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Wing Three
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 6239851" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 78: 30 FINGERS</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Cal Trop, human cleric of Kord</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Delphyne Babelberi, human witch (wizard)</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Galrich Slayer, half-orc barbarian</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Telgrane, half-fire elemental human conjurer/archmage</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Thunderwolf, human fighter</p><p></p><p>NPC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Aerik Battershield, dwarven fighter/dwarven defender</p><p></p><p>A Guild page entered the Wing Three common living area with a nervous-looking man in a hooded cloak. "A visitor to see you," the page announced, then turned on his heels and departed.</p><p></p><p>The man approached the assembled group and blurted out, "You've got to help me. My cult is going to do something horrible tonight!"</p><p></p><p>"Your...cult?" asked Delphyne, intrigued. She looked around for Akari, so the paladin could use his innate ability to detect the evil in others to give them an initial assessment of their visitor, but nobody had seen him since the previous evening, when he had gone to meet the Head Cleric of the Greyhawk City Church of Hieroneous.</p><p></p><p>"Perhaps you might like to start from the beginning," suggested Cal.</p><p></p><p>The intruder looked around nervously, as if making sure nobody else was within earshot, then began his tale.</p><p></p><p>"My name's <strong>Thurman</strong>," he began. "I'm kind of a member of this evil cult of demon worshipers. And if the others knew I was here, they'd probably have me killed, so I gotta make this quick and get out of here before I'm noticed."</p><p></p><p>"Hold up," interrupted Cal, then quickly intoned the words to a <em>zone of truth</em> spell. "I'm sorry," he said pleasantly once his prayer was complete. "Please continue."</p><p></p><p>"What was that?" Thurman wanted to know.</p><p></p><p>"Merely a spell to indicate whether what you say is truthful or not," the cleric replied, smiling.</p><p></p><p>"Oh, okay - I get that," answered Thurman, before picking up his tale. "Okay, here’s the deal. For some time now, we've been examining this evil tome one of the cult members brought to our attention, trying out the rituals in an attempt to increase our personal power and influence. So far, it's been little stuff – you know, minor curses against our rivals, that sort of thing. But tonight it's going to get a whole lot worse.</p><p></p><p>"There's this ritual we're scheduled to try tonight in our secret lair, a series of hidden rooms in the sewers. There's this demon, the Lady of Serpents, who we're going to try to conjure up, who's said to bestow incredible power to those who summon her, if the sacrifice is sufficient. And that would be fine with me, I'll tell you right now, except the ritual has each of us cut off one of our fingers! I'd be okay with, you know, like sacrificing a goat or a cat or whatever, but I’m not really sure I want to cut off one of my own fingers for this, you know?</p><p></p><p>"So now I'm in kind of a bind. If I don't go through with this, they'll kill me. If I try to hightail it out of town, they'll kill my family in retaliation. And I can't really uproot my family and skip town with them without, like, giving them a good explanation, and I'd really rather not get into my demon-worshiping cult business with my parents, you know? So, I figure, like, maybe I tip you guys off so you can show up early, like, and put a stop to the whole deal before we get to any fingers getting cut off, okay? Here, I brought a map I drew up." Thurman pushed a hastily-sketched map of the sewers leading to their hidden lair; the adventurers were not surprised to note that the demon cult was situated in the sewers under the Styes, the seediest part of Greyhawk City. "Midnight tonight's when we’re supposed to start the ritual," Thurman added, "so if you could get there before then, that would be great."</p><p></p><p>"So you'd be perfectly okay with unleashing a demon into our world, except for the fact that you'd have to cut off one of your own fingers - is that it?" asked Delphyne, incredulously.</p><p></p><p>"Well, yeah, that's like it totally," agreed Thurman, glad to see that these heroes understood the situation perfectly and would likely be able to extract him from the predicament he had foolishly gotten himself into. Delphyne gave a look to the others that expressed quite clearly, <em>Is this guy for real?</em></p><p></p><p>Cal opted to press him for more details. "Tell me about this demon," he commanded.</p><p></p><p>"I don't know a whole lot about her," the young cultist admitted. "She's called 'the Lady of Serpents,' that’s pretty much all I know. Although I saw a scaly lady the other day at a café of all places, sitting there as bold as you please, with snakes instead of, you know, hair. A medusa, I think they're called. I dunno for sure if she's tied up with this demon or what, but it kind of fits. Is there a demon kind of medusa? Anyway, I really gotta go. See you guys tonight, okay? And don't kill me with the rest of the cult, right? I'll, like, be the guy that drops straight to the ground when you show up and covers his head with his hands. Okay? Cool." He began to usher himself out of the room with a sigh of relief. With any luck, these heroes would get him through the night with all ten of his fingers intact. However, Cal pushed Delphyne over to intercept him, and asked her to kindly escort Thurman out of the Guild Headquarters. Puzzled, the witch grabbed up Thurman's arm and led him down the stairs, looking questioning back at Cal and receiving a look which said he'd explain later.</p><p></p><p>"So what do you think?" asked Thunderwolf, amazed at the audacity of the young cultist and a little surprised that they didn't hold him for further questioning.</p><p></p><p>"Well, first of all, everything he told us is true," admitted Cal. "It looks like we'll need to show up and put a stop to this little summoning ritual tonight." He looked at the map Thurman had given them, studying the pentagram drawn in the largest room under the sewers, accessible by ladder from an upper level of the sewer system.</p><p></p><p>"Then let's go!" suggested Galrich, grabbing up his arsenal of weapons. Behind him, Aerik followed suit. Cal had to explain to the hot-headed barbarian that showing up too soon would alert the cultists, and make it more likely that some of them would escape to go on to do further mischief. The cleric of Kord wanted to get them all at once, which meant allowing them to gather together for their midnight ritual.</p><p></p><p>"Let's check up on our little cultist," suggested Cal as Delphyne returned to the common area. "Delphyne, now that you've had first-hand contact with Thurman, would you mind scrying on him for us?" He nodded over to the <em>crystal ball</em> they had unearthed in Nakariah's lair, which was perched on a stand on the low table in front of their sofa. Delphyne sat before the globe, ran her hands over it, and an image slowly formed in the crystal's interior. The others gathered around her and watched as Thurman crossed a street and approached a merchant's wagon, buying an inexpensive lunch of cheese and hardbread before heading back to the Styes, eating as he walked. He made it to what was apparently his parents' living quarters in the slums of the Styes, before crashing onto a bedroll in the corner and covering himself up with a tattered blanket. "Yeah, rest up," suggested Delphyne, watching the young cultist with disgust. "You've got a busy night ahead of you."