Playground in the Playground

[Rebonack]

It's your average playground. Children run around enjoying themselves swinging from monkey bars and sliding down slides. They play hop-scotch, jump rope, marbles, and other fun childhood games.

And, for whatever odd reason, there's a colossal craggy boulder in the middle of grassy field with a massive hole in the side leading to a dragon's lair and who knows what other catacombs below.

In front of the entrance a fair maiden is tied to a post.

"Help! Oh help! Won't some handsome hero help me?"

[Lykan]

A random NPC child runs up to princess and pokes her

Tag! You're it!

He then runs off again

[AmberVael]

Tom leaps into the playground, his sword ready.
And now, I will finally get to accomplish a daring and heroic rescue in my own particular...
Um...
He sighs.
A particular nerdy child looks up from his book.
Idiom, sir?
Tom finishes his sentence heroically.
Idiom!
He strides forwards, running a hand along the line of his hat and draws out his dagger.

[NecroPaladin]

A mummy settles in beneath the sandbox, testing the surface for possible child-grabbing. Even mummies need company.

[Rebonack]

"Oh thank you for coming good halfling!" the princess swoons. She manages to pull free her handkerchief and drops it in the grass. "Take my token and my blessing noble hero!"

Thick smoke begins to billow out of the cave entrance as a voice like grinding stone echoes out of the cave.

"You come to rob me of my meal, adventurer?" as it speaks it grows closer, a young adult red dragon hauling himself out of the cave. "Ha! You won't be anything more than an appetizer!"

[AmberVael]

Vael appears, incorporeal in the air as he runs through the lines of the SRD.
He finds what he wants, winces, then watches Tom.

Tom flourishes his rapier.
Spare your taunting and prepare to be filleted, you brutish, evil beast!
He lunges in and jabs for an eye.
It should be noted that Tom is approximately level 12.

[Rebonack]

Fortunately that's what natural twenties and ones are for. The universe just wouldn't be able to bear the dashing hero getting barbequed and eaten. Who needs skill when you have luck?

Moments before Tom's attack the dragon gets nailed in the side of the head with a rubber dodge-ball, diverting his attention away from the Halfling just long enough to take the sword right through the left eye.

The monster howls with rage and pain as he attempts to swat Tom with one of its massive claws.

"You'll pay for that you little rat!" the dragon roars.

[AmberVael]

Tom leaps into the air over the claw, attempting to accomplish a daring move and land on the dragon's head.

[Vhaidara]

A random kid that somehow got to being a level 40 barbarian by age 6 and has only 1 HP left after bieng ounded with dodgeballs charges the dragon (feel free to incinerate him).

[The Geomancer]

On of those awful, awful over protective Moms comes walks up to the park. Her helmet donning hyperactive child is on a leash in front of her. Now sweeticums if I take you off the leash do you promise to be good in the playground?

Yeees Mommy The child says, surely the reincarnation of the Devil himself.

[Vhaidara]

(You're good)


EXPLOSIVE RUNES!!!!!

My counterattack.

[Rebonack]

Tom finds himself clinging to the monster's snout. Said monster is now thrashing his head around violently in an attempt to dislodge the Halfling. He looses a blast of flames, setting the woodchips under the monkey bars on fire in the process.

"I'll pick my teeth with your bones you little louse!"

[The Geomancer]

Surely the explosive runes didn't expect to get eaten by a three year old, but they did anyway.

Oh I'm so sorry about that! You know how it is, they are so uncontrollable at this age. Say sorry Sweeticums.

Sooowwwiie mistuh! The child says. Eviler then the devil surely.

[AmberVael]

Tom lets go, gracefully flying the air. He is a natural tumbler, after all.
He flings a dagger at the dragon's eye, then sees a gout of fire.
Oh fooey.
He gets crisped, and looks very toasty.
His feather is entirely burnt away.
His eye twitches as he takes in the damage dealt to his hat.
Oh no you didn't.

[Rebonack]

The universe covertly nudges Tom's attack roll of '2' over to a '20', causing the dagger to sink into the dragon's right eye with a spectacular fountain of blood.

Now the thing is blinded. Still has blind sense, but that can only take it so far.

The monster's head darts down, attempting to clamp his dragony jaws around the Halfling.

Apparently he's beyond threats at this point.

[AmberVael]

DON'T!
The halfling leaps forwards, striking out again with his rapier as he dodges the clumsy bite.
MESS!
He stabs another time.
WITH THE HAT!
He kicks it on the snout, which really won't do anything but add insult to injury.
And perhaps hurt his foot.
Ouch.

[Rebonack]

The dragon takes the rapier strokes to the neck, its hot blood now weeping from face and neck.

"I will kill you! Hold still so I can kill you!" he roars.

He unleashes his blazing breath again.

[AmberVael]

Tom manages to avoid a bit of the fire, but he isn't in the best of shape now.
And he knows chicks don't dig a crispy hero.
Damn it!
He lunges in and tries to jab his rapier into the eye all the way to the brain.

[Rebonack]

The blade is turned by the monster's scales, though the monster roars in pain again. Interestingly enough, there's an arrow sticking between a pair of loose scales on his left hip which had whizzed over from the streets.

Probably from Nick as he ran toward one of the Town's bakerys.

The drake stumbles slightly, suddenly looking rather off kilter, before attempt to smash the Halfling with a powerful lash of his tail.

[AmberVael]

The halfling is batted against the wall, down to his final stamina, and badly wounded.
He's not entirely down... but he won't manage much more.
Clearly this is the point for the highly dramatic and agonizingly uncertain last few moments where the hero drastically overcomes his injuries and manages to slay his foe!

[Timberwolf]

A thousand drummers begin their drum rolls, Errol FLynn, Burt Lancaster and Charlton Heston all sit back with their notebooks open and ready. Surely, now is the time !!

[Rebonack]

The drake sniffs the air, finding Tom's general location and, with an ear shattering bellow, begins to stomp toward him.

If now were the time to deliver the death defying killing blow it would be now.

[AmberVael]

Tom knows now is the time, and holds his rapier ready to jab it in the eye.
...then he kinda falls unconcious. The rapier is still held right though!

[Rebonack]

With a resounding squlortch the blade sinks into the dragon's breast ((apparently it was trying to pounce on him)). It makes a rather unhappy gurgling sound before slumping over, quite possibly on top of the Halfling.

"Oh no! Has my noble hero fallen? Please good Halfling! Rise and free me!"

[AmberVael]

Tom remains unconcious.
Typical for him. He manages to get it right up until the end.

[Rebonack]

"Tom!" Nicholas yells as he runs across the chip yard and ducks under a tire swing. "By Selune Tom, you had better not be dead!"

Nick goes about pulling Tom out from under the dragon before extracting a vial filled with a golden colored, oily liquid. He pulls the cork, filling the air with a scent of cinnamon and lavender. The ranger pulls open Tom's mouth and pours the contents in. The stuff, like its smell, has an almost overpowering flavor of cinnamon that makes the mouth rather tingly.

((Provides the imbiber with fast healing sixteen for one minute.))

[AmberVael]

Tom blinks awake.
Oh hey there. Don't mind me- just taking a well deserved nap after killing the dragon. Didn't think it would kill me, hm?
He jumps to his feet and picks up his assorted weaponry, then goes to free the maiden.

[Rebonack]

The maiden swoons as Tom frees her.

"Oh bless you noble hero! Please," she picks up her handkerchief and holds it out to him. "Take my toke."

Then she leans down to kiss him.

"And my thanks."

Then she prances off back through whatever plot hole the villain had snatched her out of.

Nicholas rolls his eyes at the display.

((I'm surprised no one else showed up to help during the fight, other than the dead end forty level kid attack.))

[AmberVael]

Tom grins and cleans off his sword and dagger.

[Rebonack]

Nicholas recaps his vial and sticks it back into a pocket in his cloak, then he pulls the arrow out of the dragon's rump and pulls out a small rectangular gray stone and clicks it, causing a flame to lick to life at the top. The marksmen runs the fire across the arrow's head, burning away the remaining venom left on the weapon. Oddly enough, incinerating the substance fills the air once again with the scent of lavender and cinnamon.

Once finished erasing traces of the poison the ranger stick the arrow back into the wound.

"Well, I managed to disarm all the bombs," Nicholas states with a sigh of relief. "And I see you slew the dragon just in the nick of time."

[AmberVael]

Tom grins.
Of course.

[Rebonack]

"So then, you want to head back to the tavern and celebrate with a drink?" Nicholas asks with a grin, honestly glad that the Halfling hadn’t noticed anything odd about what he was doing with the arrow. "Seems like the right thing for the victorious heroes to do."

