Olden Times [One-person Chrono-adventure for Em Blackleaf]

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

The air in the room feels like it's... fading. These past few minutes something's been off, it's strange. You look down at Sheska, a concerned look comes across her face like she knows something's wrong. You blink and it's as if you fall instantly into a dream. This dream suddenly feels so real... It has to be real. You lay on your back, still and silent as the world realizes itself and it's clear you're not where you were before.
You are in a tomb... the cold blackness surrounds you. Corpses in noble garb lay about on stone tablets, the only lights in the corridors are sparse blue flames on torches that give no heat. The light is purely magical and dim. The dead nerves in your nasal cavities pick up the fragrant aroma of fresh air. This tomb's been opened.

[Em Blackleaf]

Leila slowly lifts herself out of the tomb. She remains silent and carefully listens to her surroundings.

Listen: [roll0]

[The Demented One]

"Um, hello? Is anyone there? I could use some assistance, please." The quavering voice can barely be heard, muffled behind...something. "I've been here for quite a long time, you know. Positively immured in this...thing. Could someone please help?" There's something almost annoying educated to the voice, every word perfectly pronounced and enunciated. After a moment's pause, it speaks again, much more quietly. "All right, that's try number two hundred and twelve. Bother."

[Em Blackleaf]

"Hello. Yes, I can help you." Leila glides through the labyrinthine crypt, searching in the direction of the muffled voice.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

It doesn't take long before the deathless cleric steps over bones, dust and loose stone and finds what might have been an old coffin stood up against a wall. Thick chains covered in strange runes wrap the coffin and the voice and knocking is clearly coming from within it.

[The Demented One]

"Oh? What?" calls an entirely surprised voice, reedily echoing out of the chained coffin. "There's someone there? Why, that's fantastic! Remarkably improbable, but fantastic! All right, if you could just help me out of this infernal contraption. Normally I'd be out in an instant, you know, but it's been lined with some damnable anti-magic glyphs. I can't manage a spark of light in here, let alone a trans-astral perambulation. So if you could just unlock these chains and pull off the lid, I would be deeply obliged."

[Em Blackleaf]

"Of course. Leila follows the sound of the knocking and the voice. She takes long strides toward the coffin and tears away at the thick chains that cover it with her mace. "Do not fear, you will be out shortly." She lifts the lid up carefully and sets it aside.

Damage: [roll0]

[The Demented One]

There is a mild meep of fright as Leila hammers down on the sarcophagal prison with her mace, but the captive's fear is for naught. As the lich pries away the heavy lid of the coffin, she sees its inhabitant–an animate corpse, thin and desiccate, dressed in a long white robe that bustles with pockets, each one filled with baroque implements of brass and silver or strange packets and pillboxes. The prisoner's eyes are covered by a pair of brazen goggles, lenses backed with a opalescent foil of crystalline diamond that mirrors the she-lich's face. "Pleased to meet you! My name is Professor Shalashaska Ulyanov, Doctor of Divination, Master of the Unseen World, Certified Savant of Sorcerous Sortilege and Scientist of Things Better Left Unscienced! I'm ever so grateful to you for letting me out, you're an absolute dear–"

The lanky undead clambers out of the coffin, flexing his nigh-skeletal limbs as he does. There is an audible crack as he stretches each joint, shaking out the dust of a long imprisonment. "Another few centuries, and I think I might've gone mad!" he says, the awful rictus of his flesh-bare jaw suggesting an attempt at a joke. A horribly, horribly failed attempt. He reaches out a pallid, clammy hand to shake Leila's, looking her up and down with goggled eyes–and then all of a sudden, he bursts out with excitement. "Well, I'll be! You have a residual motonic signature deviating from the mean arcane residuum by an order of magnitude! Your temporal proximum must be anterior to the cosmogonic median by at least a hypercubic penteractal!" Whatever he said probably means something. Probably.

[Em Blackleaf]

After a long silence of Leila trying to figure out the last few words that came out of the scientist's mouth, she finally says. Well, yes. It's very nice to meet you as well. I am Leila, a Holy Deathless One of Aeomon. Do you happen to know anything about where we are, Professor?

