With a glance Meredian flings a candelabra at the remaining wizard.
Illia- will full attack the queen as long as there is a flying charge route, switching to Primal Warrior stance and using Primal Fury to gain pounce.
If Illia- can't charge, she's simply move adjacent and use Seraph's Wrath.
just reread it, seems it targets foes rather than hitting everyone.
Sir John raises his sword, exclaiming but one word.
"DIE!"
Droplets of inky blackness explode from Blackblood, spinning into needles as they fly to embed themselves in enemy flesh.
Dris channels the power of the dark moon, and assumes a new fighting stance, allowing him to easily pierce the queen's defenses. [ooc]Swift action to switch to Formless Dance, gaining the benefits of See Invisibility and Blur.
He then lets loose a series of attacks against the ruler of this doomed city.
Attack 1, going to use Murderous Intent to reroll
Reroll for
Attack 2 if that hits
Attack 3 doubt that hits
Drisquar and Illia- together are able to flank the Queen, Dris hitting with his first attack and Illia- landing sneak attacks with her first two.
Of the three spearmen left, Sir John's Circle of Razor Feathers tears two apart and significantly injures the third.
Meredian hits the remaining wizard hard, but the wizard just barely remains standing.
If Anaxian could sigh, he would have. He flew to where his allies had found her and let loose a burst of silvery dust that outlined her form.
The Belier, still acting on it's last orders, flew over the Queen and lashed out with it's horrible tail-maw.
The Gugs continued their assault against the drow.
One of Anaxian's Gugs finishes off the heavily-injured swordsman standing near Sir John; the other, searching for the "most injured living target," moves to take down the heavily-injured wizard. The Belier bites the Queen for nasty damage, but its tongue fails to grab her now-slippery armor.
The controlled Gug turns on the others, clawing out to hit one Gug as it moves with an attack of opportunity, then chase that same skeleton as it flees, hitting for a paltry 14 damage after DR is applied.
At the start of the enemies' turns, there is one healthy wizard, one cowering wizard, three standing swordsmen (one guarding each wizard, and one standing near the Queen).
However, the sudden onslaught has gone on long enough that your enemies are starting to get oriented.
The one remaining wizard, with none of the party near his corner, bends down to touch the floor; the stonework tears itself apart and forms a stone box around the Queen, riddled with small arrow slits.
The swordsman still standing near the Queen (though now separated by the wall), finding himself surprisingly still alive, steps backwards and tosses the rod to one of the swordsmen in the corner—who catches it, steps forward, and hits the Queen with a second Reach-Metamagic Invisibility spell. As she now "carries" the glitterdust, it turns invisible.
The other swordsman greases the wall under one of the Gugs, trying to cause it to fall off the wall. (Reflex DC 13)
On the Queen's turn, bleeding heavily and a bit winded, she shouts a few words of Abyssal, setting off a Word of Chaos spell.
Finally, the Queen attempts another Quick Channel to wrest control of the Belier skeleton and succeeds, losing her control on the Gug in the process.
Will save vs deaf
Will save vs banish
Meridian feels the waves of energy wash over her, but stands firm.
Sir John strides into the room, looking for a target. He then engages said target.
Blackblood, Sir John's sword, is +2 in case that matters for anything. odd that Herolab wouldnt export that.
Enraging Strike: Will DC 16
The defensive nature of the Iron Tortoise teaches the disciple to protect his allies, and to do so, he must focus the attentions of his foes on him. Make a melee attack, and if successful, the strike inflicts an additional 10 points of damage. The aggravating pain of this wound can cause a foe to react violently against the initiator, forcing it to make a Will save (DC 12 + initiation modifier) or it must attack him at its next available action. This attack must be a melee attack if the target his anything in hand that could be used as a weapon or an improvised weapon (this includes bows wielded as clubs, and natural weapons), otherwise he may choose a different attack method, but he must attack the initiator. Additionally, he gains a -2 penalty to attack the initiator of this strike due to the anger incited by the initiator.
Fear Aura DC 15, then
DC 15 fort or paralyzed
Meredian is deaf and stunned, but still here.
