The World of Skara Brae

Hearing that Zelph might be in danger, Aaron immediately searched frantically for the elf.

"How the heck did my grandfather take down these creatures with his bare hands" said the werewolf, in his exaustion he was panting, his head's current shape made it similar to the pant of a dog.

This didn't stop him from noticing what was perching nearby. Looking at it's eyes, James could tell it wasn't just wildlife that snuck into the city. Going up to the bird of prey, James said "Hey eagle! I know you aren't just a bird! So, if you understand me, talk, shapeshift or do something else!"

edited 22nd Mar '12 10:02:57 PM by JustaUsername

"Well, if you say so, I'll finish it. Be careful though, it might splash." She added as she chanted, her sword point at the dragon's head.

"Blade barrier." She finished.

"Hey wait!" Kalan called out "I'll be done in just a few moments!"

Sklav got away from the dragon when he heard the word "splash".

The eagle left a cry before tilting its head and spreading its wings to fly down into the ruins of the recently crushed house... where James would need to step inside in order to find her.

Orren grabbed Kalan and took off with him down the dragon's back, saying: "Sorry, kid, but there's no time. We gotta move!"

They got clear just in time to be safe from the spray of blood as acid as Mal's Blade Barrier spell sliced into the dragon's head, severing it from it's neck. Blood and gore sprayed everywhere.

Just as this happened, the sky suddenly darkened, dark clouds rushed in unnaturally fast, and red lightning lit up the sky.

Drek said: "Uh-oh. Last time I saw red lighting was when Eurantian killed Lloth..."

Orandious said to Micheal: "Some sort of weather control magic, master?" Micheal, who was now sitting up and drinking his glass of water took on a shocked expression and said: "No... It can't be... we're not ready...."

As Drek said this, a vortex appeared over the square, and the ground began to shake. The Dragon's body began to slowly rise into the air, pulled up towards the vortex. At the same time, a dark spider-like being surround by fire appeared in the middle of the vortex. A booming, laughing voice could be heard saying: "Ah, but it can be, Micheal. It is!! I have returned, and this time Eruantian and his ring won't be getting in the way. Go my minions, slay them all, burn the town to the ground!" A sound like bones rattling could be heard, and then five Drow and one hundred Giant Spiders fell out of the vortex and landed on the back of the Dragon. The Drow were female warriors wearing dark plate mail and carrying large two-handed swords. They stood up, raised their swords up and yelled: "FOR LLOTH!" Lloth then turned directly to Mal and said: "And as for you, foul heretic, I do hereby remove your power and..." just then, Eruantian appeared in the sky next to Lloth, interrupting what she was doing by grabbing her hands, and saying: "Not so fast, bitch. We've got a score to settle." Lloth said: "No, it can't be... the helmet killed you.. I saw it.." Eruantin said: "You saw the helmet kill a copy my ring made. I knew you were up to something, so I made a copy of myself, sent it off with the helmet, made myself invisible and ethereal, and waited here. Just one question, how did you know I'd returned?" Lloth laughed and said: "It was Zelph. I controlled his mind. He was my puppet, my eyes and ears, to spy on Drek and watch for your return. And he never even knew it." Eruantian scowled and and: "You fiend! Now we finish this!" Lloth replied: "Even if you destroy me, I shall just return again. And you can't fight me and save your friends at the same time, for I have unlocked the gates to the Underdark, and there's no shutting them again. Don't you see? I've won!" Eruantian said: "We'll just see about that!"

[GM's Final Battle Music: This is it! The final battle! FIGHT!]

edited 17th Mar '12 10:39:31 AM by TheSarge

With the apparent calm of the dragon's defeat suddenly crushed, Sam was quick to grab Claire in her arms to climb back to her vantage possition before bringing her bow to bear once again. With so many opponents she couldn't give herself the luxury of staying on the ground as a mostly ranged fighter.

"Claire, stay near me" the young huntress said as she notched an arrow, aiming straight at one of the monstrous spiders.

Sklav brandished his mace, teeth bared. With loud hiss, he charged at the spiders, and attacked.

