Piratecat's Updated Story Hour! (update 4/03 and 4/06)

[Piratecat]

Imagine falling from a building. No need to be picky, any height over a few stories will do. You fall, and you hit the hard cobblestones outside, and you scream as your bones shatter into razor-sharp shards. It doesn’t kill you, though; oh no, that would be much too easy. Instead, you lie there on the paving stones and you feel those shards of bone grinding into your flesh every time you try to breathe, and you know it’s just a matter of time before the internal damage kills you. Or you could stop breathing. Your choice.

Now, imagine if this happens when you hadn’t eaten anything in four days, and you land in front of a gourmet restaurant where the smell of food sets you salivating, even as you taste your own blood inside the ruin of your mouth.

That’s what it’s like to be near the Ivory King.

-- o --

Disoriented and overcome by a sudden famished hunger, Tao scrambles to her hands and knees. She catches a sudden glimpse of her dirt-covered fingers. Those look so good, she thinks to herself. So tasty. Ladyfingers. She smothers a little laugh. But I have food with me, don’t I? Trail rations, and meat juice for the dogs. I can eat those. First. She gives a little shudder as she begins to franticly rip apart her belt pouches. She catches a glimpse of the Ivory King out of the corner of her eye, bulging naked fat with a crown of some sort of horns or antlers rising from his misshapen head, but other than a random thought – He looks like a portobello mushroom. A huge, delicious piece of fungus! – she pays him no heed.

The rest of the Defenders are also suffering from hunger and crippling pain, but unlike Tao they’re still able to concentrate on their surroundings. Galthia and Velendo close on Nolin, both of them lowering their spell resistance in preparation for a mass haste. Mara lurches forward, hoping that she too will be within range.

Nolin gets his balance and looks around. The entire group isn’t close enough to catch everyone in the spell, but with the Ivory King regaining his senses just a handful of yards away there’s no time to spare. Gritting his teeth against the pain in his joints, Nolin casts mass haste. Magical energy swirls around everyone except for Burr-Lipp and Stone Bear, who are both out of range, and Priggle, who is standing just ten feet from Nolin.

“Hey!” yells Priggle. “You forgot to include me!” Nolin spins around, surprised.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Priggle,” he explains. “I didn’t see you there.”

“Of course not,” grumbles Priggle to himself. “Everyone forgets the deep gnome. Why not? Not like I can help. It’s always the same. . .” His voice trails off as Nolin casts a flame strike on the Ivory King. The pillar of phoenix-born fire is shrugged off by layers of smoking fat.

The Ivory King’s beady eyes narrow to slits as he regards the fiery bard with contempt. Nolin gives him a weak smile, eyes watering from pain, and shouts back over his shoulder. “Tao, it’s great to see you. What are you doing?”

“I’m eating!”

“Is now really the time for a snacky cake?”

Velendo is pulling his shield up in front of himself. “Tao, don’t eat. Attack the bad guys!” His voice is tinged with frustration.

“Mmmm hmmm,” Tao nods enthusiastically as she shoves dried fruit into her mouth with both hands. “Eating!”

Velendo squeezes his temples with the knobby fingers of one hand, feeling the same hunger himself but fighting it down with sheer force of will. “Eating. Right.” He sighs. Cruciel flexes in his shadow beneath him, poised to leap forth and block Velendo from harm.

Malachite hefts his sword Karthos and takes a step forward. The Ivory King is now licking his gaping maw with a long, oily tongue as he sizes up the situation. His pasty white skin smokes slightly as the light of Aeos falls upon it. “I have to close with him,” Malachite warns Velendo. “I have to be the one to kill him.”

“I have to close with him,” announces Mara stridently in bell-like tones. “I want to hit him!” She summons the power of her God to create a sacred shield of sunlight around herself and anyone nearby.

“First things first,” chortles the Ivory King wetly. He regards Nolin with distaste. “Soder is so infatuated with you. To tell you the truth, I can’t see it. You are.. abrasive.” His wide, lipless mouth wrinkles.

In a rare show of humor for Galthia, the githzerai says, “You just haven’t taken the time to get to know us.” A half-smile plays across his long face.

