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The Mésalliance. Part 1. (Updated 4/18.)
- Thread starter Sepulchrave II
- Start date
grodog
Hero
New Sep posts in the Rogue's Gallery thread, in case folks haven't been over there in awhile:
http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=5652
http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=5652
Sepulchrave II
Legend
For the record, I use the terms yugoloth and daemon interchangeably, depending on my whim.
****
More Than You Can Chew: Part 1
"I think that three of these wyrms might arouse a little too much suspicion," Nwm groaned, looking up into Mostin's enormous, sunken, draconic eyes. "It might also cause an unpleasant escalation – has it occurred to you that the Devils currently in Afqithan will probably be blamed?"
"Well of course it has," Mostin sighed. Flames cascaded over his crest irritably. "If you'd spent your time productively, studying the web of motes…"
"It is a non-issue," Shomei said to Nwm. "It will cause confusion, certainly, but events are hardly likely to 'escalate' any more than they have already: how can they? Besides, even if news reaches Graz'zt, what can he do?"
"He will not come himself?" Eadric asked.
"No future that I have observed involves Graz'zt leaving Azzagrat," Mostin said.
Eadric clenched his jaw. "But the plan…"
"The plan to lure him forth is unworkable," Mostin hissed. "My apologies – that was more condescending than I intended. These vocal cords are not equipped for comments that don't sound sarcastic. Graz'zt will remain closeted in Zelatar, irrespective of our actions. We shouldn't be surprised: if his venturing forth entailed even a one in ten thousand chance of his demise, then he would not do it. It would be foolhardy, from his perspective. He has not retained an aeons-long regime by acting precipitously."
Eadric scowled, and his eyes bored into Soneillon. "You knew this."
"I would have guessed it," she smiled.
"But you allowed us to entertain the possibility, nonetheless?"
"You are the Ahma," she said simply. "It is reasonable to assume that you possess a degree of insight that I do not. Our perspectives are complimentary, Eadric, not antagonistic."
"Then…"
"I have acted already," Shomei sighed. "Mostin and I deemed it appropriate to increase his paranoia. I sent two glooms to assassinate him yesterday."
Eadric gaped. He didn't know what a gloom as, but they sounded impressive.
"They were unsuccessful," Shomei added quickly. "But he has locked Zelatar in reaction. He is currently busying himself with purges."
Soneillon looked bored, and yawned.
Mostin nodded. "I get the hint. One moment please." He turned to the Druid. "Nwm, if the hellfire wyrm is an unappealing form, you might want to try this.*"
The Alienist rapidly shifted into a monstrous, winged, four-armed brute of truly terrifying aspect. Its hyena-like head was surrounded by a mane of spikes which dripped venom, but its most unsettling feature was its torso. In place of a chest and abdomen there gaped a vast, toothed maw and pincers which twitched rhythmically.
"What would I do?" Nwm asked.
Mostin wiggled his pincers. "You cut their heads off."
"That doesn't seem terribly efficient," Nwm said drily. "Let's just go with the dragon."
*
Nothing could have prepared Nwm for the mind-shaking insanity which was Throile at war. As the rift between the worlds closed behind them, the full spectacle impacted on his consciousness like a tidal wave. This was likely as far as he would ever be from Wyre: by Mostin's reckoning, three hundred realities – most of them filled with demons – lay between him and the Green.
The sky was a purplish haze – at least, purple was the colour which it most closely approximated to his draconic eyes. The citadel of Soneillon below him was a colossal structure, built like a five-sided ziggurat but boasting a thousand towers which sprang from vast piers of black stone in concentric rings around its circumference. Its topmost pinnacle soared a mile above the treetops of a plush, verdant jungle which stretched as far as his eye could see.
The forest stretches to infinity, he thought. In all directions. It was a meaningless observation. His mind could not grasp the magnitude of it. An infinite jungle. It breathed malice and death.
Beyond the citadel, encircling it to a distance of a league – until the trees marched upon it – was a swathe of bedrock, filled with immense shafts from which fear and an agony of violence erupted like gruesome and intangible tephra. Perhaps the pits were filled with the damned – undergoing whatever punishment they had condemned themselves to – or maybe it was some phenomenon peculiar to Throile, where a cursed earth spewed its evil into the tainted airs, in a supernatural cycle where evil itself was propagated, and diffused, and finally reabsorbed. For four fifths of its area, the blasted rock beyond the walls of the fortress was utterly devoid of motion: neither demon nor monster walked there. But in one area alone, in a sight that made the Druid's heart pound in his scale-armoured chest, the ground and skies seethed with chaos.
