EliteCommander

Blood Act I~ Ghosts of the Past

We have one that is immensely long, and I think is nearing completion. We just need Leon right now.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

"Because that gas cannot be allowed to be made." Ahnasha said as she slid the poisoned dagger into the woman's back. She knew where to aim that would not be lethal, or cause permanent damage, but would allow the poison to proliferate throughout her body. Ahnasha had come in the room just behind Ariel, under the cloak of her own invisibility. She had made her way silently around the edge of the room to bring herself into position, which was easy enough with Ariel distracting her. Ahnasha pulled the dagger from her body and lowered her to the ground, which was already immobile under the effects of the poison. "Do not fear. By Ariel's request, I will not kill you. None of you will die, if we can help it."

---

With their current formation, the pack was near unstoppable. Between Lorag and Janius leading the charge, and, Meesei's necklace, the skeletons were essentially a non-issue. Meesei projected a ward in front of the pack, blocking the spellfire as they approached. Any witches in their way either ran, or were caught in Janius and Lorag's claws. The wounds on the witches they left behind seemed terrible, but as long as the coven had skilled healers, they would be survivable.

After the gas failed to transform them back tot heir normal forms, the pack was able to make it into the hagravens' nest unimpeded. Since they entered from the walls, they were on the middle level of the tower. Meesei intended for them to stay on the middle level, but the hagravens were directly above them, and once they realized what was going one, they would certainly not stay there. They were a threat that needed to be dealt with if they were going to hold in the tower.

Meesei walked halfway up the staircase leading to the top level, then looked back down to the rest of the pack. "Hold this room; I'll deal with the hagravens." She ordered as she grabbed the vial around her neck and uncorked it. She immediately inhaled the fumes which escaped, creating a faint glow of energy inches above her scales. The effect was potent, but short lived, so she would need to be quick.

The hagravens obviously knew what was going on, as they were ready for Meesei the moment she stepped up the staircase into view. There were two of them, one of which immediately opened with a surprisingly powerful storm of lightning. Unfortunately for them, when the bolts of lightning interacted with the barrier hovering over Meesei's body, the bolts arced back throughout the room, including into the hagravens. They stopped short of damaging themselves, but were obviously not giving up on fighting the Argonian intruder. Meesei responded with a duel casted stream of frost, which met with one of the hagravens' wards. The magical prowess of these beings became obvious, as the hagraven was able to match the strength of Meesei's spell with its ward. It was unclear who would emerge victorious in the struggle, but the other hagraven did not give Meesei time to find out. Using telekinesis, the bird-creature picked up a metal brazier behind Meesei and launched it into her back, slamming her to the ground.

The hagraven dropped her ward and approached Meesei. She could not use her spells, but her sharpened claws were still deadly. Meesei rolled onto her back only to see the hagraven's claws heading straight for her throat. She managed to grab the hagraven's arm just before her claws found their mark, then tried to use her lycan strength to force them away. Unfortunately, the hagraven's knowledge of restoration allowed her to enhance her own strength to match, and even surpass that of Meesei. As her claws inched closer to Meesei's throat, she grew more desperate, and was forced to take a lethal option. She suddenly pulled the hagraven's arm down and to the side with a burst of strength, causing the hagraven to fall on top of her. She then held onto the abomination tightly and activated a flame cloak around herself, burning the hagraven alive. After only a few moments, she dissipated the flame cloak and released her grip on the hagraven, which rolled away and tried desperately to put out the flames.

Meesei practically jumped to her feet to deal with the other hagraven, which was screaming in a high-pitched, shrill voice at her. She could feel that the effects of the vapors were diminishing, but they were still there, and still visible. Meesei ran at the creature, hopping back at the last second to avoid a slash from her claws. Reacting quickly, she grabbed a hold of both of the hagraven's arms and used her own restoration spell. Most spells in restoration, or at least most well-known ones, were beneficial to the body, but some could be used offensively. Meesei drained the stamina from the hagraven's body and transferred it to her own, exhausting the hagraven while invigorating herself. She maintained the spell until the hagraven was too exhausted to remain conscious, then continued for a few more seconds after that just to be safe, being careful not to drain enough that it could be fatal.

