The Necromancer's Pact: Private Conversations

[Dr._Bob]

Your worst fears are realized when the body is cut down and lowered to the ground.

It is Trinark. Razul's lifts his wand, then sadly puts it away when it becomes obvious that it will be of no use.

The drow is dead, hanged by his neck. The state of decomposition suggests that he was killed days ago. Perhaps not long after he was left behind.

[King_of_GRiffins]

Elthan

Elthan sat there on the ground beside his dead companion, no doubt in his head this was Prozen work. It was a terrible insult, leaving his companion hanged on the wall, from which the sorcerer built up a certain type of rage. It was not all together a different emotion from what the Rashemi berzerkers felt, but the effects were quite dissimilar in regards to the half-elf. While Rashemi would build fires in their eyes, scream their cries and swing their axes in frenzy, Elthans rage was a cold thing which demanded utmost focus and concentration, lest it freeze a limb off.

Elthan rose slowly, breathing in and out in a controlled manner. Perhaps he would not seek out Prozen running and screaming, but he was certain putting an axe in the inspectors head was the ultimate solution. He sends his raven off to chase Khazreal and bring him back while he directs Razul back onto the other side of the gate following right behind.

"It's been a while, but I suspect our group may still be talking. If this is betrayal, what do you think we should expect, Razul?" He speaks low and softly, almost a whisper until he's out of hearing range from the guards. It wouldn't do well if they picked up on something.

[Koji]

Khazrael

His wings beat as hard as they can, bearing him toward the palace at the best speed he can muster. His forearms crackle with lurid purple sparks, and a coppery tang hangs in his mouth, barely detectible over the strong smell of ozone.

((The fly spell lasts eight minutes, I believe, which should be plenty of time to return to the palace. If not, he will continue on foot.))

[Parsley Man]

Razul

Calm and cold Razul rises from the body making holy symbols in the air while mumbling. Then he turns and walks away with Elthan...
"There will be justice. We will hear this Prozan explanation...then we will have his head; we may even convince the queen to sanction it. I just hope that our companions have not already been delayed by an ambush. We should hurry"

[King_of_GRiffins]

Elthan

"I do not think our friends have been ambushed. Khazrael would have informed us of it, I'm sure. We might have the element of surprise in whatever situation we may enter, I just hope Khazrael doesn't get into trouble on the way. I sent my familiar after him, and I will be informed if anything bad happens to him."

Elthan picks up his pace, assuming a near hustle as he rushes himself back to the castle with Razul. "Let's not waste any time for now."

[Dr._Bob]

Elthan and Razul leave Trinark's body where it lies. They rush back through the gate, backtracking.

Khazrael soars over the South Gate and across the inner plaza, swooping through a doorway before gliding into a brisk walk. The transition between flying and walking is smooth and seamless. Elthan's raven follows closely, landing on Khazrael's shoulder.

As Khaz nears the inner chambers of the palace, he notes that the palace guards appear to have been replaced by the larger elite members of the Emerald Guard.

A squad of Emerald Guardsmen blocks the passage ahead. One holds up a hand.

"No passage."

[King_of_GRiffins]

Elthan

Hustling quickly tires out the unfit half-elf, leaving him panting at a slow walk as he wanders into the palace halls. He glances at a split in the hallway and turns to Razul. "Which way did we come?"

[Koji]

Khazrael

Flushed from the activity, Khazrael places a palm on his face, trying to collect himself. He says, "I'm with The Inspector, I've got an important message for him. I came as fast as I could!"

Don't make me get creative, you stupid bastard.

[Parsley Man]

Razul

He looks left, he looks right...
"where are we now?"

Rubbing his jaw with a heavily furrowed brow he looks back and fourth between the two options before making off in a direction.

"This way? I hope."

/ooc will take ten on whatever skill this would correspond to. wont get much over a 10 tho lol.

[Dr._Bob]

The guard in front of Khazrael shakes his head no. "No passage."

...

Elthan and Razul make their way back into the palace as quickly as possible. The two of you are soon completely lost ...

