Ghosts of Gauntcliff: Chapter Five

[ewancummins]

Meanwhile, outside the Abbey ruins-

''Get away from here! Stop that!"

Three mules bolt, and Melmoth gives chase....

[Rock of the Fraternity]

Everline suddenly halts. Her eyes blur, then focus again on Primeiro - and widen. Darkness floods them as she bares her teeth in an expression of pure hatred.

"Found you, you bastard," she growls. "Scuteum."

There is a dull 'thump' on the air, and Primeiro may see a blur in the air in front of Everline. Still sporting that unpleasant grin, the young woman starts to circle around him...

(OOC: Everline sees something and casts Shield in preparation of some serious close-in battle. I do hope she isn't flanking Primeiro in tandem with Eustace...)

[Adam]

"Oh, well, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised," Benn mutters to the skeletal figure. He reaches into a pocket, fishing around for a moment before coming up with some coins. He hands the figure a gold coin and looks up into the skeletal face.

"I trust that is sufficient for your fare?"

He waits for a response, then boards the boat if it appears to be enough.

[ewancummins]

BENN, IN DREAMS

"Oh, well, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised," Benn mutters to the skeletal figure. He reaches into a pocket, fishing around for a moment before coming up with some coins. He hands the figure a gold coin and looks up into the skeletal face.

"I trust that is sufficient for your fare?"

He waits for a response, then boards the boat if it appears to be enough.

The skeletal figure accepts the coins and then beckons Benn to board the boat...


After a silent passage, Benn is able to disembark on the far shore. The ferryman shoves off and presently disappears into the mists.

The only light Benn can see is a blue haze in the near distance, seeming to come from a crack in the barren ground.

Drawing near the queer effulgence, Benn sees that the light comes from a wide fissure with a marble couch standing at the bottom. A lovely olive-skinned girl sleeps on the couch, covered in a simple blanket of un-dyed wool. Her only ornament is a simple silver circlet that pushes back her long dark hair.

[Adam]

Benn looks at the lovely figure lying in the gap before him, one eyebrow arched. "Perhaps this isn't that terrible of a dream, after all," he mutters before his eyes come to rest on the circlet.

He reaches into his pocket, pulling out the leatherbound journal and flipping to a recent page.

"We require the Silver Key. It is lost in a place we cannot enter. You will retrieve it for us. Its shape may have altered, but it will always be silver."

He turns the page, nodding slowly.

“If you wish to leave, you must find and awaken the sleeper. She lies as one dead, buried deep in the black pits below the earth. Go and seek the door to the underworld, by the shores of the poisoned lake."

Snapping the book shut with a satisfied grunt, he stuffs it back into a pocket and drops down to his knees over the gap. "Hello?" he shouts, "I don't suppose you'd be good enough to wake up and get me out of here, would you?"

With a wry grin, he prepares to climb down to the young woman.

[ewancummins]

Benn-


Benn hears something above him in the blackness, a sound like the snap of sailcloth in a stout wind. A rush of foul, cold air washes over him, and then he sees it: a huge winged shape descending from the cavernous night! The bird-demon's fierce shriek shakes the ground as it dives towards the scholar, its horny beak open wide to reveal rows of bony, tooth like ridges smeared with crimson gore.

[Ken of Ghastria]

A booming, mocking voice fills the ruins, but Primeiro cannot see the speaker amid the shadows cast by fallen torches and the gibbous moon.

"The mists are kind to bring you to me. Oh, what games we shall play, my dear little prince! The young slut and the old shave-pate will dance for me, and afterward, their broken flesh will feed my subjects. Your father may be the master of Ghastria, but I am lord here on Gauntcliff!"

Primeiro is reluctant to admit it -- even to himself -- but he's frightened. Or at he was, until the nature of the voice became clearer....

"HA HA HA HA HA HA!" he exults mockingly, while still maintaining his guard against his unfortunate and hostile companions. An arrogant sneer joins the wary gaze on his face. "'Young slut,' you call her? Bah! You're merely jealous that a woman as beautiful as this would never crawl into your bed... YOU, a mere servant! Your ugly life was full of misery and tears! And this -- THIS -- is where you claim dominion?! HA HA HA HA!! Oh yes, 'Lord of the Barren Rock,' I am well humbled! HA! Go play with your shriveled privates!!"

He hopes that by driving the creature -- spirit? -- to anger, he can disrupt whatever hold it exerts on Everline and Eustace. He can see that Everline is losing blood -- rapidly -- but the extent of her injuries clearly hasn't shaken the murderous resolve in her eyes.

Feigning retreat, he turns quickly and tries to punch the woman with the hilt of his rapier. Better that she be unconscious than dead.
_________________________________________________________
Subdual attack again with the rapier, this time vs. Everline:
Rapier attack (1d20+9=28).
Potential crit. Second roll for confirmation: 1d20+9=18.
Subdual damage: 1d6+2=8. Sorry, Rock!
I believe Primeiro is 3 hit points away from having Back to the Wall kick in. The Dodge bonus to AC still is vs. Everline, unless obviously she drops before she attacks.

[ewancummins]

THE ABBEY

-

Primeiro knocks Everline out cold.

The giant voice screams-
''Traitor! He promised to protect me!"

The voice howls in fury.
The air fills with the stink of burning meat and hot iron.

''They burned me, now I want to burn them back! I WILL BURN YOU ALL!"
A fiery wheel hurtles out of the darkness and rolls into the pit!


