Topic: The Adventures of Kith, the Cat, and the Khatun
Subject: The Den of the Slitch
"ADEDRE!!!" The kazari roared, standing atop a sundered door under which at least one guard was pinned, "Come and bleed me, now, witch!!!"
Kithran was in the middle of once again rolling her eyes at Samuel’s bravado when Aranwen’s own, softer bravado caught her long ears, "You, who would claim the lives of others, others whom we would protect, we will not allow it."
A head shake accompanied the eye roll she now attempted at the two valiant fighters ahead of her, but that too was interrupted as the four of them watched a sickly woman with diseased, yellow eyes, raise an unnaturally gaunt arm; her long, clawed fingers splayed toward them. A chant joined her movements as what looked like pale, jagged spikes rose up at an angle from the ground before her, aimed at the doorway.
“Move!” Ch’dau barked at them, thrusting his arm out in front of Aranwen and taking up more of the door’s space.
Kithran grabbed Mosic and dove away, hearing only the sickening sound of those spikes sinking into Ch’dau’s torso, somehow seeming only to infuriate him more. Aranwen also grunted, managing to dodge most of the needle-like bone fragments, but taking a few of them herself.
Snarling, the Silver Cat pulled one of the spikes from his chest, tossed it to the floor and snorted; "Good, bitch, the more bones you throw at me, the fewer I will have to tear from your body!”
The half-Syl finally had a moment to fully roll her eyes as she jumped back to her feet, and watched the two warriors charge into the room. In one swift movement her bow was back in her hands, an arrow set, and her back to the wall beside the door, “Alright Mosic, Ch’dau has several bones sticking out of him, so perhaps keep your mind on your goal and heal him, hmm? Keep those two up, and warn me of anyone attacking us that I don’t see. That’s all. Good luck.”
She spun around then and began sending arrows into the guards distracting her companions from their main quarry. Faintly she heard Mosic reply to her, and begin chanting, his hands moving fluidly into several quick shapes and forms in her peripheral until suddenly Kithran felt a warmth wash over her, a feeling of hope. Any weariness she had had from their long day vanished, as the arrows in her quiver quickly dwindled.
“That’s nice, what are you doing?” she asked, the hand at her cheek releasing another arrow into an unsuspecting target.
“Something to make it easier for all of us to resist these beasts, as well as to make my healing more potent.” On that note, he began another chant, this one quicker, and with just a thrust of his hands, directing the spell toward their Kazari. As Ch’dau engaged with one of the few remaining guards, the doomed man’s eyes grew wide, watching the bone spikes in the creature’s chest slowly recede and clatter to the floor. Before the last fell however, the cat-beast grinned, catching it in his clawed hand and driving it through the man’s face. With no one in his path any longer, Ch’dau turned to the witch who had caged him.
“Kithran look out!” Mosic shouted, and Kith turned to a guard at her left who had managed to sneak up on her.
Bending back, she avoided the blade aimed at her neck, “Thank you, Mosic.” She dropped her bow and grabbed her daggers, grinning as the guard faced her, a massive ball of darkness suddenly encompassing the room beyond him, “I’ve got this one, you get that one,” she said to the priest, her eyes focused on the guard.
As Mosic attempted to slip by, the man took his eyes off the thief, attempting to swipe at the small cleric. His aim would have been true, had a dagger not lodged itself into his shoulder. The man yelped in pain just as a familiar roar rang from within the darkness, and the bladesinger’s eerie new song crescendoed.
“Tsk tsk,” Kithran taunted, frowning sadly at his new wound and tossing her new dagger from hand to hand, “I hate it when that happens.”
The guard raised his sword as best he could at her, seemingly preparing to charge, “You Sylvari bitch, I’m gonna--” The blade entering his mouth stalled his words, ultimately replaced by a few weak gurgles as he dropped to the ground.
“Half-Sylvari.” Kith glared as she corrected him and pulled her blades free.
Mosic’s now-confident voice dispelled the magical sphere of darkness the slitch had put upon her comrades in the room beyond, and Kithran finally crossed the threshold.
Though invigorated by the cleric’s spell, the Kazari and Sylvari ahead of her still puffed with the fatigue of battle, and while they seemed only to face a chanting witch and her masked companion, a wall of the recently dead guards began to raise, separating Kithran from the others. These freshly mauled rose with missing limbs, and arrows sticking out of various parts of them; large gashes seeped blood and innards, and all moved with preternatural intent on the four intruders.
Kithran crouched down. The majority of them seemed to want to convene on Aranwen and Ch’dau, as they were the two focused most ardently on slaughtering their mistress while her smaller companion continued trying to usher her away. There were, however, a couple separating themselves from their pack to make their way toward Kithran.
They unholy horde all attacked together. Kithran dodged the attack of the first, as it swung wide at her, and parried the blade of the other away, countering by shoving a foot into its stomach, and giving her space to lunge at her first attacker.
Beyond them, more undead guards bore down on the bladesinger, Kazari, and cleric. Aranwen’s song rang stilted, as it had since they had been separated from her in the spider skeleton room, and Mosic fought anxiously, trying to keep his concentration on the first spell he had bestowed on the group, while trying to find space to call on Falloes to aid them in their battle.
