055: The impossible word: escape

[Sierra]

<El-Cideon> Stephanie's new surroundings are alien and unwelcoming: the walls of the labyrinth bear the look of nothing constructed by mortal hands, more like piled vegetation or organic tissue grown into its desired shape, and studded periodically with keen eyes of various shape, size and color. It is neither warm nor cold here, and the modest available light generates from no specific source. Stephanie has only a moment to take in her surroundings before the ceiling above forms a crude mouth and issues forth words in a man's voice, rich and smoky. He condescends to speak in Common: "I would bid you welcome to my home, were such a greeting accurate. But as your current state must demonstrate, welcome you are not."
<Steph> Stephanie shrieks for a moment, and awkwardly attempts to cover herself. "Then shut the fucking door, you reprobate!" she shouts.
<El-Cideon> The voice verbally dismisses Stephanie's dismay with a snort. "Your body is of no concern to me, mortal. You need fear no attempt by me upon your virtue, if such you have." His tone leaves no doubts as to his thoughts on this latter point. "Curiously enough, I built the labyrinth to deter unwanted guests. What says it about the perverse natures of man and fiend alike that such a challenge only seems to provoke them?"
<Steph> Stephanie's lip curls. "It's like putting up a big flag saying 'hey, soul-eating monster here, come kill me!'" She snorts. "Anyway, riddle me this, hotshot," she says. "If you really wanna get rid of people, why don't you just have that magic portal, I dunno, dump them in a lake of lava or one of those bottomless pits or something? Nooo, it's gotta take them somewhere you can talk to them!
<Steph> You lonely or something?"
<El-Cideon> "Far from it. I am not alone in observing your progress," he adds to needle at Stephanie's sense of modesty. "But if you vastly *prefer*, I may send the warden to confer you to the lake of acid posthaste," he adds with tangible sarcasm.
<Steph> "Hey, you got me, you know? As you can see, I'm totally defenceless," says Stephanie, starting to pad gingerly down the corridor. "So the real question is what you actually want with me now, huh? I mean, I'm starting to reconsider my choice of profession, so if you've got any proposals I'm all ears."
<El-Cideon> In short order, Stephanie finds that her corridor opens up into a large cavern. A fine mist obscures sight beyond any substantial distance here, but you can see that the walls arc away domelike to your left and right, and that tall jags of stone (or bone?) jut up drunkenly through the plain here and there. "Live with the consequences of your decisions," the voice advises drily. "As we all must. Survive, impress me sufficiently and we may yet hold audience at length. Until then you are one more fly in the web."
<Steph> "Of course. You're a voyeur. Silly me." Surrounded by eyes as she might be, Stephanie nonetheless pretends nobody can see her, and starts ducking from pillar to pillar. For all she knows, there are demons lurking in that mist and she's going to have to do her best to move quietly, lest she stumble upon a foe she can't fight.
<Steph> roll 1d20+18
* Hatbot --> "Steph rolls 1d20+18 and gets 27."12 [1d20=9]
<El-Cideon> Somewhere, out in the mist, Stephanie can hear muffled footfalls--a heavy, plodding tread, as though a castle itself were in motion--but whatever it is follows a course contrary to her own. Following the cavern wall to the left in time brings her to a yawning archway that leads to another wending, green corridor. Just by the doorway lies a human corpse: male, naked as Stephanie herself is, nearly snapped clean in two at the waist by some great force. Nearby the dead hand lies a longsword, fantastically jeweled and detailed.
<Steph> Ouch. Poor bastard, but his loss appears to be her gain. Still, Stephanie surveys the archway suspiciously, suspecting some kind of ambush may be lurking hereabouts.
<Steph> roll 1d20+13 perception?
* Hatbot --> "Steph rolls 1d20+13 perception? and gets 22."12 [1d20=9]
<El-Cideon> Stephanie sees nothing obviously lying in wait for her here but thinks she can hear round the curve of the corridor beyond...a steady, crashing sound, waves perhaps?
<Steph> Stephanie waits for the plodding sound to move a little further away, then moves to scoop up the sword. The heavy blade is not really her style, but it sure beats her bare hands.
<El-Cideon> It looks like a functional sword to Stephanie's trained eyes. More meant to hang on the wall then murder, but certainly sharp enough to serve for the latter purpose in a pinch.
<Steph> After that, Stephanie peeks around the corner.
<El-Cideon> There is light of sorts emanating from down the corridor--almost like natural daylight? But the corridor curves round to the right in a way that obscures detail from your immediate position. As far as you can tell, the corridor is another unpopulated verdant tunnel studded with eyes.
<Steph> She scoots along to the corner and peers around it. Light, dark, it's all the same to her, but she'd better figure out how everything around here works. Slow and steady, that's how to get through these things alive!
<El-Cideon> Pressing on, Stephanie finds that this corridor opens up onto...a beach? The sand is fine, bone-white dust kissed by lapping waves of a night-dark sea. A credible fresco of a blue summer sky has been painted upon the cavern roof, but you can tell it is in fact a cavern still. The cavern wall curves along to your right where at length another archway yawns. To your left is the rotting hulk of a small cargo ship, breached and with cargo spilling onto shore--boxes and bottles mostly. A humanoid arm is discernible poking from behind the lot, but its owner is obscured from your present position. You'd have to approach to find out more.
<Steph> So if that dead guy came from here... wait, maybe he was running towards here? Yeah, that makes more sense. Stephanie stalks towards the cargo to get a better look at it- maybe the boxes have clothes in them! Oh, and there's an arm, she'd better check that out first, and thus walks around to get a better look.
<El-Cideon> The cargo appears to constitute wine in almost its entirety. There is a man here, owning that arm--bronzed in a sailor's manner and wearing ratty, cutoff pants. The remains of a tunic appear to have been shredded to serve as tourniquet and applied to an injured leg, but in inexpert fashion--even from several feet away the smell of rot is palpable and he almost pulses with gangrene. His weathered features crease with a mix of obvious pain and welcome as he lifts a half-full bottle of red. "Ho there, girl," he manages. "Share a man's last drink with him?"
<Steph> "Oh, sorry, friend. I don't drink when I'm working," replies Stephanie, tapping her head. "You gotta keep your brain together in a place like this!" Her face creases with concern. "If they didn't take all my potions I'd give you one," she says, feeling helpless. "What the hell happened?"
<El-Cideon> "Storm," he says, blinking woozily. "Baddest storm I've seen. Not from this world, I'd wager my life on it, not that that's worth much at this point." A shudder runs through him; he wipes a sheen of sweat from his brow and takes a pull from the bottle.
<Steph> "You got that right. I dunno where you were before but you ain't on the Prime now. You poor bastard." She shakes her head. "Any friends of yours out there?"
<El-Cideon> "I'll be in the right place soon enough, gods be good," he says. "Seen most of my pals fall overboard during the storm. Bought it quicker than I did, the lucky bastards."
<Steph> "Ick." Stephanie grimaces. "What was your route?"
<El-Cideon> "Newport to Varland. Usual trip, storm came up on us out of nowhere, never seen the like..." He shakes his head as he trails off.
<Steph> "Well, shit. If I ever get outta here I'll be heading back to Solata someday. You got a missus in Newport or anything, cap'n?"
<El-Cideon> "In more'n one port," he says with a chuckle that reduces him to a hacking cough. He looks you over, then says, somewhat abashed, "Hope you don't mind an old man being an old man in his last moments. Dunno what possesses a girl to go traipsing about in the altogether, but there are worse things to see when the reaper's--*cough*--hanging over you. Even if you're all, well, I dunno what you are rightly, but a lady's a lady, never let it be said that old Mac discriminates. Take a fresh bottle on me, will you? Shame to waste it all..."
<Steph> "I'll drink a toast when I bail from this place," swears Stephanie, retrieving one of the unopened bottles. "Now you take care wherever you're going."
<El-Cideon> Disappointment is obvious on his face as another shudder of sickness and agony shoots through him. "You too, lass," he says with a wave. "You too."
<Steph> It's an important rule to never drink random shit that strange old men give you, and that goes double when you're stuck in the Abyss. But maybe she can beat someone with the bottle later, so Stephanie hangs onto it and proceeds to troop around the cavern's edge to the opposite side.
<El-Cideon> The tunnel here proceeds straight on into the cavern wall. You can vaguely make out a room at the end of the eye-studded corridor and...a shut stone door of some sort within it? That's all you can see from the beach.
<Steph> Stephanie creeps towards the door to get a better look.
<Steph> roll 1d20+18
* Hatbot --> "Steph rolls 1d20+18 and gets 33."12 [1d20=15]
<El-Cideon> The tunnel opens up into a modest rotunda with a vaulted ceiling. A glass panel in the high roof gives view to what looks like a lush tropical garden. Immediately in your vicinity are a high sandstone door shut right across from you and an open corridor branching out of sight midway along the wall to your right. Also, on the lintel above the stone door sits a fidgety little quasit. It does not appear to have noticed you and picks its nose distractedly.
<Steph> Stephanie creeps up on the quasit and pats it on the head with her sword. "Hello!" she says, cheerfully. "I'm a scary person! Rawr! Who're you?"
<El-Cideon> The little demon nearly jumps out of its skin. "Eep!" it cries in fright. "Sneaky fiendling girl! I Graowrnex, door-keeper!" he says, adding perhaps unnecessarily: "You deal with me if you want door open."
<Steph> "Why would I want the door open?"
<El-Cideon> "You want out? Most mortals want out."
<Steph> "I dunno. Out there it's dangerous! In here we're explicitly given a chance to survive, right?"
<El-Cideon> "Huh! In here dangerous if you stupid!" Graowrnex insists. "Graowrnex not lie, door path little dangerous too...but door path so much faster! Faster better, right?"
<Steph> "I'm really smart, you know? I could've gone to wizard school," says Stephanie, seriously. "But they didn't let me in because I had a tail!"
<El-Cideon> Graowrnex nods seriously. "They stupid. It nice tail."
<Steph> "It's the best," agrees Stephanie. "But you know... what I really want right now... is pants. Do you know where I can get some pants? Even a skirt would be fine."
<El-Cideon> "Harem ladies have lots of clothes," Graowrnex says, nodding to the southern archway and adding with a juvenile snicker. "Except when suddenly they don't. Oh but maybe they share if you ask them real nice."
<Steph> "Well... do they have a wardrobe? A dressing room? Surely they won't notice if some just go missing!"
<El-Cideon> The quasit considers this for a long moment. "Dunno. I snuck in once try and steal underthings, guard very upset! Then scarface lady put Graowrnex on rack for couple years. Those bad years," he laments mournfully.
<Steph> "Oh! So you know the way? If you tell me maybe I can bring you back something..."
<El-Cideon> "Ooh, you serious?" The little demon lights up with excitement. "Like 'em still warm if you can get them...you promise? I come back and stab you in the bum when least expecting it if you try and swindle Graowrnex!"
<Steph> What a creepy little shit! "Sure, sure!"
<El-Cideon> He nods enthusiastically. "Okay, okay!" he squeaks. "Lessee, go that way, couple rooms--" he points to the southern archway. "I not sure what in those rooms right now. I sorry, but boss changes things sometimes. Guess he gets bored. Second room splits to left and one of them harem and one of them torture room...err, not sure which is which right now. But you know difference I sure."
<Steph> "Oh! And tell me about the scarface lady."
<El-Cideon> "What else I get for it?" he presses.
<Steph> "Hey! She's like a guard, right? You want me to get caught because you got stingy?"
<El-Cideon> "Well she not guard so much as she likes to play with people guards catch." The memory of this seems to cloud his restraint and he recalls with some rancor: "She one of big boss's friends, got nasty claw slash all down her face, wear black armor and carry big scary sword around, she get all hot hurting people. Graowrnex sure she make great demon someday," he admits grudgingly.
<Steph> "Nah, she'll be a dretch like the rest after the horrible beatdown I'm gonna give her."
<El-Cideon> He looks skeptical. "She beat people up real good herself. I think you got, what human expression, cutting of work for you."
<Steph> "Nah, I'm the best!" Stephanie gives the quasit a cheery salute, and then sets off towards the southern archway.
<El-Cideon> "Hey, I remember deal!" the quasit calls out as you leave. "You don't come back with underthings, I find you and make with apocalyptic bumstab! You remember!" Beyond the southern archway, a familiar eye corridor curves around to your left.
<Steph> It'll be the last thing that ratbag does, Stephanie thinks rather venemously, as she peers around the corner.
<Steph> roll 1d20+18
* Hatbot --> "Steph rolls 1d20+18 and gets 35."12 [1d20=17]
<El-Cideon> The lighting in the next room is unnervingly diminished, but that's not so much of a problem for Stephanie's unnatural eyesight than it would be for a normal woman, so she can see: corridors branch to the west and to the southeast here; the roof of this domed room is crisscrossed with bony rafters, one juncture surmounted by...a giant bird's nest? And to your left in this room sits another lost mortal, a naked human man kneeling and leaning heavily upon a sword thrust into the ground for support. He is fit and, you think, quite young with military-short blond hair. His abdomen is marred by several claw slashes and tangled vines appear to be sprouting viciously from his wounds. Nearby on the floor is the obvious source of his injuries: the decomposing body of a vulturelike demon. It cannot escape your notice that, though the man's weapon is old and battered, your trained eyes can recognize the sharp blue tint of cold iron.
<Steph> "Hey, you took down a vrock naked! You're pretty good," comments Stephanie, peeking around from behind the wall.
<El-Cideon> He looks up sharply, instantly drawing the sword and adopting a (rather unsteady) ready stance. "Training," he breathes with a degree of effort, relaxing somewhat on recognizing a (mostly) human fellow guest. The sword, you can see now, is a proper rapier.
<Steph> "I just don't have the gear, man, don't have the gear to get the job done. Hey, you wanna trade swords? I'm lousy with these big ones."
<El-Cideon> "What have you got?" he asks, looking over Stephanie's glittery blade with a degree of skepticism. He winces as another outbreak of vines ripples out along his torso. "Damned things," he swears under his breath.
<Steph> "I dunno, I found it on a dead guy. It's totally sharp," replies Stephanie, whirling it about for a moment. "Man, that looks bad. I... don't think it kills you?"
<El-Cideon> "Lived through worse," he says. He gives his own sword a critical examination. "Found it on a corpse myself," he admits. "Not exactly in the best repair..." he concedes as well, wavering.
<Steph> "Yeah, well, if it breaks I'll just jab someone with the shards," replies Stephanie. "Anyway, hey, I know a place where we can get some clothes. Well, a quasit told me, but they know where to look. Apparently. Wanna team up? How long you been here? What's your name? I'm Steph!"
<El-Cideon> "Martin," he says. "Was a sergeant. Now, don't know, not sure it counts if the whole company's dead. And clothes would be nice," he admits. "Armor even better." He flips his sword around to take it gingerly by the blade and offer the hilt to Stephanie. As he does so, a tattoo on his bicep becomes visible. The emblem of a hand on fire.
<Steph> Stephanie eyes the emblem for a moment. "You're from some army?" she asks, cheerfully reaching out to take the rapier and passing him her sword. "How the fuck did you end up here?"
<El-Cideon> "Out on contract. Blood War. Got a little lost." He gives his new sword a couple experimental slashes and pronounces It'll Do via curt nod. "Mercenary outfit back on Fire. Sounds like things got all balled up with command though. Not sure exactly. Someone'll have to go back and put the pieces together."
<Steph> "Ouch! Why get involved in that shit, man?" asks Stephanie. "If there's a time to make a clean break this is it, know what I'm saying?" She looks the western corridor and walks towards it.
<El-Cideon> "Money's money," he says with a shrug. "Gotta make a living with whatever talents you have. Me, I stick with what I know." The western corridor appears to terminate in a dense fog bank.
<Steph> "Yeah but can't you do better as like a caravan guard or something? Sure, the pay's not as good but you don't need to stare down demons and shit all day," she replies, walking towards the fog and poking it with her sword.
<El-Cideon> The mist swirls and parts enough to reveal a spar of stone thrusting diagonally out from the floor. The landscape becomes familiar. "There's benefits in knowing who your brothers are, building the right contacts, making a name for yourself in a tight-knit band," Martin says. "Difficult to describe to someone who doesn't know the life. And you don't want to go back that way," he adds authoritatively. "I came out of there, just mist and something big and noisy. Didn't see what. Didn't want to."
<Steph> "Shit." Stephanie frowns, and then turns back. "Ok, let's check out the other way," she says, walking towards the rightmost corridor. "I guess that fucking quasit didn't know his shit after all."
<Steph> "Shit, right. Gotcha." Stephanie turns to go southeast. "I ain't scared of no huge monster, but like this? ugh."
<El-Cideon> "I heard some ancient civilization used to have their warriors train in the nude," Martin says as you walk. "Can't figure the point. You should get used to the weight of armor." Southeast is another verdant eye corridor.
<Steph> "If they're an ancient civilization, they probably had shitall for armor," points out Stephanie, padding down the eye corridor.
<El-Cideon> Martin endeavors to keep to the shadows as you go, but this proves difficult as there are few indeed given the labyrinth's sourceless lighting and his own evident lack of skill in this regard.
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20+3 failstealthy
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20+3 failstealthy and gets 16."12 [1d20=13]
<Steph> roll 1d20+18
* Hatbot --> "Steph rolls 1d20+18 and gets 20."12 [1d20=2]
<El-Cideon> At the end of this corridor is a sumptuous banquet hall. The spicy scent of roast meat fills the air, pigs on spits turn over roaring fires of their own volition, and the heavily laden feast table is layered in dishes of fresh fruit, cheeses and fine desserts. At the head of the table, across from you, sits a common-looking human man, bronze-skinned and with coarse black hair, dressed in a regal gown. He hoists a mug in Martin's direction upon arrival and announces, "Rejoice, for the era of plenty is upon us!" before drinking greedily. Open archways in the banquet hall are visible midway along the walls to your left and right.
<Steph> "Hey! You have clothes! Give us some clothes!"
<El-Cideon> "Think I found my wardrobe at least," Martin announces for your hearing, starting to walk towards the strange man. The life of the party stands up now to warmly greet both of his guests. "Brother, sister! Look around you and please, partake of my bounty! All that I have to offer is yours. Let us all celebrate the banishment of hunger to history's dustbin!"
<El-Cideon> "Sure, you can start with handing over your clothes," Martin announces, significantly gesturing with his sword.
<Steph> "Hey, don't kill him," mutters Stephanie, before she shakes her head and follows. "C'mon, man, you gotta give us some clothes! I ain't hungry, I'm cold!"
<El-Cideon> "Then fill your belly, lass, down a caraffe of wine. Spiced mead will you warm you of a night, try some and see!" Evidently oblivious to any undertones, he jubilantly thrusts a tankard in Stephanie's direction.
