Outside 47: [Insert seasonal phrase that will be outdated when this thread ends]

[Earl of Purple]

Angrizz' Torment

The sword's a cutlass, designed for slashing and cutting, not stabbing. The blade is short and curved, with a basket hilt. Stabbing is... Tricky.

Argrizz snarls as the bullets impact his bloated form, and stands up to cracks and gasps from the elves beneath his feet; they're killed pretty quick, crushed beneath his weight. He charges forward, though the bullets (unless they're enhanced magically or technologically to be more than chunks of high-speed metal) don't do much damage, several small wounds have opened and leak thick black ooze, but he doesn't slow and some bullets just bounce off the Lord of Greed's thick hide or the layers of fat beneath it.

[Leostales]

Angrizz' Torment
((Metalhead's gun fires energy projectiles, not bullets, that would deal something similar to fire or lightning damage. They are non-magical.))

Metalhead continues firing, slashing Angrizz with a sword. If this doesn't work, he retreats out of the cabin.

[Morty]

[The Old Forest]

Adir's grimace deepens. "Anything that feeds off of what happened in Riverside can't be good." The stag peers at the Old Man. He shifts his weight from hip to hip, one hand on the strap of his pack. "There must be a reason you thought to warn me. Even if you don't know his plans, maybe you can guess?"

The Old Man Forest sighs.

"The King in Rags has had thousands of seasons to nurse his spite and rage. Whatever else he might say to those he makes pacts with, he wants to inflict them on others. He can never have the Fairest of Lands back, but he can try to recreate them here. But they won't be the Fairest of Lands I remember. They'll be his memory of his own domain, twisted by his exile."

[Earl of Purple]

Angrizz' Torment

((I forgot that days ago. Had to reread to see if it had been mentioned previously. Star Wars guns are typically referred to as 'blasters', not 'guns'. Would recommend doing something similar in the future, to stop people assuming the weapon is something more conventional. Some of the surviving cultists wouldn't have survived if I'd remembered. Also, I have used the word 'bullet' before in reference to Metalhead's shots, and not been corrected.))

The blasts from Metalhead's gun are slowing Angrizz, but not stopping him. This guy's being worshipped as a god, and somebody went to the trouble of building a prison-plane to trap him; he's not going to be easy to kill. His torso is being spattered with burns and it's starting to smoke in places, but the heat doesn't penetrate his leathery hide and thick layers of fat easily. The sword, however, easily cleaves through Angrizz' flesh, and he bellows as the cutlass leaves a long gash in his belly, black liquid slowly oozing out. He lashes out with all four of his arms, trying to grab Metalhead's arms and pull them apart whilst using the other two to cast a spell to grant Metalhead the ability to feel pain for the next hour. If Metalhead already has pain receptors, or magical resistance, the magic will likely fail, and even if it doesn't the spell on its own won't do much- it doesn't hurt, but Metalhead will start to ache from all his existing damage.

[Leostales]

Angrizz' Torment

((Yeah, you're probably right. I will refer to it as a blaster in the future.))

Metalhead has receptors that allow him to feel things, though they usually filter out pain. The spell undoes that. He starts to feel pain in his arm and worst of all his eyes. The creature is able to grab hold of Metalhead's gun arm with one arm, Metalhead ignores this and continues to slash the creature, aiming for the creature's crotch.

[Earl of Purple]

Angrizz' Torment

The demon howls as the cutlass slices deep into his groin, though his genitalia is internal and well-protected by fat and thick skin, the magic of the blade slices through easily and the magic of the weapon enhances the pain in the wounds it causes. Using his grip on Metalhead's arm, Angrizz tries to throw Metalhead at a wall, before vomiting a torrent of boiling humanoid blood and razor-sharp shards of bone at Metalhead. Metalhead's mechanical nature probably means being soaked in boiling liquid is less effective than on a person, especially as there's no soft tissues for the bone splinters to attack.

