With a gesture, Slachagok summons up a film of ectoplasmic goo that coats the cathedral floor and pews, causing one of the undead to slip and fall to the ground.
The undead move to silent attack against Guido, Etrigan and Slachagok, swinging their ancient, rusty sickles.
Rounds of Organ silence:1
Anyone, go!
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Etrigan snarls at the fact that the dead man is still standing. Another swipe of both claws, then a step back.
Iason frowns at seeing Slachagok cut by the undead. It seems this day holds nothing but triage for them all. He waves his so-very-useful devil-tailed wand against the half-orc's shoulder -- then draws a vial of holy water from his pack. He's nothing if not pragmatic, even if it means using sacred options on occasion.
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Slachagok opens his mouth to grunt as the sickle slices him, but manages nothing.
Right, their damn voice-stealing powers. The last bunch weren't too hardy, though.
He swings his axe down, striking at the fallen wraith.
The axe tears black fabric and crashes into the skeletal frame lying on the temple floor. Splinters of bone and shards of stone burst in all directions as Slachagok pulverizes the fragile undead.
The bard grins, and takes a step back from the powdered remains.
"Ye've dared to enter the temple of the Judge of the Gods," he roars to the wraiths, heedless of whether they can actually hear him, "ye've invaded his service and and slaughtered his clergy! Yer sentence is oblivion, and I will deliver it!"
__________________________________
Etrigan and Slachagok each destroy their opponents, although the fragments of Slachagok's foe fly much farther. Flinkae climbs laboriously to the keyboard and sees Guido fighting with a skeletal figure. The creature lashes out at Guido, but the big Varisian easily dodges the attack.
Rounds of Organ silence:2
Anyone, go!
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"Really??" Iason exclaims in vague disgust as Slachagok's axe sends bits of undead bone fragments onto him. "Etrigan, I do believe you're being shown up... well, Slachagok, it seems you have this in hand. Excuse me."
He then hurries around the altar to be next to Etrigan , and taps the outsider with the wand as well, with a small sigh.
"Devil's blood isn't exactly easy to come by, you know-- I can't use his, for contractual purposes," he mutters to nobody in particular. More loudly, he says to the huddled woman--
"Madam, if you are hurt, I advise you to make your way to me. I am rather busy right here, you see--" as he sets to rummaging inside his pack.
Etrigan, however, is no mood to wait. He cannot have a mere half-orc showing him up in the game of 'dismembering dead guys'! Bah! The demon sets to climbing.
"Etrigan! I've another scroll of armor, you bloody-minded--"
"Bah! Save it for children, or cowards, or ladies!
"There's dead men about whom I must drag to Hades!"
Iason pauses, opens his mouth, shuts it, and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Fourth-wall cross-universe violation. You know that's forbidden by terms of your contract."
"With such concerns, I have no truck.
"More bluntly: I don't give a--"
But the outsider has reached the top of the keys, and his words are cut off by the start of the next round and another Black Echelon member (probably) getting in his face.
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Sorry about the floor, Father of the First Vault. Slachagok is confident that Abadar appreciates the exigence of the present circumstances.
Slachagok brushes a bit of Black Echelon pulverance from his shoulder. He glaring down at his other recumbent foe, he mouths the words: "You're next."
The crash of steel against stone echoes off the temple walls, as another undead crumbles to dust beneath the Abadarian's axe. Turning to survey the wraiths scrambling across the organ, the bard makes that big speech he would have made a few moments earlier, had he not been still within the aura of magical silence.
Slachagok dashes around the central altar, toward his monk ally.
Did you follow the link to the FAQ about allies? It may not have been obvious that I linked it, SO HERE IS THE LINK AGAIN. It's not just my ruling - it's official.
Turn later this evening.
Flinkae dances across the keys as if born to play the giant organ, but sadly, he does not hit the enemy. Worse, his musical chops go largely unheard because of the undead on the pipes.
Etrigan climbs the organ to confront the undead while Iason makes his way around the altar.
Slachagok pile-drives another undead abomination and follows Iason. Meanwhile, Guido leaps up, driving the hardened edge of his instep into the jaw of a Black Echelon operative, cracking teeth and bone.
