Catacomb of Ashes In-Character

[Twelveseal]

Previously, on Catacomb of Ashes...

Our heroes found themselves ferried from one unknown shore to another, to the sound of oars slapping the waves and cries of bird and beast from the nearby jungle their sole accompaniment. One which remained unseen, for they were captives bound and blindolded, slung in shallow canoes by captors which they had little seen and less knowledge of.

However, captors who had not proven mute. With some goading, they managed to discover that their captors despised certain Great Old Ones... and that they seemed bent on making sacrifices of the lot of them. Stripped of armor and weapon alike, they were forced ashore in a strange place, and despite their best efforts to manipulate their captors, they found themselves placed on sacrificial posts under the command of the warrior Ouyig and the priestess Esthra, who would preside over their doom.

A fate they do not go to alone, for they have heard the voices of others... and the capture of a strange beast that even now joins them in this moment of impending death at the very edge of the sea...

[Twelveseal]

Spoiler:

Chat Logs from Session 1

The waves pound against the shore, growing more urgent as a gust of wind, chill and damp with the sea, cuts through the otherwise muggy jungle air. The rumble of distant thunder is quick to follow it as the intended sacrifices hang from their metallic posts. A strange quiet seems to have befallen the shore… where night birds once sang and strange beasts bellowed and called, now only the sound of the sea and the coming storm remain.

Something stirs in the air above, such that it sets the hair of one’s arm on end, and an eerie light seems to pierce even the blindfolds with a haunting green glow.

The voice beside Sigurd, clearly a woman, begins to curse softly in a language she seems far more fluent in than her initial broken response suggests. He can hear her straining against her bindings.

“I don’t like the looks of that… the voyage home would be treach-”
“It’s of no concern… but yes, we should hurry, lest the storm steal what is His,” Esthra’s near dismissal of Ouyig’s concern is tinged with madness, an eagerness to serve a master beyond mortal understanding without regard for life and limb.

“Bring the torches!” The wind blows fiercely once more, but only for a moment, almost stealing away the woman’s brief fit of manic giggling. A chorus of angry and terrified shouts and curses, of wailing and whimpering and begging, and a lone, weary sigh, springs up along and between you, accompanied by the sounds of people struggling against their bonds and thrashing against the poles to which they’ve been bound. The earth itself seems to rumble and shudder in tune with them, and in the distance, the direction from which the strange creature they’d just captured had come, there is the sound of a roar, but the sound of torches springing to crackling life is unmistakable.

Even more so as they draw near.

[Sixkiller]

Virgo of Katagia
?
?

In the atlas of reminiscence, there lay a torn map of Thule. The parchment it was on was poor and made worse by the ravages of time. Still, what was left of it could fit between the span of a human’s arms. And the curvature of the writing that remained suggested a learned hand responsible for it. So beautiful was it, in fact, that one was able to easily dive back and retrieve the details.

Hither came an unusually adamantine sound of a woman speaking the Atlantean tongue: “I have traced through touch alone the lands in every direction. I know the bumps of the Claws of Imystrahl, the jagged edges of Thousand Teeth, the heat of the Highlands of Nar, and the dread that comes from the Lands of the Long Shadow. But I am confused about which jungle I reside in now.”

The outlander was a stranger to the miasma that hung close to her bones. She did not despair like the rest of her miserable lot. It seemed that her ignorance worried her more than the promised depravity of her captors. Madness perhaps had climbed into the woman’s senses through that wide-mouthed speech.

“Alas if I am to die incognizant of where I am,” said she, ill-suited to the rumbling earth. Despite being unable to see, she craned her neck to the noise of bodies thrashing on poles. “Since I suppose you fellows are in the dark as I am, there is only one answer to my tribulations.” Her reply was followed with another one of her bold openings.

“Harken!” she bellowed at her captors. “I congratulate she who is Esthra and he who is Ouyig on capturing Virgo of Katagia. The skill of your kidnappers was far above my expectations. With the pleasantries done, I ask that you tell me this jungle's name–a simple word will do.”

[Mormarth]

Saraya



"Presumably," A light, feminine voice pipes up, "It is the jungle in which we will die, sacrificed to some manner of false idiot god worshipped by mewling heathens!"

It emerges from a slight form, tinged with lean muscle, the cheerily zealous, sibilant tones of one who dwelt along the mouth of the Quosa slithering from a mouth never far from a smile. Unseen beneath the cloth, violet eyes crinkle with mirth.

