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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Carnifex" data-source="post: 1391531" data-attributes="member: 227">The Upper ChamberThe steps rose up into a broad, open room, light brightly; not from torches but from the sunlight. Much of the domed ceiling here was blue-tinted stained glass, playing soothing shapes across the ivory tiles of the floor. Other metal doors, including a sizeable mechanised steel iris, led away; the iris was tightly closed, two Carthagians crouched nearby and attentively examining the workings of the door.Large metal pipes criss-crossed around the ceiling-dome and around the walls; a steady breeze blew threw vents and a whirring fan that pierced the blue glass, its rotating form shedding spinning shadows. Various pieces of mechanical equipment and tables, looking like the paraphernalia of another laboratory, had been cleared towards the walls. The centre was now taken up by the crates and equipment that had been moved up from the lower chamber.Most of the Carthagians were carefully watching the top of the stairs as the party come up through it; crossbows and spears were readied. Their mage-captain had a longsword carefully gripped in one hand, the other glimmering with the arcane sparks of some prepared spell. A little to the side, Gaethras stood, one hand gripping a light crossbow whose bolt seemed slick with some dark substance. His other hand held the chain leads of two eager manipulated warhounds, skeletaly thin yet their frames wrought with wiry muscles, metal parts worked into the flesh."Talk, shadowman." He gestured for the shadow-clad Ebri to step forwards and speak.On the very edge of her augmented hearing, she caught noise from below; from lower in the tower, and approaching, the sounds of movement. Above the noises of the fan and the faint humm of machinery that permeated this part of the tower, she was surely the only one who could even vaguely hear it; the Carthagians' attention was still all focused on her and the party. And if they were all up here, all of the Manipulator's band and the Truthseeker's band... then who was below them?"Charming hounds..." she observed, with a thin though not unappreciative smile, and sounding like it. "It's not our way, but we nonetheless remain impressed at the research going on in your Carthagian labs..."Pausing, she listened again for the sounds from below, wondering what it could mean. Aid? In which case, she should draw this out. And yet, if it were more enemies... If this fails, our chances are less than good... She consoled herself that her wit, discipline and training were superior to any of the others'; it seemed there were few good plans from which to choose.Thankfully, she had had some practice at projecting unconcerned confidence."The message..." she began. "We have reliable intelligence that this mission, --your endeavor in this Tower-- is crucial to the ultimate victory of your 'Homeland'. Let us say that we are, for reasons of our own, interested in the victory of Toran. My superiors foresaw that the risk would be particularly great for the aasimar, and I was dispatched to guard her until the two of you could join forces. At that point, I was to reveal my purpose, and offer you our -- and by our, I do not mean this motley crew-- collective aid in whatever you require. As I have now done. "* * *Isn't that funny, Melisande would have said to Ebri Zol. He thinks you're a shadow-man!But as the conversation continued, Melisande realized Gaethras believed it, and realized how little she was able to find out about the Umbral people and how they seemed to be shadowing her (so to speak) for a long time now, and how she had suspected before that Ebri Zol knew more than she was saying about such things. Could some of what she said be true? Could she really have been sent by some "Order" to watch over her? No--no--that was just a clever cover lie to let Ebri take over the negotiations, for which Melisande was actually grateful.But the camouflaging effect the priestess wore really was odd--Mel had never seen anything like it. It reminded her of the little vial of shadowy black potion that had stayed in her pocket since she woke up in the gnolls' grove with the dream of the shadow-demon (shadow-man?).She patted around until she found it, but refrained from bringing it out while Gaethras and the other Carthagians could see. She had a few more questions for Ebri Zol, if they survived joining forces with Carthagia.For a moment she saw a pained expression pass over Gaethras' haggard features, and she smiled to herself because where he stood his face bathed in the light from stained glass overhead looked nearly as blue as hers.