defy danger Dex
Fizzy does his best impersonation of a wriggling fish and wiggles like crazy, finding himself slipping free using the slick juices of the pie.
Bikke holds his axe high, wincing at the pain but smiling at the successful retrieval.
"Come on now, not the funny one." The Winter Herald sweeps the crumbling ground around her with the living bough of mistletoe as she passes her staff from one hand to the other behind her back. A snowball forms at the end of the staff, its weight bending the staff as it grows to a meter in diameter. The ground caves in the circular wake of the ball, snapping off a rough, circular chunk that she rides toward Fizzy, slinging the ball of frost at the hand choking the gnome.
The spell strikes home, but Nonna is sent hurtling down a hallway on an ice-polished sled.
"Sorry, dearies. My balrok sense is tingling. Your quest is really important... and vital, in fact, to my own interests, but I have some rabbits to talk to or something down this hall, and it's important in a way that only makes sense in the extended-universe poetry collection."
MWG attempts to power thru the oncoming attack, while using said strength to try and yank the nunchucks out of the golem's grasp :
Bikke charges the golem, axe held high. However, unexpectedly, he does not swing his axe to damage the golem. Instead, he jumps on it, grappling the machine. He tests his strength against the golem's...
But it could have gone better: Bikke the pirate isn't used to tactical maneuvers. He had planned on forcing the golem to shoot at another golem that was strangling Fizzwiddle Glockenfleffor XXII. Now Bikke just looks like an idiot that didn't swing his weapon.
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As the Herald begins to work her magic, the head of the red being snaps to the snowball, and then her staff. Without any concern for the creature that just spawned from the orb, Shvibzik glides down to the hall on her icy sled, and slings her magically formed snowball at Fizzwiddle. And as Elena starts shouting behind the Herald, that’s where things start to go wrong.
Nonna finds both that a sled with no brakes is hard to control, and that the being from the orb is gliding through the air after her. Its pays no attention to any obstacles as they speed past the custodian, eye focused intently on her staff.
It was far more subtle a moment ago, but the creature chasing you is positively radiating magic right now. You’re staying ahead right now, but this thing seems unwilling to stop, and staying on this thing comes with other problems. Everyone else is already distant, and only getting further. If you wanted to stay close to the others, you could jump off the sled and let it rush off into the distance, but the being from the orb would be on you before long. If you risk it and keep going, you’ll eventually crash if you don’t do anything, but you’ll get a lead on that thing, and get yourself a lot closer to Lincoln and that hedge-mage accompanying him.
As the gnome writhes in the grasp of the golem holding him by the throat, Fizzwiddle and his attacker are enveloped in white. The harsh magic of winter lashes out, and searing icy pain surges around his neck.
When you can see again, you find yourself further down the hall and able to move, but still the air is reluctant to come to your lungs. Looking to your attacker, you see there is no longer anything from halfway down its forearm, pieces of frosted of metal revealing themselves in the fading snow. A quick tap at your neck finds that whatever metal hasn’t broken away has frozen to your neck, and you have to rapidly pull your hand away to stop your finger from freezing to the metal too. You can breathe, but not very well, and doing a lot of talking or heavy activity will prove far more difficult till you get it off.
The golem that was choking you is quickly adjusting to the loss of its hand, but it seems a bit more awkward for having to use its sword one-handed. It twirls its sword before running toward you for another attack.
Bikke has his own problems to deal with. As he grapples with the crossbow wielding golem, it finds it has had enough of the dwarf on its back and barrels into a nearby wall. The blow jars the dwarf from the golem’s body, and his stomach heaves a little as he hits the ground.
You barely have a moment to get your bearings before the golem hits you with the crossbow stock. When you’ve recovered, it’s already got the crossbow trained on you point-blank, aimed right at your face, and it’s about to open fire.
The blow to Terestria’s head cause her to fall back on instinct, and she begins to rear back with ursine strength. She drives the golem back, its sword stuck in her arm and the fur around the wound soaked with blood.
Your arm has gone limp, and barely responds. You can still use it, but you won’t be able to do a lot with it. A potion or some other source of concentrated magical healing could bring it back to normal, but otherwise it doesn’t feel like it’ll heal up for a while otherwise.
The dented golem just keeps going, uncaring of your plight. It jumps onto your body, trying to get its sword back out from your arm.
Moves With Grace finds himself the most fortunate of everyone. As the Herald speeds past with a red blur in hot pursuit, his arm comes up and stops the sloppy downward swing of the golem’s arm short, and with a great pull he yanks his nunchucks free from the other hand of the golem.
