Jaynin
4th Level Red Feather
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2003
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Occasionally I get inspired. This time I managed to hold onto it long enough to get something down. It ends a little abruptly because I was rushing, but eh.
Enjoy.
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“I thought that this place had already been cleared out,” the red-haired blood elf remarked with a huff, as the dusty wooden doors swung inward to reveal the dim stone passage of the Arcway. Old though the construction was, and long since abandoned, it wasn't hard to identify the craftsmanship that had gone into the original construction of this subterranean gallery. The stonework that formed the vaulted ceiling was still in good condition, although steady streams of water drip-drip-dripped down on the right side, causing the party to favor the left side of the worked stone passageway as they surveyed the ruin they had been dispatched to clear out. About halfway up each wall, installed in sconces, were sources of light that still burned dimly, illuminating the dank tunnel enough to see the mess that awaited the adventuring party not twenty paces ahead. “Yet here we are.”
“It's hard to keep the withered out of any place, especially underground,” remarked the taller, nightborne elf who stood beside her. The shal'dorei, more commonly called the Nightborne, resembled their Night Elven cousins more than they did the Blood Elves with whom they now stood – literally and figuratively, for the First Arcanist had just concluded a treaty of alliance with the Warchief of the Horde. Tall, with skin usually in shades of purple from light to dark, and light-colored hair, the superficial resemblance to their kal'dorei cousins was significant, save perhaps the fact that most Nightborne had shimmering arcane tattoos along their sides and legs. Temperamentally, of course, they could not have been more different, with their cousins eschewing magic up until recent years, whereas the arcane was woven almost into the very fiber of the Nightborne. Even the lights that burned within the tunnel were not of mundane fire, but powered by an ancient magic that kept the tunnel lit.
The composition of the adventuring group of five bore out the magical nature of both Blood Elf and Nightborne societies. The red-haired elf who had spoken first, with fair skin and green eyes, was named Lucifa and though clad in heavy plate armor, was a paladin, a warrior who combined mastery of light magic with martial skill to protect her companions; the other Blood Elf was likewise a paladin, but focused more on employing the healing properties of holy magic to mend the wounds of her companions. Despite this nominal classification as a medic, Jellex bore a great warhammer strapped to her back, and was not averse – one might even say eager – to combine smiting of her foes with healing of her allies. Like her fellow Blood Elf, Jellex was very fair-skinned, but with blonde hair instead of red, and an impatient sigh on her lips as she looked up to her three other, much taller, companions. “You mean it's hard to keep the withered out of any place improperly warded – and considering that this network of tunnels is so important to keeping your city running smoothly, you'd think that it wouldn't end up infested with slimes, withered, and demons.”
Both of the Nightborne chuckled softly, a vaguely condescending sound, but it was Illorieth, a noble mage, who answered. “Until the shield was dropped, we didn't have this problem, so Elisande and the city's administrators grew somewhat... lax. The First Arcanist is trying to patch up some of those administrative oversights.” Both of the Nightborne, Morrigan and Illorieth, wielded magic in order to defeat their foes; Illorieth, a mage, focused on classic study of the arcane and the elements it could be shaped into, deploying the frigid chill of winter to cripple her foes. Morrigan was a warlock, a magic-user who focused instead on forces that were the province of demons; fel energies and shadow, as well as employing magic to bind demons to their bidding.
“De Warchief wants Suramar City ta be runnin' smoothly.” It was the fifth member of their party who spoke, and all four elves turned their heads to her. Taller still even than the Nightborne, the troll Kusu had two enormous swords strapped to her back (rather ostentatiously, they all thought) and was a liaison of sorts whose exact function puzzled the four of them. To begin with, she didn't seem very bright, and when pressed would usually reply with a laconic statement about how this or that were her orders or the Warchief's will. “If de demons or de withered be causin' trouble under de city, den dey gotta be cleared out.” The blue-skinned troll wore her hair in a strange style, with a leather thong secured with a bone securing a top ponytail and the rest of her hair falling free down her back. Illorieth in particular thought it looked rather savage, but what was the point of arguing fashion with someone who swung swords around to fight? Speaking of those swords, she drew them, and pointed the nasty-looking blade, designed to look almost like a dragon, at one of the two purple slimes up the hall.
Lucifa sighed and checked the straps of her shield on her arm, then hefted her warhammer in her right hand. “All right, all right. Don't get so excited and race off on ahead by yourself.” Warriors were notorious for doing that, what with their battle cries and berserking and what have you. “Spread out. Jellex, Illorieth, Morrigan, stay back behind me,” she instructed, raising her shield and starting to approach the two purplish, unstable-looking globs of slime at the end of the hall. “Kusu, let's go.” The sounds of weapons clearing sheaths made it evident that her party was ready, and Lucifa prepared to lead them into combat – by letting out a yell and empowering her shield with holy light until it glowed golden, and with a streak through the air leapt off of her arm as it was “thrown”, the holy energy smashing into one purple glob, ricocheting off the first one and into the second, and then flying back to Lucifa, who caught it on her arm and steadied it again. Magic, of course, but very effective, although Kusu snorted.
The two purplish amalgamations began to slide across the floor towards the five women, revealing the emaciated corpses of Withered – exiled Nightborne who had lost their connection to the nourishing Nightwell and become feral – that they had been feasting on. The shimmering purple of arcane energy was visible within the slimes, and Kusu snorted. Flashy, yes – but the trick to defeating most slimes was to attack the core. This was often easier said than done, because the viscous slime would turn aside thrusts or cause them to slide off to a non-vital area, but simply beating the skin of a slime was a quick way to tire yourself out. So as the two purple slimes approached, Lucifa stayed behind her shield, ready to turn aside a quick lunge or strike. Sightless as they were, the slimes apparently did not notice the warrior and her sharp blades step quickly to the side, and drive both of them straight into the first slime, aiming at the mass of shimmering magic energy within the slime.
And that's when the trouble started.
“Lucifa! Kusu!” Jellex shouted, as the slime exploded into a shower of purplish goo that splattered the both of them, covering both from head to toe, and raining droplets of slime onto the three elves in the back. “Hold on, I'm coming!” Light rippled from Jellex's outstretched hands as she approached the two of them, bathing them in generous waves of coruscating, rippling light; where the slime had touched her, it sizzled on her armor, and burned her skin, so the two of them must have suffered a much more grievous blow. Yet even as she poured her energy into healing magics, to heal the skin and alleviate the damage, the Troll woman let out a mighty yell and jumped straight into the fracas – for a fracas it had now become. The explosion of goo hadn't just been the slime's death rattle, but had caused it to divide into four smaller slimes, and the second, large slime still remained!
“Oh for – “ Lucifa groaned, slamming her hammer into the stones on the floor, causing the ground around her to light up with holy energy, causing the smaller slimes to smoke and wobble unsteadily even as the warrior plunged her weapons into the second slime. This wave of goo the paladin caught on her shield and managed to deflect the majority of it; her shield, Oathkeeper, was made of sterner stuff than her armor, which even now was starting to fail under the slime's catalyzing, arcane enzymes. Kusu's armor was all but gone, but the berserk warrior seemed to ignore the pain, and with Jellex's healing magic holding off truly grievous damage, turned into a whirlwind of slashing blades and flying purple goo that started to fill the tunnel where the five fought.
Illorieth was waiting for her opportunity, and when she saw an opening, flung a shard of razor-sharp ice at one of the smaller slimes, piercing its core, which made that slime likewise explode into a shower of purple goo, albeit smaller. Nevertheless, her robes were starting to dissolve under the spray, leading to a pockmarked gown full of holes that grew as the shower of acidic slime continued, gritting her teeth through the stinging burns, feeling that stinging subside as Jellex's magic healed her, and then coming back again. The warrior's armor had taken the brunt of it, but the paladin shielding them was also missing almost half of it by now – her arms and legs bare, the lower half of her chestpiece melted, and just some remaining scraps around her middle as well. Jellex was in a similar state; all of them were now quite exposed as their gear suffered under the storm.
“You're all being quite ridiculous,” Morrigan said finally, reaching out with her hand and forming a fist in dramatic fashion – causing the smaller slimes to all become engulfed in green flame, smoking and quivering and melting down into docile puddles of purple goo that finally did stop moving, holding the spell for a minute before releasing it, and surveying the damage. Her own robes were... well, the upper half was gone, so she had a nice long skirt on and some strips holding the thing to her shoulders. Kusu's armor was almost entirely melted away, gloves, legs, and chest all gone, just little bits remaining to keep her decent. Jellex was almost as bad, having run into the melee to aid the two in the front, and looked like she was wearing a breastplate and greaves with nothing around her middle at all. Lucifa's armor had suffered, and both of the Nightborne were dressed in cloth ribbons, although as far as modesty went, neither they nor the Troll seemed particularly bothered. Only the Blood Elves seemed to take the exposure as a problem in and of itself.
“Well, that went quite badly,” Illorieth mentioned calmly, considering the slimy mess and two corpses of withered that still lay on the floor. “It's a good thing you can get this sort of thing repaired quite easily.” One of the most redeeming virtues of magical armor that attuned itself to the wearer was that, even in a state of near-total destruction as the party's now was, it could be restored to its original state through a fairly simple incantation – out of tradition, blacksmiths still performed this function more often than not, even for equipment that was not made of metal, but it did still require that they trudge their way out of the dungeon, which...
“Why is that door closed?” Morrigan asked, having turned around, assuming that the expedition would have taken a brief pause so that they could get their gear repaired. But the large, ornate doors they had entered through were now shut tight, and pushing on them revealed that they were either locked or barred from the other side. “Hmmm...”
“We can get out in other ways,” Illorieth said, “but this is definitely not a favorable turn of events.”
“Then we go forward,” Kusu said laconically. Of course, she wouldn't mind being nearly naked – warriors had a habit of charging ahead recklessly anyhow, so it wasn't as if being nearly unprotected would be a bother for her. “We have healing, and you can stay in the back and be safe. Only Lucifa and I will need to put ourselves in harm's way.” She glanced over to the blood elf paladin, who nodded back in reply. Jellex also nodded, tossing away the now-drained bottle of ley-enriched water she had been drinking to recover her magical power. No one was quite sure why that was the case, but ever since the races of Azeroth had begun using magic extensively, one of the side-effects of prolonged magic use had been dehydration, and drinking had served to restore magical ability. Even regular water would do, although in the case of high-level adventurers such as themselves, more potent products had long been available. The holy paladin nodded assent.
“Let's go.” Perhaps more cautiously than before, the party advanced into the ancient tunnels of the Arcway. The network of tunnels simultaneously showed that it had been built with great care at some point in the past – what amounted to a sewer was decorated with arches and light sources in the walls – yet the growth of moss, the crumbling stonework, and the rodents that scurried about were testament to the fact that it was rare anyone came down here. As the group came out of the tunnel through which they had entered, they came into a vast, domed gallery with a deep, wide hole in the center, surrounded by a crumbling stone railing.
“One of the ley line fonts,” Morrigan supplied. “I'd advise you not to fall in.” The hole was about twenty feet across and far, far too deep to see the bottom of, an ominous hole of darkness in the midst of the dim room. This circular room served as sort of a connecting point, with at least three other passageways leading out, other than the one they had taken to get in. The one on the far left, however, was blocked, the door closed and obviously damaged, jammed into place and looking far too troublesome to try and force open. Ahead and to the left another tunnel opened up, but the purplish-pink glow of ley energy could be seen over there, illuminating the existence of several of the Withered, near-zombie husks of what had once been elves. They lived only to feed on magical energy, and when no external source was present they were known to harass living beings with magical energy, but something over there had their attention, and they did not seem to notice the group's presence. To go through them, however, would provoke a fight, and so the group turned to the last tunnel, off to the right, which seemed in worse repair than the other two but was unblocked.
Unblocked in a physical sense, that is. As they rounded a bend and were able to see deeper into the tunnel, the shining, wafting form of a lonely banshee was visible. She noticed the intrusion on her space, and with a reverberating scream of despair, undulated through the air towards the group. “Careful!” Lucifa called, moving to the front, and raising her shield, which began to glow with holy energy. Ghosts and spirits were notoriously difficult to harm, but the preponderance of magical ability in addition to the holy energy from the two paladins meant that it should be little problem... With ominous persistence it closed in, by no means fast, but implacable, even as bolts of magical frost and fire impacted on its ethereal form, and a spark of holy energy smited the twisted figure, like that of a ragged woman, with long nails and tangled, filthy hair – “BEGONE!” Lucifa intoned, and her shield's brightness rose to blinding levels for a moment, catching the banshee full in the blast, eliciting another screech –
And then she was gone.
Puzzled, Lucifa lowered her shield. “She must not have had a strong connection,” the blood elf said with a shrug. “Usually, a spirit like that holds a stronger grudge and is more difficult to remove from the mortal plane, but every now and again, with very old ones, the grudge becomes diluted with time, or without any way to express it, the rage and sorrow subside. Let's continue.”
