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Message: <blockquote data-quote="shilsen" data-source="post: 3644048" data-attributes="member: 198">The vampire grins in satisfaction as Nameless’ hands attempt vainly to stop the stream of blood jetting from his ravaged throat. The alienist’s body thrashes in agony and with the abortive effort to concentrate and form the words of a spell, and then tumbles off the bed to the ground, blood pooling around him as his eyes close. His killer looks across the bed, to meet the startled gaze of Korm, who has been woken by the sound of the attack. He smiles, tongue flickering over gleaming canines, and leaps for the druid’s throat.Sh*t! Nameless! Korm throws himself off the bed, barely avoiding the attack, and desperately grabs at his sword. As his hand closes on the hilt, claws rake his back and fangs bite into the top of his shoulder, only an instinctive jerk saving his throat. The Gatekeeper feels the inevitable effect of the vampire’s touch, draining his vitality as well as the most powerful of the spells from his mind. With a snarl, Korm draws the sword, reverses his grip and strikes backwards, barely missing his own side. Driven by muscles permanently enhanced by Mordain to rival the most powerful of giants, the meteoric blade punches through the vampire’s undead flesh. With a half-scream and half-snarl, the vampire throws itself backwards, ripping itself off the sword. Somersaulting across the cabin, it leaps and lands halfway up the wall, glaring down at Korm as he spins around to face it. Though its ribs are visible through the gash he just inflicted, it growls and its muscles tense for another leap. Korm hefts his weapon and sets his feet. Though he knows he can probably defeat it handily enough now that he is on his feet and prepared, each blow from it will further weaken him, and that might make all the difference. Even as he thinks of calling out for help, he hears startled cries from the guards further down the corridor outside. Damn! Now what? The vampire’s smile indicates that it knows what the reason for the alarm is. “Fool! You cannot save your precious Princess – or yourself.”Korm growls back, “If you’re so sure, come down here and let’s see exactly how undead you are.” The vampire’s eyes narrow in response, and then widen in shock and surprise, its fanged jaw actually sagging for a moment. Huh? It wasn’t that snappy a comeback , thinks Korm, before realizing that it is looking past him. For a moment he wonders if it is trying to trick him into turning his head, and then he hears the sound of spellcasting. Pained, slightly indistinct, but very recognizable, spellcasting.…With the front of his throat torn out and his body drained by the vampire’s attack, Nameless should – by the standards of normal, mortal human beings – be dead by now. As his body hits the ground, even he expects to be momentarily a corpse, and wonders as his eyes close precisely what is going to happen to the Gate in his chest with his death. But none of the Angels is strictly a normal mortal any more, least of them Nameless, with the blessing of the Silver Flame, the world-warping touch of Xoriat, and the ‘improvements’ of the Fleshweaver all existing within his physical form. A form, not all of which he was actually born with. A second after his eyes close, he feels another sharp pain in his throat, as the modified troll-flesh implanted throughout his body by Mordain begins to repair itself. Tendrils of flesh begin to spread across the huge gash and the pumping of blood slows to a trickle. The pain is intense and actually grows for a moment, but it only serves to indicate to Nameless that he is still very much alive.* And now really, really, pissed off.…Nameless rises slowly from behind the bed like the pride of archmages, his throat and chest soaked with gore, speaking the words of one of his most powerful – and hitherto never used – spells. The sonorous arcane words are somehow made even more impressive by the accompanying wheezing of air rasping through the ragged tear in his throat. The alienist dips a hand in his belt pouch and produces a tiny bronze hammer, which shimmers momentarily and then falls to dust as he completes the spell, “…Form Voltron!”The metal dust from the hammer sparkles on his fingertips and a matching sparkle shoots up his hand, up the arm, and across his body. Nameless feels first his limbs and then the rest of his body grow simultaneously heavy and unresponsive. Arms thicken and broaden, fingers meld into strange shapes while expanding drastically. His chest and torso puff out and his legs bulge till they are like tree trunks. Nameless’ head bumps against the ceiling and he has to bend forward, his growing form filling the cabin. A thick metal coating appears over his now completely transformed body, and the alienist can feel it spread inwards, till he is almost purely a creature of iron and steel, a metal