Arwen & Masawa

The imps were frozen solid with the help of one arrow, and Arwen smiled proudly upon the statues of ice she had created. Not one to boast, the half-elf instead focused on the rest of the battle. Sir Amel was chasing the last imp, and Wank was shouting for a healer. However, the fight was not over with the remaining and huge demon weaponizing Sir Toleus' limp body and attacking Yazmina with him. In short, it didn't look good, and it seemed as if some help was needed.

"Masawa! Help Sir Amel chase that imp down!" Arwen ordered her companion. She doubted that Masawa would do well against the Toleus Hammer, at least without getting injured or injuring the heavily armored man. It was why being ranged was more helpful, and it seemed as if Wank must have picked up the same idea as he sent some fireballs over to the big guy. She grabbed a fire arrow and aimed at the ugly demon. She took another deep breath as she drew it back, focusing on the big body and not the Toleus Hammer. Arwen didn't want to injure him any more than he was, so hopefully, her arrow wouldn't hit him.

"Back to the pits of fire, demon," Arwen muttered to herself before letting go of the arrow and watching it fly towards her target.
 
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Was Jehan pleased that his attempt to knock down a satyr had worked once more? Yes, he very much was, but there was no time for celebration save the pat on the back he received from Torgun. Nodding in both acknowledgement as well as agreement, he hastily followed after the dwarf, weaving his path through the bloody mess on the ground so as not to get his boots too dirtied by the blood and gore.​

It was quite a sight to see when he neared the soldier demon. Yazmina and Deidre seem to be in fine shape. And perhaps he spoke a little too soon, seeing how the demon was now charging at Yazmina with Sir Toleus as its great-hammer. Cursing under his breath, Jehan had only a split second to decide what to do. Rushing forward meant he was putting himself in danger of getting injured. Being the only healer in their group- at least that was his impression- reminded him that such a decision was folly. Doing nothing was idiotic as well. He always had him trump move, but that would be equally stupid at this point in time.​

This brief contemplation was followed by Jehan turning his staff around so that the sharpened end of it was facing away from him. With no further thought, he shot it like a javelin at the soldier demon, hoping to at least startle it enough so that Yazmina had time to move.​

 
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Yazmina Boelner


Alive || West of Varden || With: Everyone



"Oh, shit!" Yazmina's eyes widened as she watched the demon grab Sir Toleus like he was nothing more than a ragdoll. Her shield could protect her against the demon's sword but there was no telling the damage an entire body covered in armour could do. Deciding she preferred not to know the answer, the fighter shifted her footing again, just enough so that she could dodge at the very last second if it came down to it.

Just as she was about to raise her sword arm again, Yazmina caught sight of the other adventurers and their incoming attacks on the large demon. Perfect opening. Strike. With the same fervent grin on her face, she instead dashed forward directly toward the demon, sprinting without a care in the world about friendly fire. The excitement in her gut has spread throughout her body now and Yazmina let out a roaring laugh as she swung her sword at the demon's leg, putting in all the strength she possessed and all the faith she could gather into the single blow in hopes of wounding the creature enough to make him drop Sir Toleus without killing him.



 
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Sir Amel
@Holmishire.

The knight was a bit more than irritated.

As much as he wished that Wank was shouting at the archer, Sir Amel understood the reality of the situation. Still, when had he ever given the impression that he was a healer? Knowing there would be little to gain—and much time to lose—explaining the distinction, he opted to send but a few words the goblin's way.

"Tough it." Hopefully that would forestall any further distractions.

With most of the imps lying dead around him, having either been burnt or frozen by his companions, only one yet remained. It seemed to be casting a spell, and even if it weren't any demon loose is a demon threat. Already charging past the alternating chill and frost, he saw no reason to stop.

He kept his shield up, for both defensive and offensive purposes. Tight to his shoulder, he would smash the runt of its feet, then finish it with his blade—little use exposing himself until the imp's casting was out of the picture.[/hr]
 
Deidre Dydi

Skidding to a stop once more, Deidre whirled back to the soldier demon. And hesitated. The thing was far to large for her to do any actual damage to it, which meant the best she could do was throw it off balance. Disrupt it. But it was already disarmed of it's sword, and as much as Deidre didn't like Toleus, she wasn't going to start beating him aside.

Not to mention the veritable storm of attacks she could already see the others preparing. She was agile, but even she wasn't interesting in trying to avoid that much friendly fire.