The next obstacle was of the more mundane variety. Giant rats, pesky to be sure, darting around and trying to slash at the unprotected adventurers with teeth and claws, but the stupidity of the beasts doomed them. Rats and other vermin often grew aggressive with size, yet as Kusu's swords whirled through the pack, it was evident that they lacked the mental capacity to recognize their own strength as compared to an adversary's. A nuisance, nothing more, but after a turn down a hallway and a flight of stairs, a more serious complication emerged.
“I suppose the ley conduits are leaking,” Illorieth murmured. Here, the entire length of the corridor was lit by a pinkish glow, raw magical energy simply oozing out of the walls here and there, having formed crystals of mana in some places, arcane aberrations in others. The Withered were here too, of course, scuffling with the living magical energy, blasting the mindless creatures aside even as more swarmed in. Arcane elementals were aggressive, looking like the torso, arms, and head of a humanoid creature, but their lower bodies dwindled to a wispy point. Still, they were manifestations of energy, never to be trifled with, and they quickly spotted the intruders. Again, Lucifa raised her shield and moved cautiously to the front as two of the arcane elementals turned from the melee to confront the party –
With a screech, Lucifa's shield lowered, and then dropped, and the arcane elementals passed right by her, their malevolent red eyes fixated on the Nightborne, Morrigan and Illorieth – “Lucifa!” Jellex called, about to run to the assistance of the trembling blood elf, when the elementals and Illorieth both vanished all at once in a shimmer of arcane energy. She could only presume they had tried to blink to Illorieth, and she had predicted this move and tried to blink away, but now they were all...? She looked left, and right; Kusu had run to the assistance of Lucifa, and Morrigan was puzzled, but she was the first to notice. “Up!”
“StoohohohOHOHOOOOPPP!” the Nightborne squealed. “STOP STOP STOOHOHOHOOOPPIT!” It was a puzzling scene to be sure – she was upside down with her upper half dangling from the ceiling, and seemingly stuck in the stone itself, while the glowing pinkish hands of the elemental clawed at her bare sides. But a closer examination showed the truth – it wasn't clawing to tear her flesh, oddly gentle instead, stroking its clawlike fingers with great precision all along her exposed flesh... “NOHEHEHEHEHEHEHE NO NO STHAHHEH STOPPIT IT'S HAEEHEHEE HOLDING MEHEHEHEE!”
“They collided in the ether!” Morrigan exclaimed. Unlike a physical collision, in which the two forces simply ran into one another and then sorted out the result through conventional physics, an arcane collision could lead to much more bizarre results. In this case, they had both gone upwards, and the arcane aberration was able to slip through the ley-infused stone, thanks to its form as pure energy. Illorieth, however, was not, and her lower half was still in the “ether” while her upper was stuck in the physical realm. The second aberration had apparently gone downward, but with a whoosh, like a fish jumping out of water, leapt from the stone of the floor and upwards towards Illorieth!
Kusu, lacking magical ability, was nonetheless possessed of a fine sense of physical reaction, and she sprung into action even at the first sign of the second aberration's appearance. Unfortunately, Illorieth had also reacted immediately, sending a wintry, freezing blast of ice magic straight downwards towards the elemental, which was able to phase out of the way... and instead encase the Troll warrior in a column of ice. On the one side was her upper body, both swords in hand, and a shocked look on her face. The ice encased her around the middle, and on the back side was her rear and her large Troll feet. Lucifa staggered to her feet, apparently recovered from whatever had ailed her – but the commotion had drawn several of the Withered to the fray, and she had to turn her attention to face them.
Jellex took command. Her hands glowed with holy light, infusing both Lucifa and Illorieth with healing magic. “Take down the Withered first! Then we can free our companions!” Morrigan nodded and turned to the fight, where Lucifa had begun the battle by smashing one of the shriveled, mad elves in the face with her shield, staggering it back. Illorieth's screams of laughter provided a reminder in the background of their need to hurry. With her magic foiled, or misfired, she had dropped her staff and was reduced to pounding at the hands which darted out of the solid stone, taunting her, tickling her sides, shifting away when she tried to hit them, and stroking along the tips of her ears instead, which sent her into a frenzy of shrieking. Kusu, below her, was busy attacking the base of the ice column with her swords, but the position of her body weakened the force she could put behind her swings, and swords were a poor choice for breaking ice... and where had that second aberration gotten off to?
The answer, as it turned out, was not a good one for the trapped Troll, who could not see the second set of hands emerge from the ice and start to trace delicately on her large feet. Trolls, who were tall to begin with, had overlarge feet as well, and apparently this made them a target for whatever bizarre force was possessing the elementals – Kusu kicked and squealed, her sword strikes momentarily stopped, and her laughter, a deeper note than Illorieth's, joined the cacophony. “NOOHOHOHOHheeheh noooo! NAAAHAHahaha! Nahahahhehehe not de feheheEHEHEEEET!” she howled, probably the most emotive the Troll had been since entering the tunnels. But it just took a slow, methodical, teasing touch on those big feet, stroking from heel down over the arches and to the toes, then back again, to get her going. The arcane aberration flickered annoyance as the feet kicked away and otherwise refused to stay still, but then realized there was another, very large, target for it to attack.
The scream which Kusu let out at feeling those oddly featherlike touches on her ass momentarily stopped the battle, as the Withered, Lucifa, Jellex and Morrigan all stopped to look. Only Illorieth, howling in the midst of her own torment and trying to swat at the hand which had grabbed her wrist and exposed her armpit to a ticklish touch, seemed not to notice. Ineffecually, Kusu pounded on the solid column of ice and kicked her feet, yet her rear end did not move, and the slowly gliding fingertips explored every last curve of the blue Troll ass, delving fiendishly far into the crack and exploring those most sensitive areas which seemed to have the warrior howling. “QUICKLYEHEHEHEHE! HEHEHEH BEAT DE HEHEHEHEH DE FOE AHAHHA AND HELP!” Kusu cried out, trying to redouble her efforts to free herself, but her strikes landed randomly now, instead of chipping away at the ice in one place, scoring the front of it with a dozen different chips and scrapes.
Morrigan's green fire wreathed one of the attacking Withered, and it crumpled to the floor. Lucifa tried to avoid and deflect the strikes to the best of her ability, but even so, Jellex's healing magic was taxed, keeping both Lucifa battle-ready and maintaining the stamina of her tickled allies. She was beginning to perspire and breathe a little harder, so the elimination of one foe greatly helped her efforts. Lucifa struck one Withered in the face with such force it staggered back and fell, not dead but stunned, and subjected the other to such a beating with her mace that it seemed inconceivable the creature could continue to fight with such injuries. Yet fight it did, drawn instinctively to magic, heedless of danger.
Illorieth's battle was not going so well. Feeling dizzy from being upside down, frustrating and exhausting herself with the fruitless attempt to fight the arcane elemental which had her trapped in the ceiling, she dangled from the stone, almost too tired to bring her arms up to defend herself now. Her foe seemed to understand her exhaustion, and taunted her; rather than strike lightning-quick and withdraw, its hands started on her sides and slowly crawled up and down her taut stomach. If a hand came up to defend, that wrist was snagged and her hand held behind her head, while two fingers walked in place under her arm, her only saving grace being that the creature had no way to restrain her further without using its hands. Still, her position was so exhausting that she was doing little but dangling and howling with laughter.
The Troll warrior Kusu had much greater physical stamina, yet her position was likewise poor; the soft expanses of her ass were the creature's primary target, but when it detected a slowdown in her kicking, it would strike quickly, skittering its soft touches down the backs of her legs and tickling her feet with quick scribbling strokes of its “nails” until it provoked a response, at which point it would return to teasing her helpless ass. Up and down, back and forth it went – Kusu was making agonizingly slow progress in freeing herself, but relief was thankfully close at hand. Green fire wreathed the base of the icy column and soon it had started to melt and soften, allowing Jellex to use her mighty warhammer to strike the base of it and shatter the column wholesale, sending Kusu tumbling to the floor and exposing the surprised elemental, which was quickly dispatched by the three adventurers.
Seeing its companion fall, the arcane aberration tormenting Illorieth decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and whatever it had done to keep the mage stuck in place became undone, and she suddenly slid out the stone as if it were water, where Lucifa caught her before she struck the floor, and finally the fight was over. Jellex, panting, had already drained one of her bottles of water and was guzzling a second, tossing one to Illorieth who had likewise been forced to maintain her magic thanks to the aberration's machinations. Only then, as they slumped on the floor and caught their breath, did Morrigan ask: “Lucifa, what happened?”
“I... I don't know,” she gasped, then sighed with relief as the paladin's healing magic soothed the aches of battle. Jellex moved between them, checking for injuries and mending them, taking another swig of her water in the process. “All of the sudden I felt... a shock, like... I can't even describe, and I couldn't lift my arms or do anything. I don't even know what it was.”
“Something strange is definitely afoot down here,” Illorieth said, rising to her feet after a minute's rest. “Whatever the reason, it was a good thing we came down here to investigate... we need to find out what's happening, because if something gets into the ley energy and starts to affect the city...”
Cautious now, the group of five advanced forward, more wary of their surroundings than before. The two Nightborne, their pale, purplish skin seeming to fit the pinkish arcane hue that illuminated the tunnel, were talking quietly to one another in their own language, a soft, hushed murmur of words that seemed somehow lyrical. Lucifa stayed in the lead, the light playing against her bare skin as she moved, and Kusu was just behind her, senses alert, her swords gripped in both hands. But the brawl that had been going on in this tunnel seemed to have ended with the defeat of the gangly Withered, and whatever the escaping arcane aberration had communicated to its brethren, they were all gone as well. The end of the tunnel was another circular room, darker than the one they had just come out of, and not nearly as large as the central conduit. Only one passageway led out of this room, so they turned to the left, still walking carefully, and passed through a short tunnel to arrive at a fork in the road, more in the shape of a T-junction. To the right was a small staircase descending into another room, perhaps fifteen feet long.
To the left was a long corridor, just about as long as the one they had just walked down, filled with aimlessly wandering Withered.
Aimlessly wandering was not quite the right term for it. Here, too, the ley conduits appeared to be faulty and leaking, and though the mindless shells were rather close by, they paid the party no mind, basking instead in the glow of the arcane energy. “This way,” Morrigan murmured, the tall elf gesturing to the stairway, keeping her voice down. Lucifa stood aside and watched the Withered carefully as Morrigan took two steps onto the staircase – and nearly fell, only catching herself against the wall at the last second as her legs seemed to go out from under her and... into the wall? “What the--?”
“Shhhhh!” Lucifa hissed, moving quickly, the blood elf setting her shield and mace down before taking hold of Morrigan's hands and trying to pull her out. Something, though, was trying to pull her into the dark, circular portal that had opened up in the wall, and even as she strained to pull Morrigan back out, a peculiar look crossed her face and she relaxed her grip for a second – before she lost her footing and ended up in the same position, being slowly dragged into the wall, clawing at the stone for purchase and finding none.
Illorieth moved quickly, and her instincts were spot on. Leaping in between the two of them, she caught their hands and with frost magic, froze them in place, securing them to the ground, and stopping the slide of both women into the wall. Both had ended up on their backs, hands spread out to either side of their bodies (and now frozen) as they'd attempted to find some handhold, but the ice magic seemed to have done the trick and stopped the slide. Still the Withered in the hallway paid them no heed, but then Morrigan started to giggle, her face contorted.... “Shhh!” hissed Kusu. “You gotta be quiet or you're gonna get the attention of dem Withered over dere...”
“Ihihiehheheh I can't, I can't,” Morrigan whispered hoarsely, as Lucifa's face started going red; she'd been holding her breath, but the strain of keeping quiet was telling on her, too. Jellex, remaining calm, knelt between both of them and pulled off her gauntlets, placing her hand over each one's mouth, just in time to catch and muffle Morrigan's giggling, and allow Lucifa to exhale her breath with a giggle as well.
“Illorieth, those portals look like they're magic in nature. See if you can dispel them and let us rescue our companions.” But it wasn't going to be that simple. Even though her hands muffled the sound to some extent, it was quickly growing more intense, muffled snickering and giggling giving way to more full-throated laughter, and the holy paladin feared they might draw the attention of the Withered anyway, which would be incredibly dangerous at this point. “Calm, calm,” Jellex urged, and then as an afterthought, began to channel her holy energy into both of them, through her palms. This did have the effect of calming both of them, although not completely, and they continued to giggle into her radiating hands while she outlined the rest of her plan. “We don't need to panic. Let's just figure out what's going on here first. Illorieth?”
