RP:Liana, Lost and Found!

Part of the Home Sweet Home Arc

Summary: After information sourced by the illusionist and spy Sykule leaks to Rikailin, Rikailin and Skylei infiltrate the dead caves to save Liana from the prison in the heart of mind flayer territory. Gevurah D'Artes, Liana's jailer, comes to defend her claim over Liana, but the mind flayers break up the elf v. drow party. Rikailin, Skylei, and Liana escape, but not unscathed.

Room of Shackles, Dead Caves

A nearly photographic memory has served Rikailin well over the years. It allows her to recall in almost perfect detail the route she took some days prior to infiltrate the Dead Caves. With the pair moving fast, it is relatively quick work to get through first the forest and then the entrance to the Underdark itself. Since the gates to the Dead Caves themselves aren't buried deep in the city proper, the risk of detection is somewhat less than it otherwise might have been. In moments like these, the battle-druid is tempted to believe in the hand of some higher power lending a little luck to their endeavour. Whatever the cause, Rikailin and Skylei are able to reach the caves, and here, they slow down. Rikailin moves close to Skylei, putting one hand up to signal for quiet. She leans in close to whisper to the half-elf: "A mental mantra. Something repetitive and dull. Keep your mind active, but put that thought first and foremost. Mindflayers read thoughts, and we wish to evade notice." None of the foul beasts are close yet, but Rikailin sets a considerably slower pace now, even going so far as to adopt a slightly stooped posture and a shuffling gait which she hopes Skylei will mimic. Rikailin knows the room where Liana's peculiar cell is located by smell more than anything else, and soon enough she locates it: a huge room dominated by rows of shackles, some empty and some occupied, with a bloodied stone table nearby. "Here," she whispers, voice even lower than before. Rikailin points in the direction she remembers the empty cell to be. From here, she knows it will only get much, much harder.

Liana hovers close to death, her mind flayed as raw as her body looks. The last days had been beyond any torture the Drow had ever inflicted on her up to this point. Knowing that they had caught Rikailin had destroyed what little hope she had left. For the first time, Liana has begun to wish for death, but even that luxury is denied her, not only by her traitorous body but by some gods awful magic of the Drow. She tried to die, tried to ignore the worms, the bugs, the rats which suddenly seemed to flock to her cell, but her instinct had taken over, drained them all. Bodies now litter the stones at her feet, but it has done little good, for every drop of life she took, her mind took a further beating. She slumps now, head thrown back against the wall, eyes open but unseeing, skin dirty and pale, clothes not much more than shreds. She cannot find it in herself to care for any of it.

The fact that they’re going nowhere near the city; away from the arena, away from House D’Artes is a small mercy; Skylei would not have been able to cope with that. Heck Skylei is barely dealing with this entire endeavour. Her breathing is shallow – something she blames on the noxious gas both she and Rikailin are surrounded by, but is really caused by the violent beating of her heart and the desire not to vomit all over herself. Then Rikailin suggests that she changes her thoughts to protect against mindflayers. Something repetitive and dull? Skylei’s already got that covered. Since they reached the entrance to the Underdark she has been erring herself onwards with the repetitive strains of ‘Don’t cry, don’t cry’ and ‘Keep walking, you’re not a coward’. Still, at Rikailin’s request, she changes up the repetitive mantra in her head to the most mundane words she knows in the drow language, ‘Yes’, ‘No’ and ‘Praise Vakmatharas’. She assumes that by thinking in drow she puts herself at even less risk of detection but keeps her own mind active by tackling the less familiar language. It’s the best of both worlds. She doesn’t mimic Rikailin’s actions however. Her back remains ramrod straight and her gait slow, but nothing akin to shuffling. Her step is definite, cautious and, in spite of her attempts to stifle the workings of her mind, Skylei is on high alert, sure that danger lurks ahead, behind, above, below… hell, it’s everywhere.

