Shackled City Epic: "Vengeance" (story concluded)
- Thread starter Lazybones
- Start date
Lazybones
Adventurer
Chapter 215
A large black dragon shot forward on beats of its powerful wings across the plain of ulcers, flying like an arrow toward the small group of adventurers.
Hodge, fumbling with the winch he used to load his heavy crossbow, exclaimed, “What is it with yer people an’ dragons?” His voice was tense, expressing the fear that they all felt even now, despite their experience, as the creature of countless legends and tales made real drew steadily nearer.
“We’ll need to bring it down to the ground, to have a chance,” Dannel said, his voice calm, Zenna’s crossbow cradled lightly in his hands. His words, even and in control, helped Zenna master the panic she felt fluttering in her gut.
It’s just a dragon, she thought. We’ve killed those before. “Spread out,” she warned them. “So it cannot get more than one of us at a time with its breath weapon.”
There was no cover, nowhere to hide.
“Well, now we know why there aren’t any beasts out here on the plains,” Morgan said, clutching his javelin tightly, though it looked as though the dragon was maintaining its altitude rather than diving toward them, which made even a strong cast unlikely to score a hit.
Zenna noticed something as it drew nearer. “It has spells up,” she warned, seeing the tell-tale glow of a magical shield.
“Leave that to me,” came Kaurophon’s voice. The sorcerer, of course, was nowhere to be seen.
Thinking that perhaps he had the right idea, Zenna paused to cast an invisibility spell upon herself as well.
Now that it was closer, they could all see it clearly, a sleek, graceful shape, with long horns jutting from its head, and wings that clutched the air and drove it forward. It wasn’t as large as she’d first thought, Zenna saw, with its body proper maybe nine feet long, with its long neck and tail, not to mention its broad wings, adding an illusion of size.
Still, it didn’t help ease the sudden rush of dragonfear that washed over her like a wave as it approached, gliding eighty feet above them, unleashing a roar that echoed over the plain. Zenna drew upon her well-honed discipline and the fear subsided, but she heard the cries of despair from several of her companions, and knew that the dragon’s fearful presence was having an effect.
But that didn’t stop them from pressing their attack.
Missiles rose up into the air as the dragon flew over them; bolts from Dannel, Mole, and Hodge, and a hurled javelin from Morgan. Zenna felt a brief moment of satisfaction as its shield wavered and faltered—Kaurophon’s early contribution to the battle—but even so the majority of the shots either missed the creature entirely, or stuck harmlessly in its hide. She thought that Hodge’s shot may have penetrated, a suspicion confirmed a moment later as the dragon’s head turned, seeking out the dwarf. Hodge tried to run, but could not escape as the dragon’s jaws opened, releasing a great gob of sizzling green acid. Hodge roared in pain as the acid splashed into the soft turf just behind him, splattering his body with the caustic gunk.
The dragon continued past and began a broad turn. As it began to draw away a small bead of flame rose up to meet it, exploding into a blazing fireball that engulfed the dragon. The beast flew out of the flames still intact, but Zenna thought it wobbled slightly, affected by the blast.
“All right!” Mole yelled. “Nice shot, Kaurophon!”
Indeed, Zenna thought. Another power he didn’t bother to share with us before...
“It’s coming around again!” Dannel said, watching as the dragon swung about in a leisurely arc.
“I’m all right... gah!” Hodge said, as Arun helped him up, healing some of the damage he’d taken. Zenna started toward the injured dwarf, but was captivated as the dragon finished its turn and started toward them again, its jaws opening again expectantly. Zenna noticed that it had renewed its shield.
“We need to bring it lower!” Dannel said.
“Here!” Hodge said, shoving his crossbow and a bolt into Arun’s hands, before pushing off and staggering out of the way, so that the two of them would not be caught together in another blast of acid. But there was no time to reload the weapon, as the dragon flew straight at them for another attack.
Zenna concentrated on the sky above. Calling upon her magic, she focused her thoughts on the swirling plasms...
A fat, amorphous plasm descended from the sky toward the approaching dragon. The creature saw it and instantly changed course, turning to the side and accelerating downward to avoid the threat. Once it got closer it quickly recognized that the plasm was merely an illusion, but it was too late to change its course now. As it flew over the companions for a second time, it searched the battlefield, looking for the invisible spellcaster who was proving such an annoyance. Zenna realized what it was doing and held her breath in fear, hoping that the dragon could not detect the sound of her heart pounding in her chest.
