((DM Note: Ghosting @Oraculum))

Ulor leaps through the doorway, untouched by the flames as he sends a blast of eldritch energy after the fleeing Priestess. However, his shot flies wide, the silvery blast striking the door hinge and not even getting close to its target.

>Mechanics: Ulor rolled a 20 DEX check to pass through the doorway, but rolled a 7 on his attack. That's a nat 2. Come on, Ulor.

>Next: @Mistiel

The elf sprinted out of cover in the pew, navigating the tricky tight confines quickly and with relative finesse before getting to open ground and breaking into a flat-out run. She only hoped she would get there in time to see the priestess finally give them all answers willingly or unwillingly. The latter was an unpleasant thought but, after her and her party had been nearly roasted alive, Ceria was hopping mad....almost like her hair was on fire. A few singed strands fell to the marble floor in her wake.

Lex's eyes widened as he saw the fishlike priestess sprinting to safety and locking the door behind her. A timely intervention, however, reopened the way almost immediately and caused the paladin to sprint towards the now cornered aquatic. Perhaps recalling the previous cutthroat's escape, he seemed hastier than usual as he made his pursuit, and prepared to strike the priestess with a jab that seemed more of an attempt to incapacitate than an a legitimate strike.

Not willing to stick around and become seafood, the Priestess motioned towards the trident that hung in the air. It swung towards the unsuspecting Ulor, piercing his side. "You will not follow me if you care for your friend's life!" she called out as she bolted away.

>Mechanics: The trident hits Ulor for 7 piercing damage. Ulor has 1 HP remaining. Those adjacent to the Priestess (Lex and Daisy) may make an attack of opportunity if they wish.

With their combined attacks, the Priestess stopped dead in her tracks, collapsing to the ground under the divine smite of the paladin.

>Affected: @Turbowraith, @Oraculum, and @Ermine

>Battle Complete!

Cornered though she were, the priestess was not without further tricks. It appeared that after commanding her animated weapon to assault Ulor, nearly felling him again, she tried to make her escape. Lex's expression hardened and his jaw clenched as he raised his weapon. Not a moment later, his hammer began to glow, appearing as if it had reentered the forge, and a jet of spiritual flame encircled it, violently propelling it forward. The downwards sweep struck true, searing the fish-woman's back and knocking her away from the paladin. The battered body rolled a few times, and after a brief moment of stillness, it showed, against all odds, signs of life. Slow, pained breaths emanated from the creature's blood-filled lungs. With the immediate vicinity clear, Lex seemed to return in a state of relative calmness and approached the fallen foe with slow, cautious steps...



@Ms Ravenwinter is up next!

Tiny crunches under Yvah's heel were drowned out by the clatter of combat raging further. Yvah violently turned heel to face the priestess's would-be escape route and chased after her. The priestess fell, and Yvah pushed through the doorway. Her fit didn't falter at this, instead she darted still onwards, twisting Lex's arm as she passed under his shoulder to slide past. Just as the priestess hit the floor, Yvah was upon her, claws bared and teeth set intently on her cheerful facade.

Scrapes, tears, gnashing and blood-soaked gurgles reverberated in the still room, immediately breaking the silence of victory. Yvah viciously struck the grotesquely torn face of the priestess over and over, incessantly. A fresh paint of scarlet coated her freshly changed clothes and stained the bed of her nails. Scraps of flesh sopped onto the floor as Yvah raged against an inert and broken corpse. But there was no emotion in this. No screams of anger, tears of regret or laughs of hysteria. Rage seemed to fill her eyes and joy in her face, but these were designs to a cracking mask.

Silence fell over the area as the blood from the unarmored priestess stained the tile floor of the cathedral, pooling around Yvah's feet in her rage. There were no sounds of soldiers coming to the aid of the now deceased band of worshippers, nor were there any audible indication of whether this murder were justified by any means. All around were dead bodies laying cold on the ground, the eyes of those still intact looking up at the party.

>Experience gained: 250 XP.

