NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 686783" data-attributes="member: 1210">The Battle of Five Armies (conclusion)Thuurgen is not human.  Not even remotely.  The antimagic ray of Red-Eye's central eye suppresses the polymorph that he's using to appear human, and he's revealed for what he truly is.His worm-shaped body is 10' high, held erect by a multitude of suckered tentacles with eyes at the ends.  His "head" consists of a fleshy sheath that houses a set of three cruelly barbed mandibles.  Eight long, spidery arms with tiny insectoid claws that disturbingly resemble human hands protrude from a set of verticle ridges on the forepart of his body.  A reek of mold and decay, no longer covered up by his disguise, emenates from him.None of our heroes have seen the likes of this before, that's for sure.  The sight is enough for Horbin, shaken, to throw off the suggestion- especially as it's currently suppressed.He moves to the side, out of the antimagic cone, and his polymorph snaps back into effect.  Appearing as a human again, the strange creature's eyes dart around.  He appears ready to fight if need be.Sybelle reaches out with her weary mind- she's been doing a lot of psionic manifestation without much rest- and touches a crystal capacitor that she carries, drawing energy from it to power a mind blast.  There's an almost-visible ripple in the air as she catches Red-Eye from the side his central eye's ignoring, and the great beholder shudders and drools, stunned.  She rushes in, greatsword rising, to strike at it.  Sheva's already moved in and unleashed a mass of blows with Chronovestis, slashing Red-Eye across the side and nearly severing one of his rubbery eyestalks.  Horbin rushes in as Red-Eye's central eye stops emenating its antimagic.  He swings his holy mace, crying Dexter's name, and smashes Red-Eye in the temple.  There's a sickening thud as the side of his head caves in and his central eye rolls up in his head.  Red-Eye stops moving.Habiskis is giggling as he keeps flying by and attacking St. Vitus with the deadly unicorn horn dagger, then turning invisible again.  The saint is healing himself, though; he's not out of it yet.  Alcar is swinging at the other beholder again and again, and finally he lays it low with a mighty strike to the face.  He whirls to glare at the remaining two ice giants, but seeing both beholders dead they look at each other and flee.  "Please, I mean you no harm!" calls Thuurgen, raising his hands."I don't know about you, wormy guy!" calls Sheva.  "Throw down your arms!"Alcar's moving in on Thuurgen, though; he doesn't know what it is, but it's bound to be evil.  After all, it cast desecrate earlier.  St. Vitus flies in to flank with Alcar and shouts, "Surrender!  We offer you quarter!""You should reconsider-" starts Horbin, but Alcar swings, scoring a mighty blow against the polymorphed creature, and it seems the time for words is once more past.  Thuurgen unleashes a crackling black ray of negative energy at Alcar, inflicting several negative levels, and tries to curse him as well.  St. Vitus shouts, "Surrender, Varlet!" and strikes at Thuurgen twice, scoring two crits in a row!  The creature rocks back and falls to one knee shaking his head.  He's badly bloodied and looks on the edge of unconsciousness.Sheva glares at Alcar and yells, "If you've come to take my protege again I'll kill you some more!"  Invisibly, Habiskis flies to her leg and grabs on.  Angelfire is still invisible, and he's drinking potions, using his wand to heal himself, and gearing up to attack Alcar.  There's a grim smile on his face, though nobody can see it just yet.  Alcar blasts at the area of the battle with Thuurgen with a holy smite and Sheva and the unseen Angelfire both wince as good energy crackles around them.  Thuurgen collapses, smoke rising from him.  Seeing Sheva's reaction to the holy energy, St. Vitus points at Horbin's holy symbol.  "You are a man of the Light, are you not?  You keep evil company!""I keep strange company," Horbin admits.  He smashes the unconscious Thuurgen with his mace, trying to coup de grace him- but to his dismay, the cleric sees the strange creature's wounds knitting shut.  "Hey, he's regenerating!" he calls.Angelfire appears.He unleashes a hasted full attack on Alcar, scoring several hits, slicing the angel's wing, side, and back.  Habiskis appears too, flanking with Angelfire, sneak attacking him twice.  Alcar concentrates, and casts defensively, healing some of the damage that's been inflicted upon him.  St. Vitus steps up and heals him as well, further repairing the damage inflicted, and shouts, "You adventurers, we should have no quarrel with you!""He attacked us!" Sheva and Angel yell together."Is this true?" Vitus demands of Alcar."No," Alcar says-"Yes!" both Angelfire and Sheva yell.  "Well sir," Horbin interjects, "their complaint is valid.  I'd like to see everyone stand down.  We certainly don't need to be fighting inside this place."  He keeps his mace out and stands next to St. Vitus to try to protect him if anyone should try to attack him."Call off your dog and get out of here," Sheva says to St. Vitus.  She's tensed on the balls of her feet, ready to spring and swing at Alcar if he attacks them.  "He insulted my religious beliefs," Angelfire says.  "If he doesn't apologize I'll kill him."  He strikes once, drawing another line of blood across Alcar's wing, and readies his blade for another shot.There's a brief lull.  All the fighting stops and all the eyes are on Alcar.  He's clearly struggling inwardly, trying to decide where his honor leads him, what his duty is to the powers of Good in this moment."Coila did aid me in the past, so I'm sorry for offending her," he finally states.  "Bur I'm not sorry for offending you.  I won't lie about it."Angelfire attacks.  A rain of blows falls on Alcar, who staggers back, then flies a off to the room's exit.  Sheva blasts a sound burst in between the two of them and calls out, "Stop this!  This is neither the time nor the place for this fight!  Settle it at a better time!"  And she turns and leaves the room, going into the spice-filled room followed by most of the party.Angelfire locks stares with Alcar.  "If you do not apologize to me I'll hunt you down and kill you.  We can call it a draw here, but you'll be my mortal enemy."  His eyes bore into Alcar's."Closest thing I'll do is I'll heal the damage from my holy smite.""All right.  Then I'm going to kill you someday."  Angelfire turns and leaves."You," says St. Vitus darkly, "suffer from the sin of pride." Next Time: Our heroes head back to Pesh City to re-equip- and they start receiving some rather disturbing news!  We'll learn a little bit about a few of their backgrounds and family members, and we'll get to meet a half-orc with an unhealthy interest in tabaxi!</blockquote>

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