Mama Nina's Diary - Borderline Dead (Complete)

11th March (continued Finale)

Aria and White Raven engage the beast and out of nowhere Broderick appears at the beast's back and rends it from hip to shoulder, tearing through its spine. Blood and gore splatters on the floor and with another blow from White Raven. The beast is dead. It seems almost too easy...

I scuttle across the floor and examine the walls and areas. Was that all? White Raven closes his eyes and puts out his Divine Senses... he gestures towards the back wall.

There is a gap, a small hole, maybe big enough for a large dog. Not big enough for a Giant Spider. I phase back to human and explain what I sensed and White Raven adds that there are definitely evil presences back there.

Broderick wriggled through the hole, and two ghouls attacked him. He slams his sword into one and dives back out of the hole.

Hmmm, my mind goes to work on the problem... a small hole and three of us trying to murder the ghouls through the keyhole...

I imagine a beast that loves holes, the black and white stripes paralleling either side of the slim head. No, I can't use such a weakened beastie with ghouls right at the entrance... that would be suicide.

Aria glances at my face, and I nod. We try our trap once more. I cast Entangle, and she cast Moonbeam. The beasts are again lucky, and one escapes the vines and moves deeper into the cavern and out of the beam. But the other is not as lucky and we trapped it in a beam of radiant moonlight.

Broderick and White Raven both take turns crouching at the hole and firing ranged weapon attacks at the beasts. Now that they are further away, I can risk it... I close my eyes and focus. My body shrinks a bit and my arms shorten. I get fur and sharp burrowing claws. I set upon the opening, instinct telling me where to scrape and find weak points. In a few seconds, I have widened the hole big enough for a man to stand up in and pass without having to bend down. I stand aside, panting, and let the others enter. I will hold on to the form a while longer, on the off chance that I may need to do more impromptu excavations.

Being in animal form takes the edge off of emotion and lets you view the blood, gore and stench from a more objective perspective. I still feel that something is not right. But I don't know what. It seems Aria, White Raven and Broderick killed the ghouls and there are three chests in the alcoves at the back of the room.

I return to my human form and move outside. I feel restless and frustrated. Now that there are no fiends on our back, White Raven examines the body of the first beast. We cannot determine if this is Laura Haspel, just that the Rutterkin was made from a woman's flesh. Aria brings me a pile of contracts, all written on parchment made from human skin. I take them and go through them. The language is Abyssal and not one I'm proficient in, but I understand Infernal so I can catch one or two similar words.

As I read, I feel dread oozing into my bones. These contracts bind souls to the Abyss after death, for eternity... such bindings are to my knowledge impossible to break and even when broken damage the individual beyond measure. These people, their souls and very beings will never be the same.

The restless feeling returns. I need to move. I need to act. There is something we missed. Aria and Broderick have opened the remaining chests and have found a pile of coins, a wand, and a ring. I look over the wand and ring and can tell that the wand is a wand of Secrets. Broderick uses it and it points out the secret entrance to the alcove that contained the chests.

I can't settle to concentrate on the ring and tell Broderick that I don't know what it does and decide to move. I walk out of the room and check on the Abyssal Wretch in the next room. It is still Abyssal and is writhing and wrestling with its bonds.

That does not bode well...

I move on to the next room and the next, all the Abyssal Wretches are still secure and still in their grotesque guises. I walk up to the room with the bathing pools and find more of the same.

My heart is beating in my ears, and I go to the exit from this underground hell hole and listen. It is quiet, way too quiet. We have sent at least 10 people up here to safety and I don't hear voices, movement or anything.

Broderick, Aria, and White Raven have all joined me at the stairs. Their faces are pale and serious.

We go up the stairs, weapons at the ready. The door to this room is closed. Everything is still. There is a dark stain spreading under the door from the hallway beyond.

My breath catches in my throat. What have we come back to? What did we miss?

Broderick opens the door and moves past a corpse lying there. White Raven follows. Aria and I stopped to examine the body to see if there was anything we could do or maybe we could figure out what killed this person.

The body is decayed, this is the sign of... necrotic damage. There is still something undead or evil lurking. Broderick and White Raven call from the front room.

They're all dead. All the 'survivors' that we sent up are dead.

I stand in the middle of the hallway, shock and grief spinning through my mind. What did we miss?!? These people were way past being a threat to anyone or anything.

Before I can dwell on the tragedy of this scene, I hear Broderick yell and glimpse him running for cover in the front room. His face is pale and his clothing soiled. We're in it now!

With my reactions dulled by the chaotic mess in front of me, my reactions are slow and I just move up a little to see and hear the others locked in battle with... the child? Only she isn't a child. White Raven, Aria and Broderick (who recovered his initial fright) have her on the back foot. She is bloody, staggering.

She straightens, stares at us and in a voice that is nothing like a child's, rasps, "We will come for you ALL!!!" and she runs into the wall. Her skull meets it with a sickening crunch. The head snaps back, and the body falls against the wall. Black smoke seeping out and dispersing into the air.

I realise that this is a Dybbuk, a creature that can leap into corpses and possess them. I warn everyone. "It can jump into dead bodies, keep an eye out!" We all freeze for a moment. Aria scans the area and declares it is none of these. White Raven pushes out his divine sense and concurs. He says there seems to be something in the northern rooms.

Broderick slashes a corpse, decapitating it. It won't possess a body that is damaged beyond some certain point, but this feels so wrong. I check in the bathroom, but nothing moves. White Raven strides over to the room in which we left Troy's body and I hear an exclamation.

"Let it not be Troy", whispers a small voice at the back of my mind. But my heart knows. The Dybbuk will not let such an opportunity pass it by.

White Raven is in combat with Troy's reanimated corpse.

I have no more Wild Shapes to retreat into, so I launch myself into the fray, blindly attacking with fists and kicks. I hear the voice of Matau in my head, clicking his tongue at my ineffectual flurry. "Hau sister! Calm, focus!"

The monster laughs at me, reaches up and raises Troy's head from his neck. I watch as the skin stretches and tears. But instead of the fear that the monster is expecting, I feel rage pounding down the nerve endings of my body. "How dare it! How dare this thing from some other realm come to this place? My place and defile the body of a companion."

I prepare to slash it with all my power but White Raven, Aria and Broderick are all nearby and between their combined efforts, the body hits the floor and the thick black smoke bellows from Troy's mutilated corpse and sinks into the floor.

For a few moments, we tense, prepared to defend against another attack. We are all on hyper-alert for a new onslaught. 

Then, as if by magic, a shaft of sunlight breaks through the window and lights up the dust motes between us. A bird warbles in the tree outside and another answers it from further away. 

The night is over!