Gaining access had been as easy as Yarlae had indicated. Scaling the wall with the aid of Markas’ hook and rope they soon found themselves atop the outer wall standing by the door that Yarlae had spied. Her keen eyes could make out another door on the opposite wall that was closer to the tower. Surprisingly there was no apparent access to the tower from the ground level, a barren courtyard littered with debris but no doors that could be seen, no way of gaining access to the manse proper. Only this door and its twin on the other side. With few other options and no apparent path they proceeded. The door was no match for Wulf’s warhammer, stoved in after a few mighty swings. Silence and darkness lay on the other side. It was growing darker outside too, the sun dipping behind the mountains. They stepped inside and Vasilya muttered an incantation. A sconce nearby sparked into flame from which Markas lit an oil soaked torch.
The passageway ahead was empty save a few hangings and an empty weapons rack, presumably for defending the fort. For a fort it seemed to be, no mere domicile. A chill wind whistled past and the hanging banners fluttered even as the burning torch sputtered. Markas moved the torch in front of him, shielding it from the elements as they moved deeper inside Manse De Poulain.
They proceeded down the corridor cautiously. Wulf and Markas at the fore, Yarlae and Vasilya behind. Presently they came to a staircase descending, it appeared that the path to the tower would be anything but straightforward.
Descending the winding staircase they still encountered no resistance. No horrors launched themselves at the company, there was no apparent threat. Everything was still, even the wind had died down, though the torch still sputtered occasionally as though the very darkness was trying to smother the flame. Only their breathing belied any life at all. At the bottom of the stairs was an unlocked door to a room beyond which another short passage led to another set of descending steps. Wulf stopped, raising his hand in a fist out of habit.
“This isn't right, he growled. If we go down again we will be under the fort. We shall turn back, retrace our steps. See if we can find another path to the tower”. There was no argument, there never was with Wulf. They turned around and retrod their path. However, at the door to the previous staircase a magical barrier fizzed and sparked.
“I knew it”, Markas hissed. “A trap!”
He was not wrong, it was then that they struck.
Over a dozen in number, they emerged from the shadows, ambushing the company from behind. Yet the quartet were not unprepared. They had been on guard since entering the Manse and whirled to meet the horrors head on. Their attackers were fast, blurs of cloth and flesh that struck at a blinding speed in the gloom. Markas fended one off with his torch scorching its flesh and setting its garb alight. It howled as it burned, becoming fully alight unnaturally quickly, ablaze like dry tinder. A flailing flaming figure that illuminated the rest of its brethren.
They were abominations, patchwork monstrosities, deformed and mangled and grotesque. But for all that, they were horribly, identifiably, human. They were amalgamations of several individuals sewn and melded together into new monstrous forms by some unseen twisted architect. Yet they WERE human, men and women, and although their forms were monstrous their faces still carried a very obvious fear. They were scared of the fire. The wretch on the floor had stopped screaming and flailing. The flame was guttering, dying out and turning a mysterious violet as it waned. Soon the only light was again Markas' torch. Emboldened once more by the darkness the horrors attacked again.
In the gloom the company fought for their lives. Markas loosed a trio of throwing knives, yet, although all struck true, none of his targets fell. Within moments they were on him and though he tried to strike them with the torch he was overwhelmed, the brand was struck from his hand and fell to the floor, still burning. He grappled with two of the constructs, managing to gain space enough to draw his short sword.
Wulf bellowed as he swung his warhammer in wide irresistible arcs, caving in the head of one foe and crushing the chest of another. Though they fell, they rose once more, mangled face and concave torso closing in on the mighty warrior as he retreated, all the while still swinging his weapon. Though they looked human, they recovered from what would normally be mortal wounds, their ravaged forms continuing to attack. They could be slowed but only the most destructive of blows could stop them. He lashed out once more and fairly split the abomination in two such was the force of his strike. The creature spasmed on the floor, broken limbs trying to gain purchase and rise. These things did not bleed, he noticed. Instead their wounds drew forth a viscous tar-like ichor.
Markas had gained the upper hand. For all his brutishness and lack of charm he was a formidable warrior and he hewed and chopped with his blade, striking limbs from bodies and cleaving his foes apart. More than once though, his blade would lodge in the torso of an enemy, the thick sludge preventing clean strikes.
Yarlae also fared well, innate and honed fighting skills coming to the fore. Graceful compared to Markas’ direct approach she fended off foes with her gilded short bow even as she dispatched others with a curved elvish long dagger, it had belonged to her mother and she had lost count of the lives it had ended in her hands. The blade flashed and flickered in the gloom as she sliced and slashed, her half elven eyes affording her superior eyesight in the dark. Yet, for all her prowess and elan, the foes she struck down rose once more. The weapon unsuited to the brutal dismemberment that this enemy required.
Vasilya desperately defended herself against no less than four of the patchwork horrors. Pressed into a corner, she had thrown up a kinetic barrier to protect herself but the strain on her face made it apparent that she had no power spare to mount any kind of attack. Thankfully Markas soon came to her aid, decapitating two of the foe with heavy swings before running the other two through and bisecting them. Wulf, having obliterated his opponents, moved over to assist Yarlae, crushing her opponents with mighty overhead swings.
Presently all of the monstrosities were down, smashed or cut to pieces, hacked apart and torn asunder. Bodies and limbs lay all around. Markas picked up the sputtering torch, carefully coaxing the lambent flame back to life.
“What the hell was that?” he scowled, holding the torch low and peering at the vanquished adversaries. He screwed his face up in distaste and spat on the piles of flesh. He tried to clear his sword of the sticky tar like ichor but it clung to the blade, stubbornly refusing to wipe clean. He used the torch to burn the residue off instead, grunting with satisfaction as the blade flared brightly with that strange violet hue. Whatever these horrors had in place of blood, it was highly combustible.
“Monsters” Vasilya whispered, visibly shaken by the experience. “But they had human faces, were these… people?”
Wulf prodded one with his warhammer. “Maybe once, not now. Look, stitched, these things were made, not born” He turned, his face set.
“They seemed to be afraid of fire. We should make more torches lest we encounter more. Their blood burns well enough, we’ll take their wrappings and soak them in it. Find staves for the torches. To it, now!” He barked at Yarlae and Markas. Without another word the half-elf and brigand set to their grim task. Wulf turned his attention to the young mage;
“Vasilya” She turned, a haunted look in her eyes.
“Can you do anything about this door? I’d just as soon not venture further into the depths.” She shut her eyes and held a hand to the door. Sweat beaded on her forehead. The seal on the door grew brighter and thrummed but after a moment she dropped her hand.
“It is beyond me”, she replied, shakily. “Even were I at full power I suspect that these magicks would be too much for me to overcome. Whoever set these wards is mightier than me by far.” She shuddered as the effort took its toll.
“So be it,” muttered Wulf. “Deeper then, into the trap.”
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