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  1. - Top - End - #151
    Bugbear in the Playground
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
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    A2
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Escape from Ironheart (IC)

    Korram shrugs. "I'm not smiling about the killing. And that's why I'm asking her, first. It's only the next room over...."
    Truly awesome Ark Tamaeus avatar by Bryn. Full size version here.

  2. - Top - End - #152
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    MindFlayer

    Join Date
    Jan 2007

    Default Re: Escape from Ironheart (IC)

    "We'll be drunk as we have never been before, I promise you. What where you meddlin' in before anyway? And why are you here? You're not one 'a those baby-snatchers, are ya?"

    For a moment, Elkwin throws his mate a distrustful look, but doesn't seem to take himself to serious about it and his face changes into a jesting grin shortly after.

    When they reach the door, Elkwin sneers at the flickering lantern. Looking back and forth the hallway suspiciously, he motions Marv to prepare his pick for a swing, puts his hand on the door handle and hisses:

    "I reckon the distance we put between us and those Dead-Uns puts us closer to any other wretched creatures that lurk down here... There better be something useful in there, be ready if not..."

    With that, Elkwin leans his back against the door, pushes the handle and tries to open it slowly.
    Last edited by ubersquid; 2008-02-10 at 03:28 PM.

  3. - Top - End - #153
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    MrEdwardNigma's Avatar

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    Apr 2007
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    Belgium
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    Male

    Default Re: Escape from Ironheart (IC)

    So he's a skilled fighter. He's still human, I suppose. Still, no need to risk my hide. Let's see how fast this bugger here is, give the monk a chance to think, give me a chance to make some preparations...

    Victor quickly ran, as fast as he could, which was quite fast indeed, and worked to keep the pit between him and the cultist at all times. He quickly poured some of the body fluids he had gathered together in the palm of his hand, and then rubbed open some fungus in his other hand. Together, the two would have the effect of a minor flashbang. Simply by clapping his hands together and closing his eyes at the right time, Victor would blind the cultist when he came too close and quickly jab him with his razortipped fingers, tossing him into the pit.
    Avatar by the illustrious Dr. Bath.


    The essence of a riddle is that it states facts by means of a combination of impossibilities~Aristoteles

    Help me run my very first campaign.

  4. - Top - End - #154
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    OldWizardGuy

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    Jun 2007
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    New York State
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    Default Re: Escape from Ironheart (IC)

    ”Intruders identified. One dragon-lord possessed human male, a potential Sacrifice. One human female child . . . unknown aura. Dragon-lord possessed male has greatly increased strength, regenerative properties, and can summon flame. Capabilities of female child unknown. Threat assessment: high, approach with caution. “

    Watching the green flames shoot up, Incom grits his teeth, and he feels the dagger he is holding that he took from the throat of the one cultist whose robes he is currently wearing. The girl sensing that violence is about to take place crawls off his back and finds a corner to cower in as Incom looks at the two figures.

    Sacrifice? ME? ME? We should make them pay, make them pay in blood!”

    I fully agree, you know anything about these fools?

    No I do not. We should do something quickly, now.

    Incom flicks his wrist, and sends the dagger flying from his hand towards the throat of the cultist standing on the left. Leaping behind it he no longer pays attention to it as he wraps himself in the robes that resisted his flames previously, he jumps through the green flames.

    The flames reach through the robes, touching him, draining him, burning him. Screaming in agony as it feels like all of his flesh is on fire, Incom lands and slams hard into the cultist without a dagger heading for his throat, knocking him over and he lays on the ground for a second in shock.

    That was smart. Your next idea better be smarter.

    Catching a glimpse of his exposed hand, he sees that the flesh has been burnt, in many spots clear to the bone. Part of him realizes that the same is all over his body, yet with his body covered by the robes it would not be readily visible. He decides to lay still for a second, watching, hoping that the cultists think he is dead.

    What are you doing? This is not another death wish scenario?

    Waiting for a second, they know we can regenerate, but not how much. Give it a second.

    Feeling a tingling sensation, Incom knows that he is healing, recovering. Yet things seem different, as if his skin is dry, tougher, harder.

    After those flames, I'm making some changes here. We are argue later. Oh look, they are coming back to finish this act.

    Hearing a footstep near his head, Incom opens his eyes, both of them now yellowed with a slitted black iris. Hissing at the cultist, Incom swings out, seeing a hand completely covered in scales striking the kneecap of a cultist, and hears a crunching sound. Swinging himself around, following the blow, he grabs one of the cultist arms and punches hard again, yelling something untranslatable in an ancient tongue.

    *CRUNCH!*

    His hand punches clean through the shoulder joint and out the other side, and it is a simple matter to rip the left arm of the cultist clean off. Swinging around, Incom winds up and strikes the cultist in the back of his head with his own severed arm, sending him flying up and THROUGH the green flames.

    Still holding the severed arm as he stands fully up, Incom looks over to check the status of the cultist he threw the knife at, ready to fight if needed.
    Last edited by Pwenet; 2008-02-10 at 04:50 PM.
    My DM Reputation
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    Quote Originally Posted by Inspectre
    I'm good at making you fear the unknown. Pwenet is good at making you fear the known, which had been the unknown five minutes before he pushed you off screaming into the abyss.
    Quote Originally Posted by Kalirren View Post
    I'm feeling this real hard now.
    Curse you, Pwenet. Curse you.... You had my hopes up there...

  5. - Top - End - #155
    Orc in the Playground
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
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    The third dimension
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    Male2Female

    Default Re: Escape from Ironheart (IC)

    Moving his arms quickly, Sohssal weaved the spell again, with much more haste this time. Quickly, the blue beam of force erupted from his hands again, pushing him back once more and slamming into the door, sending it flying towards the five monstrosities. FIVE of them?! How many more are there? Sohssal thought, exasperated. Not giving himself any time to rest, he began weaving another spell as the air around him grew colder.

    A few snowflakes fell into the area, innocently, at first. Then a fel wind began to blow, bringing in more and more snow until a little blizzard formed around Sohssal, obscuring him from view. Looking at where he last saw the beasts, Sohssal started casting another cold spell, its display masked by the diminutive snowstorm. Several lances of ice, one for each of the monstrosities, surged forward from the snowstorm, lunging at where Sohssal thought their bodies were, using his not-inconsiderable mind to calculate their likely positions. "Demon lackeys or not, you will not stop me!" Sohssal shouted, his voice partly muffled by the wind.

  6. - Top - End - #156
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    Feralgeist's Avatar

    Join Date
    Nov 2006

    Default Re: Escape from Ironheart (IC)

    [sorry for the lack of posting i haven't been home all weekend! ]


    Lamont walks over to the weapons rack, looking for either a whip or a net. Walking back to the others, he takes his place in the line, cracking his knuckles and glaring at the guards. When given the motion to go into the pit, lamont coils his leg muscles, then springs into action, running at the edge and attempting to leap onto the tower in the middle
    Last edited by Feralgeist; 2008-02-11 at 01:32 AM.

  7. - Top - End - #157
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Voth's Avatar

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    Jan 2008
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    In your worst nightmares
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    Male

    Default Re: Escape from Ironheart (IC)

    Voth

    Pausing for a moment Voth looks up at the Judge. "My lord, unfortunately there is a problem with removing the demon from me. If you are to remove it, I shall perish. You see this demon was bound to me because as a small lad I was very sickly. My father who was a wizard hoped to heal me by binding a demon to my soul. It worked, but at a cost, for now if I remove the demon, I shall immediately return to that state and perish almost instantly."
    The Emperor Protects

    Go Here! Please? Me love you long time.

    Of course you can click here and I explode.

  8. - Top - End - #158
    Troll in the Playground
     
    Inspectre's Avatar

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    Jul 2007

    Default Re: Escape from Ironheart (IC)

    The Catacombs

    ubersquid

    “Oh, gods no!” Marv exclaims, taking your jest seriously. “Actually, I was a ladies man. Well okay, I bet you don’t believe that with a face like mine, do you? So ok, it was more like I was a lady’s man. She was a real sweet gal, one of those wealthy merchant’s daughter types, y’know? I don’t know what she saw in me, but she loved me all the same and I loved her back. And uh, well, our love was kinda the secret kind, but her father found out and well . . . I found myself here not soon after. I wonder what happened to her – it’s been, oh, nearly two years now.” Marv starts looking off into the darkness, but quickly shakes himself. “Anyway, let’s get back to the matter at hand: opening this door. Keep a hand on the light and stay out of the way.”

    Walking up to the stone door, Marv grasps the thin iron ring that served as the door’s handle and pulled. It didn’t budge at first, but Marv persisted, patiently tugging back on the handle with all his might in short starts and stops. Finally, something gave way, and the door rasped open perhaps half an inch, and then another half inch. When the door had opened a crack about two inches wide, Marv let go of the iron ring.

    “Okay mate, set the lantern down and give me a hand here. You push, and I’ll keep pulling. We’ll do it a little at a time, just like how I was doing it before. Alright? Now push. Push!” Marv directs you, and you oblige, setting the lantern down before sliding your fingers into the gap of the door and pushing with all your might while Marv continued to pull.

    Together, the two of you manage to work the stone door all the way open, the work gradually becoming easier as the door’s hinges begin to loosen up from use. “Now, let’s see what we’ve got here!” Marv says, rushing over to pick up the lantern and holding the light inside.

    Through the dim light of the lantern, you can see what looks like a fairly large supply room on the other side of the door. A thick layer of dust has settled on everything in the room, but you can still make out the shapes of swords, battleaxes, bows, shields, and various pieces of armor hanging from stands set up along the walls. In the center of the room several more stands have been set up, although these seem to hold more mundane supplies such as waterskins, backpacks, quivers . . . and torches.

    The Arena

    Frozen

    You manage to find a ragged net amongst all the other weapons. Although only a crudely woven rope net with a few lead weights, it should serve to slow down an opponent until s/he was able to cut/break enough of the rope to escape the net. You then move to stand with the other prisoners, as the voice of the announcer begins to ring through the stadium.

    “Ladies and gentlemen! We have another special match for you today! The Iron Shifter returns for the second time in one day to lead a group of prisoners in a hopeless battle to defend the bastion of humanity from the hordes of hell itself. Can even you favorite, the Iron Shifter, lead these unfortunate souls out of the jaws of the Hounds . . . of Hell!!? Let’s find out!”

    As the crowd begins screaming in anticipation, the guards begin to kick or throw the prisoners down into the sandy pit below. Ducking under your guard’s blow, you flex your legs and leap through the air, sailing out into the pit and landing just in front of the set of stairs leading up to the top of the makeshift tower.

    Looking behind you, you see that the other prisoners haven’t fared nearly as well, most landing awkwardly or even face-first into the Pit. One unfortunate prisoner lands on his own weapon, the dull tip of his sword still strong enough to penetrate all the way through his stomach and out his back. His screams are drowned out by the roar of the crowd at the sign of the first bloodshed of the match.

    The other prisoners are quickly back up on their feet, however, and all immediately begin to run towards you and the tower as quickly as they can. Meanwhile, the iron portcullis covering the monster entrance begins to rise, and from the darkness of the tunnel eighteen sets of glowing red eyes emerge. As the portcullis finishes rising and locks into the open position, the creatures race out into the light, revealing themselves to be six sleek black-furred dogs with three heads each: Hellhounds.

    They quickly begin to make ground on the other four prisoners as they race towards you and the tower, while one Hellhound stops to knock the wounded prisoner to the ground a few seconds after he had managed to weakly stagger to his feet. Opening its trio of slavering jaws, the Hellhound shoots out of burst of fire that flash-cooks the top half of the prisoner and leaving only a charred husk. The man doesn’t even have time to scream before he is dead and the Hellhound is off again, racing to join up with its companions in running down the remaining four prisoners before they can reach the Tower and you.

    ???????

