Putting two and two together (and hopefully not coming up with five), Dambreth decides that the unknown elf must be incapacitating the priest so decides protecting him is a priority. He slides around the clumsy attack of Orc 2 and fires his stun gun at Orc 3.
Gaia herself seems to be guiding Dambreth
"Don't look down, don't look down...." Halwyr mutters. If his eyes hadn't parted company with him three days ago, they would have been shut tight under his bloody face-rag. Before he can say, "Look down! Eat this, Greeny, it's for my eyes!" and blast the orcs as he planned, he loses his grip and plunges earthward!
Thinking quickly, the mage quickly attempts to slow his fall. No summons for a while, I promise myself.
Landing (somewhat) safely, Halwyr puts one hand's pointer and middle fingers to his forehead, twirling the other hand about. In the air between himself and the orc who gave him such a chip in his shoulder, metallic glints can be seen and heard, following the motions of each finger. Where they move, cuts will open on Orc 5.
Olivius spins back into melee and a throwing dagger appears in his off hand. His rapier flashes.
He ducks under the orc's arm and drives his rapier home. Then he dances out from under the falling orc and appears behind one of the gun wielding foes (number 5).
Glad to be pointed the right way again Bolus charges into the fray and tries to bite the priest's head off.
Out of arrows, Viola simply watches from above, seeking to defend her mount... and hoping the undead-ish thing behind her would abscond shortly.
Halwyr having fallen prey while not near Viola, on the other hand, will receive a minor blessing in the form of her magic! But... at a cost to herself, or perhaps even affecting an enemy...
Dambreth demonstrates that despite being called a stun gun, this future-weapon can be lethal when fired with intent to kill, as the cleric is. With the light of Gaia shining down his iron-sights, Dambreth takes aim and fires at one of the injured orcs, bludgeoning his eye beneath the eye-ridge with a ray of stunning force. The orc's rifle goes flying as the orc's arms splay upward, his body flying back, senseless - one honor guard out of the fight.
Overhead, Borak reins in his steed when Halwyr falls, preparing to join the fight himself. The mage slows his fall just enough to avoid breaking any bones, but it doesn't feel like a pleasant landing at all. Take 1d4+2 damage from the painful landing! Paying no heed to his injuries, however, the mage channels his fury at the orcs who defended his captor. Your magic comes at a cost, however. You face a choice. In order to ensure the spell's full force strikes the orc gunner, you must sacrifice of your own vitality (). Do you ensure the demise of your target, or protect yourself from the ravages of your own magic? If you cast the spell "safely," remove 1d6 from the damage you dealt.
At the same time, Olivius is finishing the job he started. His distaste for melee notwithstanding, he somehow manages to make the enraged and battle-hardened orc look foolish. With an easy dodge under the honor guard's furious swing, the rogue plunges his rapier home, and moves on to Orc #4 without sparing his first victim a second's thought. The deaths of two of their comrades sends the others into a battle fury! However, not even the rapid-fire blasts fired by the fourth orc's rifle seem to faze Olivius at all. He spins, the bullet cutting a rip through his cloak, and slays another. You feel the familiar presence of Death nearby, Olivius - his reaper follows your rapier closely this day, but the orcs can't follow you at all.
Halwyr's spell looked to imprison the orc priest. In truth, the orc was prepared for it, and using his own dark ritual fueled by the beacon, he twists the magic back on itself! The prison that the mage entrapped him in shatters outward just as Bolus comes roaring down out of the sky, Eldar and Viola on his back. The priest beckons wildly backward with both hands, gesturing at Viola, and tugs some of her healing on to him!
The orc priest is positively glowing with a tangible magic aura, Bolus. You charge on, heedless, but the orc - his hair turning blacker by the second - grasps your upper and lower jaws and holds them apart! He cackles with ecstatic joy as power ripples through his muscles, being drawn from the beacon! Roll Defy Danger to break his grip on you, which prevents you even from flying away!
His terrible strength is being fueled by the beacon's power now. "YOU FOOLS CANNOT STOP US! THE POWER IS OURS! THIS WORLD WILL BE REMADE!" You feel your teeth cracking in his iron grasp, Bolus!
"Let go of him, creature of Chaos!" the masked elf exclaims as he jumps down, his Wraithsword swinging down in an arc motion
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Halwyr chooses to dispatch the orc quickly, without much regard for his own safety. With a flourish, his mental sickle slices a strange runic pattern in the orc's chest as it falls. He feels Viola rejuvenate his body, and shoots a twisting bolt of lightning at the priest.
Bolus feels his jaw cracking and tries to snap them down forcefully to break the grip.
While trying to force the jaws down Bolus shoots a gout of flame out right onto the priest as he's standing right next to him.
