The Gray King

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

Valerian begins his chanting with candle and bell, summoning forth his crystaline arachnids from the fienish frozen hell in which they reside. He can tell two are eager to answer his call, and prepares to flank the dazed maurader.

The poor maurader can do little but stand there and await his ultimate fate.

Arrgha'n takes full advantage of the maurader's dazed state and plunges his sword deeply into its side, avoiding Maavnod adroitly. It's a blow that would fell most men, but instead of blood or entrails spilling out, a deep blue vapor begins to curdle from the wound, a horrible stench of rot issuing from it.

Irthos stands up, peering into the darkness, his dragonborn eyes telling him far more than most others. On the forest side of the caravan arrows arc out of the darkness beneath the trees, a few finding marks, but most simply forcing people to keep their heads down. The Blademark Defenders are taking what cover they can and returning fire towards the arrows, cursing heartily at being unable to clealry see their attackers.

You cannot make out what's under the trees; they must be hidden.

Kurst curses slightly at having his shot ruined by Maavnod, but pales a bit when he sees the vapor curling out of the wound. He watches it closely, color draining from his face, seemingly waiting for something to happen...

The racket from the trees abruptly ceases, and there's an odd lull... for at least two heartbeats. Then someone shrieks, "Snakes, snakes, they're all snakes, AAAAAARGH!" Looking around, the myriad of arrows peppering the ground begin to soften, expand, and uncoil, turning into a host of tiny deadly serpents!

Yatrax hurridly makes a gesture over her face and body, and her skin seems to darken slightly, like shadows are clinging to her. She dives for her pack and begins to rummage around inside it, her eyes darting wildly to the becoming-snakes.

Oliver grabs his sheild and steps to the beast's head, deftly striking at the maw of the maurader, drawing more of the deep blue smoke from its gullet.

Maavnod gives an incredible heave with every limb that he has, arms physical and spectral straining, muscles burning, when the flesh of the maurader suddenly gives way, ripping asunder in his grasp, flying off into the night. The deep blue smoke suddenly shoots up into the sky to hang above your heads, glowing deeply from within with a frigid gray light. Two burning eyes glare from its amorphous form as horrific laughter echoes through the clearing. A hundred hisses answers it...

A frantic and pale Kurst gestures, and a dark of purplish light slams into the vaporous form, illuminating it from within. The hisses now focus on the young warlock, and his eyes suddenly widen in terror.

OOC: [sblock]Ok, so this game is slow, but we're still going!

Initiative:
Valerian 22
Ethereal Marauder 19
Arrgha'n 18
Irthos 16
SNAKES! 14 (lower Dex)
Yatrax 9
Oliver 8
Maavnod 5
Kurst 14 (moved because of held action)
Vapor-thingy 2

Valerian starts to cast his spell, and will get two critters. Maurader stands there, all dazed and confused and sad. Arrgha'n hits witha a 19, doing a total of 9 points of damage. (I was just double-checking, and realized the ethereal maurader is actually a magical beast rather than an aberration, but they do hang out with other aberrations a lot.) Irthos looks about. Snakes begin to appear. Kurst holds action. Yatrax casts caul of shadow, giving herself a +1 deflection bonus to AC for one minute, and begins to look through her pack. Oliver hits a 14 and does 3 points of damage with his rapier. Maavnod does a stupid amount of damage which puts the maurader and any offspring it might have had well into the deadly negatives. Vapor-beast appears. Kurst gets off an eldritch blast doing 6 points of damage.[/sblock]

 

[Zurai]

Valerian decides that now might be a good time to stand up, since the ground is now covered with snakes. He rolls to his feet and casts another spell, and a ball of shimmering blue flames appears around his hand. Curiously, the temperature near him drops severely, rather than raising.
[sblock=Spellcasting in Giant]"O Angrboda, frostbitten and windswept! Grant but a sliver of your power to my touch!"[/sblock]

The two scorpions attack whatever threat is nearest to them with deadly claws and stingers, steam trailing from their icy carapaces.
[sblock=OOC]Move action to stand, 5' step if necessary to avoid a potential AOO from the vapor-thing, and cast produce coldfire (produce flame energy substituted to cold). The vipers are tiny, so they can't AoO unless they're in Valerian's square because they only threaten their own square. Also, I'd like to make a Knowledge check if possible to determine what the vapor-thingy is. Knowledge (Arcana) +10, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) +10, Knowledge (History) +10, Knowledge (Religion) +10, Knowledge (The Planes) +12.
The two scorpions attack the closest threat because Valerian doesn't speak either Infernal or Abyssal. If they're close enough, they full attack with 2 claws at +2 for 1d3+1+1d6 cold and 1 sting at -3 for 1d3+1d6 cold. Otherwise, they charge with a claw. Anything smaller than they are (ie, the vipers) hit by a claw attack have to make opposed grapple checks... except that 1d3+1+1d6 will probably kill them anyway.
As an aside... Yay! The game goes on![/sblock]

