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"We're all but children? I think you had better check our paperwork, my shadowy friend," says Xanderghul, moving into position. He steps up behind Ary, with the shadow demon on the other side. Then he casts his final offensive spell - a whip of crackling energy manifests in his hands. With a "hnrrg!" he whips it at Eustoryiax's neck.
Xanderghul's whip wraps around the shadow demon's neck but then fizzles out of existence, his ancient body now resistant to all forms of magic. With a screech, the shadow demon flies upwards in a great arch until he is beyond the heroes' reach, then back downwards into Isilme's body...
Isilme is up!
Being prepared for this happening and experiencing it directly were quite different things, Isilme thought as she watched the demon begin to pour into her. The feeling was cold and empty, in many ways similar to how she'd felt inside the blade, but this time she *was* the blade. The feeling made her skin crawl, but she maintained her composure so as not to frighten Sana. Her wounds and the sheer intensity of his will was enough to keep her from driving him off, but then she'd prepared for precisely this reason. Hubris had caused her to lose herself once, she wouldn't be caught by it this time.
As the last tendrils of the demon's form meld with her body, an audible crack fills the room, followed by a flash of red light, and the tinkling of shards of the last gem in her ring raining down to the floor. With that, the sensations stopped entirely.
"You are a thousand years too young to take the likes of me over, demon," she says calmly. "I shall provide no quarter for the likes of you, but I will happily serve as your mausoleum." She does her best to hide the fact that the magic of the ring was holding him at bay, instead hoping to convince the demon he had fallen into a trap. "Ary, prepare the circle now, while he's bound!"
Though normally a perceptive creature, Eustoyriax is too preocupied by his own wounds to catch Isilme's bluff. It had likely been several centuries since he had encountered anyone capable of harming his true form to any extent, after all. You can feel his confusion as he is suddenly repelled from accessing your mind, followed by deep, fiery rage, and then, finally, a small twinge of fear. He immediately tries to cover this up with a show of bravado.
'Ah. So... not an elf. An aasimar.... or... no? Something else entirely. ...You're not too unlike me, are you?' He chuckles, a deep, rumbling sound inside of your mind. 'No matter. If I cannot have your bodies, I will just have to rip you all apart, yes?'
The Sword of Valor (presumably) safe and inside of your body, you swim upwards through the stone to the surface. You aren't completely sure exactly how far down you are, or where in the castle you are under, but you know that once you reach the ground above it shouldn't be hard to find Irabeth and the rest of the army. And so you swim, and swim, and swim.
Ayavah, Hinagiku, Ary, Valaria, Xanderghul, Anevia and Isilme are up!
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Oh. That was quite different. The banner was no ordinary banner. Perhaps it had been made by human hands, once, and perhaps it had been a magical object crafted as such... but also, perhaps, it had ascended along with Iomedae's legend. Ary feels a twinge of envy as Ehren takes up the heraldry and disappears into the rooftop, but doesn't allow it to take root. She could touch the pretty piece of cloth later.
Her distraction nearly prevents her from catching the shadow demon's latest victim actually becoming prey to his assault.
Ary stumbles for a moment as Isilme fails to push the creature out. At first, she doesn't understand, then she has doubts that Isilme was still in control... but ultimately determines two things... first, that it doesn't matter which is in control at the moment, and second, that Eustoriax would not be likely to taunt himself so mercilessly for diving into the bard.
Equally merciless is the intonation of "I will never abandon a companion" as she brings Radiance, swirling with white-hot motes once more, cleaving through her ally's form, blade arcing straight through the body, Isilme barely feeling an uncomfortable pinch at the movement as the blade simple arcs through the Invidiak inside.
Ayavah looks slightly baffled as to what's going on, but decides that keeping her distance from Isilme is by far best for her own safety. She hides behind Hinagiku and touches the monk's back. "Here. Hopefully this helps." A hazy outline appears around Daisy, making her more difficult to strike.
Val huffs at her inability to really do much against incorporeal enemies and her further lack of ability to do much about the shadow demon attempting to jump into Isilme's body. Though the sense of relief at realizing that Isilme seems to have outmaneuvered him does make her feel a bit better. The tiefling flinches a bit as Ary's supernatural blade passes clean through the bard's body. "Well, I think this is working. I think I have to book here..." She stops for a moment to collect herself and consider their options.
