/vx/ - Videogames and Paranormal

>>65635
*accepts high five*

A>"His shoulders have devices which intercept the first successful incoming attack!" shouts the shadows from underneath Kiynen, as well as some whispered conversation.
T>"He can teleport immediately, better than I can, even against a successful attack, but only once per moment!" Thez calls from the Bog fight.
"The others haven't even joined the fight. These allies of yours - these are them, correct? - they're being pressed by only one ranking house member. Oh their trick with homosexual marital union worked well enough, but it surely backfired. They're about to be swarmed with a legion of foes they cannot begin to fight against. Its a pity, and a wonder, that they're only appearing now." Bog continues to goad Thez, flitting in and out of invisibility.
A>"Doesn't one of you faggots have a Magic Circle against Law or some shit?" Addy curses.
T>"Hissatsu"

>>65638
"Good idea"
*protection from law*

>>65636
"Bitch Please. None of these jokers could stand even a moment against the Denver Broncos, and that Russian dancer girl that came out ahead had to flee to keep from getting raped by the drunken midget."

>>65640
"Druken what"?
*cast storm of vengeance over the fiends*

So DZ has taken only 1 actual hit so far, the others are unharmed, and unnumbered so far, but its apparently several by a quick glance.
>>65641
Which fiends? The mass of angry ones coming in from one direction, or the bored badasses in another?
Pic related is party situation. Orange is Trump/Fae (to be determined). Yellow is Torcuil, Green is Stix, the rest should be obvious, though Lenos has the gold stripes. The above lines are distant targets, with the blue being the cone of cold casters, and the yellow being DZ. The red arrows indicate the threshold of wave of aggravated devils who have been deprived their homosexuality.

[1d20+18 = 19]
[1d20+38 = 46]
>>65639
>>65641
In order. As Infernius starts to cast the circle, Lenos steps in and interrupts his somatic gestures, grabbing his hands and diverting the paths.
Rolling called touch grapple and spellcraft checks on Lenos' behalf

>>65642
The the mass of futball fags.
"Tracy keep dancing queen over there off me for a bit"
>>65643
Lenos was grappling me?

That's surprising. Lenos did a less-than superior augmentation. Huh. Well, what was initially going to be Infernius' Circle v. Law is instead being rendered as a conical slice at specific radiuses. It was going to be a sperical subsection, which gets more bonuses, but for the time being, there is what appears to be a cylinder of energy surrounding the party's formation.

>>65645
Nice

>>65646
If you imagine the center of the planet being the tip of the cone, and you imagine the area around the party at a square, the vertical elevation being approximately equal to circular diameter, respective the slight variance to the conical increase. Its not as solid as a sphere, but it beats the heck out of a circle.

Here's a rough rendering of the difference in circles versus conical subsections existing structures. For one, there's death from above. Circles have no ceilings, and can therefore be exploited.

>>65648
Badass

>>65649
"One of these days I'll explain the quantum-mechanics of spherical boundaries," Lenos says loomingly, his dragon form preventing the correct motions.

>>65650
So about all thise saves

>>65651
The dice was a grapple check, to determine if he was able to force Infernius to move properly. The spellcraft check was a fail, reducing it to conical form (it was going to be spherical form)

[1d20+11 = 17]
>>65611
Did I hear reflex?

>>65653
Torcuil already passed his reflex save, I rolled for him on the spot. Its a good thing too, cuz he would be dead again with a roll like that. Wait, he gets a +11 modifier? Oh right, buffs. Okay. He rolled a 17 anyway, so flying colors.

>>65654
Glad he isn't dying again

Rare dubs

Those who have particpated and those who have followed, the story is reaching an obvious and inescapable resolution. Its hard to work one's self around such resolutions, and so instead, let us jump forward (or back, in this case) in time to where the party will find its self. Through a grand display of divergent magics, Thez has sent the party back to their originating place in the past, but they are not alone. With them, future-Thez sent Addy, as well as an extremely omenous scroll.

Work with me here, I'm trying to put the story at a more open-ended spot. We can resolve the previous later. Xp

>>65659
Are they again surrounded by blacks on all sides?

