Part 7>>>The Shadow of Love (an LoF adventure)

[Larry_OHF]

For Marcos:

"Looks like your elvish friends have decided to follow the bait like the vermin they are! They've even got a newcomer to their party who seems to know you already...a Tao? Do you recognize the name? Well...she will make an unexpected but wonderful contribution to the cause."

The voice came from somewhere, but Legolas could not see anyone standing near him. The emerald stopped its glowing, becoming nothing more than a dead-cold stone of dull green.

"We'll give you the pleasure of watching her die, along with the others. That's the least we can do for you...Snowdale. You'll have the honor of being the last sacrifice."

[ 12-15-2005, 02:00 PM: Message edited by: Larry_OHF ]

[Morgeruat]

Yevaud 45/45

The elf nodded, now fully healed, slightly refreshed, and no longer aching. He began chanting as he kicked the door open, unleashing a spell of minor power to fill the room with a cloud of gas. The words came easily, the mantra used to focus the mind was spoken before he had opened the door, and he grinned at the thought of purging this place of what he now saw were primarily humans.

The spell is Stinking cloud, should make things interesting for the priests

[ 12-15-2005, 02:22 PM: Message edited by: Morgeruat ]

[TAOWolf]

yevaud kicks in the door, and she quickly moves right behind him. Feeling the power of a spell coming from his lips, she can't help but raise an amused eyebrow. She then whispers a few words behind him, and points her staff into the room beyond the door, focusing on the floor, where small tendrils of scottish moss have invaded the cracks between the stones.

The moss takes on a bluish glow like foxfire, and begins to send out tendrils towards anything that will move in the room, excluding her group.

She stands next to Yevaud and slams the end of her staff to the stone floor.

[edited for blondeness]

[ 12-15-2005, 02:26 PM: Message edited by: TAOWolf ]

[Larry_OHF]

Anarrima 67/67

Anarrima came in next, figuring that whatever the clerics had been planning would have been thrown off by the intervention of the preceeding two friends. As she entered the room, she threw her gaze about, trying to discern the danger here, ready with a quick prayer or two in mind.

She saw a figure strapped to a throne, facing a huge green rock that seemed anything but menacing. "That's Marcos!" She said, and cautiously walked toward him. So far, there was no sign of hostility.

OOC>>>What's funny is that Yevaud and Tao played right into what I was expecting them to do, meaning that the clerics would have guessed that the team would barge in, pistols blasting. No cleric were harmed in the initial attack against them. If they are even there at all...

[TAOWolf]

She puts out a hand to stop Anamirra before she can walk any further into the room. Her eyes shift and she glares at the figure tied up, suspecting something is not right. She lightly taps her staff to suspend the moss for now, and looks at her wolf shadow, which is sniffing in the direction of the wall behind the throne.

She raises an eyebrow at Yevaud, and lifts a hand towards the room.

"Wait.. just wait a minute. I thought you heard more than one voice? Does something not seem right to you? I know better than this... my hackles are up, that green emerald is..."She stops in mid-sentence looking closer at the emerald, but not daring to walk any farther into the room. Reaching into a pouch, she pulls out a bloodstone rune, and tosses it towards the emerald and the throne......

OOC>yeah, I thought about that after I did that...
must be the shadow taint effecting her lol.. if this post needs fixed, let me know.

[ 12-15-2005, 02:53 PM: Message edited by: TAOWolf ]

[Larry_OHF]

Vicent Pathfinder 98/98

Vincent came in behind Anarrima.

He came into the room and circled around, staying clear of the magical effects of his companions and spotted Marcos when Anarrima pointed him out. He was planning to conceal himself in the shadows and flank her as she went to rescue him, hoping to cover her in the event of an attack against her if one came. But just then Tao stopped her, so he stopped too.

His new blade that Silt had lost to him was out and ready. What had Silt called this fine blade?

Hearing of the caution that Tao offered, Vincent suggested, "I'll go. I might be able to sneak past any traps that may be in the way."

He watched as Tao threw something toward the area that was of interest.


OOC>>>Covering Vincent's part just to get him in the action.

[ 12-15-2005, 03:08 PM: Message edited by: Larry_OHF ]

[Legolas]

They were an unusual set of corridors, built as no other castle in their stark green flatness. As he followed now unwillingly, then curious, he passed pillars, potted plants and portraits he could have sworn to be all identical. Still, a sudden change in the terrain heralded the aim of this meandering. Ahead, two emerald grand doors stood slightly ajar, leading to what must have been a throneroom. Must have been not as the place was derelict, but as there was naught but guesswork left to ascertain the fact.

Inquisitor Marcos of Snowdale - 98/98

The words thundered, bouncing around inside his mind as a fifty pound pinball gone wild on the kickers. The light had left him groggy and his throat parched, but somehow he had recovered a sense of his physical body. The greens were slow to fade, but in the end yielded and shared the attention of his vision with a limited few different tones. He welcomed the change, the discovery of something new and fresh.

