Arianna shudders as she sees the iron spikes, remembering her mother once telling her of the fey vulnerability to the metal. She readies her bow and nocks and arrow.
"I fear they killed all within this village," she tells Gunnar. "The villagers fled to the center and cut the bridge behind them. The Ghouls created a bridge of their own and used cruel iron to fasten it to the branches." She shudders and the air around her grows clammy and cloying, like her growing fear. "Whatever we find in there will be an abomination."
Ingryd smiles a feral smile across her face, maul in her grip. It was all a strange eager sense of combat oozed form her.
"Good,I do so hate Ghouls. Just as bad as hags" Ingryd wanted to send the undead creatures to a permanent rest.
"While I want to purify this place with holy fire, we should ensure that there are are no potential survivors. Even if death might be sweet relief from their current life." Luthael offers.
Odd-colored sunlight angels continue to flit around the companions showing their displeasure and pity for the ruins of the battlefield.
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Aterro frowns at the central building as he stares at it harshly.
"Methinks we must needs but glance inside to ensure there are none living, for the odds something this evil would leave aught alive are slim.
Were one of us gifted in the arts of stealth, I would have them peer into a window, or crack in the wall, to ascertain such things."
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”There is no need for stealth. Let’s go. Either innocents need saving, Evil needs destroying, or both.”The prophet of Khors does not break stride and leads the team into the abattoir.
"Its a sound tactic, stealth is key, both in battle and in the hunt" The tall bear woman says as she smiles.
"I can try but I am outta practice" She says as she crouchs and takes a few steps. she then sees if she can walk around the building.
"I could try, but it seems Luthael has other ideas," Arianna says as she nods to the priest as he walks forward to confront whatever it is that awaits them. She shrugs as Ingryd gives sneakiness a go and follows Luthael a few paces back to make sure he has some cover.
Approaching closer, the stench and odd croaking and humming noises grow stronger. The building itself is crafted directly from the tree itself. The central shaft of the massive trunk supports an initial foundation of eight outstretched branches from which multitudes of thigh thick tertiary branches grow into walls then turn inward to create a peaked roof. Many more smaller limbs weave together forming either a solid barrier as well as arched windows or entrances similar to the one facing Aterro and everyone else. Judging from the height of the structure, it could contain up to three floors, or a high cathedral like ceiling.
The sickly fog continues to drift from the arched doorway as well as a pair of open windows set about ten feet to either side of the door. A narrow walkway, well worn into a smooth walnut dark sheen by centuries of soft soled shoes surrounds the entire structure connecting the various main spokes of the circular building.
Ingryd volunteers to scout the building and is surprisingly quiet as she slides through the shadows along the wooden path. A few moments later she disappears around the backside of the building.
Quickly looking around, you spot a pale bile green and gray creature hanging from the side of the building just outside one of the windows. The thing is hard to define in your mind. A pair of vaguely bat-shaped wings are tucked behind a soft shelled back that appears to cover a more amorphous gastropod's body ending in one bulbous head that has no noticeable eyes, ears, or nose but a singular beak like mouth. The thing doesn't appear to have noticed you yet as it simply remains suctioned to the wall, emitting an occasional croak while its wings flutter rapidly creating a soft buzz or hum.
Seeing the potential enemy flying causes you to look further up into the trees. Your keen eyed gaze catches a glimpse of two, three, four of the things in view. Tentacles wrapped around the tree branches, beaks burrowed into the bark sucking at the golden sap, some of which slowly oozes from the wound to drip on the building below.
Ingryd will tiptoe back to the others and speak.
Back at the group, she relays what she saw.
"Some weird blob with a bulbous head and bat wings. If kinda looks like that food, the seafood things with tentacles. Calamari, though very VERY unappetizing" She says trying to figure out what the food was. It wasn't bad, but not her first choice.
When Ingryd describes what she saw, Arianna points out the ones she spotted.
"Like that?"
At the explanation and after getting a chance to see the creatures himself, Gunnar tries to remember if he knows anything about them.
”And they fly and are all outside the building? Perhaps my spells are best used to give our frontline warriors the ability to fly then,” says Gunnar. He will cast Fly on Ingryd and Aterro if his assumptions are confirmed.
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Aterro's tactical mind went into a spasm and he looked like a duck hit on the head while the situation slowly spun out of hand. There was a scouting mission, a pending artillery strike, and a frontal assault all happening at once and he had no precise idea which to join.
He is much grateful as Ingryd and Arianna have a confab and bring some illumination to the situation.
