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Message: <blockquote data-quote="shilsen" data-source="post: 3900021" data-attributes="member: 198">Nameless shudders slightly and then gently collapses into a heap on the floor. On the bright side, his brains aren’t actually coming out of his ears. On the dark side, he is bleeding out of both ears and nostrils, but it does seem to be slowing rapidly. On the aberrant side, a little picture appears on his forehead, of a stylized eyeball with wavy tentacles for eyelashes*. It doesn’t grow or emerge gradually, but is simply not there one moment and present the next.“What in the Flame is that?” says Gareth, leaning down to take a look.“Umm, Gareth…”The paladin looks up at the spot Korm is indicating, to see a tiny spot of light hanging in mid-air only a couple of feet from his face. It looks like a tiny beam shining through a hole in a wall, except, of course, that there is neither hole nor wall in front of Gareth. The color is, appropriately enough, perhaps best described as a nauseating mixture of purple and green.Gareth quickly rises and backpedals, clicking his fingers to make the Endless Blade appear from his magical hand. As he is doing so, the beam expands quickly in width, clearly forming an aperture. As soon as it is a foot wide, the tips of four grayish-green tentacles shoot through, pushing in all directions and swiftly widening the hole. The tentacles push through, until each is over ten feet in length and as wide around as Korm’s waist. Between them a shapeless and bulbous mass, primarily the color of milk gone sour but shot through with livid veins of multiple colors and shades, shoves against the hole. Then, as the tentacles seem to grasp onto the air and pull, the central mass squeezes through with a slurping sound. The ‘hole’ instantly closes behind it, leaving the creature, whatever it is, floating in mid-air over Nameless’ unconscious form, its tentacles stretching out over those in the room. The entire process takes only a couple of seconds.There is an instant of stunned silence and then the Endless Blade delivers its summation of the sight. “Are you f*cking kidding me?!”A moment later, the tentacles lash out at the Angels, while they hurriedly strike back at it. As it attacks, each of the Angels feels a surge of supernatural terror wash over him, but with an effort of will combined with the divine aura of Gareth’s presence, they resist it. Not as easy to resist are the thunderous blows of the tentacles, which hit with a power that would break a normal man in half.Also, although the three warriors hack into the creature’s central mass or its tentacles, they find its form resistant to their blows. Swords and chain strike, tearing large rents in the creature, but its amorphous mass almost seems to flow away from the attacks, robbing them somewhat of their force. A colorless ichor drips from the wounds, emitting a pungent odor, but the drops disappear in mid-air. Despite the wounds, the creature shows no signs of slackening its attacks.Thank the moons it appeared in this room, thinks Korm, realizing that its ability to fly and tentacles would make things much more difficult in a larger space. Even so, the creature is clearly very dangerous, and though he is confident they will soon dispatch it, the Gatekeeper figures a couple of lucky hits might kill one of them. And who knows if it has other abilities. “Gareth,” he shouts, “This thing may work like a summoned creature. Throw up a magic circle against evil and maybe that’ll stop it.”“All right,” Gareth ducks under a tentacle and casts the spell. The result is not quite what Korm and he hoped for.As he completes the spell, the creature pivots slightly, quite obviously shifting all its attention to the paladin even though it has neither eyes nor face to indicate that. Then all four tentacles lash at him, passing right through the magic circle . The giant appendages hit one by one, the first two knocking the paladin to a knee, and the next smashing him to the ground. The fourth tentacle curls as it comes down, turning into a massive club, and only a desperate effort by Gareth prevents it from smashing in his skull.** Even so, it smashes his shoulder.And then both Gareth and the creature whiff out of existence.Six, in the middle of launching a powerful blow, slips and almost falls as his target disappears. “Where’d it go?” He looks around quickly, experimentally whirling his chain to see if it’s somewhere around. Korm looks around frantically as well and then says, “Screw it! Whatever he said, we need Nameless back up.” As he strides over to the alienist’s recumbent form, he can’t help adding, “If Xoriat just ate Gareth, he’d want to know.” And throw a party. The Gatekeeper casts a heal and reaches down. Nameless shudders as the healing energy floods into him and his eyes snap open. There’s a second of disorientation and then he focuses, looking up at the big orc with sword in hand and bruises blackening his gray skin. “What happened?” Nameless attempts to sit up and then grabs at his head. “Ow!”“You started bleeding and passed out. And then some strange creature with lots of tentacles popped in and started attacking us.”The alienist looks around. “Where?”