Visions of Hell (Part 2)
The door to the cell in the hallway slides open. A woman's voice calls out, uncared about as people rush inside. Aya goes to Daechir, laying on the floor and staring at Dolan. He seems utterly unresponsive at the moment save that his red eyes are locked on the other man. Dolan himself has lost sight of Daechir as Aya rushes forward to tend to him. He struggles valiantly but ineffectively against the chains that bind him to the wall. Stone and metal a harsh reminder that has him trying to escape. Cor'lana goes to him instantly, weaving magic against the chains that bind, but to no effect. Telamon remains in the hall a moment longer, eyeing the mouth that stirs itself and begins to move forward.
Cor'lana is the picture of concentration as she attempts to unweave the magic on the chains that bind Dolan (which are identical to Daechir's), but her efforts, for the moment, find no purchase. She looks up at Dolan. "Brydion Donnelly," she says clearly. "It's the fourth day of Bernfleur in the year of 1025. A friend. A wall. A floor. I'm getting you down, it'll only be a moment more."
GAME: Telamon casts Dispel Magic. Caster Level: 14 DC: 20 GAME: Telamon rolls 1d20+14: (5)+14: 19 Telamon (Khepri/Harshad) Request: [1d20+14] Roll: [3] Result: 17 Landslide Request: [1d20+11] Roll: [16] Result: 27
Telamon decides hanging around in a corridor with a hungry magic mouth is probably a poor idea, and swiftly flits into the cell with Aya, Lana, Dolan and Daechir. "Well, we've found him, that's a good start," he says, trying to keep his spirits up. Seeing Lana trying to dispel the magic of the chains, he alights next to her -- a little close, as he reflexively flinches back. "Emegar sag dar!" he speaks, but the shiver weakens his attempt, and the magic refuses to unravel.
Just in time. Even as Cor'lana's spell fails, Dolan's gaze, now ripped from Daechir by the back of Aya, had been drifting into the middle distance, his struggles redoubling. It's the name that cuts through the fog of panic that threatens to overtake his mind, and he takes a deep breath, staring intently at Lana's outfit, and at the curuchuil above it. "Tel," he gasps out. "Go help her. Her friend isn't going to respond short of some damned serious work. Get us all out of here. Lana, keep talking. I'm not staring at your tits, I promise." There's not a trace of humor there, only deadly, laser-sharp focus. "Get me out of this thing before it gets me."
Aya has no magical key, no deep mystical knowledge, much less any magic to remove shackles. As tools, she has only herself, and it is not the most applicable tool for the task at the moment. That is not to say that she may not soon attempt to shatter chains by force with vigor, regardless. She does, at least, have Daechir. Or near enough. It is near enough for the moment.
She also has far more useful allies. "How do we get them free?! What do I do?!" She turns to look to Telamon and Cor'lana, shaking the manacles with a rattle of emphasis.
GAME: Ravenstongue casts Dispel Magic. Caster Level: 13 DC: 20 Riptide Request: [1d20+13] Roll: [2] Result: 15 Riptide Request: [1d20+13] Roll: [9] Result: 22 GAME: Telamon casts Disintegrate. Caster Level: 14 DC: 23
Telamon actually grins at Dolan. "You're gonna make her blush, Dolan!" He moves back over to where Aya is trying to revive Daechir. He studies the chain, then follows it up to where it's fastened to the wall with brackets. "Deep breaths, Aya. Sometimes the door is locked, but the windows aren't." And with that, he incants a spell, and a sizzling blue-white beam carves the bracket holding Daechir's chains into dust, freeing the fellow.
"I know, it's okay, Brydion," Cor'lana replies to Dolan--her laser focus on getting her friend _down_ and keeping him _here_--because she's seen his nightmares and knows this situation isn't okay. She can deal with eyes on her if it means he's fine. She continues naming things that she's wearing or has on her person. "Circlet. Cloak. Robes. Raven marker. Magic rod. It is the fourth day of Bernfleur in the year of 1025. You are with friends, Brydion Donnelly."
She stops only a second to mutter the incantation and try again to free him from the chains. But the magic is not working.
Her hand moves up to the mark of the raven, violet eyes filled with determination. It might be time for something risky.
_Deep breaths. Focus on Lana._ The inner inquisitor is in firm control right now, even as the farmboy fights for his sanity while his friend struggles with the chains binding him. "Break them, Lana. Don't worry about hurting me. Fourth day of Bernfleur." He's talking fast now, but he's sane and present. For now. At least he doesn't appear to be in any real pain.
"Don't care, Tel. Lana's tits have caused enough trouble, and besides, Andie'd have my prick in a sling if I laid fingers on anyone else." All filters have apparently left the building for the moment. "Do you need more light? I think I can give you that."
