Ian glances around for Soliel. Not seeing her, he moves through the crowd towards a particular hooded stranger, trying not to alert him.
The devil bows with a wicked grin to Serelina, its maw and claws bloodied. "Of course master." Then it vanishes with a soft pop.
"...to long have they been lax on dealing with crime in this city. Maybe now if they take a harder stance against it it will be safe to walk the streets again without worrying about pick pockets trying to steal my meager coins." The speaker is an older woman in ragged clothing.
As you get closer to the hooded figure they turn away from the crowd that came to watch the execution.
The crowds begin to disperse, many with somber looks in their eyes.
Ian is easy to pick out in the crowd, and Soliel follows him, catching up to him quickly.
The cloaked figure enters a narrow side street and moves down it at a brisk walk without the crowds to slow him. The figure turns another corner.
Taking a peek around the corner Ian sees the figure 15' away speaking quietly with another figure - a human with dark eyes whose face is scarred and misshapen. The skin of his neck is burned, and looks almost scaly. The rest of his body is covered in heavy clothing, including gloves on his hand.
The cloaked figure speaks, "The masters have summoned a devil to perform their execution. A bold and arrogant move on their part."
|
Soliel kept herself "cloaked", she always found it hard to explain the ability gifted to her by her Infernal ancestry, and easily kept up with Ian and their quarry. Looking around the corner she spotted the man with the scarred face, and immediately began preparations. She smoothly drew her hand crossbow and began assessing the scarred man for vulnerabilities.
Ian leans back against the corner, not wanting to get spotted and just listens. He clenches his jaw, knowing if he tried to close on them they would vanish. He'll follow if they start to leave, trying to tail them.
Damn it. Need Tomlin right about now--where's our bloody tiefling?
Seeing a few members of the group begin a decided chase, though he cannot see what they chase, Edmond steps forth. As he leaves the platform where the execution took place and walks down the stairs, a small flicker of varicolored light leaves his palm to streak beneath the platform, and a figure emerges.
A serpent, standing upright as a man, and in fact it has arms as a man and a human-like, if dull, intelligence in its gaze. Its scales are a like the sparks of a bonfire coalescing into the strange, elapine shape. Each scale looks like a tiny flame, white-hot in the center and cooling to a burning orange at the edge. The creature carries weapons as a man would, a dark sickle presently occupies one hand. It moves forward to Edmond's side and moves with him, a silent guardian towering over the halfling.
The strange duo move in the direction of the party's quarry, careful to remain behind Ian so as not to spoil the group's attempt at surveillance.
"Well you know what to do then", the cloaked figure says. The disfigured msn merely shrugs then turns, beginning to walk away. The man in the robe turns around to come back the way he came.
Ian will ready a good baseball swing to the face for when the man comes back his way, knowing he wouldn't have much chance chasing down the disfigured man with a big head start and him in full plate.
And Ian still assumes he's alone since he can't see any of the others.
Soliel, in the broad light of day, slips down the alleyway after the disfigured man.
As the cloaked figure nears Ian's position, something tips him off.
Edmond takes what a passerby might have mistaken as a wand and puts it to his lips. The sound coming forth makes it clear that it is in fact a flute.
A floating, candle-bright tendril of light issues forth from the flute to wrap around his slithering guardian until his solid form ceases to be and there is nothing but light in the shape of his body.
The guardian then leans forward to charge, but rather than taking a step, his body bursts into a kaleidoscope of light. Varicolored rays shot through the tiniest gap in the alley to reform opposite Ian, flanking the man. The original creature, likewise clad in light, stood firm behind Edmond, guarding from an attack from the rear. They each held wicked sickles in hand.
I figure i'd copy these into this post just since it is the first time he has done them.
Glow
As a standard action, you may cause an object or creature in Medium range to glow for 1 minute per caster level, outlining it with light as a candle, which may be of any color you wish. This requires a touch attack or ranged touch attack. The object or creature becomes outlined with light, giving it a -20 penalty on Stealth checks and negating all bonuses usually bestowed by invisibility, blink effects, darkness, or similar effects.
