A memory...
"One more thing..." It seems the claustrophobia of the sewers did get to the dwarf. He won't stop talking. "Try to avoid my former apprentice, Acrietia. She's out there somewhere. The undead got her." He shudders.
"She's one of the bad ones."
This time, you all see three wights that were trying to hide in the shadows. They are walking corpses...rotting and putrid...their bodies skeletal in places and their eye sockets glowing with red light. They are all dressed similarly in brown tattered robes.
(La Siréene sees this as concentric whorls in the shape of a humanoid figure).
She's dressed in a brown robe, like the others. Perhaps she is some kind of leader?
Round 1:
Your party enters the main room of the station. The leader of the wights leans forward from shadows at La Siréene's left. She stands at the ready in a martial-arts style pose. Caromarc's lanterns light up her eerily stretched rictus. She wears a short, brown, tattered robe.
With a hiss, she tumbles past La Siréene, cartwheels past Ianez, does a backflip over Gaston, and lands behind Quinn . "Hi, Quinn! Remember me? Hergelund's first apprentice, Acrietia." She gives a hard jab to the left. WHAM! "Now I'm dead, and you're alive. I guess you're the favorite sidekick now." A chop of the side of her hand to his shoulder. WHAM! "Of course, you probably know he's fighting against the undead, which is a real pain in the arse." A swift chop to Quinn's windpipe. KRAK! "I like being around...even like this, you see. It's not perfect, but it's what I got." A bone-shattering kick to his knee. WHAM!
Her first punch breaks one of Quinn's ribs! The chop to his shoulder also lands hard. Some of his life energy drains into the wight. In her jealousy, she is stealing his life.
Acrietia barks a command to the other wights. "Attack the living!" she shrieks. "Observe, fellow monk...I don't need you or Hergelund now. I have my own team." The corrupted police officers advance.
Copper's got a girlfriend...
The other wights are uniformed in brown robes similar to Acrietia's. Two of them skulk from the shadows at the far end of the room . One appears on its master's heels and swipes its claws at La Siréene! "Drink...essence..." its throat rattles like an empty glass bottle. Its blood-stained nails catch at her blonde hair, but pass through and fail to land a meaningful scratch.
As the ghastly Acrietia loops above him, Blackacre reaches out with his pistol and strikes at her.
As she hammers what remains of this poor town's constabulary, Gaston seeks the power of his god to strike down the undead and fires BOTH barrels at her!
The inquisitor's gun BOOMS with a flash and a gout of smoke...
The monks dodges with preternatural agility, the second shot almost grazing her rotting-off ear. "What?! Firearms?" This last part catlike, echoing... "No match for me." Evil laughter reverbs through the rafters, like the police station itself is cackling.
"AAARGHH!" Phoebe yells in surprised anger. "Get her away!" She put her fists up and takes a defensive stance.
La Siréene looks at the Wight that swung at her. With a look that could signify both contempt and pity, she reaches out her arm and casts at her Void Creature as it stumbles past towards its food.
Her mind is otherwise engaged.
It is more... pliable now, more controlled. And there was no loss of consciousness, no error message. Why?... Because it already exists. The void was incompatible with the flesh, now it recognizes a form. But this is not enough; the effect on my body seems small... because it is not creating something anew? Am I bringing something into this world, some aspect of the void, when I summon new creatures? Give it more shapes to handle, analyze perhaps? What, then, is it doing to me?
The Void Creature roars, a harsh, uneven sound, impeded by the mismatched pincers, tusks, choppers, teeth, fangs and assorted mandibles.
It starts to move, thin legs rotating it forward, shrieking, tossing its deformed head, drawing its maw along the floor as it charges into the meal , ripping into the Wight legs first, then the torso as it slams into the wall.
The wight is chewed to shreds!
"Aaarrggghhhhh" The Zen Archer monk reels at the pain that he is enduring from Acrietia. The monk finds the will and discipline to endure the pain and go on the offensive. He unleashes his 3 arrows at the target, hold a slight second to focus more on the 3rd arrow. (Perfect Shot)
Quinn uses Perfect Shot on his last Flurry of arrows
Acrietia takes the first arrow in her shoulder, and Quinn's precision third attack in her side. "You cad!"
I step up, to the walking dead... You couldn't die properly. I will try to help you. Her proximity to Phoebe is alarming, I rage!
Acrietia sidesteps Sandru's first swing. She spins and pushes the second attack away in one fluid movement.
Coldly the Mechanical Manservant walks around the ex-apprentice, scythe raised high, waiting for a momentary distraction. His eye meets Blackacre's, willing his target to follow his gaze.
The four Archons, desperate to save the innocent Phoebe, zoom in, bobbing around the roof.
The one closest to Phoebe grants her a measure of its strength . The others open up on the undead abomination with purifying light.
Caromarc retreats 5ft , dragging at Phoebe to come with him, then begins summoning more allies.
The wight monk is like a turret...spinning...deflecting attacks from all sides. Yet, when she tries to evade the scythe, the Manservant's tactics pay off. He brings the scythe down, cruelly scraping blade against bone!