Several things happened at once. Another bolt from Mole and Morgan’s second javelin both struck its body and glanced off. Dannel had tugged a small object from the necklace at his throat and hurled it at the dragon. The sphere from his necklace of missiles struck the dragon on its shoulder, exploding into a small fireball that buffeted it roughly backward. But even as Dannel hurled his missile, the dragon unleashed another line of acid. It seemed to be a miss, landing far away from any of them, but then they heard Kaurophon’s scream of pain, and saw droplets of red mixing with the smoking green of the acid upon the turf.
But in the moment before he was struck, Kaurophon had also managed another attack. Streaming strands of adhesive webs appeared directly ahead of the dragon’s path. Without stable anchors, they quickly started to collapse in upon themselves, but then the dragon flew into their midst, and they snared on its wings, entangling them.
Dragonflight is not merely a product of flapping wings and physical strength; the mass of the creatures is too much for even their great wings to effectively lift. But likewise the magic that infused the drake could not alone keep it aloft, and although its strength and bulk instantly snapped dozens of the entangling strands, the dragon nonetheless could not avoid plummeting awkwardly to the ground. It managed to spread its wings enough to guide its fall, landing upon its hind legs with enough force that the companions, nearly a hundred feet away, could feel the ground tremble beneath them.
The dragon was injured, but still dangerous, and it turned toward the companions with a surging rage, tearing away the last strands of webbing clinging to it with an angry snap of its wings. Arun and Morgan were already charging toward it, and it moved forward to greet them, preparing its deadly claws and bite, its wings and tail, all its weapons ready to destroy.
Zenna was running toward it too, as her scorching ray had a much shorter range than the fireballs hurled by the others. I need to learn that spell, she thought to herself. She saw that the dragon and the two warriors were rushing toward each other, and added a mental shout, Let it come to you! Don’t charge into its full attack!.
To her surprise, as if they’d heard her, Arun and Morgan abruptly stopped their charge, and spread out to flank the dragon’s stampede.
The dragon didn’t hesitate, choosing Morgan as its target, spreading its wings to help carry it in a blazing leap that carried it over the final thirty feet that separated them. Its jaws snapped down in a powerful bite that would have torn the knight’s head from his shoulders, had it caught its target. But even though Morgan dodged back, the dragon’s wedge-shaped head slammed into his chest with the force of a battering ram, and he spun violently back, nearly losing his footing, his shining breastplate dented where one of the dragon’s horns had struck him.
Dannel ran toward the battle as well, but instead of rushing straight at the dragon, he came on in a wide arc to approach it from its rear flank. He was moving incredibly swiftly—his own preparations for the battle had included an expeditious retreat spell—and as he drew near, he tossed aside the spent crossbow, lifting Alakast in both hands.
Hodge, likewise, cautiously approached the dragon from the opposite direction. His spear gave him a long reach, but despite Arun’s healing his entire back felt aflame, and he knew all too well that he was not invincible. Still, the sight of Morgan and Arun rushing to meet the creature gave him courage, and he pressed forward, the spearhead bouncing slightly with each long stride.
Morgan held his ground against the dragon’s rush, stepping forward to swing his sword at its darting neck. The dragon’s shield rose up to block the descending stroke, and his blade flashed aside, utterly ineffectual.
But the knight’s assault gave Arun a chance to strike at its body without the benefit of the shield, and the dwarf’s stroke sliced deep into its flesh, the holy power within the blade eagerly cutting into the tainted fabric of the dragon.
The dragon instantly turned on this new adversary, unleashing a full assault upon him. Arun wrenched himself from the grasping claws, leaving glistening red on their dagger-like tips, and he stumbled as a wing buffeted him across the brow. Finally the dragon’s tail lashed around its body like a whip, stinging the dwarf solidly across his face. Blood spurted from his broken nose, and his face was a gory mask as he somehow regained his balance and lifted his sword in challenge.
“IS THAT THE BEST YOU GOT?” he screamed.
In response, the dragon roared, and opened its jaws wide to finish him.
