JollyDoc's Savage Tide-Updated 10/8!
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JollyDoc
Explorer
WAT DAGON
The interdiction field was destroyed. Orcus’s armies besieged Lemoriax and they would soon by joined by Gwynharwyf’s eladrins. Orcus himself, if Quah-Nomag was to be believed, was battling Demogorgon at Abysm at that moment. Nothing stood between the Legionnaires and the Master Pearl at Wat Dagon…or so they thought.
As they traveled the winds once more, a bleak landscape opened beneath them. A turgid sea of dark water frothed along the desolate shoreline under a roiling sky of green clouds and alien moons. Built upon the shore, seemingly on the verge of falling into the water, was an ominous edifice that appeared to be a walled temple compound, though its once-vibrant walls were cracked and grimed from eons of exposure to the acrid sea wind. Tall, conical domes rose above the building, surrounding a vast stone dome at the center. Swirling eddies of vapor and twisting clouds spiraled along the stony surface of the structure, giving the entire edifice a blurry façade, almost as if it were nothing more than a mirage. An ancient road wound across the wet, muddy beach that fronted Wat Dagon, crossing a narrow stream via a broken footbridge some hundred yards or more from the temple. An area closer to the building had been fenced off by stone walls, like some large corral, and a sizeable tent stood along the roadside as it approached the front gates.
As the six companions swooped in low for a closer look, it was the sharp eyes of Octurus that first spotted furtive movement in the misty fog along the stream bank.
“I never expected the approach to be completely unguarded,” Mandi replied when the Maztican pointed out the skulkers below. “We’ll land back near the tree line. From there, I can transport us inside that enclosure, where we’ll at least have some temporary cover. We may have to fight our way from that point to the main gates, but it will be better than crossing the entire killing field.”
Moments later, the misty, insubstantial forms of the Legionnaires slowly solidified within the cover of the dense jungle foliage. Then Mandi concentrated, fixing the image of the corral in her mind as her companions linked hands around her. An instant later, she opened her eyes again, seeing the trampled dirt of the enclosure, and the high walls rising about them.
“Moo!” Cleaver let out an involuntary bleat before clapping his hand over his mouth. For a moment, his instinctive bovine fear of enclosed pens got the best of him.
“Shush!” Mandi hissed, but it was too late. Guttural voices began shouting in alarm on the other side of the wall, and the sorceress knew their cover had been blown.
“Damn it!” she cursed as magic coursed through her hands and a beam of searing green light struck one of the walls, reducing it to dust. On the far side, a group of gargoyle-like nabassu demons was clustered. As soon as they saw the invaders, two of them clasped their hands together and bowed their heads. With a rush of noise that sounded like a giant sucking in its breath, the air rippled on both sides of the corral, and two, huge, four-armed glabrezus winked into existence, summoned by the nabassus. Instinctively, the towering demons attacked, summoning their own magic with arms sweeping high. Suddenly, vertigo seized the Legionnaires as the direction of gravity was inverted, and they all found themselves suspended some thirty feet above the ground, bobbing like corks. All about them, the battlefield was alive with movement. No fewer than four nabassus stood near the pen, while further away, three creatures that looked like demonic flies the size of horses were joined by two more of their kind. Still further, near the stream, four creatures that looked like the rotted corpses of troglodytes unlimbered long bows and knocked arrows.
“I’m taking out one of the glabrezus,” Sepoto growled. “Who’s with me?” Abruptly, the goliath sprouted wings from his back, courtesy of a minor trinket he’d picked up on his last trip thru Tashluta.
“I am,” Octurus said, quickly quaffing an elixir to imbue himself with the power of flight.
“Count me in,” Mandi added, her elven form shifting to that of an infernal pit fiend.
“On me then!” the crusader roared, raising his chain and charging towards the nearest demon. Mandi passed him, leaping on the glabrezu like a cat and sinking her sharpened fangs into its neck. As it reeled back, Octurus was there, his blades disemboweling the fiend. As its life-force left it, the glabrezu quietly vanished. Mandi looked back towards her companions still trapped within the antigravity field. Focusing again, she snatched each of them transiently into the Astral Plane, bringing them back several yards from where they had started, safely on the ground again.
At that moment, the large tent across the road from the corral suddenly shredded as a massive, frog-like hezrou demon erupted from it. He was dressed in full plate armor, and the leather cloak he wore suddenly billowed out into two, massive, bat-like wings. He howled in challenge, and charged towards Tower Cleaver, joined by the remaining glabrezu as well as one of the nabassus and a fly-like chasme demon. Cleaver braced himself for the attack, but before his foes could reach him, his axe swung like a scythe, slashing across all four of the demons. The chasme fairly exploded as the axe blade cleaved it in two. Then, with a mighty back swing, the minotaur decapitated both the glabrezu and the nabassu. The hezrou, Captain Urbala by name, stood stunned and bloodied. His amphibious eyes went wide as he saw the barbarian bearing down on him, and he threw up his arms defensively, but he might as well have been trying to stop the sky from falling. By the time Cleaver was done, there wasn’t much left that was recognizable.