<El-Cideon> "I'd really rather not get blood on that," Martin tells the man, "since I'll be wearing it soon one way or another."
<Steph> Stephanie shoves the tankard away and grabs the man by his lapels. "Where is your dressing room?!"
<El-Cideon> He just blinks, obliviously. "Dressing room? Why--why, this is the only room I could need!" He gestures expansively. "Whyever should I leave with such bounteous provender available?"
<Steph> "What about sleeping? Washing? Dressing? Come on, man, have you really just been in here? Eating, all day, every day? You at least need, I dunno, a vomitorium or something! You sure you're not under a spell? A spell that makes you addicted to food?" Stephanie slaps him. "Snap out of it!"
<El-Cideon> OOC: roll will
<Steph> roll 1d20+16 moPM
* Hatbot --> "Steph rolls 1d20+16 moPM and gets 32."12 [1d20=16]
<El-Cideon> On contact with the man, illusion washes away and Stephanie can suddenly see everything plain: the feast constitutes only decomposing organic lumps, the drink only dust and ash. The resident gourmand is plainly malnourished to the point of emaciation, his hair unkempt and flecks of spittle dotting the corners of his mouth. Yet his commitment to his message remains apparently sincere. "Hunger drives men to war and atrocity. Why not revel in our good fortune, my girl?"
<Steph> Stephanie backs off, looking horrified. "Pelor's breath," she swears. "I knew it." She glances at Martin for a moment. "Touch nothing here. We're going," she hisses. "You don't want his clothes, either. Trust me. Nothing here is real."
<El-Cideon> Martin gives you a curt nod, and as soon as you're clear of the man--"Then this'll be a mercy," he says, wheeling around to swing his sword into the back of the madman's neck. There's a crunch as his spine is severed, and then he tumbles lifeless to the floor. "Relatively bloodless this way," Martin observes. "You sure the robe is an illusion too?"
<Steph> Stephanie feels only slightly aghast, and she certainly doesn't show it. "No, but it's probably all diseased and shit. You still gonna try it on?" she asks.
<El-Cideon> "I guess not," he decides after some consideration. "You have some plan now?" he asks, glancing at either door.
<Steph> "So what the fuck was that about?" she mutters, before shaking her head. "Left," she says, pointing at it. "There's some kind of harem, and some guards. So there's gotta be clothes. Armor, too."
<El-Cideon> "Clearly a man of distinction, our host," Martin says with a wry expression. "Lead on."
<Steph> "Yeah. Fifty-fifty on if they're succubi or if they're just chained up humans and elves," replies Stephanie. "You stay behind me. Like, way behind me. I'll flag you ahead when it's clear," she orders, before darting ahead.
<Steph> roll 1d20+18
* Hatbot --> "Steph rolls 1d20+18 and gets 22."12 [1d20=4]
<El-Cideon> What Stephanie immediately finds is that the left corridor splits into two paths: one proceeds straight ahead to a heavy wooden door, the other wheels out of sight along a curve to the northeast.
<Steph> Stephanie scoots up to the door and presses an ear against it.
<Steph> roll 1d20+13
* Hatbot --> "Steph rolls 1d20+13 and gets 25."12 [1d20=12]
<El-Cideon> Stephanie can faintly hear music through the door--a harpist at work?--and occasionally a giggle or half-heard word.
<Steph> Stephanie considers her options for a moment, and then runs back to get Martin. "C'mon, there's a door so we're gonna have to go in the hard way," she says.
<El-Cideon> He nods and follows Stephanie silently with his weapon ready.
<Steph> "You think you can break it down, or are we gonna have to knock?" asks Stephanie.
<El-Cideon> He weighs this for consideration a moment. "Think we could break it down, but they'll know we're coming either way," he decides.
<Steph> "Ah well. Let's knock and see if they're friendly. It's a harem, they probably can't wait to seduce us into being their puppets," reflects Stephanie, knocking on the door.
<El-Cideon> "Who requests access to the master's concubinage?" a sonorous male voice intones from the other side.
<Steph> "Uh, we're looking for jobs!"
<El-Cideon> A moment of silence, and then a hearty laugh. "I do not doubt it," the unseen speaker says jovially. "And what, may I ask, are your qualifications? The master has the best of all the planes to select from, you understand."
<Steph> "I have absolutely no reservations, speak fifteen languages- including Abyssal, Goblin, and Auran, and can do the splits for hours at a time," swears Stephanie.
<El-Cideon> OOC: roll diplo? Since I don't think any of that was a lie. Recall planar penalty.
<Steph> roll 1d20+10
* Hatbot --> "Steph rolls 1d20+10 and gets 22."12 [1d20=12]
<El-Cideon> "My imagination is simply reeling," the voice says with an air of seriousness. There's a quiet click from the lock and then: "Enter, and introduce yourselves."
<El-Cideon> "We go in fighting?" Martin assumes quietly, readying his sword.
<Steph> Stephanie shakes her head a moment. "I'll give you a signal. Let's see how much we can get without fighting, they'll have guards and shit," she replies, before opening the door.
<El-Cideon> Within is a pavilion of tents and silk curtains. The inevitable harem, though you can still hear the harp music and occasional bit of conversation, is not immediately within sight. Flickering torchlight dramatically lights the room through a sweet-smelling haze of perfumes. Another heavy door is set in the northern wall, and standing boldly in the center of the room is the resident guard: notably taller than human average, with an earthen skin tone reminiscent of the dao, dressed in colorful flowing pants and bare from the waist up, hairless, well-muscled and with a glittering scimitar at his side. "Ah, my dear," he immediately says with a touch of regret, "I'm afraid the master rarely requests the presence of a blade in the bedchamber."
<Steph> Stephanie holds the blade behind her head. "A girl's gotta look out for herself," she posits. "I mean, I've got a sword, you've got a sword, we can negotiate equitable terms. You have a sword, I don't have a sword? Then... you know how it goes, right?"
<El-Cideon> He nods. "Your perspective is a reasonable one," he concedes. "That said, one begins to suspect that you are in fact not here offering your body for the master's use. Would one be correct?"
<Steph> "No, but I'm offering my sword," she muses. "Harem needs guards or you wouldn't be here, right?"
<El-Cideon> "Oh yes," he admits. "Sometimes a guest takes it in his mind to have his way with my charges. Or sometimes one of the girls thinks perhaps she may flee her agreed upon service. Neither transgression is permissible. Preventing such is the essence of the occupation."
<El-Cideon> Opposite you, behind the guard, a face peeks out from one of the tents to have a look at the stranger present--an elven woman, pale, with silky blond hair nearly touching the floor.
<Steph> "Mmmhmm." Stephanie shrugs. "So I need, you know... food. A bed. Clothes, that sorta thing. I'm down with joining the stronger side, since the alternative is... what, running around and getting mauled to death by creeps in the corridors?"
<El-Cideon> OOC: roll bluff since I presume you are not genuinely attempting to find employment as a harem guard >.>
<Steph> roll 1d20+14
* Hatbot --> "Steph rolls 1d20+14 and gets 25."12 [1d20=11]
<Steph> OOC: -2
<Steph> OOC: Also, no. Are you kidding? Steph hates everyone present but the elf
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20+12 rhetorical statement was rhetorical!
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20+12 rhetorical statement was rhetorical! and gets 15."12 [1d20=3]
<El-Cideon> "Collaboration is concomitant to survival," the guard acknowledges. "Ultimately, you will need to speak to the master himself to secure employment, and he is most unlikely to visit until the present round of guests have exhausted themselves. But we shall not have you wait in a state of such indignity." He snaps his fingers. "Delphina! Clothing for our prospective cohort. As respectable as you can manage." Shortly, a pretty, fragile-looking human brunette emerges from a tent with an austere black evening gown. It's not exactly ideal fighting wear, but it's not obviously showy either. You could wear it to a dinner party and loiter at the edge of good taste.
<Steph> "Thanks," says Stephanie, shrugging the gown on. "So who is the master, anyway?"
<El-Cideon> A chortle from the guard as the slavegirl scurries back to her tent. "Ah, you came all this way without knowing whose employment you sought. Truly a professional of the most aggressively self-seeking caliber. The master is Maeandar, once of the Silver Flame I am led to understand, now a conflagration of rather darker temperament."
<Steph> "Oh, him! I knew him. I just thought this place was a free-for-all, you know how some dungeons are? Where there's all these little fiefdoms duking it out over the hallways? I was just gonna join the first one I found," she says. "A job's a job, clothes are clothes. When you're unemployed and destitute you can't be picky," she adds, seriously.
<El-Cideon> "I understand completely," he says with a sympathetic nod. "You should find your duties simple enough. Keep strangers out, keep the girls in. The master's consort Opal and the sorceress Xenobia are also permitted entry should they desire such diversion, as would be Xenobia's more martial companion Grinda had she such interests, though I am led to believe she prefers exclusively the company of men." This is a position he understands, one could conclude from his tone of voice.
<Steph> "Sure. Oh, but you said there was a round of guests already here? How do I know which are allowed? Like, only if they're with one of the above?"
<El-Cideon> "You will know Opalneswynthax by the stingers sprouting from her back," he says. "She is a lilitu, difficult to mistake for any other. Though she is away on some business at the moment. I cannot say details, I do not follow their little games." He shrugs disinterestedly. "Xenobia presently adopts an adolescent facade. I do not know how or why, nor care to know. Grinda you will know instantly from the scars on her face. Any others you must presume are here only for mischief!"
<Steph> "And who're you?"
<Steph> She blinks. "Oh, shit, sorry! I'm Steph."
<El-Cideon> "I am Sumir!" he says with a bow, then extending a hand. "Ah, it is the custom of some human cultures to shake hands, yes?"
<Steph> "Certainly!" she replies, but then she glances at the bottle of wine in one hand and the sword in her other. "Well, this is kind of awkward, though," she says, laughing. "Have you got any goblets?"
<El-Cideon> He looks at the bottle, then laughs easily. "Aha, of course, but dear Steph, I must inquire as to precisely where you acquired the bottle!"
<Steph> "Ah, it was from this weird shipwreck? A dying sailor gave it to me," she explains. "Said something about a storm dragging him here?"
<El-Cideon> "Oh my, oh my," Sumir exclaims. "How very fortuitous that you did not think to quench your thirst. You must not drink this. I will have it returned to the wreck later for less discerning intruders."
<Steph> Stephanie looks alarmed. "No way! It's poison?"
<El-Cideon> He nods solemnly and accepts the bottle. "I am afraid you would have most likely been rendered insensate and soon assaulted by a most unsavory aquatic menace had you entertained that poor man's final toast." Sumir tsks.
<Steph> "So what was he, exactly?" asks Stephanie. "A ghost? Or a demon?"
<El-Cideon> "Oh, just a man of very poor judgement. Perhaps someday the master will permit him to actually die." Sumir shrugs.
<Steph> "What did he do?" asks Stephanie. "C'mon, I'm curious now!"
<El-Cideon> "Oh, I do not know every detail. Bartered away his crew in some fashion, I gather. You may besiege him with your questions later if you wish, he is hardly going anywhere."
<Steph> Stephanie nods. "And you're... dao? Half-dao?"
<El-Cideon> "I am led to understand three-quarters, if I accept my mother's word on my heritage, though I rarely did so in any regard," he says. "You have a discerning eye. You are well-traveled, I assume! Well, you must be, to come here." He laughs.
<Steph> "Yeah, I've been around a bit," she agrees. "How'd you end up here?"
<El-Cideon> "Oh, one job led to another. Certain predilections lend me to being more reliably detached in this position than most men." Another laugh. "It is work that occasionally demands a strong arm, which I have! And is peaceful most other times."
<Steph> "You weren't, like, an intruder? Like me," Stephanie clarifies.
<El-Cideon> He shakes his head. "You may imagine a system of referrals passing me from one man of distinction such as the master to another," he says.
<Steph> "How long have you been here?"
<El-Cideon> "That would be, let me see--five years now?" he guesses. "Time is a difficult quantity in the Abyss, you understand."
<Steph> "I actually don't," admits Stephanie. "I haven't been here long. But..." She scratches her chin. "What's the goal?" she asks, curiously. "Wait, you're gonna live for like hundreds of years, aren'tcha? So you can spend a decade, two here easy?"
<El-Cideon> "I may save up, perhaps establish a caravan one day." He shrugs. "Time is on my side, yes?"
<Steph> "Well... that depends, you know? I actually own a caravan myself," muses Stephanie. "I mean, I own a big share in it. Kind of useless now, but it deals on Earth, you know? Literally the first cross-planar trade route from Solata to Earth, I reckon! And it's weird that it's not done more often because there's so many portals."
<El-Cideon> "A great bounty to be had on Earth, a surprise indeed that more humans do not exploit it," he agrees. "Ah, but the weight, it is so much harder on you full mortals, yes?"
<Steph> "Well, yeah. That's why I hired other people," replies Stephanie, grinning. "But it's a bit rough on humans," she admits. "I'm looking for some tougher sorts. And, you know... expanding my trade. Not a lot of pretty girls willingly go to Earth."
<El-Cideon> He laughs. "Is it pretty girls that you trade in, then?"
<Steph> "Not yet. But the demand? It's there." She eyes Sumir speculatively. "The hard part is finding beautiful, pliable girls that nobody will miss. It's easy to gather up homeless girls off the streets, but..."
<El-Cideon> "Oh yes," he nods. "It is not precisely my role in the business of course, but many of my masters have complained of just that difficulty."
<Steph> "Of course. Which means that's where the money is," muses Stephanie. "I saw you had an elf?"
<El-Cideon> "Ah-ah!" he tsks, before lowering his voice conspiratorially. "We may have an elf. Not all are precisely as they appear to be. I entertain myself sometimes guessing which ones are merely demons playing games."
<Steph> "Succubi?" whispers Stephanie.
<El-Cideon> "Of a certainty!" he whispers back. "How many? Some, all? I do not know," he shrugs. "But you may understand that I am not necessarily the *last* line of defense in this establishment."
<Steph> "The harem defends itself," says Stephanie, nodding. "I getcha... you know any of 'em for sure?"
<El-Cideon> "Mm." He considers this and ultimately points to the veil of silks screening the six o'clock arc of the room. "Of Lorice I am almost certain. She relishes bossing and disciplining the other girls in a very tanar'ri fashion, I do think."
<Steph> Stephanie licks her lips. "Can I speak with her?" she asks, curiously.
<El-Cideon> He eyes you speculatively. "You are not hoping to dally romantically with the master's concubines, I should hope! Even should she prove to be a harmless mortal, the master would be most wroth if it was known you were taking advantage. A privilege to be earned in time perhaps!"
<Steph> Stephanie rolls her eyes. "Please. I prefer men."
<El-Cideon> This sentiment proves agreeable enough. "Very well, let us flatter her pride then." He snaps his fingers and addresses the southern tent. "Lorice! Do grace us with your presence, we have a prospective employee who wishes to meet the first lady of the harem." Lorice makes you wait for an appearance, but finally a woman of elegantly chiseled countenance wearing a nigh-transparent nightgown emerges from the southernmost tent. A tumble of raven curls frames her coldly beautiful face. "You desired my company?" she deigns to greet you.
<Steph> Stephanie bobs her head. "So... I just want to ask, are you familiar with Reinafiel?"
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20+12
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20+12 and gets 25."12 [1d20=13]
<El-Cideon> "I've heard the name in idle chatter...some priestess, I believe?" she says dismissively in a manner that sounds applicable to the profession itself.
<Steph> "Yes, that's right. She made her demense at Tenterground," explains Stephanie. "Things have been changing there recently, however." She steeples her fingers. "How would you two like to aim for a high station? Because I have it on authority that the opportunities for advancement there are... substantial." She holds up a hand. "Just hear me out. First, I'm sure you're aware of the portal to
<Steph> Azure?"
<El-Cideon> Sumir looks extremely confused at the sudden turn in the conversation, but Lorice is listening quietly with a very alert and penetrating expression.
<Steph> "The portal grows larger daily. If unchecked, the whole city is going to fall into the Abyss in... I suppose a matter of years?" muses Stephanie. "The whole city is entirely lawless. Feuding factions settle scores not with reason and judgement, but magic, steel and blood. Incredible wealth flows through it, and demonkin mercenaries- such as yours truly- operate completely openly," she
<Steph> continues, beaming. "It's going to fall into the Abyss and it's going to be right next to Tenterground. The demon who rules Tenterground will hold the keys to the wealth and power inherent to Azure. Now-" She snorts. "Tenterground itself underwent a coup, recently. You might know of the Tyrant Hekubah? Marilith, about yea tall, rules with an iron fist, so on?"
<El-Cideon> Sumir frowns. "I don't think--" he starts before Lorice cuts him off with a sharp, "I've noticed." To Stephanie: "Go on, girl," she encourages with restrained interest.
<Steph> "Dead and gone. We were recruited to help out, join the muscle," replies Stephanie, with a wide smile that shows teeth. "I wish I could show you the plunder we got, but, well..." She snorts. "Anyway, as you can guess, there were more than a few casualties. Reinafiel is looking for, ah, reasonably loyal help to fill her newfound gaps. She wants to shore up her numbers before some other
<Steph> heavyweight decides to make a play. Someone who shows up with plenty of help, tradable goods-" She nods to the tents- "Gold and magic is going to go pretty far, maybe secure a leadership position. What choice would she have, really?"
<El-Cideon> OOC: roll bluff? ignore penalty for sake of Effort
<Steph> roll 1d20+14
* Hatbot --> "Steph rolls 1d20+14 and gets 33."12 [1d20=19]
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20+2 academic
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20+2 academic and gets 13."12 [1d20=11]
<El-Cideon> Sumir's brow furrows at this sudden overture and he points a suspicious finger at you with an outburst of "Here now, I can't have you poaching the master's employees--" But again Lorice cuts him off: "You need to stop talking before I suggest to someone that you've been lying all these years about certain personal habits." To Stephanie: "I think that you and I need to discuss in private, without eavesdroppers to disapprove. Follow me?" She trails back to her tent and holds the curtain open for you.
<Steph> "Certainly," replies Stephanie, walking inside.
<El-Cideon> Inside is a landscape of pillows and blankets. Lorice follows you in and wastes no time confirming her true nature: "Boldness warrants some reward," she says as batlike wings spread from her back and petite horns thrust up from her brow. Her eyes have a adopted a deep crimson shade. "I am impressed. Most fools who blunder into Maeandar's house and make it to our little prison simply try and fight their way through. That's what he wants, so it rarely ends well." She gives you a long, appraising glance. "Who are you and what means have you to facilitate escape?"
