Post by Dead Greyhawk on Dec 31, 2006 21:05:54 GMT -5
The Company is in dire straits, having been beaten nearly senseless by a horde of undead, coupled with several powerful clerics of an unknown, but dark, god. Oaklock is dead. Dell is unconscious. Adrienne, Al, and Hugh have all been paralyzed by the dark god's might. Only Dell's wall of fire, encircling him, Winthrop, and Adrienne, provide enough concealment to the surrounding giants from pounding them into paste with thrown boulders.
With the giants’ boulders sailing through the air around him, Winthrop pulls Adrienne over to the fallen Dell. Setting himself between the two of them, he focuses on Foebiter, opening a portal beneath them into the kennel, where the others wait. The rending of space makes a eerie sound, and the Company, all but Hugh, dash away from the spot. Hugh, paralyzed by the dark god, awaits whatever appears. Thus, he is within the great wall of fire that appears in the kennel.
Winthrop quickly binds Dell’s wounds and revives him. Into Dell’s disoriented ears yells Winthrop, “Forward! Run forward and burn them all!” Dell staggers forward while Winthrop hauls along the paralyzed Hugh and Adrienne. The fading wall of flames chars the ceiling of the kennel as well as burning those undead previously feared by the priests. Winthrop chortles as their huge bodies are licked with flame. His glee is short-lived. The wall burns some of the undead, but then sputters out, leaving the four of them, including the paralyzed Hugh and Adrienne, at risk.
One of the giant, headless wights survives the burning and approaches the foursome. Dell, quaking in fright, shouts, "Take them! Take them! They are the paralyzed ones!" Instead, the wight ignores his pleas and reaches for him. Dell scampers out of reach, tossing the golden lion out and screaming for it to kill the wight. Several of the zombie wolves survived the burning as well, and Hugh is set upon and mauled by them. Winthrop, Dell, and Dell’s golden lion ignore Hugh and his plight until the wight is slain. Only then are the remaining zombies attacked and destroyed.
All the while the steading rings like a bell, sounding the same as when the demons had been summoned before, but at a much quicker and more regular rate. Diego exclaims forcefully that the Company must flee, but Raven instead sends the others into the steading to secure the hallway to the Great Hall.
Snookums, recognizing her former home, lumbers off towards her den, hoping to rest after fighting and being so badly injured. Jasper and Cedrus try to convince her to return to the Company, but she doesn't budge. She growls at poor Jasper, blaming him for her discomfort, claiming that he promised food, not rotted meat. Only after Cedrus heals some of her wounds does she stir forth.
Raven establishes a fighting line at the junction of two corridors, near the Great Hall, but opposite a closed door. Placing the paralyzed Al in the line, he hopes that Al will quickly limber up. “Hurry up!” he growls at the terrified Al. Cedrus and Snookums fit into the line also, since undead can be seen stirring in the Great Hall as well. Fortunately, Al and Hugh both shed the effects of the dark god, though Adrienne, having been affected by a more powerful priest, still remains immobile.
Large undead zombies, likely bugbears, mixed with human zombies march resolutely through the Great Hall towards the Company. "I see what happened to the people of that dorf," comments Dell. As the zombie bugbears meet the line of the Company, the door across from the Company opens and disgorges more orcish zombies.
The Company begins the battle in fine form, expecting their two clerics to quickly make work of the weaker undead. Instead, the powers of Trithereon and Ehlonna both appear to be weakened in this place and few of the zombies are turned to dust. Worse, while the Company quickly slays the bugbear zombies, the sheer number of them ensures that the Company suffer the odd blow here and there. The warriors of the Company, and the bear Snookums, are being slowly worn down.
Into the midst of this battle comes two cowled priests, each with a ziggurat-marked shield. One has not been seen before, but the other appears to be the one shot with the red fletched arrow by Diego. The new priest quickly clasps Raven and Cedrus in his dark god's grasp.