* * *Ebri's smile was of course lost on the Manipulator, cloaked entirely as she was with shadows. The rest of her words seemed to, if anything, rather confuse the mage. "But surely this is your..."He stopped."Can you hear that?"The manipulated warhounds sniffed and drooled, giving low growls. The Carthagian warriors paused to bring still quiet to the room, listening carefully.Now everyone could hear the faint clamour that Ebri had already noticed. The sound of movement over metal; the pipes that pierced the room brought faint vibrations of noise along them. Whispers of sounds floated up the stairway. Sounds that were getting closer.Gaethras looked around wildly. "Must be the Hashrukkites, finally coming up from the bowels of this place for a fight!" As his men scrambled for cover, he snarled, "Try and capture one alive, I'll wring information out of them. You!" he gestured at Ebri and her band. "If you think my mission is so important, now's the time to prove it! The Hashrukkites have foul diseased beasts with their mangy cultists, and they'll be as eager to slay you as us!"Suddenly there was a crack and a puff of miasmic smoke, as a diminuitive figure materialised out of thin air, perched up on one of the pipes above them. Some three and a half feet tall, its humanoid, squat body was clad in dark cloth robes, but its head was uncowled; a head of toadlike features, scraggly hair sprouting out in bunches and a ludicrously wide mouth full of large, sharp teeth; it was grinning insanely."Daemon!" Gaethras yelled.In response, the daemon started cackling and giggling insanely; the noise jarring the minds of the listeners like the sound of scratching glass.Ebri reacted fast and first, hurling shuriken that scythed through the air at the diminuitive fiend; one striking true but simply bouncing off the grinning, maniacal creature. Melisande gritted her teeth to overcome the cacophonous, distracting laughter and hurled sapphire bolts of energy at it; this time the beast really was hurt, the impact almost knocking the daemon from its perch, and it began to spit and curse vituperously at her. A couple of the Carthagians also loosed crossbow bolts at it, but it easily dodged such mundane atacks, moving with worrying speed and swiftness as it scampered around atop the metal pipe.The noises of incoming beings were growing louder, animalistic bellows and hoots echoing confusingly up from the staircase and resounding through the metal pipings that laced the structure.Kale moved with speed down the stairs, liberally dousing them with caltrops before seeking cover. Thus he was the first to see the enemy coming.Two hulking monstrosities led the Hashrukkite assault. Each massive and bulked with immense muscles, the broad-chested beasts seemed like some nightmare reshaping of an ape, appearing like exotic creatures called gorillas yet sporting four arms, not two, each tipped with rending claws; the feral, snarling faces bore mouths filled with barbed fangs. Their fur was thick and white, but diseased and scabrous in many places, and in others instead there grew patches of tough scales. They drooled and slobbered viscous ichor, which also exuded from their claws.Each loped forwards with alarming speed for something eight feet tall, and behind the four-armed abberations came the cultists, over half a dozen robed and cowled men hissing and shouting threats and warcries as they waved barbed flails with enthusiasm. Behind them two more cultists came, these clad in the scabrous, toughened hides of some foul beast, the face of each man covered in scars as if they had been repeatedly cut across their features. Both carried flails with hollow heads, incense within burning and filling the air with putrid, miasmatic smoke. They spoke firmly and loudly in litanies and prayers to Hashrukk as they strode forwards.The occasional puff of smoke and echoes of insane giggles indicated that more of the little daemons were accompanying this group.It took mere moments for the massive monsters to sense Kale, even shrouded in shadows as he was. One sniffed the air with savage interest, picking up the scent of the man right away, and the entire entourage broke into a charge, forcing the scout to retreat as fast as he could back up into the main chamber.Even as the bulk of the assault was about to boil up the staircase to assault the Carthagians and mercenaries, two more of the daemons appeared in the room, amidst the confused bunching of sages and soldiers, laughing deliriously as they ran about, tripping and disorientating the bigger beings around them. Then there was an almighty scream of tortured metal as, from the largest of the metal pipes that protruded into the room, another of the four armed creatures appeared, simply tearing its way out and snarling with bloodlust, claws reaching out for the nearby men.Melisande had seen a girallon before; creatures created through biothaumaturgy, fleshtwisting gorillas into vicious, four-armed killing machines. But these were different, as if they'd been even further fleshtwisted, and they looked ridden with disease and infection. As the others charged up the staircase, it was apparent that being diseased wasn't making them any less angry than usual. Kale's caltrops hadn't hindered the beast's either, it seemed.To add to the confusion, the massive steel iris began to grind open...Next Time: A liberal dose of carnage...</blockquote>

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