Crypts of Chaos

[Prak]

"The cultists are mind-magic users, yes? Well, three of us have little to fear from them. I could zombify them after we slew them, unless you want them, Xil'. Cultists typically have a good bit of shine around, are these ones ascetic? If it gives us power or shine, and we can come out on top, I say we do it."

[Avoraciopoctules]

Berry seems at a loss for words, then sighs, and gives a coldly clinical description of Elder Thingol.

The figure in the chair is an old one of gargantuan proportions - at least ten feet tall if it stood upright, though how its sparse frame would support the huge oblong mass of its head, which rests on a kind of shelf behind it, you cannot guess. Moreover, this is the first one you have seen that is...old. The mauve skin has faded to a purple-grey, and seems oddly thin, spotted; loose and ill-fitting, so that it sags in thousands of fine wrinkles. The tentacles too are grown beyond proportion, vast ropey probiscuses that resemble the trunk of an oliphant in size and girth.

The second thing you notice are the odd angles of its limbs, obviously broken on the wrack. Withered hands and feet dangle uselessly at the ends of broken arms and legs, the bones twisted out of position so that you can see them bulge against the skin. There are scars there too - stretch marks where the creature had been stretched out until bones and muscles broke, rings of wragged dead skin on wrist and ankle, rows of tiny sucker-like bites all around the torso.

"So? He's got limbs, right? If they don't work, we can graft on replacements."

Xil raises one of her own arms.

"Check this out. Looks pretty much the same as the other, right? The guy I took the magic axe from lopped my old arm off, so I grabbed a new one off a random body I had handy. And it works just fine. I'm no fleshwarper, but giving a basic limb replacement to a zombie or mummy is simple work.

Plus, we have a magic summoning staff handy. If we need a particular size of limb, we just call in something appropriate."

"The cultists are mind-magic users, yes? Well, three of us have little to fear from them. I could zombify them after we slew them, unless you want them, Xil'. Cultists typically have a good bit of shine around, are these ones ascetic? If it gives us power or shine, and we can come out on top, I say we do it."

"I say we split them. If I kill them with my breath in battle or we take live prisoners, those can come back retaining their psychic powers. But go ahead and make the rest into shamblers or whatever. It is better if we can distribute control over our minions throughout the group."

[JigokuBosatsu]

"We'll see how it goes with Thingol. I definitely agree the cultists should become grease stains."

[Avoraciopoctules]

"Should we hit the Gnomeworks first or not? Should I summon up a huge army of undead spiders or do we want to go with something lower-profile to reduce the odds of enemy reinforcements?"

[JigokuBosatsu]

"Well, we're stealthier than we've ever been. Maybe hold out on the army of spiders."

[Avoraciopoctules]

"Yeah. Maximize our sneakiness, and maybe Ashazzar won't notice what we are doing. Maybe. So two of us skulk up and see what we can do, two more hold back a little so they can come in as backup? Once the first wave of mind blasts do nothing, we hit them as a collective while they are still shocked. Or do we just blitz them from the get-go and hope our momentum keeps them off-guard?"

[Avoraciopoctules]

Xilraxochitl checks over her gear, making sure everything is in place.

"Okay, at first this is gonna be a sneaking mission. I'll need to remember the basics of CQC."

She draws the beautiful dagger she retrieved for the Yugoloth earlier. "Knife"
Reaching over to a skeleton, she grabs one of the holy avenger pistols. "Gun"

She brings the two hands together, dagger facing down, quite close to the pistol as she sights down it. "Knifegun... no, I don't think so."
She puts the pistol away.

"There will still be time to adjust our plans once we get a little closer and have a better idea what we are up against. Let's check it out."

[Red_Rob]

"I can sing a soothing song that may dull opponents senses for a few moments, however it will not last long."

(If they fail a save they sleep for 1 round, which gives us a round of attacks I guess, then they keep making saves eac round until they pass one.)

[Avoraciopoctules]

"Sounds good. How's this for a plan: we just creep up on them and throw down a bunch of area effect stuff at once. Nice and simple, and they probably haven't dealt with anything quite like this in a while with Ashazzar keeping the peace. Work fast, and they'll never know what hit them. If we're lucky, they'll try to protect the big guy and make themselves into easier targets."

{Tek has some nice battlefield control SLAs, Ng'Thagai and Xil have powerful debuffs, and Berry has a powerful debuff on every attack and some alchemicals. We could incapacitate most of the room if we stack save-or-lose effects.}

[JigokuBosatsu]

"Sounds good. Let's go."

[Red_Rob]

"The foes are in the dark pyramid, yes? Then let us deal with them quickly, and depart this dead place."

Maximilian whines at the strange smells and sights. Ng'Thagai strokes him as they talk.

"There boy, calm."

[Avoraciopoctules]

Xil begins to skulk up towards Illithidville, keeping an eye out for sentries and alternative entrances.

[JigokuBosatsu]

Berry follows, javelin at the ready until the party reaches stabbing range.

[Ancient History]

'Xochitl and Berry sneak up to the entrance. There are tracks in the sand leading up to the entrance - tracks of different shapes and sizes. Four or five individuals, two small, one very large and heavy, two medium-sized. From within the entrance come the sounds of voices, too indistinct to make out, but they sound like humanoids.

