Having a total of just under an hour to do so, Yho Yho scans each pool individually.
Each pool contains one of these items, four in total. They vary in size and shape slightly meaning they weren't cast or manufactured per se, but they have definitely been magically manipulated pretty heavily.
Ardwellyn will move to the first pool, dive down, and retrieve the object then return it to the surface.
The object remains invisible, but is cool and hard to the touch, like a large, invisible pearl.
With the thing gone the pool suddenly takes on a much less perfect, but somehow more natural appearance. Dirt is disturbed in the water where Ardwellyn touched it and bits of pollen and grass dot the surface.
Combat group, how do you proceed?
Alpha rushes in late after freezing the pool and runs through the trolls, attempting to make his way to the closest giant.
Having to recharge after using it at the pools, he lunges at the horde.
Caraid is going to go and bother the hill giants. Flicker in, bite a hill giant, then bite again and flicker away...
Mar takes advantage of his height advantage and dives towards one of the giants on the edge of the horde, angling his path of attack to keep all of the zombie-giants in front of him and reduce the chances that the whole horde will attack him.
Using his long neck and horn, Mar leans into his attack while keeping more than a few feet between him and his target.
Seeing that it will work, Ardwellyn will retrieve the objects from the remaining pools.
In the battle, Alpha is the only one making much headway. Others arrive at the Giants, and quickly make themselves targets by missing their initial strike!
The giant zombies slowly turn their attention toward the attackers...
One of the giants gets incredibly lucky. Mar attempts to dodge it's strike, but ends up dodging Into the hit, somehow! The blow catches him on the head and for a moment all he can see it stars! (Mar takes 21 bludgeoning)
Caraid also gets attacked and would have been hit, but he blinks out of the way at the last second!
At the pools, Ardwellyn is able to resist some kind of chill that comes over him every time he touches the stones. They sit in his hand and emanate an existentially threating kind of aura.
Frist tosses some more leaves into the water pools to make sure they are safe again.
"If this is the answer we seek, I should head towards the battle. They may need my fire! Make sure and send those stones to...our leaders. They will want to know about this sabotage!"
The headache gone now with the safety of the eggs, Frist feels the thrum of battle calling in his heart finally.
Alpha dodges and watches at the giants hurl massive boulders at his allies, one taking a direct hit, the other getting out of the way in the nick of time.
As hee approaches his target, he lets out a howl of ice that blasts from his might onto the incoming horde.
He pounces on an enemy and puts his full force and weight into the attack.
Turning to the leader of the Owlbears, Ardwellyn will say "I believe these were what was causing a problem with your pools. Give them a little while, and they should be completely cleansed."
Ardwellyn will wrap them in cloth then make his way to the citadel to see about their origin.
Merge takes possession of the stones and sends youall off to the battle!
Frist will spend all three of his natural daily 'speed' enhancements to push his flying to even beyond its normal maximum capacity in order to get in range of the battle as soon as possible.
Caraid does what he can, biting at giant ankles and trying to hamper them as best he can.
Blinking back tears and ignoring the pain, Mar soldiers on, resigning himself to battling this giant to its end. With a scream, he unleashed am offensive flurry, making sure to maneuver just enough to prevent himself from being overwhelmed.
The group at the front assaults one of the Giants. Alpha and Mar do a decent job of wounding one, but it survives their assault mainly due to it's undead nature.
This time Alpha takes a hit.
The group battles back and forth with the giant, clearly unable to make significant headway until the others arrive. Frist arrives first, followed by the rest a few minutes later.
Frist immediately dive-bombs the nearest/largest non-troll enemy group with his fireball breath!
*Fireball Breath (Su)
A flame drake can, as a standard action, breathe a ball of flame that explodes like a fireball. This attack has a range of 180 feet and deals 5d6 points of fire damage (DC 16 Reflex half) to all creatures within a 20-foot-radius spread. Once a flame drake has used its fireball breath, it cannot do so again for 1d6 rounds. The save DC is Constitution-based.
He will then circle in order to do a fly-by attack next round on the biggest engaged enemy our group is defending/attacking with.
Ardwellyn doesn't even pause as he arrives at the battle, but instead assesses the biggest threat at glance. He draws his blade, and then there is an almost audible pop as he disappears and then reappears next to what he considers to be the biggest threat.
Lacking area attacks Caraid continues his attempts to hamstring the giants.
Yho Yho shows up and sees a festering giant in need of some of Sarenrae's divine TLC,
♫"Don't go attacking living trolls, stick to the energy I unleash to destroy you!"♫
Envigorated by the arrival of their team's reinforcements, Mar grits his teeth and soldiers on, continuing to press the attack while Yho Yho's catchy tune resonates in his head.
With a combination of fire and fury the group tears into the giants and manages to kill two in a short span of time. The trolls rally, but they're pretty battered. Hordes of undead still pour through the breached Sky Shell and you glimpse some truly scary things headed your way.
And still no dragon in sight. Something is wrong...
Landing near the group Frist hisses and shouts at them.
"Why aren't they sealing the breach! Where are they!"
He then wacks at one of the nearest unliving enemies with his long tail rather than his teeth so he can keep talking as he fights.
Ardwellyn will move towards the breach, intending to hold the line. As he strides forward he begins crushing the lesser undead before him, like a one-man wrecking machine. Anything that gets within his reach is destroyed.
Yho Yho surveys the situation, trying to get a grasp on what and/or why there is something amiss.