Daisy was conflicted. On one had, she was happy Ceria was okay. On the other, her other friend just destroyed the only remaining lead they had, and quite violently at that. On a strange, mutated, third hand, there was a whole area to explore. But those were all three very different things and so many she couldn't pay attention to all of them, and none required weapons in hand. She slipped her dagge back in her boot, hung her crossbow from her belt, and casually walked over to Yvah, transfering her Hex, just in case. "Calm down. She's dead. Whatever your reason, she's quite dead."

>Sheathe weapons.
>Transfer Hex (strength checks) to Yvah.
>Change Focus to Mantle of Joy (if you allow it since bonus action in one "turn", even if out of combat)
>If necessary for talking down a PC, Persuasion roll (23, with or without advantage (12 was second roll))
>Prep to grapple if she doesn't stand down.

The last few moments of the battle seemed to happen in such a rush that it was almost a blur to the bard. It was unfortunate that the final image of their endeavors - which were still very much unjustified - was the normally collected feline completely drenched in their lead's blood. Even with the distance between them, Araerys could see the disturbingly joyful demeanor with which Yvah had mauled the Priestess, and even after the Saughin was long dead she continued with this strange mask. When she had deemed the deed finished, the group was thrown into an uncomfortable silence, left with corpses by their hand in a place of worship. The irony was terrible, and left the impression of a deep frown on the half-elf's already concerned face.

Surely this wasn't the plan. She hadn't meant for the Priestess to die when she unlocked the door. It was starting to seem that anywhere this group went, chaos and violence followed. Ary hoped this wasn't always the case, as she had taken a liking to (most of) the characters, but evidence from the day only pointed to that conclusion. Regardless, she focused her attention on the cat, wanting to prevent her from causing any more damage to the situation than had already been dealt. Aware that Ulor had been hit and needed assistance, she figured it would be best to disarm the danger before tending to his wounds. He seemed capable enough, and in a right mind; which their feline friend most certainly did not.

"Yvah, love," she spoke, loud enough for her voice to travel through the door to the cat, but with the quality of honey dripping from a spoon, "Why don't you come sit with me here for a moment? Take a bit of a breather with me, yeah?" While keeping her eye on her target, Ary moved around the side of the pew and lightly perched herself down, before reaching out and patting the bit of the bench that jutted upwards so that Yvah could see if she was looking. The frown gone from her visage and was replaced with a warmer expression, wanting to seem as inviting as possible. Though she didn't much know the girl, she knew something was happening internally that probably wasn't the healthiest of switches. It briefly occurred to her in a flash of hard curiosity that she should probe the rogue's thoughts, and thought better of it. Perhaps she would find out later what was ailing her, but for now, Araerys merely wanted to bring her down from whatever was gripping her.

In her rabid haste to rush after the priestess, it seemed Yvah had swung open both cathedral doors wide in her wake. As a result, Ceria saw Yvah go completely unhinged and start slashing at the priestess's already battered body. "HEY WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!? STOP!" Despite her own body nearly being burnt to a crisp, Ceria summoned enough energy to make her way over to Yvah and attempt to ear slap the feline woman with the back of her hand. "LAY OFF! She was our only hope of getting any answers! Have you lost your MIND?" She was remiss to note that her slap had missed due to the fact that the rabid woman seemed to be moving faster than Ceria had expected. Fatigue drooped at the elf's muscles with the wasted energy of the motion and yelling at Yvah. That stupid lizard had really taken its toll.

The elf was acutely aware of onlookers coming to a halt and starting to stare at this violent engagement ensuing outside their cathedral. More importantly, she did not give a damn. First Arthera and now Yvah, why was half their party so into reckless violence and killing people? She was starting to think her, Daisy and the newcomer bard were the only ones who weren't positively insane. And she could not just believe that she grouped Daisy into the sane, rational portion.

Yvah heard voices. Familiar voices. Pleading voices. Telling her to stop, to calm down. She reached for them, tried to speak, but she couldn't...

...

The smile on the feline's face had faded as her violent swipes ceased. Rage that had just smoldered within her eyes subsided into dim embers. Her shoulders slumped, and getting up was tiresome. The monk's gaze was dull and unresponsive as she turned to Araerys. "Okay," she barely uttered as if the effort of speech was nearly too much to attempt. She seemed to shamble as she joined the bard on the bench. Her head hung low as she rested. Her eye began twitching in her idleness.

