IceAndWave/SomethingRottenParadise3

Something is Rotten in Paradise - part 3

In which the the dead rise and fall, a Star is obtained, and the perils of messing with Underworld are made plain...

The 20th Day of Resplendent Wood, Realm Year 763

Cathak Henara finishes working on the polychromatic rod she fished from her coat, and the tip glows with a bright, fiery light. She turns, "This will help us get back to Othakaar faster," and taps Kerzoro, Sian and herself on the chest with it in quick succession. At each tap, a ripple of fiery Essence runs down the body of the touched, and settles around his or her feet.

Kerzoro blinks as he's poked. "... well, may I ask what that is?"

Henara waves the rod around, "It's a Somatic Essence Channeler, something the Empress gave to me when she made me a Magistrate. It lets us move faster, a lot faster," to demonstrate she walks across the room, moving at the blink of an eye.

Sian is impressed. "Very nice."

Kerzoro laughs a bit. "Well then! We should be on our way then!"

Flashing down the stairs, and out into the main (and only) square of Ghoan, Henara waits for Sian and Kerzoro, flames licking around her feet.

Kerzoro raises his eyebrow, and turns to look at Vina. "Well, I hope we meet under more pleasant condition next time... little monster."

Kerzoro proceeds to bolt out of there before he can be justly thumped once more.

Vina opens the window and yells, "Reprobate!"

"Ouch!"

Sian resists a comment.

Henara grins up at Vina and waves, before turning to the pair of 'fugitives', "If we hurry we can get there in just over two hours."

"very well then!"

Sian nods. "Works for me."

Turning down the road and running, Henara leaves a trail of sparks behind her as she travels rapidly towards Othakaar, Sian and Kerzoro hot on her trail.

Othakaar itself is much as it was when they left, a slowly-dying port city, choked by the Empress' largesse on her youngest Dynastic house and petty internecine feuding.

"Stinks just the same as before," Sian observes.

Henara wrinkles her nose and nods in agreement, "This place has really gone downhill."

"Mhmm." He thinks for a bit. "Where to first, my lady?"

Kerzoro rolls his arms a bit as he glances about... namely, for any guards or monks to put a crimp on the day.

"I think the best place to start would be this underground city. I need to see it for myself."

Sian nods, fully expecting there to be nothing. Fate often kicks him like this. Regardless, he starts towards where he remembers the entrance to be.

Kerzoro steps after Sian, similar thoughts in his mind.

The building where the entrance to the necropolis was is much the same as before. Buried in the labyrinth of streets that make up the poorer quarter of Othakaar, it looks like nothing more than a half-broken house, the door barely hanging on its hinges.

Sian pokes it open carefully. "This is it."

Henara peers inside, unhooking a short, wickedly jagged daiklave from inside her coat, "Lead on..." she waves.

Sian nods, pushing the broken door to the side and starting off down the passageway.

Kerzoro steps in front of Sian, hand on the handle of his sword, and makes his way down slowly

The trip down the tunnel leading to the necropolis is somewhat less fraught than last time, although the passage through the defiled crypt is still unsettling and Henara stifles an oath.

Sian doesn't like it much either.

Kerzoro is a BRAVE ADVENTURER!!!... but, yeah, he's still somewhat unsettled.

The smell of death and decay that assailed their nostrils last visit is still here, but not as strong, and when Kerzoro and Sian leave the tunnel and enter the ancient city there is an oddly sepulchural feel to the whole place.

Henara looks around, her face controlled but still pale, "All of this? Hidden for this long? Incredible!"

"Mmm," Kerzoro scowls a bit, and gazes around with his good eye to see if he can see the dead stuff.

"Exactly what we thought." Sian likewise looks for any ghosts.

The swarming clouds of ghosts that filled the city during their last visit appear to have disappeared or left, but Sian catches signs of movement in the domed palace at the end of the road that the tunnel comes out onto. He frowns lightly. "No ghosts, but there's someone down there." He points.

"Hmph. Stupid ghosts. Making us look like liars."

