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Doom from Below: The Illithid Ascension (Last Updated: 1-1-03)
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<blockquote data-quote="Phasmus" data-source="post: 213109" data-attributes="member: 1827"><p>Drawn ever onward by Shar's unbreakable tie to her slayer, three ghosts soared towards their quarry. As they did, a peculiar wrath began bubbling in each of them. The world was a dark mockery of its former self in their eyes, seeming twisted and wrong. Where once there had been life and flesh, now only the mind-grating coldness of negative energy percolated. Goodwill, compassion...all these things faded in the face of their new existances...for now, they existed only to destroy...</p><p></p><p>But they are not alone in these woods.</p><p></p><p>These are times of trouble, when death and slaughter are rampant in the cities of men, sending waves of negative energy outward in ever expanding ripples. The dead do not rest easily in these times...least of all in places already haunted by the unquiet spirits of creatures slain by the elven guardians, and more recently, by the mind flayers themselves...</p><p></p><p>The headlong pursuit is slowed as the three fallen catch sight of curious creatures ahead. They are composed of the same glowing white plasm they themselves are, and stand out in sharp focus against the ever-shifting waver of the material plane. But these are not human, nor anything like.</p><p></p><p>Sharp-eyed Piklum saw them first and pointed. "Look! What're those?"</p><p></p><p>Shayuri, her long hair floating around her head in an incandescent mane, as though underwater, paused as well. "They look like goblins," she ventured hesitantly. "Ghost goblins?"</p><p></p><p>Shar, for her part, merely snarled and accelerated, brandishing a spectral scythe that seemed to appear out of the substance of her form as she needed it. "Out of my way!" she bellowed.</p><p></p><p>The glowing goblins shrieked in defiance and two aimed crossbows at the descending priestess' shade. As Piklum and Shayuri realized that they too were armed with what weaponry they had possessed in life, the goblins fired! Shar's expectation of invulnerability was brutally shaken as a bolt pierced the shadowy armor she wore and punched deep into a shoulder. Heedless of the pain, she brought the wickedly curved edge of the scythe around. Even in the ethereal plane, it seemed to make a loud 'whooshing' sound as it cleaved through the space a goblin was standing in...leaving the startled creature to slide into two equal halves, both of which rapidly lost cohesion and faded into the ether. Shar cackled delightedly and turned to face another.</p><p></p><p>Now Piklum darted to one side, releasing an arrow as he did. Unfortunately the shot went wide, narrowly missing Shar as well.</p><p></p><p>Shayuri, armed only with a small dagger, decided to see if her magic would function in her present condition. Her voice seemed to swell pregnantly with arcane power as she incanted, and with a flick of her wrist released a single spark of bright magic force that deftly jinked around Shar and slammed into a goblin, staggering it, but not dropping it.</p><p></p><p>From there, the battle progressed swiftly. Shar took a shallow gash from a ghostly scimitar, but the remaining four goblins were quickly overpowered. The final one dropped in its tracks by Piklum as it tried to flee.</p><p></p><p>In the wake of combat, Piklum and Shayuri inspected Shar's wounds.</p><p></p><p>"Are you all right?" Shayuri asked delicately, brushing errant strands of hair away from her face.</p><p></p><p>Shar drew herself up proudly and scoffed. The scythe had mysteriously vanished as she stopped thinking about it. "I am better than all right. I am victorious!"</p><p></p><p>"Hey, does this hurt?" the irrepressible Piklum asked, poking at Shar's arm, where a livid gash split the ectoplasmic 'flesh.'</p><p></p><p>The cleric flinched back with a hiss, then looked at her arm, and at the arrow. "Trifling wounds," she blustered. "Delta's power will overcome them." She raised her hands in preparation.</p><p></p><p>"Hang on," Shayuri interrupted, earning an annoyed look from Shar. "We're ghosts now, right?"</p><p></p><p>"Yes. Briefly! And?"</p><p></p><p>"Well...I thought I remembered reading that healing magic hurts the undead," the sorceress mildly put forth. "So maybe instead of trying to heal yourself..."