A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover

[DragonParadox]

Of Answers Half-Spoken ​

Eleventh Day of the Ninth Month 294 AC

The tea is getting cold, steam no longer rising from the fine porcelain cup to swirl in eddies among the pillars of the room carved with abstract designs at once arcane and pleasing to the eye, and the words are getting more dangerous. As one who is drunk on magic, your new friend begins to suffer slips of the tongue, about the new patrol schedules, about the reasons why everyone is on edge and why they insist on crossing every t and dotting every i. Of course, they have no reason to mistrust one as obviously loyal to the Heir of Iblis as you, but the shipment... the shipment had just arrived not three bells past and no one wanted to be seen as endangering it.

The janni-kin does not say which shipment it is. In his magic-addled state he must think that this is secrecy enough, he does not have to say more. Turning the conversation to what patrols and traps are around is not easy since whatever they are they are obviously not inconveniencing the garrison much, more's the pity. Thus you find yourself in the unenviable position of having to stoke suspicion about others in the chain of command with innuendo and implications since you barely know a handful of names of the officers and cannot even be sure which of them are serving here and which are back at court at any one moment.

Garin tosses you a worried look from where he is standing beside the ever more uneasy sharp-eyed soldier, far enough away that he and only he can hear what you are saying

"Trying to stoke suspicion while you are by far the most suspicious person around is poor tradecraft," he sends.

"I know, it's not like I have a lot of options," you all but snap back. It has been too long since you have been limited like this, too long since you could not fall back on your power quite so readily. Still, you at least have some sense of where the vault might be found from reading your victim's surface thoughts as you turn his mind towards the matter.

Route to Vault Found

"The Brothers of the Iron Guard would put paid any treachery..." the words have the weight of cold finality to them, almost of fear, which you did not think the warriors of the Great Sultan could even feel, certainly not with regards to their own allies.

"I have seen no giants here," you note, an edge of curiosity to your words, inviting further confidences. "They must be quite the pair..." It is too late that you realized he had not given the number and you had simply plunked it from the shadows in his mind.

Thankfully, he does not catch the slip of the tongue. "Indeed they are. Through their might shall the cowardly traitors that slither on the out-islands be brought to heel. I would much rather see them all executed by excruciation, of course, but seeing their lords broken in battle will help to convince the fools that they must submit again to the three-tailed lash."

Your eyes slip to his belt where the aforementioned symbol of authority rests, a mere copy of the one borne by the captain of the Sultan's Guard... but the implications. Does this man expect to command some portion of the captured islands?

"We are in position to blow the secondary alchemical magazines," you hear Lya's voice in your mind, suddenly. "We were lucky enough to get one of their own mages enthralled for it, a Brass Shaper who we used to open the way in here. So we can make it look like an inside job, at least at first glance. She will be missed soon, however, so we can't hold off on it long. What do we do?"

[] Set off the distraction and try to make it to the vault in time

[] Tell them to wait, you do not know about the traps on the way, even with Garin's help they might fatally slow you

OOC: I hope the way I presented this works. I did not want to describe the way to the vault twice, once now and once when you actually cross it.

 

[DragonParadox]

By Silent Blades ​

Eleventh Day of the Ninth Month 294 AC

"Now!" The word echoes along paths unheard, though its results do not stay so. Stone quakes beneath your feet as the enthralled mage makes a pyre of the alchemical stores. Before your new friend's head can even turn to follow the noise Dark Sister is in your hand and for the first time in a long while the blade sings as it it drawn to battle.

That is the last sound the chamber hears as you spin forth a spell of silence over the whole of the chamber, a simple spell and one you are almost certain shall go unnoticed. The captain lunges across the table at you, but your cloak surges to life like a wave of gold and snatches the sword in his left hand while turning aside the dagger in his right.

Taking advantage of the opening you slash once across his chest and once for the throat. Most men would have lost their head to the second blow, but this is no man you face, but a zealot of the Brazen Throne forged in the flames of a centuries long war. He rolls out of the way, leaving a trail of blood behind him, and draws from his belt what at first seems to be a wand of steel and brass entwined.

