Post by Learned Hand on Feb 26, 2008 21:11:37 GMT
It takes some time for Crimson Voice to heal from the wounds he is no doubt privately thinking of as ‘a gift from Eight Curses’. During that time The Maze of Doom is dismantled, depriving the lunars of much-needed experience points. The maze itself is largely devoid of clues but Ronald can fill in the blanks. It turns out that the cult have decamped to a volcano further west, partly because it is rumoured to be the site on which a primordial was slain, but mostly because volcanoes are cool. If Silver Claws is still alive he’ll be there, although Eight Curses thinks it’s more than likely that he’ll be running the whole shebang. Either way, it’s time to saddle up. As soon as Ronald can tool himself up with enough firewands to effectively double his weight.
The volcano’s crater is about 200 metres across and effectively bottomless. Some people say if you were to fall you would land in Malfeas. Today, however, it has a bottom. It also has 15 giant tree trunks standing upright in a circle around a rocky platform, itself supported by an impossibly thin sliver of rock disappearing into the crater. Each trunk is secured to its neighbours, the crater lip, and the platform by over a dozen fist-thick ropes. The rocky platform is a base for a metal dome, with 15 giant gongs, spaced to match the trees. Human guards swarm over the flat tops of the trunks and the platform, whilst winged demons fly overhead.
Crimson Voice turns into a bee to scout out the terrain, beginning with the platform. As he buzzes across the gap, the men on the trunk nearest Moonlight and Curses begin to evacuate, climbing sailor-style across to the platform. The few remaining men begin to sever the ropes joining the tree to the crater lip, and its neighbours. About 20 seconds later the people on the next tree begin to evacuate. It appears as if it is time for action.
The lunars attack suddenly. The hawk-formed Curses turns into his war-form in mid air, landing on the near-empty trunk and taking out all but one of its occupants before they even know what is happening. Bee-Voice becomes Donkey-voice and kicks two of the men outside the dome into the abyss. Moonlight unleashes Death of Obsidian Butterflies, towards the remaining trunks, hoping to disrupt whatever arcane ritual is happening, but improbably misses her target. Ronald, wishing to disassociate himself from such an abject failure simply charges down the remaining ropes towards Curses, blasting a sweeping demon out of the air, and jumping from rope to rope as they are severed by the remaining cultist.
A few seconds later and there is no remaining cultist, only a smug, and slightly less-hungry Eight Curses. Unfortunately for Ronald, one of the flying demons has realised that it is possible to cut the ropes behind him. Fortune favours the brave, however, and Ronald’s desperate leap enables him to be caught by Curses who rides the toppling tree trunk long enough to throw Ronald at the cultists on the platform. A flying kick knocks out one; a flamewand to the head takes care off the other.
Unfortunately, the gong first gong has been struck, and chants of ‘Five Minutes to go’ echo across the crater.
Time is short. Curses lifts open one of the metal doors and calls for the others to get inside. Voice quickly finishes of all-but-one the remaining cultists, by grabbing them and jumping off the cliff-edge; an unlikely yet successful strategy if you’re the only one who can fly. Curses simply grins at the last mook, who decides he’s better off taking his chances with gravity. Moonlight summons a cirrus skiff and joins her pack inside the dome.
Our heroes are faced with a corridor that appears to run right out the other side of the dome. The only feature is a silver plinth in a circular room, cut roughly into the walls. As they approach it, they meet its guards; four blood apes. 10 seconds later Moonlight is retrieving her arrow from one of their eyes, Raptor-Voice and Curses are cleaning the ape-blood of their claws, and Ronald is reloading.
The plinth handily opens doors. It also deactivates any charms that have active effects, and stops the use of charms full-stop. The only way to switch this off is to get to the control room. It takes almost three minutes and half a dozen more kills to negotiate the maze. It would have taken significantly less for anybody with a working knowledge of series 4 Angel and Indiana Jones films, but Moonlight messed up another lore roll. Unfortunately, just as our heroes are about to ascend the final stairs, the massed cultists outside work out how to open the doors. Without charms, they may just overwhelm the lunars.
It’s time to run, but the cultists are too close. There’s no choice, Ronald knows he has to make the ultimate sacrifice. Pulling what can only be described as grenades out of his coat he tells the others that he’ll hold up the cult. He gets a kiss from Buxom-Wench-Voice for his troubles, and then there is no more time for delay.
One quick puzzle later and charms are back on, doors to the control room are sealed, and the lift has been summoned. There are about 90 seconds left until Something Bad Happens. Sadly, nobody shouts ‘let’s do it’, which means that as the lift descends, there is plenty of time to listen to the sounds of Ronald’s screams.
