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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Joshua Randall" data-source="post: 1057896" data-attributes="member: 7737">The Battle of Choth’s LairCaligraf of Mogaruith considered the glittering fragment of crystal as he grasped it in his left hand. It was smaller than his littlest finger, but Caligraf suspected that driving it into the forehead of the squirming child beneath him would render the child docile and easily controlled – as well as giving him unknown mental powers. That this knowledge had been gained only after weeks of messy experimentation upon animals was of no consequence to Caligraf. He was a Cener Druid, of the same order that had unleashed the Great Plague upon Magnamund seven and a half thousand years ago. (1)  Perhaps the Cener had failed then, but they would not fail now. Mad visions of himself as the leader of an army of mentally dominated thralls filled Caligraf’s head. A self-satisfied smirk played over his features, mere instants before a shaft of wood tipped with steel tore into his hand, spraying blood across the sacrifice’s face.“Aaaaagggghhh!” Caligraf screamed in surprise and pain, jerking his hand away and instinctively clutching it to his chest. The druid whirled to face the back wall of the great cavern, eyes wide. There! His assailant, with an expression of hatred and determination upon his face (2), was already fitting another arrow to his bow. But how? How could the archer’s head and torso be protruding out of the solid rock itself?Caligraf blinked the tears out of his eyes and stared again. Because it was not solid rock – an illusion of some sort – his mind raced, straining to recall arcane teachings. Of course. Illusory wall. How simple.But the druid had little time to think on this discovery, for another arrow streaked through the arrow, narrowly missing him. At last, Caligraf found the will to act. With barely a glace, he brought the hammer down full force, crushing the skull of the Bellhold youth on the altar. Then, turning to Akratt, the Cener spat out a warning. “The wall behind is an illusion!”Caligraf watched in satisfaction at the Giaks’ reactions. The two who had been holding down the boy released their grasp on what was now a corpse and knelt behind the altar, picking up their own bows and training them on the far wall. Akratt’s sword rasped free of its scabbard as he adopted a defensive stance. The Giak leader might be spineless in a verbal altercation, but Caligraf knew he was a fierce combatant.In other parts of the cavern there was more activity. Sprelt, the tribe’s sorcerer, climbed halfway up the wall, his hands and feet made magically sticky. At the entrance to the cavern, opposite the illusory wall, a Giak called Prukk slunk into the shadows at the edge of the room and began moving stealthily forward. Additional Giak warriors began streaming out of their makeshift barracks, weapons at the ready.The mysterious archer seemed to have allies as well. From behind his shoulder, a magic missile flew unerringly towards Sprelt, snuffing out the diminutive Giak’s life and leaving him hanging on the wall until the expiration of his spider climb. The sounds of mailed feet on stone indicated that more heavily armored foes were about to enter the fray. And yet another arrow took Caligraf in the leg. He swore, and hobbled away, undergoing the transformation as he moved. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Giak archers returning fire, one arrow striking its target.By the time Caligraf reached down to pick up his weapon, it was with the claw of a mighty bear, rather than the hand of his human form. He looked upon the spiked greatclub with glee and roared with bloodlust. (3) At this signal, Caligraf’s Doomhound bounded towards the attackers and leapt at them, but could not jump high enough to reach them where they stood atop what appeared to be a stone ramp behind the illusion.To Caligraf’s left, all four of the recently arrived Giaks dropped in their tracks and began snoring loudly. The druid-bear snarled in anger and viciously kicked the nearest one awake.From atop the ramp, two dwarves in plate armor leapt down upon his Doomwolf, axe and hammer striking as they fell. The beast yelped once before it was chopped and crushed to death. His eyes narrowed in hate, Caligraf studied these foes. The dwarf on the right looked familiar, and he wore the