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Message: <blockquote data-quote="spyscribe" data-source="post: 3071841" data-attributes="member: 5808">Ah, at last... the update!Part the Two-Hundred SeventhIn which: our adventurers take on the Count… and friends.Meanwhile, as the parley with the Count has been going on, Kiara and Reyu have been sneaking carefully down the interior passageway.Kiara notices that she can hear everything that is going on inside the throne room perfectly, and discovers that the passage has several outlets into the throne room itself, cunningly concealed behind tapestries.So that’s how all those servants came right out of the walls, she marvels.  However, servants aren’t the only ones who can take advantage of a hidden hallway.  As Kiara comes around a corner, she discovers two warmages and the Count’s second son, Guy, poised at the hidden gaps in the tapestries and ready to unleash their fury into the room.Kiara shouts.  “Snipers!”  Guy immediately whirls away from the throne room.  Behind Kiara in the passageway, Reyu has begun the process of summoning a dire wolf, but the complex invocations required will leave Guy plenty of time to act.Guy immediately whirls away from the throne room and draws his rapier, advancing towards Kiara.  Kiara takes to the air as best she can in the confined space, to make herself a more difficult target.  As she does so, she catches a glimpse through the tapestries of Gaston sending a black bolt of seething negative energy straight for Thatch.###Inside the throne room, Thatch flinches as the oily black energy screams towards him, but he holds his ground.  After all, that’s about the smartest thing you can do when someone’s trying to launch a magical attack at you when you’re standing inside a globe of invulnerability.The bolt impacts Barnabus’ field, causing a brief shimmer across the surface of the globe before dissipating harmlessly.  Thatch smirks.Anvil wastes no time in seizing the initiative.  “Count Agramount!” he bellows, “I call upon Kettenek to smite you for the injustices you have practiced in your realm.  Crimes including but not limited to: kidnapping, unlawful enslavement, assault, and murder!”The ground beneath the keep trembles and a surge of deific vengeance hurtles towards the Count… only to vanish instantly as it impacts his anti-magic field.  Barnabus’ eyes darken.  Anvil scowls.There is a brief silence.“Well,” Eva mutters under her breath.  “This could get old really quickly.”  And with that she draws her sword, lunges forward and slashes at the nearest enemy in reach.  The battle is joined, and as guards run forward, warmages cast, and the party returns fire, the Count calmly takes a step back and prepares to watch the carnage.###Testy pulls out yet another wand from his seemingly unending supply and attempts to snare the Count in a web.  He’s protected by his field, but the sticky strands do ensnare Gaston, two warmages, an officer of the Guard, and the man the Count called the Anarcanist.That last swears loudly, and lets out a nearly animal snarl as he hacks and slashes his way through the stiff and heavy strands.  Beside him, Gaston gathers himself and begins to cast a spell of his own.Eva tries to figure out what the Count’s son is up to, but there are so many spells flying around it’s hard to tell.  A freezing sphere has suddenly materialized in the middle of the room and is rolling straight at Woodsy, Barnabus has started an ice storm in another corner, there’s a crack of summoned lightning from just behind a tapestry, and she’s pretty sure she caught a glimpse of an acid arrow out of the corner of her eye.  The effect of ice, acid, web, and crackling holy energy all in one small space is more than a little surreal.  Eva grits her teeth.  Steel in hand, enemy in reach, she reminds herself.  Concentrate on what you know.  Don’t worry about what you don’t until you have to.Unfortunately, a few seconds later, she encounters something she knows all too well.  Because at that second, from the shadows of two columns in the center of the room, two hunched figures melt out of the darkness.*  The Count watches, inordinately pleased as Eva flinches.  “Oh, didn’t I mention?  The Anarcanist brought along a couple of friends.  Null shadows, he calls them.  Fascinating creatures, no?  After they’ve killed you all, I’m planning to give them a place of honor in the menagerie.”Black mist rolls off the bodies of the creatures that the party has come to call shadowbeasts.  They sniff the air, scanning, scanning… and then lock in on Barnabus.The null shadows rush the archmage, rushing through the globe of invulnerability, as though it wasn’t even there.  Barnabus briefly frowns.  Well, of course they can rush right through, he thinks.  Who decided to call that spell a globe of invulnerability anyway?  Still the archmage isn’t too worried until he notices that the null shadows are also unaffected by any of his other abjurations.  Oh.  Now this could be a problem.In seconds, the creatures’ claws are ripping through Barnabus’ fragile skin and pulling away chunks of aged flesh.  