Age: Never started counting
Profession: Servant of the true lord of life and death. I said the *true* lord of life and death.
Status *ahem* No longer living.
OOC goals
Contains utter lies. (These are stories two and three when ordered chronologically)
"So you've seen my collection of holy symbols then. Well there is a story behind each of those."
"Ah that one, well that's a sad story dating back to Yorvick. He was absolutely insane, something had gone into his head, stolen all the furniture, set fire to the place and merely left a askew squeaky door, flapping in the wind, amid in the ruin of what they once were. I don't think they'd even noticed what had happened to them..."
"He had been a lay humacti, of the scholarly sort, looking after a library of every book on chivalry, honor and all that sort of shite. He'd go out with the paladins when they went to fight undead, to bandage them and advise. Of course then Wallach invaded the city and most of them ended up dead, or in this case ended up worse than dead. We're not sure what cursed him but there weren't enough people who'd known him before alive to notice that he'd completely changed. "
"He began to be haunted. Ghosts would show up near him and torment him, chasing him screaming from the house at midnight. Poor sod didn't have the sanity left to remember how he'd raised them earlier. He didn't seem to know where the blood on his hands or the gravedirt on his boots came from after we'd had a scout track his footprints back from the cemetery."
"In short his time was long overdue. He should have died when the others did, in the fighting against the undead rather than become such a broken corrupted wreck. He hardly struggled when we killed him and if anything there was relief in his eyes."
"And now I finished being the politest I'll ever be about a humacti I need another drink."
"This one's an interesting one. It's belonged to a necromancer who lived in a small hamlet back near where we used to live. Of course initially no one knew that she was a necromancer as this was back when the laws of the land were at least vaguely sensible and you could get a linch mob together at the slightest hint of a red circle."
"The entire village would agree without a doubt that she was an eccentric. Kept herself locked away in a hut down the hill from the cemetery. She has a huge iron cauldron and this collection of strange knives that she said she used for chopping herbs. And it was true, she was a dab hand with her herbs to rival any city taught alchemist. Many of those that recovered would swear by her remedies and the delicious meaty stew she'd give them from the cauldron 'to build up their strength'."
"Now we got called in because they'd noticed that someone had been nicking bodies from the graveyard and the rumors finally got back to the city. The humacti priset in charge swore that every body had been laid to rest correctly. Of course we pointed out that as he was a piss-drunk humacti who'd have difficulty finding his own holy symbol if it wasn't engraved on the church alter... well things went a bit downhill at that point."
"However we persevered and went around the village asking questions and eventually we found out that all the bodies that had been nicked were the ones of people that had gone to her for healing but hadn't got better. So we put two and two together and got one vivamortion alchemist. So we waited till just after midnight and performed our devotions and then I asked our lord to bless Glen and we went and broke into her hut"
"You see it turns out those knives were also just right for stripping the flesh from the bones of human bodies to make skeletons and the meat in her strength-building stew was.... Ooo you've gone a bit green. Mind if I finish your drink for you?" *takes drink*
"Anyway regardless of the source of the soup it was the skeletons that were about to cause us problems. There were two of them and only two of us and they had a vivamortian priestess behind them who kept throwing us to the ground or blasting us with spiritual power. Glen was just about managing to hold his own. I was getting my ass kicked. The skeleton had caught me once around the skull already and my head was ringing like a bell and then the thrice accursed priestess struck me to the floor again and I almost ended up rolling into the fire beneath the cauldron to dodge the continuing rain of blows. “
”At about that point that Glen finally noticed my dire straits and finally got around to smashing the other skeletons face in and managed to dive in front of the one that was just about to try to finish me off. I was still rather dazed but I did manage to make out the priestess trying to sneak up behind him with one of those rather nasty knives. So finding my last strength I stood up and threw the boiling contents of the cauldron onto her.“
”She screamed. She screamed a lot."