</p><p></p><p>The group came up with several possible plans of attack. Galrich and Aerik were for the simple approach: bursting into the ritual chamber with weapons drawn and killing everyone in a cultist robe. Telgrane suggested possibly infiltrating the cultists by disguising themselves as new recruits; this was ultimately rejected once it was pointed out that a group of demon-worshipers would not likely invite new, untested recruits to join them in their first major attempt at summoning a powerful demon. Eventually, the adventurers decided to have Telgrane head into the sewers alone, carrying with him the Door That Doesn't Belong, inside which the others would be stationed. Telgrane would unroll and attach the Door to the wall of the upper sewers, the others would disembark, and then they'd climb down the ladder to the ritual room. Figuring the cultists would likely start assembling by 11 bells, they chose to have Telgrane enter the sewers about an hour earlier, giving the group plenty of time to reconnoiter.</p><p></p><p>There was some discussion about whether Telgrane should try disguising himself as he walked the streets of the Styes in the dark of the evening, but the group assumed that nobody would interfere with a man who had flames jetting out of his hollow eye sockets - and it turns out they were absolutely right, for Telgrane encountered no difficulties in making his way to the sewer opening that Thurman had indicated on his hand-drawn map. Sliding the manhole cover back over the opening in the street above him, Telgrane climbed his way down a short ladder and found himself in a winding mass of sewer passageways, lit only by the flames emanating from his own eyes.</p><p></p><p>He turned the corner, headed towards a passageway in the back where they likely wouldn't be seen by any cultists using this route to get to their hidden lair, turned another corner - and was spotted by a shadowy, winged figure that headed his way with a grin filled with sharp teeth.</p><p></p><p>Telgrane's initial assessment was that this was a gargoyle, for it was the same shape and general build, its hulking form barely fitting in the narrow sewer tunnels. He quickly cast a <em>Mordenkainen's sword</em> spell, causing a blade of black energy to manifest and strike at the beast - only to have it fizzle away into nothingness upon contact. Then the conjurer felt a shiver of soul-sucking cold run down from the creature's very gaze, and he had to focus on the ability to pop open the top of the tinderbox he wore strapped to the belt on his hip. <em>This is no mere gargoyle</em>, he thought to himself.</p><p></p><p>A stream of glowing embers arced out of the metal box, and Infernia stood between her master and the nabassu demon approaching. "I will deal with him, master!" she assured the wizard.</p><p></p><p>"Will you?" the demon asked, as he popped out of existence - and then popped back into existence directly behind Telgrane. However, rather than striking out at him, he merely cradled the wizard's chin with a massive hand filled with razor-sharp claws, and gave him a wicked smile filled with too many teeth to count. Telgrane jumped back in shock, his left hand still holding the rolled-up Door he was supposed to be deploying.</p><p></p><p>Inside the extradimensional space that was the interior of the Door That Doesn't Belong, Delphyne was getting antsy. "What's taking him so long?" she asked the others, unpacking the <em>crystal ball</em> she had taken with her. Focusing on an image of Telgrane, she cast her will through the sphere and tried to get an image of what the conjurer was up to.</p><p></p><p>Facing the nabassu and trying to get out of the way so Infernia could squeeze past her master, Telgrane suddenly felt an itching in his skull that experience told him was an attempt to scry on his location. Fearing it might be the cultists, he successfully blocked it with the power of his own will, and Delphyne sighed in frustration and put the <em>crystal ball</em> back away in its carrying case. "We should have worked out some kind of communication protocol," she said.</p><p></p><p>"There's not much we can do from in here until Telgrane gets the Door attached to a straight surface," said Cal. "Hopefully, whatever's taking so long doesn't take too much longer."</p><p></p><p>In the sewer tunnels, Infernia struck out at the nabassu and scored a direct hit, but then frowned as it seemed to disregard the flames engulfing her body. How the fire elemental disliked fighting enemies who were resistant to her flames!</p><p></p><p>"Just hold him off a bit longer!" advised Telgrane as he gave the rolled-up Door a quick snap and flipped it up against the wall of the sewers. But having done so, he found himself face-to-face with the nabassu again, the demon having teleported away from Infernia to attack the conjurer - and, inadvertently, stand directly in the path of the Door.</p><p></p><p>Galrich was standing in the vestibule behind the Door That Doesn't Belong with his hand on the doorknob, when the knob, which had been resisting his efforts to turn, suddenly gave way. He swung the Door open, only to see what looked like a gargoyle standing directly in front of him. He swiped at it with his greatsword, dealing a cut across the creature's abdomen. The nabassu turned to direct his gaze upon the impudent barbarian, and Galrich felt his life-force dissipating away.</p><p></p><p>Delphyne stood directly behind Galrich, and managed to target the nabassu around Galrich's bulk with a <em>wand of magic missiles</em>. Normally, this kind of attack was a sure-fire thing, but to the young witch's dismay the screeching missiles simply vanished upon striking the demon, leaving it untouched and unhurt by her attack. "It's resisting my spells!" she called to the others.</p><p></p><p>"Let's see it resist this one!" called back Telgrane, as he used his knowledge as an archmage to channel a mere cantrip into an arcane blast of pure magical energy. The bolt of arcane energy hit the nabassu - who, oddly stood with arms spread out as if welcoming the blast - and the demon grinned at the sight of Telgrane hunched over in pain as the exact same damage that hit the demon also manifested itself onto the conjurer's form. "He's linked himself to me somehow!" the archmage called to the others.</p><p></p><p>Cal had just called forth a <em>spiritual weapon</em>, which manifested as a glowing greatsword of the type favored by Kord, and sent it crashing into the demon. It was too late to stop the attack, but fortunately the sword bit into the nabassu and left Telgrane unaffected. "It looks like you're only linked to the damage you cause it yourself!" the cleric called out of the Door to Telgrane, for the demon still blocked their way and the other heroes had yet to find a way to exit their extradimensional space.