The group now finds itself in a strange place, a land with a pitch black sky populated by dark red clouds that seems to be the stuff of nightmares. A red sun gives some hallowed light to the valley. The soil is composed of burning rock formations and ash, rising in thousands of black spikes as tall as a man which twist as they sprout smaller spikes. The whole valley looks as if a torrent of lava had been frozen in time and cooled down into rock. Dominating the valley is a tall tower, carved out of a gigantic black rock spike, it bends and twists as all others, but in a scale and form that seem to be impossible. Lying on the floor, they slowly regain conciousness, amongst them, a winged girl who was not with the group to start with.

---

Rumiko slowly sat down as she rubbed her eyes, waking up from the strange dream. "What the.." she murmured as she saw the valley, the spiked rocks raising everywhere. "I hope this one isn't a dream again" she complained to herself, thinking this was the strangest thing she had ever experienced in her life. Rumi looked around her to check on the rest of the group. She saw everyone seemed to be alright, the only one missing was that bat guy and now there was this winged girl there. Maybe she knew anything about this place? "Hey, wake up" she said loud.

Ortho slowly woke to Rumiko's voice. Her last statement struck his ears like metal against a stone. "Ugh... mmm... Miss Rumiko?" he asked, pushing himself to a kneeling position, "Guess I did find you after all." As the priest looked around himself, he saw the nightmare and commented, "From a dream to a nightmare. Poetic, but disliked."

Letting out a faint groan, Mayuri stirred into a sitting position. Slowly opening her eyes, she remained silent as the hazardous scenery puzzled her. Rumiko's voice was the main thing that caused her to snap back to reality. Turning to look at the new people around her, she almost bounced to her feet before a slight dizziness stuck her. Spreading her arms and wings out a little to keep her balance, she took a step back and brought a hand over to her face. "Wh-where am I?"

Stirring from his unconscious state, Camus's eyes unsteadily opened and stared up at an apocalyptic sky, a vision which closely resembled what he imagined hell to look like. With a bit of effort, the Paladin grunted and lifted himself up from off the ground with the aid of his preferred weapon, Cross Redemption. Staring about at the wasteland all around him, he groaned and rubbed his forehead with his free hand, all the while saying aloud, "What matter of joke is this?"

Lying on its stomach, Vineg started coming around and it heard Rumiko speak, though it really couldn't care less about that. It felt pretty mad at the encounter with a freak Non'rid, but as it opened its eyes, it mostly forgot about that as well as everything else and stared at the scenery. It lifted itself first to its knees, then legs and finally feet. Standing up, Vineg just gazed at the landscape, somehow finding it very nice indeed. Looking at the tower, it couldn't help but be reminded of the Tower of Eola it had once briefly seen and admire the architecture. Only after that did it remember to check on its equipment and condition. Its attention didn't, however, span further than its own self for the moment and it seemed like Vineg didn't even remember that the others were there, not hearing them speak as it kept on gazing at the tower and recalling what it had read about the Scepter of the Stilled Eye. Could the Scepter have taken it to the plane of darkness? Thinking about that, it tried to recall what else it had studied of the plane of darkness and whether it would even be possible for it to be there. (Knowledge)

Since no one had ever been known to actually go to the plane of darkness, Vineg's knowledge did not help it.

Slowly crawling back to reality, Kei'rin lay still and kept her eyes closed. Though, already Rumiko's first remark caught her attention and she sat up, blinking her eyes open. She stared at the infernal scenery wide open in front of her and slapped her hand against her forehead. "I sure as hell hope this is just another bad dream", she lamented, checking her own condition. Despite the ominous surroundings, she was happy to have functional legs again. Even the smell of her dried blood on her shirt was more pleasant than the one of zombies in her dream. She got up on her feet and noticed Clíodhna's absence... and the new Hauken that now replaced him. Before thinking much further, she snapped at her: "Who are you?"

Mayuri slowly observed the group near her in the order they spoke. Her eyes followed off from Ortho to Camus before she finally noticed Vineg. "You!" She let out rather loudly before covering her mouth with both hands, figuring that might not have been such a good idea. she still held some fear towards the Eolan Planetarii due to the last encounter she remebered having in the dream. Shaking off some of the fear, she slid her hands off her face. "What have you done to Clíodhna you... you MONSTER!" She let out, fully ignoring Kei'rin's own question. "Where is he and what is this damned place!? Bring me back where you took me!" She finally let out, her mind still attached to the fake reality of the dream. Almost running over to it, she placed her hands in its shoulder and forced it to turn and face her as she spoke. "Stop pretending I'm not here!"

After Mauyri had shouted for a while, Vineg started acknowledging it and realizing that it might be a good idea to check what the others were doing. Vineg only understood the last two of her sentences and didn't really have time to prepare yet for anything, so it merely attempted to slap and push the hauken away when she turned it. "What the heck? Who are you?" it said spontaneously, seeing an unfamiliar face. However, after eyeing the others and realizing who was missing, it looked back at Mayuri and said, half joking and half serious: "...Did Clíodhna rejuvenate and change sex?"

"Great, another villain." Ortho commented, "I had hoped that the bat was purified into a Hauken true." After lifting himself completely onto his feet, the priest looked around at the numbers and counted to see how many survived the encounter. "Let's see... Kei'rin, Vineg, Rumi, Camus... Me." he sounded out, and then brushed off his white robes with some disgust. "Somehow, I think the dream might have been better." he said, imagining his life with the two kids and wife he had, "Good to see everyone alive." Pacifism was his nature, and so the priest instinctively placed his Antanukas between Vineg and the new arrival among them, "I know it is a dastardly character, but you need not exact anger upon Vineg. Instead, bless us with the knowledge of the name of our new encounter, and perhaps this hellish place we are surrounded by?"

Mayuri let out a light hiss as she jumped back when Vineg turned around to slap and push her back. She didn't understand what was really going on. She wondered why Vineg didn't even recognize her and really didn't seem to have a clue where Clíodhna really was. Taking another step back when Ortho approached and placed his staff between her and Vineg, she looked over to him. Why were they even assuming she knew where they were? One minute she was in her homeland and the next she finds herself surrounded by a group of stranger in some place worst than what she imagine hell as being like. "I... My name is Mayuri." Giving a glance to the scenery once more, she looked back at Ortho. "I don't know where we are or anything about this place."

"Ah, civilized conversation. Pleasant." Ortho smiled, glad that the newcomer did not try to feebly attempt to shred him apart. "You must be like us then, a victim of circumstance." the Priest began to related to the hauken, "So, miss Mayuri, how did you come into contact with the scepter? Was it before or after us? Do you know what happened to... the bat-thing?" Ortho was having memory trouble with names, especially to those he did not talk to regularly.

As Ortho engaged in conversation with the newcomer, Camus looked about the valley with a frown on his face. Noticing that his trusted warhorse, Octavio, was not with them, the Paladin slowly strode about the place, keeping his eyes peeled for any sign of life besides that of the group he was with.

Camus slowly walked down the small hill the group had awoken on, but suddenly a tremendous amount of pressure on his chest caused the Paladin to fall to his knees, it felt like he had been hit on the chest by a battering ram. He half turned, only to notice Ortho seemed to be going through the same thing. An amount of black magic so powerful seemed to be emerging from the tower in the middle of the valley it was actually having physical effects on Ortho and Camus. Further down the hill and as the pressure eventually disappeared as a heartburn would, Camus noticed several dozen bodies strewn across the base of the hill, it seemed like two groups had clashed in battle. This was easy to see for a seasoned warrior due to the distribution on the bodies. Marks on the ground and broken black stone spikes indicated powerful spellcasting also took place in the small battle. But what Camus noticed above everything else was that those involved in the battle all seemed to have been undead at the time.

"Scepter?" Mayuri didn't have time to answer the rest of Ortho's questions before she noticed the priest seemed like he was in rather serious pain. Standing there and starring rather blankly for a few seconds she crouched down to the man's level. "Are you alright, sir?" She asked calmly, looking over to the other members of the group.

Vineg looked at Mayuri slightly confused, but focused soon more on Ortho. As he mentioned about the dream, Vineg thought about it for about two seconds before pushing it aside. It had thought enough in the dream already, no need to do that again. "Bat-thing? His name was Clíodhna", Vineg said, not sounding too appreciative of Ortho forgetting his name. "Don't poke that thing into my face", it added, referring to his staff, just before he started to collapse along with Camus who had walked further. It couldn't help but grin a little as it felt good at seeing them suffer – at last they would get some of what they deserved for what they had done to it, even though it wasn't by Vineg's own hand. "If I had to guess, I'd say we're in the plane of Darkness", Vineg said then, patting Ortho on the head. "Or some extremely obscure place in Lemire, who knows."

"How are your wounds?" Ortho asked Vineg with some disdain for the Eolan's treatment of the priest while in his moment of pain, "Certainly your body cannot take too much more punishment. Must be difficult without the favor of a healer." As Ortho slowly recovered from the experience, he looked back onto Mayuri, "Fine. Miss, do you know of the scepter?" The priest set his staff to the ground, placing most of his weight on it to support himself as he continued to recover. Ortho further ignored the Eolan, obviously it was not appreciative that the preist was keeping it from unnecessary conflict with the Hauken.

Mayuri shook her head to Ortho's question. "I have no clue what you speak of." She responded calmly, looking up at Vineg. Confusion struck her once more as everyone seemed to refer to Clíodhna as the bat-thing. "Why are you calling Clíodhna a bat-thing? He has no fianity with any bat creatures." She turned her head to look back at Ortho, somewhar directiong his question more to him than Vineg despite Vineg seeming as if it knew Clíodhna more.

"I never knew him." Ortho replied to Mayuri, "Never got the time to know him." As the priest muscled himself to full stance, he took a deep breath and looked for Camus. The Paladin must have gone through the same pain, as he and Ortho were near brothers at arms. "Miss Mayuri, how did you get here? And how well do you know Clíodhna?" he asked, not facing the Hauken directly.

Rumiko stood up and shook the dirt off her clothes. She looked around at the strange place and cared little for the discussion between the hauken girl and Ortho. She was disappointed Vineg did survive the dream, and would had acted as Mayuri did and face it now, if it wasn't for the feeling it knew something of this horrible place. The only clear thing in her mind was that she wanted to get out of this place soon, specially after seeing Camus and Ortho seemed to be reacting to something that was there. "Who cares how did she get here? The question is how do we get out" she said without even turning her face to Ortho. She approached the place where Camus was standing. "Are you alright?" she asked the paladin.

"Mm." Camus grunted as he picked himself up from the ground, "I'm fine." Feeling the pain recede, the paladin gazed at the numerous bodies strewn about the valley with a seemingly impassive stare, though curiousity and a bit of dread were hidden deep within him. After a moment of silence, he quietly spoke to the Xiadomian, "A battle of undead had taken place here; dark magic was casted here and there, as well. We can either investigate the battlefield below, wander aimlessly through this cursed land, or..." At this, he smirked gruffly, "plan a visit to that tower there. What do you propose?"

Mayuri was about to reply to Ortho when Rumiko interrupted her. Giving a light frown, she stood up and eyed the Xiadomian woman for a brief instant. "Haven't you ever heard the saying where there is a way in there's a way out?" She countered, quickly returning her attention on Ortho. "As much as I would love to fill you in with detail as to how I got here, the last I remember is being assaulted by a strange creature and finally blacking out to find myself waking up here. My thoughts are still clouded with some confusion as to what happened though. As for Clíodhna, we are childhood friends. I believe that alone might explain how well we know each other. I still have been given no explanation as to why you name him a bat-thing though." she seemed to have finally rid herself of her hesitation as she spoke, he eyes wandering back to Camus and Rumiko as she spoke. "Also," she added, "Would you mind letting me know your name, sir?"

"The tower looks intriguing" said Rumi to Camus while crossing her arms over her chest. "I'd say we should take a look at it... see if we find anything" she added, then turned to look at the group. She shook her head slightly thinking of the discussions that were going to follow now in this uneven party. Reluctant to talk much, as usual, she gazed the tower, studying it from the distance.

"Ortho D'Artagmion" the priest answered Mayuri, "I call Clíodhna a bat, because he was such. At least in appearance to resembling a bat." With a finicky brush of his cloaks, Ortho sighed at how dirty he was. With no water in sight, he decided that he would have to endure a grungy appearance for a little while. "Yes Camus." the priest called out in sarcasms, "Let's go towards the big, dark, evil tower in the distance. Looks like it will be fun, especially since these ravaged undead seem like they tried the same thing." In seriousness, Ortho looked at the bodies and asked rhetorically, "What would drive them to fight each other? What would cause them to contest their own?"

Vineg looked at Ortho for a while as he inquired about its wounds. "I asked you for healing in the cave and you would not heal me. Why would I have thought that you would heal me now?" it said, sounding slightly annoyed. "Just for the record, I doubt you have any idea how much punishment my body has received along the way. The scars you see are only a fraction of it. Sure I feel bad but I don't seem to be in immediate danger", it added, rubbing its chest and then spreading its scarred arms which were the only part of its body exposed at the moment. "But if you can bring yourself to it, I won't say no for healing. I might be suspicious of the effect of using white magic here though, if this place is indeed the plane of Darkness." It then listened for a while as the others spoke and was close to drifting to just stare at the landscape again since the others didn't address it. It knew it was the one of them (besides Mayuri apparently) who knew most of Clíodhna, however little that was. It also overheard Camus, and then Ortho's comments about the undead, and though it had its own little ideas and guesses about the reasons for everything, it didn't speak about them, mostly because it didn't really care and because the others weren't asking it for any input. It then remembered the book Clíodhna had clung to and looked around for it in the immediate surroundings. (Search, spot)

With a quick glimpse at the area, Vineg quickly located the dusty legder lying on the ground on the spot where Mayuri had been.