A large black dragon shot forward on beats of its powerful wings across the plain of ulcers, flying like an arrow toward the small group of adventurers.
Hodge, fumbling with the winch he used to load his heavy crossbow, exclaimed, “What is it with yer people an’ dragons?” His voice was tense, expressing the fear that they all felt even now, despite their experience, as the creature of countless legends and tales made real drew steadily nearer.
“We’ll need to bring it down to the ground, to have a chance,” Dannel said, his voice calm, Zenna’s crossbow cradled lightly in his hands. His words, even and in control, helped Zenna master the panic she felt fluttering in her gut.
It’s just a dragon, she thought. We’ve killed those before. “Spread out,” she warned them. “So it cannot get more than one of us at a time with its breath weapon.”
There was no cover, nowhere to hide.
“Well, now we know why there aren’t any beasts out here on the plains,” Morgan said, clutching his javelin tightly, though it looked as though the dragon was maintaining its altitude rather than diving toward them, which made even a strong cast unlikely to score a hit.
Zenna noticed something as it drew nearer. “It has spells up,” she warned, seeing the tell-tale glow of a magical shield.
“Leave that to me,” came Kaurophon’s voice. The sorcerer, of course, was nowhere to be seen.
Thinking that perhaps he had the right idea, Zenna paused to cast an invisibility spell upon herself as well.
Now that it was closer, they could all see it clearly, a sleek, graceful shape, with long horns jutting from its head, and wings that clutched the air and drove it forward. It wasn’t as large as she’d first thought, Zenna saw, with its body proper maybe nine feet long, with its long neck and tail, not to mention its broad wings, adding an illusion of size.
Still, it didn’t help ease the sudden rush of dragonfear that washed over her like a wave as it approached, gliding eighty feet above them, unleashing a roar that echoed over the plain. Zenna drew upon her well-honed discipline and the fear subsided, but she heard the cries of despair from several of her companions, and knew that the dragon’s fearful presence was having an effect.
But that didn’t stop them from pressing their attack.
Missiles rose up into the air as the dragon flew over them; bolts from Dannel, Mole, and Hodge, and a hurled javelin from Morgan. Zenna felt a brief moment of satisfaction as its shield wavered and faltered—Kaurophon’s early contribution to the battle—but even so the majority of the shots either missed the creature entirely, or stuck harmlessly in its hide. She thought that Hodge’s shot may have penetrated, a suspicion confirmed a moment later as the dragon’s head turned, seeking out the dwarf. Hodge tried to run, but could not escape as the dragon’s jaws opened, releasing a great gob of sizzling green acid. Hodge roared in pain as the acid splashed into the soft turf just behind him, splattering his body with the caustic gunk.
The dragon continued past and began a broad turn. As it began to draw away a small bead of flame rose up to meet it, exploding into a blazing fireball that engulfed the dragon. The beast flew out of the flames still intact, but Zenna thought it wobbled slightly, affected by the blast.
“All right!” Mole yelled. “Nice shot, Kaurophon!”
Indeed, Zenna thought. Another power he didn’t bother to share with us before...
“It’s coming around again!” Dannel said, watching as the dragon swung about in a leisurely arc.
“I’m all right... gah!” Hodge said, as Arun helped him up, healing some of the damage he’d taken. Zenna started toward the injured dwarf, but was captivated as the dragon finished its turn and started toward them again, its jaws opening again expectantly. Zenna noticed that it had renewed its shield.
“We need to bring it lower!” Dannel said.
“Here!” Hodge said, shoving his crossbow and a bolt into Arun’s hands, before pushing off and staggering out of the way, so that the two of them would not be caught together in another blast of acid. But there was no time to reload the weapon, as the dragon flew straight at them for another attack.
Zenna concentrated on the sky above. Calling upon her magic, she focused her thoughts on the swirling plasms...
A fat, amorphous plasm descended from the sky toward the approaching dragon. The creature saw it and instantly changed course, turning to the side and accelerating downward to avoid the threat. Once it got closer it quickly recognized that the plasm was merely an illusion, but it was too late to change its course now. As it flew over the companions for a second time, it searched the battlefield, looking for the invisible spellcaster who was proving such an annoyance. Zenna realized what it was doing and held her breath in fear, hoping that the dragon could not detect the sound of her heart pounding in her chest.
