Curses! Foiled again!
Shilsen's Eberron SH (Finished - The Last Word : 9/20/15)
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Curses! Foiled again!
Solarious
Explorer
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
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shilsen
Adventurer
Only a few minutes later, the Angels are standing in Central Plateau near the bridge which connects it to Northedge, at a makeshift command post. Accompanying them are Ythana Morr, Balan Cord, members of the Redcloaks and the Royal Guard, and others who were involved with the effort of clearing out the attacking aberrations from this area. With the task having been made significantly easier by the Angels, their attention has now turned to the sad task of dealing with the dead, whose bodies still litter the bridge and many parts of Northedge.
Ythana looks sadly at the piles of corpses, some of which are being collected into heaps – or at least being moved out of the way – nearby. “So many dead!” She glances at the Angels, sighs, and says, “And if not for your return, many more would have been lost in retaking this area and driving back the atta…”
“Anyone else hear that?” interrupts Luna from where she sits a short distance away, towering over everyone else in her tendriculos form.
“Yes,” says Six, “Chanting. And it seems to be coming from…,” he looks around, “Everywhere.”
“And in many voices,” says Gareth, “Though I don’t understand the language.” He clicks the fingers of his metal hand and the Endless Blade pops into existence. “What’s up, boss?” it asks, contriving to sound both curious and bored at once. “More bad guys?”
“Yes,” says Nameless. “There!”
The others look where the alienist points and see the specific source of the chanting, though the voices continue to apparently resonate from all quarters around them. The voices are sibilant and – though it’s hard to say precisely how a voice could be – slimy, with a nauseating quality to them which makes the hearers feel faintly, and strangely, soiled. Then again, the source probably explains the effect.
Rising into the air approximately two hundred feet from the towers on the furthest edge of Central Plateau are a trio of identical creatures, which look like a strange mixture of worm, insect and octopus. Each holds aloft a large black orb in the three short tentacles which rises from around its mouth. The lipless mouths writhe and their insectoid limbs wave back and forth through complicated motions as they float higher and higher through the air.
Korm stares at the creatures and then wipes his eyes as an errant breeze blows dust into them. “I don’t know what that is. Maybe a wolf?” He chuckles and shrugs.
Nameless actually breaks off his focus on the creatures to stare at the Gatekeeper. Then he snaps, “Don’t be absurd. Those are clearly…,” he pauses and a mildly horrified expression crosses his face, “…and I can’t think of the name now! You just made me forget!”
“Name or not, we fought one of those in Yarkuun Draal. And we need to stop them,” says Six pointedly.
“Yes,” says Gareth. “What are they doing? And what are those orbs?”
“I can’t say for sure at this distance,” says Nameless, “Especially since they’re beyond the range of my arcane sight, but there’s necromantic energy flowing away from them.” He looks around and points. “To the corpses, and also from the corpses back towards them.”
“Look!” says Luna, and the alienist turns to see that there is a distinct shimmering in the air between the creatures, which he now remembers to be avolakia. The shimmering is in the form of an equilateral triangle, with an avolakia at each point, and there’s no doubt in Nameless’ mind what it is. Especially as he sees what he thinks is movement beyond it.
“It’s a portal!” he snaps. “I’ll blast them to disrupt it. Korm, Six and Gareth, you need to fly there. And Luna…”
“I got it!” says the druid, rolling forward. And before anyone can say a word, she disappears.
And reappears an instant later, to the shock and surprise of not only all the spectators, but especially one of the avolakia. The one who sees her giant shape appear a foot above its misshapen head. And then plummet.
Luna’s size and weight smash the avolakia out of the air and the two of them drop towards the ground far below. The creature still retains its grip on its orb and the other Angels see the shimmering triangular portal warp deform as one edge is pulled downwards. The portal bends and twists for a long instant, elongating further and further, and the orbs flare with dark radiance as it does so. And then they explode simultaneously.
The explosion annihilates each of the avolakia instantly, reducing the creatures to such tiny fragments that not a sign of them remains. Luna grunts at the pain as the orb below her explodes, even her hugely thick and magical hide being scoured deeply and painfully by the blast, causing thick green ichor to drip from the wounds.
Hundreds of feet above her, the portal darkens and solidifies as the orbs burst, momentarily revealing a giant gray bulk and a huge eye (which reminds Nameless of Cyaëgha, though it is clearly not the same), before neatly folding in on itself and disappearing. As it shrinks down, Nameless’ enhanced vision lets him see a wave of invisible energy flow out of it. The alienist recognizes it as negative energy, and as the torrent flows over him and those around him, they all feel an intense but swiftly fading coldness. There is, meanwhile, a loud popping sound from the point that the portal has receded to, and then a shadowy mass expands outwards from it.
In less than a second, there is a giant cloud of darkness over a hundred feet in radius, which swiftly rolls towards the watchers. The four watching Angels, all of whom now possess darkvision, can see through the cloud’s shadows, and at its center they see what seems to be a ball of solid darkness over a dozen feet across, with ropy tentacles extending nearly the same distance from it.
“What in the Flame is that?” asks Gareth.
“A vasuthant,” rasps Nameless, “An undead creature of darkness native to Mabar, the Plane of Shadow. I wonder why that came through the portal. I wouldn’t expect creatures of Xoriat to summon such a thing. I believe the explosion disrupted** the…”
“No time for discussion,” snaps Korm, “We need to kill it.” He quickly cast a spell and a phantom stag appears beside him, ready to carry him to their foe.
But as the Gatekeeper acts, the vasuthant rolls forward through the air, waving its tentacles before it. Again, only Nameless can see the waves of necromantic energy emanate from it, but their effect is obvious to all present. Every corpse within five hundred feet begin to rock back and forth. Then they begin to slide over the ground, gradually flowing together into two separate piles.
“Flame protect us!” says Ythana Morr, hurriedly lifting her holy symbol in a warding gesture and then unleashing a blast of positive energy from it. The animated corpses barely react, only one of them twitching faintly and then slowly falling apart and lying still. The others continue to flow together, an unseen pressure inexorably crushing the dead flesh and bones together until they form two huge, hill-like mounds. The ghastly agglomerations twitch and then slowly move forward, each extending two twisted collections of mangled bodies and limbs. The arm-like protrusions make the giant mounds seem like strange torsos, lacking heads and legs.***
“Change of plan,” says Korm quickly. “We’ll take those … things. Nameless, get the shadow thingy!” He leaps onto the stag and swings Gareth off the ground and up behind him, before calling to his steed to charge.
“On it,” says Nameless, who had already begun casting, and as the vasuthant floats forward the air around it moves. The movement resolves itself into two huge air elementals. Reacting instinctively to Nameless’ command, they begin to hammer into the extraplanar undead with their giant fists.
Meanwhile, as Korm and Gareth charge forward, others besides the Angels join the fight. Ythana Morr casts a spell to embolden her allies, while Balan Cord uses a similar but different enchantment, shouting for the warriors present to attack. Dozens of bows and crossbows twang, while many rush forward into melee, led by some members of the Royal Guard and the few Redcloaks present.
The arrows and bolts break harmlessly or strike the two undead colossi with no discernible effect. Barely a second behind them, Korm’s phantom stag covers the ground between it and the closest monster in an instant. But despite its speed, the lurching monstrosity is incredibly fast. As Korm and Gareth raise their weapons, one huge ‘arm’ swings around ponderously and smashes the stag off its feet.
Gareth hits the ground rolling, his plate mail clashing around him, but the unarmored Gatekeeper lands on his feet and rushes in under the giant appendage, hacking and slashing. His meteoric blade carves large rents in the corpses that form the creature, but that seems to have little effect. Nearby, the Royal Guard and Redcloaks have even less success. As they move in and attack, the second mound of corpses simply rolls forward over them, crushing some to death and leaving others battered and broken. One of the large appendages descends, picking up a handful of the dead or dying, and stuffs them into its body. The conjoined corpses part somehow and the new additions are drawn within.
Korm stares at the sight and then turns around at a groan from Gareth, to get an even closer view of this assimilation. As the paladin rises clumsily to his feet, another arm descends and smashes him back to the ground. Then it closes around the struggling Gareth and lifts him to its chest. Before Korm’s simultaneously horrified and fascinated gaze, the corpses there flow apart for a moment, leaving a large cavity. The appendage stuffs Gareth’s body in and the corpses flow back, covering him from sight. The last glimpse of the paladin Korm gets is of multiple dead arms animating to hold him in place. And then the closing orifice blocks off all sight of Gareth and the silvery glow around him.
“Sh*t! People – we need help here!” shouts Korm, redoubling his efforts and hacking madly at the creature. “Luna? Six? Where are you?”
“Here!” calls a voice as Luna appears, dimension dooring right behind the undead monstrosity. The tendriculos rolls at the heap of corpses, which turns its attention to this assailant who almost matches its bulk. The two colossi, one the epitome of nature run amuck and the other the absolute negation of the natural order, smash into each other with tremendous force, hammering and tearing at each other’s forms.
Luna quickly realizes that the gigantic undead is even stronger and more resilient than her, but luckily she has multiple allies in the fight. With her providing a distraction, Korm is free to attack it with impunity. And there are others still in the fray. Luna frowns in surprise as splits appear in the creature’s amorphous front, silvery light shining through them. Just as she is expecting a strange form of energy attack, something breaks through one of the cracks. It is a human arm, a short and saw-edged blade at the end of it. “Die, motherf*cker, die!” yells the blade and Luna chuckles despite the wounds she has taken. “It’s Gareth!”
As the paladin literally carves his way out of the creature, the cracks he has been creating spread across its form, linking up with the huge chunks slashed away by Korm. The undead begins to shudder and then, as Luna brings down both huge tentacles at once, lurches sideways and slowly, silently, falls apart.
