The Slave and Her Sovereign

[Manbearcat]

Ok, going to fold Loot + XP into the follow-on conflict below as you've decided to attempt to consecrate the site/remove the curse immediately. We're going to include the fell priest, Ezcoatl's, beshadowed blade as a conduit for this despite. However, because you weren't able to pull off the standard action "disarm the priest of his beshadowed blade" move during the combat, this is going to be extremely danger, as follows:

* Ezcoatl's smoking shadow blade is momentarily not shunted from this world and part of the consecration ritual will be attempting to grasp it and render it corporeal before it “poofs.” This place is very dangerous to your present curse so Micro-failures in the SC will increase all curse-afflicted Religion checks to recover from the Justicar's curse by 2.

Goal: Render Ezcoatl's beshadowed blade corporeal (2 successes), consecrate the site and remove the curse (final 4 successes).

Complexity 2, Level +2 Challenge (DCs 12, 17, 25 and vs NAD 21, vs AC 23)

2 Secondary Skill, all DCs Easy

0 Successes (1 Hard DC Available)/0 Failures/2 Secondary Skills Available

Alright, take a Short Rest, vignette Qamra recovering from her hardship, and let's do this.

---

The smoking beshadowed blade spilled from the hands of the fell priest Ezcoatl, eerily soundless and the freezing, necrotic mist flits about its hilt and edge. The phantom's hand curls like a spider's death throes and slowly disappears.

The blade's lack of substance increases with each passing moment. In short order it will be gone from this world, returning only when the curse manifests again, dragging with it the misery and horror of those eternally chained to it.

Even from a few paces away, you can feel the terrible power of the thing; straight from some terrible dark depth of this world or the very Abyss itself. The curse within you seems to call to it...and it call to your curse. It begs for your touch...daring you to grasp it. Despite its foul will, you know there is no other way to lift the curse of this place and free these poor souls forever...

---

HARD DC

How do you deal with the terrible necrotic freeze of the beshadowed blade? You have to handle it to render it corporeal for the consecration ritual.

 

[darkbard]

Ibhea commands THE DEFILED BEAST to "seek the light," causing it to shamble without volition of its own towards the Radiant Downdraft. As it moves past him, Ibhea strikes the creature a wicked blow with his enchanted blade. And the creature reflexively unleashes necrotic energy upon the whisky priest, but Omthala's blessing holds true, and it does him no harm. The beast enters the shaft of light and is immediately expelled with propulsive force, glowing faintly, beside one of the remaining Echoes of Sacrifice.

ARUNNY shows signs of the sacrifice she has taken on to heal her fallen charge: slight fissures open up on her face and exposed hands, spilling brilliant radiance into the chamber. Qamra's eyes blink, and it is clear the Blessed is still among the living. And so Omthala's Searing Voice unleashes several blasts of radiant energy, one striking the Defiled Beast a staggering blow, another releasing one of the Echoes of Sacrifice from its torment, freed to another realm with a sigh.

QAMRA finds herself once again in the dark cavern, no longer inexplicably in that other place. She clears her eyes and stands, takes in the continuing battle around her, takes a step, and launches her sword at the beast. The sword deflects off its ancient bones and returns to her hand, no visible damage inflicted but the creature's unnatural life clearly on a short leash.

The ancient necromancy that animates the Defiled Beast’s bones begins to fail, and in short order ARUNNY invokes Omthala’s radiance once again, to sever any connection between the spiritual animating the material; and to release the last Echo of Sacrifice from the burden of her existence. For now.

Light ceases to pour from the fissures in Arunny’s skin, which close up as supernaturally as they began.

When the battle is finished, the assembled know their task is not finished. But more immediate concerns take precedence. Xin Mae rushes to Qamra’ side, holding his lamp up high. “Are you quite all right, girl? I simply knew something like this was bound to happen!” he reprimands the two priests.

“All right?” Qamra asks. “Yes, I think I am all right. I might have visited the Goddess for a time. I feel nearer to her. Something calls me to her side” she finishes mysteriously.

Ibhea, head still spinning from the dizzying blow from the Beast, raises an eyebrow. Arunny blanches.

Omthala’s Searing Voice pronounces, “Let us give thanks to Her Radiant Majesty for our victory over these malevolent echoes of the past. Bow your heads. Let us prepare for what is to come.” And as she continues to intone her prayer, a soothing cool light diffuses the congregation, healing their physical wounds … if not the deeper impressions upon their psyche made by this brush with pure evil.

---

Bookkeeping matters: Short Rest = all encounter resources refresh. No APs. No Dailies.

From the fiction and for the purposes of math, I’m assuming one more round beyond what’s depicted of Arunny taking the 5 OG damage at the beginning of her turn and Qamra healing 15 HP.

