Adventure in Eberron: The Paradox Wars

[The Demented One]

It is not often in the world of Eberron that six of the most powerful mortals alive come together in one place. And if they were to come together, the Ocelet II would be a fitting place for them to meet. The largest airship ever built, the jewel in the crown of House Lyrandar, it is a leviathan of the skies, capable of flying around the world in but a month. Its hull is of darkwood, reinforced by a mithral latticework, and abjured to be unbreachable by anything less than dragonfire. Three bound elementals power its flight, their power harnessed by a ring of unshatterable dragonshards. It is no surprise that this ship would sent out to retrieve these six adventurers from Xen’drik: the sheer amount of wealth, fame, and prestige represented by those six figures dwarfs that of whole kingdoms.

The size of the Ocelot II rivals that of small villages, making it no surprise that you six have not yet met in the course of your homeward journey. And while you may have not yet met each other, all of you saw the wave of violet light that came from the horizon. It was like a tidal wave of light brighter than the sun. But as the wave came within Just a few yards of your ship, still in the strange skies of Xen’drik, it fractured, refracting and bending around the ship. Those of you who looked to windward saw the wave of shattered violet coursing through Xen’drik.

After that, however, the flight was fairly uneventful. The winds were faithful, the crew diligent, and the days pleasant. But as your journey came to its end, with Sharn rising on the horizon, you saw something was horribly wrong. The City of Towers was burning. Its mile-high towers, borne up by magic against the heavy weight of gravity, were toppled and burning. As the Ocelot II came over the ruins, the crew desperately trying to contact anyone still alive in Sharn, there was a horrendous shattering sound, the breaking of wood and iron. Those of you on deck could see something moving through the air, like some behemoth falling from the sky. The ship began to heave, and it soon became apparent what had happened: whatever the monstrous shape darting through the skies was, it had bitten the ship in half. With a sickening heave, the ship was rent in half by its own weight. As things fall apart, you drop through the sky, the floor beneath you shattering, falling towards the smoldering ruins of Sharn.

OOC

You’re all in freefall, the nearest surface being a horizontally toppled tower five hundred feet beneath you. You all have time to take two full rounds of action before you hit. Initiative order doesn’t matter; just post whatever actions you want to take. If you want to make Knowledge, Spot, or similar to identify the creature or anything else, now’s the time.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

"Hm." The dark skinned, humanoid shape vaguely resembling a hairless elf with a torn hole in his chest stood on the deck of his ship, his dark iron sword held tightly in his hand, the flowing tattered black cloak flapped in the heavy wind like a flag. He looked unphased.
He walked casually across the still-tilting deck of the ship, simply looking the place over as he would if the ship weren't moving at all. The next moment he disappears in an instant and reappears a few hundred yards away from where the ship would hit the ground, though he floats roughly 20 feet from the ground.
Krimm, so I can track this thread.

[Shiny, Bearer of the Pokystick]

Rabina

::Oh oh my pretty ones- my sweet things why so[?]Sorrow sorrow[!]Rage[!] Hatred[?]But what are you great heaving air displacer great hated bulk- what is your purpose class and genus generus cognomen::

An only vaguely humanoid creature stands at the center of a maelstrom, almost as terrible as the cloud of debris and smoke coalescing around her and shying back as if terrified. At the edges of her aura, flickers of actinic unreality coalesce, splinters of wood and pieces of metal flickering and flying off on random new trajectories. Closer in, a hundred tiny throats can be heard shrieking, those of minute, incorporeal serpentine things, their mouths round horrors of ivory smoke lined with unending teeth. Even closer: darkness, womb-like and impenetrable.

::Swiftly swiftly as arrow bolt projectile :: Sweet Beloved Beautiful One:: Oh To Touch To Feel:: Down[!?]Come sweetly down And progress into loathly fallen places- each your sweet rotting toes and fingers oh my love::

The figure is, perhaps, the most terrifying being on Khorvaire- or at least, was. In this new world, few things are sure, but Rabina the Ink's power to horrify is undiminished. Every word of her monologue slams outward from her mind even as she blinks out of being and reappears firmly situated on the toppled tower, far below. Beneath her feet, the very metal and stone putrefy and rust, creaking.

The agency of her disappearance is soon clear. A more obviously female creature stands beside her- and above her, towering grotesquely on metal-tipped, extended ribs, protruding from a shredded chest in which a heart literally black with charnel age beats, ponderous and squamous with etched bone. The ragged, swollen remains of breasts and forehead and body shift in their maggot rotundity beneath arms now folded after the mental exertion of the transport, and Ganitai leans forward, into an invisible, dark-shrouded caress. She purrs obscenely, a gurgling sound like cave-fish drowning on dry stone.

Rabina raises her arms, jangling with obsidian and silver, and smiles broadly- rather too broadly, since her lips are half-removed with the slow languid effort of obsessive fingers. A slow drip of black, black blood runs down her chin and a flash of cool satisfaction leaves her brain. A moment's pause; her arms and face and flesh are coated in blue-black crystal, thick, involiate, and glistening with ichor. Behind their goggles and their veil, her eyes and face are stretched tight in ecstatic glory as she strains her senses outward, and the darkness around her seems to thicken.

::I will find you outYes So Swiftly you do not know what I can do can hearWhy This Isn't Right Not This Way No Wrong What This Place Not Right DISPLACEDcan hear can find- will find you kill you::


Ganitai manifests Psionic Dimension Door to teleport herself and Rabina to the tower. Rabina makes a listen check, using Whispers, in place of a Knowledge: [All].

Edit:FFFFFFFF ing 'oh no clearly you cannot preview a post with a roll in it' FFFF

Rabina has her Thousand Sapphires armor and her roundshield readied, and is thus at full AC. She readies an action to manifest a maximum-augmentation energy missile pending hostile or ambiguous action by anyone.

[dyslexicfaser]

Gahz

An extremely large, very well-tanned druid hurries portside so he can get a look over the edge of the Ocelot II at the swiftly approaching ground, his quarterstaff beating a hasty tattoo against the deck. He shakes his head sadly. "Never did trust technology." He seems to be a human, but is a lot bigger than usually comes standard, topping out at somewhere over ten feet in height.

In a bare second, he transforms into a bird of prey every bit as large as himself in human form, a massive eagle. With a few flaps of his wings, the human-***-eagle ((OOC EDIT: Heh, apparently GITP has a swear filter)) is airborne, and winging his way towards the nearest of the burning towers. He has visited Sharn several times during his travels, and seeing such destruction fills him with concern, curiosity - and anger.


I have a constant True Seeing effect active, would this enable me to see whatever that was?
Know (Nature): [roll0]
Spot: [roll1]
To see if I can spot, or even recognize the invisible beastie.

Also, I'm going to change my Holy Star (persisted spell) into its +6 AC configuration: boosting my AC up to 32.


((OOC EDIT: And I see Rabina is every bit as disturbingly awesome as advertised.))

[The Demented One]

Vaajekk teleports safely, floating above the surface of the tower, while Rabina and Gahz both manage to successfully alight. The two on the tower can feel it quaking, trembling in a regular staccato beat.

OOC for Rabina

You weren't able to get a clear enough glance at whatever crippled the ship to identify it, but you have a few ideas. In order to decimate the ship as it did, it must be of great size and power, and it clearly jumped up to the ship, rather than flying. Based on this, you could hazard a guess to what the beast might be: it could have been a Nightcrawler, a massive undead native to the plane of Mabar, or perhaps an ancient Purple Worm, larger than most of its breed. It could have been a dragon, but you doubt that - there's no reason a dragon would not simply fly, and no dragon could run wild through Sharn without the Chamber hunting it down. You suppose it could be a mythical beast, like the Tarrasque or a Daelkyr war machine, but you doubt that.

OOC for Gahz

You managed to get a good look at the beast, though you're not sure what is was. It has a long, serpent-like body with an armored carapace, but with four clawed limbs. Its head was almost dragon-like, with a huge maw and twisting horns. It looked like the creature's flesh was decaying, as if it were an undead, but you are not sure.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Mahogany

Before the ship had been struck a figure stood watching the scene below with a spellbound mixture of wonder and concern. He is a seemingly interesting elderly fellow with a vague aura of... comfortableness. His ugly, careworn face has the same sort of appeal to the eyes as a pair of broken-in slippers would to a pair of tired feet. Where exposed his skin is deeply tanned with sunburned looking red tinge. His fuzzy hair has been cropped short and is white with streaks of auburn, as is his mane of a beard. Sharp, thoughtful dark green eyes peer out from beneath bushy brows.

He is of just slightly below normal height, and heavyset, with the slight pot-belly of age. His movements are casual and unhurried, not exactly thoughtful, but as if the proper rhythm was achieved and continues to be maintained. His feet are large and flat, or his right one would be if not for a clubbed curvature expressed in the make of his self-made leather boots, and a slight limp that accompanies it.

Then, without explanation he slumped slightly as if his knees had given way. In but a moment his hair which had once been, if not reasonably well groomed, at least manageable, was suddenly windblown and sticking up wildly. His clothes are now disheveled and twisted about.

His kind eyes wide with fear, he puts a hand to his heart and looks up a moment before the object even appeared in the sky. Even as it comes he is turning and running with astounding speed for his age and twisted foot, shouting, 'AWAY! AWAY!'

He leaps up and over the railing recklessly, falling straight onto Gahz's feathery back as the druid takes off. He grasps frantically for a hold on the sleek feathers.

[Ellas Aramond]

"Shuh muh?" Drann can't help but say as he looks out at the scene. He had come up on deck to admire the view, but little had he known that the once proud City of Towers had become no better then a massive wreck.

He then finds himself thrown into the air, as the watches the airship shatter to pieces, sending pieces of wood and metal flying all around. For a few moments, he is completely dumbfounded, having absolutely no idea what's going on. But he is quickly brought out of his stupor as he sees a young woman out of the corner of his eye. Drann recognizes her as a member of the cleaning staff, having seen her multiple times as he had left his room. There was something he liked about the woman. From the few times he had been able to strike up a conversation with her, she has good humored. And able to make him laugh all to easily. Now, as she hurtles towards the ground, the look on her face is calm, as if not afraid to die.

"Time to go to work then." he grimaces, crossing his arms in an 'X' in front of him. "Yin'xi!"

Instantly, he is engulfed in a explosion of silver fire; his form replaced with one made of the same fire. This new form is covered in red armor, and what parts of his skin that are showing are covered in a silver flame.

He flies over and grabs the woman out of the air, zooming away just as quickly to do the save to whoever else he can reach before they hit the ground. "I've got you. You're safe."

[The_Snark]

Sinan

Unlike others on the ship, the little elf is not famous across Eberron; indeed, outside Xen'drik, he claims no fame at all. Even there, he is only moderately known in Stormreach; some of the guides and mercenaries who've worked with him in the past two or three years have discussed his impressive yet oddly sporadic command of Xen'drik's lore, his generosity as an employer, his apparent inability to comprehend danger, and his equally baffling ability to get away with doing that and still be alive on a continent that swallows even the best-laid plans. There is some argument whether Sinan the scholar is much cleverer than he appears, or whether he is simply the luckiest bastard to walk Xen'drik's shores since another elf stumbled across the secret of deathlessness, used it to free his people, and founded a nation.

Right now, he is living up to both parts of his curious reputation. Sinan is not much to look at; he's shorter than most humans would be, as is usual for elves. Unusually for an elf, he's rounded, maybe almost plump. The olive robes he wears would look at home on any of a thousand librarians or professors across Khorvaire's institutes of learning. At the moment, he is peering curiously at the beast, reaching up to fiddle curiously with the thin-rimmed spectacles he's peering through.

Neither he nor gravity seems to have noticed that the deck is no longer in contact with his feet, and is in fact over a hundred feet beneath him and accelerating.

"My word," he says to himself, at last having settled the spectacles on his nose to his own satisfaction.

"Not what I was expecting." He finally looks down at the ruined scene beneath him, twisted and broken soarwood atop a background of shattered stone. "I suppose I'd better get going, then," he says after another moment, contemplating where he was going to get going to. Sharn no longer seemed the best of destinations. His face clears as he spots people on the tower, and in the air. "Ah! Yes." This is good, there are other survivors.

Gravity is, very gently, permitted to take hold of the elf once more. Sinan falls at a smooth angle, towards the top of the fallen tower, gently twisting in the wind so that he can see all around himself. If the beast bit him in half next, it would not be nearly as impressive, but the fact that it would make a disappointing followup for the behemoth would not be much of a comfort to him.

Spot [roll0] to see what the thing was. I don't know what Knowledges might be appropriate, so feel free to roll for Sinan if he has the relevant skill.

[dyslexicfaser]

Gahz

The giant eagle, not expecting to acquire a passenger in mid-flight, barely manages to resist an instinctive attempt to buck the unexpected weight from his back. Luckily, Mahogany's scrabbling managed to avoid grabbing a fistful of the extremely sensitive pin feathers under his armor-like outer feathers; Gahz doubted he would have been able to ignore that no matter what his intentions.

Mindful of his new rider, Gahz manages a more leisurely glide towards the burning towers, rather than the speedy stoop he had been intending.


Gahz is Large-sized, so there should be no problem with Mahogany riding him, mount-style.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

"Scuse the piggybackin here lad, but accept more thanks than can proply say..." Mahogany gasps. "Mayhap in m' younger days coulda flapped m'arms fast enough, but not this day."

He manages to settle himself firmly and looks behind as the city-sized craft plummets.

"Bless them as was still on there, many a'they was right decent folk. Let me as walk right aboard one of them lasses did. Say she remember me tellin' her a tale as when she was a youngin', though bless me as where. Ain't been as many years as that, 'as it? Couldn' be, I dare say. Was a fine craft, wondrous and fine..." he rambles, wiping tears from his eyes with the back of his hand.

[The Demented One]

As all of you land on the tower, unharmed by the fall, you see the mangled husk of the ship falling into the ruins below, no one else surviving the fall. As the gargantuan splinters of wood and iron rain down on Sharn, you hear a monstrous bellow. A huge, shadowy shape leaps up from the ruins and lands on the same tower as you, its weight nearly unbalancing the horizontal tower. It sniffs at the air, and then looks at you with a predatory grin. Its head is like a dragon's with a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth and a long, serpentine body. An armored carapace covers every inch of the thing's body, and it stands on four powerfully-muscled limbs, each tipped with a razor sharp claw.

It eyes you hungrily, bellowing like a wild auroch. You notice, with no small shock, that for all its seeming vitality, its flesh has the pallor and stench of rotting flesh: this is undead. It stamps the ground, bull-like, and prepares to attack.

Start of Combat!

Initiative
1. Drann
2. Vaajekk
3. Mahogany
4. Serving Girl
5. Sinan
6. Rabina
7. Tower Monster
8. Gahz

Map

http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/5830/towerul3.png
Sorry it's so big...but feel free to go wild with size changes, summons and stuff. You've got room.

