Ire6"
What? No... no, you are scaring me! You speak without body, only voices bouncing in my head ..."
4"
The stairs? There are no stairs. I don't see any stairs. Do you see stairs?"
The man laughs quietly.
1"
Why am I armed? To protect myself from disembodied spirits, of course." The man laughs again, a strange laughter that bubbles out of him, shaking his shoulders mirthfully though his face is still on the calm side. His grip tightens on the sword, though.
"
Are you spirits too? I can kill you, you know. This sword can cut through souls . . ."
+6 Diplomacy.
Azastre looks around for Sandra.
6 She's standing right beside him, staring at the man disbelievingly. Her jaw is slack, and her swords hand calmly on her belt. It may be just Azastre, but the black one glitters.
He turns to find the stairs, but they are gone. Seeing Azastre, the man says,
"
Oh, you might enter freely, spirit, but you aren't leaving easily."
He chuckles, but again loosens and tightens his grip on the big sword he has.
Kahn looks around, heart sinking at "Zalgo"'s words, and indeed sees nothing that might be a staircase.
Ace asks.
"Zalgo" ponders a bit, then says hesitantly, "
I think ... I think I've been here... I don't know. I've always had my spirit sword, though." Shaking his head, he stares at Ace with empty eyes.
Jack looks around. He sees his party members, the unidentified man in the middle with the human-length sword, the various splintered sticks of white material scattered around the room and rooted in the ground at angles, and the disturbing lack of stairs, including the one he just came up. A pale chandelier blinks abovehead, with swirling flames with no source.
Rod 4 discovers that the long shards of material are actually some sort of crystal. The reason they are solid-colored, though, is because
4 there are faint images of faces impressed inside the crystal, white and ill-defined but recognizable as human. They all seem to be shrieking in agony, mouths wide open and with shadowed eyes.
Arianna pays 256 gold coins for the +9 rusty dented sword. The man nods and smiles and drywashes his hands as Arianna counts out all two hundred fifty six coins, and practically shoos her off.
The sword is made of
1 SWORD_MAT_5_SILVERY.
To clarify, she has no idea.
Iron bars are five golden Tower marks a bar. Three bars for a piece of armor.
Iron bars tend to be stronger than other materials such as gold or silver, even on the same rolls. Steel is even better.
Upon inquiry, Arianna finds that unpolished sapphires can be found in blocks, often imperfect, with faults, smudges, impurities, and the gamut of conditions that could ail stone or gem. The price is the same as for spherical ones, except that the diameter is counted as the longest diameter you can measure from edge to edge on a right angle.
((Clarification of appearance:
"Zalgo" has skin. He's not a skeleton. He's just severely emaciated. refer to
this. To be exact, I suppose he has -some- muscle visible.
Also, must create nightmare fuel.
2 Aw man.))