Sure enough, the Guardian Angels have barely begun breakfast the next morning when they are interrupted by a commotion and the faint sounds of combat in the distance. Only moments later, their unfortunate neighbors see Korm and Six zooming by, seemingly seated on something unseen (namely Luna in the form of an invisible, flying earth elemental). Nameless and Gareth soar in their wake, the large white wings extending from the paladin's armor gleaming in the morning sun.
The source of the commotion is half a dozen mindflayers and thrice as many dolgaunts, who are currently rampaging through one of Sharn's large open-air markets. As is habitual in the City of Towers, the market is actually centered inside one of the larger towers, extending outwards to the large balconies, huge buttresses and multiple bridges extending from it. Citizens are fleeing in every direction, with a few city guards attempting to simultaneously engage the attackers but stay at a safe distance.
“Oh, good!” growls Luna as she soars around an intervening tower and spots the enemies. “I could use a little morning exercise!”
“Same here,” says Korm, extending cloaker-wings from his back in preparation for having to dismount from his gigantic companion.
“Don't be too hasty,” warns Nameless, looking around for additional unseen foes as the Angels fly in. “This attack doesn't make sense, particularly considering they must know we are in Sharn. It's a diversion or feint of some sort.”
“Whatever. Let us know when you work out the reason,” says Luna, hurling herself forward.
Despite the alienist's reservations, her allies follow suit. Having spotted them, a couple of the mindflayers hurl spells at them, but to little avail. The Angels unleash a barrage in response, which leaves the casters wounded and kills multiple dolgaunts, before charging into the aberration ranks.
While the other four all rush into melee, Nameless hovers a good fifty feet away from the closest enemies. His enhanced vision flickers over his foes, noticing the expected magical auras on their items and persons – and something else.
“There's definitely something odd going on,” he transmits quickly over the
telepathic bond linking him to the other Angels.
“Each mindflayer has a strong conjuration aura in its chest. I suspect a...”
Before he can hazard a theory, Gareth finds a way to confirm what it is. Having flown right up to a hastily retreating mindflayer, the paladin smites him mightily, driving the Endless Blade right through the unfortunate creature's skull. The mindflayer collapses instantly – and then implodes, leaving not a shred of itself behind.
“Huh? Did you see what …,” the paladin begins, quickly turning to his allies, only to see each of the other mindflayers, including ones which have not even been touched, similarly implode. “Um – did I just kill them
all?”
“Maybe, but there's something else going on,” says Six, his permanent
see invisibility allowing him to see a faint glow where each mindflayer had been moments ago, a glow which promptly shoots towards each of the others.
Nameless too can see them, and his permanent
arcane sight provides further insight, as does his prodigious intellect. Almost without conscious thought, he realizes what the pulses of energy are connecting to form. “Careful – it's a
gate!”
The others, beside Six, cannot see what the alienist is looking at, but they do see the immediate result of it. Each of the dolgaunts now explodes, their demise much messier than the mindflayers', strewing blood and flesh around them. All that remains is a flash of life energy, which only Nameless sees shoot into the newly formed
gate.
All of the Angels, however, do see what steps through it. Five figures, consisting of a trio followed by a pair. The three in front are trumpet archons, or were formerly so, since leathery wings resembling Korm’s hang where large feathery pinions once were, and worms protrude from the holes which used to hold celestial eyes. Behind them stand two mindflayers, with the characteristically amputated facial tentacles and embedded dragonshards.
“It's – THEM!” Luna roars, recognizing the creatures which she had barely survived fighting at the ziggurat, having to flee with her four companions lying dead behind her.
“And they're ready for us, like last time,” Nameless' mental voice rasps over the
link, seeing half a dozen magical auras on each of the enemies. He calls upon his link to the plane of madness, the
armor of Xoriat appearing around him instantly.
“This time, let's coordinate atta....”
Before the alienist can finish the sentence, just as in the battle at the ziggurat, Gareth charges forward with a loud war-cry and smites the closest of the former archons. His target staggers, dark blood gushing from the deep gash across its chest, but it remains upright.
Wonderful!, Nameless thinks in exasperation.
You can lead a paladin to the battle but you can't make it use tactics. For an instant, as the mindflayers and archons move to respond in practiced unison, the Angels expect to see Gareth cut down by the archons' greatswords as he was at the ziggurat. Luckily for the paladin, the aberrations choose a more expansive approach, instead hurling a series of spells at the Angels at large. Even more luckily, the Angels are no longer what they once were when they last fought these enemies. Recreated by the secret dragon magic of Argonnessen, imbued with the essence of the Silver Flame, the Guardian Angels—individually and collectively—now wield a degree of power that is far beyond the scope of even these elite aberrations, powerful as they are*.
