Shackled City Epic: "Vengeance" (story concluded)
- Thread starter Lazybones
- Start date
Padril
First Post
Your right, that is a cliffhangerLazybones said:Nah, that's not a cliffhanger.
THIS is a cliffhanger...
One other thing, could you let me know your email address since I seem to have lost it and I have something to send you. If you don't want to put it on the board mine is padril_estel at yahoo dot co dot uk
Padril
Lazybones
Adventurer
It's a full-fledged Glabrezu.monboesen said:
* * * * *
Chapter 185
Nabthatoron, the glabrezu lord of the Demonskar, had arrived to take matters into its own hands.
Zenna felt her gut clench with sick horror as she looked up into the utterly alien face of the demon. Her legs barely responding to her commands, she stumbled backward, unable to break away from that unholy stare. Almost casually, the demon swung one massive pincer-claw at her. The movement broke the spell of immobility, and she dodged back just as the pincer closed on where her neck had been a moment earlier. Still, the edge of the claw clipped her body with the force of a battering ram, and she was knocked roughly sprawling, rolling to a stop before one of the pillars on the far side of the room, her entire body throbbing in a medley of shooting pains.
Dannel fitted an arrow to his bow and without hesitation fired. The long shaft struck true, hitting the demon in the chest between its two protruding short arms, but the arrow’s tip barely penetrated its thick hide, and the impact appeared to cause it no damage.
“Puny,” the demon hissed. It spoke a word of power, and chaos filled the room.
A storm of multicolored, flashing, darting energy exploded throughout the chamber. Zenna, struggling to get up, felt a brief twisting sensation as her equilibrium faltered under the force of the demon’s chaos hammer, but she focused her will and it soon faded.
Unfortunately, Morgan, Alek, and Arun, each dedicated to the precepts of Law, were not so resistant to the dark power’s effects.
Alek and Morgan both screamed as the chaos storm tore through them, overwhelming their senses. The two men stumbled apart, each fighting just to stay standing. A few paces away, Arun gritted his teeth and weathered the worst effects of the blast. Beside him, Hodge grunted but likewise the hammer washed over him without the dramatic effects it’d had upon the Helmites. Dannel and Mole were unaffected, and the gnome had already started moving around the perimeter of the room, looking for an opening—although her hands shook when she looked up at the demon, and she wondered what her pathetic little mace could do to such a thing.
But she was who she was, and doubt did not arrest her progress.
As the power unleashed by the demon cleared—it had only lasted a few heartbeats—Alek Tercival screamed and drew his sword. The holy blade flared in his hand with golden light, as if eager to engage this adversary. The paladin headed directly for the demon, though his steps were jerky and uncertain, and his limbs moved as though leaden weights had been attached to them. The demon saw how heavily his spell had affected the man and laughed, a vile, mocking sound that rumbled within its massive body like an earthquake.
Morgan and Arun also moved forward, the cleric also slowed from the lingering effects of the chaos hammer. Arun roared a challenge and an invocation to his god as he charged, but the demon’s attention was focused upon Alek Tercival.
“Your soul will be mine, foolish manling,” he said.
Alek raised his sword to attack, but before he could strike the demon’s massive pincers came down and tore into him. One clipped him on the shoulder, driving him down with the force of an avalanche, though he somehow kept to his feet, his eyes burning with a combination of fury and madness.
“Beware the Unseen Mark!” he cried. “Beware the eyes that kill!”
“Beware the wrath of the lord of the Demonskar,” the glabrezu replied, grabbing the paladin around the torso with his other pincer, and lifting him up into the air.
Alek screamed as the demon tightened its grip, crushing his body.
I should remedy my statement a bit. If the demon decides to fight them they are dead. If it just wants to kill the paladin and then leaves, they may live. Actually that must be the setup as they have absolutely no chance of defeating it. They can't really hit, let alone hurt it, and it can keep bomarding them with confusion and chaos hammers until they are dead. Or simply grapple and crush them one by one. It is so beyond their capabilities that it is almost funny.
Lazybones
Adventurer
Well, perhaps that's a bit exaggerated, but there's no denying that it is a very difficult adversary. But AC27 is well within the reach of these characters (though not leaving much room for Power Attacks), and there are two weapons in the group that are quite capable of unleashing some serious damage upon it (soon to be three, as we'll see in this update).monboesen said:
None of that means that it won't kill at least a few of them, of course. The module did include a deus ex machina to help the players that I chose not to use, and a mechanism for driving off, rather than killing, the demon, but we'll get to that as needed.
