The Fall of Su'Tek pt 3

THe party has found themselves in the library, which covers floors four through five. Books are everywhere, with subjects primarilly covering demons, devils, necromancy, enchantment and history relating to the dark elves. Meanwhile upstairs Aya will find herself facing off against Su'Tek. She is blind, and Su'Tek has back off, did something and then offered his surrender. Where he is in the room is a mystery.

Elisabeth, having been keeping Detect Magic up, points out several of the books. "Those are warded with magicks of various sorts, some with what appear to be magical traps. I suggest we continue on; we can return here to see what there is here after Su'tek has been dealt with", she says, already turning to head for the stairs once again.

Kiroth comes back up from helping to secure the lower levels. He looks around up here, "So what's going on here?" He asks as he focuses on any evil in the room, "Sorry about that hope I didn't miss too much." He says as he hefts his shield, "Any word from Aya?"

Aya may not be able to see Su'tek, but that didn't stop her from pummeling him previously. Even then, his sudden surrender is suspect. She turns, listening for him as she notes, "Surrender? What do you expect to gain from that?"

"None, yet", Elisabeth says in response to Kiroth's question about Aya. "I do hope she's doing well", she adds. "Just the same, let us continue moving as quickly as we're able."

Kiroth finishes looking around, "No evil here, but be careful, constructs don't register on my detect evil. Are there a stairs up?" He asks as he looks around for any way to continue higher.

Su'Tek offers a gentle response, "oh I gain everything I want by surrendering." moving again, just in case aya decides to be aggressive. The door leading to the final sixth floor is locked. Su'Tek, "Oh I surrendered, I am going to go unlock the door." glancing to Aya, "If you let me. Kinda hard to unlock something blind after all."

Elisabeth pauses at the door to the staircase opposite the one through which the party entered the library. "It's locked... and I think I hear voices on the other side", she says, then take a step back, winding up to try to kick the door open.

"No need," Aya replies to Su'Tek. "I'm sure the door will be open soon enough. All you gain from surrendering is a death less inconvenient to others. You may earn gratitude for that, but if you believe that you will find mercy, you are mistaken."

Cherchez le tank. Femme. Femmetank. ELISABETH. Fazahd follows the paladin, sword in hand, ready to release whatever hell awaits them. Because there's Aya up there too. No way he's gonna let Su'Tek mess with his friends.

Both feet hit the door, Kiroth is knocked back while Elisabeth puts a crack in the door, but doesn't quiet bust through.

The door crashes open with the second kick. Into a labrator you see. Aya is standing next to a desk with a lot of blood on her fists, while Su'Tek, is holding in his guts on the furthest side of the room, "I surrender."

Kiroth concedes to let Elisabeth have a go at the door after his first kick. It really is only enough space for one person. He looks over towards Aya, "Are you all right?" He asks as he looks at Su'Tek, "Down on your knees and put your hands behind your head.

Elisabeth, a little off-balance after kicking the door in, steps off to the side to make room for whoever's going in.

"Aya," says Fazahd, completely ignoring the beaten-in sorceror for a moment, his expression grim as he flips up his helmet's heavy visor. "Are you all right?"

Elisabeth steps into the doorway, marches up the stairs, and plants herself in the doorway... still maintaining enough concentration to keep Detect Magic going (or simply re-casting it as she goes up the stairs).

Su'Tek puts his hands behind his head and gets down on his knees. Offering no further words.

Kiroth keeps his sword on Su'Tek, "If you would like I will say a prayer over you."

Aya turns towards Fazahd's voice, but doesn't look directly at him. "So long as this worm doesn't crawl away, and my sight returns, yes, I will be fine."

"He took your sight?", Elisabeth asks of Aya, not taking her eyes off Su'tek, even as she continues to remain in the doorway. "Perhaps, come the morning, Daeus will grant me the ability to restore your vision."

Su'Tek chuckles softly, "oh I doubt my master would appreciate that prayer, so please do not. I have made my peace, with my god." a grin crossing his face, "I fear not death, but look forward to the rewards for my service."

