10. THE DUNGEON MASTER: Initiative now is taken.
*These creatures are cold-blooded insects, so they should be weak against.... ICE STORM!* thinks Raistlin a.k.a. Elric a.k.a. The White Wolf a.k.a. Mulciber. *Yet.... they appear undead.... and thus should be weak against.... FIREBALL! Which is potentially even more damaging.... I may destroy some of the lesser members of the party.... like the Wood Elf.... or the Life Force Paladin.... or that Guy with the Thunderbolts.... but casualties are to be expected in times of war!* The ArchMagus readies his mind and soul to cast Fireball, an archetypical example of the kind of spell of which he is so fond: delightfully simple.... and devastating.
Giant Roach 17 and Giant Roach 19 are the first to close what little distance there was between you and the wasteland horde. Each of the two-foot-long insects dart toward the man in black as Zephyr, in shock, cries out his name:
"Ozymandias!"
The two roaches close upon the warrior. Fortunately, their mandibles sink into his trenchcoat rather than his flesh.
Tim the Enchanter lunges forward with his claw at Giant Roach 24, yet he is still unpracticed with the weapon and its blades clatter harmlessly against the hard floor. Meanwhile, Giant Roach 23's attack hits nothing save the skirt of his robe.
The skirt of the Samurai Manji's robe manages to consume the attention of Giant Roach 3, protecting him from its bite.
Giant Roach 18 latches on to Ozymandias' cargo pant leg, but the man in black manages to jerk his limb just in time to avoid being bitten. Still, with three of the primeval hexapods hanging off of him, it is apparent that the futuristic Fighter is beginning to be overwhelmed.
Giant Roach 6 crawls up the leg of the Paladin Enolc Det and attempts an attack, yet its mandibles are utterly unable to pierce the layers of hosen and steel which encase it.
The elven Mage Anuril, being not so well armoured as Eno, is also not so fortunate. The huge primal infestor that is Giant Roach 9 skitters up her bare leg and emits a hiss as it sinks its serrated bladelike mandibles into the Sorceress' succulent alabaster flesh. Anuril suffers 1 hit point of damage and shivers uncontrollably from the chill of the insect's touch.
Wolverine attempts to use his mental Force to control what minds the roaches possess, beginning with Giant Roach 2. Yet instead of the simple combination of nerve junctions belonging to an insect, the holy warrior is met with a frigid void which seems to hunger for his mind and soul. These creatures truly are of the undead. They are not foes to be fought by a Jedi; they are foes to be fought by a Paladin.
Giant Roach 11 attacks the Paladin Life Force, yet cannot tear through his armour.
The beleaguered Ozymandias is assailed by one more cockroach. Giant Roach 14 crawls up the other leg of his cargo pants and bites through it into his flesh before the man in black can react to the undead dark insect. The Fighter suffers 1 hit point of damage as a wave of cold racks his body.
Giant Roach 22 assaults the wood elf Farian Shadowstorm, yet the Ranger moves quickly and the monster bites only the slight heel of his hiking boot.
Giant Roach 8 crawls up Life Force's leg and finds that it, too, is unable to damage the Paladin.
Giant Roach 12 darts toward the position of Abadon the Despoiler, but he is prepared for it. "Star...." The Evoker raises his hands. "...Ok!" With this final syllable Abadon hurls a Magic Missile wreathed in orange flame at the primordial zombie. The force of this action causes a wave of movement to flow through the Wizard's long, dark hair as the Missile inflicts 4 hit points of damage to the Roach and incinerates it in a blossom of fire. One down, countless more to go.
The assault of a fourth Giant Roach and one that managed to pierce his defenses has caused Ozymandias to lose his protective position, leaving the elven Thief Zephyr open to attack. However, it also gives her the opportunity to attack in melee, and she attempts to use her short sword to extricate the Fighter in black from the grip of one of the undead beasts. Lamentably she misses, yet fortunately she does not actually hit Ozymandias by mistake.
Giant Roach 15 seizes the opening and opportunity to attack Zephyr, yet its mandibles dig into only leather and not leg.
Giant Roach 1 skitters toward The White Wolf, yet when it strikes it engulfs only the cape of the Tech-User knight whom the Wizard who now wears it urged the Paladin Woverine to slay.
