The winged gorilla raises its arm to grab Sandru's cutlass...a fatal mistake. This leaves its tender underbelly exposed. The fighter cleaves into the muscular gut! His second attack is almost merciful. The primate twists to the side. Its eyes go blank as it drops to the floor.
The ape flinches twice, stoically taking each bullet. It curls its lip at Blackacre and growls.
Halfling Swingsaddle of the Gorilla Aura faint transmutation; CL 5th
Description
Construction Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, , creator must be a halfling; Cost 4,000 gp
I liked the signet that showed you who opened the letter. Simple, well-written, would use. Hey, what about that cool saddle that let you ride gorillas? Oh yeah, that was awesome... :P
Agnes lays a spread of 9 cards on the table. Her eyes give off a pale, silver glow. Her pupils turn from black to white. "The man behind all of this misfortune exists in a temporal 'pocket' dimension. He exists in the future...a future...that is floating high above this city, known as The Tower Out of Time. You will go to the Library of Anaphexia to research how to anchor the Tower in our present time, then how you can gain access and enter it." "Please forgive me one last trespass upon your persons, but I'm going to access your shared memories and arrange the puzzle pieces, to reveal the one who is behind all of this...the person whom you must defeat." @All PCs: You arrive at an alley paved with cobblestones. The streetlamp casts a pool of light...in it you see a handsome man in a respectable black suit. He kneels over the body of a woman who is unconscious. She lays sprawled out, with her head to one side.
The man speaks. "I am Dr. Hareton Grey, a chirurgeon at the hospital. This is Olivia." _________________________ A soft sigh from Olivia. She dies. Hareton wails in despair. "NOOOOOO!!" _________________________ La Siréene steps up to Doctor Hareton and says, in a soft voice; "Up we go, Doctor. Nothing you can do for poor Olive now. You need to live. Here, I’ll support you." "Your Olive will cause change through you, as my memories will through me. Olive may yet be your reason to live, Hareton." _________________________ Hareton...finally drifts off to sleep. It is a fitful sleep wracked by nightmares. He kicks out and whimpers. Several times, he sits up in a panic, throws the blanket off, and cries... OLIVIAAAAA! But he is only dreaming. Lost in tortured emotions. Before long, again he turns to the wall. He pulls his knees against his chest and sobs himself to sleep. _________________________ Hareton speaking. "Life...running through our fingers like sand. Everything is so temporary, so changeable. One of the reasons I became a doctor in the first place, to try and understand. To fight it in some small way." _________________________ Ianez speaking. "Osirion archaeologists uncovered evidence in pyramids of rituals using threnodic spells, metamagic that converts mind-effecting spells into energy that is capable of influencing or controlling the undead. It was used in the hopes of resurrecting their pharoahs." Hareton speaks. "This could account for the ghosts' displacement and why we're seeing the flood of undead onto our plane. Maybe the reversal effect, or some sort of temporal-spatial tear, is traveling down arcane pathways and causing all of these strange disturbances?" Reversal of death. Raising the dead in massive numbers?" Ianez again. "Although Osirian priests didn't think of it this way themselves, scholars speculate that their rituals weren't actually aimed at resurrecting pharoahs, but as a way to access multiple universes. To go back in time to when the pharoah was alive, and bring him forward into the future, to a time when he was dead. Or to access an alternate universe where the dead king had never died in the first place, and bring that version of him back into their own universe." "Whichever way you cut it, it added up to the same result. A new lease on life." _________________________ Ianez raises an eyebrow, looks at Hareton skeptically. "By the way, Grey, how do you know so much about 'temporal displacement' and 'arcane pathways?' They do not seem like areas of expertise for someone in your discipline." Hareton returns a blank, rather naïve look. "You know, I don't know. I'm not sure. It just came to me. I just knew." _________________________ The Olivia's heart pendant...glowing a bright blue. "Now that you say, why...look at that!" Hareton steps towards La Siréene, reaches out, caresses the pendant in his hand. The eerie light reflects in his dark brown eyes, which search the necklace as if looking for a ship lost at sea. "Olivia..." "It has never done this before." _________________________ The dragon's voice intones like a blast from a haunted pipe organ. "We HaVe tHe PoWeR tO mAKe You BetTeR." _________________________ Hareton looks at Sandru, as if seeing him again after a fog has parted. His gaze drifts over to Ianez, across Caromarc...the glass cage with the copper wire...then back to Sandru. The look in his eyes is that of a physician, forcing out of mind his personal problems, returning to the present, evaluating "my patient"...patients...the fragile, indeterminate lives in his care. The tone of this attitude is both endearingly fraternal, yet scarily distancing. _________________________ A memory of La Siréene's and Caromarc's - La Siréene, lying on her back on a narrow metal table, held down by leather straps along her arms and legs, and metal clamps around her wrists, ankles, and waist. There is a bright lamp on the ceiling shining down directly onto her, into her eyes. The light is just dim enough for you to see the ceiling above you in gray and black tones that are muddied. Impossible to make out any distinct shapes. You hear zapping. High-voltage, low-current, alternating currents of electricity. There's also the sound of liquid bubbling and the hissing of gas. Something heating on a burner. You see beakers and flasks filled with glowing green and purple fluids. A figure stands at the druid's side, a man in a dark, hooded robe. "You killed my dragon," the stranger says, a note of loneliness and self-pity in his tone. "At first, I was angry with you. But it's behind us. I prefer if you don't interfere with my work again. It would be easier for all of us." _________________________ The hooded figure speaking. "In most cases of reanimation, the subject...ahem, I mean the patient...remembers and maintains a subjective sense of who they were previously. It is only in misguided and ill-conceived attempts to reanimate tissue that has already been reanimated before, that the tissue is so degraded...I am talking about the brain...that the patient is rendered into a catatonic state, or what is superstitiously understood as a mindless zombie." _________________________ And then, at this point, a part of the memory that even La Sireéne and Caromarc had repressed and hadn't remembered until now... The figure throws back his hood. You see the face of a man named Unruhe. Restlessness. But that wasn't always his name. There was a time he was called Dr. Hareton Grey! _________________________ A note - Dear friends, …do not follow…I have to find a way to come to terms with my grief, which is a path I must walk alone. I would give anything to see Olivia again. I would give anything to see Olivia again. I would give anything to see Olivia again.
