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darken |
Chapter Four, Thieves of Dreams |
Lead | |
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The search in the tower did not turn up anything significant, not to mention, you feel like you already lost half of your adventuring party. Corian and Ythan, clueless, stare in the empty space where their companions literately vanished into thin air. Era'when and Taes suffer an even worse fate, as they suddenly end up in an unfamiliar location, and are preyed upon by monsters of an unknown origin. Recalling the corpse you saw as you enter this place, it sends chills down your spines.
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darken |
Re: Chapter Four, Thieves of Dreams | ||
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(Corian and Ythan)
Frustrated, knowing it is futile, Corian shouts "Narthos, NO!" and points the creature at the alcolve the rock came from. Meanwhile, he steps over to the other stone and, trying not to touch it any more than necessary, gently kicks it over into the alcove from which it came. "Perhaps if we return the stones to their chambers, our companions will return to us." Before he can finish talking, Narthos shakes to him, and throws the rock into a room... the same room where Corian threw his rock into. You suddenly see your surrounding warps, and some sort of shockwave emits from the room, knocking you down, and your views quickly fades into darkness. For a moment, you think you are blinded by something or going to faint, but soon you see the surronding again. although a very different one, you see at least two familar faces: Era'when and Taes, cornered by two dark hovering beasts, trying to get away. Corian immediately identifies them as Undead creatures. |
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darken |
Re: Chapter Four, Thieves of Dreams | ||
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"By the Blessed Light of Pelor, BEGONE!" Corian steps north and shouts, as the lights within the room gleam off of the sun-inscribed shield at Corian's side, raised on high to the creatures before him. The creatures before him seem to be unaffected by this display of power, however the two by the wall, originally the ones chasing Era'when and Taes, vanishes without a trace. Narthos takes out his javelin and hauls at the creature, but it drops to the ground before reaching its target.
Heartened by his companions suddenly arriving. He gives them a wry grin and says "It's about time you guys showed up!" As he makes his way next to Narthos and begins moving his right hand in a very precise manner and chanting in Draconic. After a moment, he holds his right hand in front of his eye, with two fingers held down by his thumb and the other two outstretched, then extends his arm, palm open towards one of the beasts, unleashing a beam of blue fire. However, the blaze missed the creature completely, and sizzles on the far wall before dying down. Taes quickly scampers past Ythan towards the rest of the party, picking up Winters Bite as he goes, and gets ready to join the battle. Ythan backs up a bit while loosing his nocked arrow at one of the creatures, and strikes home... but somehow the arrow flies right through the creature's body, and does no harm. The creature screams, but not as shocking as before, as he moves towards Corian and swings at him with a tentacle like limb. Neither his armor nor his shield blocks this attack, as the tentacle swings right through his defenses and his body. Corian cries out in pain as it seems to tear not only his flesh, but his mind as well. Fortunately, his will power is strong enough to withstand this assult. |
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darken |
Re: Chapter Four, Thieves of Dreams | ||
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"Nay, creature...ye shall not prevail!" Corian drops his mace upon seeing the ineffectiveness of others' arms, draws a wand from out of his belt and, stabbing with it as if a dagger, strikes at the creature. The attack connects, but hits nothing but empty space, and the charge dissipates without any effect to the creature.
Narthos stumbles back, incants, and draws a circle of some sorts with his finger in the air, and thrusts through it, as a blue missile appear, circles pass Corian and Taes, and hits the creature. Era'when frowns at the lack of effect of his spell and decides to use his longsword instead. He pulls out the elven sword as he steps up to the fight and attempts to flank his target. His nimble movement proves to be too fast for the monster to catch, but neither did Era'when's rapier able to catch the monster's body as it swings the wrong way due to the hasty movements. Stepping next to Corian Taes strikes at the creature with Winter's Bite, but the samething happens here: the edge swings right through the seemly non-existing body of the creature. Ythan yells, "Normal weapons go right through it!" He then puts his bow away and draws his rapier whill moving into melee position. The creature swings again at Corian, causes him to gasps in pain, then slowly lowers himself into the floor. Catching the creature's thoughtless act, Era'when, Taes, Ythan all strikes at the creature, but only Ythan's rapier seems to have some effect, as you hear a low moan before all three weapon hits the ground. |
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darken |
Re: Chapter Four, Thieves of Dreams | ||
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Seeing the wand fail to affect the creature as well, Corian decides to simply hold the creature off. Lowering his shield, he watches the floor alertly, dodging aside from it while hoping to garner the creature's attention once again.