</p><p></p><p>"Then it should be safe to have someone attack it my stead!" replied Telgrane, summoning an elder earth elemental which rose up out of the ground and pounded away at the nabassu. The demon teleported away out of sight, allowing the other heroes to exit the Door and enter the constricting sewer tunnels. Thunderwolf immediately broke left and flanked around behind the demon, shooting a flurry of arrows into its broad back. Galrich and Aerik took the more direct route, while Delphyne tried again with her wand, this time with success. But it was the massive fists of the earth elemental that struck the final blow, causing the demon's battered body to crumple into a grisly paste with bone fragments sticking out in all directions.</p><p></p><p>"It didn't disappear upon death," noted Cal. "It must have been called, or gated, rather than summoned."</p><p></p><p>"Funny how Thurman failed to mention they had a guardian in the sewers," noted Delphyne. "Is this whole thing a trap for us?"</p><p></p><p>"Most likely," admitted Cal. "It's still early, though; I don't know if I want to go burst into their ritual room if the whole cult hasn't shown up."</p><p></p><p>"I do," countered Galrich.</p><p></p><p>"Let's send in a reconnaissance force," suggested Telgrane, giving instructions to the earth elemental he had conjured to the sewers. After the archmage spoke to it to in its own guttural language, the mighty being of stone nodded once and sank back into the floor of the sewer. In the meantime, the spellcasters started preparing their standard buffing spells - a luxury they had had to do without during their fight with the nabassu. Several <em>stoneskins</em> and <em>death wards</em> later, Telgrane announced over his newly-established <em>Rary's telepathic bond</em> that all was in readiness.</p><p></p><p>The elemental reported back after a few moments, telling Telgrane that there were several dozen robed humans standing around a pentagram, each with one hand thrust above the five-pointed star and the other clutching a dagger.</p><p></p><p>"They're starting early!" yelled Telgrane. "They must have heard the ruckus we caused with our fight with the demon! Come on, we've got to stop them!"</p><p></p><p>The archmage was close; hidden invisibly in the far corner of the sewer network was a quasit, who had watched the heroes battle the nabassu with great relish, telepathically informing his master, the cult master <strong>Charnex</strong> below. Realizing they were standing just above them, the cult leader nodded to the others and they began the chanting ritual that would gate in the Lady of Serpents.</p><p></p><p>Delphyne scried upon Thurman through the <em>crystal ball</em>, knowing his will to be a fairly easy one to overcome. She saw him clearly in the globe, looking around frantically in fear, then wincing and cutting off the little finger of his left hand with the dagger in his right, as those around him did the same. The expression on his face said he couldn't believe it had actually come to this, but it was better than dying.</p><p></p><p>Telgrane sent the elder earth elemental back down to the lower level with instructions to pop up out of the floor and destroy the pentagram as he did so. The stone creature attempted to obey, but after sinking below the floor of the ritual chamber, it was surprised to find the floor above him resisted his ability to glide through solid stone - it was as if the interior of the carved pentagram had suddenly become a sheet of solid force through which the elemental could not pass. The creature attempted to follow its direct orders a second time, with the same results.</p><p></p><p>Galrich was the closest to the hatch on the floor that led down to the ritual room; while the elemental was having its difficulties with the ritual chamber's floor, Galrich swung up the hatch, took the fifteen feet of ladder at a jump, and raced into the chamber. The leader, as evidenced by his fancier robe, was standing not 20 feet directly in front of him, so the barbarian stoked the fires of his rage and charged him, his greataxe held high, as the chanting voices of thirty cultists echoed around the chamber.</p><p></p><p>He got a full ten feet into the room before crashing into the invisible <em>wall of force</em>, rebounding, and landing on his back with a look of utter surprise on his face and a torrent of blood gushing out of his broken nose.</p><p></p><p>Aerik was there behind him, pulling his liege back up to his feet as a form suddenly coalesced in the center of the pentagram, lit by the flickering torches in sconces around the chamber's farthest three walls. "Who dares summon <strong>Gorrogon, the Lady of Serpents</strong>, to this backwater world?" the six-armed fiend demanded in a voice sounding like thunder and the hissing of a teapot set to boil. Her left eye was white and unseeing, with a prominent scar from forehead to cheek explaining its blindness.</p><p></p><p>"I, Charnex, lead this cult," responded the cult member with the more ornate robe. "Great Lady of Serpents, we crave your demonic boon, and in return, we offer up these six adventurers and their mighty weapons, to add to your own personal arsenal!" Unnoticed behind the demon, one of the cultists at the back of the room fell flat upon the floor and covered his head with his hands, one of them now missing a finger. "Behold: a <em>hammer of frost</em> wielded by a cleric of Kord; a <em>giant bane icy burst dwarven waraxe</em> wielded by a follower of Moradin; the longsword <em>Xanthros</em>, wielded by--"</p><p></p><p>"<em>XANTHROS?</em>" interrupted the marilith, and Charnex froze in mid-sentence, unsure if he had angered his demonic patroness. "It was the accursed <em>Xanthros</em> who took my eye from me! It will bring me great pleasure to defeat its current wielder and use it against my enemies!" And with that, she headed directly for the group, her six longswords gleaming in the flickering torchlight.</p><p></p><p>At the same time, <em>Xanthros</em> was yelling directly into Thunderwolf's mind. "Gorrogon!" it cried, loud enough to make the young fighter wince and almost stumble down the ladder to stand behind Aerik and Galrich. "To battle, young Thunderwolf! We must defeat this foe at all costs!"</p><p></p><p>The three remaining spellcasters dropped down the ladder to enter the chamber as well, and Telgrane's magical arcane sight allowed him to see that the <em>wall of force</em> didn't extend the entire length of the room, but left two 5-foot passageways on either side of the chamber. He passed the information to the rest of the group via the <em>Rary's telepathic bond</em>. Then he cast a <em>wall of fire</em> in a circle around the pentagram, changing the flames into sonic energy at the last moment and encompassing all of the cultists but the cowering Thurman. The cultists screamed out in sudden pain and fell to the floor, dead; only Charnex seemed to have been made of sterner stuff, for he staggered away from the circle of sonic death with a trickle of blood leaking out of one ear.