[Horde] Chapter Four: Session Seven
Appearing Characters: Allari Elburn, Arev'naal, Azgadaan, Belath Dawnblade, Halno, Kayn Sunfury, Kris'kar, Lantresor, Leotheras Nightwatch, Levia Blackflight, Loramus Thalipedes, Nyxxa, Sadras, Sevis Brightflame, Sirius Ebonwing, Sylvos Windrunner, Zaeneas Emberlight, Zaria Shadowheart
Outland Day 4
The battle at the inquisitor demon’s camp continues to rage on. Nyxxa slashes into the felguard she was engaged with. With three decisive strikes, the felguard drops to the ground. She then rounds on the felhunter, leaving a slash across the boney faceplate of the creature. She then retreats back to the imprisoned Sevis Brightflame.
Lantresor swings into the stunned succubus, trying to continue locking her down. He succeeds, and then rounds on the felguard next to her. Kayn, noting the succubus was stunned, opts to take a potshot at her.
The vilefiend looks at Azgadaan, but it also notes that its succubus friend is in trouble, and it leaps at Lantresor--who was her most prominent assailant. It bites at him, but the translucent, flame-like shadows giving to him by Levia blind it just enough that it’s rain of attacks misses.
The felhunter closest to Halno lashes with its tentacle, but it misses. However, it’s fellow follows up in a similar manner, siphoning some of his magic away.
Azgadaan stands up on a rock.
He then looks at Lantresor.
Azgadaan gives him a bardic inspiration, but Lantresor side-eyes him at the name.
The felhunter in the grasp of the acid elemental struggles, but is unable to escape.
Halno turns himself invisible, dropping the slowed effects on the felhunters, but hoping that he can hold out against any threats.
Levia uses mass flash of light, healing the majority of her allies as well as the prisoners.
She then uses toll the dead on the succubus, and her eyes go jet black, but the succubus is able to resist.
The acid elemental, meanwhile, slams into the wounded felhunter, killing it. It then beats up on the felhunter inside it as it blurbles along.
The acid elemental blurbles out of the acid and starts to beat up on another felhunter. The felhunter it had grappled is still inside it.
Meanwhile, Sevis looks blearily up at Nyxxa.
Nyxxa sees the magestrix Allari leap over a puddle of acid. And at that moment, a felhunter leaps out of it and grabs her arm. She curses, as she loses concentration, and the bracers on the elemental shatter--no longer controlled.
Lantresor cuts down the succubus, decapitating her, before looking back to the uncontrolled acid elemental. He shoves another felhunter back towards the elemental. He then strikes into the felguard.
One of the elves--now freed of the cage--flees the battle.
Halno uses lightning bolt through the swarm of felhunters around the acid elemental. The lighting crackles with dark, necrotic energy as he shifts the damage type. Two of the felhunters crumple to the ground, including the one inside the elemental.
Levia hops over to one of the remaining cages and works on freeing the captive female elf within.
Azgadaan looks to the jailer demon.
The jailer looks to Azgadaan, and then at his hand.
The jailer seems unconvinced.
Nyxxa messes with the lock on Sevis’s cage, and she feels something snap in it. She realizes the lock had sealed, as if there was some sort of magical security in place to prevent tampering. However, Nyxxa hands a potion to Sevis through the bars.
She hops onto a fallen tree and starts to run back towards the group. However, the vilefiend--having watched his mistress get decapitated--goes into a frenzy and vomits up its acidic bile on the group before it.
The elf in the cage Levia was tampering with tells her to finish the demons off.
The jailer demon continues to beg Azgadaan to stop.
The felguard, meanwhile, runs away from Lantresor and starts to run for Levia. However, his strike glances off the cage.
The felhunter leaps away from the acid elemental and continues to try and attack Halno. The acid elemental strikes at it, but the blow misses. However, the felhunter also misses its quarry.
Nyxxa closes on the felhunter, and strikes it down. Its head is barely attached as it hits the ground. She leaves the glaives implanted in the corpse, and then pulls out her bow to fire at the felguard on Levia.