Ibhea receives Healing Word from Arunny, r(2) + spend Surge (13); Ibhea spends 2 more Surges (26). 8 HP + 15 + 26 = 54/54 HP and 3/7 Surges remaining.

Arunny spends 3 surges (39). 23 HP + 39 = 54/54 HP and 6/10 Surges remaining.

Qamra spends 3 surges (48). 30 HP + 48 = 67/67 HP and 9/12 Surges remaining.

 

[Nephis]

Omthala's priests exchange a quick wide-eyed glance, each recognizing that time is of the essence in the problem at hand. Ibhea nods his head in silent agreement before begining an invocation of the religious rite of their Lady's Control of the Heavenly Spheres and Their Cycles, appealing to Her to give them time to complete this quest.

Hearing the murmurs of her companion priest behind her, ARUNNY allows her steps to lead her forward, answering the pull from the spectral blade. Omthala's Searing Voice is aware that their Goddess has given her the physical and psychic strength to withstand its cursed power, but the seer still has fear in her heart.

Quickly Ibhea completes his invocation of the religious rite. Then he lifts his shiny semisphere high into the radiant Moonlight, bending that Light to strike the dagger, thus offering some protection to the seer.

Time seems to slow, even Arunny's heartbeats. They become slow, steady drum beats, accompanying the silver trill of the radiance. The priestess walks within the beats and reaches her hand forward to grasp the almost vanished blade. As her fingers close around its handle, the melody of the light becomes briefly dissonant, before transitioning into a minor key as the necrotic power - attempting to chill her soul - moves through her body into the cavern floor.

---

* Ibhea uses a Secondary Skill Religion check (+15 = Autosuccess vs. 12 Easy DC) to use a prayer of Omthala to invoke her power of time (giving Arunny time to reach the dagger) + 2 Secondary Skill bonus and his Encounter Power (Shining Symbol) to lessen the dagger's Necrotic power against Arunny for + 2 Power Bonus to

* Arunny's Primary Skill Endurance check to grasp and Endure holding the cursed blade: r(10) + 12 + 2 (SS) + 2 (Power Bonus) = 26 vs. 25 Hard DC. Success.

 

[Manbearcat]

1 Successes (0 Hard DC Available)/0 Failures/1 Secondary Skills Available

---

The cold and the rotting touch of the blade might register as a placebo to the mind, but Arunny's hands feel a trace of neither.

In her mind spawns a shimmering image of days long past. She is mentally thrust to history on the day when the ritual was performed to turn an ordinary steel edge into an implement of horror. The awfulness cannot be contained in a singular mind so it spills out into the world like a projection where Ibhea, Qamra, and the scrivener behold the same.

A typical forge.

A typical blacksmith.

A very atypical quenching vessel rimed with ice and filled with foul rot, decay and putrescence.

The blacksmith pulls the glowing blade from the burning forge and prepares to quench with Ezcoatl standing over the unholy repository preparing words of power.

---

How do you unbind the beshadowed blade from this binding ritual of shadow?

Medium DC (here on out)

 

[darkbard]

IBHEA’S invocation of the Rites of Control of the Heavenly Spheres and Their Cycles is no mild intervention. Calling upon The Goddess to alter her governing of time, even for a short period, is a miracle of grand proportion!

And it does not come without consequence. Time itself is disjointed for a moment, the aeons-old scene of the terrible ritual performed in this place coincident with the present moment. It is impossible to discern whether Omthala’s followers have been transported back in time or whether the past intrudes here upon the present—or whether any of this is an externality at all or playing out exclusively within the mindscape of The Searing Voice.

Regardless, the whisky priest observes Eztcoatl; the smith; the glowing blade; the viscera-smeared quenching tank, befouled by fell rituals and palpable emanating waves of arcane energy. Ibhea conjures forth the power granted him by Delban, Sorcerer-King, into a basic spell of unbinding upon the vessel, disrupting its magicks before Eztcoatl can imbue the blade with necrotic power.

---

Ibhea makes a Primary Skill Arcana check to disrupt the ritual, r(2) +11 = 13 vs 17 Moderate DC. Failure.

Wowzers. Didn’t see that coming!

 

[Manbearcat]

1 Successes (0 Hard DC Available)/1 Failures/1 Secondary Skills Available

* Ibhea takes +2 DC to all Religion checks to recover from Doom's Curse.

---

The blade itself intervenes. It knows.

In this reality and timeline, the terrible object that Arunny holds clasps the astral strings of the curse that is embedded deep in Ibhea's psyche...and pulls. As it plays on Ibhea's curse and temporarily rebuffs the magics of his arcana through time, it attempts to pull free of Arunny's grasp. Like a deranged animated object it twists in her hand, attempting to wrest control and impale herself on its pointed edge!

If control can be regained of the object in this world, then Ibhea's magics of undoing will work in the alternate timeline!