The injured priest turns towards his comrade and attempts to do something intimately unpleasant to him. The priest is difficult to damage, with a billowing cloak that masks his true shape, and the attack goes awry. "Kill him quickly! More are coming! Three priests are here and that doesn't count the mage or the demons below!" shouts the injured priest, whose form changes into that of the other priest.
Identifying who is the true priest and who is the shape-shifted Pavel is a challenge, but Diego seems not to care. He fires straight into the press. The priest is difficult to damage. Diego's shots are rejected. Pavel's blows fall short. Even the golden lion, directed into the fight by Dell, has no success. The battle grows close, as the priest struggles forward, insane with rage, to attack Dell, who has taunted him mercilessly. The zombies are being struck down, slowly but surely, but at some cost. Snookums appears enraged and badly wounded, blood coating her sides, and Jasper, who understands her death cries, calls for someone to heal her before she dies.
Winthrop rallies to the cause, driving Foebiter deep into the priest and knocking him to the ground. Coinciding with the fall of the last of the zombies, Hugh is able to heal Snookums and everyone draws back. Winthrop, who had started rifling the priest’s corpse, instead mends Otto's armor, which has received huge rents in it. The mobile pull the immobile back into the cross corridor.
Snookums wanders to the door back into the kennel. She paws at the door, clearly wanting to leave this place. Pavel, who has regained his form, joins her there, waiting for the others to flee.
Instead, the Company forms another fighting line in the corridor, waiting for another attack. With Raven and Cedrus paralyzed, the Company is not prepared to retreat. Dell casts an enchantment of flight upon himself and, from his lofty perch, can see across the Great Hall to where another detachment of undead bugbears is forming. He notes that these bugbears move more quickly than the other, as if they had been magically accelerated.
Winthrop moves forward to use his wand of steam on the approaching undead. As such, he is perfectly placed to see the sudden appearance of a robed, cowled man. The man looks familiar, but it takes a moment for Winthrop to recognize him. The man is the Nerullite wizard from the Temple in the Jotens where Otto was found, the great undead gate located, and the Pelorites lost.
The man gestures at the Company. Winthrop and Dell, who has also seen and recognized him, turn to shout a warning, but their voices are overwhelmed by the rush of fire that fills the corridor. Twenty feet high and twenty feet wide, reddish blue flames flow over the Company, scorching and burning them. Dell crashes to the ground and lies limp. Adrienne falls over against the wall. Hugh begins to melt and Jasper ignites like a candle. Snookums roars and collapses. The others remain conscious and quickly act.
Otto scoops up Hugh and Jasper and runs through the flames towards the kennel entrance, where he knows the passageway to the map room is. Pavel quickly joins him there, dragging Oaklock's corpse. Al grabs the fallen Dell and runs forward towards the mage. Winthrop steps forward as well and steams the mage and the onrushing undead bugbears, causing many of them to boil and collapse. Diego steps to the paralyzed Raven's side and pulls forth Raven's bastard sword, the sword he wielded in the volcanic Dwarvish ruins of Beoll-Dur. It ignites with a cold fire and cools the area some, but not enough to overcome the raging inferno.
The mage appears immune to the steam shooting forth from Winthrop’s wand, studying the situation rather than cringing in pain. Faced with an undead bugbear onslaught, Al drinks his Waters of Life, hoarded since the rescue of the Knot, reviving himself and healing almost all of his wounds and ailments. Those undead bugbears caught in the steam cloud boil, their skin sloughing off, given a sudden respite to Al, who feared he would have to hold off the entire horde. His wise precaution of drinking the waters from the Knot pays off, as the mage targets him for bolt after magical bolt. The bolts rip Al's skin from his body, but he weathers the massive barrage.
Unfortunately, the magical fire has burnt hot, and many of the Company’s magical items are unable to withstand the concentrated energy. Al's axe, several potions, and rings have all melted in the intense fire. Winthrop, attempting to put out the fire, dispels magics in the area of Raven and Cedrus. This dispels his strengthening magics cast earlier and destroys several potions held by Raven and Cedrus, but neither dampens the fire nor releases Cedrus and Raven from the dark god's grip. Raven begins to catch fire, his high-tension longbow burning in his hands.
