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="Droid101" data-source="post: 1819995" data-attributes="member: 942">Two raggedly dressed men make their way across the street.  A troupe of animated skeletons comes marching toward them, and they run to cower in an alley.  The shadows of the alley almost seem alive, which causes the men to run off in another random direction.“Fascinating…” Bink says.  “The undead and the people live here together.”“Sort of.  The humans are basically slaves,” Eltharion adds.The Heroes continue toward the towers.  A bleak and deathly feeling permeates the group.  Skeletons, zombies, incorporeal ghosts, and other such undead creatures make their way through the city.  They mostly ignore the Heroes, who stay close to walls and out of the way.Around another bend a pale cultist wearing Vecna robes is calling out praises to his God.“You there!  You!  You are new to the Citadel Cavitius!  Come, and hear about the greatness that is Vecna!” the robed man calls out to the Heroes.“Um… just ignore him…” Bink says as they continue to walk past.“Confess your sins and become Vecna’s faithful!  Your life in Cavitius depends on it!”The Heroes keep walking.“Oh Gods, you’ve come!  You’ve come!!” A young woman comes running from the alley nearby.  She is raggedly dressed and looks very pale and gaunt.  She is practially laughing and sobbing at the same time.  “I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting for you to come, and now you’re here.  I saw you in my dreams.  You never came but finally now you’ve come to rescue me.  To complete your quest and to rescue me.  Please don’t die while you complete your quest because you have to rescue me from this terrible place…”“Okay, okay, calm down, just come with us, we’ll keep you safe,” Bink rolls his eyes.“Just don’t get in the way,” Eltharion adds.“Okay, I’ll follow you.  Please rescue me… please…” she rambles on, as they continue walking.They round another bend.  The press of living and dead citizens is particularly tight as they make their way through a section of streets that seem to wind like a snake.Suddenly, the street explodes in fire.The Heroes are able to duck out of the way, but still take some slight burns.The smell of burning flesh and the screams of dying people fill the alley.  Dozens of victims, both living and undead, lay twitching on the ground as their last moments flee from them in a fit of fire and pain.  Through the thick black smoke, two figures approach.  One is a huge, seven foot tall man with a thick beard and large bastard sword.  The other is a smallish, very thin man.  Both are wearing plate mail inscribed with the grinning skull – Iuz’s symbol.“Well well well,” the bearded giant starts, drawing his bastard sword.  “Looks like Kher’s puny spell didn’t get ‘em.  Seems like it killed everyone but them.  Good.  I like a little skirmish in the morning”The huge man charges forward, slashing down and slicing Eltharion on the arm.  Grog and Balophan surround him.  The smaller man stays back and casts a spell, but to no effect.A larger group of Iuz mercenaries stand on the edge of the devastation, looking on.  About 10 orcs can be seen, along with a man in glittering chainmail, and an half-elf wearing dark robes.  They don’t make any moves; only watching.Bink flies up and fires a lightning bolt at the spellcaster, shocking his brain and killing him instantly.“Woah,” Bink looks at his hands.Eltharion, Grog and Balophan have a little trouble with the large human, however.  Most of their attacks go glancing off his armor, and he hacks into them liberally.Grog gets a lucky strike in, bringing the man to his knees.  Eltharion finishes him off with a lethal six-hit combo from his Sun-sickle and Moon-scimitar.The orcs standing away from them charge in at this point.  The half-elf fires off four magic missiles and takes off with the man in sparkling chainmail.  The missiles pelt into Grog hard.“I’ll follow them!” Bink says.“No, let them go,” Eltharion responds as he engages the Iuz following orcs.A fireball and six seconds of melee later, and the orcs are downed.  The street is littered with close to 40 bodies.  The Heroes look around and see the crazy girl.  She’s charred practically beyond all recognition.“Guess we couldn’t rescue her…” Eltharion shakes his head, and the Heroes move on toward the towers.The cramped street opens up into a wide plaza.  Five gallows stand upon the ground in front of a huge palace.  Five towers spring from the top of the huge palace.  Four of them are bone white, like all the other buildings in the city.  The middle one, however, is a deep black spire that pierces the sky.  It reached up farther than any tower the Heroes have ever seen.“That’s quite a large tower…” Eltharion trails off as he tilts his head back to see the whole thing.As they approach, they see that the five gallows each have five nooses, and five pikes with human heads on them.  There are several people hanging from the gallows; their bodies impaled on spikes that are below, several of them are howling in pain, still very much alive.  Bink stops a human citizen who is running away from the palace.“What crime did these people commit?” Bink asks.“They violated Vecna’s laws,” the man answers with a blank expression, and he moves on.The Heroes walk around the gallows and their animated skeleton guards.  They walk right up to the palace doors.  Eltharion pushes them open.  A grand hall lies beyond.“Well, that was easy…” Eltharion says.Can the Heroes navigate the palace successfully?  What horrors await them?  Is there any way out of the plane of Ravenloft?  Find out more, next time!</blockquote>

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