A huff, "Truly terrible, that I'm to meet with my fate looking so dreadful, put to death by sullen manservants of a petulant priestess, if we're to be put to death, one should at least have some passion for it, even incorrect and lesser for not being so blessed by my lady's favor."

Now that she has indulged herself, she experimentally twists in her bonds, rocking gently on the hook to see if the motion loosens them at all.

[Wardogs667]

Whispering further, "Well seems we are all of the same thought, to risk the fight. Once I'm out I'll help undo your ties."

Sigurd, using the others' yells as distractions focuses more on undoing the ropes that bind his wrists.

[SpoonyViking]

Vargrulf of the Nordskaari

'Tied like a calf to the slaughter. What an exceptionally poor death.'

Vargrulf was a scion of the Nordskaari line. Bound or not, he would not show weakness, especially not to dogs - or so was his resolve, at least. Vargrulf was still young, however, and hadn't learned how to set his features in stone as would befit a thane-born warrior; though he tries to display nothing but an icy resolve, he is burdened by thoughts of having shamed his ancestors, and chagrin mars his face.

But no. Young or not, he knew that if pride alone would not free him, shame would much less so.

"Lords of Steel," he prays softly, "I am a warrior, and though I be young, I have always lived by the strength of my sinews and the sharpness of my steel. The grim loom of Fate is inescapable, and I know one day my life's thread will be cut; all that I ask is that whether life or death be my doom, that I may meet it as a human, and not a lamb!"

He draws a deep breath and feeds the embers of humiliation to his thane-born battle-fury. His heart already contains an inferno; all he needs to do is let it rage across his body in a surge of power!

(OOC:
Bonus Action: activate Rage.
Standard action: TEAR THE ROPES WITH MANLY MUSCLE POWER!
Move action: If you allow this, Vargrulf will cut himself on the hook - preferably not too deep, just enough to let him suffer HP damage and keep the Rage going. :-P If that's not allowed, move towards the closest cultist, trying to get as close as he can without provoking OAs.

ETA: D'oh, I forgot we were still blindfolded! If you'll let me, I'll use my Move action to take off the blindfold instead.)

[Twelveseal]

(Blindfold removal approved)

[arkturus]

Rhienn of Dhal Mesh

The cold coastal wind blows, causing a dull bronze bell dangling from the small child's neck to jingle. Her tattered cloak only offers minimal protection as the damp, salty air licks her tattooed pale skin. It was vastly different from the hot and steamy jungle air of Dhal Mesh that she was used to but a low hum of energy preserves her. All around her, the wails of the soon to be damned is broken by the rumble of approaching thunder and the warcry of a warrior breaking his bonds.

This exact scenario feels uncannily familiar to Rhienn, as if she's experienced it before. It's a hazy feeling that her teacher claimed came from a Dreamer having a close brush with a fate-entwined dream.

Despite the odds, it seemed that fate had its own ideas.

She twists against the knots holding her fast, freeing a hand and removes her blindfold to behold the scene unfolding before her. The low hum is replaced with another kind of energy and power swirls around the small child as she silently prepares for battle.

[Twelveseal]

The chill breeze from the sea meets the heat of the jungle as you slip aside the blindfold, revealing the scene before you…

The night sky is alive with the dancing blues, greens, and pale golds of the aurora, their eerie light warring with the pale emanations of the gibbous moon and a sea of distant stars. That, and the angry red of the mountain peak far above. The mountain whose steep face blocks the sight of all that might lay beyond and denies the thin strip of jungle that sought to climb it in vain, whose face bears a hollow, a cave, braziers burning bright to show the stone doors within.

The mountain spews forth a dense plume of smoke, as if trying to blind the stars, and shudders faintly beneath you, setting the trees to swaying faintly in a dance that has nothing to do with the coming storm and sending embers into the dense jungle to one side. The surf pounds against the beach, slowly drawing closer as it washes over the faint form of some sort of ancient ruin beneath the shallows.

The beach’s sand is pale in the eerie light, and studded with pole after pole after pole. Shafts of copper, or perhaps bronze, thrust up from the sands, some tilting at odd angles, but most stable. Metal hooks and rings are built into them at regular intervals, and from these are suspended far more people than had been with you on the boat. Some clearly warriors, others slaves, others common folk, what might be men and women of faith, and even one that seems half a wild animal, with fur, bestial ears, and a tail. Men, women, children. Young and old. Easily dozens, each bound with rope or leather to the pole above a pile of kindling, likely harvested from the jungle. Jungle which is itself held back by a wooden palisade to the right, built crudely from raw timber, rope, and mud, in stark contrast to the workmanship of the poles themselves. To the left, the rotting hulk of a once-great ship slowly disintegrates beneath the ceaseless attention of the sea.

