RP:Soul Survivor - Part Two

This is a Devout's Guild RP.

Summary: Sargaso and Kailani have been partnered together to try and solve the mystery of an ashen woman seen around a near-dry riverbed in Venturil.

Crystalline Chamber -- Venturil

After the Cult of Cire initiate told Sargaso and Kailani of the hideout, the sailor proposed they waste no time. If that kid had second thoughts, he could warn the cult of Sarge and Kailani’s investigation. Before leaving for the Lost Throne, Sarge prepared for the infiltration by submerging himself in the Fengoth River, clothes and all, until he was thoroughly soaked. If Kailani asked what all that was about, he’d shrug and answer, “You’ll see.” En route to the cult hideout, the sailor probes Kailani’s appetite for violence. “I’d prefer to avoid a fight if we can. Would rather bring the cult to justice under Venturil’s jurisdiction. I don’t like to play judge.” As they near the Lost Throne, Sarge pulls a minimalist fish-silhouette pendant from beneath his tunic. He holds the gold icon in a closed fish and whispers a quick prayer. The water on Sarge shimmers slightly before rendering him 80% invisible. He steps lightly, preferring stealth over a noisy charge. As they descend into the crystalline chamber, Sarge surveys the occupants. Four cultists in robes stand near the central pillar of the chamber. Along the bottom of the pillar is a pile of river rocks, presumably to house souls. Sarge sticks to the shadows and follows the western curve of the amethyst wall so that he and Kailani may flank these goons.

Kailani does not actually voice her question to Sarge, it's more a gesture. She's staring at him with a bit of a perplexed look on her face, brow lifted. Make no mistake, the druid has a fondness for water but she is not entirely sure of the purpose that this serves right now. So when Sargaso explains that she's just going to have to wait and see, the druid issues a shrug. If Sargaso was hoping for a clearly defined answer on Kailani's stance on violence, he's not going to get one. Her people skills really do leave something to be desired, the answer he gets comes in the form of another shrug. The only hint that Sargaso gets that the armored woman is fine with attempting this is the fact that her ransuer ends up strapped across her back as they make the trip into the crystalline chamber and there it remains. The druid does not attempt to mimick Sargaso, there is no attempt to make herself invisible. She's pretty sure she'd fail at this endeavor anyway, blame the armor. She is at least successful with managing to creep silently behind the sailor, life out in the wildnerness has taught her that much. Kailani pauses at the same time Sarge does and spends a moment considering just how they're going to non-violently deal with this cultists. A distraction. Further down the hall, in a distant room, the druid will a strong gust of wind into existence that vanishes as quickly as it is summoned. The intent is to have this wind cause a bit of a ruckus, knock a few things onto the ground, make a bit of noise so that maybe these four cultist will decide to investigate.

The cultists sit upright, rigid and alert as they peer down the eastern hall towards the noisy wind. They look at each other and three of the four go to investigate. The fourth, a woman, stays behind to guard the main chamber and the precious river rocks. Still invisible, Sarge pulls a silver coin free from his coin purse and flicks it down the northern hall to see if he can get the woman to play fetch. No luck there, but she does at the very least look to the north. Having diverted the woman’s attention, Sarge creeps towards the eastern exit, licks his thumb, then draws a sigil on the floor with his own spit. A gravity-defying, upside-down waterfall pours from the floor towards the roof. The trickle widens into a roar until it is impenetrable. While Sarge just exposed his presence and location, he trusts Kailani to cover his back. He dispels the invisibility on his body, turns around towards the woman (who is trying to summon a spell) and says “Your friends won’t be able to get through that. You’re outnumbered. Let’s have a chat, yea?”

Kailani observes Sargaso creep forward and draw a sigil on the ground with his own spit. This is another moment of confusion for the druid, until she sees the water begin to trickle from the ceiling and effectively block the eastern path. Now this is something the druid -can- mimic, but she does so with her own twist. Two more waterfalls are manifested so that the remaining exits are blocked, but the water is not kept in it's liquid form. All of these watery barriers quickly solidify into a solid block of ice, so that almost all exits are effectively blocked...all but the one that Kailani and Sarge need to take to make their escape. This is the exit that Kailani stands guard at, just in case some of the cultists attempt to make their way back to their currently not-so-safe-haven. A watchful eye is kept on the ice-barriers as well, just in case one of them is clever enough to utilize some sort of fire spell. Since Sarge has revealed himself, Kailani draws her weapon. It's more a just in case measure, right now, Sarge..settle down. Better to be prepared than caught off guard.