Vineg smiled to itself as it saw the book and went over to pick it up. "Well, let's see what was it with this thing." It turned the book around in its hands a few times and inspected it in no hurry.

Kei'rin listened to the other's conversations half-heartedly and insepcted the surroundings, especially the black spikes and their thorns. She almost freaked out when she saw Camus and Ortho suddenly in pain, though, but did nothing as it was over soon enough. Seeing Vineg picking up a familiar ledger, she walked over to em and eyed the book curiously. "Well, are you going to open it?"

Camus turned to Ortho as the priest spoke and let out a simple "Hmph" before quietly replying to both Ortho and Rumi, "The source of this carnage perhaps lies in there somewhere." The paladin indicated toward the tower with Cross Redemption, "We have little other alternative for travel besides getting ourselves hopelessly lost in this valley. I will have to agree with Rumiko here in entering that structure, though I pray we do not experience the same thing that happened to both of us, Ortho." Upon finishing speaking, Camus gazed at the others. Ignoring Vineg and Kei'rin momentarily, he finally noticed the new presence of Mayuri and frowned in puzzlement, but otherwise said nothing.

"Resembling a bat...?" Mayuri repeated in a whisper as Ortho finally turned his attention over to Camus. Simply standing there and staring blankly as her mind went over all the strange information she'd been receiving since the first appearance of Vineg in what she was starting to acknowledge as being a dream. Noticing Vineg move, she stepped back a little, not wanting to get too close to it and watched it as it picked up the strange ledger. As much as she had never seen the book in her life, she couldn't help the strange feeling she had towards it. Standing still, she eyed the two as the inspected the ledger, giving a momentary glance at the rest of the group before returning her attention on the ledger. She still didn't quite understand what was going on and had no clue where to go and what to do next. She didn't even know who to trust and who to be cautious of.

Since nothing seemed to happen while Vineg handled the book, it thought it would be safe to try to read it. Ey shot a slightly suggestive glance at Kei'rin and said: "I advice against trying everything right at the moment of discovery." Vineg sounded like ey was referring to something else, like ey was, but the issue still applied to the book as well. Vineg opened the book from the beginning then to see what was written there.

Vineg opened the book, but found the pages worn and empty. The dark magic he had previously detected in the book could not be felt anymore. Vineg reckoned, however, it was due to the magically charged air in this strange landscape, rather than the book not being magical anymore.

"Ah Camus, the rock beneath our feet." Ortho smirked, "Good thing the waves part before you, erosion is a terrible fate." The priest felt it necessary to walk over to the Paladin, since Mayuri had no further questions and it seemed Ortho could gather nothing more from conversation with her about this area. "The Eolan speaks of this as a dark plane." Ortho said to both Camus and Rumiko, "I'm beginning to believe it, I've not seen the likes of this darkness since..." The priest quickly removed the thought from his mind before another flashback took on, he was needed to be as stewalt as Camus in this region. Thankfully the Paladin's fearlessness was contagious to the priest.

Rumiko was actually glad Camus agreed with her, her face, though, didn't move a milimeter from her stoic expression. She listened to Ortho speak. "You're right" she said to the priest, then turned to face Vineg. "Speak, eolan. Do you know anything of this place?" she asked, her face cold as ever.

Vineg started getting slightly irritated at Ortho's babble, and finding the book pretty much useless didn't help eir mood. Ey put the book in eir backpack anyway – there could never be too many extraordinary items around. Not approving of the way the humans talked to em, Vineg stared at Rumiko for a short moment, not answering her question. Instead, ey turned to look at Mayuri and recalled what she had last said. "He did indeed have bat-like wings, why, I don't know. What happened to him anyway?" asked Vineg, still seeming annoyed.

Watching the group as they went about after realizing the book wasn't all that extraordinary, Mayuri let out a sigh. She turned back to pay attention to Vineg when it addressed her, answering her last question. "What… ?" she whispered in a confused tone, brining a hand up and looking down. "That's impossible." She added, looking back at Vineg on its question. "I don't know… I… he…" Shaking her head, she bit on her lower lip. "I don't know." Repeating herself, she finally turned her attention over to Camus, Ortho and Rumi and walked over to join them. She had no choice, but to do so if she wanted to get out of here and return home.

Ortho blinked impatiently. His eyes passed from Camus, to Rumiko, and then to the recent encounter, Mayuri. Kei'rin was likely nearby, but the priest thought if it gave her too much attention that she might empathize with him and follow the priest home once they did exit this wretched place. Vineg was a constant thorn in everyone's side, and did not bother to change that fact, thus was unworthy of Ortho's gaze. Ortho managed a smile, taking in some of the humor at everyone's pause. "North, West, South, East..." he said, and then pointed the Antanukas towards the tower in the distance, "Directions are not as important as the destination. Why look to the forest when the path is easily tread?"

"Fine", said Rumiko after Ortho's words, turning her back to Vineg. "We sould get moving then", she suggested, unwilling to think much about the matter. She had given up understanding what was going on around and concentrate on getting out of there soon. She eyed the tower in the distance, and tried to figure out the fastest way to get there.

Simply shrugging off Vineg's retort, Kei'rin moved away from em. She set her gaze on Camus' face for the while when the others were continuing their banter about Clíodhna and the dark tower. Unlike Rumiko, she didn't stop for consideration, just started off (though cautiously) for the tower. "Ah well, I ain't gonna stay and rot here. Rather there in the tower."

Vineg looked confusedly at Mayuri, but then eir expression went blank and instead ey just looked around. Seeing everyone just turn away and leave em be, Vineg thought it was a mixed blessing. On the other hand ey was glad they didn't seem to want to bother em and ey hated the way they treated em with complete disdain, but it was probably just to treat em worse when they next acknowledged eir existence. Ey still wondered why they had to behave so hard-assedly, since by eir standards ey had been neutral initially and even most of time. Were they really not better than that? Nevertheless, ey knew none of this thinking would make them act any differently, and they had proved on several occasions that they would not listen to em in the first place, so it was all an exercise in futility. Vineg looked at the backs of the others, wondering whether they'd let em walk behind them. On the other hand it would be safer in the middle of them. Vineg sighed in silent frustration and instead decided to make an experiment of sorts, calling forth Sean's power as if casting a spell, to see what would happen. (detect magic?)

Once more, Vineg confirmed what it had known from the beggining, the place was completely filled with black magic, not only the black magic one might find in places of corruption, but residual magic from spellcasting.

Sensing Kei'rin's gaze on him, Camus looked over impassively as she slowly went ahead of the group. After quickly eyeing the others in silence, his gaze holding onto the newcomer the longest, the Paladin rolled his shoulders a few times before following the Hydran girl.

Ortho diligently followed Rumiko and Camus, and smiled shortly at Kei'rin's advance. With a cough, his expression turned back into the stoic, yet admirable and priestly scowl. Secretly he hoped Vineg would follow, as the only remaining corrupted creature in the group it would seem that his senses would be the best in the tower. Ortho clapped a fist into his hand and said, "Right." Though the statement was out of the blue, it signalled his need to work on temperance, and with a kind gesture he turned towards the Eolan, "Come Vineg, we'll need your... talents. I'd also like to get a closer look at those wounds of yours, if you'll trust a healer's hands that is."

Seeing the others move off without paying em too much attention, Vineg too started to walk toward the tower after the others, glancing behind emself every now and then and rolling eir eyes in the meantime. Ey didn't pay attention to Ortho until he said eir name, and right after that ey looked at him confused as he said his last words. Vineg didn't really know how to reply to the apparent friendliness, so ey went for the neutral tone as ey said: "I do in fact trust you to heal, but as I said before, I'm not sure what kind of effect white magic will have here. I suppose we should just get it over with. Of course you could do what I just did and call forth your god's power carefully to test it." Vineg shrugged and glanced around again, walking closer to Ortho.

Rumi walked with the group in silence, thinking about the strange dream that had brought her to this dark plane, and wondered if this was another kind of test. She didn't believe much in fate, but in the power of each person to forge their own destiny. Still, she couldn't stop thinking there must be something that wanted them to be there. Why exactly her, or Camus or Vineg or any of these people? She sighed and eyed the tower, as if trying to discover an answer.

Ortho gave a relaxed laughter towards Vineg, "You are correct, but I can still examine your wounds without using magic." The priest then held his hand at his mouth to whisper over great distance, "To be truthful I would rather have good Camus test white magic first." Ortho then opened his arms to Vineg and nearly threatened to hug the corrupted Eolan, but instead went back to his usual tone with only a smile in difference, "In this dark place, even you are a glimmer of light. However greyed that light may be."

"Right..." replied Vineg, getting yet a few more steps closer. Ey grinned quite widely at the priest's next comment and, as he opened up his arms in a bad omen of hugging, Vineg jolted a step further. Ey did, however, see the hilarity and let out a short laugh. "Eola!" ey exclaimed. "Aren't you an unpredictable one. Well, take a look if you will." Vineg opened eir armor from the front, revealing eir old and gray but bloody tunic and the wounds under it. Vineg smirked a bit and went on: "Black and white are just shades of gray. I prefer color." For a moment, Vineg pondered that great revelation before adding: "But you are right, the shades of gray are relative to their surroundings and one another."

"That is quite a wound." Ortho replied after examining the amount of blood on the tunic, "We'll need to get that looked, perhaps when we find out if white magic is safely used here. I think we should try to stay as invisible as possible, not easy for those in white robes here it seems." The priest did not hug Vineg, but patted the Eolan on the shoulder instead. "Color, something that separates the present from the memory. Or so, my memory is in nothing but shades of contrast." he continued with a smile but then paused and mumbled, "Exception of Red, mind you. But even red is a color skewed to darkness, as blue and violet are to lightness." The priest then walked with Vineg, as he could offer the warriors in the front little help and could become a burden if ambushed among them.

Vineg nodded briefly at Ortho – ey pretty much agreed and didn't have anything to add. Ey gave half a smile at the pat on eir shoulder, maybe there was yet hope, though Camus would probably butt in to ruin everything over and over again. Vineg then closed up eir armor and glanced around just in case – better safe than sorry indeed. Listening to the priest's babble, ey couldn't help but wonder a bit what the heck was going on in his head. With the half of a smile still on eir face, Vineg asked: "You do not remember color?"

"Memory of events and objects differ." Ortho said, and then added, "If you take light literally, nothing truly has a color to claim for its own. Merely the interpretation of one's eyes." As a priest, Ortho was scholarly and as a user of white magic he understood the nature of light well. Though certainly not as well as a sun magic or red magic user might understand it. "Color is what it is, even if it does not literally exist it certainly does figuratively." he smiled in return to Vineg, and then began to look around. He asked a question to the Eolan that he had done before, but the priests earlier rudeness caused the conversation to die before taking wing, "What opinions or thoughts have you about this place? Where might we be?"

Vineg listened to Ortho and tried to make sense of his words – certainly ey was smart, but eir smarts were mostly of the street rather than book type, though ey had heard much of the planetarii myths when ey had managed to spend time with other planetarii – something that Ortho most likely didn't know at all. Vineg grinned at the thought of that, but didn't manage to think of a reply before the next question which pushed aside the other subject since it was that much more easily answerable. "I rather like the architecture", it said with a grin, but then went on to say something more meaningful: "The Spectre of the Stilled Eye, the one we touched in that cave, isn't really supposed to exist in our world, but in the plane of darkness." Vineg still wondered what the false reality was supposed to signify and didn't specifically want to talk about it, so ey didn't bother to even mention it. "It's also a transportation device, so I'm fairly sure we've been moved somewhere – be it the plane of darkness itself or a corrupted place in Lemire. Surely you can feel this place is just full of black magic. I have no idea where on Lemire a place like this could exist but I'm also skeptical as to whether we could really exist in one single element plane." Finishing eir explanation, Vineg couldn't help feeling an upsurge in eir ego, imagining how the others had to trust in em. Of course ey showed no sign of this – it was merely a thing eir upbringing had pretty much programmed into em and generally something that made em feel better.

Mayuri trying to let her mind run through the scenario over and over, trying to find a clue as to where she was, followed the group and quietly listened to Vineg's explanation. However, she stuck with Ortho and Rumi, who seemed to be the people with whom she felt most comfortable at the moment. "So... if I get this right, you people were transported here by some dark artifact... along wth Cliodhna... but he disappeared during the journey and now I'm here?...." she said, her voice betraying lack of belief in the words that were coming out of her mouth. "This looked like it was going to be such a nice day this morning... and now..."

The group slowly made their way down the hill where they had first appeared, towards the bodies of the undead creatures they had spotted at the top. Upon reaching the bottom of the hill, they spotted a direct path leading to the tower that dominated the landscape. Observing the bodies, the group made an interesting discovery though, only half of the bodies seemed to have been undead, most likely zombies, given the state of decomposition. The other half were very humanoid, but they lacked any discernable head, their skins were black, leathery and filled with ridges, pus oozed from white sores on the creatures' skins, and their arms and legs were very thin and long, contrasting with the large round stomachs on their torsos. Instead of a head the creatures had just a pair of large jaws, and were eyeless.

