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Two of the newly-arrived knights rush Cuetzpalli as the de-hasted third warrior plods towards the main group. Bolstered by Hess's invocation, they strike swiftly and savagely. The party is getting overrun.
Clunk reappears in a spray of green worms and ichor as he slashes into the advancing Sword. It is left stumbling straight into the wall of anathema. The worms are screaming. But the first knight is able to raise its blade to strike at Astraden.
Seeing that the reinforcements have arrived, the two Blue Silk Knights hasten to keep the party engaged, rushing to force Carina into melee.
Clunk hesitates, then unleashes a quickened suggestion on one of the Bloody Swords, turns invisible, and moves to stand between Tanith and one of the Green Swords.
All seven members of of Spiny's Six were issued a golden thread, an escape route each can take to retreat to the present at any time--with a delay. But the bearers of Dragotha's phylactery need more time. Just a little bit longer. Bruised and bloodied, covered in deep and shallow slashes, Cuetzpalli hacks the hasted Sword of Kyuss into a pile of wormeaten bones.
Clunk is visibly uneasy, looking around himself at the inescapable paradox he and the party have been drawn into. "This... will go badly," he can be heard to whisper. "One cannot stitch sutures through time and space and expect no consequences. We should not have been here. This was wrong." But the ancient kolyarut's hand shakes as he raises his sword and prepares to help facilitate it. Farrukh: You notice something is off about your thread. It seems to be... fraying worse than the other six. As if it is struggling to fully connect.
You are not here, it whispers softly. You are not here.
Thousands of bones fly together, forming an immense serpentine conglomeration. The bones comprising its form bear little resemblance to ordinary anatomy--it is not a skeletal serpent, but a slithering cyclone of bones and loose tissue, with the massive skull of a great wyrm gold dragon forming its head, crawling with green Kyuss worms. Image, though this depicts a lesser creature. As it lurches into view, its form shudders, its 'stomach' seems to crack open. Multiple enormous bodies appear, grasping talons and cracked skulls. Three skeletal dragons claw their way out from the horror's midsection, their joints drooling with eldritch foulness, dripping some sort of dark green oil that must be the magic holding them together. It rises into the air, writhing like a worm in its test tube, and lunges towards Cuetzpalli.
After Rolling:
As its teeth tear at your flesh, you feel a horrible ripping sensation inside you, a rippling weakness, an... emptiness.
You realize that the monstrosity is somehow absorbing your very bones into itself.
The battle below is getting worse. The undead in the air are quickly massing around the shapes of the winged defenders, although Lashonna and Dragotha cannot be seen behind the clouds. It is starting to rain. The druids are almost to their secret exit in the cliffs. But those dragon skeletons don't seem interested in the party at all. They stare at the departing fog cloud with murderous lights in their dark sockets. And while the Boneyard has just attacked Cuetzpalli, its own gaze follows the last remnants of the Order of the Storm with a vicious kind of hunger.
Carina's bombs smash apart her debilitated target in a burst of holy flame.
Hrave shrieks something to its servants, gesticulating wildly. Flan:
"Fools! Her wards are gone! Kill the priestess! Kill her!" The two remaining Bloody Swords turn in unison and step out of the melees, raising their swords to point at Astraden Limhaare. And they unleash twin invocations of negative energy upon the battlefield.
After Rolling:
Farrukh cuts his foe down and steps to the south to threaten Hrave, who looks no less eager to face the time thief down.
The bloody-armored wormcaller lunges at Farrukh with a feral shriek in the ancient tongue. Flan:
"Then I shall tear you apart myself!"
It is not especially effective. It's difficult to tell if Hrave notices.
The last of the emerald-clad Swords of Kyuss seems to take stock, regarding its fallen brethren. Then it leaps into motion, racing with magically-enhanced speed to confront the two it seems to consider vulnerable--Astraden and Carina.
Hess raises a clawed hand, and for a third time the party's wards are tested. Vile oaths rip and tear at Astraden's magic. Bitterness and rot seep into the sweet scents of wine. Cruelty bleeds into merriment. Astraden feels her magic quiver, and then it crumbles away.
Hess quickly follows with one more quickened hold person against Cuetzpalli, then advances.
