Ain't that always the way? You throw a perfectly lovely combat [open bar, nibbles, the works] and the guests start leaving [in body bags] early. SO inconsiderate. See if they get invited to the NEXT combat! hmph!
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Sagiro's Story Hour: The FINAL Adventures of Abernathy's Company (FINISHED 7/3/14)
- Thread starter Sagiro
- Start date
Sagiro
Rodent of Uncertain Parentage
More specifically, I've finished transcribing the first half of the battle, and now am in the process of writing it up. It's a bit challenging to write it in a narratively interesting way, since it's a battle with 35 entities participating at the start, but I should be done part 1 in the next couple of days. I can't promise specifically when I'll post, but I can promise that it'll end on another cliffhanger.
-Sagiro
So Octesian has 15... entities with him? Or just 15 tentacles?
Sagiro
Rodent of Uncertain Parentage
Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 358
A Battle in the Madness
The enormous illusionary head vanishes, and Octesian appears, hovering a few feet off the ground in the center of the demiplane. He is clad in the familiar red plate mail, and the visor on his helmet is lowered, obscuring his face. Brown-green tentacles sprout from every gap and seam in his armor, including one that comes (impossibly, gruesomely) straight out of the helmet’s eye-slit. They surround him, a writhing nimbus of horror.
In Octesian’s hand is the familiar glowing black sword that seems to come standard-issue with the deadly armor. But there is something… wrong… with the blade. While on first glance it seems to be solid black metal, sharp and deadly, it also seems rubbery, bendable, swaying slowly on its hilt. In defiance of sense, it is both at once – a sword, and a tentacle.
In the split second after he appears, his whole body sucks inward, as though he’s taking an impossibly deep breath almost to the point of implosion. Then he balloons out like a puffer fish, and from somewhere inside his armor little masses of tentacles come flying out, landing around the battlefield with little squishy plops. They’re the size of small dogs, and they emit a maddening babble, an inhuman cacophony of burbling and squelching noises.
“I’ve got it worse than him?” Dranko mutters to himself. “I beg to differ.”
Finally, and worst of all, duplicates of Octesian appear scattered about the small demiplane. There are seven in total, all identical, all hovering, in addition to the nine tentacle blobs. There are now twenty members of the Forces of Good, facing off against seven Octesians and nine masses of tentacles, scattered among a dark forest of enormous tentacular trees, in poor light, while the air is filled with an insane babbling.
There’s no point in trying to talk, but Morningstar is connected to all of her allies via telepathic bond.. “Sisters, I’ve known all along what everyone has thought of me, and I just don’t care. Let’s just kill the bastard, okay?”
Grey Wolf reacts first, and tries to summon the pack, but this is immediately foiled. It seems that creatures cannot be summoned into Octesian’s demiplane. While Flicker dashes into better striking position near Dranko, Ernie releases Beryn Sur and casts spiritual weapon at the closest Octesian. It bounces off harmlessly, foiled by spell resistance. (He’d rather have cast flame strike or even firestorm, but his allies are intermixed too thoroughly with his enemies.)
One of the Octesians steps up to Aravis and swings his black sword, scoring a hit, but it’s clear that this version has less speed and fighting prowess than they recall the true Octesian possessing. Even so, the sword blow sends a jolt straight to Aravis’s mind, which he barely manages to shrug off. A second Octesian steps to the paladin Fautish and delivers a similar blow, and a third delivers a damaging cut to Ernie. But while Ernie, like Aravis, resists the mental sting of the strike, Fautish feels her head grow muzzy, and for just a second loses her concentration.
>> With each sword blow, target must make a Will save or take 1 point of wisdom damage
With Flicker providing a flanking buddy, Dranko moves and lashes at the nearest tentacle mass. Though his damage is high, he doesn’t kill the thing, and it responds by lashing out with a long pseudopod and grabbing Dranko’s shoulder. Its oozing, suckered tip latches on, and using this attachment it pulls itself up onto the back of Dranko’s neck, where its insane babbling grows even louder. With the thing gibbering directly into his ear, he can hardly hear himself think. It’s maddening.
Other tentacular masses take similar actions, and soon Snokas, Aravis, Ernie and Fautish also sport “babblers” perched on the backs of their necks.
