2761/Duty: The Tam-Tara Deepcroft

Duty: The Tam-Tara Deepcroft
Date of Scene:	08 August 2015
Location:	Hydaelyn Reborn <ARR>
Synopsis:	Adventurers head into the Tam-Tara Deepcroft to stop the ritual being cast by the Lambs of Dalamud, and encounter Avere Bravearm's party again. Also Setsuko cuts off someone else's arm for a change.
Cast of Characters:	255, 626, Lyria Mason, 675, 747, 789, 791, 815, N'raha Tia, 826

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Alwyn Highwind (815) has posed:
Notice from the Adventurers' Guild of Eorzea (posted on numerous bounty and adventurer boards, including the Syndicate Network)!

Duty: The Tam-Tara Deepcroft
Location: The Tam-Tara Deepcroft, Central Shroud
Type: Dungeon
Urgency: Medium
Difficulty: Medium

Enclosed Message: Whether or not the Sylph elder is saved, it is time to do something about the local wildlife. A cult of Dalamud worshippers, known as the Lambs of Dalamud, have tampered with the seals of the Deepcroft and broken in. They have reanimated the bodies therein for their ploys and likely seek to bring about great chaos and destruction. The Seedseers of Gridania would request able-bodied adventurers to enter the Deepcroft, put the poor souls back to rest, and deal with the cultist concerns-- permanently. Their magicks cannot be allowed to continue, for it warps even the simplest creatures of the Black Shroud into aggressive beasts. Or so that is their belief.

Alwyn Highwind (815) has posed:
    If you're new: welcome to Eorzea, more specifically to the Black Shroud, a very large forest that covers a good part of the continent. If you have any magical senses at all, this place is bursting with magic-- everyone, everything, is made of it, connected to the world like one big unified magical whole. As concerns the forest specifically, the trees are massive, and multiple, powerful forces seem present within-- to the EAST, a growing, thunderous force, aligned with lightning, and to the SOUTH, a sleeping pressure aligned with battle. EVERYWHERE in general, nature itself seems to be 'alive', not in the sense plants are alive but in the sense the forest watches after itself. Deeper probing reveals discord, corruption and weakness that can't be quite pinpointed, as though the elements of the forest were infighting, or otherwise wounded.

    The WARP GATE is located next to an AETHERYTE CRYSTAL (think giant blue glowing crystal with a lot of decorating and magical setup) out in the Central Shroud, in a small barely fortified village slash camp known as Bentbranch Meadows. You won't be staying here very long, though, as you'll be guided by assorted parties (whether Scarlet, Setsuko, Bertram or N'raha) south on the road towards what is known as the Tam-Tara Deepcroft, what used to be the royal tombs of Gridania. If you were Gridanian, and you mattered, you were probably buried here.

    Reaching a large clearing in the forest, the Deepcroft becomes immediatly visible-- it's a large grassy area, with old ruins and one very big hill in the center. Dug into the front of the hill is the catacombs entrance, which is a single large, round room with stairs leading down near the back. Four bonfires are in each 'corner', unlit, and both gates, the one leading into the room and the one barring access to the stairs going down, have been torn open despite being solid metal. The leftovers of magic seals that were bruteforced are present in the form of half-faded runes.

    PAIYO REIYO, a small Lalafell in blue mage robes with a hood, is standing by the stairs leading down. He looks injured, exhausted, and his staff is broken.

Bertram Silent (826) has posed:
BERTRAM SILENT, a tall Hyur in white mage robes with a good, is arriving alone. He hasn't picked up anyone else, trusting others to take care of that. Instead, he's brought what looks to be some kind of huge folding lunchbox, made out of solid wood. Once he's at the site, whether first or not, he starts unfolding the lunchbox into a table, several kinds of food are placed on top. Then he starts healing Paiyo.

N'raha Tia has posed:
    N'RAHA, looking somehow more refreshed than usual, is already inside the first bit of the ruins themselves, before you actually go in any deeper. There's a sheen on his old armor, and in his demeanor as he busies himself with battering some stubborn skeletons and crap that just keep trying to wake up.
    That axe of his is getting some work.

    Also he is throwing very dirty looks at the Thaumaturge every so often.

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    Setsuko has been to the East Shroud a fair bit, but not to other parts of the Twelveswood; so for her, this is something of a branching out.

    She keeps her pace calm and steady, walking alongside Bertram and N'raha... at least, until Paiyo Reiyo is spotted. At that point, she rushes ahead to check on him; he's the only member of Avere's group she felt had any kind of sound judgement by the end of their foray into the Sastasha Seagrot, so her concern is instant and noticeable. "Paiyo Reiyo. You're hurt. What's happened?" Bertram is a fine healer; he's got the wounds covered, so she'll cover the 'what'.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Given the nature of this particular Duty, Kyra appeared to be especially eager to join. As had become commonplace when she went on the missions in Eorzea, she's come fully equipped with her usual medical loadout (CURE-ALL included) and a full stock of explosives and utility potions. Her gear is clearly visible, the front zipper of her hoodie jacket pulled down to allow her easy access to her gear. Held in both of her hands is a hunting rifle, already pre-loaded with hipotion-filled darts. The healing bases are definitely covered today with contingencies in case she has ANOTHER Wild Magic incident.

    (Like the last TWO TIMES she's been here. Maybe there was just something about this place that stirred her magic particles wrong.)

    "Hey." she greets Paiyo as they arrive, "What's the damage down there?" Bertram beats her to healing the Lalafell but that doesn't stop her from trying something else out.

    She gestures to the staff. "Heal! The scar of the burning sun!" she intones, tapping on the white magic (though closer to time magic) that Orphen taught her.

Lyria Mason has posed:
Lyria Mason is here once more she was finding it was quite a good experiance to help out Alwyn and his friends with the various job postings from their world. The Gil also didn't hurt much either, Lyia muses. Still it was less the gil and more starting to help out new friends. Well that and being on an adventure with said friends as well. The Galendian Machinist was just stepping out of the WArp Gate not as she made note of the Aetheryte crystal near the gate. She's not going to be staying here too long eithere as she's going to move to form up with everyone else and soon enough She's a bhit behind Kyra as she arrives a bit after she looks to Paiyo however she doesn't act as several people far better at healing are already on it.

Izzy Hyland (791) has posed:
    The honest truth is that Izzy Hyland hadn't actually been paying attention to what he was doing on his iWear, and had accidentally accepted a mission on the mission boards. It seemed rude to accept it and then not go do anything about it, so he'd decided that he may as well do it. It would probably be fun! Truth be told, Izzy is kind of clueless a lot of the time, despite his general demeanor of being in control of the situation regardless of what happens. Unfortunately he got here a little bit (a lot) early, got hungry, and wandered off for a little while.

    Right now, he's RETURNING to the entrance of the catacombs, where everyone has long since been.

    Izzy is carrying what appears to have been one of the local squirrels, which he killed, cooked, and is now most of the way through eating on a hand-carved spit he skewered it on. He's actually holding a second one in his left hand, which has been entirely untouched so far.

    "HEY, DOES ANYBODY ELSE LIKE SQUIRREL?" He asks, waving the spare squirrel-on-a-stick around. "WHAT ABOUT YOU?"

    Izzy jabs the freshly cooked squirrel-on-a-stick towards the wounded Lalafel.

Scarlet Everille (747) has posed:
    Scarlet's been here before, and so she's relatively familiar with the setup, the distant presence of what can only be Ramuh's gathering set aside. That also means she has the proper context to frown at the sight of the flames out and the seals undone yet again, mere weeks after she'd personally seen the issue resolved.

    Though she looks the same as she always does due to her magic's extreme bent of subtelty, she's done the equivalent of coming loaded for bear this time, knowing full well how this particular brand of adventuring goes and having swapped the bulk of her wards for ones concerned with personal defense and narrowed her familiar selection down to a much smaller entourage of more dangerously combat focused ones, currently occupying such a low level of phase that anyone with any kind of magical inclination might be able to catch glimpses of phantom movement in her vicinity.

    Of course the lalafel immediately demands her attention, in that she is obligated to at least ask "Forgive me for asking you in such a state, but if you've already been down there, could you tell us exactly what happened? How far did you get? Who else is still there? And when did you find this place like.. this?" She gestures nonspecifically at the snuffed fires. Most of her attention is really focused on assessing the battered old seals to see how long ago they were broken, yet again, and if there's even enough left of them to be fixed once more, even temporarily, or whether they'll have to be rewritten from scratch.

Cirra Constantine (675) has posed:
    Cirra's been to Eorzea before, briefly. But not the Black Shroud, and she has to admit she doesn't think theres anywhere on Galianda that gives off the same... living vibe.

    The judge is dressed...as a Judge, but there aren't too many of those in Eorzea, (not good ones anyways) but her silver and bronze coloured armor with the big horns gets a few looks from passersby. She stops just left of Kyra and looks at the burial mounds through her red visor and hnns. "I'm suprised the local authorities wouldn't deal with an undead uprising. But hopefully there isn't a Vampire involved." Vampires on Galianda make people reach for the scorched earth buttons, but it seems in other worlds they're approached more subtly, something about a stake through the heart, or was it head...?

    "Kyra. Do you think your white magic can disrupt the animated bodies?"

