RP:Face Of The Enemy

Part of the The Day I Tried To Live Arc

Summary: Answering the mysterious calling his ring has placed upon him, Emrith leads the Warrior's Guild into the dark forests of the Vailkrin region. There, the guild and their allies discover the ancient ruins of the Haathian civilization, where a certain magister's ambitions once sealed fate for an entire bygone world. Dreadful new challenges await, and new scars will be forged. Lionel, Emrith, Khitti, Rorin, Brand, Valen, Meri, Larewen, Ameno -- all those who enter Haath will be changed in some vital way, forever.

Spider Nest, Vailkrin

It has been a long and mostly uneventful trek, by all appearances. Emrith has needed only to let the ring encircling his right forefinger guide his steps. With each moment, the feeling of dread in his belly has been changing into a more palpable nausea, something that sits in his center like a sludgy, noisome clot of mud in languid, sudsing motion. Still he presses forward, showing none of the discomfort he feels in either deed or expression, looking back over his shoulder every now and again to ensure that the team is in close pursuit. The thick nature of the forest, and the relative lack of clearings nearby, means that any aerial mounts have of necessity been left behind awhile ago, forcing the company to traipse into the woods on foot, or upon any ground-based mounts they might possess which have the intelligence and agility not to be snagged by the snarls of roots criss-crossing the forest floor. The spell-blade has cautioned reasonable quiet, and keeps his own advice, moving almost without sound over dead boughs, crumbled leaves and bare ground alike. A quick glance at the skeletal trees roundabout the rudimentary path they travel tells Emrith that their destination is nearly at hand; skeins of ropy webbing, fat cocoon-like shapes swinging to and fro from jagged branches, tell a grim tale of a massive, if unseen, arachnid presence. Even the silence is gone now, replaced by a cacophony of soft sliding clicks and tenebrous, scratchy cries. Emrith's green eyes suddenly alight upon a small clearing ahead, and he pulls up short. Turning to face those assembled, the spell-blade takes them in with a formal bow. "It is ahead. I feel it. I have been here, and escaped. We will find an ancient blowdown, a deadfall of rotted trees. I believe we will find a point of ingress beyond. A tunnel beneath, or behind. We must clear aside the wood without bringing the entire spider population down upon us...unless the rest of you fancy more blood being spilt before we have even truly begun, that is." Emrith's rueful, almost cringing frown makes clear what he thinks of that notion.

Lionel has kept mostly to himself during the trip, offering aid and counsel when requested but avoiding the bulk of his usual verbal antics. Vailkrin is not a pleasant sight by the definitions of most men, but for Lionel, it is a painful reminder of a bygone war. Virtually the entire population was wiped clean with almost every building, just ten short years ago. Lionel and his allies lost this battle categorically. As they move through the forest, Lionel calls the guild members and their allies to a short discussion. “Rorin, Valen, Ameno. Stick close to me. You, too, Larewen. We’re going to split things up -- Emrith will lead the rest of the gang. We don’t know what we’re getting into, so keep your guard up and you’ll do fine.” At Emrith’s words, Lionel ducks low, signaling for the rest of his team to follow suit. “Alright,” he whispers. “My specialities are speed and fire, and I’m not too sure either of these are real assets in forest stealth. If anyone has an idea on how to clear that wood without alerting the spiders, go for it. Move.”

It’d been quite along time since she’d been in this portion of Vailkrin’s woods. Or even just Vailkrin’s woods in general. Adorned in the same dragonscale and black leather as usual, she points out various spots to Brand where she’d slain spiders with Orikahn, the massive feline, leader of the Warrior’s guild as they wandered on through the forest towards where . “Zhe Cat zhrew zhese weird bombs about and set the whole tunnel on fire! Almost got me too. We managed to clear the whole thing out just the two of us.” It was a cat fight of a different sort, to be sure. “And zhat’s vhere I saved him vith my shadow tendrils, back before zhey changed.” She was confident as hell today, talking up a storm in hushed tones as she bragged about her kills to him. He’d understand. Brand always understood that part while Dominic never wanted to talk about it. Once they reached the tunnel with Emrith, she nodded in acknowledgement, and even grinned a bit, “Ve’ll be fine, Emrith. I told you: Spiders are simple. I’m zhe frakkin’ Queen of Spiders in Lithrydel.” Once upon a time, she’d not been so fond of that name, but now, having gotten Francis, the spider from the Shadow Plane, she was proud to call herself his adopted mom.

Rorin followed Emrith and Lionel without question. Perhaps a sinking fear slowly pitting itself in his stomach but no doubts. In fact Rorin only grew more certain this was the correct path as the sense of foreboding grew. Rorin bore no armor good for his boots finding a sure and silent path across the forest floor. Rorin’s hands bore thick gloves, his arms covered by the sleeves of his long dark coat, the left hand curling tensely over the pommel of his bastard sword. A deep and persistent terror existed within Rorin and twitched at his mind with the sight of each strand of arachnid silk. The pilgrims hand and breath are equally shaky. As his right gloved hand finds its way to the talisman of Arkhen around his neck a calm spreads throughout. Meditation and magic were sorely what Rorin needed right now. His left eye, a cold grey, stared out, the right patched over with a wild scar razing down that side of his face. It was no normal scar- the color was a white blue that looked more embedded than cut- from brow to cheek to jaw then down the neck. It seems as if Rorin has recovered but his attitude in this venture hints at a much deeper and darker fear. He would stick close to Lionel and look thoughtful. "We can try pulling them off quietly, if we're strong enough. Ameno could change forms or," he looked to the grey faced winter wolf, Isangrim, that had far more silently moved at the flank of the pack, armored as a war hound, "we can get Grim to help. If we just lift them and duck in it, we'd have a protected backside. Quick and quiet. Only problem would be blasting our way back out." It was honestly the best he could come up with for now.

Valen was a a bit...at unease here. Leaving the mount a ways behind, but heeding Emrith's words to be as silent as well..the grave, he would have sprouted his shadow wings. Seeing as they made no noise whatsoever, it afforded him the comfort to simply hover above the ground and simply glide over the mud, leaves, and whatever else might lay about the ground. As he looked around, he gave off a soft grimace. Webbing. Dammit all he did not mind spiders, except the ones that were very rude and tried to kill you. As Emrith made mention of needing to clear away the wood, a simple nod was given as he pondered just how that was going to be even remotely possible without making a sound. He could easily make a shadow large enough to deposit the wood back at his academy for firewood, but the nagging thought that even then...the clacking of wood against wood as it fell would be more than enough to attract the locals. Even then, the thought that he was this close to Vailkrin made his nerves even more shot. He hated that city for what it was now, and for what it had been, and this would certainly be close enough. As he listened to Lionel, the Vampire would make sure that he floated more towards the group he had been put with. When Lionel ducked low however, a cringe...before he dropped silently to the ground, slowly, before doing the same. As he listened to Rorin speak, it was a very good plan, except one thing that bugged him, certainly no pun intended. In a hushed tone, but thoughtful, he would make the point "That could certainly do, but at the same time...Lifting them up would still possibly cause groaning, snapping, noise in general with how rotted they are. I had a thought...but even -it- proves too risky. I was thinking maybe perhaps displacing the branches. Now that I think about it, altering what I had thought to myself, if I make a shadowed portal over top...I could theoretically just be able to displace them by moving it -down- over them...and simply place them at another location that way? My shadows are soundless when I need them to be, but other than that....that's all I got guys...I'm sorry." After he said it, he felt bad. It sounded stupid, and idly....he simply wished he could just make himself smaller.

Much like Lionel, Brand was one of few words today. He was responsive enough to Khitti’s boasts, and to Emrith’s words when they were spoken, but his thoughts seemed uncharacteristically elsewhere -- not on the task at hand, that is, not as long as there was no immediate threat. That ‘Queen of Spiders’ comment earned Khitti a nudge from the man, though, and his mind turned to the present task along with a whispered, “I still think we should’ve brought Francis. Could’ve ridden him into battle, spider against spider, hurlin’ fireballs from his back. Imagine.” He knew it was hopeless. He’d already asked before, and she’d refused to summon him for this. ‘Too dangerous; he might get hurt,’ she’d said. Bah. But think of how -cool- it would have been! And Francis was a tough beast and could handle himself just fine, dammit.

Meri is present amongst the ground of travels moving through the thick of the forests, though the woman opts to hang back toward the back of the group. The men Meri was moving with might be familiar to her in that she has had a conversation or two with them, yet they were not necessarily people that she was particularly close with. Much like last time, the woman is dressed appropriately for the occasion, and armed accordingly with the same weaponry as before. The instruction to keep low was given and Meri heeded, though in the back of her mind she was beginning to wonder why she signed up for this thing again? Now that she was here it seemed like a very stupid and reckless idea. Good job, Meri. Whatever. Meri wasn't going to waste too many words on her sentiments, and her voice was hushed so that those immediately nearby her could hear here. "Moving objects is my niche." No expansion, figure it out or don't, how many words could she waste right now on the details? "Doing it quietly? Not so much. I cannot stop the sound. We should just let Valen do his thing. Best plan I've heard."

Larewen is completely at ease within the darkened woods, and why would she not be? This little slice of twisted vegetation and dark countryside is her home, just as much as the city of the damned to the southwest of it. Her presence, a steady flow of necromantic energy is enough to direct her ghouls and constructs that roam the forest away from the group. The forest sounds just as it always has. When they've entered the cave and Lionel directs Larewen's to his side, a curl of scarred lip expresses her distaste for the idea. "Take that one," she says, pointing to Meri. "I am rather partial to Emrith and Khatherine, and will work better with the former of those two." And not quite so well with Lionel, but the elf doesn't have to say that. The two of them have often been on different sides of things, and the corrupted elf cannot promise not to act on the darker thoughts that plague her mind, on that never ending internal war.

Emrith moves forward a few more paces, glaring balefully at the deadfall he can see at the northern edge of the clearing. Then he turns around, gliding back toward the group at large. The two teams are roughly split now, but still close enough to one another that the spell-blade's voice, though soft, can carry to all. "Valen's plan seems soundest. Thank you, sir, for the quick thinking. It should be a--" Suddenly, a high, keening screech from above pierces the quiet, and something huge, bulbous and covered all over with bristly black hairs thuds to earth, spewing a strand of sticky web behind itself. This giant spider, more than fifteen feet across, has been waiting for a meal, and despite its swollen appearance, it is always, always hungry. Lashing out with its legs, springing into a frenzy of action, it begins to assail whoever it can get closest to. Chittering and chattering and slashing, heaving its chitinous bulk about like a battering-ram, it means to bowl over, crush and even impale whoever it can. "The deadfall! Speed is greater than stealth! Hurry!" And Emrith suits action to word by unlimbering his rune-carved staff and swinging it in a flat, mean arc toward one of the spider's legs as it rushes toward him. Wood meets flesh with a sickening snap, but the beast just keeps coming. Its fury knows no bounds. Its hunger is boundless. Emrith catches a glimpse of Larewen from the tail of his eye, but is suddenly forced to dance aside from another swinging leg. Surely, one spider will not be a grave threat for the group. Surely, the mission will not end in such abject failure. The spell-blade fights for his life, and those of his friends and guild-mates.

Lionel lofts a brow at Rorin’s suggestions, peering toward Isangrim. A hand is to the Catalian’s chin, as if he is deep in thought. It’s not a bad plan, and he prefers it to multiple warriors doing the heavy lifting simultaneously; Lionel simply does not trust that folks can keep absolutely quiet in the interim. Too many times during the trip through the forest, leaves crunched loudly in a too-dark setting. No, Lionel does not like that plan at all, and the wolf idea is solid but Valen’s is the strongest. Nodding his head to Meri, the man reaches for a serrated combat knife from a holster on his hip and clutches it, crouching behind a sizable primeval oaken log. At Larewen’s alteration of team chemistry, Lionel permits himself a satisfied smirk, but hides it from his fellows by feigning deep interest in something due west. This is good. Frankly, he can’t stand that woman. “Valen, do the thing,” he says. Such simple words, but their tone full of confidence. It’s decided. They’re wasting time, laying here like dolls, and -- oh, heck. “Oh, heck.” Lionel repeats his own author’s apathy, that knife of his swirling through the air with a resounding whoosh straight for the assailant’s seventh eye. In a mad hop, the lithe Catalian is up and at ‘em, a blur of black in these silken clothes. Hellfire, the fabled blade, is let loose in a thorough roar of billowing flame-on-steel. “Fire it is,” he mutters to himself, rushing toward the spider with seemingly reckless abandon. In truth, there is pattern to his frenzied footing, a distinctive zigzag designed to keep the thing on its toes. Footpads. Whatever the case may be. It seethes and rushes back, giving Lionel’s allies ample time to make for the deadfall.

Rorin scans the deadfall with his eye. Critical to do this quietly. Valen’s plan may be the- what in all hell’s name was that?! Rorin drew in an instant but his blade shook. He quivered, like jelly, nearly sobbing while both hands gripped his bastard sword, a step backwards. He would cry out as the monstrous beast began shoving its weight around as Emrith’s words ring in his head. Rorin dashed and leapt for the obstacle on the spiders flank. If he could open it they'd have somewhere to run, somewhere to hide, everyone would be safe. He just had to make it there in time and blast it open. The winter wolf Isangrim is in a dead bolt sprint behind him but as Rorin neared the barricade Isangrim would turn towards the spider and prepare to defend Rorin’s own flank, biting, scratching, and dodging as needed by the swiftness of his yearling frame with surprising strength.

