Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Emperor Valerian" data-source="post: 1516505" data-attributes="member: 15043">Towards the Icy Darkness, Lit with Fire and Gore...The party waited in vain for another day for some news from the Mages’ Council, but their attendant failed to return.  On the evening of the second day, Alexander himself advised the party, minus Elenya but augmented by Pyrion, Hidalas (Harrapias had to refuse, as he held a command in Alexander’s army), Quin, Aeron, and Geoffrey.  To the party’s disgruntlement, Xanadu and Alisandra were no longer in the city... the poor female silver had been so badly torn by what happened to Pellaron that Xanadu, at Alexander’s insistence, took her back towards their homelands near Obash for a few weeks.Alexander advised them to head out a few hours ahead of the main army... undoubtedly they would travel faster, so likely by the time they reached Holstean there would be sufficient time to set up arrangements to conduct operations when the army arrived.  The party spent their last few hours in Irulas hunting down equipment, and saying goodbyes.Finally, the column of ten galloped through the army camps and out into the countryside, to face their destiny...Two weeks later into the three week ride, nothing usual had happened.  The land seemed devoid of orcs, though as they gallooped past the fields south of Illyant the stench of death from the weeks old battle burned their nostrils.  As the rode by the battlefield’s edge, the bodies of half rotted orcs and gnolls appeared as only a smattering nearby, then merged into what appeared to be a solid covering several hundred yards away.Siabrey had reined up her horse for a moment as she took in the scene... knowing full well that somewhere in that horrible field lay the broken remains of Empress Zoe.  The moment of reminiscence ended only a few seconds later, as she spurred onward.It was that night, when they were just west of Kulloden, when they first noticed the skies off to the south.  For days, a glowering thunderhead had been visible, hanging low on the horizon.  Now, it towered over the south, red and blue lightning arcing from its depths.“Well, there’s Holstean,” Tess sighed as she started to lay down to rest, the lightning distantly reflecting in everyone’s eyes.   Siabrey, who took first watch, gave a grunt.“Go to sleep, Tess...” she said quietly.  “Soon it’ll be all over.”  The first watch passed uneventfully, and to Siabrey’s (and Tess’, if the bard had been awake) chagrin, she saw that accompanying Shaun on 2nd watch would be none other than Geoffrey... who was by now very angry and upset that he had not tasted a sip of alcohol in two weeks.“Take your rest Siabrey,” Shaun said, taking her spot on a log near the party’s camp.  “Me and Geoffrey have things under control,” the rogue grinned.“I’m frightened to death,” Siabrey admitted, crawling into Luke’s bedroll.  For several minutes she kept an eye on the halfling, and grunted when his whinings for spirits grew too loud.  Finally, she fell asleep on Luke’s shoulder......and almost missed the first part of the major surprise of the night.Geoffrey, ironically, was the first one to stop something was wrong.  He was in the midst of yet another rant about no good wine being around, when he walked towards the edge of the firelight of the camp to kick a nice looking rock; a good show of anger.  As he approached, however, his eyes spotted something in the distance.“Boss,” Geoffrey stopped his hissing ranting a nodded with his head, “take a look at this!”“What?” Shaun whispered, and looked off to where the halfling motioned.  There, he saw a pair of hands, both white... seeming to float in the air.  Their fingers were long and spindly, and looked to end in sharp points.  Between them, there was only darkness.“Um... should we wake the others?” the halfling asked.  “If I fight tonight, I expect some wine or something!”“I’ll wake them up,” Shaun said quickly, and began rousing the party.A few minutes later, Grumki was the one that called out the challenge to the now two pair of hands floating in air.  When they failed to respond, Grumki decided it was time to fail to be respectful to them.... and promptly holy fire crashed down from above.  The hands seemed to artfully dash out of the way of the flames, only being partially singed, but the flames illuminated something horrible.The hands had arms... also long, white and bony, attached to them.  Indeed, each finger on the hands ended in a long, razor sharp claw.  But between each pair of hands there was no body... only a swirling, deep mist of darkness.  Two more pairs of hands were illuminated in the flash, before all four pair suddenly and viciously slashed forward.With incredible speed (DM’s Note: Flight speed of 100 feet per round) the creatures slashed directly towards Orion, Siabrey, Tess and Shaun.  They lashed out, claws dancing through the air, though ironically only the normally nimble rogue was caught off guard.  As one of the claws sank into his side, he felt parts of his memory, his very being sucked away (-3 Wis).As the beast targeting Tess rushed by, Grumki swung at the creature, delivering a hard blow to its misty area.  Only seconds after, chaos reigned over the camp as melee began.The creature the assaulted Siabrey found the Crown Princess to be not only nimble and quickly, but more heavily armored than expected.  Its claws danced through empty air, save one from the creature’s thumb, which slammed into her abdomen.  However, her breastplate was in the way, and the claw could not break through its steel covering.  Before the beast could attack again, Ik Mataar had slashed into its gullet.  The creature spun to deal with this new threat before finishing off his quarry, but Kelir and Siabrey’s washazaki interceded, their flames burning the dark interior of the creature until its hands fell to the ground, burnt and still.The creature that assaulted Tess found her difficult to strike as well.  The bard merely stepped back from the creatures assaults, and as it tumbled through the air, trying to reach her, a horrific, mend bending screech came from her lips.  