The acid elemental closes on Halno and Lantresor and tries to whelm them, but they both break free and are pushed aside. However, Allari curses and twists her hands. A greenish aura appears around the elemental, and it is banished.
Halno fires a chromatic orb at the felguard, but the vilefiend behind Halno disrupts his aim and sends the spell flying wide.
Sevis drinks the potion Nyxxa gave to him.
Azgadaan steps down from the rock, addressing the jailer.
The felguard looks at Levia, and then glances at the prisoner.
He tries to strike at the prisoner, his large weapon splintering the cage as he tries to hack through. Levia grabs his hand.
Levia’s eyes go black, and the air around her shifts. In her free hand, a long, black whip appears and she flips it at the felguard’s head. Levia pulls, and the felguard’s helm and skull crunches, and the mind whip slaying the demon and falling into the acid.
Lantresor runs across the acid and leaps on top of the vilefiend. He then drives his sword into the flesh of its back. The creature clicks and makes horrifying sounds as bile starts to spurt from the wound.
Halno is hit by the acid and topples to the ground, unconscious.
Lantresor then punches the creature, but this time it doesn’t spray acid blood all over.
The prisoner near Levia looks at her with a large degree of appreciation.
The jailer then flees, leaving the vilefiend to fight the group. The vilefiend snarls and bites and grabs at Lantresor, but it is unable to land a hit on the agile blademaster. The creature does a panicked run, splashing around in the pools of acid.
Zaeneas flips over a felguard, reaches down, grabs three knives, and hurls them at the rampaging vilefiend.
Nyxxa pulse her warglaives from the corpse of the felhunter and then hurries to follow after the jailer. She manages to get in front of him to try and block his escape, her blades at the ready.
Levia looks at the prisoner and assures her they will get her out as soon as they can, before she returns to the group. A white and black shadowy skull appears in her hand, which she hurls at Halno. The necrotic energy washes over him and pumps him full of the unholy magic, knitting his undead flesh together.
The vilefiend continues to try and wrestle Lantresor offer, bucking and thrashing. It manages to grab Lantresor and plants him under the acid while slashing at him. However, Lantresor is able to struggle free and climbs back onto dry land.
Azgadaan strides around the rock blocking his vision and casts hypnotic pattern from his instrument. A mass of swirling lights engulfs the jailer, enrapturing the demon with the colors.
He reaches out absently to one of the lights.
Halno casts arcane hand, and a large skeletal hand appears over the vilefiend. It smashes into the vilefiend, leaving the creature heavily wounded as Halno cackles madly.
Levia double-takes at Halno as the mage takes several strides back. However, she uses toll the dead on the vilefiend.
Nyxxa grabs the keys from the jailer and then hurries over to the cage to free Sevis.
Sevis nods, thanks Nyxxa, and starts to head off.
Halno continues to wail on the vilefiend with his arcane hand. He then tries to lightning bolt directly through Levia, however Azgadaan immediately counterspells. Halno glares at Azgadaan.
Halno is looking at the group as if they are prey.
The vilefiend continues to claw at Lantresor, and Lantresor hits back and then starts to flee the threat range of the massive beast.
Azgadaan blows his horn and six spectral warriors materialize around Halno.
The warriors all start to beat up on Halno.
The remaining prisoner escapes and flees.
Levia turns, looking at Halno, and her eyes shine bright light. White fire wreathes around Halno, and he is turned--but trapped against the edge of the acid.
Nyxxa closes on the vilefiend and sees what is going on with Halno.
She parkours off the vilefiend and slits its throat, using the expulsion of its body to propel herself back towards the rest of the group.
The berserkers are laughing at Halno, who is just in the middle of them cowering, while the rest of the group goes to surround the jailer demon. Lantresor recovers off some healing potions. Meanwhile, the arcane hand continues to punch the destroyed corpse of the vilefiend.
They try to dogpile the jailer demon, but amazingly, the demon is able to resist several spells and stunning strikes. However, he takes a good deal of damage from Nyxxa.
However, Sadras comes out of nowhere with a yell, pins the jailer demon down, and swings at him. She beats him multiple times.