[The Demented One]

Professor Ulyanov seems to gloss over Leila's bafflement, not even noticing if she didn't understand. "Why of course, your quintaspatial transmodulation through time itself must have left you quite disoriented! We are in the bordermarches Imperial Cernin, not far from the Town of Red Glass. Not an hour from here lies ashen Mertion, a wasteland horrific to behold! And to the south lies the gentle sea. This particular crypt is a peculiar prison of sorts, my unhappy home ever since the Cernin Guard unlawfully accosted me and Sasha and had us clapped in irons, as it were. Those staunch arch-cronies of d'Skurr will get what's coming to them, I tell you!" A note not so much of anger as indignation crosses into the professor's rattle of a voice, and he raises his well-worn fist up into the air with a disgruntled shake, seemingly not noticing it. "My comrades should also be locked up somewhere within this prison, doubtlessly restrained from aiding me by fiendish device and dungeonry. It would be a second debt of unending repayment upon me if you would aid me in finding my lost allies, wherever they might be within this godless charnel prison."

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

The sounds of a few creaks and snaps is heard down the hall, three corpses just within sight seem to sit up and turn their rotting heads toward the couple at the end of the hall. A tall man almost entirely skeletal stands up and saunters over, a thick grey mustache graces his upper jaw and he searches around until he finds his brown top hat. Finding it and putting it on. He's soon followed by a shorter, stouter man with some flesh still wrapped tightly over his bones and a single eye still taking place in one of his sockets. The third looks to be a woman, possibly only eighteen years of age when she died and dressed almost like a paper boy.
"Di'n know you were in there, Professor. We'd have done summet if we heard yeh."
"I heard him. Just thought he was joking."

[The Demented One]

The professor sinks his face deeply into his palm, muttering beneath his breath about "incompetent zombies" and "sniveling skeletal lumpenproletariat." But he swiftly recovers all composure, stroking his winter-white beard with one hand as he produces a long, ebon cane from his jacket with the other. "Well, that is one mystery solved. Madame Leila, may I introduce you to Grigori, Raikov, and Ekaterina? Grigori, Raikov, and Ekaterina, this Leila, a Holy Deathless One. So try, please try, to mind your manners around the lady."

[Em Blackleaf]

Leila understands what the Professor has said this time. "I... I've traveled through time? Then I should more accurately ask you when we are." Her normally collected voice with only the slightest hint of distress. She gazes around and calmly takes stock of her environment. "I will be happy to aid you in your quest for your lost comrades however I can."
As the corpses enter the room, Leila prepares to offer them resurrection, as politely as she can. "You three can't be fully content with your current form. Is it not terribly uncomfortable? Would you like to be resurrected?

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

The three all kind of glance at each other silently. They look for the words and can only belch up sound fragments and shrug. The two gentlemen look down at the young lady in the flatcap who shrugs in turn. The three then all look at the Professor at once and the tallest one, the skeletal man in a brown top hat speaks. "Uh... Boss?"

[The Demented One]

"Madame, I bid you welcome, to the world...of the future!" the Professor says ominously, and more than a little pompously. "It is the Seventh Year of the Treasure Trove, in the Century of the Ivory Manse. Some forty years ago, the Dark Lord d'Skurr took to the throne of Cernin, ushering in a reign of woe and class oppression. Dark times, my dear, dark times." Ulyanov could be lecturing to a room full of students and his voice would not be one whit different.

As Leila offers resurrection to his cohorts, Ulyanov steps forward, smiling gently. "Thank you, madame, but I fear my comrades and myself would little appreciate your lightbringer sacraments. Undeath is not without its benefits, especially when one must wage–" A dramatic adjustment of the goggles, a bare phalange of a fingtertip pointed skyward "–eternal revolution against the forces of darkness! We have all sworn ourselves to ceasless war against d'Skurr's reign of unspeakable injustice, and not until our goal is won may we permit ourselves reprieve from this graveless immortality!"

[Em Blackleaf]

Oh. Future? Right. Future. Leila seems confused and taken aback, but believes and accepts the Professor's dramatic speech. Very well. I see you all have good intentions. I will help you regardless of your undeath. She seems to have reluctantly come to this, but she realizes there is no one else to help her, so she states it confidently and calmly.

[The Demented One]

The Professor cants his head at a curious angle, staring intently at Leila. "Madame, pardon my asking but...are you aware that you are undead yourself? Or at least, sufficiently deathless to be essentially undead? We of the Dead People's Liberation League believe that it matters not whether it is positive or negative energy that stirs within your soul, but whether or not your life or lack thereof is a force for good or evil within the world." There is perhaps a slight, slight hint of condescension in his words. But only slightly.

"But with that smoothed over, let us to work! Now that I am freed of my unhappy imprisonment, I can have all of us transported to our mountain lair in a mere instant, where we can set about to planning the next phase of our inevitably victorious revolution! Raikov, Grigori, Ekaterina, to me! Madame Leila, if you would do me the honor of taking my hand?"

