Throw some Shade (mini)
Essätha blinked against the magical orbs floating around her, their luminescence leaving a trail as they danced against shadows and darkness. As her vision began to refocus; able to make out silhouettes and shapes throughout the room now aided by her light, a singular figure began to stand out. They rose slowly, their body twisted and contorting in shapes that were not normal for a human physic. Laughter began to fill the room. Not just one voice, but many. All laughing, all mocking.
Another body began to rise up from seemingly nothing. Then another; the same strange sort of uncharacteristic black that was not human and yet was. As they materialized, the figures tilted their head; spine and joints cracking and snapping. Their lips spread wide to reveal teeth. Pointed, angular teeth. The sort of teeth one would akin to being sharpened and filed for combat or aesthetic. Their eyes offered a sort of milky glow about them as they stared right back, meeting the gazes of those staring right at them.
“What in fuck’s sake are those?” Penimra exclaimed shakily.
“I’ve no idea,” Essie breathed, her own unease evident. The more she squinted at them, trying to make out the shapes, the more familiar they began to look. In fact, they looked an awful lot like…
“Golems,” Face offered, “spirits, perhaps?”
“Us!” Rava exclaimed loudly, her breath winded and weak. “They look like us!”
“Nonsense,” Adela laughed nervously, taking a step back. “There can only be one of us.”
“I do not think they care for your logic, niss Adela,” Pri remarked, taking a step back. They lifted their candlestick higher in the air, allowing its glow to leak out against more of the floor.
“Anyone ever do study on Doppelgangers?” Sul inquired, reading their sword and shield.
Her eyes searching the surrounding area, Essätha strained to pick out anything they could work with. There were burned-out lanterns hanging, and a few overturned large seating areas. It almost appeared like the room itself was shifting and morphing the longer she stared at it, though. Only a second ago she’d sword there’d been a bench of some sort over there, and now there wasn’t. Then there had been one of the eerie duplicate figures of Sulhadur just north-east of her, and as she turned her head, it appeared as though it was only a few yards west of her instead.
Raising their holy symbol, Pri’cha was the first to act. With a blazing flash of light and a I cry to their God of worship, Pelor’s holy light flashed through the darkness. The space was suddenly filled with light, and with it, everything disappeared. There were no shouts of agony. No figures. In fact, there were no signs of the overturned tables and objects, either.
There were bones, however. And as the light that blinded them all began to fade and the inky black swallowed them up, the shadowy-shapes that resembled them reappeared, closer than before.
The Yuan-ti narrowed her gaze suspiciously. The sound of her companions heavy breathing echoed beside her own. She could feel the warmth of a hand to her shoulder, and knew exactly who it was without a glance.
“It’s… an illusion.”
“You’re sure?” Rava questioned with doubt. “They look pretty convincing to me.”
She couldn’t deny the young elfling that. Reaching to her hip, the sorceress unsheathed her dagger and stepped forward.
“Essie-”
The hand on her shoulder squeezed tighter. She reached up to lay her palm on top of where Amon’s hand clutched to her, and passed him a warm smile.
“I’m gonna do something that may be stupid,” she admitted. “Trust me, okay?”
The nobleman swore beneath his breath quietly. She could make out his expression through the flickering lights moving around; one of weariness and of concern.
“If you want to do something stupid Essie, Amon’s right beside you,” Adela sighed theatrically.
A choked noise filtered through the crowd.
“Oh my God you did not-”
“Niss Adela,” a disapproving tone muttered.
“Yikes.”
“Oh for the Love of Jubaeta,” Essie hissed, rolling her eyes as her cheeks flushed pink. She took another step forward; the orbs of light beginning to gather before her as raised the blade up high. “Pri’cha, are you picking up anything malicious from these forms?”
“… I am not-”
“Good,” she hissed. A series of curses and shouting escaped the vacuum of the abyss, seeming to swarm from the whispering, laughing figures that surrounded them.
She turned back towards closest of the cryptids as they groaned and chattered their teeth. Pulling back her knife, her wrist twisted and flung it at the one that appeared closest; the one with antlers and a series of trophy kills hanging from its belt. The blade went straight through the shadow-replica of Face, clattering something against the ground some distance away.
“Essie-”
She stepped towards the figure, reaching her hand out.
Her fingers could never quite catch it. The image seemed to be just always out of her touch.
“Illusion,” she concluded, hearing the heavy exhale of Amon in particular somewhere behind her. “We can keep going forward.”
In the relieved sighs that followed, Penimra’s snotty voice dared pipe up one final time: “I thought for sure Essätha was going to try flirting with the Amon-shadow, or try pulling it in for a kiss, or something. That would have been stupid.”
“Only someone as horny as you would have thought of that,” Essie grumbled, passing by the outstretched fingers of the Adela-figure with barely a glance as she turned back towards her companions. “Now come on, lets keep moving before I decide to see if wasting spell slots on the Penimra-one might actually teach the real-one how grateful I am for his commentary.”
“Well I guess she’s saving that ‘do something stupid’ for later, then,” Adela cackled, rubbing elbows with the sulky warlock to help cheer him up.
The nobleman, choking awkwardly in the background, replicated the gesture. His face was glowing almost the same hue as Essie’s
The Yuan-ti groaned into her hands pitifully. “I fucking hate you guys.”
