In the midst of Vladimir losing at poker again, his secretary bursts into the lounge. He gasps out, "Adventurers... everywhere!" and then collapses to the ground.
Preposterous! There weren't any groups scheduled for today, and there shouldn't be any possible way for a group to get this deep this fast without you knowing about it. Rushing out into the library (through the large secret door behind one of the bookshelves), you find nothing immediately amiss, save for the trail of blood left by Vladimir's dying secretary.
Wait... if there are unscheduled adventurers in the dungeon, and there's now a trail of blood leading back here...
"Vhat! Kevin, explain!" Vladimir shouts, grabbing the unconscious imp by a wing. He then reaches inside his cape, grabbing a wand. "Cure light vounds! Oh, for crying out loud! Cure light Wounds!" he says, pointing the wand at Kevin.
"Now, how did adventurers manage to come this far VITHOUT ME GETTING EVEN A MEMO?" he shouts at the tiny devil in his hand.
A chorus of "WHAT?!" and "HOW?!" erupts from the Many-Headed Lord in the back of the room. The last time he'd tried to participate in the poker game had been a disaster, but the others had since agreed to let him sit in as long as none of his heads raised a fuss.
"Where are our minions?!" cries one head. "Someone is going to pay for this!"
The Matriarch sighs and elegantly folds her hand.
Gentlemen, and Cephalon, so hating and prepare yourselves. We are about to have a much more interesting night than I anticipated. If we got no word then even my brood on the ethereal plane is lost. Which means we have our first real challenge in years. I relish the thought.
Her for red arms shiver slightly and her bisected jaw chitters. I look forward to implanting my share. If anyone wants to join me in the ethereal, speak now.
With that she fades from view into the Ethereal Plane taking the first person to speak up with her.
"Adventurers in the dungeon? And if they got this deep... I will CRUSH them!"
Tikkik seals his cockpit as the W.M.D. whirrs into life, then pilots it out into the library, several potential enraged rants percolating in his mind.
Kevin remains... surprisingly unresponsive. The healing doesn't seem to take at all, which likely means he's managed to get himself killed again. How he managed to speak and then immediately die, Vladimir hasn't the faintest idea, but adventurers are always coming up with new and more creative ways to make minions die.
Before any of you can speculate further, however, a quartet of adventurers comes charging blindly into the room, in typical adventurer fashion. Your experienced eyes quickly recognize this as an incredibly stereotypical party, with a fighter (red square), rogue (black square), cleric (white square), and wizard (blue square).
"Look out! These ones look like trouble!" The elven fighter declares, her banded mail creaking as she points at you with her spear.
"A mechanical dragon, a hydra, and a vampire?" The also elven rogue asks, incredulously. "I thought this floor was undead-themed?"
Vladimir shoves Kevin's corpse in a pocket, then gracefully strides towards the intruders, walking on the library as if it was not perpendicular to earth, drawing his rapier.
"A vampire is an undead, you pointy-eared, myopic idiots! Now, big guy, vould you kindly murder your vizard friend?"
In the Ethereal the Matriarch paces around the group to their rear, coolly evaluating the group as she goes. She steps through the door so she isn't an immediate target and shifts back into the material when out of sight around the corner. They clearly think their back is secure. How surprised they will be.
Tikkik's voice boomed loud, amplified by his dragon's speaker systems.
"SURFACE INTERLOPERS! You shall PAY for your unprovoked violence upon subterranean communities! And your VANDALISM of our HOMES!"
Even as Tikkik spoke, the W.M.D. charged forward, and then struck at the wizard with its steel jaws.
Cephalon lets out ten mighty roars as he charges into the fray, all of his heads snapping at the adventurers daring to defy his will, starting with the cleric. The heads take turns grabbing their target and tossing it between them, snapping at the poor fool each time.
If anything is still alive after all that, whichever head was last will try to hold its target in its jaws.
The fighter is immediately entranced by Vladimir's command, in spite of being called a guy, meaning she's too mind-controlled to take a swing at the W.M.D. as it charges through the reach of her spear. Said mechanical dragon takes a big bite out of the (surprisingly dwarven) wizard.
Of course, that's nothing compared to the carnage Cephalon wreaks. Surprisingly, the cleric takes six bites before going down.
He goes for the poor wizard next, who turns out to be surprisingly hardy, only going down with the hydra's last bite. Desperately, the rogue drinks a potion , vanishing from sight, while the dominated fighter jerkily turns around and starts stabbing the already-dead wizard.
