Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="shilsen" data-source="post: 5273494" data-attributes="member: 198">As soon as he receives the magically transmitted call for help from Jaela, Nameless sends a group response to everyone connected via his telepathic bond, while verbalizing it for the sake of those around him, “We’re on our way. I’m teleporting into the corridor outside the chamber with Gareth, Korm and Prine. Six, bring the trolls with you. Luna, join us there.”Immediately, there’s an anguished wail over the link, clearly recognizable as Luna. “Noooo! I’m still a thousand feet from shore! Don’t start without meeeeeeeeee…”“Then get there as quick as you can!” Nameless snaps over the link, preparing to leave. As Korm, Gareth and Prine gather around him, the alienist quickly says to Malik Otherro, “The field is yours, Commander. We have to return to the Cathedral!”The Knight Commander doesn’t bother asking questions, simply nodding and saying, “Flame watch over you!” Then he turns away, beginning to shout orders.Another voice now speaks over the telepathic bond, Cedric simply saying, “Essirise and I’ll be there as fast as we can.”With a terse affirmative response, Nameless casts his spell, and the three Guardian Angels plus Prine disappear from the battlements.. . . Far above, on the airship from which he has been watching the battle, Six already has his portable hole open before him, extending magically downwards into the deck of the Falcon. As bemused Lyrandar crew-members watch, four of the six trolls with Six force themselves into the magical space. Though it is clearly far too small for them, their eagerness to finally get into battle causes the creatures to jam themselves in somehow, the effort accompanied by pained growls and some sounds which the warforged can only surmise is that of cracking bone. Once they are ready, Six opens the scroll in his hand and begins to read from it.  . . .Flapping her way towards the western edge of the bay, Luna growls irritably as she looks at the coastline, attempting to gauge how long it will take her if she dimension doors closer and then flies the rest of the way. After a moment, she decides that it will take too long. Looking down at the choppy water some hundreds of feet below, still tumultuous from the aftereffects of the tidal wave, Luna comes to a quick and characteristically idiosyncratic decision. If there were anyone near enough to see, they might be surprised as the overly large albatross simply stops using its wings and drops towards the waves below. But probably not as surprised as when it transforms, just before it hits the water, into a huge shark.There is a gigantic splash as Luna hits. Ignoring the painful impact, Luna flicks her tail and drives herself swiftly downwards towards the ground below her, which she must be in contact with to use a master earth.. . .Since he cannot teleport directly into the chamber of the Flame, which is warded against magical incursion, Nameless arrives instead in the large tunnel immediately outside the huge room. When they arrive, the first thing that three Angels and Prine notice are the four warforged guards – or more precisely their corpses, which lie outside the giant stone doors. The guards’ wood-and-metal bodies have been both scorched and badly distorted, with odd bulges and lumps here and there, some of which look like fleshy tumors. Beyond the bodies, the doors to the chamber still stand closed, but each of them is missing a large chunk where it meets the other. That section of each door has been roughly melted out of them, as evidenced by a thick pool of mud on the floor. In the gap lies a dead mind-flayer, most of its tentacled face blasted off by some force. As they appear, the Angels can hear the loud sounds of fighting around the corner of the tunnel, in the opposite direction to the chamber, but none of them pays it any heed. Their focus is purely on the sight visible through the gap in the doors. The gigantic pillar of the Silver Flame gleams before them, and standing near it is Jaela, lips and hands moving in the motions of a spell. She completes it, causing a bolt of energy—the same crackling argent as the Flame—to shoot forth, impacting against something which emits a gurgling scream, hidden from the Angels’ view by the rest of the doors. As she completes the spell, Jaela staggers back a couple of steps, grabbing her head in evident pain.As the Angels rush in, the first thing they see is Jaela’s faithful guardian, the dragonhound Skaravojen, rising with scorched fur and bloodied jaws from the corpse of a mind flayer. Beside it lies another mind flayer, evidently the target of Jaela’s recent spell, and nearby stands another mind flayer—evidently a spellcasting one—next to two corpses in the livery of the Cathedral. Near them, two similarly-garbed warriors face a figure that the Angels have all seen before, some of them only for moments – the daelkyr lord Antaratma. In the very moment that the Angels enter, Antaratma lashes out with the whip which grows out of his left hand, coiling it around the throat of one of the two men facing him. The man’s eyes bulge for a moment in pain and terror before