Ghosts of Gauntcliff - the restoration

Fiction about Ravenloft or Gothic Earth
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Rock of the Fraternity
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Ghosts of Gauntcliff - the restoration

Post by Rock of the Fraternity »

When last we saw our heroes...

Time passed after Dodds' ... passing. The group returned to the manor Sancerre had built for tourists - tourists which would now not come again.

Everline, still black-eyed and sore in all her joints, returns to the room that had been given to her. She sleeps, her dreams featureless and dark, but at least free of invasion by the horror the ghost had lavished on her, these past few days.

But sleep ends at the very instant of noon. The young woman sits bolt-upright in bed and staggers out of her room. She accosts a servant, hurrying past with a bundle of clothes, and demands directions.

Soon after, she is pounding on Eustace's door. "Eust. Ace!" she rasps, still knocking. "High... sun! Sceptre? Eust. Ace!"
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Re: Ghosts of Gauntcliff - the restoration

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Eustace hears the violent rapping at the door, and he guesses who it must be. He was just then preparing to pray to Belenus, his window opened wide to let the maximum of sunlight come in.

She's early he thinks, but of course she would be. After so much distress as she has gone through, the hope of a cure is the source of untenable anxiety.

He wastes no time in opening the door.

"Good morning, Everline, glad to see you're up. I will just require a few minutes yet. Please, don't mind the disorder."

The window is still broken, but he had shoved the glass shards to one corner of the room. Comprehensibly, after the crisis of the last nights, no servants came to take care of the room.

"I still need to pray, but you can stay here if you feel safer with me. At any rate, we'll see what this scepter can do for you."
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Re: Ghosts of Gauntcliff - the restoration

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Everline's reply is a wordless, guttural noise. She stalks into Eustace's room and squats in the darkest corner she can find. Her black eyes watch Eustace the way those of a starving man might eye a feast. Her hips and ankles creak, and her face shows her discomfort, but she continues to watch Eustace's every movement.
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Re: Ghosts of Gauntcliff - the restoration

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Eustace looks at Everline with a compassionate frown, as if she were an orphan the monks had sheltered at the monastery. But instead of bread and bed, she was hoping for other boon from Eustace. He knelt on the floor at the foot of his bed, turned to the window amid the sunrays, and for a few dozen minutes he prayed, silently, oblivious to the girl in his room. At length, Everline could saw him stand, and friction his joints and thighs, aching of the long meditation.

Silently, but solemnly, he took the scepter and the small wooden chip, inspected it once more and gave a silent prayer to Belenus, in the hopes that it could fix the evil inside Everline. Only then he proceed with the magical cantrip to fix the sceptre, and with an involuntary sigh he said relieved.

"I am ready, Everline. The sceptre is now fixed. Let me just bless, you my child, before we go on."

Without waiting for a reply or any reaction, he invoked a series of blessings upon Everline.

OOC:
casting Mending and Bless.
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Re: Ghosts of Gauntcliff - the restoration

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Everline rises to her feet in a series of jerky motions, her bones creaking as she lurches forward.

"Ffffix," she hisses, her eyes wide.
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Re: Ghosts of Gauntcliff - the restoration

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The monk acknowledges Everline, hurt with her pain. Confident in Belenus's power and his justice, Eustace rises the sceptre and invokes its power on Everline.

Anxious at the start, he soon sees a smile emerging in his lips as the power starts ebbing in the direction of the poor girl. It envelopes her as Eustace keeps channeling its restorative power.
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Re: Ghosts of Gauntcliff - the restoration

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The power flows... and stops. Eustace definitely gets the feeling that the sceptre was doing its work, but it is like watching a single drop of golden nectar fall into a deep, dark well.

"Fix?" Everline enquires, opening her dark eyes again to look at Eustace. Her expression is puzzled, but puzzlement soon turns to frustration. "Fix? Fix?! Fix! Fix! Fix!"

Before he knows it, Eustace finds Everline up close. Blood is trickling from her torn mouth again, her eyes are burning into his -- and then staring right through him.

"Fix," the girl says. There is a creaking noise, and Eustace can see Everline has closed her hands around the sceptre. "I fix," she says -- and the power starts to flow again. This time, it isn't a golden drop. This time, it's a stream that turns into a torrent.

"I fix," Everline says, still staring through Eustace. "I fix!"

The sceptre starts to smoke, the wood heating up.
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Re: Ghosts of Gauntcliff - the restoration

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Eustace understands what's going on. Something was blocking the energy flowing from him to Everline, but now the girl was drinking from it like a parched man in the desert who finds an oasis. Only she was taking too much of it. The sceptre began to smoke and he abruptly snatched it from her hands. It fell to the ground in embers, and consumed itself in mere seconds, before their eyes.

