Stirge
Stirge (13)
Ezekiel (13)
Steef (13)
Cassiel (13)
Steef smacks a Stirge just as Ezekiel arrives to finish it off.
Cassiel swings and misses at it.
The remaining Stirge stays attached to Steef.
Round 2
Attack: 23
Damage: 22
Ezekiel squishes the last bug.
Steef wipes the bug guts from his tunic.
"Thanks guys, thought I was in for it there. The hell were those things anyways?"
"Bugs. I went back to Harrowstone, killed rats, had... conspiracy? Idea. Tomorrow, we go into Harrowstone, kill all the unsleeping dead."
Jules shivered, as if realizing something beyond him was going on that he needed to do.
"Um, I'm very sorry, but I'm going to have to depart for today; something terrible must've happened, and I have to be going at once. Thank you so very much for your help!"
Jules dove out of the store, and started to head towards where he felt the worst of dreads; Harrowstone. Damnit, if those men have gone out and wandered there AGAIN, I'll be sure to hassle them for it!
I ignored it because you didn't actually say anything.
Diplomacy isn't "Telepathy, the skill" and randomly gesturing at something is going to make people brush you off regardless of how high your Diplomacy check is.
Shoukichi opens his mouth and says things to Father Grimburrow about Harrowstone.
Actually say some things. I also am not a mind reader and have no idea what you're trying to convince him to do.
Roleplay some.
"Whatever those things were, thanks. Hurt like hell. Let's get on back to the house, I'm beat. Zeke, you said you wanted to take on the what now?"
"Unsleeping-no, awake dead. That is the word, yes? Creatures of haunting."
"Plenty of time for fighting undead tomorrow. I too need some sleep."
You wake up in a room not your own. The walls, once of wood with a warm, inviting wallpaper on them, have been replaced with walls of sheer stone.
Your window is barred, and there is no furniture, save a crude wooden stool, and your bed (a pile of moldy straw).
There is no apparent means of escape.
Shoukichi does not come down for breakfast that morning as he usually does.
"Kendra? Hello? Anyone?" But no reply comes from the echoing halls. Aw s@*~. Looks like someone's caught me off guard.
Shoukichi then checks through all his belongings to see that he has nothing except for the clothes he wore before falling asleep. He then goes his natural Kitsune form, an appearance his captures could not have seen.
With his true form of a humanoid fox, Shoukichi walks towards the door in his cell and tries to open it with no avail. He then repeats the process with the barred windows.
Whoever who wants me to be here really wants me to stay inside.
In an act of desperation, Shoukichi rummages through his "bed", a pile of moldy straw. In the end, there really was nothing except old hay. The only thing of use was an old wooden stool, which Shoukichi fashioned one of the legs into a simple club.
After exploring the room (and looking out over the town) , Shoukichi slumps down in despair.
Just then, a big letter S appears on the wall over his bed...written in blood.
Soon afterwards, H follows.
Then O.
U.
K.
I.
C.
H...
Shoukichi wakes up in his bed in Kendra's house. It was merely a dream.
Except...the words on the wall are still there, dripping blood onto your sheets.
Ezekiel clomps up the stairs to get Shoukichi.
After mightily knocking thrice, Ezekiel yells "There is breakfast! Bad manners not to eat offered food."
Jules stumbled out of his own bed a few minutes prior to Ezekiel's wake up call to Shoukichi, getting up without being noticed by the others. He promptly crept down the stairs, and sat down for breakfast with the others.
"May I ask that you tell me what you all have been up to in the past couple of days? Sight of you all has been scarce and scattered amongst the passages of these mournful days, and I must admit it has had quite the effect on my mind." The half-asleep half-elf chimed, slightly rapping his spoon against the table.
The thought of going to Harrowstone menaced him without relent; not only did the utter melancholy of the Professor's demise quake through his spirits, a hammer against an anvil, but the rumours of the spirits that lurked there sent his mind into depths of fear beyond anything he'd experience before. Any of the phantoms or wraiths within such a den inside the stone-laden heart of darkness stood beyond his own comprehension and understanding, and would surely tear his soul apart.
