What manner of creature is this that grapples Lucienne? "Creature, unhand our friend!"
Knowledge (arcana) at -4 penalty
I finally managed to grab the glasses skidding across the floor.
Only to have the lenses come loose from them and continue spinning away separately.
"Well, FLAMES!" I shouted. I was getting really tired of this.
I managed to grab one of the lenses before it rolled out of reach. But when I started to look around for the other one I heard Maddock shouting about the seal. I looked up to see,...
"Lucienne!"
And the Hollow Man. OUTSIDE THE CIRCLE.
'Frak. Frak. FRAK!'
I stood back up, putting the pieces of the glasses I had recovered in my pocket, and glanced around trying to find the other lens.
"Sorry tall, dark and horny" I said straightening my wide brimmed hat on my head. "But the lady is with us. And as you can see, her dance card is already full."
I smiled at him with the full force of my mystically enhanced personality. I didn't expect it to have the least bit of effect. But I let him have it anyway.
"So. You can either let the lady go, or you can dance with us." I risked a glance over my shoulder to see how Maddock was doing. "Hey Maddock, Kegi. If your done with our last partner, I think our new one is ready for a spin."
I fought to control the flames I could feel trying to burst from my hands.
'I can't blast that, thing, without hitting Lucienne!' We have to get her away from it!
"Last chance", I said still smiling, with only a hint of my other personality coloring my voice. "Let. Her. Go."
Something distracted me. It may have been the madness around me. It may have been the 'madness' inside me. But my concentration slipped, and the magic came rushing to me. My hands burst into flames.
"NOW!"
For Logos
All right, then.
This is all starting to feel familiar, and Lucienne thinks she understands why. She readjusts her perspective here. It's as if everyone is in a dream, and she's good with dreams.
Lucienne tries to manipulate the environment, the way she can in dreams. If that works, she's going to try to move the circle, so that it flows under the Hollow Man again.
"Akallabeth, we prefer men who take the lead in the dance. Waltz 'er back home."
I move towards Lucienne and interpose myself between her and the creature. "Lucienne, are you alright? What's that creature?"
The warmth of the object in his hand gives Maddock pause. He holds the lens up to his eye and looks through it at the hollow creature, at the gnome, and at his companions.
When the Hollow Man flung Lucienne aside, I gathered my will to send my most potent offensive spell at the creature. But before I could start the incantation, it had transformed into a woman.
As she/IT adjusted her dress and slipped on a half mask, I said "That won't save you," just a little smugly, and readied to start the chant that would send fire at the thing.
As I raised my arms, it/SHE was suddenly in them. I looked it in the face out of habit, and it, was,... HER.
It was her. The woman I had always dreamed of, but could never have. The woman who wouldn't be harmed by my powers. Who COULDN'T be harmed. My hands were still sheathed in flame, and SHE was there, not harmed in the least. Smiling at me. Understanding. Compassionate. The one person I could love and not fear harming. I could relax. And love. And dance,...
Somewhere in the back of my mind I could hear a not-quite-familiar voice saying something about dancing. And home. Another very familiar voice was shouting military commands at me, telling me to get it together. But they were both very far away. As if trying to remember a dream.
Dream. This was a dream come true. Not that I would know, I hadn't had anything but nightmares in so long,...
I stumbled in our dance, and looked to see if she was alright as a single, coherent thought also tripped through my mind.
'Dream?! Oh, Please Five, Please DON'T let this be a dream!'
'Cuz' MY dreams SUCK!'
The warmth of the object in his hand gives Maddock pause. He holds the lens up to his eye and looks through it at the hollow creature, at the gnome, and at his companions.
"What vision greets ye, Maddock? This place is a riddle which I cannot break. Though perhaps ..." I look up at the elves and faeries dangling lifeless from the sickly branches of the trees "... they be a part of it, too."
Riddles. Bah. Never was one for riddles. What do we have here. Think man! Think! OK. Gate - that's clear now. Creature - came through the gate. Getting somewhere. Must put creature back through gate. Must bind and seal creature back on other side of the gate. But what to bind it with...
Staring back up at the dangling corpses, "Has any of ye some good stout ..."
I rush to the nearest tree and begin to climb.
"What vision greets ye, Maddock?
Staring back up at the dangling corpses, "Has any of ye some good stout ..."
Maddock grumbles, more to himself than to anyone, "Aye, I could use a pint or six of good stout...but I'm not sure what you're up to in that tree."
"From what I see through this lens, this place is either another dimension, or a dream, or all in our heads, or maybe all three. Somebody find that other lens, and we can start making some sense of this. In some reality we can affect, I think that monster's seal may be still holding."
He gently lowers the gnome to the ground. With the lens still over one eye, he reaches into his belt pouch to retrieve his symbol of nature, a sprig of mistletoe, then taking Lucienne's lead, he concentrates his will upon strengthening the seal on the hollow man's circle.
