Luminosity

Into the Shadow

"Not out of this yet," she answered, with half a smile. Iseldis wasn't sure she'd ever get used to life or death situations, but with Roland they were starting to become a little more manageable. And she was done holding back in this one.

The two dark elves before her were infuriated at the death of the third. No doubt with how small their numbers were, the death of any of their own hit them hard. They spaced themselves poorly, too close to one another, and Iseldis saw her chance. Twirling her staff, she channeled a strong spell through it, one end of her weapon glowing bright white. With a spin, she hurled the magic at the elves, a silver crescent of deadly magic flying at them. The closer of the two took more than half of it, his armor rent asunder, and he collapsed, a smoking husk of steel. The other was able to dive out of the way, but still caught enough in his left shoulder to damage him.

Iseldis felt a heavy drain on her body immediately after the spell ran its course, enough that she staggered forward a half step, but she caught herself and tried to blink away the fatigue. Just a little more to go, she told herself.

"Go," she urged Roland. "I'll take him from the side." Two on one, they'd be able to manage this last dark elf.

Staff in hand, Iseldis flanked around to the right, taking a circuitous route through the organizational mess that was this room. She allowed Roland to engage first before she started working her way in, eyes locked on the foe, searching for the best moment to strike. She didn't notice until it was too late that she'd set herself up for the very same thing.

A spell hit her from above and behind, foul and rank magic that washed over her in a wave. Instinctively she thought to put up a magical barrier in defense, but found her own magic cut off from her. She couldn't seem to draw a breath, or cry out to draw Roland's attention back. A sinewy substance that she recognized as webbing coiled around her throat, suddenly tugging her back several steps and just about pulling her feet off the ground.

The witch hung from the shadows above, latched onto the ceiling with her spidery legs, holding the thread that choked Iseldis. She peered down with pure hatred. "Ungrateful princess," she hissed. "Stop struggling, or I'll gladly gut you, the Master's orders be damned."

Iseldis only barely heard the words, focused instead on cutting herself free. Her staff had enough magic in it to do the trick, and with a swipe above her head she could finally gasp in a breath. She swung it again, catching the witch by surprise, and cracking her jaw. She fell roughly to the ground, and Iseldis tried to press her advantage while she had it with multiple downward strikes of her staff. She landed several hard blows, but took one swing too many.

The witch caught her staff, stopping it cold, and one of the spidery legs struck her across the face. Iseldis stumbled sideways, and suddenly the witch was on her feet again. Attacks flew at her, more than a few battering through her tired defenses, each one driving her away from where she'd lost sight of Roland. A powerful uppercut tossed her guard high and left her arms aching, and then a strong blast of offensive magic collided with her torso.

Iseldis was thrown back against the wall behind her, the sight of the room and the witch swimming before her. She felt herself sinking, losing strength, losing control. The witch had every opportunity to finish her off, but true to her word, it seemed she had other orders. Iseldis's staff slipped from her hand and clattered to the ground.

I can't... give up now... come on...

But it was a matter of endurance, not desire, and no amount of her desire to help Roland could keep Iseldis from crumpling to the ground on her side. The witch had already turned to fight Roland, not risking taunting words this time. It was all Iseldis could do to simply breathe, and try to get the strength to stand back while she could still make a difference.
@POOHEAD189

Destiny's Call (Grand Fantasy Roleplay)

Wish I'd found this sooner, the idea is super interesting. I'll do some reading and see if I can't think of a character to apply with.

Into the Shadow

Iseldis wasn't about to let him fight alone. The appearance of the armored elves had caught her off guard, and she had to force herself not to panic. She'd been bracing for another bout with the witch alone, and hadn't considered that she might bring such deadly help. But it was too late to reconsider. If they were to die here, at least it would be with weapons in hand. Not as prisoners.

She vaulted over a crate, and in one smooth motion kicked one of the elves that sought to flank Roland in the chest, driving him back. Close quarters against armored foes was a fight that played to Iseldis's weaknesses, but she had to try to disrupt the foe, keep Roland from being overwhelmed. She sent a flurry of staff attacks at the elf she'd singled out, but most had little effect against the ebony armor. The last attack he turned aside and in a smooth counter landed a cut to her shoulder.