"Well, Shoukichi and I have mainly been trying to gather information on Harrowstone and certain noteworthy prisoners. I also spoke with Alendru, the proprietor of the Unfurling scroll, who offered me an interesting book in exchange for finding out who vandalized the Harrowstone Memorial. I have reason to believe that the perpetrator is somewhere in Harrowstone, but no concrete evidence has turned up yet."
"Steef, Ezekiel, and I have agreed to explore the prison today. It would certainly help if you came along. I was hoping Shoukichi could join us as well, but he seems to be sleeping in this morning..."
Ezekiel thumps back down the stairs and looks around at everyone. "Almost time to go."
Shoukichi wakes up breathing heavily. Though it all happened to be a dream, his name, spelled in blood, stayed up on the wall, slowly dripping down onto his bed. Slowly, Shoukichi crawled out his bed, trying to avoid the blood as much as possible, until he got rudely interrupted by someone knocking on the door and calling him down for breakfast.
"I'm uh... not all that hungry. But not to interrupt you guys from eating, I have something eh... important to show you all."
"Hmm. Door is locked. Do I need to smash it? Are you trapped?"
Steef calls up to Ezekiel from downstairs, spraying eggs all over the table as he does so. "ZEKE! Bacon's getting cold!" Turning back to Cassiel and Jules, he nods a bit. "Yeah-something about that prison's been freaking Zeke out for the past few days. Says there's something going on there. Restless dead, or something like that. Dunno what he's on about, really..."
"Zeke is right, Steef. There is definitely something going on in that prison. We were attacked by a floating scythe!"
Realizing how that sounds, Cass shakes his head and sighs. "You'll see when we get there."
"No no. That won't be necessary. I'll just open the door."
Shoukichi then unlocks the door with his key and allows Ezekiel in. He then points up to the bloody wall.
"I don't know if you can still read that, but that spelled out my name before. It's a long story. I'll tell you when we gather up."
"Hmm. You are not, what is the word, foxing? You are being serious?"
"Jules, you seem tense. What's troubling you, child?"
Jules flinched a bit at the offer; he was already fearful of the place, and yet he didn't want to appear cowardly to the rest of the group. Speaking in his native tongue, he spoke solemnly, yet pleadingly, to Cassiel.
"Rucin o bant mí i gador; ananta in thang ecess tai lárën ni praëfus chaul-ië sestan delos. Ada tambë, im thel bad-dh; nan im maquet ne beria-dh nin."
Knowing safely that the dwarf besides the both of them wouldn't understand the Elven tongue, the half-elf waited for a response from Cassiel.
"Ah... Well, you could say that. Yes. I'm being serious."
Steef sighs, then launches into a five-minute long tirade in Dwarven against half-elves and their kind, while setting it to the tune of the popular dwarven folk song "Why the hedgehog can never be buggered at all". He didn't have to change many of the words to get his point across.
"Oh, the Dwarven language! To them, it sounds a tone of pride, valor and studiousness; but to the rest of the commoners, it merely captures the drunken babble of babies who never got any taller than when they came out of their bearded mother's womb!", spoke the slightly irate Jules.
The group walks, and converses, as they make their way back up to Harrowstone prison.
Cassiel nods solemnly, and responds to Jules in kind, ignoring Steef's dwarven rant.
When they reach Harrowstone, Cassiel casts Resistance on everyone as they enter.
"It is great dishonor to keep secrets from those you are about to battle beside," Ezekiel mutters darkly as the enter Harrowstone.
He looks in the window of the shed. "Cassiel, can you... smell? Yes, smell magic."
"Well, uhh. I was meaning to tell you guys about something that happened last night. I had a dream about Harrowstone. I was trapped somewhere in this place. Don't know where, but it was somewhere in the place."
Shoukichi fidgets around a bit and scratches his ear before continuing.
"I was looking out onto Ravengo from Harrowstone in what appeared to be a cell. The thing that I need to tell you all is that in my dream, some blood appeared on the walls of the cell somewhere around the end. The blood formed into letters and, well, spelled my name out pretty much. Just didn't finish the 'i' at the end. But when I woke up, the blood was there on the wall of my room."
He then looks around with shifty eyes, trying to avoid the gaze of everyone while they listened to him. Looking down towards the ground, Shoukichi holds his arm in his hand.
"You believe me right? Ezek was there. You saw it too right?"
With a surprisingly subtle wink visible only to Shoukichi, Ezekiel says "I have no idea what you're talking about."