After a moment, her body slumped further, her eyes shutting as if in slumber. But only for a moment. Yvah raised her head and fluttered open her eyes. "Wha.." she stumbled on the word, her head in a fog.

"What happened?"

@Ermine@corneredbliss

Ceria swore in Elvish. She could not believe this woman who she had just seen maul the priestess hadn't been aware of her actions. "What the heck is wrong with you?" she grumbled. "Are you possessed or something? How the feun else are we supposed to find out what ritual they were performing in there now that you seem to have destroyed our only way of getting answers from them?" Her hands were fisted at her sides and she hadn't realized how close her proximity was to the other.

A small rustling sound came from inside the cathedral and a little brown blur shot out from the open doors and raced up the elf's spine. Chip, the squirrel from earlier, held a large acorn in his front paws and mimicked his new friend's wide-eyed angry stare. He even nibbled his nut the same way Ceria was grinding her front teeth.

Thankfully the feline obliged, came to sit beside her on the pew, and soon seemed to be pulled from whatever reverie she had been plunged into for the episode. There was a moment of silence during which the girl was slumped over before she came back to and seemed in a more normal state of mind. But Araerys was realizing more and more by the minute that she wasn't even really sure what 'normal' was yet for these people. That was a worrying thought, but she pushed it away at Yvah's question.

"Uh..." Ary blinked, unsure of how to go about the subject. It wasn't exactly a report of the weather, and she felt that a blunt explanation might be a bit much for what the girl needed right now. She wasn't sure how the group wanted to handle the situation, whether or not they had a procedure for dealing with this from prior experience-

Then came the outburst from the elf, shattering all attempts at a gentle touch. Ary, slightly offended by Ceria's lack of tact, dragged her gaze away from the fullblood and her woodland friend to watch Yvah for her reaction. "Do you...?" Then she paused, and decided to change her question. "How do you feel?"

@Ms Ravenwinter

Daisy was angry with her friend, like Ceria but not as strongly, but she was mostly confused, worried, and scared for Yvah. She kept her hex up on her, but almost regretted not instead transfering it to Ceria so she could hold her back more easily. "Miss Super-Attractive Elf, please calm down." Taking a moment to switch her focus, she continued, "we need to fix the problem, not sprrad it to each other." She reached her hand into her hair, touched one of the thorny vines, and drew out several small, smooth, flowering vines from it that stiffened as she extracted them into a flowery crown, and placed it on Ceria's head.

"We need to get along and make ourselves not have to have this hapoen again. In the meantime," she raised her voice, "we need to look around, see if there's anything here we can learn from. Someone check that fishy-woman. Let her have some dignity, though. Check the rest, too. That room looked like it would have the most useful things. The three of us," she motioned between herself, Yvah, and Ary, "have some discussion to do.

>Actions: Move with Yvah and Ary, change focus to Mantle of Joy (adv on Persuasion), and Druidcrafting a flower crown for Ceria (will roll Persuasion if necessary)
>Mentioned: @corneredbliss, @Mistiel, @Ms Ravenwinter

@Ermine @Ms Ravenwinter

Ceria watched as the bizarre tiefling turned on HER rather than Yvah, a gentle reprimand that stung almost as much as the couple of thorns poking out of the tiefling's homemade, she hesitated to call it hair in her mind at first, floral crown. Daisy's "hair" reminded Ceria more of the vines she had had outside her bedroom window in her family's tree in the elvish home forest. Chip immediately scampered from her shoulder up atop her head and began to sniff curiously at the crown and bat at it with his tiny paws. The squirrel's expression regarded the tiefling with something akin to newfound respect and joy.

Afterward, Ceria re-approached Araerys and Yvah who had gone back inside the church, forcing a somewhat pleasant smile on her face. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. That was the last thing I wanted to do. I've just - hic- been nearly burned to a crisp by that scaly bastard and am in a - hic - VERY bad mood right now! Now if you'll - hic - excuse me, I have something to attend to." Ceria marched, rigid and stiff as a board despite her stress-induced hiccups, up to the front of the cathedral where the acolyte's remains lay. Her arrow had turned into a flower sprouting in the center of the poor girl's breastbone, a bright yellow daffodil that Ceria recognized instantly as she knelt to examine the body. "I'm sorry," she whispered hoarsely, eyes wet and voice catching. "I didn't want it to be like this. I just wanted to....wanted to t-talk." She swallowed the formidable lump in her throat and, as gently as possible, patted the girl down, even rolling her over slowly, to see if there was anything of value to their party's quest.