>>65659
YAY ADDY

"Okay, roll call time. Who isn't dead?"
>"I am totally dead"

>>65661
"Uh me, although my back is kill, me cant move."

"I'm alive, I think.."

>>65663
>>65662
"Okay that's 4 for 7, anyone else?"

Alright, enough procrastination on my part. Returning to the scene in Hell, where 2 battles occur simultaneously between the party at large and a huge assortment of devils, and between Thez and Bog. Most recently, Bog had gone invisible to taunt Thez and draw out the battle. Having avoided attacking before and using only the simplest of spells, Bog felt content to watch what he expected would be the remainder of the party's demise.

Meanwhile Infernius had just completed a magic cylinder against the looming wave of devils in a frenzy. Just outside the boundary of the cylinder, crazed green beasts, corrupted insects, the most hellish of gargoyles, and a variety of other pace, loom, and surround the party. They are unable to cross the threshold, but they have the party totally surrounded.
Firing 2 shots into the group (cuz when there's that many its not a question of whether you hit something or not) Stix manages to kill one with a well-placed shot to the eye, and anger another one with a torso hit.
As the party analyzes their situation Lenos, in full dragon from says something to Kiynen in their native tongue. She smiles back at him and he says (this time in common) "Get to the center!"
Not waiting for acknowledgement, both dragons leap into the air (technically outside the field, but that's irrelevant) and in a spinning display cover the surrounding area in napalm and acid. Many creatures dive, twist, leap, and escape the spiralling wave of dragon fury, but a great many do not. Melting both from fire and from acid, easily half of the menacing group is quickly reduced to waste, and the remaining collection - as well as their apparent lords/leaders - is suddenly far less confident. As is Bog.
As steam an odor seep from the twisted masses and ruined bodies, Thez looks back toward where Bog had disappeared from.
"Peace has cost you your strength! Victory has defeated you!"
"IMPUDENT,...!" Bog roars in response.
He begins to start chanting, and as he does so 6 3' spheres appear in a hexagonal formation in front of him. Thez immediately leaps toward him, to close the distance. Gradually appearing, the magic of his newly chanted spell dispelling his invisibility, Bog holds forth his other hand and fires a fireball directly toward her. This one however doesn't come close to her, instead it explodes in between the two of them, filling the air with flame and granting momentary concealment.
Completing his spell, Bog launches the six fiery orbs at Thez' position, certain that the visual disruption would have prevented her from seeing him complete and launch the spell and also convinced that she wouldn't be foolish enough to jump into a fireball explosion.
Well, he was half right. As the fireball exploded before coming near, her immediate thought was to dive right through it, but knowing he had already started casting something she decided it would be better to avoid emerging from the fire to take an even worse spell to the face. <whooooof> porting underneath his last position, she uppercuts him in the taint, performing a Stunning Fist/Juuken, connecting solidly and completely, both from the surprise, and second from the True Strike spell she had cast on herself, just in case.
A thunderous <CRACK> splits through the whole of the area, and Bog drops down on one knee from the stunning impact, as the 6 Meteors (you got that that was Meteor Swarm right?) explode harmlessly around where Thez had been.
"I wasn't expecting you to bow, but don't let me stop you," Thez quips.

>>65666
Checked

Breathing heavily for a moment, Bog glares at her before - with a quickened teleport - he vanishes and reappears 60' in the air, hovering effortlessly by use of his wings, central over the surrounded party.
"I'll destroy them all! Limbo-step can't be done twice in rapid session! Watch them all BURN" he yells at Thez, having accurately determined the ability that allows her to <whoooof> everywhere, and knowing its limitations. He begins chanting again, and a wave of flames explodes outward from his body, enveloping the whole area in a roaring inferno "".
At least, that's what he expected to happen. What he didn't know is that Limbo-Step (a Dimension Door spell-like ability) isn't the only ability that Thez has, its just the least taxing.
So when Bog teleported himself strategically over the party, intent on consuming them within the inferno's area of effect, he thought that there's no way Thez could close the distance in time (and he'd have been right, she'd have needed to start moving at full speed to pull that off). So when the inferno burst outward from him, we was most surprised indeed, when with a flash and a BLINK she appeared slightly behind him, driving a Sunder kick into one of his wings. With a sickening crunch, his wing failed him, both disrupting his spell and causing him to tumble toward the ground. Not finished, Thez unleashed a barrage of attacks in their fall, his excessively thick scales failing to prevent many of her precise and motivated strikes from landing.