[AmberVael]

Well what else would we do?
Tom gestures.
Lead the way.

[Rebonack]

Nick nods and heads off toward the streets.

[AmberVael]

Tom follows after.

[Blood]

A small child is playing the sand while a tall bully sneaks over behind him, grinning. He reaches out to grab the kid and beat him up, and-

"OWWWWW!!" Just as he reaches forward, the kid, without even looking behind, sprouts 10 feet long thorns from his back, stabbing the bully through the hands.

The bully runs to the hospital, crying, and vows to never bully anymore. The thorn-kid smiles, and-

"OWWWWW!!" Just as he smiles, some sand particles go up and hit him in the eye. He frowns and ignites the whole sandbox on fire.

He smiles casually and walks over to play on the monkey bars.

((Ahh, mutated children and their little quirks. :smalltongue: ))

[Nevrmore]

"Why are we here?" Ebola asks, unenthused, as he and Leprosy watch various children doing playground-esque things.

"I thought it would be fun." Leprosy replies nonchalantly.

"Fun? How is this fun??"

"Well, look at all the children! I thought you loved children!"

"Leprosy, I love my children. As in, the corpses that I raise from the dead and then bend to my will to cause destruction and chaos."

Leprosy scratches his head for a moment.

"Oops."

[Rebonack]

A child stomps and a grass-hopper, killing the bug.

Then she calls on the name of unspeakable dark gods, reanimating the bug as a brain eating fiend. She scoops it up and runs over to Ebola.

"Look what I made, mister!" the bug-fiend-zombie gnashes its mandibles menacingly. It then leaps out of her hands and begins to terrorize several other children playing on the dead dragon.

[Nevrmore]

Ebola looks at the girl for a long while.

"Her name can be 'Polio.'" He finally says.

[Rebonack]

'Polio' beams at the positive attention.

"Want me to do it with the dragon?" she asks whilst bouncing up and down.

[Nevrmore]

"God, yes." Ebola says.

[Rebonack]

"Ok!" she replies and skips over to the dragon carcass. All the other children had ran off due to the evil zombie grass-hopper, leaving her free to work her obscene acts of evil.

Her sweet voice suddenly becomes sinister and guttural as she intones an incantation older than the stars themselves.

"Y'ai 'ng'ngah, Yog-Sothoth h'ee-l'geb f'ai throdog! UAAAH!"

The corpse begins to quiver and twitch as inky sigils begins to spider web across its flesh.

[Nevrmore]

"Ebola, I am not comfortable with this little girl summoning monsters of pre-Cambrian ichor..." Leprosy says worriedly.

"Shut the hell up." Ebola snaps, trying to watch the display.

"Oh, alright..."

[Destro_Yersul]

A random trout appears, mostly because Destro told it to check out the necromantic-ness going on over here. It looks at the twitching dragon corpse. Oh my. It says.

[Rebonack]

The dragon stands in a jerky, convulsive way, its head hanging limply off to one side. For some obscene reason its body is now speckled with random eyes and teeth poking out at strange angles. The sigils, though black, seem to shimmer with a number of strange colors that don't actually exists.

The little girl squeals in delight and runs over to the unliving abomination and wraps her little arms around its neck.

"I'm going to name him Charles Daxter Ward!"

[Nevrmore]

Ebola, after the initial joy of seeing the dragon raised, uses his necromant...ism? to raise all the bodies of the various children who were not able to outrun the dire grasshopper and has them do stupid but amusing things.

[Destro_Yersul]

The trout rolls its eyes. Then it swims in a few circles, blowing bubbles.

[Rebonack]

"My daddy always told me never to raise up anything I couldn't put back down," 'Polio' states while patting the defiled dragon on his now inexplicably tentacle cover snout. Now no tentacles, just jagged talons. The whole critter in fact is a riot of shifting flesh. "I think Charles will be a good boy though, won't you Charles?"

The abomination. And I do mean that literally. Divine rank zero and everything. Nods in a spastic sort of way.

"You're nice! And you like the pets I make!" the little girl declares to Ebola. "Can we be friends?"

[Destro_Yersul]

The trout swims over to the dragon-thing and pokes it. This particular trout is apparently the mischievous sort.

[Rebonack]

Two tentacles tipped with mouths, another covered in jagged talons, and what appears to be a urethra sprout out of the abomination's flesh and attempt to wrap around/bite the trout and drag it into the dragon's jagged oozing maw.

[Destro_Yersul]

The trout darts away from the assortment of fleshy appendages and pokes the dragon again. If it could grin, it would be doing so now.

[Rebonack]

The same thing happens again. It appears to be a reflex response.

Except this time the random fleshy bit appears to be a pancreas.

It should be noted that this hideous critter is basically a flavored up Atropal (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/abomination.htm#atropal) and as such he suddenly remembers his negative energy aura. This causes pretty much everything alive in his general vicinity to die horribly.

[Destro_Yersul]

The trout, being alive, dies horribly. Like the goblin, except with less klikking. Unfortunately for the trout, it has unfinished business. Namely, reporting to Destro. Too bad it died before it could finish its job.

[Rebonack]

The abomination birthed by some primordial god continues to sit there while the little girl snoozes on his back.

By now the trout should raise as a spoooooooky trout specter.

[Destro_Yersul]

spoooooky free-willed trout ghost actually. It has to finish its job you know. That whole unfinished business thing is really nasty sometimes. At any rate, the somewhat disgruntled trout ghost swims away lazily. It'll be back...

[Nightwing]

*Lilly runs around the playground*

(Lily is a 5 year old girl. Let me tell you how Lilly works: If you just tell her about some one you dont like then she will instantly fall in love with the person you tell her about, she will think they are a handsome prince on a unicorn. Also a fun way to stop god moders. she can always be found here if you need her help. when you tell her about some on she will fallow "Her love" relentlessly until she gets the. She will then return here.)

[Rebonack]

'Polio' is still sitting on the abomination smiling away.

"What are we going to do now?" she calls down to Ebola. "I want to play with my new pet!"

[Nevrmore]

"Eh, kid..." Ebola says after awhile, "As much as I like and am utterly confused by how you can perform such feats of necromancy, let's be honest here; I hate kids. You're a kid. No matter how prodigious you are, chances are that if you come with me, sooner or alter I'm going to get irritated and end up killing and feeding you to Leprosy, here." He gestures towards his partner, who simply smiles sheepishly.

[Rebonack]

The little girl's eyes begin to tear over.

"You mean... you don't want to be my friend...?"

The abomination makes a displeased grumbling sound.

[Nevrmore]

"Pretty much, yeah." Ebola nods. "Leprosy and I are a duo, kid. We don't need the third 'cute animal/child to balance out all the toughness' crap. This ain't Spike and Jet, we're talking about, here."

Leprosy tries to tap Ebola and the shoulder so that he can tell him that pissing off a girl commanding a huge, undead dragon is probably a stupid idea, but the necromancer just bats his hand away.

[Rebonack]

"If you don't want to be my friend," the little girl pouts. "Then I'll let Charles play with you!"

The dragon shaped mass of writhing, snapping flesh steps closer in a rather menacing sort of way. It looks like Leprosy was correct in his assessment of the situation.

Several random mouths dotting the monster's body begin to gnash their teeth.

[Draken]

Meanwhyle, in the ice castle...

#703, #246, #247 and #789, the scryers on tower five saw a red dragon being killed in the nearby Playground, and want the four of you to go and recover any magical itens he had on it's hoard.

The four constructs bow and shout.

Right away milord!

And caution, they also noticed an atropal there, those things are pretty irritating, that's why I choose you, my most elite warriors.

Yes sir!

The four Artillery Golems leave the castle flying, and fastly arrive at the dragon's cave.

[Nevrmore]

Ebola shrugs. "Fine, have Charlie play with me." He says, taking a step forward. "But first, he's going to have to earn it." With a wave of his bone staff, the dozen or so undead children suddenly lose the ability to understand gravity and go flying through the air at Ebola. Stopping about a foot away from him, they interlock hands and begin piling around him. Soon, yes, he has made a complete, 360 degree shield of dead child bodies.

[Rebonack]

Charlie proceeds to do what godling undead monsters reanimated by the utterance of the so called 'Dragon's Head' do best. He attempts to rip control of the zombie childrens away from Ebola and command them to devour his succulent flesh.

Due to the critters general nature this probably won't be particularly difficult to do.

"Ooh. Robots!" the little girl cries in delight upon spotting the artillery golems, not currently aware of their intuition to maim her new pet.

[Nevrmore]

As several of the children fall out of Ebola's control, he throws them away and uses the holes in the shield to point his bone staff out of and shoot firey blasts at Charles.

