Ary is definitely missing something, but it isn't the zombie horde that's beeing destroyed by the flames of her allies. As a point of fact, she's very pleased by the Crusaders being sent to their final rests.
"Trembling, and not in anticipation it would seem..." Isilme calls out, noting Jeslyn's change in posture and fidgeting. "You fear not only what we say is true, but the eternity of punishment you've doomed yourself to for failing your masters in such an endeavor." As she speaks, her voice loses its gloating edge, instead sounding a note of sorrow as she speaks. In a way it was a fitting fate for someone following the demons blindly, but it was still a cruel one.
"Is it worth dying for them just to have them exact vengeance on you? You can choose another path here and now. Throw down your arms and surrender, atone and devote yourself to undoing the damage you've done."
Seeing his summoned eagle disabled by a single blow, Ehren hastily speaks the words of recall, sending it home. With the minotaur felled so quickly and the zombies dropping like flies, there was little need to have it suffer for any longer. There did not seem to be much need to stay invisible either, but he decides to err on the side of caution.
So instead he moves forward, creeping up behind Markus.
Ary fidgets uncomfortably, but adds on "If you'll return the Crusaders to just bodies, too. The path to atonement will be long and arduous, but look at what you have to look forward to if you don't."
Isilme's last word were gentle and sweet to Hinagiku's hears, for they echoed her own thoughts. Even better, to keep her focus, she did not have to ignore them like she had ignored the other jeers the others had spoken. The natural grace of the celestial were greater than her own, she would require years of practive to ever reach that level of skill, yet she knew that a few well placed words of wisdom could helop.
"Isilme and Ary are right miss Jeslyn, there is no need to let the abyss take your life and soul. There is still time to perfect your soul and leave these horrors behind."
"You stand no chance of winning this fight," Val adds calmly. "Whether you fear us or your masters more, the only chance you have of survival is to lay down your arms. Your allies will never make it here in time to aid you, if you stand between us and the wardstone then we will kill you, and if you fail then your masters will slay you. Your only chance to survive is our mercy."
With that, she draws her second Alchemist Fire and hurls it at the largest pack of zombies, hoping to burn them away.
Markus nods and turns back to Jeslyn, adding to the words of his fellows. "They're right, you know. Though your deeds so far are vile, I of all people know that they are not without the possibility of redemption. Respect and honor for your fellows is its own reward."
He cocks his head at her and asks a simple question - "When was the last time you had a friend?"
Jeslyn scoffs at all of the sentiment suddenly aimed her way. "Fools. Are you so arrogant to presume that I'm afraid of death at your hands?" She clenches her deformed, insectoid hand in front of her. "Deskari has already given me gifts beyond your wildest dreams! Gifts far beyond anything the Crusades ever offered. And I will prosper in his Rasping Rifts for eternity for serving in his name!"
She lowers her scythe, her eyes alight with fury and resolve. "You will not rob me of this chance. Not now!"
Valaria chucks her alchemist's fire at the largest pack of zombies, setting one aflame and catching two more in the blast. Irabeth trudges slowly out amidst the flaming zombies. The two zombies that are on fire collapse onto the ground, dead.
The remaining zombies stagger forwards against Markus' soldiers, but are ineffective against the armored undead.
Markus is up
"I suppose it was too much to hope to settle this quickly with words," Isilme thinks as she sees the vestiges of doubt fall from the priestess. She looks at the mutated hand as Jeslyn clutches it. "Perhaps the price she's paid already is too great for her to accept it was all a mistake."
"We are all free to make our own choices," Isilme answers Jeslyn, "and so you have made yours. Now you must live with the consequences."
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Markus zombies grunt at the force of the blows levied at them, but they retaliate all the same - swinging their longswords two-handed at the enemy zombies to try to completely destroy them.
Zombie Crusader 1 continues to swing at one of the enemy zombies (Zombie 7), groaning "Destroy evildooooooerssssss"
Longsword vs. Zombie 7!: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (19) + 4 = 23
Crit Confirm?: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (3) + 4 = 7
Damage!: 1d8 + 4 ⇒ (6) + 4 = 10
Zombie Crusader 2 attacks his opponent as well, groaning "Undead abominaaaations must be dessstroooooyed."
Markus himself continues loosing magic missiles at Jeslyn. His eyes are full of fury as he advances. "You imbue these good men and women with evil and desecrate their holy places and then you laugh at our offers of mercy? Truly there is no fate that you do not deserve."
Val shrugs. "You want to die, you can die. I'm not going to waste my breath trying to save someone who doesn't want saving. When you're in eternal torment because your master is an evil, cruel, vindictive worm, you can remember how we gave you a chance and you decided to ignore it."
Markus' crusaders cut through the zombies before them, releasing their souls back into the outer planes.
Jeslyn backs slowly up against the wardstone. She clenches her insectoid hand, channeling negative energy around it.
