Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

[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

Rolls

Spoiler

Perception: ???

Entering the central passageway with Lily in the lead, the trio found themselves going steadily downwards. There were no signs of any traps in the passageway, and as the faerie's light illuminated their surroundings they soon came upon a flat area that widened outwards in a cone shape. A large chamber opened up before them, one lined with rotted and collapsed benches lined up like the pews of a Star God church. The pews all faced towards a raised dais in the front, one with a podium and a granite altar that, in the light of Lily's spell, looked as if something had stained it black. The left and right sides of the room were lined with columns that partially obscured portions of the room, but there was a doorway visible on the left side on the wall directly ahead of them, and a crack in the center of the wall on the right that might be large enough for them to squeeze through.

 

[Tiffanian]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

The hallway behind the opened door led downwards into the dank and dark… It sort of gave Laena chills, made her skin crawl. Especially in this small, enclosed passageway… She wondered how deep this ruin went. She hoped not much farther. When they finally came to an open area she breathed a sigh of a relief, only to have her nostrils stung by the smell of rotting wood and musty cloth. Her eyes darted around the room, the light of Lily’s spell the only source of illumination. It looked like… some kind of temple, or something. She recognized the altar for what it was, though the layout of the room was completely alien to her. "Is this some sort of… ceremonial room? It looks like that altar has molded…" she said, her voice wavering ever so slightly in an unspoken nervousness. She didn’t like the look of the crack. If they were going to keep going along this route she would much rather go through the door behind the altar. She walked slowly, ponderously, keeping her eyes peeled. There might be something interesting in this room too, or maybe a clue for a future puzzle.

 

[Hentaispider]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

Lily takes one look at the altar, then turns her gaze away in disgust. Keeping her gaze at the walls and the floor, she walks around the room towards the door, trying to stay as far away from the altar as possible.

 

[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

"Yeah... Looks like," Garrett agreed quietly, fanning out from Laena and exploring the opposite side of the room. Both glancing around and Lily carefully staying away from the wall, they would see that the walls were a simple set up, nothing more than alternating patterns with occasional groups of pictographs usually displaying either people suffering or much better off people at worship. The columns were cracked and crumbling, but there didn't seem to be any signs of any dangerous traps that they needed to worry about in the room where worshipers of whatever this cult might have given praise to had once conglomerated. Laena gradually drew closer to the stained altar, and the scent of rot grew slightly stronger and more pungent, but nothing leaped out at her, or at Lily or Garrett as they explored the sides of the room. The doorway past the altar was dark, but as she drew nearer hints of Lily's spell revealed a downward sloping corridor that curved to the left and began to descend much more steeply, with railings on either side that might allow one to maintain their footing. Dark stains ran down a groove in the center of the passageway, uneven splotches suggesting that it had been some sort of liquid.

 

[Tiffanian]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

Laena walked her way around the room slowly, finding nothing much to write home about and certainly nothing dangerous. The walls were more or less what one would expect in a place of worship, just some little pictograms much like the ones they had found elsewhere in the temple already. That left only the altar and the door behind it to investigate… although Laena noticed with no small amount of nerves that the columns that held up the ceiling had cracks running all through them, with parts even crumbled to the ground. She felt… kind of uncomfortable. She definitely didn’t like this. As she approached the altar she could tell that the smell of rot was coming from it, and though it was still relatively faint it stung her nostrils anyway. The stain from the altar seemed to continue on through that door, down some sort of central groove, and clearly it had come from a liquid. Her skin began to crawl as her imagination goes through the most horrific possibility for what it might have been; that this was a place of human sacrifice. She didn’t know what was worse, that idea, or the fact that the passageway the door opened up to went farther down. And quite a bit farther down, too… The harpy felt herself begin to sweat just a bit, a sick feeling growing in the pit of her stomach. She was going to have to go down there, wasn’t she? "Just what sort of place was this…?" she asked aloud, "It looks like… maybe these stains are blood. To me, anyway… and it’s like they funneled it down this passage back here. It looks like it goes way deeper, too…"

 

[Hentaispider]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

Curiousity gets the better of Lily, and she glances at the groove. "Blood. Away from the altar and deeper underground. There must've been quite a lot of it, too, for them to fill that. I wonder if the reason for that is still down there..." Lily says, the roots of her hair growing black as Banshee drifts towards the surface, both excited about the blood and preparing to take on whatever it is that might be down there. Drawing a deep breath, Lily leads the way further underground.