At the view of the spiders Kalan stared at them a short moment before quickly drawing his second long knife and sinking down into a low combat stance, making it look like he's ready to dash or pounce at a moments notice

Claire got behind Sam and squatted down on her hands and feet. She cried out: "Aug! There's too many of them!"

Drek was carefully picking off Giant Spiders with his bow, shooting them in the eyes. He said: "Aim for the eyes, Sam. Through the eye and into the brain, instant kill." However, Drek was now almost out of ammunition. He had enough arrows in his quiver for about ten more shots, but no more then that.

Meanwhile, Deimos emerged from where the Black Dragon had nearly crushed him. He was limping, favoring his left leg, and his right arm was handing limp by his side. He had lost his weapons, and was trying to get over to where Sam and Drek were, but he was being overtaken by the Giant Spiders.

Gerrard was in melee with some giant spiders. He was holding his own, but Claire was right; there were just too many of them. Gerrard was slicing and hacking and stabbing away furiously, falling back all the while lest he become surrounded and overwhelmed.

Orren and Kalan were, unfortunately, surrounded. They had been caught still on the dragon's back when it had risen into the air, and then the five Drow and the one-hundred Giant Spiders had come down out of the vortex, landing all around them. Orren was using his hooves and his pole-axe to fight. He was standing his ground, back-to-back with Kalan. He said to Kalan: "Don't let them get between us, kid, or we're done for!" Orren was strong enough to kick the Giant Spiders up and away from him, knocking them off the dragon's back so they couldn't climb back up. He was doing so whenever the opportunity presented itself, but even he couldn't keep this up forever.

Sklav was finding that his mace was an excellent weapon to use against Giant Spiders, as he could bash their heads in and thus kill them in one blow. However, he was experiencing much the same problem Gerrard was, but even more-so. A mace is a powerfull weapon, but rather slow due to it's mass. There were just too many of spiders to Skalv to kill fast enough to keep up with how man were coming at him, and they were all trying to swarm him. As fast as he was, there were giant spiders coming at him faster then he could kill. Thus, like Gerrard, Sklav was engaged in a fighting retreat, slowly backing up as he fought, lest he become surrounded.

Orandious cast "Levitate" on Micheal so he could get the old man out of harms way and into the tower. Micheal was still too fatigued to cast more spells, but he was able to talk. He said: "I need to get every available spell-caster out here, and the tower-guard too. If Lloth takes the tower, all is lost." Orandious replied: "I'll do that, Master, as soon as I get you in the tower. I swore to protect you, and that's what I'm going to do. Now lie back and rest... I've got this one."

Peter, seeing the mass of spiders coming at him, staggered to his feet and managed to walk towards the tower. He was in no shape to cast any more spells, and he knew it.

Meanwhile, Zelph was nowhere to be seen; he'd seemingly vanished into thin air.

[GM's Note: These Giant Spiders are green with red eyes and black spindly legs. They are about three feet tall and move very quickly.]

A sweeping fire engulfed the spiders attacking Deimos, roasting them alive and squealing. It was a brilliant fire, soft yet terrible, and through it walked a vision of beauty holding a flaming sword.

"Such foul and unclean beasts. Their mere presence on God's earth is a blasphemy." she scowled. Approaching Deimos, she said unto him, "Do not be afraid. I've come to help."

Cecilia's grand debut!

Mal just shrugged. "If you wanna risk to be killed it's your call, really." She added as she pointed towards Lloth. "Heh, no you won't rob me of any power. My contract with you ended when I was slain and none was there to pick up. I serve now another other one, O Araushne..." She added, throwing in the forbidden elven name as insult.

"Oh, Eilistrae grant me power to smite this foe." She begun to pray as she clutched her holy symbol, intent on channeling the energies of her faith to hurt her foes.

After Kalans initial shock of seeing the spiders falling from the sky had worn off he unplugged the vial with the dragon acid that he did manage to sample and splashed it in an arc infront of him, in the direction of the spiders

James was cutting through the spiders with his glaive like a hot knife through butter. Lloth should have gave the creatures some bones.

Catching sight of Aaron, James...saw something unexpected. Aaron was fighting against the spiders and was doing a decent job defending himself against them. A spider was getting a bit too close to the medic, however he used a spell he hadn't in a while to deal with it, Night Light. Firing a ball of energy to that creature, it was knocked out.

