A vile ritual

The sickly light grows stronger as you descend, filling the stairwell with a yellowish tinge. You find yourself wishing you were carrying more combat oriented spells, not knowing what you’ll face at the bottom. You speak to Mayella as you approach the bottom. “I think it’s unlikely that we take these two alive again. Is that ok with you?”

Mayella responds with a hardness in her voice that surprises you. “If you don’t kill them, I will.”

Having no good response, you continue down to the landing at the bottom of the stairs. Light pours in from behind a curtain hastily thrown up over the doorway. From here, you can feel the magical forces being used quite strongly, and you shiver at the sensation. It feels…wrong, somehow. After a quick glance to be sure everyone is ready, you step forward, tearing aside the cloth as you step into the room.

What you see inside makes you stop short in horror. Hektor and Lain are standing on either side of a stone table, stripped to the waist. With their robes cast aside, you can see the corruption of their bodies. Most undead look relatively normal, but these two have rotten, patchwork skin, with strange thorny growths protruding from the skin at various places. Where the thorns break the skin, a viscous, brown fluid slowly leaks from the wound.

Tearing your eyes away, you look to the third occupant of the room. Laid on the table is a gorgeous woman, who looks to be in her thirties. She has light blue skin with white whorls of color across her arms. Her long hair is a mix of blues and whites, and seems to move in a nonexistent breeze as it hangs off the table. This must be the lady of the wind, Arella.

In the background, a small cage of some kind of metal holds a floating, purple glowing orb. This must be the item generating the barrier.

You hear Hektor and Lain mumbling words you don’t understand, but hearing them feels like spiders on your brain, and you shake your head to clear it. You can see that each has their hands laid on an arm of the unconscious Arella, though from the pained look on her face it’s obvious that magic keeps her comatose. Black threads of corruption spread on her arms from where they touch, and even as you watch, the darkness spreads.

Shaking yourself free from the revulsion that paralyzed you, you step forward. “Stop! Surrender, it’s over!”

In unison, the pair look up at you, and you see that their eyes are black voids, weeping corruption onto their faces. You hear the girls spreading out behind you, moving to surround the creatures before you. As you begin to wonder if they can understand you anymore, Hektor whips a hand towards you. You step aside as a howling spell smashes into the wall behind you, and stone melts from the force. You glance to Mayella. “Do not let them touch you.”

Both Hektor and Lain attempt another spell, with similar results. Whatever has corrupted them has slowed their reflexes, but their magic is incredibly potent. Slow reflexes make for simple opponents, however, as Uzume proves with a wink of her club. With a sickening crunch, she connects on Lain’s side, the impact hurling the former advisor into a wall to crumple to the floor.

With Maya hesitant to attack since she doesn’t want to come into contact with the corrupted mage, Sadie steps up. An eye searing blast of lightning impacts on Hektor’s chest, knocking him away from the still comatose Arella. You’re surprised when it’s followed up by a spear of fire from Mayella, who clearly has powers of her own.

Before you can celebrate a victory, however, Lain begins to rise from the floor. It should be impossible, the way his body is crushed should not be survivable. Uzume reacts immediately, smashing him again, this time coming down on his head like she’s driving a nail. He crumples again, his head driven into his shattered chest. But even as you watch, he slowly begins moving.

An idea pops into your head immediately, and you wave a disappointed Uzume back. Lifting your left arm, you hurl a sphere of black flame at the impossibly animated wreckage that once was Lain. The dark fire immolates him, and within seconds he is reduced to a fine ash.

Satisfied, you turn to where Sadie and Mayella are taking turns pounding Hektor with magic, attempting to keep him down. Moving up beside them, you unleash the black flame again, with similar results. You notice Sadie cringing away as you use the magic, her hand touching the faint scars on her face. It seems she still has bad memories of the fires you hold within you.

As the dust settles, your whole group turns to the recumbent form of Arella. She is stirring, and though the corruption remains upon her it is no longer spreading.