Several things happened at once. Another bolt from Mole and Morgan’s second javelin both struck its body and glanced off. Dannel had tugged a small object from the necklace at his throat and hurled it at the dragon. The sphere from his necklace of missiles struck the dragon on its shoulder, exploding into a small fireball that buffeted it roughly backward. But even as Dannel hurled his missile, the dragon unleashed another line of acid. It seemed to be a miss, landing far away from any of them, but then they heard Kaurophon’s scream of pain, and saw droplets of red mixing with the smoking green of the acid upon the turf.
But in the moment before he was struck, Kaurophon had also managed another attack. Streaming strands of adhesive webs appeared directly ahead of the dragon’s path. Without stable anchors, they quickly started to collapse in upon themselves, but then the dragon flew into their midst, and they snared on its wings, entangling them.
Dragonflight is not merely a product of flapping wings and physical strength; the mass of the creatures is too much for even their great wings to effectively lift. But likewise the magic that infused the drake could not alone keep it aloft, and although its strength and bulk instantly snapped dozens of the entangling strands, the dragon nonetheless could not avoid plummeting awkwardly to the ground. It managed to spread its wings enough to guide its fall, landing upon its hind legs with enough force that the companions, nearly a hundred feet away, could feel the ground tremble beneath them.
The dragon was injured, but still dangerous, and it turned toward the companions with a surging rage, tearing away the last strands of webbing clinging to it with an angry snap of its wings. Arun and Morgan were already charging toward it, and it moved forward to greet them, preparing its deadly claws and bite, its wings and tail, all its weapons ready to destroy.
Zenna was running toward it too, as her scorching ray had a much shorter range than the fireballs hurled by the others. I need to learn that spell, she thought to herself. She saw that the dragon and the two warriors were rushing toward each other, and added a mental shout, Let it come to you! Don’t charge into its full attack!.
To her surprise, as if they’d heard her, Arun and Morgan abruptly stopped their charge, and spread out to flank the dragon’s stampede.
The dragon didn’t hesitate, choosing Morgan as its target, spreading its wings to help carry it in a blazing leap that carried it over the final thirty feet that separated them. Its jaws snapped down in a powerful bite that would have torn the knight’s head from his shoulders, had it caught its target. But even though Morgan dodged back, the dragon’s wedge-shaped head slammed into his chest with the force of a battering ram, and he spun violently back, nearly losing his footing, his shining breastplate dented where one of the dragon’s horns had struck him.
Dannel ran toward the battle as well, but instead of rushing straight at the dragon, he came on in a wide arc to approach it from its rear flank. He was moving incredibly swiftly—his own preparations for the battle had included an expeditious retreat spell—and as he drew near, he tossed aside the spent crossbow, lifting Alakast in both hands.
Hodge, likewise, cautiously approached the dragon from the opposite direction. His spear gave him a long reach, but despite Arun’s healing his entire back felt aflame, and he knew all too well that he was not invincible. Still, the sight of Morgan and Arun rushing to meet the creature gave him courage, and he pressed forward, the spearhead bouncing slightly with each long stride.
Morgan held his ground against the dragon’s rush, stepping forward to swing his sword at its darting neck. The dragon’s shield rose up to block the descending stroke, and his blade flashed aside, utterly ineffectual.
But the knight’s assault gave Arun a chance to strike at its body without the benefit of the shield, and the dwarf’s stroke sliced deep into its flesh, the holy power within the blade eagerly cutting into the tainted fabric of the dragon.
The dragon instantly turned on this new adversary, unleashing a full assault upon him. Arun wrenched himself from the grasping claws, leaving glistening red on their dagger-like tips, and he stumbled as a wing buffeted him across the brow. Finally the dragon’s tail lashed around its body like a whip, stinging the dwarf solidly across his face. Blood spurted from his broken nose, and his face was a gory mask as he somehow regained his balance and lifted his sword in challenge.
“IS THAT THE BEST YOU GOT?” he screamed.
In response, the dragon roared, and opened its jaws wide to finish him.
Lazybones
Adventurer
Heh, you can never have enough cliffhangers.Dungannon said:
The same way she always does... with verve and flair!
