Parting Gifts: Ch 1 - Dusk - IC

Oddly, Haessellekh breathes a sigh of relief upon seeing the Tarrasque, "A mile off. Perhaps to late for that man, but for Settonton itself there's time."

In the language of the dragons of eld, Haessellekh forms word that are themselves keys, unlocking a spark of Creation. A green, unnatural light spills from her hands, mixing with a dark bilious smoke from her mouth as she weaves the spark into a matrix drawn from the plane of shadow. The cloud churns and rises far into the air like a thing alive, expanding almost exponentially as it goes. Above the town, the cloud reforms into 20' high letters in Bylanian, "DANGER! Evacuate south!" The giant image also rumbles with a voice like a primordial god, repeating the warning to evacuate.

Haessellekh then turns Zach. "If you permit me, I can grant you the form and strength of a giant. It may be enough to allow you to penetrate the beast's hide."

OOC - Sorry, I was waiting for a reply regarding Grandfather's Bag of Tricks. But it was an edit to an existing post so it was probably missed.

H. casts Major Image

Grandfather, in direbat form, heads towards the man ... and the monster. It will take him about three minutes of flying to reach the man's current location, or about two minutes to reach the man assuming the man keeps running towards the city.

The tarrasque doesn't seem to be in any hurry right now. It's lazing about in the middle of a field, presumably digesting.

People are fleeing both towards the city, and when the giant sign appears in the air, many people in the city flee away from the north gate.

There is a force of about two dozen City Guards massed near the north gate. They don't approach the party, perhaps out of fear of being asked to help fight the monster. There is a leader among them, issuing orders to help with the evacuation, but mostly trying to prevent wholesale panic and flight among his troops.

Kurina reaches the City wall and looks north at the Tarrasque. She mutters in Elven "In all the lands I've never seen a beast like that." before shaking her head and noticing the fleeing man (Assuming he's not dead by the time she gets there). Judging the distance, she figures it'd take her about a minute to get there, then see's Grandfather almost there. "He'll reach the man first, but if that thing goes after the man.. or him..." She shakes her head, heading down to her companions.
"It would've had a harder time catching me, do you think it'll go after them?" She asks her friends.

*OOC : Sorry for the math, I'm writing this down mostly for myself.
[A mile is 5,280 feet]
OK... On average get a Shift every 2.5 rounds, move 30' when I do, run 120' on rounds I don't, 4 Shifts a minute = 5,640'/minute, or an avg of 560'/round (which is, btw, 64MPH).
Worst I can do is 3/minute(move 450/round, ~51MPH), best is 10(move 1230/round ~139MPH).
[sblock=Examples]
R1 : Move, D-door. Roll a 3
R2 : Run
R3 : Run
R4 : Move, D-door. Roll a 2
R5 : Run
R6 : Move, D-door. Roll a 4
R7 : Run
R8 : Run
R9 : Run
R10 : Move, D-door. Roll a 1

R1 : Move, D-door. Roll a 4
R2 : Run
R3 : Run
R4 : Run
R5 : Move, D-door. Roll a 3
R6 : Run
R7 : Run
R8 : Move, D-door. Roll a 2
R9 : Run
R10 : Move, D-door. Roll a 1

R1 : Move, D-door. Roll a 1
R2 : Move, D-door. Roll a 2
R3 : Run
R4 : Move, D-door. Roll a 3
R5 : Run
R6 : Run
R7 : Move, D-door. Roll a 4
R8 : Run
R9 : Run
R10 : Run
[/sblock]

The man fleeing from the colossal monster reaches a fence and climbs over it. He resumes his flight, but then he sees an enormous bat approaching him. Not sure which way to flee, he turns to the side and runs that way.

The tarrasque lazily starts forward, coming a little closer, but is in no hurry. It lets the man get away, and turns towards a nearby house.

Grandfather has to land near the man and turn back into a human in order to gain the man's trust. Once he does he is able to change back to dire bat form and slowly carry the man. The frantic man worries about his family and neighbors and animals. His wife and children were also fleeing, and should have a head start since he went to a neighbor's house to warm him, but the neighbor was already gone. "Thank you, sir!"

(ooc: Is Grandfather taking the man to the wall? What are the rest of you doing?)

Grandfather, with the man's permission, doublemoves him to the north gate where the guards are organizing the evacuation. (direbat doublemove is 80' per round) That done, he wheels about to survey the situation on the ground between the Tarrasque and the north wall...if there's any other people close enough to be in danger, he'll pull another rescue op. Otherwise, he closes in on the Tarrasque, in preparation of joining the fight.

The tarrasque approaches the house it was looking at and appears to inspect it, sniffing and nibbling. Not quite a tree, or a hill, or a prey-animal, the house seems to share some characteristics with all of those. The beast swipes a huge claw through the house, sending a section of it crashing down.

Grandfather deposits the rescued man near the city wall. Dazed and confused, the man says "Thank you" again. He turns to watch the monster in the distance.

