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RP (non-canon): D&D Mission 1: Getting "Acquainted"

At that moment an evil feeling swept through Talarin and Aurelus, Aurelus immediately began trying to mentally fight away the evil. Ghira and Denkou, still being near the railing, didn't feel anything. Weakness started to overcome the two before the evil feeling stopped, leaving Talarin and Aurelus fatigued, however Aurelus had fought away some of the negative energy, leaving him slightly less fatigued then he should have been.
 
Denkou watched this transpire with a cocked eyebrow. Now that she'd gotten everything readjusted after climbing, she was in fact ready to go. "Ah, I think you guys have it under control. I'm not too solid, so..." She smirked a little. "Human shields are a very friendly concept in my book."
 
Talarin coughed as he felt his lifeforce start to weaken. He slumped against the wall and gave a small groan. "Magical traps." he said weakly. He leaned heavily on his shortspear, using it as a prop.
 
Aurelus felt his heart sink. Flashbacks from the war raced through his head, and his knees instantly felt weak, a motion of malice creeping into him. He felt as if all those moments he had wanted to kill an enemy soldier that was dying before him were revealing themselves to him again. He had rebuked those thoughts in the past, and now again he rebuked them. So as soon as it had entered him, it had left him. He gasped, and clutched his chest, taking two steps back.

"What... did... did any of ya feel that?"

As if on queue, Talarin answered his question. He was left speechless. What sort of traps were these? Traps that could corrupt the soul? He was getting nervous. Magic wasn't his forte, and he didn't want to end up doing something he'd regret later.

"Wizard, what kind of traps're these!? I felt meself tempted to slaughter dozens of men all over again!"
 
"Well, obviously they're magical traps. I'm guessing some sort of Necromancy empowered trap enforced its creator's will here. And unfortunately for you, Necromancy is not my forte." Ghira grumbled, a slightly annoyed look crossing his face. "I should study this next time I'm at a library. . . I shall take a guess at this, anyways."
 
There was that sense of danger again, but this had a direction to it. It was as if, suddenly, Sorri didn't want to move in that direction. Then the feeling was gone, or at least diminished, in the same abrupt manner.

Sorri frowned with concern, trying to determine whether her party mates had been injured, but all they seemed to have was severe fatigue. Why wasn't it worse? The monkey was killed outright...are they playing with us? She pondered that a bit as Ghira gave his opinion on the situation, then came to a conclusion. "The outside traps are only be deterrents, aren't they? If these wizards are so powerful, they could have set them to kill," she murmured, half to herself. Then, so the others could hear: "What did the trap do to them? Are they hurt?"
 
"Well. from what you've described, it's a low level Necromancy spell designed to inflict a light amount of pain." Ghira told them after a moment of thought. "Either way, you two got off easy compared to what they could have trapped it with."
 
"Glad to know." Talarin groaned again "I don't suppose they could have set too many more traps do ya think Ghira?" he stretched his arms out.
 
Denkou chuckled. "Keep hoping, sorcerer. If they have someone who knows what they're doing, they can set ten, maybe twelve of those. Every day. And who knows how much preparation they've put into defending this place?" She stepped forward, shrugging. "I can go first, and find what I can, but if either one of you wizardly types has some way to see that kind of thing coming, I'd appreciate it. I only really know the physical sort of traps, not the magical sort."
 
Talarin shrugged. "The artifact's aura is too powerful. If I searched for magical energies then it'd be like looking for a tan haystraw in a stack of brown haystraws. Unless Ghira knows something I don't." he looked towards the wizard.
 
"I told you, I've never been in here before. I know about as much as you do at this point. Not to mention the fact that I'm dry up most useful spells at the moment." Ghira grumbled with a slight frown, peering into the doorway from the ledge where he was. "If there was a vicious monkey speaking in dwarvish guarding an unidentified artifact, then I'd be able to help. But since there isn't, I'm just dead weight."
 
Aurelus felt winded. It felt as if that trap that hit him had extracted some of his soul and left him gasping for air. He felt like he had just run a marathon and some of the contestants had punched him along the way. Upon hearing the cleric ask about Talarin's and Aurelus' condition, Aurelus answered.