Khitti had frowned at Brand when he brought up Francis again. “I know, I know. Ve’ll come back and you can train him for zhat, alright? Besides getting hurt, you’ve not really had zhe time to train him for such a zhing. Don’t even have a proper saddle yet, you know.” The different plans are tossed about, but it’s the use of her full first name that deters her from it all, a bit of a side-eye directed at Larewen as a curse her in her native tongue is uttered. Ugh. She’s always hated that name, “If you’re not gonna call me ‘Khitti’, you could try Khatja. It’s much better zhan ‘Khatharine’.” There’s a bit of exaggerated hand-waving to accompany the mocking of her own name, but it’s soon cut off with the appearance of that spider. “Yes! Finally!” She’d been itching for a fight since she’d been cooped up in that damned tavern again once they returned from the Plane of Shadow. Diamond Dust, her bow, had not accompanied her today. No, today, she wanted to be right up in the fray. Shadow-fire is summoned up and pelted at the massive beast with a grin, orb after orb sent in its direction. [You better have brought that damned stone, Brand. Vailkrin is the perfect place for me to test it out for real in this realm.] she’d say to the Catalian, across the mindlink created by her feeding from him hours before the guild had set off to the Dark City.

Valen would have looked at Meri with all sorts of adoration and appreciation at those words about his idea. He was also quite appreciative still for the work she had done on his tattoo recently. It had not healed fully yet, but he had certainly been keeping up with moisturizing it twice a day like she had told him. It had at least stopped stinging, but now it itched something terrible though some ointment went a long way as well. Larewen's distaste and failure to heed Lionel's recommendation though had not gone unnoticed, but inside his own head, he knew the reason, and he certainly respected that reason above all else that the woman was about. Perhaps there was indeed hope for her yet. Emrith's words also would earn an affectionate smile towards his fellow Vampiric Elf, before the poodoo just hit the fan. It was disgusting, it was gluttonous, and it was very very rude for interrupting them. Surely a lesson in manners would be taught swiftly to this intruder to the group, though at the moment the deadfall was what remained in the way. Seeing as the spider itself was more or less causing more than enough of a ruckus, along with -everyone- fighting now, Valen would immediately bound into action. The shadows in the area would convulse, quake, and concentrate on the deadfall. Limb, after log, after make-shift massive harpoon was javeline one right after the other towards the bulbous part of the spider. Hopefully at least one of these damn things would hit it's mark and impale the beast, while at the same time clearing the path to make for a more speedy...advance towards the goal? Retreat from the adversary? Heck, who knew at this point? One thing Valen would make sure to do though, is aim for the spider but only when others were not in the way, while the rest was simply rolled off to the side. Perhaps a few would intersect Khitti's shadow fire, creating burning missiles at that point.

As Larewen joined the group, Brand realized he was rather outnumbered. Vampires everywhere. He was about to make some quip to Meri along the lines of, ‘us humans have to stick together,’ but the thought never passed his lips. Instead, an “Oh, good!” was uttered as the spider made its appearance. He’d been hoping there’d be fighting, in case the earlier comment about spider-on-spider battling hadn’t made that obvious. Flame alighting in both palms, the Catalian threw himself into the fray. That fire took shape as great whips that glew with an undulating, ember-like glow, and Brand threw the ends forward so as to seize one of the spider’s legs and limit its mobility. He’d hold it in place, if he had the strength -- though he almost surely didn’t and would have to be satisfied with simply hampering the thing somewhat, all while rolling and dodging as necessary to stay clear of all hazards of battle flying about.

Meri frankly did not care which team she was on, though a brow is lifted at the term of 'that one' and the blonde struggles to bite her tongue. Not the time or the place, and possibly not the person. Remember that party in Larket? Yeaaah, still rated the worst party ever in Meri's book. The psion's mind starts to drift back to that night until that screech pierces the relative quiet (relative because some of the warriors were engaged in hushed discussion). Surely that cry from the giant spider had alerted all the other critters to the presence of -something- so what was the point in stealth? Emrith was right. These thoughts race through Meri's mind within fractions of a second as the woman reaches back over her shoulder to free her own bastard sword from the metal scabbard. The friction caused by metal moving against metal creates a spark and causes the sword to ignite. In the scramble, Meri makes the decision to bolt after Rorin, mostly because in the back of her mind she did not entirely believe that the kid has fully healed and he could probably use some backup, right? Right. And how many were on that spider right now? Hm. Any endeavors to clear the opening would be a supplemental follow up attempt after Valen and possibly Rorin, whatever they could not move away from the entrance could be cleared away with a thought and definitely a ruckus. Not that there was not a commotion going on right now with that fifteen foot spider. Hopefully the entrance has been cleared and if it has been? Meri will be there, sword in hand, right beside Rorin (hopefully) to deal with anything ugly that decides to come crawling out of it. Too bad these things were too big to just stomp on. Sigh.

"Khatja," the elf echoes, clicking her tongue afterwards. She rather likes that one and commits it to her memory. Anything meant to follow that is swiftly cast to the back of her mind when the oversized arachnid makes its appearance. Another oddity amongst her behavior is the necromancer's silence. Those that know Larewen best know that the elf is rarely at a loss for words, especially around so many people. The fact that no bile is slung in Lionel's direction is proof to the fact that something has fundamentally changed within her. It would be a lie to claim that the necromancer isn't amazed by the creature's sheer size, but as it begins to move, so too does she. The scarred woman shifts, moving from where she stands to a place between creature and deadfall. Her lips are already in motion, summoning up a dark, dark language and its cadence is haunting. The darkness responds to her command, writing as she draws control of the shadows around them, save for those that Valen and Khiti are presently manipulating. Like the flame whips cast out by Brand, the shadowy tendrils that twist into sight seek to ensnare the creature, the very darkness thickening until it has become nearly solid. Only once it has found its target, the shadowy ropes would shift, forming barbs that sought to tear into the creature. A final twist of her magic and the tendrils would take on an eldritch glow as she fed necrotic energies into the arachnid. The elf sought to rot the creature from the inside out.

The City of Haath

Lionel connects searing blade with chitinous flesh in a fell diagonal swoop, then skids across the dimly-lit ground in a brace of acrobatics sure to leave painful marks on his knees. “Damn it,” he groans, rolling his eyes even in the midst of battle. That really -did- hurt his poor kneecaps, and they’re not even inside yet. But there’s good news on that front; Valen’s gone and done the thing. As the spider screams, flailing from all the combined firepower, the way in has been made clear. And not a moment too soon; the sounds of footpads stalking along the canopy begin to deafen even that spider’s death rattle. Cunning strategists will roughly estimate several dozen of this ugly thing’s just-as-ugly allies, zeroing in from a quarter-kilometer so in some vaguely northward direction. If the team acts fast, they’ll escape that onslaught in time to mask their own trails -- these creatures are masters of sight, after all, and their prey will all be underground. It is precisely this thought which flashes upon Lionel’s mind as he rises from the skid and makes haste for the entrance, swinging Hellfire in a 360-degree arc to whip a signal beacon’s worth of emerald flame for his companions to follow. Behind him, the spider is rotten inside-out as further offensive focus is dealt. Ouch. The poor bastard never even mounted much counter. Perhaps Khitti is right, after all? No matter. Lionel leads, his blade offering light down a nauseatingly-sloped tunnel. The smells are dank, the ground is wet, and it isn’t more than fifteen minutes until they’re all a full mile or more beneath the earth. Nothing approaches, save for the occasional bat or mouse, and the journey is easy-going. Smalltalk might occur, but Lionel himself surely will not prompt it. That said, everything changes in a rather dramatic spectacle when the tunnel curves starkly to the left and opens out upon an immense cityscape. Dozens of towering buildings might have scraped the sky were they not below ground level. Marvels of structural craft the realm has not seen, and records have never indicated, greet them now. It is dizzying. The streets are all paved in a firm white substance, great statues dot the intersections, and the maze spirals off in so many directions. “My team, follow close. Emrith, take the westbound route.” Lionel can’t avoid the sense of awe in his voice. Never has a city risen so high -- or perhaps ‘fallen’ would be more apt, here.

Rorin usually had the capacity for cunning strategy but not today. Strategy was forgotten in the sense of sheer panic. Rorin dived into the hole and ran. He prepared inside the hole to blow up the entrance as soon as everyone was inside. Isangrim follows him first, then Lionel, then Emrith, and after the rest in hot pursuit he promptly destroys the hole, causing a partial cave in, before himself promptly collapsing onto the ground and heaving. Breakfast and lunch are spilt before his quivering form as he rocks himself with quiet shivers back and forth near featily. It would seem as if for a few moments Rorin is even crying and gasping for air. It would take time for him to shudderingly raise on the hilt of his bastard sword and draw up the strength to continue. For Rorin this was a living nightmare. A perpetual hell. Unlike his usual curiosity Rorin abandons any forethought to their surroundings and almost instinctively begins to follow Lionel. He did not hear the prayers near silently ushered from his mouth. He craved for something to wash it away. To drown the fear.

Valen would have made sure that Larewen's magic had done it's thing, eyeing it, studying it. Maldor, having had been a necromancer, watched on in silent musing. should he ever gain the use of his own power back whenever he took control again, he would have to make note to try that. It certainly seemed useful... Either way, Valen would look at Felicia the spider, before saying "Bye Felicia!" And high tail it after Lionel, the sounds of the beasts all around them making thoughts race through his head. As the tunnel opened out onto a cityscape however, all he could do was simply blink. It threw a fear in him, that perhaps his parent's kingdom, had suffered the same fate as this city right here. Maldor felt that dread as well, but they had to press on. As Lionel spoke, he would certainly make sure that he stuck close to Rorin, Ameno, Meri...and of course, Lionel. "Thank the gods I did not wear my red shirt today." he would mutter, though the worry of his thought's was ever present on his face. What a time to be homesick Valen, you could not have picked a worse time. Seeing Rorin possibly needing some comfort though, as well as him, he would nudge the Paladin and give off a faint smile, obvious that he was simply trying at this point, having noticed that the boy had been crying. "Hey...It's going to be okay, alright? We got this. -You- got this."

Meri follows the eastern route as instructed, with Lionel, Valen, Ameno and Rorin. Small talk would not be initiated by Meri, even if she could try and chatter with Valen about the state of his tattoo, how he was liking it, how his husband was liking it. No, Meri would not be lured into feeling comfortable enough for conversation. The woman would trudge along with a fairly apathetic look on her face and sword held tightly within the grasp of her right hand. It's not that there was not a level of nervousness, her heart was beating so hard that it almost felt like it would explode from her chest. A deep inhale and a slow exhale, repeated a few times, would help calm her racing heart. Time spent in the swamps of Gualon has made Meri rather numb to this soggy terrain. Her steps are selected carefully with no mind being paid to the muck building up on the soles of her worn in boots. Lips are pursed together thoughtfully as blue eyes constantly scan their surroundings for the slightest hint of motion. The psion would not just rely on the sense of sight for this endeavor, the light was poor and shadows could easily play tricks, the mind could misinterpret. Her guard was going to stay up.

Emrith avoids another leg-swipe, hops nimbly back to give himself space to circumnavigate the bull rush he knows must surely follow...but it does not come. He blinks. The spider is dead, gored and roasted and otherwise destroyed by the combined assault. Emrith wastes no further time basking in the victory; it is the first of many, he hopes, and there may, if the gods will it, be plenty of freedom for triumph when this is all said and done. With the deadfall clear, it is an easy enough prospect finding the tunnel-mouth, which angles steeply down into the earth. Moving to Larewen's side and beckoning the rest of his group, the spell-blade follows on Lionel's heels. The path twists and turns like a stone intestine, wrapping around and around itself yet always possessed of that treacherous downward pitch. The floor of the passage is slippery with half-decayed moss and patches of faintly glowing lichen, making the descent even more dangerous than it otherwise might be. And then, suddenly, an expansive cavern full of buildings and sculpture and masonry, some of it toppled, most of it fanciful and archaic compared to that found in the surface world so far above. Emrith gives Lionel a curt nod, then begins to lead his team in the indicated direction. The path directly opposite the tunnel exit is barricaded by a pile of rubble which might take hours or even days to make a dent in; there will be no easy path that way. Time passes without incident, and Emrith's team has gone nearly three-quarters of a mile before he notices something peculiar. The street underfoot is now paved with cobblestones which shift and clatter underfoot, wobbling in their settings like loose teeth in the mouth of an elderly invalid. Before the spell-blade can even open his mouth to voice a warning, something terrible happens. At one moment there is ground beneath their feet, however unsettling it feels; the next, it gives way with a creak and a clatter, spilling all and sundry into a long, narrow pit some twelve feet deep. Stones rattle into the hole all around them, and a faint clattering from above gives testament to another threat. Six large spiders suddenly scurry to the edge of the hole, having appeared from one of the many blind alleys in the city ruins; they begin to spray a thick secretion down toward their prey, a sticky substance which quickly turns ropelike and is intended to bind limbs and bodies in place. The spiders begin to scamper awkwardly down into the hole, meaning to gorge themselves on helpless, web-snared morsels this night. Emrith himself has unfortunately fallen directly afoul of some of this mess, and his body is soon festooned with cordlike webs nearly as strong as steel. In his panic, he is having trouble summoning the mindset necessary for magical conjuration. "Help me!" he shouts. "Help me!" The weavers continue to harry their targets; their supply of web-making fluid seems all but endless, their precision uncanny. The quartet may soon be securely bound, ready for a slow and painful harvest.