Which left the fleeing imp, but the sight of Masawa taking off after it immediately dispelled that idea. Letting loose a disappointed sigh, Deidre settles for taking a moment to catch her breath.
 
Amel's chase proved to be a short-lived and uneventful one. As he got closer he could see the imp's body starting to grow misty, and from his education on matters relating demons he knew this likely meant the imp was trying to escape back into the realm from whence it had come. It didn't get the chance. Amel's shield slammed into its back, disrupting the spellcasting and making its body lose the odd misty quality, and then his sword plunged through it and snuffed out its life in an instant. Masawa bounded up beside him a moment later and crushed its head with his paw for good measure.

The barrage of fire and wood aimed at the soldier demon was remarkably effective. Wank's fire slammed into its shoulder and burned deep, without even slightly charring Sir Toleus. Despite his nearsightedness and lack of expertise in throwing weapons, Jehan's spear found a soft target in the demon's side just below the rib and drove in a few inches before stopping. While the monster was howling with rage and pain, Arwen's fire arrow pierced its throat and the detonation of magical energy made it appear the demon was breathing fire for a moment. The internal damage caused by the magic was enough to cut its howling down to a gurgle, but the demon was not done yet.

As Toleus' limp body hurtled toward the ground and the ranged attacks all landed true, Yazmina rushed in with calculated recklessness. Whether it was due to the multitude of distractions or a simple failure to predict her movements, the soldier demon didn't react in time to do much of anything to stop her. Her blade sliced right into its leg along the knee, tearing through flesh and causing a louder pained gurgling to pour forth from the creature. Behind her, Sir Toleus crashed hard into the ground with a sickening crunch of metal and bone combined with a wet squelch like a crushed melon, but that left the demon wide open. As its wounded leg buckled, Yazmina's killer instincts from her time as a gladiator urged her onward to shove her sword into its throat that was now easily in reach, and in it went without much resistance. At that same moment, Whalebones came in from the side and smashed his club into the demon's ribs with a sickening crunch, and from the other side Torgun's axe dug into the thigh of its wounded leg fiercely enough that he had to pull hard to tug it free of the bone.

The soldier demon reeled back, doing more damage as it ripped free of the blade, clutching its doubly wounded throat as blood so dark it looked almost black poured out of both its mouth and the hole made by the sword, but its movement was sluggish and clearly panicked. It passed a good distance away from Deidre as it stumbled away, not close enough to threaten her impromptu rest, but she was plenty close to see its flesh growing pale as blood poured forth unabated from throat and thigh. It fell over backward and laid there, breathing in quick and shallow gasps as the life slowly faded from it.

The fight was clearly over, with all the demons dead or dying. Those clear discs Arwen had spotted earlier became more evident to the others as they started sweeping over the bodies and breaking them down in a manner that made it look as if their flesh was starting to rot already. They stayed clear of Thal, who was awake and hurt badly but clearly alive and being tended to by Tres, and the soldier demon for the time being. Sir Toleus, however, was as dead as the horse that had carried him into this fight, and the magical constructs were just starting to gather to deal with the mess. Whalebones hurried over to his friend to help Tres wrap cloth around the other elf's bloody torso.

Torgun gave Yazmina a nod full of respect, along with a grin that showed off his mithril tooth, before heading over to the corpse of their would-be leader. He shooed the constructs away and set his axe aside to roll the crushed body over from its side onto its back, then tried and failed to lift the helmet's visor. "Ah well, probably nothing worth seeing anyway, all crushed to shit like it is. He was a rotten bastard, but he died fighting like a hero." He closed his eyes and murmured some things under his breath for a few seconds, then opened his eyes and gave the corpse a businesslike nod before looking up at the others. "His armor's proper fucked, aside from those magic boots. I'm not one for looting dead companions, even if they were arseholes, but might be he has other things worth holding onto as well if you're so inclined. No sign of the girl we came looking for, so odds are she's in the tower with the demon summoning bastard that took her." The dwarf picked up his weapon and made his way toward the tower, though he did not appear to be in any particular rush to be the first in.