Era'when will also join in the search, only after gaping at Narthos. He makes an odd smile at the creature as though acknowledging that he (or it, Era'when is a bit undecided at this point) apparently has some talent or ability. Slipping his kama into his sash Taes keeps his guard up and tries to discern the location of the creature or creatures. "I do not know when our little friend learned to caste, but I bet it was before he meat us. I just wish we could talk to him, you never know what other useful skills he might poses." Keeping the point of his rapier at the floor, Ythan says, "I guess it could come back up anywhere. Everyone be wary while we try to figure a way out of this room." Ythan moves off to look at the curtain on the east side of the room, while off-handedly guesturing toward Narthos. "And when did _he_ pick up the skill of hurling bolts of magic? Might have been a useful thing to know." The search turns up nothing, but what you are searching soon reveals itself, right below Corian. One of the ghastly limb strikes at Corian from below, and reaches straight for his heart. Corian feels extreme coldness, coldness that he has not experienced ever since he lands foot upon this desert, that seems to freeze his heart... but Corian's will is strong enough to shake away that thought and focus on the threat at hand. |
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darken |
Re: Chapter Four, Thieves of Dreams | ||
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"Here!" shouts Corian, skittering aside from the hand reaching up through the floor. "The creature arises again!" Turning his attention downward, his face a flury of concentraition and rage, Corian intones, "The Sun Scepter strike thee down, beast of darkness." A heavy mace, radiant with holy light, comes into being above the creature's arm, striking downward at it and scores a direct hit. The creature moans and sinks a bit. Narthos draws forth a club, yells and runs into melee.
Era'when snorts with discust at his inability to do anything. All of his spells today are of a defensive nature. Seeing that the creature appears more intent on striking the cleric and that it's touch is not hampered by the physical realm, he steps up near Corian and begins casting defensively. However the creature's horrid screaming from just a minute ago distracts Era'when's mind, and the spell fizzles before it's completed. Finally seeing his enemy Taes grabs a potion from his belt, quaffs it, and the creature takes this opportunity to attack Taes, but Taes proves himself too fast for it to catch. He then tumbles opposite the creature from Ythan, and Ythan quickly moves into flanking position and strikes at the creature with his rapier, but unfortunately hits nothing but air. The creature takes turns and swings another limb at Corian, again it finds its way through the useless armor protection, but cannot exert full force due to the damage it sustained from the magical mace. It again submerges into the ground. Taking advantage of its opening, everyone strikes, but only Ythan's rapier lands a solid hit. |
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darken |
Re: Chapter Four, Thieves of Dreams | ||
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"Feel the wrath of Pelor, beast!" Leaving the gleaming mace to hover above the ground, awaiting the creature's return, Corian steps over to his abandoned mace, scoops it up, and incants again. A similar glow enwraps his own mace for a moment, and now, alert, he turns and watches for the creature's return. Seems to be annoyed by the creature's movement, Narthos does nothing.
Era'when exhales deeply, clearly annoyed by the situation. He shuts his eyes momentarily, then attempts the spell again. This time, the creature is nowhere to be seen, and it does not distract Era'when's mind as when it was present, and the spell is completed successfully as a blue hue slowly appears, then fades away from Corian's armor. Taes stands ready to attack the creature should it show itself again. Likewise, Ythan stay near Corian, eyes on the ground, ready to strike at the creature should it appear again. The wait is soon over, as the creature again emerges from below Corian, and Taes and Ythan launches their assult, but despite the magical potion, Taes' attack still produces no result. Ythan's rapier again lands a solid hit, however. The creature emits an odd sound as though it's weeping, the intense sadness makes you all shudder. It attacks Corian once again, but this time as its limb reaches through Corian's armor, it's blocked by something else, and Corian feels nothing. |
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darken |
Re: Chapter Four, Thieves of Dreams | ||
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"And now, my wrath is complete...Pelor smite thee, creature!" With a shout, Corian steps to one side and strikes down at the extended limb. As he does so, the gleaming scepter-like mace strikes alongside it, both driving to strike the creature full-on. Both mace strikes the creature head-on, and a few limbs of the creature falls off and fades away.
Narthos and Era'when distracts the beast as though being seriously hurt from Corian's arms and spells are not distracting enough, the beast can no longer defend itself well, and both Taes and Ythan's attack strikes home, and the creature lets out a long cry before finally fades away into air. As it disappears, the color of large glowing orb in the middle of the room fades away as well, soon it turns into a gray orb that slowly turns into dust and falls on the ground. (OOC: Combat ends, you may contiune posting in the IC thread.) |
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Bahamut44 |
Re: Chapter Four, Thieves of Dreams | ||
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Era'when slumps to the ground after the harrowing experience. Evidently he is unused to such battles. He then stands up and goes to inspect the place where the orb once was. "Curses, I've already used up my ability to sense magic for the day...I would have liked to have known what type was powering that thing!"