”She didn’t stop screaming until after Glen finished off the other skeleton and smashed her head in as well."
"It was about that point I passed out. I came round later to the noise of the humacti complaining loudly about some sort of ‘due procedure’ and how he ‘should have been informed’ and then the rather satisfying noise of Glen punching him in the face."
"Another round?"
Contains more truth
In Yorvick there were three of us. There had always been three of us. There had been three of us for as long as it had ever mattered. There had been three of us since the first time we’d all wandered along to the village elder and fell in love with the power Vivamort offered, who stayed and studied and finally managed to somehow to make that first step into Vivamort's notice. Three of us who felt his laugh echo madly through our bodies as he accepted us.
The lines meet. An explosion of spiritual power from a small female Azraelite levels the undead in the centre of the street creating a gaping void in the line. One more gets caught within the blast. The injured form of the third human wearing the red sun of Vivamort falls bleeding to the floor. A paladin in blue tinted armour leads the Humacti and Azraelite charge into the breach.
There were three of us when we swam in the ice cold lake and laughed and dreamed of becoming Liches and Vampires. Three of us repeating back to each other everything we learned. Three of us memorising ever scrap of knowledge about the undead that came our way. When we’d first met Wallach, three voices swore loyalty and three people shared the job of the lowliest Vivamortians in his army.
Ari's and even Glen’s voice vanishes into the clamour of the fray and their commands to reform the line go unheeded. It has splintered catastrophically into fragments and on the far side a blade falls. As they turn and start to run a voice shouts above the carnage behind them, “In the name of the Azrael true lord of life and death. I lay this soul to rest!”
Then there were just us two left swearing vengeance against two temples and a city.
In the aftermath of the latter part of the disaster that was the siege of Yorvick, we found ourselves with one other companion still in the service of Vivamort. They had also survived the blades of Humacti and Azraelites through some level of deception. There were two problems however; they out ranked us in the eyes of our lord so we quickly became little more than their minions and the more problematic one; they were completely and utterly insane.
She was still functional, still rational enough to plan, still capable of lying more smoothly than the finest wines. However in the depths of her insanity she was in love with a Humacti. And in this case when I say “in love” I mean a completely consuming obsessive type of love that shortly after the first rejection turned nasty. If he wouldn’t love her willingly, then she’d tear the rest of his world apart until he did.
She killed his family and friends, well what was left of them. When the lack of anyone else to turn to didn’t bring him to her she stepped the plan up. She’d call tormented ghosts forth from every tainted body we’d managed to bring in for her and then send them forth to share their torment with him.
Eventually he did turn to her, saying that a Vivamortian was after him and asking for her help in finding them. At which point we started to get really quite twitchy because we were starting to feel very expendable in her mad quest for his heart so we took matters a little more into our own hands and did a little creative interpretation of orders. So we slipped him a note saying she was a Vivamortian and telling him to check her necklace if he wanted proof.
I followed him when he went to confront her in the graveyard. I didn’t hear what they said as they argued for a while but eventually he snatched it from her neck. He spent a wordless moment looking at it in disbelief before running her through.
I signaled Glen, who rounded the other corner less than a minute later with a carefully chosen fairly stupid Humacti witness. Ironically, seeing as the poor bloke was standing in a graveyard with a dead defenceless woman by his feet, blood all down him and holding a holy symbol of Vivamort we probably didn’t need one quite that stupid.
So somehow things had changed and it was now 'legal' to be a vivamortion. That didn't change much for us in Yorvick as there had been this little incident of the city having been invaded by an undead army led by a lich [in which we were provably uninvolved] so public sentiment made declaring yourself a vivamortion tantamount to suicide regardless of legalities. We were doing fine in the temple of Azrael, lots of access to bodies and no one asking us too many questions after Glenn had inquired into whether it was their time or not in a dangerous voice.
