Feeling the grip on her falling away, fear is replaced with insight in Vai's mind. She focuses for a moment, teleporting directly next to Ryleh, out of Khoda's grasp. The way she maneuvers after the teleportation forces Ryleh to think of the other Blue she had seen fight recently: Aegythrax. Vai's movements mirror his fighting style very closely.
Now safely out of Khoda's grasp, Vai intensifies the life drain on Khoda, sucking more and more energy from the god-being. The gem around Vai's neck glows with a angry blue light, getting brighter and brighter by the second and more of Khoda's power flows into it.
"Where did everyone go?"
"Was the bell for bedtime?"
"Hey, he's moving closer! Hurry!"
Gareth was running as fast as he could, but the Shocker wasn't having any trouble keeping up. When your target is clutching a large book for all they're worth, it doesn't make them run faster. With practiced ease he tosses a cube in front of Gareth and watches as it explodes in a field of electricity. Gareth spasms and collapses the ground were he continues to twitch.
"Gotta love the magic and nervous system disruptor." The Shocker mutters as he kneels down next to the twitching child. Once Gareth has passed out from the electricity, he picks him up and tosses the boy over his shoulder, book and all.
Khassar steps back ten feet and casts Unseen servant. He orders the unseen servant to cross the line and observes the results.
Enre struggles valiantly to break free of the demi-elemental's grip, but he's just not strong enough. The lightning-creature cackles cruelly and motions for a third one to come in and join the fun; one will hold Enre still while the other two beat the life out of him. Simple, really.
Khoda's tendrils flail and twist in confusion as Ryleh hammers on the stone and Vai siphons away his very life force. A strange blue-white energy disc forms around the crown of the god of destruction's head, then starts to spin off into a weird interdimensional anomaly, a tiny spot in the endless sky of the plane of storms...
HRRRRRRRRNNNNNNNNGGGGG! WHAT...! WHAT...!
WHAT ARE YOU...
Jim and Aananda are taken aback as the former's machine suddenly springs to life, spewing out thousands of petawatts of power, pinning display meters to their max and causing rapid chatter in AI run-logs. The energy hammers down into the ruined stone in Nasima's forehead, channeling all that power into the delicate vessel that is her body. She absorbs it, and the effects are immediate. Bizarrely, she ceases to twitch and shudder, and becomes completely still. The cloud formations on her skin instantly come to life and begin moving more rapidly than ever before. Her form fills out a little bit, becoming thicker with muscle, and her hair, which used to be all white, is now run through with shockingly bright streaks of blue.
All her vitals settle down to regular. Her eye is still ruined, though, and blood continues to run out of the gem-wound.
The packmate soon finds its way to the lab, ready to be of use. As it reaches the door, it knocks constantly on the door, chittering incoherently as it does so. At the noises, Jim orders the homunculus at the door to open it. Having to turn its body so far to knock, the packmate doesn't realize that the door is open, and instead knocks a few times on the head of the Dedicated Wright. He isn't pleased, and pushes the packmate over easily, the awkward weight distribution already awkward to walk with. For the first time in quite a while, Jim actually talks to his homunculi. Now is NOT the time. Cut it out. The packmate quickly gets up and enters, the Dedicated Wright closing the door quickly behind it.
Two of the other DWs remove the adamantine plate from in front of Nasima's face, to give the Packmate some room, and the lot of them make a sort of staircase to assist the Packmate in getting up to the table's height, standing on a stool. The Packmate uses its nanobot healing apparatus (the one Aananda installed) to clean and disinfect the gem wound and the eye.
With a look of concentration, and another grunt of pain, Phaezeriel sends a flash of warm light washing out over the lab. While it does not replace the eye, all of Nasima's wounds heal over. Everyone else in the lab feels the rich warmth of health flow through the collective as it is redirected into the bodies of those who are struggling with the evil god.
::Enre, would being larger help you at all? Would being larger help anyone else?::
Sifu Daiyu shakes her head softly. "The others can complete this action, Fei. We must rest. Our bodies are not yet completely solid." She jumps up at him, then, impossibly swift and accurate, swifter even than he, though he is able to get a block up... Their arms pass right through each other.
"Our physical forms are still coalescing. We are here, and can act, but our spirit selves have suffered tremendous trauma, and must rest the remainder of this day."
"So. Tea?"
"Oh," Fei replies simply, contemplating the implications of what his sifu just said, and recalling what he saw before they returned to the classroom. "Then yes - tea would be most welcome, Sifu, thank you," he coninues with a deep bow.
"There was another being in the upper rafters of that chamber that may have survived the destruction of the watch-gem. It...had a dark, chitinous form, and felt...vengeful..."
Khassar steps back ten feet and casts Unseen servant. He orders the unseen servant to cross the line and observes the results.
A thin blade flies through the area, slicing through the unseen servant so quickly that you wouldn't have seen it if you didn't know what to watch for.
Keme flinches from the sudden rapid flow of information. He really hated it when Hope did this. The headaches were unbearable.
He teleported to Vai. ::We need to get back to Nasima RIGHT NOW!:: he said, before teleporting to the lab.
