"You. Come here."
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". . . Little. . . busy. . . right. . .now!"
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Under bombardment from below, Sceptre begins casting frantically while spinning in the air.
Concentration check for Sceptre versus continuous acid arrow damage, DC 13: (“success”) “Yarrrrrrrrgh!” escapes from Sceptre's lips as he summons the mental will to ignore the burn and focus on the critical task at hand.
"POP!" All of a sudden the sniper vanishes from the tunnel, making his escape. Hurgah, Moonpate and Halstadt all saw Sceptre casting, however. They might, in theory, at least be able to identify his spell choice. Spellcraft DC 16: It’s vanish! Sceptre’s still in the tube!
Hurgah smiles a feral smile as the assasin is burned by his own weapon, his piercing stare holding the promise of further pain. - Still floating above, Sceptre returns the stare, reaffirming a very similar commitment.
- Sceptre does his best to supress a grunt of crippling pain as his palms and fingertips are coated with smoldering blisters. But he steadfastly refuses to relinquish his wand rifle, even as it glows a cherry red in his hands.
". . . Yerghghghghg, unhhh."
But Wait, there's more. . . The wheels turn in the evoker assassin's mind as he ignores the commotion above him. "No, not again. No way you get away this time Hoffenburrow!" As the Dune Squad pulls back, A forked bolt of lightning rips from the shaft and blasts towards them. The bolt electrifies the walls and floor of the room, lighting everything -and everyone- completely up. For a brief moment you can actually see the glowing internal skeletons of Team Polymorph, like a hideous X-ray.
when the Dune Squad looks to see where the bolt comes from they see a familiar face, a grim faced sniper pointing a wand rifle at them. He's floating at the bottom of the shaft.
And that ends the round. . .
I'd like one of those hero points there Pactstone.
"Sweet Dreams. . ."
Not seeing the affirmative response he had hoped for, Sceptre shrugs his shoulders and motions to the monks. He rises, preparing to leave. Sooron continues praying fervently to his goddess. Sceptre doesn't look back as he walks away. Donkor thinks he mutters something about getting a move on before the trail on the Reaver goes cold. The next thing Donkor feels is the neurons in his brain explode with pain. Then everything goes black. He thinks he can still hear the eternal voice of his goddess but it's all so very . . . far. . . away.
Then the evoker-assassin returns to Donkor and stares him in the eye. “Now, we’re going to try this one last time,” he says motioning to Donkor’s gag. “I’ll ask the questions, you give the answers, or I'm going to permit the Shrinies here, who have had a very bad couple of days, to take their frustrations out on you. Got it?” Non-responsive in general, with a hope to get my prayers in. At the moment, I think his gag is still in even, with just a fruitless gesture made at it. Hopefully he will leave it there for another half hour or so. :) Not seeing the affirmative response he had hoped for, Sceptre shrugs his shoulders and motions to the monks. He rises, preparing to leave.
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View on a successful DC 15 Sense Motive check:
While he is trying to hide it, Sceptre seems to be looking for something specific. Whatever it is though, he has not found it. Sceptre collects Donkor’s two wands, both of which he adds to his bandolier. But first, Sceptre takes one of them, the wand of cure light wounds, and uses it to restore the monks back to full health.
Then the evoker-assassin returns to Donkor and stares him in the eye. “Now, we’re going to try this one last time,” he says motioning to Donkor’s gag. “I’ll ask the questions, you give the answers, or I'm going to permit the Shrinies here, who have had a very bad couple of days, to take their frustrations out on you. Got it?”
“That’s was a mistake—“ Sceptre says as he fires. A green bolt explodes into Sooron’s chest, originating from the darkness, only a few feet above him. Suddenly a translucent sheathe of emerald encircles Sooron in a skin-tight cocoon, complete with glittering gem-like faucets. It then contracts even further, crushing him within the confines of its prison.
“Grab em!” orders Sceptre, “It won’t hold him for long.” At the same time the night sky above Donkor begins to warp and Sceptre’s form slowly materializes as his enchanted cloak of shadows drifts away into nothingness. Donkor can see the evoker-assassin standing over top of him, his legs straddling the edges of the coffin – I mean hollowed boulder. Sceptre is holding his deadly wand rifle, his notorious trade-mark weapon, which Donkor has seen in action before. A thin trail of smoke rises from the copper wand loaded in the rifle’s barrel. A second wand is just below it, ready to be cycled into place so it can be brought to bear as well.
