thatdarncat
Overlord of Chat
looks at the title of Chapter 10 of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, checks the thread again...
Well, it looks like J K Rowling reads EN World...
Well, it looks like J K Rowling reads EN World...
Piratecat's up-to-date story hour (updated on 8/10, come game with PCat at GenCon!)
- Thread starter Piratecat
- Start date
Kid Charlemagne
I am the Very Model of a Modern Moderator
The House of Gaunt
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
I love Emperor Ioun, he is all that I would expect an epic wizard to be. Great writing.
Of course, this is now an additional thread to subscribe to...
Of course, this is now an additional thread to subscribe to...
Kelvin L. Melton
First Post
hey Pcat please dont skip the mindflayer battle please.
Piratecat
Sesquipedalian
The giant-stone fireplace was large enough to roast an entire ox. The oak fire that burned in its iron grate laws a more intimate size and looked out of place, as if it weren’t living up to its own potential. The small fire was more for comfort than warmth, however; the Temple of Ascension had been blessed to always be warm, and even with a fierce storm moving in from the north the meeting room was dry and secure.
Mara, Malachite and Velendo sat in negotiation with General Annel and Emperor Ioun, but their minds were only partially focused on the discussion. Mentally, they pondered the vision that Agar had relayed moments earlier.
“Can you repeat it again, Agar?” Malachite did his best to look engaged while General Annel was saying about trade, but his mind was elsewhere.
“Sure, thought Agar over the mindlink. “The artisan knows that he is but half a man, laid low by the fall of a treacherous woman. He is making his way back from what he was to what he once became, and a different woman pushes him towards where he might have once gone.”
“I’m telling you,” thought Malachite, “weal or woe. It makes things so much clearer.”
“That wasn’t an option here,” thought Agar. “I think this refers to Ioun himself.”
“Why is that?” asked Mara.
“He could certainly be the ‘artisan’ in the vision, and didn’t he once rule a vast area? That means that if he’s regaining his old empire, then General Annel is the one pushing him to expand his rule.”
“Isn’t she his secretary?”
“I think she’s both. The point is that he may just want to sit in his tower and make things, and she’s forcing him to build his empire.”
“Interesting. That puts another face on things, and we may want to change our negotiating style accordingly.” Velendo nodded as if Annel had made an important point, and refocused on the negotiation.
-- o --
The two of them had quit the musty temple and were riding horses through the cold drizzle atop the ridge. The wind was brisk and icy, and Eve felt glad to be alive. Even better, she was riding with a friend, and she had never had one of those before. The heavy grey clouds and revolting weather hardly mattered in comparison.
“What was he like, Eve?” Sable wasn’t particularly worldly, but she liked the idea of an emperor coming to visit the temple. She and Eve had grown close in the past few weeks. “Did you have to curtsey? I’d like to meet him. I hear he’s as smart as Agar, and I’d imagine that’s saying something.”
Eve pondered. “He seems all right, although he’s quiet. His assistant seems sort of officious. I wasn’t allowed to probe their minds.” She leaped her horse over a fallen tree. Its hooves punched through the crusty snow as it trotted along the ridge.
“You slipped out of the negotiations, right? What were they saying? I bet Dame Mara was dictating terms.” Sable smiled at the thought.
“Well, it went something like this.” Eve slowed her horse and turned to Sable. She twisted her face to mimic both Secretary Annel and Mara. “We want Corsai. You can’t have Corsai. But we want it. But you can’t have it, nyah.” Eve stuck out her tongue. “Then we’ll take it. That’s not nice. So give it to us. Why do you want it? It’s rich and strong. So why do we need you? We’re richer and stronger, and know about worms.” Now her expression changed to include an impression of Velendo as well. “The worms and the city have nothing to do with one another. Yes they do. No they don’t. What if we just kind of took your city, but let you run yourself? We wouldn’t like that. Yes you would. Well, maybe we would. Want to sit and talk about it for hours and hours and hours until everyone falls asleep and drools on the table? Oh my, what a good idea! Yes, let’s!” By the time Eve finished, Sable was laughing uproariously atop her mount.
“Oh, nicely done.”
Eve smiled shyly. “Thank you.” The two girls set off along the barren ridge, the horses steaming as they made their way through the drizzle. Around them, the sharp and jagged peaks of the Greyflames were lost in gray drizzle.
Soon Eve’s sharp eyes picked out something on the horizon, and she used a frail hand to wipe strengthening rain from her eyes. A thunderhead the deep black and purple of a swollen bruise filled the sky. Distant thunder rumbled from it, and Eve saw ragged lightning forking out from its vast belly. It was huge, miles high and miles wide, and it was moving towards them fast.
“I don’t like the look of that storm cloud.” The wind lifted as if in answer, and another peal of thunder rolled endlessly across the sky.
-- o --
“If you are reluctant to accept the full benefits and responsibilities of Empire, there are several options,” Annel said pleasantly. Annel gave the impression that she could say anything pleasantly. Beside her Ioun leaned back in his chair, his eyes inscrutable. The sound of dozens of Ioun stones whirling through the air made a palpable whirr in the quiet room.
“Such as?” asked Mara.