It is all that you can do not to laugh... then you read the runes upon the haft as he grips it in both hands and the laughter sticks in your throat. It's not a weapon, but a warning. If he snaps that thing it will give away the position of the attack to the whole damn fortress.

You catch sight of Garin killing two of the guards with separate blows of his daggers left and right at the cost of having his back slashed with heavy scimitars while Ser Richard is a blur of steel and fire as he kills one of the dervishes and holds off the other two near him. Neither are close enough for this.

Time twists, as much as you dare twist it.

Darts of familiar arcane energy fly from the fingers of your left hand, fire hotter than the depths of the Sea of Flame, burrowing into the flesh of your foe where the sword blows had landed. The reek of burned flesh adds to the oils and the incense.

By the time you get our bearings back and reach Garin he has killed one more of his opponents, most of the rest trying to rush past Ser Richard to the door to save their lives or to give warning, perhaps both. Dark Sister does not seem to mind being used to stab a man in the back, then again given her last bearer she is perhaps more used to that than open battle.

Once the last of your foes is dead, even as you weave spells of healing over the others who had not been as fortunate as you in escaping injury, you send your thoughts outwards and downwards to the others. "How are you holding up?"

"We have golems or giants heading our way. We can hear them stomping about," Maelor replies this time. "Should we try to draw them away and run or join up with you a you make for the vault?"

What do you reply?

[] Try to re-join forces at the cost of slowing down your advance towards the vault so that you would be better prepared to face its guards

[] Head straight there while the others escape, they did their job playing distraction

[] Write in

OOC: This was probably not the most effective fight I could have ran, I likely missed out on some powerful low level spells, but I wanted to let Dark Sister have a moment in the sun. It has been a long time since she had the chance to shine.

 

[DragonParadox]

Into the Fray ​

Eleventh Day of the Ninth Month 294 AC

"So which way do we go?" Ser Richard asks as he wipes off Oathkeeper's blade on the robes of a dead foe, in a gesture at once familiar and little used of late. The blood of genies does not burn so easily off the blade as that of men for all that they die just the same.

The dead do not answer, and you do not have the time to make them. So instead you project a map in the air woven of light and glamor, barely a whisper of a spell. Alas, there is almost as much fog as there are lines and symbols, though you can at least be certain that what you did find out is accurate. Your erstwhile 'friend' would have had no reason to lie to you for all you would have preferred a more complete accounting.

Spoiler: Map

Two paths open before you now that you have sent the others back, well three perhaps, but the third is more guesswork than fact. If you travel Darkward back the way you had come, you can take one of the secondary corridors straight past the armory and right to the stairway that leads to the vault. As is oft the case, the most direct path is also the most dangerous as you would not only have to go past a check point, but also the primary armory, which would likely be on the highest alert given the attack Lya and the others had just enacted. Alternatively, you could continue down the main corridor then take a left towards the temple of the Great Sultan, which has a passage directly to the lower levels in its living quarters.

Lastly, you could take a left right here through a heavy lead-lined door that leads roughly in the direction of the officers quarters right above the armory. If you can just find another way parallel to the main corridor the three of you might be able to avoid all the check points... but only if you are willing to step wholly into the unknown.

"If whatever or whoever is in there needs a direct path to the armory, I doubt they will be waiting for us with fresh-baked pies," Garin notes. "On the other hand, they might have been drawn away by the distraction which almost certainly will not be the case at any of the check points."

"What about this part?" Ser Richard circles an area of mist below the soldiers quarters. "We would have to go by it if we head by the temple. There was a door there, wasn't there?"

"More like a shoot for some kind of mechanical conveyance I think, I could sense the bound elemental..." You trail off. "It did not feel quite like the ones at the batteries outside."

Which way do you go?

[] Down the main corridor and then past the check point and by the armory, the fastest surest way

[] All the way down the main corridor and through the temple

[] Through the unknown door above the armory, hoping to bypass all the known dangers

[] Write in

OOC: The last two updates have been ret-coned because the timing based system I was hoping to use either messed up strategic considerations or handed your enemies an idiot ball and of course neither of those were desirable. I know the map is not the best, hopefully it is at least readable.