Hinagiku, Xanderghul, and Isilme are up!
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Hinagiku stares blankly, utterly dumbfunded, as Isilme becomes Eustoryax host, yet speaks with her own voice. And then, things simply evolve beyond understanding as Ary strikes through the woman. Oblivious to Ayavah's help, she shakes her head, Hinagiku before focusin on what she has understood. Eustoryax had gone from one of her companions to the other, it was going to be her turn. And she was ready. She had been possessed, and she had long meditated on how to battle this kind of evil.
"You will see that we are ready for you oni." she says, stepping forward to Isilme's side.
While Hinagiku steels herself, Ary arcs Radiance into Isilme, the blade miraculously passing through her and leaving her unharmed.
You can feel Eustoyriax's surprise and gasp of pain as Ary cuts into him while he is still inside you. He feels anxious, realizing that his assumed security wasn't true at all.
Round 8!
Xanderghul and Isilme are up!
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"Do not flatter yourself, demon. You are craven filth who cowers in children for safety, while I have stood face to face with Minagho and lived to tell about it. I have experienced and survived far worse than anything your blunted claws and mewling threats can produce. Did you think we were not prepared for you? Tell me, have you even realized you can no longer teleport? Stay inside me and you will die a slow and sure death; try to leave and they will strike you down. You cannot flee, and no one here will fall to your possession. You will die hiding inside me having failed your masters."
The sensation of the blade passing through Isilme was certainly unique, but the little bit of discomfort it brought was more than paid for by the palpable fear coming from the Invidiak within. "Be ready, the coward may attempt to exit any moment."
Xanderghul is up!
As the group began to take the battle further and further into their grasp, Xanderghul's sense of overriding fear begins to recede. He had, more or less, run out of spells. That was already a source of panic for the wizard, but furthermore the day had stretched and stretched and this shadow demon had turned out to be a terrifyingly powerful example of its kind.
But now it was trapped within Isilme and the group's warriors had converged on it with all their might. It seemed as though Lady Luck favored them after all.
Concentrating on Isilme, Xanderghul prepares to contribute in what way he still can: to wrap a sticky ball of tar around the demon.
The demon doesn't respond to your jives, but you can feel his anxiety, his fear building. For the first time in his life all he wants is to be out of a host, and so he starts pushing. You can sense the relief wash over him as he finds that there is nothing keeping him inside you. He slowly pours out of you, the tendrils washing out from your ears, eyes and mouth - its a nauseating, almost oily sensation.
Shadows erupt from Isilme's eyes, ears, and mouth, dribbling down like an ooze. "No...no... no.." moans Sana softly, shaking in terror. She closes her eyes and buries her face into Isilme's neck, but the demon never once touches her, her body repels the demon as oil to water. It flows around her and vanishes into the floor.
Xanderghul reacts quickly, hoping to ensnare it before it can get too far away, but the demon is simply too fast for him. Several seconds pass and there is no sign of the demon. Sana risks opening her eyes and looks around the room. "Is he gone?"
Thanks to greater longstrider you are able to swim through stone faster than a normal person can jog. You emerge from the ground inside one of the barracks. You recognize it... there are still cultist bodies strewn about from your entry into the southeastern parapet of the castle.
The Heroes are up!
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The sensation of Eustoyriax exiting was just as unpleasant as his entry, but at least it was accompanied by a sense of satisfaction, knowing that between Ary and herself they'd managed to get him to panic.
"You are safe; that is what matters, dear," Isilme says, reassuring the young girl. "The magic on you will protect you from him. Just close your eyes and rest for now..."
Just rest for now, she thinks, her mind wandering to memories of her time with Elan. The spring had been exceptionally energetic that year, and storms had rolled in in the middle of the night, bringing the violent crash of thunder and lightning with it. Isilme had been laying in the bed next to Elan when Li'an--then not much taller than Sana was now--ran in looking terrified. throwing herself upon Isilme, she buried herself in Isilme's neck and began crying. Standing up, she'd rocked Li'an back to sleep, reassuring her that nothing could harm her here. There had never been a need to tell children stories of the darker things in the world, they would learn that in due time. Li'an had avoided learning that lesson for a long time, unlike Sana. Still, the sentiment and method were the same. Now here she was, in Li'an's body, reassuring the girl that Li'an herself had died to try and save. It struck her in many ways as poetic. If she had any say in the matter, she'd make certain that from here forward Sana was safe and able to move beyond what she'd suffered.