<Steph> "I'm Stephanie Sundown. I'm an independent merc- mercenary and merchant, thank you. Me and a few buddies came to the Abyss for loot, plunder, and trading opportunities, but that's gone to shit," she says, putting it bluntly. "Anyway, I dunno where they are. They're powerful mages so if they show up that's of the good, they might have better ideas. In the meantime? I can punch a hole through
<Steph> anything," she says, seriously. "There's no material in all the planes, not dragonscale or adamantine or the chitinous plates on Lloth's spidery ass that can stand up to my fist or blade. So you see, I just gotta find the right place to hit to make a way out." She gestures to Lorice. "But I don't know shit about the lay of this place."
<El-Cideon> "The walls are a problem," she concedes. "For me. He's done something to them--teleportation doesn't work beyond line of sight. It's why I'm stuck here lording it over these simpering waifs when I could have so much MORE elsewhere." She inclines her chin. "I am intrigued by the possibilities you have mentioned, but no one goes anywhere outside without Maeandar's permission. Or, I suspect, until he's dead and someone's wrested whatever control mechanism or exit portal he has from him. Doing so is beyond my power...but I can lead you to him. You will need your friendly cannon fodder, however," she cautions.
<Steph> "I can take on the minions with just this," muses Stephanie, glancing at her sword. "But to have a prayer against someone who can-" She gestures. "Make this place, we'd need our gear- or reasonable substitutes- and whatever other help we can get. Any ideas?"
<El-Cideon> She frowns, most prettily. "There is a vault on the second floor, but it's a trap. He's stashed weapons about the labyrinth, and most of them *are* genuine, but the acquisition itself is often the trap. Some will merely require you to participate in unsavory activities," she allows, "which I don't imagine should be any problem if you've come this far. Your own worldly possessions I should expect to find stashed in Maeandar's own quarters. Getting there would be less of a problem without a retriever minding the door." Her expression is decidedly sour at this disclosure.
<Steph> "Retriever... big, bug-like thing, shoots magic beams from its eyes?" Stephanie closes her eyes. "Fuck me sideways..." She blinks. "Hang on, it's a retriever, right? So... maybe it's not just a guard, maybe there's something it would go, you know, retrieve, under certain conditions?"
<El-Cideon> "Corpses," Lorice says casually. "We could make a few."
<Steph> "The girls? You can't!" protests Stephanie. "You'll damage the merchandise!" She blinks. "But there's already some out there that I've seen. Does it have a schedule?"
<El-Cideon> She shakes her head. "Not that I know of. We'll just have to make an awful mess and run for the door whenever it turns up, I'm afraid."
<Steph> "We can just go get some that are already out there and pile them up," suggests Stephanie. "Hey, what about whatstheirfaces, his consort and the sorceress? Do they show up here often enough that we could do 'em?"
<El-Cideon> "Not while there are guests," she says. "They like to watch. Opal's out on some scheme anyway. We don't need to worry about her."
<Steph> "Right. Any other denizens worth keeping in mind?"
<El-Cideon> "A few, mostly positioned to ensnare the wary and desperate. None of them should be in our way." She smiles. "I think I like you, Stephanie Sundown. It's been a while since I had a good prospect of escaping. If you like...we're not in such a rush I think that we can't take time to seal our partnership properly." She flaps her wings and a thick female musk fills the tent.
<Steph> "Um, I don't do girls," replies Stephanie, raising her hands.
<El-Cideon> "I can suit many needs," she promises. "But very well." She looks to the tent flap. "You'll have to start by killing Sumir. He won't let us leave. I'd be pleased to dispose of him myself, but not in this body, and he'd be suspicious if a man appeared from my tent."
<Steph> "No chance of persuading him?"
<El-Cideon> "You can try." She sounds skeptical. "But if you're as good with that sword as you say, faster just to kill him while he still trusts you."
<Steph> "He's not very fast on the uptake. I kept dropping hints but only when I spelled it all out..." Stephanie snorts, and steps out. "Won't be a minute~"
<El-Cideon> Sumir still looks mildly suspicious about recent suggestions, but he does greet you with a somewhat friendly, "Pleased to not have heard the telltale emanations of passion."
<Steph> "Hey, maybe I'm just very, very quiet?" replies Stephanie, grinning at him.
<El-Cideon> He raises an eyebrow. "My observation has been that with Lorice, very few are quiet."
<Steph> "Trust me," promises Stephanie. "If I do it, you wouldn't hear a thing." She grows alert. "Hold that thought. I hear footsteps," she says, glancing at the door.
<El-Cideon> "Hm?" His gaze shifts to the door suddenly, hand at the hilt of his weapon.
<Steph> Stephanie jams her sword into his throat, with the glee she always reserves for slaughtering slavers and those who enable them.
<El-Cideon> OOC: take a free attack and we'll go to init
<Steph> OOC: Is the rapier masterwork?
<El-Cideon> OOC: nope
<Steph> 1d20+15 mountain hammer, fuck yeah
* Hatbot --> "Steph rolls 1d20+15 mountain hammer, fuck yeah and gets 25."12 [1d20=10]
<El-Cideon> OOC: hits
<Steph> roll 1d6+2d6+6d6+7
* Hatbot --> "Steph rolls 1d6+2d6+6d6+7 and gets 34."12 [1d6=1][2d6=1, 6][6d6=1, 5, 3, 5, 3, 2]
<Steph> OOC: ignores hardness
<Steph> OOC: DR, sory
<Steph> roll 1d20+6 init
* Hatbot --> "Steph rolls 1d20+6 init and gets 7."12 [1d20=1]
<El-Cideon> Honed instincts are all that keep him from instantly having his throat rent open. "Treachery!" he chokes out. "The lot of all women!"
<Steph> "Get in here!" yells Stephanie.
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20 and gets 3."12 [1d20=3]
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20+1 Lorice
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20+1 Lorice and gets 5."12 [1d20=4]
* El-Cideon changes topic to 'Current planar traits: -2 to CHA-based checks for Lawful and Good characters |  Steph > Lorice > Sumir'
<El-Cideon> Martin is not immediately in evidence--vanished during Steph's negotiations perhaps?
<El-Cideon> OOC: Steph
<Steph> She certainly can't ignore that possibility. Still, for now, she has a man to kill for a succubus. The Abyss sure takes her to strange places... oh, and she has to fight in this appalling dress! Stephanie lashes out twice, having her rapier plunge deftly towards that bare chest!
<Steph> roll 1d20+15
* Hatbot --> "Steph rolls 1d20+15 and gets 24."12 [1d20=9]
<Steph> roll 1d20+10
* Hatbot --> "Steph rolls 1d20+10 and gets 17."12 [1d20=7]
<El-Cideon> OOC: former hits
<Steph> rol 1d6+6d6+7
<Steph> roll 1d6+6d6+7
* Hatbot --> "Steph rolls 1d6+6d6+7 and gets 25."12 [1d6=3][6d6=2, 1, 3, 2, 1, 6]
<Steph> A moment later, Stephanie bounds backward over ten feet!
<El-Cideon> As he cries out in rage and betrayal, Lorice slips out from the tent to stand by your stand, not about to openly attack the big man while he's alone. Sumir charges and slashes once at you with a roar!
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20+23
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20+23 and gets 38."12 [1d20=15]
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20+23 keen weapon so crit?
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20+23 keen weapon so crit? and gets 31."12 [1d20=8]
<El-Cideon> roll 2d6+14
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 2d6+14 and gets 24."12 [2d6=6, 4]
<El-Cideon> "With such a treacherous nature, you would never make it in my profession!" he laments after laying a horrid slash across Stephanie's chest.
<El-Cideon> OOC: you're up
<Steph> "Such a boring man," snarls Stephanie, before vanishing from sight. A moment later, she lays into her opponent with strikes from her rapier and swift kicks to the groin!
<Steph> roll 1d20+13
<Steph> roll 1d20+13
<Steph> roll 1d20+8
<Steph> roll 1d20+8
* Hatbot --> "Steph rolls 1d20+13 and gets 16."12 [1d20=3]
* Hatbot --> "Steph rolls 1d20+13 and gets 17."12 [1d20=4]
* Hatbot --> "Steph rolls 1d20+8 and gets 19."12 [1d20=11]
* Hatbot --> "Steph rolls 1d20+8 and gets 22."12 [1d20=14]
<Steph> OOC: whoops, +2 to all of them
<Steph> OOC: and no dex
<El-Cideon> OOC: all hit
<Steph> roll 1d6+6d6+7
<Steph> roll 1d6+6d6+7
* Hatbot --> "Steph rolls 1d6+6d6+7 and gets 29."12 [1d6=3][6d6=2, 5, 1, 3, 5, 3]
* Hatbot --> "Steph rolls 1d6+6d6+7 and gets 28."12 [1d6=5][6d6=1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 3]
<Steph> roll 1d3+6d6+5 NL
<Steph> roll 1d3+6d6+5 NL
* Hatbot --> "Steph rolls 1d3+6d6+5 NL and gets 25."12 [1d3=1][6d6=1, 6, 4, 4, 1, 3]
* Hatbot --> "Steph rolls 1d3+6d6+5 NL and gets 24."12 [1d3=1][6d6=1, 1, 4, 3, 6, 3]
<El-Cideon> Sumir collapses to the ground in the most undignified pose a man might adopt. He is very clearly not breathing. Lorice carefully appraises your wound. "I have some potions in my tent," she offers, explaining, "Opal plays rough."
<Steph> "Yeah, I'll take them," replies Stephanie. "Have you got any daggers or short swords?"
<El-Cideon> She shakes her head. "Not the sort of thing they like us to have," she says. "You can always try his," she says, pointing to the dropped scimitar. She disappears into her tent and reemerges a moment later with four blue vials clutched in her hands. "Cure Lesser and Moderate," she says, hefting two of each.
<Steph> "What about socks and rocks? I can do a lot with a rock in a sock," replies Stephanie with a grin, before she gratefully takes the two potions of cure light wounds and chugs them both down.
<El-Cideon> "Stockings," Lorice says. "Rocks, now...maybe if candles and incense are hard enough for your purposes."
<Steph> roll 2d8+2 I assume they are, in fact, healing potions
* Hatbot --> "Steph rolls 2d8+2 I assume they are, in fact, healing potions and gets 9."12 [2d8=3, 4]
<El-Cideon> OOC: they are!
<Steph> "Nah, no way," admits Stephanie, picking up the bottle of wine anew. "This'll do in a pinch," she says. "I can't use the heavy shit good. How are you with scimitars?"
<El-Cideon> She shakes her head. "Never had the knack." She picks it up anyway. "But if we run into any unfriendly guests, well, they don't know that, do they?"
<Steph> "Yeah. You've got tougher skin than me," points out Stephanie. "Unless they come at you with a holy sword or something, right? So you hold them off and I'll stab 'em in the rear." She pauses. "Oh, and gimme a couple of bras."
<El-Cideon> "Whatever you like from my wardrobe is yours, and rest assured you'll find plenty of those. Nothing approaching armor, I'm afraid, but you can be confident of properly highlighting your best assets while you murder people. So," she smiles happily, "shall we go and make some carnage?"
<Steph> One bra securing herself and another tied around her arm, Stephanie feels... utterly ridiculous, with her bottle of poisoned wine in one hand and poorly-made sword in the other. But it's got blood all over it, that lends her credibility. "Let's go fuck someone up," she agrees.

<El-Cideon> ~

<El-Cideon> Julia's situation after crossing through the shadowy portal is less than enviable: naked, stranded at the terminus of an anonymous dead-end tunnel, a corridor studded with eyes and fabricated from what looks like organically grown Abyssal vegetation...but at least she has Thing. It's a comfort having a demon at your side, maybe? Before Julia can properly get her bearings, the ceiling just down the corridor forms a crude mouth and speaks to her in dry, almost bored tones: "So what have we here, another abyssal thrall?"
<Julia> Crossing her arms over her breasts and preparing to tell Thing not to stare, Julia is distracted by that with this new voice. "I'm no thrall," she says, sounding mildly offended. "And what did you do with my friends?" Is she getting preferential treatment because it thinks she's a thrall? Or is it worse for her.
<El-Cideon> "Nothing whatsoever," the voice says. It is masculine, with a cultured and condescending air. "And I need not. Our downfall is always of our own design. Did I force you to intrude upon my home uninvited? Of course I did not. Your fate is of your own making."
<Julia> "Well I won't argue with that," Julia admits, since it's quite a reasonable statement. "But your portal dropped me nude in this fleshy maze of yours. What I'm getting at is finding out if it did the same thing to everyone else or if I'm getting special treatment of some kind."
<El-Cideon> A dry chuckle. "Ah, you think you are *special*. Mortals are all the same to me, until one of you proves otherwise. Persevere through your convictions, if such you have, and I may perhaps acknowledge your conceit someday."
<Julia> "Well, you're special too if that's any comfort?" Julia offers magnaminously. Really she's the one getting called a thrall because of Thing, and no one else has him so it was a fair question in her mind. "In any case I'm going to have a wander round your maze to see if I can find my friends and my things - no Thing, I know you're right here, I meant belongings," she interrupts herself briefly
<Julia> when she sees Thing waving his arm around at that last bit. "Unless you have any objections?" she invites the disembodied mouth to express them.
<El-Cideon> It does not. The wall reforms and the hall is silent.
<Julia> "Alright then, lets go. And don't stare Thing, it's rude," she tells her familiar, dropping her arms away from her chest so she'll have use of them in the event of a crisis of some sort. And thus they walk onwards...
<El-Cideon> Julia's corridor leads to her a broad, domed room. It is not furnished save for the presence of a naked corpse lying on the floor in the center of the room. Human, female, black hair cropped short and with the encroachment of middle age starting to stake territorial claims. Her terminal expression could best be described as rapturous shock. There is an exit corridor branching off this room opposite your entrance.
<Julia> A pity she doesn't have any of her black onyx, another minion even a feeble one would be a comfort here. Still, she can take advantage of any wisdom earned by the dead, and so she approaches the corpse and casts Speak with Dead.
<Julia> OOC: DC 16 will if not neutral
<El-Cideon> The wisdom of the dead opens up at Julia's command.
<Julia> Well, the logical first question is, "What killed you?"
<El-Cideon> The answer is simple: "Passion."
<Julia> Utterly unhelpful. "What spurred this passion?" she asks, trying for something more specific.
<El-Cideon> "Long-lost love. Regret. Unexpected reunion here, welcome respite from despair."
<Julia> Alright, beware unexpected reunions. That makes sense, she knows who to expect down here and can distrust anyone else. Probably a succubus masquerading as such... she wonders how Xorna's doing on that note. "What other dangers did you encounter before your death?"
<El-Cideon> "Plants. Bad plants. Gas. Pride."
<Julia> That's more like it. "Did you find anything helpful in this place before passion?"
<El-Cideon> "Library. But suspicious library. Bath. But also suspicious."
<Julia> "What was suspicious about the library and bath?"
<El-Cideon> "Too convenient. Too welcoming. Abyss neither convenient nor welcoming."
<Julia> Makes sense. Alright that's about all she thinks she can get from the corpse. "Come along Thing," she tells her familiar, passing on through the corridor opposite the way she came in.
<El-Cideon> The next eye-studded corridor leads to a somber room draped in black cloth. A dessicated cadaver sits on a stone throne in the center of the room, facing you. Beyond it, to the northeast and southeast, additional tunnels wind out of sight, but of probably more immediate interest is the deceased itself--as you enter, the head creaks into motion, tilting up to look at you, a wash of dust and dry skin flaking off. "Child of Orcus," straggles out from the dead throat in a hoarse whisper. "We apprehend your ambition. Your goal is implicit. Shall we speak of immortality?"
<Julia> "I'm no child of Orcus," Julia says right off. "But immortality is certainly nice. What do you know?"
<El-Cideon> "We know the cost, immediate and ultimate," the corpse wheezes. "Has either entered your consideration?"
<Julia> "Well, I suppose I won't be able to smell or taste things as well. And I might get bored after enough time," Julia answers. "Why?"
<El-Cideon> A grave rattle shakes the dead throat. "She has not considered. Let us consider the ultimate cost to your humanity, for the immediate price is itself a small thing when weighed against an eternity." The everywhere-and-nowhere light of the labyrinth dims and beneath your feet forms a skyward panoply of Amaranth. Through mere moments you glimpse the first primitive shacks go up to form a village, then stone walls, then a great a city, then decay and surrender to the ravages of time. "When time loses meaning, so too do so many mortal attachments. Friendship, love--can relations with a mortal mayfly retain any significance to one with a lifespan of limitless eons? They cannot. Even your homeland will be dust before you in time. One cannot be immortal and remain human. Are you prepared for such an existence?"
<Julia> "Maybe not human, but elves, dragons, angels, and demons, they all seem to do just fine with it," Julia retorts. "It's all about retaining a healthy mindset and involving yourself with others. Certainly if I were to hide away in a tower working on ineffable experiments or whatever I might go a bit loopy, but if I just use the extra time to keep doing what I'm doing I've no doubt I'll retain
<Julia> my grasp on reality."
<El-Cideon> "Your conviction is naive," the deadspeaker whispers. "Quaintly charming, perhaps, but naive. Will those you condescend to call your equals not envy and resent you your stolen years? Perhaps one day you will know better. But if your will is set, then we may discuss the immediate cost...another time." The corpse withers to dust before your eyes, and the light resumes its usual pervasiveness again.
<Julia> "I don't even know why I indulged it," Julia admits to Thing after the corpse vanished, "But no harm done. Lets go... that way," she decides, heading off to the Southeast tunnel.
<El-Cideon> Through the next verdant corridor you find...a quiet, subdued, but unquestionably vast library. The shelves in this storehouse of knowledge rise nearly out of sight and it is easy to fancy that one could unearth any piece of knowledge she might desire within these confines. Isolated candlelight fosters an atmosphere of quiet study and contemplation. Far across the room, tunnels arc off to the southeast and northeast. Not far off from your entrance, a quasit wearing a mortarboard sits atop a lectern, humming quietly to itself.
<Julia> "Yes, this is suspicious," Julia agrees with the earlier corpse. At least the other quasit isn't well dressed enough to provoke Thing into stealing its hat. "Hello," she greets the quasit, approaching the lectern. "I don't suppose you've seen anyone else pass by this way?"
<El-Cideon> "One naked lady walks that way, and now another naked lady walks back," he says with a disinterested shrug. "Professor Emeritus Ryzwalder not concern himself with naked mortal ladies. Unless they very historical naked mortal ladies."
<Julia> "Oh well, that's a shame. We'll leave you to your studies," Julia says, deciding not to waste any time perusing literature at this time. Thus she continues on to the Southeast passage opposite where she arrived.
