The Final Beacon
Dramatis Personae:
Aurora Isilime, the Valley Elf Bard of Valor and Bae'qeshel of Lolth, the Silver Tongued Siren, who is the last Vale Elf
Eurydice, Aurora's faerie dragon familiar
Aurora Isilime, the Valley Elf Bard of Valor and Bae'qeshel of Lolth, the Silver Tongued Siren, who is the last Vale Elf
Eurydice, Aurora's faerie dragon familiar
Pharin Braz'Dracon, the Brass Dragon-Drow Conjurationist Wizard and Priest of Lolth, the Dark Conjurer
Sarlockh, Pharin's choldrith familiar
Vilrath, Pharin's flesh golem
Sarlockh, Pharin's choldrith familiar
Vilrath, Pharin's flesh golem
Skye Vindhalle, the Air Genasi Druid
Dervish, the Kasathe Fighter and Dragon Blood Sorcerer
Willow Liadon, the Eladrin Arcane Trickster
Oryn Talus, the ancient and mysterious halfling who has employed the party; also know as Cinder, the ancient power that is said to destroy every world
Oryn Talus, the ancient and mysterious halfling who has employed the party; also know as Cinder, the ancient power that is said to destroy every world
Lan El'Mandragoran, the Human Paladin of Pelor
Lothar, the Sovani Smith and semi-Cleric of Moradin, High Priest of Lolth, Cleric of Istus, forced Cleric of Asmodeus; Kas Reincarnated
Aerathema, the Wood Elf Druid
Andolin Braz'Dracon, the Brass Dragon-Drow Fighter/Beast Master
BarraZotreth, Andolin's displacer beast animal companion
BarraZotreth, Andolin's displacer beast animal companion
Narg, there's really no way to describe Narg, Narg is just Narg
Elder Vish, Dervish's friend and mentor from his world
Sil'ilos'anon Braz'Dracon, the "Drow" Warlock Blood Mage of Lolth
Comrades we have lost:
Ralliakkan, the Drow Rogue- killed by Cinder
Elder Vish, Dervish's friend and mentor from his world
Sil'ilos'anon Braz'Dracon, the "Drow" Warlock Blood Mage of Lolth
Comrades we have lost:
Ralliakkan, the Drow Rogue- killed by Cinder
NOTE: Things will be mostly from Aurora's perspective. Anything in italics is from a third person since the bard can't be everywhere at once.
***** Lacysnows 14, CY 710, Forgotten City
When I finished my reverie, I immediately began setting up my resurrection ritual so we could get Dervish's fucking mages up and running again. I had Eurydice aid me with the spell so that I could get two of them revived at once. Once those two were breathing again, they volunteered to do the true resurrection ritual for Scottie so I could take care of other things.
Apparently, while I'd been in reverie, douchebag had found a whole new section of the bunker, a fucking residential section. Now I had no idea where those assholes were. I explored as I went, and eventually found a tactical command room with a map of Flanaess. There were lights on the map that indicated the Beacons that were activated, and it included the Beacon we hadn't gotten to yet. Just below the tactical room was the Beacon Key room, which was where the others were.
Even though this Beacon was already on, we were hoping we could belatedly put some spells into it. After spending way too fucking long debating on it, we decided we were going to try to resurrect Haas, turn off the dimensional lock, and sequester Cinder until the means to cleanse him are brought before him and the words "Awaken Alucard" are spoken. Allysandra set up a three-tiered circle for us around the key, and we set to work.
As I began to call Haas' soul back, Pharin got the hair-brained idea (pun intended) to have Andolin control Dervish and cast find familiar through him. The assholes were trying to make Haas Dervish's fucking familiar. A bunny appeared in the circle moments before a giant rift from the Plane of Positivity opened up in the room, and the amount of pure good that poured from it was a bit suffocating. Didn't help that my Lolth Blade was having an adverse reaction to the energy, making my discomfort worse. The tear made us think we wouldn't have time to perform a true resurrection, so Sarlockh used a rod of resurrection instead... Nothing happened. His soul was truly destroyed.