</p><p></p><p>Gorrogon wasted no time with the other heroes, focusing her full attention on Thunderwolf and his hated longsword. Not even bothering to slither the length of the chamber, she instead teleported to Thunderwolf's side and struck out with six longswords. <em>Xanthros</em> expertly deflected the first, but the other five got past Thunderwolf's defenses and he suddenly felt wounds opening up on both sides of his torso, both legs, and his left arm. Then, before anyone could react, the snarling demon lashed out with her tail, grabbing Thunderwolf up in its coils and squeezing the very life out of him. The fighter's vision began to blur, and he realized that to pass out now would mean he would never awaken. "Resist her!" demanded <em>Xanthros</em>, as black dots obscured the young fighter's vision. Then Cal invoked the words to a <em>mass heal</em> prayer, and a surge of life energy coursed through Thunderwolf's body, reknitting the ribs that were on the verge of breaking and sending new vigor into the fighter's limbs. He wrenched his right arm free and hacked away at Gorrogon's body, his sentient sword exulting in glory with every successful strike.</p><p></p><p>The elder earth elemental suddenly popped up out of the floor in the center of the pentagram; the ritual having been completed and the etchings on the floor no longer an active gateway between two different planes, it had resumed the consistency of normal stone and no longer resisted the elemental's advances. In accordance with its last orders, the massive being ripped up great chunks of the floor, destroying the pentagram permanently. Its stony brow furrowed as it noticed it was surrounded by a nearly-complete ring of sonic energy, some of which was chipping bits of gravel away from its stony exterior; noticing this, Telgrane belatedly dismissed his <em>wall of sonics</em> spell, causing Thurman to look up in surprise from his prone position on the floor. The cultist opted to stay where he was, though - it seemed the safer of his limited options.</p><p></p><p>Cal dropped Charnex with a <em>flame strike</em> spell, leaving Gorrogon as the only active foe against six angry heroes, a Large fire elemental, and an even larger earth elemental. The demon attempted to better her odds by mentally calling back to her home plane, telepathically trying to summon a nalfeshnee demon which owed her a favor. She hated to have to cash it in for something as trivial as combat with mere mortals, but she was well aware that her having been gated to the Material Plane rather than just summoned meant her death here - should it occur - would be permanent, and she was not about to let that happen.</p><p></p><p>As it turned out, she had little control over the matter. Before she could summon the willpower to return to her own Abyssal plane, her physical body, already damaged by the few spells that made it past her resistance and the accursed sword <em>Xanthros</em>, was pummeled by the boulderlike fists of the elder earth elemental Telgrane had summoned to fight the nabassu one level of sewers above. Gorrogon, the Lady of Serpents, gave a final hiss of indignation before her body was crushed beneath the elemental's stony fists, her six demonic blades clattering to the floor around her. <em>Xanthros</em> gave a mental cheer as Thunderwolf extricated himself from her coils.</p><p></p><p>"Like, it would have been nice if you'd have showed up a littler earlier," groused Thurman from the back of the room as he regained his feet, his left hand cradled in his bloodstained robes as he tried to staunch the bleeding from his severed pinky finger.</p><p></p><p>"C'mere, you," snarled Cal as he approached the cultist, hammer in hand. Thurman belatedly realized these heroes could easily do him as much harm as could have his former fellow cultists, and hurried to obey.</p><p></p><p>"Um, yeah?" asked Thurman, a trickle of fear in his voice.</p><p></p><p>"You've got some atoning to do," replied Cal, pointing with a finger at the floor by his feet, indicating that Thurman should kneel before him. Eager not to antagonize the musclebound cleric of the God of Strength, Thurman hastily dropped to his knees. "Is this going to take long?" he asked warily.</p><p></p><p>"Not at all," assured Cal, as he brought his hammer down upon the cultist's head, killing him instantly.</p><p></p><p>A quick check through the rest of the complex revealed little else in the way of threats. Charnex kept a small room just off the ritual chamber, inside which the group discovered the evil tome from which the nabassu and the marilith had been called to this plane. They took it with them for safekeeping, to be burned when they got back to their headquarters.</p><p></p><p>The adventurers were quite surprised to see a hefty vault door just off the room where the cult members apparently ate their meals, and wondered just how such a construction came to be, here beneath the sewers of the Styes. But secret lairs such as these were scattered throughout the lower layers of the Styes; likely the cult had discovered it and made use of it rather than installing it themselves. In any case, the elder earth elemental's last job before it returned to its own realm was to pull the vault doors off of their hinges, triggering a magical trap in the process that sent bolts of lightning coursing along the length of its craggy body. Inside the vault they found a chest of coins and the corpse of a Hieronean paladin - Delphyne was relieved to see to was a human in chain mail, not Akari as she had first feared - along with the materials needed to animate him as a skeleton or zombie servitor; apparently the evil cultists thought it would be funny to have an undead former paladin catering to their needs. Cal had a <em>raise dead</em> spell prepared, and seeing as the corpse was slain a mere handful of days before, Cal was able to restore the paladin's life. He thanked the group for a chance to continue to serve Hieroneous.</p><p></p><p>Returning to their Headquarters well after midnight, the heroes were dismayed to discover that Akari had yet to return from his meeting with the leader of his church. Delphyne attempted to scry upon him through the <em>crystal ball</em>, but got only gray static.</p><p></p><p>"That's odd," she remarked to her companions. "I wonder where he's gone?"</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>We played this adventure at our house on New Year's Day, followed by a two-family dinner cooked by my wife Mary. It was a good way to usher in the new year, we all decided. It was only after they had left, and I had tucked my nephew Harry into bed for the night that I realized I had missed a cool opportunity - this adventure would have been the perfect time for <em>Xanthros</em> to manifest the <em>holy</em> weapon property, especially after it had helped permanently destroy Gorrogon.</p><p></p><p>A little backstory, which was transmitted mentally from the sentient longsword to Thunderwolf: Xanthros was a holy fighter during his lifetime, basically the equivalent of a nonspellcasting paladin. He was celibate, as per the rules of his order, never marrying and having no children. Upon his death, his spirit entered his longsword, which was passed down to his brother's son. At that point, the longsword was named <em>Xanthros</em>, and it gained the abilities it has today.</p><p></p><p>Over the decades, <em>Xanthros</em> has been handed down from father to son in the bloodline of the original Xanthros's brother. However, some 30 years or so ago the sword's wielder was slain, and <em>Xanthros</em> was lost until it was discovered by Thunderwolf. (The sentient sword sensed Thunderwolf's bloodline; that was what caused it to initially call out to him telepathically.)