In the distance, the party can hear the druids' frantic retreat, can hear Tylanthros shouting orders from within the departing mist. They hear the roaring of dragons high above, see a hulking green wyrm battling scores of smaller chromatic dragons. Lashonna cannot be seen within the clouds. The druids appear to be seeking a particular section of the far cliff face. They must have some sort of secret escape passage within. No flying undead have reached the ledge yet, but any hasted knight or spellcaster could easily race to catch up if the party weren't in the way.
The party hears a rumble from down below. Something is advancing up the cliff from further east. Something big. Or a lot of smaller somethings.
Eben's first three volleys leave the Sword barely hanging on, but just in time, the undead horror manages to parry the last two arrows away from finishing it off. It hisses its hatred with some Flan curses.
In two brutal swings, Cuetzpalli hacks apart both his enemies. They collapse to the ground like so many old bones.
The hastened Golden Swords rush to tear the summons apart--and some charge over the rhinos' bodies to reach Cuetzpalli.
Carina's bombs blast the undead horror apart into bits. The falling bones and burning worms crackle with the remnants of holy energy as the last of its spirit--and the greater consciousness driving it--are forced to flight.
The two swords of Kyuss near Farrukh part ways, one targeting him, the other Clunk. Despite Farrukh's proven reflexes, his attacker seems totally disinterested in measuring its savage strikes. The second strikes similarly against Clunk--and in its case, the gambit pays off handsomely with a brutal shower of broken gears as the wormblade slips past Clunk's guard. Clunk is sent stumbling back, clutching at his nearly-severed arm. Already the damage is mending, but it is obvious he couldn't take another few hits like that.
Tanith's foe seems to laugh. "Your god's strength, it is waning, no? This world is ours now."
Farrukh takes his target by surprise with his speed, and even so his second unlifestealing swing only narrowly lands past Hrave's frantic defenses. He hacks brutally into the wormcaller, leaving the creature grievously injured.
But the brutal injuries leave his magic clumsy, and the death ward endures with little effort. He fires a paralyzing beam at Farrukh to keep the warrior at bay.
With a pop, the wormcaller's spell is disrupted, and it reappears fifty feet to its southwest. It seems to look around in confusion, then, realizing it is rather badly out of position, scampers back towards where it started--albeit with a paralyzing parting shot at Carina.
"Enough of your damned orisons, witch," he hisses, and releases a howl to shatter the bonds of Astraden's tricksome death ward.
And the spellscar ignites.
A teleportation storm occurs. All creatures in the area must make a Will saving throw (DC = 10 + CR). Those who fail are teleported, as if via dimension door, so that they randomly shift places. If this places a creature in an area too small to accept its space, it instead appears in the closest adjacent space that can contain it. If only one creature is affected, it teleports a number of feet equal to CR × 5 in a random direction.
Two rush to flank Cuetzpalli, while another charges at Carina and the last lashes out at the nearest rhino.
Eben's spell washes over the four Swords of Kyuss, but the hideous magic of Hess's prayers drive his magic back from all except the farthest.
She points to the groups of Swords in gold and green armor, and in starbursts of light the elected souls of a family of woolly rhinoceroses appear and charge into one of the groups of ancient dead.
The lead celestial beast skewers one of the Swords with its horn, nearly sending it flying right back over the cliff. Unable to contain herself any longer, Astraden then declares "Regelloes zon!" As she twists her hands to complete the spellscar, a section of the sun-blasted rock around the Swords in green-draped armor washes out even further, left a dull grey. The Swords themselves crackle with unstable potential as the spell takes hold. Astraden herself cackles in excitement.
Within this area, any spell, spell-like ability, or magic item activation automatically triggers a primal magic event—a spellcaster can avoid triggering such an event by making a concentration check (DC 15 + twice the spell’s level), but non-spellcasters who activate magic items have no such option.
Seeing their commanding wormcaller slain, the pair seek revenge with their acid-dripping wormblades.