he collapses, the flesh of his face expanding in strange bulges like gigantic warts. Antaratma’s other hand closes on the arm of the second liveried warrior, causing him to collapse similarly. A smile spread across the daelkyr lord’s perfect face, but it fades swiftly as he glances past his victims at the new arrivals. For a moment Antaratma is clearly lost for words, until he bursts out, “YOU?!”Nameless smiles back, inordinately pleased at the daelkyr’s response. As he smiles, his form twists and warps slightly, as he opens himself up further to his connection with Xoriat, manifesting the Aspect that he has been imbued with. “You know, Auntie, it never gets old – the look of astonishment on a daelkyr lord’s face.”Antaratma’s mouth works soundlessly for a second and then the smile is replaced by a snarl. “You have outlived your usefulness, fool!” He cracks his whip and the floor of the chamber trembles slightly in response. “I shall end you all myself!”“Less talk, more killing,” Korm laughs grimly, and the battle is joined. Despite his fatalistic outlook, the Gatekeeper is in no hurry to die, and he swiftly casts a death ward as well as an assay resistance. Nameless uses the latter spell as well, before calling Khat’van’ga to his side. The Eldritch Horror flows forward, tentacles waving menacingly before it. Khat’van’ga’s targets are the spawn of Xoriat, so its appearance does not have the supernaturally terrifying effect it has on more mundane foes, but the danger it poses is quite clear. The mind flayer instantly raises its hand to begin casting a spell. But before it can finish, a gleaming figure charges down on it. The illithid spellcaster staggers back with a scream as Gareth swings the Endless Blade, laying open its entire chest. Before it can recover, another figure tumbles behind it. Steel flashes in the light of the Flame and the mind flayer goes rigid, the tips of Prine’s twin blades emerging neatly from its chest.The scout from Argonnessen grins as he extricates his short swords from his target and then flinches aside as Khat’van’ga floats by, tentacles reaching for the daelkyr. But it is Antaratma who strikes first. The daelkyr lord reaches swiftly into Khat’van’ga’s grasp. Evading the grasp of the writhing tentacles, he instead seizes one of each with his whip and his free hand. The Eldritch Horror shudders at the grasp, weeping sores appearing and flowing along the tentacles to its central bulk, which bulges and warps*.Antaratma smiles again and then glances around the chamber, his green eyes glowing with the power of the plane of madness. The Angels are warded against such attacks, as is Jaela, but Prine is not. He staggers back, dropping his swords in fear.A dark shape leaps past the retreating Prine, a deep growl emanating from between bared teeth, as Skaravojen charges the sole remaining enemy threatening his mistress. But before the faithful beast can bite, Antaratma reacts with preternatural speed, his whip lashing out to strike Skaravojen between the eyes. Without a sound, the dragonhound drops in a heap. “NO!” shouts Jaela, rushing forward heedlessly. The young girl drops to her knees beside her fallen guardian, channeling a heal into Skaravojen’s recumbent form. But there is no response. Jaela gasps in horror and then looks up at Antaratma. Tears are already springing from her eyes, but there is only fury in both gaze and voice as she snaps at the Angels, “Kill it!”“That’s the plan,” rasps Nameless, calling an order to Khat’van’ga while casting a spell. Unable to summon creatures inside the warded chamber, he instead does so in the tunnel outside. Two huge earth elementals appear, which then lumber forward and toward the daelkyr. Meanwhile, the Horror throws its tentacles around Antaratma, but the daelkyr only smiles in response. His form shifts and warps strangely, flowing like water out from between Khat’van’ga’s tentacles, till he stands beyond them. However, some other attacks are not as easy to avoid. The paladin rushes in and Antaratma prepares to strike when he attempts to close in. But as Gareth moves, the Endless Blade is already forming into a long polearm at his command, enabling him to strike from a greater distance. Silver flame leaps up as he powerfully smites the daelkyr, causing it to take a step back. An instant later, Korm’s horrid wilting strikes Antaratma, causing patches of the daelkyr’s flesh to desiccate and wither. But only for a moment. Antaratma smiles viciously, his flesh reforming and causing the desiccation to fade, though the wound from the Endless Blade remains. Then he glances at Nameless and the alienist feels his flesh shudder and writhe as a powerful force attempts to reshape it. With a concerted effort, Nameless fights it off, and then throws the daelkyr an insouciant grin.Antaratma’s own superior smile fades for a moment and then he steps forward, whip and claws striking out in different directions at once. The whip leaps out at Gareth and, even though the daelkyr doesn’t even glance at the paladin, weaves past his defenses as if having a mind of its own. In the last instant, Gareth sees the small fang-like mouth and the rings of tiny eyes on it, marking it as