</p><p></p><p>Xanthros's nephew, the first wielder of the intelligent longsword, was the one who put out Gorrogon's left eye. She never forgave him for the deed, and while she was unable to take her revenge upon him (as he's long since dead), she was more than happy to punish Thunderwolf in his stead. In this way, Gorrogon sought to "balance the damaged scales" by punishing Thunderwolf for his ancestor's actions. And Thunderwolf is literally "the blood of Xanthros" – the man, not the sword - all of which tied in rather nicely to the prophecy Thunderwolf received from the "crazy old woman" at the Pit-Fight back in adventure 74.</p><p></p><p>So anyway, I emailed the players and let them know that <em>Xanthros</em> had just become a <em>holy</em> weapon. I'm sure that Joey will be pleased.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 6239851, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 78: 30 FINGERS[/b] PC Roster: [INDENT]Cal Trop, human cleric of Kord Delphyne Babelberi, human witch (wizard) Galrich Slayer, half-orc barbarian Telgrane, half-fire elemental human conjurer/archmage Thunderwolf, human fighter[/INDENT] NPC Roster: [INDENT]Aerik Battershield, dwarven fighter/dwarven defender[/INDENT] A Guild page entered the Wing Three common living area with a nervous-looking man in a hooded cloak. "A visitor to see you," the page announced, then turned on his heels and departed. The man approached the assembled group and blurted out, "You've got to help me. My cult is going to do something horrible tonight!" "Your...cult?" asked Delphyne, intrigued. She looked around for Akari, so the paladin could use his innate ability to detect the evil in others to give them an initial assessment of their visitor, but nobody had seen him since the previous evening, when he had gone to meet the Head Cleric of the Greyhawk City Church of Hieroneous. "Perhaps you might like to start from the beginning," suggested Cal. The intruder looked around nervously, as if making sure nobody else was within earshot, then began his tale. "My name's [b]Thurman[/b]," he began. "I'm kind of a member of this evil cult of demon worshipers. And if the others knew I was here, they'd probably have me killed, so I gotta make this quick and get out of here before I'm noticed." "Hold up," interrupted Cal, then quickly intoned the words to a [i]zone of truth[/i] spell. "I'm sorry," he said pleasantly once his prayer was complete. "Please continue." "What was that?" Thurman wanted to know. "Merely a spell to indicate whether what you say is truthful or not," the cleric replied, smiling. "Oh, okay - I get that," answered Thurman, before picking up his tale. "Okay, here’s the deal. For some time now, we've been examining this evil tome one of the cult members brought to our attention, trying out the rituals in an attempt to increase our personal power and influence. So far, it's been little stuff – you know, minor curses against our rivals, that sort of thing. But tonight it's going to get a whole lot worse. "There's this ritual we're scheduled to try tonight in our secret lair, a series of hidden rooms in the sewers. There's this demon, the Lady of Serpents, who we're going to try to conjure up, who's said to bestow incredible power to those who summon her, if the sacrifice is sufficient. And that would be fine with me, I'll tell you right now, except the ritual has each of us cut off one of our fingers! I'd be okay with, you know, like sacrificing a goat or a cat or whatever, but I’m not really sure I want to cut off one of my own fingers for this, you know? "So now I'm in kind of a bind. If I don't go through with this, they'll kill me. If I try to hightail it out of town, they'll kill my family in retaliation. And I can't really uproot my family and skip town with them without, like, giving them a good explanation, and I'd really rather not get into my demon-worshiping cult business with my parents, you know? So, I figure, like, maybe I tip you guys off so you can show up early, like, and put a stop to the whole deal before we get to any fingers getting cut off, okay? Here, I brought a map I drew up." Thurman pushed a hastily-sketched map of the sewers leading to their hidden lair; the adventurers were not surprised to note that the demon cult was situated in the sewers under the Styes, the seediest part of Greyhawk City. "Midnight tonight's when we’re supposed to start the ritual," Thurman added, "so if you could get there before then, that would be great." "So you'd be perfectly okay with unleashing a demon into our world, except for the fact that you'd have to cut off one of your own fingers - is that it?" asked Delphyne, incredulously. "Well, yeah, that's like it totally," agreed Thurman, glad to see that these heroes understood the situation perfectly and would likely be able to extract him from the predicament he had foolishly gotten himself into. Delphyne gave a look to the others that expressed quite clearly, [i]Is this guy for real?[/i] Cal opted to press him for more details. "Tell me about this demon," he commanded. "I don't know a whole lot about her," the young cultist admitted. "She's called 'the Lady of Serpents,' that’s pretty much all I know. Although I saw a scaly lady the other day at a café of all places, sitting there as bold as you please, with snakes instead of, you know, hair. A medusa, I think they're called. I dunno for sure if she's tied up with this demon or what, but it kind of fits. Is there a demon kind of medusa? Anyway, I really gotta go. See you guys tonight, okay? And don't kill me with the rest of the cult, right? I'll, like, be the guy that drops straight to the ground when you show up and covers his head with his hands. Okay? Cool." He began to usher himself out of the room with a sigh of relief. With any luck, these heroes would get him through the night with all ten of his fingers intact. However, Cal pushed Delphyne over to intercept him, and asked her to kindly escort Thurman out of the Guild Headquarters. Puzzled, the witch grabbed up Thurman's arm and led him down the stairs, looking questioning back at Cal and receiving a look which said he'd explain later. "So what do you think?" asked Thunderwolf, amazed at the audacity of the young cultist and a little surprised that they didn't hold him for further questioning. "Well, first of all, everything he told us is true," admitted Cal. "It looks like we'll need to show up and put a stop to this little summoning ritual tonight." He looked at the map Thurman had given them, studying the pentagram drawn in the largest room under the sewers, accessible by ladder from an upper level of the sewer system. "Then let's go!" suggested Galrich, grabbing up his arsenal of weapons. Behind him, Aerik followed suit. Cal had to explain to the hot-headed barbarian that showing up too soon would alert the cultists, and make it more likely that some of them would escape to go on to do further mischief. The cleric of Kord wanted to get them all at once, which meant allowing them to gather together for their midnight ritual. "Let's check up on our little cultist," suggested Cal as Delphyne returned to the common area. "Delphyne, now that you've had first-hand contact with Thurman, would you mind scrying on him for us?" He nodded over to the [i]crystal ball[/i] they had unearthed in Nakariah's lair, which was perched on a stand on the low table in front of their sofa. Delphyne sat before the globe, ran her hands over it, and an image slowly formed in the crystal's interior. The others gathered