<El-Cideon> The Professor looks almost disappointed that you didn't ask him anything else, but makes no comment as you leave. Through the next tunnel, you arrive at a four-way roundabout, with tunnels branching off more or less in an X-pattern. The walls here are a nasty, toxic orange, and in the very center of the room, some thirty feet off, sits a plant. Or at least, one could presume it's the Abyssal equivalent of such. It looks like a fleshy flower folded up into a pod. It appears to breathe, very slowly. Nearby the base of the plant, metal gleams in the dull light: crumpled chain mail, a sword and a small shield.
<Julia> If it breathes we can kill it! "Stand back Thing," Julia orders, promptly casting a cold and enervating mist on top of the plant and retreating to the library. That should kill it in a minute or so.
<El-Cideon> OOC: note effects for my reference?
<Julia> OOC: fell drain kelgore's grave mist, 1d6 cold damage, fatigued, and 1 negative level every round. SR blocks fatigue.
<El-Cideon> The Professor looks up from his reading and offers you a scolding, "No loitering!" while you wait for your magic to do its lethal work in the next room.
<Julia> "We're browsing," Julia retorts, making no effort to actually look at any books. After about half a minute she asks, "Thing, go and see if it's dead yet?" prompting her familiar to nod nervously and turn invisible before he flies back into the plant room.
<El-Cideon> Thing shortly finds the wicked-looking plant to be shriveled and quite dead.
<Julia> "It dead!" Thing cries as he flies back, Julia nodding happily and going in to have a look at the gear laying beneath it. Any of it look like it belonged to her friends?
<El-Cideon> The only one of your friends that carried a shield was Rosey, and hers was much larger than this little buckler (and made of mithril besides).
<Julia> Well she can't actually use any of it, so it's worthless to her and not worth carrying without a backpack. So she goes straight on to the path opposite the one she arrived through.
<El-Cideon> After traversing another tunnel, Julia arrives in probably the most recognizably homey thing she's yet encountered in the labyrinth: a crypt. Bones lie in rest along crude stone berths dug into the walls, unclaimed skulls line shelves. A skeleton strung up by its feet hangs upside-down from the ceiling shortly before you. The crypt appears to be extensive--it bends around out of immediate sight to the northeast. The skeleton looks up at your arrival. "The other question that must assail you," it rattles, mysteriously, without lungs, "is whether you are prepared to make the proper sacrifices to attain your desired immortality."
<Julia> "Is everyone here going to keep giving me grief about that?" Julia asks irritably to herself. "I'm not interested in your lectures." She's tempted to turn around and try another path since without onyx she can't really take full advantage of a crypt, but she might find some undead she can command. Or maybe Battersby or Leslie if she's lucky. So she keeps walking past the chatty skeleton.
<El-Cideon> "Not a lecture, an *offer*!" the skeleton chatters as you walk away. As its entreaties echo off the crypt walls, you pass a primitive stone altar on your way out, crusted with old blood but presently unoocupied. And, entering from the exit tunnel that you find to the northeast...a shadow. A familiar shadow!
<Julia> Most people probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between any two shadows, but Julia isn't most people! "Leslie! How good to see you!" she beams. "Stick to my shadow for now and kill anything that attacks  me." Just a shame shadows can't talk or she might learn more about the maze. Well, she'll go to the Northeast and follow wherever Leslie came from for now.
<El-Cideon> The northeast tunnel leads to a dark, hushed corridor, high-ceilinged with strange rafters crossing the shadows high above you. The wall to your right looks less like a proper wall and more like a...curtain? The only available light trickles in dimly from below the foot of the curtain. Ahead of you, you can see another passage out to the northeast, and another to your left.
* Julia peeks behind the curtain!
<El-Cideon> The moment Julia touches the curtain, it parts and slides quickly to the left and the right. You are on a stage, you realize, and one so suffused by the glare of footlights (Leslie quails and shrinks at the light) that you can't properly see the audience--but from the sound of things there's one out there. Rapturous applause at your appearance, and a dignified voice intones, "The lady of the hour arrives at last. No doubt the inspirational tales of her heroic deeds will prove well worth the long wait. Julia Astin, we await edification and illumination--share with us the stories of your noble deeds!"
<El-Cideon> OOC: roll will
<Julia> roll 1d20+9 +2 vs sleep, stunning, paralysis, poison, disease, +4 vs negative energy, +2 vs mind affecting
* Hatbot --> "Julia rolls 1d20+9 +2 vs sleep, stunning, paralysis, poison, disease, +4 vs negative energy, +2 vs mind affecting and gets 20."12 [1d20=11]
<Julia> OOC: ignore the mind affecting bonus, that's from gear
<El-Cideon> Julia fights off an uncanny urge to boast, preen, and altogether indulge cherished delusions of grandeur. (OOC: carry on)
<Julia> Oh god, this is like that nightmare she used to have! Placing an arm over her breasts and a hand over her privates she cries out in dismay and rushes off the stage!
<El-Cideon> OOC: which direction?
<Julia> OOC: back the way I came
<El-Cideon> Leslie appears no less grateful to be out of the limelight than Julia herself, happily merging back into Julia's shadow now that she has one again. The crypt, curiously, is no longer here. The room is just a simple dome.
<El-Cideon> OOC: same exits though, to be clear
<Julia> Catching her breath and forgoing modesty once more, Julia takes a moment to consider. "Alright lets go... that way," off to the Northeast!
<El-Cideon> Northeast from the derelict plant's room, Julia finds...Rosemund? Much of her body is caked in unsightly orange grime, but you could hardly fail to recognize her nonetheless. The surroundings are curious--it looks like a comfortable home environment back in Amaranth, roaring hearth and all. Opposite the way you came, there is another door to the northeast. Rosemund is presently cradling a robust and healthy human baby and singing a pleasant lullaby. Rosemund has little voice for song but she plainly feels what she sings nonetheless.
<Julia> "Rosemund!" Julia cries out in delight, hurrying over. "Ah, where did you get the baby from?" she then asks, since it just has to be some sort of horrid fiend in disguise.
<El-Cideon> OOC: roll will. Thing and Leslie can have a go too if you want
<Julia> roll 1d20+9 +2 vs sleep, stunning, paralysis, poison, disease, +4 vs negative energy Julia
* Hatbot --> "Julia rolls 1d20+9 +2 vs sleep, stunning, paralysis, poison, disease, +4 vs negative energy Julia and gets 16."12 [1d20=7]
<Julia> roll 1d20+8 Thing
* Hatbot --> "Julia rolls 1d20+8 Thing and gets 19."12 [1d20=11]
<Julia> roll 1d20+7 Leslie
* Hatbot --> "Julia rolls 1d20+7 Leslie and gets 8."12 [1d20=1]
<El-Cideon> Rosemund looks up at you with a maternal smile. "Wherever do they usually come from, Julia?" she asks cheerily. Thing, however, is able to recognize the little terror for what it is: a fellow quaist, presently sticking its tongue out at Thing on spying one of its own.
<Julia> "Well yes, but there hasn't exactly been enough time... nevermind just where the father is, yes?" Julia reasons, trying to wrap her head around it. Meanwhile Thing decides to get in on this and leaps into Rosemund's arms alongside his fellow quasit. "Me want to be lovingly held in arms too!"
<El-Cideon> Rosemund gasps in terror. "Careful, I must not drop him!" The impostor quasit is less than happy about having its little illusion interfered with, though, and immediately sets to scrabbling with Thing in a feeble wrestling match. Rosemund just shrieks and shoves them both away, back off to clutch at her head with a pained expression.
<Julia> "Thing, leave that poor baby alone!" Julia cries out, though surprisingly enough the baby seems to be holding its own quite well against the ornery quasit... For Thing it's effectively a repeat of his fight against the fancy quasits the other day, lots of sound and fury amounting to nothing.
<El-Cideon> The homey facade disintegrates as the other quasit gives itself wholly over to fighting with the interloper, and a degree of clarity begins to dawn in Rosemund's eyes. Ultimately the second demon detaches itself from the melee and scurries away, pausing to execute several crude gestures before vanishing. "Erm..." Rosemund starts uneasily, trying to catch her breath and sort out just what happened.
<Julia> "Well..." Julia coughs delicately into her hand. "I hope you didn't try to breastfeed it."
<El-Cideon> Rosemund shakes her head vigorously. "Not...not yet."
<Julia> "Good... good," Julia nods slowly. "Ah, good job Thing, well done," she belatedly congratulates her familiar for acting out in a manner that proved to be beneficial. "So, uhm... did you see anything else interesting before you ended up here?" she asks Rosemund, deciding to move on.
<El-Cideon> "Er, several things," Rosemund admits. "I am not certain now how many of them were real..." Rosemund's expression is uncharacteristically complicated. She is vividly flushed and she remains in a fidgety, agitated state. She has trouble setting her eyes in any one place for long.
<Julia> Well, Julia's own experience shows that things have been personalised to a degree, so maybe best not to push. "Well, nevermind. Did you come from that way?" she asks, gesturing to the Northeast door.
<El-Cideon> She nods. "It was a natural bath. I wanted to dive in--" she gestures to her own messy state, "--but it did not seem a proper place to have one. And before that was the leech room. Those were DEFINITELY real," she insists. "And er I met a very nice handsome man, I almost--" Because it's Rosemund, she doesn't say it. She heaves a breath. "I do not feel right in this place, Julia. Not just the labyrinth, the Abyss."
<Julia> "So long as it's only 'almost'," Julia says, putting an arm around Rosemund in a comforting gesture. "And now we're together we can look out for each other until we find everyone else. Leslie and Thing are here too, so we'll be safe," she reassures. "Now, I saw some armour and a shield back the way-" wait, it was through the crypt which vanished, "Wait, sorry, the way back is blocked. Anyway,
<Julia> there's a path just back that way I haven't tried, so why don't we go and explore that way?"
<El-Cideon> OOC: to be clear, the crypt vanished, but the path through the room remains. It's just a normal planty dome room now
<Julia> "Oh wait, there's still a path. Anyway, lets go find some armour for you so you'll be better protected, how does that sound?"
<El-Cideon> "I will be happy for anything to wear right now," Rosemund insists. "Anything at all!" She gratefully leans into the comfort of a friend's support. "But I should--I should tell someone, I have felt strange ever since we set foot in the Abyss. I did not want to say anything because I thought maybe I was just in an odd mood after one night of, ah, exciting dreams...but they will not stop! I do not understand, I feel--I feel a little like I am someone else. I am not making any sense," she concludes as you walk.
<El-Cideon> The armor and weaponry remain resting on the ground near the withered remains of the abyssal plant. Southeast lies the crypt's former location, northeast was Rosemund's dreamworld, the library to the northwest, and southwest still unexplored.
<Julia> "Just try and stay focused on something," Julia advises, "We have a goal here - find our friends and get out. Maybe kill the owner of this maze, but that's secondary. Stick with finding Stephanie and Franceska for now." Once they find the equipment Julia lets go of Rosemund, "I don't know if it's padded underneath so it might chafe a little," she warns Rosemund, considering their next move
<Julia> while she gets dressed.
<El-Cideon> Rosemund gladly dons the chainmail. It keeps a good fifty percent of her fairly decent but obviously wasn't meant to be worn over bare skin--"Cold," Rosemund admits with a shiver as she dons it. She picks up the sword and shield, frowning as she swings the former but seeming comfortable with the latter. "I am trying to stay focused. When I found that nice man and he was wounded and needed help I healed him and when I was so close I wanted to, you know, I am not often very close to naked men, especially very pretty ones, but I reminded myself that No! That is not responsible!" She thumps her fist into her palm. "My friends are still out there somewhere and they might need me! But it is difficult, there is this voice in me that keeps wanting me to do something else and I am in this ah excited state that I do not know how to stop and I just--" She sounds close to tears. "I do not understand what is happening!"
<Julia> "Oh, I'm sorry Rosemund," Julia says, leaning in to give her friend a hug - a very uncomfortable hug with her being naked and Rosemund wearing cold chain mail. Best hope nothing gets caught in the links! "If I'd known this would be so difficult for you I'd never have agreed to come here. But you're not alone now, okay? I'll keep you safe and sane while we get through this." Letting go now
<Julia> she gestures to the unexplored Southwest, "Lets go this way, shall we?"
<El-Cideon> "Okay," Rosemund breathes. "Okay, thank you!" she adds with a determined smile. She nods and follows by your side. "And there were some other doors back that way that I did not try if this does not go anywhere. We could walk around the bath room very easily. The leech room, ah, not so much."
<Julia> "There does seem to be no shortage of options in our paths at least."
<El-Cideon> The southwest passage quickly spirals upwards and arcs around what seems like a full three-sixty before giving way to a less welcoming passage: the tunnel before you now resembles nothing so much as an exploded rose bush. Long, thorny branches protrude from walls, ceiling and floor of this cramped passageway. One could perhaps avoid them if stepping very carefully, but even the empty spaces of the corridor entertain long, spidery filaments.
<Julia> "Not to worry, we've got an advantage against most demons and monsters here," Julia smiles in the face of this obstacle course. "Leslie? Go in there and kill any spiders you see," she orders her incorporeal shadow to visit despair on the hopefully non-magical arachnids within.
<Julia> OOC: Leslie's immune unless their weapons count as magic or they have spells. I'll revise things if they seem capable of hurting it.
<El-Cideon> No spiders emerge, but the moment Leslie brushes any of those filaments, the branches lining the corridor thrash and flail with wild abandon, eagerly trying to slash and entrap the intruder. Fortunately for Leslie, the branches pass harmlessly through her incorporeal substance.
<Julia> "Alright, come back Leslie," Julia calls. "We need to cut all of those lines if we want to get past. Do you have any spells you think would work, Rosemund?"
<El-Cideon> Rosemund considers for a moment. "Nothing that I think could get the whole hallway," she decides with a frown. "Only little pieces at a time."
<Julia> "Hmm, would it be draining to cast repeatedly?" Julia asks. "Most of my spells aren't very good for physically affecting things."
<El-Cideon> "I am just worried that I might need the spells for healing later," Rosemund admits. "I think I could burn it all away with, ah, maybe four or five tries."
<Julia> "Alright, I'll just summon some skeletons and have them clear a path instead," Julia decides, proceeding to summon up a troll skeleton which she then sends charging into the corridor to cut through all of the filaments until it expires or reaches the end!
<Julia> OOC: DC 5/bludgeoning and 39hp, so might do alright
<El-Cideon> OOC: have a CMD handy for that? Need to guesstimate probability of branches nabbing it
<Julia> OOC: it'd be 23 I think
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20+10 I'll give 'em one roll
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20+10 I'll give 'em one roll and gets 17."12 [1d20=7]
<El-Cideon> roll 2d6 slashy damage
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 2d6 slashy damage and gets 6."12 [2d6=3, 3]
<El-Cideon> It lacks finesse, but the troll skeleton apparently demolishes all the sensory filaments on its mad dash through the bramble patch.
<Julia> "That worked out quite well. Shall we?" she invites, sending Thing on ahead first before she and Leslie follow, ensuring it's definitely safe for Rosemund.
<El-Cideon> Thing and Leslie can pass through with ease. A landbound human would still have to pick their footing carefully to avoid scratching themselves, though, even without the branches being mobile anymore.
<El-Cideon> OOC: make a DEX check?
<Julia> roll 1d20+2
* Hatbot --> "Julia rolls 1d20+2 and gets 15."12 [1d20=13]
<El-Cideon> Julia carefully navigates the corridor without pricking her skin along the way. Rosemund gingerly follows--
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20+2
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20+2 and gets 18."12 [1d20=16]
<El-Cideon> Rosemund soon joins the others uninjured on the other side. You arrive in the middle of a curious spectacle--the room is initially dressed up and decorated like the regal throne room of some grand human emperor, but the second you set foot in the room the illusion shatters and melts away. The reason may be tied to the other curious thing in the room--you arrive just in time to observe some demonic entity melted into a puddle of green goo by a bolt from Aria Granville. The Azure sorceress still wears nothing but an expression of concentrated disdain. Without anything binding her hair in place, it tumbles to her lower back.
<Julia> "Oh, hello Miss Granville!" Julia waves upon seeing her. The band's really coming together now!
<El-Cideon> She nods curtly. "This imbecilic labyrinth appears to believe all my machinations are for the sake of naught but personal glory." She snorts. "I believe this expresses more of consequence about its architect." She looks over the little gang assembled. "You've weathered its meager trials well enough, I see."
<Julia> "Yes, it all seems to be personalised to undermine or distract us," Julia agrees. "But we've gotten through all it's thrown at us, haven't we Rosemund?" she smiles at her friend. "I don't suppose you've seen anyone else we came in with, then?"
<El-Cideon> Rosemund just offers a fragile, not wholly convincing smile. Aria shakes her head. "Not so far. Images and perversions of friends past, but none others from your party."
<Julia> She'd assumed as such from their lack of presence, but she might have found someone who ran afoul of some trap or other. "Well, we may as well stick together now we've found each other. Which way did you come from?" she asks, looking to see what paths are available.
<El-Cideon> Aria points north. "There was a gravesite atop a hill back that way. A noble spirit attempted to convince me to take up its axe and continue its crusade, but I trust little freely offered here and have no use for weapons. There was also another path I did not explore and if you might believe it I also found a boutique. I did not partake of the merchandise because I am not inclined to trust clothing tailored by a succubus and offered at so little apparent cost."
<El-Cideon> Aside from the northern path, another heads slightly southeast.
<Julia> "Well, lets go that way then?" Julia points to the southeast path. Succubus designed clothing sounds potentially interesting but it is likely untrustworthy, not to mention it might distress Rosemund more.
<El-Cideon> Aria nods and sets off alongside you. This path shortly leads you to a hall of mirrors. Normal mirrors, insofar as one can tell before setting foot in the hallway. The corridor is lined with them on both sides, floor and ceiling, creating an infinite recursion of reflections within. Past thirty feet or so, the corridor gives way to the usual vegetation-and-eyes motif and curves out of sight.
<Julia> "Lets watch out for mirror demons, shall we?" Julia suggests, sending Thing ahead and following after with Leslie.
<El-Cideon> Thing is intermittently teased by a saintly, cherubic perversion of himself (which nonetheless can't resist making rude gestures at its demonic self). Julia's reflection is dead, dessicated, and withered, but the face retains enough mobility to crease into a taunting smile. "You should have listened to that skeleton," you hear in your head. "*I* know what it takes to get what you want."
<El-Cideon> Leslie discerns no reflection of herself at all.
* Julia rolls her eyes. If this thing thinks she's put-off by appearances like that it's sorely misjudged her. Thing for his part seems to have fun making similarly rude gestures back.