Meanwhile, Octurus had taken a second chasme out of the fight, while Marius had lobbed a fireball at another pair, as well as several of the undead archers. Sepoto was engaged with another of the nabassu, as Daelric quickly took shelter behind him. Cleaver, axe dripping and no opponents within reach, spied the group scattered by Marius’s conflagration. Snorting and roaring, the minotaur charged through the mud, hurling bodies aside like cordwood as he struck. Two of the archers and the two chasme did not rise again.
Though outnumbered initially, the Legionnaires quickly turned the tables on their foes, and the battle became rapidly one-sided. Only the three remaining nabassu put up any real fight, and still it was a feeble effort. Within a few minutes, the battlefield was quiet once more, save for the surf endlessly pounding the beach and the ephemeral walls of Wat Dagon.
___________________________________________________________________
Ulu-Thurg, Demogorgon’s Master of Assassins, watched the battle unfold with keen interest. It didn’t surprise him at all that the demons had been defeated so easily. After all, had not the mortals just done the impossible by slaying Arendagrost? No, brute force was not the answer. He’d been biding his time for just about long enough. It would soon be time to spring his trap.
The interdiction field was destroyed. Orcus’s armies besieged Lemoriax and they would soon by joined by Gwynharwyf’s eladrins. Orcus himself, if Quah-Nomag was to be believed, was battling Demogorgon at Abysm at that moment. Nothing stood between the Legionnaires and the Master Pearl at Wat Dagon…or so they thought.
As they traveled the winds once more, a bleak landscape opened beneath them. A turgid sea of dark water frothed along the desolate shoreline under a roiling sky of green clouds and alien moons. Built upon the shore, seemingly on the verge of falling into the water, was an ominous edifice that appeared to be a walled temple compound, though its once-vibrant walls were cracked and grimed from eons of exposure to the acrid sea wind. Tall, conical domes rose above the building, surrounding a vast stone dome at the center. Swirling eddies of vapor and twisting clouds spiraled along the stony surface of the structure, giving the entire edifice a blurry façade, almost as if it were nothing more than a mirage. An ancient road wound across the wet, muddy beach that fronted Wat Dagon, crossing a narrow stream via a broken footbridge some hundred yards or more from the temple. An area closer to the building had been fenced off by stone walls, like some large corral, and a sizeable tent stood along the roadside as it approached the front gates.
As the six companions swooped in low for a closer look, it was the sharp eyes of Octurus that first spotted furtive movement in the misty fog along the stream bank.
“I never expected the approach to be completely unguarded,” Mandi replied when the Maztican pointed out the skulkers below. “We’ll land back near the tree line. From there, I can transport us inside that enclosure, where we’ll at least have some temporary cover. We may have to fight our way from that point to the main gates, but it will be better than crossing the entire killing field.”
Moments later, the misty, insubstantial forms of the Legionnaires slowly solidified within the cover of the dense jungle foliage. Then Mandi concentrated, fixing the image of the corral in her mind as her companions linked hands around her. An instant later, she opened her eyes again, seeing the trampled dirt of the enclosure, and the high walls rising about them.
“Moo!” Cleaver let out an involuntary bleat before clapping his hand over his mouth. For a moment, his instinctive bovine fear of enclosed pens got the best of him.
“Shush!” Mandi hissed, but it was too late. Guttural voices began shouting in alarm on the other side of the wall, and the sorceress knew their cover had been blown.
“Damn it!” she cursed as magic coursed through her hands and a beam of searing green light struck one of the walls, reducing it to dust. On the far side, a group of gargoyle-like nabassu demons was clustered. As soon as they saw the invaders, two of them clasped their hands together and bowed their heads. With a rush of noise that sounded like a giant sucking in its breath, the air rippled on both sides of the corral, and two, huge, four-armed glabrezus winked into existence, summoned by the nabassus. Instinctively, the towering demons attacked, summoning their own magic with arms sweeping high. Suddenly, vertigo seized the Legionnaires as the direction of gravity was inverted, and they all found themselves suspended some thirty feet above the ground, bobbing like corks. All about them, the battlefield was alive with movement. No fewer than four nabassus stood near the pen, while further away, three creatures that looked like demonic flies the size of horses were joined by two more of their kind. Still further, near the stream, four creatures that looked like the rotted corpses of troglodytes unlimbered long bows and knocked arrows.
“I’m taking out one of the glabrezus,” Sepoto growled. “Who’s with me?” Abruptly, the goliath sprouted wings from his back, courtesy of a minor trinket he’d picked up on his last trip thru Tashluta.
“I am,” Octurus said, quickly quaffing an elixir to imbue himself with the power of flight.
“Count me in,” Mandi added, her elven form shifting to that of an infernal pit fiend.
“On me then!” the crusader roared, raising his chain and charging towards the nearest demon. Mandi passed him, leaping on the glabrezu like a cat and sinking her sharpened fangs into its neck. As it reeled back, Octurus was there, his blades disemboweling the fiend. As its life-force left it, the glabrezu quietly vanished. Mandi looked back towards her companions still trapped within the antigravity field. Focusing again, she snatched each of them transiently into the Astral Plane, bringing them back several yards from where they had started, safely on the ground again.
