But I can't stop staring in those evil eyes
Characters: Rauxes (white_disciple), Fayth (song_of_fayth), Cephiro (andcountry), and Mindelan (of_mindelan)
Date/Time: February 4th 2011, most of the day
Location: Silent Hillderness
Rating: PG13 progressing to R for gore/violence/bodysquick
Summary: 4 people walk into the Wilderness, one won't be walking out on her own power. This wilderness provides your worst nightmares come to life, and ( Read more... )
Date/Time: February 4th 2011, most of the day
Location: Silent Hillderness
Rating: PG13 progressing to R for gore/violence/bodysquick
Summary: 4 people walk into the Wilderness, one won't be walking out on her own power. This wilderness provides your worst nightmares come to life, and ( Read more... )
Rauxes herself could almost blend into her surroundings thanks to the new outfit she'd been stuck in by the Edens' will. It was definitely practical enough, Rauxes supposed, for a combat-heavy sort. There were armor plates mixed in with thinner chainmail, and that was all well and good, but the cape seemed unnecessary and the pauldrons cumbersome now that she was trying to move around more. For all that she'd enjoyed testing her mettle against creatures and zombies, something about this attire bothered her greatly, though she couldn't place why.
She made sure to leave no more than 5 feet between her and Fayth at all times, and one hand on the hilt of her new sword. "This is the right floor, isn't it? Do you think that elevator thing took us to that 4th Floor place?"
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Her fingers curved around the straps of her pack. She'd had to adjust it a little to accommodate for the new sleeves and belts that now adorned her body. All of her medical items were in there, the very same she carried with her during a scavenge in the junkyard as well as a few other necessities she had bought yesterday. But would it be enough?
So far, so good. Just oddly eerie. She turned to Rauxes and gave a comforting smile, more for herself than for the other woman. "I am really glad you asked me to join you." Even if it was a little dangerous, time spent with a friend was time well spen-
...what was that sound?
Fayth stopped short, one hand reaching over to Rauxes almost as if she were trying to stop her, or at least pause her momentarily. Blame her natural protective nature. "...do you hear something?"
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"We'd better be careful regardless. Do some looking around, but be prepared to leave if necessary."
Rauxes took a loose leaf of paper from a belt pocket and unfolded it, then started marking on it with one of the wonderful inkwell-less pens she'd discovered while working at the spa. All the while, she kept looking up here and there so as not to be taken advantage of while seemingly distracted. Within a few minutes, plus some cross-checking, she had a crude map of the small area they'd started to explore. With that task complete, the lilting sound of the music box faded away, replaced by what at first was an empty silence. Rauxes almost dared to hope the Edens had given up on that when it started up again, back to a faintly eery tune as the women started to moved on.
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As they walked down another street, Fayth chanced a look around one of the corners and let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. Nothing there. "Sorry," she softly smiled and feigned a small laugh to cover up her worry. "No treasure down there, I don't think."
But something else just might be. She jumped as the same sound she she heard from before coming from that direction. Instinctively, Fayth's hands moved to the sides of her hips, as if expecting to touch something important. But all she grasped was air and the clever little pocket watch that came with her new attire. And when she flipped it open, she couldn't help but feel the innocent clock's sharp ticking was counting down to something.
She closed it and looked to Rauxes for an answer. "...should we check and see?"
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"It wasn't quite treasure I planned to look for," Rauxes explained as she dug out one of her crystal torches and handed it to Fayth, then grasped one for herself. "See, when I was down in the caves - once with my superior, Rain, and once with Eagle, a new friend - I noticed something strange-" She held out her dimly glowing torch into the shadows of the alley, leading the way as she continued speaking. "I wasn't afraid or unnerved by the caves, or fighting monsters with poisonous attacks, or undead... I just confronted them. And then that memory I heard..." She shook her head sighing. "Basically Eagle thinks maybe I used to go on adventures, on missions with a group of people, or... something like that." She laughed a little. "I think the people I traveled with must have been very powerful."
Each step she took was very cautious, as if expecting the worst and wanting to be able to return the favor quickly. The torch didn't provide much light, but it hadn't gone out yet and didn't seem to dim the longer she had it. In that way it was very useful.