monstrosity that somewhat resembles Six – in so much as a hunting tiger resembles the fiercest alley cat. Both Korm and the vampire stare in surprise as Nameless looms over them. The transmogrified mage cannot speak, but no words are necessary, as his deep-set mechanical eyes fix themselves on the undead and he slams his hands together, or more precisely, the huge axe-blade and giant maul that now pass for his hands. The vampire promptly turns into a misty vapor and flows towards and under the door. Korm quickly slashes at it, tearing away wisps of the cloudy form and then ducks even more swiftly, as an axe blade the size of his torso slashes past his head, ripping away more of the vapor. “Hey – watch it!” he says aggrievedly, before asking, “When the hell did you learn to do that?”**Unable to speak, the warforged titan that is Nameless shrugs and then indicates the door. Korm nods and throws it open, only to be enveloped in smoke as huge clouds of it roll in from the corridor, which is also full of smoke. Korm swears explosively, if in a somewhat muffled voice, and says, “There are either a hundred vampires out there or something really screwy is going on. Come on!” Taking a deep breath, he plunges out and into the smoke. The titan squeezes through the doorway behind him, to the accompaniment of rending wood as his huge sides splinter the doorframe. As they both emerge and turn towards the princess’ chambers, now invisible in the smoke, the next door flies open and another huge shape appears. Luna steps into the corridor, shaking her head warily from side to side at the smoke. As the titan, which matches her huge bulk, turns to look at her, the druid emits a growl and lifts a paw. Korm, barely able to glimpse her general shape but knowing precisely what Luna’s response to strange sights is, shouts a warning, “Don’t flame strike him! That’s Nameless! And we’ve got a vampire problem.”“Nameless?!” Luna yelps, in her tinny voice, “And vampires? What the f*ck have you two been up to? And what’s with this smoke?” “Search me,” says Korm, still making his way slowly through the smoke. “We got attacked by a vampire while sleeping. I thought Nameless got killed, but he’s evidently better. The vampire fled in gaseous form under the door and we opened it to find this place full of smoke.”As he is speaking, a large metal maul hooks itself around Korm’s chest and yanks him backwards. And then Nameless’ huge form thunders past him. The alienist had cast an abjuration*** on the door of Haydith’s chamber when leaving Fairhaven, which informs him of whoever is entering or leaving the room, providing a visual image as if he were standing nearby. And what he sees in his mind, even as the spell’s magic warns him that two creatures have entered the princess’ room, is the sight of not people opening it but rather smoke rolling under the door. More vampires!* * *Meanwhile, inside the princess’ chamber, all of the occupants have been warned that something is amiss by the surprised cries and sounds of conflict outside. Gareth, who has taken to sleeping in his armor, leaps to his feet from his cot outside the special internal bedchamber that Haydith uses, the Endless Blade flashing into existence from his metal hand.Haydith’s face appears around the curtains that hide her bedchamber, hair tousled from sleep but eyes bright in alarm. “What’s going on? Gareth?” “I don’t know, but better to be prepared for anything. Get behind me.” The paladin takes a step, seizes her hand and pulls the princess out, before moving between her and the door. Haydith emits a surprised squeak at the sudden tug, momentarily seeming more a frightened teenager, in her nightgown and bare feet, than a royal scion. But then she sets her jaw and a hand produces a hidden dagger, which she holds at the ready. Her ladies-in-waiting scurry toward her, but Gareth waves them away. “I need space around the princess! Stay back!” The women halt and reluctantly retreat, huddling together nearby. Without giving them a second glance, Gareth begins to place extra protective dweomers on Haydith. As he completes the second spell, one of the ladies-in-waiting shrieks, “What’s that?!”Turning, Gareth sees coils of vapor roll under the door and advance steadily towards them, moving far too quickly and determinedly to be normal smoke. * * *Outside, at the far end of the corridor, Six, covered in black shadows by his responsive plating as soon as the alarm was raised, rolls through the hatchway above and drops to the ground without bothering to touch the stairs. Despite his three eyes, the warforged can pierce the thick smoke not much better than his companions, but he has the advantage of being unaffected by inhaling it.Flicking his chain into a ready position, Six advances along the corridor. Just as he is about to turn the corner, his foot hits something metallic, which rolls over the carpeted floor. Huh? Six stoops and feels for it