The Nightborne mage hissed softly through her teeth. “This looks like shadow magic. More Morrigan's specialty than mine, really. But I'll see what I can do.” Creeping over to the wall where the two portals were, she pressed her hands into the stone, and began to concentrate. “I can feel it,” she murmured back. “Something's on the other side. I don't think it's those things from before...” Both Lucifa and Morrigan gasped, giggling harder and struggling a bit, and Jellex increased her waves of holy energy, breathing a little harder. “Will you be all right?”
“Yeah, just... thanks, Kusu.” The warrior had thought ahead, and retrieved several bottles of enriched ley water from Jellex's pouch, and tipped the bottle to her lips, relieving the paladin. Channeling her energy continuously this way was tiring, but she had a good supply of ley water. This could theoretically go on until she'd run out of water, although that would be dangerous. “I can see it too... or feel it through their minds. Feathers...? Something soft like that. Stroking slowly...” Both of them nodded, and the image made itself clearer in Jellex's head:
Both pairs of feet had been bared in a dark room somewhere – it couldn't even be said it was directly on the other side of the wall when dealing with dark magic like this. Something ethereal, ghostly, was slowly stroking its fingers over those bare soles, the touch feather-light and soft, making Morrigan's larger, pale feet twitch away from every stimulation, whereas Lucifa's soles wiggled preemptively, trying to avoid the next stroke, and not succeeding, as she had no way of seeing what was happening. Ghostly hands, disembodied, clustered around the soft and sensitive prey... Jellex shook her head to bring herself fully back to what she was doing. Whatever was on the other side had been trying to lure her mind in, either to make her relax in her task or for some other nefarious purpose. Kusu tipped the bottle to her lips again, and the stalemate continued.
“Pain in the...” Illorieth grumbled, bearing down a little more, and chancing the use of a little bit of her own arcane magic, with an eye cast warily towards the ambling Withered. Presenting a strong source of magic would draw them, and that was something that needed to be avoided at all costs. “Look there.” Jellex looked closely at where the mage pointed, and she could see it then, too; ghostly hands, barely visible, drawing circles on Lucifa's abdomen. But there were none on Morrigan. What could that mean? Lucifa was clearly suffering worse, although the Nightborne woman was struggling, her stamina less than that of the paladin's, her breathing coming in quick, hyperventilating gasps as her giggles warmed Jellex's palm. Jellex soothed Morrigan's mind, but the unrest continued, her large, pale feet being subjected to soft and feathering strokes, dancing in between her toes... Jellex closed her eyes for a moment, and she could see it again.
Lucifa's feet were being gently teased by two hands, running only one finger each over the curve of her soles, but Morrigan's larger feet had at least four hands focused on them. Something kept her toes pulled back, and fine, soft, ethereal wisps of energy floated between them, making her toes twitch, causing her body to spasm in its restraint, her eyes rolling from the suppressed ticklishness. She shook her head back and forth, trying to take deep breaths to calm herself. The flowing, cool, soothing holy energy kept her from descending into a complete panic, but the sensation was always there, hovering on the edge of her mind. Jellex felt herself being drawn into that state of pins and needles, prickling anticipation...
“Kusu.” She spoke, and her lips were dry. As if she had gone longer than she should have without a drink. How long had she been sitting there? It felt like it had only been a short amount of time, but clearly longer than that. The Troll obliged her by fetching a fresh bottle of water, and as Jellex drank, her magical energy returned, stronger, calming Morrigan and Lucifa again. This was certainly not efficient, she realized. Her healing magic was meant to close physical wounds and ease pain. Using it to calm panic was like trying to use a warhammer to hammer nails – you certainly could do it, but it was not the right tool for the task. That was probably causing her to have to work harder to keep the two of them under control. “Thank you...” she murmured, draining the bottle, and feeling steady again. “Illorieth, how is it looking?”
“They loosened up on Lucifa,” the mage replied, and her hands now glowed with arcane energy, risking the quick moment of power it would take to pry the paladin free – and then she had done it, Lucifa pulled free of the wall, Jellex removing her hand from the other blood elf's mouth, and the icy shackles melting away as she came free. Oddly, though... her boots were still on her feet. Was Jellex the one hallucinating? Nothing about this whole ordeal was making even the slightest bit of sense. Still, now she could focus her energy on –
“Shh,” Kusu murmured, clamping her hand over Lucifa's mouth once again. Jellex could see again those ghostly hands tickling the paladin's bare midriff, a gentle, barely-there touch that still seemed to be with her. So, was that a separate effect? “Keep ya quiet.” A moment later, it had faded again, and Lucifa relaxed in Kusu's grip.
“This is getting awfully suspicious,” Lucifa murmured as she knelt down on the step beside Morrigan, who was proving more difficult to get free. “What in the world is going on...?” Quick as a flash she spun around, and was only just able to pick up her shield in time to push off one of the Withered that had been drawn by Illorieth's magic. “Shit! Illorieth, get her free now! Kusu, Jellex, let's hold them off!” Making room for herself, Lucifa established a position with her shield and weapon at the top of the stairs, able to hold off multiple foes by virtue of defending a small space. The sheer number of them pressed on her, though, and it made it difficult for Kusu to help in the close-quarters fight. Rather than any sort of teamwork, it descended into a disorganized brawl, and both of their back-line casters were occupied at the moment.
When Jellex had risen to begin healing Lucifa, tossing aside the last of her ley water, her hand no longer covered Morrigan's mouth, and likewise her soothing holy magic did not flow into the Nightborne any longer. As a consequence, she began to squeal with the most hysterical laughter, eyes bulging wide open and mouth stretched in a forced laugh that erupted from deep within: “NOOHOHOHOHOHEHHEE PLEHEHEHE PLEASE PLEHEHEEEZE ILLORIETH HEHEHEHEH MAKE THEHEHEHEHM STOOHOHOOOPPPP!!” She gasped for air, giggling, and squealed again: “THEHEHEHEHEY'RE IN MYEHEHEHEHEHEH TOEHEHEHEHEHESS STOP STOP NOOEHEHEH NOOOOO!!!” Without physical contact, Jellex could no longer see the vision of Illorieth's ticklish suffering, but the memory was sketched in by the squeals of laughter and the warlock's helpless struggles. “ILLORIETHHEHEHEHE LET MEHEHEHE GO PLEASE!” she begged, straining at the ice that shackled her to the floor.
“Morrigan, Morrigan, come on, calm down, I'm trying to get you out, but if you break those you'll get sucked in and then you'll be in there entirely where we have no idea where you --” She broke off, something tingling at the back of her neck, and her gaze fell on Lucifa. “Lucifa! Look out!”
Even as the paladin raised her shield arm for a block, the mage could see it; a ghostly hand mischievously flexed its fingers, and then darted into the exposed armpit, tickling the blood elf in her soft hollow. Lucifa's whoop and squeal of surprise, and her sudden jerking of her shield back toward her body, protected her from the rushing Withered but allowed one to squeeze past her and charge towards Jellex. It ignored Kusu, the warrior having no magical ability to speak of, but the Troll did not ignore it, and dealt it a savage close-quarters blow. It was more of a punch than a sword strike, however, as the stairway too narrow and the field of battle too crowded for the sweeping berserker strikes she favored. Kusu was no easy meat, but even with a capable fighter behind her, Lucifa was in the unenviable position of being surrounded, having to fight with an enemy in her blind spot and trust Kusu to keep her safe.
The warrior had decided that trying to fight with her weapons in this disadvantageous position was a waste of time, and so dropped her blades, grabbing the emaciated limbs of the Withered and beginning to grapple. Despite the weakness of their physical appearance, the wild husks were driven by madness and hunger, and so fought with a desperate strength that always made them dangerous. With a battle cry, Kusu fought back against the creature, pushed back but then gaining purchase with her toes on the very edge of the step, leaning upward and inadvertently exposing her soles... when from the very stone of the stair sprung a pair of magical, pulsing pinkish hands. “Kusu!” Jellex cried, able to see this danger from behind her, but not in time to intervene before those fingers could scribble on her wide, exposed soles, and send the Troll into a fit of laughter that sapped her strength, allowing the Withered to push her backward, sending her flying into Jellex and tumbling the both of them backward in a tangled heap of limbs. Then it rushed straight for the captive Morrigan, its mouth descending to take a bite of her midsection.
When Jellex heard that terrible scream, in her mind, she knew what had probably happened – a wound right there in the soft flesh of the midsection. But when she heard it again, and then again... it wasn't the usual sound. Tussling with Kusu, trying to get her feet at the same time the warrior tried to do so, she was able to see the Withered gnawing at Morrigan's side, but no blood or visible wounds. The creature looked up at her, and then she understood. Decades of this existence, barely eking out what might be considered life if one were generous, had taken its toll on the body of what had once been a Nightborne. Ragged scraps of clothing, emaciated limbs, wild eyes, tangled and lost hair... and no teeth. The thing was literally gumming at Morrigan's middle and seemed not to understand it no longer had the means to do what it wanted, so instead of a painful, sinking bite... it was more akin to ticklish nibbling, sending the already-tickled warlock into hysterical spasms of laughter. Less dangerous to be sure, but more problematic was the beleaguered Lucifa trying to hold back the tide of Withered. “Help her!” Jellex snapped, rising to her feet. “Lucifa, I'm coming!”
Waves of holy magic rejuvenated the other paladin, giving her the strength to crack a jaw with her mace, and slam her shield into the face of the other. A crunch behind her gave testament to the fact that Kusu, quite irked, had picked up the Withered by the head and slammed it into the wall. “Almost, almost, I've almost got it... there!” Illorieth exclaimed suddenly, and Morrigan was free, rolling onto the stairs, panting, giggling, curled up into a defensive ball. Illorieth, though, was already moving, the mage dressed in little better than scraps at this point as so much of her outfit had given way in the struggles of these godforsaken tunnels. An incantation burst forth from her lips, and she made a sweeping gesture over her head. A moment later, jagged shards of ice rained down on the gathering of Withered that pushed at Lucifa, quickly breaking their assault and scattering those of their number which did not fall under the pelting ice shards. Then she sat down, panting, and caught the ley water Jellex tossed to her, before the holy paladin sat down to guzzle another bottle of the stuff. Good thing she'd stocked up. A fully armored and coordinated group would never require this much healing... usually.
“I think we've found out enough,” Morrigan said, and everyone turned to look at her. “I mean... we've found out that something sinister is afoot down here, and we're ill-equipped to root it out ourselves. We'll need a bigger, more coordinated group. Let's just find our way out of here and let somebody know that something's not right.” After a moment, everyone hesitated, but her words seemed to have a galvanizing effect. The creeping, slow uncertainty from before had been replaced with a sense of purpose. Even if that purpose was effectively to run away, a course of action had been set and agreed upon, and the group rose to their feet, empty bottles clattering to the stone as they were discarded. “I think if we make a right at the room up ahead, and then another left, we'll be at another one of the connecting rooms. From there I think we can make our way back to the main room.”
Even the Withered that inhabited those next two rooms seemed to be defeated easier than before. This was probably true, as they were able to direct the full might of their group against each pack of enemies, and sweeping through another dozen Withered or so, they came to the circular connecting room and turned to take the tunnel which Morrigan thought might lead them back to the surface. No sooner had they gone through the short tunnel, though, than it opened into a gallery, and they realized just how serious the situation was.
No more was the careful if ill-maintained stonework of the Nightborne. Instead, jagged spires of dark green and black rock jutted out from the walls, and pools of green fel energy collected on the floor. “The Legion's work,” Lucifa spat. “You were right. We need to get this information to the city authorities immediately. Follow me, and remember that we've all fought the Legion plenty of times.” Together they descended the staircase, the reek of fel all around them, although strangely there were no demons to be seen. A long gallery stretched for about five minutes' walk before a staircase took them back upwards, and Morrigan paused to read an etching on the side of a stone arch. “Central conduit to the left,” she said triumphantly. “We're almost there.” The group picked up their pace, eager to be out.
“And where do you think you're going, rats?” The voice was female, sneering, demonic. Atop the last flight of stairs they needed to ascend before returning to the central conduit, there stood a shivarra, one of the Legion's six-armed, fearsome tormentors, flanked by two equally dangerous yet much stupider wrathguards, their spiked tails lashing, long and jagged swords held in either hand. Without even a word of reply Lucifa raised her shield and moved forward, Kusu with weapons at the ready and just behind and to the side, Illorieth and Morrigan beginning their incantations, and Jellex –
A cry of surprise made the party turn; from behind, a massive, orange-skinned felguard, hulking muscle and ten feet tall, had flanked them. Jellex, reacting quickly to the threat, had swung her enormous, two-handed warhammer at the demon, but it caught the head of the hammer in one enormous hand and lifted her off the ground, the paladin suddenly dangling by the haft of her own weapon as her feet no longer touched the stone. Worse still, vertical purple bars of energy split the space between Jellex and the rest of the party, and a hooded, purple-robed inquisitor, its fingers skeletal and its grin rictus, managed to give a sinister grin despite lacking the facial muscles to do so. Jellex, not one to give up without a fight, was busy using the momentum to swing from her hammer's haft and use it to drive both feet into the felguard's midsection, but it was like kicking a column of steel. The decorative chain that hung from the end of her weapon jingled, and the inquisitor considered it.