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

The Professor's three companions all give eachother additional weird looks until Ekaterina holds her hands out and the three grasp the palms of one another. She speaks up again, "I guess, f'I have to." She looks at the Holy Deathless One and speaks up, trying hard to sound like a young man, "She comin' too?"

[Em Blackleaf]

"Well..." After a moment's deliberation, very nearly arguing the Professor's point- the Deathless One reluctantly lays a dry hand on the Professor's and the girl's. "I suppose I will come with you, Professor." She braces herself for what's to come and grips the two hands tighter. Her feet dig into the dusty crypt floor and her ancient muscles flex in preparation for the transportation.

[The Demented One]

With all his comrades, new and old, circled around him, Professor Ulyanov intones a string of low dull syllables, arcane formulae that quantify and categorize the countless infinitesimal spatial directions of the Astral Plane. Finally, he speaks the Five-Direction Compass Word, that unutterable utterance that throws all the world in disarray–and all the world is thrown in disarray, the tomb around the party seeming to stretch and fray, until finally it is torn apart at the very seams of its being, leaving the five adrift in a silvery void. But in the instant, the world reweaves itself around the cosmic travelers, threads of black and grey and white and all the sundry colors seeming to suppurate from the very void itself, coiling about to create an intricate tapestry of being. When the display is through, the five once more stand within the world–but in quite a different vista.

"Madame, we are arrived at Mount Mordhaus!" exclaims the Professor, standing atop the very peak of the mountain. Looking downward from the shimmer slopes of rain-smoothed slate, you see a fecund greenness adorning the base of the mountain, a valley enforested and enbrambled as thick as a vampire's fangs. Raikov and Grigroi set off down a path, tracing through a half-dozen switchbacks to reach their goal–a recess in the side of the mountain, where a great boulder stands completely inconspicuously, definitely not hiding a secret entrance. No, certainly not. As they push aside the boulder, they call the up to you, bidding you descend. Professor Ulyanov sets off merrily, bracing his steps with his ornate cane. "Welcome to my underground lair."

[Em Blackleaf]

A bit disoriented by the sudden unweaving and reweaving of reality, Leila takes a moment to reestablish her composure, though a moment is all she needs. Hearing the calls from below her, she turns and slips down toward the cave entrance in a very controlled and careful manner. "I will be there in mere moments." She reaches the opening and her four new companions and follows them inside.

[The Demented One]

"Behold!" cries the Professor, walking Leila through the tunnels of the lair. It's not just once, either. Pretty much every hundred yards, "Behold! The mountain lair seems nothing more than a twisting gyre of tunnels, with rooms branching off here and there, holding motley assortments of sundry different things–an alchemical laboratory, a library of arcane tomes, a warehouse brimming with century-old wine bottles, a barracks full of zombies playing cards.

"And here it is!" the Professor hooms, coming to the terminus of the hour-long spiral of tunnels. A grand hall seems to be carved from the mountain's very heart, filled with desks heaped high with scrolls, with feminine ghouls flitting from table to table, copying down messages or unfurling texts. "The heart of the revolution, the central command. From here, we wage our longstanding foe. Behold!" The professor waves his cane at a mirror set on one of the desks, casting a dweomer of potent scrying upon it.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

Wisps of pale smoke begin to reflect in the mirror, though they don't appear throughout the air of the room. Soon the white smoke consumes the entirety of the polished silver surface and to the dismay of the Professor, nothing appears through the fog but the silver symbol of Cernin: Two arches that meet at the side. The same symbol every scrying attempt has met with so far... Vlaadios D'Skuur has not let his guard down it seems.

[The Demented One]

"Err, reception's a bit off." mutters the Professor, by way of excuse.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

One of the balmy's that works the higher towers of the fortress appears on one of the higher levels of this library, appearing through a doorway and shouting down over the railing. "Professor, sir! There's two horses coming! O'course there's also men ridin' them! Looks to be a Deathknight an' his boy, sir!" Some of the ghoulish women look around at eachother, one of them even dropping her stack of books and then all of them looking at the Professor.

[The Demented One]

"d'Skurr's deadmen. Naturally." the Professor grumbles "Everycorpse, barricade yourselves in the hidden tunnels. We've weathered worse than this, we have. Madame Leila, if you'll follow me, I can show you a safe place against whatever hired carrion the Lord Unspeakable sends against us."

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

A deep bellowing voice comes from the front gates as the mounted knight calls out, "May whatever fool of a lord that rules this fortress come out! By order of the Cernin Guard, you will give yourself up to me without struggle! I promise if you DO struggle, you will not come out of it intact and your head will be presented to a court of elders to stand trial!"

