Winn & Fae Get Roasted

Winnacer does not pause after striking down the ratzombie; he is immediately on the move. He rushes to the door where the six ratlings ambushed the group from and takes a quick look inside to make sure the area is secure.

Will backs warily away from the croc and the ratman and guards Winn's back as the LawBringer checks out the door.

Upon entering the doorway, the young Lord sees that he is in a narrow corridor that curves westwards. He turns the corner and sees that there is a narrow staircase that goes up some 10' feet. Deducing that this is simply the staircase that leads to the room above the gateway, he decides to check it out quickly so as to ensure that no adversaries may be left there.

He quickly ascends the stairs and walks through the door that has been left slightly ajar. Upon entering through the doorway, he sees that his assumptions were correct in that this is the room above the gateway, some 30' by 40' in dimension, with the corridor running underneath the center of the room.

He sees that the room is currently uninhabited. It is also empty save for an empty cauldron that rests above a number of slats in the floor, through which the boiling oil was dumped a few minutes ago. There is also a brazier burning in the far corner, but there is no more oil in the room.

Seeing that there is nothing else of interest in the room, he descends the stairs once more in order to return to the rest of the party.

Meanwhile, seeing the crocodile, Will smiles a slight smile and looks around for Yaz, then looks at the crocodile for Yaz.

Xavier, however, not having seen Yaz make his change into the raven due to the dense mist, and having no idea as to the druid's new found skills, simply sees the crocodile as a new threat.

Seeing Xavier's intent, Will shouts to the knight:

"Hold your strike Xavier! The beast is for us, not against thus far!"

"Brother, NO!" Jihan shouts, rushing to interpose himself between the reptile and the knight. "It's Yaz! Prirodna has..."

Too late.

The Saxon steps to the side, and taking advantage of his opponents' misfortune, takes The Justifier in a two hand grip and attempts to plunge it down into the crocodile's snout.

As luck would have it - Yaz' luck for attracting injuries in new and highly entertaining ways, that is - Xavier's blow is right on target, and the Justifier is the perfect weapon for inflicting massive amounts of damage upon such a large creature and the mighty blade hefts deeply into the reptile's huge jaws.

Xavier brings the blade up to defend from the crocodile's counterattack, but instead, the form of the crocodile starts to shimmer a little and then begins to morph into the familiar shape of Yaz, lying prone in the water, with blood streaming from his nose in rivers.

He looks up at the Saxon with his eyes ablaze:

"How'd you like to jam that blade into my gut next, you sword-swingin' lunatic? Take a deep breath and look around, big guy, I ain't the f***in' enemy!"

Xavier face turns a great white shade of pale at the transformation:

"Vhat in Hell!? Mein gott, Oh Rodengast save me, vhat have I f***ing done?! Oh Rodengast forgive me! Oh Rodengast, let der poor fey survive. Damn it to hell!, Oh my, let him not die, I beg thee."

Xavier drops to his knees in the water, his body wracked with guilt.

"Please, forgive me, mein freund, I knew not the form you took. That a man can take the shape of an animal is unknown in the annals of Saxon history. I swear by all that is holy, I knew not that the crocodile vas an ally. My sword only saw a beast of this place of hell who, upon the killing of a ratman, would have turned upon us. This is Rodengast's own truth!"

Yaz frowns at the warrior, regarding Xavier with a tight-lipped expression:

"Let this be a lesson to you," he starts, then looks up and addresses the whole party.

"Don't kill animals without cause! The innocent ones only fight for food or defense -- and their worth is at least that of Civs and humankind. You never know what you might be killing. Could be an Initiate of the Circles of Prirodna, like me... or, worse, a Druid. And the Lady's revenge is...terrible."

Yaz's voice is low at this last. He pauses, then wipes away the flow of blood from his nose with the back of his sleeve. He coughs roughly and sneezes out a greeny/red combination of snot and blood:

"And as if that wasn't bad enough, I think that I just caught something from that f***ing filthy water as well."

