[Iron Kingdoms] The Age of Rust.

[Dirigible]

All:

pblib. That is the nearest that words can capture the sound of a lead sling bullet cutting through ethereal demon-fog, which closes behind the projectile mockingly. Sharp ears pick up a wooden chunkkk as it clips something inside the next room.

With an eldritch howl, the sorceror hurls fistfuls of netherworld fire at the gibbous mist. Flames crackle as they duel with the spectral vapours, which seem to recoil from the heat and light. Rather than burning away, though, they seem to coallesce...

It reminds Gavyn of the 'ghosts' from the morality plays they used to show back in Caspia. Men draped in sheets, going 'woooo'.

Except that those masquerade ghosts never had burning green eyes, oozing malignant goo, or endless black rips of a maw that smacks clothily as it hungers for your soul or appears wrapped in filthy sheets, like the sails of a funeral ship. And those masquerade ghosts will not have you waking up, pale and sweating with nightmares of horrible, suffocating death lingering in your mind.

Standing as tall as a man, the tattered wraith gives a ear rending screech, the rips in its fabric that serve as a mouth gnashing like black fangs. It wafts through the air, moving like the crack of a whip towards Dark. The sorceror raises his iron-shod staff, driving it into the wraith with all his meager strength. It strikes, but with all the effectiveness of a carpet beater on an old rug, raising some vile smelling dust, but not harming the vile shade one iota.

Then, it is upon him. The death-shroud cloth lunges up like a wave, encircling the sorceror in the blink of an eye. The material folds in, like the bedsheets being tucked in by a demonic mother, and with a perplexed gurgle the gaunt man is swallowed by it. You can see him struggling through the cloth as it tightens, choking the life out of him. Dark is completely wrapped, like some living mummy. The evil green eyes of the wraith glitter at you, promising dire things to come once it has finished this victim.

Dark
The sheet is vicelike as it gathers around you. You can feel it squeezing the air out of your lungs, trying to suffocate you. The rough, corpse-reeking cloth abrades your skin as it tightens, and you can feel it gently reverberating like a huge, wriggling drum membrane.

A blessing from the Red Lady, a thought comes to your mind; your fingertips itch towards the hilt of the X bladed dagger. If you can just looses the thing's grip for a moment...

OOC: Round 2. Dark has 28 rounds of breath in his surprisingly hardy, bony frame. This will be cut if the wraith manages to constrict any further with successful grapples.

 

[darkbard]

gavyn dundrake

the caspian gives a shudder as the wraith's screech sends icy tendrils up and down his spine. frantically, he rummages his memory for stories of the undead and ways to combat them, told to him as a wee lad on his father's knee.

[OOC: knowledge [religion] +3; apologies for not posting lately, just finishing up battling a nasty flu.]

 

[Shadowfane]

Dark struggles within the cold, ethereal corpse mist and feels the warmth of his blood leaching into the void. Cold. The antithesis of everything his fragile psyche clings to. But the fires of the Netherworld are fury incarnate, an incandescent holocaust that would burn the whole world if let loose. Before this blaze, the ragged shroud is nothing…but the gate is shut; She is the gate and he is the key. The key. If he can just reach the key…

The Rynnish sorcerer’s fingers grope within the gelid bonds of the dead thing, this dismal shroud of hate. Inexorably his hand moves towards where a dagger, forged of fire-blackened steel, nestles at his breast. All of his thoughts are bent to the task, the strange clarity of madness giving him focus and strength.

[OoC: Try to free the dagger and using it as a focus cast burning hands through the dagger and into the heart of the mist (if he can discern such a thing)]

 

[DJ_Colossus]

Kneecap

Kneecap winces as the incorporeal mist wafts above and through him as icy fingers clutch at Dark.

Fumbling madly for his handy kneecap-bashing stick, he presses his teeth together to keep them from chattering.

Backing up towards the door Kneecap realizes he can't physically harm the ghost (if that's in fact what it is). He turns his head and peeks through the door to see what secret, if any, the ghost is protecting. A jar. A vial. A glass. Something that can be bashed.

Spot: +0

 

[linnorm]

Eyvind

Eyvind

*Nocking an arrow, Eyvind steps up behind Kneecap and searches for a target.*

 

[Dirigible]

Kneecap & Eyvind

Somehow, you manage to ignore the struggling and the screaming from behind you, and the two most physically diverse members of the band edge forward, peering into the room ahead.

