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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 1446548" data-attributes="member: 1210">Hunting the Vestige“I want my babies’ daddy!” Sybele cries.Bartholomew shows a new and unsettling side as he summons a pseudonatural air elemental, strange vapors and smells emanating from it as it pulses, misshapen and bloated.An alienist, as well, thinks Orbius grimly.  More and more the Eye knows he must keep an eye on Bart.  Turning to the matter at hand, though, he casts locate creature.Looking for the Vestige, that horrible thing that roils like mist in the black sky of Moil.  There’s a flash as lightning briefly illuminates the frost-rimed towers all around them, and Orbius says, “This way.”Fully buffed, as ready as they can get, the party flies through the eternal night sky.  Below them the black vapors that signify the border of the Void seem to suck up what little light and color the party has with them. Certainly, it is ominous.  “It’s moving,” Orbius calls to the others.  The pseudonatural air elemental moves ahead slightly.“There!” Rex cries, pointing. It’s coming.Rex draws in a deep breath, trying to steady himself in the air.  Ulla turns into a huge air elemental herself.  The group tenses, weapons out and at the ready.  Horbin the MFKG Holy calls down the blessing of Dexter upon them.Angelfire’s hands jerk up instinctively, as if to delete the Vestige, but of course she no longer wears the Deleter.  A spasm of pain crosses her face momentarily as she instead activates her cloak of Jerakai’s embrace to grow an extra set of arms and whips a pair of falchions out.  One of them seems to meld physically with her arm.“Uh-oh,” Ten Buck Tom gulps.It is coming.  Ghostly, phosphorescent faces scream within it.  It’s closing on our heroes quickly and ominously; it seems eager to steal more essences from them all.And then, without warning, still a couple of hundred feet away, it draws up short and there’s a flash of pale light as a greater dispel magic ripples through the group.  With a cry of dismay, both Orbius and Maxwell start to fall towards the Void below.Patyn grits his teeth and fires off a searing light, hoping that someone will save his comrades.  Ulla does indeed make a grab for Sir Maxwell, but he hurtles past her too quickly; however, his boots sprout tiny wings, which start beating furiously and carry him back up towards the others.  Orbius simply invokes another fly.Angelfire and Londo start moving forward bravely, ready to attack; but Bart’s elemental has flashed ahead of them and joined the battle already.  Bartholomew himself has fired off a series of deadly but ineffective spells at the distance but uncomfortably close Vestige.  He watches with displeasure as four misty tendrils emerge from the Vestige, caressing at the elemental he conjured, and it dissipates into vapor.  Just like that, he thinks worriedly.  Not good.His next move is obvious.  He casts a time stop and summons several berlani eladrins, then creates a blade barrier directly before the Vestige.  Finally, he casts a wind wall shaped like a tube, hoping to draw the Vestige into the barrier with the winds.As time begins to flow again, the Vestige easily breaks free and escapes the trap.  Bart curses.Orbius reaches Horbin’s side.  Horbin has readied a massive healing spell that- assuming the Vestige is indeed undead- should deal devastating amounts of damage to it; and our heroes know that Horbin the Holy is the one who can keep them fighting as they battle it.  Orbius knows that he must be protected.As the Vestige closes on them, Horbin floats forward and casts his mass heal.  The positive energy ripples through the group and the Vestige, healing what few injuries our heroes have; but the Vestige is wholly unaffected.  Horbin gulps.  We need to hit it with a lower resistance, he thinks.  Orbius had previously, among other things, cast a mass far strike on everyone.  Now Angelfire and Londo use it, chopping at the Vestige again and again without effect until Londo finally lands a single blow.  “It’s very hard to hit!” cries Angel.Patyn, using his dwarven gauntlets, invokes a true strike.  Grimly, he thinks, I have to pour everything into this.  And he strikes, smiting evil and undead, and slams his sun blade into it from a far distance.  There’s a clap of thunder and a flash of positive energy as the Vestige takes withering damage, and then he does it again!The Vestige rushes forward, covering Londo, Angel and Horbin!  The three scream as negative energy sucks at their life force, leeching their energy and heat.  Worse, their minds dull as the Vestige sucks their essences.  Orbius, gritting his teeth, flies forward and touches Horbin, teleporting them both away to the nearest tower.“What!” Horbin cries.  “Where-““We needed to get out of there,” the Eye says grimly.  “We can’t afford to lose you.”“Couldn’t you have left us a little closer?” Horbin cries.“No.  I have to have a solid surface for teleportation.”Then a flash of lightning illuminates the distant scene of the Vestige battling the party.  Horbin casts a circle of protection and starts flying quickly back towards the battle.***Ten Buck Tom tries casting a daylight at the Vestige, but it has no affect other than to illuminate it.  He gulps as Angelfire gets grappled by one of the tendrils.  The wounds it has taken are healing quickly as it sucks at Angel’s essence.  She screams in horror as the telling numbness creeps through her.  Another tendril knocks her falchion out of her hand.  There seem to be faces around her... she dimension doors away, shakily, to a point in space below the Vestige, and plucks her falling falchion from the air.Sybele is using her ghost touch sword that she recently acquired.  It seem to help; the thing is incorporeal, and they can’t afford to lose half of the few chances to hurt it they’re getting.  Tears are streaming down her face as she far strikes at it again and again.  Thrush, she thinks.  I’ll save you!But then the Vestige moves forward and radiates a cone of fear.  Sybele shrieks, turns and flies away at top speed, and she’s not the only one.  But worse, the ghost touch sword falls into the Void below.Next Time: The fight with the Vestige continues!  Things get much, much worse!  Favorite quote from the session: “Maybe this was a bad idea.  Maybe we can’t just kill all our enemies.”</blockquote>

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