Seaside

[Shadowcaller]

Jungle

"Oh yeah, that's what they're called." Bra. It was such a short word that she really should remember it, even if she had no idea why they were called that.
His words seems to sow doubt in her however. "But... I guess, maybe? We still ought to save that guy though, right?" She glances back at the jungle outside.
That's just when there's a flash outside, shortly followed by thunder. "...if there's anything left to save that is. No way it could have been Yul though."

[quillpleasant]

Jungle

Harley peers past Raheeda at the dark jungle, and shakes his head. "One, they attacked us. Two, he could already be dead. I know you're a hero, but do you really want to risk your life for the slim possibility you might be able to help someone who tried to kill you?"

He leans back, rubbing his neck. "I mean, maybe you do. Maybe I should feel the same way, maybe I wouldn't be cursed if I did. But it's better to be cursed than dead."

[Morty]

[Draconic Talks]

The townspeople look at them expectingly.
Or more accurately, the majority of them are staring at Megeshi as she emerges from the temple and Askeladd doesn't have to be an exalt to tell that fear and awe is what many of them are feeling right now. Indeed, there might even be a few people who've fled town as some of the faces he saw at church are missing in the crowd. Though it's really difficult to tell with so many people. They might also just be at home.

While there were brief gasps of shock once they emerged it looks like they're holding their collective breath now. Just waiting for them to speak up.

"Some explanations are in order, I believe." Askeladd stands before the crowd in his human shape. "I am Askeladd, a chosen of Luna. I came here in the guise of a humble storyteller on behalf of the dragon you see, Megeshi, hoping to ensure peace between you and her. When I examined the painting that is the pride of your town, a disagreement emerged with the dragon who watches through it. I had to call on my power to protect you. I am sorry that it came to this. I would have preferred not to disturb you."

[Morty]

[The Narhum]

Henry has never actually been on a ship more than twice in his life before. Yet he has found that he is at least biologically incapable of being seasick.
"Well, the trip seems easy enough at least. Do you want to lay low or do you want to talk to anyone?" suggests Michalson's unofficial deputy. "The kobolds seem like educated people; they might know a little about what's going on." he adds. Smallfolk almost make him sigh. He misses being normal-sized like that.

"Aye, that's a possible direction. We'll just need to be subtle. Don't want to weird 'em out by askin' about esoteric things." Michalson shrugs. "I don't think lyin' low would do us much good. I do still have that potion to make me dream lucidly. Could catch a skeg of their dreams with it."

[Gold]

[Empty Beach]

"Yes, sir!" TASBot says enthusiastically, stretching his wrists and shoulders as he turns to face the cliff.

The robot begins walking with Hoshiki towards the foot of the cliff, but stops about halfway there. His body language might indicate that he is using the moment to analyse the rock face, taking in all its footholds and handholds to find the angle and route that will get him to the top in the fastest time possible.

"Do you have a stopwatch? Actually, on second thought, don't worry about it," TASBot calls to Hoshiki once he's done routing. After that, he walks the rest of the way to the foot of the cliff. "Ready!" The robot moves along the base until he stops at an area with a good starting hold. "Set!" The robot crouches down slightly, getting in the perfect position to...

"Go!" TASBot springs into action, grabbing onto the wall's first set of handholds and rapidly making his way upward. The time he took to determine a route earlier seems to be doing a whole lot of good, as the android moves quickly and decisively along the wall. Though, there are a few moments when he's slowed, such as when pulling himself up using hands only, which seems to be slightly difficult for the robot.

Once the top of the cliff is in plain sight, TASBot puts on a burst of speed, muttering "Final stretch, let's do this!" Truth be told, he had been getting a little nervous up to this point, since climbing as an activity was quite a bit more difficult than he remembered it to be, but seeing how close he was to finishing seemed to ward off his fears completely. Planting both hands firmly on the cliff's top and hoisting himself up with a final grunt of exertion, TASBot lies on the top for a second or two before sitting up cross-legged and raising his arms to the sky with a triumphant cheer.