[Draken]

This is the place, go in there and get everything you see that is worth something, i will stay here.

#789 stays outside, the other 3 enter the cave.

The golens don't really care about the dragon, they just want his things, and he's probably not caring about then anymore.

Ps: #789 shoots lightning of his arms.

[Rebonack]

The golems find several small children playing in the dragon's hoard. They all turn to look at the intruders.

"This is ours!"

"Yeah! We found it first!"

Well... let's see... since Charles was a red dragon when he still had a pulse the blast of fire really really does seem to bother it all that much. Fortunately for the little girl her new pet shields her from the flames.

About four dozen tentacles covered in barbs, talons, mouths, broken bones, jagged teeth, and what appears to be a plushy aardvark descend on Ebola from several angles at once, probably tearing right through the few zombies that manages to remain outside of Charles's control.

The little girl launches a crackling black ray (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/rayOfEnfeeblement.htm) empowered with greater negative energy at the necromancer.

[Draken]

If you kids help us find the best rings, scrolls, potion, staves, tomes, rods, weapons, armor and whatever else that looks magical arround, our master will give you free Ice Cream at the ice castle, and he's got a loooooot of Ice Cream there.

[Nevrmore]

"Oh, screw it; Leprosy, kick its ass!" Ebola shouts. Leprosy complies and throws the bandages from his arm. The black, charred flesh begins to emit a sinister red aura. He jumps in front of Ebola and swipes his hand in a sideways arc, emitting a large, red crescent that attempts to rip through all the tentacles around him as Ebola also begins to untie his wrappings on his own arm.

[Rebonack]

The children confer with one another for a few moments before responding.

"No, it's ours!"

"And we don't take ice cream from strangers!"

The rest mummer in agreement.

The icky bits are indeed sliced off. They begin to wriggle across the chip yard toward Ebola, not particularly bothered about being severed.

Charles presses the power of his negative energy aura around the pair, sapping them of a pretty sizable amount of life-energy unless they're undead or warded against that sort of thing. To make matters worse he loses a gout of fire mingled with life sapping power.

The little girl launches another ray since the last one was apparently ignored >.>

[Nevrmore]

((Oopsy doodles))

The life-draining force has no effect on the pair. Come on, they are servants of Kaio Fyta, you expect them to be alive?

Seeing the ray coming towards them, Ebola quickly grabs Leprosy and throws himself and his partner away. They quickly hit the ground, roll to their feet, and resume stance. Leprosy kneels down and pounds the ground with his fist, a shockwave of energy shooting out, attempting to destroy the tentacles nearing them.

Ebola finishes unwrapping his arms which glow with a pale-yellow energy instead of red. He grabs the wrist of one hand with the other, aims his clutches fist like a shotgun, and shoots a large, intimidating blast of life-draining force at Polio.

[Draken]

The golems know nothing of frustration or anger, and number #246 try another time.

Well, our boss got a huge pet shop, where you can buy about any living creature of the multiverse, he could give a discount for your moms and dads.

Just after that, number #247 let's out.

Or we can just blast 'em to bits and no one will ever know.

[Rebonack]

"No! It's ours!" the children cry in unison. They then link their minds in concert, forming a massively powerful being of pure psionic energy. Seriously, what did you expect from kids that live in Town?

The unified entity then attempts to simply crush the golems into powder through sheer force of will.

Apparently the kid has taken Mounted Combat or something, since she shifts Charles into the incoming attack. Since he's already dead it doesn't do much to him.

The tentacles are blown apart and the monster follows up by uttering a word of such utter evil that any creature within earshot without a sufficiently dark heart with be consumed from the inside out in an explosion of gore.

Or, in the golems case, an explosion of golem bits.

The zombies under Charles' control suddenly explode in a riot of caustic vapor and bone shrapnel.

Polio then targets Leprosy with an attempt to turn him into a harmless bunny.

[Nevrmore]

Ebola is suddenly a cute little snowbunny. Leprosy turns to him in shock.

"I always hate doing this..." He says as he kneels down to the cute l'il guy. Without hesitatin, the mummified man lifts his unbandaged arm like an axe and brings it down on Ebola's head, crushing it like a grape.

The corpse of the bunny melts into a small pile of what appears to be ash. It suddenly rises up and swirls around some non-existant cast form, eventually reforming into Ebola, clothes and all.

"Alright, now I'm really pissed off." He growls, the bandages on his arms pulsating as magical energy tries to escape from them.

[Draken]

The golems step outside of the cave and fail their listen check against the uterly wicked scream, preparing thenselves to nuke any surviving child that comes out.

Obs: #789 can release 2 Lightning bolts, as per spell each round, #246 can do the same, but he releases Fireballs, #247 Releases Otylukes Frost Sphere, and #703 can use Prismatic Spray.

They just beggin nuking the cave's entry.

And will now fail any listen checks due to the noise of the constant blasting.

[Rebonack]

The caustic mauve cloud of exploded zombie continues to hang in the air around the pair, feeling sad that no one is paying attention to it. It'll dissolve someone's flesh yet!

Charles, getting fed up with their avoidance of his spells, decides to be more forward with his attacks and attempts to simply grab Leprosy in his jaws and crush his rib-cage like a nut. He has quite a bit of experience with this sort of thing it might be added.

The cute little girl then casts Horrible Wilting in an attempt to suck all the water out of the disease themed duo's body. Grass withers and crumbles into dust. Bugs drop out of the air. A passing shoe polish salesmen twitches and collapses on the ground as nothing more than a desiccated husk. And a box of kittens cease to mew cutely.

The childish psionic entity manifests Timeless Body and shrugs off everything the golems can throw at it since they didn't bother to respond to being attacked. Then they stick their tongue out at them.

[Nevrmore]

Ebola does something to expel the caustic vapors, because Nevrmore can't deal with like three attacks at once.

Leprosy is easily grabbed between the dragon's jaws. Ebola shakes his head as there is a loud crunch noise and, just like the udnead corpses of children, the mummified man also explodes, only instead of a cloud of acidic mist, he turns into a cloud of infectious blackness that, seeing as he was inside of the dragon's mouth, in all likelihood travels down his throat and into his stomach. If this is the case, the millions of particles begin their work on the rapid decay of the beast's already weak skin.

Ebola, meanwhile, takes the wilting with a shrug. He's dead, remember? It doesn't bother him too much that now he looks like a raisin. The bandages continue to bulge with magic.

[Draken]

The golems, unable to get pissed off, return to the castle and come back with a Titanic Stone Collossus (you know, these guys with antimagic field), and have the creature step on the cave.

[Rebonack]

The cave protests strongly about being stepped on to the universe, since it's going to be used in amusing Plots at a later date.

The universe sighs and calls up Plot on its cell.

"Hey, look, there some stone giant trying to muck up some of your business over here and I'm pretty busy making sure all the lighting and particle effects go off right. Would you mind sending some heroes to run it off?"

'Polio' uses her turn to point and laugh at Ebola, because she apparently finds the fact that he looks like a raisin hilarious.

For some peculiar reason, the gooy bile fails utterly to inflict any actual harm on the monster. This is why undead monsters with regeneration are so nasty. Unless you have something to pierce their regeneration the attack does pretty much nothing due to their immunity to non-lethal damage.

And since Leprosy's attack was most certainly neither good aligned nor silver it falls into that later category of doing no harm to the thing. However, Leprosy's slimy bits do have a pretty good view of the inside of the dragon fiend now.

Seeing that his attack was more or less a success, aside from some indigestion, Charles attempts to gnarf Ebola as well.

[Nevrmore]

Plot appears. He looks very bummed out and is holding a handful of Diazepam in his hand.

"Klaatu Berata Ni-aw, f*ck it." He says and snaps his fingers. A heroic looking boy riding a horse and wearing a green poncho runs up to the colossus and begins to climb it, stabbing specific spots on its body marked with weird symbols with his magically enchanted sword.

Plot downs a few more pills and disappears.

------------------

Timing!

Ebola's bandages fly off his disgusting, horrible arms as Charles' maw closes in. Glowing with the energy of something really energetic, he attempts to catch both of Charles' jaws in his hands which are now supernaturally enhanced. If that's succesful, he'll then try to buck the thing enough to throw Polio off.

[Draken]

The Artillery Golems begin nuking, kicking, and falling over the hero. The colossus stops his feet, but reach a finger inside the cave and pulls out the kids like they where a bogger.

[Rebonack]

Much to her surprise the little girl goes sailing through the air off of Charles' back and lands in a heap over by the monkey bars.

The abomination doesn't seem to pleased about this and vomits a pretty nasty mass of acrid, acidic gunk up. Due to Ebola's current position he probably gets it all over himself.