Unbeknownst to Gevurah, she and her city have been skirted by filthy elves who wish to do her harm. Blissfully unaware, she reads ancient texts pertaining to the allegedly defunct Order of the Shade deep in the heart of the House D’Artes. Several rooms and corridors in the estate are reserved only for nobles. Magic portals guard against even ‘trusted’ servants (a drow myth). Thus, nestled in a cozy room (by drow standards, aka austere, but with fabric!) Gevurah lowers her guard, dons a casual black gown, and sips a glass of wine. Her mind dwells on the chaos realm, the shade monster, the necromantic cultists. In recent months, there’s no room in Gevurah’s mind for Liana. There’s no room even for entertainment. The noble hasn’t visited the arena or Liana’s cell to offer up cuddly squirrels and robins from Sage. Thus, when Gevurah’s ruby red bracelet begins to glow, Gevurah sits up with such a start she spills the wine all over herself. “What!” she hisses in drow to herself. The bracelet alerts her to the intrusion of a non-Mindflayer, sentient species in the Room of Shackles. She drops the book and now-empty glass on the couch and walks straight through a wall that shimmers and gives in undulating waves as her noble presence converts it into a portal. Once in a servants-permissible hallway, she shouts “Izzerin!! Stables!” Her voice travels through the network of servants and slaves until it reaches Chamberlain Izzerin across the estate almost instantaneously. Were the intrusion in her own home, she could confront any foe in nothing but a robe for priestess carries her power in her dark soul, but a trip to the dead caves requires something extra. She disappears through another noble-portal-wall into her private cache of enchanted gizmos and gadgets. She dons the skull of a couatl to protect her mind from detection by the mind flayers, and drapes a bottomless-satchel of reagents across her shoulders. She slips on ever-silent boots and her greater piwafwi then meets Izzerin at the stable of lizards. She mounts a black lizard and holds out a hand towards Izzerin who without further instruction knows to give her a black orb no larger than an acorn. She slips the acorn into breast against her heart, then clicks her tongue to send the lizard galloping forward as it disappears into a near-invisible shadow. The shadow rolls up a wall then flips upside down over the cavern roof of Trist’oth, for the fastest way across the ceiling is over the roof. Rikailin and Skylei have another 15 minutes before she arrives, but the cell door is tricky to open and magically enchanted to thwart thieves of analog and magical skill.

Every moment spent in these dire warrens is a moment Rikailin would rather was spent almost anywhere else. She is here, though, on this most important of missions, and nothing short of death is going to stop her. Moving on cat-silent feet, the battle--druid tiptoes to the cell door and seizes the bars. Nothing happens for a moment, and then a jolt of energy sizzling along the tips of her fingers warns her to pull her hand back. She does this just as blue tines of lightning spark to life along the length of the door; Rikailin has spared herself considerable pain by the very skin of her teeth, and suspects that she will not always remain this lucky. Gritting her teeth against the agony in her fingers and thanking the spirits for her herb-enhanced reflexes, she puts her hand close to the door, but does not touch it. "Warded," she says, now in something more akin to a stage-whisper. "Most elven work and drow work is..." She falls silent, letting her senses test the arcane traps laid around the portal into Liana's cell. the work is masterful and complex, and the vampiric elf despairs of ever unwinding it all in the short time that remains. If Gevurah herself is not alerted to their presence yet, the mind-flayers might happen by at any moment. "I might be able to pull some of this magic loose, like lifting the edge of a tablecloth. Skylei, if I do this, you must be quick. Have you any facility with breaking steel?" Rikailin has found the outer edge of the web guarding the door, and has begun to tease at it. It flexes, bends, but will not break. "I think that if we can get the door open, the trap will de-activate, having served its purpose. But if you have a better idea, I'd hear it."

Liana is unaware of any of what is unfolding outside her cell door. Unaware that is until Rikailin touches the door. She may have escaped pain, but no such luck awaits the druid locked within. The scream which rips from her throat is agonising in its intensity, the sound rubbing already raw vocal chords even rawer. Every nerve ending is on fire, her whole body one huge ball of incandescent agony. She does not see what causes it, for there is no light display as there was outside to show her that the door was the cause. As Rikailin fiddles with the wards, perhaps her screams are heard outside her prison. Each time Rikailin touches the wards, another scream rips from the elf. She does not stand any more, but hangs limp, shaking and sweaty.