Around this point, Cuetzpalli hears the rapid pounding of metal on stone and earth. Eight new swords of Kyuss come spilling onto the ledge--four in golden armor and four draped in greenery. These were not teleported. They ran, and judging by the blur of motion as they reach level ground, someone has cast magics of quickening on all of them to give them the chance to catch up. Up in the air, the airborne foes are quickly overwhelming what little resistance can be mounted, but still nothing has managed to penetrate the united defense and reach the cliffs. It seems someone, or something, has noticed the druids' escape. These spelled undead warriors will easily catch up to the stolen soul cage if not stopped here.
Clunk seems to hesitate, looking around at the scene. His sword looks heavy in his grasp. "Astraden," he rumbles, red eyes glittering, "there is something you need to know. Something this unit... something which I have not told you." He fades from view. The invisible kolyarut's footprints mark a path advancing towards Hrave.
Cuetzpalli expertly hacks two of the swords apart. The third struggles to parry his final blow, but the lingering damage of Carina's bomb causes it to spasm, and Kelmarchen slices straight through the creature's ribcage. Behind them, the pale-clad Hess suddenly looks very uneasy.
Despite their apparent resistance to his blows--his ordinary fists lacking the arcane disruption of Kelmarchen or the silver properties of Farrukh's mithral Shield of Lightning--Tanith smashes one of the swords of Kyuss to bits, then socks the other one with a single swing brutal enough to shatter bone and puncture iron.
Carina's bombs brutally smash the nearest Sword apart, leaving it barely standing and still twitching from the blasts of crackling holy energy. The last bomb bounces off its helmet, soars briefly up into the air, then plunges to shatter on the ground, sending one last burst of sacred power that fully tears the Sword of Kyuss apart. Its commanding wormcaller flinches as the divine flames catch it in their path.
Seeing their Invocations fail against the party's defenses, the gore-covered Swords of Kyuss raise their blades and charge with gleeful howls. Two reach Tanith first, swinging their blades wildly with the benefit of Hrave's magic. As he hurries to parry the first attacker, the second slips under his guard. The sensation of the greatsword cutting through his skin is a strange kind of agony, as he feels the wormblade trying to cut his very soul away from his body.
The silver klar smashes into the wormcaller, sending dead worms flying in all directions. Farrukh's second brutal swing breaks Jasse into to pieces, and as she collapses, his spinning strike breaks deep into the armor of the two Blue Silk Knights, shredding their fine garb and revealing them for the rotting worm-eaten horrors beneath that they are,
The bloody-armored wormcaller laughs savagely and points at Farrukh. "Be still, worm!"
His jaw then unhinges, and he begins to chant horrible profanities in the Abyssal tongue. The foul speech echoes all around as he extols the eternity of the Worm That Walks, and his allies seem bolstered.
Eben's arrows strike the two wormcallers directly. They stumble back. Hrave rips out the arrow from his bloody armor and laughs, while Jasse contemptuously breaks the arrowshaft off and tosses it aside, dusting herself off slightly. Both seem hurt, but the acid seems to have had no effect on them.
Hess's jaw unhinges, and he begins to chant horrible profanities in the Abyssal tongue. The foul speech echoes all around as he extols the eternity of the Worm That Walks, and his allies seem bolstered.
He's backing up toward the northeast.
Cuetzpalli rushes forth and hacks into the lead Pale Sword, nearly cutting it in two with a single brutal swing.
Reeling from Cuetzpalli's strike, the Sword of Kyuss and its kin make a furious counterassault, moving to surround him.
The silk-clad Swords of Kyuss, appearing to notice that the blast did nothing, glance at their leader questioningly. One hisses something questioning to the wormcaller in an archaic-sounding tongue; the wormcaller declares its response in airy, feminine tones. Flan:
"Master Jasse?"
"Protect me, Swords. I shall make short work of these pathetic 'wards' of theirs." The Swords nod and strike readied poses. Readied Attacks (if anyone goes adjacent):
Small beads of dark energy appear at the party's center, then swell, pulse, and explode in terrible bursts of negative energy.
After Rolling:
If you rolled 22 or higher, you halve the damage for the respective damage roll.
"A stable time loop is still a para--"
Another wormcaller in nothing but its basic armor appears directly behind the party, dangerously close to the wall of mists. Four Swords of Kyuss crawl their way into existence around it. The wormcaller gives a sibilant shriek of delight and raises a cleaver still dripping the blood of some luckless soul down below. Its knights wear spiked armor that has been ‘decorated’ with the remains of their kills.