At that moment, the large tent across the road from the corral suddenly shredded as a massive, frog-like hezrou demon erupted from it. He was dressed in full plate armor, and the leather cloak he wore suddenly billowed out into two, massive, bat-like wings. He howled in challenge, and charged towards Tower Cleaver, joined by the remaining glabrezu as well as one of the nabassus and a fly-like chasme demon. Cleaver braced himself for the attack, but before his foes could reach him, his axe swung like a scythe, slashing across all four of the demons. The chasme fairly exploded as the axe blade cleaved it in two. Then, with a mighty back swing, the minotaur decapitated both the glabrezu and the nabassu. The hezrou, Captain Urbala by name, stood stunned and bloodied. His amphibious eyes went wide as he saw the barbarian bearing down on him, and he threw up his arms defensively, but he might as well have been trying to stop the sky from falling. By the time Cleaver was done, there wasn’t much left that was recognizable.
Meanwhile, Octurus had taken a second chasme out of the fight, while Marius had lobbed a fireball at another pair, as well as several of the undead archers. Sepoto was engaged with another of the nabassu, as Daelric quickly took shelter behind him. Cleaver, axe dripping and no opponents within reach, spied the group scattered by Marius’s conflagration. Snorting and roaring, the minotaur charged through the mud, hurling bodies aside like cordwood as he struck. Two of the archers and the two chasme did not rise again.
Though outnumbered initially, the Legionnaires quickly turned the tables on their foes, and the battle became rapidly one-sided. Only the three remaining nabassu put up any real fight, and still it was a feeble effort. Within a few minutes, the battlefield was quiet once more, save for the surf endlessly pounding the beach and the ephemeral walls of Wat Dagon.
___________________________________________________________________
Ulu-Thurg, Demogorgon’s Master of Assassins, watched the battle unfold with keen interest. It didn’t surprise him at all that the demons had been defeated so easily. After all, had not the mortals just done the impossible by slaying Arendagrost? No, brute force was not the answer. He’d been biding his time for just about long enough. It would soon be time to spring his trap.
JollyDoc
Explorer
Wide wooden gates, moldy with age and banded with corroded strips of metal, did little to bar entrance into the complex. They stood unsecured beneath a stone arch, looking as though an errant breeze could push them open. Beyond could be seen a short entry tunnel that passed through the gatehouse before opening into a courtyard beyond. Red tiles covered the gatehouse exterior as well as the walls stretching to either side, though in many places individual tiles had fallen away to reveal the stone beneath. A steep roof of green clay tiles rising in a series of ragged points topped the gatehouse.
While the courtyard beyond seemed at first do be open to the air, a glance upward created an unsettling sense of vertigo, for forty feet above, the contents of the room were reflected, down to the smallest pebble, as if the ceiling were an immense and perfect mirror twenty feet above. The main entrance to the building, a corroded door of beaten bronze, sat in the wall opposite the gatehouse. Squatting on a ledge above the ten-foot tall doors was a horrific statue of a creature not quite eel or shark or octopus…Dagon himself. A wooden frame holding a large copper bell stood to the left of the entrance. A smaller frame held a suspended log to serve as a striker for sounding the bell. At either end of the courtyard were tall, circular towers with conical golden domes. Archways, five feet off the ground, opened along the walls to provide access to the chamber within. Just to the side of the gatehouse sat a small, ornamental pond overgrown with deformed lily pads and algae. A statue of a fat frog-like demon sat cross-legged at the closest edge of the pool. Finally, collapsed in a corner of the yard was an immense spider-like carcass the size of an elephant. It showed signs of heavy damage and deterioration to due exposure.
“Well, well,” a familiar voice said. “I’ve been waiting patiently. What took you so long?”
To the shock and astonishment of each of the Legionnaires, an equally familiar figure stepped from the shadows of one of the small towers. It was none other than Lavinia Vanderboren.
“You are all naïve fools!” Lavinia mocked. “Are you so blind that you cannot see that I have orchestrated events from the start so that I might witness Vanthus’s humiliating defeat and aid the Prince of Demons in achieving his goal? Through my machinations, you have been kept distracted with events in Farshore, and by pretending to be captured, I also kept you from where you were truly needed…in civilization, seeking out the shadow pearls and preventing them from spreading as far as they did.”
Mandi’s face burned and her eyes flashed red. As she blinked for a moment, her surroundings came into clear focus, and she immediately saw that it was not Lavinia at all who addressed them, but another glabrezu who wore a semblance of her form.
“I see you for what you are demon, so you may drop this pretense,” she commanded.
‘Lavinia’ shrugged, and with a gut-churning blurring of her features, assumed the hulking, four-armed shape of a glabrezu.
“I’m frankly shocked that it took you this long to see through my little disguise,” General Ghorvash chuckled. “Still, do not let my charade blind you to the truth. It was I who was responsible for corrupting young Vanthus Vanderboren so many years ago, and it is I who has been impersonating his sister for quite some time now. Yes, the real Lavinia Vanderboren is dead, and has been for awhile.”
“Liar!” Mandi spat, her heart growing cold at the possibility.
“Is it?” Ghorvash asked. “Why don’t you ask Vanthus yourself?”
He gestured, and from the tower door floated a writhing, worm-like creature that bore the face of none-other-than Vanthus Vanderboren.
“Help me! Please!” the pitiable wretch squealed.
“That proves nothing!” Mandi screamed. “So you’ve managed to harvest Vanthus’s damned soul? What of it? Someone was bound to. That fact gives no credence to your false claims!”
“I do not need for you to believe me,” Ghorvash growled. “All I need is for you to die!”