holy symbol of Kirabá. Snarling out a curse, Caligraf quickly mouthed the words of a protective spell, one that he knew it had been wise to prepare. (4)Akratt leapt forward and struck at the other dwarf, but his sword was turned aside on the heavy armor. More arrows crisscrossed in the air, one striking Caligraf, two others striking the partially concealed enemy sorcerer. A different kind of arrow, this one composed of magical acid, splashed on the floor near Caligraf, melting a hole into the stone. He frowned, wondering if he had warded himself against the wrong type of energy.As if in answer, a cacophony of sound screamed out nearby. The sleeping Giaks staggered up, blood streaming from their ears, while the one that Caligraf had awakened was knocked off his feet. But the druid was unaffected, the sound waves washing over him harmlessly. He moved forward undeterred.Ah yes! Prukk had almost made it behind the nasty little dwarf. Soon the Giak rogue would deliver a painful – no! How could he have been seen? For the Herbalish archer had pointed his bow strait down and fired it into the top of Prukk’s head, killing him instantly. (5)By this time the disoriented Giak warriors were on their feet; they charged into battle. One met his maker on the end of a dwarven waraxe; another successfully flanked the other dwarf, allowing Akratt to deliver a devastating sneak attack.Caligraf at last reached his target. Stepping over the Giak bodies, he swung his greatclub in a tremendous sideways arc, and felt the satisfying crunch as it punched through the war-priest’s platemail, literally lifting the dwarf off his feet and sending him crashing to the ground. “Rrrrrooooooaaaarrrgggghhhh!” The druid-bear’s roar of pleasure became a scream of pain as arrows both mundane and magical tore into his body, both striking with terrible force. (6)  Shaking, Caligraf began to withdraw, clawing clumsily for a sprig of Laumspur.Too late. As the Cener tried to make it behind cover of the altar, he felt another arrow bury itself in his back, and the acid continued to burn him. He sank to his knees, kept conscious only by his rage. The Laumspur scattered on the cave floor in front of him, just out of reach. (7)Caligraf could not know that moments after he was struck down, two Giak darts pierced Otieno’s lung, dropping the sorcerer and forcing Kell to withdraw and attempt to revive him. Nor could the Cener druid watch as Akratt paired off with another Giak warrior to repeatedly flank and sneak attack Kednor, until the dwarf finally shattered Akratt’s longsword with a well-timed sunder. Thereafter, Brogun joined his cohort in beating back the Giak warriors, who eventually joined the archers in a hasty retreat.The druid felt his racing pulse begin to slow, and knew that his death was imminent. An evil soul would journey to the Plane of Darkness, doomed to serve Naar for an eternity of pain. But the soul of this Cener was already promised to another – and its work in the moral realm was not yet complete.Notes:(1) In 2514 MS, the Cener Druids completed work on a biologically engineered virus and released it upon Magnamund. The resulting plague decimated the population, hitting the Elder Magi and Drodarin races especially hard. It tooks desperate counter-measures by the Herbalish Druids to save Magnamund.(2) Kell had taken Cener as his favored enemy.(3) As a multiclassed barbarian/druid, Caligraf could wild shape into a bear and then enter a rage, giving him Str 23. Combined with a greatclub with the spikes spell cast upon it: attack +12, damage 1d10+11.(4) Ever since his first encounter with Brogun and the dwarf’s propensity for soundburst, Caligraf had kept protection from energy: sonic on hand.(5) Sneak attack plus critical hit. Not to mention beating Prukk’s Hide and Move Silently checks. *sigh*(6) This crit for Kell’s arrow (against a favored enemy, no less) and another crit by Otieno’s acid arrow took Caligraf from alive but wounded to nearly dead in one round. And yes, that’s three confirmed criticals in a row for the PCs.(7) Caligraf, at exactly zero hit point, was screwed. He couldn’t take a standard action (for example, to retrieve the healing herbs) without dropping to negative, but if he did nothing, he would drop to negative anyway when he came out of his barbarian rage. So much for my villain! At least for now....</blockquote>

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