Merlara stands on the edge of the stone floor, water around her ankles. Her eyes closed, she concentrates her will to a single point in her mind. She opens her eyes, they blur for a moment and she can feel the sparks emanating from her fingertips. She draws her arm back as a bright red bolt appears in her hand and she hurls it at the mound of flesh creeping towards her companions. The bolt strikes the creature and its flesh begins to smoke and sizzle.
Marten, drawing back his bow to fire another arrow, is momentarily distracted by the smell of the creature burning. He thinks "..smells like roast boar.. weird.." and then snaps out of it as he recalls the gravity of the situation he's in.
His vision, due to the distance from his target, is somewhat blurred. But the huge mound of flesh creeping steadily forward in the water before him was a large enough target that he knew his arrow couldn't miss. He released his fingers and the arrow sped forward narrowly missing Nectar. It sank straight into the creature's sizzling flesh all the way to the fletching and made a sort of splorch noise that is difficult to describe in words but you'd know it if you heard it.
Meanwhile, Arbane and Lyra, accustomed to being in the heat of battle, are bashing the mound to hell and back. Lyra, in a furious rage, screams in a language you're not even sure SHE knows she knows and repeatedly plunges her axe into the creature. Ulric also hammers away on the pile with his longsword slicing into its flesh like a christmas ham. He makes sure to keep a bit of distance between himself and Lyra because she gets scary when she's like this and he knows it.
Lyra, thriving in the heat of battle feels a familiar theatrical urge manifest itself in her mind as she shouts "WATCH THIS" and leaps into the air intending to bring her greataxe down upon the abomination. However as she leaps, the mound shoots out an appendage from its body and knocks Lyra out of the air. Winded, she topples to the ground when another appendage shoots out and smacks her again. Lyra is incapacitated and the mound moves forward to engulf her like it has so many before.
Stacy and Nectar scream in unison at the sight of this and Nectar smacks even more furiously at the creature with her stick. Nectar: "WHEN IS IT GONNA DIIIE??" Stacy: "SOON. SOON? SOON?! PLEASE??" as she plunges her battleaxe into the monstrosity before her. Both are trying as hard as they can to avert their eyes from the mound.
Stak meanwhile absentmindedly meanders around the stone dais with his leather bag of herbs tending to various wounds. He squints back at Marten to see if he might need any healing and completely misses Lyra being engulfed. Seeing no healing is needed, he chuckles to himself and pulls out his shiny new sword. With a youthful glint in his eye he shuffles over to the creature and with some effort raises the sword and sticks it into the mound. Stak: "Heh heh. Take that." He is immediately winded by this action but feels truly invigorated because of it.
Inside the flesh mound, Lyra awakens and sees before her a horrible sight. What appears to be a.. or at least at one point was.. a humanoid baby. The screams emanating from the flesh mound are in fact those of this deformed creature amplified through holes in the outer flesh hull of the mound. Seeing this tortured being before her, she feels a pang of sorrow as she realizes what has to be done to put an end to the last remnant of this failed cult.
The flesh mound's movement ceases.
The shrieks coming from the creature stop and only the sounds of sloshing water reverberating off the stone roof remain in its stead.
Ulric wades over to the mound, furrows his brow, reaches in and feels around for Lyra's arm. He smiles briefly as he grabs her arm and helps her struggle out casting healing magic on her in the process. She steps onto the stone dais, theatrical fervor now completely gone, and walks slowly away from the now defeated being behind her.