Alwyn Highwind (815) has posed:
    "Avere happened, I'm afraid," Paiyo explains. "He got a hint a big group of adventurers was coming here. He decided if we went ahead and did your work for you, we'd become rich and famous. I can't terribly fault him, if it worked we'd be rather well-off right now." Thankful for the heals, he rises, dusting himself and sighing.

    "Patience isn't his strong suit, as you likely figured out last time. He ran ahead. Edda and Liavinne actually kept up with him, somehow, but barely. I feel behind, and then the undead surrounded them... well, here I am, having run for my life." He doesn't seem very proud of the fact.

    He takes Izzy up on his offer-- when you're an adventurer you eat what you can. Squirrel's... not five-star cuisine exactly but they're big enough around here you can feel two Lalafells with one squirrel.

    "I'm sorry to place this burden on you, but could you... go find them? They're tough, they'll have lasted until now... I'm sure." To Cirra, he answers: "No vampires. Cultists, from what we saw, and skeletons. A lot of skeletons. Some imps, some bugs." And to Scarlet: "Not very long ago. Twenty, thirty minutes? I lost track, amidst the running. We didn't get far-- we took a path overtaken by vegetation, rather than the straight one the cultists are using. A bad decision in hindsight."

    He also thanks Izzy, if a bit late due to having to explain some things.

    HEADING DOWN: As you walk down, and down, and down the stairs, for what seems like five minutes, you eventually reach a massive, open cavern, with pathways and levels built around a deep, hollow... well, hole. Destroyed brick roads and bridges indicate the catacomps may have once been much more claustrophobic, and perhaps not so open.

    To your RIGHT, a path overtaken by vegetation seems to head to the level below the one you're on, via stairs and ramps. To your RIGHT, as you walk closer to the edge of the hole, the path continues, hugging the wall and forming a circle around the central area. The area is large enough that this circular road around the hole would take a good ten minutes to walk across and return to your starting location, at a walking pace.

    In the center of the hole is a large platform of stone built atop a massive tree trunk reaching a fair distance down. It is protected by a bright purple forcefield, powered by an orb hovering over the platform, itself tethered to FOUR altars. Two of them are on the level you're on, and two seem to be down below. Each altar has numerous men in dark robes around them, accompanied by skeletons and imps-- and the road to the altars themselves has quite the number of skeletons patrolling, too.

    It seems a given that accessing the central platform will require dealing with all four altars. Rather than magic, the air here is abuzz with darkness and necromancy, not unlike the pendant Scarlet may still have.

N'raha Tia has posed:
    There's a reason N'raha had been glaring at the Lalafell, and there it is. This whole place stank and it wasn't just the undead that were the problem. He shoulders his axe again, and with the idea that he's always been placed there so far, takes up the lead of the party as the head downstairs, likely flanked by Setsuko. That's how it's been, and he's getting comfortable with that.

    The Miqo'te, looking over the mess below, looks to the rest. "I'll make sure the butts up top are handled. Someone come on with." He pulls out the axe again, and also a big piece of jerky which he shoves into his mouth to chew on to maye get rid of the smell of this place. Bluh.

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    Unfortunately for N'raha, Setsuko does not walk. Once she has heard what Paiyo Reiyo has to say, with a muttered oath she comes up to her feet and /runs/. Far ahead of the group, probably in an ill-advised dash, she skids to a stop right on the edge of the huge, open space, and closes her eyes. Straining. Listening. And then, after only a second's pause, she turns and heads RIGHT, towards the LOWER LEVELs.

    She's already got Zanjintou at hand, ready to hack away at any vines (or enemies) that happen to get in the way.

Bertram Silent (826) has posed:
After a quick discussion, and another encouragement of the food, Bertram follows his own advice and consumes bits and pieces of the food on offer, then grips Yagrush firmly and follows Setsuko, getting ready to heal a lot. As by the looks of it, Setsuko isn't going for small pulls. He sprints, fortunate enough not to rely on physical exercise to do his job, and makes sure to cast protect and swiftcast stoneskin 2 before the fighting starts.

Izzy Hyland (791) has posed:
    It's actually a little bit surprising to Izzy that people take up the food he offered, but he seems reasonably pleased by it. Consequentially though, Izzy isn't really paying all that much attention to what's being said. Seems like there's a lot of backstory here that he didn't have anything to do with, and no reference point for. He smiles kindly and just sort of nods along, pretending to understand exactly what's happened. Then, Setsuko takes off in one direction with at least one or two people racing after her pretty much immediately.

    He looks out after them, shrugs, and then heads towards the UPPER LEVEL.

    "OKAY. I GUESS I'LL GO THIS WAY, THEN. THERE'S PROBABLY SOME PUZZLES THAT NEED TO GO DOWN BEFORE WE'RE DONE HERE ANYWAY, SO SPLITTING UP MAKES SENSE." Evidently Izzy is an optimist who doesn't believe that splitting the party is too much of a bad thing. He finishes off HIS squirrel-on-a-stick and captchalogues what's left for later disposal.

    No sense in defiling tombs with squirrel remains.

    Then again, maybe it would just be particularly respectful to the dead squirrel?

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "I'm pretty sure my white magic is very good at disrupting undead bodies." Kyra grins fanatically. Undead were one of the few places a white mage could really shine in offense where she was from, after all.

    As Paiyo starts up: "Oh, this again." Kyra palms her face. "You know, the Shroud is pretty big, aren't there enough adventures for everyone...? Hey Izzy, glad to see you out and about. Where's everyone else, though?" She seems confused. Weren't they supposed to work as a team too...? Kyra swipes some of the food offered by Bertram before heading up top, splitting healing duties and heading for the UPPER LEVEL. There, Kyra wastes no time.

    "HELLO EVERYONE!" she greets cheerfully before promptly hitting skeletons with healing magic. Which she expects will kill them. If they don't, she'll feel quite silly.

Lyria Mason has posed:
Lyria Mason looks to Paiyo as they make the request to finf thier friends she looks to Paiyo for a moment nodding.

"Wee'll do what we can to try and find your friends."

She gets why they were trying to make names for themselves and she can't fault them for trying. She's going to get her pistols ready and keep to the upper level.

"I'll do what I can up here."

She notes ash she moves to remain top side and fall in with those who do. As Kyra starts to heal bomb, Lyira starts to give her covering fire frm her pistols, which are tuned to the fire element right now.

"I got you back Kyra, N'raha! Izzy if you need anything just call out! I got a few gadgets with me that might help out."

Cirra Constantine (675) has posed:
    Cirra watches Setsuko turn for the exit going RIGHT. She shrugs her shoulders, and can't very well let her run off on her own. She turns and heads down the RIGHT path for the LOWER LEVELS. Summon the Judge Blade to her hand as she descends downwards.
    She isn't familiar with this other group of adventurers that being admonished, but perhaps by the end of the night, she too will have reason to bash on them.

Scarlet Everille (747) has posed:
    Scarlet is just going to ignore someone eating a cooked squirrel on a stick. Gross.

    All said, Paiyo's description of events isn't far from what she'd expected just from first laying eyes on him in his current condition. Were she the more heroically pragmatic sort, the sigh of frustrated worry and the shake of her head she replies with would be completely sincere. As it is, rescuing the rest of the adventuring party is more or less a bonus objective for extra points. There are more than enough able bodies present to accomplish that as well, right? "It's a good thing you did at least. Otherwise, we'd have no idea where to start, or maybe if you were even here. We might have just assumed nobody showed up." She smiles reassuringly at the lalafel before turning to the stairs, shuffling through her bag.

    Setsuko running off is about as to be expected, and there's no point in trying to keep up with the demigoddess of war. Likewise, the men in robes are what the "adventurers" are for. She's surrounded by enough hired muscle that she shouldn't have to try and deal with them directly. As usual, what has her interest is the area's magic. Specifically, the forcefield, the orb, and how it is linked to the altars. It seems pretty elaborate for an elevator control mechanism, and so there must be a reason for it.

    She finishes fishing the medallion out of her bag, standing aside as the armed Elites come rushing through, finding a quiet spot off to the side. She sends off a couple of obligatory, bottom level scout familiars, little more than remote eyes and ears, to keep track of them, but busies herself instead with inscribing the correct circles for a proper, in-depth analysis of the area and comparison to the voidsent energies of her token artifact, focusing on discerning any details she can of the orb, forcefield, altars, cultists, and minions in that descending order.

    With any luck, by the time everyone else finishes killing (or re-killing) everything in sight, she might have a more permanent solution for this.

Sarah Parsle (789) has posed:
If you thought you would be spared the noob brigade, think again. DUMBFACE MCGLOOMYPOO- I mean, SARAH PARSLE has scurried onto the scene. LATE. The fact Izzy is on site and active instead of living in his hippieland is even more motifaction than normal. As she clambers over the broken rocks and looks over the smashed area, she frowns at the central pit-like environment. "What the crap is this." She says aloud to no one in particular, because she hasn't CAUGHT UP yet. As she surveys all the BEAMS OF EVIL shooting at the ORB OF OMINOUS POWER, she observes, similarly to no one in particular, "This smells like evil asshole power."

Turning, she zips along through the tunnels, following the trail of what mauled evil things and bugs and undead there might be until she reaches Paiyo. "Oh, hi, smart guy." Sarah says, waving to said Lalafell. "Sorry I'm late. Looks like everything went straight past hell and into some kind of double hell." She nods. "Don't worry, the forces of overkill present will help clean everything up. I'm going to go supervise."