Rounds of organ silence:3
Anyone, go!
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Iason scowls up at his eidolon 15 feet overhead, but there's no way he's going to try and follow him. He turns on his heel and heads towards the woman.
"You had better be able to play this thing, woman," he mutters under his breath. And he decidedly does not ask her if she has moral objections to being healed in his particular fashion before he bends down and expends another precious drop of devil's blood.
The clergy can be so picky about such tiny details and vague abstractions as 'good' and 'evil', in his opinion.
Up above... Etrigan grins at the sight of an undead between him and Guido. He jumps that-a-way, landing with both feet hard and rather ungracefully on the key, not that it'll make much noise with the silence wreathing things.
He follows up his landing with a claw aimed at the Black Echelon's spine.
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The bard gazes up the massive instrument in front of him.
"What beast did they carve these ivories from," Slach wonders aloud.
He leans his axe against the nearest key, aware that he will need both hands free to make the ascent. He braces one foot between two looming blocks.
"Comin' up! Try not to crunch my fingers."
Flinkae's graceful maneuvers on the keys produce a melodious sound. He's no idea if it's the right hymn, but it is at least sound. Also, he fires off a throwing star that strikes the Black Echelon operative in its bony arm, doing minimal damage.
The cowering woman, middle aged and terrified, looks up at Iason, and something she sees there seems to frighten her more. "I...I know how to play the tune," she says, barely audible over the din of the organ. She clearly has no intention of getting up any time soon, however.
Meanwhile, Slachagok drops his axe and hauls himself up onto the keys.
Guido, go!
As Guido climbs up the pipes, his target lashes out with its rusted sickle and scratches his left bicep.
The last operative on the keys advances with deliberate slowness on Etrigan, attacking with the same easily-blocked lassitude.
Anyone, go!
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Etrigan is delighted that you have come to him, you big bag of bones, you! His delight is matched only by his displeasure that his snarled verse cannot be heard.
He grins as he jumps down hard upon the key and elicits a bleated note. Rawwr! Can he follow it up, ho-ho? He brings a fist down on the nearest black key, because noise and chaos are fun.
***
Iason hears a voice in the sky and saves his cursed form of 'healing'.
"Then do your job and play the organ, woman. More than you know depends on it," he says shortly. Of course, she's on the ground and not on the keys, so that may be problematic. But it is not currently his problem. He turns and hurries back to where he dropped his sling.
____________________________________________________________
Seizing the pipes with his hands, Guido lashes out with a vicious snap kick that shatters the Black Echelon operative's jaw and then a second that cracks its spine. Ancient vertebrae, green with exposure to the sea, rain down onto the keys.
Meanwhile, Etrigan mauls another operative, but does not destroy it.
Slachagok climbs heavily onto the keys, but once there, joins Flinkae in a mad dance across the enormous ivories, creating a raucous and mostly audible tune.
"They destroyed the ladder," says the woman to Iason. "I cant climb like that."
Another operative swings its way amidst the huge organ pipes to attack Guido, but the martial artist easily blocks the clumsy blow, just as far below, Etrigan does the same thing.
[spoiler=GM]E took 5 damage[/dice]
Anyone, go!
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Flinkae continues to maintain the hymn, still mindful of the remaining marauding undead. Flinkae appears to be working hard to keep up with Slachagok's madcap attack in the high registers.
'I may need more shuriken soon. could be difficult. Must save one as an example, perhaps commission copies.'
Distracted by considerations of ammunition depletion rates, and stunned by Slachagok's virtuoso performance, Flinkae misses the beat of the bass.
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"Then advise my fellows as to the correct tune," Iason orders curtly. Reaching his sling, he picks it up from the floor, scans for the Black Echelonians still high in the pipes, and drops a stone into the sling's pocket.
***
Etrigan does what devils do best. Or demons. He's definitely more on the demonic side of things, if not for that annoying stipulation that eidolons wear their summoner's alignment on their sleeves. Ahem. Etrigan growls out rhymes that go unheard, and tries to finish the job he'd started.
The yellow-skinned outsider hops from key to key like a demented monkey , grinning as he lands with both feet on each one.