Drawn up like two enormous wedges, the apices of which barely touched each other, the Abyssal armies of Soneillon and Graz'zt – the latter under the command of the marilith Janiq – faced each other in an orgy of pain, destruction and death. At their interface – the connecting point between the two spearheads – was the gap within the Paling which the succubus Adyell had disjoined. The aperture was only eighty feet wide, and demons seethed through from outside of the invisible magical wall. Sporadically, blossoming rapidly inside of the barrier, cadres of bar-lgura manifested as first one, and then hundreds, found purchase within the warded interior where they could teleport with impunity. Groups of succubi and palrethees descended upon them, or flew to intercept the units of yugoloth mercenaries who had overwhelmed the initial defense of the opening in the perimeter. Nycadaemons and yagnodaemons pushed through relentlessly, despite the frenzied resistance offered by packs of jariliths and goristros.
The mental static was terrific: thousands of demons screaming telepathic commands, which spilled over into Nwm's thoughts as unconscious urges to commit cruelty and violence. He gaped as demons summoned more demons, fell prey to compulsions and switched sides, invoked patches of darkness, or dispelled them.
Further outside of the Paling, clamouring for the opportunity to press forwards, countless dretch and hordes of rutterkins, uridezu rat-demons, and jovocs surged in restless waves. Under the supervision of hezrous, they crawled and clambered over each other, eager to claw, and bite, and rend. Quasits flitted in black swarms above them.
Emptying her bracelet of power, Shomei had rendered herself, Mostin and Nwm invisible and had mind blanked the Druid and the Ahma. All had been hasted. None of the spellcasters, however, were fully prepared to engage in an offensive, and the Infernalist inwardly lamented the fact that their wards might be woefully inadequate.
In the airs next to them, Soneillon relaxed into the form in which they had first encountered her in Afqithan – a shape of unbeing, around which an aura of annihilation began to glower menacingly. She folded her wings – now appearing as gaps in the fabric of reality – about herself, before invoking the nullity which was her essential nature and which had, for a brief time, been suppressed. Utter blackness encased her.
Soneillon, Eadric spoke into her mind.
Her thoughts regarded him ironically.
You need to instruct your troops not to assail me.
Naturally, Eadric. The Void vanished, only to reappear an instant later, a thousand feet below them, and in the thick of the press.
"A prismatic wall would do the trick," Mostin sighed. "Unfortunately…"
"Nor I," Shomei nodded.
"Before we can plug the hole we need…" Mostin began.
"To take out the ultroloths," Shomei finished. "I know, I know. We need to find them first."
"How many are there?" Eadric asked, sighing.
"Five," Mostin replied. "And two arcanadaemons."
Eadric closed his eyes briefly and concentrated. A holy aura kindled around himself and his unlikely companions – three hellfire wyrms. Daylight suffused him.
Shomei raised an eyebrow. "That's a useful trick."
"Mostin, can you teleport me to a position just inside of the opening?"
The Alienist was about to say something else, but thought better of it and clamped his jaws shut. He watched as a hundred bar-lgura began manifesting below them. "Yes," he replied.
"Good," Eadric said, drawing Lukarn.
"Hmm," Mostin replied.
"And Mostin. Nwm."
"Mmm?" They answered in unison.
"Don't take too long in getting there. I have a feeling that I may be unduly targeted."
"You think?" Nwm replied drily.
"And Shomei."
She looked at him.
"Choose your time wisely. This may not be it."
She swallowed. He knows. The bastard knows.
Mostin cocked his head.
**
For a brief period of time – which seemed like an altogether unpleasant eternity – the Ahma was alone. His appearance on the battlefield was a surreal event, which had even demons – who routinely dealt with the bizarre and the insane – baffled. The cursed ground at his feet smoked in revulsion at his presence as he manifested within a knot of bar-lgura. They reacted rapidly and pounced on him. Eadric's shield and armour turned their buffets, and the demons which struck him recoiled, blinded by celestial light. He swung Lukarn in a great arc, slaying all of those within his arm's reach. Scorching rays struck him but fizzled impotently, and he shrugged off a dispel magic which targeted him. Darkness would not adhere to him.
