Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

[Tiffanian]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

Apparently the fact that Lily was casting spells made the demons quite… on edge. The lot of them, at least those nearby, seemed to get ready for a fight. Laena closed her eyes for a moment and thought about what her first course of action would be if they attacked… with this many gathered around an exit strategy was surely the only sensible one. As quick as it had come, though, the tension was gone. Apparently the demons knew the spells in question weren’t meant to cause them harm, so nothing came of it. Garrett, of course, freaked out seemingly not at any of this, but at the fact that Lily’s hair changed color. "It’s a thing she does" the harpy replied to his question quietly, "don’t know why." Indeed, it didn’t make much sense to change her hair color suddenly here, but it hardly mattered in Laena’s mind in any case. She hopped along after the fae as she walked away, trying to keep up but stay a bit behind.

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Into the Darkness (Sponge, Tiffanian, and Hentaispider)

Spoiler

Laena: HP = 71, PP = 58, EP = 48, Status = Pregnant, Fine

Lily: HP = 62, PP = 88, EP = 22/62, Status = Fine, Greatest Luck Manipulation

Rolls

Spoiler

Casting: Lily succeeds. Still not beeg surprise.
Perception: ???

Lily would wander about, a disgruntled Garrett and a hopping Laena following along after her while the faeries they had come with were summarily escorted to a place within the camp, and then later would be seen being escorted out. The shapeshifting sidhe's search would be exhausting, and would take over two hours to search the camp and the area immediately around it, with the demons eventually simply acclimating to her presence. She would find no trace of any auras powerful enough that they might be the artifact that they were looking for, the strongest in the camp belonging to the demon they had just been speaking with while other auras - those of Letris and similarly armored demons - occasionally popped up as well. If the demons had indeed already found the artifact, it had either been concealed from such magics, or had already been taken away from the camp. The efforts would prove exhausting, having to regularly cast the detection spell and then examine all of the results that appeared within her mind, and would offer no information beyond that what they were looking for wasn't there.

"Anything?" Garrett would ask for the umpteenth time, his expression and tone highly impatient. The only place that they had not yet checked were the ruins, which still stood ominously on the edge of the demon camp.

 

[Hentaispider]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

After long an exhausting search, Lily lets her spells lapse, and her hair slowly returns to its usual blonde colour. Resting her eyes for a moment, the sidhe turns towards the ruins. "Strange. I used a spell to increase my luck and... we didn't find the shield, but it seems we were being kept away from the ruins. I think something bad will happen if we go there."

 

[Tiffanian]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

Even Laena was beginning to get disgruntled by the time the first hour of searching had gone by, hopping around behind Lily with an increasingly sour look on her face. When the fae finally turned around and announced that she had found nothing, but that a luck spell might have led them away from the temple because “something bad would happen.” That made the harpy roll her eyes. "Of course something bad will happen" she said, "we’re going into what is probably a dangerous ruin surrounded by demons. The problem is we don’t really have that much of a choice."

 

[Hentaispider]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

"We could try to get some reinforcements and drive the demons away. Or we could wait. Sooner or later the demons will leave or find the artifact, in which case we can go back or steal the artifact from them." Lily says quietly. "I just really don't think it's a good idea."

 

[Tiffanian]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

"Reinforcements?" Laena asked, tilting her head and rustling her wings as she tucked them in against her body. "Where do you think we're getting reinforcements from? We've probably pissed off those fae, I don't think they'll be going out of their way to help us fight off demons. I also don't think just waiting around for them to leave is the best idea, and definitely not trying to steal the damn thing from them if they find it. Do you really think they'd make that easy?" She sighed heavily, rustling her feathers nervously. "Our situation is basically impossible, but I don't see any way but forward. Everything else is backing out and abandoning the goal. If all else fails we'll think of something. Between the three of us I think we can be pretty effective in enclosed spaces, so in the worst-case scenario the temple wouldn't be a bad place to fight back."

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Into the Darkness (Sponge, Tiffanian, and Hentaispider)

Spoiler

Laena: HP = 71, PP = 58, EP = 48, Status = Pregnant, Fine

Lily: HP = 62, PP = 88, EP = 22/62, Status = Fine, Greatest Luck Manipulation

"Laena's right," Garrett would grunt while glancing over at the demons, "we aren't going to be getting any help. If we can find what we're looking for inside, I can just bring us out of the ruins without ever having to go past the demons."

 

[Hentaispider]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

Lily reluctantly opens her eyes again, staring at the ruins. "I still don't like it." the sidhe says, seemingly realizing that no argument would sway her allies.