 

[DragonParadox]

Light Rests the Helm ​

Eleventh Day of the Ninth Month 294 AC

Unseen you are by thinnest glamor that you can conjure and silent are your steps in the flame forged halls. Not even Ser Richard's steel tread can be said to be said to be louder than the passage of Garin's shadow, the same spell that has seen the guards killed serving you now in good stead walking back along the path you came. Yet far from silent is your way.

A great brass gong, inescapable and without source rings and rings and rings again. Fire, foes, and treachery it proclaims in wordless fury at those who had dared trespass upon the domain of the Brazen Throne. Dervishes in flowing robes and acolytes of the guild of Shapers rush towards the place of the attack with more pouring in from the living quarters on either side of you. Fortunately, no one seems yet inclined to look to the door you had, under figment opened... not yet at least, though it is hard to judge how long your luck will hold.

At Garin's suggestion, you had swept up all the corpses in your cloak in the hope that the disappearance would cause at least a moment more confusion, but you have no doubt that a far worse alarm will go off should the chamber be investigated in earnest.

As the sound of the gong fades to be replaced with the march of booted feet and the whirring of arcane gears with the passage of guardian golems, you turn the corner to face the check point.

The four guards are as you had seen them, guarding the two ends of the arch on either side and looking across the corridor with wariness undimmed by habit... and all of them have sight that cannot be foiled by glamor. Garin could probably sneak across even so, for the shadows are his friends and secrecy his boon companion, but you and ser Richard do not share the skill. There must be another way ...

At first sight, the helms they bear are no more and no less than means of piercing illusions, the ruby in the center of the forehead a third crimson eye, but there is another spell entwined with it, almost too faint to notice. What in the Hells.... you somehow doubt the sultan has gifted them sorcery to help comfort them on the long watch. It's being used as levitation of all things, you realize a moment later, lightening the helms ever so slightly, but the why of it still escapes you. It cannot be to make them more effective, the force exerted is barely enough to notice.

Enough to notice...

The lesser spell is designed to ensure that they notice if their true sight is suppressed. Clever, though you are in no position to fully appreciate it, seeing as they are in your damn way. If there was just one guard you might be able to get away with dispelling the sight and holding up the helm before they even notice the weight, but two is more than you can affect in time.

"I could carry you past," Garin says after you briefly explain what you had seen. "My magic bag won't work in here but your cloak does..."

"It cannot carry living beings and every spell I know that would make us not count as alive is too powerful to risk."

"Maybe if you shrunk down with one of those fey mushrooms, I could carry you..." He sounds more dubious this time and not without cause, being half your size would still leave you as rather ungainly to carry for Garin, perhaps enough to trip even his stealth. "I would have to take two trips."

What do you do?

[] Use Reduce Person mushrooms and hope that Garin can hide you well enough to run past the guards, twice

[] Try another plan
-[] Write in

[] Try one of the other routes
-[] Write in

[] Write in

OOC: These are going to be naturally short, but I will try to get a good clip with them.

 

[DragonParadox]

Of Mist and Mechanism ​

Eleventh Day of the Ninth Month 294 AC

"Mist," you say the word aloud as much as think it at the others. You will have to thank Wyla for the idea. "Do you have any bottles we could use?"

It does not take Garin more than a moment to catch on and as it happens he does not lack for bottles to make use of the idea his aunt had come up with on her long ago journeys across the sunlit world. "I keep them for blood..." the thought trails off with an unaccustomed edge of awkwardness to it. "Oh, not for that. Samples from my target to scry them easier by later."

"Don't forget to toss us out if you get in a fight," Ser Richard says gruffly as the spell washes over him.

Thus you are made into mist and clinging fog. It does not feel like flying and nor like floating, more like embracing the air and tasting every whiff of smoke and every grain of dust. Part of you worries the glamor might fail now that it no longer has any solid substance to cling to, leaving you in perhaps the most conspicuous form one could have in this realm of flame and scorching heat.

But no, the glamor holds, and glass you find 'tastes' strangely bitter and acerbic when one is formless particulate matter. One can almost feel the sand of which it had once been made, along with the heat of the forge.