She yelped, attempting to hop sideways to avoid anything else, only to bump into a low table that nearly tripped her. The dark elf's free hand closed into a fist, a punch of the armored gauntlet swiftly landing against her midriff. Iseldis had no armor to soften hits against her, so she took the full damage of the strike, which drained her breath and sent a tremor through her legs. She only barely got her staff up to deflect the downward swipe of the scimitar that came next.

But she did turn the attack aside, and quite effectively, giving her an opening to quickly swing horizontally with her staff, landing a heavy, jarring blow to the elf's helmet. It dazed him and sent him stumbling away. Iseldis thought to pursue, but a second elf flanked her unexpectedly, meaning Roland was left to fight one in single combat for a moment.

The flat of the second elf's boot caught her in the chest, tossing her back to tumble over the table and crash ungracefully to the floor. The obstacle luckily gave her a precious moment to recover, which she sorely needed. Breathe, damn it, she scolded herself, using her staff to get back to her feet. You won't last if you trade blows with them like this.

And still the witch had yet to appear. Where was she? Simply waiting for the right moment to strike?
@POOHEAD189

Into the Shadow

Iseldis laughed nervously, trying to keep the volume of it down. "That makes one of us, I guess." Still, they weren't finished yet, and had even won a small victory here. She took a moment to extend the staff to its full length, letting the white light within it bathe the room. Its weight was familiar and comfortable in her hands, enough to give her a little more courage. The staff folded back down, and she returned it to her belt, taking a deep breath.

"This way." She pushed open the door leading them upstairs, watching the way up carefully while still moving with a balance of speed and caution. She had to hope that this would lead somewhere useful. Ever the optimist. The torchlight on each of the stair landings provided little visibility, but not once did she lose her balance.

"Don't know how they stand it down here," she murmured. "Feels like the walls are suffocating me." Every room they'd been in was so small, cramped, but she supposed that was only natural in an underground network like this.

When the stairs could take them no higher, Iseldis carefully opened the door before her. Her breath left her when she did. They discovered a laboratory of some sort, though it looked to double as a surgeon's room. Slabs of rock were used as tables here and there, and the room was a nightmare of organization, crates and barrels everywhere, magical oddities and ingredients or tools here and there. There was a foul aura in the air of some kind, and only a few breaths of it left Iseldis feeling sick to her stomach.

But in the center of the room was a long table to which a human man was strapped down, his ankles and wrists restrained by glowing purple magical tethers that crackled softly. The dull magical light floating above him near the ceiling was clearly focused on him. He was at least a decade older than either Iseldis or Roland, left shirtless on the table, most of his clothes and gear dumped on the floor nearby. He was a soldier, clearly, perhaps captured on a patrol. And he still lived.

"Goddess," Iseldis breathed, picking up the pace and rushing to the side of the table. He'd been experimented on, it seemed, with strange burns and marks branded onto his chest and abdomen. Iseldis recognized none of it. He was pale and weak, likely having gone without food or water for some time, but soon enough he woke from his dazed slumber, his eyes recognizing that the two near him were not his captors.

"By the..." his voice was hoarse and weak, and he soon cleared it. "How are you here? What's happening?"

"We escaped," Iseldis explained quickly. "An elf witch captured us, but we freed ourselves. Do you know if there's a way out?"

He blinked, struggling to understand. "Y-yes, it's not far, at least I think. Through the door behind me, it should be a straight shot, but there are draugr."

"Draugr we can handle," she answered, confidently for once. "We'll get you free, and clear the way for you." She called magic to her fingers, summoning a small and thin knife, which she lowered to slice through his bonds. He uttered a warning, but she failed to heed it before her blade touched the magic chains.

A loud spark of magic angrily attacked her weapon, dissolving it into dust and sending a painful jolt up her arms. She shook it out, looking to the prisoner for some explanation, some way to help him.