Khitti nudged Brand as the group splits apart, following Emrith down his chosen path. “My spider senses are tingling…” she says offhandedly as the floor beneath them change and Emrith is promptly ambushed by the spiders. Oh, what a tangled web they weave. There’s no hesitation now as she unsheathes her shortswords and heads to help the spellblade. Poof went the Khat as she shadow-stepped her way to aid him, a ‘bamf’ sound accompanying each disappearance and reappearance. It was hard, trying to stay afloat in the air and not touch the web itself, her clumsiness almost doing her in now as it often did. Hopefully, Brand and Larewen could handle the spiders that threatened to eat Emrith, and now Khitti as well. Brand she trusted entirely, but...things were still a little rocky with the elder vampiress. The redhead had a feeling though that the elf wouldn’t just let her fledgling get devoured right in front of her--what sort of elder vampire would she be if that happened?

Brand, too, was caught in the webbing; whether or not that was an unlucky thing depended on perspective. On the one hand, he hadn’t fallen all the way down the hole before getting pinned, so he’d taken no hurt from the tumble. On the other hand, well… said other hand was quite pinned against the wall of the pit, leaving him to dangle by it, and quite uncomfortably so. It seemed Khitti might have the rescuing of Emrith handled, at least, so Brand was free to focus on taking down the spiders while avoiding further ensnarement. Pushing his feet off against the wall, Brand set himself swinging from side to side so as to be a moving target. His free hand utilized more fire, hurling one ball of flame after the next at the spiders and, occasionally, setting alight the web weaves that threaten to ensnare him further. The occasional dagger of ice was thrown in for good measure, especially where his target was too near to the vampires on the team. Probably best not to catch his team in the field of not-so-friendly fire.

Larewen is in much the same awe as they take to moving through the city's ashen streets and she remains close to Emrith's side. When the road begins to shift under them and gives way, her instinct is to reach for the spell blade's hand. The elf isn't so fortunate as Brand to have grasped the side of the pit, nor would she have tried to for as they fell, her fingers missed his entirely. She has just hit the bottom of the pit when they are assaulted by the webbing and as Khitti steps toward to free Emrith, Larewen begins work against her own bonds. Her mouth moves, targetting the curse upon her flesh since she is unable to lift her arms. She toys with the runes, violating one of its rules so that the curse is forced to activate. A verdant glow becomes visible beneath the webs that bind her and pain wracks her body. The attempt to dispell it does precisely what the elf needs it to do and the deathly chill of her skin suddenly lessens as heat floods her body. It is a burning, cleansing fire that drives the blackened scars deeper into her flesh while simultaneously working to melt the webbing around her. Darkened blood seeps from her flesh when the webs fall away and immediately, her lips curl into that familiar, wicked grin that has not graced her features in so long. Shadows burst forth from the ichor that oozes from her skin, lancing toward the webs binding Brand - it might even appear for a moment that the elf has turned against her own. Certainly, if one is not trusting of her, it might look as if the necromancer was seeking to impale him. Of course, that was not the case for the shadow lance would zip past him, seeking to shear away webbing and free him. Other bolts are conjured too, forming into blackened ice as it is shot toward the spiders. Her aim may not prove true, but the half-blind elf's intent was to distract them from their prey and buy Khitti the time needed to free Emrith.

Lionel grows hesitant as he begins to note Rorin’s terror. He sighs, but suppresses that sigh with his hand. The poor boy has been through so much, and so much of it is of Lionel’s own making. Yet he sees too damned much of himself in Rorin to dare tell him not to follow. Lionel, Frostmaw, the Warrior’s Guild… it’s all Rorin has, now. It’s his home. ‘Maybe I should tell him something. A story. I don’t know. How do people do… people things, anyway?’ Lionel’s internal monologue goes on for quite a while, through dark spaces and past torn, tattered statues of marble and bronze. When Valen moves to reassure the boy, Lionel merely nods to himself, content that someone else is picking up his own social slack. It’s the last thing he dwells on before the storm. Death from above. Like pouring rain the color green, miniature spiders fall by the hundreds from a high-up rooftop, almost silently and with terrifying precision. The swarm is arced precisely to buffet Lionel’s team, each one of these tiny menaces either landing on a humanoid target or hitting the hard stone ground running and leaping to adjust course and taste flesh. They’ve brought their webs with them, too. Deceptively silken, the shower of webbing -- which now dangles outstretched in thin lines from the roof nearly to the stone -- is in fact quite difficult to snap, and attempts at such will lead to mild electrical zaps. A dozen or more of the little devils have landed flawlessly upon Ameno, and the draconian has mere seconds to shake his great body to and fro, shoving some and stomping where he can, but their bites taste his sweet meat and bubble up his skin into an ugly shade of purple with their tiny poison charges. It won’t kill him, but it dizzies him, and as the spiders tear open Ameno’s bright red shirt, he screams, and Lionel hoists Hellfire into the air with both strong grips to melt the creatures as best he can. He swings wildly, not an ounce of his usual precision nor a hint of the waves traditional to his swordsman’s angles. It’s all flashes of steel and flame, a flurry designed to blast these damnable webs and kill as quickly as can be. But even so, several of the things are on him, now, too. One of them bites through his buttons, and another takes him in the ear, ripping off a millimeter of cartilage before he can punch it into oblivion. There don’t appear to be any more spiders lying in wait up above, so Lionel barks a brisk order: “Slaughter them wholesale however you can, but move! Keep moving! Down the alleyway and toward the city square! Run for all you’re worth, people! We’re on the clock, now, and we’ve got real bastards for bosses!”

Rorin flinched at Valen’s nudge with a wild look in his eye. He continued to barely mumble something and trudged on with his focus solely on Lionel’s- well, soles- all the while his patched over right eye twitched and that arm sort of burned. They were getting closer. It was not a surprise to Rorin that they attacked from above. He saw them everywhere now and the fear tasted like iron in his mouth. "No!" Rorin screamed as his barrier went up, a small dome covering him, swinging his sword blindly as he went to the ground and that holy bubble shrank. He continued screaming- praying to his god- begging for it to end and all of them disappeared. Then something cracked. The shield. It was breaking like glass all around him with countless poisonous bites and shocking web. Across from Rorin’s prone from Isangrim unleashed a powerful bark that carried with it the magic of frost, keeping them off him for a time, Rorin simply devastated. His one eye peered from the ground. Everyone looked to be dying- melting- they were only spiders now with bulging corpses spraying poison and faces dripping off to reveal only fangs and eight glistening jeweled eyes underneath. With one final scream Rorin’s token began to glow and his sword rose up. From inside his bubble came a symbol of power spreading along the ground before exploding in deadly light. Rorin was slashing to and froe madly as he fought his own mind with Isangrim not far behind him. The Pilgrim would bolt forward with holy speed on his heels and lances of light from his blade in a maddened dash towards either safety or his own demise. The break within him did not care which.

Valen would also keep an eye on Meri, wanting to tell her that he also probably needs a pair of handlebars tattooed onto his lower back as well with how things had been lately, but he would file that away for another time. For now, he would simply offer her a reassuring smile as well. Lionel as well would earn a reassuring gaze, this was hard on everyone today it seemed and while he had not expended too much energy just yet, as he still had a number of tricks up his sleeve...and some new, he hoped that there would not be a need for...well hellfire and perdition's damnation! Making a quick note though, that he was going to give Lionel lessons on how to actually be socially adept, he would spring into action, yet again. Poor Rorin, he was probably never going to trust Valen's words of anything being okay again. Not really taking time to notice what all was going on with everyone else, a spider landed right on his face, bulbous part in his mouth and instinctively...he would crunch down, and spit it out while furiously wiping away the rest of them. It had to have been the most disgusting thing he had done to date, and he would -never- wash the taste out of his mouth again....but it gave MAldor an idea, who would in turn give -Valen- the idea. 'Turn about is fair-play you know.' would be said to the effeminate male. At Lionel's order, Valen would bring up the rear intentionally. "Go, I'l be fine!" Hellfire would be detrimental to this, and he was not about to have his allies running blindly. As they started to sprint down the way, darkness would start to creep all around them, blanketing the entire way back, but just in front of Valen...shielding him from view of the rest of the team, while in front of that wall of shadow....the darkness would cling to the walls up to where the leader was, Suddenly, squealing would be heard, sickening crunches, a hurried sloshing as the shadows kept pace. The shadows, were of Maldor's own devising, and they were ravenous. Whatever they passed over, Valen excluded, would be torn asunder and rended, pulped, filleted, sifted...and finally devoured into the very nexus of the shadow's themselves.

Meri had tried to be aware and alert but in her attempts to search for any hints of motion, she was admittedly looking for bugs of the larger variety. That seemed to be the theme right? Oversized bugs? A blanket of miniature spiders drops on Lionel's team and all Meri can do is react in a way that might seem somewhat spastic but really how many spiders does she have on her right now? No, never mind, no time to stop and take count. So. Gross. Thankfully the armor worn does afford some protection from the nasty bites but there are still plenty of unprotected places that the eight-legged critters can sink their teeth into, like her upper arms, her shoulders, and the face and neck. The face is the only place that Meri manages to keep safe from any bites, both arms and the side of her neck suffer injury enough that causes blood to flow freely. Would she suffer from the same dizziness that Ameno was currently experiencing? Logic would presume yes but it would seem that the woman is faring okay for the time being. It only takes Meri one time of being caught in the fine webs to learn that they deliver a nasty shock and that just trying to barricade through them was not advised. Yet the thread was so fine it was hard for the blonde to see them advance to either cut through them with her sword or snap through them using her psionic abilities. She would try where she, but there were plenty of instances where the silk went unnoticed. No questions for Valen, if he says he can deal with that then deal with it he can. Meri will follow Lionel's instructions and continue with the advance in a full blown run in hot pursuit of Rorin and Lionel while simultaneously using the hand that does not grip her bastard sword to rid herself of any of those pesky mini-spiders. One by one she would be rid of them. Why did she say she would do this again?

Emrith is grateful for any and all help he can get right now. Being trussed and next to helpless is an experience he would just as soon never repeat. He watches, horror-struck, as Brand, fighting in midair and trapped by one arm, fends off the spiders as best he can. Two of the beasts, which are not so fast as spiders would seem to be, are killed outright by Brand's intervention. Khitti's appearance at Emrith's side, startling though it is, fills him with gladness, and inadvertently gives him the mental clarity to enact the use of magic. Skeins of mana ripple out from Emrith's hands, causing the webs which bind them to turn icy and brittle. A flex and a wrench, and the spell-blade's hands are free, and then his arms, up to the shoulder. Soon he is using his staff in short, jabbing strikes at the spiders who dare to get close. He impales one of them rather cleanly, gains another glob of webbing on his forearm for his trouble, but he flicks it free before it can fully set and bind his arm to his chest. "Up and out!" he shouts. "If we stay down here, we die!" Another short, lethal jab, and a spider spews its innards all over the spell-blade's boots. The vampiric elf looks quickly around himself and, seeing no one in immediate danger, he leaps as high as he can, taking his staff in a one-hand grip so that he can slap a hand atop the edge of the pit. Using that leverage, the spell-blade does an awkward one-armed chin-up and hauls himself out of the trap. When he looks back down into that hellish, flesh-slimed maw, he sees that none of the spiders there are alive. Nevertheless, hanging around to see if any more arachnid weavers should come calling seems like a fatally bad idea. "This way!" Emrith shouts, and sets a brisk pace just short of a jog. He is unhurt, but shaken, and his eyes flick to and fro across the structures on either side of the thoroughfare. The street is once again a smooth and blameless white. The ring on the spell-blade's finger has begun to throb, sending roiling waves of nausea throughout his body, filling his head with an insistent and steadily rising pain. In this way, the spell-blade inadvertently leads the team into another ambush...but in such sprawling, haunted confines, this eventuality could hardly be avoided. This time, the warning is only darkness...patchy, stitched-together ribbons of the stuff, dropping on the entire street for hundreds of yards in either direction with the entire team beneath it. Within that darkness, blurry little shapes which make no sound begin to dart and dive and slide. Four, seven, an even dozen, each only about the size of a human head. Their legs, their bodies, are eggshell-smooth and deep, deep black. Emrith swats casually at one, only to watch it suddenly and impossibly appear on his opposite side and take a nip at his neck. The web envelops them all, physically weightless, yet crushing all the same; suddenly, it is all the spell-blade can do to raise his staff, to go on fighting. Each of these shadowy little creatures carries secondary weapons, a pair of hypodermic fangs with surprising bite strength, each able to deliver a powerful dose of hallucinogenic venom. A few solid chomps, and anyone afflicted might be driven temporarily mad by this strange toxon. Emrith flails; he flounders. He takes a bite on the hand. He has no time to wonder about how this web of shadow is draining his will to fight, no desire to find out what it will be like to come back to his senses only to find himself being picked slowly clean by a horde of pitiless scavengers. He cannot spare time for the others. He is being ground down by this darkness, these shadows, these relentless, drilling fangs. And so, for all he knows, is the rest of this ill-fated expeditionary force.