Allysandra announced that with the amount of energy we'd just wasted on that stupid bunny, we could either sequester Cinder or try to shut down another Beacon. At that moment, I realized exactly what spell was on the Beacon that had shut down travel: Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum. Knowing which spell had been doing this made Pharin and Allysanda decide to go to the other Beacon to shut that shit down.
Pharin and Allysandra entered the other Beacon, and it was then that Pharin realized that each Beacon needs to represent a different alignment; something no one had been doing, there were two good and two evil Beacons, and if the final Beacon was activated with either of those, it would have a nasty fallout for the world. Allysandra expertly unraveled that spell.
While Douchebag and Allysandra were dealing with the other Beacon, the ground began to rumble; Cinder was nearby, and he was burrowing to us. Wards began lighting up on the walls, one by one, and then a small crack appeared in the wall. I hoped those fuckers would finish before Cinder kills us all. The wards flared, nearly blinding everyone, and a web of energy appeared. The wards exploded as Cinder broke down the wall. Fuck.
Vish was able to engage Cinder and keep him off of us, but who knew how long he'd be able to do that. As soon as Pharin announced that they were done, I decided to use the circle to teleport all of our asses the fuck out of here- aiming for the next Beacon. The problem was, Cinder was really fucking powerful. Everyone else was teleported out of the room, and I was left alone with Cinder. Terror wrapped its icy hands around me. I knew I wouldn't survive him.
I tried again to teleport the fuck out, and he stopped me, again. I frantically activated a Hut, I knew he'd probably dispel it instantly, but it was all I could do. Surprisingly he didn't break through the Hut right away, which gave me the dimmest glimmer of hope, before he stopped me from teleporting, again. I was now out of the magical energy required to get out of here. I wouldn't make him easy to take me out though, I'd make it one for the books- and I wished I had a memory crystal on me so I could record it for those books.
Cinder broke down my Hut, grabbed me by the throat, and lifted me off the ground. I was frantically trying to come up with a plan when Lan came flying out of the rift we'd opened to the positive plane, slammed into Cinder, and sent him flying! Lan sliced the air with his sword, told me to go through it, and squared his shoulders, ready for Cinder to come at him. I wanted to watch the fight, but I knew I needed to leave. On the other side of the portal was Calbut, the town where the Beacon Key was located.
Appearing out of nowhere in the middle of a street isn't a good idea. I'd never recommend it. I found myself surrounded instantly by a group of guards throwing questions at me too quickly for me to even attempt to answer them. As I started trying to tell them who I was and that they needed to fuck off, Douchebag and Dumbass appeared and found themselves surrounded too. Of course, this is the one and only time Douchebag would ever label me the leader of this shitshow. Problem was, none of my magic was working to calm these fuckers down.
They began taking me to their leaders when Douchebag set up a Hut, and somehow he managed to collapse two buildings in the process. Pharin excels in destroying things. He told the guards to let him go or drop their weapons, which they didn't appreciate, so he started freezing them. Then, because when things go to shit everyone decides to join in the fun, the fucking Gunslinger showed up. Turned out the guards were vampires, and his appearance prompted them to reveal themselves.
Seeing them sprout fangs, I dimension doored the fuck away from them, just in time for Pharin to summon a plague of spiders... which Andolin then enraged... Screams erupted all around us as the angry arachnids began killing everyone in sight. The final death toll ended up being around 31,000... Meh. Pharin used a dracolich's phylactery- I don't know how he got it- as a magical battery to keep the spiders going.
Scottie crossed his arms and glared at Pharin for the devastation he was enacting, so Pharin grabbed a little wood elf child and revived her. He was adopting her or sacrificing her to Lolth, or something... I don't know. That fucking drow does weird shit.
Once the screams had died down a little, we now faced the problem that the entire town was covered in spider webs, making it kinda hard to look for the stupid Beacon Key. So, since it wouldn't hurt the spiders, I dropped a fireball on the webs. Turns out that was a bad fucking idea...
