Session 3

The tiredness of the workload take it toll on the crew and the sleeps takes over them all. The night of forest hold it own danger, yet another threat is approaching the team, silently. There's another team from different guild was sent to their location, to the Entourage very destination, but different task. The other mercenary sneak up on them. A cold blade sweeps through the night aiming at the giant Alistair. Vzzzzt. The blade hits its mark and wakes up the Goliath. One other mercenary made his move against Valar. His scimitar also finds it target. A slash across the back side of Valar, waking him up. But they leave the kid Yuldra as he shown such vulnerability that they decided he was not a threat. There is one going for Jisnu as well. But years of battle has honed Jisnu senses. Still deep in his sleep, Jisnu dodges the stab. He takes out his rapier and makes his move against the attacker. Further away, There's also a kid coming toward the group. But smelling something wrong, he approaches discreetly. Or so he thinks. As he's crawling under some bushes cover, an arrow flew right at him. Flrgh. The arrow embed in his shoulder. He quickly turns up to find the source, yet can not define where it is through all this darkness. So he sent his familiar cat to go for the search. And the cat vanishes into the shroud. Back to the Entourage situation. Without their weapons, Alistair growls, turns himself into bear-man beast and swings his claw at the nearby foes. His frenzy overwhelm his opponent as he makes a quick work off him. Two slash from the giant beast push back the attacker. On Valar side, without weapon, Valar chose to snatch the kid sleep right next to him away from harm. But doing so, he expose his back toward the attackers. And they takes their chance, taking down as much as they can when they can. Two scimitar slash at Valar's back and go through his armor. So fell the first of the Entourage. Waking up by the noise, Yuldra spring himself up. His hand has no longer in bound due to the quick reflex of Valar leting them loose. Seeing his companion lying right next to him, Yuldra throw a flurries of blow at the attacker. His punches break the mercenary. And he follow it with an one-inch punch, finish the opponent with a whole on the chest and a blast of blood on the back. Alistair pounces toward the backing up foe. Using his claw like a drill, he dig into his arm into the guy chest, breaks it open. and snap the backbone right out of his lifeless corpse. Jisnu has also finish his attacker with multiple thrust hole on the dead body. The hidden archer fires another arrow at the kid on the further back. This arrow also punch a hole on the kid. Angrily, the kid tried to throw a magic ball at the archer. But his sight's limited by the darkness, so he has to wait the attacker to shoot again to find his/her location. Crack. The arrow was pulled, but snap right at the moment the archer let it fly. The team hearing the noise in the bush, decides to clear out the remaining threat. The archer seeing too many foes come towards her and other comrades has fallen, run away into the forest. Without original target, the newcomer kid fire the magic ball at the team. It turns out to be a sleep gas ball. And the team once again fall to sleep.

In the meantime, Valar has return to consciousness, just to see all his companion has fallen and something is coming toward them. So he tries to wake the others up for a fight. Luckily, it was a light dose so they was easily waken up. In the dizziness, Jisnu just happens to recognize to kid, he come from the Gullin guild. He call for the boy, preventing any further unnecessary bloodshed. He introduce the gang and they start to share stories recap for each other party. The newcomer is a Gullin Guild's junior officer named Kai. But a tremor reach them, showing such a danger that all of them see this at warning. So they pack up and leave. And the kids try to show the way. Well, they are just kids, so all they do is climbing on the other back and look around but more a game than a serious searching really. While the children're having their fun, Alistair lifts Valar up for a higher point of view. With his dark vision, Valar manages to find the team a cave for safely regrouping. So they quickly retreat to said cave. The night was still upon them, so rest they must take. They then divided their plan of guard shift, this time two at a time so that, none shift would fall asleep and making the team exposed. So past the time, quite quietly.