Khitti, once she was certain that Emrith was free, went back to Brand. She’d seen Larewen’s shadowlance head in the Catalian’s direction and almost assumed the worst, until the webbing was cut away. Damn, she’d have to have Larewen teach her how to do that. Despite being more powerful now, there was a hell of a lot that she didn’t know. “Come on, you, “ was said to Brand as she’d grabbed him, giving him a moment to realize what she was going to do (and to prepare for it) and shadow-step him to safety. Next, she’d head down to the bottom of the pit, snake an arm around the elder vampiress’ waist, and shadow-stepped her to the top as well. No time for rope, even if she could make her own spidersilk. “Alright. Ve’re all here.” Following Emrith once more, only for her to get caught this time, it was obvious she was getting just a hair frustrated. [Brand, vhere zhe hell is zhat stone?!] was sent to him as she dug through his pockets to try and find it. Thankfully, they’d been snared close together. And once she’d received the location via that link, she’d take the magical implement and try to manipulate the shadow webbing that surrounded the four, drawing it all to herself to form one massive ball of acidic shadow. “I’m getting real sick of zhis ambushing stuff.” The stone in her hand glowed a deep, dark purple and her emerald eyes became flecked with the same violet hue, changing quickly and overtaking the verdant color that was typically there. She was not Amarrah (which was good for Emrith, Brand, and Larewen at this point), but her magic power had doubled, tripled even, just with the help of that stone--strong enough that it would be hard for Larewen to -not- take notice of it.

Larewen’s intervention had, thankfully, happened quickly enough that Brand had had little time to worry about her possible betrayal. With a brief word of thanks to both shadow-wielding vampiresses, they were off again -- until they weren’t. The webbing of darkness descended so quickly, and Brand was flailing right along with Emrith, thoroughly disoriented. Khitti’s thought raced across their link and responded to: [Left trouser pocket, the one just above the knee. And hurry.] It was the last thought he got out before something -- he didn’t see what -- chomped into his leg just above his boots. He swatted at it, but only met his own flesh. Flailing more purposefully now, Brand sought to clear the strands of webbing obscuring his vision, but there was another bite where his neck met his shoulder, and the fog in his brain was already settling in. “Seven -gorram- hells,” he exclaimed, successfully smacking at the second spider. His very skin felt as if it was crawling, but that was probably just thanks to the webbing and the plethora of creepy-crawlies, right? He received a third bite in answer, this one along his forearm. Well, it’d been awhile since he’d been this unlucky on a mission; he was overdue.

Larewen is a bit more than startled when Khitti's arm slips around her waist. Having never traveled in such a manner, the popping sound that follows the shadowstep leaves her vaguely disoriented. When Emrith calls for them to follow, she is drawn from her brief bewilderment and is the last to follow suit. When she crosses into the web of darkness, she is closer to the edge and the approaching creatures. As if that isn't enough, the sudden amplifying magic from the stone Khitti has secured washes over her. The fledgling's power distracts the elf from her own self defense, earning the dark ranger a curious glance. Of course, in that moment the saying that curiosity kills the cat rings true and not one, not two, but three of the approaching dozen of spiderlings sink their fangs into the scarred necromancer. A startled cry rises from her lips as that mind-altering poison enters her bloodstream and things begin to change. The faces of her companions became ghosts from the past, with Khitti taking on the form of Illondria, daughter of Celestrial and Nyterath - the niece Larewen had unintentionally torn to pieces with her magic and the beginning of her downward descent. From this, a bone-chilling cry of hatred left the elf's lips. "No you don't, not -this- time!" The words would echo around the vacant cityscape around them, and soon the elf's magic is fully unleashed. Whilst Khitti gathers the darkness and twists it, Larewen calls upon something different altogether. A ghastly win begins to tear through the buildings, drawn toward the necromancer with such forces that it whistles loudly. It is enough to hurt her ears and perhaps those of her companions. It whips around her, its hissing screams becoming a deathknell. Larewen's mouth falls open and the unholy wind funnels into her mouth before suddenly the elf looses a banshee's howl. With the deathly scream, both that bone-chilling wind and her corrupted blood are spewed outward, again becoming frozen projectiles as they swirl around the quartet, seeking the skittering creatures that bite them. Around Khitti, they form a constant circling wall - an armor of blood, wind, and spikes to fend the creatures off. The elf has traveled back in time, in the depths of her mind.

Lionel counts himself fortunate to have Rorin on his side. Even in the worst of times, the lad has a knack for protection. In Lionel’s perspective, even with all the mayhem befalling his squire, Rorin never quite snaps. In -Lionel’s- perspective, the boy’s internal struggle, his strife, his fear, isn’t nearly as pronounced. At the sight of that glowing token, and the crescent wave of holy light that spins out in beams to coat the ground beneath their feet, the spider pack starts to melt, to evaporate into pure energy. It’s not so dissimilar to Valen’s own antics. Trusting the fellow to his own devices, Lionel issues an affirmative thumbs-up, ceases his sword assault, and whistles. “Double time it, people!” It’s precisely what Ameno needs most; Valen’s obsidian distractions grant the draconian time enough to break free, tattered and bleeding as he is. As he leads the charge down-alley and through smooth-stoned streets, a faint, peculiar question rings in his mind: why did Meri say she would do this, again? The adventure continues. | The city square. At last, they’ve made it. With luck, Valen will be right on their trail; Lionel keeps dutiful watch of the rear, teeth chattering for fear the vampire might not make it. Four vast paved roads meet and become one here in this alarmingly quiet centerfold. Dead trees lay roughshod upon one-another, and children dead for who-knows-how-long won’t miss the toys and baubles strewn throughout the path. Nor does the grass bloom, yet somehow the mud-brown shades of weeds remain, defiant against the stenches of disease and despair throughout this long-gone realm. Skeletons -- hundreds of skeletons -- lay mangled in so many positions. Some seemed to be protecting their offspring; adult bones guard smaller ones. Some seem to have been fleeing, and now they’re frozen in place forever. A massive plaster statue, blood-stained and chipped, depicts a heavily-bearded man with his hand around his own neck. He is strangling himself, and although the detail in his eyes has been lost to time, it is clear enough that he is dying. Naked and afraid, the man makes no comforting conversation piece. Perhaps it is fitting, then, that he should immediately topple over, breaking into a thousand shards in a beeline for Lionel, and for Rorin, and for Valen, and Meri, and Ameno. A spider sprawled hidden behind the statue, and it’s all but broken its legs to make this possible. But it isn’t alone. Several more crawl out from the shadows of buildings surrounding the team, and they’re all so scrawny, so thin, almost -skeletal- like the human remains they tread upon as they bolt toward the trespassers. In unison, they spray their web, and it’s so sticky it could be used as glue, and it streams toward arms and legs. Once that stream is done, and as the spiders move closer and closer still, they spray again, but this time it’s a grey-green acidic mist which blankets the air around their would-be victims. Then they launch, on too-lanky legs, wielding their legs like blunted blades. Lionel slams Hellfire into the stone, hops atop it on one foot like some kind of clown, but hops again almost instantly, yanking the sword from behind him and escaping the worst of the statue’s impact. In that self-same swing, he raises the blade into a climhazzard, then shoves it down hard upon an encroaching spider…

Rorin had left his teammates for dead as well as his own canine companion. In a moment of complete terror he hadn't acknowledged or even considered for a moment another person was in danger. He just wanted this to end. That reasoning would haunt him later. Rorin spun about in the square with his sword firmly gripped in two wildly shaking hands. His right eye and arm burned fiercely. Only when his eyes fall on the bloodied statue and mound of bodies does his breath seem to return in long ragged gasps that slow out. As it topples Rorin is quick to roll backwards and erect a holy wall in front of any nearby friends for a moment's time. Rorin is already whining the word no non stop, barely enough wits about him to magically separate the webbing shot before the acid. Staggered, Rorin falls back, onto his knees with sword plunged into the ground. With a hand upon his talisman an ancient glyph of great power would come into existence above and below him where an immense sanctuary of holy light would spread between them both. Nothing would enter this circle and it offered a moment's peace for any comrades that entered. The air inside was fresh and clear while the blue tinged light would seep into and begin to reverse wounds. Alas this sanctuary could but stand for a moments time- leaving Rorin immobile at its center in total shellshock with a deadened left eye and deep breathing. He registered nothing but the arachnid tide pouring at his mind. One would break upon the other. It was only a matter of time. Meanwhile Isangrim rushed around its perimeter, healing from the various bites and shocks, while barking and howling a frozen path for others to shatter and destroy the spiders he left behind. This was all they could do. It would have to be enough.

Valen was indeed right on their trail, being able to see in his darkness though the same could notr be said for the unfortunate spiders, as they could not see anything anymore. Everything was not fine for them, they were not fine. Once Valen emerged from the thick and deep shadows, Lionel would see that the Vampire had indeed made it, though there were bite marks strewn all about his shoulder's, bare shoulders now that half of the top of his shirt was missing, and the scar...the scar from Hellfire itself, had been lanced by one or a few of the small arachnids. The author is certainly unaware of how spider venom affects an undead, but ot would be safe to say that he would be wincing all the same as that would had been re-opened, even just a bit. The sight that lay before him was blocked out, he could not afford to be lost in his grief for these people but it did not stop a tear coming from his eyes as he could not help but take note of these lost souls last moments. They had been frightened, no help had come...and any that did, could not have won the day judging by the state of things now. Just as Valen was about to say something to the rest of the group the spider from behind the statue, and the rest of the skultulla-like monsters come from the surrounding areas. "Oh give me a break!" he would say under his breath. Fine, they wanted to dance, then it was time to conserve the energy on magic, and instead fight like Lionel, someone he was slowly coming to idolize just as much as Rorin was. Summoning a scythe, a large one at that, made from shadows it would solidify in his hand with a sheen as he pointed it at a spider in particular. It hisses, clicks, and eyes the Vampire before jumping after him, in which Valen would take the Scythe in both hands, swing the blade pointed up, slice right into it's thorax gods willing, to which he would then twirl hard and give a short jerk, dislodging the beast, and send it careening right toward's it's siblings...if they were related. They looked the same, was that species-ist? "Lionel! Just what the hell-" Another twirl, slicing towards another. "-WAS- this city?!"

Meri kicks Lionel out of her thoughts. Rude. It would seem that Rorin was able to deal with the webbing being shot at Lionel's team but the gas? It is not on whim, but based on what she has seen and heard during these missions and other conversations that Meri moves closer to Lionel's squire and steps within the blue tinged light. It also seemed as though the green acidic gas was not dissipating into that space and Meri desperately did not want to breath in a lungful of that stuff. Hopefully others have thought to move closer to Rorin because when his protective magic fails him, Meri will be there creating another dome of energy to keep the acidic gas outside of the protective bubble Rorin initially created. It would continue to afford Meri, Rorin, and whomever made it within clean air but the psion could not 'push' the gases away. That would have to dissipate on its own. Though weapon was in hand, Meri did not want to risk moving from where she stood. Her assault would come in other ways. The larger and heavier pieces of the broken statue begin to levitate up off the ground and are dropped onto the spiders with decently accurate aim, some perhaps could dodge and avoid. Others were hopefully crushed the buggers beneath the weight of the stone so that Meri was not entirely a lame duck in her attempts to avoid the acidic gas.

Emrith has been weeping for several minutes now, but he is unaware of it. His knees hit the street, his staff clatters from one spasming hand. His stomach heaves, and he sprays a mouthful of bloody bile between his splayed hands. Hunched over, he trembles and gasps convulsively, one of the little spiders perched gaily on his back, needle-like fangs punch-punch-punching away at the nape of his neck. He hitches forward, compelled by the ring on his right hand, drawn inexorably toward the place it yearns to go. The spell-blade's palm slips in the wetness beneath it, and he falls face-first to the ground, smelling his own vomit and retching helplessly. He begins to squirm on his belly like an eel, while the miniature spider chitters companionably into his right ear before giving it a vicious little bite. He screams then, and it is a scream of heart-wrenching, abject misery. What is left of Emrith's will to fight seems to break then, and the cloying clutch of the shadowy web keeps him from simply lunging upright and running off randomly into the dark. Endeavouring to wriggle and worm his way forward, smearing himself with offel from at least one of the felled spiders which have heretofore been assailing the team, the spell-blade continues in his quest to reach the end of this low, low road. Only then does he notice, however dimly, that the oppressive shadowy web is no longer draping him. He is free of its influence, and in an explosive rush the elf leaps up, eyes darting wildly around him. "Free!" he cries, and tears stream from his burning eyes. "Free! Free! I'm--Khitti, no!" His eyes have alighted upon the ball of shadow now compacted around Khitti, and Emrith's stark terror roughens his voice even further. "It's theirs, not yours! THEIRS!"" Even as Emrith begins to sprint toward the vampiress, however, he knows he is too late. Three spiders - three that he can see, anyway - suddenly rear up on four legs, wave their forelimbs in the air and issue a discordant shriek in perfect unison...and that tight ball of compacted shadow suddenly explodes. Emrith is hurled back, landing atop his own staff and earning a superficial gash on his right leg, his head pounding from the after-effect. And if this detonation did this much damage to him, more than forty yards from Khitti, how would it affect her, magical stone or no, at the epicenter of the blast?