***** Lacysnows 18, Calbut
It took three days for the fires to die down enough for us to get into the city. I probably shouldn't have done that, but oh fucking well. We spent those days on the ship, hovering above the city, watching the flames devour it.
During those days, Dervish wandered off to find his people, and Pharin took the little elven girl, who he named Sil'ilos'anon, and turned her into a drow. Then he unofficially adopted this little four-year-old and took her to the Demonweb Pits to try to give her a warlock pact with Lolth. I don't care enough to feel bad.
Now that we could finally get into the city, Andolin found where he thought the Beacon might be. Pharin spent two and a half hours tunneling us down to the entrance, and he had to activate the dagger to find the damn place. I put a private sanctum up first.
We walked into the building where we thought the final key was, and there was Ralliakkan, lounging on the throne. Apparently, it had been her clone that died. At least we were in the right place.
It took us forever to decide what spells to use in this Beacon. It was so fucking ridiculous that I stopped arguing and just envisioned myself killing Pharin and Dervish, over and over, in the most brutal ways I could think of. That was an enjoyable diversion. Eventually, it was decided that we'd make brooches using fabricate, that would function like our communication rings, and would have a few buffs on it: umbral weapon, ethereal shield, and investiture of wind.
Almost right after we decided this, the ground began to rumble. Fucking Cinder found us. Allysandra went to deal with him while the rest of us prepared the ritual. Pharin spent a couple of minutes getting the framework for the spell up and running, but thankfully this was one he'd created before, so he knew what he was doing. We'd decided to use Dervish to activate this Beacon so we would have a different kind of alignment in the mix.
Right before we turned on the Beacon, Cinder broke in. Allysandra quickly threw up a barrier to keep Cinder from interfering with the spell; I hoped it would be enough. When Pharin finally activated the Beacon there was a massive blast of energy, as the drow began funneling 4,000+ souls through Dervish, into the Beacon. As Dervish began to age, Pharin funneled some of his blood into Dervish so he wouldn't die. Then Sil activated fucking blood magic to empower the circle and strengthen the barrier between us and Cinder; she used the last of the blood she'd taken to pin Cinder against the wall. That child is fucking terrifying.
The spell finished and the barrier faded out, turning into a red mist. Thanks to what Pharin did to Dervish, he'd aged 340 years and was now a half brass dragon. Bunny, his familiar was a miniature brass dragon too. That was fucking weird. We teleported back to the Forgotten City before Cinder could do anything to us.
Cinder followed us, but he couldn't get through the wards into the bunker, so he threw a rather terrifying hissy fit in the key room. We really needed to do something about him. I told the others about the Silver Star and said I'd retrieve it in the morning.
***** Lacysnows 19, Potidaea
I teleported over to my college first thing in the morning, only to find it was in complete chaos. I couldn't get an answer out of anyone, so I rushed to Gabrielle's office and found my friend, mentor, and idol, dead at her desk. The room was ransacked, and I could tell from what was used to kill her, that was no way I could bring Gabby back. I hurried up to the top floor, where the mute Dancer's rooms were, and found the Drow bitch and the Duergar were attacking her. Suddenly Gabby's sending to me made sense. It wasn't Cinder attacking them, it was these fuckers.
They had the Dancer flanked, so I bitch-slapped the drow bitch with Bigby's Hand. That distracted them enough for the Dancer to trip both of them, then gracefully leap away. The drow dropped a Hut over the two of them and they began chanting. It was then that I realized where Gabby would have hidden the Star- on the top of the lightning rod on top of the College.
I used my Shadow Twin to keep them fucking busy while I teleported to the Star, taking the Dancer with me. It was much hotter up here than it should have been; I learned later that Cinder had followed me, and a fireball the size of a boulder was slowly descending on my college. We got the Star and I teleported away with the Dancer. Apparently, my Shadow Twin can't teleport with me, so she instead drained the Drow and Duegar's Hut, turning it into a super Hut that protected the college from Cinder's fiery ball of death.