The tower looked rather unassuming, though with the immediate danger gone anyone (except for nearsighted Jehan) who looked up toward the broken roof of it would be able to see purple flashes of light every now and then, clearly the work of some kind of magic but impossible to identify at this distance. Where the roof had collapsed at some point in the distant past, the door at the base of the tower seemed to be relatively intact despite also being made of wood. It sat there hanging partially ajar, perhaps not pulled fully shut by whoever last entered the tower. The door was set at the top of a short flight of stairs, but from a distance and the right angle one would be able to see through the partially open door inside to see that just beyond the door frame was... nothing. It was pitch black and the light did nothing to illuminate it. Whatever waited inside the tower, it seemed they would have to go in blind thanks to some kind of magic, though it was impossible to tell if this was something left by the person who'd fled with the kidnapped daughter of Lord Bornar or if it was just another oddity put in place by whoever created the tower in the first place.
 
Wank had ‘toughed it’, as Amel had instructed, for the remainder of the sortie and the trek towards the mysterious tower, having not remembered the healing potion upon his person. Indeed, the scent of singed skin and charred flesh was progressively worsening, although his spirits were not as low as they perhaps should’ve been. Sir Toleus, the man whom he hated for reasons that he had long since forgotten, had been laid low, felled in the most ignoble of ways! With that in mind, he had been content to simply grit his teeth, and whistle as they came before the door, and the opening, and the unyielding darkness.

“Welp, girlboi with the weird smell,” He said, pointedly addressing Amel, “I toughed it out like ye said; can ye heals me yet?”

He shifted uncomfortably to distract himself from the wound, which caused the healing potion to slosh and the vial to clink somewhat audibly in his pack’s contents. Still, he did not remember.
 
Sir Amel
@Holmishire.

Taking advantage of Masawa's added weight, Sir Amel tugged his sword free from the dead imp and stumbled backwards. The fight had been short and, as far as he was concerned, without incident—but that did not make it any less taxing. Combat at any level requires a great deal of exertion.

With that in mind, he allowed himself a moment of reprieve as the greatest of the threats lay dying somewhere behind him. His blade quickly wiped clean and sheathed, his now free hand tentatively patted the panther on its back. "Thanks," the knight muttered, not really knowing how to address a tamed animal such as he.

A quick search of the imp's body had proven unfruitful, so he marched back towards the others, taking stock of the injured as he did.

The injured—and the dead.

It would be a stretch to say that he had liked the man, but there had been some respect shared between them. To see Sir Toleus crushed so literally into the ground was both sobering and sickening.

He kneeled beside the body, muttered something inscrutable, and then started working the boots off the corpse's feet. He had as much respect for the dead as anyone, but much greater respect for the living—and saw no benefit in abandoning a known advantage for future fights.

Finally, the knight caught up to the goblin, his demanding little voice tugging him out of his gloomy disposition. "Right. Yes, come here." Sir Amel knelt at Wank's side, rifling through the goblin's pack without asking permission. "You do realize I'm not a healer," he grumbled as he pulled the vial and uncorked it. Despite his less-than-compassionate demeanour, he made sure to support Wank as he lifted the potion up for him to drink. "Don't choke."[/hr]
 
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As soon as Jehan saw that the big soldier demon was down, he made a beeline for the creature. Toleus wasn't on his mind, nor was looting- that was not the sort of undignified action he liked to indulge in. He did want his staff back, however. There were few things the elf had sentimental value for, and that staff was one of those things. Grimacing as he made his way through the blood and gore, he narrowed his eyes, looking around for his makeshift javelin.

It wasn't long before he found it embedded in the soldier demon. Truth be told he was very surprised to see he'd actually hit the target. What shocked him even more was that the staff had dug in deep enough that he had to yank at it a few times before it finally slid out of the demon's body, covered in blood. Delighted by the return of his staff yet disgusted by the gore stuck on it, the elf quickly attempted to wipe it clean on the corpse before following after Torgun.

Once they were close enough to the tower, he could see the door a little open, but beyond that he couldn't see anything. He wasn't quite sure if it was simply his weak eyesight or if there was literally nothing there- he'd expect anything to be true given what they've had to deal with so far.

"Well," he started, looking at the others. "Anyone care to venture forth?" He stepped a little closer to the door; narrowing his eyes in anticipation of, well something, he pushed at the door with the end of his staff.
 
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Yazmina Boelner


Alive || West of Varden || With: Everyone



What an amazing rush. The fighter felt more alive now than she had in months despite the fogginess that had taken her earlier when they'd arrived in Varden. As she gathered her wits and did her best to put on a more somber mask on her face, Yazmina wiped her blade and whispered a few words to dismiss the shielding magic. A slow rush of tiredness seeped into her limbs, but it was nothing she couldn't shrug off.