Annabelle moves swiftly forward, swiping at the final zombie as she goes. Her swing lands with an almost caressing hiss, severing the zombie's head from its body.
Round 4
Hinagiku is up.
Hinagiku swiftly makes her way across the floor now filled with truly dead bodies. All her steps are carefully planned to avoid disturbing the fallen crusaders, and lead her directly to Jeslyn. Has she approaches the cultist of Deskari, her heart is heavy, still filled with empathy for someone who seems afraid. About to start speaking, she has to grit her teeth when the wave of negative energy washes over her. Still, she endures and continues her approach until she is face to face with Jeslyn.
*cough blood "Until you very last breath, whether it is now or in a 100 years, you will always be able to turn away from those dark master... but why endure years of fear and anger before changing yoru mind." she says, now falling silent, and staring into Jeslyn's eyes, ready for her next move.
Jeslyn reaches out and drains Hinagiku of her soul - appearing as a thin, silvery white substance moving from her across the room and into the necromancer, healing the latter of her wounds.
Ary is up.
Ary moves forward; she hadn't really been on board with offering someone who had sacrificed people to a dark god redemption, anyway... If someone like Garil had problems with it, Jeslyn would have a significantly worse time. Moving in a wide arc, she places herself in a position to almost box Jeslyn in, but also leaving herself in a position to guard the two allies who still can breathe, once they make it into position.
Isilme gracefully she sidesteps Deradnu's unconscious mass and dashes down the hall. The nature blessing she'd called upon earlier becomes clearly evident as she covers the full distance with a preternatural swiftness. Moving up alongside Hinagiku, she feints twice quickly at Jeslyn while looking at the unusually pale Tian woman. "Are you alright Hinagiku?" she asks.
She keeps her rapier pointed at the woman, ready to strike if she attempts to call upon her magic.
As the last member of the undead horde is destroyed, Ehren strides forward, no longer caring for stealth. It would be unwise to underestimate Jeslyn, but it was clear that the odds were stacked against her. His friends had given her a chance to surrender, a chance she had adamantly rejected; his conscience was appeased. Drawing on the ley once more, Ehren murmurs another incantation, channeling the power of an element he had not bothered to use up till now.
A tightly packed sphere of ice and snow forms in his hand, numbing his fingers. If not for its blatantly magical nature, it would closely resemble a child's game. Taking aim, Ehren hurls the snowball at Jeslyn, dismissing his invisibility in the process. Hardly the wordiest person, he lets his spell and stony expression do the talking.
Jeslyn receives a face full of ice and snow - luckily she is wearing a helmet made of human bone, but now her head is ringing...
Seeing the strange magic working on Hinagiku, Val growls and launches herself forward at the cult leader. "You want to be sent to the Rasping Rifts? I'll be happy to oblige." Using the momentum of her charge, she drives her starknife home - straight into her leg, rupturing a major tendon connected to her knee.
Jeslyn screams and hisses, but she is still relatively unharmed.
Seeing Ehren emerge from invisibility, Irabeth moves to his side to protect him.
Markus' zombies shuffle forwards - they are rendered unable to charge with their longswords because Valaria now blocks their path.
"Get to the wardstone, Ehren!" shouts Markus. "You can go around the woman." With that, he points his famous twiddly fingers at Jeslyn and intones a few words, "Your fate is inevitable, foul woman. The blades of my allies will lay you low and only then will you discover your folly."
Annabelle charges at Jeslyn from behind Hinagiku, but the cultist intercepts her glaive with her own scythe. Her resolve is like steel - nothing Markus could say could possibly steer her from her path... or intimidate her beyond what her Master would do to her if she failed.
Round 5
Hinagiku is up!
Hinagiku tries to keep herself collected. However, the spell that was cast at her has shaken her ability to focus. Through the receding pain, she does her best to keep her fluid motions and strike at Jeslyn. As Annabelle attacks over her shoulder, the tian woman takes advantage of an opening in her foe's defense. She closes with her and, using her arms, makes a wave motion, pushing down Jeslyn. The attack is followed by a low swipe at the woman's feet.
Jeslyn is too fast for Hinagiku, keeping herself out of range of her sweeping strikes. She finds herself surrounded, and so she slowly backs away. Isilme takes the opportunity to jab at her - but her rapier simply bounces off of her bone armor.
She then readies herself to cast a spell - her insectoid arm glows ominously.
Ary is up.
As Jeslyn slips away, Ary takes note of the positioning of her allies, and skirts quickly around the cage of the Wardstone. Closing around the woman and boxing her in, her strike is partially hidden by the flowing cloak, the light of radiance parting the cloth like water as she brings the blade across in a well-placed arc. Sadly, only portions of the blade can bite in.