"Hey, Mr. Hoshiki! I got up the cliff, in just about twenty-five seconds! Pretty good, right?" TASBot excitedly calls from atop the cliff, still riding the figurative high from his victory of having literally gotten high up.

[Hraithre]

[Empty Beach]

"Yes, very good", Hoshiki replies ten seconds later as he clambers to the top. He didn't wait the whole time TASbot was climbing, instead opting to follow slightly behind. The swordsman felt sure enough in his grip to keep his eyes on the robot as he was climbing.

"What happened in the last seconds? You were moving at close to human speed, then suddenly WHOOSH. I take it if you'd really tried, you could've gotten up much faster? Is that the speed thing you were talking about? Gain power by going faster?"

[Shadowcaller]

Jungle

"But won't you age and die eventually though? Like, maybe this one thing would have been stupid to do but now you're like those two dudes. Scared. That's why they were shooting at us and that's why were not coming to help them. Probably 'cause some monster is out there." She points a thumb at the jungle which actually was lit up by the midday sun not long ago but now is growing increasingly darker despite it not even being close to nightfall yet. "But if you like..." Raheeda pauses as she seems to have some difficulty finding the words. "...uh..."

Then finally she seems to have formulated something in her mind. "Okay... so if we stay here, do nothing but wait until the storm and night rolls over us. You think that the monster's not gonna attack us? Since it totally is and then it will have the advantage of darkness." She gestures at her eyes. "Since I don't have that elf-vision-" A beat as her eyes twitch ever so slightly. "-'cause I'm not actually an elf, okay? I lied. But my point is that fear hides everything that's more than just a couple of moments in the future. It makes you dumb. Really dumb. Like those two idiots we just met." She points out into the jungle.

[Draconic Talks]

((Will post here later.))

[quillpleasant]

Jungle

Harley raises a finger, looking like he's about to argue. Then he pauses, before sagging slightly and looking down.

"You're absolutely right, of course. I hadn't realized it, but I am scared. You know, I haven't felt that emotion since I was just a rabbit, running from wolves in the woods." He chuckles softly. "Damn, I forgot how hard being mortal is. Okay."

Pushing himself to his feet, he picks up his spear and grips it tightly. "I don't want to be a scared rabbit again. Let's go face whatever's out there, and save those sailors, if we can." He tilts his head to one side. "Also I don't care if you lie to me. I just want you to know you don't have to."

[Shadowcaller]

Jungle

Raheeda claps her hands together. "Cool! Then we can get that bra back too and whatever the tiny pants are called." She dramatically steps outside the storage house with a sweep of her robes and gestures with her own spear out into the jungle. "But first, the monster!"

Then she marches right out. "Just stay close, we're stronger as a team." A beat as she glances back at him. "Uh, how are your injuries by the way? You good to go?"

[quillpleasant]

Jungle

"Nothing more heroic than rescuing undergarments," quips Harley, following Raheeda out into the dark. He looks up towards the sky, searching for any glimpse of strangeness in the clouds.

"I'll be right behind you," he says. Touching his stitches through his shirt, he shrugs. "No idea how well I'm doing, I don't know how much pain is normal for people to feel. Like, are people usually in a lot of pain, or just a little amount of pain? But yeah I'll manage."

[Shadowcaller]

[Draconic Talks]

"Some explanations are in order, I believe." Askeladd stands before the crowd in his human shape. "I am Askeladd, a chosen of Luna. I came here in the guise of a humble storyteller on behalf of the dragon you see, Megeshi, hoping to ensure peace between you and her. When I examined the painting that is the pride of your town, a disagreement emerged with the dragon who watches through it. I had to call on my power to protect you. I am sorry that it came to this. I would have preferred not to disturb you."

Jungle

"Nothing more heroic than rescuing undergarments," quips Harley, following Raheeda out into the dark. He looks up towards the sky, searching for any glimpse of strangeness in the clouds.

"I'll be right behind you," he says. Touching his stitches through his shirt, he shrugs. "No idea how well I'm doing, I don't know how much pain is normal for people to feel. Like, are people usually in a lot of pain, or just a little amount of pain? But yeah I'll manage."