"Light up the building. Destroy it to embers. There are no survivors here," he says definitively, looking all around as his feet leave the ground under the familiar gravity defying spell.
"Gratitude, Gunnar. For undead I had my doubts but was willing to check. For something animalistic, in this place, then, no. Whoever was here is now food and if any still breath, a quick death will be a work of high mercy.
Luthael! Unleash thy fire! The building can not be any less than the hive of the queen. Let us bring cleansing to this charnel house of death!"
Taking less care on the way back from her quick scouting excursion, Ingryd hears the creature behind her croak and gurgle with sudden alerted interest as she rounds the corner to rejoin the rest of her companions. The bearkin sees Arianna pointing out more of the creatures as she shares her own findings.
Seeing the abominations, Gunnar immediately begins to chant and gesture, his arcane powers embracing Aterro and the recently returned Ingryd. Aterro shouts for holy fire even as he rises into the air.
Meanwhile the noise and actions have caused a stir in the creatures spotted moments ago. Agitated croaks and gurgles erupt beneath the blacked forest canopy. Three of the creatures spread filmy wings and glide downward toward Gunnar, Ingryd and the floating paladin.
"Aterro! Be like the storm! Strike them down like lightning," Arianna calls out as she draws and lets loose an arrow at the closest of the foul demons. "Smite them! They are demon spawn and deserve no mercy!"
Her arrow flies wide, as does the second. She swallows a curse and moves to a place that limits the directions the demon spawn can attack her from.
Oblivious of the goings on. Luthael reacts to the call for holy fire, "By Lord of Light, be cleansed!" He sends a bead of holy fire above them to engulf the creatures in a holy explosion.
Gunnar maintains concentration on the flight spell and calls down the Curse of the Frost Giants on the tentacled monster approaching him. He prepares to react with a protective spell if the creature gets too close.
, Constitution Save 16 negates, disadvantage on next attack on failed save.
"Oops I think I made a bit too much noise on the way back..." Ingryd whirls her Mual and readies to go into a defense and attack routine designed against opponents with a higher elevation.
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"And no mercy shall be offered to them!" Aterro shouts in hearty agreement to the bard as he ZOOMS up up up and at the trio of diving spawn. As is his habit he assumes the greater form of an enraged THOR. His legs take on the visage of angry tree trunks, his biceps are like thundering boulders, and his sweet, sweet 'tache becomes even more epic.
The fireball SWISHES over his head and explodes in the attackers faces just before he meets with the lead one with GREAT force, putting in all his effort, both the newly gained inspiration from Arianna's forceful words, and a little more directly from Thor's own grace.
'Now we shall see if FEAR holds any sway at all in this realm,' he thinks.
The first two of the descending demons flip into a sliding glide to dodge away from the center of Luthael's fiery blast. The move causes both of Arianna's quickly fired arrows to miss the mark and sail off into the depths of the forest. The third demon is not so quick to react. It finds itself at the center of the blast. Flames burst all around it and into the dead leaves, vines, and carefully guided branches that make up the cathedral in the trees. With flames still lingering on its wings and body it continues a wild drop toward the gathered heroes.
The first swings toward the oncoming Aterro. Tentacles writhe and squirm forward in anticipation of contact with the rushing enemy. This excitement is short lived as just as it closes there is a loud crack, followed almost immediately by a second such sound. It is Deathmetal smashing into the demon's carapace, cracking it open like a holy nutcracker. The demons outer shell practically disintegrates into a thousand tiny shards. Grotesque bile colored muscles and innards are revealed beneath the hard shell. Innards that no longer stay in place have lost the security and stability of the protective outer layer. The demon screeches a moment of utter fear rushes through its simple demonic mind. But there is really no time for it to process the emotional sensation for death is already dragging it back to the dark pits from whence it emerged. The thing simply explodes in a painfilled fury of acidic death gore that sears flesh and pits armor.
The second demon drops toward Gunnar. The dwarf sends a burst of winter's cold toward the abyssal creature, but it manages to shrug off the blast.
The third races toward the creator of the fire that so recently engulfed it in such searing holy flame. Beaked mouth snapping, the eyeless head drops toward Luthael even as a few flames flicker along its smoking body. Perhaps it is the lack or normal eyesight or it could be an inability to focus on more than one action at a time or perhaps it was simply dismissive of spirits and ghosts having been surround by plenty of the pitiful souls and spiritual denizens of the abyss, regardless the demon takes no heed of those spirits guarding Luthael. It passes into their range and with a holy rage the swirling guardians shred the demon sending it to its doom.
Much like is fellow, as soon as the demonic beast ceases to be it explodes in a cloud of putrid, acidic, gore that burns and bites the flesh of everything in the surrounding area.