Leprosy is in the mess somewhere too.

The kids, since they're taken a psionic equivalent of The Most Broken Feat Ever™ are utterly immune to the effects of the anit-magic field and continue to be immune to everything else via Timeless Body. As such, the picking fails to dislodge them.

[Nevrmore]

The hero continues trying to kill the colossus, undettered by everyone's efforts to dislodge him.

Ebola, meanwhile, is instantly vaporized by the acid. Only to reform a few moments later, though at the moment his magic is not sufficient enough to heal him completely, so right now he looks like some horrible, smaller version of Swamp-Thing.

"Blahrghatr!" He shouts with his useless vocal chords as he shoots a large stream of disgusting, acidic gunk at Polio.

[Draken]

Failing to grab the kids out, the colossal Colossus just activates his Vac-o-matic and sucks the whole treasure out of the cave, into his body. And since there is a magic grid into his vac-o-matic opening, any organic, matter is barred fron entering.

[Rebonack]

Unfortunately the kids use their amazing psionic power to seal the entrance with a pretty thick wall of stone. As such none of the loot gets, well, looted.

'Polio' gets gunked with the nasty acidic slime, which in turn dissolves her flesh. She thrashes around like the wicked witch of the west before finally succumbing to the slime. There's now a puddle of melted kid under the monkey bars.

This makes Charles rather upset. He displays his displeasure by attempting to smash the pile of gooy Ebola with one of his rather betaloned forelimbs

[Nevrmore]

The Giant-Sized Man-Thing that is Ebola is easily smashed, as he wasn't very solid to begin with. Interestingly, Charles probably hasn't noticed that as his mistress was dying horribly, Leprosy also reformed. However, he retained enough of his power to perfectly reconstruct himself instead of coming out like his blobbish partner.

Leprosy attempts to wrap his arms around the dragon's neck and then sling him off into the horizon with his ungodly strength.

[Draken]

The golems, now almost out of resources, blast the stone wall to bits and howl to the kids.

If you don't let us get the things, we will have to call our boss and he will be very angry with you, all of his heads.

((And if the The Most Broken Feat Ever™ is Epic Casting™, he's got it too))

[Rebonack]

((No, the most broken feat ever is this (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Initiate_of_Mystra,all).))

Charles gives a surprised yelp as he's suddenly hefted off the ground and hurled with incredible force.

"Wow! Look at him go!" comments one of the children who had been watching the whole time.

"I'm sad that he had to leave..." sniffles a second.

"Don't worry hideous human worm baby," consoles what appears to be some unspeakable creature from the far realms. "The draconic abomination will live on," it waves one of its pseudopodium in the general direction of the sky. "In the stars."

Meanwhile, a tiny speck of vaguely dragon shaped monstrosity smashes into the ground some distance away.

'Polio' continues to be a bubbling puddle.

By the time the stone wall is blasted away the kids and the treasure are gone. They appear to have fallen into the lower reaches of the catacombs during the shelling.

[Nevrmore]

Leprosy walks over to Ebola's bubbling corpse, slowly trying to reform itself. With a sign, he pokes a finger into the goo and transfers his energy into it. A few seconds later, Ebola reforms perfectly.

"Holy crap, that was weird." He says as he stands, trying to get used to his legs again.

[Rebonack]

"Wow! That was fun!" yells one kid.

Another is busy poking the Polio puddle with a stick.

The creature from the far realms has long since returned to the realms of insanity that spawned it.

Several more children have become board with the fight and are now playing freeze tag with a wand of Hold Monster.

[Nightwing]

*Lilly stands up*


Is there a handsome prince any were?

[Draken]

((Well, that sure is broken))

The golems prepare to descent when they receive a telephatic message.

Urgh, forget I watched this whole disaster, just come back here! You guys are in for some real upgrading!

The four golems fly away, while the colossus wanders off, eventually steping on the gooey remains of Polio.

[Rebonack]

The children continue to frolic as children are often known to do.

The puddle of 'Polio' begins twitching with some strange semblance of life.

An old lady begins feeding a bunch of dire pigeons and is subsequently carried away and messily devoured.

[Nevrmore]

Ebola scoops the remains of Polio into a jar, closes it, and throws it into a nearby lake.

[Therarde]

Therarde arrives and begins waiting for the others.

[Chaotic Bob]

Xeni follows Therarde, looking at what he assumes is the rock they're looking for.

[Rebonack]

The rock is hard to miss.

Oddly enough, it isn't actually made of rock, but rather a really hard molded resin in lots of pieces. Apparently it was assembled there on top of an actual cave system.

For some reason...

Apparently the dragon was there already. And someone thought it would be a good idea to build the fake cave on top of it.

Nick arrives shortly there after.

[Therarde]

Therarde turns to Nick. So, what now?

[Chaotic Bob]

Xeni would ask the same question, but he assumes it involves walking towards the rock. Which he does, standing at the cave entrance.

[Draken]

A weird flying creature aproaches the cave, it came fron the same direction of the golems.

This is the place boss indicated, now it's time for some feeding! The creature beggins to divide itself into a small army. And then it enters the cave.

Yelling: Children!! Uncle number *036 is coming after yooou!!

[Rebonack]

((There are a bunch of people currently standing in the entrance. It's bad form to just trample everyone without a chance for them to respond.))

It would appears as though there's a sizable quantity of actual rock which had been used to plug the entrance. Looks like something smashed its way though the wall someone made.

Oddly enough it appears as though there's more room on the inside of the cave than there is on the outside. And it also looks like the floor of the cave fell out, probably when the plug got smashed through.

And then, for whatever reason, there's a flight of stairs leading deeper in the catacombs below the Playground in the Playground.

Nicholas pokes his head into the cave, looking down into the yawning gulf with said stairs lining the edge of the cavern.

"Huh... that wasn't there before..."

[Chaotic Bob]

Xeni fails to say anything and fires a light imbued blunt arrow down the stairs.

[Therarde]

Therarde looks into the cave. Whee.

[AmberVael]

Tom shows up.
His short legs and his random love for shiny objects got him sidetracked.

[Draken]

((the thing I sent ( a carnivorous -must memorize the rest-) is... quite small i should say, but it's very dangerous, so it would probably get past then without notice.))

[Rebonack]

((Nick has scent, auto pin point anything within five feet. Stop godmodding and play nice. Back up your little swarm and try again.))

Whee.... whee... whee... comes Therarde's echo.

Until Draken bothers to resolve the fact that there are three people currently blocking the entrance of the cave nothing can really happen on his side.

The arrow goes whizzing off into the depths, lighting up a long... loooong way down.

By the time it plunks at the bottom the arrow looks like little more than a candle sized point of light in the distance.

"Wow..." he glances around. "Everyone here except the Trout Wizard?"

[Chaotic Bob]

Xeni's eyes widen slightly.
That's a bit of a distance. But yes, I believe everyone is here.

[Therarde]

Therarde looks in. Ugh, I hate underground. Too dark and...lifeless.

[Rebonack]

Nicholas reaches into a pouch at his side a pulls out a light yellow ion stone and tosses it up in the air. The rock begins to orbit in a tight circle about a foot above his head and producing a bright light.

"That should help with the dark part," he comments as he steps inside, drawing his sabers as he goes. "Hopefully it will be relatively lifeless. Less stuff to worry about eating us."

[Chaotic Bob]

Xeni pulls out a few more arrows, regardless of Nick's hope.
The lightbearer should stay in the middle. I'll go first.
He begins the descent.

[Therarde]

Therarde shrugs and begins going in, waiting for Nick to go ahead of him.

[Rebonack]

"Good point," Nicholas comments and begins to descend behind Xeni. Fortunately the steps aren't the nasty grimy slippery kind that make you tumble to your death. By the time Destro finally finishes dinner nifty stuff will start to be encountered.

[AmberVael]

Tom follows the others, one hand on his rapier.

[Destro_Yersul]

Destro hurries up to the entrance. Apparently he got distracted by something somewhere along the way. That or his player took too long to eat. After some generic grumbling about how long spaghetti takes to heat up he too enters the cave.

[Chaotic Bob]

Xeni remains utterly silent, not making a single sound with his footsteps. He would appear to be listening intently as he descends, not wanting to be surprised by anything.

[Rebonack]

The group of intrepid adventure's begin to venture deep into the catacombs below the Town which can, for whatever odd reason, can only be accessed via the playground. After a rather treksom trek the party finds themselves coming upon a rather inconvenient forty foot wide gap in the stairs.

Fortunately there also happens to be a nice open stone arch leading away into a winding corridor snaking away from the main chamber.