The demon raised his hands, wreathing them in black flames, but before he could strike, Sepoto, Octurus and Tower Cleaver rushed across the courtyard in a blur of motion. As one they struck, and nothing short of Demogorgon himself could have stood before that onslaught. With bone-crunching finality, General Ghorvash collapsed soundlessly to the ground.
‘Lavinia,’ Mandi sent her thoughts across the multiverse. ‘It’s Mandi. Just checking in to see if the funds I promised have been made available, and to see how ship construction is coming.’
For a moment, there was nothing, and Mandi’s blood ran chill. Then, a voice called back.
‘Everything is fine here. Why would you worry? I hope that you are safe.’
Strain dropped from Mandi’s features like a weight, and then she turned to the thing that had once been Vanthus Vanderboren.
“Do you regret the evil you have done?” she asked him, tonelessly.
“Yes! Please! Anything! I’m sorry! Forgive me!” he wailed.
Mandi lifted one finger, and a thin, emerald beam struck Vanthus, turning him to dust.
“Apology accepted,” she said.
While the courtyard beyond seemed at first do be open to the air, a glance upward created an unsettling sense of vertigo, for forty feet above, the contents of the room were reflected, down to the smallest pebble, as if the ceiling were an immense and perfect mirror twenty feet above. The main entrance to the building, a corroded door of beaten bronze, sat in the wall opposite the gatehouse. Squatting on a ledge above the ten-foot tall doors was a horrific statue of a creature not quite eel or shark or octopus…Dagon himself. A wooden frame holding a large copper bell stood to the left of the entrance. A smaller frame held a suspended log to serve as a striker for sounding the bell. At either end of the courtyard were tall, circular towers with conical golden domes. Archways, five feet off the ground, opened along the walls to provide access to the chamber within. Just to the side of the gatehouse sat a small, ornamental pond overgrown with deformed lily pads and algae. A statue of a fat frog-like demon sat cross-legged at the closest edge of the pool. Finally, collapsed in a corner of the yard was an immense spider-like carcass the size of an elephant. It showed signs of heavy damage and deterioration to due exposure.
“Well, well,” a familiar voice said. “I’ve been waiting patiently. What took you so long?”
To the shock and astonishment of each of the Legionnaires, an equally familiar figure stepped from the shadows of one of the small towers. It was none other than Lavinia Vanderboren.
“You are all naïve fools!” Lavinia mocked. “Are you so blind that you cannot see that I have orchestrated events from the start so that I might witness Vanthus’s humiliating defeat and aid the Prince of Demons in achieving his goal? Through my machinations, you have been kept distracted with events in Farshore, and by pretending to be captured, I also kept you from where you were truly needed…in civilization, seeking out the shadow pearls and preventing them from spreading as far as they did.”
Mandi’s face burned and her eyes flashed red. As she blinked for a moment, her surroundings came into clear focus, and she immediately saw that it was not Lavinia at all who addressed them, but another glabrezu who wore a semblance of her form.
“I see you for what you are demon, so you may drop this pretense,” she commanded.
‘Lavinia’ shrugged, and with a gut-churning blurring of her features, assumed the hulking, four-armed shape of a glabrezu.
“I’m frankly shocked that it took you this long to see through my little disguise,” General Ghorvash chuckled. “Still, do not let my charade blind you to the truth. It was I who was responsible for corrupting young Vanthus Vanderboren so many years ago, and it is I who has been impersonating his sister for quite some time now. Yes, the real Lavinia Vanderboren is dead, and has been for awhile.”
“Liar!” Mandi spat, her heart growing cold at the possibility.
“Is it?” Ghorvash asked. “Why don’t you ask Vanthus yourself?”
He gestured, and from the tower door floated a writhing, worm-like creature that bore the face of none-other-than Vanthus Vanderboren.
“Help me! Please!” the pitiable wretch squealed.
“That proves nothing!” Mandi screamed. “So you’ve managed to harvest Vanthus’s damned soul? What of it? Someone was bound to. That fact gives no credence to your false claims!”
“I do not need for you to believe me,” Ghorvash growled. “All I need is for you to die!”
The demon raised his hands, wreathing them in black flames, but before he could strike, Sepoto, Octurus and Tower Cleaver rushed across the courtyard in a blur of motion. As one they struck, and nothing short of Demogorgon himself could have stood before that onslaught. With bone-crunching finality, General Ghorvash collapsed soundlessly to the ground.
‘Lavinia,’ Mandi sent her thoughts across the multiverse. ‘It’s Mandi. Just checking in to see if the funds I promised have been made available, and to see how ship construction is coming.’
For a moment, there was nothing, and Mandi’s blood ran chill. Then, a voice called back.
‘Everything is fine here. Why would you worry? I hope that you are safe.’
Strain dropped from Mandi’s features like a weight, and then she turned to the thing that had once been Vanthus Vanderboren.
“Do you regret the evil you have done?” she asked him, tonelessly.
“Yes! Please! Anything! I’m sorry! Forgive me!” he wailed.
Mandi lifted one finger, and a thin, emerald beam struck Vanthus, turning him to dust.
“Apology accepted,” she said.