The glass you are in is not translucent, it would after all be rather awkward if one were to see that the High Inquisitor is carrying bottles of blood, and so all you can do is wait and trust in your friend's skill of hiding in his own shadow even without a single spark of magic. From inside his cloak you can feel as much as hear the sound of heavy footfalls and the distorted words of the guards. Wyla had said it was a skill to use your senses in this form, you just had not considered how much that was the case.

"Trouble ahead," you hear Garin's voice in your mind again, crisp and clear. "The lift down will only work if you call out your rank and it matches a blood signature. Every person that gets on has to do it."

"That must be a clever trick given that we are inside a ward against all divination and blood seeking spells are divination..."

"Well that is what they are doing, cutting their finger and placing them on this little gold plaque, it even comes away healed," he replies. "Do you want to come up and see?"

It is as Garin had said. You watch as a noble janni in robes of crimson and orange cuts his finger with a practiced flick of his athame and speaks boldly. "Ilthik-Ress, se-malolo." Mage hunter, you translate automatically, though his accent throws you for a moment. It is not the affected courtly tones of the officers who wish to see more tied to the city than they are, nor the faintly musical dialect of the dervishes, nor for that matter the harsh trade tongue affected by most of the traders. If anything he sounds like someone who had learned the tongue of fire in the realm of the Peerless Empire.

You watch with interest as his shield bearing guards hook themselves onto the outside of the lift, making a wall of enchanted metal between their master and any who would strike him as he descends. The way their mechanical appendages click around the bar makes you think they were designed to the purpose.

What do you do?

[] Try to slip onto the platform unseen and unheard

[] Try to grip onto the platform's railing where the constructs are not hanging onto it

[] Fly down the shaft

[] Write in

OOC: After this I am going to have to make another map.

 

[DragonParadox]

Shadow's Passage ​

Eleventh Day of the Ninth Month 294 AC

It had been a long while indeed since Garin Drekelis had feared something as trivial as heights. After all, a safe perch was never farther than the nearest shadow across some distant ledge. Yet as the lift began to slide downward into the depths of the fortress, the creaks and groans of its mechanisms mingling with the sputtering flame of its bound elemental, he was acutely aware that the shadows would grant no passage here... and it was a long way down to the bottom.

All thought of flying down was swiftly put paid to as he spotted the holes of launcher tubes, not one or two, not a dozen or a score, but ring upon ring of automated defenses that glowed with cherry-red flame like an eye half-lidded, sure to open in deadly full as soon as anyone was foolish enough to take this path alone. There was no real room to dodge and weave down here, not unless whoever designed the targeting solutions of these weapons was sporting enough to give one, and somehow he did not think the efreeti artificers were so accommodating of unexpected guests.

As though something had heard his thought, the bar under his fingers flashed white hot with lightning far too powerful for the silver thread in them to disperse. Garin could taste blood in his mouth, his own, bitter and unfulfilling as he bit his tongue against a gasp of pain.

Did they see? Did they know? He only had a moment to decide before the launchers would begin to shoot, and gods only knew what the mage hunter and his guards would do.

'The most important leap is often the one you do not make', Garin recalled his grandfather saying to him when he was a boy. Granted, the old man had meant leaps in finance and investment, not in the flesh, but the notion held. The golems did not react, the mage hunter did not shift in his position. It had been an automatic defense, one that would not harm the forged guards but would fry most flesh and blood infiltrators.

Finally, the lift began to slow and at the last moment Garin lept off to stay well clear of the shield bearing guards. He landed without a whisper of sound and froze in place. The amir passed him so close Garin could smell the flame cloves on his breath, but he was none the wiser. Garin breathed and turned his eye to the final stretch.

Three paths branched out from the chamber, one heading flameward, unbarred but filled with the bustle of scores of marching feet, the harsh voices of the officers driving their soldiers towards the lift, doubtless heading towards the upper halls to check on the destroyed armory. It was more than he could say how many of them had the means to pierce through glamor, but he was willing to bet it was more than one would prefer. Worse still was the fact that in the relatively narrow corridor sheer accident might see one of them knock into him. No amount of skill could make him intangible.