[King_of_GRiffins]

Elthan

"It'd be nice if we had a tracker," Elthan comments on the situation, "Then perhaps we would have someone to yell at for not finding all the twigs we broke on the way out.." Not a clue where he is, the half-elf sighs. "Should we flag for a rescue party? I'm sure I could manage some type of magical flare."

[Koji]

Khazrael

Khazrael looks the guards over, sighs, and walks away.

Once he's out of earshot, he ducks out of sight and begins an incantation.

((Khazrael will use polymorph to turn into a tiny monstrous centipede, and use a +16 (size mod plus dex) hide check to try and scuttle past the men.
Hide: 1d20+16=32
Move Silently: 1d20+2=16

Centipedes have a climb speed so I'll take the ceiling if possible.))

[Dr._Bob]

Khazrael appears to give up, but once around a corner, he transforms into the form of a centipede. Moving slowly, and keeping to the shadows on the ceiling, he manages to slip by the guards, leaving Elthan's raven behind.

...

Elthan and Razul wander the halls somewhat disoriented. The raven returns, and guides the two of you back onto the right track. You are soon confronted by the same Emerald Guardsmen Khazrael had encountered.

"No passage." Six large Emerald Guardsmen block the way forward.

[King_of_GRiffins]

Elthan

Having collected his raven again, he talks to it for a moment to reveal Khazraels doings as he follows it directions down the hall. "It would seem there are some guards ahead, and Khazrael has slipped past them. I'm not sure we'll have the same luck Razul."

Finally arriving to the guards, Elthan frowns at their terse announcement. "No passage? What for, what's happened?"

[Parsley Man]

Razul

Recognizing the change of guards one and one add up in his mind...
He turns to Elthan, "Your right we should have taken the left at the last fork, this obviously is not the right way; probably the queens quarters or something. Lets go"
He turns and walks away; If Elthan follows him he continues in hushed tones. "These are the same guards that Prozen had, not the palace ones, meaning he dose not want us to rejoin the rest; nothing we can say will get us past; so we will have to think of another way. I have some magic that would help a little in this situation but not much. You?"

[King_of_GRiffins]

Elthan

While Razul may have put one and one together, Elthan was much slower to fit anything together, and hence gave a raised brow to the conspicuous behavior but nonetheless is compelled to follow out of curiosity.

"I would imagine most guards this deep in the castle would look quite similar to those, though, I suppose you do have a point. I have several ways for which I could pass, but I've avoided using them so as not to leave you behind. I could fly around them, turn invisible, charm them, severely and permanently disable them or destroy them if need be, but all of that is rather problematic in one manner or another. Perhaps there's a hallway that isn't guarded, or some chamber that connects around them?"

[Parsley Man]

Razul

"We only found our way here with the help of your bird, I do not know how long it would take to find another way to the chambers, which we also do not know the exact location of. I can just charge past them, I have a way to outrun them, the only problem after that is finding my way to the hall. If I went invisible i'm shore they would find me, the armor is not exactly 'stealthy'. Dose your bird know where the chambers are?"

He dose not like the idea of running randomly down halls with a troop of guards after him but the prospect of fighting them or not being able to meet up with the rest of the group is far more disagreeable.

[King_of_GRiffins]

Elthan

Elthan shrugs, having never tested his familiars memory. "He was able to lead us this far only because he was able to find me. I have no idea how many more passages it is to the Queen. My memory has failed, why not his too?

"I don't like the idea of running. Causing an incident might have unexpected consequences for our friends situation. Though, it might be about time to cause one..."

[Dr._Bob]

Elthan's raven proves more resourceful than even the half-elf expected. His familiar leads the two of you back through a maze of servants' passages.

You exit back into a main hallway, just outside the Queen's throne room. A unit of twelve Emerald Guardsmen block the doors, which are closed.

The two of you duck behind a corner. A large centipede scuttles down the wall before transforming back into Khazrael. "What took you so long?" the tiefling asks.

The three of you peek around the corner. The Guardsmen stand at attention 80 feet down the hallway.