JollyDoc
Explorer
Beyond the main doors to the complex was a large antechamber, its floor inlaid with a complex pattern of blue and green tiles that almost gave it the illusion of the surface of a placid pool of water. Corridors curved away to the left and right, while a closed set of doors stood directly across from the outer doors. The six companions started into the room when Octurus held up his hand. His eyes darted to the left, and then to the right, where several moldy crates had been stacked in the halls.
“Company!” he shouted as the air suddenly filled with the hissing of arrows. From the shadows on either side rose a half-dozen of the same rotting troglodyte archers they had faced outside. At that exact moment, each of the Legionnaires gasped as the sensation of ice-cold water in their lungs stole their breath. They all began gagging and choking while the undead continued to pepper them with arrows. It was Octurus who managed to recover first, holding his fist beneath his breastbone and thrusting up, forcing the brackish seawater up and out. One by one, his companions began doing the same, but the Maztican did not wait. Drawing his blades, he leaped towards the nearest group of ghasts. Tower Cleaver was soon on his feet behind the demon hunter, heading for the second group of undead.
Mandi, still standing in the doorway from the courtyard, wiped the foul-tasting water from her mouth with the back of her hand. Suddenly, her eyes widened as numbing pain pierced her left side. Half-turning, her enhanced vision fell upon her invisible attacker. A heavily muscled, hulking bar-lgura stood there, a cruelly barbed spear in his hands. She gasped again as he twisted the point in her flesh, the barbs on its shaft digging into his own hands as well. He seemed oblivious to the pain.
“Demogorgon sends his regards,” Ulu-Thurg laughed.
“Give him mine in return!” she hissed, hurling magic at the demon, hoping to snuff its life out in an instant. Instead, only a mildly dazed expression came over the bar-lgura’s face, but his grip on his weapon loosened, and Mandi was able to wrench it from her body as she backed into the antechamber.
Octurus fought like a dervish against the ghasts, but quickly, he found himself surrounded. The undead dropped their bows and came at him with their filthy teeth and claws. Across the hall, Tower Cleaver was surrounded as well…which was just how he liked it. Whirling his axe around his head, the blade flaming like the sun, he hewed into his foes. In rapid succession, all six of them were burned to ash.
“Where is he?” Marius shouted, a look of concern on his face when he saw Mandi’s wound…a sight neither he, nor any of the other Legionnaires was used to seeing.
“Out there!” Mandi gestured. “Just blow something up!”
Marius nodded. That he understood. Fanning his fingers out, he unleashed a cone of white hot flames into the courtyard, not caring who or what he ignited in the blast. For a brief instant, he saw the bar-lgura wreathed in fire, then just as quickly the demon vanished again. However, to his shock and dismay, four more of the ape demons lumbered into the courtyard. At least he thought they were bar-lgura, at first glance. On closer inspection, he saw that they were in fact just apes, though their barbed hides and horn-plated skulls bespoke their fiendish nature, and the fact that they were all clad in armor was a testament to the fact that they were obviously more than just animals. Quickly, the warmage loosed another fiery explosion, but the war apes seemed to shrug it off, and kept advancing.
“Daelric!” Mandi shouted. “Get out here and show Marius where to shoot!”
As she pushed past the priest, the sorceress assumed her infernal pit fiend form once again, casually tearing a ghast in half to vent her frustration. Daelric sighed, not at all happy about being pushed into the front lines once more. Still, he was somewhat relieved when Octurus broke away from his undead foes and joined him at the doorway.
“Just point the way,” the Maztican said calmly.
Daelric swallowed, and then began to chant. As his spell took hold, Ulu-Thurg gradually began to fade back into visibility, his cloak purged. Octurus didn’t hesitate. With a whooping war cry, he leaped in among the demonic apes, his scimitars flashing about him. His momentum was abruptly halted, however, as a beam of blue energy struck him full on, hurled by the bar-lgura. Instantly, the Maztican felt his strength ebb. Daelric saw that he was in trouble, and the priest knew that if Octurus fell, he was next. It was time to even the playing field. Shouting out the words to another prayer, he conjured a familiar wall of whirling blades across the entire courtyard. Ulu-Thurg was forced to leap back to avoid the blades, while his ape cohorts went forward. As they scuttled clear of the wall, Sepoto joined Octurus, and his chain stopped the nearest simian in its tracks, gouging deep slashes in its hide. Octurus took the opportunity to dart between the advancing apes, hoping to reach Ulu-Thurg, but the big brutes were faster than they looked, and two of them raked the Maztican with their wickedly sharp claws as he passed. Rolling with the blows, he ended up standing inches away from the bar-lgura, Daelric’s wall the only thing separating them. Octurus gripped his blades, looking for an opening to strike, but in a blur of motion, Ulu-Thurg struck first. The demon reached through the blade barrier, heedless of the damage done to his own flesh. With his free hand, he seized the demon hunter by the shoulder, pulling him closer, while with the other, he thrust his spear completely through Octurus. Blood geysered from the Maztican’s mouth. He went momentarily rigid, before going completely limp. With disdain, Ulu-Thurg slung the human’s lifeless body behind him.
“Nooooo!” Tower Cleaver shouted. The minotaur had made his way back to the doors after dealing with the ghasts just in time to witness Octurus’s death. Snarling, he hefted his axe and hacked savagely at the nearest ape, struggling to push his way through towards the bar-lgura. A moment later, fiery bolts of lightning crackled among the combatants, striking the demon and all of his cohorts. Marius’s fingers smoked and he grinned wickedly. It wasn’t that Octurus’s demise troubled him, but it gave him a convenient excuse to fully cut loose.
