The three jaguars focus their energies on their most cat-like foe.
Jonathan in mist form returns to battle that has revealed three infected jaguars. All ironically attacking Sekhmet. He keeps watch and wonders how quickly they will deal with this normal threat.
Failing by 10 seems like a bad idea. Use a Hero point to reroll
Hyde shrugs and attempts to backhand a jaguar. She is not pulling her punches, figuring they can take it.
(DC 25)
Hyde's wild swing fails to connect.
Hathaway focused on one of the infected cats,
He reached his mind out, and placing a bubble of force around it.
Then he started to shink the that bubble
The infected Jaguar shudders under the weight of Hathaway's mind, dropping into the undergrowth of the forest.
The other two are undaunted, being transformed by the virus and the control that it entails.
New Round. Everyone has a turn.
Mist-Jonathan floats over to the dropped jaguar to inspect the infection. He doesn't feel like getting his outfit damaged yet. The gentlemen needs to look good for his introduction to the Mother of Monsters.
Helen sighs, raises her arms, and sand from nowhere swirls around her as she assumes the Form of the Mummy. She moves toward the jaguars, kicking dirt into their faces, trying to goad them into attacking her. "Come on, little pussies, you want a bite?"
Mist-Jonathan floats over to the dropped jaguar to inspect the infection. He doesn't feel like getting his outfit damaged yet. The gentlemen needs to look good for his introduction to the Mother of Monsters.
[dice=Perception]1d20+10
The jaguar's infection seems different from what you saw and smelled with Dr. Quan. Where the virus changed her every cell, creating a whole different kind of being, these cats are more just riddled with strands of vegetation that are controlling its actions.
[ooc]Hathaway, I think there may be something wrong in your attack, unless I am mising something. +20 to attack with a DC25 effect seems rather too good to be true[/b]
Sigh.
hero lab spat that out, I think it should be +10 attack but the DC25 save is from Herolab
Hathaway, I think there may be something wrong in your attack, unless I am mising something. +20 to attack with a DC25 effect seems rather too good to be true
[Fortitude Save]
Sigh.
Jonathan reforms from mist near one of the jaguars and reaches out to grab it.
In a calm, British tone, the vampire offers, "their infection appears fresh. Maybe healing them, could return the cats to theeir normal prey."
Jonathan picks up one of the cats and shakes it like a rag doll.
Hyde attempts to grab the other and throw it for distance.
Hyde scoops the infected jaguar up with a massive arm.
[dice=Hyde Strength]d20+10
[dice=Strength to resist grab]d20+6Hyde scoops the infected jaguar up with a massive arm.
Hyde scoops up the infected jaguar with a massive arm and hammer throws it into the river.
The rain forest is silent as the conflict subsides. The smell of rich earth and muddy water fill your nostrils. The air is thick with moisture...and menace.
"Let me see if we can rely on the good mother goddess of this realm to lead us to the bad..."
Helen produces from somewhere within her bandages the little goddess doll she'd received at the night market. She rearranges some of the ornaments on the fetish and plucks some of the vegetation from the jungle, placing it in the little goddess's hands as she intones an incantation. She finishes by tracing hieroglyphs onto the dress it wears.
The sound of something sliding or slithering teases Helen's ears as her charm comes to life, drawing her forward. The trees here reach 100 feet overhead, and the ground is covered in thick undergrowth. The ground is soft, but after about 100 yards it firms up and you realize that there is stone beneath your feet. It is hard to see because it is buried beneath vines and detritus, but there is a sort of stone platform here. The undergrowth gives way to a natural stone grotto. The water here is clear, obviously fed by a deep spring and much different from the muddy brown water you have been motoring up. Across the Lagoon, you see a building of worked stone.
The building is obviously ancient, but also obviously has been recently maintained. There is no overgrowth on the building, no soil has formed, no leaves.
As you move toward the Lagoon, the mirror flat water stirs and bubbles. From the depths comes a creature that is a mixture of beauty and horror. There are clear elements of the Gill-man, gill flanges on his neck and head, shiny green and grey scales. He is built like a mid 80s Schwarzenegger or a modern professional wrestler, but his body is cris-crossed with Frankenstein-like scars, signs of surgical intervention, and his skin is flecked with fungus-like viral growths.
This is a creature who has endured much to reach his current form.
13 Yacaruna rise around him, only their heads and half of their torsos out of the water.
His voice is deep, soaked with power.
"Welcome. Welcome home, monsters."
"Gill? Is that you? What's going on?" Jonathan asks like a concerned brother wondering if he has evolved or if it someone else entirely. If it is someone else, could they be recruited into the Regiment?
It takes a moment for the scent of the creatures before you to get across the water and hit you, but once it does, Jonathan and Sehkmet are sure that this is not Jonathan and Helen's old friend. He clearly smells like the distant Boston apartment where your murder suspect Logan Fitzroy or whatever his real name is lived.
"Gill? Is that the Creature that lived here? Such strength and beauty. No, I have supplanted him. I am the King here, now."