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Into the Darkness (Sponge, Tiffanian, and Hentaispider)

Spoiler

Laena: HP = 71, PP = 58, EP = 48, Status = Pregnant, Fine

Lily: HP = 62, PP = 88, EP = 22/62, Status = Fine, Greatest Luck Manipulation

"I don't like it either, but we don't exactly have any better options, do we?" Garrett snapped at Lily, his patience waning at the sidhe. If both were in agreement, they would approach the ruins as a group, which was guarded by a single goblin who sat on a chair set up near the stone door that had been forced to remain open with some wooden supports.

 

[Hentaispider]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

Lily narrows her eyes, but refrains from commenting. As the others start towards the ruins, she reluctantly follows a few paces behind.

 

[Tiffanian]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

Laena follows close behind her mate, hopping along one step at a time. They all seemed a little upset because of the situation and the disagreement, which wasn't particularly good... The danger they were in had everyone on edge. The temple was being guarded by only a goblin, peering into a door the demons had forced open. Why were they propping it open? Why hadn't they gone in? What was the goblin looking out for? Whatever the case, she would take the point when they got to the temple, thinking she was probably in the best position to take an ambush.

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Into the Darkness (Sponge, Tiffanian, and Hentaispider)

Spoiler

Laena: HP = 71, PP = 58, EP = 48, Status = Pregnant, Fine

Lily: HP = 62, PP = 88, EP = 22/62, Status = Fine, Greatest Luck Manipulation

Rolls

Spoiler

Perception (Laena) : Success
Perception (Lily) : Success

Tempers flaring, Garret made to bluster past the goblin guard and into the hall, not allowing Laena to go first. The goblin merely laughed at them and let them go by, but as they proceeded down the dark, narrow corridor that was through the door, ever sloping downward, Laena and Lily both suddenly spotted a crack in the floor that looked deliberately engineered just as Garrett was about to step on it.

 

[Tiffanian]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

The three of them sort of huffed into the temple, Garrett not letting Laena pass him as the goblin laughed at the lot of them. The entrance was a dark, narrow corridor that went ever downward, far beyond Laena's sight in these lighting conditions, though she did see something her mate didn't in the dim light... A crack in the floor, something that looked intentional, like the trigger of a trap. Quickly the harpy manipulated the air in front of them, forcing Garrett back towards her and away from the crack, saying "stop" firmly. "There's a trap. You've got to calm down and look where you're going... Or let me go ahead of you."

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Into the Darkness (Sponge, Tiffanian, and Hentaispider)

Spoiler

Laena: HP = 71, PP = 58, EP = 48, Status = Pregnant, Fine

Lily: HP = 62, PP = 88, EP = 22/62, Status = Fine, Greatest Luck Manipulation

His annoyed look at being stopped didn't vanish from Garrett's face when Laena explained why she'd summoned the wind to push him backwards, and for a moment he looked ready to argue. Instead, however, he released a sigh and then moved back, allowing Laena to go around the trap however she wished. The corridor was too narrow to spread her wings in, making it impossible to fly, and she would have to figure out how she wanted to avoid the trap, which seemingly covered a good six feet of ground before another crack might indicate that it ended.

 

[Hentaispider]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

Lily stays behind, wondering how Laena and Garrett might deal with the trap. When neither of the pair seemed to come up with anything, the sidhe lets out an exasperated sigh. First the failed and frustrating search through the camp, then Garrett's insistence of going into the ruins and now this. "If I may?" Fluttering her wings, Lily steps past Garrett and Laena, stopping just short of the crack and placing her hands on the wall. Singing a short chant out loud, Lily feels the vibrations of the stone as it comes alive. Whispering to the stone, she convinces it to form a 6 inch ledge and handholds so that they may easily pass over the trap.

Spoiler

Casting shape earth for 4 EP:Shape Earth (Utility) [Allows the caster to animate a section of rock, dirt, sand, ect. This spell functions exactly like the binding option of the Animate Spirit Power with X = 1 + Mind/6 if used to try and grapple a creature or creatures, or the Reshape Power otherwise.]

 

[Tiffanian]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

Laena stepped in front of her mate when he offered, peering at the trap for a while and pondering how to proceed. Flight was impossible, that much was certain, and the trap seemed to extend on for some distance, maybe about as long as Garrett was tall, or longer. She didn’t know if she could jump that far, especially from a standing start, so she stood there a decent while thinking if she could do something by magic to help. In the meantime Lily stepped up with a sigh. She touched the wall and began to whisper, and in a moment the wall warped to form a ledge that the three could walk on. It must have been nice to be able to draw on a wide range of magical knowledge, as opposed to just one’s intuition about the wind. She would offer to go first across the ledge, wanting to test it herself as opposed to sending her mate across ahead of her.