With the difficult terrain he has to pass through first, Sir John is unable to charge the wizard in the corner, and instead moves to attack the stone box, damaging one side of it.
Anaxian was mildly amused at the stone box, but he had other issues to worry about first.
Lamarchand, glitterdust. he spoke to his familiar.
An explosion of silver dust burst out from the arrow slits.
Anaxian himself tapped one of the gems on his forearms, which were actually the heads of wands sheathed inside his arms, and reclaimed control of the Belier.
Destroy the box. he commanded his horde.
The Gugs lashed out in a storm of claws.
The Belier lashed out with tongues and maw from above.
With a monstrous racket, Anaxian's terrfying skeletons shred through the stone, assaulting the Queen from every side in a shower of rock chips and blood. When the dust settles, the room is covered in splashes of rock, blood, and bone, with the few remaining Drow cut to shreds as they try to flee.
The party sends a message to Delyliath, and screams and clashes can be heard in the distance.
The rubble around the room returned to its original size as small sand and pebbles. With a wave of his hand Anaxian retakes control of the Gug he'd briefly lost.
He commanded his minions to gather the corpses together. In short order he had them stripped of their equipment. He scanned them for auras and identified what he could with a cursory glance.
The queen he tore strips of flesh from, focusing his magics to draw forth hidden knowledge.
The rest, he dissolved their flesh to dust, rendering them to lightweight skeletons. He made a simple runic carving in each skull to remind him of what they had originally been in life and then had his minions toss the bones into his portable hole.
As he worked, he spoke.
We were unprepared and arrogant in our approach to this attack. We were lucky our enemy was not stronger. I believe we have become too used to easy success. When our banished allies are able to return, I believe a conversation about coordination would be beneficial.
Anaxian's treasure maps, unfortunately, all reveal the treasury below you.
The fight for the city goes relatively smoothly. Delyliath gains the allegience of the city's best necromancers, and they offer to take control of Anaxian's wild undead in the sewers, using them to enforce the new city order.
The city of Lavosha has been abandoned by its demonic patron for centuries; having a new demon in charge of the city holds a certain poetic appeal to many of the citizens, for whom the old Queen was not popular. Andirifkhu's symbol is torn down from flagpoles and churches, replaced by the scythe and flame of Adrexa.
Overall, the sheer quantity of gold in the treasury dwarfs anything you could carry, and Delilyath is rather opposed to the idea of looting the city wholesale, instead sending you off with ~100,000 gp in coins and looted items (anything with CL 8 or less is probably available easily) and promises of future tribute.
It takes some quantity of time, but (possibly with Drisquar Wind Walking the party's non-teleporters), the party eventually arrives at home base.
The Crimson Stranger looks different than before; there is both exhaustion and fierceness in her eyes, and if you stare at her long enough, she seems to acquire a slight translucence.
With the help of Sir John, she has a story to tell you.
Once, when the whispering way was young, a powerful but inexperienced lich named Adrexa dared to openly mock Pharasma, attacking her greatest church and transforming it into a gruesome carnival of undeath. For this, the lich was cursed with eternal life—her armies of undead crumbled to dust around her, as did any undead she approached, the victims of an unending wave of mild positive energy. Alone in her eternity, she gradually grew introspective, and sought students—powerful spellcasters who were or could become liches of their own, with strong enough wills to resist the deadly energy she now exuded.
These were no ordinary necromancers; their leader had become a creature of both life and death, bringing a strange sort of balance to the dark magics she preached. No mindless zombies or skeletons could stand in her presence, as only the truly intelligent survived, replacing hordes of undead with constructs and bewitched thralls. In the depths of the world, out of sight, they built a city together—and a haven—a testament to ultimate magical knowledge, where spellcasters of every creed could study in peace, unhindered by a society that did not accept their experiments or morality. The strongest of her students achieved power in undeath, forming an eternal council of equals; and together, they found a way to warp the magic of their first teacher’s curse, granting exceptional life and health to the living wizards that populated their city and imbuing magic into its constructs.