Meesei let out a sigh of relief; the most dangerous part of their attack was over, even if it meant she had a sore back and a bloody nose from the impact. Looking at the charred remains of the other hagraven, she considered it unfortunate that she was unable to spare her life, but she had saved at least one of them. Heading back downstairs, she joined the others in defending the room. Hopefully, the witches would be too focused on besieging their tower to defend the one Ariel and Ahnasha were infiltrating.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

With the deafening explosion and collapse of the storage tower, Meesei took it as enough of a signal that they should scale the wall and get to their defensive position. "Now! Get up the walls!" Ducking behind cover, she quickly removed her necklace and the vial around her neck and placed them on the ground. Before beginning her transformation, she quickly peeked out from behind the tree and launched two bright magelight spells at the wall to temporarily blind them. She then drank her magicka potion, then started the transformation. She ripped out of her clothing as her body grew and morphed, until she was in her wolf form. Meesei reached down and slid the necklace and vial around her arm, then took off in a sprint towards the ruined tower.

The rest of the pack followed suit behind Meesei, each in their wolf forms. They moved at a speed that the witches could not keep up with, even after recovering from the blinding effects of the magelight. Meesei leaped up almost half way up the wall in a single bound and used loose stones to climb up the ruined tower onto the wall for the rest of the way. Lorag was right beside her, and the others just behind them. Two witches had been running to intercept them, but had obviously underestimated how fast they would be able to climb it .The moment they saw the werewolves pulling themselves up onto the wall, they began charging their spells. One of them hit Lorag with a bolt of lightning, but at his size, he practically shrugged it off with only a few involuntary muscle spasms, burned fur and flesh not withstanding. Dashing the short distance between them, he backhanded the Breton clean off of the wall. At the same time, Meesei ducked under the ice spike the other witch, a Dunmer female this time, launched. She tackled the Dunmer to the ground, then slashed her twice with her claws, once across the stomach, and another across her chest. Eight gashes now covered her torso, causing her to bleed rather quickly. Under normal circumstances, she would simply finish her off, but upon Ariel's request, she was giving her a chance to live. It was entirely possible that she could die, same with the one Lorag threw off of the wall. However, if she focused herself on healing her own wounds, she had a good chance of surviving.

The pack's destination was the tower on the far side of the wall, but blocking their way were a group of skeletons, and a few witches behind them. In werewolf form, Meesei's pack had little defense against hostile spells, so she needed to take on that role. While the others moved ahead to hold off the skeletons, Meesei once again took on her Argonian form. As soon as the transformation was complete, she once again put the necklace and vial around her neck, then moved forward to catch up with the others. She could easily use the necklace to eliminate the skeletons, then advance with a ward up to protect her pack. Once they were close enough, they would hopefully be able to wound and disable the witches fairly easily.

---

Ahnasha ran from the tower just behind Ariel, completely invisible under the effects of her illusion magic. With all the chaos from the fighting outside, it was actually fairly easy to get away from the structure without being noticed. Still, because they had to leave in a rush, she still became separated from Ariel. As she raised her nose to the air to search for her scent, the tower behind her detonated and collapsed. It was fantastically loud, and sewed an abundance of discord among the witches of the coven. Were she not in a rush, she would have loved to stop and watch the tower collapse. After a few moments, Ahnasha located Ariel in the shadows. She dispelled her invisibility as she neared, then silently nodded to her as they moved on to the production tower. Just as they hoped, the delay in the blast had given them enough time to get close to the production tower, which was fortunate, as the witches were scrambling everywhere to figure out what was going on. As the pair were leaned up against the wall outside the tower, Ahnasha tapped Ariel on the shoulder and spoke in an almost inaudible voice.

"The witch we're looking for, she's in the tower, isn't she? You have a poison of paralysis, right? Give me your dagger, and let me deliver it. Beyond that, she knows you, right? If you think you can distract her safely, that would make my job easier." She recommended.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

As expected, the line of sentinels fell to them easily enough, attracting a real threat from within the keep's walls They were able to use trees for cover, but that would only take them so far. Meesei dashed from tree to tree to bring herself closer to the walls, using her wards to protect herself in between cover. Her goal was both to draw their attention away from her pack, and to get close enough to use her necklace on the skeleton archers. There were a few skeletons closer to the walls attempting to stop her advance, but she used her necklace to deal with them quickly.