Jungle

"Oh I know the feeling. Got beaten down really bad more than once and I'd say that the 'lot' starts when blood begins leaking out of you." Raheeda claims. "But let's be quiet now, we-" But just as she turns back her gaze to look at the path ahead there's movement in the underbrush which makes her freeze mid-sentence.

Only for it a moment later to be revealed to be a small rodent of some sort which must have fled the moment they got too close.

"-are getting closer." She finishes in a hushed tone.

The rest of their trek through the jungle will be done in silent. Raheeda's moving with practiced ease but is hardly taking the fastest path. Continually leading them on small detours which she seems to have deemed to be more quiet than just taking the beeline.
Eventually she stops again however, gestures for him to get over to her and then what she's spotted.

In a clearing roughly fifty feet away lies what must be one of the sailors they encountered earlier. He isn't moving though there's no sign of violence or a struggle. But considering the state of the man whose clothes Harley is now wearing, that isn't a sign of anything.

[quillpleasant]

Jungle

"Well, I think the blood has mostly stopped looking for now," says Harley- mouse jumpscare. He definitely isn't startled at all, as evidenced by him almost dropping his spear. Quietly thumping his foot to let out the tension, he continues to follow Raheeda.

Harley definitely isn't as practiced at stealth as her, but he's not making a ton of noise regardless. He doesn't question the roundabout trail; clearly Raheeda knows what she's doing. When she stops, he creeps forward to stand next to her, peering out into the clearing.

"Uh oh. With him being in plain sight...this feels like a trap," he whispers, "Should we both go in, or should one of us hang back to keep a lookout?"

[Shadowcaller]

Jungle

Raheeda nods at the assessment that this might be a trap and then make a circular motion with her finger before starting to move to the right and gestures for him to follow. "Let's have a look around first. That dude isn't going anywhere."

Assuming he follows, they move quietly through the underbrush, essentially circling the fallen man.
But they're not seeing anything unusual even if the jungle once again was deadly quiet. "There's tracks, but I think they're only of the dude and animals. Nothing out of place." She concludes after having looking a while.

[quillpleasant]

Jungle

Harley does indeed follow, albeit unnerved by the lack of noise. Ne nods at Raheeda's assessment.

"My guess is that whatever's hunting these people is somehow intangible, like a ghost or spirit. Or maybe it can fly." He gives a nervous glance up at the rumbling clouds above. "And if that is the case, I'm not sure how we're gonna fight it." Still, he grips his spear tightly as he prepares to step cautiously into the clearing.

[Shadowcaller]

Jungle

"Ehh, I've never met something I can't stab if you got enough magic on your stick." Raheeda boosts as she bumps her fist against her chest. "Maybe the guy's soul escaped? Y'know, like when an old person clutches at their chest since their soul is escaping? I've seen it happen before. He got so scared his soul got scared straight out of him."

Now she starts to head straight towards the man and there doesn't seem to be anything stopping her.
She stops just a few meters from what's now clearly a corpse. His expression all too similar to the man on the boat's. "See? Soul totally got scared out of him." She gestures with her spear at the body.
There is something different about the man besides just his expression however. He's wearing a golden medallion with a chain that also seems to be made of gold. It stands out so much from the rest of his attire that they couldn't have missed it before.

[Gold]

[Empty Beach]

TASBot shrugs. "I didn't speed up by that much," he says, slightly confused. "And, yeah, I could have easily got up here way faster, but it wouldn't have been as fun that way, I'm not trying to show off, or anything." the robot states.

TASBot rises to his feet. "So, now that we're up here," he asks, after a delay, "what shall we do next?"

[Keeper]

The Narhum

"Well, we can try the normal route first."
Henry momentarily forgets himself and goes to approach the kobolds.
Hopefully the sight of a large shark-person with spooky ghost eyes does not terrify them.
"Hello!"

[quillpleasant]

Jungle

"Ehh, I've never met something I can't stab if you got enough magic on your stick." Raheeda boosts as she bumps her fist against her chest. "Maybe the guy's soul escaped? Y'know, like when an old person clutches at their chest since their soul is escaping? I've seen it happen before. He got so scared his soul got scared straight out of him."