As it turns out, this isn’t too hard for you. The golem may be strong, but it’s having trouble bringing that to bear, and whenever it tries to use its damaged arm its movements become a lot sloppier. Determining that it’s going to have little luck continuing like this, it moves to go help the golem trying to get its sword back from bear-woman’s arm. It’s left you an opening in its rush to provide assistance, but you could just as easily get the drop on the golem attacking the gnome or the one pointing a crossbow at the dwarf.
What do you do?
[dice=The sound effect is "Bafh"]2d6[/dice]
"Harr, was tha' suppos'ta hurt-" Bikke taunts when he finds that his armor protected him against the blunt trauma. He stops because he comes face-to-face with the image of Death for a split second when he stares at the crossbow aimed at his face. No armor is going to protect him from a point-blank head shot. (Except maybe a helmet, and pirates don't wear helmets, as far as Bikke is aware. It's a habit that might get him killed later in life.)
So he ducks as quickly as he can.
With the reflexes of a warrior, Bikke ducks and dodges the bolt.
While the golem is busy reloading, Bikke makes a counter-attack by swinging his axe, with the fury of a man who just avoided a terrible fate.
With great fury comes great miscalculations.
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The crone is too busy digging through her robe for a potion to see the monster appear. She twists off the top the slightly luminescent blue beverage accompanied by its signature hiss of released pressure, and she downs the fizzing liquid in a few quick gulps, the frost still accumulating on the bottle to trace the ancient scripture worked into the glass. Wiping the ice from her lips with a sleeve, she finally spots the terror.
"Oh, hey look I made a snoow-man! I'll bet Lincoln wants to see... He says such awful things about you dear, and Winter's here. It's time you both should meet!" Nonna uses carefully calculated staff positioning like a rudder and pole to steer the sled through the dangers she senses by casting her outstretched hand through the veil of sight. She leans down on the staff, rocking arrhythmically to the deliberate motions of steering.
"Lincoln, dear, come meet my Snoow-man!" Turning back at last to give the thing a good look, she ducks and squints. "At least I think that that's a snow-maan..." With this last maneuver, The Herald flies on a trajectory that threads the needle between the escaping terrorists in a low-profile stance. With any luck, she'll torpedo through and leave them to deal with the incoming terror.
"I guess not..."
STR
Fizzy reaches for the first solid thing he can find, finding only a door jam he closes his eyes slams the arm against it shattering it, though he feels skin tearing and some shrapnel sprays his armor and exposed skin.
Then he looks past the golem, his eyes widening and points, as if there is something huge about to hit it.
defy danger CHA
Seeing that the others are doing well on their own, MWG decides to take advantage of the opening the golem that had been attacking him left him :
But misses.
New text-Fizzy pulls a hanky from his sleeve-one does not travel without a hanky after all- and he holds that as he pulls at the hand with all his light screaming a bit as it tears away.
MWG targets one of its legs with his whirling nunchucks, figuring that if it can't walk, and we stay away from it, it can't harm us.
I don't know if you missed it, but you still have 1d8 damage to take I believe.
Terestria fights to regain control of her animal instincts, and realises she's not going to overpower the golem with a busted arm. As the pain rips up her body, her heavy bear coat shrugs off the damage
"Grarrrr, this is just unBEARABLE" she roars, then looks around briefly to check if anyone noticed her clever wordplay.
Instead, she summons her druidic magic to take on a more appropriate form... a forest beetle. Tiny, dense, heavily armoured, and winged.
Suggested moves:
* Crawl into a safe nook
* Bite with surprising force
Hurling out groups of books to push off of as in order to make the corners, the Herald rides her sled toward Lincoln and Nora through halls with veins of magic threaded into the walls, red ‘snowman’ in pursuit. As she comes around the corner, she sees a set of open doors ahead. Through them, she can see a circular room, her target and his guardian operating a panel covered with glyphs within. Nora looks back, and while that hood of hers must have some obscurement enchantment on it for her face to be perpetually hidden in the dark, you can hear the smugness in her voice as she points and shouts ”F!** YOU HAG, WE’RE OUT OF HERE!”
As you close in, the two turn into blue light before your eyes. They form into beams and rise upward into the ceiling before vanishing completely.
And then you crash into the panel.
Your momentum sends you tumbling over the top of it, and while you’re fine and the panel seems to be unharmed by the rock, the fact that the red creature seems have given up on you and is now latched onto the panel is probably not going to help with your chase. As it starts to leech power, its form starts to change into something more defined, and the warping of its body is beginning to calm down.