* * * * *
Chapter 216
A steaming hiss came from the dragon’s jaws as the dragon reared up before him, and Arun knew that a jet of acid was about to end his life.
But the dwarf’s companions had not been idle since their initial rush, and now they descended upon the creature with a violent fury.
Dannel and Hodge came at it from opposite flanks. Dannel leapt over a sweep of its tail as it swung back from striking Arun, and he thrust Alakast into the joint where its hind leg met its body, stabbing with it like a spear. Unfortunately, the dragon’s incredibly tough hide foiled the stroke, and the dragon, though both fearsome and evil, was not an outsider, and therefore not vulnerable to the staff’s special power.
On the far side, however, Hodge met with more success, puncturing the dragon’s hide with a thrust of his spear. The wound was not serious, but it was another tally upon the stamina of the dragon, which was clearly beginning to show the effects of its wounds.
A flare of red-hot flame washed over the head of the dragon, as Zenna unleashed her scorching ray. But instead of searing it, the flames flickered and died, their potency weakened by the magical resistances possessed by the creature.
Damn! she thought, noting clearly that while her own magic had failed to harm it, Kaurophon’s spells had penetrated its defenses earlier. At that moment, she took little solace in the fact that her path as a mystic theurge gave her increased flexibility with her magic, at a cost in terms of potency.
With the dragon momentarily distracted by the attacks upon it, Arun slashed at it again with his sword, but with the shift of the dragon’s attention so too did its shield come around, and the dwarf’s assault was turned harmlessly aside. Now it was the dragon’s turn, and Arun drew back, lifting his shield...
Acid blasted into him like water from a sundered dam. For an instant he was lost behind the flood, which flared out around the shield, forming a dense cloud of liquid and smoke that splayed out on the blasted landscape, turning it black wherever it landed. Then it was over, and as the smoke cleared, each of the companions started in horror.
Arun still stood, somehow, although his shield was gone, with bits of metal that had once been part of it smoking as they clung to his flesh where they had been seared into place. The dwarf’s left arm was a ruin, the bones of his fingers jutting out of his melted flesh. Streams of melted mithral ran like drops of water across his helm and greaves, his armor having barely held up against the deluge, protecting the vulnerable flesh beneath. It was clear that he hung onto consciousness by only the thinnest of margins, and his face was a mask of pain.
“Go... to... hell!” he croaked, lifting his sword again in defiance of the inevitable.
The dragon’s eyes widened slightly, perhaps, surprised that this foe somehow still stood in the face of everything it threw at him.
While it knew that even one more attack would end the resistance of this stubborn enemy, the dragon was starting to realize that it was in trouble. Blows slid off of its armored hide, but more got through, and pain tore through its body mercilessly. Morgan cut into its shoulder with a two-handed strike from his holy sword, releasing a searing jet of glistening black blood, and as it turned toward him a bone in its left forelimb abruptly and unexpectedly snapped, Mole’s tiny figure tumbling away as she made her voice felt in the melee. The dragon drew back, the dwarf’s defiance forgotten as it focused now upon escape. Fortunately it was still faster than these humanoids, and even though it felt another stabbing pain in its side as it burst from the circle of foes around it, it was clear, and lifting into the air with a powerful if painful leap.
And then the world around it was fire, and it was falling, falling...
Last edited:
Jon Potter
First Post
Lazybones said:
Umm.... Ow?
Broccli_Head
Explorer
That visual of Arun's arm made my own arm hurt!
good thing there's healing...way to take one for the team you Dwarven Tank!
good thing there's healing...way to take one for the team you Dwarven Tank!
Lazybones
Adventurer
It's funny, at the higher levels, based on my experiences both in Travels with 3.0, but especially here with 3.5e, you have to have a boatload of HP because the monsters will almost always hit. I mean, when they were battling that glabrezu, the damned thing had +18 or +20 on all of its attacks, and I think that the best AC in the party at the time was 21 or so. And the dragon is even better with +20s and a +25 for its bite. Who knows, maybe I'm being too stingy with the magic armor (although 90% of their loot comes directly from the modules). It does seem that in this series the authors almost assume that you are maxxed out with powergamer character builds and ideal gear loadouts for your level, based on the number of high EL encounters they put in.wolff96 said:Flavor text or a "1" on his reflex save? You decide.
