RP:Dark Elements, Under a Bridge
This is a Necromancer's Guild RP.
Below a Bridge
Just south of the bridge, a winding, dirt path heads back around and under it. Dark at all times, the air is foul and filled with the tainted, coppery scent of fresh blood. Those of more sensitive eyes that require little light might make out the piles of bones laying in several corners, while those less fortunate are most likely doomed to trip and possibly join them. Oddly, wind blowing through seems to bear with it the soft sound of a child's laughter, filling the place with it's mischievous melody. A filthy river used by Cenril's residents to dump sewage into runs through this area adding a filthy stench and attracting disgusting creatures...
... and also Tenebrae. :\
Tenebrae was Queen of Shadows - or at least, that's what she went by elsewhere. In any case, here, below the bridge between Cenril and Milous, the dark wasn't bothering her very much. Nor the blood-scent, or spooky child-cries... but the stink of Cenril's sewage had her holding her nose, muttering loudly in the murk regarding the filth of mortals in general, while she used her boot to kick through a large pile of bones.
Pyde scampers into the area, sensing another's presence, he sniffs at the air, having lived in sewers most of his life, he is unaffected by the scents that drift from the local waste lines. Caution being forefront of his mind, he quickly whispers an invisibility spell and hurries over to secure area and deposits his bundle which was about the same size as him. He quickly scurries away from the spot and dispels the illusion. He makes his way into the open, an inquisitive look on his features. "Everything alright?"
Tenebrae had sensed the crackle of magic in the atmosphere down there, though she could not tell what type of spell it was, or who'd used it. That perception had her on her guard, though, and while her eyes were adjusted well to darkness, her scent was impaired, so Pyde still managed to surprise her. "Ah!" She peered at the fermin, who seemed familiar to her though they all tended to look the same.. perhaps it was his unusually natty way of dressing, but Tene only had to dredge her memory for a little while before she said, "Pyde.. Is that you?" Being almost sure it was, she went on, "And yes, all is well. I was just looking for something.." she frowned, "... I sensed it when I was crossing the bridge. Can you feel it?" There was a strange sort of hum in the air, and while this was perceivable by the Thanatos Domina, perhaps it would prove even moreso to a fermin.
Pyde 's eye tattoos glow only so faintly red. He shakes his head, "I feel something, but I am not sure where it comes from. What is it we are looking for?" He reaches to his belt and takes a couple to pouches of bones, and drops them. The bones scatter on the ground, then reassemble into their true skeletal rat forms. Pyde shouts a command word and the rats begin searching around the area for something unusual.
Tenebrae took a moment's rest from kicking through the bone piles - most of the contents in those were badly gnawed and thus not terribly salvageable, she'd already decided - to watch Pyde's ratty resurrection spell. "Well done there," she told him, as the skeletal rodents scudded about among the refuse. "I had thought you gone, to be honest, as no-one in the guild had heard from you.. but clearly, you have keeping up your studies." She broke off there, turning sharply toward a pulse of magical emanation that vanished by the time she'd turned all the way around. "And I don't know, exactly. It's.. just a strange feeling I have, that there's something down here. Something .. magical. Did you just feel that?" But now she was staring at another part of the underbridge, even as several of the undead rats began scraping their way in that very direction.
Pyde grins evilly, "If one is going to be powerful one must evolve their style." He trances out and his tattoos glow bright red as he uses his magic to see from the point of view of his rats. A stern look crosses his face as the information from the rats meets his mind. He individually controls them searching around the piles of bones and other objects not so recognized. The rats fan out behind Tenebrae starting to dig into the the piles of waste. "This way is so much easier than actually digging around for things in this muck. I like to keep my hands clean now, so I developed a method to look through their eye sockets."