I gave Allysandra the Star because I would not give something that powerful to Captain Douchebag. As she worked on that, Cinder returned to the Forgotten City and was putting together a circle, most likely to attack the wards and get at us.
Sil suddenly became fucking terrifying. I felt the familiar magic of Lolth seep into the room, supercharging the child so she could fight Cinder. When she got into the key room, she shouted something I couldn't make out, but her intent was clear: she was calling the Blood God. Sil stabbed herself, turned into a skeleton, and sank into the floor. She was turning into an Avatar for the Blood God.
As soon as Allysandra figured out how to get the Star working, after some debate we decided to have Cinder cleansed only a few minutes ago- right about the time he would have been attempting to decimate my college. I wanted to wind it back earlier, but a certain idiot pushed that we not do that because of paradoxes. Even though the dumbshit doesn't know much about magic, Pharin still decided to listen to him instead of me. Fucking frustrating assholes.
We gathered in the circle and used the Star to cleanse Cinder. The Star vanished, and we were able to contact Oryn again.
I received new memories from my Shadow Twin; instead of taking over the circle to protect my school, she banished both of those assholes.
When I finished my reverie, I immediately began setting up my resurrection ritual so we could get Dervish's fucking mages up and running again. I had Eurydice aid me with the spell so that I could get two of them revived at once. Once those two were breathing again, they volunteered to do the true resurrection ritual for Scottie so I could take care of other things.
Apparently, while I'd been in reverie, douchebag had found a whole new section of the bunker, a fucking residential section. Now I had no idea where those assholes were. I explored as I went, and eventually found a tactical command room with a map of Flanaess. There were lights on the map that indicated the Beacons that were activated, and it included the Beacon we hadn't gotten to yet. Just below the tactical room was the Beacon Key room, which was where the others were.
Even though this Beacon was already on, we were hoping we could belatedly put some spells into it. After spending way too fucking long debating on it, we decided we were going to try to resurrect Haas, turn off the dimensional lock, and sequester Cinder until the means to cleanse him are brought before him and the words "Awaken Alucard" are spoken. Allysandra set up a three-tiered circle for us around the key, and we set to work.
As I began to call Haas' soul back, Pharin got the hair-brained idea (pun intended) to have Andolin control Dervish and cast find familiar through him. The assholes were trying to make Haas Dervish's fucking familiar. A bunny appeared in the circle moments before a giant rift from the Plane of Positivity opened up in the room, and the amount of pure good that poured from it was a bit suffocating. Didn't help that my Lolth Blade was having an adverse reaction to the energy, making my discomfort worse. The tear made us think we wouldn't have time to perform a true resurrection, so Sarlockh used a rod of resurrection instead... Nothing happened. His soul was truly destroyed.
Allysandra announced that with the amount of energy we'd just wasted on that stupid bunny, we could either sequester Cinder or try to shut down another Beacon. At that moment, I realized exactly what spell was on the Beacon that had shut down travel: Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum. Knowing which spell had been doing this made Pharin and Allysanda decide to go to the other Beacon to shut that shit down.
Pharin and Allysandra entered the other Beacon, and it was then that Pharin realized that each Beacon needs to represent a different alignment; something no one had been doing, there were two good and two evil Beacons, and if the final Beacon was activated with either of those, it would have a nasty fallout for the world. Allysandra expertly unraveled that spell.
While Douchebag and Allysandra were dealing with the other Beacon, the ground began to rumble; Cinder was nearby, and he was burrowing to us. Wards began lighting up on the walls, one by one, and then a small crack appeared in the wall. I hoped those fuckers would finish before Cinder kills us all. The wards flared, nearly blinding everyone, and a web of energy appeared. The wards exploded as Cinder broke down the wall. Fuck.
