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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 3902695" data-attributes="member: 1210">The poor man who tried to get our heroes to drink some wine has no chance. The fireball that the cloaked figure cast from one of its eyes killed him instantly. After all, it did not matter whether the party accepted the poisoned wine from the man; what mattered was only that he made the offer, that he tried to murder them, that he committed evil. Satisfied, the gleaming skull-faced, gem-eyed monster slew him with its right eye, and now it unleashes a wave of fear from its left.Our heroes, meanwhile, have already unleashed a devastating volley of magic missiles and weapons at the monster. It looks undead; Cedric moves forward, determined to attempt to turn it and make it flee. To his surprise, he sees Sheriff Jorgen, Me and several of the peasants dash away in a panic. He changes his mind and casts remove fear instead. Meanwhile, the strange gemstone-eyed monster is caught in a grim cross fire of magic missiles between Adelle and Otis and is slammed into by Sir Colder and Benito. The monster staggers back, and a final volley of missiles from Otis destroys it.“What was that thing?” exclaims Goer. “It was freaky!”“You’re telling me,” Kyle agrees. “That fireball would have killed me if I hadn’t dived behind you!”*Shakily, our heroes do some quick healing and then move on quickly. They wish to linger here for as short of a time as possible. Fortunately, the peasants avoided the worst of it; only Angora, their sheriff, died in the blast. Sheriff Jorgen sheds a tear for her; they had grown close over the last few weeks. Now... now she is gone. But only a half hour later, another group of war machines appears from a side street, and another desperate battle breaks out. This time there are four of the constructs, rather than the trio that our heroes faced before, and they were enough trouble! Immediately, Otis unleashes a fireball, but the war machines are in a widely-separated skirmish formation, and he can only catch two of them. They close in on him swiftly, hitting the party in the flank, and Dahlia catches two of them with a heat metal.Wisely, Kyle retreats to guard the peasants. But then, to his dismay, one of the war machines stabs Otis twice in the head! There is a shower of blood as the wizard is cut down! “Master!! No!!” Kyle screams.Dahlia casts another heat metal, catching both of the other war machines. The party begins to move in and fight back, and Sir Percival gives a primal scream as he smashes one to pieces in two mighty blows!Kyle dashes forward to where Otis lays on the ground. Is he alive? the apprentice wizard wonders hopefully. If he is, I have to save him! When he reaches his master’s body, though, he is forced to spring away from a war machine attack, and cannot even tell whether Otis is alive!Another of the war machines tumbles over to Me and slices his leg with a sweeping blow, bowling him over. He lands on the smoking ruin of the war machine that he just destroyed, and then cries out as the war machine stabs him again. Dahlia rushes over to Lord Cedric, who is trying to work his way forward but is impeded by peasants and the need to mount Thunderpuss.** “Cedric, wait!” she cries, and he reins in long enough for her to bless him with the strength of a bull. Thunderpuss rears back and kicks at the air; then, with a mighty roar of both horse and rider, Cedric and Thunderpuss charge forward, smashing into one of the war machines with his lance. The machine shudders back, smashed hard by the blow, and then flips nimbly out of the line of Cedric’s lance and into a fighting stance. Sir Colder and Sir Jorgen are fiercely battling the war machine that is advancing on Sir Percival, which leaves only the one menacing the unmoving Otis and Kyle. Biting his lip, the lapidary-cum-adventurer darts in and grabs his master under the armpits. He strains with all his feeble muscles, and manages to start dragging him away.Unfortunately for him, the war machine takes advantage of his burdened movement to run Kyle through. With a warbling cry, the apprentice joins the master in a state of rather profound immobility.Meanwhile, the war machine facing Lord Cedric neatly unhorses him. With a surprised cry, Cedric crashes to the ground. His eyes widen as he sees another first break one of Me’s hands, then whirl around and cut Colder’s longspear in two! These machines are of consummate skill, he admits to himself. Aloud, he shouts, “We mutht redouble our effortth, my friendth! We cannot let thethe thingth thtop uth from thtopping Harth!” Then he snarls in dismay as the one that he is facing stabs Thunderpuss and neatly slices through a wide slab of muscle. The horse gives out an agonized whinny as blood fountains everywhere. Me roars as he enters a rage and begins spring attacking, and Colder and Jorgen together bring down the one that they are facing. Even the peasants begin to get into the act, firing crossbows and shortbows at the war machines. A moment later Sir Colder manages to drop another! They are almost all gone-“Look out!!” shouts Adelle. There is the whump of a fireball exploding down the same alley that the war