around her and watched as Thurman crossed a street and approached a merchant's wagon, buying an inexpensive lunch of cheese and hardbread before heading back to the Styes, eating as he walked. He made it to what was apparently his parents' living quarters in the slums of the Styes, before crashing onto a bedroll in the corner and covering himself up with a tattered blanket. "Yeah, rest up," suggested Delphyne, watching the young cultist with disgust. "You've got a busy night ahead of you." The group came up with several possible plans of attack. Galrich and Aerik were for the simple approach: bursting into the ritual chamber with weapons drawn and killing everyone in a cultist robe. Telgrane suggested possibly infiltrating the cultists by disguising themselves as new recruits; this was ultimately rejected once it was pointed out that a group of demon-worshipers would not likely invite new, untested recruits to join them in their first major attempt at summoning a powerful demon. Eventually, the adventurers decided to have Telgrane head into the sewers alone, carrying with him the Door That Doesn't Belong, inside which the others would be stationed. Telgrane would unroll and attach the Door to the wall of the upper sewers, the others would disembark, and then they'd climb down the ladder to the ritual room. Figuring the cultists would likely start assembling by 11 bells, they chose to have Telgrane enter the sewers about an hour earlier, giving the group plenty of time to reconnoiter. There was some discussion about whether Telgrane should try disguising himself as he walked the streets of the Styes in the dark of the evening, but the group assumed that nobody would interfere with a man who had flames jetting out of his hollow eye sockets - and it turns out they were absolutely right, for Telgrane encountered no difficulties in making his way to the sewer opening that Thurman had indicated on his hand-drawn map. Sliding the manhole cover back over the opening in the street above him, Telgrane climbed his way down a short ladder and found himself in a winding mass of sewer passageways, lit only by the flames emanating from his own eyes. He turned the corner, headed towards a passageway in the back where they likely wouldn't be seen by any cultists using this route to get to their hidden lair, turned another corner - and was spotted by a shadowy, winged figure that headed his way with a grin filled with sharp teeth. Telgrane's initial assessment was that this was a gargoyle, for it was the same shape and general build, its hulking form barely fitting in the narrow sewer tunnels. He quickly cast a [i]Mordenkainen's sword[/i] spell, causing a blade of black energy to manifest and strike at the beast - only to have it fizzle away into nothingness upon contact. Then the conjurer felt a shiver of soul-sucking cold run down from the creature's very gaze, and he had to focus on the ability to pop open the top of the tinderbox he wore strapped to the belt on his hip. [i]This is no mere gargoyle[/i], he thought to himself. A stream of glowing embers arced out of the metal box, and Infernia stood between her master and the nabassu demon approaching. "I will deal with him, master!" she assured the wizard. "Will you?" the demon asked, as he popped out of existence - and then popped back into existence directly behind Telgrane. However, rather than striking out at him, he merely cradled the wizard's chin with a massive hand filled with razor-sharp claws, and gave him a wicked smile filled with too many teeth to count. Telgrane jumped back in shock, his left hand still holding the rolled-up Door he was supposed to be deploying. Inside the extradimensional space that was the interior of the Door That Doesn't Belong, Delphyne was getting antsy. "What's taking him so long?" she asked the others, unpacking the [i]crystal ball[/i] she had taken with her. Focusing on an image of Telgrane, she cast her will through the sphere and tried to get an image of what the conjurer was up to. Facing the nabassu and trying to get out of the way so Infernia could squeeze past her master, Telgrane suddenly felt an itching in his skull that experience told him was an attempt to scry on his location. Fearing it might be the cultists, he successfully blocked it with the power of his own will, and Delphyne sighed in frustration and put the [i]crystal ball[/i] back away in its carrying case. "We should have worked out some kind of communication protocol," she said. "There's not much we can do from in here until Telgrane gets the Door attached to a straight surface," said Cal. "Hopefully, whatever's taking so long doesn't take too much longer." In the sewer tunnels, Infernia struck out at the nabassu and scored a direct hit, but then frowned as it seemed to disregard the flames engulfing her body. How the fire elemental disliked fighting enemies who were resistant to her flames! "Just hold him off a bit longer!" advised Telgrane as he gave the rolled-up Door a quick snap and flipped it up against the wall of the sewers. But having done so, he found himself face-to-face with the nabassu again, the demon having teleported away from Infernia to attack the conjurer - and, inadvertently, stand directly in the path of the Door. Galrich was standing in the vestibule behind the Door That Doesn't Belong with his hand on the doorknob, when the knob, which had been resisting his efforts to turn, suddenly gave way. He swung the Door open, only to see what looked like a gargoyle standing directly in front of him. He swiped at it with his greatsword, dealing a cut across the creature's abdomen. The nabassu turned to direct his gaze upon the impudent barbarian, and Galrich felt his life-force dissipating away. Delphyne stood directly behind Galrich, and managed to target the nabassu around Galrich's bulk with a [i]wand of magic missiles[/i]. Normally, this kind of attack was a sure-fire thing, but to the young witch's dismay the screeching missiles simply vanished upon striking the demon, leaving it untouched and unhurt by her attack. "It's resisting my spells!" she called to the others. "Let's see it resist this one!" called back Telgrane, as he used his knowledge as an archmage to channel a mere cantrip into an arcane blast of pure magical energy. The bolt of arcane energy hit the nabassu - who, oddly stood with arms spread out as if welcoming the blast - and the demon grinned at the sight of Telgrane hunched over in pain as the exact same damage that hit the demon also manifested itself onto the conjurer's form. "He's linked himself to me somehow!" the archmage called to the others. Cal had just called forth a [i]spiritual weapon[/i], which manifested as a glowing greatsword of the type favored by Kord, and sent it crashing into the demon. It was too late to stop the attack, but fortunately the sword bit into the nabassu and left Telgrane unaffected. "It looks like you're only linked to the damage you cause it yourself!" the cleric called out of the Door to Telgrane, for the demon still blocked their way and the other heroes had yet to find a way to exit their extradimensional space. "Then it should be safe to have someone attack it my stead!" replied Telgrane, summoning an elder earth elemental which rose up out of the ground and pounded away at the nabassu. The demon teleported away out of sight, allowing the other heroes to exit the Door and enter the constricting