But in those days, Aroden still stalked the world, hunting down liches and necromancers alike for crimes against his stern decrees. When volunteers from the city of Escarra rode to the aid of the fallen wizard-king Tar-Baphon, sharing secrets of the Whispering Way with his disciples and tomb, it awoke the young god’s wrath, and a brazen Aroden strode with his heralds through the forgotten places underground, shattering the city’s spires and imprisoning its leader in a place beyond places.
While the "Council of Colors" had no official leader, the Red Queen had been the mightiest of them all, her power (ironically boosted by Pharasma’s curse) approaching that of a lesser Demon Lord. With their inspiration gone, the priests of Escarra found themselves cut off from divine magic, and the city began to divide into factions, bickering over whether and how to rebuild. Each of the ancient liches went their separate ways, some fleeing while others incurred the wrath of powerful Darklands factions that would only return their vengeance on the city as a whole. And so, gradually, the whole experiment faded to madness and ruin.
But now, with Aroden gone, the cage he created weakens and cracks. The Red Queen walks the world again, though only a projection of her former self. Where Aroden once reigned, now Asmodeus holds sway, and he has proven acceptably neutral towards her ambitions. Already, she has been able to recover parts of Escarra’s library, using its ancient magic and remaining treasures to call agents to her. Over time, perhaps, the city will be rebuilt, once again a haven for the powerful and free-spirited, where they can study and create and kill in peace, far from prying eyes and the annoyances of inferior creatures.
You’ve proven yourselves, together, a capable fighting force—and with one of her most powerful former students returned to consciousness, she feels safe enough to have told this story. So she’s also ready to tell you the full mission she has in store, if you are willing; to seek out and recover the lost, scattered, and forgotten treasures of Escarra, the remains of its ancient undead leaders, and the secret knowledge and power it once held, that there may once again be a powerful and morality-free neutral force in the Darklands. What’s in it for you, of course, is more power, more wealth, and someday a city of darkness that you can help rule as demigods.
Lady Adrexa, the Red Queen, was once the source of Escarra’s power, both literal and metaphorical; in addition to providing a font of divine power for its clerics, she led its research teams and filled its libraries, uncovering new and revolutionary magic over centuries of study. She is willing to talk little of the prison Aroden built for her, but insists that breaching it would require far more powerful and numerous spell-casters than are currently in her service. Unfortunately, gathering her old students has proven difficult, as most of the city’s powerful residents learned millennia ago to keep themselves constantly protected from divination spells.
Sir John, the Black Knight, was Escarra’s tactician and champion, leading its armies on the field of the battle as its greatest warrior and general. He was also the Queen’s first student, and the last to leave the city of Escarra. When the city was, at the very last, betrayed and sacked by a Drow alliance, the Black Knight alone was left standing in the ruins and swore revenge, raising an army of mindless undead from the corpses around him. Two Drow cities fell to his wrath, burned into nothing and added to his armies, but the third, Lavosha, was protected by its Demon Lord patron, and Sir John was trapped in a prison far below the city. This defeat, at least, broke many of his protection spells, and thus the returned Crimson Stranger was able to detect him with her magic, hoping that he would remember what happened to the others. While he has returned only at a fraction of his former power, Escarra was always led by the fastest learners, and she hopes that sending him back into battle will restore him to the fighter he once was.
Brother Kharnas, the Gray Bishop, was Escarra’s connection to the divine. Unlike many of the city’s necromancers, his magic healed the living and dead alike; he taught the city balance, counseling the other liches to find a greater purpose instead of evil for its own sake. Kharnas maintained some relations on the Outer Planes, and was the city’s expert in calling and binding outsiders, enthralling some of Escarra’s greatest angelic and demonic guards and soldiers. After the Red Queen fell, he was the first to leave the city, swearing vengeance on Aroden and his church; taking his bound army, he left for the surface, vowing to conquer the city of Absalom and either gain the Starstone’s power or destroy it. While Absalom stands, the Crimson Stranger can feel some remnant of Kharnas’s power still active on the Material plane, and may be able to revive him if it is returned.
