The construct’s skin ripples like cooling tar, obsidian shards grinding against one another with the screech of tortured metal. It forces its limbs into a jagged, unnatural sprint, abandoning the facade of Captain Halloway to reach the temple’s heavy oak doors.
Captain Halloway
Must escape before the ancient blade shreds my core. The master requires this vessel intact.
Arion’s teal eyes flare, casting long, dancing shadows across the cracking marble floor. The host body jerks, a marionette caught on a fraying string, as he raises the ancient sword.
Arion Touvengard
A clumsy masquerade. If he reaches the astral ley-lines outside, he will anchor the void to Mesthelia itself.
Arion Touvengard
Stop, creature. Your hollow shell will not carry you past my judgment.
Sivani
The Captain... he was never human. What horror have I been serving?
“Arion quickly creates a wall of teal flames blocking tge creature of darkness from fleeing the temple, the magic of the gods of the infinite paths reinforcing the spell against tge creature they oppose.”
SUCCESS (Superb Arcana, rolled +2)
Arion slams the pommel of his blade against the marble, drawing a surge of raw, cerulean power from the temple’s ley-lines. The air shrieks as teal flames erupt in a violent arc, sealing the threshold of the oak doors in a searing wall of divine retribution. The construct, mid-stride, stumbles as the heat blisters its tar-like surface.
Arion Touvengard
The temple rejects your escape. The path ends here, creature.
Sivani
Look at the fire... the walls themselves are answering you. What are you?
Captain Halloway
The seal is reinforced by the Architect's own geometry. I cannot force the path.
The construct turns, its face shifting into a grotesque, melted mask of confusion and mounting dread, cornered by the wall of eternal flame.
“Arion drops into an offensive stance before observing the construct for any potential weak points it may have.”
SUCCESS (Mediocre Perception, rolled +0)
Arion pivots, his boots grinding against the fracturing marble. Teal energy bleeds from the sword into the host body, causing the muscles to twitch with unnatural, rigid tension. He lowers his center of gravity, the blade held level, as he scans the shifting obsidian mass of his opponent.
Arion Touvengard
The tar flows toward the joints. That is where the structure anchors itself. A single strike to the knee, and the mimicry collapses.
Captain Halloway
You think to break me with light? I am the shadow that outlasts the sun.
The construct lunges, his obsidian limbs elongating into jagged, blade-like protrusions. Arion side-steps, his movement fluid yet jarringly precise, watching the shifting tar for the moment of overextension.
Sivani
Stop this! The temple is crumbling because of your war!
Arion Touvengard
The temple is a tomb. It has simply forgotten that it is time to bury the dead.
+ Scene Quest Added
Defeat the construct of Captain Halloway
“"Behold the dark things you once served Sivani" Arion begins to sytematically unmake the creature severing parts of it with power precise strikes, leaving the core of the creature intact to prevent it from leaking energy that would damage the temple. "And just how easily the fall before my blade of righteousness."”
SUCCESS (Legendary Melee Combat, rolled +1)
Arion swings with a rhythm older than the city itself. His blade flashes like a dying star, carving through the obsidian limbs with surgical grace. Each strike shears away a chunk of the construct, sending black tar splattering against the temple walls.
Captain Halloway
My form... you are severing my anchors!
Arion Touvengard
You are nothing but a memory of rot, little shadow. Witness your own undoing.
Arion lands a brutal, precise blow to the creature's midsection, forcing it to stagger. A fountain of viscous, dark ichor sprays across the stone, yet the core remains anchored in the torso, glowing with a baleful, sickly light.
Sivani
Look at him! He is tearing it apart without a flicker of remorse!
Arion Touvengard
Remorse is a burden for those who still possess a soul to lose. I only possess a mandate to cleanse.
The construct thrashes, its remaining limbs snapping and warping as it desperately tries to hold its shape together against Arion’s onslaught.
Quest Complete
Defeat the construct of Captain Halloway