World Tree MUSH

i should have expected this to happen.
    i did it to myself.
        i'm so turbulent.
            a mess of foolish resentments.
        my eye was on my own stupid world.
    now i've made everything worse for everyone else's world.
i deserve this fate.

    ---

Neviah Younger has been taken. With Lether held hostage, the scholar surrendered herself to Issertha, the Priest of Zehir, and was taken away in a flash to face whatever fate the God of Destruction has in store. There should have been no trace of any of them - a magical getaway complete enough that none could have any business mounting a pursuit.

They did not count on Lether being from the streets. Whispers found their way back to the little lizardgirl from her fellow urchins: Sightings of strange snake-men haunting the warren of sewers beneath the city. Still, it was scant evidence - presence, but little way to narrow it down.

Until Lether had made a find in the Library of Deneir.

The tunnel the group finds its way to appears far more ancient than any sewer truly ought to. It's dry and disused, brick arches holding the roof up but crumbling in places and ground down by time and nature. The only light here is whatever the group brought with them, bound to catch the dust particles that float in the air. But the marks are clear enough that they're in the right place. The tunnel stretches deeper into the earth, the light capturing the evidence upon the floor.

Scuff marks in the dust - the sinuous drag marks of something that slithered across the ground quite recently. Something large and serpentine went through here, probably within the past few hours.

    Of course it's a damn sewer level ahead of them. Dante grumbles as his fine leather boots are soaked with the muck and mire of the tunnel, cursing his luck. But Neviah needs the team, so here he is, ready to go and save her fine ass. His eyes notice the drag marks, it's pretty obvious this is where the snakey cult's been hiding out.

    Dante grabs Rebellion off his back, and suddenly he brings the sword down upon the door! No time for puzzles here, Dante just wants to save Neviah and be outta here.

    It's my fault.
    I fucked up.
    This happened because of me.
    Why did I make suck a rookie blunder?
    They took her away and it's my fault...

    Lether made a find alright.
    See, with Neviah gone the little lizardfok was, at first, at her wits end, with no leads and no idea where to go next. This silent, internal panic lasted for all of a day before the little gator picked herself up by her bootstraps and put out feelers.
    Lether has more connections than one might expect. Between now owning and running of one Anchordeep's busiest bars and taverns in Trollskull Alley, and being an old tie in with the city Thieves Guild AND her old host of street urchin friends...
    It wasn't long before an old associate who used to be a street kid and was now a member in good standing with the rogue's guild haaaaaaappened to owe Lether a favor.
    It wasn't long before she had gotten word, corroborated by several good sources among the local urchin population about where some nasty serpent-like folk lurking in the undercity.
    It wasn't long before Lether had a lead.
    And with that lead, Lether decided to look into things a little more closely. She knew that the fancy old secret hidden library that Neviah had been spending much of ther time of late had maps and books and drawings of the old city, so she decided to to raid the place...
    Raid is a strong word, when she arrived and found the EXACT map she needed spread out neatly for her on a desk. Alongside an old candle holder with a candle in it...
    And a book titled 'The Manual of Quickness of Action.'
    "..."
    Lether took all these things. She made a diligent copy of the map as best she could, committed it to memory, and shoved the candle into her backpack, and spent the rest of the week studying THE BOOK.
    And now.
    Now Lether is leading the way under the city. She may not have darkvision but she has a flashlight in her hand and murderous intent in her heart as she twirls a dagger in her fingers WAY too nimbly. She knew her way through the sewers up to this point, but now she's in old, old, old, uncharted territory that she has to pause and look at the map now and again.
    "This should be the way..." She says before finally encountering the drag marks.
    "Bingo."

Though she's been absent for a while on travels of her own, Juniper is one of Neviah's friends and she was not going to be kept out of this one. She might not know the exact details of how things went down, but, well... she knows enough.

Despite being significantly less sewer-wise than Lether, Juniper is able to keep up. She goes fast when she walks and she steps lightly, not very bothered by the bad footing there always is down here.

She's glad for the flashlight, though! She can't see in the dark for crap.

She doesn't bother with a weapon and isn't carrying one. Her hands and feet are enough, even if she looks like a teenager who stepped out of the 90s: tube top, unbuttoned shirt overtop, slightly baggy jeans over sneakers. When Lether finds the drag marks, she's right behind, lacing her fingers together before stretching them out and popping one of her knuckles.

