Session 10: Just Who...

Session 10: Just Who Am I Fighting With?
 
The rainy battle is relentless and fierce. The skeletons, zombies, ghostly apparitions in the forms of tables and even figures, and cultists seem to seep through every crevice. I am relying heavily on my devil magic traits. Too heavy for my comfort. It just helps me to see more clearly in the practically black house and it also appears to be effective. I clean up my area with the help of some of my companions, and begin to chastise more my way from the smokey corner I was in.
 
The sounds of the ensuing battle behind me begin to drown out and a nondescript says in my head "Sadachbia is captured. Exit out the door in front of you if you don't want him to die." It's not a voice I've heard. I have no intuitive inclination if I trust it, and I also know I don't want Sadachbia dead. Behind me the desperate voice of Angus calls out, "Atka! Where are you?!" I snap back into my focus, ready my sword, and dart out the door.
 
Nomad's inquiry to Angus of what's happening is the last thing I hear before my eyes drink up the scene. A boneclaw--one that I read about in the libraries of Neverwinter while training to be Lord Dagult's bodyguard--stands with eyes burrowing into me, a nearly lifeless Sadachbia run though and casting a spell. As if on a cue, the boneclaw parts his spindly, gigantic arms outstretched, seeming to rip my companion into pieces. I scream. There was no blood or matter at all, and my ears pick up his and Nomad's voices behind me. I turn my focus back to what I had run out there for.
 
I charge forward to swing the Flame Blade, and before it connects, the boneclaw extends the reach and grapples me, moving with me away from the door and my backup. It was not long before I hear "ATKAAA!!" from behind, the familiar voice of Illidrex. He's suddenly upon us with radiant energy and attacks clipping both me and the boneclaw. I don't care that I am bleeding and nearing passing out. I call up a second wind, brace myself, and rip out of it's grasp just in time for a winged, hastened attack from the powerful Nomad. It still unnerves and exhilarates me, watching his true power. Mamnen says that I will come into my own once I stop resisting conventions of limits. We'll see.
 
A loud scream from a ghoul behind me. Kal makes quick work of that one. And with Nomad and the others filing out, we clear out the rest of those enemies... I know the natures of boneclaws... I know it'll be back if we don't kill the source...
 
Running on nothing, the team pulls itself back into a fiery tavern. Sadachbia and others put out most of the fires around. I see a saw group of us gathering behind a figure at the bar. It's Illidrex. His mask is on the table. None of us try to see his face as he shovels down a bottle of wine. He asks Honorine how much she saw. Eventually, he reveals to us all his incredible history of being tortured...to the degree of wanting vengeance on the five responsible. Angus, Nomad, and I attempt to reason out how vengeance can be done without torture--I go one step further to say without punitive interests but that's me--Orion validates the feelings, extends an offer to help Illidrex, and when Nomad protests, Orion suggests that Nomad may have abandoned him to some degree? They may be family, and they may have shaken each other's hands afterward, but the water under that bridge be not still, as Helja would tell me.
 
As things tense up when Illidrex asks Honorine for his pendant back and she leaves stating she'll "make it right", my anxiety rises as I hear Sadachbia reiterate to the group that Manshoon took the Stone of Golorr. So our first key on this, my ridiculous sidequest, is gone. I hear Manshoon's name and it's like I feel color draining from my face. Knowing what I know of him from my past (his influence over my future, his toying with me in his challenges, his energy), and knowing what I know from him from this crew's travels together (the almost fantastical, tyrannical lore, the cloning, the devil/demon play...), I don't want to be the one to have to put us in his grasp.
 
There are those I won't tell, Illidrex one of them now... so keen to torture someone, to feel good when inflicting such physical punishment... It makes me physically ill to look at him, despite my aches for his experiences. At any rate, I call out to Angus and Nomad and say that I need two people I feel safe around. I first share the voice in my head before rushing out to help Sadachbia. Angus said he heard a command in his head to follow me! My suspicions, questions, and anxieties make bumps rise on my arms. He says that Orion needs to be present for the conversation, and he fetches him. Angus begins to explain the voices to which Orion states that he had specifically told Angus never to mention them. Pleadingly, I ask for information from Orion. Anything helpful about who this voice was, where it might have come from, or its motivation for me. Orion "crumples his parchment" for the first time and attempts to lie to me, saying "It could be anyone. Sadachbia maybe?" I'm terse, but firm in that Sadachbia does refer to himself in the third person. He attempts again to spin a web but missteps when he says that the voice in Angus' head could be any helpful voice. I asked to clarify whether he meant that because he had just said that he was responsible for the voice in Angus' head and didn't want him to mention it.
 
Orion claps and stands stiff and asks me, "What do you want to know? Just ask plainly." There are one thousand questions racing through my head.
 
I list off I want to know who he's getting this ability from, how he got, whose voice it is, what interest it has in me, and what it's intention was with intruding in my head? Orion states in brevity that he paid the sum of 500 gold in exchange for some unique abilities that allow him to do things helpful to his cause. He did not answer who.
 
"I'll say it, Orion. Don't make me use it like this, and don't think I won't." I say, referring to our promises made to each other. He had used his when Renear arrived to drop my reactive state. I thought it was a misuse. Was this really how I wanted to use this? I went over it in my head: the people who had been in my head unwelcomed were Honorine and Sadachbia, Ire, and Mamnen...and now a mystery individual. What if it was one of them? Or worse...?
 
"Say it," Orion challenged. Mistake, I thought. I follow-through on my challenges.
 
"1000 pushups."
 
He snaps his fingers... and an impish, devilish figure appears silhouetted behind him, and I lose all color in my body--purple to gray.