Session 56

The Shroud sets off for their final battle.  Enveloping themselves in a variety of powerful divination magics and setting off to their first target, the Titan.

The massive brute was moving onto the bridge, trampling over man & beast alike.  As the Shroud moved in, Wasyli spotted an invisible Ghaele backing him up.  And he, along with Yvainne & Quell spotted the Princess off in the distance, commanding the heart of her army on the other side of the river.  Wasyli sounded a silent prayer to the Lord of Hell that his King did not see her.  For the rash Emmerick would have simply flown over the river & attacked her directly.  And the Lich sorcerer feared they'd relive history, as the old Barca king fell to the Markadian rebel in a similar maneuver.

Wasyli called out the Ghaele.  Yvainne was angry she could not she the creature.  So the vampire priestess of death made the only logical choice & gouged out her own eye & stuffed the massive emerald Eye of Vitra-Kali into the open socket.  The true seeing let her see the Ghaele.  And also see the Princess is actually Lord Havelyn.  She shouted out that the Princess was actually Havelyn.

Emmerick barked out "Where!"  His eyes glaring out across the field of battle, looking for them.  But before he could find anything, the Titan spotted the King & his allies & surged forward.  The King turned his attention to the matter at hand.

The huge creature stomping any soldier who stood in his way while his Ghaele companion called out for him to stop, but the Titan would have none of it.  He was going straight for the King.

He was greeted by the full might & fury of the Shroud.  Quell & Mardus moved forward, steel in hand.  Quell landing a powerful flanking attack.  Then Emerick took one step forward and slashed Helbrand back and forth.  The steel biting through the flesh of the titan.  The flashing of steel stopped as the blade was coated in Titan blood.  With a groan, the Titan fell forward.  The bridge shook as the massive creature fell before the King of Talengarde.

The Ghalee looked on in horror as in under a matter of seconds, her ally was dead.  She finally started to fumble with her backpack & got out some odd looking device.  Brother Summit shadow stepped right next to her & she quickly fell under his flurry of blows.

In under ten seconds, the Shroud was victorious.  Then off in the distance two objects came hurtling down from the sky.  But it was no angelic being coming from the Heavens.  It was instead two fiery meteor like objects.  Yet the flames were half fire, half pitch black.  There was no doubt.  The pit fiend had arrived.  The fiend & his companion landed in the heart of the battle between the two major armies.  There, near the last sighting of the Solar, the forces of Hell would be bolstered.

Quell paused a moment to collect some of the blood of the Titan.  He felt his ring try to overpower him and force him to drench it in the blood.  But with an Iron Will, Quell resisted the urge & put the vial of blood in his pocket instead before he & the rest of the Shroud quickly ducked back into their army as it surged forward across the bridge.  The six of them using the speed of the fight along with the number of their soldiers to stealth away.

With no apparent response forthcoming, the Shroud considered their next move.  Emmerick demanded to know about the Princess & Havelyn.  Wasyli & Yvainne filled him in.  But they were split on what to do.  The Pit Fined would have a hard fight against a Solar.  Even with an ally & the larger army.  But others argued to strike at Havelyn now.  While they had such a good opportunity.

As they argued, Emmerick got his Black Dragon, mounted it & said simply that the discussion was over.  He was going off to kill Havelyn.  And before waiting for a response, took off and started to fly across the river.  The rest of the Shroud rushed to follow their bold and crazy leader.

So, like the battle eighty years ago that happened in the same location, the Barcan King would fly across the lake & do battle with the Darian usurpers.  But that was were the similarities with history ended.

The Shroud, led by Emmerick swooped down into the heart of the enemy army and right in front of Havelyn.  As the fight began, the rest of the Sons of Balentyne moved forward from where they were hiding amongst the regular soldiers.

The wizard Eric had a powerful wish cast ahead of time.  He wished to go first in the Son's battle with the Shroud.  And it worked.  The evocer opened up by stripping some of the Shroud of their Resist Energy: Fire before casting timestop and buffing himself with displacement, mirror image and a host of other buffs.  As well as leveling the area in delayed blast fireballs.  As the damage piled up, Yvainne was sorely regretting the shield other spells she had cast on Quell & Emmerick.  As she felt the powerful fire magic burn her to a crisp.

Emmerick & Havelyn slowly moved forward, powering themselves up as they went.

Yvainne dropped her protection of Emmerick as she frantically tried to heal herself.  Unfortuantely for her, the hidden Ranger started to rain down arrows from over a thousand feet away from her hiding spot on the spire.  And her target was Quell.  Yvainne & Quell shared the pain as he was shot over & over again.

Mardus quickly got the resist energy: fire back up & had to start healing his companions too, as they continued to take more damage.

Wasyli tried to strip Eric the Wizard, but the Evoker had Spell Turning up, just as Wasyli did.  A powerful resonance was formed and the spell failed.  After that Wasyli focused on readying to Greater Dispel Magic whatever the wizard would try next.  And he did, as the next time the Wizard tried to remove the Shroud's fire resistance, Wasyli dispelled it.  The Sorcerer & Wizard got in a stalemate with their arcane magic countering each other.

Brother Donnagin followed with Havelyn & blasted Yvainne with a sunburst hoping to destroy the vampire outright.  But she managed to survive the blast.

Emmerick moved forward and taunted Havelyn calling out.  "Come here!"

Havelyn have him a grimace and responded "Not yet" before he moved past the King and savaged into the already floundering Yvainne.  Brother Donnagin following behind & bursting positive energy.  Under the combined assault the undead priestess was teetering.

The Shroud's cleric was badly hurt.  However, the Shroud was exercising the same maneuver.  Brother Summit shadow stepping next to the Cleric of Mitra & beating him down blow after blow.  Quell tried to get in on the fight, but was still getting badly hurt by the never ending rain of Arrows falling down on him.

Mardus rushed in and cast waves of ecstasy.  It was enough to stagger the Paladin & Cleric if nothing else.  And that gave Yvainne enough time to flee & try to heal herself and while at it, she managed to use unholy word to blind, deafen & stun the Ghaele, removing her from the fight.  And made it to Quell in time to see the rogue fall under another barrage of arrows.

Lord Havelyn, staggered, with Yvainne out of reach, turned to meet Emmerick.  "It it time false King!"  Emmerick gave a wicked grin  "Not yet" and he stepped past the Paladin and slashed Brother Donnagin over and over again.  Helbrand drenched in the blood of the holy man.  When Emmerick was done, the Priest lay dead on the ground.

Emmerick then turned to meet Havelyn, with Mardus backing him up.

Before Yvainne could bring her rogue friend up, both of them got blasted by another fireball from Eric.  The damage was enough to cause Yvainne to revert to her gaseous form, as the vampire had taken too much damage.  Quell would surely have been dead but for his Ring, which having been charged with the blood of a fiend, was granting the elven rogue immunity to fire.

Emmerick was blind to the plight of his allies.  He and Helbrand were blood drunk.  He advanced on Havelyn, Mardus & Brother Summit there backing him up.  And the King of Talengarde killed his third enemy of the day.  For when he was done, the Paladin lay dead on the ground.  To make sure the paladin would not be rescued, Mardus stuffed his body into his large bag of holding.

With three of the five sons of Balentyne lay dead, only two of the six Shroud had fallen the Ranger knew what was coming.  She had but a moment to act, so she reached into her handy haversack and quickly removed her magical rocket, the same kind as the Titan and Ghaele had at the bridge.  But this time, she was able to fire it off.

It burst overhead, in a shower of sparks & fire.  As the booming faded, it was replaced by the low roar of a Dragon.