“Let’s fix that.” His mouth gapes open to inhuman wideness as his dripping tongue shoots out at lightning speed. Galthia takes a swing as it flashes past in front of him, but even he isn’t fast enough to impede its progress. The barbed tongue slams into Nolin’s left leg and knocks him upside down, even as it yanks him over 20 feet of rubble into the ghoulish king’s waiting maw.

"Oooof!"

Gl’Yuute’s filth-encrusted teeth snap down on Nolin’s leg, flashing with black energy that saps every bit of the bard’s muscular control. Nolin can still speak, but his entire body goes limp from paralysis. The Ivory King’s prehensile tongue then flips Nolin into the air as easily as if he were a child. The ghoul tries to catch the bard’s head fully in his mouth. He misses, sinking his long dagger-like teeth into the bard’s shoulder instead.

“Did I say you were abrasive?” croons the Ivory King. “I was wrong. You’re so very, very sweet.” The voice is low, intimate. “I think it’s the phoenix.”

Nolin gasps for breath and gains just enough control to cluck his tongue disapprovingly. “You know, you could use a breath mint,” he confides in a mock helpful voice. His eyes flash with anger and disdain, and maybe even pride. “I may die here, but I’ll go to my death knowing one thing: my mother loved me.”

The ghoul’s teeth grind together in utter hatred. One of his two spindly arms snakes into the rolls of fat on his body and pulls something out. It isn’t clear exactly what, but both Velendo and Agar’s magical vision see a screen of abjuration magic flash into being around the Ivory King.

“Look out!” yells Agar. “He has some sort of protection up!” Mara briefly considers dispelling evil on it, but reasons that the magic item triggering the abjuration probably wouldn’t be affected by her spell. She leaps atop Luminor and nudges him forward. The winged horse easily hurtles a gaping pit in the wrecked mansion’s broken floor, launching Mara right alongside the Ivory King. She reaches out, smashes her holy mace Lightbinder downwards. . .

And it caroms off the side of a cube of force. She catches Nolin’s eye as Luminor skids past, and with a sinking heart Mara realizes that her powerful blow hadn’t even scratched the force wall.

“Oh, crap,” she says quietly.

To be continued...

 

[Piratecat]

We were in 3e at the time... and really, if you want privacy you can't go wrong with full attack --> Improved grab --> grapple, followed by using your hasted partial action to activate a cube of force.

Not to give any spoilers, but it's not necessarily Nolin I'd worry about right now. . . things are about to get messy.

 

[Piratecat]

Just out of wonder, what effect did you rule that the Light of Aeos had on the Ivory King? I can imagine the light would utterly destroy any lesser zombie within its effect, but the Ivory King is far from any mere lesser zombie.

The big advantage of the light is that it keeps away the negative energy. Most of Nacreous is like being on the negative material plane; inside Imbindarla's body, it was like being in the really nasty part of the negative material plane. Even with protective spells on them, the Defenders would have to roll a quite difficult spellcraft check in order to successfully cast any spell or ability involving positive energy or healing.

Velendo has a spellcraft of something like +8. The paladins aren't much better. This would have been a disaster.

By moving the fight into the light, they VERY cleverly completely eliminated this penalty. They also removed the negative energy bath that was continually healing the Ivory King (and every other ghoul in the city.) Once he was moved into the sunshine, his fast healing pretty much vanished. To quote one of my players, that doesn't suck.

I would have laughed my ass off if someone had just hit the king with a Mords Disjunction right away.

Actually, it wouldn't have made too big a difference. It would have gotten rid of the cube of force, which is always nice, but his crown of horns is an artifact and he doesn't have a whole lot of other items or spells active on him.

Wolfspirit, thank for catching the typo; I knew something was odd about that sentence.

 

[Piratecat]

Malachite eyes the Ivory King, trapped in his cube of force. “How big is the cube, Agar?”

“Only ten by ten! He fills it completely.” And indeed, the grotesque flab of undead presses against an invisible barrier along the edges. Nolin's paralyzed body is being balanced on the Ivory King’s chest like some sort of living bib.

“Then I’m not going to be able to dimension door in with my cloak.” He frowns, and with no other enemy in sight begins to pray as he slides the sword Karthos into the holy light of Aeos’ afterimage. The sword almost hums in satisfaction, and begins praying itself.

