Recudor: Southern District

"Ya dun wanna reveal all your cards like that Jericho, people might get the wrong idea..." Richard mentions as Jericho starts charging his spell, though he's not talking about the spell in particular. He notes Sharpe beginning to position himself as well as the tension becomes palpable within the room, coming to a head as the priest grabs 'Aura' by the wrist. RD doesn't make a move when he does this though, much more interested in how she would react when threatened, but her quick turn and cold stare seems to be more than enough to make the man of the cloth re-think his actions.

The man's facade finally shatters at this point, begging for forgiveness from the group for actions they have yet to discover. RD sighs,  relaxing his guard a bit  and taking a few steps back up the stairs as he mutters "... Here we go..." he rolls his eyes in irritation at the apparent corruption of this 'holy' place.  Aura steps past him, towards the crypt door as he continues, speaking towards the 'priest's' back as he tries to reason with Point-Man. "... At the very least I can promise i won't hurt ya as long as you cooperate in our investig-"

The man yelps much audible denial of 'something' and makes a break for the exit to the church as the taste and tang of necromantic magic begins to waft throughout the room. "Shit!" Richard dashes back up the two or three steps he had descended nearly knocking Atrium and Aura over as he moves past them to reach the door before the 'priest', covering the distance in almost a few strides. Hoping to not only catch the man, but making sure the door was still a viable exit. He yells  "If you wanna continue breathing, get down behind a pew, now!" RD wraps some of his cape around his face to avert the smell and unsheathes Rock Cleaver, in preparation for the worst.



  Love this BTW~

The small amount of smoke that had being coming off of Jericho stops. He is very happy to feel the last of the holy energy fad away. He ignores the 'priest', he knows that he is going to get nothing out of him. He then starts to feel the presence of necromantic magic. The smell is something he could deal with, he just wished there was no tasted. Feeling disgusted, Jericho lets RD do whatever he wants to do with the 'priest' and instead walks down until he reaches the door. He makes sure that Aura is behind him before he starts to slowly open it.

Jericho tries to open the crypt door in the basement, but finds that it is locked.

Upstairs, the priest continues to run for a moment after hearing RD shout but stumbles briefly before deciding to give in and throw himself dramatically between the benches.
RD tries the door- it still opens just fine- and peeks outside. There are many people walking outside, oblivious to anything that happened inside of the church, either running errands or trying to get to some location or another. It's impossible to spot any odd man out. Save for the disruptive swordsman and this new mercenary who supposedly took down the white claw casually making their way out of the city, whilst holding a conversation.

It is at this point that there is a huge spike in the malevolent power within the church, and there is a loud, strong, banging on the crypt door, as if someone or something were trying to break out.

Sharpe sniffs at the air and balks at the now-evident scent of corruption and taint.

"Feth me, why's it gotta be that odor?" He remarks, unsheathing his sword and pulling out the protaction pistol, and running over to Jericho, were a rapping upon the crypt door seems to be emanating from. He turns his attention to Jericho and Aura for a moment.

"On your guard, be ready to fight with light. Got anything of the sort, Aura?"

He looks over at Rich and yells to him.

"See anything out there or are we getting flanked?"

Just to make sure, Sharpe turns and looks in a full circle around the church for any movement in the alcoves.

A sudden crack sends small splinters flying, as the door dents towards the three in the cramped hallway but doesn't quite give way. Another crash against it knocks out a small portion of the door, in the darkness of which a single glowing green eye is visible. Jericho is the first to notice the similarity between the color and glimmer of the eye and the ones of the dolls fought beforehand, though whatever looms behind the door definately seems bigger. Yet another crash nearly throws the door off its hinges, cracking it to the point of near breaking, and loosening some of the stones in the wall. A wet dripping can be heard from beyond the door alongside the distorted grunting and crying of whatever creature is trying to break free in rage.

Aura, seemingly ignoring Jericho and Sharpe, simply cocks her head, staring in curiosity at the intense eyes beyond the door almost as if she recognizes them in some way.

Richard glances outside carefully, anticipating attack. He honestly expected the exits to be blocked or otherwise inaccessible, so being able to actually open the door came as a bit of a surprise and left him wary. Outside, life continues normally, oblivious to the chaos ensuing within the 'church', if it could even be called such a place anymore.

