Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Droid101" data-source="post: 1832189" data-attributes="member: 942">“What about me?” a voice from behind Bink is followed by a tug on his rainbow robes.“Grog!” the Heroes spin around to see their companion alive and well.  Except, of course, for his left hand, still replaced by the black and ancient Hand of Vecna.“We thought you were dead!” Bink says.  “What happened?”“Well, I fell down that hole, and suddenly I was in this weird city.  People were complaining about some 30 foot tall God that just walked through some buildings,” Grog starts.“I told you I didn’t want to know,” Eltharion takes another drink.“So I found my way here to the bar, hoping to find a way home,” Grog finishes.“We’re not goin’ ‘ome quite yet little one,” Bloodthorne states.  “We’ve got a date with a deity.”“Well, I’m ready to pay him back for the bump on my head,” Grog chuckles.  “But that sword I had is gone.  Can we even kill him?”“I don’t know, but let’s head toward all that smoke and see what’s going on,” Bink says, and they get up and head toward the smoke rising into the sky.  Eltharion is helped up by Balophan and Ogrim.The Heroes approach the smoke.  A massive structure squats in the center of a wide, but nonetheless crowded, field of cobblestones.  The fortresslike building stretches 600 feet long and over 400 feet wide.  In the ruins of what may have been four towers are huge pillars of smoke and fire.  A metallic framework rises all around the building, reaching a height of 1000 feet above the center of the fortress.  Older, rusted portions of the framework have been replaced recently by some mirror-bright metal, and Vecna’s eye-in-hand symbol is prominent.The field of cobblestones barely contains a surging and motley army.  The army is composed of humans, elves, dwarves, plane-touched humanoids, creatures both divine and infernal, and stranger beasts.  Obviously mighty, they still give the central structure a wide berth.  Thousands of bodies lay scattered and dead within that 200 foot perimeter.The army respects one other perimeter.  A wide clearing surrounds a group of six figures, all of which are levitating a few feet above the cobblestones.  Five of the figures are gaunt, robed humanoids sporting small horns.  A stream of glowing glyphs hangs like haze near them.  The five surround a larger figure in voluminous multicolored robes, who wears an elaborate bladed and spiked headpiece.“Looks like we’re late…” Ogrim says as the Heroes push through the army toward the strange floating figures.A small group tests the perimeter as the Heroes approach the floating figures.  As they run toward the huge building, a floating black ball darts out of the building and connects with one of them, and they drop to the floor quite dead.  The other two keep running, but are stopped by the front door, unable to budge it.  The ebony ball finishes them off quickly.“Great, how the hell do we get in there?” Eltharion asks.The Heroes reach the floating figures.  Bink kneels, and the rest of them follow suit.“We were present when Vecna fled his plane of imprisonment and came here.  We wish to help in any way we can,” Bink says.The five figures around the lady in the center begin to wave their hands, and glowing glyphs begin to spell out words in the air.I know the shape of things to come, yet this I did not see.  Beyond even the devices of the Whispered One, salvation is offered.  The Serpent’s protégé may yet be stopped and removed from this place that is profane for any God to tread.You are the first, last, and only hope.  Only you may stand against this God, you who have incorporated tangible portions of this God’s once-mortal flesh.Vecna’s death ward around the Armory will not stop you, nor can his divine energies burn you.  If the warp and weft of the cosmos you wish to preserve, make all haste; remove Vecna from this place.  It may be that you will succeed.With that, the lady in the center turns away from them and once again faces the Armory.The Heroes look at each other reluctantly.  They look at Grog and his blackened hand.“So who wants to try the head?” Bink asks, as he opens up his sack of Vecnan relics.“What does she mean?” Ogrim asks, still a little bewildered by the situation.“We have all these body parts that were once part of Vecna.  If you cut off your body part, and then attach his, you gain some power of some kind.  Also, according to those floating guys, we should be able to get past that perimeter of death and enter the palace.  As an added bonus, Vecna can’t use any divine powers against us while we have them on.  So we need to each put one on if we’re going to stop Vecna.” Bink summarizes.“I call the foot,” Bloodthorne picks up the blackened foot, cuts off his own foot without hesitation, and attaches Vecna’s.  “Mm.  Feel a bit faster.”A group starts to surround the Heroes, seeing how they have Vecnan relics.“You can get into the Armory with those!  You can stop Vecna!” a cheer goes up around them.“Yeah, uh, do you know what these do?” Bink holds out a couple of the relics.“It’s said that that one can destroy the others, and lets you eat anything!”“That one can make someone do whatever you want!”“That one makes you impervious to fire!”“That one makes you grow ten feet tall!”“Okay… thanks…” Bink looks to the party.  “I’ll take the tooth.  If you can believe them, I think that I can actually eat the other ones after we’re done with this, and destroy them.”“I’ll take the pinky.  I don’t want to lose much more than that…” Eltharion says.Balophan and Ogrim each get a different finger.  After a grisly scene of self-mutilation (Bink’s dagger in his mouth probably the worst of it) the Heroes have some blackened or mummified pieces attached.“Everybody ready?” Bink says, looking at the Armory.  “Let’s do this.”Will the Heroes get too attached to their relics?  Is the Foot of Vecna less decayed than the rest of Bloothorne?  What other perils lay in wait?  Find out next time!</blockquote>

Verification