@La Siréene:
The world around you drains of color and becomes black and white. You see the room around you in photonegative. Everyone in your party fades away and they disappear. The fireplace flares in conflagration, then recedes back to a central point, as if all the air was sucked from the room. The hearth is no longer there. Where it once stood is now the door to the vault.
As you near the door, black, necrotic energy slithers out to meet you. It hisses and strikes at you, like cobras, coiling around your limbs, torso, and head. It squeezes tightly, yanking you off your feet. You are dragged into the vault.
Here is the MAP. The door to the vault closes behind you. You find yourself in the same lounge as before, but now your surroundings are a dark afterlife of billowing shadows. Everything is still black and white. Reeva Windermere is just beyond the room in the hallway. She is colorless, shades of gray, except for a shock of bright orange hair. Her eyes, no longer green, are completely black...like ink has drained into the whites, making her appearance look alien, insect. In her hands, she clutches an orb that emanates with a pink glow. The light casts up against Reeva's features. The effect adds to her ghoulishness. It is suddenly clear to you what's been going on. The sorcerers' vault exists in the afterlife. Reeva may have created the vault...she accesses it by killing and resurrecting herself. It is this journey back and forth across the threshold of death that requires her to fortify her physical constitution at the expense of her sanity. You see Caromarc standing against the back wall of the room, facing Reeva. She is laughing in evil triumph. You hear him say the following. ...There will be no return from this dread damned twilight for you, harridan hag. Give my regards to the Abyss. Your victims will be avenged! You've never heard his voice like this before; cold, mad, hard...reaching a crescendo of a screaming, insane pitch! Between you and Reeva stands a small army of halflings with bruises around their eyes, all bathed in blood. They have ashen skin...angry eyes...little, limp hands...torn clothes. They look at you. Their childlike mouths twitch with hate. Your back is pressed up against the fireplace. They gather in a circle and shamble towards you. They reach out their little arms to you. @Caromarc:
There is a sound like a vacuum hatch being closed, and La Siréene appears, as if dragged into the vault from the world of the living. With a rising wail, the army of dead halflings reappear where they were before and throng around her, pressing her back to the fireplace.
@Caromarc: Here is the MAP.
You open the door to the vault and pass through it. It closes behind you. You find yourself in the same lounge as before, but now your surroundings are a dark afterlife of billowing shadows. Everything is still black and white. Reeva Windermere is just beyond the room in the hallway. She stands motionless looking at you. She is colorless, shades of gray, except for a shock of bright orange hair. Her eyes, no longer green, are completely black...like ink has drained into the whites, making her appearance look alien, insect. In her hands, she clutches an orb that emanates with a pink glow. The light casts up against Reeva's features. The effect adds to her ghoulishness. It is suddenly clear to you what's been going on. The sorcerers' vault exists in the afterlife. Reeva may have created the vault...she accesses it by killing and resurrecting herself. It is this journey back and forth across the threshold of death that requires her to fortify her physical constitution at the expense of her sanity. Between you and Reeva stands a small army of halflings with bruises around their eyes, all bathed in blood. They have ashen skin...angry eyes...little, limp hands...torn clothes. They look at you. Their childlike mouths twitch with hate. They gather in a circle and shamble towards you. They reach out their little arms to you.
The dragon's 'cogswheel-computer-brain-approximator' runs a quick assessment of the battlefield. The data readout is as follows: ...pinpoint targeting..."UNIT:BLACKACRE"...
...pinpoint targeting..."UNIT:GASTNICHT"...
...pinpoint targeting..."UNIT:SANDRU"...
...pinpoint targeting..."UNIT:CAROMARC"...
...pinpoint targeting..."UNIT:LA SIRÉENE AKA NAMELESS AKA OTHER ALIASES TEMPORARY DATA CRASH"...
...pinpoint targeting..."UNIT:QUINN"...
...pinpoint targeting..."UNIT:CONSTRUCT WITH...CEPHALOPOD?...ERROR! IN DATA FILES TEMPORARY DATA CRASH...
...pinpoint targeting..."UNIT: GREY"...
...pinpoint targeting..."UNIT:ZOMBIE"...
...pinpoint targeting..."UNIT:HARBINGER"...
The dragon cogswheel-brain processes this data and returns a set of results. ...data set conclusion:...THE WOUNDED MUST DIE... |