Sarah gives the lalafell who is only slightly shorter than she is a wave, and then she putters along, figuring Izzy is going to take the most direct path like usual, which means the upper levels.

Alwyn Highwind (815) has posed:
    UPPER LEVEL:

    The upper level, the simpler of the two options and more straightforward path, being just a very large ring around the central platform and hole, is also the one with the most enemies. N'raha takes the lead, followed by Kyra and Lyria who immediatly turn things hostile as they rampage towards one of the altars. Though many skeletons immediatly charge, they're bombed down by gunshots and Kyra's magic right away; the imps, however, aren't so vulnerable to healing magic. The half a dozen of flying creatures charge the group, flinging ice spells left and right. Three cultists are at the first altar; one immediatly starts channeling a powerful spell upon seeing the untruders, while the other two fire volleys of lightning and void-y magic. One such spell misses N'raha but smashes the ground out from under him, causing a collapse! N'raha might find himself falling towards the altar down below (see next pose segment) if he isn't careful.

    GENERIC INFO: Each altar has a bright purple-ish orb on it, which is what seems to be feeding power to the magical sphere and forcefield. The orbs seem to be siphoning nearby magic to gather it in one place, and there are many runes and inscriptions on and around them, indicating a complex spell.

    LOWER LEVEL:

    Unlike the upper level, the lower level is more contained, the caverns and tunnels still standing. Massive roots seem to hold the place together, as though the plantlife had grown specifically to support the tunnels.

    Heading down reveals traces of fighting-- broken skeletons, a few dead Yarzon (think five foot tall six-legged granddaddy longlegs-- yeah, you can hate me for that description)-- and the likes. A great many side-rooms are empty, with tombs, graves and sarcophaguses that have been forced open. There are many riches here for the taking, if it interests you at all. Ancient armor and weaponry not made for combat but made to look pretty, plenty of gil, that sort of stuff.

    Ahead, one can see the bright purple and blue hue of one of the altars feeding power to the orb now far above the group. Around it are three men in dark red robes, with a number of skeletons and imps with them. Three adventurers are in their midst-- Edda, the Conjurer in white and beige robe, clutching her backpack tightly as she sits on the ground, Liavinne, the Archer in green and brown leather, quiver empty and held at swordpoint by one skeleton, and Avere, flat on the ground next to Edda.

N'raha Tia has posed:
    N'RAHA IS MIGHTY AND POWERFUL AND CHARGING RIGHT IN AFTER THE OTHERS AAAAAH I'M A TANK FACE M-

    Wait no, now we're falling and the catman flails in midair as he goes, flailing his axe a bit to right himself at at least try to land on his feet. "UWAAAHHHH!"

    And it's not on his feet that he lands, but on top of one of the sword-wieling cultists, like some great red Mario.

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    The skeleton in front of Liavinne is Setsuko's first target.

    Or rather, its sword is. The divine sharpness of Zanjintou is enough to split even ordinary metals easily, and she means to remove the danger with a quick downward slash through the sword itself, followed by a reverse cut up through the skeleton. Without missing a beat, she lunges in a bid to shoulder-tackle her way /through/ that skeleton, hurling herself over towards Edda and Avere. She means to plant herself directly above and in front of Edda, sword at the ready, in a defensive posture that puts her in position to respond to any of the cultists, imps or skeletons that might move to attack. But her gaze falls solely on the cultists themselves.

    "I will give you one chance and one chance only. Leave, or all of you will die. I promise you, you do not have enough demons or undead to stop me. And I'm not alone." For pure effect, she allows her aura to begin simmering around her faintly, a subtle haze of blue divinity... and then down comes a catman from above.

Izzy Hyland (791) has posed:
    "YOU KNOW, NORMALLY I DON'T LIKE TO LABEL THINGS THAT WAY, BUT THEY MAKE IT REALLY HARD WHEN IT'S THIS OBVIOUS THAT IT'S EVIL ASSHOLE POWER." Izzy replies to Sarah, looking unamused at this fact. He shakes his head, whipping his hair from side to side in the doing. Like Sarah, he's somewhat behind the others, albeit with something of a head start on /her/. These weirdos aren't going to talk with them, as evidenced by all of the spooky skeletons and obviously demonic beings that start revving up.

    This is a time to increase his armor class.

    Izzy whips off his shirt and ties it around his waist. This absolutely makes sense in context, but probably just makes him look even weirder than he already does here. Not at all coincidentally, this kid is fucking built. He moves in with the kind of reckless confidence that only youth can conjure and decides to try something quite risky! Riskier than taking your shirt off in a fight. He ponders aloud, "I WONDER IF I CAN JUST..."

    Then he tries to punch one of the volleys of voidy magic that got launched at his group.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "Imps are not undead!" Kyra announces, "Those being shot as normal would be really helpful! I don't think the cultists are undead either!" Kyra says the word cultist with disdain, especially as their magic crumbles out the ground from N'raha, dropping him down deeper into the dungeon: "N'raha!!" She starts to advance only to be struck by a void-flavored spell from one of the cultists and sent sprawling.

    She growls as she hauls herself up to her feet, immediately taking steps to wreck the magical onslaught. "SHELLGA!" she starts with, casting it on everyone still remaining on the upper level, imbuing them with the protective spell that will reduce the magic damage done when they get hit by spells.

    Izzy personally is singled out for the next trick, knowing that the fighty tanky guy would certainly appreciate it as he'll no doubt get up close with the magic users.

    "Reflect!" A blue barrier flickers around Izzy, not impeding him but most likely making cultists cry.

Scarlet Everille (747) has posed:
    The general flow of magic is useful information, and the runes on plain display will be once Scarlet has the chance to take pictures of them, but she needs to know a little more than that. She can sense the ambient magic is charged with the same kind of negative energy that the amulet recovered previously is, and so she attempts to find out where exactly it is, whether it's simply just what the cultists are using, whether it's radiating from the crypt itself, whether it's the orb artifacts individually, or whether it's what the orbs just happen to be siphoning in from one of the other sources.

    Secondly is the forcefield itself. Specficially, what it's meant to block out, what means there are of bypassing it other than cutting off its power supply, if any, and if it really is just there to block off the use of what is probably a lift downwards simply to protect the burial site itself, in which case, why are the cultists tending to it? If it really is a harmless barrier, there is an immediately obvious use she has for it. If it's something more sinister, there's an equally immediate means of dealing with it. If it's neither, well then it's still an extra piece in her personal project.

    "When you have the opportunity, could one of you try removing an orb from one of those altars for a few seconds, please?" She asks quietly over the radio while she focuses.

Cirra Constantine (675) has posed:
    Cirra skips over the vendor trash, only so many incventory slots after all.

    When setsuko dashes out, the Judge hangs back for a just a moment, long enough for the cultists to draw their focus on SEtsuko, then rushes out. The Judge Blade is not a true holy weapon, but with Cirra strength and speed behind it it can rend bond. She slashes upwards into the back of one of the skeletons then spins around, brining the tip of the weapon low to the ground as it cuts directly across an imp.

    The Judge, despite her plate mail style armor is contantly in motion, leaping up to spin around and bring a heavily amrored knees directly to one cultist's head and then tucking and rolling closer to the alters, springing up to take position near Setsuko...

    and theres a cat-man falling from the ceiling.

    "Maybe they don't have enoguh to stop you, but I think theres enough to inconvience us."

Sarah Parsle (789) has posed:
"Yeah, well, you can be all understanding and nonjudgemental and accepting while I just call it like I see it, Izzy." Sarah replies laconically to their now-tank since they lost catte-tank. "That's a whole lot of evil asshole, to boot. I'm surprised they're not full of horrorterrors while we're at it."

Kyra provides useful information whole Sarah shimmies off to one side, using her inoffensiveness as a shield as usual. A few Blizzard blasts strike towards her, but the Shell flares, cutting the damage down to managable levels. "Bluuuuuh." She mutters. "Someone kill the stupid imp things, they're biting my style." While she offers that bit of advice, she tries to shimmy over to the stands of EVIL ORBS and tries to engage in a bit of YOINKING, attempting to remove it as per Scarlet's request.

"This is probably going to explode in my face." She predicts with her standard fatalism.

Bertram Silent (826) has posed:
When N'raha drops down, Bertram responds on instinct. A quick cure followed by an immediate regen, which should hopefully top him off. Bertram then goes right for Avere, kneeling down next to the fallen adventurer, and checking for a pulse, then notices something rather upsetting. He makes one loud, angry statement, before switching his internal mana flow. "Rhalgr's wrath upon you!" Oh yeah, he's not happy, and he doesn't give the cultists the opportunity to respond to Setsuko, weaving energies and calling upon the energy of earth to summon rock spikes to launch up from right below the nearest one.

Lyria Mason has posed:
Lyria Mason had missed the bit about talking when she saw the undead? Well she kinda just acted like her training at school had taught her. She's mostly focusing on the undead to take them down. There's a lot of them, but the Imps? The imps are not really effected by the healing attacks. It's too late to do anytthing else now as she attemps to keep fiting with the imps and she's getting hit by ice spells and it's clearly hurting he as the icey magic claws at her body. Worse N'raha has gone falling into the depths and there's nothing she cna do.