“Let’s focus on the positive possibilities.” Annel gestured at the floating, translucent map. “For instance, let’s posit that Corsai became a protectorate of the Empire. You’d maintain your own local government and militia, with responsibilities to contribute taxes and troops for national defense when needed. You’d also receive greater trade, since trade routes through the empire would be extended through Corsai. Your own military security would be bolstered by that of the Empire. The Empire would also aid in any event where you required greater than normal resources. . . such as the recent undead rampage through your city and the subsequent rebuilding. You could even maintain your own religious beliefs if you wished to.” Annel’s voice was persuasive, but Mara thought she detected just the slightest hint of disapproval.
“And what is your own religion, Emperor?” she asked politely.
Ioun shifted in his chair and suppressed a sneer. “Religions are fine for people that need them, of course. I come from a time when Gods weren’t particularly favored. We had no use for them, and I’ve seen no reason to change my opinion.”
The room grew quiet.
“Really?” asked Mara perkily, breaking the silence. “Then if you wish to ally with Corsai, perhaps you’d consider converting to the worship of Aeos in order to cement our relationship. I don’t think we could ally with anyone who didn’t properly worship.” She smiled innocently.
Agar burst in over the mindlink before Ioun or Annel could respond. “Problem!” he almost screamed. His mental tone was panicked.
“What is it? Where are you?” asked Velendo.
“Under a table. I just received another warning, and we’re in real trouble! The safest place holds the most danger. Water and air bring stone and fire. The sky will fall, and kill you all. I really don’t like the sound of that. It’d going to happen any minute now, I can sense it.”
Velendo creakily jumped to his feet and spun to Emperor Ioun. “Emperor, I apologize for interrupting negotiations, but I’m afraid that we may be under attack. I’ll ask you and your assistant to please come with me.”
“What is it?” demanded Ioun. He glanced from left to right. “I sense no signs of mystical or planar warfare.”
“One of our fellows has just received a premonition that we’re about to be attacked. Your safety is too important to be risked.” Velendo shouted at the acolyte who glanced into the room, drawn by the commotion. “You! Evacuate everyone in this temple out to the north gate, by the Garden of Ascension. Everyone, no exceptions! Guards, pilgrims, cooks. . . everyone. You have two minutes.”
The acolyte blanched. “But, your holiness. . .”
Getting to his feet, Lord Malachite seemed to swell. “Now!” he growled in a voice that brooked no dissension, and the acolyte disappeared like a ghost. Seconds later they heard the warning bells begin to ring.
Emperor Ioun seemed somewhat annoyed, but Secretary Annel appeared unruffled. “Will it not be safest simply to stay within the fortress?”
“I’d normally say yes,” said Velendo as he strapped on his shield, “but the vision warned that the safest place held the most danger.” He looked around. “Where are the others?”
“Well, Stone Bear and Galthia are due back some time soon, but we haven’t heard from them. Eve is outside riding. . .” began Mara.
“Outside?” Velendo looked appalled. “Of the temple?”
“Yes. You were right here when she said she was going. Her friend Sable is with her.”
“Eve!”
“There’s a problem here, Velendo. A massive storm cloud is coming in, and fast. We’re coming back.”
“Do so, now. It’s not safe to be out there.”
“We’re coming in now. I’m thinking our way home.”
“Good. . . wait, you’re doing what?” But there was no answer. Velendo rushed towards the courtyard, and inexplicably began to remember the first time he had ever tried to ride a horse.
-- o --
“Can we outrun the storm?” asks Sable. Their horses were galloping, but the wind had increased to gale strength.
With her pale skin and wet colorless hair floating wind-whipped around her face, Eve looked a little bit like a drowning victim. “No, I don’t think so. Ride next to me.” Eve focused her mind as she reached out to pluck the faint thoughts coming from her friends. It was easy to sense them. Eve gathered the psyches of Sable and both horses, focused on Velendo, and squeezed. First they were on the icy ridge, and then a heartbeat later they were cantering into one of Velendo’s memories of horses. They emerged from his memories into the real world, and both horses and riders burst forth from the surprised cleric’s head into the courtyard of the Temple.
Eve reined in her horse next to the stables and swung down, face bloodless from the mental effort.
“How’d you do that?” asked a terrified Agar, glancing up at the swirling purple clouds overhead. He grabbed Sable’s mount and helped her down.
“I didn’t like the normal reality,” said Eve. “So I thought up a new one.” Agar stared at her, as Malachite and Annel worked together to shepherd all the temple’s inhabitants out into the growing storm.
“Into here!” yelled Velendo over the wind, gesturing at a shimmering portal just outside of the temple’s far gate. “Almighty Calphas has prepared a warm and comfortable refuge for you. You’ll be safe there.” Urged on, people surged through the doorway into the Calphas’s Comfortable Castle. The horses from the stable followed. Within a few minutes only Emperor Ioun, Secretary Annel and the Defenders of Daybreak stood out in the freezing wind-whipped rain and watched the storm cloud approach. Malachite’s new assistant Sir Duncan stood with them, scowling at the storm.
“Can you protect the temple, Velendo?” asked Duncan.