A certain loudmouth swordsman and the so-called 'Slayer of White-Claw' catch his eye as they appear to be leaving the city in concert, but their overall lackadaisical mannerisms as they carried on their conversation suggested innocence in concern to the group's current situation. He closed the door and whirled back 'round to a massive spike in the wicked energy permeating the walls of the building and an audible, consistent slamming coming from the direction of the crypt.

RD calmly steps towards the 'priest' and hands him the keyboard saying, "If you don't mind, i think i'll be needing both hands to deal with this rather violent disturbance we seem to have on our hands." Hearing Point-Man call him out, Richard answers in kind as he approaches the end of the hallway, "Nothing to report, our only threat seems to be before us..." He says as he points to the door, quickly losing its integrity. "... If i were ya'll though, i wouldn't want to fight something like that in a hall way. I'd want a bit of... elbow room so to speak."

Realistically speaking, whatever beast was about to come through was at least physically sound and more than likely, big. While they would be right in assuming such a creature would be quite fierce in close combat, it would have to come down the halls to confront them. Meaning it would be near impossible for it to dodge focused attacks in such a small area; the group would be able to tear it to shreds before it ever reached the end of the hall, with a decent plan.

Taking a few steps back into the sanctuary of the church, not only to give the group a bit of maneuverability, but to attain the very same 'elbow room' he had spoken of moments before; RD begins to charge his weapon with with his own blazing energy in anticipation of the creature's imminent charge.

Wanting to take action before that thing bursts through the wall Jericho instead finds himself hesitating for some unknown reason. The hidden creature is both fascinating and terrifying to the point where Jericho is rooted still with curiosity.

Sharpe aims his revolver at the door, watching it intently to see if the beast is immediately hostile towards them or maybe will attempt to escape. More than likely the former will occur. He taps Jericho's shoulder and starts backpedaling.

"Jericho, snap out of it or you're going to get mulched." He says as he moves back to join RD's side.

"Aura, unless you're gonna do something I'd suggest you'd get clear."

Having never taken his aim off the door, he glances to RD.

"Big, nasty, sounds like something akin to a bear. Melee without a doubt." You keep it occupied while we take potshots from range? Your sword should be fine to parry with."

Finally the door gives in under the huge weight of the creature behind it, breaking appart at the middle before being pulled off the hinges entirely. The foul stench of animated dead flesh is almost overwhelming and the creature stumbles into the hallway. It's another Doll, or at least it used to be. Instead it is now overgrown with synthetic flesh and hard sharp scales all over its body. What used to be the Doll's limbs are now spiked metal blades, held together by whatever tissue is caked all over the creature, which it uses in a clunky manner to steady itself on all fours. It's intense green eyes inlaid to a permanently contorted face dart all along the hallway, from person to person. It almost seems like the Doll is confused or terrified, but it doesn't take long for it to start charging down the hallway, slipping and lunging occasionally with it's awkward but deadly limbs.

Whilst not clearly understanding the danger, Aura hurries up the stairs in order to get out of the way, and Jericho instinctively steps back to the stairs.

Jericho, rather surprised at what he sees, takes the few moments giving to him to analyze what is going on. As he is thinking, it feels as though time itself has slowed down. In front of him is yet another doll, but it is reeking of necromantic magic. Yes this doll has sharp claws and now sharp blades for limbs, there is something wrong. Jericho looks the monster in the eyes, they are not blank like the dolls that had attacked them the night before but nor are they the eyes of a savage killer or filled with anger or hatred. They are the eyes of someone who is  in pain. someone who is not where they belong and thinks that it is in danger. He nods to himself, knowing what he has to do.

Jericho snaps out of his thoughts, turns and runs up the steps. At the top he sees Sharpe pointing his darn gun at where the doll is going to come up from. He uses the energy he had charged to quickly fire a small concussive at the gun, knocking it out of his hand.

"Listen to me! That may look like a monster, but it is a human soul trapped inside a body it is not used to! It is not after blood, it is scared! we need to think of a way to subdue it without harming or killing it! The poor soul is in enough pain!"

As Jericho is explaining this, he is trying to focus to use another spell...but he can't.

"No! N-Not now!!" He yells in an angry voice.