There is nothing Skylei would love to do more than that blast the door open with some high-speed fireball Alas, Skylei’s pyromancy is limited to contact – what with the only source of her magic being her blood. “I need time.” She informs Rikailin, requesting the one thing in this situation that they simply do not have, “And I need to be able to touch that door – just by the hinges” To herself she would murmur “And luck if there’s any going spare.” There is no guarantee at all that this will work but she cannot think of anything else. In her hand Skylei summons two of what might be the world’s smallest fireballs. They light up the cavern first burning red, then orange, then the palest shade of yellow before burning white. The boon of her blood protects Skylei from burns but even she is conscious of the blinding heat she possesses in her hands. It’s painful to say the least and not just for her eyes which have adjusted to the darkness. As the colour reaches yellow, the half-blood indicates to Rikailin that it is now that she needs physical access. Should this be possible, and assuming that it is. Skylei would press a hand against each hinge for as long as she could possibly hold this level of magic. She’s digging deep right now, her face contorted, her body static and her eyes shut. If she hears Liana’s screams she doesn’t show it. Eventually the door falls loose – hinges melted right off and the fire in her hands dulls from existence leaving them back in the cavernous darkness. Skylei doesn’t say a word. She can’t right now.

The cell ward also acts like a silencer, to shield Liana’s screams from reaching mindflayer ears (tentacle holes?), but as Rikailin lifts the ward like a fabric, Liana’s screams leak out from under the magical-web and echo through the room of shackles. Gevurah is close enough to hear the screams as well and curses several times in drow in a whisper. Normally, the first thing the drow would do when finding enemies is attack, however, the mindflayers’ proximity presents an ever-present and real danger for everyone in this room, including the high priestess. Thus, despite the fact she has Rikailin and Skylei in her line of sight--and the fact that she can smell the smoke which she knows cannot be good news--instead of attacking or defending herself she casts a spell to completely silence the room. It snuffs out Liana’s scream, the lizard’s dull padding steps, Rikailin’s breath, and Skylei’s heartbeat. The supernatural silence makes verbal spellcasting impossible as well, including for Gevurah. She lacked the time to weave together a more nuanced spell, but not all spellcasting requires words. Still, she has, in a way, handicapped herself in a trade-off to save herself from mindflayers, the real threat. Still veiled in near indiscernible shadow, she and her lizard bound towards the two intruders along a vertical wall. The lizard’s tail whips towards Skylei’s face, threatening to knock her head off her neck like a golf ball off a tee. Gevurah lifts a palm and shoots a narrow cone of white-hot fire towards Rikailin’s face, not a single sound produced anywhere, eerily so. Her pyromancy, stolen from Laezila, needs no words to be summoned, but is, of course, useless against Skylei, whom Gevurah knows well. The smoke begins to slowly seep into her lungs, and her natural defenses against magic buy her time, but not much.

Rikailin feels pain more intense than she can ever remember feeling before as she seizes the ward and literally peels it back. Lightning burrows into the flesh of her hands, and it is only with the greatest resolve that the druid can avoid a pained shriek. Skylei is not as hasty as Rikailin would like, and her hands are smoking and rather charred by the time the pyromancer's efforts have finished melting the hinges of the door. Literally shaking with the effort of suppressing the miserable burning sensation in her hands, Rikailin steps back...and suddenly the room goes utterly, deathly silent. This was a trap. The druid feels the cell door hit the floor, the concussion rippling through the nearby stone but making no sound at all. This ensorcelled silence is a drow trick, and Rikailin knows well the wiles of these foes. Falling back on instincts honed over centuries of use, now loosing a pent-up scream which will no longer matter in the magically deadened confines of the room, the druid stomps both feet on the floor and shoves mana into the rock beneath her. She hops back, feeling a wave of heat passing within inches of her face, and an enormous stalactite bursts soundlessly from the ground, its top sharpened to a lethal point. The battle-druid falls back, hair singed, eyebrows burned off from her brush with fire, then musters her strength and sends her makeshift skewer straight back in the direction of her foe, as indicated by the fire's trajectory. Rikailin may be blind and deaf, at a serious disadvantage, but her other senses are strong enough to keep her alive. Priorities: first, whoever has arrived to spoil the breakout attempt. Second, Liana, who may still be shackled, but who now rests in a cell with no door.