>> When a babbler latches on and pulls itself up, the victim suffers one point of wisdom damage, no save. Also, as long as it’s there, victims are at a -4 penalty on every d20 roll they make. With a standard action, anyone can remove their own Babbler, or one attached to an adjacent ally..
Fautish and Snokas flail wildly, until they’ve grabbed their own babblers and flung them away from themselves. The paladin Gyre steps up and wrenches away Dranko’s unwanted guest, while Sable removes Ernie’s and the warrior Scola easily plucks away the babbler on Aravis. The cleric Corinne also casts a healing spell on Aravis.
The Octesian closest to Morningstar glides forward a step and strikes with the martial fluidity and grace of a seasoned warrior. (“There’s our boy!” says Dranko.) In addition to the damage from the rubbery/sharp blade, the sword itself sprouts a tentacle that whips around and plunges a sharp tip into Morningstar’s neck. She fights off waves of revulsion as she feels it squirming beneath her skin.
Morningstar shakes her head, concentrates, and uses what is arguably her most powerful ability in the Dreamscape. She bestows upon all of her allies the same set of dream powers she herself possesses: flight, true seeing, freedom of movement, and bonuses to attacks, armor and reflex saves. This will only last a minute, but it bolsters her allies’ confidence as well as their abilities.
Having done so, she decides to spend the seconds necessary to focus her consciousness on her physical body, to see what’s happening in the Greenhouse. She was hoping that the priestesses there would be healing their bodies (with corresponding restoration happening here), but so far that hasn’t happened. It only takes her a second or two to realize why: the priestesses gathered around their physical bodies are moving in extreme slow motion. With a groan of dismay, she realizes that time is flowing much faster here in Octesian’s twisted demiplane, and by the time any of her sisters in the Greenhouse will be able to react, the battle here will be long over. So much for that advantage!
With a sigh she quickens divine power on herself, and smashes Octesian with Ell’s Will. The holy weapon shears through the front of his plate mail like its smashing through soft cheese, and tentacles spill from the gash like twisting intestines. Octesian looks down, then wags a finger at Morningstar. “You… you naughty girl!”
Aravis endures another sword-swipe from his own Octesian-copy and casts cone of cold, finding an angle that catches only enemies. Several babblers are damaged, as are two Octesians despite being somewhat resistant to cold. The babblers launch another wave of attacks, and soon Grey Wolf, Starbrook, Belle and Previa are burdened with yammering tentacle-masses.
Kibi sends Scree to Morningstar, and the little earth elemental pelts the sword-tentacle with rocks until it slides back out of Morningstar’s neck. Kibi himself casts his own cone of cold, this one maximized, followed by a quickened coldfire. Some of the tentacle masses are destroyed outright by this barrage, and now a few of the Octesians are looking particularly battle-worn.
Octesian – the real Octesian – winces at Morningstar, and in a halting voice says, “Ex…cuse me for a moment.” His shape shudders and bulges, and across the battlefield the least-damage Octesian-form does likewise. The new host body for the true Octesian stands next to Fautish, and with a series of brutal sword-slashes he strikes Fautish down. Morningstar immediately casts delay death, which temporarily prevents her ally from dying from hit point loss, though Fautish is still rendered unconscious and brutally wounded.
Two more lesser Octesians converge on Corrine; their sword-strikes sap away her wisdom and leave her on the edge of consciousness. Previa and Starbrook take the time to divest themselves of Babblers, while Belle and Leona cast spells upon Ernie to heal his wounds and restore his lost wisdom. Grey Wolf quickens true strike and uses Bostock to channel a maximized acid orb into the Octesian closest to him. His target erupts in a gout of sizzling green goo, bits of burned armor and tentacle flesh sloughing off to fall onto the rubbery ground. A rancid smell wafts up, but Grey Wolf just smiles. The acid-burned Octesian wobbles on his feet, but doesn’t fall.
Flicker runs another babbler through with his dagger, driving his blade through so powerfully that his arm comes out the far side of it. He has to jiggle his arm violently to get the corpse to fall off. Ernie nails the current “true” Octesian with energy drain, and the mad warrior’s tentacles quiver in pain, but from beneath his helmet comes the sound of insane chuckling.