[Koji]

Khazrael

Khazrael's jagged fangs bare like a dog's, and he places a hand on Elthan's shoulder, gripping it tightly to punctuate the anger and urgency of the moment.

"I'm ten seconds from filling the hallway with lightning unless you two've got another idea," he rasps, "any thoughts?"

[King_of_GRiffins]

Elthan

Elthan grins at Khazraels eagerness, regaining much of his own sense of urgency and hate. "Yes," he answers simply, reaching into his pack and pulling out a closed scroll. "There are three runes on this parchment, which when I successfully fail to dispel them, will cause great havoc in a short radius. I have twenty-eight of them. If either of you two have a clever way to get these in their hands, or at least within a few feet, we'll have twelve fewer guards to deal with."

OOC stuff

Spoiler

Show

Alright, here's how my scrolls work. Each has three Explosive Runes on them. Each of those puppies does 6d6 force damage each. Anyone next to the runes (close enough to read them) takes full damage with no saving throw. Anyone else within 10ft gets a saving throw for half. They can be removed via Dispel Magic, but failing activates them.

Dispel Magic has an area effect option with a 20ft radius (40ft diameter). For each object, the caster makes dispel checks down the list of spells affecting it in order of caster level until he succeeds. Being that Elthan in this case will intentionally fail, this creates a chain reaction of failures to dispell accompanied by explosions on each parchment. All the Runes get to detonate, and each creature nearby needs to make three reflex saves for each scroll he's within 10 feet of.

Have fun

[Parsley Man]

Razul

"Sounds good. How about delivering them invisibly then running? Or we could go up to them and make a big ruckus, maybe the others inside will hear and they will let us in."

[Koji]

Khazrael

Khazrael looks at the guards, pursing his lips thoughtfully.

"It's hard for me to imitate a human with my weaker magic, but I could turn any one of us into a guard that looked just like one of them. Whoever I transformed could tie those papers together and tell them he had a message for Prozen, but he'd only have a little over five minutes to get the job done..."

Khazrael looks at the other two. He is eager to begin the slaughter, but clearly does not want to get caught outnumbered and in the open if his ruse is discovered.

[Parsley Man]

Razul

"Sounds like a plan; I don't have your difficulty however I am not skilled in...Lies...so if i were to go it would almost certainly turn to combat quickly. In such an event i guess i could just drop the scrolls and run out of the blast radius or i could throw it at them...Not exactly what you were suggesting but should work..."

As he speaks his eyes shift towards Elthan proposing that he would be a better 'actor' however he acknowledges that he probably would be the best choice if the guards should attack the messenger.

[Koji]

Khazrael

The tiefling bites his lip and peers down the hallway again.

"You might be right. These guys look a little too sharp for classic deception anyway," he mutters. "I'll deliver the papers. Whenever you're ready, Elthan."

The image of the three-winged crow sits at the fore of Khazrael's mind, and his fingertips tingle with energy.

((As soon as Elthan is ready, Khazrael will use Alter Self to transform into an Arrowhawk and fly over the guardsmen with the papers in his beak. He'll drop the papers from above (hopefully out of reach) and use his 90ft (perfect) fly speed to make a quick escape))

[King_of_GRiffins]

Elthan

Eyes flashing with a desire to start the bloodshed, the sorcerer hands eight of the scrolls over to his friend to drop among the guards as he wishes. The guards were more than close enough for his spells range, and hopefully clustered together enough to maximize the scrolls effectiveness. He watches Khazrael in his transformation, and prepares to cast his spell once his scrolls hit the floor.

OOC:

Spoiler

Show

Readying to Cast Dispel Magic and intentionally fail all caster level checks once it looks like Khaz has dropped all the scrolls he wants to use. Hooray Explosives.

[Parsley Man]

Razul

The plan set in motion Razul is content to sit by and watch as events unfold, waiting for his moment.

[Dr._Bob]

Lumpy

The avalanche had long settled and the survivors upslope had packed up and left. In fact, night had nearly fallen when Lumpy roused himself. The snowslide had carried him further down the mountainside, until a rocky upjut unceremoniously arrested his fall. His forehead was swollen and bleeding, throbbing painfully from the very encounter. No doubt that was the cause of his long intermission and clouded thoughts.