Meesei raised her ward as she began her final dash to close in on the wall. She was met with a wave of frost, but her ward held strong. At the same time, she retaliated with an explosive fireball which detonated on the wall just a few feet away from one of the witches. Her ward easily blocked the effects of the fireball as well, but fortunately, the explosive radius of the fireball was larger than they were expecting, and another nearby witch ended up with her robe igniting. She was not actually harmed, but she was distracted while she attempted to put out the blaze. Once behind the new tree, she grabbed a hold of her necklace and leaned out from behind cover to deal with the archers on the wall, using her wards to defend herself when needed.

Through this advance, Meesei had drawn much of the spellfire to herself, but she would not be able to maintain her wards forever. Even as the archers fell one by one, the mages presented a threat that was not so easily eliminated. Even if they wanted to kill them, their position was too strong of the pack to gain any real advantage. They would need to transform and scale the walls soon enough, but Meesei intended for them to hold outside for as long as they could to give Ahnasha and Ariel as much time as possible.

Inside, Ahnasha silently nodded as she took the fire salt mixtures and headed to the opposite side of the room. She placed them in spots that were not immediately visible to someone just passing through the room, though ideally, no one would enter the tower until the flasks had detonated. Since they were spreading them out across the base of the tower, the entire structure would come crumbling down once they detonated. Most, if not all of the gas stored there would be destroyed. With the final tower, there would be no issue with using fire runes and the unstable nature of the production facilities themselves to collapse it. They had just enough fire salt flasks that they could spare one to serve as the catalyst for that detonation. She placed each flask without yet lighting the fuse, instead waiting to make sure both of them were ready before igniting them. The fuses were long, but they would need to move quickly in order to get to the next tower before they detonated. It was entirely possible that the flasks would detonate before they could make it to their final target, but as long as they were most of the way there, then the delayed detonation would have served its purpose.

Elder Scrolls: Terror of the Padomaic

Sometimes, magic has unintended consequences.

Elder Scrolls: Terror of the Padomaic

Sharee had given up on finding anything on the Dunmer by the time the Breton approached her. It was the one who had rushed into the fight ahead of her, the one who she tasked with clearing the upper deck along with Kayal. She seemed to get straight down to business, something Sharee appreciated. Strangely, when she looked up at her, she found her oddly...attractive, for some reason. She looked her over from head to toe, not quite sure where that was coming from, though she didn't dwell on it for long. Instead, she let go of the Dunmer and stood to her feet. "Yeah, don't let anyone say i don't do my part to maintain this vessel. We need to get rid of these bodies before they contaminate anything."

Reaching down to grab the corpse's shoulders, Sharee pointed to his feet. "Grab his legs, we'll talk on the way." She said, her tone making it clear that it was an order. As they started to make their way up the stairs, Sharee got around to answering her question. "I wouldn't exactly be against growing some plants on board, but there's a problem. Actually, a few problems. For one, you got to have space for it. The roof of the captain's cabin would work for that, but it does put it out in the open. We get into a fight, and there's a good chance of it being destroyed. The other, and honestly more important, problem is with logistics. We would need to start carrying water for both plants and people, since sea water would just end up killing the plants. If you can somehow find a way to solve all those problems, I'd say go right ahead. As it stands, though, we can really only afford to support a few choice plants. Still useful, but not exactly a sizable operation. A shame too, I would like to have a good source of plants for my poisons."

Once they reached the top deck, the two unceremoniously dumped the body into the ocean below. With that concluded, Sharee leaned up against the bannister, then tried to figure out why she was still staring at the Breton's form.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Even if Ariel had not warned them about the illusions, Meesei would not have been phased. The magic involved was easy enough to detect for one sufficiently trained in the magical arts, though that likely wouldn't apply to the average intruder. Meesei simply grabbed onto her necklace and waited as the line of undead soldiers charged them. Once they were close enough, she activated the enchantment, directing the wave of energy at the three running at her. Two of them were close enough together that the blast enveloped both of them, and it was a simple matter of activating it again to deal with the third. All three were but piles of bones before her, and her pack was having similar success.

