Where'd They Go? Part 5
--- Previously --
The healing is slow. Slower than it should be. That experience, too, is being stretched out.
...but it's enough that Seldan knows not just the magic, but where to target it, how to heal someone in this dire a condition. Typically, wounds this deep would require an extended convalescence even if you survived them. At the hands of a talented healer, the time-to-speak is cut.
... his eyes flutter open, fat tears rolling down his cheeks almost immediately. "...how?" he rasps.
"How many.... how many others?" he asks.
Aryia keeps a hand on the bindings, even if the captor is unconscious. She was glad she had her sister's company, at the very least she could quip, "After this shit, I'm so going to the bathhouse," her hands say. A glance to Schara through the ajar door, watching her remove things. "... you really don't want to recognize it."
But, a silver clad grey ear twitches as she hears a voice stirring. Asking. Rasping. Her signs fall still as she opts to take in any information she can about these atrocities. <Handspeech/Tongues>
Aya straightens as Seldan's patience benefit's Seldan's patient and the latter stirs. She takes a step towards, but halts before a second and decides to just observe. The Silverguard may be able to offer better encouragement in his role as their healer. If he desires help, Aya is sure he'll speak up. Maybe. She glances to Aryia. "Save me a spot in the water."
"You are the lone survivor of which we know." The voice of the man sitting on the edge of the convalescent's bed, his gauntlets resting in his lap, is even and sober. Seldan's blue-eyed gaze remains on the man. "Do not move more than you must. You should rest yet."
--- Now ---
Tears form fully in his eyes. Between the pain and the loss, he's openly sobbing. Then an uttered prayer about living a life full of tales yet to be written.
"I didn't know most of them," he rasps.
"Who... who are you?"
It's a natural question. "We're... are we still /there/?"
Aryia still remains outside near the cracked door, listening to the conversation as she keeps the knife-controlled slayer company. She felt a pang of sorrow for the fellow; despite their potential affiliation with the Dark Lady, this whole situation is downright horrific for anyone to happen to.
Schara is rather uncertain about what to say, if she should say something as she is left in the room. The artificer certainly looks more than a bit uncomfortable. "I am sorry for what you have gone through, it is a horrible event for all." They offer in at least some manner of sympathy. "We are here to help and figure out what happened, but you are still where we found you, for the time being."
"We were sent by Lady Belvade." Seldan remains cautiously reserved. "We are indeed still there, for now. You were too deeply wounded to safely move, but we have a means to return, when you are fit to do so. Still were we hoping to learn more of waht happened here."
"... oh *great*," he mutters in response to a 'Lady Belvade'.
Perhaps her reputation precedes her.
"... Do you know who it was? Who did this?" he asks.
Aryia raises a brow. Hm. Saying that Belvade sent them is certainly a smart move, she wouldn't have thought of that. She decides to stretch a leg out, keeping herself ready for anything. But her boot lands in... something.
The mute frowns and pulls her leg back.
"Oh, you don't sound happy to hear their name. I thought she was prominent or something?" The artificer half wonders, half questions. "We were hoping you could tell us about what happened, we are trying to figure that out."
Schara sighs, and pulls out a notebook to jot down some information. "My name is Schara, what is yours mister?"
"We have stayed the hand that wielded the knife." Again, Seldan's response is steady and even, the blue eyes sober as he regards the man, prepared to push him back to the bed if necessary. "The knife itself is the source of evil, though we must question its wielder as well. The nature of the knife - is another matter that must be understood, but that is not for this moment. For now would I know a thing."
"It seems to me," he begins, "that you and the others present intended to enact a ritual, but it misses a piece."
"... it was to be delivered when the time was -- ... rite?"
A wracking cough, mild laughter ensues.
"We were called together to enact a summoning, one of Her servants was to come and gather us to shelter. We've been ... there've been ... many of us are just ... gone. The Goddess ... she Needs us now more than ever."
He's getting woozier. Eyes bliink a few times.
"A summoning to bring us to safety. We are all in danger. The stories, they're fraying around the edge. Can't you see? What's written, what's unwritten."
Aryia's brows furrow as the conversation goes on. Things are fraying? She thinks back to her time with the time loop, her scratching her head. Perhaps it was something coming after them all. Or they're just all scared. For... themselves? Taara waning?
