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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jon Potter" data-source="post: 469020" data-attributes="member: 2323">[PLAIN][Realms #198a] Endgame, part 2[/PLAIN]"We have to stop this," Ledare heard Ruze growl into her ear and she nodded, maneuvering herself so that she could squeeze between the two guards. The guards were having none of it, however, and they turned quickly to oppose her."None may approach!" the woman snarled at Ledare and the hooded Janissary felt a lie form quickly and easily behind her lips. She smiled and let it free."We've been hired to attend to the baby when it is time to move," she bluffed. "Word has it that this location has been compromised.""Compromised?" the guard scoffed. "I've heard nothing...""No one was told," Ledare continued to spin. "The orders came from the top.""You're a liar," the male guard challenged. "We would have been told."The Janissary held up her hands and shrugged. "Fine," she said, as if she didn't care in the least. "But it'll be on your heads if anything happens to the emissary."The two guards looked at each other, at Ledare, and then back at each other. "Fine," the male guard agreed at last, stepping aside so that Ledare and Ruze and Draelond could approach the dais. "But there's no way anyone can get in here. Our time is now."'Sure, it is,' Ledare thought with a smirk well-hidden beneath her hood.Kirnoth crept closer to the altar stone and the bizarre ceremony being enacted upon it. The mendicant was huge! It hunched over the robed man, looking nearly twice man's height. Its scales were slick with some sort of clear slime, and the elf could see fat insects lazily circling the creature's orcish head. The smell that surrounded it like a hot cloud was so horrible that it almost made him retch. He was reminded unpleasantly of the stench that had filled the bane midge tunnels in the sewer beneath Barnacus. The robed man and the exhausted mother seemed unperturbed by either the mendicant's noxious odor or its leering presence. They were both expectantly watching the infant as the man pressed the symbol of Aphyx against her chest. As he approached, he could see that the baby had entered some sort of cataleptic state. She lay limp and senseless between her mother's breasts. The air around the unholy symbol shimmered as if with heat and Kirnoth realized that there was some sort of magic being performed on the child.With only a single hesitant glance up at the expectant mendicant Kirnoth made a grab for the baby.That was when everything started to go poorly.From his vantage point high on the wall, Finian saw some commotion with the infant. It seemed for a second to jerk in its parents' grasp and then Kirnoth appear standing beside the robed man. He'd managed to grab hold of the baby, but not to wrest it from the man and woman. They - and the entire congregation - stared blankly at the robed and hooded elf.Kirnoth blinked back at them and took an automatic step back."Rake," the robed man said, calmly. "Kill him."The mendicant let out a burbling hiss and sneered down at the man. "Do not seek to order me, Elgoth," the creature said in gargled common. "What I do, I do for the Queen." Then it turned and lashed out at Kirnoth with blinding speed. With its superior reach it simply slashed out over Elgoth's helmeted head with one claw and pierced Kirnoth's left hand. It wrenched back its talons and stripped away flesh from the bone.Kirnoth cried out and nearly collapsed from the blow.Finian meant to make certain that the mage didn't have to endure another. He fired his arrow and the mendicant howled in pain as the shaft pierced the scales covering its left shin and sank deeply into its flesh. Weakened by the sneak attack, the mendicant turned and looked up at the Archer hiding behind the tapestry. A murderous smile split its diseased face."Elgoth, you seem to have an infestation," it said with a tone of amusement in its phlegm-choked voice.There were four guards stationed on and around the steps leading up to the dais. Despite her armor, Ledare darted passed them before they could react to stop her and she made it easily to the stage. The guard's hands went to their weapons, shouts of alarm on their lips and then Ruze and Draelond were upon them.The Battleguard's scimitars flickered like lightning in the dim temple. The steel crescent in his right hand licked out and stabbed beneath the chainmail hauberk protecting the guard to his left. The man screamed as blood began to flow down his chest and he staggered, within a hair's breadth of death. Somehow, he managed to raise his longsword and slash it across Ruze's hooded face. The hood tore open and a bloody diagonal opened beneath. The cleric cursed.Draelond drew Ravager and plunged the saw-toothed bastard sword into the guard on his right. The blade bit hungrily through the man's armor, cleaved his heart, and continued on out his back with a spurt of gore. Several inches of the weapon's point embedded itself messily in the neck of the guard standing behind the first. Both men collapsed as soon as Draelond jerked the sword free.Atop the dais, Ledare turned quickly, her longsword appearing in her hand as if by magic. The blade arced up and then down, aimed for the only unwounded guard remaining on the stairs. He managed to raise his shield however, deflecting the blow harmlessly. His retaliatory strike came in low, catching the Janissary on the right ankle. The blow was a solid one and caused Ledare to gasp in pain.She glanced quickly back over the head of the guard who opposed her and saw that the entire temple was in chaos. At least two-thirds of the cultists were cowering in their seats; some were headed for the archway that led out. The ten or so guards who remained alive were converging on the Companions. Likewise, a hand full of the cultists seemed to have found their guts and they were drawing daggers. Among them, Ledare saw a figure that stood head and shoulders above the rest.The tall figure ripped off its hood, and in the instant before its features began to flow into a new, inhuman shape, Ledare recognized the face of Mother Bromson from 'Mom's Pie Shoppe'.</blockquote>

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