her tirade, and we both watch our master as we wait, a figure swathed from head to toe in brown robes.

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Casting Greater Dispel Magic repeatedly, in an effort to get rid of at least the (presumably unstable) Necrotic Curse and Deeper Darkness effects scattered about. Unhallow is sadly not dispellable; would re-casting the spell (which would take 24 hours) over the same area be enough to get rid of the disrupting effects? If you'd like a roll to determine whether he knows that, Knowledge (arcana) is +22, and Spellcraft is +20: (1d20)[5].

If the emissary determines that recasting it isn't possible, I imagine they'll be avoiding the unhallowed area of the cave from now on, and he'll test to see how well teleportation effects are working by using Dimensional Jumper to leave the Unhallow spell's area (and then return, if there are no ill effects). In fact, he'll probably do that regardless, because unless teleportation spells are messing up, he will probably want to teleport Janiros near the town, rather than having him walk the whole way.

[Gorgondantess]

The spells are removed; most of them, at least. The unhallow spell has simply become more passive; it seems to be gone, and does not radiate any magic auras at all. However, once one nears the circumfrence of the spell, its borders, the person is thrown back and will take ill for hours, vomiting and shaking. Interestingly enough, it seems to only slow the nameless one as he passes through it; most likely his special nature, or due to him being the one who cast the spell.

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The unhallowed can only be removed by a limited wish, miracle, or casting hallow over the area. Only the nameless one can pass through.

[The_Snark]

The nausea is thankfully starting to pass, allowing me to sit up from where I had curled up in a ball. Jakraia is already sitting, of course; I think she refused to stay lying down as soon as her muscles were fully under her control.

He is coming back onto the isle; for whatever reason, only he is unaffected by the magic keeping us here. Even the goblin couldn't crawl out, though he doesn't feel pain and probably can't feel sickness either. As always, he leans forwards and back strangely as he moves, as if about to tip over with his own momentum; but he never does. I watch, and to my relief he glides to Fedeiron, not me.

"Come." His voice is empty of inflection, of emotion, of anything that would mark him as a man. I used to think it sounded like a dead man's voice, but that would imply he sounded melancholy, or hollow. It seems to be coming from the air around him, not a mouth. "We are trying again." He reaches a hand out to the madman, and we hear the words of a spell.

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Trying to Teleport to the entrance to the main entrance to the cave, which since it's in line-of-sight shouldn't carry a chance. The point here is to see if leaving the Unhallow spell by teleportation triggers the same effect on Fedeiron.

[Gorgondantess]

There is an inhuman wail, and for a moment Fedeiron does not appear where he was intended; then a flash, and he seems to be everywhere at once. Suddenly he is on the ground where he was sent, with the missing pinkie and ring finger of his left hand lying to the side of him, and blood seeping out of the wounds.

[The_Snark]

I'm glad that's not me over there; I'm not sure what's happening to Fedeiron, but it doesn't sound pleasant. Such are the responsibilities of the newest and least valuable servant.

He is bent over Fedeiron now, tending him. Or examining his body, or preparing to reanimate his corpse; I neither know nor care.

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To clarify- the emissary also teleported; was he/it affected in any odd way?

Heal check (1d20)[11] to try and stop the bleeding, as well as figure out whether he took any damage or suffered any other ill effects. If he can, Fedeiron will cast Cure Minor Wounds on himself.

[Gorgondantess]

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Only Fedeiron was effected. The wound bleeds through the bangage, and is dripping everywhere.

[The_Snark]

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Is he incapable of casting spells? He does have Cure Minor Wounds.

Regardless, I think he'll wait a minute or so, to see if Fedeiron starts to recover or if something else has happened to him.

[Gorgondantess]

Fedeiron attempts to cast a spell to stop the bleeding, but the efforts involved knock him out; the blood continues seeping out, coloring the floor. It soon stops, however, and he can be seen to be breathing.

[Gorgondantess]

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So, do you just stand there and do nothing or what? Are you expecting another post from me?

[The_Snark]

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No, it's just... tricky to know what to do, since I don't know quite what happened to Fedeiron or why. I (and the villain, in-character) don't particularly want to just blindly keep trying and risk killing Janiros or Jakraia, but those two are really the only ones who can manage unobtrusive contact with normal society, which is the objective in question.