"N'raha!"

She staggerss back a bit and she's aware of th alters but she's too tied up with the imps at the moment. Then Izzy gets a reflect spell from Kyra things might improve a bit now. She also trusts that Scarlet will be able to figure out things hera dn she makes note of her request if she gets a chance she will very much do this.

Alwyn Highwind (815) has posed:
    UPPER LEVEL:

    One can't blame Izzy for the logic, this has evil ritual written all over it. And to answer his question: yes, he absolutely can. The black bolt of magic is punched, right back at one cultist, who practically chokes on it and falls over gasping for air. That must have been some sort of disease spell or something.

    Kyra does reach the proper conlusion that Voidsent are not undead. Just evil. The protection spells she shoots will help! And so will that Reflect spell. A cultist is shocked by his own lightning bolt trying to fry Izzy with it. Izzy is either very lucky or the cultists are very unlucky.

    Scarlet's analysis reveals the following: the orbs are siphoning magic in general, but the place being so tinted by death is REALLY helping the matter. It's also aligning the magic heavily with darkness and death, allowing such easy control of the undead. The massive orb above the forcefield is pretty much pure Aether, some sort of cocoon. The cultists use very similar magic, but the orbs are more complex and powerful in nature, the trade off being they must have required quite some time to set up correctly. The forcefield is linked to the cocoon, and seems to be present to keep things off the central platform. Within it one can see shadows and shapes gathering, as though being summoned.

    Sarah loots one of the cultist orbs. It is overcharged with dark, Void-aligned magic, specialized to summon and empower Voidsent. It's about as comfortable as trying to hold a Palantir while Sauron is watching, but without the horrible mind intrusion. The removal of the orb from the altar does cause it to stop feeding magic to the cocoon though.

    This angers the remaining cultist-- while imps are busy killing themselves on Izzy's Reflect, he slams his staff down, and a portal to the Void opens. A large Voidsent carrying a scythe walks out, a sort of demonic gargoyle. It charges for Izzy, swinging the weapon in a wide arc threatening Kyra and Lyria too!

    LOWER LEVEL:

    N'raha makes the most of his fall, landing atop one of the cultists. Some bones sound broken there, and they're not the catman's.

    A one-two from Setsuko cleaves the skeleton's blade and then the skeleton himself, freeing Liavinne from its threats. As she steps closer, she may notice that Avere is... well, not an adventurer anymore. He's missing his head, and is fairly beaten up besides, many of the skeletons' weapons bloodied. This is likely what has Bertram so upset now. Edda is just kind of tightly hugging her backpack while still grounded.

    Holy sword or not, Cirra's blade cuts through imps and skeletons with ease, and then her knee smashes one of the cultist's jaw in. The remaining one frowns.

    "Your threats mean nothing! Dalamud grants us strength!"

    Before he can say anything else, he's smashed in the face repeatedly by conjured rocks from Bertram, falling on his ass and writhing in pain. The remaining few skeletons and imps that didn't get offed by Cirra engage the group-- Liavinne pulls a knife out to help, but Edda just keeps hugging her backpack.

    "WILL YOU STOP HUGGING THAT AND HELP US?" she shouts.
    Edda doesn't answer.

    Three skeletons make for Setsuko with spears and axes, two for N'raha both wielding swords, two imps fire blizzard volleys at Cirra, and Bertram is beset by one firing a mix of darkness and lightning.

N'raha Tia has posed:
    Right this is shitty, everything is shitty, this has already gone to hell. N'RAHA manages to stumble up to his feet, kicking the man underneath him several times to encourage him to STAY DOWN. The healing spells help quite a bit. That said, there's Skeletons again! OH NO!

    Actually fuck everything right now. The miqo'te's TEENAGE ANGER flares at this whole situation and he lashes out at the approaching skeletons, a Tomahawk blast of energy getting their attention properly as he steps in with a wave of anger and aether roiling off his axe. "SETSUKO DEAL WITH HER LATER, We've got more problems! He's already dead, Bertram can't fix headlessness!"

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    Setsuko's gaze is turned briefly over her shoulder. "You put your faith in a power that has fallen. Had I room to criticize, I would. But my blade makes me little better, I suppose."

    She comes around just in time to cleave the head right off a spear, then lunge forward into a slash on the skeleton that launched it, followed by a quick turn; she grabs the second spear thrust at her and stops it cold, then uses her inhuman strength to simply lift the skeleton off the ground with that spear, and toss it over the edge. This gives the axe-wielding skeleton an opportunity to swing its weapon, and the demigod whips around - just in time to have the blade bury itself on her left shoulder, biting deep enough to draw plentiful blood.

    The silver-haired glares fiercely at the skeleton, but the words that come out are for someone else. "I'm perfectly aware that he's already dead," she replies to N'raha, her voice coming out in a dangerously wintery tone. "You can all finish the job here if you like. I have faith that you can manage it. But vengeance is useless against enemies like these, and the dead are beyond help. /I intend to save those who still live./"

    Zanjintou whips up, then down, a slash meant to completely bisect the skeleton whose axe is stuck in her shoulder.

Bertram Silent (826) has posed:
Setsuko's words may have been meant for N'raha, but they reach Bertram, and he calms down. Somewhat. He's still calling upon the elements to smite his foes, but he does so in a more controlled manner, one more conducive to achieving goals rather than enacting vengeance. He draws upon the wind, trying to tear the skeletons apart through the harsh erosion of magic-enhanced air as he tries to make his way towards the altar.

Izzy Hyland (791) has posed:
    Technically speaking, the concept of luck doesn't really apply to Izzy. He's just getting convenient buffs applied to him at the right time and happens to be specialized in dealing with void-flavored juju. Which this is completely made of. Really, it's mostly just a happy coincidence, but not one that he's going to do anything -less- than ruthlessly exploit it. Speaking of which, if you think he's not going to ruthlessly exploit it against this voidsent, you've got another thing coming to you.

    "HEY. WHOA NOW, THAT'S NOT HOW YOU USE THAT." Izzy declares, as the Voidsent comes at him with a scythe. He doesn't use tools if he can help it, but Izzy is in fact familiar with a scythe and gardening in a general sense. A war scythe is used quite a bit differently.

    The Prince of Void demonstrates this by stepping in close to the charging voidsent so that it CAN hit him. Here's the problem with that, and the criticism that Izzy is laying forth: A scythe can essentially only be used in a limited number of ways. Swiping at multiple opponents essentially requires that it be swiped in a great horizontal sweep. Ideally the blade would mow through the targets, but in this case Izzy steps forward past the blade and into the path of the shaft, so it's lined up with his right side. There's no way it could possibly miss, but the blade has nowhere to go but behind him.

    Consequentially, it'd also be incredibly difficult for the scythe's area-effect attack to take place.

    If this wasn't ENOUGH, Izzy also snaps his elbow down and his knee up with abrupt and significant force, trying to catch the shaft of the scythe as it strikes him and break it. It won't stop the weapon from striking him, he's just hoping to break it before the voidsent can recover.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Kyra's pleasure with her handiwork of buffing quickly fades as she hears an update from the lower level team. Sure, that Avere guy was kind of a jerk but he didn't deserve /that/. Wordlessly, she reaches under her left arm and pulls her Galiandan-style handgun out of its holster. She swings the weapon to point at the remaining cultist, firing upon him with the gun. But it's too late, he opens a portal to the Void and summoning a Voidsent.

    Thanks to that, though, she flings herself aside, her shot missing, but she is not caught in the arc of the scythe. She doesn't pick herself back up fully, remaining crouched as she chants, calling forth more white magic. In particular, she turns her attentions to the Voidsent now tangling with Izzy. White light surges down her outstretched hand. "Banish!!"

Scarlet Everille (747) has posed:
    Scarlet's expression of distant concentration intensifies at her findings, though it doesn't waver as she multitasks with the radio and maintaining her circle. "Change of plans. Destroy the orbs, leave the altar if possible, but destroy them too if the first course of action has no effect. Main priority. We may be on a time limit." Normally something that barbaric wouldn't be her first choice, but the amount of aether being gathered on the main platform makes her doubt she has the time to try and defuse something like that by hand in what could well be a very short period of time. If breaking the orbs halts the process but doesn't cause it to collapse, she can try later.

    On the off chance it does, she drops the spell, smudges out the circle with her shoe, reshoulders her bag and hurries over to the first altar on the upper floor where Sarah has already removed the orb, trying to reaquire a visual of the battle down below. As soon as she arrives, she begins quickly snapping as many shots as she can of the ritualistic runes and engravings with her collar and quickly examining the physical structure of the altar itself for relevance. She just has to know one last thing...

Lyria Mason has posed:
Lyria Mason has thanks to Izzy gets some breathing room and can recover from the Imp's assaults upon her and she's going to make the best of it hnow with the cults thankfully she's got allies who are quite skills with to hopefully figure out just what's going on with the ritual here. Well then comes a gargoyle she's force to let one pistol go and pulls her cutlass as the last moment to parry the incoming strike she pulls back and leaps up attempting to land down and launch into a combo of strikes even as she turns some geomancey of the earth against the beast causing a spike of earth to attempt to rocket at the creature even as she engages it. If she's lucky she can keep it off Scarlet and let her get the information she needs to and thankfully with Kyra here she's after the Voidsent, wait what the deep six are those things?!

