"Then I guess we'll have to lay our souls on the line here." Zirren declared while raising his hand toward the forge spurned. Reaching within himself he found the coldness of the curse that had been imprinted upon himself by the crazed Fey.
Oh, my mother's fat arse! Nathaniel shouts at the dwarven figure
You will yield this world and go back to the hell that spawned you before I let you lay a hand on that boy! By the will of my lady and the holy righteousness that see grants upon me her servant, you will perish this day!
Ruhk decides to forego the declarations of his comrades, instead he merely shows the enemy his favourite rude gesture.
He then moves in to stand protectively over the boy.
Belladonna's heart skips a beat when the smoky dwarven figure declares the boy, but is just as quickly relived when she sees him. She glares at the figure with murderous eyes as the others insult and declare holy righteousness.
Then all of a sudden, she gets an idea.
Caine didn't make a habit of talking to monsters. Still, he was glad that Boote had come around. There was a time for negotiation and a time for kicking ass. This was the latter.
Round 1
The forge spurned watches you all passively for just a moment and it realizes there will be no parley. Suddenly the undead spews out a noxious cloud of stinging soot, ash, and burning embers in a cone that engulfs the entire party! You all find yourselves hacking and blinking your eyes against the embers that seek to blind you all! The cloud seems to linger in the air...
Round 1
FS: ??/??
Bella: 19/21
Greyson: 23/25
Nat: 23/25
Ruhk: 25/27
Zilka: 22/24
Zirren: 20/22
I was going to say that Belladonna didn't see that coming, but she did. Belladonna watched in slow-motion a huge cloud of soot gets launched right into her eyeballs, singeing off her eyebrows and lashes. She screams in pain as she holds her face. "MY EYES!" She yells.
Belladonna drops her dagger and starts frantically scraping the soot off her face with her hands.
"Gaagh!"
Zirren recoiled as his eyesight was clouded from him within the embers. He rubbed quickly at his badly singed, watering eyes to no avail. The young Half-Elf had always found his eyesight to be sharper than most, it had allowed him to see things others could not. But now he could not see his foe at all.
He had been reaching for the coldness that had been building inside of him. A quiet, dispassionate sort of magic that he could control, but one that required the same cool mindset to command. Instead, he found only a rising tide of anger and something else. Something that he logically understood should not be within his grasp, yet it was there all the same. He reached for it.
From within his mind came an infernal howl, new Knowledge of creatures filled his thought and his clouded eyes colored over with a blue light. Even if he couldn't see it, they still could.
Raising a hand, he called forth a vaguely humanoid being of putrid, roiling flesh.
"Prazytz zmy kah! Sdih zmy aly tajyryv suzm cmiulw!"
Caine shut his eyes in time. Hearing Zilka's warning, he focused on the chain.
Being suddenly unable to see, and feeling hot cinders sting, Ruhk begins to dig for a waterskin, not worried about himself but about the kid at his feet.
Round 1
The massive cloud of smoldering embers and ash fills the tunnels, Belladonna, Zirren, and Ruhk all find themselves blinded as several of the embers get into their eyes! Bella drops her daggers as she screams out in pain, but she is able to push herself enough to maintain a mediocum of defense. Ruhk digs out his waterskin and utilizes that wall to move himself up towards the young boy, but before he can quite reach his destination, he bumps into some sort of obstacle! Zirren pushes passed the pain of the embers and summons up a creature straight from the pits of the Hells that smashes into the forge spurned twice! Nathaniel rushes through the cloud as allows the divine fury of his patron surge into his weapon as the halberd cuts deep into the undead flesh of the forge spurned and it recoils with an awful, raspy snarl! Zilka moves up further into the cloud and attempts to yank out the spurned's feet with her whip, but she cannot quite make out the right angle. Caine then rushes up and with the hammer held high in a powerful two-handed grip, but just as he reaches the anvil a different section of chain snaps out and quickly wraps around your torso, rending your stomach and burning terribly! In retaliation, Caine smashes the hammer down hard upon the chain that is still upon the anvil. There is a resounding echo of metal upon metal, followed by an awful shriek that could only be described as evil that splits the air! A section of the chain break and a bright flash of orange that fills the small room!
Round 2
The forge spurned turns its hideous gaze upon Caine and similar shriek let off from the chain echos from its open maw as the chains lash out towards Caine once more just as the gash cut open by Nathaniel appear to begin closing by themselves.... "Foolish human! Your soul shall take their place!" The chain shoots out once again and catches Caine brutally across the neck in a spray of blood that hisses and spits as it meets the flaming chain! Caine drops to the ground.
Round 2
FS: 10 DMG /??
- Chain: 10 DMG/??
