[Pirengle]

Well, here's what happened.

The second bout with the Big Five went a lot easier. This time I remembered to stuff a Spell Trigger with LR/LR/Maze to put the Hive Mother away for a while before taking out the rest of them with 2 Chain Contingencies filled with ADHW and a couple light taps from some +5 weapons. They never had a chance. And I wasn't about to give them one. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

My intrepid party faced the Voice From the Void. Things seemed to be going pretty well. Innocence trapped. The Chromatic Demon tipped me off that the Knights were lying about something. Not that I'm going to take a hellspawn's word over a knight of Helm's, but its advice was something to keep in mind. Then the hidden voice mentioned power and riches through my heritage. My heritage means slaughtering people for fun and profit. You think you can tempt me with that, eh? Show yourself!

No wonder he talked to me while invisible. I think if I saw its true form I would have laughed by butt off severely overestimated it. The size of the chamber, the statue on the top floor, and the statue back in the Kuo-Toan lair made me think of something more fierce. "Know that you are about to face a carnival attraction" was more like it.

Took me two times to return it to the Abyss whence it came. The first time, he shot some sort of damage spell to Aizawa and managed to charm Anomen, and thanks to a critical hit from Crom Fayer, he slew his wife-to-be. Second time, Imoen got tagged with the dire charm, but also got three Symbols shot at her and chose the lesser of three evils: Symbol Fear.

Anyway, we solved the problem, and went back to the knights of Helm, and let them live, even though they chickened out. We're a nice party like that. I've been extrapolating alternate endings ever since, but no option so far has a satisfactory wrap-up. Each way of solving the problem ends on a sour note. Maybe it's just me wanting a happy ending, or at least one where justice is served...