“Much too big,” said the cleric. “I wish we knew what was coming. A weather control spell is getting rid of some of these storm clouds, but I don’t think that big one is natural.”
“There are things circling it,” said Agar quietly. He stared straight up into the driving rain, and next to him Duncan unlimbered his bow.
“How can you see?” asked Eve, surprised.
“The tentacles are showing me,” said Agar distractedly. “They push away the rain and show me the truth that squirms underneath. And what they show me is that there are some sort of gigantic creatures circling the thunderhead, half bird and half lion. There’s something on their backs, too. . . giants, I think.” The others stared up into the rain, but could see nothing. “And there’s something coming out of. . .” Agar stopped, horrified.
“What?” Unable to see, everyone turned towards Agar.
The Halfling looked sick. “It’s giants, all right. And they just dropped the top of a mountain out of the middle of the cloud.” He swallowed and looked in vain for somewhere to hide. It was obvious that his every instinct said ‘flee,’ but he held himself steady by pure force of will as he did a quick calculation. “It’ll hit in about twenty seconds, and it’ll squash us flat. It’s right on target.”
Without comment, Velendo sang his prayers into the sky. Calphas immediately answered, and a sovereign wall covered the refugees in a tremendous dome that hung in mid-air six feet off the ground. The gusting wind abated under the dome, and the rain drummed on the invisible wall of force instead of on their heads. “High enough to protect from falling rocks and give an advantage when attacking giants, but not so low that it will hinder us in a fight,” said Velendo with satisfaction. “Thanks, Calphas.”
Emperor Ioun lifted one thin eyebrow. The ioun stones had kept him completely dry. “How large would you say that stone was?” he asked.
Agar shrugged, peering upwards into the downpour. “As big as a three story house?” he hazarded. “And those griffons are diving, too. They’ll be in range within half a minute.”
“Ah, good,” said Ioun as he did his own quick calculation. Even he could see the falling boulder now; it plummeted from the sky, perfectly targeted for the center of the Temple.
“Good?” asked Velendo sarcastically.
Ioun’s tone was phlegmatic. “I’ll be turning it into mud before it hits. It’ll still do damage, but significantly less than it would as the top of a mountain.” Velendo started to smile in admiration.
“You have the volume to do that?” asks Agar in surprise. “Do you need to widen it?” Ioun’s look spoke for itself.
“Mud,” murmured Velendo. “Mud!” He hurriedly cast a flexible wall so that they would not be drowned in a wave of mud splashing from the roof of the temple. He finished it just in time.
The rock made a horrible whistle as it plunged downwards. It seemed to fill the sky now, the size of a hill. “And. . . now!” Ioun cast with perfect timing, and the Defenders could see the huge boulder lose cohesiveness and start to scatter seconds before it slammed down into the roof of the temple. The sound of the impact was thunderous, and the vibration knocked many of them from their feet. It was impossible to see how much damage was done to the temple, however, because a thick layer of sprayed mud covered the sovereign wall and blocked the impact site from view.
“We can rebuild it,” said Velendo grimly. “It could have been worse.” And as he said it, a blinding bolt of lightning snaked down from the cloud overhead to ground itself fifty feet away. In the actinic glare of the lightning, the heroes could just make out the silhouette of a forty foot tall giant gripping the lightning bolt itself. He let go, the lightning bolt disappeared, and the sound of the rain was briefly overwhelmed by the noise of a sword rasping out of a sheath as long as a great hall.
Imperator Caustas, Cloudhammer of the Northern Sky, roared his challenge through foam-flecked lips. The thunder answered.
Mara, Malachite and Velendo sat in negotiation with General Annel and Emperor Ioun, but their minds were only partially focused on the discussion. Mentally, they pondered the vision that Agar had relayed moments earlier.
“Can you repeat it again, Agar?” Malachite did his best to look engaged while General Annel was saying about trade, but his mind was elsewhere.
“Sure, thought Agar over the mindlink. “The artisan knows that he is but half a man, laid low by the fall of a treacherous woman. He is making his way back from what he was to what he once became, and a different woman pushes him towards where he might have once gone.”
“I’m telling you,” thought Malachite, “weal or woe. It makes things so much clearer.”
“That wasn’t an option here,” thought Agar. “I think this refers to Ioun himself.”
“Why is that?” asked Mara.
“He could certainly be the ‘artisan’ in the vision, and didn’t he once rule a vast area? That means that if he’s regaining his old empire, then General Annel is the one pushing him to expand his rule.”
“Isn’t she his secretary?”
“I think she’s both. The point is that he may just want to sit in his tower and make things, and she’s forcing him to build his empire.”
“Interesting. That puts another face on things, and we may want to change our negotiating style accordingly.” Velendo nodded as if Annel had made an important point, and refocused on the negotiation.
-- o --
The two of them had quit the musty temple and were riding horses through the cold drizzle atop the ridge. The wind was brisk and icy, and Eve felt glad to be alive. Even better, she was riding with a friend, and she had never had one of those before. The heavy grey clouds and revolting weather hardly mattered in comparison.