Suddenly that chain moved as if it were alive, and wrapped around Jellex's wrists, effectively tying her wrists to the haft of her weapon. The tall felguard, with the hammerhead still in hand, then lifted it even higher, settling the head into a fissure in the rocks of the wall, and trapping it in there, letting gravity pull it down into the crevice, so Jellex couldn't move it from her position bound to the haft. She kicked her feet helplessly, but even that was swiftly silenced, as a heavy iron ball with a chain on its end wrapped itself around her ankles, tying them together and pulling her legs down, forcing the paladin to stretch out.
“Now, the best way to take care of any pesky group of adventurers is to remove the healer first,” the inquisitor said, its chuckle like a dry rasp of iron against stone. From its outstretched, bony fingers came a beam of purple magic, touching Jellex's forehead, seeking to invade her mind and control her. “Give in. Your companions are helpless before Sister Subversia.”
“Subversia... I've heard about that one.” Morrigan gripped her casting focus tightly, turning to face the six-armed shivarra. “Even among the demons she's notorious for her... bizarre appetites. Her enjoyment of perversion and twisting the minds of mortals until they join her sick harem.” The shivarra before them was, if you ignored the six bladed weapons she held in each of her six hands, actually quite exotic. Her skin was a light purple light that of the Nightborne, and each wrist was adorned with bangles and jewelry, a shapely torso just barely covered by metal and strings strained to the bursting point. Like a succubus, she oozed physical sin, and her laugh seemed to come out in a dark, silken tone, beckoning even as it repelled. “Take her down quickly, before they turn Jellex!”
“I won't... be twisted so easily, Legion scum!” the paladin spat. Before she had focused her holy energies outward, to help her companions, but now she focused them inward, bolstering her own mental resistance to the inquisitor's technique. As much as the Illidari demon hunters were an alliance of convenience, they did offer insight into the Legion's techniques and the chance to train against them, and so this mental assault was not new. Jellex glared at her tormentor, but kept her focus in the Light – “EHEHEHHEHEheheheheheeee!!!”
Her concentration wavered, and she desperately bolstered it, looking down to see what had touched her sides. Pulled taut as they were, they were quite susceptible to the sort of slowly dragging fingertips that she felt, but the surprise of it was that they were not of the ghostly nor of the arcane variety, but rather quite corporeal. They looked female, and moved with considerable dexterity, walking up from her hips to her ribs, then finding her lowest ribs and wiggling hard on them, eliciting a burst of laughter and struggling from the paladin. Where were they – there! Behind Sister Subversia and her two wrathguards, who Lucifa and the party had met in combat, were three Eredar darkcasters. All three were channeling a spell, their hands wreathed in darkness... and those hands were under her arms now, tickling those pulled-taut armpits, scratching lightly and wearing down her resistance with those soft touches. The third pair tickled along her hips and teased her waist, then tickled hard at her firm sides... Jellex's laughter rose higher, to a squeal like that her companions had let loose, and even as she fought to maintain her concentration, she felt a sudden twinge in her lower abdomen as she started to laugh, and it sent such a shock through her mental state that the inquisitor noticed. But it was somehow the voice of one of the female Eredar that whispered in her ear, as those fingers focused cruelly on her sides: “Had a few too many drinks, paladin?”
Her stoic facade cracked.
“HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEH HURRY!” she screamed with laughter, as the tickling hands tormented her torso, dancing all thirty fingers upon her sensitive sides, the visage of the cool and collected combat veteran shattered and broken. The howl of laughter distracted her party members for a moment, who were obviously not sure what to make of this sudden cry of distress. But Jellex wasn't sure if her mind would bear up under the strain of this ticklish torture and the humiliation that lurked within her. Suddenly the pressure of the inquisitor's magic seemed overbearing, impossible to resist, and though she frantically threw herself into the defense, the wiggling and pinching of those two hands at her sides was wearing rapidly at her. “PLEHEHEHEHEHEH EHEHEHEHEH PLEHEHEHEE PLEASE I CAHHAHEHEH AI HAHEHEH IAHAHEH I CAN'T!”
The sudden shift disconcerted Lucifa, who let her guard down for a moment – and found her wrists grabbed by the shivarra and pushed away from her body, exposing Lucifa to a quick tickling around her midsection, causing her to stagger back as Subversia had to let go to parry Kusu's leaping attack. Crafty and dexterous as she was, she used her six limbs to manipulate the leaping Troll's momentum, first pushing her back in midair, causing her to start moving backwards, but also rotating her upper body away from the shivarra. This flipped Kusu over, and when her legs came within reach, Subversia's upper set of arms snagged her ankles, and pulled the Troll towards her, putting her feet to either side of her head and holding them there. Then, her lowest set of arms was able to grab Kusu's arms, and as a result, Kusu was held upside-down, facing her party, and serving as a sort of living shield for the shivarra. But her middle set of arms was still free, and attacked the Troll's vulnerable ribs, tickling high up onto her ribcage and onto the undersides of her breasts. “NYAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHAH! HAHAHAHAHHEHEHEHE!!!” Kusu squealed, trying to pull free of the demon's grip, and causing her companions to stop attacking while they tried to deal with this sneaky tactic.
Jellex was hysterical. The unceasing tickling on her sides had doubled – one pair of hands tickled up near her ribs, and the other to either side of her bellybutton, while the third set focused on her waist, hips, and thighs, leading her to wiggle hopelessly as she dangled from the haft of her own weapon. Worse still were the growing danger signs within her lower abdomen, warning her that if this tickling continued, she was going to humiliate herself, yet there was nothing she could do to make it stop – her only hope was to endure and wait for her companions to finish their fight. The fingertips of the Eredar darkcasters, able to move freely within their portals of dark magic, pressed their fingertips into her abdominal muscles, wiggling deep and hard, poking a fingertip deep into her stretched-out navel and exploring its depths, sometimes going back up to those outstretched armpits and bringing forth gales of laughter from the trapped paladin.
Kusu was equally hysterical. The ticklish touches on her torso had her struggling wildly to break free from Subversia's grip, and she fought madly for purchase somewhere, to get some leverage. She finally was able to find it by putting her hands on the shivarra's thighs, and waiting for a moment when she adjusted her grip, pushing off her thighs and yanking her ankles free of the demon's hands, tumbling away and springing back up into a fighting stance. Seizing upon the opening, Illorieth directed a bolt of pure cold energy at the demon, staggering her back, and giving Lucifa some room to engage the two wrathguards, who fought without strategy but harried her with continual blows against her shield. “Focus on these two!” Lucifa yelled. “They'll go down faster!” She pushed one off of her and then stunned the second with a bolt of holy energy, staggering the brutal demon backwards and creating an opening for Kusu to fly in with a flurry of blades – moving to block Subversia from further interference.
Jellex's pleas grew more desperate. “IEHHEHAAHAHAHEHEHEH I CAHAHEHEH I CAN'T TAHEHEHEHEHH TAKE IT!” she howled, and as her defenses weakened, the inquisitor was able to seep its influence into her mind. Not yet fully, not yet making her a minion of the Legion to obey blindly, but insidious whispers and images filled her mind. Images of terrors, of demons, of imprisonment seemed to meet strong pushback from her mind, mental reflexes helping to keep her safe, but thoughts of rushing water distracted her, scattered her efforts, made her more vulnerable... The feminine voices of the Eredar taunted her, their fingertips relentless. The ticklish touches dug deep into her sensitive sides, tickling them to a nice shade of pink, working at her ticklish flesh and never giving her a moment's respite. The paladin tossed her head back and howled, then touched her chin to her chest, shaking her head back and forth wildly. It was the only part of her body that she could move, and that only served to emphasize her powerlessness.
“Tickle, tickle...” the feminine voices giggled. “Silly mortals don't know what's best for them. Why, you can't even manage the most basic of functions for civilized existence... just open your mind and let us take care of it. We know better. We know what you need to do...” Jellex struggled against the demands on her attention. So many things needed her focus. Her thoughts were so scattered, and it was only by reflex that she was able to maintain her resistance to the mind-bending magic that was so cruelly teasing her. Indeed, the demons were cruel...
“HEHEHEHHEEHHEHEELP! HEHEHEH HEHEHEH PLEASE! HEHEHEH PLEASE HURRY! HEHEHEH PLEASE PLEASE PLEHEHEHAHAHAH NOHAHAHAH NONO NHAHHAAH NO PLEASE PLEASE....!” She couldn't even see how the battle was going. Was that one of the wrathguards defeated? Please, please say that it was... she was losing her mind! Her belly was so exposed to those cruel tickling hands, her armpits getting tormented now and again, her waist and hips, but that nonstop torture of her ticklish belly and sides, tight abdominal muscles... Thoughts whirred through her mind constantly, and each time she tried to drag them back to the very important matter of resistance, they scattered after a few seconds. “Nohoho, noho, ahah, ahaha, AHAHHAhahahaha no nonononono....!”
“Hang on, hang on...” Lucifa muttered grimly. She was on the back foot for sure; though her gambit had opened the way to the defeat of one wrathguard, and Kusu was able to fend off the other to create openings for the casters, Subversia fought dirty. Any time her arms moved a fraction too far in the defense, she could count on a tickling, and the sudden jolts of ticklishness from her midriff had her on edge, too nervous about every strike instead of letting herself get into the flow of combat. The sinister grin from the voluptuous demon made the blood elf paladin grit her teeth in frustration, and she tried to gather her focus from behind her shield...
“Got it!” Kusu yelled triumphantly, whirling almost immediately from the attack that felled the second wrathguard into the attack on Sister Subversia, coming in on the flank and allowing Lucifa a much needed rest. Then, to Jellex: “Hang on tight, Jellex! We're comin' to help!” The tide of battle had turned; now the shivarra was on the defensive, having to use her six weapons to turn aside spell and blade, unable to harass and tease Lucifa in the midst of the fight.
“THEHHEEHHEHEEHHE EREDAHAHHAHAHAHR!” Jellex cried desperately, the hope she felt from the wrathguard's falling tempered by her own feeling of teetering on the edge. If they could remove that distraction... “STOOEHEHEH STOP EHEHEHEH STOP THEHHEEM!” But, either they couldn't hear her, or Subversia was too great a threat in their eyes; the Eredar tickled her unrestricted, and focused all their torments now on her sides, from ribs to hips one long line of wiggling, pressing fingertips that were driving her to the edge...
“Tickle, tickle, tickle... even if your friends win, we'll make you ours...”
“NOOOHOHO! NOOHEHEHEHEH! NOOOHOHOO!!!”
“You're about to break...”
“Nohoho... no please, no, no, oh please, please, PLEASE, PLEASE...!!!”
“Nowhere to run...”
“PLEHEHEHEHEEEEEEZE...!”
Her mind seemed to swirl, darkness creeping in at the edges of her vision, a rush of conflicting, powerful emotions all seeming to whirl around tighter and tighter, until they came together in a point, one long, horrifying point when time seemed to slow, her mind growing hazy, shame and helplessness welling up within her, sanity seeming to be sucked out of her head by the demon's spell. Desperately she fought for that Light, the source of her strength, her resistance, but she could find it nowhere in the confusing welter of sensations that burned through her body. Was this what it was like to lose yourself? To see the last bits of your being washed away in the face of fel magic? Obviously you couldn't ask anyone who had lost themselves in this way that question... doubtless, they didn't remember. Jellex couldn't help but feel, as she reached her limit, that this experience would never leave her, that no matter what happened, it would stay with her somehow. Maybe she could hang on to something, in some corner of her mind, the voices of her companions that even now seemed to be fading away, calling out to her as she descended into the pool of darkness, the darkness that was covering her vision...
...covering her vision....
….covering...?
Jellex's eyes shot open as if she were waking from a dream, and there she was, on the floor, her arms and sides aching, surrounded by the concerned-looking faces of her companions. “What...?” she managed to croak, still disoriented in the extreme.
“We pressed her hard enough that she fled,” Lucifa explained. “Once they saw that she'd run away, her minions ran too, and we were worried that the inquisitor had gotten to you, but...” She smiled. “It seems like you're okay.”
Jellex felt at her face, then her head. It was a silly thing to do, she knew, but she did it anyway. Everything seemed to be in place. “Thank... the Light,” she murmured. Then she caught Morrigan tactfully averting her eyes for a moment, and a feeling of shame flooded Jellex's body, turning her face fire-red. “Let's.... let's get out of here,” she said, rising on shaky legs.