Mandi continued to take out her frustrations against the remaining undead, tearing another one apart with little effort. Abruptly, the other ghasts began to back away from her.
“Why do you flee, chattel?” she called. “You are already dead. What more could you have to fear?”
In response, a bone-chilling cold suddenly filled the hall. Turning her head, Mandi saw that the inner doors had opened, and a figure stood silhouetted there by torchlight. He was dressed in antiquated plate armor, with a full, slitted helmet that only showed his crimson, glowing eyes. He carried a humming longsword in one hand, and a strange scepter in the other, topped by an emerald sphere. He made not a sound, even when he moved. Saint Kargoth the Betrayer, first among Demogorgon’s Death Knights, had come. Slowly, he brought his scepter up, and oily green smoke began to billow from it, filling the hall rapidly with a cloying fog that burned the flesh that it touched, and hindered movement as if it were quicksand.
Sepoto was unaware of what transpired in the keep behind him, though tendrils of the acidic fog licked at his boots. His fury was concentrated fully upon the foes before him, and with a flurry of vicious strikes, he took down two of the armored apes in rapid succession. One of the others, however, darted in, slashing with its barbed talons, rending the goliath’s flesh. It was at that point that the fog enveloped him completely, shutting out sight and seizing his limbs like tar. From somewhere behind him, he heard Marius’s voice chanting the words to a spell. A moment later, a powerful blast of wind swept through the hall, dissipating the deadly mist in a matter of seconds. Sepoto turned and beheld Kargoth, and he felt the cold of the grave seep into his skin.
Things began to happen more quickly after that. The Legionnaires found themselves fighting a battle on two fronts, caught between very deadly enemies. Daelric darted across the antechamber, heading for the relative safety in Cleaver’s shadow. As he moved, however, Kargoth was like a wraith, silent and swift, swinging his blade with deadly accuracy. The young priest felt the cold steel bite deeply into his flesh, and its touch burned like the fires of the Hells. The Death Knight then raised both hands to the sky, and dark power gathered around him like a cloak. When he unleashed it, a dry wind, like a desert sirocco blew through the five remaining companions, leaching the moisture from their bodies like a vampire. All mouths went dry, and even sweat dried to nothing in an instant. Desperately licking his lips so that they would form the words to a spell, Marius conjured the brilliant radiance of pure sunlight. For a moment, Kargoth recoiled, but when the warmage unleashed the beam, it passed harmlessly through the death knight, striking the fleeing Daelric instead. The priest screamed as he flesh was seared, and Kargoth turned his baleful gaze towards Marius.
Sepoto and Cleaver moved to interpose themselves between the death knight and the gnome, but when they turned their backs, Ulu-Thurg’s apes rushed forward, clawing and biting at their exposed flanks. At the same time, Ulu-Thurg, still behind the relative safety of the blade barrier, began loosing volley after volley of arcane force missiles, each one striking any target he indicated unerringly. Sepoto hesitated, torn between foes, and Kargoth closed the distance between himself and Marius. He raised blade and scepter to strike, but before his weapons fell, an enormous, glowing hand materialized behind him and seized him in its crushing grip.
“I have him!” Mandi shouted.
Cleaver and Sepoto needed no further encouragement. Together they struck, and though their combined might was devastating, Kargoth uttered not a sound. Instead, red fire coalesced around him in a searing corona, then at his command it expanded, filling the hall, engulfing the Legionnaires. Mandi clenched her teeth in agony.
“Finish him!” she cried.
No sooner had she spoken, than another radiant sunbeam flew from Marius’s hand, and this time it struck true. Kargoth was immolated in an instant, reduced to a rapidly dissipating cloud of ash.
In the mean time, Ulu-Thurg’s apes had reached the hall, and they continued their relentless assault on Sepoto, who still struggled to recover from the death knight’s withering attacks. Crying out in pure rage, the goliath crusader stretched to his full height, biceps rippling as he swung his chain like a guillotine. It crushed the skull of the first ape, then Sepoto pivoted and ripped its full length across the torso of the second, opening it from neck to groin. It crashed to the ground in a rapidly growing pool of its own blood.
Only Ulu-Thurg remained. The loss of his minions did not trouble him overly. They were tools, and they had served their purpose. The enemies of his master had been severely weakened, and now he would finish them all. No sooner had he formed this thought, however, than he saw the hulking minotaur charging towards him. Through the blade barrier Tower Cleaver came, undeterred by the thousands of minute cuts that appeared in his flesh. Axe raised, his eyes glazed over and froth and saliva slung from his jaws. Insensate with rage, he fell upon the bar-lgura, and in that moment, Ulu-Thurg understood that death, violent and bloody, had come for him.
“Company!” he shouted as the air suddenly filled with the hissing of arrows. From the shadows on either side rose a half-dozen of the same rotting troglodyte archers they had faced outside. At that exact moment, each of the Legionnaires gasped as the sensation of ice-cold water in their lungs stole their breath. They all began gagging and choking while the undead continued to pepper them with arrows. It was Octurus who managed to recover first, holding his fist beneath his breastbone and thrusting up, forcing the brackish seawater up and out. One by one, his companions began doing the same, but the Maztican did not wait. Drawing his blades, he leaped towards the nearest group of ghasts. Tower Cleaver was soon on his feet behind the demon hunter, heading for the second group of undead.