One of the lesser Octesians (dubbed “Mocktesians” by the heroes over the mind-link) cuts through Corinne’s midsection, a deep and immediately fatal blow – but Previa reacts with revivify and Dranko follows up with close wounds to bring the Ellish sister back to consciousness. Two more Mocktesians attack; one misses Morningstar, but the other strikes Evenstar, draining away another point of the old cleric’s wisdom. She curses and shakes her head to clear it.
Dranko activates his boots of haste and gives the true Octesian a serious whipping, just as two of the remaining babblers hoist themselves onto the backs of Snokas and Gyre. Snokas reaches his arms up and immediately flings his unwanted guest away, while Gyre spins around in a panic before doing likewise.
Evenstar still has the wisdom to drop a flame strike on a pair of Mocktesians, and while one of these largely resists, the second (whose body the “real” Octesian has recently vacated) is turned to ash. Morningstar gives her a thumb up and an encouraging smile.
Scola takes a full attack on the nearest Mocktesian, but cannot land even a single telling blow through its red armor. She screams in frustration, being unused to any sort of martial failure. Obsidia endures an attack from a babbler as she heals Fautish, though the paladin is so badly injured that she still lies senseless on the ground, and would still be dead if not for Morningstar’s delay death.
Aravis unleashes a maximized chain lightning targeting the most conveniently situated Mocktesian. It barely survives the lightning stroke, and the secondary blasts scorch the remaining babblers and kill a second more-injured Mocktesian.
The battlefield is definitely becoming less chaotic as the enemies are whittled down. Morningstar takes advantage, seeing that she now has the possibility of shaping a firestorm properly. Here in Ava Dormo, even an aspect of it that's been corrupted and twisted by Octesian, her ability to concentrate and comprehend is without equal. Cold flames rip through the demiplane, and when they die down, all of the remaining babblers have been silenced, and one more Mocktesian has been slain. She turns to the true Octesian and shows him Ell’s Will, but her foe just continues to laugh beneath his helm. His laughter is starting to become particularly unnerving, given that the tide of battle is clearly going against him.
Kibi takes a chance and casts prismatic spray at two of the remaining Mocktesians. One is ripped apart by electricity, while the other resists petrification. Then, because he’s learned his lesson before now, Kibi quickens a magic missile on the true Octesian to test for spell turning, rather than lead with (for instance) Otto’s irresistible dance. It’s a wise precaution; the missiles are reflected and smack back into Kibi.
The true Octesian, laughing continuously now, jams a tentacle into the back of Dranko’s neck and lifts him bodily off the ground, holding the half-orc like a dangling piñata above his head. Dranko feels little pain, but there’s the sickening feeling of it writhing beneath his skin like a hot wire. “Stay!” Octesian cackles. Then he turns to Obsidia, standing nearby, and cuts her down with one devastating stroke. Morningstar expends her final delay death to keep her from dying.
One of the two remaining Mocktesians hacks at the injured and recently-revived Corinne, killing her a second time. Grey Wolf responds by blasting it with a twinned sound lance. Two thunderclaps resound through the demiplane, and bits of red armor are shivered off the villain’s body. Ernie targets the true Octesian with a bolt of glory followed by a quickened flame strike (counting on Dranko being able to dodge it even while suspended by a tentacle), and this takes the current host body from perfect health to near death in a single painful moment. And yet, the laughter doesn’t cease.
Flicker continues his deadly dagger-play, this time running up his enemy’s chest and sticking his weapon into the visor-slit of one of the two remaining Mocktesians. As he kicks off and vaults backward, he takes his foe’s head with him; tentacles spill out onto the ground as the body topples. Now there remain only two Octesians, one of which is badly damaged.
Dranko can feel the tentacle questing beneath his skin, and is starting to experience seconds of blackout. Nonetheless he has the presence of mind to drop his whip and call his backup weapon -- the whip Alazar’s Tongue, taken from the horde of Azhant the Ancient. He manages to strike Octesian in the head with it, and while the damage isn’t significant, he inflicts an enervating effect that should make it harder for Octesian to resist further magics.