The hobgoblin slave has opened the door of the throne room and ran through, disappearing, though she's left a slight trail of blood behind suggesting she was injured when Angrizz hurled her at Metalhead.

Banite Refugee Camp

The tattooed wood elf enters the tent, and looks around. It's dominated by a large desk with a deck chair incongruously behind it, with a girl sat in it. There's also a metal foot-locker and a folding bed with a pile of blankets resting atop it. She looks to be about nineteen, and she's slender and pretty, with green eyes and black hair. Her eyes are hard and severe, and she is writing a report, holding the paper steady with the thumb and three fingers of her left hand. She's wearing a t-shirt with the same symbol as the flag outside, and a pair of jeans. Propped against the table is a heavy mace. "Excuse me, Miss Emily? I've heard you're a healer. I have an injury that needs looking at. It's... quite serious, do you have time?" The elf's voice cracks, seemingly from pain, and the human looks up.
"Of course. Let me see it, please. I can't heal what I can't see." She stands and walks closer, as the elf starts to unwrap her left arm. Beneath the wrapping, her hand and arm is blackened, skeletal and rotting. "Oh, Tyrant Above... I'm not sure if my magic's enough for this, I'm afraid. It's... It's a pretty bad injury. I may need to amputate." The elf nods as her hand and forearm are poked, prodded and manipulated, the cleric failing to see the elf's other hand drift to her athame and pull it from her sheathe. Suddenly, the previously still skeletal fingers snap around Emily's wrist as Elimnae's other hand pushes the dagger up, under her ribs and into her heart. Elimnae helps the dead cleric down and rolls her over, pushing the t-shirt up and using the athame, she slices away a square of skin from the corpse's back. "You are the first. I will taste power and revenge, and to do so I need forty deaths. Or I needed forty deaths. Now, I need only thirty-nine." That said and done, Elimnae rolls the flayed skin up and hides it amongst the wraps concealing the corpse of her arm, before lowering the t-shirt again and heaving Emily up and carrying her to the bed, arranging things so it looks like she's asleep- at least on a casual glance. These people have been relying on the leadership of the Divine Tyrant's clergy, and Emily was overworked; nobody would dare awaken her for petty things, so Elimnae judges she can escape easily. She opens the tent flap, passes through and closes it behind her, leaving nobody the wiser that their leader had been assassinated for so little reason.

[Leostales]

Angrizz' Torment

The demon howls as the cutlass slices deep into his groin, though his genitalia is internal and well-protected by fat and thick skin, the magic of the blade slices through easily and the magic of the weapon enhances the pain in the wounds it causes. Using his grip on Metalhead's arm, Angrizz tries to throw Metalhead at a wall, before vomiting a torrent of boiling humanoid blood and razor-sharp shards of bone at Metalhead. Metalhead's mechanical nature probably means being soaked in boiling liquid is less effective than on a person, especially as there's no soft tissues for the bone splinters to attack.

The hobgoblin slave has opened the door of the throne room and ran through, disappearing, though she's left a slight trail of blood behind suggesting she was injured when Angrizz hurled her at Metalhead.

Angrizz' Torment
Metalhead is thrown against the wall. The boiling blood doesn't really do much damage, though it does hurt...a lot. The bone splinters don't do much besides wreck his coat and his damaged eye. Metalhead jumps as high into the air as possible, hoping to slash the creature's head.

[Earl of Purple]

Angrizz' Torment

A slice is delivered to the demon's head and goes through one of the demon's eyes. Angrizz roars and turns around, keeping some of his equidistant eyes on Metalhead at all times as he storms off to another chamber.

Metalhead could probably pursue, but the demon's running away and there's slaves here to free. Only two, and Angrizz claimed to have another six in another chamber, but the Lord of Greed is not going to go down easy if at all, and Metalhead's found out what happened to the mother marshwiggle. He doesn't need to try killing the Demon Lord, and- with the possible exception of the strike to his eye- hasn't seriously harmed him either.