"May the gods guard his soul." While she wasn't much of a pious woman, there was no harm in sending off a small prayer for Sir Toleus, especially in these circumstances. Demons such as those didn't simply appear on their own, and they would have to find their summoner hopefully sooner rather than later. She'd returned Torgun's nod and gave him a slap on the shoulder as they made their way toward the tower. She was glad he had come with them - he was a very worthy comrade.

By the time they'd all reached the tower, Yazmina's blood had calmed down to a simmer rather than the bloodthirst boiling from earlier. "I'll go first. Stay on alert, draw your weapons, but for fuck sake don't aim them at me. Just... Be ready for anything." Following her own advice, she drew back her sword and prepared Brauhm's Shield. This time she didn't summon her magic to protect herself, the burst of confidence from the last fight pushing the fighter into an almost arrogant state of mind.



 
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Deidre Dydi

Deidre laughed as the demon went down, success always a sweet elixir. She laughed again as she passed by Toleus on the way to the tower."What did I say? Claiming the bulk of the reward means sweet nothing, especially if you aren't even going to stick around for it."

The man's death didn't weight too heavily on her mind, if it weighed anything at all. He chose a violent life by choice, fought by choice, charged the demon by choice. No point bemoaning the stupid. The way she saw it, grief was best saved for the helpless - which no one present was - and friends - which was still in the air. Mercenaries and adventurers get killed. Tough break. She left the looting to the others, more than satisfied with her own boots.

After a few stretches - limbering up after a fight was an important as before - Deidre rested her quarterstaff across her shoulders and began pushing past the others towards the tower. Torgun, first to move towards it yet the farthest away. Yazmina, claiming the front but not pushing forward. And Jehan, slowly opening the door but clearly wishing he wasn't. She pushed past them all, and unceremoniously kicked the door the rest of the way open. "If you're gonna go first," she called out cheerfully before stepping into the nothing, "then try actually going."
 
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The small break after the fight was quick and to the point. Though Amel was easily able to remove the departed Sir Toleus' boots, they did not come with any manner of obvious instruction for activation, leaving only study and live experimentation as the only methods to figure out how they work. The healing potion popped into Wank's mouth did a fine job of healing up his wounds, leaving the goblin with a tiny hint of soreness where there had been agonizing pain moments before. Arwen took a moment to pet Masawa and praise the big cat for doing a great job of helping to kill the demons, and the pair took up the rear of the adventuring party as they all made their way to the door. While the group all readied to enter the tower, Whalebones of the trio from Alfhem looked as if he was interested in joining them, but in the end he chose to stay with Thal and Tres and help deal with the male Elf's wounds.

Deidre was the first inside thanks to her enthusiastic approach, and once her face made it past that line of seeming total darkness in the doorway she found that the interior was anything but dark and empty. The first and most obvious item of note was that the inside of the tower looked to be far larger than the outside. She had a few seconds to look over the vast room, a finely furnished circular chamber that stretched at least a couple hundred feet in diameter, and though the ceiling seemed to be some twenty feet up there was nothing in the room that rose more than about her shoulder level, not even hangings on the wall, and it seemed to be just the single room despite the tower clearly being taller from the outside. After those few seconds passed, a silvery mist started to fill the space up and hide all the tables and chairs and art displays that littered the room. The others piling in behind her got a faint glimpse of some of the splendors of the room, but moments after Arwen and Masawa entered they were left unable to see anything but the mist and the ground for a few feet around themselves.

After a few seconds of the mist sitting there doing nothing, a humanoid figure started to form inside of it. There was no doubt that it was an illusion, given that it remained translucent, and it greeted them all with a warm smile. The figure was an Elf with long, silver hair, and wrinkles on his face that told anyone familiar with the aging process of Elves that the man the illusion mimicked had lived for well over two hundred years. His robe was ornate with spiraling patterns stitched in thread of silver on the rich purple fabric, and it had a stiff raised collar that looked rather strange to those who were only familiar with modern fashions. Jehan, however, recognized it as being quite similar to old ceremonial robes used for holy days in his homeland, and similar as well to the robe the haughty Elf near the entrance of town had been wearing.

