"She has that effect on people."
Vernal's tone is suffused with family pride.
"That's why I rarely listen to her."
"Only occasionally prod her into action."
"I have no interest in your tongue."
"Yet."
The combined mental and fiery attacks destroy two more of the zombies and leave the third on it's back inside the sheets of fire that Santander's fury left behind.
The grimlock doesn't care that it's undead fodder have fallen, however. It roars a challenge back to Kevaras and attacks him with both of it's axes.
However, Kevaras is able to fend off the flurry of attacks from his wild foe, the axe swings being dodged and deflected.
Vernal drifts towards the grimlock, knife spinning in his long fingers.
"Axes? Such a waste of energy I always think. Don't tell Corpus. Watch the pretty knife blade and don't take your eyes off it until I say "smile"."
Metal glitters as Vernal stabs.
"And ... smile! This will hurt a lot."
Vernal's knife scores and drives deep into the grimlock, and the thing roars angrily.
The last zombie rises and moves towards Corpus.
The shadowy spined creature slips back a little bit, then a number of spines rip from it's back, rise into the air and fall back to the ground in a hail of sharp, needle-like, projectiles.
Some of the quills fall onto the zombie, but the creature does not seem bothered by them. The grimlock, however, screams in even more pain.
Vernal shakes irriating quills out of himself.
"Keep the scars for the shadar-kai, if you please."
Ovid dodges past the grimlock and knocks the porcupine back towards the entrance.
Vernal shakes irriating quills out of himself.
"Keep the scars for the shadar-kai, if you please."
"Never mock the axe, something ends up sticking in you if you do."
"My brothers, please cease comparing your weapons. Whilst amusing as a substitute for your inadequacies with other weapons, it grows tiresome."
"Sweeting, you're not in a position to judge. So far."
"Please, do not force me to kill you for your temerity and disgusting asides. Mother would make me pay for the funeral."
"So touchy. What can you have thought I meant?"
Ovid finishes off the shadowy creature and it's body turns to a sort of oil and seeps into the floor. The grimlock is not hit, and roars it's defiance as it stands amidst the group.
Kevaras brushes away some quills and noticing the distraction provided by Ovid, winds back to deliver a Valorous Smite upon the grimlock.
The quills must have bitten deeper then Kevaras thought as his blow is just off the mark, the grimlock deflecting it with one of it's axes.
Corpus will stay where he is and use duel strike to finish off the skeleton.
1st Attack vs ac, , damage =
2nd Attack vs ac, , damage =
"Axe beats bone."
The last zombie goes down. Only the grimlock stands amid the companions. It likely knows it, too, will shortly fall, but there is no fear in the creature.
Malize stays put and once more attacks the mind of the grimlock. She tries to bring the fears of the creature to life.
Whatever fears the last enemy had overwhelm it and it falls to the ground, dead.
As the sounds of your own battle fade away once more, you can hear the sounds of fighting in Gateway, a mile or so away. You can't see any of the details from here, but the sounds of screams, and magic and metal on metal echo down the passageway.
The power of the temple seems to be waking as the carnage occurs inside it, and all of you feel a warmth pass through you. Feeling fresher, you prepare for your own next defense.
Corpus will take the axe and clean it, "Could be of dwarven make, definitely not goblin."
Kevaras rolls the barrel over to K20 so that it lies directly underneath the window, its length parallel to the wall.
With a grin he points to the barrel and says, "A door prize for the next guest coming through the window."
Vernal saunters over and cuts off the grimlock's head.
"Why bother with scaring the opposition when we can use them to scare themselves?"
He arranges the face into a truly horrible expression and rolls it down the hallway towards any oncoming foes.
"Hey, one of you give me a hand with this?" Ovid begins moving one of the pews towards the hole in the wall, trying to block the door.
Vernal's down hill head rolling likely got the enemies attention.
Keveras moves the Barrel to the broken window and Ovid starts to struggle with a pew.
Put me at J25.
