Wolfglide wrote:"Damn this torch!" yells Klokulf in his best pained Pierre voice. "Part of the blasted thing fell down my collar!"
He puts the silver coin back in his pack and draws a morningstar from its right pocket.
The torchlight down the curve of the stairs grows brighter and footsteps approach.
Then...
"Pierre?"
Scraping of boot heels on pavement again...
''Hey! Something's wrong!"
Raen lifts his hands and sends a storm of arcing bolts and leaping sparks down the stairwell.
''Aiiiiieeeeee!!!"
A long scream, followed by running feet, and a slamming door!
The stench of burned hair and scorched cloth hangs in the air.
Saint Elmo's fire plays along the spikes of Klolkulf's hefted morningstar.
A quick peek round the curve shows no watcher down the stairs now, just a dropped torch, which burns from one end to the other like a dry stick tossed in a campfire.
A wooden door at the bottom of the deep stairwall hangs slightly ajar, the panel still quivering from being slammed.
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.
A FEW SECONDS LATER
The lower door swings open all the way and bolts zip through accompanied by a crackle of musketry and--- BOOM!
Smoke instantly fills the lower stairs and doorway.
Groans and cries of injured men rise in the haze, which stinks of gunpowder and hot metal.
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.
Alain looks on in amusements at the shody workmanship of his foes . After seeing the fire cuased by the burst cannon . He quickly turns to his companions and says"Don't look while I cast a possible blinding spell at them ." With those words he proceeds to cast a spell* at the fire source among the enemy .
*Pyrotechnics
"Evil only endures when good people remain silent ."
Tony inspired by Thomas Jefferson .
Loud thumps, shouts for help, cries of sudden pain.
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.
"Let's move!" Raen hisses as he moves behind Dorgio. "We have been found out. Let's not give them time to prepare!"
"You truly see what a person is made of, when you begin to slice into them" - Semirhage
"I am not mad, no matter what you're implying." - Litalia My DMGuild work!
At Raen words, Kat slips swiftly forwards. Her rapier gleams in the darkness as she levels it, a slight hint of witchfire around it as she dives forward into the smoke.
Once among the staggered enemy she begins picking out any of them who seem to be confused, staggered or fighting someone else and deftly plants her point somewhere painful. If no opening presents itself, she uses her deft swordwork to create one!
Bennedict takes a deep breath, the adrenaline finally surging through his veins. All of the horror, anticipation, and anxiety of the last few days comes out in a rush as he invokes ancient, eldritch words. He feels power surging through him, and his hand tightens around the handle of his magically strengthened cane.
He opens his eyes and begins moving forward into the room.
"Of course," Benn mutters, "It would be a damned shame if we ever knew what the hell was actually going on."
kintire wrote:At Raen words, Kat slips swiftly forwards. Her rapier gleams in the darkness as she levels it, a slight hint of witchfire around it as she dives forward into the smoke.
Once among the staggered enemy she begins picking out any of them who seem to be confused, staggered or fighting someone else and deftly plants her point somewhere painful. If no opening presents itself, she uses her deft swordwork to create one!
MOVING THROUGH THE VEIL OF GUNSMOKE AND THE FALL OF DYING SPARKS
Kat steps over the fragments of a burst iron cannon and the bloody body of a fallen gunner, into a large, round, high vaulted room that swarms with confused, staggered men.
Must be more than a dozen, maybe as many as twenty!
Wall hangings, some furniture, and a couple of doors show through the haze, but Kat has little time to examine her surroundings. She sets to bloody work among the dazed and blinded, stepping quickly to jab and slash.
Her companions rush in after her--at least some of them.
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.
Kat and her friends slash into the confused mass of blinded mercenaries and thugs, cutting men down left and right.
The enemies quail before the party's firece onslaught. They run away, tripping and screaming.
Kat tugs at her blade, trying to extricate it from a dead man.
Dorgio hurls Raen to the floor. He screams in a broken, mad voice, ''The Barovians are coming!"
And then a mighty, hellish blast of flame engulfs everything the heroes can see: their bodies, the fallen enemies, the room.
Smoke.
Screams.
Whimpers and choking sounds.
When the survivors recover enough to look about, they see Kat flat on the ground, her red hair burned short, her clothes on fire, no sign she's alive...
Everyone left standing in that end of the big chamber has been blackened and blistered by the hellfire (except Alain, who took cover under an enemy--now quite dead).
Fallen enemies have simply been roasted. Stinking fat sizzles out of butchered corpses.
Across the room, maybe ten or twelve men still shout and shove in the smoke.
A dark, four-legged shape moves among them, growling what almost sounds like words. And a couple of men in the press seem to be trying to beat the others into order, grabbing and shaking them. ''Get to fighting!"
Benn reels forward, club raised.
Last edited by ewancummins on Fri Dec 22, 2017 10:12 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.
Before Benn can answer the monster’s words— Rocks fall!
Some strike Benn, ricocheting off the floor and walls, but he’s more startled than hurt, bowled over on his backside.
The hail of stones crushes and flattens the Black Dog. Its jaws snap convulsively and black ichor spurts out with a rasping cough. The monster’s red eyes dim like hot iron thrust into a tempering vat.
Men nearby fall, too, with busted skulls and dislocated shoulders.
One of the men still on his feet calls out, “The Master’s slain! Leg it, boys!”
The surviving ruffians trip all over each other in their haste to leave the room—most still seem to be blinded and need help from their comrades to reach an exit.
Beyond the confused tangle of fleeing men, and the thinning cloud of smoke, a gaunt human face peeks out from behind a door in the curved wall that now stands opened a few inches. The stranger has his eyes fixed on the crushed and broken demon-hound. The man lurking in the doorway lifts one black-sleeved arm and hisses a word of power, a puff of vapor coming from his mouth.
Before anyone in the chamber-- friend or foe-- can react, chunks of ice as big as heads hurtle down from the high-vaulted ceiling, smashing into everything and everyone in the whole room.
The terrific, freezing storm lasts mere seconds, but it leaves the survivors battered and chilled.
Limp figures lay all about.
The door where the man in black robes had stood and worked magic now stands shut.
A quick look about shows the other two doors (three total) hang open.
One you came through, wrecked by the cannon bursting.
The last door opens onto a smaller, darkened side room.
The conjured hail and fire have destroyed a tapestry and all the furniture in this great round chamber. Guttered candles and doused torches litter the floor, amid corpses. A toppled brazier spills coals.
Smudges of chalk circles run around and over a broad black disk set in the middle of the pavement. An alcove with the remains of a cot stands exposed on one side and not far from it a gap in the masonry shows a hollow beyond, with something like a shelf or high table standing in gloom.
No living foes remain standing in plain view.
Dorgio, sobbing and shaking, huddles over Kat's supine form.
Klokulf has stopped crawling but not bleeding.
Yet.
Raen lies face down, unmoving, between a toppled, extinguished candle and a doused torch.
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.
And then searing heat runs through his bones. His eyes rip open.
A mustachioed, soot-streaked face looks down into his.
The priest of the Morninglord!
''You can be moving, yes? Get up and help with the others. Kat first."
Dorgio looks at Benn, ''You help Raen, if he can be helped!"
BENN AND ALAIN
see Dorgio set Kat down gently and lurch across the floor to where Klokulf lies.
The Morninglord priest holds his blistered hands on the Vasan's chest and prays. A soft glow builds on the fallen man's chest.
Then Dorgio starts barking orders at his patient and at Benn.
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.
glimpses two or maybe three hazy figures standing near Dorgio. But when he blinks, these have vanished. He has no time for analysis or interrogation now, anyway--the redheaded woman needs immediate healing.
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.