Then there was the middle way, wide and unbarred, empty for now and clearly the way the amir was going, perhaps allowing the High Inquisitor to follow in his wake and take advantage of the space he was granted to pass unknown. Alas, unknown also were many of the chambers along that path, save for the fact that on the rare instances when the commander of the fortress actually dwelt within his chambers that were along this corridor. It was possible that he would have his own passage unknown by others to reach the gate chamber, and thus from there the vault... or one could continue down the wide straight way there, though Garin mistrusted those words more than any other when it came to an infiltration.

Lastly there was the lower way, best known of the three, though also known to have no less than three checkpoints to keep unwanted guests out of the command center of the fortress. Could he wager on them being no more well-staffed and guarded than those on the upper level?

Spoiler: Map

Which path do you take?

[] Upper path, straight to the gate room but crowded

[] Middle path, past the Malik's Quarters and several unknown rooms
-[] Enter the chambers themselves and look for some secret escape passage

[] The lower path, past the staff rooms

Does Garin try to navigate the passage alone or let the others out?

[] Go alone for stealth and speed

[] Let the others out so you have backup should the alarm be tripped

OOC: This feels a little mechanistic since I do not work with maps, hopefully I will get better at it now that I have gotten over my hesitation to make them. This has turned into a bit of a testbed for the notion. Also, Garin is down 52 HP from the electrified railing.

 

[DragonParadox]

That Perilous Light ​

Eleventh Day of the Ninth Month 294 AC

One path filled with the unknown and one filled with so many people it would be like trying to run through an enemy formation mid-battle, it seemed only reasonable to choose the third. After all, he had fooled their checkpoints once, why not a second time? The answer came in the form of an unwelcome click breaking his silent stride right in front of the heavy doors marked with the glyph Izaz in the tongue of fire, Revelation. And revealed where the silent stalker was in a flash of white fire that left his flesh unharmed but clung to his form, marking him for the death.

If it had been Viserys or Lya he might have been able to twist time and cancel the spell as it formed. If he wielded the enchantments of the Red Priestess he might have been able to enthrall the pair of dervish guards at the door with a word before they could call out

If wishes were oars than beggars would sail.

The four guards fire was not for show. They leapt upon him as figures of molten dread, the titles of their lord an invocation of courage and a call to war all upon them.

"Unquenchable One! Lord of Battles! Master of Masters!" The keening cries echoed on stone and even Garin for all his arts of death and murder could not slit their throats before the words were spoken.

Even so, unable to count upon the displacement of his cloak and taken unawares by the trap, Garin was deft and skilled enough to avoid the blows of his foes and deal them back with interest. The first of them died with a dagger sinking deep into the fiery mass where his heart should have been. But this was not the kind of battle Garin could win, fighting face to face with no allies to watch his back and distract the enemy.

"Curtain's Up!" he shouted, not bothering to mind-speak. Having two people, one of them a knight in armor who weighed half again as much as him, burst out of his cloak pocket was almost enough to knock him off his feet. As it was it was enough to push him into the wall opposite the door, just as answering war cries rang out across the corridor and beyond.

Even as Ser Rchard made quick work of another of the dervishes and Viserys immolated one with fire beyond fire it was clear the enemy were not merely charging blindly. They were gathering, they were gathering and organizing, readying to protect the gate room and the vaults.

"We need to fight our way forward, now!" Viserys called, drawing Dark Sister even as he ran forward. "If we given them a chance to organize those stones are as good as in the Sultan's treasury. "

No sooner had he finished his words that a flash of unlight filled the corridor. The mage hunter had translocated in front of them, attuned to the wards and unconstrained. He had chosen his weapon well and only Viserys interposed ring flashing with sudden flame kept his magic from being utterly stripped.

"Ah... a man of means I see," the amir laughed in his strangely polished accent. "Might I ask where you acquired that cloak?"

The heavy footfalls of common guards and the hissing flame of the dervishes could be heard from behind and in front of them.

What do you do?

