The Shattered City: Chapter Five

lostboy · Post by **lostboy** » Sat Mar 12, 2011 9:41 pm

Nicolas Initiative 8 + 6 +1 : 15

Remember everyone within 20 squares of Nicolas gains a +1 on the initiative roll

Cronax · Post by **Cronax** » Sat Mar 12, 2011 11:12 pm

initiative of 23 (or 22 if Nic's thing is an item bonus)

Standard: dishearten centered on Mage 7
The mage 25 vs will hits
The thug 22 vs will hits
They each take 14 psychic damage and a -2 to attack rolls until the end of Agale's next turn

Nerit · Post by **Nerit** » Sat Mar 12, 2011 11:26 pm

Initiative: 8+ Nic's 1+d20
[dice]1[/dice]

yalenusveler · Post by **yalenusveler** » Sat Mar 12, 2011 11:39 pm

OOC:initiative 10. Bleh

Nerit · Post by **Nerit** » Sat Mar 12, 2011 11:48 pm

Nerit emerged from the tunnel with the rest of the gang. To be perfectly frank, it no longer seemed that the nun cared for her appearance. Her hair hung down her back tangled and uninhibited; a small black rat poked its whiskered nose out from between her ashen tresses at her shoulder.

Without a moment's hesitation, she shoved past her colleagues and stuck out her hand to an enemy that looked most vulnerable. A shock of blue energy went sailing for one of the thugs.

One thing played on Nerit's face and one thing only: cold murder.

Pinning Bolt vs Hired Thug
26 vs 22REF
24 lightning damage, target prone, and the target is slowed until the end of my next turn.
Hopefully this will speed stuff up, knocking out minions :/.

Rock of the Fraternity · Sun Mar 13, 2011 2:16 am

Lia remains at the back of the group, neither pushing forward nor retreating. "'Ware the beast!" she calls out in a loud whisper when she sees the summoned horror. "These are strong fighters - if it grabs you, you're as good as dead!"

With that little civic message made, she focuses her attention on what she considers the main threat: the enemy wizard. "Globum vis colligo," she chants while she holds up her staff and slashes the air with her wand, drawing symbols of power. "Globus vis ad inimicem meum volat. Globu vis, inimicem meum perfringe!"

The symbols coalesce into a sphere of blue radiance, which streaks forward, hits the Wizard dead-centre and shatters, shards of force tearing his flesh. Some of those shards slashs into one of the hired thugs as well, spilling even more blood onto the floor.

Initiative check: 20. Plus Nicolas' boost becomes 21.
Lia casts Force Orb at the FoS mage at AH33: 25 vs. Reflex hits!
Secondary attack rolls vs. thugs: one 27 - hits! - one 19 - miss. Let's just say the thug closer to our little group is the one that gets zapped.
Damage roll to FoS Mage: 22 (sorry for the secondary roll, NT; I'll happily go with the first result.

).
Damage roll to the struck thug: 12.

DocBeard · Post by **DocBeard** » Sun Mar 13, 2011 4:58 pm

There really is only one solution to such massively unfavorable odds. Eisenwald stomps forward, skirting through allies like he was back at school and trying to get to class without smashing into someone. Twisting to the left to dodge around Nerit's energy blast, Tomas crouches and shoves his weight forward, trying to stab the fraternity agent through the chest!

"You not being bad warm up, schweetheart." Tomas lays the accent on a little thick, pointing his weapon at the thing standing in their way. "But do the smart thing and stay down, so I can settle matters with the whatever it is."

(Initative: 16
Move: Move to AH35, right in front of 7.
Standard: Bolstering Strike on 7, hit with a 30. Do 12 damage, and gain 3 temporary hp.
Minor: Divine Challenge on Big Bad Dot Number 1.)

The Whistler · Post by **The Whistler** » Sun Mar 13, 2011 5:51 pm

“I say, fellow counterrevolutionaries—this business of Palais-infiltration seems to be rather a congested one, wouldn’t you agree? I do apologize in advance if I should inadvertently tread upon anybody.” Celeste had somehow managed to tromp through a filthy prison-tunnel without once smudging her dress, which was rather a pity, as it was white enough to be visible from space. One of you had mentioned it in passing on the way up, only to be met with a seventeen-minute discourse on “the traditional color of purity said to forestall the less-savory rituals of some misguided arcanists”, segueing into some enthusiastic musings on Andralite theology. You concluded that Celeste was simply allergic to stealth, and decided to stop paying attention.

Now, in the antechamber, she had begun to quietly sing something that sounded like a Barovian hymn, only in the wrong key and with all of the consonants Mordenticized. You were beginning to be sorry you had asked.

