A5G

Duplicitous Ruins in the Land of Twilight

"What else are bodies good for, if not fertilizer?" Verdant returned with the aggrieved air of someone who'd been denied something entirely reasonable. "The only alternative is for eating but no one wanted that. Distressing and taste rather bad too. The corpse-lilies needs magic to grow anyway, it's just a good arrangement."

Askarian spellblades were, after all, viciously deadly in the open. To the point that there's a local saying about how if oneself ends up in such situation running away will only means dying tired. If not for their severe vulnerability to the distilled mage-breaker poison the heart of the woods probably would've been long since torched down. It's a dark irony that their corpses made for the best fertilizer to grow the lilies that were to be distilled into the aforementioned poison.

"Huh. The spellblades can draw clean air from... dunno, somewhere. I guess wizards here doesn't take that much precautions?" Curious. And usable. But then again, one can only be exposed to toxic mist so many times before coming up with new contingencies. "Maybe I should prepare sleeping vapor too..."

At the reappearance of the djinn, the serpent at least had the reservation to look bashfully contrite. Though not without a small mutter that it wouldn't spill since it's sealed in a glass cork.

Regardless, the unlikely pair moved on. Against all odds, still very much civil.

Duplicitous Ruins in the Land of Twilight

"Ugh. Yeah, figure it'll be similar. Never let them build up." There's a very clear distaste in the wince, though if Jazdia had some curiosity over the matter the elaboration followed without prompting. "I was with the uhh, what's the words?" A tilt of the head, a series of foreign tongue flowing out with several distinct whistles and hand motions. "Woodswraith? The Kadanian Woodswraith. Close enough. They put up with me after I washed ashore. Taught me their ways and wisdom."

The serpent shrugged, evidently waving off a significant portion of the story. She rummaged into her bag, taking out a surprisingly high quality glass vial corked with treated rubber. In a well-practiced motion the cap twisted off with a pop, followed by a thumb bitten and the resulting wound filling the vial with crimson rivulets.

"People keep coming into their woods, see. Trying to find the supposed panacea that grow in the deepest depth. And they dont take kindly to invaders." The vial, now filled, was capped right back. Verdant idly sucked on her thumb to stop the bleeding. "Never stopped Askaria from sending a bunch of spellblades and Citadel golems. So they got good at killing those lot. Really good."

Humming mildly, magic coursed within the diminuitive form like the soft whispers of midnight wind. Nothing structured in the way of wizards and sages, instead instincts shaping the workings like the natural way animals stalked through the woodlands.

"Hit first, hit hard, and dont let them cast." Verdant breathed out, seemingly drained from the short moment of mental exertion. Within the vial, a small portion of the blood had taken a distinct pale hue. A devilish grin split her lips, looking at the vial with the fond memories of a time long passed. "Arms works just fine. But when it didn't? Distilled corpse-lilies put their ambition to rest well enough. And their remains made good seedbed to nurture more of the stuff."

With a flourish the vial returned to the bag, Verdant's attention returning to the elf by her side. As if she hadn't just revealed a potentially problematic part of her past, the serpent shifted her weight from one leg to the other in a close scrutiny of her latest friend.

"That's as far as I know about it, which honestly works just about the same against anyone and anything? Your turn, stories! Share some!"

Duplicitous Ruins in the Land of Twilight

Two or three years! Paper-pushers will be the death of so many people. Surely it could be faster to send some more people? Vesemir could arrange for a good team, and he wasn't a lord or anything. Well, probably. She never quite inquired about her current boss. But she's pretty sure in that regard.

The serpent hovered around as the three that formed the core of the expedition argued, points brought up and though not quite shot down the decision seemed to lean onto continuing. The bossman definitely was inclined that direction, and his vote's the strongest in the group. Well, since that's the case... Verdant felt like she should at least prepare from now on.

She couldn't distill enough pale-lilies tincture on the fly, but bit by bit every day and she'll get enough to seriously wreck a magical workings. And worst come to worst, bloodthorn fumes will buy some time. Painfully, but it will.

Probably. Hopefully. For now, another trick in her bag.

"Mmmm, this please!" From her satchel Verdant produced a longknife of pale ivory. The weapon seemed to be carved out of a single large piece of bone, the curved edge glass-sharp underneath the simple leather scabbard. Emerald eyes flickered at the elf beside her, smiling face finding Jazdia's as the skull on her head disconcerningly felt like it too had its own individual gaze.

"We're hunting the wizard, it seems!" The concern from earlier was nowhere to be seen, Verdant rather spend the time preparing for the inevitable rather than worry about it. She walked along the elf toward a different section of the vault, letting Vesemir do his thingamajig with the weaponries. "Anything you can tell about hunting wizards? I may be able to prepare a few helpful substances."