“Proty, go!” The amorpheous blob of tentacles rises from Agar’s arm and darts over to Tao’s head. She makes a half-hearted grab at it in case it’s food, but Proty settles onto her face in a smothering embrace and lets off a dispel magic that Agar had previously imbued in him. The result could hardly have been better, starting at her head and rippling like invisible heat waves down to her feet, and in the process it completely strips away any obsessive hunger that the divine agent may be feeling.

Tao lifts her head, eyes hard. She stares at the Ivory King who is in the process of eating one of her oldest friends. “Naaah umh maa. . .” She spits out the dry food filling her mouth, scattering it into the rubble. “Now I’m mad.” Standing, she draws both swords.

Meanwhile, Agar casts exploit weakness. For everyone near him, the minor weaknesses in the Ivory King’s defenses now become glaring gaps, and the group struggles over the rubble to launch a series of attacks against the cube of force.

“Damn it!” mumbles Velendo, trying to remember. He had been taught about cubes of force once, in a lecture about magical walls and how to cast them. That was long ago, though, and he hadn’t been paying attention. He pushes past the overwhelming pain in his joints and dredges up what little he can recall. “It’s a force wall, but I think we can drop it with enough damage. Hit it as hard as you can!” The group moves into position around Nolin and the Ivory King, carefully picking their way through the unstable rubble as they array themselves strategically.

“One thing’s nice, at least,” says Priggle as he peers out into the darkness, grasping his pick with one calloused and shaking hand. “Most of the ghouls had been heading for the body. I think the only way anyone knows we’re over here is from the flame strike. With luck, it might take them a little while to reach – ”

There’s a flash overhead as something teleports in. The creature is huge, and horribly familiar: the animated corpse of the earth dragon that the group fought in Mrid, the one that ate Mara’s mace. Much of its stony flesh has begun to rot, and it carries three ghouls on its back. The most terrifying thing about the dragon isn’t its nature or its passengers, though. The most terrifying thing about it is that its eyes are glowing a lambent yellow.

“Hello, everyone!” hisses a jubilant Soder. “Welcome to my home!” It winks one huge yellow eye at the Ivory King, mutters something, and time. . . freezes.

He had been appalled that the trap of luring the group up to the Goddess’ head had failed. Poised there invisibly with his best troops, Soder had been so sure that they’d make an irrestible temptation. Ah, well, there’s no accounting for Nolin’s ingenuity. Once Soder had realized that the living adventurers had somehow dragged His Highness up onto the shattered remains of Bone Hill, and released the light of that blasted surface God in the process, he’d almost cheered at their good tactics. They’d still have to die, of course, but it’s always fun rooting for the underdog.

Ah, good, Nolin is safe with His Majesty. No pointing in pulling any punches, then. What would be the most fun? Oh, yes! How about reverse gravity, followed by one. . . no, two delayed blast frost spheres? Yes, that’d be perfect. And finish up with a cheery little spell turning? Yes, ideal. Then cancelling the reverse gravity for an extra soupçon of pain. Now, to work!

It’s so nice to see Nolin and the group here. He hoped they liked his new body, crafted just with them in mind, and found Nacreous as homey as he did. He’d even had some of the ghouls learn a few of Nolin’s favorite songs! Hopefully, there’d be time later for a concert, or an impromptu serenade. The bard and his friends couldn’t help but be impressed.​

Time restarts, and half the group are yanked upwards off their feet into the air. As they dangle there, two pulsing spheres of dark blue light explode into killing cold and jagged ice. Some of the group manages to twist out of the way of at least one of the explosions; Cruciel shields Velendo with her own body, and Mara’s sacred aura helps protect Luminor from the worst of the damage. Even Agar is partially shielded by a fallen pillar of skulls. The only person caught totally out in the open is Malachite. He’s flung into the air and is almost parallel with both icy spheres when they simultaneously explode into jagged fragments of frost. Both icy explosions tear through him simultaneously, and the hunter of the dead is partially frozen solid by the time his body crashes down onto the broken floor tiles below.

When he hits, part of his frozen skin shatters from the impact, then begins to melt in the warm sunlight emanating from Aeos’ afterimage. There’s no question that the paladin is dead. Mara’s face turns dead white, and Velendo darts forward to the corpse in dismay.