Liana shrieks and wails and howls as the ward is peeld back, every inch gained by Rikailin feeling like an eternity to the shackled elf. Blackness tickles at the exges of her vision, but the same Drow trick which prevented her dying also stopped her mind from retreating from the torture into unconsciousness. Sparks swim before her eyes as her body goes boneless, then suddenly spasms. As the last of the ward comes away, Liana arches backwards, her screams ringing in her own ears. And then... Nothing! Her screaming continues, but her ears hear nothing. What was this new trick? Were they going to make her deaf? Panic snaps her eys to the door, to the... But there was no door. It was gone! Where was the door. Eyes, so long used to the dark, scan the room beyond. She had caught fleeting glimpses of this place each time the unholy high priestess had come to torture her, but never had she looked so long. Her gorge rises at the blood, the body parts, the other shackled prisoners. And then she sees them, sees Gevurah attacking two of the people she holds dearest. This had to be a trick. Skylei was long dead. And she knew the Drow had captured Rikailin. But what did the Drow want her to do? The obvious thing, no doubt, which was to attempt to assist the two and escape. "No," she says, her words spoken but unheard. "I will not play. I am not helping you make this worse for me." She turns her eyes away, refusing to look at what she knows is not real. But she cannot refuse the pain. "Nonononononono," she says, the words repeated over and over in her mind. "Go away, go away. I do not see you. You are not real. Nononononono. Go away"... Over and over again as her shoulders shake with massive, heaving sobs of loss and torment. What she does not realise is that she is broadcasting her thoughts.

Small blessing it may be, but Skylei sinks to the ground in palpable exhaustion just seconds before the lizards vicious tail would have likely knocked her dead. Instead it smashes into the door frame and wall, causing a significant tremor and some minor rock fall from the ceiling of the cave. Still, now Skylei’s a sitting target; an easy victim, especially for someone as cunning as the drow bitch she counts as Enemy No. 1 on her personal list. She barely notices that the door had made no sound as it had fallen to the floor, that she can no longer hear Rikailin alongside her, that she felt the movement of the air above her head but didn’t hear the impact of whatever had moved it. Skylei’s still dazed from her considerable efforts with pyromancy and, now that the sound has been drained from the room too, Skylei cannot even rely on Rikailin’s verbal cues as to what she should do next. Not only are they fighting in silence, but also in the dark, leaving the advantage squarely in Gevurah’s court. Speaking of Gevurah, it’s a blessing that it’s still dark because the sight of the daughter of D’Artes would be enough to turn Skylei into a gibbering mess of a girl. Even in the silence and the dark, there’s a palpable feeling of danger and Skylei at least has enough wit to pull her bow out. Liana is behind her and remains unseen but there’s a voice on the edge of Skylei’s conscious that sounds just like hers…. It must be mindflayers trying to mess with her, Skylei decides in her dazed state. Repress, repress, repress.

Gevurah leaps off her lizard just as Rikailin’s stalactite skewers the lizard’s foreleg from below. The black and green scales become visible as Gevurah’s piwafwi pulls off the reptile as the drow levitates to gain an aerial view of the situation at hand. Thanks to the enchanted robe, her form still fears as a shapeless shadow. While she should address the black smoke first, the lack of time and the fear Liana may escape drives the priestess to take risks. Covering her nose with her sleeve, she flies overhead silently without giving away her position then drops down behind Skylei and draws a dagger across the hollow of Skylei’s throat, using her former squeeze toy as a hostage and shield from Rikailin. She jerks her head back to remove her hood and reveal her face, which looms just beside Skylei’s. Hello, old friend. Just as she waits to see what Rikailin will do, a mindflayer’s psionic probes break through each of their thin skulls. Gevurah feels the probing telepathy instantly and knows the predator is zeroing in on her as prey--in the dead caves, it doesn’t matter who you are. A towering Illithid bursts into the room, it’s four tentacles spaying as he screams a high-pitched wail into the room, effectively dispelling Gevurah’s silence spell. Gevurah whispers to Skylei, “You should have stayed on the surface!” and shoves the elf towards the mind flayer like an offering. She slips her hood back on and slips into the cell to make away with Liana before the mind flayer’s screech attracts others. She has no hope in this hell of defeating the druid and ranger, -and- escaping with Liana, so she settles for the latter. Working quickly as the mindflayer focuses on the elves outside of the cell, she binds Liana’s wrists with an enchanted spiderweb and unshackles the druid from the wall with a simple spell. Given how totally she has devastated Liana, the drow isn’t worried about resistance from Liana, for better or worse.

