RP:Thirteen Stones

Part of the Surface Tension Arc

Synopsis: Emrith is determined to reclaim Sage Forest for the elves, and repay the drow's trap with a plan of his own. At the abandoned archery range east of the drow camp in Southern Sage, he lays thirteen enchanted stones set to explode whenever a drow (or half drow, or quarter drow) touches one of the stones. Nymh is the first unfortunate drow to set off that trap, and Emrith is still around to witness the massive explosion which sends Nymh flying through the air. The two engage in a brawl. After the scuffle concludes with an especially battered Nymh, nine of the thirteen stones remain in the abandoned range, posing a threat to any drow who crosses through the area.

Abandoned Archery Range

Emrith moves like a wraith in fog, but his heart is figuratively crouching in the back of his throat. The elf is terrified, but he has resolved to do this deed, an act he sees as inescapable duty. His sable cloak is clasped at his throat, bending light so that the mortal eye will not see him. The boots he wears cause him to levitate a few inches above the forest floor, the better to avoid stepping on any leaves or branches. The contents of the potion he drank less than an hour ago are a noisome sluice in his guts, but they still appear to be serving their purpose; were any to touch the elf, they would immediately note that his skin is cold and dry. He breathes, but his breath, too, is cool. It is a draught sometimes used by necromancers and other practitioners of darker magic in order that they more aptly blend in with their creations and compatriots, and simply ingesting the murky liquid has caused the elf to feel violated, unclean. However, he knows that the drow are more than capable of tracking him by his telltale heat signature, and as such, he must mask it, if only temporarily. He knows, as well, that he cannot readily continue to drink this sort of elixir regularly, lest he risk great sickness...or worse. He moves upon his course, undetectable by the naked eye and leaving so little heat signature as to make no difference. Normally, the boots and cloak he wears allow him to be tracked, to some degree at least, by those with the ability to sense magic innately, but Emrith has thought of this as well. Since he does not expect discovery or combat this morning, his concentration is allowed to delve into is own understanding of the arcane; it is a constant, trying task, but the spell-blade is maintaining an untraceable link to the enchantments on his person and essentially inverting them so that they turn inward and cannot be seen. It is an infinite loop, and the pain it brings to Emrith's head is enough to make his eyes feel like overripe grapes. This is yet another bit of sorcery the spell-blade knows he cannot rely on for long, and he moves as quickly as he is able. This mission depends upon three things: stealth, speed, and a little luck.

Nymh moved to and from the surface often, and he moved alone. His work was for the betterment of Sage, the betterment of himself, and the betterment of his House. He all but worshiped his matron, but found this war to be a sickening waste of life, something the drow were far, far too keen on. He was taller than most Drow, standing at 5'4, a testament to his otherwise hard to discover wood elf heritage. Ears, cheekbones, nose, hair texture, few other things gave away that he was a gray elf, and he looked almost purely drow. He was wary, but this day, he was likely not wary enough, in his coming and going. He too sought to avoid Drow, rather than wood elves, this close to the entrances to the underdark, and Emrith's precautions in stealth served him well. Even Nymh's incredibly sensitive ears would not detect him within the still foreign cacophony of forest life. Nymh had much work to do, indeed, and hurried on about his way, leaving the Underdark.

At last, he reaches the spot. It is a choke point, a narrow path close to a tunnel from which drow regularly emerge while on their way up from their underground homeland. The ground is littered with stones, cast about in a haphazard fashion; Emrith studies these rocks and discerns that, for now at least, their arrangement does not herald a trap, and would not merit attention if it were to be disturbed a little. From a pocket of his cloak he removes thirteen stones, painstaking labours of the past two days. Each stone has been enchanted by Emrith's own hand, and by a mage of his acquaintance, and subsequenntly by a druid. Emrith's work was simply to weave the race-based trigger into the spellwork lacing each rock, ensuring that it will fire on only those with drow or half-drow blood. The mage's work is much more direct and simple by comparison: she has ensorcelled the rocks to explode violently as soon as their trigger is tripped. The most expedient and natural way of doing this, of course, is touch; any drow who kicks, steps on, is struck by or picks up one of these rocks is going to get a very nasty surprise. The druid's contribution to this ingenious ploy is likely the most clever: he has sunk the enchantment into each rock so that it has become virtually undetectable. The stones do not glow, do not give off heat, would not catch the eye in any way and would likely escape the notice of all but the most arcanely gifted, who had time to study them at length and without risk. Bending low, Emrith begins to place his stones near the entry point, scattering them here and there among the other rocks for camouflage. No two are extremely close together, but owing to the confines of the previous strew of busted shale and stone, Emrithh cannot spread his trap quite as broadly as he would have liked. Even this, though, may serve his purposes, since stepping upon the wrong trap might cause two or even four nearby to explode a mere moment later. The mage of Emrith's acquaintance has warned him that, although well-hidden and well-crafted, the spellform is unstable enough that individual triggers might feed off one another and cause a much greater explosion. Without doubt, a chain reaction is possible, but owing to the placement of a few wayward rocks, Emrith is confident that even if a large number are destroyed by one hapless drow, a few may yet remain to plague one or more who come in that unfortunate's wake.