[Leostales]

Angrizz' Torment
Metalhead's not really all that interested in finishing Angrizz off, but he doesn't want to leave the prisoners down here! He attempts to free the human and the half orc by shooting their chains. If he succeeds, he will tell them to run away and will head into the room that Angrizz didn't enter and checks if there are any slaves in there.

[Earl of Purple]

Angrizz' Torment

The half-orc grunts as he lands on his head, but is quick to scramble to his feet. The human's trickier to release- he's trapped in a cage filled with spikes and suspended from the ceiling. Shooting him down he'll fall, and possibly impale himself worse than he already has. Blasting the cage until a bit falls off leaves him about three metres off the ground in a spiked cage with a lot of minor injuries. Probably the best way to free him is to lower him using the crank-wheel that sent the cage up there in the first place. He could get the half-orc to do it, but he's staring wistfully outside, and won't think of it himself.

Beyond the left door is another large chamber. There's cages with bars of more black iron, the heavy doors bolted and locked. There's six occupants to this room, all trapped in a different cage. There's a blue-skinned male Vedalken with six fingers per hand, a golden-skinned female aasimar with white hair and small wings growing from her back, a female drow with ash-grey skin, red eyes and silver hair, a male dwarf with grey skin and a full beard seemingly made of copper, a female grimlock with pale skin, no eyes and no hair and a male tiefling with a long tail, deep purple skin and a forked tongue. They're all wearing rags, and look quite healthy despite the fact there's no evidence of a food preparation area. "Quick, free us! The key's on the hook there, but it won't work! Not unless it's burning with hellfire. Press it against the door, that'll spread the flames to the key, but be careful! The flames will burn you as much as us." The tiefling is first to spot Metalhead and call out assistance, and there is indeed a key on the hook pointed out; the tiefling isn't lying at all, but the flames of hellfire don't burn flesh- they burn personality and sanity.

[Leostales]

Angrizz' Torment

Metalhead will lower the man down with the crank, telling him and the half-orc to run to the gate and wait for him.

When he's in the other room, he asks the Tiefling, "Do I need to use the key or can I just shoot the hinges?" Unless he indicates danger in doing so, he will try it regardless of the answer.

[UncleWolf]

Spongy Campsite

Rea quirks her lips at the sight of the heavy wellspring of omen that's dragging down the mood around the camp, "They could have at least done you the courtesy of taking the box out of your tent. It's a very unsubtle reminder." Then she begins, without any consideration for his presence, to undress. By the overly casual, limber way she moves one adept at reading subtext might think she's decided to stake her claim here and now, now that she's been made aware of what is at least nominally her competition.

"You know, it's more difficult than bringing things here, but if we built up enough speed I might be able to use my power to cast the thing into deep space for you. Your truck might not be enough, but perhaps if we rented a plane? Something able to escape earth's gravity through speed, if only enough to maintain equilibrium." She jokes, sounding half serious but resigned to the negative answer she knows she'll receive. Rea seems far more tired than she was only moments ago before she'd made the tent, her eyelids drooping and shoulders slumping.

If Dustin can focus his own eyes that high on her unclad body.

Spongy Campsite

"If you're expecting subtlety from them, don't hold your breath. The only subtle thing about them is that I believe they genuinely care for my well be-" Well, if Dustin was going to say more as he changed out of his shirt, it gets cut off when he finally notices that Rea had completely removed her own clothing without any hint of shame. "...okay. Rea, I need to say it. My momma may have raised me to a chivalrous and polite and gentlemanly guy, but at the moment you're making me think some very ungentlemanly things. I have a spare pair of boxer-briefs if you don't mind at least putting those on before we turn in. Otherwise I might have to just sleep out doors if I'm to control myself." He explains before finally considering her idea. "And no, the box would just appear later no matter how hard you launch it. I tried sinking it before and even tossing it down into a ravine. It comes back eventually."