Tenebrae said, "That's.. quite ingenious. Reminds me of a book I once read on Ossioscopy, though that was more about looking for memories.." The Thanatos Domina looked truly pleased with Pyde's progress. "I take it that I can still count you among the Novus Morior, then?" The revenant rats were busy digging, making something of a general clatter, but both they and Tenebrae halted in what they were doing, suddenly, turning in the opposite direction. "There!" But the arcane pulse shifted again. "No.. there!" She frowned. "I don't think it's a spirit, do you? Nor a pixie... I just can't put my finger on it, really, except that reeks of dark magic.""
Pyde said, "The titan gave me a good tome to study from. I've been studying it everyday since, and been practicing only what benefit me." The fermin searches about with his senses, looking for the abrupt change in position, and source of the magic. When he felt something, he would direct the rights in that direction. "Hmmm... Perhaps this artifact or whatever is in pieces and the energy you are sensing is moving from piece to piece, but can't bring itself together."
Tene nodded approval of Pyde's ongoing studies, and his dedication both. "You must fill me in on what you've been learning, one day, then," she murmured, and when the fermin put forward his theory as to the source of the shifting magic, Tene raised a forefinger, "Aha! Good thinking, Novus. But what could be magical... and in pieces... discarded under a bridge, of all places?" Meanwhile, the rats were rattling through dismembered skeletons, some bones of which were not all that identifiable.
Pyde said, "What do you know about powerful artifacts that had to be broken down and separated to prevent something's return or something. In that case I would love to get my hands on it. And as to my studies, I would love to fill you in. You are much more powerful than I, so I won't charge you for my secrets. If you were anyone else, there would be a 'price.'" The fermin scratches his chin, Deep in thought as his little pets keep digging in the muck. "Do you think the remains here are bone or metal?"
Tenebrae thought about Pyde's last question first, her brows furrowing as she tried to get a bead on the odd 'feeling' it gave her. "Well.. as my field of specialty as it were is in death magic, rather than elemental.. I'd say.. probably bone." Her frown deepened. "It could be a single skeleton, broken into parts. But.. why then, would they moving about like that?" Then she smiled, showing a mouthful of small, sharp teeth. "And I would love to hear your secrets sometime, Novus. But first..." she blinked, hurrying toward one of the bone piles. "I felt it again! Just now... around here, somewhere."
Pyde moves the rats to dig in a more focused area around the the direction indicated by the woman. "Lichs have the power to put their essence into inanimate objects, not necessarily bones, hence my reasoning. Death magic is involved, so my theory is what led me to think that." The rats seemed to come across something different. A few come across buried wooden material, and others uncovered deteriorating cloth, that seemed to be marked with runes, but the magic in them were fading.
Tenebrae blinked. "Lich magic.. rare, and limited to a very few." Her frown returned, as she thought of the powerful Book of the Dead that had slipped from her grasp, and vanished to Vakmatharas-knew-where. Something bothered her about that, she remembered, but could not presently recall why... Focussing on the skeletal rats now, she peered at one, and then another. "What's it they've got there, Pyde?"
Pyde said, "It seems the rats have come across some runed fabric, and another couple rats came across something wooden." The rats continue digging and uncover a small wooden box, but the one was rusted in the metal parts, and looked like rusted over inscriptions in the metal. Pyde 's tattoos glow red at the arcane magic present, but then his tatoos glow black. The fermin grins, "There is arcane runes on this, I believe to seal this, but then there is maybe... Yes, there is. Death magic present, trying to break through the seals."
Tenebrae peered at the runes, "I agree. And the death magic - that is what drew me down here, and had me searching through these piles. But why was it -moving-?" Her finger extended as she traced the sigils engraved onto the box's metal plates - carefully, and without touching them. "These are extremely ancient. Hard to make out, especially with all the rust.. but I think it's a version of a very old ritual of protection. We ought to be careful, as I cannot quite work out so far whether it's meant to protect what's inside the box.. or what's outside."
Pyde goes over to the rats that found the fabric. He reaches down and pulls out the fabric out of the muck, revealing the fabric to be a soggy pouch with similar markings on it. His tatoos flash red, then turn black. "It looks like this one has something similar as well, but why would it be in a pouch and not a box like that one you have there? Can you track where the magic is with these?"