"I'm fine, Mendel, don' worry. Jus a wee winded, tha's all."

He then turned to the trusted rogue of the party, with a bit of frustration, holding his chest with his left hand and clutching the railing of the balcony with his other hand.

"Ugh... Denkou, can ye jus' look ahead fer traps!? Maybe they ran out of magic an' used some bows n arrows like they got tha' weird critter Talarin summoned!"

Aurelus had never seen or heard of a monkey. Even though he had received some basic education (how to write, read, basic math), a lot of animals were simply too exotic for teachers, professors and scholars in the area to know about. At least, for places like Dolefall.
 
"Oh, keep your pants on." Denkou moved up, shaking her head. "I was just checking to see if they could help before I got started." That said, she started making her way up the steps, taking all the time she needed to thoroughly check her path.
 
Aurelus looked at the rest of the group. "In the meanwhile, nobody move! Stay still or risk triggerin' one of 'em traps." He rested against the railing, trying to get his breath back. He found resting against the railing was definitely helping him regain his breath, but the weakness he felt throughout his body was still there.

Being sick with an arcane disease of an unknown nature and having been hit by some kind of magical evil trap was definitely making him increasingly uneasy.
 
Denkou froze, nodding along with Aurelus's words. "Ummm... yes, that would be a very good idea. It looks like this one you guys found already has managed to reactivate itself." She started trying to disarm it, being as careful as she could. "In the meantime, you guys can come on over here, just stay off of the stairs until I tell you otherwise."
 
This is insane!

The little one watched Denkou and Aurelus talk over what had hit the warrior and the sorcerer in the stairwell, increasing worry written on her face. Why had she come along? You are going to die anyway, if you don't remember. At least this way you're doing something. Sorri's eyes closed and her lips moved in silent prayer while Denkou examined the trap. It's not just for us. There is an entire town counting on us. We must succeed! Please, let us succeed...

She edged toward Aurelus, who appeared rather winded still, and took out a water skin. "Here, have some. It's water, it might help," she offered. There were no physical injuries, so there was nothing she could really do. And she knew nothing about magical traps, probably even less than Aurelus since her parents hadn't taught her anything about magic except the types and to warn her about the practice in general. "How did that trap hurt you? Is there anything I can do?" she asked, waiting for him to take or refuse the drink, meanwhile glancing at Talarin to see how the sorcerer was faring.
 
Talarin caught the quarterling's worried glance. Not wanting her to worry too much he gave her a cheerful grin and a thumbs up to let her know he was alright. But he still had a bit of wheeze to his voice as he said. "Im fine, really." he walked over to where Denkou had indicated. "I just hope that we don't walk into to many more of those."
 
"Damn it," Denkou muttered under her breath. She sat back, shaking her head. "Keep back. This one's a bit tricky." That said, she leaned forward to try again, doing her best to make sure she didn't accidentally trigger the trap. After all, she had no way of knowing it's exact range of effect once it was activated.
 
Unlike what the short one had expected, Aurelus grabbed hold of the receptacle and downed the water heartily, drinking chug after chug. When he was done, he had easily drank half of the water in there. "Ahhh... thank ye, lass. I needed that."

Then he answered her questions through gasps and pants. "I... don't know if i' hurt me, I just know it feels horrible when it hits ya. It's an overwhelmin' emotion of pure evil that tries ta take over ye, make ye remember things ya didn' wanta do but ye were tempted to, righ'? An' then, after it's gone, ye just feel tired. Tired as a mule after a long day's work, perhaps even more." Aurelus tried stretching out his arm, turning and twisting it, as if he was sore in the shoulder. "I's alrigh', though, lass. I'll be fine. I've weathered worse blows 'n this!"

He patted her on the head twice, then looked over to Denkou. "Anythin' yet!?"
 
Making one last little move, Denkou wiped her forehead. "Well, I'm not going to lie, that is one hell of a trap. But I've got it taken apart, we're good to go now." She stood up, readjusting her short-sword. "Let's go."
 
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