Session Start: Sat Feb 16 19:29:53 2008 Session Ident: #castlevania * Now talking in #castlevania [The militia has collected Theodore and the staggering cleric of Wee Jas and are fleeing from the center of the city and the imploding pit where the tower once stood.] [Clerics of Nerull wheel overhead on undead eagles and fire wild spells at the monster to little effect.] * Roland tries to signal for a new and pimped out eagle to ride. * Roland whistles loudly and sceams "I NEED AN EAGLE OVAH HEAH!" [Two of the undead eagles begin to descend.] * Nyyx deals another two heavy swings to the base of the bone dragon's skull. [The faces on the dragon's body continue to vanish, moving toward the skull. The creature's spine is beginning to crack in places.] * Charlotte fires a pair oaf arrows up at the dragon. One misses, but the other buries itself into the bone and starts dissolvivng. * Skip quickly draws his dual handaxes and begin hacking into the cracking spine. Two solid hits send fragments of bone flying into the howling wind. [The dragon begins to sweep through the air erratically and the spine begins to fail completely, sections falling off to the ground below. Before long, only the head will remain. The jaws of the creature open and the beast roars out in fear and pain. It's eye socket begin to glow with bloody brightness.] [His Emminent Remains continues to hack at the skull.] Hmm. Maybe I -won't- need another ride. * Roland lays some healing hands on himself as he waits for an undead eagle to get to him, then as soon as it arrives, he throws himself onto its back and signals for it to take to the sky. * Theodore uses a wand of magic missiles on the enemy * Nyyx , still standing on the beast's skull, lands another bone-cracking blow. "Skip! Come up toward the skull before this thing disintegrates!" * Skip scurries along the crumbling spine toward Nyyx and the skull of the roaring beast. * Charlotte fires another pair of arrows. One of them misses, but the other manages to slip into one of its joints and bursts into caustic fluid [The beast's body collapses completely, crumbling to dust and leaving Nyyx, Skip and His Emminent Remains suspended 100' over the city with little elbow room.] Well. This is interesting. [The glow continues to rise and can be seen through the skull.] His Emminent Remains: "I think this thing is charging up for something big. Is it going to explode?" I hope not. Do you have any idea how to destroy it completely before that happens? His Emminent Remains: "I don't know! It has a lot of power behind it right now. We have to get rid of it!" * Nyyx yells to Roland, "Roland! Does your team have any idea how to destroy this thing before it does whatever it's preparing to do?" * Skip yells to Nyyx, "Nyyx! Can you draw away its power?! Like you did in the demi-plane!" I can try it if we've got nothing else. * Roland guides his eagle in over Nyyx and shouts down, "Get ready to catch me!" * Roland leaps off the eagle towards Nyyx. * Nyyx braces herself and readies her arms to catch Roland. * Roland lands in Nyyx's arms and says loudly, "You ready to drain this thing?" [Roland drops from the eagle gracelessly and manages to knock Nyyx to the ground on his way down, but both are on the skull.] * Skip shouts, "I think it's getting a little crowded up here!" He whistles for the eagle to fly in close. [The pale, gutted creature lurches forward and cirles about 30' from the skull.] Lady Natalia, start the drain as soon as you can. I'm pretty sure I can keep you alive through it. * Nyyx grips onto the surface of the skull. "If that's what I have to do." She takes a deep breath and begins the siphoning process. * Roland motions to HER, asking silently to borrow his scythe. His Emminent Remains: "What? You don't want to touch this, sonny." Neither does she, but we need a power sink. So do us all a favor and ram it through her gut so we don't explode when she overloads. * Nyyx grits her teeth. "You make it sound so pleasant." Our other option is to run you through and then twist the blade every couple seconds. Would you prefer that? His Emminent Remains: "I see. That won't be necessary. I can do enough with a touch." Fine. We'll try that. I'll watch for overload. * Roland gets "behind" Nyyx and flips on his Healervision, watching the power (and blood) flow through her body. [Nyyx initiates the siphon and immediately, her hands stick to the surface of the skull and begin to glow.] [The healer's vision lights up like a festival.] * Nyyx 's brow furrows in concentration. [The glow from the continues to build for a time and