Log:Purification - Fire and Water

When a person visits the Hells--there are rituals. There are /procedures/, dictated in the Iron Book protocol listing, pages 397, and 412, chapters seven and nine, see appendix. Sometimes--if a person is lucky, there's time to prepare those rituals. Sometimes, you make do.

Sometimes--well. There is that preparation time--such as time to move from a tent to a blessed place. A place like--a quiet pool with blessed water. A place with a nearby Daeusite priest. A place a little further from Mictlan--with its usual patter of kids, the usual scaled running past. Some warrior-caste to the side stand there, with weapons ready--silvered, bludgeoning weapons, should a thing escape.

And to make sure--make sure--this plague doesn't spread where it ought not to when Things Get Tried. There are no kids. NO kids, no teenagers. No one who should not be there. It's a little different than the tent they had been in--it's more secluded. And, one might feel, more heavily, the blessings in the air of the sort Seldan would be familiar with--blessings of Light.

Svarshan breaks off from discussion with the priest, and makes his way over. He's slow, tired. "Hunting demonss, is easier," he tells the two of them, as he sits down. "One ssent word to the hunter-casste, if warrior magic doess not work. ...the priessts have blessed the water, and blessed thiss. Ground. There are thingss we may try here. If they fail...one hopess they do not fail."

A chilly rain is tapping on the forest canopy above, the sky through trees just beginning to turn bleak and gray, but not much of that rain makes it down this far. Seldan has already made appropriate greetings to all involved, and from his politely formal tone, appears to be intimately acquainted with the Daeusite faith, even though it is not his. He's opted to dress fully for this against the chill, but lays aside cloak, blade, and surcoat, well out of reach, leaving only shirt, boots, and trousers, and pushes a lock of hair out of his eyes. It's hard to tell whether he is too pale, being as fair as he is.

He looks over at Malik, then, watching him before speaking to Svarshan. "If I am to die, let it be in the trying, not in the waiting." He doesn't sound like he thinks he is going to die, though.

Malik is looking worse today, and not just because he looks the smallest bit hung over. He's even paler, and has started to shiver even when laying by the fire of the tent, where he was still asleep when they started.

There's a fur wrapped around his shoulders, the gray of the sky seeming to make him look even more ashen, though the half-blank stares that he sometimes loses himself in don't seem to help much. "Oh, g-good," he says, the shivering voice and Tsuran accent perhaps making him less understandable than before, "a r-r-real b-bath."

"One...undersstands. It iss better to die on one'ss feet than in the. Grass. ...when you are both ready, we will pray," the sith-makar suggests. He settles down near the two of them. There is the priest--a wrought looking man with, one might see at this distance, scars over his skin. Claw marks. Ragged cuts of claw and blade. A missing finger that looks as though at one point, it had been chewed upon.

"The Dragonfather is kindness, as well as justice," the priest says. He lifts his hand--the wound so old by now that one scarcely may notice. And, reaches down to place it upon Seldan's head, the expression warm, kind. "Please take your time for a moment. Adjust to the pool, and the air here. We can maintain this for a short time, but from everything I have read of this plague--we may need it."

Svarshan looks down and to the side, and then to Malik. "Perhaps sshare words, as we ssettle. What have you. Learned?" he asks of the man. And yet--there is this air. This air of /something/. "It may help. The prayer."

Seldan is starting to shiver as well, but looks around the air and the pool, closing his eyes at the hand on his head. "As justice, so mercy, and may I find both in all things." His response is automatic, although clearly spoken, as he accepts the priest's blessing. When he does look up, he looks around, and speaks to the priest. "Soapy water is known to kill the thing, should it appear, and would serve us well. If the warriors would see what it is that they face, I have a means to show them."

"It's a m-magical ooze," Malik starts, taking a moment to close his eyes and steel his nerves, slowing down the shivering. "Some kind of advanced spell, I think. It leaches mana," he continues, "and uses it to reproduce, infecting others. Its purpose is largely speculative." He sits down, watching Svarshan and Seldan both, looking fascinated. "Responds p-poorly to salt, and soap. C-cutting it makes it w-worse, but blunt damage can k-kill it." He wraps himself up in the fur a bit more. "But the magic used is b-beyond me," he admits. "It also seems to ignore those already infected, when provoked into appearance." He can't help but smile a bit at that. "Lucky me."

"Your words are. Sshared. From the hunter-casste...this much we do have," Svarshan says. Words are coming along more difficult, now. He takes in a deep breath, a shallow one--as though forcing it. ...and reaches up, to rub at his forehead. The priest meanwhile, looks to the warriors. There are a few thumps of tail though...were one to read the mood...

And, barely heard: "One ...were either of you sscaled..." Svarshan says and then goes quiet, as the priest and warriors share a look. "...but you are. Not. Your kin--" he says then, and reaches out to Malik. "Thiss will be prayer--but the warriors are ready. Brasse, kin-of-warrior."

Suddenly, the air is as Fire.

If the warriors wanted a fight, a fight is what they will get. Seldan is halfway through taking a breath and stepping back when the cleansing fire of Daeus rips through and around him, tearing the air from his lungs and turning chill into unbearable heat. He makes a half-strangled gasp, crumpling to the grass beside the pool, struggling to breathe as inky blackness pours from mouth, nose, even eyes and ears. The goo forms a pool around and under him, coalescing into something that can only be a true ooze such as one might find in the depths of the world.

"Thiss will hurt."

Svarshan clasps Seldan's arm in a warrior's grip. Protections have been cast, of course. This or that layer of ritual, of magic. This, though--is a sudden, Firey burn. The feel internally, of a dragon's roar that begins at the end of the arm and surges forward through the man--blossoming into warmth, strength. Caring.

Restorative magic. Negative levels, ability damage, fatigue, exhaustion, poison, disease, sickness, nausea, blindness, or curses. A lack of sleep. Any of these, all of these, would be challenged and potentially banished. And then...then. As soon as Malik might take a breath, as soon as the color might rush back into his cheeks--another wave hits. A second. A sudden, second roar--one felt more deeply inside. A warrior-roar, one seeking out, purging evil where it's found, where it might be hidden. And if it is found, grasping it, warrior-claw, and devouring it, only to leave healing in its place. If it finds nothing--it exits, spiraling outwards. Warmth is left behind. Warmth and Light.

Warrior-magic. Claw-then-heal. Rend-then-sew.

Svarshan drops his hand and then looks at it, his expression sour. Unhappy. The warriors stand ready, with silvered, blunted weapons in case something emerges. With buckets of plain and salted water. Because, well--word /had/ been sent. At least of that. And when it /does/ appear, they're ready. It's the point, isn't it? They're ready. And--the kids had been--sent far, far away.

Malik looks like he might be about to say something else, but then Seldan is doubling over, and the air is like fire, and all words are lost. He looks like he's about to move to the paladin's side, but it's only seconds before the effect fully catches him, too. He doubles over in pain, struggling to breathe, then falls over on his side as that same black goo starts to pour forth from him. What he doesn't manage in breath, though, he manages in screaming, a gutteral, bubbling thing as the dark magic tries to rip its way forth.

Svarshan grasps Malik, then--and the fire surges that way. The roar of a dragon--the roar of the Dragonfather. A ringing, snarling tone. Rending, healing. Seeking, hunting. ...and yet. And yet. ...

...does it work?

"...let us pray, as we recover," says the priest, uneasily. One who has faced down demons. Demons. Yet--when faced with this plague...this /plague/...

"Let us pray."