A shadow covered him, and a flurry of claws and blows hammered down on him from above as a nycaloth lashed at him viciously, but the holy aura flashed brilliantly, blinding the daemon. Two others – the source of the magic which had struck him – descended rapidly towards him.
This isn't so bad, he thought to himself. But now the leaping demons around him seethed forwards again, clutching at him with powerful hands and attempting to bear him to the ground. He hewed at them, felling three of them, and thrusting one away, blinded. Others pummelled him, and he swung again, cutting a swathe through them about himself. In his mind, Lukarn sang, exulting in its potency. Almost as an afterthought, Eadric slashed upwards, striking the nycadaemon above him three times. He sidestepped as it crashed to the ground, thrashed its huge wings briefly, and expired. Another slammed into him, almost bowling him over, and thrusting him backwards five paces into the waiting clutches of the third: Eadric felt venom-tipped claws finding gaps in his armour, puncturing flesh and pinning him. Eight enormous, muscle-bound arms were groping at him in an attempt to overpower him. From his left, a disintegrate struck him but failed to overcome his protections.
Above, Mostin grunted to Shomei. There's one.
Deftly – and impossibly – Eadric twisted Lukarn in his wrist and began to slice at the creatures restraining him.** With four, powerful strikes, he slew one of them. The remaining daemon clung on desperately, screaming telepathically for assistance. Two of its enormous hands pinned Eadric's arm while two more pried his weapon from his grip.
The nycadaemon, unaccustomed to bearing a sword of Lukarn's power and temperament, gave a look of astonishment as it began to hack at itself with the captured weapon.
Before the next onslaught could reach him, Eadric spoke a single, quiet, holy word. The Abyssal rock beneath him shuddered in agony, and around sixty bar-lgura within a broad circle about him burned away into vapour. The nycadaemon – and three others who had come to its call – were stricken instantly.
Eadric stepped forwards, and retrieved Lukarn from the paralyzed monster's grasp.
Great Goddess, Nwm thought as he plummeted towards the battlefield. He is made for this. This is his purpose. He is like a machine. He finally understood just how much Soneillon needed the Ahma.
The Druid discharged a cone of Infernal fire over the demons below him, simultaneously becoming visible. Behind him, Mostin and Shomei thundered over the field, burning bar-lgura footsoldiers with gouts of fire in the vicinity of where one of the ultroloths was suspected to be.
Below them, the hordes quaked.
The situation was uncannily familiar to Mostin, and he experienced a profound déjà vu as he winged away. His eyes widened, as the vision of a future half-remembered flashed across his mind.
Ainhorr, he thought to Shomei. Ainhorr will come.
She groaned. Are you sure?
Yes. No. Yes. I'm sure.
She swallowed. The vorpal sword was a vague recollection of death for her. But only one of several.
*
A succubus – a scout named Semhel who exercised no great power and held no particular responsibilities – appeared before Janiq. The marilith remained in the rearguard of her force, flanked by glabrezu bodyguards.
Semhel prostrated herself. "There is a mortal here – or a celestial. I cannot tell which."
Janiq, of quick mind, and wise to at least some of the many schemes in which her dark master was embroiled, narrowed her eyes and hissed. Adyell had confirmed that the Ahma had visited Throile on at least two occasions – in fact, the doubts held by the succubus regarding Soneillon's actions had, in large part, been responsible for her defection. She barked an order at her aide – the arcanaloth Xehez.
"Issue a sending immediately to Azzagrat. Eadric of Deorham is here."
Knowing that when Janiq said 'immediately,' she meant immediately, Xehez used a limited wish to expedite the message.
In his sanctum, three words resonated in Graz'zt's mind:
Deorham in Throile.
The Prince's reply was equally succinct:
Detain him. I will send aid.
Janiq – along with her retinue – teleported to a position which offered a better vantage of the battle, and watched, incredulous, as three hellfire wyrms – emanating holy auras – appeared above the vanguard of her army.
She screamed telepathic orders to her aerial heavy cavalry – the nycadaemon mercenaries – immediately instructing the entire force to withdraw from the goristros and to intercept the dragons.
Her orders to the ultroloths – whose loyalty she still doubted – were couched in the promise of reward. Capture the mortal, and Graz'zt will lavish gifts upon all of us. Bring the wyrms down.