Further still in that direction lay great boulders and rock formations, covered in ivy or stripped bare by the wind and surf, a narrow path through the sand bearing the prints of many a passing and the faint glimpse of small, familiar boats. However, the rest of the beach curves around and out of sight, the trees and rocky forms blocking further sight. However, it fails to hide the corpses of massive crabs that dot its face, their claws severed and shells split and feathered despite being larger than a man.

Those who did such deeds move about the clearing, between the trees, patrolling the distant palisade. They stand atop the moldering ship and rocky outcrops with bows at the ready, guard the strange door and a crude pile of supplies and gear with spears and axes of bronze and wood and bone, and eye you from the shadows with wicked daggers and crude swords. Men and women in crude armor of hide and leather, scavenged or sloppily made, but too numerous and mobile to readily count, though a dense knot of a dozen or so stand at the ready behind two prominent figures, with more standing at the ready along the beach, huddled around fire pits in the sand. And each of these carrying a now-lit torch.

Of the two prominent figures, one is a man. Powerfully muscled and clad in armor of bronze, leather, the fangs of wild beasts and the hide of a massive boar, thick arms wrapped in leather and cord and painted in red woad with tongues of flame, he leans on a wickedly barbed spear. A heavy axe hangs from his belt at his side next to a horn-handled dagger, and a brace of javelins hangs from his back. His head is shaved on the sides, the rest of his dark hair grown long and braided with beads, bones, and coins. His eyes are intense, flickering in the wild light as he glares at one captive in particular… a captive no longer.

The other is a woman draped in dark robes, black and red and adorned with charred wood. I twisted dagger hangs from her side and a charred staff, or perhaps a wooden spear hardened by flame. Her dark eyes dance to the song of madness above a once-fair face long-ago kissed by fire and marked thereafter with the memory of it.

“Burn them! Burn them all!!!” Her voice is an ecstatic scream that gives way to laughter, but it’s followed by a shout from the man beside her.
“Start with him!” His spear thrusting towards the young barbarian balanced precariously the protrusions of the pole that he’d once been lashed to.

Vargrulf.

The muscular cultists surge forward, brands burning as they seek to follow the mad priestess’s command… and that of their own commander. All along the beach, footsteps pound in the sand, only to be drowned out by the sounds of screams crackling flame as the swiftest complete their missions.

Three seeking honor converge on Vargrulf, free hands clutching at crude axes as they cast their torches towards the pile of wood beneath him… and one directly at him!

The sounds of screams are soon obliterated, however, by a deafening blast of thunder and a blinding light, as a bolt of lightning from the coming storm strikes one of the poles. The poor soul bound to it had not the chance to scream, but the blast itself shakes and rattles all… and is punctuated by the sound of splintering wood.

---

Roll for Initiative!
Also, Rhienn needs to roll a Dexterity or Wisdom Save (your choice), to see if you avoided being blinded by the lightning. Everyone else still had their blindfolds, so they're good. Needless to say, those folks won't be able to see anything at all until they remove those.

[Draconic]

Rixia Ad-Khalein
Half-past Get These Ropes Off Me

Seemed like there was a ruckus going on. She wished she wasn't blindfolded. Cultists always had the funniest looks on their faces when the unspeakable monstrosity they thought they were so clever for summoning decided to eat them. She might be missing something funny. And possibly disgusting. Although, from the sound of things, the monsters might actually be listening to that hysterical priestess.Not for the first time, she tried wriggling out of her bindings but the stupid things held.

"Hello?" she asked. "Fellow prisoners? What's going on? Are we escaping?

"I'm not one to make promises I can't keep, and with no idea where I am, I can't really make any offers, but I'd really appreciate it if someone took this blindfold off of me. I'm getting so bored here."

Almost as an afterthought, she added, "Hey, Esthra. Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn. I think it's safe to say that any hope you had of this ceremony succeeding ended the moment I said those words so are you just trying to kill us out of spite, or is this just the only way to stop the insensate screaming inside your head?"

Whatever was out in the woods, there's too much ambient noise for her to make out what it was. Not the least of which was a direct result of that insufferably witch's cackling. A useless magician with a single parlor trick that she can't do without killing a bunch of people. And she can't even be considerate enough to shut her mouth for a minute. She could at least tell that it was more than one thing. And one of these approaching entities was audibly larger than the others.