I notice the intense concentration on the faces of Maddock and Lucienne and I too concentrate to bring the environment under my will, just like in a dream.
I shimmy back down the tree and run to each body in turn collecting the longest strands of mistletoe until I have a sizable bundle.
I say to the others, "If I be rememberin' my Warden sermons, this 'ere mistletoe be the symbol 'o nature. And yon lady ... or fellow ... there be th' most unnatural thing I 'ere did lay eyes on. Now it ain't hardly a good rope as a sailor would 'ave, but it did hold them bodies up 'til they was good and ripe. Do ye think we could bind 'im up with it and send 'im back down his hole?"
"That creature is called a Nemesis, and it's nature is to key against any one person and adapt to attacking him or her. There's a fascinating story about how the damned things were first discovered, but that's for another time.
"It's clothing suggests that it's responsible for the morning, but that may just be an idle boast. I don't know.
"Right now, we have a chance to influence this arena, in some simple ways. Getting him back into the circle is apparently not a simple way. Does anyone have any suggestions for how we can turn the environment to our advantage?"
"Lucienne, the thing released you when Akallabeth threatened it with fire. Perhaps, it is afraid of fire," I shout.
"Someone get Akallabeth away from that thing, so we can put my theory to the test!"
As vines trap and ensnare Maddock, he roars and struggles, trying to use brute force to break free, but fails, and the vines only hamper him more.
He takes a deep breath, realizing that fury may not be the answer in this case, and begins to call upon nature to use this creature's tactic against it.
I stumbled and spun as my 'love' suddenly flung me aside. Catching myself, I looked wildly around to see what had threatened her that caused her to react so.
Then my head cleared. I had only one thought, and I gladly shared it with everybody there.
"You. Frakkin'. B@$$T@&#!!!"
With a shout of fury that could not begin to reflect the pain and anger I felt inside, I threw myself forward to catch the Hollow Man. I wish I could say that it was my military training or finely honed reflexes that allowed me to evade the vines of mistletoe that suddenly sprung up everywhere trying to entrap us. But the truth was, I simply wasn't where he expected me to be.
Seeing the vines explode from the ground and grab at my 'comrades' was like a splash of cold water though. I skidded to a halt between two groups of mistletoe, and saw him/IT bend over, pluck a jewel from the map, and crush it.
'That CAN'T be good' I said to myself as I began casting a complicated spell. The fire trails from my hands hung in the air as I drew the increasingly difficult symbols. 'I'm not gonna make it.' I thought desperately as I watched the Hollow Man heading for the exit. Then, over my chanting I heard a gravelly voice speaking like a cascading waterfall. And vines sprung up again, this time wrapping themselves around the Hollow Man!
'YES! Way to go Maddock!' I thought, wildly elated as I realized that Maddock had managed to slow him down enough for me to finish my spell.
With a final phrase, I gathered all of the flames that hung in the air in front of me into a ball, and hurled it in an arc that took it over the head of the Hollow Man where it landed in front of him. It flared and burned itself out in a fiery flash. In the dissipating smoke there stood a man-sized centipede, with unusually red coloring, and small vestigial horns above its multiple eyes.
"Verstrak'!, Hak!" I shouted into the sudden stillness.
The centipede lunged forward, pincers aimed for the Hollow Man's throat.
My smile could not have been pleasant. I cast a spell which produced a fist-sized sphere of fire, and hurled it at the Hollow Man's back as the centipede attacked.
Akallabeth having disengaged himself from the Hollow Man, I see this as my opportunity to attack. I take a position from which I will not hurt any of my party mates then I cause fire to burst forth from my fingers. Earn my ire, Burn with fire
The mistletoe in my arms springs suddenly to life, the vines grasping and tearing at my skin. I drop the foul enchanted weed, only to have more spring up about my legs. Dancing to the side, away from the perversion of nature, I see that my companions are similarly afflicted and the hollow man is moving away.
Romulus, Akallabeth, and Maddock cast spells. I use my bow.
No sense in tackling him now, I'd have to deal with that centipede, too!
Okay. He wants to move to the door. Let's see what we can do here.
I'm imagining the door on a spiral, gyring away from us. This is a dream. Distance is fluid. The door is a mile away. This is a dream. Distance is fluid. The door is a mile away.
'WHEN am I gonna learn?! If it's too good to be true,...IT AINT TRUE!
I stopped berating myself when I heard the moans begin behind me.
I turned my head to look over my shoulder, and saw the moaning corpses rise up and Kegi begin firing rapidly at them.
I smiled.
"Finally," I said aloud. "Something I KNOW how to deal with."
I raised my right arm, my hand burst into flame, and then coalesced into a thin fiery green ray that lanced out at the nearest shambling creature.