Sian grins wryly. "I'm sure if we went out and asked nicely, they'd make an appearance. Wouldn't want you to look bad, Kerzoro."

Henara grins also then nods, "Even without the ghosts, this place is worthy of investigation. I can't believe that no-one knew about it."

Sian nods. "Indeed. So what now, madam Magistrate?"

Hefting her sword, and checking the edge with her thumb, she heads towards the palace, "We investigate, judge and sentence. That's my duty, given to me by the Empress herself."

"Works for me." Sian slides a javelin out of the sheath.

Kerzoro nods. "Very well." He doesn't draw his sword yet, of course.

Henara walks cautiously down the road, eyes watchful in the eeriely quiet necropolis, gesturing for Sian and Kerzoro to follow.

Sian does so, as silently as possible. Which isn't very; the loose rock crunches beneath his feet.

Kerzoro is even less so, being a huge dragon-blood, although he tries.

Suddenly, rom out of the gloom of an open doorway, a horrible smell issues, and a clutch of zombies lurches out, matched by another group from the other side. Kerzoro is caught off-guard by the sudden movement, but Henara leaps to one side, her daiklave gleaming, and Sian is likewise able to keep his wits about him.

Sian lets fly with a single javelin, applying the lightest touch he can to allow him time to free more of the weapons.

The javelin misses, clattering against the stones, while the zombies lumber forwards to attack Henara and Kerzoro, groaning and stinking of rotting flesh.

The wave of zombies lurches forwards, engulfing the trio - leaving Kerzoro with a few festering scratches but unable to penetrate Sian's armour.

Henara fends off the attacks of the zombies, screaming with anger and gagging from the stench.

"Urgh!" Kerzoro groans.

Sian steps back, trying to fend off the closest beasts with an arm, even as he throws another pair of javelins at the ones attacking Henara. The shambling corpse struck first staggers back, it's left arm and shoulder torn away by the Sian's hurled javelin, while the second slumps to the floor with its head destroyed. Henara nods gratefully, and slices twice with her diaklave, cutting deeply into the rotting flesh of her assailants.

Kerzoro snarls, and the Bane comes loose in a flash of red. "One Blow!", and then the dragon-blood tears into the group of zombies, the Bane lashing out in an impossibly fast and wide arc... and as he stops, the warrior spins the blade into the air and rams the tip into the ground with a grin on his face. "Its over for you!"

A quartet of zombies fall to the ground, having been sliced clean in two at various angles by Kerzoro's massive sword. "Hmph!"

Henara ducks underneath the grasping arms of the zombies and slices upwards, her sharp blade cleaving one of the Dead in half, the vicious backswing disembowelling a second.

The zombies, meanwhile, crowd in on Kerzoro and Henara while the one that Sian nearly destroyed closes in on its tormentor. They crowd in on the fighting Terrestrials, Kerzoro escaping with another scratch, but Henara is not so lucky, rising just as one of the dead lunges forwards, biting into her neck. She screams in pain and rage.

Kerzoro crouches a bit and spins the Bane above his head like a saw of red decapitating death at the zombies that rushed him, letting the blade spin three times in his grasp before settling down. "Sian! Aid her! I'm a tad preoccupied here!"

Sian turns at his yell, seeing (through the rain of blackened gore) the wounded Henara. Taking careful aim, he flings yet another pair of javelin, one flying at the first zombie's temple whilst the other neatly impales a flying zombie skull in its flight to the second.

The zombies collapse under Sian's onslaught, the one on Henara's neck falling to the ground as the javelin neatly impales its skull.

Sian gives a satisfied nod to the falling corpses, before noticing his oncoming friend. He just lifts an eyebrow, before casually pulling a last javelin from the sheath, placing it neatly in the middle of the zombie's forehead and pushing it back over a rock, where it makes a nice squelching noise as it hits the ground.

Kerzoro hmphs, swiping his blade into the air to clear it of gore, and places it again on its sheath.

Sian wanders over to Henara, collecting javelins as he goes. "You okay?"