Meanwhile, above in the burning library, Yizid reaches the hole in the ground, navigating the devastation with a minimum of burns. Seeing the mess left behind them, you have to wonder what you got yourself into.
The small human woman you were told about is at the edge of a large hole in the ground, muttering away about a red blob and an old woman as she gathers up pieces of a broken device. And in the hall the hole leads to, you see...chaos.
You’re not being paid enough for this. Definitely not enough.
After a growl and an expectant look, waiting for acknowledgement that never came, Terestria shifts straight from bear to beetle, and takes off as the golem that was on her and the sword it was trying to collect both hit the ground. Somewhere in her mind, there’s a part that’s bugged by the fact her wordplay wasn’t noticed.
With a quick and brutal strike, Moves With Grace severs the golem’s leg from its body as it runs away, and it falls over from the momentum and sudden limb loss. It struggles to get up, but with its ruined limbs and its weapon stuck in the hand of its damaged arm, it’s helpless. Its head glows blue, and the golem that was on Terestria responds in kind, grabbing its sword and running toward the monk that ruined its comrade.
Fizzwiddle tears the gauntlet off his neck, and apart from being an agonising experience, it makes a terrible and obvious mess of his neck, which is now covered with torn and bloody flesh. He’s quick to recover and point past the golem, and it follows his finger...to where Yizid is now standing. Its head glows blue briefly before it refocuses and takes off toward Bikke, leaving Fizzwiddle alone for now.
As Bikke starts to swing, the golem’s head tracks him, but its body fails to. There’s no way it can protect itself, but as its head glows blue and another golem comes to cover it, it would appear it doesn’t have to. Its comrade barges into Bikke’s side, taking a slash across the dwarf’s body as he stumbles back. The sword golem’s head glows blue, followed by the crossbow golem’s head doing the same as it takes aim on Yizid.
And thus, Yizid finds a crossbow bolt headed in his direction.
You only just arrived and already your teammates are getting you shot. This...is going to be a long day.
What do you do?
MWG takes the initiative, running toward the new golem, meeting it halfway to take a swing at its leg before it can take a swing at him :
Having managed to reach the current floor without being burned in the library, Yizid enters the room, only to find himself surrounded by golems, as well as the people he assumed he was to work with. A golem immediately greets him with a crossbow bolt.
Yizid skillfully ducks out of the way before the projectile reaches him. "Blasphemous bolt!" he says, as an indirect way of introducing himself to Lord Strom's other hires.
Drawing his own bow and quiver, he manages to shoot a single arrow, but ineffectively.
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Fizzy looks at his finger...Holy smoke! How did I summon that!
He only looks at Yizid for a moment before he fumbles out his potion and downs it, feeling his wounds close and scab over nicely.
Pew Phew! he points at the back of the golem's head and a sweaty hanky of great size flies at it
it hits sloppily into the back of the head of the creature
"You wave tha' cutlass like a baker's toddler!" Bikke taunts the machine, and heads back to the fight, this time switching to the sword-wielding golem as his enemy. He deflects the incoming attacks with the head of his axe, and then swings for a counter-attack.
After a quiet and private fit of frustration, The Herald sighs and pats the drinking monster. "There there, a growing body needs its nutrients."
The dusts off her robe, steps outside the transport room and prepares her best 'disappointed parent speech'.
Herald: When the you pat the creature, you find its body feels like some sort of thick, warm liquid, and your hand tingles a little. It briefly gets restless when you make contact, but when you fail to do anything else to it, it settles down again. You leave an icy blue print on it that slowly fades into it.
The form of the red thing becomes increasingly stable as the energy running through the panel is absorbed. The veins on the walls have dimmed somewhat from its feeding, but it seems...happy? Maybe? Seemingly magical red blobs aren’t the most expressive things.
------------------------------
Back with the rest of the group, things are coming to a close. Terestria flies through the air, unnoticed by the remaining golems. One of the remaining golems takes a swing at Moves With Grace, which is deftly evaded and met with another leg removing strike. As it hops forward, trying to use its sword to prevent itself falling like the last golem the monk faced, he steps around it and places another devastating strike into its back, caving in the back of the golem. It twitches a little, and fails to keep going.
Bikke’s own attacker keeps coming, but its more awkward strikes are batted aside by the buccaneer. It goes in for an overhead swing - and Bikke steps into the swing, takes it on the shoulder, and cleaves right through it, his swing sending sparks through the air as his axe bisects both the golem it was fighting, and the one with the crossbow that it was protecting. The upper bodies of the golems fall to the ground, their legs collapsing soon after.