“Ahhh. Hunter of the Dead? Go hunt yourself. Now that’s good old-fashioned craftsmanship.” Comfortably ensconsed in the dragon’s undead flesh, Soder feels the warm glow of a job well done. “Who’s next?”

Eyes wide, Agar lets out a horrified scream. He points his finger at Soder and casts maze. The spell unerringly bounces back, strikes Agar, and flings him bodily into an interdimensional maze of force.

The Ivory King twitches, and six other spindly arms slither out of his noisome bulk. All eight arms hold Nolin upright as he prepares for another bite. “Did you see?” whispers the ghoul into Nolin’s ear. “Isn’t it beautiful?

To be continued...

 

[Piratecat]

90-odd points of damage on two failed saves, plus falling damage? When you're already injured that can really catch your attention. I think it left Malachite at -30 or so, somewhat surprising us all.

Now if anyone ever asks you the riddle "What goes Oooph! boom-boom-clatter-shatter-tinkle-blarg?" , you'll already know the answer.

 

[Spatzimaus]

And those of you who had "Maachite" on your list for the Death Pool can now do the Dance of Superiority.

"Numfarr! Do the Dance of Superiority."

For those of you wanting to see all of the Death Pool guesses, go to post #858, dated 4/23/04:

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showpost.php?p=1499923&postcount=858

Malachite was BY FAR the most common guess for death, with 11 different people selecting him. (Me being one.) Considering the fight was eleven months ago (10/23/03?) and the Death Pool (revised) was five months ago (4/23/04), we must be psychic... err wait, can you be psychic if you correctly predict an event that's already happened?

 

[Piratecat]

Hmmm, I'd have expected him to be quite loaded with magic items and decent spells. And on this level relieving someone of his burdensome 8-9th level protection spells is always nice.

No, it was Soder who was loaded down with pre-cast spells; he had several minions casting preparatory spells on him for several rounds before he teleported over to the top of the bone hill. In comparison, the Ivory King was hoping that he'd get a nice, relaxing evening of devouring his dead mother and achieving full godhood. Anyways, he doesn't especially need lots of buffing spells.

He's the King of the Ghouls for a reason.

Did I miss why they're so (self-censored) fixated on Nolin?

Well, the Ivory King chose Nolin as his first target because the bard had the temerity to insult him down inside Imbindarla's stilled heart. Nolin just wouldn't shut up, and frankly Gl'Yuute was getting tired of hearing about him from his advisor.

And Soder? Hard to say. Maybe it's Nolin's phenomenal charisma, and Soder's his biggest fan. That's probably as good a reason as any. But it's definitely one of those unhealthy, stalk-him-to-his-house, keep-calling-and-hanging-up, animate-undead-so-you-can-be-near-him, first-teen-crush kinds of obsession. Not something you'd probably want to encourage.

 

[Piratecat]

Question: On average, how many hours a day do you spend thinking about your game, PC?

Hmmm. Assuming I'm not actually running a game that day or writing story hour (curb the obvious jokes, you!), maybe half an hour or less. I'll often plot while I'm taking a shower, walking the dogs, or falling asleep. That's about it unless I have some heavy-duty prep to do.

For instance, for this fight I borrowed a box of huge wooden dominoes from my buddy Blood Jester's wife. Using those and a cardboard box, I constructed a pretty intricate ruined building with different levels, a pit, and barely standing pillars holding back rubble. Then I took one of Fiery Dragon's fantastic creatures from their Counter Collection, shrunk it from 15'x15' to 10'x10' on a color copier, and used that to represent the Ivory King. Soder was represented by a neat little plastic dragon I got at a toy store. Prep and contingency planning for this fight took quite some time. . . and of course most of it all got tossed, because the players totally buffaloed me when they moved the fight into the Godlight. Bastards.

 

[Piratecat]

“I’m something of a gourmand,” confesses the Ivory King in burbling, conversational tones. “For instance, you’re familiar with goose liver pate. I’ve always been curious about stuffed phoenix liver pate.” He lifts Nolin’s helpless body and takes a huge bite out of his belly, spilling internal organs from the terrible wound.

Instead of screaming, Nolin starts to sing. His voice begins weakly but gains strength, and each of his friends hears the song resonate over the mindlink.