[Destro_Yersul]

So we have to go through the side passage now? No casting fly or levitate or anything like that? Destro looks around, not needing the light to see.

[Chaotic Bob]

Who wants the gap and who wants the corridor? I can get us across the gap if necessary.
His pockets have all manner of things in them and he could quite easily construct a bridge.

[Therarde]

Therarde looks at the gap and then the passage. I don't like either option, personally.

[AmberVael]

Tom, being behind the others and far too short, can't really see the gap in the stairs.
What are we talking about?
He leans to one side, trying to figure it out.

[Draken]

((sorry, my bad, ignore the previous action of the... i will remember the name one day))

Number *036 and his copyes will follow the trio at a 15 feet minimun distance, they don't really care about then, but the golems spoke nasty things about his target.

((Just a question, how was I godmoding? I don't even think my arc is the same as the others... But if it is, well just adds to the fun. And sorry for the time, went afk))

[Rebonack]

((Saying 'I slip past and no one sees me' is an example of god modding in the same way as 'I pickpocket you and you don't notice' is.))

"I can't think of any reason why you wouldn't be able to fly across," Nick comments as he looks at the rather dead man's dropish gap in the stairs. No doubt there are horrible jagged rocks at the bottom. "I've got my trick rope arrows that could form a bridge."

He glances back at Tom.

"There's a big gap in the stairs."

[AmberVael]

Ah.
Tom stops leaning in a precarious manner and waits.

[Chaotic Bob]

Xeni reaches into one of his pockets and pulls out a small rod. He presses a button and this rod widens into a 3 foot wide sheet of metal. He presses another button and it begins to lengthen.
Personally, my vote is on the gap.

[Destro_Yersul]

Yeah, gap works. Destro steps over next to a wall and reaches up to grab onto it. His hand adheres to the stone, unless something prevents it from doing so, and he climbs up to the ceiling.

[Therarde]

Therarde peers into the gap. How far do you guys think this goes down? I never was too good around heights...especially underground ones.

[Rebonack]

Well, Destro could climb up to the ceiling, but it's a long way up there. A long loooong way.

Nicholas nods.

"Let's head across the gap then. And it certainly wouldn't be a good idea to split the party up. My first adventuring group ended prematurely due to that," the Marksmen comments while he waits for Xeni to finish with the bridge.

[Chaotic Bob]

Xeni patiently waits for the sheet to extend about 50 fifty feet or so and places it down. The metal promptly adheres to the stone below, to prevent it from slipping. Xeni smiles and begins to set across.
Off we go...

[AmberVael]

Tom flips his dagger to himself, whistling softly.

[Destro_Yersul]

Ok, so not all the way to the ceiling then. Just high enough that he can crawl along the wall in order to get to the other side. Which isn't very high at all, really. But it works, so there. :smallbiggrin:

[Therarde]

Therarde waits for most of the others to go across the sheet before inching along, doing his best not to look down.

[Rebonack]

As is normally the case when the heroes begin crossing a bridge arrows are soon whizzing through the air from some location on the other side.

Apparently something doesn't like the fact that they're down there.

Nicholas glances around, the nervous lip licking kicking due to the fact he's well aware of the fact that he has no cover to leap behind.

The marksmen draws his bow and launches a single arrow in the general direction of the attackers. Said arrow thunks into the opposite wall and lights up like, well, a light spell.

About sixty feet away on the other side of the chamber there is a passage in the wall.

Standing in this passage is a gaggle of bow wielding Grimlocks.

[Chaotic Bob]

Xeni's eyes glint and his cloak does something it hasn't done in a while: it shifts into a large pair of bat wings. He leaps off the bridge and begins to fly furioously towards the grimlocks, firing rapidly a series of flaming burst arrows.

[Therarde]

Therarde ducks, the arrows not doing much to help his fear of heights.

[AmberVael]

Tom, being stuck behind everyone else, really can't do much. He just kinda sits there, waiting.

[Therarde]

((I just realized that we have the guy who's too short to see anything and the guy with no long range attacks whatsoever in back.))

[Rebonack]

It should be noted that the Grimlocks are actually firing blind. They know people are in the general area they're firing at, though they can't actually 'see' them at this distance.

Once Xeni begins to get a bit closer the lot of the ugly things home in on him and open fire.

The flaming arrows wreak havoc in their ranks, causing several of them to flail about in a rather on fire sort of way.

Nicholas runs the rest of the distance in a stoop, trying to keep his profile as small as possible. Much to his relief it appears as though there's a nice convenient lip of stone the stairs have been carved into to crouch behind. The marksmen then begins to do what marksmen do best.

Mark... things.

With arrows.

[Chaotic Bob]

Xeni hardly notices as arrows begin to pierce his body at various points, his main focus merely to distract their fire from the rest of the group. He can take a few arrows without too much trouble. He fires more arrows, though the burst effect now appears to be switching between the five elements at random.

[Destro_Yersul]

Destro crawls along the wall in an attempt to get behind the grimlocks who, incidentally, are glowing in his vision. Rather brightly, actually. He waves a hand and a magic missile comes from behind them, aimed to hit one in the back.

[Therarde]

An arrow lands in front of Therarde, and he stands up. He draws his sword and charges across the platform, ready to slice up any grimlocks he runs into.

[AmberVael]

Tom hops out of the way of an arrow, teeters on the edge a bit, then keeps behind the others so he won't get hit, making his way over to the grimlocks.

[Destro_Yersul]

((Sorry guys, I've got to go. Later))

Destro gets dead-timed for a while.

[Therarde]

((Ack, I have to go too. Night.))

[Rebonack]

((Alas, more good adventures are put on hold this way T_T))

Fortunately for the melee focused members of the party a gaggle of grimlocks swarm out of a pretty hefty fissure in the wall onto a nice wide area in the rim around the edge of the chasm.

There are still stairs at the top of said open area just in case anyone feels like having one of those 'fight off the bad guys while climbing' sorts of fights.

The lot of the smelly monstrous humanoids begin to assault Therarde and Tom with everything from flint axes and clubs.

The bow wielding grimlocks are no longer firing between Destro's magic missiles and Xeni's mundane missiles.

Nicholas busies himself with lodging arrows in any melee grimlocks that get too close.

"Sure are a lot of these guys down here..."

[AmberVael]

Tom flips out his rapier and dagger, beginning to do his typical rolling, tumbling dance around the grimlocks, dodging mostly and stabbing once in a while.

[Chaotic Bob]

((I would say that Xeni's missiles are only slightly mundane...
Aw poo. Reality is such a burden at times...))

Xeni turns to fire shots at any melee grimlocks that aren't too close to companions. He fails to notice the blood seeping out of his arrow wounds.

[Rebonack]

Rebonack shrugs since he figures the fight can go on for a little while longer at least.

The grimlocks swarm around Tom in their generally chaotic, uncouth sort of way. They are pretty good at killing of goblins so they can eat their succulent flesh, but against the wily Halfling they appear to be having some trouble.

One grimlock closes the distance between itself and Nick as quickly as it can, expecting a relatively easy fight against a poor sap without anything to protect himself with in melee combat. Suffice to say said grimlock is rather surprised when he gets stabbed through the chest with one of the bow/saber's pointy ends.

Since Xeni is still up in the air the grimlocks equipped with axes and clubs have a hard time doing anything about him.

"They aren't particularly skilled."

Sclortch twang thunk.

"But they certainly are persistent."

[Chaotic Bob]

Xeni continues to fire at the grimlocks, looking around for any sort of leader as he does so. If spotted, then said leader finds several arrows flying towards their face.
Persistant...that's one way to put it.

[AmberVael]

Tom dances around, muttering a mantra under his breath.
It sounds something like "combat expertise and mobility are useful!"
He stabs for a Grimlock's stomach and rolls away, trying to get out from among them.

[Rebonack]

((He should totally get Roligar's Gambit (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Robilar~s_Gambit,PH2). Offer a tauting flourish and then stab 'em when they try to attack.))

If there is a leader he doesn't look any different from all the other generic grimlocks swinging weapons and dieing horribly. As such, plenty of them find out that energy burst arrows aren't much fun.

Nick continues to fight off the swarming grimlocks as best he can with a slash of his saber here and a twang of an arrow there. During the melee he manages to get himself knocked in the back with a club. This, of course, hurts quite a bit. Nick even says so.

"That hurtsss," he hisses before cleaving the club wielding grimlock something nasty with his blade.

The grimlocks appear to be thinning out.

That might have to do with the cave trolls that they're herding toward the party.

[Chaotic Bob]

They've brought a cave troll....or several.
Xeni's attention is throughly turned and he begins to fire arrow that would be completely normal, if it weren't for there sunburst effect, at the trolls.