The jailer demon tries to strike back, and he and Sadras are now grappling each other. The demon manages to get the upper hand, and slams his cage down on her. Sadras is laughing, still gripping the demon around the throat through the cage.
Lantresor is able to inflict the killing blow, slicing clean through the creature’s body. A massive gout of felblood erupts, and the cage shatters as the demon crumples to the ground.
The group sees some fighting still going on around them. Allari destroys a demon as she passes.
Azgadaan calls for the berserkers to bring Halno, and the mage is jarred enough that he relents to the berserker heaving him over his shoulder.
The group starts to head toward what almost appears to be a hole in the ground, and inside they can see the flashes of battle. Loramus is currently engaged with the inquisitor demon.
Shadowy magic starts to wrap around the demon’s hands, and flow through the cavern. Entities start to coalesce around him. There are floating, spectral bird-like entities, and they can hear them shouting in a language only Halno understands.
It’s in ravenspeech.
She immediately leaps into the tunnel, casting feather fall to cover the group as they descend. Lantresor and Nyxxa jump down either side of one of the spirits. Their feathers are twinged with fel and shadow, and the warrior arrakoa are not broken like many of those they have seen before. However, they are moving in forced motions.
They wield warglaive-esque weapons called wingblades.
Loramus is closing on the leader, an arakkoa that is easily 8 feet tall.
Loramas, however, darts around the spectral arakkoa and tries to close on the questioner. However, a barrier of shadow magic blocks his strikes, and Loramus is blasted back by a surge of shadowy energy. The demon hunter snarls in frustration.
Suddenly, the air in the chamber gets ice cold. The group can see their breath, and it’s freezing. But all the acid freezes over.
One of the berserkers drops down and starts to beat up the crusader being flanked by Lantresor and Nyxxa. Levia follows soon after. As she touches the ground, there is a pulse, and her eyes go pure white as she uses turn undead. The four arakkoa crusaders suddenly look uncertain of the fight.
Allari hits the ground and claps her hands together. She starts to cast a spell.
Another berserker drops in, and joins the beatdown circle around the crusader--striking it and breaking the turning effect.
Sadras drops down and starts to rage.
Nyxxa starts to carve into the arakkoa crusader. Black, shadowy ichor is slicing from the creature’s spectral body with each strike. The spirit dissipates into nothing.
The inquisitor goes for Loramus, a scythe strike cleaving into the demon hunter. It then hovers into the air, evading a warglaive strike.
However, a giant, arcane fist appears above the Questioner as Halno summons another arcane hand. It smashes into the inquisitor demon, who laughs as it turns its eyeless face to Halno. Halno then also materializes Sylvos’s head about 60 feet away from him.
He looks around.
Halno also commands his raven familiar to flutter behind the questioner.
Lantresor also closes on the Questioner and leaps at him, but the blade passes through his robes.
Several of the arakkoa crusaders flee due to the turning effect. However, Kris'kar regards the new threats to his tomb and flips his blades around. He throws them and they then explode in a blast of fire, catching several of his enemies in the radiant explosion.
Azgadaan lands and casts hold monster on Arev’naal, but the inquisitor is able to break free of the spell.
Nyxxa runs to follow after Lantresor, but she slips on the ice. However, she catches herself to finish closing the gap. She also strikes at the Questioner, and one of her blows clashes off some sort of magic.
Levia looks toward Kris’kar, and a strange symbol appears on Levia’s shield.
She casts exorcism, and there is an explosion of holy, white fire around the large spirit. However, the arakkoa spirit is still up and ready to fight.
Allari reaches out, and her eyes glow with bright blue magic. The weapon in Arev'naal’s hand starts to shake, and then it suddenly flies from his hand and careens toward Allari. She catches it, and it immediately starts to burn her. She then uses remove curse, and there is a pulse of energy. She staggers backwards, the scythe in her hand.
The inquisitor rips his claws through the air, and the world starts to ripple with fel energy. More frigid air whips around, and five portals rip open, revealing five jailer demons that step into the tomb.
Sadras closes on one of the jailers, and she buries her club into its cage. Loramus closes on the jailer demon that Sadras was attacking. He disappears for a moment, and then reappears in a rapid series of strikes, slashing through four jailer demons and the Questioner. He reappears behind Arev’naal.