Rikailin is wounded, angry and terrified; in other words, this battle-druid is fighting just the way she likes it. Rikailin misses Gevurah's hostage play entirely - a fortunate thing for Skylei, as Rikailin might well have sacrificed the half-elf for a very easy shot at killing the pair and then trying to spirit Liana away - owing to her lack of sight. She knows the drow has changed positions only by the faintest sense that something living is on the move, and its scent is neither her own nor Skylei's. The smoke is making it hard for her to pinpoint location, but being both a druid and a vampire has sharpened Rikailin's nose to the point where her olfactory baffle is not absolute. When the illithid bursts into the room, Rikailin acts instantly, its meaty stench and subsequent ripping cry serving to send her into a flurry of action. More earth magic, this time summoned to the room's only true exit, causes a huge slab of stone to descend from on high just as the mind-flayer is trying to clear the door; its awkward frame is half-crushed by the descending barricade, effectively pinning it in place. This makes it no less an enemy, but does ensure that, for now at least, no backup will be forthcoming. The druid hastily casts a spell in the direction of the door, attempting to reinforce the aperture with more stone, more arcane force, or both; the denizens of this dark place will eventually be able to break that wall apart, but it will take precious time...precious time in which three beleaguered allies might well finish off one drow noble who may have bitten off a rather too-large bite. With the mind-flayer held prisoner in the doorway, and with the pall of silence dispelled, Rikailin can now hear quite clearly what is happening. Scuffling from the cell, for one thing. Rikailin makes a beeline in that direction, meaning to head Gevurah off before she can leave that small space. "Going somewhere?" she asks, and her voice is cold, loud and utterly without mercy. "No, no, I think not." Her hands come up on either side of her head, blackened claws, and she claps them briskly together, sending a portion of the smoke-cloud which has thus far been surrounding her back toward the mindflayer, the better to stop it from taking her from behind with any number of psychic or psionic attacks. "Skylei, for the love of all the gods, shoot it!" she shrieks suddenly, then bull-charges Gevurah, who holds Liana firmly in her grasp. Her last attack is really no attack at all. Rikailin feels confident that one brutally forceful mental probe toward the former archdruid of Sage cannot possibly hurt, and so she launches it. "Liana! Remember ruined silk! Ruined silk!" It is the only thing she can latch on, in her battle-fevered state, which the drow might not have worked loose of Liana's mind already, something to prove once and for all that this is no trick, no trap, no illusion. If Gevurah's hands are full with the limp archdruid, she likely doesn't have one free for a weapon; if Rikailin has to, she intends to continue her charge, bear them all to the ground in a heap, then toss Liana aside, and set about the grisly task of taking this priestess apart piece by piece. If that is what it takes…