“Yes!” exults Luna, only to be interrupted by a shout of “Behind you!” from Nameless. She sees the alienist, who has been helping his summoned creatures dispose of the vasuthant, gesture and a pea-sized flaming bead shoots past, to explode into a powerful fireball behind her. Luna turns ponderously, moving as quick as her tendriculos form can, to see the second undead colossus roll forward.
Though it bears multiple wounds from the attacks of the other defenders of Sharn and scorch-marks from Nameless’ spell, it shows no signs of stopping. Luna immediately unleashes a flame strike on it, and Korm follows suit from behind her. The undead’s body begins to split apart under the assault but it continues inexorably, both appendages striking out at Luna. With no space or ability to dodge, the tendriculos takes both blows in the middle of its face. Already wounded from the explosion of the orb and her battle with the first undead monster, Luna is in no shape to take the punishment, and she collapses.
“Damn!” says Korm, hefting his sword in readiness for the attack, “You ready for some more, Gareth?” The paladin, having just stepped out of the wreckage of the creature that swallowed him, wearily nods his head. Then he lifts the Endless Blade, looks around, and asks, “Where’s Six?”
The undead creature looming over Korm and him pauses, as if waiting for an answer. Its two upraised arms waver slightly and then it literally falls forward over Gareth and Korm. The two strike furiously at the rain of corpses for a couple of seconds, before they realize that it is not an attack. The creature is falling apart, and the reason is quickly obvious, as a metal form wreathed in shadow steps over the ridge of the hill-like and now collapsing form.
Six twirls the chain he had specially enchanted for slaying undead, its spikes adorned in ribbons of flesh from the creature he has been pounding away at, unseen by his companions. “I like it when you folks provide a distraction,” he says.
“Me too,” agrees Nameless, walking forward unscathed, the combination of his small horde of summoned elementals and spells having disposed of the vasuthant before it could get to him.
Luna, having been healed to consciousness by Korm, shakes her head. “Yeah, yeah – you’re both welcome.” Then she pokes the mound of now inanimate corpses and scowls as only a tendriculos can. “I’m getting sick of aberrations and the sh*t they do. I could really go a while without seeing another…”
* * * * * * * * * *
“…aberration army?” frowns Luna the next day. “Why do we always have to be the ones doing this? And why exactly are we here, anyway? Come to think of it, where exactly is here? Does anyone know?”
Nameless waits patiently until the questions end and then says dryly, waving his tentacle eloquently at the rocky tunnel that they are in, “We’re doing it because we’re better equipped for that than anyone else. We’re here because Khandan Dol asked us to investigate the aberrations which pulled back into the tunnels after the attacks and see if there’s another assault on the way. The forces of Sharn are too busy repairing the damage done to the Cogs and setting up defensive positions there to investigate. And we are, if I estimate correctly, currently about a mile below Sharn and at least a couple of miles southwest of it. And that’s about it.”
“Wait, which one was Khandan?”
“Khandan Dol, the dwarf in charge of the Redcloaks,” answers Nameless. “The one who shushed Meira when you were arguing with her.”
What might be a grin splits the tendriculos’ huge mouth. “Oh, yeah – that was awesome! I think I like him.”
“Don’t say that,” says Korm, raising his hands in mock-horror. “We know what … happens when you … um, like people.”
As Luna snorts at him, Gareth says, “Will you guys keep it down? Taking out the runehounds was quick, but we made a lot of noise with that delver.” The sword in his hand shudders of its own volition and the Blade’s voice mutters, “I f*cking hate delvers!”
“We’re not the only people making noise,” says Six quietly from his position ahead of the others. “Listen.”
The other Angels fall silent, expecting the sound of approaching enemies, but they hear no alarms from up ahead. In fact, things seem quiet for the moment, except for the faintest whisper of sound, carried through the rock as much as (or rather than) through the air. And then the Angels realize that there is a constant underlying whisper. With their exceptional senses and previous experience, it doesn’t take much time or discussion to be certain that they are hearing the sounds of dozens, maybe hundreds of creatures, some distance ahead of them.
The group proceeds towards the sound, with Six in the lead and a softly grumbling tendriculos bringing up the rear. Even though the tunnel is over a dozen feet high and wide, it is slightly tight for Luna. The tunnel is not completely straight but continues in the same general direction for over two hundred feet before turning and then runs for the same distance again before another turn. As the Angels advance, the faint sounds increase, and it is fairly clear that there must be a large open space not too far ahead. A large open space occupied by a lot of creatures.
Despite the growing sound, as Luna nears the second turning, she – and ahead of her, Six and Korm – picks up the faint whisper of movement just ahead. Something is moving beyond the turn in the tunnel.
Six signals to the others to wait and then proceeds around the turn, moving stealthily, relaying what he sees over the telepathic bond that Nameless has set up. The tunnel stretches a little over a hundred feet before him, before turning again to the left. The sound is stronger here and there is a faintly flickering glow from around the turn.
Not that Six has time to pay attention to that, as his attention is drawn to the ceiling of the tunnel above him. A large section of it is moving, and after a second, he realizes that the movement comes from over two dozen small creatures, clinging to the ceiling and stealthily working their way forwards. They look like chokers, but they are smaller and thinner. And the most obvious difference is that they only have patches of skin where their eyes are supposed to be, and round open mouths topped with a sucker.
The lack of eyes clearly doesn’t hurt their perceptiveness. Presumably possessing some form of blindsight, their heads turn in unison towards him and then they leap to attack.
Warned by the warforged’s mental cry of alarm, Nameless steps around the corner, casting a cloudkill which envelops Six and his assailants. Not that it seems to give the attackers any pause, as they pour off the ceiling onto Six. The warforged’s chain snaps out as they come, cracking one’s skull and dropping it to the floor, but the others surround Six, some even climbing onto him, tentacles hammering at his armored form. They make no sound as they do so, their mouths gaping silently.
“It’s a swarm,” transmits Six, “Blast it.” Then the shadows swirl around him and he disappears. Chokers which had just been striking at him or perched on his head fall to the ground, looking around in bewilderment. Nameless chuckles, his greater anticipate teleportation telling him not only that Six used his harness’ powers to teleport back around the corner, but that the warforged won’t be reappearing for a short while.
Even as Six disappears, Gareth moves to stand between Nameless and the swarm, twirling the Endless Blade in an artful and intimidating manner. “The first one of these to come by here gets hit,” he says.
“Pfft! Not necessary,” comments Korm, stepping up to the alienist’s other side. He casts – accompanied by an indignant “HEY!” from Luna, who is unable to get past the group without crushing them – and a flame strike descends on the chokers. Already wounded by Nameless’ spell and befuddled by Six’s sudden disappearance, the creatures have no defense, and when the explosion clears, all that is left are bodies.
And the increased sound of movement from around the turn in the tunnel ahead, as well as a number of raised voices. The Angels can decipher faint cries of alarm and a few words in daelkyr, such as “intruders” or “attack.” More voices are raised in the distance, scores of them, if not hundreds. And there are also other sounds that must be growls or snarls.
“So much for stealth! I don’t know why we bother trying! They always know we’re coming anyway,” Korm says, ignoring the fact that he was the one that created the explosion. He moves forward, readying his sword. “Come on. Let’s not give them time to prepare.”
Nameless’ tentacle taps him on the shoulder. “Why rush when we have a nice handy cloud of poison gas in front of us, headed in their direction? Does anyone have a nice fan to move it along a bit?”
“Fine,” grumbles Luna, still not that pleased about having had no role in the short fight. She casts and four small air elementals appear before her. The druid pronounces some orders in their breathy language and they transform into whirlwinds, rising and following the cloudkill, just entering its edge, safe from its poison in their lack of an anatomy. They angle their bodies, creating a combined breeze which increases the speed of the magical and poisonous fog, propelling it faster along the tunnel.
As they are doing so, Six finally appears, to be quickly apprised of the situation. Meanwhile, the noise ahead continues to increase. The closest noises and voices around the corner are only a couple hundred feet away and getting closer. The further noises begin a few hundred feet beyond that point and extend indefinitely into the distance, perhaps hundreds and more likely thousands of feet. Similarly, it’s unclear if there are hundreds or thousands of creatures around the bend.
But one thing is certain. The Angels have found their army of aberrations.
* Mike rolled a 1 on Knowledge (arcane) and got a 9, so we joked that Korm not only misidentified them horribly, but gave Nameless negatives to his own check.
** Nameless was right. The avolakia were trying to open a temporary extra-large portal to Xoriat using the energy from the deaths that had occurred during the battle(s) and to bring through what might be described as an aberration dreadnought, too large to come through any 'normal' portal. It wouldn’t have been pretty.
*** Modified Necronauts from MM3
Ythana looks sadly at the piles of corpses, some of which are being collected into heaps – or at least being moved out of the way – nearby. “So many dead!” She glances at the Angels, sighs, and says, “And if not for your return, many more would have been lost in retaking this area and driving back the atta…”
“Anyone else hear that?” interrupts Luna from where she sits a short distance away, towering over everyone else in her tendriculos form.
“Yes,” says Six, “Chanting. And it seems to be coming from…,” he looks around, “Everywhere.”
“And in many voices,” says Gareth, “Though I don’t understand the language.” He clicks the fingers of his metal hand and the Endless Blade pops into existence. “What’s up, boss?” it asks, contriving to sound both curious and bored at once. “More bad guys?”
“Yes,” says Nameless. “There!”
The others look where the alienist points and see the specific source of the chanting, though the voices continue to apparently resonate from all quarters around them. The voices are sibilant and – though it’s hard to say precisely how a voice could be – slimy, with a nauseating quality to them which makes the hearers feel faintly, and strangely, soiled. Then again, the source probably explains the effect.
Rising into the air approximately two hundred feet from the towers on the furthest edge of Central Plateau are a trio of identical creatures, which look like a strange mixture of worm, insect and octopus. Each holds aloft a large black orb in the three short tentacles which rises from around its mouth. The lipless mouths writhe and their insectoid limbs wave back and forth through complicated motions as they float higher and higher through the air.