But otherwise, yeah, I've noticed that the writers of this series of modules have a tendency to craft some seriously tough encounters. Technically the adventurers should be a level or two higher than they are right now (according to the guidelines in the module), but having 5 characters instead of 4, plus a fairly tough cohort, does help somewhat.
* * * * *
Chapter 186
As the demon lifted Alek into the air, crushing him with its pincers and tearing at him with its claws, the paladin’s rescuers rallied desperately in an effort to somehow destroy this dark knight of the Abyss. The glabrezu seemed an implacable and invincible adversary, filling the vault with its massive and terrible form, but they all knew that they had to stop it, or none of them would leave this place alive.
Zenna used the pillar against which she’d been thrown to pull herself up. She staggered over to where Dannel stood, a grim look on his face as he drew out another arrow that seemed useless against the abyssal resistances of the demon.
“Zenna, get back!” Dannel said. He fumbled his arrow as Zenna stumbled into him, but as he turned to support her she laid her hand upon his quiver, and called upon her power. Dannel, no stranger to magic, looked down at the container on his hip as she channeled a complex stream of divine energy into the long shafts—not so numerous, now—in the container, aligning them, infusing them with the power of Good, anathema to such things as the demon.
“Shoot true,” she said, backing away from him.
The elf nodded, and drew out one of the enchanted shafts. He felt the song stir in him again, and without conscious thought drew his own magic through the melody filling him and focused it upon the arrow. The melee across the room was pure chaos, the demon holding Alek in its grasp, Arun and Morgan attacking it to either side, but as the song drew focus everything seemed to slow down, and he calmly aimed his arrow and released.
The shaft sped true, striking the demon in its chest once again, but this time the missile sank deep into its body. The demon let out a roar of pain.
The elf reached for another arrow.
Alek, pinned by the demon’s grasp, still somehow managed to lift his sword, still shining brightly in his hand. Nonsensical syllables continued to issue from his mouth, as if drawn from him by some power beyond his ability to control. “By treachery and deceit shall the true Lord fall and the false Lord rule!” he cried. But as the demon’s claws rent his body, tearing through his armor as though it were parchment, he could not manage to gain enough leverage to strike.
Morgan, however, lifted Alakast, and with a cry to Helm, slammed it down into the demon’s torso.
The staff flared in his hand, and when it struck the demon a potent sound like air being sucked into a vacuum filled the vault. The demon roared again in pain, and turned its dark gaze upon the cleric.
“That staff... Alakast, it cannot be!” Then its already cruel features twisted into a visage of pure fury. “I will rend you, human! But first, bid farewell to your friend!”
Arun slammed his sword into its leg from the opposite side, but the demon paid the attack no heed, the powerful stroke sliding off of the limb without harming it. Instead, it lifted the claw bearing the struggling Alek, drawing the paladin up over its head, until he nearly brushed the ceiling of the vault. Then, as the others could no nothing but watch in horror, the muscles in its arm clenched, and Alek Tercival screamed as armor plate and the bones beneath crunched and collapsed. Blood fountained from the man’s mouth as a final gurgling noise issued from his crushed lungs, and then the demon hurled him across the room, a discarded piece of meat, no longer a threat.
The paladin’s sword fell, tumbling end over end to clatter on the floor, its light, it seemed, now faded and dull.
Last edited:
djrdjmsqrd
First Post
Defrel, Male Human, Thief
LB,
Hello, long time no hear, just dropping a comment thank you for your continued work, and letting you know it is still a great joy to read.
LB,
Hello, long time no hear, just dropping a comment thank you for your continued work, and letting you know it is still a great joy to read.
Broccli_Head
Explorer
Wow! That's a bummer. The object of their quest killed before them.
snappyapple
First Post
On the bright side of this, at least the group will get another magical weapon which they sorely need... unless Lazybones decides to rob them of it right after they come out of the cave. 
Lazybones
Adventurer
Chapter 187
Morgan lifted Alakast to strike again, but his actions were still slowed from the aftereffects of the chaos hammer, and the demon responded faster.
