With a combination of Grin's magic and Zalamandra's speed boost, Carina sees the world slow down significantly.
She takes the opportunity to pull out several force bombs and throw ALL of them in the Overgod's direction.
"Ow! F*!&!" Astraden can be heard uttering some very un-godly curses in the corner behind the Overgod.
"Dammit, Astraden! Do you always have to be standing right where Carina is going to be lobbing bombs? It's starting to seem actively inconsiderate!"
Carina's bombs detonate with resonant arcane power as they strike the Overgod, inflicting grievous injury. It shudders and shakes with the power of her blasts, but still only seems moderately injured. Carina does seem to have attracted its attention, however.
Eben grumbles as the speed affecting him wears off,apparently as a result of his own less-than-effective attempt to slow the Overgod, but he just shakes his magic rod and re-activates the spell. "Ugh, casting that just for me? What a waste. Knew I shoulda learned allegro at some point,"[/] he says, letting the spent rod fall to the ground and holding his empty hand out expectantly. [b]"Forzi? To me!" His magic bow and magicer bowstring leap out of his quiver and soar around his body to land in his waiting palm. "By the way. You're not unique. We actually fought and killed another version of you in Diamond Lake. I don't think you're so much a god as you are an idea that hasn't quite been forgotten yet." Eben says matter-of-factly as he starts loading some arrows.
Cuetzpalli roars as he cuts into the want-to-be god with hasted fury.
(-4 AC, -3 rounds rage)
52 for 57 sword and 9 holy
41 for 53 sword and 3 holy
56 for 53 and 14 holy (possible crit)
46 for 50 and 8 holy (possible crit)
26 for 56 and 12 holy
Confirm crits:
40 to confirm for more
45 to confirm for more
Astraden shouts back, "Me, too!" She casts around for the holy symbol she'd entrusted to Farrukh, then realizes he left it on the FLOOR, and bends down to pick it up, carefully depositing her rapier on the ground. She focuses on the mask as she puts it back around her neck, causing a flood of hatched, desaturated light to limn Cuetzpalli and herself, leaving their wounds somewhat repaired.
Farrukh, tired of squeezing in this corner, blurs away.
"Come and get me, false god!" Farrukh cries, beating Tooth against Klaw.
Too far to reach the Overgod with ranged weapons, Tanith channels Kord's divine might and then descends to join the melee.
Cuetzpalli unleashes a flurry of brutal slashes, and the Overgod roars as its fiendish essence is hacked into by the holy shard of Kord's greatsword.
The Overgod, or what is supposed to be the Overgod, breaks off as it struggles to block Farrukh's numerous blows. Though it is taking brutal punishment, only Cuetzpalli's blade has landed a solid hit, its hide still tough as nails from the lingering frenzy it entered a moment ago. True gods don't usually stammer.
it roars, lunging at Cuetzpalli, single eye blazing in utter rage and hate. Black ichor splatters over all within range.
The 'Overgod' is falling apart. But as Spiny's Six has learned, decay is rarely a mark of harmlessness, nor desperation.
The flail continues to wail—both figuratively and audibly—on Astraden, screeching like grinding metal and stone with every strike.
As Cuetzpalli is being torn apart by the overgod, he cries out to Tanith. "Kelmarchen, bro! Only Kord's weapon can harm this foul...urk..hgah...AAAAGH!"
Carina braces herself, swoops in and jabs Cuetzpalli with her glowing syringe...
Even knowing Cuetzpalli may or may not be dead (again), Eben keeps the arrows flying fast and furious, hoping to wear down the false god.
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Farrukh sees Cuetzpalli weathering the Overgod's assault, and rushes beside him to try and help.
"Hey! I said attack me!"
But the god simply overmuscles him.
The Iron Tortoise master is wary of the danger to his charges that his enemies represent, and he is ready to spring into motion to defend them. By using this maneuver when an ally within 20-ft is attacked, the martial disciple may rush up 20 ft. to become adjacent his ally. Once there, he may make an opposed attack roll using his base attack bonus plus his shield bonus to AC to negate the attack to his ally. If successful, the attack is negated and he may make an immediate counter attack against that foe which inflicts an additional +4d6 points of damage and dazes them if the target fails a Fortitude save (DC 17 + initiation modifier).
Upon reaching 5th level, the warder becomes ever more skilled at adapting to the flow of combat. Once per day, the warder may activate Extended Defense as an immediate action. When she does, the character chooses a counter she has readied; she may initiate that counter as a free action (even on another’s turn) at will until the beginning of her next turn. At the beginning of her next turn, the chosen counter is expended. Every three levels beyond this (8th, 11th, 14th, and 17th levels), she may use this ability an additional time per day. This ability can only be used with counters that negate attacks or allow the warder to use another roll in place of a saving throw.