Liana continues her scream until she feels a touch on her wrists. That touch, the feel of that life force. That was one she would never forget. But the high priestess was smarter than that, was she not? Many, many years ago, Gevurah had grown wary of touching Liana, for when she did, the archdruid would suck as much of her life energy as she could... That is until the consequences of such defiance were made clear to her. Yet now, Liana is driven by instinct, and the touch is the trigger which bursts the tenuous hold she has. Life, strong, powerful, vibrant, and hers! She feeds greedily, her touch not tender but barbed, clawed, violent as she hooks into Gevurah's strength. Gods but this was evil. The taint of it makes her wretch. But as she feeds, her surroundings grow clearer. Life, other life. not just her own! She widens her net, draws on the others in the room, hard, cruelly, desperately. Whether this feeding weakens the others remains to be seen, but Gevurah will not doubt feel some effect given the veracity of the elf's hunger. She draws more and more and more of what she can reach, instinctively avoiding the stink of the nightwalker taint. And then a thought penetrates the fog. "ruined silk". Ruined silk? It makes no sense, none at all. Ruined silk? Her eyes open again jsut as Rikailin tackles the high priestess. Rikailin? Ruined sil? Ruined silk! Was it really her? Only the gods knew. But this was more hope than she had had in many, many years. Looking down at her wrists, she notes the spider silk. A silly choice, given that the druid spent her life among bugs and beasts. She attempts to wrench her arms free, but cannot due to the enchantment. She reaches out, sucking more energy from those around her, and focuses on the silken shackles. As they begin to break apart, she feels the dreaded touch of the mindflayer as it quests. It broadcasts its pain, its hunger, its intention to feed, and fear rises in Liana. A mental shriek issues from her, growing louder and louder as she realises that she can once more broadcast. "Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeelp!!!!!"

Skylei is dragged back into complete consciousness as that figure grabs her around the neck. Her legs crumple, her heart near enough stops and, though she would never admit it, Skylei throws up a little bit in her own mouth as she sees the face of Gevurah D’Artes. And of course it’s Gevurah! The only person Skylei would deem capable of this would be that drow bitch. Still, she’s defenceless with a knife pressed to her throat and praying to Sven that Rikailin doesn’t make good on her promise that Liana’s life is the only one that matters here. Plus Gevurah’s not wrong in her assertions. Skylei wishes more than nothing else that she had chosen to stay on the surface, stay safe and, more importantly than anything else, stay away from Gevurah D’Artes. Still, Gevurah offers her a small mercy and throws her at the illithid. She supposes the mindflayer wouldn’t have much interest in a non-sentient dead body, and that Gevurah acts only in self-defence, but it’s an act of mercy that Skylei could not have predicted. Still shout out to Skylei who ends up playing human shield/brief hostage, is thrown to a mindflayer and then yelled at by her ally, who didn’t care to protect her from Gevurah, for not killing it quick enough – plus, if there was a proverbial underdog of this situation, Skylei Lucindio would take bronze, silver and gold and yet, of the four people in the room, she ends up taking on the vile thing that threatens them all without assistance. Classic. Back to reality, and Skylei’s sprawled on the floor with a mindflayer barely pinned in a doorway, vile tentacles reaching out to make contact with her flesh. With an undignified cry and a speedy scuttle backwards, Skylei searches the ground for the bow she lost during the hostage situation. She understands that time is of the essence, Rikailin, but damn it, what do you expect a ranger to do with no bow?

Must have, in her hurry, forgotten to take the precautions necessary when touching Liana. Gevurah, as High Priestess to the God of Death, commands the death magic that’s the polar opposite to the life which Liana commands, and as such the interplay between the magical polarities can go both ways. She quickly utters a spell that’s amongst the most basic taught to dark priestesses, and also the most versatile: death’s touch. It’s employed foremost to defend Gevurah from Liana’s thirst, for Liana would feed on death now, but doubles as a defense against Rikailin who tackles Gevurah very quickly. (Rikailin must have also interrupted the spider-web-cuff making before Gevurah could finish the spell, as the magical effects of the transmutation spell seems inert. Guess the ‘whoops’ just keep piling on! Moving on.) Gevurah quickly grips Rikailin’s wrists and channels Vakmatharas’s disease, which enfeebles first and foremost and almost instantaneously, then over the course of seconds (so long as Gevurah maintains in contact with her victim, it’s touch-dependent) also brings boils, ulcers, and infection to every part of the body. Gevurah immediately begins uttering a second spell, her voice booms and drops and harmonizes with itself in haunting melodies, the room darkens and energy crackles deep in her throat. Whatever she’s building up seems apt to shake the very foundations of the room. The slack shackles on the walls begin to vibrate. Corner a drow, and a D’Artes at that, and they bring out their version of nukes. Running would be a good idea, if not from Gevurah, then from the mind flayers, plural now, as a second enters the room. The first grabs Skylei’s body with its tentacles and draws her close to its chest, a small probe from the center of its mouth lapping around her ear to find entry. The second mind flayer is only just entering and has yet to pick a prey.

