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="gfunk" data-source="post: 2586564" data-attributes="member: 1813">The Queen of Madness UnleashedThe Bright Axes looked on with despair as the what little remained of Kiko’s corpse tumbled into the darkness of Skullrot.  Rusty, in particular, felt the loss most acutely as he had often revivified comrades who had just died.  Unfortunately, the condition and location of the monk’s body made any such attempt impossible.Spurred on by the death of their friend, Ike, Tilly, and Grimm put on a spectacular display of their battle prowess, annihilating the three remaining Glabrezus in the minimum possible time.  As if to emphasize this fact, Grimm once again used the terrific momentum of his spiked chain to cleave into Adimarchus who was now a mere 15 feet from the party.Unlike many powerful foes they had faced, Grimm’s weapon seemed to have no problem  freely inflicting damage upon the Prince of Madness.---------------------The Demon has almost finished them.  Wait a few moments more, allow them to go down in a blaze of glory – then kill Adimarchus.Seeing the Bright Axe’s plight, Entropy had mixed feelings.  As a servant of the Revenancer, she would love nothing more than to see them all slain and animated by her hand.  At the same time, she was an adventurer once too and could see that Adimarchus greatly exceeded the power of the group.  In reality, he was probably toying with them – unwilling to display the true limits of his power.This bode poorly for Entropy as well for if Adimarchus crushed the Bright Axes with only a modicum of his potential arsenal, it put her at a severe information disadvantage.Now would be a good time to encourage Adimarchus to be a little more forthcoming with his abilities.  Calmly, she dismissed the wall of force that separated her from the battle.  Activating the fear aura inherent to her Pit Fiend form she strode forward and launched a spell.---------------------An amused expression on his face, Adimarchus looked over his shoulder as he felt a tingle of arcane magic bounce off him.  A maze spell – not a minor ability.  An arcanist shapechanged no doubt – I will crush her soon enough . . .The Prince proceeded to launch a flame strike behind Grimm and Tilly catching Ike, Rusty, and Gunther in its fury.  Though two of them reacted quickly enough to miss the brunt of the damage, Gunther was fully immolated by the spell’s fury and fell over, a charred husk.Fortunately, Rusty was nearby and quickly revivified his cohort.  Standing up shakily, Gunther was given a restorative potion by Ike and the Mystic Theurge quickly scampered away from the battle lest he be slain forthwith.  ---------------------In sharp contrast to the Prince’s amused expression, Entropy frowned severely.  Though the nature of magic was fickle, she was quite surprised how easily Adimarchus had resisted her spell, despite the power of the Soul Totem she carried.  Time to bring out the big guns . . .Shapechanging into a much larger Nightwalker, the Alienist fired an energy drain ray from Queen Vlaakith’s Crown of Corruption.  Since this artifact was constructed by the Lich-Queen herself, its potential to rip through spell resistance significantly exceeded her own.  The ray struck Adimarchus full on causing involuntary spasms to rock his entire body.  The Demon had been struck in just the right place and the right moment to cause the damage from the necromantic effect to increase manifold.  Struggling to find a better tactical position, Adimarchus flew quickly past Grimm trying to pummel him with an implosive strike.  However, his blow was clumsy and slow – unworthy of a Demon Prince – allowing the Planar Champion to deflect the strike with relative ease.  Correctly thinking that their foe was weakened, Tilly launched a bead of force at him as he flew by but to no avail.Emboldened by their temporary advantage, the Bright Axes recovered from their initial losses.  A fleeing Gunther removed Houshang’s paralysis while Rusty answered Adimarchus with a flame strike of his own, though the damage was inflicted was minimal.  Grimm, try as he might, simply could not connect his deadly weapon with the Prince – clearly his defensive capabilities had not waned along with his offense.Once again Adimarchus was lanced with an energy drain, followed by the approach of Entropy in Bodak form.  Recognizing the death-dealing gaze of these undead, he averted his eyes as he tried to surround himself with mirror images.  However, the leeching power from Vlaakith’s crown had taken its toll and his spellcasting ability was but a shadow of its original power – a single image popped into existence.  In apparent desperation, he closed with the Bodak.“Watch out lads, that thing is death incarnate!  Don’t ye dare look at it!!”Rusty’s warning came a second too late for Tilly who looked into the Bodak’s empty eyes a moment too long.  As he managed to do with Dark Myrakul’s wail of the banshee, the halfling warrior proved his mettle again by resisting the powerful effect.All the Bright Axes converged on the Prince now, trying their best to finish him off.  Though Rusty’s implosion and Houshang’s poloymorph any object failed to affect him, Grimm dug his spike chain deep into his shoulder – blood now flowing freely.Defeat was still far from likely, as he had his trump card.  He had been loathe to use it at first, confident that it would be patently unnecessary.  However, the appearance of a heretofore unknown arcanist forced his hand.  Most disturbingly, as he had done to the Bright Axes, she was likely toying with him.</blockquote>

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