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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 2092414" data-attributes="member: 1210">As the deadly green vapors spread around them our heroes cough and wheeze.  Inoke hurries away, muttering confusedly.  The irradiated umber hulk lurches in, smashing a mighty claw into Veil.  With a squeal of metal Veil feels her front tear and bend.  Lillamere, meanwhile, makes the mistake of glaring at the beast as he casts a maximized lightning bolt at it; and suddenly he’s confused as well.Gasping, Seethe casts a gust of wind and disperses the cloud of poison gas around them.  The stink lingers, though, even with the wind blowing it hard.  “Kill it, before Inoke kills us like he did Drelvin!” cries Gerontius, but the room is pell-mell full of chaos by this point.  Half of the party is avoiding looking at the umber hulk and can only sort of tell what’s going on.  The other half of the party is half-confused!  And the umber hulk is laying about it with its huge claws, tearing at Veil and Proto.But Seethe continues to try to balance matters.  He casts a heal on Inoke, snapping him out of the confusion.  Proto then uses his formidable magic to cure Lillamere of his disturbed state as well.  Rex, meantime, rushes forward and begins tearing at the hideous umber hulk with his claws.  It smashes back at him, and the two struggle corps a corps for a moment before the half dragon pushes the umber hulk back a few paces.  With a roar, the umber hulk braces itself to attack again- and suffers a maximized lightning bolt in the side from Lillamere!Then, suddenly, Hashrek’s voice carries above the tumult in a mass suggestion: ”Lay down your weapons and surrender and you will be spared.”Inoke drops Deadly Avalanche to the ground.Gerontius has meanwhile moved into flanking opposite Rex.  The umber hulk cannot defend itself adequately against the lithe halfling’s deadly blade, and soon Gerontius lands a killing blow in its vitals.  The irradiated umber hulk collapses, defeated.“Take him!” cries Jezebel, gesturing.  There, down the hall- there is the figure with Hashrek’s voice- but it is no elf.  This horn-faced, blue-skinned creature is an ogre mage, and a powerful one at that.  With a negligent gesture, he traps Proto, Rex and Lillamere behind a wall of iron.  Sybele counters this with a psionic disintegrate, blasting a hole in the wall with a thought.The party rushes towards the ogre mage, and suddenly they’re all in the midst of a chain lightning.  It corruscates through them, and a chorus of yells and screams rises- but our heroes keep moving forward.  They will not be stopped.  Rex is foremost among them, and with a wordless cry he tears into Hashrek the Cruel.  The ogre mage staggers back as claws and teeth rip at him, until finally he falls to one knee.  Another maximized lightning bolt from Lillamere, and a final strike from Rex, and he is down.  Seethe turns into a purple worm and smears Hashrek’s remains into paste and then consumes it.  “Now who do I surrender to?” complains Inoke.***11:15 a.m.Our heroes return to the chamber below the hatch leading to the elevator room.  The other door out yields to them and reveals a ladder dropping down onto a metal catwalk below.  The air seems humid and warm.  The blaring klaxons in the background inhibit casual conversation.Our heroes drop down onto the catwalk and immediately note a flickering violet light.  “More of the golems!” Inoke cries, unlimbering his club.  Rex drops lithely onto the ground and breathes out a line of force, but it has no effect on the crystal creature.  These ones resemble the cat-headed violet crystal flickering golems the party fought upon first entering the place, but they are much larger.  Veil and Proto can feel radiation prickling into them; they can only wonder what this will do to their more organic companions.Spells start to deflect harmlessly from the golems.  Sybele’s arrows don’t do much better.  Lillamere glances down; below the catwalk is a water-filled shaft.  Grinning mirthlessly the elven sorcerer casts a disintegrate, not on one of the golems but on the catwalk directly below it.  There’s a flash of light and a brief spray of dust, and the golems crashes down into the water with a loud splashing sound.Rex, meanwhile, tumbles in on the other golem and casts true strike.  His fist strikes, dealing impressive damage, and Inoke rushes forward to continue the assault.  The golem strikes the cat-helmed warmind several times as Rex springs away, then darts back in.Seethe casts a slime wave, and though it doesn’t harm the golem, it does start eating away at the catwalk beneath it.  Inoke refuses the creature passage, and Lillamere disintegrates the catwolk beneath it.  The thing’s legs are spread far apart, so it doesn’t fall immediately; but Rex kicks a leg out from under it and then it topples back, splashing into the water.“It looks reasonably deep,” remarks Sybele.  The party can barely see the golems flickering deep in the murk below them.“The radiation in here is pretty bad,” warns Veil.“Indeed,” Proto remarks.  “I may need to retreat soon.  We should return to the Delphinate.”“We should also divide up loot,” urges Gerontius. ***6 p.m., the DelphinateResting in an inn in the Delphinate, our heroes identify and split up loot.  The division goes something like this:Rex gets bracers of armor +7.Sybele gets the greatsword that Hashrek had been using.  Its name is Asheral, and it is a +3 defending greatsword.Lillamere gets a staff of defense with 39 charges.Seethe gets the belt of mighty fortitude, which gives a +4 bonus to con and soaks the first point of ability damage or drain dealt by any attack.Veil gets an amulet of natural armor +2.Proto gets the scarlet robes of the burning desert, again from Hashrek.  These red robes are always sandy, and grant fire resistance 20.  They also allow the wearer to move freely (without move or skill penalties) while in sandy terrain.  Finally, while in sandy terrain, the wearer passes without trace.Inoke gets a large composite longbow +2 that is built for a creature of pretty darn immense strength (+5 mighty).  He smiles; it’s good to have more than one trick up your sleeve.Proto heads off to report to his superiors after admonishing our heroes to stay out of trouble.  Veil, meanwhile, gives away all his potions and hands his ring of regeneration over to Gerontius.  “I don’t have a metabolism anymore,” she explains.  “I can’t benefit from them.”“Well, let’s go have a drink anyway,” suggests Gerontius cheerfully. The group tromps downstairs into the inn’s common room, promptly forgets Proto’s admonishment and gets in trouble with the law.  With Delphinite law.Next Time: Someone goes to jail!</blockquote>

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