Lantresor continues to attack the Questioner as well. The strike leaves the inquisitor stunned, and Lantresor follows up with a kick to the demon’s face.
A berserker slashes at the nearest jailer demon, and a pall of darkness starts to wash over the tomb.
Azgadaan once more uses hypnotic pattern from his lute, charming several of the jailers and Kris’kar. The berserkers continue to dogpile on the jailer closest to them.
Sylvos shifts his position, and Halno uses lightning bolt, channeling the spell through his new position. It crackles with arcane energy as it bursts through the three jailers that were in the way. Meanwhile, his raven familiar flaps around Arev’naal’s face.
Kris’kar is entranced by the hypnotic pattern, and drops to his knees in amazement.
The jailer demon near the berserkers tries to strike them, but they cackle as the blows miss. Another jailer demon throws a flame at the fleeing crusaders, knocking it from its turned state. However, the second flame at Loramus misses.
Another jailer demon strikes at Allari, and he grabs her and shoves her in his cage. She falls unconscious, and starts to get tormented in the cage.
Another jailer demon goes for Levia, she is able to deftly evade the attacks.
Sadras closes on the jailer demon that had caged Allari, and she breaks the cage off--pulling the unconscious elf out. She then enhances a curing spell to quicken a rejuvenation.
Kayn Sunfury strikes from above, firing an arrow through one of the jailer demons. Another jailer demon attempts to free the crusaders from their turning with blasts of fire.
Allari comes to in Sadras’s care, and she starts for a moment, and takes stock of the situation.
Nyxxa strikes into Arev'naal with her glaives, two solid hits cutting into the inquisitor, before she dashes between Allari and the jailer demon.
The jailer engaged with the berserkers continues to try and beat up the berserkers. It manages to grapple both of them, but they are able to shove the demon’s cage away, and one of the beserkers beats the jailer in the face with the butt of his axe.
Halno casts another lightning bolt through Sylvos, shifting the damage type to bludgeoning as a line of rocks fire through the demons. The jailer that was wrestling with the berserkers drops, beaten to a pulp and releasing its prey in a flash of felfire. Meanwhile, his arcane hand continues to punch Arev’naal.
Lantresor does a quick flash stab, a massive slash opening in the face of the inquisitor demon and cutting off one of its horns and part of its skull. Inside, is not flesh or organs--just a pulsing, fel eye. It looks at Lantresor, and Loramus grabs one of his daggers and leaps. However, at the same time, Allari holds her scythe up.
Before Loramus can strike, beams of electric shadow erupt from the scythe in Allari’s hands as she starts to torment the demon.
Lantresor nods, letting the two elves decide what was going to happen with the inquisitor before charging over to back up Levia. He kicks the jailer demon in the face, causing the creature to stagger backwards through the air. Lantresor follows, ensuring there was no distance between them.
Azgadaan looks at the jailer demon closest to him and smacks him around with his maul.
He then looks to Levia.
He gives her his last bardic inspiration.
A jailer goes to try and help the Questioner, and he hurls two bolts of fire at the magister. However, the first one clashes harmlessly off a shield spell, and the second one misses entirely.
Loramus glares at Allari.
Loramus rounds on the arakkoa crusader near him and quickly cuts it to ribbons, and then runs to close the jailer in front of Azgadaan. He strikes twice before looking back at Allari with his fangs bared.
The jailer that Loramus had just attacked swings at Azgadaan, but both strikes bounce off an arcane shield. He then swings his cage around to try and hit Allari. However, Nyxxa intervenes and takes the hit, getting herself caged in the process.
The jailer growls.
He begins to torment her.
Levia looks to Lantresor.
Lantresor nods and Levia uses her enhance to twin another exorcism, and she targets Kris'kar and one of the incapacitated jailers. The jailer explodes in holy light, and Kris'kar is just barely still standing, his spectral feathers singled and wilting.
Loramus strikes at the jailer demon that had caged Nyxxa, and he kills it with a twist of his glaives. He then moves to one of the two remaining jailers with two other strikes.