Sarah Parsle (789) has posed:
Sarah gets the news about Avere. She frowns, but doesn't seem to freak out like many others might. Being raised in Death Game High results in certain... psychological habits.

the orb is something entirely different. Picking up the orb, she shudders at the power flowing through it, yelling out eloquently, "Eeyaaaaahagauuuurgh." As she wobbles back, her young body trembling. "Fffffffffffblllluuuuuuuuuuh!" She yells, about to reflexively hurl it at the ground...

But instead, she pulls out a Captchalogue card and dumps it in there, the card getting summarily locked down and shuffled into her ENIGMA MODUS.

Surely this is going to have no terrifyingly horrible effects later on. In her current state, she can't do much about the Voidbringer or the cultist.

Cirra Constantine (675) has posed:
    Well, these cultists are deffinatly at the very least accessories to murder. Cirra purses her lips as the imps start up their spell casting. "Hmph." She's Shivan, but that kind of ice spell exceeds her ability to shrug off a drop in temperature.

    The Shivan Judge does not flinch or look to run away though. Instead, she charges directly ahead. She drops down in a slide kick and skids directly across the stone floor with one hand proping her up as the Blizzard spells go off over her head, smashing into the floor where she was moments ago. The Judge hops up, and spins around, grasping at one of th eImp's necks.

    "Begone."

    Then, with black curls of smoke leaking out of her armor seams, she tosses the imp with enhanced strength at the other Imp, then grasps the Judge Blade in both hands, and aims to skewer through both their stoma hes in one go.

Alwyn Highwind (815) has posed:
    UPPER LEVEL:

    Izzy abuses the logistics of swinging a scythe to have it smash into him shaft-first, and then shatter the weapon. This does spare Kyra and Lyria from the weapon's wrath entirely, though Izzy might be learning this thing is while not quite AS strong as him, not a wimp either. The shaft hit might leave a red mark! Either way, the gargoyle is now only wielding a scythe shaft for a weapon.

    Kyra's banish spell smashes into the gargoyle, almost shredding it out of existence. It struggles, vainly, to remain materialized, but Lyria's cutlass rips the last of its strength away. The Voidsent disappears, and the group is no longer coming under fire.

    Remains on the upper level one altar feeding power to the orb, and two on the lower levels.

    Scarlet also acquires many pictures! It becomes clearer and clearer the spell was made to summon something, or feed something large quantities of power.

    You can either walk to the next altar by going around the ring, or find a way across the hole that's more direct if that's available to you. Either way, that last altar is guarded by two more cultists, six imps, and another one of those large, summoned gargoyles with a scythe.

    LOWER LEVEL:

    N'raha just swings his axe around wildly, trying to carve absolutely everything up. There's certainly worse plans out there, since that does a number on the skeletons and imps he catches in the axe's shockwave. If the cultists could reply, they would shout about how Dalamud hasn't fallen at all and Setsuko just doesn't understand, but one has a broken jaw and the other two are in horrible pain. Thought that counts?

    With a cool and cold attitude, Setsuko cleaves skeletons and states her intent to protect the living; Liavinne would express thanks, if she weren't busy cramming that knife in a skeleton's skull. Also a way to express thanks, really.

    Harsh winds from Bertram slice apart skeletons and imps as well; predictably, he far outclasses them.

    Cirra's maneuver allows her to skewer multiple imps in one flourish of the blade, and then silence falls on their section of the maze. The ALTAR glows ominously, blue and purple, as the orb on it continues siphoning magic above. Down the hallway and much further away is another altar and orb, with only one cultist guarding it.

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    Setsuko falls still for a moment as Cirra finishes the last of the skeletons, and then finally returns Zanjintou to its sheath. With a brief shrug of her shoulder to test it - and both a wince of pain and a fresh flow of blood from the wound in response - she then turns to the remaining two adventurers. Her words for the archer are simple. "Liavinne. Come here. I'm getting both of you out of here." However, when she addresses Edda, it's with a much gentler tone, and a light touch on the shoulder. "Edda. Come on. We have to go, it isn't safe here."

    Unless Edda fights it, Setsuko will loop her right arm around the Conjurer's waist, and then her left around Liavinne's - that arm still hurts, but she can at least carry the elezen with it. With both of them in arm, she intends to fly them both all the way back outside through the tunnel the group came in, and while she can't manage her full speed in that closed space without endangering the both of them, she can still move fairly quickly.

N'raha Tia has posed:
    RIGHT. That's handled, and N'RAHA kicks one of the cultists again on the way past, as he shoulders his axe. There's cuts and slashes in his armor and he's bleeding in places, but he'll... you know, maybe notice that at some other point.
    He's been asked nicely not to break the thing, but the Miqo'te looks to Setsuko dashing off with the fallen adventurers, and Bertram and Cirra with him. Hmph. Well. Brusers and a doc, what could go wrong?

    He reaches up to the orb, and with a concentration of aether, tries to pull the thing off the pedestal without it scorching his hands with antimagic or void or whatever the crap this stuff is.

Bertram Silent (826) has posed:
With all the cultists taken care off, Bertram returns his internal aether patterns back to normal, spreading the lovely healing energies of Medica to help with whatever wounds have been taken during the fighting. "I hope we don't need to find out what these orbs were doing, but anyone in fighting condition should stay around just in case. We must needs respond if something demands our attention."

Cirra Constantine (675) has posed:
    Cirra leaves the Judge Blade in the stomaches of the Imps as she turns back towards the altar. Then the blade dissappears, reappearing in her hand, and letting the blood that coated the blade to fall to the floor. Good guy or not, this young woman is clearly a stone cold combatant herself.

    THe Judge tilts her head at Setsuko as she passes. "Go, I can handle one Cultist."

    The Judge proceeds first to the nearest Orb, ungaurded as it is, and begins to search for a way to deactivate it.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Rather than Kyra circling around to the final altar, she waits for others to do that (well, save for Scarlet whom Kyra knows will not be engaging in dirrect combat if she can avoid it). She hangs back, electing to pick herself up off the ground and standing fully. From on the other side, she was at least fairly safe, she felt.

    This won't stop her from trying to shoot one of the cultists with her gun, though. "So..." she says to Scarlet conversationally, "What are you picking up from those orbs? All I can sense is Void but I can feel it even without a Scan spell. It's very intense and very...hm, is evil the right word for it? It feels evil. Chaotic."

Izzy Hyland (791) has posed:
    Izzy Hyland makes a loud grunting sound as the shaft of the scythe slaps against his side. He wouldn't be all that surprised if it cracked something, but his training has been extreme enough that he can ignore the pain that's started radiating out from his right side. There's going to be a hell of a bruise, and it's already red and swollen-looking even now. He shakes his head, "MAYBE NEXT TIME I SHOULD JUST WAIT UNTIL ITS RIDICULOUS SWING RANGE WAS ALREADY DONE AND PUNCH IT AFTERWARDS. OH WELL." He glances over towards the EVIL ORB on the opposite end of where he's at.

    Then towards the hole in the middle of the room, and back towards the opposite evil orb.

    "WHY IS THIS PLACE LAID OUT LIKE THIS?" He asks nobody in particular, moving on to try to find a way around the pit to the other side. He'd like to try and rocket jump over, but he's pretty sure he can't take on all of those guys by himself once he gets there. Also, it'd hurt him on the way in.

    Rocket jumps really aren't that smart when you're made of meat.

    "SUMMONING VAGUELY DEMONIC THINGS IS USUALLY PRETTY EVIL." He asides to Kyra, scratching at the back of his head. "ACTUALLY I WONDER IF THEY'D JUST TALK WITH ME ABOUT THEIR RELIGION. PROBABLY NOT, HUH?"

    Izzy is the sort of person to entertain Jehova's Witnesses. It's not good for his popularity.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "No." Kyra comes her extremely quick, terse reply, "They're cultists, they're bad news. I bet they're fanatics too." She sounds Very Opinionated about this particular matter.

Alwyn Highwind (815) has posed:
    LOWER LEVEL:

    Liavinne shakes her head. "Nah, it's fine. You guys cleared the way in, right? I'll take her out, and then I'm done being an adventurer. This is nothing like what Avere said, you know? Glory, riches. What've we got instead? Just a dead guy and a creepy girl hugging his--" She frowns, yanking Edda by the arm since she hadn't stood up yet. Setsuko's certainly free to grab them both anyway. "Will you lose the bloody thing anyway, that's BEYOND creepy. Come on, let's get out.

    Edda mutters a weak thank you towards Setsuko-- assuming she does not impose herself, Liavinne will see Edda out. If Setsuko does impose herself, though, neither will complain. Liavinne just figures Setsuko might prefer to finish the business here.

    N'raha successfully removes the cultist orb from the altar.

    TWO AETHER TETHERS REMAIN.

    Bertram provides some medical care.

    Cirra approaches the final altar, going down the hallway. OCTAVEL THE UNFORGIVING turns to face her, grinning under his hood. "A small adventurer party? I will use your Aether to fuel our ritual! Watch, O Dalamud, as I perform your will!"

    He taps into the orb's power and then-- something shakes, rumbles. He glances around nervously. "What?"

    Before he can benefit from INCREDIBLE COSMIC POWER, gigantic tree roots surge out of the catacomb walls and tunnels, ripping him to shreds. A large, bulbous, plant-like head emerges from the ceiling, glaring with anger and-- pain? Is that pain?

