The man listens to Sandru's tale. He looks a little better from the Manservant's care. "I'm an assassin...member of the Anaphexia. Was out there in the night defending this place. I was swarmed by hundreds of undead. Beat up pretty good." It is unclear whether he will survive, but the Manservant's efforts have been definitely palliative.
At the news that Dr. Nym is dead - "Yes, I know that Nym is dead." And then in response to Caromarc's question - "No, you don't know me. You may have seen my face before, but you don't know my identity."
He goes on to explain. "Dr. Fennick Nym, colleague of Caromarc, creator of Sandru, was a respected scientist...in the day world. But secretly, he was also a member of the Anaphexia. We met and worked together in that context. I visited him at his laboratory in town from time to time. But, of course, we kept the true nature of those business meetings hidden.
"Nym was too careless. He ended up having a problem with this niece of his. She was a bright girl, but snoopy. Took long strolls at odd hours...came across the Library of Anaphexia. Remembered certain books of her uncles that he kept in his office. One thing led to another, she deduced his secret associations, investigated further into the nature of them, and confronted him about it.
"We decided to kill her and make it look like a freak accident. Rampaging undead, attack in the night...that sort of thing. Nym died before the matter was resolved. But me and some cohorts, we carried out the assassination. Late at night. Dark alley. She was with some boyfriend doctor chap.
"We scouted the scene afterwards. Saw you all try to save the girl. Was touch and go there, for a moment. You almost foiled our plans. But things worked out in the end." He smiles to himself. "We do good work."
"I tell you all of this for two reasons. First, because I am evil and want to gloat. Second, keeping it secret doesn't matter anymore. The rest of my men lay out there now, dead, butchered by zombies. Only me left." He looks around. "Gonna miss this place. Looks like none of us are going to make it."
At the Manservant's suggestion, his mind shuts like a steel trap. "Ain't no way I'm helping any of you."
The clockwork pendant, Olivia's Heart, hanging around La Siréene's neck, is softly keening.
La Siréene takes the pendant in her hand, holding it tight.
Then, she moves over to the Assassin at and crouches down beside him, tipping her head slightly to the left quizzically, letting her hair fall aside to reveal her eye.
"Sir, I do feel you have... inconvenienced us. Now, I am not one to hold a grudge, and I’d prefer not to make a habit of it, so I’d really rather you helped my friend like the good boy we both know you are not, hm?"
You never existed. All dead, tower destroyed. There won't even be wives' tales. Pathetic. A team of mighty assassins to kill a defenseless girl. I spit at the floor.
The demons, they are gonna need a communal whore. They don't need to wait long now... Take the pill. What you could not handle, we will. We might not be able to kill the man responsible without Gaston. You want revenge, restore him... Mighty Assassin.
Or... shut up and die, useless as you are. Be nothing.
Given the apocalypse happening around you, given the dying man's fatalistic attitude...it would seem he couldn't be demoralized any further. Yet, there is something about La Siréene's emerald eye that strikes fear in his heart. Intimations of a scary, uncertain afterlife. One which this woman has wrestled and returned from, which puts her ahead of him where bravery is concerned, for all of his big words.
Her smooth words prickle at the back of his brain, make him anxious that he hasn't offed himself yet. Something about the keening from that necklace she holds... A siren call of justice for his crimes.
He doesn't say a word. Sulkily, under Sandru's watchful glare, he struggles to divest himself of his leather tunic, as to not interfere with spellcasting. He dabs his finger in blood at the wound on his side, traces a pentagram on the stone floor, mutters an incantation, and waggles the fingers of his other hand at Blackacre. He casts the spell, stone to flesh.
The inquisitor turns from stony gray back to the normal pink color of human skin. Having fulfilled La Siréene's demand, the thief deftly swallows the pill that was hidden in his hand, and ingests a lethal dose of hemlock. He dies.
La Siréene watches her friend in stone turn to flesh...
Returned to his fleshy form, Blackacre gasps deeply. His body folds and his sword clangs to the floor as he doubles over, wheezing and panting. After a few deep breaths, he picks up his blade and gathers himself.
What happened?
"You're alive, mad man." La Siréene says, smiling brightly. She then steps back before she chokes him to death.
"About nine hours is what happened. You should not look ladies with snakes for hair in the eyes. This dead, horrible man brought you back, because he was capable of fear and I have a scary eye, apparently."
A series of quakes rocks the entire library, larger than any of the tremors before. Beams crack and splinter. Stonework crumbles. The pillar in the center of the room detaches from the ceiling, breaks into pieces, and falls to the floor. The passage with the tunnel leading to the exit caves in, blocking your way. Similarly, the way from which you came, through the sarcophagus, is sealed shut.
The whole ground shakes. Phoebe is thrown violently to the ground.