Heh. Great fight, LB. Arun proves once again that AC isn't everything... unless you have the HP to back it up. (And Dwarven Toughness doesn't hurt either.)
Anyway, I do like to flavor the generic combat rules with the occasional creative effect. Back in my 1st ed. days, I was influenced by a Dragon article entitled "Good hits, bad misses" that had some truly insane crit/fumble charts. I remember being in a group that had a lot of characters missing a hand or an eye (nevermind the guy who shot a crossbow bolt into his own brain). I've since learned to tone it down, but I think that there should be an outside chance of something happening to you that won't kill you, but will leave a mark that "standard" healing can't easily fix. Such as when you roll a "1" on your reflex save and a black dragon burns your shield away with a gout of acid...
* * * * *
Chapter 217
The dragon was dead, falling to the ground with a loud thump, but the companions barely spared it a look, intent upon more immediate concerns.
“Arun!” Zenna cried, rushing over to him as he slumped to the ground, his ruined hand clutching at the air. Dannel quickly joined her, the melody of his healing song already issuing from his lips.
Zenna channeled her most potent remaining divine spell into healing magic, and the dwarf’s ragged breathing eased as the soft blue glow faded into him. Skin reformed over his fingers, but they remained stiff and unnatural, the damage done to them incapable of being healed without a greater intervention that they lacked here. As she worked Dannel pried the burned scraps of metal from his ruined shield from his exposed flesh, channeling his own healing into the blackened scars beneath.
Arun’s eyes remained fixed on her throughout their efforts. “Help me up,” he said to them.
“Arun...”
“Help me,” he commanded. It took both of them to assist him back to his feet.
“Are you all right?” Zenna asked Hodge, who’d come to stand behind them. The other dwarf nodded in response, though it was clear that he was still in a lot of pain.
“Help... me...” came a voice from behind them.
Zenna turned and looked up, and sucked in a breath.
Kaurophon looked better off than Arun, but the difference was not great. The sorcerer’s robes had been burned away in great swathes, revealing a sickly, mottled gray flesh underneath. He limped heavily, and she saw that each step left a footprint of blood in his wake.
Zenna walked over to him. “Hurry, woman!” the sorcerer hissed, pain clouding his normally even tone.
“Arun was more seriously hurt,” she said, increasing her pace, laying her hands upon him and summoning one of her remaining spells to ease his suffering. Kaurophon let out a deep breath as the healing spell took effect.
“My injuries still pain me,” he said. “Give me one of the healing potions, or a more potent curative, if you possess it.”
Zenna shook her head. “I will do what I can for you, but we must preserve our remaining potions against what lies ahead.” She started to concentrate on another minor healing spell, but the sorcerer’s angry retort cut her off.
“Without my aid, the dragon would have slain you, all of you!”
“We all fought together, and we all risked our lives,” Morgan said, coming to stand behind her. “Or perhaps you are starting to forget that, now that we draw near to our goal?”
With an obvious effort, Kaurophon mastered himself. He nodded to both of them. “Of course, forgive me,” he said. “It is only that my wounds... I am not accustomed to having the skin burned from my bones. I apologize for my outburst.”
“I will do what I can,” Zenna said, channeling more healing into him. “I will be able to do more tomorrow, after we rest.”
The sorcerer nodded.
Dannel had helped Arun wrap his damaged arm in cloth, Zenna saw. With nothing else to do here—even Mole did not suggest wasting time searching for the dragon’s lair—they gathered up their gear and set out once again.
At one point, Zenna glanced back at Kaurophon, and wasn’t all that surprised to see his robes intact once more, his body whole. She knew it was an illusion... and yet, could not forget the mottled, uneven flesh she’d seen beneath the ravaged robes, or the violence in his words. Had she seen the true man beneath his careful façade? Or had it just been the pain of his injuries, as he’d claimed?
With the fiery sky burning uninterrupted above them, they continued their journey toward the great skull, and the final Test of the Smoking Eye.
I've noticed this. Of course, the opposite problem can happen in humanoid heavy campaigns -- unless massively powered by magic weapons and armor, the PCs will always hit and almost never get hit in return.