Gronk looks on in awe as Yaz returns to his normal form:

"Holy Shit! I ain't never seen nothin' like 'at 'fore."

Bennett took notice of Yaz' transformation and was amazed when Xavier took a hunk out of him, but he holds back his amusement, feeling it inappropriate in this foul place.

Aneira also looked on at Yaz' transformation with astonishment, totally speechless for a moment, but then she notices Yaz' condition:

"I can see to your wounds, if you like," she says coldly. "I can see to your disease too if you need, but it will be the last time that I can cast this spell today."

"Shit," Yaz curses, still sitting cross-legged in the water, "might as well."

He swings his arms uselessly around him:

"If you can close up the hole in the roof of my mouth that'd be nice," he adds, glaring up at the Saxon.

He touches the area with a finger, then winces in pain:

"Don't worry about the disease. I might fall on another f***ing altar or something today..."

Aneira notices that both herself and Will are also quite badly injured after the fight, but does not make any attempt to heal either of them. She instead turns to Yaz:

"Open your mouth," she says without emotion.

Yaz obliges and then Aneira starts to cast. As her hand starts glowing with the power of Zima, she places several of his fingers in the druid's mouth, resting them inside for a moment. Once the healing power has been used up, she removes her fingers:

"I'm sorry, but the power was not that strong. I have but two minor healing spells left now and I would rather save them for the moment in case of a real emergency."

Yaz runs the tip of his tongue over the wound in the roof of his mouth. Not all of the wound has been healed, but there is just a small tear remaining now, as opposed to the gaping hole that resulted from The Justifier's work.

Will lets his blood flow and staunch itself, hopeful that it will wash the filth from the wounds.

Winnacer then returns and looks over towards the crocodile, only to see the badly wounded form of Yaz laying where the LawBringer last saw the crocodile.

When Yaz sees Winnacer come out of the doorway, he gestures with an arm, half-interested:

"There's nothing up there.." he says tiredly, trailing off.

The young Lord puts two and two together, rolls his eyes to the heavens as he sees Xavier trying to apologize to the bleeding druid,

Winnacer's surprise at seeing a bloodied Yaz and an apologetic Xavier causes him to gasp:

"I thought it just was one of Yaz's buddies...named Cae'craken or whatever the elven word for crocodile was," he says to nobody in particular.

Yaz looks at him funny:

"Where the hell'd you learn elf-talk?" he asks, mildly impressed.

The shapeshifting of Yaz brought quite a look of surprise to Faewen'il's features, for those who might have noticed before she managed to throw her mask of neutrality back. She would certainly have to ask him about that at some later date, she thought to herself, for if he could change his shape with his priestly powers, there certainly had to be a way to do it with magic. Granny's powder wore off, but if a person had a spell that did that.. one that didn't wear off....

The LawBringer then turns his attention to the verman, who Bennett and Gronk are standing over, battleaxes in hand, arguing as to which of them should put the vermin out of its misery.

Winnacer solves the argument by walking over to it, where he unceremoniously decapitates the rat. The LawBringer then starts towards the darkness:

"Let us press our advantage while their nerve remains broken!"

As Jihan sees the LawBringer about to stumble through the darkness, the elf stops him:

"Let me go first, Winn," he says to the young Lord. "The darkness makes no difference to my eyes and the two rooms might still be trapped."

Despite wanting to move on as quickly as possible, Winnacer understands the danger of his fumbling around in the dark with the possibility of one of the priests perhaps lurking around the corner ready to cast something and so nods his head in agreement with the elf's suggestion.

Jihan takes to the fore once more and disappears into the darkened area. Will, Yaz and Gronk all watch him in the darkness as he starts makes his way up to the door in the northern wall and checks it carefully for traps. Finding none, he pushes on the door and it opens slowly as a result of the water pressure upon it. As he opens the door, the elf recoils, trying to stop himself from gagging:

"By the Three!" he exclaims. "It STINKS in here!"

