Session Start: Sat Sep 08 17:30:13 2007 Session Ident: #castlevania * Logging for #castlevania started [The intrepid party is in a tight spot. Nyyx, Theodore, Charlotte and Skip have just faced off against a terrifying combatant and his henchmen. While the "monk" is badly injured, his wounds seem to be healing on their own.] [At the same time, Nyyx has been knocked senseless and the other three combatants are close to either death or being disabled. To make matters worse, a necromancer and a band of undead are closing in on the party's position.] [The only shinning light is the invisible Roland of Boccob, running to aid his companions. Running in a dark forest while wearing a blindfold...] X: "Drop your weapons and don't come any closer or the woman dies." [X remains in a battle stance.] Hmph. * Charlotte drops. "So what exactly do you want here?" X: "I said, drop your weapons!" * Nyyx is still stunned and disarmed. [Nyyx is unstunned.] "Last warning. Drop your weapons." * Skip begins to slowly crouch to the ground, his weapons ready to be set down. * Theodore drops his quarterstaff * Nyyx shakes her head as she recovers and glances at her dropped sword, but she doesn't move to pick it up. X: "Now, why are you here killing my men?" * Skip sets his weapons down and slowly stands up, his hands out in a way that says: hey, I'm disarmed. These are yours? They attacked us first, in case that was not clear to you. We said we wanted to talk first. X: "Fine, why are you here." We heard about a man who cannot die. We wanted to meet him and discover his secret. Also, bandits. * Literally out of nowhere an -immense- scorpion, pale tan as bleached sand, appears next to X. It lashes with two claws, each pinning one of the monk's arms, then its tail slashes down in a flash, pumping his body full of venom. * Brute also appears, though much less dramatically. * Nyyx grabs her sword and steps back rapidly at the sudden appearance of the scorpion. "Brute!" I do believe the phrase is, "The cavalry has arrived," Lady Natalia. * Brute yells back, "No, I think that's a scorpion, I'm over here!" * Skip retrieves his sickle and pick and gets into a defensive stance. Roland! Is that scorpion...is it yours? * Brute then rushes toward the monk. Woah, freaky. Yes, a little surprise for those who would think to molest one of the seers of Boccob. * Charlotte grabs her bow. He has reinforcements coming, not far behind me. What kind? Undead, a priestess, some bears. I will heal you all as quickly as I can. * Charlotte nods. Thank you. The others are injured more than I am. I'm fine, but my bow's a bit hurt. But that can wait. * Roland signals the scorpion magically to finish the monk.' * Skip limps over to the groups. "I would be most grateful for some healing, Sir Roland." * Brute moves to Skip and activates a button on his belt. "This should help." X:"Miranda, where the hells are you!" * Nyyx glances around alertly, ready for trouble. * Roland casts a spell on himself as the scorpion finishes shredding the monk, jabbing him full of more poison and crushing both arms into useless masses. For Roland, the entire party is now in skinless-vision. * Brute looks at Skip, seeing only a little improvement. "Sir Roland, I can't do much more." He presses at his belt again, and again Skip looks a little better. I'll take care of it, Sir Brute. When time is pressed, one must heal large amounts of damage quickly, and for this, a properly outfitted priest is best. * Roland casts another spell, and the area around him begins glowing. It's difficult to tell where the glow's coming from, but the glow's definitely there. * Skip focuses his mind on the shadow and the claw, does a few quick exercises, and takes a deep breath. "I'm about as ready as I can be for more fighting. I just hope there aren't any more like him." "Where will they come from, Roland?" Nyyx can point. It's the same way they came from. Back towards the cave. * Nyyx points in the direction of the bandits' cave. * Brute moves between the party and the direction Nyyx pointed at. Gripping hard, he winds up and sets himself ready to fling his axe. Praise be to the lord of all magic! * Roland sends a series of six darts streaking out from himself to Nyyx, Theodore, and Skip, and in an instant, their wounds seal over seamlessly. Wow, nice. * Nyyx blinks down at the darts. "That is...definitely not a way I've received healing before, but thank you, Roland." Voice in the distance: "A Boccobite? Destroy them my children! Charge!" * Charlotte gets her bow ready to fire at the Priestess... * Brute adjusts his greataxe to touch his scabbard, which emits a soft glow that transfers to the axehead. Here they come. [About 200' feet away in the dark, the party can hear shapes lumbering through the forest towards the party.] * Roland directs the