The tower is a curved surface, but we'll treat it as rectangular for the battle. The grey squares are the tower's surface, the blue is the empty air just over the edge.

Legend:
D: Drann
V: Vaajekk
M: Mahogany
S: Sinan
R: Rabina
GA: Ganitai
G: Gahz
T: The Tower Monster
SG: The serving girl Drann rescued

Drann's Turn

[Shiny, Bearer of the Pokystick]

Rabina
Readied Action: Response to Agression: Energy Missile

Rabina shrieks on a wide-spectrum psychic band, her veil parting with a sigh and a coruscation of shrieking faces flowing across her skin. Seven massive sockets, within which brain matters glistens, glutinous and befouled, are revealed, each chased in platinum and ringed in garnet, ruby and onyx. A chill wind gathers around her, and the air begins to freeze out of suspension, a thin dusting of oxygen snow falling around her feet even as the missile flings itself toward the creature with a snap of her head.

::Your day is done- Tower-faller - Sky-render- Armored-dead-thing - No more to escape your fate- No more the end of your tale delayed- No more-No More No Scales All Peeled Away and Soft BeneathChildren feel the winter's chill, shiver, dance, and fall quite ill; they recover, age does not, feel a winter, start to rot[!][.]::

She looses a high, keening laugh, head thrown back as if to drink in the chill air.


Summary: Standard Action [Readied] In response to Big Un' agression, Manifesting Fully-Augmented Energy Missile [Cold].

Base damage 3d6+ 15d6 augmentation damage. Save to resist is Fortitude, power affects objects, thus Undead are not immune, +1 damage per die due to Cold type.

Barring extraordinary circumstances/resistances, damage is as follows.

[roll0] Cold

[The Demented One]

Rabina's cryokinetic blasts do not seem to harm the behemoth at all. A thin rime of ice forms over its necrotic flesh, but does not seem to harm or hinder it at all.

[Ellas Aramond]

Glaring at the new danger, The Guardian sets the young woman down , figuring that the city had gone to hell and this place was as safe as any other. "I'll be back for you, I promise." He says, shooting off towards the monster.

"Wo bu shin wo dah yan jing!"He curses, sending a crimson tipped wand flying into his hand from a flame-hidden bracer. "One problem to the next!"

After flying a certain distance, he points the wand at the beast. "Fuhn Huo!" Speaking the activation words, a small ball of fire shoots out from the item, straight for the beast.

I fly 60 ft towards the thing, pull the right wand out of my bracer, and blast it with a fireball.

UMD: [roll0]
Damage [roll1] (Ref 18)

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

Vaajek roars, his jaw opening greater than a person's should reasonably be able to. He stomps his foot forward and holds his arms out behind him, his sword in one hand and small buckler in the other. He cries out, "Graal Ur'Ossok, Saajin'ayus..." The sword suddenly darkens and a field of ash surrounds it.
One moment he floats above the tower, and the next he's gone as if consumed by the space around him. The same instant he appears right next to the beast, sword held in hand ready to swing.

For anyone who understands Abyssal
"Spread the Lament of Heaven, Saajin'ays..."

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Mahogany slides off the raptor's back and lands heavily with an 'umph' on his feet.

"Thanks again my l... GREAT MERCY ABOVE!" he says with a start as the great beast rears its ugly head.

"Lands, but that's a mother great brute and make no mistake..." he breathes, backing away with a look of terrified fascination.

[The Demented One]

The Guardian's fireball washes over the undead behemoth, but its flesh is not even charred by it. Its carapace glows red-hot, but the flames do not seem to harm it at all. However, the blast does prove enough distraction for Vaajekk to teleport behind the creature without it noticing.

Then, there is a most strange, and seemingly unexplained occurence. Violet light glows from the beast's eyes, mouth, and nostrils, and it flails about, seemingly in pain. However, with a triumphant roar, the light flickers and dims, not harming the monster. Almost immediately, the serving girl Drann rescued vanishes, the space around her simply folding in on itself.


Initiative
1. Drann
2. Vaajekk
3. Mahogany
4. Sinan
5. Rabina
6. Tower Monster
7. Gahz

Map

http://img113.imageshack.us/img113/2235/towerbm1.png


Sinan's Turn

[The_Snark]

Sinan

Sinan's brow furrows as the thing emits purple light, and he even pauses in the middle of the incantation he is muttering. "It's the same color," he says as if this is some sort of revelation.

With a slight shrug, he dismisses this curiousity and completes his spell, raising both hands before him as he vanishes and reappears above the beast. The broken city has a haze cast over it from the smoke, and what little light there is seems to be sucked out of the area immediately around him, leaving it covered in odd shadows—only for an instant, though; the snatched light coalesces in a brilliant oblong shape in front of his palms, just before it lances out in a white flash that leaves a blotch in everyone's sight.

Quickened Teleport to get about 50 or 60 feet above the beast, followed by an Empowered, Split Ray Lucent Lance! Ranged touch 1 [roll0], damage [roll1]; ranged touch 2 [roll2], damage [roll3]. If the ambient light is shadowy rather than bright, [roll4] and [roll5] replace those damage rolls.

If either hits, the beast is blinded for a round, and dazzled for the next 18.

Also, roll that I should have made at the start of the day: [roll6]

[The Demented One]

Floating above the beast, Sinan's twin spears of light rain down on the undead beast, but are deflected by its thick, reflective carapace. The beams of light refract and fly away, harmlessly scattering among the overcast skies. The monster looks up at the mage floating above him, bellowing in annoyance more than anger.

Initiative
1. Drann
2. Vaajekk
3. Mahogany
4. Sinan
5. Rabina
6. Tower Monster
7. Gahz

Map

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/6482/towerzz1.png


Rabina's Turn

[Shiny, Bearer of the Pokystick]

Rabina

Rabina rocks back on her heels, biting her lip and keening even as Ganitai throws up a protective wall of ectoplasm behind her. She strides forward, the material around her feet buckling and warping as if with extreme age, and a sussurus of voices rises to a fever pitch before falling silent.

All around her is suddenly shrouded in perfect, impenetrable blackness, which advances as she does.

::For memories long-fallen long-falling from the bleak skies- Yes For Them Not Me Yes Them::

She strides forward.

::For deep blood in your veins somewhere under know it to be so very hungering hungry hungered THING I know- though you do not think I know::

She raises invisible arms, coruscating with unseen brilliance, as if directing a puppet, and a wave of telekinetic force bursts out from her, buckling metal and shattering glass...

::Is It a Pretty Dancer:: Like The One the sweet one the good one he gave us a kiss and we danced together::At a ball oh no oh please he is not dead he cannot be gone the sweet:: You Will Dance And I Will Kill You If You Hurt Our Sweet One::


Rabina takes a Move Action to move forward twenty feet (her maximum speed in her armor) and manifests Control Body, augmented by four points to affect nonhumanoid physiology, and additionally by as much as is necessary to affect a target of the creature's size category.

[The Demented One]

Rabina attempts to telekinetically bind the monster, psychically welding its body to her will, but it resists her, its sheer bulk and unholy vigor denying her efforts.

The monster roars in rage, and leaps with behemoth effort, soaring up into the sky. Its leap takes it even higher than the flying Sinan, and as it descends, it snaps at the mage with its ferocious maw. However, the ponderous beast's tongue is waggling like a blind, idiot worm, and the beast's jaws close down on that rather than Sinan, neatly severing the wiggling tongue. No blood flows from the wound, but the monster growls in pain as it lands back on the tower, jostling it on its base of rubble and ruins.

OOC

Way to roll a natural 1 on your first attack roll, Tower Monster. You're just terrible.

Initiative
1. Drann
2. Vaajekk
3. Mahogany
4. Sinan
5. Rabina
6. Tower Monster
7. Gahz

Map

http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/9668/towertu0.png


Gahz's Turn

[dyslexicfaser]

Gahz

The avian wings its way closer before settling and returning to human form and raises his staff, activating the spell stored within: Undeath's Eternal Foe. There are few things Ghaz dislikes more than the travesty of life and natural death that are the undead, and likes to travel prepared.

Tower monster is.. slightly less fearsome after biting its own tongue off.

Moving 70' closer to the monster; man, this is a big tower. My personal defenses only have a range of 90ft. Can't even touch him.

Spellstaff-stored Undeath's Eternal Foe: grants death ward, protects against ability damage/drain, fear, disease, paralysis, or poison and gets a +4 sacred bonus to AC versus undead.

[The Demented One]

Gahz flies towards the beast, his powerful abjuration warding him against the baleful necropotence that infuses its fangs. As he does, the transformed Drann flies at his side, wreathed in silver flames. He floats a few feet above the ground, waiting for a chance to strike at the towering monstrosity.

Initiative
1. Drann
2. Vaajekk
3. Mahogany
4. Sinan
5. Rabina
6. Tower Monster
7. Gahz

Map

http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/2240/towerio8.png


Vaajekk's Turn

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

The demon bares his pointed teeth and his red and black eyes flare with malevolence. With the release of his sword, his skin seems darker, as does his blade. He raises the sword high, red energy crackling from the edge of it. He swings his blade hard, releasing the entropic destructive power of it. "Kajmaa Velukk, Garraa!!"

Using Strike of Unholy Demise, make a Fort save(DC 30).
Attack: [roll0]
Weapon Damage: [roll1]
Strike Damage(failed save): [roll2]
Strike Damage(passed save): [roll3]
Fail that f**king save.

[The Demented One]

With a heaving effort of sheer physical strength, unholy magic, and manly fighting spirit, Vaajek cleaves through the beast, his blade disintegrating a gaping gash in its side. Ichor and dessicated blood slowly trickles from the fissure carved into the monster, and after a few seconds, it realizes what has happened, and screams in agony and wrath. Vaajek smirks and licks the splattered ichor from his face, while his sword gleams with a black aura, like the aurora borealis seen through a mirror of dark glass.

OOC

Two natural ones. In a row. Facepalm.

Initiative
1. Drann
2. Vaajekk
3. Mahogany
4. Sinan
5. Rabina
6. Tower Monster
7. Gahz

Map

http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/2240/towerio8.png


Mahogany's Turn

[dyslexicfaser]

OOC:
Weird, I seem to hav lost the last paragraph off my last post. Anyway, just thought I'd mention that Undeath's Eternal Foe effects everyone I consider to be 'allies' with the above bonuses.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Mahogany slaps his knee with a hearty laugh and hobbles quickly forward shouting, "You'll have'em on the run soon enough lads! Mebbe bigger'n a fishing tale and smell like m'old boots left too long in the sun but you gottem! Powerful folk the lotta you, make no mistake, and it'll feel the back of the hand for what's its done to them as lived here! Show it what's what and how do you do!"

[The Demented One]

Mahogany runs, much faster than a man his age should be able to. There is something of a twinkle in his eye as he stops just short of the beast, his grin not at all dimmed by the presence of the dread monster.

Initiative
1. Drann
2. Vaajekk
3. Mahogany
4. Sinan
5. Rabina
6. Tower Monster
7. Gahz

Map

http://img391.imageshack.us/img391/8116/towerbe6.png


Sinan's Turn

[The_Snark]

Sinan

Looking moderately perturbed at his recent proximity to the thing's jaws, Sinan mutters another spell at it, bombarding it with several faint streaks of something; the faint projectiles move far too quickly to get a clear view. Immediately after, he begins an incantation, the words possessing a vindictive sound; a a choking grey mist forms about the beast's upper section, eating at the rotting carapace.

Quickened magic missile (damage [roll0]), followed by an empowered Acid Fog centered on the creature. [roll1] damage, plus the effects of a Solid Fog spell...

[The Demented One]

Sinan's magical blasts deflect harmlessly off the beast's carapace, narrowly missing him as they rebound. However, the acidic mist he summons burns away at the beast's skin and muscles, corroding it away with a potent vitriol. Unfortunately, however, the cloud of acid also catches Vaajek, but he does not seem to be harmed at all by it.

Initiative
1. Drann
2. Vaajekk
3. Mahogany
4. Sinan
5. Rabina
6. Tower Monster
7. Gahz

Map

http://img102.imageshack.us/img102/1129/towerun2.png


Rabina's Turn

[Shiny, Bearer of the Pokystick]

Rabina

::So-so-so-not invincible not immovable, can be hurt[!] And mine as well Should Hurt::

Rabina strides forward, implacably, and sends out another juddering wave of force, accompanied by a psychic howl like the ravening cries of a few thousand wolves.


Second verse, same as the first; twenty feet straight onwards, Control Body. Fail your #$(*@#$(* save this time, invincidragon.

[dyslexicfaser]

Gahz

Gahz moves closer yet. When he comes to a halt, beams of fiery-red light erupt from his eyes, and a tiny blue spark - almost unnoticeable - that had been hovering around him became a powerful beam of blue fire.

He finishes with a Giant Vermin spell, summoning into being a Gargantuan Scorpion to aid them.


Fiery vision: two beams of [roll0] and [roll1]
Holy star ranged touch attack: [roll2] (Damage: [roll3])

Both are fire damage.

Gargantuan Scorpion appears below and a little to the left of Vaasth.

[The Demented One]

Once more, Rabina attempts to yoke the beast to her will, and once more it rebuffs her efforts. She can sense a great strength within the beast, greater than she thinks she could easily master.

The beast turns its attentions to Vaajek, seeking reparations for its wound. As it turns on the swordsman, the wound in its side begins to close, seemingly healing within seconds. Though the wound does not fully close, a thick layer of scabs forms over it, and the beast seems much less hampered by it. The beast brings its full might to bear against Vaajek. First it lashes out with its tail, revealing a sharp, barbed stinger that pierces through Vaajek's armor and flesh, then it slaps at him with its tail's massive bulk. Then it lashes out with its claws, battering Vaajek as easily as if he were a child's doll. Then it drops down, its head level with the swordsman's body, and gores him on its twisting horns, shattering bones and tearing muscle, and causing blood to flow freely from Vaajek's mouth (100 damage, not counting damage reduction).

Considering its work done, it then turns on the transformed Drann, eying the flying, flame-wreathed humanoid with amusement. With its powerful jaws, it lashes out, its fang cutting through the champion like adamantine scimitars. Drann can feel necrotic virulence tainting his body, but an inner strength wells up within him, shielding him from the baleful power of the beast's bite - a boon granted to him by Gahz's abjuration. However, even Gahz's mighty spell cannot stop the beast from clutching Drann in his jaws, putting him perilously close to being swallowed. (35 damage, not counting damage reduction. Drann is now grappled).

Gahz lets loose with a volley of flames, but the beast seems unharmed by any fire, even the fiercest a mage could call up. However, the scorpion he summons up seems like it might prove a match for even a beast as fearsome as the tower monster.