"Wonderful. I've always wanted to be trampled by an elephant," she grumbled under her breath.

She starts testing the height of the hook and adjusting where her hands are. Maybe if she can get a grip on the hook itself she can lift her other arm over the tip and at least be on solid ground. Actually, that also came with the benefit of making her look less like some cheap nubile slave girl. She was not going to die in this pose. Not. a. chance.


OOC
Tries to figure out what's in the woods. Rolls a 9 on Perception.

[Wardogs667]

At the sound of the rage from one of the prisoners, the insults of others and the crack of thunder Sigurd fiddles with the ropes to release himself from the hook.

OOC
Action: Slight of hand to slip out of ropes (rolled a 15)
Move: remove blindfold and make my way to the prisoner next to me.


Initiative: rolled a 5, XD

[Twelveseal]

The quiet rustling of the woman to Sigurd's right goes strangely quiet as thunder rumbles in the distance, as if waiting for something. However, one to his left chooses this moment to speak up.
"It is time."
Her voice is calm and cool; the woman who spoke to Ghoro about a difference of faith with the cultists. One they saw as an abomination. As she does, a new sound, a new chorus of sounds, begins to erupt from the denser jungle to his distant left.

Too much sound, all at once, from too many places for it to be a single creature.

The sound of wood splintering only punctuates the piercing shrieks.

.

Screams and yells from somewhere deeper in the jungle soon adds to the song, to the drum beat of massive feet.
It's enough to give the torchbearers pause, their charges thrown into confusion as men and women cry for help somewhere on the periphery of their ritual grounds. It's a moment of distraction that might be put to good use. Certainly so for one man, as he leaps free of his pole, tearing his blindfold off as he goes.

"If you won't give me a warrior's death, I'll take it myself!" Ghoro crashes into one of the men who'd been running at Vargrulf, tackling him to the ground and grasping for the axe at his belt. The other two men stand agape in surprise as the older warrior drives one of their own flat. Ouyig, meanwhile, has already turned his back on the struggle, running instead towards the sounds of savage beasts and screams of his men with spear in hand. "Do something about them!"

"Stop standing around and burn them you fools! We must complete the sacrifice now!" The madwoman, however, continues to rant, utterly unfazed by the evolving situation.

To those who can see, however, the mounting desperation in the movements of the captured is particularly notable.

An elderly man with wiry muscle and leathery skin strains against his bonds to the left of Rhienn, as does a powerfully-built redheaded woman to her right. Next to Vargrulf and near where Ghoro had been bound and even now fights, a young warrior thrashes against his own ropes. Further to Rhienn's left, a fat old man twists against his while desperately pleading for mercy and salvation, his tattered clothes having once been richly dyed. Beyond him, a young woman tries to break free and fails, even as she cries out in strange tongues and insults her captors; Rixia. Past her is a handsome man who similarly twists against his ropes, and past him... a strange woman, strangely calm. The woman who had declared that it was time. Past her a lean man with dark red hair and pointed ears; Sigurd. From there, a woman clad in simple furs, eerily still. Then a slim woman with purple hair, and a dusky-skinned woman made of dense muscle. Saraya and Virgo. Then a strange creature, neither woman nor beast, but something between. Past them lie even more poles, with more people, several aflame and one scorched black by lightning.

Thunder rumbles again, quicker now. Closer.

As are the screams.

---

Initiative is currently:

• DM
• Saraya (We are Here)
• DM
• Vargrulf
• DM
• Rhienn
• DM
• Virgo
• DM
• Rixia
• DM
• Sigurd
• DM

Morm, you're up next!

[Mormarth]

Saraya

Well, this was certainly a unsatisfactory situation, if her common experience with filthy heathens like these were accurate, the barbarous rites would have taken enough time for her to slip her bounds, doff this filthy rag over her eyes, and perhaps slip away into the dark with a small group of her fellow captives.

Or all of them, if she was particularly lucky.

However, circumstances were (tragically), unfortunately not being directed by a young woman of exceeding beauty and immaculate poise.

Instead a great lumbering northman broke his bounds and began drawing an extremely large amount of attention, which, while typically favorable in most situations, simply resulted in a quick expediting of the proceedings and these half-wit covenites deciding to just kill them immediately.

Honestly.

There's an order to these things, you uncultured barbarians.

With a mild exception to the uncultured barbarian that was, roughly on her 'side' as it were, even those fellows had some class to them.

In any case.

With a click of my tongue, I ceased my attempt at disguising my intentions and skipped directly to acting immediately and decisively.

