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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sagiro" data-source="post: 129639" data-attributes="member: 726">Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 141d  Kibi, with no spells left that can penetrate the minor globe, decides to try out his Dwarven throwing axe.  He’s not much good with weapons, let alone thrown weapons, but the axe flies true, hitting the flinching Mokad and drawing blood.  Kibi is psyched.   On the other side of the battlefield, Ernie scoops up Flicker’s body and flies with it to safety – but is nearly killed himself by the enemy fighter’s attack of opportunity.  Then the woman in the breastplate steps forward to meet the approaching Step, shrugging off Thriss’ attacks.  Step meets her advance and swings his greatsword, but his swing is mostly blocked by the stoneskin.  Morningstar, having seen Kibi’s success in overpowering the enemy defenses, calls a flame strike down on Mokad and the halfling.  Mokad seems mostly uninjured by the blast, but the halfling collapses in a smoking heap.  Another one down!  Dranko catches a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye, just above pit in which the two dozen Black Circle priests continue their ritual.  "I think the force barrier may have just gone down!" he calls.Aravis decides to test the theory before wasting serious firepower.  He runs over to the nearest segment of the low circular wall and casts magic missile from his wand, aimed down at one of the priests.   The missiles strike the very-much-intact force barrier and are harmlessly deflected.  "Nope!"  Aravis calls.  "Still up!"  At least this use of the wand gets rid of his snaky hair.  In fact, it gets rid of his hair altogether.  For once, Pewter is happy to be bald.Kay lands near Morningstar, and while waiting to have her blindness cured, uses the healing power of her warhammer to undo some of the damage done by her adversary.  And then the cavalry arrives.  Four priestesses of Ell and eight of Cobb’s guards come running into the room, where they look around in awe at the enormous chamber.  Fortunately they were warned by Grey Wolf to avoid the lines of blue energy!The woman in the breastplate turns to Step, with a confident sneer that seems to say "next."  And she backs up the look, slashing at Step and landing four heavy and well-placed blows.  The paladin falls into a pool of his own blood.  Aravis sees Step fall, and pegs the fighter with a sonic bolt (a lightning bolt spell that does sonic damage rather than electricity).  Then he casts dimension door, appearing next to the unconscious Grey Wolf.Dranko whips Mokad again, and then tries to prevent his enemy from seeing Grey Wolf over his shoulder.  But Mokad sees, and it’s clearly dawning on him just what a danger Grey Wolf’s presence here represents.  He casts a horizontal blade barrier at shin height, over where Grey Wolf's body lies.  Aravis leaps backward, avoiding the whirling blades, but Grey Wolf, just regaining consciousness, is brutally slashed.  He grabs Edghar and runs as fast as he can out of the blade barrier feeling the magic slice his legs.Morningstar finally casts remove blindness on Kay, and shouts orders to her priestesses to either help Step or shoot ranged weapons at Mokad.   Kay, finally able to see, shoots arrows at the enemy fighter.  Kibi turns from Mokad and shoots the fighter with another fireball from Aravis’s wand.   The woman is still standing, and strides forward, eager to engage a new opponent.  Ernie stabilizes the unconscious and bleeding Flicker before flying back to see if Step is still alive.Aravis is not pleased with Mokad and his blade barrier.  Fuming, he levels his staff of earth and stone and casts passwall, opening up a pit beneath Mokad’s feet.  Mokad totters, lunges, falls into the 10-foot-deep pit, but just catches himself, hanging onto the lip by his fingers.   Aravis then turns and casts a second passwall, diagonally and downward toward the large pit in the center of the room.  He hopes to bypass the force "lid" and create an opening into the lower ritual chamber.  But the passwall is thwarted by another force wall; it seems that the entire space must be so shielded.Dranko, smiling, cracks his whip at Mokad’s exposed hands – and Mokad drops into the bottom of the pit.  The anti-life shell and minor globe still shield him.  But they don’t protect him from Kibi, who flies back over his pit and again flings his dwarven axe downward.  Still aided by Dranko’s bless spell, Kibi scores a direct critical hit, slicing deep into Mokad’s chest!  Mokad looks up, realizes the predicament he’s in, and casts a small wall of stone.  It creates a horizontal barrier about half-way up the pit, covering about two-thirds of the opening.  He steps back underneath it, shielded now from everyone’s line-of-sight, but still with an escape hatch should he want it. Grey Wolf, lying on the floor, drinks a healing potion but doesn’t stand up yet, not wanting to make a target of himself.  Morningstar, seeing the enemy fighter still moving forward, decides enough is enough.  She nails her with one final searing darkness, and the woman in the breastplate screams before finally falling dead to the ground.  Only Mokad now stands among their enemies, not counting the Black Circle priests in the pit below.  Those have not looked up, not taken any notice at all of any of the fight going on above their heads.  And the black energy still continues to flow, drawing the World Spheres ever closer to convergence.  begin April Fools False ContentSuddenly there is a tremendous tearing sound.  The World Spheres have lurched forward, and as the party looks on in horror, they meet directly above the large black circle on the ground, the cores overlapping in their center.  Grey Wolf is still alive, and not in the proper place!  He feels the churning in his guts become a terrible burning, and as the party watches helplessly, his body and soul are burned away as the Black Circle ritual reaches its terrible finale.  There is a deep shadow around him, followed by a sickening greenish glow, and then he is gone, with only a black vapor marking his passing.  And all around them in the room, enemy soldiers begin to appear.   One after another, dressed in spiked black armor, they step forward across the planar boundary from Volpos to Abernia.  In only a few seconds the room is full of them, all wielding cruel,  curved swords.   And then one last soldier appears, towering above them, red plate armor covering his body, a blood-red helm covering his face.  "We are here!," he exults.  "We have returned to Abernia, and this time we shall not be driven out."The Company realizes they are doomed, but some of them must get out to warn the Spire.  Kay, Kibi and Ernie, who are still flying, flee through the hole opened to the sky above the large pit.   Behind them they hear the sounds of battle, as the black-armored soldiers move in and overpower those remaining in the room.  For Dranko, Morningstar, Step and Flicker, the adventure has come to an untimely end.  And the others, fleeing through the air, see below in Kallor that every street is filled with black-armored soldiers, and even the countryside beyond is swarming with the enemy.   Some of the buildings in the southern parts of the city are already burning.Naradawk Skewn has come to Charagan at last.end April Fools False Content</blockquote>

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