</p><p></p><p>"Hah!" Shar blurted quickly. "You think that fact was lost on me? That I am some kind of...imbecile? Delta's plague on you!" Yet, when she raised her hands again, she put them in a different position, and the beginnings of the incantation were different as well. Nevertheless, the influx of negative energy seemed to generate replacement plasm, drawing her wounds shut.</p><p></p><p>And so they continued, drawn onward by Shar's tether. It occurred to Shayuri to wonder what might have happened had the goblins 'killed' Shar. Somehow she doubted the dissolution would be permanant...but it would almost certainly allow the mind flayer time to escape them...</p><p></p><p>What was Shankara guarding anyway, that was so important?</p><p></p><p>But all such secondary thoughts were quickly swallowed whole when a shape loomed from the dim shadows of the material plane around them. None of them needed to see it clearly to know what it was. They had spent a year chained to the will of creatures like it...</p><p></p><p>As one, operating on murderous instinct, they parted the veil between worlds and fully entered the material plane as hovering translucent ghosts. Shar emitted another battle cry to Delta, and swept directly through the mind flayer, though doing no physical harm.</p><p></p><p>The illithid stopped in its tracks as something cold and awful raced through it. At first it seemed only an indistinct mist...but as it swooped back, the mind flayer recognized the face of its former thrall. Suddenly it realized the extent of the threat. It was stripped of its layers of thrall protection, and faced with an opponent that its mind-controlling powers were useless against! For the first time in a very long time, it knew fear. Tentacles writhing madly, it whirled to flee...and stopped.</p><p></p><p>Two MORE ghosts waited behind it.</p><p></p><p>Burbling wetly in panic, it splayed its facial tentacles, and the air churned with psionic power as it unleashed a telepathic screech, calculated to overwhelm the nervous system of lesser beings.</p><p></p><p>The ghosts did not flinch or waver. They approached, unholy hate burning in their eyes...their cold, dead eyes... The illithid turned about as the ghosts' hatred struck it with supernatural force, stripping its life away in chunks. It made a last, futile run for it...before stiffening under the combined assault of its spectral attackers. It released one last scream...a desperate note struck with both voice and mind echoing out...and then it crumpled to the ground, dead.</p><p></p><p>Shar whooped and brandished her scythe. "Die, vermin! Feel the wrath of Delta!!"</p><p></p><p>Suddenly there was a...relaxation within all three. A tension eased that none had been aware of before. They were done here. There was nothing left but the peace...the seductive peace of death that had been denied them.</p><p></p><p>"No!" shouted Shayuri. "Fight it! We have to get back!" Without a word, she launched herself back along the path they had come, followed closely by the other spirits.</p><p></p><p>The marathon was grueling. The material world was as indistinct as ever...but they had no bond to follow to lead them back! And all the while a white, glowing light seemed to be gently consuming them, beckoning to them with promises of rest at last. And they were tired. So tired...</p><p></p><p>It took several more minutes before they realized they were really quite hopelessly lost.</p><p></p><p>"You know?" Piklum said, watching his substance fade slowly away, "This isn't bad, really. Feels kinda nice."</p><p></p><p>"No," the sorceress repeated, though it lacked the force it had before. "I won't give up. I won't!"</p><p></p><p>Shar snorted. "I brought us here, I can bring us back. Trust in Delta's will."</p><p></p><p>"Delta's will?" Piklum chuckled teasingly. "Delta's will is all about chaos and randomness! For all you know she could will us all to die! Riiight?"</p><p></p><p>Shar fumed, but said, "Your words only demonstrate the depth of your ignorance, halfling."</p><p></p><p>"If only we had a bond to the chamber," Shayuri lamented. "We could..." She paused thoughtfully.</p><p></p><p>The halfling and armored priestess exchanged glances as Shayuri's gaze became unfocused...even for a dissolving ghost.</p><p></p><p>"Shay?" Piklum ventured. "You still there?"</p><p></p><p>"This way!" Shayuri cried, and soared off through the trees. "I can still sense my familiar! He's this way!"