Mercifully, this display was interrupted by the onset of combat. Saying something about “—desparate need for moral support!—“ Celeste dashed out behind Nerit, skidding to a halt right in front of an irate-looking mage…

…Who, as pure coincidence would have it, was currently suffering from a dreadful case of unreported late-stage Yellow Fever, a terrible, highly infectious viral condition endemic only to farthest Valacán—the outbreak of which can cause sufferers severe gastrointestinal blee—

(There are no records of this mage ever having traveled south of Chateaufaux, or of meeting any Valacánis within the past fifteen years, due to well-documented nativist tendencies. He has been quoted in various biographical articles as saying that he “doesn’t even like the food.”)

—currently suffering from the horrible condition known only as the Black Death, or Septicemic Plague, a disease so invariably fatal that it was all-but-scoured from the Core by healers in the early Seventh Century—a condition that no doubt must have been thrust upon him by the unspeakable necromantic arts in which he saw fit to enmesh hims—

(He is also quoted as saying, in less public documents, that the Fraternity’s disease weaponizaton research program is “run by a right bunch of bounders”, and that he concerns himself almost exclusively with illusionism. He visits his general practitioner with admirable regularity.)

—suffering from an unspeakable case of Typhoid…?

…

…suffering from an unspeakable case of Typhoid, which he contracted by consuming improperly prepared carpaccio on a lunch date.

…

Well then. Dehydrated, bleeding internally, and in a very advanced stage of delirium, the mage shrieked in horror at the sudden vision in white and staggered backwards down the corridor, caroming off several highly infectable thugs before vanishing around the corner. And shrieking some more at what he ran into.

In retrospect, he really should have gotten himself checked out sooner.

Celeste rolls a 27 on Initiative, uses Chaotic Defense for a +2 to all defenses until the end of the encounter, and moves into the space Tomas just vacated. A Contagious Curse hits Mage #7 with a 20 to Fort, dealing him 20 Poison damage and sliding him 5 squares to AH31. He is now Contagious (save ends). While this condition lasts, any enemy that starts its turn within two squares of him takes 1d10 poison damage. That means you, two thugs and a cosmic horror!

Nathan of the FoS · Post by **Nathan of the FoS** » Sun Mar 13, 2011 6:59 pm

Initiative 17.

Kaitou Kage · Post by **Kaitou Kage** » Sun Mar 13, 2011 7:22 pm

Rex double-move-stealths to L10 with a Stealth of 35.

NeoTiamat · Post by **NeoTiamat** » Sun Mar 13, 2011 9:50 pm

Le Palais de Justice, Quartier-Publique, Nightfall of June 8th, 770
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PC Actions
Agale hits Mage #7 for 14 Psychic and -2 to Attacks, knocks out a minion.
Nerit tosses a pinning bolt at a Thug, does not specify which one, so I remove a thug at random.
Kerrian fails initiative
Mercator fails initiative
Lia shoots an Orb of Force at the Wizard for a further 22 damage and takes out another minion.
Celeste uses Chaotic Defense for +2 to all defenses, then hits the Mage for 20 Poison, with 5 splashing over onto the Horror (both minions down there are dead by now)
Nicolasfails initiative
Tomas hits the Mage for 12 damage, gains 3 HP, Divine Challenges the Summoned Horror #1.
Rex sneaks.

Katja, Richard, and Alice fail initiative.

Andre steps up to the plate and, rather than making a lot of noise with Sound Lance, hits the Summoned Horror with a Chill Touch for 17 cold damage.

Cerise smiles very convincingly at the Summoned Horror. Horror #1 is now Dominated (Save Ends). She then moves up.

Thierri is dazed (save ends). He tries to return the favor to the FoS Mage #7. Thierri rolls a natural 1. Nevermind…

Tomas wrote:"You not being bad warm up, schweetheart." Tomas lays the accent on a little thick, pointing his weapon at the thing standing in their way. "But do the smart thing and stay down, so I can settle matters with the whatever it is."

“Please don’t hurt me!” The young wizard sniveled. He coughed, looking more than a little ill, and very, very much in over his head. He couldn’t have been much past twenty, red-headed and looking a bit sallow dressed in academic black. Then again, the sudden and very convenient outbreak of food poisoning wasn’t helping his complexion whatsoever. He raised a hand to ward off the next blow. “Discerpo os!”

Young and suffering from poisoning the mage may have been, but the fact that he had been chosen for this position meant that he was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a weak mage. A curtain of darkness flashed forward from the young mage’s outstretched hand, a collection of black serpents. They went for the eyes.

