Chapter 27: Mark of the Beast

[Inferno]

The Wolfpack's Lair, The Dark Mountains, Gran March, Greyhawk
Day Thirty-three. Night. Wednesday, December 14th, 576 CY
Freezing cold, clear







Beneath the writhing sky, Ingrid Esthof opens the dark bottle and carefully sniffs at the liquid within. The skilled healer believes it to be a medicine, used during torture to cruelly prolong consciousness... and agony.

The grey druid eerily converses in the language of owls to Nicodemus, asking what the nocturnal predator has spied to the south.



The owl replies, "Yonder, not far, a large swarming flock of Men. Hooting, screeching, shrieking and flapping their wings around a great burning fire. Amongst them art wolves."

Brevos the ranger rises from the miasma of tracks in the snow. He grimly indicates the same direction, where lurks the terrible thing that Amity Mantle has become.


Actions?!






PC Status:

Brevos, Half-Elf Ranger 4: Move: 9", AC: 2(1), HP: 36/36
Grey Mouser, Half-Elf Magic-User/Thief 3/4: Move: 9", AC: 5, HP: 19/19, Spells: 2/2 1st lvl, 1/1 2nd lvl
Ingrid Esthof, Human Cleric 5: Move: 6", AC: 3(1), HP: 25/25, Spells: 5/5 1st lvl, 5/5 2nd lvl, 1/2 3rd lvl
Jerome, Human Paladin 3: Move: 9", AC: 3(1), HP: 20/20, Laying Hands: 1/1
Long Bo, Human Druid 5: Move: 9", AC: 2(1), HP: 38/38, Spells: 2/6 1st lvl, 4/4 2nd lvl, 2/2 3rd lvl, Torch
Telkis Brassfang, Gnome Fighter 4: Move: 9", AC: 0, HP: 34/34
Urdur Shimmerstone, Gnome Illusionist 4: Move: 12", AC: 4, HP: 11/11, Spells: 3/3 1st lvl, 1/2 2nd lvl

PC Magic:

Invisibility (Urdur): Target: self.
Speak With Animals (Bo): Duration: 9 rounds.

Player Resources:

Tale of Terror (the story so far)
A Dark and Terrible World (maps)
Blasphemous Iconography (the story so far in images)
Desperate Struggles (clues and player notes)

[ravenn4544]

Mouser considers with a shake of his head after Bo explains what the owl had to say, "Swarming group of men? Do we want to take this one on or avoid it? If went around, though, then what? That witch of a girl may be there"

[SocraticLawyer]

Urdur considers the new information. We dare not try a frontal assault against them. I have spells that may help with subterfuge, however.

I can make another invisible like me. Or I can conjure a phantasm in whatever form.

Perhaps if Long Bo were invisible, he could approach unseen and call upon the Shalm to Entagle our foes...?

If he has time while the group deliberates its course of action, Urdur reviews the third tome taken from the cave.

[Urson]

Jerome
We must do something to disrupt their rituals. Perhaps an idea will present itself when we arrive there? Jerome is back to fidgeting and quick, jerky movements- anxious to be doing something.

[OGRE MAGE]

Bo shudders at the news from the owl.

"We all know what must be done."

The druid tells Nicodemus to fly ahead of them so that he can warn of anything they might not be able to see from the ground.

"Let us get a little closer to them before we start making a battle plan. We will need to be organized if we are to survive a fight with their entire group."

With that, Bo starts moving quickly towards the danger.

[Scott308]

Ingrid Esthof

The cleric quickly puts the stopper back into the bottle and hurries after the druid. Any planning will apparently need to wait.

[ChubbyPixie]

"I can take many before I succumb, but can they even be killed? We couldn't. Is there a way to make them stay down?" says Telkis as he trundles along with the others. He goes as fast as his short legs will carry him. "Maybe to be sure we must feed them 'the Remedy?'"

"After we take it again, of course," he adds.

[Inferno]

The Wolfpack's Lair, The Dark Mountains, Gran March, Greyhawk
Day Thirty-three. Midnight. Wednesday, December 14th, 576 CY
Freezing cold, clear







Before Urdur can examine the last forsaken volume, the doomed heroes follow Brevos and Nicodemus deep into a wood older than time imaginable.

Overgrown and forbidding, thick and dark, unknowable and mysterious. They tread through a primeval wilderness untouched by Men or their quaint notions.




Atop a dizzying slope is a clearing. There, stand ancient stones erected before history began, open to the endless black gulfs of infinity.





Within the circle of towering megaliths roars an immense bonfire, surrounded by countless shadows.




The figures leap and dance and howl in dark ecstasy. Wolves frolic among them.

Some hundred yards away, from hiding, the heroes see no sign of Amity Mantle. But they know the full moon will soon rise.


Actions?!