Initiative
1. Drann
2. Vaajekk
3. Mahogany
4. Sinan
5. Rabina
6. Tower Monster
7. Gahz

Map

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/3373/towerpl3.png


Drann's Turn...will have to wait until Mythweavers is back up.

[The Demented One]

Bloodied, but not shaken, Drann takes advantage of his position, clutched between the beast's jaws, to let loose a volley of blows, pounding on the monster's weak, unprotected mouth. His battering successfully shatters the beast's soft palate, leaving its jaws gaping comically askew.

Initiative
1. Drann
2. Vaajekk
3. Mahogany
4. Sinan
5. Rabina
6. Tower Monster
7. Gahz

Map

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/3373/towerpl3.png


Vaajek's Turn

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

Vaasth takes a slightly more defensive stance, his hand clutched around nothing, like a vicious talon as small arcs of electricity crackle between his claws and up his arm. "Vakraa!!" He cries his abyssal battle-cry as he swings his arm forward and an arc of lightning fires from his flung arm to the body of the beast, it cracks the air for a split second as it collides with it and burns the air.

Don't need to roll for defensive casting. Using my chain lightning SLA.
CL check for SR: [roll0]
Electricity damage: [roll1] DC 26 Ref save for half.

[The Demented One]

Vaajek's bolt of lightning heads unerringly towards the brute, but it managaes to duck the worst of the bolt, its side only glancingly singed. Nonetheless, the shocking current that runs through its animated body manages to throw the beast into painful, erratic spasms.

Initiative
1. Drann
2. Vaajekk
3. Mahogany
4. Sinan
5. Rabina
6. Tower Monster
7. Gahz

Map

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/3373/towerpl3.png


Mahogany's Turn

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Mahogany seems to be having the time of his life as he watches the battle raptly, though jumps back a bit as the giant scorpion suddenly makes it's appearance.

He shields his eyes as the lightening bolts crackle through the area, peering hard at the nightmarish beast under attack, lest he miss a single moment.

"Fry it up good, lad. Like mine sunny side up!" he calls to Vaajekk with a broad grin.

[The Demented One]

A bubble of violet light, ephemeral as that of the aurora forms around the beast, and begins to contract around it. As it does, the monster seems to shrink, becoming younger and younger in shape, diminishing greatly in stature. Its serpentine body shifts, taking on a reptilian, bipedal stance, its tail shrinking and losing its stinger. And that is not the only change: the beast is brought back to life from its state of undeath, its necrotic flesh taking on a vibrant orange hue. As the violet fades, what is left seems a much weakened, juvenile form of the monster you were just facing.

OOC

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the mother of all debuffs.

Initiative
1. Drann
2. Vaajekk
3. Mahogany
4. Sinan
5. Rabina
6. Tower Monster
7. Gahz

Map

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/2649/towergf9.png


Sinan's Turn

[The_Snark]

Sinan

A befuddled Sinan stares down at the beast with increasing frustration as it shrugs off his most recent spell.

Well, actually, his most recent spell is still gently dissolving away its flesh, but it shrugged off all the others. In fact, he notices, that spell is also gently dissolving some of what, he supposes, are his erstwhile companions. He should probably do something about that.

Sinan swoops downwards-ish, wafting back and forth to make himself harder to hi. He halts himself just outside the creature's jaws, experiences an amusing moment of deja vu, and stretches in to grasp whatever part of the silvery fiery fellow is most easily reachable. "Come along, we'll soon have you out of this, eh?" he says cheerily, to let the fellow know to accept the spell.

And indeed, the pair of them (assuming Drann is willing) vanishes and reappears a good fifty feet away. Sinan tosses a quick wave backward, and things stream upward out of the fog around the creature. The creatures resemble some kind of insect, each one as long as a person is tall, but made from shards of masonry, as if they had been torn from the stone of the tower beneath the beast's feet. Mandibles of jagged stone and stings formed from slivers of metal make them look quite threatening, and worst of all, the things emit a terribly loud buzz and a weird static warbling, like some hunting cry never heard on Khorvaire before. They hover menacingly about the creature, darting and feinting with incredible speed.

Drann is receiving the benefit of a Teleport spell, should he choose to accept it.

Tumble to avoid attacks of opportunity is an autosuccess.

Fog deals [roll0] damage.

[The Demented One]

Sinan and Drann teleport away from the now-diminished beast to a place of safety. Meanwhile, he summons a swarm of what seem to be stone insects, a legion of monsters that seem to arise from the tower itself. The whirr and click in an eerie, cicada-like symphony of menace as they move towards the monster.

For Mahogany

You recognize the stone insects for what they truly are: an illusion. Sinan has not summoned them, but merely devised a mass illusion to fool the beast.

Initiative
1. Drann
2. Vaajekk
3. Mahogany
4. Sinan
5. Rabina
6. Tower Monster
7. Gahz

Map

http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/6338/towerhn8.png


Rabina's Turn

[Shiny, Bearer of the Pokystick]

Rabina

::Not so great:Not so large:Not so potent:Not so dead:::But does not death come even unto the poor man's cottage and the palaces of kingsoh sweet one for youYES.[!][!]::

The cloud of oily darkness that is Rabina surges forward and flicks forth a tendril of bleak color; arcing along it are warped, illusory versions of the beast, in its current form, a fully human one with laughing eyes, its massive form...and at least a few that lie motionless, bleeding from gaping wounds. When it contacts the creature, the other visions collapse...


Move action, another twenty feet.
Standard, manifesting Recall Death.
DC to resist is 30, damage on successful save:
[roll0]

OOC: I just now realized why that darn Control Body kept failin'. CURSES!
Maybe next round if it keeps healing itself, I'll fling its not-undead-not-collasal arse off a cliff. Like I meant to.

[The Demented One]

The arc of possibility collapses onto the towering monster, revealing gaping wounds, unfolded from the depths of past and future. However, they are not the fatal wounds Rabina had sought to draw forth: painful and crippling, but not enough to lay the behemoth dead.

The monster lashes out at the nearest of Sinan's stone wasps, attacking it tooth and nail with everything it has. However, after its first blow misses, it halts, regarding the behemoth with an almost curious look. It tilts its head, stares at the stone creature for a few seconds, and then leaves, wandering off to face Vaajek. The stonelings in reach of it attack as it leaves, but their blows miss.

Initiative
1. Drann
2. Vaajekk
3. Mahogany
4. Sinan
5. Rabina
6. Tower Monster
7. Gahz

Map

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/4101/towerbt4.png


Gahz's Turn

[dyslexicfaser]

Gahz

Gahz shakes his head, unable to puzzle out the why's, how's and wherefore's of the purple light's effects.

Gahz's scorpion strikes with claws and sting, mindless of any danger inherent in the strange mist enveloping the beast.

Gahz shifts his form once more, this time assuming the form of an immense elephant, far bigger than even its natural cousins. Fifty tons of pachyderm stomps right over and past Mahogany without breaking stride, barrelling toward the monster like an out-of-control lightning rail, head lowered to present tusks that could put tree trunks to shame.


Scorpion attack:
Claw: [roll0]
Damage: [roll1]
Claw: [roll2]
Damage: [roll3]
Sting: [roll4]
Damage: [roll5]

If a claw strikes, improved grab ([roll6]), ((OOC: Forgot Improved Grab only works on smaller creatures)) if the sting does it imparts a Fort DC 23 1d8 con poison (not that poison will probably hurt this thing).

Gahz becomes a Gargantuan-sized Behemoth (Str becomes 36, AC becomes 38, base land speed 50ft). As part of the shift, casting a free action Bull's Strength (Str now 42). I think I'm allowed to charge through an ally space if he's three sizes below me. If not, ignore this portion of the post and assume I just double-move to get in range.

Charge attack: [roll7] +2 for the Bull's Strength
Damage: [roll8] +2 for the Bull's Strength

[The Demented One]

The giant scorpion manages to break through the beast's carapace with only one of its claws, its stinger and other claw rebuffed by the thick armored shell. That is all the leverage it needs to grapple the beast into submission, but its strength is no match for that of the beast, even in its shrunken state.

Gahz transforms into a behemoth pachyderm, and charges towards the beast. As he does, he finds that he can simply move through the stone insects summoned by Sinan - they offer him no resistance. He impacts with comet-like force, staggering the hulking monster.

As Gahz charges, Drann flies right beside him, ducking and weaving beneath the behemoth's legs. He flies up and through the cloud of acid, floating above the beast, his fists ablaze with silver fire.

Initiative
1. Drann
2. Vaajekk
3. Mahogany
4. Sinan
5. Rabina
6. Tower Monster
7. Gahz

Map

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/6682/towerxo0.png


Vaajek's Turn

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

He stopped for a moment, his eyes widened for but a moment, looking into the young eyes of the infant beast. His expression suddenly hardens, as if reverting to a different personality. He lifts his blade high, a torrent of ash swirling around it, and swings it down with unholy vigor. The screams of Shavralath come from it as it sails through the air.

Initiating Feed the Maw of Hell. Also some nasty side effects of my spirit weapon.
Attack:
Weapon Damage: [roll1]
Strike Damage: [roll]20d6 vile
If it hits it also takes 1 negative level, and poisoned(1d6 Str pri. and sec.) with a Fort save of 29.
Poison damage: [roll2] Str

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

Crit Confirm: [roll0]
Let's do that Strike Damage agian: [roll1]

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Mahogany looks up into the underside of great elephant as it passes over and looks down again quickly, averting his eyes.

"Go at it beastly fella, but mayhap keepin' some drawers around might be for the best!" he calls out.

He shakes his head, "Lands but that be a tough brute..."

[The Demented One]

Vaajek's wicked blow strikes with great force, tearing a vicious gash in the creature's underbelly, spilling blood and entrails all over Vaajek. However, that is but one stroke of the blade, and Vaajek knows his strike should have spread vile toxins through the beast's blood, and sapped at is life force, yet he feels certain that this has not happened. What does happen, however, is that the beast's flesh begins to crumble to dust around the wound, the disintegration deepening the gash - certainly nothing Vaajek had intended to do.

Initiative
1. Drann
2. Vaajekk
3. Mahogany
4. Sinan
5. Rabina
6. Tower Monster
7. Gahz

Map

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/6682/towerxo0.png


Sinan's Turn

[The_Snark]

Sinan

The stone insect-creatures abruptly cease their threatening wail, as well as their attempts to dive-bomb the behemoth; they hover lazily in the air, as if suddenly bereft of motivation. Sinan, meanwhile, produces another spell, launching a tiny white streak from his finger; shortly after it passes over the creature's shoulder, it detonates with a hiss, bathing the creature's flank in an eerie white fire.

Quickened True Casting to give +10 to overcome spell resistance, followed by an empowered Rimefire Holocaust, cast so that only the thing is in the area. Damage- [roll0], half fire and half cold, Reflex half. CL check against spell resistance is +30, if needed.

[The Demented One]

An eerie, white flame spreads through the air, enveloping the beast. While it seems the flames will once again do nothing to it, that is not what happens: instead, ice spreads where the flame is, able to harm the creature now that its flesh is living. Though the beast manages to duck the worst of the rimefire, it is still frostbitten and rimed by the blast.

Initiative
1. Drann
2. Vaajekk
3. Mahogany
4. Sinan
5. Rabina
6. Tower Monster
7. Gahz

Map

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/6682/towerxo0.png


Rabina's Turn

[Shiny, Bearer of the Pokystick]

Rabina

The maid of Dolurrh slowly brings her hands together, as if working against a massive resistance; around her, lashings of electric blue play with a strong odor of ozone. As her fingers meet, her head-sockets flare, sprouting ball lightning to race toward the foe.

::You are persisting, shouldn't be still, still here, not now! Not Right, This. Should Die.::

Her cloak of night falls for just a moment to reveal her standing, hands at her sides, resigned and weary, even as her missiles reach their target. Her lips part, move.

"Please; won't you stop? Won't you stop?"


Energy Missile, Lightning, Augmented by seven points. Reflex DC to resist 33 [Half Damage], +2 bonus vs. Power Resistance.
Damage:
[roll0]

[The Demented One]

Rabina's cascade of electricity sears the monster's defenseless flesh, the lightning seeking a route straight to the beast's heart through its conducting smell. There is a hagard stench of singed flesh, and the beast wails in pain.

Blinded by agony, it lays into Vaajek with everything it has, not letting up for a moment. Its shrunken limbs, however, and the wounds they inflict on the warrior are practically mere scratches compared to its former strength. However, it still has enough power in its jaws to snag Vaajek, lifting him up in its maw (49 damage, Vaajek is now grappled).

Initiative
1. Drann
2. Vaajekk
3. Mahogany
4. Sinan
5. Rabina
6. Tower Monster
7. Gahz

Map

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/6682/towerxo0.png


Gahz's Turn

[dyslexicfaser]

Gahz

Recognizing that his fiery gaze is useless against this beast, Gahz lets out a challenging trumpet and lashes out with first his mighty tusks, then momentarily going up on his hind legs and attacking with his forelegs to bring his weight and size into play.

His scorpion continues to tear at the monster with claws and stinger.


Gahz:
Gore: [roll0]
Damage: [roll1]
Stomp: [roll2]
Damage: [roll3]
Stomp: [roll4]
Damage: [roll5]

Scorpion attack:
Claw: [roll6]
Damage: [roll]2d6+10/roll]
Claw: [roll7]
Damage: [roll]2d6+10/roll]
Sting: [roll8]
Damage: [roll9]

If a claw strikes, improved grab [roll10]

Holy Star switches back to +6 AC mode, AC goes up to 44.

[dyslexicfaser]

Argh. Too many attack rolls.

Damage for the scorpion's attacks:
[roll0] for the first claw and [roll1] for the second.

[dyslexicfaser]

Do we have a dice roller thread? This is getting out of hand.

The critical threat for the second stomp: [roll0]

And the one for the scorpion's sting: [roll1]

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

The kajubaan roars in anger as he's ripped from his place in mid-air by the creature's jaws. He closes his eyes and effortlessly concentrates as he clutches his claw as he did before, it again crackling with vicious electricity. He stabs his claw into the roof of the monster's mouth and unloads the electrical energy from his arm and into the brain of the beast.

Another auto-Concentration, using my second of three chain lightning spell-like abilities.

Chain Lightning: [roll0]

[The Demented One]

Gahz and his summoned scorpion work in concert to take down the beast. Gahz rears up and crushes it beneath his feet, and there is an audible cracking of bone as he stamps down. The scorpion graps the thing's foreclaws with its pincer and jabs its stinger right between its eyes, wounding the monster painfully. With a roar, it breaks free from the scorpion's hold.

