The noise as Teldon slowly rotates the sihedron tells of cogs having lain dormant for thousands of years, of the dust of ages settling within gearing and of the imperceptibly slow drying of grease... there are clunks, cracks and shrieks - but the portcullis, ever so gradually, raises.
Beyond, a passageway heads to the east before arriving at a door... listening, the tinkling sound of running water can be heard...
Joanna raises an eyebrow at the sound.
"Running water?"
The young paladin listens closely at the door.
The longer that they listen, the friends also hear the occasional voice... seeming to be a distance away from the other side of the door, the voices are indistinct...
"So, shall we see what's beyond?" whispers Zee.
"Unless there is a dimensional distortion at work, on the other side of this door is the room the accuser devil fancied a throne room," Teldon answers in a hushed voice. "Coming from this side we stand a good chance of not having to deal with the lemures until later but likely have to deal with the imps and their lord together. Briana, if you can keep the imps visible that would be very helpful. If anyone wants to do anything to prepare, now's the time."
Almost as if to accentuate his last point, the increasingly able adventurer draws an extract and drinks it.
"Well, if we're sure a fight is upon us... Joanna, I could cast a spell on you that would make you ten feet tall. It's the same spell I used on you when we fought that demonic pig back in Ravenmoor. It will last about five minutes."
"Thanks, but I don't think it would work well here. These corridors are pretty confined to be that big," Joanna says to Zee. "Besides, I'd rather save that in case I need to be big."
Joanna replaces her shield on her back and takes her sword in both hands.
"So, Teldon, mind if I take point? If they are fairly close, I'll charge in and get the dance started."
I have some magic of my own that I could use. I can make you stronger, sweetie pie, if you want.
"I can reach past you, so you should definitely go first," Teldon answers Jo. "Zee when everyone's set can you swing the door open?"
As the preparations near completion he empowers his shortsword with arcane energy.
With the element of surprise almost certainly favouring them, the friends make their move… Ziomarra pushes the door open and Joanna strides in, sword outstretched and eyes blazing in righteous fury…
…and is greeted by nothing more hostile than the gentle ‘tinkling’ of water cascading within a small fountain across the north wall of the small anteroom that she finds herself in… just to the north and south of the door that she barged through, doors lead back to the east… whilst, off to the west – from the room where they first endured an audience with Lord Baz, she can hear voices shouting encouragement at something… and the occasional sound of steel upon steel…
– following Joanna into the room, there is no sign of anything invisible…
Teldon uses hand signals to silently, but strongly, encourage everyone to press the attack while they still have the element of surprise...
Zee nods at Teldon's signal, her Harrow deck in hand.
Joanna presses on, trying to move as silently as she can without slowing down.
Arsith follows, readying a spell
Moving, swiftly but with some caution, along the passageway that leads back to the small audience chamber where they first met Lord Baz… the friends hear the unmistakable sound of combat… and high-pitched voices cheering. As they draw close they realise that the mindless Nupperibo are fighting each other whilst the imps cheer them on… and thus far, the friends have not been noticed.
…but, of Lord Baz, there is no sign.
Zee returns the nod, ready to move in.
As the friends continue their preparations, the imps continue to shriek encouragement at the Nupperibo...
Realizing that his supernatural reach makes him the only one who has a truly high probability of reaching the imps before they can react, Teldon charges one of them. He stops just past the corner, leaving room between himself and the fiend for Jo or Arsith to insert them self in between. Studying the creature he stabs at it...
,
Joanna moves to close the distance, wishing, once again, her armor didn't slow her so much.
Harrow deck in hand, Zee moves forward as quietly as she can and then fixes the imp to the north with a malevolent glare.
Shadlah strides forward with confidence, pebbles rising and whirling around her calves as she does so. She halts at the mouth of the tunnel, legs spread shoulder-width apart, heels pushed into the floor, hands held out to her sides. Her eyes roll back as a horrible grinding comes from the stone beneath and around her, as if the very ancient walls themselves are pulling in towards her, even as the stone whirls around her like satellites in frantic orbit around an unforgiving sun.
Then, with a noise like a tremor, the Shoanti woman's hands slam together, one fist into the other palm, knuckles forward, as always. But the power is too great, and she buckles under the force, the connection to the elemental plane shattering; she collapses to one knee, sweating and panting, shaking from the wild force of the blast.