The problem was of course that without contact with the rest of the faith our chances of learning more rites or becoming noticed in the eyes of Vivamort were small to non-existent, as there is only so much you can do with zombies in a location crawling with death priests. So when the rumour came into the city that there was an open vivarmotian practicing in a not too distant village we were fairly interested, even taking into account the way the last times we'd cooperated with other vivamortians had ended.
Of course lots of azraelites in the temple were also interested, as was a good delegation of the temple of Humact, so it looked a little like it would get complicated. However with some discussions with the azraelites (and Glenn looking menacing and me looking enthusiastically murderous) we managed to persuade them that the two of us could 'handle' the problem. That unfortunately didn't stop the humacti...
So eventually we got to a village with only minor exchanges of insults with the four accompanying humacti, to find some local humacti priest shrieking at this old lady about how she's an abomination who should give up her worship of 'that foul dark god'. He also had a mob of about ten peasants with pitchforks one of which kept shouting 'burn the witch' with a heavy tutonian accent. I'm not sure he was in the right mob.
Thankfully for us the humacti started talking to each other and hit some difference in either theology or reasoning, so the mob as an entity stalled, leaving several of the pitchfork wavers looking slightly lost. So I elbowed one of the mob members armed with a cleaver, all enthusiasm and no competence at all. The idea of scouting the shed around the back of the priestess's house was apparently very acceptable to him. Indeed his enthusiasm showed and he dived through the entrance of the first one ahead of me. A sword stabbed him in the back several times demonstrating the lack of competence. He breathed his last but a short invocation to vivamort later and he was back on his feet as good as new.
One zombie...
Five minutes later Glenn shows up with another mob member having pulled them out by themselves using the same technique.
Two zombies...
I repeat the exercise, this time bringing three of the mob with me into the trees behind the graveyard, but the numbers are in our favour and none of these farmers have a clue how to fight. Annoyingly at four zombies we had insufficient authority left to raise any more of them, but we continue to cull the mob. We've just about managed to deal with all the peasants when the humacti from Yorvick seemed to actually notice that their mob had been walking off into these trees in drips and drabs and decided that they should go find out what was going on.
Four humacti verses us and four zombies was always going to be a close one. But we'd reckoned we had a fairly good chance at it and initially the fight seemed to be going well. In the initial surprise attack we'd managed to take one of them out merely with weight of zombies. A zombie was destroyed, but it's sacrifice let Glenn get a killing blow on another of the humacti.
The problem we found however came from the fact that one of the humacti turned out to not be a very good humacti and in fact was a little bit of a coward. When the fight had got to him and one other verses us and two remaining zombies he decided he'd much rather turn and run away. I gave chase with the remaining zombies leaving Glenn to fight the last humacit.
Using my last authority and a miracle of halt I managed to catch the runner just beyond the edge of the wood. I burst from the trees, followed closely by the zombies... and then noticed that we were now in clear view of the village and had therefore acquired an audience. I'm fairly sure the second after that was one of the longest that has ever existed as I was so sure that we has just blown our cover. However vivamort in his great and wise power provided a tree root to save us. In my moment of panic I tripped and went sprawling past the frozen humacti. The two zombies then managed to reach him and viciously tore him to shreds.
The majority of the watching villagers then erupted in panic with an additional great deal of screaming before running back towards the center of the village. Enough stayed though that my only option to avoid blowing our cover was to cut down our two zombies.
When Glenn finally came out of the forest we limped back into the village where we found the local humacti priest in the middle of the square with a much more subdued mob that looked like it consists of the wives of the first mob. The vivamortian priestess was dead in a bloody heap in the middle of the crowd. The humacti, I'll give you, was a very good public speaker. Loudly announcing that evidence had been discovered that priestess had raised undead, would have killed everyone in the village to be her minions and hence the only right action was to execute her... Let this day stand as a triumph to the combined forces of Humacti and Azrael and look to a future where they might every work together against the dark forces of the evil god...