[AmberVael]

Tom decides to stick at a few more grimlocks, then starts backing away from the trolls.
He has a calculating look in his eye though.

[Rebonack]

This particular breed of cave troll is, like the grimlocks, naturally blind. So the brilliant flash can't blind them any more than they are already. Their flesh does get scorched a bit though.

Oddly enough, getting burned by light and getting burned by fire are two completely different things, so the trolls begin to regenerate the damage immediately.

One of them decides to be neighborly by hurling a pretty sizable rock at Xeni.

Nicholas kicks a grimlock off his blade before launching a single arrow at the trolls. Said arrow decides that it would be a good idea to explode in a nice big cloud of acid.

So it does.

The non-rock throwing troll doesn't appear to like this, so it begins to stomp toward the marksmen. Unfortunately for Tom he happens to be in the giant's path. So it does the only sensible thing for a giant to do to a Halfling.

It attempts to punt him.

[AmberVael]

Tom rolls out of the way and attempts to climb up onto the troll's back.

[Chaotic Bob]

Xeni makes an attempt to move out of the way, but the sickening crunch of one of his cloak's wings being severely broken informs him that he failed. He proceeds to fall. He fires a few more burst arrows during this moment with gravity.

[Rebonack]

The troll now has a Halfling on its back. It begins to flail its arms about wildly in an attempt to dislodge the nuisance.

Another troll comes up behind the one which Tom is currently clinging to and tries its hand at thwacking the poor Halfling with its great club. Now is certainly a time for comical shenanigans.

Nick backs up the stairs a bit and begins to launch fire arrows at the troll that was formerly flinging rocks at Xeni. It doesn't seem to like this too much, though it seems to be having trouble squeezing past its compatriots who are even now attempting to deal with Tom.

"Come on Xeni!" Nick yells from his perch. "Now is not a good time to test your resilience to fall damage!"

[AmberVael]

Tom drops from the troll's back and tries to roll away to behind the other troll.

[Chaotic Bob]

Xeni turns his head towards Nick just as he hits the ground with an equally sickeningly crunch.

A few arrows whiz past Nick's head and at the trolls. Xeni steps next to Nick.
Don't worry about me.

[Rebonack]

And, of course, the club swing continues on its merry path on a collision course with the back of the other troll's head.

WHAM

Stupid troll one roars in anger before spinning around, smashing stupid troll two in the ribs with one of its fists. Stupid troll two responds with a second club stroke to the head of stupid troll one.

Stupid troll three still can't figure out how to get around the other two.

"But didn't you just..." Nick trails off as Xeni appears. Magic still doesn't make a lot of sense to him.

Xeni's arrows lodge in the fighting trolls, who forget their quarrel with each other and charge the pair of archers.

[Chaotic Bob]

Xeni just offers a soft smile before he resumes his steady volley of arrows at the trolls, aiming at their faces.

The Xeni that hit the ground shakily stands up, several limbs bent the wrong way and its body as a whole misshaped.

[AmberVael]

Tom leaps onto the back of troll two, trying to stab it with his dagger.

[Rebonack]

((Ok, at this point I would like to wait for the other peoples. Don't want to get too far ahead. Besides, stupid trolls should be fun for the whole party! =D))

A massive dead time pudding seeps its way into the catacombs below the fake cave situated in the Playground in the Playground.

[Chaotic Bob]

((Mmm...pudding...))

[Rebonack]

Since it has been over twelve hours since the previous post the trolls decide that they'll do something.

...

Right after Rebonack updates The End of the World.

Since that hasn't happened yet they continue to mill around.

((I'll have the next round up with half an hour to an hour.))

[Chaotic Bob]

((okeeeedoke))

[Rebonack]

((*checks TEotW and sees that only two people have responded thus far.* I think I'll wait until this evening to do that. Give more people time to respond to that last round.))

Stupid troll two begins to flail around wildly much as stupid troll one had. Apparently failing to make the connection between what just took place earlier stupid troll three moves in holding a rather large rock and attempts to smash Tom with it. Of course, Tom is clinging to the troll, so the same amusing chain of events are probably going to repeat themselves.

Hey, that's what happens when your listed average intelligence is six.

Stupid troll one, since all the Halfling smashing is going on behind him, fails to notice the antics and instead quickly closes the distance between itself and the archers.

It was some trouble scrambling up the stairs since they really aren't that wide.

Nick decides to take advantage of this fact by shooting an arrow at the troll's feet. Said arrow bursts, coating the stone with slippery grease. The troll begins to pin-wheel its arms in an attempt to maintain its balance.

"You know, if it weren't for the troll's natural regenerative abilities I think they would have all died off a long time ago."

[Chaotic Bob]

I would be inclined to agree.
This is followed by several flaming burst arrows aimed at the trolls' faces.

[AmberVael]

Instead of dropping away, Tom leaps to Troll 2's shoulders for a moment, trying to stab it in the ear, then slide back down to its back before getting punched.

[Rebonack]

The troll busy trying o keep its balance gets hit in the face with a flaming arrow, bellows, flails some more, and then topples over the edge, joining Xeni in being laid out flat on the jagged rocks.

Of course, being a troll, this doesn't kill it. The monster is, however, not in the least bit conscious.

Troll two gets bashed in the back with a rock and stabbed in the ear. It doesn't appear to be very happy about this. As such it does its best to fling the Halfling away, which unless I read Vael's post wrong it does a pretty good job of.

With the Halfling looking somewhat dazed stupid troll three takes the opportunity to try smashing Tom with its boulder again.

Stupid troll two, seeing that someone else is dealing with the swashbuckler, charges Xeni and Nick with its club raised for a killing blow.

Then it hits the grease and lands flat on its back.

Nick blast the prone troll with a flurry of acid arrows, hoping the thing will be dead or at least unconscious before it manages to get up. The monster's flesh boils as flesh exposed to strong acid often does.

[AmberVael]

The halfling manages to tumble out of the third troll's way, then lunges towards its feet and tries to slash its achilles tendon.

[Chaotic Bob]

Xeni fires more arrows at stupid troll three, carefully mixing an acid a fire effect.

The rather deformed and maimed Xeni on the jagged rocks snarls and lurches towards the troll that fell next to it. This will likely result in an extremely violent scene as the Xeni tries to brutally rip the troll to pieces.

[Rebonack]

Maimed Xeni finds that tearing apart the knotted, gummy flesh of the not currently aware of its surroundings troll is pretty close to impossible. Regeneration is annoying like that.

Stupid troll three gets his ankle jabbed and nailed with a whole bunch of acidic, flaming arrows. With a groan it slumps over.

Nick pulls back a final arrow which, for whatever odd reason, fills the air with a scent of cinnamon and lavender. With a twang said arrow plunks into the troll. Said troll begins to convulse violently, limbs clutching in death throes and red tinged foam bubbling from its mouth. Then it goes completely slack, apparently rather dead.

"I think we got them all..."

[AmberVael]

Tom flips his dagger back into his sheath and whistles.

[Chaotic Bob]

Xeni carefully looks around to double check that nothing yet lives.

Maimed Xeni doesn't really seem to care and continues trying.

[Rebonack]

((Hopefully Therarde will come back some time... ever. I don't like leaving people in the dust.))

Nick carefully picks his was across the patch of grease, mainly because he doesn't want to go tumbling over the edge of the precipice. Falling to his death isn't very high on his to do list.

"Anyone injured?" he asks. "Other than... well..."

Xeni's continued attempts to rip apart the unconscious troll are met with an equal degree of failure.

[Chaotic Bob]

Maimed Xeni's frustration is shown in that his mouth suddenly opens impossibly wide and a large tube with a mouth-like end extends from it. A roar rises from the depths.

Xeni looks down just in time to see this and promptly looks away.
Notmyproblemnotmyproblemnotmyproblem.

[Therarde]

Therarde comes out of dead time and continues his charge, before realizing that there's nothing to charge. ((Sorry, spent all day eating nachos, watching Scrubbs, and playing old Sonic games.))

[Chaotic Bob]

((oooh, sounds like you were living the good life :smallbiggrin: ))

[Therarde]

((Quite. Grew up on Sonic, and my brother has a whole bunch of Scrubbs episodes taped. *waits for Rebo to come back*))

[Chaotic Bob]

((yeah...sonic has a few great games...havn't seen much of Scrubbs though))

[Therarde]

((Yeah, my personal favorite is Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Just...awesome. Also, Scrubbs is a good show. If you can catch it I suggest you try watching a little. Just a matter of opinion, of course.))

[Rebonack]

Nick glances over the remains of the trolls, grimlocks, and a poor cave rat that someone had treaded on.