When she returns from her brief jaunt through her memories, she looks around the now quiet room. Eustoyriax might have run, but he was unlikely to concede defeat so easily. They had to stay on their guard, though Sana was better off not knowing that.
"He will be shortly," Val mutters as she looks around for the shadow demon. The thought crosses her mind that he might abandon the fight and attempt to rush after Ehren or to attempt to intervene in the armies battling above. With his exceptional powers, Eustoyriax could cause havoc among their ranks before they could even make it back up top to stop him. Her hands tighten around the grips of her starknives and her eyes narrow as she waits for the slippery demon's next move.
Ayavah bites her lip and raises a hand looking around for the shadow demon. Blue force flickers around her fingertips, ready to fire off at a moment's notice.
Ary huffs as the Invidiak flees into the ground once more. "We're really going to need to figure out a way to keep them from doing that." she whispers into the spell as she simply stands, waiting and watching for the creature.
Anevia moves in close to the others, given that there was no reason to stay away from them, and being near them always made her feel safer... at least when there weren't stinky gas clouds of death.
While it would be easy to wait for Eustoriax to come out of hiding, and simply attack him right then... his operation seemed to be to hide, do a thing, then hide, then do a thing. It was like he was stealing Anevia's playbook. From like, a year ago. He should totally get with the times and stop hiding -all the time-. She lets the little strands in her hand and bowstring merge again, beginning to feel comfortable with the development as she starts to weave those same strands into an arrow, ready for him to show his child-eating face.
Hinagiku doesn't lose her focus, and despite Eustoryax's departure, she silently stares at the ground, her mind ready to weather the invidiak's attack as soon as it reappears. Although, for one second, she looks up at Valaria, worried that she might be the next victim of the shadow demon.
Round 9!
Xanderghul is up!
Xanderghul can do nothing but wait for the demon to appear. He silently gathers another ball of shadows in his palm, ready for Eustoryiax's reappearance.
You continue moving through the southeastern barracks, simply gliding through the stone walls in your way. You reach a room with six bunk beds, and you recognize it. The temple of Torag is next to this room. You remember that the last time you stuck your head through this wall, you were attacked by a dwarven golem.
Several tense seconds pass before Eustoyriax appears again, a long, tendril of darkness lined with human faces emerging from the cavern wall next to Isilme. It lashes out at her once, and weighed down by carrying Sana and her reflexes dulled by the constant ache of her many wounds, Isilme is too slow to avoid it. Sana screams and cries from Isilme's arm. ...But Ary is quick, stepping in front of the two with her shield at ready, deflecting the blow. Ayavah reacts next, firing off a series of magical missiles, though the tendril retreats back into the wall before Anevia can land her shot, nor Xanderghul's. After a few moments, Eustoyriax emerges again from the wall, both arms transformed into enormous, hideous claws.
Ary, Valaria, Hinagiku, Isilme, Ayavah, Anevia and Xanderghul are up!
Val quickly closes in on the shadowy demon, aiming to put both of her daggers into his flesh. Or whatever shadows served the same purpose for the powerful outsider.
As her spell manages to get through the demon's defenses, Ayavah seems to become more confident as she fires off the last of her lower level spell power and hammers Eustoyriax with another blast of magical projectiles.
Typically, shadow demons were not directly vulnerable to light spells. With few options remaining and with the result of the battle still hanging on a knife's edge, Xanderghul does some quick mental calculations to change that. Exerting his will over the threads of fate and reality for a moment, he shortly creates a racial vulnerability within the code that composes shadow demons. For just a moment, they are vulnerable to light-based magic. Then he casts a spell - a simple, easy one. A flash of light appears right in Eustoryiax's face, filling his eyesight with glare.
Ary, Hinagiku, Isilme and Anevia are up!
Thanks to Ary's aid, Isilme manages to avoid Eustoyriax's attack. Stepping back, she calls out. "Any moment the battle will end, everyone. Let us make sure that Ehren finds us just as victorious when he returns!" She then raises her rapier and aims it at Eustoyriax, preparing for his next assault.
Ary, Hinagiku, and Anevia are up!
"Keep up the pressure!" Ary calls to the others, "His form is waning!"