When the elf was done, she rolled the fallen acolyte girl back over, repositioned the flower so it lay between the girl's hands, and closed the girl's eyes while simultaneously ripping away the remaining vines from around the pale white column of her throat. After a moment's hesitation, she unstuck the pretty floral crown from her tangled, singed locks and placed it even more gently on the acolyte's mane of brown hair, still shiny and full of luster despite belonging to someone who had been dead for several minutes now. Ceria sniffled and Chip hopped back down onto her right shoulder and batted solemnly at a tear just below her eye. Upon finding a strange amulet, the elf lifted it up and stowed it in her travel pouch. She then stood and bowed her head over the girl, intoning a quiet elven farewell.

Slowly, Ceria backed away all the way down the cathedral's main aisle until she backed into Daisy, eyes still gazing up to the front of the church. For a moment, her mind was far far away and she didn't realize that she'd started leaning on the poor tiefling like a wall. Doing a quick, embarrassed about-face, she muttered, "Th-thank you for the gift. It h-h-helped s-s-someone at least. It was p-p-pretty." She viciously swiped at both eyes, then flung a few singed locks of stray hair back over one shoulder with equal force. She inwardly cursed herself for being a stammering idiot, but she half-stamped a foot to berate herself. She would NOT cry in front of this bunch. She refused! Murderer.... a dark sounding voice that was not her own whispered in her head. Murderer, murderer, murderer....

Despite narrowly escaping being burned some more, and being punctured within another inch of his life, Ulor remained all throughout, by some miracle, lost in his transfixed state. While this fortunately did not impede his ability of wilful action - though his accuracy seemed to have suffered slightly - his gaze remained lost somewhere in the vague direction of the remaining enemy, and his thoughts presumably somewhere deep under the sea. Only when finally the paladin's hammer, as implacable as its wielder, brought an end to the struggle did start shaking his head, as he tended to do when returning to a fully waking state; and when the feline, seemingly driven by some sort of atavistic hunger for fish, began to maul the already motionless corpse, a bout of irritated grumbling was heard from his side - a certain sign that everything was as normal as it could possibly be.

With little more than a last condemning glance at the frenzied monk and those of the party who followed to subdue her, the elf making even more of a scuffle in the process, he hobbled towards the altar, now guarded only by the lesser acolyte's body and its floral decorations. His gait was limping and painful, and he found himself leaning heavily on his staff as wounds old and new made themselves heard in a stinging choir; yet he found in himself the strength to admire the building around him. The solemn silence of temples and abbeys, which had never quite left him since the bygone days of his novitiate, coiled about him almost reassuringly, as a fine blanket might on a winter night; the high, vaulted ceiling, less roughly shod than those he remembered, was as a lid between an eye unaccustomed to light and the glare of the midday sun. He wondered if, had that been possible, he would have felt at home for a moment.

Whatever the function performed over the altar was, it clearly had been already well underway when the group had intruded upon it. A ritual symbol was seared into its surface, and an offering of incense was being prepared about it, presumably to be immolated. Ulor frowned as he gazed over the mark. The ends of threads of familiarity writhed somewhere far off in the darkness, yet there was nothing concrete he could grasp. Strange, indeed. A cursory inspection of the surrounding space did not shed any further light onto his findings at the scene. All he could see was what could be ordinarily expected to be in such a place. Censers, instruments of worship... Instruments, indeed. If they could tell him nothing thus, they could not deny him another service. He swept up a victim's worth of incense, and, seizing hold of one of the censers, dragged himself back towards the main door.

In the chamber to the left hand, discussion over the priestess's corpse was still ongoing, but that was not what Ulor had come to see. Lifting himself up from his stooping posture with some difficulty, he glanced about over the group's heads. There did not seem to be much to be there, either. A relatively small collection of books, none of which he would think of as suspicious. What did people know when they spoke about not judging a book by its cover? One could have thought they actually had some experience with it, but no. Not one of them had actually ever seen a truly dangerous book, as far as he knew. But he was straying from the point.