The spiders, for their part, start to run back and forth in a frenzy, and wherever they go, new tendrils sprout in their wake. Given enough time, they will no doubt remake their perilous net and snare the travellers anew within it, but Emrith does not intend to give them that chance...and neither, it seems, does Larewen. The magic she unleashes chills Emrith's blood. He may be half-mad from hallucinogenic poison, may be so paranoid that any wayward sight seen from the tail of his eye or half-heard sound will spook him nearly to death, but he is also furious. Furious that these infernal creatures would continue to try and prey upon them. Furious that Larewen is in danger because he, Emrith, asked her to come along on this god-forsaken march in the first place. And so he attacks, striking at any spider he can reach, never minding that they seem to shift effortlessly out of the way more often than not. He is enraged. He is dauntless. And these shadow-stepping, blighted beasts cannot dodge forever. He screams a blood-chilling war-cry into the echoing fastness of this haunted terrain. There is laughter just behind that sound, madness buried in it like jagged lace. He strikes at foes who are not there, capers and evades phantom attacks, and only the fact that he is a deadly spell-blade wielding a rather lethal weapon allows him any meaningful impact in the melee. Even after the last spider has been chewed into mincemeat by some combination of Emrith's bladed staff, Larewen's horrific magic or both, Emrith continues his deadly dance.

Khitti continued her channeling, letting the stone further amplify her magic. No, the shadows were hers. They were always hers. She had been reborn into darkness so long ago. They would answer to her...until...that eldritch ball exploded. The former human was bathed in shadow, drenched in darkness. The blast had swallowed her up whole, but there was no scream to signify her passing from this world. When the magic faded, leaving bits of smoke and sparkling dust of shadow-magic in its wake, there she stood. Like heat in the desert, the dark energy radiated from her form, hot like the fire that Brand yielded, and yet, were she touched, it’d be as cold as ice. The gem she’d found in Gualon burned brightly in her palm, like some untamed star stolen from the heavens, and the vampiress’ eyes just the same. The power was amazing, and it only made Khitti hunger for more as she stood there, watching as Emrith dart about like a madman. A hand reaches out to Brand, enveloping his entire form in shadow-fire, though he does not set aflame as she torched the spiders from his body, and then moves to do the same to Larewen. Black veins had long since overtaken Khitti’s form, pulsating with the same dark force that she internally stole from Amarrah. This would be the first time that Brand would ever see Khitti with this much power, as well as Larewen and Emrith. It was worse than Amarrah had ever been, even at her worst times, and this would surely not be the last time, if Khitti had any say in it.

Brand was thrown yards away from that blast, the blast from unknown source and yet far more powerful than most he’d ever encountered. His ears rang, and he’d have to add skid abrasions on his back to the tally of wounds he was acquiring. Now, though, he had no mind for such things. He opened his eyes once the noise from the blast had stilled, and saw buildings and flame. Buildings, flame, and some wicked thing with glowing eyes and writhing black veins. Crying out, Brand attempted to scramble away from the creature -- and then it turned away, turned toward another of its kind, and bathed her in flame, too. Brand remained where he was with only just enough sense to drag himself onto unsteady feet, and from that distance he attempted throwing arcs of flame at the both of them. Nevermind that his vision was swirling and the arcs shot laughably wide; to Brand’s mind, he’d encountered some great evil like in those tales of Lionel’s, and Brand was determined to be the one to vanquish it. He’d continue flinging spells about wildly; if he carried on too long, he’d be likely to hit an ally eventually just by sheer chance.

To Larewen's eyes, Brand's assault and Khitti's darkening form are vastly different. Where Brand stands, flinging flames in their direction, Larewen sees herself. The elf who'd lost control and torn Illondria assunder. In Khitti, she saw the child in her death throes, and in the wake of this vision, the deeply rooted corruption in her body takes control, further warping her already unraveled mind. The elf made no attempt to dodge the bolts of flame cast in her direction and when a few of them are cast toward Khitti, Larewen intercepts them. In her mind, the necromancer is saving Illondria from herself. A lift of her hand, a wave of her fingers, and the spells that Brand casts are not deflected away from the dark ranger and herself, but rather drawn toward her: a literal cleansing fire. The stench of burning flesh permeates the area around them and the elf's flesh crackles with the heat of Brand's flames. Oddly enough, though pain twists her features, it is mixed with... With peace? Was she finally being brought atonement for her crimes? She will continue to draw the flames toward her, content to burn, until Brand's assault is intercepted.

Lionel swallows hard as the full extent of Rorin’s malady is revealed. Damning himself for believing otherwise, the Catalian thrusts Hellfire deep inside an enemy’s flank, then rams his own forehead into the thing’s eyes to stun it. He jumps upon the spider as its friends gather around, climbing on top of it, sacrificing it in the rush to take Lionel alive. Here, even the most nimble of fighters cannot expect to escape without a scar. Lionel wails when too many legs creep toward him at once, enveloping him, preventing him from blocking them all. One leg tears into his right hand, slicing off a bit of flesh like ham, and another tangles him in the thigh. Good thing Lionel is left-handed, or else his wavering grip upon the hilt of his sword would be made even grimmer. But he’s blown through enough of the strikes, sawed off enough of the legs, that a single well-timed forward vault gets him to the safety of Rorin’s holy wall. It’s right about now that Valen asks his question, and in a move of trademark Catalian cynicism, Lionel pauses in the middle of the maelstrom to shrug. He just… shrugs, as if they’re exchanging polite banter on a cool autumn’s day. “Seven hecks if I frakking know.” Rorin’s bubble bursts, and Meri’s magic replaces it, and the spiders, for all their alacrity, do not seem to have expected their own trap to come roaring down on them. Three are crushed outright, and the wounded-legged eight-legs who had sprung the trap in the first place is one of them. Turnabout -is- fair play, after all. With combined strength and swiftness, Lionel and his allies press the advantage. Ameno’s training pays off in spades as he pivots his spear with deadly precision, taking the creatures at every turn and avoiding the brunt of the damage this time around. And so the rhythm continues, and the foes are beaten back into the shadows -- what few of them remain. With a deep breath, Lionel places a hand upon Rorin’s, hoping to will him up. “Hey, we’re almost through.” He doesn’t know that for sure, but they’re deep within the heart of the city now. Deep within the bowels of a land time forgot. It seems the best thing to tell a crestfallen friend and surrogate family member. It seems the -only- thing. The journey continues. | Past the streets, past the city square, past the statue, the skeletons remain. In every nook and every cranny, the dead are laid to rest. Calamity befell this kingdom, calamity left untold by any modern gleeman. Ameno grunts something in his native language, smacking at his wounds and applying gauze to the worst of the poisonous bulbs. “If you’re saying coming here was a bad idea, I’m beginning to agree with you,” Lionel remarks. The squad has reached a clearing, where only soft, loamy soil and further human remains can be found. But just ahead, the remnants and wreckage of an ivory white keep awaits them. It is as likely a location as any to come upon the inevitable insectoid monarch, so Lionel presses on, nibbling into a protein-packed bar. But out of his peripheral, he spots something strangely familiar, and he blinks and runs up to two musty old pages with eerily familiar handwriting. “Holy frak,” he mumbles. “It’s… that magister guy again. You know, the uh,” he waves his hands with emphasis, “the guy, with the… words, and the… Svetlana or whatever, and the kid, and the… look! It’s that guy again.” He takes turns passing around the journal entries, but his frantic antics spiral into worry and despair once he’s read the contents of the pages. “Oh geez. I know where we are.”

“My dearest Svetlana, of late my dreams bring only darkness. I worry that in our race for self-preservation, we may have unwittingly doomed the world. Our tests continued through the past two months, and they brought great results. As you’ve no doubt heard from the queen herself, Haath’s new source of weaponry is pushing back Zevus and the avians on every front. But disaster comes from within. I do not wish to frighten you, nor our Aeri. Please, Svetlana, do not read this letter to our daughter. I promise I shall write something lighter-toned for her just as soon as I can. If I can. Our tests have created a monster. The magical amplification afforded to our casters, the physical amplification to our crossbows… it’s all well and good, my dear, but we accidentally enlarged a particularly bothersome fly and it killed fourteen of our soldiers before it was felled. I theorize it is a blend of the magics used in the experiment. It’s giving them… powers. The same mistake was made just this last week, and the entire seventeenth city district has been quarantined. There are no survivors. Please do not repeat this; official reports claim it was a natural disaster. It wasn’t. It was manmade, and there is blood on the scales.” -Magister Llario Selentus, Fourth Moon Fifth

“Dead. She is dead. They are dead. My Svetlana is dead. My Aeri is dead. All of Haath is dead. The darkness was breached. The quarantine was a failure. Our own queen was transformed into some arachnid abomination. The entire population, slaughtered by the soldiers of Zevus or turned into these grotesque beings. My only consolation, and it is a bitter one, is that the Zevus bastards and their avian ilk were slaughtered or transformed, themselves. Even now, an entire era in this continent is being wiped off the face of the map, forgotten to time, because one fool man was daring enough to think he could play god. He couldn’t. I couldn’t. I do not know to whom I am writing. I only hope that should you ever happen upon this text, you will heed my warning. I have left behind relics which will point the way to their lairs. These people-turned-insectoids, this abhorrent new race of my inadvertent design, they… they seem to have chosen nests. One beneath a verdant forest, one beneath a perilous desert. One here in what little remains now of Haath. And one on an island thirty-two kilometers due east of the Cenrall. Of course, I do not know whether the name of that city will mean a damned thing to you, if you should read this in the ages to come, as I hope you will. I do not believe there is hope left for my era, but perhaps some will survive. Perhaps the real gods will be merciful. Perhaps… perhaps, perhaps. Too many questions. Know this: my allies and I, we few who remain, are taking it upon ourselves to seal these lairs. I am desperately hopeful it will keep the insectoids asleep, at bay. Most of them, at least. If they should awaken, go to that island before it is too late. The tunnels they were digging, once joined, are enough to launch another full-scale strike on the continent with startling swiftness. I can hear them now, clawing and stinging their way toward my location. I must bid you adieu. Go to the island. Use the k” [it cuts off abruptly.]

Rorin doesn't move. When his magic fails his mind has gone long before it. He presses no advantage. Only when Lionels hand lands on his does his singular eye turn up in wide shock. That is short lived as emotion vacates it shortly and Rorin is forced to pick up his sword and keep moving. Almost through. Almost. Rorin can feel something like broken glass inside his right eye and arm like it was packed under the skin. In the interim between battles Rorin would silently stop the group to address wounds. Through his magic though strength fading and through the herbs and items on his person Rorin would dress the wounds of the group and pick up pace to move on. At the threshold of some ancient white fortress Rorin stops just for a moment with his right hand petting Isangrim despite the immense pain within it. Once Lionels found his pages Rorin rather uncharacteristically shrugs after reading them and passing them off. Rather he simply awaits further orders. This is as much functioning as he can handle right now.

Valen would be looking rather...not good, by the time thing's had been all said and done with that particular scrap. As they walked, and Lionel said they were almost through, Valen would give off a weak laugh before leaning slightly on the scythe, using it as a surreptitious walking stick, hoping no one would notice the fact that the very first spider had actually managed to pierce onto his unwounded shoulder, barely, but no doubt whatever foul aberration it was...those fangs would certainly spell trouble. The problem was, Valen was not a practiced healer. He had no clue he was in any danger from that, and simply thought he had just expended too much energy. As Lionel read those entries, tears would stream from Valen's eyes. Gods why did his head hurt? Was it from how hard those tears were coming? Finally by the end of it all, Valen would move off to the side, drunkenly walking it seemed, before finding a corner, lean against it, and make a gut-wrenching noise as he vomited up nothing but a copious amount of straight blood. Sputtering a few times after, he would wipe his mouth before spitting a few times to get the rest out of his mouth. It was not surprising that blood was all that came up though, he -was- a Vampire after all but he still looked ragged. "You...guys go on. I think I can be okay." Had they been going anywhere? Why the nine hells was it so cold? Why could he not hear Valen? Another wrench of his stomach, and more crimson liquid would spill on the ground before stopping, though the noises of the dry heaving still came for a few moments afterwards. His hair, from that much loss, would start to turn gray...but only just. "S-sorry..." he would mumble, giving off a few more sputters, before just going back over to his wall. Nice wall, cold wall. 'Only you understand me wall..' he would think, closing his eyes as his forehead was pressed against it.

Meri continues the journey with the group, even if it was a bad idea to come down here as some of the members of the team seemed to be discussing they were past that point of turning around. Plus who would want to be the first to do that? Coward. Lionel and is chattering about that 'magister guy' is entirely lost on Meri, it must be something from some past expedition that she knows nothing about. Regardless when the pages are passed her way, she gives them a casual perusal. The words are not read in depth, nor word for word, it is a quick skim of what is offered. Why? I don't know, the track record around this place is ambush after ambush. So, yeah, an in depth analysis is not coming from the psionic woman at this point in time. In her skimming there is one bit that jumps out to her: One beneath a verdant forest, one beneath a perilous desert. One here in what little remains now of Haath. And one on an island thirty-two kilometers due east of the Cenril. "Hm. Rynvale," comes her distracted and muttered thoughts, notes going back to Lionel while her gaze cuts toward Valen who seemed to be down and out for the count. Blue eyes travel back to Lionel to see what his call is on what to do with Valen. Leave him based on 'I think I will be okay'?