Tenebrae bit the arrow, so to speak, and reached for the pouch. "Strong magic.. " and then walked to the box, taking that up too in her other hand. "Perhaps it wasn't so much -moving- as shifting focus from one item to another, and that gave the impression something was shifting about.." she thought about that for a moment, recalling the directions from where she'd felt the other arcane pulses. "SO there has to be more than these two items." Green eyes settled on Pyde .. or the creature she thought was Pyde... and the Necromancer added, "The question then is - why's it under a bridge, in a pile of old rubbish?"
Pyde 's form shrugs, "How old is the bridge? That could give you an idea as to why and when it was buried. Think about it. It it was buried here before the bridge was built, then perhaps no one in those times wanted it found." If Tenebrae looked closely and saw or sensed magic she would see that despite the near perfect motions of life, the thing that looked like Pyde was actually being controlled from somewhere near by.
Tene stared at the 'puppet'. "Do I look like a city engineer? I have no idea when the bridge was built.." this flicker of irritation passing, she frowned at the two items she held. "And trust me ... if you're right about this once belonging to a Lich, there'd be a great deal more protection around it than..." her eyes snapped off Pyde and onto another of those bone piles, where the rats were scrabbling again. "Over there.. Pyde, they've found something.. ow!" A pulse of dark arcana ran through her hand, chilling the Necromancer down to the bone. "Definitely .... doing the rounds, this magic. Between these vessels. If we collect them all and line them up in order." Her eyes widened, and Tenebrae muttered, "Now why is that familiar? It's a bit like Fineager's Pentarchal Knot. But nobody's used that successfully in centuries." She turned to Pyde's look-alike puppet - and if she'd guessed his secret by now, did not let on yet. "Yes, quickly - we must find three more vessels, I’m sure there’ll be three, and get them in the right order for the pulse.”
Pyde wills his toys to start digging in other areas, that he thought seemed to be in a pattern with the other locations. If his guess was correct, a five pointed figure was involved, according to what Tenebrae said, and a hinting at what he read out of the book Morvious gave him, when Pyde first started out in his craft. He mumbles something about five elements and a circle with five major points. "Water, and earth, perhaps Obsidian for fire, Quartz for air. Those might lead to the last one, but that might be the most dangerous, because Ether is not solid but energy. to contain energy." His rats dig with a more rapid pace. The first group starts scraping at a stone like substance. Pyde quickly moves forward to pull out the stone, revealing that it was a box made of quartz, but it seemed that something was eating away at the inside of it, It also had bindings to keep it together like the wooden box, with rusted inscriptions as well. Next another group of skeletons reached a bone grating substance. A rough texture, but looking smooth black surface was unearthed. This was also in the shape of a box with bindings, and inscriptions, the fermin soon found out after retrieving it from it's deposit in the ground. "Do you want to place them to find the last one, ma'am?"
Tenebrae set the items in her hands down - her haste added to by the runed cloth bag emitting another bone-chilling charge of deathly arcana. "Yes.. but take care. If you get them in the wrong order.." she paused, shaking her head, "The Pentarchal Knot is meant to contain a magical essence, but also protect it from fools and the unworthy." Tene sniffed - she was definitely neither of those. "From what I recall, the elements have little to do with that order - fools would place it according to the regular sort of magical arrangement, as it seems obvious.." she indicated the bag and the box, "But if you .. do bring those other things here.. no, over here, just don't line them up, good lad.. if you can sense it, the pulse is not following any elemental order. Only a death mage would sense the correct course that magical current must take. And if we gather the four correctly ..." The Thanatos Domina grinned again, showing those sharp little teeth, though it seemed more bravado than humour, "We'll find the fifth element. Or.... possibly be ripped to shreds by something really nasty. Ready, then, Novus?"