Eustace rushes at Primeiro, swinging his staff. The haymaker misses Primeiro's skull by less than an inch.


--------------------

in the pit-

A ring of burning pitch and rope falls on Thom and Dorgio, causing Thom to slip down a few feet as he is burned. Petrie curses-

''Bastard! Used our own flammables against us!"

The metal bound and barred door continues to shake in its frame, and the booming noise from behind it grows louder still...

[ewancummins]

JUERGIN-
The stairs lead down, past a thin crack in the wall that glows blue, to a landing and a wooden door. As Juergin reaches the bottom, the door swings open and three robed figures appear in the doorway--these appear identical to the hooded watchers he battled in the upper chamber.


They all speak at the same time, hollow voices blending and overlapping:

''You've played a good game, boy, but the time for games is over."

[Brock Marsh Runoff]

Abbey, the Pit


Dorgio grits his teeth as the flames lick at him. By now it's a familiar kind of pain, but no less excruciating. He tries not to scream and fails. But this is a lesson he'd learned long ago: he who serves the sun must take the flames.

Only a moment ago, the priest was about to sound a retreat, to scramble up the side of the pit for all he was worth and run back to the Chateau. But something has snapped inside the priest, as if all the rage and frustration of all his failures, retreats, and second-guessing coalesced into something slightly less sane than determination.

"Petrie, brace yourself. We're ubarring the door." And with that he begins chanting a spell meant to ward them from whatever lay inside.


((OOC: Casting Protection from Evil. If he has time to unbar the door this round he'll do that too, or if not he'll do that as soon as he's able))

[Ken of Ghastria]

THE ABBEY

The giant voice screams-
''Traitor! He promised to protect me!"

The voice howls in fury.
The air fills with the stink of burning meat and hot iron.

''They burned me, now I want to burn them back! I WILL BURN YOU ALL!"
A fiery wheel hurtles out of the darkness and rolls into the pit!

Primeiro gapes with horror as flaming death rains upon those in the pit, and he hears their shouts of pain. Then he is alert once again, holding his guard against Eustace as he tries to steer the combat away from Everline's prone form.

"Protect you?!" he calls out to the voice. He continues derisively, "What could you have possibly done to merit protection... servant? You say you want to burn your tormentors, yet you waste time by burning these others! IDIOT! Why not slay those who burned you?"

______________________________________
Primeiro is using Total Defense this round, but he wants to stay close enough to Eustace to disrupt any spellcasting, even though Eustace may be too enraged to do so.

[steveflam]

JUERGIN-
The stairs lead down, past a thin crack in the wall that glows blue, to a landing and a wooden door. As Juergin reaches the bottom, the door swings open and three robed figures appear in the doorway--these appear identical to the hooded watchers he battled in the upper chamber.


They all speak at the same time, hollow voices blending and overlapping:

''You've played a good game, boy, but the time for games is over."

Juergin's eyes narrow. "So that is how it's going to be, so be it, Dodds. Dark One, help me get across."

The youth backs up and then takes a running start. As he does, he throws the lantern at the middle of the three men. Hoping Dark One might come in handy, he now dives over the lanterns mess and using the pole, he rolls and whacks as he goes with the pole's pointy end and the pole itself.

23 Ranged attack with Lantern

27 Tumble Roll

[ewancummins]

''We are not Dodds."
The three creatures step back to avoid the crashing lantern.

Jeurgin leaps through the gap and tumbles past the robed beings, flailing with his pole.
He comes to his feet on the far side of the three robed things, in the street outside the tower.

[ewancummins]

THE ABBEY, ABOVE THE PIT
''You must suffer in their place, little prince. My slaves will suck the marrow from your broken bones. But I am hungry now.''

The shadows flow together to form an ogre-like figure, black as pitch and not quite solid, that steps out to loom over Primiero.

''The girl is mine. Step aside. I will enjoy her.''



THE ABBEY, IN THE PIT
Thom forces himself further up the shaft, despite his blistered fingers and the painful burns on his forearms. He’s more than halfway to the top.
At the bottom, beside Dorgio, Petrie grabs hold of the bar on the door.
‘’Solid work, this. “
Petrie pulls up with all his might. The green bronze bar jerks up with a snap as brackets and verdigris fall away. Petrie seizes one of the broken brackets like a door handle, and then turns to face Dorgio.
The big swordsman’s face has turned the color of curdled milk, but his voice carries a hint of mirth.
“Here goes nothing, laddie!”
With a mad twinkle in his eye, Petrie hauls open the forbidden portal…

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BENN, IN DREAMS

The gigantic carrion bird lands on top on Benn and drives its long beak at his throat, missing by a hand span when he rolls away. Benn chants the familiar words of the protective prayer.
Again the bird opens its beak and prepares to strike—but then it hesitates. It circles Benn at the edge of the chasm. It claws at the hard earth with its horny feet, furrowing the dirt and breaking stones with a sound like gravediggers at work. Three flaps of the huge wings and the monster bird takes flight, leaving Benn alone at the edge of the glowing crevasse.

[Brock Marsh Runoff]

Abbey, The Pit

Dorgio braces for whatever lay beyond the portal. "The darkest road" he says to himself, remembering his vision. He readies his spear, expecting something to rush through to attack him and Petrie. But Dorgio dreads whatever lay beyond the portal even more.

As he braces himself, he calls down a prayer to imbue his star-born spear.

"For the dawn!'


((OOC: Casting magic weapon))