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Message: <blockquote data-quote="talien" data-source="post: 4126471" data-attributes="member: 3285">Herald of the Yellow King - Part 4b: Returning to the CastleThey arrived to see that the chaos plaguing the duchy had come to the castle as well.  While many of the castle’s features were the same, some were altered, while others were gone completely.  The castle appeared larger, wither several towers and wings added since the last time they were there. All of the stonework was black, and a large black banner emblazoned with the Yellow Sign hung above the main entrance.  “Well, that can’t be good,” said Kham.The drawbridge, which once spanned a twelve-foot moat, had become a marble bridge crossing dark, mist-shrouded waters.  Snow swirled about the long bridge spanning the distance between the castle and land.As they cross the bridge, Ilmarė lifted one finger.  “I hear something.”Suddenly, from just ahead of them, the icy surface of the water exploded into movement.  Four long tentacles whipped out of the water, reaching over the span of the bridge.  They frantically flailed towards Vlad.“Get back!” shouted Ilmarė.  The creature below them was like nothing they had ever seen.  Larger than a draft horse, it was both insect-like and snail-like, with features of a squid as well.  Its four grasping tentacles whipped around Vlad and dragged him towards a pair of vicious-looking claws.  A forest of eyes adorned its head.  Two pairs of legs that ended in grasping digits gripped one of the pylons raising the bridge above the water.  A vertical, fish-like tail flapped wildly as it climbed higher, slowly moving onto the bridge.Vlad struggled briefly as the tentacles whipped around his limbs, but then he slumped forward, his features twisted in a rictus of horror. “Don’t let its tentacles touch you!” shouted Kham.  Dril unshouldered his rifle and ran across the bridge to the other side.  He kneeled and fired.The crack of the rifle caught the thing’s attention.  It turned and began to crawl its way along the side of the bridge towards Dril.  “Uh oh.”  Dril frenetically struggled to reload his rifle. Vlad dropped from its tentacles and slid onto the icy surface of the river below.  Dril dropped his rifle and drew his scimitar and knife.  He hacked at one tentacle and slapped another aside with his blade, but the other two snaked in under his defenses and lifted him up by the ankles.  Dril hung limply, paralyzed.Ilmarė fired an arrow at it. The shaft merely stuck out of the thick carapace.  “How do we stop it?”“The more important question is…” Kham took a potion out of from the many pockets in his overcoat and swigged it.  “How do we stop Vlad?”Vlad’s rigid body slipped towards the hole in the ice through which the beast had erupted.  Rushing black water boiled beneath it, oddly out of place for a normally sedentary moat.With a running leap, Kham dove onto the surface of the ice.  He slipped across it and collided with the paralyzed Milandisian.  It was enough to send Vlad skittering across the ice and safely away from the hole.Ilmarė dragged Vlad off the ice. Kham struggled to his feet, only to see a large shadow loom over him. “That’s right,” said Kham.  “Come get the stupid human bait.”Kham whirled just as the tentacles whip-cracked where he was standing.  He skated along the ice, further out, where he could see the black water beneath the ice. The thing followed him.  It claws click-clicked their way across the surface, digging into the ice for purchase.  The claws snapped reflexively and its mouth-tentacles undulated, almost as if the thing was fretting over the escape of its prey.It put another claw forward.  A spider web of cracks appeared beneath it.“Come on.” Kham drew both of his pistols.  “I’m right here!” The thing skittered tentatively towards Kham, lifting one clawed leg at a time.  It loomed over him, tentacles flailing.“Kham,” shouted Ilmarė, “What the hell are you doing?” Kham pointed his two pistols at the ice between him and the creature.  He cocked both hammers back…and fired.</blockquote>

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