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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jon Potter" data-source="post: 2588645" data-attributes="member: 2323">[PLAIN][Realms #320] Blackheart[/PLAIN]"Gods," Morier gasped as he beheld the black figure. Reflexively, his eyes darted around looking for whatever advantage the hallway had to offer them. There wasn't any, but Karak caught sight of the movement as the dwarf was spitting into the palm of his gauntlet and misinterpreted it as a sign that the elf was looking for escape."Why what be the matter, Morier?" the dwarf chuckled darkly. "At the first sign of a demon of chaos you want to turn arse and run?  Hah!  That be the problem of you elves, you are too used to hidin' behind your bows.""The only question in my mind is whether to fight in the rear or to the fore," he replied. "And... I choose the rear!" He raised his axe and took a single step before Ledare's voice stopped him in his tracks."No, Karak! Draw him to us!" she hissed, lifting up on the handle of the bedroom into which she'd just exiled Hildegunna and slamming her armored shoulder against it. "The hallway is a killing field!""And running away won't save you!" the Plaguebringer who wasn't Heurist sneered as he drew a tiny bead from his belt and tossed it at Ledare. Unfortunately, his footing was unsteady and his aim was extremely poor; it struck the ground where Ledare had been standing rather than striking the Janissary herself. The bead detonated on the floor sending out a wave of magical force that slammed into everyone within ten feet of its impact. Husair was knocked painfully to the floor and as he got to his knees he saw that a nearly-transparent globe of force filled the ten foot hallway behind him."Otiluke's Resilient Sphere," he thought to himself. If it had struck Ledare she would have been trapped inside the sphere, helpless. "That's not coming down any time soon.""Aaaagh!! You have a weakling's luck, Florian!" the Plaguebringer cursed at Ledare. His nose was bleeding from the explosion - missing his intended target had put him within the blast radius. He half-turned and shouted, "Get around to the window, you fools! Make sure she does not escape! Blackheart will want to break that one personally."Karak was pissed. He was not a progressive dwarf and he retained a healthy distrust of magic - a hold over from another age when men and elves used magic and dwarves wielded axes... and that's the way they liked it. No, Karak didn't like spells flying on the battlefield and he especially didn't like spells that cut him off from his allies. Only Morier remained on this side of the force sphere and he looked somewhat dazed by the explosion. No matter. So long as there was an enemy to vent his displeasure on, he was happy."My axe comes for ye!" he bellowed, spittle flying recklessly from his mouth as he charged the skeletal figure. He could feel the oily aura of fear surrounding the figure an instant before he slammed his waraxe into the undead thing's belly. The weapon bit deeply into the creature's torso, opening a ghastly rent in its plate armor. No sooner had Karak drawn the weapon back than the hole closed as if it had never been there in the first place.Despite the haze of battle rage, the dwarf felt a tiny prickle of uncertainty touch his heart.Inside the room, Ledare pressed ineffectually against the sphere of force blocking the doorway. It was useless."How badly... are you... hurt?" Hildegunna gasped behind her and Ledare turned to see the priestess getting awkwardly to her feet, clutching her ribs as she did so. Her face was a mask of pain and blood flowed freely from her mouth and from one ear. Their prisoner, sleeping blissfully on a bed along the wall was well out of range of the force blast, but Hildegunna clearly hadn't been so lucky; she'd been standing near the door when Ledare opened it and had taken the same punishment from the explosion that the Janissary had."Hildegunna!" Ledare exclaimed, concerned in spite of herself but the cleric waived her away."I only have... two curative miracles... left to me," the woman managed. "The White Lady expects me... to heal those... in the most need." She smiled grimly, her teeth stained with crimson. "Even if that means... you, Ledare."Huzair stood up painfully, although it felt like something had broken in his gut. He needed healing, but Ledare had seen fit to put their only cleric off in a room by herself. There was nothing she could do for him. He popped a healing draught from his potion belt and was getting ready to unstopper it when he saw the Grease spell dissipate. Fortunately he'd been going over his available spells while Ledare was chatting up the locals and he had mica dust in-hand."Aureolus pulvis!" he intoned and cast the dust into the air, filling immediately with Glitterdust