</p><p></p><p>Piklum shrugged and followed. Shar scowled, but also took off after them. After all, who was to say it wasn't Delta's will that the familiar link still operated in death?</p><p></p><p>What entered Shankara's tomb was less three ghosts than three foggy blobs of ectoplasm, held together by sheer will and fortune. They could not see the living world anymore. Everything was blotted out by the darkness of death on one side, and the horribly seductive brilliance of the Soul Road through the astral plane that would guide them to their eternal rest.</p><p></p><p>Shankara's voice was thick and distant, marred by their fading consciousnesses.</p><p></p><p>"quickly! ...to your bodies...i'll revive you..."</p><p></p><p>Acting on pure instinct, the ghosts of ghosts sank into the dead flesh of their bodies, where Shankara had placed them on stone slabs in preparation.</p><p></p><p>The darkness curled in on itself, forming a tunnel that led to a blaze of light. Voices echoed along the Road, welcoming, calling, as fragments of their lives played on the walls. Another voice was in the din too, incanting or somesuch...it didn't seem very important suddenly...</p><p></p><p>And then three names were spoken.</p><p></p><p>The tunnels vanished. The crypt reappeared. Blinking and groaning, the three adventurers sat up and looked around.</p><p></p><p>Shar slipped off the slab and squinted around in the gloom. "Shankara?" she called. Something wasn't right about this.</p><p></p><p>Piklum was next. He whistled shrilly and called, "Bunki! Where are you?" A ferret skittered around the corner from the outside corridor and darted into the room. Then it stopped, peering at Piklum curiously.</p><p></p><p>"Hey look," said Shayuri. "Dinner!"</p><p></p><p>"Don't you DARE," thundered Piklum vengefully. "If it wasn't for him, we'd have dissipated out in the...the..." he trailed off, staring at Shayuri in mounting horror.</p><p></p><p>Shayuri looked down at herself. "Oh wow," she said, staring at how she filled out the little thrall-blouse she was wearing.</p><p></p><p>Shar stared at both...and burst into laughter, surmising what must have happened.</p><p></p><p>And then there was another voice...a horrible grating voice, like bone on stone, grinding. What had appeared to be little more than a skeleton propped against the wall, half concealed by mouldering robes...moved. It scuttled into the center of the room and peered at Shayuri and Piklum through hollow eyesockets, each possessing a tiny spark of blue light deep inside.</p><p></p><p>"Oh dear," Shankara rasped. "That wasn't supposed to happen."</p><p></p><p>The three adventurers screamed.</p><p></p><p>----</p><p>To be Continued Again!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Phasmus, post: 213109, member: 1827"] Drawn ever onward by Shar's unbreakable tie to her slayer, three ghosts soared towards their quarry. As they did, a peculiar wrath began bubbling in each of them. The world was a dark mockery of its former self in their eyes, seeming twisted and wrong. Where once there had been life and flesh, now only the mind-grating coldness of negative energy percolated. Goodwill, compassion...all these things faded in the face of their new existances...for now, they existed only to destroy... But they are not alone in these woods. These are times of trouble, when death and slaughter are rampant in the cities of men, sending waves of negative energy outward in ever expanding ripples. The dead do not rest easily in these times...least of all in places already haunted by the unquiet spirits of creatures slain by the elven guardians, and more recently, by the mind flayers themselves... The headlong pursuit is slowed as the three fallen catch sight of curious creatures ahead. They are composed of the same glowing white plasm they themselves are, and stand out in sharp focus against the ever-shifting waver of the material plane. But these are not human, nor anything like. Sharp-eyed Piklum saw them first and pointed. "Look! What're those?" Shayuri, her long hair floating around her head in an incandescent mane, as though underwater, paused as well. "They look like goblins," she ventured hesitantly. "Ghost goblins?" Shar, for her part, merely snarled and accelerated, brandishing a spectral scythe that seemed to appear out of the substance of her form as she needed it. "Out of my way!" she bellowed. The glowing goblins shrieked in defiance and two aimed crossbows at the descending priestess' shade. As