Ary having learned her lesson about enabling her allies with her attacks... and promptly missing an important swing by placing too much emphasis on force and too little on accuracy, simply steps between Isilme and Eustoriax, arcing Radiance towards the demon... even still, her attack is over-zealous as she attempts to disrupt his very being, leaving him open to the attacks of the others.
Anevia, meanwhile slips quietly around the group, bringing her bow up to a nice steady aim, and releasing the arrow from her grasp.
Ary swings hard at Eustoyriax, but his body moves more as a liquid than a solid, and it simply flows out of the way of her strike. It attempts to do the same against Valaria, but she manages to catch him with the blade in her left hand... but against her strikes, his body is mere air.
Round 10!
Hinagiku is up!
With Eustoryax switching to real attacks, Hinagiku let's her mental conditioning slip away and steps toward the disturbing form. And, focusing on the motion of her form rather than the screaming figures, she crosses the distance, lift one food above her head and lets if fall through her foe. She quickly follows with a knee strike from the other leg, and two quick punches.
Hinagiku's strikes are blessed by her god, and so fare much better against the demon. Each strike leaves the demon wispier and wispier, even as the many faces of the children on his body weep and cry out. It dodges out of the way of her final punch, just as Ayavah unleashes a final barrage of missiles to its chest, leaving great holes there in its wake that it is slow to heal up. Finally, Anevia lets loose a well aimed shot, but Eustoyriax reacts at the last second, the shadows that are its body becoming dense and solid upon impact, causing the arrow to fall harmlessly to the floor as if it had hit a piece of solid armor.
The demon growls, deep and animalistic, then surges up into the air with its great wings, faster than any of the heroes can react to. He pauses there in the air, considering his options, before transforming into a great stream of shadow and faces, plunging straight into Valaria's chest...
---
Valaria is up!
Val feels the shadows attempting to dive into her form, but she marshals her willpower and forms him back, her mind denying the shadow demon purchase in her body. "Nice try, assh*le."
Your resistance pays off, and for a moment, you can feel the demon start to retreat from your mind... but with a surge of unholy strength, far beyond that of any other invidiak, the demon pushes back harder than before.
'I will have your body, tiefling. You cannot resist me.'
Valaria is up!
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"No, you will not," Valaria growls. Her own power surges as she focuses her own will and steadily drives the shadow demon's consciousness back. "I have had far worse things that you in my mind. You do not impress me."
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"A dozen lifetimes of stealing children from their beds has done nothing to prepare you for real foes it seems, demon. Perhaps if we brought some small animals for you to possess you might be more successful? Surely a lizard or dog would be unable to resist your terrifying onslaught," Isilme says, taunting the demon as he is yet again expelled from one of the group.
Eustoyriax pulls out of Valaria's body in a great cloud of black smoke. He flies over the heroes, his enormous wings beating wind down onto them, his face contorted in rage.
You push through the wall into the temple of Torag, moving through the room faster than its stone sentinels can react to your presence. Before they can fully reawaken, you are already through to the other side.
You emerge back into the great hall, where the crusader army is locked in battle with a horde of demon-kind. Three rift drake corpses lay crumpled in the entrance, though it seems that the cultists, had managed to reopen the portcullis and lay down the drawbridge, albeit at the cost of their lives. The room is swarming with dretches, schir, and even a small squadron of babau, and enormous putrid green fog clouds obscure your vision of the whole battlefield. Confusingly, some of the creatures the crusaders seem to be fighting are their own men, turned against them. The kellid barbarians are helping the crusaders fight back the demons, and their war-cries only add to the din of the demonic snarls and roars filling the room. In the corner, you can see Ser Jorsal, Shu Lien, and a lone crusader boy bravely fighting off a vrock, covered in the spiny thorns of its foul spores. Dead crusaders lay at the vulture-headed demon's feet, and even Hua Xing kneels in the back corner, mortally wounded with Chevalier Irabeth standing protectively over him as the schir continue their relentless advance.
Ary, Valaria, Hinagiku, Isilme, Ayavah, Anevia and Xanderghul are up!
Isilme moves further away from the walls, continuing to defend herself and Sana.
"It's going to be okay, Sana." Ary says to the little girl as she moves directly beneath the Invidiak, golden motes fluttering out of her shield to fill every space around the Invidiak as she does. "Keep it up. He's almost down!" she calls to the others.