Rikailin bowls into Liana and Gevurah with all the momentum her six-foot frame can muster; the range is short, but vampiric strength, combined with the sheer desperation of the ploy, bring the trio together rather violently, making a momentary Liana sandwich. When Gevurah's hands batten on her wrists, Rikailin clenches her teeth, heaves herself up and partway over the shorter Liana, then pistons her head and neck forward, the better to batten on Gevurah's potentially unprotected throat. Rikailin's forehead strikes the stone of the cell's back wall a glancing blow as her teeth seek not just to feed, but to tear veins and arteries alike. This is no unconscious bloodlust; it is the sheer ferocity of the vampire unleashed in close combat. The enfeebling disease goes to work on her undead flesh, but owing to the nature of the vampire's curse, the weakening is about as far as that particular spell gets, at least in these frantic few seconds. Using her knees and legs as levers, Rikailin first shoves and then half-kicks Liana aside, attempting to pin Gevurah to the wall with her wrists, arms, upper body and outthrust head and neck. Her fury knows no bounds now. She will tear the throat of this priestess, interrupt her second and far more destructive spell, which will leave the three allies in various states of shock and bodily injury, but still alive enough to stand at least the ghost of a chance against the horrors besetting Skylei in the room of shackles. Rikailin loses the last of the smoke-funnel she carries, blowing it not at Gevurah but back out the door; Skylei might be immune to it, but the mind-flayers currently seeking an easy meal are not, and if Skylei herself still has any remnants of that miasmic toxon hanging about her, perhaps it will slow these intellect-devourers enough to give her a fighting chance. Rikailin quite literally has her hands full. Her strength has begun to ebb, her body to falter, her mind to grow hazy, but this must be done. Must be done.

Liana feels the energy of the high priestess change, but too late, too late! Death floods her, the touch icey and painful. Cold seeps through her veinsthe smell of the grave thick in her nostrils. What little semblance of strength she had managed to glean ebbs away as her body goes limp. Ironically, the only thing which saves her is the Drow herself. Whilst being tortured, Gevurah had enchanted Liana to prevent death. Weeks might go by before the priestess would seek entertainment which took the form of feeding the druid, so something needed to be done. The enchantment freed Gevurah of the dull task of being tied to the druid, to give sustinence and maintain life. This spell, involving the god of death as it did, prevented her from passing over, no matter the circumstances. It is only this which saves her now, for any other feasting so greedily would have expired long since. She barely registers the kick delivered by Rikailin, flying bonelessly through the air to slide down a wall and lie still in the corner. Although not unconscious, her mind is dulled by weakness and pain. The only positive in this situation is that all thought ceases, and with it, that mental shout which no doubt drew the second mindflayer. Would it seek Liana as prey, unprotected as she was? Possible, but perhaps not likely given that her thoughts are currently on holiday somewhere far, far away, and her mind is somewhat of a blank canvas at present.

Oh crap. Just as Skylei makes contact with her bow she’s grabbed and pulled into the body of the mindflayer. The bow is promptly dropped back to ground and abandoned yet again, but Skylei has much larger problems. The probe inches nearer and nearer to a viable access point and, with her arms and legs pinned by tentacles, all the half-elf can do is scream blue murder and pray to every god under the sun. Rikailin’s last hour play in her corner does a little to save Skylei’s butt; the probing mechanism from the mindflayer slows in its pursuit as the creature falls victim to the toxin and, if Skylei had more time, it might have even saved her life. But there’s no time left. So, yet again, the half-elf is left to save her own ass. Thank goodness for contact pyromancy, hey? Despite her exhaustion, the half-elf turns herself into a literal hot potato. Her aim? To be too hot to hold and simply slide out of the grip of the mindflayer and gtfo of there. In close quarters and with little left to gain in her view, (Rikailin is a patchy ally at best, Gevurah is evil incarnate and as for the mindflayers, Skylei is no match for them) Skylei’s ready to make a run for it. If nothing else, Skylei Lucindio can outrun almost the best of them.

