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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Eccles" data-source="post: 3538021" data-attributes="member: 5675">As Endo and I stared in horror at the frozen corpses of Igmut and Sheba, the air near the purple demonic monstrosity rippled, and a 20 foot long crocodile suddenly materialised next to it snapping viciously.“Malachite, over here!” Endo shouted out, whilst cancelling the spell of shapeshifting on Igmut. His lumpen trollish frame warped and shrank into a nearly as lumpy orcish one and he lay amidst the frost. With his mind now clear, Endo started to trawl through the loose parchments wedged at the back of his spellbook.Hearing Endo’s shout, Malachite hurtled through the narrow gap in the ice wall. He was in the form of a cheetah and was practically a blur in the air as he passed me heading for Endo. He was followed, to my enormous relief, by Flynne’s running form, also leaving a smear of instantly frozen blood and flesh as he brushed past the wall on his way.Diving past Flynne, I leapt through the narrow gap myself. I could feel my skin and the blood from my open wounds freezing in the intense cold around me before I dived towards Igmut and Sheba. Only 10 feet from the demon, I gestured and willed into existence the most powerful spell I could think of. Immediately, a glowing orange portal opened almost horizontally in the air beyond the two bodies. As I crashed into them, we rolled with the force of my momentum through the glowing doorway and emerged into the echoing chamber of the Titan’s House.A moment later, a black slash appeared in the air a few feet away. It widened, and Malachite, Flynne and Endo stepped through. I could see the purple monstrosity in the background before Endo’s Dimension Door spell closed on it..oOo.We stared at the bodies. After almost a full minute, Malachite turned away from the corpse of his longtime companion, assumed the form of a small bird, and shot away out of one of the small ventilation shafts into the town beyond. Flynne, Endo and I discussed matters, and buried Sheba under a heap of rubble before carrying Igmut’s corpse back to our lodge within the Coenoby, past a number of stares from other champions.Once we had placed the frozen body onto a pallet, Endo sent his raven familiar flying away into the city to find our sponsor, Akame. We needed to discuss matters with him, and see what we could arrange to resuscitate our fallen comrade. When he arrived, with the raven perched on his shoulder, we spent a long time discussing what we had seen. We explained that we were convinced that Raknian was in league with one or more necromancers, and that they had purchased the Apostolic Scrolls. We explained that there was likely to be an abomination launching an attack on the city within the next week, but all Raknian could ask was details about his sister.When we could put off the issue no longer, we had to admit that we thought we had found Akame’s sister – or at least her body. When we admitted to him that she had been raised as an undead plaything, having clearly been throttled, he was understandably distraught. When I told him that I had seen a serpentine ring mark at her throat, he was quick to point out,“That’s Raknian’s ring! I must kill him!”“You can’t,” I replied. “You’d be killed in an instant, and would probably tip off his necromancer allies that something was awry. And they might disappear, taking the monster with them. You can avenge your sister, but not yet.”After a great deal of pleading, he agreed that he would not try to kill Raknian that instant (although he didn’t promise not to throw himself at Raknian’s throat on the last day of the games). Instead, he agreed that we had to survive, and to that end he would help us obtain a scroll to bring Igmut back from the dead. However, he no longer had any resources to spend on such an item, and we therefore had to ransack our own equipment for expensive items which we could afford to sell.Igmut’s recently found Gauntlet of Rust was swiftly sacrificed, and Flynne produced the Bronze Griffon from one of his bags (despite my being certain that the last time I’d seen it, it had been going back into Malachite’s backpack). Much money, and other items were deposited into Akame’s arms, and he struggled back out of the Coenoby.Whilst he was leaving, Endo handed me a scroll, and then cast a familiar spell of polymorphing on me. I then also left in the form of a bird through one of the many ventilation shafts, leaving Flynne with an item salvaged from Igmut’s backpack whilst we were searching through it for saleable items. As I flew from our rooms, I could see the mystical oak tree already taking root in the chamber below.Once out, I joined Akame, recovered all the items and then sold them myself; Akame having neither the talent nor the contacts to get the best price. Once the task was complete, I bought the most powerful scroll of recovery which I could find before I used Endo’s precious scroll of teleportation to return to the others.Once there, I unrolled the precious scroll and held my breath for a long time as I tried to absorb its complexity. Trying hard not to let on how complicated this scroll was, I read the words, and a moment after I had finished, Igmut twitched, bellowed, and half-rolled, half-leapt off the pallet. Landing cat-like on the floor, he looked up at us; his face was completely cleansed of injuries, scars and even his acne – he looked strangely young as he stared around us in confusion.Several hours later, Malachite simply stepped through the side of the oak tree in our lodge; one of his hands was resting on the neck of a suspiciously similar looking tiger, which growled at us all nervously, its tail twitching..oOo.We were woken the following morning by a gong whose sound echoed throughout the Coenoby. We rose, sharpened our weapons and Malachite, Igmut and Endo prepared their minds and their spells for the forthcoming combat with the dwarves of Pitch Blade.At noon, when the fight was to take place, we were separated, and each of us was led individually up to the large sandy arena. As we went, we were told that we would have no time to prepare for the fight beforehand, but that we could cast any spells we would want during the speeches to the audience.We were led onto the sand, and spaced equally around the walls of the arena. Endo and I stood side by side facing Malachite and his new tiger companion on the far side. In each corner of the arena was one of the four dwarves, whilst Flynne and Igmut were both on their own with their backs to the other walls. The wall which Flynne had his back to was mounted with a series of plainly enchanted windmill blades, although their purpose remained unclear. As the speeches drew to a close, we all sprang into action; the Pitch Blade dwarves began guzzling potions, and ignited their flaming broadswords. As the audience burst into applause at the