Seeing Cuetzpalli grievously wounded sets off Tanith's divine rage but his friend's parting words snap him back into focus.
Discarding his trusty poleaxe, the big man closes on Cuetzpalli's fallen form and scoops up Kelmarchen. With a roar, he hacks at the rotting thing's thigh.
Eben's arrows rain down upon the Overgod, and as it raises its head to try to block the attacks, one perfectly-aimed arrow lodges in its pupil. It reels back and smashes into the wall with a screech.
And Tanith takes the opportunity to race under its guard and raise the sword of Kord in the air.
It resonates slightly in Tanith's hand. Tanith feels strange—the sensation is affectionate, but...chiding. Like his mother reminding him not to pick fights with the half-orc boy twice his size unless he's got an edge.
This is not Tanith's sword. But it's quite happy to help him make the creature that killed its former owner pay.
Tanith hacks the Overgod's already-shifting leg off with one ugly, ichor-dripping slice.
The Overgod wheezes.
It is falling backwards, crunching messily into the stone. The entire chamber seems to distort slightly, as if the shadows in every corner are pooling, whirling, curling into something else. The Overgod is contorting, its sightless eye streaming with dark fluid as it clutches at itself.
It almost looks as if it's trying to hold itself together. It stares blankly at Eben, then up at the ceiling, as its voice begins to waver.
m not... real."
There is a sound like splitting wood.
And the Overgod falls apart, like a bursting egg membrane, as millions of small dark river stones come cascading down all around. They fall in a cacophonous clatter around the party.
"Astraden! See if you can revive Cuetz, Carina, see if you can dispel that flail so it doesn't crush Astraden while she's seeing if she can revive Cuetz!" Eben's voice calls out from his invisible spot. "Man, if Cuetzpalli dies again, that's gonna ruin a perfectly good gloating opportunity! Gloating over the corpse of a god, for that matter! And ow!" The last interjection comes as a series of pebbles bounce off of the patch of air where Eben is standing.
"I guess 'false god' was even more accurate than we thought. Can anybody explain this to me?"
"Well, you see, Farrukh, the universe is powered by belief. Seriously, ask any of those weird people that pop in and out of reality and call the rest of us 'berks' and 'clueless primes' and they'll tell ya the same. So even though the actual gods, Hextor, Vecna, and Erythnul are perfectly content being individual gods, the belief of the Ebon Triad was enough to create something fused from them- it wasn't actually the three gods as one, but something that believed it was. And even though those believers were all dead, it still believed in itself, so it was kind of like it was being run on a perpetual motion engine- there's no fuel there, but it still kept going along. So I thought that if I could undermine its own confidence in its actual existence, it would either pop out of existence altogether or else weaken enough that it could be killed. Basically, make it realize that its engine had no fuel."
"Gods are weird." Eben says with an invisible shrug.
Cuetzpalli's bowels release.
Astraden freezes in horror as she watches the Overgod kill Cuetzpalli. She only breaks out of it when the deity is finally toppled, though her gaze is still focused on her companion's body.
After a few seconds, she raises her mask towards the ceiling, eyes wide in a grimace. Her body begins to shake as a nimbus of burning light manifests itself around her hand. The sphere of light then drifts towards Cuetzpalli, growing brighter and warmer with each moment. By the time it's reached his body, it's grownlarge enough to encompass it. It hesitates, for a moment, and then settles over and around his corpse and Carina's outstretched hand.
A moment later, the light disappears. The room goes dark, leaving only afterimages. Sticklike humanoids in revel against a backdrop of fleshy forests and explosions of solid flame. Or maybe just of Cuetzpalli's ruined form floating in midair.
"Cuetzpalli?" Astraden croaks, faintly.
"There's no time for this. Have you met the Ominous Fabler yet? You've got to—"
Then there is fire, and Cuetzpalli is alive again.
Grin whistles and kicks a stone idly, finally turning visible in the process as he descends. He scowls at his own arm. "Aw, really? Kicking a stone counts as 'an attack'? The system's bullshit."
He glances mutely into the revealed vault, then draws out a scroll and points it at Astraden's persistent attacker.
His arm glows with blue smoke as the flail shudders, but shrugs off the effect to pursue the cleric.
The first chest is full of leather bags, each containing 20 gold orbs.
The second chest contains a single leather bag with 1,000 platinum plates and nine leather bags each containing 2,000 gold orbs.
The third chest contains several racks containing potions and other magical elixirs. Carina is able to identify each with some tedious tasting.
The fourth chest contains eight smaller wooden boxes, each quite attractively-decorated with twisting vine designs—from the consistent style, one would guess they were all made by the same craftsperson or store. They vary in size, from the size of a walnut to the size of a guitar case. None radiate magic, but when opened, their contents do. The boxes may be enchanted to block divination, or lined with a thin layer of lead.