Three massive pulses of sonic force slammed into the beast, and it too collapsed, mutiliated and useless, to the ground.Orion was not as luck as Tess or Siabrey, and the demon to his front managed to slash his shoulder.  The monk felt parts of his soul trying to rip away, but his superb mental training and ability drew his lifeforce back into him.  Annoyed by the creature’s actions, Orion unleashed a powerful flurry of blows, that knocked the creature back, breaking both of the white arms and sending it sprawling to the ground, quite dead.Grumki, seeing Shaun not in good straights, dashed over to the rogue’s side, and jointly the rose rapier and Kord’s warhammer battered the poor creature to ruin.  Seeing Shaun’s eyes not looking right, Grumki proceeded to restore Shaun’s stolen memories to him.“What the heck were those?” Luke asked, kicking the now inert white arm Siabrey’s feet.  “They seemed to head straight for specific people... like they were tar-““Soul Eaters!” Tess, Grumki, and Hidalas all exclaimed at the same time... all realizing what the creature’s were exactly.“Soul Eaters... that doesn’t sound good at all...” Geoffrey muttered.  “I think I need double whatever spirits you were going to give me.”“Soul Eaters,” Hidalas explained, “are beings from the Abyss, called by some demonic personage to assassinate, kill, specific people...”“Well, isn’t that lovely,” Shaun put his hands on his hips in frustration.  “Seems like Lucilda knows were coming.  Dammit!” he snarled.“Maybe not... once released, they hit their targets on their own.... they don’t need direction.  She could’ve just as easily just let them go to find us,” Tess said aloud.  We can at least hope this...“We just need to be a little more careful, that’s all,” Siabrey said quietly, not sure if she wanted to go back to sleep.The party spent the next night and next day riding carefully... cautiously... acting very very paranoid.  Everyone twig snap was investigated to only find no ambush, every strange bird call assumed to be a signal. Despite this, the party failed to see the rogue hanging in a tree limb above the road that afternoon, until she dropped into their midst.“Fools,” the woman with soot black hair and dark eyes snarled.  Swords were at her throat within milliseconds, and she laughed.  “Save those weapons for the Countess.  Don’t kill your guide into the city... you won’t last long.  If you couldn’t hear me, you probably would’ve easily missed some of the Countess’ other minions,” she hissed.“Ah... you know us?” Siabrey asked questioningly, her sword still out.“Yes... you are Princess Siabrey.  I am Zhenya, of the Holstean Thieves’ Guild,” she gave a graceful bow that included an indication for the party to get off of the road.  Slowly, they obeyed... and she promptly castigated them for not seeing or hearing her even more.“You must be alert!” she hissed.  “If you are not, there’s no way I shall be able to take you into the city!”“Fine.  Not all of us are rogues!” Siabrey complained, and causing the thief to sigh.“Whatever.  The Countess has put most of her forces on the northern walls of the city of Holstean... the walls that also have the Inerman and smaller Balinor rivers to their fronts.  Therefore, I shall lead you around to the southern walls of the city.  We have one of the gatekeepers in our pay... it shan’t be hard to get in there... once nside, however, you must be ALERT and QUIET,” she hissed those two words especially loud for emphasis.“We have a series of safehouses near the gates in the city... we shall take you to one.  You’ll wait there until the army’s assault has begun, and then you shall go into the sewers towards the palace.  Understand?”“Eeew,” Tess wrinkled her nose involuntarily at the idea of going through more sewers.  “I suppose, if there’s no other way,” she said quietly.  The rogue looked at her and laughed silently.“I see we have a pansy here,” Zhenya chuckled.“Don’t call her that... she’ll mess you up,” Shaun quietly warned his fellow rogue.Two days later, the party rode to the top of the crest of a hill, and saw a sight that made both Tess and Siabrey stop.The city of Holstean.The crimson walls, their stone dug from the nearby Red Quarries, remained the same as when the two had left the city four months before.  The same spires rose into the heaven’s from the major temples, and the luster of the red towers still shone.  However, atop all of these there was a light coating of the infamous red snow, and a massive thunderhead hung over the city, unmoving yet yielding no rain.  Powerful blue and red arcs of lightning dashed from the cloud to the top towers and spires of the Countess’ palace, its pale pink and red brick now looking like an oozing wound in this city of sores.  Siabrey’s memory in particular drifted back to a dinner in that building, where she had unwittingly told her future husband-to-be the facts of life as a way of embarassing him.  Tess’ mind reflected back to the first time she’d forced her friend Siabrey to wear a dress... she could plainly see a large, ugly foundry was now in the stead of the foppish tailor’s shop.Instead of the happy and merry guards that Siabrey and Tess had once greeted long before when they had rode back with a then cold and frightened Lucius in tow, they now saw far more terrifying figures.  Skeletons patrolled the upper battlements, in precision formations.  Orcs with fiendish horns rising from their heads marshalled on the towers, and Gnolls with bows stood watch on the walls.  From this distance, small flicks of dark flying in the air above the palace in all likelihood were gigantic vrocks, winging about, waiting for their mistress’ next order...“Luke?  Love?” Siabrey whispered to the young man beside her who also sat silently, gazing at his former home.  “You’re still sure you want this?” Siabrey asked.It took him several moments to tear his gaze away from his home, and when he looked at her she could see in his eyes his memories... playing with friends on those very battlements, games... and above all, the memory of a mother who was kind... who was loving......who was human.“Yes... yes, I’m ready,” he finally said. “I’ll always be ready so long as you’re by my side,” he added softly so only she could hear.She gave a sigh.  “Let’s go then... and finish this business.”</blockquote>

Verification