---

MEDIUM DC

 

[Nephis]

Beads of sweat begin to appear on ARUNNY's forehead as her hands twist this way and that, while struggling with a shadowy dagger, appearing and disappearing in her grasp. Qamra watches her mentor's face intently and is startled when Arunny's eyes suddenly flick upward to stare briefly into her own. "Help me, child," she compels. The young warrior feels a tug in her ribcage and follows her compulsion forward to join her mistress. Then Qamra lays her hands upon Arunny's, lending her strength.

The Searing Voice returns her inner and outer attention to her struggle with the wily blade. Qamra's hands on her own center her concentration and allow her to deepen her physical stance into the stone floor and to thread iron throughout her mental will. The seer is finally able to mentally reach into both realities and all times, channeling her Goddess's power to wrest control of the astral strings from the dagger.

---

* Arunny utilized Divine Call to gain Qamra's aid and a +2 Circumstance Bonus to

* her Primary Skill Endurance check (training expended) to wrest back control of the dagger: r(11) + 7 + 2 (CB) = 20 vs. 17 Medium DC. Success! Phew!

 

[Manbearcat]

2 Successes (0 Hard DC Available)/1 Failures/1 Secondary Skills Available

Render Ezcoatl's beshadowed blade corporeal (2 successes) attained. Pending: Consecrate the site and remove the curse (final 4 successes).

---

Despite the blade's visceral protest, it is bent to the will of the holy collective. By the hilt Arunny holds a physical blade, wreathed in shadow and rime; a tangible thing of this world.

A sound starts low in both frequency and volume but grows in both. A wail. No two. No ten.

Voices connected to suffering, to sacrifice. One of those voices Arunny recognizes as that of one of the young maidens who made up the Echoes of Sacrifice. Now they see her. She is protesting against an abbot and his crucible of knights that stand between the girl and her children. Her children are being taken from her hovel for some fell purpose.

She is dragged away...a choir of sobs, laments, outrage (1)...and a curse through clenched teeth and venomous spittle that she levels upon those layfolk gathered who do not intercede on behalf of her or her children. (2)

---

Rewrite these wrongs; the tale of this tragedy (1).

Does the woman's own curse need undoing? Was her plea heard from an even worse power? Was that perhaps Eztcoatl's plan all along (to corrupt her...to exsanguinate her of her own righteous and get her to do his work for him?) (2)

MEDIUM DC

 

[darkbard]

IBHEA can no longer just watch as this scene of desperation, despair, and malice plays out over and over again, a congeries of ills with such potency as to echo its wicked force across the ages. And so, when the scene "reboots" and begins to play out once again--the abbot with his uncaring threats; the knights with weapons and might to back them up; the gathered layfolk, unwilling to intercede--he steps forward and speaks.

"Good Teyolían People," he cries out, "can you not see the vile designs your spiritual leader intends? Are you so weak and cowed by the authority of the unjust that you will stand by to allow the wicked free reign to work their evil upon the innocent? You outnumber these warriors ten to one, and yet you see yourselves as powerless, a collection of impotent individuals instead of a community united to protect one of their own!"

Ibhea looks up, and Arunny gives him a genuine smile, one that fills him further with confidence.

"The Radiant Goddess Omthala can be a cruel mistress at times, the magnitude of her light brooking no shadows in which to hide from responsibility. But that very light does also sear away the darkness that besets those without fear to do what is right. Resist these messengers of false spirits! Stand by your fellow, and save her children!"

---

Ibhea is utilizing Beguiling Tongue (Encounter Power; +5 to next Bluff, Diplomacy, or Intimidate check) and is further bolstered by Arunny's Group Diplomacy racial feature (+1 to ally Diplomacy checks within 10 squares) for his Primary Skill Diplomacy check (untrained!), r(6) +7 +5 +1 = 19 vs 17 Moderate DC. Success.

 

[Manbearcat]

3 Successes (0 Hard DC Available)/1 Failures/1 Secondary Skills Available

---

The gathered layfolk rise up against the abbot and his sentinels, tear the mother free of their grasp, and commit themselves to rising up against those absconding with her children.

As the image shimmers, the curse weakens.

Despite his momentary departure from this world, from afar the ruinous spirit of The Blood Drinker, High Priest Eztcoatl, senses your intercession in his eternal designs. His backlash is swift and fierce. From a pool of darkness, a sinewy shadow takes shape in the form of one of his terrible Justicars. Its malevolent eyes brim with infectious curse; Glare of Doom will attack you all if his form is given allowance to accrete to fullness.

You have but a moment...

---

What do you do?

MEDIUM DC

Failure and everyone is attacked by the Glare of Doom curse; +10 vs Will. On a hit, you're cursed if not already afflicted and the already afflicted takes +2 to DC of all Religion checks to resolve the curse.