No matter how much he tries, he can't tap into his energy pool.

Sharpe gives Jericho a look of annoyance, but that is the least of his problems. As the beast comes charging down the hallway, Sharpe darts to his pistol and picks it up, then running back up the stairs.

"You know if something comes roaring at me, it typically has the intent to pound me into pulp! We need to give it some room at least. You wanna try talking it down be my guest but the moment this thing tries to kill someone, we might have to put it down!" He yells down at Jericho. He scrambles out of the hall and gets clear of the opening in the ground, kneeling next to wherever RD got off to.

"He's gonna try and get it to see reason, thinks its just in pain." He says to the man.

The massive doll crashes into the small hallway, just barely big enough to get inside. It struggles to fit through, occasionally slipping on its sharp limbs as it scrambles through the hallway. Bit by bit it lunges closer to Jericho, taking mad swipes at his general direction as it creeps closer, it's intense eyes speaking of agony. Jericho instinctively backs up far enough to keep out of range of the creature and he feels himself with the stairs at his back, the sudden pain and intense loss of focus slowly taking over.

From the top of the stairs, all RD and Sharpe can hear are the painful grunts of Jericho alongside the sharp clinging of blades against the tight corridor walls. Soon enough the ground shakes subtly followed by the slightly distorted yell that slowly turns into a beastly roar.



Confusion takes over as Jericho feels himself drift away. His blurred vision is like staring through a hallway filled with dirty water. The shape of the rampaging creature before him: nothing more than a blur. It feels like being locked away behind a glass wall, forced to watch someone, something, that isn't himself. A sensation he never really feels whenever the moons power subsides and Doc shuts him away.


He suddenly finds himself in control again, his hands- no, silver furred talons- interlocked with the corrupted dolls limbs, struggling but slowly pushing it further as it has no way of sustaining itself against his sudden physical power. It's a rush, some new found energy Jericho had never felt before. The ability to overwhelm anything. So much so that he can almost feels himself slowly slipping into a frenzy. With a sudden roar the now turned fairy Jericho presses up against the doll, surely shoving it back into the dark room beyond. As the ceiling expands into the room the doll stands up finally, a good bit bigger than Jericho, but looses its balance and falls on its back.

It scrambles, screeching and flailing its dangerous limbs about in hopes of hurting whatever it is that suddenly overwhelmed it, and eventually rolls back on its side, awkwardly getting up and charging Jericho.

Richard hears Point-man, but continues to focus on charging his blade, slowly forcing more and more energy into it, to the best of his ability, until the blade glows radiantly. Satisfied, he relaxes somewhat before the the door finally gives, causing him to realign his focus to the threat currently emerging from below. He hears something coming up the steps and readies himself, but noting the sound of paced steps over the din of whatever emerged from the crypt entrance, he allows Aura (soon followed by Sharpe) by.

RD senses, rather than watches, Point-man take position beside him after yelling his point of view down to what Richard assumes is Jericho, Richard himself never taking his eyes off the staircase. Sharpe explains what their comrade's plan is, to which RD shakes his head in minor annoyance figuring subduing the creature would be harder, but not impossible among the three or four of them. He attempts not to think past this course of action, as not to distract himself from the oncoming threat.

Richard hears more crashing, which he assumes is the creature thrashing through the slim hallway attempting to make its way to the stair case that Jericho should now be climbing...

Not Groaning in pain at the bottom of them.

RD's eyes widen as he begins to rush forward, but feeling the floorboard slightly shift underfoot, he slows for a moment to regain his footing-

A scream, that slowly distorts and echoes throughout the building as a beastly roar makes his blood run cold.

Richard considers for a moment, stopped dead in his tracks as pure primal instinct warns him that heading down at that very moment was akin to death. He takes a step forward as a thought pricks the back of his mind. Another as his mind fully reaffirms it. He inhales before he begins his sprint anew and locks in the courage he needs at that moment by yelling his thought aloud: "Shit! I'm going to help that fool! Aura watch the old man! Sharpe, your call!"  The latter of that outburst merely added in passing, as he tries to keep a steady grasp on rational thought.