Ignoring the other companions, who thus far had not greatly hurt it, the demon reached down with its other pincer-claw for the cleric. With his reflexes already impaired the knight of Helm had no chance to evade the attack, and the glabrezu easily caught him up, lifting him into its body where its smaller claws could rend him, and his slavering jaws bite at his flesh. Those jaws caught his arm, crushing the limb through his armor, and he nearly dropped Alakast. But the cleric, bleeding from his wounds, his breath crushed from his body by the demon’s fell strength, nonetheless refused to surrender. Drawing upon a strength that had been augmented by the amaranth elixir, the same beverage given him by the hags that had weakened his will and helped hold him to their service, he jammed the magical staff into the joint of the demon’s pincer. The glabrezu loosened its grip as the staff drove painfully into the joint, and Morgan fell free, landing on the hard stone with a hard jolt. Battered to the edge of consciousness, his legs gave out and he fell prone, gasping for breath.
Thus far the battle had only lasted moments, and already two of them were down, one almost certainly dead.
Mole had moved around the perimeter of the chamber, coming up on the demon from the side. She was confident that it hadn’t seen her. If she’d known how sharp the senses of demons were, honed by centuries in the unforgiving cesspot of constant betrayal that was the Abyss, she might have hesitated, but the fact was, Nabthatoron saw her and dismissed her, a puny threat compared to the warriors of Helm and the blessed weapons that they carried.
And in fact, it seemed as though the demon’s assessment was correct, for Mole’s first attack, a leaping blow at the back of its knee with her mace, did not even draw its attention. She considered climbing the wall, to give her a shot at its head, but the surface was smooth, with few cracks to offer a viable ascent. She drew out her small crossbow, and took a shot at one of its eyes, but the bolt merely grazed an ear, not even sticking in the thick hide. The demon didn’t even acknowledge that she was there.
Biting her lip in frustration, she tried to think of something to do.
Hodge had recovered swiftly from the fell chaos power of the demon, but he hadn’t followed Arun into melee. As he looked up at it, he felt a horror fill him that he hadn’t experienced since they had fought the dragon, back in the mountains north of Cauldron. His knees buckled, and it was only through an effort of will that he kept himself from falling to the floor, to hide from the monstrous and alien majesty of this terrible thing.
It’s just another monster! he growled at himself, in his thoughts. Attack! Attack!
But he could not, he could only watch in horror as it caught up Alek, crushed him, and tossed his corpse casually across the room. A splatter of something struck his cheek, and he slowly lifted a finger to touch it. His fingers came back wet with blood.
The knight’s blood.
Like Mole, Arun was likewise frustrated, as another powerful blow glanced harmlessly off the demon’s thigh. Its hide was like steel plate, and his sword was unable to penetrate its resistances, even with his strength behind the blows. He felt a grim chuckle within his mind, and he knew that the demon was exulting in his ineffectiveness, knew that he was next, once it had finished off Morgan. He lifted Morgan’s heavy sword above his head, knowing that it was hopeless, determined nonetheless to go down swinging.
Then the sound of the clatter of metal on stone reached him over the sound of battle, and he turned to see Alek’s sword lying there, a few paces away.
Calling to him.
Dannel continued firing arrows into the demon, the enchanted missiles digging into its torso. Several had failed to penetrate its hide, but still black ichor drained from three deep punctures in its body, and it could no longer afford to ignore him. Even as it dropped Morgan, and Dannel took aim for yet another shot, it extended a long arm—the one splashed with the blood of Alek Tercival—and swept it across the vault. Too late Dannel realized that the thing’s reach extended all the way to where he stood, and the claw cuffed him a mighty blow that knocked him flying sideways. For a moment he felt himself being drive inexorably toward one of the pillars, but he managed to disengage himself from the claw and tumble free a spare moment before the claw slammed into the pillar with enough force to crack the massive stone. The elf rolled back, his side throbbing where the demon had hit him, but he already had another arrow in his hand, fitting it to his bow, the song filling him once more.
Zenna, meanwhile, had crawled to where Morgan lay, his body heaving as he tried to fight through the pain and rise to face the demon again on his feet. The demon could have crushed her, but Dannel’s painful sacrifice bought her the few seconds she needed to reach him, and to pour one of her last remaining divine spells into his shattered frame. Morgan’s gaze met hers, and he nodded, using Alakast as a prop to draw himself up, turning back to face the death embodied in the demon’s ageless and purely evil gaze.
