Vegetation Worse Than Death

The party with which Syn finds herself traveling with all stand within a grotesque circular room filled with bodies strung along its walls in vines. The center of this room sits a deep hole from where these bodies find their end. Disposed of into what could be described as a gutter of human remains. Syn stands by the entrance of this circular room, watching Astroix, Captios, and Alexa ponder over the bodies. A sudden crack of what sounds like bone makes Syn shift her body, to get a better view of what the three are up to. Brain.
Syn watches in silence as Astroix slices and dices the grey matter within the broken skull for a slimmer of hope. “How exactly is this “helping” these people?” She tilts her head to the side as she asks her question. Red eyes shifting to around the room, looking at each of the bodies that remain tethered to the walls in vine. “You’d be doing them a favor if you just slit their throats and put them out of their misery.”
In a rare display of AGREEING with Syn, Ozymandius looks to one of the weaker half-elves that is strung to the wall, "Hungry animals get reckless enough to open themselves up a solid hit in the face." He pokes one of their ribs, an act that leaves a dent that doesn't 'heal' back to its natural state. Gross. "We can still make use of their shitty situation by 'granting them a quick and merciful death'." One can almost hear the air quotes in his tone.
"No," Be'lania replies back with the quiet defiance of a ray of light that pierces through a dark storm, "we will not be sacrificing people to further our own agenda." Those sea foam green eyes stare at Ozymandius and Syn both with all the ire of an upset puppy. "Not while there is still hope for any one of them to be saved. No matter the odds."
HRRRRKKK. Clemens dry heaves again. There are a lot of opinions circulating on the topic.
Astroix cleans his medical supplies before it is time to continue. He looks to Captios showing him a dull expressionless smile, before shaking his head snapping himself out of a dark place. “Thanks Captios” Astroix says patting Captios shoulder before turning around with a sad smile looking at Ozy and Syn .”You’re probably right you two. But I’ve seen Hope , a Boy I treated he was hit with a dragons ghastly fiery breath, half of his body was burnt , he wasn’t going to make it , his body went into shock and he fell into a coma. As a doctor I knew my patient had very little chance of survival but something told me to keep trying. The kid lost a leg in the operation. But a week later he was awake and he was happy to see his family, he will never be the same but he’s alive and that’s a lot more then he would have been if I’d given up.” Astroix perks up wiping a tear from his face adjusting himself and standing tall, he looks to Bel’lania and smiles before whispering to himself “thanks for reminding me...hope” Astroix then let’s out a yell more for himself then for the attention it’ll bring. He lets out a sigh of relief then goes on to continue speaking. “Maybe theirs no point in doing this at all.. maybe they might not live for long... but if there’s a chance like that boy, to smile again even for just a moment, then I have to try. If we kill them it’s the same as running away, and if we run good people will die. If I do nothing what would she think of me? I can only help in the small way that I can and save who I can now. I’ll do the best that I can do. Because it’s the right thing to do” Astroix says this with both confidence and a certain calmness so that his words resonate.
Astroix looks at Ozy and Syn his eyes begin to emanate a low gold mystifying glow. Would be easy to miss if you weren’t looking at him. “Ozy you feel good when you’re winning, when you’re fighting , that may even be true for you Syn. But I for one feel good when I’m helping people. That’s why I protected you when I did Syn. I didn’t have to do that you’ll probably say , and you’re probably right. But it’s who I am. Someday we’ll all die but have you thought about it? Who you’ll be when you die? What would you die for?” Astroix turns around looking up as if he were trying to look at the sky. Instead he looks at the dark emptiness this stomach provides.”but I’m no hero I doubt any of us here are.. but this is where I’ll stand. Because it’s the only thing I know how to do.” Astroix turns around putting his gloves back on. “Think about it.” Astroix says calmly as reality begins settling under Astroix’s skin. It’s going to be a long day.
Dark red eyes look across the way to Astroix, watching him in silence as he speaks words of hope out loud to the party. A mental processing of his words makes her grit teeth behind a closed mouth. She takes her great club wraeth, that was being carried over her shoulder and places the end of it down on the ground to casually lean on it. A better option then touching the body strewn walls. Its dark and almost black set wood base flowing with red cracks between each spike along the club looks equally as ominous as the chamber the party stands in. A sharp intake of air follows.
Ah his words piss her off.
“Doing dumb shit, be it jumping in front of an attack that almost kills you, attempting to save people that will probably die anyway, or putting us all at risk the more we travel through this place, is not saving anything but your own selfish morals. What I’ll be when I die doesn’t matter because I’m dead. I don’t know if you are aware but---” A hand comes up and taps the edge of one of her horns. “Morals aren’t really a thing in Hell.” She leans heavily on Wraeth that when held in this matter is as tall as she is. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news but..” Her words come off sarcastic. “This world is not full of glitter and rainbows. You have to make decisions that suck because sometimes, the best thing you can do is kill them and make the pain end.” Her words at the end of her statement trail off and in between them surface her own personal pain. “I’m not going to stop you and your fleshy experiments over there—” Her eyes glance briefly to Be’lania then back to Astroix. “But don’t come crying to me when your glimmer of hope crumbles apart in front of you.” The best form of understanding that a barbaric Tiefling can muster really.
