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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Emperor Valerian" data-source="post: 1480605" data-attributes="member: 15043">Clash with the Undead“Vampire Spawn?” Shaun asked quietly, and Anias nodded.“Luicus.. stay behind me,” the sergeant said quietly.  His order was coupled with a grab and a pull, forcing Luke to comply.  “They’re scouting... lurking... counting our numbers,” Anias hissed.As the party watched, on edge, the four forms did slink around the edges of the fire.  As they drew closer, the party could see they looked like normal loggers... clad in aprons that were a dull yellow from sawdust, their skin flesh normal in color.  Their eyes, however, belied that something was wrong with them.They were feral.... a bright, frightening gold, like that of a cat.  And they stared between party members.“Will they go away?” Siabrey asked quietly.  I know nothing of fighting vampires... here, you are the expert Anias...“No... they will attack eventually,” Anias said quietly, before he starting murmuring quiet chants.“Alright... settles the question for me,” she said, just before an arrow flew from her bow, striking the closest creature in the neck.  It gave a howl of pain, and then vanished... as did the one next to it.  The two further away started running for the party, with two more now distantly visible in the rear.  As Anias finished his chants, the air in front of Luke seemed to shimmer slightly, as a magic circle against evil spell cast by the angel took effect.Shaun’s arrow was the next quickest, striking one of the second pair as they leapt out of some bushes thirty feet from the party.  His arrow slammed into the chest of one, causing it to reel.  After stumbling, it shook its self off, and merely continued with his attack.Grumki was the next to act.  Calling upon the holy power of Kord, Grumk asked for heaven’s fire to rain down on the two closest spawn he could see.  A bright light flashed from above, and as the two spawn looked up to see what it was, a column of fire thundered down with a roar, immolating all around it.  Two piles of ashes were left where the spawn once stood. As yet two more spawn came into view in the distance, the air close to the party seemed to shimmer, as the closest spawn reappeared in their faces... one complete with the arrow Siabrey put in its throat.  They lashed out.One attempted to hit Tess, but his blow flew wide as the bard artfully ducked out of the way.  In a single fluid motion, Fa’rallan was in her hand, and she lashed upward, towards the undead creature’s throat.  Despite her lack of strength, the blow was mighty, and as a resounding “ZAP!” echoed in the forest, the spawn collapsed, its throat and jaw shattered open, sparks arcing from the wound.The other lunged towards Shaun, who also deftly dodged its swings.  Before he could drop his bow and draw his rapier, however, three blasts of white energy slammed into the creature’s head.  As the beast fell, Shaun had a moment to glance back, and see Anias lowering its Nightblade... magical power still crackling at its tip.The other four spawn, seeing the seeming ease with which their fellow undead were dispatched, turned, and began to run.“After them!” Anias shouted, grabbing Luke’s arm and pulling him with.  I cannot move more than ten feet from him, so he will have to come with.  The rest of the party sped out as well, dashing through the thickets after their foe.The chase lasted a few minutes, with the beasts dashing towards the northeast, along the same paths the party had noticed earlier in the day.  Finally, the four spawn halted in the middle of a clearing, near a massive piece of newly disturbed ground.“Its their burial site!” Anias shouted as the party burst through the thickets, “If we consecrate this, they are completely destroyed forever!”  Almost immediately both he and Grumki had their hands on holy symbols.Until the ground itself started to shake.The mass of disturbed dirt began to shake and shudder, rising ever quicker in a mound, that soon exploded into a beast of nightmares.It was fully 20 feet tall at the shoulders, shoulders who had large, waving numbs of rotting flesh hanging from them.  The party’s torches revealed it to have a massive body, whose skin was mottled a sickly gren and black.  Horrific yellow and red colored sores, seemingly filled to the brim with pus, covered its entire length.  Its head was massive, with rows of vicious teeth, the skin off of it hanging, as if it was rotting.  From seeming within the creature, a distant, mournful buzzing, as if by hundreds of flies, seemed to eeriely crawl across the night landscape.“What in Pelor’s name?” Elenya froze, fear seizing her face.  Anias himself was even baffled.  In his travels, he had not seen anything as loathsome as this... putrid creature.  Even as he watched in shock, it roared, and began to storm towards the party...Shaun and Siabrey both launched arrows at the beast, and watched in horror as the arrows struck, but seemed to be pushed out by the beast’s very skin (DR 20/+2).  Anias motioned for his three guardsmen to charge the beast, while he said some incantations over himself... causing a terrible change.His armor seemed to change shape... to meld, as his body shifted.  Numbs sprouted from the middle of his back, and grew, more and more, as his red hair lengthed, and been shifting between shades of red and orange, as if flaming.His feet seemed to fuse, and reemerge as three claws, with massive black talons.  His hands did the same, as his skin shifted from pale flesh to an icy, terrible blue.  As the rapidly forming wings on his back burst into flames, his eyes glowed a feral red;  he was now in his true form, and with a flap of his wings, he was aloft, hovering closely above Luke.The party had scarcely time to notice their comrade’s change, as the massive beast hurled itself into their midst.  Its claws caught one of the guardsmen, and to the party’s horror, literally shredded the man in two.  A vicious bite crushed part of Shaun’s shoulder, inflicting a horrific poison that left him emaciated (4 Str damage).The beasts two shoulder numbs then grew into massive, 20 foot long tentacles, which lashed out at the two other guardsmen who harassed its flank.  They were driven back by the flailings, their faces and chests scarred.Tess let loose with a frightening shriek, determined to launch sonic fury at the beast, only to see her three darts seem to shrink before they hit the beast.  