IC: Disjunction

[Watcher]

OOC
Dice Rolls

Disjunction

The River of Souls is the path taken by deceased mortal souls on their way to the Boneyard, where the goddess Pharasma judges their eternal fate. Deities who derive power from mortal followers therefore have a vested interest in keeping it untouched. Even some fiends guard the River, as many evil souls are bound for them anyway.
"Some fiends are fools," say the elite of The Coalition. "It's a simple matter to steal from even deities, so long as you don't get too greedy. A soul here, a soul there. Nobody will notice a few gone, and they really add up."
That's what they said, anyway. In reality, you've been busy keeping the secret. Perhaps a knife in the back of someone getting too close to the truth. Perhaps some grease in just the right palms. Perhaps you've helped indirectly. Every army needs logistics, after all.

You've never worked the factory floor, as it were.

One hour ago, you received a distressing message.
"A powerful soul has been collected. Report to the Disjunction Chamber. Wait for the incubus and guard him. Follow his instructions. Standard procedure applies."
"Standard procedure" is the vaguest possible code for "If anything threatens the mission or the Coalition, remove it at any cost."
The message came on short notice, but you had enough time to prepare yourself for the day and travel to the secret Pocket Plane that skims the River of Souls, if you weren't there already.

The elite who crafted the Pocket Plane had no flair for aesthetic. Cold, stone walls and floors compose the simple rooms, even the living quarters.
The "Disjunction Chamber" is a lofty title for an almost unremarkable room. It is sparsely furnished with a wooden card table upon which sits a bowl of faintly foul-smelling bones that act as the focus for the aura of evil that pervades the room.

Your entrance is the south door of the Disjunction Chamber. On the opposite side of the room is a hallway that leads to the mouth of the Pocket Plane and its holding cells, from where the Incubus and the "powerful soul" should arrive any moment now.
For now, a single Osyluth guards the north exit, nervously peering through the door every few seconds.

[Feathersnow]

Knave greets the Osyluth. "Hiya, buddy! Anything interesting I should know!?" The diminutive demon is full of cheerful, manic energy!

[Watcher]

The Osyluth salutes Knave's higher status but hesitates to answer his question, looking between Knave and the empty hallway.

Eventually he decides to say, "The incubus should be here any moment." He can't quite keep the disdain for said incubus out of his voice. "We're not expecting trouble... exactly. The incubus's personal guard can subdue the soul. But, you never know. The soul is..."
The Osyluth catches himself and breaks eye contact.

[ngilop]

Zalgoth enters grumbling under its breath as usual just as the overly joyful Tilket asks his question how can one be so full of cheer, the question travels through its mind, stopping for a moment in a sort of taunt before ngszagoth becomes aware of the osyluth's said too much abupt stop.

[Athaleon]

Taker arrived next, the shadow demon sweeping into the room imperious and utterly silent. A barely-perceptible nod to the others was his only greeting.

[Watcher]

Footsteps sound down the hallway to the north. The Osyluth tenses. A pained yelp echoes through the doorway.
Two vaguely humanoid masses of barbs and spikes round the corner with a transparent humanoid holding its arm.
Its features are hard to make out at a distance, but as the group nears, you make out long, pointed ears marking this soul as that of an elven man. Tears stream down his face and fade into nothing instead of dripping to the floor. His right arm clutches its mangled counterpart. "Blood" leaks out and fades to nothing.
In this place, mortal souls may not be easily destroyed, but they can be touched and hurt as easily as anything else.

When the barbed devils enter the Disjunction Chamber, they reach for the elf. The elf shies away with a shuddering gasp and allows himself to be herded to the center of the room.

Behind the barbed devils and the elven soul is a handsome humanoid man with furred legs, batlike wings folded against his torso, and curved horns.
The incubus turns his handsome face upon the Osyluth and smirks faintly. The Osyluth stands at attention nervously.
Eventually, the incubus turns to the party, and the Osyluth deflates in relief.
The incubus says, "Good you're-" He looks around, having lost track of Knave's location after looking away for one second. When he catches sight of him again, he nods to himself. "You're here. I won't waste your time. We're all above that. Observe and react to any dangers."
He doesn't wait for a response. He waves in the third and fourth barbed devils. Barbed devils are barely below any member of the party in the Coalition's hierarchy, yet the incubus easily commands their actions.

