Post by Sunday on Oct 29, 2019 15:06:15 GMT
(Part midway session write-up; part Sunday level 18 level-up; part tieflings coming home to roost. 100% self-indulgent)
Sunday slumps down on the weird flower-stone divan hybrid sitting along one wall of her private rest area at the heart of the Sanguine Rose’s domain. Although the curious entity part-fiend, part-fey? had granted them respite and haven for a short while, Sunday was under no illusions about the lethality of their current predicament.
Too tired to try and work out how to possibly survive tomorrow, she gets to her feet and makes her way over to the assorted items stacked in the corner of the room. Picking out a bronze-beaten washbowl, she crosses to an empty rock-hewn pedestal and places it on its top. With unshod feet pressing into the improbably mossy floor, she draws on the moisture imbuing the verdant carpeting and tries to fill the vessel with crystal-clear water. Faltering at first, unable to find a way through the crushing heat pervading this Plane, she fixes the memory of the lake in Will’s glade in her mind and lets herself plunge into the imagined depths.
As the bowl fills with the clear water falling from her hands, she watches her reflection rise slowly towards her. Gradually coming into focus, her face is caked in ichor and sand and blood; testament to the dangers they’ve already put themselves through - despite only arriving in Avernus mere hours ago.
How else did you expect this to go? she thinks derisively.
In response, eLk looks up from the corner where he’s grazing on the food Sunday has manifested for him and cocks his savage-looking head to one side. Sunday’s still not used to his new temporary form - dark, scaly skin; ever-burning flames coating his mane and wings; jet-black forked tongue protruding from between vicious fangs - and shudders involuntarily at the grim reminder of the path her life could have taken… could still take.
“I know.” she eventually responds to him aloud. “But it never actually prepares anyone for the reality of this place.”
Cupping the water in her small, unblemished hands, Sunday tries to scour the grit and dust from her face. The Hells already feel ingrained in her; already under the skin. She knows they’ve always been just below the surface, but she didn’t expect this ease, this familiarity to rise so quickly. The crushing heat hadn’t bothered her; the sense of despair and conflict filling the atmosphere hadn’t scared her. And killing that tiefling in cold blood had come so easily: she could still see the shocked and yet not-surprised looks on the faces of some of her companions, especially Traavor, as she’d driven her hammers into the sides of its unprotected head.
As she tries to clean herself, the blood - none of it hers - drips from her skin and soils the pure water filling the bowl. The swirling red liquid looks identical to the stuff that had infected Daisy and reduced her to a gibbering, feral wreck within moments of their arrival in Avernus. The only person in the party capable of taking them home. Mind-wiped. Sunday snarls, gripping the edges of the bowl, rose-red lips peeling back from pearl-white teeth.
Fucking idiot! Why di-
Sunday catches herself. Forces down the crimson mist swirling through the whites of her eyes, mirroring the blood curling its way through the water beneath her. And unclenches her hands - her claws - from where they had scoured lines and grooves into the sides of the basin.
-not her fault. Not her fault. Not yours. No-one’s. Bad fucking luck. Should have protected her, though. Maybe speak to Traavor. Give him a job to keep his mind off things. Should have protected her. And Baine and Varis...
An image starts to form in her mind - the half-elf and the half-orc kneeling before The Sanguine Rose, signing away their lives and souls to save Daisy, to get the information and help they need, to save the group.
That should have been me. Kept their souls clean. Kept them out of this. Still could be me…
An idea starts to form in her mind. As it does, as it takes root, a green shoot of thought flashes a warning across her consciousness; a presence she recognises starts to fill her awareness.
Opening her eyes, a movement in the lapping water catches her attention. As small ripples bounce and cross over the surface, they gradually meld into one cohesive wave that clears the red cloudy taint of blood and grime in its wake.
A shape starts to form in the now-clear water: a central column of light flanked by two indistinct triangular shapes, a sense of calmness and placidity radiating from the resolving figure. The triangles coalesce into feathery-green wings, and the brilliance of the light fades to reveal the torso and head of Will. The image fills the bowl; the room; Sunday’s senses.
The earthy green connective line between them grows, branching and budding through Sunday’s being, infusing her body with the slow power of forests; the old, quiet strength of trees; the force of nature unearthed. The sensation of bark emerging from and enveloping her skin is counterpointed by a sharp sudden pain in the two curving ramshorns protruding from her skull; they straighten and split - cracking down the centre as the old calloused skin falls away to reveal green-white antlers of bone. The immediate foliage littering the floor of this area of Avernus bends towards her, sucking nutrients and vitality from her burgeoning spirit. The aura of influence spreads… 10ft… 20ft… 30ft away - Sunday can feel every living thing in the vicinity; can feel and touch and mould it. Two points of intense pressure build in her shoulder blades, the bone and tissue and matter roiling and churning beneath her skin - before erupting out and up to form two ghostly-green wings that fall about her like the overhanging, drooping leaves of a willow tree.
Sunday shudders, exerting and exercising her control over this in-rush of new power, extending her senses out through the floral and fauna around her, finding its limits and possibilities.
In her mind’s eye, she can see one solitary willow branch, bending in the winds of possibility. It splits in two from a central fork beneath her feet: one heading up towards Will, towards the Feythorn, towards light and sunshine - but away from her friends... the other tine grows downwards, seeking red roots and bloody soil far, far underground, but also spreading out below her friends, supporting them, growing into a strong platform for them to stand on, to lift them out of the dark. This second demi-branch sprouts five smaller twig-like protrusions that curl up into a hand, and beckon her forward...
Standing in her room in Avernus, Sunday can feel wetness running from her eyes - tears mingling with blood. Her blood this time.
In her mind, the two conjoined branches flatten and widen into paths, growing farther and farther apart.
