A Drow's Dilemma Ep. 44: Shifted

While the spectral monks were fast and agile, as those with a class description of monk rather than merely a job description generally were, they were not particularly difficult foes. Ashyr had a little bit of trouble dispatching them, her blades slicing right through with seemingly no effect before they bust into ectoplasm for no apparent reason; but Selene was right to be confident in her skills. She easily roasted the animated robes. As they collapsed into ash, small wisps of smoke-like spirit wafted towards the ceiling. Althaia and Slasjowskew had similar experiences to Ashyr's, although the Yuan-ti appeared not to care all that much, mostly dodging, and the nymph simply struck more and harder, because that is what Althaia tended to do.

Selene allowed herself a small smirk of satisfaction. It was a hard look even for Selene, and not at all friendly. Now that Althaia had managed to rally her spirits, the younger drow really felt like dealing with her pain by inflicting it upon those stupid enough to get in her way. It was probably because she felt almost drunk on the cocktail of spells she'd been buffed with.

With that little fight out of the way, and no alcohol stores exploding around them, the sounds of pain began to ring through the chamber again. "That sounds like Caleldir..." Althaia said, frowning. She cocked her head for a moment, and then ran in the direction of the screams.

There, on the opposite side of the vast chamber from the entrance, was a scene that Ashyr would have been able to recognize exactly. A huge man concealed under monkish robes was using a millstone to slowly crush Caleldir, who was securely tied in front of it. Not that the ropes mattered with his legs already mangled beyond all recognition trapped beneath the stone.

Ashyr near screamed Caleldir's name, the emotion of it making her voice crack. Perhaps it would not have been so bad if she hadn't already felt that she was barely keeping herself going under the weight of the pain in her heart. Since she had no sort of ranged weapon (she'd abandoned her bow when she stopped needing to hunt), the older drow could only sprint towards the other side of the chamber with her twin swords in hand, completely careless of any traps that might lie in between her and her tortured lover. Images of him and his spirit being ground to dust flashed through her mind and mingled with the repeatedly dying eyes of Celeste.

The huge monk, a figure that stood an easy twelve foot tall, and was probably that size around too, stopped the millstone in its slow passage and turned towards the group. Caleldir, teeth clenched together to try to prevent himself from crying out in pain, gave as much of a smile as he could to see the group run up. "Deja vu, eh, Ashyr?" He laughed in an extremely pained tone. He was mostly just trapped at the moment, not actively being crushed any longer. Still, having his legs to halfway up his thighs ground into powder while still attached could not be all that comfortable. "You keep rescuing me from being tortured. Not from Selene though. And I treasure your feelings so much, you sadistic drow." The tone that he meant that in, sarcastic or sincere, was hard to tell, what with all the pain.

"I will free you!" Althaia shouted, leaping forward. But the huge brewer moved with blinding speed, putting himself between the nymph and Caleldir, a vial flicking from his belt and splashing acid in her face just as a cage fell between Caleldir and everyone else, blocking Ashyr, who had managed to dodge past the huge ghost monk, from rescuing her lover. The nymph screamed and stumbled back, clawing at her eyes. "The vision! It came true!" She wailed. Then, white eyes blank and unseeing, she hefted her blade. "Fortunately, I do not need my eyes to fight you, foul ghost!" She struck at him.

Selene snarled in burning anger. "If someone is going to make him scream, it will be me." She yelled out at the robed figure. With an unconscious flare for the dramatic, Selene unintentionally imbued her voice with simple magic that made it seem to echo whispers of what she said against the walls of the chamber she was in. She pointed her finger, the rune that Magolben Hissael had given her flared, and she shot another line of fire at the huge man hidden under his robes. Selene's spell had the desired effect; she lit the monk on fire. The creature did not seem to care, though. He looked towards Selene, and rushed at her, fists covered in acid.

