"What's a gowl?" Heeding Harrol's warning, Eudocia picks up the rapier at her feet. Stepping a little further from the eastern doorway, she drops her bow and readies her key.
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Eudocia sets another arrow to her string and fires again.
Eudocia rushes through the door to the far wall, drawing her bow as she moves. Dropping her rapier at her feet, she sets an arrow to her string and lets it fly at the cultist in front of the altar.
Yeah, the paladin gets the Mighty Morphin' Sword of Awesomeness, they throw in a bunch of +1 morningstars for the clerics, and the non-divine PCs scramble on the floor for the dregs like the unworthy dogs they are! ;P Twigs, nice image of Harrol with a weapon as tall as he is; very David and Goliath. :) Loot list updated. Every time I have to go back and check if it's adamantine or adamantium; I never remember which is D&D and which is Wolverine. :P
"Time for that later, Mr. Revane," Eudocia says firmly. "We have a job to do right now and a lot of living people counting on us. We get this done, you can arrange a state funeral. If we don't, there's going to be a lot more dead, undoubtedly including us."
"The morningstar is magical," Eudocia nods toward the weapon in the corner. "Shall we drag the bodies across the way or just start a new morgue? This room should be out of the way." She's clearly not eager to interact any further with the corpses but moves back to the doorway to keep an eye on the area between the entrance and the doors leading further into the garrison, feeling that any further danger will come from one of those directions.
Gregori and Joneth having driven back the demon and cleared the way into the room, Eudocia takes the opportunity to get involved in the fray, rushing through the door and joining the front line.
DM:
"Gentlemen! Clear that bottleneck so we can take the fight to the demons!" Eudocia instructs. "Mr. Revane is surrounded in there."
"Wait," Eudocia urges them, holding up her hand. "Do you hear that?" She moves back into the desecrated shrine and inclines her ear toward the eastern door. "There's something in there. Screeching. I don't understand what it's saying." She shakes her head.
"We have to presume there are more enemies somewhere through that door," she goes on, ludicrously keeping her voice low, as if anyone who might hear it didn't just hear the sounds of battle. "That's where their runner was headed before Master Harrol stopped him from sounding the alarm." She smiles at the halfling.
"A shrine for the faithful to pray before proceeding," Eudocia muses. "I don't suppose there's any proscription on the non-faithful, though, or the cultists wouldn't have been able to take the Garrison. Master Harrol, can you see to your health and Mr. Abernathy's? Mister Shadowbane, are you well? Shall we pile the bodies in the card room for now? We can add the remains of Lord Hulrun and Mr. Nyserian as well, to get them out of the way. It's a shame to leave them within the walls, but demonic corpses piled on the doorstep are apt to attract attention we don't need right now. Fortunately, the new occupants have done such a bang-up job of vandalizing the place," she sniffs, "the marks of violence and bloodshed we leave behind will blend right in."
As the tiefling obliges Eudocia by presenting its flank to her rapier, she doesn't miss the opportunity. Although the damage inflicted is minimal, perhaps she at least got its attention. "Come on," she urges it, gesturing with the blade still painted with its blood as she steps back once more. "Afraid to fight a girl?"
[dice=Aid Another for Joneth]1d20+5
"Oh, well done, Master Harrol!" Eudocia has time to call to the cleric as his slingstones fell the tiefling, just before the party is shrouded in shadow. Stabbing with her rapier at the enemy before her, she misjudges the distance due to the dim light and steps away, back out the open door.
"Quickly! Stop him from alerting the rest of the garrison!" Eudocia urges, stepping through the door and retrieving her brass key from her pouch.
"I suppose missing guards will draw less attention than the corpses of guards left in the open," Eudocia muses. "Shall we pull them in after us?"
"Only if it's no more complicated than the locks on the kitchen larder back at the Kith," Eudocia says dubiously. She starts to examine the door and then pauses. "There's not some kind of alarm bell going to go off if we open this, is there?"
Eudocia's hand, which was hovering uncertainly above the remaining magic arrows, falls to her side with relief as the mortal remains of Lord Hulrun collapse to the cobblestones. "Quickly and quietly done," she congratulates the group. "Now let's move before we're seen. Mr. Abernathy, you had a plan?"