[] Try to push to the the closest vault and start looting, the faster you get to them the more of them you can claim

[] Get to the Gate Room and shut it down, you can handle everyone on this level, at least long enough to do what you came here from, but not reinforcements from the City of Brass

[] Write in

OOC: So I was thinking of all sorts of complicated trap-spells like the one in the ret-coned update, but then it occurred to me that the best trap to put in the middle of a often used hall is one that does not hurt the person who trips it, because it can all too easily happen by accident. For anyone who is wondering, yes, Garin would normally be able to hide even with the spell on him if he knew he had it from the start, but not even mythic hiding skills can deal with being unexpectedly lit up like a Christmas Tree just as you are passing someone's line of sight.

 

[DragonParadox]

Before the Final Gate ​

Eleventh Day of the Ninth Month 294 AC

And it all goes tits up in the end, the thought echoed through Ser Richard Lonmouth's mind as he charged the mage who faced his sworn liege, half-stepping half-leaping over the corpse of one slain foe while slitting the burning sword across the neck and chest of another, opening them up like a kipper on market day. He had long since gotten used to the smell of dying men and the giants did not seem so different, but these other servants of the Sultan smelled different, acrid and bitter, like blood that had been poured on a hot stove to burn.

The wizard barely had the time to look up in surprise, Oathkepeer positioned to strike him right in the heart...

He was gone in the snap of a finger, leaving the Knight of Skulls and Kisses off balance and forced to compensate for cleaving empty air.

"Fucking time twisters," he cursed, and was not sure if it had been his own thought or that of the sword dripping with blood and fire. Before he could turn to see where the bastard had gone Garin called out from behind him.

"Ware volley!" Lances of light and sorcery he faintly recalled the empress calling 'like distilling a punch' arched into his back, some warded by his shield, others piercing through his calf and the small of his back. Each apart Richard was sure he could have kept his feet facing, but all together was more than he could endure.

For the first time in years Ser Richard Lonmouth, champion of the Imperium, flew off his feet... right into the wall opposite the door from which these new enemies were coming from.

Ser Richard loses 24 Temporary Hit Points & takes 64 Damage

The roar of a dragon shook those walls and in a blur of scales red and gold Viserys Targaryen fell upon his foes like a deadly shadow at his side. For all their deadly sorcerous weapons the ifrit guard could not stand up to either the claws, teeth and fangs of a dragon who walked like a man or the deadly blade of a shadow that could kill faster than the eye could see. A pittance of blood only did they claim.

Garin takes 12 Damage

It was no sorcerous fear that drove them all back, but the very real sounds and sights of death, the smell of the dying. For a moment the knight hesitated between watching his lord's back and advancing, but he knew with a cold certainty that they could not long stand still here. He charged once more, a warcry of the Imperium in a realm that had had known little more than screams of pain from mortal throats.

He killed the last two dervishes without breaking his stride, though not before one struck at the joining of plates at his armpit, tearing tendon and muscle with flaming blade. Oathkeeper healed that and more as it struck the head from his shoulders. The sword's 'spells' were not the least troubled by the wards around this place it seemed.

Ser Richard takes 13 damage

Ser Richard Heals 22 Damage

Richard could not see what his liege was doing behind him, but he could hear the joyous ring of Dark Sister and the roar of fire, there was always fire. By the time the king caught up blood dribbled from an unhealed wound in the corner of his mouth, though the covering of fine ash and blood already flaking in the heat that covered his robes where they did not cover his cloak was a mark of all those who had come off far worse from in the fight.

"Alright there Your Gr... Majesty?"

The Imperator laughed. "As well as can be hoped Ser, and I think we can spare the formality until we deal with the very rude fellows in back there... and in front of us too."

Viserys takes 37 Damage

The door was already bared against them and it looked as solid as a mountain's heart, black onyx gleaming in the light of leaping flames, then briefly in the coruscating light of an unraveling. Dragon and knight smashed into both at full speed. Now Richard was no miner and had no mind to become one, but it was not that different to find the flaws in stone as opposed to armor, the place where fractures could be pried apart... Stone actually could be cracked like glass if you went at it hard enough, not something Richard had been that curious about as it happened.

As the dust began to clear Richard could see three figures in the gloom of the chamber, a richly dressed efreeti officer, one of the first he had seen in the fortress as it happened, and a pair of improbably well-dressed giants wearing armor polished to an unnatural sheen, both carrying heavy stones under their arms.

