Galad & Madda:
The ancient, empty monolith that is the Mindspire looms to your right side, and the Blue Plate, a highly-regarded eatery squats shale-roofed to your left as you approach the square. The first drops of rain kiss the well-kept cobbles of Saint Street as your idle chatter is interrupted by a sudden, raucous tide of frantic noise. Above the clamor, a strident voice heavy-laden with spite and venom rises, trilling in the writhing syllables of Deep Speech.
As you blink the shock from your countenances, the mingled crowd in the square becomes first a trickle, then a panicked flood as pilgrims and citizens alike strive to flee, their efforts driven by the wet screams of some slower to react.
Sundered Heart & Karnn:
Above the rising din you hear a venom-laden voice, shrill and grating, shout unfamiliar syllables, punctuated by a spate of all-too-human screams.
Tye sighs, downing her drink with a resigned gulp.”Now that ain't gonna be good fer business!”
Setil:
Your glum introspection is spoiled by the sound of approaching footsteps. Reluctantly pulling your attention up from your dusty boots, you see a short, vaguely pretty woman in clad in the simple blue vestments of an Iounic mendicant. She offers a hesitant smile, flicking her green eyed gaze betwixt you and the heavy brass doors behind you.
“Dierdre,” she says, as the evening's first drops of rain patter heavily down. Her smile returns, but the helpless laughter that follows it is drowned out by a grating, warbling call, full of spite and venom, that carries from the pilgrim-thronged square in front of you.
Sudden screams bubble up out of the square's busy drone, as citizens and pilgrims alike begin to scatter, panicked.
[ooc]Whomever shouted used the Deep Speech. Perception, Insight and Initiative please!
For DM Grumpysauce and Karnn
Sundered Heart, the robust, orange-scaled barbarian whose arms are bedecked with gold armbands, scans the area for anything resembling a threat, Kill Point, his spear, ready in his hands. "Tye, what did you say would not be good for business?"
"Karnn, stop yer daydreaming!"
Sundered Heart & Karnn:
"Tye, what did you say would not be good for business?"
The woman twists her lips in a generous frown. "All that shouting - that was no goodly language these ears ever heard, and believe you me; I have heard more'n most! Sounded like unto somethin' most normal tongues oughtn't even utter."
Sundered Heart:
"Must they desecrate such a holy place?" Galad takes the beads hanging around his neck down and shakes it. A ethereal form materializes ahead of him. It appears roughly like a deva holing a longsword.
For DM Grumpysauce and Karnn
"Tye, stay here."
"Karnn, we got business over there," Sundered Heart points with Kill Point to the direction of the monster that he saw. "Monsters need killing."
A breeze makes his wolfskin cloak flutter and he strides from his seat to battle.
"Must they desecrate such a holy place?" Galad takes the beads hanging around his neck down and shakes it. A ethereal form materializes ahead of him. It appears roughly like a deva holding a longsword.
Galad:
Sundered Heart & Karnn:
"Tye, stay here."
The bulky woman snorts. "Damned if I will!" She rises from her chair, shooing you forward to battle with one hand while the other grabs and swiftly finishes your flagon.
"It's back to the Cockerel for me! It wouldn't be right and fitting for me ta die anywhere but there!"
With that, she stumps down off the porch and heads through the drizzle towards the Saintsbridge, obstinately determined to get home.
DM, Sundered Heart
"Karnn, stop yer daydreaming!" the large dragonborn shouts.
His mind waking from it's dream like trance, Karrn glances about the eatery, "Huh, what's going on 'Big Brother'?"
He turn his gaze toward the crowd
DM, Sundered Heart** spoiler omitted **
DM, Karnn
"What in the wide world..."
Madda's head comes up and she goes instantly on the alert. "That was deep speech. Let's move!"
Let the drums sound the call to battle.
DM, Sundered Heart
Looking toward the beak-brained monstrosities "I've heard about letting our mind wander... Never knew they were literal about it though"
"So how do you want to break it up Sunder? One a piece and flip for the last?" He grins at the dragonborn. He reaches behind him and pulls out his blade. With a second motion he seprates it into two different blades.
For DM and Karnn
For DM and Karnn** spoiler omitted **
DM and Sundered Heart
For DM and Karnn** spoiler omitted **DM and Sundered Heart** spoiler omitted **
For DM and Karnn** spoiler omitted **DM and Sundered Heart** spoiler omitted **
Madda:
Karnn:
The lot of ya:Once you've spotted the source(s) of the hysteria, please make a Dungeoneering roll, then pick your spoiler!
Dungeoneering: <20
Dungeoneering: 20+
Dungeoneering: 25+
Dungeoneering: 30+
"What can these things up here for?"