The feeling of having all the liquid in your eyes frozen and then rapidly decayed is not, by and by large, a pleasant one. Tears flooded your eyes, and most of you could barely see, even as the young Fraternity mage took the opportunity to scamper off as fast as he could move, disappearing around a corner.

“Get him!” Cerise crowed, and to your surprise, the lumbering horror of shadows began to follow the runaway magus. The last of the four thugs left standing, meanwhile, took this opportunity to drop his crossbow and scarper off to the north.

FoS Wizard #7 decides to drop his Devouring Dark power (Area Burst 2) onto square Af-35, where Celeste is. This attacks every single PC but Rex, and all NPCs but Andre and Cerise.
Lia – Miss, takes 8 Necrotic Damage
Celeste - Miss, takes 8 Necrotic Damage
Kerrian – Hit with a 22 vs. Reflex, takes 17 Necrotic Damage and is Blinded for the next turn.
Mercator – Hit with a 22 vs. Reflex, takes 17 Necrotic Damage and is Blinded for the next turn.
Agale – Hit with a 22 vs. Reflex, takes 17 Necrotic Damage and is Blinded for the next turn.
Nicolas – Miss with a 22 vs. Reflex , takes 8 Necrotic Damage
Nerit – Miss with a 22 vs. Reflex , takes 8 Necrotic Damage
Tomas – Hit with a 25 vs. Reflex, takes 17-1=16 Necrotic Damage and is Blinded for the next turn.
Richard – Miss with a 19 vs. Reflex, takes 8 necrotic damage
Thierri – hit with a 28 vs. Reflex , takes 17 Necrotic Damage and is Blinded for the next turn.
Alice – Hit with a 22 vs. Reflex (?!), takes 17 Necrotic Damage and is Blinded for the next turn.
Katja – Hit with a 21 vs. Reflex, takes 17 Necrotic Damage and is Blinded for the next turn.

Realizing that by blinding almost the entire enemy team he has been granted a reprieve from the gods, FoS Wizard #7 (hereafter, Lucky Seven) uses a Run Action (he now grants Combat Advantage), and moves as far away as he possibly can.

Cerise has the Summoned Horror Charge after the runaway wizard. Whereupon it rolls a 3… whiff!

Minion Thug runs like hell to the north.

Rex, meanwhile, was having a somewhat less exciting time. He poked his nose into one room, finding an old man standing with two Redcap guards in attendance. Athene, the mercenary having shown up lured by Nicolas-knew-what prize, looked longingly at the figure. With a heartfelt, if silent, sigh, she followed after Rex as he made his way to the main hall.

This was where the main action was, it was obvious. There were people here, people aplenty, men in academic black, men in roughhewn clothing, as well as shadow the size of a small bull, all milling around, preparing defenses, and talking in small groups. In a way, it was comforting. The Fraternity of Shadows was a conspiracy, not a militant body. Forced out of the shadows, they were outside their comfort zone.

Then, from the vault-room, strode an old man in a tricorn hat, moving purposefully down the length of the hall. He gestured, and two other black-clad mages fell into lockstep behind him. This boded poorly for the party at the front gates.

Saves!
Thierri makes his save versus Daze.
Summoned Horror fails its save versus Dominate (Mr. Asmodeus all over again).

Victory Conditions:
Primary Condition
--Steal the Box of the Dead (F19) and get it either to Andre Theroux, or to one of the staging areas (and thus escaping).
Secondary Conditions
--Kill Lord Balfour de Casteele
--Kill Count Wilhelm von Lovenhorst
--Kill Simon de Casteele
--Kill Jacob de Casteele
Tertiary Conditions
--Find Remy Lessard

Lose Conditions:
--Die. (This is obvious)

Hints, Tips, and Tactics
--Enemies Respond to Stimuli: The FoS and their various servants and hirelings are not made of stone. They will gravitate towards large-scale commotions, and run away if they see the situation going poorly against them. This can be both bad (if you engage an enemy, they may receive reinforcements), and good (safe areas will become progressively less guarded as time goes on, a fact that clever players can take advantage of with distractions).

--Not All Characters are of the PCs’ Level Range: There are some very powerful NPCs in this battle, both friendly (Guy Benoit, Andre) and unfriendly (Lord Balfour de Casteele). If you confront such an antagonistic super-NPC, it is wisest to retreat, unless you either have a friendly super-NPC on your side, or can bring a truly overwhelming level of firepower to bear on them. If you try and go toe-to-toe with an Umbra, they will take you apart.