RD leaps down the stairs, but only catches the back of a huge white beast pushing something further down the hall, something that seemed to lack what anybody would call 'traditional' or 'conventional' limbs. His sight of the white beast causes Richard's mind to roll back to a similar instance earlier in which Atrium was losing control but showed less severe symptoms... Which automatically linked him to an understanding of the current situation. "The Fairy... The bite... A curse, caused by infection..." He mutters under the cape shielding him from the brunt of the now stifling stench of rotting flesh.

RD continues his dash after that pause, Feeling a familiar feeling welling up as he follows the bestial pair into the next room, a feeling he is well acquainted with but wants to deny at the moment. A feeling he should be at odds with, but allows to fuel him and hone his senses to the sharpest he can possibly muster; One that shares a symbiotic relationship with him, stripping him of his common sense but allowing him to overcome his greatest challenges. As he watches what he he's sure can only be referred to as a 'Sin' charge the great beast before him that currently occupies his old friend's body, this feeling slowly creeps its way across Richard's features.

Some may call it 'terror' but in RD's case, it was something FAR more dangerous.

Sharpe gets up from his kneel and watches RD sprint forth, his vision panning to include everything about the fight - including Jericho who has fallen prey to Doc's secret, the fairy within.

"Well shit." He curses to himself. He looks down at his pistol in his hand, and then looks back up to the beast. Doesn't seem like Jericho's in a position to protest his usage, though he'll try and keep it on the low. He smirks and unsheathes his sword, and runs to the flank the creature so he can get a good side view of it's face. Knowing what they do though, he'll need to be careful with his shot placement, as the adversaries of the dead and shadowed nature tended to have their days ruined by anything relating to light or fire. Sharpe will have to wait for the appropriate time to distract the creature, or attempt to intimidate it.

Jericho is doing his best to focus but his mind is spinning. For his entire life, he has used his magic to defeat his enemies but now he cant. He needs to use his new strength in order to defeat this monster. He watches the doll fight to get up from the ground. The doll charges at him and he is easily able to get out of its way. As the doll passes him, Jericho tackles the side of it so it gets knocked down.

Jericho then hears RD come charging into the room. He is unsure if the man is going to help subdue the suffering doll or will he just out right kill it? He can see that RD's massive blade is glowing, not a good sign but he could of done that before Jericho asked for them to no kill it. He then sees Sharpe enter the room, and he sees that the man has his gun again. At first he is angry, but he then smirks....or smirks the best he can in he new changed look. He may be a beast, but he still has his brain.

"Sharpe! Shoot the gun in the air! Get its attention!" He then turns to RD "Use your sword and brake the things bladed limbs!"

As he speaks, Jericho slowly can hear that he isn't speaking in any human tongue. He knows what he is saying, but he can hear that it just sounds like growls and grunts.

"Crap...This has just gotten a lot harder for me. How am I going to get them to do as I say if they can't understand me..."

Jericho then turn and sees that the doll has already gotten up and has seen that it is out numbered. He can see that it is thinking, but what will it do?

The corrupt doll spins back and forth hastily, trying to distinguish its foes and get a sense of its environment. Failing to do so it falls back into a frenzy and immediately charges at the first thing it sees; Jericho. It's clear at this point that it doesn't seem to understand the concept of getting smashed into the ground or flung against walls. External pain seems to be foreign to it.

With another screech it flings itself onto Jericho who, albeit prepared, seems to lose his balance under the sheer weight of the figure sending them both crashing further into the dark room.

There is a brief crash as some glass seems to shatter, creating a sudden violent outburst of fumes, gasses, and conveniently lighting all the torches in the room, as well as singe some of jericho's furr, with the well of heat that quickly passes through the room. Fortunately this also eases some of the disgusting smell, albeit the taste of it still lingers strongly.

The room itself is nothing like a catacomb at all, seemingly being remodeled into an alchemy den. There are some broken chains on one of the walls, and plenty of potions and pots and random mcguffins.

The doll, now fully visible and caked in hard scales and growths, scrambles to get away from Jericho while furiously taking stabs at him that he manages to barely avoid while on the ground.

RD Watches the movements of the corrupted doll, frantic, panicked. Movements with no other motive behind moving away getting away from the battle and conflict. He cocks his head in a bit of confusion, mildly unsatisfied with the lack of fight in the creature, and honestly a bit unmotivated by it. He gives the varied limbs of the creature another once over, the poor fusion of growths and scales giving the beast little to no actual precision or delicacy in its attacks. Rock Cleaver charged as it was, would have absolutely no trouble disarming the creature.