"Grell," she says grimly. "They don't normally hunt in packs and they don't normally come into the light either. The bastards can fly as well. Oh gods, so many people are going to die... We've got to work fast, Galad."
Oh gods, so many people are going to die... "
Madda:
This awful truth seems all too clear as your keen glance picks several familiar faces out of the frightened mess, as time seems to swirl in lazy seconds.
Young Sammel Arneson stands swaying in the doorway of Arneson's Sundries, his six year old face agape, brown eyes wide with horror. With eerie clarity, you can hear his father's deep voice echoing from the depths of the store, frantic, calling the boy back inside.
Gardenia Roseblossom churns her stout legs with vigor, but the halfling matron cannot seem to make any headway among the crowds. Her pastries, cakes and crumpets have spilt everywhere, and she shields her head with the wicker basket they once occupied, tears mingling to lumpy paste where they track into the dusting of flour on her cheeks.
Landerham Cotswold, still skinny despite the best efforts of his new, foreign wife Zara, crouches at the base of Estered's monument, shielding his pretty bride with his body and fumbling for his belt knife. You do not remember him being so gallant on his naming day, when he demanded a kiss from each of the young ladies at the celebration...
One reassuring sight lifts your spirits: To your left, striding belligerently towards the fray is Sundered Heart, his scales ruddy in the gloaming, evoking the primal terror of his draconic heritage. The boy Karnn moves jauntily beside his "brother," sporting an amused smile, his blades already a-crackle with eldritch trailings.
Time snaps back into its swift flow, and all you can hear are screams.
The sight of so many she knows in even more danger than they can imagine is more than enough for Madda. Keeping her voice calm, she calls out to the crowds.
"Get away now. All of you. Fast but safe."
Hoping the sight and sound of her familiar voice will quell the worst of the panic, she moves towards the fight.
"Sundered and Karnn. I've never been more glad to see you," a slight smile of relief breaks through her fear.
Initiative = 13; Perception = 13; Insight = 15
Setil is tall and chalk white. His hair is shoulder length and is stark white with odd strands of black. He's dressed in worn traveling clothes that are in need of a tailor. For the most part he wears a blank expression, as if lost in thought, except when the sun shines. Then he's usually smiling, as if at some private joke. He also has a habit of staring at the sun.
Initiative = 13; Perception = 13; Insight = 15
Setil is tall and chalk white. His hair is shoulder length and is stark white with odd strands of black. He's dressed in worn traveling clothes that are in need of a tailor. For the most part he wears a blank expression, as if lost in thought, except when the sun shines. Then he's usually smiling, as if at some private joke. He also has a habit of staring at the sun.
Setil:
Dierdre has stepped quickly around you and into the Mindspire's massive doorway. You caught a blossom of alarm on her face as the creature's deep speech echoed across the square - you'd guess that she recognized the tongue.
Setil whips his head around, following the woman's movement, and then back to the glimpses of horror among the crowd. "What's happening?"
Sundered Heart sprints pass Karnn and the sheep-like crowds of pilgrims waiting for the slaughter.
Karnn's lithe form moves easily through the fleeing crowd, darting here and there, always alert and wary to any threats.
Sundered Heart is far less subtle, bulling forward towards the nearest Grell through a crowd that seems to swerve and part around him like a bleating, craven herd. His approach does not go unnoticed.
A communal, shivering SCREEEEEE rends the air as the two smaller abominations turn from slaughter and move, tentacles flailing, to engage the new threat.
With the sharp rasp of cruelly barbed tentacle across ruddy scales, the Grell claims first blood, clacking its beak in anticipation of a coming feast. Sundered Heart can feel his muscles grow sluggish as some otherworldly ichor infuses the messy wound.
The latecoming Grell is not as fortunate; greedily trying to ensnare the newly-vulnerable dragonborn with a coiling tentacle, it succeeds only in knocking a pair of quaking pilgrims asprawl in a tangle of limbs.
From just inside the northern perimeter of the square, the largest of the floating Grells shrieks a cacophonous incantation. The nimbus of crackling energy it wears like a halo flares brightly and a monstrous bolt of lightning slams into Sundered heart with a sudden, dazzling impact. The hair on the heads of the bedraggled, terrified pilgrims unfortunate enough to be too close to the dragonborn stands on end as the smell of ozone lingers in the wet air.
36 vs Reflex Crit!, 24 Lightning damage, Sundered is blinded (save ends)
As the raucous cries fade into the growing downpour, yet another of the smaller aberrations emerges from the alleyway north of the Town Hall, beak and tentacles clotted with gore.