Always the daredevil, Mayuri's curiosity won over her fear. Neither Niphoreans nor Hauken used black magic, and they did not raise undead, hence, Mayuri simply believed the zombies had died long ago, which would explain the current state of their bodies. The other creatures, however, immediately drew her attention. "What are those?!" she said, coming from behind Ortho and Rumiko and approaching the corpses.

Vineg glanced at Mayuri, but since she apparently had got it right, ey didn't really have anything to say to her, so ey turned back. Walking not too far from Ortho, ey now paid more attention to the pile of zombie-looking things as ey saw them more clearly. Ey immediately started wondering what they were, edging carefully closer to examine them (and their equipment) better. (Knowledge)

Eyes narrowing as he slowly neared the battlefield, Camus made a face of silent disgust as unpleasant memories resurfaced in his mind. "Those things", he said aloud, "are grotesque atrocities known as Hellspawned. They are supposedly rare creatures; only the most powerful black mages can summon these perverse beings, or so I've heard." The paladin frowned as he said this, remembering his previous encounter with said monsters several years ago, "I had hoped never to encounter these creatures again, but it seems fortune is not so kind to me." Further nearing the valley of corpses, he gazed about in slight confusion and worry, having pushed back the images of the past from the forefront of his thoughts, "Was this a result of strife among divided factions? Or merely a sadistic experiment?"

"That's it, more or less" Rumiko answered to Mayuri's theory. "We didn't get to know your friend much. Somehow you seem to have switched places with him" she said, trying to find some logic in the whole situation. She continued to walk and look at the dead creatures around, hoping they wouldn't suddenly awake or something of the sort. She looked at Camus as he spoke, suddenly glad he was there and seemed to know something. She didn't say anything to his last questions, and continued walking towards the tower.

Ortho closed his eyes and breathed heavily at the mention of the hellspawned. He tried to relax himself from the memories of the horrid creatures, and gripped the antanukas tightly. He gritted his teeth and leaned into his staff for protection. "Saints." he mumbled as his breaths became more steady. He called out to his friend as he opened his eyes, "Camus, we are more skilled than before... are we not?" Looking to the paladin for reassurance, the priest kept his focus on the armor clad warrior to avoid looking at the hideous monsters, even though they were discernably dead.

Vineg went closer to the undead creatures and felt annoyed at the fact that Camus had to explain about them. However, that didn't really make a difference, so ey went closer to them, carefully, intending to check them for anything useful. (Search)

Kei'rin advanced through the numerous bodies, poking their big bellies with her sword and making faces as she went. "Ewwh... ewwww..." She closed in on the tower, glancing all around in the meantime and imaging herself cutting such creatures down because of sheer disgust.

Vineg started searching the bodies for equipment, but all it got was foul smelling pus on his hands. Apparently neither the zombies nor the hellspawned were carrying any equipment. As Kei'rin began poking one of the hellspawned, the creature's hand moved a bit, of course no one in the party had thought of the fact anything a zombie kills, eventually turns into a zombie.

Not having noticed Kei'rin poking bodies here and there, Camus didn't see the hand of the hellspawned creature move, instead turning to Ortho as the priest spoke to him, "Indeed. We were younger back then... and foolish. In any case, we have seen worse things since then." Remembering the army of undead, the fog zombie, and the reaper that he and the others had encountered, the paladin silently smirked a little, "These things are deceased now, however, and we have other, more important, concerns." Having convinced himself that there was no need to worry for the time being, Camus headed closer toward the tower, though subconsciously keeping his distance from the bodies.

"OH, freaky HELL!" Kei'rin screamed as the hand twitched. She was, of course, feigning her fear. More like, she wanted to laugh at the hand. "It's - god damn it - alive!" She walked nearer to Camus and whispered with a wink: "Watch out for creeping hands." Yet now she headed straight for the tower, not stopping to poke wannabe-dead hands.

Vineg grunted and wiped eir hands clean on any piece of sufficiently clean clothing on the zombies, and if they did not have any, the ground. Ey looked at Kei'rin freak out at the twitching of the hand and laughed shortly. Nevertheless, ey really didn't care about the movability of the zombies and resumed the trip to the tower, of course glancing back every now and then to be sure.

Ortho was distraught by the shear ignorance that even Vineg portrayed. "We fought that thing in the city to be truthful, but every battle has a victor, Camus." the priest said pointing around the field but not taking his eyes off the paladin, "If all these things died here, someone was the winner. I am beginning to think that they are residing inside this tower." As Camus walked onwards toward the tower along with the Vineg and Kei'rin, the priest reluctantly followed though did his best to look brave as he kept his focus on the path they were travelling rather than the mass of death around them.

"Perhaps we should hurry" Rumiko said quickening her pace, as a reaction to Kei'rin's freaking out. She wasn't sure she could make the difference between a dead zombie and an undead zombie, so she would rather be away from them. She thought Ortho's doubt was reasonable. "Still, that tower is the only visible thing around. Where else should we go?" she asked, not waiting an answer, though.

"I can't say that there is a way out of this." Ortho mentioned, and then shouted, "Although getting locked inside a building again with a zombie horde waiting impatiently outside has already been done recently, Camus!" The priest frowned, as most of the group seemed eager to enter the one thing this land did not break, consume, or decay in evil.

Camus stared oddly at Kei'rin for a moment as she spoke to him, not really up to figuring out what the hyperactive Hydran was talking about beforehand. Shortly after, Rumiko's and Ortho's words received the paladin's attention, "There is little else we can do, is there?" He gruffly replied, "Very well, I have had my fair share of undead smiting. Let us not idle here any longer."

Mayuri simply watched the creatures in both amazement and confusion as some of the others went about poking and searching the corpses, absorbing the information given in response to her question. Moving to one herself, she nudged with her foot before making a face and moving away to follow the group as they began to move again.



The group neared the ominous tower slowly, walking unsurely throug the hostile landscape, smaller spikes of rock poked into the path every now and then, and the floor felt cold and metalic, hard as if they were walking on sheer rock. Eventually, they came to the tower, more corpses laying on the floor, greeting them as they walked, the front foor was open, a large metallic gate, thick as a man's arm and inscribed with Seannite glyphs and adornments. A large, cathedral like timpanum dominated the doorway, three tall and slinky windows composed its main body, yet the flass was pitch black, preventing anyone from looking into the tower. Upon entering the tower, a foul smell greeted the party, the whole place stunk of death, corpses dotted a large circular room, a granite altar on the center. A line of braziers lit the room, heading towards the altar. On the floor, weapons and death lay, zombies, loose bones that must've belonged to skeleton, even the ethereal glowing dust, byproduct of the destruction of a ghost, along with lesser hellspawned corpses and the bodies of men clad in black robes. Around the room were 9 exits (not counting the entrance). 8 of them had heavy metal doors on them and the doors to either side of the party seemed to have been sealed shut by some extreme heat, that had caused the doors to half melt.

In a place as new and intriguing as this, Vineg could not detain eir curiosity, admiring the constructions and designs before starting to methodically search the place and bodies but not so aggressively as to disturb their oozes too much, wanting to keep eir hands relatively clean this time. Vineg left eir backpack along with most of eir stuff to the doorway which led outside in order to be more careful, but of course kept glancing at eir property to check on it – ey was fairly sure the others in the party didn't give a rat's ass about eir stuff but one could never know. Ey first searched the large chamber they were in, carefully trying to find anything of interest and studying the altar in the middle and also kept eir senses clear to find any exceptional magic in here. (Search, detect magic)

Vineg began slowly searching some of the first bodies to the left, the hellspawned and undead obviously had no equipment on them, so Vineg left them undisturbe. It did, however, find an old warhammer on the floor. Near the hammer was the dead body of a robed man, a caerhamian by the looks of it. It was carrying a small leather pouch with some bonedust and some small vials, most of them were broken by now, as well as a quill and some torn parchment. Unfortunately, Vineg's magic detection skills were sub-par and it was not able to feel any magic besides the permanent black magic in the area.

Rumi walked some steps inside and looked around, thinking this was an awful place. "What did cause all this death?" she asked in a whisper. She looked at Ortho, wondering if he could have some kind of answer, as a priest. Just then she noticed Vineg searching around. "What are you looking for?", she asked coldly. The thought that Vineg had lost something crossed her mind, as if it knew something or had been in that place before. After a second she shook her head. That thought was irrational, she told herself.

Shortly after Rumi followed Camus who, long accustomed to seeing dead bodies almost everywhere he went, reacted somewhat indifferently to the scene in front of him, though the cause of the slaughter raised some concern. Being in a possibly hostile foreign area, the paladin didn't step very far into the tower and instead gazed about for signs of traps or other biological dangers (spot, search).

Camus slowly observed the area, but he didn't find anything particularly interesting other than the large Altar in the center. Unfortunately, it would be almost impossible to spot a trap from a distance, especially not being an expert on such thing.

"Considering the source, do not think of them as dead." Ortho replied to Rumiko and then performed a few gestures to keep his mind focused and off his memories. "I dislike this place very much so." he whispered, and thought Camus wise to take caution. "Vineg, try not to spring a trap. You're not in the condition that would be best if it did happen." Ortho warned, and looked around for Kei'rin. Once he saw her he decided to give her fair warning as well since she was equally curious, "I'm not entirely a healer, keep intact and as far out of danger as this place allows."

While looking around, Vineg heard the others speak and didn't pay it too much attention as it didn't sound too important. Hearing Rumi's question, ey wasn't sure who it was directed at, but guessed emself since ey was the one to have started the search. Nevertheless, Vineg chose to remain quiet, since ey had no reason to put any effort in a reply to the woman who seemed to have some very strange murderous intentions. However, when Ortho spoke, ey did reply: "I am checking for traps." Vineg felt it would be nice to brag a little, so it continued a bit. "As far as I know, I am the one here who is most familiar with traps, an' the best equipped to both find and disarm them", ey said, sure of eir skills.

Kei'rin went on, wondering if this trail of corpses would ever end. She hopped cautiously between the corpses and bones, making her way to the altar. She rested her hands on her hips and stared at the strange marks, waiting for others to come look at the altar, too.

Rumiko followed Kei'rin cautiously. She looked up at the ceiling, remembering this was a tower and there probably was more stuff upstairs. Then she continued to walk towards the altar, stopping at a prudent distance. She also looked at the marks the hydran was watching, and wondered what could they mean (knowledge).

Rumi looked carefully at the glyphs, they seemed like some sort of inscription in Dah'kin to her, unfortunately she could not read them.

Vineg was a bit surprised to see a normal human in the place after so many undead, but since there wasn't anything ey deemed to be of worth right now, it left the body and its possessions alone for now. Seeing the others were close to the altar, ey just asked: "Anything interesting about the altar?"

Kei'rin rested her hands on the hilts of her swords and paid closer attention to the marks due to Vineg's question. (Knowledge)

"Looks like Dah'kin to me..." Rumi said to Vineg, without taking her eyes off the markings. Seeing Kei'rin all concentrated on the inscription, she remembered the girl was a planetarii. "Can you read this?" she asked her.

Ortho stood next to Camus and watched the others walked into the altar grounds. With a priestly sigh, he patted the mighty paladin's shoulder and asked, "What are your opinions of this place?" Before awaiting an answer, Ortho decided to share his own opinions, "Seems like before, only... inside a tower."

"Oh really?" said Vineg, stepping over and between the corpses to get to the altar as well. Ey wasn't really sure what to think about it. Ey couldn't help but shake eir head amusedly at Ortho's words though, but kept quiet. Vineg thought that it might be interesting if Kei'rin wasn't there since then the others would have to rely on em to translate. (Knowledge)

Finding this pause before a battle to be a good opportunity, Ortho reached into his robes and pulled out a carefully packaged bit of dry food. "Vineg. Have some food, you'll need your strength and health at full in this dreaded place." he said, in part to get the corrupt Eolan away from the altar until a group decision could be reached about anything new in this area.

The group surrounded the altar and both Kei'rin and Vineg were able to read the Dah'kin writing etched on the sides. "In Sean rests my soul. Remake flesh and spirit. In Sean rests my will. Respawn blood and mind. In Sean lies my might. Reborn be bone and life. In Sean rests my life, bring forth the immortal, bring into this body my soul, my will and my might." This was more or less what the altar said, probably not too far from the actual text, since Kei'rin and Vineg were more knowledgeable of planetarii than Dah'kin. So far they had not read the text out loud, just to themselves.

Vineg grinned at the text but was soon distracted by Ortho's speaking to em again. Ey turned at him grnning, but after the meaning of his words sunk in, the grin disappeared and Vineg stood there for a few seconds without knowing what to reply. Ey just shrugged then and walked closer to Ortho. "Well, if you insist..." ey said, extending a hand to take the food, but ey didn't just grab it – even Vineg did have some manners and for the moment ey didn't really see a reason to be rude. Of course after that it wondered where would be a good enough place to eat the stuff, seeing as the place was pretty full of (un)dead and it probably wouldn't be a good idea to use the altar as a dinner table.