Before even Garin could reach them the three had vanished, stones and all, a look of mingled hate and fear on the officer's face.

"Can't stop now, we need to interrupt that gate," the Imperator said as he waved a hail of blood red fire over his shoulder.

The last door between the vault and the Gate Chamber was shaped like the mouth of some huge lizard snapped closed in a fearsome snarl and above it two 'eyes' opened, bright with with all consuming flame. Moving on sheer instinct the knight parried one of them back with a sweep of his sword, making the wall explode in an even thicker shower of dust.

To his left he heard the Imperator cursing, though thankfully more in surprise than pain, the fire of the other trap guttering as it touched him. "Almost..." he coughed. "There."

Garin leapt ahead through the ruin of the wall and the door, tearing through arcane mechanism and its unfortunate user, and there in the now settling dust they could see the blazing crimson light of the gate from the City of Brass like a baleful eye.

Two titanic figures waited for them there already, mightiest giants Richard had ever seen in bright and baleful panoply, not of brass but adamantine shot through with blood and bile. Between them stood a fire spirit garbed head to food in articulated armor such that you could not guess his kindred, seeming almost like some strange and deadly insect.

He bowed slowly.

What do you do?

[] Write in

OOC: The reason those spells were able to toss Ser Richard off his feet was that he was hit by 6 of them at once, two of which were crit, and the effects on the pushback are cumulative.

 

[DragonParadox]

Of Flames Unraveled ​

Eleventh Day of the Ninth Month 294 AC

You can feel the magic in the air as the one in the center raises his left hand. You can hear its song of ruin in seven voices sung ere the first note in the invocation is uttered and by your arts sorcery against sorcery match. It is like dueling Lya, you realize, a shiver of cold dread going down your spine. Whoever, whatever is facing you walks in the shadow of his own legend. You prove the stronger... just, by the thinnest of margins, by the edge of a razor. He stands thus unveiled before you and so five arrows fly, blood red with flame none can quench, only endure.

Yet the silent foe will not so lightly be undone. His right hand moves upwards now, a sapphire mockingly bright flashes upon it, your spell not merely undone, but turned upon itself, five arrows sweeping backwards to strike Ser Richard as he is preparing to jump the wall.

You can only watch with horror as the knight is battered by the magic you had invoked, his shield unable to rise in time, his wards ineffective. The fire burns through the steel of his gauntlets and burrows between the plates of his armor, and one finds its way through the slit of his helm drawing a shout of pain.

Ser Richard takes 138 Damage

(Ser Richard Health 73/211
Ser Richard Temp HP: 35)

Painful though the fire might burn and near as death might be the knight of Skulls and Kisses he does not for a moment hesitate. He charges the nearest giant, aiming to carve his way to the foe and leave the enemy sorcerer alone behind his arcane ward. Swift is the blow and heavy enough to carve through stone the skill of a thousand battles in the form... yet this is no common adversary, no lesser giant of the Iron Guard, this is a champion girdled in adamantine and sorcery, his limbs swift as his stance is sure. The first blow goes askew and though the second carves deep into the forearm of the giant the rhythm is broken all too soon as the rune armor flares with the light of borrowed magic by a master cast.

Garin moves almost swifter than the eye can follow, a shadow among leaping shadows, and strikes with skill unerring, finding a seam in the armor that the smith who wrought it by tortured flames likely thought hidden from all eyes. The guard staggers to one knee, sore wounded, but not as sorely as Ser Richard is.

You reach for the strings of time with mind gripped by fear unlike any you have felt in a long time. You can banish any one spell the enemy might cast, but only at the cost of staggering yourself, of being unable to act, perhaps for too long.

There is something about the posture of the foe that seems amused, filled with a sort of silent mockery that does not need to boast. A rod of blackened ivory is in his hand now and even from a distance you can read the incantation. Words of death and words of ruin the mage begins to speak then, syllables each heavy as poisoned lead, a curse of blood your wards will not guard against.

You can still master time if only for a moment and perhaps unmake the spell ere it is cast, or you can accept that the spell will fall and hope that your next blow can help turn the tide of battle in your favor.