Eudocia steps out from behind cover and releases one of the Riftwardens' arrows at the body of Kandro Nyserian.
Eudocia shrugs. "As long as we're all on the same page. Nyserian it is." She pointedly doesn't ask what the mage intends to do with the nobleman's corpse.
"Remember," Eudocia warns them, "like other demons, they're resistant to spells. Your wands might not prove as effective as you expect them to be." She readies her bow and sets an arrow on the string. "If we can't take one down with our first volley, we need to be prepared to close with them," she nods to Gregori and his magic sword. "Let's focus our fire on one of them." She glances across the ruined square again. "Lord Hulrun, say. Ranged weaponry while the melee combatants advance. Master Harrol, they're vulnerable to damage by positive energy ... but we don't know what we'll find inside. I'll leave it to you to gauge our progress and decide whether to retain your abilities for healing."
Eudocia's face loses some color as she takes in the guards. "Eugh. I suppose the idea is to unnerve any attackers by making them fight familiar faces. If you've any complaint against the way Lord Hulrun ran things around here, now's the time to bring it to the forefront of your mind. They're like undead, but what's animating them isn't necromancy but an abyssal parasite. Still healed by negative energy, but more demon than zombie. If they were more interested in being effective than creepy, they'd at least armor them."
"Thank you," Eudocia tells the librarian after looking into the bag.
eight potions of cure serious wounds, four potions of lesser restoration, 10 +1 evil outsider bane arrows, a chime of opening, a wand of magic missiles (CL 5th, 31 charges), and a wand of daylight (24 charges). Loot list updated on Eudocia's profile. Does anyone other than Eudocia have a bow to carry some arrows? Wand of magic missile to Theodric, I'm assuming. Should Eudocia carry the daylight wand? Most of us can use it, but it should probably go to someone who doesn't have a better use for actions in combat than activating a wand when we get darknessed.
"So then, all of you will fight with us upon this?" noting without stating that Eudocia had yet to either volunteer or speak her intent to join. "To quote the Galtan playwright," Eudocia responds, "'one is never so well served as by oneself.' If you don't intend to carry out your plans yourself, you must make peace with the fact that your agents possess their own judgment. I'll take your sages' opinion under advisement when and if we reach the wardstone, but no, I will not swear to destroy a historical artifact, sight unseen."
"Not a hammer," she replies with a humorless smirk. "More a Final Blade. And we've been nominated as Gray Gardeners."
Eudocia instinctively shrinks away from the rod at Quednys's warning, before carefully picking it up and examining it at arm's length. "'Dette er måten verden slutter / Ikke med et smell, men et klynk.'" she breathes.
"Do you even know how the wardstone is to be destroyed?" Eudocia challenges. "Or that it can be? If the demons failed, what makes you think we can succeed? It is an artifact far beyond the power of anyone in this room. Are we merely to smash it with a hammer?"
"Yes, well, quite, if you want a cockroach stabbed or a door closed, I'm your girl," she says flippantly. "Most of the rest of the time I've spent either unconscious or indulging in the debutante's diet. If I am the most able resource at your disposal, then I weep for your supposed battle-hardened veterans." She glances at Gregori. "But then, it's not all of us you're really interested in, is it? It's just the man with the halo and the fancy sword."
Harrol grimaces at the task ahead of them, but seems remarkably undaunted. He nods. "Right... an' this someone is ter be us, now so?" "Of course it is," Eudocia replies with an icy smile. "Authorities never share their battle plans indiscriminately unless they're looking for ... 'volunteers?' Is that the word we're to be using?" she asks Quednys and Irabath.
Drawing her bow, Eudocia sets an arrow to its string and lets it fly at the disgusting creature, but the projectile only buries itself in the pile of refuse it crawled from.
"Try the passphrase again?" Eudocia suggests to anyone deciding to approach the shrine. "If there's a magic trap, it might disarm it."
"The basement?" Eudocia asks, looking around for the likely entrance to said subterranean space. "It would be underground," she sighs to herself. "No available missions to well-lit areas with plenty of fresh air." |