If only it would be that easy... He looks towards 'Beast' Jericho, who seems to be trying to communicate, nothing but barks and roars though, no teeth gnashing and no charging as of yet. Richard holds back a chuckle with an eyebrow raised as Jericho seems to attempt a rather goofy grin... Immediately before he gets charged and knocked down. RD, taking offense to this sudden attack, dashes towards the beast and attempts to remove one of the blades it so liberally is taking stabs at Jericho with.

Sharpe watches Jericho try to speak but he can't help but laugh at the guy trying to presumably issue orders. An almost cheshire grin cracks upon his face.

"Guess Doc never told you or went into detail about that!" he shouts to him, but as soon as he does the doll slams into him, knocking him around. He peers into the room, noting that that's supposed to be the catacombs but of course, gets revealed to be something else. He watches as some sort of chemical gets broken out and dispersed, but only in the vicinity that the room covers. At least the smell is gone.

He aims his pistol carefully ahead of the doll's head and fires two shots, intentionally missing in order to see if he can get the beast's attention. If it starts fixing to make him lunch he should be fine, it seems to lack dexterity.

Jericho thrashes as he tries to not only get away from the dolls stabs, but to get the fire out on his new fur. Thanks to Rd he is able to get away when he slices off one of it's blades. Jericho gets up and nods to Rd to show that is what he wants. He points to Rd's sword and then points at the other limbs. He then turns to Sharpe and points at the gun and points at the air. He makes his fingers look like a gun and shoots the air with it. Jericho then turns to look at the monster. He sees the thing grasping at the fact it just lost a limb. He takes the moment to charge and jump on top of it and pins the dolls limbs to the ground.

Sharpe foolishly shoots in between the two struggling on the ground. Something he's surely used to doing from his time in the military, having to make tough calls, but something that is equally as dangerous as beneficial as he nearly hits Jericho before the two untangle from one another.

The doll doesn't seem to be in pain from its limb being sliced off with a strong slash as much as it is confused about it. Though RD notes that for some odd reason slicing through the creature's thin limb seemed to have been tougher than it should have been, despite the charged blade which even left a little cleave in the solid stone floor.

The cut limb thrives and spasms for a little while, the growths on it pulsating and convulsing and finally, slowly, melting away. What's left is simply the arm of a doll, broken down the middle, with its hand loosely gripping the large metal blade that acted as it's talon. A fact that had previously been obscured by the growth. And just like the previous dolls, this arm slowly begins to steam and dissipate into shadows.



Meanwhile Jericho puts his entire weight onto the doll, trying to keep it in place as it screeches and moans in terror and building rage.
Suddenly with some new found force the corrupted doll roars out a chilling inhuman call.

Immediately that roar is followed by the clicking and cracking of inhuman limbs, coming from the room adjacent from this.
First there is a hand, it's poorly constructed fingers lightly clutching the edge of the door frame from beyond the room. Then as it slowly begins to wind the corner into the door-frame it's intense glowing eyes are visible accented by a barely obscured twisted smile of sorts. Two glowing green eyes at first. No three- Four... Seven... and even more...

Suddenly the group of unfinished dolls pours into the room at quite some speeds, reminiscent to the ones that attacked the house just prior. Some with twisted expressions and some completely emotionless. Some with strange misshapen hands resembling claws or talons, and others carrying knives of any sort.

They scurry into the room, continuously followed by more and more of the unfinished unclothed and sometimes outright broken dolls only for them to mindlessly rush anyone in the room.

Richard pauses for a moment after giving himself a bit of space from the thrashing colossus and allows his gaze to trace between RockCleaver and that it had just cleaved through, the twitching, flailing, limb. He turns the blade about with a discerning eye, seeking any nicks or damage to his prized possession, about as confused about the resistance the weapon encountered as the creature is about losing it's arm. He watches the lost arm spasm vigorously for a moment, its grotesque growths slowly melting away soon followed by the arm itself, fading away in a similar fashion to their assailants from the night before.

