Game: Hired by the Dabus

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
I like poems
that don't rhyme.

Let's keep this going, alright?

Prim will post later today and allow this game to continue on. Apologies.

Akhenanubis felt his calm certainty return with the successful attack. The creature was undoubtedly powerful, but Anubis the Just could always prevail. He only needed to preform adequately as a vessel for that victory. Readying another spell from the power of his god, the priest watched the ethergaunt move to cast a spell and felt radiating despair wash over him. His new-found confidence began to melt again as he desperately lashed out with burning light once more.

OOC: Willpower save 10+11= 21, just barely misses. Scorching ray against... ethergaunt 1, which is the wrong one. This isn't my round, I guess.

AC 13 on the attack of opportunity - miss. Will save 13 - fail.

At the creature leaving itself open, Janus quickly slashes with the sword he's 'borrowing' - perhaps too quickly, as the attack bounces harmlessly off the ethergaunt's arcane protections. He hears the pronouncement of hopelessness and, for a moment, lets go of hope. His eyes drift closed for a few seconds, and in that time, a moment out of space, he feels it. A pulsing, deep within him - deep within the planes. His guidance. He could not give up, not yet. Now was a time to fight. Opening his eyes, Janus shakes off the doom overwhelming him - but not completely. A bit of it clings to his mind, weighing on his actions.

The githwarrior stands firm as waves of hopelessness wash over the room. Such mindbending tricks were well-known to him. That acid burned on, but a warrior of Gith knows that true strength comes from within, and that physical abuse was always overcome by true strength. He allowed the searing pain--so intense it nearly brought him down, but he knew he had a few moments left of glorious combat in Gith's name--to magnify his hatred, which he directed toward the vile thing that was searching for an escape route at this very moment.

This creature was as strange as it was odious. It demonstrated capable proficiency in psychic combat, and yet was not psionically infused. He therefore disregarded the possibility of draining it of psionic energy, knowing that its defenses were magical in nature. To dispel them would require spellwork.

Seeing the last of the mirror images fade away, the gith allowed himself a cruel smile: "It would seem that your pitiful defenses have failed you. There is no strength in oblivion, nor in tyranny, you loathsome coward. Return to the void you embrace. May you find no solace in your death."

Will save [roll 11]+12=23 pass. Manifest Concussion Blast on the Etherguant, attempting to crush its head with a gesture of his hand. The etherguant stepped back to use its ability, so Quith'mek is out of range. If he's not, he'll move back. Overchannel and Talented, expending psionic focus. 9th level manifester. 3+6 powerpoints for a total of 9. (4d6 force damage--> 14 damage) with no save. Quith'mek is down to 20 power points out of 59.

OoC: I think Username said something about being away for a bit.

The slender githwarrior removes his crystal mask and summarily drives his scimitar Jarec'il through the chest of the dead ethergaunt. The battle over, Quith'mek seems to visibly sink under the pain which he had previously suppressed. He hears the question behind him and looks down at the tatters of his grey tunic underneath the black leather armor and the burned tissue seared from the creature's foul attack. "I do, priest of Chac Mool." He is surpised; there are so few outsiders whom he would trust to cure his wounds.

Lifting a slender rod topped with a bronze ankh, Ankhenanubis whispers a blessing to heal the githwarrior's wounds. The slender telepath seems apprehensive about the procedure, but he seemed genuinely interested in the Great One. At Fringe's smalltalk, the priest looks at him critically. The creature had been a help in battle, despite the confusion caused by the ethergaunt's spell. Despite his shapeshifting, this "Fartale" did not seem to be a Setite. "Worry not, werebeast," he says with a shake of his head, "you may accompany us back to Sigil if you wish. The guard of this settlement will surely not be sorry to see you go."

Wand of cure moderate wounds in Quith'mek for 10 hit points healed. I don't have any antidote or protection spells, sorry.

Ketel crawled out from below the table, holding his throbbing head. The little mephling glanced at the nightmare that he had just summoned and dismissed it with a wave. He could still see that horrible nightmarish visage when he closed his eyes, still see those pulsing orifices and horrible glands and other things that even the torrid seas of nightmares could not contend with. It was like having one's consciousness sandblasted, like turning a firehose on a small dog.