Evenstar casts her final revivify on Corinne, once more bringing her back from death.
Aravis quickens a dimension door, and has Pewter deliver it to Dranko, the cat leaping bravely onto Octesian’s back and actually running up the tentacle that holds the half-orc aloft. Once his ally is safely away, Aravis targets Octesian with a disintegrate. Thanks to the effect of Alazar’s Tongue, Octesian cannot resist, and the body is flashed to dust.
The one remaining Octesian-body bulges and becomes the final vessel for the mad warrior. This is the one that stands toe-to-toe with Scola. His laughter grows louder as he hacks her to pieces, and no one close enough has any means of saving her. After many close calls, the first of Morningstar’s team – and their most accomplished fighter – has perished.
Seeing that Octesian has no more extra bodies into which he can retreat, Kibi captures him in a barred forcecage. His tentacles slap futilely at the invisible bars. Finally, to the echoing sound of Octesian’s ceaseless laughter, Morningstar mutters, “time to see what’s next” and blasts her nemesis with a bolt of glory of her own. The forcecage fills with darkness, and bands of shadow spill out from between the bars. When the blackness fades, the cage is empty… and yet the laughter doesn’t stop. The insane chuckling reverberates without source all around the demiplane, and the collected heroes look frantically around, wondering what additional difficulties Octesian might have planned for them. When nothing happens, the team hurries to heal the injured and those under the effects of delay death. Fautish, Obsidia and Corinne are all healed back to consciousness, and Fautish immediately sets to using a wand of restoration to restore lost wisdom. Someone casts revenance on Scola, so that she can fight whatever’s coming even after death.
While the post-battle healing is going on, Dranko uses his tentacular nature to cast true seeing. Though he sees nothing new or illusionary, casting the spell here brings him a sense of comfort, like he’s found his true home after long travels. He also gains an innate sense that the tentacle “trees” are more like parts of a living creature, and that the demiplane exists on the skin of some monstrosity.
The pervasive laughter never lets up, and despite a lack of enemies there’s a feeling of impending doom that’s nearly palpable. Then the effects of Morningstar’s perfect awareness run out on her allies, and they feel a heaviness of spirit as they no longer enjoy the attunement with Ava Dormo.
Only when all of the short-term beneficial magics have worn off Morningstar and her allies, do a number of the tentacle trees start to sway and slowly arch inward.
“We’re getting bored!” calls Morningstar into the darkness.
The laughter stops abruptly “Don’t worry,” says Octesian, his voice coming from somewhere high above. “It will all be over soon. But I’ve enjoyed all of this… dancing.”
“What’s it like to lose your soul?” Ernie asks quietly.
“Oh, I still have a soul,” Octesian answers. “It’s just… different now.”
“You were more intimidating when you were sane,” says Morningstar defiantly. “Now you’re just a rabid dog who needs to be put down.”
“You can try!” Octesian screeches. “Anyway, as my Master would say if he were… sane… nothing sharpens the shock of inevitable defeat like a fleeting glimpse of tantalizing victory. You must be… “ Octesian sniffs, and his voice for a second becomes a caricature of pity. “…so sad!” Then his voice distorts and takes on a choking, gurgling sound. “It almost seems a shame to put an end to you!”
A huge tentacle descends from the darkness above, like a smaller version of the Trunk from beyond the Black Door in Het Branoi. Its tip splits open, and it disgorges Octesian like a squeezing sphincter. He stands twenty feet tall, his armor glowing red and asprout with enormous tentacles. He’s as much a Cleaner as he is a man.
Then, in all of their heads, Previa thinks to her allies as calmly as she can, “Morningstar, without your perfect awareness, the rest of us have no ability to inflict real damage upon him. If anyone other than you delivers even the slightest wound upon his body, then when he is killed, he’ll simply wake up wherever his body is, very much alive.”
Morningstar frowns. “So, you’re saying that…?”
“I’m saying that if we mean to put an end to him here, once and for all, then only you can harm him.”
…to be continued…
A Battle in the Madness
The enormous illusionary head vanishes, and Octesian appears, hovering a few feet off the ground in the center of the demiplane. He is clad in the familiar red plate mail, and the visor on his helmet is lowered, obscuring his face. Brown-green tentacles sprout from every gap and seam in his armor, including one that comes (impossibly, gruesomely) straight out of the helmet’s eye-slit. They surround him, a writhing nimbus of horror.