<El-Cideon> Your reflection does not appear to appreciate being ignored. "And if you're too much of a coward to take it, then I will!" It reaches out one dead hand--through the mirror?
<El-Cideon> OOC: roll will
<Julia> roll 1d20+9 +2 vs sleep, stunning, paralysis, poison, disease, +4 vs negative energy
* Hatbot --> "Julia rolls 1d20+9 +2 vs sleep, stunning, paralysis, poison, disease, +4 vs negative energy and gets 21."12 [1d20=12]
<El-Cideon> Julia feels herself being pulled towards the reflection for a fraction of a second--but somehow fights off the sensation and remains where she is. Her reflection snarls and beats at the glass from the other side.
<Julia> "The mirrors try to pull you in," Julia warns, looking back to ensure Aria and Rosemund are doing okay. Thing at least doesn't seem to have any cares.
<El-Cideon> Rosemund, curiously and despite herself, spares a look for her reflection--
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20+6
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20+6 and gets 22."12 [1d20=16]
<El-Cideon> She gasps in dismay but does not appear to suffer any obvious harm.
<El-Cideon> "Parlor tricks," Aria says disdainfully. "Close your eyes, child."
<Julia> Everyone seems to be doing fine, so Julia continues onwards!
<El-Cideon> Rosemund does as bidden, but just before she's out of the hall pauses to bash one mirror pane to pieces with her shield. She steps out to safety breathing heavily, obviously shaken by whatever it is that she saw. The room beyond the hall of mirrors is empty save for some fragmentary remains in the center of the floor--fragments of bone, melted patches on the floor, much like what experience has shown you to be manner of accelerated decay for many demons. A dagger glitters amongst the bits, and an archway yawns to the north.,
<Julia> "Hmm, I wonder who passed by here?" Julia muses, going over to take a look at the dagger to see if she recognises it.
<El-Cideon> It doesn't look familiar, not recognizable as one of the many magical implements of death you've scanned for Stephanie. You do recognize the distinctive blue glint of cold iron, however.
<Julia> "Doesn't look like Stephanie. Oh well, only one way to go..." and that's to the North!
<El-Cideon> Through the northern corridor, you step out onto a narrow lip of stone. This ledge curves to the right, where another archway looms leading to the east. Beyond your narrow ledge is a black gulf, far across it a similar ledge connecting doors west and north. Wind whistles forlornly from below and ruffles your hair slightly.
<Julia> "Hmm. Want me to summon a wyvern to fly us across?" Julia offers her companions. Going to a completely new section of the maze might get them closer to their remaining friends.
<El-Cideon> "Across or down?" Aria speculates, acknowledging another apparent route. "Difficult to speculate without knowing the general direction of our oppressor. Could your beast carry all of us?"
<Julia> "Battersby could, but a summoned wyvern could probably just manage two at most so we'd need two trips. Hmm..." she peers over the gulf to try and estimate how far it is.
<El-Cideon> There's about sixty feet of dead air between ledges.
<Julia> "Oh yes, this is easy," she nods proceeding to summon a zombie wyvern. "You two climb on and it'll take you across then come back for me?" she invites, since she'll have Leslie and Thing on her side and no one needs to be isolated alone.
<El-Cideon> Rosemund and Aria clamber aboard to be ferried safely to the other side, then the undead beast comes back for Julia.
<Julia> Julia climbs on while Thing and Leslie fly across under their own power. After reaching the other side she sends the wyvern diving down into the inky blackness of the pit and leads the way through the North door!

<El-Cideon> ~

<El-Cideon> Franceska steps through the shadowy portal and, within a blink, finds herself transported somewhere else...alone, and without any of her equipment, clothing or material possessions. Her new location is at the end of a narrow tunnel. The walls, floor and ceiling are composed of seemingly stacked layers of abyssal vegetation, and studded periodically with unblinking eyes of variegated type. It is neither warm nor cold, and the functional light generates seemingly from nowhere. Before Franceska can get her bearings, the ceiling down the corridor opens up into a primitive mouth. "Shall I speak to this one in her preferred tongue?" a man's voice says in Infernal, sardonic and knowing.
<Franceska> "Hmph," she snorts, taking in her surroundings. No Rosemund, and none of the trinklets she gathered during her trips. That's two reasons to kill the person responsible for this maze, before she even considers the insult in stealing her clothing.
<El-Cideon> "Silence equals assent," the voice concludes. "A curious collection of souls for you to travel with. Yourself thrall to the baatezu, invading my home with three touched by the Abyss? And one fairly ordinary human," he adds as an afterthought. "I wonder what impels you to keep such company."
<Franceska> "Your mistake was not killing me the first chance you had," Franceska tells the voice using the human tongue, starting to head down the tunnel. "I wish you an eternity of regret."
<El-Cideon> "I could rectify this oversight if you so devoutly wish it," the voice says, without apparent rancor or inflection. Franceska finds that her corridor almost immediately splits to the left and to the right.
<Franceska> Not dignifying that with an answer, she turns to the right.
<El-Cideon> The voice relents once Franceska's walked far enough from her starting position. Her travels shortly take her...a shrine, perhaps? The walls in the expansive room that the corridor leads you to are all black stone, and from what you can tell decorated all over with reliefs of humans, demons, and stranger creatures engaged in the most sordid manner of congress. Lighting, perhaps mercifully, is poor here. An almost supernatural darkness seems to press in on the room; the only light here comes from candles that are being lit one by one from sparks flicked from the fingers of an apparent priestess. She is human, with an artful tumble of hair like honey and aristocratically sculpted features. Her black robe is all-covering, but hugs well enough to do little in disguising sinuous curves. She pauses to look you over as you arrive. "One suspects you're more than a little lost," she says delicately. "Can I help you in any way?"
<Franceska> "I need your clothes."
<El-Cideon> She smiles, showing pearly teeth but with good humor. "I'm afraid they're being used right now...but most things in life are negotiable." She continues going about her work, unperturbed. "Of course, I'd feel better about donating my worldly possessions to someone I knew. I'll exercise some temporary amnesia and pretend I don't remember anything before you introducing yourself, right now."
* Franceska pinches the bridge of her nose, muttering, "Why is a human even working for some fallen angel?"
<El-Cideon> "Is this a rhetorical question?" she asks, assuming such and not answering. "You're obviously out of sorts, and one can imagine why given your present state. Why don't you sit down and we'll talk about what we could do about your situation." She gestures to a row of plain stone benches, mercifully free of obscene carvings. "I am Rowena, and you are...?" she tries again.
<Franceska> Franceska clenches her fist. "Normally, I would be sure to negotiate properly," she admits. "But the Abyss is truly the worst plane. If you are a prisoner here for some strange reason, I will end up freeing you. Otherwise, I'm afraid I will be killing your employer shortly. If I don't need to do it naked, I wouldn't bother looking for his employees, even if they are really demons in disguise."
<El-Cideon> "I'm not averse to you following that course of action," she admits casually. "I bow to a higher power than Maeandar, myself." She considers your expression for a moment. "I do have spare acolytes' robes but they are, as you might surmise, for acolytes."
<Franceska> Franceska's eyes trail over the reliefs, before she says flatly, "I did not come here to have sex. It would probably be a demon, anyway."
<El-Cideon> "I wouldn't ask you to," she says wryly. "We've only just met." She walks over and takes a seat nearby you, whether you seem likely to sit yourself or not. "So you wish to kill Maeandar." She shrugs. "Very well, he wouldn't be a thrall of much use to *my* master if he wasn't occasionally tested and confirmed in his usefulness. And if you succeed, well, these indulgent little games Maeandar plays are not so much use to our greater designs anyway. So if you tell me that it is your mission to murder him, I'll not interfere, but if I'm to assist you--and I am in a position to do so--then we discuss what you might do for me in turn. Is it so objectionable to discuss terms?"
<Franceska> "Not if we do that while I am getting dressed."
<El-Cideon> "You require a show of faith?" she assumes with a raised eyebrow. "I hardly see you in a position to make demands, and a woman should realize that boldness is no virtue in limitless quantity...but very well. My own ambitions are beyond material things, so if such will put you at ease..." She stands up, casually slips her robe off her shoulders to let it puddle on the floor, and steps away before sitting down again. "If this resembles a more equitable grounds for dicussions, then by all means cease your petulance and introduce yourself properly."
* Franceska pinches the bridge of her nose again. She really can't deal with the demon whores. "My name, since it matters to you, is Franceska Durant," she says, seeking to get to the point as quickly as humanly possible. "State your terms, Rowena."
<El-Cideon> "You would like information about the labyrinth, I am sure?" she assumes. "In return, you will provide information for me, in my service, assuming you survive your mission and safely exit the labyrinth."
<Franceska> "I was expecting a more involved offer," Franceska admits. "Actually offering to help me kill Maeandar, not that I need the help."
<El-Cideon> "Ah, that would rather exceed the scope of my orders here. I hardly know of any sufficiently treasonable offenses for me to personally assist in murdering him. You *will* need help," she assures you. "You will not have mine in direct combat, but in return for the promise of certain observations of the Prime and elsewhere once you are free, I *can* tell you how to find him."
<Franceska> "I'll consider that if I don't find him myself," Franceska finally says after mulling it over. She kneels by the discarded robe, reaching for it. "Revenge would feel sweeter if I didn't need any help, I'm sure you understand."
<El-Cideon> "The price may be steeper if you come to me in a state of obvious need," she warns you. "Better for both of us that you don't come to that state, yes?" The robe is so light and sheer as to be like wearing water, but feeling like you're wearing nothing at all is no doubt an improvement over genuinely wearing nothing at all.
<Franceska> "That is unlikely to happen," Franceska assures her. "At most, I will be frustrated from wasting so much time on that reprobate." She gives Rowena a curt nod, and with a, "Good day," heads back towards the intersection where she took the rightmost path.
<El-Cideon> Beyond the intersection, the corridor leads to a semicircular room. Opposite your entrance, to the south and southwest, are two open archways. Along the flat wall of the room a curtain is drawn; just beneath this, at about waist level, can be discerned a series of four switches set about twenty feet apart each. "One must wonder what happened to her friends in circumstances such as yours, if friends they are, yes?" the ceiling-mouth starts up.
<Franceska> "I doubt they showed my sort of restraint," Franceska muses, peering into the southern arch.
<El-Cideon> "Nor caution," the voice says, and as you stride into the room (you catch a glimpe of a corridor winding around a corner when looking south) the curtain slides back of its own accord. Beyond a pane of thick glass, each of your mortal traveling companions--Julia, Stephanie, Rosemund, Aria--can be seen suspended upside down, firmly bound and gagged, over a lake of what is too vivid in hue to be anything but acid. Distantly, tiny vermin can be noticed swarming over the ropes, gnawing them thin. "One may come with you. The rest will fall. Choose carefully--but quickly. Five seconds perhaps before the vermin do their work, I should say."
* Franceska gives the ceiling an incredulous look before shaking her head. "So how does an angel fall and become a demon?" she asks, her voice vaguely approaching curiousity. "I can see one become an erinyes, and it obviously happened enough in the past. But you? I don't get it."
<El-Cideon> "I can see how you would not," the voice answers the question by not answering, but adding in turn: "By entertaining affections one presumes you know not. Really, is there not one amongst your companions whom you value more than pride in your own rectitude? This is perhaps your last second to avert a tragic mistake of hubris."
<Franceska> "If I did have someone I cared for, I would be offending her by accepting the premise that she got taken down so quickly and easily," Franceska says dismissively, heading south. "Not to mention alive. So Pride was the answer to your fall? Fitting."
<El-Cideon> A series of terse splashes sound out behind you as you turn. "Not even a blink," the voice observes on your way out. "Aggressively ruthless. Your soul speaks true. Very well, I tire of questions you prove unable to ask yourself." As the voice goes silent behind you, the southern corridor opens up into a broad cavern. There is a tree here, occupying a hill in the center of the room and standing some modest twenty feet tall. It looks sickly, the leaves struggling to retain their color. A humanoid figure sits with her back up against the tree, adopting a melancholy pose, knees drawn up against chest and arms hugging her legs. Skin like tree bark, hair leaves and vines but as sickly as her tree. A moat of cool-looking water surrounds the tree's mound, fed by a spring burbling from the eastern wall, and a stone bridge crosses the moat. There is also another archway to the south.
<Franceska> "Are you a prisoner in need of rescue or a demon whore in disguise?" Franceska asks the possible dryad in a businesslike manner, approaching her.
<Franceska> roll 1d20+13
* Hatbot --> "Franceska rolls 1d20+13 and gets 25."12 [1d20=12]
<El-Cideon> Her head ticks up and eyes like crystallized amber regard you with...curiosity? Confusion? "Oh, hello," she says, not responding to the question. "Do I know you?" Upon standing, the hilt of a sword becomes visible thrust through her heart. Additionally, a simple woodsman's axe rests against the trunk of the tree.
<Franceska> "We've met now for the first time. My name is Franceska Durant," she introduces herself. "You have a sword in you. Are you presently using it?"
<El-Cideon> She blinks, looks down, shakes her head slowly. As if seeing the weapon for the first time, she touches it gingerly with one finger, then draws away as if burned. "Oh my, oh no!" She clutches her head, doubles over in pain for a moment. At length she recovers and catches a breath to look at you. "You are..." She struggles with something silently. "Franceska?" she adds to confirm.
<Franceska> "Correct," Franceska responds, calling upon her ability to perceive the magical to take a look. She glances over herself and her robe as well, while she's at it, and at the maze itself at the end of it all.
<Franceska> roll 1d20+16
* Hatbot --> "Franceska rolls 1d20+16 and gets 34."12 [1d20=18]
<El-Cideon> She nods. "I don't think..." she says at length, managing a fragile smile at her certainty, "that I have met you before! I, I should say welcome to my home, that is what people say, yes?"
<Franceska> "You do seem more like a prisoner," Franceska muses, approaching her. "While I try to kill most of those I hate, there is a special place in my heart for slavers and rapists. Where were you taken from?" she asks, hoping it was not the elf heaven.
<El-Cideon> "It was a forest!" she says. She fidgets slightly, as thgouh struggling to put words together. "Yes, it was a forest, that part I feel certain of. Where was it? Where--? Ohhhh!" She clenches a fist in frustration. "I do not know. But I am sure that it was very pleasant there," she adds plaintively.
<Franceska> "Stay still," Franceska instructs her. "Close your eyes." Once she is sure of compliance, she places her hand on the sword's hilt and pulls the rapier out in one sharp motion.
<El-Cideon> She backs away swiftly, stumbling up against the tree. "Nonono!" she waves her arms violently in front of her. "Some things, some things he made sure I'd remember!" she exclaims. "It's so difficult putting it all together, I remember one thing and turn around to remember something else and the first thing is gone, but some things I know when the time is right! If you take it out, I will die. Do you...do you need it that badly?"
<Franceska> "I think he lied. I will try to heal you afterwards."
<El-Cideon> She shakes her head vigorously. "I have died before!" she insists with visceral certainty. "Some guests do not care what I tell them, they just take it. It's...it's not so bad if you really need the sword, though."
<Franceska> "That makes no sense," Franceska insists. "If you die, then you are gone."
<El-Cideon> "Not if someone brings you back." She clasps her hands together, looks up at something unseen and recalls, with jaw set: "She thinks it is a wonderful joke."
<Franceska> "She? She who?"
<El-Cideon> The dryad peers off into the distance, kneads her hands together trying to collect scattered pieces. "She has a name. She has a pretty name, but she is *not* pretty. A pretty stone, that was it, she has a heart of stone!" She turns to look you with horrified recollection. "She lives below, far below us, with HIM." She blinks, and then: "Who were we talking about?"
<Franceska> "Do you know where Maeandar is or how to get to him?" Franceska asks her instead, changing topics.
<El-Cideon> "Down, all the way down," she insists. "But I don't know just where, I can't walk that far, the tree--" She strokes the sickly tree's trunk with loving fondness.
<Franceska> "How do you return to life after being killed?" Franceska inquires next. "Is your spirit tied to the sword as much as your tree?"
<El-Cideon> A distant look as she recalls, "Pretty stone but not pretty inside uses magic. Powerful magic. Miracles. BUT SHE IS NO SAINT." The dryad shivers with the force of her own pained recollection.
<Franceska> "What is your name?"
<El-Cideon> "My name," she says dumbly, then willing herself to some epiphany. "I had a name. I have a name. He doesn't care if I remember this one...but everyone has a name. What was it, what was it?!" After some extensive despair, she dredges up: "Alunoriel!" With a cry of joy, and then: "Who is she?"
<Franceska> roll 1d20+10
* Hatbot --> "Franceska rolls 1d20+10 and gets 28."12 [1d20=18]
<Franceska> "I really do need the sword," Franceska muses, peering at the sickly dryad. "Alunoriel, I have a modest country residence away from civilization in a forest. If you would like, I could take one of your tree's branches and a bit of your blood now and resurrect you once your tormenters are dead and I have returned home. Do you find it agreeable?"
<El-Cideon> "Can you do that? Can you?" she sounds excited. "I want to see--what was it?" She looks up, shades her eyes against a nonexistent sun. "There should be something there!" she shouts, pointing at the bland cavern roof in horror. "Something beautiful!"
<Franceska> "It has been done before," Franceska asserts, picking up the axe. "If my actions do get you killed, it would not be in the course of a fiendish ritual. I assure you that it would be the only means to prevent a properly-cast resurrection." She seeks out a suitable branch, and brings the axe down upon it in one clumsy strike.
<El-Cideon> Alunoriel lets out a cry of pain, and holds her side as if personally wounded. She digs through the mists of memory. "There is real light somewhere, there is! What is it like, I should know what it is like--" She sobs, stands up straight and defenseless. "You can take me to the light?" A strange expression crosses her face, and then oblivion: "Who are you?"
<Franceska> "Franceska Durant." She holds the axe's head towards the dryad. "You need to cut your palm against the blade."
<El-Cideon> "Oh, why is that? Oh, of course!" Smiling dumbly, she complies and squeaks in surprise as she's cut. Her dark blood flows slowly, like sap.
* Franceska drops the axe on the ground and holds the branch under the cut to collect the bloody sap upon it. Once she has enough, she reaches for the rapier once more and pulls it out, ready to turn into a bird and fly away if this causes the island to sink into the waters.
<El-Cideon> Alunoriel barely has time for a scream as the sword is wrenched from her breast--she burns from the inside out in a mere flash and is left naught but a pile of ashes. The island itself does not change in any way...though you may observe that the bridge has disappeared at some point. The moat is, it's difficult not to notice, just broad enough that felling the tree could provide one with an appropriately sized bridge.
<Franceska> Grumbling, Franceska gets to work at making her bridge with the axe, careful to avoid splashing herself with the water. Still, if Maeandar doesn't know about her powers, there is little need to reveal them so early.