She leans a bit into the doorway, watching as a hand stays wrapped around tautly bound rope.
"Why does your goddess need you? Aren't they well, a goddess? Wouldn't helping her go against looking out for yourself?" The artificer wonders, tilting their head to one side. "Going somewhere safe makes sense, though. But what is fraying? And why do you feel it better to flee than fix things?"
"That, too, would I know," Seldan murmurs, musingly. "What threatens a goddess? Yet is it clear to me that there is a thing that does - and that the knife that seized the will is not so very different from the gems that some have found in the Felwood - though, perhaps, more potent." All of this is spoken quietly. "You speak of things unraveling."
"The same reason that the Gods have any agents," he rasps, his voice wavering with fatigue from the pain.
"... How do you ... do you not ... are you ... Who..."
He closes his eyes. "It's too late. He came for us. The same one who came for all of us. He'll come for you. They say he has a name, but we dare not speak it. He hears us."
Aryia perks at that. Shit. The exact person they're gathering information about. There's a silent grunt as she gets to her feet, easily lofting the unconscious person up and over a shoulder.
She nudges the door more open, making her presence known. "I'm thinking we should probably start considering getting the fuck out of here," she signs to the group with one hand, the other hiding the body behind the wall. <Handspeech/Tongues>
"I am sorry, he still needs a lot of care." The artificer sighs. "It was foolish of me to keep pushing for questions."
The artificer turns to Aryia, and nods. "I am happy to get out of here, and it seems we have exhausted this person enough." She agrees. "Let us be off quickly, in case there are any threats here still."
He's growing a bit delirious.
"Where is the focus? They need the focus. HE should have been here by now..."
GAME: Seldan casts Floating Disk. Caster Level: 16 DC: 21
"Nay." Seldan stands, drawing his gauntlets on, and with swift hands and free gestures conjures a floating disk of pure blue-white-silver magical force. "If there be an immediate threat, we must learn of it. Still, I think it well, do we not press them further. Let us take pillows and covers upon this, that we may move him safely. Some do I know of healing, but he shall want a better hand than mine to see him right."
"Do we know more of this focus, and of he who would bring it, it may be that we might locate it."
"...no names," he whispers, "We know no names, to protect us. He hunts our stories to unravel them to his own end, so that his is the only one left, set to order. The story that was to be told frays, the design -- the outlines -- to be replaced. We were to go to Her and rewrite the ..." He coughs. He coughs more.
"...the focus. The planar focus, attuned to -- attuned to one who ever dwells, he was to come here, to complete the rite. But he never came. If it was a he. Is it you? Do you have the focus? It's not too late, we can finish what we started, go to the darkest place, where we'll be safe from sight, outside the Will, will of the.. We celeberated our joys and our desires while we waited, then the knife. The knife. Oh god, the *knife*. We couldn't stop him. Our magics just fell away. Oh gods, what is he doing to them -- I have to hide. I have to hide, hide, hide. Screaming. Where are they?! Did he see them? He can't be allowed to see it." He sdtretches a hand out, grabs Schara. "FIND HIM. You have to find him."
Aryia hefts the unconscious body over her shoulder, a sigh escaping her nose. "That's better than nothing," she shrugs a shoulder. At least they had a directive. But time stretching out here, coupled with the slaughterhouse has her eyeing the exit down the hallway. "Good idea, get blankets and shit on that disc. Probably want to cover his eyes as we go.-" She frowns as he gets a bit more frantic. "... before he also loses his marbles, to boot." <Handspeech/Tongues>
GAME: Schara rolls spellcraft: (7)+10: 17 GAME: Seldan rolls spellcraft: (19)+25: 44
"The person with the knife is already dealt with." The artificer states as she looks around for some blankets and pillows for the job. Cleaning them as necessary. "If you can put them to sleep before we go, that would probably be better."
The artificer stops, and tilts her head for a moment. "So, the other place, something did not go wrong, do you think?" Schara asks. "I thought they would all be prepared to go somewhere else, not caught in the middle of everything. But what went wrong after there?"
"We shall find him. You should rest." Seldan lets out a breath and begins to place pillows and blankets on the disk himself. "We should go, and swiftly. I shall move him. Make no effort to move yourself. I shall do the work. Where shall we find this one aid?"