"If you lose your eyes, he loses his." That's not very righteous of him, now is it? But he undoes a pair of heavy iron manacles from his armor's wide belt, and tosses them to Kiroth before looking down at the kneeling sorceror. "So," he says to the man. "What escape have you planned now? Hard to escape with your guts trailing out, but I'm sure you've planned for this. My suggestion: do not. If you try, I shall take your head and have you brought back to life once we've returned to a temple." As simple as ordering dinner, and cold as the void. "And then I will lock you in a cage with your father. He'd /love/ to see you, Su'Tek."

"If he wants peace and rewards," Aya suggests, "why should we indulge him? Remove his hands, tongue, and eyes, and he would be little threat to anyone." One corner of her moth lifts in, she presumes, Su'Tek's direction. "While still living a long, fruitless life."

"Strip him naked. There's far too little in this place that bears magic upon it. He's certainly secreted some such items upon his person", Elisabeth chimes in, from where she stands in the doorway. "That done, we bind him hand and foot, gag in his mouth, bandage over the eyes he owes Aya for taking her sight. Only then can we begin to presume him no longer a threat."

Su'Tek falls backwards onto his ass as he starts to laugh with mirth. Then stops as he gags a bit in pain, but still clearly chuckling and enjoying himself. "Oh fazahd, Holy Engineer, the one who quests..." grinning up to Fazahd, "you don't get it yet do you? Shall I spell it out for you, I meant to get captured, or to die. It did not matter, what mattered is that it happens. Come now think, what possible gain do I get from this?"

"We should gag him sooner rather than later," Aya points out. She then reaches out towards the Holy Engineer, or thereabouts.

"Yes, yes, you're very scary," Fazahd says, crouching down in front of the man. "But I will tell you what is going to happen. I will lay you out, and commit to you a ritual lost since the Eaglrin of the southern sands were new; I will purify your soul of all its evil, leaving you bright an innocent as when you were born, a clean shroud. And then your master will come to you, Su'Tek. Then your master will come to you - and I know your father, Su'Tek, I speak with him every day. I know full well what is waiting for the innocent souls. Do you understand me? You may die, but you will go as kindling. That is what awaits you, if you do not immediately tell me what your plan was to be. I will keep you alive just so that you can be damned, and not in the way you planned. I will keep you alive just so that you can roast, not turn the spit. That is Reos's mercy for you. Do you understand? I am not a priest. I am an /Inquisitor./ My punishments for you are /endless/."

Su'Tek smiles to Fazahd, "The greatest lies, and my father is the master of them is he not?" Su'Tek smiles, "The poison I took is setting in, will be dead in a moment or two, as for my father. This was the distraction. The lie, he never was trapped, but weakened when he came through in that shell. how else do you sneak a demon into Alexandria. Oh Asumit will be quiet pleased with the prize we are after." Su'Tek winks as he starts to slump even futher looking pale, "That ritual... will not work... you cannot cleanse a demon, even willing. They are made of evil... and soon my reward..." falling to the ground.

"How long will your ritual take, Fazahd. My calling is to bring Light to Darkness, to destroy evil where I find it. If, as an Inquisitor, you agree his life is forfeit for his crimes, I agree as a Templar of the Holy Sword that it should be taken from him", Elisabeth says, still in the doorway. She's clearly trying to make sure at least one of the wizard's possible escape routes isn't available to him.

Kiroth frowns, "Keep on your knees and keep your hands where I can see them." He says keeping his sword on the wizard and he looks to the others. "If you have a plan for him he is your's. I have a healer's kit and I can try to cure him of the poison."

Elisabeth nods. "Do it... if suicide is his plan, we must ensure he's not allowed to die on his own terms. This would not be justice."

"No." Fazahd lifts his hand and makes a fist over the dying man's heart, speaking a further word of Khazdul and punching forward into the air as if locking something into place - and even as he does so, prepares the sword in his other hand for a strike.

"Su'tek coughs up blood, and continues to fade fast.

Kiroth takes off his pack and he takes out a healer's kit. He looks over the man and he starts to make up a curative. He grabs the man's mouth and makes him drink it. "He ingested four poisons not just one."

Elisabeth finally moves away from the door, moving to start searching one of the tables where there are alchemical things.