"Watch out!" warns Samurai Manji to those near him as he hurls a barrage of four small shuriken throwing stars in rapid succession. The first clatters harmlessly into the midst of the malevolent mass of monsters and is buried within it. In the Ranger's haste, the second star almost slips from his fingers {Manji rolled a natural 1. Be grateful I don't believe in fumbles. -TDM.}, and it too is engulfed in the carpet of roaches. The Samurai's third shuriken {is another natural 1! -TDM.} is likewise lost. His fourth star, however, flies straight and sure and at great speed, striking Giant Roach 4 for 3 hit points of damage and coming close to slaying it.
Giant Roach 2 skitters around one of Wolverine's legs. Though it bites steel, it is only a fraction of an inch away from finding a chink in the Paladin's armour.
The Paladin Life Force attempts to remove Giant Roach 8 from his leg using his alien long sword. He is quite successful in this endeavour, slashing the undead insect from his limb and cleaving it in twain against the hard floor, inflicting 9 hit points of damage!
"Starok!" Anuril cries out the runes of her own Magic Missile spell as she places the finger from which it is to emerge against the head of Giant Roach 9. Though the creature could doubtless survive for some time without its head even if it were alive, the ensuing blast engulfs its entire body, inflicting 5 hit points of damage and destroying it. Still, the elven Mage finds this effort draining, for she can now move only with difficulty.
Giant Roach 16 assaults the Fighter Savanna Soux, yet cannot get through the leg of her leather catsuit.
Savanna emits a grunt as she uses some sort of telekinesis to tear a small piece of metal from the floor and shape it into a sphere. This she mentally levitates until it rests in midair between her palms, at which point the Fighter begins to spin the orb at high speed. Once it has gathered enough velocity, Savanna fires it into the undead horde with the force of a rail gun. The projectile misses Giant Roach 20 yet tears right through Giant Roach 21, dealing 14 hit points of damage and obliterating it.
Tim's skirt receives a second assailant in the form of Giant Roach 24, yet fortunately his legs within it are unharmed.
The laser sword, or light saber, is perhaps the ultimate technological melee weapon. An attack from one at full power is irresistible. For whatever reason cosmic forces have conspired to provide the mere level 2 warrior Farian Shadowstorm with such a weapon. Not only that, but this item is a double-bladed laser sword possessing a single power cell designed for enhanced energy. Still, the wood elven Ranger is uncertain how much energy remains, and thus he sets his sword to quarter power, deeming it sufficient for these foes.
{Farian received a natural 1 for his attack roll. You really don't want to fumble with a light saber. -TDM.}
The woodland warrior's energy blade sears a brand of molten metal into the floor, yet the undead roach he sought to strike escapes with skittering swiftness.
The dead-defiling vermin wounded by the Samurai Manji's shuriken seems incensed by that outrage. Moving with increased haste, it reaches the warrior and crawls up past his skirt and his armour and bites him in the neck. Though he immediately shakes off the cockroach, the Samurai suffers 2 hit points of damage and feels an intense chill wash over him.
The Paladin Enolc Det readies his long sword and thrusts its steel blade into the obsidian carcass of Giant Roach 6. Rending rotting chitin, the holy knight deals 7 hit points of damage to the undead arthropod as he pins it to the floor, slaying the beast.
Meanwhile Giant Roach 7 opens its polluted ebony forewings and reveals diaphanous hind wings which give the impression of decaying lace. It uses these to fly directly at Eno and land on his shoulder. The primeval hexapod {rolled a natural 20 and thus inflicts double damage. -TDM.} deals 4 hit points of damage to the Paladin, yet he appears to stave off the effects of the undead chill produced by its biting him thus in the neck.
Ice the Necromancer is tasting the fruits of his labours. His hand uncontrollably clenches around the sub-fiend's eyeball as though electricity were coursing through them both. Agony wracks his elven form, causing the loss of half of his hit points in damage {he loses 1 hit point. -TDM}. However, whatever energy is assaulting him also manifests a black burst of flame which flies from his fist and into the swarm of adjacent abominations, inflicting 4 hit points of damage to Giant Roach 20, incinerating it and scattering the adjacent insects.
Giant Roach 5 darts up and bites the Paladin Eno's leg, yet cannot damage him through his armour.
Giant Roach 10 and Giant Roach 13 attack the Paladin Life Force. Giant Roach 10 cannot pierce his leg plate, yet Giant Roach 13 moves with such supernatural speed that it crawls up to the holy knight's neck and bites him there {rolling a natural 20 -TDM} for 4 hit points of damage, sending a chilling wave through him which the Paladin resists with difficulty.