The stone outcropping had saved him in more ways than one, breaking up the avalanche enough to leave him a pocket of air. He hadn't been crushed, nor had he suffocated. Yet. Already he could feel the thinning air around him. Though he was surely injured in ways he couldn't recognize, he was left with little choice. Dig free or die.

The effort was grueling, but the sweet reward of fresh air helped placate his growing nauseia and disorientation. He left his efforst there with little more than a fist sized hole to the surface. With the sun already fallen, it would do him little good to venture out now. Though there was a danger of the night seeing his work undone, he knew he wouldn't survive without shelter, and his little pocket was just that. Huddling beneath his cloak and bedroll, the half-orc passed the night, the fastness of his shelter conserving heat.

---

Morning brought new pains, but he found focus despite the continued fussiness of his thoughts. He had survived trials like this before and he would do so again. He'd lived among humans his entire life. Though he didn't particularly like most of them, he did identify himself primarily as human. But humans were often too soft for hard times. These were times where Lumpy thank the Gods that he was also an orc. Orc were much more sensible in times of strife. It was time to give in to that sense, to do everything necessary to live.

He first discarded everything he didn't need, something he would have balked at under ordinary circumstances. His guisarme was broken and useless. He'd lost his bow somewhere, rendering his quiver of arrows worthless. These he dumped, along with trivial items such as soap and chalk. They might have had some usefulness to him elsewhere, but now wasn't the time to worry about excess weights. He could replace them later, when he'd lived for there to be a later.

The rugged half-orc ate and drank from his meager supplies. He also drank one of his few remaining potions, the healing draught temporarily clearing his mind and combating the onset of frostbite. He would need to ration all of these things carefully. Temporarily invigorated, Lumpy broke free of his hole, seeking the track of his companions. He had lost too much time already, and there was no way to be sure he had the strength to make it up.

---

In retrospect, it was obvious that the injury to his head had been more serious than he'd thought. It had become infected, he surmised. The resulting fever left much of his journey to Immilmar a haze to him. He remembered finding the trail of his companions, but little more. Major landmarks and brief periods of lucidity brought on by the consumption of his remaining healing potions. Ultimately, orcish stubbornness alone had kept him on his feet and on the trail. He remembered finding a burnt-out funeral pyre, spending the night by a fire relit from it's charred remnants. He remembered a similarly burnt fort of some kind. There had been men there. Barbarians. Rashemi.

That likely explained why he was waking up where he was now. A wooden building, dark and smoky, a lodge or cabin of some sort. He had been brought here then. There was another of the sturdy humans by the door. Things were making more sense now. He sat up, one hand feeling at his brow. The injury there had been cleaned and neatly stitched, a small kindness he would not have expected.

The man by the door took notice immediately, addressing him in an entirely unfamiliar language.

Lumpy responded simply, "Common?" If the man didn't speak trader's tongue, it was unlikely they shared a language.

The man frowned and retreated through a nearby curtained doorway. A minute or so later, he returned with a second man. He did speak common, with a curious accent, "You are awake."

The half-orc opted not to comment on the absurdity of the statement, "I am."

"Then perhaps you would like to now tell me what brings a foreigner to Immilmar in a time of war? You would find little welcome even in peace."

Lumpy processed this information slowly. It seemed his companions had already delivered their message, "I was ta bring tidings of the very same war, but I got separated from my companions in a snowslide. I reckon they already delivered the message."

The man seemed somewhat suspicious, but affirmed his guess with a nod. Lumpy wasn't sure if he was skeptical of foreigners in general, or just didn't trust him wholly, "If they are truly your allies then they have done so, and already left. As should you."

Left? The mercenary's hopes were dashed as soon as they were raised, "Left? Ta where?"

For a moment, the barbarian seemed confused by Lumpy's choppy phrasing and accent, but recovered, "I was not privy to that. As part of their arrangement, they left with the aid of the Wychlaren."