Diego drags Cedrus from the fires while Otto rushes in to grasp Raven, who is nearly cooked. Adrienne is cooked though; she melts and catches fire. Beside her, the golden lion, since reverted to a figurine, cracks in two from the heat.
Winthrop summons a sheet of ice to block the mage and the undead from the Company. The translucent blue ice exists in odd counterpoint to the roaring flames behind him and the rapidly cooling steam before him. Winthrop breathes a sigh of relief as the undead bugbears pound futilely at the ice wall. His sigh turns into a gasp as the mage strides straight through the ice wall!
The mage turns and looks at the wall, as if viewing it for weakness, and then extends one hand. A nimbus forms in front of his hand, vaguely shaped like a goat or sheep's head. With a flick of the wrist, the glowing shape charges forward into the ice wall, shattering it. Shards of sharp ice cascade down on the undead bugbears, cutting great rents in them, but the way is again cleared. Comprehension dawns on Winthrop's face. The mage is an image, projected from some distance away. Winthrop digs feverishly through his pouches, looking for a scroll prepared earlier in Longspear by Oaklock.
Al searches through Dell's magical pouch, finding it full of coin, but no potions. Withstanding another barrage of magical bolts from the projection of the mage, Al pours his elixir of fire resistance onto Dell's body, preparing to run back through the wall of flames. Winthrop though, finding and pulling out Oaklock's scroll, reads arcane words from it, summoning a globe of darkness onto the projected image, blocking sight in and out.
As Otto drags out the burning Raven, Al finds Dell's Waters of Life in Dell’s belt pouch and pours it onto Dell. Dell awakens, wet and cool, to the sight of Al's burnt, panicked face, the cry of his magical alarms that ward his belongings, and the whimpers of dying men. Al screams at him, "Get me out of here before we all die! Fly me or teleport me or do something magical! We’re screwed, screwed!" Winthrop changes shape into a gargoyle as Dell grabs hold of Al. Dell’s aerial magic has withstood his unconsciousness, and he takes to the air. Between the two of them and Winthrop's levitating boots, they are able to lift Al into the air up over the fiery wall. The ground beneath, and now behind them, erupts into a patch of ebony tentacles that flail about searching for the Company as more undead lumber in. The tentacles crush them with great abandon.
Using the cold bastard sword, Diego has been able to douse a small area of flame near the door to the kennels while Pavel searched through his backpack. Pavel rubs a strangely scented oil on himself and then waves at Diego. Handing him a potion, Pavel says, "Good luck. See you outside," and fades away. As Pavel disappears, Winthrop, Dell, and Al crash to the ground in the area cleared of flame.
“Give me the sword now!” grates Winthrop to Diego, snatching the cold bastard sword from his hands. The fire of the wall is fierce and it takes many attempts before the section around Adrienne’s corpse is doused. Fortunately, the heat of the wall provides a barrier between the mage, the undead, and the near-dead Company. Landing in the doused section, Winthrop finds Adrienne's corpse a smoking ruin. All throughout the battle, occasional bursts of light from the flames seem to signify the destruction of some object of power. As Winthrop returns with the half-elven corpse, he can see that her equipment has fared better than most. The destroyed objects of power must have mostly been on the corpse of the slain priest.
The steading is clearly aflame at this point. Finally, Cedrus throws off the dark god's grip and uses his last prayer to restore Hugh’s health. Hugh, in turn, uses two of his last three prayers to restore Jasper and Raven to consciousness. Diego, Otto, and Al check the kennel and find it empty, with the doors still closed as the Company left them.