"Reckon he means business, Professor. And it's lookin' like his boy's got a heavy lookin' bookbag. Bettin' he's got a few cobwebs prepared for us." Call out one of the guards on high.

[Em Blackleaf]

"Surely, one cannot just hide from attacks like this? You can go hide, everyone of you. I will go and exterminate this foul creature." Leila rushes out to the front gate as she pulls her Greatmace out of the harness on her back. She says to the intimidating knight fearlessly, "It would be wise for you to leave." Her voice is blunt and calm, with a very slight demanding edge.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

The two undead horses walk backwards to accommodate the opening gates, the creaking of wood and iron ringing out. The deathknight and his companion aren't sure what to expect, but the warrior cannot help but grin when he sees the single foe standing before him. "Are you all we have to face? A single well-armored..." The look on his face takes a shift from amused, to thoughtful and suddenly one that expresses horror and disgust. "...Was that old man... harboring a reapist?" When he says that, his companion seems to flinch and look at him.

[The Demented One]

"Trust me, my lady. It is entirely possible to just hide. Dramatically easier than fighting." Nevertheless, the wizard remains beside her...well, behind her, at least. A certain sense of chivalry prevails in him. As the deathknights approach, Professor Ulyanov answers. "Harboring? Me, harboring? Nooo. Maybe, at the most, just anchoring, mooring, docking. Definitely not harboring. And think of you, calling this beautiful young deadlady a reapist. She's just...tired, and emotional, is all. No worries here, gentlemen. In fact, could I get either of you a drink?"

[Em Blackleaf]

Leila explains to both the professor and the deathknight with a very pleasant tone, "Nonsense, exhaustion is impossible for me and my emotions are highly controlled at all times." Now she addresses only the deathknight. "Now, I will tell you once more. In the best interest of your survival, you should turn away now." Leila is becoming more impatient, her voice is dead cold. Her grip on the greatmace tightens, along with her expression. She stares at the deathknight with a piercing glare, awaiting his next move.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

The knight seems to flinch ever so slightly when the Professor speaks up, as if he hasn't noticed him before then. "Ulyanov, you pretentious old fool! Wordplay will not save you or this... filth of Aeomon." He reaches for his belt and draws a thick, black, double-edged sword. He then looks at her and narrows his eyes beneath his helmet. "Surely this will gain me favor in the eyes of Emperor D'Skuur! Hold your weapon up as it were your shield! You will die, reaper!" He exclaims, almost entirely ignoring the Holy Deathless One out of sheer ire.

Initiative
Deathknight: 21
Leila: 17
Professor: 10
Book-boy: 4
The black-clad warrior then rears it's mount back, still holding his sword high and barely gripping the reigns with his shielded arm. He bellows in a way someone without working lungs reasonably should, but it's clear there's some means of magical influence in his voice. "In Cernin's name I smite thee, reaper!!"
The black blade swings through the air and a trail of black smoke and fire follows the blade as he charges. It pierces the armor of the holy deathless one like the fang of a tremendous devil. Acrid black smoke erupts from the wound and lingers there even when the blade does not. ((28 slashing, 20 fire, 10 vile damage))

[Em Blackleaf]

"I am not the filth of which you speak. One mustn't talk of oneself too much." Leila's respectful request to turn away is simply a memory at this point. The tone of her voice distinctly indicates that it is no longer an option. "If you won't take my advice and leave, I'll just have to take care of you myself."

A second of concentration, the skin on Leila's palm cracks and splits, and divine white light emits from it. She charges toward the menacing knight and strikes him with her glowing hand. The healing energy courses through his body as it takes a reversed effect on him than it would to a truly living being.

Heal
Touch Attack: [roll0]
Damage: 150

[The Demented One]

The professor stands back from the violence, delicately edging away from the clashing deathknight and deathless one. But academic as he is, he is Professor Shalashaska Ulyanov, and he is not going to leave a beautiful young deadlady, as it were, unassisted. "You there, young 'un with the bookbag." he calls out to the warrior's companion, one skeletal finger upraised. "Run along now, you won't be meddling here." A ray of ice-cold abjuration flies from his fingertip, a shimmering unlight that ripples and distorts the air in its course. "Antimagic, m'boy. Old Professor Ulyanov swears by it."


OOC

Move action to go 30 ft. back.

Standard action to cast Antimagic Ray, ranged touch attack. If it hits, the mage can't cast anything for the next 21 rounds. His magic items aren't affected, and he can still cast from scrolls and wands.