"I honestly thought... maybe I could learn more by coming here again, now that it had changed."
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"Being on adventures..." Fayth repeats, mulling over her thoughts. Now that was something she could see herself enjoying very easily. "It sounds nice, especially with a group of people. Those who can share your story, understand you. It really must be nice..." Her voice softens momentarily, but with a smile it returns completely. "Maybe being here will trigger another memory."
She adjusts the torch in her hand, glancing at Rauxes curiously. Now that the Wilderness changed... or something else? "Did you learn anything new, then?"
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As Rauxes became contemplative, so too did the tone of the music. "I don't know how nice it was... being a part of a group just means you're not strong enough or capable enough to do something by yourself." It was a jab at herself, as much as she hated it, because she felt it was true. "But if the mission succeeded... well, that's most important, isn't it." She absently touched the scars over her left eye with her free hand. Burying personal feelings in order to please those who gave you those missions in the first place. They'd have to be important, powerful, influential people wouldn't they?
She paused as the alley ended and another street intersected it. Holding her torch back behind her, she tried to listen over the music that had thankfully quieted significantly for anyone else in the area. In the dim light, sight was mostly useless as shadows flickered everywhere, so she focused more on her hearing. I wish this armor were quieter... She'd genuinely thought it was a wonderful boon considering she wanted to go down to the Wilderness again, but it was starting to prove more trouble than she'd expected.
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There was a quiet fury brewing from under her soft voice, not at Rauxes but at her mindset. She didn't know why, but all she knew was that this topic was important to her. It was something she truly believed in with all of her heart. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean-" She sighs, carefully rethinking her words. "It's just... I don't feel the same way. To me, being part of a group means sharing the same story, the same adventure, and having people you can trust." She pursed her lips and lifted the torch again. "And that doesn't make you weak."
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For her part, Rauxes was completely stunned by what she saw. A tall, gaunt creature with a bulbous pale purple head and long tendrils emerging where a mouth should have been. The tendrils had been writhing all around Fayth's head, as if inspecting it and sniffing it all at once. Long claws had been teasing at her hair, and where eyes should have been were barely visible over the hoods of its eyebrows.
Menacing hands and wandering tendrils seemed far more interested in the person behind Rauxes than Rauxes herself. She tried backing up, step by step, drawing the creature further into the light. It too reached out, walking with a slow lumber due to the robes it worse - seemingly ornate, but tattered in parts.
That memory... It had been audio-only, but somehow Rauxes knew what this being was, like a rat knew a snake.
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She lifted her torch to see clearer, but it was in vain. As Rauxes stepped backward, Fayth bumped into her and had to shuffle her feet to stay upright. Thanks to quick reflexes, she managed not to drop the torch. But the watch had slipped out of her pocket and smashed against the pavement. The ticking ceased just before the creature glided over it. She balled her free hand into a fist. "Be careful." She whispered as they edged toward the alley's entrance.
Maybe in the darkness it looked different, but as it reached the light Fayth began to distrust her own sight. It was the strangest feeling, as if the edges of her vision had blurred and wiped away her image, leaving a new one in its place. Because while she could hear it, the monster she had assumed was there in the darkness didn't stand there anymore.
"R-Rauxes?" Fear had been replaced with confusion. "What is that?"
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"I think... it's a Mindflayer," Rauxes answered. "That's why it went after you first - something about your mind." That was all she could remember in that instant; there was a reason that Illithids were called Mindflayers, she knew it, felt it, she just didn't know why. There was something distinct about Fayth, being a healer, as compared to how Rauxes perceived herself.
The disconnect came because Rauxes was seeing a nightmarish thing with tentacles on its face; Fayth was seeing something else entirely.
Rauxes gripped her sword by the hilt, then rushed forward and drew the weapon all in one motion. Sensing the impending battle, the music swelled. Unfortunately, the 'Mindflayer' was not alone - a long spindle of a leg descended to block her path. Rauxes connected with the intervening creature, and glared up at it as well. Fayth couldn't see it, but inside her mind Rauxes was very much afraid of both of them - especially now that the faint moonlight illuminated bright threads blocking their retreat on both sides. Rauxes tried unleashing a series of 5 strikes to the leg that blocked her path - as the creature had seemingly descended from the rooftop - but the sword felt too heavy, too clumsy for her to finish that effort. It was a weak counter and Rauxes knew it. All she could do was grit her teeth, then try again - this time with more abandon and more force behind her swings, since the thing was so big she wasn't worried about actually missing.
