Unleashed

[GamingLord]

Johnathon realized that breathing wasn't necessary for the vampire, but covering the nose and mouth would be best just in case, as he quietly told this to Veni.

Milaku nodded at Rosemary's thought, wincing a little as the vampire broke her hands continuously on punching the stronger than perceived door. Bits of flesh and bone went flying from her blows, revealing that the gore was mostly a covering for some manner of strange black crystal. The stuff was cracking and shattering, but it was one of the tougher things that Rosemary would ever have to break with her bare hands. Something suddenly wrapped around Rosemary's ankles, but was just as quickly splattered on the ground by Milkau's sharp wing talons and quick reactions. Rosemary could tell the angel/demon hybrid was nervous, but managing to stay as calm as possible, enough to be able to watch her back.

Thas was suddenly freed when the ground beneath him turned to ice, the hands clawing at his face frozen solid. Scrambling to his feet, he resisted an urge to kick and shatter the things that were trying to hold him down, realizing that the slime and spores inside could still be thawed. With the ground icy, the threat was for a time stopped. Jacob hurried over to Rosemary and enhanced her healing abilities with his necromantic energies, helping her to deliver faster blows, until finally the blockage shattered into large chunks.

The basic thought then was, Everybody get the hell out! as the ice started to crack and fingers emerged, struggling shatter the frozen water... rather successfully. Beneath the transparent layer, they could actually see the forms of mutated humanoids of various sizes struggling to break free.  

[GamingLord]

Thas made sure to burn the remaining spores in holy fire, so it wouldn't blow back in their faces, after making sure with Milaku it was safe to do so. He did this carefully and in a small fire so as to not give away their location. At the mention of a trap with the Stream of the Damned, Thas shook his head.

Let's try not to jinx it.

Milaku made mention that yes, the nasty spore stuff had to be underneath flesh to gain a foothold in the bodies of it's victims. Both she and Jacob studied the crystal Rosemary held, and surpsingly both angelic/demonic and necromancer were stumped.

Rosemary, I've been to Ni'Jitogrimiz many times, and I've never seen that substance before in my life. It must be some very tough mineral they've acquired on some world recently. As for where we are...

Jacob frowned, though Milaku didn't look as concerned.

We're off track, but if we take a few side routes, we'll be back on the right direction soon enough. Here, you can..... kind of share with everyone a mental image, right?

With that ,she shared a basic, very brief map where they would have to take a couple of twists and turns, go down a few long paths after they got on "the right path", and somehow make their way down deep into the recesses of the temple's bowels to get to the soul chambers. A lot of areas were blacked out in the memory either due to not enough time to share, not knowing certain spots, or attempting to not think about what horrors may be in some rooms.  

[GamingLord]

Johnathon shook his head, quietly mentioning that attempting to get out now would probably be more life risking now than before, since they had set off a trap. In for a penny, in for a pound as some humans had said, though he hadn't been sure on what the phrase exactly meant, he did understand the gist of it. Milaku unfortunately agreed. Whatever trap they had accidentally set off earlier, probably caught some attention.

Jacob gave Veni a slight soothing necro-energy petting on approximately where his shoulder would have been, invisible as subtle as it was. It was meant to be a comforting gesture, one that said "hang in there." He also made sure again that there was no significant damage to Rosemary's arms or fists after all that harsh punching, fixing a few missed out of place joints or hairline fractures here and there quicker than usual.

They continued to traverse, making and sneaking their way through various halls and stairwells, lower into the depths of the disturbing temple-home of the Niearcim. Out of the corner of their eyes, they could see into some of the dorm like rooms of the lower mages, noting that they had vile things in there, such as torture victims or experiments hanging from walls, helpless.. a few able to still cry out in agony at the horrid things done to them. One was literally in pieces, only connected by his nerves and blood vessels, forced to look at his own internal workings in eternal horror. It was noticed that there seemed to be some form of slowly ticking down clock next to his pulsating remains as well... most likely some sort of horror torture experiment where he would be forced to watch himself slowly die and realize how much time he'd have left. If at all possible, Thas or someone else would want to do something for this individual, but nothing could be done. It seemed there was a slight gathering in that room of a few mages, observing and taking notes. Fortunate enough that they weren't seen, and were able to ignore the cries and sobs of the doomed man.

One thing was for certain... nobody would have a peaceful sleep for a long while after returning from Ni'Jitogrimiz...