Covering his mouth from the stench, he proceeds to look inside the room from the doorway.

"It appears to be empty and I can't see anything dangerous in here, but I could do with some help in order to investigate it properly."

Yaz doesn't help search:

"What in the world are you guys looking for? Let's go get 'em!"

The rest of the party agrees, however, and the demi-humans with infravision lead the humans without through into the room.

As they enter through the doorway, they also smell the same stench that threatened to overcome the elf. As they continue through the edge of the darkness into the room, they can see the reason for the stink, as the whole of the large room, which measures some 50' by 30' is covered in large piles of sticks, twigs and straw stuck together with copious amounts of giant ratman droppings, forming little islands above the filthy water.

Still covering his mouth, Jihan takes his blade and starts to delve through the filthy habitat of the vermen. Very reluctantly, the rest of them assist him in the task, although everyone takes great care not to touch any of the filth. They continue with the task for a little over five minutes without success, their enthusiasm for the task waning quickly the longer that they are amid the stench. They are about to give up the task, when Winnacer feels something metallic while prodding a verman nest with the Ripper. He carefully parts the filth atop it and reveals a large metal box that was covered by the muck.

He hails Jihan and the elf comes over and examines it carefully. Determining that it is not trapped but that the box is locked, he retrieves his lockpicking tools and proceeds to set to work upon the lock. It takes less than a couple of minutes of effort before the lock clicks open and Jihan pulls the lid open. His eyes light up as he sees what is contained inside.

The rest of them peer into the open box and see that it is filled with coins, some gold and slightly more of silver. Jihan spends a while sorting through the coins and then adds up the tally:

"I make it around 329g.p. and 412s.p.," he says with a smile. "So it was worth all that discomfort after all."

"Oh, great, more money," Yaz comments with a sigh. "'Bout the only thing useful that stuff buys is lousy Civ city stash."

The druid pauses:

"Um... You guys gonna split it up or what?"

The room having now been searched quite thoroughly, the elf walks back through the darkness and checks the door on the opposite side. The door, like the previous one, is unlocked. He pushes the door open and sees that the room is identical to the previous one, being of the same dimensions and also filled with vermin filth:

"It's the same as the previous one," he calls out to them all.

Everyone sighs at the thought of having to rummage through more giant ratshit, but reluctantly make their way over to the opposite room, where they find Jihan already at work in rummaging through the filth. As he sees the look of revulsion upon their faces at going through the task once more, he tries to encourage them:

"We made more than 350 gold pieces from the last room. It's got to be worth going through it again for that kind of money."

The majority of them are not so sure of this as the elf, but at least make an attempt to prod through the muck. After more than five minutes of searching, however, they discover that there is nothing of value in the room and so, with great relief, exit the room, returning to the dark corridor.

Fae brought her mind back to the present as the group continued to walk through the muck in search for treasure, never more glad in her life for Sylva's boots. The stench of the two lairs was disgusting to boot and she was only too glad when the darkness was deemed safe to walk through and they could continue on out of this place.

They hear Jihan's voice in amongst them in the darkness:

"Let me follow the corridor until I get through the darkened area and I'll tell you what I see."

They wait around in the cold, wet and dark corridor for a couple of minutes, listening to Jihan's feet sloshing through the water. They then hear them sloshing back towards them and hear his voice once more:

"You might as well all come through the darkened area. There's no one lying in wait for us."

Once more, those with infravision lead the others without through the darkened corridor, guiding them around the corner that turns to the north. After another 20' feet, they find themselves outside the magickally darkened area, into the naturally dark corridor, through which the lanterns held by Winnacer and Faewen'il light up the corridor ahead of them.

From their position, they can see that the corridor continues northwards for another 50' and then a large set of stairs rises out of the water. The staircase, which is made of polished stone, rises for around 30'. At the end of the staircase, they can see lanterns flickering, but can hear no sound.