"No!" he managed, grimacing. "She'll have felt that, the witch. She will come here at any moment, she'll kill you both. You have to run, now! It's too late for me."

No, no, no. Iseldis cursed herself for acting too quickly. But she couldn't panic now, couldn't make the same mistake twice. Some part of her wanted another chance to fight the witch, despite the resounding failures of her last few attempts, but at the same time, the wiser thing might be to live to fight another day, and give herself a better chance in the future. That would mean leaving this man to his fate, however.

"What's your name?" she asked him.

"Gareth," he answered. "You should be running, there are worse things than the witch even, you cannot stay here, you-"

She heard it then, footsteps approaching up the stairs they'd just come from. They had to make a decision. Iseldis looked to Roland, uncertain.

"If this is a fight we can win, we need to stay, right?" Gareth was already telling them how it couldn't be done, not in their state, but Iseldis hadn't asked him. Roland's was the only opinion that mattered to her in that moment.
@POOHEAD189

Dungeon Clearer! The Wonderful World of an Adventurer Reboot

Looks like there's a lot of interest, I'll add mine as well. Need to do some reading and think up a character I'd wanna play.

Into the Shadow

Iseldis let her weight sag against the nearest wall once it was clear they were out of danger for the moment. Just a few precious seconds of rest. She pushed back a few strands of hair matted to her face, her braid steadily coming undone, and she'd had no time to tend to it. Even with the piercing chill in the air her skin was damp with sweat.

"That hole didn't lead where I hoped it would," she explained, catching her breath. "Too many draugr. Managed to get away and block them, but a few got their claws on me. I'm okay, though." Roland looked to be fighting through a similar level of injuries. Her bleeding seemed to have stopped, so she reserved further use of her magic. It seemed likely she'd need it.

"We need to keep moving," she said, urging herself as much as Roland. "I was spotted on my way back to you, by another dark elf. Don't think it'll be long before something worse than draugr comes for us." She dreaded the thought of battling that dark elf witch again, but she couldn't imagine that other elf had run to retrieve anyone else. Just had to hold on to hope that they could avoid her.

Iseldis led the way back where she'd come from, to the alchemist's workshop, where the incessant banging on the nearby door from the draugr had actually subsided. Perhaps they'd grown dormant again now that they had no target in sight. The walls were lined with potions, neatly stored and organized and labeled, only they were in a script Iseldis had no knowledge of.

"I can't read any of it." She peered at the liquids of a few, trying to identify them, but she'd only been given a basic education of herbs and alchemy, not enough to identify complex potions on sight alone. The right potion could make all the difference to them at the moment, but without knowing what they were drinking...

There were also several other doors they could choose. To the left, down a straight hallway, was the way the younger elf had disappeared. Not an option, as far as Iseldis was concerned. Straight ahead, and down a few steps, looked to be an armory or storage room of some kind. To the right were stairs that led upwards. Certainly the most promising sight.

Iseldis peered through the barred window of the door ahead of her, and something caught her eye. "My staff!" she whispered urgently. "They tossed our gear in here." She tried to open the door, but it wouldn't budge. "Damn it. Do you think you can force it open?" It wouldn't be quiet, but having their gear and supplies back would be most welcome.
@POOHEAD189

Into the Shadow

Iseldis winced as she forced her way back to her feet. She looked down, her floating light spell illuminating the hand she kept pressed against her stomach. It was spattered with her blood, but the light of her healing magic wasn't yet wavering. She could keep going.

A sudden shifting of wooden chair legs against the hard ground drew her eyes up, and she drew in a startled breath. She wasn't alone. A dark elf had just risen from his chair on the other side of the room, which looked to be a laboratory of some kind, an alchemist's workshop if she had to guess. He looked younger than the witch, though of course the age of an elf was hard to guess. Perhaps it seemed that way because he looked about as frightened of Iseldis as she was of him. He had no visible alterations to his body from magic, he simply looked like a dark elf. She wasn't sure what to say. It was an elf responsible for all her misery on this adventure, but he was not that elf.