Initiative
1. Drann
2. Vaajekk
3. Mahogany
4. Sinan
5. Rabina
6. Tower Monster
7. Gahz

Map

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/6682/towerxo0.png


Drann's Turn

[Ellas Aramond]

From the few moments of respite that The Guardian can get while dodging the beast, he is sill, as if preparing for something. Suddenly, from that stillness, an explosion of fire and physical might rains down upon the creature.

Activating two of my grafts, dealing in a burst [roll0] fire damage (DC 22 ref negates)

Burning Fist [roll1]
Burning Fist [roll2]
Burning Fist [roll3]
Burning Fist [roll4]

Burning Fist [roll5]+[roll6] fire
Burning Fist [roll7]+[roll8] fire
Burning Fist [roll9]+[roll10] fire
Burning Fist [roll11]+[roll12] fire

*fists are magic and adamantine

[The Demented One]

The Silver Guardian's flaming fists cannot burn the beast, but the force of his blows still pummels down on it. It recoils in pain, only to be met with a bolt of lightning fired down its throat by Vaajek, searing its innards. The wafting smell of its roasted organs is overpowering, and its wails are deafening.

Initiative
1. Drann
2. Vaajekk
3. Mahogany
4. Sinan
5. Rabina
6. Tower Monster
7. Gahz

Map

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/6682/towerxo0.png


Mahogany's Turn

[The Vorpal Tribble]

"RAWWWR GRRROCH BRRBRHHH PARRBRRRRRRR R RRR RR KLAWWRR?" Mahogany calls out, and then rubs his throat with a wince.

[The Demented One]

Mahogany's voice may carry some meaning, by the monster does not understand any tongue spoken by mortal race. It does, however, hear the sound of a competitor, something more than prey. Though it cannot properly roar a challenge back with a mouth full of Vaajek, it locks eyes with Mahogany, its nostrils flaring.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

"Old man!! I appreciate you attempting to get it's attention on you and off myself, but in my current position I think it's just a little too late!!" He roars for the first notable time since meeting him in common instead of abyssal. As he shouts, his shape becomes very slightly less distinct, and the ash cloud around him seems to thicken.

[The Demented One]

Suddenly, the monster's eyes begin to glow violet, and violet light streaks out from its nostrils and mouth. It shakes, losing its hold on Vaajek and dropping him. Violet light begins to coruscate across its hold body, refracting into bizarre patterns along its carapace. It head glows steadily brighter and brighter, until it is a blinding beacon of pure violet. Then, without a noise or warning, the light dissipates, folding back in on itself to darkness. With a heavy, seismic thud, the monster falls to the ground, its carapace shattering as it does.

The tower heaves as the monster falls, see-sawing atop the ruins beneath it. However, it soon returns to equilibrium, perfectly balanced atop a pile of fallen towers and rubble that stretch all the way to the cavernous depths of Sharn.

Battle Over. Everyone gains 5400 XP.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

He pushes the meat off of him as he gets up, his sword less blackened and the ash surrounding him completely gone. Vaajek takes a few steps forward and shrinks instantly into space, the same instant reappearing closer to the center of the tower, looking around at the rest of the group and sliding his sword into the sash around his waist.
Now that he isn't flying, teleporting, fighting or being eaten, you get a better look at him. He stand an astounding seven feet in height, covered in thick muscles and dark grey skin, apparently, covered in a thin layer of oil of some sort. His appearance would lend you to believe that he is some sort of massive, not-so-frail elf. He's draped in black, including a long, sleeveless, tattered coat and thick bracers over pitch-black claws. The whites of his eyes are black and his irises blood red, almost glowing with abyssal menace. His most pronounced feature is a gaping hole in the center of his chest slowly oozing dark dark blood.
"Kejmak Vall..."

[dyslexicfaser]

Gahz

The elephant shrinks and swiftly resumes its human form - a form as massive for a human as he had been for an elephant. He is clad in the greens and browns often favored by druids and rangers, offset by what he is convinced is a very dashing straw hat and bare feet. He looks at the monster's carcass thoughtfully, the terrible destruction wrought upon Sharn momentarily brushed from his mind.

The creature baffled him utterly; first regressing in time from undeath to a living, possibly adolescent form, then seeming to keel over with little to no input from them. And then that strange purple light, the same light that had washed over the Ocelot II... they had to be connected. He'd never seen anything quite like it, and he'd seen a lot of creatures, both magical and mundane in nature.

Finally, he shakes himself like a dog coming in out of the rain, and looks up at Vaajekk and the others gathered. "Uh.. yes.. well met. " He obviously has no idea what Vaajekk just said, but doesn't let that stop him. "I am Gahz. You were all on the Ocelot II?"

[Ellas Aramond]

The fire-shrouded warrior looks down at the others, curious as to who it was that he was fighting alongside. He finds himself slightly unsettled by the sight of Vaajek and Rabina, but does his best to conceal it, not wanting another fight on his hands.

He floats back down onto the toppeled tower, and re-stores the wand in a slot along his right bracer. As he does so, his flames decrease in intensity, allowing a better look at his form. If a holy knight and a fire elemental were ever fused together, it might look something like The Silver Guardian. There is not a single part of his body that hasn't been covered by crimson armor or silver fire, and his eyes are little more then white orbs on a vaguely human face.

"In a sense," he says, in response to Ghaz "I'm known as The Silver Guardian. There is something I must ask though. I was able to rescue a young woman from the ship. Do any of you see her anywhere?" As he asks, his eyes check the surroundings in case she was teleported anywhere.

Spot check: [roll0] to see her.

[The Demented One]

The Guardian cannot see the girl anywhere. However, after the space of about a minute spent searching her, there is a burst of purple and a popping noise, and she reappears right where she stood when she disappeared, still cowering in fear.

After a moment, she looks around, confusion replacing the fear. "What just happened? That thing went away, you're all in different places, and...and Sharn's still burning." She looks around at you - Vaajek, with a gaping hole in his chest; Rabina, with her mysterious veils and eerily glowing skin; Drann, wreathed in silver flame. She begins nervously walking back, heading towards Mahogany.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

"Well now, Mahogany is m'name, leastwise that's what 'm called, nick's name if you will, from before the whole topknot went the way of winter if you catch m'drift, heh heh." the elderly fellow replies as everyone comes together.

"Worthy of song that!" he says, looking over the corpse in fascination but his face turns grave glancing out over the city, "Leastwise if aught were 'bout to hear of it."

He turns around at the flash of light.

"You alright there lass?" Mahogany says, walking with his limpy gait towards her. "You missed these wondrous folk battlin' as horrible a beast as you ever heard round the hearth is all."

[Shiny, Bearer of the Pokystick]

Rabina

Rabina sprints up to the fallen beast, legs flapping under a skirt long enough to be modest but with enough slits to be the opposite; Ganitai follows at a few paces, with the air of an indulgent mother following her fleet-footed child.

Rabina kneels, replacing her veil carefully after dropping her shroud; her armor remains in place, but she stows her shield carefully on her back.

Her fingers flick outward towards the fallen beast; she strokes it, almost lovingly.

::What have you done, where have you gone[?] Not by steel or spell[.] I did not do this, could not, did not[!] Why so, why gone, why fallen[?]::

Her other hand reaches outwards, pointing at each of her new 'companions'; then into her pack, drawing forth a silvery sphere and several rolls of parchment, each laboriously scraped and conditioned to newness. The sphere draws out two small limbs tipped with quills, and begins writing...

Parchments:

The woman knelt over the beast, her soft white hair flowing in a gentle breeze, befouled only by the sulphurous odor of a burning Sharn- a blasphemy, an offense against time and history.

"What could have done this, Ganitai? And why?"
Her eyes glistened with tears behind her veil, and her hands clenched and unclenched, rounded nails drawing half-moons of blood from her palms.
The beautiful Kalashtar pulled her close, fingers dancing across her temples and brow, lips following.

"I don't know, my darling. But we will find out, and we will stop it."...

Weight x29348[Unit191] Height 19349xx Temporal Worldline Relational Density 1934932409832409234[xho'has'takUnit]...


OOC

Manifesting Sensitivity to Psychic Impressions on the carapace locale, and Read Thoughts on each 'ally'.

[The_Snark]

Sinan

Sinan watches the beast fall to the ground curiously; the girl's reappearance is mildly starting to him, and he peers at the space where the violet flash was, frowning and occasionally muttering to himself. "Same color, same color... no sense of displacement... lasted no more than a minute or two..." He walks towards the others, attention still completely elsewhere. "... all beneficial but the first... Sharn itself, too, perhaps..."

As he reaches them, his head snaps up, and he smiles. "Ah! Hello there, hello. Sinan is the name. I was a passenger on the ship... wonder what did it... or who..." he falls off into a mutter again, musing on the ship's whereabouts, before returning to a normal voice. "Yes! Yes, the ship. Do you think we ought to look for the remains of that? I don't know that anybody could have lived, but there might be some... or elsewhere in the city... I'm afraid I'm not terribly used to this sort of thing, you know," he explains, as if there were people used to the destruction of the most famous metropolis in the world. "Would've had to run from that monster if you hadn't been here, I think. Terrible thing. Many thanks, many thanks..."

ShinyRabina's attempt at mind-reading slides off Sinan like water off a duck's back. A duck that, in fact, had been behind a glass window in the first place, and never even got wet.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

Vaajek's thoughts are all pretty much bitter and violent.
The demon watched as the woman reappeared, caring little about a pathetic mortal. His keen eyes weren't for nothing though, as he began to look away from the human girl he instantly looked back at her. He started walking toward her, his hand not going for his blade just yet. "Familiar... A curious face you've got, human."

[dyslexicfaser]

If Read Thoughts is like Detect Thoughts, then Gahz is also duck-like. He has mind shielding.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Shiny
Behind Mahogany's amiable face there seems to be nothing there. There is no barrier, it's just as if there is no mind to read.

[Ellas Aramond]

The fires surrounding The Guardian flare up slightly as he watches Vaajek approach the woman. He's not sure what the demonic man is, but he doesn't trust him, causing him to be concerned with her saftey.

"Good idea," he says to Sinan, never taking his eyes off Vaajek. "Someone on that ship just might have been lucky enough to have their fall slowed."

Shiny
Drann's mind is mixed between relief that nothing had happened to the young woman, and concerned about Vaajek.

[The Demented One]

"Fa...familiar?" the girl asks, stepping back and brushing her deeply red hair out of her eyes, vibrant green and flecked with silver. "I don't know what you're intentions are, but you will put that sword away before you talk to me." she says, her voice without so much as a tremor. "I just fell out of an airship into the flaming ruins of Sharn, and I am not going to have some...some deformed miscreant try to take advantage of me."

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

Vaajek peers at the girl and bares his teeth at her, "If you'll note... my sword is in my belt... and you'd best hold your tongue when you think to call me a miscreant... Jekkay F'Koll..." He arches his fingers with an audible cracking noise.

[The_Snark]

Sinan

"Er, perhaps we can finish bickering later? I don't mean to harp on the subject, but the city is rather burning as we speak," Sinan hazards, and suddenly looks to be lost in thought again. "Do you know, I'd never been to Sharn before. My first time here and something sets the whole place on fire. Doesn't seem quite fair... Have any of you been here before?" he asks, returning from his reverie.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Mahogany stops halfway to the girl and his eyes widen in shock. He stares into the distance and rubs a hand across his bushy hair.

"Lands..." he whispers.

He turns to the others.

"Folk, great as the lotta you are, might you take a bit of advice from this old man? We got our hands full and that's a fact, and we're like as not gonna have'm fuller. Now we're all jumped up over it all, leastwise I feel halfway outta m'skin, so lets take a look see and point words'n'swords to the like as that brute, fair enough?"

He nods to Sinan, "Been round couple or three, leastwise if I'm counting right, though never was quick to numbering. Fulla life and sorts from all about. Was right fine..."

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

Vaajek turns to the old man, and realizing separating from the rest of the group(if they should happen to leave the realm of the living for any reason) would mean a severe drop in his power. "...I have spent most of my time in Xen'drik and the Underdark. Sharn is new land to me, though Breland is not entirely foreign."

DM Only, possibly also Rabina.
Vaajek projects a violent tone into the server girl's head through telepathy, like the sounds of battle on Shavralath, his tongue the usual abyssal, "Kerran Vaarkoth Kejmol Dann!"

[Ellas Aramond]

"I used to be based in Thrane, The Guardian explains as he moves closer to Vaajek, wanting to be able to intervene should anything get out of hand. "But that was before I was in Xen'drik for a few years. I have been to this city a few times though."

[dyslexicfaser]

Gahz

Gahz offered, ignoring Vaajekk and the girl's little spat, "I've been through once or twice. Some of the most amazing use of levitation spells I've ever seen, and the markets..." Gahz trailed off, his eyes unfocused as he thought back to his last trip through Sharn. "Nevermind."

Gahz had finally thought of something constructive to do. He began muttering and hand-waving, working his will on the sky high above Sharn to bring forth a downpour, enough rain to quench the flames devouring what little is left of Sharn.

Quench and Cloudburst aren't going to cut it for this job. Casting Control Weather to bring forth a 4-to-6-mile-in-diameter rainstorm: he'll be occupied for the next ten minutes.

[The_Snark]

Sinan

"Well. You will all have to tell me about it sometime. I believe that's customary in some places, yes? A wake, I recall. Sort of a remembrance." Sinan notes Gahz's spell. "Ah, yes. We ought to get to work, hmmm?" He takes an oddly proportioned staff from his back, just too short to make a good walking-stick. Ridges spiral up at irregular intervals, each one at a slightly different angle; the staff is reflective, like a mirror, but where a mirror would reflect bright light even in the smoky haze of Sharn's remains, the staff remains stubbornly dull, making the reflections difficult to see.

Sinan begins an odd spell using the staff, sending tiny orbs in all directions as he finishes a minute later.

Casting Greater Prying Eyes through the runestaff, for [roll0] eyes. The eyes have orders to investigate the surrounding mile of ruins, returning if they spot living or hostile creatures that Sinan can't see already.

[The Demented One]

Gahz's spell soon brings forth the rain, a cleansing rain the likes of which have not graced Sharn for months. Slowly but surely, the fires begin to die down, and the soot and ash are washed away.

While Gahz weatherworks, Sinan scouts out the ruins with his arcane eyes. After a few minutes, they return to him, bobbing up and down in the air. As he points to each of them, the relay what they have seen. The devastation is complete, stretching from the tops of Sharn down to its subterranean foundations. No living creatures could be found, although they managed to find a few undead dotting the ruins, half-rotted zombies barely holding together, nothing like the beast you just faced. In addition, one of the eyes found something strange about a half mile beneath you, an orb of blue crystal, taller than a man, lying cradled in the smoking ruins. The eye excitedly relates a path to Sinan.

[Shiny, Bearer of the Pokystick]

Rabina

The storyteller clutches her forehead, and collapses into her companion's arms, sobbing wildly.