“What was he like, Eve?” Sable wasn’t particularly worldly, but she liked the idea of an emperor coming to visit the temple. She and Eve had grown close in the past few weeks. “Did you have to curtsey? I’d like to meet him. I hear he’s as smart as Agar, and I’d imagine that’s saying something.”
Eve pondered. “He seems all right, although he’s quiet. His assistant seems sort of officious. I wasn’t allowed to probe their minds.” She leaped her horse over a fallen tree. Its hooves punched through the crusty snow as it trotted along the ridge.
“You slipped out of the negotiations, right? What were they saying? I bet Dame Mara was dictating terms.” Sable smiled at the thought.
“Well, it went something like this.” Eve slowed her horse and turned to Sable. She twisted her face to mimic both Secretary Annel and Mara. “We want Corsai. You can’t have Corsai. But we want it. But you can’t have it, nyah.” Eve stuck out her tongue. “Then we’ll take it. That’s not nice. So give it to us. Why do you want it? It’s rich and strong. So why do we need you? We’re richer and stronger, and know about worms.” Now her expression changed to include an impression of Velendo as well. “The worms and the city have nothing to do with one another. Yes they do. No they don’t. What if we just kind of took your city, but let you run yourself? We wouldn’t like that. Yes you would. Well, maybe we would. Want to sit and talk about it for hours and hours and hours until everyone falls asleep and drools on the table? Oh my, what a good idea! Yes, let’s!” By the time Eve finished, Sable was laughing uproariously atop her mount.
“Oh, nicely done.”
Eve smiled shyly. “Thank you.” The two girls set off along the barren ridge, the horses steaming as they made their way through the drizzle. Around them, the sharp and jagged peaks of the Greyflames were lost in gray drizzle.
Soon Eve’s sharp eyes picked out something on the horizon, and she used a frail hand to wipe strengthening rain from her eyes. A thunderhead the deep black and purple of a swollen bruise filled the sky. Distant thunder rumbled from it, and Eve saw ragged lightning forking out from its vast belly. It was huge, miles high and miles wide, and it was moving towards them fast.
“I don’t like the look of that storm cloud.” The wind lifted as if in answer, and another peal of thunder rolled endlessly across the sky.
-- o --
“If you are reluctant to accept the full benefits and responsibilities of Empire, there are several options,” Annel said pleasantly. Annel gave the impression that she could say anything pleasantly. Beside her Ioun leaned back in his chair, his eyes inscrutable. The sound of dozens of Ioun stones whirling through the air made a palpable whirr in the quiet room.
“Such as?” asked Mara.
“Let’s focus on the positive possibilities.” Annel gestured at the floating, translucent map. “For instance, let’s posit that Corsai became a protectorate of the Empire. You’d maintain your own local government and militia, with responsibilities to contribute taxes and troops for national defense when needed. You’d also receive greater trade, since trade routes through the empire would be extended through Corsai. Your own military security would be bolstered by that of the Empire. The Empire would also aid in any event where you required greater than normal resources. . . such as the recent undead rampage through your city and the subsequent rebuilding. You could even maintain your own religious beliefs if you wished to.” Annel’s voice was persuasive, but Mara thought she detected just the slightest hint of disapproval.
“And what is your own religion, Emperor?” she asked politely.
Ioun shifted in his chair and suppressed a sneer. “Religions are fine for people that need them, of course. I come from a time when Gods weren’t particularly favored. We had no use for them, and I’ve seen no reason to change my opinion.”
The room grew quiet.
“Really?” asked Mara perkily, breaking the silence. “Then if you wish to ally with Corsai, perhaps you’d consider converting to the worship of Aeos in order to cement our relationship. I don’t think we could ally with anyone who didn’t properly worship.” She smiled innocently.
Agar burst in over the mindlink before Ioun or Annel could respond. “Problem!” he almost screamed. His mental tone was panicked.
“What is it? Where are you?” asked Velendo.
“Under a table. I just received another warning, and we’re in real trouble! The safest place holds the most danger. Water and air bring stone and fire. The sky will fall, and kill you all. I really don’t like the sound of that. It’d going to happen any minute now, I can sense it.”
Velendo creakily jumped to his feet and spun to Emperor Ioun. “Emperor, I apologize for interrupting negotiations, but I’m afraid that we may be under attack. I’ll ask you and your assistant to please come with me.”
“What is it?” demanded Ioun. He glanced from left to right. “I sense no signs of mystical or planar warfare.”
“One of our fellows has just received a premonition that we’re about to be attacked. Your safety is too important to be risked.” Velendo shouted at the acolyte who glanced into the room, drawn by the commotion. “You! Evacuate everyone in this temple out to the north gate, by the Garden of Ascension. Everyone, no exceptions! Guards, pilgrims, cooks. . . everyone. You have two minutes.”
The acolyte blanched. “But, your holiness. . .”
Getting to his feet, Lord Malachite seemed to swell. “Now!” he growled in a voice that brooked no dissension, and the acolyte disappeared like a ghost. Seconds later they heard the warning bells begin to ring.
Emperor Ioun seemed somewhat annoyed, but Secretary Annel appeared unruffled. “Will it not be safest simply to stay within the fortress?”
