Reboot Session 21 (144th of whole campaign) - Shadowlisk Showdown
“There has been too much talking already. Please do me this one favour: do not surrender. Give me the pleasure of killing you.” These words were spoken by Vicemi Terio as a magical fog closed in around Leon, Gupta, Matunaaga and Uru. The fog was accompanied by a piercing scream from a wraith summoned by Vicemi. In panic, Leon lashed out at Gupta with his Dreaming Blade, but she avoided the blow. Uru winked out of sight.
Immediately, Matunaaga dropped down on one knee and got a shot off at Vicemi before the fog closed in. Vicemi gave a groan, but it was unclear if this was one of pain or disapproval. At once, Matunaaga stowed his rifle, drew his pistols, and launched himself out of the fog. His path, and his line of sight to Vicemi, was blocked by the clanking bleak golem, so he leaped to one side and blasted Vicemi with a volley of shots. The bullets passed through Vicemi without harming him. Matunaaga cursed, stowed his guns and prepared to do better in close combat.
With a casual gesture, Vicemi sent magical darts at his foes. Each one struck home unerringly and caused a skeleton to arise and attack the target.
A few hundred feet up, the rest of the unit prepared to defend themselves against the shadowlisk that had crawled through one of the wormholes left open by Leon, herded by four senior members of the ghost council. Vitus threw himself at the councillors. Rumdoom muttered a command word and grew to the size of a giant, before uttering the guttural cry of the dwarven battlerager. The shadowlisk aimed its umbrafying gaze at him, but he withstood the effect. Korrigan then dashed in to go toe-to-toe with the beast, exposing himself to its gaze. He too shrugged it off and called Rumdoom up alongside him. Though he remained desperately confused, Ken Don sensed the real danger they were in, and used a forbidding word that would harm the shadowlisk if it continued to approach.
The ghost councillors issued mental commands to Kiov Hetman, Ken Don and Livia Hatsfield. Livia resisted their magic and Korrigan gave a counter-order to Ken Don – having developed a strange attachment to, even a fondness for the morbid librarian, he was determined to keep his erstwhile host alive. But there was no help forthcoming for poor Kiov Hetman who, dominated, stumbled into the path of the shadowlisk and was reduced to an elongated smear. Livia cast a magical bolt of force at one of the councillors, throwing him back through the wormhole.
Down below, the other half of the unit was attacked by the ghost council swarm. It had now reached a third, more desperate, animalistic phase and sought to simply fling its foes about it. Leon replied with witchfire and hexes. Though she was lifted off her feet, Gupta managed to fight off the ghostly hands at just the right moment and landed on her feet beyond reach of the skeletons, but she was now uncomfortably close to the Bleak Golem and its bookpin guards. The unthinking golem chose to flail at Matunaaga instead – a poor choice of target for a slow-moving construct. It failed to land a blow.
From the darkness, Uru fired a whole clip of shurikens, causing the golem to breach and shatter. The bookpin guards to either side drowned in necrotic witchoil. Matunaaga swept the golems legs out from under it, taking it out of the fight completely, then vaulted towards Vicemi and rained blows down upon him too. His magical fists caused the wizard some discomfort and he vanished from view.
Back up top, Rumdoom gave a celebratory cry, as if fulfilling a childhood ambition: “This is great! Ha haaa! We’re attacking a shadowlisk!” (Of course, he had never heard of such creatures until the day before.) With that, he hit the thing so hard he nearly killed it with a single blow.
“You seem to be doing quite well against that thing. Hit it again,” said Korrigan. Rumdoom complied and the beast was dead.
Back down below, Vicemi Terio reappeared, hovering high above the battlefield, and rained down more unerring missiles and more skeletons upon Leon, Gupta and Matunaaga. Uru clambered up the cliff-face to avoid becoming a worthwhile target. More ghost councillors appeared in both locations and wore the unit down with necromantic mind magic – when a target was touched, they were weakened until they escaped the gaze of the ghost council. Korrigan challenged one, so as to draw fire from the others, while Vitus Sigismund fought to fend them off with his radiant fists.
Down below, the creeping wraith summoned by Vicemi Terio continued to plague the unit with horrifying screams. The ghost council swarm threw Leon high into the air and he landed, pained and injured with a ghost councillor looming over him. He opened up a wormhole next to him and tried to place the other end back up the cliff-side close to Korrigan et al, but he miscalculated and created the hole about ten feet from the cliff edge – too far for him to roll into it and escape!
