Horrors of the Deep (PT)

Brian charges, expecting these demons to be tough. Therefore, his charge is primarily intended to slow the statue creatures as much as possible with his attacks while taking as little damage as possible and allowing the mages and rangers to deal more damage to the statues.

Garthass pauses for a moment to wonder why the convection hasn't killed them already before casting Shockwave, hopefully before Brian has gotten too far. He then casts Scry Monster to see what strengths and weaknesses they have.

(OOC: The reason they haven't died from convection is... drumroll please... magic )

Brian's charge at the statues does slow them down, but the fact that there's a lot of them and that they're spread out mitigates that, although they are fairly slow in the first place. Shockwave does weaken them a bit, but it doesn't do too much damage. Scry Monster reveals little in the way of weaknesses, but much in the way of elemental resistances. However, Credic then shouts to Garthass, "Cast Lee's Rapid Deconstruction! These things are statues so it should be highly damaging to them!"

Brian backs up and pulls out his battle axe. He'll attack them one at a time, trying to take them out one by one to avoid taking damage.

And so he does. The melee fighters and rangers move on up to protect the spellcasters.

(OOC: Oops, I should be updating... /facepalm)

LRD easily tears the golems apart, leaving only shards of adamantine. The man then simply shakes his head, and says, "You meddlers are more trouble then I had thought. Perhaps this will make you think differently..."

He then draws an adamantine staff with obsidian shods, and mumbles a few words to create several malign portals, from which horrible tentacles then emerge to strike...

The melee fighters slash and hack away at the tentacles while Garthass attempts to block the portals with Magic Barriers. He's open to suggestions on how to close them.

Brian, not really knowing what the proper strategy to use against tentacles sprouting from evil portals is, retreats to the casters with his battleaxe. He'll make sure that if a tentacle comes that far, he can chop it off. If necessary, he'll substitute himself for a caster until they figure out how to destroy the thing.

Cutting back the tentacles does help to keep them back, however attempting to block the portal simply causes the tentacles to go and push right through them. As Garthass asks for suggestions, Credic thinks for a moment, and says, "Abjuration, maybe? I don't know, though, the portal's not exactly summoned. Maybe just wait until it fades away?"

Meanwhile, the cloaked man laughs on his obsidian throne.

Brian pulls out a throwing knife in a spare moment when he isn't defending the party from tentacles, and gives it a nice chuck at the laughing man.

He throws out Abjuration at those portals, and resists the temptation to hurl a fireball at the scythed man.

Abjuration does manage to stop the tentacles, although not so much the portals. They seem to begin to fade away, though, and soon enough they dissipate. Also, when Brian throws the knife at the man, he deflects it in one quick motion with his staff, and chuckles. As he does so, he then jumps down onto the floor, and says, "Enough. You've amused me for a few minutes but now it's clear that you have no will to leave. I'm afraid I'll have to terminate all of you," as he spins his staff rapidly, closing in on the party...

Garthass blasts him with Death Arrows and says, "Ssshut up."

Finally, Brian thinks. He charges at the terminator. This looks like a job for his battleaxe.

(OOC: Hallo?)

(OOC: Oops, forgot, sorry.)

For some reason, Death Arrows doesn't do the same massive damage that it did before on the guy. Perhaps it's due to some intrinsic magic resistance or something, although the damage it does is still hardly negligible. As Brian charges, Dalor and Aurus follow up, and Aurus summons two Angels of The Shining One to assist them. Although the man casts Blink to get away from the melee crowd, the Angels simply smite him and Daedas and Credic begin nailing him at range. However, he simply seems to be preparing for more powerful spells as he unleashes two Fire Storms in quick succession, one on the meleers and one on the rangers...

(OOC: Fire Storm is one of the most powerful spells in the game, so don't get away from this unscathed. Even if you are resistant to fire, you take damage from it anyways, and flame vorticies are summoned to attack you. Oh, and it also leaves flame clouds. Have fun.)

Brian is undamaged by the fire, because he is immune to magic, but the intense heat singes him anyway and slows what would have been a great surprise charge.

So he charges again, with a delay that negates the shock effect of being unaffected by the spell.

(OOC: Good enough?)

Crispus is forced to use Revive All for them getting hit. Can't do anything for Brian, though. The two Slithzerikai are moving a lot faster than they were in the rest of the cold dungeon, which translates to Hosni dashing forward with Brian to attack. Garthass just keeps blasting him with Kill over and over until he runs out of spell points or the guy is dead or something happens to Garthass himself to prevent him from casting.

Brian's slow charge to the man catches the man by surprise, despite the speed. Most people can't survive a Fire Storm to the face, not including everyone else who gets hit, who all barely hang on and would have died if not for Crispus's Revive Alls. Meanwhile, Hosni's improved speed lets him quickly follow up with Brian to double team the man, while Garthass's constant Kill spam does remarkable damage. With Dalor and Aurus following up, and constant angelic smiting, the man finally falls.

...

And then the place begins to crumble. Dalor quickly grabs the staff before beginning to run, and the other Konarians quickly follow...

(OOC: Sorry for the lackluster ending, but I wanted to get this one over with so I could deal with the surge of new ones...)

Brian follows as fast as he can, body running out of adrenaline.

They run. Garthass would quickfire the place but he doesn't need fire tailing them the whole time when the place is already collapsing.

And everyone gets out alive, and returns to their home nations. The Konarian party goes to Stormfall Citadel with the adamantine battlestaff to prove to the Empress their deeds, and she then offers everyone in the party an Order of the Hand of the Empress medal, as well as a generous amount of gold. The Konarians (except Aurus) turn down the gold, but Brian and the Ermarians most likely would accept. Dalor also sends everyone else a large sum of gold as well, although not as much as the Empress sent, as the adamatine in the battlestaff is worth a fortune in adamantine-starved Konosis.

(OOC: Yeah, lousy end to a lousy RP. Hopefully Panzer's will be better.)

They accept and display their newly gained trophies in their house.

(OOC: I have to write an outline for mine first. )

Brian doesn't accept the gold, but he does say that if anyone knows of any good monsters to slay that they let him know.