"The guests mill around, trying to find out why they've been invited, why they accepted, where the host is, and what the point of this all is." A whisper through the court. Many keen ears caught it.
"Well, I'm not one to disappoint my guests, so let me answer half of those questions."
"Good evening, my lovelies!" An echoing voice crashed throughout the court of madness, as the Count Visage materialized out of shadow, standing upon his throne, one foot on the armrest, the other in the air, as he leaned against top of the throne with one arm, cane stuffed in the crook of that arm.
He wore a garment almost resembling a zoot suit, though in garish purple, a silver chain, and a black shirt and band across his hat. Wild white hair and a dreadful palor of the skin, he somehow managed to have that strange charisma of brilliant madman.
"How do I look?" He said with an overlarge smirk that looked like one side of his face was grinning while the other was blank, except for the expressive eyes, which gazed down into the portal hall of the court**, down at where the players* were assembled.
"Half of four is two, isn't it?" comes a shrill inquiry from somewhere in the room. A chorus of squeaky voices answers the first: "That it is, that it is!"
"Said he'd answer half, he did." says another. ("Aye! Half! Half is two!" shout the responders, somewhat quietly.)
"One's not two! He's only answered one!"
"He does look nice, though, doesn't he? We should try purple sometime."
"Shh, shh... maybe he'd answer more if you'd stop blathering on!" ("True! Be quiet! Listen to him! Stop talking! Hush now!")
The gaseous blue cloud moves slowly along the floor toward the throne, stopping near the middle of the room.
Mr. Big eyes the mysterious cloud, as if he isn't quite sure what to make of it.
Looking up at his host, "You look... pleased with yourself... I'm not sure if that disturbs me more or your suit."
Sir Rhaym, having entered the ballroom with the rest of the guests, removes his helm. Brushing back his glowing golden hair, not a few of the females (and a number of the guys) around him gasped a little at his unearthly good looks.
A lord of chaos to be sure, He thought worriedly. This whole place; no, this whole situation positively made his skin itch. But there was no help for it. He needed what was promised; the revelation of the man behind the Black Web, the secret assassins for hire threatening to paralyze Allengro with terror.
He would have to endure.
"I know, I know.." Count Visage raised his free hand bowing his head a bit.
"Well! The reason we are here today is because I am bored!" The Count pushed off the throne, slowly leaning forward. "And as entertaining as it is to watch people listen to me speak, that is NOT the entertainment today."
His body reached the point where his center of gravity, pitching forward, with a swift movement, his cane was brandished, set against the ground with a loud clack, and the Count grabbed his hat with his free hand, as he somersaulted forward once, using the cane single-handed to prop himself up.
He landed on one knee at the railing over the portal hall where the players resided, setting the cane over his knee.
"You! You! You! And a lot more yous! Will be adventuring forth to locations of my choosing while the court will be watching! Each of you will have a secret agenda I will assign, in addition, of course, to your own agendas you brought with you!"
With a tap of his cane, all but one of the portals shut off.
"Good luck, the court will be watching, and may the odds be ever malevolently entertaining!"
Mr. Big sighs.
"Somedays I should have just stayed in bed."
He looks around to the other guests in the ballroom.
"Well fellow sentients, shall we venture forth to find the things we seek?"
Mr. Big moves towards the only remaining portal.
Reclining comfortably atop his pheasant (hawk), Sir Nigel gives a roaring laugh and raises his hat to the gentlemen with ants and Chaos in his pants. "Oh what wonderful sport I daresay this shall be, old chaps, what!" picking up on his excitement, Bertie starts looping around the hall. Miming blowing a hunting horn, Nigel points towards the portal and sets off towards it. "Tally-ho, gentlemen, ladies and beings! Good hunting!"
Xane looks over her shoulder and scratches her thatch of hair,
"So this is what's farther down the rabbit hole, hey The folks back home aren't going to believe this!"
"Time to go, time to go!" "Yes yes! Hurry up!" "Don't shove!"
"He said something about a mission, what mission?" "No, no, he said agenda!" "Yeah, agenda!" One voice repeats "agenda" a few more times in a sing-song manner, then falls silent as the cloud begins to move across the floor toward the portal.
Another voice pipes up suddenly in Sylvan, and the vaporous cloud stops.
"Can-Man! I summon thee to my side to aid me as I require"
In a cloud of smoke, a green furry creature with limbs sticking out of what looks like a garbage can appears beside Mr. Big. A glyph of 123 appears on the foreheads of both Mr. Big and Can-man.
At being selected, Sir Rhaym bows with the correct formality to the Chaos Lord.
Turning, he calls out with a ringing voice; "Valinor! To me!