Winnacer looks towards the stairs and then turns to the rest of the party:

"The effects of Spravedelna's holy Fear will have undoubtedly have worn off by now, and so we can be sure that the servants of Nemotz will be ready for us once more. Shall we carry on up the stairs now, or return and investigate the two doors that we passed earlier on this level, or should we retire for the day so as to repair our wounds and obtain fresh spells for the next encounter?"

"We's gots ta keep on after 'em," Gronk says. "Iffin we takes time ta rest 'at means 'ey be restin' too and gettin' all 'eir nasty-type spells back. I think we be more ready for 'em now than 'em bein' ready for us."

Yaz points at the dwarf, bringing his outstretched finger entirely too close to Gronk's face:

"I'm with him," he says. "Let's go."

Gronk wrinkles his nose as Yaz shoves his finger in his face:

"Get 'at outta me face! You's be smellin' like shit!"

Will steps up beside Gronk and makes ready to accompany him onward.

Winnacer nods in agreement with the sentiments of Gronk, Yaz and Will:

"I also believe that time is essential here. Those that are hurt can take up the rear, but the bulk of the fighting men here are still in good health. Let us strike a bit deeper into their ranks before they also have a chance to replenish their resources, with fresh spells or more of the cursed walking dead."

Will feels hurt and tired, but accompanies Gronk to fill the front ranks.

Bennett only nods, clearly quite sick of the whole place. His typical enthusiasm for combat has diminished tremendously. He follows grimly behind Winnacer's lead.

After getting back into formation, they advance to the end of the corridor and stand at the bottom of the stairs. Yaz takes the scimitar off his belt and readies it in his hand as he follows the burly types down the hall. Winnacer peers at the stairs for signs of rat-prints. There are plenty of them, and it is obvious that all of those which the young Lord feared made their escape up the stairs as each of the steps are covered in ratfoot sized wet footprints.

He turns to Jihan:

"From the fact that the footprints cover every step, it seems obvious to me that the stairs are not trapped. As a result, it is perhaps better if I was to lead, as I think we have more to fear from ambush than traps at this stage."

Jihan simply nods his agreement, knowing that the young Lord is able to take a lot more damage than he is capable of.

Faewen'il inwardly sighs when Winnacer wanted to push onward into the lair of Nemotz... the offensive paladin would simply never learn...

The look of distaste that graces her face says as much.

So as not to give the Nemotz priests and the ratmen any more chance than they have already done in order to regroup, they mount the stairs quickly. Once they are halfway up, they can see a little of the layout of the floor above from their position. They can see that the stairs lead up to a wide corridor leading in an east/west direction, which is lit by a steady light, most probably magickal light, as was the case with the entrance hall to the complex. Opposite the head of the stairs is a huge pair of doors. The doors, which are some 12' tall, seem to be made of bronze and depict scenes of a great mass of cloaked persons all bowed in worship towards a pentagram on the floor in front of them. As they get closer still, they can just hear the sound of two voices chanting from behind the doors.

Not terribly interested in admiring the metalwork at the moment, they continue to stride purposefully up the stairs, with Winnacer in the lead a couple of steps ahead of the rest of the party.

Upon reaching the corridor at the end of the stairs, Winnacer quickly looks left and right.

But not quickly enough.

The rest of them hear an almighty 'WWWOOOOOFFFFF!!!!!' and suddenly see Winnacer disappearing amidst a fireball that emanated from the left hand side of the corridor. The sound of the fireball and the sight of the human fireball is immediately followed by the sound of a lot of high pitched squeaking coming from the same side of the corridor as from where the fireball originated.

The young Lord's platemail offers little protection from the effects of the fire and he shouts out in agony as he is engulfed in flame. The LawBringer throws himself down the stairs away from the source of the flame, sending the rest of the party diving for the sides so that the human torch does not set them alight also. Still screaming out from the effects of being immolated, Winnacer tries to snuff out the flames that are all over his body by rolling down the stairs. However, this is no normal flame and Winnacer seems to have been sprayed with some highly combustible type of resin that is stuck all over him, and his attempts to extinguish the flames seem to be having little effect upon him, as the flames continue to lick all over his body.