carefully, half expecting an explosion, and his hand closes on a rounded object. Raising it to his face, he sees a metal flask, its stopper hanging off it on a chain, with smoke billowing out of the open mouth. Six drops his chain and attempts to stopper it, to no avail, since the stopper halts two inches from the opening as if there was something in the way, even though investigation reveals nothing. Great! Magic!After a second’s thought, Six reaches in his pouch and pulls out a large piece of cloth. He quickly places it on the carpet and straightens it, immediately creating a large cylindrical hole in front of him. Six promptly drops the bottle into it, scoops up the portable hole and stuffs it back in his pouch. Then, recovering his chain, he moves on, noting that the smoke is very gradually beginning to thin now that the bottle that created it is gone.As Six advances, shouts of alarm break out ahead of him, followed by the sound of a terrific impact of metal on wood.* * *Unable to warn the others of what he knows, Nameless simply rushes towards the princess’ chamber, knowing that Korm and Luna will understand what he is doing and follow. The warforged titan looms out of the smoke over the two confused soldiers still standing in front of the door to the antechamber outside Haydith’s room, who are looking as bewildered as they have been since they saw a rolling wall of smoke envelop them, followed by sounds of conflict within it. Uncertain whether to retreat to the princess or move forward to investigate, they compromised by remaining in position, and now regret it thoroughly as the metal monster bears down on them. As they bravely prepare to defend themselves, Korm appears behind the titan and yells, “It’s us! Lower your weapons!” A second later he yells, “And duck!” Even without the warning, the guards would have done so when they saw what is coming, and they are already throwing themselves aside as Nameless’ huge maul smashes the door to smithereens. Smashing through what little remains of the door, the titan begins to squeeze its way into the antechamber. This area too is smoky, though less so, as it has been filling slowly with what seeps under the door. But above the smoke, on the ceiling, crouches a dark figure, who throws himself at Nameless as he enters. As billows of smoke fill the chamber through the shattered doorway behind him, the alienist-titan has a momentary glimpse of sharp fangs and recognizes the face that he saw above him as his throat was ripped out only moments ago, as the vampire Korm fought descends on him. With absolutely no effect, as its claws make an excruciating screech across his metal armor and fail to penetrate, and his new semi-construct nature makes him immune to its necromantic touch. The vampire twists away desperately, barely escaping being crushed against the wall by the titan’s bulk, and lands beneath him. As Nameless attempts to look down in the cramped space, Korm yells from behind him, “Go get the princess! I’ll handle this!” An aggrieved, if thin, growl from behind Korm indicates Luna’s frustration. “Screw this!” she grumbles. “I can’t see squat! I’m going inside too!” Even as Nameless ignores the vampire and smashes down the princess’ door, there is a momentary inrush of air behind Korm, as Luna activates her ring and dimension doors away.* * *Inside the room, Gareth’s eyes narrow as the mist advances, and then he laughs grimly. “Let’s see if I can persuade whatever it is – and I think I know – to emerge.” He produces a flask of holy water, uncorks it and sprays it in the air, while chanting the words of a spell. The falling droplets take on a silver glow and hang in mid-air for a moment, before reversing direction and flying upwards till they hit the ceiling. And then they spray outwards, till a driving silvery rain is falling throughout almost the entirety of the large chamber. Though the raindrops land on Gareth, the princess and her ladies-in-waiting, they disappear instantly, not even dampening their clothes or skin. Not so for the advancing vapors. As the droplets hit them, there is a sizzling sound and acrid smoke arises. The mists recoil as if alive and split into two, flowing around the edge of the falling rain to the walls of the chamber, where they float upwards. And then solidify, resolving themselves into two vampires, with their arms and legs bent in preparation to spring. One snarls, thin lips rolling back to reveal pointed teeth dripping with anticipatory saliva. “Time to die, paladin.” Its glowing eyes shift to focus on the princess. “Greetings, Princess – the Emerald Claw welcomes you to Karrnath!” Haydith glares back silently, her expression belying the pallor on her face. Gareth pushes her a little further behind him and looks back and forth between the vampires, while saying, “If you’re so confident, why are you hiding up there? Come and get a little wet.” His eyes flicker to the small pockmarks on the