Even without touching the Skeleton, Viola nudges the drake forward slightly... even in the hands of the priest, it can still move its body, the motion sending Eldar forward, and making his attack a partial success.
And the beat goes on! Add 1d4, as your attack is infused with sonic energy, reverberating into whatever defenses the priest may have!
And he's still hurt after that? How about some more life-force... Viola is just drumming away on the back of the drake, keeping everything running smoothly, as her beat synchronises the battlefield, unbeknownst to anyone, creating a tempo that everyone must follow. Or perhaps Borak knows... and perhaps that was all part of the plan...
Her head is bounding to the beat, causing her long, dark hair to jump around in cascades, even as she eyes her surroundings.
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Lord Borak casually lands his stead and walks, almost nonchalantly, toward the battle-raging orcs near Olivius.
On his stroll he passes the orc priest struggling mightily with the drake.
But Lord Borak already knows the outcome.
The Priest obviously has the tallow skin of one who enjoys gorging in liver and fava beans, while having his every desire met by sycophants. This leads to a lack of high-intensity cardio training on an iron-rich diet, which might possibly give someone a particular bulbous-look around one's feet.
As the orc cleric has.
Borak gives it no thought as the orc priest's feet, deep in the ravages of advanced gout, become enflamed as the they must support the wieght of the drake's struggle upon the priest, exposing the priest to pain beyond endurance as every pain recepter below his knees deals with the build up of ulric acid in his extremities.
Reveal ploy: An enemy must deal with an obstacle before they can do anything else.
Borak finishes his walk directly in front of the rampaging orcs. He merely lifts his single stolen arrow into an en-garde, saying, softly, with the air of supreme confidence, "You have already lost."
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"YOU FOOL! YOU ARE DESTROYING THE WORLD, NOT REMAKING IT" Dambreth screams at the Orc priest even as he charges towards him. "TEMELLEN THE BETRAYER IS USING YOU!!", flicking open his metal staff as he closes on the Orc.
Reaching the fray, Dambreth calls out, "GAIA GRANT ME STRENGTH!" as Dambreth swings his staff with all of his strength and rage aiming not at the Orc but instead at the beacon itself.
"Who the hell trusts someone who has the title 'the Betrayer'. That is like... career- or life-ending levels of stupidity." she comments deadpan, as she continues her beat.
Viola has never had to make a performance quite like this before. In the heat of battle, the elf dances madly on the back of the struggling red-scaled drake, using her innate instinct for pitch and rhythm to slap and pound Bolus' scales into a war-beat. Her magic weaves around her, and just as the others are locked in a physical confrontation with the orc priest, Viola finds herself struggling against its magic.
She gestures, swinging up-tempo and off-beat to loosen up Eldar's strike so he can at least injure the priest. The orc has to release his two-handed grip on Bolus' mouth, and barely twists away in time to avoid taking a dire strike from the wraithlander's sword. Diving forward with a reckless yell, lightning crackling off his longsword, Eldar stabs the orc priest straight through the bicep. The orc grunts in pain and yanks the sword out, but not before the lightning from Eldar's shock gloves sears the wound, creating a smell like smoking flesh.
Bolus, meanwhile, his mouth freed, breathes fire point-blank at the priest and burns him, but the orc is not finished yet. Continuing to channel the incredible energy of the beacon through his ritual, the priest uses his Harness Magic ability once again, and uses Halwyr's failed spell to power his own counterattack!
Or at least, he tries. "Eh?" he shouts in surprise, as Borak approaches him calmly. The warlord gestures down at the orc's legs; sure enough, the rapid aging and de-aging of the orc's body has taken its toll! "NO!" he cries, immediately targeting it with cauterizing flames that allow him to painfully move - but he sacrifices the devastating spell he had been planning to unleash!
Not one to pass up an advantage Bolus-Drake snaps at the priest's legs and tries to grapple him by biting down hard and not letting go.
Olivius continues his rampage through the honor guard. He detests the brutality of it, the inellegence. Still, it's effective.
As his rapier skewers the vital organs of that orc, he releases his dagger at the further (and I think last) of the honor guard.
The Reaper once again swings his weapon at the orc. This needs to end.
"Death is here for you"
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-Posted with Wayfinder
Viola urges the drake a little forward with her guiding knees, but while it places the Dragon in an excellent position, it distracts Viola from something a little more important, personally.
"Hey, ugly! Try hitting me with your mighty magic," Halwyr taunts. He's a bit frazzled that his first two spells failed, truth be told, but he trusts in his counterspells, at least. Once more, he sends his mental sickle at the priest.
Dambreth's metal staff clicks into position and he swings it in a wide overhead arc, hoping to smash the beacon with his own raw force. A noble gesture; motivated by holy intent.