Anevia readies her silver motes even as Ary's golden ones prepare the battlefield. Slowly, she weaves it into the sword form, waiting for the perfect shot... well, not the perfect one. That would require patience. And right now, they kind of just needed Eustoriax out of the air. So she unleashes it without further ado.
Valaria, Hinagiku, Ayavah and Xanderghul are up!
Ayavah quickly circles the group, trying to keep at least one person between her and the demon before she steps behind Anevia and touches her, bestowing another of her fortunate blessings.
Val growls as the demon flies above her out of reach. With his incorporeal nature, throwing her regular knives would be fairly useless against him. She readies her starknives, ready for the moment he attempts something.
Round 11!
Hinagiku and Xanderghul are up!
"Irabeth!" he calls out to the paladin as he heads her way, traversing the battlefield as quickly as he can. Along the way, he eyes the walls, searching for possible places to display the banner.
A swift twitch from her ears and tails are the only signs of Hinagiku surprise at Valaria's attempted possession. She had let down her guard against this damned creature for the last time. The monk quickly glances at Valaria, making sure she okay before moving in right below Eustorya. Now, she would be a great target she thinks, conditioning herself once more to imprison their foe within her body.
Not much left to do now but to try and kill this damnable creature. Out of offensive spells, Xanderghul takes solace in the fact that he had already done the one thing that was required of him from this battle: to lock Eustoryiax from teleporting away. To go a battle without being able to harm the opponents cut a deep rent in Xanderghul's pride, but he shelters behind that one fact.
Then he pulls his crossbow from its sling, takes aim, and lets a bolt loose.
With a sudden surge of supernatural speed, Eustoyriax opens his body up in a wide circle, causing Anevia's force-bolt to pass harmlessly though his body. He snarls, spinning to face her. "...You. Mortal. I know not how nor where you learned such tricks that allow you to harm me... but it matters not. I will be correcting this..."
With great, inhuman speed, the shadow demon launches himself at Anevia with claws bared, the creature somehow capable of converting parts of his incorporeal shadowy form into dense, solid matter. He leaps onto her, driving his claws into her back, and his teeth into her neck, raking his claws deeper into her as he creates an iron-solid hold on her. Just seconds away from death, blood steadily drips down the back of her shirt, soaking the fabric. She cannot move, she cannot draw her bow...
Irabeth's eyes widen at Ehren's sudden appearance. She has grown used to the druid and his skillset, so she is not even surprised at his current form... no.. she looks around the room, instead, for the others. Her face falls as her mind assumes the worst. She drives her longsword into the chest of the schir in front of her, then, grabbing Hua Xing by the hand and pulling him with her, she makes her way over to Ehren's side.
"Ehren, where are the others? Where is the Commander?"
Meanwhile, Ehren takes in the room once more. This once-beautiful court now lies in disarray. The stone floor runs red and black with the blood and ichor of the fallen, and the walls, decorated with murals of angels and templars engaged in battle with beasts and demons are covered in vile abyssal graffiti. Collapsed stone completely bars the way north, as only five intricately carved decorative columns still support the thirty-foot ceiling overhead. However, something catches Ehren's eye in the collapsed stone on the north wall. If one were to climb up onto the rubble, they could reach a large, golden horizontal pole mounted on two wide brackets mounted on the wall, and drape it over it.
Ary and Ehren are up!
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Anevia immediately releases another arrow, hoping to deflect some portion of the creature's movement to guard herself, but the effort is likely nearly as futile as anything else as he rips into her bodily. She tries to shove him away, but although her bow can protect her, her armor cannot. "Accident... dunno how." she manages. "Ugh... so gentle with them, so rough with me." she adds, smiling bloodily. "Too old, don't want?" all the while, as he's staring at her in rage, her short sword is dropping into her hand.
Ary, meanwhile steps in, sword glowing brilliantly once more, as she brings the blade arcing through Eustoriax's form, hoping for some manner of prize. "Get off of her! GET HIM OFF OF HER!" she yells as she sees how much damage he's doing in his fury.
Radiance glows a bright, shimmering golden color as it is cleaved readily through the hideous, many-headed mass that is the invidiak's torso. The demon screeches in pain, and the effort to rejoin the two halves once the blade passes appears to take great willpower...
Ehren is up!