Lionel doesn’t have much time to process the journal entries, it seems. Valen, Rorin, and Ameno all look positively haggard in every conceivable way, and Meri is looking at him with curious refrain. ‘You’re the leader,’ Lionel reminds himself. ‘Lead.’ Taking in a breath of the dank air, then coughing some of it out just as soon, the Catalian takes a pensive stroll toward Valen. It strikes Lionel that the very scar he’d given the vampire, during the climactic battle of a recent, costly war, has become vivid with newfound stripes in the wake of these spiders. “You’re losing a lot of blood over there. I don’t know much about vampiric physiology,” apart from that of folks like Elazul, anyway, “but I think you’d better stay put, after all.” Lionel winces, rolling out a canteen of water for his ally. He unwraps first aid bandages, too, and sets to work mending what he can. In the interim, he tosses some of those supplies to Ameno as well, but he waits a moment before hiking over to Rorin. “Drink something. That’s an order, soldier.” He hands him something to quench thirst, and then finally addresses Meri with a steady azure gaze of his own. “Five minutes rest. Let’s see if the other team catches up. Then, with or without them, we’ll move forward. I don’t like sticking around for long. It has a habit of, uh, being a bad idea.” Sand ceilings and all. Painfully fresh memories, those.

Rorin drinks heavily and nearly chokes on it. This is all too much for him but what is more concerning is the now extreme pain forming in the upper right quarter of his body. It throbs and stings and burns in his eye and arm and the scar along them. He decides in the end to plop down near Valen and be comforted by Isangrim. He feels sick. Wasted away. Trembling and trying to digest what's happened around him. At least no one's died yet. That's a reassuring thought, the pilgrims decided.

Valen would blink and sway a bit to Lionel for a moment before shaking his head "You let me stay here, rest, but go on. I can at least buy you guys some time...maybe? There could be more of those things, and you need your back clear." Here, he would grab Lionel by the shoulder, a bit more lucidly though seemed to be a force of his own will. "You know as well as I do that a covered rear, and a head start, can pretty much guarantee the safety of a party. I would not do this, if I was not sure that I could take care of myself, besides, even if I keep drinking blood, what I have on me will not be enough for me to keep on walking that far. If I get into trouble, I'll meet you guys back at the Guild Headquarters." Here, assuming Lionel tossed him some blood, he would drink it otherwise he would hand it back before pulling out a flask from a pocket and down it in one long gulp. "There, see? I'll be better in no time." In fact, as he spoke, the wound on his shoulder was slowly starting to heal back over though the hair was still grayish, it was good to prioritize. In truth, what had been in the flask was simply water, and he was using the rest of his body's reserves, what had -not- been dumped out, to heal that most grievous of wounds. He knew, in the end, that he could only slow them down at this point, and hoped Lionel would take the bait. He certainly could not feed from any of them, none of them could afford that. Then it hit him, as the poison had also been partially purged from that final burst of healing. Oh....Lionel had said he could stay already. Damn. That speech got awkward...he must have really been torn up. Sitting down next to Rorin, he would give him a soft nod "Proud of you, by the way Rorin, for toughing it out like you have." Looking up at Lionel, and to Meri, and even to Ameno, he would add "You all too....Give the bugs hell for me?"

Meri doesn't even try and resist the urge to roll her eyes at Lionel, flagrantly. An understanding of vampire physiology was something that Meri did have but, yes, leader...Over to Valen Meri goes but by the time she was able to loosen up her right bracer, Valen was already producing a flask and his wounds were already healing before her eyes. That was more acceptable to her. This time she did not actually look to Lionel for confirmation that this would be suitable, she nodded her head toward Valen to indicate her own acceptance of his want to stay behind. Her bracer would be tightened back up. By now the flames of her sword have sputtered out of existence, the pitch having been entirely consumed. At least Meri wasn't suffering quite as much as the party, due in part to Rorin's efforts to reverse wounds. In part. Five minutes up yet?

Emrith comes back to himself by slow, painful degrees. The enemies are gone. Gone? Are they? Eyes flick furtively to the left. Khitti is there, a nimbus of power, and his eyes flinch away from her. Flick to the right. A shadow. Did it move? No, it mustn't have. Just a corpse twitching its last. Just a corpse. Emrith sprints to it and steps on it just in case, then turns back toward his beaten and beleaguered band, eyes lingering for a long moment on Larewen. Maybe it was she who brought the worst of these denizens down upon-- But no. The spell-blade forces the traitorous thoughts down, makes himself walk resolutely over to the necromancer and put an arm around her. His voice is hoarse and nearly broken. "It's still pulling me. You must follow. It wants...you must follow. We must meet up with...it wants...follow." Even his phrases are clipped, fragile things full of fractures. Then suddenly there is an arc of fire, and he hurls both himself and hopefully the necromancer as well - to the side, dodging it by inches. "Brand! Stop! Stop! Gods curse you, stop!" he shouts, and there is a pained twinge as something gives a warning in his throat. All this screaming and yelling is going to cost him later, so hopefully it has done at least a little good. He lashes out without thinking, a simple blast from his staff, a kinetic burst meant to stagger Brand and thus to interrupt his misguided missiles. Emrith looks at Larewen, nostrils flaring, taking in that odour of singed flesh. "Please," he says softly, "Please, hold on. Hold on. For--" He coughs, spitting up a little blood. "Don't hurt yourself anymore. You're here. You're now. Don't hurt--gods, Larewen. You don't need to burn." But the pull of that ring is inexorable, titanic. Despite the worries now plaguing his mind, despite the near-dissention sown amid his group by the toxon of the shadow-wielding spiders, Emrith sets out then, his pace a shambling, wounded walk, head bowed, weapon used like a walking-staff. His other arm, still presumably around Larewen, is perhaps the one thing grounding him in reality; she is a presence he can touch, can hold, can rely upon, and he clings to her with steadfast, almost panicky tightness. He hopes that the others are following, for with every step closer to the source of his malaise, Emrith finds himself less and less capable of rational thought. The hallucinogens coursing through his brain are probably not helping him much in this regard. In time, but with no detours or further attacks, Emrith stumbles into the enormous keep near which Lionel's own group has so recently taken up camp and, all unknown to Emrith of course, found the pages of the journal. He is here at last. The source of the threat. The genesis of his misery. The--

It starts with a low hum, so low that it rumbles the ground and causes eddies of that loamy soil to puff up from the ground. Soon, that deep sound swells, wavelike and thunderous, until virtually all other noise is buried beneath it. It thrums in the ear, hammers the blood, vibrates bone, that sound, and its slow, steady oscillation is deliberate, meant to induce dizziness and confusion in whosoever should hear. It is the call of Grrya Dama-Ka, the Everspider, its challenge to those who have dared disturb it, and as eternal as its name. The multitudinous threads of its massive web shiver in sympathy, and the great beast begins to descend from on high, hairy legs scissoring. Before it has even reached the floor, the Everspider opens its cavernous mouth and seems to speak, though whatever words it may be issuing are lost beneath the cadence of that terrible, all-consuming hum. Suddenly, arcs of lightning and little balls of fire fall from the split protusion of its tongue, striking the web and instantly tripling in size as those ley-lines conduct the mana away from its source and toward the targets below. Lightning-bolts and fireballs begin to bounce pell-mell across the floor, and the Everspider begins to climb roofward again, shaking its eight hairy legs as it goes. A deadly rain of needles scatters the length of the enormous room, each as long as a person's hand and keen enough to drive through skin, muscle and bone, particularly from such a great height. Grrya Dama-Ka Styles itself the apotheosis of the apex predator, unparalleled in the art of complex ambush, and its last assault is both its most decisive and its most devastating. Darting its misshapen head back and forth, the fell creature begins to sever the lines of its own web, which ricochet toward the ground with terrific force, smashing pillars and statuary as they go, creating even more hazards for the poor fools who dared this prior sanctuary. Instead of simply falling to earth, however, Grrya Dama-Ka abruptly seems to ripple, to teleport into its own shadow - which is spread out on the floor beneath it - and suddenly it is there, among them. Grounded but by no means bested, the Everspider begins to lash out with those needle-encrusted legs, to snatch and bite with venom-coated fangs capable of rotting flesh with even the drawing of a little blood, to bash and bludgeon and body-slam whatever it can reach. Seventy feet across and twenty-five high, covered in a hard exoskeletal chitin, it will finish the job its pre-emptive attacks began. It will kill them all, and it will grow fat on their flesh, especially the one who bears its ring. And in time, the shadow of its presence will blot out the world. It will ascend to the realms far above once its meal is finished here, and drain the living world dry.

What the actual frak was going on?! Was this punishment for all of her and Amarrah misdoings? Surely this was what hell was like. All seven gorram levels of it. Thank the gods she was the only one with her head on straight, right now or else they’d all be doomed. Doomed. DOOMED! The same hand that had send shadow-fire to cleanse Larewen of her spiders was now directed at the woman once more. A chilled mist of blackened ice crystals flowed freely from her fingertips, washing over the woman to put out the cleansing fire that she so desperately wanted. All the while, she was trying so hard to get through to Brand along their link, [BRAND! Brand, listen to me. It’s not real. None of it. Please stop...please…] It hurt her to see him this way; she wanted to tell him she loved him, to not leave her, to not delve deeper into this madness. But, it was not to be. He’d sunken farther and farther and there was only one thing left she knew to do. As Emrith pleaded to Larewen, begged her to stop with her own madness, Khitti shadow-stepped to blonde and pulled him close. “Brand, please...forgive me. It must be done.” Crimson brows furrowed as she studied him with violet eyes, a pained expression set on those pale and black-veined features as she pulled back her right hand, the appendage balled up into a fist with the magical stone within it, and swiftly sent a nice right hook to the side of his head, sans vampiric strength of course. It’s then that the matron of all these horrid arachnids made herself known and fury overtook the dark ranger. Her swords are taken up again and she pushed past both Larewen and Emrith. Shadows, purple fire, and black ice engulfed the blades as she darted towards the great spider mother, darting lightning here and there, shadow-stepping away from fire. Khitti would not be deterred. The last of the Von Schreier family, and the last of her village in that far away country of Dhavislaav, was determined to show Grrya Dama-Ka just who the real Queen and Mother of Spiders was.

The creature with the glowing violet eyes returned to Brand. Here was the Ghost of Right-Hooks Present, he thought, come to visit Brand in this hour of screeching shadows and dancing flames and skittering spider legs. He saw Khitti’s fist as if the whole scene were in slow motion, though he was in no position to dodge it. And what did that thought even mean? The ‘Ghost of Right-Hooks Present’? The phrase had come to him as if it’d been dictated to him by someone else. At any rate, he had no further time to ponder it. The fist connected with his face and he saw darkness once again, a darkness thankfully bereft of spiders this time.

Larewen would have been content to burn, but the joined efforts of Khitti and Emrith see an end to Brand's fire flinging for the moment. Perfect timing, it seems, for as the spider begins its assault, the elf is drawn somewhat out of her madness. A few of the needles pierce her flesh, burrowing into her body until their sharpened tips hit bone. If this causes the elf more pain than she already experienced, it doesn't show. In fact, as Khitti charges at Grrya Dama-Ka, the necromancer pulls free of Emrith's arm, separating herself in a desperate bid to save Illondria's life. This alternate reality that she is experiencing takes a toll on her emotions, but she is so determined not to let the child die again that her pain, her fatigue, all of it is forgotten. "Illondria!" she yells after Khitti, mismatched eyes wide with terror. It is with a maternal instinct that the necromancer throws herself into the fray. The bodies that have littered the city become puppets in a play, one Lionel has seen before when they battled Corruption in Vailkrin. The darkness that taints the Dragana line flows strongest through her because she is its source, and this the maddened elf uses to her advantage. That corrupted ichor that is still leaking from the runes carved in her flesh serve as fuel for the elf and rises upward around her, stretching and twisting and splitting then disappearing. The blackness pulls from the blood and crimson droplets fall to the ground: it is the first time the elf's blood has been seen free of the corruption, but she takes no notice of what she is doing before she sends the raw magic outward in a single pulse of dark magic. It finds the bodies closest to where they fight, binding the will of the bones to her own and they raise upward, finding their feet (hur hur) once more. Some of them grasp weapons, others draw upon the few remaining threads of magic that remain in their bodies. Larewen's face has grown extremely pale beneath burnt skin, blackened scars, and dark veins, but she perseveres and guides her dead toward the spider. At the very least, they'll serve as decent fodder, no?