“Pray your gods who ask you for your blood
For they are strong and angry jealous ones
Or lay upon my altar now your love
I fear my time is short
There are armies moving close
Be quick, my love”​

Elsewhere, Agar hangs in silvery null-space, gazing in wonder at the 3-D maze of translucent force walls that completely surrounds him. He thinks about moving, and the whole maze instantly swivels and reorients itself to him instead of him reacting to it. “Oh, that’s neat!” he tells Proty, who is still perched on his shoulders. “This is what my maze looks like!” He studies the incomprehensible tangle of force planes for a few seconds. “I must be getting slow, little guy. This is easy.” As Agar concentrates, the maze begins to whirl and slide around him. Walls speed in, turn abruptly, and recede even as new walls slide forward to take their place. Proty gurgles. “I know it’s fun, but Malachite is dead and Nolin is trapped.” Agar bites his bottom lip hard enough to make it bleed, but he doesn’t notice. “We have to hurry.”

Velendo is the first to reach Malachite, turning over the body with a shaking hand and recoiling from what he sees. He glares upwards at the flying dragon. Ignoring the jabbing pain in his joints, he lowers his heavy shield onto the paladin’s chest. Cruciel takes his hand, and he can feel the soul of Morak murmuring to him from inside the shield.

“Calphas,” Velendo begins, “I know normally that you can’t bring someone back to life unless you’re in a holy and purified place. But I‘m standing in the blessed light of your divine uncle, and I’ve got an angel on one hand and a saint on the other, and I ask so that I can slay a really horrible enemy. I’d really appreciate it if you’d let this work.” And before he can get hit by one of the arrows now beginning to blindly skitter in from the approaching ghoulish troops, he utters a prayer and thrusts his hands deep into Malachite’s chilly torso. The knight’s soul hasn’t had time to even leave the flesh and enter the sunblade Karthos; Velendo’s fingers catch it, smooth it, slide it back into place, and warm it just enough to grant the spark of returning life. Frozen lungs take a single, anguished breath. . . and a delighted Velendo casts mass heal on Malachite and anyone else nearby. Blocked by the cube of force, the healing energy doesn’t reach Nolin.

Flesh heals. Ice melts. Consciousness returns. And Malachite sits up.

“What happened?” he asks in confusion. As if by reflex, Karthos slides across the rubble from five feet away and sockets itself in Malachite’s outstretched hand. “I feel terrible.” He looks down and examines the huge rents in his emerald surcoat as he fights off dizziness.

“That’s hardly surprising,” answers Velendo drily. “You just died.” Malachite looks at him and raises an eyebrow. “I brought you back,” the old priest clarifies. “You hadn’t gone very far. Now get up and let’s save Nolin and kill our enemies.”

Malachite forces himself to his feet. “Died?” he asks himself, half in doubt. He looks over to the cube, where Galthia and Stone Bear and Mara and Priggle are all beating on the force walls with all the strength they can muster. The sound of their blows echoes dully, like hammers on solid lead. Then his eyes follow the bullywug Burr-Lipp as he launches himself off a pillar with his harpoon clutched in both hands. While still in mid-air the frog throws it at Soder, hoping to impale the undead dragon. Instead the harpoon bounces off, and Burr-Lipp lands awkwardly on the rubble below.

“Damnation,” intones the bullywug mentally. “I am glad to see you not carrion, Malachite.”

“Me too.” He totters forward as the three ghouls on Soder’s back leap off the dragon onto rubble below.

“I’ve got them,” calls Galthia. The githzerai looks at the impenetrable cube of force and the Ivory King with disgust before nimbly leaping up the rubble onto what was once a roof. The three ghouls await him eagerly. Above them, Soder chants through a series of incantations, and a huge clenched fist the size of an elephant appears in the air over the rubble-strewn battleground.

“You know,” sighs Priggle, “that can’t be good.”

“Move!” yells Cruciel as she grabs Velendo by the shoulder and swings him around behind her.

WHAM! The fist slams down with enough force to send broken pillars toppling. All of the Defenders targetted by it manage to leap at least partially out of the way, which probably saves their lives. The fist rises once again, positioning itself for another devastating attack, even as Cruciel tests to see if her wings were broken. Untouched behind her, Velendo’s face is a study of guilt and worry.