Flicker (light)
You may create bright light that partially assimilates a glowing creature, allowing them to momentarily shed their physical form. A creature under this effect can choose to move through solid objects as long as there are no factors that block normal sight (such as concealment from darkness or fog). This allows them to pass through transparent barriers like glass or through impossibly small gaps (such as a keyhole).
Diffuse Body
Your Flicker talent becomes more nuanced and refined. Rather than allowing someone to simply turn into a single body of light, you give them the ability to split themselves into multiple reflections. When a creature under the effects of your Flicker takes a move action, they may choose to move in two separate directions and end their move in two different locations. When they take their next action or the next time they are attacked or targeted at one of these locations, whichever is sooner, they must decide which of these positions they are actually in.
The man lets out a gasp of pain as Ian's weapon strikes him, despite the clang of metal armor beneath the cloak.
"Run" the cloaked figure shouts over his shoulder.
Then stretches forth one palm, revealing a tattoo there, which begins to glow as the figure chants a few words. In a commanding voice he states "FLEE"
Greater Command
|
|
The sound of Ian's sword crashing into the robed man became Soliel's signal to strike. Suddenly seeming to materialize out of nowhere, the tiefling took a steadily aimed shot at the disfigured man's scarred neck. Just after letting the shot fly, she immediately darted forward, vanishing again from most eyes.
"You've annoyed me, good job." Edmond says as he watches his snake flee. He takes his trusty flute and plays another song.
"I call that the song of burning." Edmond says with a smile, as light erupts from the flute in white-hot tendrils that twist about the area in myriad ways so as to dissuade escape. One such tendril lances through the man.
Edmond is using the base light skill, spending a Spell Point to have it go 1 min per CL without concentration. His CL is currently 11, 8 for levels, 1 for a trait, and +2 from his staff. Weird Radiance below allows me to create 35 squares of bright light. Searing Light makes creatures in those squares take CL (11) fire damage. Searing Brilliance adds CL (11) untyped damage. Undead, oozes, and creatures vulnerable to light take double these values. So if he is an undead without fire resistance, he would take 44 total damage.
The area lights up within 55ft of each of these squares by 1 step higher than usual, but only the 35 contiguous bright squares do the damage. There's no reflex save for half, but you can move through the squares without taking damage for each one. It's just damage at the beginning of your turn.
Since we aren't doing a map, this will be somewhat hard. However, I would like to have the following in order of preference:
1. the scarred man's square bright so he takes damage on his turn.
2. a contiguous (but not necessarily straight) line from a square adjacent to Edmond to the scarred man's square, leaving a place for Soleil to engage in melee as well as Ian, if Ian did not run due to the man's spell. Ideally this line would go diagonally up so that ground-based people can engage.
3. contiguous squares to cut off the scarred man from fleeing as best he can. For this purpose, simply surrounding him in the burning light wouldn't work, since he could move through those squares and be free barring the beginning of his round.
4. blocking any doors or alleyway exits, including behind us.
5. surrounding Edmond to dissuade the man from entering melee with Edmond.
As free actions i can change the shape of the light area, so i will, in general, be doing so to keep the above ideas in play to harass/control/damage the man.
Weird Radiance (nimbus)
When causing a glow effect to shed normal light or bright light, you may shape this light into strange shapes as a free action. It illuminates an area that you form of a number of 5 ft. cubes, with each cube placed adjacent to the target of the glow or another cube. For normal light you may place up to 20 5 ft. cubes, and with bright light you may place up to 30, plus another for each 2 caster levels you possess. The light 20 ft. away from any square of this area (or 30 ft. + 5 ft. per 2 caster levels away if shedding bright light) is increased by one step to a maximum of normal. With the Intensity Control talent you may add an additional 5 ft. cube per 5 ft. of radius you would add to your area, and increase or decrease the radius in which light is increased by 10 ft. You may change the light’s area or return it to its normal area as a free action, but for the purpose of (light) talents you may only affect one area per round.
Searing Light (light)
You may create bright light that burns creatures in its area. All creatures in the area suffer 1 point of fire damage per caster level per round they are within this area of bright light. Undead, oozes, and creatures harmed by daylight take 2 points of fire damage per caster level.