“I’ll stand guard, in the event you piss something off and it comes charging in here for cutting off its food supply.” She picks up Wraeth and tosses it over her shoulder, holding the cloth wrapped handle tightly and turning to take a spot outside of the body infested stomach of whatever creature they reside in.
Astroix let’s out a painful sigh. There is some truth to her words... but I cannot waver. “It’s precisely because this world isn’t glitters and rainbows that I have to do something here. I’ve seen how terrible this world can be. But i refuse to simply allow the evils of this world define me. To let it govern my choices would mean I’m no longer myself.” Astroix pauses for a moment putting his scalpel down from his work. His words then tremble reliving past trauma. “I’ve seen what a black dragon does to its prey... they don’t just kill you , they relish in the torture, they want to see you break before them.” Astroix tenses up breathing in and then letting out a heave. “Sometimes a bear has to fight against a current to catch a fish... I’ll keep fighting against this harsh reality as long as I can. Because it’d be easy to give in to the world and become another bad person in an already shitty reality . What’s harder is holding on to hope and kindness in a world that fights against you.” Astroix turns to Syn even though she’s turned around by now. “ I don’t know what you went through in Avernus and I can’t even begin to imagine. Hell I don’t even know what Avernus is..” Astroix scratches his head a bit disappointed in himself. Knowing there’s something he simply doesn’t understand but wants too.”Syn you don’t have to worry I’m no Hero... I know I can’t save all these people.. but even if it’s just one.. it’ll make a difference.” Astroix turns back around to get back to his work. He then glances at Alexa “Besides as much as most of you may be opposed to this.. you’re not so different from me. After all” Astroix looks at Alexa and Syn with a small tender smile. “ You never gave up on Ford did you?”
Alexa listens as the elf speaks about his life experience, and two tieflings discuss mercy kills. Everyone is talking absolutes, but no one is thinking of the journey ahead. "I once thought like you before I was thrown into Avernus Astroix. It's so easy to believe that saving people is the right thing to do, that if there's even a sliver of hope, we should cling to it. But I can day first hand that that's just not how the world works. The good guys don't always win because they have hope in their heart." She pauses, debating whether or not to continue, she can feel the sadness and weight of her decisions in Avernus. "Syn and I were in prison there with 2 or 3 other people. I did everything in my power to get them out of that prison, to do what I thought was the right thing was for them. And what do you think happened? That action saved them all and now they're happily living out their lives up here?" She scoffs "No. They're all dead, except myself and Syn. Once they left the safety of that prison they couldn't survive and they all died." She struggles to fight back the emotion of the Avernus brawl, of decisions she made that she wishes she could take back. "We free them from this plant and feed them the sweet water, but then what? They can barely walk, we will support them so that you can call yourself a hero, and the world will do what it does best. Dragons. Poison air. Whatever out next obstacle is, they'll be right there with us. Except unlike us, they won't be able to find for themselves and you condemn them to a far more painful death."
Be'lania darts her eyes between everyone talking. Astroix. Syn. Astroix. Alexa. Her small fists tighten as she gets worked up by the situation diffusing into despair tied together tightly by the threads of reality. "But you did save people," Be'lania says as she walks to one of the Candles making a strong case on the lesser evil. "You saved yourself, both of you did," she says.
The small singer reaches out with one of her hands to rest on Alexa's arm. The other is held close to her own chest. "Not knowing things will be okay, but believing in it. Not knowing if things will turn poorly, but giving people a chance," she turns her head to look to Astroix, "sometimes people need a hand just to have the chance to shine." The head slowly goes to the tieflings, "to have a choice instead of a choice made for them." Then she does something both predictable and out of place for a lair of vines and grim fates. She sings.
Clemens calms down his nausea with deep breaths and listening. "Astroix," he breaths, finally able to contribute, "earlier you said something about the plants and the liquid and I think I can make a bag." He stands weakly, "If you can find the parts of the vines that connect to the veins, I can find the right concentration to put into a water-skin. It can't be any different than what they are doing to them right now, but without dependency on the plants and maybe," he says as he looks Alexa, "we get lucky and find more plants out here that we can introduce to restore their strength. Look how strong some of the things we have faced are, I'm sure there are some things we can look for to help."