The W.M.D. snapped at the rouge.
Then, figuring Vladimir might want his new puppet alive, Tikkik instead has the W.M.D. mercilessly pound whatever location the invisible rouge shows up on his radar.
"Hah! You think you can hide from me, pointy-eared scum!? I know where you are!"
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"My carpet! My BOOKS! Cephalon, you are effective, but- OH NOT THE ARMCHAIR!"
Vladimir looks at the devastation left in his beautiful, mahogany-tasseled library.
"This vill take forever to clean up, but let's focus on removing these unexpected nuisances. Forgive me if I get a snack before starting, it vill just take a minute. Come here, girl!" he beckons the fighter, grabbing her and sinking his fangs inside her neck.
You can hear the sound of a body hitting the floor where the W.M.D. detected the rogue.
The prick of Vladimir's fangs brings the fighter back to herself, and she struggles to break free of his grip.
She manages to twist free, though you can see the dawning horror in her eyes as she looks over the mess that used to be her friends.
As the fighter turns s/he comes face to face with the Matriarch. A clawed hand shots out and grabs her (him?) By the neck. This one is mine she clicks
Vladimir bows at the Matriarch, keeping his rapier close. "As you vish. I vill count her against those I owe you from our games."
A few of Cephalon's heads tear into what's left of the cleric and wizard, trying to separate the valuables from the gore. Two of them turn around to address Vladimir.
"So you see the problem, then?" asks one.
"This is why I don't like close quarters!" cries the other.
The fighter struggles feebly, but is no match for The Matriarch. Soon enough she chokes her into unconsciousness, and the elven woman slumps down in her grasp.
Tikkik looked up at the sound, his motion mirrored by his Wondrous Mechanical Dragon.
"What? WHO'S THERE!? Yet more barbaric surfacers here to despoil our dark abodes? SHOW YOURSELVES!"
Tikkik pilots his dragon over to where he can peek its head around the corner, peering both at his instruments and through the tinted window of his cockpit in the dragon's head.
When the woman finally loses consciousness, the Matriarch hisses in glee. A sharp, long ovipostior appears from under her chin from it's hiding place. She stabs it deep into the elf's chest through the gap between the collar boots and injects
This one can bow serve as an unwitting spy for us as my eggs incubate. We must be sure she is found by our enemy.
Cephalon hears nothing. His heads seem to be distracted, talking among themselves.
"Why don't we just kill it?"
"Because it's still useful."
"Disgusting."
Vladimir sighs. "I believe there are more coming. I vill go check it out, vait just a moment."
Pirouetting, he dissolves into a cloud of bats, fluttering out of the door and into the corridor.
Vladimir flies into the hallway, just in time to see a human woman peaking through the secret door that leads into his 'ruined cathedral'. She turns back as he sneaks up the corridor.
"Whatever was going on seems to be over," he hears her saying. "I don't hear anything anymore."
"Over? we'll see about that soon enough..."
Tikkik drives his dragon down the hall as quietly as he can.
Which is actually surprisingly sneaky for something the size of a grizzly bear and made out of metal.
Cephalon sticks his heads into the hall and sucks in his gut as he prepares to make his way down the uncomfortably tight hallway.
The Matriarch picks up her prey and carries it as she follows behind Cephalon
As the W.M.D. makes its way down the hallway, Cephalon behind, you hear a voice from the still mostly-closed secret door ahead.
"Wait... what was that?"
The Matriarch shifts back into the Ethereal. She has confidence that the test of the team can handle a moment without her. She has a mole to plant.
Tikkik drove the dragon right up to the secret door, waiting for some foolish adventurer to open it, scaly fist hovering over a purple button in his cockpit.
Tikkik makes a valiant effort, but can't suppress the urge to chuckle maniacally in anticipation.
Vladimir gets to his vampiric form again, blending in the shadows on the ceiling just behind Tikkik. In his mind, he goes over the most inspiring speeches he knows, getting ready to give the audience the best and last performance of their lives.
Cephalon crawls over to the intersection, where he plants himself firmly. He will need the others to clear the entrance for him, as he'd be open to all sorts of attacks if he went first.
There's silence from outside the doorway, then the voice from before calls out, "Get ready, everyone! They're coming through!"
You can hear the sounds of spellcasting and running feet outside, but they seem to be going further away from the secret door rather than closer to it.
"FINE then, BE that way!"
