Situation Report Twenty-three

General Summary

I cough and wipe bloody-phlegm from my lips and beard. Gingerly prodding my ribs under my armour, I ease myself against the wall and slump to the floor. "What the fuck is going on down here. I reckon campaigning again will be safer than wading around in these miserable cisterns." Sylke reaches for her own wound from the foul Demon. She pops a leaf into her mouth, one she bought with Ugnan’s guidance. It heals her a bit but the wave of pain relief settles her lungs from gasping for more air than she currently needs. “More Damned Demons!”, she utters throwing her hands about the room, “they’re populating the realms more than the base races are.” The lithe Erlin woman sits down on her haunches, and wrinkles her delicate nose at the stench of the room. “I’ve seen this before…where there’s one, there are always more, Zenon be thrice-damned!”
Ugnan gets to work warming a pot for a Rewk brew. After a couple of hearty mugs I'm feeling much more myself. "Aahh, that feel much better".
Cherry wades into the bloody pool and feels around in the murk for items of worth. She surfaces after a few more seconds with a severed hand, a ring still on a finger. Cherry's face goes sickeningly slack and she sits in the pool, beginning to bathe herself in the blood. Ugnan wades in to help her and, regretfully, I wade in to help. We drag her out and, after a scary few moments while she struggles to return, we drag her towards a clear cistern of water. Pain wracks Cherry, though; the further we go from the bloody pool, the worse it becomes, until her whole body is afflicted by cramps and she screams with anguish. We we return to the pool again. "What's going on Ugnan?" I demand. "What's happened to Cherry?"
Ugnan and Sylke investigate the demonic summoning circle in the room and also the ring Cherry retrieved.
After considering options to destroy the pool Ugnan advises that, "I'm not sure releasing a load of tainted blood into the water supply is a good thing." We agree, and investigate the rooms to the North and South and both contain rooms with functioning portals. Sylke makes a concerted bid to run through them, but luckily Cherry and Ugnan leap to intercept her. Ugnan falls flat on his arse, but Cherry tackles the ill-disciplined mage. "Don't be a fool Sylke."
Striving to cure Cherry from her ailment, we head to a cistern to try and rinse the blood off. Cherry writhes with pain as she gets closer to the cistern, when suddenly her muscles spasm and, "crack!", her arm shatters. "Shit."
Sylke has an idea of flash freezing her clothes and shattering the blood off. I indulge in a few tentative swings with Remorse while I wait. "By Cay that's a well balanced weapon!".
After an uncomfortable period with my back turned, I walk back to her and drape my wolf-skin cloak over her shoulders. She looks a bit better and improves rapidly once Ugnan brews up a dose of Bursthelas and her arm knits together again. "Well, I'll be damned." I mutter under my breath as I watch her miraculous recovery.
Further North in the complex, and beyond a stone door, steps descend quite steeply into a chill room. A simple black marble slab is in the centre of the room and this raised up a few feet by a two-tiered dais. The walls are lined with axes, swords, pikes and other weapons but all seem tarnished and quite a few are rusted and pitted. The heavily armoured figure resting on top of the slab clutches a dark glassy long-sword in his gauntleted hands.
Ugnan translates the ancient elven tongue on the Sarcophagus and we discover that the crypt contains, 'Palomides, Knight of the Black Echo'. I can't help but notice that the full-plate armor is exquisite and battle-tested. Shrugging, I wrap my knuckles on his helmet. It stirs and rises, removing it's helmet and putting the fear of Klysus into me.
Fuck its old, and quick, I think as he lashes out at me and I nearly shit myself. The sword bites into my ribs and I feel them go. The cold is excruciating, though, far worse than the worst snow storm I've ever battled through back on Kelestia. I'm out on my feet, parrying wildly, but his sword blurs again and I feel more ribs crack. My vision blurs. How much more of this can I take?
Sylke applies a healing salve to my frostbite, which helps the pain abate slightly, but by fuck I feel shit. I fumble some Draaf leaves in my mouth, thinking grimly, "at least I'm buying some time for my friends".
Ugnan heals one of my rib injuries, when I glimpse Cherry entangle his sword arm with her whip, and Sylke knocks him off guard. The unbalancing and whip trick provides me some respite as his blows graze off me rather than sticking home.
And suddenly Sharna's back in the fray, having overcome her fear, and flinging him against the wall with an unbalancing grapple. Ugnan takes another rib injury from me and I'm feeling almost myself again. Some ineffectual blows bounce off his armour, but Ugnan thrusts five more Draf leaves into my hand. "That's enough pussy-footing about, you ancient relic. Now it's my turn", I yell. The very next second he kicks me in the side of my knee and I collapse in agony. And there's Ugnan again, taking the pain away, and he collapses onto the floor in agony, leg bent at an awful angle.
Sharna steps into the breach while I gather myself and go absolutely bat-shit. My axe crunches into his lower back and he bounces off the wall, guard lowered.
Sylke and Sharna follow in with some attempted trips, which slow him down, but he's still standing. Numal distracts him again and Cherry tries another whip strike, with little effect.
Swearing curses, spittle flying, I lash out with a cruel axe blow to his weapon arm, breaking it off at the elbow and sending his sword skittering across the floor. Seconds later we finish the knight and in my frenzy I gleefully smash his skull into shards.
Some field dressings are applied and we then get back to the surface with Ugnan, the plate armour and the glass sword.
Back at our ship we send for a healer paid for by Elgata and Ugnan regains consciousness again. An unknown fellow, Luronen Moj, meets us at the ship-side and requests a meeting at House Elgata this evening.
The plate armour, sword and ring are a nice haul, but why did I stir up the hornets nest by tapping that old knights helm? Idiot.

Report Date

22 Feb 2019

Primary Location

Sel-kai