The lift takes the lunars into a huge cavern. The floor is molten, save for a few floating rocks, and a large platform in the middle with two distinct features. The first distinct feature consists of dozens of babies and children strapped to the platform in such a way that they spell out ‘arise’ in old real. The second distinct feature is a person, tucked away in a dome, waving his hands in a suspiciously arcane manner. Leading away from the pack are a series of glass tunnels of Escherian complexity, ducking, weaving, merging, and splitting. Voice and Curses set off down one. After a moments hesitation, Moonlight (still, incidentally, on her cloud) floats down another.
80 seconds
However, ‘the man in the dome’ (we’ll call him ‘SC’) is not without protection. Winged demons swoop towards the heroes. Moonlight and Curses are able to dodge; Voice, remarkably, is also able to neatly step out of the way to set up a square off.
And, indeed, things look bad for the attacking demons. Curses does what he does best and begins eviscerating whatever is in front of him. Moonlight is able to land some solid shots of an arrow and escape from the return fire (literally – these are the fire-breathing kind of demon). Unfortunately, they’re not alone, and just as Moonlight begins to pull back her bow again she takes a flying demon to the chest, shattering the glass tunnel and pining her up against the wall.
70 seconds
Curses is in trouble as well; Voice’s demon seems unconcerned with Voice, and joins its partner in sending a tunnel of flame towards the full moon. The two jets of flame will be undodgable when they miss, so Curses neatly shatters the glass around him in order to avoid them. Which is fine, except he has 7 seconds until he hits lava and it will take 5 of them to shift form. Nor is he alone in this plight. Perhaps irked by his demon’s ignoring him, Voice turns into a T-Rex and eats it. Unfortunately, the tunnel is no T-Rex sized and shatters around him, forcing Voice to fall.
Both falling lunars are able to adopt flying forms and land in lower tunnels, and Moonlight is able to turn into a tiny owl and escape her captor, but they are greatly outnumbered. Indeed, the demons are now avoiding direct engagement, and are simply destroying the tunnels around the lunars, hoping to drop them into the lava. Voice is sent hurtling, and it is only thanks to some speedy cloud riding by Moonlight, ducking and weaving around tunnels and demons alike, that his life is saved. Unfortunately, they are both now cornered, on cloud only metres above the lava. Curses, who was only able to hold on for seconds after his ally, seems doomed
60 seconds
With barely a minute left until hell is unleashed on Creation a loud crash attracts the attention of all the combatants. A golden comet has entered the cavern from the lift shaft and is hurtling down towards the lava. A golden rope flicks down and plucks Curses out of the air. The form continues towards the cornered cloud and with a scream of ‘Unrelenting Fire Storm’ explodes the demons near it. Another rope shoots out and up bringing the comet to a sudden stop. It is Ronald, fresh from his exaltation as a warrior of The Unconquered Sun. That was some good recruiting by Crimson Voice.
45 seconds
Ronald urges the lunars to stop the ritual whilst he holds off the demons. He watches the heroes disappear into the tunnel, and reappear in the dome. They appear to be having a rather heated discussion. One of them leaves and makes for the babies. One of the others is looking appraisingly at the original occupant’s ankles. His head bobs down for a second and the occupant screams. A few seconds later all three emerge from the dome. Eight Curses has a footless lunar over his shoulder, and a foot in each hand. It appears that Silver Claws was a prisoner, and being used to channel Malfean essence. There were some difficulties undoing the chains.
The disrupted ritual appears to have caused some sort of essence feedback, rendering a dramatic escape necessary. Tentacles are emerging from the lava, grabbing hold of anything they can find (mostly demons) or simply battering it out of the air. One flailing tentacle hits Moonlight until it remembers she is a tiny owl. In the confusion, Moonlight frees the babies, stashing them in some sacks she brought along for just such an eventuality, and rides off on her tiny cloud. The three boys must trust in Ronald’s ropes.
Pausing only to save Voice who allows himself to be grabbed by a tentacle, the party rush to the top and begin scaling the lift shaft, Ronald brings up the rear and using a series of perfect defences to keep the lava at bay. At the control room, barely metres away from the site of his last ultimate sacrifice, Ronald volunteers to make another one. Someone has to delay the eruption until the babies are away.
And he succeeds. Just as Moonlight completes her second cloud run, ensuring everybody is out of the crater, the whole thing explodes. The lunars look back and admire the raging forces within the crater, knowing that it is a mere fraction of what would have been unleashed if they had failed.