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As Ary approaches Jeslyn spins around and grabs onto her neck, attempting to bestow upon her a powerful curse. But even with all her might - nothing she does seems to affect Ary. Her eyes widen as Ary responds with an arc across her face - permanently disfiguring her already hideous visage. She screams in agony as blood gushes down across her front.
Ehren is up.
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With Jeslyn surrounded and the path to the wardstone clear, Ehren dashes forward at Markus' behest, keeping a wide berth from the wounded cultist. Slowing to a halt beside the cage, he gazes at the menhir fragment, just barely out of his hand's reach. But not out of the rod's.
If only I could touch it, just once...
Valaria is up.
Val sees Ehren walk to the wardstone fragment. "It's time Ehren," she says quiet. "I'm sorry, but please, finish this. We can't waste any time." She circles around the cult leader and comes at her from behind, giving room for Isilme or Hinagiku to catch her between them.
Jeslyn reads the attack in Valaria's eyes and easily deflects her blow.
Markus is up.
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One of Markus' zombies charges the cultist woman while the other, already in melee combat with her, swings its sword manually. They don't know it but their aim is helped out by the fact that Ary is on the other side of her.
Markus himself continues to unleash magic missiles at Jeslyn, his words exhausted. All he wants now is to to end her and end this, and utilize his scale to get as many people out of the Garrison as possible.
Jeslyn moves out of the way of the zombie behind her - but she is unprepared for the soldier charging at her. His heavy overhand swing ends in pure butchery - his blade cleaving a deep wound into her right side as Markus' missiles collide into the other. She grunts, but still manages to bash Annabelle's glaive away with a curse.
Round 6
Hinagiku is up.
Clearly, the magic Jeslyn had used on Hinagiku had had a much stronger impact than the woman had realized at first. Doubts were creeping in, making her miss too often. She breathed deeply, remembered her master's teaching, and, most of all, thought the Master of Masters for inspiration. Her vigor renewed, she steps forward and slides he fee behind those of Jeslyn, trying to make her lose balance.
Hinagiku sweeps Jeslyn to the ground and pummels her, punching her squarely in the face.
Isilme is up.
"End it," Isilme says as she looks at Ehren. Moving around, she decides to help finish encircling Jeslyn to make sure she can't move any further. As she comes in to her side, Isilme strikes quickly with her rapier with several short thrusts.
"You've lost this battle, Jeslyn, and you'll soon lose your life," she says to the priestess.
In one concentrated thrust, Isilme punctures Jeslyn's defenses in one quick thrust.
Ary is up.
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"Think we should maybe stop pointing out the significance of specific people?" Ary suggested to the others, as her sword cut a broad swath through the downed cultist. She did her best to aim the blade to -not- send blood splattering all over her allies. That was totally becoming a thing. As her strike made it home, Ary was faced with the pangs of remorse. She was certain this woman had done a lot of horrible things, but what life had lead her there? It was hard to hate her when she'd barely even hurt her allies, and instead had just been one small obstacle in front of their mission.
"I really do wish you'd have yielded, though it's probably for the best that you didn't. I don't have any idea what Liotr does to people to get information." she frowns. "And I'm not sure any of us could have protected you. I'm still sorry things wound up this way. But I don't think I could have ever saved you."
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Jeslyn leans against the wardstone cage. Its wicked sharp barbs dig into her flesh, but as battered as she is, she barely seems to notice. She calls upon her unholy power, and a shimmering ward erupts out and envelops her body.
Ehren is up.
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"Yes. It's time," Ehren agrees, nodding slowly.
The wardstone. A sacred icon to his people. Guardian to the people of Kenabres. A font of timeless knowledge and wisdom. But to Ehren, it was so much more than those things.
Even when Kenabres was laid to waste, Ehren knew that it would all be okay, because somewhere out there the menhir was still intact. Feeling the wardstone through the ley had been his greatest source of hope over the last week. Hope he had freely shared with his friends and allies, who had all quickly overcome their skepticism and placed their faith in him. He could not have anticipated the effect of sharing that knowledge with them; it was thanks to their efforts that he was standing right where he had wanted to from the very beginning. But everything was all wrong.
The stone was a mere fragment of its former glory, here caged like a languid prisoner, left to rot. And it would rot indeed, if Areelu Vorlesh were to have her way. Not just the stone, but everything he had sworn to protect would be corrupted. The land and all the good people who lived on it would be doomed. He was sworn to the stones, and he was sworn to the Green. Here, the choice between the two was obvious.
“Tá brón orm,” Ehren whispers to the stone as he pulls the rod of cancellation off his belt, turning it over in his hand. Without further ado he shoves it through the gaps of the cage, making contact with the menhir.
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Combat ends.