Bella: 19/21
Greyson: -9/25; Unconscious, Dying
Nat: 23/25
Ruhk: 25/27
Zilka: 22/24
Zirren: 20/22
Lemure: 5/13
Belladonna shakes her head vigorously like a wet dog and manages to get rid of the worst of the soot. Upon assessing the situation, Belladonna goes cold when she sees Caine's bloody body lying limp to the side.
"CAINE!!" She yells. Without a second thought, she races towards him and throws herself down to try to staunch the bleeding.
Continuing it's assault, the Lemure hacked at the forge spurned unabated by its new wounds.
Meanwhile Zirren continued to desperately try and clear his sight.
Managing to clear the burning embers enough to see through watery eyes, he blinked several times, just in time to see Bella charge forward.
He moved forward with a raised hand and unleashed an icy blast.
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Round 2
FS: 10 DMG /??
- Chain: 10 DMG/??
Bella: 19/21
Greyson: 5/25
Nat: 9/25
Ruhk: 25/27
Zilka: 22/24
Zirren: 20/22
Lemure: 5/13
Standing his ground, despite the pain, Nathaniel strikes again, without the forward momentum of his charge, but now more conscious of defending himself
Round 2 actions:
Belladonna levels her crossbow at the forgespurned and fires.
To hit: Nat 20 +7 -4
Round 3 actions:
Belladonna reloads and fires again.
Caine watched the lashing chain whip past his throat, thanking Aroden for his good luck, but then balked as he saw it hit Art instead. Angrily, he raised his hammer and brought it down again. His wounds knitted as he struck.
Still unable to see, Ruhk remains where he is, not wanting to risk getting in the way of someone.
The Lemure continued its single-minded assault unabated.
Zirren clicked his tongue in frustration as his concentration was thrown off and his ice attack slammed into the wall behind the Forge Spurned.
Round 2 Recap
The forged spurned lets out a maniacal cackle as it dodges around the fleshy arms of the summoned demon, but backs right into the path of Zirren's icy blasts which seem to cause the undead to slow just long enough for Nathaniel's halberd to carve deep into its torso! It turns towards Art with a look of fury as Belladonna's crossbow bolt slams into the side of its head with a disturbing crunch! The undead staggers from the numerous wounds it took in rapid succession; however, it has enough fight to see Caine's attempt to hammer the soul chain and just barely pulls it from the anvil as the silver head slams into the metal with an ear-splitting ring! "No! You don't know what you're doing!" The soul chain twitches and looks as if it is ready to strike Caine again when Zilka's whip snakes around the forge spurned's ankles, yanking him to the ground!
Round 3
From the ground the forge spurned screams in fury as it strikes towards the lemure with its hammer just as the soul chain whips around towards Nathaniel's neck; however, Artegal easy bats away the chain with his polearm and the lemure snarls in a disturbed laugh at the pitiful attempt of the hammer swing. "No! I cannot fail!" The undead dwarf scrambles to get back on its feet, but Nathaniel is too fast and with an overhead, downward stab the spear point of his halberd slams into the chest of the forge spurned and pins it to the ground. The forge spurned tries to crawl away as the fires around its body quickly begin to dwindle and the smoke wafts away from its beard. "Master... I have not failed you yet..." With that, the fires go dark and the twitching chains drop to the ground limply.
Combat is over!
- Chain: 10 DMG/??
Bella: 19/21
Greyson: 9/25
Nat: 9/25
Ruhk: 25/27
Zilka: 22/24
Zirren: 20/22
Lemure: 5/13
Belladonna reloads, then picks up her dagger. She looks around for any other possible threats before relaxing.
"Ruhk go get the kid! I have healing potions for the wounded."
Ruhk finally managed to blink his eyes free, and noted to his dismay that the battle was already over.
Not my proudest moment admittedly...
"On it Bella, getting 'im now."
Zirren stopped and smiled as the Forge Spurned fell.
"Hidz!" Zirren commanded the Lemure which obediently stopped.
He moved over toward the anvil as the others grabbed Jurin, and he examined the fallen body of the Forge Spurned and the blackened hammer near it.
"This creature was indeed worried about it's chain being destroyed when Caine was attacking it, like Zilka said. That, paired with it's conviction of not being done despite its apparent defeat leaves us but one course of action."
Picking up the heavy hammer, he brought it over to Caine.
"Here Caine. It's fitting you should use this to break the remainder of the chain."
Nathaniel gazed at the fallen monster wrapped in chains only for a moment and then moved his eyes up to the devilish creature standing nearby.
I know not where you came from or what purpose a thing like you serves, but my nose tells me you are not of this world, and you do not look like any kind of angel to me. Prepare to be sent back to the hell that you came from.
Caine picked up the offered hammer and resolutely slammed down on the evil chain until it was nothing but broken links and slag.
"Zirren," Caine said while he worked. "No more demons. Not ever. We can talk about why later. Get rid of it."