skin of each vampire, a couple of which still emit wisps of smoke, thanks to his spell.Both vampires simply snarl in return and the one who spoke gestures to the other. They scuttle sideways along the walls, placing themselves on opposite sides of the pair on the floor. “You cannot stand against us both alone,” the first one says to Gareth. “Maybe – just maybe – you can stop one of us, but the other one only needs to touch your little princess.”Gareth’s eyes flicker back and forth and he swings the Endless Blade back and forth, but he knows the vampire is right. He cannot cover two directions at once, and it’s already abundantly clear from their movements that both of the undead are faster than him. “You know,” says a voice from the sword, thankfully telepathic for once, “I think you’re kinda f*cked!”The vampire leader grins at the paladin’s expression. He knows the magical rain will hurt slightly, but it cannot kill them instantly. Already, the time taken to exchange threats has allowed him and his ally to heal the damage they have taken. He nods at the second vampire and his undead muscles flex, as he prepares to leap, already looking forward to the pleasure of rending and tearing……and then the door explodes into fragments, as a huge metal figure smashes its way into the room, carrying part of the doorframe with it. In the midst of the smoke behind it, two struggling figures are momentarily visible, one significantly more muscular than the other. As an eddy in the smoke reveals them to the view of those in the room, the vampire slashes at Korm’s face. The Gatekeeper grabs his wrist in mid-slash, knots of muscle leaping forth under the strain, and then drives his sword upward point-first like a huge dagger, through the vampire’s upper belly and out his back. As the smoke conceals the pair again, the occupants of the room stare in shock at the giant metal figure. The three ladies-in-waiting, huddled in a corner as far from the vampires as possible, scream in terror, and the screams intensify as another huge figure appears. This one is an inordinately obese bear, and unfortunately for Haydith’s servitors, it appears in the same area as two of the ladies. For a split second, bear and humans share the same physical space, and then the two unfortunate women are flung into the nearest open space, shrieking in agony as deep cuts appear on their skin. Ignoring them and the minor damage she suffers too, Luna growls, “Relax, people – the metal guy’s Nameless!” Gareth breathes a sigh of relief, but doesn’t lower his sword. “You’re outnumbered and outmatched! Surrender now!” The shocked expressions quickly fade into fury as the vampires snarl again – and leap. But the momentary hesitation caused by the strange entrances has given the Angels all the time they need. The leader is intercepted in mid-leap by the gleaming silver arc of the Endless Blade, as Gareth smites him to the ground, the combination of the sword’s nature and the paladin’s gifts allowing it to smash through the vampire’s resistances to damage as if they never existed. The second vampire is met by a less magical but much larger blade, as Nameless’ huge axe also smashes it to the floor. As it struggles to rise, the giant maul follows, bowling it backwards in a neat parabola to land at the edge of the smoke entering through the shattered door. Though badly wounded, the vampire springs agilely to its feet. And then a spiked chain leaps out of the mist behind it, to wrap around its ankle and deposit it face-first on the ground. It instantly rolls over, just in time for Korm to step out of the smoke and bury his sword in its face.As Gareth swings another brutal blow at the leader, he finds his target falling apart into a dark gray mist, which then disappears, only to reappear right behind Haydith. The vapor coalesces in the blink of an eye into the vampire. He strikes out with a clawed hand at the shocked princess’ face, and then a paw the size of his chest smashes him to the ground, as Luna barrels into him. Refusing to give up, the vampire sinks its claws into the bear’s forepaws, draining her vitality. Luna growls at the pain. “That does it! I’ve had it with these motherf*cking vampires on this motherf*cking airship!” She pushes down, pinning the vampire to the floor with all her weight, and calls backwards, “Get out of the blast radius, princess!”Oh, f*ck! Paladin, titan, Gatekeeper and warforged all hurl themselves at Haydith, simultaneously pulling, shoving, and carrying her away in an effort that miraculously does not kill the princess.Ignoring them, Luna looks down at the struggling undead and emits an ursine laugh. “Think you can dodge this?” A look of comical confusion crosses the vampire’s face, and then she calmly brings down an empowered flame strike on the two of them. Everyone in the cabin stares in shock as Luna’s upper half and all of the vampire disappear inside the roaring column of flame. And then as the magical fire dissipates, Luna shakes herself and blinks owlishly as the vampire falls apart into mist. Turning to the others, she chuckles, “Evidently not.”Korm looks at the huge bear, the upper half of which is completely black, smoke rising from her scorched hair and flesh. “You … are … insane!”  