There is a distant crash, then the rumble of hoofbeats on marble. Hurtling into the room scattering guests left and right came Sir Rhaym's mighty warhorse, Valinor.
Donning his helm again, Sir Rhaym pulls his lance from it's bindings and leaps into the saddle. Saluting his fellow... contestants? Sir Rhaym rides Valinor quickly through the open gate. Quickly, before he can change the rules again..., Rhaym thought as he passed through.
"Ooo! Horsy!" Xane exclaims, amazed and marveled at the sudden appearance of such a fine and magnificent animal. She races off after it. (^_^)
"The players will find themselves on board a ship, anchored about 80 feet away from the shore. It is part of a sequence of vessels laid side by side approaching the shore, forming a sort of mismatched floating nautical bridge!"
"But of course, what sea-bridge is complete without a nice pack of zombies! I'm certain they have nothing whatsoever to do with with the burn marks, blood, gouges, and broken weapons littered about the ships!"
Six zombies seemed to be lurching forward from the shore.
Crouching low against his Pheasant, Nigel's eyes peer out beneath his top hat at the shambling corpses. "Oh I say. Poor show. Undead? At this hour?"
A loud silence is heard for a few moments from the cloud's direction, after which it moves forward through the portal after the others.
Mr. Big
Perception:
Stealth:
Can-Man
Perception:
Stealth:
Mr. Big tries crouching down, however being large and yellow his chances of being stealthy are pretty low.
Xane's initial reaction at finding herself upon a boat is to try and get closer to the horse and calm it down.
Surprised at suddenly being aboard a ship, Sir Rhaym pulls at the reins to stop Valinor, who actually needs no encouragement to skid to a stop before going overboard.
Quickly dismounting and surveying the situation, the knight recases his lance and draws his warhammer.
Valinor shies away from .Xane.'s touch.
Sir Rhaym says to .Xane.; "Beware young miss, as a trained warhorse Valinor is trained to attack those not designated as allies by his master."
The knight pats Valinor's flanks, reassuring him that .Xane. is alright.
"In the meantime, I see a number of zombies begging to be laid to rest."
Glancing at the railings and the gangplanks connecting the ships, he comments; "Though I fear I will have to be conservative in this fight. Falling overboard would be a death sentence for me."
As he steps through the portal from Goka Nianju hides his trepidation behind the black mask of his kind. He is dressed in a well worn, but well maintained Shinobi Shozoku—the trademark of his profession—stands a head taller than your average Halfling, and heavier as well. He scans around the unusual room, looking at the others stepping out of the portals, and up to the ‘court’ above, and finds his interest a little harder to hide than his nerves, which slowly ease. In such odd company even his unusual nature likely shouldn’t be questioned…
The sight of the ‘golden’ warrior made some of that trepidation return; he could practically smell the do-gooder on him; he would certainly be no help to him… He quickly took stock of the other participants; an enormous Tengu—he’d never seen one of their kind with such vibrant plumage—an odd looking human—though perhaps still the most normal looking apart from himself—a tiny man riding a very docile seeming bird, and… a talking blue cloud, what on Golarion was that?
As the count makes his presence known Nianju looks up at him with a smile, offering a brief clap at the impressive summersault, considering the question of his suit. It didn’t look too bad for him, and it certainly seemed to fit him, but it would be totally impractical.
When the portals close off the Assassin startles slightly, before looking to the one remaining open and back up to the count. Secret agendas… well he should be able to handle whatever task was set him.
He waits for the other participants to step through, following them to the portal with light steps, before pausing at the threshold to look back up at the count to give him a smile. ”I like your suit.” he says, before flipping backwards through the portal, coming up in a crouch, dagger in his left hand, right hand on the hilt of Rat’s Tail as he scans about his new surroundings.
Finding himself on a boat was just the latest of the surprises; he shuffled quickly behind a pile of crates lashed to the deck and looked out along the length of the boat bridge, and then back towards the portal to see whether an avenue of retreat remained open to him. Talk of slaying Zombies made him smile behind his mask, they likely wouldn't pay him much mind...
"The zombies seem to be taking the inititaive, closing the gap by about 30 feet as they swarm over the bridge. The distance is now about, say, 50 ft, as the players come to grips with the fact that they are on a boat. On a boat. Well, two of them can fly, one of them is a very good swimmer, and well.. One is a paladin. Hehe.. Couldn't just let the paladin have all the fun seeing they were up against the undead, now could I?"
"I do hope none of these undead are handy with secateurs" Nigel muses to himself, seemingly apropos of nothing.
Then seaweed rises from the waves.