Korm stares at the creatures and then wipes his eyes as an errant breeze blows dust into them. “I don’t know what that is. Maybe a wolf?” He chuckles and shrugs.
Nameless actually breaks off his focus on the creatures to stare at the Gatekeeper. Then he snaps, “Don’t be absurd. Those are clearly…,” he pauses and a mildly horrified expression crosses his face, “…and I can’t think of the name now! You just made me forget!”
“Name or not, we fought one of those in Yarkuun Draal. And we need to stop them,” says Six pointedly.
“Yes,” says Gareth. “What are they doing? And what are those orbs?”
“I can’t say for sure at this distance,” says Nameless, “Especially since they’re beyond the range of my arcane sight, but there’s necromantic energy flowing away from them.” He looks around and points. “To the corpses, and also from the corpses back towards them.”
“Look!” says Luna, and the alienist turns to see that there is a distinct shimmering in the air between the creatures, which he now remembers to be avolakia. The shimmering is in the form of an equilateral triangle, with an avolakia at each point, and there’s no doubt in Nameless’ mind what it is. Especially as he sees what he thinks is movement beyond it.
“It’s a portal!” he snaps. “I’ll blast them to disrupt it. Korm, Six and Gareth, you need to fly there. And Luna…”
“I got it!” says the druid, rolling forward. And before anyone can say a word, she disappears.
And reappears an instant later, to the shock and surprise of not only all the spectators, but especially one of the avolakia. The one who sees her giant shape appear a foot above its misshapen head. And then plummet.
Luna’s size and weight smash the avolakia out of the air and the two of them drop towards the ground far below. The creature still retains its grip on its orb and the other Angels see the shimmering triangular portal warp deform as one edge is pulled downwards. The portal bends and twists for a long instant, elongating further and further, and the orbs flare with dark radiance as it does so. And then they explode simultaneously.
The explosion annihilates each of the avolakia instantly, reducing the creatures to such tiny fragments that not a sign of them remains. Luna grunts at the pain as the orb below her explodes, even her hugely thick and magical hide being scoured deeply and painfully by the blast, causing thick green ichor to drip from the wounds.
Hundreds of feet above her, the portal darkens and solidifies as the orbs burst, momentarily revealing a giant gray bulk and a huge eye (which reminds Nameless of Cyaëgha, though it is clearly not the same), before neatly folding in on itself and disappearing. As it shrinks down, Nameless’ enhanced vision lets him see a wave of invisible energy flow out of it. The alienist recognizes it as negative energy, and as the torrent flows over him and those around him, they all feel an intense but swiftly fading coldness. There is, meanwhile, a loud popping sound from the point that the portal has receded to, and then a shadowy mass expands outwards from it.
In less than a second, there is a giant cloud of darkness over a hundred feet in radius, which swiftly rolls towards the watchers. The four watching Angels, all of whom now possess darkvision, can see through the cloud’s shadows, and at its center they see what seems to be a ball of solid darkness over a dozen feet across, with ropy tentacles extending nearly the same distance from it.
“What in the Flame is that?” asks Gareth.
“A vasuthant,” rasps Nameless, “An undead creature of darkness native to Mabar, the Plane of Shadow. I wonder why that came through the portal. I wouldn’t expect creatures of Xoriat to summon such a thing. I believe the explosion disrupted** the…”
“No time for discussion,” snaps Korm, “We need to kill it.” He quickly cast a spell and a phantom stag appears beside him, ready to carry him to their foe.
But as the Gatekeeper acts, the vasuthant rolls forward through the air, waving its tentacles before it. Again, only Nameless can see the waves of necromantic energy emanate from it, but their effect is obvious to all present. Every corpse within five hundred feet begin to rock back and forth. Then they begin to slide over the ground, gradually flowing together into two separate piles.
“Flame protect us!” says Ythana Morr, hurriedly lifting her holy symbol in a warding gesture and then unleashing a blast of positive energy from it. The animated corpses barely react, only one of them twitching faintly and then slowly falling apart and lying still. The others continue to flow together, an unseen pressure inexorably crushing the dead flesh and bones together until they form two huge, hill-like mounds. The ghastly agglomerations twitch and then slowly move forward, each extending two twisted collections of mangled bodies and limbs. The arm-like protrusions make the giant mounds seem like strange torsos, lacking heads and legs.***
“Change of plan,” says Korm quickly. “We’ll take those … things. Nameless, get the shadow thingy!” He leaps onto the stag and swings Gareth off the ground and up behind him, before calling to his steed to charge.
“On it,” says Nameless, who had already begun casting, and as the vasuthant floats forward the air around it moves. The movement resolves itself into two huge air elementals. Reacting instinctively to Nameless’ command, they begin to hammer into the extraplanar undead with their giant fists.
Meanwhile, as Korm and Gareth charge forward, others besides the Angels join the fight. Ythana Morr casts a spell to embolden her allies, while Balan Cord uses a similar but different enchantment, shouting for the warriors present to attack. Dozens of bows and crossbows twang, while many rush forward into melee, led by some members of the Royal Guard and the few Redcloaks present.
The arrows and bolts break harmlessly or strike the two undead colossi with no discernible effect. Barely a second behind them, Korm’s phantom stag covers the ground between it and the closest monster in an instant. But despite its speed, the lurching monstrosity is incredibly fast. As Korm and Gareth raise their weapons, one huge ‘arm’ swings around ponderously and smashes the stag off its feet.
Gareth hits the ground rolling, his plate mail clashing around him, but the unarmored Gatekeeper lands on his feet and rushes in under the giant appendage, hacking and slashing. His meteoric blade carves large rents in the corpses that form the creature, but that seems to have little effect. Nearby, the Royal Guard and Redcloaks have even less success. As they move in and attack, the second mound of corpses simply rolls forward over them, crushing some to death and leaving others battered and broken. One of the large appendages descends, picking up a handful of the dead or dying, and stuffs them into its body. The conjoined corpses part somehow and the new additions are drawn within.
Korm stares at the sight and then turns around at a groan from Gareth, to get an even closer view of this assimilation. As the paladin rises clumsily to his feet, another arm descends and smashes him back to the ground. Then it closes around the struggling Gareth and lifts him to its chest. Before Korm’s simultaneously horrified and fascinated gaze, the corpses there flow apart for a moment, leaving a large cavity. The appendage stuffs Gareth’s body in and the corpses flow back, covering him from sight. The last glimpse of the paladin Korm gets is of multiple dead arms animating to hold him in place. And then the closing orifice blocks off all sight of Gareth and the silvery glow around him.
“Sh*t! People – we need help here!” shouts Korm, redoubling his efforts and hacking madly at the creature. “Luna? Six? Where are you?”
“Here!” calls a voice as Luna appears, dimension dooring right behind the undead monstrosity. The tendriculos rolls at the heap of corpses, which turns its attention to this assailant who almost matches its bulk. The two colossi, one the epitome of nature run amuck and the other the absolute negation of the natural order, smash into each other with tremendous force, hammering and tearing at each other’s forms.
Luna quickly realizes that the gigantic undead is even stronger and more resilient than her, but luckily she has multiple allies in the fight. With her providing a distraction, Korm is free to attack it with impunity. And there are others still in the fray. Luna frowns in surprise as splits appear in the creature’s amorphous front, silvery light shining through them. Just as she is expecting a strange form of energy attack, something breaks through one of the cracks. It is a human arm, a short and saw-edged blade at the end of it. “Die, motherf*cker, die!” yells the blade and Luna chuckles despite the wounds she has taken. “It’s Gareth!”
As the paladin literally carves his way out of the creature, the cracks he has been creating spread across its form, linking up with the huge chunks slashed away by Korm. The undead begins to shudder and then, as Luna brings down both huge tentacles at once, lurches sideways and slowly, silently, falls apart.
“Yes!” exults Luna, only to be interrupted by a shout of “Behind you!” from Nameless. She sees the alienist, who has been helping his summoned creatures dispose of the vasuthant, gesture and a pea-sized flaming bead shoots past, to explode into a powerful fireball behind her. Luna turns ponderously, moving as quick as her tendriculos form can, to see the second undead colossus roll forward.
Though it bears multiple wounds from the attacks of the other defenders of Sharn and scorch-marks from Nameless’ spell, it shows no signs of stopping. Luna immediately unleashes a flame strike on it, and Korm follows suit from behind her. The undead’s body begins to split apart under the assault but it continues inexorably, both appendages striking out at Luna. With no space or ability to dodge, the tendriculos takes both blows in the middle of its face. Already wounded from the explosion of the orb and her battle with the first undead monster, Luna is in no shape to take the punishment, and she collapses.
“Damn!” says Korm, hefting his sword in readiness for the attack, “You ready for some more, Gareth?” The paladin, having just stepped out of the wreckage of the creature that swallowed him, wearily nods his head. Then he lifts the Endless Blade, looks around, and asks, “Where’s Six?”
The undead creature looming over Korm and him pauses, as if waiting for an answer. Its two upraised arms waver slightly and then it literally falls forward over Gareth and Korm. The two strike furiously at the rain of corpses for a couple of seconds, before they realize that it is not an attack. The creature is falling apart, and the reason is quickly obvious, as a metal form wreathed in shadow steps over the ridge of the hill-like and now collapsing form.
Six twirls the chain he had specially enchanted for slaying undead, its spikes adorned in ribbons of flesh from the creature he has been pounding away at, unseen by his companions. “I like it when you folks provide a distraction,” he says.
“Me too,” agrees Nameless, walking forward unscathed, the combination of his small horde of summoned elementals and spells having disposed of the vasuthant before it could get to him.
Luna, having been healed to consciousness by Korm, shakes her head. “Yeah, yeah – you’re both welcome.” Then she pokes the mound of now inanimate corpses and scowls as only a tendriculos can. “I’m getting sick of aberrations and the sh*t they do. I could really go a while without seeing another…”
* * * * * * * * * *
“…aberration army?” frowns Luna the next day. “Why do we always have to be the ones doing this? And why exactly are we here, anyway? Come to think of it, where exactly is here? Does anyone know?”