He walks over and inspects the dust on the ground, as well as the rest of the room. |
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darken |
Re: Chapter Four, Thieves of Dreams | ||
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Now that there are no hostile creatures, you can have the luxury of time and see the room with more detail. This chamber, much larger than previous ones you have encountered, bathes in a cacophony of multi-hued light. Roughly seventy feet in diameter and at least fourty feet in height this chamber houses eight huge stone tablets, each easily thirty feet in height. Seemingly set into the rock of the floor these stone benemoths surround the dust that was the wildly flashing and swirling sphere. The stone tablets has veins of different colour - white, black, green, blue, red, grey, and so on - rock running through it and appear to be limestone in origin. Thirty feet high they are five feet square and extremely smooth to the touch.
A grey curtain covers a portion of the room to the east and goes all the way from the ceiling to the floor, but as your approach it you are blocked by an invisible wall of some sort, and there's no way to reach the curtain unless the wall is somehow removed. On the ground at the bottom the curtain, you can see one edge of some sort of scroll case with a withered scroll inside |
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Bahamut44 |
Re: Chapter Four, Thieves of Dreams | ||
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Era'when begins examining the stone tablets for writing or markings of any sort other than the multihued veins. If there is any text, he will try to make it out [Decipher Script +8].
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darken |
Re: Chapter Four, Thieves of Dreams | ||
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Era'when attempts to decipher the writing on the stone tablets, but fails to make any sense out of them. Even in an closed environment such as this room, the ravage of time has rendered the writing undiscernable. Even if the writing is brand new, the writing seems to be of a particular style of arcane runes that predates even the most ancient arcane text taught in acadmies or elven societies.
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Bahamut44 |
Re: Chapter Four, Thieves of Dreams | ||
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Era'when looks back at the others after looking at the tablets for a few moments. He then turns back to them, shrugs, and pulls off his gloves and retrieves some powder from his belt pouches. He mutters an arcane phrase while rubbing the powder over his hands, then sets back to trying to read the tablets, this time running his index finger over the runes as he does so... [OOC: Comprehend languages, then attempt to read the tablets.]
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Andorax |
Re: Chapter Four, Thieves of Dreams | ||
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As the gleaming scepter slowly vanishes, Corian whispers a prayer of thanks to Pelor for his aid. Then, louder, he says "My thanks to you all, particularly you, Ythan. Were it not for your swift blade, the creature would likely have been the death of me. It was certainly...insistant."
With that, Corian quietly watches Era'when work, as he calls upon Pelor's healing touch to restore him to wholeness. After Era'when has finished his attempt at deciphering the runes with his spell, he'll inquire, "I've still the means to ascern magical auras, though only once for this remaining day. I fear it will be hard to say when that shall be most needed." |
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olivar |
Re: Chapter Four, Thieves of Dreams | ||
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Ythan shrugs, "It was nothing. I did what I could, and fortunately this time, it was enough." Turning half away, he turns back and adds, "But you are welcome."
Ythan will go looking for where his arrow ended up. While searching, he comments, "Any ideas where that door may go?" |
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darken |
Re: Chapter Four, Thieves of Dreams | ||
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Even with magical aid, and writing on the tablet is almost undiscerable... it's just not clear enough. Searching all the tablets, you are able to locate only two piece of writing that is understandable. One is but a single word, "Unaagh" on a tablet to the northeast, the other a short phrase, "... bridge into darkness ..." located at one of the northwestern tablet.
Ythan locates his arrow, but unfourtunately it's broken when it strikes the wall. |
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Andorax |
Re: Chapter Four, Thieves of Dreams | ||
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Corian taps Taes gently upon the shoulder with his wand, softly speaking the command, and thence "May this ease your pain."
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SuperJoshP |
Re: Chapter Four, Thieves of Dreams | ||
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"Ahhh. By Al'Akbar that feels good. Many thanks Corian." Taes says as the cleric heals him. Slowly approaching the area the sphere was containing Taes glances around. "So, any idea what these creatures were protecting?"
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olivar |
Re: Chapter Four, Thieves of Dreams | ||
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Cursing to himself, Ythan kneels down to retrieve the broken pieces of his arrow. After examining the point, he says to the others, "Well, arrows don't go through the invisible wall, either."
Returning to the others, he comments, "Well, they may have been guarding whatever it is behind that curtain, if what we are seeing is real." Going toward the door, he queries, "Corian, if you managed to scare those two away, how long will that last? Would they not find their courage again sometime?" Upon reaching the door, he will look it over for latches and knobs and such, and see if he can see through any space between them. |
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Andorax |
Re: Chapter Four, Thieves of Dreams | ||
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"In truth," comments Corian, "I do not believe there even were any other ones...they were a simple trick, an illusion crafted by the one genuine creature."
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olivar |
Re: Chapter Four, Thieves of Dreams | ||
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Ythan shrugs. "I guess so. But, imagine just for a second, if they were real, and you did scare them away, how long would it take for them to get their courage up to come back?"
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