In Octesian’s hand is the familiar glowing black sword that seems to come standard-issue with the deadly armor. But there is something… wrong… with the blade. While on first glance it seems to be solid black metal, sharp and deadly, it also seems rubbery, bendable, swaying slowly on its hilt. In defiance of sense, it is both at once – a sword, and a tentacle.
In the split second after he appears, his whole body sucks inward, as though he’s taking an impossibly deep breath almost to the point of implosion. Then he balloons out like a puffer fish, and from somewhere inside his armor little masses of tentacles come flying out, landing around the battlefield with little squishy plops. They’re the size of small dogs, and they emit a maddening babble, an inhuman cacophony of burbling and squelching noises.
“I’ve got it worse than him?” Dranko mutters to himself. “I beg to differ.”
Finally, and worst of all, duplicates of Octesian appear scattered about the small demiplane. There are seven in total, all identical, all hovering, in addition to the nine tentacle blobs. There are now twenty members of the Forces of Good, facing off against seven Octesians and nine masses of tentacles, scattered among a dark forest of enormous tentacular trees, in poor light, while the air is filled with an insane babbling.
There’s no point in trying to talk, but Morningstar is connected to all of her allies via telepathic bond.. “Sisters, I’ve known all along what everyone has thought of me, and I just don’t care. Let’s just kill the bastard, okay?”
Grey Wolf reacts first, and tries to summon the pack, but this is immediately foiled. It seems that creatures cannot be summoned into Octesian’s demiplane. While Flicker dashes into better striking position near Dranko, Ernie releases Beryn Sur and casts spiritual weapon at the closest Octesian. It bounces off harmlessly, foiled by spell resistance. (He’d rather have cast flame strike or even firestorm, but his allies are intermixed too thoroughly with his enemies.)
One of the Octesians steps up to Aravis and swings his black sword, scoring a hit, but it’s clear that this version has less speed and fighting prowess than they recall the true Octesian possessing. Even so, the sword blow sends a jolt straight to Aravis’s mind, which he barely manages to shrug off. A second Octesian steps to the paladin Fautish and delivers a similar blow, and a third delivers a damaging cut to Ernie. But while Ernie, like Aravis, resists the mental sting of the strike, Fautish feels her head grow muzzy, and for just a second loses her concentration.
>> With each sword blow, target must make a Will save or take 1 point of wisdom damage
With Flicker providing a flanking buddy, Dranko moves and lashes at the nearest tentacle mass. Though his damage is high, he doesn’t kill the thing, and it responds by lashing out with a long pseudopod and grabbing Dranko’s shoulder. Its oozing, suckered tip latches on, and using this attachment it pulls itself up onto the back of Dranko’s neck, where its insane babbling grows even louder. With the thing gibbering directly into his ear, he can hardly hear himself think. It’s maddening.
Other tentacular masses take similar actions, and soon Snokas, Aravis, Ernie and Fautish also sport “babblers” perched on the backs of their necks.
>> When a babbler latches on and pulls itself up, the victim suffers one point of wisdom damage, no save. Also, as long as it’s there, victims are at a -4 penalty on every d20 roll they make. With a standard action, anyone can remove their own Babbler, or one attached to an adjacent ally..
Fautish and Snokas flail wildly, until they’ve grabbed their own babblers and flung them away from themselves. The paladin Gyre steps up and wrenches away Dranko’s unwanted guest, while Sable removes Ernie’s and the warrior Scola easily plucks away the babbler on Aravis. The cleric Corinne also casts a healing spell on Aravis.
The Octesian closest to Morningstar glides forward a step and strikes with the martial fluidity and grace of a seasoned warrior. (“There’s our boy!” says Dranko.) In addition to the damage from the rubbery/sharp blade, the sword itself sprouts a tentacle that whips around and plunges a sharp tip into Morningstar’s neck. She fights off waves of revulsion as she feels it squirming beneath her skin.