Gevurah, between Liana’s brief but quick leeching, the brain-fog inducing smoke, and the utter fear of the mind flayers, Gevurah’s options are thinning. There’s a whole host of spells that, in top focus and health, she could cast to get her out of here (literal escape pod in one case), but weak and clouded as she is, that last spell she was trying to summon was her Hail Mary, and Rikailin disrupts that. Claws rip through the collar of Gevurah’s wine-stained gown, the flesh beneath, and even scrape the bone. Rikailin’s teeth even find purchase at her throat, but not for long. Gevurah blasts a fireball at Rikailin’s chest from below to punt the vampire off. If it works, she won’t give chase. Let these elves’ brains be devoured! Gevurah saves her own. Returning to her roots as a creature of the caves, she pulls from her satchel iron dust and smooth it over the cavern wall behind her. It shimmers and morphs into mud, swallows her whole, and hardens behind her. She only has a few seconds to pass through the wall into the next chamber. From there, she’ll make a stealthy exit, her piwafwi her near-invisibility cloak, and gives the mind flayers and their prey a wide berth.

Rikailin feels a bbrief sensation of gathering heat before she is bodily flung off the drow priestess. Quick reflexes save her from being blown in half by the fireball, but she is still hurled through the air, the vines and rags garbing her chest briefly aflame until she lands with a gasp and a crunch of shattered stone upon her belly. As it happens, the vampiric elf lands within arm's reach of Liana, scrunched nearly insensate in the corner. Rikailin is rapidly losing strength - her own reserves have been seriously tested in this wild battle, and the end may not yet be nigh for her. Liana first. Liana first. This is the mantra which drives her, the main thought which motivates her to do what she does next. In unconscious mimicry of Gevurah, as a last-ditch attempt to spirit the druidess to safety, Rikailin's blackened fingers scrabble at the wall, and it begins to soften at her touch. The spreading patch of enchanted stone is soon a few inches larger than Liana's form on every side, and the druid simply manhandles Liana's limp shape into the depression she has made. It promptly seals up, and Rikailin uses the last of her magical reserves to send the little capsule, which contains enough air for this one-way trip but not much more, upward like a tiny earthen elevator chamber, displacing stone with a muted rumble as it goes. If her memory of the Underdark is good, the only thing between Liana and the surface now is a single small cavelet, a space full of tiny carved shelves which, in Rikailin's estimation at least, is so rarely visited that it will provide a temporary safe haven until Rikailin and Skylei can come and collect her. This done, the battle-druid drives herself to her feet, shudders the length of her body, dry-heaves, then turns and blunders back into the main room, where she sees Skylei squirt free of one mind-flayer. The second is still very much on the prowl, wounded or not, and the only potential advantage these two sylvan rescuers have is speed. "Run!" Rikailin screams. "Get free! Run! Don't stop!" The smoke, the chaos, the distance, the disperity in general footspeed...any port in a storm, they say, and Rikailin is praying for one almighty lot of them. Her body, taxed almost beyond endurance, begins to hammer itself forward. Liana is safe now, and it remains for her only to attempt to snatch Skylei by the hand in passing, if the scents she gathers in this stinking chamber are anything to go off of. Should the half-elf Lucindio outdistance her, beat her back to the surface, that is of no matter. Rikailin has one stop to make, in any case. There is no sense springing a prisoner free, only to abandon her so close to freedom.

Liana lies dormant as she is sealed into stone, even fear beyond her now. She is not aware of being pushed into the wall, of rising upward, or of anything much. Her mind remains dormant, not sleeping for that is beyond her too, but completely blank. How long that will alst is anyone's guess, but hopefully long enough for Rikailin go find her, wherever she was.