The illusory Elf spoke a few words as he stepped forward, out of the mist itself and into the clear space around the adventurers. At first only Jehan understood the words, an archaic form of the Elven language, but after a moment they resolved themselves in each listener's head in the common language of the modern day. "Greetings, prospective students!" The illusion looked them over, as if he could actually see them all, but it quickly became clear it was a farce. "I've never seen such a fine group of young Elves make their way to my tower. I am Highlord Bressos, and the fact that you've found your way here means you've completed the Test of the Seeker. However, becoming a Lord of the Moon requires more than simply the drive to seek out knowledge: one must be able to see through obfuscation to find the treasures other would keep locked away. The Test of the Eye is simple: find your way to the stairs and make your way up to the next floor. You may use any magic or tools at your disposal, and if you speak aloud the words 'I give up' then the shroud will show you the quickest path back to the entrance so you can recover and try again later. Good luck, and may the light of Idris guide you to greater knowledge." The illusion of Highlord Bressos gave them all a beaming grin, and then it faded into mist and dissipated.

"The fuck is a Lord of the Moon? Damned magic fiddling with my head like that. Would've been fine just not understanding the babble." Torgun looked round to the other adventurers and gave a sort of helpless shrug. "We wanted to go up anyway, guess we have to play this stupid game to do it. Can't be too hard, right?" The Dwarf pulled out his axe and walked forward into the mist, holding it just under the head and using the handle to poke out in front of him to find objects before he ran into them. He disappeared entirely from sight when he stepped past the border of the mist, and he called out to them with annoyance in his voice. "Can't see fuck all in here, not even my hand in front of my face. Guess we're searching blind." There seemed to be nothing blocking noise, however, and they were able to hear his axe handle poke into something soft, followed by the sound of old wood cracking and clattering to the floor. Whatever fine things had once been here, the vision of them had been just as false as the tower's appearance from afar, and they had little choice but to wander blind through the rotting remains to find their way up to follow the kidnapper they were chasing.
 
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“... das sum muh-ayety fine healin’ there, Ser Aim Hole. Keep it up, why don’t you?” Wank allowed, just now coming to terms with the healing potion’s efficacy.

The illusion had been mildly annoying, throwing such devastatingly pointed insults as ‘elves’ around, but Wank had endured - just barely - worse. The nominal achievement of completing the ‘Test of the Seeker’ was less poignant than perhaps intended, given Wank’s predisposition towards tests. His father, Pung, had given him quite a few tests when it came to teaching him the ways of pyromancy, chief amongst them being the gathering and manual lighting of over one hundred mounds of firewood. Ultimately pointless in the magical sense, and more some tripe about not taking the elements for granted.

Nonetheless, memories of Pung inspired him to retrieve his father’s stick - the everburning branch-candle - in the hopes that its meager magics would perhaps help illuminate the way. Ultimately unlikely, and just as soon as he had retrieved it did he move on to a more pertinent manner.

“Naew… if maybe someone could… hold onto my hand, or allow me to mount myself atop their shoulder-things, so as to best avoid being trampled ‘pon in the dark, ah’d for sure be muhch oblahged.”
 
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Yazmina Boelner


Alive || In a decrepit tower, West of Varden || With: Hopefully, everyone



When Deibre sauntered ahead of her into the tower, the fighter tutted in momentary irritation but had followed in quietly. More shenanigans were afoot, and this one seemingly unrelated to the current state of affairs. But was it, truly? Any further mental debate was interrupted by the goblin asking if someone would carry him. While his stench was foul, there was no denying that Yazmina had seen enough of their travelling and adventuring companions die or get wounded.

With a sigh that went mostly unheard by the others around her, she turned around and picked up Wank effortlessly and placed him on her shoulders. Yazmina preferred not to think about the little clothing that actually covered the creature once he was on sitting on the metal of her armour - her silk scarf would need to be washed as soon as possible anyway. "Try not to set my hair on fire, yeah?" She nonetheless gave him a smile and with a hand on the hilt of her sword - which was back in its sheath - the fighter used her shield to fan away at the magical mist in front of her, going in a slightly different direction than Torgun had.



 
Sir Amel
@Holmishire.

The knight found some relief in that the next trial of this Seeker would prove less lethal—though the demons were likely unintended by the towers original creator. "There's no telling what might be lurking in here; find something to talk about. If someone goes quiet, better to know right then than at the other end."