She dispatched Semhel with instructions to her reserve force of bar-lgura – who waited several thousand miles away – to join the fray, and smiled. Drawing six unholy swords from scabbards across her body, the Marilith prepared for battle.
*
Mostin gyred in the sky, his aura blinding the succubi around him. In his belly, he felt the fire rising again as dozens of nycadaemons began to take off, or to manifest in the air around him.
At that point, he was struck by two simultaneous targeted greater dispel magics, and two quickened unholy blights.
Oops, he thought as his most of his wards vanished and he was forced back into his natural state. He vomited but retained his composure, cast a quickened dimension door and appeared among a screeching mob of bar-lgura, sixty feet ahead of Eadric, in the aperture in the Paling.
Shomei screeched. Are you insane? She herself was struck by a greater dispelling but, to her relief, retained her draconic shape. A horrid wilting failed to affect her. But her mind blank was gone, and to the demons and daemons present who possessed true seeing, her real form became apparent.
Mortal! The voice of an Ultroloth echoed in the minds of the lesser daemons.
Gleefully, eight Nycadaemons tore into her. Many more flapped nearby, eager for the chance to engage an obstacle which now seemed as though it could be overcome. Still, they could barely penetrate her armour.
Shomei shapechanged. Her scales thickened and brightened, swiftly acquiring a flawless, mirror-like sheen. Her size doubled to titanic proportions. As her wings powered her backwards in the air, and daemons lashed at her, she breathed upon those in front of her head.
Fourteen paralyzed nycaloths dropped like stones to the ground, flattening dozens of bar-lgura below them.
*
A wave of malice washed over Eadric, attempting to dominate him, and his head turned to face the source of the compulsion.
It was a faceless creature, whose empty visage swam with tiny pin-points of light, and whose dark cloak seemed to blow with unnatural slowness in the gale issuing from above. It stood seventy feet away, flanked by nycaloths and behind a great, armour-clad yagnodaemon which bore a huge sword.
He began to run towards it, over the ashes of the bar-lgura and past the stupefied forms of nycadaemons. Power coursed through him as he invoked as much strength as he could muster. Hasted time simultaneously slowed to a crawl, and sped to a blur. Nycadaemons clutched at him as he moved, and the yagnoloth interposed itself fully between Eadric and his quarry. The armoured fiend's sword bit deep into him, but he forced his way forwards, his shield slamming into the bodyguard's legs and bowling it over. He smote the ultrodaemon, and blackness poured from it. It emitted a thin, high-pitched scream.***
As the yagnoloth clambered to its feet, the Ahma turned and smote it. It struck Eadric again, with enormous force, blinding itself in the backlash from the holy aura. Two nycaloths moved in, and ripped at him in a frenzy, drawing blood with envenomed claws.
Gambling, the ultroloth spoke a power word. The capture of the Ahma was a prize for which much should be risked. Eadric's celestial defense failed, and for a fraction of a second the daemon exulted. But still Eadric did not succumb. He struck, and the daemon perished. He stepped sideways, and the sightless yagnoloth lashed out again, smashing through his armour. Eadric smote it again. And again. Eadric struck again, but wearily, and as it crumpled next to him, he knew that his strength was waning swiftly.
A huge claw snatched him from the battlefield, and carried him aloft.
"Thank-you," he said to Nwm.
"Hmm," the Druid replied.
But, struck by a dispelling, the shapechange on Nwm fizzled and vanished, and both he and Eadric plummeted back to the ground.
*I have retained shapechange on the Druid spell-list.
** This was a potentially dangerous situation – one of the nycadaemons Bull Rushed Eadric and the other began a grapple as an AoO – Eadric had already used his AoO for the round when countering the bar-lgura's attempted grapple (and Cleaving from it. Sigh.) Lukarn, however is a sunblade – i.e. it's treated as a light weapon, and could therefore be used in a grapple.
I use Pants's 'loths, btw. Nice work, Pants.
***This incident is worthy of note. Eadric's player – Marc – has this annoying habit of pulling off stunts like this. One would think that sticking a yagnoloth (a 10th level Fighter yagnoloth, to boot) directly in the path of a size M creature would ensure the ultroloth some space to either use a few more spell-likes, or to teleport away if things got sticky for it.
But, no. Eadric invoked the Strength domain and Righteous Might, charged, overran the yagnoloth, Power Attacked at +20, smote the ultroloth and scored a critical hit, reducing the daemon to around 30 hp.
