Improved Irenicus dies in his own arms *Images online*

[daan]

Featuring:
Da'an - fighter/cleric 19/20
Kil'jaeden - Fighter/mage 19/17
Tichondrius - Archer 26

Holding the last tear of Bhaal in his hands, Da'an looked up glancing at the big eye. He pondered the fact that his mind must be pretty corny, if it thought up big eyes to represent looking into your own soul ...
But hearing the coughs behind his back made him realize again that that wasnt his main concern. It seemed his two friends were more than a little anxious too get this over with. Partly because they had gotten used to getting fights over with real fast, and partly because getting sucked to some thought-up version supposed to represent hell -decorated with bad taste and big eyes- wasnt their nr.1 holiday place. Da'an didnt really feel the need to share the fact that his imagination did this ( especially not when Tichondrius was screaming and running all over the place being chased by 3 elder orbs with a tear of bhaal in his hand). He did however feel a little bit guilty about being the one that dragged his friends here, something he tried to deny too, but they didnt believe that it had nothing to do with him or his soul being ripped out.

Guessing that inserting the tear was probably gonna open the big door, he walked back to his group to prepare some minor spells.
"That demon said that Irenicus was gonna come through the really big door .. why did he make such a big door ? Why did he make a door at all, he likes to teleport doesnt he ? "
Now suddenly in a rush to start the fight and shut Tichondrius up, Da'an casted Chaotic commands on all three, followed by death wards and protection from evil. Kil' jaeden got some basic protections up too, stoneskin, mirror Image and spell turning.
They all kept it simple; Being untouchable for the first few rounds is fun, but irenicus was gonna take more than that .. so spreading out the defense was important. Offcourse he told Tichondrius and Kil'jaeden that it was to make it more challenging, 'cause they didnt wanna hear that the battle was going to take long.

For the more brilliant and last part of the preparation Da'an summoned two skeleton warriors and two greater werebears. As well as a Deva. At the same time Kil'jaeden casted Simulacrum -with 3 Time-stop scrolls in his inventory-, and -Kil'jaeden2- proceeded to haste all the newly aquired fighting assets.

Then Da'an and Kil'jaeden using the book of infinite spells coated the area with a layer of visibility,.. so that Irenicus wouldnt be able to hide any surprises for them.


__________________________________________________ _____________________________

"Time to insert the tear I guess"
"Can I shoot arrows into the eye and see what happens ? "
"I dont think Tichondrius survived being triple imprisoned by the beholders quite so well as we thought, Da'an ... "
" I wasnt imprisoned, that never happened, what beholder ? "
" Oh, common .. you cant be that dillusi ... EY! You shot off my ioun stone !"
" Really ?, wow .. talk about luck ..."

The sound of the eye closing fortunatly got their attention focused again
__________________________________________________ _____________________________

Tichondrius was right da'an thought .. my mind completely misjudged the size of Irenicus, that door is huge ...
Irenicus was trying to be threatening, but nobody really payed attention since he fell last time anywayz.
Though Da'an was a little mad that Irenicus took the only good things his imagination had produced: the creatures. He stole his idea !
He got even more pissed off when Irenicus revealed his adaptions and Da'an realized that he would never have thought of that.

Then there was nothing

Waking up the group quite swiftly changed their light-headed attitude to former levels of concentration .. when they still had something to fear from enemies. This Irenicus was more powerfull than any of them had imagined.
No longer able to wield their most powerfull weapons, made the betrayal of their evaluation of him even worse.

Irenicus teleported himself and his other selves away, but not out of farsights range.

All three could now clearly see the dragon just a few meters away to the right, The wraith to the left .. rushing towards them. The beholder floating smoothly, apparently quite sure of himself. The sword hasting and rushing too. And finnally Irenicus, untouchable by every spell in the book.

The dragon was closest so Da'an ordered all his summons and Tichondrius to stop his rush towards them. As they fought the dragon who couldnt care less, being protected from magic weapons .. but wasnt rushing anymore .. the shadows exploded from Da'an 's holy incarnations and Kil'jaeden was organizing the greater werebears to halt the Sword in his rush too. The sword was going to be a problem, since Kil'jaeden hadnt memorized a lot of damaging spells.


Meanwhile -Kiljaeden2- finished reading his first time-stop scroll.

He was still holding Sanchuudoku firmly in his hand, Irenicus hadnt counted on a copy. He immediatly rushed towards the wraith , Whirlwinded and pounded him to badly injured. Stopped, ready another TS-scroll, whirlwinded and finished the wraith.

He tried beating the sword but that didnt work and immediatly rushed towards the dragon. Another TS-scroll later and two whirlwinds and the dragon lay dead on the floor. He rushed towards Irenicus and unsummoned
mid-air.