Vish was able to engage Cinder and keep him off of us, but who knew how long he'd be able to do that. As soon as Pharin announced that they were done, I decided to use the circle to teleport all of our asses the fuck out of here- aiming for the next Beacon. The problem was, Cinder was really fucking powerful. Everyone else was teleported out of the room, and I was left alone with Cinder. Terror wrapped its icy hands around me. I knew I wouldn't survive him.
I tried again to teleport the fuck out, and he stopped me, again. I frantically activated a Hut, I knew he'd probably dispel it instantly, but it was all I could do. Surprisingly he didn't break through the Hut right away, which gave me the dimmest glimmer of hope, before he stopped me from teleporting, again. I was now out of the magical energy required to get out of here. I wouldn't make him easy to take me out though, I'd make it one for the books- and I wished I had a memory crystal on me so I could record it for those books.
Cinder broke down my Hut, grabbed me by the throat, and lifted me off the ground. I was frantically trying to come up with a plan when Lan came flying out of the rift we'd opened to the positive plane, slammed into Cinder, and sent him flying! Lan sliced the air with his sword, told me to go through it, and squared his shoulders, ready for Cinder to come at him. I wanted to watch the fight, but I knew I needed to leave. On the other side of the portal was Calbut, the town where the Beacon Key was located.
Appearing out of nowhere in the middle of a street isn't a good idea. I'd never recommend it. I found myself surrounded instantly by a group of guards throwing questions at me too quickly for me to even attempt to answer them. As I started trying to tell them who I was and that they needed to fuck off, Douchebag and Dumbass appeared and found themselves surrounded too. Of course, this is the one and only time Douchebag would ever label me the leader of this shitshow. Problem was, none of my magic was working to calm these fuckers down.
They began taking me to their leaders when Douchebag set up a Hut, and somehow he managed to collapse two buildings in the process. Pharin excels in destroying things. He told the guards to let him go or drop their weapons, which they didn't appreciate, so he started freezing them. Then, because when things go to shit everyone decides to join in the fun, the fucking Gunslinger showed up. Turned out the guards were vampires, and his appearance prompted them to reveal themselves.
Seeing them sprout fangs, I dimension doored the fuck away from them, just in time for Pharin to summon a plague of spiders... which Andolin then enraged... Screams erupted all around us as the angry arachnids began killing everyone in sight. The final death toll ended up being around 31,000... Meh. Pharin used a dracolich's phylactery- I don't know how he got it- as a magical battery to keep the spiders going.
Scottie crossed his arms and glared at Pharin for the devastation he was enacting, so Pharin grabbed a little wood elf child and revived her. He was adopting her or sacrificing her to Lolth, or something... I don't know. That fucking drow does weird shit.
Once the screams had died down a little, we now faced the problem that the entire town was covered in spider webs, making it kinda hard to look for the stupid Beacon Key. So, since it wouldn't hurt the spiders, I dropped a fireball on the webs. Turns out that was a bad fucking idea...
***** Lacysnows 18, Calbut
It took three days for the fires to die down enough for us to get into the city. I probably shouldn't have done that, but oh fucking well. We spent those days on the ship, hovering above the city, watching the flames devour it.
During those days, Dervish wandered off to find his people, and Pharin took the little elven girl, who he named Sil'ilos'anon, and turned her into a drow. Then he unofficially adopted this little four-year-old and took her to the Demonweb Pits to try to give her a warlock pact with Lolth. I don't care enough to feel bad.
Now that we could finally get into the city, Andolin found where he thought the Beacon might be. Pharin spent two and a half hours tunneling us down to the entrance, and he had to activate the dagger to find the damn place. I put a private sanctum up first.
We walked into the building where we thought the final key was, and there was Ralliakkan, lounging on the throne. Apparently, it had been her clone that died. At least we were in the right place.
It took us forever to decide what spells to use in this Beacon. It was so fucking ridiculous that I stopped arguing and just envisioned myself killing Pharin and Dervish, over and over, in the most brutal ways I could think of. That was an enjoyable diversion. Eventually, it was decided that we'd make brooches using fabricate, that would function like our communication rings, and would have a few buffs on it: umbral weapon, ethereal shield, and investiture of wind.