Mr. Big
Intiative:
Knowledge (Religion - untrained):
[to determine if Mr. Big knows about any special defenses the zombies have]
Can-Man
Intiative: (or right after Mr. Big, which ever is lower).
Mr. Big will summon an Eagle (via Summon Monster I ability) to have it attack the zombies.
Eagle attack Bite:, Damage:(if it hits)
Can-Man will attack a zombie that comes in range.
1st:
2nd:
3rd:
4th:
5th:
6th:
7th:
8th:
9th:
10th:
As the zombies approach Nianju calmly slips his dagger back into it's sheath at his wrist, and keeping a careful eye on Sir Rhaym, slowly moves forward, drawing Rat's Tail in a fluid motion, feeling the keenly honed blade hum softly as the motion causes it to vibrate.
The cloud holds its position on the ship, and remains strangely silent.
"It seems the Zombies are not very handy with their secateurs! Only one advanced another 10 feet and then stopped with a dumb look on his face."
"Push them to the water Eagle-boy" Mr Big commands his summoned eagle.
Bull Rush CMB
Eagle Boy? Did he mean me? Rhaym wondered as he surged forward, Double moving towards the zombies. Still, good idea.
"Valinor! Stay!" He called back as an afterthought.
Xane reaches out and pats the horsy. (^_^)
Nianju patiently waits until the golden Sir Rhaym advances to the next ship, before doing the same. Rather than take the gangplank behind him, and risk drawing attention, he chooses--with a burst of speed--to instead simply leap across the narrow gap between the ships, tumbling behind the mast of the next ship, and lashing out at the nearest entangled foe.
Those still on the first ship see a shadowy blur leap to the next ship, almost paralleling Sir Rhayme, before loosing sight of it again.
A number of high-pitched voices are suddenly heard from the direction of the cloud, which remains stationary.
"It seems like one of the zombies has fallen, and it can't get up! Because its spine is gone. Poor spine, what did it ever do to deserve this?"
"Ah, and it seems the bird is the word, but not enough of a word to convince the zombie to fall off the ship. It did manage to push it out of the entangle zone, however!"
"And.. Uh, suddenly, in a poof of smoke, it seems 5 more zombies appeared?"
Xane watches, rather disinterestedly in the zombies, seeming far more fascinated by the horse. (^_^)
Hovering several meters aside from the bridge over the waves, Nigel sighs and stifles a yawn. "I say, you fellows, the one with large bisecting implements- have at it, what!"
Valinor nickers and tosses his head, uneasy at .Xane.'s unfamiliar touch.
Sir Rhaym advances to the nearest convenient zombie and attacks.
for a possible bludgeoning damage.
As the other zombie goes down 'missing it's spine' as the count so keenly observed, Sir Rhaym is able to observe something of his own, a dark shadow looming behind the fallen zombie, before it ducks out of sight again.
That was close, the paladin had almost seen him. If his heart still beat he was sure it would be pounding in his chest... It seemed he couldn't use such simple tactics; not out in the open like this.
He slides Rat's Tail quietly back into it's sheath, drawing his crossbow as he sneaks further around behind the 'zombies', keeping them between him and Sir Rhaym.
A high-pitched voice starts singing softly.
I'm just a little blue gas cloud
Observing each of the horde-zombies
I'm only a little blue gas cloud
Pay no attention to little mes
Round 3 Actions
Mr. Big and Can-Man close on the zombies and claw them.
with possible damage
with possible damage
The summoned Eagle continues to attempt to push a zombie into the water.
Bull Rush CMB
Xane continues to both try and pat/stroke the horse as well as begin to try and think of a way to get the critter to shore over the intervening boat decks...
"Woman! Stop playing with the horse and help us!"
There is a low hum from the direction of the cloud, sounding almost like a hive of bees. Snatches of Sylvan can be heard here and there above the buzzing.
"... called her 'woman'!"
"... what kind of..."
"... nice horse..."
"... disrespectful!"
"... do something..."
"... PLAY!!!"
Xane huffs at the big bird's shout. She gently pats the horse on its nose, giving it a quiet warning to stay safe, before shrugging and walking towards the coming zombies.
"They're just shamblers. Don't you have to deal with things like this turning up once in a while back home?" She asks.
"The uh, wow, I'm not sure what to call it! and the Paladin strike zombies! Except the zombies disappear in a puff of smoke!"
"The last zombie the two fighers engaged steps back, and.. Multiplies again! Not very zombielike thing to do. Well, then again, maybe it is! Heha.."
"Two zombies in the back, still entangled, throw something at the paladin!"
"Ladies, gentlemen, we have alchemists fire!"
Xane saunters casually towards the combat, though her gaze is cast more about the decks of the ships she's walking over as she notes what is lying about upon them.