Nameless waits patiently until the questions end and then says dryly, waving his tentacle eloquently at the rocky tunnel that they are in, “We’re doing it because we’re better equipped for that than anyone else. We’re here because Khandan Dol asked us to investigate the aberrations which pulled back into the tunnels after the attacks and see if there’s another assault on the way. The forces of Sharn are too busy repairing the damage done to the Cogs and setting up defensive positions there to investigate. And we are, if I estimate correctly, currently about a mile below Sharn and at least a couple of miles southwest of it. And that’s about it.”
“Wait, which one was Khandan?”
“Khandan Dol, the dwarf in charge of the Redcloaks,” answers Nameless. “The one who shushed Meira when you were arguing with her.”
What might be a grin splits the tendriculos’ huge mouth. “Oh, yeah – that was awesome! I think I like him.”
“Don’t say that,” says Korm, raising his hands in mock-horror. “We know what … happens when you … um, like people.”
As Luna snorts at him, Gareth says, “Will you guys keep it down? Taking out the runehounds was quick, but we made a lot of noise with that delver.” The sword in his hand shudders of its own volition and the Blade’s voice mutters, “I f*cking hate delvers!”
“We’re not the only people making noise,” says Six quietly from his position ahead of the others. “Listen.”
The other Angels fall silent, expecting the sound of approaching enemies, but they hear no alarms from up ahead. In fact, things seem quiet for the moment, except for the faintest whisper of sound, carried through the rock as much as (or rather than) through the air. And then the Angels realize that there is a constant underlying whisper. With their exceptional senses and previous experience, it doesn’t take much time or discussion to be certain that they are hearing the sounds of dozens, maybe hundreds of creatures, some distance ahead of them.
The group proceeds towards the sound, with Six in the lead and a softly grumbling tendriculos bringing up the rear. Even though the tunnel is over a dozen feet high and wide, it is slightly tight for Luna. The tunnel is not completely straight but continues in the same general direction for over two hundred feet before turning and then runs for the same distance again before another turn. As the Angels advance, the faint sounds increase, and it is fairly clear that there must be a large open space not too far ahead. A large open space occupied by a lot of creatures.
Despite the growing sound, as Luna nears the second turning, she – and ahead of her, Six and Korm – picks up the faint whisper of movement just ahead. Something is moving beyond the turn in the tunnel.
Six signals to the others to wait and then proceeds around the turn, moving stealthily, relaying what he sees over the telepathic bond that Nameless has set up. The tunnel stretches a little over a hundred feet before him, before turning again to the left. The sound is stronger here and there is a faintly flickering glow from around the turn.
Not that Six has time to pay attention to that, as his attention is drawn to the ceiling of the tunnel above him. A large section of it is moving, and after a second, he realizes that the movement comes from over two dozen small creatures, clinging to the ceiling and stealthily working their way forwards. They look like chokers, but they are smaller and thinner. And the most obvious difference is that they only have patches of skin where their eyes are supposed to be, and round open mouths topped with a sucker.
The lack of eyes clearly doesn’t hurt their perceptiveness. Presumably possessing some form of blindsight, their heads turn in unison towards him and then they leap to attack.
Warned by the warforged’s mental cry of alarm, Nameless steps around the corner, casting a cloudkill which envelops Six and his assailants. Not that it seems to give the attackers any pause, as they pour off the ceiling onto Six. The warforged’s chain snaps out as they come, cracking one’s skull and dropping it to the floor, but the others surround Six, some even climbing onto him, tentacles hammering at his armored form. They make no sound as they do so, their mouths gaping silently.
“It’s a swarm,” transmits Six, “Blast it.” Then the shadows swirl around him and he disappears. Chokers which had just been striking at him or perched on his head fall to the ground, looking around in bewilderment. Nameless chuckles, his greater anticipate teleportation telling him not only that Six used his harness’ powers to teleport back around the corner, but that the warforged won’t be reappearing for a short while.
Even as Six disappears, Gareth moves to stand between Nameless and the swarm, twirling the Endless Blade in an artful and intimidating manner. “The first one of these to come by here gets hit,” he says.
“Pfft! Not necessary,” comments Korm, stepping up to the alienist’s other side. He casts – accompanied by an indignant “HEY!” from Luna, who is unable to get past the group without crushing them – and a flame strike descends on the chokers. Already wounded by Nameless’ spell and befuddled by Six’s sudden disappearance, the creatures have no defense, and when the explosion clears, all that is left are bodies.
And the increased sound of movement from around the turn in the tunnel ahead, as well as a number of raised voices. The Angels can decipher faint cries of alarm and a few words in daelkyr, such as “intruders” or “attack.” More voices are raised in the distance, scores of them, if not hundreds. And there are also other sounds that must be growls or snarls.
“So much for stealth! I don’t know why we bother trying! They always know we’re coming anyway,” Korm says, ignoring the fact that he was the one that created the explosion. He moves forward, readying his sword. “Come on. Let’s not give them time to prepare.”
Nameless’ tentacle taps him on the shoulder. “Why rush when we have a nice handy cloud of poison gas in front of us, headed in their direction? Does anyone have a nice fan to move it along a bit?”
“Fine,” grumbles Luna, still not that pleased about having had no role in the short fight. She casts and four small air elementals appear before her. The druid pronounces some orders in their breathy language and they transform into whirlwinds, rising and following the cloudkill, just entering its edge, safe from its poison in their lack of an anatomy. They angle their bodies, creating a combined breeze which increases the speed of the magical and poisonous fog, propelling it faster along the tunnel.
As they are doing so, Six finally appears, to be quickly apprised of the situation. Meanwhile, the noise ahead continues to increase. The closest noises and voices around the corner are only a couple hundred feet away and getting closer. The further noises begin a few hundred feet beyond that point and extend indefinitely into the distance, perhaps hundreds and more likely thousands of feet. Similarly, it’s unclear if there are hundreds or thousands of creatures around the bend.
But one thing is certain. The Angels have found their army of aberrations.
* Mike rolled a 1 on Knowledge (arcane) and got a 9, so we joked that Korm not only misidentified them horribly, but gave Nameless negatives to his own check.
** Nameless was right. The avolakia were trying to open a temporary extra-large portal to Xoriat using the energy from the deaths that had occurred during the battle(s) and to bring through what might be described as an aberration dreadnought, too large to come through any 'normal' portal. It wouldn’t have been pretty.
*** Modified Necronauts from MM3
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Vorput
First Post
This looks like a job for Snookums!
Solarious
Explorer
Not pretty? It would have been beautiful. It might have been so threatening that you'd have to actually resurrect someone for once.
shilsen
Adventurer
Less than a minute later…
“So far so good,” rasps Nameless, ignoring a rain of crossbow bolts, a few of which actually seem about to hit him, before veering away an inch from him and shooting back at the unfortunate dolgrims who fired them. The alienist uses his ring to empower a fireball with arcane energy as he lobs it into the army of aberrations.
Or half an army, since a giant wall of fire almost divides the huge cavern in half, penning over a thousand aberrations on the same side as Nameless and his allies. In theory, the sheer numbers of the foe should overwhelm them, but theories go only thus far when faced with the Angels. Six pseudonatural stag beetles and a pair of huge elementals smash their way through the aberrations. Hundreds of corpses litter the cavern, some still smoking from Nameless’ spells or Luna’s fire storm, others drained of water and life by Korm’s horrid wilting. Two cloudkills roll slowly through the army, forcing aberrations to flee them and leaving a string of corpses from those too slow to do so. The spells and the summoned creatures force the attackers into a relatively narrow channel when attacking, one where Gareth’s Endless Blade and Six’s aberration-bane chain can dispose of them.
Nameless nods in satisfaction and then floats higher till he can look over the wall of fire in the distance and observe the actions of the aberrations on the other side. His attention is especially focused on what seems to be the leader of the army, a huge beholder over a dozen feet across, which strangely possesses no eyestalks. While the small group of mind flayers (or, more precisely, those of them which survived the spells the Angels had lobbed in their direction) seem to be leading the rest of the army in a fairly orderly retreat away from the wall of fire, the giant beholder has remained where it is, and is now surrounded by a small swarm of gauths. The smaller beholders, each of which has a malformed crest of some sort on its head, float only a few inches above the ground, and as Nameless watches a lance-wielding dolgrim climbs atop each.
The alienist transmits whatever he sees over the telepathic link to the others as he floats back downwards. “Looks like they might be preparing a counter-attack. And I’m still not sure what that big beholder is. It doesn’t seem to have an anti-magic gaze, for one.”
“Excellent!” says Korm, hopping on the back of a phantom stag he has just conjured. “Let’s beat them to it! Gareth?”
“Sure,” says the paladin, stepping back from the body of a now-headless runehound. Before he can add anything else, Korm’s mount shoots forward and the Gatekeeper reaches down to scoop him up with one hand. Moving at incredible speed and angling slightly upwards, the stag shoots through the air and over the heads of the aberration army before any of them can react. It does not pause as it reaches the wall of fire but simply bursts right through, its magical fur charring a little in the flames, while the energy resistances cast by Korm and Gareth on themselves leave them unscathed.
As they disappear from view having passed through the wall, Luna stares after them. Then she says, her tinny voice contrasting with the giant bulk of her tendriculos form, “Okay – now that was stupid! Do we have to go rescue them?”
“Maybe,” says Nameless, floating back up again. “I’ll see.” Six too floats upwards, having already used a scroll to let himself fly, chain whipping back and forth before him as he uses his reach and new height to advantage. Luna and Nameless add spells of their own, blasting away any enemies for a few more seconds as they check on their companions.
On the other side of the wall of fire Korm swings Gareth up before him as the stag races towards their target. Before the huge beholder or the gauths around it can attack, they are upon it, and the Endless Blade slashes down, gleaming with silvery fire as it carves a gash in its side.
