The Karok shamans summon bold and brave Coyote, the Trickster, from out of the Wooded Hills...
OWOWOWOOOOOHH!! In Karok: Kaiju!? Here, in the Great Lands!? Craziness and chaos! I will find my old friend Raven, and together, we will trick the kaiju into a trap! I know just the place to lure them!
"Hssss fhhhhh hhhhhsssssssssss" If anything in this world would be trapped, it would be the coffin of a vampire.
[dice=percep on the coffins]d20+14
The pine coffins seem to be coated with some type of oily substance... It smells toxic to Cobra Johann...
Stomping across rocky hills in the area that would one day be called Los Angeles, the King of Kaiju remembers his old friend, Rodan, the pterodactyl-like daikaiju who nests inside a volcano to the north, which men would someday call Mount Saint Helens...
BBBRREEEEAAAAAAARRRRRKKKK!!! BRRAAAAAAAAAAKKKK!!! YYYEEEAAARRRRKKKKK!!! Hey! We ought to go wake up old sleepy bones Rodan! Yeah! He’s missing out on all the rampaging!
Flying around over Gojira, zapping him with the occasional bolt of lightning to try to stop his mayhem and carnage, Mosura does her best to minimize the destruction of the wanton King of Kaiju!
BBBZZZZZZZZZTTT!!! BBBBBZZZZZZZZZZTTT!!! BBBZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!
*BA-ZZZAAAAAPPPP!!!* crackles her lightning breath, which seems to have little effect on Gojira!
While in the secret sanctuary of the Antichrist, the clawed and acid-scarred Striga Lucrezia reluctantly and humbly reports the copper dragon’s attack on the diamond mine in Africa...
In Infernal: I barely escaped with my life, My Lord! I was no match for this copper dragon... Not by myself... The gnolls and miners were no help, they were struck with dragonfear, panicked like hares before a hound!
While in the secret sanctuary of the Antichrist, the clawed and acid-scarred Striga Lucrezia reluctantly and humbly reports the copper dragon’s attack on the diamond mine in Africa...
In Infernal: I barely escaped with my life, My Lord! I was no match for this copper dragon... Not by myself... The gnolls and miners were no help, they were struck with dragonfear, panicked like hares before a hound!
The Antichrist Nero scowls at the witch...
You failed me again, Lucrezia...
While in the secret sanctuary of the Antichrist, the clawed and acid-scarred Striga Lucrezia reluctantly and humbly reports the copper dragon’s attack on the diamond mine in Africa...
In Infernal: I barely escaped with my life, My Lord! I was no match for this copper dragon... Not by myself... The gnolls and miners were no help, they were struck with dragonfear, panicked like hares before a hound!
The Antichrist Nero scowls at the witch...
You failed me again, Lucrezia...
Lowering her eyes in shame and fear, the witch begins to weep...
Please, My Lord... I did the best I could...
While in the secret sanctuary of the Antichrist, the clawed and acid-scarred Striga Lucrezia reluctantly and humbly reports the copper dragon’s attack on the diamond mine in Africa...
In Infernal: I barely escaped with my life, My Lord! I was no match for this copper dragon... Not by myself... The gnolls and miners were no help, they were struck with dragonfear, panicked like hares before a hound!
The Antichrist Nero scowls at the witch...
You failed me again, Lucrezia...
Lowering her eyes in shame and fear, the witch begins to weep...
Please, My Lord... I did the best I could...
But it wasn’t good enough, my darling... So you must be punished...
With a wave of his skeletal hand, Lich Emperor Nero commands his personal guards, a pair of horned devils, to escort Lucrezia to the green slime pits, and have her left foot amputated by the slime...
As the hulking horned devils haul her away, she screams: NNNOOOOOOOO!!!
Fire, maybe? The Church is always burning witches and werewolves... Might work with vampires too... Here goes...
Ignus Manua! chants Quinlan, aiming a burning hands at the pair of poisoned pine coffins!
Boga addresses the others, "Once again, thank you for your protection. The Lord has granted us victory once more." A small glow forms in the palm of the hand around Boga's neck, then pulses outward.
He steps towards Quinlan and offers a drink of the Holy Wine.
---
Boga pulls a scroll of Detect Undead offered by his pack. He unfurls it and reads while surveying the coffins.
Zagathoth follows along more or less translating for Bear and waiting for the chance to kill more things for the pope. His stares at the naked young women the whole time they’re in view and even after descending further to the coffins he periodically looks longingly at the staircase.
Boga pulls a scroll of Detect Undead offered by his pack. He unfurls it and reads while surveying the coffins.
The flames burn the pine coffins, and the evil contained therein, to ashes...
"Should we go check on the womans to see if they waked up?" Zagathoth asks, "if they waked up then the spell on Fox should be gone too, right?"
I wonder if they're married... they looked kind of fragile though...
Indeed, the domination has worn off of both Fox and the two girls, who are mortified and deeply traumatized by the unspeakable ordeal they’ve endured (dominated, abducted, tortured and fed upon by vampires in the Catacombs)... The vampires that have lately plagued the city of Rome after dark are no more!
Sighing and wringing his hands in frustration, Quinlan shakes his horned head...
We can’t leave these girls here and come back for them when we’re ready for me to use the teleport scroll...can we?
First, it’s summoned monster abuse, now it’s abandoning naked damsels in distress, Mister Quinlan!? chirps Orpheus crisply!
First, it’s summoned monster abuse, now it’s abandoning naked damsels in distress, Mister Quinlan!? chirps Orpheus crisply!
Damn it, nobody abused any summoned monsters, you self-righteous little turd-dropper! It was just an idea, I was thinking out loud... I don’t even HAVE that spell, you pea-brained... GRRR!! Fox, will you tell your familiar to cut me some slack!? Jeez!