PC Status:

Brevos, Half-Elf Ranger 4: Move: 9", AC: 2(1), HP: 36/36
Grey Mouser, Half-Elf Magic-User/Thief 3/4: Move: 9", AC: 5, HP: 19/19, Spells: 2/2 1st lvl, 1/1 2nd lvl
Ingrid Esthof, Human Cleric 5: Move: 6", AC: 3(1), HP: 25/25, Spells: 5/5 1st lvl, 5/5 2nd lvl, 1/2 3rd lvl
Jerome, Human Paladin 3: Move: 9", AC: 3(1), HP: 20/20, Laying Hands: 1/1
Long Bo, Human Druid 5: Move: 9", AC: 2(1), HP: 38/38, Spells: 2/6 1st lvl, 4/4 2nd lvl, 2/2 3rd lvl
Telkis Brassfang, Gnome Fighter 4: Move: 9", AC: 0, HP: 34/34
Urdur Shimmerstone, Gnome Illusionist 4: Move: 12", AC: 4, HP: 11/11, Spells: 3/3 1st lvl, 1/2 2nd lvl

PC Magic:

Invisibility (Urdur): Target: self.

Player Resources:

Tale of Terror (the story so far)
A Dark and Terrible World (maps)
Blasphemous Iconography (the story so far in images)
Desperate Struggles (clues and player notes)

[Urson]

Jerome
Jerome goes white. We cannot allow them to continue... but we would be slaughtered in seconds....
He changes the grip on his sword, his knuckles white.

[ChubbyPixie]

Telkis weighs the odds. "Jerome is right. We cannot win in a straightforward fight. We need a plan... Anyone have a spell for this situation?" He looks hopefully to the spell casters.

[Scott308]

Ingrid Esthof

I have no magic that can do much harm to the wolves, but I could cast a spell of silence on an object, a stone perhaps, that could be carried. If we can find Amity at the edge so we may sneak up behind her we could grab her and try to escape. I can create darkness to obscure our retreat, but we would not be able to see through it, either. Or, should we prefer, instead of darkness I could place an explosive rune on the ground to harm whoever may follow us.

[Urson]

Jerome
Jerome has been wishing for some sort of fireball. Sister, could your Rune be placed on an object, and then tossed into the fire?

[OGRE MAGE]

Bo sees the conflagration and smiles wickedly, whispering to the others as he steeples his long fingers.

"I can douse that fire completely, and blind them for a moment in the process, but what will come of that I cant say."

(please see ooc thread for discussion about planning out this round for maximum effect)

[Inferno]

Beyond the Wolfpack's Lair, The Dark Mountains, Gran March, Greyhawk
Day Thirty-three. Midnight. Wednesday, December 14th, 576 CY
Freezing cold, clear







Alone and of their own volition, Mouser and Urdur venture deeper into the dark, unknowable forest, moving inexorably toward the ageless standing stones beneath the swirling abyss, and the fate that awaits them there.

The dense wood and gusting air is alive and wild with sorceries potent and dark!



Urdur is deafened by a blessing from Ingrid that silences his footfalls. But Mouser cannot help but hear the ghastly cacophony that rises louder with their every hesitant step. Carried on a chill wind, it is like unto the sounds of Hell itself. Harrowing screams, soul-chilling chants, murderous barks, spine-tingling laughter, all emanating from the writhing black joy around that dancing devil flame.



Gruesome human sacrifices hang inside the ageless stone monoliths out of time without measure. And a familiar shadow burns deep within the great leaping pyre.

The blasphemous, nameless rite is building; relentlessly growing toward a fearsome climax the two conjurers suspect is aligned with the rising of the full moon. Then these euphoric devil-worshippers might transform into things bestial, savage and not of this world!

Witnessing the frightful tableau, this riotous maelstrom of souls condemned, Urdur suddenly remembers a desperate warning he and Telkis received in the village of the damned from the man that brutally slaughtered them. At the time it was dismissed as the demented rantings of a lunatic. But now, in the sight of this, it seems eerily prescient; a dire prophesy that presaged this very moment... foretold by one who might be here now!

"Harken unto me! Thy very lives depend upon it!...

"The black coven shall never die, waiting til the stars come right again, and the secret witches and wolves shall rouse great Shub-Niggurath from her resting place beneath the dark mountains to revive her subjects and resume her rule of Oerth!"



"The time shall be easy to know, for then mankind will have become as the Great Old Ones themselves; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and reveling in joy!"

"Then the liberated Old Ones shall teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the Oerth will flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom and madness and horror!"

Dread realization overtakes Urdur but he cannot speak. His stomach shrinks and the hair on the back of his neck stands up. Having freed from the lost temple of evil, the ancient demon that now possesses the child Amity Mantle, was it now within the black coven's power to free Shub-Niggurath, the Dark Mother, from beneath these accursed mountains?!? Had everything been building to this?

Frail comprehension struggles to grasp vast cycles of stars, life and reality of which Man's meager conceptions have no part.

From hiding, unaware of Urdur's dawning horror, nerve-shattered Mouser counts some half dozen cavorting wolves... so far. And there, at the center of the unspeakable black mass, he sees Amity Mantle!