"Then let's do it. I'm not letting anyone run off with Neviah. Even if they WEREN'T treating her wrong." Plus, they might have treasure, though even Juniper's greed for treasure has been put as a secondary concern today.

    I'm a dumbass.
    What the hell was I thinking?
    If I'd been in place just ten seconds sooner...

    Though she doesn't have the local resources and connections Lether does, Kanna Ouji has been skipping some sleep lately nonetheless. Patrolling the city frequently, running herself ragged looking for any signs of the serpentine cult at the heart of all this... everyone's blaming themselves, and she's no exception. It doesn't help that she didn't actually find anything; lacking Lether's local resources and connections, she honestly had no way to contribute, and it galls her all the more that she's unable to make up for her own (self-perceived) shortcoming.

    Which probably explains why, when Lether confirms they're in the right place, 'Crimson Wind' steps up to the fore, asking Lether a simple, "Want me to scout ahead?" With her speed, and her ability to use the walls as terrain, it's the only thing she can think to offer. The only thing that will help with the itch to be doing /something/ productive.

    Of course it's a damn sewer level ahead of them. Dante grumbles as his fine leather boots are soaked with the muck and mire of the tunnel, cursing his luck. But Neviah needs the team, so here he is, ready to go and save her fine ass. His eyes notice the drag marks, it's pretty obvious this is where the snakey cult's been hiding out.

    "C'mon, this way." he motions with Ebony in hand, heading after the pathway decisively. Lether's navigation is what leads the group through this tunnel, but Dante's certain somebody is gonna get clapped in the face with Dante's pistols, if not split in half with Rebellion.

People don't go this deep into the underworld of Anchordeep anymore. The place known as the Undermountain makes no sense. Perhaps it did once, but now corridors connect to galleries connect to throughways in geometries that only make sense when worlds are crammed together without thought for consequence. The map Lether found is old, yet appears to cross-reference an older map with layouts of corridors that weren't there before.

The flashlight helps, but curiously enough, the candle helps more. The light around the group seems to cast further out in front of them without being swamped by drifting motes of dust. The journey is still not simple - the corridors wind and turn, burrowing deeper into the earth. Soon, the arched vaults of the halls are interrupted.

A channel has been carved through the sewers here. It's as if a crack in the earth has intersected the tunnel and created a rocky void. In all directions, but most dangerously /down,/ the gap stretches. The distant shapes of jagged stones can be made out at the bottom.

The candlelight reveals that on the far side, there's a big length of wooden planks that's been pulled away to the side. No doubt the Yuan-ti crossed the bridge and then pulled it back to their side.

Looks like you're gonna have to jump.

    If there's anything Lether has learned in her brief time skulking around with other people...
    "Nah, stick together." She replies to Crimson Wind, first.
    It is that you never split the party.
    "Theyre totally gonna treat her wrong." She does point out to Juniper. "They're like gonna sacrifice her to some bullshit snake god."
    One that will be very disappointed when Lether and company stop that from happening.
    At least until they all reach a yawning hole in the ground that needs crossed.
    There's a pause where the lizardfolk girl just stares across the way.
    "CW, think you can jump that with a running start?"
    She's seen how fast Kanna can run for that running start, to boot.

"I know! That's why I'm here!" Juniper bounces on her feet once or twice to loosen up, shadowboxing the air as she responds to Lether. "Don't worry. I'm ready for this. Nobody takes her away for sacrificing." Juniper has Opinions about sacrifices to gods. For some reason.

Once the tunnels get weird, perhaps counterintuitively it gets easier for Juniper. It stopped being sewers and started being a dungeon, and some part of her is at home in those.

She doesn't usually interrogate that part of her too much.

But the group continues. Juniper continues to move along, not really in the shadows - she's not actually good at HIDING as such - but at least without making a lot of noise as she follows. She does say a little, though, to Dante: "If you're gonna grumble about your boots you shouldn't've worn them."

Eventually, they get to an immense crevice in the earth. Juniper is momentarily taken aback by this, but after a few moments, she looks more closely at the hole, eyes narrowing as she tries (and fails) to see the bottom.

Juniper looks at the far side.

