The Scribe
It is rising too fast, Nogandar. The hive is vomiting its own soul to bury us. We must move before the floor becomes our coffin.
The Scribe
He looks so heavy, so permanent. If I can just use his massive frame as a bridge, I might reach the upper fissure before the sludge claims my legs.
Nogandar
The Scribe edges behind me, his eyes darting toward the ceiling. He thinks I am merely a prop to climb, a shield against the filth.
The black sludge swirls around Nogandar's ankles, hardening as it touches his granite skin. The corridor groans under the weight of the shifting ceiling.
Nogandar
Hold your position, Scribe. If you move, the tension shifts and we both fall into the abyss.
The Scribe
I cannot stay here, you gargoyle. The sludge... it is reaching for my throat.
+ Scene Quest Added
Escape the collapsing hive
“I tell him, my dark cleric spell free'd their souls of the trap but did not liberate them, i am not good, can you lead a good cleric chant/spell to heal this weeping oni and i will aid it after”
FAILURE (Great Willpower, rolled +0)
Nogandar
My arts have severed the chains on your souls, but they remain heavy with the rot of this place. If you possess a prayer of purity, channel it now to soothe this weeping oni.
The Scribe
He expects me to pray? My faith was swallowed by the spider queen years ago. He is as mad as he is ancient.
The Scribe
I have no chants left, Nogandar. Only the desperate desire to survive this drowning dark.
Nogandar
My effort flickers and dies. The necrotic energy here is too dense. The Scribe is useless, and the sludge is rising to claim us both.
The oni screeches, a sound of grinding metal, as the black sludge surges higher, boiling against Nogandar's stone knees.
The Scribe
It is rising! We have run out of time!
“I use a divine hells flames breath on the souls to liberate them but bound them to my domain”
SUCCESS (Legendary Arcana, rolled +3)
Nogandar
The Scribe is shivering. Faithless, perhaps, but their soul flickers with the embers of potential. I shall ignite that spark myself.
Nogandar
Silence your whimpering. I do not need your gods. I will forge a new binding in the fires of my own domain.
Nogandar inhales deep, drawing the stagnant air into his lungs until his chest glows with a furnace-like intensity. He exhales a torrent of hellfire that ignores the cold ichor and focuses solely on the trapped souls within the walls.
The Scribe
The heat... it is not burning the flesh. It is searing the corruption away. He is actually doing it.
The black sludge evaporates in a hiss of toxic steam as the liberated souls wail, their ethereal forms turning from grey to an abyssal violet, tethered now to the gargoyle king.
Nogandar
The structure holds, reinforced by the essence I have claimed. Yet, the hive recognizes its loss. Something ancient and multi-legged is shifting beneath the floorboards, and it is angry.
“I search my past for the command in arcana that lightly taps their souls i claimed to replish my own mana arcana slightly faster”
FAILURE (Legendary Arcana, rolled -3)
Nogandar
The souls are bound, but my internal reservoirs run dry. I must recall the ancient syntax to command this stolen essence and quicken my own pulse.
Nogandar closes his eyes, reaching into the fractured archives of his mind. The arcana language is a jagged, shifting thing, slipping through his mental grasp like wet sand.
Nogandar
By the weight of the mountain and the seal of my oath, obey.
The Scribe
He is losing it. The light in his chest is pulsing unevenly, like a heartbeat struggling against a tightening knot.
The energy fails to integrate. Instead of flowing into Nogandar, the trapped souls scream, tearing away from his control and lashing out at the corridor walls.
Nogandar
The weave rejects me. And the tremors beneath my feet are no longer just the hive reacting. Something heavy and segmented is tearing through the stone foundation.
“I cast me and the scribe into liquid stone”
SUCCESS (Superb Athletics, rolled +2)
Nogandar
The floor beneath me is not stone. It is a shell, and it is ready to crack.
Nogandar
Hold to me, Scribe. Do not let go, no matter the heat or the crush.
Nogandar pivots his massive frame, his claws carving furrows into the masonry as he gathers his supernatural strength.
The Scribe
The foundation is giving way! Nogandar, what are you doing?
With a roar that shakes the very marrow of the hive, Nogandar drives his fists into the floor, focusing his arcana to liquefy the stone beneath them.
Nogandar
Sink. Flow. Become the path.
The stone turns to thick, molten sand under his touch. Nogandar plunges downward, dragging the Scribe into the darkness as the Hive ceiling finally collapses into the cavity they just vacated.
Quest Complete
Escape the collapsing hive
New Gift: Hive-Escape Agility