At which point Korm and Gareth discover the downside of charging a swarm of beholders – even small ones – alone. As the giant beholder recoils from the attack, the eight gauths swivel and turn to bring all of their eyes to bear, shooting a mere forty-eight eyebeams at the two targets. Most of them hit, and while Gareth’s and Korm’s multiple protections negate many of the attacks, a number of effects get through. Unfortunately, among them are the eight dispel magics, which combine to strip away a number of the protections, leading to further injury.
As the two of them stagger under the magical onslaught, the gauths turn to more physical attacks and fly forward. Now that they are close enough to see details, Korm and Gareth can see that each gauth has a strange crest growing out of its upper side, resembling a seat made of bone, cartilage and flesh. These ‘saddles’ now hold riders, each of them a dolgrim wearing thick hide armor of an indeterminate nature and carrying a large wooden shield, with two of its four arms wielding a lance. Only a couple of the lances strike, but the momentum of the gauths helps them hit deeply, punching through the two Angels’ magical protections. To make matters worse, three of the dolgrims attack the already wounded stag, and as they strike its magical form falls apart, dropping Gareth and Korm out of the air.
Korm grunts as he hits the ground painfully, landing prone and adding bruises to his existing wounds. Next to him, Gareth somehow lands on his feet – but only for a second. As the paladin looks up, he meets the gaze of the huge beholder. Streams of green light well out from the edges of its eye towards the center, and then a blast of energy shoots forth, smashing into Gareth’s chest and depositing him unconscious on the ground beside Korm, blood pooling around him.*
The Gatekeeper swears in orcish and quickly attempts to use his evil eye on the giant beholder, to no effect. He then casts his one remaining horrid wilting. The aberrations around him shudder and scream as the spell drains moisture from their bodies, but to his surprise and disgust, not a single one drops. Korm quickly casts a swift flame strike, which catches a pair of the dolgrims and their gauth mounts. Already severely wounded, they fall dying out of the air, hitting the ground in sizzling heaps. Which leaves another six gauths and dolgrims facing Korm, along with the huge beholder. “Help!”
“Yes, we have to rescue them,” says Nameless to Six and Luna, having seen it all and caught Korm’s mental message. “Luna, you’re too large and we’ve no time to change. You have to dimension door us there and I’ll teleport everyone else out. You’ll have to use master earth to follow.”
“All right,” says Luna, knowing there’s no time to argue, and her huge tentacles reach out. Six, still holding the perimeter, flicks a dolgaunt off its feet and then smashes his chain through one of its empty eye-sockets, and then feels her touch him, while her other tentacle touches Nameless. The now foot-wide magical ring around one tentacle flares with energy and the three Angels disappear, reappearing next to Korm.
Luna’s size shoves the surprised gauths aside as she appears among them, sending the small beholders momentarily reeling through the air, and Nameless seizes the chance, dropping down to touch Korm and Gareth, while Six stays by his side. A quick string of words and they vanish.
The huge beholder roars in frustration and anger, unleashing another of its virulent green beams. It smashes into Luna’s side, ripping a hole in her flesh, but the druid is relatively unhurt at this point and better able to absorb the impact. Though she is badly hurt, Luna waves a tentacle rudely as if it were only a scratch and mumbles, “You’re lucky I have to leave. Otherwise….” Not completing the sentence, she speaks the words of a spell and seems to sink into the ground, disappearing from view as multiple eye-beams strike the spot she just occupied.
* * *
A few seconds later…
Since Luna’s master earth can only carry her to a point which the earth actually has contact with, she reappears on the lowest level of Sharn, terrifying the small crowd of workmen clearing rubble nearby. Ignoring the accompanying guards, who quickly aim crossbows at her, Luna looks around and then up, grumbling under her breath and wondering if she wants to bother to fly up to the Gray House. After a second’s consideration, the druid decides that it’s been a long day and she could take a break. Plus it’s nice and cool here, in the shade of the towers.
Dropping her gaze to the people eyeing her warily, Luna waves a tentacle in a presumably reassuring manner and says, “I’m exhausted. Someone get me a fan and some water.” That said, she settles her huge bulk on the ground, leans back against the nearest tower and closes her eyes. Ah, peace at last!
Above her, in Upper Tavick’s Landing…
The Angels appear inside the main hall of the Gray House, startling the two liaison officers from the Royal Guard and the Redcloaks. Korm looks around, still dripping blood from multiple wounds, and says petulantly, “You brought us back here? I thought you were taking us to a better tactical position so that we could heal up and defeat the army. I wanted to defeat the army!”
Nameless rolls his eyes and rasps, “I thought you wanted to get yourself killed, seeing your cunning plan. Gareth and you are lucky to be alive.”
“Yes,” confirms Six, leaning over Gareth and using one of his many wands to stabilize him. “Can you heal him, Korm?”
“You heal him,” says Korm, his tone turning even more sulky, like a hugely overgrown and muscular teenager. “I didn’t even get to hex anyone.” He slams the meteoric blade back into its scabbard and then turns away. As he sees the two liaison officers he winks, and one of them promptly keels over and begins to snore. The big orc grins a little and then heads for the stairs.
“Where are you going?” asks Nameless.
“To my room. To sulk. Don’t bother me!”
Nameless and Six let him go, figuring that there are more important matters to deal with. Gareth is soon awake, the natural healing gifted them by Mordain having activated, and he heals himself while they awake the unfortunate man affected by Korm’s gaze. The liaison officers explain that they were waiting for the Angels to return so that they could learn what they discovered, but Nameless prefers to speak directly to the leaders of the city’s defenses. So the three Angels and the two officers head over to Central Plateau.
A short time later, Nameless is standing around a table with Khandan Dol, leader of the Redcloak battalion, Balan Cord, chief countermage of the Blackened Book, and others, explaining exactly what they discovered and what transpired.
“So,” Khandan says thoughtfully, once the alienist has finished, “Do you expect them to attack again soon? And do you have any recommendation regarding our defenses?”
“I cannot know what they plan,” rasps the alienist, “But it seemed a gathering of forces rather than an army poised to attack. And we inflicted very severe damage on...”
“Would have been more severe,” grumbles Korm, “If you’d let me kill that big beholder.”
“Or it kill you, more likely,” frowns Nameless at the interruption.
“Hey, all you needed to do was heal me. I would have cocooned Gareth and then…”
Gareth smiles soothingly at Khandan and the others who are watching the exchange. “Don’t worry. We do this a lot! But you were asking about defenses?”
“Yes,” says Khandan. “We’re both repairing the Cogs and establishing troops there, along with defensive positions and booby-traps, in case of further attack.”
“What of the warforged?” asks Six. “Especially the workers. Have they been evacuated?”
“Many of them,” says Khandan, “But many are also helping with the reconstruction and other work, and some have chosen to gather at the Cannith Forgehold.”
“I see,” says Six. “Regarding defenses in the Cogs, I think it’s a good idea, but you have to be prepared for attack from anywhere. Nameless, you said that delvers like the one we fought can make tunnels anywhere, correct?”
“Yes,” says Nameless. “There are, of course some precautions you can take, such as…”
The discussion continues, but is interrupted again a few minutes later by a breathless messenger, who hands Khandan a parchment. The dwarf reads it and his graying eyebrows lift for a second, before he turns to the Angels. “It seems your friend, the giant plant, has appeared in lower Tavick’s and is scaring the workers.”
The Angels exchange glances and sighs before Nameless says, “I can’t emphasize this enough, but it is vitally important that they listen to her and do not argue.”
Khandan nods and says dryly, “Apparently she is taking a nap.”
“Makes sense,” says Nameless “I’ve been to Xoriat and it didn’t faze me, but Luna ….um …”
Korm puts in, “Fazes you?”
“Yeah.”
“Very well,” says Khandan, calling an officer to him.
Sometime later, in the lower levels…
Luna awakes, stretches and sits up to find that someone has set up a large barricade around her and guards are diverting traffic around it. Near her sit three large hogsheads of water and beside them stand two nervous-looking goblins, which have evidently been fanning her with large fans and now simply look terrified.
A broad grin splits the tendriculos’ visage. “Ah, respect at last!” Luna grabs up the hogsheads, draining two of them, before speaking a command word. Then she rises awkwardly into the air, slowly floating up towards the Gray House.
* * *
Later that evening, Gareth gets a sending from Honar in Io’lokar, saying, “Two of my friends willing to accompany us to Khesavuthir. How soon do we leave? Where shall we meet you? Are you back in Khorvaire?” After a quick discussion, Gareth replies, “Yes, we are in Khorvaire now. Will be in Io’lokar in two days. Meet you at Nalyna’s home. Thank you.”
The message promptly leads to another of the Angels’ huge discussion-cum-arguments about the feasibility and merits of returning to Khesavuthir and again facing Xagygyrag. After a good fifteen minutes have passed, Luna says, “Screw this! I’m sick of all these arguments! I’m going out. Korm, let’s go talk to our gnome.”
“Oh yes,” says Korm, jumping to his feet. “This should be fun!”
“Wait!” says Gareth suspiciously, “What gnome guy? And what are you two up to?”
“That Flim guy,” says Luna, walking away. “At the Korranberg Chronicle. I’m going to write an advice column for him.”
A look of first puzzlement and then horror crosses the paladin’s face as she and Korm pass out the door, and then he takes off after them at full speed. Six and Nameless exchange glances and quickly follow.
“Wait, wait!” says Gareth, catching up to the two druids, “What advice column?”
“Oh, advice about all sorts of stuff. Relationship advice, for example. Like how to date a prince or something.”
“What?!”
“You’re repeating yourself,” chuckles Korm. “And since Luna mentioned that to me, I figured that I would write a cooking column. I have all these interesting ideas, especially with some of the things we have been running into.”
“You,” says Gareth, in a slightly dazed voice, “Want to write an advice column about cooking aberrations?!”