Lionel catches Meri’s side-eye and offers her the same. He has no idea why she’s rolling those orbs, but it takes two to tango. With a gentle pat to Valen’s shoulder and a meaningful and solemn nod, the Catalian looks up toward the ivory keep. “We move.” His jaw does not shut. His tongue is mid-flap. The mother of all beasts is abruptly upon them. “I’m going to keep her on me!” He’s shouted it before he’s so much as thought it, and it’s on him now to keep it true. The intent is clear enough; he will not let this thing anywhere near Valen. Or Rorin, for that matter, should the boy be unable to arise. In a blitz, Lionel kicks up fire behind his feet, and as it charges straight behind him, it blends with the flames of the queen’s own making, billowing into a tempest wherever Lionel should stride. His speed is boosted by this Ishaarite parlor trick, a long-heralded technique used against countless foes. Yet none have ever rivaled this. Each evasive maneuver, from fire and lightning alike, brings Lionel dangerously close to that endless array of needles. He pivots and swivels like a ballet extraordinaire, but he still cannot avoid it all; tendrils of lightning take him in the maimed right hand, causing a feral shriek from the wound and from the man himself. Then, as quickly as she’d arrived, Gryya Dama-Ka is gone, and then she’s upon them again -- too close to the rest of them, now! Releasing a guttural growl, Lionel counts on all his supernatural quickness to carry him back toward her. It’s a fiery race, and in the interim, Gryaa Dama-Ka is the farthes thing from idle. She lifts one great leg to skewer straight through Ameno’s hip, sending the draconian to an early exit from the battlefield as he thrashes violently into one of the collapsing pillars, his fate unknown. Launching himself into a sprinting vault, Lionel decides that there can no more postponing the full breadth of Halycanos’ abilities within his blade. It’s do-or-die, now, and Lionel will not see his friends perish like so. As his charge concludes, and as he kicks off the ground and swings at one of the creature’s limbs, the flames coating Hellfire contort, distort, and then blast into a much larger set of emerald sparks, surrounding Grrya Dama-Ka much the same as her own magics have surrounded them. They each flash vibrantly, and in one fell swoop, they zero in on her, homing like so many missiles. But it’s taking its toll on the Catalian, for he is now covered in sweat and vomiting, his eyes flickering and his body shaking…

Rorin registers Emrith and his team a moment before disaster happens. There is no drop, no tingle, for Rorin’s normal sense of danger has been entirely disrupted through the most instinctual of fears and pain. His screams are heard over the hum as he rips at the patch over his eye. It burns from the inside out though as it opens it does not appear simply blind. The outer eye has been replaced by some sort of dark blue metallic flesh, the iris a separate ring from the pupil, both colored the strange otherworldly white-blue of his scar. Rorin’s newly awakened right eye seems to dart about of its own accord for what it sees is something not unlike hell. A world of white and black with ghostly winds and slashing lines. It would fixate upon the eldritch abomination of the spider queen where the sight of it was replaced in that stark world by the truth; a soul so disturbingly mutilated it is truly beyond belief. Rorin has little time to ponder the meaning of his new half-sight from an eye believed dead however. The bones of his right arm are shaking. The blood inside feels pounding away. It feels like it's threatening to tear itself apart so in what must look like a mad ripping Rorin discards both sleeve and glove. The truth of his 'recovery' is revealed there. Rorins arm had been changing. Something about the powers of the being he used, something about the nature of its energies, had not merely ripped him apart. It had deformed the limb into something unreal. The flesh was scaled, some places so heavily thickened to be like bark, rendered that same metallic shade of dark blue and parted by a thick white line embedded within as a vein of magic that had been his scars. From his shoulder down to the clawed white tips of his fingernails it appeared so completely monstrous. It had done so in contact of the dark magics Rorin had used to save Oline before and now was no different. Rorin’s flesh had been awakened by the fateful occurrence of this final beast before them. So hideously drenched in sin it's very existence was that Rorin’s mind drove him forth on but on conclusion: that it must be destroyed. The world must never again see this creature to exist. The long scaled flesh of Rorins right arm pulses with magic that forces him to cry out once again. The limb begins to shift grotesquely, expanding, looking so very wrong, bones and muscles in all the wrong places and numbers, it's flesh harder than before, cracking as it easily grows twice as long. The flesh is now whiter than bone and the whole of the limb rearranged to that of a giant skeletal beast with a hand wider than Rorin’s chest. There was no time to think or wonder or even decide as Rorin would begin to dash amongst the falling rubble towards this penultimate design of everything wrong he stood against. Magical attacks are merely batted aside; swatted by his new arm and absorbed into the white glyph which tops the back of his hand as if it were embedded there like a stone. Isangrim dutifully charges at Rorin’s side while the newly transformed appendage raises with a barrier against the rain of spikes. Only when the thing lands does Rorin go after it screaming at the top of his lungs. His plan was to blast, claw, and over all decimate his way to the victory over this blackened thing.

Valen would blink at that hum, before shakily standing against that scythe. Gods dammit what was going on now? That call it gave certainly did it's job, but did not stop him from donning his shadow wings, and hovering in the air while he let Maldor, who had tuned out of listening due to the sound, guide their vision. When it emerges, Valen pales even more than he already had from the loss of blood. What was he to do? What -could- he do??? Lionel-the-Chivalrous, was not only fighting to defend him, but Rorin as well...hell, the fury dicated he was fighting for them all, but the beast was too well armored! No, no he knew what had to be done. with that, he girded his loins, and furrowed his brow. He more than likely had one shot, and one shot only. Everything was a whirl, but it was only when he saw Lionel vomiting... "Lionel!" He would look at the Catalian, a genuine smile. "Take care of them." With that, he would rush the beast, shadow stepping left and right through the air with Maldor's guidance. No doubt the beast would roar at the flames that surrounded that, and that was when he would plummet himself down it's frakking gullet. "Smile ya son of a bitch!".....and then he was gone, inside, and dark. But dark was good, darkness was cheap in here, and Valen thrived. Focusing on all around him, that same trick he had used before, he would use the remainder of all his strength to summon the swarm of flesh eating shadow's inside the beast, disregarding any of its digestion processes in the way of pain. The shadow's would coalesce, they would shudder, they would grow...and the feasting would begin. It would certainly take a moment, but Valen had one final trick up his sleeve...and that was his own two hands, his own teeth, and his own feet. Working in tandem with the shadows, he would kick, bite, scratch as the energies drained from him but would allow his shadows to keep crunching, gurgling, sucking, devouring. They were ever-hungry, and no doubt would help provide the distraction needed for those on the outside. He only hoped, that this would not be his final act.

Meri thankfully has no idea what is going on with the other team over there, but if she did she might actually thank Larewen for trading her out. Rolling her eyes at Lionel was the much better alternative, in honesty. No argument to the command they move, but it would seem that they would not be moving very far before this adorably cute spider makes its presence known. There was that oversized beast that the entire party has been expecting and waiting for for the duration of the trip. Meri didn't really have an issue with spiders before but after today she might take issue with them now. Maybe she and Leoxander could start a club. Fear was winning out on this one and Meri was quite certain that she would turn into a bony little spider snack were she to get too close to the twenty-five-foot high thing. Even with a knack for being able to heal faster than your average human, there was only so much one could do if they end up eaten alive. What she was more willing to do was to play the role of defense, much like last time, and as she has demonstrated then she can't concentrate on the mass and energy around her while also trying to shank something. This time around the sky wasn't falling, and she was able to focus more on the individuals than keeping the roof up. There was rubble for pillars to deal with, yes, but unless one of the members of the group was in immediate danger of being crushed the psion would let them fall. More concerning was the spray of barbs that were as large as a persons hand. Those were suspended in mid air, hopefully before they have a chance to inflict serious damage on any one individual, before dropping harmlessly and uselessly to the ground. Deflection was the name of the game here and it was afforded not only for herself but also for those actually waging war against the spider. Bolt of lighting get too close? Might find that it is stopped with a shield of energy, the same goes with fire although escaping the heat is an entirely matter. Which keeps up until Meri's not paying attention to herself and ends up hit with one of the bolts of lighting flying around. Which. Sucks. Ouch.

Emrith has no hope of entering into melee combat with such a gigantic foe. In his rattled condition, Grrya Dama-Ka would swat him aside, or annihilate him with an errant lightning-strike or fireball conducted to mammoth proportions by its enchanted web. He hangs back, ducking behind a column to avoid the worst of the onslaught, clutching his staff for support as that damnable pulsing hum fills his head with roaring vertigo. Then his temporary barricade is torn in two, a thin line of webbing swishing past close enough to part his hair. He ducks, and the duck turns into a cringing genuflection as the ground shakes. The Everspider has landed, and brought the spell-blade to his knees in so doing. From his new and lowered position, the spell-blade extends his right arm, clutching his staff in his left hand as the ring on his forefinger begins to pulse in rhythm with the thrumming sound all around him. There is a link there, tenuous and growing stronger. If Grrya Dama-Ka cannot be stopped, or diverted somehow from its intended path, something truly calamitous will occur here in this lost, damned city, and none will be the wiser when the tainted earth of the abyssal forest births a new and unquenchable monster. But Emrith still has his will, his conscience. Friends, loved ones, have been hurt this day. In the end, he was drawn here without having the means to resist, but that does not mean he must go meekly to his fate; free will is the one thing Grrya Dama-Ka cannot entirely control. Emrith, whose bodily wounds are still relatively minor and whose mind has begun to clear of its skittish, mistrustful thoughts, begins to channel mana into his staff, and the runes along its length spark fully to life. A second later, a hard ball of condensed kinetic energy bursts from the far end of the outthrust weapon, hammering the Everspider's near leg as it sweeps down toward him, shearing it off a few feet shy of its tip and sending black rivulets of pure darkness spilling down. The ring flares bright for a moment, and then that shadowy essence is gone, seemingly absorbed into the rune-etched band on the spell-blade's finger. The spider seems to pause for a moment, as if puzzled, and Emrith lashes out again, another sphere of force aimed at the beast's great, armoured body. A needle sinks into his shoulder suddenly, causing the spell-blade to loose his hold upon his staff, which clatters away across the floor. He cries out in pain and yanks the little missile free even as he rolls aside, to dodge the oncoming swipe of another needle-garbed appendage. Spines click and scatter around him, and now he is moving as fast as he can, mimicking the movements of water stance even though he has no weapon. Staying alive. That is all he can do. Now that he has reached the place to which he has been drawn, the ring has no power. It pulses as Grrya Dama-Ka Bleeds, grows warm against his relatively cold flesh. Emrith's ability to do large damage to such a foe, as many of his friends and guildmates are doing, is compromised by his inability to use shadows as a weapon, as previously he managed to do...but something is happening. And with all the other damage being dealt, from without and within, it just might be enough. The Everspider trembles.

The Everspider trembles. Its fury rises like its hunger. The little girl with her dual steel fangs; it swats at her, buffets her with its body, drops bolts of lightning from its tongue at point-blank range. Not enough. Little man with the flaming sword; stinging burns, and it tenses in rage, attempting to cut him in half with a leg from either side. Snip! Holy man with the unholy arm; heave up, heave down, and no one can survive that crushing pressure from above. No one. Its joy in the coming slaughter grows with each movement of its body and limbs. And then the shadow-creature, shadows in its mouth, down its throat. Churning, liquid fire, and the scratching of a trapped beast. A muscular contraction, an enormous, ripping heave, and it vomits the entire contents of its stomach onto the floor, shadow-man included. But most of what it vomits up is darkness, the product of half a hundred little wounds stitched across its insides. An undead army, pelting it with fists and rotted weapons and magic. One is too much, a hundred not enough. Energy orbs. One leg sheared. Body struck. It is too much. It is not enough. Kill them. Eat them! Kill! A screech shatters the subsonic call it had previously used. That screech erupts in all directions, but accompanying it is a tremendous blast which, in its fury, it channels southward through the city like the world's largest tidal wave. Rock turns to sand and crumbles in on itself. And then the creature itself, its body undone by all of its various injuries, swells, splits, bursts like an over-ripe melon. An over-ripe melon with legs. And eyes. A torrential cascade of deepest black rips out of the maelstrom that was once the living shell of Grrya Dama-Ka, the Everspider, and within no time it all, that dark pall descends fully upon Emrith, swirling around him. Elsewhere in the chamber, a cold wind, brief but vicious, howls cyclonically, carrying upon it the stink of decay and the half-heard sound of chittering, inhuman laughter. As the proverbial dust settles, the shadows writhe and disappear, as if sucked into some unquantifiable source, and there is the briefest of thuds as Emrith's body, now spent past endurance, fetches up against a pillar that still miraculously stands, then slumps there, propped senseless on its feet. Strangely enough, he has thrust his right hand deep into a pocket of his cloak where it cannot be seen.

By the time the creature has split and the darkness has surrounded Emrith, the necromancer has run herself dry. With a shuddering breath, she releases the strings on that undead army and the bones clatter and fall as they become undone. This exertion has taken its toll on her and, coupled with the time that has passed, the effect of the poisoned bites of those other spiders have weakened enough that Larewen sees Khitti once again for who she was and she lifts her hand to rub at her face. She is crying and the tears are blackened with the elf's twisted blood. She pulls her hand away, staring at the tears in confusion before her arms seek to curl around herself. Then, the pain hits. Her body is on fire, the adrenaline subsiding as the searing pain of the many burns covering her flesh sets in. The elf is quivering and her gaze sweeps over the area, settling on Emrith as the darkness disappears, as the thud reaches her ears. The elf's body desires to shut down, nearly drained of magic, but she refuses to allow herself to fall as she had in Vailkrin that night. First, Emrith needed her. Second, there was a certain golem already given too much slack in the forest above that waited ever so patiently for the elf's magic to fail entirely - and that would unleash another hell upon the surface world that they simply did not need presently. Staggering steps guide her to Emrith's side and she crouches down beside him, reaching singed fingers up toward his face. If Khitti were to glance her way, she would see a display of tenderness from the matriarch for the first time since their paths had ever crossed. "Love?" she calls softly, her voice quivering and wrought with a fear that was unusual for her.