[Prak]

Tek will likewise sneak up with them, staff at the ready (Assuming someone gave him the command words... I think I at least have "Damnit")

[Avoraciopoctules]

"You've got the sneaky gear, right? Take point, and see if you can see what's going on. I'll be a few paces behind you, to balance being able to help out with avoiding giving you away."

{You also know whatever word Archie used to summon. I think it had a Z in it. A glabrezu could do a lot of damage here.}

[Red_Rob]

Ng'Thagai brings up the rear with Maximilian, keeping a wary eye out for the dreaded 'Mind Flayers'.

[Prak]

Tek sneaks ahead, ready to unleash a lightning bolt on anything hostile.

[Ancient History]

This close, the squat pyramid seems to give off an unhealthy radiation, and the black sand feels slick and sticky beneath their feet, as if mixed with oil. Still, the whole structure is relatively small - perhaps sixty feet square at the base, rising at a sharp angle for ten feet, then tapering off at a much shallower angle for a total height of thirty feet. The short tunnel is perhaps ten feet in length, illuminated from light pouring from a chamber with a large, seated figure.

Creeping into the entrance-way, the group can make out the voices more distinctly - as well as the telepathic echoes of pain emitted from Elder Thingol, whose chest and limbs bears evidence of recent, crude tortures.

"...tell us how to operate it!" - A rough whisper.

"We are wasting too much time, the others..." - A low-pitched, gently booming feminine voice.

"...could destroy them! As if they never were!" - A high-pitched, squeaky voice.

"...means of escaping this place...power undreamed..." - A male dwarf's voice, raspy and guttural.

Your group stops just on the threshold of the pyramid's sole chamber, the speakers just out of view.

[Avoraciopoctules]

A surge of pleasure runs through Xilraxochitl as she realizes the situation is diifferent in several respects from what she anticipated. She turns back to the others and whispers. "Small group. Can hit them all at once. Don't look at my eyes." She tries to sniff for any unexpected sentries.

Then she storms into the pyramid, gaze attack active, and engulfs as many of the non-Thingol presences as possible with her Breath of Death.

[Ancient History]

'Xochitl strides forward - and in the pale lights of the inner chamber, finally sees her foes.

There is a Blue librarian, a cracking fire-whip in her hands, prepared to sear another stripe in Elder Thingol.

A tall and emaciated Mauve One, brain showing through its translucent skull, dressed in a tight-fitting suit of leather.

An orc, naked save for a loincloth, obviously dead for some time and wizened as if buried beneath the sands. In one hand it holds its own rotting, decapitated, burned head, eye sockets glowing preternaturally with their own unwholesome green light.

A small, blue-furred ape, with only a featureless stump where it's head should be. On its raised left hand is a tiny, evil face with a mouth full of sharp, needle-like teeth. In its right hand is a strange device - a circle of stone, crystal, and metal, etched with Mauve One designs, with a pair of odd handles at either side.

A swarthy dwarf with a black beard in oiled ringlets, encased in full plate armor decorated with images of a spider, wielding a hammer that crackles with black lightning. A hand hangs on its chest as an amulet, with a black ring set with a red pearl on its middle finger.

A towering half-giantess, carrying an axe of purplish-blue energy.

They meet 'Xochitl's gaze, and his breath washes over them. The librarian and dwarf shiver. The eyes of the half-giant harden. The headless monkey-thing just smiles.

"Finally." It squeaks. "They're here. Kill them."

From outside the pyramid, there comes the not-too-distant sound of a single roar torn from five throats, and the sound of flapping wings...

[Avoraciopoctules]

Xil's next action depends on whether Ng'Thagai has covered the area using Waking Dreams and the other party members are moving in with their own area-effect attacks or summons. Unless the room is filling with greater fiends and/or flaming tentacles, she springs back out and away, rapidly adjusting to a strategy of attrition.

Whether retreating or capitalizing on a bunch of stacked spell effects to take some different action, she calls out to the gathering as she does so.
"I got a message for you weirdos from the Boss. It's 'Get Out', capiche?"

[After Breath of Death, Sudden Leap away as a Swift action. Next turn, either run or a move away after blocking sight to her with her second casting of Insect Plague. But if the other 3 turns of PC actions work out right, I may have a different course of action.]

[Whatever]

"...iiiiiiiiiiIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT" The scream grows louder as its source draws closer: what looks like a newly-hatched red dragon, speeding through the air, towards the pyramid. But clearly no ordinary drake. The glossy, scarlet scales of its head and back shade to night-black on three limbs and the tail. The fourth limb ends in metal, with the eldritch glow of the Cube shining forth from within it.

The dragon half-lands, half-tumbles to the ground at the entrance to the pyramid, wings still flapping. Seeing Berry with two others, it shouts, "We have to stop what's in there, before they destroy everything! And before everything destroys us! Hurry!"

[Avoraciopoctules]

{If Xilraxochitl hears what Cadwyn says, it will have a dramatic impact on her next action.}

[Prak]

The room is filling with flaming tentacles, yeah. Tek moves forwards and uses Daltim's Fiery Tentacles. After that, on his next turn, he'll line up as many of the villains as he can, without Thingol or allies in the way, for a lightning bolt, cawing a loud DAMNIT!