They hit, strong and true, but the massive creature shrugged off the damage.Grumki once again called upon Kord on high, and another column of fire from heaven swept down, slamming into the rear of the beast.  The beasts’ haunches definitively looked scorched, but it continued to press its assault.The four vampire spawn in the meantime were not idle either, rushing forward into the fray, their bloody lips gleaming at the trap they’d led the party into.  For one, the gleam ended when Siabrey put a sword through his skull, for another, it ended as Luke sent a fireball at the group, aiming so it would just hit their massive overlord (or pet, no one was sure) as well.The beast continued its assault, this time squeezing its ribcage.  From deep, sickly holes in its rotting skin burst forth a swarm of massive, angry locusts, red as blood, who quickly sped towards Luke, stinging and biting him.  The boy stumbled back, batting furiously as the fiendish beasts shredded his skin, and tried to suck out his soul (gained one temporary negative level).The beast also bit hard again into Shaun, crushing several ribs of the rogue as he fought bravely to keep the beast from Elenya.  Shaun stumbled away from the combat towards Grumki, the ground rapidly becoming covered with his blood as he slinked.The beasts claws slashed towards Siabrey, who now was charging at it, Kelir raised above her head.  While its claws missed, its tentacles did not, and quickly she found herself wrapped up in their rotting, putrid forms, and it began to slap and squeeze her.  The sharp end of one tentacle tried to grab her face and rip off her cheek, but she managed to avoid the blow (attempted to inflict Cha damage, she passed fort save).  The beast was about to do more damage to her when a blast of lightning from Elenya slammed into its side, causing it to shudder.Anias, seeing the locusts assault Luke, abandoned his planned attack on the massive beast and instead flew directly into the midst of the locust, flapping his wings furiously.  The heat from the flames dropped many of the fiendish insects, and drove the others away from his charge.Quin, by this point, had joined the other guardsmen desperately hacking at the beasts side... but their weapons were not powerful enough, and it seemed every cut they made suddenly healed on its own (fast healing 8, in addition to the DR).Tess, seeing the horrors that were afflicting her friends, decided to help as best she could, and with another shriek, sent sonic darts towards the remaining spawn, resending them towards the afterlife.  Grumki, in the meantime, began to administer healing for Shaun, bringing the badly injured rogue back from the brink.Lucius, now free of the mass of locusts that had been buzzing around him, saw the beast hefting Siabrey up in the air, and charged, Ik Mataar high above his head.  Several furious blows later, and the beast looked worse off than before.For all the damage the party had done, the creature still continued its assault.  This time, it clawed at Lucius, raking at his breastplate and managing to sink several claws into his shoulder and neck.  Luke managed to resist the vile effects of its poison, as the creature then bit Tess... hard in the stomach.  The bard gave a sharp gasp, but avoided the poison in the creature’s rotting jaws as well.The creature’s tentacles continued squeezing Siabrey, one again trying to rip off her flesh.  One again, she squirmed and wiggled enough that she avoided most of the damage, though she felt her strength starting to wane as her ribs creaked dangerously.  (once again, passed her fort save)Anias now found himself in the middle of a swarm of fiendish bloodlocusts, and continued to furiously beat his wings after realizing that the creatures were really too small for him to hit with his sword.  When he was able to, he fired magical energy at the massive beast, still not realizing that his charge was now on the front lines, directly in the beasts’ path.Grumki now grew tired of this nonsense, and decided that the situation called for nothing less than the Strength of Kord.  Raising up his warhammer in a battlecry, the half orc thundered forward.  As the beast raised its head from biting Tess, Grumki landed a frightening blow, shattering the front half of the creature’s head.  The beast, riddled with sword thrusts, lightning burns, fireball burns, arrows, and the like, finally keeled over to the ground... quite dead dead.Anias, about the same time, gave a final burst of his wings, and the last of the locusts crackled and fell to the ground.  None had been able to harm him.  As he spun around to charge back against the beast, he stopped in midair, watching in surprise as the party began to pull themselves and the survivors away from the mess.“Boy,” Anias gave Luke a not-so-gentle smack on the back of the head, “I told you to stay in the rear!”   The party by now was back at the camp they had left before.  A scour by the less injured of the area had shown that all the tracks made by vampire spawn had led back to that very place where the beast had arisen.“My wife, for your information, was being shredded at by that... thing!  I’m not about to stand aside and let her be mauled if there’s anything I can do about it!” Lucius spat back, before wincing as Siabrey put some salve into one of his shoulder cuts.  Luke, per his custom, had demanded to be one of the last healed, and Grumki had spent his healing magic for the night.“Luke... you really shouldn’t have done that,” Siabrey said, causing him to take a painful double take.  “You don’t have to protect me.  I’d almost wiggled my way out,” Siabrey lied.  Luke... don’t go off being reckless... that’s my job!  I am the reckless one!  I’ve been fighting all my life... I know how to take hits...And I can’t imagine life without you.“Listen to your wife, Luke,” Anias said, using the party’s nickname for him for the first time, “she has some wisdom.”“Thank you, kind angel,” Siabrey grinned triumphantly.  “Sometimes, its hard to put some sense into that boy’s head!”(DM’s Notes:The massive monster at the end was the hullathoin, found in the Fiend Folio.  Very large undead beast that can command other undead baddies around it.  It contains large swarms of fiendish locusts it can release, as well as spreading acid all over by breaking open the blisters all over its body.  Extremely ugly, extremely nasty beasty.)</blockquote>

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