Nabthatoron had been hurt, but in turn he’d dished out incredible punishment among them, killing Alek, critically injuring Morgan, and inflicting serious blows upon Zenna and Dannel. And the demon knew that few of his enemies could hurt him; the dwarves had thus far proven utterly ineffective, the gnome with her puny attacks had yet to scratch him, while the piddling tiefling woman had yet to demonstrate any usefulness at all, save for putting that damned knight back on his feet again. Nabthatoron looked once more at the staff once wielded by his nemesis, and felt his rage build once more. There was also a faint undercurrent of fear, but among these foes was no Surabar Spellmason, of that it was certain.
No. This would end right now.
The demon’s massive claws came up once more, to finish it.
Everything seemed to happen at once.
Dannel released an arrow that stabbed through the air, knifing into the thick bicep of one of the demon’s huge arms. The wound wasn’t serious, but it added to the demon’s tally of injuries.
Arun leapt for Alek’s fallen sword. The demon saw him, instantly realized the threat, and brought a huge claw down to strike. The claw slammed across Arun’s back like a sledgehammer, and the dwarf was blasted down to one knee. For a moment, there seemed to be no way that his spine could be intact, after such a blow.
And yet, somehow, inexplicably, the dwarf got up. He lunged for the sword, which almost seemed to spring into his hand, and he brought it up even as the other pincer came down toward his head. With a dwarven cry of battle, invoking the name of his patron god, Arun brought the holy sword around in a glittering arc, the shining steel intersecting with the descending limb.
There was a clarion note, like a tuning fork being struck, that filled the vault with a momentary sound of peace. Then the demon’s roar shattered that idyll, and it fell back.
Leaving a great, oozing claw lying on the ground at the paladin’s feet.
“I AM NOT FINISHED WITH YOU!” the demon roared, and then, suddenly, it vanished, leaving a faint miasma of ugly gray smoke in its wake.
The companions just stood there for a moment, overwhelmed by what had just happened.
They had won.
* * * * *
Monday evening: Epilogue
Morgan lifted Alakast to strike again, but his actions were still slowed from the aftereffects of the chaos hammer, and the demon responded faster.
Ignoring the other companions, who thus far had not greatly hurt it, the demon reached down with its other pincer-claw for the cleric. With his reflexes already impaired the knight of Helm had no chance to evade the attack, and the glabrezu easily caught him up, lifting him into its body where its smaller claws could rend him, and his slavering jaws bite at his flesh. Those jaws caught his arm, crushing the limb through his armor, and he nearly dropped Alakast. But the cleric, bleeding from his wounds, his breath crushed from his body by the demon’s fell strength, nonetheless refused to surrender. Drawing upon a strength that had been augmented by the amaranth elixir, the same beverage given him by the hags that had weakened his will and helped hold him to their service, he jammed the magical staff into the joint of the demon’s pincer. The glabrezu loosened its grip as the staff drove painfully into the joint, and Morgan fell free, landing on the hard stone with a hard jolt. Battered to the edge of consciousness, his legs gave out and he fell prone, gasping for breath.
Thus far the battle had only lasted moments, and already two of them were down, one almost certainly dead.
Mole had moved around the perimeter of the chamber, coming up on the demon from the side. She was confident that it hadn’t seen her. If she’d known how sharp the senses of demons were, honed by centuries in the unforgiving cesspot of constant betrayal that was the Abyss, she might have hesitated, but the fact was, Nabthatoron saw her and dismissed her, a puny threat compared to the warriors of Helm and the blessed weapons that they carried.
And in fact, it seemed as though the demon’s assessment was correct, for Mole’s first attack, a leaping blow at the back of its knee with her mace, did not even draw its attention. She considered climbing the wall, to give her a shot at its head, but the surface was smooth, with few cracks to offer a viable ascent. She drew out her small crossbow, and took a shot at one of its eyes, but the bolt merely grazed an ear, not even sticking in the thick hide. The demon didn’t even acknowledge that she was there.
Biting her lip in frustration, she tried to think of something to do.
Hodge had recovered swiftly from the fell chaos power of the demon, but he hadn’t followed Arun into melee. As he looked up at it, he felt a horror fill him that he hadn’t experienced since they had fought the dragon, back in the mountains north of Cauldron. His knees buckled, and it was only through an effort of will that he kept himself from falling to the floor, to hide from the monstrous and alien majesty of this terrible thing.
