| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Neither Adelie nor Aurora make any headway.
The remaining pestilenzi continue gnawing on their targets!
...their protective wards and nimble dodges preserve them!
The dretch moves in for the kill:
...not yet, dretch. Not yet. One claw draws precious blood, but Tal easily keeps his feet after quaffing his potion.
[ooc]Whew! Glad I included myself in haste, or that would have hit!
"Still one invisible here!" he calls out, to no one in particular.
He steps back from the demon again, desperately clawing at his memory for a spell that would help. What he comes up with may not harm the demon, but he has to try.
Casting burning hands. DC 15 reflex for half damage. .
If he doesn't have room to step back, he'll cast defensively .
Talathel returns a blow, but his is harder and swifter.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
And just like that, Anzath crosses the field of battle to take down Tragershen’s pest.
Anzath's slash and Tragershen's magic bring that pestilenzi to within a hairs-breadth of defeat! Tal's thrust is mostly turned away by that strange resilience of demonic flech, but he does some damage.
Adelie continues the beat-it-with-a-stick approach. Maybe one day he'll manage to actually have one of his blows connect.
Adelie connects with the pest! But... but. But its uncanny damage reductive powers mean that it hasn't actually been hurt at all.
Much like Adelie, Aurora continues to beat things with her stick.
Talathel's ears start ringing. Deep bells ringing in his ears. Then, he hears strange, demonic lutes, charged with energies of the thunderbolts! He doesn't know that he's hearing AC/DC's Youtube version of "Hell's Bells" but that makes it all the more terrifying. Yes, his case of Pestilenzi Rot has reached its crisis.
Darkness falls as the music gets louder... Talathel crumples to the ground, completely out of the breath to continue (and darn near out of the spirit, what with his 3 CHA!). The rest of the party sees the warrior's flesh suddenly deteriorate, and he begins to bleed from all sorts of places (pretty much everywhere that wasn't already bleeding).
The pestilenzi laugh with glee as Talathel's flesh suppurates... they redouble their efforts to spread their infection!
A telepathic voice enters Anzath's consciousness, whispering, JOIN HIM! She looks into the eyes of the demon... and knows that the voice comes from this shrunken, hideous thing! It leans in towards her neck, teeth glistening!
...Anzath's flesh is torn, but her sturdy body resists the demonic illness!
Adelie gets the same!
But his demon can't get through his armor.
The dretch chortles over the corpse before leaping after Tragershen!
The wizard's wards fail.
Mone is free of nausea! She realizes that this means she now has to fight these creatures... with her mouth. Ew. She goes for the one attacking Tragershen.
Bedlam--purposefully--pukes on the heavily damaged Pest!
The dwarf then swings his cold iron heavy mace at its face!
Tragershen heaves a sigh of relief as his allies seem to be recovering and engaging the remaining demons. He pulls out his cudgel and flails at one of the demons, hoping to distract it.
Aid another to give +2 to hit.
Aurora huffs out a heavy breath before continuing to bash things with a stick, favoring any pestilenzi as a target.
And, if she is in range for a FRA instead of moving and attacking,
Anzath feels her own warm blood from the demon's bite trickling down her neck and beneath her clothes and armor. She can feel the battle draw to a close, but knows everything is still at risk.
Badly injured, she moves herself to kill any demon not already dead.
Mone snatches the heavily-wounded pest from the air and kills is quickly, before dropping it just as quickly.
Bedlam clobbers the other, his cold iron crushing the demonflesh! Aurora clonks it on the head, and it crumbles back into hell.
Anzath whirls Kritfisher into the dretch. It is nearly dead, and now it is all alone.
Talathel may act--perhaps you may end it, though your thread was nearly cut!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The dwarf spits on the dead Pest!
Be liking dis if we wernt so stink'n stinking!
He looks at Aurora.
Be worst den me last family gathering!
Adelie waves his scimitar energetically at the remaining dretch.
Talathel does a rarity.
He *howls* as he drives his spear towards the dretch, with the determination of what might be his last breath!
The dretch howls back, dodges in under the branched spear, and bite-claw-claw!
Talathel dodges, parries, and otherwise fends off the dretch. At that point, everyone else wanders over and beats it to death.
Everyone feels much better for a moment. Victory. Calm. The sound of the party's heavy breaths fills the decrepit stables...
...and then everyone (or rather, half of everyone) feels worse. The telltale pustules of the Pestilence appear.
Anzath suddenly lifts her gaze to the dark, wide door at the end of the stables and beckons everyone to be silent... her hands flash in drow sign language, "Do you hear that?"
The party strains their ears, then each member nods (except Aurora who signs, "what, wait, what?" and maybe Adelie, who probably doesn't know Drow hand signals yet...
Hooves. You hear the sounds of distant, echoing, galloping hooves in the tunnel beyond the stable. And the clatter of wheels! It's heading your way.
Talathel staggers, clearly unwell.
"Urgh. I feel....awful. I suggest that we find a defensible position. We also have that statue to cleanse."
"We should get back to the fountain, now. Vael is alone there, and we may be able to put an end to the sickness. Whoever is coming may not follow us there."
Assuming the pestilenzi are well and truly dead, or else the bodies are far enough away from the party for it to not matter, Aurora will go ahead and pulse out a channel.