****
More Than You Can Chew: Part 1
"I think that three of these wyrms might arouse a little too much suspicion," Nwm groaned, looking up into Mostin's enormous, sunken, draconic eyes. "It might also cause an unpleasant escalation – has it occurred to you that the Devils currently in Afqithan will probably be blamed?"
"Well of course it has," Mostin sighed. Flames cascaded over his crest irritably. "If you'd spent your time productively, studying the web of motes…"
"It is a non-issue," Shomei said to Nwm. "It will cause confusion, certainly, but events are hardly likely to 'escalate' any more than they have already: how can they? Besides, even if news reaches Graz'zt, what can he do?"
"He will not come himself?" Eadric asked.
"No future that I have observed involves Graz'zt leaving Azzagrat," Mostin said.
Eadric clenched his jaw. "But the plan…"
"The plan to lure him forth is unworkable," Mostin hissed. "My apologies – that was more condescending than I intended. These vocal cords are not equipped for comments that don't sound sarcastic. Graz'zt will remain closeted in Zelatar, irrespective of our actions. We shouldn't be surprised: if his venturing forth entailed even a one in ten thousand chance of his demise, then he would not do it. It would be foolhardy, from his perspective. He has not retained an aeons-long regime by acting precipitously."
Eadric scowled, and his eyes bored into Soneillon. "You knew this."
"I would have guessed it," she smiled.
"But you allowed us to entertain the possibility, nonetheless?"
"You are the Ahma," she said simply. "It is reasonable to assume that you possess a degree of insight that I do not. Our perspectives are complimentary, Eadric, not antagonistic."
"Then…"
"I have acted already," Shomei sighed. "Mostin and I deemed it appropriate to increase his paranoia. I sent two glooms to assassinate him yesterday."
Eadric gaped. He didn't know what a gloom as, but they sounded impressive.
"They were unsuccessful," Shomei added quickly. "But he has locked Zelatar in reaction. He is currently busying himself with purges."
Soneillon looked bored, and yawned.
Mostin nodded. "I get the hint. One moment please." He turned to the Druid. "Nwm, if the hellfire wyrm is an unappealing form, you might want to try this.*"
The Alienist rapidly shifted into a monstrous, winged, four-armed brute of truly terrifying aspect. Its hyena-like head was surrounded by a mane of spikes which dripped venom, but its most unsettling feature was its torso. In place of a chest and abdomen there gaped a vast, toothed maw and pincers which twitched rhythmically.
"What would I do?" Nwm asked.
Mostin wiggled his pincers. "You cut their heads off."
"That doesn't seem terribly efficient," Nwm said drily. "Let's just go with the dragon."
*
Nothing could have prepared Nwm for the mind-shaking insanity which was Throile at war. As the rift between the worlds closed behind them, the full spectacle impacted on his consciousness like a tidal wave. This was likely as far as he would ever be from Wyre: by Mostin's reckoning, three hundred realities – most of them filled with demons – lay between him and the Green.
The sky was a purplish haze – at least, purple was the colour which it most closely approximated to his draconic eyes. The citadel of Soneillon below him was a colossal structure, built like a five-sided ziggurat but boasting a thousand towers which sprang from vast piers of black stone in concentric rings around its circumference. Its topmost pinnacle soared a mile above the treetops of a plush, verdant jungle which stretched as far as his eye could see.
The forest stretches to infinity, he thought. In all directions. It was a meaningless observation. His mind could not grasp the magnitude of it. An infinite jungle. It breathed malice and death.
Beyond the citadel, encircling it to a distance of a league – until the trees marched upon it – was a swathe of bedrock, filled with immense shafts from which fear and an agony of violence erupted like gruesome and intangible tephra. Perhaps the pits were filled with the damned – undergoing whatever punishment they had condemned themselves to – or maybe it was some phenomenon peculiar to Throile, where a cursed earth spewed its evil into the tainted airs, in a supernatural cycle where evil itself was propagated, and diffused, and finally reabsorbed. For four fifths of its area, the blasted rock beyond the walls of the fortress was utterly devoid of motion: neither demon nor monster walked there. But in one area alone, in a sight that made the Druid's heart pound in his scale-armoured chest, the ground and skies seethed with chaos.