The black-skinned little man spat a gob of blood on the ground as he clutched at his pain-filled head. "Right, lead the way then," he groaned.

At the appearance of a new ethergaunt, Janus tenses, and starts to reach for the sword again. But... why would the dance of the cadence slip from him just before another battle began? He stops as the creature speaks - it came, at least mostly, in peace.

'If you come to us peacefully, there is no need for a threat. Perhaps you would be willing to tell us why you seek this dagger.'

Quith'mek scowls and extends his mind over time and reality, searching for dimensional pathways and folds in the planes. If he can only find the correct route to slip through via dimension door or plane shift. A githyanki displays no cowardice, but the sword will not win this battle. Should the situation turn ill, he must be ready to escape with the knife, and perhaps with whomever is quick enough to join him.

Fringe's nose twinged a bit. With a snort, the tiefling decided to do something rather...drastic for his purposes.

"I need that dagger to open a portal to a certain Prime world, to help a friend of mine! However it would be irrevocably be destroyed. I promised my friend that I'll get her back to her home plane and I always keep my promises!"

A pair of foot long sharpened metallic hair bristled as he flapped his wings, the symbol of Baator etched into their membranes flashing slightly, as Fringe's voice lowered into a growl. "Always."

"So what are ya trying to power up berk?"

The lycanthrope tiefling sighed irritated before leaping into the portal.

A better test of the "General's" worth: war. Battle is the best determinate of an individual's character. If he should die now, it may be just as well, for Quith'mek does not intend to turn the knife over to one of these ethergaunts, abominable enslavers as they are, if he can help it. Fiends, though... It has been quite some time since the githwarrior encountered one of those nightmares, and certainly never one so powerful as an arcanoloth. This unwinnable fight has just become more unwinnable, and so Quith'mek shouts for the short loreseeker to step through the portal before he does so himself.

"Oh good...just a demi-plane," Fringe whispered with a sigh of relief. "For a moment I was worried about re-entering the Beastlands." The tiefling turned slowly about, his nose taking in the scents as much of the surrounding area as it could.

At least the place isn't at all like my father's kip. he thought to himself. "Well, since I don't feel like calling you a garden post, what's yer name?" Fringe asked the tree.

OOC: How strange that we should suffer so much pain over so small a thing... Oh look: a talking tree. Why no, I suppose respect for nature is rather lacking these days. What's that? A wizard roaming around?

Quith'mek is hardly disoriented, considering himself well experienced in interplanar travel. He is rather annoyed by an overly talkative plant that doesn't know when it isn't wanted. And why could that fool of an assassin have taken them someplace useful, instead of this fantasy land for a senile old man?

Curiosity rapidly giving way to wariness, Akhenanubis nods curtly to the tree. "Your instructions are appreciated, sir," he says, turning and heading in the direction of the mansion. To his companions he adopts a matter-of-fact tone, "We will need, of course, to find a means of returning to Sigil with the dagger to return it to the dabus. If this wizard is capable of reason, we will hopefully have no diffilculty in locating an exit, but we should prepare for trouble." He stops as if struck by a sudden thought, and turns back to the group, lowering his voice and glancing cautiously at the tree. "It may also be prudent to conduct ourselves with some discretion," a pointed look at the dagger here, "to avoid any more delays in our journey."

Janus glances around at his companions. 'Shall we go? I understand if one of you wants more information from the tree, but if not it could behoove us to seek out the Mind-Granter.'

It would be so easy to blast the doors apart. So simple, and at the same time so immensely gratifying. All he needed to do was release the mounting frustration that built in his mind and the insufferable riddling door would splinter apart. It would be magnificent...

Quith'mek checked his aggressive urges. As much as it offended him to be forced to play by some human's rules, the fact remained that he was standing in some human's demiplane, and so that human's rules were the ones which governed. It would not do to make war on him so rashly.

Intelligence check: 14=failure. His impatience with the animated residents of this strange place seemed to be interfering with his thoughts, for Quith'mek could not concentrate on the riddle's solution. Yes, a sword. The cleric seems to have gotten it. That is the keen mind of the Silver Void.