I brushed a hand along the knotted rag that draped over my eyes, gently wafting a horrid smelling, damp scent into my nose.

Grimacing, I slipped a slim, callused hand underneath the cloth and tore it loose from my head, blinking in the rain, crouching low out of low reflex.

Well, going ahead and fighting while unarmed and unarmored sounded terribly romantic and all, it wasn't particularly what she had in mind.

So, first things first: A plan.

Keep calm, focus, don't panic.

Beasts in the jungles, armed rascals to the front...

There must be a way out of this mess.'

[Perception Check!]

[Twelveseal]

In the growing chaos of the beach, at least one cultist managed to keep his focus on the ritual. Feet pounding the sand, he charges towards the wretchedly- calm woman Esthra called an abomination, torch held high and eager to burn the impure one.

As he draws, near, she draws a deep breath, as if to finally scream. Except... blue-white sparks dance along her back, and as her mouth opens, a bolt of blue flames leaps from her mouth and slams into the man's chest, searing flesh and leaving him howling in pain as she leaps from the pole, throwing the blindfold from her eyes as she runs. However, instead of running to freedom or the pile of equipment, her feet carry her to the nearest pole, where a lithe, lean man is bound. The half-naked woman is already fast at work on his ropes.

Further along the beach, however, a young man struggles fiercely against his ropes. In vain.
"Free me and I'll lend my arm gladly!"
Even blindfolded, it's hard to miss the sounds of Ghoro brawling in front of him... or Vargrulf shouting his challenge from the next pole over.

[SpoonyViking]

(OOC: Tell me more about the struggling young man, please! This is the "young warrior" from before, right?
Also, are there any cutting implements nearby - even if only sharp rocks? Alternatively, do the knots look like they'd be easy to undo?)

[SpoonyViking]

Three seeking honor converge on Vargrulf, free hands clutching at crude axes as they cast their torches towards the pile of wood beneath him… and one directly at him!

Moving deftly, more by instinct and reflex than conscious thought, Vargrulf snatches the torch out of the air!

'It's not much of a weapon, but better than nothing!'

"If you won't give me a warrior's death, I'll take it myself!" Ghoro crashes into one of the men who'd been running at Vargrulf, tackling him to the ground and grasping for the axe at his belt. The other two men stand agape in surprise as the older warrior drives one of their own flat.

Vargrulf's eyes widen in surprise, but then he grins. "Good to know you weren't touched by the sun as I had feared, Greybeard! Though we be of different clans, let us fight as kinsmen and show these serpent-suckers how true warriors do battle!"

So saying, he fully intended to throw himself into the fray with Ghoro, but...

"Free me and I'll lend my arm gladly!"

A young Dhari warrior - or perhaps a hunter? -, pale-skinned, dark hair tied back in braids, and a weirdly dignified accent. A nobleman of his people, perhaps? Vargrulf is torn, but he doesn't dawdle - the battlefield is no place for indecision. Quickly scanning the area around him even as he waves the torch to keep attackers at bay, he goes to pick one of the oddly-shaped rocks around and use it to cut the ropes binding the Dhari fighter.

(OOC: Can I roll History to try and recognise more about the guy? Maybe his clan, or place of origin? Perhaps even identify his accent?)

"I am Vargrulf of the Nordskaari," he says as he does so, "and on this day, we are all sword-brothers. Stay still, kinsman, as I try and release you!"

(END POST)

[Twelveseal]

"Archers, aim for the big one's eyes! Slow it down! Men, form up! Spears forward! Keep the small ones back! We fall back to the boats!" Ouyig's bellowed orders are punctuated with a flying javelin, the tip biting into the jaw of a massive, reptilian creature as its head rises above the palisade. The creature roars in pain, spreading its beak-like maw wide to reveal teeth as long and sharp as daggers, though they're dwarfed by the long, narrow pair of spikes that jut from behind its bird-like skull.
"Esthra, stop cackling and move!"

Despite his orders, not all of his men follow suit. Some break from their posts, running through the shadows towards the boats in their shallow moorings... and at least one launches a trio of daggers from the gloom at Ghoro and Vargrulf as he passes in an effort to aid his downed ally!

Meanwhile, the portly main who had been begging for help, for mercy, continues to do so. "Please, I am a man of means! I can compensate you! I can pay for, for... just please, cut me down! Someone! Anyone! Save me!"