    Voth

    IT DOES NOT MATTER. THE LAW MUST BE ENFORCED.

    The gigantic man suddenly raises a hand to his temple, grimacing.

    BUT THE LAW DOES NO GOOD IF THOSE PUNISHED DO NOT COME TO SEE THE ERROR OF THEIR WAYS.

    Snarling, the Judge slams his other hand against the crystalline wall, the hand noiselessly passing through into the crystal.

    IRRELEVANT. THE GUILTY MUST BE PUNISHED FOR THEIR CRIMES NO MATTER THE COST.

    But then the Judge smiles and lifts its hand away from its head.

    YOU DO NOT NEED TO WORRY. THIS PLACE IS KNOWN AS THE PRISM, A SEPARATE PLANE OF EXISTENCE. TIME HAS NO MEANING HERE, AND EVEN IF YOUR BODY DIES YOUR SOUL SHALL REMAIN. ADDITIONALLY, ONCE PLACED INTO ONE OF THESE STASIS CRYSTALS YOUR BODY WILL BE TEMPORALLY FROZEN – IT IS ONLY YOUR MIND THAT SHALL SUFFER. ONCE YOUR PERIOD OF PUNISHMENT HAS CEASED, YOU CAN PERISH AFTER LEAVING HERE IF YOU MUST.

    Shaking his head, the magnificent figure frowns.

    BUT THAT WOULD STILL IN ESSENCE BE AN EXECUTION BY CONDEMNING YOU TO DEATH SHORLTY AFTER SERVING YOUR SENTENCE. UNACCEPTABLE.

    The Judge throws his hands up, and then rubs his chin, thinking.

    VERY WELL. IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO BE BREAK CONTACT WITH YOUR DEMON, THEN WE SHALL SIMPLY IMPRISON YOU AS YOU ARE NOW. HOWEVER, AN ADDITIONAL CHARGE OF UNREPENTENCE SHALL BE LEVIED AGAINST YOU FOR YOUR UNWILLINGNESS TO REMOVE THE DEMON. IS THIS ACCEPTABLE?

    MrEdwardNigma

    You run away from the figure as quickly as possible, trying to keep as much of the pit between you and him as possible. He slowly follows after you at first, but then stops after a short while when it becomes clear that your mad dash is outpacing his sedate walk. He then begins to make gestures in the air, and the headless corpse of the zombie you killed lifts off from the ground to fly over to the pit before stopping to hover above it right in front of him. The cultist makes another gesture and bright green flames suddenly dance over the body, reducing its flesh to ash and leaving the bones intact. The cultist makes another gesture, and all of the bones shatter into sharp-pointed slivers. And then with a final gesture, the cultist sends all of these razor-sharp slivers shooting through the air towards you.

    Fortunately for you, you had just completed your miniature flash-bang explosive, and immediately use it as the first bone shards whirl past you. The bright flash, although not quite as blinding as you would have hoped, is nevertheless somewhat effective, as the cultist’s aim suddenly begins to suffer. Even more fortuitous for you, Cassandra re-enters the fight with a flying kick to the figure’s back.

    Staggering forward, the figure nearly pitches himself head-first into the pit, but manages to stop his forward momentum just in time. Whirling about to face Cassandra while balancing on the very edge of the Pit, the figure prevents any follow-up attacks by directing the remaining bone shards in her direction.

    Leaping back and to one side, Cassandra is able to avoid the worst of the hail of sharp bones, although does not escape entirely unscathed as the top half of a femur bone pierces her left shoulder. She is able to bite back a scream, and then advances towards the black-robed figure again as it begins to move away from the edge.

    The figure ducks under her next attack, a high kick aimed for his chin, and rushes forward to crash into her. Sweeping her back towards the wall, the figure clamps one hand around her neck as they move, and then stands back up to his full height when they finally reach their destination. Hand still clamped about her throat, the figure slams Cassandra against the wall, and then picks her up off the floor, raising his arm overhead until Cassandra’s flailing feet are more than two feet above the ground.

    The lady monk thrashes about aimlessly for a moment, her face gradually starting to turn a dark shade of red, before an idea seems to come to her. Pressing her back and one foot against the wall for leverage, Cassandra raises her other foot to line up with the cultist’s shoulder. She then kicks out with all her might, directly striking the shoulder of the arm that the cultist was using to hold her up. That is a loud, wet popping sound as the impact dislocates the cultist’s shoulder. The rest of the cultist’s arm immediately goes limp, dropping Cassandra back down to the ground.

    Cassandra lands in a crouch, pushing off the ground a moment later to send herself flying head-first into the figure’s midsection. As the figure starts to double-over, Cassandra snaps back up to her full height, driving the top of her skull into the figure’s face. Finally, as the figure staggers back away from her, Cassandra leaps up into the air, driving both feet into its chest to send it flying away from her. The two land roughly at the same time now several feet apart: Cassandra on her feet after she twists about in mid-air, the cultist flat on its back.

    All is silent for a moment, and then a rhythmic rasping noise comes from the figure: a wet gurgling noise that you recognize after several seconds as laughter. Pushing itself up into a sitting position with its good hand, the figure somehow twists its dislocated shoulder, muscles pulling the joint back into place and giving the figure two good arms once again.

    Cursing, Cassandra rushes towards the figure as it starts to stand up, but this time the figure is ready. It blocks her first kick with one hand, and then places the other, palm open, on her chest. Her eyes widen in stark terror, and Cassandra is suddenly paralyzed with fear as you both were in the ritual room when the figures laid their hands on your chests in the same manner.

    Cassandra falls over onto her back, not making even a grunt of pain as she lands. The figure leisurely stands up, walks over to her prone form, and kneels down beside her. Reaching down, the figure takes hold of the gnarled end of the femur sticking out of her shoulder, and twists, working the sharp tip around in the wound. Cassandra does not react to this at all, save to quietly whimper in pain, staring up at something horrific somewhere beyond the ceiling overhead. Grasping the femur more firmly, the figure tears the bone out of her shoulder, eliciting only a soft gasp from Cassandra as blood begins to bubble out of the wound. Clearly relishing the moment, the figure shifts his grip on the blood-covered femur, holding it now like a dagger as he raises it over his head, and prepares to strike.

    (While Cassandra vs. cloaked figure round 2 was going on, you could have been preparing your next surprise for him. Thus, it is possible for you to rush in and save Cassandra and get the jump on the figure while he’s preoccupied with finishing her off. Or, alternatively, you could run like a yellow-bellied chicken while he is busy finishing her off, thus getting a head-start of a minute or two before he runs you down like a dog. )

    WhiteKnight777

    Creeping down silently to the mouth of the cavern, you run through the plan one final time, and finding no obvious faults implement it. As expected, at such close range the crossbow bolt flies true, striking the back of the cultist’s head and passing through it up to a point just shy of halfway down the bolt’s shaft. The cultist falls forward into the by-now mostly dry pool, and you pay him no more mind as you rush towards the second one.

    Perhaps this cultist is more than a mere human, or perhaps your blood-starved body is still not quite as fast as it used to be, but the figure manages to turn around on his knees quickly enough to face you as you reach him and bring the butt of the crossbow down. The figure raises one arm up to meet the descending weapon, and when the two meet there is an explosion of splitters and metallic components as your crossbow shatters. Before you can react to this stunning display, the man brings his other hand up, driving his fist into your stomach with unholy might.

    A moment later you experience a flying sensation as you soar through the air away from the figure. But the sensation is fleeting, as a few seconds later your back connects with the wall of the cavern, and you crumple in a heap to the floor. Rising gracefully to his feet, the figure takes a step forward, but is forced to go on the defensive again as Mellita lunges out of the shadows at him. Once again the silver knife flashes in her hand, but the cultist leans back and manages to avoid her first overhand slash before retaliating with a hand-chop to the back of her head that sends her sprawling.

    Things go from bad to worse as the second cultist pushes himself back up into a sitting position in front of your disbelieving eyes. Reaching up and behind him, the cultist grasps the shaft of the crossbow bolt embedded in his skull and pulls. There is a wet tearing sound and a gout of thick blackish-red blood runs out along the shaft of the bolt, and then the cultist has removed the gore-encrusted bolt. He drops it casually to the floor and rises to his feet, turning to face you and Mellita.

    The effort of removing the crossbow bolt from the back of his skull shreds the cultist’s cowl, as well as pulling its remains back down from his face. As such, after the cultist turns to face you, you are granted your first good look at his disgusting visage.

    Although clearly once human, you are not sure if that is a fitting moniker for the creature standing before you now. First, all excess flesh seems to have been removed: the creature’s cheeks are gaunt and thin, its nose and ears are missing, and the flesh covering its eyes and teeth have been cut away. Although bald, a network of thin fleshy tendrils criss-cross over the top of his head, slowly pulsating. Nearing the holes left by his ears, the tendrils thicken, eventually merging into two thick fleshy rods that disappear into his skull, one going into each ear hole.

    The pus-yellow orbs that serve as the thing’s eyes hang precariously within their sockets, their pupils focused on you but occasionally darting rapidly around to take in the entire room before returning. From within the gaping hole left by its nose you can dimly make out the dark shape of something occasionally moving within, although you cannot determine what that may be as yet. With its lips entirely cut away, the creature seems to be perpetually in a toothy grin; two thin tentacles energetically twitching at the corners of its jaws.

    Cracking its jaws open to speak, the creature gives you a view into its mouth: tongue gone and some dark fleshy mass emerging from the back of its throat to stretch up to the roof of its mouth. With no tongue or lips, it is actually the hole cut into the creature’s throat that actually moves to make sounds, which in turn echo up and out of the creature’s opened jaws. Through the hole you can see the former man’s vocal cords moving to form words, encouraged by the thin tentacles that dart to and fro contracting and massaging the muscle.

    Intruders encountered. He intones to no one in particular, beginning to advance towards you while the first moves towards the prone-form of Mellita.

    Intruders identified. One male vampire, subspecies Lord of Blood, a potential Sacrifice. Decapitation or dismemberment with a silver weapon will prove fatal. Ashes must then be stored away from blood to prevent revivacation. One female vampire, subspecies Eternal Seer. Exposure to sunlight or embedding wooden stake into the heart will prove fatal. Reduction of body into ash will prevent revivacation.

    Private Torture Chambers

    Dorizzit/rubakhin

    (Ah, sorry rubakhin. I figured I would give you both a little down time to plot and plan your next course of action. But now it seems that the time for action has come again.)

    “I-I’ll do it.” The Countess says, walking over to the curtained doorway. She looks back at you both, forcing a nervous smile that quickly fades into an anxious frown. Then she ducks and pushes through the curtain, and is gone. The two of you pass a couple minutes in silence, before the loud sound of running footsteps approaches. You hear a shout of victory, and an instant later two figures burst through the curtain to crash to the floor just inside the room. As the curtain swings back into place over the doorway, the two figures reveal themselves to be the Countess and a normal, if slightly out-of-shape, guard who had tackled her. Pushing himself up, the guard jams a knee into the small of Amelia’s back before sliding his club under her jaw, using it to pull her head back towards his.

    “Now then lass, let’s have that kiss you promised me if I caught you.” The guard sneers, puckering his lips and making smacking noises.

    “I only got this one. Other stayed behind.” The Countess coughed, giving the guard the sudden hint that he wasn’t alone in the room with her. Looking up, the guard sees Korram, Dima, and Dima’s tiger all looking at him. “This just isn’t my day.” He sighs.

    The Labs

    Iethloc

    Conjuring up the same beam of force that had dealt with the door in the first place, you send the heavy chunk of adamantite flying once more back towards the monstrosities. Unlike their dim-witted brother, the five quickly dived out of the way as the door as it crashed once again into the lab beyond. Then as one, they all rush forward through the door as you start your next spell.