Astroix turns to Alexa with a serious Gaze "Be'lania is right. But you also gave them a chance. Even if it didn't work out in the end wasn't that better then doing nothing? Do you think those people would have preferred rotting in a cell?" Astroix averts his gaze for a moment biting his lower lip before looking back at Alexa "You speak of absolutes but is it not you who is thinking that way? You're no longer in Avernus and yet your mirroring the events from there, to the events here. I'm truly sorry to what to happened to you there. But people are suffering here in the now, you're not alone in that. Astroix pinches his skin But you're alive can't you see that? Living is about making choices, Sometimes we can't control what the future has in store for us. But we can still do what's right in the moment. Astroix walks slowly to Alexa before reaching his hand out forward "Sometimes it's not all about what's logically correct, This is real and we are here. Astroix then turns to Clemens slapping his shoulder "And with hope comes a spark.. an idea.. You may be onto something Clemens. Astroix begins to ponder thinking of what to do next
Alexa listens to the naive 'good' elf and is reminded of coming across his type many times before. They always believe that they are doing the righteous thing, and no level of reason will get to them. She used to be like that, she is not looking forward to when life shows him that that mind set will only get those around you killed. "Do what you feel is necessary, I just ask that before you 'save' them that you have a fully fleshed out plan. I've seen first hand multiple times what happens when people make decisions purely on feelings with no idea of what they're doing after that." She turns away from both Astroix and Be'lania, but puts her hand in n Be'lania and gives it a little squeeze. She knows what the songstress has gone through, and that this hope is the only way she has been able to cope with it.
Captios, who up until now has been listening to the back and forth on what to do next finally chimes in. "My gut reaction is that we should save these people. I think that in most cases it's the ethical option. However this time I'm not so sure. Let me pose it to you a different way. Astroix, if there were ten weakened, sickly people outside this cave, would you force them to come with us on this adventure from here on out? Because I don't think you would. But that's what you are doing if we heal them. I think yes there's a small chance that they survive but their expected outcome is death in a worse way, and more so our death is more probable if we have to take them with us. They are all in an induced coma, and it will take some time to heal them to where they can walk with us. Not to mention the plant most likely will attack us at a greater ferocity. If we save them now, in this way, we are most likely subjecting them and ourselves to a fate worse than this." "There are so many variables in play here. Who are these people and how did they end up here in the first place? How did this specific corruption take place? What will the plant do if we take it's food source? What else will we face outside of here. So many puzzles and all of them so far out of reach." Captios looks at Clemens and Astroix. "For you two I ask this. If saving your people back home is your most important task, how would you feel if in healing these people we run out of time for those outside?"
Astroix a bit taken by surprised makes a sharp turn to look at Captios"If i let these people die like this Captios how would those people back at home ever look at me the same way? Will you sleep with no regrets knowing you did nothing to save people who you could have helped? Everyone seems to be focusing on the negatives but once we get out of here whose to say there isn't a village we can leave these people in? What if they're able to tell us how this all started? We could prevent this in the future. This isn't some puzzle to be solved." Astroix turns his head to the side "It'd be a lot easier to make a choice here if it was. Lets just see if I can save at least one person. Astroix turns back to his supplies cleaning them thoroughly for the moments that lie ahead. He's frustrated but calm, Breathless.
Captios stutters. "I...I didn't mean that this was just a puzzle." He looks directly at Astroix, his eyes showing genuine apologies. "I'm scared is all. Not for myself really, but more so for the people outside, the ones that are dying. I'm scared for the fate that may befall these people if we save them. I'm scared that if the wrath of this place awakens, you will all fail on your promises to those you love." He turns to look at the dissected body. "These people are here for some reason. Why they were chosen we don't know. I'm worried that we try to save everyone, we won't save anyone."
Syn stands at the entrance looking down the corridor of vine covered walls into the darkness from where they entered. Eye’s gifted with night vision, watch intently as the voices behind her echo within the chamber. The voice of Alexa rings out and Syn is rather taken back by her words. For some reason, she wasn’t expecting the response that she gave. Avernus was bad, but she didn’t realize just how much it had changed Alexa till she spoke about it here. A hand grips the cloth wrapped handle of her great club, Wraeth thinking back on the battle royale. Memories flowing in opaque or even missing in sections. Would that ever happen again? Would she slaughter more people like that?
A vine along the wall shifts, slightly off putting but given their location and what they’ve seen already, it’s best to steer clear of touching the walls. They are very much alive, and very much willing to consume them, the invading species. Syn turns her head, looking slightly back to the party. “They’re not going to budge on this Alexa.” She finally speaks once everyone spoke of their opinions. “Captios is right, these people are here for some reason. How they got here has been bothering me since we walked into this fucked up place.”
She turns her full body to look back into the chamber. “Only idiots and adventures make their way out into the wilderness. So, unless they are failed attempts at adventuring, or they truly are complete fucking morons, they got here by other means.” She lets out a frustrated sigh, they’ve been here too long, and everyone seemed to have forgotten the warforged still up there wandering the poison forest expecting us to surface at some point. “We don’t have an inkling of what the hell is going on here, you all want to save these people, great, fantastic, but we have a mission to hunt this green dragon because we need those crystals. The one we replaced in Ford will only last for a short time. You know, T.I.M.E that is running out the more we ponder over how to be the good guys here.”
Aw, she kinda cares.