Having ducked the wizard's icy ray, the second demon crashes down upon Gunnar. Tentacles wrap and slam against the dwarf while the snapping beak tries to flay flesh. Prepared, Gunnar manifests his shield just in the nick of time to barely deflect the biting beak. A tentacle is swatted aside by the magical barrier, but a second slips by the arcane defense. Wrapping itself around arm and shoulder the smelly, sickening appendage squeezes and works to solidify its grip upon the wizard.
Two of the demons are quickly dispatched. But before any can celebrate a victory, six more appear in the windows or doorway of the former village center. Croaking their displeasure at being disturbed, the creatures glide or start to slither along the path toward those leading the assault upon their stolen nest.
Demon 1: 0/40HP
Demon 2: 29/40HP
Demon 3: 0/40HP
Luthael grits his teeth at the splash of acid. The Guardian Spirits flicker for a second and then continue to flit about him and his companions.
Seeing the new demons, the prophet sends another holy fireball into the largest cluster.
"I would not fret, Ingryd. Better now to have them in the open than to have them skulking in the shadows. Show them the sweet fire of a honeybee's sting!"
The words ring with power, much as the ones she'd said to Aterro. Seeing the swarm emerging from the building, Arianna figures that now is the time to thin their numbers than to engage in something that might not even work against these wretched demons.
Gunnar's Shield spell reinforces his Arcane Ward and deflects one attack, but the other gets through, collapsing the Ward completely and threatening to disrupt his concentration!
The flight spell remains, though Gunnar appears to be hopelessly entangled in the demon's tentacles.
Grunting in irritation, Gunnar casts a quick spell and a blast of thunder emanates from his body and through the enveloping form of the tentacled demon...then the dwarven wizard is not longer there!
and teleport away (in this case to a location with some cover from the approaching demons if possible)...
Ingryd roars as they moved in and leaps into the fray.
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Aterro instinctively holds up Amboss against the dying demon's death rattle, and The Metal takes the acid explosion with grace and aplomb that would make even a greater artifact proud.
"Excellent, Luthael! We shall make a strongpoint here, and their wave of chaos shall break against us, like the tide against the ever-living rock!"
Aterro flies down next to the cleric, well within protective sphere of the guardian spirits.
Making a shield wall of two, Aterro yells and taunts the forming hoard of half-a-dozen.
"Come and die, evil ones! Come and be sent back to the home that you have only briefly escaped!"
Aterro picks the lead one of the horde and summons a Curse of Foolishness upon it.
Then he sends twin bolts of black death and golden glory swinging at it.
Ingryd wraps herself up in melee with the one who dared to take on Gunnar. As she does she fights hard in gleeful rage.
Luthael unleashes a second blast of holy fire. Although not as concentrated and therefore not as damaging as his usual fiery conflagrations, the blast manages to catch all six in its firestorm of godly fury. Demon flesh sears, blackens, and smolders as the six creatures continue to make their way forward.
Arianna adds to the pain of the closest as she sinks two feathered shafts deep into its bulbous head. It's beaked maw snaps and croaks in painful rage as it glides downward trailing a thick line of putrid ooze and smoke.
Ingryd races over to aide a suddenly entangled Gunnar. Even as the bearkin's mighty maul rises into the air for a killing blow, the dwarf unleashes a thunderous charge and teleports back to the far edge of the makeshift bridge. With Gunnar clear, Ingryd's maul lands with a furious crunching thud upon the carapace of the fiendish creature. It quickly bursts in yet another blast of sickening acidic spray that burns and withers the bearkin's fur and skin.
Taking refuge within Luthael's swirling mass of protective spirits, Aterro sends a pair of crackling eldritch bolts flying toward the oncoming demons. The first explodes in a burst of abyssal misery, too far away for either prophet or paladin to be caught within its searing blast.
The paladin's second bolt strikes the center of the next demon, but isn't quite enough to send it back into the pits of chaos before it closes within the circle of spirits.
Entering the circle of guardians, the demon is instantaneously shredded by the raging spirits. It bursts upon Aterro and Luthael. Three of the other demons enter the circle, each is torn and ripped by the protective ghosts but none fully succumb leaving them free to strike.
The first swoops toward Aterro. It's beak bounces off the paladin's armor, but tentacles envelope the holy knight in a deadly grip. The two others force their way through the spirit to reach the hated prophet of the sun god. The first of the two sinks it beak into Luthael's sholder while the other takes a bite of his leg and wraps the prophet in it's own slimy grip.