Collapsing in a heap just outside the party, crushing several devils and sending others running to avoid his mass, Bog collapses in a heap just outside the protective field. Landing on the ground opposite him, Thez continues to taunt him as he wipes blood from his eyes.
"You haven't landed a single blow. Was getting beaten part of your plan?"
Seething with rage, Bog stammers in an attempt to come up with a suitable retort. His eyes twisted with fury, his expression suddenly calms.
"It wasn't until I remembered something. Starlight Glimmer is Best Pony."
Now as these Words of Blasphemy are uttered, a magical effect (several, actually) occurs. A shockwave almost, comprised of dark and evil energy blows outward. As it makes contact with the protective field around the party, a sizzling sound is the only warning that anyone inside has that the field would not protect them from this particular spell. As the wave makes contact with each character in succession, the Cloak of Chaos Addy had cast upon them gives them protection and spell resistance, but the level of spell in question - Bog has 44 HD - blows through and past the buffs that offers. In short, with a wave of malevolence everyone except for Thez and Lenos collapses and dies.
Not long, but an unknown amount of time later, the members of the party finds themselves coming awake. Thez and Lenos are holding a strategic distance from Bog, the three of them talking shit to one another as everyone else regains consciousness. The air is filled with little glowing scraps of what have the appearance of tissue paper. They drift gently through the air as though carried by a gentle breeze, and they drift deliberately toward and around the party. As they make contact, the glow fades away and the person appears to regain some amount of vitality. These strips are spewing constantly from the head of Thez' random stick, the tip of which has apparently been broken off. Strips fly out as though from a geyser, or perhaps a stream of insects hatching from a nest.
Thez and Lenos both bear a number of visible wounds and gashes, but Bog is all-but broken.
"This makes no sense. Your household was killed when I spoke Blasphemy! You should have lost your claim of challenge then!" Bog shrieks.
"Not that one. Remember how you could never kill me? No matter how effectively you and your goons laid traps and used formations and techniques, you could never quite beat me. I had a stone. It wasn't really all that powerful, but no matter how destroyed a person became, it would slowly put them back together. As long as I had that stone, I could not be killed, not without removing it. That stone is hers now," she says, pointing in the direction of Addy. "And unless you kill me, you'll never kill her! Lenos! Brownie Burp!"
And with a gesture resembling a salute, Lenos fills the area around Bog with a torrent of napalm. He does so in a spray, not designed to do direct damage, but to prevent immediate escape outside a quickened teleport. Which was the idea. And as he does so, Thez immediately follows suit. "Metsu," she says grimly, appearing in the air so that they're both at head-level, both hands held close holding a mass of sinister black energy.

And Bog is consumed by a blackened wave of destructive energy, his limbs shrivelling and scales darkening as though consumed in fire, his dying shrieks echoing throughout the now silent hall. The remaining devils present had not interfered in the fight, and were instead simply watching engrossed. As Thez lands not-so gracefully, she coughs up a viscous black liquid and stumble-steps a little.

>>65670
*runs over to thez*
*cure critical wounds*
"Holy shit you killed them! Amazing!"
*eats some of bogs corpse*

>>65671
No effect. In fact, she seems to be losing vitality. The broken stick falls from her hand, and as it clatters to the ground, the fountain of glowing strips ends.
"Take care of her. I was overwhelmed when you left; I may act rashly," she says, a visible stoop in her posture, and she spits out some more black fluid.

>>65672
"T-thez dont worry me can restore you,y- you can die."