There was a reverence in the man's speaking of the last word in his native tongue. Lumpy vaguely remembered it to be a term for their witches. Knowing he was treading on dangerous ground, he pressed on carefully, "I wasn't aware of that being part of the arrangement."

It wasn't much of a bluff, but the man clearly misread Lumpy's obvious confusion as genuine, "Then, if you are who you truly claim, this is a matter you will have to discuss with this Serpent Queen you and your allies represent."

That was all he needed to know, even if he didn't understand it. Lumpy nodded, "Suppose I will. If ya gimme my things back, I'll be outta yer city. Won't see me again, I promise."

---

They had let him dress and rearm himself before escorting him outside the city's gates. They weren't an unfair folk, even if they were untrusting. he could tell they were still watching him to make sure he was truly leaving, so he marched southward. He didn't let up until he'd found a mostly clear, elevated spot. He was tired and not entirely recovered from his pursuit, but it wasn't finished yet.

If his companions were somehow dealing with the Serpent Queen, then Hlondeth was where he needed to go. It had been perhaps a year since he'd passed through it seeking passage across the sea, and he didn't particularly want to go back.

If the ring he had been somewhat unwillingly entrusted with was what everyone suspected, he could likely use that to bridge the gap. But it could also do so much more if brought to bear against Sethra. There was perhaps another way. At the very least, something he would lose very little in trying.

The half-orc raised his head skyward, speaking softly, plaintively, "Weren't so long ago we had a little chat, was it? I'd say Sorry fer bugging ya again so soon, but I guess I'm not really. Sorta in a spot, ya know? Said I'd help these folks out, promised even, except I've gone and managed ta lose track of 'em.

"I ain't never asked ya fer nothing, and mebbe it ain't really yer job ta be giving me nothing. Prolly so, even. But I figure I'd ask all the same, just in case ya was feeling generous. I know ya can pick folk up and fling 'em round on the winds, I seen ya do it all them years ago. now, I ain't a priest of yers, and it ain't Windride day, but I try ta do by ya good. So mebbe if ya could make this one exception and fling me at my friends in Hlondeth, I'd owe ya something big. Dunno if what that's worth ta ya, but I'm putting it out. Won't hold it against ya if ya can't neither. Reckon I got a backup plan, ya know?"

The half-orc stands still on the small plateau and waits for a response. The wind picks up slightly, blowing small ice crystals into his face. After a while, Lumpy shrugs and pulls out a small ring.

[Dr._Bob]

The Palace

Khazrael grips the eight scrolls in his claws and streaks towards the guards. They barely have time to register his approach. All eight scrolls tumble to the ground at the feet of the guards, bouncing lightly and scattering before them.

Elthan smiles as he steps forward and attempts not to succeed at dispelling the runes. His smile fades as nothing happens ...

Khazrael is already back. He flaps his wings in agitation. Razul sighs deeply.

The front row of Guardsmen draws their swords. The row behind them lowers their pikes and prepares to charge.

Their captain bends down with a puzzled look and picks up one of the scrolls ...



OOC: The "chain reaction" doesn't materialize. One scroll detonates. Elthan, Khazrael and Razul can rejoin the main thread.

[bhdrake]

Lumpy

"Ah well, them's the breaks. Sorry folks."

The ragged mercenary snaps a thong around his neck, unthreading the red-rubied ring. He wasn't sure on the procedure for the thing. He assumed he'd have to be wearing it. Did he have to speak it aloud? How specific would he need to be? Powerful things were dangerous, and prone to backfiring in his mind.

Carefully, almost reverently, he slides the band around the gnarled knuckle. The hardest part was blanking his thoughts of the myriad frivolous desires that seemed to want to come to mind unbidden. It wouldn't do to accidentally waste it on something silly. His words are slow and deliberate, carefully enunciated to avoid confusion. He didn't know if the ring "heard" or read intent, but it wasn't worth the chance.

"I wish to be transported to the side of the warrior named Tiriel in Hlondeth"

Even as the words slipped from his mouth, an errant thought crossed his mind.

How common a human name is Tiriel? Gods I hope there's only one.