Drawing his sword back from its sheath, he approached the wall to the left. While Lame's magic was generally quite effective against illusions, he doubted it would be as simple as striking the darkness and banishing it all at once. Instead, he tapped the edge of the blade lightly against the stonework, took a step forward, and tapped again. There was no telling if the illusions were simply visual, but if a hidden door was embedded into the wall, surely he would be able to find it.

Taking his own advice, Amel began to chant a soft rhyme from his time as a squire; low enough that he could hear the others, but loud enough that they'd hear him if they tried.[/hr]
 
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Deidre Dydi

It wasn't until a few sentences into the speech that Deidre decided she wasn't being poisoned, and took a grateful breath of the mist. The rest of the speech was spent in mild confusion. She hadn't noticed any stairs, before the mist filled the room. Nothing approaching the ceiling at all. Did the stairs not appear until after the mist?

Perhaps it was a trick. A riddle. Maybe the stairs went down, through a trapdoor hidden in the floor. But no, the elf illusion specifically said 'up'. Or perhaps that was part of the trick. Or.. a trapdoor in the ceiling, like as in an attic? Deidre grunted. She preferred acting to standing around thinking, but this puzzle seemed entirely focused around thinking.

Sighing, she bounced on her feet for a moment before tensing her legs and leaping straight up, quarterstaff held above her head. Ready to strike the roof, to test for sounds of hollowness, and similarly listen for her landing. From what she saw before the mist, the ceiling was high enough to demand close to the peak of her vertical leap in order to reach with the staff, which would make spiraling around the room an exhausting exercise.

But at least she'd be moving.
 
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Not long after most of the adventurers set out into the mist, they started finding odd spots of momentary resistance. It was like running up against a wall, but then they disappeared entirely. Yazmina and Amel both managed to figure out it moments before Torgun called out to the others. "I think this was supposed to be some kind of maze with magic walls, but that part ran out of juice or something." That didn't make much sense to those who were familiar with the way magic works, especially long term enchantments, and that explanation made little sense given all the other old magic still functioning in and around the tower. Deidre found her first ephemeral wall soon after Torgun called out her theory, but rather than walking into it she landed on it and felt the momentary resistance give way beneath her feet; they were only perhaps five feet high, so her jumping would have largely been unimpeded even if they remained solid.

Torgun took up Amel's suggestion, murmuring a Dwarven drinking song as he walked around with his hands held out in front of him. Deidre made plenty of noise with her jumping and slapping the roof, which returned only the sound of wood on solid stone. Wank and Yazmina together made a fair bit of noise just by grace of Yazmina's armor. The other two, however, remained largely silent. Both Jehan and Arwen found themselves struggling to think clearly, like the silver fog had invaded their minds and made everything sort of fuzzy. However, Masawa seemed to be fine, and he judged at the unmoving pair with low rumbles of discontent. They managed to drag themselves enough out of their stupor to grab hold of the unhappy cat, Masawa then guided them along with his nose to the ground.

A couple minutes of searching went by fruitlessly. Yazmina and Wank found nothing but some old and crumbling furniture. Amel found plenty of that himself, but otherwise just a lot of solid stone; his sword seemed to have no noticeable effect on the mist, unfortunately. Torgun's blind search was similarly fruitless. Deidre, however, found something interesting in a rather unpleasant way. She leapt forward for another strike at the ceiling, but she hit something solid instead. Like a bird slamming into glass, she slid gracelessly down smooth stone but managed to land on her feet, and luckily nobody had been able to see her As she heard the snuffling sound and multitude of footsteps that came from Masawa getting closer, her hand brushed against something metal along that stone surface, and suddenly the mist was gone from the room.

Standing before them was a cylindrical bit of stonework that ran from floor to ceiling with a wooden door set in the base, which clearly must have been masked with some kind of illusion even when Deidre first looked into the room. It was inscribed all along its surface with a multitude of runes, though somebody or something had damaged a lot of them, and lines that looked like they might have been created by claws scored the surface. About half of the runes still held the glowing presence of magic though, and this was clearly a better explanation for the walls failing. Another illusion of Highlord Bressos appeared above the door, but it was a flickering image like a candle on its last legs and it produced no sound even as its mouth moved. It disappeared within a few seconds, though it was impossible to tell if that was because it was a short message or due to the damage, and the door swung open of its own volition to reveal a simple spiral staircase within.