"Hm..." RD considers the event before providing more energy for the blade to thrive off of while Jericho pins the huge doll to the ground. A question begins to form within Richard's mind as the doll screeches and moans, struggling to free itself. As it begins to inhale, RD, having a feeling he knows what comes next, braces himself for the inevitable roar. What he didn't expect though was the arrival of a group of newcomers... or had they been there the entire time, merely roused to life by the call of the beast-doll? "Who the hell would put vocal cords in a doll anyway? Seems unnecessarily complicated..." Richard says aloud as he easily dispatches two of the would be attackers; though mainly to ascertain the status of his weapon, which cuts though the pair effortlessly. He had figured there had been some reason they were progressing in groups of four, but the ease with which he defeated the first two cleared that concern. "Its a zerg rush!" RD says aloud as he ends the remnants of the first wave.

"Point-Man, ya mind clearing these fools out and mayhaps checking that back room for any evidence as to whom our puppet-master is, while i help out our guest here? Seems it doesn't mind losing his limbs too much, think i'll remove the rest of those excess weights!" Richard then begins to charge the blade yet again, adding more heat to it before charging the doll, this time attempting to remove a leg.

Sharpe lowers his aim from the beast and looks towards the room with the dolls spilling out. A group of twelve - now ten due to RD having decided to give the deciding edge to two of them - Sharpe instinctively aims in their general direction, and aims for the first few dolls that are coming after him, center-mass. He fires once at the first doll, hitting it square in the chest, and then aims at another, the first round at this doll grazing it's arm but doing no damage, and the second being the definitively connecting. One round left in the cylinder, he notes. Knowing this he keeps the revolver at his side but prepares to make use of his sword.

Onward, with Rich moving to eliminate the rest of that onslaught, he counts off hostiles - two by his mark, four by RD's. He shouts in RD's direction as well as a general warcry.

"Show them how we are the means of War!"

Sharpe advances, running to meet the nearest doll, bringing his blade in a fair slash across the doll's body. He looks on at the remaining targets and observes the particular manner in which the dolls will attempt to strike, ready to put a round through one that gets a bit too close for comfort, or evade otherwise.

Jericho watches as other dolls come flooding in to the room. He can only let out a sigh as he watches the other two start hacking away at the dolls. If he had to make a guess, it would be the same kind of doll from last night and the same controller. Jericho turns his attention back on to the doll he is on. Not wanting to risk anyone else getting hurt, he grabs onto the dolls other limb and starts pulling as hard as he can. He can feel the doll fighting him but he is doing his best to keep it down and pull the limb. As he is ripping, he hopes the others will be able to keep him from getting hit by one of the weaker dolls.

Sharpe takes down the first wave of dolls with relative ease, focusing on the next wave. The dolls don't display any amount of synergy, with each choosing their own for the most part straight forward method of attack. This allows Sharpe to easily dodge around them, taking them out in the process.

As he finishes the second wave he notices there are somehow still more dolls pouring out of the other room and their numbers have risen back up to 9.

RD Cleaves at one of the legs, noting it is a little easier to slice through, though he is still met with a small bit of resistance. Given that he has previously split rocks with the blade he can only assume that this particular doll has a strong physical resistance. Unfortunately that fact doesn't seem to make it any smarter as it continues to try and right itself up and pull away from Jericho only for him to eventually overpower the doll and tear out a third limb. The relieving force of the limb being torn off sends the huge doll flying into a corner where it now helplessly writhes around.

Richard, after cleaving the limb off sucessfully, gives a self satisfied smirk before leaving Jericho to his own devices, guessing the beast would be next to harmless with just the singular limb. RD spins on his heel towards Point-Man when he hears the man's battle cry and is on Sharpe's heels within the next moment, easily dodging the flailing bodies of those who were eliminated during his evasion.

Richard notes the amount of dolls still pouring out from the next room over and attempts to devise a plan of attack. "Point-man! I'mma try to get in there, but if they continue to flood like this, we're gonna need to destroy or plug up that entry way!" RD yells as he rushes by towards the hoard, his blade held in a low stance by his side. He begins his attack with a full horizontal spin beginning from his right side, attempting to dice the first two dolls through their midriffs, and ending the attack with a spinning jump kick to crush the third with a steel-toed boot. Realizing the attack would leave him open, he ends the motion with a tumble to dodge their imminent retaliation.