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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Vrylakos" data-source="post: 1202956" data-attributes="member: 436">Ok, first a word: there were a few things that I've missed in my retelling of the massive combat. The second displaced Consort lost his displacement and was slain, Anaxaphaal before she left threw a Greater (or Improved or something) Concussion at Raven...There were lots of things that happened, and you've got the highlights... *****************Now, the scene - Raven was the first to leave the Ziggurat. Below her the city-state of Ghojalapai is in chaos. The doors of the Ziggurat are torn asunder, but on the floating dark keep of the Forces of Darkness, Valmuuresh can be seen, toppling a tower and letting lose with lightning. He is wounded, however, and peels off the Keep, over the city walls, soaring over the edge of the plateau the city is built atop, and then lost from sight as he dives.Raven flies off, then looks behind.Kyan has mastered the Obsidian Needle's entropic touch, and swathed it in the subtle caul, an artifact he has be given to mask the Needle from detection. With it under his arm, he soars towards the balcony. Adamante, invisible again, hurt, has activated his armor for the last time today. When he does so, the leather 'feathers' that make up his armor split and whirl around him, bearing him silently aloft but leaving him armorless. He can only activate it three times a day. Anaxaphaal appears suddenly, and Kyan yells for them to run.(By the way, I was wrong: Kyan's Divine Power is about to give out at this point. He has one round after this left. When he loses his temporary HP, he'll be at -4). Kyan leaps off the ground. Namira on the roof has sent down two Astral Constructs, and they are closing in. Kyan streaks over the balcony. He's 40 feet away from it when Raven sees Kyan's despairing, bloodied face, sees the Witch-Queen behind him, and doubles back. She touches him, casting a Cure Serious Wounds. Suddenly rainbow colored lights flicker around Kyan, and he begins to be pulled back. He is in the grip of Anaxaphaal's True Telekinesis, and 1700 pounds of force have yanked him back over the balcony, back within reach of the two constructs. Adamante, invisible and silent as his armor carries him through the air, steps off the balcony's edge, and thrusts three times at Anaxaphaal. He body, driven on only by her will and dark psychic forces, does not care as he stabs her in the heart, the neck, the throat. She hisses at Adamante, but maintains her focus on the telekinetic power. (She rolls a 20 on her concentration roll to keep the telekinesis going, even though Adamante got 15 points of damage total past her Inertial Barrier; his electrified weapon matters not to the voltage-immune psionic lich). Kyan's Divine Power fades. He has roughly 7 hit points left, and few tricks left up his sleeve. One construct gets within range and stabs at him with an ectoplasmic tulwar. It glances off his shield, narrowly missing Kyan as he floats, restrained in the air. One of those tricks, however, is a maximized Flame Strike, thanks to his incense. "YOU CANNOT HAVE IT!" he yells. (I told him if he made a good desperation-yelling face to go along with his words I'd give him a +1 on his Save DC. The face he gave me was priceless.)  He gestures with the blade-mandala on his sword's pommel and holy fire falls down about her, overcomes her Power Resistance, and damages her mightily. (She totally blows her save, and again loses a little over 2/3 of her hp)(Another note: One of Kyan's first feats - his FIRST feat, in fact, was Spell Penetration. He's regretted taking it, as he never used it... until now, and BOY, is he glad he has it...) The fire, however, is too much for her to ignore, and she loses her concentration. Kyan is freed... but now Adamante is in trouble.  Adamante, however, cares only for Kyan's wellbeing. He lashes out at a Construct within arm's reach, and it dissipates. Though he dances away from Anaxaphaal, he icy talons reach out, her lips curl in hatred, and she lunges at him. Adamante has no armor, but then he's a master of the Vezanti school of fencing, and through this and a little luck, he manages to avoid two sweeps of the Witch-Queen's hooked fingers...(lucky for him, as each touch carries with it 2 negative levels, and Adamante is low on hit points). The Witch-Queen is also low on psionic power, and now relies on her unnatural state. She could perform another Dimensional Slide, but if she does the Needle is lost. However Consorts can be heard charging up the stairs, rallying to Anaxaphaal. She lunges for Adamante again... perhaps if she can capture one of them, she can make the rest pause to rescue him. But just then, Kyan pulls off one last miracle. Using his Reach Spell feat from Defenders of the Faith, and swapping out his last high level spell, he throws a maximized Cure Critical Wounds at Anaxaphaal.  He hits with a ranged touch attack. He overcomes her Power Resistance, and at that exact instant, Anaxaphaal's ancient will fails her, and the blast of positive energy scatters her being into a blurred cloud of dark motes and ash. The party flies like hell, dodging javelins from the consorts who arrive, Kyan bouncing obsidian discs off of his shield... Bloodied and worn, with almost nothing left, they streak towards their rendevous with Jaldiin, the Fire Mage.  Three flying-manta-thing riding war mages of the Forces of Darkness begin to trail them, casting spells that don't quite have the range to catch them. Kyan casts a sending to Jaldiin, asking for something, anything get them off of the party's tail. The party is too hurt to take a magic missile volley, let alone a fireball. As they course low over the rooftops of ruined Ghojalapai, they see a tiny red-robed figure, a copper and brass skullcap gleaming on his head step out from the arch of the arena that is their destination. He gestures, speaking the words of fire first uttered by Chaltis the Red-Handed Goddess, Queen of Fire and War. Behind them, a fiery inferno erupts, a cloud of sizzling, sparking mayhem. The manta-things swerve as they hit it, their riders tumbling from their backs though they try to control their mounts. Smoking and blind, they tumble to their deaths. The party lands. Jaldiin is already tracing a circle of fire in the air around them, and in a flash of arcane power, they disappear. And now I really screw them. Of course, that's next week... Vrylakos</blockquote>

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