For DM Grumpysauce
Sundered Heart:
Setil:
Pounce (Ref) v G2 (1d20 14=19, 1d8 8=14).
Horror at seeing her hometown under attack drives sense from Madda's head. Getting closer, she transforms without a word into a wolfhound and charges at Grell 2, trying to sink her teeth into the dangling tentacles and hauling it sideways so someone can get a clear shot at it.
As Galad walks closer to the grell, the spirit dissolves, only to reform farther away.
Setil begins moving towards the fray, then, hearing the woman's words he pulls up short and yells to the strangers assualting the monstrosities, "They want the tear! Don't let them get into the temple!" Setil holds his place fearing a diversion, and throws a javelin.
Galad stalks ahead, his countenance serene among the chaos, bidding his ancestor forward into the battle. With a solemn nod, the tenebrous spirit fades, a moment later rippling back into the world as silently as it left, at the base of Estered's Monument.
Following the tall Deva forward, Madda races into the square, her body blurring, changing, shifting. as she passes him. Snarling, canine-Madda hurls herself upwards at the trailing, flailing tentacles of the Grell, jaws snapping on naught but air.
From the eastern edge of the square, as Madda leaps forward, an unfamiliar voice can be heard over the tumult. "They want the tear! Don't let them get into the temple!"
It is another tall Deva, this one chalky white. He hurls a javelin that flies wide of the newest foe to the fray, then holds his ground.
Karrn moves closer to the action, trying to stay out of the fleeing crowds way.
Karrn's daggers begin to shine in a cold blue light, "Get away from my brother!"
He launches twin draconic looking blasts. They snake their way toward the brains...
Madda's sensible words, delivered as calmly as the circumstances allow, seem to settle some of the mob. The central square is quickly emptying, as citizens and pilgrims alike seek shelter on the periphery.
There will be weeping later - several ruined bodies sprawl on the cobbles, and it seems likely that more await near the town hall, but the swift intervention of the dragonborn Sundered Heart has bought a score or more lives this night.
Rallying to the defense of the reeling dragonborn, Karnn looses twin bolts of eldritch energy towards the predators that beset his "brother." Brilliant and deadly, the bolts dance a path through glistening raindrops, but both are mis-aimed, and serve only to alert the creatures to the presence of another would-be hero.
"Geez, I knew I should have been training more", He sighs as the two draconinc beams go astray.
"Geez, I knew I should have been training more", He sighs as the two draconinc beams go astray.
Blast. I can't tell them to take them down one at a time like this...
Madda fleetingly regrets her change to dog form.
Silver Phoenix Rage Attack 1d20+13=33, Damage 2d10+9=29
Twirling Kill Point over his head, SH recites:
"Neither darkness nor light
shall keep me from slaying you!"
SH strikes Grell3, his keen senses guiding his aim. The image of the noble phoenix can be seen hovering over SH then it is gone. A trick of the light, probably.
Melee Basic Attack 1d20+13=26, Damage 1d10+10=20
Kill Point flicks one more time at Grell3.
For DM Grumpysauce
Sundered old chum, you're still blinded and what not unless you make some saves.
An odd voice sounds in the barbarian's head, apparantly coming from the wolfhound fighting alongside him.
Despite the ills that beset him, Sundered Heart strikes true with Kill Point, his first blow leaving a trail of flickering silver flames, the second dropping an armspan of flopping tentacle to the cobbles in a gout of black blood.
The grell voices a hideous, keening shriek as the silver flames flicker madly. It responds with sudden but poorly aimed thrash of its ropy tentacles before circling to a flanking position as the flames that lick at it gutter and die.
Unconcerned by the yapping housepet, the other grell floats lazily in to attack Sundered Heart again from a position of advantage. The mass of tentacles flexes and uncoils with unnatural speed, several of them snaring the bulky dragonborn, their barbs raking the soft flesh beneath his scales as he is drawn upward. The snapping beak closes on Sundered Heart before he can twist away, and again the toxic kiss of venom burns through him, leaving him limp and helpless.
On the eastern periphery of the square, the newest grell floats south towards the pale, shouting deva, whipping tentacles amongst the fleeing masses as it goes. A scream, a wet snap, another body falls to the square broken.
[ooc]Grell4 moves to X25, killing casually.
The philosopher sidles closer to the center of the square, the lightning corona rising, heaving a crackling bolt that shatters cobblestones a pace wide of Madda. Croaking, the vicious creature summons a reserve of eldritch energy, reaching into the otherwhere and twisting out a vortex of coiling energies that bubble up out of the very stones of the square. Madda and Sundered Heart flinch as waves of an alien consciousness overload their synapses in a ghastly wash of pain.