Mandi, still standing in the doorway from the courtyard, wiped the foul-tasting water from her mouth with the back of her hand. Suddenly, her eyes widened as numbing pain pierced her left side. Half-turning, her enhanced vision fell upon her invisible attacker. A heavily muscled, hulking bar-lgura stood there, a cruelly barbed spear in his hands. She gasped again as he twisted the point in her flesh, the barbs on its shaft digging into his own hands as well. He seemed oblivious to the pain.
“Demogorgon sends his regards,” Ulu-Thurg laughed.
“Give him mine in return!” she hissed, hurling magic at the demon, hoping to snuff its life out in an instant. Instead, only a mildly dazed expression came over the bar-lgura’s face, but his grip on his weapon loosened, and Mandi was able to wrench it from her body as she backed into the antechamber.
Octurus fought like a dervish against the ghasts, but quickly, he found himself surrounded. The undead dropped their bows and came at him with their filthy teeth and claws. Across the hall, Tower Cleaver was surrounded as well…which was just how he liked it. Whirling his axe around his head, the blade flaming like the sun, he hewed into his foes. In rapid succession, all six of them were burned to ash.
“Where is he?” Marius shouted, a look of concern on his face when he saw Mandi’s wound…a sight neither he, nor any of the other Legionnaires was used to seeing.
“Out there!” Mandi gestured. “Just blow something up!”
Marius nodded. That he understood. Fanning his fingers out, he unleashed a cone of white hot flames into the courtyard, not caring who or what he ignited in the blast. For a brief instant, he saw the bar-lgura wreathed in fire, then just as quickly the demon vanished again. However, to his shock and dismay, four more of the ape demons lumbered into the courtyard. At least he thought they were bar-lgura, at first glance. On closer inspection, he saw that they were in fact just apes, though their barbed hides and horn-plated skulls bespoke their fiendish nature, and the fact that they were all clad in armor was a testament to the fact that they were obviously more than just animals. Quickly, the warmage loosed another fiery explosion, but the war apes seemed to shrug it off, and kept advancing.
“Daelric!” Mandi shouted. “Get out here and show Marius where to shoot!”
As she pushed past the priest, the sorceress assumed her infernal pit fiend form once again, casually tearing a ghast in half to vent her frustration. Daelric sighed, not at all happy about being pushed into the front lines once more. Still, he was somewhat relieved when Octurus broke away from his undead foes and joined him at the doorway.
“Just point the way,” the Maztican said calmly.
Daelric swallowed, and then began to chant. As his spell took hold, Ulu-Thurg gradually began to fade back into visibility, his cloak purged. Octurus didn’t hesitate. With a whooping war cry, he leaped in among the demonic apes, his scimitars flashing about him. His momentum was abruptly halted, however, as a beam of blue energy struck him full on, hurled by the bar-lgura. Instantly, the Maztican felt his strength ebb. Daelric saw that he was in trouble, and the priest knew that if Octurus fell, he was next. It was time to even the playing field. Shouting out the words to another prayer, he conjured a familiar wall of whirling blades across the entire courtyard. Ulu-Thurg was forced to leap back to avoid the blades, while his ape cohorts went forward. As they scuttled clear of the wall, Sepoto joined Octurus, and his chain stopped the nearest simian in its tracks, gouging deep slashes in its hide. Octurus took the opportunity to dart between the advancing apes, hoping to reach Ulu-Thurg, but the big brutes were faster than they looked, and two of them raked the Maztican with their wickedly sharp claws as he passed. Rolling with the blows, he ended up standing inches away from the bar-lgura, Daelric’s wall the only thing separating them. Octurus gripped his blades, looking for an opening to strike, but in a blur of motion, Ulu-Thurg struck first. The demon reached through the blade barrier, heedless of the damage done to his own flesh. With his free hand, he seized the demon hunter by the shoulder, pulling him closer, while with the other, he thrust his spear completely through Octurus. Blood geysered from the Maztican’s mouth. He went momentarily rigid, before going completely limp. With disdain, Ulu-Thurg slung the human’s lifeless body behind him.
“Nooooo!” Tower Cleaver shouted. The minotaur had made his way back to the doors after dealing with the ghasts just in time to witness Octurus’s death. Snarling, he hefted his axe and hacked savagely at the nearest ape, struggling to push his way through towards the bar-lgura. A moment later, fiery bolts of lightning crackled among the combatants, striking the demon and all of his cohorts. Marius’s fingers smoked and he grinned wickedly. It wasn’t that Octurus’s demise troubled him, but it gave him a convenient excuse to fully cut loose.
Mandi continued to take out her frustrations against the remaining undead, tearing another one apart with little effort. Abruptly, the other ghasts began to back away from her.
“Why do you flee, chattel?” she called. “You are already dead. What more could you have to fear?”
