The Gray King

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

The free dancers spin in elegant motions, both of them making identical slashes with their arms, the one on the right carving only empty air, the one on the left missing Oliver by a wide margin. The one in Maavnod's grasp struggles futily.

Valerian quickly moves to the side, trying to get off whatever the dancers are drawing. He tries to hurl his coldfire at the freely-spinning dancer on the left, but misses as the coldfire dissapates in the air.

Arrgha'n waits for his moment and slashes his sword down hard, carving open the grappled dancer's back. Orange blood gushes as the creature goes limp in Maavnod's arms. Looking around for a free target, Arrgha'n sees the lone dancer on the left and begins to move his way... [See OOC]

Kurst's hands dance with power as he flings his purple fire at the dancer on the left, but it goes wide.

Oliver slashes down in a more elegant ripose of the dancer's own slash, opening up a delicate ribbon of pain on its torso.

Maavnod, finding his prey dead, looks to find the last free dancer. Hoping to play the same trick, he bounds over to the dancer on the left and has it wrapped up in his deadly embrace before the creature even knows what he's about!

Irthos lunges in with his spear as the dancer reels from Oliver's attack. With precision, he impales the creature through its stomach, and shakes its corpse back on the ground. Its limbs thrash feebly for a moment, as if its trying to scrape one last thing in the dust before it finally lies still. Irthos has:

Spoiler

a moment of insight. If the dancers were trying to write something upon the ground, maybe it could be seen more easily from the air.

Yatrax, seeing Maavnod has things all wrapped up, in more ways than one, simply keeps watch for further trouble.

[sblock=OOC]Deadly Dancers - 19 (higher Dex)
Valerian - 19
Arrgha'n - 15 (higher Dex)
Kurst - 15
Oliver - 14 (higher Dex)
Maavnod - 14
Irthos - 10
Yatrax - 5

Dancer on the left misses Oliver. Dancer on the right dances. Dancer in Maavnod's arms fails his grapple check.

Valerian moves thirty feet to the left, throws coldfire, and misses his touch attack with a 12.

Arrgha'n is a lucky bastard, manages to hit the grappled dancer with a 13 for 12 points of damage, killing it, and then begins to move toward the dancer on the right (say if you would rather do something else).

Kurst would have missed his touch attack for the dancer on the right with a 14.

Oliver hits with a 19 for 4 points of damage on the dancer on the left.

Maavnod moves toward the dancer on the right and critically touches it (rolled a nat 20 on your touch attack) and easily beat its grapple check to get it in your grasp. (Say if you'd rather not have moved.)

Irthos hits dancer on the left with a non-natural 20 for 5 points of damage, downing it.

Yatrax holds action.

Oliver, Irthos, and Kurst would all still have move actions left, so let me know if there was anything further you wanted to do this round.[/sblock]

 

[Zurai]

Valerian joins Yatrax in keeping an eye on the surroundings, trusting his companions to finish the remaining creature with a minimum of trouble and wishing to preserve his magic for the moment.[sblock=OOC]I'll pass on the action point.[/sblock]

 

[Forgefly]

Kurst, Human Wlk/Art 2/1

OOC:No action point. Holding pattern

 

[stonegod]

The kobold scrambles for higher ground, trying to see what is being carved....

 

[Erekose13]

Maavnod drops the remaining deceased dancer unceremoniously on the ground and wipes his hands. "These are bizzare creatures. Anyone know what they were?"

 

[EvolutionKB]

Oliver

[sblock=DM]Oliver need not do anything with the move action. there is one dancer remaining yes?[/sblock]

 

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

With a straining, popping sound, aided by Arrgha'n's sword, the last remaining dancer soon is bereft of life. While they deal with that, Irthos powers up into the sky, getting the larger picture from above. The picture on the ground is somewhat stylized, not totally complete, and somewhat muddled from the battling of his companions, but there are recognizeably two things inscribed upon the ground. One is a message in Common, "They have us within, the change consumes-." The rest of the message is cut off. But around the message is the outline of a crown wreathed in flames.

On the dancers themselves, they carry little to nothing. But all three have the crude metal stitching behind the crests on their heads, and one of them has a small plaque of metal dangling from a loop pierced through the lower-part of an arm-blade. The plaque is decorated with a spiral drawn in green paint-tinged blood. That one also has a round, ragged scar on his stomach that was clearly old and healing (badly) before he fought you.

Behind the dancers the foothills of the mountains await, the entrance to the Labyrinth, and the edges of the Demon Wastes. The wind howls a sorrowful note, and for a moment you hear screams... or maybe it was just the sound of the peaks themselves.

 

[Forgefly]

Kurst Human Wlk 2/ Art 1

Kurst contemplates Irthos' report as he goes about the somewhat grisly work of removing the mesh from the dancers' skulls. "It's that damned crown again, come to haunt my sleep again. he thinks.

With each of the meshes in hand he compares them to make sure they follow the pattern he's come to expect. Seemingly on a whim, he pulls the spike (from the gut slug) out and waves it over the meshes, looking almost fearfully expectant.

Turning to the group, "Can this be the work of a single hunter?, we've been on his trail for what seems like months, and have no clue what this is all about, and now we have these Khyber-spawned dancers painting us a dragon's cursed picture" after this uncharacteristic outburst Kurst lapses back into silence.

 

[Erekose13]

"It is corruption we seek to eradicate. It is corruption that this symbol represents. We must continue our hunt." replies Maavnod. His single minded determination underlines a very black and white view of the world.

 

[EvolutionKB]

Oliver looks to the distant peaks. "The only question is are we near the end of this quest, or has it not yet begun?"