speeches, Malachite changed his own form into an identical tiger, and he roared out spells of his own. Both he and his matching tiger compatriot swelled to colossal sizes and began to blur.My own spellcasting time was spent turning both myself and Endo invisible, and hasting us both, as well as creating a couple of auditory illusions of us both casting spells in the event that we were to move away.I was dimly aware of Igmut casting a panoply of spells upon himself, as he grew to giant proportions and began to positively glow with a number of holy auras, just in time for the gong to sound once again – the fight had begun!The dwarves were sluggish in reacting to the sound of the gong, but Flynne reacted first – he dashed across the sand to where Endo and I still stood; he and I had been planning for this fight for a number of days. Meanwhile, some 50 feet to my right a towering Igmut crashed into a dwarf with his massive greatsword inflicting terrible damage. As the blade struck home, there was a brief flash of light and the dwarf suddenly looked shocked and stunned. I wove magic, and turned Flynne invisible, using a more powerful and complex version of the spell that that which I had placed on Endo and myself.At the same time, on the other side of the arena, the two tigers separated and each pounced on a different dwarf some 100 feet or more apart. Although a terrible amount of dwarven blood soaked into the sand, both of the Malachitehty warriors grimly clutched at their burning swords and bellowed oaths of vengeance on the tigers. To my side, I could hear Endo casting spells before wings began beating near me and he flew away from me, but as his wingbeats faded I could hear the bellowing of the four dwarves. In fury, they each leapt towards a foe. As Flynne, Endo and I were all invisible, two of the raging dwarves hurtled towards the tiger to the left hand side of the far wall, each hacking at the beast twice, but each of them struck only a single blow. However each would was grievously deep and the tiger (I could no longer tell if this was Malachite or Sheba’s replacement), roared in pain and anger. The other tiger was also struck once, and its blood spattered the walls and sand, but the greatest dwarven fury was reserved for Igmut. Whatever spell he had inflicted on the dwarf through his sword had not yet taken full effect, and it swung and struck with deadly fury. Igmut, however, did not seem in the slightest bit fazed by the dwarf’s anger and he struck back in kind with deadly accuracy – although without the additional inspiration and confidence granted by both my songs and Endo and Malachite’s magics then the injuries he inflicted were perhaps not as great as he might have wished. The dwarf, however, was staggered by the damage. As I stepped away from the wall and began singing, the two tigers again clawed and bit at their dwarven foes, and behind me a tiny pixie materialised, chanting the words of a spell. One of the four dwarves stiffened, dropped its sword and began to fly towards its comrade, arms outstretched. A second spell from the pixie was flung at another dwarf, stripping it of some of the effects of the four potions I had seen it drink.The dwarves struck out, hitting one of the tigers and missing the other, whilst the dwarf near Igmut suddenly stopped moving and began to dribble gently into the sand. Flynne, meanwhile, flickered suddenly in and out of sight, his fiery and icy arrows slamming into one dwarf fighting a badly-hurt tiger. One arrow tore out the dwarf’s throat whilst a second embedded itself deeply into its chest. The dwarf collapsed to the floor even as Flynne faded from sight. In the far corner of the arena, Igmut continued to gleefully hack at the dribbling dwarf, which stared around itself with a slackjawed expression on its face. I briefly saw Igmut reverse his grip on his greatsword and attempt to slam the butt of his sword into the dwarf’s face, but he lost his grip on the heavy and unbalanced weapon; the hilt of the sword glanced off the dwarf’s shoulder plate.I dashed across the sand to use a wand of curing on the tiger which was still engaged in fighting the dwarf (who was even now being aerially assaulted by his flying-but-dominated comrade). At this point, however, the windmill-blades began to spin, and I was treated to the vision of the tiny pixie hurtling through the air past me, screaming imprecations at the designers of the arena as the gale-force winds sent him tumbling. I managed to just about keep my footing, whilst the tremendous winds did little more than ruffle the fur on the huge tiger, and didn’t significantly disturb Igmut’s 15 foot mass.The tiger I was standing next to managed to claw and bite at the nearby dwarf, whilst the second tiger dashed the length of the arena to slam into the other (still stupefied) dwarf and tore him limb form limb. Between this bloody sight and where I stood, I could see Endo crash to the floor as he ceased his time as a pixie. He lay there, casting a spell which sapped away much of the strength from the surviving fighting dwarf, whose two blows were both thwarted thanks to the blur effect on the tiger. The dominated dwarf snatched his still-fighting comrade by the shoulders and started trying to heave him skywards, at which point Igmut trampled through the heavy winds and slammed his spear into the dwarves, killing one, and driving the spear deeply into the belly of the other who was struggling to lift his comrade. The dwarf, although dominated, was then savaged by tigers and spear as he tried to fly away, before he finally managed to hurtle skywards and a voice echoed across the arena.“Competitor is disqualified! Victory for the Rough Diamonds!”As the windmill stopped, the wind died down and I realised that the crowd were screaming their approval. Letting the invisibility spells fade, I raised my arms to celebrate with them. Looking around, the only person who wasn’t celebrating was Raknian, who looked furious at our having defeated his house team.We saw his fury up close, as he handed us our trophy (made of silver with a fighting dwarf etched rather ironically onto its surface), together with a large bag of gold. We retired to cure our wounds, and prepare for our combat against the winners of the other teams. As the victorious other groups came down, we learned that the dragon had been defeated by the soldiers, whilst Auric and his band of three stone golems had made short work of the ‘Crazy Eight’ monks. One of us would be fighting a monster (which we had already learned was a ‘frost salamander’), whilst the other two teams were slated to fight one another. Igmut cast a spell of divination, asking Kord about what was to happen on the last day of the games. He later described to us all a terrible vision of a deep crevasse opening up in the centre of the arena as tens of thousands watched the spectacle.</blockquote>

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