Masawa pressed on without waiting for the others to regroup, leading Arwen and Jehan upward as he continued to follow some kind of scent. The others were left with little choice but to follow as they could, lest they leave the clearly disorientated and confused pair holding onto the cat's fur without any other protection. After Masawa made it up, the sound of Highlord Bressos' voice echoed down the open stairwell for all nearby to hear. "This, the Test of Knowledge, shall be your final test, one way or another. Over your education and trials we have granted you hints of the deepest truth, the forbidden truth that the Moon Lords have uncovered. Without knowledge, you are worthless. Should you fail this test, your soul shall be torn from your mortal form as you have proved yourself worthless. You may leave now and try again when you feel more confident, but know that the maze below always takes a new shape so any maps you made will be useless upon your return. Simply place the correct hand in the slot to answer the following question: what are the gods?" Any who made it up to the top of the long staircase before the speech was over would have seen the illusory image of the Elf there in the room again, only to disappear once the question was asked.

Upon arriving to the upper chamber, the adventurers were greeted by a strangely primitive sight. It was a simple stone room, just a bit smaller than the tower as viewed from the exterior, and there was a door at the opposite hand that was made of stone and had two interesting features: a series of brightly glowing runes in and around the door itself, and an indentation shaped like a hand. Everyone could feel the powerful energy emanating from that door, and Wank and Amel both recognized it as something close to healing magic though a bit off, but Yazmina was the one who instantly understood it on a primal level rather than an intellectual one: the magic on the door was made with the cold-blooded intent to kill, to suck the very life essence out of someone, and anyone setting it off would almost certainly die. Around the outer wall of the room there were twelve shelves that each held a stone carving of a hand. They were made from a variety of stones, everything from simple granite to marble to a sparkling ruby hand, and each was inscribed with a rune; though none of them were well versed in the runic language of magic, inspecting a hand made a concept pop into the viewer's mind to bring them understanding of its significance.

The granite hand made a viewer think simply of stone and earth, and it evoked an image of gods rising from the dirt fully formed. A sapphire hand gave a similar vision of the sea, while a grey stone laced with green gave the same of the gods rising from plant life, a white stone the same with clouds and the air, and the ruby gave a vision of gods pulling free from bubbling magma in the crater of an active volcano. The marble hand showed a marble statue suddenly coming to life as a god, though it showed nothing of where such a carved statue might have come from. A light pink stone hand showed an artfully censored mental image of two gods laying with one another as mortals do, and a sense of time passing before the female god gave birth to another of their kind. A hand made of some strange metal, not quite iron but similar to it, showed burning rocks falling from the sky and gods breaking free of them like chicks from eggs. An onyx hand gave a sense of void nothingness, and the gods simply materialized from it. A sandstone hand showed a god waving a hand to make another, and that god waved their hand to make a different one, and so on and so forth with no apparent beginning or end. A hand that proved to be made of petrified wood rather than proper stone showed a mortal sitting and thinking and wishing for guidance, and from those thoughts a god came into existence suddenly. Finally, a somewhat jagged hand of obsidian showed demonic monstrosities simply changing their appearance to look benevolent and kind to unsuspecting mortals.

Masawa stood impatiently in front of that dangerous door, growling and sniffing at the crack at the bottom. It seemed likely that he had caught the sent of the kidnapper they were chasing, and that meant he was beyond the door. "Well fuck me sideways." Torgun walked around looking at all the hands, grimacing at some of the visions they gave him. "None of these look like what I was taught, that there was some kind of extra special god who made the whole world and the gods we know, then fucked off to who knows where. The sandstone one seems wrong for that, seems like the regular old gods just... made themselves? Popping up out of nowhere seems like bullshit for the same reason. Maybe it's some kind of trick question? I fucking hate riddles." The Dwarf continued pacing around examining the hands, muttering under his breath as he considered them all.

As deadly as the way forward seemed to be, the adventurers had little choice but to make their way through if they hoped to rescue the kidnapped daughter of the local lord, and the gods only knew what the kidnapper might be doing to her as they were held up by these tests left behind by the Moon Lords.
 
  • Nice Execution!
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Yazmina Boelner


Alive || In a decrepit tower, West of Varden || With: Everyone



As soon as they were up in the new room, Yazmina gritted her teeth and felt a shiver run down her back, enough so that Wank might feel her tremble ever so slightly. Not wanting to put the idiotic goblin down so he could accidentally kill himself on that door, the fighter took a few steps forward to look at the hands. She was no good at riddles or things that required a higher intellect. Her worth was in battle, and now she was so out of her depth that it was infuriating.