Master Jiator, the Violet Architect, was the vision behind Escarra’s towers and walls, expanding the city through his magic and will. Formerly an architect to the last of the Runelords, Jiator was the only member of the Council older than the Queen herself. His magic, powered by song and rune, was as much craftsmanship as study, but with his vision and power fortresses and public works were raised up overnight from the sturdy bedrock of Sekamina. Jiator was the second to leave Escarra, taking with him a large portion of the city’s wealth and objects of art. On a great barge of stone and elephant parts, he planned to sail across the ocean, founding his own empire on Golarion’s primitive Western continent. It appears that this never occurred, but like Kharnas, some remnant of Jiator appears to remain on the Material plane; and the Crimson Stranger would like to see this returned, as well as the vast treasury he took with him.
Mother Diamanda, the Blue Gardener, brought the magic of nature to Escarra, creating the fungi and creatures that fed its living residents without need for sunlight. Her works were combinations of existing creatures or completely new ones, dispersed throughout the city in menageries and gardens, as she provided the city with food, water, and wood, connecting it to the ecosystem of the surrounding caves. After the other members of the Council began to disperse, she found less and less in common with the city, frequently traveling to the surface world, and eventually departing for good through the Shadow Caverns to join the Druids of the Uskwood. In her wake, some of her creations left or escaped from the city as well, contributing over millennia to the strange biodiversity of the Darklands. The Crimson Stranger cannot feel any remnant of her presence, but would like to know what became of the Blue Gardener, and whether she may have allied with any of the city’s extraplanar enemies.
Lord Zeshar, the Golden Smith, oversaw production of Escarra’s items of permanent enchantment. Through ritual and study, he discovered ways to create and modify artifacts now long forgotten, and wove magic into the city’s buildings so durable that some of its remnants still stand. With the other Council members gone, he sought new alliances across the Darklands, and set off to the Duergar Empire of Hagegraf to discuss trade—and never returned. The Crimson Stranger cannot sense any remnant of his power, but the Duergar are an extremely meticulous race, and it seems more likely that they have found a way to find and restrain his phylactery than find and destroy it.
And finally Great Hiesnar, the Green Dragon, who was once Adrexa’s familiar before becoming a powerful dracolich in his own right. The Green Dragon was the craftiest member of the Council, serving as its spymaster until, at the very end, he sold out the city and the passwords to its defenses to an alliance of Drow cities. As Escarra was overrun, Hiesnar enslaved much of its remaining populace, carrying off the city’s remaining treasures through a portal to the Plane of Shadow. He is crafty, and ancient, and has likely continued growing his power over the last few millennia, as evinced by the agents he seems to have sent after you.
"Elephants AND treasure? That one sounds awesome!"
Illia- is currently holding a tray of parfaits. For some reason.
She's got two with strawberry and vanilla creams with granola and small bits of kiwi, all in all a "light and fluffy" mix. Another two have cherry as the primary fruit, with banana cream complements, a thicker medley with sour green apple rinds. There are also two with a heavier raspberry mix, with sugared crumbly crusts and chocolate cream.
"why wouldn't Jiator just establish himself underwater? It's not like breathing is a problem and it's the perfect defense against most of the things that would do him harm. "
"I'd recommend we go looking for Jiator first, as the architect will have his work cut out for him when he returns to our fold. His work will take longer than that of the others, and others will be more willing to return if there is something to return to"
Anaxian had been busy.
After the fight against the Drow queen he had visited the menagerie and wordlessly pumped rays of Enervation into the poor, caged dragon until it died.
Then he handed Illia his Portable Hole, climbed inside with the pony sized dragon corpse, and did not come out for days.
When he emerged he was bigger. He looked quite different, but it was still, unmistakably, him. Something about the deep violet glow in the empty sockets of the perfectly preserved, extremely lifelike corpse was really all that was needed for his allies to recognize his presence.