Ortho handed Vineg a ration and smiled, "It's not poisoned, though I am not so certain about its taste." The priest then took more rations from his robes and looked around towards everyone else in the area, "Let's eat before we go explore. Not particularly the best place for a picnic, but we could use the rest to gather our thoughts and strength before moving on." Ortho stuck a piece of dried bread in his mouth as he began to take out meals for everyone. "Let's see... Vineg, Kei'rin, Miss Rumiko, Camus, and myself." he mumbled, but then hit his head lightly, "Oh, where are my manners. Miss Mayuri needs a meal as well. That is six rations, plenty for a good meal." After taking out all the rations, Ortho waved over to Vineg. "Now that we're resting, I should take a look at those wounds." the priest said, intending to try and heal the corrupt Eolan as best he was able.

Not having said anything the entire time he was in the tower, Camus instead had spent all that time quietly worrying over the presence of the dead Hellspawned creatures that he and the others had seen both outside the edifice and in. Focusing back on the present as Ortho spoke about rations, the Paladin silently agreed with the priest's sensible logic and accepted his meal, all the while keeping his eyes and ears peeled for any suspicious movement and noises.

Vineg inspected the ration shoddily and then decided to just eat it. Ey placed most of eir stuff near to the altar in any spot that seemed fairly clean and started chewing on the ration. "Shouldn't we check out what's in those other rooms?" ey asked, indicating the several doors in the big room they were in. However, as Ortho offered to heal em, Vineg shrugged and turned to the priest again. Ey grinned and opened eir armor again. "Were you planning on binding me or trying your magic?" ey asked, stepping closer to Ortho.

"Of course not, if I bound you then who would be the one to find the traps for us?" Ortho smiled suggesting either the Eolan's immense skill or supreme stupidity. "Besides, I'm not keen on using magic here. I used to be a medic after all, just a tad out of practice in recent times." the priest continued as he began inspecting Vineg's wounds for a treatment solution. Using his raw skill for healing, Ortho did all he could to keep Vineg out of pain and causing a ruckus to attract the possible residents of the tower. (Healing)

Rumi accepted Ortho's ration and thanked him. She had completly forgotten about eating, but now at the mention of food she felt suddenly hungry. She turned to look at the altar again. "So, what does it say?" Rumiko asked Kei'rin, thinking that by now, if she was able to read the inscription on the altar she should already know what it said.

Chuckling and shaking eir head a bit at Ortho, Vineg replied halfheartedly: "So tell me, other than magic and binding wounds, how is it possible to heal? By willing it to happen without the help of magic?" Vineg was amused, but didn't really bother to go deeper into that.

"If you want, I could just leave this gaping wound open to get infected." Ortho said as he briefly looked for Vineg to reply, "Or I could just sew it up and clean it out, thus allowing your body to do more healing and less fighting." The priest continued his work on the corrupted Eolan who began mocking his trade. "Like all things, even the smallest parts of ourselves need something larger than they can comprehend to give them the power they need to do great things." he said, making sure to hit a sensitive nerve to reinforce the point and make sure that Vineg respected a healing for what it was worth instead of questioning the medic's methods.

"In Sean rests my soul. Remake flesh and spirit. Bla bla bla", Kei'rin answered to Rumiko and accepted her part of the rations, giving a slight nod to Ortho as a thanks, "In Sean lies my might. Reborn be bone and life... blah..." Then she threw her arms up, the food still in her hands, and stated louder: "In Sean rests my life, bring forth the immortal, bring into this body my soul, my will and my might!" She dramatically stood there for a while with her arms wide out, staring at the ceiling. Then she relaxed from her pose and snorted. She shook her head and added: "Looks like someone is about to live for a second time."

"Sounds like a prayer... or a ritual" said Rumiko, thanking Kei'rin had added the blabla's. For a moment she doubted it was wise to read the inscription loud. Everything in the place was weird enough as it was. She gave a bite to her ration, enjoing the food in her mouth. It wasn't the best she had tasted, but it was okay. For the moment she remained silent, eating, and thinking that later they should check the rest of the tower. Maybe they would find some clues about the place around.

The group ate mostly quietly, though the atmosphere in the air made it hard for anyone other than Vineg to have any appetite. Meanwhile, Ortho cleaned and patched up Vineg's wounds as best he could with the materials at hand. Even though Ortho had little tools, his expertise after years of being a field doctor allowed him to heal 20 HP to Vineg.

Vineg raised an eyebrow at Ortho and wondered if he was being sarcastic or not, but decided to not care enough to ask. Ey didn't understand what he said next either and just watched while he did his job, nibbling on the bits of food ey had until it was gone. Ey grinned as ey felt some strength return to eir body. "I think that is considered binding wounds", said Vineg, still confused why the priest had said he would not bind em. "Either way it was great healing. Thank you", ey continued, bouncing up and kissing the priest on the forehead or the vicinity of it and smiling with a nice grin. Vineg tried to wipe most of the blood off eir armor and other equipment before putting it back on and then said: "I'll start checking these doors..." With that, it moved toward the door nearest to the entrance (R2), but noticing it was one of the sealed ones, moved on to the next one (S5), trying to look for traps and open the door carefully if ey didn't find any. (Search)

Vineg checked the hinges on the door and carefully placed its hand on the door handle, twisting it carefully to the right and left before opening the door. As it pushed the door in, it opened with a creaking sound. Greeting Vineg on the other side was a dead necromancer, another human, probably with some Catfolk blood in him. The man was lying face down on the floor, quite clearly dead, it seems he died shortly after closing the door. Further into the room were three two level bunk beds, 6 beds in total. All of them seemed clean, though only 4 of them were made, the upper and lower bunks on the last one were a mess, with a rather large bundle of sheet lying on top of the lower bunk. If the door could be barred with something, this might turn out to be a safe and comfortable place to rest. (Once the dead necromancer has been removed, of course).

Ortho blinked in amazement at Vineg's reaction, the kiss to his forehead was most unexpected. The priest sighed and looked around the group as he finished his ration. "Anyone else require their wounds treated?" he asked, more as a note of generosity rather than expecting that anyone else had been wounded. As Vineg opened the door, Ortho was pleased to see that something sharp did not jab itself through the Eolan. "What have you found?" he asked.

Looking around the room, Vineg grinned and was about to step in when it realized that it was possible that something in the room could have killed the necromancer. "Hm... hotel room with bad service", replied Vineg to Ortho. "There are beds an' a dead necromancer." Vineg drew out eir sabre and moved it along the ceiling and walls of the room near the doorway, checking that there weren't any nasty surprises there before moving on to the body, trying to lift it and overlook it while ey moved it aside.

Pretending to ignore the statement of a dead body that was not zombified or hellspawned, Ortho managed to keep calm by twiddling his thumbs patiently until everyone else decided on their fate. The priest wanted to offer some wisdom, but was too preoccupied with remaining calm and eating his ration to offer any sane take on the current situation. He began to hum silently, and thought how his little escort of a prison caravan turned into a vacation to what he would imagine hell to be. Ortho quickly found humor in that his journeys always seemed to take a turn for the worse, giving off a brief chuckle between humming tunes.

Vineg kicked the body to the side, making it fall on its back, the necromancer has a belt with spell components, and a black robe which was completely drenched in blood, his flesh had been torn around the chest as if someone had rubbed barbed wires across his skin several times. Apparently, the necromancer ran in and closed the door, bleeding to death a few minutes later. Vineg's probing turned out unsuccesful, but it as it did it, it thought it had seen the bundle of sheets and covers on the bed shake a bit.

Peering boredly at the corpse, Vineg wondered a bit about the nature of a weapon that could make that kind of damage. Ey was thinking about taking off the spell component belt and giving it to Ortho or one of the other mages, but the moving of the bundle made em bounce up. "Hmm. This bundle of sheets is moving", ey said to the others, but didn't bother to even turn to speak toward the door, so few of them probably heard anything. Ey moved closer to the bed the pile was on, changing weapons and then proceeded to prod the pile with the handle of eir kogatana and unwrap it if it didn't react hostilely.

With a swift movement, Vineg pulled the sheets away, revealing a short, thin man curled up on the bed. The man, a comely black haired, brown skinned man (maybe Caerhamian or Ravillan) wore a bloodstained black robe. As soon as he realized he had been noticed, the necromancer squealed and tried to drop from the bed and flee.

Rumiko finished eating and decided to scout a bit as well. She was't in the mood to sit there in the middle of the dead bodies and listen to Ortho's tunes. Thinking Vineg was alright on its own, she approached the opposite room (G5) and opened the door.

Rumi turned the knob on the door, and slowly opened it. On the other side, she saw a short hallway, a trail of dried blood led from the door towards a desk on the opposite side of the room, and several bookshelves held dusty tomes mostly in black, red and brown leather.

Carefree, Kei'rin munched on her food and turn around, again and again, glancing around. She looked from Ortho to Mayuri to Camus but neither of them was doing anything interesting on her point of view. As she finished eating, she wiped her hands on her clothes and decided to join Rumiko and Vineg in exploring the rooms. "I'll just... go there." Figuring Vineg can take care of living sheets on eir own, she walked over to the door (G7) next to the one Rumiko had chosen and checked for traps and other dubious things before opening the door. (Search)

Kei'rin looked around the door, checking the hinges and touching the knob carefully, but did not find any obvious traps.

Seeing the fleeing attempt of the man that was revealed from the pile, Vineg grinned triumphantly and dived after him, attempting to catch and hold him. It was obvious that ey should capture and question him, rather than just kill him, since ey still had no idea where they were. As ey jumped, Vineg shouted exultantly: "It's alive! Catch!" (Grapple)

Vineg quickly reached out and grabbed the man by the ankles as he tried to squirm away, falling to the ground, the necromancer turned around and yelled out. "Back off Hellspawned!" as he lifted his hand. Suddenly Vineg's mind shut off and the Eolan let go of the Necromancer, standing on the spot, as if dazed for a second or two. Luckily Vineg's magic broke through the oblivion in time to see the man run out the door, but stop as soon as he noticed the others outside. "Oh crap..." he said, falling to his knees. "Please don't kill me!"

"Mmm?" Ortho said with a perked sense of interest and he set aside the remainder of his rations for later, even though they weighed him down inside his robes. "Miss Rumiko, Camus... Vineg found someone." the priest said, aware that Vineg was checking that very room. "Sir," Ortho called out to the new person, "Flee not, Vineg is as harmless as a pidgeon." Smirking at his own joking reference to the corrupt eolan as a simple bird, Ortho held out his hand and waved it towards himself. "Do not worry, this carnage was not caused by us, or Vineg." he continued, trying to ease the fear the man had, "I am intrigued of how you survived... this, considering you did not visibly enter before or after us."

As soon as Vineg regained eir senses and was aware of the man's actions, ey just took a few large steps after him and attempted to grab his arms and take them behind his back to hold him still. "Those Hellspawned don't look like they would or could listen", ey said. "We're not with them." Glancing at Ortho about his pigeon comment, Vineg couldn't help saying, obviously in a very joking manner: "Pidgeon up your arse." It didn't take long for em to add to the conversation with some civil manner, either. "But now it's questioning time!" ey said, sounding excessively satisfied. "What is this place and how'd you get here, human?"

Rumiko looked at the blood on the floor. She wondered whose blood it was... she guessed someone had crawled from the door to the desk, or maybe the other way around, bleeding to death... She was interrupted on her thoughts by the man that had suddenly appeared, asking not to be killed. She left the room alone for now and turned her attention to the necromancer. Rumi walked towards the group and waited for the man to answer.

Interrupted, Kei'rin turned around and saw Vineg holding some survivor by the arms and Ortho trying to calm the scared man. With an evil smile, though, she turned away, opened her chosen door and went inside while keeping her ears open for the on-going conversation.

Mayuri remained silent from the moment she had entered the tower. She eyes the display of corpses lying before her, bringing her gloved hand to her mouth and biting down on her index finger. Despite having been in the war, she still had never seen such an incredible amount of dead in the same place at once. Standing still where she had stopped near the entrance, she remained silent and continued to bite and chew on her finger as she watched the rest of the group inspect the area. She only pulled her hand away from her mouth when he attention was drawn over to the food offered to her by Ortho. Offering a nod as she took a hold of the food, she almost whispered. “Thank you.” Bringing the food to her mouth, she nibbled on it, fighting off her feeling of distaste towards the sight around her. Her attention was finally pulled towards the room Vineg had entered as a man emerged form it, begging for mercy. Remaining where she stood for now, she watched as the group proceeded to gather around the man.

Kei'rin opened the door and found a room just like the one Rumiko had found previously, except there was no blood on this one, between Kei'rin and the desk opposite to the door was an old rusty sword lying on the group, and to her right, several bookshelves loaded with tomes. The man who was being held firmly by Vineg, noticing Ortho, let out a small yelp. "Alas, why has Sean sent such trying beasts, first Hellspawned and now Zealots come to test us... " lamented the man who had stopped trying to squirm away. "For your own good I hope the people in your group are stronger than pidgeons, dog of Nesha, you have all sealed your fates by setting foot in this place, alas, kill me and be done with it!" he continued with a quiver in his voice, apparently this was some small fry necromancer with a taste for drama.

