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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Delemental" data-source="post: 3628120" data-attributes="member: 5203">The old two-story tenement that served as the hideout for the assassin’s guild had seen better days.  Years of neglect, a common feature among the buildings of the slums, had weakened the wooden planks and beams that supported the place, which had been built as a dancehall in whatever bygone decade it was first conceived.  Those who walked through the place often heard the creaks and groans of old lumber, or the persistent gnawing of rats.            So, in retrospect, it was small wonder that when the Legacy appeared in the middle of the central room, Tolly already under the effects of iron body and righteous might, that the Ardaran’s massive frame quickly fell through the floor and into the basement below.            Kyle, Yuri, and Kupa, who could see the top of Tolly’s enlarged head poking up in the middle of the hole he’d created, quickly assessed the situation.  The main level was sparsely furnished in old, tasteless furniture.  A human male, clearly wearing the garb of a monk, stood near a ratty couch.  Up above them, a walkway encircled the outside of the room, and a female spellcaster stood looking down at them from the railing.  What made the pair unusual, however, was some familiar features; the monk had several facial tattoos which were identical to those worn by Osborn, and the sorceresses’ eyes were Autumn’s brilliant blue.            Yuri, not sure what to make of this, decided to play it safe.  She ran by the monk, and swept at his feet with the haft of her longspear, hoping to knock him off his feet.  But the monk easily avoided the sweep, and Yuri dashed past, tearing a large hole in the upholstery of the couch.  The Sargian leapt into the air, easily clearing the distance from the floor to the balcony.            At the same time, the sorceress on the balcony launched a fireball at the party, singing several of them.  Kyle summoned up a defenestrating sphere in response, and launched it at her, hoping to knock her off the balcony, but she managed to keep her feet amidst the buffeting winds.  Kupa breathed a cloud of gas at the sorceress, hoping to slow her, but the vapors seemed ineffective.  Then Tolly appeared on the balcony next to her, and managed to land a solid blow with his maul before once again falling through the collapsing floor into the basement again.            The monk, seeing that everyone’s attention was on his ally, ran up and began pummeling Kyle from behind, as he prepared to move the sphere back on top of the sorceress.  But this left the monk similarly open to an attack from high above, as Yuri leapt down, screaming, and impaled the monk’s shoulder.  As she pulled her spear free and prepared to strike again, she glanced up at the sorceress on the balcony, who was glaring with an unnatural gaze at her enemies.  Both Yuri and Kupa were suddenly paralyzed with terror, and stood helpless.            Kyle, still being menaced by the monk now that Yuri had been incapacitated, managed to get off a quick displacement to protect himself, and then refocused on his defenestrating sphere.  The air globe slammed into the sorceress and flung her into the ceiling, and then back to the floor in the center of the room.  When she hit the floor, her body suddenly lost all cohesion, transforming into a black, shiny ooze that began to slink away.  Rising up from the ooze came the translucent, spectral form of Autumn.  Kyle whooped in triumph as his wife turned and began floating toward the monk, intent on doing battle.  Tolly, less optimistic, invoked true seeing to make sure there was no deception, but could see nothing amiss with either Autumn’s spirit-like form or the ooze.  Reassured that they weren’t currently being deceived, he cast another spell to suppress the grip of fear that was overwhelming Kupa and Yuri.            Everyone’s attention was drawn to the monk.  Kyle swiped at him with a vampiric touch that missed, but Autumn’s incorporeal fists landed solidly enough.  But it was Yuri’s quick jab as she ran around behind the monk that proved the telling blow, and the monk collapsed into a pile of black ooze, releasing a ghostly version of Osborn.            The party gathered together.  “What do we do with these two?” Tolly asked, pointing at Autumn and Osborn, floating nearby.            “I’m not sure,” Kyle said.  “I was hoping they’d return to their bodies once those two were dead.  Maybe we should…”            “Hey,” Yuri said quietly, “I think maybe you ought to turn around.  Now.”            They turned to behold a terror.  The two smaller oozes had flowed together and combined into an ebon creature much larger than the sum of its parts.  Constantly melting and reforming, the creature shifted maddeningly from shape to shape, drawing each one from some horrifying nightmare.  Spines and clawed tentacles jutted out from every angle, and dozens of eyeballs peered out at them from within the black mass.  Atop the ooze, a human skull floated, cackling and screeching insanely.            Kupa blinked at the sight of the monstrosity.  “You meet such interesting creatures,” he said, and then spit a line of acid at the ooze.  The caustic fluids were absorbed harmlessly by the ebony mass, and a polar ray from Kyle bounced off it with no effect.  Similarly, an implosion from Tolly was easily warded off.  Osborn and Autumn floated in and began slashing at the ooze, tearing away chunks that dissolved in thin air even as its pseudopods passed through the two of them without effect.  Yuri, however, was not so fortunate; as she charged in with her spear, a tentacle lashed out and struck her fully across the chest.  The dragoon screamed as her form began to melt and dissolve, and her longspear slid out of boneless fingers.            