Drawn up like two enormous wedges, the apices of which barely touched each other, the Abyssal armies of Soneillon and Graz'zt – the latter under the command of the marilith Janiq – faced each other in an orgy of pain, destruction and death. At their interface – the connecting point between the two spearheads – was the gap within the Paling which the succubus Adyell had disjoined. The aperture was only eighty feet wide, and demons seethed through from outside of the invisible magical wall. Sporadically, blossoming rapidly inside of the barrier, cadres of bar-lgura manifested as first one, and then hundreds, found purchase within the warded interior where they could teleport with impunity. Groups of succubi and palrethees descended upon them, or flew to intercept the units of yugoloth mercenaries who had overwhelmed the initial defense of the opening in the perimeter. Nycadaemons and yagnodaemons pushed through relentlessly, despite the frenzied resistance offered by packs of jariliths and goristros.
The mental static was terrific: thousands of demons screaming telepathic commands, which spilled over into Nwm's thoughts as unconscious urges to commit cruelty and violence. He gaped as demons summoned more demons, fell prey to compulsions and switched sides, invoked patches of darkness, or dispelled them.
Further outside of the Paling, clamouring for the opportunity to press forwards, countless dretch and hordes of rutterkins, uridezu rat-demons, and jovocs surged in restless waves. Under the supervision of hezrous, they crawled and clambered over each other, eager to claw, and bite, and rend. Quasits flitted in black swarms above them.
Emptying her bracelet of power, Shomei had rendered herself, Mostin and Nwm invisible and had mind blanked the Druid and the Ahma. All had been hasted. None of the spellcasters, however, were fully prepared to engage in an offensive, and the Infernalist inwardly lamented the fact that their wards might be woefully inadequate.
In the airs next to them, Soneillon relaxed into the form in which they had first encountered her in Afqithan – a shape of unbeing, around which an aura of annihilation began to glower menacingly. She folded her wings – now appearing as gaps in the fabric of reality – about herself, before invoking the nullity which was her essential nature and which had, for a brief time, been suppressed. Utter blackness encased her.
Soneillon, Eadric spoke into her mind.
Her thoughts regarded him ironically.
You need to instruct your troops not to assail me.
Naturally, Eadric. The Void vanished, only to reappear an instant later, a thousand feet below them, and in the thick of the press.
"A prismatic wall would do the trick," Mostin sighed. "Unfortunately…"
"Nor I," Shomei nodded.
"Before we can plug the hole we need…" Mostin began.
"To take out the ultroloths," Shomei finished. "I know, I know. We need to find them first."
"How many are there?" Eadric asked, sighing.
"Five," Mostin replied. "And two arcanadaemons."
Eadric closed his eyes briefly and concentrated. A holy aura kindled around himself and his unlikely companions – three hellfire wyrms. Daylight suffused him.
Shomei raised an eyebrow. "That's a useful trick."
"Mostin, can you teleport me to a position just inside of the opening?"
The Alienist was about to say something else, but thought better of it and clamped his jaws shut. He watched as a hundred bar-lgura began manifesting below them. "Yes," he replied.
"Good," Eadric said, drawing Lukarn.
"Hmm," Mostin replied.
"And Mostin. Nwm."
"Mmm?" They answered in unison.
"Don't take too long in getting there. I have a feeling that I may be unduly targeted."
"You think?" Nwm replied drily.
"And Shomei."
She looked at him.
"Choose your time wisely. This may not be it."
She swallowed. He knows. The bastard knows.
Mostin cocked his head.
**
For a brief period of time – which seemed like an altogether unpleasant eternity – the Ahma was alone. His appearance on the battlefield was a surreal event, which had even demons – who routinely dealt with the bizarre and the insane – baffled. The cursed ground at his feet smoked in revulsion at his presence as he manifested within a knot of bar-lgura. They reacted rapidly and pounced on him. Eadric's shield and armour turned their buffets, and the demons which struck him recoiled, blinded by celestial light. He swung Lukarn in a great arc, slaying all of those within his arm's reach. Scorching rays struck him but fizzled impotently, and he shrugged off a dispel magic which targeted him. Darkness would not adhere to him.
A shadow covered him, and a flurry of claws and blows hammered down on him from above as a nycaloth lashed at him viciously, but the holy aura flashed brilliantly, blinding the daemon. Two others – the source of the magic which had struck him – descended rapidly towards him.