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“Wakey, wakey Sooron – a little early for bed time,” says a gruff voice. Donkor knows that voice. Donkor’s head snaps up. “Uh uh – nice and slow,” says the disembodied voice, “or we do it the hard way.” There’s an intimidating clicking sound, like something mechanical sliding into place. Whatever it was, it can’t be good. Peering down at him over the lip of his carved out boulder are two figures. In the dark, it is hard to make them out, but Donkor can see from their silhouettes that their hair has been braided back. This is bad. They look to be a pair of Asmodean monks. But how did they find him? Seeing the look of puzzlement on Donkor’s face, the disembodied voice answers his question. “We’ve been tailing you for quite some time now. So why don’t you cooperate and let my men here bind you up so we can chat some. It’s either that or I use my wandrifle to send you to the boneyard so you can pray to that goddess of yours real close up. Wand rifle?! But that would mean. . . Sceptre – here?! But he’s dead! And what is he doing here - and with the Shrine of Horns no less? Donkor cannot see Sceptre. But now that he can place the voice, he suspects he is very close – he sounds as though he’s standing above Donkor on his boulder. Maybe Donkor’s night blindness is even worse that he thought or maybe an invisibility spell is yet another of the evoker assassin’s many tricks. Sceptre issues an order to the two men: "Don't let him touch his holy symbol. Kill him if he tries." Then he returns to Donkor. “So, are you and I going to have a friendly chat about Hoffenburrow, the Reaver and that dig site back there?" he asks. "Or do I settle for just getting you out of the way?”
I oblige: "So that was Mrs. Lundegaard on the floor in there. And I guess that was your accomplice in the wood chipper. And those three people in Brainerd. And for what? For a little bit of money. There's more to life than a little money, you know. Don'tcha know that? And here ya are, and it's a beautiful day. Well. I just don't understand it."
Sceptre readied his wand rifle for the kill. All told, it had been rather easy. Fleeing from the dig site, Hoffenburrow and the Reaver were in far too much of a hurry to even bother hiding their tracks. Heavily encumbered with a sack of stolen loot, their horses’ prints fell deep in the sand. With almost no wind to speak of, the tracks were almost impossible to miss. Moreover, the fools chose the only source of water miles around as their camp. Sceptre liked to think he would have caught up to them there even if he had lost them. Better still, once Sceptre’s quarry arrived they appeared unusually obsessed with the pool, rather than the dangers behind them. Something wasn’t right though and it kept niggling at Sceptre. His years of experience warned him something was off, but thus far, he couldn’t put his finger on it. There were no animal tracks for example – nothing. And no birds. This oasis should have a flock of birds – every oasis has birds. Even the horses he had tracked to this place had disappeared. Sceptre’s efforts to detect magic though revealed nothing – save for confirmation that the bag of stolen goods was probably going to turn out to be a worthy prize. No matter, Sceptre ultimately decided. He would kill his quarry and then be quickly away from this place. The plan of attack did not need to complex. He would wait until near-darkness fell. The wizard Hoffenburrow would be blinded and reliant on the half-orc for eyes. The half-orc appeared to lack a missile weapon and the beach afforded them very little cover. Yet there should still be just enough light for the monks to quietly close in. If his targets lit a fire they would be blinder still. If he was true to form, Sceptre would paralyze the half-orc with the first shot. His new minions would at least distract Hoffenburrow long enough for him to turn his wand rifle on the wizard and finish him as well. Yes, his new minions. The two Azmodean monks were proving even more useful than he thought. They appeared quite accustomed to taking orders and, once they figured out that Sceptre’s goals were at least similar to their own, they fell in line rather quickly. True, there was the small matter of them both needing Hurgah and Hoffenburrow’s heads for their rather separate employers, but when the time finally came to resolve that dispute, Sceptre was confident he could simply dispose of the monks. Sceptre had spent the last half hour obtaining the perfect perch on the high ground. The Reaver had looked at his position over a dozen times now and failed to spot him – he suspected his invisibility spell was probably overkill. Although Sceptre had performed this sniper ambush so many times that it should have been tedious, there was always something thrilling about bagging a larger prey. The way his employer spoke of the Reaver made Sceptre confident this man-beast might just be worth his time. Then again, he might be just another piece of Belkzen trash. Time to find out. He aimed his wandrifle and readied the shot. 3. . . 2. . . 1. . .
Suddenly something surfaced from the center of the oasis – something big – was that a flying shark!? Sceptre signaled the monks to stand down as he watched. What the hell was this? A few moments later reinforcements began surfacing from the bottom of the pool. Huge bearded barbarian men, each the size of a troll. They seemed to be carrying little goblin-men on their backs – shamans by the looks of it, wands and scrolls. Within moments, there was a small platoon gathering on the beach. Again, they were all preoccupied with the pool. Sceptre hit the switch on his wand rifle, cycling into a different wand, one more suited for rapid fire and multiple targets. Their backs were turned. Sceptre could probably drop at least half of them before they reacted – but then what? Then it got weirder still as the coincidences ran out of control. Sceptre got a better look at one of the midget shaman. It was unmistakable, he was wearing the holy symbol of Pharasma. Sceptre was sure had seen that exact symbol before – on that very man, but at full size. It was Donkor Sooron, the water cleric Sceptre tangled with during the raid on the pyramid of the Four Pharaohs of Ascension only a few months back. How did he possibly get here? And what was he doing with Hoffenburrow and the Reaver? Sooron would need to be killed as well and Sceptre would have to be careful in the execution. The cleric was dangerously unpredictable. This was officially one unforeseen variable too many. Sceptre withdrew his wand rifle, signaled the monks and activated his exit stratagem. His window of opportunity had just closed.
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