Then a rock hits Moonlight on the head and knocks her out. With a sigh, Voice and Curses each grab a body and a sack of babies and begin the long walk home. Fortunately, Curses knows that he has just failed a temperance roll and will soon be able to eat Silver Claws’ feet.
….
Behind them, the settling lava is broken from within by a clenching fist.
The volcano’s crater is about 200 metres across and effectively bottomless. Some people say if you were to fall you would land in Malfeas. Today, however, it has a bottom. It also has 15 giant tree trunks standing upright in a circle around a rocky platform, itself supported by an impossibly thin sliver of rock disappearing into the crater. Each trunk is secured to its neighbours, the crater lip, and the platform by over a dozen fist-thick ropes. The rocky platform is a base for a metal dome, with 15 giant gongs, spaced to match the trees. Human guards swarm over the flat tops of the trunks and the platform, whilst winged demons fly overhead.
Crimson Voice turns into a bee to scout out the terrain, beginning with the platform. As he buzzes across the gap, the men on the trunk nearest Moonlight and Curses begin to evacuate, climbing sailor-style across to the platform. The few remaining men begin to sever the ropes joining the tree to the crater lip, and its neighbours. About 20 seconds later the people on the next tree begin to evacuate. It appears as if it is time for action.
The lunars attack suddenly. The hawk-formed Curses turns into his war-form in mid air, landing on the near-empty trunk and taking out all but one of its occupants before they even know what is happening. Bee-Voice becomes Donkey-voice and kicks two of the men outside the dome into the abyss. Moonlight unleashes Death of Obsidian Butterflies, towards the remaining trunks, hoping to disrupt whatever arcane ritual is happening, but improbably misses her target. Ronald, wishing to disassociate himself from such an abject failure simply charges down the remaining ropes towards Curses, blasting a sweeping demon out of the air, and jumping from rope to rope as they are severed by the remaining cultist.
A few seconds later and there is no remaining cultist, only a smug, and slightly less-hungry Eight Curses. Unfortunately for Ronald, one of the flying demons has realised that it is possible to cut the ropes behind him. Fortune favours the brave, however, and Ronald’s desperate leap enables him to be caught by Curses who rides the toppling tree trunk long enough to throw Ronald at the cultists on the platform. A flying kick knocks out one; a flamewand to the head takes care off the other.
Unfortunately, the gong first gong has been struck, and chants of ‘Five Minutes to go’ echo across the crater.
Time is short. Curses lifts open one of the metal doors and calls for the others to get inside. Voice quickly finishes of all-but-one the remaining cultists, by grabbing them and jumping off the cliff-edge; an unlikely yet successful strategy if you’re the only one who can fly. Curses simply grins at the last mook, who decides he’s better off taking his chances with gravity. Moonlight summons a cirrus skiff and joins her pack inside the dome.
Our heroes are faced with a corridor that appears to run right out the other side of the dome. The only feature is a silver plinth in a circular room, cut roughly into the walls. As they approach it, they meet its guards; four blood apes. 10 seconds later Moonlight is retrieving her arrow from one of their eyes, Raptor-Voice and Curses are cleaning the ape-blood of their claws, and Ronald is reloading.
The plinth handily opens doors. It also deactivates any charms that have active effects, and stops the use of charms full-stop. The only way to switch this off is to get to the control room. It takes almost three minutes and half a dozen more kills to negotiate the maze. It would have taken significantly less for anybody with a working knowledge of series 4 Angel and Indiana Jones films, but Moonlight messed up another lore roll. Unfortunately, just as our heroes are about to ascend the final stairs, the massed cultists outside work out how to open the doors. Without charms, they may just overwhelm the lunars.
It’s time to run, but the cultists are too close. There’s no choice, Ronald knows he has to make the ultimate sacrifice. Pulling what can only be described as grenades out of his coat he tells the others that he’ll hold up the cult. He gets a kiss from Buxom-Wench-Voice for his troubles, and then there is no more time for delay.
One quick puzzle later and charms are back on, doors to the control room are sealed, and the lift has been summoned. There are about 90 seconds left until Something Bad Happens. Sadly, nobody shouts ‘let’s do it’, which means that as the lift descends, there is plenty of time to listen to the sounds of Ronald’s screams.