Vineg, really not buying into the drama, mostly wanted to get rid of the dramaqueen now. Holding his hands with only one hand, Vineg slipped eir other hand under the man's chin and pulled it upwards so that he'd be more inclined to look up at Vineg, who was glaring down at him from above. "As much as I'd like to have a necromancer close to me rather than a white mage, sure, I'll kill you if you tell me what place this is."

A heavy sigh erupted from Ortho's lips, "Vineg, threaten him with life. Do not reward him with death, especially in this place." As a priest, Ortho was torn between his opposition of black magic and his belief in peace and tranquility. He walked over and placed his hand on the quivering necromancer's head, "Peace child, your dark ways are done. Aid us, and I shall help you convert to a new path to righteousness and sanctuary of light. Do not wish for death, it is not the path in this world you wish to take." Ortho glanced over at Vineg, hoping that his words carried on through the necromancer to the corrupted Eolan as well. The priest needed allies here more than enemies, and a necromancer would know more alive than dead.

"Light does not shine here priest, nor do I seek to calmly walk into a life of righteousness and mental slavery, however It does seem bleak to end my life here." replied the Necromancer. He then turned to Vineg, thinking him amore suitable audience. "You face things of great evil here, of which you know nothing" he added noticing none of them seemed like a dark mage. "should you release me, I might be able to provide services and information until I make my escape."

"Shut up, please", said Vineg at no one in particular, though Ortho was the one who could shut up at the moment. "And don't preach about that Nesha crap. Great that it works for you, leave other people alone." Vineg had a passing thought about what ey mostly wanted, but really wasn't about to get that personal now. Instead, ey tried to push Ortho a bit further and have the necromancer's attention all to emself, since the priest really wasn't doing anything useful. "Blah blah, I've faced great evils already, them among them", ey said and waved vaguely at Ortho and Camus. Ey tightened eir grip on the man's hands, enough to cause him a little pain. "You still haven't answered my question. What and where is this place we're in?"

Kei'rin kicked the rusty sword to the side ang giggled quietly. Though Vineg was scary, ey could be quite amusing too. Especially when interrogating. She glanced around the room, just to check no one was there, and went to inspect the books, looking for something interesting. (Spot)

Kei'rin looked around the books, many with titles in Planetarii and Dah'kin, some with titles in Ravillan and common tongue. Amongst the titles were books Kei'rin had never heard before, such as the Ascent of Sean, The Book of Blood, Treatise on the Plane of Darkness, and some very well known books, The Spire Coda, The Chronicles of the First Wars, etc. Kei'rin's eyes quickly found some scrolls that could come in handy.
- Scroll of Dessecrate x 3
- Scroll of Restore Undead
- Scroll of Screech
- Scroll of Lightning Shield
- Scroll of Acid Pond
- Scroll of Dissipate Fire.

Ortho forced a grin after getting pushed away by the Eolan. Deep down the priest knew he could probably smite several Vinegs in a row, but kept to his plan of increasing the number of allies. "I think I'll go help miss Rumiko now." he said with gritted teeth, and walked off in that direction he specified. He stopped next to Mayuri and pondered, "What are hauken feelings towards eolans? Mine at the moment are a little biased."

Rumi raised an eyebrow after hearing Ortho speak. "I guess I could use a little help" she said, seeing Vineg seemed to have the necromancer under control and she wasn't needed there. She really hoped it didn't do something stupid like killing the man. Turning around, she walked back into the room she had opened previously. She watched the trail of blood and examined the desk it lead to first, and after that she took a look at the dusty book shelves, looking for anything interesting. (Spot)

Rumiko read the titles of whichever books she could, most of them were about magic, or historical texts she did not know, as most of her lore was around the ancient texts of Xiadom as well as Phylosophy, rather than magic. However, she was able to find some rolled sheets of paper here and there tied with different color string. "Scrolls", she immediately thought.
- Scroll of Animate Dead
- Scroll of Plague x 2
- Scroll of Rotting Flesh
- Scroll of Talk to Plants
- Scroll of Control Plants
- Scroll of Combustion
- Scroll of Fire Shield.

Mayuri continued to watch the scene in silence as she finished off her meal. Watching Ortho move towards her and come to a stop, she tilted her head at the question and glanced back at the group. "Eolans?" She repeated quietly, returning her attention back to Ortho. She had an idea of whom he was speaking of, but couldn't quite tell for sure. She had never ventured off from where she lived other than to go off to war and was unfamiliar with most of what surrounded her currently, whether it was object or person. Chewing on her bottom lip slightly, she glanced back at Vineg and the necromancer before returning her gaze on the priest. "Might I ask... what exactly is an Eolan?" She felt the need to clarify things as soon as possible instead of answering without being certain of what was being spoken of.

Ortho patted his forehead with the heel of his hand at Mayuri's response, "I suppose it was premature of me to assume you knew." The priest patted Mayuri's shoulder and smiled, "Never you mind, the question is irrelevent now." Watching Rumiko move on to re-check the room she previously opened, Ortho thought of a simple solution to Mayuri's idle stance. "Let us go help miss Rumiko. In this place I fear that any one left to themselves might find great peril beyond their control, even myself." he continued, and then walked on to help search the remaining rooms.

Mayuri let out a light sound of dissatisfaction at Ortho's response and choose to avoid the conversation that could follow, figuring she would probably find out on her own later. To Ortho's suggestion, she gave a glance back at Vineg and responded with a nod, finally turning her attention to Rumiko and stepping forward to follow the priest, the wings on her back twitching slightly after stretching out a little and returning to a resting position.

"Good", said Vineg as a small response to Ortho's words about going to help Rumiko. Hearing what he asked from Mayuri, ey couldn't help but grin and was fairly sure she wouldn't know. Thus, ey didn't react at her response, but was more interested in what Ortho would say after that. Hearing his words, Vineg just shook eir head and wondered if anyone could really appreciate the seemingly scatterbrained priest's musings. Ey thought it necessary to enlighten the hauken at this point and said: "I am an eolan, though not a conventional one. For one, my element should be yellow. But it isn't." Having said that, ey turned back to the necromancer as the others were heading to their own directions, figuring ey could mess around with him properly now. But before that, ey wanted eir questions answered and waited if the man would reply.

Mayuri stopped in her tracks as soon as she realized Vineg answered her question. Turning her upper body to look back at it, she offered a light smile accompanied with a nod as a sign of thanks before turning back to continue following Ortho, he eyes wandering across the distasteful scenery in search for anything out of place.

"What have you here, miss Rumiko?" Ortho asked as she seemed to be scanning the room with careful detail. "Nothing too gory I would hope." he said with mild laughter, rubbing the back of his neck and pulling his eyes away from the carcasses on the floor. Ortho looked up to the ceiling, wondering what might have been overhead if this was indeed a tower.

While Ortho had been interrogating him, the Necromancer had been very aggressive, but not that the priest left him in Vineg's hands and the possibility of death, he loosened up. "We.. we're somewhere to the east, where exactly I do not know, this tower is known as the Demonhorn." he replied broodingly.

Grinning innocently now, Vineg was slightly surprised at the drastic change in the necromancer's behaviour but figured that Ortho and the like really put some people off. And the gap between a black and white mage was probably the biggest, to which ey just shook eir head after thinking about Seannesha. Ey loosened eir grip on the man's hands a bit and sat down on the ground, attempting to pull the man down to sit as well so that ey could lean eir upper body on him and chew on his shoulder. "Well, that's better. I assume this place is still in Ki'afisal though... right?" All the while it did still sound fairly astonishing that they had really moved at least across the whole continent. "How exactly did you get here? How long have you been here?"

The Necromancer was throughouly confused by Vineg's behaviour, he had answered its questions and not Ortho's by the simple reason he knew a priest like Ortho rarely turned to torture or killed hostages to obtain information. Pulling awat from Vineg's touch, the Necromancer replied. "I got here the same way as everyone else." he rolled his eyes and then yelled out at the rest of the group. "Are you going yo let me go or what?! Or are you to leave me here with this freak!?"

"Take a look at this" answered Rumi to Ortho as he approached, showig him the scrolls. "Maybe you can understand this better", she said, since Ortho surely knew more about magic than her. She returned her eyes to the rest of the books, wondering if there perhaps was something about the misterious tower they were in.

Walking into the frame of the door of the room Rumiko and Ortho were in, Mayuri glanced around, biting down on the inside of her lower lip and searching for anything that could grasp her attention. Stepping back a little, she glanced outside of the room and over to Ortho. "I'll go look at the other room where that other girl is..." Walking away from the room without waiting for an answer, she headed over to the doorway of the room Kei'rin was in, peeking inside.

Ortho stepped closer to get a look at the scrolls Rumiko held out. "I recognize some of these as green magic, I dabbled with it once in my youth." the priest said, remembering the reasons he did not venture further into its practice. "Its related to my golem in some respects, though these seem more aligned to communication rather than summoning. Closely intertwined subjects." he continued, but then noticed his close proximity to his ally. "What did you want to know about them, miss Rumiko?" he asked in turn while waving off Mayuri to not be rude by ignoring her departure.

Kei'rin hummed as she studied the scrolls for a moment before binding them against her body with her belt. She heard someone coming and turned to regard the hauken. "Hi. I already looted this place, you could look into the other rooms," she said as if everything was clear to her. She looked at the books again, grabbed the one titled as Treatise on the Plane of Darkness and began browsing the pages, reading a few sentences here and there to get the general idea of what is was. (Search)

Kei'rin picked up the book and began browsing through the pages. The book seemed to deal with the history of dozens of unsuccessful attempts to reach the plane of darkness, performed by several famous Necromancers, Liches and black mages. And following, dozens of black magic theory which Kei'rin did not quite understand, as well as educated guesses as to what one might encounter in the plane of darkness. One particular page which was folded in, drawn on it was something called a "Summoning Circle", Kei'rin knew many of those, as they were used to summon elementals and other such creatures, but this one was particular. Especially because it had to be written on an entirely black surface with an incandescent sword, then the lines had to be drenched in blood as a sacrifice. The circle looked like a large circle with a smaller circle within it, located to the lower right. A long line separated the middle circle in two exact halves. A second line, emerged from the top of the smaller circle and went up and to the left, as if pointing towards the north east. The words "The Eye of God" were written in Dah'kin to the north, east, south and west. And in the center it said, "He who cannot see."

"I'm not very familiar with magic. We didn't talk much about it where I grew up", said Rumiko to Ortho with a faint smile, remembering some of her past as Ortho had just been doing. "I was wondering if some of this stuff could tell us more about where we are" she said to the priest, as she mentally wondered if the eolan would be able to have that necromancer say something useful. "Save them" she said, pointing at the scrolls. "Maybe we should go check another room. I don't see anything else here..." the monk added, heading to the door.

Giving Kei'rin a nod, Mayuri stepped away from the door and headed over to the next room (H11). Taking a hold of her mace, she carefully moved her free hand towards the handdle of the door, breathing in slightly before pushing it opened.

Mayuri tried to push the door, but soon realized it was locked.

Ortho sighed, he was burdened enough to not require more to weigh him down. However, he was merely support for the others and did not require much mobility to be helpful and wrapped the scrolls in his free belt and latched them to the sash around his waist. "A few of these might be helpful, provided we can find some plants around here." he said, looking around the tower. He knew that from the outward appearance of the environment, they were in some sort of wasteland where plants would not be found easily from the lack of light. "Maybe if we found some sort of fungus, like a mushroom. Larger the better." he added, giving Rumiko something to keep her eyes peeled for. He peered at one of the scrolls that bothered him before following Rumiko to the door. "Animate Dead..." he whispered, "I would dare not use that unless in dire circumstances."

"Right. Fungus" said Rumiko. It all looked so dead that she thought it was difficult anything lived there, even fungus. Though the necromancer had survived, she thought as she watched him while walking out of the room. "Could there be any others like him around?" she thought to herself as she crossed the room to reach the opposite door. She stopped in the middle of the way to look at the stairs (on M19). "It will take us a while to see all what hides here" she commented, and continued to walk towards the door (S7), which she carefully opened.

As Rumiko pushed the door in, it opened into a large room with two long tables set on either side, probably a dinning hall, the room had seen its share of carnage, a disfigured necromancer lay dead on the far table, around him were several charred Hellspawned corpses, two more necromancers, or what has left of them, had been torn apart and lay all over the bloody floor. All around the room were splintered and burned chairs and silverware.

Since the necromancer started struggling again, Vineg just held him tighter and stopped playing around with him. "So how did 'everyone else' get here? Did they also get stuck in a collapsed gave and were they also forced to take their chances with a magical artifact that's not supposed to exist in our world, eh?" When he started yelling, Vineg grabbed his head and pulled it toward emself firmly, but not in a way that would harm him for the moment. "No! Shut up an' answer my questions!" snapped Vineg into his ear with gritted teeth. "You better keep me happy or I'll chop off an arm of yours – or something else."

"So... do you want me to shup up... or answer the questions? last I checked it was hard to speak with my mouth shut." replied slyly the necromancer. "I mean we all got here through the scepter, besides, I do not know the inner workings of the damned thing, I'm just an apprentice." hissed the necromancer.

Ortho followed Rumiko to the room she recently opened. Poking his head to see inside the room the priest was taken aback by the carnage inside. "Oh my..." he said, clenching his chest at the sight of the hellspawned. "N-Not a very pleasant smell, is it?" the priest joked, trying to distract himself by applying some humor to the situation. He stood straight and leaned against the wall outside of the door frame. "What is this place?" he asked rhetorically, "So much death. We've only managed to find one spark of life here, and even he wishes to die."