Morningstar shakes her head, concentrates, and uses what is arguably her most powerful ability in the Dreamscape. She bestows upon all of her allies the same set of dream powers she herself possesses: flight, true seeing, freedom of movement, and bonuses to attacks, armor and reflex saves. This will only last a minute, but it bolsters her allies’ confidence as well as their abilities.
Having done so, she decides to spend the seconds necessary to focus her consciousness on her physical body, to see what’s happening in the Greenhouse. She was hoping that the priestesses there would be healing their bodies (with corresponding restoration happening here), but so far that hasn’t happened. It only takes her a second or two to realize why: the priestesses gathered around their physical bodies are moving in extreme slow motion. With a groan of dismay, she realizes that time is flowing much faster here in Octesian’s twisted demiplane, and by the time any of her sisters in the Greenhouse will be able to react, the battle here will be long over. So much for that advantage!
With a sigh she quickens divine power on herself, and smashes Octesian with Ell’s Will. The holy weapon shears through the front of his plate mail like its smashing through soft cheese, and tentacles spill from the gash like twisting intestines. Octesian looks down, then wags a finger at Morningstar. “You… you naughty girl!”
Aravis endures another sword-swipe from his own Octesian-copy and casts cone of cold, finding an angle that catches only enemies. Several babblers are damaged, as are two Octesians despite being somewhat resistant to cold. The babblers launch another wave of attacks, and soon Grey Wolf, Starbrook, Belle and Previa are burdened with yammering tentacle-masses.
Kibi sends Scree to Morningstar, and the little earth elemental pelts the sword-tentacle with rocks until it slides back out of Morningstar’s neck. Kibi himself casts his own cone of cold, this one maximized, followed by a quickened coldfire. Some of the tentacle masses are destroyed outright by this barrage, and now a few of the Octesians are looking particularly battle-worn.
Octesian – the real Octesian – winces at Morningstar, and in a halting voice says, “Ex…cuse me for a moment.” His shape shudders and bulges, and across the battlefield the least-damage Octesian-form does likewise. The new host body for the true Octesian stands next to Fautish, and with a series of brutal sword-slashes he strikes Fautish down. Morningstar immediately casts delay death, which temporarily prevents her ally from dying from hit point loss, though Fautish is still rendered unconscious and brutally wounded.
Two more lesser Octesians converge on Corrine; their sword-strikes sap away her wisdom and leave her on the edge of consciousness. Previa and Starbrook take the time to divest themselves of Babblers, while Belle and Leona cast spells upon Ernie to heal his wounds and restore his lost wisdom. Grey Wolf quickens true strike and uses Bostock to channel a maximized acid orb into the Octesian closest to him. His target erupts in a gout of sizzling green goo, bits of burned armor and tentacle flesh sloughing off to fall onto the rubbery ground. A rancid smell wafts up, but Grey Wolf just smiles. The acid-burned Octesian wobbles on his feet, but doesn’t fall.
Flicker runs another babbler through with his dagger, driving his blade through so powerfully that his arm comes out the far side of it. He has to jiggle his arm violently to get the corpse to fall off. Ernie nails the current “true” Octesian with energy drain, and the mad warrior’s tentacles quiver in pain, but from beneath his helmet comes the sound of insane chuckling.
One of the lesser Octesians (dubbed “Mocktesians” by the heroes over the mind-link) cuts through Corinne’s midsection, a deep and immediately fatal blow – but Previa reacts with revivify and Dranko follows up with close wounds to bring the Ellish sister back to consciousness. Two more Mocktesians attack; one misses Morningstar, but the other strikes Evenstar, draining away another point of the old cleric’s wisdom. She curses and shakes her head to clear it.
Dranko activates his boots of haste and gives the true Octesian a serious whipping, just as two of the remaining babblers hoist themselves onto the backs of Snokas and Gyre. Snokas reaches his arms up and immediately flings his unwanted guest away, while Gyre spins around in a panic before doing likewise.
Evenstar still has the wisdom to drop a flame strike on a pair of Mocktesians, and while one of these largely resists, the second (whose body the “real” Octesian has recently vacated) is turned to ash. Morningstar gives her a thumb up and an encouraging smile.