<El-Cideon> The tree can hardly offer any resistance, and with a crash finally tumbles to provide a convenient footbridge across the moat.
* Franceska carefully navigates it, still ready to turn into an owl at a moment's notice. Her goal is to keep on going south for now.
<El-Cideon> The tree, sickly though it was, proves well sturdy enough to support Franceska's meager weight. The southern room is immediately empty, though it would appear that something *did* happen here. Something died here, messily and explosively. The most intact bits were probably a ribcage, but the rest is mostly against the walls or pulverized from impact. This otherwise simple room boasts doors to the west and southeast.
* Franceska briefly entertains the idea of wearing the ribcage as a hat before deciding to focus on her goal and peering past the door leading west.
<El-Cideon> Most of the next room is a vast chasm. Immediately beyond your corridor, a lip of stone crosses along the southeastern quadrant of the room to a southern archway; some sixty feet across the gap, a similar ledge links western and northern arches. Below you is only faintly whistling blackness.
<Franceska> If it's a normal chasm, she can easily make it across. But if there's something more to it... for now, Franceska decides to explore the other direction from the previous room she had been in. Heading down is probably the right call, but she'd better find Rosemund first, or make the attempt, at least.
<El-Cideon> Beyond the room of someone's explosive demise is an empty dome...there is a curious and desultory sense of absence here that you can't quite place. It remains stubbornly silent and vegetative as you pass through. Beyond that is a dead-end cul-de-sac much like the one you originally found yourself in.
<Franceska> How curious. Perhaps the other branch she could have taken from the room with the staged deaths of her companions would lead to yet another cul-de-sac such as this, and so Franceska heads there to take a look.
<El-Cideon> The stage remains, devoid of its captives, acid sizzling happily away far below. The alternate exit from this room leads to another dome with that sense of resentful emptiness; there are in fact two archways here though, to the south and the northwest.
* Franceska tries the southern one first.
<El-Cideon> You find yourself now on the far ledge of the chasm, entering from the northern archway and able to reach by foot the western.
* Franceska does so, starting to frown now.
<El-Cideon> Beyond the door is another vast gulf. This one is traversable by a primitive vine bridge arcing a hundred feet or so over empty space. The bridge is composed of three principle threads: a central rope, only scant inches wide, and two support vines at waist level to provide a traveler with something to hold onto to shore up her balance. There is a door slightly leading northwest on the far side.
* Franceska traces her steps back, through the chamber with the chasm, and then chooses to explore the archway leading northwest.
<El-Cideon> Beyond the next corridor is a very curious spectacle. Laid out across the floor of this cavern is...a model village? What looks like a prosperous mortal town has been constructed across the room (with intervals of farm and woodland and even a running stream and small pond), albeit on a scale for residents an inch or two tall. One could traverse this with some care to a door leading west. Also, sitting on a slight rise at the northern edge of the room is a crude stone throne.
<Franceska> roll 2#1d20+16
* Hatbot --> "Franceska rolls 2#1d20+16 and gets 59."12 [2#1d20+16 = 23, 36]
* Franceska only displays as much care as her bare feet require, making her way towards the north.
<El-Cideon> Tiny voices pipe up at you from below as you walk. "Hey! Hey you! Hey, biggun'!" and the like chorusing up around your feet, intermingled with a variety of "Hey, watchit willyas!"
<Franceska> "Did anyone else pass through here?" Franceska asks once she is through, reaching for the crown she spots behind the throne and proudly placing it atop her head.
<El-Cideon> "Big mean king, right there!" erupts in a terrified chorus. Once Franceska's in a position to round the throne and better see the item she's heading towards--a somewhat gaudy yet impressive crown, a silver circlet ringed with upthrust decorative flames--it becomes apparent that it is in fact presently resting atop a head. A tall, bullish figure--a minotaur--draws itself up and roars at the would-be thief before she can snatch her prize!
<El-Cideon> OOC: init
<Franceska> roll 1d20+1
* Hatbot --> "Franceska rolls 1d20+1 and gets 2."12 [1d20=1]
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20+4 academic!
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20+4 academic! and gets 5."12 [1d20=1]
* El-Cideon changes topic to 'Current planar traits: -2 to CHA-based checks for Lawful and Good characters |  Bull king! (5) > Fran (2)'
<El-Cideon> Quickly rising from laggardly position, the king of the hill takes one swipe at Fran with a meaty fist before lowering its head and trying to gore her with its horns!
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20+17 punch
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20+17 punch and gets 32."12 [1d20=15]
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20+12 horns
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20+12 horns and gets 32."12 [1d20=20]
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20+12 horns crit?
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20+12 horns crit? and gets 31."12 [1d20=19]
<El-Cideon> roll 1d6+5 punch
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d6+5 punch and gets 11."12 [1d6=6]
<Franceska> OOC: AC11!
<El-Cideon> roll 2d8+4 horns
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 2d8+4 horns and gets 19."12 [2d8=8, 7]
<El-Cideon> Caught unprepared for such a nasty surprise waiting around the corner, Fran is rocked by two fearsome blows!
<El-Cideon> OOC: you're up
<Franceska> Cursing herself for getting so complacent, Franceska steps back and gestures at the minotaur, before she sharply jerks her arm up!
<Franceska> roll 10d6 stalagmite, ref DC18 half
* Hatbot --> "Franceska rolls 10d6 stalagmite, ref DC18 half and gets 36."12 [10d6=5, 2, 3, 5, 3, 2, 4, 3, 5, 4]
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20+7
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20+7 and gets 13."12 [1d20=6]
<El-Cideon> Speared from below by a rise of stone, the bull who would be king roars in frustration as it tries to wrench itself free!
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20+5 STR, DC for this?
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20+5 STR, DC for this? and gets 20."12 [1d20=15]
<Franceska> OOC: 25
<El-Cideon> OOC: carry on!
<Franceska> Deciding to test her new rapier, Franceska circles around the bull and stabs it in the side.
<Franceska> roll 1d20+10
* Hatbot --> "Franceska rolls 1d20+10 and gets 27."12 [1d20=17]
<Franceska> roll 1d6+3+1d6 last is fire
<El-Cideon> OOC: hit
* Hatbot --> "Franceska rolls 1d6+3+1d6 last is fire and gets 11."12 [1d6=2][1d6=6]
<El-Cideon> The maddened beast howls as its pierced, again thrashing and flailing to try and struggle free.
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20+5 ESCAPE?!
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20+5 ESCAPE?! and gets 10."12 [1d20=5]
<Franceska> OOC: Escape Artist DC is 15
<El-Cideon> There's a series of cheerful cries from around your feet. "Get 'em, Whatserface! Kingkiller Whatsherface!"
<El-Cideon> OOC: just another STR check, anyway
<El-Cideon> OOC: also go
* Franceska continues stabbing at the minotaur, before she takes a step back to admire her handiwork.
<Franceska> roll 1d20+10
* Hatbot --> "Franceska rolls 1d20+10 and gets 30."12 [1d20=20]
<Franceska> roll 1d20+5
* Hatbot --> "Franceska rolls 1d20+5 and gets 13."12 [1d20=8]
<Franceska> roll 1d20+10 crit?
* Hatbot --> "Franceska rolls 1d20+10 crit? and gets 22."12 [1d20=12]
<El-Cideon> OOC: hit and crit
<Franceska> roll 2d6+6+1d6 last is fire
* Hatbot --> "Franceska rolls 2d6+6+1d6 last is fire and gets 16."12 [2d6=2, 5][1d6=3]
<Franceska> roll 1d6+3+1d6 last is fire
* Hatbot --> "Franceska rolls 1d6+3+1d6 last is fire and gets 11."12 [1d6=6][1d6=2]
<El-Cideon> The minotaur slows, stills, slumps and bleeds out. The liliputian townsfolk raise a cheer. "Hail whatsherface! King Whatsherface!" Through a gaggle of corrections eventually emerges, "QUEEN Whatsherface!"
<Franceska> "You may address me as Franceska Durant," she informs the townsfolk, stabbing the beast once more for good measure before claiming her crown at last. "Now, has anyone else passed through here but myself or this one?"
<El-Cideon> "Lately, nah, just big mean Notkinganymore!" "Yeah, awful king!" "Sometimes just shit on houses without noticing!" "Queen Whatsher--Queen Franceska much better!" "Go take throne, new Queen! Proper monarch gotta sit on throne be all high and mighty!"
<Franceska> "One of you first."
<El-Cideon> "Throne too big, we too small!" echoes up. "One man try to climb up once, he said Because It There, fall off near giant rumprest. Now he not here anymore!"
* Franceska snorts, before looking extra sour at allowing herself to relax once more. "Why are you here? Where did you come from?" she asks the tiny people.
<El-Cideon> "We come from here!" "We always here!" "Sometimes have king, sometimes have queen." "Sometimes good kingqueen, sometimes bad one." "You must be good kingqueen because you kill bad kingqueen!" "You just sit back and relax and be all queeny, we gather harvest for coronation feast!" "Yeah!"
<Franceska> "No time to rest," Franceska tells them curtly, and takes care as she navigates her way to the archway leading further into the maze.
<El-Cideon> Franceska crosses through another domed room that silently condemns her with its aggressive emptiness; through a door to the south here she can see a squarish room with a highly decorated floor. All across this room the ground is a series of irregular tiles with sigils imprinted upon them. There is nowhere to step without resting your foot upon a letter. Spaced variably around the room are archways to the northwest, southwest, and southeast.
<El-Cideon> OOC: obligatory languages query
<Franceska> OOC: Common, Druidic, Elven, Infernal, Owl
<El-Cideon> OOC: Carry on. You don't know what anything says.
<Franceska> It looks to be time for her to reveal her ability to turn into a beautiful snow owl, and Franceska does so before flying towards the northwest doorway.
<El-Cideon> This room is filled with wreckage--someone must have been here, and somewhat recently, because whatever painted wooden structure once rested here lies in smoking, still smoldering in places ruins. Picking your way across on foot to the western door would be a moderate hassle; flying only risks smoke inhalation.
* Franceska can hold her breath that long without trouble, and does so.
<El-Cideon> Beyond is a domed room where the walls have adopted the appearance (not realistic, but somewhat artistically convincing) of open skies dotted with clouds. Gravity appears to not exist here--or rather exist in the fashion of Air, you could rediscover after a moment. There are archways northwest and south.
* Franceska explores to the south, first.
<El-Cideon> More ruins--a palatial stone facade of some sort has been blasted to pieces along the western wall--and an exit to the southeast.
<Franceska> Wondering whether it is Aria's handiwork, Franceska follows the trail to the southeast.
<El-Cideon> The ceiling here reflects a pleasant, but rather mournful, sunset. The floor is soft grass and rises up to a central hill crowned by a gravestone. A heavy axe leans up against the monument and a dead, vine-choked tree looms over it. One could exit to the northeast, east, or south here.
<Franceska> It's starting to really look like a maze by now. Dismayed, Franceska continues south for now.
<El-Cideon> This is another simple domed room constructed of the standard labyrinth materials--but SOMETHING happened here. A suspicously humanoid-sized puddle of green goo occupies the central patch of floor space. One could travel west or east here.
* Franceska chooses west!
<El-Cideon> West proves to be a downward-sloping path. A narrow, cramped passageway lined with thorny branches makes traversing it a hazardous proposition (though a manageable one, with some care). Something has clearly been through this way recently--many branches have been broken right off the wall, and a slew of them littering the floor outside your exit suggests something big barreled through at speed.
<Franceska> Down is where she wants to go eventually, anyway, so Franceska in her owl form glides down the passageway.
<El-Cideon> OOC: make a DEX check for safe passage?
<Franceska> roll 1d20+3
* Hatbot --> "Franceska rolls 1d20+3 and gets 5."12 [1d20=2]
<El-Cideon> roll 2d6 slashy slashy
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 2d6 slashy slashy and gets 4."12 [2d6=2, 2]
<El-Cideon> Franceska doesn't escape without some minor injuries, but on the other side she finds a descending passageway sloping around what feels like a full circle. You emerge in a circular room with exits to the northwest, east, and southeast.
<El-Cideon> The dessicated remains of some monstrous abyssal plant also decorate the center of this room.
<Franceska> She has been traveling south so far, so she goes southeast.
<El-Cideon> This room is empty. There's a faint whiff of...gravemold, dry dust and bones? And an archway to the northeast.
* Franceska immediately thinks of Julia, wondering at what she might find past the archway as she heads through it.
<El-Cideon> The northeast tunnel leads to a dark, hushed corridor, high-ceilinged with strange rafters crossing the shadows high above you. The wall to your right looks less like a proper wall and more like a...curtain? The only available light trickles in dimly from below the foot of the curtain. Ahead of you, you can see another passage out to the northeast, and another to your left.
* Franceska soars up to take a glance at the rafters, proceeding northeast afterwards.
<El-Cideon> There's all sorts of pulleys and gantries and walkways up here...but no obvious stagehands to man them. Northeast leads to a familiar room--you've seen one like it, up above. Before you is a great chasm; this time, the stone ledge just outside your door links southwestern and southern doors; the opposing ledge links northern and eastern archways. (more)
<El-Cideon> Before you have opportunity to select your next course of action, a rotting zombie wyvern glides down from the blackness above and, at a steady and controlled descent, vanishes blindly into the depths below.
* Franceska pauses for a few moments, before flying up the chasm, both to see who might have sent the wyvern and to determine whether it leads to the previous one she had seen or not.
<El-Cideon> You do arrive in the upper floor's cavern after all--just in time to hear voices echoing down the northern corridor. Familiar voices!
* Franceska flies down the northern corridor! If it's her friends, they will recognize her. If it's demon whores in disguise, she'll just have to kill them extra horribly!

<El-Cideon> ~

<El-Cideon> "It isn't known to me precisely what degree of mess one needs to make to warrant the retriever's attention," Lorice admits, "so I'd suggest leaving as thorough a trail of death as we can arrange. I suppose...mm, there could be someone disposable in the torture chamber right now. Have you any other victims behind you so far this day?"
<Steph> "Just a vrock and this idiot," she says, gesturing briefly at Sumir. "Someone killed a guy in this feasthall earlier, too, and I stumbled over another dead guy who got interred here," mutters Stephanie, frowning. "Anyway, thinking about it, maybe we should just go straight there," she adds. "I figure my friends will kill enough shit by themselves that this thing will wander out on its own
<Steph> sooner or later, so we can just hide nearby until it leaves. Or they'll find us, and then we can just gang up on it."
<Steph> She shrugs. "And we can help! By stepping on anyone who gets in our way," she adds, venomously.
<El-Cideon> Lorice nods with approval at Stephanie's attitude. "You know," she says while lifting a torch from the wall and approaching the northern door, "you mortals really are more intriguing when you don't fall into my arms at the slightest hint of affection." She leans her sword up against the wall and opens the door. Beyond is a narrow corridor seemingly composed of pallid, pulsating flesh. "That said, you'll want to stay close to me here. Or get your own torch." She lifts hers to the ceiling beyond in demonstration and the corridor wall seems to shrink back reflexively.
<Steph> "Most mortals aren't a tenth demon," replies Stephanie, walking behind Lorice. Apparently it's demons, is what she is. "So you succubi aren't actually horny, like, all the time? It's just an act to reel in the suckers?"
<El-Cideon> "I do savor all variety of sexual acts, but one should understand that sometimes the *promise* of a lady's affection is worth more than the reward itself," she says, walking along. The corridor walls seem impelled to contract and close in on you, but keep their distance from Lorice's torch. "My brethren often lack subtlety. I won't have it reflecting poorly upon me if whomever else you've met of my kind can't put aside their own impulses long enough to stage a proper seduction." You reach a four-way intersection. Lorice gestures west, north, and east in turn. "Torture chamber is back that way, something unpleasant up there, and this should take us where we want to be." Barring objections, she heads east.
<Steph> Stephanie resists the temptation to poke the walls with her sword, instead simply trooping after Lorice. "Well, at least you can be frank about it," she mutters. "I know you people have, like, inherent charm magic, so I guess most don't see a need to bother to go through the first steps, huh?"
<El-Cideon> "Yes, exactly. Why trouble with sophistication when you can brute force someone else's desire, yes? But you know, it is so much more satisfying to welcome someone into my embrace when I know I've made them truly *need* me in a way no mortal woman could possibly offer." The organic corridor gives way up ahead to an open archway. From afar you can hear sounds of...gracious applause, and cheerful shouting?
<Steph> Thank heaven for that, if the succubus had just run off she'd have been in trouble- "What's this place up ahead?"
<El-Cideon> Lorice frowns. "Today? I'm not sure. With some chambers, it depends on who or what they've caught. Someone who fancies themself very special, from the sound of things."
<Steph> "Seems like it's own our way."
<El-Cideon> Another nod, and Lorice leads the way into the next room. Amidst a festival atmosphere, you find...Xondra? Evidently the center of attention in the next room. Wearing a queen's raiment, she occupies a raised, mobile throne held aloft upon the shoulders of a squad of balors. Petitioners of all races and genders cheerfully rain confetti upon the clearing from ranks of seats above, and before Xondra's throne kneels a coldly imposing, black-haired succubus offering up a grandly jeweled crown. Xondra looks over at your entrance and blinks rapidly. "Oh, Stephanie! You are just in time! Malcanthet herself has at last relinquished to me the title of Queen of Passion and Beauty!" she preens. One could proceed on to the east if so inclined.
<El-Cideon> "There, you see?" Lorice observes coolly. "No subtlety whatsoever."
<Steph> Stephanie blanches, and then slaps her face for a moment. "I'm wondering how she forgot where she is. Gimme a sec, doing something I'll regret," she mutters, stalking past the petitioners towards Xondra.
<El-Cideon> Lorice inclines her chin, focuses carefully on the crown and smiles coldly. "Oh, but this could be very amusing," she observes as you walk towards the ersatz queen. Xondra has taken the crown in her own hands, but pauses in the act of donning it as you stride forward. "Oh, Stephanie, do you wish to be the Royal Consort after all? You should know there is a great deal of competition for the position..."
<Steph> Stephanie bounds up to the thone, then slaps Xondra and grabs her head a moment later. "Wake up, you imbecile, and look with your eyes! Have you forgotten where you live?" She gestures to the crowd. "D'ya think any of this can possibly be what it looks like?"
<El-Cideon> A flash of shock crosses over her face, then the crowd, Xondra's throne and royal garb all vanish. The chamber is merely a simple dome of eye-studded vegetative matter rather than the glorious throne room it had been just a moment ago. "Oh, why did you wake me? I was having the nicest dream!" Xondra laments. Her crown, unlike the rest of the room, remains--but is revealed to be merely a cruel contraption of rusted, bloodstained iron, and when Xondra drops it in fright, a variety of screws and sharp implements slot into where a demonic cranium would have been but for your intervention.