Dell turns invisible. He then flies down to the room where the large map and the secret door to the dungeons are. The secret door is ajar, so he listens carefully. He can hear the sound of perhaps a bellows: air rushing in and out. Cautiously he peeks around the corner into the stairwell. Down the stairs below him, slowly rising up the stairwell, is a red haze, blocking the full width and height of the corridor. Dell flees back to the kennels, frantically trying to find a way out though the smoke and fire.
With the giants’ boulders sailing through the air around him, Winthrop pulls Adrienne over to the fallen Dell. Setting himself between the two of them, he focuses on Foebiter, opening a portal beneath them into the kennel, where the others wait. The rending of space makes a eerie sound, and the Company, all but Hugh, dash away from the spot. Hugh, paralyzed by the dark god, awaits whatever appears. Thus, he is within the great wall of fire that appears in the kennel.
Winthrop quickly binds Dell’s wounds and revives him. Into Dell’s disoriented ears yells Winthrop, “Forward! Run forward and burn them all!” Dell staggers forward while Winthrop hauls along the paralyzed Hugh and Adrienne. The fading wall of flames chars the ceiling of the kennel as well as burning those undead previously feared by the priests. Winthrop chortles as their huge bodies are licked with flame. His glee is short-lived. The wall burns some of the undead, but then sputters out, leaving the four of them, including the paralyzed Hugh and Adrienne, at risk.
One of the giant, headless wights survives the burning and approaches the foursome. Dell, quaking in fright, shouts, "Take them! Take them! They are the paralyzed ones!" Instead, the wight ignores his pleas and reaches for him. Dell scampers out of reach, tossing the golden lion out and screaming for it to kill the wight. Several of the zombie wolves survived the burning as well, and Hugh is set upon and mauled by them. Winthrop, Dell, and Dell’s golden lion ignore Hugh and his plight until the wight is slain. Only then are the remaining zombies attacked and destroyed.
All the while the steading rings like a bell, sounding the same as when the demons had been summoned before, but at a much quicker and more regular rate. Diego exclaims forcefully that the Company must flee, but Raven instead sends the others into the steading to secure the hallway to the Great Hall.
Snookums, recognizing her former home, lumbers off towards her den, hoping to rest after fighting and being so badly injured. Jasper and Cedrus try to convince her to return to the Company, but she doesn't budge. She growls at poor Jasper, blaming him for her discomfort, claiming that he promised food, not rotted meat. Only after Cedrus heals some of her wounds does she stir forth.
Raven establishes a fighting line at the junction of two corridors, near the Great Hall, but opposite a closed door. Placing the paralyzed Al in the line, he hopes that Al will quickly limber up. “Hurry up!” he growls at the terrified Al. Cedrus and Snookums fit into the line also, since undead can be seen stirring in the Great Hall as well. Fortunately, Al and Hugh both shed the effects of the dark god, though Adrienne, having been affected by a more powerful priest, still remains immobile.
Large undead zombies, likely bugbears, mixed with human zombies march resolutely through the Great Hall towards the Company. "I see what happened to the people of that dorf," comments Dell. As the zombie bugbears meet the line of the Company, the door across from the Company opens and disgorges more orcish zombies.
The Company begins the battle in fine form, expecting their two clerics to quickly make work of the weaker undead. Instead, the powers of Trithereon and Ehlonna both appear to be weakened in this place and few of the zombies are turned to dust. Worse, while the Company quickly slays the bugbear zombies, the sheer number of them ensures that the Company suffer the odd blow here and there. The warriors of the Company, and the bear Snookums, are being slowly worn down.
Into the midst of this battle comes two cowled priests, each with a ziggurat-marked shield. One has not been seen before, but the other appears to be the one shot with the red fletched arrow by Diego. The new priest quickly clasps Raven and Cedrus in his dark god's grasp.
The injured priest turns towards his comrade and attempts to do something intimately unpleasant to him. The priest is difficult to damage, with a billowing cloak that masks his true shape, and the attack goes awry. "Kill him quickly! More are coming! Three priests are here and that doesn't count the mage or the demons below!" shouts the injured priest, whose form changes into that of the other priest.