::NO. [!] Not [!] PLEaSE NoTOh my love oh please pro:tect keep hold save SA:VESo many dead things, so ter:rible, oh so terrible, no words, no words Oh, dead, so many, so great[!]::

Her hands clench and unclench, tearing her palms apart; her lips meet her teeth with distressing frequency. She stumbles away from Ganitai and to her knees.

"P-please, please? What- they-they-they burned, burned: all dead, dead. So great. Please stop it, stop them. Help. Please."

Moisture leaks from beneath her goggles and her arms reach up and out, searching for contact.

[The Demented One]

The girl shoots Vaajek a filthy look. "I know you did that, I'm savvy to the witchcraft you're using. What are you, some filthy-blooded sorcerer? An aberrant mark maybe, degenerate mutant spawn?" She glares at him fiercely, until Rabina's outburst.

She heads towards the fallen storyteller, not entirely sure it is safe, and kneels by her side, helping to support her. She awkwardly talks to her as she would a child, nervously babbling soothing, reassuring promises.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

The demon gave her a hard, angry stare in silence for just a moment then bared his teeth and grabbed her by the neck, lifting her up off the ground and stared her deep in the eyes. He uses his other arm to grab her hand and shoves it into his chest-hole, causing some blackened blood to ooze out onto her hand. With a hand in there, she ought to notice there's no heart. "I am kajubaan... demon."
Intimidate: [roll0]
With a hand in there, she ought to notice there's no heart, but it's still warm and gooey, so undeath isn't a good explanation for why that particular vital organ is gone.

[The Demented One]

After a second's silence, the women begins screaming. "GAH! Put me down, just let the hells go of me! The...the Silver Flame, or the Host, or the Blood of Vol comples you!" she shouts, kicking at Vaajek futilely.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

After a few seconds of letting her squirm he drops her, letting her fall on her backside and looming over her.

[dyslexicfaser]

Gahz

After he comes out of his spellcasting trance, Gahz sees the confrontation taking place, specifically Vaajekk looming over the sitting girl. Gahz frowns, but decides not to intervene unless Vaajekk takes it further than intimidation. He has little taste for engaging in battle with someone - something? - that is at least nominally his ally in such a dangerous, surreal situation.

He begins moving through the group, casting another spell, one that will alert him to their direction should they be separated and general level of health. He feels more comfortable if he can keep a metaphorical, mystical eye on them.

Casting Status on all 5 teammates, plus the girl. Provided nobody objects, natch.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

I'm just wounded.

[The_Snark]

Sinan

Sinan is wholly absorbed in seeing what the eyes have seen during the little altercation. "Nothing alive—oh really now, do you have to go and do that now?" Sinan snaps testily as the woman pleads and is dropped. "What was I saying? Oh yes, there doesn't seem to be anything alive near us. A few zombies, but they don't really count, now do they?"

"There's something odd beneath us, though. Some kind of crystal, quite large. It couldn't possibly have survived the towers falling by coincidence—perhaps we should go and have a look at it?" He looks questioningly around at the others, seeking approval.

[Shiny, Bearer of the Pokystick]

Rabina

Rabina stands mid-way through the attempt to comfort her, straightens her matted hair as best she can, and throws one hip out contemptuously.

::Idiot[!]Fool[?] I amNota child, not a young not a just-fleshed not a past-the-dream-only-seconds[.] Do notTouchme[!]::

She appears vaguely intrigued by the heartless one's condition, and softly begins singing a children's nursery rhyme in a horrible, gravel-choked voice. Judging from it alone, half her larynx is ribbons.

"Oh my sweet sister
You walk so soft;
Why do you weep on sacred ground?
Oh, he has stolen your heart away
And is no more to be found
Oh, sister, oh, sister
Walk a while with me
Through the wild and the loathly trees!
And after a time I will take your heart
And heartless we both shall be, shall be
And heartless we both shall be!"

She pauses a moment, then tilts her head to one side as if listening.

::I am unharmed [.] Efficient use of our time is paramount [.] We should begin exploration [.]::

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

"She's right... Kullauk M'kroloth." He flew over the side of the tipped-over tower and began flying downward, gaining speed and looking a lookout for any blue light. Whenever he sees it he teleports only five yards from it to observe.

[The Demented One]

What Vaajek finds is a sphere of luminous blue crystal, about ten feet in diameter. It is elongated, shaped more like an egg than a true sphere. In its luminous, crystalline exterior, faint glyphs and designs can be seen, assembling themselves into complex patterns and schematics. As Vaajek nears it, he hears a harmonic pulsing, a low bass that beats out a steady, intricate pattern. He feels a strange sense of uncannyness, as if something were watching him.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Mahogany is oddly silent for a time, looking out across the devastation. He snaps out of his thoughts however when the girl is lifted into the air. He is opening up his mouth to speak when the demonic being drops her and then goes over the side.

The elderly fellow reaches a hand down to help the woman up.

"You alright there lass? What he has the right to do such as that I cannot think." he says. "What is your name by the by?"

[The Demented One]

"Thank you," she says as Mahogany helps her up. "My name is Chesley, Chesley Beleth. I'm from Sharn, working on that airship to save up some gold and...now this. Well. It's good to know at least one of the people I'm stranded with isn't a monster."

For Mahogany, Rabina, and Sinan

Something about Chesley's surname strikes you as being odd. "Beleth" is the Abyssal word for "song," an unusual name for a Brelish girl to have.

[The_Snark]

Sinan

"What an interesting surname. Delighted to meet you, Chesley." He smiles benevolently, eyes twinkling through his spectacles, and casts a brief spell to clean the blood off her hand. "If I may suggest it, I think you should avoid talking to our... mmmm... odd companion," he says, settling on a word. "Unsettling and unpredictable he may be, but he was most useful when attacking that beast."

"Now, shall we be on our way?" He extends a hand to both Chesley and Mahogany, offering his assistance in making their way down through ruined Sharn.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Mahogany

"Well now, don't go judging my state of horn and scale yet. Get me without supper in my belly and I might just get right monsterly." Mahogany says, giving her hand a comforting squeeze. "Right sorry as can hardly get out what's gone about. Have any folk of mention here?"

Mahogany takes Sinan's hand and shakes it heartily.

"Mahogany." he addresses himself with a wink, clearly getting the point across that he needs no help, but appreciates the gesture.

[dyslexicfaser]

Gahz

Gahz dips his head in wordless agreement with Sinan and returns to his giant eagle form. He flicks a wing as if in a parting salute to Mahogany, Sinan, Rabina and Chesley, before spreading his large wings and flapping his way clear of the tower before tucking into a dive, homing in on the link his Status spell had created between he and Vaajekk, instinctively knowing the direction and distance to find the abyssal one.

[The_Snark]

Sinan

"Sinan," the elf replies with a return smile, just in case he forgot to introduce himself. The offer turns out to have been more than just politeness; he rises a few inches into the air, lifting Mahogany with him. "Would you care to accompany us, my dear?" he asks Chesley. "It should be fairly safe here for the moment, but one can never be too careful, you know." He offers her an arm, a peculiar lightness tugging her gently upwards if she accepts.

Between Telekinesis and flying, I think he can carry the both of them, if they're not particularly heavy. I'm not sure if they could get down without flying at all, but it'll certainly make it easier.

[The Demented One]

By wing and by spell, you all fly down to Vaajek's level. He stands on a caldera of rubble, a pit of unmortared bricks and crushed stones in what was once the side of a tower. In the center of the pit there is a blue crystal, the same one Sinan's divinations found. As the whole party approaches, the sound of drums coming from the crystal egg intensifies, becoming a pounding, frantic rhythm that all of you, even Chesley, can notice.

[dyslexicfaser]

Gahz

Gahz lets out a low whistle between pursed lips. "This is a day of firsts, it seems," he murmurs. "A creature, a crystal, and a cataclysm."

The pounding of the drums, for all its frenetic pace, is beautiful in its way. Almost hypnotic. He steps forward to the pulsing crystal egg, drawn to it, like a magpie sighting something shiny.

Holy Star in its spell-blocking use, in case I trigger something painful. It'll block [roll0] 'levels' worth of spells.

[The Demented One]

As Gahz draws nearer to the orb, it seems to react to his presence. The glyphs whirring across its surface begin to link together to form a massive glowing rune before him, a glimmering spiral about the size of a man's palm. The drumbeat accelerates, not quite reaching its climax by cresting on a fevered, percussive mania. Though Gahz prepares himself for the worst, there is no magic for his holy star to defend him against - any magic inherent in the crystal must be passive.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

Vaajek draws his blade, years of warfare have not left him too eager to be unprepared. He approaches the crystal, holding his sword in a position ready to cut anything that might wish to to anything from destroy him to startle him. With his other hand he carefully puts it on the crystal, focusing his inner core of eldritch power to reach the minds of anything that might be within it.

Walking up to it and using my detect thoughts SLA, first to detect if there are any minds in this thing, and if there are I want to read it. Will save DC 22.

[The Demented One]

As Vaajek touches the crystal, he feels its surface heat from ice-cold to almost uncomfortably hot in an instant. A glowing handprint forms under the demon's hand, and lines of light spread across it, forming an intricate lattice of light across the crystal. A glowing ring of light forms around Vaajek's handprint and begins to expand, growing to the size of a small window or door, an oval about five feet high and three feet wide. With a flash of light, the crystalline sphere opens, its surface retracting like an iris within the ring of light, creating a door. Within there is darkness, but those of you capable of seeing through the dark can make out what seems to be some sort of altar or panel, covered with crystalline screens. While the opening is awkwardly placed, with no steps or ramp, a small hop would be all that's needed to get in.

For Vaajek

You sense a mind within the sphere, but there are no thoughts you can read. It is not that it is shielded or hidden; whatever it is, it is not thinking at all, though conscious.

[Ellas Aramond]

As the others talk to Chelsey, The Guardina goes to speak, hoping to make her feel more at ease. But right before, he flames begin to flicker ever so slightly, causing him to stop , using all his willpower to keep his fires steady.

"Jao Gao" he mutters, annoyed as always by his time limit.

After he is left alone on the tower, he begins to levitate down the other side; but only gets a few feet fore his flames, and his entire heroic form, disappear completely, causing him to tumble down the mound, all the way to the bottom.


"Ai yah tien ah!" he curses once he is able to get up. "Once, just once I'd like it if things actually went my way." Doing his best to brush himself off, he runs after the group.

"Oh thank the flame." he exclaims, once he actually reaches the group. "Others actually survived!"

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

He hesitates for just a moment and then steps inside, able to see everything perfectly thanks to darkvision. He gazes all around the inside of whatever this is and utters words almost unimaginable from him, "Yeh res ah myssara vero..." Spoken in a language too beautiful than should be spouting from him, but something deep down makes it feel like the language comes naturally from him.

For anyone that speaks Celestial.
Figure I'll start translating what the hell I'm saying now.
"A thing of mystery indeed..."

[The Demented One]

As Vaajek steps in, lights suddenly flare into being. They do not seem to have any source, but simply permeate the whole space within the crystal. He mutters in awe as he looks at the inside, his mind barely able to process what he sees: the orb is bigger on the inside than on the inside. While the sphere itself is perhaps ten feet in diameter, the room within it is the size of a small courtyard, with a ceiling at least forty feet high. In the center is what looks to be an altar or panel of some sort, a jutting spar of gold-tinted metal with a violet crystal set in a plinth at the top. Crystalline screens ring it, each displaying words and images, though Vaajek cannot make them out from across the room. To his right there is a flight of metal stairs that leads up to a railing along the top of the wall, leading to a set of six doors. A plaque on each doors labels it, in both Common, Riedran, and a strange language Vaajek does not recognize. The plaques read: Quarters, Library, Vault, State Room, Null Room, and Sanctuary.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

He stopped at the altar in the center of the massive room and examined it but for a moment and spoke out loudly to the others, over his shoulder, "Come in, it's safe."

[Shiny, Bearer of the Pokystick]

Rabina

Rabina leaps nimbly onto Ganitai's back, and the hideous ur-thing makes her way to the crystal with an arachnoid tick-ticking of unjointed rib-legs; as they near it, the storyteller leaps off of the undead's back and skips toward it, laughing- it's a surprisingly full, husky sound, not in keeping with the mewling whine of her mental voice or the ravaged, reedy sound of her natural tones, which follow closely on the laugh in a strange tongue.

"Nes'qu quorghat nachata hramkhat oorquom oorplantaramaat!"

Translation from Quor

"Oh, it's so beautiful, the mind-egg, the sleeping one!"


The Scrivener, hopping off of Ganitai's back, follows her, scribbling inanely as she makes her way up the stairs, heedless of danger.

What it Writes

Even as the handsome, dark-skinned man put his hand to the device's surface, it flared with an aureate light, beautiful and pure as the heavens from whence he proceeded. He smiled rakishly, taking the dreamer's hand in his and helping her over the threshold; her skin flushed scarlet, just a moment, and Ganitai blew a lock of hair from her brow in bemused jealousy.

"But whatever is this thing, I wonder? It seems to be asleep, or elsewise dead. Oh, and I hope it is not dead! Nothing so beautiful should ever die, save that it is remembered, and I do not know it well enough for that."

Her fingers caressed its bronze railings, almost lovingly, and pressed her warm cheek against its cool crystalline walls.
"Oh, but I shall- I promise I shall, really I do."

Artifact Origin: Unknown 234923409 Artifact Type: Unknown 23942349032490234 Unknown/Unknown/Unknown QR/DD Temp.Ex. QUERY.

Rabina carefuly opens the door marked 'quarters'.

[The_Snark]

Sinan

"My word," Sinan says as he steps in, looking at the impossibly sized chamber. "This is... do you know, I can't think what it is."

He walks to the central plinth, carefully not-quite running his hands over it and examining it. Then he takes the strange staff in hand (the odd dull quality of the reflection is more apparent in the brightly lit chamber than it had been outside in Sharn), holds it in front of him, and channels potent magic through the staff, asking a single question in total silence.

What is this thing?

Using the runestaff to cast Vision; spending a 9th-level spell slot in place of 72 XP. 28 XP spent. Spending XP... painful... like... pulling teeth!

Caster level check should automatically succeed, since it's at +19 and the DC is 20. The question is about the crystal object in general, not just the thing in the center.

[Ellas Aramond]

Slightly confused by the glowing vessel, Drann follows the others inside, then immediately has to run outside again as he tries to wrap his head around just just it was.

"What...?" He says, a look of confusion and amazement on his face. He had used a fair amount of extraplanar storage devices, but nothing like this.

Popping his head in and out of the vessel a few times only makes a wide grin form as he comes to appreciate the magical marvel sitting in front of him.