    Conjuring up a blizzard, you obscuring yourself from their view and vice-versa, although you can still hear their loud screams of mindless rage over the howl of the wind. You then summon five large icicles, one of each of them, before sending them all speeding off, one towards where you think each monster is at based on the wild screaming.

    As the blizzard begins to fade, you hear their angry shrieks turn to pained ones, indicating that you hit at least some of them. The snow then clears, and you can see one pinned up against the nearby wall, the icicle driven all the way through his chest. He isn’t moving, so you turn your attention elsewhere, trying to find the others. Another is down, but only wounded as it cradles the bleeding stump of its right leg.

    Not seeing the other three in your immediate line of sight, you turn just in time to get a faceful of fist as one descends upon you, swinging as it lands from its powerful leap. The blow is incredibly strong, sending you flying dazed back through the air. Amazingly, you avoid hitting the door frame in your flight, thus avoiding any broken bones from a sudden stop as you sail through the doorway into the lab, land on the floor, and slide to a halt just in front of the admantite door.

    You don’t have very long to relax, however, as another of the creatures charges into the lab after you, leaping high into the air above your prone form, and raising a commandeered icicle over its head.

    Ritual Chambers

    Pwenet

    You set the girl down, and she immediately goes to find someplace to hide as you face off from the two black-robed figures across the green flame. Then, you spring into action, throwing the dagger through the flame at the leader. The flames lick at the dagger as it crosses through, caressing it and leaving several small flicks of greenish fire to burn along the length of the blade as it breaches the barrier and crosses the remaining distance to the leader. Your aim is true, and the weapon embeds itself in the leader’s throat, sending him flying back into the wall of the tunnel. As he crumples to the ground you gather the fire-resistant robes around you and leap through the barrier of greenish flames, intending on crashing into the second figure.

    Although you feel only the barest sensation of heat as you pass through the barrier, you quickly come to realize that the green flames have other magical effects involved as your skin begins to blister, wither, and melt anyway.

    Great. Unholy damage. This is gonna leave a mark. You hear Harvey grumble in the back of your mind, a moment before the first wave of pain receptors light up, and you can think of nothing else but the pain, the incredible pain all over your body as you crash to the ground on the far side of the barrier. You had manage to ram into the second cultist on your way down, knocking him down with you but he is quick to return to his feet while you continue to lie on the ground, writhing in the incredible pain of your wounds.

    You force yourself to lie still for a moment, pretending to be dead as the second cultist moves to stand over you. He begins to raise a foot to bring down in a hard stomp to your back, but you regenerate quickly enough that you are able to stop him. Your replaced skin now covered in scales, you swing one such scaled hand up to slam into the kneecap of the leg that the cultist was standing on. Although he makes no cry of pain, you know the blow was most effective as there is a wet crunching sound.

    Off-balance, the cultist begins to fall over, but you rise to catch him, ripping off one of his arms and using it as an implement to swap him back through the air, passing through his own green flames as he flies through the air.

    Turning, you find that the leader has amazingly stood back up, dagger still protruding from his throat. Casually, the leader reaches up to grab hold of the dagger’s hilt, ripping it out of his throat with a gout of blackish red blood that quickly slows to a trickle. He begins to advance towards you, but is the sudden wet gurgling from behind you that captures your attention.

    Turning, you watch in shock as the black-robed figure that you literally disarmed walks through the wall of green flame. Flicks of the greenish fire dance along his black robes, burning ever-widening holes into the fabric as he finishes crossing the wall. He then gurgles again, which you suddenly recognize as laughter, and then reaches up to grab the neck-clasp holding his robes shut with his good hand.

    Pulling, the figure pulls his flaming black cloak up and off, whirling it around in front of him before throwing the burning garment to one side and fully revealing himself to you. Although still clad in simple black silk pants which extended all the way down to the floor and held up by a simple belt of black leather, the figure is bare-chested. Carved into the pale flesh of his torso is a mish-mash of arcane diagrams, sigils, and writing in an ancient language that you don’t recognize but nevertheless fills you with an ancient dread as the words seems to dance and shift across man’s body.

    The man’s one arm is gone, reduced to nothing more than a stump that slowly oozes some blackish red blood. But sticking out of that stump and flailing angrily about in the air are several thin grey tentacles, which directs your attention up to the growth on the man’s back.

    Hanging off of the man’s back is some sort of growth, a black cancerous mass of armored flesh with meaty red veins that stands out sharply against the pale white skin of the man. The growth extends down to the man’s waist and up to the top of his shoulders and the back of his neck. Thick fleshy tentacles extend out from the growth everywhere along its length to bore down into the man’s flesh, and especially thick ones appear where the man’s shoulders, legs, and neck meet with the growth.

    Tucked up against the growth’s surface are a pair of powerful arms, each ending in three long taloned fingers, one set opposite of the other two to serve as a “thumb”. With the cloak now gone, they unfurl, twisting and flexing in ways similar to a tentacle rather than a more-human limb. Finally, the taloned “hands” come to hang two feet above the creature’s head, directing your attention up from its body to its face.

    The creature’s face is a sheer mockery of a human. First, all excess flesh seems to have been removed: the creature’s cheeks are gaunt and thin, its nose and ears are missing, and the flesh covering its eyes and teeth have been cut away. Although bald, a network of thin fleshy tendrils criss-cross over the top of his head, slowly pulsating. Nearing the holes left by his ears, the tendrils thicken, eventually merging into two thick fleshy rods that disappear into his skull, one going into each ear hole.

    The pus-yellow orbs that serve as the thing’s eyes hang precariously within their sockets, their pupils focused on you but occasionally darting rapidly around to take in the entire room before returning. From within the gaping hole left by its nose you can dimly make out the dark shape of something occasionally moving within, although you cannot determine what that may be as yet. With its lips entirely cut away, the creature seems to be perpetually in a toothy grin; two thin tentacles energetically twitching at the corners of its jaws.

    Cracking its jaws open to speak, the creature gives you a view into its mouth: tongue gone and some dark fleshy mass emerging from the back of its throat to stretch up to the roof of its mouth. With no tongue or lips, it is actually the hole cut into the creature’s throat that actually moves to make sounds, which in turn echo up and out of the creature’s opened jaws. Through the hole you can see the former man’s vocal cords moving to form words, encouraged by the thin tentacles that dart to and fro contracting and massaging the muscle.

    With a wordless roar, the man leaps towards you. As he lands, one of the growth’s taloned arms lashes out, catching you across the face in a powerful overhead blow. The talons slash across your face, cutting your cheek to the bone and striking with such force that you are whipped around.

    Before you are able to turn back to face the creature, its taloned “arms” descend again, one taloned hand clamping down on each of your arms and holding them straight out from your sides. Taking his “normal” hand, the cultist grabs your right arm by the wrist and suddenly pulls down hard, snapping your arm with a dry crack.

    By this time, the leader has also reached you, and with his free hand he drives his fist into your side. You feel your ribs creak in protest, and then shatter as he rapidly drives his fist into your unprotected side several more times. Then, the leader stabs the knife into your stomach, slowly working the blade upwards to disembowel you.
    I didn't actually intend to kill EVERYONE. It just sort of happened.

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  9. - Top - End - #159
    Bugbear in the Playground
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    "Keen observation."

    Korram grabs the man by the face with his right arm, lifting him entirely off the ground before crushing the man's windpipe with a left handed blow. This done, he turns the man around and snaps his neck, killing him more quickly than he would have by suffocation. "That was a very brave thing of you to do, Countess. Thank you." He gives her a hand up. He looks at the corpse of the man he killed. "I wish that was as hard as it used to be..." he mutters. "We'd better get moving."
    Truly awesome Ark Tamaeus avatar by Bryn. Full size version here.

  10. - Top - End - #160
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    OldWizardGuy

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    Feeling the blade digging around inside of him, Incom starts laughing, his mind slipping and wandering. The one cultist jerks his arms straighter, causing the broken arm to grind against the rest of his arm, tearing muscle within it. Gasping for breath after a particularly nasty twist and yank of something within him, Incom twitches his mouth.

    ”Come on...... that...... tickles...... try harder you FREAKS!” Make me DANCE!”

    The response is another deep tearing with more blood emerging from the wound.

    What are you doing?

    Running fleeing jumping up and down with joy why is this not fun can we dance a little so that we can become a couple and one and set aside our agony for a ballet of death and brighten the future

    Incom smiles as he feels Harvey understand, and gasps in pain once again, coughing up blood that is starting to leak from within himself. Strange feelings of pieces that are suppose to stay within him sliding out gives a moment of panic, the pain of his broken arm behind held to either side. Yet he raises his head and glares at the creature carving him up.

    If you understand me..... burn.......

    Inhaling as if to laugh, Incom makes a sound as if clearing his throat, then roars, a deep bone shaking roar that should not have been capable of being made by a human.

    Yes! Give in! Let me flow through you!

    For once Incom does not give in, his features changing, warping from humanity, towards something reptilian, dragon like. Still roaring, the rest of his mouth twists in a smile, and something deep within his throat twitches.

    WHOOSH!

    Ancient dragon-flames emerges from Incoms throat towards the cultist working on carving him up, flames with the intensity to burn armored knights into ask, flames that are mystical in nature, flames that have not been seen since the downfall of the dragons. Flames that race out towards the cultist and engulf him.

    Not waiting to see what happens, Incom continues to breath fire, and twists hard to his left, harder than he would and with a wave of pain RIPS his broken right arm off at the break. The dragon-breath fades and is replaced with a scream not human nor dragon, but something in between. Blood and muscles spurts from the jagged wound with his arm bones sticking out of it, jagged and broken.

    Freed on one side, Incom twists to his left with the off balanced cultist staggering as he shifts his weight, and STABS the cultist with the jagged bones of his forearm in the face, burying his arm into the face of the cultist. Twist and yanking Incom pulls his stump free from the face of the cultist, inhales and breaths dragon-fire into the bleeding face of the cultist that was holding him.

    Good! Good! Give in!”
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    Quote Originally Posted by Inspectre
    I'm good at making you fear the unknown. Pwenet is good at making you fear the known, which had been the unknown five minutes before he pushed you off screaming into the abyss.
    Quote Originally Posted by Kalirren View Post
    I'm feeling this real hard now.
    Curse you, Pwenet. Curse you.... You had my hopes up there...

  11. - Top - End - #161
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    "OH COME ON!" lamont yells, eyes widening in surprise. Twirling his net above his head, lamont throws it at the hound who looks closest to catching a prisoner. He crouches slightly, waiting for rawya and putting his hands into a step, hoping to boost rawya and throw him higher quickly.

    Gods help me, how can i keep them alive???

    Lamonts' throat and chest begin to swell, veins and arteries popping out, sinews straining at the bulk. His voice box strengthening and enlarging itself. Sucking in a large breath, he lets out a deafening roar, the loudest he can conjure up, hoping to distract the hounds' sensitive ears for a few seconds and buy some time.

    A pair of bone claws spring out on the back of lamonts' right hand,his left hand fingernails lengthening into wicked talons. Lamont stands before the hounds and takes a fighting stance....his blue eye glints with magic

  12. - Top - End - #162
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    Umber

    Umber curses the creature and his own carelessness, quickly taking stock of the situation even as he darts forward, trying to get to Milletia and get her and himself out of a far more dangerous situation than he had anticipated. If only he had a fraction of his full strength - this thing was strong, though... very strong. It had tossed him around like a rag doll. Still... He had to escape, that was the key. Moving as fast as he could, pushing his new-forged muscles to their limits through force of will, ignoring the pain in his body he stooped to pick up Milletia. Even in his weakened state, she was not too much of a burden for him. That taken care of he turned to move down the tunnel. Hopefully he could lose the damn things in the tunnel. His endurance was unending - he could and had run for days, though he would need blood sometime - no, no time to think about that now. For now he had to escape and evade recapture.

