Aristu taps his arcane source and creates holy light which lances across the room at the undead cyclops. Then, heeding Kern's advice, he moves onto the crumbling stair case to his left.
Mikhail weathers the blast and then moves forward to strike.
Alister screams at the blood is sucked from his body. He grits his teeth and proclaims the end of the cyclops reign. "Your people are dead and gone, Vordakai! You're all alone!" The stones ring with his words, but they seem to die off.
Then the Baron weaves a complex spell to confound the lich's senses.
Vordakai contemptuously ignores the steady stream of arrows, which either miss or bounce harmelessly off his hardened flesh. The god-king ducks to avoid Aristu’s flaming jet of holy power.
The lich bats Mikhail’s Civility aside with a dusty chuckle, but looks shocked as the warrior priest cuts him across the shoulder with his backswing. Nonetheless, Vordakai’s hardened hide permits it to shrug off the worst of the blow.
Vordakai blinks and rears back at Alister's spell.
STATUS
Kernithar - 62/114 hp
VORDAKAI - (+47 temp hit points), Frightened 1, Synesthesia 1 round.
Aristu - 79/80 hp
Mikhail - 56/124 hp, Frightened 1
Piotr - 51/89 hp, Frightened 1
Alister - 53/107 hp, Frightened 1
The target's senses are suddenly rewired in unexpected ways, causing them to process noises as bursts of color, smells as sounds, and so on. This has three effects, and the target must attempt a Will save.
*Due to the distraction, the target must succeed at a DC 5 flat check each time it uses a concentrate action, or the action fails and is wasted.
*The target's difficulty processing visual input makes all creatures and objects concealed from it.
*The creature has trouble moving, making it clumsy 3 and giving it a –10-foot status penalty to its Speeds.
Piotr casts the spell to summon a dragon to do his fighting for him.
A flame drake appears and immediately frenzies to attack the undead.
The fiery reptile appears, taking the cyclops god-king by surprise. It plunges its flaming fangs into Vordakai's neck, burning the long-dead tissue. The iron-hard flesh absorbs some of the blow.
negative damage plus paralyzing touch.
Roaring in anger, Vordakai tries to summon frost from the coldest corner of Abbadon, but can't seem to concentrate and its spell fails! It then lashes out at the flame drake, but blinks angrily and misses!
STATUS
Kernithar - 62/114 hp
VORDAKAI - (+15 temp hit points)
Aristu - 79/80 hp
Mikhail - 56/124 hp, Frightened 1
Piotr - 51/89 hp,
Alister - 53/107 hp, Frightened 1
Aristu continues circling around the lich, filling himself with fey energies as he goes. When he can hold no more, he stops and molds the power with words and gestures. With a final flick of his fingers, bitter cold bursts across the room to engulf the giant.
Mikhail slashes away at the creature.
"Aristu, no more cold! It's of little effect on him." Kern shouts.
"Mikhail, undead tendons sever the same as living."
Kern then unleashes two more arrows at their foe.
Alister simply laughs at the lich as he tries to attack the drake. The laughter echoes throughout the hall as a mockery of the cyclops' dying power. Then the younger Medvyed weaves another spell, bringing the weight of the hundreds of years since Vordakai had been alive onto him.
◆ Warden's Boon to Mikhail. Means MAP is -2/-4 (Flurry grants -2/-4 is you're Master in weapons, which Mikhail is). Would that apply to his attack just now or his next round?
I will apply it this round.
Vordakai's decrepit frame is no match for Aristu's powerful blasts of cold! The young nobleman's blast of freezing ice rips away the god-king's arcane defenses and, cracks its bones and punctures its leathery skin! Mikhail battles the monster toe to toe, cutting it across the thighs with Civility while Kernithar's arrow pierces the lich's chest.
Meanwhile, Baron Alister chants a war song that strikes uncertainty into the ancient, dead heart of Vordakai while also causing him to slow and ponder just a few moments.
The summoned drake is filled with terror at the sight of the lich.
STATUS
Kernithar - 62/114 hp
VORDAKAI - 81 damage, Clumsy 3 (until his turn), Slowed 1 for 1 rd.