Sargaso glances quickly to Kailani and nods at her plan: she guards the entrance, he deals with the servant of Cire. The cultist snarls at him and says, “You’re no guard. Who are you and what do you want?” Sarge holds up his empty palms to calm her. “No, we’re with the Devout Guild. We know what you’re doing.” He nods towards the river rocks. “It has to stop, and we will turn you in to the authorities. Help us return the people’s souls to their bodies, and we’ll tell the Venturil Guard that you cooperated with us in the end.” The cultist glances between Sarge and Kailani then back to Sarge. She stares at him for a hard minute, her fingers twitching and mind racing. Suddenly the tension slips out of her on a long sigh. “Alright,” she says as she accepts her defeat. “To restore the souls I need something.” She starts to turn towards a small chest behind her, but as soon as her back is to Sargaso, she whips around quickly on her heel and launches at him a spiraling ball of black energy encircled by barbed, red lightning. Sarge reacts quickly, dodging to his right, but the mass of chaotic energy grows as it travels. It’s too large to avoid entirely and it pummels against his left side, arm, shoulder and hip. The red lightning rips through his clothing and hooks into his flesh so that he can’t shake off the chaotic mass. He moans low and briefly in pain as the spell saps his energy. He falls to his knees and struggles to catch his breath. His teeth clench in pain. His mind is a blur.

For a split second, Kailani was surprised at how ready this woman was to help them return their souls but the druid soon realizes that she is naive to even think the bad guys would be so willing to undo their hard work. The druid really does not have a considerable amount of time to have these deep and philosophical thoughts as Sarge was currently being attacked. As far as Kailani could assume, this woman was trying to trap Sarge's soul within a rock. Not her's though, not yet. Kailani had been intent on guarding the entrance, but she is quick to close the distance between herself and this woman. That task is made all the easier given the range of Kailani's weapon. It's at this point the druid resorts to violence, but at least she elects to keep it non-lethal. The butt end of her ranseur is angled straight at the back of the woman's head, delivering a firm crack to it, hard enough to render her unconscious and leave her with a nasty headache...hopefully before the spell can really do any serious harm to Sarge. Once the cultist falls to the ground, Kailani turns her gaze back to Sarge and steps toward him, attempting to help him to his feet while also trying to ascertain if the spell has caused any lasting damage. "Yeah, I don't think she wants to help."

While Kailani deftly handles the cultist, Sarge deals with whatever the heck this -thing- on his arm is. First he focuses his mind by closing his eyes, controlling his breath, and finding his inner connection to Selene. Not breaking his meditative state of prayer, he unhooks his canteen from his hip with his right hand and pours water over the black swirling energy. It glows turquoise blue, the light patterned like the sun shining through shallow seas. Slowly, very slowly, the chaotic swirl begins to shrink until it disappears with an audible pop. His arm bleeds a little where the spell latched on, but the cut is shallow and will stop bleeding on its own soon. On unsteady, weak legs he rises. “I’m alright,” he says while panting. And he will be, once he recovers his energy. He replaces the canteen on his belt and unhooks the short loop of rope. He snaps it straight and it lengthens magically to 6 feet. Using sailing knots, he quickly binds the cultists arms and legs, and uses the thick rope to gag her as well. “Guess we’ll need to figure out how to restore that woman’s soul ourselves. I’m not even sure if she’s the only victim or not. Only victim we know of.” He pauses thoughtfully then adds, “And we should probably tell the Denubyrg guard these ***holes are down here too.” He rakes his fingers through his thick black hair. “Split up? I’ll fetch the guard, you find the woman?”

