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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 1507777" data-attributes="member: 1210">A Real Live Moilian!Waves of cold, life-sucking negative energy roll from the stiff corpse that’s even now pulling itself to its frozen feet.  Someone- a female voice- is screaming in fear and pain in a language that a few of our more religiously learned heroes recognize as Abyssal.Angelfire and Lester both move to attack the Moilian zombie as the screaming woman moves aside, pulling a shortsword out and backing away.  Falchion and longsword crash into the grey flesh of the undead Moilian, knocking it back a few feet to where Londo has taking a stance with his flail; and he swings like a baseball batter, connecting with the small of the zombie’s back with a bone-shattering crunch.  Patyn smiles as he levers himself up.  He swings his deadly sun blade and the zombie’s head flies from its shoulders.  Unlike their previous experiences with the Moilian undead, the life-draining aura stops instantly.  “Like I told you,” Patyn says in his gravelly voice, “I kill ‘em dead.”  And he sheathes his sword.“Who’s the chick?” wonders Thrush.Meanwhile, Orbius- with his permanent tongues- is trying to calm the woman.  “It’s okay, we killed it,” he reassures her.“Who are you people?  What- what happened to the Tower of Chance?”  She shivers.  “It’s so cold... where are the attendants?  What’s happened?!?”“Uh, I think we’d better show you your city,” Orbius says slowly.***“No,” she whispers.The woman- whose name is Lerxst- is a Moilian of old.  She was imprisoned in the mirror as a result of losing a game of chance.  How long ago?  Who can say.  Long enough, certainly, that she did not know of Moil’s terrible fate.  But she does now.She is visibly crushed as she looks out the arch that leads out of the tower.  The strobing lightning is the only illumination; the dark, numbing cold has a firm grip on Moil.  “My people,” Lerxst whispers to herself.  Her tears start turning to ice on her cheeks.  “Right, well, nothing to be done now,” says Lester cheerfully.  “Listen, when we go back to our plane you can come with us.  Just stick close to us and we’ll protect you.  How’s that sound?”“Do I have a choice?” Lerxst snaps bitterly.“Not really,” answers Angelfire.Our heroes keep exploring the Tower of Chance, searching for anything intact- a cashbox, anything.  In a room that is obviously the remains of a bar, they find a hidden drawer containing some coins, minted with Orcus’ visage upon them.  Then, as our heroes enter a large room with three huge windows open to the black sky of Moil, a blast of freezing air runs over them.  There are cries of pain as the chill soaks into them and a winter-wight steps into view.  Instantly, Orbius casts lower resistance at it, and Lester follows with a quickened fire dagger and a maximized flame strike.  The winter-wight, taken aback by this sudden onslaught of terrible holy flames, hisses in anger, but then a pale ray of green light shoots from Orbius’ finger- and the winter-wight disintegrates!“Well done!” cries Thrush.  “I hate those things.” “They aren’t fun,” agrees Patyn.  ***Continuing their explorations, our heroes find a room with a bizarre, haphazard shape.  There is more debris, like everywhere else here, and of course the omnipresent ice; but here there is a table still upright, with a wheel of sorts set upon it.  All along the edge of the wheel are little slots, in one of which is a small black ball.  Next to it on the wall is a plaque.“In games of chance there are risks to be taken; the winner is rewarded but the loser forsaken.”  Horbin purses his lips, reading the Abyssal inscription with his helm of subtitles.  “Interesting.”“I wonder what the wheel’s for,” Angel muses.  As she speaks, it abruptly starts to spin.  The little black ball bounces from its slot and dances merrily across the spinning wheel, until finally the wheel slows and stops and the ball lands in a slot.Angelfire gives a terrible cry.  “What happened?” exclaims Sybele.  “I- I don’t know,” Angel winces.  “Something... I feel like a piece of my life energy has been stolen!”* She groans in consternation.  “What just happened??””Fool!” cries the Mask.  ”That’s what you get for trifling with things beyond you!”Horbin tries a number of powerful healing and restorative spells, but none seem to allow Angelfire to recoup her loss.  “Wow, that sucks,” Horbin states glumly.  “Maybe tomorrow I can come up with something...”“This is terrible!” Lerxst says, speaking Abyssal, which, of course, only a few of our heroes can comprehend.  “Terribly dangerous... we should go!”“Hey, we’ve got things to do, but we’ll go back to a safe place before too long, and then you’ll be safe.  Meantime, just stick with us- we’ll keep you safe.”  Orbius smiles in what he hopes is a reassuring way.“Either way, let’s get out of here so we don’t activate that thing again by accident,” Angel groans.  The party assents and they all move into a nearby room.“Maybe you said something that triggered it,” suggests Sybele.“It’s obviously some sort of chaotic gambling device,” Lester opines, “where you can win or lose big.  So if you feel lucky and you can figure out how to do it, you should go play.  But if you mess up, well it might hurt.  So it really just depends on how lucky you feel.  Do you feel lucky?”After some debate- Horbin strongly urges against it- Angel goes back into the room with the wheel and fiddles around with it some more.  She can’t find a mechanism, so she talks aloud at it for a while.  Then Thrush comes in to join her.  “Hey, come on- you don’t know what might happen with this thing.”“I obviously lost when it activated before.  I want to know what would have happened if I won!”At that moment the wheel reactivates.  ”Ah, crap,” says Thrush.Tink tink tink! goes the little black ball, bouncing, bouncing, and finally coming to rest. Angelfire tries to shriek but can’t.  She tries to raise her hands to her face but can’t- her hands are gone.And even if she could- beneath the mask, her face is gone, too.”Idiot!  I warned you!” the Mask of the Devourer cackles gleefully.*She just lost ten hit points permanently.  Oops, how’d that happen??Next Time: Horbin does some divining, Sybele gets an idea, and Lerxst finds out just how safe our heroes can keep her!</blockquote>

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