“No, stupid,” snorts Korm. “I know lots of interesting vegetarian options too.”
“This is absolutely unacceptable,” says Gareth.
“Says you!” grunts Luna. “Anyway, I don’t remember asking you for permission.”
“I don’t will do any harm,” says Six thoughtfully, “And there are some ways in which this can work to our advantage.”
“What did you have in mind?” asks Nameless curiously.
“The Korranberg Chronicle is already putting out information about us,” says Six, “Some that we gave them and some that we haven’t. Lots of people know about the Angels and more are learning daily. And what they usually learn is that we are dangerous people, who terrify those around them.” Though it is impossible to make out from Six’s unchanging face and glowing, pupil-less eyes, the warforged seems to glance at Luna. “If people think we are more … accessible, it can be helpful for us.” Noting Gareth’s expression, he adds, “If you want, I’ll read what they’re writing and edit it if needed – and if they’ll let me.”
After some more discussion, Gareth reluctantly agrees to let Luna and Korm go to the Korranberg Chronicle, or more precisely, to follow them to the KC offices and grumble a lot along the way.
Evidently people at the Korranberg Chronicle know the Angels well now, since their arrival is quickly followed by a tired-looking Flim joining them, with a pleased, if wary, expression on his face. “Hi,” he smiles, “What can I do for you?”
“Actually, it’s what I can do for you,” says Luna, with a broad grin. “I want you to put out an open call saying Luna is willing to answer questions of a personal nature, such as dating issues, that Redcloak problem, and what to do if your child wants to become a monk.”
There is a short pause, and then Flim says slowly, “Let me be sure I understand you perfectly. You want to write an advice column for us?”
“Yes!”
“All right,” says the gnome, just as slowly as before, “That might be something I can arrange, though I’m not making any promises. But, on a related note, would any of you be willing to write something for us regarding this invasion from Xoriat? Perhaps a weekly column? That’s something people would certainly be interested in – and need to hear.”
Korm grins as broadly as Luna has been. “Yes. I’d be very happy to do that. And I can include recipes.”
Before Flim can ask what he means by that, Luna quickly adds, “But if you accept his, you accept mine.”
“So it’s a package deal?” asks Flim, looking at the two druids.
Korm shrugs. “You heard the lady.”
Flim promises to do whatever he can and after a little discussion of what they have been up to, the Angels take their leave. As they are heading back towards the Gray House, Korm pauses. “I’m getting a sending.”
The Gatekeeper immediately recognizes the source of the message as Saala Torrn. She says, “Aberrations attacking settlements near Blackwater Lake, heading for Patrahk’n, with aid from Dragon Below clans. Need aid as soon as you can. Am at Patrahk’n.” Korm does not wait to discuss this with the others but replies immediately, “We will be there immediately. Hopefully Nameless will let us kill it this time. And don’t mention the dragon to Gareth.”
Looking at the quizzical expressions around him, Korm explains to the others what the message was. Then he adds, “Patrahk’n is one of the largest towns in the Marches besides the capital, Zarash’ak. I know the area well and can use a master earth to go there directly, or provide a detailed enough description for Nameless to get us there too. And we need to go there now.” He looks around again and adds, calmly but firmly, “And this isn’t a request or subject for discussion. I’m going, whether any of you do or not.”
“We’re coming, of course,” says Nameless, and the others nod. Luna grunts, “Yeah, they’ll need a real druid!”
Korm chuckles, “Sure. Everyone ready to go right now?”
“Actually, could we have half an hour?” asks Six.
“We can afford that, I think,” says Korm. “Why?”
“I want to talk to the Wayfinder’s Guild. Considering that we’re going back to Io’lokar soon, I think they’ll be interested in sending someone with us. Very interested.”
“When did you think of doing that?”
“I’ve been thinking of it ever since we reached Argonnessen, actually,” says Six. “And if some of us are exploring journalism right now, I think I can handle tourism. Anyway, let me take care of this and we can leave.”
* * *
Some time later…
As the Angels walk through the gates of Patrahk’n, they note that the small town is bursting at the seams with refugees, even though many are camped beyond its wooden walls. Korm comments as they enter that the tribal banners outside indicate that two of the nearby orc tribes must have left their ancestral grounds and moved to this place too. The addition to the normal population has clearly had a chaotic effect, with individuals and groups scurrying around amidst great commotion.
Despite the turmoil and the presence of many armed warriors, the Guardian Angels gain a significant amount of attention as they enter the place. Not only do they stand out significantly among the population, with Gareth’s permanently glowing figure and Six as the only warforged in sight, but a few people in the area seem to know Korm. Cries of recognition ring out as the Gatekeeper leads the group into the town. A young orc runs up and throws his arms around Korm. “Korm’akhan! It is a pleasure to see you again!”
Korm sweeps the younger orc up in a big hug and then lowers him, before introducing him to his companions. “Subot’rai is one of my distant sister-sons.” The smaller orc bows to Korm’s companions and says, “You must be the Guardian Angels from Sharn. It is an honor. Are you here to fight the aberrations?”
“Yes,” says Korm, with a broad grin. “And eat a few.” As Subot’rai looks quizzical, Korm slaps him on the back, almost taking him off his feet. “Now come along. We need to find Saala Torrn.”
Subot’rai rights himself, wincing slightly, and says, “I know where she is. Follow me.”
As the group walks deeper into the town, more and more people join them. Excited queries and whispers follow in their wake, and people constantly stop them to ask if they are there to help. As the commotion and the crowd grow, Six says to Korm, “Maybe you should reassure them in some way. At this rate, we will take ages to get through.”
“Good idea,” says Korm. Without shortening his stride, he raises his voice and cries in a booming voice, “I am Korm’akhan, wielder of the meteoric blade. And we are the Guardian Angels. Don’t worry. Now that we’re here, you’ll be fine. Probably. At least most of you won’t die. I think.”
Six looks at the suddenly grayer faces around them and sighs. “What did he say?” When Nameless translates from the orcish, Six sighs again. “Ah well,” he says, looking around, “At least most of them seem to be leaving us now.”
The Angels walk onwards, with Korm continuing to spread reassurance and gloom in equal quantities, until they eventually find Saala. The leader of the Gatekeepers is with a number of druids and warriors, evidently in the middle of a heated discussion. She quickly introduces the Angels and explains to them what has occurred.
Saala says that an army of aberrations recently emerged from Khyber near Arashuul, a smaller town to the south, which they burned. They then headed north along Blackwater River, burning settlements along the way. They must have made some sort of plans with two of the closest clans of humans, since two clans seem to be helping the aberrations with guides and even fighting on their side. Those in their path are either fleeing or have headed to Patrahk’n, the only large town in the area. This being the Shadow Marches, where travel is often slow and difficult, evacuating Patrahk’n will be next to impossible, since it will take too much time. As a last resort, a large number of people can be sent onto Blackwater Lake, which the town rests on, and north on boats, but many would die before they could reach safety even if the aberrations did not get them.
After explaining these details, Saala adds that she is trying to organize a defense with the town leaders. “I hope,” she says, “You will be able to help with that. And maybe even lead some of our warriors in a counterattack to slow down the army? They are nearly thirty miles away, as far as we know, which gives us about two days.”
“What sort of creatures are there in this army?” asks Nameless. “Do you know?”
“The reports from survivors of their attacks indicate that they are mainly dolgrims, led by some mind flayers. There are also apparently many creatures suited to our habitat, including chuuls, pseudonatural crocodiles and snakes.”
“What about beholders? And what sort of ranged capacity do they have? Spellcasters?”
“No beholders have been reported. We have no reports of aberration spellcasters. It seems members of the two clans – the White Hand and the Snake’s Fang – are handling most of the spellcasting.”
“Interesting. Excuse us for a moment.” Nameless gestures for his companions to join him and they head a short distance away. A quick, whispered discussion ensues. After a couple of minutes, the Angels rejoin the Marchers.
“Yes?” asks Saala curiously.
“We have a plan,” says Korm, grinning from ear to ear. “No evacuation. And no counterattack by your troops. We’ll handle it.”
“Really? What are you going to do?”
Korm’s grin widens. “We’re going to kill them all.”
* Gareth went to -8 and Korm took over 100 hp of damage in one round.
“So far so good,” rasps Nameless, ignoring a rain of crossbow bolts, a few of which actually seem about to hit him, before veering away an inch from him and shooting back at the unfortunate dolgrims who fired them. The alienist uses his ring to empower a fireball with arcane energy as he lobs it into the army of aberrations.
Or half an army, since a giant wall of fire almost divides the huge cavern in half, penning over a thousand aberrations on the same side as Nameless and his allies. In theory, the sheer numbers of the foe should overwhelm them, but theories go only thus far when faced with the Angels. Six pseudonatural stag beetles and a pair of huge elementals smash their way through the aberrations. Hundreds of corpses litter the cavern, some still smoking from Nameless’ spells or Luna’s fire storm, others drained of water and life by Korm’s horrid wilting. Two cloudkills roll slowly through the army, forcing aberrations to flee them and leaving a string of corpses from those too slow to do so. The spells and the summoned creatures force the attackers into a relatively narrow channel when attacking, one where Gareth’s Endless Blade and Six’s aberration-bane chain can dispose of them.
Nameless nods in satisfaction and then floats higher till he can look over the wall of fire in the distance and observe the actions of the aberrations on the other side. His attention is especially focused on what seems to be the leader of the army, a huge beholder over a dozen feet across, which strangely possesses no eyestalks. While the small group of mind flayers (or, more precisely, those of them which survived the spells the Angels had lobbed in their direction) seem to be leading the rest of the army in a fairly orderly retreat away from the wall of fire, the giant beholder has remained where it is, and is now surrounded by a small swarm of gauths. The smaller beholders, each of which has a malformed crest of some sort on its head, float only a few inches above the ground, and as Nameless watches a lance-wielding dolgrim climbs atop each.