sewer tunnels. Thunderwolf immediately broke left and flanked around behind the demon, shooting a flurry of arrows into its broad back. Galrich and Aerik took the more direct route, while Delphyne tried again with her wand, this time with success. But it was the massive fists of the earth elemental that struck the final blow, causing the demon's battered body to crumple into a grisly paste with bone fragments sticking out in all directions. "It didn't disappear upon death," noted Cal. "It must have been called, or gated, rather than summoned." "Funny how Thurman failed to mention they had a guardian in the sewers," noted Delphyne. "Is this whole thing a trap for us?" "Most likely," admitted Cal. "It's still early, though; I don't know if I want to go burst into their ritual room if the whole cult hasn't shown up." "I do," countered Galrich. "Let's send in a reconnaissance force," suggested Telgrane, giving instructions to the earth elemental he had conjured to the sewers. After the archmage spoke to it to in its own guttural language, the mighty being of stone nodded once and sank back into the floor of the sewer. In the meantime, the spellcasters started preparing their standard buffing spells - a luxury they had had to do without during their fight with the nabassu. Several [i]stoneskins[/i] and [i]death wards[/i] later, Telgrane announced over his newly-established [i]Rary's telepathic bond[/i] that all was in readiness. The elemental reported back after a few moments, telling Telgrane that there were several dozen robed humans standing around a pentagram, each with one hand thrust above the five-pointed star and the other clutching a dagger. "They're starting early!" yelled Telgrane. "They must have heard the ruckus we caused with our fight with the demon! Come on, we've got to stop them!" The archmage was close; hidden invisibly in the far corner of the sewer network was a quasit, who had watched the heroes battle the nabassu with great relish, telepathically informing his master, the cult master [b]Charnex[/b] below. Realizing they were standing just above them, the cult leader nodded to the others and they began the chanting ritual that would gate in the Lady of Serpents. Delphyne scried upon Thurman through the [i]crystal ball[/i], knowing his will to be a fairly easy one to overcome. She saw him clearly in the globe, looking around frantically in fear, then wincing and cutting off the little finger of his left hand with the dagger in his right, as those around him did the same. The expression on his face said he couldn't believe it had actually come to this, but it was better than dying. Telgrane sent the elder earth elemental back down to the lower level with instructions to pop up out of the floor and destroy the pentagram as he did so. The stone creature attempted to obey, but after sinking below the floor of the ritual chamber, it was surprised to find the floor above him resisted his ability to glide through solid stone - it was as if the interior of the carved pentagram had suddenly become a sheet of solid force through which the elemental could not pass. The creature attempted to follow its direct orders a second time, with the same results. Galrich was the closest to the hatch on the floor that led down to the ritual room; while the elemental was having its difficulties with the ritual chamber's floor, Galrich swung up the hatch, took the fifteen feet of ladder at a jump, and raced into the chamber. The leader, as evidenced by his fancier robe, was standing not 20 feet directly in front of him, so the barbarian stoked the fires of his rage and charged him, his greataxe held high, as the chanting voices of thirty cultists echoed around the chamber. He got a full ten feet into the room before crashing into the invisible [i]wall of force[/i], rebounding, and landing on his back with a look of utter surprise on his face and a torrent of blood gushing out of his broken nose. Aerik was there behind him, pulling his liege back up to his feet as a form suddenly coalesced in the center of the pentagram, lit by the flickering torches in sconces around the chamber's farthest three walls. "Who dares summon [b]Gorrogon, the Lady of Serpents[/b], to this backwater world?" the six-armed fiend demanded in a voice sounding like thunder and the hissing of a teapot set to boil. Her left eye was white and unseeing, with a prominent scar from forehead to cheek explaining its blindness. "I, Charnex, lead this cult," responded the cult member with the more ornate robe. "Great Lady of Serpents, we crave your demonic boon, and in return, we offer up these six adventurers and their mighty weapons, to add to your own personal arsenal!" Unnoticed behind the demon, one of the cultists at the back of the room fell flat upon the floor and covered his head with his hands, one of them now missing a finger. "Behold: a [i]hammer of frost[/i] wielded by a cleric of Kord; a [i]giant bane icy burst dwarven waraxe[/i] wielded by a follower of Moradin; the longsword [i]Xanthros[/i], wielded by--" "[i]XANTHROS?[/i]" interrupted the marilith, and Charnex froze in mid-sentence, unsure if he had angered his demonic patroness. "It was the accursed [i]Xanthros[/i] who took my eye from me! It will bring me great pleasure to defeat its current wielder and use it against my enemies!" And with that, she headed directly for the group, her six longswords gleaming in the flickering torchlight. At the same time, [i]Xanthros[/i] was yelling directly into Thunderwolf's mind. "Gorrogon!" it cried, loud enough to make the young fighter wince and almost stumble down the ladder to stand behind Aerik and Galrich. "To battle, young Thunderwolf! We must defeat this foe at all costs!" The three remaining spellcasters dropped down the ladder to enter the chamber as well, and Telgrane's magical arcane sight allowed him to see that the [i]wall of force[/i] didn't extend the entire length of the room, but left two 5-foot passageways on either side of the chamber. He passed the information to the rest of the group via the [i]Rary's telepathic bond[/i]. Then he cast a [i]wall of fire[/i] in a circle around the pentagram, changing the flames into sonic energy at the last moment and encompassing all of the cultists but the cowering Thurman. The cultists screamed out in sudden pain and fell to the floor, dead; only Charnex seemed to have been made of sterner stuff, for he staggered away from the circle of sonic death with a trickle of blood leaking out of one ear. Gorrogon wasted no time with the other heroes, focusing her full attention on Thunderwolf and his hated longsword. Not even bothering to slither the length of the chamber, she instead teleported to Thunderwolf's side and struck out with six longswords. [i]Xanthros[/i] expertly deflected the first, but the other five got past Thunderwolf's defenses and he suddenly felt wounds opening up on both sides of his torso, both legs, and his left arm. Then, before anyone could react, the snarling demon lashed out with her tail, grabbing Thunderwolf up in its coils and squeezing the very life out of him. The fighter's vision began to blur, and he realized that to pass out now would mean he would never awaken. "Resist her!" demanded [i]Xanthros[/i], as black dots obscured the young fighter's vision. Then Cal invoked the words to a [i]mass heal[/i] prayer, and a surge of life energy coursed through Thunderwolf's