"Well thank you", said Vineg in a fairly sarcastic tone, "was it so hard to say it straightforwardly, huh?" Vineg started grinning again. "I don't believe it impossible to figure out that what I meant by the phrase is that you should only open your mouth to speak after I have asked you a question, an' so on." Vineg leaned on the necromancer, resting a bit and thinking what else ey could ask. Ey started wondering whether this one and his two dead friends (that Vineg knew of) were involved with the zombie incident in Septima or even whether they had something to do with Clíodhna. Still, as far as Vineg knew, the necromancer didn't seem that adequate. Nevertheless, ey thought there wouldn't be any harm in asking more. "So, were you and your buddies here behind all those zombies in Septima?"

"Umph... we had forgotten... I guess everything did go as planned during out absence..." muttered the Necromancer, suddenly he opened his eyes all the way. "That means the town has been infested!... I.. i can't control that many zombies, with thel Liches death... I'm trapped!!" he yelped, probably refering to the fact that even if he got to Septima, he wouldn't be able to escape the town. "Without the Liches..."

Rumi was shocked as well as she entered the room and saw the carnage in it. For a second she was reminded of the nightmare she had had, the pool of blood she had seen herself surrounded by. Ortho's presence helped her to come back to reality and recover her usual expressionless face. "I don't know. It looks like this tower escaped the necromancer's control somehow", she said to the priest. Slowly she walked into the room, looking for anything extraordinary (spot).

Rumi walked into the room, but she didn't find anything special, this seemed to have been a mess hall of some sort.

As she studied the circles, Kei'rin could vividly imagine Vineg cutting off someone's head and spilling blood in order to summon whatever might be coming through the summoning circle. She though about reading more later but as she peeked outside she saw that the others were inspecting the unknown rooms already. So, why not do it now? She picked the next book, Ascent of Sean, and similiarly browsed it to find out more about this person. (Search)

"What does the room contain?" Ortho asked Rumiko from the relative safety of the inner chamber of the tower. The priest waited for her answer, but passed the time by examining the ceiling once more to see if there might be anything hanging above them to watch out for (spot).

Vineg listened to the Necromancer, not really knowing if ey should be disbelievingly amused, slightly pissed or murderous. Ey just shook eir head then and grinned at the man, though he probably wouldn't see any of that, what with Vineg being behind him. "Maybe you ought to stay alive an' train until you're a Lich, little man", said Vineg lightly. "Plan backfired, eh? How were you planning on getting out of here an' back to Septima anyway? Or was that purely rhetorical?" For a second Vineg thought if ey should mention that they had killed quite a few of the zombies (though ey really didn't know how many of them were there), but figured that it might encourage the necromancer to keep his information to himself – if he had any. So Vineg didn't say more.

"I see nothing of importance" Rumiko said to Ortho, looking around. "Let's better go and check the next room..." she added, feeling disgusted by the sight of the dead that lied there. She walked back towards the door.

"Yes, let's." Ortho replied. Apparently the ceiling held no secrets whatsoever about the tower. Perhaps the priest's immagination was expecting something worse than what he saw. Following after Rumiko, it was not long before Ortho managed a quick glance again into the mess hall out of curiosity. He turned away and covered his mouth at the sight, "Yes, well... apparently some things do not go well with food." He picked up his step in order to meet up with Rumiko as she checked the next room.

Rumiko walked into the main hall and thought all rooms had been checked already. Still, there was much to find out about the place. Before proposing to go upstairs, she walked towards the eolan and the surviving necromancer. "What's the story?", she directed her question to Vineg, expecting a summary of the necromancer's tale as an answer.

Some time after Rumiko followed Camus, who had been silent for quite some time as he wandered about the explored parts of the tower, searching here and there for bodies and any objects that may prove beneficial to the party. Clearly, he was very troubled by the mention of Hellspawned being around the area, although the Paladin attempted to keep his worries under control. After a moment, he branched off from the others and headed toward the bottom room in the south-west and attempted to push open the door with Cross Redemption, ever mindful for traps or ambushes.

Camus pushed the door with Cross Redemption, but it would not budge, as it appeared to have been locked from the other side.

On the other side of the door, there was no trap waiting for the party outside, but only a confused Ri'hane. Since she had locked the door, and had waited there in the dark room listenign to the voices outside, she had been trying to figure out her next move. But she was so confused, that she could hardly focus on hearing the conversation going on and coming up with a plan. She watched the door knob turn again, and jamming her teeth together she cursed under her breath. Think damn it, Think!, she told herself, and what she came up with was not the best of ideas she'd had in a long time, but probably the most daring. So she charged her Salvo, and waited for another move from the other side, before she took her next step.

"Hmph." Camus grunted as he stared at the door for a few seconds before cracking his neck and walking closer toward it. Prepping his shoulder against the wooden frame, the Paladin attempted to force it open.

Witth a powerful bash, the Paladin reduced the mighty oak door to splinters, which flew into the room in all directions. As the Paladin went through the door, he ended up inside the room, in the dim light he noticed several crates and barrels, this was probably a storage room for the occupants of the tower. However, something seemed to glow on the other side of the room. Upon further inpection, Camus noticed the glow came from the smooth, pale skin of a beautiful Dah'kin woman crouching on the the other side, a black, feathered cloak covered her shoulders as she aimed a complex crossbow at the Paladin, a surprised look on her face, as she was obviously rather surprised that someone could just take down a door like that. The Paladin was quite taken by the woman's beauty and briefly blushed as he met her cold eyes, but quickly regained his composture.

Ri'hane just gazed at the Paladine for a second, and tried to get over the stunned feeling. "Seems like you stumbled upon the wrong room! Why don't you just turn around, and unblock the way for me, before I'll have to do that myself.", said Ri'hane with a low but firm voice, as she rose slowly to her feet.

Stunned by the fact that there was someone in here, as well as by her appearance, Camus couldn't find the will to speak for a couple of seconds until after the woman had spoken. Regaining his nerve, the Paladin slowly raised Cross Redemption in a defensive manner before speaking aloud with his powerful, though grave, voice, "I will have to ask for your name and your business here, before I do anything else." He eyed her weapon carefully and with caution all the while he slowly spoke, "Considering the bloodshed that has occured in these rooms, perhaps you understand why I ask these things."

Ri'hane raised an eyebrow, "As far as you're concerned, the name is Ri'hane, and I was just finding my way out, in between all the bloodshed as you call it." even though she had answered his question, she didn't see why she had to still furthur reply to a stranger.

Upon hearing the woman's name, Camus's eyes widened slightly as he murmured aloud, "Ri'hane...? So this is..." Slowly tightening his grip on his weapon out of reflex, the Paladin's focus never wavered as he followed up with, "So you are the dreaded Redclaw Valkyrie of whom I've heard tales about, a criminal wanted by the Armored Hand." Taking a quick glance at her back, Camus was surprised to see only a black cloak instead of the black wings that have made the Redclaw Valkyrie famous, and made the quick mental assumption that the wings were hidden. "Under different circumstances, I would have had you tried and arrested, but now... hmph" He coldly said to her before yelling aloud, "Ortho! Rumiko!"

Smirking Ri'hane just glared at the Paladine, "No matter what the circumstances, you would have never been able to touch me, let alone arrest me.", and she added with her own tone of sarcasm, "But as for now, I'm just gonna let your backup get here! The more, the merrier!"

Hearing Camus' call, Rumiko's head turned to look at the blocked room the paladin had opened. Leaving her question to Vineg unanswered, the monk advanced fast into the room. For a second one could see the surprised expression of Rumi's face when she saw there was a woman, a dah'kin, pointing a crossbow at Camus. Her expression turned back to her usual calm face quickly though. "Another necromancer?" she asked, uncertain that was the case, though.

Ortho followed quickly after Rumiko, holding up his robes to be able to run quickly. After reaching the paladin's side, the priest set the tip of the Antanukas onto the floor and left and resounding tap. "You there, in the dark. Are you truly the Redclaw Valkyrie?" he asked, keeping his position at an angle to prevent a broadside shot to his person. After his question, he whispered to Camus and Rumiko, "Anyone from the world we know or heard of could be another manifestation of a dream, I'll not take my chances in this nightmare." Considering the beauty of the Dah'kin, Ortho felt his assumptions could be more correct as it was rare to see anyone as such outside of a dream. "How did you come here?" he asked, wondering perhaps that Ri'hane might hold the key to escaping this wasteland.

Vineg listened to the happenings behind the altar and eventually decided that it was interesting enough to get up for and therefore got up, still holding the necromancer's hands but not forcing him up in case he wasn't in the mood. "So much for you being the only one here besides us", muttered Vineg, grinning, while ey waited for the man to reply. Hearing the new person's name being spoken, ey immediately tried to recall something of her. (Knowledge)

The necromancer was about to reply to Vineg, but he seemed to his attention was now aimed towards the commotion on the other side of the room. In the meantime, Vineg recalled stories of a mercenary she had heard some time ago in a seedy tavern near Daerah, about a beautiful black winged woman who rode a Redclaw. This mercenary, apparently, had quite pissed off the armored hand by working with smugglers and dangerous gangs of criminals, who would gladly pay for her services.

Ri'hane sighed as she was quickly loosing her patience with these strangers, "Yes... I am Ri'hane Edreeah. Don't tell me you had expected to see a monster instead! And I guess it's better for me to ask how you got here. You don't need to know how I did though, instead you should know that I was here before you lot came, and surely, You didn't pick the right moment to give the place a visit! That's why I'm leaving now, and if you're just gonna stand there, I guess I'm gonna just make my way!", she didn't want her temper to rise, or to make a wrong move, for in that small room, with three of them against only herself, she wasn't exactly holding the winning ace.

Kei'rin got tired of searching the books and looked outside the room. Soon she noticed the others had crowded up into another room, seemingly talking to someone or something inside. She put the book back on its place on the shelf and sneaked up behind Ortho quietly, peeking over his shoulder at the Dah'kin.

Long used to hearing threats and other nasty comments, Camus was barely offended by Ri'hane's tone of voice. After quickly glancing at Ortho as he spoke, the Paladin stepped into the room and stood aside, intentionally allowing the Dah'kin an easy get-away, "We have little idea of how we have arrived here, but we have reason to believe that there are Hellspawned creatures roaming around the area. While it would be wiser to move about in a group, and thus lower the risk of death for ourselves, you may go and travel alone, if you wish." Camus said humorlessly, "If, by Providence, you somehow survive out there by yourself, then may the Armored Hand capture you and put you to Justice."

"I know this place well, cause I have been staying here for a while.", said Ri'hane who was very slowly changing her mind about these people, but still held her Salvo at the ready. "And I know the place is swarming with hellspawns, and why they are. It's the same reason why I was getting the hell out of here, but was stopped. Now that I have a clear path from you, I maybe could help you with getting out, in return.", she now lower her Salvo to her side, "I know what the rumors and stories say about me, and that they make it hard for you to trust me. So if you don't, it's alright, cause sadly, I'm used to it."

"That's reassuring." Ortho replied, "I was beginning to think this was an inescapable nightmare." The priest lowered his staff in a gesture of peace, but noticed Kei'rin pop up over his shoulder. The startled Ortho dashed over towards the wall, thinking a zombie had come up behind him to chomp on his neck. "Yeeahyahah!" he shrieked, but noticed it was only his hydran ally, "For one with proficiency in water, you certainly have stealthy feet for land. Please refrain from sneaking up on me again, I have a weak heart for fear." Ortho was certain about the intentions of everyone in the group, with the exception of the eccentric Kei'rin. She was the only member of the group that he did not attempt to get to know, but his vow of temperance let out a sigh as he stood up from the wall and brushed aside some of the dirt from his robes. "What was I doing?" he thought, having briefly forgotten his train of thought after the brief scare.

"Finding the way to get out of here" Rumi answered Ortho's rethorical question. She also felt relieved that this dah'kin knew the way out, or at least so she claimed. According to her experience, dah'kin were the enemy, and therefore not to be trusted. "And how do we get out?" she asked Ri'hane, tired of the constant nightmare this place was.

"It's not gonna be that easy.", replied Ri'hane, "I'll help you find the way, but first I have to make my way to the upper floors, and get my redclaw. These hellspaws have probably blocked all the normal entrance ways, but I'm guessing there's one only they use. What would be the purpose of a castle if it didn't have hidden ways in and out?!"

Ortho pointed to the doors they just entered from and said, "Would it not be understandable to exit the tower the same way we came?" The priest was sure they were not locked out from the tower, or else they could not enter. "We shall help retrieve your redclaw as payment for your guide services out of this... place." he continued, and looked towards both Camus and Rumiko to see if they objected.

"Besides this tower, there does not appear to be any distinguishable area for miles." Camus quietly said as he looked about for his smoking pipe, of which he hadn't used ever since the incident involving the zombified village, "We'll be wandering this wasteland aimlessly. If we can find a map, perhaps, or a clue of sorts that can show us a direction to take..." Leaving it at that, the Paladin grunted in displeasure as he noted that he didn't have a light.