 

[FreeXenon]

Arrgha'n (Half-Daelkyr Kin-Hunter) HP:28; Init: 19

Arrgha'n smiles slightly when he sees the effect that his blade has on it, which then turns to a full out gleeful sneer when Maavnod rips it apart.

The hobgoblin-thingy hisses and makes his way over to get into a flanking (or interceding) position of vapor thingy and strikes at the creature with his blade hoping to provide some protection or distraction for Kurst.

[OOC: Can we tell what this Vapor Thingy is?

+5 Long Sword (1d8+2, 19-20/×2) (d6 SA) (+2 vs Aberr.)]

 

[EvolutionKB]

Oliver, Human Binder

After seeing the marauder fall, and smoke emerge from it's body to hover over the battlefield, Oliver senses that he shouldn't quite leave yet. Thus moves to stand between the creature and Kurst, waiting for the smoke creature to get into his reach.

Move between the smoke creature and Kurst. Ready action to attack the creature if it approaches. I'll use combat expertise on the attack to make my attack at +6 for 1d6 damage. AC would be 25.

 

[stonegod]

For the first time in sight of his comrades, the kobold unfurls his cloak to reveal...wings! Irthos leaps into the air, longspear in hand, gliding towards the blue vapor. It then dives by, tacking a stab, landing behind the big hobgoblin-like brute.

OOC: Flyby attack, hopefully a dive using his piercer cloak, for 1d20+5 (1d6-1+2d6) [just 1d20+3 (1d6-1+1d6) if not a dive]

 

[Erekose13]

If the mist creature is still within reach, Maavnod with try to grab at it, if not he'll look around for a moment to take stock of the situation. Having concentrated so hard on stopping the marauder before it could escape he has let the background of the battle fade from consciousness. If he can then spot targets he'll rush them, if not its snake stomping time.

ooc: I know its a bunch of ifs, but hopefully they are easy enough to follow, really its me trying to interpret where the battle will go by the time it gets back to Maavnod's turn in the intiative.

 

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

Valerian's sonorous words die away and a chill mist appears and vanishes in an instant, leaving behind two blue, crystalline, faceted scorpions the size of large dogs, curls of white fog rising from their bodies. Their claws clash and their whiplike tails lash as they turn to the nearest prey, that of the little vipers. Their icy limbs skitter on the ground as they charge the nearest snakes, snatching them up in their claws and crushing them mercilously. Curiously, as each snake is crushed, it dissolves into blue vapor, and leaves behind a snapped arrow...

He calls out words in a harsh, deep-voiced tongue, and frigid blue flames are now dancing on his hands. Thinking furiously about what this vapor creature might be: [sblock]You don't think it's a ghost, it's decidedly incorporeal, and doesn't look like any demon, devil, or celestial you've ever studied. The stench of rot could indicate it might be an undead, but you've never come across an exact creature like this before. It's possible it could be some kind of elemental, though of what element you're not sure. There's also a slim possibility that it might be a living spell, one of those hideous abominations originally spawned during the last war, and now supposedly a fixture of the Mournland, or maybe, just maybe, a kind of construct of a sort. As to how it got inside an ethereal maurader, it could be that the maurader was cursed or magically coherced to have the thing "ride" inside of it, like a demon possessing a creature, person, or thing. If there's enough of the hide left, an examination might reveal "targeting" markings for magic rituals to induce such "riding." [/sblock]

Arrgha'n lashes out with his longsword, making a sweeping stroke upward that seems to go right through the middle of the vapor creature, to no apparent effect.

Irthos uncovers beautiful dragonic wings, flashing in the remaining firelight around the camp, and dives right at the vapor creature. His takeoff is beautiful, his form magnificent, but the fact that the vapor creature offers not the slightest resistance to his dive throws him off completely, and he twirls in mid-air after going straight through it, lungs choaked with a foul, rotting stench that seems to be closing off his air.