“I’d normally say yes,” said Velendo as he strapped on his shield, “but the vision warned that the safest place held the most danger.” He looked around. “Where are the others?”
“Well, Stone Bear and Galthia are due back some time soon, but we haven’t heard from them. Eve is outside riding. . .” began Mara.
“Outside?” Velendo looked appalled. “Of the temple?”
“Yes. You were right here when she said she was going. Her friend Sable is with her.”
“Eve!”
“There’s a problem here, Velendo. A massive storm cloud is coming in, and fast. We’re coming back.”
“Do so, now. It’s not safe to be out there.”
“We’re coming in now. I’m thinking our way home.”
“Good. . . wait, you’re doing what?” But there was no answer. Velendo rushed towards the courtyard, and inexplicably began to remember the first time he had ever tried to ride a horse.
-- o --
“Can we outrun the storm?” asks Sable. Their horses were galloping, but the wind had increased to gale strength.
With her pale skin and wet colorless hair floating wind-whipped around her face, Eve looked a little bit like a drowning victim. “No, I don’t think so. Ride next to me.” Eve focused her mind as she reached out to pluck the faint thoughts coming from her friends. It was easy to sense them. Eve gathered the psyches of Sable and both horses, focused on Velendo, and squeezed. First they were on the icy ridge, and then a heartbeat later they were cantering into one of Velendo’s memories of horses. They emerged from his memories into the real world, and both horses and riders burst forth from the surprised cleric’s head into the courtyard of the Temple.
Eve reined in her horse next to the stables and swung down, face bloodless from the mental effort.
“How’d you do that?” asked a terrified Agar, glancing up at the swirling purple clouds overhead. He grabbed Sable’s mount and helped her down.
“I didn’t like the normal reality,” said Eve. “So I thought up a new one.” Agar stared at her, as Malachite and Annel worked together to shepherd all the temple’s inhabitants out into the growing storm.
“Into here!” yelled Velendo over the wind, gesturing at a shimmering portal just outside of the temple’s far gate. “Almighty Calphas has prepared a warm and comfortable refuge for you. You’ll be safe there.” Urged on, people surged through the doorway into the Calphas’s Comfortable Castle. The horses from the stable followed. Within a few minutes only Emperor Ioun, Secretary Annel and the Defenders of Daybreak stood out in the freezing wind-whipped rain and watched the storm cloud approach. Malachite’s new assistant Sir Duncan stood with them, scowling at the storm.
“Can you protect the temple, Velendo?” asked Duncan.
“Much too big,” said the cleric. “I wish we knew what was coming. A weather control spell is getting rid of some of these storm clouds, but I don’t think that big one is natural.”
“There are things circling it,” said Agar quietly. He stared straight up into the driving rain, and next to him Duncan unlimbered his bow.
“How can you see?” asked Eve, surprised.
“The tentacles are showing me,” said Agar distractedly. “They push away the rain and show me the truth that squirms underneath. And what they show me is that there are some sort of gigantic creatures circling the thunderhead, half bird and half lion. There’s something on their backs, too. . . giants, I think.” The others stared up into the rain, but could see nothing. “And there’s something coming out of. . .” Agar stopped, horrified.
“What?” Unable to see, everyone turned towards Agar.
The Halfling looked sick. “It’s giants, all right. And they just dropped the top of a mountain out of the middle of the cloud.” He swallowed and looked in vain for somewhere to hide. It was obvious that his every instinct said ‘flee,’ but he held himself steady by pure force of will as he did a quick calculation. “It’ll hit in about twenty seconds, and it’ll squash us flat. It’s right on target.”
Without comment, Velendo sang his prayers into the sky. Calphas immediately answered, and a sovereign wall covered the refugees in a tremendous dome that hung in mid-air six feet off the ground. The gusting wind abated under the dome, and the rain drummed on the invisible wall of force instead of on their heads. “High enough to protect from falling rocks and give an advantage when attacking giants, but not so low that it will hinder us in a fight,” said Velendo with satisfaction. “Thanks, Calphas.”
Emperor Ioun lifted one thin eyebrow. The ioun stones had kept him completely dry. “How large would you say that stone was?” he asked.
Agar shrugged, peering upwards into the downpour. “As big as a three story house?” he hazarded. “And those griffons are diving, too. They’ll be in range within half a minute.”
“Ah, good,” said Ioun as he did his own quick calculation. Even he could see the falling boulder now; it plummeted from the sky, perfectly targeted for the center of the Temple.
“Good?” asked Velendo sarcastically.
Ioun’s tone was phlegmatic. “I’ll be turning it into mud before it hits. It’ll still do damage, but significantly less than it would as the top of a mountain.” Velendo started to smile in admiration.
“You have the volume to do that?” asks Agar in surprise. “Do you need to widen it?” Ioun’s look spoke for itself.
“Mud,” murmured Velendo. “Mud!” He hurriedly cast a flexible wall so that they would not be drowned in a wave of mud splashing from the roof of the temple. He finished it just in time.