“It was here a second ago. Gareth threw up a magic circle in case it was summoned in some way, but all it did was make it mad, I think. It smacked him around and then both of them disappeared. They were right over…”Korm points and Gareth promptly reappears, the strange creature right next to and above him, its tentacles wrapped securely around him. The paladin’s face is pale and his eyes glazed over, as if he were dazed or drunk. Blood from the already inflicted wounds runs down his face.“…there. How did I do that?” asks Korm, leaping to his feet, sword at the ready. “Six, Nameless – we have to get Gareth away from it.”Even as he moves, the creature releases the paladin. Gareth looks around as if he has no idea where he is, looks up at the creature floating above him, and turns and runs for the door. The creature doesn’t respond in any way to his action and instead focuses on Six and Korm, its tentacles rearing up over them in readiness to smash down.Before more violence can ensue, Nameless shouts a string of syllables. The others, who have learned a few words from him realize that it is the stomach-churning language of the daelkyr, but have no idea what he says. The effect, however, is immediate. The creature pauses, holding its position for a long second, and then retracts its tentacles and floats gently towards the alienist. “Nobody attack it,” he shouts, just in case.“I’m not,” says Six, and the warforged then turns and rushes after Gareth. The paladin, however, has already reached the door, and he flings it open and runs out.And bounces right off the giant hairy form of Luna, who has just returned and is heading for the room to see what happened. “What the hell?” she ejaculates, before staring past him at the creature. Immediately, she raises a huge paw and begins to growl arcane words.“No! No flame strike!” yells Nameless urgently. “It’s a friend! Stop Gareth!”The giant bear frowns and then swings its paw, taking Gareth off his feet. She then steps forward and squats down, causing him to disappear under her bulk, knowing that his magical necklace will prevent suffocation. Despite his magically enhanced strength, the immense weight promptly renders Gareth unable to move. “All right!” she growls, “Someone explain what that bloody thing is.” Then, more suspiciously, she adds, “Did you send me away and start a fight?”“No, we didn’t start anything!” snaps Korm, sword still at the ready, before turning to Nameless and the creature. The latter now hovers above the alienist, and as Korm watches in mounting fascination and disgust, its tentacles snake down to wrap gently around Nameless in a ghastly facsimile of a mother cradling her baby. “What the hells is that thing? Or should I ask – what in Xoriat?”“Close,” says Nameless. “I did see Cyäegha and I asked for an ally from Xoriat that I can summon to aid us in battle. This is it. Evidently it came with me when my consciousness returned to my body and attacked you by mistake.”“Is that a mistake we can expect every time it’s here and you’re unconscious? You’re unconscious a lot, you know.”Nameless grimaces, at the closing comment, not the tentacle snaking around his head and leaking ichor down the side of his face. “No, that should not happen again, now it knows you are friends.” He glances up at the creature and says, “Leave now.” It disappears instantly. “It is called Kha’tvan’ga,” Nameless explains. Now how did I know that? And I know all its abilities. Cyäegha must have placed the information in my head. I wonder if he put anything else in.“How nice. What did it do to Gareth? Did it take him back to Xoriat or something?” “And can I let him up?” puts in Luna, shifting uncomfortably. “He keeps wriggling.”“Yes, do that.” Luna rises and shifts her weight, releasing both Gareth and the full sound of his yelling, which had been muffled by her fur and flesh. The paladin instantly shuts up and rises to his feet, his eyes no longer fogged as they had been a few moments earlier. “What happened? I remember that thing attacking me and then we were somewhere … else … but … I’m not sure.” He shudders visibly. Even though his divine gifts make him immune to fear, and he cannot recall where he was or what he saw, he knows it was an experience he never ever wishes to repeat. All that he recalls is a sense of confusion and a feeling of helplessness and nakedness, not physical but spiritual, and chaotic madness that he has no words for. “Kha’tvan’ga cannot transport anyone to Xoriat, but it can take an enemy to a place that is a shadow of Xoriat, and that can drive the creature mad or simply muddle its mind temporarily. You were lucky, Gareth!”***“Yes, I feel blessed!” says Gareth, with a scowl. If what I saw, whatever it was, is only a shadow of Xoriat, then I absolutely need to stop it entering our world. Otherwise.... He shakes off the dark thoughts with a physical effort and asks, “Anyway, let’s forget that for now. What did you learn?”“A fair amount, actually,” says Nameless. “Some good, some bad.” * Sometimes, when you gaze into the Abyss, the Abyss finger-paints on your face.** Gareth had really bad luck, with four attacks getting through the 20% miss chance from his Cloak of Displacement and then one criticalling him despite his Armor of Moderate Fortification. The players used a swashbuckling card to reduce the damage, otherwise he’d have been below -10.*** If you make the save, then you don’t remember where you went. Because you don't wanna.</blockquote>

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