The final remaining creature swoops toward Ingryd, but remains a few paces away from the bearkin.
Demon 2A: 0/40
Demon 1: 0/40
Demon 2: 0/40
Demon 3: 6/40
Demon 4: 15/40
Demon 5: 6/40
Demon 6: 23/40
Ingryd seems to shed the goo like water the ends shinged barely the tip of her hair. She though comes in strong. She sees the creature and roars. As she does he swings with abandoned.
Ingryd stumbles and fumbles after one mighty swing a bit of the acid eating away at the planks under her feet.
Worried about their healer but reluctant to harm him accidentally with a more powerful spell, Gunnar sends inerrant arcane missiles at the demon attempting to grapple Luthael!
He remains where he is partially hidden, but keeps a keen eye out for any new attackers that may come at the group.
"Roar like thunder, Son of Thor," Arianna urges as she nocks another arrow. "Send this monsters back to the pit they crawled from!"
Arianna lines up her next shot on the one injured by Gunnar's bolts of arcane lightning. She may not have the magical means to do these creatures harm, but her father had taught her well how to use a bow.
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With so many foes abounding, and so much carnage lain bare before the uncaring air, Aterro is too slow in bringing up Amboss and the death-acid lands true. It eats away the whole of the ephemeral vitality brought upon by his Aspect of War and singes his person.
Though slow to protect himself from the far-off death throes, as the wretched things close and try to bring him in to a more intimate embrace, Aterro us more adept at keeping away the demon than he was at other, more honey-making creatures.
Looking with disdain at the foeman attacking him, Aterro spits at it, calling it weak in the eyes of whatever powers it thinks on. Turning his back on it spitefully, he lays hold of the Inspiration sent upon him by Arianna, and lays on to the twins attacking the cleric.
Luthael draws the demons to him like moths to a holy flame, but it hurts.
"Die foul fiends! Burn with Khors' holy fire!" Luthael shrugs off the tentacles and with a word explodes with holy radiance ripping through the demons immediately around.
The demonic chaos spawn floats toward Ingryd and quickly comes into contact with the bearkin's maul. The mighty forged steel head slams into the demon with flames flickering in hot fury. The demon croaks in pain but somehow evades Ingyrd's backswing as her moment carries her slightly further aside than anticipated. It slams into the bearkin, beak biting and tentacles wrapping themselves around the flying bear.
The prophet of Khors is momentarily swarmed by two of the ugly, rubbery limbed demons. However, their triumph is short lived as the combined magics and pinpoint targeting of wizard, bard, and prophet quickly end the two creatures existence upon the shadow plane. Unfortunately, this also causes two more of the creatures to burst upon the prophet in a final cataclysm of acidic gore.
With Luthael free of the demons Aterro shifts his focus to the one still trying to entangle him in its chaotic grip. Deathmetal flashes. A sickening thunk echoes in the twilight air quickly followed by a second blow. Deathmetal cracks the demonic carapace as somewhere, somewhen a bell tolls...
A fiendish cackle echoes across the multiverse. In Zobeck's Holy Temple of Thunder a half dozen priests and acolytes of the thunder god gasp in surprise and astonishment as several mosaic tiles in the recently commissioned work depicting Thor's triumph over the Dragon Ashmanakotep blacken a fall away from the wall to shatter into an oily dust. Prayers are offered and shouts calling for High Priest Magnusson fill the halls. Much to the temple denizens surprise and sorrow, poor Magnusson is found slumped in his chair having choked on a broken chicken bone during his midday meal only moments earlier. It will be days before the embalmers discover the wretched bone and the tiny horned coin imprint of the Arch-Devil Mammon.
...no longer able to maintain its hold within the shadow realm the demon bursts into a toxic cloud of acid and putrid flesh.
For the moment no other demonic spawn emerge from the temple ahead of the trees above. But an agitated and urgent cacophony of croaking, groaking calls can be heard throughout the dead forest canopy and from the tall cathedral in the tree. Leaves and limbs rustle and stir with hidden movements even as Gunnar's keen eyes start to point out flashes of demonic flesh scuttling through the higher reach of the tall trees.
Demon 6: 11/40
Luthael dodges one exploding demon and catches a splash of another. He grits his teeth in a little more acid pain and cannot manage a clever quip.
"Feel the holy fire of the lord of the sun." Luthael sends a radiant flames towards the last demon.
Arianna moves as there's a lull in the fighting, but it is only a brief respite before the surge of violence continues like the howling storm after a squall. The young elf thinks about casting a spell to hide herself, but these things lack eyes. Whatever sense they used to track their prey, it isn't sight.