The lift takes the lunars into a huge cavern. The floor is molten, save for a few floating rocks, and a large platform in the middle with two distinct features. The first distinct feature consists of dozens of babies and children strapped to the platform in such a way that they spell out ‘arise’ in old real. The second distinct feature is a person, tucked away in a dome, waving his hands in a suspiciously arcane manner. Leading away from the pack are a series of glass tunnels of Escherian complexity, ducking, weaving, merging, and splitting. Voice and Curses set off down one. After a moments hesitation, Moonlight (still, incidentally, on her cloud) floats down another.
80 seconds
However, ‘the man in the dome’ (we’ll call him ‘SC’) is not without protection. Winged demons swoop towards the heroes. Moonlight and Curses are able to dodge; Voice, remarkably, is also able to neatly step out of the way to set up a square off.
And, indeed, things look bad for the attacking demons. Curses does what he does best and begins eviscerating whatever is in front of him. Moonlight is able to land some solid shots of an arrow and escape from the return fire (literally – these are the fire-breathing kind of demon). Unfortunately, they’re not alone, and just as Moonlight begins to pull back her bow again she takes a flying demon to the chest, shattering the glass tunnel and pining her up against the wall.
70 seconds
Curses is in trouble as well; Voice’s demon seems unconcerned with Voice, and joins its partner in sending a tunnel of flame towards the full moon. The two jets of flame will be undodgable when they miss, so Curses neatly shatters the glass around him in order to avoid them. Which is fine, except he has 7 seconds until he hits lava and it will take 5 of them to shift form. Nor is he alone in this plight. Perhaps irked by his demon’s ignoring him, Voice turns into a T-Rex and eats it. Unfortunately, the tunnel is no T-Rex sized and shatters around him, forcing Voice to fall.
Both falling lunars are able to adopt flying forms and land in lower tunnels, and Moonlight is able to turn into a tiny owl and escape her captor, but they are greatly outnumbered. Indeed, the demons are now avoiding direct engagement, and are simply destroying the tunnels around the lunars, hoping to drop them into the lava. Voice is sent hurtling, and it is only thanks to some speedy cloud riding by Moonlight, ducking and weaving around tunnels and demons alike, that his life is saved. Unfortunately, they are both now cornered, on cloud only metres above the lava. Curses, who was only able to hold on for seconds after his ally, seems doomed
60 seconds
With barely a minute left until hell is unleashed on Creation a loud crash attracts the attention of all the combatants. A golden comet has entered the cavern from the lift shaft and is hurtling down towards the lava. A golden rope flicks down and plucks Curses out of the air. The form continues towards the cornered cloud and with a scream of ‘Unrelenting Fire Storm’ explodes the demons near it. Another rope shoots out and up bringing the comet to a sudden stop. It is Ronald, fresh from his exaltation as a warrior of The Unconquered Sun. That was some good recruiting by Crimson Voice.
45 seconds
Ronald urges the lunars to stop the ritual whilst he holds off the demons. He watches the heroes disappear into the tunnel, and reappear in the dome. They appear to be having a rather heated discussion. One of them leaves and makes for the babies. One of the others is looking appraisingly at the original occupant’s ankles. His head bobs down for a second and the occupant screams. A few seconds later all three emerge from the dome. Eight Curses has a footless lunar over his shoulder, and a foot in each hand. It appears that Silver Claws was a prisoner, and being used to channel Malfean essence. There were some difficulties undoing the chains.
The disrupted ritual appears to have caused some sort of essence feedback, rendering a dramatic escape necessary. Tentacles are emerging from the lava, grabbing hold of anything they can find (mostly demons) or simply battering it out of the air. One flailing tentacle hits Moonlight until it remembers she is a tiny owl. In the confusion, Moonlight frees the babies, stashing them in some sacks she brought along for just such an eventuality, and rides off on her tiny cloud. The three boys must trust in Ronald’s ropes.
Pausing only to save Voice who allows himself to be grabbed by a tentacle, the party rush to the top and begin scaling the lift shaft, Ronald brings up the rear and using a series of perfect defences to keep the lava at bay. At the control room, barely metres away from the site of his last ultimate sacrifice, Ronald volunteers to make another one. Someone has to delay the eruption until the babies are away.
And he succeeds. Just as Moonlight completes her second cloud run, ensuring everybody is out of the crater, the whole thing explodes. The lunars look back and admire the raging forces within the crater, knowing that it is a mere fraction of what would have been unleashed if they had failed.
Then a rock hits Moonlight on the head and knocks her out. With a sigh, Voice and Curses each grab a body and a sack of babies and begin the long walk home. Fortunately, Curses knows that he has just failed a temperance roll and will soon be able to eat Silver Claws’ feet.
….
Behind them, the settling lava is broken from within by a clenching fist.