But not enough.
The cleric's desperate ploy to destroy the beacon displayed poor timing; the device was in the middle of powering-up the orc priest that was attempting to defend it. The sudden addition of the kinetic force of Dambreth's swing, combined with the structural weaknesses that the drake's fire created, causes a white light to shine through the beacon's form.
Nearby, the orc priest is finally overwhelmed - his magic defenses battered and broken by Halwyr's mental sickles, his overwhelming strength interrupted by the elven cleric. Eldar's stab inflicts only minimal damage, but spins the priest around in his attempt to avoid the damage...spinning the priest directly into the onrushing charge of the drake, possessed by Bolus. Bolus, this is the last action you can command the drake to do - its own mind is surging against yours with the force of an ogre breaking down a tree. You sink your teeth into the orc's flesh, feeling his lifeblood running across your tongue. The priest's former bellows are a meager whimper now, and only Eldar, Viola and Bolus are close enough to hear him whisper, "I've failed you...I'm sorry..."
The priest reaches inside his robes with his dying breath. His arm quivering with exhaustion, he draws out what appears to be a one-way communicator, with a button on it. He presses it, and a red light, steady, appears at the tip.
All of you notice a ship approaching. It looks like Hardworthy's. The orcs defending this altar are routed, the priest dying upon both Eldar's sword and Bolus' teeth. The beacon is heavily damaged but still emitting that damnable purple light, shining undeterred into deep space.
Olivius calls to Yala. Use that talker thing and call in the flyer!
"Wait! Who did he fail? That's not fair! Someone heal him. I want the full story. Wait, I can heal him! Someone hold him. So I can heal him!"
But... it was quite probably too late.
Dambreth senses are overwhelmed by the sheer wrongness of the light emitting from the beacon. "Olivius, use your explosives to destroy this accursed thing!"
Viola responded to everyone acting in a flurry once everything was finally going the way it should, orcs fleeing everywhere, by raising her voice. "Why can't we just loot the shiny thing..?" she pouts.
She also had a dragon. So there was that.
Already on it! Olivius takes two of his concocted fire-acid bombs and lobs them onto the Beacon in the hopes that the acid fog will weaken it enough for the heavy ordinance to finish the job.
Stay away from the fog! He shouts.
Viola responded to everyone acting in a flurry once everything was finally going the way it should, orcs fleeing everywhere, by raising her voice. "Why can't we just loot the shiny thing..?" she pouts.
She also had a dragon. So there was that.
"Our world literally totters on the brink of destruction...the 'shiny' thing calls out to The World Destroyer and draws it to us. Our only chance to save the world is destroy the 'shiny' thing."
"But what if the shiny thing is keeping the 'World Destroyer' at bay? Also, why does everyone you speak of have really silly titles that automatically expose them as terrible people?"
Olivius rolls his eyes. If he ever comes into contact with the Hand again he is going to have a discussion about recruitment and hiring standards.
Because we know. He pulls his dagger free of it's latest victim. And not everyone has titles.
"When this is over, I'm giving myself a title," Halwyr says enthusiastically. "Maybe 'Halwyr the Blind' or 'Halwyr the Benevolent' or something cool like that. All right, we're bringing it down!" he yells, aiding in Olivius's efforts with amother spray of elemental energy.
Bolus wakes up back in his own body retching, the taste of orc blood strong in his memory. He looks around and realizes he's alone back at the place he saw a drake explode.
Dammit! I'm out of the drake. He's relieved by this and by the absence of the vengeful ghosts that seemed to have judged the mayhem enough to satiate even their bloodthirsty need for vengeance but he is now far away from the beacon. He takes off in a sprint to get back to where everyone else has converged.
Viola snickers slightly at the titles thing... benevolent. The things he summons are anything but!
"But -how- do you know?" Viola asks, from atop the hopefully still-placated drake. She'd stick around to make sure if it didn't get destroyed... she might get a bit of it for herself. Afterwards, straight over to the tower thing to get all of her stuff. Which she totally knew existed somewhere. Call it muscle memory... or perhaps just that the beat goes on even when she's out.
Actually, Bolus, you aren't on the field.
Cortes turns from the front windscreen to look back at you. "Thank whatever Gods may remain that I found you in time, Bolus. That bastard Temellen killed one of the prisoners that had escaped from the orcs and was watching over...your body. The poor fool was unarmed, waving down the skipper your Professor was using like he's a friend. We fly closer to investigate, see that bloody elf behind the controls, about to gun down the other escapee and you...he had some kind of weird weapon...he fled in the direction of the beacon when we turned up and trained our weapons on him."