Kailani presses her lips together in a firm line of annoyance, not so much at what Sargaso is saying but because of the situation as a whole. How does one return a soul to their body? This is something that Kailani has been puzzling over. "Do we even have her soul...?" Kailani looks to the pile of river rocks, as of trying to figure out if those were used or unused. And then she turns her attention to the chest that the now hog-tied cultist had initially turned to before attacking Sargaso, opening it and peering inside. More rocks. The druid shifts her gaze from the pile out in the open, to the smaller hoard kept within the chest and ultimately ends up opting to hoist the chest under her arm. "I will find the woman," Kailani confirms, "And you will get the guards. I suppose we will meet out back by the river?" Kailani inquires, that's where she was supposedly sighted, right? Presumably Sargaso and Kailani are already moving out of the chamber and toward their respective destinations while they confirm their next plan of action.

Sargaso nods at Kailani’s outline of the plan. “Yes, I’ll be there quickly. I have no idea how to return a soul, but maybe the woman knows something. She did undergo the ritual or spell to lose her soul, she may have some insight.” They part ways. Sarge makes a beeline for Denubyrg, and narrowly escapes a fight with a pack of hyenas. In the city fort, he explains to the captain of the guard who he is (flexing that Devout Guild membership for credibility) and what he knows and where the culprits are. Trusting the guard to do their job (they do) he meets up with Kailani at the river. On the way there, he thinks about the problem. Once Kailani arrives (hopefully with the grey woman), he says, “I have an idea. Let’s line up all the rocks along the edge of the river and get them wet. I’ll see if I can convince Selene to help us out and make the soul-bound rocks glow for us.” Once the rocks are lined up, he closes his eyes and prays. Purely on instinct, he extends his hands over each rock, one by one, slowly making his way down the line. About one-third glow a faint siwlring red, still enchanted by Cire’s chaotic power. He grins smugly at Kailani and wags his brows, quite proud of himself. However, he has no idea what to do next.

By the time that Sargaso finds Kailani, she has located the woman and she's not standing around stationary while awaiting Sarge's arrival. No, she's taken on the more tedious task of passing a rock off to the woman with the hope that it will garner some sort of reaction. And when it doesn't, it is set aside in a pile and then Kailani passes off another rock. It's a task that is bound to take forever, and honestly...? She's accidentally already passed up the rock that contains the woman's soul. She's much obliged to try Sargaso's idea, instead lining the rocks up in the water. She let's him work out this plan until he comes across one that glows. Prayer has gotten them this far, but Kailani has a hunch that it's not Selene that will help them solve this mess. Her domain was the sea, and while rocks might be found at the sea their connection is more closely bound with the earth. Kailani plucks up the soul-bound rock and once more tries to place it within the ashen woman's hands. This time she clasps both of the woman's hands around the rock and then both of her hands around the ashen woman's hands. Her eyes close, and she attempts to instead commune with Hind. Maybe he will see fit to transfer the woman's soul from the rock back into her body...

Sargaso sits on a boulder as the druid communes with Hind to solve the problem. He watches in awe as the rock erodes into silt in the woman’s hand. The black spiral of Cire breaks apart. The gray woman, on pure instinct (or perhaps Hind whispers in her ear?) eats the silt. She eats all of it like it were cocoa powder. Slowly pink and yellow undertones return to her skin, then the light tan, and the blonde hair, and dark eyes. She smiles a little as tears of relief roll down her cheeks. “Thank you,” she barely manages to squeak out. Overcome with emotion, she leans forward and grasps Kailani’s forearm in a sudden swell of emotion. Sarge gets up and approaches the women. “Let’s get you back to town,” he says to the stranger, who says her name is Moira. Then to Kailani, he says, “There’s more victims.” He gestures towards the other Cire-marked, glowing rocks. “We should take these to the Devout Guild and have them announce publicly that we have a solution for those afflicted with this curse. They can take it from there and the victims arrive.”

Kailani is not surprised that there are more victims, but she is sorely disappointed. What if they weren't able to return the souls to their rightful owners? Kailani frowns and moves back to the glowing rocks. "I think that it would be best for you to escort her back to town, I can deliver these to the Sanctum of the Divine and provide Khitti with an update of what we have uncovered and what is still left to be done." She is already beginning the process of gathering them up and placing them back into the chest they stole form the cultists. "At least the souls are in good hands, that is a start in the right direction." Kailani gives pause, looking toward Sargaso to see if he is agreeable with this plan of action. If he was, then Kailani would not waste time in parting ways to follow through with her end. The souls would be delivered to Khitti for safekeeping until they could find the rightful owners.