Almost right after we decided this, the ground began to rumble. Fucking Cinder found us. Allysandra went to deal with him while the rest of us prepared the ritual. Pharin spent a couple of minutes getting the framework for the spell up and running, but thankfully this was one he'd created before, so he knew what he was doing. We'd decided to use Dervish to activate this Beacon so we would have a different kind of alignment in the mix.
Right before we turned on the Beacon, Cinder broke in. Allysandra quickly threw up a barrier to keep Cinder from interfering with the spell; I hoped it would be enough. When Pharin finally activated the Beacon there was a massive blast of energy, as the drow began funneling 4,000+ souls through Dervish, into the Beacon. As Dervish began to age, Pharin funneled some of his blood into Dervish so he wouldn't die. Then Sil activated fucking blood magic to empower the circle and strengthen the barrier between us and Cinder; she used the last of the blood she'd taken to pin Cinder against the wall. That child is fucking terrifying.
The spell finished and the barrier faded out, turning into a red mist. Thanks to what Pharin did to Dervish, he'd aged 340 years and was now a half brass dragon. Bunny, his familiar was a miniature brass dragon too. That was fucking weird. We teleported back to the Forgotten City before Cinder could do anything to us.
Cinder followed us, but he couldn't get through the wards into the bunker, so he threw a rather terrifying hissy fit in the key room. We really needed to do something about him. I told the others about the Silver Star and said I'd retrieve it in the morning.
***** Lacysnows 19, Potidaea
I teleported over to my college first thing in the morning, only to find it was in complete chaos. I couldn't get an answer out of anyone, so I rushed to Gabrielle's office and found my friend, mentor, and idol, dead at her desk. The room was ransacked, and I could tell from what was used to kill her, that was no way I could bring Gabby back. I hurried up to the top floor, where the mute Dancer's rooms were, and found the Drow bitch and the Duergar were attacking her. Suddenly Gabby's sending to me made sense. It wasn't Cinder attacking them, it was these fuckers.
They had the Dancer flanked, so I bitch-slapped the drow bitch with Bigby's Hand. That distracted them enough for the Dancer to trip both of them, then gracefully leap away. The drow dropped a Hut over the two of them and they began chanting. It was then that I realized where Gabby would have hidden the Star- on the top of the lightning rod on top of the College.
I used my Shadow Twin to keep them fucking busy while I teleported to the Star, taking the Dancer with me. It was much hotter up here than it should have been; I learned later that Cinder had followed me, and a fireball the size of a boulder was slowly descending on my college. We got the Star and I teleported away with the Dancer. Apparently, my Shadow Twin can't teleport with me, so she instead drained the Drow and Duegar's Hut, turning it into a super Hut that protected the college from Cinder's fiery ball of death.
I gave Allysandra the Star because I would not give something that powerful to Captain Douchebag. As she worked on that, Cinder returned to the Forgotten City and was putting together a circle, most likely to attack the wards and get at us.
Sil suddenly became fucking terrifying. I felt the familiar magic of Lolth seep into the room, supercharging the child so she could fight Cinder. When she got into the key room, she shouted something I couldn't make out, but her intent was clear: she was calling the Blood God. Sil stabbed herself, turned into a skeleton, and sank into the floor. She was turning into an Avatar for the Blood God.
As soon as Allysandra figured out how to get the Star working, after some debate we decided to have Cinder cleansed only a few minutes ago- right about the time he would have been attempting to decimate my college. I wanted to wind it back earlier, but a certain idiot pushed that we not do that because of paradoxes. Even though the dumbshit doesn't know much about magic, Pharin still decided to listen to him instead of me. Fucking frustrating assholes.
We gathered in the circle and used the Star to cleanse Cinder. The Star vanished, and we were able to contact Oryn again.
I received new memories from my Shadow Twin; instead of taking over the circle to protect my school, she banished both of those assholes.
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