Jihan watches Winnacer's screaming, flaming form fly down the stairs, and clutches Pistos and Makanuru with white knuckled hands. It takes a visible effort of will for him to disentangle his arched elven eyebrows from his hairline as he quickly sprints after Winn.

Some of the others try to assist Winnacer in beating out the flames, but their assistance proves to be just as futile as the young Lord's own efforts. Upon realizing that rolling around on the stairs is having no effect upon extinguishing the flames whatsoever, the young Lord picks himself up and starts to charge down the stairs, with the flames lighting up the darkness as if he were a human beacon as he rapidly descends. Eventually, he sees the waterlogged floor beneath him and dives off the stairs into the filthy water as fast as he can. Even underwater, the resinous substance covering him does not go out immediately, but continues to burn for a while, before the flame dies out through lack of oxygen.

Once the last of the flame has been extinguished, the now blackened and singed LawBringer finally picks himself up out of the water and painfully makes his way back up the stairs, limping up as his return is watched by the rest of the party.

Gronk watches Winn's predicament, shocked. His eyes glaze over, one hand unconciously rubs his leg...reliving a memory which had started to fade away.

Winnacer lifts his visor revealing his sooty visage and shakes his head.

"I guess 'Winnacer' must mean 'please incinerate me' in ratman..." the elf says upon finding the young Lord's ordeal has resulted in only an increase in the level of his crispiness.

"Are you all right, brother?" he asks, helping the paladin stand as best he can.

The LawBringer then sneezes, a string of mucous hanging from his nose:

"And it looks as if I've caught the same disease as Yaz has as well."

Aneira says nothing.

Rubbing a finger on the LawBringer's armor, Jihan rolls up a ball of the sticky flammable ooze, sniffing it curiously.

"Interesting..." he mutters, "this could be good on arrows... I wonder how they made it..."

Blinking as he realizes his mind is wandering yet again, the elf turns to listen to Winnacer's status report.

"Vhat der hell vas it dat caused ye such pain, my Lord?" Xavier asks.

Winnacer shakes his head:

"It was some kind of firebreathing contraptions held by one of the rat creatures," he explains. "It looked like a large hose pipe held by one of them, that lead to a large barrel upon the back of another of the creatures stood right behind him. I've never seen anything like it before."

"They are not alone either," he continues. "They are surrounded by more of the ratmen, some of which have halberds, while the others have only shortswords. There must be around 20 of them in total, I would imagine, although I was too busy getting burned half to death to count their numbers with any degree of accuracy."

Gronk comes back to reality when Winn begins speaking about what he saw.

Will looks about the room trying to measure distances:

"Winnacer, what kind of range did the thing seem to have? Was the stream arched when it hit you, and seem to be at the extent of its range? If so how far was that? If the blast seemed to be more directly aimed, then it probably has potential for a distant attack, can you hazard a guess?"

He looks to the LawBringer and speaks more directly:

"What I'm getting at is, could we take out the flame throwers with bows without being blasted with flaming oil?"

"To be quite honest, I wasn't able to pick out those details while being roasted alive, again." Winnacer replies as he wipes some of the soot from where it has adhered to his facial scar. "I was too busy closing my eyes as to not get them burnt out of their sockets."

"Quite understandable, had to be asked though," replies Will.

"However, I can tell you that they were waiting fairly close to the top of the stairs, around ten feet or so away from it, I'd say. I think it would be too close for missile fire, as we could be upon them within just a few seconds of getting up the stairs. However, a few seconds is more than it took them to roast me once and I have a feeling that they could do it again. We really need to try and come up with some way of getting upon them unnoticed, or bypassing them totally. If we just charge them head on, then I'm sure that we'll just get roasted all over again."

Winnacer takes a quick sniff and grimaces as the stench of burnt hair reaches his nose. He shudders from the smell, then quickly sneezes, sending a Yaz sized looger skittering across the water-covered floor.