"Jim! Your machine isn't doing what you think it is! It's working, but we need to move it and get it to Khoda right this second!" he said trying to wrench the machine off of Nasima to bring it back with him.
::Vai! As soon as we get this machine out of here, give Nasima all the energy you've collected.::
::That energy, it is evil and chaotic, will it damage Nasima? I can, mm, sync it to Nasima's own if you will let me.::
Krays takes a look at the stone Ryleh is hacking away at, and decides to coordinate on one stone rather than going after his own...
"You're sure? Damn. Alright then. Let's get going, Aananda.
Jim bends down to talk to his homunculi. You guys stay here and help as best you can. Don't mess around, either. The DWs give a salute, and the packmate nods, almost tipping itself over.
Well, Aananda, how are we going to get there? he asks as he easily picks up the machine.
"I can open a gate there. Just give me a second."
He studies his grandson for a second or two...seems to be looking at the energies from the plane he was on wafting off of him...
"Ahh, yes. Plane of storms. I should even get you close. This will be one-way though, you'll need a ride back. Can't have any nastiness coming through."
He makes the briefest of gestures, and a gate appears, reflecting a swirling mass of clouds and storms. In the not too far off distance, the others in melee with storm elemantals can be seen...
"In you go..."
A thin blade flies through the area, slicing through the unseen servant so quickly that you wouldn't have seen it if you didn't know what to watch for.
In the Plane of Storms: At the same time Jim is coming through, there is a wavering in the air under Khoda, and a weird rift opens up; through the black disc that appears, another place can be seen, though it is completely dark, broken only by weird undulations. Suddenly, in that portal, an explosion is seen, briefly illuminating the forms of Fei and Sifu Chen Daiyu, the former standing on a dais under a hideous, moon-size alien thing, and the latter single-handedly fighting off dozens of horrible tentacled chthonic beasts. The light of the explosion expands out, and then the student, the teacher, and the creatures are gone.
The portal, however remains, and a black line of dark energy rockets out of it and strikes Khoda, who screams again in pain as this line starts to suck power out of him.
The skull-thing that is Khoda begins to shrink.
Vai notices this second power drain, which is slightly different from what she's doing; it's taking something else, some other energy contained in the lightning god's form. Nonetheless, it's there, and the twin power drain is rapidly smashing Khoda's abilities and powers.
Jim steps through the portal, and is amazed by what he sees. Shaking off his amazement, he, using his rockets, maneuvres his way over to Khoda (or at least tries to) to use his machine where it needs to be.
1d20 + 24 + 2
Aananda grabbed a personal starcaster and clipped it to her belt quickly before helping Jim lift the machine and heading through the portal. As Jim uses his rockets to maneuver the machine, she transforms into a dragon and pulls it along, making it a lot easier for him to maneuver.
The lightning demi-elementals suddenly stop attacking, shaking and wobbling in time with Khoda's scream and fall. They haven't broken back apart into individual elementals, but nor are they solid in their current form.
Keme teleports back to the plane of storms.
::Vai, go now! The rest of you, get out of here too. Things are gonna get rough once those stones on his head crack.::
Keme will run interference for anyone trying to make it back to the portal now.
There are exactly 13 miles between the portal and Khoda. The energy being used is a type of nega-energy that originates in the Plane of Shadow. What's interesting to Krays is that the energy being pulled out of Khoda is the exact same type as what is being used to pull said energy, which hints strongly at collusion between Khoda and the shadow plane.
Before going any further, Jim places a Shield Other spell on Aananda. Just in case.
With the elementals no longer attacking and given the signal to retreat, Jiminy 0 and Fieri both head for the portal. The remaining four Jiminies will stay to help for this round and then disappear.
Vai instantly disappears from the Plane of Storms, taking Khoda's energies with her, and appearing in full dragon form in the middle of the lab. The sight of Nasima's eye causes Vai to wince a little. ::Alright Phaeze, but be quick, the energy might vanish with him.::
With Phaezeriel helping her modulate the energy, Vai slowly allows it to flow into Nasima.
Vai instantly disappears from the Plane of Storms, taking Khoda's energies with her, and appearing in full dragon form in the middle of the lab. The sight of Nasima's eye causes Vai to wince a little, but she begins to channel the lifeforce into her friend, the pendant around her neck growing slowly dimmer as she does.
With the pole, Khasser is able to activate the trap easily and move on to disable fairly quickly. A quick test reveals that the pressure plate no longer moves .
Since Phaeze is busy keeping the whole team okay, Ephebe loads a regenerate shell into her Caster and takes aim for Nasima.
Krays, seeing the energy for what it is, moves to try to prevent whatever energy is being reclaimed, so that it is lost with Khoda...
Since Phaeze is busy keeping the whole team okay, Ephebe loads a regenerate shell into her Caster and takes aim for Nasima.
1d20+24
The bullet shatters against Nasima in a burst of magical energy and a new eye begins growing in place of the ruined one.
Since Phaeze is busy keeping the whole team okay, Ephebe loads a regenerate shell into her Caster and takes aim for Nasima.
1d20+24