One by one, the rest followed. The demonic invasion had been thwarted.
So why didn't it feel like a victory?
Enjoy.
---
“I thought that this place had already been cleared out,” the red-haired blood elf remarked with a huff, as the dusty wooden doors swung inward to reveal the dim stone passage of the Arcway. Old though the construction was, and long since abandoned, it wasn't hard to identify the craftsmanship that had gone into the original construction of this subterranean gallery. The stonework that formed the vaulted ceiling was still in good condition, although steady streams of water drip-drip-dripped down on the right side, causing the party to favor the left side of the worked stone passageway as they surveyed the ruin they had been dispatched to clear out. About halfway up each wall, installed in sconces, were sources of light that still burned dimly, illuminating the dank tunnel enough to see the mess that awaited the adventuring party not twenty paces ahead. “Yet here we are.”
“It's hard to keep the withered out of any place, especially underground,” remarked the taller, nightborne elf who stood beside her. The shal'dorei, more commonly called the Nightborne, resembled their Night Elven cousins more than they did the Blood Elves with whom they now stood – literally and figuratively, for the First Arcanist had just concluded a treaty of alliance with the Warchief of the Horde. Tall, with skin usually in shades of purple from light to dark, and light-colored hair, the superficial resemblance to their kal'dorei cousins was significant, save perhaps the fact that most Nightborne had shimmering arcane tattoos along their sides and legs. Temperamentally, of course, they could not have been more different, with their cousins eschewing magic up until recent years, whereas the arcane was woven almost into the very fiber of the Nightborne. Even the lights that burned within the tunnel were not of mundane fire, but powered by an ancient magic that kept the tunnel lit.
The composition of the adventuring group of five bore out the magical nature of both Blood Elf and Nightborne societies. The red-haired elf who had spoken first, with fair skin and green eyes, was named Lucifa and though clad in heavy plate armor, was a paladin, a warrior who combined mastery of light magic with martial skill to protect her companions; the other Blood Elf was likewise a paladin, but focused more on employing the healing properties of holy magic to mend the wounds of her companions. Despite this nominal classification as a medic, Jellex bore a great warhammer strapped to her back, and was not averse – one might even say eager – to combine smiting of her foes with healing of her allies. Like her fellow Blood Elf, Jellex was very fair-skinned, but with blonde hair instead of red, and an impatient sigh on her lips as she looked up to her three other, much taller, companions. “You mean it's hard to keep the withered out of any place improperly warded – and considering that this network of tunnels is so important to keeping your city running smoothly, you'd think that it wouldn't end up infested with slimes, withered, and demons.”
Both of the Nightborne chuckled softly, a vaguely condescending sound, but it was Illorieth, a noble mage, who answered. “Until the shield was dropped, we didn't have this problem, so Elisande and the city's administrators grew somewhat... lax. The First Arcanist is trying to patch up some of those administrative oversights.” Both of the Nightborne, Morrigan and Illorieth, wielded magic in order to defeat their foes; Illorieth, a mage, focused on classic study of the arcane and the elements it could be shaped into, deploying the frigid chill of winter to cripple her foes. Morrigan was a warlock, a magic-user who focused instead on forces that were the province of demons; fel energies and shadow, as well as employing magic to bind demons to their bidding.
“De Warchief wants Suramar City ta be runnin' smoothly.” It was the fifth member of their party who spoke, and all four elves turned their heads to her. Taller still even than the Nightborne, the troll Kusu had two enormous swords strapped to her back (rather ostentatiously, they all thought) and was a liaison of sorts whose exact function puzzled the four of them. To begin with, she didn't seem very bright, and when pressed would usually reply with a laconic statement about how this or that were her orders or the Warchief's will. “If de demons or de withered be causin' trouble under de city, den dey gotta be cleared out.” The blue-skinned troll wore her hair in a strange style, with a leather thong secured with a bone securing a top ponytail and the rest of her hair falling free down her back. Illorieth in particular thought it looked rather savage, but what was the point of arguing fashion with someone who swung swords around to fight? Speaking of those swords, she drew them, and pointed the nasty-looking blade, designed to look almost like a dragon, at one of the two purple slimes up the hall.
Lucifa sighed and checked the straps of her shield on her arm, then hefted her warhammer in her right hand. “All right, all right. Don't get so excited and race off on ahead by yourself.” Warriors were notorious for doing that, what with their battle cries and berserking and what have you. “Spread out. Jellex, Illorieth, Morrigan, stay back behind me,” she instructed, raising her shield and starting to approach the two purplish, unstable-looking globs of slime at the end of the hall. “Kusu, let's go.” The sounds of weapons clearing sheaths made it evident that her party was ready, and Lucifa prepared to lead them into combat – by letting out a yell and empowering her shield with holy light until it glowed golden, and with a streak through the air leapt off of her arm as it was “thrown”, the holy energy smashing into one purple glob, ricocheting off the first one and into the second, and then flying back to Lucifa, who caught it on her arm and steadied it again. Magic, of course, but very effective, although Kusu snorted.
The two purplish amalgamations began to slide across the floor towards the five women, revealing the emaciated corpses of Withered – exiled Nightborne who had lost their connection to the nourishing Nightwell and become feral – that they had been feasting on. The shimmering purple of arcane energy was visible within the slimes, and Kusu snorted. Flashy, yes – but the trick to defeating most slimes was to attack the core. This was often easier said than done, because the viscous slime would turn aside thrusts or cause them to slide off to a non-vital area, but simply beating the skin of a slime was a quick way to tire yourself out. So as the two purple slimes approached, Lucifa stayed behind her shield, ready to turn aside a quick lunge or strike. Sightless as they were, the slimes apparently did not notice the warrior and her sharp blades step quickly to the side, and drive both of them straight into the first slime, aiming at the mass of shimmering magic energy within the slime.
And that's when the trouble started.
“Lucifa! Kusu!” Jellex shouted, as the slime exploded into a shower of purplish goo that splattered the both of them, covering both from head to toe, and raining droplets of slime onto the three elves in the back. “Hold on, I'm coming!” Light rippled from Jellex's outstretched hands as she approached the two of them, bathing them in generous waves of coruscating, rippling light; where the slime had touched her, it sizzled on her armor, and burned her skin, so the two of them must have suffered a much more grievous blow. Yet even as she poured her energy into healing magics, to heal the skin and alleviate the damage, the Troll woman let out a mighty yell and jumped straight into the fracas – for a fracas it had now become. The explosion of goo hadn't just been the slime's death rattle, but had caused it to divide into four smaller slimes, and the second, large slime still remained!
“Oh for – “ Lucifa groaned, slamming her hammer into the stones on the floor, causing the ground around her to light up with holy energy, causing the smaller slimes to smoke and wobble unsteadily even as the warrior plunged her weapons into the second slime. This wave of goo the paladin caught on her shield and managed to deflect the majority of it; her shield, Oathkeeper, was made of sterner stuff than her armor, which even now was starting to fail under the slime's catalyzing, arcane enzymes. Kusu's armor was all but gone, but the berserk warrior seemed to ignore the pain, and with Jellex's healing magic holding off truly grievous damage, turned into a whirlwind of slashing blades and flying purple goo that started to fill the tunnel where the five fought.
Illorieth was waiting for her opportunity, and when she saw an opening, flung a shard of razor-sharp ice at one of the smaller slimes, piercing its core, which made that slime likewise explode into a shower of purple goo, albeit smaller. Nevertheless, her robes were starting to dissolve under the spray, leading to a pockmarked gown full of holes that grew as the shower of acidic slime continued, gritting her teeth through the stinging burns, feeling that stinging subside as Jellex's magic healed her, and then coming back again. The warrior's armor had taken the brunt of it, but the paladin shielding them was also missing almost half of it by now – her arms and legs bare, the lower half of her chestpiece melted, and just some remaining scraps around her middle as well. Jellex was in a similar state; all of them were now quite exposed as their gear suffered under the storm.
“You're all being quite ridiculous,” Morrigan said finally, reaching out with her hand and forming a fist in dramatic fashion – causing the smaller slimes to all become engulfed in green flame, smoking and quivering and melting down into docile puddles of purple goo that finally did stop moving, holding the spell for a minute before releasing it, and surveying the damage. Her own robes were... well, the upper half was gone, so she had a nice long skirt on and some strips holding the thing to her shoulders. Kusu's armor was almost entirely melted away, gloves, legs, and chest all gone, just little bits remaining to keep her decent. Jellex was almost as bad, having run into the melee to aid the two in the front, and looked like she was wearing a breastplate and greaves with nothing around her middle at all. Lucifa's armor had suffered, and both of the Nightborne were dressed in cloth ribbons, although as far as modesty went, neither they nor the Troll seemed particularly bothered. Only the Blood Elves seemed to take the exposure as a problem in and of itself.
“Well, that went quite badly,” Illorieth mentioned calmly, considering the slimy mess and two corpses of withered that still lay on the floor. “It's a good thing you can get this sort of thing repaired quite easily.” One of the most redeeming virtues of magical armor that attuned itself to the wearer was that, even in a state of near-total destruction as the party's now was, it could be restored to its original state through a fairly simple incantation – out of tradition, blacksmiths still performed this function more often than not, even for equipment that was not made of metal, but it did still require that they trudge their way out of the dungeon, which...
“Why is that door closed?” Morrigan asked, having turned around, assuming that the expedition would have taken a brief pause so that they could get their gear repaired. But the large, ornate doors they had entered through were now shut tight, and pushing on them revealed that they were either locked or barred from the other side. “Hmmm...”
“We can get out in other ways,” Illorieth said, “but this is definitely not a favorable turn of events.”
“Then we go forward,” Kusu said laconically. Of course, she wouldn't mind being nearly naked – warriors had a habit of charging ahead recklessly anyhow, so it wasn't as if being nearly unprotected would be a bother for her. “We have healing, and you can stay in the back and be safe. Only Lucifa and I will need to put ourselves in harm's way.” She glanced over to the blood elf paladin, who nodded back in reply. Jellex also nodded, tossing away the now-drained bottle of ley-enriched water she had been drinking to recover her magical power. No one was quite sure why that was the case, but ever since the races of Azeroth had begun using magic extensively, one of the side-effects of prolonged magic use had been dehydration, and drinking had served to restore magical ability. Even regular water would do, although in the case of high-level adventurers such as themselves, more potent products had long been available. The holy paladin nodded assent.
“Let's go.” Perhaps more cautiously than before, the party advanced into the ancient tunnels of the Arcway. The network of tunnels simultaneously showed that it had been built with great care at some point in the past – what amounted to a sewer was decorated with arches and light sources in the walls – yet the growth of moss, the crumbling stonework, and the rodents that scurried about were testament to the fact that it was rare anyone came down here. As the group came out of the tunnel through which they had entered, they came into a vast, domed gallery with a deep, wide hole in the center, surrounded by a crumbling stone railing.
“One of the ley line fonts,” Morrigan supplied. “I'd advise you not to fall in.” The hole was about twenty feet across and far, far too deep to see the bottom of, an ominous hole of darkness in the midst of the dim room. This circular room served as sort of a connecting point, with at least three other passageways leading out, other than the one they had taken to get in. The one on the far left, however, was blocked, the door closed and obviously damaged, jammed into place and looking far too troublesome to try and force open. Ahead and to the left another tunnel opened up, but the purplish-pink glow of ley energy could be seen over there, illuminating the existence of several of the Withered, near-zombie husks of what had once been elves. They lived only to feed on magical energy, and when no external source was present they were known to harass living beings with magical energy, but something over there had their attention, and they did not seem to notice the group's presence. To go through them, however, would provoke a fight, and so the group turned to the last tunnel, off to the right, which seemed in worse repair than the other two but was unblocked.
Unblocked in a physical sense, that is. As they rounded a bend and were able to see deeper into the tunnel, the shining, wafting form of a lonely banshee was visible. She noticed the intrusion on her space, and with a reverberating scream of despair, undulated through the air towards the group. “Careful!” Lucifa called, moving to the front, and raising her shield, which began to glow with holy energy. Ghosts and spirits were notoriously difficult to harm, but the preponderance of magical ability in addition to the holy energy from the two paladins meant that it should be little problem... With ominous persistence it closed in, by no means fast, but implacable, even as bolts of magical frost and fire impacted on its ethereal form, and a spark of holy energy smited the twisted figure, like that of a ragged woman, with long nails and tangled, filthy hair – “BEGONE!” Lucifa intoned, and her shield's brightness rose to blinding levels for a moment, catching the banshee full in the blast, eliciting another screech –
And then she was gone.
Puzzled, Lucifa lowered her shield. “She must not have had a strong connection,” the blood elf said with a shrug. “Usually, a spirit like that holds a stronger grudge and is more difficult to remove from the mortal plane, but every now and again, with very old ones, the grudge becomes diluted with time, or without any way to express it, the rage and sorrow subside. Let's continue.”