machines came from. “Three more of them!”Cedric laughs wildly and takes a quick swig off of his wineskin. “Let them come!” he sneers. “We thall overcome them with eathe!”One of the newcomers tumbles up to Me and neatly disarms him. He roars and picks his weapon back up and begins smashing angrily at it. Over and over again he hits it; it crashes and stumbles back, until finally he crushes into a ruin of broken metal and smoking wires.Meanwhile, Kyle’s raven familiar*** digs around in his gear, looking for potions. When it finally finds one, it pulls it free of his belt with its beak, carefully uncorks it and promptly spill it all over Kyle. But as the liquid seeps into his wound, tissues begin to knit. The flowing blood slows, then stops, as veins and arteries reconnect where they have been severed. Kyle’s eyelids flutter and he gasps as consciousness returns to him.Dahlia begins healing the wounded as they fight, first Sir Colder, then Otis. Otis groggily pulls himself up. “Are you all right?” Dahlia asks the wizard. “What? What’s happening?” Otis yells, looking somewhat confused. “Hello? HELLO?” He grimaces wildly. “Ahh, I’m deaf!!” His eyes widen as he sees the war machines, and he rises to his feet unsteadily and backpedals away a dozen feet. “KEEP YOUR DISTANCE!” he shouts. “THEY ARE VERY DANGEROUS!”“We know,” groans Kyle. Dahlia heals Percival- Me- and then moves on to the apprentice wizard. “Thanks,” Kyle sighs, reveling in her touch as she uses her powers to knit his wounds. She doesn’t respond to his flirtations; not right now. Me and one of the war machines keep struggling together, trading blows and cuts. Finally, the half-orc’s superior endurance and powerful rage wins the day, and Me drops yet another of the war machines. Sir Porthos and Sir Jorgen move together to charge into another, Jorgen using a lance while mounted and Porthos simply charging on foot with his sword. Adelle curses one again at how spell resistant the things are and, out of magical resources, pulls out her sling. She whirls it around and fires, pegging one of them in the head with a bullet! The thing is already severely damaged, smoking and giving off sparks and leaking weird, oily fluids. The bullet smashes it flat, and the war machine struggles feebly to rise for a moment before going still. The final machine whirls around madly, springing for Sir Jorgen and only narrowly missing him. But the angry Sir Percival rushes in and begins hacking, ignoring the pain of his broken hand completely, and in a few short seconds he crushes the last remaining war machine.“Good gods!” moans Kyle. “That was a close one.” “Clothe?” Lord Cedric scoffs. “We are triumphant, of courthe, ath I knew we would be. We thall overcome all oppothithion and defeat all of our enemies. With contempthuous eathe!”“As you say, my Lord,” Goer sighs. “Should we rest, or move on?” inquires Dahlia. “My magical resources are pretty well used up...”“Perhapth we thould find a thuitable plathe to hole up,” nods Lord Cedric. “We could have a few drinkth.” He tousles Bates’ hair. “Yes, let’s all keep our eyes peeled,” the sheriff agrees. The party walks along for some time through the blasted city, following the track of the Shadow Train. The sky remains that same dark maroon color the entire time. “I wonder how that goes away?” remarks Sir Colder. He points at the sky. “What would get rid of it?”“Oh, I don’t know,” Adelle responds. She looks thoughtful for a few moments, then says, “The sky is a side effect of the spell engine destroying all magic not protected. It’s very powerful magic, epic magic in fact; it would require epic magic to destroy it. Either that, or you’d have to starve it.”“You mean, if it sucked up all the magic in the land-““Unprotected magic. Exposed magic.”Kyle is shocked by the thought. “Maybe that’s what happened! Maybe-““Almost certainly.” Otis' brow is furrowed in thought.“Something else you should think about,” Benito says, “is your tickets. Do you have enough money to buy tickets for everyone to wherever we’re going?”Puzzled, Goer says, “Buy... what? Tickets? What?” “Surely you didn’t think that you could ride the Shadow Train for free.” Benito sounds surprised at the very thought.”How much are thethe ticketth?” asks Lord Cedric. “Oh, it depends,” Benito answers him. “Where are we going?”“To the Isle of the Elves,” Sir Porthos answers. Everyone looks at him. “That is where Harth’s goal is.”“But for now, we need to rest and recover our resources,” Dahlia reminds them. “Remember to keep your eyes open for somewhere that we can rest.”“So we’re looking for something like... that?” Sir Colder points dramatically.   Ahead of the party is a very colorful building, painted yellow, red, green and blue. Out front, a sign shows an image of the masks of comedy and tragedy. The place looks largely intact.“Why not?” shrugs Sir Colder. The party moves to investigate. Next Time: The Disparager!*Kyle evaded. Hurray for rogue levels! Especially when your full hp total is 17 at 8th level...**He actually failed his quick mount check. But you know, dramatic license and all.***Similar, in many ways, to V’s raven familiar in Order of the Stick. :|</blockquote>

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