The rock made a horrible whistle as it plunged downwards. It seemed to fill the sky now, the size of a hill. “And. . . now!” Ioun cast with perfect timing, and the Defenders could see the huge boulder lose cohesiveness and start to scatter seconds before it slammed down into the roof of the temple. The sound of the impact was thunderous, and the vibration knocked many of them from their feet. It was impossible to see how much damage was done to the temple, however, because a thick layer of sprayed mud covered the sovereign wall and blocked the impact site from view.
“We can rebuild it,” said Velendo grimly. “It could have been worse.” And as he said it, a blinding bolt of lightning snaked down from the cloud overhead to ground itself fifty feet away. In the actinic glare of the lightning, the heroes could just make out the silhouette of a forty foot tall giant gripping the lightning bolt itself. He let go, the lightning bolt disappeared, and the sound of the rain was briefly overwhelmed by the noise of a sword rasping out of a sheath as long as a great hall.
Imperator Caustas, Cloudhammer of the Northern Sky, roared his challenge through foam-flecked lips. The thunder answered.
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Piratecat
Sesquipedalian
His hand still tingled from the ride down the lightning. Imperator Caustus stood on the sodden earth, feeling the distaste he always felt whenever his feet touched dirt. Coruscating electricity ran up and down his massive frame, and his laugh sounded like the shuddering of the heavens. Sword in hand, he opened his arms wide to the glorious devastation that was the shattered keep. . .
He blinked. The keep his people built years ago was covered in mud, but standing. The Imperator’s face contorted in anger, and he barely noticed the spells and arrows that flashed impotently into his armored chest.
“Why is it standing, Olaf?” the Imperator growled over his shoulder to the cringing giant on his back. His tone made it clear that whatever the reason, Olaf the Lame was sure to be at fault.
“I do not know, my lord!” burbled Olaf. He was safe within his metal vessel strapped to the Imperator’s back, but he had no illusions that the Imperator would allow anything but subservience. “Surely it was spared by the Storm Gorger so that your majesty could crush the humans underfoot yourself, and thus bring endless blessings and fortune onto his majesty’s house and sons thereby!” Olaf wiped a trail of sweat and rainwater from his brow.It doesn’t make any sense, but believe me, he silently prayed, because I speak with the voice of the Storm Gorger himself. . .
“Then let’s be about it! Olaf, I demand wind.”
“Yes, Imperator.” Olaf was a runt barely fifteen feet tall, and the 40’ tall Imperator barely noticed his weight. Olaf squinted through the narrow slot in his vessel and called out to the Storm Gorger. The Storm Gorger answered, and shrieking hurricane winds began to blow. Many of the humans were picked up by the wind and flung back into the mud-covered wall of their shelter.
“You have trespassed onto giant lands,” began the Imperator in a voice that could still be heard over the shrieking wind, “and you have attacked the messenger who came to demand tribute. You dared to dominate one of my people! You will. . .”
If the Imperator finished the sentence, it was on another plane of existence. One of the humans, a tiny creature surrounded by floating rocks, had pointed a finger at the Imperator and in mid-sentence the giant had vanished into nothingness. Unfortunately, this left Olaf’s metal vessel hanging unsupported twenty feet in the air. Olaf braced himself as he fell painfully onto the filthy ground. He grunted as his nose snacked painfully against the side of the vessel.
“Not good,” mumbled Olaf. “Come back, Imperator!” Olaf heard the sound of spells and weapons shattering on the shell of his enchanted vessel. Fire and cold snaked in through the casting slot, and he felt something try to seize control of his mind. It was lucky that this had been foreseen and defenses were in place. Nevertheless, this hadn’t gone the way Olaf had expected. The giant leaned and rolled, and his casting slot aligned with the tiny humans. “They can’t move against the wind,” he thought, “and am I not the most powerful priest in the Storm Gorger’s service? The soldiers will be here in moments, and Zghelb has his own surprise prepared. Let him see them stand against my prayers! Olaf began to cast.
--
For Imperator Caustas, the world had disappeared and been replaced with a shifting array of force planes in a sphere of endless night. He had no body. He had no eyes, but somewhere on the other side of the maze the Imperator could see a pulsing portal that represented escape back into his own world. They want me to run like a goblin through a maze, he realized. I am supposed to pant and turn and lose myself in the labyrinth. Clearly, they have never met one of the old blood before. With that, Caustas stood up to his full height (if in that strange place one could be said to be standing, when one did not possess a body), and reached a long arm he didn’t possess above and across the maze of shifting force planes. It was a stretch, even for Imperator Caustas. One non-finger tapped the pulsing door of energy, and the Imperator was flung back into the real world.
--
“He’s back!” shouted Olaf with delight, voice echoing loudly around his head. The Imperator had returned within mere seconds, doubtlessly due to his innate state of grace and unsurpassed cleverness. Unfortunately, Olaf saw that the Imperator was looking the wrong way and had not yet regained his balance, and the treacherous humans seized an unfair advantage before Olaf could shout a warning. Before Olaf’s eyes, one of the humans somehow managed to strip nearly a dozen abjurations from the Imperator’s frame.
One of the little people, a tiny little thing no bigger than a mouthful, conjured a massive tentacle fully as tall as the Imperator himself. The slimy dark tendril wrapped itself around the Imperator before the most majestic one could react, and the Lord’s sword arm was pinned to his most royal chest.