Ashyr slammed into the cage in frustration. She was clearly upset about the whole situation, judging by the anger on her face and the hate-fueled tears in her eyes. The older drow only tried to hit the cage once, however. She was not so far gone as to not realize that there had to be another way to lift the gate. Next came her frantic search for a lever or a button or a gate - whatever looked like something that could help her get past. But no matter how Ashyr searched, there was no lever, no button, no gate.

The older drow ignored the acid-attacked nymph even if it was something that she'd seen in the mirror. She refused to believe that it had anything to do with prophesy. "I'll get you out of here!" Ashyr promised. She also apparently ignored what Caleldir had said to her, or at least chose not to respond. Playful banter was not currently in her power.

"No use getting me out until that thing is defeated." Caleldir laughed hoarsely. "The cage will vanish when his body is dissipated."

The younger drow's face remained in its snarling rictus of anger in the face of the charging giant. Selene was not afraid, but she did begin to backpedal, as she needed time to cast a couple spells. First and foremost was the obvious: a protection from acid spell as strong as she could make it. No way in hell was she getting her eyes and/or face burned off by acid. Next, she gathered energy to try to hit the hulking figure with a lightning bolt, putting all the power she could muster behind it. "Fuck you!" She screamed in defiance. "Fuck you."

The huge monk barreled on through Selene's lightning spell, although one of his arms was blasted away it seemed, like with his minions, the Distiller was an empty suit, so the loss of part of his robe did little to stop him. Actually, it did seem to have a small effect, since when he closed the distance between himself and the drow, he punched only with the other arm. It was a good thing that she had cast protection from acid on herself, because with one hit, the attack burned through the entire spell. Without the protection, Selene had a feeling that she would have been dead in one hit. As it was, she was sent flying back across the room. The only indication of pain that Selene gave was a frustrated scream that sounded more angry than hurt. She popped a feather fall spell on herself in just enough time to hit the other end of the chamber without hurting herself. Yeah, her bravado was completely unwarranted. If she realized this, there was no sign of it on her face. There was still quite a bit of rage, though. With broad, angry gestures, she began to cast her usual summon hell hound spell that seemed to come out more often than not in such desperate battles.

While the huge robe was distracted, Slasjowskew appeared behind him, slashing the creature open. The monk shuddered, and around them the room bubbled and convulsed. Clouds of poisons, acids, and... alcohols, for some reason, flowed from him and formed into creatures that struck at them.

About that time, Ashyr turned toward the battle. The fact that Selene was flying backwards only phased her for a moment until she saw her younger cousin land more or less safe on the other side of the room. Ashyr then cast her own protection from acid spell - one of the few spells she actually had access to. It was nowhere near the strength of Selene's magic, but she hoped it would help against... whatever those things were that were attacking the party.

After she was as warded as she could make herself, Ashyr dove into the fray to hack and slash at anything that moved - barring someone from the party or a hellhound, of course. Her actions were a little clumsier than usual, but she made up for it in sheer ferocity. She was going to free Caleldir if it was the last thing she did, for at that moment, it felt like he was the avatar for all the times she'd failed in the past to save people that she loved.

With the cloud beasts attacking, Slasjowskew began spending much of his time dodging around trying not breathe them in. He did use some magic or another cast from a wand to freeze one and light another on fire, though, so it was not like he was completely useless. Althaia, as usual, was far more effective. She barrelled through an acid cloud, then a poison cloud, then one made of wine. "Good vintage." She commented before severing the bottom of the robes from the top. The monk slumped over for a moment before floating back upright and throwing a series of devastating blows with both its visible and invisible arms.

But he did not hold out for much longer. Though he pummeled Ashyr enough to cause serious injury, though he and his beasts slew the hellhounds, though Althaia was blind and Slas had half his face burnt off, the last of the robes fell apart. When they did, a horrific scream echoed through the vault, shattering glass and nearly deafening the party.