The drider - for that was the humanoid spider-creature's true name - was actually nothing more than a doppelganger (like the Mindflayer was) wielding a sword, specifically a scimitar. The silken white webs that blocked the street about 20 feet in either direction, though, they were very much real.
Another creature was writhing towards them from behind, their personal soundtrack slowly incorporating its theme as it grew closer, though Rauxes couldn't see it yet as her attention was focused in front of her. The thing was more like a lumbering mass of oozing parts that shifted in and out of forms with almost every step. It was a Chaos Beast, and all three of these creatures appeared as if they'd been plucked straight from the Underdark - a deep place filled with forgotten evil, where lurked the most grotesque and sinister creatures that Rauxes had ever faced in her past life, these three among them.
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She stepped back, momentarily disoriented. What was going on? Was it lack of sleep and mere drowsiness causing these distortions? Were they just distortions? Were they... were they people? Were they zombies, like before? But no... that wasn't right, was it? This was the Wilderness, known for its dangerous nature. Something was playing a trick on her, on them.
"Rauxes! Rauxes, wait!"
Too late. Fayth reached out to grab for her but reality changed once more. Fayth closed her eyes and shook her head, trying to escape the blurriness. The action left her goggles askew across her face. Quickly, she fixed them just in time for everything to clear up again. Interestingly enough, it was perhaps the clearest image of "everything" she'd seen since the first monster appeared.
The "Mindflayers"... they were everywhere. Two in front of them and one encroaching upon them from behind. She could hear it now, the true sound it made. She turned on her heel and sure enough those marble eyes were trained on her.
It was hard not to cry out at the sight of it close up, it's gaunt features more striking at this distance. And while it had no visible mouth, perhaps... perhaps it had a means of communication.
The torch still firmly in her hand, Fayth hesitantly approached the creature. For all they knew, they were only attacking because they'd struck first. "W-Who are you?"
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Rauxes craned her neck to see what in the heavens Fayth was trying to do. Wait... she's not- TALKING?! "FAYTH! NO, THEY'RE MONSTERS -- ALL OF THEM, I DON'T CARE HOW DIFFERENT THEY LOOK!"
She took up her sword again as the Chaos Beast-look-alike reached out for Fayth. She took a clean slice out of one of the drider's legs, green blood splurting after the dismembered appendage as it... clattered to the ground? Rauxes wasn't sure that that was how large spider claws were supposed to sound. All the same, she turned her back on the two before her in a vain attempt to shake some sense into Fayth. The Illithid reached out for her with its claws and tore off a pauldron, nearly dislocating Rauxes's shoulder in the process. The drider reached out with one of its uninjured legs to spear Rauxes's leg, and it took the kneeguard from her left side with it, but she kept going. An amorphous, jellied tendril was reaching out to Fayth's body and Rauxes refused to let that happen.
In that moment she genuinely wished she had a shield, but instead used her sword to reach up and block the attack. She had to literally stand against Fayth's back and slash the sword down from top right to lower left, holding her friend's shoulder with her left hand as the sword went over her right side. "BACK, FOUL ONE!"
She watched in horror as the sword literally warped in front of her - first the tip, then the blade, then the hilt... it all melted and wriggled like a worm until she finally dropped it, but the stuff was on her right hand now. It made her hand swell, the bones making a ratcheting sound as they ground against one another when they expanded. It didn't hurt so much as it made her gasp and shake it furiously, trying to make it stop, trying to summon the willpower and the fortitude of stomach to make it go away.
What pain she did feel was not aided by violently waving that arm, but it was the only reaction Rauxes could manage. That had shrieking half-words of surprise and fury and distress. She didn't even have a chance to let go of Fayth's shoulder; she just squeezed it tightly as she stumbled backwards in an attempt to get them both away from these horrific things.