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Into the Darkness (Sponge, Tiffanian, and Hentaispider)

Spoiler

Laena: HP = 71, PP = 58, EP = 48, Status = Pregnant, Fine

Lily: HP = 62, PP = 88, EP = 18/62, Status = Fine, Greatest Luck Manipulation

Rolls

Spoiler

Casting: Success.

Lily's spell, as she'd hoped, caused a ledge that would act effectively enough as a bridge to form over the seemingly trapped section of corridor. Laena would have trouble walking over the narrow surface on her own, her wings requiring a bit more room than a normal person like Garrett, but she managed to get across without much trouble. Her mate came right behind her, and then he would hold out a hand to help Lily across.

The group would be able to set off without further slowdown, going the rest of the way down the narrow corridor without noticing anything else before they would find themselves in a dark stone chamber. It was about forty feet across and twenty feet long, and three stone archways marked doors on the wall opposite the one with the exit of the corridor they'd come down. One door was directly across from them, while the others were on the left and right respectively, and across from the side doors were a pair of stone altars covered in debris. As they entered, feeble light flared from round white stones embedded in the ceiling, barely illuminating due to their long faded enchantments.

The door on the right was open, while the doors directly across from them and to the left were closed by slabs made out of some pitch black material that looked extremely hard, both of them undamaged save for a few chips and scratches despite the intervening time. The walls were seemingly quite ornately carved with images too small and fine for them to make out unless they were reading them directly, at least where parts of the stone frescoes hadn't crumbled away. Finally, a dry fountain was worked into the left hand wall, a number of mosses and fungi growing around it despite that it didn't seem to be letting off water any more.

 

[Tiffanian]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

The ledge was a tiny bit difficult for Laena to navigate, her talons being perhaps a bit more weighted towards the back than the feet of the others and her wings being a bit large and unwieldy for the purposes of edging along it, but she managed to keep her balance still without too much trouble. Garrett had less trouble, and Lily yet still less. Once they were past that obstacle they made their way down the hallway without encountering any further traps, the harpy in front. When they came out into an open area finally it was a rather dimly lit chamber of stone. The lights were in the ceiling, some sort of magical source that was very much running out of magic, however that worked. There were three doors, one in each cardinal direction, with a moss-covered fountain set into the wall of the left. The right-hand door was open, the others made out of a material that Laena hadn’t really seen before, something pitch-black that seemed to have withstood the test of time incredibly well. The harpy hopped about, looking at the walls for a moment. They were also carved in a really intricate way, images of some sort that she wanted to have a look at before they moved on.

 

[Hentaispider]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

Taking the offered hand, Lily flashes a smile to Garrett before following the others over the ledge and further down the hallway. Finally they arrive into an odd chamber. As Laena moves to look at the carvings on the wall, Lily shrugs and does the same, conjuring a small orb of light while she does so.

Spoiler

Casting Light(Light (Utility) [Provides a simple light source, allowing the caster to see up to twenty feet away.])

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Into the Darkness (Sponge, Tiffanian, and Hentaispider)

Spoiler

Laena: HP = 71, PP = 58, EP = 48, Status = Pregnant, Fine

Lily: HP = 62, PP = 88, EP = 18/62, Status = Fine, Greatest Luck Manipulation, Light

The three of them moving to start looking at various sections of the wall carvings, Laena and Lily would find themselves looking upon discordant scenes.

The sidhe, her conjured light floating beside her at her directive, would find herself looking over pictographs depicting a group of people at worship at the foot of a proud figure standing on an altar. The figure was, oddly, shown in a style unusual for the Amazon, in the large and grandiose style more commonly seen in primitive Anudorian drawings than in the older temples scattered throughout the jungle. Despite their stature compared to their worshipers, however, they were displayed as entirely human, without the inhuman features normally reserved for gods or demons in classical literature. Their clothes, simple as they were, lacked the proper colors or forms to suggest that they were royalty or a priest as well, making their stature even more odd.

Laena, in the meantime, would find herself looking over a scene of turmoil. Figures were seen in postures of terror, obvious despite their weathered state and simplistic shapes, some hurling themselves off of cliffs or into the water to avoid some formless disaster that seemed to be sweeping over them.

They had started on opposite ends of the same mural, gradually heading towards one another, Lily going backwards and Laena going forwards, while Garrett stood in the middle. "Huh," he would remark dully after observing his own section of carvings.