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Into the Darkness (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

Rolls

Spoiler

Perception (Lily) : 44
Perception (Laena) : 33
Perception (Garrett) : 21

Garrett, his face slightly green, gave a nod of agreement to the assessments offered by Lily and Laena about what the groove and the stains might mean. It was hard to come up with any other guess in that situation, and as the three of them converged on the doorway leading down Lily would be able to take the lead, her hair blackening as her alternate persona began to assert itself. The corridor ran in a circle, spiraling downwards steeply before suddenly leveling out without warning except for the very slightest of angles that would allow the liquid to continue flowing downwards until it reached a second basin in the center of the room. There was a depression in the center that led to a narrow downward spiral small enough that nothing bigger than a rat could fit down it, ending the groove. Three corridors branched out from there in three directions, each shrouded in gloom that seemed to diminish the light cast by Lily's light spell, but none of the three paths seemed to have any distinguishing features to differentiate it from the others.

 

[Tiffanian]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

Laena watched nervously as Lily started down the passage, noting her hair beginning to change color. Was that intentional? Why was she doing that? It was a little bit weird… but she hopped slowly after the fae, feeling more nervous and uncomfortable the deeper they went. The path circled around for a while, the rate of descent quite steep, until suddenly it all leveled out into almost completely flat ground, only the slightest of dips to allow the blood (or whatever else it might have been) to continue to dribble down into the center, which seemed to be a deep basin to collect the stuff. There were three different paths besides the one they had taken, one for each wall, but there was something that struck the harpy as utterly terrifying about them… It wasn’t that they were dark. It was that they seemed to be darker than that still. Rather than the absence of light, an active blackness that seemed to eat away at the edges of the light, as if overpowering Lily’s spell. A bead of sweat trickled down Laena’s brow, that sick feeling in her stomach deepening. "Do we… have to?" she asked with a wavering voice, looking nervously at her mate. It was as if she could hear the ceiling groaning above her, softly whining under the strain of the jungle above. There was nothing good about this place. Nothing.

 

[Hentaispider]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

"I told you this was a bad idea." Lily reminds the others before heading to the extreme right, distracted by both the oppressive darkness and Banshee's struggle to get to surface yet determined to go on.

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Into the Darkness (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

It would take Garrett a moment to answer, and when he did it would be a soft whisper that still echoed through the tunnels; "No.... And yes." Seeing Lily moving but no less visibly disturbed than the other two, the human crept along after the winged sidhe, leaving Laena to follow along after them down the corridor to the right or wait there and let the darkness of the tunnel close in on her when Lily's light spell moved out of range. The tunnels were incredibly cramped, the air stale and motionless, and the darkness seemed gloomier than usual, such that it made Lily's light shrink and any efforts to see through it for more than twenty feet or so fail.

They would proceed down that corridor for roughly twice that length before they came upon a narrower section that led to a V split, leading just slightly left and right from the original tunnel, both of which were just as dark and even more cramped. It was nightmarish for the two winged women especially, but even Garrett seemed deeply unsettled between them. "We went right the first time," he muttered quietly, but even then his voice seemed to carry down the tunnel and echo back to them. The two were free to agree or disagree as they saw fit, but Lily had the light and was out in front, leaving her to decide which way to lead if she didn't like the group's decision.

Spoiler

Right at bottom of blood groove tunnel.

 

[Tiffanian]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

Laena couldn't bring herself to follow the two of them immediately... She just stood there, staring at the two of them, wondering why they weren't turning back... but the light of Lily's spell faded quickly as she walked away, forcing the harpy to hop rapidly after them, desperate then not to let that unnatural darkness envelop her. Once she caught up she would begin to walk slowly, just enough to keep herself behind them, feeling the darkness creeping in around the edges of the light, the stale air smelling of something horrible she couldn't pinpoint. The passage went on for some way before they encountered another fork, both of the possible pathways narrow almost to the point of claustrophobia. Perhaps more than almost for one who spent much of her life in the sky... She didn't reply, she just stood behind her mate and trembled slightly, feeling herself begin to sweat a bit more. Everything about this was unnatural and awful, the sights and smells and feelings. She was starting to have terrible visions of the ceiling caving in, crushing all of them... or even worse, trapping them down here in this little space to die of starvation.

 

[Hentaispider]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

The air seemed to grow more oppressive and the tunnel seemed to be shrinking with every step, growing more cramped - or was she just imagining it? - but Lily forces herself to push forward. "If we keep going right, at least we wont get lost." Working to keep her breathing calm, the sidhe continues on the path to right.