It’s just another monster! he growled at himself, in his thoughts. Attack! Attack!
But he could not, he could only watch in horror as it caught up Alek, crushed him, and tossed his corpse casually across the room. A splatter of something struck his cheek, and he slowly lifted a finger to touch it. His fingers came back wet with blood.
The knight’s blood.
Like Mole, Arun was likewise frustrated, as another powerful blow glanced harmlessly off the demon’s thigh. Its hide was like steel plate, and his sword was unable to penetrate its resistances, even with his strength behind the blows. He felt a grim chuckle within his mind, and he knew that the demon was exulting in his ineffectiveness, knew that he was next, once it had finished off Morgan. He lifted Morgan’s heavy sword above his head, knowing that it was hopeless, determined nonetheless to go down swinging.
Then the sound of the clatter of metal on stone reached him over the sound of battle, and he turned to see Alek’s sword lying there, a few paces away.
Calling to him.
Dannel continued firing arrows into the demon, the enchanted missiles digging into its torso. Several had failed to penetrate its hide, but still black ichor drained from three deep punctures in its body, and it could no longer afford to ignore him. Even as it dropped Morgan, and Dannel took aim for yet another shot, it extended a long arm—the one splashed with the blood of Alek Tercival—and swept it across the vault. Too late Dannel realized that the thing’s reach extended all the way to where he stood, and the claw cuffed him a mighty blow that knocked him flying sideways. For a moment he felt himself being drive inexorably toward one of the pillars, but he managed to disengage himself from the claw and tumble free a spare moment before the claw slammed into the pillar with enough force to crack the massive stone. The elf rolled back, his side throbbing where the demon had hit him, but he already had another arrow in his hand, fitting it to his bow, the song filling him once more.
Zenna, meanwhile, had crawled to where Morgan lay, his body heaving as he tried to fight through the pain and rise to face the demon again on his feet. The demon could have crushed her, but Dannel’s painful sacrifice bought her the few seconds she needed to reach him, and to pour one of her last remaining divine spells into his shattered frame. Morgan’s gaze met hers, and he nodded, using Alakast as a prop to draw himself up, turning back to face the death embodied in the demon’s ageless and purely evil gaze.
Nabthatoron had been hurt, but in turn he’d dished out incredible punishment among them, killing Alek, critically injuring Morgan, and inflicting serious blows upon Zenna and Dannel. And the demon knew that few of his enemies could hurt him; the dwarves had thus far proven utterly ineffective, the gnome with her puny attacks had yet to scratch him, while the piddling tiefling woman had yet to demonstrate any usefulness at all, save for putting that damned knight back on his feet again. Nabthatoron looked once more at the staff once wielded by his nemesis, and felt his rage build once more. There was also a faint undercurrent of fear, but among these foes was no Surabar Spellmason, of that it was certain.
No. This would end right now.
The demon’s massive claws came up once more, to finish it.
Everything seemed to happen at once.
Dannel released an arrow that stabbed through the air, knifing into the thick bicep of one of the demon’s huge arms. The wound wasn’t serious, but it added to the demon’s tally of injuries.
Arun leapt for Alek’s fallen sword. The demon saw him, instantly realized the threat, and brought a huge claw down to strike. The claw slammed across Arun’s back like a sledgehammer, and the dwarf was blasted down to one knee. For a moment, there seemed to be no way that his spine could be intact, after such a blow.
And yet, somehow, inexplicably, the dwarf got up. He lunged for the sword, which almost seemed to spring into his hand, and he brought it up even as the other pincer came down toward his head. With a dwarven cry of battle, invoking the name of his patron god, Arun brought the holy sword around in a glittering arc, the shining steel intersecting with the descending limb.
There was a clarion note, like a tuning fork being struck, that filled the vault with a momentary sound of peace. Then the demon’s roar shattered that idyll, and it fell back.
Leaving a great, oozing claw lying on the ground at the paladin’s feet.
“I AM NOT FINISHED WITH YOU!” the demon roared, and then, suddenly, it vanished, leaving a faint miasma of ugly gray smoke in its wake.
The companions just stood there for a moment, overwhelmed by what had just happened.
They had won.
* * * * *
Monday evening: Epilogue
Last edited:
Similar Threads