body, reknitting the ribs that were on the verge of breaking and sending new vigor into the fighter's limbs. He wrenched his right arm free and hacked away at Gorrogon's body, his sentient sword exulting in glory with every successful strike. The elder earth elemental suddenly popped up out of the floor in the center of the pentagram; the ritual having been completed and the etchings on the floor no longer an active gateway between two different planes, it had resumed the consistency of normal stone and no longer resisted the elemental's advances. In accordance with its last orders, the massive being ripped up great chunks of the floor, destroying the pentagram permanently. Its stony brow furrowed as it noticed it was surrounded by a nearly-complete ring of sonic energy, some of which was chipping bits of gravel away from its stony exterior; noticing this, Telgrane belatedly dismissed his [i]wall of sonics[/i] spell, causing Thurman to look up in surprise from his prone position on the floor. The cultist opted to stay where he was, though - it seemed the safer of his limited options. Cal dropped Charnex with a [i]flame strike[/i] spell, leaving Gorrogon as the only active foe against six angry heroes, a Large fire elemental, and an even larger earth elemental. The demon attempted to better her odds by mentally calling back to her home plane, telepathically trying to summon a nalfeshnee demon which owed her a favor. She hated to have to cash it in for something as trivial as combat with mere mortals, but she was well aware that her having been gated to the Material Plane rather than just summoned meant her death here - should it occur - would be permanent, and she was not about to let that happen. As it turned out, she had little control over the matter. Before she could summon the willpower to return to her own Abyssal plane, her physical body, already damaged by the few spells that made it past her resistance and the accursed sword [i]Xanthros[/i], was pummeled by the boulderlike fists of the elder earth elemental Telgrane had summoned to fight the nabassu one level of sewers above. Gorrogon, the Lady of Serpents, gave a final hiss of indignation before her body was crushed beneath the elemental's stony fists, her six demonic blades clattering to the floor around her. [i]Xanthros[/i] gave a mental cheer as Thunderwolf extricated himself from her coils. "Like, it would have been nice if you'd have showed up a littler earlier," groused Thurman from the back of the room as he regained his feet, his left hand cradled in his bloodstained robes as he tried to staunch the bleeding from his severed pinky finger. "C'mere, you," snarled Cal as he approached the cultist, hammer in hand. Thurman belatedly realized these heroes could easily do him as much harm as could have his former fellow cultists, and hurried to obey. "Um, yeah?" asked Thurman, a trickle of fear in his voice. "You've got some atoning to do," replied Cal, pointing with a finger at the floor by his feet, indicating that Thurman should kneel before him. Eager not to antagonize the musclebound cleric of the God of Strength, Thurman hastily dropped to his knees. "Is this going to take long?" he asked warily. "Not at all," assured Cal, as he brought his hammer down upon the cultist's head, killing him instantly. A quick check through the rest of the complex revealed little else in the way of threats. Charnex kept a small room just off the ritual chamber, inside which the group discovered the evil tome from which the nabassu and the marilith had been called to this plane. They took it with them for safekeeping, to be burned when they got back to their headquarters. The adventurers were quite surprised to see a hefty vault door just off the room where the cult members apparently ate their meals, and wondered just how such a construction came to be, here beneath the sewers of the Styes. But secret lairs such as these were scattered throughout the lower layers of the Styes; likely the cult had discovered it and made use of it rather than installing it themselves. In any case, the elder earth elemental's last job before it returned to its own realm was to pull the vault doors off of their hinges, triggering a magical trap in the process that sent bolts of lightning coursing along the length of its craggy body. Inside the vault they found a chest of coins and the corpse of a Hieronean paladin - Delphyne was relieved to see to was a human in chain mail, not Akari as she had first feared - along with the materials needed to animate him as a skeleton or zombie servitor; apparently the evil cultists thought it would be funny to have an undead former paladin catering to their needs. Cal had a [i]raise dead[/i] spell prepared, and seeing as the corpse was slain a mere handful of days before, Cal was able to restore the paladin's life. He thanked the group for a chance to continue to serve Hieroneous. Returning to their Headquarters well after midnight, the heroes were dismayed to discover that Akari had yet to return from his meeting with the leader of his church. Delphyne attempted to scry upon him through the [i]crystal ball[/i], but got only gray static. "That's odd," she remarked to her companions. "I wonder where he's gone?" - - - We played this adventure at our house on New Year's Day, followed by a two-family dinner cooked by my wife Mary. It was a good way to usher in the new year, we all decided. It was only after they had left, and I had tucked my nephew Harry into bed for the night that I realized I had missed a cool opportunity - this adventure would have been the perfect time for [i]Xanthros[/i] to manifest the [i]holy[/i] weapon property, especially after it had helped permanently destroy Gorrogon. A little backstory, which was transmitted mentally from the sentient longsword to Thunderwolf: Xanthros was a holy fighter during his lifetime, basically the equivalent of a nonspellcasting paladin. He was celibate, as per the rules of his order, never marrying and having no children. Upon his death, his spirit entered his longsword, which was passed down to his brother's son. At that point, the longsword was named [i]Xanthros[/i], and it gained the abilities it has today. Over the decades, [i]Xanthros[/i] has been handed down from father to son in the bloodline of the original Xanthros's brother. However, some 30 years or so ago the sword's wielder was slain, and [i]Xanthros[/i] was lost until it was discovered by Thunderwolf. (The sentient sword sensed Thunderwolf's bloodline; that was what caused it to initially call out to him telepathically.) Xanthros's nephew, the first wielder of the intelligent longsword, was the one who put out Gorrogon's left eye. She never forgave him for the deed, and while she was unable to take her revenge upon him (as he's long since dead), she was more than happy to punish Thunderwolf in his stead. In this way, Gorrogon sought to "balance the damaged scales" by punishing Thunderwolf for his ancestor's actions. And Thunderwolf is literally "the blood of Xanthros" – the man, not the sword - all of which tied in rather nicely to the prophecy Thunderwolf received from the "crazy old woman" at the Pit-Fight back in adventure 74. So anyway, I emailed the players and let them know that [i]Xanthros[/i] had just become a [i]holy[/i] weapon. I'm sure that Joey will be pleased. [/QUOTE]
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