Time flowed for no-one for a while

As it woke up again, kil'jeaden immediatly casted his only ADHW at the sword.
As the bears were fighting it, the ADHW hit it and it was near-death.
He continued casting his minor spell-trigger with Magic missiles and it broke.


"I havent hit a thing yet !" Tichondrius was shouting panicking at his own uselesness. " Make him count", Da'an called to Kil'jaeden.
Kil'jaeden improved hasted Tichondrius, who equiped Gesen's bow.

The deva meanwhile was busy trying to kill the beholder and Irenicus, who in their turn were trying to bypass its magic resistance. As the deva unsummoned, the first stream of 10 lightning arrows tore the beholder apart.


Only Irenicus left ...

Irenicus was proving to be a pain to anything that came close to him.
All three struggled to stay alive and not drown in his constant flow of spells.
The only one getting off hits was Tichondrius, who felt all the more important because of it. Gesen's bow proved to have some essential advantages, Da'an noticed ... its slow-moving arrows tracked Irenicus all over the place. That way he couldnt teleport anywhere unseen, because the arrows pointed the way.
Further on the electrical damage, although not damaging Irenicus ... disrupted a few of his spells now and then.

And then .. something horrific happened ..

He just stood there. Frozen. His hands halfway through a motion.
"......."
"ehr ....."
"ok....."

Nobody dared approach Irenicus, surely he must have thought of some devious plan, a trick to lure his prey closer.
"Kil'jaeden, go and see what happened to him !"
"WHAT !!, are you out of your mind ..my spell-turning only barely survived his last barrage .. why not just let Tichondrius poke him with a few arrows ? "
"Because my hands hurt, you think shooting electrical bolts only hurts the enemy ?"

Kil'jaeden finnaly gave in, because Da'an was equipping his shiny blue hammer that made him really strong and any counter-arguments very weak.

Slowly he approached Irenicus. Da'an meanwhile, was slowly making some distance between him and Irenicus. Irenicus had a lot of power when moving around,.. but the potential power this new -frozen- Irenicus had was unclear, it was unmeasurable. So obviously, any wise cleric would conclude that the frozen Irenicus had unlimited potential power .. and was therefor much stronger than his more lively form could ever be. Irenicus looked more fearfull than ever to him.

Meanwhile Kil'jaeden had reached Irenicus and stood gawking at him for a while.
Then proceeded to cautiously poke him. Irenicus stoneskin gave way and partly crumbled to the ground . Kil'jaeden suddenly enjoyed this fight a lot more:
" He's not doing anything, look ! I can hit him !"
Da'an and Tichondrius were quik to catch up and join Kil'jaeden ... it wasnt long before irenicus was unprotected and still unmoving.


Da'an pondered what happened, but could only find one possibility in his mind:
His power over this realm had gotten so great, that he could now control Irenicus as his own puppet. The options Kil'jaeden presented : The Deva getting in a last lucky shot that paralyzed him or one of the spells his spell-turning reflected stunning Irenicus, were lost on him. A demi-god with power over his own realm didnt have to listen to minor people.

He bore down on Irenicus for the final time and crushed the very air around him as it seemed to flee to all sides. No longer anything to support Irenicus' body, it fell in the created vacuum and lay motionless on the ground.

Another lightshow .. Da'an was really pleased with his newly aquired demi-god powers, which had obviously arranged a victory party for him.
But unfortunately, Irenicus had spiked his own death-punch and was standing in front of Da'an once again. A small introduction followed, explaining how Da'an was going to die .. but Da'an was too busy denying the fact that he didnt have demi-god powers.

He managed to overcome his grief as the reality of a slayer storming towards him slapped him in the face. Irenicus made a good point about him being naked and Da'an all equipped,.. but now that he was naked too, he was starting to see some flaws in Irenicus' arguments.

Da'an quikly casted Armor of Faith and started singing cheery hymnes.
He walked towards the Slayer, a shadow exploding behind him, and casted Hardiness.

He then eased towards his equipment, as the slayer unleashed hell on him .. doing around 3hp of damage per hit.

Reaching his equipment he picked up the boots of speed, Crom faeyer and the Defender of Easthaven.- The slayer was now doing a dissapointing 3hp of damage per hit-. And as Da'an slid the ring of Gaxx around his finger and improved hasted himself, the slayer dealt his last blow; to the ground.


Da'an was somewhat relieved by Irenicus next speach,.. his own panick was somewhat eased by Irenicus' doubt and at the same time reassurance that this was the final fight.

Kil'jaeden's master plan, of bringin in another simulacrum with the helm of vhailor failed miserably. During its timestop it killed himself trying to fight through the flames surrounding Irenicus. Da'an was at loss, he had sustained severe injuries and couldnt hurt Irenicus. Jon teleported, relighted his flames and restored his Immunities every time, while pestering everybody with floating swords no-one had the power to kill.

