[PurpleXVI]

Lorath

It took a bit of careful searching and a stubbed toe, when he finally found it it was because of him almost tripping over it, not because of actually seeing it, but Lorath managed to locate his shield.

Once back on course, nothing seemed to care to burst out and assault him, occasionally something would brush against his leg or disturb the water as it swum past him, but those creatures all seemed to either be perfectly ordinary fish, or not hungry at the moment.

In the room where he'd fallen, he managed to find the object that he'd seen floating on the water before. All it looked like, though, was a shard of thick, curved crystal or glass. It didn't seem to have much use, though it was curved enough that if someone was to smooth the edges, it might make a serviceable bowl.

The wooden door, half-submerged as it was, proved to be difficult to open. It was swollen into it's frame, and the handle was as rotten as the rest of it, coming off as soon as he grabbed it and pulled. However, Lorath was able to pry it open by bracing his legs against the wall on one side of the door, under the water, and digging his fingers into the soft, crumbling wood near the frame. There were a tense few seconds where he wondered if the wood or his arms would give first, but then the door creaked and almost half of it tore away with a squelch. The sewage-like odor of rotting plant matter filled the air as the innards of the barrier were exposed, almost making Lorath gag, but at least now he could continue.

Beyond the doorway was a room even darker than the one he'd come from, it was hard to make out anything at all, but a bit of searching around the walls with his hands confirmed that large parts of it had collapsed, leaving not much of it except for a narrow, twisting passage across it and a few small hollows along it.

At the other end of the passage was another doorway, though this one didn't have a door in it, which lead to a room about the size of a broom closet. A bit of searching around with his feet told Lorath that the room contained stairs leading down, but investigating them would involve diving into pitch blackness.

As the elf backed out of the small room, he felt something brush against his head softly, further investigation revealed it to be a rotting arm protruding from one of the walls. It's dimensions felt human, it was buried up to the shoulder, it wasn't moving and it looked like it had been buried when whatever collapsed the room had happened.


Ulik, Evon

Trudging ahead like a sleepy zombie, Evon boldly stepped through the doorway. Ulik could hear him splashing around for a bit in ankle-deep water, then he let out a low moan that could have been a badly mangled: "Duuuuuuuude." It was answered by another moan, and Evon began to shamble back towards the doorway, followed by the sounds of the previous shambler.

First Ulik's raft stepped out, then his new "friend." It had apparently once been a human woman, and still looked like one, partially. Her red leather armor was nothing but tattered rags and her short, blonde hair was matted with filth, her eyes were sunken and her paleness would make a vampire ask her to go sunbathe for a while. She looked like she hadn't slept for months, and judging by the way her clothes hung loosely on her gaunt frame, she hadn't eaten in that long, either.

Three eyes, each a different colour, appeared to have sprouted from her forehead in some haphazard sheme, and small, multi-coloured horns poked out through her hair, also apparently without any pattern to their placement. Parts of her skin had become thick, dark and leathery, almost like inch-thick calluses. Under her skin, wide black veins seemed to run along her muscles, contracting and relaxing as she moved.

She looked at Ulik, made a hungry sound and started ambling towards him, shoving Evon out of the way as she did so, the unresisting man stumbling into the wall. Bone-like blades of varying lengths and widths began sprouting from her body as she approached, some sticking out at meaningless angles and positions, others from her arms, as though she'd strapped a sword to them. Their sources seemed to be small parasites, like the one that had attacked Ulik in the abandoned house. None looked bigger than the blade of a short-sword, but they all looked plenty sharp.


Balth, Gan, Bas, Tamora, Anne

(OOC: Since CD has expressed his dislike for the game, I'm going to assume that his character is an NPC for the time being, then dispose of him eventually unless he changes his mind.)

"It was rather a gamble, coming here," Balth told Tamora, as he handed her back her equipment, "For all we knew, you could have been stuck somewhere inside the cliff, in a cave or some such. Glad to see that the gamble paid off, though if it hadn't been for the druid, we would all likely have been dead."

As the ranger clenched her fists, she found that nothing seemed to not be working as it should, though her joints felt a bit strange, it was as though they had all gained a few extra degrees of movement.

The ground where Tamora and Gan had burst forth looked normal, though the earth had been churned up some by it. It felt as densely packed as any of the other land in the clearing. As Bas passed near it, he briefly felt a presence probing him, examining him, and then retreating. It was accompanied by forest smells, rotting things, growing things and the damp smell under the thick jungle vegetation, though they left with it.

[ 02-23-2007, 08:37 PM: Message edited by: PurpleXVI ]