  13. - Top - End - #163
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    Sohssal

    "Oh, dear. Can't let you do that!" Sohssal informed the beast as the air between them shimmered with heat. Quickly, a beam of flames soared from his hands, striking the thing squarely in the chest, the force of the blow slowing it down until it halted mid-air just a few feet away from Sohssal, then hurled it backwards and slamming it against the wall, leaving a sizable burn on its chest. Sohssal struggled back to his feet, one hand wrapped around "his" nose. Bah, I had hoped to again leave pain by the end of the day! Sohssal mentally complained.

    Acting quickly, Sohssal began casting another spell, wisps of smoke collecting in the air in front of him. Soon, a silhouette of fire burst into being, its vague form a mockery of humanity. Immediately, it flew forward, warping and expanding, growing to engulf as many of the semi-demons as possible, burning them with its intense heat and choking them with thick smoke. Sohssal waved the column of smoke in front of him away. Egads, I had forgotten how...fragrant this spell was... he thought.

  14. - Top - End - #164
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    MindFlayer

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    "Not what I expected, but praised be the gods..."

    Elkwin wanders around the room for a moment and grabs one of the torches as soon as he sees it, lighting it up at the lamp very carefully.

    Then he motions Marv to help him with the door and by using the same method as before they manage to push it into it's closed position again.

    "Looks like we can rest in here for a few moments and well, let's see what we got here..."

    Elkwin walks around the room and goes over all the stored equipment.

    "Could fit out a whole army with all that stuff... Ah finally, this looks like a hammer..."

    Improvising again, this time using weapons as tools, the two try to remove the bolts of their manacles and bracers and dim metallic thuds reverberate through the crypts.

    Free of the chains at last, Elkwin rubs his wrists and then stretches out with a satisfied groan.

    Making an invitational gesture, Elkwin smiles at Marv.

    "Take what you need, today it's all on the house."

    "You a soldier of some sort? I sure ain't... don't even know how to put on most of this stuff"


    A piece of armor in hand, he turns it around and holds it up to various pieces of his body, trying to find out where it would belong, then throws it back and sighs. Looking over the weapons again, Elkwin pulls out a few of the smaller Axes and inspects them closely, striking over the blade with his thumb and balancing it in his hand. After finding a suitable one he walks back to the center of the room to fill one of the backpacks with a pile of torches and some waterskins. He also looks out for blankets and clothing that he could exchange for his prisoner garment.

    "Seen any food around here? ... Meh... I doubted it... I mean there are ways, right? I know of sausages that don't get foul for years... But those dumbheads always tend to think with their fists and not with their stomachs. Bad habit if you ask me..."

    "Ah lad, what would I give for a decent stew right now... And a mug of fine ale... But we gonna find us something, right? Let's just sit here and regain some strength for a few moments"


    Elkwin sits down against the wall and leans his head back, closing his eyes for a minute.

    "We need to find another way up, by now we should have about two dozen zombies against us from the way we came."

    After they rested for a bit, they open the door again with combined effort and head out to explore the catacombs for an exit.

  15. - Top - End - #165
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    Voth

    "Your honor, if I may ask a question? Why is it forbidden to consort with demons?"
    The Emperor Protects

    Go Here! Please? Me love you long time.

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  16. - Top - End - #166
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    MrEdwardNigma's Avatar

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    So, what to do? Help the human? Or flee? Fleeing does seem more fun, but it might prove useless in the long run. Besides, I'll never get to zombify that pretty girl if I leave her to die out here. I've seen what these creeps call zombification. Amateurs, the lot of them.

    Victor had decided. He'd been prepared too. He'd made some more of the flash bang mix, as it was one of the few things he could make with the materials given. A bomb would be more useful, but he didn't see any chances of doing that. This time though, the mix he had made was going to serve a different purpose. Instead of blinding temporarily, it would blind permanently.

    He'd seen how the mix hadn't been quite as potent as he had hoped before, mainly due to the unexpected distance between him and the guard at that time, but still, just to be sure he'd made the mix that little bit stronger.

    As the cultist was trying to kill Cassandra, and doing quite well, in fact, Victor jumped him as fast as he could, rubbed the mix in the guy's eyes before he could react, and then plunged two boneshards he'd picked up in the cultist's ears, or, at least, where he supposed his ears were.

    Disruption of visual impulses, disruption of auditory impulses, disruption of balance, temporary confusion, pain. Enough to at leas temporarily take out any human, or even non-human.

    But temporary won't cut it. Even if I would be able to get out of here without him raising the alarm, say by throwing him into the pit, I wouldn't. He's too interesting a specimen. I just have to know what makes him tick. Interestingly, the only way to do that, is to stop the ticking.


    Victor's razorsharp fingers tracked their way across the cultist's chest, until they had found the place where the left and right part of the ribcage were joined together. His fingers quickly dug in, and he pulled with all his might, which was quite a lot for such a skinny looking man. Bone cracked and flesh snapped, blood gurgled up in fountains and Victor felt right at home. For a minute, he dreamt he was back at home, cutting up vagabonds or the neighbour's dog, all in the name of science, off course.

    But the moment didn't last long, Victor snapped back to reality as he found what he had been looking for: his patient's heart. Three simple cuts, and it was all over. Surely, the cultist had struggled, even in his heavily impaired status, but it had been no use. He could be as strong and as fast as he liked, Victor was like the deadly spider that settled on just that bit of your back you couldn't reach, even if you did know where he was. And he worked disturbingly fast, with an unequalled love for his trade.

    Cassandra was saved, but that was irrelevant now, the corpse was where Victor's interest lay. Quickly he began examing it, eager to find out how exactly the cultist had differed from a normal human. If he was done with this, he was planning to return the cultist to life, only slightly different than before. Very slightly. His life had only been one in servitude to begin with, it seemed.

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    I hope this is okay. You gave Victor an open shot at the cultist, so I assumed it was. Besides, Victor should be able to handle him anyways, given a chance like this
    Last edited by MrEdwardNigma; 2008-02-15 at 09:01 AM.
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  17. - Top - End - #167
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    The Catacombs

    ubersquid

    “Afraid I’m more of a lover than a fighter, friend.” Marv says, although he does go over to the armor, digging through the various pieces until he pulls out a lightweight chainmail shirt. He easily slips into it, reaching around behind him to work the clasps necessary to hold the armor tightly in place. “That said, I do know a little bit about how to wear armor. Enough to ensure you don’t get killed in some idiot’s idea of a friendly knife fight.” Marv twists about in the armor, making sure that the chainmail covering only his torso did not impede his movement, and then nodded. “I think I saw another of these chain shirts in here. No guarantee that it’ll fit, but if you want to try I think we could squeeze you into it together. It would just offer your chest and back some light protection, but it wouldn’t interfere with your range of movement much at all, unlike the heavier stuff.”

    He then joins you in filling up a backpack with torches and more than a few weapons. Sadly, all of the bows have becomes useless, their strings having rotted away some time ago. Likewise, although the waterskins appear to be whole, whatever water they may or may not have once held in this room has since evaporated away, leaving them all dry as a sun-bleached bone.

    Looking around, you likewise don’t notice any blankets or clothing. However, in one well-preserved chest in one corner of the room, you find several stacks of cloth tabards. Little more than long pieces of cloth with a hole in the middle of your head, the tabards would cover your chest and back but little else. Blue with gold trim, each of the tabards has the same golden rising sun with sword-tipped rays on the front and back, but nothing else.

    “Hey, come look at this!” Marv said from the far corner of the room. Moving to join him, you see a large stand that once held quite a few glass vials. Now most of the vials have cracked open with age, their contents dried out to a thin layer of colorful grime along the sides. A few others are missed corks or shattered completely leaving only glass shards, but a pair of them at the very back of the stand still appear to be whole. Sealed within each vial is an emerald green liquid, slightly fizzy as air bubbles occasionally drift up to the top from within the dark liquid.

    “What do you think, Elkwin? Potions for good, or evil?” He asks, gingerly picking the two vials up to hold them up in front of your face. Disturbed from their ancient resting place, the contents of both vials sloshed about a bit within their corked vials, starting to bubble a bit more than before.

    The Arena

    Frozen

    Hoping to buy some time, you fling your net at the lead hellhound, catching it in mid-leap as it was about to bring down the rearmost prisoner. This does not slow the beast down for long, however, as with a growl of annoyance it lets loose a small breath of flame, setting the rope net on fire. The flames weaken the rope enough that the hellhound is able to break through the net completely a few moments later, but its momentum is gone leaving the prisoners to worry only about the other five.

    Perhaps inspired by your example the rearmost prisoner, a tall muscular man who was unfortunately a bit slow on his feet, turns to face the onrushing horde of dogs as they begin to nip at his heels. “Go! I will slow them!” The man cries, whirling about to drive his handaxe into the throat of one of the lead hellhound’s heads. With his other hand he slaps at the second head, knocking it away as the beast tries to use its fire breath. The man winces as the third head, undistracted, manages to exhale a thin stream of fire into his chest, but then the man retaliates with a head butt that elicits a yelp of surprise from each of the hellhound’s heads.

    The man then wrenches his handaxe out of the beast’s neck, raising it for another blow to the shoulder of the hellhound’s front-right shoulder. Before he could do anymore damage, two other hellhounds sweep in from either side of him, jaws clamping down on whatever bit of flesh they could find before the pair of beasts pulled the man down off his feet.

    Now prone on his back, the man nevertheless continues to fight as best he could, swinging with his fists and kicking with his feet at the three angry hellhounds standing over him, before as one the three all used their fire breaths to cook him to a cinder. But the man’s sacrifice was not in vain, as the three he had distracted were the lead three, giving the rest of the prisoners valuable breathing space.

    Although the remaining hellhounds closed quickly, it was too late as the three surviving prisoners reached you and the tower. Rawya was in the lead, and he tucked his weapons loosely into his belt as he reached you. You gave him a quick boost up, allowing him to catch the rough edge and scramble up onto the stairway about halfway up. The other two prisoners are forced to run around the side to the start of the stairway, the three other hellhounds immediately behind.

    Growing your vocal cords, you give a ferocious roar, and the three pursuing hellhounds immediately stop to regard you in confusion. But this confusion is only temporary, and a moment later the three turn away from the other two prisoners to deal with you. Spreading out to surround you on the three sides allowable by the tower behind you, the hounds cautiously approach.

    “Lamont! Your hand, quickly!” Rawya shouts from above you, lying facedown on the steps to extend his hand downwards towards you. As if taking this as a signal, the hellhounds on your right leaps forward, stopping a short distance away from you and taking in a deep breath in preparation to unleash its fire breath.

    ???????

    Voth

    Unlike before, when he struggled to answer your inquiry in a frustrated manner, the Judge is quick and confident.

    IT IS FORBIDDEN BECAUSE DEMONS ARE EVIL. THEY LIE AND DECIEVE, LEADING HUMANITY AWAY FROM ITS TRUE PATH. TO INTERACT WITH THEM IN ANY WAY SAVE FOR THEIR DESTRUCTION IS TO COURT DISASTER. FOR THE SAKE OF INNOCENT OTHERS, NONE CAN BE ALLOWED TO CONSORT WITH THEM.

    The Judge shakes its head, and then continues.

    YES. THE FOULNESS OF DEMONS CAN NOT BE DENIED. TO CONSORT WITH THEM, EVEN IN THE GRAVEST NEED, IS TO RISK LOSING ALL. FOR THERE IS ALWAYS A PRICE THAT THEY SHALL EXTRACT FOR THEIR AID, AND EVEN IN CASUAL CONVERSATION THEY SHALL SEEK TO TWIST AND DISRUPT THE NATURAL ORDER. HOWEVER, THE DEMON WAS IMPLANTED WITHIN YOU WHEN YOU WERE A CHILD. PERHAPS IF IT WAS DONE WITHOUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE OR CONSENT . . .

    The Judge shakes its head and frowns.

