Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 1413254" data-attributes="member: 1210">Faericles, pt. 2!Angelfire is strolling towards the stairs, but as Faericles, Lord High Exultant of Moil, cuts her friends down she hesitates.  She has no conflict with Faericles, nor does she really mind that he cut down Patyn; after all, it was bound to happen sooner or later.  But Drelvin was a friend, and a good drinking buddy- and his death is troubling.And now Horbin’s essentially on his own against the Lord High Exultant, and that’s not good.  Horbin’s the guy who can bring me back at full strength if I die, Angelfire thinks.Still... she isn’t the one who wanted this fight.“Dexter’s nadlies!” swears Horbin.  He opens up with both figurative blessed barrels, first hitting Faericles with a quickened lower resistance and then following up with a fire storm.  Faericles, fortunately for our heroes, is not fast enough to dodge the blast to any appreciable degree, and staggers as the holy flames tear across him, inflicting severe damage.  Faericles grits his teeth and remains silent as his arms are seared, his torso blackens, and his feet are charred almost into ash.*A ghastly grin on his undead face, the Lord High Exultant steps forward and takes a staggering sling at Horbin.  He cuts into the cleric’s arm, but he has to move too far forward to get in another attack, and hope surges in Horbin’s breast as he realizes he’ll have time to blast it again before it can finish him off.And then, in his head, Horbin screams, for the ice closes in around him, freezing him in a block of ice.“Ahhh,” Faericles gloats, “foolish sun-worshiper!  Now I will drink your life!”  And indeed, Horbin can feel his health leeching away, sapped by the cold and drunk greedily by Faericles of Moil.  The High Exultant’s grin stretches wider as he watches Horbin slowly dying in the sheath of ice.  He raises his undead arms, watching as Horbin’s life energy starts repairing the damage from the fire storm.  Horbin’s heart spasms as Faericles draws in a deep breath of his life force.  Getting weak, he thinks desperately.  Dexter help me... where’s Angel?And then an arc of coruscating power shoots from the shadows by the stairwell, blasting into Faericles, and he screams in a high, reed-like voice, and then he slumps down, deleted.Angel slowly walks over to the corpse, but it’s neither moving nor draining life any longer.  She moves to free Horbin, breaking the ice away.  The shivering cleric collapses against the wall for a moment, then heals himself.“That was terrible,” he says.Angelfire nods.  “We shouldn’t have fought him.  But it’s okay.  I deleted him.”Horbin lets it go with a glance at the body.  Even within the encasement of ice he saw the blast that destroyed it; and he worries at the influence of the Deleter on Angelfire.  But this is not the time or place...“We should at least search around,” suggests Angel.“I think we need to find the others and get the hell out of here!  If that Vestige things attacks us before we’re ready for it-“They do a quick search of the area.  In the center of the tower is a strange meditation area.  The purple radiance they noted earlier seems to come from some weird mats on the floor; staying in the center of them for more than a few seconds hurts, and the two survivors decide not to tempt fate.  Faericles’ armor is scooped up, but when Angelire grabs his greatsword she feels a lash of pain, so she drops it.  With a shrug she moves to start throwing the dead or... er... well, whatever Thrush is, over her shoulders.  The two move out of the tower.Shortly, via various messaging magicks, they rejoin the others at their initial entry point.  When she sees Thrush’s vacant eyes and drooling mouth, Sybele cries, “What happened to Thrush?!”  Angel and Horbin explain that the Vestige got him; worse, Horbin tells her about seeing Thrush’s face within it. “We’ve got to rescue him!” cries Sybele.“We need to go rest first,” Horbin says.  “But yes, then we should rescue him.”“I have a good idea of where Mr. Grab is,” Orbius announces.  “We should try to get him before we leave.”“Well,” Horbin muses, “I do still have most of my spells.”“I’m ready,” Angel says.”We are down a few people,” Rex points out, “but I’m sure we’ll be fine.  I mean, it’s just a familiar, how tough can it be?”“Right,” grumbles Horbin.  “Every time someone says that, it’s tougher than we thought.”The party stands close while the Eye casts a few special enhancements and protections, including a mass stoneskin, Rary’s telepathic bond, piercing clarity and protection from spells, then dispatches an arcane eye to scout the tower of black ice at which the familiar should be (according to Orbius’ spells).  Even as the arcane eye approaches the tower, Orbius sends over a mobile scry as well, using ultimate concentration to pay attention to both at once and start exploring the tower, looking for signs of Felenga’s familiar.“The tower’s solid ice,” he reports.  He casts another spell, one of his own creations, and an image resolves, showing what he sees to the rest of the party.  “There’s a body!  Frozen in ice... another... many.”  His lips press together in distaste.“Are they undead?” Horbin asks.  Sybele glances over from where she’s wiping Thrush’s drool-covered face with an edge of her cloak.“Can’t tell by looking,” Orbius replies.  “I think it’s a fair assumption that any bodies we find anywhere in here might be undead, though.”  The cleric nods in agreement.  “Hey, an entrance,” Orbius remarks.  “Hmm... I’m going down even further... whoa!  What’s this?”“What is it?” Rex asks.“Well, look,” Orbius points at the display.  “I went to the base of the tower to see what was there- and there’s a chamber at the bottom.”  He gestures.  “Mostly floorless, but either end has a little platform.  Looks like that’s where you’d come in- a sloping chute that heads up, or down from above, I guess.  And on this end...”“Wow,” says Horbin, “are those bars?”“Bars of light, yep.  And what’s behind them?  I don’t know, because my scry sensor won’t go in there.“I think I know where we should go,” remarks Orbius wryly.*Faericles failed his save, and Horbin rolled pretty well on the damage (19d6).  Add in the cold subtype (150% damage from fire) and Faericles went from pretty close to full hp (196) to about 20.Next Time:/Our heroes fight a monster from the Epic Level HB- a winter-wight!</blockquote>

Verification