[arkturus]

Rhienn of Dhal Mesh

The child from the jungle drew from the strength within her, remembering the lessons of her tribe’s matriarch. How one was but a pebble in the stream of fate. The stream was not hers to command but she may find ways to redirect the flow.

Glancing around, she saw a woman with a rippling muscles. A warrior perhaps? Someone able bodied to turn the tide. She focused her energy and a ripple of fate responded, tearing the at her bonds. Rope could never hold forever, especially when one so strong struggled against them.

“Come, for you are needed. Be free and fulfil your duty.”

She then turned to her next target, the strange woman who babbled in incoherent tongues but seemed to get a rise out of the mad adherents. Foolish as she was, it seemed she knew something about the god these cultists worshiped. Rhienn dashed over to her and, climbing the pole, started working on the already fraying knots.

“Hold still and do not say too many unnecessary things. It is not your fate to die here.”

Spoiler:

Action:
Psychic Hammer
Psychokinesis cantrip
Casting Time: 1 bonus action
Range: 30 feet
Components: O
Duration: Focus
While you focus on this power, you can use your action to target one creature you can see within range with a battering ram of translucent telekinetic energy. The target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or take 1d6 points of force damage and be knocked prone.

Free object interaction: untie Rixia

[Twelveseal]

A sudden jolt of force, all-but-invisible, rippled through the ropes binding the red-haired woman's bonds, and while its power was meager against a target it was ill-suited to striking, its effect was remarkable. Its power to drive a target to the ground worked well against the knot binding the rope, and through it the woman in question. With a sudden creak, the knot gave way, sending the woman lurching from her pole.

However, there was no surprise in this sudden release; even as she fell, her feet were under her, one hand tearing the blindfold from her eyes. Her dark eyes snapped towards Rhienn for the briefest of moments, a wicked grin on her face accompanying a tilt of the head in gratitude... and then she was off to join the scrum Ghoro had made, trying to wrestle an axe from one of the two remaining warriors. The warrior, for his part, rocks back on his heels, bringing his torch to bear... and in turn finds the woman not only catching his wrist, but quickly forcing him back.

"Do something!" The man calls for help, faced with this red-haired, Amazon. The faint stains of old woad still linger on her. Something the warrior facing her seems to understand. However, his companion seems lost in the spreading confusion as panic spreads across his face. His head darts to Esthra, shouting manic orders as some of his peers try to drag her towards the boats. Others run around, weapons drawn and following Ouyig to the west, to face the horrors that have begun to materialize from the jungle. Others cast their brands at bound captives in haste or abandon the attempt altogether, running for the boats or to aid their commander in holding the line. Another rummages through the stacks of supplies, turning out items that might seem familiar to those who had moments before been facing certain immolation... and a few seem to be eyeing the great stone doors carved into the mountain's base, as if wondering if they could take refuge there.

"There are more over here! they're coaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhrghk!!!!" Somewhere to the east, beyond the curve of the mountain's foot, echoes a warning that devolves into a wet scream. A new chorus of those monstrous barks and screeches joins the raucous night.

"Burn them! Give them to our Lord! Through fire, we are saved!" Esthra's voice rises above it all... and something in the young man's eyes snaps. Grasping the torch in his hand and closing his eyes, he brings it forth...

And sets himself alight!

Madness fills his eyes as the fire spreads across his ragged, greasy clothes and he charges forward, trying to catch Ghoro and the warrior woman in his outstretched arms. He screams in pain and ecstasy as he charges forward, lunging at both with the recklessness of someone who's lost his mind. His blows swing wide, even as he tries to cling to them and his own allies try to shift away from the lunatic. The woman, however, is having none of it, and with a powerful kick as he passes her, she launches him tumbling onto the pile of kindling and sharp stones at the base of the nearest pole. His wailing is cut short as the jagged rock and sharp wood impales him, as the flames take him and spread to the wood that even now is buried in his soft flesh.

The wood piled beneath the pole Vargrulf climbed, that even now holds a young man captive!

[Sixkiller]

Virgo of Katagia

A bewildering sequence of noises were the reply to her question. Virgo, aroused by the forthcoming danger, could only guess what horror lay beyond the forest. Fear crept in just a little; the sudden death that trumpeted in her ears broke the detached persona. Having her inquiry rebuffed so violently, she said, “So be it. No matter the name of this place…”

She sucked in the air.

“... Virgo will…”

Her lungs grew before she exhaled and flexed her muscles.

“... NOT BE BOUND!”

The restraints snapped and along with it the blindfold.

She looked free; she saw clearly; she thought aloud.



"What now?"