"It won't hurt you Art, it's a devil given shape under my magic." Zirren said to the Halfling as he squared off to fight against the conjured fiend.
As Caine smashed the chain, admonishing him, Zirren sighed. "Well technically Art is right. That's a devil, it comes from the first layer of the nine hells, Avernus. Which follows an entirely different set of rules from the demons of the Abyss..." he paused realizing that he was going to get nowhere at this time.
"Lyijy, las!"
"Though I suppose at that level they are not really more distinguishable from each other other than aesthetics."
"It is a devil summoned forth from the hell for a limited time and acting under my orders. Such is the nature of summoning conjuration spells.
I admit, it was a surprise when the Lemure came. Until today I was sure I wasn't even able to summon something that powerful."
As Ruhk blinks away the ash from his eyes, he finds the young Jurin close to death and breathing extremely shallow in the extremely hot, smoky confines of the forge. He does not look like he will survive if kept within this area...
Meanwhile as the other debate the ethics of summoning devils to aide them in battles, Caine takes the forge spurned's hammer in his hands and the handle is uncomfortable hot in his grip, almost to the point where his body tells him to drop it; however, he resists that urge. Instead he walks over to the body of the undead and proceeds to slam down the weapon onto the chain several times... Suddenly there is an explosion of an angrily red energy as the links of the chain sunder beneath his assault! There is a wail of ecstasy that seems to escape from the broken chain as wisps of silvery-white tendrils begin to drift out of the link and dissipate. At the same moment a horrifying scream of pure agony erupts from the lips of the undead dwarf that lasts for several seconds, causing many of you to cover your ears as it echos throughout the tunnel. Just as suddenly as the scream started, it stops and with a roaring whoosh the nearby forge goes inert...
You all stand there looking at each other in the uncanny silence before Caine hears a soft sigh of relief as the warhammer in his hand seems to shudder. As you look down at the weapon you can see a bluish glow emanating from the blue gem set into the head of the weapon and a deep, breathy yet masculine voice echos softly in the cave. "...thank you."
Belladonna blinks a couple times and then shakes her head in the hopes of getting rid of the echoes of that scream. Without another word, she heads over to Ruhk and the kid. "How's he doing? He looks awful."
Belladonna looks him over to determine what might help him most. Healing Potions? Fresh air? A cold environment? Would a mask help?
While she works, she casually asks Mr. Artegal (or anyone who might listen) "We still have the weapon-armband-person to find, right?"
"I was not expecting that." Caine said, looking with surprise at the talking hammer. He looked around to make sure everyone else had heard it also.
He looked like he was about to ask the hammer some questions, but shook his head to clear it, and focused on the child they'd saved.
"Let's get him out of this smoke and back with the other kids. I'll look him over then." he gently picked up the child. "It's gonna be alright, pal. You're safe now."
"Bella, can you scout ahead and make sure our way is clear, I don't want to run into another fight while we've got him. Rukn, grab my shoulder until your eyes clear. If you still can't see by the time we're somewhere safe I'll take a look at them."
"Zilka, Zirren, give this place a once over for anything useful, and then catch up with us."
"Art, you're with me." Caine didn't wait for a reply. He disappeared back into the smoke with the child.
After the ringing in his ears abated somewhat, Zirren nodded to Caine's commanding words and followed his instructions.
Nathaniel followed Caine silently, staying close.
"Bloody ash, rather a pathetic way of being taken out of a fight. Ah well, it's over now, the kid is safe...and we still got one more to go haven't we?"
Grabbing Caine's shoulder, Ruhk falls in line.
"You know, I don't hold with corporal punishment, but if any of the kids have decided to wander off while we saved their mate,
I'll seriously consider changing my mind about spanking."
The group makes it clear of the smoke and ash, which appears to be diminishing without the burning forge. Once clear of the miasma, Belladonna looks closer at Jurin and determines it is likely he went unconscious due to heat exhaustion and appears to be borderline verging on heat stroke. A cool environment, fresh air, and fluids would be required to keep him alive. Once clear of the acrid smoke, Jurin body reacts with a deep breath that causes him to begin coughing violently, but with each cough it seems to be clearing out large hunks of black, sticky phlegm. Once the coughing fit subsides, it is clear that his breathing in beginning to normalize a bit, but his body is still burning hot and will need to be cooled rapidly...
Meanwhile Zirren casts detect magic and in addition to the normal magical items the group carries, the young arcanist spots a moderately powerful aura of conjuration magic around the warhammer... Which for the moment had remained quiet until Caine set down the boy. "Oh my, he does not look well. Poor lad, can you all save him?" The warhammer inquires with what sounds to be genuine concern.
*EDIT*
Zirren also notices two conjuration auras in the far corner. Together, he and Zilka uncovered two potions of moderate healing hidden beneath forge-slag, the vials coated in a heavy layer of soot.