The next obstacle was of the more mundane variety. Giant rats, pesky to be sure, darting around and trying to slash at the unprotected adventurers with teeth and claws, but the stupidity of the beasts doomed them. Rats and other vermin often grew aggressive with size, yet as Kusu's swords whirled through the pack, it was evident that they lacked the mental capacity to recognize their own strength as compared to an adversary's. A nuisance, nothing more, but after a turn down a hallway and a flight of stairs, a more serious complication emerged.
“I suppose the ley conduits are leaking,” Illorieth murmured. Here, the entire length of the corridor was lit by a pinkish glow, raw magical energy simply oozing out of the walls here and there, having formed crystals of mana in some places, arcane aberrations in others. The Withered were here too, of course, scuffling with the living magical energy, blasting the mindless creatures aside even as more swarmed in. Arcane elementals were aggressive, looking like the torso, arms, and head of a humanoid creature, but their lower bodies dwindled to a wispy point. Still, they were manifestations of energy, never to be trifled with, and they quickly spotted the intruders. Again, Lucifa raised her shield and moved cautiously to the front as two of the arcane elementals turned from the melee to confront the party –
With a screech, Lucifa's shield lowered, and then dropped, and the arcane elementals passed right by her, their malevolent red eyes fixated on the Nightborne, Morrigan and Illorieth – “Lucifa!” Jellex called, about to run to the assistance of the trembling blood elf, when the elementals and Illorieth both vanished all at once in a shimmer of arcane energy. She could only presume they had tried to blink to Illorieth, and she had predicted this move and tried to blink away, but now they were all...? She looked left, and right; Kusu had run to the assistance of Lucifa, and Morrigan was puzzled, but she was the first to notice. “Up!”
“StoohohohOHOHOOOOPPP!” the Nightborne squealed. “STOP STOP STOOHOHOHOOOPPIT!” It was a puzzling scene to be sure – she was upside down with her upper half dangling from the ceiling, and seemingly stuck in the stone itself, while the glowing pinkish hands of the elemental clawed at her bare sides. But a closer examination showed the truth – it wasn't clawing to tear her flesh, oddly gentle instead, stroking its clawlike fingers with great precision all along her exposed flesh... “NOHEHEHEHEHEHEHE NO NO STHAHHEH STOPPIT IT'S HAEEHEHEE HOLDING MEHEHEHEE!”
“They collided in the ether!” Morrigan exclaimed. Unlike a physical collision, in which the two forces simply ran into one another and then sorted out the result through conventional physics, an arcane collision could lead to much more bizarre results. In this case, they had both gone upwards, and the arcane aberration was able to slip through the ley-infused stone, thanks to its form as pure energy. Illorieth, however, was not, and her lower half was still in the “ether” while her upper was stuck in the physical realm. The second aberration had apparently gone downward, but with a whoosh, like a fish jumping out of water, leapt from the stone of the floor and upwards towards Illorieth!
Kusu, lacking magical ability, was nonetheless possessed of a fine sense of physical reaction, and she sprung into action even at the first sign of the second aberration's appearance. Unfortunately, Illorieth had also reacted immediately, sending a wintry, freezing blast of ice magic straight downwards towards the elemental, which was able to phase out of the way... and instead encase the Troll warrior in a column of ice. On the one side was her upper body, both swords in hand, and a shocked look on her face. The ice encased her around the middle, and on the back side was her rear and her large Troll feet. Lucifa staggered to her feet, apparently recovered from whatever had ailed her – but the commotion had drawn several of the Withered to the fray, and she had to turn her attention to face them.
Jellex took command. Her hands glowed with holy light, infusing both Lucifa and Illorieth with healing magic. “Take down the Withered first! Then we can free our companions!” Morrigan nodded and turned to the fight, where Lucifa had begun the battle by smashing one of the shriveled, mad elves in the face with her shield, staggering it back. Illorieth's screams of laughter provided a reminder in the background of their need to hurry. With her magic foiled, or misfired, she had dropped her staff and was reduced to pounding at the hands which darted out of the solid stone, taunting her, tickling her sides, shifting away when she tried to hit them, and stroking along the tips of her ears instead, which sent her into a frenzy of shrieking. Kusu, below her, was busy attacking the base of the ice column with her swords, but the position of her body weakened the force she could put behind her swings, and swords were a poor choice for breaking ice... and where had that second aberration gotten off to?
The answer, as it turned out, was not a good one for the trapped Troll, who could not see the second set of hands emerge from the ice and start to trace delicately on her large feet. Trolls, who were tall to begin with, had overlarge feet as well, and apparently this made them a target for whatever bizarre force was possessing the elementals – Kusu kicked and squealed, her sword strikes momentarily stopped, and her laughter, a deeper note than Illorieth's, joined the cacophony. “NOOHOHOHOHheeheh noooo! NAAAHAHahaha! Nahahahhehehe not de feheheEHEHEEEET!” she howled, probably the most emotive the Troll had been since entering the tunnels. But it just took a slow, methodical, teasing touch on those big feet, stroking from heel down over the arches and to the toes, then back again, to get her going. The arcane aberration flickered annoyance as the feet kicked away and otherwise refused to stay still, but then realized there was another, very large, target for it to attack.
The scream which Kusu let out at feeling those oddly featherlike touches on her ass momentarily stopped the battle, as the Withered, Lucifa, Jellex and Morrigan all stopped to look. Only Illorieth, howling in the midst of her own torment and trying to swat at the hand which had grabbed her wrist and exposed her armpit to a ticklish touch, seemed not to notice. Ineffecually, Kusu pounded on the solid column of ice and kicked her feet, yet her rear end did not move, and the slowly gliding fingertips explored every last curve of the blue Troll ass, delving fiendishly far into the crack and exploring those most sensitive areas which seemed to have the warrior howling. “QUICKLYEHEHEHEHE! HEHEHEH BEAT DE HEHEHEHEH DE FOE AHAHHA AND HELP!” Kusu cried out, trying to redouble her efforts to free herself, but her strikes landed randomly now, instead of chipping away at the ice in one place, scoring the front of it with a dozen different chips and scrapes.
Morrigan's green fire wreathed one of the attacking Withered, and it crumpled to the floor. Lucifa tried to avoid and deflect the strikes to the best of her ability, but even so, Jellex's healing magic was taxed, keeping both Lucifa battle-ready and maintaining the stamina of her tickled allies. She was beginning to perspire and breathe a little harder, so the elimination of one foe greatly helped her efforts. Lucifa struck one Withered in the face with such force it staggered back and fell, not dead but stunned, and subjected the other to such a beating with her mace that it seemed inconceivable the creature could continue to fight with such injuries. Yet fight it did, drawn instinctively to magic, heedless of danger.
Illorieth's battle was not going so well. Feeling dizzy from being upside down, frustrating and exhausting herself with the fruitless attempt to fight the arcane elemental which had her trapped in the ceiling, she dangled from the stone, almost too tired to bring her arms up to defend herself now. Her foe seemed to understand her exhaustion, and taunted her; rather than strike lightning-quick and withdraw, its hands started on her sides and slowly crawled up and down her taut stomach. If a hand came up to defend, that wrist was snagged and her hand held behind her head, while two fingers walked in place under her arm, her only saving grace being that the creature had no way to restrain her further without using its hands. Still, her position was so exhausting that she was doing little but dangling and howling with laughter.
The Troll warrior Kusu had much greater physical stamina, yet her position was likewise poor; the soft expanses of her ass were the creature's primary target, but when it detected a slowdown in her kicking, it would strike quickly, skittering its soft touches down the backs of her legs and tickling her feet with quick scribbling strokes of its “nails” until it provoked a response, at which point it would return to teasing her helpless ass. Up and down, back and forth it went – Kusu was making agonizingly slow progress in freeing herself, but relief was thankfully close at hand. Green fire wreathed the base of the icy column and soon it had started to melt and soften, allowing Jellex to use her mighty warhammer to strike the base of it and shatter the column wholesale, sending Kusu tumbling to the floor and exposing the surprised elemental, which was quickly dispatched by the three adventurers.
Seeing its companion fall, the arcane aberration tormenting Illorieth decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and whatever it had done to keep the mage stuck in place became undone, and she suddenly slid out the stone as if it were water, where Lucifa caught her before she struck the floor, and finally the fight was over. Jellex, panting, had already drained one of her bottles of water and was guzzling a second, tossing one to Illorieth who had likewise been forced to maintain her magic thanks to the aberration's machinations. Only then, as they slumped on the floor and caught their breath, did Morrigan ask: “Lucifa, what happened?”
“I... I don't know,” she gasped, then sighed with relief as the paladin's healing magic soothed the aches of battle. Jellex moved between them, checking for injuries and mending them, taking another swig of her water in the process. “All of the sudden I felt... a shock, like... I can't even describe, and I couldn't lift my arms or do anything. I don't even know what it was.”
“Something strange is definitely afoot down here,” Illorieth said, rising to her feet after a minute's rest. “Whatever the reason, it was a good thing we came down here to investigate... we need to find out what's happening, because if something gets into the ley energy and starts to affect the city...”
Cautious now, the group of five advanced forward, more wary of their surroundings than before. The two Nightborne, their pale, purplish skin seeming to fit the pinkish arcane hue that illuminated the tunnel, were talking quietly to one another in their own language, a soft, hushed murmur of words that seemed somehow lyrical. Lucifa stayed in the lead, the light playing against her bare skin as she moved, and Kusu was just behind her, senses alert, her swords gripped in both hands. But the brawl that had been going on in this tunnel seemed to have ended with the defeat of the gangly Withered, and whatever the escaping arcane aberration had communicated to its brethren, they were all gone as well. The end of the tunnel was another circular room, darker than the one they had just come out of, and not nearly as large as the central conduit. Only one passageway led out of this room, so they turned to the left, still walking carefully, and passed through a short tunnel to arrive at a fork in the road, more in the shape of a T-junction. To the right was a small staircase descending into another room, perhaps fifteen feet long.
To the left was a long corridor, just about as long as the one they had just walked down, filled with aimlessly wandering Withered.
Aimlessly wandering was not quite the right term for it. Here, too, the ley conduits appeared to be faulty and leaking, and though the mindless shells were rather close by, they paid the party no mind, basking instead in the glow of the arcane energy. “This way,” Morrigan murmured, the tall elf gesturing to the stairway, keeping her voice down. Lucifa stood aside and watched the Withered carefully as Morrigan took two steps onto the staircase – and nearly fell, only catching herself against the wall at the last second as her legs seemed to go out from under her and... into the wall? “What the--?”
“Shhhhh!” Lucifa hissed, moving quickly, the blood elf setting her shield and mace down before taking hold of Morrigan's hands and trying to pull her out. Something, though, was trying to pull her into the dark, circular portal that had opened up in the wall, and even as she strained to pull Morrigan back out, a peculiar look crossed her face and she relaxed her grip for a second – before she lost her footing and ended up in the same position, being slowly dragged into the wall, clawing at the stone for purchase and finding none.
Illorieth moved quickly, and her instincts were spot on. Leaping in between the two of them, she caught their hands and with frost magic, froze them in place, securing them to the ground, and stopping the slide of both women into the wall. Both had ended up on their backs, hands spread out to either side of their bodies (and now frozen) as they'd attempted to find some handhold, but the ice magic seemed to have done the trick and stopped the slide. Still the Withered in the hallway paid them no heed, but then Morrigan started to giggle, her face contorted.... “Shhh!” hissed Kusu. “You gotta be quiet or you're gonna get the attention of dem Withered over dere...”
“Ihihiehheheh I can't, I can't,” Morrigan whispered hoarsely, as Lucifa's face started going red; she'd been holding her breath, but the strain of keeping quiet was telling on her, too. Jellex, remaining calm, knelt between both of them and pulled off her gauntlets, placing her hand over each one's mouth, just in time to catch and muffle Morrigan's giggling, and allow Lucifa to exhale her breath with a giggle as well.
“Illorieth, those portals look like they're magic in nature. See if you can dispel them and let us rescue our companions.” But it wasn't going to be that simple. Even though her hands muffled the sound to some extent, it was quickly growing more intense, muffled snickering and giggling giving way to more full-throated laughter, and the holy paladin feared they might draw the attention of the Withered anyway, which would be incredibly dangerous at this point. “Calm, calm,” Jellex urged, and then as an afterthought, began to channel her holy energy into both of them, through her palms. This did have the effect of calming both of them, although not completely, and they continued to giggle into her radiating hands while she outlined the rest of her plan. “We don't need to panic. Let's just figure out what's going on here first. Illorieth?”