Still, Aaron was on the defensive side and it didn't look like he could take the creatures on his own. Getting to the medic's area, James finished off the spiders near the medic.

Still fighting the creatures, James said "Well, your not as weak as a thought Aaron. I bet you would have become spider food quicker."

Aaron was silent, he didn't care about answering his furry ally, he had different thought on his head.

She manipulated Zelph, she manipulated him like so many others. I am not going to get killed by someone like her! Aaron's resolve, made sure he could defend himself, although his attack could not kill or even disable these creatures, James could easily fix that.

Cecilia took up the flaming sword, and began cleaving through the arachnid armada. The flesh sizzled beneath the blade of flame, melting in the ethereal heat. It barely seemed challenging to the angel. In fact, her attention was focused far from the massive spiders. Every glance she could spare seemed to be looking up at Eruantian.

Is it he? The ringbearer?

Note, she's not technically an angel. Angel just sounds clearer and more concise than angel hybrid.

edited 20th Mar '12 8:03:21 AM by KSPAM

As Mal prayed to her goddess, a white light surrounded her and her clothing changed color to white. Her eyes took on a faint glow, and her eyebrows and tongue turned to silver. The white light lanced out as a spider and disintegrated it. One of the five Drow called out to Mal, shouting: "Blasphemer! Infidel! Lloth demands vengeance, you heretic!! Come my sisters, let us slay the unbeliever!" The four other Drow said: "Glory to Lloth!" and rushed down off the dead dragon's back towards Mal. Mal could feel the power of her goddess Eilistraee surging through her like never before, and she could hear a whisper in her head saying: "Dance with your sword, my faithful priestess. My blessing goes with you."

Kalan's vial of acid burned a few spiders to death when he threw it at them, but more were coming at him. Orren was valiantly fighting off the spiders any way her could, but he was getting bitten all over by them, and was bleeding moderately.

Orandious had managed to get Micheal into the tower. Peter staggered in behind him.

Deimos said to the angelic vision of beauty that was Cecilia (who had yet to introduce herself by name): "Where the heck did you come from?! Never mind, I'll take all the help I can get at this point. Lets get those bastards!"

Gerrard had managed to limp about half-way to the where Sam and Drek were, but the spiders had caught up to him, and swarming all around him. Seeing this, Drek shot his last 10 arrows at the spiders between Gerrard and himself so Gerrard would have a path forward. He said: "Sam, help Gerrard like I'm doing. I'm running out of arrows, gonna have to switch to my sword."

Meanwhile, Eruantian and Lloth were engaged in a titanic struggle hundreds of feet above the square. They were struggling hand-to-hand, locked in mortal combat. Lloth was sending wave after wave of fire at Eruantian, and Eruantian was shooting blast after blast of freezing-cold air at Lloth. Both forms of energy were colliding in the tiny space between them, annihilating each other. All this power was creating a huge swirl of air around them, obscuring their forms.

As all this was happening, four other humanoids entered the square, from three different directions. Two were together, and two other were by themselves.

The two that were together entered the square from behind the tower. These two were a male High-Elf and a female High-Elf. The male was wearing highly polished steel full-plate armor and was astride an armored warhorse. He was armed with a steel longsword of Suldeneselarian design. The female was on the back of the horse, wearing brown robes with gold highlights and was holding a blue metallic wand.

On the opposite side of the square, where the dragon's tail had demolished a house, came a man dressed in strange clothes. He was wearing some type of helmet on his head, of an unfamiliar design. This headgear was covered in a odd-looking pattern of green, orange and black, and his chest had a similar-colored padded chest protector of some kind strapped on. His pants were beige and had odd-shaped pockets on the outside of each thigh. He was holding some sort of metallic stick-thing that none of the people in the square had even seen the like of before.

Finally, a dark-skinned dwarf wearing scale-mail and brandishing an Axe phased up into the square through the ground, directly under the now-levitating dead Black Dragon. (naturally, nobody could see him, but I mention it here for completeness sake).