Bulky round shapes fill the L-shaped chamber ahead, man-sized casks with heavy, angular letters carved into them - the two closest are 'HRM' and 'BMM'. The wooden bands of the casks seem to be straining, as if whatever was inside was roiling and trying to seep out... in the torchlight, dark red liquid oozes from the seams in the vessels, tricking thickly to the packed earth floor.

Of course, it's probably just red wine.

Probably.

Gavyn & Tyra

Try as you might, you can't recall anything about the undead from your teachings. However, the old Morrowan (Morrowite?) prohibition against sloth and laziness tickles at the forefront of your mind, for some reason.

(OOC: Trying to use K: Religion to find out about undead is pretty much ineffective. IK has Creature Lore for that).

Dark

A little further... a little further... there!

Your scrawny arms strain, joints screaming in protest as the choking cloth enfolds you, squeezing and strangling. Just as the pressure spots start to form in front of your eyes, your sooty fingers manage to touch the cold iron of the Cryxian dirk... with an agonizing wrench, you force your hand forward and grip the weapon.

Grave-cold shroud-cloth locks tighter around you, air whoosing out of your lungs to be lost in the stinking warp and weave, but you flip the blade in your hand and scream an invocation to the Red Lady, muffled though it is, and plunge the knife upwards, infusing it with hellflames...

All

The wraith shrieks as a six-inch, X-shaped blade, wreathed in flame gouges out of it's body. You can see Dark still struggling within the choking phantasm, but he seems to have been able to start to cut himself free...


(OOC: Dark has 20 rounds left, but has seriously wounded the wraith)

 

[Shadowfane]

Dark screamed in ectasy and pain; fire and cold in glorious apposition!

"Arrrrhhhhhhhhh!", shrieked the sorcerer in his mind, into the cloying funerary cloth that gagged him; it didn't matter.

The fire flowed freely now, and Dark breathed deep of that inferno that, at odd times between sanity, could be glimpsed through his mind's eye. Let it come!

Struggling with the writhing death shroud, Dark tore about him as best his frigid limbs would allow, all the time flame gouting form that perculiar, disturbing blade that had somehow come into his possession.

[OoC: Burning hands channled through the dagger again - RAAAAAAGE!]

 

[linnorm]

Eyvind

Eyvind

*Eyvind searches his memory for any information about unnatural things to try to find a way to destroy the abomination attacking Dark while holding his arrow pointed at one of the odd barrels.*

OOC: Creature Lore +2

 

[DJ_Colossus]

Kneecap

Convinced of treachery most horrible, Kneecap believes there are people trapped in those caskets, and the ghost is feeding off their pain.

"Blood Eyvind! Blood! Let's bash the caskets open and let's free those poor souls trapped inside!"

Kneecap takes a cautious step into the room and draws his bashing-stick.

No one said he was the brightest of Gobbers.

 

[Dirigible]

Dark, Tyra & Gavyn

The sorceror gives a howl as another wave of fire encircles him. Eerie, linear shadows stain the walls for a moment, the threads of the fabric casting silhouettes all around. Then, the wraith seems to bulge out, rippling and swelling as if the Rynnish sorceror was rapidly gaining weight under the shroud.

Finally, the wrath breaks into swathes of cloth and a puff of hellfire erupts off the sorceror as he tumbles to his knees, sucking air, lacking even the breath to cough. The shreds of the wraith swirl about themselves, partially reforming, and its twisted face glowers down at you. It gathers, and darts towards the door Eyvind stand in.

Evvind & Kneecap

As the gobber springs forward, wielding his whacking-stick and begins to basha-basha-bash on one of the big barrels, the scout watches with a mixture of incredulity and trepidation. Der leetle guy myight be gooing crazee... but, my Gott, vat eef he's right?

The cask makes wet, sucking nosies as Kneecap starts to bang on it, his knobbly club knocking dents in the planks. He fancies he can hear something inside the cask sobbing, now that he is near it. Red liquid splurts with every blow, splattering on the gobber's arms and legs.

The air above you fills witha dreadful wail as the wraith, mere moments ago wrapped around the mad magician, lashes through the air overhead. It flies past, whipping around to give you one final snarl, before vanishing into the darkness of the wine cellar.