During the night shift, some of the afterquake waved at them. But as weak as they were as the team has already out of the reach of the original quake, non of the guard shift sense the danger waiting for them. The light of the next morning shone upon them. They packed their camp to come back to finish the job. The night was done, the fight however still left it's marks on Kai and Valar as they found one of their limbs numb but still able to walk. The gang returned to the warehouse and went in. They came right to the room where they found the pool. After a carefully investigation. they team came to a conclusion that the pool which had been seen to be bigger, now just a small hole but deep in to the ground was a part of a ceremonial carving. Kai even climbed down the pit for further inspection but to no avail. The team then decided to follow the only other clue that connected to the pit, a narrow but deep trench literally connecting the pool to another hall. They walked into that said hall. The hall was spaciously gigantic, as if it was carved out to be a temple inside the earth, just like those tunnel of the dwaf. But so dark that only the dark vision of Valar was able to barely identified things in it. So they took out the torches. Kai snapped and a magical hand appeared to carry his. Valar tried to light up the room by torches around the room so that all of them can see better in this darkness. On contrary to the adventurous fellow, Jisnu kept dragging the dead body out to cleanse the tunnel before. Now lit, the hall holds so much information that the team can discover. Yet none of them could figure out what it really was. On the great hall's floor, there were the same narrow trenches carved into the ground. They formed lines, which create a symbol of some kind of conjuration ritual. And at the very center of the room, a tall pedestal lacks of something on the top of it to form a ritual altar. The pedestal however has a strange appearance. It looked like it's made out of viscera gummed up with muscle and patches made of skins. The team approached the pedestal carefully so that they could have more than just a fight option. Valar took out his dagger and curiously cut out a piece of the pedestal to see what it really made off. But this aberration seemed to out of his knowledge. Kai, however may have known something due to his time working for the Gullin. He cut his hand and drop a single drop of his blood on the the pedestal. That drop of blood stopped at halfway down like gravity simply stopped affecting it out in the air. The drop then twisted, reshape into may form, then expand into a thin crimson layer of liquid. Afterward, it curled inward into an orb and crystallize itself into a small blood pearl like a spec of sand but seeable by normal eyes and drop down. Valar quickly snatched it before it touched the floor. But he felt a pain in his hand, every tendon on his arm rose like roots of trees grow on the ground. Then to the team's surprised witnesses, Valar's blood was drain of him into the very blood crystal. Valar fell to his knee. Yuldra quickly pull him out of the tiny orb. The transfusion stopped right as Valar's hand release the crystal out of his grasp. Sensing the danger out of this tiny orb, Alistair swung his greatsword, tried to smash it. The crystal didn't break, not even a scratch. So the members took their turn with their weapon to make attempts to break it. While they were doing so, a cold discreetly crawled upon Alistair and Yuldra's spines. Sqssh. A torch in a corner suddenly went out. Valar went toward it to lit it back up, just to see the gasly figures that attacked them earlier. This time, a whole bunch of them're swarming up to the gang.

In order not to let the crystal to fall into these creatures's hand, or maybe lost on the retreat, Kai ordered his magical hand to drop the torch and scoop the crystal and ran back. The crystal did not have any effect though. It seemed like to only have effect on people's touches. Some of the vapor creatures blocked his way thou. So fight it was. Alistair growled, let out his fierce battle cry. Valar roared too, called out for Jisnu. And so he came to the rescue. Those creatures did not show any interest in harming the gang but more to catch up to Kai. Maybe they wanted the crystal. Alistair drawn the first blood. His claw swiped at the creature but went all the way through it just like last time. So he swiped it harder, tried to make a shock wave with his hand. The sock wave surprisingly evaporated the target. So they learned the way to dispatch these figures, the same way people do with smoke. Valar took his wing at the nearby creature, then quickly turn his axe horizontally and spun it like a windmill. and another gasly creature was gone. Jisnu held his own very well too. He swung his trusty rapier in a very fast and rapid manner to fan the creature back into thin air. Yuldra raised his staff, ready to swing it but seeing a creature tried to back stab Kai, rushed to his aid. He jumped and swing his bo staff down, erased a potion of that attacker. That vapor then turned to Yuldra and attacked him. Yuldra dodged but not quick enough, he took a hit. Kai, after made his way as far as he could be, turned his face back for the fight. As he tried to fire a spell at ones, he lost his concentration and the magic hand disappeared, dropping the crystal in the process. Yuldra quicly snatched it before the vapor creatures could. The crystal this time did not drain Yuldra, but give him strength, some kinds of giving back the life force it has taken. Yuldra wonder if this is how this thing works. It takes and it gives? Only one way to find out. So Yuldra rushed to Kai, secretly pressed the stone on his back. And the stone did what it does, it drained Kai, leaving a tiny mark where the blood came out. The exhaustion from the draining put Kai on his back. Kai fell. In luck, a nearby vapor thing quickly pick the stone from the fallen Kai. Life force came back to it. What a sign to see. Organs started to grow back on the creature inside, then muscle, then tendon and skin, then it disappeared. Like a soul just find his peace by having his body back and turns to the afterlife. So it was clear. This stone like a container of life force, draining and giving. Those creatures was wraiths, angry souls trapped in this underground tunnel tried to get a body to move on to the afterlife. Back to the present, the creature's gone, it dropped the stone back down. Yuldra took off his jacket and covered around the stone so as not to touch it again. Alistair growled again and ran toward the last one of the wraith, which now put all effort to get to the crystal. He quickly dispatched it, given that they now know how to deal with these wraiths.

The heat of battle has cooled down a bit as all present danger has been eliminated. Now, the only problem is to bring Kai's consciousness back. Yuldra's quick thinking put him on a task. He opened the jacket covering the crystal. He grasp the stone, sacrifice a part of his life force for his comrade. Seeing this unnecessary deed of Yuldra, Valar just sign and muster:"Hey kid, I could simply heal him, you know!!". No matter, as long as all of the Entourages was now on their feet, strong and well, almost.

Their second encounter with these creatures has ended but the mystery under the mound is yet to be discovered.