Kil'jaeden surrounded himself with a spell-trap from the SotM and when that ran out, spell turning and Minor globe of invulnerability. Together with the belt of inertial barrier and Sanchuudoku he could resist most of Irenicus attacks and voluntarely took the punishment to save his comrades.

Tichondrius felt great: Kil'jaeden had improved hasted him again and his weapon was the only weapon that stood a chance against Irenicus. The electrical charge usually disrupted a few of Jon's spells and sometimes even hurt him. Feeling more and more confident he approached Irenicus to shorten the time between missiles hitting.
And as a small yellow ball of magic floated towards him, he laughed it off.

..... and then he cried .. and cried .. and cried, laying sobbing on the floor.

Kil'jaeden meanwhile, realized that his torment was going to last a little longer judging by the immensly powerfull archer crawling over the floor, trying to escape his own agony.

Da'an however, was being more constructive and was busy summoning a few skeleton warriors to guard all of Irenicus' teleport points.
Tichondrius was taking a very long time recovering, and Da'an 's attempts to help him -" Real man dont cry !!"-, didnt seem to help.

However, Irenicus was tiring too and his spells started to show some flaws. He didnt replenish the flames around him anymore, was too busy teleporting and healing. Spreading out as much as possible and Whirlwinding when blows seemed to land, to prevent him from getting enough time to do anything else, minutes went by.

And just a few moments after Da'an and Kil'jaeden had given up all hope,
-Irenicus had found new energy and was fully protected again-,
Tichondrius woke up.

Irenicus couldnt stand against Tichondrius' electrical arrows. He couldnt flee as the arrows pointed his way like a homing-compass, turning around 180 degrees when necessary. They kept impacting and he had no answer; his spells were disrupted.

He teleported for the last time, an arrow following close.

And as he tried to run away, his own dead body still laying on the ground below him, prevented both his escape and life.

He fell into his own arms, looking into his own eyes, seeing his own death.


[ 01-18-2003, 09:19 AM: Message edited by: daan ]

[Jim]

An entertaining read Daan! Looking forward to seeing some screenshots and hearing the rest. About converting bmp's to jpg's...do you have photoshop or fireworks installed?

[Brennihelvete]

Darn jiutsu, I quite enjoyed that story, dont make it too long to finish the rest [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Rataxes]

Very nice story so far, you're certainly a more entertaining story teller than I am [img]smile.gif[/img] And I see you used the same Time Stop-orientated tactics [img]smile.gif[/img]

Please don't take too long to finish it, and some pics would be lovely [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Annatar]

real nice story there... like to see how it ends , indeed some screenshots will be welcomed openly

[daan]

[img]tongue.gif[/img] I squished my right hand .. because someone's knee was in its way, while on route to his neck. Right now the thumb isnt working anymore and the rest is protesting too. Hope its better in the morning.
Anywayz, photoshop I have I think .. just on another computer, shouldnt matter much. Luckily the only screenshot I took is pretty nice. But I'll replay the battle the same way for more.
And yeah rataxes, I used your TS-tactics.. [img]tongue.gif[/img] You inspired me [img]tongue.gif[/img]

I tried using -harm- on the sword too ... and it worked !!
Its a pretty fast way of dealing with it, but it seems to have insanely low AC or something ... My fighter/cleric 19/20 couldnt hit him on a !! 19 !!
Come to think of it, I think he did hit him when just using his normal trusty weapons ( FoA + DoE ) ... guess harm bestows some penalties ?

So ehr .. I'll finish the story tomorrow and try to post pics.
I'm going to bed now though
( Its 01:16 and busier than during day-time .. do all of you have insomnia ? )

[Rataxes]

The sword has at the very least -20 AC, same as the Wraith of Wrath. Both of them should be dealt with within the frame of a Time Stop if you dare to go melee on them, since they both also have vicious melee attacks

Nice idea with Harm, doing it with some of the bigger foes should really work even better, though the Wraith of wrath is immune to it I think, due to his Magic blocking barrier.

[Jim]

Daan, open the bmp image in photoshop. Select "save for web", and select "jpeg low" from the settings drop down menu. You can then show your screenshots to all us unfortunate 56k owners!

[daan]

one problem .. the .bmp's are one a computer that doesnt have photoshop.
Each seperate .bmp is 2.25 mb. I dont have enough floppies and running bakc and forth between computers ( they're not in the same house ) is undoable.
The computer with the .bmp's also doesnt have a CD-writer and hotmail wont allow me to temporarily save them in my account due to size.
Any way I can upload the .bmp images to a website and then download them again ?
(via graffiti.net f.e. )

[mrxian]

you know, you could just use another tool -acdc for example- to change the files into jpgs...