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Into the Darkness (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

"Right..." and so they went, their voices returning to them in the increasingly cramped tunnel. The darkness seemed to close in, and every few seconds each of them would see vision out of the corner of their eye only for nothing to be there. The corridor continued a short ways before curling to the left, and then to the right, leaving their line of sight blocked even further. And still, nothing but cloying shadow and stone walls. Next they came upon a small chamber, just after another short patch of straight corridor, and in it they found two empty braziers near the doorway next to them, a crystal chandelier hanging in the center of the room from the low ceiling that they could reach out and touch, a small carved basin beneath it, and benches in a circle around it. The opposite wall had another doorway, two statues of robed figures on either side for a total of four, but they could opt to examine other parts of the room rather than proceed onward if they so wished.

Spoiler

Right at bottom of blood groove tunnel. Right at first turn, a V split, and down a winding corridor into a chamber with a crystal chandelier and four statues.

 

[Tiffanian]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

Today was a bad day. The deeper the three of them went into this temple the worse it got. The passage seemingly narrowed even further, curving this way and that before them, leaving them able to see only feet into the distance. Why had Laena agreed to come in here, anyway? This had been a bad idea from the start... She was even starting to see things, she was sure of it. Faces out of the corner of her eye, built into the wall. When she looked straight at them they went away, though, faded into the stone... The harpy breathed a loud sigh when they finally came to a more open area, almost relieved to be out of that narrow corridor, though the chamber wasn't exactly comforting in itself. The most prominent feature was a chandelier made of crystal hanging over a basin in the floor, surrounded by benches. What sort of horrid things happened here? She didn't want to think about it. She just eyed the door opposite them, nervously pondering what might be behind it, terrible visions flitting through her mind.

 

[Hentaispider]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

"It's almost as if the statues are guarding the doorway..." Lily mutters to herself, really wishing that the harpy wouldn't get a panic attack as she briefly examines the statues before pushing the door open and continuing onward, hopefully towards something more cheerful.

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Into the Darkness (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 door in the doorway would not budge, and as Lily approached the two statues suddenly beside it moved, their arms shifting as glowing transparent halberds appeared in their grasp and crossed right in front of the faerie's face. "You must be cleansed before passage is permitted," a chorus of booming voices said, each originating from one of the statues in the room, "you must be cleansed before passage is permitted." The voice repeated thrice more, and at its first sudden pronouncement Garret had jumped and prepared energy in his hands, but the statues made no other signs of violence unless Lily tried to move past them further. "What does that... Even mean?" he asked, and as if in response the chandelier flared to life and a narrow stream of water began to pour into it from the bowl, half filling it but then suddenly stopping without any further information.

Spoiler

Right at bottom of blood groove tunnel. Right at first turn, a V split, and down a winding corridor into a chamber with a crystal chandelier and four statues.

 

[Tiffanian]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

Lily was right, as it turned out; the statues were guarding the door, and they suddenly moved, barring the way as some kind of magic placed glowing halberds of energy in their hands. Laena just about jumped out of her feathers, her eyes as wide as saucers. Her instinct was to fly off, away from the danger, but of course that was impossible nonsense given her situation. Her mate prepared to attack the things, but they didn't make any move against the trio, simply speaking in loud, echoing voices that they had to be "cleansed" before they could pass through the door. That didn't seem to make much sense until the chandelier above them lit up suddenly, water trickling from it into the bowl at the center of the room until it was half-full. Of course, the sudden light behind and above her had made Laena shout out in surprise, bending her knees until she was crouched very low to the ground, her wings spread over her head as if to cover herself... She didn't see the water or anything of the sort, she was sort of a trembling wreck by this point. What a bad idea this had been.

 

[Hentaispider]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

Lily stops for a moment and rubs her temples before looking around, her gaze stopping in the now half-filled basin. "I guess they want us to take a bath before going forward." The sidhe moves towards the basin and uses the water to wash her hands, feet and face before trying to get past the golems again.

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Into the Darkness (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

Garrett would eventually move to Laena once he noted her distress, though as he stood beside her he seemed unsure of how to actually go about comforting her. Lily, in the meantime, would find her basic efforts to cleanse herself unsuccessful. The statues continued to block her path and repeated her mantra after she'd washed her face, hands, and feet with the water. If she was right in her guess, she would need to wash more.

Spoiler

Right at bottom of blood groove tunnel. Right at first turn, a V split, and down a winding corridor into a chamber with a crystal chandelier and four statues.

 

[Hentaispider]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

Muttering curses under her breath, Lily stalks back to the bowl and quickly strips herself, not trying to cover herself but not exactly in the mood to give the others a show, either. After she finishes stripping, the sidhe steps into the cold water, making a face as she does so, and starts quickly washing herself.