The third barbed devil ushers forward the soul of an older human woman who stands tall but bears a defeated expression. The fourth physically carries the soul of an older human man. The contact with a barbed devil has shredded the man's arms to ribbons, and phantom blood pours so thickly that some splatters the floor before it fades into nothing.
Despite it all, the struggling man sports a defiant expression.

The four barbed devils, one carrying the struggler, form a circle around the elven soul and the human woman.
The incubus draws what looks to be a simple stick of a wand.
"Let's get started immediately," the incubus says, brandishing the wand.
"Wait, wait-!" the elven soul cuts himself off with a scream as a bolt of grey light surges from the deceptively simple wand and strikes the elf in the head.
The aura of evil pervading the room washes away for a mere moment before sweeping back.
The elf reels and clutches his face. The incubus roughly grabs the elf's arm and pulls it away. On the elven soul's cheek is a glowing, grey sigil.
The incubus nods to himself, satisfied. He tosses the elven soul to the ground at the foot of a devil.

"Bastard!" yells the grappled human. The barbed devil moves a hand to muffle his speech, inadvertently cutting the human's cheek with his spikes.

The older woman bears her branding with more grace. When the incubus turns the wand on her, she holds her head high, giving the party a clear view.
The bolt of grey light flows through the woman's belly and splinters into countless gossamer strands that span her entire translucent body.
Again, the aura of evil in the room buckles under the impact and washes back in.

The woman calmly walks next to a barbed devil without the incubus throwing her out of the way.

"Well now... let's see," the incubus says as he turns his gaze upon the struggling human man.
The soul holds still only to level a determined glare at the incubus.

The incubus waves the wand, and a grey bolt of light strikes the human in the chest. The light compresses against his skin and deflects into the stone.
The incubus frowns and throws another bolt. That bolt strikes the human in the head and dissipates harmlessly.
A third bolt. A fourth. Each time, the human somehow pushes the energy out of his form.

The incubus scratches his head. He turns to the party and extends the wand, handle first.
"How about one of you give it a shot?"

Disjoiner of Fate
Major Artifact
CL: 20

This rod is deceptively simple in design, but magic pours off of it. It fires a bolt of grey light that has diverse effects depending on what it strikes.

An unlimited times per day, the Disjoiner of Fate can fire a projectile with unerring accuracy within a range of 300 feet.

• Evil Outsiders are healed for 2d8+10 hit points.
• Good Outsiders take 10d6 damage and are sickened for 1d4 rounds. Fortitude DC 23 halves the damage and negates the sickened effect.
• Mortal souls are branded with a strange grey sigil that consigns them to Hell, Abaddon, or the Abyss.

The Disjoiner of Fate's inner workings are unknown to you, and its true power is yet hidden.

Spoiler: Sense Motive DC 10

Show

This is no trick. The incubus trusts you to take the Disjoiner of Fate and try your hand at branding the powerful soul.
He wants this ordeal over as soon as possible.

[ngilop]

Zalgoth looks at the incubus and then at the soul and studies it for a second before stepping forward to grab the rod in his tentacled hand before pointing it at the defiant soul and unleashing the grey beam.

[Watcher]

The grey light bounces and dissipates just the same as when it was cast by the incubus.
Perhaps by casting it himself, Zalgoth gains insight.
There is no shield or spell protecting the defiant soul. The soul is resisting the grey light by his own willpower. However, there's something bolstering that willpower that Zalgoth can't quite place at first glance.

[Feathersnow]

I would, but that thing's bigger than me! Knave laughs nervously, not really comfortable with any of this but unwilling to be the first to act.

[Dusk Raven]

Swiftly, silently, sublimely, a certain succubus slides into the chamber. For once, she doesn't seem to mind not being the center of attention, and she observes the proceedings with thinly-veiled interest, seemingly waiting until the right moment to make her presence known.