"I'd be pleased with just knowing the direction of north, and how far we were from it." Ortho replied to Camus. The priest did not have a light, but chuckled at the paladin's plight. "If this were a sacred temple, it would be aligned with the cardinal directions. However, I certainly doubt it is sacred from our perspective." Ortho continued to think, and looked towards Ri'hane again, "How did you come to be here?"

Vineg grinned as ey remembered the stories about the woman, but decided to let the dogs of Nesha deal with her for now. After all, ey was busy holding on to the necromancer. However, hearing Ortho yell, Vineg bursted into a short laughter but stopped after a few seconds and shifted eir attention back. Ey kept on following the discussion on the other side of the room too though. Ey smiled at the Necromancer and went: "Well, will you answer me? Or have you ceased being useful?"

Ri'hane sighed, "How I got here? Well, that's a fairly long story. But to make it short, I should say that I came here for work. Umm, do you intend to investigate me in this small room? or would you rather have us walk out in the hall and then maybe you lot can also tell me of your names, and how you got here."

"I'm sorry, but it is at least strange that knowing the way out, we found you locked inside this small storage room" Rumiko said, feeling all the questions bothering her mind. "Besides, we're not trapped here, we came into this tower willingly because there's nothing else outside. By way out, I assumed you meant out of this weird plane or whatever this is", she added, having said probably her longest sentence since the beginning of the journey. "We crossed here through a dream" she said finally to answer her question, "and my name is Rumiko". After that, she crossed her arms over her chest and waited.

Ri'hane rolled her eyes and said in her cold voice, "I locked myself inside, because belive it or not, the Armored Hand wants my head on a platter, and when i saw your Paladine friend, I assumed hiding was my best choice to live a bit longer. I never said you were trapped, but just in need of finding a way out. So am I, and to do so, first we need to get out of this room, and then out of the castle, right?", She then shook her head and said, "This place isn't located on any piece of real land."

"Hmph." Camus grunted as he reluctantly put away his pipe and looked about the little room for anything that could be useful, or at least a small flame of sorts (Spot). As he did so, he gave a curt reply to Ri'hane's question, "Camus is my name. If you're somewhat familiar with this tower, then perhaps you should lead us around."

Camus quickly scanned the room and he noticed some lamps, oil and rope lying on a semi-open crate on the far corner, right behind where Ri'hane had originally been hiding. The other crates and barrels were closed, but probably contrained similar supplies.

Ortho had a smiling face when Ri'hane asked their names, but when Rumiko and Camus answered with theirs the priest was a bit muffled by the sudden trust in a known criminal stranger. Ortho had intended to keep a few things secret, knowing well the value of knowledge though never intending to lie when asked. "You may refer to me as priest, father, or holy one." he said, and became intruiged by the next batch of information the redclaw valkyrie revealed, "Real land? How comforting... at least we know our world isn't in danger."

Ri'hane who wasn't sure how much information she could reveal to them, tried to leave her answers brief, "You can never be sure of that, priest." Then she turned her glance at the Paladin and said, "I'd do so. I guess we better start going to the upper levels, for I don't want to leave my redclaw alone any longer."

Rumiko turned around and left the room. Once in the central hall she advanced towards the stairs. She stopped in front of them, and after a sigh, she asked, "What are we going to do with him?", turning to look at the surviving necromancer Vineg was still interrogating.

When Rumiko left, Ortho's eyes followed until he focused on the necromancer as well. "I work only in life, he works in death." the priest jurored, "I do not believe it matters, but his sentence should be left to Vineg's mercy." Ortho walked over to the Eolan and looked plainly at him, "He wants death, so a fitting sentence for his insolence would be life, would it not? If you decide otherwise, I do not want to see it carried out here. Necromancers are notorious for reanimation, even of their own flesh."

"Well said, dog." growled the Necromancer. "Kill me then, I have no use for undeath unless it is as a Lich, rather dead her than turned into a zombie out in Septima". He laughed throwing a mocking glance at Vineg. "Or a puppet in the higher floors of this tower!"

Vineg looked at the Necromancer a little fiercely, before turning to Ortho, now with a neutral expression. "Preach to him, please. I'd like to see his face." Having said that, Vineg turned so that ey could see the man's face, still holding his hands. Ey thought that when the man stopped being amusing, ey could just break his hands and legs or give him to Camus. Either way, ey had not yet decided. Vineg turned to look at the newcomer as well and, having heard her say things about this place that seemed like she knew something, ey felt a need to query further: "Not on real land? Where or what exactly, then?"

Ri'hane glanced at Camus and the priest as she looked past them, outside the room and said, "I don't know exactly. All I know is that this place, this realm, is on a different dimension."

Ortho blinked for a moment while Vineg's request osmosed. As soon as it had, the priest laughed out because it had been the first truly humorous thing that the Eolan had said to him. Ortho patted Vineg's shoulder and smiled, but quickly took back his hand and began stretching to prepare. Quickly his gloves hand hit the forehead of the Necromancer and gripped his scalp with his fingers, "Oh damned child of Nesha, repent of your sins and be saved for all time. Give pause the evil in your soul, let the light of the world soak into its void and bleak essense. Find purity and devotion in the light, wayward youth." Ortho had been practicing this speech in his head for Vineg in particular, until the Eolan had proved himself an ally. With Vineg so close by, the priest was inspired that maybe some of his words would catch hold at any rate. "Repent, evil doer, repent." he said, pushing his hand at the Necromancer's head. After finishing, Ortho looked at his palm and then took the cleanest part of the Necromancer's robe to rub off the oils and salt of the forehead from his glove.

"You know...." muttered the Necromancer under his breath as he glared at Ortho. "This evil shit has only gotten me close to being killed... maybe I did mess up with my career choice..." he continued looking up to the priest as if he was a lost sheep who has just found its shepherd. "Is it truly not to late for me to change my ways? Neshiite?!" he asked with a gleam on his eyes.

"It is never late so long as their is life in your lungs." Ortho replied, secretly a bit surprised the necromancer was willing to convert. "Join us, and I will show you the path to righteousness. All are lambs of Nesha." the priest said, patting the head of the Necromancer lightly. He would make a more valuable ally to their team alive, and though Ortho disdained the use of black magic, it would certainly be a fire to fend off fires in this dark land. With a glance towards Vineg, the priest smiled and waited to see how the Eolan's reaction would be towards Ortho's preaching.

"Y... you want me to go up there with you?!" asked the Necromancer quickly backing away from Ortho. "I tell you what father, you go up, and if you return alive, I shall take that as proof of Nesha's power and become an acolyte!" added the man, maybe making fun of Ortho, nevertheless, he seemed serious. "In the meantime I'll support you from here, I might not be very powerful but I know some things about the tower, and I bet I can salvage some supplies to give you if you need them later on! I could also store some of your things..." he added looking over Ortho's shoulder, at his gigantic back pack.

"Hmmm?" Ortho replied looking at his pack as well. With a small glance, he caught what the Necromancer was getting at. "Very well, I would never put a future acolyte to harm." he replied, noting that the necromancer could indeed be very helpful as a storage hand, "I'll trust you with my bedroll sack and rations." He dropped a heavy load of weight from his shoulders and passed them over to his potential acolyte. Feeling the great weight off his shoulders, the priest took a moment to replenish himself by imbibing a magic potion as well. "I am greatly in your debt, and I am certain we shall return from the top of the tower." Ortho said confidently, but knew that preparation was in order. "Camus, we need to prepare ourselves. If the upper part of this tower is dangerous enough to frighten a necromancer, we must be at our absolute peak in power." That said, Ortho stepped away from Vineg and the necromancer. He concentrated on altering his Nemesis spell to empower it to much greater levels.

The Necromancer got Ortho's stuff and took it to the room where the beds were. "If you wish to rest, there are beds here... I doubt anyone'll come, as the fighting is not over upstairs and they think everything here is dead. But in any case, if you are to rest, I'd recommend you always have someone stand guard." he said.

Vineg was admittedly impressed by Ortho's speech, but ey was mainly watching for the Necromancer's reaction, and seeing it, Vineg had some really serious trouble keeping a straight face. Ey didn't want to interrupt the conversion, however, since it had proved to be such a source of amusement. Vineg let go of the man and then patted Ortho on the shoulder. "Wow, I gotta admit, you're good." It grinned at the pun in it before continuing, seeing him look at em: "You know I'm supposed to be a yellow creature? I won't give up one wrong way just to take on another equally wrong." It sounded like Vineg could've said more, but as usual, ey didn't. Ey then followed how Ortho trusted the new convert with some of his stuff and mentally shook eir head. At least ey had eir own food in case the sheep fled. Vineg had trouble believing that the Necromancer really was honest. (Detect lies)

Vineg didn't notice any signs that could indicate that the Necromancer was lying, but then again, it could just be that the Necromancer was a better lier than Vineg was a judge of character. In any case the Eolan did not find anything clearly suspicious other than the sudden conversion.

"We'll take turns guarding." Camus said as his interest shifted from the contents in the little room to the Acolyte's repenting the Necromancer. Having nodded his head to Ortho's words, and making his own silent prayer in his head, the Paladin took such sermons quite seriously, "I'll take up the first shift, then." Following the Necromancer, whom he felt a natural mistrust toward (due to the other being a black magic practictioner and all), Camus headed just outside the sleeping quarters, positioning himself against the wall while taking off his turban and placing it on the ground near him. Perhaps the warmth of the room would be a little less insufferable now.

Ortho's surprise and yelling made Kei'rin double over in a giggling fit that started with a few snickers and ended up in her having a hard time to breathe because of the laughing. She then followed the priest's conversion of the necromancer and couldn't help but poke Ortho in the head as he was doing his magic.

Vineg shrugged at the almost-ex-necromancer, patting him on the head lightly. From talk going about, ey figured that they were about to sleep, and that didn't sound bad at all, considering eir wounds. "Hmm, would you perhaps like to do a little more healing now?" asked Vineg a little suggestively from Ortho. Ey turned to Camus as well, and continued just as suggestively: "Another night slept soundly, eh?" Vineg referred to the fact that Camus most likely wouldn't let Vineg do any kind of guarding – not that Vineg emself wanted to, because ey didn't, but it still made a nice remark in eir head.

Ortho's intense concentration was broken by the single touch of a finger. His closed and focused eyes blinked open, and eyebrows scowled downwards. Resisting the temptation to lash out, the priest let out a sigh and turned face towards Kei'rin. "Do you mind?" he asked, "I'm trying to do something fascinating here." Due to his concentration, Ortho missed nearly all of the following stated by Camus and Vineg. Catching the last trail of Vineg talking to Camus about a '...night slept soundly', Ortho shrugged it aside and took deep breaths. He shooed away Kei'rin, hoping she would not bother him again during the process of spell altering. Closing his eyes again, the priest took a moment to clarify to Nesha that he intended to alter his Nemesis spell in ways that would be beneficial to him.

Ortho learned the Pareclete spell!

---

Inside the sleeping quarters

---

"A shower would be even better" said Rumiko, happy they would get a chance to rest. She had partly lost track of how long they had all been away in this other unreal land or whatever it was. She took off her hat as she started walking towards the room where the necromancer had been found. "Wake me up for the next shift", she said as she passed besides Camus. Entering the room, she released her longer than expected hair, taking off the wooden sticks that had held it, and dropped herself on the first bed.

Eyeing the newcomer in the meantime, Vineg waited around until it thought Ortho was done. "Finished now, are we? I would appreciate some healing here, an' maybe some response to what I said earlier", ey said, seeming mostly neutral and only slightly annoyed. "The last I heard, ignoring a person isn't polite."

"I apologize, Vineg." Ortho said whilst rubbing his neck after completing his spell alteration. The altering left him with a tingling feeling around the crown of his skull, but it soon dissipated. "Healing you said?" the priest asked redundanty, but then took a look at Vineg's wounds once again. After coming to the conclusion that Vineg's wounds were too few for his best healing spell, but the inefficient use of his mass healing spell wound not be wise before a great battle. "Take this..." Ortho said while handing Vineg a healing potion, "You should feel better shortly afterwards."

Vineg gave out a cute grin at Ortho – or as cute as people would see on eir face. Ey looked slightly puzzled but took the healing potion. "Thank you", ey said and drank it, wondering why he didn't just cast a spell but then figured that it was better to just drop that since it wasn't like Vineg knew too much about white magic. Ey did, however, give Ortho a comically disregadring glance for his last remark but didn't say anything. "Say, there's this one personal issue I've been wondering..." Vineg started and paused for a moment to see Ortho's expression, in case he'd have an idea like Vineg imagined. Ey then continued nevertheless: "See these little wings on my wrists? I shoukd have ones in my ankles too, but I don't. My... uh, they were ripped off so bad they didn't grow back. So I'm asking, is it possible for you to heal them?" Vineg sounded strangely wishful even to emself, but then again there weren't too many things Vineg really wanted but couldn't achieve by emself.

"I deal in general anatomy, not specifically to any particular racial quirks." Ortho replied, but raised up his hand in a gesture of having Vineg lift a foot for him to take a look at it anyway. "Let's have a look at them anyway, there may be a magical solution to restore them but it may be beyond my talents without proper treatment tools." the priest replied, though in the back of his mind he kept the thought that Vineg was still a criminal and may be trying to trick Ortho into freeing up some sort of handicap that would allow the eolan to escape easier. He showed no sign of distrust, it had taken quite a bit of effort to get Vineg to trust the priest to this point, and would not prudent to throw aside trust so easily.