A massive tentacle shoots up from below, breaks through the floor, and flails wildly about! A quarter of the room crumbles and falls away. The deceased thief and the broken pillar are sucked into the hole. A gale force suction of air pulls all adventurers towards the Abyss.
_____________________________
Blackacre smiles and chuckles at La Sireene. He is about to speak when the world erupts.
The monk steadies himself as the forcefull winds try to push him into the abyss. His strong legs have him anchored. Quinn tries to reach down to scoop up Pheobe.
Elspeth (incorporeal):
MM:
La Siréene...Sandru...Gaston Blackacre...the three of them scramble and lose their footing. Nothing to grasp. One by one...like ants...swept away...
Quinn grabs the flame oracle and tries to keep her with him. He catches her small wrist for a moment...safe. The winds are too strong. She flies away from his grasp! Twirling away in the gale force winds.
In a moment's notice, what seems like a dream, but is not...all of them...swept away...
The policeman, Quinn, and the wizard, Caromarc, his construct, and his familiar, are the only ones left on the precipice of the maelstrom. They resist the gale force winds drawing them into the Void. The winds wildly whip at Caromarc's hair.
Noooooooo!
The light of distant stars illuminates the horrified expression on their faces.
Caromarc starts to freeze again, his mind flashing back
"And lastly, the negative future." Agnes flips the card at the bottom right and reveals The Cyclone.
"This card is called 'The Cyclone'. Unfortunately, it is a perfect match. This card is chaotic evil, and in the chaotic evil position in the spread. That means it's powerful and of special import."
"This represents a force that tears through whatever it meets. This disaster doesn't come in the course of natural order, but is one that comes from the plots of intelligent beings. The Cyclone signifies war, arson, and other plans that destroy everything they touch. It is reasonable to assume this is about Hareton's experiments with threnodic energy."
She looks at Caromarc's patchwork skin and gently brushes aside La Siréene's hair, taking in her modified features. "I fear Hareton will strike again. There will be more casualties before we can stop him."
His face freezes in horror
Agnes turns over the first card and reveals The Waxworks.
"Lord Caromarc, this harrow card is called 'The Waxworks'. It represents a place of helplessness and physical entropy. The mind might be willing, but the flesh is frozen in this place of horror. It is the card of torture and imprisonment, signifying literal inability to move, or paralysis of a more prosaic kind. When interpreted in a positive light, it indicates abundance of energy at a crucial moment that changes all."
The oracle traces a path with her eyes along the thick black stitching of Caromarc's patchwork skin. "You have already experienced physical imprisonment and torture of a kind. A literal waxworks of your appearance."
"However, a master of the arcane such as yourself...you are familiar with the Void, with nameless dread? This card is associated with chaotic evil. There's a sleeping horror out there somewhere in the universe waiting for you, for all of you. Will you be frozen with fear when confronted by it? Helpless? Unable to move?"
She reaches out, runs a hand down Elspeth and gently pets her. "Or perhaps you will find some other way?"
"No. I can move. I can run!"
Instead of fleeing, he lets the wind start to take him. Starts to run into it.
She reaches out, runs a hand down Elspeth and gently pets her. "Or perhaps you will find some other way?"
"Elspeth - you are my beacon!"
"Phoebe knows," Agnes says, "We've discussed it already. No one of us is above the mission."
Flicking past Quinn he grabs the end of his silk rope and flings himself into the void after his friends.
5 foot step towards Quinn. Standard action to grab rope end. Shift 20ft in.
Incidentally, now interacting with effect if it is now an illusion ;P
The Mechanical Manservant sees what is happening with unbelieving eyes, and turns and sprints for Quinn.
Those swept away fall into an expanse of dark, swirling matter with chunks of rock and space debris drifting aimlessly. Far above (although turned around as you are this seems off to the side), you see a tiny spot of light from the room you left behind. In the center of this weird universe is a gigantic creature, a black blob of flesh with bright green spots, with a hundred eyes, an enormous mouth with stalactite fangs, and humongous, writhing, grabbing tentacles. Several smaller, similar creatures...octospawn...float in its orbit.
The rope connecting Caromarc goes taut.
From the room above, it looks like a gigantic aberration is ripping up the floors, rising from the hellish bowels of the library...
The vortex sucks in Ianez. Alley-oop! He loses his footing and goes over the side.
The nightmare aspect of Elspeth from the future looms forward through the dead sky. Her flight is calm...silent...except for the low, long blare of a foghorn, signaling certain doom. She flails a storm of tentacles, each twenty feet in length, at her master, Caromarc, and at the helpless flame oracle!
The tentacles that hit try to slither around and choke both of them. One tentacle successfully grapples and constricts Phoebe.
"Ggrhrmmph!!" The girl disappears amid the leathery coils.
Quinn sees Pheobe get taken by one of the tentacles. An anger begins to boil under the surface that is the monk. He training has taught him to not let his emotions get in the way but to channel his feeling into an attack. The policeman unleashes a volley of arrows towards the creature.
