[Official NPC]

Priest Nikandros Phadra is so thrilled when he is led to what he dubs the "Elemental Shrine" and the murals discovered by Erasmos, Maaike and Jericho that he spends the next two days tottering between them and muttering madly, immersed in a leather-bound journal and sketching the discoveries as if his life depends on it. He cannot be dragged away on pain of death and leaves the rest of the group to finish excavating the collapse. Exploration of the other tunnels and doors exposes only the early priests' barracks (complete with bunk beds that have seen much, much better days) and what might have been a space for the temple's food stores.

Finally, the diggers break through and Nikandros is persuaded to leave his treasures for (hopefully) better pastures. However, as the team explores further into the cavernous temple and turns a corner, they come face to face with another group — who immediately start firing!

There are three men and two women; one Apali, one Skotadi, two Rutili and a Viridis. For just a second as the two groups meet, the intruders are frozen, their arms full with trinkets and treasures. With a yell, the Apalos drops her claim and raises her hands to loose a flash-bang that blinds the hallway and casts intense shadows for the Skotadi to draw on, while the Viridis grabs Neal Jean by the face. Within seconds, Priest Nikandros Phadra has been shadow-bludgeoned to the floor and Neal is howling in pain.



Fay has not been particularly secretive about her search for the First Temple, so it is little wonder that treasure hunters have followed the group. Who they are and how they got in is a mystery — but that's rather a moot point at this stage, since the priority is fending off their attack.


This plot is open, which means you can join at any time now that it's begun. However, you must register before posting.

This thread ends on the 11th of February. In character, fending off the attack should take no more than twenty minutes.

You are encouraged to post threads separate from this. The temple is filled with unpleasant squatters and is crumbling in places (though the majority of the temple was carved out of the mountain and the rock is mostly sturdy), and there are more than enough tunnels to keep the explorers occupied until Chapter Four.

Participants are expected to post at least once a week, with all their participating characters, to keep the plot moving. If a character misses a week, we will assume they have gone back to camp. If this happens during combat scenarios, we will assume they have fled the melee and hidden somewhere to avoid the danger. However, this could negatively impact their relations with the other characters from then on.


Treasure Hunter's Manifest:

Priest Nikandros Phadra ... Priesthood of Xanth (unconscious)
Vilfredo Faust ................... Faust's Gang
Erasmos Eugene ................. Faust's Gang
Kiel Taskel .......................... Hired Bodyguard
Aella Karakinos .................. Bodyguard
Maaike Sullivan ................... Hired Tracker& Bodyguard
Mortimer Jericho ................. Investor
Neal Jean .......................... Faust's Gang (wishing he was unconscious)
Jason Underwood ............... Faust's Gang


It is winter in the north and the mountains are cold. Camp remains in a leeward, sheltered groove in the mountainside. Expect snow and freezing winds, but the temple is slightly warmer.

Pets, mounts and personal NPCs are allowed, but you are responsible for them and any supplies necessary for them.

[Jericho]

That bloody priest spent more time on the floor than he did upright, Jericho would swear it — if he hadn't been too busy being shoved behind Rusty's muscular form by a sweeping arm. The Therian was more like a dog than a grown man, hackles rising and his shoulders bulking out as his head dropped, a near-feral and animalistic snarl on his ugly lips. Jericho was pleased to let his assistants do the heavy lifting (that was what he paid them for, after all) and would have quite happily turned his back on the melee to return once the fighting was done. (He was already formulating a plan in case the other group won.)

However, the flash had decreased his chances of escaping without first stumbling into someone's sword, and he felt it safest to just stand there. Rusty was as good a meat shield as any — better, in fact, given his size and immovability — and so he would lurk (not hide) behind the Therian until his vision cleared.

He would have studied his fingernails if not for the kaleidoscopic dots swimming in front of them.

[Kiel]

Kiel had never heard that old adage about fools rushing in blindly. Or, like, he had, but never remembered it when it mattered. Like, right now, when the Apali set off a sun in the torch-lit hallway and gouged out his eyes, Kiel didn't stop to think that — well, anything.

“SHANE!” She'd lagged behind because she kept sniffing at stuff that made him want to puke, but who knew how far that blast of sunlight had spread? If she was hit by that, a shadowkin... If Kiel could see, he would have been spinning around in circles to look for her.

And then he felt her weight against his leg. Pain radiated from her through their Chosen bond, and he swallowed over a lump. Like, she must have been burned, but he couldn't see how bad it was, and instead of curling up in a corner to cry, she'd immediately sought him out to make sure he was okay.

“Wahhh.” With his katana destroyed by kumo digestive juices, and Nikandros claiming that ancient sword he'd had his eye on, and his vision obscured by, like, colourful floaty stuff and jagged shards of white, Kiel could only yank on the hilts of his hook swords and fling himself in front of the rest of the group as if he had a huge target painted on his forehead. Like, he could take a beating, you know, and, like, Zeph had tried to teach him to rely on his other senses more than just his eyes, so he could totally do this.

Like, right?

Neal's yell of agony put the heebie-jeebies in him, though. Like, that was the sound of a guy being tortured by years of pain all in one go, you know, and even Kiel didn't have the bravado to deal with that. “Wahhhh.” He wasn't sure who or what was responsible, and his thoughts immediately turned right back to vlareons. Like, they'd been on his mind a lot since he joined this expedition.

Except he was pretty sure it was one of the guys they'd run into, rather than beasties, which just made him think that being all avoidy was probably the best option until his eyes got back to normal operating standards.