"I will breathe when-yes!" Aya starts to respond when Telamon's point is made and then realized with the bracket evaporating. "Can you destroy Dolan's the same?"
She does not wait for an answer as she reaches to pull Daechir up from the floor. He may be taller than she, but that doesn't mean she can't or won't carry him bodily out of here. "Nap time is over, Daed. It's time to go home." She glances over to Cor'lana and the talk before adding, "And you're missing a show, apparently." A little more motivation can't hurt?
Yes, she knows he's... elsewhere. Or something. No, she isn't going to worry about that right now. She can't.
Daechir is... heavy in the chains. They are lighter than one might expect, but heavy just the same in bulk. Thus it's slightly more difficult to carry him than expected. Also his weight must be entirely supported since he is being of no assistance there. His eyes continue to track Dolan.
GAME: Ravenstongue casts Disintegrate. Caster Level: 13 DC: 23 Landslide Request: [1d20+13] Roll: [12] Result: 25 GAME: Telamon casts Detect Magic. Caster Level: 14 DC: 17 Telamon (Khepri/Harshad) Request: [1d20+16] Roll: [9] Result: 25 GAME: Dolan rolls escape artist: (13)+-2: 11
"If looking at my breasts is getting everyone through this, then _look_," Cor'lana says matter-of-factly. "Brace yourself, Brydion! I'm breaking them."
The attachment, that is. Not what lies below the curuchuil. And then she disintegrates the attachment that keeps Dolan on the wall as promised with a swirl of magic. She walks over to him. "Today is the fourth day of Bernfleur in the year 1025. Ring. Belt. Boots. Curuchuil." Continuing her work of centering.
"Not so fast, Aya," Telamon says grimly, inspecting the chains still attached to Daechir. "It's these shackles. I think they're warded -- if we try to leave, Dolan and Daechir -won't- come with us." He fixes the shackles with a baleful glare, before considering. "However, they're not attached to the wall, which gives us some leverage and mobility. We won't leave them behind -- we just need to break the anchoring ward." He pauses, and looks at Lana. "Lana, I ... think you need to stand next to me. We need to get our magics to resonate when we try to dispel the anchor -- like we've done before." Tel squares his shoulders. "Whatever it takes."
Landslide Request: [1d20+20] Roll: [3] Result: 23 Reason: Sense Motive Landslide Request: [1d20+20] Roll: [19] Result: 39 Reason: Sense Motive
The centering is getting more difficult, and freeing Dolan from the wall only leaves him to lean against it, still breathing hard. "Shit," he swears, wriggling one of his wrists against the restraints. "Tel. Lana. I don't give a shit if you hurt me. It's fine. I can't. Fourth Day of Bernfleur. Boots. Cloak. Magical cloak. Baldric. Breastplate."
Struggling for focus, he returns to the pair across the room. "Free me. I'll try to get him to come around. There might be a way." He thinks quickly, and the laser focus returns as soon as his eyes lock to Daechir. Whatever he's doing, it's clear that that focus on him is keeping Dolan from slipping himself, even as the drag of the chains starts to take its toll.
He closes his flesh-and-blood eye, but when he opens it again, he calls this time to Aya. "Let him see me." His focus is plain and clear, and he begins to - glow. From within. It's as if a pure sunbeam is centered on him, flooding the room with bright light. "Let him see light, he hasn't fucking seen any since he was taken. It makes a big damn difference."
And then he looks down at himself, his eye going wide. Time to think about that later.
Aya curses under her breath when Telamon points out they cannot simply leave with the chains. She lowers Daed back down to the floor, gently, though remains to help support him. Towards Dolan as he suggests it. She had hoped she might get Daechir's attenion, yet he could have every reason to wish to look otherwise. Or not believe she is actually herself. "Damnit... Daed. It -is- me. We are here to free you," she speaks softly to him.
They are here to, but so far, she has not done much, in her mind. It's all been -they-. She looks past him to Dolan. "Are the chains why he is like this?!" Even more reason to be rid of them and she tries to get her hands onto the one about his neck. He is not someone's slave.
Daechir is laid on the ground, his red eyes locked on Dolan. As the man begins to glow, tears leak out of the mul's eyes. His gaze is still distant and lost, his body immobile, but if he can cry... If he can react... There's _something_ still left in there.