[Recaiden]

[Wizards Tower]

If she wants Sylvess to pull himself together, Cleo might want to try something a little more encouraging than criticising his manner of entry, as he somehow manages to look even more ashamed of himself than before.

He takes the tea and clutches it, sitting down on his back legs and awkwardly sipping at it.

...

Wait for it.

Waaaait for it.

Did you hear a penny drop just now?

"W-w-wait, Riverside?! What was he doing in Riverside? I-is he alright? I- um." Flustered, shaky, worried Sylvess. Definitely just spilled half the tea on the floor. "S-sorry."

Some people are motivated by their shame!
...
Seems like Sylvess is just shamed by it. Ah well.

"Rescuing people, I think. Communications got cut off so I couldn't follow the details. But he's fine."
"Were you there too? Is that what this is about?"
At least Sylvess doesn't have to worry about slowly turning into a demon.

The maid sweeps in with a little mop to fix the spilled tea and the dropped penny, giving Sylvess a smile that says "don't worry about it" (and also several more volumes, if you keep reading).

[Earl of Purple]

Angrizz' Torment

"Um, no idea." Says the tiefling, who is incidentally male. The hinges don't resist being shot, and the various freed individuals will join Metalhead. He knows the way out, whereas the hobgoblin just ran off wildly with no clear idea of where to go. As they pass the elf-bodies, the tiefling asks the Vedalken and the dwarf to grab the bodies to take with.

The human and half-orc have also run off, maybe to the gate, maybe just to find the hobgoblin.

[Leostales]

Angrizz' Torment

"I'm not going to waste time defeating Angrizz," Metalhead says to them. He leads the team out of the crypt and to the gate. Once everyone is past the gate, he will lock it.

[Gnrlshrimp]

[The Old Forest]

"I don't know how he managed to come back from his exile," the Old Man Forest admits. "Nor can I know what he plans now. I've felt his scent in the air. It's different now, He's grown from the mayhem in the city on the river and there's a smell of embers about him. He must have been making pacts for the gift of fire."

[Dragon Mountain]

Marshall's spell starts binding the foglet... unfortunately, that leaves it wide open for Damon. It shrieks as the fire consumes it. With a mighty roar, the dwarven spear-wielder breaks the ice and runs his spear clean through the fey.

"Who the hell are you people?" yells the dwarf with a bow, trying to get loose of the ice herself.

Dragon Mountain

Marshall sighs as Damon burn away the creature. It's fine. We haven't established strategy with each other.

I'm Marshall, Marshall Girard. He says, offering a short little bow to the dwarves. And you?

[Dragon Mountain]

Damon just stands there, an ever-burning shadow, staring at the dwarves. "Your ssaviourss, it would sseem. A little gratitude would be nice, perhapss." He still kind of just wants to burn the dwarves, but he'll show a little restraint for now.

*****

[Wizards Tower]

Sylvess sighs and nods hesitantly, his tail swishing in agitation. Seems Cleo's assurance that Spako is alright might not quite be enough on its own. "I- well, um, yes, sort of. S-Sam and I just sort of got caught up in it a-a-and, um, it was not...it was not okay." He falls silent, clearly reluctant to expand on it in any more detail than that, just slowly sipping his tea.

It does at least seem to have calmed him down a bit though.

[Earl of Purple]

Angrizz' Torment

"Taking us- all of us- is a big enough defeat for anyone, I'd think. We've been here all day." The aasimar says. "This realm doesn't have much time, I can feel it. It's recycling the same day over and over. These two will be alive again tomorrow, if we leave them down here. Our bodies and memories reset every morning, which is... Really good. No idea how long we've been here." And nobody currently has memories of more than about four hours of abuse, though split five ways. Judging by the 'sun' at least.

"That raises a question. Do we leave them here, so they're alive again to get tortured, or bring them with us so they're still dead? What's better, a life of torture, or death?" The tiefling doesn't know, and the others aren't commenting. The hobgoblin, half-orc and human were met back up at the gate to the cemetery.