Nymh found it to be dawn in the surface world. It would be rough on his eyes, once the sun finished rising. Even the stars were bright enough that they stung after a time. He came forth into the forest, completely unaware of Emrith's presence, but his own presence nonetheless presented a problem for the saboteur... he was not alone.

Emrith wants to breathe a sigh of relief when the last stone is placed, but he does not dare. Detection at this juncture would be an unforgivable setback. He straightens slowly, and freezes. In the hazy pre-dawn light, he can see a figure nearby. Two imperatives clash in his mind: silence the potential witness, or fade away like smoke, leaving no trace of his passage. Discretion wins the day, and Emrith moves away rather than approach the newly-arrived person...but here, he makes what may be a fatal mistake. Emrith is young, and relatively new at the games of war. Caution is ingrained so deeply within him that it is second nature, but so is curiosity. Rather than simply vanish over the next gentle rise, then, the spell-blade stops a fair distance away, and turns back. He has a clear sightline of the archery range and the rocks which litter the ground there. With morbid curiosity, Emrith watches to see if that figure, who looks to his keen elven eyes a great deal like a drow, will be the first casualty of his labours. If anything goes amiss, he is trusting to his invisibility and other various gifts to get him free of the area unscathed.

Nymh had a sense of something being... wrong. He looked up, down, left, right, but truly couldn't place his finger on it. Considering the paranoia instilled in him by the curse of Shatterscourge, haunting him with hallucinations and nightmares of all sorts, he ended up chalking it up to the curse of the blade. A few steps would prove that he shouldn't have ignored his instincts. He didn't register anything but a flash, for the first moment. Then he was on the ground, earth falling around him, a loud ringing in his ears. He tried to move, but horrible pain shot through his body with the effort. He couldn't begin to guess what was broken, how much he was bleeding, in that moment, but he reacted as quickly as his shaky hands could, drawing forth the ocarina that was blessedly still in his sash, and placing it to his lips to play a song of healing. He couldn't summon the breath to play the song, at first. It was well known in Hollow, however, that there was no such thing as a bard among Drow... they were incapable of musical magic. Nymh was the only one capable of it, because of his half breed heritage, which might make his feeble actions seem strange.

Emrith is not entirely surprised at the explosion which heralds Nymh's triggering of his recently-placed trap. One stone has been set off, and the elf bares his teeth in an unseen grin of satisfaction as the man hits the ground. Definitely drow, then. When he sees the man begin to twitch and reach to his sash, Emrith realizes that, with the majority of his spellwork still in evidence, a witness who manages to escape may very well be able to lay his plans at nines. He charges back toward the site of the thirteen stones - now twelve, since one has become so much dust in the wind by now - and draws Heleg, his blue-tinted enchanted shortsword, into his right hand. His left he leaves empty for the moment. A single killing stroke may yet set this matter to rights. Nausea roils in his stomach and pain screams in his head as he reaches his would-be foe, lifting his right hand, turning his wrist and then driving Heleg down in a vicious cross-body arc which will hopefully strike Nymh where he sits, caving in his chest and turning his ribs to so many frost-dusted splinters. He is trusting to his various enchantments to save him from easy detection, so that even if Nymh sees the sword he may have trouble discerning the position of its wielder. Even in his panic and his rage, Emrith has calculated the strike's trajectory to further add to the possibility that Nymh will be mistaken in his estimation of the spell-blade's position. In the wake of this attack, Emrith is poised to react however he must to ensure the silence of this meddlesome man.

Nymh's ears detect Emrith, as the ringing subsides... bard trained elfen ears. As Emrith comes hurtling towards him, his plans for a song of healing are dashed, and he instead plays a low, and utterly diabolic melody. Emrith might not have the chance to slash at him with that blade at all, if the magic of his song took hold, for Emrith would hallucinate vividly that powerful monsters came for him, lashing out at him with vigor, an illusion compounded by the pain he'd feel from their attacks. Nymh would begin the arduous process of staggering to his feet while playing the song, all hope of evading a swordstroke gone with his hideous wounds. His other hand would draw forth the hilt of Shatterscourge, as he played... which was, noteably, without a blade.

