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Message: <blockquote data-quote="andrew_kenrick" data-source="post: 1071677" data-attributes="member: 6870">Errowin, part 1“Die you Void-loving sonofabitch!”  Yells Owyn in his usual, tactful way, before lashing out with his blade at the dark paladin standing next to him.  Until but a moment ago he had been their erstwhile ally on their quest, Captain Morgaine of the Knights of Hirana, but then he dropped his disguise and ‘morphed into the party’s nemesis, Lord Errowin of Murkady, long time foe and Champion of the Dark Messiah.  As Owyn reiterates his abuse, Marenon looses a volley of arrows at Errowin which clatter off his armour, and Waldair D’Spyre  activates his Breastplate of Calling with a loud “Huzzah!”The party begin to rally and ready themselves for the melee, and are somewhat taken aback when a wretched looking man suddenly appears next to Errowin. He is a bedraggled individual, blonde hair lank with grease and rain, deep dark rings around exhausted eyes, clothes tattered and torn. He gestures a ringed hand towards Owyn, "Please, please help me. Cut off this damn thing! Cut it off, finger and all, please!" He runs a few steps towards the templar before collapsing to his knees in agony.  Owyn curses and slashes with his longsword, bringing his blade round in an arc to neatly slice off the outstretched finger.  There is a sizzle of electricity between the ring and Errowin and a smell of burned flesh as the magic binding the wretched prisoner is undone.Mallisent, a human mage met scant minutes ago in the gnoll village where battle is now erupting, yells out to the party. "We must leave, NOW. We cannot take him, not here. I will try and create a distraction" “No chance!  I have waited too long to kill him!”  Counters Fyanilin before melting into the shadows and skulking towards Errowin. "I will NOT leave now that I have a chance to end the horrors he has caused!"Errowin motions with his hand and his blade leaps from its scabbard to his hand, its length glistening with frost.  The dark lord raises his voice and appeals to the gnolls to come to his aid to defeat the party and the gnolls draw their weapons in response. Aramil, raises his own voice in opposition and suddenly the gnolls don’t look so sure that they want to help Errowin. "Do not listen to his lies - that man is a fiend responsible for the murder of innocents! Help us bring the monster down"  Gwylith the dryad, interrupts Errowin’s speech with a well timed arrow, followed by another volley from Marenon which embed themselves in the metal protecting his midriff.  The second recently encountered mage, the elf Niltsiar, who has been sent to assist the party by his mage school in return for a chance to examine the acorn, leaps into the sky and vanishes with a gesture and an arcane phrase.  As he does so, Heb whirls round and shouts a warning as Errowin’s fiendish raven servant sneaks up on the party.  Errowin’s dark paladin followers begin to advance on Owyn and the newly appeared figure, whose name is Ertai – he too is a mage.  The dark paladins leap upon Ertai, attempting to enslave him once more, but the mage is too quick and looses a stilled phantasmal killer at one of them.  The dark paladin briefly screams and claws at his face before dropping to the ground, quite quite dead.The party look determined, and with the gnolls dissuaded from joining the melee the odds are in their favour.  It doesn’t last long, as a column of smoke and flame leaps upwards from the ground in front of Errowin, and in between Owyn and the rest of his comrades.  The column coalesces into the shape of a large, hideous, scaled creature with bat like wings and a vaguely humanoid like appearance.  The party immediately recognise it as another long time foe, the cornugon Aristarxis, inadvertently released from his earthly prison by Aramil a long time ago and subsequently enslaved to do Errowin’s bidding.  The party had recently struck a deal to help free it in return for its support in the coming war, but with its appearance in the midst of combat, all bets are off.  "He's on our side right?" Ask Waldair, but nobody is really sure.Heb remains concerned with the fiendish raven and, deciding that attack is the best course of action, throws his spear at it, driving the creature flapping back into the sky.  As Errowin strikes repeated, carefully calculated blows against Owyn opening up cold-numbed wounds rimmed with frost, Owyn thinks the opposite course and beats a hasty retreat.  Mallisent, concerned with the safety of Ertai and Owyn, quickly casts a wall of iron which erects itself between the dark paladins and the party members stranded on the other side of the cornugon.The raven wheels back round and speaks to the party in Errowin’s voice. "You needn't flee this night friends, we are allies in this venture. We all want the gate to be opened and our loved ones released. And the rest of the journey will be so much fun.  