In response, a bone-chilling cold suddenly filled the hall. Turning her head, Mandi saw that the inner doors had opened, and a figure stood silhouetted there by torchlight. He was dressed in antiquated plate armor, with a full, slitted helmet that only showed his crimson, glowing eyes. He carried a humming longsword in one hand, and a strange scepter in the other, topped by an emerald sphere. He made not a sound, even when he moved. Saint Kargoth the Betrayer, first among Demogorgon’s Death Knights, had come. Slowly, he brought his scepter up, and oily green smoke began to billow from it, filling the hall rapidly with a cloying fog that burned the flesh that it touched, and hindered movement as if it were quicksand.
Sepoto was unaware of what transpired in the keep behind him, though tendrils of the acidic fog licked at his boots. His fury was concentrated fully upon the foes before him, and with a flurry of vicious strikes, he took down two of the armored apes in rapid succession. One of the others, however, darted in, slashing with its barbed talons, rending the goliath’s flesh. It was at that point that the fog enveloped him completely, shutting out sight and seizing his limbs like tar. From somewhere behind him, he heard Marius’s voice chanting the words to a spell. A moment later, a powerful blast of wind swept through the hall, dissipating the deadly mist in a matter of seconds. Sepoto turned and beheld Kargoth, and he felt the cold of the grave seep into his skin.
Things began to happen more quickly after that. The Legionnaires found themselves fighting a battle on two fronts, caught between very deadly enemies. Daelric darted across the antechamber, heading for the relative safety in Cleaver’s shadow. As he moved, however, Kargoth was like a wraith, silent and swift, swinging his blade with deadly accuracy. The young priest felt the cold steel bite deeply into his flesh, and its touch burned like the fires of the Hells. The Death Knight then raised both hands to the sky, and dark power gathered around him like a cloak. When he unleashed it, a dry wind, like a desert sirocco blew through the five remaining companions, leaching the moisture from their bodies like a vampire. All mouths went dry, and even sweat dried to nothing in an instant. Desperately licking his lips so that they would form the words to a spell, Marius conjured the brilliant radiance of pure sunlight. For a moment, Kargoth recoiled, but when the warmage unleashed the beam, it passed harmlessly through the death knight, striking the fleeing Daelric instead. The priest screamed as he flesh was seared, and Kargoth turned his baleful gaze towards Marius.
Sepoto and Cleaver moved to interpose themselves between the death knight and the gnome, but when they turned their backs, Ulu-Thurg’s apes rushed forward, clawing and biting at their exposed flanks. At the same time, Ulu-Thurg, still behind the relative safety of the blade barrier, began loosing volley after volley of arcane force missiles, each one striking any target he indicated unerringly. Sepoto hesitated, torn between foes, and Kargoth closed the distance between himself and Marius. He raised blade and scepter to strike, but before his weapons fell, an enormous, glowing hand materialized behind him and seized him in its crushing grip.
“I have him!” Mandi shouted.
Cleaver and Sepoto needed no further encouragement. Together they struck, and though their combined might was devastating, Kargoth uttered not a sound. Instead, red fire coalesced around him in a searing corona, then at his command it expanded, filling the hall, engulfing the Legionnaires. Mandi clenched her teeth in agony.
“Finish him!” she cried.
No sooner had she spoken, than another radiant sunbeam flew from Marius’s hand, and this time it struck true. Kargoth was immolated in an instant, reduced to a rapidly dissipating cloud of ash.
In the mean time, Ulu-Thurg’s apes had reached the hall, and they continued their relentless assault on Sepoto, who still struggled to recover from the death knight’s withering attacks. Crying out in pure rage, the goliath crusader stretched to his full height, biceps rippling as he swung his chain like a guillotine. It crushed the skull of the first ape, then Sepoto pivoted and ripped its full length across the torso of the second, opening it from neck to groin. It crashed to the ground in a rapidly growing pool of its own blood.
Only Ulu-Thurg remained. The loss of his minions did not trouble him overly. They were tools, and they had served their purpose. The enemies of his master had been severely weakened, and now he would finish them all. No sooner had he formed this thought, however, than he saw the hulking minotaur charging towards him. Through the blade barrier Tower Cleaver came, undeterred by the thousands of minute cuts that appeared in his flesh. Axe raised, his eyes glazed over and froth and saliva slung from his jaws. Insensate with rage, he fell upon the bar-lgura, and in that moment, Ulu-Thurg understood that death, violent and bloody, had come for him.
Neverwinter Knight
First Post
Kudos, JollyDoc. Had you separated the encounters, Ulu-Thurg & his apes would have been a lot less deadly. I just hope the Legion has enough resources left for what's to come!
Personally, I don't think that you will finish tonight. Unless, of course, the dice roll one-sided.![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
Happy birthday, Joachim. I hope it counts for something tonight.
Personally, I don't think that you will finish tonight. Unless, of course, the dice roll one-sided.
Happy birthday, Joachim. I hope it counts for something tonight.
carborundum
Adventurer
Woah! That was pretty intense!
Burningspear
First Post
Kewl!
JollyDoc
Explorer
Well, our Savage Tide campaign came to an end tonight, and it was truly an epic conclusion, with punishment being given and taken by both sides. No giveaways on the outcome, but you will not be disappointed!
Congrats to my team for over a year and half's worth of effort, regardless on the final result
Congrats to my team for over a year and half's worth of effort, regardless on the final result
Hammerhead
Explorer
Cool to hear. I'm personally hoping that Mandi pwns Demigorgon with one spell.