As soon as the vial was empty Kalan pulled fourth his two long knives and held them up in a guard, doing his best to dodge any attacks and strike towards any weakspot he could as the spiders came closer

Cecilia simply nodded in agreement, and dashed forward into a lump of the spiders. The heat of the flame did not spill blood, but the result was certainly still messy.

The smell of vaporizing spider blood was rank, but the scent of dying evil was one Cecilia had spent her life getting acquainted with, so it bothered her not. She was more interested by the newcomers. More of the six?

The passing thought didn't last long, as a spider lunged towards her. She cleaved it in two, and refocused her energy on one of the Drow, currently fifteen spiders away from her. She'd better get working.

edited 22nd Mar '12 10:46:42 AM by KSPAM

Sklav had switched to his sword, and was attempting to cut through the spider hordes, and reach the Drow warriors.

James couldn't see the dwarf, but he was close enough to smell him.

Multitasking, he cut through the spiders and said to his blue-robed ally "Aaron keep on guard, there might be something other than the spiders about to attack us!"

Sam nodded her head and changed her firing priorities. Fortunately, her slow rate of fire during the fight with the dragon ensured that she still had a little bit more than half her arrows. She stopped drawing with so much strength on the string of her bow as she aimed at the eyes of the spiders following Gerard, letting fly arrows at a much quicker pace than before.

Also... to add to the chaos of the battle, the ruined house into the which James saw the eagle drop into suddenly had one of it's remaining walls crashed into ruin... as from within the broken home suddenly charged a massive grey colored beast, running on four solid legs and with a wicked horn aimed straight forward to gore and crash into the first spider it ran into.

The battle had been joined by a rhinoceros.

By now, there were about two-thirds of the original one-hundred spiders remaining, the rest were dead.

Drek, who was now out of arrows, dropped his bow and drew his sword, jumping down off the roof of the building he and Sam had been on as he did this.

Kalan and Orren were holding their own against the Giant Spiders, but just barely. Suddenly, a dark-skinned dwarf phased up through the corpse of the levitating Black Dragon, materialized beside Orren, and began hacking at the spiders with his axe. He said: "Ye look like ye could use a hand, lads, so I'm a-here to lend ye one."

Deimos quipped to Cecilla: "So, uh, what's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?" as he continued to fight alongside her.

Sklav managed to get to where Mal was and intercept the Drow warriors. They were highly skilled, and fast, but Sklav was able to dodge, parry, and otherwise counter their attacks. One of them said: "Look sisters, the reptile wants to play."

James and Aaron were besting the spiders that were coming at them, but Aaron was getting a bit tired. His spellcaster-fatiuge was catching up with him.

As usual, Sam's arrows were striking true, and she was able to pick off enough spiders to open up a path of escape for the wounded Gerrard.

Meanwhile, the female robed elven companion pf the armored male elf on horseback dismounted with a back-flip off the horse. The male elf on horseback charged forward with his sword, crashing into the mass of spiders, his sword swinging

The oddly-dressed man in beige with the strange metal stick pointed the stick at a spider, sighted down it, and then there was a loud bang, and the spider dropped dead. The man did something to the top of his strange metal stick, and then repeated his action. He said something in a language nobody there understood.

As all this was happening, the struggle between Eruantian and Lloth was apparently intensifying. A cracking mass of blue and red lighting was forming around them, and both figures were now completely enveloped in swirling clouds. It was unclear who was winning the struggle.

Cecilia hacked through another two spiders with a long sidewards swipe. "I'm here doing the Lord's work. There is a battle here, and it is his will that I fight in it, and put an end to these foul abominations."

James was glad the smell was just another ally.

Seeing the blue-robed kid exausted nearby from shooting a few balls of energy, James said "Aaron, you shouldn't cast too many spells."

A part of James was just tempted to leave Aaron, he was basically dead weight in this fight and another healer could be easily arranged. But he couldn't, not only he would expect a scolding from Drek if the battle was won and a certain medic was torn apart by spiders but as much as he hated naive Aaron, he couldn't abadon him, possibly due to conscience or maybe he did care for the kid in some way.

Sklav went for one of the Drow, attempting to knock her weapon out of the way, and rip her throat out with his teeth.