The combined Pathfinder and Twinhorn forces have beaten back the worst of Eshimka’s vanguard, and their spellcasters are hard at work repairing the damage around the planar rift. It seems there is at last a lull when a pair of bladelike arms stab through the rift and tear it wider. The wound releases a wave of negative energy that crashes into the mystics’ wards, and the shock causes the trees for hundreds of feet around to wither, their limbs snapping off and turning to ash before hitting the ground. Through the widened rift steps a towering giant with sinister horns, shaking the ground with every step as her army follows her: vampires, towering suits of armor, hungry corpses, and even a powerful dragon! Medda’s shout carries over the din. “Eshimka is here! Strike now!”
The giant laughs thunderously as it regards the mortals around it and tears of pieces from her own flesh that turn into nightmarish beasts.
During the final encounter with Eshinma and/or her forces, each table gains a bonus use of the Allied Offensive benefit as if provided by an Aid Token.
Allied Offensive: Other Pathfinders aid your attack, increasing the damage you deal by 1d8 . After the attack, anyone attacking the target is considered to be flanking until the beginning of your next turn.
(Aid Token: Once per encounter, any character at a table can use an Aid Token to assist the group in one of the ways described below. Once a table uses an Aid Token, one of the players then passes the Aid Token to a neighboring table for them to use. A table can only benefit from one token per encounter.)
Each of you have one blessing, which you can expand to perform one of the feats below:
• Burning Radiance: As an immediate action when dealing damage to an evil creature, the PC can cause her attack to ignore that target’s damage reduction and deal an additional amount of damage equal to 1d6 plus twice the character’s level.
• Healing Sacrifice: As a standard action, a PC can touch another creature to heal it. This functions either as breath of life or as restoration (CL 15th). The temporary negative level from this blessing’s breath of life effect lasts only until the end of the next encounter and is ignored for the purpose of determining whether a PC would die from having too many negative levels. This ability can be used offensively against creatures vulnerable to positive energy, but its damage does not exceed 4 × the character’s level.
• Unstoppable Wrath: As a swift action, the PC can choose one of the following undead immunities: bleed, death effects, mind-affecting effects, paralysis, poison, sleep effects, or stunning. For the duration of that encounter, the PC’s abilities, equipment, and spells ignore that immunity for undead creatures. Additionally, the PC ignores the impeded magic property of the Negative Energy Plane during that encounter.
Each PC regains a number of hit points equal to 2 × the APL . In addition, each PC regains one of the following benefits of their choice:
• Regain a single use of an ability the PC can use four or fewer times per day or two uses of an ability the PC can use at least five times a day.
• Regain one or more spells or spell slots whose total levels are equal to your character level (minimum 2).
• Remove a temporary negative level or a disease.
• Cure 1d3 points of damage to all ability scores.
• Gain a +1 sacred bonus on attack rolls and saving throws either for the duration of your current combat encounter of for the duration of your next combat encounter.
As Eshimka's main force emerge from the rift in the stone cirlce, the Pathfinders rally to attack. The vegetation all round is dead and crumbling after the pulse of negative energy . The enemies are too numerous to be taken in one go, and your Venture-Captain suggests that you divide and conquer: ①Eshimka's undead army, and ②a shadowy portion of Eshimka.
The team decided to meet Eshimka's armor head on... in
Initiative, round 1
==========
Eglia
-----
Armor
-----
Niocholu
Renardagnan
Kyra
Aroma
Auray
==========
Bold are up!
The giant armor rush toward the paladin, and smashes her to the ground with its heavy heavy flail! leaving her bloody body in a crater of impact.
Initiative, round 1
==========
Eglia -17 prone, unconcious, dying
-----
Armor
-----
Niocholu
Renardagnan
Kyra
Aroma
Auray
==========
Bold are up!
|
"Oh the shame that has fallen on me, a fairr maiden has fallen!" Renardagnan mourns. He takes aim with his musket, and pulls the trigger.
"Aw!" he again cries the pain the boom causes in his ears. He drops his musket, and runs forward to meet the giant armor, drawing his rapier on the way. "Foul fiend of fairr maidens, prreparre to be pierrced!" he challenges his foe.