What do you do?

[] Cast celerity in the hopes of countering the spell

[] Keep fighting the enemy directly
-[] Write in how

[] Heal Ser Richard
-[] Write in how

[] Write in

OOC: Yes, that is a level 9 Thanatropic Avasculate that is made even worse by the rod that makes it Quickened so the mage gets one more chance to cast after that. Now it cannot really kill anyone, even Richard, because it halves current HP, but it could put Garin or you from full health to rather badly off.

 

[DragonParadox]

Reaping Ruin ​

Eleventh Day of the Ninth Month 294 AC

Out of the corner of your eye you catch a glimpse of Oathkeeper expending its own magic to heal its bearer, but your eye is fixed upon the foe before you, he must not have a chance to strike...

Ser Richard heals 17 Damage
(Ser Richard at 90/211 HP and 35 Temp HP)

The bolt of black desiccating power flies directly at Garin as he stands under the shadow of the giant, but you are ready for it. A wall of light rises between them, just wide enough to catch the blow, yet offering no cover from his blades. Yet even as the spell fizzles the mage is not daunted. Hollow eyes behind a mask of brass meet yours...

Time warps and roils, first a ripple too quick to counter, then a sea change no senses, even yours, can feel, though one would have to be blind and deaf to miss the foes the tide brings. The mage now stands more than fifty feet from his guards and surrounded instead by four titanic beasts of fire and molten stone. Low slung, they are like hounds of some dread god and just as loyal to their makers as any mastiff.

Spoiler: Elder Magma Elementals

The belt of iron and adamantine around his waist shines with familiar power, his fingers click together like some mechanical monstrosity, and magic unseen and unknown twists and writhes in the space between you like serpents each trying to swallow the other. For a moment you think you have the upper hand, but then the spell surges in a knotwork of strange energies and slips into being... Withering flame that does not shine falls over you and all your company, and your life burns at its touch like dry kindling...

You, Ser Richard, and Garin take 66 Damage

(Ser Richard at 62/211
Garin at 156/222
Viserys at 159/225)

For you and Garin the curse is grievous, but one you can endure, for Ser Richard it is nearly his death. The sizzling sound as the knight spits blood on the hot floor is dreadful to hear, and alas, you are not the only one with ears to hear it. The giant who had been lending his shield and his life to ward his master now raises a hammer festooned with runes of sundering.

Yet he is too eager, too sure of his kill, as the knight darts aside from the blow that shakes the hall and then cuts at the giant's armored wrist, thinking to sever it. The blow has not the strength to cut through adamantine and rune-scored flesh, yet still the foe recoils enough for he knight to lunge and deal a blow to its already wounded leg.

The howl of the giant is even louder than the blow of its hammer had been, but by spite and stubbornness he does not fall, at least not until Garin, graceful as the reaper's scythe, jumps forth and cuts a second smile under its chin. Finally, like a mountain collapsing in avalanche, the giant dies as Garin's flesh begins to mend once more.

Garin Heals 22 HP
(Garin at 178/222)

And that is when you realize the mage had not fled merely for fear of Garin's daggers or Ser Richard's blade...

Even as Oathkeeper's bloodied blade again surges with the light of stolen life to heal its bearer, the runes upon the dying giant flash so bright they seer the eye and the light explodes outward in a wave of soundless death that envelops your friends, breaking bone and tearing flesh.

Ser Richard heals 20 Damage
Ser Richard and Garin take 68 Damage
Garin gains 35 Temp HP

(Ser Richard 14/211
Garin at 110/222 and 35 Temp HP
Viserys at 159/225)

The armored mage laughs, the sound hollow, like a great bell deep underground. "Behold the King of the Garden, Great Dragon Returned and Lord of all he surveys. Rich shall be my reward when I bring your skull before the Throne of Iblis whom I served of old."

What do you do?

[] Write in

OOC: Viserys cannot see Death Throes on the other giant which means it had it as contingency the way you guys have heal, so when it drops below a certain amount of HP the spell triggers and then when it dies explosion time. Also, that did not feel like Mythic time stop, just the regular kind.