Satisfied with his lack of discoveries, save ones of a strictly practical sort, Ulor hobbled into a nearby corner and began to arrange the censer and incense for the incantation, whispering unclear, yet obscurely sinister words. Soon, the two would be as one again - and this dreadful headache would be gone at last.

[Combo-post with @corneredbliss and @Ermine]

“I feel…”

Yvah felt the odd yet familiar sensation of slime underneath her fingernails. Shock painted over her tired expression after she looked down to her bloody hands.

“I,” her voice caught in her throat, her eyes fixated and distressed as if plagued by haunting images, “What did I do?”

Araerys bit down on her lower lip, still completely unsure of what to say. She could see another change happening on the girl’s face; this time, an expression of upset that could’ve broken the bard’s heart. “You, ah…” She cleared her throat, then continued, “You got a little over-excited, dove.” Her gaze trailed over to Daisy and gave her the slightest of eyebrow raises, as if to signal that she should probably take over. Ary didn’t want to overstep any boundaries, and wasn’t even really sure how she could explain the gravity of the situation.

“Don’t do it again, okay? It’s a little...scary. And violent. Very not us.” Daisy took a deep breath, figuring she had to be honest with her friend. “You killed the fishyface. And then...killed her some more. And a little extra for making you expend all that extra effort.”

Yvah turned her head away from her stained fingers and hesitatingly looked behind her. The broken corpse of a small, majestic dragon lay almost directly opposed to them. Her expression grew sour as she pulled her vision away from the scene.

“I see,” she said in muted tone. She seemed to barely compose herself as she said, “I think I need to clear my thoughts.” She could seem to sense the apprehension in her companions as she turned to them with the weakest of smiles. She said, “It’ll be okay. I’ll be strong,” but there was a tremble in her lip.

The frown seemed to deepen on Ary’s face as she watched Yvah turn to look at the corpse, whose blood was still fresh on her hands, and almost reached for her when the girl stood up. She thought better of it, regardless of its good intentions, and simply stood up herself as the feline turned back to them with what was an attempt at reassurance. “Sure you don't need any company?” she suggested in a nonchalantly warm voice, already knowing the answer but figuring it was better to ask, anyway. They were already lacking one member - she was sure the group didn’t need another loss.

“I’ll come back. We’ve a job to do. I just,” she looks down, “Need to talk myself down a bit.”

“Hold on, I know something that should help. Octoboy! Come here, too. You need comforting, too!” With a flourish, Daisy stepped up on one of the pews - one on the seat, one on the back - and began to perform. She gestured toward Yvah and Ulor,

“Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry, never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you.

“Also, gonna make you feel a little better, I hope.”

An inner calm seemed to draw upon her as Yvah breathed in deeply. Before the verse ended, she stood and walked away. Her breath held as she walked past the brutalized priestess, refusing to look upon what she had apparently done. Stepping through the back doorway and onto the terrace beyond, Yvah found a shaded area to sit with her back to the wall.

She wept silently. Memories of her brother became vivid in her mind. Her breaths grew ragged and remorseful despite her best efforts to calm herself. Eventually the world around her faded from her perception, and the memories were the last to fade with them. She eased into the silence of mind and space like a cradle, nestling her away from her anxieties.

Thankfully, Daisy hadn't seemed bothered or even affected by Ceria momentarily using her as a wall. In fact, Daisy didn't seem affected by the gravity of any of this....gee like that was new. Ceria followed Daisy back inside the church, fully intending to rip the dead drake limb from limb. Chip dove after Daisy. When she got up between two pews, he scurried up about five feet in front of her, standing on the leftmost pew, and mimicked her stance but held up one little paw like a gesture to the audience and the other to his little face with acorn tucked under one arm. No sound emanated from his tiny toothy mouth, but that didn't stop his jaws from moving up and down like a simple imitation of words.