As the two mindflayers cast what most of the Angels recognize as
chain dispels, Nameless and Korm simultaneously draw on their
rings of greater counterspells to try and block the enemy spells. The alienist causes one to dissipate before it can strike him and his allies, but the Gatekeeper fails, so drastically that even a swift mental tweaking of the odds in his favor by Nameless is to no avail.** The Angels each feel themselves lose a couple of protective spells, but not enough to make a real difference.
The same is true as each of the archons unleashes a spell designed to turn the target's
blood to water***. All of the Angels (including Six, who finds the alchemical fluids flowing through his fibers equally affected) are weakened, but none of them dramatically so. And as the spells strike Nameless, his
armor of Xoriat has one of its random effects, causing one to bounce to Luna, while reflecting two of them back at their casters, who are also affected. Nevertheless, the archons follow up with swift spells, casting a
dimensional anchor each on Gareth and Korm, while the one Gareth smote heals himself.
While the
anchors may make fleeing more difficult, it's not as if the Angels intend to. Reassured by the fact that they are all still on their feet and relatively hale, they respond with a far more effective barrage. Luna casts a swift
assay resistance and drops an empowered
arc of lightning on the three archons, hurting two of them. Korm copies her first spell and then unleashes a
horrid wilting, wounding all five of the enemies.
Yet far deadlier and damaging is Nameless' riposte, the alienist ripping wide a section of the planar fabric around the enemies and letting Xoriat reach forth to them. Aberrations though they are, his foes are not powerful enough to resist the effects of the
maw of chaos, which rips away parts of their bodies. One of the archons, already badly wounded, stumbles and falls, its form swiftly dissolving into bloody shreds of flesh and bone.
Six, tactically deciding to leave the initial attacks to the others, quickly
hastes everyone with the wand buried inside his metallic forearm and then calls out, “Gareth – hit them before they can recover!” The paladin obeys, unleashing a brutal blow with a prayer to the Silver Flame, utilizing a divine ability that lets him draw health from his wounded foe and heal himself.
Though the attack doesn't drop his target, it does leave him seriously wounded, and the aberrations have other issues to worry about. While the four of them have managed to retain their footing against the still-swirling vortex that is Nameless' spell, one archon and a mindflayer are so discombobulated by the effort that they are temporarily rendered incapable of spellcasting. The other mindflayer staggers out of the area of effect and desperately casts a
forcecage around Korm and Gareth, while the second archon moves out as well and casts a
heal on itself.
As the archon straightens, all of its wounds now healed, multiple tons of charging elemental slam into it, Luna's huge bulk lifting it off its feet and hurling it right back into the
maw of chaos. While not taking quite as precipitous an approach, Six enlarges himself so that he too towers hugely over his foes and moves to block the escape of the mindflayer.
Nameless smirks at the state of their enemies and rasps, “I must really thank you for coming after us. This is quite enjoyable! Please don't leave.” He then drops a swift
solid fog on most of the enemies, holding them in place within the
maw, before causing the magical walls of force imprisoning Korm and Gareth to
disintegrate.
“Ah, dammit – Nameless! I can't see them now,” grunts Korm, before grinning. “Not that I need to.” A swift spell**** lets him 'see' what is occurring inside the
fog and he steps closer, carefully taking aim. The unfortunate archon, unable to see his advance, has no defense as the Gatekeeper drives his meteoric blade forward. It bites deeply, but the archon barely manages to stay on its feet – till Korm activates the bloodstone in the sword's hilt and the empowered
vampiric touch placed within draws out what remains of its life.
Gareth, not having the same ability but able to gauge where the last archon is thanks to Luna's position, attacks into the
fog as well. One of his blows hits only air, but the backswing culminates satisfyingly in flesh and a pained groan. A second later, the Angels hear the sound of spellcasting, as the mindflayer within the
fog decides the battle is a lost cause and
teleports away.
The remaining mindflayer makes a desperate, if utterly foolish, attempt to
dispel the spells in the area, but neither the
solid fog nor the
maw of chaos are affected. Before it can do anything else, Six's chain catches it in the head, again and again and again, till it collapses in a heap.
From the sounds of it, the archon within the
solid fog is again affected by the winds of Xoriat, but Luna doesn't bother waiting to find out, bringing another empowered
flame strike down on its location for good measure. The sounds stop.