Clunk turns to Astraden, aghast. "Would you give up your own thread to shatter the gears of--" His head snaps to the side as he stares at something Astraden can't see.
As it turns out, the party had less time than they thought. The Swords of Kyuss have no need to walk. A wormcaller in a muddy white robe rips its way through empty air to appear by the cliff’s edge. Four similarly-dressed Swords of Kyuss follow, teleported directly up the slope.
Lashonna just grins in reply to Astraden's comment. "Hey, 'Astraden', look me up in a couple thousand." With that final pronouncement, she spreads wide her arms and springs over the edge of the ledge--and transforms into a magnificent silver dragon. With a single tremendous beat of her wings, she launches into the air and soars off toward the distant forces. As she wings away, Tylanthros speaks again. “We go now, to hide the phylactery within its cradle in Kongen-Thulnir. Hold the line, or the Age of Worms shall doom us all!” And yet... As the druids make their retreat, leaving the party to buy them precious time, it becomes obvious that moving the dracolich’s soul cage is proving a slow and costly effort. They don’t seem willing to touch the thing, holding it suspended in a palanquin carved of solid—no-doubt brittle—obsidian that requires advancement at a snail’s pace. Several of them pause to weave spells of obscuring mist and fog cloud, but with the size of their party, this seems more meant to discourage teleportations or ranged attacks than to dissuade any pursuit. They won’t make it clear of the horde before the horde arrives to engage. It’s up to Spiny’s Six. As the party scrambles to prepare, hearing the distant metal boots tramping up the path to the ledge… “This is…” Clunk has stood stock-still since the party’s arrival. Now he turns to stare at the others with a deep, troubled intensity. “This is not correct. We should not be here.”
Farrukh, Carina, Eben, Cuetzpalli, Clunk:
You notice several disturbances in the air around you, and recognize them in the next moment—
Scrying sensors. Three of them.
This whole conversation spans 5 rounds, for short-duration buffing purposes. Here's a quick map while Farrukh and I get the actual map set up. Note the scales. The far-right edge is 660 feet long, and the widest part of the ledge is over 500 feet, for an idea of scales. You're 80 feet up. It's a big area.
Everyone's ears pop at the same time, and they feel time fully settle around them. A voice rings out behind them: "Good. You have arrived." A small group of somber druids stands upon the ledge. The four druids at the forefront are instantly recognizable as the Wild Watchers--but living and human, as they were before being subsumed by the spell of Last Resort. The speaker's face is gaunt with hardship, and his robes are matted with blood. It is Tylanthros, though he shows no signs of recognizing the heroes he will not meet for 1,500 years. As he approaches, Tylanthros speaks with a voice that is cracked and wearied, but resolute. "The wizard said you would be here. The heroes of prophecy." His lips curve upward in a wry smile. The living Tylanthros is surprisingly youthful--perhaps in his early thirties--but he is clearly the eldest of the druids assembled. "We can hold them off no longer, but the Order of the Storm has been... successful in its task." He indicates the dozen or so other members of the Order of the Storm behind him. They cluster around a large package, a strange container with its sides carved in the shapes of leering demonic and draconic faces. "We gave all we had against the dracolich, and still it wasn't enough. Not even the great archmages of your time could best her in spellcraft, and if her phylactery is destroyed now, her only choice will be to release the Herald of the Age of Worms. She has to go for the throat if she's threatened. It's how archmages work. But if we can hide it... if we can put her out of reckoning, create doubt, perhaps the dracolich will remember that she can still die, and she might return to her web and delay for more scheming. We must buy time." His brow furrows. "When you return to your time, I am told you must tell Tenser that the Archmage Drawmij is dead and gone, and the Circle of Eight has broken, whatever that means. He failed in the end to foil prophecy or avenge Bucknard, and so his duties now fall to you. "To Tanith, the Mightiest Champion