Tolly, who had dropped his iron body spell so that he would stop crashing through the floor, ran over to Yuri.  Although he had never seen an abomination like this, he’d heard of other creatures of Chaos that could affect beings in similar ways.  He hoped that this creature’s ability was similar enough for him to treat it in the same manner.  Casting as he ran, he hit the Sargian with heal.  She immediately reformed to her true shape, though she was obviously still unnerved by the experience.            Osborn and Autumn continued their assault on the ooze nightmare, continuing to rip away black globs.  The creature tried to gesture at Kyle, but Autumn knocked the tentacle aside, causing the ray of negative energy it had emitted to strike the far wall.            As the Legacy began to close in, the skull atop the nightmare shifted forward until it was eye level.  The jaw began to move, and they all heard a familiar voice coming from it;            “Help me!” Arrie’s voice cried out, “I’m trapped inside here!”            The unnerving effect of this pronouncement was somewhat lessened, however, when a door on the far end of the room burst open, and Arrie came through, brandishing a huge adamantine warmace that was shifting into the shape of a greatspear even as she charged in.  Arrie’s spear joined Yuri’s in piercing the black mass several times, causing it to recoil in pain.  Kyle singed the ooze slightly with a burning hands spell; the creature had displayed a great deal of resistance to elemental magic, and he didn’t want to hit it with a more potent spell only to discover that it was rejuvenated by fire.  The ooze again shrugged off most of the damage, but at least it didn’t look any healthier.            Surrounded by enemies, the ooze emitted a foul cloud of poisonous gas before leaping across the room to escape its attackers.  Only Kyle was overcome by the fumes, and he staggered out of the cloud, gasping. Yuri, Arrie, Tolly, and Autumn moved across the room to attack again, the sentinel’s ghostly hands shining with divine power as she struck.  Kyle surrounded them all in an aura of flames that burned the ooze each time it struck            The nightmare creature was leaping about the room, trying to escape, but found its attacks were just as mobile as it was.  Yuri and Arrie quickly fell into a brutally effective routine; Yuri would leap to the attack and impale the ooze with her spear, and as soon as she landed Arrie used her new magical cloak to switch places with the dragoon, putting Arrie in easy reach of her own weapons.  The ooze did manage to get in a solid blow on Kupa, whose form began to shift and melt as Yuri’s had done, but a timely spell from Tolly ended the dragon’s torment quickly.             Finally, it had endured enough.  It unleashed another blast of power into the party, a wave of psychic power that distorted perception and twisted the mind.  Yuri was left reeling for a moment, disoriented by the ooze’s power; it used the opening to slip past her and through a crack in the door behind her.            Tolly quickly moved up and began battering the door down.  Osborn, meanwhile, who had been hanging back waiting for the opportunity to strike, simply floated through the wall and caught up with the fleeing ooze.            The door flew apart in a shower of dust and shards of wood.  Tolly and Arrie stood in the doorway, ready to charge down the hallway.  Behind them, Kyle was tending to Yuri, ending her confused state of mind.  The hallway ahead of them was empty, except for a trail of ichor than abruptly ended in the middle of the hallway.  Osborn was nowhere to be seen, and a quick look around told them that Autumn was also not there.            “All right,” Arrie said, “where’s my sister?”            “Back in her body, I think,” Kyle said.  “I think Osborn killed the thing.”            “Kyle, you’re the fastest, go and check,” Tolly said.  “Yuri, follow behind him.”  They both nodded and took off, Kyle spreading his metallic wings and flying down the hallway and outside, Yuri right on his heels.            Tolly then turned to Arrie.  “We should search the rest of this place, and make sure no more are hiding somewhere.  Kupa, head to the top of the building and watch for anyone running out.”            “Gotcha,” Kupa said, running down the hallway leading toward the outside door.            “Shall we?” Arrie said, sweeping her arm toward the other doors in the building.  “I’d like to get back to the manor to make sure Autumn’s okay.”            “After you,” Tolly said.            They spent the next few minutes kicking in doors and searching for trapdoors or hidden alcoves.  They found several bodies, former victims of the ooze, and from the clothing and equipment found on the corpses it was obvious that these had once been the other assassins in the guild.  They did find the remnants of some sort of laboratory, and gathered several samples for Kyle to analyze.After a long period of silence, Tolly looked over at Arrie.  "Ariadne, I believe I need to thank you."Arrie looked over at Tolly, curiosity on her face, but she said nothing."I do, because I do not believe anyone else could have drawn me back to the reality of what we needed to do back at Silko’s cave. Of all of us, I would never have expected you to remind me that in order to do the Goddess' will, we have to trust that She can take care of herself, and we need merely to follow Her tenets, and She will take care of us."Tolly paused, and gathered himself before continuing.  "Silko, and what he represents, terrifies me. I have been taking that out on you, as the only nearby psion, and letting it draw me astray from my duty and calling, which is to protect and serve Law and the Earth in Her guise as Mother. You drew me back from the edge - without you, I would have undoubtedly thrown myself away against the storm, and sacrificed Kupa in the process, as I am sure he would have stayed with me. I have always cared for your sister, and in no small amount for you. I, who was raised by the Church, had no family other than my Brothers and Sisters of the faith.”