"What's the difference", replied Vineg rhetorically to Ortho's statement about dealing only in generalities, but didn't mean it in bad will. Ey took one boot off, leaned the foot at some structure and turned it so that the priest could see the torn ankle. "They stopped growing back when he..." Vineg stopped and grimaced at emself for slipping at that point. "...when most of the bones were pulled off. It's supposed to be like on my wrist here, just a bit bigger", ey said, putting eir hand next to the foot. "Y'know, I'd just like to have them back. I doubt you'd want to look like... uhm..." Vineg took a short moment to ponder what Ortho might not want to look like. "Oh, you wouldn't want to lose your hair an' be bald right? I think that's the sort of issue here..."

"Baldness improves the vow of chastity, and is a favorite tactic of monks to avoid the flirtations of maidens." Ortho smirked, but understood the referrence his Eolan ally was using, "It would better be said to have my very soul shackled but an inch lower from the light of Nesha." As another thought came to mind, the priest added, "Or my hands could be removed. That would make it rather difficult and cumbersome to pray. Limbs are limbs, and I will be glad to help you once I have the proper tools. Bone re-structuring is not easy, even in my line of work." Ortho was not fond of leaving scenarios in bleak circumstances, and so he patted Vineg's shoulder in attempt to reassure him, "However, I do believe there are some forms of green or bio magic that have had fancy results."

Rumiko partially heard the conversation between Vineg and Ortho. Although she was tired and didn't know what they were talking about, she couldn't sleep. Just listening to them speak worried her. She trusted Ortho knew what he was doing, but feared he would come to close a friendship with the corrupted eolan, or something alike. She didn't know how long she could keep holding that unfinished business she had with Vineg. Rumi took a deep breath and sat on the bed, crossing her legs. With her eyes closed, Rumi meditated, trying to clear her mind of all trouble.

Vineg shook eir head slightly in amusement. "Why would anyone want to be chaste?" Ey looked somewhat disappointed at hearing that Ortho couldn't do anything for now, because it meant that ey'd probably never get another chance. Ey pulled the boot back on and shuddered at Ortho's next words, but with a grin on eir face. Vineg then thought of a good way to "pay back" the favor and stepped a little closer to Ortho before grabbing him and pulling him in for a full body hug with snuggling. "I just hope this hug isn't totally wasted on you", ey whispered while having eir face somewhere in the priest's hair.

Ortho sighed in a sputter. As a priest, he was used to dealing with uncomfortable embraces and patted Vineg's back, mindful of his wings. "Hugs are never wasted between allies." Ortho replied, making sure to use his free hand to secure any loose articles he could think of. The priest broke the hug in as friendly a manner as could be done between the two of them, and Ortho decided to comment on Vineg's distaste of chastity, "To be chaste is to be pure, and I respect those with the... power of abstinence." Checking to see Camus was on guard, Ortho bowed his head and looked towards the bunks, "We should get some rest, I have a feeling it could be the last peaceful moment we experience in this place."

Vineg was actually surprised that Ortho didn't pull right away and grinned amusedly at the thought of him taking the hug that seriously. Ey kept grinning and said: "To be chaste by force is to be a masochist in denial and have a stick up one's arse." Vineg thought of something to say about self control but figured Ortho probably wasn't interested. With that, ey walked into the bedroom, ignored Rumiko, picked one unused lower bed and took off eir armor and some clothes. Upon removing eir boots, Vineg sat on the bed and touched eir ankles for some moments, thinking about the removal of the little wings. Ey didn't start dwelling on it and was about to lie down when ey happened to glance at Rumiko again and decided to bother her as well. "So, Rumiko, was it? What is YOUR problem with me? Because to me it sure seemed like you have one. An' as far as I know, you haven't even told us why you were in disguise way back in Septima." Ey thought of adding some partially comical side-note to that, but figured the monk preferred direct speech and would just get stuck on the side-comment, so Vineg too kept eir question simple.

It took Rumiko a couple of seconds to open her eyes and stare at Vineg as it adressed her. She had ignored it as it entered, aswell as Kei'rin. Without changing her stance, she took a final deep breath before answering the eolan. "Because of you", she said. "I tracked you down until I found you with Camus. You owe me. Your people took away the life of my friend, and it's my duty to avenge him", she said and stopped, as her last words begun to fill with contained anger. She left the bed and stood up. "Are you Non'rid's apprentice?" she asked, staring right into Vineg's eyes.

First, Vineg looked at Rumi with a mix of amusement and confusion, but as she went to talk about killed friends and vengeance, the amusement faded and ey started wishing real hard that ey hadn't taken off eir armor and most of the other stuff. However, when she mentioned Non'rid, Vineg's eyes flared up and ey also jumped up, grabbing eir kogatana, and snapped between clenched teeth: "Non'rid!! How dare you! I haven't heard that name in... since..." Vineg was so furious ey couldn't speak and glared back into Rumi's eyes with a sense of far greater severeness than ey had displayed this far. Ey did eir best to stand still and try not to gut her where she stood, though eir arm was obviously shaking. Vineg forced emself calm enough to continue speaking: "Apprentice! Apprentice!!" Vineg swallowed eir pride and voice before continuing as quietly as ey could so that no one else would hear, though ey was still furious and was almost yelling the whispers: "I was no apprentice! I was his tool an' slave! Who do you think did all this to me!?" Vineg pointed at eir ankles and some other big scars that were visible from under the ragged clothing ey had, after which ey grabbed eir left shoulder wing with eir left hand and squeezed the few feathers in eir fist. Had Vineg taken this any less seriously, ey would now have started laughing at the idea of Rumiko doing all of this just to hunt down another "victim" of Non'rid's – but ey didn't and thus remained dead serious.

Ortho walked in behind Vineg, but paced back a step when the Eolan jumped to a stance and began shouting. "Wrath." he mumbled, and when Vineg calmed a bit, Ortho passed by and patted the eolan's shoulder along the way. "I am one tired priest." he joked when he walked between Rumiko and Vineg to break the charged anger between them, "If you two are going to fight, can it wait until... well I suppose there is no morning here. Let us have it wait until little Kei'rin and I have had our rest." With a tap onto Rumiko's foot, Ortho asked while removing some of his extra robes, "Do you mind if I take the top bunk?"

"You did as he told you to, nevertheless", Rumiko answered to Vineg's indignation. She didn't know if she should believe what it said about being hurt by the Dah'kin. "You killed and murdered others, you're not better than he was!", she said, making her point that it didn't deserve to be forgiven by her. As Ortho walked in the middle of them, her most rational side took over again, as she knew this was the worst place she could think of to fight a duel. "Take whatever bunk you like", Rumi answered to the priest in a rather rude tone. Her honor was in dispute and she wanted the matter to be over, but she couldn't, which was frustrating. "Now you know why I'm here, Vineg. Put down your weapon, I'm not that foolish to fight you in this hellish place" she concluded, but didn't move from where she was, waiting for the eolan's response.

When Ortho stuffed himself between emself and Rumiko, Vineg wasn't too far from trying to stab him but controlled emself. Otherwise, ey totally ignored him, instead watching Rumiko. Ey did take a step back after he left since ey shared Rumi's thoughts about this being one of the worst places and times to have a duel. "I did what he made me do! He never taught me killing was wrong. I know what I've done an' I saw some of what he did an' I can say that yes, I am better than he was! Do you think I had a say in what he did to me or the way he raised me? Do you really think I had a choice!?" Vineg felt pretty terrible about having to talk (or in this case, shout) about eir past in such a situation, but of course left things out for simplicity and eir own convenience's sake. And certainly ey wasn't going to start bragging about eir killings to these people – it was in eir best interests to make emself sound more of a victim than ey really was. Vineg took another step back when Rumi finished and said: "Yes indeed, you made one long trip for vengeance's sake, but I won't give you that. You have to be really messed up in the head if you think fighting me can fulfill your sense of justice. I'll not fight you. An' just for the record, if I could raise that friend of yours from the dead, I would, because the world isn't fair an' there are few things I wouldn't do to get people like you to leave me alone." Vineg didn't put away eir weapon, but then again, neither did she (as if she could) and Vineg thought ey was far enough for her to consider it almost the same as having put the weapon away.

Ortho sighed at the anger and hatred between Rumiko and Vineg. Though he would have enjoyed helping them resolve their differences, the muses were on coffee break and left him without inspiration. The priest climbed up to the top bunk after having set his robes to hang from the top right post of the ladder. Laying himself down, Ortho put his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. "I wish I could see the stars tonight, would make sleeping so much easier." he mumbled, turning to the side facing away from the arguement and retraced a rogue memory, "Oh well, better than sleeping in a prison."

Rumiko was surprised Ortho didn't say anything else and just went to sleep. She couldn't think right now of anything else to say to Vineg. She had spent so much time concentrating her hate on it, that she barely could reason now. For a second she thought the whole situation was stupid, but there was nothing she could do. "We'll see", she said only, keeping her eyes on Vineg. Then, she ignored its fighting stance and after taking off part of her armor and leaving it with her hat and boots, she returned to bed, and tried to get some rest.

Vineg glared at Rumiko and sat on eir bed as she started taking her gear off. Ey thought that Rumiko wasn't the kind of person to come strangle em in eir sleep, so Vineg didn't worry about that too much, even though the doubt couldn't but linger in eir mind. When she lay down on the bed, Vineg too did so, but stuffed eir kogatana under the pillow. Ey then curled up inside the covers like a kid and slept.

---

Outside the sleeping quarters

---

Ri'hane finally walked out of the small storage room, and watched as they one by one got to rest. Although after fighting her way down there she was supposed to feel tired, but she wasn't, and still feeling the adrenalin rushing through her veins, she could not sleep. So she sat with her back to the wall across the room with the beds.

Kei'rin was disappointed at Ortho's reaction to the poke and decided to get some rest too. As soon as she entered the bedroom, though, she heard Vineg practically craving for a verbal fight with Rumiko and figured she would not get any rest in there. She sat down into the corner (S4), leaning against the wall and closed her eyes.

On the other side of the sleeping quarters stood the grim Camus, back prepped against the wall. He had quietly listened to Rumiko's and the the hideous Eolan's argument, but decided not to involve himself with such matters; though the Xiadomian monk's background proved intriguing. As the Paladin kept himself on guard duty, the ensuing stillness of the giant room, almost like a calm before the storm, had made Camus feel rather paranoid. Without really thinking about it, he started to slowly hum an old tune he had heard long ago during his time with Anticious's army to calm his nerves, not noticing or caring if anyone heard him.

Ri'hane had thought this lot to be more neutral. But now as she heard the faint sounds coming out of the room across the hall, which was surely louder than an ordinary conversation, she understood that she had been wrong. They had quite some issues that even one who had spent as little time as she had with them, couldn't miss. She couldn't wait to get Zar out and be on her way. Neither of them was either interested or used to working along with a person, let alone a group of them. Her thread of thought was broken when she heard the Paladin humming. She shot him a glance and thought he must have some nerves to look so calm.

Halfway finished with the tune, Camus stopped and frowned a little. Looking about the area with some confusion as he felt he was being watched, he noticed Ri'hane's presence not too far off and frowned a little more. The Paladin couldn't help but be inherently suspicious of former criminals, no matter who they were or their history, and so quietly said with his gravely voice, "Since there may be no better time to say this other than now, let me make it perfectly clear.... I intend to lend my aid to you for only as long as we are in this foreign land. After that, it is my duty as a Paladin to bring you to justice for the crimes you have committed against the Caessen Empire."

Ri'hane shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly, "If it wasn't for this place, you wouldn't even catch a glimpse of my shadow, let alone arrest me. I just do my job, like you do yours, only the titles differ, as our origins and charcateristics do, so stop calling me a criminal! Yet still, I guess manners suggest that I'd be thankful for your aid, which has yet to be measured by me, as useful." She then straightened out her legs and putting one foot over another, she tried to relax.

"And why, exactly," Camus replied coldly, "should I withhold referring to you as a criminal when your previous jobs have benefited the enemies of my countrymen? Believe you me, the Caessen Empire has enough problems on its hands already. It doesn't need to worry about-" Stopping himself suddenly, the Paladin sighed and decided not to make things any more difficult for the time being. Grumbling a "Forget it", he was silent for a little while before quietly asking, "What have you done to make yourself an enemy of the Armored Hand?"

Ri'hane looked at the Paladin for a few seconds, as her thoughts went back to old times. A slight frown formed on her face, "I have done nothing to deserve all the hatred this world and it's people have shown me. I've just tried to make a living, that's all.", she looked away and sighed, "And if I have always walked on the wrong path, it's because they denied me the right one."

"That is not a valid enough excuse." Camus murmured with a frown, "One cannot use the terrible hardships that life has dealt them as justifications to follow the wrong path. No, instead one must strive to further better themselves and to make certain that similar experiences will not carry on to future generations." Reminiscing past days and the choices he, himself, made, the Paladin firmly nodded once as his resolve was strengthened before gruffly stating, "That is my belief. Take it as you will."

"There's not going to be any generation following my line, so I truly don't worry about that. Still, nice of you to leave me the choice to decide how I get to think about what you just said!", Ri'hane replied coldly, not really impressed by his pure good belief. "As long as you keep your belief to yourself, I'm okay. But I can't promise I'll act any less evil!" 

---

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