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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6773043" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Alright, lets get this party started with the updates (going to be incremental), starting with Saerie and Otthor...[HR][/HR]Zone ASaerie and Otthor sit on the cold frozen ground, their backs supported by the huge timbers of the exterior wall of Giliad's Rest.  Otthor's perfect elven blade lays across his lap as his gloved hand paws at the ancient Winter Fey runes.  He quietly whistles an ancient elven song of battle.  Saerie is lost in thought as she watches her wintry exhales, but she picks up in lockstep several notes in.  Rawr and Lucky are nearby, curled up together, sharing warmth as they catch a few needed Zs (even dog spirits take naps it seems).  The dire wolves paw at the ground and sniff at the frozen air anxiously.  The inevitability of the moment hangs thickly in the air and the sounds of the pacing archers on the ramparts does little to assuage it.The whistling and the pacing abruptly stop.From the dense forest it comes.  A clatter of enormous proportions.  Frozen foliage rustling, bending, breaking.  Earth protesting against the enormous weight of a horde.  Gibbering.  Joint-crackling.  Vomitous sounds.  A writhing mass of creatures breaks through the cover of the wood onto the open ground.  Dozens of creatures make up its bulk.  It is difficult to tell where one ends and another begins due to the alien architecture of their bodies.  Acid pours from them in waves, excreted from flesh, expelled from fanged mouths that cover the body.  Behind these first unspeakable horrors comes several bipeds that may have once been a part of humanity.  Humanity no longer, now disproportionately long appendages, or four arms, or grotesquely morphed heads, or maws square in the middle of torsos predominate.The sound of arrows rains down from above.  The creatures don't slow under the barrage.Otthor stands, exhales, and steels himself (body and mind) for the battle to come.  He, Rawr, Lucky, and the Dire Wolves rush the enemy as Saerie unleashes a deadly volley of her own, each arrow loosed replaced with another before the eye can blink.Otthor dances into the thick of the fray, luring several enemies into foolish offensives against him.  One of the long-appendaged creatures pays with its life and the roiling mass of creatures repeatedly eat steel, lightning and blinding radiance for their foolish efforts.  The Dire Wolves and Rawr tear into the tall, lanky creature with a massive maw on its body that endlessly gibbers its foul insight across the battlefield.  Unfortunately, while they maul the creature, most of the wolves succumb when the foulspawn bends the very fabric of space and time around it.  The emergence of the entropic hole, and its battlefield fallout, provokes a gasp from the ramparts as the archers pull back their bows in unison for a great volley on the swarm of enemies.  The defenders of Giliad's Rest get their first real glimpse of the nature of their enemy and the gravity of these moments.[HR][/HR]Mechanical stuff[sblock]The first wave on Encounter Zone 3 consisted of:12 Aberrant Flingers3 Unstable Masses1 Advanced FoulspawnOtthor deployed Enter the Crucible, popped Bladesong and used a Move Action to trigger 4 OA's against him (3 UMs and one AF), allowing each of them to hit him to trigger his own OA's for Steely Response.  He also deploys Strikeback (killing the Aberrant Flinger with his OA and another with the Bladespell from it) during this to double up on the on-turn MBAs (w/ Bladesong augmenting) that will trigger a Bladespell.  EtC mitigated much of the direct damage and fully mitigated the ongoing damage from the UMs.  It will also mitigate 10 of the 15 aura damage in subsequent rounds.  However, of course the UMes are all swarms so all of these single target attacks do half damage to them.Saerie used Surprising Arrow Stance and went to work with Twin Strike on the Advanced Foulspawn, using her final action to have Rawr charge the Advanced Foulspawn (with several Flingers nearby).  Rawr hits which triggers Bend Space Immediate Interrupt (Port 3 squares thus avoiding the hit - recharge 5, 6).The Dire Wolves stay near each other, stay away from the UMs (which will put them down with the Swarm Aura) and tear into several Flingers and the Advanced Foulspawn.  The Giliad's Rest Archers mow down 1/3 of the remaining Aberrant Flingers.The Flingers tear into Rawr and down one of the Dire Wolves.The prone AF (from the assault of the DW pack) eats OAs from the DW pack members around him (Bend Space didn't refresh at the beginning of this turn) to suicide deploy Warp Time and Space.  The massive burst slays all of the remaining Dire Wolves but one, kills one Flinger (that would have died in the subsequent round anyway were the DW in front of it still alive), and injures and dazes Rawr.  