|
Post by Admin on Feb 16, 2021 5:11:41 GMT
As the swarms get closer they can see that each wasp is about the size of Kat's hands as has oversized mandibles. The creatures ignore Kat and Eivor and descend upon the captured woman. She continues to giggle as the insects tear chunks of her flesh off they fly back to their nests, continues to laugh as they rip out her eyes and crawl under her clothes. The laughter only stops when a group clamber into her mouth and down her throat, later emerging with chunks of viscera.
|
|
|
Post by Katerina on Feb 16, 2021 8:27:18 GMT
"I'm not sure whether to be relieved they didn't attack or horrified at what just happened." Kat replies. Clearly this Coy knew how to either make blood creatures or artifacts that resembled real creatures. He was quite skilled at what he did, but the orders were obviosuly there to prevent his staff from being captured.
"I guess that stops the whole plan of subtlety in me replacing her. Whoever this Coy person is, he is really not a nice person." She adds.
|
|
|
Post by Eivor on Feb 16, 2021 18:39:12 GMT
"Extraordinary," Eivor observes. "Let's get to the house and see if there's anyone there to save. I fear the worst, but we have to try."
She had seen many things, but this was quite the most disturbing yet. Pulling her cloak across her face, she hurried towards the mansion.
|
|
|
Post by Katerina on Feb 17, 2021 21:09:01 GMT
Kat nods and follows Eivor a little way behind, letting the Goddess take the lead.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Feb 21, 2021 5:02:08 GMT
By the time they reach the mansion door the woman is nothing more than bones and bloody clothes.
The door is closed but unlocked, from inside the smell of rotting flesh is overpowering.
|
|
|
Post by Katerina on Feb 21, 2021 15:26:43 GMT
Kat holds her nose and moves around to try and peek into a window.
"We should be careful. I do not like this Goddess."
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Feb 22, 2021 2:11:30 GMT
The windows are shut and heavy curtains block the view inside. Kat continues to smell the rotting smell from the window.
The wasps in the grounds have stopped buzzing; are they eating the stolen flesh? sleeping? or conserving energy before rising to strike again?
|
|
|
Post by Eivor on Feb 22, 2021 10:12:38 GMT
"Please, just call me Eivor," Eivor replies. She wraps a scarf over her face against the smell and keeps the Pattern in mind as she opens the door, putting force into it if necessary. Once inside she has a quick look around for threats before unbarring the windows to let in light and air.
|
|
|
Post by Katerina on Feb 22, 2021 20:55:44 GMT
"I will try and remember Eivor." It did not feel right to use a Goddess' name as though she were just a friend or aquaintance, but Kat just had to lump it. It was a command by the Goddess after all.
Kat quickly creates a simple mask from her cloak using Mirrormancy and dons it before going in after the Goddess.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Feb 24, 2021 5:46:06 GMT
The place smells awful and feels uninhabited. The door opens into a well-decorated, tastefully elegant foyer with a slight dust layer covering the furnishings and floor. This is marred only by a dead servant's arm reaching through an archway in the right wall leading to another room. A few flies buzz around the necrotic hand.
Venturing further into the building, many dead are found, blood splatters the walls and covers furniture and the floor. All seem to have been killed in the same way: from being beaten by a large, blunt object, probably the woman's rolling pin she was carrying during the confrontation with Eivor and Kat at the gate.
In the kitchen, a huge, partially eaten, and rotting ham lays on the table—obviously the woman's source of food for some time.
In the basement, there is a small alchemical lab and summoning circle set into the floor. The odour of twisted magics and their foul residue still contaminate the room.
Neither Coy nor his supposed family of Delambres is alive or amongst the dead in the building.
|
|
|
Post by Eivor on Feb 24, 2021 12:15:29 GMT
Eivor flips out Benedict's trump and concentrates on it.
|
|
|
Post by Katerina on Feb 24, 2021 17:23:43 GMT
Kat has never really seen alchemy before and studies the ritual circle before making her mirrored cloak show itself once more. She then examines the reflection of the summoning circle in her cloak, hoping that the lens of the Mirrormaze might reveal something that she could not see with her direct gaze.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Feb 26, 2021 3:30:28 GMT
The pentagram reflection shows the waves and tendrils of magic power flowing through the room and out through the walls. If one were inclined, they might be able to use it for some fell purpose.
The connection with Benedict is quickly made. Eivor finds him sitting in a room she doesn't recognize drinking a glass of wine. The place's aesthetics are very Benedict-like, so that this may be his apartment in Castle Amber.
"Eivor. You made it to Deiga."
Not a question.
|
|
|
Post by Katerina on Feb 26, 2021 11:17:00 GMT
Kat was not inclined, nor skilled in magic. She wondered whether Coy had used this to escape somehow. This place had been used recently and she could still sense the loathsome magics that had been used. She shook her head. How Coy could have lived in a place like this with the stench of rotting flesh she didn't know.
It was possible that Coy left in a hurry though and might not have had a chance to take everything, so she looked around the lab carefully to see if he had left such a clue.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Mar 2, 2021 6:22:16 GMT
There isn't much for Kat to find. Coy cleaned the place out of incriminating evidence, but under one table leg is a scrap of paper folded up to keep the table level. Opening it up reveals a portion of an illustration done in Indian ink. Wavy lines cross the page, some of which intersect with geometric symbols: stars, squares, hexagons, drawn two dimensional, others 3-D, and one, a spiral looks to have been attempted to be drawn in four dimensions. Scratches and drawing over shows the difficulty in getting that illustration drawn with crude implements like pen and paper. The wavy lines do not curl back and cross themselves except when meeting at the geometric designs.
It could simply be a bit of casual doodling.
|
|