The cage shattered. "Good show." Caleldir said weakly. Althaia, the strongest one in the group, hefted the millstone off of him. Caleldir looked down at his legs, now ground into uselessness. "Eh, I will walk it off." He smiled lopsidedly.

When the last assailant finally dissipated, Ashyr reached into a well-protected, padded portion of her belt and downed one of the last potions that Carlotta had given to the party. It healed her to a semblance of good health. Then she slumped down next to Caleldir with shuddering, panting breath. Her hands came up to scrub at her face as she regathered her wits enough so that she could function again.

Selene approached the rest of the party, needlessly brushing dust off her clothing as she walked. The younger drow still looked quite angry at the world, but the near-consuming rage seemed to have passed. "Do we have time to rest here a little bit?" Selene asked the half-mangled man. Her soft hands brushed against his just so that she could feel tangible proof that he was returned to them. Even then there was a hint of anger in her features, though it was more directed at the building itself than on anyone within. "You both look like you need a minute."

"-m fine." Ashyr assured her younger cousin, though her tone made that supposed 'fine-ness' dubious at best.

A sigh escaped Selene's lips, but she did not try to refute Ashyr. "You going to be able to heal the acid damage, Althaia?" Selene asked. She was more interested in finding out whether they would have to deal with a blind nymph and a disfigured yuan-ti than in their personal welfare. The other two in the party held her true focus. Both were half-broken: one physically and one mentally. Selene herself felt pretty good still.

Eyes blank, Althaia grinned without mirth. "Eventually. I have a whole lot of magic, healing and otherwise, but this particular blindness effect is a curious mixture of enchantments and physical that will be quite complex to get rid of. I am going to have to prepare a rather specific piece of divine magic next time I petition one of my patrons for spells. In the meantime I will have less visual distractions. I can fight and navigate perfectly well without sight, so do not expect me to be at all impaired." She pursed her lips. "I will have trouble with any ranged spells though, or detection spells. I suppose that I will be unable to curiously watch as Selene's aura of Evil becomes progressively more faint until tomorrow." She smiled in the general direction of Selene, this expression more genuine. "Do not worry. You are still smite-able at the moment, but if you are not careful soon you will be tragically non-smite-worthy."

"What." Selene said flatly. "That's ridiculous." She told the paladin, and seemed to believe wholeheartedly that her slip from evil was not happening. It would be no different from telling someone that their 'good' alignment was falling to neutrality; it was a loss of an integral part of their person. There was a disturbed look on Selene's face, however, as she turned away from the sightless nymph. It was almost enough to make her swear to be more evil in the future. But what true evil could she commit when she was currently in the process of battling evil? She couldn't just stop and go home - she didn't even want to. And therein lie the problem. The younger drow angrily crossed her arms under her breasts and fell into mulish silence.

Slasjowskew drank a potion and healed the damage to his face. "Jusst assid. No big deal." He rasped. "I have nothing that can cure the nymph, though." He added.

"Yeah, very nice." Caleldir said to the Yuan-ti, placing a glowing hand on himself after Selene untied him. His legs healed up. "And there goes pretty much every piece of healing magic I have." He commented. Stumbling away from the two drow, he stood up on his feet. Somehow, his body language seemed slightly off, as if he was a bit more distant than usual. "I am certainly glad that that is over. The old brewmaster was rather less sadistic in life." He shuddered. "I did not miss the place half so much as I thought I did. So... I suppose that we are off to raid the vaults?"

Ashyr found herself unable at the time to pay attention to most of what the others in the party were saying. She was too busy concentrating on breathing, on pulling herself together. Finally she stood when she heard Caleldir say they were off the raid the vaults. She looked to her lovers, who both seemed to want to distance themselves from the rest of the party. Her teeth caught at her lower lip, and her hand rose to rub at the back of her own neck. Perhaps distance was best; they needed to concentrate on not dying.

"Yeah, lets get going." Ashyr agreed. "We need to find healing potions, apparently. That was only the first big bad."