All that’s left is a one-legged, mutilated golem stuck on the floor.
It’s not even a fight.
The remains of the golems lie in the hallway. Elena’s still up in the library by the hole in the floor, trying to gather up the pieces of her power pack...probably to rebuild it into something even more crazy and dangerous. The Herald is still ahead of you, and you probably shouldn’t leave her waiting too long.
What do you do?
Right, I had forgotten that I had started with knives instead of a bow. I'll go with having unknowingly lost it, as well as the throwing knives, somewhere on the way up. Though anyone Yizid spots carrying a bow would naturally be a suspect for having stolen it.
Yizid fumbles around his bag for the bow he was certain he had brought with him, but doesn't manage to find it anywhere. When he realizes his throwing knives are missing as well. "Heavens, I lost my bow and arrows. Who would dare pickpocket a poor old priest?" he asks indignantly to anyone who cares to listen.
He vents out his anger by stabbing the crippled golem before standing up to appraise the adjacent room.
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As the last of the golems *finally* drops, MWG turns in a circle to include everyone, and shouts "Friends, may I have your attention! The man named Lincoln you are pursuing and intend to kill claims that he is here to ensure the Procession of Spring so that Winter will end, to prevent massive suffering! He claims that one named Strom has lied to you, and paid you well, to motivate you to want to kill him! Please, I beg you, do not continue with this course of action! Let us instead help him with his goals, in order to prevent further suffering!"
~~~~~~Bikke and Fizzy~~~~~~
As Bikke and the golem trade blows, a rain of droplets sprays out from Fizzy, hammering into the back of the golem and patterning it with dents, before the hanky comes in and blows off a chunk of the golem's head, faint blue light and machinery visible in the gap the gnome created. The damaged golem begins to back off and slash more wildly, trying to get some space, but Bikke steps into the mechanical frenzy of blows, taking a cut along the side and shearing through the damaged body of the golem. The dwarf advances on the crossbow golem and it tries to batter him away, but the crossbow is knocked from its hands, and the armour is turned into a mess of scrap not even the most desperate pirate would try to wear.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Looking up at the library...if there were any traps that were supposed to go off in there, they probably would have triggered long ago. It's hard to imagine that something wouldn't have been triggered if it was present, with the destroyed state of the room.
You don't get the feeling there were any traps there, though. It looks like one of the major rooms, and it would have been used a fair amount by the place's prior inhabitants - trapping it would only create an unnecessary nuisance.
Well that was terrible. Not at all like it reads in the stories. Fizzy wanders over to Bikke
Heya! Where should we go?
While she is waiting, something occurs to the crone, and she picks a loose piece of tile off the floor and drops it, watching its descent closely.
The dwarf catches his breath, the fight finally finished. "This yer first real fight? Chaotic, ain't it. Me love it," he chats with Fizzwiddle. "We oughta find tha grannie next."
He gives the monk a surprised look, as if he had just now noticed his presence.
"An' who mite ye be, arr?"
"But Strom promised me tha' Bikke gets me own ship 'n' crew if tha guy we're 'ere to kill gets it. I dinnae realley care tha' much 'bout tha Sprin' or tha Wint-arr, but me cares 'bout me pirate legacy an' future, arr. Strom can lie to me if he wants: Bikke's more o' a tha-less-ye-know kinda guy. How will this Lincoln lubber make me a pirate again, huh? Savvy?"
Bikke gives a mean smile to Moves With Grace, which contrasts the good-natured and eager glint in his eyes.
"Eit'er way, if'n yer not lookin' to fight, then I throw a guesser our party's off to find tha grannie. Tha' old salt mite be savvy o' what to do. Ye comin'?"
He motions Fizzy and Terestria to follow after him, and heads to where he thinks the venerable Herald of Winter has wandered off to.
Fizzy scampers behind Bikke,
It was the scariest, most amazing thing ever! But really nothing like the books say. I might have to write my own account it I keep this up!
"Really? Will ye write about Bikke, too? Gots ye heartly stories 'bout me strength and dashin' courage, 'n' how me plunders buccaneer booty and woos me buxom beauties in ever' port?"
Fizzy, Bikke, and Terestria (plus any who follow them) approach to find the Herald picking up and dropping a tile. The red thing that was following her earlier is latched onto a panel of some sort in a circular room. There's been light running through the walls as you approached, but it's been fading.
The tile falls normally, and impacts with the ground. You don't seem to be going down yet. The red thing seems like it's almost done feeding.