[indent][indent] 'D-Damn it. . .' The voice of the purple enshrouded marauder eeks through alongside a spittle of blood. He grasps tightly the gaping hole in his abdomen from the blue-haired merc's speartip. It is of little avail. As his life drains down into the ancient cobbles, collecting in channels, glistening in the dim torch light, he musters a few more words, "Enki, why have you cursed me. . ?" He raises again the blade in his feeble grasp and takes a single step more towards Etor who blocked off his only retreat. "Just a boy." They croak with an eye sealed shut. He charges, "Can you live with all the death you deal!!" 

Etor sidesteps the man's final act, and fells him with one last thrust. [b]Etor[/b] gains [b]34 XP.[/b]

Across the tight, musty passages of the Ziggarut, now rife with the stench of Yeek bile and man flesh alike, Makeen cracks open the other coffer of stone. His treasure-seeking fingers digging quickly within the confines to grip around an old bug-eaten pouch. There's still the remenants of a stark white grainy substance within, dryer than the desert dunes. The mere whiff of it sends the thief's head into a brief rush. -- Makeen found [b]VITAL POWDER! (( One time use consumable that permanently increases the VITALITY of the one who uses it by +2 ))[/b][/indent][/indent]

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[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/lgoLNi9.png[/img][/center][indent][indent]KASTILUS: "You've done exceptionally Hellions." The scholar of weary countenance muses aloud. His words reverberate in the depths of this once great temple. Each of the mercenaries, though haggard from their string of battles with the detestable Yeeks and the Scorpions too, they've managed to see yet another job to its conclusion without the dead to carry upon their shoulders. Or so perhaps they believed. . .

"Love, war, beauty, justice, politics. . . [i]Inanna[/i], goddess of these things bore the [i]gallu[/i] to cast down her consort, Dumizid the Shepard, to Erṣetu for the pleadings of her blood-lusting cult." The crimson-black concoction of Yeek and mercenary essence seeps slowly, like that of honey from the comb, down the many carven channels of olde between the Hellions feet, heading toward the central dias from which Kastilus stands. He continues his history lesson while counting out the coinage for which to reward them. "For failing to mourn Inanna's passing they did this, their hatred having summoned her back from Erṣetu, and her heart corrupted by the failings of man, together these things drug Dumuzid down to the bleak. But one thing remained here in this mortal world -- the Crook of the Shepard."

Crimson coalesces deep into the cracked sandstone, blue flame gouts from braziers across the chamber, illuminating the mercenaries and their employer in ominous light. "Sealed by the massacre of grudge-bearing men, so too could it only be unsealed by way of a bloody grudge!"[/indent][/indent]

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[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/6HOFPQ5.png[/img][/center] [indent][indent]KASTILUS?: "The Hellions of Gyr and Shulaar's Scorpions. . . It would seem your spite for one another was enough." As the flash of fire dies down, replacing the frail archaeologist's tattered clothes are royal robes trimmed in golden runes reflecting the divine language. In the same moment, the dias for which he stands shifts, dust plumes into the dank air and a little unceremonious crypt for which a long decayed skeleton holds a gnarled etched staff. In one enshrouded hand he grips tightly upon the artefact he saught after, prying it from the grip of the long dead. . . "I can always trust the hearts of humans to never change."[/indent][/indent]

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/k8g7W4a.png[/img][/center] [indent][indent]GESTIES: "Wait a minute. You damn bastard! You were that sage!!" Suddenly the balding Scorpion raises a fist, while retrieving the blade he'd dropped to the ground in defeat. "You sent us on a wild goose chase to die?! Traitor! Blackguard! I'll kill yer freakin' ass!!" Gesties ascends but one cracked stone step before he finds his body completely numb. He's unable to muster another movement, even despite the fury that smolders within him.[/indent][/indent]

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/6HOFPQ5.png[/img][/center] [indent][indent]KASTILUS?: "You could say that. But the truth is, whoever succeeded was irrelevant to me." Producing a coin pouch from his robe, he tosses the money that was promised toward Iddin. "I'll most definitely have work for you in the future." He adds with pursed lips.[/indent][/indent]

[center][sup][i]Hellions recieve 2800 Aurums![/i][/sup][/center]