Luna laughs. “Yeah, yeah – but you love me for it! And I figured he couldn’t do any fancy dodging if I held him down, and it worked, didn’t it?” She glances at the slowly retreating mist. “Can we do anything to that?”“Afraid not,” begins Gareth, when a small voice interrupts, “Could you let go of me now?” The paladin quickly relinquishes his hold of the princess, as do the others, and let her rise. Though bruised and battered, Haydith is fine. At least in body, though the expression in her eyes wars between hysteria, anger, fear and relief. After a few seconds of silence, she finally manages to say quietly, “Thank you … for saving my life.” There is a slight pause, and then she says, in the same quiet, controlled, tone, “Please tend to these ladies. And excuse me for a moment.”Gareth begins to say something, and then, after one look at her face, falls silent. Haydith turns away and walks, slowly and deliberately, to her bedchamber. Stepping in, she pulls the curtains closed behind her.“What’s that about?” asks Luna, confused at the response.Six shakes his head. “Let’s start cleaning things up and find out exactly what happened. I found this bottle on the…”There is a muffled sound from the bedchamber, like one might produce if screaming at the top of her lungs while holding a pillow tightly over her face.“Aah!” says Luna, as enlightenment dawns, “She’s just got to know us well now!”* * * * *Later that night, a couple of hours before dawn, Six stands on the deck of the Serenity beside the wheel, talking to the heavily cloaked figure of Mal. “So three of them?” asks the captain, frowning. “And you still have no idea how they got on board?”“No. Once they were defeated and turned to mist, we couldn’t hurt them any more. Though Luna tried. Gareth’s confident that they’re dead, since we saw them float overboard, and they’re likely too slow to reach their coffins in an hour, as he said they need to.”Mal’s frown, if anything, deepens. “Good. But did you bastards really have to screw up my ship like that?”Six shrugs. “We didn’t have much choice, since Nameless had to get in there quickly. I’m sure you can repair it.”“We can, and will, but your bloody overgrown mage took out two doors and most of the partition around them. Damn!”“Believe me, it could have been worse. Knowing this group, a lot worse!”“That’s not as reassuring as you thi…,” begins Mal, who is looking around idly, but he never completes the sentence. Instead, he peers into the darkness and then stabs a finger at a point ahead and well to the left of the airship. “What the hell is that?”Six turns and looks in the indicated direction. Approximately a quarter of a mile away, rising out of the darkness, are multiple large shapes, though their precise proportions are difficult to discern. The warforged looks up at the overcast night sky which hides the stars and moons, and as if in reply, a patch of cloud above parts fortuitously. The beams of Rhaan, now in its full phase, beam down as if spotlighting the scene, and Six can now see the dark forms perfectly.  Each is a huge shape, nearly twenty feet in length, borne on slowly flapping wings that slightly resemble those of a gigantic bat. But the bodies, beginning with a fanged draconic head and ending in two huge taloned feet, with a tail that curves up over the broad back and bears a hooked stinger as long as a greatsword, are hardly bat-like. Nor alive, as Six’s incredible eyesight notes the gray, corpse-skin covering the bodies, and the places where their flesh is tattered and torn, revealing the pumping of giant muscles or the white of bone.Each of the six zombie wyverns bears four figures on their back, many of them armed and armored, wearing white tabards with some insignia on them, indistinct due to distance. A much larger emblem, perhaps the same, is now visible on the banner that stands, evidently planted deep in undead flesh, on the back of the central wyvern. On a simple white background gleams a symbol, five digits made of wavy green flames, forming the claw-like hand which gives its bearers their name.As Six opens his mouth to call a warning, Mal shouts into a speaking trumpet that will carry his voice to all corners of the airship, “Battle stations! Get on deck! Emerald Claw attackers dead ahead!” * Luckily somebody had a swashbuckling card that let you automatically make a Fort save, without which Nameless would have blown it against the coup de grace.** That, is a Body of War spell from Spell Compendium, which turns you into a warforged titan*** Improved Portal Alarm, also from SC</blockquote>

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