While the little fuzzy performer rocked out to the real performer's song, the wood elf stared down at the red lizard before her. The same that had nearly killed her from point blank range mere minutes earlier. The same that had nearly killed Ulor, not that the two of them really cared much for the other. Ceria quickly searches the drake's body, but finds only....... "Worthless annoying scum," she muttered in Elvish, spitting on the carcass. Only at the conclusion of the song did Daisy's song ease any of Ceria's anger. At least she felt a little stronger, odd considering no one had healed her and she didn't have any potions.

Chip came sprinting back up Ceria's spine to sit on her shoulder and chitter on in Squirrelspeak about how awesome Daisy was. Her charm couldn't even escape the local wildlife. A twinge of jealousy ran through the pit of her stomach, making the elf wish for the umpteenth time that she could make friends as easily as the elf. She didn't doubt Arthera had left the party because she was disgusted with Ceria for being a coward and a disorderly freak. With a sigh, and a noisy Chip on her shoulder, she flopped over the back of a pew, not caring about her butt pointing skyward and welcomed the cool wood now mashed against her cheek. It had been a long day and this pew was very tree-like. Ceria felt her eyelids closing, awkward pressure on her abdomen from the top of the pew be damned. She imagined herself, just for a moment, back in the elven homeland as a carefree kid with an entire afternoon to be spent however she pleased. Then the "Incident" had happened and everyone had shunned her despite her protests that it wasn't her fault. Still, she missed trees. It had been far too long now since she had been in wilderness for any length of time.

Araerys, though still worried about her feline companion, was cheered considerably by Daisy's song. She tapped the tips of her finger nails lightly against the wood of the back of the pew in an accompanying rhythm, almost urged to hum a complimentary melody beneath her vocals. She was returned to the reality of the situation when it was finished, a concerned new addition to the group once again as she watched Yvah move away.

But there was still work to be done. She had faith enough in the girl to tear herself away from the thought of following her anyway, simply to make doubly sure she wouldn't run off and do something silly in the comedown of her episode. Ary took swift inventory of those remaining in the church, including the recently deceased, and decided to sweep the front altar first. It did no good to linger over what couldn't be changed, and so the half-elf respectfully maneuvered around the acolyte's body as she made her way toward the alter. It appeared that the one previously referred to as 'Octoboy' had the same idea, and was inspecting the area, as well. Unfortunately, she found nothing except for the sigil that only vaguely looked familiar to her. She supposed Ulor came to the same conclusions since he made his way back toward the room that still held the Priestess... which was also to be Araerys's next destination. It was stupid to feel a funny awkwardness in the coincidence as she headed towards the room, too, since more pressing thoughts were looming. But she couldn't help feeling still a bit distant from this one, as he hasn't really said much to her - or in general, really.

She entered the room only a few moments after he did, and seeing that he had already set up some sort of ritual in the corner, she was quick to address her concerns. "I'm not followin' ya, or anything, I just... Curious," she finished somewhat lamely, gesturing toward the remains of the Priestess (which really were a terrible sight), "Won't be in yer hair long..."

The bard bent down over the pulp, focused on not registering who or what or most importantly, why, as she searched the Priestess's person for anything of significance. Her investigation provided her with a pendant, a water skin that smelled of wine instead of water, and a few other little pieces that she tucked away in her pouch for later. Once finished, she left Ulor in peace and re-entered the cathedral, brow furrowed as she tried to make out what the symbol was. Once she was back within proximity of the group, she held out the pendant and asked, "Does anyone recognize this? I found it on the Priestess's body; I haven't the foggiest idea what it is."

@Ermine

Ceria harvested three of the drake's shiny red scales with one of the two daggers from her belt before the black blood that spewed forth made the rest of the body too gross to touch anymore. The three gleaming pristine scales she came away with though were all rather small, probably too small to be used to craft much of value. Still, she had just been given a pretty gift by someone not five minutes ago. Perhaps it was time to return the favor.

Without pomp or ceremony, the wood elf walked over to where Daisy stood and held out the scales a bit timidly. "I....think you might have more use for these than me. Like maybe a necklace or something? You'd look really good in red!" Her sudden embarrassment was cut short when Chip pegged an acorn at her from atop the pew next to Daisy and made a chitter that sounded for all the world like a short, almost maniacal high-pitched human laugh. Ceria frowned at the little creature with a bewildered expression, mildly annoyed.