[Athaleon]

Taker examined the defiant soul with a withering stare, cold blue eyes like baleful stars in a black void. He readied his weapon, a cruelly hooked polearm as shadowy and flowing as his own body.

He sent a telepathic message to the assembled fiends in the room:

++While he is distracted, try the rod again.++

He drew himself up before the captive and spoke aloud, in a voice that sounded at once commanding-loud and like distant wind.

"Defiance will not avail you here. Have you any idea how long an immortal soul can be tormented?!"

As though to punctuate his statement, he stabbed his weapon at the soul's incorporeal leg and twisted as he pulled it back.

Spoiler

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Intimidate: (1d20+26)[45]
Attack: (1d20+20)[24] (not that I expect these to be relevant)
Damage: (1d8+11)[17]

If the Intimidate check rendered him Shaken, the Cruel weapon will render him Sickened. Each inflicts a -2 penalty to Saving Throws, among other things.

[Watcher]

Held still by the barbed devil, the defiant soul has no chance to evade the weapon. His expression turns from angry and strong to scared and disoriented for just a moment. That's all the time it takes for the grey light to slip through his defenses and snake through his insides. It looks like Taker's methods were just barely enough to get the job done.

The incubus was so focused on Taker's work, he didn't notice the succubus enter. When the grey light resolves into a sigil on the soul's shoulder, he smiles at Taker. "Good work." His praise is clipped and rushed. He quickly turns to his barbed devil guards. "Quickly, there's no time to waste. Take them to the holding cells." The four barbed devils each nod in sync and split, two ushering the female and elven soul to the north, and two carrying the defiant soul south at a sprint.

The incubus stills for a moment, straining his hearing. "Excellent... yes, excellent. For a moment, I thought--"
CRACK.
The floor shudders. Time literally slows down for a few seconds as the fundamental rules of the pocket plane are disrupted. Silent but intense vibrations come in waves from the north. The incubus freezes in shock. Time returns to normal.

[ngilop]

Zalgoth winces visibly as time suspends itself then snaps back to normal violently. Not something that should be happening... he then turns to the incubus and you can feel the accusations as much as hear them What in the thrice-damned gods have you brought before us.. this is not a normal soul.

[Watcher]

The incubus babbles, "I didn't expect this! We knew the soul was holy, but we expected strength and blessings, not... whatever that was. That must have been planted. A- A trap, or maybe--"
Another, smaller wave of vibrations from the north cuts him off. The incubus squints at the hallway.
"An incursion! Something is in the pocket plane, to the north! They must have used the disturbance to break in. Fend them off! I'll get... someone to bolster the defenses!"
The incubus makes to leave to the south. The faint sounds of battle echo from the hallway north.

[Athaleon]

+++ I will check the north. Keep an eye on the captives, in case this is a diversion. +++

Taker drifted toward the north hall and disappeared through the floor as he did so, resolving into a flat shadow before disappearing entirely.

[Watcher]

The incubus bristles at being told what to do but doesn't object to the good idea.

The hallway has the occasional door, but the rooms beyond all of them are quiet. To the north, the hallway bears left 30°. 50 feet beyond the bend is a battle that is rapidly reaching its conclusion.

One of the incubus's barbed devils lays dead on the stone. The other barbed devil barely holds its own against three muscular, winged humanoids. Their flaming greatswords are the only source of light in these shadowy corridors. A fourth angel lies dead further down the hallway. What looks like a large, winged, elven woman with the lower body of a snake sings and casts spells.

They continue their fight, so far unaware of being observed. There is no sign of the two souls the barbed devils had been escorting.

Spoiler: OOC

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You aren't in combat rounds yet. If you approach directly, initiative will be rolled normally. I require a Stealth roll if you try to get within 60 feet of any combatant and/or to earn a surprise round when you initiate combat.

Barbed Devil - 60 feet beyond the bend, badly wounded.