Never underestimate the efficiency of sleeping fumes on the unwary, or unprepared.

Duplicitous Ruins in the Land of Twilight

"So basically the wizard stole a bunch of people with that artifact, eats them, then stole an entire town for... whatever he wants?" Verdant summarized the entire exchange, not quite getting the finer details but she had a sharp knack to simplify things into a more precisely pared chunk. "And we're going after this guy? Like, not to be the leech under your scales, but with a relatively few people eaten he broke that wall and left a room that tasted like wet bones and screams. And now he got ten years to work off how many sacrifices again?"

Tens of thousand. The serpent was familiar enough with the concept, but a number that immense wasn't something she can easily visualize. An entire town's worth? If all those people were to be laid down side by side... it'll form a line several miles long. She can hardly wrap her head around a bloodshed that great.

"Can we even take him on? The lair is probably infested with walking corpses." This was, like, a job for an army. Not a band of adventurers.

Duplicitous Ruins in the Land of Twilight

Verdant listened with a thoughtful tilt of her head, nodding at the deduction from the masked elf. It was... a sensible chain of events. As much as she couldn't agree with the behavior.

"...right, most people are near-suicidally unprepared to sudden change." The serpent said plainly, her eyes and the skull's eyehole on her head glimmering bright emerald for a split second. She wasn't mocking or anything - merely stating the nature of things, the same way one may observe the scurrying circle of life out in the wilds. "We wouldn't be caught out like that, Vir. We knows better, yes?"

For a moment, it's as if the piece of bone hissed softly in agreement. Or perhaps it's merely the airflow shifting from the opened door. Hard to tell under the circumstances.

Said door interrupted her train of thought, Elc half-dragging her in before the blasted thing fully closed. Verdant didn't need the urging, but it's a nice gesture nonetheless. Emerald eyes flickered at the well-lit hallway, completely out of place compared to the cavern just on the other side.

"From the position, that door leads toward that broken room." Verdant mentioned in a passing at the miko, stepping away five steps before rummaging in her bag for a pebble. Of which she tossed at the barred door, the small stone clattering without anything extra happening. What? Pebbles are useful! Always bring a small handful or two. You'll never know when you'll need it. "Flimsy guard for how creepy the air is."

She would've expect, like, a massive vault door laden with magic. Not two plain iron bar that even she could batter down from the other side given enough time. But perhaps the magic thingy was inside, and this was more of a stopgap measure? Still kind of sloppy though.

But then again Verdant's not the vault expert here, so what did she know.

Following along the rest of the party led to some sort of fancy foyer that somehow kept fresh air, unlike what one would expect of a structure sealed underground for millenia. The serpent oooh-s at the statues, eyes darting left and right until the ethereal curator materialized with a spectral flourish.

Neat.

"Are you a ghost?" Turned out, Verdant did have a question. She skipped toward the curator, circling and looking at him from various angle, and even tried to poke the man. Ghost? Apparition thingy. "Bound to an artifact to provide eternal servitude to a master sorcerer?"

Duplicitous Ruins in the Land of Twilight

The chest was secured-ish in Verdant's Bag of Many Things, practically doubling, tripling its weight but she's hardier than she looked. The small interlude passed, and they moved in toward the main goal of the trip.

She had vaguely expected horrors and wonders in this land. Looks like they're running into the former first.

The serpent stared at the breach in the stone wall, where rough natural cavern gave way into precisely cut bricks quite obviously made by a different, sturdier kind of stone. A larger concern though, was how the darkness grew ink black past the threshold. There were no obvious sign beside it but she felt it anyway, like a shiver of icy touch dragging down her spine. A feeling of intrusion, of standing on the precipice, like the moment before jumping into deep water. Malice hung in the air, poorly disguised by the stench of ancient decay and dust, an open invitation to some kind of festering banquet hidden by the abyssal darkness.

Nope. Nope, nooope, absolutely not. Verdant's instinct and common sense united in a rare moment of complete and total agreement, that she almost screamed when Vesemir went to enter anyway. Thankfully Mr Elc grabbed him and prevented a very comically dumb ways to die.

"Bossman, that room is bad news." She said with an uncharacteristically grave tone. "Even if whatever it sealed is long since loose. Look at the rubble, it shattered outward."

What were the chance that some ancient abomination survived through some two millenia seal and eventually breaking out, but remained lingering here?

Her attention quickly moved on, almost too eager to get away from the dark room. She find two corpses, still clad in their full gear, and marked signs of desperately futile violence on both the door and weapons. The serpent knelt next to the skeletonized bodies, brusing the scattered patches of dark brown on the floor around them.