Init. =
Santander comes to Ovid's aid as he sees the shadar-kai struggle with the solid wooden pew.
"Thanks."
Forgot to mention that i spent 2 HS to get back up to full HP.
HP: 31/31
Surges: 7/12
AP: 2/2
Status: none
Vernal blows a slightly disturbing kiss in Santander's direction. Despite the dubious delivery method, the hobgoblin feels oddly revived.
All are back to full hp, no surges expended.
HP: 31/31
Surges: 9/12
AP: 2/2
Status: none
I'm cool.
DM
Malize tries to remember any stories she has heard of such places of power, and searches for any glyphs, bas-reliefs or other such clues.
Malize recalls legends she read about this temple. It was supposedly dedicated to some entity allied with the Primodials before the Dawn War. Your lessons never told anything about the name of the entity, or what sort of creature it was.
Malize has a more intense look.
With her study, Malize finds a series of runed cleverly worked into the floor, and, likely the altar as well, though she can't tell from where she is. She thinks she might be able to trigger them, though she has no idea of what the effect of that will be.
However, before she can try, the enemy arrives.
Santander yells a brief warning as a quartet of appears mere feet from the doorway, but they are moving quickly, even faster then Ovid.
The first in the temple is a drow, hand crossbow in hand.
He darts inside the place, though Vernal and Santander can attack him as he passes. Once within, he shoots a hand crossbow at Vernal.
The bolt just grazes Vernal, and shatters against the wall, and another drow is darting within, holding two long knives, much like Vernal does.
He slides around the hobgoblin, and attacks Corpus, and, it tries to cover him in darkfire as well.
Corpus, with long experience at skirmishing with fellow drow, resists the darkfire and easily avoids the knife.
"You whelps have delayed me entirely too long. This temple will die, and you with it."
The words are spoken by a female Shadar Kai, and she aims a rod at Santander. "You first, vermin." Santander feels darkness settle over him, tugging at his mind, and then energy fires from her rod at him.
The mental attack rips into the hobgoblin. The fourth enemy, some sort of undead, has yet to move closer.
Deprived of his smile, and disgruntled by the appearance of another knife-wielding drow, Vernal is noticeably less effective.
"So energetic. I really can't be bothered with you."
Ovid dodges around Corpus and attacks the drow in a flurry of blows.
Vernal scores on the Shadowblade as it moves past him, but misses the hunter. The two drow are too nimble for Ovid, and his attack misses both.
"This is a family party. I don't believe your names were on the invitiation list."
Vernal's blade spins hypnotically and twists under the rib cage of the shadowblade. As he smiles gently, he adds,
"Of course, in our case, "family" can mean many things."
Vernal's blade sinks onto the shadowblade's back and he cries out in agony. The rest of the group feels the energy from Vernal's shield wrapping over them.
Corpus will duel strike the drow in front of him.
1st attack vs ac, , damage =
2nd attack vs ac, , damage =
Santander's attacks are ineffective as the drow race past him. Corpus fares slightly better. While one of his axes misses, the other one hits the drow shadowhunter, slightly wounding it.
The the fourth enemy figure moves. It's not alive, it is a skeleton dressed in ragged armor and carrying a greataxe. And it doesn't walk, it just appears in front of Myrissa and swings at Santander.
The axe slams into the pew, and wood shards fly everywhere, but the hobgoblin is fine. His own power burns the shadowhunter and the skeleton, though not badly. As he steps back and starts to cast, the hunter stabs with his dagger.
.
However, the blade misses and flames shoot out from Santander. While they are an inconvenience to the hunter, the shadowblade is badly hurt.
"You whelps have delayed me entirely too long. This temple will die, and you with it."
Kevaras hopes to goad Myrissa into launching into a villainous monologue, thus revealing her ruinous plan.
He says, "I highly doubt the likes of you could devise a sound strategy."
While pointing at the carnage of corpses strewn around the temple, "If this was your plan, perhaps you should consider a new line of work."