Lucienne looks around and tries to get her bearings.
1) With the creature gone (gone? really? or is he just hiding?), is the environment changing in any way?
2) How many undead are coming our way?
3) Are we still slowed or Entangled?
4) How's the gnome doing?
I forced myself to calm down as the number of creatures were were facing finally made it to my brain after my usual, first reaction to undead.
"Guys?, I don't want to sound pessimstic, but I do NOT have enough rays left to deal with all of these,..."
"What about tall, dark and spooky? Can we follow him? Or get back to the original entrance?"
I tried to put my undead hatred aside for a moment and concentrate. What was it the Hollow Man said just before he left? This isn't a dream, but madness?
'This is more like a freakin nightmare. THOSE I can deal with, you just have to,...maybe that's it?!?' I thought frantically, grasping at straws.
"Lucienne! Romulus! What if he was right? What if this isn't a dream, but some kind of mini-manifest zone to Dal 'Quor? That makes it a nightmare, right? I don't know a lot about Dal 'Quor, but the best way I know of to deal with a nightmare is to just wake up!"
I fell back in step with Kegi, hands sheathed in flame, preparing to blast another undead, but waiting to see if there was a spot where it would do the most good.
"Can we just do that, Darkling? Just will ourselves out of here?"
Unless anyone objects, Lucienne will move over to the gnome and try to heal and rouse him. Given a moment's breathing time, she also intends to look at the shards of the crystal that the Hollow Man took the time to shatter.
Maddock swears softly, under his breath. The gate was breached on his watch. How did we not know this was here, and so weak?
He picks up the gnome gently, and brings him closer to the group, then fetches the lens from his pocket, and hands it to Akallabeth. "I'd suggest putting the glasses back together. They may be the key to getting out of here. Perhaps our scholarly friend can figure out how." , and gestures toward Lucienne.
He gently sets the gnome down, and places his bag of enchanted berries beside him. "If he needs more of these, go ahead." Then he readies his club, prepared to strike down any zombies that stray too close.
"Can we just do that, Darkling? Just will ourselves out of here?"
"Well,..." I muttered, mostly to myself. "It how I wake up most nights,..."
"I don't know." I responded while taking the proffered lens from Maddock and fumbling for the other parts of the glasses from my pocket. "But you seemed to be having an effect earlier. Just grasping at straws here."
I popped the rosy lenses back into the frames, looked at them carefully, then offered them to Lucienne. "I'm certainly open to suggestions at this point. Here. Maybe you can make something of these?"
I looked over my shoulder at the slowly approaching undead. "What ever we try, We had better come up with something quick,..."
Lucienne looks through the lenses and gasps, amazed at what she's seeing.
"It's like a mirror to the waking world." I scoot them down my nose like granny glasses, so I can see this realm above the lenses.
All right. First things first. To the gnome:
The holy flame shall bring you weal,
It asks your body now to heal.
I'll take the crystal shards, and then I'll be trying to identify my surroundings with the world I see through the glasses.
"Details later goodsir," I answered the gnomes rattled questions. "Just stay behind us and we'll keep you as safe as we can." For as LONG as we can I finished to myself.
"Unless you happen to have a talent for turning undead?,..." I asked the gnome, trying not to sound TOO hopeful.
I noticed Lucienne staring at the map through the glasses. "Um, not to be pushy m'lady, but if you see something, don't feel you have to wait for permission!" I said a little harsher than I intended as I fired off another fiery, green ray at a zombie getting too close for comfort.
"Only one more of those left." I muttered to Kegi as the walking corpse collapsed, sparking with green flames.
Before the first wave of zombies reach our line, I take up a position that would allow me to catch several of them into the field of fire of my spell. I cover as many of the zombies with fire.
Burning Hands Damage (Reflex DC 16) (2d4=6)
"Pennywise, we could sure use any spell you might have up your sleeves!" I shout at the gnome.
Thru the glasses, Lucienne can see a rather complicated way of getting back, it involves rearranging the other jewels. You think you can do it before the zombies become too much of a problem.
"The chipped emerald to Wroat. Yellow diamond touches the Seawall Mountains, and then rests in the Eldeen Reaches."
Lucienne begins moving the jewels (there are twelve of them, plus the remnants of the one the Nemesis crushed)."The ruby to Thronehold. The Storm Sapphire to Valenar."
Before she moves each jewel, she announces the move, as if she were playing chess against herself. That way, if I'm struck down before making a move, my comrades can place that final gem.
"Two pieces of amber, moving as one, to Port Krez. The undamaged emerald to Arcanix."
She steals a glance up at the scene around her. That was a bad idea.
"Onyx to Korranberg, by way of Trolanport. The blue diamond to the Mror Holds."