the area around the doorway. The Plaguebringer was within the area of effect and was thus coated liberally with sparkling gold, but he managed to blink away the blinding effect and regarded the newly-visible Huzair with seething hatred. That is, he did so until Feln delivered an eagle-claw-strike to the back of the man's head. The Plaguebringer reeled forward from the impact and turned his scathing gaze on the now-visible Feln instead.Huzair tossed back his potion with a quick jerk perfected in the drinking halls of Farmin where he was known as 'Black-Smoke-Who-Drinks-Like-Dwarf'.Lela had been lurking above the door, standing, undetected on the door frame. As soon as Feln did his thing, she finished doing hers and cloaked herself in Barkskin. Then she darted under lintel, readying a generous fistful of Dust of Confusion to deliver to the enemies massed against the doorframe.Morier moved forward to fight at Karak's side muttering the words to a True Strike spell as he came. As soon as he got close he saw the skeletal warrior finally raise his mace against them. It struck Karak like a sledge and clipped Morier on the follow-through. The mace barely touched him, but even so, the elf felt a numbness fill his body, sapping him of both strength and nimbleness as it drove him to the depths of exhaustion."Quick!  Can your healing travel through this spell?" Ledare shouted at Hildegunna as the Janissary again slammed the pommel of her bastard sword uselessly against the bubble of force blocking the doorway. "The others need your help more than I." The priestess shook her head grimly."I must lay hands on them to confer My Lady's blessing," she said. "If you can breach the sphere..." Now it was Ledare's turn to shake her head."I've been trying," she confessed. "It's no good. Do you have any spells that can get us out of here?""No," Hildegunna said simply prompting a frenzied assault on the wall from Ledare.  Ravager chewed ugly grooves in the panelling, but  the Janissary quickly realized that it would take far too long to hack through the wall. Time that the others' clearly didn't have. She watched through the Resilient Sphere, feeling more helpless than she had in a very long time. Not since the Chagmat..."Stay in the present!" she commanded herself through gritted teeth, unwilling to let her mind draw her back there. She turned and took in the room with a glance. The window was large enough to let her and Hildegunna escape."I'm going out the window. Can you follow me?" Ledare asked the tall woman, mindful of her injuries. With some effort Hildegunna swallowed back some blood and nodded. "Then grab a cloak or something to disguise yourself. We're getting out of here!""An ogre!" the Plaguebringer hissed up at Feln, his voice dripping with surprise. "Time to feel my lady's touch!" He spoke a few words in a dark language and reached a hand out toward the half-ogre. That's all the farther he got, however, before Feln's own long arm snapped outward, slamming opportunistically into the man's forehead with all the power of a battering ram. Momentarily stunned by the blow, the cleric staggered backward, his concentration shattered.There was a cascading pop-p-pop-popping sound as his Inflict Critical Wounds spell went awry. Unbridled by the Plaguebringer's intent, the miscast spell energy manifested as a burst of burning black flames that filled the corridor as far as the Resilient Sphere and spread out into the area beyond the door. [1]Inexplicably, Feln managed to evade the spell energy entirely, twisting and turning his body to avoid the tongues of fire. Huzair relied on his innate resistance to fire to protect him from harm, but nonetheless made an effort to dodge the worst of the effect. He wasn't as quick as the half-ogre, however, and found himself burned badly by the divine manifestation.The Plaguebringer, caught dead center of the fiery blast, was killed instantly by the explosion, his diseased flesh burned to a blackened crust by the licking ebon flames. He screamed briefly and collapsed in a smoking heap.Neither Huzair nor Feln were in any position to see what occurred in the hall beyond the doorway, but they heard plenty of screams coming through the opening as the flames blossomed into the space beyond. Unfortunately, Lela was in such a position, and one of those screams was hers. She was flying over the heads of the half-dozen-or-so enemies crowding around the doorway when the black fireball exploded. And she saw the flames envelop all of them in its dark embrace and instant before they slammed into her cruelly. Her Barkskin did nothing to protect her from the searing heat and she cried out in pain at their touch.Karak felt... diminished by the hit he'd taken from that black mace. It had stolen something from him - lifeforce, perhaps, or vitality. Who knew? And more over, who