Session 4-3b! Seryf explores, sees failure troll!

[Anastasia]

> It's hazy. Very hazy, your senses disturbed and disoriented. It takes a long period for you to become rightly aware again. You aren't sure what happened, but...oooph. You stand nearly alone on the dais you and the others were on - however, only you and Serith remain. The other four are gone, as if swept away by an unseen, unfeeling hand. Serith looks about, eyes casting about...
> As you do, a soft sound - wood parting past the dais, a passageway revealing deeper into the tree.
<Seryf> "Great..." Seryf sighs, reaching down to scratch Serith's ears. "Just you and me for now, hm?" she asks, beginning to walk forward into the passageway.
> Serith's tail drops low as she looks about, following Seryf as she heads down the dais and to the passage. There is light in this small, quiet home of wood - little globes of light, bright and pure white. Glowing with nothing but the air to sustain them they go on, shedding light. It's a long, twisting hall, leading you deeper and deeper in like a spindle.
<Seryf> Seryf continues on walking down the hallway, looking about her as she goes, hands resting on the hilts of her swords. THey said this was a trial, something is bound to occur.
> It's peaceful at first - very peaceful. Ev entually you come to a rounded place, a stopping point. Here is a crystal line of quartz, a great and perfect quartz crystal. It looms from ceiling to floor, spaces on the side to get through. However, in this crystal sleeps a beast - a great troll, body nearly torn apart yet living, as if flash frozen inside of the mineral.
> Serith growls softly at this, fur rustling back and the great cat carefully eyeing the deadly creature.
<Seryf> "Spoke too soon..." Seryf murmurs, looking up at the great and rended beast encased in crystal. Seryf ducks out of her pack, making sure to tuck the vial of acid into a pouch. "The real question is...do I have to pound on it to break it out, or is this something else?" she murmurs quietlylooking around for anything else of note.
> At the base of the crystal is a simple leaf, sitting on the wooden floor. A green leaf that could be from any tree, waiting tobe picked up or swept away.
<Seryf> "Get ready...and no, I don't think troll meat tastes good, unfortuantely," Seryf murmurs to the grat cat, striding forward, and picking up the leaf.
> As Seryf picks up the leaf, images flash in her mind. Of Saul and Darius, in the hills. Finding a dwarf and a ride, talking. A troll and an attack, a battle going on now! As you watch the arm of the troll is cut away, the crystal bound menace having it's arm wither and sink away from it's body inside the crystal! As you hold it you see it go on, Saul's words of magic and a staff he holds invoked! As you watch on at this carnival of a moment, Serith's growls stop, the cat turning to behind you.
> carnival of a moment, Serith's growls stop, the cat turning to behind you.
<Seryf> Drawing one blade, Seryf turns to look behind herself as Serith does, smiling a bit more at her companions' apparent competency.
> As Seryf sees something that may argue otherwise, you see...nothing. Yet you get a sense, a sense of something being there. "Welcome, Ascendant..." the voice is faintly female, but mostly distant. "Watch on...one is as only good as those that support her..."
<Seryf> "Quite," Seryf agrees softly, settling to watching as she resheathes her blade. "You would be Corela?" she asks the voice curiously, almost conversationally.
* SirAlex is now known as AlexAsleep
> "Just the shade of a long sleeping defender," the voice replies as a vicious battle continues in the vision of Seryf.
<Seryf> "Are trolls normally this clumsy?" Seryf asks with a vague smile.
> "Your friends are both skilled and...fortunate," There is a pause, voice showing a hint of amusement, going lighter as if bemused by the battle. As the troll falls, burning and b roken, "Your friends are true in body. Will they be true in mind and soul?"
<Seryf> "Define 'true'," Seryf answers, smiling a bit further.
> "Truth is truth...are they true to themselves and to their honor, or nothing but souls blinded by opportunity and desire?" So asking, the voice stops. "When this has finished, walk on, Ascendant."
> The visions continue, your friends victorious over a vile troll! A total victory, having send it to a  hopefully fiery grave!
<Seryf> "I think they are honest about their desires...' Seryf muses, shaking her head. "This was the biggest question I had," she murmurs, getting up to move on as the troll burns.
> The images vanish as the leaf is put down, Serith sitting at your side as you finish. She lingers a moment there, looking up to the caged beast...
* Rei (WinNT@user-3697.l2.c1.dsl.pol.co.uk) has joined #evildunes
<Seryf> "He killed it, don't worry," Seryf tells the tiger, giving Serith another scratch behind the ears as she moves on.
* Rei-chan (WinNT@user-3697.l2.c1.dsl.pol.co.uk) Quit (Ping timeout)
> Serith growls softly but relaxes at that comforting scratch, moving on with Serith. On they go, another twisting hallway, starting to take an upward slope.
* Seryf pats Serith again, continuing onwards down the hallway.
> On you go, the hallway leading you on! As you do, you hear something behind you - a clittering clatter, a sound of somethign scraping against wood.
* Seryf turns with a whirl, blades drawn again. "Maybe..." she sighs, glancing at Serith. Heading back, Seryf checks the path behind her.
> Serith stops, sniffing the air and growling again...but the sound stops. Nothign approaches, only the lit quiet of the halls.
<Seryf> Seryf, ever a cautious ranger, continues on back to look at what might've made that noise.
> Slipping back, Seryf pokes back...and back...and back. Serith follows, looking back - but nothing, only empty hallway...
> Eventually you reach the room before, the troll quiet an gone - the crystal is there, but only a burnt skeleton is smoldering there now...
* Seryf smiles a little at that, her mind settled. "Good job guys," she snickers, heading back forward, on and on...
> On you go! Onward into the passage, progressing on.  Soon enough you come to a second chamber, another vile troll within and another leaf! It's similiar to the first, naother caged creature!
* Seryf heads forward, as seems to be expected of her, and picks up the leaf to see what else ehr friends may do.