“I. Am. Safe. No. One. Is. Here. Only. Me. Safe!”
They say a word with each knock. What in the hells is this?
And suddenly, you hear footsteps. The sort of footsteps that you learn to listen for to be sure someone backstage is in position for their cue, which the audience isn’t supposed to hear.
So that means you’re ready for it when a grebling makes a swing for your head. Most of the older actors avoid the strikes, too – it’s an instinct that’s hard to shake, you suppose.
Unfortunately, these greblings are better fighters than you. Most of you only know stagefighting. You can handle the one going after you, but your crew as a whole isn’t well-equipped for this.
Luckily, the group of Protectors that just showed up is in much better shape.
“You in the Redbelly getup!” one of them shouts. “Kick the door down!”
Well, you may as well oblige. You kick it in. What you find is a long corridor, and at the end is a small room.
Inside is someone tied to a chair. But they’re not tied with rope, or indeed anything you recognize.
And also, they’re glowing an unnatural color.
Oh, and then there’s the other thing in the room, which is even stranger.
The person is tied with what appears to be snakes, but they don’t have any heads
They are tied with bands of glowing script, every time they talk, they tighten
Six faint rings surround them, each suspiciously color coded like some sort of… element?! Almost as if this was some kind of mechanism for another device with a similar convention
The other thing is:
A mess of tendrils
It’s an empty chair, but you swear you can feel something sitting on it, it’s warm
A lump of stone shaped like a person
A defaced shrine to Nual, but it’s definitely alive, numbers and markings are scratched all over it