This isn't so bad, he thought to himself. But now the leaping demons around him seethed forwards again, clutching at him with powerful hands and attempting to bear him to the ground. He hewed at them, felling three of them, and thrusting one away, blinded. Others pummelled him, and he swung again, cutting a swathe through them about himself. In his mind, Lukarn sang, exulting in its potency. Almost as an afterthought, Eadric slashed upwards, striking the nycadaemon above him three times. He sidestepped as it crashed to the ground, thrashed its huge wings briefly, and expired. Another slammed into him, almost bowling him over, and thrusting him backwards five paces into the waiting clutches of the third: Eadric felt venom-tipped claws finding gaps in his armour, puncturing flesh and pinning him. Eight enormous, muscle-bound arms were groping at him in an attempt to overpower him. From his left, a disintegrate struck him but failed to overcome his protections.
Above, Mostin grunted to Shomei. There's one.
Deftly – and impossibly – Eadric twisted Lukarn in his wrist and began to slice at the creatures restraining him.** With four, powerful strikes, he slew one of them. The remaining daemon clung on desperately, screaming telepathically for assistance. Two of its enormous hands pinned Eadric's arm while two more pried his weapon from his grip.
The nycadaemon, unaccustomed to bearing a sword of Lukarn's power and temperament, gave a look of astonishment as it began to hack at itself with the captured weapon.
Before the next onslaught could reach him, Eadric spoke a single, quiet, holy word. The Abyssal rock beneath him shuddered in agony, and around sixty bar-lgura within a broad circle about him burned away into vapour. The nycadaemon – and three others who had come to its call – were stricken instantly.
Eadric stepped forwards, and retrieved Lukarn from the paralyzed monster's grasp.
Great Goddess, Nwm thought as he plummeted towards the battlefield. He is made for this. This is his purpose. He is like a machine. He finally understood just how much Soneillon needed the Ahma.
The Druid discharged a cone of Infernal fire over the demons below him, simultaneously becoming visible. Behind him, Mostin and Shomei thundered over the field, burning bar-lgura footsoldiers with gouts of fire in the vicinity of where one of the ultroloths was suspected to be.
Below them, the hordes quaked.
The situation was uncannily familiar to Mostin, and he experienced a profound déjà vu as he winged away. His eyes widened, as the vision of a future half-remembered flashed across his mind.
Ainhorr, he thought to Shomei. Ainhorr will come.
She groaned. Are you sure?
Yes. No. Yes. I'm sure.
She swallowed. The vorpal sword was a vague recollection of death for her. But only one of several.
*
A succubus – a scout named Semhel who exercised no great power and held no particular responsibilities – appeared before Janiq. The marilith remained in the rearguard of her force, flanked by glabrezu bodyguards.
Semhel prostrated herself. "There is a mortal here – or a celestial. I cannot tell which."
Janiq, of quick mind, and wise to at least some of the many schemes in which her dark master was embroiled, narrowed her eyes and hissed. Adyell had confirmed that the Ahma had visited Throile on at least two occasions – in fact, the doubts held by the succubus regarding Soneillon's actions had, in large part, been responsible for her defection. She barked an order at her aide – the arcanaloth Xehez.
"Issue a sending immediately to Azzagrat. Eadric of Deorham is here."
Knowing that when Janiq said 'immediately,' she meant immediately, Xehez used a limited wish to expedite the message.
In his sanctum, three words resonated in Graz'zt's mind:
Deorham in Throile.
The Prince's reply was equally succinct:
Detain him. I will send aid.
Janiq – along with her retinue – teleported to a position which offered a better vantage of the battle, and watched, incredulous, as three hellfire wyrms – emanating holy auras – appeared above the vanguard of her army.
She screamed telepathic orders to her aerial heavy cavalry – the nycadaemon mercenaries – immediately instructing the entire force to withdraw from the goristros and to intercept the dragons.
Her orders to the ultroloths – whose loyalty she still doubted – were couched in the promise of reward. Capture the mortal, and Graz'zt will lavish gifts upon all of us. Bring the wyrms down.
She dispatched Semhel with instructions to her reserve force of bar-lgura – who waited several thousand miles away – to join the fray, and smiled. Drawing six unholy swords from scabbards across her body, the Marilith prepared for battle.
*
Mostin gyred in the sky, his aura blinding the succubi around him. In his belly, he felt the fire rising again as dozens of nycadaemons began to take off, or to manifest in the air around him.
At that point, he was struck by two simultaneous targeted greater dispel magics, and two quickened unholy blights.