The imps, engrossed in the pitiful combat that the Nupperibo are engaged in, are utterly unprepared for the sudden attack by the friends… as Briana causes one of the oil-black devils to start shining like a perverse sun, Teldon runs at it – strangely extending arms wield the sword that slashes at the imp…
…and, as the other imp screeches about treachery, Ziomarra fixes it with her Evil Eye – distracted, and plagued with self-doubt, the fiend is not fast enough to move out of the way as rock explodes from the passageway towards it… when the dust settles, the body of the fiend is little more than a smear…
Arsith dashes into the room and attacks an imp, hoping to get the strategic advantage of surprise
Flat-footed, the imp suffers a brutal blow from Arsith... "My Lord!!! My Lord!!! We are betrayed!!!", the imp shrieks as it seeks to avoid Arsith's swinging weapon... and sting her with its cruel barb...
Near mindless, the other fiends in the room - the Nupperibo - stumble up the stairs, charging their nearest foe...
Teldon stabs again at the imp he studied...
,
Then he quickly studies the nupperibo that charged Arsith, then reaches over her shoulder and attempts to open up a hole in its defenses for her.
Swinging again, Teldon cuts the second imp from the air... a bedraggled thing, it crashes to the floor - jerking and twitching as its life blood is thirstily consumed by the ground...
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Joanna, seeing the imps die almost before they scream out turns her attention to the lesser threats.
"Y'know, is it really treachery when three of us are wearing a holy symbols in plain sight?"
The waxy mannequin that was the closest of the Nupperibo is nearly cleaved in two by Joanna's sword... collapsing, its remains tumble back down the steps into the amphitheatre where it had previously been fighting...
Sweating and shaking, Shadlah crawls to her feet, staggering sightly as if bearing a great weight on her shoulders. The remnants of rubble around her rise and fall, thrumming against the ground, the low droning returning like the sound of something huge rolling in the depths of the earth. This time, when her hands open to the plane of earth, she yells with barely-constrained fury, obliterating the remaining nupperibo in a burst of stone.
Joanna turns to Shadlah, her eyes wide.
"Shadlah of the Broken Earth," she says, "Shadlah the Stone Weaver I say. That was humbling and frightening to behold." The paladin motions to the pile of rubble that had squashed the last devil in the room.
She then turns to Teldon, a gleam in her eyes that spoke of the fires within her that were now stoked.
"I have an idea about how to draw Baz out," she tells him. "Let me go ahead and the rest of you follow about ten paces behind as quietly as you can. Hopefully, a lone paladin will make for some tempting bait."
Do you think Baz is worth the risk, Jo? I don't want you to get harmed..
Lord Baz's minions lie smashed... the explosion of violence pouring from the corridor behind them catching them woefully unprepared... now, all that remains of the eternal struggle between the Suzerain and Lord Baz is the pudgy faced accuser devil... still mysteriously absent...
"We still don't know where the accuser demon went," Teldon points out. "Before we go running off in the hopes of happening upon him perhaps we should check the two doors we passed charging into the room; one of them could be a private chamber for him."
and if he's not there we should check the riftsyphon next in case he's trying to put it back together...
Once his companions agree, he heads up to the doors and quickly checks them for traps...
"If we can get rid of another devil, then I think the risk is worth it. Teldon has a point though. Let's see if he's in those rooms first," she says before turning back the way they came and attempting to go through one of the doors, her sword at the ready in one hand while the other pushes the door open.
Turning back on themselves and leaving the carnage of the amphitheatre behind, the friends cautiously approach the two doors that they left behind them in the rush to engage with the imps… from behind the northernmost of the two doors comes the unmistakable slopping and gurgling of lemures whilst, from behind the southern door, silence…
Deciding to divide and conquer, and with the assured knowledge that the lemures pose little threat, Teldon swings the northernmost door open… and, between Joanna, Arsith and Shadlah, the ill-formed devils lie slain within moments… there is nothing of note within the small room and so, with some caution, the friends move to the southern door. Readied, the friends swing it open, and are immediately assaulted by a petulant buzzing voice, ”Traitors, Liars, Vagabonds!!! We had an agreement… and you have reneged!!! And now I find that my Rift Syphon lies in ruins… You will be made to pay for your deceit!!!”
Flitting around in a small room with a single table, Lord Baz is highly agitated… and cornered.
"We reneged on nothing," Teldon declares stepping into the room, "we agreed to kill your rival and we have. Now, by your word you owe us a secret of ancient Thassilon or it is you who have reneged."
He stops with the accuser devil just inside the supernatural reach of his shortsword (with plenty of room for Jo or Arsith to step in between them), and studies the creature. He pauses to see if it will give an answer but prepares to strike if it attempts to fight or fly...