Henara holds a hand to her neck, the blood-flow slowing and then stopping, leaving an angry red mark on her skin. She looks around, cursing fluently at the wreckage around, "I'll be fine. Damn thing caught me off-guard." She kicks the one responsible.

"We can find an inn if you like. Give you a little time to heal." He looks faintly concerned.

"Hmm... there promises to be a lot more trouble ahead. I agree with Sian."

"We don't have time. I've had worse and we need to look ahead."

"If you're sure." He turns. "What about you, Kerzoro? Still fine?"

"Hmph! Just a few scratches."

"I'll take that as a yes." He smiles.

Henara cleans her blade on one of the rekilled zombies and stands up, looking at the domed palace. "Shall we get going?"

"Very well."

"Mhmm." Sian flicks zombie-brain off the javelin in his hand.

The palace looms menacingly ahead, the signs of movement that Sian spotted before the zombie attack now gone. It is almost certain that someone knows the Dragon-bloods are here.

Kerzoro glances around, much more carefully this time. "Well, I believe we are already expected."

"Yeah..."

At the foot of the palace, a large flight of bone-white marble stairs awaits, leading up towards a half-ajar door comprised of ancient, verdigrised bronze. On the door, barely visible beneath the grime of ages, is the eight-pointed symbol of the Unconquered Sun.

Sian frowns deeply at it. "Anathema worshippers."

"Mmm... perhaps... but wouldn't it be clear instead of faded then...?" Kerzoro notes

"Not necessarily. Besides, people don't normally touch places like this unless they wanted to."

Henara looks around, tapping the door with her blade, her eyebrow lifting as it opens smoothly and silently. "Not what I was expecting."

Kerzoro keeps his hand on his sword's handle, nontheless.

Peering in through the doorway, a long empty corridor awaits, filled with shadows and what light there is pale and weak. There is a distinct sense of being observed.

Kerzoro frowns a bit as he moves down the corridor, looking around with a scowl. "..."

The glow, a faint green, strengthens as the three intruders enter the palace, shadows swallowing them up.

Sian remains silent, for once.

Unlike the doors outside, those within are old and rotted, revealing empty, long-abandoned chambers, the detritus of ages gathered inside - and not a few dessicated, unburied corpses.

Suddenly! a shadow detaches from one of the walls, darting across the corridor.

Kerzoro starts a bit, hand still on his sword's hilt

The figure, for such it appeared to be, disappeared through an open doorway from which the pale green light that attempt to fill the interior of the temple appears to be spilling.

Sian speaks in a low tone. "So? Forward, or back? This doesn't look very pleasant."

Kerzoro frowns, looking at Henara.

Henara grimaces, "I have a duty to fulfill. You have done yours and may leave if you wish." She hefts her weapon carefully, and heads on down to the balefully lit doorway.

Sian sighs inwardly, and follows after her. Can't just leave a wounded woman in a place like this.

"Hmph, don't be silly. I can't quite leave a friend of my sister's alone." Kerzoro follows as well.

Edging forwards, and looking around the corner, the green light streams outwards from a pillar of silent green flame that stretches from the floor to the ceiling of the chamber, licking against the half-rotted paintings. Gathered around that fire are five bodies, all recently and obviously dead, their throats slit raggedly, but their blood curiously missing.

Kerzoro frowns a bit, staring at the green flame and the five bodies.

"Dragons!" Henara breathes, "What is going on here?"

"That fire... how odd."

Sian stares up at the pillar of fire. "Gravefire. Though it probably wouldn't hurt you, I would suggest you don't touch it."

Henara nods, "I'll take your word for it," and starts in.

Kerzoro steps right besides Henara, hand still holding his sword's handle.

Although there is no sign of the figure that entered this room, there is an obvious exit point, on the far side, behind the pillar of gravefire.

Sian scans the room carefully. "I would suggest we move on. There isn't much we can do here."

The gravefire gutters menacingly as the three Exalted move past it, the flickering of the pale green light strange given the complete lack of sound or wind. Kerzoro frowns, staring at the fire some more, as he steps behind Henara.

