[IRP] Return to the Dread Isle

[Alusq]

The morph spoke. It wasn't that Renata was relieved to meet one that was more intelligent than the automata they'd fought so far: no one in their right mind would experience anything even approaching relief beholding such an abomination before heaven. But perhaps, if nothing else, they could bargain with it for a swift death. She glowered at the staff it held. It was no ordinary staff of healing, she could say that, but what exactly it did did not occur to her. Besides the fact that Renata had no education in staff use, the esthetic sensibilities of their craftsmanship had changed enough over time that it would probably take a scholar as well as a cleric to identify it.

Renata's hand had scarcely reached the hilt of her sword by the time the morph answered her burning question by disappearing in a flash of esoteric runes. As the group had gotten closer to the Dragon's Gate, the morphs had become less and less decayed, to the point that the one they'd just encountered seemed frozen in time. Renata's heart sunk. Their destiny, it seemed, was to enter the structure and be eviscerated by whatever warriors and sorcerers were impeccably preserved within.

Then she saw the house.

"It would seem so," she said. "We've reached the Gate, but I'm in no mood to be destroyed. Not yet, at least." Not until they had left no stone unturned and ascertained the inevitability of their doom.