The jewels are sticking to the map, and Lucienne is beginning to realize that it's not just the spidersilk holding them. As she places more pieces, as the pattern becomes more complete, the missing pieces want to fall into place.
"Almost there, gentlemen. Be on your guards; after all, something unexpected might happen."
I watched Lucienne work on the map with growing interest,...
And the approaching 'horde' with growing dismay.
And my bag of mystic tricks was, almost, empty. I had one really good one left, but I really didn't want to frighten my new pals so soon.
"Almost there, gentlemen. Be on your guards; after all, something unexpected might happen."
"THAT would be a shame." I muttered snarkily, unable to keep a smile from my face at what had to be the understatement of the century. "After all, until now, my day was going PERFECTLY well!"
"They be nearly upon us. Romulus, fall back! Incomming."
I try to warn him before I fire, but I'm not waiting to see if he hears. Moving to the side, trying to avoid giving them cover, I fire on the zombie threating Romulus.
My arrow finds the chest of a nearby zombie, sending it reeling under the force of the impact.
I only have so many arrows and there's a lot more of them
"Lucienne, any progress on gettin' us outta here?"
I hear Kegi shout something but I couldn't make it out before the zombies struck. I bite back a groan of pain. I step back cautiously and allow Kegi to cover my retreat.
Maddock snarls, baring his teeth at the encroaching zombies. Hopefully whatever needs to be done to escape this place will be done soon.
Attack (1d20+4=11), Damage (1d6+4=6).
He ventures a powerful but utterly graceless swing of his club at a zombie that shambles too close.
Hopefully whatever needs to be done to escape this place will be done soon.
Oh, Lucienne quite agrees.
"You can't beat them in a physical battle. Don't just chop them up. Remember where we are! Make them be further away. Make it rain holy water. Make them be friendly, or alive, or simply dead dead dead. Somebody decide on something, and everybody fall in."
Okay, back to the map.
Each stone is in its starting location, acting as a tiny grave marker for those who died in that area; and the spectacles are showing that they should now move to form two lines facing off against one another in the center of the map. And --looking over the top of the glasses to check the "physical" map-- Lucienne notices that there are threads of silk all converging there, like silken ley lines.
She touches six of the twelve stones with her thumbs, index fingers, and ring fingers, and moves them along the silk. At once, the other six move with them, and the threads start thrumming, and moaning as if they were a living instrument.
The jewels are aligned in two rows now, like the start of a board game, and the wind picks up the song.
"Gentlemen, I begin to suspect that this Pennywise is a key here. Bring him 'round."
Lucienne matches the hum of the silk strings, and the jewels gently lift off the map, following one another in a tight circle, like pilgrim monks of various colors. Tiny fires ignite over each jewel, matching the colors of their gems,
"Fire of passion, be our servant. Fire of aversion, yield to our wills. Fire of delusion, stand not in our way. We have ended our rebirth in this place. We have fulfilled our lives here. We have completed our tasks. There is nothing further for us in this world."
Lightning flashes in the clouds above, and a cold wind promises a sudden storm.
Maddock interposes himself between the lanky zombie and the unconscious gnome.
"I'll keep this critter away from the gnome." he snarls, "Someone try and wake him up!"
He widens his stance, growls and thumps his broad chest with his club, taunting and daring the zombie to attack, but Maddock does not strike first.
Hearing the tone in Lucienne's voice, I glance quickly at Kegi.
"They are far away, concentrate on that. Like a bad dream, but for them. The faster they move, the farther away they are. Concentrate!"
With that I turned and moved to the gnome behind the protection of Maddock.
"They are far away, and getting farther. They are far away, and getting farther" Was echoing in my mind like a mantra. I grabbed the again-unconcious gnome, and drug his suprisingly light frame closer to Lucienne.
I looked him in the face and said, "You've had a nice nap. Now wake up!" Again with a hint of my alter ego peeking out for emphasis. "Wake up! C'mon, you've got work to do!"
I started to help him up, half expecting to see him jump, and returned to my mantra,...
"They are far away,..."
"Oh. That's just GREAT!" I snapped upon hearing the guards at the door.
I looked again at the horror around the room. I looked at the others.
"Why do I get the feeling we've just been suckered into a guest appearance on 'Sharn's Most Wanted"?!?
I looked around yet again, trying not to let the desperation I felt show too much. I thought I had left that feeling behind me. Finally I threw my hands into the air in exasperation as the first impact shook the front doors.
"I can hear the town criers now!" I exclaimed. "Five Felons Found Fleeing scene of Murder Most Foul! More after they are Captured and Tortured! I mean 'Questioned'!" I stopped my ranting and spun to face the others.
"His office! He said something about his office! And he sounded coherent! One or two of us needs to search it for clues while the rest of us try to convince the well-meaning, but usually inept, guards that we Didn't Do This!"