Her clan, however, had long traveled the roads between, and her father had taught her how to move and hide in the shadows, even from things that did not need to see her to know she was there. Elven grace only counts for so much, and Arianna had learned her father's lessons well, as she demonstrates for the cacophonous choir of demonic children.
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Aterro doesn't even look at the nearest demon as his last swing bursts through it. His momentum swings him about, looking for more foes. He lets the acid burst meet the carapace of his armor. The magic-infused splint, specially hardened against all acids, finds this one to be no great power and negates it handily.
Aterro sees only one foe, and that having made the poor, poor choice of tangling alone with the bear-folk. He almost feels sorry for it. Almost.
"I continue to think that there is something central to the struggle within that main charnel house. I shall go and peer into it and we can either burn it to the ground, or invade and purify it with fire and steel.
As nothing else is coming from it, I begin to think that we should all make our way toward it. If we are attacked again, it would make good shelter. Else, out here we are exposed to the flying beasts.
I will burst through the wall and tell you what I see."
Aterro takes off for the main building.
True to his word, he does what he had wanted to do from the start. He sends twin bolts of eldritch fire at the nearest wall, daring the twig-and-mottle walls to resist his righteousness.
Gunnar moves up to the demon on Ingryd and reaches out for it with his sparking hammer, saying quietly but intensely, "There are more of them hiding amongst the canopy. Brother Aterro may have the right tactic in mind."
Ingryd dances and turns her muscles working to fight the tentacles. Ingryd hears Gunnar step up and speak. Even in her rage she nods.
"So fall back or press on?" She asks as she takes to task the creature.
”Let’s follow Aterro,” suggests Gunnar, using whatever movement he has remaining to do just that, assuming that between he and Ingryd the demon is splattered.
The combine assault by Luthael, Ingryd and Gunnar pulverize the demon harassing the big bearkin. The creature bursts, showering the barbarian in acidic toxins that sizzle and burn.
Arianna finds a particularly dark and shadowed section of pathway to stop and ponder the situation while Aterro charges for the central building. Her keen ears and gaze spot movement nearly everywhere above in the forest canopy, but is unable to pick our any particular target.
From the narrow walkway that surrounds the apparently demon infested main building, several other paths branch off to smaller buildings or groups of buildings. The entire village must have once been a delightful thing to see with the glittering silver and velvet purple twilight tree leaves coating the intricately woven wooden buildings.
Hanging black and dead near each intersecting path are the withered remnants of some kind of flower. After a few moments inspection, Arianna is able to identify the ruined bloom as a glow rose. Fairly common along the more well traveled shadow roads, when healthy and blooming these fey flowers emit with a pale pink, blue, or yellow light and are often used instead of torch and lanterns to light roads, walkways, room, and gathering spots within the fey realm. Sadly, these magical flowers suffered the same fate as their larger host trees. Withered and dead, coated with an oily black ash.
The croaking cacophony continues to grow louder as Aterro hurries forward along the path leading to the arched opening of the cathedral. Turning aside from the obvious entrance the holy warrior waves everyone forward preparing to open up a second entrance through the dead walls of the once vibrant living building.
Gunnar hurries along in Aterro's wake, trying to keep up with the others as they approach the entrance to the building. He tries to get a glance through the archway before he veers off after the charging paladin.
How Arianna longs to wield the magics that Gunnar and Luthael hold in their hands as she sees the death and decay wrought from what was once beautiful. Her mother loved glow roses, and her father never failed to find some for the anniversary of their marriage. Imagining what this place must have been like before it fell to the ghouls tears at her heart and fuels the furnace of an anger she had not realized is there, simmering just underneath the surface of her thoughts, until it came roaring to life.
The dead things need to be punished.
First, however, she needs to decide if hiding here is better than joining the others. She looks to see them following Aterro and feels the white hot lash of guilt as she sees Luthael staggering under the weight of his wounds.
There was nothing for it. She would stand with the others.
Feeling along the seams of reality, she finds the thread connecting her present perch to where Luthael stands and pulls. A doorway opens wide in the substance of reality and she steps though and next to Luthael.
"Stay with me," she tells him. "You look ready to fall over."
This time the acidic blood and fumes burned. She roared and ran towards were Gunnar had told her. Not slowing she barrels into the building caring little for the place.
"Khors will protect us." Luthael calmly replies to Arianna. With another prayer, he pulls more of Khors' host into the Shadow Realm. Winged, armed, and armored translucent angels appear to flit about the companions.
And he follows behind Gunnar gritting his teeth at the pain.