    NO. YOU SURELY HAVE HAD AMBLE OPPORTUNITY SINCE THEN TO DISCOVER THE DEMON’S PRESENCE WITHIN YOU AND SEEK TO REMOVE YOU. THAT YOU HAVE NOT DONE SO IS EVIDENCE ENOUGH OF WILLING CONSORT WITH DEMONS. YOUR GUILT CAN NOT BE DENIED, AND YOU MUST BE PUNISHED FOR YOUR SINS. NOW, UNLESS YOU HAVE ANY FURTHER EVIDENCE TO PRESENT, I SHALL NOW PASS SENTENCE ON YOU FOR THE CRIME OF CONSORTING WITH DEMONS, WITH YOUR GUILT IN THE OTHER CRIMES TO BE DETERMINED AT A LATER DATE.

    MrEdwardNigma

    (Yup, everything was fine. But you seem to have underestimated your opponent a bit. )
    Mixing some more of the flash-bang mix into your hands, you dash up to the figure while he was distracted with Cassandra. As he prepares to bring the bone shard down, you strike, leaping onto his back and jabbing your hands up into his eyes to rub the mixture in. You are therefore a bit surprised when your hands meet little resistance: no eyelids, and soft exposed eyeballs that burst open upon digging your fingers into them. Oh well, a lot of harm done anyway, as now the figure had simply lost his eyes completely instead of them just being blinded by your chemicals. Snatching up the two bone shards you had picked up along the way, you then jab them into the sides of the creature’s head, going for the ears.

    Although the figure does react to this very damaging surprise attack, he gives a hiss of annoyance rather than a scream of agony. Quite surprisingly given the fact that you had just disabled his eyes and ears, but no matter. Determined to end the fight quickly now, you tighten your grip on the man’s back and reach around to begin digging your fingers into his chest.

    Although he flails wildly around at first, he is unable to dislodge you as you doggedly cling on, working your fingers deeper into his chest cavity as you search for his heart. Suddenly, your hands tears through his ribcage, but before you can finish the removal of his heart something surprising stops you. Although you can’t see what’s going on, you can feel thin tendrils of flesh wrap around your fingers and wrists, holding them immobile and preventing them from pushing deeper.

    Then, the back of the figure’s cloak a few inches from your face suddenly ripples, and then heaves, the cloth tearing apart a moment later as something bursts out through it. Looking up, you see two massive limbs now emerging from the back of the figure’s torn robes, mulit-jointed and looking more than tentacles than human limbs. Tipped in three strong clawed fingers, with one finger set opposite of the other two, these two limbs appear to be set into some sort of armored growth covering the man’s back, just above where his shoulder blades would be. The two limbs flex powerfully for a moment, then bend back in a way normally impossible for normal human limbs, clamping down onto the tops of your shoulders. The claws dig into your flesh, although surprisingly just enough to get a firm grip as they pull and tug, ripping you off of the creature’s back as the tentacles within its chest release their grip on your arms, allowing them to be pulled out of the creature’s chest as you are likewise pulled off the creature’s back.

    Dangling in mid-air from their two limbs, you are then swung around to the front of the creature as it reaches up to remove the rest of its tattered robes. It is only then that you get a good look at the creature before you as a whole.

    Although still clad in simple black silk pants which extended all the way down to the floor and held up by a simple belt of black leather, the figure is bare-chested. Carved into the pale flesh of his torso is a mish-mash of arcane diagrams, sigils, and writing in an ancient language that you don’t recognize but nevertheless fills you with an ancient dread as the words seems to dance and shift across man’s body.

    Hanging off of the man’s back is some sort of growth, a black cancerous mass of armored flesh with meaty red veins that stands out sharply against the pale white skin of the man. The growth extends down to the man’s waist and up to the top of his shoulders and the back of his neck. Thick fleshy tentacles extend out from the growth everywhere along its length to bore down into the man’s flesh, and especially thick ones appear where the man’s shoulders, legs, and neck meet with the growth.

    Tucked up against the growth’s surface are a pair of powerful arms, each ending in three long taloned fingers, one set opposite of the other two to serve as a “thumb”. With the cloak now gone, they unfurl, twisting and flexing in ways similar to a tentacle rather than a more-human limb.

    The creature’s face is a sheer mockery of a human. First, all excess flesh seems to have been removed: the creature’s cheeks are gaunt and thin, its nose and ears are missing, and the flesh covering its eyes and teeth have been cut away. Although bald, a network of thin fleshy tendrils criss-cross over the top of his head, slowly pulsating. Nearing the holes left by his ears, the tendrils thicken, eventually merging into two thick fleshy rods that disappear into his skull, one going into each ear hole. Two bone shards now stick out from each of these holes as they slowly ooze a blackish red blood, the result of your previous handiwork.

    Both of its eyes are gone, nothing more than smears in the gaps of its eye cavities now, which prompts a dark shape to slide forth from the empty hole left by its nose. Anchored to somewhere within the hole by a thin tentacle, a bulbous green mass emerges from where the man’s nose used to be. A protective covering in the front of the mass blinks open, and suddenly you are starting into a bizarre eye, its pupil a cross-shaped pattern of two vertical slits arranged perpendicular to each other. The eye regards you for a moment, shifting this way and that with its tentacle anchor, until the creature appears satisfied.

    With its lips entirely cut away, the creature seems to be perpetually in a toothy grin; two thin tentacles energetically twitching at the corners of its jaws. Cracking its jaws open to speak, the creature gives you a view into its mouth: tongue gone and some dark fleshy mass emerging from the back of its throat to stretch up to the roof of its mouth. With no tongue or lips, it is actually the hole cut into the creature’s throat that actually moves to make sounds, which in turn echo up and out of the creature’s opened jaws. Through the hole you can see the former man’s vocal cords moving to form words, encouraged by the thin tentacles that dart to and fro contracting and massaging the muscle.

    You cannot escape your fate, prisoner. To resist it is futile.

    Pulling back one of its human fists, the creature strikes your torso, and the impact hits with such force that with a loud tearing noise the stitches holding your right arm to your torso give, leaving the one clawed tentacle limb holding the rest of your up, with the other holds your right arm. With a casual unnatural bend, the tentacle limb flicks the arm over its back, landing some distance behind it.

    But as the figure pulls its fist back to hit you again, Cassandra suddenly snaps out of her paralyzing fear. Still prone on her back, she kicks up at the figure, ramming her foot into one of the oozing holes you had left in its chest. There is a loud crack as the thing’s ribcage gives way, followed by a large gout of blood as Cassandra’s foot obliterates the creature’s heart. Although this finally seems to hurt the creature as it gives a wet gurgling gasp of surprise, the victory is short-lived as it remains standing.

    “Uh oh.” Cassandra says simply as numerous tentacles emerge from the holes in the creature’s chest to wrap around her leg.

    Twisting its entire body around, the creature whips Cassandra up and around with it, the tentacles finally releasing its grip just in time to send her flying through the air to land heavily at the edge of the pit. Howling in anger, the creature throws you to land heavily on top of her, knocking the breath out of you both.

    Fools! I am eternal!

    WhiteKnight777

    Pushing yourself back up onto your feet, you dash away from the figure approaching you, using the central stalactite to put an obstacle between you. Running around to the other side, you reach Mellita, hastily grabbing her free hand and jerking her along the ground towards you and away from the figure approaching her. You then sweep her up and across your back, carrying her as you turn and head for the exit on the far side of your original entrance into the cavern.

    Behind you, you can hear one of the figures begin to approach you, but the other calls him back. Stop. We must fulfill our purpose, not chase after a stray Sacrifice. The Herald must be awoken! And so, your escape is unimpeded, and soon you are out of sight of the cavern and its two surprisingly powerful occupants.

    “Would you mind putting me down now, Lord Umber?” Mellita asks, sighing in relief when you finally grant her request. Once on the ground she pulls aside a fold of her dress with her free hand, revealing a concealed sheath which she slides her silver dirk into. Now in close proximity to the weapon, you can also see runes which appear to be ancient holy script etched into the length of the blade. So, a blessed silver dagger, hidden in the folds of her dress.

    “My apologies again, Lord Umber. Of these . . . creatures . . . I have no idea. No one has ever heard of such creatures living down here, or at least not mentioned them while I was within earshot.” The female vampire coughs nervously, and then continues. “Now then, there should be a large cavern a short distance from here, with numerous tunnels leading into it. Several lead back up to the prison, but most lead further down into the depths of the mountain. It is one of those tunnels that we shall take that will eventually lead us into the unknown region where the secret exit lies.”

    Brushing herself off, Mellita then starts walking down the tunnel, but freezes as the soft mutter of voices echo up towards you. “Someone’s coming!” She hisses, pressing herself into the shadows of the side of the tunnel as several armed figures walk out from around a bend in the tunnel ahead. They do not carry any torches or other light sources with them, but as they get closer you can see that they are human. “Master says we get good reward if we catch vampire!” One of the four figures hisses, earned a cuff to the back of the head from the one walking behind him. “Master always promise that! He promised the same to Larry and Gary, didn’t he? And what happens to them – they got chopped apart by that . . . thing’s . . . claws!”

    “At least Master didn’t send the rest of us in to die after he saw what it did to them!” The first figure retorted, earning a snort of disgust from the third. “That’s only because the Paladin told them we weren’t good enough and to get in there and fight the thing themselves before he smashed us all into dust.” “Filthy paladin! What does he know of our ways anyway? How I long to listen to his screams as Master tears him apart!” The fourth spits, and then the four figures continue to draw closer in silence. Judging by what you have seen and heard so far, you strongly suspect that these four are Thralls: human servants bound to a vampire through blood. They had their uses, but other than the convenient ability to see in the dark as a result of the bonding, most had few strengths over the average human.

    Private Torture Chambers

    Dorizzit/rubakhin

    Korram easily kills the surprised guard, and then helps Amelia up. She doesn’t answer at first, looking down and breathing heavily. Finally she takes one last gulp of air, and looks up. “Thanks. I got winded from the fall, but don’t think I sustained any permanent injury. There’s only one guard left out in the hallway, and would you please free my hands now? I don’t want to fall and be unable to catch myself like that again.”

    You quickly free Amelia’s hands, and she stretches and rubs circulation back into her wrists. Then she walks over to the dead guard, gingerly picking up the guard’s club. “I have taken a few fencing lessons. I should be able to somewhat defend myself if we get into a fight.”

    From somewhere out in the hallway, you hear a loud shout followed by a quieter clash of blades. Amelia starts at the noise, looking behind her at the curtained doorway with a momentary expression of fear, which she quickly quashes with an angry grimace. “It seems something is going on outside. It’d be safer to just wait here until it’s gone, especially if it’s involving the guards. But that shout sounded like the other guard in the hallway. If he’s distracted, this may be our best chance to slip past.” The Countess nervously chews on her lip, and then shakes her head. “We can’t afford not to take whatever opportunities we find along the way. Let us depart this awful place, hopefully for good.”

    The Countess then moves the curtain aside with her appropriated club, and slips into the hallway. (To get you guys out of this room, I’m just going to assume you both follow her out. Correct me if you still want to cower in the room. )

    Exiting the room into the hallway, you can see that it is exactly as the Countess described. Several curtained doorways stand at regular intervals on both sides of the hallway, alternating so that no two doorways are exactly across from each other. The narrow hallway is perhaps wide enough for two people to walk abreast, and curves slightly so that the far ends of the hallway are out of your line of sight.

    Walking forward towards the door out of here, you come into sight of the guarded iron door to find a surprise waiting. The iron door hangs open, the guard apparently having deserted his post. The cause of this is quickly located, however, as through the open doorway you can see a wild melee taking place in the room beyond.

    Again as the Countess described, the room beyond the door features a wide stairway leading up to a landing, and then turning 90 degrees to the left and continuing up. A short distance to the right of the stairway is an iron door, currently closed. Another such door is set into the right wall, with two more doors set into the left.