Now she starts to head straight towards the man and there doesn't seem to be anything stopping her.
She stops just a few meters from what's now clearly a corpse. His expression all too similar to the man on the boat's. "See? Soul totally got scared out of him." She gestures with her spear at the body.
There is something different about the man besides just his expression however. He's wearing a golden medallion with a chain that also seems to be made of gold. It stands out so much from the rest of his attire that they couldn't have missed it before.

Oh yeah, Harley had forgotten the spears were magical. He squints at his suspiciously before following Raheeda towards the body.

"You've seen a lot of crazy things," he observes, peering down at it. The medallion is clearly important here. He taps it with the tip of his spear.

"This is new. But is it a protection, or the cause of his suffering?" Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Before he can be persuaded to maybe not do so, he reaches down and attempts to pull the medallion free of the sailor's neck.

[Hraithre]

[Empty beach]

"What next? We get back down, of course", Hoshiki answers... and leaps off the cliff. In defiance of expectations and laws of physics, he doesn't fall and crash straight on the rocks, instead floating down and touching ground as softly as a feather.

[Shadowcaller]

Jungle

As Harley approaches the corpse black fog suddenly emerges from the dead mans mouth and quickly surges out towards him.

[quillpleasant]

Jungle

Harley reels back, but he's not nearly fast enough to avoid the fog. It engulfs him in moments, and he's powerless to resist its effects.

[Shadowcaller]

Jungle==>Shadowy Mindscape

He can see the smoke come straight towards him and then everything quickly starts to go dark.

Harley can feel a surge of pain as he collapses on the ground but that's the last sensation he will feel-

-before a voice calls out to him from the darkness.

Where is the other one? Answer or I will meet the fate of the last one. Tell me now. He still cannot see anything or indeed even move. He even seems to have difficulty breathing. That voice completely dominating his attention.

[quillpleasant]

Shadowy Mindscape

Harley desperately struggles to break out of the darkness, likely to no avail. His impulsivity has overtaken his luck, it seems.

He'll attempt to speak, although if he can't do so physically he'll think instead, as whatever entity this is seems to have access to his mind in some way.

"I have literally no idea what the other one is, but I promise that whatever you can do to me, I've been through worse." A pause. "Wait, do you mean the other sailor? No idea." He's certainly not happy with this situation, but he seems more frustrated than scared.

[Shadowcaller]

Shadowy Mindscape

Silence follows for an undetermined amount of time. It might feel like minutes, even hours, but it's barely thirty seconds. "Would you be willing to kill 'the other sailor' for me? I'll let you go if you do. Once the deed is done that is. Since if I just use your body I have a feeling that your partner would object and I would prefer to do things smoothly."

[quillpleasant]

Shadowy Mindscape

"Oh, is that all?" says Harley immediately, glad of anything to break the dark monotony, "Yeah, I can...uh. Ughhh." A wave of intense and sudden frustration.

"Normally I'd enthusiastically agree to your deal, hell, you wouldn't even have to ask. But I'm trying to be a better person? And it's not easy, but if I backslide at the first push, well, that'd be pretty pathetic, huh?" And the frustration is replaced by resolve. "Plus, I think that would disappoint my "partner" as you say, and I'd rather not do that. So if you want to turn me into some puppet go ahead, but you're gonna have to work for it."

[Ironsmith]

Off the Coast

Frigate will stride over to the side, gazing out at whatever might be out there- if anything. He's still not too worried, though starting to feel that perhaps he should be. There's something going on beyond his experience, he just doesn't know what.

Off the Coast

"This sounds an awful lot like a solution that isn't literally just giving me the boat we got here on."
Krayger groans. This has gotten so ridiculous. They're probably going to do something insane to increase the ultimatum. But he's already once thrown his life away by refusing to engage in banditry; he's not going to break that vow just because some demon told him to.
(whack, whack, whack)

[Off The Coast]

The boy in the captain's hat says nothing, but just smiles knowingly.