Pyde grins mischievously, "Let's go for it. I can already taste the power we are about to uncover." He brings the other two items and hands them to the Vampire, rather than setting them down to be cautious. He summons his rats to form a circle around the two Necromancers. A back up plan to be safe if something went wrong.
Tenebrae placed the items randomly, in an irregular formation. She then offered Pyde a happy little smlile, approving of his skeletal safety plan. "Now..." she placed her palm over one item, then the next, "The trick is.. to trace the current of magic as it passes from one item to the next. Ooh, there we go. Bag again. Quartz... obsidian... " her palms were flying over the items, ".. and then.. wooden box." Gritting her teeth, the Necromancer gingerly drew a smaller cirlce inthe dirt with her finger, inside that larger one created by the undead rodents. "Pyde, hop in here before I seal it, it'll probably be safer."
Pyde raises a finger, "What happens outside the circle? You are sure that being inside that circle is safest place to be? I'll show you what I mean." The fermin falls to the ground in an unmoving heap, almost as if he died. Upon further inspection what was Pyde was just a corpse. The real Necromancer appears from behind a pile of bones near where he came down from the bridge. He bows to Tenebrae, "Deception like that is why i give off the guise of being an Traveling Entertainer." He hurries to step inside the circle. This Pyde was much more slender than his double, bony, and a little smaller, but the look in his eye was that of a sharp survivor.
Tenebrae snickered. "I am very sure indeed that you'll be safer in here, Pyde." She resisted the urge to pat him on his little ratty head. "I was wondering when you'd let the rat out of the bag, as it were. Now, focus..." Next the Necromancer wove a few intricate sigils in the dirt, using just the tip of her finger to mark those out in the smelly soil, rich with years' worth of garbage. "This is basics, Novus, Help me with the Warding chant, just like Lorkain would have showed you." She started the chant off, intoning those familair, guttural phrases, and the inner circle glaowed faintly. When Pyde took over the chant, she'd arrange the items - one in each quarter, according to its place in the chain of magical pulses, until all four made an invisible square inside the circle. And a second after Tene placed the wooden box down in that correct configuration, the runes and sigils on the wooden box's metal plates lit up with a blinding but deep blue light. "Eureka," she whispered. Then the obsidian lit up, then the quartz, and the bag - in the opposite sequence to the pulse, Pyde may notice. The atmosphere under the briidge was thick with ominous magical fallout, and a century's worth of dumped bodies and cast-off bones rattled... "Things are either going terribly well," Tene told Pyde, in a whisper, "Or .. terribly wrong. Look for the fifth element! It should appear any moment!"
Pyde continues the chant as his superior showed him to keep up the ward, at the same time he reaches to his belt again with both hands, and drops a couple more pouches that contained even more rats, these ones much bigger with sharper claws and teeth. The bones scatter then reassemble and make a second circle out side the first. Should anything come up they were ready. The first circle of rats disperse and seek out a source of energy, this time it is much stronger and even Pyde can tell where this is. Near the center to the area at the cross section where the lines would meet if there were lines that the first four elements were buried in. The fifth element shines, hanging in the air. Pyde cautiously reaches out for it, taking it in both hands. The power that surges within his grasp is almost intoxicating. A great urge of want is felt so strongly with in him that he hesitates before passing it on to Tenebrae. He filled with the desire to just push the energy into his own body, all that power. The only thing that keeps him from doing so is the feeling that if he did that he would go mad, and may not return from a trip inside his head. He forces the urge away with all his might, and quickly returns to the Vampire. "Here. Take it," he pants from fighting the energy.