The Nightborne mage hissed softly through her teeth. “This looks like shadow magic. More Morrigan's specialty than mine, really. But I'll see what I can do.” Creeping over to the wall where the two portals were, she pressed her hands into the stone, and began to concentrate. “I can feel it,” she murmured back. “Something's on the other side. I don't think it's those things from before...” Both Lucifa and Morrigan gasped, giggling harder and struggling a bit, and Jellex increased her waves of holy energy, breathing a little harder. “Will you be all right?”
“Yeah, just... thanks, Kusu.” The warrior had thought ahead, and retrieved several bottles of enriched ley water from Jellex's pouch, and tipped the bottle to her lips, relieving the paladin. Channeling her energy continuously this way was tiring, but she had a good supply of ley water. This could theoretically go on until she'd run out of water, although that would be dangerous. “I can see it too... or feel it through their minds. Feathers...? Something soft like that. Stroking slowly...” Both of them nodded, and the image made itself clearer in Jellex's head:
Both pairs of feet had been bared in a dark room somewhere – it couldn't even be said it was directly on the other side of the wall when dealing with dark magic like this. Something ethereal, ghostly, was slowly stroking its fingers over those bare soles, the touch feather-light and soft, making Morrigan's larger, pale feet twitch away from every stimulation, whereas Lucifa's soles wiggled preemptively, trying to avoid the next stroke, and not succeeding, as she had no way of seeing what was happening. Ghostly hands, disembodied, clustered around the soft and sensitive prey... Jellex shook her head to bring herself fully back to what she was doing. Whatever was on the other side had been trying to lure her mind in, either to make her relax in her task or for some other nefarious purpose. Kusu tipped the bottle to her lips again, and the stalemate continued.
“Pain in the...” Illorieth grumbled, bearing down a little more, and chancing the use of a little bit of her own arcane magic, with an eye cast warily towards the ambling Withered. Presenting a strong source of magic would draw them, and that was something that needed to be avoided at all costs. “Look there.” Jellex looked closely at where the mage pointed, and she could see it then, too; ghostly hands, barely visible, drawing circles on Lucifa's abdomen. But there were none on Morrigan. What could that mean? Lucifa was clearly suffering worse, although the Nightborne woman was struggling, her stamina less than that of the paladin's, her breathing coming in quick, hyperventilating gasps as her giggles warmed Jellex's palm. Jellex soothed Morrigan's mind, but the unrest continued, her large, pale feet being subjected to soft and feathering strokes, dancing in between her toes... Jellex closed her eyes for a moment, and she could see it again.
Lucifa's feet were being gently teased by two hands, running only one finger each over the curve of her soles, but Morrigan's larger feet had at least four hands focused on them. Something kept her toes pulled back, and fine, soft, ethereal wisps of energy floated between them, making her toes twitch, causing her body to spasm in its restraint, her eyes rolling from the suppressed ticklishness. She shook her head back and forth, trying to take deep breaths to calm herself. The flowing, cool, soothing holy energy kept her from descending into a complete panic, but the sensation was always there, hovering on the edge of her mind. Jellex felt herself being drawn into that state of pins and needles, prickling anticipation...
“Kusu.” She spoke, and her lips were dry. As if she had gone longer than she should have without a drink. How long had she been sitting there? It felt like it had only been a short amount of time, but clearly longer than that. The Troll obliged her by fetching a fresh bottle of water, and as Jellex drank, her magical energy returned, stronger, calming Morrigan and Lucifa again. This was certainly not efficient, she realized. Her healing magic was meant to close physical wounds and ease pain. Using it to calm panic was like trying to use a warhammer to hammer nails – you certainly could do it, but it was not the right tool for the task. That was probably causing her to have to work harder to keep the two of them under control. “Thank you...” she murmured, draining the bottle, and feeling steady again. “Illorieth, how is it looking?”
“They loosened up on Lucifa,” the mage replied, and her hands now glowed with arcane energy, risking the quick moment of power it would take to pry the paladin free – and then she had done it, Lucifa pulled free of the wall, Jellex removing her hand from the other blood elf's mouth, and the icy shackles melting away as she came free. Oddly, though... her boots were still on her feet. Was Jellex the one hallucinating? Nothing about this whole ordeal was making even the slightest bit of sense. Still, now she could focus her energy on –
“Shh,” Kusu murmured, clamping her hand over Lucifa's mouth once again. Jellex could see again those ghostly hands tickling the paladin's bare midriff, a gentle, barely-there touch that still seemed to be with her. So, was that a separate effect? “Keep ya quiet.” A moment later, it had faded again, and Lucifa relaxed in Kusu's grip.
“This is getting awfully suspicious,” Lucifa murmured as she knelt down on the step beside Morrigan, who was proving more difficult to get free. “What in the world is going on...?” Quick as a flash she spun around, and was only just able to pick up her shield in time to push off one of the Withered that had been drawn by Illorieth's magic. “Shit! Illorieth, get her free now! Kusu, Jellex, let's hold them off!” Making room for herself, Lucifa established a position with her shield and weapon at the top of the stairs, able to hold off multiple foes by virtue of defending a small space. The sheer number of them pressed on her, though, and it made it difficult for Kusu to help in the close-quarters fight. Rather than any sort of teamwork, it descended into a disorganized brawl, and both of their back-line casters were occupied at the moment.
When Jellex had risen to begin healing Lucifa, tossing aside the last of her ley water, her hand no longer covered Morrigan's mouth, and likewise her soothing holy magic did not flow into the Nightborne any longer. As a consequence, she began to squeal with the most hysterical laughter, eyes bulging wide open and mouth stretched in a forced laugh that erupted from deep within: “NOOHOHOHOHOHEHHEE PLEHEHEHE PLEASE PLEHEHEEEZE ILLORIETH HEHEHEHEH MAKE THEHEHEHEHM STOOHOHOOOPPPP!!” She gasped for air, giggling, and squealed again: “THEHEHEHEHEY'RE IN MYEHEHEHEHEHEH TOEHEHEHEHEHESS STOP STOP NOOEHEHEH NOOOOO!!!” Without physical contact, Jellex could no longer see the vision of Illorieth's ticklish suffering, but the memory was sketched in by the squeals of laughter and the warlock's helpless struggles. “ILLORIETHHEHEHEHE LET MEHEHEHE GO PLEASE!” she begged, straining at the ice that shackled her to the floor.
“Morrigan, Morrigan, come on, calm down, I'm trying to get you out, but if you break those you'll get sucked in and then you'll be in there entirely where we have no idea where you --” She broke off, something tingling at the back of her neck, and her gaze fell on Lucifa. “Lucifa! Look out!”
Even as the paladin raised her shield arm for a block, the mage could see it; a ghostly hand mischievously flexed its fingers, and then darted into the exposed armpit, tickling the blood elf in her soft hollow. Lucifa's whoop and squeal of surprise, and her sudden jerking of her shield back toward her body, protected her from the rushing Withered but allowed one to squeeze past her and charge towards Jellex. It ignored Kusu, the warrior having no magical ability to speak of, but the Troll did not ignore it, and dealt it a savage close-quarters blow. It was more of a punch than a sword strike, however, as the stairway too narrow and the field of battle too crowded for the sweeping berserker strikes she favored. Kusu was no easy meat, but even with a capable fighter behind her, Lucifa was in the unenviable position of being surrounded, having to fight with an enemy in her blind spot and trust Kusu to keep her safe.
The warrior had decided that trying to fight with her weapons in this disadvantageous position was a waste of time, and so dropped her blades, grabbing the emaciated limbs of the Withered and beginning to grapple. Despite the weakness of their physical appearance, the wild husks were driven by madness and hunger, and so fought with a desperate strength that always made them dangerous. With a battle cry, Kusu fought back against the creature, pushed back but then gaining purchase with her toes on the very edge of the step, leaning upward and inadvertently exposing her soles... when from the very stone of the stair sprung a pair of magical, pulsing pinkish hands. “Kusu!” Jellex cried, able to see this danger from behind her, but not in time to intervene before those fingers could scribble on her wide, exposed soles, and send the Troll into a fit of laughter that sapped her strength, allowing the Withered to push her backward, sending her flying into Jellex and tumbling the both of them backward in a tangled heap of limbs. Then it rushed straight for the captive Morrigan, its mouth descending to take a bite of her midsection.
When Jellex heard that terrible scream, in her mind, she knew what had probably happened – a wound right there in the soft flesh of the midsection. But when she heard it again, and then again... it wasn't the usual sound. Tussling with Kusu, trying to get her feet at the same time the warrior tried to do so, she was able to see the Withered gnawing at Morrigan's side, but no blood or visible wounds. The creature looked up at her, and then she understood. Decades of this existence, barely eking out what might be considered life if one were generous, had taken its toll on the body of what had once been a Nightborne. Ragged scraps of clothing, emaciated limbs, wild eyes, tangled and lost hair... and no teeth. The thing was literally gumming at Morrigan's middle and seemed not to understand it no longer had the means to do what it wanted, so instead of a painful, sinking bite... it was more akin to ticklish nibbling, sending the already-tickled warlock into hysterical spasms of laughter. Less dangerous to be sure, but more problematic was the beleaguered Lucifa trying to hold back the tide of Withered. “Help her!” Jellex snapped, rising to her feet. “Lucifa, I'm coming!”
Waves of holy magic rejuvenated the other paladin, giving her the strength to crack a jaw with her mace, and slam her shield into the face of the other. A crunch behind her gave testament to the fact that Kusu, quite irked, had picked up the Withered by the head and slammed it into the wall. “Almost, almost, I've almost got it... there!” Illorieth exclaimed suddenly, and Morrigan was free, rolling onto the stairs, panting, giggling, curled up into a defensive ball. Illorieth, though, was already moving, the mage dressed in little better than scraps at this point as so much of her outfit had given way in the struggles of these godforsaken tunnels. An incantation burst forth from her lips, and she made a sweeping gesture over her head. A moment later, jagged shards of ice rained down on the gathering of Withered that pushed at Lucifa, quickly breaking their assault and scattering those of their number which did not fall under the pelting ice shards. Then she sat down, panting, and caught the ley water Jellex tossed to her, before the holy paladin sat down to guzzle another bottle of the stuff. Good thing she'd stocked up. A fully armored and coordinated group would never require this much healing... usually.
“I think we've found out enough,” Morrigan said, and everyone turned to look at her. “I mean... we've found out that something sinister is afoot down here, and we're ill-equipped to root it out ourselves. We'll need a bigger, more coordinated group. Let's just find our way out of here and let somebody know that something's not right.” After a moment, everyone hesitated, but her words seemed to have a galvanizing effect. The creeping, slow uncertainty from before had been replaced with a sense of purpose. Even if that purpose was effectively to run away, a course of action had been set and agreed upon, and the group rose to their feet, empty bottles clattering to the stone as they were discarded. “I think if we make a right at the room up ahead, and then another left, we'll be at another one of the connecting rooms. From there I think we can make our way back to the main room.”
Even the Withered that inhabited those next two rooms seemed to be defeated easier than before. This was probably true, as they were able to direct the full might of their group against each pack of enemies, and sweeping through another dozen Withered or so, they came to the circular connecting room and turned to take the tunnel which Morrigan thought might lead them back to the surface. No sooner had they gone through the short tunnel, though, than it opened into a gallery, and they realized just how serious the situation was.
No more was the careful if ill-maintained stonework of the Nightborne. Instead, jagged spires of dark green and black rock jutted out from the walls, and pools of green fel energy collected on the floor. “The Legion's work,” Lucifa spat. “You were right. We need to get this information to the city authorities immediately. Follow me, and remember that we've all fought the Legion plenty of times.” Together they descended the staircase, the reek of fel all around them, although strangely there were no demons to be seen. A long gallery stretched for about five minutes' walk before a staircase took them back upwards, and Morrigan paused to read an etching on the side of a stone arch. “Central conduit to the left,” she said triumphantly. “We're almost there.” The group picked up their pace, eager to be out.
“And where do you think you're going, rats?” The voice was female, sneering, demonic. Atop the last flight of stairs they needed to ascend before returning to the central conduit, there stood a shivarra, one of the Legion's six-armed, fearsome tormentors, flanked by two equally dangerous yet much stupider wrathguards, their spiked tails lashing, long and jagged swords held in either hand. Without even a word of reply Lucifa raised her shield and moved forward, Kusu with weapons at the ready and just behind and to the side, Illorieth and Morrigan beginning their incantations, and Jellex –
A cry of surprise made the party turn; from behind, a massive, orange-skinned felguard, hulking muscle and ten feet tall, had flanked them. Jellex, reacting quickly to the threat, had swung her enormous, two-handed warhammer at the demon, but it caught the head of the hammer in one enormous hand and lifted her off the ground, the paladin suddenly dangling by the haft of her own weapon as her feet no longer touched the stone. Worse still, vertical purple bars of energy split the space between Jellex and the rest of the party, and a hooded, purple-robed inquisitor, its fingers skeletal and its grin rictus, managed to give a sinister grin despite lacking the facial muscles to do so. Jellex, not one to give up without a fight, was busy using the momentum to swing from her hammer's haft and use it to drive both feet into the felguard's midsection, but it was like kicking a column of steel. The decorative chain that hung from the end of her weapon jingled, and the inquisitor considered it.