"It's...bigger on the inside. He finally says before stepping back in. "Qi miao!*"

* Ignan for: Fantastic!

[dyslexicfaser]

Gahz

Gahz is about to make a rather tasteless joke involving taking bets on whether Vaajekk was alive after his sojourn through the crystal doorway, but the demon (devil?) swiftly assures his companions.

He approaches the doorway, stutterstepping a bit, considering how to fit his 10-foot-plus bulk through a five-foot-by-three-foot doorway. Finally he hits on the simplest method - he dives through the entryway like a rather large missile, hoping that there is no one idling on the other side.

Once he stands and dusts himself off, he stares around in like wonder. "Amazing," he say simply. "Truly astounding. What are the odds of finding such an artifact in the ruins of the city? Talk about lucky."

"It's almost as if it was left here for us to find."


Ellas, is your base form significantly different from your heroic/avatar/whatever form, the Silver Guardian?

Incidentally - I wish I'd taken the Fine-sized swarm form, now. I was almost just defeated by a door!

[Ellas Aramond]

Sorry for not putting a new description up. But yeah, we're talking a Spider-man/Peter Parker type difference here. For actual appearence, take a look at my sheet (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheets/view.php?id=71781).

[The Demented One]

As Rabina opens the Quarters door, she finds yet another room, this one an impressive kitchen with ovens, pots, cutting boards, and cabinets and racks piled high with every foodstuff imaginable. A mithral pot hangs above a fire, and smells of savory meats and exotic vegetables waft out from it, tincturing the air with a pleasant aroma. At the center there is a huge, darkwood table, set with seven chairs, as well as a wide cushion which looks like it could support Ganitai. Past the kitchen there are seven doors, unlabled but otherwise just like the one that led into the quarters.

For Sinan
The crystal sphere is an artifact, an immensely powerful one at that. Your divination does not bring you any legends or rumors of this machine - there are apparently none of it. However, you do gain a degree of understanding of its function. The crystal at the center is a conduit of sorts, an eldritch machine for channeling planar energies, allowing you to travel through the plane it is attuned to, most likely the Astral. The expansion of space within it is strange - it is like the extradimensional space within a bag of holding, but it is not a demiplane. Instead, space itself has been somehow stretched and expanded within the orb.

[dyslexicfaser]

Gahz

Gahz sees that people are splitting off to investigate the crystal thing, and does likewise.

He chooses to take a look into the 'Sanctuary', mostly because the name sounds warm and inviting.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Mahogany carefully follows the others within and a look of utter amazement and disbelief alights within his creased face.

"Oh my soul, I must have went abed and not yet woken..." he breathes, and pinches himself and twitches. "Why I am awake, leastwise as much as I ever am, but we've walked right into a tale, mighty folk. Lands, but never'd I think I'd see the day when I'd heard tell of findin' a for-real, jab you in the belly, true to toast Yester'eve Ship, must less be steppin' aboard..."

The old man simply continues staring, drinking in the sight.

[The_Snark]

Sinan

"A traveling device," Sinan comments absently, still staring at the central object. "That's what this whole thing is, I think—wait, what did you say? A yesterdayship?" He turns around, peering closely at Mahogany. "Do you mean to say you know what this thing is?"

[The Demented One]

As Gahz opens the door to the Sanctuary, he sees a field of grass that stretches as far as he can see - it must be at least a mile from one end to the other. Sweet grasses grow up from a rich black soil, with swatches of striking violet wildflowers interspersed among them. The walls and ceiling are perfect simulacra of the sky, down to the sun and the faint images of the moons and the ring, masterfully made images if not the real thing. In the center of the field grows a single tree, taller than any tree Gahz has ever seen, towering over even the greatpine Oalian. Its branches spread wide, and luscious red fruits hang down from them, fruits unlike any else on Eberron. The air smells as if it was just raining, the pure storm-scent mingling with the smell of the flowers and the earth. The whole room is of ideal clime, the air just warm enough to be pleasant without being hot, and wholly without humidity. A gentle breezes whirls through the room, lazily lingering through the grasses. A few birds and butterflies flit about the branches of the tree, but there is no other obvious animal life.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Mahogany

"All I know is stories of such, but it rightly fits the tales to the T." Mahogany says excitedly. "Can ye think it? Why, you could go back to a perfect day and just keep havin' it, or see what you wee one's wee ones'll look like. Reckon if we had this thing tackin' the winds of happenstance could sail ya right back and show you how Sharn was in it hayda..."

He trails off and his mouth opens in an O, showing teeth of great vitality. He looks at Sinan, "Do you reckon...?"

[The Demented One]

"We could leave this, you mean?" Chesley asks, hopefully. "We could just...go back before this ever happened, and just have everything go back to normal? Do you know how to work this, or is it like an airship, where only a 'mark can?"

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

The kajubaan walks past the 'Sanctuary' room, immediately being taken aback, sneering and walking past it quickly. He circled the center altar and decided to walk toward the 'Null' room, reaching a claw out and opening it and looking inside.

[The_Snark]

Sinan

"Ah, might we back up a second—are you saying that this artifact is actually a vehicle for transversing time?" Sinan removes his spectacles, polishing them with the sleeve of his robe as he stares at Mahogany in some astonishment.

[The Demented One]

As Vaajek looks into the Null Room, he sees nothing. The room's walls are pure white, without any pattern or play of light and shadow on them. The room is at least as large as the Sanctuary, but utterly without anything. There is not so much as a speck of dust within it. It is empty and forever, a boundless nothingness as far as Vaajek can tell.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

His mouth open slightly, Vaajek walks in slowly, looking around at all the nothingness. He takes a deep breath and sits down, using techniques from previous lives to enhance the new, he meditates to expand his internal chaos.

"...Kaaz'e moll."

[The Vorpal Tribble]

"I'd bet my boots and bunions!" Mahogany says with a grin. "Can't answer the lass' question about how t'get it going. I just know the tales. Ken tell a dozen stories 'bout one of them flyin' ships as we came on, but bless me if I know how they work. We got us some mighty learned and powerful folk in here I'm thinkin' though. Daresay they could get it a'goin'. Worse comes to worse we give it a kick, eh?"

[The_Snark]

Sinan

Sinan's eyes gleam with excitement as he replaces his spectacles. "Indeed, indeed. Why, if you're correct, this may be the most important discovery since... well... I don't know," he finishes, "but if we can get it working we can go find out!" He promptly begins going through the central chamber, looking over the various panels (including the ones in the air) to see what uses they might have, and if one of them might not be the key.

Checks that might be appropriate: Search +31, Knowledge (arcana) +29, Spellcraft +31

[The Demented One]

Sinan almost immediately recognizes what look to be the two most important panels. One displays a complete map of Eberron laid out on a grid, with a small, luminous pinpoint hovering above Sharn. The other one displays what looks to be the date - the year, the month, the day, and the minute - using the Galifar calendar as well as the Old Sarlonan Reckoning, along with a third calendar he cannot recognize. There are no obvious physical controls for any of the panels, but the same glyphs and runes that covered the orb's exterior can be seen floating in them.

[Shiny, Bearer of the Pokystick]

Rabina continues moving through the chamber, touching everything- a gesture that would leave tiny scratches on anything less durable than darkwood and mithral. Her eyes are wide, though invisible, and her silvery lamprey-shadows appear to be singing delightedly.

She opens one of the seven doors at random- whichever appears most appealing. All the while, her head is tilted as if listening intently.


[roll0] Whispers Listen check, Knowledge: All.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

After only a few minutes the door to the Null room slams back open with Vaajek panting and gritting his teeth staggering back out. What a demon seeks is destruction, but the end result is something a demon can barely stand; nothing.

He comes back into the center to see the people at the control panel and approaches, getting more calm now that he's surrounded by existence. "What does this vessel do...?" He peers at all the nodes and devices on the panels. He looks up when he examines the map and the dates on the panel Sinan is examining, "Temporal travel?"

[The Demented One]

Behind the door, Rabina sees a high bed, with sheets of elegant Riedran silk and piles upon piles of pillows. The bed's frame is of darkwood, and a lacy veil hangs from four posts set at the bed's corners. Beside the bed there is a large wardrobe and a writing desk, stacked high with paper and quills. Tapestries on the walls depict, in fluid abstract imagery, what she recognizes as the story of Dal Quor: the war between the ancient quori and the giants of Xen'drik; the Turning of the Wheel; the Inspiration of Riedra and the birth of the Kalashtar; the death of Taratai the noble. The tapestry ends depicting the birth of a young Kalashtar girl, with burning eyes.

[Shiny, Bearer of the Pokystick]

::Who, who [?] Oh, wonderful, to know to see to write [!] This is for me[!] This is for me. What has it done, how does it know, what is this [?]I must read, I must learn, I must have...who is this long-gone one, who this strange ending [?]::

She twirls her way out of the room and back toward the main chamber and the others; the scrivener, however, stays, inspecting the parchments and quills and comparing them to its internal equippage with what must be presumed to be a critical eye.

[The_Snark]

Sinan

"Yes, so it seems," Sinan says, not looking up. "I wonder, I wonder... Are the dating systems a clue to who made it and when it was made? It certainly doesn't seem as if giants would have recorded dates by this calendar. But perhaps the numbers change to adapt to when the ship has landed..." he muses, fingers poised over the glyphs.

"Now then, how did you get the door to open?" he asks, and touches the panel without waiting for an answer, attempting to move the year reading some 4,000 years back.

If it works and he can manage any control, he'll aim for -3,300 YK!

[The Demented One]

As Sinan touches the panels, there is a spark of violet, leaping from the crystal to his fingers. Suddenly, he feels as if he has gained a new limb, able to direct the course of this Yestereve Ship just as he could control the motion of his hand. With an effortless push of the mind, he changes the date to -3300 Y.K . (or Duokalens of the Fifth Era, S.R.; or ∑[ø]∂~!, R.C, whatever that is). There is a flash of violet that pulsates through the ship in a throbbing pattern, rising in intensity to a feverish strobing and then slowing and fading. Once the pulsing of lights has finished, the ship seems unchanged, the only difference being the crystal set at the top of the controls. While it once shone like a beacon, it is now faded, barely more luminous than a candlewick.

For Sinan

Where did you set the ship's location? Did you just leave it where Sharn would be?

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

He looks down at Sinan's hand and then back up at his face, unsure if it's idiocy or sheer uncanniness, but considering the situation, probably the former. "...I just put my hand on it."

[The_Snark]

Sinan

Noticing the look—or perhaps just soliloquizing—Sinan rhapsodizes in grand tones, "Ah, to sail upon the seas of time and harness the winds of seasons! And all manner of other delightful nautical metaphors! What I do now is, perhaps, reckless, but it would take a stronger resolve than I possess to—having come this far!—step back from the brink! Ah, here we are," he continues in a more normal voice. "Sharn, or more precisely Duur'shaarat."

Yep, still the Sharn area.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

Vaajek walks toward the door he entered the ship originally, putting his hand on the door or simply pushing it open or whatever needs to be done to open it, and looked out.

[The Demented One]

Responding to Vaajek's very will to exit, the sphere once again irises open, creating a gate to the outside. The space at the edge of the door, stretched to the point of breaking, hurts your eyes if you look at it, causing a slight sense of nausea and a mild migraine. Outside, the sun is shining, and the ship is once again perched amid a nest of ruins. These, however, are different. They are not the charred husk of a just-burned city, but the stately ruins of an ancient city, now fallen. Marble pillars jut at haphazard angles, and statues of hobgoblin warriors litter the ruinscape.

[Shiny, Bearer of the Pokystick]

At the moment of transport, Rabina collapses, staggering- then rises again, brushes her hair back, grimaces at its greasy consistency, and directs her mind effortlessly to Sinan.

::What the hell did you just do? Do you have any idea what kind of disrupWHEREWHEN DISJOINED PAINtion you could have caused?::

She staggers again, then recovers. This time she makes no gesture that indicates she is aware of her physical body, much less the condition of her hair, at all. Her mental voice is now radiating blissfully in every direction at once again.

::Oh beautiful sweet place[!] Oh wonderful, wonderful; peeled away again as the skin as the scale as the carapace was, and beneath the sweet the blue the black the crimson of the years[!] this the strong pale egg of the lost ones the hurting ones the pale dreamers with their limbs that hold and hurt andbetray betray hatekiss with soft slow cuttings[.] That we KNEW so well and held and labored oh the great burden the slow thing[?]::

[dyslexicfaser]

Gahz

Gahz breathes in deep, taking in air tinged with the scent of rain. Lovely. He'll have to spend more time in this room when they'd better figured out this artifact.

Stepping back into the central room, he looks about. "What did I miss?" He looks outside the open iris, staring about. Statues of hobgoblins littering the landscape stare back at him.

It was sheer willpower - hung onto by his fingertips - that kept him from running, screaming, back into the ship in the face of pure unbelievability. "... This.. is different."

[The_Snark]

Sinan

"Quite," Sinan agrees with Rabina, although it's not really clear what he is agreeing with. Possibly, he isn't entirely paying attention. Prudently, he has lifted his hand from the control glyphs while the door is open, not wanting to find out what might happen if he accidentally shifted them while the chamber wasn't sealed. His gaze is rapt on the exit and the fallen buildings beyond it; not fallen towers, not yet. This is not the City of Towers, it is the Bright Blade of the ancient hobgobins, carved from the bedrock.

"Quite. Welcome, my dear sir," he adds to Gahz, "to the year negative three thousand three hundred since the founding of Galifar, twelfth of Dravago, at what looks like about three o'clock in the afternoon."

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

He steps out onto the ancient earth, the sound of the unworked ground beneath his bare feet. He stared out at the ruins, the statues and at the horizon. He then looked back at the small ship and anyone he can see in the doorway, he then spoke to them through his telepathy as to reach everyone, Words do not describe... the power of the magic, the wonder and nature... above nature... It is... almighty. The look on his face is as hard to describe, it doesn't seem his normal rage-filled self, though his features always carry a bit of his internal rage.

[dyslexicfaser]

Gahz

"Incredible," he repeated, a bit dazed. "I know a trick or two with time, but this makes even a Time Stop spell seem like an apprentice magician's first fumble-fingered grasp towards magic."

Gahz shakes his head and steps out of the crystalline ship, joining Vaajekk on the Eberron of thousands of years past.

The bizarre nature of their trip had taken a backseat before the wonder of what they'd gotten their hands on. Exploration had always been a passion of his - he'd spent years travelling back and forth across the face of Eberron - but with this, the possibilities truly seemed endless. All of space and time were at their fingertips, now.

He was feeling as giddy as a little schoolmage!