He is nearly Bloodied after this, but well worth it due to the loss of the good guys' DWs.The Archers use their huge AoE attack w/ stun rider on the swarms, a few flingers, w/ some friendly fire on Otthor.  This is a pretty devastating attack on the enemy but Otthor is hit as well (but mitigates 10 of it).  However, his Martial Resolve allows him to save against Stunned at the beginning of his next turn, and he passes it.[/sblock]I'll update more later.[HR][/HR]Continued...Saerie shoulders her bow, draws for the crystalline blue stave of the Winter Fey and calls upon the might power of winter.  The air around Otthor and the endless mass of unfathomable creatures that surrounds him begins to freeze.  Sleet, snow and furious winds bind all to that area.  She calls upon the power of nature itself and earthen roots and spirits of the air grasp and hold the aberrations in place while winter pelts them with frozen ice.  Her bow is back in her hands and an endless stream of arrows attack the foulspawn creature who bends time to its will.  With Rawr tearing into its rubbery legs and the archeries volleying, the creature finally succumbs.Otthor is a dervish of magic and steel.  He ranges around the swarm of creatures near him like a blur, luring them into foolish attacks as his weapon strikes viper-quick before they can even process what has happened.  Several arcane words and gestures and the air erupts with moonlight, glittering motes of radiance searing the aberrations and bulwarking the hearts of Otthor and his allies.  Behind the rain of magic is a seemingly endless torrent of bladwork, felling enemies amongst the swarm left and right, blasts of lightning flying across the field to take the life of several aberrations.  With every felled enemy, Otthor's teleportation magic leads him into a new advantageous position, reinvigorating his step and refocusing his mind despite the burning of his lungs at the effort.It all seems to matter little...as still, they came...and endless stream of horrors from the wood...The horde reaches the walls and batter the compromised section to ultimate ruin.  Several archers fall...only wishing death would have taken them quickly.  Instead, trapped in the debris, the horde washes over them.  They scream in agony as waves of caustic acid slowly take their lives from them in the worst manner imaginable...Otthor curses and shouts to Saerie to take care of the oncoming enemies.  He pursues the horde into the killbox as the remaining few archers on the wall are overcome by the time and space bending magic of the far realm horrors...[HR][/HR]Mechanical Stuff[sblock]10 more Aberrant Flingers3 more Unstable Masses1 more Advanced FoulspawnThe next few rounds see Action Points expended by the two PCs.  Saerie unloads her AoEs on as many of the Swarms as she can;  Nature's Rage (D), Bond's of Life (E), Covenant of Winter Blizard (D).  She unloads with Twin Strike and her Surprising Stance Interrupt as Rawr engages the Advanced Foulspawn.  The Unstable Mass Swarms become bloodied and split into multiples.  The Covenent of Winter Blizzard zone keeps all the enemies away from the wall without having any affect on Otthor (due to cold resist).  She works to kill the Foulspawns but they prove troublesome due to port interrupt (and it recharging).  The first Foulspawn does, however, succumb to the focuses fire of her, Rawr, and the Archers.  However, not before surviving long enough to get a stun attack on the Solo Archers (save ends from Warp Time), costing it its next turn.Otthor uses his first Daily + an Arcane Strike with it, draws several more OAs, eats them and MBAs as OA.  He uses the Bladepells to kill several Aberant Flingers (minions) and trigger Breaching (port 5 and spend HS).  Action points for MBAs to hit almost all of the Unstable Masses (after the split of them all) triggering several more Bladepells, several more dead Aberant Flingers.  At the end of this, he is at full HPs from the spent surges as a result of Breaching (triggered by all the dead minions).  He works to down the original 3 Unstable Masses and is able to do so soon enough.Unfortunately, the new Unstable Masses make it to the wall despite taking a lot of fire from the Archers.  The first one who gets there oblterates the weakened spot with a 34 Athletics check, triggering a collapse of that area and the ramparts affixed to it.  On those ramparts, three of the six fall to the earth hard under the collapsed debris.  They are killed by a pair of Corrosive Waves.  They continue toward the interior wall as Otthor pursues and they take fire from the remaining archers...[/sblock]Will update more later but I'm going to update the other two encounter zones first to get them up to speed.  One of them fairs a little bit better than Otthor and Saerie in the defense of the walls.  The other group?...not so much...</blockquote>

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