CH. 14: Beyond the Veil

[BishGada]

"You want to tie Thaddeus to you. I don't see much differences." Baeros says absentmindedly as he is tensed and ready to protect Jocelyn in case she is attacked.

[JadedDM]

Baeros and Ouragana follow Jocelyn and Brock into the room. Ouragana moves off to the side and uses a simple detection cantrip. It confirms that there is magic somewhere within 30 feet of her current position.

Baeros looks up, and so is the first to spot their quarry. The creature crawls along the chains on the ceiling with the ease of a spider, and so stealthily that not a single chain rattles at his touch. Sensing it has been spotted, the kyton drops down directly in front of Jocelyn, landing perfectly on its feet.

The kyton is humanoid, but little else can be deduced by looking at it. It's wearing chains all over its body; they are wrapped around its torso, arms, and legs. Chains also hang loosely from its arms. These chains are all studded with barbs, welded scraps of iron and other sharp implements.

Even its head is wrapped in chains, covering where the hair, ears, nose and mouth would be. Its chin is covered with a beard of chains, but its gleaming eyes shine through the mask.

Kyton.jpg (180.28 KiB) Viewed 5349 times

However, when each of them looks upon its face, they see instead the face of someone they either loved or feared who has died, a rather shocking image that causes some of them to hesitate a bit.

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Ouragana uses a cantrip to detect the presence of magic within 30 feet.
Jocelyn makes a WIS check [TN 17] (1d20): 14, pass.
Brock makes a WIS check [TN 9] (1d20): 19, fail. He suffers a -1 to initiative due to shock.
Ouragana makes a WIS check [TN 10] (1d20): 9, pass.
Baeros makes a WIS check [TN 14] (1d20): 17, fail. He suffers a -1 to initiative due to shock.

(OOC: I'll leave it to the player to decide which face their character sees. Note even if you made your save, you still see the face, you just aren't as shocked by it, as you have the wisdom to realize it's just a trick.)

[spyguy1503]

Gallath enters the room. Glancing at the demon, he recoils, seeing his ex-girlfriends face.

[HorizonsDream]

"Tricky bastard," Jocelyn says. She takes a couple of steps back as she stares at the face of her mother. She knows that this is nothing more than a trick considering that her mother is long dead, but the image still shakes her. Without wasting any time, she channels as much holy energy as she can to try to turn the devil. "Get ready guys. He is only trying to trick us!"

[Breila]

Ouragana sees the face of the Merchant Captain who had taken notice of her as a street urchin in the harbour, and had managed to persuade people to send her to the Storm Sorcerer Academy. Last time she had been in her home town, she had learned the man had drowned in a storm. Outraged at the devil's impertinence, she musters her new-found magical strength and casts DIspel Magic in his direction.

[BishGada]

"Youuu!" Baeros growls with both fear and anger, "You poisoned our forest and you probably spawned all this Oni abominations!" Baeros shouts at the Ogre-Mage who lead a group of Ogres which poisoned the forest he lived in and killed huge amount of wild animals in there. It took him together with his brother Farlon and the ranger Averbec Coldspirit who later became his mentor the better part of a year to track this group down and finish it. But their leader was the most difficult to kill. He evaded them, played with their minds using illusions and almost turned them against each other. Eventually they had the upper hand, but the event left Baeros scarred, both physically and mentally.

Hearing Jocelyn Baeros looks again at the demon and immediately put himself between it and Jocelyn to protect her. Both swords ready even he knows they can't harm the demon, Baeros tries to provoke it and draw all attention to himself so the others can find the hammer and free the planateer as they agreed. "Quick! If one of you can spare a silver or magical weapon that would be the perfect moment."

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(OOC: We had to plan who uses which weapon before hand... Oops.)

[xelphyn]

Dahn moves to the wall and peeks through the door.

[chese780]

Drav moves next to Granite/Dahn/Whatever we know him as, "What do you see inside?"

[xelphyn]

Dahn turns to Drav. Once again the light completely faded from his expression.
"I don't like this place." is all he can manage to say.

[JadedDM]

Baeros begins to taunt the kyton, hoping to grab its attention. The creature looks at him with annoyance and raises his arms as if to perform some kind of action.

Gallath walks inside the room, stopping short at the sight of the creature. Granite and Drav walk up to the door and peer inside, seeing the creature has the face of someone they loved or feared who is now dead.

Jocelyn and Ouragana begin focusing their power. Jocelyn has never turned before. Even when she was surrounded by zombies back in Deimos, she never tried. She had been trained to do so as an acolyte, but never used the ability in the field. Hoping she was doing it right, she begins to focus all of her energy into her holy icon. The icon starts to glow, but then flickers and dies out with a sputter. All of the positive energy she had gathered disperses harmlessly in the air, doing no damage to the kyton.