"Yes," Winnacer continues, thinking aloud. "I don't see how it matters that much. We won't be able to get into archery range without exposing ourselves to the weapon. What I do believe is that it would be best if we could somehow make the barrel explode. I believe that it must be filled with the sticky substance that coated me. One good blast of the fuel and we are likely to get a nice sized explosion. And those rats looked pretty tightly packed in there. Could feasibly take them all out."

Winnacer's eyes fall upon Faewen'il, waiting for any amendments she wishes to make.

Though the LawBringer had been expecting Faewen'il to be engrossed in mirth at his misfortune, he was to be slightly disappointed... though not completely. He could see she had an almost smug look on her face that read something along the lines of 'don't say I didn't warn you'. Although amusement lit her eyes, she at least had the decency to keep it out of her voice when she spoke:

"I donna be havin anythin ta be blowin up tha barrel. Although....." Fae says, slowing her speech at the end as she begins to formulate a plan, her face losing her smug look.

"......Although... I can be turnin meself invisible.... which would allow me ta get within sight o them ta entangle them in a web. Iffen they fire at me, they will be hittin tha web farst.... an we all KNOW what fire be doin ta it." Fae adds in a more somber tone, an unusual cold, calculating glint in her eyes.

"Iffen they be tha ones ta light tha goo, then they might not be lightin it, so one o ye would have ta be ready with a flamin arrow ta ignite tha lot o them... Iffen it be automatic, then they be killin themselves an savin us tha trouble."

Will looks grim:

"Jihan and I can surely supply the flaming arrows."

Winnacer holds up the stub of his sodden torch:

"It would be easy enough to toss one of these into their laps after your work is done. If you are willing, let's give it a try."

Jihan looks towards Faewen'il with concern as she mentions heading off alone against the rat beasts, but stays his tongue until she has finished. His eyes find those of Xavier, and one eyebrow raises slightly, as he hefts a flask of oil of his own.

"We could also squirt a bunch of this down on the floor first from around the corner, letting it run towards them, and then light it up once your casting is done, Fae," the elf says. "That way, even if something goes wrong, they'll still have a wall of flame to worry about. That might even scare them off on its own, if that keg full of fireslime isn't all that well constructed."

Xavier smiles at Jihan's suggestion:

"Yah, dat vill fry the bastards. No more contempt have I ever had for an adversary. They are beyond any rules of warfare as written in holy scriptures of Rodengast. One does not fight devils in honorable combat for fear of damnation in defeat! All means at our disposal must be used to wipe these vermin from the earth. Penance for our sins can be made when the vorld is cleaned of their foul presence"

Winnacer looks a little concerned with Jihan's words:

"We don't want to tip our hand before we act. Spilling enough oil to make an effective firewall will not go unnoticed, and may place Faewen'il at a higher risk, or make them step back and set up their contraption somewhere else. Part of Fae's plan is in the surprise; the rats should be stuck so tight that they can't do much of anything."

"Another thing we could do is turn Jihan invisible, and he could go jam their machine, so when they try to flame us, the thing explodes," suggests Yaz. "D'you think that would work?"

Yaz shakes his head, looking skeptical:

"Nah, the web thing's cool. I just wish I could watch. Give 'er, Maire'!"

"If we are really worried, we can let Fae take a swig of this," the young Lord responds.

Winnacer produces the potion of fire resistance:

'This should take care of the one true danger to her."

Xavier looks towards Faewen'il with some concern in his eyes, which he barely conceals. His protective nature of womenfolk and Faewen'il in particular, has become more and more obvious in recent days:

"Faewen'il, vhat is your thought on this matter? Der risk is yours. I vould happily take your place, but one of my blood is not equipped vith vhat is required. Tell us vhat ve can do to support you. Ve shall be near to help you however ve can."

"Tha potion should be all I need for me parson an someone ta light tha web on fire iffen tha rats donna do it to themselves," Fae replies as she looks to Winnacer for the potion.