The archons zap criss-crossing beams of light at her. One blast sears the undead's blackened flesh. They bathe her in a glow that's strangely menacing. Nevertheless, she rallies, calling upon an inner reserve once honorable but now twisted.
Round 2:
Acrietia is a blur. Her eyes roll in their sockets and ooze black decay. When she talks, her rotted tongue flicks through brown stumps of teeth. "I don't know your plans, but I know that the clock hand is important," she says. She renews her assault, intent on punishing Kwanjan Quinn. A hook to the face! KRAK! "I'll stop you." A roundhouse kick that connects with his jaw from the other direction! POW! "You won't succeed!" Two more punches, a flurry of blows that don't do much damage. Nonetheless, the policeman feels his life energy draining away.
"Give up, Quinn. Come join the ranks of my minions."
Acrietia hisses and points with sharp gestures, giving battlefield orders. To the other wights - "To me!"
The wight minions close in on your party...
The inspector drops his revolver against the corner of the wall near his feet and draws his sword.
As the steel sparks and crackles, he asks his patron goddess to Bring your wrath upon this beast, raises the blade above his head and strikes down with great vengeance and furious anger.
Blackacre's patron honors his prayer. The dread wight executes another spinning evasion and is cut down in the attempt, thrown off by Blackacre and the Manservant's flanked attacks! Her corpse clatters to the floor. When Blackacre lifts his sword, it has seared a black line into the rotted, brown rags.
Phoebe looks on and cheers as the wight falls. Her face takes on a healthier hue, fortified by Caromarc's aid and the thrill of the battle. She maintains her defensive stance.
Internally, the zen archer monk celebrates the defeat of the monk abomination.
Quinn glances over to Gaston and gives the man a nodding thanks. Before he turns his sight to the other wights he whispers to the remains of Acrietia "Next time choose better friends."
"Do not get too close to the clock hand in the fight!"
La Siréene, upon hearing Ianez's warning, looks to the closest remaining Wight - so close to the pedestal. She walks up into the air, above the both the Wight’s, her friends and the Void Creature, and leads the Void Creature in her wake towards the closest Wight.
Heeere, thing! Follow mistress.
As the Void Creature finishes with the shreds of its meal, its little master calls to it, bounces above it, leading it to its next victim.
The Void Creature follows, still holding the remains of its last meal in its maw, propelled swiftly forward on its thin legs, and where its little master stops, the Void Creature finds its next course.
Errant shreds of its last victim, a hand here, a leg there, still hanging from its nightmarish collection of mandibles, it opens its gap and grabs for more.
The wight holds up its claw to defend itself, only to helplessly watch as the Void Beast rip into its meat! It gives a strangled, gurgling shout.
Glad that the monk wight is down, the Zen Archer monk looks the wight closes to LaSireene (Wight #2) and unleashes his 3 arrows. The monk inhales as he draws the last arrow on the bow and exhales and releases simultaneously to help with his focus.
Quinn uses Perfect Shot on his last Flurry of arrows
The arrows pierce the wight and end it. The gurgled yelling stops. Ashes to ashes...
The pedestal with the clock hand was emanating a low hum, like an electrical current, that was audible only to the druid and the archaeologist over the sounds of the battle. However, Acrietia was only Hergelund's apprentice; she was not as skilled at trapmaking as he. At this point, without the dread wight to control it, the hum rises in pitch into a loud buzzing. The floor around the pedestal begins to glow white. The pedestal lights up with an unearthly purple glow, and the air around it is charged with static...ions of negative energy...concentric circles like tiny bulls-eyes that blow like a puffball and disperse throughout the room.
As if this was not disconcerting enough, from the three wings that are locked, there's the sound of grunting and shuffling that grows steadily louder as well. As Quinn puts an end to the wight in the room with you, hordes of glowing red eyes appear at the gates of metal bars. SLAM! SLAM! Other dead police officers...dead prisoners kept in jail cells...even corpses pinned or tied with rope to overturned furniture or to the gates themselves...they ALL rise and reach towards you, They shake bars and frantically untie knotted rope that is holding them off from attacking you.
Among their number are other dread wight monks similar to Acrietia. Former police sergeants...quick, lithe assassins that can kill with a single deadly unarmed punch...ready to attack in force.
The seconds tick, the locked gates becoming more and more knocked loose from their moorings...
Quinn's disciplined fortitude purifies his health. However, Ianez starts to feel queasy.
The wights against the bars - SLAM! SLAM! rattle SLAM! rattle SLAM!
"Sandru, all the traps on the hand are breaking down! You are better at disarming them; I will help you, though. Ianez double-moves towards the display, trying to avoid the pressure plates he's seen already.
Blackacre's eyes roll toward the fallen Acretia as he stands over her.
Ianez spot-checks the trap for his ally, the gears in his mind working out how to nullify the device.
Meanwhile, the inquisitor blinks, and his eyes unfocus for a moment. He feels a creeping headache coming on.
You are unfamiliar with whatever witchery the undead apprentice has brought upon you or Ianez.
Quinn points to the dead wight monk as his anger begins to show.
"Pardon my language, but that b#$#@ has a mechanical device in her hand. Anyone know what to do with that?"