The flame, still guttering, licks out suddenly, touching each of the five bodies on the floor. The eyes of the corpses open suddenly, glowing with a baleful intelligence as they begin to rise to their unfamiliar feet. Nasty tearing sounds come from the rising corpses, as claws rip their way out of the fingers of the creatures, their bodies reshaping under the assault of necrotic Essence.

Kerzoro whirls quickly, drawing the Bane in a flash of jade. "Of course, it wouldn't've that easy."

The once-dead creatures rise fully to their feet, baring their teeth in a bestial snarl that opens their mouths too wide, flesh tearing as pointed fangs are brandished. Circling around the gravefire, two of them adopt defensive poses, while the remaining three lunge on the attack!

Kerzoro snarls at the speed of the creatures, even as his anima flares up around him. "To hell with it!" and lets the beast meet his blade, even as his fiery anima licks at it.

Henara's blade flashes out, blocking the initial attack of the creature, fending its claws to one side.

Sian likewise attempts to block, though the thin javelins are a poor weapon for it. The beast's claws slice straight through the javelin, splintering its thin construction, and cutting hard into his body.

Sian grits his teeth as the blow forces his armor into his shoulder, but remains standing.

Kerzoro pushes back with his sword and turns around, using the momemtum to lift his massive blade into the air, and... letting it fall against the dead thing not unlike a giant red guillotine. A guillotine that cuts more than just heads.

Henara ducks back from her assailant, just as Kerzoro cleaves his in twain. She slices twice in quick succession, opening the creature's chest and then sinking her blade deep into its neck.

Kerzoro smirks at the other dead things, anima flaring around him.

Henara's attacks were not as severe as first thought, the creature barely noticing her onslaught.

Sian recovers from his wounding quickly, stabbing his javelin into the creature's outstretched arm and wrenching it sideways. He turns, another javelin appearing in his other hand, and he again stabs at the creature, twice in quick succession.His first thrust strikes the creature in its chest, but his second misses clean and on recovering he slips on a loose stone on the floor, staggering for a few seconds.

The creatures still in the fight move in, and the two who had were waiting move forwards, concentrating on the one most obviously a threat - Kerzoro.

The remaining two maintain their attacks on their original targets.

Kerzoro gets a nasty scratch, but he seems to not mind! With a roar, he brings the sword up... between one of the zombie's legs... and then down again, through the other zombie's head.

The creatures, uncharacteristically interested in self-preservation for the Risen Dead, block Kerzoro's mighty blows, leaving them unscathed by his assault.

The second pair attack their respective opponents, Henara neatly parrying her assailant's blow, while Sian doesn't quite manage the same, claws catching the flesh of his arm.

Kerzoro , not terribly discouraged by the parrying creatures, decides to try once more, spinning in place and holding the blade horizontally... to cleave the two bastards in half with his motion!

Henara ducks!

One of the creatures falls to the ground, carved in twain, while the second staggers beneath the massive attack as the blade continues and embeds into its chest before Kerzoro yanks it free. "Hmph! Tougher this time!"

Henara, getting desperate, swings her blade hard at her attacker, Essence sweeping across it, powering her assault. It tries to parry, but her blade evades the block, sinking into its dead flesh, while its compatriot tries to claw Sian.

Sian parries! Barely.

Henara makes another desperate swing, the resilience of these creatures disheartening to her as she curses them in the name of the Immaculate Dragons.

Kerzoro grins nastily at the remaining zombies, and proceeds to demonstrate what a whirlwind of metal and jade looks like. Mostly, it looks painful. The remaining two creatures dissolve under Kerzoro's attack, turning into messy piles of blood, bone and flesh. He stops his spin, and smirks, swiping his massive blade into the air and letting the gore fall, before spinning his blade and sheathing it. "... but not tough enough!"