The burning wounds left behind on his body are bad enough, but as the creatures momentarily withdraw their claws, Barnabus feels the disjunction—one of his most powerful spells—ripped from his mind.   The shock of violation leaves him more shaken than the physical pain.  Another option off the table.Still standing at the back of the room, the Count smiles.It’s right about then that Gaston manages to dispel the web trapping him and others in the corner.  And as soon as the web drops, the Anarcanist charges forward, straight for the bleeding Barnabus.Eva throws herself at the mage-killer as he passes, slashing him on the thigh, but it’s not enough to stop him, or even slow him down.  As the Anarchanist brings his broadsword down on the injured, elderly archmage, time seems to slow.  With all of his magical protections at full-effect, the Barnabus should be nearly untouchable in melee combat.  But as the Anarcanist’s blade touches each abjuration surrounding Barnabus there is a shimmer and burst of light, and Barnabus feels his wards stripped from him.  At the last second, he manages to dodge to one side, taking what would have been a killing blow on his clavicle instead of his skull.(DM’s note: the effect of the Anarcanist’s blade was the result of a grossly over-powered feat that I gave him from Complete Arcane, which—while grossly overpowered—is really useful for killing wizards.)Barnabus barely manages to choke out, “Anvil!” as he stumbles backwards.  He catches himself on the wall behind him, dizzy and weakened by the pain and loss of blood.Anvil gives up on his useless attempts to dispel the Count’s protective field and dashes to Barnabus’ side.As all this is going on, Lord Marmion falls back to the wall beside the Count, and Kiara—who has snuck into the room past a tapestry—stings him with an arrow.  He glares at her as he clutches the wound with one hand and uses the other to cast back at her.Kiara doesn’t recognize the spell, but for a moment, it strikes her how absolutely absurd this entire situation is.  A room filled with magical ice, sleet, lightning, and a guy who calls himself the Anarcanist?  What kind of a name is that?  She puts a hand to her mouth, trying to stifle a giggle.  She just knows that if she starts laughing, she won’t be able to stop.  And at that moment, teetering on the brink of helpless laughter, she catches a glimpse of the shadowbeast menacing Barnabus.  She’s seen them before.  They’re the creatures that attacked Annika in the desert, the ones who killed her old familiar during the fire at the Academy.  Her laughter dies behind her lips, and Kiara realizes it must have been an effect of Lord Marmion’s spell.  Because there’s nothing funny about the situation at all.###Barnabus couldn’t agree more.  Anvil sinks his sword into one of the shadowbeasts menacing the archmage and then fends off another attack from the Anarcanist.  Barnabus takes advantage of the brief respite and casts forcecage.  The protective barrier snaps into place not a moment too soon, surrounding himself, Anvil, and a quick-flying Kiara.  Safe for the moment, Anvil casts cure serious wounds on Barnabus.  He can’t heal all of the archmage’s injuries, but at least Barnabus no longer appears to be on death’s door.The Anarcanist’s sword shudders as it impacts the bars of the forcecage, but it does not go through.  Woodsy takes advantage of the mage-killer’s distraction to saw at his back with his whirling saw-blade hands.  When Eva buries an arrow in his side, the Anarcanist is finally forced to turn from Barnabus and deal with the immediate threat.  He swings his sword around at Woodsy, but apparently his mage-killing prowess doesn’t extend to constructs; none of his attacks manage to land.In the hidden hallway, Reyu has used Shesak’s horn to summon a bear.  She sends it in to attack alongside the dire wolf that she summoned earlier.  With wild animals coming out of literally nowhere, the Count’s second son, Guy, ducks through the tapestries into the throne room.  Reyu follows.She finds the battle going full-force.  Thatch and Eva frustratingly have their hands full dealing with the Count’s officers and elite battle-mages and are unable to reach the Count himself.  Swords are swinging, another freezing sphere appears and an ice-knife shatters at Eva’s feet.One of the shadowbeasts has turned on Testy, and is sinking its claws into the construct.  For his part, Testy seems torn between whether to be concerned at the damage he is suffering or intrigued by its source.  Now pinned to the floor, Testy pulls out a wand and casts a lightning bolt at the creature crouched on his chest.  The spell passes through the creature as though it wasn’t even there.Fascinating Testy thinks.The second shadowbeast hasn’t been distracted from its fixation on Barnabus.  As other attacks are deflected off the forcecage the creature comes forward and sniffs at the barely visible bars.  They’re closely set, with barely an inch of clearance between them.Anvil has a moment of relief, thinking that perhaps they’ve found one magical effect that the shadow abominations are not immune to.  But then, the creature leans its weight against the magical enclosure… and pushes its way through.</blockquote>

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