>>65673
"Not this time," she says grimly. Seemingly weaker by the moment, she shuffles toward the ziggurat. "This was always a one-way trip for me. No sacrifices?" she laughs "What do you think will become of this world when you go back? Will it even exist?" choughs up more black-shit. "No. Its already done."
Standing before the base of the ziggurat she steels herself one last time, and steps forward onto the structure.
As she does so, a technicolor array of flames spread out along her feet, and up her legs, causing her to flinch involuntarily. She takes another step and then another, each step enveloping her body more fully in flames, the putrid smell of burned flesh filling the chamber. As she continues to plod along, the flames increase in intensity, melting her hair and causing her flesh to droop morbidly. Her progress becoming more difficult, standing in the midst of a personal tornado of magical fire, she takes the first of the last few steps toward the pedestal upon which rests that weird sphere, and collapses to the ground at its feet. Her body surrounded by impossible intensity of magic, she crawls the last few steps and places her hand on the sphere.
Almost immediately, the area disappears (to the party) with a resounding <CRACK>. As Thez' limbs fail her, and as she collapses in a heap at the base of the pedestal, she smiles. "It was him after all," she says, as the the entire timeline ceases to exist.

>>65674
F

>>65674
"Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee thez!!!"

>>65676
*Pats back*

>>65677
*drops to knees in shock and terror*

Returning to our previous point of expedition, Cardashil. The last the party had seen, there was a hoard of blacks pouring over them. Elsewhere, Thez and Torcuil were phasing through the ground to approach Infernius' position from another angle. That was the point that the party was removed from the equation. Not having fully grasped the cause/means of their removal (at time of reversing it) Thez did not return them to the moment that they had left. She instead returned them to the first significant moment that she could recall from that day, other than losing herself to the unconscious fury that overwhelmed her.
<CRACK>
The first thing that can be observed is that this room is the portal room, outside the room with piles of rot. There are smears, streaks, spatter, bits, gore, and all sorts of other 'embellishments' such that instead of its pristine and sterile appearance before, it looks more the halfway point toward looking like the next room, with its piles upon piles of bodies and those things that cause/eat bodies.
A whimpering noise ceases almost immediately, as the party comes aware of their appearance on the scene.

Tracy holds up Bog's giant tail Barb, still twitching, above her head like it we're a giant fish as she neighs in triumph.
"I GOT IT!" She shouts, still panting from the tension

>>65679
"A-are we back?"

The slow slapping sound of something/someone covered in mud or slime sounds from the giant warehouse adjacent to this one, but other than that there are no sounds. The whole area i silent. Slowly into view walks a figure covered in foulness beyond my ability to depict. I mean we're talking about multiple levels of rot and decay and fermentation and,... its just bad. The whole area fills with an odor so foul that I should make characters roll saving throws, but I won't.

>>65682
Tracy just grunts at the smell, but she turns towards the figure, dropping the flopping trophy in her saddlebag.

>>65682
"Uh hello?"

>>65683
As the figure walks more into the light, you can see its a short figure, a little above 4' tall. It slowly, numbly almost, raises up revealing a pair of eyes. Thez' eyes, Infernius notices.
The eyes dart around robotically almost, until they come to rest on Infernius. They focus for a moment, then a quick barrage of micro-expressions before, with an astonished look (everything else is covered in 1/2"+ of filth so the eyes are the only descriptive characteristic) the mass sobs audibly.
"I'nis?"

>>65686
*hugs*
"Thez me am so glad to see you again!"

[1d20 = 16]
>>65687
Infernius is now liberally coated in filth as well.
"You were,... you were gone. I couldn't find you anywhere, I couldn't feel you anywhere. And you," she says glancing at Torcuil "You were gone, and there wasn't a trace of anyone. I looked for a trace. I looked all night for a trace. What time is it?" she says, losing coherence observably. Then her attention snaps back into focus, and she turns toward the dark shadow which everyone should know by now is Addy.
"YOU! You're from that LAST time! You WON'T get away!"
Thez, who appears to have been holding the quarterstaff (one of the things that when covered in filth broke up her sillhouette and made her seem less humanoid) attacks.

[1d20 = 10]
>>65688
*grapples*