"I will drink tha potion, become invisible, sneak up on them an entangle them in tha web. Whoever is goin ta be me back-up far startin tha web on fire needs ta be hidin just at the top o tha stairs. I am sure tha commotion o tha rats will cue ye when yar sarvices will be required, as I ha no plans on standin thar after I cast tha spell."

Faewen'il then turns to Xavier:

"But I will be needin ye ta hold ont me thins whil I am gone. Iffen I do get.... burnt... I donna want any o my books an other thins ta burn as well."

Xavier can tell from the look in her eyes that the thought of being involved this close to flame has her on edge in such a way that he had not seen since she cast the fireball.

The Saxon puts his hand on her shoulder. So that all can hear he says:

"Fear not, mein lady, these books vill be safe vith me"

Leaning closer he whispers to her alone:

"Fear not, mein love. Fear is nothing to be ashamed of. Your heart is strong. Fear not that, if any of those buggers hurt a hair on your head, they vill pay."

Fae then hands Xavier her satchel, cloak, the pouches of spell components from her belt and Horvath's staff, as well as the two remaining Witchfinder rods and Kurtek's wand.

"I should ha done this a while back" she mutters under her breath as she undoes the belt that was holding her dress above the muck. With the deft motions only females seemed to be able to manage, Faewen'il soon has the belt off and the dress over her head.

To the disappointment of a few nameless people, she is full clothed in her black thief's garb underneath.

Xavier bundles Faewen'il's possessions together, wrapping them tightly in a blanket, which he then ties tightly with rope. The bundle he then swings onto his left shoulder.

Fae then re-does her belt and waits for the potion from Winnacer.

Winnacer volunteers himself as the torchbearer:

"Let me have the honor of giving those rat bastards a taste of the flame they are quick to dispense. I'll follow with you, Faewen'il."

His eyes do not look open to compromise.

Winnacer offers up his potion to Faewen'il, who takes a mighty draught from the potion, taking a swig himself once it is handed back.

The LawBringer then looks deeply into Faewen'il's eyes:

"Are you sure that you are really ready to do this?" he asks.

Faewen'il just nods. She then reaches into the pouch of spell components that she gave to Xavier for safe keeping and takes out an eyelash encased in gum arabic and a small bit of spiders' web.

She then begins to chant an ensorcellment, disappearing from view once she finishes the chanting. As Winnacer sees the lass disappear, he lights the torch and then climbs to the top of the stairs, just hiding out of view of the mass of ratmen that he knows to be just to his left, just a little way up the corridor. The rest of the party, meanwhile, stand several paces back down the stairway, not wanting to risk getting too close to the top of the stairs knowing that they have no protection from the flame should anything go wrong.

They all wait nervously, scarcely able to breathe as they await the results of Faewen'il's actions.

Then, everything seems to happen in slow motion.

As they look up from their position a little way up the stairs, they suddenly see the form of Faewen'il appearing in the corridor at the top of the stairs. As she appears before them, they see some strong sticky strands of thick fibers start to spring from her open hands, spraying over the opposite side of the corridor, presumably where the ratmen are lurking.

Immediately that the webs are airborne, Faewen'il hurls herself towards the stairs. As she does so, all of them hear another almighty "WOOOOOFFFFF!!!!" and then see the corridor light up as another jet of flame pours from the left side of the corridor heading towards the diminutive form of the lass. She has nearly reached the safety of the staircase when the flame impacts upon her, but not quite. Although she does not receive the full blast of the fireball that Winnacer did, the right side of her body is splashed by the burning substance, which immediately sets her black clothes on fire.

Despite her drinking Winnacer's potion, those watching can tell that the lass is in agony from the burning solution as she screams out in pain as the solution starts to burn through her clothes and into her flesh. As Fae's worst nightmare comes true, she runs down the stairs as quickly as she can, knowing from Winnacer's experience that water is the only way to extinguish the flames quickly.