Devas: AC 28, touch 17, flat-footed 25
Deva 1 "Abbott" - 60 feet beyond the bend, full health.
Deva 2 "Beatrice" - 55 feet beyond the bend, injured.
Deva 3 "Clarence" - 50 feet beyond the bend, badly wounded.

Lillend: AC 20, touch 12, flat-footed 17
100 feet beyond the bend.

[ngilop]

Zalgoth quickly sets into casting a spell. He does a chant and his tentacles move in a flurry of motion. Soon everyone feels the magic take hold and the world seems to slow down a bit for them

Spoiler: OOC:

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Casting Haste; giving allies a +1 bonus to attacks, +1 dodge bonus to AC and reflex, all modes of movement increase by 30 feet, and 1 extra attack when making a full attack.

Spoiler: Spells per day remaining

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0 na
1st 10/10
2nd 9/9
3rd 8/8
4th 9/6
5th 9/-
6th 7/-
7th 5/-

[Athaleon]

Taker relayed the information on the fighting in the north hall to the others, then moved swiftly through the floor once more to bypass the greatsword-armed Celestials, stopping just behind the Lillend.

Spoiler

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Run through the floor to be in position to come up behind the Lillend in the next round.

Stealth: (1d20+24)[28] (Taker makes no noise and is inside the floor, but fellow Outsiders may have some other method of sensing him)

[Watcher]

The devas tense up, but they glance around and see nothing. The lillend is blissfully unaware as she continues her bard song.

Spoiler: OOC

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The devas failed their Perception rolls as they had too many penalties, but they have constant Detect Evil. They noticed the addition of another evil aura but don't know its location.

Taker can begin a surprise round of combat wherever he wants. After that, combat will begin normally.

Anyone can now roll stealth to join the surprise round. No penalty for failure since combat is about to begin anyway. Otherwise, only Taker will act in it.

[Feathersnow]

Knave becomes invisible, ready to strike at the opportune moment...

[Watcher]

Surprise Round:
23 Knave <-----
19 Taker

Round 1:
23 Knave
21 Shizel
19 Taker
18 Deva Clarence (badly wounded)
15 Deva Abbott
13 Barbed Devil (badly wounded)
10 Lillend
08 Deva Beatrice (injured)
03 Zalgoth

Devas: AC 28, touch 17, flat-footed 25
Lillend: AC 20, touch 12, flat-footed 17

[Feathersnow]

Knave, having become invisible in the surprise round, takes a second to dip two blow gun darts in dimorphodon poison and mounts his armadillo.

Spoiler: ooc

Show

This is the equivalent of three move actions. Knave isn't 100% sure who to root for, so he is hedging his bets

[Athaleon]

From his concealed position, lurking below and behind the Lillend, Taker emerged and drew himself up to his full height, aiming a savage thrust with his hooked lance at the Lillend's vulnerable back.

Spoiler

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5' step out of the floor and attacking with Power Attack, tacking on an Intimidate check with Cornugon Smash. As before, if the weapon does damage to a Shaken+ target, the target is rendered Sickened by the Cruel weapon.

[Watcher]

The lillend shrieks in pain and surprise as the hooked lance carves through her back. She slowly turns towards Taker. Too slowly.

Spoiler: Initiative

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Top of Round 1:
23 Knave
21 Shizel <----
19 Taker
18 Deva Clarence (badly wounded)
15 Deva Abbott
13 Barbed Devil (badly wounded)
10 Lillend (badly wounded, intimidated, sickened)
08 Deva Beatrice (injured)
03 Zalgoth

Devas: AC 28, touch 17, flat-footed 25
Lillend: AC 20, touch 12, flat-footed 17

[Dusk Raven]

With her enhanced speed, Shizel moves quickly into the melee, striking quickly with her scimitar. She takes a defensive stance for now, wanting to test the enemy's abilities while also keeping herself safe in the fight she's just entered.