--Defeat in Detail: At the end of the day, the PCs do not have enough firepower to engage on all fronts at the same time. You are much better off focusing your attentions on one group of enemies at a time, overwhelming them before moving on. Splitting your attentions risks your groups getting overwhelmed, and long battles risk the enemy receiving reinforcements.

The Players

VIEW CONTENT:

Allies

VIEW CONTENT:

The Montmort Tunnel

VIEW CONTENT:

The Grand Hall

VIEW CONTENT:

The Front Gate

VIEW CONTENT:

The Back Gate

VIEW CONTENT:

Others

VIEW CONTENT:

Rock of the Fraternity · Mon Mar 14, 2011 3:18 pm

Lia starts to move and chants under her breath, attention focused on the running Mage. "Manu hiemis... inimicem cape... inimicem perfringe..."

A hand of frost and ice, easily the size of a man, appears near the Wizard and grabs at him, but the man is too swift for its frozen fingers.

Lia swears under her breath and keeps moving. "Someone take him down or at least knock him out before he has all the rest on top of us!" she pleads.

Lia casts Bigby's Icy Grasp at Wizard 7, the hand appears in AE22 -- and misses with an attack roll of 15.
Move action: Lia moves up to AE34.
Minor action: Lia sustains Bigby's Icy Grasp

lostboy · Post by **lostboy** » Mon Mar 14, 2011 6:35 pm

"Ugh" Nicolas proclaims as he extricates himself from the tunnel, wiping his hands on his coat and trying not to remember how close the rats had been to his personage down there in the dark. Therefore its something of a relief to step into the light, although there is some difficulty in stepping into the light as everyone seems to be standing in the same piece of light.

"Pardon me Ma Chere" Nicolas says squeezing his way past Celeste and Agale. Stopping briefly to pick the lawyer up from the floor, contemplate playing a rather nasty practical joke on the obviously blind man, but settles for a friendly squeeze of the shoulder and some advice that the door is in fact over to his left.

Job done he extricates himself from the crowd and lines up alongside Tomas and Katja just in time to hear Lia's call and see a pair of heels vanishing round the corner. "As you wish my dear" he responds, waving his sword aimlessly in the fleeing man's direction and with a flick bringing him hurtling back into the room. "Now be a good boy and sit still for a moment will you?"

Nicolas moves to AH32
Free action for Virtue of Valor on Mr. Agale for killing a minion granting him 3 temporary hit points.
Impelling Force on Wizard 7
9 + 14 + 2 for Combat Advantage = 25 vs Fort for a hit.
9 Force damage and Wizard is slid back to AG24 (As I guess a dominated shadow thing counts as an ally)

The Whistler · Post by **The Whistler** » Mon Mar 14, 2011 11:06 pm

"I say! Good sir, I must question the wisdom of your presence in such an embattled location, given your apparent physical infelicity." Celeste, who had somehow managed to be between several dozen darkness snakes a few seconds ago without once being hit, was addressing the person who had just cast them. "While it may be impolitic to say so, our band is more than capable of--"

Celeste looked briefly behind her at the rest of her band, turned confidently back towards the mage, hesitated, looked behind her more attentively, and said "Oh, dear."

Then, she scurried northward. "This way, fellow compatriots! Follow my voice--I am sure that your incapacity will remedy itself upon the double!"

Behind her, the shadowy monstrosity clocked a very confused Fraternity member upside the head. Again.

Celeste activates her Wyrmtooth dagger as a free action, which allows her sorcerer powers to overcome all damage resistances of enemies within 10 squares for the rest of the encounter. Then, Chaos Bolt! 27 attack on the FoS mage for 12 Psychic damage--I'm away from my sourcebook at the moment, but I would use that even roll to make a secondary attack on the horrorterror *only* if doing so wouldn't break Cerise's domination. I would fail anyway, so it's sort of a moot point. Then, she runs to AB33, peeking down the hallway first to see if there's anyone up there.

Nathan of the FoS · Post by **Nathan of the FoS** » Tue Mar 15, 2011 1:06 am

In the confusion and crush, Mercator doesn't even see the mage invoke his shadowy serpents; and then he can't see anything.

"Light in darkness, fire that consumes," he mutters, his body slowly taking on the form of his ill-starred alter ego, his eyes becoming black pits and his face and hands white as snow. "Now. Where was I?"

Feeling his way forward, he moves in the direction of Celeste's voice, keeping his hands up and taking short steps to account for the fact that he will surely run into someone at some point.

Move to AI 33. There is probably not much point in doing more, since I can't see.

Café de Nuit

Welcome, friends, to our establishment.

The Shattered City: Chapter Five

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