[Leostales]

Angrizz' Torment

"It depends," Metalhead says as he locks the gate. "Infinite torture can feel like death, but the only difference is that death either leads you to the afterlife or to peace. Torture only leads to pain. I'd say bring them up, maybe we can find someone capable of resurrecting them, and if not we can give them a proper burial."

He offers bandages to anyone who needs it.

[Murkus]

[The Old Forest]

The Old Man Forest sighs.

"The King in Rags has had thousands of seasons to nurse his spite and rage. Whatever else he might say to those he makes pacts with, he wants to inflict them on others. He can never have the Fairest of Lands back, but he can try to recreate them here. But they won't be the Fairest of Lands I remember. They'll be his memory of his own domain, twisted by his exile."

[The Old Forest]

Adir frowns deeply. "I... I'll be honest, Old Man Forest, my plate is pretty full at the moment. To understate it, um, substantially," he knits his brows together. "But I don't want to share the same world as this thing, let alone a zip code. What do you think I can do to help?"

[Earl of Purple]

Angrizz' Torment --> Forlorn Cave

"Technically, it's only a day of torture. One day, something will happen to end it. Angrizz will escape, and forget them, or something powerful will come and end him. They won't know it's an infinity of torture except at the dusk of each day. In the morning, the prior day's experiences will be wiped clean. Totally erased and unmarked." But they'll take the bodies with them anyway, trying to figure out how to climb the rope whilst heaving the bodies with them.

The human and the hobgoblin both take bandages, quite a lot of them. The human's got a lot of shallow wounds from being shaken around in that cage, whilst the hobgoblin has a broken arm and several fingers, one of which is bleeding badly from a splinter of bone penetrating the flesh.

[Leostales]

Angrizz' Torment --> Forlorn Cave

"Memories of it or not, I'd still call it infinite." Metalhead remarks. "I'd recommend me going up with the strongest one of you and then the rest of you can tie the bodies to the end of the rope and we'll haul them up."

Metalhead's perfectly capable of pulling up a body by himself, but having one of Angrizz's prisoners come with him should help dispel any fears they might have of him leaving them behind.

Spoiler: ooc

Show

Metalhead will make sure to lock both gates, when I mentioned a gate earlier, I was referring to the second gate that he opened

[Earl of Purple]

Angrizz' Torment --> Forlorn Cave And Back Again

The strongest is probably the orc. But he'll not go up- he wants to go with the hobgoblin so he can support her and make sure she doesn't fall. They weren't fearing he'd leave them behind, either. He didn't have to free them when Angrizz fled to patch up his eye and try to lure Metalhead into an ambush.

So the dwarf goes with Metalhead first, whilst the others wait at the bottom. They've closed and locked the door behind them so Angrizz can't get in, though the demon could vomit blood through the doors, they're hoping he doesn't.

When the bodies are hauled up, the rope's found to be slightly longer than it was to begin with, and the dwarf collapses panting.

[Leostales]

Forlorn Cave

Metalhead tosses the rope back down for the others to climb up. He also double checks to make sure he has the key, he doesn't want anyone Angrizz to escape any time soon. If the Marshwiggle is still up there he says "I couldn't save your mother, I'm sorry." After which he lights a cigar.

[Rebonack]

[Yellow Sands Waste]

The dragon hisses in pain as the axe grazes her, tracing an angry line across her scales. She recoils from the attack before lashing out with a claw nearly the size of our hero's torso.

It would be highly inadvisable to get hit.

Seriously.

The kobolds cower back from the coming battle. "Please, do not hurt the great one too badly! We wish only for the curse to be lifted from her!" Meepa begs.

"But how will the curse be lifted?" Kenix asks, puzzled. "The honored champion's magic didn't work!"

The third kobold, the one who has spoken little if at all for the journey, looks thoughtful. "She hasn't laughed."