"They died slowly." She proclaimed, having good estimate of how much bleeding the doomed pair had. "Deep injuries? And it keep reopen when they attack the door. Until they run out of strength and lay down waiting for the last moment." She stepped back, watching curiously at Vesemir uttering some foreign language to the door. "Why dont they just leave? What's trapping them here?"

Duplicitous Ruins in the Land of Twilight

"I move fast." Verdant answered the elf with an unmistakable preen, basking in the compliment with a gleam in her eyes. "The slow sneks gets eaten by bigger stuff." She added with a hint of morbid cheer, before skipping toward the oddly familiar miko.

"Dont worry about that, I'm pretty good at spotting those. Or laying those, for the matter. It's actually easier to improvise when I'm alone, I think? Cant spray the room with venom if there's friends in it." She saw the hand coming, subtly leaned in for the well-deserved pat, then withered with a hint of disappointment when it was retracted. Whyyyy? Pats was nice. She liked pats. And physical affection in general. Too bad that most people didn't share the same sentiment, or at least to the same degree that Verdant was.

Duplicitous Ruins in the Land of Twilight

"Coins! I think we'd have to keep the chest, it's not easy to carry everything otherwise." Verdant quipped lightly, tottering back to the party with barely any noise. Still no devourers anywhere close... the short trip ending rather anticlimatically as she emerged into the magical light.

Anticlimatic was good. It's nice and peaceful.

"I found shinies!" She announced with an excited whisper, the small chest lifted up high as if she's worried someone wouldn't get a good eyeful of the dusty thing.

Duplicitous Ruins in the Land of Twilight

She found the chamber, slithered up the roughly hewn stairs that was unclear whether it was natural or manmade, then shifted into a somewhat different snake that sprung and glided across the chasm before latching onto the opposite site. It was... getting a bit too dark even for a snake's darksight, but the dim glow of Viridian's spectral form overlapped with her and provided just enough illumination for her to find the rest of the way.

Verdant found herself in the treasure room, treasure cave? Anyway, she made her way to the dust-covered boxy shape that was definitely the treasure chest, taking a moment to investigate the surrounding before returning to the human form.

Flicking out her good old steel knife, she poked around for locking mechanism before sliding the blade through the side and trying to pry it open from there rather than standing in front of the whole thing. Blasted by unpleasant stuff from a box was an experience that she's perfectly content on not repeating again.

"I wonder what's in this..."

The box was made of wood, maybe as old as the skeletons that littered the place, which wasn't really that old, actually. Yet prying it open was an easy endeavor a random poke into its keyhole disengaged whatever lock that held it shut. Inside were gold coins, Coins that were commonly minted and still in circulation on the continent. Looking at the size of that chest, one could approximate that it contains around 800 identical coins inside.

Verdant stared at the shinies, and though its glimmer was much dimmer under the darkness the telltale shape of coins was rather obvious. Picking one and flicking, tossing it around her fingers... it got the right heft. Probably gold?

Oookay, that's quite a lot of shinies. How to bring it back, though? Rather than heavy it was densely unwieldy, she'll have to abandon stealth to transport the chest.

Hm. Hmm. Hmmm.

She had an idea.

Verdant picked up the chest with a grunt and veeery carefully retraced her steps, ears open for potential devourers. Her bare feet made no noise in her passing, though minute clinking occasionally echoed from the coins inside. At the chasm she simply reverted to her original form, the chest clamped between her jaws as she bridged the gap... running into Akari in the process.

"Oh hi there!" The same high-pitched voice whispered, though now completely unfitting with the massive physique. Verdant reverted back to her two-legged form, catching the chest in her hands with a soft series of clinks. "Found some shinies!"

Duplicitous Ruins in the Land of Twilight

"Ssss! Where am I? When am I?"

At the side of the group, largely not paid any attention to, Verdant hissed softly as light returned to her eyes. The experience from the last sixteen or so hours crashed down into her mind, from the newly added member in vaguely familiar getup to the next morning's breakfast and following journey until they ended up in the depth of devourer lair.

The serpent slowly blinked once. Twice. Then shrugged. Must've fell into another trance. Been a while since the last one, it had only been a frequent occurrence not long after she acquired her human form.

"Gotta be some sort of unique sight adapted to near-total darkness." She quipped from the side, comparing it with some of her forms. There's surprisingly few overlap despite the seemingly reptilian root of the devourers. "Closest... I can think of the eyeless snakes' degenerated eyes. Some sort of differentiation between light and dark. Dont think it's heat vision, or tasting the air. Probably not vibration either. But sounds are possible." Her insight may not add much to what should or should not be done when it comes to attracting devourer presence, but it did narrow it down somewhat. Perhaps it'll be useful. Perhaps not. Verdant simply wanted to talk a bit after that moment of trance.

"I dont think they're very smart at all. The light is an, uh, anom-ally? But none of them comes to check it out."