The darkness around them seems to grow deeper as Kris'kar screams in agony. Lantresor rushes for the spectral arakkoa, deftly dodging the strikes of the arakkoa crusaders. With a strike of his flaming blade, the arakkoa spirit burns into nothing. The berserkers try to help clean up the remaining spirits.
Halno continues to cast through Sylvos, and he fires an arcane chromatic orb at one of the remaining spirits. The arcane hand moves to start pummeling the jailer demon that Loramus was trying to finish off.
The free jailer shoots two gouts of fire at Allari, but due to her arcane shield spell, both bounce harmlessly away. Azgadaan casts fly on himself with his cittern and closes on the same jailer.
Nyxxa looks to Allari.
Nyxxa nods and then closes on the nearest jailer, decimating him with a swipe of her glaives. She carries through, joining Azgadaan at the last jailer.
Allari presses the scythe closer as she moves forward.
He is unfortunately able to resist the compel.
Nyxxa continues to slice into the jailer, and with two decisive strikes, the jailer bursts into a gout of felfire. She looks at Azgadaan.
Nyxxa then retreats to go help clean up the spirits--if the help is even needed. Halno crushes one of the remaining spirits with his arcane hand, and he fires a chromatic orb through Sylvos. Once more, it crackles with arcane energy, and the remaining spirit explodes.
The conflict seems to have been handled.
Loramus then rounds on Allari, and then looks at the inquisitor. However, Allari intervenes.
Nyxxa looks up to Loramus.
Loramus looks to Nyxxa and he takes a dagger from his belt. He raises it up, but then he flips it around and catches by the blade and hands it to Allari.
Allari looks at the dagger, and then she turns to the inquisitor demon and jabs it into the back of the demon. It begins to roil in hellfire.
The creature’s form is pulled into the dagger.
Loramus crosses his arms and sighs.
Allari winces, and Azgadaan lands and plays a chord on his instrument to heal her.
She looks at the scythe.
At that moment, a rope drops down.
Azgadaan offers Allari a lift, but she opts to cast fly on herself and rises to the lip of the gaping hole to rejoin her companions. Loramus, Lantresor, and Sadras also climb up. They hear Zaeneas say something in Thalassian to his compatriots, and they share a laugh.
Halno, meanwhile, is looking around the crypt. The tomb seems to have been defiled. His memories of the arakkoan culture come to the surface of his mind. It seems this tomb had belonged to Kris'kar, the Blazing Crusader. However, interestingly enough, the place didn’t seem to be that old. It was in terrible condition, but it seemed to be no more than 50 years old at the most. It had likely been constructed after the collapse of the arakkoan society.
There are a few engravings that Halno is able to piece together. The other spirits were likely Kris'kar’s most trusted fighters in life, and it seems that Kris'kar had been on a crusade of vengeance that sought retribution for… something. The engravings make reference to flying too close to the sun and being burned by hellfire.
Functionally, Kris'kar had gone into enemy territory and tried to destroy their enemy from within, but fell short of their goal. It seemed they had tried to take Hellfire Citadel.
In the place where Kris’kar had been slain, Halno observes some spectral reflections of the wingblades he had used. They were not solid… as if something was preventing them from being whole. They may have been some sort of echo.
Halno reaches forward, and his hand passes through them, but using his arcane mastery and techniques, he is able to grasp onto one of the blades and pull it free. He sees the second start to fade, but he hastily looks back through his mind, and he speaks a prayer to Rukhmar that he remembered hearing. The blade becomes solid, and he pulls both out of the stone.
He senses something in them blades--some echo of their former wielder. The weapons are broken and in disrepair, but he could perhaps repair them, or use them for something else.
He hears a voice behind him, and he sees the carved relief of the former crusader, and a specter before it.
As the last word echos, the arakkoa’s spirit dissipates, but the wingblades still resonate with the power of this place.
Halno gives the appropriate arakkoa farewell, and then goes to leave, and the darkness starts to fade slightly, no longer sticking to the corners.
As Halno joins his fellows up above, they look upon the carnage, and not a single enemy demon seems to be standing.
