Aurealia uses her rod to bring on her normal strength enhancing magic, and calls up and arcane shield as well. She allows her nose to become more bat-like, granting her keen scent.
Croq laughs, "...Hey! Speaking of people who think they're too clever to be duped!"
She stands up–knocking the table over–while starting to sing a throaty, rousing song of rage.
Then she takes Drumstick and swings for Erigantus' surprised face.
Right as the action starts, Viralane enacts her escape plan; she chugs a potion of Invisibility that she had hidden in Gali’s goblet (the one she swiped from Sumsarru's collection), which had been hidden in plain sight on the table. Meanwhile, Kallie successfully tags Erigantus with her Dimensional Anchor spell, and Jaya's Glitterdust leaves both Erigantus and Woaerym completely blinded. Galatea takes this opportunity to release Cheshire from her pendant. Finally, Aurealia covers the group with a Haste spell.
Kallie draws her whip and casts touch of idiocy, sending the energy coursing through the sadist's lash.
At Woaerym
Croq wastes no time, hustling around the table to swing at the blinded necromancer.
Jaya shouts, "Vir! Clear the table! Behind Croq" And after waiting a few heartbeats , launches a small fiery pea to the south of the battle. The explosion engulfs the table, but stops just short of Croq and whoever's behind her.
Aurealia walks up to Erigantus and swipes his feet out from under him.
If he falls, she stabs him on the way down.
Kallie's whip leaves a small, bleeding gash across Woaerym's pretty face, and her enchantment debuff appears to take hold. Erigantus then takes a brutal wallop to the head from Croq's greatclub. While the strike does leave a nasty mark, the necromancer somehow shrugs it off far better than he realistically should have. However, he is quickly sent to the floor by Aurealia's horsechopper. Aurealia then manages to stab the necromancer shortly after he hits the ground.
Concerned for Viralane's safety, Jaya holds her Fireball until the actress is clear of the blast radius.
Still blinded by Jaya's Glitterdust, Woaerym is unable to take any hostile actions. Instead, she appears to... cast a spell? Or rather, maybe she dismisses an ongoing one? Regardless, Woaerym's form quickly shifts from a full dark elf to a dark elf-spider hybrid. In a sense, she's built Kallie, except Woaerym is now a spider from the waist down instead of a horse.
Still blinded by Jaya's Glitterdust and reeling in pain, Erigantus is ultimately too paralyzed with indecision to act.
Going by her chanting, the invisible Galatea casts a spell on Cheshire. Embracing the Croq song, the tigress then lets out a mighty roar and lunges at Woaerym. The dark elf-spider hybrid screams in pain as she gets pinned to the ground and shredded by Cheshire's razor sharp teeth and claws.
"...Wait, my goblet!" says Gali's disembodied, panicked voice. "Jaya, don't-"
Several invisible footsteps can be heard.
"I should be clear now!" Viralane's disembodied, real voice says from the far corner of the area.
And with that confirmation, Jaya throws her Fireball!
Erigantus is killed instantly by the blast. Despite her precarious situation, Woaerym is spared instant death by the table blocking the worst of the blast. And most importantly of all, Galatea's goblet is ultimately just fine! The initial impact of the explosion sends it flying off the table before any flames can damage it, and to Galatea's relief, the small magical item conveniently lands on a big, fluffy pillow.
Before anyone can put Woaerym out of her misery, however, the atmosphere around you... changes. The movements of Woaerym and Cheshire rapidly slow to a complete stop. In fact, the dying flames on Erigantus' smoldering remains also freeze in place.
And an instant later, a tall, lanky creature materializes from nothingness. He sort of resembles a pale man clad in blue robes, but the top half of his head is made of blue fire. His long black fingernails are wrapped around the hilt of an ice-covered bastard sword. Almost immediately, you know that he's hostile.
You hear Galatea gasp, indicating that she's unimpeded by whatever is affecting Cheshire, Woaerym, and... practically everything else but you, your possessions, and the burning man.
Kallie's hand goes to her spell component pouch as she tries to recognize the extraplanar being that just appeared.
"Careful, he's a-"
For once, Jaya and Kallie find themselves unable to recognize the creature...