Aristu - 79/80 hp
Mikhail - 56/124 hp
Piotr - 51/89 hp
...Flame Drake - Frightened 4
Alister - 53/107 hp
STATUS
Kernithar - 62/114 hp
VORDAKAI - 99 damage, Clumsy 3 (until his turn), Slowed 1 for 1 rd.
Aristu - 79/80 hp
Mikhail - 56/124 hp
Piotr - 51/89 hp
...Flame Drake - Frightened 4
Alister - 53/107 hp
Piotr concentrates to keep the flame drake attacking.
With his other hand, he casts a spell. A ball of fire flies past the undead creature before it explodes to engulf the creature in flames.
The flame drake is shaken by the cyclops but it continue to attack the undead.
Vordakai begins to cast a counterspell and Mikhail attacks.
Vordakai's spell meets Piotr's and two spells... disappear.
Then the lich unleashes another cone of cold.
[dice=Reflex]1d20+17
Yes it does. It's a critical failure.
He used only two actions. The counterspell was a reaction.
Alister takes the full force of Vordakai's spell and then reaches out towards Mikhail. The warrior's wounds heal and he feels his mind fortified at the same time. Then the Baron tries to run for cover.
The cold washes over Kern, but doesn't break his focus.
Kern uses his arrow to direct Mikhails attacks as he retreats from spell range.
Buoyed by the success of his arctic blast, Aristu tries again to hit the lich with holy light. Then he raises an arcane shield.
Piotr tries to avoid the cold before keeping the flame drake attacking.
With his other hand, he casts another Fireball spell.
The flame drake is slowly recovering from the fear caused by cyclops but it first has to withstand the arcane cold.
Mikhail goes down hard but is instantly woken up. He stands and gathers up Civility before beginning to make his way around the creature.
Kern watches Mikhail fall and considers grabbing his blade to enage the lich in melee.
Mikhail drops to the floor unconscious and dying, but Alister’s spell revives him almost immediately. Kern’s lone arrow strikes the lich squarely in its chest, but as before it does far less damage than to a living creature.
Aristu’s searing light spell is devastating, causing Vordakai to howl in rage and pain as the holy energies blast through him like a cannonball through a cow barn.
The spellcasters now realize that Vordakai is using his staff...likely a staff of fire... to counter Piotr’s fireballs. The lich effortlessly absorbs the wizard’s spell.
The badly injured flame drake scrabbles at the lich’s face but to no avail. Vordakai brushes its efforts aside.
STATUS
Kernithar - 29/114 hp
VORDAKAI - 167 damage, Frightened 1 (2 rds.)
Aristu - 79/80 hp
Mikhail - 41/124 hp, wounded 1
Piotr - 18/89 hp
...Flame Drake - 9/75 hp, Frightened 1
Alister - 20/107 hp
Seeing Mikhail go one way, Alister heads the other way and takes some cover behind a stone altar(?). He weaves another sensory spell at the lich, hoping to confuse him again. Then he prepares a shield to help defend himself. He continues to laugh at the lich even as he is battered.
"Insolent whelps!" growls Vordakai. Then it shouts something in an unknown language and vanishes!
The spellcasters recognize this spell as dimension door.
Kerns nostrils flare like an animal sniffing for it's prey.
"Find him. He's weak and can't have gone far." Kern shouts as he strides up the stairs to his east and throws open the door.
Kern reveals a sizable room. This octagonal chamber, which vaults to a twenty-foot-high ceiling, is composed of multiple slabs of opaque, white crystal fitted together to form a dome in the distinctive shape of an inverted eye, its gaze focused into the room below. This white crystal gleams with a subdued moonlike glow. The walls of the chamber are covered with arcane symbols, stylized line art, and images of cyclopes. A twenty-foot-diameter circle is incised into the stone of the floor directly beneath the great eye-shaped dome.
Kern has a queasy feeling as he gazes upon the room. Something feels very wrong there, and he hesitates to enter.
Piotr advances to accompany Kern. Once he is beside his companion and staring into the octagonal room, Piotr tries to understand the symbols inside.