<Steph> "What is wrong with you? Compared to growing up in the gutter, living in this terrible place should give you some wits!" Stephanie kicks the device away, shaking her head. "Who would want to be the queen of rampaging sluts, anyway?" she mutters.
<El-Cideon> "That is twice that you've come to my rescue now," Xondra gushes. "Oh, I know how properly to repay you this time. See, I understand better what you want now--" A moment of focus and her appearance melts and reforms itself. Xondra is now male, evidently human with no trace of superfluous demonic appendages. The new Xondra is tall, well-built, breathtakingly handsome in a noble and refined manner, so seemingly pure and righteous that he could serve as the centerpiece of a heroic crusader's memorial sculpture were he only wearing clothes. Male Xondra is also now blonde, blue-eyed, and speaks to you in a rich baritone: "This is more what you like, isn't it? I thought this up when I was wandering the halls, I thought, 'I'll present myself as a lost paladin in need of succor this time and she'll be none the wiser,' but oh! I could hardly play such a deception upon you after you've come to my rescue twice."
<Steph> Stephanie looks disgusted for a moment. "Your shallow understanding of other people is why, in a few months time, the best you'll be able to hope for is wearing a thong when you're trying to scrub away your latest humiliation!"
<El-Cideon> Xondra takes your hand. "Then you'll teach me, won't you?" he says earnestly. "I thought for sure this would be more appropriate!"
<Steph> Stephanie glares at her. "We're getting out of here," she says, shrugging off her hand. "And then we'll go our separate ways." She glances at Lorice. "Which way now?"
<El-Cideon> Xondra looks downtrodden and, dejected, resumes her aggressively feminine, redheaded form. "This way," Lorice says, striding on towards the east. As she passes you, she adds under her breath, "And wherever did you acquire this provincial harlot?"
<Steph> You're not far different from one another, miss-let's-seal-our-bargain-with-our-bodies, Stephanie thinks. "At some statue of a giant cock. Can't miss it."
<El-Cideon> "You'll need to be more specific," Lorice says drily. Eastward is an open cavern. Stone walls rise up out of sight, into darkness. Most of the floor here is studded with stalagmites, and particularly round the center of the room is a patch of floor covered in tiny stone spikes that look hazardous to walk upon. Central in this zone is a black hole gaping into pure darkness below. Archways gape to the north and southeast. Lorice is pointing towards the hole upon entry and is about to say something when she spots another visitor in this room: Martin is here, leaning heavily upon a stalagmite. He looks badly injured, bruised all over, wincing with indrawn breath.
<Steph> "How the fuck did you get here?" asks Stephanie, looking down at him.
<El-Cideon> "Went back, took other door," he coughs. "Found torture room, demon in restraints there. Put it through some paces, thought it might know something." He shakes his head sharply to demonstrate otherwise. "Fleshy hallway past that, tried to crush me."
<El-Cideon> Lorice walks up next to you, glances over, and suddenly her voice rings out inside your head. "How fortuitous, just down there is where we need to go. Tell me, is this human more useful to us alive than dead?"
<Steph> "Not when he's this fucked up," replies Stephanie. "Can he be useful dead?"
<El-Cideon> "As bait, perhaps," is Lorice's mental response. "Wounded or no, he is still armed. Shall I handle him? We've only so many potions and I can't have you cut up before we reach our gracious host."
<Steph> "He took down a vrock before, but he had cold iron, then," notes Stephanie. "So I'll leave it to you."
<El-Cideon> "Of course. I take it in light of our earlier conversation that you shan't hold the following events against me. The brute force approach does suffice for mere fodder, yes?" Lorice steps in front of Martin and in a sultry air intones: "Attend to me, good sir~"
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20+3
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20+3 and gets 10."12 [1d20=7]
<El-Cideon> Martin looks up at her, instantly entranced and devoid of will. "Lie down for us," Lorice says. "There's a good boy," she adds as he dumbly complies. Stepping forward to straddle the man, she adds for your benefit: "This won't keep us more than a minute or so. I don't intend to administer any great degree of pleasure in his last moments."
<Steph> Turning evil against evil is a standard from the adventurers handbook, but Stephanie looks away nonetheless, finding the spectacle far more uncomfortable than her customary exchange of steel with soon-to-be-dead enemies.
<El-Cideon> With little in the way of noise, and with cold detachment, Lorice shortly rides the wounded soldier to a terminal climax. As this goes on, Xondra takes opportunity to loiter near you, evidently unperturbed as though nearby events are a common occurrence in her experience. "You know," she says politely, "it really isn't usual for anyone to show much in the way of generosity around here, let alone more than once. I just think you should know that that's special."
<Steph> Stephanie rolls her shoulders for a moment. "You know, in my profession we usually treat demonic seduction as being roughly on the same level as flinging a knife at your eye. Because of shit like that," she says, jerking a finger behind her. "Something to keep in mind in the future, hmm?"
<El-Cideon> "Well, we don't *have* to kill our partners," she says, admitting, "although I guess it happens a lot." Lorice stands up from the cooling corpse. "There we are. I suppose there's naught to do now but wait and watch. The retriever is supposed to deliver bodies to the waste pit--" she nods to the southeast door, "so I'd propose we take position in the northern corridor until it emerges to go about its work."
<Steph> "Yes, see? See! That is why! For me, killing is hard work, but for you, it's the post-bedding opium!" She nods at Lorice for a moment. "Let's hide, like sensible people," she suggests.
<El-Cideon> "So it *isn't* the sex that you object to after all?" Xondra says, just to be clear, and sounding as though her world makes just a little more sense this way. The northern corridor veers to the west, allowing opportunity to hide around the bend and still hear events within the cavern. "Keep your ears open for talons on stone," Lorice advises.
<Steph> Stephanie refuses to answer that, so Stephanie loiters at the bend and does, indeed, keep her ears open.
<El-Cideon> "I trust your heritage affords you sufficient vision in darkness to traverse the tunnel beyond," Lorice says quietly while you wait. "You are confident in your capacity to move about undetected, I hope? Maeandar's gaze is sharp, and his eyes are of a multitude."
<Steph> "Yeah, I'm pretty good. How far would I have to go?"
<El-Cideon> "Not far," she says, "but passing beneath his gaze is sure to be necessary en route to your possessions, and he will not be alone. Best pray he is distracted by events elsewhere in the maze. And if you have anything to evade casual detection, I'd suggest you use it in returning."
<Steph> "I got some tricks. Anyway, unless we pull one over him we'll never get out of here."
<El-Cideon> She nods. "Then I wish you the Prince's favor," she adds before going silent. After some minutes, one can hear the click-clack of carapace on stone echo out from the next room.
<Steph> Stephanie peers around the corner, and then counts down from ten before she slips out and makes her way to the ugly-looking hole in the ground.
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20 vs touch AC as you cross spiky rocks
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20 vs touch AC as you cross spiky rocks and gets 12."12 [1d20=12]
<Steph> OOC: 18, bitches
<El-Cideon> Stephanie is able to traverse the field of spikes safely. Her supernaturally-attuned vision is able to pierce the veil of darkness shrouding the hole and discern a ramp winding down the perimeter.
<Steph> Stephanie scoots towards the hole, and then peers down the ramp to discern any inquisitive eyes before starting to creep down.
<Steph> roll 1d20+18 stealths
* Hatbot --> "Steph rolls 1d20+18 stealths and gets 38."12 [1d20=20]
<El-Cideon> After a minute or so of trodding the corridor in absolute darkness, Stephanie spies a shaft of genuine light up ahead. It comes from a tall archway, elaborately carved with reliefs of celestial hosts writhing in apparent torment. Upon the archway sits a grimy, rumpled crow with beady red eyes. It does not appear to have seen you.
<Steph> No need to cross spooky birds that might raise alarms or call for help, so Stephanie turns wholly invisible for the few moments it would take to slip by the archway.
<El-Cideon> Beyond the archway is a bridge fiften feet or so wide. Beyond this, platforms dangle over a dark void, tethered to an unseen ceiling by fibrous green columns. Thirty feet or so beyond the archway, three distinct platforms branch off of a central landing: an upward ramp leads up to a platform with a grand canopied bed upon it; a downward ramp spirals out of sight; and immediately forward is a throne. (more)
<El-Cideon> Upon the throne is a man, tall, well-built and graceful looking, but there the resemblance to his celestial origins ends. His flesh is mottled gray and sickly, his wings are misshapen, featherless, bony appendages decorated with a plethora of eyes, and in his own face the eye sockets gape dark and empty. It is difficult to discern what his attention may be upon, but he wears a look of deep concentration. Gathered around and facing him are three others: one is a black-haired woman in heavy armor, midnight polished with a greatsword slung over her back, which strikes you as familiar in some way; one is a monstrous bird demon, a vrock, and fourth is a young woman, perhaps in her mid-teens, wearing a showy gown.
<El-Cideon> "Our dryad is dead again," Maeandar is saying as you arrive. "This one appeared to believe it an act of mercy."
<El-Cideon> The armored woman snorts. "I've heard that one before."
<Steph> For her hiding spot, Stephanie sets her useless bottle of wine aside, and then- turning briefly invisible again- she aims to climb down the side and underneath the platforms, where she clings on with one sticky hand. OOC: I'm shifting my stance into Dance of the Spider, which effectively gives me permanent Spider Climb.
<El-Cideon> Stephanie finds this course of action uninterrupted and seemingly unobserved.
<Steph> Where would their gear be? She didn't see any obvious containers for all the gear on the bed or by the throne, so she suspects she will just have to try and head down and look for a storeroom or something similar.
<Steph> And then, she turns her suspicions into action, and aims to do just that.
<El-Cideon> Down leads to a broad, circular platform. At a glance from the edge of the platform, Stephanie could see a dozen or so coffin-like growths thrusting up from the floor here. There are also, unmistakably occupying one open arc of the platform, a familiar undead wyvern alongside two metal golems and a mechanical horse, the entire collection standing dumbly motionless without orders.
<Steph> Stephanie studies one of the coffin-like growths a little more closely.
<El-Cideon> Within is a single item: a simple leather collar studded with rivets of what look like cold iron. It is sized for a rather large animal. You could recall seeing it on Aria's feline companion.
<Steph> Perhaps one of them contains all of her stuff! Stephanie looks over the rest of them.
<El-Cideon> Stephanie can in turn recognize the various clothing and items brought in with her and her compaions, even including Xondra's coat.
<Steph> If she recalls, Julia had a handy haversack, and she has her own bag of holding, of course. The question becomes how much stuff she can actually shove into them before returning...
<El-Cideon> "The little priestess has found the leech pool, and had some intimate encounter with it," Maeandar intones above. "She declined to indulge the baths thereafter--" there's a childish noise of disappointment at this, "--so we may expect her to remain rather rancid should she stumble upon us later."
<Steph> Stephanie decides to get changed, first, and once she's reacquainted with her most precious possessions (especially the invisibility cloak, she puts that on first), she can jam almost everything else that's important into her bag of holding and go back the way she came- though, she feels a childish need to eavesdrop further...
<El-Cideon> "The Azure sorceress continues to demonstrate great glee in exploding or melting every illusion offered her," Maeandar continues, changing subjects. With an air of disappointment: "I find her stubborn self-assurance most tedious."
<Steph> They're very self-assured. Aren't they scared at all that their charges might just be too strong to handle?
<El-Cideon> "The necromancer too continues to avoid acknowledging the inevitable course of her own ambitions," Maeandar adds. "I can find little purchase in the minds of self-delusions of such willful reinforcement," he adds, with an air that somehow suggests lack of surprise.
<El-Cideon> "I'm telling you, we know these chicks," the armored woman is saying. "I'm pretty sure it's the same girls, from what you're going on about."
<El-Cideon> "Just so long as they didn't bring the dwarves with them this time," the childish voice sing-songs. "They're no fun at all."
<Steph> Yeah, Stephanie knows you too, sweetheart. Weren't you guarding Dao on the plane of earth? Gosh, they're loud.
<El-Cideon> "There are no dwarves in the labyrinth," Maeandar confirms. "They did bring a succubus with them. She fell prey to vanity as easily her kind always does. No doubt dead by now. I should--hmm. Gone."
<El-Cideon> A moment's silence. "Ah, there she is. And Lorice is out of her cage, I see. Grinda, she'll require a degree of discipline once this round is concluded."
<Steph> Whoops. She's going to have to hurry, since sooner or later he'll realise the incorruptible tiefling is missing. But would he think to look right under his nose?
<El-Cideon> "Fine by me," Grinda says amiably. "She doesn't break easy," she adds, sounding up to the challenge.
<El-Cideon> "They're starting to collect in numbers on the the upper floors," Maeandar concludes eventually. "Mm. We'll have to notify the warden soon."
<Steph> That, at least, is good to know. So she just needs to head up...
<Steph> It's time to sneak back, so Stephanie hoists her not-bulging-at-all bag over one shoulder, and starts to clamber her way back up the undersides of the stairs.
<El-Cideon> No one's checking under the floor. Stephanie could make it back unobserved without much trouble so long as she doesn't poke her head up early.
<Steph> All she has to do is reach the archway, then use her cloak to turn invisible for a minute. Then, she can dash past the raven and she'll be in the clear! Well, until she has to come back to take these guys on directly...
<Steph> Of course, she could turn invisible first, and then making with the reaching and the rushing. That's how a sensible thief would act.
<El-Cideon> Stephanie is able to exit as cleanly as she'd entered. Back up in the cavern, she can observe that Martin's corpse has indeed been removed, somewhere.
<Steph> Now armed and armoured and ready to go, all Stephanie has to do is find her way to the upper floors!... She slips away to rejoin the two succubi whom she's starting to see as pets. "Fucking aces, done and dusted, but we gotta move. C'mon, we wanna get to the upper floors," she says. "Which way?"
<Steph> "Oh!" She rummages in her bag and pulls out Xondra's coat. "Don't lose it this time! A girl's clothes are her life."
<El-Cideon> Both of the succubi seem relieved to have someone around for company other than each other. "For us, up," Lorice observes with a degree of smugness. "But you might need stairs. We can take the ramp up from the waste pit. Just keep to the perimeter of the room," she cautions.
<Steph> "I... have winged boots. See? They've got wings," says Stephanie, clicking her heels.
<El-Cideon> Xondra brightens up instantly, dons the coat and gives you a friendly hug. "This was a chaste demonstration of gratitude," she points out.
<El-Cideon> "Excellent," Lorice observes. "Onward and upwards, then."

<El-Cideon> ~

<El-Cideon> After crossing the chasm, Julia and company arrive in an empty domed room room to the north with corridors leading to the east and northwest. Before they can debate the merits of left versus right, however, someone else emerges from the chasm behind them--it's an owl of improbable size, which can surely only mean one person! For her own part, Franceska can see assembled here: Julia and Aria, still lacking clothing of any kind, but the former at least with her familiar and second shadow; and Rosemund, who at least has acquired a set of chainmail and a simple shield somewhere but whose lower body is mostly caked in unsightly orange grime. She looks distracted and curiously flushed despite being substantially more clothed than her comrades.
* Franceska lands before Rosemund and tilts her head.
<Julia> "Oh, Franceska!" Julia smiles. "Did you see the wyvern I sent flying down there?" Who knew that would pay off?
<El-Cideon> Rosemund brightens up, at least a little. "Franceska?!"
* Franceska transforms into her human self, adorned in a wavy, comfortable robe only marred by the bloody hole around the stomach, and a crown that is a bit on the gaudy side. "So we meet again," she greets the others, nodding at Julia. "I did, and so I came up. It sounds as if our target is below."
<Julia> It's not a crown of baby dragon teeth is it?
<El-Cideon> "Oh, you got into some trouble, did you not?" Rosemund gasps at Franceska's obvious wound and hurries forward to offer her usual assistance in spite of her plainly discombobulated state.
<El-Cideon> Julia sees that it is not--it's made of silver and decorated with little enameled flames.
<El-Cideon> roll 2d8+14 Franzy heals
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 2d8+14 Franzy heals and gets 27."12 [2d8=5, 8]
<Julia> "No sign of Stephanie or anyone else, though?" Julia asks Franceska, not wanting to go there without the full team.
<El-Cideon> "I don't suppose anyone has spotted Barnaby along the way either?" Aria asks, clarifying for her new allies: "My feline companion."
<Franceska> "I got a bit distracted and paid for it, but worry not. I adequately avenged myself," Franceska is all too happy to inform Rosemund. "I used my favorite spell and then kept stabbing him." At Julia's question, she purses her lips. "None, and I explored most of this layer. Only the passage south from a short while here remains, as well as a rope bridge I chose not to cross. There is plenty
<Franceska> still to look at below--" She pauses as Aria speaks, and shakes her head. "I'm afraid not."
* Julia shakes her head. "Leslie's the only one I've seen," she gestures to her companionable shadow. "Well how about we go down and see if we can find any of our friends there?"
<El-Cideon> "We came from the south," Aria supplies. "There was little of note there beyond an enchanted mirror which it would be wise to avoid."
<Franceska> "Oh, the one that showed all of you dying horrible deaths from swimming in acid?"
<El-Cideon> Aria raises an eyebrow. "I'm afraid we missed that one." She does not sound disappointed.
* Franceska scoffs. "As if you would be caught that easily."
<Julia> "I met a lot of preachy undead and found a library with an apparently learned quasit," Julia says for her share. Thing bristles at this however, "He just had smart hat. Me bets he has no credentials!"
<Franceska> "Aside from learning that our enemy is below, I found out that there is some demon woman working with him," Franceska relates. "I'm unclear on whether she intends to betray him as we strike or if she is using him as a convenient puppet. But she's cruel, magically powerful and a demon, so I'm hoping we'll get a chance to kill her in a horrible way while there. Before that, however, would you
<Franceska> be amenable to traveling west and seeing what lies past the rope bridge?"
<Julia> "I wouldn't mind having a chance to find more allies or equipment first," Julia agrees.
<Franceska> "Oh, and I saw my share of gooey, melted down remains," Franceska recalls, glancing speculatively at Aria. "Your handiwork, by chance?"
<El-Cideon> "Our host's attempts to divine my ambitions and motivations were neither accurate nor appreciated," Aria responds.
<Franceska> "Of course," Franceska agrees, before leading them to the bridge.
<El-Cideon> Beyond the door Franceska leads the group to is another vast gulf. This one is traversable by a primitive vine bridge arcing a hundred feet or so over empty space. The bridge is composed of three principle threads: a central rope, only scant inches wide, and two support vines at waist level to provide a traveler with something to hold onto to shore up her balance. There is a door slightly leading northwest on the far side.