Turning from the bowl, now filled with blood, to face the exit to the room, Sunday chooses a path and steps forward...
Sunday slumps down on the weird flower-stone divan hybrid sitting along one wall of her private rest area at the heart of the Sanguine Rose’s domain. Although the curious entity part-fiend, part-fey? had granted them respite and haven for a short while, Sunday was under no illusions about the lethality of their current predicament.
Too tired to try and work out how to possibly survive tomorrow, she gets to her feet and makes her way over to the assorted items stacked in the corner of the room. Picking out a bronze-beaten washbowl, she crosses to an empty rock-hewn pedestal and places it on its top. With unshod feet pressing into the improbably mossy floor, she draws on the moisture imbuing the verdant carpeting and tries to fill the vessel with crystal-clear water. Faltering at first, unable to find a way through the crushing heat pervading this Plane, she fixes the memory of the lake in Will’s glade in her mind and lets herself plunge into the imagined depths.
As the bowl fills with the clear water falling from her hands, she watches her reflection rise slowly towards her. Gradually coming into focus, her face is caked in ichor and sand and blood; testament to the dangers they’ve already put themselves through - despite only arriving in Avernus mere hours ago.
How else did you expect this to go? she thinks derisively.
In response, eLk looks up from the corner where he’s grazing on the food Sunday has manifested for him and cocks his savage-looking head to one side. Sunday’s still not used to his new temporary form - dark, scaly skin; ever-burning flames coating his mane and wings; jet-black forked tongue protruding from between vicious fangs - and shudders involuntarily at the grim reminder of the path her life could have taken… could still take.
“I know.” she eventually responds to him aloud. “But it never actually prepares anyone for the reality of this place.”
Cupping the water in her small, unblemished hands, Sunday tries to scour the grit and dust from her face. The Hells already feel ingrained in her; already under the skin. She knows they’ve always been just below the surface, but she didn’t expect this ease, this familiarity to rise so quickly. The crushing heat hadn’t bothered her; the sense of despair and conflict filling the atmosphere hadn’t scared her. And killing that tiefling in cold blood had come so easily: she could still see the shocked and yet not-surprised looks on the faces of some of her companions, especially Traavor, as she’d driven her hammers into the sides of its unprotected head.
As she tries to clean herself, the blood - none of it hers - drips from her skin and soils the pure water filling the bowl. The swirling red liquid looks identical to the stuff that had infected Daisy and reduced her to a gibbering, feral wreck within moments of their arrival in Avernus. The only person in the party capable of taking them home. Mind-wiped. Sunday snarls, gripping the edges of the bowl, rose-red lips peeling back from pearl-white teeth.
Fucking idiot! Why di-
Sunday catches herself. Forces down the crimson mist swirling through the whites of her eyes, mirroring the blood curling its way through the water beneath her. And unclenches her hands - her claws - from where they had scoured lines and grooves into the sides of the basin.
-not her fault. Not her fault. Not yours. No-one’s. Bad fucking luck. Should have protected her, though. Maybe speak to Traavor. Give him a job to keep his mind off things. Should have protected her. And Baine and Varis...
An image starts to form in her mind - the half-elf and the half-orc kneeling before The Sanguine Rose, signing away their lives and souls to save Daisy, to get the information and help they need, to save the group.
That should have been me. Kept their souls clean. Kept them out of this. Still could be me…
An idea starts to form in her mind. As it does, as it takes root, a green shoot of thought flashes a warning across her consciousness; a presence she recognises starts to fill her awareness.
Opening her eyes, a movement in the lapping water catches her attention. As small ripples bounce and cross over the surface, they gradually meld into one cohesive wave that clears the red cloudy taint of blood and grime in its wake.
A shape starts to form in the now-clear water: a central column of light flanked by two indistinct triangular shapes, a sense of calmness and placidity radiating from the resolving figure. The triangles coalesce into feathery-green wings, and the brilliance of the light fades to reveal the torso and head of Will. The image fills the bowl; the room; Sunday’s senses.
The earthy green connective line between them grows, branching and budding through Sunday’s being, infusing her body with the slow power of forests; the old, quiet strength of trees; the force of nature unearthed. The sensation of bark emerging from and enveloping her skin is counterpointed by a sharp sudden pain in the two curving ramshorns protruding from her skull; they straighten and split - cracking down the centre as the old calloused skin falls away to reveal green-white antlers of bone. The immediate foliage littering the floor of this area of Avernus bends towards her, sucking nutrients and vitality from her burgeoning spirit. The aura of influence spreads… 10ft… 20ft… 30ft away - Sunday can feel every living thing in the vicinity; can feel and touch and mould it. Two points of intense pressure build in her shoulder blades, the bone and tissue and matter roiling and churning beneath her skin - before erupting out and up to form two ghostly-green wings that fall about her like the overhanging, drooping leaves of a willow tree.
Sunday shudders, exerting and exercising her control over this in-rush of new power, extending her senses out through the floral and fauna around her, finding its limits and possibilities.
In her mind’s eye, she can see one solitary willow branch, bending in the winds of possibility. It splits in two from a central fork beneath her feet: one heading up towards Will, towards the Feythorn, towards light and sunshine - but away from her friends... the other tine grows downwards, seeking red roots and bloody soil far, far underground, but also spreading out below her friends, supporting them, growing into a strong platform for them to stand on, to lift them out of the dark. This second demi-branch sprouts five smaller twig-like protrusions that curl up into a hand, and beckon her forward...
Standing in her room in Avernus, Sunday can feel wetness running from her eyes - tears mingling with blood. Her blood this time.
In her mind, the two conjoined branches flatten and widen into paths, growing farther and farther apart.
Turning from the bowl, now filled with blood, to face the exit to the room, Sunday chooses a path and steps forward...