Everline's hands, barely, showed some signs of burning, but those would vanish... perhaps. Eustace looked at her, her gaze still absent... still querying... still alien.

"Poor girl... what has he done to you?"
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Re: Ghosts of Gauntcliff - the restoration

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Everline's "alien" eyes look through Eustace, still, but she seems to have heard him.

"What he did, I undo," she hisses, and she snaps one hand out towards the pile of ashes that was the scepter.

There is a silvery flash and a sharp 'THNK!'-noise, and Eustace can see a dagger, buried in the ashes - and the floor! - to the hilt.

"Victoria effulgens tenebrae summae!" Everline snarls. The embers ignite with fresh flame, flame the colour of the sun. For a moment, the shape of the sceptre, drawn in magical energy, lies where its material counterpart had been. Then it rushes along the path that silver flash had taken, a golden lightning bolt that slams into Everline...

"Victrix sum," the girl whispers, and darkness surrounds her.

The shadows seem to spring out of Everline herself, rather than the space around her. They form a shell as oppressive as the weight of the earth in a cave, but it is a living, moving shell, like the shadow of swarming bats. Through the darkness, Eustace can see Everline's eyes, blazing bright purple as she looks at him -- and shrieks with sudden laughter.

"Victrix sum!"
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Re: Ghosts of Gauntcliff - the restoration

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Eustace is taken aback by the ritual he just witnessed. Confounded and not certain of what just happened, he watches as the flames erupt and Everline emerges triumphant.

"You are victor, the victory is yours. Indeed.... Or at least I hope."

He approaches Everline, tentatively touches her hands.

"Are you alright now? Do you feel... whole?"
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Re: Ghosts of Gauntcliff - the restoration

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The shadows seem to snap at Eustace's hands as he reaches out to Everline, but withdraw before his touch. They withdraw into her.

Everline blinks, and when she opens her eyes again, they are the same bright blue they were before Dodds' attacks. The girl's colour is improving by leaps and bounds, and when she smiles, it is her old, merry grin.

"I won," Everline says, her grin widening. "I won, I won, I won!"

Laughing, the girl pulls away from the monk, takes a few dancelike steps, then somersaults through the room. She is radiant, she seems to be blazing with life and energy.

"I won!" she exults again. "I am whole again, complete again, I am... I am... all of... all... of... me..."

Everline stands still, and her eyes widen. Her colour stays good, but she starts to tremble like a fawn facing the wolf. "Mother..." she whispers, her eyes gazing through Eustace. "Mother, where are you? Ohhh, Mama, help me! The Circle is waiting for me, Mama! Mama, help me help me out of this darkness! This is not my darkness, Mama! Don't let Dodds get into my room again, Mama, he hurt me he hurt me he hurt me hate hate hate kill kill I'llkillyoukillyoukillyou'llkillyoukillyoukill! Mama help the Circle is waiting!"

Everline utters a full-throated shriek and cowers in a corner, hands raised to ward off something unseen. Energy snaps and snarls around her, and Eustace can see an oval disc of force appear in front of her - a magical shield of some sort.

"Mama, where are you?!" the girl shrieks again.
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Re: Ghosts of Gauntcliff - the restoration

Post by Ail »

Eustace brings a smile of relief to his lips and Everline cajoles and dances in her happiness.

But there are shadows carve the land too deep when they fall, and seem to linger even in the day. And so it seems with Everline. The joy lasts for only a minute or two. Then, it looks as if something inside Everline snaps. She looks through Eustace as if seeing a ghost, and the monk looks back, reflexively.

There's no one here! it seems to him. But the poor girl cries frantically for her mother. He has an impulse of approaching and hugging her, but immediately his rational sets in. No, in her state, that would certainly unsettle her. She might confuse it with something else.

Eustace felt tired suddenly, as she began to recognize the first traces of madness. Perhaps some permanent damage had been done inside? The circle... His mind wandered a year back, to the unfortunate affair at the Delapore's estate. She had been severely affected back then, and he could see now it had been properly healed.

He looked at the cowering girl in the corner, a mere child of six again, and he felt pity grow inside his chest. The girl cast some kind of magic, some kind of protective magic, as if to cast something out. Once more looking around, he cast a prayer to Belenus and scaned the room around. Is there evil around, he asks himself?

OOC: casting Detect Evil. Rock, please tell me if there's anything to see, or is everything in Everline's imagination.
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