Tenebrae-was- going to say, ‘For the love of all that's unholy, under NO circumstances touch that..’ but all she got out was, ‘For the love of...’ before Pyde had picked up that shining prize. She winced, watching him struggle with its power. "Hell no, I'm not touching that," she told him. "And now that you have, you've broken the cycle," Tene tried, really, tried, to remain cheerful for Pyde's sake, so her smile was forcibly sunny, "You'll probably explode. Unless..." the Necromancer wracked her brain for dim memories of texts read long ago. All around them, the gloom was like a living thing - or, undead, moreso. Those bones were rattling harder, and several moved of their own accord, prompting Pyde's rodent servants to gnaw on them madly.. "Unless.. here," Tene unclipped her coin-pouch, tipping the monetary contents on the ground. "Stick it in there. And discharge all that excess energy.. oh my, Pyde.. you've gone.. quite blue.. Anyway, channel it into all these old bones here. Quick smart, there's a lad. I can't afford any more losses to the Guild, presently."
Pyde racks his brain about channeling energy, what did he read about that? Oh yeah, the fermin quickly puts the last element into the available container. He imagines himself with a cord running to each of the bones present. Willing the energy into those bones he forces out anything that isn't of himself. Hopefully his color returned to normal, as the tremendous amount of energy is pushed out and into the other receptacles. All his rats go to work as the bones try to assemble themselves. The rats gnaw through most of the bones reducing them to dust, but a few assemble to create a large bone golem. "Ah ma'am what do you advise now?" His first thoughts go to his rats, he shouts the command phrase that immediately moves the rats to attack with all haste on the larger skeleton. They target the joints of such a monstrous being.
Tenebrae stared at the golem - a foul thing, comprised of several different races magically articulated into one great undead jumble of horror which batted Pyde's little rat horde into a scatter of bone fragments with great sweeps of its possibly once-draconian claws. "Sit tight," Tene told him. "And call your rats off. Look …" as fast as the rats could gnaw, more bones among the piles attached to each other, whole heaps rising as huge, conglomerate creatures that shambled toward the Novus and his Guildmistress, and were held back only by that circle in the dirt. "Attacking won't get us anywhere, except potentially torn apart by one of those things. Damn it all, if only this ritual wasn't so archaic. If only I'd paid more attention to…" a great rumble sounded then, from beneath Cenril itself. The bag holding that shining magical element was steaming, slowly turning to char from the inside out. "That's.. not good," Tene said, regarding all of it, a little bit redundantly.
Pyde nods calling the rats off the giant works of art. An idea struck him, the bone meal chewed by the rats. He wills his rats to move into the piles of Bone meal scattered around the place. Using his magic, he binds the bonemeal to the rats making them bigger, by adding the calcium and carbon to them, also making them tougher for now. They form two defensive circles around the Necromancers. The rats were about the size of a large breed of dog, wolf hounds to be exact, teeth gleaming and claws glinting, waiting for them larger monsters to come closer.
Valentin was, for the first time in ages, heading into Cenril to take care of some personal business. The butcher was tromping along the bridge in unhurried fashion when his shadow's eyes flare open. Valentin's shadow, uncaring of it's usual role in mimicking Valentin's movements, elongates its neck to peer under the bridge. Very soon, Valentin would receive a tap on his shoulder from his own shadow.
"Oh, good show!" Tene said to Pyde, but would save any further admiration regarding his bone-binding skills for later... "But as I said.. direct attack is perhaps not the best way to.." There was a horrific 'snap' of energy being released amid that space under the bridge - and the bone golems – plural now - began to mimic Pyde's bone-conglomeration spell. Which meant they just got bigger. And above the bridge, perhaps some of Cenril's citizens were beginning to notice some strangely fleshless tourists making their way about the markets, the streets, on bony feet, creatures cobbled together from bits of old dead things... Meanwhile, back at the smelly underbridge, Tebe was cussing and poking herself in the forehead with her forefinger, "What was the rest of the ritual? Oh my gosh, silly woman.. remember!" And as the bone-beasts grew larger yet, she shouted to Pyde, "Reverse that spell, pronto!"
Pyde said, "Perhaps 'monkey see, monkey do?" He grins at his own humor. Raising his hands up and making a few gestures of his own. His rats soon decrease in size and soon fall apart. Hopefully the larger creatures would follow suit. "What can I do now? My style arts are rendered useless now."