The smallest box contains a gray silk pouch, which in turn holds four small black beads.
The second-smallest box contains a slightly tacky ring bearing the image of a fluffy Kettite cat with tiny pinprick-sapphire eyes.
Several boxes are around wand-sized, and sure enough, they each contain a wand or rod.
• There is a long, sturdy wooden pole the length of a shortsword, rather plain save for its hilt—carved in the shape of a brown bear, two perfectly-placed knots in the wood serving as its eyes.
• There is a wand made out of what appear to be two long and thin copper knives that have been have-melted and woven together to form a sort of very sharp helix. It zaps whoever touches it with a nasty static volt initially, and seems to hum with a curious intensity that makes Cuetzpalli, Tanith and Eben feel curiously ill, though the others seem fine. A tag inside the box reads, "Nihil - unaligned".
• The third wand-shaped case contains what appears to be a petrified needlefish. A tag inside the box reads, "Grayscale - cursed, amoral and erratic".
A rather large box contains a large, hefty sash that appears to have been woven out of someone's fiery red hair. A tag inside reads, "Cursed - beard, racist".
A box about the size and shape of a gnomish pizza box containing a red and violet silk garment, delicately embroidered with a barely perceptible web-like pattern. A tag inside the box reads, "Cursed? Good for drow."
The final box, and the largest by far, contains a large harp, beautiful and intricately-carved. There appears to be a signature that has been half-sanded away, leaving only the letters, "m a".
Carina throws some dispelling bombs at the flail.
Unable to do anything about the flail pulping Astraden, Eben just hopes that Carina, Grin, or Zalamandra can handle it and instead tries curing the symptoms, not the cause.
"Wer vrak ui ti sia deevdru!" he calls out, spinning around dramatically, then taking a knee and laying a hand upon the ground. His handprint shines like a small patch of daylight for a moment, before blurring its borders and spreading into a solid patch of ground, then another, then another, ultimately containing both Cuetzpalli and Astraden within its boundaries.
Carina's third bomb strikes the flail directly, and it shimmers for a moment before finally disappearing with a puff of smoke and a clatter of falling gravel.
"Nice shot Red", Tanith offers Carina as he knocks the polished stones from his powerful shoulders.
"You still with us Cuetzpalli? That thing had it out for you. Or should I say it had it out for Kelmarchen?"
Farrukh unlocks and checks for traps when asked, but otherwise hovers around Cuetzpalli until he wakes up.
Cuetzpalli's destroyed body knits itself back together and the bloodrager shudders as a breath courses through him. He sits up groggily, looking around. "We got it, huh? I thought I was dead again. Thanks guys!"
"Yeahthat'sgreatjustliethereandyou'llbfineinnotime..." Eben says distractedly while his eyes gleam at the sight of the opened chests.
"Yeah, lying here sounds good."
Cuetzpalli gratefully lies back into the healing glow of Eben's spell, allowing it to slowly repair his body.
Once Farrukh establishes a lack of traps, Eben starts rummaging through the Ebon God's stack of loot. "Oh, that feels weird, not gonna touch it..." he says, avoiding the tingling wand. "Ohhh. Fashion accessory!" he exclaims with a grin, holding aloft the tacky kitten ring. "I triple dog dare someone to wear this to the ball!" When he comes to the chest with the harp, he sighs. "I know you all probably think this is the kind of thing I'm supposed to get all excited over, but the fact is, I hardly know how to play one of these things. I mean, I've got some idea, Forzamele has been teaching me, but really... I wonder what it does, though..." He inexpertly strums his fingers across the strings.
Everyone listening hears a strange buzzing in their ears as Eben begins to play—though they only notice it after he stops.
"I don't like that sound. Grab the stuff and let's go, fast. You okay to move, Cuetz?"
"If I have to..."
"I don't think we need to rush, nothing else is coming out of the woodwork and the 'Overgod' seemed to think it was all alone down here, so unless the silver bird lady- or were those two people?- comes along to check up on him, we're fine. Cuetz can finish regrowing his kidneys. And I'll... stop playing with this thing til Astraden IDs it." Eben lays a hand down on the vibrating strings, cutting off any lingering harmonics. "Probably a bad idea, anyhow, seeing as most of this stuff is labeled as being 'cursed'."
"Well, we can give these items a more thorough examination back at the Deluxury, can't we? Let's just grab everything we can and get a move on."
Carina walks up to Cuetzpalli and helps the healing process along by poking him with a healing syringe.
Zalamandra calls, "Anyone who wants to stay a bit longer can go back with me. Now that the monster is dead and the Angels don't seem to have divined our presence, I was hoping to decipher the avolakia inscriptions."
She sets about doing that.