    Currently, at the foot of the stairway a massive melee is taking place, as nearly a dozen guards cluster around a lone grey-cloaked figure. Wielding a bastard sword in one hand and a handaxe in the other, the lone figure’s movements are precise and confident despite his desperate situation. Sweeping in low with his bastard sword, the man cuts one of the guards off literally at the knees, then spins around to deliver a high kick to the head of a guard approaching him from behind. Twirling his handaxe, he deflects a blow from a guard to his right, immediately retaliating with a thrust from his bastard sword. The blow does not penetrate the guard’s armor, but it does drive him back long enough for the lone figure to whirl about to confront the pair of guards coming in from his left.

    The fight continues to rage, the figure continuing to defend himself expertly, but only occasionally dropping one of the guards. As the guards’ numbers dwindle down to “only” eight, one of the doors on the left side of the room bursts open, and another five guards spill out into the room.

    The Labs

    Iethloc

    You blast the creature descending towards you, the impact of your fire blast melting its icicle club and sending it flying back to crash into the ceiling. A sizable hole burned into its chest, the creature lies still upon landing, evidently the second to die outright from your spells.

    You then conjure up the being of smoke and fire, siccing it on the half-demons while wrinkling your nose as the fumes burned your already sore nostrils. The creature manages to engulf two of the creatures, which means with another three outright dead and the last crippled, you are safe for the moment.

    A sudden pain lancing through your legs as they are ripped out from under you causes you to immediately discredit that previous thought. Looking down, you see that the crippled half-demon has managed to drag itself along the floor, leaving a bloody trail from its still-bleeding stump of a right leg. Now grasping a hold of “your” right leg and starting to twist, the creature seem intent on returning the favor.

    Momentarily, the acolyte regains control of his body from you, raising his left foot to jab it into the face of the half-demon once, twice, three times. The powerful blows seem to do little to faze it despite reducing its nose into a bloody pulp. However, it does anger the thing further, and as a result instead of twisting your leg off it simply twists around, swinging you around and up into the air before releasing its grip and sending you flying through the air.

    You don’t fly for ever long though, not having wings or any time of flight spell activated, and crash down onto the top of a bench to slide along its length, smashing over countless vials of chemicals as you go. What these effect these chemicals will have on “your” skin, you have no idea, although the wild mixture smeared all over your body is starting to tingle and burn a bit as you reach the end of the bench and fall over into a heap on the floor. In any case, you have more pressing matters to attend to than a little skin irritation, as the crippled half-demon begins determinedly dragging itself across the floor towards you again.

    Ritual Chambers

    Pwenet

    As if understanding your comment, the lead creature stops its dissection of you, rapidly backing up. It is much too late, however, and an instant later you coat his cloaked form with liquid dragon flame. There is a loud, unearthly shriek of agony from the figure as it stumbles back, the last traces of its black cloak burned to ash to reveal a figure similar to the one you have already seen. However, there is one important difference: the growth is thicker on the leader, with a band of it going all the way around his waist. Below his waist, the leader has lost all appearances of being human, as a quartet of thick chitinous legs extend down to the floor. Two thin whithered shapes dangle down from the center of where the legs join with the body: apparently the remains of the cultist’s original human legs.

    Regardless, your breath treats all flesh the same, and the charred body of the leader flies back to crash into the wall of the tunnel a short distance away. You then twist about in the grip of the other cultist, ripping your broken arm off but getting a cool bone spur in the process. This you use to jab into the face of the other cultist, the blow striking him directly in the left eye and continuing back into his brain. He sneers at this, but isn’t laughing anymore when you rip your spur-tipped arm back out and coat him in dragon fire. As the creature gives an unearthly shriek, the flame sears away the flesh on its face, charring the bones beneath before utterly reducing the thing’s entire head to ash. As it staggers drunkenly back away from you, you sweep the flame downward, managing to char most of its body to blackened bones but failing to accomplish the same spectacular results as you had with its head.

    Both of the bodies lie still, the human flesh charred to the bone or worse, and large swatches of the growth blackened as well. But then something stirs inside the large growths along each cultist’s back, and thin tentacles burst out. These tentacles tear holes in the growth, allowing a goo-covered, head-sized object to tumble out of each. Each object is a large ovoid shape, with four long whip-like tentacles, the same that had ripped the growth open, attached to one end. It is difficult to make out anymore beyond that, but then the tentacles come to life again, quickly flailing the goo off of the shape. Then the tentacled end splits open revealing a powerful set of mandibles the size of small daggers, and the non-tentacled end blinks open, revealing a single massive eye the size of a human head. The pair of creatures then fly up into the air, and with an angry clack of their mandibles, zoom off at rapid speed away from you down the tunnel towards their companions.

    “Are . . . are you alright!? Hello? Is it safe to come out now!?” The familiar voice of the young girl calls from her hiding place.
    I didn't actually intend to kill EVERYONE. It just sort of happened.

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  18. - Top - End - #168
    Bugbear in the Playground
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    Korram raises his eyebrows in surprise upon seeing the cloaked figure's prowess. "That's...impressive." he says. "Still, it seems they will be overrun soon enough, and they could make a powerful ally. So...I think I'll go lend a hand." Assuming he isn't stopped, Korram charges out, driving into the flank of the approaching reinforcements. He takes out a guard before they even know what's happening, snapping his enemy's neck with the force of his blow before the other guards can react. This done, he ducks around the group, parrying a slash of a sword with his arm before tripping one of the guards. He rises with a powerful (and fiery!) uppercut, shattering the guard's neck. From there, he whips a small blast of flame through one of his opponent's helmets, meanwhile fending off the other two. He ducks a sword blow, and grabs one of the remaining guard's faces while knocking his other opponent's sword from his hand. Hurling the grabbed guard into the struggling guard he flamed, he strikes his opponent's stomach, driving his hand through the guard's body, blood sizzling as it comes into contact with his flames. He pauses for a moment, his hand stuck.
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  19. - Top - End - #169
    Orc in the Playground
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    As he was lifted into the air, his leg about to be twisted, Sohssal couldn't help but think one thing: This sort of thing wouldn't happen if I were never trapped in wretched physical form. Though he looked unamused even as he flew through the air, he cringed as he collided with the chemicals, though he wasn't put off enough to get up and brush off stray pieces of glass here and there. He shook slightly as his skin was irritated. "Oh, this had better not have any adverse effects before I get out of here..." he said to no one in particular.

    As he watched the half-demon drag itself before him, Sohssal felt energy surge within him. "BA-HA HA HA HA HA HA! Oh, HAHAHAHA! A-HAHA!" he couldn't help but laugh loudly and boisterously. Pausing only to rub at a particularly irritated patch on his arm, he looked at the half-demon right in the eyes. "You are both amusing and pathetic. Goodbye!" he informed it, then quickly began working on a spell. Static electricity built up in the air as he finished it, and suddenly electricity flickered into life, forming a rough sphere in front of Sohssal. While he grinned, the ball surged forward, warping into a small bolt of lightning that struck the crippled abomination head-on.

  20. - Top - End - #170
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    MrEdwardNigma's Avatar

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    Victor's mind was racing. The creature was less human even than he had expected, but a thousand times more interesting as well. In fact, it seemed the creature wasn't human at all, rather a parasite using a human corpse as a means of transportation. Victor and Cassadra had destroyed its heart, the bloodpump, and severely damaged its brain, and it was still going, still speaking. So its core had to be somewhere else entirely.

    Victor's limitless knowledge of anatomy and the arcane told him that this centre was very likely the unnatural growth on the creature's back (and would this not be so, Victor's knowledge would probably lead him to a different, more accurate, conclusion). The fact that this hump was armored seemed to support this conclusion.

    Eternal? Victor asked himself, as the creature spoke, Now I'll have to look into you for sure! I can't pass up a chance to investigate one of the goals of alchemy, the goals of my life. I was planning on doing this another way, descending into the dungeons, but if this doesn't work out, I can still do that. Right now, all I need is to buy some time. The thing is bragging. Good, let it brag, it's not the only enhanced freakshow out here. It thinks it can keep track of us both now, but it's wrong. Dead-wrong.

    As Victor slowly got up on his knees, which quickly bended in the dust so he could jump up high fast if needed, he looked at the creature's skull, or at what was inside it, and spoke.

    "I see how this works here. Don't worry, no more fighting back from me here, you got me. You're stronger than me, I get it. But one last request. A pledge, if you may. Why? I mean, I assume you suck the life out of people, fuel yourself with this suffering perhaps, maybe even the zombies, but why so ineffectively?

    Whatever you're doing, wouldn't you want it to work at full potential? I can name two or three things wrong with your system just like that, and I'm not even completely clear on how it works yet! I can see how this sounds as silly, coming from such a petty creature like me, but we're basically the same, only you have much better resources. I could help you, you know. I could streamline your whole organisation. I know you can understand what I'm saying, I can see it in that eye of yours. Whatever you're trying to accomplish, I can make it go twice as fast"


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    As far as this theory is wrong, it should be corrected by Victor's extensive knowledge in both of the fields concerned. I'm not Victor, so I'm bound to make a less good guess at it than he is


    During his speech Victor's loose arm had crawled up to the creature, and now it silently jumped onto its back, swiftly digging it's sharp fingers into the weak spots in the hump, digging to the very core. Victor had seen the creature in it's entirity now (except for the legs, but I doubt that's important unless his vital parts are there) and had been able to analyze it. All its weak spots had been stored in Victor's brain, and therefore his arm could make use of this too. The creature had met it's endgame. A final screech, maybe, and then Victor would finally get to examine this freak.
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  21. - Top - End - #171
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
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    Voth

    Pressing the issue, Voth continues. "What makes deceit wrong, sir Judge? Does if it saves lives is it not the right thing to do? And what makes something evil? Is it still evil if used for a just cause? An axe for example can be used to take a life but can also be used to help build a home. Is it not what one does with an object that defines its quality?"
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  22. - Top - End - #172
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    WhiteKnight777's Avatar

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    Umber

    Umber fled quickly, swearing once again at his own weakness as he slipped into the dark, but allowing him some small measure of relief as he heard the creature's call behind him. It could be a trick, of course, but unless it was merely a veil of feigned stupidity, the creatures did not really seem to possess that amount of cleverness.... At her request, Umber set Milletia down once more, arching an eyebrow as she replaced the silver dagger in its concealed sheathe. My, but you are a brave one, aren't you my dear? I'm surprised. Few of your breed have the strength of will to carry something so... inimical so close to the skin. He was about to say something else, but was cut off when he, too heard the voices moving along the tunnels. He waited, letting them pass by. Normally he might have tried to take all of them, but his recent experience with the thing in the main cavern had disturbed him... Likely enough they were simply unwitting fools sent down to try to flush him out, but if their master had indeed sent them down to look for him, perhaps they had some other weapon at their disposal... or, perhaps, they were merely bait... no, there were too many risks, and his overconfidence had already gotten him into trouble once.

  23. - Top - End - #173
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    OldWizardGuy

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    Incom & Harvey

    “Are . . . are you alright!? Hello? Is it safe to come out now!?” The familiar voice of the young girl calls from her hiding place.

    Standing over the corpses, shaking with rage and pain, Incom looks at the badly burnt corpses, the darkness seemingly as bright as day as he views the details of the bodies. His mind flashes back to other incidents, looking down at similar bodies, bodies that had been wearing armor and carrying weapons and wielding magics. Bodies that in life had hurt him, prodded him, until the day he snapped, with Harvey laughing in the background.

    Yet now there is only silence in his head as the bodies smolder, including the remains of his right arm, which were caught in his flames.

    What were those things dragon?

    Only silence reigns, which is strange coming from the normally talkative dragon. Pushing it aside Incom takes a look at the stump of his arm, and nods as he sees it already healing.

    We must feed. Do so quickly, before she arrives.