"Screw this. I got it," she says. Juniper usually wears an unbuttoned shirt overtop of something else, and today's no exception; she yanks off the unbuttoned shirt, tucks it under her arm, and leaps! 

This would normally be kind of suicidal except, as she does, wings that she didn't have a moment ago unfold from her back; that may be the reason she's wearing a tube top, because they pop out just above it, only pushing the back down slightly as they beat once and then settle into a glide. The wings are scaly and draconic and don't seem to really know what color they ought to be; they're primarily blue but with zags of black and white for accent.

Juniper's wings beat again on the far side to boost her up enough to land, then fold down against her back... and, after a few moments, vanish as if they'd never been, blurring back into her body. "Ugh, changing back and forth always messes with my balance," Juniper complains, but complaining does not stop her from going over to the planks and seeing if she can toss them back across for less airborne people to manage.

    For the first time since they've arrived, Crimson Wind lets a little smile slip onto her face. "Gap that size? Easy. I-"

    Before she can say another word, Juniper is up in the air and across the gap.

    The smile disappears almost immediately, replaced by a furrowed brow. "...someone else has it handled."

    Dante is about to do a big leap across the gap, when Juniper up and does it first instead. "Oh. Guess she's got hops too." He says, before glancing to Lether, "How about you, L'il Crocky? Need a lift?" He offers with a cheeky grin.

The gap is broad, but surmountable, especially for someone as fit at Juniper. She vaults the gap with a hurtle, her wings giving her more than enough lift to glide to the other side with room to spare.

Ever the helpful one, Juniper is able to hoist the beams back into place. It does not prevent Crimson Wind or Dante from hopping, if they wish, but Juniper's way is easier.

Onward the group goes. The slither patterns in the dust are more clear here. Again, the vaults open up as the corridor widens to a chamber ahead.

In the candlelight, one can make out an old throne sitting in the centre of the room. A pair of skeletal feet sit at the base of it. The rest of the skeleton... orbits it. The skull itself, floating centrally, is oriented towards the group, dead eyeholes staring at the foursome.

The bones are not the only things orbiting. A few small green stones are mixed in with the orbiting bones.

Dante, flashy as he is, gets just a little too close - and one of those stones suddenly lights up with a flare of magic and launches three shimmering darts of magic straight at him. On their own, they're not the most powerful in the world, but will sting nevertheless.

There are at least six of those orbiting green stones. Each one is tuned to fire Magic Missiles at moving targets trying to get to the door on the other side of the Dead Man's throne.

    Juniper takes the leap. And in true dragon fashion unfurls her wings and crosses the gap.
    Lether watches this in silence, blinking once. Sideways.
    It's a nictitating lens; a feature of crocodilians to protect their eyes underwater, as she looks to Kanna.
    "I could have done that."
    Lether could not have done that.
    Lether is a water lizard, not a flying lizard.
    But.
    This does not stop Lether side-hugging one of Crimson Wind's arms to herself.
    In spite of all the self blame going around, it's clear she holds no blame for Kanna about Neviah's capture.
    That is, as we all know, completely Lether's fault.
    Moving on into the next chamber of the undercity gives the rogue a beat of pause. The floating skeleton and green stones are a new one by her.
    Especially when the magically charged stones launch a spell. Magic Missile.
    Lether doesn't know the specifics of Magic Missile, she just knows it doesn't miss.
    Lips purse thoughtfully as she sets her hands on her hips
    Kanna is way faster than she is. Could probably blaze through without getting a scratch on her.
    Juniper is dodgier than she is, could probably wriggle on by without a scratch.
    Dante is tankier than she is. He probably wouldn't CARE about getting a few magical bullets in him.
    Lether, though...
    Lether is clever; canny, and sharp in her own way.
    Lether produces a pouch from her backpack and opens it.
    Inside is roughly a thousand, miniature, steel, ball bearings.
    She proceeds to HURL a fistful of them to try and set off the trap orbs and see how much of a charge they have.

    Dante makes a dramatic LEAP across the gap, dashing across the air with ease. He lands with just as much grace, even if he's tracking muck behind him with the damn sewers. "Guess that's another pair I'm gonna have to ditch." he grouses before straightening out his coat and carryng onwards. The undercity is more than a little creepy, but Dante's seen much worse in his time. At least there's no haunted chess pieces or anything like that here. Yet.