"I confess I know almost nothing of this time period. Feel like doing a little exploring? Sharn will still be there when we return." Truth be told, he was not in a hurry to discover the horrors that had befallen Sharn, particularly by dropping themselves and their new ship right into the midst of it.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

He begins walking toward the ruins, sword still in hand and staying aware of his surroundings. He looked onward most of all, the most massive of ruins and the statues scattered about becoming some of of a long, twisted path. Once he is followed he begins flying upward to see more distantly.

[Shiny, Bearer of the Pokystick]

Rabina walks out of the ship with a slight, almost inaudible sigh, and leans forward, scratching her claws against the ground.

A close observation reveals the scratches slowly resolving themselves into lips, and an even closer listen reveals them whispering...she keeps one hand to the ground, the other on the crystalline sphere.


Manifesting sensitivity on the ruins, and object reading on the crystal sphere. No great hopes for the latter.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Mahogany puts a hand to his stomach as if feeling the actual shift. He swallows and begins looking better as the door opens.

"Lands... it worked! IT WORKED! HAHA!" he hoots, and claps Sinan on the shoulder. He does a little jig right there on the bridge.

He follows the others out, looking about as if he'd just been given the world's biggest toy.

Knowledge (history) for this time period: [roll0]

[The Demented One]

Vaajek sees an expanse of ruins that seems to go on for miles, fallen temples and ruined facades of palaces littering the ground. However, he can make out what look to be like paths that lead beneath the rubble, paths that look to have been last used very frequently - footprints are still in the dust, and can't have been made more than a few days ago.

For Mahogany

You recognize this as the beginning of the beginning of the modern era. You stand in the ruins of what was once the capital of a great goblin empire, now reduced to nothing more than an underground city of survivors and renegades. The human race has yet to come to Khorvaire, nor have the dragonmarks yet manifested. The most powerful mortal civilization in the world remains that of the elves, in distant Aerenal.

For Rabina

You psychometrically exam the orb, and receive a brief impression of its last owner before you and your new allies. He was a human, older than a hundred years by some means unknown to you. You sense an alien flavor on his soul, a sense of nobility and compassion, an urge to uphold the good of all and the order of the world. You cannot see him, but you do acquire an understanding of how he found it, coming across it by chance just as you did.

You sense psychic echoes scattered throughout the ruins, homing in on the most recent. You see ghostly images of a proud warband of hobgoblins marching through the ruins, carrying a sword with a severed hand still wrapped around its handle, and with a blade of gleaming metal you cannot identify. In a formal, stately progression, they march down one of the paths leading beneath the ruins. If you wish to sense any further impressions, you must focus more on the power.

[dyslexicfaser]

Gahz

Gahz wanders among the hobgoblin statues, peering at their faces. He knows little of history, but even in ruins, he can tell that the city must have been magnificent.

He keeps the crystal egg in sight as much as he can - he has just met these people, after all, and he would hate to find he had misjudged them by being stranded three thousand years in the past.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

"There have been others nearby recently, possibly within the past few days." He lands back down and walks back to the clustered group, still taking point.

[Shiny, Bearer of the Pokystick]

Rabina

Rabina's back arches and she hums appreciatively, breathing hard as the torrent of information, sweet and pure, rushes over and through her. Her hands tighten spasmodically on both surfaces in which she is in contact, and her throat begins emitting an unearthly keening of pleasure that no humanoid body should produce.

::Good, good, oh good oh yes sweet but who the rider[?] wait we know such the dreaming ones their children childer and spawn the angular faces the swarming singers of the lighted ways but what is this thing this place these hands oh the hand oh sweet oh pretty oh yesYES::

Rabina continues concentrating on sensitivity to psychic impressions in an attempt to discover the roots of the events she has witnessed- and for that matter, their consequences.

[The Demented One]

Chesley steps out of the orb a few minutes after the rest of you, holding a short sword and wearing a shirt of chainmail. "I found these in the Vault. I think they might be magic." she says, by way of explanation, before falling in line beside Mahogany. She eyes Rabina warily as the Kalashtar...enjoys herself, not sheathing her new-found blade.

For Rabina

Rabina sees another vision, another ghostly band of hobgoblins. Many of its members are the same as those she saw in her prior vision, but there are others, many others. Instead of returning, they are setting out, led by a hobgoblin in resplendent golden armor who was not in her first vision. As the vision begins to waver, a hobgoblin puts a saw-bladed bastard sword to the leader's throat and slashes it, and the rest break int a wild melee.

[Shiny, Bearer of the Pokystick]

Rabina racks her brain in an attempt to recall some fact that might shed light on her visions...

[roll0] Whispers

[The Demented One]

For Rabina

This is the downfall of the great hobgoblin empire, so betrayals such as the one you just witnessed should not be uncommon. You are not sure what warband you just saw, but you can wager a guess that it is the remnants of one of the elites of old: perhaps the 501st Legion, or Orichalcum Horde, or the Ordus Gladiorum Cuspiorum. While you are not sure what kind of metal the leader's armor and sword are made of, you recognize it to be of extraordinary quality, surpassing even that of adamantine or mithral.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

Vaajek calls out from the small gathering of people after a short pause, looking at the girl. "...If you had to, could you use that blade?" His voice seems almost angry when he says that, as if the girl's jumping into a potential fight she couldn't possibly win.

"...And what is your name?"

[The Demented One]

"It's Chesley." she says, barely willing to speak to Vaajek. "And you're going to find out just how well I can use it if you can't get over your demonic ego. " she says, deadpan, before taking a step to put Mahogany between her and the demon.

[Shiny, Bearer of the Pokystick]

Rabina

Rabina stops concentrating on her psionic emanation, and shudders one last time before rising to her feet and brushing herself off.

::I have found a pretty thing [!] Not the gold nor the silver not the sweet silver of the deep places or the dark black stone [?][!] but sweeter prettier better[!] We should go find take find know bring to a new place[.]::

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Mahogany stops staring about to glance over at Chesley with a wink.

He turns to Vajeek and makes calming gestures,
"Here now, let's not get all like this. I know hellfire and having your ticker ripped out will get anyone on the wrong side of the bed, but take a gander about. Beautiful day, we got us some ruins to poke at, and all the time in the world, eh?"

[The_Snark]

Sinan

Sinan is last to step out, squinting in the sunlight. "Er, I realize that this is rather exciting," he says, stride threatening to break into a run, "but I picked this spot just as a test. I, ah, don't know if any of us speaks Goblin, but I haven't studied it much and I don't know how friendly any natives would be? Towards elves, especially, I believe there have been incidents."

"I think," he stops as Rabina gives her declaration. "Ah... is there someplace we should go? To find this... metal? Thing?" he asks cautiously, for the first time not taking one of her declarations in stride.

[Shiny, Bearer of the Pokystick]

Rabina

::Beneath beneath the low the grave places the many-worded many-tongued sepulchres::

Somewhat more clearly, she points in the direction the procession went in her vision.

"Nuk'chat kak-tak-kat-dhaa!"

Translation From Goblin

Fool, I speak the tongue of the people!

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

He scratches his chin and pauses, "Keze mu." He then disappears, reappearing in the center of the machine and begins toward the vault, looking inside.

Translation
One moment.

[The Demented One]

The Vault is a room full of shelves and cabinets and drawers, stretching on for long enough to hold half the wealth of old Galifar. Vaajek finds that, while most of the drawers and shelves are empty, Chesley did not quite empty it out. Laid out on the foremost shelf is a panoply of tools and items. A set of greaves, made from flowing azure crystal, sit on the floor, a faint violet aura tinging the air around them. An orb of what looks like lavendar quartz hovers a few inches over one of the shelves, bobbing in the air as if possessed of its own will. And a mithral ring set with an opalescent pearl weighs down a scroll, with eldritch runes visibly written over ancient parchment.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

He comes back out a little while later carrying these strange items and sets them down on the ground before the rest of the party. "Perhaps someone among the rest of you can identify these..." He looks back up at Chesley but again back at the rest of them, "I found them in the vault."

[dyslexicfaser]

Gahz

Gahz, noticing that everyone had congregated back at the ship, has left off his own explorations and rejoined them.

He looked at the items in Vaajekk's hands briefly, then shrugged. "Don't have much knowledge about - or interest in - magical doohickeys like that, myself." He bounces up and down on the balls of his feet lightly wordlessly, obviously eager to go wandering.

'Doohickeys'? Maybe Mahogany is rubbing off on me.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Mahogany taps the ball of quartz curiously, making it bob up and down. He shrugs and says, "Prob'ly old hat to you folk, but though seen baubles off and on, not sure 'bout this lot. Right pretty at any rate."

[The_Snark]

Sinan

Sinan looks askance at Rabina, not quite understanding. "Er, a moment, if you please..." He casts a spell, hesitantly reaching out to tap the odd woman's shoulder.

Cast Comprehend Languages

"Ah... I'm not really sure what you intend to do, but do you think you'll need me along? It occurs to me that it might be prudent to leave somebody to watch the ship. Terrible shame if we lost it just after finding it, don't you know..."

[dyslexicfaser]

Gahz

"That would be extremely unfortunate," Gahz agreed with Sinan. "Don't suppose there's a way to lock our awesome new crystal egg thing..."

He looks like he's about to clap Rabina on the shoulder, then reconsiders at the last instant. "Anyhow, I see we have a direction. I say we see what's there." He waved a hand in the direction Rabina had pointed.

[The Demented One]

As soon as the word "lock" leaves Gahz's lips, the crystal flares to life, a brightly shining design of runes and patterns that assemble into a greater design. Though the meaning of the schema is too esoteric to be interpreted at first glance, at least some of the design seems to be in the notation commonly used for arcane diagrams and spellcraft.

[Shiny, Bearer of the Pokystick]

Rabina

The psionic pscare almost, but not quite, leans into the clap, a strangely playful expression on her face. She nods to Ganitai to remain with the ship, although unless she misses her guess- and she seldom does- it's in good shape.

::Ooh, the pretty thing the sweet the dreamer knows our wills and ways so well[.] Walking now into the heart the schema the marrow of tales and glories fading faded dead[?]::

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

Vaajek looks upon the diagram as it springs into being, but is incapable of figuring out the meaning of any of it, not having much knowledge in the ways of arcana. He looks at Rabina when she 'speaks'. "Curious." He says in a low voice, "Perhaps the most coherent thing to come out of your head since I've met you."
He then looks around, suddenly looking restless and turns slightly to look back out at the ruins, "But there's no time to stand around like fools. I've grown so bored I may very well die. Come!" He bellows as he begins walking back toward the path.

[Ellas Aramond]

Drann sat pondering the uses of a vessel such as this for a little while. Thinking that maybe once he got the whole Sharn situation figured out, he'd take it with him back to Thronehold. Using it would certainly make it easier for him to do his job as the Guardian.

So deep was his reverie that not even the movement through space/time could brreak him out of it. But once he came to, he realized that the vessel was in a much different location.

"Shuh muh? How long was I out?" He says, looking across the landscape, noticing the hobgoblins that hadn't been there before.

Remembering someone say something about temporal travel, a smile comes to his face once again as he considers the applications. "D'un yi shia, puhn yoh. he calls out to Vaajek, but does a quick sigh as he realizes that no one understood that. "Hold on, just one second."

He translates he words, moving over to the fiendish man. "If you'll allow me to examine these items, I may be able to give us some answers."

Assuming that Vaajek gives consent, I use Identify on the items.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

Vaajek stops and turns to look at him, then points to the items on the ground in between everyone else. "Be quick, if we do not move soon I will not claim responsibility for my actions... K'yu gilkra Yoll."

Translation from abyssal
"As if I would anyway."

[The Demented One]

There is an ominous rumbling as the rubble beneath your feet shifts. While the orb seems to have landed on a stable foundation of marble, the loose ruins around it seem shaken by its arrival, gradually falling apart. While it seems stable enough for now, remaining here would likely be less than helpful.

OOC

Hey guys, let's keep this alive.

[The_Snark]

I think we were waiting on you for magic item identification.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

OOC
Ellas says he's just waiting for TD1 to tell him what they are.

[The Demented One]

For Ellas Aramond

The items are a ring of freedom of movement, boots of temporal acceleration, a pale lavender ioun stone, and a scroll of foresight.

[Ellas Aramond]

"Looks like you found some useful things." Drann says to Vaajek after completing his work. "The ring creates a continuous freedom of movement effect on the wearer. This ioun stone absorbs lower level spells, the scroll has a spell of foresight inscribed upon it, and the boots, well, they're the most interesting thing in this pile. For a little more then ten seconds, they speed you up so much that everything else appears to be standing still."

"Now we need to decide wether we're going to go out and explore, or make this thing travel someplace else." he picks up the stone and starts lightly tossing it in his hand. "Because I don't like that shake just now."

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

"Your cowardice in the face of danger sickens me, mortal. We will venture outward! Should something stand in our way we will not flee like you so wish to do..." Vaajek snorts and grabs the ring of freedom of movement, taking off his thin, silvery ring of evasion and sliding the new one on, slipping his old ring into his belt-pouch.

[The_Snark]

Sinan

"I believe he is referring to the possibility that our time-traveling device might fall and be buried under the rubble while we are gone, my good fellow, rather than worrying about personal danger. I feel we've proved we can deal with that well enough," Sinan explains, having recovered from both his earlier giddiness and his slightly less earlier nervousness. "We've all of time to explore, after all, and I only picked this time at random. Aside from what our, ah, companion has apparently found, I don't know of anything especially noteworthy here."

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

Vaajek pauses, then walks over the the machine and hits the ground with his bare foot. "Seems stable to me... but if not..." The kajubaan then puts his arms around the base of the machine and begins lifting it, managing to lift it almost over his head with relative ease. "If not, I doubt we'll have problems with what consumes it." He puts it back down and begins walking back on the path.

[dyslexicfaser]

Gahz

Gahz rolls his eyes at Vaajek's theatrics - where the demon can't see him - but falls into step behind him. He does want to explore, at least for a short time, and Rabina's ramblings seemed to indicate that they'd find something that way.

Although what they find might be their deaths, considering she had been speaking of graves and sepulchers and things. Either way, it'd be interesting.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

"Random or not, never hurts to take a gander and go on a bit of a walk-about." Mahogany says cheerfully. He offers his arm to Chesley and follows with the others beaming.

[The Demented One]

"Why thank you, sir." Chesley says, taking Mahogany's graciously offered arm. "Did you understand what the...the ma–the most interesting woman said? Something about the grave, some kind of metal, I thought. Is she trying to find some kind of buried treasure?"

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

Vaajek walks in the head of the line, and as Chesley speaks the demon's ears suddenly flick, just like a cats and he turns his head to the side, looking over his shoulder as he walks. He then mutters something incoherent and looks forward again.