Searing Brilliance (feat)
Benefit: Your Searing Light now deals 1 point of untyped damage per caster level per round in addition to its fire damage. Undead, oozes, and creatures harmed by daylight take 2 additional points of untyped damage per caster level per round instead
Ian follows the magic order and flees.
The disfigured man lets out a howl of pain, blood gushing out of a large wound in his armpit.
There is a swirl of magic and the man vanishes, replaced instantly by a horrific looking being, which gives out a unearthly bellow.
A humanoid figure whose skin is entirely black and composed of what seems like rubbery scarred patches and chitinous armored growths. Vestigial features cover it, mandibles and teeth, feathers and small mouths, blinking crystalline eyes, fingers and tentacles. Its face is composed of a large main mouth, taking up most of the face, and it is composed of smaller mouths inside with sharp teeth pointed outwards. Large eyes surround it and the middle has a curve that almost seems like a nose.
It visibly has two arms and two legs, but they are warped and seem to be composed of many smaller limbs intertwined, finally ending with large claws. Small spikes trail its spine and what looks like wings covered in a mishmash of feathers, scales and teeth protrude from its back.
A large pair of wings lift from its back, though it does not take flight.
It shakes its head, then rushes towards Soliel, somehow sensing her location, jaws snap over empty air, and large drops of saliva fall to the ground where they sizzle and bubble.
The creature casts no shadow.
"It's okay, I've got something more pleasant for you then." the cleric says with a mocking smile as he calls upon the powers of his god again. Edmond feels a sudden pain throughout his body, and the sound of creaking and cracking in his bones.
Boneshatter
2.
4.
5.
6.
|
|
Soliel remained emotionless and composed as the ambush took several negative turns: her quarry survived the assassination, then disappears, then is replaced by some wretched, shadowless creature who can sense her presence. To add to the complication, the ex-guardsman and one of the snake-creatures succumbed to magic, leaving the halfling alone to fight the robed man. Idly, she imaged the rage and frustration she would have felt in a similar circumstance years ago. But that was before her Friends training. Now it was another woman's frustration. Not hers.
Timing the bizarre creature's swing, Soliel somersaulted underneath its outstretched claw and bolted towards the robed cleric. All the while she maintained her cloaked status. Holding her hand crossbow in her left hand, she drew one of her short swords with her right, and closed in behind the cleric to strike a blow.
+
EDIT: @GM, does it look like the creature "replacing" the disfigured man actually IS the disfigured man? i.e. is the creature already wounded?
Ian will run straight back in to attack the cleric, if possible.
If I put "+1" next to a letter, i mean at that square but one square up from the ground (leaving a safe 5ft square beneath if I do not also put that letter by itself).
There is bright light that emanates from these squares as well, so it would be hard for people to tell where one begins or ends, but for damage purposes only these squares matter. but the whole area is really really bright.
9 E, F
10 E, F
11 D, E, F
12 E, F
13 F, G, H, F+1, G+1, H+1, I, J
14 F, G
15 F, G, F+1, G+1
16 G
17 F, G
18 F+1, G
19 F+1, G
20 F+1, G
21 E, F+1
22 E, F+1
23 E, F, F+1
24 E, F, G, E+1, F+1, G+1
This will allow a safe tunnel between Soleil and the creature to the right so that they can melee without hurting Soleil.
Regarding Question #2 of my last post, may my snake act now, and if so in what capacity?
Ian, looking for a way back in past Edmonds burning light moves northward, while Soliel heads north west. Both spot the man at another cross section.
Snake man moves up to block the disfigured freak but cannot attack it as it's a double move. His duplicate will stay in the alleyway he is coming from in case the disfigured man does any area attacks.
Edmond will move some of the squares from the left side of the map over to the right side to fill in the gaps amd extend the reach to the right as a free action. As a standard he will throw a blast of fire at the creature.
Edmonds blast of fire strikes the otherworldly creature and it lets out a bellow of rage and pain before rushing towards the halfling.
The priest, nearly runs straight into Soliel, but lets out a curse and turns to the side at the last minute.
The man turns east to the next intersection, then casts a spell, healing some of his wounds.
Cure Serious Wounds
Ian keeps running in pursuit.