Out of curiosity, what happened to the Goblin when he went near the edge of the spell? Simply forced back, or damaged?

[Gorgondantess]

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The goblin was simply forced back. I rolled a knowledge check for the nameless one, and he realized that it was a byproduct of trying to teleport out of the circle, but exactly what happens is rather random.

[The_Snark]

He is coming back. Fedeiron is still lying out there, now quiet—maybe dead. So long as he doesn't want to try the same thing with me, I can't say I care that much; the fellow was an ignorant thug even before he went mad. And happily, our master is beckoning that goblin over to him, and not me. I can easily make out what he is saying, since there is no other noise in the cavern: "Come. We are trying again."

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When the goblin is repelled, the emissary will try to pull him through; only if there are actually dangerous effects will he stop.

[Gorgondantess]

After an immense effort, the goblin makes it to the other side. Nonetheless, he managed to break a bone an his right leg as he was "pulled through". Fedeiron gets up in the background, his face pasty white from the bloodloss and completely drained, but alive nonetheless.

[The_Snark]

He is returning again, simply leaving the goblin half-sprawled on the rock. This time, he is moving directly towards me. I shake my head as he approaches, but this time he will not be so easily dissuaded.

"You will come, or you will starve. There is no other way."

"I'm not being pulled out of here."

"You will be teleported. You are unwounded; you should be relatively unharmed."

"Why don't you send Jakraia? I'm sure she'd be eager to go." Out of the corner of my eye, she is glaring at me; either she's angry at my defiance, or she has more self-preservation instinct left than I thought.

"No. It must be you." Just like that, no reason given. I stare at him flatly. Relatively unharmed is not reassuring. After a few seconds of this, my resistance finally seems to make it through to him. "Whatever happens to you, it will be less unpleasant than starvation."

I stare at him for a second longer, then relent. I am not compelled, not yet, but the memory of that empty blackness will likely grow stronger if I do not, dragging me along. Besides, he is right; starvation sounds extremely unpleasant.

He reaches out with a robed arm, the spell's words sounding about him as though murmured by many voices, and touches me.

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Attempting to teleport, with Janiros in tow; target destination is next to Fedeiron.

[Gorgondantess]

Some luck, though relatively unharmed is an apt description; rather than the intended destination, he appears at the ceiling of the cave, and having no prior warning is completely caught off guard, falling in a bad position, flat on his feet.

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6 damage, -15 move speed for the day, then -5 the next. Sprained ankle.

[The_Snark]

"Auugh-"

My stream of profanity ought to have turned the air blue, and if any obliging gods had been listening, cursed everyone within miles to boot. I wouldn't have given a damn, either; those bastards hadn't just broken an ankle.

He stood patiently over me the whole time, unresponsive. Bastard. Not that I really expected him to do anything. At least it helps distract me from the pain.

It's starting to subside now, from the sharp pain one has after a wound to the equally sharp, impossible-to-ignore ache that comes afterwards. And stays around for days, in my experience, or more if the wound festers. Happily, there's no open wound here, at least.

He motions with one arm, and then again more sharply, pointing to Fedeiron and curling his arm towards me in a movement I couldn't repeat even if you broke my arm. The madman seems to understand, and he comes forward, chanting and reaching out to touch the foot.

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Fedeiron is casting Cure Minor Wounds; the emissary can make a Spellcraft check to discern if anything is different about the spell.

[Gorgondantess]

Much of the pain goes away, and the foot rights itself. Nonetheless, if it is moved it can be quite painful.

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-10 move for the day, and -5 the next.

[The_Snark]

"Do you expect me to walk on this?" I complain—and it is complaining, but the godsdamn would hurts. I can stand, and it even looks as if I can walk—but the ankle sends little spasms of pain through my leg if I don't step on it just right. Besides, between the snow and cold, it was possible I might freeze to death before reaching the city.

"No. I do not." He is holding a heavy-looking bag in one hand now, and reaches out his other limb, touching me upon the shoulder. The world shifts and blurs again...

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Casting Teleport, trying to get the two of them to a spot near the city; I presume that since they've gone to the city before, the emissary knows at least one good teleport destination (i.e. concealed, memorable, and not very far from the city). The bag contains some of their funds.