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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Altalazar" data-source="post: 3830107" data-attributes="member: 939">Sir Cordozo – Chapter Two-Hundred Sixty-Seven – Hair Facts    “How do you know your hair is in place?” Higgins asked me.      “My mirror,” I replied, unsure where this was going.      “Use that against them.  They cannot approach you if you present it toward them strongly.  I can do the same with the symbol of my order.”      “Ah,” I replied  “But how is keeping them at bay going to help us kill them all?”      And with that philosophical question asked for the ages, the fighting continued.      Morwen charged me, leaving me wondering if she had been charmed, but she simply handed me her backpack before tumbling back into the fray.  I heard a voice in my head say “scroll. Nimue.”      I pulled a scroll out of the backpack, hoping it was the right one, and handed it to Nimue.  At that moment, Ee screamed with a rage so intense it could intimidate the dead.  And apparently it did, leaving at least one of the powerful vampires quivering in her velvety boots.      I heard another voice in my head say “what form do you want?”  I thought of the form taken by Posiedon at the tournament, but I was pretty sure that was beyond the capabilities of the scroll in question, so I tried to think of the biggest, meanest thing I could be.  I thought to her, “Fire Giant.”      Several seconds later, I was a fire giant, stepping over to help Morwen with flanking a vampire.  She seemed to be doing well.      Higgins took his own advice and held forth his holy symbol to keep the vampires at bay.  It was hard to say if it worked since they were all busy killing my other companions.  Higgins also tried to disintegrate the black sphere in the middle of the room, mumbling something about it being a “negative energy boon to vampires.”  Unfortunately, it seemed mostly intact when he was done.  Then things got really dire.      Sir Cordozo – Chapter Two-Hundred Sixty-Eight – Vampires go negative     The Vampires either tired of using their rapiers or decided that they wanted to end this fight and go back to their coffins.  So they started slamming their cold hands into my companions, quickly sucking all of their life away with each hit.  Four vampires surrounded Morwen and nearly killed her with one sickening volley of blows.  Ee and Nin were not faring much better.  Higgins and I were immune to their life-sucking, but they chose not to attack us, perhaps figuring that spell casters, even those that look rather like giants, were no threat.  I decided it was time to go.      “Gather around me,” I told everyone over the mindlink.  “We’re getting out of here.”      My companions gathered up around me.  One benefit to my giant size was that I was able to reach them all, even Morwen, who was surrounded.  I linked to my stone and then in the next instant we were standing out on the rocks outside the tower.  I could have tried to plane shift us from there, but I decided better safe than sorry, in case plane shifting did not work.  The last thing the vampires saw of us was Higgins reading a scroll to disintegrate another one of their gaseous friends.      Fortunately, my other stones worked and we plane shifted out of there in the next instant.  If only we could have eliminated the other two gaseous vampires.  But at least we eliminated two of them for next time.      I still could do no powers, but knew that I could with some rest.  Not wanting to wait (with all my companions feeling the horrible after-effects of the vampires’ touch, I used a stone to teleport us all to my stronghold, where they could all use my restorative bed to repair the damage wrought by my companion’s close brush with the negative material plane.  Then it was time for me to use the restorative power of my own bed to get some much-needed rest.  Book XXV – Ee’s Village People    Sir Cordozo – Chapter Two-Hundred Sixty-Nine – Stones Unturned    The first thing I did once I had a good night’s rest was I went over the combat with the vampires and determined what stones I would need to do battle with them again.  Then I used the trick showed to me by Tuvstarr to travel to the astral plane in order to obtain more time to complete the stones.  By the next day, the job was complete.  I was ready to return.  As was Higgins.  In fact, Higgins had found an even better solution to our problem.  But I wanted to wait until the moon was full again to maximize our advantage.  That meant waiting another month.      Two days into my wait, I received word from Ee.      “Cordozo?  Me ee.”      “Yes?”    “Me need help.  Cordozo transport Ee to village?  All villagers safe.  Village gone.  Ee need go.”    “Sure, Ee.” I replied, then I was standing by Ee’s side.  Then we were back at my stronghold.  “Do you need any help?  Should I get the others?”      “Ee want help.  Ee go without help.  Bye,” Ee, mounted on his golem warhose, then stepped onto the teleportation circle I had just created for him and vanished.      Figuring that Ee was going to just get himself into trouble, I rounded up my companions and we all stepped onto the teleportation circle to Ee’s (former) village.  What we saw was astounding.      Sir Cordozo – Chapter Two-Hundred Seventy – Damn, That’s a Big Tree    Where Ee’s village used to stand, there was nothing but a huge tree.  And I when I say huge, I mean gargantuan.  No, Colossal.   Actually, even bigger than that.  It was at least five hundred feet wide at the base, and its upper limbs seemed to cover the landscape with shade for miles.  The creaking and groaning of the branches above us and the ground below us seemed to indicate that it was still growing at an incredible rate.  If it kept that up, no doubt the world would be…    “Destroyer!” said Higgins.  “That’s the tree of Magnus, a demon, destroyer of worlds.  Magnus has been held captive and controlled by an artifact known as the ‘Seed of Magnus’ for eons.  Once planted, it establishes a link with the life force of the world it inhabits.  It can only be defeated if this connection to the seed is destroyed.  The tree itself is like a touch of the abyss from whence it came.  It kills all living things.”    “Magnus was defeated by the demon lord of torture and bloodletting, Lazbral’thull, who uses the seed to command Magnus to do his bidding.  Magnus desires to be free of this above all else.  That and he desires vengeance.”    “How long until we are all devoured?” I asked idly.      “The tree grows at least a mile every six hours.”     “I guess the vampires really can wait for a month,” I said as we started to head for the base of the tree.      Camped out at the base of the tree were well over a hundred orcs led by over a dozen trolls.  While they did not pose much of a threat, I was in a hurry.  After their rather pathetic volley of arrows (which bounced harmlessly off of my adamantine body), I acted.  In one instant I was standing amongst their right wing, bursting forth with fire in a huge sphere around me, then I was standing in their center, bursting forth with more fire from my second mind.  Nearly one hundred orc corpses and ten troll corpses lay smouldering at my feet.      Wanting to explore one of my newly discovered powers, I approached one of the remaining trolls and touched it with a black finger.  The troll shuddered and screamed, and then its whole body was absorbed into my own, leaving nothing of the troll behind.  Unfortunately, I looked rather like a troll myself, but I knew that would only be temporary.  What was also temporary was the huge boost I felt to myself as the troll’s strength of being coursed throughout my body.  I could get to like this.  If only I didn’t have to look like a troll.      My companions quickly finished off the stragglers.  Then we approached the base of the tree.</blockquote>

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