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Message: <blockquote data-quote="barsoomcore" data-source="post: 1983212" data-attributes="member: 812">Shan's sword sang with apparent bloodlust as she yanked it free of its sheath. Between where the Angels stood and where the beasts clawed themselves free of the torn-up floor milled hundreds of suddenly terrified villagers, just beginning to surge back from the horrors that had so suddenly erupted in their midst.Wei-Yong's reactions were a little more aplomb-filled than they had been last night. She strung her bow without a thought and sent a couple of shafts whizzing right through the heaving crowd, just missing heads and nearly slicing an ear off before striking one of the beasts right in its throat.It gurgled, spraying blood over the crowd, but didn't appear otherwise dissuaded by her efforts. Claws tore into defenseless villagers and the temple exploded with screams as the wedding guests, packed tightly around the feet of the Goddess' statue, began pouring out, stumbling among each other in their desperation to get free.Shan brandished her sword and howled. As panic-sticken and terrified as they were, the fleeing guests somehow managed to clear an aisle between her and the creatures. Shan charged.Even as she reached the knot of ugly beasts, two of them leapt straight upwards, dangling for a second from the balcony before pulling themselves up with long wiry arms. She plowed into the three that were left and steel flashed, claws tore and Tianese oaths began to spiral up into the temple air.Li Fa pushed her way through the crowd, looking for a clear space where she could call upon the Shadow Realm to power her sorcery. Ming-Wa realised the two creatures on the second floor were closing in on Tang Fei Liu and Xue Li and stretched out one hand, pressing the other to her brow in concentration. There was a flash of shimmering violet, and the two creatures staggered as some unseen force pummelled them, shaking the temple beams and sending dust and paint flecks flying.Shan hollered and laid about her in all directions, slashing madly at any leathery, wrinkled, claw-festooned limb she saw. Heavy blows knocked her from side to side, but she got her shoulders and hips into one cut and tore one creature's abdomen open. It collapsed, writhing and shrieking.Shan's gleeful triumph turned to frustration as another of the creatures grabbed hold of her sword and sent it flying. Undaunted, the big woman took hold of the powerful beast and drove it down into the tiles, ignoring the slashing claws and talons of the third.As wedding guests careened out of the temple, Li Fa found empty space easier to come by. She spun, her heavy robes twisting around her, and clenched her fists as she concentrated on the two creatures upstairs. Dark mist swirled up and suddenly sucked back into the ground as up above, searing flames erupted around the stunned beasts. One stumbled free, howling with pain, but the other could only shriek in its high, inhuman voice as the sorcerous flames peeled the skin from its flesh.The surviving beast leapt up to the third level, intent on getting past Fa's barrier of flame and attack the wedding couple. It teetered on the railing, some thirty feet above the temple floor, near the height of the statue's shoulders.Wei-Yong, bent backward to get the angle right, sighted and let fly.The teetering beast froze for a second, suddenly sprouting a feathered shaft from the underside of its mouth. It fell from its unsteady perch and plunged straight down in a tangled ball of arms and legs to crash right next to Shan.Covered in gore and with her armour scored and seared by powerful claws, Shan got wearily to her feet with the remaining creature's head caught in a tight hold. As the others watched, she wrenched hard and with a very loud crack, the beast went limp and she dropped it to the tiles.A sudden black smoke boiled out of the creatures and every drop of blood they'd shed, and in only a heartbeat or so, there was no sign of them except the torn flagstones and the marks on Shan's armour. The four women looked around the now-deserted temple. Three mangled bodies of unfortunate villagers lay motionless. From above, the wedding couple looked down in mute horror.Wei-Yong spoke with her usual quiet drawl."I can hardly wait for the reception."Li Fa was looking down the hole the things had come out of."There's something down here. Stairs, it looks like."Ming-Wa bustled over."Stairs? Where do they go?"Fa looked over at her friend, expressionless."They go down."Mau Li, Wei-Yong's massive wolf, growled deep in her throat, bristling at the exposed stairway. All four of the women drew closer together as they peered into the darkness below. Wei-Yong knelt beside her canine companion and stroked the big animal's ruff."She smells blood. Down there."Li Fa caught sight of the elderly Sister responsible for the temple, Yan Ting, watching them fearfully from a temple entrance. Her dark eyes flashed with anger as she gestured the old woman forward.The Sisterhoods of the Goddess all served Her in their own ways, but there was a definite hierarchy between them. And there was no question that the Sisterhood of the Submissive Eye ranked well below the organizations the Angels belonged to. Yan Ting scurried forward, bowing and mumbling prayers to Her glory.Fa was not inclined to be gracious."What's this? What is this beneath this temple?"The old woman gaped in astonishment."I've never seen such a thing. I can't imagine--""Sister, if you know anything about this, I charge you in Her holy name to tell us now.""By the beauty of Her presence, I've never seen it before. I cannot tell you anything about it, as She may witness."Ming-Wa, burning with indignation, pointed to the bodies."You must clean this immediately! Those poor people should be buried here in Her hallowed ground, and this whole temple rededicated once it has been cleansed! This is sacrilege!"Shan and Wei-Yong shared a look, shrugged and started down the steps. Ming-Wa noticed."Where are you going?""Down."