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She gave Rauxes a quick, perfunctory look-over and made a mental note of the injuries she'd endured. But it was Rauxes' hand that worried her the most. The sound of those bones crunching together had made her heart leap into her throat. She'd have to keep her wits about her if she was going to fix that later. "We have to go. We'll break through the webbing, okay?"
A shriek of rage stopped her in her tracks. One of their attackers apparently did not agree with her plan and had shuffled forward. Perhaps due to her not wielding a visible weapon, they had not gone after her. But now, they were more bold. And the one she had questioned before was walking toward her with little fear.
Fayth gritted her teeth. Whatever these monsters were, human or not, they were creatures she couldn't get through to. And, as much as it hurt her heart to admit it, it had been her attempt that had gotten Rauxes hurt in the first place. Maybe there would be a time she would be able to commune with them. But right now, her friend needed her aid more. Summoning a courage she didn't know she had, she swiped at empty air between herself and the humanoid creature. "Stay away!"
The threat, unfortunately, only made the creature angrier. It leaped forward in a fit of rage and with a talon she couldn't see, it swiped at her arm, tearing through both cloth and skin. She stumbled over her footing for a second, but quickly regained her balance. Fearing for both herself and for Rauxes, she pitched the crystal torch as hard as she could at the "Mindflayer". Hopefully, that was enough of a distraction to get them out of there.
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The first Doppelganger, disguised as an Illithid, approached them with claws outstretched and tentacles writhing. With each step he took, the new sounds became louder. Soon he was staring down at the two women, shadow looming over them. Rauxes panted and gripped her right wrist with her left hand even as her right hand was practically melting away like candlewax.
"You, get away," she seethed through clenched teeth. "GET AWAY!" And with that she rotated her body directly in front of Fayth, bracing herself against Fayth's right shoulder with her left hand and practically in her friend's face as she did so. As Rauxes did that, her left leg came up and connected hard against the Illithid's head. She tried in that moment to execute a direct enough hit to severely cripple the creature, but she was startled to find it didn't work. Something about the armor was inhibiting her ability to do so.
However, as Rauxes completed her turn, she realized that something else had been approaching behind the Illithid - something that really was not all that grotesque at all compared to a Chaos Beast, but which nonetheless made her eyes go wide in fear. It was a Doppelganger disguised as a Death Slaad - a tall, lithe, reptilian/amphibious-looking creature with black skin and claws. In one hand, it carried a bladed staff. The other hand was outstretched in Rauxes's direction. With its thumb and middle digits, it stroked her leg in mid-air before Rauxes could even finish her attack.
It muttered a few words under its breath and all she could think of was that this was the end. There was a lull in the background first as her soul froze. She knew this attack; she knew this beast; she knew what was about to happen; it was an absolute nightmare.
It was like a little bubbling concoction started under toes, writhed like a worm up her leg, and started coursing its way underneath every inch of her skin. The armor was too heavy, her braid too tight, everything was slippery and falling apart... But just as quickly as that sensation came, it left her. Every muscle contracted and she tumbled into a heap on the ground, trying to shut out what the Doppleganger made her think was happening to her body.
She thought she was imploding. She thought that her bones were breaking, her skin ripping open, her muscles tearing apart as everything collapsed in on itself. She couldn't see what was going on anymore - just felt the pain of it all; had the spell been real, she'd have hardly felt a thing beyond dying instantly. However, since the Suggestion spell couldn't actually kill her, the pain just wracked her body. She cried and screamed, but never once kicked or thrashed more than an inch beyond the tight little ball she'd pulled herself into.
As she barely clung to consciousness, a final tune echoed around her and Fayth. It was like the Sphere could sense Rauxes's dearest wish, brought on by what the Wilderness had become: she needed help, or Fayth would die on her account. If she died by her own recklessness, then so be it, but she didn't want someone else to suffer for it. She was searching for a name to pray to even as every other conscious thought faded away, and the last thing she heard before passing out was the sound of someone else approaching.
[OOC: Rauxes tried to use her Stunning Fist ability, but it didn't work. All monk abilities will not function unless the monk is unarmored - which Rauxes is not thanks to the Cosplay.]
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