Scola takes a full attack on the nearest Mocktesian, but cannot land even a single telling blow through its red armor. She screams in frustration, being unused to any sort of martial failure. Obsidia endures an attack from a babbler as she heals Fautish, though the paladin is so badly injured that she still lies senseless on the ground, and would still be dead if not for Morningstar’s delay death.
Aravis unleashes a maximized chain lightning targeting the most conveniently situated Mocktesian. It barely survives the lightning stroke, and the secondary blasts scorch the remaining babblers and kill a second more-injured Mocktesian.
The battlefield is definitely becoming less chaotic as the enemies are whittled down. Morningstar takes advantage, seeing that she now has the possibility of shaping a firestorm properly. Here in Ava Dormo, even an aspect of it that's been corrupted and twisted by Octesian, her ability to concentrate and comprehend is without equal. Cold flames rip through the demiplane, and when they die down, all of the remaining babblers have been silenced, and one more Mocktesian has been slain. She turns to the true Octesian and shows him Ell’s Will, but her foe just continues to laugh beneath his helm. His laughter is starting to become particularly unnerving, given that the tide of battle is clearly going against him.
Kibi takes a chance and casts prismatic spray at two of the remaining Mocktesians. One is ripped apart by electricity, while the other resists petrification. Then, because he’s learned his lesson before now, Kibi quickens a magic missile on the true Octesian to test for spell turning, rather than lead with (for instance) Otto’s irresistible dance. It’s a wise precaution; the missiles are reflected and smack back into Kibi.
The true Octesian, laughing continuously now, jams a tentacle into the back of Dranko’s neck and lifts him bodily off the ground, holding the half-orc like a dangling piñata above his head. Dranko feels little pain, but there’s the sickening feeling of it writhing beneath his skin like a hot wire. “Stay!” Octesian cackles. Then he turns to Obsidia, standing nearby, and cuts her down with one devastating stroke. Morningstar expends her final delay death to keep her from dying.
One of the two remaining Mocktesians hacks at the injured and recently-revived Corinne, killing her a second time. Grey Wolf responds by blasting it with a twinned sound lance. Two thunderclaps resound through the demiplane, and bits of red armor are shivered off the villain’s body. Ernie targets the true Octesian with a bolt of glory followed by a quickened flame strike (counting on Dranko being able to dodge it even while suspended by a tentacle), and this takes the current host body from perfect health to near death in a single painful moment. And yet, the laughter doesn’t cease.
Flicker continues his deadly dagger-play, this time running up his enemy’s chest and sticking his weapon into the visor-slit of one of the two remaining Mocktesians. As he kicks off and vaults backward, he takes his foe’s head with him; tentacles spill out onto the ground as the body topples. Now there remain only two Octesians, one of which is badly damaged.
Dranko can feel the tentacle questing beneath his skin, and is starting to experience seconds of blackout. Nonetheless he has the presence of mind to drop his whip and call his backup weapon -- the whip Alazar’s Tongue, taken from the horde of Azhant the Ancient. He manages to strike Octesian in the head with it, and while the damage isn’t significant, he inflicts an enervating effect that should make it harder for Octesian to resist further magics.
Evenstar casts her final revivify on Corinne, once more bringing her back from death.
Aravis quickens a dimension door, and has Pewter deliver it to Dranko, the cat leaping bravely onto Octesian’s back and actually running up the tentacle that holds the half-orc aloft. Once his ally is safely away, Aravis targets Octesian with a disintegrate. Thanks to the effect of Alazar’s Tongue, Octesian cannot resist, and the body is flashed to dust.
The one remaining Octesian-body bulges and becomes the final vessel for the mad warrior. This is the one that stands toe-to-toe with Scola. His laughter grows louder as he hacks her to pieces, and no one close enough has any means of saving her. After many close calls, the first of Morningstar’s team – and their most accomplished fighter – has perished.