of Kord. "To Cuetzpalli, the Master, Servant and Wielder of Kelmarchen. "To Carina Viera, the Stygian Panacea. "To Astraden Limhaare, the Laughing Rogue's Favorite. "To Eben MacTeague, the Arrowsong Minstrel. "And to Erip, pupil of Tenser's pupil, Heir to the Broken Circle." He clears his throat. "You must hold off the spawn that even now scramble at the edges of the cliffs around us while our trusted allies stall their aerial forces." As the druid mentions an ally, a familiar figure steps forward from the crowd: a young woman dressed in ornate silver armor who can be none other than the Alhaster bard Lashonna. Her eyes are bright and burning with determination. "I will engage Dragotha and her mutineers myself to buy you as much time as I can, Heroes." She advances past the party and towards the edge of the cliff. "And I swear, if she crosses my path, I will bring that monster to ground." "Don't engage Dragotha directly!" Tylanthros warns her. "I cannot look myself in the mirror another day knowing I didn't try." "Lashonna, you must join Viruinne in focusing on the lesser dragons. Lure her away! Even the two of you together cannot beat her. No one can." "And yet someone will have to." She turns and flashes the party a smile that is sad, but also cocky. "Perhaps we will see~"
oh my GOD so funny story I'll keep very short, about 6 hours after I posted that, we had to rush a friend to the ER. She got out yesterday after getting a necrotic perforated gallbladder taken out of her, and she's going to be fine, but it has been such an unhinged start to the year. Anyways, this is me prompting a little late about spell/warder moveset preparations. I'll get things rolling if nobody has any changes they want to make. I'm still deciding how exactly I want to run this scene, but I do think we'll be playing out at least some of the combat.
As the waters trickle onto Astraden's tongue, her words suddenly fall away. So does the rest of the world. The six adventurers watch the world blur like a watercolor painting left out in the rain, until the only solid shapes are each other, Clunk, and winding golden threads that form around their wrists. These threads trail off into the distance, and the adventurers find their vision fuzzes and blurs whenever they try to follow a thread's length farther than a few feet from their bodies. Pull the thread and wait seven seconds, and you shall be returned to your own time. Everyone is suddenly overwhelmed by the rush of alien yet strangely familiar memories. The blurry world around them swirls away into a vortex of lightning and wind, fire and rain, ending in the utter darkness of nothingness. They only float adrift in this silence for a few moments, but it's still long enough to feel the cold perpetuity of the infinite weighing down. Suddenly, they find themselves standing on a windy bluff overlooking an immense and lush canyon. Trees grow right up to the canyon’s rim, and far to the south, the faint, looming specter of a pale mountain is visible. The din of distant battle finds the heroes' ears, and as if rising from the ground on ledges and mesas both near and far, armies of creatures fade into view. In the distance, cities smoke in ruin, and the sky is cast with a dark pallor. The cacophonous moans of the undead ride the wind, and in the distance, the PCs can see huge numbers of humanoids battling against what seems like an endless wave of the dead. Creatures Spiny's Six has faced before are here in legions—spawn of Kyuss of all shapes and sizesm wormcallers, morhgs, eviscerator beetles, overworms, and ulgurstastas like the Apostle of Kyuss who nearly overtook the Free City Arena. Yet there are other, stranger creatures as well. Enormous worm-dripping centipedes cause the ground they walk on to steam and bubble and boil like hot pokers plunged into ice. Immense black scorpions' mere presence seems to turn the living on their allies. Horrific worm-like dragons breathe out swaths of writhing green Kyuss worm swarms upon their prey. And wheeling in the distant skies above many miles away, attended by numerous smaller dragons, soars a titanic shape—a skeletal red dragon of horrifying size. Dragotha. Knowledge (geography) 20:
Judging by that view of White Plume Mountain, this can only be the Rift Canyon, 150 miles north of Alhaster--although it seems less barren than one might expect, considering its modern reputation.