As she rushes past the rest of the party, screaming in agony from the burning solution, the rest of the party all cry out in alarm and start to run after the lass, hoping to try and give her some relief from the agony. With the majority encumbered by armor, Faewen'il streaks ahead of them heading for the water.

A split-second after hearing the "WOOOOFFFFFFF!!!" of the flame-thrower, their eardrums are nearly burst by the sound of an almighty explosion and their eyes are seared by an incredibly bright light as the flame-thrower explodes dramatically, showering the contents within a wide radius of the ratmen's position, sending the whole of the corridor in front of them alight from the burning solution. All of the party can hear agonized squeaking from the ratmen as they are incinerated by the solution.

Winnacer immediately started down the stairs at hearing the explosion and managed to descend a few steps before the burning, white-hot solution exploded throughout the area. Even so, a few splashes from the solution still manage to catch him, setting him alight once more, although to nowhere near the same extent as it did the previous time. Despite the protection from the potion, the experience of being roasted once again still hurts like hell and Winnacer starts to dash down the stairs once more in order to take another quick bath in order to try and extinguish the flames as quickly as possible.

Gronk watches Fae and Winn head towards the water with concern.

Faewen'il descends the stairs in record time and hurls herself into the shallow waters of the corridor below. She rolls around in the filthy water, still screaming in agony from the burning solution which has now burned through much of her clothes and is charring her flesh. The rest of the party charge after her and catch up with her quickly, but have no idea as to what they can do to help her in her agonizing predicament. As she thrashes around in the water from the pain, the flames are finally extinguished, but as they die down, they see Faewen'il's body go limp.

Winnacer hits the water just a few seconds after Faewen'il did, forcing all those crowded around the magess to hit the side of the corridor in order to allow him access. Winnacer thrashes around in the water once again, even though there are just a few splashes of the solution stuck to his armor. At around the same time that Faewen'il's flames are extinguished, those upon Winnacer are too.

Immediately that Winnacer's flames die out, he stands up, grimacing with pain, but still far from being down for the count. Shrugging off the pain as best he can, he turns his attention to Faewen'il, anxious as to her well-being.

Faewen'il is still not moving, however. As the menfolk start to get agitated and scream and shout in alarm, Aneira simply kneels in the filthy water next to Faewen'il and starts to cast. As she chants the familiar words of the healing spell, her hand begins to glow with a bluish-white energy, which she places upon the charred area of Faewen'il's body. The results of the healing spell are very weak, however.

Aneira looks at the still unconscious and badly burned body of the lass next to her with alarm, her ice-cool expression breaking into one of genuine concern. She immediately starts another of the enchantments, beseeching Zima for the power to stop Faewen'il from drifting into eternal slumber.

From the results, it is obvious that Zima was listening to her prayers, as Aneira's hand glows brighter than ever before as she lays it once again upon Faewen'il's torso. The bluish-white energy spreads from Aneira's hands over the magess' terribly burned body and has a noticeable effect upon the state of Faewen'il's injuries, soothing the charred areas. As the light finally subsides, Faewen'il's eyes finally open wide in shock.

After listening to the ratmen squeal for a few moments, Gronk proceeds up the stairs to the position Winn had held a few moments ago and peeks around the corner to see if an immediate threat remains.

Meanwhile, even though her eyes are open, Fae still lays there motionless staring at the ceiling, utter fear in her eyes. Not even the stench of the disease-ridden water, which she had avoided up to this point, seems to phase her.

Winnacer looks down at Faewen'il, his face full of worry and concern for the broiled magess. His own burns and pains fall distant to him as he starts to move closer to provide her comfort.

With one quick step, he catches himself. The area around the magess is mobbed with others also concerned, and Winnacer decides not to muscle in between Jihan, Xavier, and Aneira. With a frown and a head bow, Winnacer turns around and draws the Ripper, heading back up the stairs to scout out what damage they have wrought and to protect the vulnerable party from a counter-offensive while they are gathered around the supine Faewen'il.