Seeing that Octesian has no more extra bodies into which he can retreat, Kibi captures him in a barred forcecage. His tentacles slap futilely at the invisible bars. Finally, to the echoing sound of Octesian’s ceaseless laughter, Morningstar mutters, “time to see what’s next” and blasts her nemesis with a bolt of glory of her own. The forcecage fills with darkness, and bands of shadow spill out from between the bars. When the blackness fades, the cage is empty… and yet the laughter doesn’t stop. The insane chuckling reverberates without source all around the demiplane, and the collected heroes look frantically around, wondering what additional difficulties Octesian might have planned for them. When nothing happens, the team hurries to heal the injured and those under the effects of delay death. Fautish, Obsidia and Corinne are all healed back to consciousness, and Fautish immediately sets to using a wand of restoration to restore lost wisdom. Someone casts revenance on Scola, so that she can fight whatever’s coming even after death.
While the post-battle healing is going on, Dranko uses his tentacular nature to cast true seeing. Though he sees nothing new or illusionary, casting the spell here brings him a sense of comfort, like he’s found his true home after long travels. He also gains an innate sense that the tentacle “trees” are more like parts of a living creature, and that the demiplane exists on the skin of some monstrosity.
The pervasive laughter never lets up, and despite a lack of enemies there’s a feeling of impending doom that’s nearly palpable. Then the effects of Morningstar’s perfect awareness run out on her allies, and they feel a heaviness of spirit as they no longer enjoy the attunement with Ava Dormo.
Only when all of the short-term beneficial magics have worn off Morningstar and her allies, do a number of the tentacle trees start to sway and slowly arch inward.
“We’re getting bored!” calls Morningstar into the darkness.
The laughter stops abruptly “Don’t worry,” says Octesian, his voice coming from somewhere high above. “It will all be over soon. But I’ve enjoyed all of this… dancing.”
“What’s it like to lose your soul?” Ernie asks quietly.
“Oh, I still have a soul,” Octesian answers. “It’s just… different now.”
“You were more intimidating when you were sane,” says Morningstar defiantly. “Now you’re just a rabid dog who needs to be put down.”
“You can try!” Octesian screeches. “Anyway, as my Master would say if he were… sane… nothing sharpens the shock of inevitable defeat like a fleeting glimpse of tantalizing victory. You must be… “ Octesian sniffs, and his voice for a second becomes a caricature of pity. “…so sad!” Then his voice distorts and takes on a choking, gurgling sound. “It almost seems a shame to put an end to you!”
A huge tentacle descends from the darkness above, like a smaller version of the Trunk from beyond the Black Door in Het Branoi. Its tip splits open, and it disgorges Octesian like a squeezing sphincter. He stands twenty feet tall, his armor glowing red and asprout with enormous tentacles. He’s as much a Cleaner as he is a man.
Then, in all of their heads, Previa thinks to her allies as calmly as she can, “Morningstar, without your perfect awareness, the rest of us have no ability to inflict real damage upon him. If anyone other than you delivers even the slightest wound upon his body, then when he is killed, he’ll simply wake up wherever his body is, very much alive.”
Morningstar frowns. “So, you’re saying that…?”
“I’m saying that if we mean to put an end to him here, once and for all, then only you can harm him.”
…to be continued…
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A brilliant piece of RBDM-ness, Sagiro. *applause*
I can't wait to see how this fight plays out. In the meantime, I've added another chapter to the Collected Story Hour, bringing the story up to just before the combat begins...
Sagiro
Rodent of Uncertain Parentage
Really? Because to me, the notion that a creature empowered by a brush with the Far Realms would acquire wisdom-draining powers, seems almost too cliched in its obviousness. But if it helps, look at it another way: Octesian was tasked by an insane God to kill a powerful priestess, and has had a long time now to work on a plan of attack. It's even possible that the imprisoned Adversary bequeathed powers upon Octesian for just that purpose.
No matter how you slice it, I think wisdom drain was entirely fitting to the encounter, and not an unfair "gotcha" to a bunch of clerics. YMMV, of course.
coyote6
Adventurer
Re: Sagiro's Story Hour: The Further Adventures of Abernathy's Company (updated 4/12/13)
Yeah, in D&D, insanity is modeled by Wisdom damage and drain, and Far Realms critters are all about inducing madness. They're positively Cthulhu-esque about it.
Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk 2
Yeah, in D&D, insanity is modeled by Wisdom damage and drain, and Far Realms critters are all about inducing madness. They're positively Cthulhu-esque about it.
Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk 2
Typo?