You see no more fleeing people that appear to be in immediate danger. The people from the farms and houses near the monster likely have fled by now, alerted by noise or neighbors, but it's certainly possible that some remain, perhaps asleep. There are various animals locked up or fenced in, certainly.

After waiting but a moment for Zach's reply, Haessellekh reaches out to touch him with a hand that pulses with an odd colorless glow. The contact sends a ripple through the elf's body, like a disturbed pond. As the weird distortion effect spreads, the seer's voice, which had been an obscure murmur, rises in pitch and volume. When the ripple extends to his extremities, a non-euclidean shift occurs, causing the warrior to suddenly double in height. Haessellekh's intonations then take on a new tone, as she appears to put both hands slightly inside Zach's enlarged figure. With a sickening tearing sound, she whips her hands back. The holy warrior's skin pulls free with the withdrawn hands, becoming disintegrating immateria once freed of torn from its native frame. Revealed beneath are the massive muscles and dour gray features of a stone giant. Haessellekh continues layering enchantments, placing a defensive glamour on Yolo as well.

"Lets see what see what we can do about Sasog's little present", Haesselekh mutters, her voice rife with irony. Cynically, she spends a precious moment to alter her magical disguise, covering her unfurling bat-like wings in the appearance of angelic feathers. The next moment she is aloft, heading directly for the Tarrasque. En route she pauses twice to marshal psychic energies. At the first pause, and otherworldly translucent field springs up around her. But the reason for the second pause remains mysterious.

OOC - Casts Enlarge Person then Polymorph on Zach, manifests Concealing Amorpha and Schism on herself.

EDIT - Also casts Greater Heroism on Zach, Displacement on Zach and Yolo

ooc: Sry, Easter

Kurina begins heading towards the beast at full speed, dissapearing every few seconds to reappear a thousand feet further ahead. When she gets within a thousand feet of it, she lets the Shifting Wind(Dimension Door) carry her high above the beast, bow in hand as she sights in on it's head, hoping to distract it.


Run + D-door towards it (as noted before). When within 1000 feet, Activate Boots of Levitation and dimension door directly above it 200' in air, holding place via the boots. Next round after she gets there she uses Manyshot to try and get it's attention. [4 arrows, 1 attack roll: Attack +30, damage 1d8+9+1d6fire Each arrow. Range increment is 310'. (165', doubled since she's shooting straight down)]

[sblock=OOC]OK, I am trying to keep this as simple as reasonable. Since we haven't been in combat rounds yet, there is some flexibility as to who did what when. I will assume that Kurina, Grandfather, and Haessellekh have timed their approaches to arrive in the vicinity of the beast more or less at the same time, as explained below. This is mainly to reduce the number of "I keep going towards it" posts every round while other PCs are in combat.

Zach will be approaching on foot and will arrive several rounds later, the exact number being determined by how long it takes Ivellious to get back to PBP.

Yolo will also approach on foot unless Brother Allard specifies otherwise and is the slowest, so if he wants to participate in the combat anytime soon he pretty much will have to cast fly or teleport.[/sblock]

(ooc: Round 1)

The tarrasque backs away from the house, bored with it. It starts ambling towards the city when Kurina appears 200' above the creature. She shoots four flaming arrows from her bow simultaneously, hitting the monster's back. It's hard to tell if there is much of an effect, but the monster roars - she's got it's attention all right!

If there's one thing it learned from being used in war by the Sasoguese, it's that stings are caused by creatures trying to hurt it. It scans the sky for the attacker, and spits at her the show its opinion of what she did.

The blob of acid catches her, a great gout of burning mucus streaming from the monster's huge mouth. It is surprisingly well aimed; though it did slow down somewhat on the way up, it is able to reach her. She is able to twist to avoid the worst of it, but the burning acid is quite painful nontheless. She feels a little bit sick to her stomach.

(ooc: Kurina takes 27 points of acid damage, hp 96/123, and at the moment she is sickened, taking -2 to most rolls.)

The fight has been joined. By now, Haessellekh is about 400' horizontally from the monster, and about 200' high from the ground. Grandfather (in direbat form) is about 200' from it and about 100' high. They are roughly in the direction of the city from the monster. (ooc: Which is important if the objective here is to lead it away from town.)

(ooc: Next up are the PCs. Post in any order.)

OOC: Sorry for the delay. I somehow forgot to subscribe to the IC thread... D'oh.

Yolo draws a string of beads from the pack at his side and mutters a few quick prayers over them. Dropping them back into his bag, he flies over the ramparts, tapping Zach on the shoulder as he wings past, and moves to join the others hovering uncomfortably close to the great beast's head.

Not sure if any of this can still be said to have taken place before combat, so I'll just put it down. He'll at least begin this series of actions.
1. Draw prayer beads and activate bead of karma.
2. Cast quickened Divine Power and Fly
3. Fly to Zach and cast Protection from Energy (acid) on Zach (120 points)
4. I'm not sure how far the others are from Zach at this point, so Yolo will either fly to them if he can reach them in 1 or 2 rounds, Dimension Door, or, if they are still a long ways indeed, he will teleport.