Identifying who is the true priest and who is the shape-shifted Pavel is a challenge, but Diego seems not to care. He fires straight into the press. The priest is difficult to damage. Diego's shots are rejected. Pavel's blows fall short. Even the golden lion, directed into the fight by Dell, has no success. The battle grows close, as the priest struggles forward, insane with rage, to attack Dell, who has taunted him mercilessly. The zombies are being struck down, slowly but surely, but at some cost. Snookums appears enraged and badly wounded, blood coating her sides, and Jasper, who understands her death cries, calls for someone to heal her before she dies.
Winthrop rallies to the cause, driving Foebiter deep into the priest and knocking him to the ground. Coinciding with the fall of the last of the zombies, Hugh is able to heal Snookums and everyone draws back. Winthrop, who had started rifling the priest’s corpse, instead mends Otto's armor, which has received huge rents in it. The mobile pull the immobile back into the cross corridor.
Snookums wanders to the door back into the kennel. She paws at the door, clearly wanting to leave this place. Pavel, who has regained his form, joins her there, waiting for the others to flee.
Instead, the Company forms another fighting line in the corridor, waiting for another attack. With Raven and Cedrus paralyzed, the Company is not prepared to retreat. Dell casts an enchantment of flight upon himself and, from his lofty perch, can see across the Great Hall to where another detachment of undead bugbears is forming. He notes that these bugbears move more quickly than the other, as if they had been magically accelerated.
Winthrop moves forward to use his wand of steam on the approaching undead. As such, he is perfectly placed to see the sudden appearance of a robed, cowled man. The man looks familiar, but it takes a moment for Winthrop to recognize him. The man is the Nerullite wizard from the Temple in the Jotens where Otto was found, the great undead gate located, and the Pelorites lost.
The man gestures at the Company. Winthrop and Dell, who has also seen and recognized him, turn to shout a warning, but their voices are overwhelmed by the rush of fire that fills the corridor. Twenty feet high and twenty feet wide, reddish blue flames flow over the Company, scorching and burning them. Dell crashes to the ground and lies limp. Adrienne falls over against the wall. Hugh begins to melt and Jasper ignites like a candle. Snookums roars and collapses. The others remain conscious and quickly act.
Otto scoops up Hugh and Jasper and runs through the flames towards the kennel entrance, where he knows the passageway to the map room is. Pavel quickly joins him there, dragging Oaklock's corpse. Al grabs the fallen Dell and runs forward towards the mage. Winthrop steps forward as well and steams the mage and the onrushing undead bugbears, causing many of them to boil and collapse. Diego steps to the paralyzed Raven's side and pulls forth Raven's bastard sword, the sword he wielded in the volcanic Dwarvish ruins of Beoll-Dur. It ignites with a cold fire and cools the area some, but not enough to overcome the raging inferno.
The mage appears immune to the steam shooting forth from Winthrop’s wand, studying the situation rather than cringing in pain. Faced with an undead bugbear onslaught, Al drinks his Waters of Life, hoarded since the rescue of the Knot, reviving himself and healing almost all of his wounds and ailments. Those undead bugbears caught in the steam cloud boil, their skin sloughing off, given a sudden respite to Al, who feared he would have to hold off the entire horde. His wise precaution of drinking the waters from the Knot pays off, as the mage targets him for bolt after magical bolt. The bolts rip Al's skin from his body, but he weathers the massive barrage.
Unfortunately, the magical fire has burnt hot, and many of the Company’s magical items are unable to withstand the concentrated energy. Al's axe, several potions, and rings have all melted in the intense fire. Winthrop, attempting to put out the fire, dispels magics in the area of Raven and Cedrus. This dispels his strengthening magics cast earlier and destroys several potions held by Raven and Cedrus, but neither dampens the fire nor releases Cedrus and Raven from the dark god's grip. Raven begins to catch fire, his high-tension longbow burning in his hands.