He had changed in more than just form. His mind-voice had an echo. Now his dry mental rasp was overlayed with a rich baritone growl just behind it. He referred to himself as "we" now, and to those who had known him longest, his demeanor seemed prouder and far less spiteful.
When he heard the Stranger's tale he was quiet, but clearly attentive. He nodded as the others spoke.
"We concur. Our company has proven itself quite capable at artifact retrieval. Additional allies will be welcome against some of the more potent foes on our list."
meredian stares wordlessly at Anaxian for a moment as he emerges. Her eyes judge harshly. She them quirks a smile,
"creepy. I like it. "
"You're going to need a bigger cat. Next it'll be dragon-tiger." Illia- offered the parfait tray.
"Which is funny because in some cultures there's a really fun yin-yang dualism going on between tigers and dragons although the dragons are more like looong flowy WOOOSH serpents than built up winged RAAAWR lizards though they've still got hands they're just not as beefy but yeah it's a kinda thing where they'll have paintings of tigers and dragons chasing each other in circles or, no, I didn't mean those plurals, it's always one tiger and one dragon, never a group, now then, where was I?"
The ever-staring purple flames in the back of Anaxian's eye sockets... blinked.
Dris flits around Anaxian, admiring his friend's larger, scarier form. "Impressive my friend, most impressive."
As to the story and plan of attack "Hmm, I must agree with our buddy in black. Getting the architect back in business is the best opening move."
"If Jiator is still around, you can ask him." The Stranger shrugs. "I was not present when he made the decision, but perhaps our Purple Lich wanted to build a kingdom that could be seen, not hidden."
"It may, indeed, be wise to search him out first. While I cannot scry on Jiator, I've tracked down several skilled Shamans in the Shackles who could track a downed ship, given a description and the right incentive. At the very least, finding Jiator's wreck would give information on what may have happened to him."
"Oh, I had another question, I was wondering if changing the shape of this artifact blade would anger itchy-kik-kik.... er... Achey-ke-ke... Um... Big preying mantis demigod. Parfait?" Illia- asks Crimson, offering the tray.
"Achaekek"
"The Mantis Blade is a holy weapon of the Mantis God." The Stranger Shrugs. "I don't know how it found its way to a Drow city, but it's likely been there for centuries. If you change its shape, it ceases to function as a symbol—a cleric of Achaekek would no longer be able to use it in the casting of spells, and a trained Mantis Assassin might not be able to use its special powers. Other than that, I see no issue."
I live to kill... whispers a small, raspy voice in Illia-'s right ear, the pitch of soft gravel rubbing against itself. If you cannot comprehend my use, pass me off to another, or reforge me into something deadlier.
And the Red Queen waves her hand, and the sword falls silent. "The tunnels North of here will lead you to Eastern Garund. Carried by Drisquar, you could reach the Shackles in a single day and night. Alternately, I think I've set the right runes to teleport you to any major city in Golarion, though you might have to spend a bit of time studying maps to find the path back."
"Ohh! Look what I found!"
Meridian says as a necklace flies from the loot pile into her hand. She inspects it then holds it out to Anaxian.
"I've seen one of these before. It's the air bubble thing, right? I can use this if we're going underwater. "
"And the shackles is where we will begin our search for Jiator?" Sir John asks.
Anaxian took a contemplative look at the bauble Meridian had produced, a craggy, ash-scaled brow raising, smoke rising from the faint cherry glow behind the scales.
Indeed. Most useful for our next endeavor.
Given your propensity for astral projection, we do not see how you would require a bubble of air. We assume your actual physical location will not also be submerged.
Anaxian took a contemplative look at the bauble Meridian had produced, a craggy, ash-scaled brow raising, smoke rising from the faint cherry glow behind the scales.
Indeed. Most useful for our next endeavor.
Given your propensity for astral projection, we do not see how you would require a bubble of air. We assume your actual physical location will not also be submerged.
"My body is real enough. It bleeds, breathes, dies, etc. However, it's just a temporary inconvenience "
Looks a at Anaxian thoughtfully, "much like you in that way actually. Minus the undead-ness of course. "
meridian clicks the necklace on.