The bullet and the bomb lands on the phantom armor, breaking many part off from it. The giant armor swings its heavy flail as Niocholu approaches, and then swings again to knock down the barbarian. It then move closer to the two that hurt it.
Initiative, round 2
==========
Eglia -17 prone, unconcious, stablized
-----
Armor -31 on fire
-----
Niocholu -34 prone, unconcious, dying, CON check needed to stablize
Renardagnan
Kyra
Aroma
Auray
==========
Bold are up!
Some distance a way, the real Eshimka is gathering power. Something bad could happen if she finish gathering power undisrupted!
With a precise thrust, Renardagnan pierces through the core of the phantom armor, and the once towering armor collapses and shatters on the ground!
Combat Over......for now
You have some times to heal up your teammates before the other undead threats arrives......and Eshimka is still gathering power some distance away...
|
Round 1: Drinks Constitution Mutagen and takes out the Wand of Shield.
Round 2: Casts Shield on herself then put away the wand.
Round 3: Drinks Longshot extract and draws the Wand of Heightened Awareness.
Round 4: Casts Heightened Awareness on herself then put away the wand.
Round 5: Drink Bomber's Eye extract then draws her longbow.
Next Rounds: Shots arrows at the distant Eshimka.
|
|
Renardagnan watches with concern as Kyra heals Eglia. When she wakes up, he bows to her, and apologizes: "I am deeply sorrry forr failing my vow to prrotect you, good lady. I shall imprrove my efforrts!"
When also Niocholu gets up, he is delighted. "Those werre mighty blows you got! Good to have you back with us."
When the fallen are back up, Renardagnan goes to pick up his musket and reloads it.
Her dark armor riddled with arrows and sliced by a dozen blades, Eshimka staggers back from the nearby Pathfinders attacking her. With one blade-arm she beckons for more of her shadowy minions to reunite with her body and heal her wounds, but other Pathfinders have slain too many for any to answer her call. For the first time, Eshimka seems worried, fighting for her survival rather than leading her army.
Although our little fox Aroma fails to distract Eshimka from gathering power, Eshimka is targeded by various other spells and attacks from other Pathfinder squards, breaking her concentration and stopping her. The team, with its two downed members, are safe from Eshimka's wrath.....for now.
A screeching wail cuts across the battlefield as Eshimka falls to her knees, her undead horde routed on all sides by the combined Pathfinder and Twinhorn forces. The nightshade cries out in anger and dismay, “No! How could mortal worms like these strike me down?”
As if answering the question, an enlarged Pathfinder in gleaming full plate strides forward, raising a heavy blade that glows with arcane power. Cast in the shadow of a nearby standing stone, the dwarven apparition of the paladin warrior Ivvora seems to mirror the Pathfinder’s movements and guide his steps. Ivvora’s voice rings out clearly over the din of battle, “Eshimka, this battle began a millennium ago, and it ends tonight. Vildeis has judged you and found you wanting.” The Pathfinder strikes once, cleaving through one of Eshimka’s bladed arms, and then brings his blade around in a slashing arc that sends the nightshade’s still-screaming head rolling across the battlefield. Eshimka’s mouth stays open for a moment, her scream dying away as light pours from the stump of her neck. The nightshade’s body crumbles into ash that the wind scatters across the snow, and the dying rift at last closes as the remains of Eshimka’s army flees into the night or falls with their mistress.
The towering dwarven ghost salutes the gathered heroes and announces, “You have all proven yourself worthy of Vildeis’ attention. Pathfinders, you have defeated a great evil, so let the tale of your bravery shatter your enemies’ courage while bolstering your own. Eric, you have made me proud and finished what I could not. Medda and Anok, you have done well assembling the force that did this. All of you, go with Vildeis’s blessing, and keep vigilant—evil never rests.” Ivvora smiles and looks up to the stars as she fades away and the blessed armor Medda wears returns to its normal sheen.
Medda looks to the champions surrounding her. “Everyone, I cannot put into words how grateful I am to all of you. You have stood by my side through all these hardships, and at last we have triumphed! Eshimka is forever destroyed, and we of the Twinhorn following have found true allies in the Pathfinder Society. Call on us in your hour of need, and we shall come to your aid. For now though, the danger has passed.” She and Anok give one last look to where the planar scar is already healing.
“Let us celebrate at last.”