"Ahh, free of the vampires! The Lord has saved you! You are safe now. We can protect you until you are able to return to Rome."
Boga whispers in Lucius' ear, "Can we be sure that these young ladies are who they say they are?" He then observes their behavior as they are being rescued.
"Take it easy, Orpheus--Quinlan was expressing an unwillingness to leave the young women waiting here, after all."
"Now, let's see what is behind that door," the Fox says as he reaches for the brass doorknob to open the door.
"Take it easy, Orpheus--Quinlan was expressing an unwillingness to leave the young women waiting here, after all."
"Now, let's see what is behind that door," the Fox says as he reaches for the brass doorknob to open the door.
The door opens into a vast chamber beyond, with a vaulted ceiling some thirty feet high, walls engraved with monstrous and demonic bas relief, and a ghastly green illumination that comes from some source of light glowing in the depths of a great pool of green slime that dominates the floor of the chamber...
A bridge of hewn stone spans the sprawling pool of green slime, connecting two hewn stone quays... An island can be seen across the pool of green slime to one side of the vast chamber, with a basalt throne raised upon a dais...
"Take it easy, Orpheus--Quinlan was expressing an unwillingness to leave the young women waiting here, after all."
"Now, let's see what is behind that door," the Fox says as he reaches for the brass doorknob to open the door.
Orpheus sighs and bows humbly toward Quinlan from his perch on Fox’s shoulder. Apologies, Mister Quinlan... They are so young, so fragile... I mistook your words about the damsels as a question rather than a statement... The thrush looks with pity and empathy at the two young maidens...
Orpheus sighs and bows humbly toward Quinlan from his perch on Fox’s shoulder. Apologies, Mister Quinlan... They are so young, so fragile... I mistook your words about the damsels as a question rather than a statement... The thrush looks with pity and empathy at the two young maidens...
Quinlan looks at Orpheus sympathetically and smiles sadly. They aren’t Eurydice, Master Orpheus... We will bring these fair maidens out of this Underworld, My little friend!
Quinlan looks at Orpheus sympathetically and smiles sadly. They aren’t Eurydice, Master Orpheus... We will bring these fair maidens out of this Underworld, My little friend!
Orpheus hangs his little head sadly and tweets mournfully for a few seconds...
This appears to be an important and ominous throne room for someone of importance and great evil, most likely the Antichrist himself, though it is currently empty...
The very air here smells ancient and evil...
Carved into the limestone walls and ceiling, a horde of demons, devils, imps, werewolves, hydras, salamanders, harpies and vampires cavort and leer, seemingly animated by the flickering green glow from some magical light source sunken in the depths of the green slime pool, making the shadows dance and writhe eerily...
”Must have been the batman’s throne...” Zagathoth observes with a shrug, ”are there any other things here to kill for the pope?”
Johann can nearly smell the great evil about his place. He gets up next to throne and circles around it several times, seeing if it contains anything of worth.
[dice=percep]d20+14
"Johann!" the Fox whispers harshly. "Don't stray too near that green liquid. It is very, very dangerous."
"Quinlan, can you cast fly on me again?"
I am sorry, friends, but I used up my most powerful spells fighting the dragon and the vampires, I’m afraid... But those levers on the columns there... They might cause this section of bridge to rotate, granting access to the throne... Or, they might be another devious trap that dumps the foolish into the green slime...
Quinlan rubs his chin thoughtfully...
Having been summoned through a gate from the Eighth Canto of Hell to Rome some seven years ago to assault the Vatican, and then driven underground into the Catacombs by Pope Eugenius IV and the mighty Paladin Lord Alphonse Veritas of the Lucky Fools, the two horned devils now dragging the witch Lucrezia of the Hounds of Hell toward the very green slime pit the Crusaders are currently exploring, halt at a guard post, to delegate the task of dipping the witch’s left foot (“more, if she struggles!”) into the slime to be dissolved off, to a pair of bearded devils named Barbagore and Gristlechops...
In Infernal: Why should His Lordship’s mighty bodyguards be humbled by so menial and mundane a task as melting off this slovenly whore’s feet!? grouses Malebranche to Sanguicorn...
In Infernal: FOOT!! Not FEET!! He said just the left foot, you cruel devil!! *SOB!!*
The sobbing witch struggles feebly against the inhumanly strong devils’ grips on each of her arms, preventing her from teleporting to Freedom...
And I’m a WITCH, not a bloody WHORE, you foul PIG!!
In Infernal: Witch... whore... I see little difference... One f&!$s men for coin, the other f*@$s demons and devils for power...
The bearded devils, Gristlechops and Barbagore, gleefully trade the boredom of guard duty in a quiet section of the Catacombs for the far more entertaining (to devils) task of maiming a woman...
In Infernal: HURRAY!! We won’t let you down, Masters Malebranche and Sanguicorn! Hohohohoho!! Let’s go have some fun!
Come to this side, everyone... orders Quinlan as he moves to the north corridor on the far side of the bridge... I’ll conjure a mage hand to pull the levers...
After much careful consideration of whether or not Quinlan should pull either of the bronze levers with a magic hand, the Crusaders assemble at the north end of the green slime pit, with the throne island to their left and the other stone quay to their right, and pulling the eastmost lever with the mage hand, resulting in a deep grinding, rumbling rotation of the central span along an axis in between the the two columns, so that the span of limestone now connects the west most quay with the throne island!
Aha! I see! A controlled audience with one upon the throne is thereby ascertained... extrapolates the wizard.
"Probably not all of us..." Zagathoth announces.
With the throne connected, Johann is able to get closer and inspect it for traps or valuables. He examines the base of the throne in particular. Would it be possible to push it over? Because an evil throne in an acid pit would be great!
[dice=perception]d20+14