“Vultures!” snarled the Imperator, and struggled to free his arm. He hadn’t yet succeeded before an armored knight - and a woman! noticed the shocked Olaf, she should be somewhere breeding! - spurred her horse through the gale towards the partially grappled Imperator. Unnatural fires played along her lance, a frail sliver of wood. The woman ran the lance into the Imperator’s knee. Olaf grinned in expectation of the lance shattering into matchwood. Instead, there was a burst of light and the Imperator’s knee shattered in gobbets of flying flesh, bone and gristle. The Imperator gave the first scream of pain that Olaf had ever heard.
“Not good, not good,” gurgled Olaf as he desperately tried to roll the protective cylindrical vessel towards the Imperator. Spells went off all around him. A spell Olaf recognized as meteor swarm hit the Imperator point blank on the chest, and what seemed like half a dozen warriors fought their way forward through the wind to attack the Imperator’s ankles. Still grappled by the tentacle, the Imperator could do nothing. Where were the griffon riders? A dull thump sounded nearby, and a brilliant flash lit the air. Olaf looked up to see a second dead cloud giant strike the ground, and blinded giants and griffons staggering across the sky. Ah, he thought. That’s where they are. I never thought I’d say this, but I hope Zghelb hurries.
“I am here, my lord!” shouted Olaf. Still trapped in his protective cylinder, Olaf finally rolled close enough for one arm to reach out and touch his ruler’s bloody foot. He cast heal, and felt the Imperator throw off the tentacle that encircled him.
“Now!” screamed his Lord and Master, raising the massive sword that coursed with lightning. “Now!” The humans answered with a withering barrage of blows and spells. Olaf’s restricted view of the fight was narrowed even further when a green ray entered the narrow casting slot, quickly followed by a sphere of force that blocked him from any contact with the Imperator.
Olaf the Lame didn’t even have enough time to sing the traditional lament. It was only seconds before his lord and master fell, his leg literally chopped in two, his body weakened and burned by profane spells. The Imperator never even had a chance to swing his legendary sword Skyblood at his foes. As casually as if someone snapped their fingers, the king of the giants swayed, toppled. . . and died.
-- o --
“Empty,” yelled Velendo. He had to scream to get his voice to carry over the howling wind. Olaf the Lame was nowhere to be found, and the metal cylinder that had held him was empty. “He must have dispelled the dimensional anchor and teleported out somehow. The big guy wasn’t so lucky.” Velendo hooked a thumb at the massive corpse of the dead giant. The bodies of smaller giants lay where they had fallen out of the sky.
Suddenly, another massive boulder fell from the heavens. This one missed the temple by several hundred feet, but the impact was still enough to knock people off of their feet.
Malachite wiped rain-slick hair from his eyes and looked angrily up at the thunderhead above them. “We have unfinished business.”
He blinked. The keep his people built years ago was covered in mud, but standing. The Imperator’s face contorted in anger, and he barely noticed the spells and arrows that flashed impotently into his armored chest.
“Why is it standing, Olaf?” the Imperator growled over his shoulder to the cringing giant on his back. His tone made it clear that whatever the reason, Olaf the Lame was sure to be at fault.
“I do not know, my lord!” burbled Olaf. He was safe within his metal vessel strapped to the Imperator’s back, but he had no illusions that the Imperator would allow anything but subservience. “Surely it was spared by the Storm Gorger so that your majesty could crush the humans underfoot yourself, and thus bring endless blessings and fortune onto his majesty’s house and sons thereby!” Olaf wiped a trail of sweat and rainwater from his brow.It doesn’t make any sense, but believe me, he silently prayed, because I speak with the voice of the Storm Gorger himself. . .
“Then let’s be about it! Olaf, I demand wind.”
“Yes, Imperator.” Olaf was a runt barely fifteen feet tall, and the 40’ tall Imperator barely noticed his weight. Olaf squinted through the narrow slot in his vessel and called out to the Storm Gorger. The Storm Gorger answered, and shrieking hurricane winds began to blow. Many of the humans were picked up by the wind and flung back into the mud-covered wall of their shelter.
“You have trespassed onto giant lands,” began the Imperator in a voice that could still be heard over the shrieking wind, “and you have attacked the messenger who came to demand tribute. You dared to dominate one of my people! You will. . .”
If the Imperator finished the sentence, it was on another plane of existence. One of the humans, a tiny creature surrounded by floating rocks, had pointed a finger at the Imperator and in mid-sentence the giant had vanished into nothingness. Unfortunately, this left Olaf’s metal vessel hanging unsupported twenty feet in the air. Olaf braced himself as he fell painfully onto the filthy ground. He grunted as his nose snacked painfully against the side of the vessel.
“Not good,” mumbled Olaf. “Come back, Imperator!” Olaf heard the sound of spells and weapons shattering on the shell of his enchanted vessel. Fire and cold snaked in through the casting slot, and he felt something try to seize control of his mind. It was lucky that this had been foreseen and defenses were in place. Nevertheless, this hadn’t gone the way Olaf had expected. The giant leaned and rolled, and his casting slot aligned with the tiny humans. “They can’t move against the wind,” he thought, “and am I not the most powerful priest in the Storm Gorger’s service? The soldiers will be here in moments, and Zghelb has his own surprise prepared. Let him see them stand against my prayers! Olaf began to cast.
