"Get off of me! Release your hold!" the Vampire lord demands. He smashes the dragonfly's head with his morningstar. He manages to break free and dodge the beast. Despite the chaotic melee, he gets his bearings. "Living statues? Giant insects? What kind of witchery and mischief is this?"
His wounds begin to supernaturally close. He snaps his cape, pulls his posture up straight, and stares at Quinn. "Erastil's child...feel my wrath!" He extends his arm and casts retribution at the policeman. Quinn is wracked with shooting pains! Ghostly red lines sear across his flesh.
The first henchman, in combat with Sandru, slams its wiry frame against him. The vampire jumps onto his back, throws its arms around his neck, and sinks its fangs into his leathery skin. The pointed teeth tear through muscle and bone, tapping into a gushing vein. It slurps, then throws its head back, face smeared scarlet with Sandru's blood.
The second henchman breaks away from the Manservant and rushes Ianez . It slams into him, and grasps at his face with withered hands that are like hairless dead rats. It tries to grab him and likewise drink his blood. However, in its ardor for sustenance, it fumbles and can't get past the bard's defenses.
Phoebe picks up her skirts and dashes to Ianez's side . She hurls the flask of holy water at the vampire that attacked him. The flask shatters against the vampire. The holy water wets its skin, and burns it with a hissing sound. Aaaaahhhhh!! The vampire clutches the left side of its face in agony. The skin bubbles and is disfigured.
"Arghhhhhh" The monk shouts out in pain, grabbing his head, then shouts out again in defiance to his suffering.
In his defiance he shoot his four arrows at the vampire lord.
The Giant Dragonfly lunges at the Vampire lord again, as he casts his spell.
The henchman's bloodlust leaves him wide open for a wallop by Sandru.
"Ugh!" the Vampire lord groans. "I am sorry, my lord," he says, addressing Hareton. "I have failed you." He assumes an insubstiantial, gaseous form
_______________________________
It turns out the Vampire lord had not actually escaped the maw of the dragonfly, but only in his arrogance did he see things happening that way. He managed to cast the retribution spell on Quinn, while wrestling with the giant insect's digestive juices. Or did he escape? In the swirling maelstrom of the brouha, the exact sequence of events remain unknown.
At a later time, when having lunch with and being interviewed by a salacious, annoying halfling reporter, I, Network, Rat-of-the-Sewers, had this to say. "This wasn't one of my best moments, as far as observing and recording everything down. I think the red fog in the room, and the sight of all that blood-drinking made me distracted and a little woozy.
"I think the Vampire lord was alive when Quinn's last volley of arrows took him out. But who knows? He was shot full of holes, and the Giant Dragonfly chomped down on him with its mandibles. Tossed him around, over here...over there... In those last moments, his eyes were dead, like a rag doll, and his hairless rat hands flopping all over the place." I look down at my own. "I suppose I have no room to talk about hairless rat hands." I shrug.
"The point is, the adventurers took that jerk out." -ed.
Missed Sneak Damage... if you'll take it.
Blackacre draws his sword, grumbling to his benefactor, Help me return these beasts to Hell. He then strikes at the heart of Vampire #2.
The disfigured vampire turns away defensively from the inquisitor. He whips his cape up, a confusing mass of twirling black tendrils, unfathomable shadow, and organic-looking like bat wings. The attack is lost in the confusion.
The Mechanical man smiles at the vampire stuck between him and Sandru, then raises his Scythe for the kill.
Caromarc walks around the wall in time to see the vampire go gaseous.
"Leaving so soon?" he asks, bitterly.
"Elspeth - the hand, if you would."
Elspeth starts to walk quickly towards the hour hand, intending to smash the grille and take it.
The moment she has moved away the Earl releases the spell he has prepared and a shiny hemipshere of ice surround the vampire lord.
"That should give us some time!"
The vampire on Sandru gives a shrill shriek of pain!
A crackling white matrix of ice crystals erupts high in the air and builds downward in a sphere, encasing the Vampire lord and the Giant Dragonfly in a prison of ice.
Go AWAY!
Sandru knocks the first vampire henchman off of his back. He whirls around and slices him in half with his cutlass! SSPPLOTCH!! Sandru is sprayed with blood. The top half of the vampire topples away off the bottom.
The scholar steps back next to Quinn and tries to put three silvered arrows into the vampire minion that attacked him.
Two arrows at short range embed into the vampire's thorax, knocking it once...twice... The old Ustalavian faith in pure metals, in silver, burns into the unholy creature like a holy symbol pressed to its skin.
The monster snarls, and its eyes glow red. "I make last stand against you," it hisses. "Must not let you get hand to clock. Must not let you hurt Master Hareton..."
Round 3:
La Siréene raises an eyebrow as the Caromarc encases her creature and sphere of flame in ice, but passes no comment, instead drawing out her inherent power into her fingertips, walking around Blackacre, stopping next to the remaining vampire and placing her hand upon his throat to temporatily remove him from the world of the ambulatory.
The vampire's eyes dazzle with bright lights, and he's unable to move! He goes motionless in the druid's grip, except for a barely audible, shrill, canine-like whine.
Seeing that the vampire can't take a swipe at her if she casts a spell, Phoebe walks around La Siréene and approaches Sandru. "Very brave, dear Sandru. And very bloody!" She gingerly touches the puncture marks on his neck, and casts cure serious wounds. He is is healed by cauterizing fire.
I feel the Oracle's flames enter my veins... They are hot, yet comforting. Something about them familiar... haunting.
Thank you, Phoebe. I was starting to feel weak. The blade requires payment for its service... in blood.
Could the vampire be so arrogant? Is his coffin here with you in this very room?
Ianez attempts not to betray what he noticed as he addresses the henchman, confident that his words will register even through the druidical mental haze. "Is Hareton your master? I would have thought that the vampire lord here held that...honor."
Three lap dogs... more like it.
The vampire's good eye focuses like a laser at Ianez. He grimaces and tries to look away. The bad side of the face crumples, inscrutable.
But he betrays his answer.
He will be all our master...
Quinn unleashes another 4 arrows at the remaining vampire.
using clustered shot
Could the vampire be so arrogant? Is his coffin here with you in this very room? .
The vampire's eyes widen in pain, then go blank and unseeing, and roll back in its head. The body slumps, arms limp at its sides.
Ianez points across the room at an alcove in the corner. "There is something out of place there. First secure the hand, though."
Quinn stays on the lookout for any more bad guys.
"Ianez is right. I don't think my eye deceive me. There is something amiss right there." The monk points in the direction (V3-V4).
"I'll stay on point....keeping an eye out for any more bad guys. The rest of you investigate."
Blackacre takes a couple of sidelong steps toward the alcove at the far end of the room, sword out.
I'm sure one of you can fly up there and recover the hand. Those of us who cannot will keep an eye on this alcove and cover you.
I walk over to where the Copper pointed.
The cage around the clock hand comes away loose. Deprived of the vampires' magical protections, it slides to the floor without much trouble. The hour hand is about 3 meters long and weighs a little over two pounds. Also, as Blackacre and Sandru near the alcove, they confirm that there lies the Vampire lord's coffin. The light plays strangely across its surface. The box flickers in and out of view.
"Stay clear of the hand if you are flesh and blood; it gives off the same poison light as the other one."