Yho notices that there are no dragons in sight, as previously stated. And that there is a FREAKING MONSTER headed straight for the wall! It's about thirty feet tall and twenty wide and flanked by two skeletal fliers that could only be up in the sky via magic as they had literally not a pound of flesh on them! You can't get a good visual on the beast right now. It's partly obscured by the Shell itself, but it's moving fast!
Alpha continues fighting while taking in what his allies are saying.
"Someone go and see where the dragons are! Fly or teleport or something! We are a force to hold them off, not defeat them! The Sanctuary could be lost if that rift stays open!"
He lashes out again at surrounding enemies.
"GO! SOMEONE GO NOW!"
And with that he grabs a foe and pulls them to the ground.
Announcing the incoming fiend, Yho Yho simultaneously tries to contact Merge via the embedded stone,
♫"By the decay of all things dead and dumb...Something Wicked This Way Comes!"♫
Caraid hears the desperation in Alpha's voice and acts. Leaping into the air he zooms through the sky, away from the fight before vanishing into a cloud and reappearing well over a quarter of a mile away, heading for the dragon caves.
"Lungatfiliax!" He roars, his voice echoing impressively, when combined with his height above the earth. "The Shell falls, we need help!"
Ardwellyn continues stalking towards the rift, his greatsword a culling blade. He has begun to sing to himself as he works in his native language.
Hold while you can, until Caraid returns with help! Mar yells, darting in and out of the battle as best he can.
With his speed, he tries to help half a dozen or more individual trolls in their fights, not committing himself too deeply: the trolls will regenerate, but Mar won't. Instead, he tries to tip the balance in each of their favor, helping them get just long enough of a respite regrow some flesh and get back in the fight.
Caraid practically disappears as the others Hold the Line. It is a desperate fight, and each of you contributes in your own way. Some of you are practical undead blenders, while others spread their influence more widely.
The trolls, for their part, hold the line remarkably well. But this is a war of attrition, and the Cabal has a couple continents worth of bodies to throw at this problem.
The flier escort clears the wall first, and trolls aren't exactly known as airal combatants. Frist has company...
On the ground, the monstrosity arrives at the Shell, but is too tall to get in! It looks to the left, then to the right, then starts beating on the Sky Shell with claws the size of greatswords! Magical sparks rain down from above and singe hair and flesh alike!
Caraid: you spot a dragon a couple miles away, but it's flying fast and high, and away from you...
Gritting his dagger-like teeth, Frist curses in Draconic and flings himself into the air...
Frist opens with his standard fire-ball breath, but at point blank range in order to catch both targets in his effect!
*Fireball Breath (Su)
A flame drake can, as a standard action, breathe a ball of flame that explodes like a fireball. This attack has a range of 180 feet and deals 5d6 points of fire damage (DC 16 Reflex half) to all creatures within a 20-foot-radius spread. Once a flame drake has used its fireball breath, it cannot do so again for 1d6 rounds. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Ardwellyn teleports into melee range with the massive undead abomination, standing just inside where the shell will be when it closes. Appearing, he roars a defiant challenge to the undead creature.
Caraid dashes after the dragon, teleporting again and again to close the gap.
"We need help!" He roars as he closes with the dragon. "The shield is falling! We need support - they have a giant which is defeating the trolls!"
Frist engages the undead fliers at point blank range! The sky briefly lights up as he attempts to burn the fliers, but they come through just a little blackened. The monsters respond with shrieks of unearthly noise that bunches up in your head and makes it hard to form any coherent thought, much less fight!
Caraid darts off after the dragon. As luck would have it, it's a younger Gold with brilliant scales and good hearing. He catches up almost a minute later and the dragon turns on his wing as if gravity were a mere suggestion. He turns straight back toward you... no, directly AT YOU! You try to evade, but the dragon catches you, then you feel a familiar *PoP* as you teleport!
Ardwellyn teleports right up to the thing's shins and challenges the undead to a fight.
The thing responds by kicking the Hound, hard. Ardwellyn is lifted clean off his feat and flung a good ten feet through the air!
The beast, it's momentary distraction dealt with, continues beating on the Shell!
Fristicore Emberclaw, suddenly nonsensical, begins falling helplessly from the sky like a red-skinned angel crashing from the heavens.
Yho Yho ignites his feathers , studies the monstrosity's anatomy for a moment for that perfect place at its upper back most things aren't able to reach that annoying itch. and teleports there, right next to its dead flesh-searing it with fiery divine fury.
Ardwellyn rises and again teleports into melee with the massive creature, refusing to let it focus on the shell.
Seeing Frist fall to the ground, Mar moves to cover his position, addressing his own wounds along the way, and taking up a defensive stance with his superior reach to prevent anyone or anything from attacking his downed teammate.
[ooc]Technically, to avoid being shunted, Yho Yho dimension doors the space adjacent, and , being tiny must move into the space of the creature. So, {standard} dimension door (unless he used it to get to the battle in the first place (in which I will have to retcon the whole turn), {no action} continuous Shroud of Flame 1d6 1/2fire//1/2 divine on the creature's turn unless they make a DC 14 REFLEX.
Alpha sees his flying ally fall to the ground and dashes over to help defend him. He snarls and bites and tears at all in his way, using his mass to forge a path through the army of the dead.
[ooc ]- DC 17, 15ft cone. [/ooc]
As Alpha and Mar race to defend the stunned Frist the other two do their best to make themselves super pesky. Yho in particular becomes something an order of magnitude beyond that itch you just can't scratch and Ard keeps all up in the beast's very dangerous looking grill.
It rakes Ardwellyn hard with it's sword-like talons in an effort to get him to go away and tries to get at Yho without success.