The last of the strangely resilient risen Dead lie once more on the ground, at the feet of the three Dragon-bloods, while the pillar of gravefire gutters away, its heatless green light rising up and licking across the ceiling. Henara looks around, wiping her short blade with some satisfaction on the corpse before her, "These things were not normal walking Dead. There is something more at work here."

Sian nods, pulling his shirt a little tighter beneath the breastplate to help cover a few minor scratches. "Mhmm."

"Indeed, they were quite a bit tougher than the last batch..."

The gravefire continues to flicker, a sense of malice and hunger emanating from it, a low sound just at the lower edge of hearing placing teeth on edge.

Sian grits his for a moment. "Shall we move on, then? I think twice is enough for these corpses, unless you'd rather wait around and see if we can go for a third."

Henara nods, rubbing the angry red wound on her neck, and heads out of the doorway opposite to the one the trio came in through, blade low and ready for what may come.

Kerzoro steps quickly after Henara, to stands besides her, the Bane on its sheath once again, but just waiting to be drawn.

Sian takes a moment or two to retrieve his javelins, then follows after the pair.

The remainder of the palace seems empty, corridors and rooms long-deserted, but for one room, where an unpleasantly familiar pale green light spills out through the large, ornate and ancient doors. Peering through the gap Henara breathes, "Mighty Pasiap!"

Kerzoro blinks, trying to gaze through the gap as well

Within the throne room of this ancient, subterranean palace a vast pillar of gravefire, a hundred times larger than the other burns. So large is it that its silence overwhelms the room, consuming sound as normal flame eats wood and cloth.

Sian takes a look in, over Henara's head. "Wonderful."

At the centre of the pillar a figure is visible, held suspended above the ground a bright pin-point of red light visible in or on the chest of the thing in the fire.

Sian squints, trying to identify it. He taps Kerzoro on the shoulder. "That look like a star to you?"

Kerzoro squints likewise, "I guess so?"

"Not just me, then." He considers. "Now how the hell do we get it out of there?"

Henara looks quizzically at Sian, "Something you want to tell me?"

Sian shrugs lightly. "We don't habitually search out zombie dens, you know. My masters sent me here to pick up that thing," he points at the star, "but it was taken by these guys before I could."

"What is it?"

"Don't know. Called Gyren's Star... that's all I've been told."

"And it's got something to do with all this..." she gestures vaguely, taking in the palace and, by extension, the whole underground city.

"Possibly."

"Mhmm." Sian wracks his brains for some of the faster rituals for removing gravefire, or at least warding against it. He gives up after a bit. "So what do we do?"

Henara grimaces and hefts her sword, "We go in and stop whatever is happening." So saying, she strides into the throneroom, the pillar of gravefire casting a long shadow behind her as she approaches.

Kerzoro winces, but... well, can't leave a lady alone, and so he follows, hand on his blade's handle.

"Well, why break the trend, eh?" Sian follows after, mentally sighing.

Up close the green flame looks even more imposing. About 12' off the ground the figure floats in the pillar, occasionally writhing and contorting as if in great pain, while the red light of Gyren's Star glitters and gleams, a strangely warm light considering the cold of the gravefire.

Sian stares at the Star hard, trying to work out if removing it would cause an explosion, or something. "Any volunteers to go get it? No?"

"While I often won't mind stepping into the fire, I'd rather the fire not be something that revives the dead."

"And, well, ladies first probably doesn't apply here. Looks like I'm it." Sian takes a few careful steps forward, wondering if he could knock the thing out with a javelin.

Then he decides that no amount of pondering is going to help him throw, so hefts a javelin carefully and takes aim, letting fly after a couple of moments.

The javelin whistles through the air, the gravefire licking around it before the spear impacts on the glittering light of the Star. The strike lands at the precise point where the artefact had attached itself to the flesh of the person bathed in the fire and, cleanly severed it falls too slowly, landing in Sian's outstretched hand.

"Nice shot," Kerzoro whistles.

Sian catches the javelin in his other hand as it bounces of a couple of walls and flies back. "Mhmm." He peers at the item, trying to see what's so special about it.