    Stunned slightly by the voice within Incom kneels and starts working on bits of flesh from the corpses without argument. His mind wanders mostly in self-preservation to avoid thinking about what he is eating while his enhanced hearing picks up the footsteps of the girl.

    As she rounds into the area where the fight took place, Incom stands up, his stomach less empty, yet Harvey is still silent.

    ”Everything is fine. Brace yourself.”

    Sighing Incom turns and looks at the girl, revealing his transformed state to her, his missing arm.

    ”I am fine. There are more down this tunnel with others. We must find out what is going on, for I fear simple escape is impossible with ones like those here.”

    Dragon. What are those things?

    Without waiting for a reply from either the girl or Harvey, Incom looks over the corpses for any items that may have survived or clues on what happened to the poor souls, before taking off down the tunnel where the other cultists and prisoners went down.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Inspectre
    I'm good at making you fear the unknown. Pwenet is good at making you fear the known, which had been the unknown five minutes before he pushed you off screaming into the abyss.
    Quote Originally Posted by Kalirren View Post
    I'm feeling this real hard now.
    Curse you, Pwenet. Curse you.... You had my hopes up there...

  24. - Top - End - #174
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    MindFlayer

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    "Aah, here we go, cloth is always good, even if it's just to make some bandages."

    Elkwin takes a few of the tabards and stuffs them into the backpack as well.


    "You think that thing would fit? Worth a try at least"


    With a little help from Marv and a lot of wiggling and moaning, he squeezes himself into the chain shirt. After straightening it out and looking down onto his well shaped belly he grins.

    "That's gonna be the latest fashion..."

    Picking up one of the vials that Marv offers, Elkwin removes the cork and takes a smell, coughs and holds it away from his face again quickly.

    "Whatever it is, it's certainly not brandy. Might come in handy still."

    He closes the vial again and sticks it between the pieces of cloth in the backpack, then laces it up and flings it over his shoulder. He stands up straight and mocks a salute.

    "Ready to go, soldier!"

  25. - Top - End - #175
    Bugbear in the Playground
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    Desot runs forward and sends a heavy kick at one of the spiders. "Get off of him!" he yells. He then immediately tries to pivot above the little man to pull him out of the spider's path, to a safer more magically-capable position.
    Last edited by Gnomish Wanderer; 2008-02-18 at 10:37 PM.
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    You fell for my firewall, chummer
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  26. - Top - End - #176
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    The Mines

    gnome_4ever

    Leaping forward, you kick the spider in the side, which skitters back in surprise at this sudden attack. Taking advantage of the situation, you turn away and run, snatching up Amraf as you go. You drag him several feet away from the spider, which is a much safer location although not especially so with their ability to spew acid. Nonetheless, it is far enough that Amraf has time to invoke another of his illusions, and the spider dumbly charges forward into the wall of the tunnel. Stunned from the impact, it is easy prey and quickly falls from a blow from your shovel.

    Everything is quiet in the tunnel for a moment, but then in the distance you hear a loud hissing screech. The kind of screech only something big and pissed off could make, and that was no doubt heading this way right now. “Desot. Get out of here. I’ll buy you some time.” Amraf pants, clearly pained by all of his acid-inflicted injuries. “I’ll only slow you down, especially with my wounded foot. Whatever’s coming next can’t get us both. You have to get out of here, escape for both of us. Now go! Take the lantern, and my pick, and go!” The little man says, propping himself up against the wall of the tunnel while waving at you to depart.

    The Catacombs

    ubersquid

    As you uncork the vial, the green liquid abruptly fizzles up and boils out of the vial and onto your hand. This doesn’t seem to have any adverse effects on your hand besides making it wet and slightly sticky, but it does significantly reduce the amount of liquid in the vial by the time the fizzing subsides enough to allow you to properly re-cork the vial.

    “Hmmm . . . I think I recognize that awful smell.” Marv says, sniffing. “Reminds me a bit of the healing potions I’d come across now and then in my travels. Although, these smell a bit, ah, “riper” than those! Doesn’t look like there’s much in your vial anymore. Oh well, still got this one! Which I guess I’ll just keep in my pack in case of emergency, eh?” Marv comments, sliding the second vial of green liquid into a small pouch on the outside of his backpack.

    He slings his own backpack across his shoulders, picks up the slowly burning torch from the lighting bracket he had set it into, and returns your mock salute with a grin. “So, where to from here? Do we keep going and see where this passage leads us, or do we go back and hope the zombies have moved on? I’m not sure wandering around in the catacombs is going to be very good for our health, but then again past those zombies is nothing but a path leading up into guard territory again, which is perhaps only slightly worse than the unknown.”

    ???????

    Voth

    The Judge frowns angrily and shakes his head at you.

    THE GOOD THAT HAPPENS FROM A CRIME DOES NOT ERASE THE SIN FROM YOUR SOUL. YOU HAVE CONSORTED WITH DEMONS. IT IS UNDENIABLE, AND NO GOOD THAT COMES FROM IT CAN ERASE THE EVIL OF THE ACT. YOU MUST BE PUNISHED, IF ONLY AS AN EXAMPLE TO OTHERS NOT TO REPEAT YOUR MISTAKE.

    The Judge extends one hand down towards you, but immediately reaches that hand back up to his temple. He looks upward with a sneer of frustration, and then back down at you.

    BUT, IT COULD BE ARGUED THAT THE SIN WAS NOT INITIALLY YOURS TO BEAR. AND CONTINUING YOUR CONTACT WOULD BE A LESSER SIN THAN INITIATING IT. ONE THAT COULD BE FORGIVEN IF YOU HAVE BEEN TRUTHFULLY LOOKING FOR A WAY TO BREAK OFF YOUR CONTACT WITH THE DEMONIC ENTITY, WHILE USING ITS POWER ONLY FOR GOOD.

    Lowering its hand, the Judge sneers down at you.

    VERY WELL THEN. CAN YOU NAME ONE SPECIFIC CIRCUMSTANCE IN WHICH YOUR CONTACT WITH DEMONS HAS BROUGHT ABOUT ONLY GOOD? NOT CONFLICTED CASES LIKE THE ONES WHICH HAVE BROUGHT YOU HERE ON CHARGES BEYOND CONSORTING WITH DEMONS. BUT AN ACTUAL TRUE CASE OF BENEVOLENCE WHERE YOUR CRIME HAS ONLY BENEFITTED OTHERS?

    MrEdwardNigma

    Although the creature does not seem impressed with your offer, it is nonetheless distracted as it responds, its thin and croaking voice growing loud with each word.

    You know nothing, lesser being. You flail and scream at the nothingness before you, but fail to comprehend its essence: nothing. Nothingness is all that awaits you, and you cannot escape your fate. Now, your soul shall be sent to meet its end, and be consumed by the onrushing End!

    The thing takes a step towards you, but suddenly has a much bigger problem on its mind as your detached arm leaps up onto its back and starts to burrow into the hump. This thing was unlike anything you had ever seen, which made it most fascinating to you, but nonetheless it shared similarities to other things in nature. As such, you were able to identify where the weakest points in the growth’s armored shell were, and your arm picked the weakest of those to burst through into the guts of the strange growth.

    The thing screeched and twisted, but even as the growth’s own limbs bend impossibly backward to snap at your arm, the thing was too slow as your arm completely passed through the shell. Now temporarily safe from reprisal, you begin to work your limb deeper into the growth, seeking the exact center of the thing. As your fingers work through the creature’s flesh, you have to repress an unnatural shiver of revulsion at the sensations being relayed by your arm. It was like pushing your hand through a barrel full of live worms, as countless tentacles floating in some sort of gooey solution flailed against your arm trying to push through them. Fortunately, your razor-tipped fingernails were most effective in cutting through the most recalcitrant of the tentacles, and you thought you were nearing the true center of the creature when suddenly everything went limb.

    All of the tentacles around your arm went limp, allowing you to reach the center a few seconds later only to find an empty void. An instant after that, the growth at the back of the creature’s shoulders burst open, allowing an ovoid shape to float up into the air as the main body collapsed lifelessly to the ground. Floating in mid-air by means of some sort of magic, one end of the ovoid was equipped with four long whip-like tentacles and a large set of heavy mandibles. The other end was a large eye, which blinked open a moment later. It would seem that your theory of some sort of parasite corrupting a human body was correct. The creature clacks his mandibles angrily together, and then speeds off faster than you can react, zooming down one of the tunnels back towards the main complex.

    Beneath you, Cassandra coughs weakly and mutters, “I don’t feel so good. That guy beat the hell out of me . . . and are you missing an arm!?”

    WhiteKnight777

    Mellita smiles nervously at your comment, absent-mindedly running one finger along the hilt of the now concealed weapon. “It was given to me by Hellion for this mission. Although silver does not have the adverse effects on my kind, others are not so fortunate. And of course, a holy blade is a dire threat to all of us. Therefore, it is an effective weapon against anyone that could prove to be a significant hindrance to your escape. Or at least, that is what I thought before encountering those hooded figures. What were they, Lord Umber? They reeked of death and utter . . . perversion. I have never sensed anything quite like them.”

    After responding to your compliment, Mellita advances the rest of the way in silence, especially as the thralls approach. Leery of another ambush, you allow them to pass by unmolested, although much to the protests of your dry throat: you were getting quite thirsty. With them past, you and Mellita continue down the passageway, and an all-too familiar voice begins to echo up from cavern ahead.

    “Come lads! Surely one amongst your pathetic number has the stones to face a true abomination! No? Then perhaps a simple choice will help: face it or me. Your choice; it has been too long since my warhammer has kissed the ashes of your kind. Ah, that’s a good toadie! Watch the tail now! Ouch!”

    The voice is undoubtedly that of Paladin Alexander Ross, and as you reach the exit of the tunnel you can see his armored back, along with the backs of perhaps a dozen other figures. They are all facing off against another familiar sight to you, a Bone Golem, although its been awhile since you’ve seen one. Braced on its four legs, the creature gives a little hop forward as one of the figures sweeps in towards it, chopping it in half with its powerful tail. There is no blood from the massive wound, and an instant later the figure is reduced to a pile of ashes, a clear indicator that the unlucky figure had been a vampire.

    “Ah well, he’ll be back come sundown. Now then, let’s see if the rest of your poor sods are any luckier! I’ll even come in and join you this time. All together now! Three, two, one!”

    A heartbeat after the countdown Ross gives a bestial roar as he unslings the warhammer from its usual resting place on his shoulder, racing forwards towards the Bone Golem as another six of the figures flanking him rush in towards the construct. Although currently distracted by the guardian, there were a lot of combatants in the room who would be only too happy to return you to your initial state at the beginning of the day should you be spotted. But then again, as soon as the Bone Golem finally fell, those in the room would have one less distraction to keep them from spotting you. And you certainly couldn’t remain here forever, leaving you stuck until all of the cavern’s current occupants decided to leave.

    Private Torture Chambers

    Dorizzit/rubakhin

    You quickly move to join the fray, killing three guards before they are even aware that another opponent has joined the battle. Unfortunately, your hand becomes stuck in the body of the third guard you killed. A strong body blow, your fire-arm burns through the man’s internal organs in seconds, but as you move to withdraw your hand you realize that your hand is momentarily stuck.

    It seems that you had plunged your hand in a bit too high, and now were caught up in the man’s rib cage. Unlike the flesh surrounding them, the bones were not instantly reduced to ash by your fire-arm. Instead, they merely blackened as the heat from your arm gradually charred them to nothing. Unfortunately, this wouldn’t be nearly fast enough, as the disarmed guard approaches, now menacingly wielding a dagger.

    Ducking under a pair of blows from behind, the lone figure crouches down to slide one foot behind him and to one side, placing his leg between those of the guard to his left, while he slips his handaxe behind the left leg of the guard to his right. Simultaneously he sweeps both his outstretched leg and handaxe forward, tripping both guards. As the two unprepared guards crash to the ground the man stands up, swinging his outstretched leg up to kick the chest of the guard directly in front of him. As this third guard also falls, the figure whips his handaxe back and then forward, releasing it perfectly to throw it through the melee swirling around him and into the back of the startled guard approaching you. The guard falls at your feet, dead and with a mystified expression as to how this was so.