<Julia> "Well, at least I don't have anything weighing me down," Julia says, resigning herself to the effort of trying to cross such a dangerous bridge and going first.
<Franceska> "I was going to fly over, but since I'm not alone it hardly matters now," Franceska muses, before pausing next to Rosemund as Julia makes the attempt and asking quietly, "Is everything alright?"
<El-Cideon> Rosemund gives Franceska a fragile smile. "It is probably nothing," she insists, not entirely convincingly. "I just feel, ah, a little strange..." Once Julia's a good twenty feet out, something happens--the support vines snap apart and draw into the walls on either side of the chasm, and the central vine wobbles threateningly.
<El-Cideon> OOC: acrobatics, Julia. Straight DEX roll if you've got no ranks.
<Julia> roll 1d20+2 no ranks!
* Hatbot --> "Julia rolls 1d20+2 no ranks! and gets 22."12 [1d20=20]
<El-Cideon> Julia miraculously maintains her balance well enough to either scurry back where she came from or press on a good fragment of the remaining walk.
<Julia> She keeps on going while she still has the nerve! Besides, turning around is trickier than going forward like this.
<El-Cideon> The vine bridge thrums and hums ominously as she walks along, certainly not making things any easier for her as she tries to finish the dangerous walk.
<El-Cideon> OOC: make another check?
<Julia> roll 1d20+2
* Hatbot --> "Julia rolls 1d20+2 and gets 22."12 [1d20=20]
<Franceska> "Is this about wearing an armor without any clothing underneath?" Franceska asks bluntly, if quietly.
<El-Cideon> With consummate grace, Julia tiptoes across the vine to the other side! "A poor idea of a joke by our host, no doubt," Aria sniffs. She mutters a spell and bypasses the obstacle entirely by vanishing and reappearing next to Julia on the other side.
<Julia> "Whew, I didn't think I'd manage it but sometimes you just surprise yourself," Julia is all smiles after her feat of balance. Thing and Leslie both merely fly across uncaring of such trivialities.
<El-Cideon> Rosemund shakes her head. "Although that is not very comfortable either, it is more of a, ah, personal discomfort. Maybe it is all in my head, I keep feeling as though maybe I, or maybe a part of me, as though it belongs here..."
<Franceska> "It could be magic, so you had better fight it," Franceska tells her firmly, before peering at the rope critically. "Do you think you could cross this?"
<El-Cideon> Rosemund looks at the now much less navigable bridge. "It would be difficult..."
<El-Cideon> "Is assistance required?" Aria calls back across the chasm.
<Franceska> "I could fly over, but Rosemund would have a problem with her armor," Franceska calls back.
<El-Cideon> Aria blinks back over, takes Fran and Rosemund by the hand, and warps the lot of them over to Julia's side.
<Franceska> "Ah, that is much better," Franceska asserts happily.
* Julia looks a little bit saddened that her great effort at doing something she never thought she'd have the talent to do turned out to be pointless. But she pushes past it admirably and gestures onwards, "Shall we?"
<El-Cideon> Beyond this is a room familiar to Franceska: a great quadrangle of a room floored wall-to-wall with tiles bearing sigils. There is nowhere to step in this room that does not entail setting foot on one letter or another. Across the room, tunnels branch off to the north, northwest, and southwest.
<El-Cideon> OOC: obligatory languages query
<Julia> OOC: common, celestial, abyssal
<Franceska> "Ah, I did visit here," Franceska brightens up. "Through a series of rooms, we can reach a lower level rather than merely fly down."
<El-Cideon> Julia is able to recognize the letters as Abyssal, as does Aria, it turns out. She eyes the room thoughtfully, attempting to discern any pattern.
<Julia> "Is there any trick to the sigils?" Julia asks Franceska.
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20+24 K:something
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20+24 K:something and gets 25."12 [1d20=1]
<Franceska> "The trap doesn't activate if you fly over it?"
<Julia> Sighing softly, Julia resigns herself to trying to puzzle it out. Can you spell words with nearby sigils, or make sentences?
<El-Cideon> "I will hazard a guess regarding the nature of our host and this layer of the Abyss," Aria decides, setting out across the floor. She carefully picks out one letter after another in a path leading her to the southwest door. "A hymn in honor of the Dark Prince," she confirms. "There appear to be two paths linking each pair of doors. Unless you can jump across with some accuracy, we no doubt risk something by deviating here."
<Julia> "Is there a particular door we want to take?" Julia then asks Franceska.
* Franceska points towards the southwestern doorway. "I never went there." Gesturing towards the north, she says, "This is where I killed an unworthy enemy." Her hand trails towards northwest. "That is where I saw a lot of rooms with Aria's handiwork, apparently."
<Julia> "Well that sounds good to me!" Julia says, following Aria's footsteps.
<El-Cideon> "Follow precisely in my footsteps, then," Aria advises. "I know not the penalty for failure. Let us cherish our ignorance, yes?"
* Franceska has no objections in following suit.
<El-Cideon> The ceiling here reflects a pleasant, but rather mournful, sunset. The floor is soft grass and rises up to a central hill crowned by a gravestone. A heavy axe leans up against the monument and a dead, vine-choked tree looms over it. One could exit to the west, east, or south here. "Ah, now we strike familiar territory," Aria states. "South of here is where you found me," she nods to Julia. "West is nothing of consequence. East is the dubious clothing shop."
<Franceska> "Did you kill anything here?" Franceska asks curiously
<Julia> "Well, we could go back the way from where we met and eventually come to an untaken path," Julia says. "Unless you know of any other untaken paths within a couple of rooms, that would probably be quicker."
<El-Cideon> "I inspected the gravestone and was addressed by a spirit of questionable trustworthiness," Aria answers. "But I killed nothing, no."
<Franceska> "That would depend upon how much Aria explored," Franceska muses. "Did you go below? I found evidence of someone heading down that path earlier. If not you...."
<El-Cideon> "I started off down there," Rosemund says. "But, ah, I did not kill much of anything. Except some leeches." She wrinkles her nose in recollection.
<Julia> "Yes, Rosemund and I were down some stairs just before we met Aria. Lets go that way and I can take us to an unexplored path near to where I started?"
<Franceska> "Sounds lovely."
<Julia> So, off back downstairs, to the dead plant, through the library, and then was it northeast? She'll remember when she sees it, no doubt.
<El-Cideon> Soon enough Julia leads the group back to the descending ramp she'd taken upstairs (which Franceska herself had taken downstairs!) The bramble-studded path remains hazardous, even with the thorny branches rendered immobile by Julia's undead helper.
<El-Cideon> OOC: DEX roll to slip through undamaged if you're descending here. Thing and Leslie don't care.
<Julia> "Oh, I forgot about these. Mind your step everyone," Julia says, picking her way through.
<Julia> roll 1d20+2
* Hatbot --> "Julia rolls 1d20+2 and gets 15."12 [1d20=13]
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20+2 Rosey
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20+2 Rosey and gets 22."12 [1d20=20]
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20+3 Aria
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20+3 Aria and gets 5."12 [1d20=2]
<El-Cideon> roll 2d6 slashy Aria
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 2d6 slashy Aria and gets 6."12 [2d6=1, 5]
<Franceska> roll 1d20+1
* Hatbot --> "Franceska rolls 1d20+1 and gets 16."12 [1d20=15]
<El-Cideon> Aria gouges herself badly on a branch as she slips through--yet the moment the thorns jab into her skin, some spell activates, and her bared flesh takes on a solid, stony appearance that wards off any genuine harm. "I was hoping to save that for later," she gripes. Beyond the winding ramp is the room with the vile abyssal plant slain by Julia's magic. Passage through the library--which Aria eyes with passing but skeptical interest--and through the first room Julia passed through brings the group northeast to...a greenhouse? Fanastically colorful tropical plants crowd around the room and a thick, floral haze hangs in the air. Clear paths through the foliage lead southeast and northeast. At the juncture is something that looks...almost like a tree, and almost like a human body. Branches appear to have erupted up through this rotting corpse's mouth. It yet retains a ratty old dress upon its body.
<Franceska> "Something we can set on fire?" Franceska muses, eyeing the corpsetree.
<Julia> "I suppose, but unless it bothers us better to conserve our magic," Julia shrugs, opting to go for northeast unless molested on the way.
* Franceska stabs it with her fiery rapier.
<El-Cideon> As the two women set out into the room, colorful spores waft up from the flowers around them and invade mouth and nostrils--
<El-Cideon> OOC: fort you two
<El-Cideon> OOC: would also technically include Thing but he's immune
<Franceska> roll 1d20+12
* Hatbot --> "Franceska rolls 1d20+12 and gets 19."12 [1d20=7]
<Julia> roll 1d20+4 +2 vs sleep, stunning, paralysis, poison, disease, +4 vs negative energy
* Hatbot --> "Julia rolls 1d20+4 +2 vs sleep, stunning, paralysis, poison, disease, +4 vs negative energy and gets 6."12 [1d20=2]
<Julia> OOC: and Leslie!
<El-Cideon> roll 1d6 DEX damage to Julia
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d6 DEX damage to Julia and gets 2."12 [1d6=2]
<El-Cideon> Julia finds herself infected with a pervasive sense of lethargy as she crosses the room, her limbs feel slightly numbed and dragging.
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20+10 Rosey
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20+10 Rosey and gets 23."12 [1d20=13]
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20+8 Aria
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20+8 Aria and gets 11."12 [1d20=3]
<El-Cideon> roll 1d6 Aria
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d6 Aria and gets 1."12 [1d6=1]
<Julia> Lethargy or no, that makes Julia hurry up! "Maybe we should have burned it all first," she concedes dully.
<El-Cideon> Everyone makes it across the room without succumbing, but for those who got a good whiff of the spores, the ordeal isn't over yet!
<El-Cideon> OOC: 'nother fort save for J & A
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20+8 Aria
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20+8 Aria and gets 25."12 [1d20=17]
* Franceska keeps on stabbing the foliage she passes by as she follows, all the way to the end. Maybe it'll burn up slowly afterwards.
<Julia> roll 1d20+4 +2 vs sleep, stunning, paralysis, poison, disease, +4 vs negative energy
* Hatbot --> "Julia rolls 1d20+4 +2 vs sleep, stunning, paralysis, poison, disease, +4 vs negative energy and gets 7."12 [1d20=3]
<El-Cideon> roll 2d6 more DEX Julia
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 2d6 more DEX Julia and gets 5."12 [2d6=2, 3]
<El-Cideon> Julia definitely feels a lot more lethargic then she did when she went into the room! Beyond the greenhouse is a simple green dome of the sort you've often seen throughout the labyrinth. Doors lead to the east and southeast here.
* Franceska heads off to the east.
<Julia> Julia follows with a lot less spring in her step.
<El-Cideon> To the east, Franceska can see that the corridor leads to an open space filled with a chilly-looking, misty vapor. You cannot immediately judge how large this room might be or where the exits (if any) are situated. The fog obscures vision beyond ten feet or so.
<Franceska> "There is a lot of fog," Franceska says in dismay, perhaps needlessly. "Do you want to look at the other path first?"
<El-Cideon> "I might hazard the suggestion that we avoid traversing rooms with strange substances lingering in the air unless we absolutely must do so," Aria agrees.
<Julia> "Back to try the other way then," Julia nods, putting action to words.
<Franceska> "It can choke us to death," Franceska muses. "Or drain our vitality. Or even hide a trap... so many ways to die horribly in a fog."
<El-Cideon> Southeast is another empty dome, and then past another tunnel you emerge at the edge of a vile-smelling, toxic-looking pond. "Oh...this room," Rosemund says. The color of the muck does indeed match that caked on Rosemund's legs. You could navigate across to doors southwest and northeast by hopping across scattered stones, or by ambling along a narrow ledge hugging walls peppered with small, dark holes.
<Franceska> "You know what lies past there?"
<El-Cideon> Rosemund points northeast. "I came from that way...but there were some doors that I did not explore." Pointing southeast: "Down there was a nice-looking bath, probably too nice-looking, some other doors and a room where Julia found me." Rosemund sounds embarrassed about something omitted here, one could guess.
<Julia> "Is the swamp actually dangerous?" Julia asks, since aside from being grimy Rosemund seems fine.
<El-Cideon> "Leeches," Rosemund reiterates.
<El-Cideon> "I can take us across this easily," Aria says, "though keep in mind I won't have unlimited spells to use for this purpose."
<Franceska> "We could take a bath afterwards-- as if we'd do that here." Franceska frowns. "How about taking a look at those other doors, then?"
<Julia> "Leslie, go in the swamp and kill as many leeches as you can find," Julia orders her friendly shadow. "Lets just wait a minute or two, it should sort itself out."
<El-Cideon> "Even if there are no leeches, I should hardly want to walk through that again," Rosemund says as Leslie goes about her work.
<El-Cideon> OOC: roll...let's give Leslie a Perception check for thoroughness?
<Julia> roll 1d20+9
* Hatbot --> "Julia rolls 1d20+9 and gets 28."12 [1d20=19]
<Julia> "Well, I suppose we'll have to avail ourselves of a teleport then," Julia concedes to Rosemund's mental fragility.
<El-Cideon> After a couple minutes of unwitnessed, subsurface extermination, Leslie circles back before Julia and bows. Rosemund shakes her head. "It is alright, we should save our magic for when it is most important," she says. "I am already filthy, so I will give it a try."
<El-Cideon> Rosemund steps into the pool. She sinks in up to her waist and wades to the central stone amidst much unpleasant sucking and bubbling of the sticky goo. Once she climbs out, she makes a careful survey of her legs and appears to find nothing hungrily clinging to her after all.
<Julia> "Alright then. Good work Leslie," Julia congratulates her helpful shadow before she wades into the filth and follows after Rosemund. "We're going Northeast, right?"
* Franceska removes her robe and holds it over her head as she follows suit, intending to use Create Water at the other end to clean herself and anyone else interested properly before putting it back on.
<El-Cideon> Sniffing with obvious distaste, Aria steps in after the others and wades with the rest of the group to the northeast. Rosemund pauses the group on the other side and offers to assist in just the same manner as Fran. "I was saving my spells up earlier, just in case, and I was, ah, very distracted at the time...but this time I am definitely washing everything off while it is fresh!"
<Julia> "Please, that'd be nice," Julia says, availing herself of the fresh water.
<El-Cideon> It's not as thorough as you'd get with a good soapy scrub--your lower portions remain slightly discolored a sickly orange color--but at least with this basic spell you can rinse off the worst portions of the sludge and continue marching without feeling totally disgusting.
* Franceska needed to wash the blood off, anyway, so it's as good a time as any. "Distracted?" she repeats. "Over what?"
<El-Cideon> "Um," Rosemund says as your march on through one of the labyrinth's familiar eye-strewn corridors. "I kept--I keep having visions of, of men and women...it will not stop. It is very inappropriate right now! I wish that it would stop."
* Franceska nods sadly in understanding. "You have to resist the demon whores, Rosemund! Even if they're being insistent!"
<El-Cideon> Rosemund nods sadly.
<El-Cideon> Beyond the corridor is...an arena? You step out on dry torchlight sands surrounded by row upon row of spectator benches, and sitting upon them are...cats. Cats of all species, shapes and sizes, wild and domesticated, all peering down upon the arena with intense interest and occasionally yowling encouragement for the spectacle ongoing in the center. Therein, one could recognize Aria's lynx companion engaged in a tussle with...Aria. Yet obviously not quite Aria, as this doll-sized version of the sorceress wails piteously for mercy as it's batted and toyed with by the predatory feline. If this spectacle somehow does not command one's full attention, archways could be observed to the northwest and southeast.
<El-Cideon> "This, ah...this was not here before," Rosemund says with a blink.
<Julia> "Your cat looks happy," Julia tells Aria.
<Franceska> "It does have troubling implications."
<El-Cideon> Aria marches into the center of the arena to intercede directly. "Barnaby! You will cease this foolishness this instant!" she demands of her pet(?) The lynx looks from its prey to Aria proper with evident perplexion but a characteristically feline lack of shame.
<Franceska> "At least persistence won out, and we ended up finding someone. Ah, but Stephanie is still hopelessly lost."
<Julia> "I do hope she hasn't run into any trouble," Julia says, walking over to where Aria and her cat are getting reacquainted with each other.
<El-Cideon> Aria points a finger at the miniaturized her and emits a series of magical bolts at the offensive apparition--
<El-Cideon> roll 5d4+5
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 5d4+5 and gets 20."12 [5d4=3, 3, 4, 3, 2]
* Franceska feels a pang as she misses her own wand of magic missiles in that moment.
<El-Cideon> --battering it with magic and revealing it in its death throes to be another masquerading quasit. Aria grabs the lynx by its pointy ears and commands right to the fearsome predator's face: "We have PROPER prey yet to dispose of today. You and I will discuss this later."
<El-Cideon> The arena display melts away; the audience hisses in collective disapproval but soon follows suit. The doors remain.
<Julia> "Lots of quasits here," Julia can't help but notice.
<El-Cideon> Barnaby delicately sniffs at Aria's leg and peers up at her with a disapproving look.
<El-Cideon> "I could throw you in myself," Aria threatens. "YOU would have to clean yourself with your tongue."
* Franceska looks to the southeast.
<El-Cideon> Southeast is a tunnel that wends a ways and then splits in two. You can't immediately see what goes where.
* Franceska takes the right one.
<Julia> "Oh, Franceska's heading off, we'd better follow," Julia says in case Aria and her cat are too distracted, doing so herself.
<El-Cideon> Rightward leads to a room Franceska is familiar with: a ledge of stone wends along the wall of a great chasm to link up with a door to the east, and a similar ledge across the chasm links doors to the south and southwest. This is recognizably the position from which she'd ascended to join up with her friends. Below you is only blackness--but with penetrated by the sound of voices approaching you?
<El-Cideon> Rosemund and Aria join the others from behind, trailed at last by a primly oblivious Barnaby.
<Julia> "Hello! Is that you, Stephanie?" Julia shouts down the chasm hopefully.
<Franceska> "Or demons to kill," Franceska says happily.
<El-Cideon> Possibly both? It is, as becomes momentarily apparent, a Stephanie, drifting up from the blackness on her flying shoes. She has in fact donned all her familiar gear somehow and totes a bulging sack over her shoulder. And nor is she alone: Xondra has somehow managed to rejoin her side, dressed in her donated coat no less; Stephanie's second companion is also a succubus, albeit one of less overtly cheerful demeanor than Xondra. This coldly beautiful, raven-haired temptress carries a scimitar at her side, and wears a luxurious nightgown and an expression of haughty, calculating cruelty.

<El-Cideon> ~