then stalls as more and more it is disrupted by Nyyx. Soon, the faces that disappeared into the skull begin to appear on Nyyx's arms, contorting and squirming.] [The healer's vision shows dozens of 'lives' where Nyyx should be. This is likely the begining of overdose.] we need more drain! [His Emminent Remains places one hand on Nyyx's shoulder.] [Nyyx's form begins to shimmer and the entropy induced by H.E.R. takes effect. The influx from the skull increases dramatically.] * Nyyx grits her teeth even more tightly. [As the siphon continues, Nyyx manages to keep her shape roughly, but the faces continue to migrate and begin to escape from her skin as mist randomly. They linger for a few moments, shrieking vividly and then fade away.] [The siphon continues in this way for at least a minute and a storm of 'faces' has erupted around the skull and constantly spirals away. The noise is deafening.] [At long last the glow from the skull has subsided and His Emminent Remains removes his hand.] Is it safe to stop? * Roland looks up at HER. "I think you might want to crack open this dragon skull first." His Emminent Remains: "We are floating on it you know. And done." [He swings straigt down at the skull.] [Straight.] [The skull fractures and cracks down the middle.] Okay, break it off, Lady Natalia. * Nyyx attempts to break the siphon. [The three on the skull feel gravity's pull as the skull cracks full and begins to fall. Sections of bone are shunted into Nyyx as the Bone Serpent disintegrates completely.] [His Emminent Remains disappears in a wave of darkness only to appear a few dozen feet above the ground. He lands roughly and stands up, watching the others above.] * Nyyx shakes loose of the disintegrating bone and sways for a second as if drunk, but she recovers at the last second and leaps away from the last segment of crumbling bone, landing on the eagle she arrived on. * Roland refuses to look down. Roland! Skip! * Skip goes to jump for the eagle, but loses his balance when the piece of skull under his feet breaks free. He is now in free fall. * Roland discovers that it doesn't matter if he refuses to believe in physics, because physics believes in him. Hard. * Skip lands next to Roland with a thud. He remains still for a moment, wondering how hurt he is, then attempts to move. Everything hurts, but, thankfully, everything still seems to be working. * Nyyx does her best to get the eagle to fly down to check on her teammates. * Charlotte runs on over to check on her team mates. @_@ Ow. * Roland picks himself up off the ground. [Nyyx lands the eagle along with the clerics of Nerull and approaches as the militia stands as a crowd staring at His Emminent Remains. The emmaciated creature returns their gaze.] Well, it worked. * Skip gets to his feet. "Is Nyyx all right?" * Nyyx swings down off the eagle, stumbles a bit from exhaustion, rights herself, and walks toward Roland and Skip. "You're alive." So are you. Of the two, I'd say yours is more surprising. After all, I was nearly forty percent sure that that would work. Glad to see you're alright, I guess... what now? * Skip looks up to the point from which he fell. "Yeah, I've fallen farther and landed harder. Glad to see you're all right, Nyyx." You destroyed the syphon, right? * Nyyx gives a slight smile. "I'm not sure. I don't think I was able to stop after it began, but the destruction of the skull loosened my hold." Your shadow. Turn around and look at it. [Yelling can be heard coming from the crowd as the clerics of Nerull wander up. It begins to rain.] * Nyyx blinks and turns to look. [Nyyx's shadow is clearly far too short and wearing a long skirt.] ...That's unsettling. * Nyyx moves experimentally to see how the shadow reacts. [It follows her movements.] What happened? ... Wow. Weird. [The yelling continues. Apparently the druids are none too pleased that their eagles were raised as undead and the Pelorians keep pointing at His Emminent Remains emphatically.] [His Emminent Remains wanders toward the crowd.] "Under the authority of the Temple Compact, I hereby demand safe passage and hospitality under debtenture of the Church of Nerull." * Nyyx wipes the sweat and rain from her face and, eyeing her shadow suspiciously from time to time, walks slowly toward the commotion. * Skip scratches his head and shrugs at the odd shadow. What a mess. We should get out of here. Hey, wait? Where is....that guy? What was his name? Andre Du Pont? No, that's not it. Du Pre? Where is he? [Several of the clerics twitch with what Roland knows is a sending. Word travels fast.] [SESSION END!]