Valentin closes his eyes, and binds a fraction of his own essence with his shadow's. A moment later he opens his shadow's eyes to see through them himself. It was always disorienting, this, different to the effect caused by Dragichnyev's "Umbral Occuli". As the Thanadule extended his vision via shadow below the bridge, he comes to the realisation that he could have happily jumped in a volcano right about then. Valentin seemed to be haunted by the Domina these days, and now she was playing the troll under Cenril bridge, and had come up with a lot of new playthings. Valentin had been about to walk on when he notices the ritual circle, and its eccentric construction. With a snap the vampiric butcher's eyes open, and he chants a cantatus of umbralbinding. A moment later, the butcher sinks through his shadow, and rises out of the ground in front of Tenebrae and Pyde. The butcher, though an habitually unhurried man, takes in Tenebrae's muttering, the unusually large bone golems, and Fineager's Pentarchal Knot. Seemed he didn't have much time. Despite knowing the consequences, he would have to pick the lesser of two evils. Pulling out his grotesquely oversized cleaver, Valentin hurriedly examines the boneshambling monstrosities until he sees what he needs. With a grunted "I'm gonna blimmin' regret this" Valentin wades in with broad, precise sweeps of the cleaver, seperating bones away from one of the golems even as it claws at him. The butcher bats a hybrid of three arms away from his face as he cuts away a misplaced and flailing spinal chord. But soon, scratched and gouged as the butcher becomes from muddy and mouldering bone talons, Valentin clears a path to his prize: a very large femur. A ribcage, horribly warped to a chain of pelvic bones, is swung at the butcher, who grasps hold of it with a flare of the sigils on his arms and a hissed sequence of dissonant sibilants, activating a sequence of sigils bound to the pyrumbral tides. As the ribcage-morningstar flares alight with black flame Valentin steps in with two swift chops of his cleaver. Pushing away the burning ribcage, Valentin graps the mostly-cleared femur and hauls it out, before hacking into one end of it with his cleaver. The cut was not clean, as the butcher had to turn as a mouldery legbone-club is broken over his shoulder, but a quick whack of the bone to parry an incoming skullchain snaps the end off nicely. Valentin looks at Pyde and Tenebrae, and decides which one would be the better catch "Oi, Ratface, catch this if y'want a chance t'get out o'this mess mos'ly intact!" A moment later, the long femur, end snapped off, would come sailing at Pyde. Valentin meanwhile beat a retreat to Tenebrae, fending off the assault of various bone limbs in the hopes she had noticed the Femur, an' recognised what it meant. A moment later, the butcher mutters to her, hacking off a section of carpal-cat-nine-tails "Mistress, Y'aint turnin' into another blimmin' Lorkain, right? Fineager's works is one of the crusty old bonebag's favourite studentkillers, innit."
Tenebrae hissed, "Not my choice, Thana... OH. MY. GODS... That's it! That's IT!" She was jumping up and down, now, an action swiftly mimicked by one of the less well-organised bone golems with disastrous results, primarily for it. Tene landed Valentin a smack of a kiss on one muttonchopped cheek, and whirled about to face Pyde, "Have one of your wee ratties chew a hole in that leg-bone here.. here... and ...here. Oh, and here," each place was marked with her finger, a dab of river filth doing for chalk. "Valentin and I will fend off the bone-beasts... meantime, I want those holes, and quick!" She beamed, even as a mantis-like golem slashed close to that weakening circle of protection, the fifth element burning not only though the bag but through the magical ward as well. With a swift look to Valentin, Tene grinned and -- started whistling. Five notes, eerie and dissonant. The bone-things shuddered, but kept up the attack. She eyeballed the Butcher, as if to encourage him to help her out, with the strange tune, the last part of the ritual -- which he'd reminded her of, by chucking that bone at Pyde. Maybe she'd do something nice for him later. But probably.. not.