It was at about that point when Glenn punched him in the face
All in all it was not one of our better operations.
My favourite downtime and return of all time stuck up here for amusement's sake
Note: was before the current set of downtime guidelines so isn't in itself a good example downtime.
Preparitory acquisitions
((Noted, 60 shillings well spent))
Actions
Return to the temple of Azrael. Inform everyone who will listen that the militia wants to break in to the temple and beat the crap out of everyone in it.
((The Azraelites seem rather paranoid about this happening and mainly blame you for bringing this situation down about their ears. A lot of the worshippers slope off early to whatever homes they have that are nowhere near the temple, casting you a dirty look as they leave))
Maintain a pretense that Ari's right arm is more injured than it actually is and therefore that she could not be at all be capable of using a crowbar or something or in fact not much beyond sitting around in the temple laying people to rest.
((This works surprisingly well, a simple sling and wincing if someone touches it seems to do the trick and you are left to sit around and do very little besides laying to rest the inevitable corpses that people are none too keen on people finding out about))
Try to get Ari on the very very late at night shift of the around the clock lay to rest in the temple duty by offering to take on as many shifts as possible for the week. (Claim she needs to make up for not doing any shifts the previous week and the fact that Glenn currently has a problem)
((Entirely sucessful, not even azraelites want that shift))
On any night that looks like there are suitably few other people. I dose as many people on sleep potion as possible (probably through the medium of hot drinks as the temple of Azrael is likely to be highly cold). The hope is that this will make sure they stay unconscious through any noise if they were going to bed or to get the any other staying awake people dropping off to sleep. Then go wake up Glenn.
((The temple of azrael is very, very cold and the drinks are very gratefully accepted, even if they are from you, on Wednesday night. It was a particularly good batch of sleeping potions it seems))
Attempt to gain access to sarcophagus using actually functioning arms and crowbars. Cloths are handy for muffling sounds of crowbars on stone. Try to minimise visible damage but hey...
If any Azraelites do happen to interrupt, hit them with halt 10s/strikedown 10s, apply stabination, and then muderise them .
[insert doom here]
Dump any bodies inside the sarcophagus, lay them to rest, wipe up blood. Use motor and paint to attempt to hide damage to sarcophagus.
((The sarcophagus opens fairly easily and you need very little of the paint to repair it. Conveniently it fits 3 azraelites veyr neatly, which is fortunate as you soon have 3 dead azraelites to deal with. And a significant blood spillage))
((In the sarcophagus there is an ancient and dusty skeleton, blackened coronet upon its head and the remains of a tattered velvet robe crumbling about its ribcage. Clutched along its chest in one bony hand is a somewhat battered sword. You prise it from its hand and remove it from the sacrophagus and take a good hard look at it (rec spirit: artefact of azrael). You close up the sarcophagus (now with more occupants than before, and patch up the damage))
[Or alternatively if we can't hide the damage: Glenn knocks me out and applies additional kicking to drugged people to make sure they stay out and leaves us tied up before legging it with the [insert doom here]. I then claim I got hit from behind and didn't see anything.]
((You fall to the floor and receive a vision. A robed corpse stands in front of you, feet poking out from beaneath the folds, face hidden in a cowl. The stench of death ripples across your face as He opens His mouth to speak; "Children! My children! Oh how you amuse me, oh how you please me! You have stolen a weapon holy to that Blashpemous egotistical god right from under his followers' noses, oh how he shows himself to be weak. How he shall once more bow to by authority... Now, little death masked ones, I trust you will take this to the Black Library and there corrupt it in my name... Oh yes, I shall reward you for you have exceeded my expectations..." The corpse leans towards you and presses a rottign finger to each of your foreheads. You wak up on the floor of the Temple of Azrael and quickly hide your night's activities. For the rest of the week you can hear Vivamort's joyous mad cackling ringign in your ears. Perhaps His displeasure was better in some ways...))