Every now and again a grimlock will peak around a corner of one of the side tunnels.

Interestingly enough, maimed Xeni will probably notice that the floor of his current resting place is covered in a dragon's hoard.

"So... Xeni. Why are there two of you?"

[Therarde]

Therarde looks around, almost disappointed. Seems I missed the action.

[Chaotic Bob]

Xeni stops his internal mantra of 'not my problem' and turns to Nick.
Contingency.

Maimed Xeni hunches over and his skin begins to stretch taut. He seems to be utterly unconcerned about the treasure.

[Rebonack]

"That seems... really odd," responds Nicholas as he looks over the edge of the precipice. "How did you make another one of you?"

The grimlocks continue to peek out at the heroes.

[Therarde]

((Um...night. Hopefully I'll be back earlier tomorrow.))

[Chaotic Bob]

((Therarde don't gooooo....*sad music*))

Xeni shrugs.
Just some magic that activates when I should die.

Spikes begin to jut out of Maimed Xeni.

[Destro_Yersul]

That looks decidedly bad. Destro has apparently been following along behind the others this whole time.

[Rebonack]

Nicholas sighs, mainly because his player is being stretched thin between several threads at once.

"I suppose we should keep looking. That dragon hoard has to be around here somewhere."

[Draken]

Number *36 keeps folowing and begins to mumble with himself(s).

Why we are just folowing then?

Yea, why we don't just eat em and keep with our search?

Shut up guys! They will listen us... me... whatever...

[Chaotic Bob]

Xeni looks down at the rapidly mutating 'maimed Xeni' and quickly looks away, face pale.
Yes. Let's find thst hoard.
He then begins walking down the presumed path, away from the pit.

[Destro_Yersul]

Sure. Destro spares a glance down the pit at mutating Xeni and then follows the others.

((The treasure is down there with said mutating Xeni, right?))

[Rebonack]

((Yes it is. Though it's dark down there and so it wouldn't be very shiny.))

Nick begins to follow Xeni along the path, waiting of the others to follow suit.

[Chaotic Bob]

((yes....unfortunately for the group >.<))

[Destro_Yersul]

((To anyone without Lifesense, you mean! *laughs evilly* Mutating Xeni gives off light roughly equivalent to a torch to Destro's eyes, should he be alive. But I have a better plan... *more evil laughing*))

I have a question. We're looking for something, right? Why don't we get something made to find things to do said looking? Destro continues walking along behind the others. Something small, near indestructible, and that has a convenient way of showing up when it's needed? He shouts up the tunnel. Hey! Zeemis! I need something found!

[Chaotic Bob]

Xeni raises an eyebrow, but keeps walking.

[Rebonack]

Suddenly a little blue ball zips into the cavern.

"Yay! It's Destro!" it gushes. "What do you want me to find? I'm good at finding things!"

Nicholas face-palms.

"By Selune... not that thing again..."

[Destro_Yersul]

((Woohoo!))

Well, we're looking for this Dragon hoard, see? And it's supposed to be somewhere in this cave. So I'd like you to search the cave until you find it, then let us know how to get there. Destro grins at the small floating blue object, knowing how delighted this is going to make it.

[Chaotic Bob]

Xeni plugs his ears, really not wanting to hear the probe.

[Rebonack]

"Ok!" the Probe bubbles. It begins bouncing around erratically before zipping down the giant chasm.

"It's down here!" comes its significantly muffled voice.

Nick glances over the edge again.

"I guess we could fly down or something..."

[Chaotic Bob]

Maimed Xeni, looking nothing like Xeni anymore, promptly tries to cleave the probe in half with its oversized claws.

Xeni winces at the news.

[Destro_Yersul]

Yeah. Or something. Destro looks down at mutated Xeni and the probe. So who votes on flying and who votes on falling?

((I find it incredibly amusing that no-one but Destro likes the probe))

[Draken]

Did you hear it guys? They found it!

Yea, i tould you it was a good idea to follow em.

No you moron, you just suggested that we just eat them.

Well, since the treasure is at bay, let's just go and ea...

Stop this foolishness NOW, just go and try to parley with then, I don't care about gold, I just wan the magical itens and right now I'm beggining to consider paying for them!

Well, you hear the boss. Let's wait until they reach it and them, showtime folks.

[Rebonack]

The Probe gets clobbered and bounces several times before floating into the air again.

"There's something mean down here too!" the Probe observes.

"I would prefer to fly..." Nick responds. He doesn't really like falling several hundred feet to his death.

[Destro_Yersul]

I'll fall. Destro wanders over to the abyss and steps over the edge. He falls for around the first two seconds. After that, feather fall kicks in. Don't worry about mean things, Zeemis, I can take care of those.

[Chaotic Bob]

Xeni expression radiates 'please let's not' before he reluctantly looks down.

Maimed Xeni...eXeni attacks the probe again, roaring in the process.

[Rebonack]

The probe gets clobbered and bounces off the wall.

"Oow! That hurts!" it floats out of smacking range as best it can.

Nick sticks one of his trick rope arrows in the ground and begins to descend the stairs that they form.

[Chaotic Bob]

Xeni runs a hand down his cloak and it bursts into bat wings again, apparently repaired. He descends the chasm slowly, not looking forward to meeting eXeni.

Who happens to have several ranks in Jump, attacking the probe still. It should be noted that eXeni is Large by this time and quite disturbing to look upon, twisted flesh, spikes, claws, crazy mouth, and a few other nasty bits.

[Destro_Yersul]

You're very ugly. Destro notes to eXeni as he descends the shaft. I mean, very, very ugly.

[Rebonack]

The Probe continues to get knocked around. The thing is still moving, a testament to its durability.

Nick continues to descend his make-shift stairs. It will take a bit longer than flying or falling.

"What's ugly?" he yells.

[Chaotic Bob]

Xeni flaps down, only a tad faster than Nick.

eXeni lunges at Destro, aiming to grab him in its cruel maw.

[Destro_Yersul]

The thing that is trying to attack me right now. It's very spiky, and dangerous-looking. At that, eXeni manages to grab Destro's leg with his pointy tooth filled mouth. Destro looks down at hi- er, it. Ow. You shouldn't do that you know. He then fires a burst of negative energy at eXeni. And that is why you shouldn't do that. He says that even before he knows whether or not it hits.

[Rebonack]

By now Nick's floating light fixture is illuminating the vast pile of dragon wealth the fight is currently taking place on top of.

It glitters and stuff.

The marksmen readies his bow, not really wanting to hit Destro.

"I don't suppose you happen to be the sort of necromancer who turns himself into a lich? Because if you aren't I would hate to hit you on accident with an envenomed arrow."

[Chaotic Bob]

The moment the negative energy hits eXeni two things happen. 1) It immediately releases Destro. 2) It darts 20 feet away so fast it might as well have teleported. Which is a distinct possibility.

Xeni slowly draws his bow, remaining silent.

[AmberVael]

Tom comes to, having been shambling along in a coma like a zombie.

[Destro_Yersul]

Er, yes. I am a lich actually. Destro watches eXeni dart across the pit before sending a small amount of negative energy into his leg. This causes any holes that might remain in it to seal up. So how do we make this thing stay away long enough to get the goodies?

[Rebonack]

"Well we can ask it nicely," Nicholas begins as he brings his bow to bear, training it on the slathering monster that he doesn't recognize as Xeni. "Or I could shoot it with some of those aforementioned envenomed arrows and it'll slump over and die."

[Chaotic Bob]

Xeni notes the effect of the negative energy and hmms, lowering himself further and watching Destro.

eXeni begins to advance again.

[AmberVael]

Tom pulls out his sling and loads it.

[Destro_Yersul]

Yeah, could you try that? Counting is easier without pit-things breathing down your neck. As he says this Destro sends another jet of negative energy over at eXeni.

[Rebonack]

"We'll see how it goes..." Nick mutters moments before an arrow pops into existence as he draws back the shimmering bow-string that wasn't there a moment ago. For whatever odd reason the air is suddenly filled with the scent of lavender and cinnamon.

With a twang the arrow goes whizzing toward eXeni.

It should be noted that this venom doesn't act like a normal poison. It doesn't chemically attack the target's body like natural poisons do. Instead, this stuff acts more like a supernatural curse, sapping away the vitality of even creatures immune to normal poison.

It should also be noted that this stuff is potent enough to outright slay a hearty dwarf instantly.

[Chaotic Bob]

Xeni nods as Destro fires the negative energy and lands behind him.

eXeni once more darts away from the negative energy, but not as far away. The arrow's strike doesn't seem to produce any immediate effect save to give Nick eXeni's undivided attention.

