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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 1361150" data-attributes="member: 1210">After the Debacle“Let’s try to catch up to the others,” Lester insists.They’ve just come awake in the hall of circles.  Lester is pacing back and forth, eager to get moving.  It’s an itch, the geas is.“We have to prepare spells first,” Orbius points out as he opens his spellbook.  “Soon, Lester, soon.”“And we should fix the blubbering idiot,” Horbin says dryly, pointing at Angelfire.  “But I don’t get my spells back until evening.”*“Perhaps I can do something about it,” Orbius offers.  “After I’ve studied my book for a time...”A short time later, Orbius closes his book.  The Eye casts a limited wish, returning Angelfire’s full sentience to her.  “Thanks,” she says, then starts rummaging in her bag of holding.  Pulling Azekia’s body from it, she tries to animate the celestial’s corpse.  Her powers are not great enough, however, and her spell fails.  “Darn,” she mutters, then puts the angel back in the bag.  Somewhat at a loss as to where their companions have gotten off to, Orbius casts a divination, asking where they should go to find Thrush.  “Seek the three chests” is the answer he receives; clear advice!  He grins and the party begins crawling through the hidden tunnel to the room of the chests, Lester in the lead.  Squirming their way through the tight stone tunnel, the group grunts and inches along until finally the L’s head pops out the far side.“Holy crap,” he breathes.The room’s a mess; there’s blood everywhere, and Ulla’s down and cracked badly in stone golem form.  Thrush is in there, too.“Lester,” he says.  “I’m glad you’re here!”  And with that he steps forward and takes a massive swipe at the L’s head.Lester squawks as the blow smacks into his brow, and only his incredible toughness and long years of adventuring experience allow him to roll with the blow enough to avoid death.  He struggles forward, taking another blow along the way, and clumsily gets his feet under him in the room at last!  But then another blow to the head and he’s dazed for a moment, unable to think clearly or act!Sounds like trouble, Angelfire thinks, and dimension doors into the chamber, instantly appearing in the far corner.  She grows a second pair of arms, thanks to her cloak, and whips out a massive falchion.  She is about to lunge forward at Thrush when the Eye, still within the hole, casts a greater dispel magic on the fighter, breaking the domination instantly.“Watch out, he’s here!” Thrush screams.Everything becomes very confusing very quickly.Suddenly Blaesing appears and Thrush is redominated, Lester’s sagging as the fighter hews into him again and again, and then the L roars and starts foaming at the mouth!  Blaesing is stabbing, stabbing, stabbing at the L, and both Lester and Angelfire are slashing back at him.  Orbius curses as his last greater dispelling fails to free Thrush, then he casts a dominate person of his own.  Seizing control of him, Orbius forces Thrush to back off.  He’s got ultimate concentration up; he keeps Thrush out of harm’s way as he casts a flesh to stone on Blaesing!  And that’s it.The vampire turns to stone.Lester howls and screams for a moment, smashing at the statue a few times before finally settling down.  His eyes seem to clear.  Then, looking around, he says, “Whoa!  Sorry, guys, I kinda freaked out there.  I, uh, don’t know what came over me.  Sorry...”**“What happened?” Orbius interrupts.“Oh, no,” Thrush moans, “I killed them.”“What?  Who??”“All of them- Rex, Patyn, Ulla...”  He looks mournfully at the body of the shifter, still in stone golem form.“If she’s dead,” Orbius says, “she should have reverted to her natural form.” “Let’s see.”  Angelfire pulls out a wand and, a moment later, Ulla’s eyes fly open.  ”AAAH!!  What-?  What happened?  Thrush!  What’s going on??”“It’s okay,” says Lester.  “You were almost killed, and Thrush was dominated by stone-boy over there, but- well, you’re better now, right?”The shifter takes a deep breath and starts changing forms, flickering from one to the next, slowly healing her wounds.  It’s a bizarre thing to see; it’s almost as if she’s made of flowing wax.  Eventually she’s much better.“Gods, I made Rex and Patyn go through the mouth!  It- it disintegrated them...” Thrush looks down at his feet mournfully.  “Damn, I feel bad about that.”“You were dominated,” Orbius tells him.  “You couldn’t control yourself.”  “I need to be able to resist that stuff!” Thrush says angrily.  “That kind of crap happens too often.”“First things first,” Lester says.  “Let’s take care of this guy.”“Do you want to turn him back to flesh and try to get some answers from him?” Angelfire asks.“No way.  This guy’s a vampire.  He’ll just resist until we kill him, then turn to mist and go away.  No, what we need to do is mess up his capacity to respond to us.”  The L turns to the petrified Blaesing and begins stone shaping him, chopping off his hands (including his sword), destroying all his weapons, his boots and his cloak.  “The trick,” Lester says with satisfaction, “is to do as much damage as possible without actually killing him.”“That face is the key,” muses Orbius, thinking again of the riddle.  The face of the fiend does more than devour; with the least of my form ‘tis the gap to power.  What does that mean?“I agree,” says the L.  “Let’s go back there are see what we can figure out.”The group returns to the face cautiously; they know all too well that they might have a very limited time.  As they move towards it, Orbius puts an extra eye on the back of Lester’s head.  ”That reminds me of when I used to have three eyes,” Lester says.  “Have I ever told you that story?  No?  Well, it came from Chaos.  A third eye, right in the middle of my forehead!  But then my head started to swell up, and there was a fungus growing on my brain, and my friends had to go inside me and kill it.  I wasn’t there for that, except in the larger sense of the word, since they were inside me.  But that was why I could see the spaces between the spaces, and the little fishy things.  Anyway, here we are!  The big green face!”They experiment a little.  “Why would someone have taken some of the dust?” wonders Orbius.  They throw a little bit in and it vanishes as surely as everything else they’ve poked in it has.  “Dammit, I just don’t get it!” swears Lester.  “There must be another clue somewhere- let’s go find it.”  They discuss where their next destination should be; deciding upon the web-choked area, they start heading deeper into the Tomb again.*Horbin chose 5 pm for his spell renewal time, I think because it often gives the group a second wind late in the day.**Years ago Lester got a chaos induced effect that sends him into an involuntary berzerk rage whenever he’s wounded below ½ his hp.  It’s never happened before, and Lester didn’t even know he had that ability!Next Time: Short Rex and Patyn, our heroes encounter a powerful undead creature!  Does it stand a chance against the Deleter??</blockquote>

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