Blackacre tries to identify what kind of creature Nightmare Elspeth is:
Release her! he demands of the beast, as though it could hear him.
With a short prayer to Ragathiel, Blackacre fires a searing blast of light!
The consummate archer aims true! The arrows hit Nightmare Elspeth's huge tentacles. Her blobby flesh drinks them in. The wounds appear to close around them.
The inquisitor's bright spell lights up the Void.
Quinn sees the effect of his arrows and shouts his findings to those around him.
"My arrows have no effect."
The monk shouts out at Pheobe. "Hey Pheobe.....flame on kiddo....flame on."
One of the octopoids jets towards Blackacre, tentacles outstretched, ready to latch onto his face. They wrap around his head with a SPLOTCH!, but slide off and don't do damage.
"Don't be an idiot Caromarc. Call your little glowing friends. You can't save the girl."
Can Caromarc use Dimension Steps to rescue Phoebe from a grapple with Elspeth?
Am I right in thinking MM cannot take a 5 ft step forward and full attack Elspeth?
The Mechanical Man sees Caromarc tensing
"Just when I think I have you figured out, Jornel, it turns out you're a hero." he mutters.
To the small octopus beside him he remarks "I wonder if this thing shares your reaction to capsiacin?"
Stepping forward he palms a sachet from his alchemical kit, charges forward to stand near one of the enormous eyes and throws the sachet of chilli essence, ripping the sachet as he does.
Dirty Trick aiming to blind. Future Elspeth can make an AoO first if she likes. Not actually charging. His attack is . He's done his best to make this sound debilitating and excruciating so she doesn't pay attention to Caromarc.
not sure if legal - if is, can you give description please!
Swinging in an arc on his rope, Caromarc uses the distraction to reach out and touch Phoebe. Suddenly he, Phoebe and the doll vanish!
Reappear at T11 and T12, or further. Idea is to escape the tentacles and be away from the hole, while still minimising used distance.
Used distance is feet moved x3. Would prefer not to use more than 60ft each, ideally 30ft each.
The capsaicin sprays into the Void into the Nightmare Creature's eye. However, the powder diffuses along the membrane and isn't enough to blind her. The monster chomps down on her attacker! Her teeth drip with poison and scrape the ablative barrier.
_____________________________
Swinging in an arc on his rope, Caromarc uses the distraction to reach out and touch Phoebe. Suddenly he, Phoebe and the doll vanish! They traverse the Void in a series of dimensional steps, appearing in brief zips and flashes, trailing ghostly white lines behind them. bzzzp! zzzzpt! brrrrt! brzzp!
They reappear bedraggled, at the edge of the floor in the room above, next to Quinn!
_____________________________
As soon as I move, turn is over (Dimensional Steps)
Dropping my shield, I charge the thing that was Elspeth.
Sandru drifts between the dark voidspawn of Elspeth and twirling, barren asteroids. He plants his feet towards the monster and wills himself to fall. He crashes, like a meteor into the atmosphere, hitting hard and mercilessly as his nature allows. By exerting his might, he overcomes the strange gravitational forces of the Abyss and strikes his opponent where it counts!
The monster's blubber sinks with the cutlass and absorbs some of the impact, bouncing the sword back out.
The terrifying version of Elspeth rotates and focuses an eye on Sandru. The call of the low foghorn sounds...
DOOM.
La Siréene finds herself floating, flying or possibly levitating in a strange, weightless space, staring down a creature both like and unlike Elsepeth. Oh, Hareton...
She remembers Sandru's words. "We might not be able to kill the man responsible without Gaston", said dear Sandru.
Will we kill you, Hareton? End your existence to save other existences?
La Siréene starts to cast her summoning spell,
One of the octopoids near Sandru pulses its tentacles and swims towards him, through the Void, flanking him with the nightmare behemoth. It bites him with alien teeth! The fangs drip with clots of yellow ooze.
Ianez rotates lazily as he falls through the void, his scholar's curiosity momentarily getting the better of him. I wonder how my [i]feather fall ring will interact with this place.[/i] Shaking his head and returning his attention to the matter at hand, he draws out his bow and calls on his luck before loosing three arrows at the third octopoid.
Sandru feels the burn of alien poisons against his skin. He has withstood zombie infection. This is naught. He flicks the goop away, determined not to succumb.
_____________________________
The third octopoid flinches at Ianez's arrow, and coils into itself like a sea anemone. Rrrawwwwggghhk!
_____________________________
Octopoid #3 emits an ink cloud that provides total concealment.
Phoebe takes out the wand of cure light wounds and taps it at Caromarc. It heals him for hit points.
Round 2:
Another quarter of the room falls away!
The future aspect of Elspeth attacks Sandru and smacks him tumbling through space. She tries to grapple him, but flails wildly aside.
"Thank you my dear" Caromarc gasps.