The alienist transmits whatever he sees over the telepathic link to the others as he floats back downwards. “Looks like they might be preparing a counter-attack. And I’m still not sure what that big beholder is. It doesn’t seem to have an anti-magic gaze, for one.”
“Excellent!” says Korm, hopping on the back of a phantom stag he has just conjured. “Let’s beat them to it! Gareth?”
“Sure,” says the paladin, stepping back from the body of a now-headless runehound. Before he can add anything else, Korm’s mount shoots forward and the Gatekeeper reaches down to scoop him up with one hand. Moving at incredible speed and angling slightly upwards, the stag shoots through the air and over the heads of the aberration army before any of them can react. It does not pause as it reaches the wall of fire but simply bursts right through, its magical fur charring a little in the flames, while the energy resistances cast by Korm and Gareth on themselves leave them unscathed.
As they disappear from view having passed through the wall, Luna stares after them. Then she says, her tinny voice contrasting with the giant bulk of her tendriculos form, “Okay – now that was stupid! Do we have to go rescue them?”
“Maybe,” says Nameless, floating back up again. “I’ll see.” Six too floats upwards, having already used a scroll to let himself fly, chain whipping back and forth before him as he uses his reach and new height to advantage. Luna and Nameless add spells of their own, blasting away any enemies for a few more seconds as they check on their companions.
On the other side of the wall of fire Korm swings Gareth up before him as the stag races towards their target. Before the huge beholder or the gauths around it can attack, they are upon it, and the Endless Blade slashes down, gleaming with silvery fire as it carves a gash in its side.
At which point Korm and Gareth discover the downside of charging a swarm of beholders – even small ones – alone. As the giant beholder recoils from the attack, the eight gauths swivel and turn to bring all of their eyes to bear, shooting a mere forty-eight eyebeams at the two targets. Most of them hit, and while Gareth’s and Korm’s multiple protections negate many of the attacks, a number of effects get through. Unfortunately, among them are the eight dispel magics, which combine to strip away a number of the protections, leading to further injury.
As the two of them stagger under the magical onslaught, the gauths turn to more physical attacks and fly forward. Now that they are close enough to see details, Korm and Gareth can see that each gauth has a strange crest growing out of its upper side, resembling a seat made of bone, cartilage and flesh. These ‘saddles’ now hold riders, each of them a dolgrim wearing thick hide armor of an indeterminate nature and carrying a large wooden shield, with two of its four arms wielding a lance. Only a couple of the lances strike, but the momentum of the gauths helps them hit deeply, punching through the two Angels’ magical protections. To make matters worse, three of the dolgrims attack the already wounded stag, and as they strike its magical form falls apart, dropping Gareth and Korm out of the air.
Korm grunts as he hits the ground painfully, landing prone and adding bruises to his existing wounds. Next to him, Gareth somehow lands on his feet – but only for a second. As the paladin looks up, he meets the gaze of the huge beholder. Streams of green light well out from the edges of its eye towards the center, and then a blast of energy shoots forth, smashing into Gareth’s chest and depositing him unconscious on the ground beside Korm, blood pooling around him.*
The Gatekeeper swears in orcish and quickly attempts to use his evil eye on the giant beholder, to no effect. He then casts his one remaining horrid wilting. The aberrations around him shudder and scream as the spell drains moisture from their bodies, but to his surprise and disgust, not a single one drops. Korm quickly casts a swift flame strike, which catches a pair of the dolgrims and their gauth mounts. Already severely wounded, they fall dying out of the air, hitting the ground in sizzling heaps. Which leaves another six gauths and dolgrims facing Korm, along with the huge beholder. “Help!”
“Yes, we have to rescue them,” says Nameless to Six and Luna, having seen it all and caught Korm’s mental message. “Luna, you’re too large and we’ve no time to change. You have to dimension door us there and I’ll teleport everyone else out. You’ll have to use master earth to follow.”
“All right,” says Luna, knowing there’s no time to argue, and her huge tentacles reach out. Six, still holding the perimeter, flicks a dolgaunt off its feet and then smashes his chain through one of its empty eye-sockets, and then feels her touch him, while her other tentacle touches Nameless. The now foot-wide magical ring around one tentacle flares with energy and the three Angels disappear, reappearing next to Korm.
Luna’s size shoves the surprised gauths aside as she appears among them, sending the small beholders momentarily reeling through the air, and Nameless seizes the chance, dropping down to touch Korm and Gareth, while Six stays by his side. A quick string of words and they vanish.
The huge beholder roars in frustration and anger, unleashing another of its virulent green beams. It smashes into Luna’s side, ripping a hole in her flesh, but the druid is relatively unhurt at this point and better able to absorb the impact. Though she is badly hurt, Luna waves a tentacle rudely as if it were only a scratch and mumbles, “You’re lucky I have to leave. Otherwise….” Not completing the sentence, she speaks the words of a spell and seems to sink into the ground, disappearing from view as multiple eye-beams strike the spot she just occupied.
* * *
A few seconds later…
Since Luna’s master earth can only carry her to a point which the earth actually has contact with, she reappears on the lowest level of Sharn, terrifying the small crowd of workmen clearing rubble nearby. Ignoring the accompanying guards, who quickly aim crossbows at her, Luna looks around and then up, grumbling under her breath and wondering if she wants to bother to fly up to the Gray House. After a second’s consideration, the druid decides that it’s been a long day and she could take a break. Plus it’s nice and cool here, in the shade of the towers.
Dropping her gaze to the people eyeing her warily, Luna waves a tentacle in a presumably reassuring manner and says, “I’m exhausted. Someone get me a fan and some water.” That said, she settles her huge bulk on the ground, leans back against the nearest tower and closes her eyes. Ah, peace at last!
Above her, in Upper Tavick’s Landing…
The Angels appear inside the main hall of the Gray House, startling the two liaison officers from the Royal Guard and the Redcloaks. Korm looks around, still dripping blood from multiple wounds, and says petulantly, “You brought us back here? I thought you were taking us to a better tactical position so that we could heal up and defeat the army. I wanted to defeat the army!”
Nameless rolls his eyes and rasps, “I thought you wanted to get yourself killed, seeing your cunning plan. Gareth and you are lucky to be alive.”
“Yes,” confirms Six, leaning over Gareth and using one of his many wands to stabilize him. “Can you heal him, Korm?”
“You heal him,” says Korm, his tone turning even more sulky, like a hugely overgrown and muscular teenager. “I didn’t even get to hex anyone.” He slams the meteoric blade back into its scabbard and then turns away. As he sees the two liaison officers he winks, and one of them promptly keels over and begins to snore. The big orc grins a little and then heads for the stairs.
“Where are you going?” asks Nameless.
“To my room. To sulk. Don’t bother me!”
Nameless and Six let him go, figuring that there are more important matters to deal with. Gareth is soon awake, the natural healing gifted them by Mordain having activated, and he heals himself while they awake the unfortunate man affected by Korm’s gaze. The liaison officers explain that they were waiting for the Angels to return so that they could learn what they discovered, but Nameless prefers to speak directly to the leaders of the city’s defenses. So the three Angels and the two officers head over to Central Plateau.
A short time later, Nameless is standing around a table with Khandan Dol, leader of the Redcloak battalion, Balan Cord, chief countermage of the Blackened Book, and others, explaining exactly what they discovered and what transpired.
“So,” Khandan says thoughtfully, once the alienist has finished, “Do you expect them to attack again soon? And do you have any recommendation regarding our defenses?”
“I cannot know what they plan,” rasps the alienist, “But it seemed a gathering of forces rather than an army poised to attack. And we inflicted very severe damage on...”
“Would have been more severe,” grumbles Korm, “If you’d let me kill that big beholder.”
“Or it kill you, more likely,” frowns Nameless at the interruption.
“Hey, all you needed to do was heal me. I would have cocooned Gareth and then…”
Gareth smiles soothingly at Khandan and the others who are watching the exchange. “Don’t worry. We do this a lot! But you were asking about defenses?”
“Yes,” says Khandan. “We’re both repairing the Cogs and establishing troops there, along with defensive positions and booby-traps, in case of further attack.”
“What of the warforged?” asks Six. “Especially the workers. Have they been evacuated?”
“Many of them,” says Khandan, “But many are also helping with the reconstruction and other work, and some have chosen to gather at the Cannith Forgehold.”
“I see,” says Six. “Regarding defenses in the Cogs, I think it’s a good idea, but you have to be prepared for attack from anywhere. Nameless, you said that delvers like the one we fought can make tunnels anywhere, correct?”
“Yes,” says Nameless. “There are, of course some precautions you can take, such as…”
The discussion continues, but is interrupted again a few minutes later by a breathless messenger, who hands Khandan a parchment. The dwarf reads it and his graying eyebrows lift for a second, before he turns to the Angels. “It seems your friend, the giant plant, has appeared in lower Tavick’s and is scaring the workers.”
The Angels exchange glances and sighs before Nameless says, “I can’t emphasize this enough, but it is vitally important that they listen to her and do not argue.”
Khandan nods and says dryly, “Apparently she is taking a nap.”
“Makes sense,” says Nameless “I’ve been to Xoriat and it didn’t faze me, but Luna ….um …”
Korm puts in, “Fazes you?”
“Yeah.”
“Very well,” says Khandan, calling an officer to him.
Sometime later, in the lower levels…
Luna awakes, stretches and sits up to find that someone has set up a large barricade around her and guards are diverting traffic around it. Near her sit three large hogsheads of water and beside them stand two nervous-looking goblins, which have evidently been fanning her with large fans and now simply look terrified.
A broad grin splits the tendriculos’ visage. “Ah, respect at last!” Luna grabs up the hogsheads, draining two of them, before speaking a command word. Then she rises awkwardly into the air, slowly floating up towards the Gray House.