GAME: Aya rolls strength: (16)+5: 21 GAME: Telamon casts Dispel Magic. Caster Level: 14 DC: 20 Telamon (Khepri/Harshad) Request: [1d20+15] Roll: [15] Result: 30 GAME: Ravenstongue casts Dispel Magic. Caster Level: 13 DC: 20 Riptide Request: [1d20+14] Roll: [1] Result: 15 Riptide Request: [1d20+14] Roll: [11] Result: 25
As Lana alights next to him, careful not to touch him physically, Telamon takes a deep breath. Push out the oppressive fear, the horror of this place. Stop letting it -get- to him. And then... Dolan, his light. Telamon's eyes flare in response, and the tattoo on his back, under his tunic, glows softly as well. "Embrace your path, Child of the Sun. Fear no darkness." <Celestial>
The worry clears from his mind, and the two half-elven sorcerers move in a deft, resonating dance. Curse or not, their minds cling together, even if they are separated physically, and the mana builds up with their chanting, before the two of them make sharp, cutting gestures -- and the wards on the shackles break with a tangible, loud CRACKING sound.
When the shackles shatter, Dolan almost drops to his knees with relief, staggering clear of the chains, panting hard. "I hear you and understand, but there is another I must lead." <Celestial> He answers Telamon almost instinctively, right hand going to left shoulder, holding the arm just below the cuff tightly.
He switches back to Tradespeak, then, and shakes his head at Aya. "Nah. It's not the chains themselves. It's what was done to him while he was in them," he explains, shuddering. "Let's just say I know something about that. Let's get the fuck out of here." Staggering though he is, clearly hurting though he is, he nonetheless remains standing, leaving the effect in place. "Before they find us."
Aya doesn't know what Dolan has endured, and caught only a glimpse of what Daed must have. Which was enough as Dolan's mention, and the thoughts of it, make her wince visibly. She crouches to retrieve Daechir once more. Now that the shackles are gone, it is more as an embrace of partner to bear his weight than akin to carrying a large sack of vegetables. "We are getting. We're going home." The last meant more for Daed than anything else. "Should we leave from here, or outside?" That is for the knowledgeable people to answer.
Telamon smiles suddenly -- a bright expression he hasn't had in a while -- as the shackles fall away. "Finally!" He glances around. "Aya, you carry Daechir. We need to get out to the hall to shift out -- the cell's still warded." He reaches into his haversack, pulling out a scroll. "Lana, that toothy... uh... thing is hopefully still at the end of the hall or this is going to be very cumbersome. Let's move, people!"
Riptide Request: [1d20+8] Roll: [2] Result: 10 Riptide Request: [1d20+8] Roll: [14] Result: 22 GAME: Ravenstongue casts Dispel Magic. Caster Level: 13 DC: 20 Riptide Request: [1d20+13] Roll: [2] Result: 15 Riptide Request: [1d20+13] Roll: [11] Result: 24
"Alright--"
Cor'lana manages to get that word out and only that word out as she blanches at something that looks invisible, narrowly avoiding gnashing of teeth that only she can see. "No, not _today_," she snarls, and she murmurs an angry-sounding incantation--
And with the magic dust settling, Cor'lana sighs. "It's back at the beginning of the hall. Hurry into the hall and we shift out," she declares, entering the hall.
Dolan doesn't need to be told twice. The very air, the memory of those chains, the ache in his shoulder an all-too-clear reminder, it all sits on him like an oil-soaked stone blanket. Out of instinct, he maintains the daylit glow that _emanates_ from him somehow, making sure that Daechir never loses sight of him, but otherwise moving without delay.
Aya shifts from aside Daechir keeping his arm over her far shoulder and brings it around as she steps in front of him. She moves his other arm over her other shoulder and hunches forward. With him being head and shoulders taller, a Daed back-pack seems the best idea. "Stay with me..." its lower enough to be for Daed, though still audible as she moves. Slowed, but still hustling out into the hall. There she turns right, away from where the thing was shunted to before, to make room for everyone else.
As the group exits the room, Daechir suddenly reacts, moving where he had done no such thing before. His movement is totally and wholly unexpected, and so too is the way in which he moves. He barrels headlong into Dolan, carrying them both back into the room so recently escaped, and the two struggle with one another.
GAME: Dolan rolls reflex: (10)+5: 15 GAME: Dolan rolls fortitude: (1)+13: 14 (EPIC FAIL) GAME: Telamon used a Scroll of Wall of Force.
Telamon nods to Aya as he follows Lana out. "With luck, we'll have plenty of time before that toothy fellow catches up to--" And then Daechir piles into Dolan and shoves him back into the cell. "-- Are you kidding me?!" he snarls in frustration. "Daechir! We're -rescuing- you, stop!" Realizing they're in the hall, exposed, he pulls out another scroll and chants from it rapidly... a shimmering field popping into existence just beyond the cell entrance to block out the warden. As the runes fade from the parchment, he grits his teeth.
GAME: Ravenstongue casts Hold Monster. Caster Level: 13 DC: 24
As Daechir tries to push back inside, Cor'lana spins around on her heels, pointing a finger at the mul'niessa man. Almost instantaneously, a powerful spell rattles off her lips and--
The poor man goes into paralysis. Cor'lana sighs _deeply_. "Sorry Aya--and sorry to you, Daechir--but we need him to not do that if we're going to get out," she says. "Someone get him and then we're getting out of here!"