Eben's words seem to rob Tylanthros of some of his momentum. The spirit falters, staring at the bard in rage rendered impotent, pain made useless. As Carina speaks, though, the spirit fully recoils. He backs away, fists clenching. The elements that swirl around his head speed up, forming blurring storms of fire, water, stone and dragonflies. But his expression has lost all its fight. "We—that is what we said," the Wild Watcher manages. "We tried. We couldn't—" He looks to his brethren. They all avert their gaze from him, and so he turns back to Carina with a look of anguish. "This age has months left in it still. Years, perhaps, if we hold on tightly to things as they are. That is all the Order of the Storm in all its might could achieve. A delay of the world's inevitable decay into undead ruin. You have seen the ruins of Kuluth-Mar. You have battled Its advance scouts. They are nothing compared to what is coming. What you will see..." A dragonfly parts from the swarm and settles on his shoulders. Almost at the same time, his whole body slumps. He is silent for a long moment, and then he nods, as if in resolution. "You will see soon enough." He turns and raises his spear towards the well. The other Wild Watchers advance and do the same, one on each side. In a burst of crackling magic, the well shimmers and transforms into a beautiful fountain of rainbow obsidian. The fountain's waters are as clear as crystal, sparkling like a prism of scintillating light. As the fountain manifests, all members of Spiny's Six—and even, seemingly, Clunk—experience a nearly overwhelming rush of nostalgia for things they’ve cherished in their childhood... and a strange gnawing fear of long-forgotten nightmares. Shimmers of gold streak through the water, a strange trick of the light. "Drink deep and remember. Only you will ever know whether it was worth it."
"Well, in this case, that door led to the Roc King meeting the wrong group first. Say, you're druids, right? Can you reincarnate him? We didn't have the right... sacred oils, or whatever." His glare holds for a few seconds. Then he drops his gaze. "We have no such means. We are not druids. We are what the druids left behind." He stalks towards the well. "And you suppose yourselves now worthy of seeing the truth. Of learning the location of the dracolich's fractured soul and taking the battle to Its general." His voice rings with anger. "All you will accomplish is shattering our delicate detente. As long as the cage is hidden, Dragotha will act cautiously, commanding Its armies from the shadows. But when you fail, and the essence of her unlife returns to her..." His fists clench, and he stops short at the well, turning back to you. "You go not to avert the prophecies, but to complete them." Sense Motive 38: The other three Wild Watchers seem hesitant, unsure, but Tylanthros's anger burns white-hot. The spirit is quickly losing control of his temper.
His eyes blaze with indignation. "We--We do not presume to exclude any from the test, only to confirm they will be able to use what they learn. You think you are qualified to decide that? No one being should have such power. All we are created to do is point the way and hold the door closed." The spirit seems genuinely flustered by Eben's prodding, but his temper remains white-hot.
Tylanthros's head tilts slightly to the side. "I see. And after that?" His voice shakes with unconcealed anger. "We know that the Roc King is dead. Killed needlessly, senselessly. An ill omen, no?"
Tylanthros's eyes narrow as he regards the feather in Eben's outstretched hand. "I see. And this was retrieved from his living form?" Sense Motive 38: He knows that the Roc King is now dead.
"My concern is not..." Clunk pauses, sounding frustrated. "This library, the information within. I am--this unit is concerned about how the custodial entities intend to--" It's not often that the inevitable stumbles over his words. "Contacts on Mechanus have indicated--" The first of the Wild Watchers, the one called Tylanthros, shimmers back into existence. "So. You are back. Have you completed the trials we presented to you?"
"Wait." The dragon shudders, then slowly half-rises, gazing upon the party in weary determination. "You have released me from my sworn duty and cleared the music from my head. For that, I, Viruinne, will forever owe you a debt. You should know I do not take those lightly." It hacks and coughs up a bit of black phlegm. The substance sizzles where it strikes the grass. "I must stay here and rest. You must go to the Well and bid the Wild Watchers open the library to you." It regards Farrukh with what might be curiosity. "All of you. I no longer believe these prophecies to be inerrant. Go back and watch them begin to shatter." The journey back through the Doomshroud is surprisingly calm. Peaceful, almost. The forest seems to breathe easier, and it feels more like travel through an ordinary jungle or marsh than a cursed place. Perhaps decades from now, the forest will be worthy of a new name. Provided that by then Tilagos still stands, and people still live to name it. The party returns to the moss-choked, weatherbeaten old brick well, which stands thirty feet from where the party arrived. As before, the well initially appears abandoned. Clunk's gaze lingers on the well. He looks at the party, then back at the well. Farrukh notices the inevitable's gaze lingering on that grassy mound resting against the stone bricks. "This unit worries," he says, his voice hoarse like rusty metal, "that you are all... making a grave mistake."
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