Diego drags Cedrus from the fires while Otto rushes in to grasp Raven, who is nearly cooked. Adrienne is cooked though; she melts and catches fire. Beside her, the golden lion, since reverted to a figurine, cracks in two from the heat.
Winthrop summons a sheet of ice to block the mage and the undead from the Company. The translucent blue ice exists in odd counterpoint to the roaring flames behind him and the rapidly cooling steam before him. Winthrop breathes a sigh of relief as the undead bugbears pound futilely at the ice wall. His sigh turns into a gasp as the mage strides straight through the ice wall!
The mage turns and looks at the wall, as if viewing it for weakness, and then extends one hand. A nimbus forms in front of his hand, vaguely shaped like a goat or sheep's head. With a flick of the wrist, the glowing shape charges forward into the ice wall, shattering it. Shards of sharp ice cascade down on the undead bugbears, cutting great rents in them, but the way is again cleared. Comprehension dawns on Winthrop's face. The mage is an image, projected from some distance away. Winthrop digs feverishly through his pouches, looking for a scroll prepared earlier in Longspear by Oaklock.
Al searches through Dell's magical pouch, finding it full of coin, but no potions. Withstanding another barrage of magical bolts from the projection of the mage, Al pours his elixir of fire resistance onto Dell's body, preparing to run back through the wall of flames. Winthrop though, finding and pulling out Oaklock's scroll, reads arcane words from it, summoning a globe of darkness onto the projected image, blocking sight in and out.
As Otto drags out the burning Raven, Al finds Dell's Waters of Life in Dell’s belt pouch and pours it onto Dell. Dell awakens, wet and cool, to the sight of Al's burnt, panicked face, the cry of his magical alarms that ward his belongings, and the whimpers of dying men. Al screams at him, "Get me out of here before we all die! Fly me or teleport me or do something magical! We’re screwed, screwed!" Winthrop changes shape into a gargoyle as Dell grabs hold of Al. Dell’s aerial magic has withstood his unconsciousness, and he takes to the air. Between the two of them and Winthrop's levitating boots, they are able to lift Al into the air up over the fiery wall. The ground beneath, and now behind them, erupts into a patch of ebony tentacles that flail about searching for the Company as more undead lumber in. The tentacles crush them with great abandon.
Using the cold bastard sword, Diego has been able to douse a small area of flame near the door to the kennels while Pavel searched through his backpack. Pavel rubs a strangely scented oil on himself and then waves at Diego. Handing him a potion, Pavel says, "Good luck. See you outside," and fades away. As Pavel disappears, Winthrop, Dell, and Al crash to the ground in the area cleared of flame.
“Give me the sword now!” grates Winthrop to Diego, snatching the cold bastard sword from his hands. The fire of the wall is fierce and it takes many attempts before the section around Adrienne’s corpse is doused. Fortunately, the heat of the wall provides a barrier between the mage, the undead, and the near-dead Company. Landing in the doused section, Winthrop finds Adrienne's corpse a smoking ruin. All throughout the battle, occasional bursts of light from the flames seem to signify the destruction of some object of power. As Winthrop returns with the half-elven corpse, he can see that her equipment has fared better than most. The destroyed objects of power must have mostly been on the corpse of the slain priest.
The steading is clearly aflame at this point. Finally, Cedrus throws off the dark god's grip and uses his last prayer to restore Hugh’s health. Hugh, in turn, uses two of his last three prayers to restore Jasper and Raven to consciousness. Diego, Otto, and Al check the kennel and find it empty, with the doors still closed as the Company left them.
Dell turns invisible. He then flies down to the room where the large map and the secret door to the dungeons are. The secret door is ajar, so he listens carefully. He can hear the sound of perhaps a bellows: air rushing in and out. Cautiously he peeks around the corner into the stairwell. Down the stairs below him, slowly rising up the stairwell, is a red haze, blocking the full width and height of the corridor. Dell flees back to the kennels, frantically trying to find a way out though the smoke and fire.