"A... threat?"
"Well hopefully not for long. At least we'll get some experimental data..."
Concerned at what the entity's hair might portend, Jaya modifies her beloved fireball on the fly and detonates it behind him.
"Whoah, who are you? And what're you looking for? If you're looking for a fight, you're gonna be unhappy...but if it's something else maybe we can come to an understanding?"
Croq–with hasted steps–hustles over beside the newcomer, standing ready to swing with Drumstick if he takes any agressive action.
The mysterious newcomer doesn't reply to Croq's remarks, though that might be because Jaya throws a coldball at him first. He nimbly dodges the worst of her spell, leaving him only slightly injured. The cold aspect of the altered fireball doesn't seem to hurt the entity any more than usual. As for Croq's swing, Drumstick just sort of... bounces off the burning man.
Kallie groans as she cannot identify the new arrival, and that Jaya doesn't seem to know either. They still had the weird spider-centaur to deal with as well, so she decides to try and finish it off first before throwing everything she has at the newcomer.
Aurealia has a really bad feeling about what might be about to happen. In any case, if drumstick doesn't work, her polearm probably won't either.
She stabs at the drider instead, if Kallie's spell hasn't finished it.
She then retreats, realizing that standing in a group might be a bad tactic here.
Kallie and Aurealia's attempts to slay Woaerym do not yield any fruit. Spell and horsechopper both hit the spider-dark elf hybrid, but nothing happens. She and Cheshire continue to stay perfectly frozen in place, like time itself has stopped moving for them. The result gets a sadistic chuckle from the mysterious entity.
"Cheshire?" Galatea's disembodied voice says.
No reaction. Cheshire continues to remain frozen in place. Gali curses in Elven. She then casts a spell, which breaks her invisibility.
The burning man shrugs off the magic.
With Croq providing a very convenient target, the burning man focuses his attacks on her. Each strike hits, resulting in deep cuts. While the power of Croq and Roll keeps the drummer on her feet for now, each cut leaves a nasty frostbite on her scaly skin.
Aurealia steps through another dimension to appear in a flanking position on the burning man.
Frustrated at how easily she was parried, Croquelle attempts to use a bit more precision and less of her usual wild abandon. Even so, she finds it hard to hit her stride (though her sister's Haste helps a bit).
The burning man manages to parry all of Croq and Aurealia's strikes, though he visibly struggles at this.
Kallie gapes as her companions fail to land a blow on the mysterious invader. "These kinds of things are usually immune, but maybe I'll be lucky?" She lashes out with her whip, delivering a touch of idiocy spell through the enchanted thong.
Cold successful within tolerances, but nowhere safe to fireball around the Andosanas. A little less destructive then...
With a flick of her wrist and a shower of mica, Jaya coats the mysterious entity in glittering dust
Kallie's whip leaves a nasty, bleeding cut on the mysterious being's neck, causing him to wince slightly in pain. Kallie's spell also seems to take hold as your foe briefly puts a hand to his head like he's experiencing a migraine. Unfortunately, the flames on his head seem to burn away Jaya's Glitterdust before it can fully affect him.
Seeing that the Andosana Siblings will likely need her assistance, Galatea steels herself and hustles into the melee to help them.
After seeing how resilient Croq is and witnessing her wounds starting to heal, the burning man decides to test out Aurealia's defenses next. He takes a step towards her and then makes three swings with his icy blade. Each one leaves a wicked cut and stinging frostbite.
Kallie gasps in delighted surprise when it appears her spell worked on the mysterious being.
She quickly weaves another spell, cranking up its strength so it would be harder to resist.
Croq uses the moment's reprieve to cast Mirror Image and then steps up so that she can help distract their surprisingly hard-to-hit foe from her sister's blows.
Aurealia is badly wounded, but continues to twirl her polearm, stabbing and whacking the man with the haft, trying to pin him down.
"Kallie?! Hells. Trot back a pace? Please?!"
Kallie does as Jaya asks, knowing full well she does not want to be in the area of effect of one of her spells.