Pyde shouts a command word and three of his rats reassemble at once and attack the areas indicated by Tenebrae. Pyde still had a trick up his sleeve he forgot about till just now. He pulls out his flute clipped to his belt. Raising the thing up to his lips, he plays a song, one that was passed down through his family. The song interferes with the magic that effects bones, causing vibrational frequencies to slow the the golem down and decrease their rate of growth, and making it harder to move.
Valentin takes up the supporting versa to Tenebrae's sorcerous canta, the harsh bass notes of his contra-arcanae wrapping in a strange disharmony around the primary activators of the Domina's own eerie notes. Where the Domina's notes link her will to the prime directive of Fineager's circle, Valentin's verse ensured the supporting subarrays of dark energies would pulse in time to the flow of Tenebrae's energies. His was a twisted dissonant symphony careening along with the unnatural twists of her 'conducting' notes. A swipe of his cleaver detaches from one golem a flailing limb constructed of warped and braided tibulae and fibulae - the limb, rather than connecting with Tenebrae, flies off to land twitching a couple of metres away. Valentin is slow and deliberate in his actions, moving only to avoid the worst of the damage being inflicted on him as he keeps himself interceded between golems and Pyde, aided by Pyde's sorcerous flute slowing the boneheaps down. Around them the air grows almost greasy with the tainted energies inherent to the Necromantic language as Thanadule and Thanatos Domina chant their dark chorus.
Tenebrae just stared at Pyde when he whipped from out his bag that handy-dandy flute. Snatching the bone with holes gnawed into it by tiny ratty teeth, she thunked the fermin necromancer on the head with it, and not very gently either. "You might have pulled that out half an hour ago!" she chided, though in her chiding was forced to abandon her part of the dark harmony she'd struck up with Valentin, thus causing the mayhem to increase -- especially as Pyde's interference spell was now causing both Tenebrae and Valentin to have trouble moving. "And no more fricken spells in this circle, Novus! IS THAT CLEAR?" Having made that point to Pyde, she smiled weakly. "What I need you to do is play those notes we're whistling. Listen, and copy us. Do. Not. Mess. It. Up. There's a good..." she ducked - as best she could, seeing as her own bones weren't obeying her now, and avoided being beheaded by a snapping maw made of cleaver-sliced armbones. ".. fermin. Oh and be a love...." she eyed the golems, which were speeding up. "Reverse that last spell you did, before you do that?"
Pyde 's eyes go crossed as he's thunked over the head. "Yes ma'am." The puppeteer dispels the rats making them fall to pieces again. Changing his tune, he starts off slow then picks up speed following the notes as commanded. Putting his will into the notes to reflect the intentions of his guildmistress.
Valentin would have liked to grind his teeth at what had turned into a right mess of a ritual. However, to do so would inflect the syllables of his canta in a particular way which, regrettably, would have caused blood to pour out of all their pores. So Valentin does not grind his teeth, and people's blood levels maintain their blessed status quo. Personal experience had taught him he never wanted an encore of that particular mistake. The butcher, keeping his movements slow until Pyde's little boneshaker ditty was cancelled, calmly targeted joints with heavy blows of his cleaver. Bulky vampiric muscles heaved under torn flesh, in some cases showing through the gashes Valentin had received. In fact, to all effects and purposes, Valentin was resembling a torn and bloodied golem himself right now, as he continues to shield Pyde from the majority of the flailing undead limbs of their assailants. But still the necromantic verses poured raggedly from the butcher's throat, the sound similar to a horde of gorgons mating indiscriminately under water. That analogy, though apt, would probably not arise in a rational mind, so perhaps a nest of writhing serpents would suit adequately for descriptive comparison. But someone, somewhere, would know the truth of it.