    YET.

    The magic projectiles do in fact sting, but Dante bats away at them with annoyance like they're mosquitos, flickers of crimson energy indicating he's trying to block them. "Don't take too long, not like we're on a time crunch or something."

    Could Kanna move past the magical turret without being hit? Certainly, it's possible.

    But there's an easier solution.

    The swordswoman stops at the entrance to the room, and after a few seconds of staring, draws her weapon and begins swinging. For a half-second, it seems absurd, she's half the room away, nowhere near melee range- but the first swing unleashes a red-white arc, an elemental projectile of wind almost as sharp as Shinsatsufuu itself. Swing after swing, she unleashes a stream of cutting wind projectiles, intending to simply carve apart all those green stones.

"Sorry," Juniper calls back to Crimson Wind, sounding not sorry at all.

She has her overshirt back on by the time people catch up and is crouched down to investigate the slithering patterns. Juni is not a good tracker, but even she can see which way they went, and more: "Either they're dragging a bigger tail than you've got," she says, addressing Lether but leaving it something anyone can hear, "or they're *all* snakes." She thought there were only some snakes! Not that snakes bother her at all.

Juniper pulls up short at the skeleton. THAT'S new. She's never seen one with floating parts before. And then Dante triggers it - 

"Oh I hate this part," Juniper says, more to herself than anyone else.

Lether is half right. Yes, she's dodgy - but you can't really dodge magic missiles very well! So when she runs in it's at the same time as other people, hoping that multiple targets confuses them; Lether's ball bearings certainly help.

But what she *is* is fast, and she's hoping that it gets her through without being shot at too many times, because every time they *do* target her it hurts.

When you're Dante, you don't need no fancy-pants flippy shit. He takes a few hits from magic missiles here and there, but he's a big boy and can shrug them off.

Lether, meanwhile, is a clever gator. She opens her pouch and begins her steel ball run.

The trap orbs react like a fireworks display. Magic Missiles fly every which way, tracking towards the tumbling ball bearings as they roll past the throne. They're more than accurate enough to nail a bunch of inanimate spheres, tiny or not. Ball bearings scatter about as the missiles hit both the globes and the ground around them. The more they bounce around, the more the movement triggers the floating traps. More magic missiles fill the air. It's so bright that it sears the eyes.

It gives Juniper her window. The Magic Missiles are focused on the ball bearings; only a couple of projectiles whirl Juniper's way. She's certainly the biggest target other than Dante.

But then there's a gust of wind. A hiss of steel. A whirl of blades. Everything is still.

Shards of green gems fall to the floor, along with pieces of bone, as Crimson Wind simply slashes through the problem. Can't Magic Missile when you're in pieces, 5head.

The passage beyond is dim and long, with corridors branching off here and there. It's the candle that provides direction: The flame suddenly flickers, blown to the left as if by a wind that isn't there. Its light casts down a side corridor, seemingly no different from the others. Yet to follow it, the group begins to hear low, distant voices, indistinct, echoing from the stonework.

Soon, they reach another bend. Beyond, a wider area has been lit by a lantern. A pair of burly human men in leather armour stand guard by a barred door, while not far away, a man with the torso of a human but the head and body of a large viper is speaking quietly to another figure with a humanoid body and a green snakelike head.

The group was looking for Yuan-ti. They've found them.

    "Maybe they move in single file. To hide their numbers."
    It's something to take into consideration, but that's neither here nor there as the light show starts. Lether blinks sideways again as her ball bearing trick works, and Kanna uses the chaos to cut apart the magic stones causing the problem in the first place.
    "Nice."
%THolding the candle aloft, when the light flickers left-wards, Lether pauses and gestures in the direction of the mysterious breeze.
    Up until they find the guards. Three of them, huh...
    "Aite. We do this quick and quiet." Lether whispers before slipping into some basic hand gestures motioning for the others to take out the guards after she...
    Hurls a dagger.
    It's a hell of a throw, nimble fingers hucking the blade with the speed of a fastball and the accuracy of a bullet-- at the lantern, snuffing out the light and bathing the guards in darkness for the others to strike.

Juniper does not offer Crimson Wind a high-five because she doesn't know her, doesn't know if she'll get it, and is also too far away. She gets a thumbs-up for taking apart the skeleton, though. "Nice," she says. "Skeletons are creepy."