    The roots surge for Cirra now, flailing about violently.

    Bertram might remember, before the Calamity, of the way the elementals of the Black Shroud kept their eye on the Deepcroft. THE CARETAKER, a massive, singular tree larger than any other in the forest. That massive hole in the catacombs? The tree used to be there. That platform is built on its destroyed trunk. It's in agony, in confused anger, like the corrupt elementals of the Shroud.

Lyria Mason has posed:
Lyria Mason sees Izzy abuse the issue with the scythe, good. He works fast, and saves her from getting hit by something really nasty. Thankfully this opens things up for her own attacks she sees the voidsent vanish and she hopes that's the end of it for the moment. She looks about to make sure nothing else is threatening them, with that confirmed she holste4rs one pistol and recovers the other, she remains armed for the moment, just looks to the next pack of enemies. Scarlet seems to have not been bothered by them, good, very good. She'll make ready to head in and deal with the new enemies s she looks over to Kyra for a moment she then raises her own pistol to try and do much the same as her. She thinks about what she knows and wonders, Scarlet's going to likely know more at this point she lines up the shot and pulls a trigger.

"I'm pretty with Kyra on this given what they are trafficking in I doubt they are going to want to talk things out, but if you can prove us wrong, do so."

N'raha Tia has posed:
    N'raha... Stops. Right in his tracks at the sight of the Caretaker. He's not a religious Miq by any means, but this is the sort of thing that makes even jaded young assholes take notice. "Twelves..."

    And then Nice Lady Judge Cirra is gettign assaulted by roots and vines and crap and the Marauder... well, he just so happens to have an axe. He's knocked out of his awe induced stupor and turns to start hacking at the stems, aiming to keep Cirra free from Offending Tentacles. "DOC, THAT THING IS YOUR SIDE OF BUSINESS!"

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    Setsuko relents, though there is concern in her eyes; there might still be lingering Voidsent or undead or cultists. But perhaps it is better to let them go on their own. She does, however, stop them briefly before they go, with a hand on Liavinne's shoulder this time.

    "Liavinne. Please, if you have any decency as a person, watch after her. If you can't or won't take care of her yourself, find someone who can. I've seen too many like her. This is going to shatter her - make sure someone is there to help her pick up the pieces."

    That much said, she turns - just in time to see The Caretaker come after Cirra. In an instant, she has her katana in hand, and darts in to start hacking away at the roots alongside N'raha.

Bertram Silent (826) has posed:
Bertram is in a temporary state of shock as he realizes what's going on. N'raha's shout gets him out of it, fortunately, and he says out loud what he realizes. "It's the Caretaker. They mutilated the Caretaker; and I don't think it knows the difference between us and them." He starts casting regens on those present, including the -- hopefully -- departing remnants of the failed adventuring group. No offensives just yet.

Cirra Constantine (675) has posed:
    Cirra looks up at Octavel the Unforgiving. She stands ready with her sword up as her taps the Orb. "I don't have any-" The roots break through the walls, taking Octavel is torn to shreds by the roots.

    It is a /hair's breadth/ that cirra leaps backwards, away from the mass that destroyed the cultist and is only caught in a wave of vines thick enough to bowl her over in sheer weigh, grabbing arond her body and arms and slamming her against the wall, forcing air out of her lungs in a rush. "Haa!" That hurts. She can't summon her Dark Knight strength after that.

Scarlet Everille (747) has posed:
    As the group starts to converge on the fourth and final altar, Scarlet gathers the last of her notes and finally drops the inquisition, having all the information she can realistically obtain for the time being. She doesn't have a totally conclusive picture of the ritual, but enough to know what's going on. Now glad that she'd asked specifically to preserve the altars, she drops to her knees by the first one, unbuckling her bag and getting out the handful of neatly tagged regeants labelled by AR display in their identical canisters she needs for her next task. One of two.

    "That much is correct. The whole area's ambient magic has been tainted with it, probably deliberately. The orbs are siphoning it to power an elaborate summoning ritual, but the forcefield is there mostly just to keep people away from it. That's why I want those orbs destroyed or neutralized as soon as possible. By now the ritual could very well have been set up to run without any further input from a magus. It might still activate without the cult present." Her tone addressing Kyra is considerably more businesslike in its seriousness.

    She's no scholar in Eorzean magical languages, however Scarlet feels fairly confident that she can at least identify the vital components in the physical guides for the spell written down on the stones with her experience in various kinds of magecraft. Picking out which pieces of the script appear to be crucial to both gathering and focusing energy, she begins carefully overlaying them with a small arsenal of abjuration circles of her own, jabbing it with various kinds of magic cancelling and deconstruction until one kind or another appears to be effective.

    Her second objective proceeds without her direct guidance. The fourth altar is abruptly assaulted by the winged teeth and claws that fade from out of the inbetween, abruptly landing on the congregation of minions and masters in a thrashing whirlwind of bone-white chitin and burning embers. There's no real finesse to the attack, just the element of surprise followed by uncontrolled berserk violence from a kind of familiar she had used previously, forbidden only from using its breath weapon.

Alwyn Highwind (815) has posed:
    UPPER LEVEL:

    Kyra has a gun, so range is meaningless. With accurate shots she can take a cultist out early!

    Izzy finds that the stony platforms and road continue on all the way around; if he minds his footing a bit, he won't fall down or cause a collapse, and he'll reach the other altar just fine. If he doesn't hurry it looks like Lyria and Kyra are just going to gun all the things though, because another few gunshots from Lyria take the second cultist and an imp out. Remains a Voidsent and a few imps now.

    Scarlet's familiar starts shredding imps, and soon there's only the Voidsent left, the gargoyle actually going the long way around to meet Izzy halfway-- just faster, since it has wings. This one swings its scythe too, but downward and from above, trying to make an abrupt landing on the Prince of Void.

    The ORB is still on the altar.

    LOWER LEVEL:

    Liavinne gives Setsuko a shrug as she begins escorting Edda out. "Not my problem. I warned them she was creepy and I didn't like her. Avere was a dumbass for running ahead so much but--" She bites her tongue, if only because Edda is RIGHT THERE. "Whatever. I'll get her back to Gridania's inn and then I'm out. I hear they're looking for workers in Vesper Bay, I think that'll be more up my alley." PRAY RETURN TO THE WAKING SA-- okay no not yet. But soon.

    Setsuko and N'raha dive right ahead, clipping the Caretaker's roots away. Each one cut is replaced by another, which tears through the stone foundations of the Deepcroft to reach at them. With the aid of Bertram's regeneration spell, the roots probably can't cause much harm individually, though together it's another matter. Cirra had it much worse, being part of the initial flailing.

    The 'head' of the Caretaker glares, that weird, large bulb with strange eyes and no other features. Earth magic flows from it, sending quakes along the ground, trying to prevent people from dodging the roots quite as easily.

    The ORB is still on the altar.

    CENTRAL PLATFORM: Something stirs within the forcefield, as magic begins flowing from the cocoon into it. A large, very tall shape, somewhat bulky, evidently in robes of some kind. It's preparing to break free-- dealing with the last two orbs may be a bigger priority than finishing the chaff off.

    Modifications to the spell by Scarlet seem to be causing one of the remaining two tethers to shift from purple-blue to red-yellow. This is very obviously damaging the spell and scattering the Aether across the crypt rather than into the cocoon or forcefield.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "Elaborate summoning ritual?" Kyra thinks back to Diabolos sealed in that city. "Maybe there was some Primal they were trying to call forth? That seems like a dumb thing to do but these are cultists we're talking about and Primals here might be able to temper people. That is brainwash them into servants. We might want to ask about that later, see if that's still a thing." She tells Scarlet, "Can you figure out anything else about this ritual?"

    Since they want the orbs destroyed and, frankly, walking and platforming is for people with non single-digit STR scores, Kyra turns the aim of her gun to a different target now that all of the cultists have been shot. Strangely, here she doesn't seem too disturbed that she probably killed those guys even though direct killing of sentinent races was not something she indulged in.

    She's aiming for the remaining orb, of course.

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    Liavinne receives a positively glacial glare. But Setsuko doesn't take it further than that.

    Instead, she's got something else to worry about; namely, Cirra. The quakes aren't much trouble for Setsuko, whose feet simply lift right off the ground. But in doing so, amidst all her slashing and slicing, her head turns in just the right way to notice the bulb up above. It seems to be the source of all this... and, if she can trust her dim supernatural senses, one of the Elementals. Unfortunate. But it needs to be done, and the Elemental seems to be suffering.

    Up she goes, soaring through the air past the aethereal cocoon and straight at the bulb high above. "My apologies for ending your existence, but it will be best for you and us both-!" For the first time since entering the Tam-Tara Deepcroft, the swordswoman awakens Zanjintou fully, growing it out to its full twelve-foot length and bringing it around in a mighty slash meant to cleave the 'head' in half. And then another, and then a third. She's being thorough.

Sarah Parsle (789) has posed:
Sarah isn't even bothering to fling JENGA BLOCKS at the monsters, the rest of TEAM MURDERFACE is all over Strifing these guys into the ground. Instead, she seems to scurry along at the periphery, running from point to point in order to try to beat people to these DARK ORBS OF EVIL MAGICS and captchalogue them. After all, she's got one already, she can just stack them. Efficient, albeit perhaps worrying to people who care about potentially hauling around terrifying manifestations of death and destruction in one's inventory system. It might be a race to see if she can beat Kyra's aim to one of those.