She didn't get the chance to say anything, as he soon bolted from the room, bashing aside a wooden door on his way out. She wasn't going to catch him in her state, and she needed to go a different way besides. Back to Roland. Still, if he was on his way to warn someone more dangerous... Goddess, they had to hurry.

A bang on the barred door behind her urged Iseldis forward. Her makeshift barrier would hold, at least for the time being. She turned left around a corner and warily made her way back towards where she hoped Roland was still alive. Mercifully, the rooms she passed through were largely empty, simple corridors on the way to these crypts of draugr. When she saw the barred door, she sped up to a jog. It was too quiet on the other side. Iseldis feared the worst, but used it as all the more reason to hurry.

She lifted the wooden bar from the door, allowing her hovering magic light to brighten somewhat. "Roland!" she called, not quite yelling. She stood ready to bar the door behind them, and buy whatever time it would give them.
@POOHEAD189

Into the Shadow

Iseldis wasted no time slipping through the crack once they'd agreed on the plan, going head-first with her back to the ground. She reached down to touch the cold earth with a bare hand as soon as she could, to make sure there actually was a floor and that she wouldn't simply fall to her death. Then came the legs, which Roland helped push through, at which point she dropped ungracefully to the floor.

Quickly she scrambled to her feet and lit a small magical light in her palm so she could see what she'd fallen into. She gasped in surprise, instinctively retreating a step to put her back to the wall. "Oh no," she breathed to herself. Not only did she not have immediate access to the barred door, she found herself in a long, narrow hall, with no end in sight, and on either side of her were cramped stone bunks of sorts, every one filled with a sleeping draugr. She'd put herself right into their barracks.

And with the sounds of fighting, they were beginning to wake. Iseldis had to think fast. Her first thought was to retreat back through the hole, to rejoin Roland, but then they'd be trapped there, and she doubted she could even squeeze through before they were on her. The other option was to press forward, with no guarantee she'd be able to find her way back to Roland. That thought terrified her more, but she knew it was what she had to do. She had to push down her fear, and open the way for him.

She moved forward at a steady but swift pace, the chill in the air creeping into her bones. Goddess, it was cold here. Her light illuminated only a short distance in front of her, giving her the sense that she wasn't moving at all, as she found only more draugr. Some reached for her as she passed, dead fingertips grasping at her robes or the silver ribbons trailing from them. Behind her she knew they were rising, and would soon be in pursuit.

One was able to snatch her wrist, and she yelped, her steady breathing suddenly becoming panicked as she tried to pry its grip off. Quickly she resorted to magic, conjuring a thin blade to slice the hand clean off, at which point the hand fell from her. Iseldis turned and ran, unable to stop herself any longer. The light failed to illuminate far enough ahead, though, and Iseldis ended up running straight into a draugr's outstretched arms before she could react.

Its hands closed around her throat and cut off her breath, stopping her cold. She grabbed at its forearms, unable to free herself, and a moment later it drove her backwards and turned her into the wall, her back colliding with a bunk. Terror overwhelmed her as others closed in, all empty handed but still dangerous. She couldn't see them, her eyes locked on the one snarling before her, but she felt their hands. Her arms were pulled away and trapped out at her sides. Two crawled from the bunks behind her, one grabbing her by the belt and holding her back, the other wrapping hands around her midsection and clawing at her belly.

The claws were sharp enough to pierce and draw blood. Still unable to breathe, Iseldis felt herself slipping. Her light faded until she saw only darkness and the faint blue hue of the draugr's eyes. They were everywhere now, clinging to her legs and pulling at her hair. The thought raced through her mind: this is how you'll die, torn apart by draugr in the black depths of the earth.

She refused. She had the power to survive this, she just had to will it to the surface. It erupted in the form of blinding light magic exploding from all sides of her body. Those draugr close enough to touch her were disintegrated into dust, the rest thrown backwards. Iseldis gasepd in one breath, then another, the sounds in her ears muffled and distorted. Her balance failed her when she tried to stand, and she was met with a sharp pain in her abdomen where the draugr had wounded her. She pressed a hand to it, urging more magic to her palm to slow the bleeding. With her other hand she steadied herself, and kept going forward.