Piklum and Shayuri realized that they too were armed with what weaponry they had possessed in life, the goblins fired! Shar's expectation of invulnerability was brutally shaken as a bolt pierced the shadowy armor she wore and punched deep into a shoulder. Heedless of the pain, she brought the wickedly curved edge of the scythe around. Even in the ethereal plane, it seemed to make a loud 'whooshing' sound as it cleaved through the space a goblin was standing in...leaving the startled creature to slide into two equal halves, both of which rapidly lost cohesion and faded into the ether. Shar cackled delightedly and turned to face another. Now Piklum darted to one side, releasing an arrow as he did. Unfortunately the shot went wide, narrowly missing Shar as well. Shayuri, armed only with a small dagger, decided to see if her magic would function in her present condition. Her voice seemed to swell pregnantly with arcane power as she incanted, and with a flick of her wrist released a single spark of bright magic force that deftly jinked around Shar and slammed into a goblin, staggering it, but not dropping it. From there, the battle progressed swiftly. Shar took a shallow gash from a ghostly scimitar, but the remaining four goblins were quickly overpowered. The final one dropped in its tracks by Piklum as it tried to flee. In the wake of combat, Piklum and Shayuri inspected Shar's wounds. "Are you all right?" Shayuri asked delicately, brushing errant strands of hair away from her face. Shar drew herself up proudly and scoffed. The scythe had mysteriously vanished as she stopped thinking about it. "I am better than all right. I am victorious!" "Hey, does this hurt?" the irrepressible Piklum asked, poking at Shar's arm, where a livid gash split the ectoplasmic 'flesh.' The cleric flinched back with a hiss, then looked at her arm, and at the arrow. "Trifling wounds," she blustered. "Delta's power will overcome them." She raised her hands in preparation. "Hang on," Shayuri interrupted, earning an annoyed look from Shar. "We're ghosts now, right?" "Yes. Briefly! And?" "Well...I thought I remembered reading that healing magic hurts the undead," the sorceress mildly put forth. "So maybe instead of trying to heal yourself..." "Hah!" Shar blurted quickly. "You think that fact was lost on me? That I am some kind of...imbecile? Delta's plague on you!" Yet, when she raised her hands again, she put them in a different position, and the beginnings of the incantation were different as well. Nevertheless, the influx of negative energy seemed to generate replacement plasm, drawing her wounds shut. And so they continued, drawn onward by Shar's tether. It occurred to Shayuri to wonder what might have happened had the goblins 'killed' Shar. Somehow she doubted the dissolution would be permanant...but it would almost certainly allow the mind flayer time to escape them... What was Shankara guarding anyway, that was so important? But all such secondary thoughts were quickly swallowed whole when a shape loomed from the dim shadows of the material plane around them. None of them needed to see it clearly to know what it was. They had spent a year chained to the will of creatures like it... As one, operating on murderous instinct, they parted the veil between worlds and fully entered the material plane as hovering translucent ghosts. Shar emitted another battle cry to Delta, and swept directly through the mind flayer, though doing no physical harm. The illithid stopped in its tracks as something cold and awful raced through it. At first it seemed only an indistinct mist...but as it swooped back, the mind flayer recognized the face of its former thrall. Suddenly it realized the extent of the threat. It was stripped of its layers of thrall protection, and faced with an opponent that its mind-controlling powers were useless against! For the first time in a very long time, it knew fear. Tentacles writhing madly, it whirled to flee...and stopped. Two MORE ghosts waited behind it. Burbling wetly in panic, it splayed its facial tentacles, and the air churned with psionic power as it unleashed a telepathic screech, calculated to overwhelm the nervous system of lesser beings. The ghosts did not flinch or waver. They approached, unholy hate burning in their eyes...their cold, dead eyes... The illithid turned about as the ghosts' hatred struck it with supernatural force, stripping its life away in chunks. It made a last, futile run for