[The_Snark]

Sinan

"I'm afraid I didn't quite catch it either," Sinan says. "Still, we've nowhere else to go right now, eh? Lead the way, miss... do you know, I don't think I ever caught your name?" he tells Rabina.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

"Don't quite get the guist, not right off hand." Mahogany replies to Chesley. "Lands but she's got a mouth on'er. Several from time to time as a matter a'fact. Po'try and riddles is all well and good, but wouldn't mind a bit of plain speakin' about now. Not that I'm one to t'talk, alebit that I am anyhow."

[Shiny, Bearer of the Pokystick]

::It is a cutter, a cutter[!]a bleak blade and black handWill that be clear enough for you? Or should I try it again with smaller words?It is not so far not so fast not so deep but we will fall if we do not have the dreaming child-egg-wonder::

Rabina leads the way, with swift, sure strides.

[Ellas Aramond]

"You've picked an intresting bunch, Sinderra." Drann says to himself as he follows behind the others. "We can go to any place on Eberron at any point in history; and they decide to explore an ancient, hobgoblin run Sharn? Oh well. Lets get on with it then."

[The Demented One]

The tunnel Rabina finds is a treacherous causeway, designed by haphazard explorers picking their way through the ruins, not any engineer. The course is slow, each step taking minutes as you probe for a safe piece of rubble to rest your weight on. However, the hobgoblins using it have taken the care to mark most of the hazardous missteps with swatches of red paint, or something similar, and thus Rabina, and all who follow her, are able to make their way without misstep. The tunnel terminates suddenly, with a gaping chasm stretched out before it. The sky is blocked out by a precarious ceiling of rubble, held up by haphazard pillars and stalagmites, a seemingly impossible architecture, but the gaping hole within the earth seems to stretch forever downwards. On the other side, about a hundred feet away, their is a bank of rubble, guarded by what looks to be a band of six hobgoblins, all armed with blades of adamant. A heavy, ornate portal rests in a marble wall, the one seemingly stable structure in this mound of ruins.

[dyslexicfaser]

Gahz

Gahz picked his way gingerly, looking a little more uneasy with each downward step and precarious movement. He was far larger than most, and far heavier as well. And his shapeshifting would make him larger and heavier yet, not something he'd care to chance.

He spots the hobgoblins. "Ah, people!" He makes no effort to modulate his voice; he has long since grown past the fear of almost anything on the face of Eberron - it is rare that he meets a bigger fish in the pond than himself - and a handful of goblinoids simply do not rate. "I don't suppose they speak Common? No matter, I suppose. We do have a translator."

A small voice wonders if having Rabina as their spokesman is a good thing, but it is easily ignored.

Sorry about being gone for a week. Let's keep this thing going, yeah?

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Mahogany peers out across the fissure and breaks into a grin.

"Ahh, Hobblers. Oh, they may seem stiff and grumpy as this back 'o mine in the early morn, but they ain't bad folks all told if y'givem a tippa the hat and some lip service. Now, they as like ain't seen folks as alike to we, though must be said few indeed hold a candle to you lot, can see right away you're no common folk, but man and his lot won't be crossin' over for awhile to these parts." he says, "Now I ain't got no airs t' speak of and not so much as like to scare a wee one, leastwise as long as I got my hair kept and m'face washed, so iffin we need t'talk, might look a bit less threatenin' if it were ole Mahogany to gab, eh?"

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

Vaajek stares across the pit at the small band of warriors. The next moment he seems to instantly compress into nothingness, and at the same instant expand from nothingness across the chasm not too far from the hobgoblins, gripping his sword tight in his claw. He bellows with both his real voice and uses his telepathy on everyone in range, "Akku'Vaaska Tol'lok!"

Abyssal translation, but everyone understands because it's also telepathy.
A more or less intimidating version of "Stand aside!"

OOC: Look, everyone, I'm ruining any sense of diplomacy we'll have.

[The Demented One]

The hobgoblins stare blankly at Vaajek - not in fear, but in utter surprise that a foe capable of such feats of magic would ruin the potential for surprise with a foolhardy battlecry. They almost immediately raise arms, and Vaajek finds himself faced with a tapestry of adamantine - three swords are at his throat, and one hobgoblin has a bow trained on his forehead. Two more, bearing a halberd and greataxe, sit back, guarding the bowman, and seeming to chuckle. The seeming leader, who bears a wickedly curved bastard sword, locks eyes with Vaajek, and threatens him in hobgoblin. "Nin shi yu ben de wo men shi qiang xu duo jian! Mo zi wei feng kuang de guo wang!"

For Any Speakers of Goblin

"You fool, you attack we who are many and well-armed, we who hold a bastion of impenetrable strength and tactical advantage! Your blood shall appease the hunger of the mad king, unless you drop arms and pay obeisance!"

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Mahogany does a double take as the demon disappears and reappears. His eyes widen and he winces as the leader makes his demands of his Fallen comrade.

In the same language as the leader he calls out, "Nig tak takang angk tag wan lapcha so lox... chex uko lekme te ot poxe len tek..."

Now come along brave leader, obeisance and all that talk... we're just taking a looksee and we'll leg it quicklike, no harm done..."

[The_Snark]

Sinan

"I believe you may be right, although do keep in mind that—oh dear..." Sinan stares at the demon as he delivers his declaration. With gazes naturally drawn to Vaajek's spectacle, it is easy to miss the exact means and moment that Sinan vanishes.

But nevertheless, he definitely isn't there anymore. In fact, he has somehow managed to cross the intervening distance completely unseen, his reappearance as hard to pin down as his disappearance as he taps the hobgoblin chief on the shoulder from behind.

"My dear sirs," he begins in Elven, although the meaning somehow reaches the hobgoblins (and Vaajek) as if it didn't even need the words, "I wonder if we might take the opportunity to converse before we do anything hasty?" He beams at the goblins, trying to appear as harmless and unarmed as possible, and hopes like the dickens that smiling is a token of good faith in old Dhakaan and not, say, a mortal insult.

Rushed Diplomacy. Worth a try! [roll0] The touch allows Comprehend Languages to work, incidentally.

[The Demented One]

The lead hobgoblin, startled, turns to face Sinan, raising his sword high. However, his hasty diplomacy seems to strike a chord with the warrior, and the look of hostility in his eyes is diminished. "Ni shi bu dong ma ni de tou men. Wo men hui guang hou, wei zou tian. Sai jian, hen cui bu mei you shen me!"

For Any Speakers of Goblin

"You are not as a stupid as your friend is, I see. We will let you speak, but you must leave from this place. This is holy ground, and your very presence offends the star king!

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

Vaajek speaks up again as his ears seem to flick a bit when the others speak. His voice seems supernaturally doubled and he only whispers, "Ni shi hui hao. Ni zhong ma ke he lao shi da...fei long zhang zi, he jin ju shui zhong wen mei guo."
He doesn't seem to take an offensive stance, his sword remaining low, but he hopes his point has been made.

Goblin tongues.
"You best be careful of who you call a fool. You are well armed but your frail goblin bodies would fall like broken dolls in a bloody rain... I won't kill you yet, but keep your swords down and your arms will remain contently attached to your shoulders."

I don't intend for everyone to hear this, it's just meant for the goblins but if you're really good at hearing you just might.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

Intimidate: [roll0]

[The_Snark]

Sinan

"Ah, star king. Fascinating. I wonder if you could perhaps tell us a little more about who the star king is? We certainly don't want to offend, but I am rather curious about him, if this is his place."

Oddly, the Elven words resolve themselves into a completely different meaning for Vaajek, namely, "Do try not to offend our hosts any more, please. We want to know what this place is, after all, and they're hardly likely to tell us if we fight them."

[The Demented One]

As Vaasth speaks in the goblin tongue, a language with an exquisite vocabulary for making threats in, the leader seems to suddenly pale, his eyes beginning to tremble. He lowers his sword and takes a step back, and waves back his soldiers. The others form a loose semicircle, and would be cowering in abject terror if not for their training and conditioning as elite hobgoblin warriors.

The leader nods his head in dejection. "Zhou shan, tien tien ma bu hao. Hen cuai lo, shi shi ma dou tian." He trembles as he speaks, but he sees from Vaajek's glare that the demon would be more than willing to slaughter every hobgoblin he could find without any remorse.

Goblin

"I see, you are a true master of auspicious warfare. All of our lives sacrificed would mean nothing to one as you, just a moment's trouble. We stand down and take our disgrace. But we shall remember this, blood knight. We remember."

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

He turns his head to Sinan and speaks in a booming, proud voice, "Offense is no longer and issue!" He grins then turns back to the hobgoblin warriors and speaks in a still booming but almost roaring voice, "Gui mao shi nia! Shui mai ji kua vakk maiju ni guo shinai!" As his passion flares, ash seems to swirl around him lightly.

Gobling tongues.
"You are weak cowards! The only way to redeem yourself is through death at your own hands or death on the battlefield at my side!"

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

Level+Cha check: [roll0]

[The Demented One]

The lead hobgoblin, though clearly afraid of Vaajek, steels his courage and looks back at him with defiant eyes. He pounds his fist into the ground, seeming to relish the pain. "Bu. Wo mei you ri ben, zhong hai mei tou ri san no. Yi li, yu ting zhen me kuai le. Hao!"

However, for all his bravery, the warriors beside him do not all seem so certain. There are furtive glances between some of them, and a few goblinoid hands reach for their weapons, seemingly won over by the demon's speech.

Goblin
"No. We may have been disgraced by our powerlessness, but we would never further our dishonor by fighting for one who serves no emperor or blade, one such as you. Shed our bled and rend our flesh from our very bones, but the day shall not come when I, nor any of the goblins who serve my blade, shall fight with a wandering abomination on the battlefield. Never!"

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

He looks around at his new loyal followers and then back at the frightened leader, "Gu muu... Sui mai vo gai moa, tsu nui fong ji ma noa..." As he says this he stands just a little taller and glares down at the goblin bowing pitifully before him.

Goblin tongues.
"A weakling and a fool... keep your liege if you must, lay down your equipment and walk away..."

[dyslexicfaser]

Gahz

Gahz cannot understand a word said by either side, but he recognizes body language well enough. Sinan trying to be concilatory, and at least the general direction and effectiveness, if not content, of Vaasth's threats and terrorizing.

"Oh, damn it..." The druid has no fancy teleportation skills, and has to take the form of a giant brown barn owl and fly his way across the chasm.

70ft movement speed, so a double move will get me across the cavern. Anyone who wants a ride is welcome to do so.

[Ellas Aramond]

"What are they speaking?" Drann asks, his face twisted in confusion. "It sounds like Ignan, but a bastardized version of it."

[The_Snark]

Sinan

Sinan waits as threats and boasts are exchanged, and interjects into an open point in the "conversation," sounding slightly peeved but doing his best to keep it out of his voice. "Excuse me? If we're all finished talking about who can kill who, may I inquire what this place is?"

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

Vaajek sneers a little as he turns his head to Sinan, "Things are hardly finished here... though they may be soon..." He gestures to the three hobgoblins that have become his new allies, "You see these three have allied with me... and the remaining three have not, so they best leave their equipment and their post lest they leave their mortal bodies instead..." He grins.

[Shiny, Bearer of the Pokystick]

Rabina

Rabina snags a few pinion feathers (none too gently) as the druid transforms, weedling psionically.

::Come long flyer to stop the strange to not have the un-peace the warring ways::

Upon landing, she flares her nostrils, ruffling her veil. A brief scintillation of unidentifiable, actinic color slides across her head, and a slight breeze kicks up....a group of mote-lights, accompanied by a shriek from a suddenly visible cloud of ravening lamprey-shades, suddenly shape themselves into a lance of violet light, scoring the ground in front of vaajek and hobgoblin alike.

::We have posess need things of more importFOOL PREY MEAT THING THING THINGTo pursue to chase to have before falling before dying before leavingstop pleaseGo Run Proceed[!]::

At the end of the phrase, she gathers a cloud of motes around her once again; entirely prepared to score something less resilient than stone.


Just a warning shot from her Quori field weapon. Nothin' to see here power-wise.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

The demon doesn't so much as flinch as the lance strikes the ground nearby. He looks at Rabina with a less than amused expression. "Kurra'ayus!! Gar'ral mhakaal kro Hol'kalax Mra'kkal K'vol!!"
Vaajek bares his teeth at her and takes a stance that makes him look ready to gut anyone that looks at him crossways. Ash seems to swirl and torrent around him as his silhouette becomes less distinct. The red of his eyes flares some, visibly brighter.

Abyssal translation
"Treacherous witch!! Keep your broken mind from my affairs!!"
Intimidate: [roll0]

[Shiny, Bearer of the Pokystick]

Rabina

::VaK'puj HaIJ'qu'nat'HAAGH'nk'tk'tham'KHAT'mar'ghat'ru! Yam'ya'geroost negh'ptakh fharr GHRAM'RAT!::

Abyssal Translation

INSECT! Your insolence, pain shuddering skin-flaying insolent WORM HATRED BONEFIRE! Will crush, crush, always crush! FALL OBEY FALL!


Rabina hisses horribly, the sound somewhat resembling air moving through the lungs of a corpse- a not unapt simile.

Intimidate:[roll0]

[The_Snark]

Sinan

"Oh really now," Sinan says in annoyance, but his heart doesn't seem to be in it. He trails off into muttered imprecations, apparently giving up entirely on making his companions see sense and letting them snarl at one another.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

The kajubaan tenses up slightly but shows no outward fear, he instead turns that into sheer anger. He looks from Rabina to his new hobgoblin allies and speaks in their goblin tongue, "...Sun'tsu hia gu mai."

Goblin tongues.
"...Attack your former allies."

[dyslexicfaser]

Gahz

Gahz's gaze bounces from Rabina to Vaajek as they jump from goblin to abyssal and back again. He understands not a word, and by this point is wishing he had spent a little more time learning.

Even Sinan had thrown up his hands in disgust at that point, so he thought he might as well give it a try.

He finally returns to human once again, and asks in Common, "Is this really the time for this?" Whatever 'this' is, exactly, he thought inwardly. He might not speak the language, but he can see that both are baring their claws at one another for some reason. He steps between them, his bulk proving to be an adequate wall. He really hopes the hellspawn and the psychic madwoman don't just decide to blast through him and continue their squabble.

"If we're going to get into a brawl, can we do it from the comfort of our new weird egg thing? With my luck, you'd bring the roof down on our heads." Gahz didn't really like enclosed spaces.

The glowing blue mote of his Holy Star is whirling around him, faster and faster, responding to stress. "Can't take you guys anywhere, can I?" he mumbles rhetorically.

[The_Snark]

Sinan

Sinan seems to snap out of his reverie. "This has really gone quite far enough. You're not even arguing over anything—just squabbling like children." He strides forward, ignoring raised swords and other implements of death and destruction, and raises his hand in front of the portal. "We came here for a reason, and this is it." His hand almost touches the ornate door.

Spellcraft [roll0] to see what Sinan can figure out about the portal. Note that Arcane Sight is up.