scorpion forward, sheltering Brute under its umbrella. * Skip swoops into action, quickly sheathing his sickle and pick as he retrieves his hands axes from the ground. * Brute moves forward, pacing with the scorpion, still tensing for a shot. * Nyyx shifts her vision to see in the pitch darkness of the forest. [The party can hear noises from 100' feet out and the sound of chanting.] * Skip dashes up to the front lines, near Brute and the scorpion, surveys the area, and climbs thirty feet up the trunk of a tree near the party. [Nyyx, Brute and the Scorpion can now see the zombies advancing 60' in the distance. They are spread out and marching toward the adventurers silently. More chanting can be heard in the background.] * Theodore advanced 30' and casts cone of cold at the zombies. the humanoid zombies die, the bears continue advancing/ * Skip tightens his grip on the tree trunk, both hands clinging behind him, and flexes his leg muscles in preparation for a mighty leap. * Nyyx takes a flying leap toward the nearest bear still standing and hacks it down lengthwise as she alights on firm ground. * Brute flings his axe at one of the scary undead bears and instead misses, doing significant damage to a nearby tree before returning to his hands. Thinking moderately quickly (for an Ogre), he moves to the side to let the scorpion behind him through. * The scorpion charges ahead, past Brute, and lashes out with one claw to snag a bear, but the claw goes right over its head. [The remaining zombie bears surround the scorpion and tear into it with tooth and claw.] * The scorpion is not pleased with this claw that seems to have penetrated its chitinous exoskeleton. [You hear chanting out in the dark behind the bears.] * Charlotte darts around the battlefield, sneding two arrows at a bear. Unfortunately, both miss and strike trees. In the future, birds will build a nest on the arrow embedded in the tree and it will be a beautiful scene with birdsong andn colorful feathers. Unless the forest burns down. Yes, I'm looking at you. * Skip shoots off of the side of the tree like a dart, sailing through the air like a monkey. He grabs onto the next trunk, swings, and shoots off toward the next tree, this time grabbing ahold of the trunk ten feet lower than before. * Theodore casts 5 magic missiles at the bears, three to the leftmost bear and 2 to the rightmost. the missiles slam into their sides, but they remain standing *Nyyx turns from her first kill and leaps at the closest bear, severing its head. Its bloody mass falls to the ground. * Brute charges to the final undead bear, cutting a large wound into the bears underbelly. What's left of the bear's entrails spill out, and the bear falls to the ground, still. * Roland reappears from nowhere and runs off into the forest, accompanied by the scorpion. * Brute chases behind Roland, and yells ahead, "You know where you going?" Not really, but maybe she'll find us! * Skip climbs down to the ground and runs back to the monk's corpse. * Charlotte goes off with the rest of the group, but keeps an eye on the monk when possible [A branch creaks behind Theodore.] * Roland walks invisibly back a bit behind Theodore. * Skip turns toward the noise, "Theodore, behind you!" * Theodore turns around "Skip? What's there?" [Theodore only sees the forest behind him.] * Skip puts himself between the noise and the monk. "There's definitely something out there." * Roland walks slowly back into the forest. * Nyyx heads toward Skip and the others. * Roland returns with Nyyx. * Roland heads back into the forest behind where Theodore was standing. [When Nyyx and Brute and "Roland" get 30' away from Skip, Theodore and Roland, chanting can be heard next to the monk.] [The monk glows faintly and is still.] [Skip leans in to stab the monk, who tries to twist out of the way at the last second. Skewered, he lies still.] * Skip 's eyes widen as the monk moves, but Skip keeps his wits about him. With the enemy still down, Skip takes another chop, digging an axe deep in the man's stomach. * Theodore casts caltops on the 5 squares not toward us * Brute moves a bit closer to Skip and the monk. Not being certain whether the monk is finished, he throws his axe with tremendous force, slashing cleanly at the monk's neck before returning to Brute. * Charlotte looks around with her bow out, looking for pressed leaves or something. Or puddles of water with footsteps. Or anything like that, really. * Charlotte darts around, takes... "aim", and fires. Twice. Well, three times. * Charlotte hits nothing. "She's next to the monk!" [The caltrops materialize around the monk's body but thankfully do not impede any of the adventurers.] * Nyyx sees nothing. * Roland waves his visible hand in the air and a massive beetle (not beatle) ten feet in length pops out of