it...before stiffening under the combined assault of its spectral attackers. It released one last scream...a desperate note struck with both voice and mind echoing out...and then it crumpled to the ground, dead. Shar whooped and brandished her scythe. "Die, vermin! Feel the wrath of Delta!!" Suddenly there was a...relaxation within all three. A tension eased that none had been aware of before. They were done here. There was nothing left but the peace...the seductive peace of death that had been denied them. "No!" shouted Shayuri. "Fight it! We have to get back!" Without a word, she launched herself back along the path they had come, followed closely by the other spirits. The marathon was grueling. The material world was as indistinct as ever...but they had no bond to follow to lead them back! And all the while a white, glowing light seemed to be gently consuming them, beckoning to them with promises of rest at last. And they were tired. So tired... It took several more minutes before they realized they were really quite hopelessly lost. "You know?" Piklum said, watching his substance fade slowly away, "This isn't bad, really. Feels kinda nice." "No," the sorceress repeated, though it lacked the force it had before. "I won't give up. I won't!" Shar snorted. "I brought us here, I can bring us back. Trust in Delta's will." "Delta's will?" Piklum chuckled teasingly. "Delta's will is all about chaos and randomness! For all you know she could will us all to die! Riiight?" Shar fumed, but said, "Your words only demonstrate the depth of your ignorance, halfling." "If only we had a bond to the chamber," Shayuri lamented. "We could..." She paused thoughtfully. The halfling and armored priestess exchanged glances as Shayuri's gaze became unfocused...even for a dissolving ghost. "Shay?" Piklum ventured. "You still there?" "This way!" Shayuri cried, and soared off through the trees. "I can still sense my familiar! He's this way!" Piklum shrugged and followed. Shar scowled, but also took off after them. After all, who was to say it wasn't Delta's will that the familiar link still operated in death? What entered Shankara's tomb was less three ghosts than three foggy blobs of ectoplasm, held together by sheer will and fortune. They could not see the living world anymore. Everything was blotted out by the darkness of death on one side, and the horribly seductive brilliance of the Soul Road through the astral plane that would guide them to their eternal rest. Shankara's voice was thick and distant, marred by their fading consciousnesses. "quickly! ...to your bodies...i'll revive you..." Acting on pure instinct, the ghosts of ghosts sank into the dead flesh of their bodies, where Shankara had placed them on stone slabs in preparation. The darkness curled in on itself, forming a tunnel that led to a blaze of light. Voices echoed along the Road, welcoming, calling, as fragments of their lives played on the walls. Another voice was in the din too, incanting or somesuch...it didn't seem very important suddenly... And then three names were spoken. The tunnels vanished. The crypt reappeared. Blinking and groaning, the three adventurers sat up and looked around. Shar slipped off the slab and squinted around in the gloom. "Shankara?" she called. Something wasn't right about this. Piklum was next. He whistled shrilly and called, "Bunki! Where are you?" A ferret skittered around the corner from the outside corridor and darted into the room. Then it stopped, peering at Piklum curiously. "Hey look," said Shayuri. "Dinner!" "Don't you DARE," thundered Piklum vengefully. "If it wasn't for him, we'd have dissipated out in the...the..." he trailed off, staring at Shayuri in mounting horror. Shayuri looked down at herself. "Oh wow," she said, staring at how she filled out the little thrall-blouse she was wearing. Shar stared at both...and burst into laughter, surmising what must have happened. And then there was another voice...a horrible grating voice, like bone on stone, grinding. What had appeared to be little more than a skeleton propped against the wall, half concealed by mouldering robes...moved. It scuttled into the center of the room and peered at Shayuri and Piklum through hollow eyesockets, each possessing a tiny spark of blue light deep inside. "Oh dear," Shankara rasped. "That wasn't supposed to happen." The three adventurers screamed. ---- To be Continued Again! [/QUOTE]
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