Daechir blindly claws at Dolan's shirt, doing his best to pin the other man to the ground. "Do not go! Do not leave me!" His voice is cracked and rough, his plea the sound of a desperate man. His eyes are wide and crazed; he is not seeing here and now. Or if he is, he sees something other than what everyone else is seeing. "Please!" Suddenly Cor'lana's spell goes off and his body goes suddenly still, his form utterly breathless, and the manic light in his eyes dies a short death. Daechir, whatever of him is left, is gone as quickly as he came.
Dolan hits the stone floor as he is barreled into, swearing. "Damn it, I'm not leaving you! I'm taking you with us!" The daylight glow he'd been emanating fades from existence, and he _fights_ to keep from being pinned -
And then the form freezes, and he rolls over and up, holding that left shoulder again with a _very_ unhappy look written quite plain across both mobile and scarred half of his features. "Come on. Let's get out of here. Keep him where he can see me. It's the only thing keeping him present."
Slowly, he gets to his feet, and looks at Aya. "Sorry, I can't pick him up right now. Keep him where he can see me, so he knows I'm not leaving him."
One moment Daechir is... as he was, and in the next he is scrambling?! None are more surprised than Aya when he drops and turns to lunge at Dolan. "Daed!" She whirls and is already -moving- to him, reaching him and reaching to him when she hears his voice for the first time in ... she does not even know, anymore.
His voice, but the words... the tone... they are nothing like the man she knows. Knew? No. It is him. -He- is him. There is no other possibility and she's not about to abandon him now.
Her arms wrap around his torso in a reversed embrace. To hold him. To move him with her as she backpedals into the hallway. To keep him facing Dolan. To keep her face buried in his back.
"Just a few more moments and we will be free... Please."
Swiftly Telamon arranges the party into a tight circle, Aya and Daechir on his left, Dolan on his right, Lana facing him. Unrolling the scroll of plane shift, he takes a deep breath, and begins reading off it. Incanting the spell, as there's a crackle of energy around the group. Aiming as close to the usual spot -- the Alexandria watchtower -- as possible, though he knows the spell is inexact. As his voice rises to a shout, a shimmering sphere of light wraps around the group to whisk them away..
GAME: Telamon used a Scroll of Plane Shift. GAME: Ravenstongue rolls Heal: (7)+2: 9
Once the group is back in Alexandria and out of the Hells, Cor'lana makes a beeline over to Dolan, leaning into his ear to murmur, "Everything okay, Brydion? We can talk later if you'd like. Either in the waking or in the dream--whichever you're more comfortable with." The offer is gentle, offered out of care for one of her best friends and the man who has come to her aid despite standing orders. She is no healer, but she can do that much.
Once back in Alexandria, the cool and damp of an Alexandrian springtime shoots through every inch of Dolan like knives, and he drops in sheer relief to one knee. "Sweet and holy gods, that was fucking awful," he mutters, right fist driven into the grass, staring _hard_ at it, left arm tucked up close against him. He seems to be present, though, his eyes sane. "I - I'm okay. Thanks for the breakout." Deep breaths, in and out.
"Just a second." With that single hand, he pulls a copper coin from his belt pouch, tosses it to the grass in front of him - but even as he touches his holy symbol, in preparation to cast something - the coin glows with a light all its own, a gentle, sunlit thing. "It did it again," he mutters. "I didn't even need the spell." A quick look up at Lana, and he scoops it up. He stands, then, with an effort, moving to press it into Daechir's unresponsive hand and folding his fingers over it. "Here. Hopefully this will let him know I'm not abandoning him. I need to go back to the temple, and I - I think I'd like to take Lana up on that. I'll come soon, though."
Aya still supports Daechier after they arrive. Still clings to him. They are ... home. A more vague term now, recent events considered, but it is still home. With this task done, the last of her task-oriented focus crumbles.
She begins to sob into his back with the deluge of emotions. Victory? Relief? Worry? All? None? She doesn't know. Nor does she know what to say at the moment. Not to Daed, not to those who retrieved him, even to deities she holds no trust in. Yet she manages two through sniffling breaths.
"Thank you."
Daechir is upheld by Aya, her arms keeping him on his feet. The minutes pass, and Cor'lana's spell fade. Red eyes fall to the light held in his hand, he knows it's there even if he couldn't look at it until now. He seems utterly unaware of Aya's tears, instead he cups it, eyes blankly staring at the little glow of light in his palm. Then, quite unexpectedly he says something that stabs through the heart of all present. Something that tells them how far from the man he was, he is now. A tear streams down his face; unnoticed and empty of emotion.
"Master is kind."
-End