The other two kobolds regard him as if he were crazy. "She laughed a lot," Meepa points out. "That was part of the problem."

"But she hasn't really laughed. Maybe if we could make her laugh again, then the honored champion's magic would work?"

Does Kothar know any good jokes?

[bc56]

Yellow Sands Waste

Kothar doesn't know any jokes. He's a holy champion of the mother goddess, not a clown. That said, he'd be good at telling them, he's very charismatic. He's still fighting the dragon, blocking attacks and swinging back with his axe.

[Earl of Purple]

Forlorn Cave

"I wasn't really expecting you to. She was dropped into a pit, and she didn't stop screaming until she ran out of breath. No idea how deep it is, but that's deep enough. Least it's stopped telling me to jump." Indeed, the pit is no longer whispering any kind of threat or asking for blood or death. When he pulls out a cigar, the marshwiggle pulls out a pipe and starts preparing it to light, but doesn't light it immediately.

It'll take the other survivors of the Torment quite some time to come back up. It's a long way, after all. The hobgoblin's being carried by the orc when they make it up. When they're all up, the marshwiggle lights her pipe; the smoke drifts to her feet. "Don't have enough for everyone. There's knives and swords here, though. Don't like the look of the swords. That one was carrying a lot of musketry gear, so I'll nab his musket when we find it. I'll take you lot to me farm, once he's rescued me dad and the traders." She points at Scales when she mentions the musketry gear, and she'll be happy with a musket. Far more so than with a sword or knife.

[Morty]

[The Old Forest]

Adir frowns deeply. "I... I'll be honest, Old Man Forest, my plate is pretty full at the moment. To understate it, um, substantially," he knits his brows together. "But I don't want to share the same world as this thing, let alone a zip code. What do you think I can do to help?"

"He walks in the mortal world now, so he's subject to its laws," the Old Man Forest says. "And can be defeated, as he was before. But... he's learned since then. He doesn't show himself openly very often." His head hangs a little. "Fallen or not, he's a Lord of the Fae. We can't stand against him. I told you in hope you'll bring the word to others. Like those who came with you to defeat the ice spirit. They'll trust you more than they would trust us."

[Deathkeeper]

[Wizards’ Tower]

Spako abruptly bursts from his room, claws scrabbling against the floor as he attempts to make a sharp turn despite his size, and launches himself at Sylvess who may end up in a tangled embrace of wings and tail.
”Sylvess! You stood me up! And you said where you lived and you never called and do you know how worried I was you...you...oh pothoc!” exclaims the brass wizard in a rather pathetic display.
It seems he was worried.

[Leostales]

Forlorn Cave

"I wasn't really expecting you to. She was dropped into a pit, and she didn't stop screaming until she ran out of breath. No idea how deep it is, but that's deep enough. Least it's stopped telling me to jump." Indeed, the pit is no longer whispering any kind of threat or asking for blood or death. When he pulls out a cigar, the marshwiggle pulls out a pipe and starts preparing it to light, but doesn't light it immediately.

It'll take the other survivors of the Torment quite some time to come back up. It's a long way, after all. The hobgoblin's being carried by the orc when they make it up. When they're all up, the marshwiggle lights her pipe; the smoke drifts to her feet. "Don't have enough for everyone. There's knives and swords here, though. Don't like the look of the swords. That one was carrying a lot of musketry gear, so I'll nab his musket when we find it. I'll take you lot to me farm, once he's rescued me dad and the traders." She points at Scales when she mentions the musketry gear, and she'll be happy with a musket. Far more so than with a sword or knife.

"I don't expect much resistance, they've lost their captain and their god. And we outnumber them. But even still, I'll go first."

He puffs some smoke from the cigar.

"What door is your dad down.The one with the iron bars, or the wooden one with the rivets?"

[Recaiden]

"Well, it's over with now, and-
"Ah, here's Spako. Told you he was alright."
Cleo ducks out of the way of the dragon, smiles, and heads upstairs.