cared? In the grips of his rage, all Karak truly cared about was hacking into little pieces this creature of the pits. And his beloved waraxe - crafted with his own hands in the forges of Dwurheim - sadly wasn't up to task.He dropped the weapon and drew again the longsword he'd taken off Sir Brin's body. And then, gripping the blade with both hands, he swung it at the skeletal thing, hewing deeply into its left thigh. The monster grunted in pain and regarded the dwarf with renewed hatred."Once I've properly shaved it, thy skin will make a fine pillow for my feet, dwarf!" the undead creature taunted. Karak, barely heard him, so happy was he to see that the sword wound didn't close as soon as he withdrew his weapon."Incensio Terum!" Huzair intoned, sending a sheet of his own fire into the midst of the still smoking warriors crowded in the doorway. The way they were bunched up, only three of them were positioned to be damaged by his spell, but of those three, two of them fell to the ground screaming as the flesh was literally cooked off their bodies by the wizard's magic. The third man's clothing was caught on fire by the spell, and he shrieked in fear as the flames licked up his body.Feln ended the man's plaintive cries with a fist to the chest that dropped him in his tracks. Huzair winced at the audible sound of breaking bones as the blow struck home."This is for Wolf, you slimeballs," Lela whispered as she sprinkled her handful of dust over the crowd, taking heart when most of those left standing did little other than that. They stood. And blinked their eyes in confusion.Satisfied with her performance thus far, the faen landed on a bench set against the opposite wall of the great hall and nearly crumpled. She had been brought to the very brink of unconsciousness by the explosion and the Plaguebringer's miscast spell. If she didn't heal herself, she'd not be long for this world.On the opposite end of the corridor, Morier knew that he was not long for this world. He was reeling from the glancing blow of the dead thing's mace and again, he glanced around the room looking for the fastest way out: a window... a door...  Distantly, he recognized the cries of his fellow party members through the walls, and could plainly see Karak's grimace at the sound pounding he had just taken. But the dwarf was still fighting; seemingly prepared to trade swordblow for macestrike with the ghastly horror despite the fact that it was clearly Karak who would be on the losing end of such a deal.Even the dwarf's new sword was no match for that huge black mace."The mace..." Morier thought to himself... "that thing will kill everybody."He steeled his determination, knowing full well that he had to do it.  It was risky, but it might full-well save lives.  He'd need some help from the gods to make it work, but it was a risk he needed to take. And so he lunged, bringing his greatsword up as quickly as he could (which was not very quickly at all given that the blade seemed to weigh three times what it did before he'd been struck by his opponent's strength-sapping weapon) and ducked beneath an opportunistic swing from the skeletal warrior.It was a difficult maneuver under the best of circumstances, made more difficult still due to the albino's weakness. But the gods, it seemed, had indeed seen fit to aid the endeavor and between their help and the True Strike spell that Morier had already cast, he made a difficult maneuver look easy. The point of the silvered sword caught amidst his opponent's fingers, slid up and between them, forcing the skeleton's grip away from the mace's haft. Morier drove his weight against his sword's hilt, twisting the quillons and sending the black mace flying through the air. It tumbled end over end and landed behind Karak, some ten feet from the undead thing's grasp. [2]"Waaargh!!!" the undead creature roared, its eyes flaring with cold fire. "That mace was given me by Melangar himself, worm! But I was a potent force for Lady Death long before that time. My power is more than a match for your feeble efforts!" And saying thus, it reached out and touched Morier's shoulder. Just touched him; that's all.And the elf felt negative energy course into his body as more of his life drained away.------------------------[1] Thank you, Ronin Arts' "Lost Spells". A great resource for spell failure. Not all are this spectacular, but all add a level of cool to magic that "The spell fizzles" seems to lack.[2] Natural 20 on the Disarm check! Despite the fact that a) you can't critical a Disarm and b) even if you could, Undead can't be criticalled, I ruled that such a fantabulous roll (remember he had True Strike going, too) resulted in the weapon flying randomly out of Blackheart's square. I treated it like a grenade-like weapon miss.</blockquote>

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