The Guardian Angels look around the battlefield and then exchange pleased smiles. Luna looks at the corpses, grunts dismissively and then looks around at her friends. “See – I told you that if you'd just tried harder last time you wouldn't have died!”
Only one of the Angels is neither smiling, nor even really paying any attention to the battle's end. While the others indulge in a certain degree of backslapping and self-congratulation over the fact that they utterly crushed the enemies who had handed them their worst defeat, Nameless is not so easily pleased.
The alienist paces back and forth, his concentration focused wholly on one thing – revenge. As he wracks his brains, working swiftly through myriad options, one hand tightly clasps the sentient stone Edgar, which he mutters to as he often does. “Think, you fool – THINK! You are one of the most powerful arcanists to walk the surface of Eberron. There
must be a way to track it down before it can reach safety. I will NOT allow it to escape! My vengeance must be complete, Edgar – I must have … wait … ah, yes – of course … it is really so simple … so utterly simple after ….”
A moment later, the rest of the Guardian Angels hear a sickening, gurgling sound and hurriedly turn to see Nameless hunched over and convulsing. It takes a moment to realize that the nauseating sound is actually the alienist laughing, a sound that none of them have heard before – or, now that they have, want to hear again. For once, Nameless has completely dropped the facade of normality that he adopts even with his companions, letting them see through to the incomprehensible madness within.
“Umm, Nameless?” begins Gareth, after exchanging troubled looks with the others. “Are you ...”
Before he can say any more, the alienist straightens, his 'mirth' forgotten as the facade drops back into place. “Korm!” he snaps peremptorily, striding forward and past the others, eyes seeking for the spot from which the mindflayer had fled. “Hit me with a targeted spell of the seventh valence!”
“But ...”
“NOW!” the alienist shouts and, with a shrug, the Gatekeeper complies. The
absorption that Nameless had cast before the battle drinks in the magical power, the alienist feeling the presence of the additional energy in his mind. Having found what he wants, Nameless kneels and touches his tentacle to a few drops of blood on the stone, drawn from the surviving mindflayer before it fled. He then casts a
greater scrying. And smiles viciously.
“Everyone gather around. We're going after the last mindflayer.”
“Really? Well ...”
“I don't give up that easily,” Nameless interrupts. “And it's time we finished this. Make sure he does not escape, but his life is
mine!”
Moments later, the unfortunate mindflayer—standing within a tunnel deep within the bowels of Khyber—gapes in horror as the Guardian Angels appear right next to it. Before it can respond in any way, Nameless gestures and casts a spell, his ring flaring with power. The mindflayer screams, glowing green for an instant as the empowered maximized
disintegrate strikes, and collapses into a small puff of dust.
“Damn!” says Luna, looking at the alienist. “You
really took that revenge thing seriously.”
Nameless shrugs. “It did kill me … us. I,” his face twists into a
grim smile, “take that sort of thing personally.”
* The PCs are 19th level at this point and basically off the chart, while the NPCs were CR16 each (bumped up from CR 14 at the ziggurat battle). Poor guys never had a chance
** Korm rolled a natural 1 on the counterspell check, so Nameless used a PrC (Fatespinner) ability to let him reroll it – which he did with a natural 4.
*** That's a really powerful SC spell, doing 2d6 Con damage (save for half) to five living creatures in close range, within 30 ft of each other. I wouldn't even allow it in a game unless with PCs as high-powered as the Angels are.
**** Blindsight (SC)
And here's what Rackhir had to say on the subject of this battle and its conclusion:
This is really more or less what I was thinking and I did break out my best maniacal laugh.
I was furiously determined to not let the last one get away. I wanted revenge, I wanted it badly and just crushing the rest of the group that had taken us down wasn't sufficient. I wanted them all dead.
I didn't have anything prepared of course that I could use to track it so furiously scanning through the SRD I found greater scrying, which could do what I needed, but 7th level spells aren't something you can just pull out of your pocket. So I was wracking my brain for some way to pull it out of my hat, when it struck me that the Absorption I'd put up had would suck up exactly 7 levels worth of spells and thus power up to a 7th lvl spell. Exactly what I needed for Greater Scrying. After that it was a simple matter of a Greater teleport and a maximized empowered Disintegrate…
Getting to crush the guys who had defeated us was great and was something I REALLY appreciated Shil giving us the opportunity to do, but being able to pull a rabbit out of my hat to get the last guy like that...
That was pure gold and one of those moments I'll remember as long as I live.
9th lvl spells, especially those from the Spell Compendium are a BIG step up in power.