Lyria Mason has posed:
Lyria Mason turns her gun's attention on the imps now as she contiunes to try to clear out the remaining parts of the pack to make Izzy's life easier when he gets there hopefully she will be able to do this well enough. Information comes out and she thinks for a moment about it.

"So they might be summoning one to try andf chain it? That doesn't bode well."

She keeps trying to keep the remaining monsters off balance with her shots as she sees Kyra line up her shot. Hopefully she can pull this off, but it seems now Scarlet has the information that they need, right? Things are looking up.

"Well if we need to do anything else Lady Everille. Just tell us what we need to do we can ask questions about the ritual once it's fully shut down!"

N'raha Tia has posed:
    "These are tough bastards to cut!" Chop chop chop, goes that axe, N'raha busy trying to free Cirra from the roots as he watches the exchange and Bertram and all of it. The din of battle rings in his ears as he spins in place, stepping into the mass of vines and surging with power.
    There's a palpable sense of energy as he feels all of his wounds just fade into the background, his swings becomes more focused, his body thrilling with battle. All of this is a grand adventure right now.

    But even over his own rushing blood, he can sense Setsuko awakening again, and... and there's a twinge of worry in his core, as she unleashes herself. He can hear the execution of the great tree up above and it's just... it's a lot to take in. He puts himself back to the vines, growling to Cirra. "We may need to run here. That tree holds much of this place, or what's left of it, intact."

Bertram Silent (826) has posed:
This isn't going too well by the looks of it, and Bertram adds on a few cures for Cirra before throwing an aero at the caretaker. "I'm sorry, you didn't deserve this." He says, though it's not clear to who he's speaking. He makes sure to try to avoid standing near anything too dangerous. "Setsuko, I'll see what I can do for her when we're done here. Conjurers are healers of the spirit as well as the body." He then quickly throws a stoneskin on N'raha to help with his survival.

Cirra Constantine (675) has posed:
    The Judge catches her breath by focusing on breathing, instead of letting her abused lungs try to suck air in greedily. The Judge's armor starts to leak black curls of smoke again as she strains against the vines, it is slow but eventually she manages to get her Judge Blade free and drops it from her hand.

    The blade flips through the air as it falls. The Judge breaks apart the weaker viens holding her legs, and grabs the Judge Blade between her feet, and with another outpowering of dark knight power, kicks her feet as hard as she can, releasing the blade to send it flying.

    She van feel the anger from the plant monster, normally she wouldn't pick up on it so keenly, but it's angry at /everything/ and the corruption...

    THe Judge blade flies straight and true, for the orb. Aiming to either knock it off it's pedestal, or shatter it.

    The Judge herself slips her arms out of her armor and lurches forward, trying to grasp the bulb with both hands. A Dark Knight for Galianda feeds on their own pain to make themselves stronger. This is why they have a reputation of being loners, misfits and miscreants.

    The truth is, a lot of them can't bear other's pain. "STOP." she tries to command the plant. She can't controll it, she can't even take away pain or anguish. But she can show that other people are in pain too, if it's receptive.

Izzy Hyland (791) has posed:
    "ALRIGHT. I GUESS YOU'RE PROBABLY RIGHT ABOUT THEM ANYWAY." Izzy asides to Kyra with a shrug, and since they spoke on the same issue, he doesn't bother to address Lyria directly. He doesn't really feel a need to prove anybody wrong! And these guys keep coming at him with scythes. Unfortunately for him this one gets the drop on him, by breaking off from its group and also using its mobility advantage. He gets slashed pretty good, from head to about halfway down his waist. It traces a shallow path across the center of his face at a slight angle, losing contact momentarily before continuing in a semibroken line down the front of his chest. It's shallow, though he bleeds quite profusely along his head for fairly obvious reasons.

    "GOD DAMN IT," He swears, circling to one side of the scythe and unable to actually assess the damage. But, he doesn't forget the weaknesses of scythes. They're simply not configured to be swung that way, which is part of why that wasn't a fatal blow. If it had been an axe, or perhaps even a hacking blade, it could've killed him.

    This time, he just uses the relative slowness of recovering from a swing like that -- particularly with an unbalanced thing like a scythe -- to execute his own offensive motion without actually checking the voidsent's location. One hand rises open palmed, aiming to strike the voidsent in the chin and force its head upwards, continuing on until fully extended and then drawing back, trying to drag the voidsent's head down.

    Preferably towards the ground, but he's doing this one-handed and can't really see what he's doing that well.

Scarlet Everille (747) has posed:
    "Not much else without further examination, which we really don't have the time for" Scarlet replies urgently to Kyra, glancing pointedly at the "cocoon" of aether beginning to take definition on the main platform. "Right now, the reason why or the specifics of what are less relevant than stopping it before either becomes important." She seems to be pointedly ignoring the caretaker, not being her problem for the moment, and presuming that as violent as it is, it should probably be less threatening than whatever might be brought into existence at the completion of the ritual. The tragedy of what it represents slips right by her.

    The moment the altar is free of pressing obstruction, the familiar carries out the remainder of its orders, snatching whichever orb the others are unable to get to immediately and trying to simply crush it between its exagerrated, xenomorph jaws, obviously heedless to how suicidal that could potentially be. Should that not prove adequate, it will simply stretch its massive, reverse swept wings again and launch itself across the chasm, back to its master, dropping the artifact off where she can isolate it with directly applied wards, and ready it for later disposal.

Alwyn Highwind (815) has posed:
    UPPER LEVEL:

    Kyra's shots screech through the air and impact the orb. It doesn't break or shatter outright, though it does crack and start leaking Aether slowly. This seems enough to stop it from feeding any more magic to the ritual.

    Sarah can snatch the cracked orb no problem. It's still quite charged with magic, just leaking it quickly. If she stuffs it in her inventory the leaking will stop, at least.

    Izzy tanks the scythe slash and once more abuses the logistics of swinging such a weapon around to smash the Voidsent into the ground; perhaps because the cultist that summoned it isn't around anymore, or maybe it's just Izzy's affinity for messing with Void-related matters, the gargoyle does not get back up, dissipating into Aether, leaving just its blade behind.
    LOWER LEVEL:

    Setsuko's massive blade cleaves into the Caretaker's would-be head, causing not blood but corrupt, purple-tinted Aether to flow out. As the roots begin to slooooow, the ambient magic in the air causes BERTRAM and N'RAHA to suddenly just completely lose focus and stare ahead for half a minute, as soon as they're done axing and healing.

    Through THE ECHO, the elements address them both. The message is confused, unclear and difficult to translate in a spoken language, but they understand it clear as day. The forest apologizes. The Caretaker was the watcher of the dead, there to protect Gridania's ancestry. But a flow of images shows them the coming of the Lambs of Dalamud shortly after the Calamity, using their fell magicks to break the Caretaker and build atop him. It shows the falling ashes of the Calamity landing on the grass of the Deepcroft, each flake draining the life around it. And it shows the great, majestic tree the Caretaker used to be, and it simply says 'thank you'.

    They will come to again to see Cirra's blade smashing through the fourth orb, scattering the Aether in the air. As the final tether disappears, the final, still-moving roots of the Caretaker forms a ramp so that those of the lower level can climb to the central platform now.

    CENTRAL PLATFORM: The forcefield and the Aether cocoon both burst, causing a gust of wind in the catacombs. In the center of the platform stands GALVANTH THE DOMINATOR, a very large (10ish feet) Mindflayer-- essentially a humanoid in robes with a squid face. Cthulhu's lesser known and younger brother. Wielding a scepter with a blue orb at the end, the Mindflayer immediatly falls to one knee, seemingly weakened by Scarlet's messing with the spell and the cancellation of the ritual.

    "WHO DARES SUMMON ME IN THIS CRUDE VESSEL?"

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    Setsuko could, strictly speaking, weather that rush of corrupt aether without issue. But it would be extremely unpleasant, and she somehow realizes this on pure instinct; Zanjintou comes up and becomes a barrier to protect her from it, and for a few seconds that's all she does. That, and to close her eyes, and extend her senses outward, reaching out to offer wordless apology to the Elementals in general.

    And then a Mindflayer appears below them.

    That thing needs to die. And, imagine that, Setsuko is in perfect position for her signature attack. She doesn't have nearly the altitude she'd usually like for it, but this much will be enough to at least cause a fair degree of harm. So the swordswoman allows herself to fall, brings Zanjintou around, and then uses her power of flight to PUSH herself the last fifty or so feet down towards Galvanth the Dominator - and whips her colossal blade around to parley all that momentum into a single, vicious falling strike.

    "SHIPPU... DOUTOU!!"

N'raha Tia has posed:
    N'RAHA... well. The Echo speaks to him, the land speaks to him. The world speaks to him, and there's a sense of ease that slides into his being, easing through the pain and theanger that had been pouring through him before.

    In its place, though, is something more righteous, as he takes up that Inferno Axe once more, stepping up the platform to the central spire. He growls, a very low and predetory noise, at the Mindflayer. "Well, as it turns out a bunch of crazy people tried to do that. But Dalamud /fell/. It's over, and you aren't sticking around long enough to find out anything more, Voidspawn."
    The blunt edge of the axe scrapes on the old stone tile, as he steps in close, charges in, and looks up at the Demigoddess taking the first shot. There's something deep inside him that aches seeing this. Why did they need so much help from the outside? He should be able to do this. He should...