This just isn't true. In my last game as a player, I was running a pure-class Dwarven Barbarian. He wore Enchanted Mithril Full-Plate and had a decent dexterity for such a character. He got lit up like a Christmas tree in every fight. I was totally dependent on my HP supply -- thank goodness for Dwarven Constitution. If not for the boatload of life I had, I would have died.
It doesn't matter how good your gear is or how min-maxed your abilities and classes are. High-level D&D is all about getting hit and taking it.
Lazybones
Adventurer
True... but we're also getting close to the point where a lot of saving throws are going to be made on R1 of a battle... and the outcome depends pretty heavily on those rolls. High level D&D with high-level spellcasters is like a very complex game of chess, with certain moves almost destined to make your life very unpleasant unless you have the right counter prepared (my favorite example is the forcecage spell). And, of course, in chess you can't buff your pawns.wolff96 said:It doesn't matter how good your gear is or how min-maxed your abilities and classes are. High-level D&D is all about getting hit and taking it.
Luckily the PCs will start dishing out those attacks as well as taking them, as Zenna nears the "sweet spot" of the Mystic Theurge PrC (i.e., character levels 11-16). And fortunately our heroes are finding LOTS of cloaks of resistance...
* * * * *
Chapter 218
It took the better part of a day to finally reach the skull. As they drew nearer, it became clear that the skull was huge, hundreds of feet in height, dominating the plains. The lantern continued to focus directly at its base, making it increasingly likely that whatever the nature of the third test, it lay somewhere within the huge construct. Above them, plasms roiled as they rose from the opening of the skull’s eye socket and drifted up into the sky above to join their brethren.
The ground near the base of the skull was bleached and lifeless, and instead of its usual springiness it crunched under their feet. White dust rose in a slight cloud with each step, but thankfully Occipitus lacked wind, so their approach was not limited as they reached the base of the huge mound and started around to the left, following the slender beam of light projected from the magical lantern.
“I cannot tell if this is stone or...” Arun said, running a hand along the pocked and weathered surface of the skull.
“Nothin’ here be natural,” Hodge growled.
Morgan had taken the lead, and none of them begrudged the knight the privilege. His face looked tight, his skin sunk against his skull, dark shadows gathered under his eyes. Zenna wondered if they all looked like that, bearing the mark of Occipitus clearly upon them. Of course, she could alter her appearance as she chose, with her magical hat, but it could not hide the reality beneath. She knew that her own frame was lean, every ounce of fat she’d been carrying burned away by the scanty food and hard exertion that they’d all experienced since coming here.
They spent the next quarter hour trudging around the base of the massive formation. Its sides near the base were sheer and almost vertical, making an exterior ascent a very dicey proposition. Fortunately, the lantern seemed to indicate an alternative, continuing to guide them around the skull, rather than inside it.
Finally, their course revealed a large ulcer pool ahead, in a depression that directly abutted the chalky white cliff of the skull. Lying on the ground directly in front of the pool, impaled by several spears, was a man.
“What in the name of the gods...” Dannel exclaimed, echoed by similar sentiments by several of the others.
They moved quickly ahead, wary for any signs of ambush. As they drew nearer, they could see that the staked victim was not a man at all, but an unusual creature that defied clear classification. Its faded gray wings were those of a celestial, but its lean, muscular body was marred with hundreds of intricate scars, obscene designs and fell runes hacked into its flesh by an obviously twisted mind. The spears holding it were thrust through its wings, pinning it, but it was clear that the creature had also suffered recent tortures, with fresh blood running down its body from numerous cuts and gashes in its naked torso.
As they drew nearer, the creature struggled against its restraints for a moment in a futile gesture to free itself, before sagging, unconscious.
“Saureya!” Kaurophon exclaimed, once he’d drawn close enough to see the dying figure’s face.
“You know him?” Zenna asked.
“He’s a fallen celestial... once a servant of Adimarchus!” the sorcerer explained.
“In a moment, he’s going to be a corpse,” Mole said, noting the blood oozing from his body, the faint trembling of his chest as his breath rattled in his throat.
Arun had already moved over to his side. With a heave he pulled the wickedly barbed spears out of the ground.
“Careful,” Zenna said. “He may be dangerous.”
“Fallen or not, I’ll not leave a creature to die like this,” Arun said, bending to channel enough divine energy into the celestial to stabilize him.