At Lether's words, Juniper huffs back a laugh. "Yeah, I just BET they don't want us to know how many they've got. They have to expect someone's coming: they pulled the bridge back."

She still doesn't know which way to go, or really where they are, but she says, "We've got to be getting close. How much more of these tunnels are they willing to walk down every time they want to go in or out?" The light Lether is carrying gives a clue, and pretty soon Juniper can hear voices, head tilted as she tries to make them out.

"I'm not great at quiet," is Juniper's response to that, but she can do quick. As soon as the light goes out - 

Well, Juniper can't see in the dark. But she knows where they were a moment ago, and she darts toward one of them, moving by feel more than anything else to deliver a flying kick at one of them. It's made slightly more obvious by the fact that her foot is glowing for the last few feet of it; an icy blue glow, trailing little flecks of frost. If that lands, she follows it up by lunging at the other in the re-darkened area, this time the snake; her glow didn't last long, but she's willing to bet that anything snakey does not like cold.

    Dante can do quick, but NEVER quiet. He levels his gun and takes aim before Ebony barks loudly in the darkness, muzzle flare lighting up everything as a bullet bounces off the walls. "May wanna get back." He advises his compatriots, as the bullet riccochets precariously close to the Yuan-ti. God willing it'll whittle down the snake-men just enough for the others to take them out quickly.

Clever Lether. Clever, clever Lether.

The dagger strikes true. There's a crash, and the lantern light goes out, prompting four shouts of surprise from the group near the door.

There's another cry approximately two seconds later as Juniper kicks one of the humans at the door right in the skull. The flare of cold light briefly illuminates the guard's neck bending at an unnatural angle as he goes down. When she pivots to attack again, the snake-man has moved a little, scrambling to draw a mace, but it's already too late. In a surge of cold light, the Yuan-ti crumples and hits the floor.

The second human guard rips out a scimitar and comes charging into the fray, only to run into Kanna Ouji. Crimson Wind's off-screen antics take him out of the fight in what is doubtlessly a spectacular swordsplay event that consumes much of the animation budget. That leaves the green-headed Yuan-ti, who gets a quick spell off, a blast of lightning that ripples along the ceiling and floor towards Dante - and then goes silent as Dante's bullet banks off the wall and hits him in the chest. With a gurgle, the snake-man collapses.

All is quiet. The door beyond is opened with some effort, revealing a downward-descending stairway. And as the group continues down, voices can be heard ahead.

"--it was kind of you, at least, to introduce us to the God of Destruction." The voice is low, masculine and poised, with a serpentine sibilance to it. Lether, Kanna and Dante will recognize Issertha's tone and cadence instantly. "And your research on World Seeds, of course, and how Thorns are created. It's a shame you won't be here to watch the World Tree die by your own knowledge."

"You wouldn't know a World Seed if one slapped you in the face." It's Neviah's voice, low but audibly strained with a mix of anger and grudging resignation.

"Come now. You're far from uniquely intelligent. In time, the Cult of Rot will understand. When we do, the Tree will die, and a new Faerun will be born. Does that comfort you?"

"No."

"I thought not."

The stairwell ends at another door. This one is open. Beyond, a large chamber opens up, a gallery half of stone and half of natural rock, lit by candles and with a few benches arranged towards the room's centre. There, one can find a large altar draped in green and gold cloth, poised in front of an outcrop in the natural rock. It's been carved into the shape of an immense skull with a coiling snake winding from the eyehole. A dreadful aura seethes around that statue, a dull greenish glow visible behind the eyeholes.

Before it are two figures. Issertha is recognizable to Kanna, Lether and Dante, blue as ever, shirtless, standing before the altar with his back to the door. The second, chained to the altar by one ankle and clad in a simple linen shirt, is Neviah. She looks much worse for the wear - bloodied and bruised, her skin sallow and sickly, as if some manner of poison had joined the violence of captivity. She's glowering up at Issertha sullenly.

"But perhaps there's comfort for you after all," Issertha continues before slowly turning from the altar, casting a look towards the door. His forked tongue flicks out at the air.

"Look. You have visitors. What fun - five sacrifices for the price of one."

    ----------> TO BE CONTINUED