A horrible scream sounds through the palace throne-room, as the figure contorts and bucks in indescribable agony, the fire that supported it now burning into it, flesh tearing away from bone in long streams of fire.

Sian backs away from this, forgetting the item for the moment.

Kerzoro takes a few steps away as well. "Ummm."

The gravefire billows, swelling in size and strength to four times its previous size, all sound blanked out by the ferocity of its burning. Then, so suddenly it's shocking, it dies - depositing the ruined, mostly skeletal figure within to the ground, still wreathed in green fire.

Sian prods it carefully with the held weapon. "Remind me not to get suspended in gravefire any time soon."

"Indeed."

A hand wrapped in fire snaps out and grabs Sian's javelin, "Gragh!" the figure howls, pulling itself slowly, tortously back to its feet.

Sian lets go of the javelin, backpedaling quickly and drawing a few more. "Right, well... make sure I don't do this, either."

Kerzoro starts a bit, gripping the Bane's handle tightly and drawing the large blade.

Henara cries out as she looks at its ruined face, expression wracked with agony, a single eye still whole. Standing up it stumbles forwards slowly, one step, then a second, and then whatever volition held the creature together fails as it collapses into a pile of bones at the floor, the fire guttering and winking out.

Sian still holds a weapon ready in case it moves again. After a few moments he is content that it's not going to get up again, and thus returns the javelins to their holder. "Is there anything you'd like to do here, Henara?"

Kerzoro spins his blade, and puts it away again. "... did all the fire die out, I wonder..."

"Get a team of exorcists from Pangu or Chanos here and cleanse this place." Henara shudders, poking the remains with her sword, "And also to visit the local Immaculate temple and demand explanations."

"Ah yes, that, I'd like to see."

"I just want to see the look on that woman's face when we return with a magistrate." Sian grins at Kerzoro.

"The monk who threw you out of Othakaar, I take it?" Henara queries.

"Pretty much, yes," Kerzoro affirms.

"Yeah. She found us where the Star had been taken from, and locked us up for a bit, then threw us out."

"Nice of her. Did she give you any reason?"

"Nope. Barely asked us anything, either. Hi, you haven't committed any crimes, get off the Isle." He shrugs. "I've never listened to the Immaculates, and I have no intention of starting now."

"I'm under the impression she didn't like us much," Kerzoro grins.

"Such decrees cannot be made by anyone less than the head of a House, or the Empress Herself, so you have nothing to fear from her. As for myself, once we get out of this Dragon-forsaken place I plan to have a long talk with certain people who really should know better."

Kerzoro nods. "Let us go then."

"Mmhmm. Good plan."

The journey back from the centre of the necropolis is at once quieter and noisier than the journey in, the pillars of gravefire scattered through the city having been extinguished with the death of the central flame. Back in the streets of Othakaar the sun has just begun to set in the West, lending a reddish colour to the wet stones of the street in the mazelike back-alleys of the city.

Kerzoro breathes deeply, "Aaah, it's refreshing to be out of there."

Breathing air free of the taint of death Henara smiles slightly, "It most certainly is." She turns to Sian, "What do you plan on doing with that, what did you call it, the Star?"

Sian shakes zombie goo off his boots. "Take it back to the Syndics. That's what I'm here for, after all."

"When do you plan on leaving?"

"Within the next few days, probably, unless I'm needed for something in particular."

Kerzoro nods a bit. "I am certainly in no hurry myself."

"If you could stay for a few more days, to help with my... inevitable altercations with the Immaculate Order, it would be most appreciated."

"Of course. Are we going there now, or shall we get rested up and go in the morning?"

Kerzoro shrugs.

Henara runs a hand through her short black hair, grimacing at the feel of the zombie remnants, "In the morning. Definitely. Ugh."

"You should get that neck looked at, too."

Kerzoro nods. "Yes, that is a rather nasty wound, even for one such as us."

"You're right, both of you." She grins and winces slightly, before sheathing her blade and striding back into Othakaar, first to rest and thence to raise some hell.