Oops, he thought as his most of his wards vanished and he was forced back into his natural state. He vomited but retained his composure, cast a quickened dimension door and appeared among a screeching mob of bar-lgura, sixty feet ahead of Eadric, in the aperture in the Paling.
Shomei screeched. Are you insane? She herself was struck by a greater dispelling but, to her relief, retained her draconic shape. A horrid wilting failed to affect her. But her mind blank was gone, and to the demons and daemons present who possessed true seeing, her real form became apparent.
Mortal! The voice of an Ultroloth echoed in the minds of the lesser daemons.
Gleefully, eight Nycadaemons tore into her. Many more flapped nearby, eager for the chance to engage an obstacle which now seemed as though it could be overcome. Still, they could barely penetrate her armour.
Shomei shapechanged. Her scales thickened and brightened, swiftly acquiring a flawless, mirror-like sheen. Her size doubled to titanic proportions. As her wings powered her backwards in the air, and daemons lashed at her, she breathed upon those in front of her head.
Fourteen paralyzed nycaloths dropped like stones to the ground, flattening dozens of bar-lgura below them.
*
A wave of malice washed over Eadric, attempting to dominate him, and his head turned to face the source of the compulsion.
It was a faceless creature, whose empty visage swam with tiny pin-points of light, and whose dark cloak seemed to blow with unnatural slowness in the gale issuing from above. It stood seventy feet away, flanked by nycaloths and behind a great, armour-clad yagnodaemon which bore a huge sword.
He began to run towards it, over the ashes of the bar-lgura and past the stupefied forms of nycadaemons. Power coursed through him as he invoked as much strength as he could muster. Hasted time simultaneously slowed to a crawl, and sped to a blur. Nycadaemons clutched at him as he moved, and the yagnoloth interposed itself fully between Eadric and his quarry. The armoured fiend's sword bit deep into him, but he forced his way forwards, his shield slamming into the bodyguard's legs and bowling it over. He smote the ultrodaemon, and blackness poured from it. It emitted a thin, high-pitched scream.***
As the yagnoloth clambered to its feet, the Ahma turned and smote it. It struck Eadric again, with enormous force, blinding itself in the backlash from the holy aura. Two nycaloths moved in, and ripped at him in a frenzy, drawing blood with envenomed claws.
Gambling, the ultroloth spoke a power word. The capture of the Ahma was a prize for which much should be risked. Eadric's celestial defense failed, and for a fraction of a second the daemon exulted. But still Eadric did not succumb. He struck, and the daemon perished. He stepped sideways, and the sightless yagnoloth lashed out again, smashing through his armour. Eadric smote it again. And again. Eadric struck again, but wearily, and as it crumpled next to him, he knew that his strength was waning swiftly.
A huge claw snatched him from the battlefield, and carried him aloft.
"Thank-you," he said to Nwm.
"Hmm," the Druid replied.
But, struck by a dispelling, the shapechange on Nwm fizzled and vanished, and both he and Eadric plummeted back to the ground.
*I have retained shapechange on the Druid spell-list.
** This was a potentially dangerous situation – one of the nycadaemons Bull Rushed Eadric and the other began a grapple as an AoO – Eadric had already used his AoO for the round when countering the bar-lgura's attempted grapple (and Cleaving from it. Sigh.) Lukarn, however is a sunblade – i.e. it's treated as a light weapon, and could therefore be used in a grapple.
I use Pants's 'loths, btw. Nice work, Pants.
***This incident is worthy of note. Eadric's player – Marc – has this annoying habit of pulling off stunts like this. One would think that sticking a yagnoloth (a 10th level Fighter yagnoloth, to boot) directly in the path of a size M creature would ensure the ultroloth some space to either use a few more spell-likes, or to teleport away if things got sticky for it.
But, no. Eadric invoked the Strength domain and Righteous Might, charged, overran the yagnoloth, Power Attacked at +20, smote the ultroloth and scored a critical hit, reducing the daemon to around 30 hp.
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Thomas Hobbes
First Post
Kickin' update.
Woo. My mind reels at the thought of a full-on abyssal war.
Oh, and you've gained further praise from me for using the word "gyre."
Woo. My mind reels at the thought of a full-on abyssal war.
Oh, and you've gained further praise from me for using the word "gyre."
robberbaron
First Post
Wow!
Want to say more but words fail me.
Want to say more but words fail me.