Growing more accustomed to his immobile form, his thoughts crunched their way through meaning. Evidently, she had been persistant in the extreme to find them after his efforts to separate Silverfall from her might. He might consider it his fortune that his charge had disappeared, though it was likewise a grand setback. The inquisitor was unsure whether Silverfall was in fact one and the same person as the modding mage, but that he possessed shadow magics was plain. If one of her power were to point such a lethal weapon where she pleased there would be no predicting the consequences.

Naturally, there was little he could do at this stage but pledge in his mind that he would indeed be the last sacrifice if he might help it, and that his preference should be to accomplish that by slaying every last one of these tainted warlocks. When the door crashed open, he chose his lesser evil and sent it a simple prayer.

[Larry_OHF]

For Tao and the Others:

The bloodstone rune came within a working distance of the emerald and began its identification work. As soon as it hit the ground, the emerald powered up, becoming a glowing, pulsating, live thing. The aura of the green glow extended from the emerald in a halo- effect. The runestone that Tao had tossed melted like butter in a fire.

Then the chanting started.
It was difficult to pinpoint the location of the voices.

Anarrima

Anarrima casts: Detect magic

The power she sees is overwhelming. The emerald shows her a power so great that she literally falls backwards. The power had been so blinding in fact, that it had covered up the magical auras of the four clerics that were indeed in the room. However, by falling backwards she found them with no magical assistance. They were hovering above her head at the ceiling's height! She could hardly get the warning out, and instead sufficed to mutter and shakingly point upwards.

[ 06-23-2006, 02:15 PM: Message edited by: Larry_OHF ]

[TAOWolf]

The bloodstone melts into the floor as the emerald powers up, and she raises an arm to her face to hide her eyes from the blinding light.

Anarrima falls backwards and makes a shocked sound, pointing to the ceiling. She glances up and sees the clerics there, and a snarl escapes her lips as her eyes shift to purple/silver. She touches the moonstone around her neck, releasing the moss and slams her staff into the ground. She throws a small oak rune in front of her and drops her cloak.

Smoke rises around her, whirling around and around then disappears as fast as it came. In her place stands a wolf. She stamps both front feet on the ground smashing the rune into the stone floor. An unearthly blue light surrounds the group and she waits, howling at the clerics then snarling in intervals....

[ 12-15-2005, 03:55 PM: Message edited by: TAOWolf ]

[Larry_OHF]

For the Castle Group

As a protective shield of blue surrounds Tao and her companions, the moss twines about, seeking an enemy to capture. The four clerics work in unison, chanting a spell that is unknown to these forums, and when they stop nothing big and dramatic happened. In actuality, their chanting was not an attack.

A green aura begins to grow from the center of their circle and expand out, but before they were within its shielding glow one of the tendrils from Tao's spell grabbed the leg of one of the men and dragged him back down to the ground where he was wrapped tightly in a hold by the lengthy vines.

The other three men received the protection and the twines that were seeking them faltered and fell back as though the men were no longer present.

Then they seperated, each running on air by their air-walk spell and sped out across the vast room.

Cleric 1 Casts: Greater Dispel Magic. The cloud that Yevaud had created in the room dissapated along with the moss-borne vines.

Cleric 2 Casts: Fire Storm. Fiery hell rains down on everyone in the party, but thanks to Tao's protections, nobody is harmed.

Cleric 3 Casts: Blade Barrier. He lands from his air walk and comes towards the group to test the blue aura to see if only magical attacks are negated. He draws a wickedly jagged dagger with his right hand.

Cleric 4: Loses a round for being captured and injured by the vines.

Anarrima 67/67

Safely within the spell of protection that Tao had cast, she had no reason to waste time on protective spells. This was the time to call forth something strong and aggressive. Anarrima concentrated while the tendrils grabbed one man from the air and pulled him down, and while the other three clerics were preparing various forms of attack all over the room.

She fell into a trance, working hard to keep her focus amidst the chaos around them.

Anarrima Casts: Animate Object. She points to the throne that Marcos sits upon and cries out: "Bring him to me!"

Her powerful command rang out throughout the castle's room, and the throne that Marcos sat upon instantly jumped up from where it was sitting and began to walk its way towards Tao's magical aura of blue haven. (One round to get there).


Vincent Pathfinder 98/98

Vincent watched on, awestruck as the mighty power of magic waged its war all around him. He had no ranged weaponry to be of help, and dared not step out of the blue protective field that Tao had conjured. While it lasted, he was content to just stand at the ready and hope that he'd have the first move when it came to no longer being kept safe by the spell. He glanced at his new treasure...Silt's family heirloom...and could not wait to try it in battle. He'd seen Silt even pull magical powers from this thing. What was that command word again?