Emrith is not an elf of meagre means or flimsy resolve. Still, the haunting tune played on the drow's ocarina does indeed cause the elf to stagger backward, crying out from the imagined pain of the monsters assailing him. A cold corner of his mind holds, growing larger and eventually fighting back the psychological onslaught, but for a space of seconds, Emrith is reduced to backpedalling, flailing and writhing in imagined agony. Still being invisible, and with a sword in one hand, this panicking spell-blade still presents a potential threat to his prey without being able to confront him directly for the moment; indeed, Emrith's feet heedlessly clip two of the enchanted stones in Nymh's direction, both aimed at crash courses for the drow's ankles. Emrith is not even aware this has happened and thus can impart no particular impetus to the impromptu attack, and when his mind clears he thinks not of the stones but of more conventional weaponry. Battling that diabolical song is still an effort, and so are all the other various means of protection he currently employs. The first thing to go is the magic circle binding his mana conduits into invisibility; immediately, the pain in his head drops to a dull throb and allows the elf to more completely banish Nymh's make-believe monsters from his mind. With a clear head and a stern determination to quickly finish what he started, Emrith charges toward his foe again, this time from the side, and when he has approached Nymh's ocarina-wielding arm he taps the jade at the juncture of his collarbones with one finger, dispelling the light-bending illusion instantly and essentially appearing like a ghost made flesh directly beside the drow. Heleg sweeps horrizontally, meaning to rip into the drow's belly and kidneys, while the wood elf's other hand darts to his waist and frees the beltlike whip he wears there. This he flings toward his foe with his formerly unencumbered left hand, meaning to loosely drape the weapon across Nym's neck and far shoulder. As a sort of parting gift, Emrith imparts to his whip a short burst of mana from his failing reserves, giving the entire five-foot length of chain and studs a short-term but very potent electrical charge. If this drow is not eviscerated, exploded or electrocuted into submission, Emrith will have to think fast in order to fight back the pain that wracks his body and the sickness in his own belly; being laid low by his own preparation would be a horrible way to die.

Nymh is staggered by the small clink of rocks against his shins, mid song. The rest of Emrith's assault would be staved off, as Nymh endured two more explosions, only surviving due to the duergar forged black mithril and magical protections on his person. He is blown up, and into a tree, from whence he barely holds onto consciousness, and finds himself utterly unable to move. His ocarina fell somewhere in the explosion, leaving him without his most potent weapon, and means of survival. Still... Shatterscourge never left his side. It would not matter that Emrith was invisible, as Shatterscourge's hilt found its way to Nymh's hand, and its blood red shards rose, to fly towards Emrith. They would strike from all direction, tiny, incredibly sharp shards of glass, leeching the blood from his body wherever they struck... and delivering the life force obtained to Nymh. Without at least some of his blood, there was little doubt that Nymh would perish here, from these sordid wounds. Three mine explosions was too much, even for such mithril as he wore.

Emrith is surprised by the sheer violence of the explosions; up this close, the force which hurls Nymh against a tree causes Emrith himself to stagger from the shockwave. His sword-slice and tossed whip go amiss, though thankfully the annoyed elf keeps tight hold on his blade. The thud of Nymh's body against the tree atoward which he was hurled elicits a pained and silent snarl upon the elf's countenance, and he immediately sets course for the downed drow, feet now planted firmly on the ground so that he can kick rocks ahead of him as he goes. Some may be enchanted and apt to detonate if they strike the prone figure at the foot of the tree; most, however, are likely to be no more than mild annoyances. In truth, only one of Emrith's kicked rocks is of any true danger, though the spell-blade himself doesn't know this. Nine remain somewhere behind him, undetected and unmolested, the better to harry some other hapless dark-elf later. Suddenly, Emrith is pierced by a bright red shard of something, a blur like a scarlet hornet seen from the tail of his eye. The pain is not great in itself, but it does draw blood. Immediately wary, Emrith draws his other blade, Nahr, into his left hand, leaving the whip where it lies on the forest floor. He immediately drops into water stance, suspecting that further shards will soon attempt to embed themselves into his flesh wherever they can reach. Mostly, water stance is about ducking and dodging, bobbing and weaving, making of oneself as small and difficult a target as possible; this Emrith does, though not with his usual alacrity. Previous visitations of malaise render him less agile than normal, and he is scored by four shards, each drawing a thin line of blood. None remain within him, and all have drawn wounds in passing rather than sticking deep into his exposed flesh. Now the elf is furious as well as frightened, and it shows in the way he erupts out of water stance and into flame stance, arrowing back across the clearing toward Nymh, closing the distance with all the elven speed he can muster. He begins a series of quick slashes, feints and thrusts, some aimed at the drow, wherever he may be, and some aimed at the tree against which he had previously been hurled. The first few strikes do little except cause periodic patches of frost and occasional puffs of smoke to show themselves on the scored bark. However, the force and ferocity of Emrith's onslaught is such that soon, the tree has been rapidly heated and cooled so often by Heleg and Nahr that it cannot take the abuse. Whispering an incongruous prayer of mercy for this forest denizen he was forced to fell in pursuit of his goals, Emrith gives one mighty backhand cleave, then skitters backward and hopefully out of the immediate downward arc of the tumbling tree. If Nymh's wounds are great enough to affect his mobility, and if any of Emrith's previous assaults with enchanted blades have further tortured that drow's flesh, getting out from under a tree which is now burning merrily may prove to be a nigh-impossible task. Emrith does not care how Nymh perishes; roasted alive in a clutch of flaming boughs is as good a way as any.