Things finally start turning sour for the burning man. Kallie's continuous enchantments leave his mind utterly befuddled and confused. Aurealia then manages to trip him and finally score a clean hit. Ironically, though, falling flat on his face lets him "dodge" the worst of Jaya's coldball.
After quickly debating her options, Gali begins healing Aurealia's injuries.
Compelled by Kallie's magic to attack the last individual who hurt him, the burning man stands up without any regard to his own safety and starts making a beeline for Jaya...
Jaya pales, quickly weaving a transmutation and then flitting away from the fiery fiend!
"Pssssht! Over here, bozo!!"
Seven swirling Croqs take a brief pause from their drumming to smash their flaming foe.
Kallie watches her allies take advantage of the confused state of their foe. She readies a charm monster spell just in case there's a pause in the fighting so she can add another thrall to her retinue.
Aurealia strikes as hard and fast as a viper as the weird thing rises and tries to get away from her.
Aurealia manages to strike the burning man as he stands up. Thus, the befuddled entity immediately shifts his attention to her instead of Jaya. Then, Croq lands a solid hit against his head, drawing his attention to her instead. Both attacks likely would have killed a normal man, but your fiery foe still stands after it's all said and done.
Thankfully, his many, many injuries appear to finally be wearing him down...
Jaya smirks. "This should start Kallie's whole process over again."
Forgoing her more destructive spells, Jaya sends a few bolts of force into their foe, drawing its attention before rushing behind cover.
Kallie giggles as the intruder is confounded by her spell and her companions' attacks. She revels in the mayhem.
Compelled by Kallie's magic to attack the last individual who hurt him, the burning man stands up without any regard to his own safety and prepares to make a beeline for Jaya. However, both Aurealia and Croq score hits on him while he stands, diverting his attention to them instead. Since Croq was the last one to injure him, he directs all his attacks at her...
Thankfully, he only destroys mirror images.
Seeing the thing on its heels, Aurealia gives in fully to her bloodrage, unleashing a twirling series of blows with her chopper!
A combination of precise stabs from Aurealia, multiple magic missiles from Jaya, and a heavy hit to the head from Drumstick leave the burning man barely standing. Meanwhile, the bleeding wound on his neck saps away what little strength he has left. After taking one final but futile swing at Croq, the mysterious entity collapses to the ground and passes out. Galatea ensures that he stays down by grabbing his own sword and stabbing him in the head.
And like that, in the blink of eye, everything is back to normal. The burning man's corpse is gone, the only trace that he even existed being the icy sword in Gali's grip. You hear Woaerym's resumed screams of agony from Chesire's claws and teeth digging into her flesh. For the moment, the tigress has Woaerym pinned down, but that could soon change...
Croq continues to rock her raging song. As she does, she pulls her magic carpet out of her haversack and surfs over to flank with the pretty kitty, floating a bit above the table.
"Careful! We don't know what that was or whether it will happen again!" Husbanding her magic, Jaya merely readies Magic Missiles to strike Woaerym in case he does anything that requires concentration.
"No lie; that was pretty damn weird. I was hoping you or Kallie would know what the f&^k that guy was, and why he seemed to freeze everything around us."
Aurealia walks over to Woaerym and stabs her through the heart with her horsechopper, putting the sorceress out of her misery.
When Woaerym falls and the room goes silent, Kallie looks around for more unexpected threats. When nothing happens immediately, she lets herself celebrate. She wills herself back to centaur shape and throws her hands in the air.
"Whoa! I think we did it! Great work, everyone! Even though... that time stopping outsider was really odd. It didn't seem to be allied with Erigantus. I'll ask Leptonia after I've shared with her the bad news that we all survived."
"Yeah... Never seen anything like it before. Good work guys, that was a tidy fight."
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Croc nods, wiping the gore from Drumstick on Woaerym, and then tucking it away. "Seriously! I'd imagine it could've gone very differently if we'd been forced to fight him in his home base, surrounded by whatever rotting corpse-buddies he's been creating. Or if we hadn't duped them so completely.
"Speaking of which, did I ace that role, or what? Maybe I missed my calling when I picked music over acting?" Croquelle gives the biggest of crocodile grins.
As they talk, she casts Detect Magic and starts to look through Erigantus' belongings.