The snakes surge forward, some of them going for Yatrax, Valerian, and Irthos as they are the ones on the furthest edges of the circle right now. For some reason, they avoid Kurst who's almost as distant. Three snap at Yatrax, two hitting, sinking their little fangs into her feet. She gives a strangled scream in pain. One hits Valerian, attaching to his ankle, and one tries to clamp onto the end of Irthos' wing. Unfortunately for the viper, Irthos is too fast for the snake and whips his wings out of the way.

Yatrax quickly finds what she was looking for in her backpack and comes up with a short stick and a tindertwig. Striking the tindertwig and lighting the stick, thick green smoke begins to billow from it, and the snakes hiss in distate and begin to slither away from her.

Oliver stands ready if the vapor creature moves, and Maavnod reaches up with its arms, trying to snatch and rend at it. Most of its arms just pass right through it, but one of its blue, translucent girillon arms seems to slash right into its vapory substance, causing it to bleed gray light.

Kurst lets more power gather at its hands and fly at the creature with a burst of purple and green, but his hands are shaking badly, and it flies off into the darkness.

The vapor creature seems to scream, a high, piercing sound that drives right into the skull and seems as if it might crack it. It seems to swell in size, writhing and pulsing, until it suddenly explodes soundlessly, the scream dying off and echoing into the night. The vapor settles onto the camp in the form of indigo dust, coating everything. The snakes suddenly revert to arrows, now relatively harmless, lying on the ground. Yatrax and Valerian find that their snake bites look like arrow wounds.

Irthos has a long, bad moment when his lungs don't seem to want to work, until they suddenly clear and let him breathe again.

Faint moans from some wounded guards and shouts from the Blademark leaders begin to fill the ensuing silence...

OOC: [sblock]Initiative:
Valerian 22
Ethereal Marauder 19 (dead)
Arrgha'n 18
Irthos 16
SNAKES! 14 (lower Dex)
Yatrax 9
Oliver 8
Maavnod 5
Kurst 14 (moved because of held action)
Vapor-thingy 2

Valerian casts produce coldfire and directs the scorpians to attack with good effect. Arrgha'n hits with a 24, to no apparent effect. Irthos rolls a 1 on his attack. The snakes hit two 19s on Yatrax, doing a total of 6 points of damage. One hits Valerian with a 14 ('cause I don't think you're wearing your breastplate to bed) for 3 points of damage, and another misses Irthose with a 16 because he's an armored freak. (And I mean that very kindly.) Yatrax busts out a noxious smokestick and lights it, and the snakes in her immediate vicinity start to move away. Oliver readies an action to attack. Maavnod hits a 26, a 5, an 18, and a 17. The 1st, 3rd, and 4th all hit, but only the first one seems to affect the creature in any way. It can't really be grappled unfortunately, because it's incorporeal. But he still does 7 points of damage with one of his girallon arms. Kurst misses his touch attack with an 11. The vapor creature screams and explodes, and the snakes turn back into arrows. Combat over. Good job people![/sblock]

 

[Zurai]

Valerian, Grey Elven Archivist

Valerian looks around the campsite, scanning for active threats. Assuming he sees none, he will move up to the corpse of the Ethereal Marauder and begin to inspect it closely. Cautious of lingering danger, he keeps his coldfire and scorpions active, rather than dismissing them at the cessation of immediate hostilities.
[sblock=OOC]Inspecting the marauder for any signs of arcane rituals. Valerian will also inspect the entire area with detect magic. The scorpions only last for a few seconds, but the coldfire is minutes/level.[/sblock]

 

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

Valerian examines the various pieces of the maruader's corpse as the scorpions disappear back from the abyss whence they came. Though in many scattered piece, Valerian is very patient, and gathers up each bit he can find. It's when he finds a piece of what was most likely the crest that he finds what he was looking for.

Spoiler

There's a wound there, stitched closed with crude metal staples, looking more like a bad repair job on a warforged than a medical procedure or magical ritual. There's something below the "stiches," in the actual flesh of the skin, and Valerian slits into the hide to extract the object. It's what seems to be a hand-sized greenish-purple slug with a lamprey-like mouth on one end, its teeth oddly metallic. It squirms slightly in his hand and tries to latch onto him, but the elf shakes it off quickly. The creature seems to be dying.

 

[EvolutionKB]

Oliver

Oliver strides, rapier still in hand towards Yatrax. "Are you okay?" he says. "A nice little scuffle to start the morning..." he says to nobody in particular.