[Destro_Yersul]

Here, somebody start counting. Destro decides that eXeni doesn't warrant full doom-mode, so he only switches one arm to negative form. He takes a few steps towards eXeni as the negative energy sword forms in the hand.

[Rebonack]

((He's immune to the equivalent of Bestow Curse Oo))

Nick doesn't like things giving him their attention in this sort of way. Positive attention he doesn't mind. Negative attention not so much.

He climbs up a bit higher before launching a volley of explosive force arrows at eXeni.

[AmberVael]

Tom flings a sling bullet or two at eXeni, apparently having bought some more at the OmniShop.

[Chaotic Bob]

eXeni roars and performs another speedy dash/teleport, finding itself just below Nick. This has the interesting side effect of avoiding Tom's bulkets and getting away from Destro. It roars again a jumps straight up, absurdly long claws lashing out.

Xeni considers firing, but sighs, knowing he can't. He sits down and begins to count coins.

[Destro_Yersul]

Hey, where'd it go? Destro looks around, before finally realizing that he's forgotten one of the two commandments when dealing with creepy stuff like this. One: Always look up. Two: Always look behind you. He turns around, finding himself looking at said creepy thing attacking someone. Ah. That's where. He walks towards it again, sword held at ready.

[Rebonack]

Nick gets skewered and coughs up a good quantity of blood on eXeni.

"Oow..." he comments.

[AmberVael]

Tom whips out his rapier and dagger, lunging forwards to stab eXeni in the eye and possibly somewhere vital in the leg.

[Chaotic Bob]

Interestingly, eXeni no longer seems to have eyes, but getting stabbed in the head still doesn't feel good. The leg bit goes unnoticed. eXeni promptly tries to wrench Nick down, possibly smacking Tom with him.

Xeni begins to silently consider the complications of fighting his mutated self. Most aren't very good.

[Destro_Yersul]

Destro slashes at eXeni with the black sword he's holding. Interestingly, the sword seems to be made of semi-solidified negative energy. At any rate, it's a very cool sword.

[AmberVael]

((Wise Old Seeress: I see... in the mists of time... a lich named Destro. With a green metal eyepatch.
Man: What is he doing?
Wise Old Seeress: He is wielding... a magic lightsaber))

Tom gets smacked down, and drops his dagger.

[Rebonack]

Nicholas goes tumbling across the riches, bleeding quite a bit still. He's currently trying to resist an involuntary change, but the fact that his legs have withered away to nothing and he's currently sporting a thus far four foot long tail is a testament failure.

It becomes more obvious once he transforms completely. The process makes the sort of noises that normally make people queasy.

He manages to look pretty regal despite the bloody spot on his under-side what with the radiant aura of pure good that's currently shimmering around him.

"Hate transsforming..."

Nick coils around a bit, before lifting his head of the ground and spitting a searing beam of light at eXeni. Too bad he doesn't have eyes, otherwise it might blind him.

[Chaotic Bob]

eXeni would immediately dash after Nick, but the sudden lack of flesh in a cut shape in his side turns its attention back to Destro. It roars. Really loud. Glass shatteringly loud. And right in Destro's face. He then tries to bite Destro in half. The light does quite a lot of very minor burning.

Xeni stands and watches more intently.

[Destro_Yersul]

((Wise Old Seeress: I see... in the mists of time... a lich named Destro. With a green metal eyepatch.
Man: What is he doing?
Wise Old Seeress: He is wielding... a magic lightsaber))

((:smallbiggrin:))

If I had eardrums, you would have burst them right there. Destro's face seems to be none the worse for wear, despite being roared in. When eXeni grabs him in it's mouth again he stabs downwards with the sword. The biting in half doesn't work as well as it could, between Destro's undead-ness and the oddly resilient metal getting in the way of eXeni's teeth. Still does some damage though.

[Rebonack]

Nick glares at his bow which is, currently, sitting on top of the treasure pile.

"Sstupid lack of limbs..." he grumbles at it.

Nick decides to follow suit with the whole biting vibe going around and lashes out at eXeni in a bid to sink his hollow fangs into his flank. Not only would this leave some rather unpleasant holes, it would also provide the writhing mass of critter with another dose of the exceptionally nasty venom the marksmen had shared with him earlier.

[Chaotic Bob]

eXeni roars in pain as the blade carves a deep gouge in its face and the fangs sink into it. It releases Destro and shakes its head, taking a staggering step away from them.

Xeni feels sorry that he can't help with this fight, but returns to doing what he can do to help the group: money gathering.

[Rebonack]

The moment Nick's fangs go in he attempts to lash his coils around the creepy mutated eXeni with the apparent intent of crushing the monster until it stops maiming things.

He's currently hoping that his hide will protect him from getting slashed to ribbons by the random pointy bits sticking out of the mutating creature.

[Destro_Yersul]

That's right. Eat stupidly powerful doom! Destro drops the sword and black fire springs into being around his fists. He throws some of it at eXeni. It should be noted that this is not normal flame. It's a special variety of flame fueled by energy rather than oxygen.

[Chaotic Bob]

eXeni cries out in pain as the fire washes over him/it, shuddering, which isn't helped by the sudden contact of Nick's tail, which probably gets impaled by spines anyway. They are rather sharp. It calms for a moment and then suddenly lashes out at Nick with overly clawed hands.

DeBunny blinks as he is suddenly given the distinct impression that he subsconsciously made a William Birkin clone of sorts...oops.

[Rebonack]

Interestingly enough, the snakey critter's hide is unusually ressiliant, turning away the spikes with, well, not ease. But turning a number of them away none the less. This probably has to do with the fact that they aren't made of silver. Nick doesn't particularly like getting slashed at, though he begins to simply tighten his coils.

Apparently he's rather intent on smushing.

[Destro_Yersul]

Ok. Umm. How to hit it without killing anyone that isn't it. Destro shrugs and waves a hand. A ray of energy strikes up from underneath eXeni. It's meant to cause it to violently purge any blood vessels it might have through its skin. Not a very nice spell, to say the least. Ruin would be proud.

[Chaotic Bob]

Ugh...that spell is always so messy...
Anywho...Nick might find it rather hard to mush eXeni, who's bone structure is much more extensive than a typical creatures and a bit harder. A few blood vessels break, but a mostly made saving throw permits eXeni the use of the vast majority of them.

He retaliates with his clawed hand lashing at Nick's face.

[Rebonack]

And it should also be noted that Nick's muscle cross-strength is significantly greater than any normal creature. So suffice to say he's pretty proficient at smushing.

Despite the constant slashing and the blood oozing down his face he continues to bind tighter. Muscles knot. Bones lock. Holy power fuels his every twitch and movement. Every breath eXeni exhales, that is if he breaths, he tightens a little bit more.

He'll make the thing's guts pop out yet!

For good measure he makes good to bite the mutating being again. Should the fangs sink in another dose of venom will be added to eXeni's veins.

[Destro_Yersul]

Well, you look like you've got that under control. Destro adds a couple magic missiles to the fray and then begins looking around for magic items. With detect magic on.

[Chaotic Bob]

eXeni shudders at the bite, convulsing ever so slightly. The magic missiles don't really help. Nick can likely feel some of his bones begin to cave slightly as breathes become more haggard. Then suddenly, it stops. The bones stop caving and the breathing picks back up. In fact, the bones probably begin expanding. The spines grow and bite and eXeni begins to look like it's going to vomit.

[Rebonack]

Nicholas hears his bones grinding as the thing he's trying to smash begins to grow.

He slacks slightly to make sure he doesn't get torn apart.

Despite the numerous gouges and slashes he begins to tighten against as soon as eXeni ceases to grow.

[Destro_Yersul]

Destro doesn't notice eXeni's rapid expansion. He's much too busy looking for cool stuff.

[Chaotic Bob]

eXeni groans and what looks like its heart falls from its mouth. Apparently it doesn't need a heart anymore. It begins to lurch around, trying to ram Nick into walls.

Xeni joins Destro in his 'cool stuff' search.


Poor Nick. Left to the big creepy monster alone. Because one physically can't fight it and because the other is too busy looking for items. Tsk.

[Rebonack]

Unfortunately there isn't that much cool stuff there.

A bottom rung bag of holding and a plus two short sword are the only magic items in the hoard. Everything else is good old fashioned riches, which there seems to be a good quantity of.

It was a young adult dragon after all.

Nicholas makes a rather unpleasant crunching sort of sound upon being smashed into the rocky walls of the chamber. He pulls his mouth free from eXeni just long enough to yell at the others.

"A little help here?"

The ophisanthrope then proceeds to attempt to sink his fangs into the mutating creature's flesh again. Enough lost vitality should eventually kill anything.

Unless it happens to be undead or something.