"No one touch that door. It..." She cleared her throat and tightened her grip on the pommel of her sword. "If we get the question wrong, whoever placed the hand is going to die. That door has the stench of death." Feeling like her warning was enough, she turned away from facing the doomed door and continued to look at the hands.

One might think a Scion would have an inkling of such a thing. The gods could copulate with mortals but it would not create demi-gods in return - only cursed beings, deformed and ostracized. The pink hand was the first to be dismissed, and while Yazmina has very little education about the gods something felt wrong with the hands that simulated the gods being born from the natural elements. Considering the rather ridiculous number of gods there for, for anything one might think of - the petrified wood hand seemed the most likely in her mind. However it was the obsidian hand that caught her attention the most, although this could be blamed on the fact that they'd just fought demons.

"I'm not well versed into such... academic topics, but I think the right answer is either the wooden hand or the obsidian hand." She chewed her lip but the grip on the pommel of her sword loosened, and Yazmina took a few steps back to let the others take a better look at the hands.



 
Sir Amel
@Holmishire.

Sir Amel stepped forward to take Yazmina's place by the shelves. A quick swipe of his finger across the stone produced no traces of dust or residue—mages had a tendency of squandering their gifts on simple conveniences.

Tidy loafers, the lot.

Amel stripped his right hand of its glove. Delicately and deliberately, he then lifted the sapphire hand from its perch, and shivered at the touch. It was not often that the Holtanian had been able to visit the shores, but the ocean was not an unwelcome sight. He breathed in deeply, relaxing his posture as he recalled the light breeze and foul taste of the sea. Most magics he treated with tempered caution—but this, this he could enjoy.

Opening his eyes again, he passed the stone over to whoever stood closest, and then picked up the granite hand, again taking a moment to fully embrace its vision. Each stone passed hands as he took up the next, and he made an effort to distribute them among the remaining party members. When it came to the Jakan woman, he even made a point of reaching out past the others, so that she need not step close to the jaguar standing at attention by the door.

The were two stone hands that left him with greater pause. First, the hand of onyx, of the void. If something had to have been first, why would it not be the gods? And second, the obsidian, that had also given Yazmina pause. Weighing the two stones in his hands, he spoke up. "My father was odd, but Mother never spoke ill of him. It is not unusual to take the strange and associate it with the twisted but…" He returned the obsidian stone to the shelf. "I don't think it fair. They are too much like us, and nothing like those creatures we killed outside." His bare hand stroked the onyx in his hand briefly, and then stopped, as he frowned.

Torgun was right; none of these felt right. Twelve stones, none less far-fetched than the last. Each story seemed entirely too simple, and each answer seemed entirely too easy.

"Would they dare leave this test to chance?" he asked of no one in particular, replacing the last hand back on its shelf. "Jehan, heal me if things turn dark." And with that, he reached out his bare hand, palm-first, towards the indentation in the door.[/hr]
 
  • According to Plan
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Arwen & Masawa

"Good boy Masawa," Arwen praised as the jaguar had been leading her through her daze into the tower and into the room of puzzle-whatzit. In all honesty, this was far from her forté. Thinking hadn't been a massive part of her training, and being the girl who couldn't read nor write correctly, she doubted that any of her opinions to prove themselves useful when the voice mentioned knowledge. Torvald, her father, wasn't big on the gods either so he never bothered teaching her. Thankfully, Sir Amel and Yazmina seemed to know what they were doing as they looked at the hands, the obsidian and onyx one in particular. Arwen only thought the hands were pretty and well-made, especially considering how they had been constructed for this door.

The half-elf ran her hand through Masawa's fur, telling him to calm himself down and make way for the other two that were working on the riddle hat Arwen had given no more thoughts. She hadn't expected Sir Amel to reach for the door, especially not considering how both the elf and Yazmina mentioned how it would lead to death, one way or the other.

"Hey Amel," Arwen called out as she approached him. "If you die, is it okay to grab your stuff?" It was always a good idea to make sure, didn't want to be rude. Plus, there was so much mention of death if they picked wrong, so it was probably a good idea to ask now rather than later! "Don't know how much stuff will be left, but your shield looks pretty cool!"
 
  • Haha
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