Tikkik directed his dragon in the act of slamming the secret door open/breaking it down (whichever is easier), ready to rush into the room and attack based on what he saw in there.
"I have to say, Tikkik, you surely are a straightforvard combatant." says Vladimir coolly, looking at the metal dragon as a weird plan starts to form in his mind. "Never liked that door anyvay."
The Matriarch continues in the Etheteal past the likely site of battle to the rear of the ruined cathedral.
The W.M.D. doesn't exactly tear the secret door off of its hinges... but it's a near thing. In the room beyond, you can see three figures--an obvious barbarian (the red square) standing near one of the ruined statues Vladimir decorates with, a robed Osirian woman with a holy symbol of Nethys (the white square) who was backing away from the door, and a half-orc with stony skin (blue square) who was also backnig away.
The W.M.D.'s sensors pick up another person at the black square, but you can't see anyone there.
The invisible person moves slightly, but doesn't reveal themself.
The half-orc keeps backing up while casting a spell. A thick, noxious cloud forms in the hallway (the circle on the map).
The robed woman likewise backs up and casts a spell. A ghostly figure appears in front of the W.M.D. (white circle), wielding a similarly translucent quarterstaff, which it swings at the Mechanical Dragon
It solidly whacks the snout of Tikkik's creation, denting it.
At last, the barbarian charges forward [ooc]Provoking an attack of opportunity from the W.M.D. and stabs at the mechanical dragon with a spear.
The spear-stab pings off metal without causing damage.
The Matriarch, still in the Ethereal, walks across the ruined chapel. She stops in front of the one who was clearly a servant of Nethys and shifts into the material right in front of her, the critically wounded fighter hanging in her arms. The Matriarch drops the fighter to the ground and looks up at the cleric.
Offering choices like this was so delicious. So what's it going to be? Attempt to save your friend, with a spell or heroic deed, or engage me? she thinks. Her eyes stare down the cleric from her red, veguely insectoid face. Her demeanor is ready but unconcerned, as if watching a stray dog that's just been offered a bone.
Vladimir chuckles and starts quoting emphatically.
"Adventurers who sought this place to rob,
Your life is but a shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."
Then he looks the barbarian in the eyes, trying to bend his will. "Kill the Osirian."
"Foolish warrior! My WONDEROUS CREATION is far too strong to be harmed by your puny weapons!"
"Bah! I don't have time for you and your silly pointed stick! FORWARD!"
Tikkik directed the W.M.D. to simply charge straight over the puny human in their way.
All of his heads hacking and wheezing from the noxious gases, Cephalon blunders out into the open and takes a spot in the middle of the room, trying to catch his breath.
The W.M.D. bites the barbarian as he approaches.
The barbarian's eyes glaze over at Vladimir's command. The vampire's will means he does not resist as Tikkik and Cephalon go charging past. The ghostly being swings at the W.M.D. as it passes, though.
Its blow is completely ineffectual.
The Osirian woman looks briefly at the elf The Matriarch drops, looking confused as she takes a step back. There's no hesitation in her spellcasting as she lifts her symbol of Nethys and points at the xill.
She manages to shake the spell off. Meanwhile, her ghostly minion runs over and attacks Cephalon's body.
The barbarian robotically walks across the room. He reaches spear-range of the cleric and takes a ready stance, preparing himself to stab her.
Tikkik's sensors show the invisible adventurer moving across the room.
The sorcerer backs up slightly and tosses a fireball, hitting The Matriarch, the W.M.D., frying The Matriarch's captive, and unbeknownst to him, burning his friend.
The W.M.D. fails to dodge the fireball, and parts of it glow red from overheating
"Ow, hot! I'm going to get you for that you nasty spellweaver!"
Tikkik drives the W.M.D. a step closer to the wizard, before lashing out at full power.
"AHAHAHAHA! CRUSH HIM, my wonderful dragon!"
Cephalon completely ignores the ghost-thing as he barrels out into the center of the room, looking for an opportunity to crush someone. Unfortunately, between his allies and the room itself, he can't quite find a path. If he sees an enemy he can reach- a corporeal one, that is- he'll immediately bite it.
Almost casually, Vladimir strolls to Cephalon's side, keeping up the monologue. He looks at the cleric with an amused expression, trying to catch her attention. "Vhy, servant of Nethys, haven't ve got quite the collection of vondrous items! I am sure they vere all regularly bought, and taxes paid in full, as per the 4701 Prospector Decree, mind showing me the papers?"