Lorag was practically excited for the bonewalkers to reach him so he could test out his magic hammer. When it looked like they were getting close enough, he swung it in a wide arc in front of him. The first skeleton did block, but the enchantment in the weapon still discharged to kill it instantly. The hammer pushed its way through the first sentinel an into another beside it in the same swing, and with the same results. A third came up behind the first two and got in a swing at him, but Lorag was able to use the haft of his hammer to deflect the blow. Normally, he wouldn't have the momentum in his current position to do any real damage, but when he pushed the head of his hammer forward and impacted the skeleton's torso, the enchantment killed it all the same. "Ha, too easy! It's like they're not even trying." Lorag shouted confidently.

Inside, the sounds of combat were quickly alerting the witches that something was amiss. From their hiding spot, Ahnasha could hear muffled voices inside the tower. She had a hard time making out exactly what they were saying, but clearly, they were used to the illusions scaring away intruders if the skeletons did not. As the sounds of fighting continued on outside, Ahnasha heard even more voices in the tower, then footsteps. It appeared that Ariel was correct in her prediction that the witches would eventually leave.Just as before, they were completely motionless in the shadows, watching as each witch left the tower one by one. After it seemed that all of the witches had left, Ahnasha looked to Ariel for confirmation from her life detection spell, then proceeded to lead the way inside.

Elder Scrolls: Terror of the Padomaic

Indeed it is. Just make a character sheet and post it in the OOC.

Elder Scrolls: Terror of the Padomaic

Sharee turned around and let out a slightly annoyed sigh. The crew had worked surprisingly quickly on getting the wounded off the top deck...if only because their screaming was so annoying. She had stared off across the water long enough and really couldn't put off dealing with all the bodies any longer. The crew was already working on it and would probably end up dumping them all regardless, but she wasn't lazy enough that she was going to stand by and do nothing. Besides, a captain with a reputation for being lazy wouldn't keep a crew for too long. As she passed the Orc, she gave him two pats on the shoulder and looked him in the eye. "Anyway, it's time to deal with all these bodies. If even I can't get out of this, then neither can you. Besides, corpses do not do wonders for a ship's stores of food and clean water, so it's in everyone's best interest that we dump them as soon as possible."

The crew had already cleared the top deck of corpses, so Sharee proceeded down into the ship. The upper deck was where all the wounded currently were, so she decided it was probably a good idea to get it clear of corpses first. Near the base of the stairs in the hallway leading to the infirmary, she saw the body of one of the guards, a Dunmer man, leaned up against a wall, so she figured that was as good of a place as any to start. She started to go through any pouches or pockets she could find, though there really wasn't much to find. Three coins and a half-eaten leek were not exactly treasures.

Elder Scrolls: Terror of the Padomaic

Sharee glanced over to the Orc behind her with a mildly annoyed expression. "Is there a reason you're not carrying wounded or dumping bodies?" She said, though she did not continue pressing on the matter. That would require her to care a lot more than she currently did.

"This is a suitable warship. I remember seeing some ballistas packed away in the hold when we were down there. Provided there are enough bolts, we should be able to hit our first target soon. I'll need to have all the ship's Imperial markings removed, change its name, but it's essentially ready. As for the crew, I don't pretend any of you did this out of the kindness of your hearts. There is one reason that any of you are here, and that is gold. Maybe adventure to some extent, but mostly gold. That is something I intend to provide. As I mentioned before, you all will be getting double the average share for the first target we hit. Honestly, I'll be getting practically nothing off of this one, but I consider it an investment. We're heading to Khanarthi's Roost. It's a small Khajiit settlement south of Elsweyr. Small place, not much there, except that its primary export is moon sugar. I have an idea of how to find a good target once we're there." Sharee explained, continuing to look out over the horizon. She would need to start helping dump the bodies soon enough. As much as she would have liked to push that off on the rest of the crew, they couldn't afford to have corpses laying around on their ship for long, not if they wanted clean food and fresh water.