--
For Imperator Caustas, the world had disappeared and been replaced with a shifting array of force planes in a sphere of endless night. He had no body. He had no eyes, but somewhere on the other side of the maze the Imperator could see a pulsing portal that represented escape back into his own world. They want me to run like a goblin through a maze, he realized. I am supposed to pant and turn and lose myself in the labyrinth. Clearly, they have never met one of the old blood before. With that, Caustas stood up to his full height (if in that strange place one could be said to be standing, when one did not possess a body), and reached a long arm he didn’t possess above and across the maze of shifting force planes. It was a stretch, even for Imperator Caustas. One non-finger tapped the pulsing door of energy, and the Imperator was flung back into the real world.
--
“He’s back!” shouted Olaf with delight, voice echoing loudly around his head. The Imperator had returned within mere seconds, doubtlessly due to his innate state of grace and unsurpassed cleverness. Unfortunately, Olaf saw that the Imperator was looking the wrong way and had not yet regained his balance, and the treacherous humans seized an unfair advantage before Olaf could shout a warning. Before Olaf’s eyes, one of the humans somehow managed to strip nearly a dozen abjurations from the Imperator’s frame.
One of the little people, a tiny little thing no bigger than a mouthful, conjured a massive tentacle fully as tall as the Imperator himself. The slimy dark tendril wrapped itself around the Imperator before the most majestic one could react, and the Lord’s sword arm was pinned to his most royal chest.
“Vultures!” snarled the Imperator, and struggled to free his arm. He hadn’t yet succeeded before an armored knight - and a woman! noticed the shocked Olaf, she should be somewhere breeding! - spurred her horse through the gale towards the partially grappled Imperator. Unnatural fires played along her lance, a frail sliver of wood. The woman ran the lance into the Imperator’s knee. Olaf grinned in expectation of the lance shattering into matchwood. Instead, there was a burst of light and the Imperator’s knee shattered in gobbets of flying flesh, bone and gristle. The Imperator gave the first scream of pain that Olaf had ever heard.
“Not good, not good,” gurgled Olaf as he desperately tried to roll the protective cylindrical vessel towards the Imperator. Spells went off all around him. A spell Olaf recognized as meteor swarm hit the Imperator point blank on the chest, and what seemed like half a dozen warriors fought their way forward through the wind to attack the Imperator’s ankles. Still grappled by the tentacle, the Imperator could do nothing. Where were the griffon riders? A dull thump sounded nearby, and a brilliant flash lit the air. Olaf looked up to see a second dead cloud giant strike the ground, and blinded giants and griffons staggering across the sky. Ah, he thought. That’s where they are. I never thought I’d say this, but I hope Zghelb hurries.
“I am here, my lord!” shouted Olaf. Still trapped in his protective cylinder, Olaf finally rolled close enough for one arm to reach out and touch his ruler’s bloody foot. He cast heal, and felt the Imperator throw off the tentacle that encircled him.
“Now!” screamed his Lord and Master, raising the massive sword that coursed with lightning. “Now!” The humans answered with a withering barrage of blows and spells. Olaf’s restricted view of the fight was narrowed even further when a green ray entered the narrow casting slot, quickly followed by a sphere of force that blocked him from any contact with the Imperator.
Olaf the Lame didn’t even have enough time to sing the traditional lament. It was only seconds before his lord and master fell, his leg literally chopped in two, his body weakened and burned by profane spells. The Imperator never even had a chance to swing his legendary sword Skyblood at his foes. As casually as if someone snapped their fingers, the king of the giants swayed, toppled. . . and died.
-- o --
“Empty,” yelled Velendo. He had to scream to get his voice to carry over the howling wind. Olaf the Lame was nowhere to be found, and the metal cylinder that had held him was empty. “He must have dispelled the dimensional anchor and teleported out somehow. The big guy wasn’t so lucky.” Velendo hooked a thumb at the massive corpse of the dead giant. The bodies of smaller giants lay where they had fallen out of the sky.
Suddenly, another massive boulder fell from the heavens. This one missed the temple by several hundred feet, but the impact was still enough to knock people off of their feet.
Malachite wiped rain-slick hair from his eyes and looked angrily up at the thunderhead above them. “We have unfinished business.”
Last edited:
the Jester
Legend
Awww yeah!!!
Please, PC, post his stats in That Other Place??
Thanks for the update!
Please, PC, post his stats in That Other Place??
Thanks for the update!
KidCthulhu
First Post
It sounds easy, but we had good tactics and great luck. Caustas was VERY bad news and the only reason someone isn't dead is that we managed to keep him from ever swinging that 30' sword. He rated to do enough damage with one blow to kill many of us. And, of course, he had multiple attacks. By maze-ing him and grappling him many bacons were saved.
Oh, and Olaf the lame is a dink and we hate him.
Oh, and Olaf the lame is a dink and we hate him.
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