Tenebrae had resumed whistling those arcane notes, which helped the situation to no end on several levels.. but it was Pyde's flute-playing that really did the trick. As the one who'd physically handled the fifth element of the ritual, his was the power to command its energies, and so when the fermin started to play and the spell had time to shift its flow of arcana to the correct course, the violence ceased to escalate and the golems began to gravitate toward Pyde. Risking another outbreak of near-decapitation experiences, Tene broke her concentration in order to gesticulate madly at the fermin, miming the idea that he should move out from under the bridge now, and -- she used two fingers to make a 'walky' motion – that he should travel down to the beach --- this involved a sort of hula-girl move as she used her hands to indicate waves.
Pyde plays his flute and begins marching out form under the bridge and begins his undead parade to a seaside location. His alluring music forces the undead to begin to march in step with the runty puppeteer, and away he goes.
Valentin allows himself a moment to enjoy a sense of distinct relief when Pyde's flute music overlays with Tenebrae's whistled notes and assumes control of the prime activator energies of Fineager's stupid murder circle. With the bone golems quiescent under the ritual's effect the butcher no longer has to play the 'living shield' game, - however, he keeps up his part of the supporting chant until such time as Tenebrae stops. It would be an even greater relief however when the aforementioned Pyde, piper of Cenril, leads the blighty bundles of bones in the general direction of 'away'.
Tenebrae gave the coin-pouch containing the fifth element of the ritual a wary look as it finally burned through the thick leather and went bobbing along after Pyde, a bright little silver-blue satellite revolving around the fermin's head as he marched through Cenril, gathering bone golems as he went. Back at the underbridge, Tenebrae stopped whistling, and nudged Valentin. "Nick of time, that." Her way of saying 'thanks'. "I had no idea that was what was up.. caught me by surprise." She frowned and entertained a brief notion of boobytraps. But who'd possibly wish harm upon Tenebrae? She dismissed the notion.. "Pity it was just a flute he enchanted with that. But it did the job, alright. Poor little feller..." Because of course, Pyde was now stuck with a ball of blue light that made every note he'd ever play an act of necromancy... but Tene didn't have to tell Valentin that.
Valentin allows himself a moment to enjoy a sense of distinct relief when Pyde's flute music overlays with Tenebrae's whistled notes and assumes control of the prime activator energies of Fineager's stupid murder circle. With the bone golems quiescent under the ritual's effect the butcher no longer has to play the 'living shield' game, - however, he keeps up his part of the supporting chant until such time as Tenebrae stops. It would be an even greater relief however when the aforementioned Pyde, piper of Cenril, leads the blighty bundles of bones in the general direction of 'away'.
Tenebrae gave the coinpouch containing that bright, etheric element a wary look as it finally burned through the thick leather and went bobbing along after Pyde, a bright little silver-blue satellite revolving around the fermin's head as he marched through Cenril, gathering bone golems as he went. Back at the underbridge, Tenebrae stopped whistling, and nudged Valentin. "Nick of time, that." Her way of saying 'thanks'. "I had no idea that was what was up.. caught me by surprise." She frowned and entertained a brief notion of boobytraps. But who'd wish harm upon Tenebrae? She had no idea.. "Pity it was just a flute he enchanted with that. But it did the job, alright. Poor little feller..." Because of course, Pyde was now stuck with a ball of blue light that made every note he'd ever play an act of necromancy... but Tene didn't have to tell Valentin that.
Valentin grunts as Pyde vanishes into the distance "An' I thought savin' Novus Morior from Lorkain's insidious blimmin' pranks was a tough job. S'gonna take me a week t'recover from this little bout o'madness." Valentin starts brushing gore and bonedust from his tattered flesh "Where in th'blazes did the rat manage t'pick up one o'Fineager's blimmin' circles anyway? Didn't think those books got left lyin' around these days. This could ha'been a bloody catastrophe, mam'selle"
Tenebrae was weary .. bone weary and rather tired of the smell under that bridge, too. Clambering her way upward, she said to Valentin, "Strange, I agree.. " But aside from that silly notion of somebody trying to kill her, she couldn't think of any explanation for it. "Anyway. The fermin did well. If he keeps that up, he'll make Scleratus in no time." And with that she was off, up into cleaner air and incredibly glad of it.