The healing kit and inspiriing words slow down the posion, but the evil sorceror was well prepared, he drops into shallower and shallowers breathing, but then for a moment the breathing stops. With the casting of paladins scarifice on him his breathing starts again but very shallow. Looks like Su'Tek will live...

From afar, Elisabeth looks for anti-toxins or antidotes of any sort.

Sheathing her sword and setting down her shield, Elisabeth scoops up two vials, one in each hand. Carrying them over, she says, "These appear to be antitoxins or antidotes of some kind..."

Kiroth frowns a bit, "I'm not going to let you escape justice." He says as he says a prayer to Daeus. "Shining Knight let me take on this man's pain and burdens." His hand glows as he touches the top of the wizard's head and he grunts as he feels the man's pain from the poison.

Elisabeth's eyes widen as she sees what Kiroth's done, and she offers over the antitoxin vials she's found. "If you've taken the poisons to yourself, these may help", she says.

The anti-toxes Elisabeth offers help a lot. Su'Tek is now shallowly breathing, and will live to see another day. His attempt at suicide failed.

Aya steps slowly to a wall and remains near it. She is neither equipped nor inclined to offer aid to the dying wizard, despite her suggested alternative of maiming.

Kiroth ignores the pain from the poison and he goes to strip down the wizard to nothing before tying him up, "He is your prisoner Fazahd, shall we walk him out?"

Elisabeth turns away to recover her shield and offer an arm to Aya, to help the woman along. "I will pray, come morning, for Daeus to restore your sight", she says to her.

"Please see to Aya," Fazahd asks of Elisabeth, even as he kneels down next to the unconscious sorceror - locking the man in silk ropes and iron manacles, after removing the man's clothes, the Inquisitor lashes him to his own armored back and carries him down the stairs. "Check this place," he asks of Kiroth, "If you can. See what he's been up to."

Kiroth nods to Fazahd as he makes sure that the man is completely helpless, blindfolded, and gagged. He takes a moment as the poison still pains him and he looks around his eyes glowing with divine energy.

A quick glance over the labratory will reveal a journal written in abysal.

Aya would be of little help in a search, though she doesn't voluntarily note this. She will stick to her wall, at least until another, better option makes an appearance.

After some time, Fazahd's perusal of the journal and its barbed glyphs causes him to close his eyes and put the book aside. "We must return to Alexandria. We have all been made fools - and by 'all', I mean that I have been the fool." His voice is as cold and empty as the dark side of the moon. "Or at least, I will go. There must be a reckoning."

"Fill us in, Fazahd, so we have a better idea what to do to help you set things right?", Elizabeth suggests.

Kiroth picks up the wizard and he nods, "Tell us on the way. Let's go perhaps we can stop whatever is happening."

"We need to rest here the night, so that I can attempt to restore Aya's vision come the morning", Elisabeth says.

"His father, the demon Mar'Tek. He is waiting to steal the Tear of the Moon from the crypts below the Temple of Eluna." Fazahd looks up at them, black eyes hard. "You stay. I must return to the city and warn them. He does not know his son has failed."

A faint rumbling can be heard coming from outside the tower, to the south. Glancing through some of the murder holes you can see a red glow, where Alexandria should roughly be.

"Then go. We'll catch u... what's that?", Elisabeth says, getting up to go look out towards the city.

Kiroth shakes his head, "I don't think we have time to rest, hopefully we'll find a cleric down below that can cure Aya of her blindness."

"That is my shame," Fazahd says grimly. "It has begun." He says nothing more; instead, he leaps out the window, floating gracefully toward the ground at a distance from the tower and begin his march toward the city.

"Aya, I'll help you down the stairs. Remember the traps we saw the way up, everyone... let's avoid them on the way back down", Elisabeth says, clearly agreed that there just isn't time to stop to rest, right at the moment.

Elisabeth says, "... what was Su'tek's part in this plan of theirs, in which he failed?"

Finding a cleric among those below, of Roes, who can cure the blindness. Muttering to happily use the spell on somebody other then a blacksmith who accidently got an ember in their eyes. The party will march on towards Alexandria...