Khitti would not stop slicing, would not stop stabbing, would not stop hacking and slashing away at the spider. -She- was the spider mother. -She- was ice and fire and death incarnate. -She- didn’t just belong to the shadows; she -was- the shadows. The redhead channeled her fury into every attack; eldritch orbs sent here, fire and ice directed elsewhere with every maddened strike of her blades. Must save Brand. Must save Larewen. And Emrith. And Lionel. And Rorin. And the others that knew not of what had been in the other tunnel here. There had to be more besides this bitch of a self-proclaimed goddess, this Everspider. Khitti’s train of thought was literally ‘can’t stop won’t stop’ at this moment. Shadows melted off of her form, clinging to that wine-colored hair of hers and the scales of the Blue that adorned her form. Even after it was gone, even after it was dead, even after Emrith absorbed all of its essence, Khitti yearned for more. It was a hunger she could not sate, more powerful than any blood craze a vampire might encounter. She’d taken the hits from the Everspider, every single one. Smoke curled from the singe marks on her armor, her face, her hands, wherever it had gotten. But, she felt nothing. Nothing but the hunger...and the ever-creeping madness that tainted her mind. “I von’t let you take any of zhem from me! You vill not be my undoing or anyone else’s! My fate is my own and you have no part of it!” The prophecies still plagued her mind, the dreams never ceasing since their return from the Shadow Plane. Still she attacked that corpse. Had to make sure it was dead. Had to make sure it was gone. All gone. Must save them. Must keep them safe. All of them. She was a hero--tried to be. Those prophecies were wrong! All wrong.

The Dark Forest, Vailkrin

Lionel is smacked senseless across his hip by the dying queen’s horizontal swipe, and he hoists the tip of his blade into the earth to control his crossing. Steel on soil makes for a fine conductor, and the last of Hellfire’s titular magic disintegrates as the Knight-Commander is thrown from combat and lands with a thud. He’s back on his feet in no time, a testament to pure stubbornness more than anything else; after all, Lionel’s head is pounding and his hand is scorched and his hip is dulled and throbbing all at once, and his ear has been clipped and he’s sweating profusely. So much damage, but the only thing this man does is slam his sword back inside its sheath and watch the madness. The Everspider’s final fury takes the last of the Haathian civilization right along with her; that wave she emits blasts it all into rubble, into dust, into rocks and iron and memory. Yet it seems the way out is through, for even as Gryya Dama-Ka erases Haath, her blasts crack open a quarry into the surface far above, shattering one of the tallest of these magnificent towering structures such that a modest climb across its surface will lead the guild to the relative safety of Vailkrin’s forest. Out of the corner of his eye, Lionel catches Larewen’s actions, and he very nearly vomits all over again. Fresh hell, this. So many things, this man has seen, and that… ability she has just used… looks awfully damned familiar. But for now, he must focus. He must not give in to exhaustion. Propping himself up and taking a tremendous swig of water, Lionel begins to assess the situation. He cannot recall ever feeling this tired, although surely it’s happened before. He cannot recall much, just now, and he must remain focused on his allies; so many are in such dire straits. Lionel begins the search for Ameno; in the background, Khitti strikes the corpse of the queen. Lionel finds Ameno, and gasps at the terrible wounds; Khitti strikes the corpse of the queen. The queen blasts into nothingness; Khitti screams; Lionel brings Ameno partway up the exit ramp. Khitti screams; Lionel moves Valen, dragging him as he drags his own feet. Khitti -still- screams; Lionel drags Brand, collapsing on his own kneecaps multiple times. Khitti’s proclamations do not end; Lionel continuously eyes her as he pulls people like corpses across what’s left of the battlefield. Each time, his glare grows simpler, more straightforward, because each time, Lionel’s reserves of strength are fading more and more. Emrith. Larewen. -Rorin.- All of them seem to have changed. Is Lionel descending into madness, now, too? Is Rorin’s new form truly as he perceives it? Is this possible? What is this thing the boy has become? What has happened to Emrith? What has happened to any of these people? “Khitti.” His word seems almost to reverberate despite its softness. It’s the same exact tone he’d used the night he told her they’d find a cure together, they’d do anything together. It’s that unstoppable, damnable, heroic tone, that singular, lilting note. That all-encompassing heroism. “Khitti.” He repeats it in perfect pitch. “It’s over now. We need to go home.”

Emrith is still conscious, but hanging by a thread. It is Larewen who tugs him back to some semblance of awareness, though it is tenuous at best. All his normal stoicism, his pretenses, are absent in this moment of reawakening. When Larewen's fingers brush his cheek, the spell-blade flinches. "I'm here," he murmurs. "I'm here. And you're here. And that's all that---gods, Larewen. Your hands. Your poor hands." Then he sees that the flames have hurt more than just that, and his eyes fill with tears. He reaches out for her, stumbles into her and almost sends the pair into a sprawl. Still trying to lean on that solitary pillar for support, Emrith loops his free arm around his lover's shoulders, then gently, oh so gently presses his forehead against hers. "We'll get out of here," he says, and his voice is choked with emotion. "Larewen, I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry. Just be strong a little longer. Just a little longer." Emrith can hardly take his own advice now, however; it has cost him much to reach this place, and to survive what befell him when he got here. He still bears a cursed ring, and he knows that for him, the trouble is not over. Yet hope is in his heart, and it is enough to straighten his knees, to stiffen his spine, enough to give him the strength, however fleeting, to lift Larewen, to cradle her protectively against his chest. "You don't have to hurt anymore," he says to her, leaning down a little to speak for her ear alone. "Not ever. Not ever. Any pain you take, I take. Any hurts you are given, I will help you repay, or help you heal if I can." Raising his head, looking around at all the carnage and blood and ruined grandeur, Emrith begins to make his shaky way toward the newly-revealed exit, giving Lionel a single wary glance on his way past. The guild, and all its bids for his attention and scrutiny, will have to wait. For now, Emrith Kohl is wounded, and weary, and long past caring what other people think; he has a wounded woman half-supported in his arms, a curse upon him, and a home nearby to go to. That, by the gods, is more than any one man should have to bear. But bear it he will, and never mind the consequences. Heroism takes many forms, and if Emrith is not a hero, he has still been a part of something heroic this night, and he is not about to submit now, not with so much at stake. Under his breath, that supporting, almost nonsensical litany: "Going home, Larewen. Our home. Going home. Hold on, love. Home.

Larewen allows Emrith to support her, which is another of the many changes that has occurred as of late in the twisted elf. Rather than stubbornly support her own failing strength, she leans on him just as much as she allows him to lean on her. When they have crested the rubble and emerged in that familiar forest, her mismatched eyes travel between those still conscious. They linger on Lionel, then on Khitti, and though the elf speaks to all of them, there is a dual meaning in her words meant especially for the latter. "House Dragana lays between here and Vailkrin, just a short distance beyond the black pond. Its doors are open, Margret always has food prepared for the living, and there are several rooms in which you can all rest. Each has its own washroom, too." She pauses, a rattling breath echoing in her dead lungs, and then, she continues, "Your room is where you left it, Khatja." In fact, she'd find the room largely untouched, save for its door, which bore an rose with petals of sapphire and leaves of diamond, were she to accept the offer. With those words, Larewen relinquished the ban on Khitti entering Dragana. Her fingers clutched at Emrith, as if letting him go might equate losing him. Who was this woman, that she seemed almost... friendly?

A chill went up the Dhavislaavian women’s spine as her name was uttered. In that way, that same way that had been used when he promised a cure for her vampirism. Promised to help her get rid of Amarrah. Promised her she’d do wonderfully as his aide-de-camp. He was the only other person, besides Brand, that she’d secretly dubbed ‘best friend’--even Dominic, of late, had fallen from that spot. He hadn’t stood by her, was slowly losing her trust and even her love, though she hadn’t realized any of it. She hadn’t had enough time to think about it. About anything. The chill was enough to sway her from that madness, to break its hold. The literal and metaphorical fire died, her magic fading, the pain setting in. The ache in her heart was worse now, worse than anything physical she felt. It brought tears to her eyes. They flowed freely as she lowered her weapons and turned to face Lionel, streaking through the dirt and gore that marred her face. What was she doing? Why had she done it? What was going to happen now? The word ‘Love’ made its way from Larewen’s position over to Khitti’s and drew her attention away from the Catalian momentarily. Love? Love. That’s why she was doing all of this, right? Suddenly there was a panic, like a child lost in a crowd. Where was Brand? Where had she left him? Was he okay? Lionel was caught in her line of sight again as she stepped closer to him, “Vhere is he?” Her voice broke halfway through her inquiry. Concern was there. And guilt. And the pain that lingered. “Did I hurt him? I-Is he…?” Had her punch to the face been too much? Had the venom gotten to him more? Was he dead? She couldn’t say it. Couldn’t say the word. Good thing Brand was out, though. He probably wouldn’t like all the fussing she was doing over him. That frakkin’ guy though. The one she’d hated so much in the past. Who’ve thought she’d be worrying about whether or not he was dead?

On an island twenty-two kilometers due east from present-day Rynvale, a pillar of light bursts into the late-evening sky. Beneath the island's surface, deep within the earth, the final tunnel's very last soil is cleared, Thousands pour in, and thousands more pour out. Memories are shared. Old plans reawaken. Soon, the first Lithrydelian city will fall to the onslaught.

Brand was -not- out, but he never heard Khitti’s fussing. Heavy eyelids pried open to view dark trees overhead, dark trees that obscured whatever sky might have otherwise been visible. There was a numbness and a tingling coursing through his body, and that same heaviness that threatened his sight prevented him from anything more than the barest movement. He managed to loll his head to one side with great effort, and came face to face with the redheaded corpse of an elf. (Or, at least, it seemed to him to be a corpse.) The sight churned his stomach and gave him the strength to reel away, to roll onto his opposite side. Dark, dark trees. He was surrounded by them and their dangling, tangled beards of moss. They whispered secrets into his ears and foretold futures. Frak these trees. He closed his eyes and willed his breath to slow; maybe, if he played dead, they would leave him alone. No more fortune-telling. No more steel cages of prophetic verse. Please. No more whispers. He’d heard enough.

Lionel is oblivious to Brand’s tilting and turning. Instead, he maintains his solemn countenance, smiling an easy smile despite the full dread of everything that has happened here tonight. All these things that have changed all of these people, forever. “He’s fine,” he reassures his friend, his aide-de-camp, his family. The mere thought of it passes into words before Lionel can even realize what it is that he’s saying. “You’re both fine. My family is fine.” He cants his head at Larewen’s offer; there’s enough bad blood between them to sustain even an Elazulite appetite, but there’s no sense in bringing that up in the wake of the hell they’ve just ascended. “Thanks.” Back to Khitti. “Come on, you. We’ve got a lot of wounded, here. Let’s make sure they get what’s needed.”

Larewen calls gently on the constructs that roam the forest, further testing the limit of what magic remains within her. She grimaces, but soon the crackling of leaves and sticks give way to a trio of undead creatures, frankensteined together by her own work. Their purpose is simple: they help in gathering those that cannot stand, that cannot walk, and then there is a passing of sorts, to Lionel of all people. Control, ownership, at least temporarily, of those three abominations. It might not be the best feeling in the world, but considering the elf's track record for turning on a dime... it might be comforting at the least. "They will obey you, whether you wish the wounded be taken to Dragana, or back to Frostmaw. When you are finished, bid them return to me." With those words, the elf is pulling ever so gently upon her lover, drawing him home. Whether she is concerned over how puzzled her actions might leave Lionel is hard to tell.

Khitti spared a glance away from Lionel, giving him time to respond as she fixed her attention on Larewen. House Dragana? Her room was still there? She could...go home? No, not her home anymore, but a sanctuary nevertheless. ‘Khatja’ smiled. She smiled? What the heck. There was a nod too, but that smile soon faded as she turned back to Lionel, to receive the response she was hoping for. A heavy sigh, a very much unneeded breath, is drawn in and let out with relief as she peers over Lionel’s shoulder, spotting that -other- blonde Catalian. Her swords are sheathed finally, and that magical stone handed to the Knight-Commander for safekeeping until Brand was better. She -willingly- handed it over. She didn’t want it right now. Didn’t need it. But that’d soon change. Khitti von Schreier didn’t know it, but everything was going to change. The redhead would find Brand, kneeling beside him, hovering over him like that mermaid in her favorite fairytale after she’d saved the near-death sailor-prince. “Brand…? Everything’s going to be okay.” Brand was by no means a prince, but that red hair of hers hung around his face, blocking out those trees he hated. She'd carry him to Larewen’s house, stick the Catalian in the bed she once called her own, then returned to help Lionel with the rest of the wounded. Unfortunately for Khitti, and Brand, and Lionel, and everyone else...things...were very soon not going to be okay. Not for some time.

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RP:Face Of The Enemy

Spider Nest, Vailkrin

The City of Haath

The Dark Forest, Vailkrin