“I’m all right,” she says in her voice like silver trumpets. She pulls him back once more, blocking an incoming arrow with a sweep of her shield. Her teeth flash in the sunlight as she catches and holds Velendo’s gaze. “I’m all right,” she repeats with a little smile. “This is why I’m here.”

Suddenly Agar and Proty rematerialize next to them. “See?” Agar is saying. “Easy!” he looks up and lets loose a low whistle. “Wow, crushing fist of spite! That’s a rare one! I’ve never actually seen it used!”

“Agar!” yells Tao in delight. “I thought you were disintegrated!”

“No, but that’s a pretty good idea.” His brow furrows when he sees the yellow glow of Soder’s eyes hovering above him in the darkness, surrounded in Agar’s true seeing by more than a dozen magical auras. “I know how spell turning works, you jerk, and I can see the spell on you. First something to burn off the remaining power. . .” He throws a lightning bolt that rebounds and is negated by Agar’s own protection spells. “And then another maze. See ya.” Work this time come on please work work work work. . . Soder blinks out of existence, and across the battlefield Malachite gives a congratulatory cheer.

Agar spins around. “You’re alive!”

“Now I am. Come on, we need to help Nolin.” They look over, and blood is pouring down the bard’s front and into the greedy, open mouth of the Ivory King. Somehow, Nolin is still singing.

“I feel my body weakened by the years
As people turn to gods of cruel design
Is it that they fear the pain of death
Or could it be they fear the joy of life”​

“Stop that, damn you!” One of the Ivory King’s arms brushes at his tiny ears. The sound of Nolin’s voice has somehow grown louder, and now it carries over the impact of warriors hammering apart the cube of force.

“We’re not letting that thing descend again,” spits Velendo. He casts a flexible wall in such a way that it provides a ceiling over most of the battlefield, then turns and heals Cruciel. Seconds later, the crushing fist of spite smashes down once again directly over Velendo. This time it is wholly deflected by the wall.

“Good job, but we still need more support,” decides Agar. Throwing his mind out into the far reaches of the earth, he calls an elder earth elemental to him. Channelling it through a tiny section of the far realms is simplicity itself for the alienist, and the elemental arrives with earthen tentacles squirming.

“Break open that cube,” directs Agar, and the pseudonatural elemental turns its full attention on the task. Above it, Galthia is closing on the three ghoulish archers who have settled on the remains of the mansion’s roof. Actually, two are archers, and one is surrounded by dozens of small silver spheres. By the time the monk completes his climb, he has at least one arrow sticking out of his upper arm.

“I’ve heard about you people,” the ghoul surrounded by the floating spheres hisses to Galthia. It was once a ratlike skaven before it became an undead. “I’ve waited for a chance to see what you’re made of. Today should be a holy day. If you're going to interrupt it, at least we can make you holy too.” Overly amused by its own pun, the ghoulish ratman propels five of the silver spheres towards Galthia in a blazing array of silvery death. Galthia tries to deflect the first but he's too slow, and four of the five slam into his body. Galthia can actually feel the first sphere, psionically impelled, squirming deeper into his body. Blood sprays out, but the githzerai does his best not to even flinch. Instead, he smiles at the ghouls in front of him.

“My turn.” He focuses his ki and his hands move faster than the ghoul can follow. It tries to move the silver spheres into a makeshift shield, but Galthia’s fists punch right through it. A few of the silver spheres drop to the ground as the undead is reminded what a shattered collarbone feels like. Behind him, a leaping Burr-Lipp takes down one of the archers.

The force walls are now vibrating every time they’re hit. Tao glances at Nolin, blanches, and realizes that Stone Bear and Priggle are better at weakening the cube than she is; song or no, Nolin doesn’t have much time left. Tao doesn’t have much connection with the Goddess of Nature this deep underground, but a minute previously she had been patrolling a forest path in the shadow of sacred trees. She casts negative energy protection on herself just to be safe, moves farther into the sunlight, and rips open a gate in the fabric of time and space.

“Evergreen! Servant of my Goddess, I call you!” The sunlight of dappled shadows under tall trees shines from the magical gate, but no angel immediately appears. Behind Tao, Stone Bear hammers on the cube as hard as he can. It vibrates like glass but doesn’t break.