Suddenly that chain moved as if it were alive, and wrapped around Jellex's wrists, effectively tying her wrists to the haft of her weapon. The tall felguard, with the hammerhead still in hand, then lifted it even higher, settling the head into a fissure in the rocks of the wall, and trapping it in there, letting gravity pull it down into the crevice, so Jellex couldn't move it from her position bound to the haft. She kicked her feet helplessly, but even that was swiftly silenced, as a heavy iron ball with a chain on its end wrapped itself around her ankles, tying them together and pulling her legs down, forcing the paladin to stretch out.
“Now, the best way to take care of any pesky group of adventurers is to remove the healer first,” the inquisitor said, its chuckle like a dry rasp of iron against stone. From its outstretched, bony fingers came a beam of purple magic, touching Jellex's forehead, seeking to invade her mind and control her. “Give in. Your companions are helpless before Sister Subversia.”
“Subversia... I've heard about that one.” Morrigan gripped her casting focus tightly, turning to face the six-armed shivarra. “Even among the demons she's notorious for her... bizarre appetites. Her enjoyment of perversion and twisting the minds of mortals until they join her sick harem.” The shivarra before them was, if you ignored the six bladed weapons she held in each of her six hands, actually quite exotic. Her skin was a light purple light that of the Nightborne, and each wrist was adorned with bangles and jewelry, a shapely torso just barely covered by metal and strings strained to the bursting point. Like a succubus, she oozed physical sin, and her laugh seemed to come out in a dark, silken tone, beckoning even as it repelled. “Take her down quickly, before they turn Jellex!”
“I won't... be twisted so easily, Legion scum!” the paladin spat. Before she had focused her holy energies outward, to help her companions, but now she focused them inward, bolstering her own mental resistance to the inquisitor's technique. As much as the Illidari demon hunters were an alliance of convenience, they did offer insight into the Legion's techniques and the chance to train against them, and so this mental assault was not new. Jellex glared at her tormentor, but kept her focus in the Light – “EHEHEHHEHEheheheheheeee!!!”
Her concentration wavered, and she desperately bolstered it, looking down to see what had touched her sides. Pulled taut as they were, they were quite susceptible to the sort of slowly dragging fingertips that she felt, but the surprise of it was that they were not of the ghostly nor of the arcane variety, but rather quite corporeal. They looked female, and moved with considerable dexterity, walking up from her hips to her ribs, then finding her lowest ribs and wiggling hard on them, eliciting a burst of laughter and struggling from the paladin. Where were they – there! Behind Sister Subversia and her two wrathguards, who Lucifa and the party had met in combat, were three Eredar darkcasters. All three were channeling a spell, their hands wreathed in darkness... and those hands were under her arms now, tickling those pulled-taut armpits, scratching lightly and wearing down her resistance with those soft touches. The third pair tickled along her hips and teased her waist, then tickled hard at her firm sides... Jellex's laughter rose higher, to a squeal like that her companions had let loose, and even as she fought to maintain her concentration, she felt a sudden twinge in her lower abdomen as she started to laugh, and it sent such a shock through her mental state that the inquisitor noticed. But it was somehow the voice of one of the female Eredar that whispered in her ear, as those fingers focused cruelly on her sides: “Had a few too many drinks, paladin?”
Her stoic facade cracked.
“HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEH HURRY!” she screamed with laughter, as the tickling hands tormented her torso, dancing all thirty fingers upon her sensitive sides, the visage of the cool and collected combat veteran shattered and broken. The howl of laughter distracted her party members for a moment, who were obviously not sure what to make of this sudden cry of distress. But Jellex wasn't sure if her mind would bear up under the strain of this ticklish torture and the humiliation that lurked within her. Suddenly the pressure of the inquisitor's magic seemed overbearing, impossible to resist, and though she frantically threw herself into the defense, the wiggling and pinching of those two hands at her sides was wearing rapidly at her. “PLEHEHEHEHEHEH EHEHEHEHEH PLEHEHEHEE PLEASE I CAHHAHEHEH AI HAHEHEH IAHAHEH I CAN'T!”
The sudden shift disconcerted Lucifa, who let her guard down for a moment – and found her wrists grabbed by the shivarra and pushed away from her body, exposing Lucifa to a quick tickling around her midsection, causing her to stagger back as Subversia had to let go to parry Kusu's leaping attack. Crafty and dexterous as she was, she used her six limbs to manipulate the leaping Troll's momentum, first pushing her back in midair, causing her to start moving backwards, but also rotating her upper body away from the shivarra. This flipped Kusu over, and when her legs came within reach, Subversia's upper set of arms snagged her ankles, and pulled the Troll towards her, putting her feet to either side of her head and holding them there. Then, her lowest set of arms was able to grab Kusu's arms, and as a result, Kusu was held upside-down, facing her party, and serving as a sort of living shield for the shivarra. But her middle set of arms was still free, and attacked the Troll's vulnerable ribs, tickling high up onto her ribcage and onto the undersides of her breasts. “NYAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHAH! HAHAHAHAHHEHEHEHE!!!” Kusu squealed, trying to pull free of the demon's grip, and causing her companions to stop attacking while they tried to deal with this sneaky tactic.
Jellex was hysterical. The unceasing tickling on her sides had doubled – one pair of hands tickled up near her ribs, and the other to either side of her bellybutton, while the third set focused on her waist, hips, and thighs, leading her to wiggle hopelessly as she dangled from the haft of her own weapon. Worse still were the growing danger signs within her lower abdomen, warning her that if this tickling continued, she was going to humiliate herself, yet there was nothing she could do to make it stop – her only hope was to endure and wait for her companions to finish their fight. The fingertips of the Eredar darkcasters, able to move freely within their portals of dark magic, pressed their fingertips into her abdominal muscles, wiggling deep and hard, poking a fingertip deep into her stretched-out navel and exploring its depths, sometimes going back up to those outstretched armpits and bringing forth gales of laughter from the trapped paladin.
Kusu was equally hysterical. The ticklish touches on her torso had her struggling wildly to break free from Subversia's grip, and she fought madly for purchase somewhere, to get some leverage. She finally was able to find it by putting her hands on the shivarra's thighs, and waiting for a moment when she adjusted her grip, pushing off her thighs and yanking her ankles free of the demon's hands, tumbling away and springing back up into a fighting stance. Seizing upon the opening, Illorieth directed a bolt of pure cold energy at the demon, staggering her back, and giving Lucifa some room to engage the two wrathguards, who fought without strategy but harried her with continual blows against her shield. “Focus on these two!” Lucifa yelled. “They'll go down faster!” She pushed one off of her and then stunned the second with a bolt of holy energy, staggering the brutal demon backwards and creating an opening for Kusu to fly in with a flurry of blades – moving to block Subversia from further interference.
Jellex's pleas grew more desperate. “IEHHEHAAHAHAHEHEHEH I CAHAHEHEH I CAN'T TAHEHEHEHEHH TAKE IT!” she howled, and as her defenses weakened, the inquisitor was able to seep its influence into her mind. Not yet fully, not yet making her a minion of the Legion to obey blindly, but insidious whispers and images filled her mind. Images of terrors, of demons, of imprisonment seemed to meet strong pushback from her mind, mental reflexes helping to keep her safe, but thoughts of rushing water distracted her, scattered her efforts, made her more vulnerable... The feminine voices of the Eredar taunted her, their fingertips relentless. The ticklish touches dug deep into her sensitive sides, tickling them to a nice shade of pink, working at her ticklish flesh and never giving her a moment's respite. The paladin tossed her head back and howled, then touched her chin to her chest, shaking her head back and forth wildly. It was the only part of her body that she could move, and that only served to emphasize her powerlessness.
“Tickle, tickle...” the feminine voices giggled. “Silly mortals don't know what's best for them. Why, you can't even manage the most basic of functions for civilized existence... just open your mind and let us take care of it. We know better. We know what you need to do...” Jellex struggled against the demands on her attention. So many things needed her focus. Her thoughts were so scattered, and it was only by reflex that she was able to maintain her resistance to the mind-bending magic that was so cruelly teasing her. Indeed, the demons were cruel...
“HEHEHEHHEEHHEHEELP! HEHEHEH HEHEHEH PLEASE! HEHEHEH PLEASE HURRY! HEHEHEH PLEASE PLEASE PLEHEHEHAHAHAH NOHAHAHAH NONO NHAHHAAH NO PLEASE PLEASE....!” She couldn't even see how the battle was going. Was that one of the wrathguards defeated? Please, please say that it was... she was losing her mind! Her belly was so exposed to those cruel tickling hands, her armpits getting tormented now and again, her waist and hips, but that nonstop torture of her ticklish belly and sides, tight abdominal muscles... Thoughts whirred through her mind constantly, and each time she tried to drag them back to the very important matter of resistance, they scattered after a few seconds. “Nohoho, noho, ahah, ahaha, AHAHHAhahahaha no nonononono....!”
“Hang on, hang on...” Lucifa muttered grimly. She was on the back foot for sure; though her gambit had opened the way to the defeat of one wrathguard, and Kusu was able to fend off the other to create openings for the casters, Subversia fought dirty. Any time her arms moved a fraction too far in the defense, she could count on a tickling, and the sudden jolts of ticklishness from her midriff had her on edge, too nervous about every strike instead of letting herself get into the flow of combat. The sinister grin from the voluptuous demon made the blood elf paladin grit her teeth in frustration, and she tried to gather her focus from behind her shield...
“Got it!” Kusu yelled triumphantly, whirling almost immediately from the attack that felled the second wrathguard into the attack on Sister Subversia, coming in on the flank and allowing Lucifa a much needed rest. Then, to Jellex: “Hang on tight, Jellex! We're comin' to help!” The tide of battle had turned; now the shivarra was on the defensive, having to use her six weapons to turn aside spell and blade, unable to harass and tease Lucifa in the midst of the fight.
“THEHHEEHHEHEEHHE EREDAHAHHAHAHAHR!” Jellex cried desperately, the hope she felt from the wrathguard's falling tempered by her own feeling of teetering on the edge. If they could remove that distraction... “STOOEHEHEH STOP EHEHEHEH STOP THEHHEEM!” But, either they couldn't hear her, or Subversia was too great a threat in their eyes; the Eredar tickled her unrestricted, and focused all their torments now on her sides, from ribs to hips one long line of wiggling, pressing fingertips that were driving her to the edge...
“Tickle, tickle, tickle... even if your friends win, we'll make you ours...”
“NOOOHOHO! NOOHEHEHEHEH! NOOOHOHOO!!!”
“You're about to break...”
“Nohoho... no please, no, no, oh please, please, PLEASE, PLEASE...!!!”
“Nowhere to run...”
“PLEHEHEHEHEEEEEEZE...!”
Her mind seemed to swirl, darkness creeping in at the edges of her vision, a rush of conflicting, powerful emotions all seeming to whirl around tighter and tighter, until they came together in a point, one long, horrifying point when time seemed to slow, her mind growing hazy, shame and helplessness welling up within her, sanity seeming to be sucked out of her head by the demon's spell. Desperately she fought for that Light, the source of her strength, her resistance, but she could find it nowhere in the confusing welter of sensations that burned through her body. Was this what it was like to lose yourself? To see the last bits of your being washed away in the face of fel magic? Obviously you couldn't ask anyone who had lost themselves in this way that question... doubtless, they didn't remember. Jellex couldn't help but feel, as she reached her limit, that this experience would never leave her, that no matter what happened, it would stay with her somehow. Maybe she could hang on to something, in some corner of her mind, the voices of her companions that even now seemed to be fading away, calling out to her as she descended into the pool of darkness, the darkness that was covering her vision...
...covering her vision....
….covering...?
Jellex's eyes shot open as if she were waking from a dream, and there she was, on the floor, her arms and sides aching, surrounded by the concerned-looking faces of her companions. “What...?” she managed to croak, still disoriented in the extreme.
“We pressed her hard enough that she fled,” Lucifa explained. “Once they saw that she'd run away, her minions ran too, and we were worried that the inquisitor had gotten to you, but...” She smiled. “It seems like you're okay.”
Jellex felt at her face, then her head. It was a silly thing to do, she knew, but she did it anyway. Everything seemed to be in place. “Thank... the Light,” she murmured. Then she caught Morrigan tactfully averting her eyes for a moment, and a feeling of shame flooded Jellex's body, turning her face fire-red. “Let's.... let's get out of here,” she said, rising on shaky legs.
One by one, the rest followed. The demonic invasion had been thwarted.
So why didn't it feel like a victory?
