Marullus wrote: ↑Tue Apr 30, 2024 3:07 pm
Nutesh meditates in his warding circles, missing Suen's altercation...
Carrock takes wing on the cold desert wind, the form he has taken knowing innately where the Black City is. Even in the dimness of night, the city is visible, a black crag in the valley, reaching a hand out to the pass, an ancient formation carved by the Sipe before it changed course millennia ago.
As he nears, he ascends, to look down on the city from far above, circling and bringing his left eye to bear as he always does when searching. From this height, the layout of the city is plain: the roads and structures radiate from the grand building in the center, topped by its gilded statue. The city is still, Carrock spots no movement.
He descends, inspecting the center building from all angles; the interior is dark and barely visible, the gilded statue the only thing easy to make out, bright even in the moonlight, sitting on the dome, her hands clasped below her chin...
...the statue has
moved.
Startled, you look closer. Through your connection with the spirit, you feel a growing sense of uncertainty and unease. The face is the same, dressed the same, but she sits demurely, as if waiting patiently for something, beams no longer radiating from the sphere. Carrock circles, watching for movement, but nothing comes. A sound, stones falling, rings out below, and Carrock ascends higher to survey, but sees no movement. A small pile of stones near the building seems to have been disturbed, a few of them have tumbled onto the sandy, paved road below.
Peering around, his right eye watching for attack from above, Carrock waits, watching for sign of threat. When none comes, he alights across the way from the disturbed stones, peering into the building, past the pillars, looking for sign of something moving, but sees nothing. You can barely make out carvings on the inner walls, with some paint on them, perhaps, though you cannot tell what they are of. People, scenes of war or victory, perhaps? Glyphs, a dead language, almost certainly.
Thinking this is perhaps the information you need, to know more about these people and what they were, you urge Carrock in, and he takes wing once again into the building, choosing to land on top of one of the interior walls, below the high ceiling and between pillars, in a gap probably intended to let light and air through.
Peering over, Carrock glimpses into the room. A strange sight.
A square room, the walls are carved in the same fashion as the ones you saw outside, but even up close you cannot make them out, shadow stone on a shadowed night. The circumference of the room is a platform a step below the outside floor. The center, though, is a pit, barely visible, disappearing into ebon blackness. A stair clings to the side of the pit, descending until it is just an invisible shadow.
Carrock cocks his head, listening carefully, his left eye studying the pit and the right continuing his vigil. It seems silent for a long moment, then... emanating from the pit, a distant rasp, of cloth or flesh on stone. It continues for a moment, then stops without warning. A small eternity passes, listening.
Then, another sound, from outside the temple this time. Carrock's head shoots up, his right eye scanning the room until it settles on... something. Something terrifying and unearthly. A... creature, about the size of a man, of a color impossible to make out in the dark, folding upon itself like clay in the hands of a potter, reforming in different shapes, and each time it places four limbs on the ground to hold itself steady. It's flesh wriggles and slithers, worms squealing against each other, attempting to tear themselves away from the body.
Carrock freezes.
The creatures writhes through the pillars, coming toward the room where Carrock watches, into the room, to the stairs, positioning itself at the head of the stairs, where it stops. A long eternity passes, watching.
Suddenly, the body of the creature... stands, perhaps? Reshapes itself, two of its limbs move up from the floor until it has an almost human shape. Without warning, it turns towards Carrock, its flesh twitching and writhing with excitement.
Faster than even thought, Carrock takes off in abject terror. He is out, past the pillars, into the night, his left eye watching his path and his right frenetically scanning for danger following, ascending for all he is worth, a speed so inhuman you find yourself instantly nauseous. Past the building, the pillars, the walls, the statue on her gilded dome, her hands now curled around her knees and head moping on them. Into the night, a bird of spirit and smoke, flying away from the cursed city with only the intent of getting away, no longer responsive to your thoughts. He flies, flies further, flies faster, until the shape he has taken quivers with exhaustion, and then he circles to look behind.
Seeing nothing, he flies back toward the camp.
Since I miss the other ongoingaction, i will wait to post until it resolves and we reach morning...
