Goriel and beyond, part 4

[Alberich]

"Rough night, huh?" she asked neutrally, pulling up a chair.

Tim realized what she was up to and numbly let her. He thought he'd managed to get that stuff into the chamber pot and not on himself, but from the looks of things, it wasn't so. Well, he hadn't been awake or had a chance to do the Hygiene spell himself when she knocked...and what's it to you? The first words weren't, "I am preferring the following charges against you." Be grateful for that, dolt.

"Iiiiit...comes with the territory." What'd you mean by that, dummy? May as well ask what's on your mind! "Do...you...know what's happened with Eli?"

That was his first worry sure enough. Something didn't match up. The elf had taken the amulet -- Rose must've told her -- but had then tried talking instead of killing him at once or trapping him - had tried it clumsily enough that he'd gotten it back. Yet she'd talked as if she'd known him and so had he. Something was strange there. Brad knew this elf. Maybe Rose would say more, and give him a picture that made some sense. And if not maybe at least she knew if the information he'd seen tortured out of the other man had brought the elf results. Or at least see how much of the truth the elf had told Rose.

[Sareth]

"Well... FUCK."

Jamie was as eloquent as always while assessing the situation. As soon as she realized the thing couldn't squeeze through the opening to follow her she had become almost dispassionate while staring at it from only a few feet short of its reach.

"That's a really, really big blob thing. And with all those mouths and eyes, I don't even know if it has one brain, many brains, or none at all, or where they might or might not be."

The girl sat and began mulling this one over, staring at the ceiling of the room the thing was in every so often.

****

Lillith had risen and, as was her usual practice, spent some time meditating before taking a bath. Now, freshly dressed, she had proceeded down the hallway to the room Tim was residing in. Noticing the door was slightly ajar she went ahead and pushed it open. "Tim? Was it true what you said about Eli being coer... Oh." The girl stopped, her eyes falling on where Rose was sitting next to the unkempt Tim. "Um, I'll go. I'm sorry I interrupted."

[Jack Rothwell]

"ROO-OOOCK!"

The loud and cheerful cry came from Tamina's side of the chamber as the kobold returned to the situation. A stone missle, barely six inches in diameter, flew through the semi-light and struck the blob in its side. Tamina's eyes marked the strike, the loss of forward momentum, and the snap of the blob's flesh as it returned the object to it's sender in the manner of a trampoline.

"AHH!" Tamina ducked and narrowly avoided being struck full in the face by her own, ill-advised attack. She straightened and began chewing on one of her finger-claws, her habit when confronted by a tricky, but not immediately dangerous, problem. After a moment's consideration and waved a hand at Jaime and Udo.

"Umm... guys!" She called, once she'd gotten her companions attention she jumped on the spot several times in a gesture that contained hope, energy and jiggling to inspire a dozen fan-fictions. She eventually stopped when it dawned on her that they weren't looking at the important part of the message.

"Bounce over!!" She yelled, crossing her arms over her chest.

[Drannin]

Argus shrugged. "Unfortunately, I've never seen Eli's magic in action. I did sense an unusual, unfamiliar magical residue around the museum, which makes me wonder if Eli wasn't involved in that somehow. Nothing left there that I could examine, though. Right now, I'd like to talk to Tim some more, see if he can tell me about the magic Eli's been using. Maybe then, I'll have a clearer picture."

He considered. "Oh, and Drusia? Please don't threaten him this time. The young man's already paranoid enough as is, and has some sort of religious dread of elves, from what I gather."

[Drusia]

Argus shrugged. "Unfortunately, I've never seen Eli's magic in action. I did sense an unusual, unfamiliar magical residue around the museum, which makes me wonder if Eli wasn't involved in that somehow. Nothing left there that I could examine, though. Right now, I'd like to talk to Tim some more, see if he can tell me about the magic Eli's been using. Maybe then, I'll have a clearer picture."

He considered. "Oh, and Drusia? Please don't threaten him this time. The young man's already paranoid enough as is, and has some sort of religious dread of elves, from what I gather."

I nod. "I wasn't planning to. Last night I was in a tearing hurry, and honestly didn't have the best picture of what was going on." The clearer the picture got, the more it seems that Tim may actually be the only person who was looking out for Eli. I'm not going to bring it up here, with her lover, but I'm rather unhappy with Rose for letting this happen to Eli.

"As for the religious dread... I can't imagine why. I thought all the strict Luminosans were convinced that Luminosa could defeat the evil elves without much effort." I snort. Of all the absurd legends about my people, Luminosa 'defeating' us is the one of the stupidest. As if it required a god - we handily defeated ourselves, thank you very much.

-- Drusia

[Graybeard]

"No, no, no, Lillith, please stay here," Sister Rose called. "We need to talk this through."

As Lillith returned to the room, Rose turned back to Tim. "You were right about Eli," she said, "and we're going to have to work with -- the elf to get him back to himself and out of trouble." She sighed. "And we're still going to have to do it while doing our main mission, because as bad as things are with Eli, things with Blaise are worse, and getting worse still. So we're going to need your help -- desperately." She looked at him earnestly. "Can I count on you?"

[Alberich]

Jamie didn't see anything encouraging about the ceiling. The Lowest Chamber looked very solid indeed, and while there were other parts of this mine that might be collapsible, this didn't look like one of them. And a good thing too - as their best escape, and their beloved kobold, were on the other side of it.