That’s a promise."  He speaks of the party’s quest to the ruined city of Murkady, in which many members of the Order of the Leaf and Thorn and the Knights of Hirana are held prisoner, including Owyn’s father Erindhol, the head of the Leaf and Thorn.  Rather worryingly, it seems that Errowin wants them to rescue the prisoners, but the party do not have time to let this concern them at the moment.The party’s druid, Fervil, who has been quiet up and until now, turns the ground beneath the dark paladins’ feet to mud, miring them up to their waists and making the earth for many feet around them difficult to walk through.  Waldair was on the verge of charging at one of them, but seeing the quagmire skids to a halt at its edge.  The mud does little to impede Aristarxis, who flaps his wings and lazily eases himself into the air, cracking his flaming whip at Waldair, the blow singing the bard’s breastplate but little else. Errowin is more bothered by the mud and calls his mount, a jet black nightmare appearing from the ethereal a foot above the swampy ground.  Errowin swings up onto his back and surveys the battlefield.  Some distance behind him, Ertai launches another phantasmal killer at the second dark paladin menacing him, but this one is made of sterner stuff and refuses to believe in it. Owyn finishes his withdrawal and moves around the mud to stand next to Waldair. “You looked a little lonely” He remarks, winking at the bard.  “You just don't want me to take all the glory”  Waldair replies.  “I just don't want you to die.”  Owyn quips back, prompting a wink from Waldair before the bard wades into the mud towards the devil, provoking a painful attack of opportunity from the fiery whip.   Both Gwylith and Marenon continue their rain of arrows against Errowin, who doesn’t seem overly concerned by them although his armour is dotted with arrowshafts and holes.  Fyanilin joins in, appearing out of a shadow some 10ft behind Errowin and launching a sneak attack with his shortbow which misses as he precariously balances on a piece of floating.  Aramil arrives next to Owyn and, taking one look at the injured templar casts heal.A few seconds later the summoners of the party spring into action, Niltsiar summoning a mean looking fiendish girallon and a couple of lesser fiendish apes to attack Errowin’s dark paladins, and Fervil unleashing a summoned swarm of centipedes on Errowin himself.  The apes and the girallon make short work of the dark paladins, but Errowin seems unperturbed by the swarm, urging his nightmare to drop into the ethereal, taking them both out of sight and out of harm with a disturbing popping sound.  Ertai suddenly flies into the air from behind the wall of iron, evading the two remaining dark paladins who are moving to engage him.Owyn then joins Waldair in combat next to Aristarxis, even as the devil lashes out with a flurry of blades and flames and stinging tails at the surrounding combatants, but to little avail.  Mallisent emerges from behind a building and contributes to the combat by casting a dimensional anchor on the cornugon, although he rather wished he’d used it a moment earlier on the nightmare.  Waldair takes advantage of the devil’s distraction by launching a devastated paired attack with his twin longswords, the Sword of Echoes and the Sword of Visions, badly injuring Aristarxis.  Just as the archers are finishing off the mired dark paladins, Fervil decides to be cautious and protect all those not in melee from the predations of the invisible Errowin, calling down a sleet storm to conceal them all.  Niltsiar’s menagerie, swelled by the appearance of an arrowhawk and a fiendish wolf, join in the attack against the cornugon, who, looking a little worse for way, detonates a fireball at his feet, scattering and scorching his opponents.  Owyn remains standing and lunges at Aristarxis with longsword and shortsword, deftly avoiding the cornugon’s parrying and plunging his blades deep into his hide.  With a long, drawn out sigh the cornugon crumples to the floor, his wounds beginning to close even as he does so.  Aramil steps forwards, glancing to the heavens for a moment before asking. “Do we slay him here and now?  Or shall I free it from this place ... from his servitude and send it home?”Waldair, ever the pragmatic, replies. “Whatever, providing it doesn't come back and bite us in the ass sometime I don't care.”“Free him.  We made a promise.”  Answers Owyn, pulling his swords from the devil’s body.  Aramil looks at Owyn. “Agreed.” Then he touches Aristarxis and begins to incant a prayer.  “I cannot be sure to free him, I have never used this power before. By the Lady, unshackle this foe so he may be tempered as a willing ally in the coming war.”  A greenish-white glow suddenly arcs between the cleric and the devil and with the smell of sweet sweet dewy grass he pops out of existence.</blockquote>

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