* * *
Later that evening, Gareth gets a sending from Honar in Io’lokar, saying, “Two of my friends willing to accompany us to Khesavuthir. How soon do we leave? Where shall we meet you? Are you back in Khorvaire?” After a quick discussion, Gareth replies, “Yes, we are in Khorvaire now. Will be in Io’lokar in two days. Meet you at Nalyna’s home. Thank you.”
The message promptly leads to another of the Angels’ huge discussion-cum-arguments about the feasibility and merits of returning to Khesavuthir and again facing Xagygyrag. After a good fifteen minutes have passed, Luna says, “Screw this! I’m sick of all these arguments! I’m going out. Korm, let’s go talk to our gnome.”
“Oh yes,” says Korm, jumping to his feet. “This should be fun!”
“Wait!” says Gareth suspiciously, “What gnome guy? And what are you two up to?”
“That Flim guy,” says Luna, walking away. “At the Korranberg Chronicle. I’m going to write an advice column for him.”
A look of first puzzlement and then horror crosses the paladin’s face as she and Korm pass out the door, and then he takes off after them at full speed. Six and Nameless exchange glances and quickly follow.
“Wait, wait!” says Gareth, catching up to the two druids, “What advice column?”
“Oh, advice about all sorts of stuff. Relationship advice, for example. Like how to date a prince or something.”
“What?!”
“You’re repeating yourself,” chuckles Korm. “And since Luna mentioned that to me, I figured that I would write a cooking column. I have all these interesting ideas, especially with some of the things we have been running into.”
“You,” says Gareth, in a slightly dazed voice, “Want to write an advice column about cooking aberrations?!”
“No, stupid,” snorts Korm. “I know lots of interesting vegetarian options too.”
“This is absolutely unacceptable,” says Gareth.
“Says you!” grunts Luna. “Anyway, I don’t remember asking you for permission.”
“I don’t will do any harm,” says Six thoughtfully, “And there are some ways in which this can work to our advantage.”
“What did you have in mind?” asks Nameless curiously.
“The Korranberg Chronicle is already putting out information about us,” says Six, “Some that we gave them and some that we haven’t. Lots of people know about the Angels and more are learning daily. And what they usually learn is that we are dangerous people, who terrify those around them.” Though it is impossible to make out from Six’s unchanging face and glowing, pupil-less eyes, the warforged seems to glance at Luna. “If people think we are more … accessible, it can be helpful for us.” Noting Gareth’s expression, he adds, “If you want, I’ll read what they’re writing and edit it if needed – and if they’ll let me.”
After some more discussion, Gareth reluctantly agrees to let Luna and Korm go to the Korranberg Chronicle, or more precisely, to follow them to the KC offices and grumble a lot along the way.
Evidently people at the Korranberg Chronicle know the Angels well now, since their arrival is quickly followed by a tired-looking Flim joining them, with a pleased, if wary, expression on his face. “Hi,” he smiles, “What can I do for you?”
“Actually, it’s what I can do for you,” says Luna, with a broad grin. “I want you to put out an open call saying Luna is willing to answer questions of a personal nature, such as dating issues, that Redcloak problem, and what to do if your child wants to become a monk.”
There is a short pause, and then Flim says slowly, “Let me be sure I understand you perfectly. You want to write an advice column for us?”
“Yes!”
“All right,” says the gnome, just as slowly as before, “That might be something I can arrange, though I’m not making any promises. But, on a related note, would any of you be willing to write something for us regarding this invasion from Xoriat? Perhaps a weekly column? That’s something people would certainly be interested in – and need to hear.”
Korm grins as broadly as Luna has been. “Yes. I’d be very happy to do that. And I can include recipes.”
Before Flim can ask what he means by that, Luna quickly adds, “But if you accept his, you accept mine.”
“So it’s a package deal?” asks Flim, looking at the two druids.
Korm shrugs. “You heard the lady.”
Flim promises to do whatever he can and after a little discussion of what they have been up to, the Angels take their leave. As they are heading back towards the Gray House, Korm pauses. “I’m getting a sending.”
The Gatekeeper immediately recognizes the source of the message as Saala Torrn. She says, “Aberrations attacking settlements near Blackwater Lake, heading for Patrahk’n, with aid from Dragon Below clans. Need aid as soon as you can. Am at Patrahk’n.” Korm does not wait to discuss this with the others but replies immediately, “We will be there immediately. Hopefully Nameless will let us kill it this time. And don’t mention the dragon to Gareth.”
Looking at the quizzical expressions around him, Korm explains to the others what the message was. Then he adds, “Patrahk’n is one of the largest towns in the Marches besides the capital, Zarash’ak. I know the area well and can use a master earth to go there directly, or provide a detailed enough description for Nameless to get us there too. And we need to go there now.” He looks around again and adds, calmly but firmly, “And this isn’t a request or subject for discussion. I’m going, whether any of you do or not.”
“We’re coming, of course,” says Nameless, and the others nod. Luna grunts, “Yeah, they’ll need a real druid!”
Korm chuckles, “Sure. Everyone ready to go right now?”
“Actually, could we have half an hour?” asks Six.
“We can afford that, I think,” says Korm. “Why?”
“I want to talk to the Wayfinder’s Guild. Considering that we’re going back to Io’lokar soon, I think they’ll be interested in sending someone with us. Very interested.”
“When did you think of doing that?”
“I’ve been thinking of it ever since we reached Argonnessen, actually,” says Six. “And if some of us are exploring journalism right now, I think I can handle tourism. Anyway, let me take care of this and we can leave.”
* * *
Some time later…
As the Angels walk through the gates of Patrahk’n, they note that the small town is bursting at the seams with refugees, even though many are camped beyond its wooden walls. Korm comments as they enter that the tribal banners outside indicate that two of the nearby orc tribes must have left their ancestral grounds and moved to this place too. The addition to the normal population has clearly had a chaotic effect, with individuals and groups scurrying around amidst great commotion.
Despite the turmoil and the presence of many armed warriors, the Guardian Angels gain a significant amount of attention as they enter the place. Not only do they stand out significantly among the population, with Gareth’s permanently glowing figure and Six as the only warforged in sight, but a few people in the area seem to know Korm. Cries of recognition ring out as the Gatekeeper leads the group into the town. A young orc runs up and throws his arms around Korm. “Korm’akhan! It is a pleasure to see you again!”
Korm sweeps the younger orc up in a big hug and then lowers him, before introducing him to his companions. “Subot’rai is one of my distant sister-sons.” The smaller orc bows to Korm’s companions and says, “You must be the Guardian Angels from Sharn. It is an honor. Are you here to fight the aberrations?”
“Yes,” says Korm, with a broad grin. “And eat a few.” As Subot’rai looks quizzical, Korm slaps him on the back, almost taking him off his feet. “Now come along. We need to find Saala Torrn.”
Subot’rai rights himself, wincing slightly, and says, “I know where she is. Follow me.”
As the group walks deeper into the town, more and more people join them. Excited queries and whispers follow in their wake, and people constantly stop them to ask if they are there to help. As the commotion and the crowd grow, Six says to Korm, “Maybe you should reassure them in some way. At this rate, we will take ages to get through.”
“Good idea,” says Korm. Without shortening his stride, he raises his voice and cries in a booming voice, “I am Korm’akhan, wielder of the meteoric blade. And we are the Guardian Angels. Don’t worry. Now that we’re here, you’ll be fine. Probably. At least most of you won’t die. I think.”
Six looks at the suddenly grayer faces around them and sighs. “What did he say?” When Nameless translates from the orcish, Six sighs again. “Ah well,” he says, looking around, “At least most of them seem to be leaving us now.”
The Angels walk onwards, with Korm continuing to spread reassurance and gloom in equal quantities, until they eventually find Saala. The leader of the Gatekeepers is with a number of druids and warriors, evidently in the middle of a heated discussion. She quickly introduces the Angels and explains to them what has occurred.
Saala says that an army of aberrations recently emerged from Khyber near Arashuul, a smaller town to the south, which they burned. They then headed north along Blackwater River, burning settlements along the way. They must have made some sort of plans with two of the closest clans of humans, since two clans seem to be helping the aberrations with guides and even fighting on their side. Those in their path are either fleeing or have headed to Patrahk’n, the only large town in the area. This being the Shadow Marches, where travel is often slow and difficult, evacuating Patrahk’n will be next to impossible, since it will take too much time. As a last resort, a large number of people can be sent onto Blackwater Lake, which the town rests on, and north on boats, but many would die before they could reach safety even if the aberrations did not get them.
After explaining these details, Saala adds that she is trying to organize a defense with the town leaders. “I hope,” she says, “You will be able to help with that. And maybe even lead some of our warriors in a counterattack to slow down the army? They are nearly thirty miles away, as far as we know, which gives us about two days.”
“What sort of creatures are there in this army?” asks Nameless. “Do you know?”
“The reports from survivors of their attacks indicate that they are mainly dolgrims, led by some mind flayers. There are also apparently many creatures suited to our habitat, including chuuls, pseudonatural crocodiles and snakes.”
“What about beholders? And what sort of ranged capacity do they have? Spellcasters?”
“No beholders have been reported. We have no reports of aberration spellcasters. It seems members of the two clans – the White Hand and the Snake’s Fang – are handling most of the spellcasting.”
“Interesting. Excuse us for a moment.” Nameless gestures for his companions to join him and they head a short distance away. A quick, whispered discussion ensues. After a couple of minutes, the Angels rejoin the Marchers.
“Yes?” asks Saala curiously.
“We have a plan,” says Korm, grinning from ear to ear. “No evacuation. And no counterattack by your troops. We’ll handle it.”
“Really? What are you going to do?”
Korm’s grin widens. “We’re going to kill them all.”
* Gareth went to -8 and Korm took over 100 hp of damage in one round.
Vorput
First Post
Heh. What level are the angels at now?
The entire group is now 16th. They were all recently updated in the Rogues Gallery thread.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/plots-places/182305-rogues-gallery-shilsens-saturday-story-hour.html