On all fours and inverted, she is no longer human now.

The two scouts have had enough! They flee back to the party and breathlessly confess all that they have seen!


Actions?!





PC Status:

Brevos, Half-Elf Ranger 4: Move: 9", AC: 2(1), HP: 36/36
Grey Mouser, Half-Elf Magic-User/Thief 3/4: Move: 9", AC: 5, HP: 19/19, Spells: 2/2 1st lvl, 1/1 2nd lvl
Ingrid Esthof, Human Cleric 5: Move: 6", AC: 3(1), HP: 25/25, Spells: 5/5 1st lvl, 4/5 2nd lvl, 1/2 3rd lvl
Jerome, Human Paladin 3: Move: 9", AC: 3(1), HP: 20/20, Laying Hands: 1/1
Long Bo, Human Druid 5: Move: 9", AC: 2(1), HP: 38/38, Spells: 2/6 1st lvl, 4/4 2nd lvl, 2/2 3rd lvl
Telkis Brassfang, Gnome Fighter 4: Move: 9", AC: 0, HP: 34/34
Urdur Shimmerstone, Gnome Illusionist 4: Move: 12", AC: 4, HP: 11/11, Spells: 3/3 1st lvl, 1/2 2nd lvl

PC Magic:

Invisibility (Urdur): Target: self.
Silence, 15' Radius (Ingrid): Target: pebble. Duration: 5 rounds.

Player Resources:

Tale of Terror (the story so far)
A Dark and Terrible World (maps)
Blasphemous Iconography (the story so far in images)
Desperate Struggles (clues and player notes)

[ChubbyPixie]

"We've got to disrupt it. We'll never get Amity out of there. Will the scroll work from here, Ingrid? We can protect you while you read it," says Telkis.

[OGRE MAGE]

Bo feels no safer after hearing the report from his friends.

"I agree Master Telkis, and the sooner the better."

As they await the clerics answer, Bo looks for an area where he can get as close to the mass of people as he can with the least likelihood of being seen. Any large tree or a rock formation will do nicely.

"Do we still like the idea of spreading out about half way around them before I deal with that fire?"

[Urson]

Jerome

Jerome gnaws at a dirty thumbnail. Better to do something right now than the best thing three hours too late. Let's go! he whispers urgently.

[Inferno]

Beyond the Wolfpack's Lair, The Dark Mountains, Gran March, Greyhawk
Day Thirty-three. Midnight. Wednesday, December 14th, 576 CY
Freezing cold, clear







Under cover of the ancient, mysterious wood, the heroes are stunned by what their scouts report.

The grey druid spies a good position for their assault upon the horrific congregation of the damned.

"We'll never get Amity out of there," laments Telkis. "Will the scroll work from here, Ingrid? We can protect you while you read it."

"Would that it could," comes Ingrid's sober, mournful reply. "Telkis, I must be within ten feet of Amity at all times. Once begun, the ritual of Exorcism is a battle of wills between myself and the infernal demon that possesses the child. It cannot be interrupted or else it is spoiled and useless. A well-thrown rock could break my concentration and end all our hopes. And the ritual could take up to 16 hours to complete."

Actions?!





PC Status:

Brevos, Half-Elf Ranger 4: Move: 9", AC: 2(1), HP: 36/36
Grey Mouser, Half-Elf Magic-User/Thief 3/4: Move: 9", AC: 5, HP: 19/19, Spells: 2/2 1st lvl, 1/1 2nd lvl
Ingrid Esthof, Human Cleric 5: Move: 6", AC: 3(1), HP: 25/25, Spells: 5/5 1st lvl, 4/5 2nd lvl, 1/2 3rd lvl
Jerome, Human Paladin 3: Move: 9", AC: 3(1), HP: 20/20, Laying Hands: 1/1
Long Bo, Human Druid 5: Move: 9", AC: 2(1), HP: 38/38, Spells: 2/6 1st lvl, 4/4 2nd lvl, 2/2 3rd lvl
Telkis Brassfang, Gnome Fighter 4: Move: 9", AC: 0, HP: 34/34
Urdur Shimmerstone, Gnome Illusionist 4: Move: 12", AC: 4, HP: 11/11, Spells: 3/3 1st lvl, 1/2 2nd lvl

PC Magic:

Invisibility (Urdur): Target: self.
Silence, 15' Radius (Ingrid): Target: pebble. Duration: 4 rounds.

Player Resources:

Tale of Terror (the story so far)
A Dark and Terrible World (maps)
Blasphemous Iconography (the story so far in images)
Desperate Struggles (clues and player notes)

[ChubbyPixie]

Telkis will nod grimly at Bo’s suggestion of spreading out, then carefully begin to reposition himself clockwise and to the east around the perimeter, remaining unobserved, hopefully, in all the satanic chaos.

[Urson]

Jerome
Glad to hear that plans are being finalized, Jerome picks a spot that will put him near Amity when they charge.