The draugr were still recovering, giving her time to get by the worst of it. A few weakly grasped at her boots from the ground, but she shook them off and kept going until she finally found a door. Iseldis rammed it open with her shoulder, stumbling into the next room and closing it behind her. A heavy wooden cabinet filled with some kind of alchemical instruments was next to it. She got to the far side, and with all her strength, was able to tip it over to block the door and prevent the draugr from escaping.

Iseldis fell to her knees after taking one more step, once more fighting against exhaustion. Her newest wound was going to take some time for her drained magic to heal, but the bleeding wasn't severe. It was just another step towards escape. She had to get up, she had to keep going.

She had to find her way back to Roland.
@POOHEAD189

Into the Shadow

Iseldis had tried to find some way to intervene when the draugr attacked Roland, but anything she could've done to help would've been far too bright and loud, and would've done far more harm than good in the long run. He stilled it quickly enough that when Iseldis checked behind them, none of the other draugr they'd passed were stirring.

She let out a breath she hadn't been aware she was holding, and it became a cloud before her. She shivered as the cold crept into her, and it made the effort of moving quietly all the more difficult. Her robe had some warmth to it, but it wasn't exactly a winter garment. They needed to get out of this place.

Finally they reached the door at the far end of the room, and Iseldis tried to push it open to no avail. At first she thought it was just heavy or perhaps jammed, but it soon became apparent that it was barred from the other side. A quiet, exasperated breath escaped her, and she stepped back to look for other options. The wall on the right side of the door was in a slight state of disrepair, with some small holes crumbled away, but—

A growling, guttural breath from behind her startled Iseldis, and she turned to see multiple draugr beginning to stir. Two somewhat close, and a third near the edge of what they could see before the room turned to total darkness. They'd never be able to silence them all without awakening others. "Damn it," she breathed, pointlessly trying the door again. They had to do something quickly, or they'd very likely be overwhelmed in here.

"I think I can squeeze through there to the other side," she whispered urgently, not sure if the draugr had noticed them yet. She pointed to the hole in the wall. Roland wouldn't be able to fit, but Iseldis was thin enough to make it on her own. "Can you hold them? I'll try to get the door unbarred."

Pure blackness was the only thing she could make out awaiting her on the other side, and while Iseldis didn't like the thought of separating, she didn't like their chances of survival if they stayed here and tried to fight.
@POOHEAD189

Into the Shadow

One challenge down, goddess only knew how many more to go. Iseldis took Roland's hand and lifted herself to her feet, before she brushed off her robes. Rather pointlessly, too; she was a mess and it was not going to be a simple matter to fix that.

"The bodies," she pointed out, seizing the draugr she'd felled and dragging it back through the door into the cell they'd just escaped. While Roland did the same for his, she looked over the corpse-warrior for anything useful. Its sword was too heavy and unwieldy for her to make use of, but she at least salvaged a knife, something to defend herself with without expending valuable magical energy that she had precious little of to spare.

"Let's try this way," she suggested, taking the path to the right from the cell. She had no reason to suspect it was the way out, and she had no knowledge of any of this place in general, but it was really going to be a matter of keeping moving, learning what they could, and hopefully staying alive long enough to escape.

It looked to be a prison hall of sorts, as theirs turned out not to be the only cell, but they were fortunate enough not to run into any more draugr. Iseldis checked inside a few of the other cells, but found them all empty. It seemed they'd have to keep going alone.

At the end of the hall was a doorway on their left, the only way out on this end, and Iseldis thought she heard soft, rattling breathing from within. Pressing her back to the wall, she inched forward and peeked into the room, finding that it looked to be a barracks of sorts, only full of open coffins. At least six that she could see were filled with draugr that looked to be in some sort of hibernation. Their variety of ancient weapons were lined against the far wall.

She stepped back, and allowed Roland to take a look. "We might be able to sneak through," she whispered. "No telling what's on the other side. It's that or turn back and try the other way." Somehow she felt they'd find something just as uninviting if they did that.
@POOHEAD189