Just as things were beginning to look desperate, Reed Macbannin appeared – chasing down the ghost councillors that had come to harry the rear-guard. Macbannin look exhausted, and had clearly been under attack all the way down here, but he proved as good as his word when he vowed to get the unit off the island: with a flourish he cast the tolling of the bleak bell, and rendered the ghost councillors corporeal. A second spell warded his allies from attack, giving them a much-needed respite and the opportunity to flee through the portal and join their comrades further down the switchback trail.
Rumdoom responded straight away, with a muttered command to his Icon of Avilona. He flew through the portal in an arc that brought him adjacent to the hovering Vicemi Terio, and struck the mage a hammer blow augmented by his tyrant’s teeth. Vicemi cried out in alarm as spectral jaws closed around him. Once again he disappeared from view.
Livia picked her way through the wizened copse at the edge of the cliff, braced herself, then leaped through the portal Leon had created. Most of the ghost councillors were now vengefully targeting Macbannin, and, though corporeal, simply clawed at him and tried to clutch at his robes – anything to hold or harm him.
Vitus Sigismund had just destroyed another councillor when Korrigan said, “Well done, my friend. It is now time to rejoin our comrades.” At that they both ran back towards the portal, with Korrigan grabbing Ken Don as they went. Vitus sprang through and immediately took out the creeping wraith with his radiant blows. Korrigan and Ken jumped through hand-in-hand. Then Macbannin tore himself free from the councillors and followed suit, whereupon Leon closed the portal.
The ghost council lashed out at everyone again. Korrigan kept hold of Ken Don and stopped him from being hurled away, but Leon was thrown over the lower cliffs onto a narrow beach of dense sand, where he lay close to unconsciousness. Korrigan’s blade warned him of Leon’s state and he yelled the order, “Don’t die!” Boosted by his commander’s words, Leon was only too happy to comply.
A sending came through from Captain Smith. “We’re just off-shore. Closest we can get without destroying the hull. Three enemy ironclads incoming. Now or never!”
Just then, Vicemi Terio reappeared. He tried to dispel Rumdoom’s enlargement but Rumdoom shrugged off his magic (seeming to grow larger, if anything). At that very moment Macbannin tolled the bleak bell once again, rendering Vicemi and the other ghosts suddenly vulnerable. Another of Uru’s shuriken arced from the darkness and lodged in the wizard’s cadaverous throat. Vicemi’s wizened fingers clutched at the obstacle, even as his solid body fell heavily to the ground.
Macbannin had spent the last of his strength on this spell and his form began to dissolve. But it would seem that this sacrifice had been intentional: his own demise was necessary to empower one terrible, final curse. Macbannin had said he’d been saving this curse for someone he could not name. Denied the opportunity to use it on that someone, he now hurled it at Vicemi, whose eyes widened in horror as he recognised the arcane syllables that coiled around him and sealed his fate. Vicemi Terio would haunt the world no more! (His magical bracelet clattered to the ground, unnoticed by all save Uru, who duly purloined it.)
A few more blows from various sources dispersed the equally vulnerable ghost council swarm. Those few councillors that could escape did so. The rest were quickly dispatched.
At the end of the switchback trail – a few hundred yards away – an Ob vessel, the Napheon, was just now pulling away from the quayside.
It was decided they would leave from the beach. Some flew, some jumped, others stepped through the wormhole Leon had opened. Leon had saved just enough strength to open yet another portal onto the Impossible and when his companions were all ready he cast the spell and they jumped through, from the stillness of the beach to the windswept deck of the incredibly swift RHC cutter, where their breath was caught by the rushing wind.
At once, Korrigan went to confer with Smith, who pointed out the three ironclads that now closed in upon them. The situation seemed hopeless. The Impossible was incredibly swift only by virtue of its poor armaments. It could not hope to win a fire-fight against them. It could easily outrun them, yes, but there was now no viable course that took them clear of the enemy guns, pinned as they were against the rocky shoreline. The unit was exhausted. They were in no position to attack even one of the hostiles. Nevertheless, having come this far, they braced themselves to go down fighting.
They need not have despaired: At first faint, distant, audible only to Uru’s batlike ears, but growing gradually louder and more boisterous, until it resounded over the wind and waves, came the sound of a familiar sea-shanty. The crew and passengers of the RNS Impossible watched in astonishment as a glowing ghost ship appeared out of nowhere and fired a broadside against the easternmost ironclad. Immediately, it closed to grappling range whereupon the ghost pirates of Mutravir swarmed aboard the enemy vessel.
Rutger Smith shook off his astonishment and took the opportunity he had been offered: steering his ship at full speed towards the safe space that had suddenly opened up. Just a few minutes later, the Impossible was putting clear blue water between herself and her sluggish pursuers.
The unit had escaped from the clutches of the Ob.