Morgan drew his sword, the pale light from the blade, highlighting the crannies of his face, giving him a sepulchral look. “If he is hostile, I will send him back to the pits,” the knight intoned.
Saureya stirred, his eyes opening slowly. He looked up at them, and then, slowly, ignoring the blood that jetted from barely-healed injuries at his motions, stood.
“Interesting,” he said.
“That’s all yer have ta say, after we save yer life?” Hodge asked. “No thank ye?”
“Thank ye,” the fallen celestial said. There was no life in his words, and barely a flicker of interest as he looked over them. “Greetings, Kaurophon,” he said, when he saw the sorcerer.
And then he turned to leave.
“Wait!” Dannel said, moving quickly to block his path. “We have questions. Who are you, and what happened to you?”
The fallen celestial regarded the elf for a moment, as if weighing his decision to answer. “I am Saureya,” he said. “As for... that,” he said, gesturing to the discarded spears and the blood smeared over the cracked ground, “That was the work of a rakshasa and a fire giant, who are trying to complete the Test of the Smoking Eye.”
“The Test!” Kaurophon exclaimed. “Have they gone inside the skull, then? How long?”
“Oh, not long, I’d imagine, or I’d have been dead when you encountered me.”
“What is the final test?” Morgan asked.
“That I’ll not reveal.” At Morgan’s darkening expression, Saureya continued, “And don’t think that you can coerce me to tell you, either. I’ve been worked by masters of the torturer’s art, well beyond whatever persuasions you could master. The rakshasa was a crude amateur, by contrast.”
“We’re not going to torture you,” Arun said. “We just want information about what we’re facing.”
“Ah,” Saureya replied. “Well, I will tell you this. The test has a flaw.”
“A flaw?” Dannel asked. Zenna looked at Kaurophon, but the sorcerer’s attention was fixed entirely upon the celestial.
“Yes. I helped Adimarchus design the Test, you understand. He did not want a native of the Abyss to succeed him as ruler of Occipitus, so he built in the restrictions to the first Test. But you don’t actually have to complete the steps in order, to overcome the challenge. Really, all you need is to confront the final Test; the difficulty is in finding it.”
“Inside, I would presume,” Arun said. He pointed to Zenna’s lantern, which had swiveled to direct its light straight into the bloody waters of the pool.
“We have to swim through that? Ewwww,” Mole said.
Saureya nodded. “I’d suggest you get to it, unless you all want to grow whiskers, once the rakshasa passes the Test.”
“What do you mean?” Zenna said.
“Oh, you don’t know?” Saureya said, with a notable glance at Kaurophon. “Whoever passes the Test and succeeds Adimarchus will have the power to shape Occipitus to his—or her—will. Places like this, islands of reality that don’t really fit in either to the higher or lower realms, are mutable. Over time, who knows what outcome will be revealed?”
“What happened to Adimarchus?” Arun asked.
The fallen celestial shrugged. “He left. I’m not really certain of his fate. Maybe he ran afoul of one of his demonic rivals; he and Prince Graz’zt were engaged in some covert clashes over the centuries. Or maybe he had some private agenda of his own to fulfill; Adimarchus was never one to be very revealing about his intentions.”
“And what of you, celestial?” Morgan asked. “You bear marks of great evil, and you seem barely to care what happens to you.”
“I don’t care. And do not lay your claims of shallow morality upon such as me. Coming from you, especially, I find them galling.”
Morgan’s sword came up fractionally, but Zenna stepped forward to stand between them. “What now, then?” she asked.
Saureya fixed her with a gaze that for a moment swallowed her up in its depths. So much was there... and for the briefest instant, she thought she felt some shred of understanding as to the depths of suffering that this being had experienced. Without even realizing what she was doing, she reached out, and her fingers brushed against the defaced copper skin of his chest. Saureya watched her without emotion, but deep inside, where only she could see, he flinched at her touch.
“I do not know,” he said, and for a moment she did not understand, only belatedly returning to the present, and remembering that she had asked him a question.
“It is never too late to change one’s path, even in the last instant, so long as the spark flares,” she told him. It was something that her mother—step-mother, she corrected herself, without rancor, this time—had told her once.
“Perhaps,” he said. He turned around, and without another look at them strode away, out into the shadowless plains of Occipitus.
Similar Threads