And what better way to be all avoidy than to flail his hook swords around menacingly? Uh, but, uh, hopefully he wouldn't hit anyone he liked.

[Maaike]

Maaike had been blinded by Apali before, but it wasn't something a person could get used to. Fortunately, she was shorter than most of the group and had taken up the rear so she could keep an eye on Faust and his gang, so she was saved from the worst of the blinding flash and blocked from their first attacks. Unfortunately, it also meant that she didn't actually see the intruders and wasn't prepared for the attack in the slightest. The flash was enough of a surprise that she stumbled and shook her head, glancing around at her comrades to see which of them had done it. That odd Sidhe again, or the Nereid? But why would they have to waste their energy like that with the torches already lighting their way unless —

Crap. Neal's howl scratched through Maaike and made her shudder. She whipped around, seeing the spasming horror on his face and the hand drawing back from his head. Was Faust making his move already? But no, there were too many people in the hallway all of a sudden, and one of them was headed her way.

She didn't pause to think, just reacted. If this was Faust, somehow having snuck in more men, she'd deal with that later. She pivoted and kicked out, knocking back her assailant, and ducked a fist. She was badly outmanned here with so many of her own party incapacitated, and could only yell out warnings. “Sidhe, your left. Nereid, your right. Chatterbox, duck!” She probably ought to have learned their names, after all.

Maaike was a free-runner; a dodger, not a fighter. In this case, she had to make an exception, though, and morphed her hands to make use of her falcon's talons. Her fingers curled, her nails elongating, and she used them to gouge and slash at her opponents. She never stayed in one spot for very long, using guerilla tactics to dive in and out, defending her companions as best she could. It was tiring to be constantly on the move and she didn't have a great deal of stamina, but she daren't use Finnbar while the two groups were mashed together like this. Her agility was probably her best weapon.

[Jericho]

Hmm, that suspicious Therian woman was proving useful, after all, and looking out for the rest of the group and not just herself. She could have easily scarpered into the darkness and saved herself if she was able to see — that was what Jericho would have done — but instead began calling out, left, right, duck. Of course, her clues were useless if the people she was warning didn't immediately realise she was referring to them, and who thought of themselves as "Sidhe", or "Chatterbox" anyway?

Thankfully, Jericho's vision began to clear. He could still see colourful dots, but they were swimming around rather than just standing right in front of him, so he was able to spot trouble when it came at him. Rusty was preoccupied grappling with someone Jericho couldn't see, their grunts of effort sounding quite animalistic and not at all violent, and Ninian had lunged at someone else, so it was up to Jeri to defend himself.

Off came the sunglasses. If his assailant could see the colour of his eyes, he was either too dumb to realise what they meant or thought he was tough enough to deal with it. The second the Rutilus' hands closed around his throat, Jericho slapped his hands on either side of the n's ftaller maace and speared into his brain, burrowing through centuries of memories and thoughts to find the weak spot. He could have done it from a safer distance, of course, but he found even now that physical contact made it much easier.

“Arghhaaoooooooohhh!” The Rutilus hauled back, tearing himself away from Jericho and clutching at his head as the floodgates between his nervous system and every single memory of every single injury he'd ever sustained opened up. All at once, all those centuries of long-forgotten pain plunged through the warrior. He actually did a pretty good job of bearing through it, but still staggered to his knees and doubled over. Jericho stumbled around to take a breather, before looking for a new victim, as the sound of wretching echoed through the hallway.

[Kiel]

Kiel really was a chatterbox and he totally knew it, but, like, actually being called that in the middle of the fight went right over his head. Like, he wasn't even sure who was yelling at him, and he was too busy trying to do that instinct thing that Zeph had tried to teach him to really pay attention to what she was shouting anyway.

A sudden weight pummelled into his chest and drilled him to the ground where it lay on his chest while he was, like, spread-eagled flat on his back. He barely managed to keep his grip on his hook swords, which splayed outward and hit the ground with a weird thu-thunk noise. Kiel knew almost right away that the weight was Shane, like, not only because he could sense her through their Chosen bond but also because the rumble in her chest totally vibrated through his belly from where she was sitting on him. With a quick swipe of her tongue to his cheek, she shot off him and he heard a yelp (like, he was pretty sure she'd set her teeth around someone's ankle). Kiel rolled instinctively to his left and used the momentum to swing back onto his feet as his vision began to clear.

Another howl of pain had him pivoting to check on his friends. He had to turn his head this way and that to see past the weird dots because they were totally, like, weird and all, but when he realised that the victim was actually one of their attackers, he relaxed a bit. He kinda turned away as the guy started to puke, wanting the wretch himself just at the sight of it. Like, dude, that was “Gross, it's gross!”

As he turned, he caught sight of the Skotadi. The dude was concentrating on his shadows as they tentacled across the floor toward Nin, that Therian guy who kinda stalked the merchant dude a lot along with his burly buddy. Nin was fending off one of a Rutilus who had a totally awesome nasty-looking saw-edged sword and was swinging it with powerful strokes, so he didn't see the shadowcles creeping up on him.

“Hey, hey, like, dude! Dude, that's mean!” Flinging himself at the Skotadi's back, Kiel vaguely wished he hadn't given the dude a heads-up when those same shadowy tentacles came at him instead. While they were preoccupied with him, Shane phased right through the wall of shadows the Skotadi had surrounded himself with to bite him — hard — on the butt.