Nevertheless, the gesture is enough to infuriate the creature. It gives an inhuman scream and all of the chains in the room begin to rattle and move about. Some grow barbs or even increase in size.

Before it has a chance to do anything, though, Ouragana finishes her spell. She centers it on the kyton itself. A blue energy starts to gather around the kyton then disperses outward with a loud hum, filling the whole room. This has several effects that happen all at once. First, all of the chains suddenly drop still again. Second, all of the spells active in the room die, including the protection spell on Jocelyn and the strength spell on Baeros. Third, all of the magical sources of light the party are carrying immediately extinguish, plunging the entire room into darkness.

Brock takes a swing at the kyton, but due to the sudden change in lighting, he misses completely with his axe. The kyton, confused as to why the chains have stopped, looks around in confusion.

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Initiative
Jocelyn (1d10+3): 6+3 = 9
Ouragana (1d10+3): 7+3 = 10
Val (N/A)
Baeros (1d10+1): 3+1 = 4
Gallath (1d10): 4
Granite (1d10): 8
Drav (1d10): 9
Brock (1d10+7+1): 8+7+1 = 16
Thaddeus (1d10+3): 8+3 = 11
Kyton (1d10+3): 10+3 =13

Round 1!

Val does nothing.
Baeros moves 5 feet west and 10 feet north, then taunts the kyton.
Gallath moves 15 feet north and enters the room. He makes a WIS check [TN 10] (1d20): 16, fail. He suffers a -1 to initiative due to shock.
Granite walks 5 feet northeast and peeks into the room. He makes a WIS check [TN 05] (1d20): 5, pass.
Drav walks 5 feet north and peeks into the room. He makes a WIS check [TN 07] (1d20): 13, fail. He suffers a -1 to initiative due to shock.
Jocelyn attempts to turn the kyton [TN 19] (1d20): 1, fail.
Ouragana casts Dispel Magic, centered on the kyton. All magical effects within a 30 foot cube are potentially disrupted.
----Kyton [TN 14] (1d20): 20, success. The kyton's magic is disrupted this round.
----Jocelyn [TN 12] (1d20): 12, success. Her Magical Vestments are dispelled.
----Ouragana [automatic success]: Ouragana's eternally bright silver piece, Baeros' eternally bright arrows, and Gallath's eternally bright copper piece are all dispelled. The room is plunged into darkness.
----Baeros [TN 10] (1d20): 16, success. The Strength spell is dispelled.
----Granite [TN 18] (1d20): 3, fail. His Potion of Fire Resistance is not destroyed.
Thaddeus cannot fire his wand, as he cannot see his target.
Kyton cannot use his abilities.
Brock swings his axe with great skill (+1 hit/+2 dmg) and strength (+1 dmg) at the kyton [TN 16] (1d20): 8, miss.

(OOC: Val and Thaddeus were the only ones outside the range of the Dispel Magic effect, so they remain unaffected. If she pulls it out, Val's eternally bright silver piece still functions as a result. If you do not have infravision, you are unable to see anything right now. There are no windows in this room, so no sunlight is escaping into it.)

[HorizonsDream]

"Everyone back out of the room!" Jocelyn calls out in anger. She starts to back away from where she saw the kyton last.

[Breila]

(OOC: Chaotic alignment + low wisdom = potential disaster. But frankly, I didn't know clerical spells were affected as well.)

Seeing - or rather not seeing - what she has done, Ouragana stands stock-still in shock. After Jocelyn's call, she tries to hear what is going on the room, still not moving.

[BishGada]

Baeros steps back until he touches Jocelyn. "Stay behind me. Don't let it touch you." He continues to move making sure Jocelyn is safe. "Brock! You too. Behind me until we can see again!" Baeros do all he can to pierce the darkness with his eyes and listen to the rattle of the chains. He holds his swords in front of him to protect from frontal assault.

[Nuke]

Val pulls out her light and stands ready to try and help.

[BishGada]

In the moment the light returns Baeros tries to tackle the demon aside to one corner, making way for the others to spread in the room. Then he tries to use the demons own chains to restrain his movement. Would he success he would call the others, "Quick! Follow the plan! And bring here silver or magical weapon!"

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(OOC: Original plan was to draw the demon out but since it didn't work so well Baeros would try to use the element of surprise and create a similar situation enabling the others to search for the hammer and free the planeteer.
I thought I'd have to roll attack, but invisible castle is down...
)