Spoiler: Actions

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Move Action: Move up to 60 feet, I assume that will get me within melee range of one of the Devas.
Standard Action: Attack with Scimitar, using Combat Expertise to take a -4 penalty to my attack roll, but a +4 bonus to my AC.
Attack Roll: (1d20+21)[29]
Critical Confirmation, if necessary (It could happen!): (1d20+21)[31]
Damage: (1d6+17)[21]

[Watcher]

The deva grits their teeth and bears the blow with more composure than the lillend had. Holy energy protects them.

Which deva did Shizel hit? Some of the damage was mitigated by damage reduction.

Spoiler: Initiative

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Round 1:
23 Knave
21 Shizel
19 Taker <----
18 Deva Clarence (badly wounded)
15 Deva Abbott
13 Barbed Devil (badly wounded)
10 Lillend (badly wounded, intimidated, sickened)
08 Deva Beatrice (injured)
03 Zalgoth

Devas: AC 28, touch 17, flat-footed 25
Lillend: AC 20, touch 12, flat-footed 17

Taker's turn.

[Athaleon]

Taker pressed his attack, jabbing again and again at the beleaguered celestial before she had a chance to defend herself.

Spoiler

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Full Attacking, with Power Attack.

Attack: (1d20+16)[22] vs Touch
Damage: (1d8+23)[30] + (2d6)[10]

Attack: (1d20+11)[14]
Damage: [roll]1d8+23[roll] + (2d6)[8]

Attack: (1d20+6)[7]
Damage: [roll]1d8+23[roll] + (2d6)[3]

[Watcher]

The lillend's screams and her song cut off as Taker quickly ends her life. She slumps to the ground.

Two of the devas slash at the barbed devil, but they fail to finish him off. One sends a couple exploratory slashes at Shizel, which clang off of her armor.

The barbed devil counters with its signature spiky grab, immobilizing Clarence and almost finishing him off.

Beatrice breaks off to engage Taker, and just barely hits, dealing a mere 4 slashing damage after damage reduction and fire resistance.

Spoiler: OOC

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Full attacks all around. Abbott spent his 2nd and 3rd attack on Shizel.
Beatrice made a move action to close with Taker, then hit his AC exactly but barely got through his DR, and he resisted the fire damage.

Abbott attacks Shizel:
(1d20+12)[21] (2d6+7)[19] slashing + (1d6)[3] fire
(1d20+7)[24] (2d6+7)[12] slashing + (1d6)[5] fire

Beatrice attacks Taker:
(1d20+17)[30] (2d6+7)[14] slashing + (1d6)[5] fire

Spoiler: Initiative

Show

Round 1:
23 Knave
21 Shizel
19 Taker
18 Deva Clarence (near death, grappled)
15 Deva Abbott (attacking Shizel)
13 Barbed Devil (near death)
10 Lillend
08 Deva Beatrice (injured) (attacking Taker)
03 Zalgoth <----

Devas: AC 28, touch 17, flat-footed 25, Spell Resistance 21

[ngilop]

Zalgoth again finds itself a lfurry of motion and chants as another spell is cast. Zalgoth moves to be near the fight

Spoiler: OOC:

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Casts Aura of Doom Will DC27. All non-allies within this spell’s area, or that later enter the area, must make a Will save to avoid becoming shaken. A successful save suppresses the effect. Creatures that leave the area and come back must save again to avoid being affected by the effect.

Spoiler: Spells Remaing for the day

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0 na
1st 10/10
2nd 9/9
3rd 8/8
4th 9/5
5th 9/-
6th 7/-
7th 5/-

[Watcher]

The deva fighting Taker shrugs off the effect. The other two by the barbed devil and Shizel have more trouble.

Spoiler: OOC

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I need a spell resistance check to shake Abbott and Clarence. DC 21

Spoiler: Initiative

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Top of Round 2:
23 Knave <----
21 Shizel
19 Taker
18 Deva Clarence (near death, grappled, shaken)
15 Deva Abbott (shaken, attacking Shizel)
13 Barbed Devil (near death)
10 Lillend
08 Deva Beatrice (injured) (attacking Taker)
03 Zalgoth

Devas: AC 28, touch 17, flat-footed 25, Spell Resistance 21