Nymh has yet another explosive rock sent at him, as Emrith skitters with his steps to send them flying. Knowing now to fear those for his life, and afraid of the incoming elven assault he has no defense against, he takes what strength he can from Shatterscourge's ill gotten life force, and dives into the shadow realm, something he can do by simply, or not so simply, rolling over. He'd have to hide in the shadow realm, unable to move as the shards harried Emrith, and he could no more come out of that realm than he could move as soon as he needed, as a burning tree fell where he lay. Desperately he would crawl, knowing his time in that unfathomable cold was limited, and every second was life threatening. He'd appear some feet away from where he was, and would lay where he was, unable to budge. Shatterscourge would continue its assault, desperately harrying Emrith for the life's blood that could save Nymh, until finally, Nymh lost consciousness for a moment, and the shards fell to the ground, stilled.

Emrith must perforce drop his guard while assaulting both tree and drow, and has subsequently been stung by more than his fair share of the shards. He had been ignoring them as best he could while single-mindedly pursuing his task, but once the tree has crashed to earth, the spell-blade can no longer endure it. Just as the shards drop to earth, apparently spent, Emrith leans forward with a groan, bleeding from dozens of tiny wounds, and vomits the contents of his stomach down the front of his shirt. It is largely red, but this is mostly due to the number of raspberries the wood elf had previously eaten. This uncalculated turn of events has also rid him of the last of the potion in his stomach, whose enchantment had already been fading and which now winks out. Emrith is now completely visible to both normal and infrared vision, a calamity he partially averts by once more fastening his cloak and re-establishing the light-borne illusion which hides him from unaided vision. The elf is covered in blood and now streaked with his own vomit, but he is still very much alive. Nymh may be worse off, and Emrith has every intention of hustling the beleaguered drow out of the confines of Sage Forest just as soon as he can. Nine enchanted stones still lie in wait for other heedless feet, but Nymh may now understand enough of what has transpired here to be a threat to future plans. Emrith will, if he can, haul the man off to the elven council, there to at least be incarcerated before facing some form of justice.

Emrith is tired, ill and angry, but still on his feet. When his quarry does not immediately move to continue his assault, Emrith strides back across the clearing, skirting the felled tree on his way to Nymh's prostrate form and sheathing both of his swords as he goes. Before reaching his target, Emrith bends and retrieves his whip, fastening it back about his waist. The elf is not particularly strong, but with a heave and a grunt he levers the drow onto his feet. Both combattants are covered in blood, and it is this blood Emrith uses to paint hasty runes upon the other man's skin. They are apt to run and become useless in short order, so the spell-blade makes the most of it by hoisting the man up and over his shoulders and moving away. These are runes of levitation, meant to make his burden a little lighter until he can get help. Eastward and northward he moves, toward Kelay. When Nymh becomes too heavy, Emrith sets him down, then fishes in a pouch at his hip until he locates a tiny needle. He pricks the drow's skin with it, intending to render him comatose for awhile with the sedative which coated the needle's tip. After this, he continues on his way, now half-walking and half-dragging the drow, using an arm to support him. In another moment or two, four elves of Emrith's acquaintance arrive to relieve him of his odious task. he offers them a nod of thanks before turning his charge over to their care. They will, no doubt, bring Nymh to Frostmaw, the better to ascertain his future. For now, Emrith himself must find some untroubled bower in which to rest his ailing bones.