"Yes, we should at least check on Vael and make sure it hasn't reactived," she says in a low voice.
Adelie agrees.
"You all look terrible. Let's get away from here before whatever's making that sound shows up."
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Whoops! Ya failed anyhow, but duly noted.
Anzath loots the demons’ eyes and hustles up the stairs, only briefly looking over her shoulder to possibly catch a glimpse of the next harbinger of death.
Anzath's glance back reveals nothing, but her sense of hearing is keen enough (and her long life underground provides the context) to describe what must be coming--a horse and carriage, a long way off. On the surface, it would never be audible at this distance, but the tunnel has amplified its echoing course through this subterranean tunnel. It will be here in about five minutes, she reckons.
Everyone takes care to climb the greasy stairs, and after a few false starts by the less-dexterous, they regather and proceed to see what Vael's up to.
Vael is on her knees, praying fervently to Sarenrae. Valrah looks perplexed, too. She is muttering for a sign, for some signal that will guide her to the means that would cleanse the fountain.
The fountain sits, gory and horrible as ever, but still. The statue is partially clean, but the ring of hands around its shoulders remain, each gripping the wrist of the hand prior in the hellish chain.
Anzath watches Vael on her knees before the fountain for a moment of silence. The frown on her face is mostly out of pity for the foolish paladin.
“De sound ve heard vaz karriage on surface,” she announces suddenly, “De tunnel konnectz to surface perhapz five minutez from here.”
Once finished mixing his Mutagen, the dwarf drinks it, along with an Antiplague and a Vermin Repellent.
Let's be 'sploring!
Bedlam seems thankful for foresight. The dwarf follows along with the group to the Fountain of Stink.
Now what!
“Ve are not vell equipped to face anyding elze.” Anzath holds a bleeding claw gash on her side.
Looking at the scene in the fountain room, Tragershen looks to Talathel.
"Can you reach the ring of hands with your spear? We need to cut it off or lift it off somehow."
Talathel focuses - and strikes.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Talathel climbs up on the edge of the fountain. His branched spear is the perfect instrument for the task at hand. When he hooks his weapon underneath the ring of wrists, he sees them wriggle like a hooked worm--gripping each other harder and hugging against the statue. But when he shoves against their resistance, he is able to budge them.
As he lifts, a sudden flood of blood and gore pours out from the center of the ring of wrists that douses the statue of Sarenrae afresh. But, as he lifts the ring, the flood slows to a trickle as the ring hangs upright.
Anyone looking through the clockwise-direction side of the ring (from the hands' perspective) sees the wall beyond, as usual.
Anyone looking throguh the counter-clockwise side sees an awful vision of the abyssal plane of illness. Lurid reddish glows illuminate a land of scabrous flesh and clotted blood--wailing voices, hacking coughs, and delirious laughter enter the room, as does a humid, panting breath of demonic wind.
The fountain is acting strangely, too. As Talathel manipulates the ring of wrists, the fountain shifts from its usual puddle to reveal white marble and mosaics of Sarenrae in her aspect of the goddess of healing. Space opens up around the blood pool--as it recedes, you can catch uncanny glimpses of the plane of plague.
Vael shakes with emotion.
p.s. the clattering of hooves and wheels is growing louder in the tunnels behind you.
Anzath looks to Bedlam and then the demonic ring of hands, “Blow it up. Let’z Go.”
Talathel deftly lobs the ring in an arc that avoids his companions, to have it land in an expendable corner.
"Aye. Destroy the foul thing."
With his able allies working to dispel the evil of the fountain, Tragershen looks up in the corner. He looks for the telltale design of the spy eye that he suspects to be there. If he can spot it, he'll take out one of the spy eyes they've already recovered and try to bring it down.
Bedlam looks at the fountain. He scratches his beard. He taps his foot. He lays down on the floor, peering intently at the foundation. He hops back up. He walks around it. He shrugs.
Me Be need'n ta craft more blasting jelly.
After a brief search, Tragershen pops the Spy Eye into his haversack. Just two left until he has the whole set.
Bedlam's careful scrutiny reveals that the strange reaction happening in the fountain is about the same size as the ring of wrists. He also notes that his last attempt to blast the fountain has achieved nothing... it's fully 'healed.'
Me Be hat'n dis fountain.
The dwarf then places some blasting jelly at an area on the floor down the hall in which the sounds of horses is coming.
He then retreats from that position 20'. He looks like he is waiting...
Anzath tries to cut the wring of wrists apart.
She just keeps on hacking at it until it’s no more.
Anzath finds herself flummoxed--whenever she goes to strike a hand, it quickly releases its grip and dodges out of the way before restoring its grasp. Once, she's sure she chopped it, but when she looks again, it is unharmed. The effect is clearly supernatural and big magic.
“Ugh. Veal, you can do someding, yez? Hurry.”
Adelie pokes his scimitar through the non-portal side of the ring, and takes it over to the fountain. He tries to dip the ring into the pool until it is half-submerged.
A crackling energy seethes through the fountain! As the blood from the basin flows through the wrist ring, the 'water' level of the horrid muck begins to drop. Nothing comes out the other side. Adelie sees a hand loosen and fall into the current and into the plane of plague! The ring contracts as the remaining hands grip each other to close the gap.