Ch’dau laid waste to most of those in his path until he felt his limbs begin to slow and his snarls catch in his throat. Soon his entire body was no longer his, and his thoughts and rage remained buried inside him as he realized he was fully unable to move.
Finally able to accomplish what they had so miserably failed to do in life, the undead guards began to land blows against the massive cat beast.
Aranwen’s eyes widened, “Ch’dau!” She called out as she moved up, “Sorry, I need to borrow this!” Aranwen’s left hand moved up to draw the second falcata from the stilled Ch’dau’s back, and in that instant her song changed, not one note but a call and return melody as if sung by two people. The elven blade in her right, and the falcata in her left, were only flashes of deadly steel as she wove around Ch’dau, striking down each undead guard that drew near.
“Mosic, we will see to the guards - break the spell that binds Ch’dau!” The bladesinger called back.
And yet, as the cidal priest walked forward to see what aid he might lend, a felt doll ran across the floor. The doll with Kithran’s likeness. With speed unfitting an animate doll it reached Mosic, and in that instant it did so, a shadow appeared beside it, a replica of Kithran’s shape, sinking a shadowy blade into Mosic’s side.
With its one task complete, the doll faded into smoke that drifted past Kithran into the hallway. Aranwen watched through the thinning wall of shambling guards as Kithran cut down the two that had given her trouble, meeting Aranwen’s eyes and offering a grin, pleased to have been able to show off her handiwork. However, the bladesinger was unable to respond to the gesture, as the smoke coalesced with more from beyond the door into a sinister shape behind Kithran.
Its movements as erratic and unpredictable as the first two times Aranwen had faced its likeness, she had barely a moment to warn Kithran before it struck.
“Kithran duck!”
The thief obeyed without hesitation, spinning as she did so in time to see a large wooden creature with a black mask and red lips, similar to that mannequin they had fought at the apothecary, just barely miss her with its long, bladelike fingers. She tried to find her footing before it struck again, but it moved so quickly that all she could do was throw her daggers up defensively before her as the steel fingers on its other hand struck. The force of the blow threw her off to the side of the room, where she rolled to catch herself in another crouch, and prepared for its next attack.
“Finally decided to join us, hmm?” the decrepit necromancer hissed from across the room.
My resources are greatly limited at this time and place, it's true, Morgana’s voice came back agitatedly from her doll, and the head of the puppet twitched erratically shifting from looking to Adedre to looking at Kithran, Now then, where was I? Ah, yes. I was going to make you bleed...
The creature launched itself at the half-Syl once again.
As Aranwen cut down another of the remaining undead advancing on Ch’dau, the Kazari twitched beside her, and Mosic crushed the knee of another on the other side of the silver cat. Blood streaked the cleric’s robes, and the feeling of hope and invigoration that had accompanied their initial advance faded.
“What is this thing, Aranwen?!” Kith shouted, unable to counter the strikes and only barely able to defend herself after evading the unpredictable assault. Another unblockable swipe tore through her side as she attempted to jump out of its reach, and she ground her teeth at the pain. The thing twitched, maniacally and unwaveringly continuing its charge on her.
What’s wrong, my dear Kithran? Morgana purred, Are you going to make me slice you into ribbons? Or will you be more... reasonable?
“Isn’t there a big scary cat somewhere tasked with keeping me alive or something?” she called, unable to look away from the thing, save for her brief attempts to see if another of Morgana’s shades accompanied it. She could not, however, hear the distinct sound of snarling she had begun to find comfort in while engaged in a fight. That accompanied with the loss of Mosic’s spell left a growing pit in her stomach.
“We’ll cover you, Mosic,” the bladesinger huffed at the priest, “destroy these things now!”
Nearly gasping for breath, the Cidal nodded, taking cover in the the bladesinger’s skill and song, and grasped his holy symbol. In words spoken quicker than he ever had in his life, and glancing around their tiny battlefield, he sent a prayer to the Helping Hand, the god of the hopeless, the lost, the needy, and requested his aid to destroy these unholy creations. A warmth pulsed from the symbol of the outstretched hand, filling his allies once again with whatever minute hope they could have at this time, and dropping the undead one by one.
Kithran dove out of the way of another strike, rolling hard into the legs of a wooden table. The doll leapt at her, striking the ground where she would have been, if she had not pushed herself up and away from her landing area. The doll’s claws briefly sunk into the ground, Kithran took her first opportunity to strike it, smashing one of the table's wooden chairs over its back and searching for threads to cut as with the last.
The doll pulled itself free a moment later, almost entirely unfazed by her attack, and tackled her to the ground, finally catching the swift thief.
Well, dear Kithran? What will it be?
The creature raised a long, blade-fingered arm above its head, as the sound of a bladesinger’s song wrapped in a full Kazari roar filled the room.
Kithran grinned, "Them."
Posted on 2020-02-16 at 10:49:05.
Edited on 2020-02-16 at 21:46:38 by breebles
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What game do you own the 
Return to Charadun - Q&A
The Morphing Game
Return to Charadun - Recr
. By the second time I rolled for him, I imagined Mosic had dropped Beacon of Hope, losing concentration after taking a few hits. Ch'dau still failed his second attempt... I'm sorry buddy, I swear I used my good dice! He did finally succeed, so by the end of the post he's free to do as he pleases 