"Logan Fitzroy, I presume?" Jonathan, a British gentleman, dryly asks the creature. "What happened to your predecessor?"
Hyde is relaxed, but wary. "I would also know what has happened to the one before you."
"Those mortal names serve no purpose any longer. They never were worth much. Your friend has bled for the future, and still he serves a purpose in bringing more servants into the embrace of the Mother."
Jonathan disguises his concern for his friend and anger to put this monster in his place.
The vampire replies, "then please, introduce yourself to potential servants, because the names of immortals do serve their purpose."
"You mistake me. I do not seek servants. I seek brothers and sisters. I am the King of Primordial Waters, but what is that to you? Vampires have no love of water and its flow. Join us and you can be the lord of everything you care for. And we can put these ridiculous mortals under our heel where they belong."
Jonathan grins at the hubris. "Brothers and sisters? To serve your Mother? Would she give us fancy titles, too?"
He pauses before continuing, "I am already lord of everything I care for and can already put ridiculous mortals under my heel whenever I want. Your Mother has nothing to offer me."
The Mummy's Bride inhales, ranting in the accented voice that is not Helen's. "I AM a servant of the Mother--the True Mother Isis! Kneel before her high priestess or suffer the rejection of the Sacred River's waters for the rest of your short life!" She marches toward the Gillman, somehow staring with indignance in spite of the expressionless mask covering her face.
Jonathan's gaze locks onto that of the faux-gillman. And he realizes the danger in his choice. Earlier, when he locked gazes with the massive anaconda, the snake gazed back with an entrancing power.
Harker realizes now that the power he felt before was merely being channeled by the anaconda. What he feels now is still channeled, still not the source, but channeled through a stronger conduit and closer to the source. The power of an ancient, bottomless hatred washes over him as he makes contact with Fitzroy's mind.
The Mummy's Bride inhales, ranting in the accented voice that is not Helen's. "I AM a servant of the Mother--the True Mother Isis! Kneel before her high priestess or suffer the rejection of the Sacred River's waters for the rest of your short life!" She marches toward the Gillman, somehow staring with indignance in spite of the expressionless mask covering her face.
His head tilts for a moment as though he is hearing a voice you cannot, and he gurgle-chuckles. "You would not be the first servant of Isis to die in this Lagoon. You will come to understand that the power of the Amazon is vastly greater than that of the Nile..."
He thrusts a hand toward you where you stand on the shore. The waters of the Lagoon rise up into a wave and race toward you, smashing into the shore and into you.
The water tears at the mummy's wraps, and with it chunks of her dessicated flesh. To her, nothing: the flesh already begins to grow back. But defiant, the high priestess stands her ground. "Pah! You think a holy servant of the Nile can be brought down by flood waters? But you are not just a liar, but a distraction." She points in the direction of the pyramid. "Sally forth, oh great goddess and ye servants of the underworld." (She means everyone else in the group.) "Our true goal lies beyond."
The Mummy's Bride spreads her arms and chants in an ancient Egyptian dialect, and from her back grows glimmering phantom wings. She lifts off and flies over the lagoon toward the pyramid.
[dice=DC 25 Will save vs Mental Affliction (Crushing Alien Mind)]1d20+10
[dice=DC 25 Toughness save vs water]1d20+10
[dice=DC 20 Dodge]1d20+10
Those are just your saves vs attack. You get your turn.
Jonathan shakes his head as the Mother defends her minion, before getting drenched by the water of the lagoon. He stands his ground and surprisingly looks amazing in his clinging water-logged clothes.
The vampire evaporates into mist and surges forward to the successor of his friend. When he gets within melee, he solidifies and attacks the amphibian.
"Who are you calling Mortal? It is time for you to face some REAL power"
The water knocks into Sehkmet, damaging her and knocking her prone
"You think that is going to stop ME? Bastet? Well, it won't"
"I'll get the Yacaruna, you destroy this upstart"
She then leaps to her feet, turns into a small fisher cat and leaps over the gillman to land on the water away from the boat, ready to unleash the full wrath of Bastet on the Yaacaruna
Amunet soars over the water and alights at the entrance to the pyramid. Through the opening, she sees a long stone gallery lit with torches.
Wow! Dazed and -1 to future damage saves.[/dice]
The wall of water slams into Hathaway but he dose not move. An invisible bubble of force held him in place, and defected the tones of water slamming into him.
Once gone he helps the Sehkmet up and supports her. As she jumps so he moves up and over as well, but his force bubble extends down picking the small cat up, lefting into the air up to his shoulder.
"I hope you do not mind my dear Sehkmet, but the others have a means of flight and we need to join them"
And Hathaway and Sehkmet follow the others, up into the air.
The vampire bears his fangs and sinks them into the suffocating Gillman wondering what kind of blood pumps within this immortal. He never bit his predecessor but thought about it few times.
Hyde says nothing more, opting instead to swing at the Gillman.
(DC 25)
Sehkmet, you should still have an attack against the Yacaruna if that is what you want to do. You have plenty of movement to make your leap and still attack.