*****Beneath the temple, Ming-Wa's outrage only increased. A long hall lined with votive statuettes revealed blasphemy; the tiny figures of the Goddess had been defaced with crude, lascivious markings, smeared with blood and other, less seemly, substances.All four women fumed with righteous anger. They had spent their lives in the service of the Goddess, had seen with their own eyes again and again how Her strength and compassion had benefitted the world. To see Her image so degraded, so fouled, offended them deeply.They made their way down the subterranean hall, passing countless statuettes of their beloved Goddess, every one made to represent a mockery of the purity and beauty the Angels worshipped.At last the flickering of Ming-Wa's torch revealed a door ahead. Mau Li bristled again but did not growl. Wei-Yon put up a hand for silence and closed her eyes, concentrating."Crying."Shan's eyes widened."The children?"The doors flew open as Tong Shan drove forward and stumbled into a wide chamber, a prayer hall of a type the Angels knew well, but transformed into a foul torture chamber. All of the women gagged on the stench of blood, rot and waste. The room held two rows of pedestals, each a little taller than Wei-Yong, and each supporting a complex array of rusted chains from which hung emaciated children.The children were grey and mottled, their eyesockets empty, accusing holes. The sound of crying filled the room, but these children would never be able to weep. They were obviously dead, hanging half-rotted from their chains.Horrified beyond speech, the women moved into the room. Sacred murals had been defaced, made grotesque and shocking with foul depictions of the Goddess. The stench increased and the sound of sobbing remained.Shan ran to one of the bodies, rattling at the chains in an attempt to free the dead child from its shackles. Ming-Wa did likewise.Fa and Wei-Yong, looking around themselves in shock, moved further into the room. They did not notice as the hung corpses raised their decaying heads and grinned.Shan and Ming-Wa both did, but before they could cry out, the corpses they'd been trying to free convulsed and tore open with a sickening wrench. Horrid ropes of intestines and organs flopped around the startled women and dragged them forward into a foul embrace, where undead jaws tore at them and clawlike hands scrabbled against their backs.Shan swore. Ming-Wa screamed. For a second, Li Fa and Wei-Yong could only stare, horrified. They realised the other corpses were reaching towards them, straining against the chains holding them against the pedestals. Their friends were half-buried in putrefying flesh, struggling to free themselves."Fools. You think you serve beauty. You are servants of foulness. Of evil. Of putrescence."The two women whirled to find a grinning skeletal creature with blazing eyes and a mammoth axe."Says you."Wei-Yong nocked and arrow and was about to let fly, but for once she wasn't fast enough. The fearsome axe flashed out and scored a deep gash in the tall woman's upper arm, biting to the bone and knocking her against a nearby pedestal. Wei-Yong groaned and slumped to her knees.Her friends were all too near her. Fa looked up at the undead creature preparing its axe for another blow and gritted her teeth.She called upon the Shadow Realm, but no tendrils of blackness rose about her. Instead, she allowed the kiss of Shadow to travel right up her spine, its cold emptiness at first thrilling her with the power of the void, but then penetrating into her, tearing at her very being. Ruthlessly she ignored the certain death climbing up inside her. Through supreme effort of her will she kept the deadly touch of Shadow from expanding, drawing the power she needed even as her life force began to ebb away with unrelenting agony.Wei-Yong looked up at her stern friend, even in the haze of pain from her wound able to see the tears on Fa's face as she resisted the hungry destructiveness of Shadow and bent it to her needs. The flagstones erupted at her feet as a roaring energy surged across the room to strike the mocking guardian, sending it flying in an explosion of stone and dust.Now Fa sank to her knees. Wei-Yong struggled to find her bow in the dark chaos, driving herself to her feet as she heard the undead warrior doing the same not far off.Ming-Wa, choking on the rotting ichor of the dead child, called upon the vital power of her mind and unleashed a blast of purifying energy that disintegrated not only the thing clutching at her, but the others chained up further down the hall.Shan still struggled with the one holding her, heaving against the pedestal in a vain effort to tear herself free. Animated entrails sucked at her, wrapping themselves ever more tightly around her arms and her torso. She pressed her hands against the pedestal and strained, groaning as she tried to free herself.Ming-Wa saw her friend's plight and shook her head."Your sword, Shan.""Oh, right."One cut was enough to dismember the unholy thing and Shan staggered back. She and Ming-Wa heard a shriek from the darkness up ahead, and ran forward to help their friends.The shriek was Fa as she reeled aside from another sweeping blow of the warrior's battleaxe. She ducked around a pedestal and could only hope that none of her friends were in range. Trying again to contain Shadow within herself would surely kill her, so she let its hungry darkness swirl free as it usually did and her disciplined mind flashed through complex calculations.The floor erupted yet again, but this time black chains burst out of the ruined flagstones, writhing like living things as they rattled around the undead warrior's limbs, pinning him in place.Wei-Yong at first sighted on one of the empty eyesockets, then shrugged and picked the center of the creature's brow. Its skull shattered with the impact, and all four women sagged in relief. Wei-Yong gripped her injured arm."That hurts."Ming-Wa found her torch, still flickering on the floor, and raised it up again. The chamber now looked as though industrious stone masons had used it to dump the shattered refuse of their work. The floor, once smoothly set, was ruptured and uneven, the flagstones strewn about in disorder. Dust filled the air, swirling about them all.She spoke with a fervour they all shared."Let's go talk to Sister Yan again."</blockquote>

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