"Master! I like this song-and-deadly-dance
"Can we do it again next week, perchance?"
The rhyme is somewhat ruined by the fact that he trips against the edge of a black key and stumbles, snarling his displeasure. Iason, below, does not deign to respond.
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With surprising grace and unsurprising ferocity, Slachagok prances and stomps across the grand organ. He stops close to the middle, and turns towards the pipes.
Wonder how springy these keys are...
He bounces atop the final key for a few beats, trying to build up momentum, then at the apex hurls himself forward and upward, attempting to grab the nearest organ pipe.
Etrigan and Guido handily defeat their opponents, sending a rain of bones and sickles down on the levels below. Iason recovers his sling while Slachagok, Etrigan and Flinkae attempt to play the gigantic organ.
Although demon and tengu falter, Slachagok's performance is quite stunning, although it is not a hymn to Abadar. As a finale, the graceful half-orc springs up, seizes a brass pipe and clambers upwards.
The woman stands,indicating her readiness. She begins to call the tune.
Another Black Echelon operative climbs through the pipes to swing a sickle at Slachagok. The rusty blade rips his coat and scratches his forearm.
Anyone, go!
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Iason eyes the last remaining Black Echelonians and judges distance... hm. A long shot but it is not as though he were doing much else that is useful.
He whirls the sling and lets go the far strap, sending a stone pellet flying through the air towards the solitary undead far to the right.
Up above, Etrigan realizes belatedly that there's no more undead this way! Whoops! About faaaace! Whatever, he gets to make noise. He is still having fun.
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The undead's rusted blade slices across his arm, but Slachagok grimaces and keeps climbing. He struggles to the top of the organ, and jumps to an adjacent pipe. He stares down at the wraith standing between him and the edge.
Let's see what kind of music this one can make.
Lowering his shoulder, the half-orc charges into his foe.
Guido descends to the keys. Iason flings a sling stone that spangs! off one of the organ pipes while Etrigan makes an impressive amount of noise on the Great Organ. He is joined in this by Flinkae, and the two create something that a tone-deaf badger might compare to the great hymns of Abadar.
Slachagok maneuvers behind the Black Echelon operative and hurls him from the pipes. Bony arms waving, the creature slams into the ivories right in front of Etrigan, exploding into a pile of old, yellowed bones.
One Black Echelon operative remains, silencing the largest pipes.
Anyone, go!
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"See that, ye bastard?" Slachagok shouts to the remaining operative, pointing at the shattered remains on the keys below. "'S a much longer fall to the Pit!"
I'd like to stuff him down one of these pipes, he thinks, but that wouldn't do any good for the music.
With measured strides he crosses the brass ridges of the organ. On the final pipe before his foe, he takes a long, high step, aiming a boot towards the wraith's ribcage.
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Etrigan grins up at Slachagok when he hurls the bag-of-bones down to him, flashing him a thumbs-up (or claws-up) as the case may be.
As for the melody... well, Etrigan doesn't really wish to play Abadar's tune, but, unfortunately for him, Iason's will guides him. So yes, he does more or less the tune the woman is indicating.
Etrigan runs another thirty feet along the keys, whistling a ditty-of-Hell beneath his breath.
Ker-trip!
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Iason lets loose another sling bullet at the last undead.
Slachagok approaches the last operative, but his morningstar only serves to dent the large pipe of the organ. That one's going to be hard to explain to the Abadarians...
This time Flinkae carries the tune...somewhat... while Etrigan gets his foot caught between two keys. He is able to dislodge himself only after repeatedly jumping up and down on one key. At least it's noise!
Guido moves up to help Slachagok while Iason scuffs the pipes with a hurled stone.
Anyone, go!
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Iason sends one more stone bullet into the midst of the fray before it gets too, uh, frayful.
Plink! off a pipe. Seeing his colleagues starting to get closer to the last undead, he refrains from further rock-chucking.
Etrigan looks up and beams toothily.
"Though you make your stand among the pipes
"It's a funeral dirge for you, my friend
"Or you could come join me on these stripes
"And meet a mellifluous end...
"What say you? No? Then it's up we go!"