He shakes his head. "The lone surviving prisoner didn't even bat an eye when we turned up. Guess the insignia put him at ease. Just pointed at your body, said "He's still alive," and ran off after the Professor's skipper himself!"
As Cortes explains all this, you look out the windows of the skipper to the valley below. It's chaos. The stage is completely destroyed, and the crowd has devolved into a muddy, bloody, fighting pit. Your attention snaps back to Cortes when he snaps his fingers and points forward through the main windshield. "Hey, hey. Pay attention everyone, there's some sort of lightning generator up ahead..."
What do you do?
Yala begins to call in the flier immediately. Viola, the drake is munching on the priest and doesn't buck you off, but you have no reins or bridle or anything of the sort to use to fly it. You'd basically be gripping with your knees and hands on its scales.
Olivius, Halwyr, you hurl your heaviest ordinances at the beacon. Your arm flexes, your hands release, sending death soaring through the air. You see the grenades floating lazily through the sky, even as Halwyr's twisted lightning jerks from spot to spot in spurts. Closer and closer they both come to the beacon, this source of temporal twistings and otherworldly power. But something strange and awful happens.
As a final gambit, putting his borrowed power in this last line of defense, the priest had activated a time-stop scroll - scrolls taking the form of portable communicator-like devices in the future. Without the power of the beacon, this level of magic would be far beyond all but the mightiest of mortal wizards.
This was it. The ultimate weapon the orcs were planning to use the beacon for. With a device that stops time in a localized area at their disposal, these orcs would have been unstoppable, and Terminus City' defenses would have toppled without even getting to fire a shot.
Everyone near enough to be in the blast radius - which includes everyone here, plus Yala - is frozen in a stasis field for the time being.
You see Professor Hardworthy's skipper approaching, and going into hover mode some 15 feet over the beacon, just outside the reach of the purple lightning. The rear entry hatch opens up and Hardworthy is there, clutching the side of the bulkhead. He looks down at all of you frozen there with sorrow written over his aged face. He looks bruised and cut up, having obviously been on the receiving end of a fierce beating.
"I'm sorry..." is all you hear him say, before he's interrupted. Temellen the elf, named by Dambreth the Betrayer, steps up from behind him and cuts the old man's throat in one quick motion. A second later, the elf's boot is connecting forcefully with the old man's back, kicking him out of the levitating skipper to fall lifelessly to earth.
"I'm impressed by your resourcefulness," Temellen comments, gazing down at the bloody field of battle. There are explosion craters everywhere, dead bodies of orcs, and all of you, standing injured but victorious over them. Quite a tableau. "I thought, at first, I must have left all of you behind in that erupting volcano...but you managed to follow me here, to this time. Then you eluded capture within the city, and even managed to track the beacon here. Without the assistance of that stupid old man, you wouldn't have made it. You even made some friends along the way," he smirks at Eldar, Viola, Lord Borak, and Halwyr. "But unlike the barbarous past, we are in my timeline now. My lord's timeline. This world will be wiped clean, and I will be lifted from its corpse to take my place among the stars, as my reward."
Eldar smiles as he sees the professor fall. Not because he is pleased at what happened, but he knew that death in the mortal realm is but the start of another. He whispers softly, his eyes closed behind his mask
"May the master catch you in his arms my friend. You have done your part, now rest in peace"
he then looks at Temellen, his eyes ablaze again
"You do not know what you are messing with, neither who you think you have allied with. Your time will come, when you stand before both Death and Time. They will be your judges. Myself, and those here, we will be your transport. We will send you there ourselves!"
That God Damn elf. He's where I'M supposed to be. Cortez. Full speed to where Hardwothy's skipper went. And I mean NOW! Bolus shouts.
Did...Did that just happen?" Halwyr says uncertainly. "Who is he, why'd he kill the Professor? He's about to pay for that."
Olvius growls and strains against the magic holding him. Being held in such witchcraft was not all that unpleasant, but seeing that traitor elf again and not being able to move was beyond frustrating.
If Viola can talk. "Betrayer working for World Devourer? Bad series of life choices..." after a moment of straining to shake her head, "Never work for an entity of destruction. Fair warning."
If she could move, even a beat, she'd try something simple, that might just do something... but probably would not.
Tap-tap-tap-tap... over and over. The sound of drums. Just in case this man's mind, this 'Betrayer' needed to be freed...
Dambreth fights with all of his strength against the effect of the spell. gaia...please help us...give us the strength to resist this desecration of the natural order...
Dambreth tries to use his will to counteract the stoppage of time. If he gains the ability to act at all, he will make the possibly ultimate blood sacrifice to Gaia by ramming his ceremonial dagger into his own chest hopefully opening a conduit for Gaia's power to free his comrades from the effect of the spell...
.