Nolin’s song rings out, loud and sweet and terribly, terribly sad.

“Pray your gods who hold you by your fear
For they are quick and ruthless punishers
Or lay upon my altar now your love
I fear my day is done
There are armies moving on
Be quick, my love”​

Velendo looks up to the horribly injured Nolin, realization dully setting in. “Goodbye, Nolin. Burn him good!”

The Ivory King raises Nolin up and opens his mouth. “Yammer, and yammer, and yammer. Do you never cease prattling?”

Nolin manages to twist his head enough to look the ghoul in his beady, black eyes. Whatever the Ivory King sees in Nolin’s face, it seems to shake him. “I’m telling you the truth. The only thing in the world to live for is love, and you’ll never know it. Which is why you’re going to try to rule the undead, creatures that don’t know how to love, and you’re going to fail.”

The Ivory King looks aggrieved. “One last chance, for the sake of my Advisor. You may surrender and submit to me.”

The bard’s voice is firm. “Never.” The ghoul’s jaws gape. Over the mindlink, Nolin thinks, “It’s been interesting, guys!” Oddly enough, his thoughts sound full of hope and anticipation, and he finishes the song.

“Dona nobis pacem, pacem
Dona nobis pacem et in terra pax
Grant us rest and on earth peace.”​

His voice never falters.

Velendo’s throat catches. “See you on the other side, Nolin.”

Agar yells, “You tell him, Nolin!”

The Ivory King closes his jaws around Nolin’s head.

And Nolin dies.

“God damn it,” Malachite says to himself, taking in a deep breath. Mara chokes back a sob.

Velendo’s voice is tiny in the tumult. “Go with Calphas’ blessing, Nolin.”

Behind his protective screen, the Ivory King lifts his decapitated trophy and deliberately sticks his questing tongue down Nolin’s neck. He’s clearly smiling.

“My comrade, gone, gone” says Galthia. “How soon before the phoenix awakens and the firestorm takes effect?”

Tao’s face is grim. “Instantaneously. And there’s no room in there to dodge.”

Smoke abruptly rises from the corpse, and the Ivory King suddenly stops looking insufferably smug. He desperately tries to remove his tongue from the corpse, to fumble in his rolls of fat for the controls to the cube of force, to escape.

Too late.

The group stands transfixed as Nolin’s transient flesh boils away to expose a radiant gold and red phoenix. Revealed in her glory for the first time in years, Rides The Sun’s wings batter at the sides of the cube before wrapping tightly around the large white flabby flesh of the Ivory King. Then the whole area goes incandescent. It’s as if the sun itself has been kindled within the cube, and everyone but Stone Bear, Mara and Malachite must turn their eyes away from the glare.

There’s a silent scream, like water being boiled out of a dry kettle. The cube is an inferno of fire.

Galthia shakes his head in satisfaction. “At least in death he got retribution.”

“Yes,” agrees Agar in a hitching voice. Proty keens.

Nolin’s holy fire shatters the remaining structural integrity of the cube, and Stone Bear recoils from the sudden heat even as the flame passes away. Although no one else can hear it, his death spirit guide Elder offers words of condolence to the shaman. It’s just death. Do not worry. I am with you. I am with you, closer now than I ever have been before. Kill the thing, and I will help. I am coming to you.

"Uh, sure." Stone Bear grits his teeth. This is what you get for fighting near the Goddess of Undeath. “I think we’ll let Malachite actually kill the thing. We’ll just help.”

He turns back towards the Ivory King, still screaming, standing in Nolin's ashes and wreathed in flame.


To be continued...

Quote of the night: Nolin (preparing to roll his retributive firestorm upon death): “May I have some more dice, please? I only have 19.”

 

[Naathez]

...
Nolin's dead.

While I try to let this sink in...

Piratecat, thank you for finding the time to let us know of the fantastic adventures of the Defenders of Daybreak.

People , all of you, Velendo Mara Malachite , Stone Bear, all of you. Thank you for showing us what this hobby we all love is ALL ABOUT.

Kidcthulhu... I don't know if you cried when Nolin died. I did.

but thanks for bringing us all in at your table, people.

Now go fry that fatstser, and let me grieve.

From bard to bard, Nolin - you'll be missed.