    Now gripping his bastard sword in both hands, the figure swings wildly in front of him, driving the other guards back momentarily. The figure leaps through the now opened gap in the ranks of the guards, pausing momentarily to boot the fallen guard immediately in front of him in the jaw. The guards hot on his heels, the figure dashes over to you, swinging around to present his back to you.

    “Seraph.” The man says simply, dragging a dagger from his boot and using it to parry the leading guard’s attack, before responding with a snap kick to the guard’s face. As the guard stumbles back, cradling his bleeding nose, the other seven rush in to surround you both, joined by the sole survivor from your group of five. As they close in, another four guards appear on the landing of the stairway. “There he is!” One of them shouts, pointing, before all four rush down to join the fight. Although some are wounded by either you or Seraph, this still means that there are thirteen guards left standing.

    The Labs

    Iethloc

    You better hope there’s no adverse effects from all this. *I* have to live with whatever’s left by the time we get out of here. Which won’t be much if this keeps up! The assistant mentally chides you, although leaves you alone to finish off the half-demons. Which you manage to accomplish a few moments later with a ball of lightning. Streaking out from your hand into the face of the creature, the ball breaks open to play electricity all over the creature’s form, leaving it in drooling convulsions before it finally lies still.

    “Ha! You may have bested my sons, but my daughter shall destroy you! Now Omega, kill him!” The overweight researcher cackles as he yanks the glass tube’s door open, having finally undone the locks sealing it. A moment later a feminine figure steps out of the glass tube, although identifying it as human might be presumptuous.

    Certainly, a young woman had been used as the base for the creature before you, but a hodgepodge of demonic pieces had been grafted onto her frame. Most notable of these was the set of leathery bat wings folded neatly against her shoulder blades, and the ram-like horns emerging from her temples, looping back and around to end in dull points along either side of her chin. Of course, the blood-red reptilian eye sitting beside its piercing blue human companion was also quite noticeable, as were her taloned feet as they scrapped against the floor. The last noticeable exterior difference was the modified right hand: long slender fingers ending in claws with a retractable bone scythe built into the wrist. However, the faint incision scars covering her body along with odd protrusions and hollows underneath the skin suggest that significant modifications were made internally as well.

    Turning to face you, Omega raises her clawed right hand impassively, and flames instantly burst into existence directly in front of you. The heat drives you back a step, but you realize that retreating further might not help as the wall of fire begins to extend, moving to completely encircle you.

    “Yes, that’s it! Kill him!” The researcher shouts, moving over to crouch behind a nearby bench to watch the battle from (relative) safety.

    Ritual Chambers

    Pwenet

    Harvey is strangely silent despite your prodding, which is most unusual as he generally has at least a sarcastic comment to offer in situations as these. No doubt feeling that he must offer at least something, he simply commands you to eat.

    We must feed. Do so quickly, before she arrives. But take care only to consume the flesh that is still human. I sense the taint of a most unnatural and foul corruption from these bodies. The results of eating such tainted flesh would surely be unpleasant, along with probably tasting pretty bad. I wouldn’t recommend even eating the cooked human bits, but we can’t go into battle on an empty stomach in our current state.

    It is difficult to pick out the untainted human flesh due to the rubbery tentacles that you find throughout the things’ entire bodies, but eventually you manage to pick off enough charred human flesh to stave off your mounting hunger. Slowly, the pain burning in your ragged stump of a limb fades as your body works at regenerating an entire new arm. That arm wouldn’t be ready for quite awhile yet, and so with a little bit of resignation you turn to face the girl to reveal the full state of your condition to her.

    Again, the girl raises a hand to cover her horrified face, although her eyes are surprising full of sympathy and compassion as they focus on your missing arm. “Wh-what happened to you? What *are* you? A-are you sure it’s even s-safe to move around like that, with your arm . . . missing?” The girl gasps, continuing to stare at your gaping but slowly healing wounds.

    You quickly explain the situation to the girl, searching both bodies meanwhile for anything else that might be useful before you set out in pursuit of the slaves and their keepers once again. Most possessions, if the creatures had any to begin with, had been vaporized by your dragon breath or destroyed in some other manner during the battle. As such, you find nothing of use or even of note on the two bodies, save for one item on the leader. Hanging from the leader’s neck by a simple leather thong was a black iron medallion.

    Etched into the medallion was an extremely ornate depiction of a setting sun. Unlike normal depictions of a sun, however, the rays were drawn on the inside of the sun, leading downward into its center rather than out and away. The rays were also twisted and distorted, overall giving the depiction more of an impression of a swirling vortex than an actual sun. And of course, what the sun was setting behind couldn’t be ignored: an endless mountain of human skulls, painstakingly individually carved out in detail on the medallion’s face. The thing radiated a palpable aura of evil, and at the sight of it one small corner of your brain argued vehemently to simply curl up into a ball and pretend that none of this was real, that it was all a dream and you’d be waking up shortly in a nice warm bed. The depiction also had a noticeable effect on Harvey, who stirred in your mind first with interest in your find, and then with a mounting sense of disbelief and hatred that you couldn’t help be feel radiate off from him.

    No! It can’t be! That sigil is some sort of ruse, a trick! They probably found it in some old treasure chest somewhere and thought it looked cool to use as the symbol for their stupid cult! It can’t be them, thousands of years later! But even if it’s not really them, these creatures have chosen to associate themselves with that symbol! That accursed symbol, which flew on human banners millennia ago! That accursed symbol, which was the standard of the human army that came to my ancestral home when I was but a whelp! That accursed symbol, which flew above the ruins of my home after my family was slaughtered and I barely escaped! RRRRAAAARRGGGHHH! I don’t care where they got this from! They’re dead! They’re all dead! We shall exterminate every last one of this filth, and we shall not rest until they’ve all breathed their last! I will not brook any argument from you on this, human. I have dreamed of taking revenge against those of this symbol for dozens of your lifetimes. I was too weak then to defend my home, but now I am strong enough to avenge it! Let us find the other two that fled to start with!
    It is therefore with considerable urging from Harvey that you race down the tunnel after the two other figures and their slave chain of prisoners. The girl races after you, trying her best to keep up as you drag her along, otherwise she would be utterly lost in the total darkness without her torch (which you used to distract the Bone Golem). You do not have a particularly long distance to run, as a minute or two after setting out again you find the tunnel slopping sharply around to lead into another cavern. From within the cavern you can hear the quiet sobbing of the prisoners, with louder chanting that is still barely above a murmur.

    Peeking into the cavern, you can see that most of the prisoners are still in the slave chain, currently huddled against the one wall where the end of the chain has been padlocked to a heavy iron ring bolted into the wall. One prisoner, a young boy, has been removed from the slave chain and carried over to an obsidian black altar in the center of the cavern. One of the remaining black-robed figures has carried the boy over to the altar by the throat with one hand, and without particular concern for the boy’s wellbeing, body slams him down onto the altar.

    It is here that the second figure takes over, driving an iron spike down through each of the boy’s wrists and pinning his arms to the altar. Picking up another pair of the slender rods, the figure drives them through the boy’s ankles, effectively pinning him helplessly in place. The boy’s wild panicked screams of agony echo through the room, causing the prisoners to huddle even more tightly together: evidently none of them were close relatives to the boy otherwise his screams might have had a different reaction.

    Now chanting loudly over the boy’s screams, the second figure picks up another set of the iron spikes, preparing to drive their slender points into some other soft part of the boy’s body as blood begins to pool onto the altar’s surface from his already four serious limb wounds.
    Last edited by Inspectre; 2008-02-21 at 12:51 AM.
    I didn't actually intend to kill EVERYONE. It just sort of happened.

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  27. - Top - End - #177
    Orc in the Playground
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    Default Re: Escape from Ironheart (IC)

    "Kind of reminds me of that statue I acquired so long ago..." Sohssal reminisced as Omega revealed herself. Still, he couldn't help but shudder within at her visage. Pausing only to wipe the sweat from his forehead, Sohssal began weaving an old favorite ice spell. The temperature around him dropped slightly, though that would do little to stop the raging fires. However, the small snowstorm that ensued would do a lot more. Sohssal shielded his eyes as the snow whipped around him, but then used them to cast another spell as the snowstorm ended.

    A small pool of water gathered around Sohssal's feet, though he didn't bother to step out of it or shake the water from his feet. The sound of rushing water echoed from the distance, and, soon enough, a torrent of water poured in through the door behind Sohssal, flooding the little lab, though oddly only covering the area a handful of yards around Sohssal. This was more than enough to submerge both Omega and her overweight father, however. Sohssal gurgled just a bit and, focusing on the spell, moved the flooded area away from himself so he had room to breathe, but kept Omega underwater. Oh, you humans need to breathe, don't you? Sometimes I forget. he relayed to his forced partner. Turning back to the scientist, he glared. "Now might be a good time to taunt you, but I don't think you can hear me with that water in the way. I hope your creations don't operate underwater very well," he said.

    Bah, I hope this thing can't walk very fast underwater, or at least can't hold its breath well. Can't focus enough to move the water when someone's actively trying to kill me! he complained to himself.
    Last edited by Iethloc; 2008-02-21 at 01:43 AM.

  28. - Top - End - #178
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    MrEdwardNigma's Avatar

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    Default Re: Escape from Ironheart (IC)

    "He was no guy, Cassandra" Victor said, as he sped over to the corpse and gave it an examination as quick as he could. He pulled his loose arm out of the goo and had it tear the bit of rope he had left into thin thread as he himself gave the corpse further examination.

    Victor tried to find a piece of bone amongst the rubbish which he could use as a needle. With it, and the thread, he would sew his arm back on. As this was done, he would find some pressure points on the fresh corpse before him and bring it back to life. He needed something to fight for him, so he didn't need to work this hard at every encounter. Besides, this had only been one creature, what if there had been several?

    The parasite still interested him, but Victor decided it would be wiser now to pursue his other goal. He headed in whichever direction his dream had told him to go. He was going to find that vampire.
    Avatar by the illustrious Dr. Bath.


    The essence of a riddle is that it states facts by means of a combination of impossibilities~Aristoteles

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  29. - Top - End - #179
    Bugbear in the Playground
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    Default Re: Escape from Ironheart (IC)

    "Korram."

    Korram parries a slash on his arm while simultaneously dodging another from a different guard. He gut punches a third, this time inflicting a killing blow without getting his hand stuck. This done, he whips his left arm across, smacking a guard back in a vicious backhand. He then wards off some of the guards by swinging his flaming arm at them. With this space he manages to focus enough to send out a heatwave at the remaining arms, a rippling tide of fire that ignites hair and scorches eyes. He then leaps at the disordered survivors, tearing through them like a very hot knife through butter.
    Truly awesome Ark Tamaeus avatar by Bryn. Full size version here.

  30. - Top - End - #180
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    WhiteKnight777's Avatar

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    Default Re: Escape from Ironheart (IC)

    Umber

    Umber's heart, if it were still living, would have skipped a beat when he heard that bastard's voice. Oh, but that arrogant little whelp was annoying. Another arrogant cretin in the service of the so-called Powers. Feh. He was just another lackey, a peon with notions far beyond his wit, merit, or understanding... but he channeled power. Much power. Dangerous power. Particularly in Umber's weakened state... he sighed... but then again, there seemed to be no other way out, other than to try to slip through the chamber as quietly as possible. While these cretins were engaged in battle, he would take a moment to try to determine the safest, quickest route through the chamber, then take the chance, trusting speed, stealth, and distraction to protect them. Even as he thought, he whispered his plan to Milletia, so she would know what to do.

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