It won't take long to see why. Out of the water, not far from Krayger, a massive mottled appendage rises out of the water. At first glance, it appears as though it's a tentacle or maybe tail belonging to some massive unseen creature, but as it slams down on the deck just over Krayger, he'll get an up-close view of hundreds of grasping hands, stuck to bony, emaciated arms that interweave and grow from each other like some mad scientist's attempts to put together a tree from human parts. A pervasive moan emanates from the mass of arms, a sound of pain mixed with resignation that it will never, ever stop.

Behind Frigate, two more appendages rise out of the water. The demons near him scatter, throwing open the lower decks and wheeling up cannons in haste to defend themselves.

[Shadowcaller]

Shadowy Mindscape

"Oh, is that all?" says Harley immediately, glad of anything to break the dark monotony, "Yeah, I can...uh. Ughhh." A wave of intense and sudden frustration.

"Normally I'd enthusiastically agree to your deal, hell, you wouldn't even have to ask. But I'm trying to be a better person? And it's not easy, but if I backslide at the first push, well, that'd be pretty pathetic, huh?" And the frustration is replaced by resolve. "Plus, I think that would disappoint my "partner" as you say, and I'd rather not do that. So if you want to turn me into some puppet go ahead, but you're gonna have to work for it."

Shadowy Mindscape

"You're trying to redeem yourself? Suppose that makes two of us. But what if I say that this man has killed millions of people?"

A substantially shorter pause.

"Really strained credibility there, didn't I? Perhaps dozens, even a hundred, but I went with a million. How typical." Another pause. "But what about this then? All you need to do is get close to the man and I do the killing. Would that make it any easier? You could frame it as me forcing you to do it. You had no other choice. And besides, I'm sure this man isn't a saint. He's working for a pirate after all. He has probably killed people."

[quillpleasant]

Shadowy Mindscape

"You know, I wasn't expecting you to be this talkative?" Harley thinks for a moment. "Why do you want to kill these sailors so bad anyway, how does that figure into your redemption?"

A pause of realization.

"Hey, if you're trying to bargain with me- that means you either can't just take control of me, or you don't want to. So unless I get some real answers about what's going on, then I'm just going to sit right here, because I'm not contributing to the death of someone I don't know without a lot more motivation than 'he's probably a bad person.'"

[Shadowcaller]

Shadowy Mindscape

This is initially met by more silence.
But finally the voice speaks again, now sounding more than a little frustrated. "I already told you why but let me repeat myself then since you're so curious. I can easily take control of your body, I can easily kill your body. But then I would have to deal with your friend which I'd prefer not doing. Not when it's so much easier for both of us if you willingly help me track down my second quarry."

"Indeed, perhaps we can even help one another even further." The shadows around Harley shift as if something is moving within them.
"See, these men are a part of crew of pirates that are here for what I'm bound to protect. They stole it, killing a lot of people in the process-" A beat. "Okay, I'm not actually sure if they killed anyone since I slumbered until one of them touched the relic but it's more than likely." Another pause. "Unless... hrm..." The voice is suddenly filled with dread as if they just had a terrible realization.

Yet then the voice continues. "...look... they committed an awful deed either way. We punished them for it and they buried the relic not far from here. However, now they're back for it and they have some kind of barrier. Something that makes us unable to touch them. As we speak they're out there trying to perform magic on the relic. Not sure what they're trying to accomplish but we've been picking them off whenever they left their safe zone. I'm thinking that you and your friend probably could cross it without any problem and deal with this problem once and for all. Then you can have all their ill-gotten gains for yourself."

[quillpleasant]

Shadowy Mindscape

"Okay, so..." there's a touch of amusement in Harley's voice. "Let me summarize... a crew discovered your relic, and then you immediately started offing them? Without trying to talk it out? And you say that they committed an awful deed?" He lets out a chuckle. "If you're going to be a monster, own it, don't try to make up excuses."

After a moment, he continues. "Look, I get that you want your thing back. But mass murder maybe isn't the best way. Let me and Raheeda try to talk to them, or failing that, steal it back. Both would be way better than committing a massacre, especially when I still don't even know what the relic is. But, if you're prefer, you can go ahead and possess me. I guarantee you that Raheeda could kick my ass regardless of who's controlling me."