a living aberration of some kind, and then it bites into his shoulder. He feels instantly weaker, as if his health were being drained.Khat’van’ga is even less fortunate, the daelkyr’s claws sinking deep into its body, ripping and tearing. Dark corruption spreads swiftly from the wound, warping the Horror’s strange flesh. Khat’van’ga shudders soundlessly for a moment and then fades into nothingness. As the daelkyr smiles again, there is movement in the tunnel beyond and Six appears, a pair of the armored trolls from Droaam beside him. The warforged throws a swift look around the chamber (and at Prine, running down the tunnel in the opposite direction) and quickly drops the portable hole he is carrying to the ground. As he straightens it, a large clawed, green hand emerges from the hole, followed by a troll’s head and shoulders.“Oh, good,” Korm chuckles grimly, “You’re just in time. We’re all gonna die!”“Not yet!” says Nameless. “Jaela, can you help lower his resistances?”“Yes,” says Jaela grimly, rising to her feet. The guardian of the Silver Flame calls out to her deity, the manifestation of which burns brightly beside her, and speaks the words of a spell. All of the others in the chamber, even the daelkyr, focus on her for a moment as they realize what she has just done. The air vibrates with incredible magical power for an instant as the Silver Flame grants Jaela a miracle. There is no visible effect, but Jaela smiles harshly and then points at the daelkyr. “Hit it with your best spell!”Nameless is already casting and he intones, “Otamay’Resiurc’Ecaps” as a beam of green energy shoots from his hand and strikes Antaratma. This time, there is no laughter or pretense of superiority from the daelkyr. Antaratma utters a muffled scream and staggers back as the empowered disintegrate** takes full effect, his resistances having been temporarily nullified by Jaela’s spell***.As the daelkyr recovers its footing, those watching can see that huge swathes of flesh from his upper torso have been vaporized. Bone, muscle and strange, indeterminate organs are visible. But Antaratma is apparently still functional, as he straightens and snarls, “Is that the best you have?”Moments later, Gareth, Korm, Six, two huge elementals, and half a dozen trolls descend upon the daelkyr. Antaratma is again driven back by the sheer force of the assault and the numbers opposing him, but he remains on his feet. His whip and claws strike out again, further wounding Gareth and draining Korm too. An invisible wave of mind-bending energy flows out from him, befuddling one of the elementals and two trolls, one of which flees in abject terror. Even the number of his enemies works in his favor, since some of the larger ones get in each other’s way in their eagerness to strike, making it easier for his considerable defenses to foil the attacks.But Antaratma is clearly on the defensive and, one by one, attacks do hit home. The daelkyr has to ignore offense and specifically focus on reshaping his ravaged body. The process actually heals all of the damage Nameless did but can do nothing for the assault occurring in the interim.As the daelkyr attempts to back away, Gareth sees an opening and charges in to smite the daelkyr again. Antaratma groans at the impact of the holy sword against his flesh and falters in his retreat, now clearly badly hurt****.“That’s it,” says Nameless, floating higher so that he can carefully follow the melee. “Keep on him!”While the others follow the command, Six—having paused to use his magical harness to increase his size—whips back his spiked chain. And then looks down. “Look out,” he calls out over the melee, “We have co….”Before he can complete the warning, the now-giant warforged is violently flung aside and almost off his feet. So are a few others, those less adroit tumbling to the ground, and everyone in the room has to fight to keep their balance. A thirty-foot wide section of the floor of the chamber explodes upwards, thick cracks radiating out from it and causing other parts of the stone to break and push upwards too.The colossal head of Mual-Tar, the Chaos Serpent, crashes up and through the floor, shooting up towards the ceiling till it stops to gaze down at the combatants from a height of nearly fifty feet. The Guardian Angels look up into lidless eyes, their alien depths devoid of feeling or emotion, pitch-black except for tiny twinkling flecks, which make them appear like windows into the night sky of some far universe. Below them is a broad mouth wider than the huge elementals, from which a flat, forked and four-pointed tongue scents the air. Invisible waves of power emanate from the Chaos Serpent, and the watchers feel their magical protections suddenly wink out for an instant, before they reassert themselves. Even the Silver Flame wavers for a moment. Korm laughs grimly at the sight and hefts the meteoric blade. “See – I knew we were going to die.”* 14 pts Con drain between the two attacks ** Otherwise known as 60d6 damage.*** Nameless did 193 hp damage with that one spell, rolling a natural 20 to get through SR. It was a good Miracle!**** Gareth did 185 pts of damage in two successful attacks.</blockquote>

Verification