Ozymandias moves his wrist and closes his fist, sending a short mythril blade darting up from within his sleeve and forming a sort of punching dagger. This he strikes with twice in rapid succession at the rotting roaches crawling all over him. The Fighter of the future misses Giant Roach 19, yet only after hitting and killing Giant Roach 17 for 7 hit points of damage. The twice-slain corpse of the latter insect crumples at the force of Ozymandias' blow, and falls away as a withered husk.
The skirt worn by Tim the Enchanter is assailed by one more undead insect: Giant Roach 25. This primeval beast plunges its piercing serrated mandibles through said material and into the Mana Mage's leg, causing 1 hit point of damage and a sensation of numbing cold. The chill is so intense that the Wizard finds it difficult to move.... or even to feel.
The White Wolf is still inexperienced with the power bestowed upon him by the Dream Crystal. Thus, it takes the Arch-Magus some time to gather the energies of soul and mind necessary to manifest his Fireball spell. Yet at last the Sorcerer is prepared, and he smiles as he begins to chant the first syllable:
"FAR...."
"STOP! I offer you YOUR CHANCE TO ESCAPE causing another genocide the likes of which were the results of your last such endeavour!"
None hear this voice save The White Wolf, yet as he does so his sight is clouded and he receives a vision. In this stands a young womyn; a beautiful anime humyn, yet one whose features are concealed by a hooded white cloak belted at the waist with a Wyvern's tail. In the distance behind her stands a pillar of skulls draped in a web of chains.
A slight gust of wind blows enough of the womyn's hood away to show the ArchMagus a small section of her face, revealing a beauty so intense that it sears his eyes. Before the ArchSorcerer can be blinded, however, he is distracted by the emergence of four wraithlike dragon heads from around the womyn's humyn one, and a similarly wraithlike pair of great dragon wings erupting from her shoulderblades. As The White Wolf a.k.a. Raistlin Magere sees this, he recognizes the five-headed femail as his patron deity. It is Takhisis! Tiamat! The Serpent Goddess of Many Colours and None! She speaks:
"When does the End of the World begin? And for whom?"
The ArchMagus gazes at her incredulously. "What are you talking about?" He asks.
The Dragon Queen does not answer him. Instead she states: "Magic is the energy of creation. With it, you need only hurt those whom you choose to hurt." With that, the vision vanishes.
The White Wolf Mulciber is left to ponder this divine encounter in the dark. *Hmmmph. At least her statements may be interpreted literally.* He muses. *Is this compassion, Tiamat? Hardly befitting the dragon goddess forged from the original chaos. Perhaps you have grown too lawful for your own good! But very well.*
An astounding amount of magical energy has built up within the ArchMagus by this point, and a great wave of ecstasy washes over him as he at last releases it. He actually levitates ten feet above the floor, and his hair and cape ripple in a wind generated by only the force of his power. "Magic is the energy of creation." States The White Wolf, echoing Takhisis. "And I create.... fiery destruction! FAR...." The ArchMagus raises his arms above his head. "...ORB!"
The White Wolf hurls a huge fireball into the darkness which almost immediately impacts with one of the elven canisters barely hidden by it. It bursts with a low roar and engulfs the entire party in crimson, sun, and scarlet flame.
Has ever a Fireball burned so bright, or seared with such an intense heat? It cannot be said, for the magic spell has been maximized by the dragon goddess. Each of your insect assailants suffers 60 hit points of damage, at least ten times that which is necessary to destroy them, and your senses are overcome by the scent of decayed flesh and bone being incinerated. It is an immolation.
And yet you are unharmed. The cosmic conflagration sweeps over you painlessly and emits what you think should be a heat capable of melting your eyes in their sockets, yet you are undamaged. Instead you witness from its core a minute starbirth which illuminates the cold steel catacomb as if with the fire of a dying sun.
Unfortunately this illumination reveals a large number of giant undead roaches that backed away and hid behind canisters, thus being unharmed by the ArchMagus' Fireball.
The Samurai Manji unsheathes his artisanwork Katana. "No!" Exclaims the Warrior of the East. "There's no escape!"
Undaunted even by such powerful magic as that of The White Wolf, the primeval vermintide rushes in once more.
Links to other sites on the Web
Back to the official Serpents & Sorcery: The Desperate Quest main page