When Tamina bounced her rock off of it, a couple of the little mouths yelled something else in their inhuman little voices - "HURT! HURT! HURT!" - but not for long. Inspired by this, or maybe just bored, Udo picked up rocks and started trying to knock the teeth out of its little mouths. (On second look, the teeth weren't that sharp - more like human teeth - but there were a hell of a lot of them and they could bite a fleshy human or kobold to pieces in a very painful way...) He wasn't that good a shot with a rock, but when Jamie saw that, she idly shot an eye out, just to see what would happen.

Cries of "HURT! HURT! HURT!" were followed by other cries of "HEAL! HEAL! HEAL!" - overlappping as they came from different mouths (the mouths did not sync up) - and they saw this mindless thing could regenerate at that. It wasn't very fast to heal, but heal it did. There was too much flesh on it for Jamie to shoot them a passage through it. With rifles or pistols anyway. A nice li'l cannonball might be a different story, but they hadn't any artillery in their pockets. Actually that was a dreamy little picture for someone like Jamie...the smooth, sensual, black barrel of the cannon pointing suggestively at the blob...the release of satisfaction, the satisfying boom of the shot...the heady smell of the powder and metal burns on the flesh of the enemy...and then, with the passage blown through, there on the other side, Tamina for dessert! Where was a good cannon when you needed one?

The way the monster's body undulated with those little mouths snapping was discouraging to the idea of jumping across its body. At least, Udo thought so.

[OOC: Edited to add Jamie-centered sexual imagery. Can there be a better reason for editing?]

[Drannin]

"Well, I don't claim to know all the details of Veracian faith-" which was something he really had to bring up with Rose at some point "-But Tim's just a simple country man who's having a hard time accepting the greater world. Very conservative, to say the least."

[Alberich]

Tim was a little surprised by Lillith's appearance. For a moment he was surprised by her good manners as well. He'd thought Harker's words - it was more fun when we were all on the same side - to be bitterly ironic; it seemed to him they were all on the same side. With the elf and against him. But now that he thought about it, Lillith hadn't pointed weapons at him, threatened him, pushed him, tripped him, slapped him, or shouted him down with the others. And he had always found her the most likeable of these strange companions. (He didn't hold a little trip on the winds against her. He'd lived through it, hadn't he? And she was the one who'd told him about the elves' habit of murdering their children - she was maybe the likeliest not to want to let it happen again...it was so hard to tell with these elf-types but, like Eli, she seemed more understandable than Desiree...)

"You were right about Eli," she said, "and we're going to have to work with -- the elf to get him back to himself and out of trouble."

Well, he had to be grateful for that admission. Rose had done well in coming herself, instead of letting Drusia come - the elf's arrogance and bullying had confirmed everything Tim had been taught about elves and their attitudes towards humans. Her appearance now would've slammed his mind shut, twisted the handle, and broken it off.

But there was so much he wanted to know - and from Rose's lips and Lillith's he might learn it - so he asked it in response to that. "What, what do you really know about that elf, and what she really does? Can you tell me? And is she going to keep giving the orders?"

"So we're going to need your help -- desperately." She looked at him earnestly. "Can I count on you?"

Well, he couldn't turn that down, could he? He couldn't actually see how he could be of any help. The elf with her super elf powers had tracked Eli down even though he didn't cave to her threats (and everyone had called him stupid and "out of line" and slapped him for it) - maybe by plucking it from his mind. Only if Eli someday got back in touch with him, if the beginnings of a friendship in any way called him back, would he have the chance to draw him into a trap - but it must not be an elven deathtrap with the Veracians as simple pawns, the way the elves would like it.

"I'll do whatever it takes to save Eli from what he's doing. But not to kill him! Even Desiree understands - he's got to be healed - do you see it that way too?"

Here was an opportunity to share much, and do another kind of healing; but what would the Reformist nun and the spirit-talking fertility priestess do?

[OOC: Obviously, if either character wants to do some storytime, you can make it easy on yourself by saying "I tell him about..." and pointing me to the right threads.]

[Graybeard]

"We'll heal him if we can," Sister Rose answered. "That's all I can promise. If he can't be healed, and Drusia -- the elf -- wants to kill him, we really can't stop her." She shrugged. "It's an unfortunate reality. Elves are simply more powerful than we are, than any half dozen of us are." She did not add that if that was the way things worked out, then Eli might be better off dead, for everyone's sake, possibly including Eli's.

"The situation with that elf is a long story," she continued, "and I'm not in a position to tell all of it." Yet. "We've worked with her before. She plays a role for the elves that's similar to what I do -- no, what I used to do, for the Patriarch, kind of a special-forces mission working outside the elven homeland. Her job is to protect her people from outside threats, and she's worried that Eli may be one of those threats." She scowled. "If Eli can be healed, then he isn't a threat to her people, she accepts that. If he can't be, well -- then she's not so sure, and she might even be right."

I'm beating around the bush here. She turned to Lillith; this was why she'd asked the girl to stay, for a brief bit of mind-speech, and then maybe more. <"What do you think? Dare we tell Tim about Errants? But one thing sure: we are damn well not going to tell him that Drusia's people, that Eli might be a threat to, include a community of half elves...">