“Tolly…” Arrie began, but he held up a gauntleted hand.“Will you do me the honor of being my sister by blood oath? I can think of no one I could trust to watch my back more, and perhaps, this way, I can persuade the Mother to help me find a way for us to give you an afterlife. You deserve one as much as I." Arrie smiled, a soft, serene look on her face. "I'm honored by your concern Tolly, as I'm honored by your companionship. I have always believed that while you are not comfortable with my choices, you respect me enough to respect the decisions I make. I will likely continue to do things that defy sense and logic. It is as much a part of my nature as order is part of yours. I have been searching all this time, searching for who I am supposed to be and what legacy I will leave behind when all we know is dust.  I have found reassurance and death no longer holds the terror for me that it once did." A far-off look filled her eyes."It will be good to rest, to become quiet after so long filling up my world with noise and motion. I love that you and Kyle are willing to look for options but I can accept the consequences of the choice I made."Tolly studied Arrie, taking in her words.  “I do not know where you found reassurance, my dear - as a priest of Ardara, one of course is always looking for converts, but I suspect that this is not a case of faith in the divine. But it is good that you have faith in something. I hope that it stems from faith in yourself."Tolly extended his hand, open. Arrie gave him her hand and stepped closer, wrapping her other arm around his shoulders in a hug.  In a soft voice she said, "The Legacy is the family of my heart, the family that I got to choose. It would honor me if, in your heart, you knew me as your sister.""I will - no, I do - and we, Kyle and I, will continue to try to find an option. If all else fails, then perhaps we can recreate the Consort, and make things better for you and Iria. All I want to do anymore is see the world through this, and make certain I leave it in better condition for our children - no matter the cost to me."Arrie laughed, a sly look in her eye, as she separated from the Ardaran. "I’ll leave the building of deities to you and Kyle. I fear that I'm not terribly qualified. I have learned and learned well that a psion’s power is power within and a psion's faith likewise comes from within. If you build another Consort of clay and stardust, please do make sure that he understands that."“Agreed,” Tolly chuckled.  "On a lighter note, I have not made myself aware of what you can do as much as I should.  Kyle has mentioned that you’ve had something of a shift in your outlook and your powers.  What can you do with your...abilities?"Arrie gave Tolly a little finger-waggle. "Now that would be telling, Tolly. Don’t you want it to be a surprise?” Her expression morphed slightly, reminiscent of her old familiar smile.  “But I know the answer to that already. Things have changed for me, but not much.  Suffice it to say, I know what is important to me now and have put the rest aside. My powers are more stable but the intent guiding them is still the same. I've a new trick or two, but like most psionic powers they are fairly limited in their applicability to group tactics."She patted him on the shoulder. "Worry less, brother. Or at least if I can’t allay your fears, learn to bluff better. I have put wild emotion behind me and taken up the mantle of one tasked from within by great ideals.”“I will do my best,” Tolly said.  “But now, I see that there is no one left in this place who is deserving of our wrath.  Shall we return home?”“Of course,” Arrie said.  “Our sister should be waking up soon.” *          *          *            By the time they got back to the manor, Kyle had already administered a counter-agent to the sedatives they’d given Autumn and Osborn, and the two of them were awake, though still groggy and disoriented.  Both of their faces were still wet and sticky with dog saliva.            “What do you remember?” Arrie asked Autumn after giving her sister a hug.            “It’s… fuzzy,” she said, slurring her words slightly.  “Like a dream.  I felt like I was trapped in a nightmare where my friends were my enemies, and I was working to bring about the defeat of the Legacy and destroy the gods.  Then I think you came along and freed me from the body I was trapped in… after that I can’t remember much until I woke up here.”            Osborn confirmed that his experience was much the same as Autumn’s.  “But we weren’t just trying to destroy you,” he said.  “We wanted to convert the Legacy, subvert them to our side.”            “So, one thing I’m wondering,” Tolly said, “is how it is that Arrie isn’t laying here beside you.”            “You know how you can train yourself to do something?  I’ve trained myself to go into a trance that allows my body to resist the effects of toxins, or to enter a sort of stasis.  When I felt the dart hit me, I entered the trance to fight off the poison.  Once I awoke, I made my way back to where I knew you we’d been before, and followed the sounds of things breaking.”            “Did we lose much time?” Osborn asked.            “Just the morning and part of the afternoon,” Tolly said.  “All in all, not bad.  The biggest mistake they made was trying to take out Arrie.”            Osborn and Autumn looked to Arrie for an explanation, but she only shrugged.            “Once they threw that poisoned dart at her, we had an object that belonged to one of them,” Tolly explained.  “I was able to use discern location to pinpoint their hideout, and Kyle teleported us inside.”            “Look at you with your crazy magic!” Arrie beamed.            “No, deific magic,” Tolly corrected.  “Not crazy.  That’s your area.”</blockquote>

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