    The miqo'te calls out. "SETSUKO, LET ME TAKE THIS." The axe falls, and he /slams/ into the creature with a aether powered shoulder tackle, following up with a heavy swing of that axe.

Bertram Silent (826) has posed:
To some it may look like the corrupt aether has made Bertram ill, he half-collapses as the Echo starts doing its job. After the visions dissipate, Bertram looks around to see what happened while he was stuck in the Echo, and responds the best way he knows how while he tries to assess the situation, healing energies flow forth, spreading around to help knit tight wounds and close future wounds as they come.

Izzy Hyland (791) has posed:
    "THERE ARE ALREADY WAY TOO MANY PEOPLE IN THAT MELEE." Izzy decides aloud, looking down at the fight from his possition at the UPPER LEVEL. They clearly don't need him in the thick of things. So, he decides, he's going to use his big gun. There's a faint flickering above his shoulder as a BAZOOKA appears over him. He grabs it one-handed and kneels down at the edge of the platform, raising a hand to wipe the blood out of one of his eyes and hold it in place to prevent the blood from getting -back- into his eye. Temporarily, at least. It'll just pool on his hand instead for now.

    Somebody gave this shouting, vaguely irresponsible teenager a bazooka.

    Just think about that.

    Speaking of, Izzy fires his bazooka at the Mindflayer's back. He's not really aiming that well, he just has to get it in the splash damage. Or so he figures. He may also be banking on that thing's sheer size causing it to absorb any collateral that might otherwise occur.

    "FIRE INCOMING." He calls, possibly as an afterthought.

Cirra Constantine (675) has posed:
    With the Caretaker retreating, Cirra shuts her eyes briefly...

    Until squid face McJerkass appears. "Why is it never easy?" She grabs her armored gauntlets and straps them back on, summoning the Judge Blade back to her hand. The Judge gives N'raha a shake. "Keep moving." She turns and heads up towards to wehre she cans ee the central platform.

    "Establishing battlefield control." The judge draws a card from some invisible pocket at her side. "The. RAMPART!" she slaps the card into the ground. Spikes begin to jut up from the platform, pointing towards the Mindflayer type thing, but with a pattern of free movement within for the party members to get through.

Scarlet Everille (747) has posed:
    The tone of Scarlet's radio chatter abruptly changes as the ritual manages to complete, deliberately truncated as it may have been. It doesn't take someone as experienced and talented in magic as her to recognize that whatever the thing on the central platform it, it's been badly weakened by their combined efforts.

    "New plan. I've worked enough countermagic on the ritual that...whatever that thing is should have left a significant portion of its power behind in where it was summoned from. I was hoping to cancel it completely, but we'll have to take what we can get. Kill it now. If we let it run off, it'll regain its power and become much more difficult to deal with. Take advantage of the opportunity and coordinate fire. Anyone using long distance attacks, circle so that you're not firing directly across the roots, they're the only real way the melee fighters have to get up there. Stick to the lower level if you need to stay out of the way. I'd like it if someone were to position themselves towards me so we can prevent it from escaping if it tries to run. We'll get nothing from the Sylphs if it vanishes off into the forest only to reappear and resume causing them trouble later."

    Bandits, primals and magitech soldiers aren't things the magus normally concerns herself with, however containing and terminating a rogue summon is well, well within her area of expertise. In her own world, a closed room with one exit filled with a coordinated and experienced kill team with all angles of fire on a single target are the ideal conditions for cleaning up a botched translocation, which, fortunately, more or less appears to be the scenario they have on their hands here.

    Her rehearsed role in this situation is simple. Recall her familiar to herself while she moves for the exit and drops a high-level, pre-prepared, multi-layer ward on top of it, consuming the extremely expensive regeants used to inscribe on the pre-written talisman to erect a short lived, yet highly effective barrier tuned to prevent the passage of translocation magic, roughly translating to "summoned creatures and teleportation" in this world.

Sarah Parsle (789) has posed:
Sarah's not all that useful in the grand melee, sticking back on the UPPER LEVEL. She knows her specialties lie elsewhere compared to the mass of head-biting tooth-gnashing instant hell murder that is present in the area. Thus it is that she sits back to one side, staying out of the grand melee as she waits for the inevitable twist.

There's always a twist.

That, and helping Izzy aim by standing beside him and sort of tilting him to help compensate for the fact that he's apparently half-blind from blood getting in his eyes.

Lyria Mason has posed:
Lyria Mason seems to have handled the last of the inps from the looks of things, well the rituatl may still be an issue right? She looks about the level keeping her pistol level. She sees the Mindflayer and there's a feeling of fear in the pit of her stomach and she's wishing she'd brought Remora along for this. Still she now goes for her other pistol again and starts to look forth at the thing down there. She's going to take care with her shots as she sets them to non elemental shots, she doesn't want to make things harder for the close combat types with the party.

"I understand Lady Everille."

She then opens fire trying to supress the thing giving her allies a chance to get close.

Alwyn Highwind (815) has posed:
    The extremely weakened Mindflayer is not exactly up for a fight. Setsuko leaps up and down, cleaving downward with her massive sword. She cuts one of Galvanth's arms straight off, as it barely manages to move aside.

    As N'raha taunts the Voidsent, it replies: "Dalamud's message will ring through the ages! Its descent was a sign, one these little Lambs have followed through on. Syrcus lay unpowered, unprotected-- Darkness shall devour all."

    Darkness with a capital letter, there.
    It obviously refers to an entity.

    N'raha slams into Galvanth, knocking him back a few feet, but it seems much more alert now, not so easily cut into pieces.

    Bertram's healing, as usual, is sure to be invaluable.

    Izzy fires a BAZOOKA at Galvanth. Hopefully people in melee duck out, although it's true the sheer size of the Mindflayer prevents the collateral from being too great as its body shields people from the explosion, which scorches and sears the fishman.

    Cirra's Judge magic creates spikes and obstacles preventing Galvanth from moving about, if it could at all; and numerous spikes skewer through him, locking him further in place.

    Lyria's gunshots put numerous holes in the beast's chest, and then Scarlet's spell takes effect. It starts to strike at Galvanth's presence and stability-- and with a roar of rage, dispels the summoning. Galvanth's scepter falls to the ground, the weapon topped by a blue jewel that seems fairly charged with water-aligned Aether. No doubt this could be used to strongly amplify water spells or effects, or with some creativity and retooling could be used for other purposes. There's only one, though, so you'll have to decide who wants it most.

    With that, the Deepcroft falls silent. The clattering of bones resounds through all of it, as undead fall to the ground, no longer animated. It'll take time for the Aether to heal, but at least it's not being polluted by cultists anymore.

    It's unfortunate, but Edda won't be found in Gridania after the fact. Mother Miounne (the Adventurers' Guild innkeep) will certainly report both she and Liavinne arriving, but shortly after Liavinne left, Edda did too.

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    The instant Setsuko hears N'raha's words, she hurls herself back and out of the way, keeping Zanjintou at a low ready position. She'll let the catman take things unless her blade proves necessary.

    And thankfully, it doesn't. The swordswoman finally returns her sword to its smaller state and sheathes it, looking from the dead Mindflayer, up to the ceiling, and then over to where Avere's body lies.

    She finds it difficult to call this any sort of victory.

Cirra Constantine (675) has posed:
    Cirra lets her sword vanish again, the crystal blade seemingly deconstructing itself. She looks over at Avere's body, she didn't know him but gets the sense of loss from others. "..." she walks back to the lower sectin and picks up one of the cultsists by the back of the hood.

    "You and I are going to have a long conversation."

N'raha Tia has posed:
    But as the others look to Avere and the cultists and everything... N'raha just sinks to the floor in the central platform, catching his breath and trying to find a calm place again.
    A glance is tossed at Setsuko as she heads out and he feels a pang of...
    Something. Right now, sorting out individual emotions is rough, and the Miqo'te is just trying to put himself all the way back together.

Alwyn Highwind (815) has posed:
    Questioning of the cultists will reveal that the Lambs of Dalamud believe that the scent of blood will call down something called Menphina's Loyal Hound, Menphina being the Eorzean goddess of love (AKA one of the Twelve) and the keeper of its formerly twin moons (now only one). They don't feel in the slightest their cause was lessened by Dalamud's fall, but rather take it as a sign of impending success.

    Some of the cultists have taken straight up to worshipping Bahamut instead of Menphina as a result of Dalamud being brought down and revealed to contain him, and they call upon denizens of the Void to assist them.

    For reasons unknown, Voidsent have willingly been helping the Lambs of Dalamud since its fall, but prior to that were significantly more difficult to command. Something about 'Syrcus' and 'Darkness' capital-D, but the questioned cultist doesn't know more.

Cirra Constantine (675) has posed:
    Cirra brings the cultist back from the side room she went to have this 'conversation' with, still dragging him by his hood. She lifts him up and dumps him back at the feet of the group, allowing him to babble on about the same information she just heard so she doesn't have to repeat it.

    "He was cooperative..." she turns and begins walking. "...Once I asked him /properly/."