Ehren reaches out with the rod of cancellation to the flickering wardstone, and steels himself to channel the rod… but at the lightest touch, the fragment explodes in a blast of golden light and sound of an angelic choir. The light overwhelms the room and the heroes’ vision until blinding white is all they see…
More troubling is the magnitude of this event. The energy that explodes out from the “hole” caused by the final destruction of the last and largest fragment of the Kenabres stone is not just from the vein under Kenabres… it is the whole of the entire wardstone field itself.
- - - - - - -
You feel the light encompass you, and invade your mind, yanking your conscious self into someplace else. Emotions rush through you – joy, sorrow, fear, despair, and most of all, a righteous fury.
This time, you gain the insight of the Kellids of Kenabres. Five hundred years of it, all at once. They feel like suddenly gaining centuries of someone else’s memories. You recognize that these foreign emotions welling inside you are theirs.
And then suddenly, the light dims, as if your eyes had finally adjusted to it.
The heroes find themselves amidst a massive battle on a frozen lake. Knights of Aroden and Iomedae are seen charging hordes of demons alongside the face-painted Kellid warriors of Sarkoris. In the distance, a monster rises up out of the ice. Larger than an elephant, the towering insectile nightmare wields a scythe made of bone. Its wings are swarms of biting flies, and its inhuman eyes glitter with cruel intelligence. Deskari, Usher of the Apocalypse, arrives with an enormous swarm of insects. Unleashed, the locusts cut a swath through man and woman alike.
The heroes themselves are neither here nor there. They appear transparent – as if they were ethereal – and find themselves unable to interact or even touch the world around them. However – they find that they can see and hear each other. Markus. Valaria. Ehren. Hinagiku. Ary. Isilme. They stand in the middle of a battlefield as the ghosts of warriors past fight through them.
Nearby, you see a bearded man. His hair is thick and curly – brown, the color of mahogany. He wears a red cape and on his arm is Faith. He raises his longsword to the sky and it glows with holy light – his sword in his left hand. He then lunges forward, skewering a babau demon in two. It evaporates into boiling blood and smoke around his sword.
Markus gasps as the magic flows around him and pulls him far away to a battle that he doesn't recognize. He does, of course, recognize Faith and the paladins and clerics. He recognizes Deskari.
He knows where he is - one of the battles during the First Crusade.
He feels the power of the wardstone vibrate through him, and he is surprised that the holy energy isn't tearing him apart.
He turns and looks at his allies and notices the absence of Annabelle and Irabeth. He's almost hestitant to speak, but after a few moments of standing amidst the battle with an open mouth, he says "Anyone else notice who's not here?"
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Ary begins to lash out at a demon as it passes harmlessly through her and her allies, and then stops, trying to figure out what sort of magic has enveloped her. Teleportation magic? They had been so close... Ary's face twists in a grimace, the righteous fury still hot in her mind.
Slowly, she comes to realize what's going on. Not where... when. It clicks when she sees the her father... no, not her father. Another man. She can tell, because Faith is resplendent. Unlike it had ever been in her father's care; an image it only carried somewhat within her arm now. It was still only a fraction of its former glory, it would seem.
On the other shield was not an embossed sword, but a sword made of cold iron, the holy symbol that had been set into the center of the living steel apparent, even in the large spikes that grew out of it, shining like the sun, not simply refracting light.
In a word, it was beautiful to Ary. She turned to look at the rest of the fight, now. This is where everything had gone horribly wrong. Where politics had deemed Aroden's sacrifice unimportant and trivial. This is where it all began.
Ary kneels once more, radiating light through her shield, sword tucked beneathe. "I will honor a sacrifice freely given."
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Hinagiku lifts her head, apparently overcome with some kind of bliss. Her traits are relaxed, peaceful (even more than usual), and her eyes are slightly smiling.
She slowly open her eyes to watch the scene that surrounds them. The battle, the demons, the death, they do not upset her as usual death. She knows that the force that brought them here is good and that there is a reason to it.
As she watches the events unfold, a feeling of familiarity comes over her, as if she had already witnessed them in another life.
"Everyone, this is a gift bestowed upon us by the very Life and Existence. The stone, it must be connected to them... but why show us the ... the ... the battle of Mists and Veils? These events have unfolded centuries ago..."
Only once she is done do the words of Markus sink in.
"The "ki" of the world must has chosen the six of us and no other." is her only response.
Val shields her eyes against the burst of light, and as her eyes adjust she looks around. "What in the Nine Hells..." She watches the battle with wide eyes and trembling hands. The brutal sight before her can only be an earlier battle of the crusades, but nothing comes to mind at the scene.
It takes her a moment for Hinagiku's words to sink in. "Centuries... so this is... what? A memory of some kind? The world showing us something important." Her body goes cold as Deskari ravages the battlefield and the locusts swarm over the field. "I think it's made it's point clear."
"That doesn't make any sense? Irabeth was right there." Ary says, her tone skeptical and confused at the same time, broken from her reverence by Hinagiku's suggestion.