Ray Attack
[roll0]

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

The holy, white fire that courses through the Deathless One's hand surges into the Deathknight like a lightning bolt. His pale skin cracks, every inch separating from from the other and a blast of white light comes from within. It sputters, and dark blood erupts from his nose and mouth. "Oh... gods..." The vampire in armor looks angry and disgusted at his failure. "I know when I'm beat... Gavan! Come!" The spellcaster looks up astonished, from a combination of being thwarted so easily and his master actually giving up on a fight.

The dead horse rears back at it's master's call and the Deathknight turns himself around and begins his retreat. The spellcaster remains for just a moment longer and looked Leila in the eye-socket. "We will return! And in greater numbers, I assure you!"

"GAVAN, COME!" And the two were off as quickly as they came.

Wow, that was fast. That dude literally had 150 hp total.

4631 XP

[Em Blackleaf]

Leila gazed blankly at the spellcaster. In a matter of fact tone she declared, "We will be ready, then." She takes a moment to examine her wound, a wound that would have killed any living being. Hardly moving her head, she quickly looks around to examine the rest of the group. "Well, then. No one appears to need healing but myself? Alright, good."

Yet another surge of the divine light that brought the deathknight to near-death pours out of Leila's palm. She brings the energy to the wound on her shoulder and chest. It seamlessly mends the torn flesh and makes her feel one hundred percent stronger and more able.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

The Professor leads you once again inside where there's a feeling of tension still in the air. Balmies continue to rush around, picking up weapons and shields and a few going into panics. The mustachioed skeleton from the tomb before rushes up to Ulyanov wearing a breastplate, obviously equipped in a rush. "Professor! We need to defend Mordhaus! There's tell the Deathknight said he'd bring reinforcements!" He looks from side to side. "And Cernin gets awfully sore when someone does something it doesn't like."

[The Demented One]

"To the conjuratorium!" shouts the Professor, waving his hands in the air. He takes Leila by one withered hand and rushes through the spiraling corridors of his mountain lair, followed by a retinue of his resident undead. Finally, they come to an adamant door, "CONJURATORIUM" etched into its crystalline surface. The professor swings it open with a wave of his hand, revealing a room filled with arcane engines and eldritch machinery. "Behold, Lady Leila, my conjuring engine! With this, I can safely contain the transplanar energies of any extraplanar spirit I might summon. Perfectly safe, perfectly safe, most of the time. Let's go!" He twists a four-pointed dial, and sends a series of levers flying. There is a cascade of arcane lightning that zigs and zags harmlessly through the room, lighting it as a glimmering ring of light appears in the center, an artificial summoning circle.

Ulyanov approaches it, spellbook in hand, and begins reading out an incantation. After ten minutes of mystic drudgery, there is a flare of light in the heart of the ring, an unbound wash of primordial essence that coalesces into a fixed shape, angelic of stature. A Planetar. "Most worthy servant of Heaven, exalted above all, lots of other nice stuff, we need help! An army of darkness marches against us, and only your holy sword can save us!" says the Professor in a slightly mocking falsetto, as if pantomiming a damsel in distress. "What do you say?"


OOC

Casting greater planar binding to summon a planetar.

Planetar's save to resist, DC 28
[roll0]

Opposed Charisma checks

Ulyanov (Give this a bonus of +0 to +6 as you see fit, based on the offer)
[roll1]

Planetar
[roll2]

[Em Blackleaf]

As Leila is pulled down corridor after corridor, she considers what she has done. "Hmm. It only makes sense that the deathknight might return with allies. Though, it would have been far more disastrous if I hadn't taken care of him as swiftly as I had done. I must defend those I have placed in danger's path." She ponders to herself at a low volume.

When the group comes to the conjuratorium, Leila says, with a sense of integrity and sincerity, "Well, if I have truly endangered you in my action of defeating the deathknight, as well as your laboratory and your minions, then I have no choice but to aid and protect you, Professor. I will go, of course."

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

The old man cackles with glee, surely filled with pride in himself and his organization. He offers her a room to stay in, for no other reason than any solitude she may desire. All night the dead shamble about the fortress Mordhaus, preparing for an inevitable battle to be waged. Swords are sharpened, armor fitted and re-fitted and surely some of the more clever of the dead skulk outside deploying traps, ready in waiting for hapless soldiers to fall into. By sunrise the next morning, there are ballistas and trebuchets lining the tall fortress walls.
By noontime, an undead servant of the Professor meets Leila in one of the many great halls. He tows what might once have been a horse. The flesh of it's face has been peeled away to reveal most of it's skull and it's pale flesh is utterly without hue. It seems to be saddled quite well with thin mithril chains for reigns. "'Ere yah go, miss."