nowhere. It sets down heavily on the ground and scurries right across X's body, running over Skip and hopefully the cleric, too. * Skip staggers under the trample of the beetle, but is aware enough to hear the hurried footsteps of an unseen creature. "Something ran in that direction!" Skip points away from the group in the direction of the sound. * Skip follows. * Brute dashes forward, stopping between the monk and Skip. He looks around, obviously confused. "I dun see anything here!" * Charlotte tries to hunt the target down with the use of footprints * Charlotte speeds along the footprint trail as fast as she can * Charlotte bumps into her, but doesn't have enough time to do anything about it. @_@ * Charlotte retains her balance, though She's here! * Nyyx practically flies to land by Charlotte as soon as she sees the scout bump into something unseen. She chops her sword through what looks like air and feels the satisfying resistance of blade slicing meat. * Theodore casts see invisibility * Roland runs hastily over towards the battle and skids into place opposite Charlotte. [The cleric appears 30' from Charlotte, her face a mask of fear and concentration.] Cleric: (Infernal) "The dead shall heed my calling. The restless ones will serve. Pierce the void between the worlds and grant me safe passage beyond the veil. By the old pacts I bind thee. OBEY!" [The cleric disappears screaming in a cloud of viscera darker than the surrounding night.] Eew. * Brute catches up with the party. "What did I miss?" We kileld the monk. Then we killed the monk again. And then we nearly killed the priestes. "At least we were thorough. We sure monk is dead?" No. We're not. Wanna go back and make sure? * Nyyx nods grimly. "Any idea where where the cleric went?" To the realm of shadow. I'm fairly certain she's a priestess of Nerull. * Brute shrugs. "Might as well." He unwedges his greataxe from the ground and trudges back to the monk. * Nyyx nods. "It's unfortunate that she got away." * Nyyx goes to check on the monk. She might not survive the trip. * Roland follows Nyyx. Planar travel is risky and extremely rare. Whoever IS her patron, he's clearly quite fond of her. And it's not unheard of for the clergy of Nerull to masquerade as clergy of Wee Jas. We could have gotten some nice answers out of her. It's a good bet that she was the leader. And the one behind all this. * Nyyx nods. "And the monk was the undying man that she managed to resurrect repeatedly?" Most likely. I don't believe she actually raised him. * Skip takes it all in as they walk back to the monk. Just used an extremely powerful healing spell. ... really? What makes you say that? Hmm. I guess that's why your god saw fit to give you awesome powers. Ah well. The monk kept fighting past the limits of any ordinary person. He kept fighting when he should have been well defeated. Ah... * Skip kneels down next to the monk. "Roland, I think you should speak with it. Like you did the skull." * Roland kneels and checks to make sure it's actually dead. [The monk does not move or breath. It is nearly in pieces.] Alright, so what's the bandit count down to? * Skip examines the monk, searches its body, and lays out anything of interest on the ground. * Roland looks deeper, with his healer's vision, probing for even the smallest signs of life. * Skip then extends the arm that delivered the stunning strikes to him and Nyyx and, using his hand axe, chops off the hand at the wrist. [Slowly, over the course of minutes, the flesh is repairing itself. It may take hours for the body to regenerate, but it will given the chance.] He's still... not living, precisely, but regenerating. Given enough time, he'll be back. "Who has a shovel?" We should take him back to the Contact. Yes. I think the Contact wanted us to bring him back. Even without her, he is still coming back, given time. It is worth investigation. Strip him of items. We will bind him and head back. Items? Does he need items? Geez.. how does he do this? What is he, anyway/ That will be discovered, eventually. One way or another. .. hey Think this is the Man That Cannot Die? * Nyyx nods. "We'll find out. For now, though--" She takes out the length of rope previously used to tie up the not-druid and ropes up the corpse. Tightly. * Skip removes his rope and gives it to Nyyx. "Here. We need to make sure it's extra secure." Fine. I'm sure it won't hurt. * Roland sends the last of his darts flying into Skip's back, giving him a nice burst of healing power. You have an unusual method of healing, Roland. And, Skip, why don't you tie the knots. You might be better at it than I am. * Skip takes the ropes and ties up the bloody mess, creating a bloody mess of rope and flesh. Hooray! * Nyyx secures the body to the back of her horse. SESSION END. Session Close: Sat Sep 08 22:22:08 2007