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[chubby2man]

Well, clearly negotiations with this murderous cult have broken down. The circling fish warriors tighten around you, while the scaly prophet stares you down, eyes glowing with power and malice.


You act first, drawing on your wells of power. Deep below the earth flow rivers of mephitic vapors, deadly to life. Luckily, you are already dead. You exhale a breath you didn’t take, and death flows out.


The boat disintegrates around you. As you slip into the water you turn your head to the warriors circling you. The vapors, empowered by magic, ripple through the water, turning it noxious and brown. The warriors try to swim away, but they are too slow to escape the foul wind hitting their skin. Their flesh disintegrates quickly and mercifully.


The prophet snarls as he draws a bubble of water around him. It crackles with red energy as it spins, drawing freshwater to replace the water tainted. Eventually your deadly wind fades, leaving only a furious prophet before you.


”Ralovlacus, I call on you!”


Power ripples out, and the answer comes quickly, a school of silverfish rising and dashing towards you. You narrow your gaze and summon your magics to hand-

-And the fish don’t slow, slamming into you with a desperate, unnatural speed. One after another, shattering your bones. If you had functional organs they would have ruptured from the sheer force. Your power forces your bones back together in a series of snaps, but that hit stung. The broken fish float around you as the prophet sneers at you.

Well that won’t do. You take the energy you have to hand, dark and filled with stars, and send it crackling at the old fish man. It burns across his body, but he grits his jaw. He gestures, and water solidifies at his hand into a spear. A wave and it speeds across the water into your body.

Huh, that pierced your cold dead heart. You see another silver flash as a shoal of those fish gather themselves for an attack. Empowered by the divine, you notice, hitting far harder than their mortal frames should allow.

If unhindered, they would do too much damage to your frame. You draw on more of your divine power, a dark halo forming around your hands. You will a shield into place of Truth: You Shall Not Pass and it forms a wall in front of you. The fish launch their attack, furious and shimmering with Ralovlacus’s power. It avails them not, as they smash themselves into your wall, bodies bursting from the force of it.

You narrowly dodge another spear, this one flung towards your head as you send a counter-bolt in response. A fish sacrifices itself, dashing before your missile aimed at your foe.


The prophet spreads his arms and calls out once more to his god. A whirlpool forms above you, spinning into a deadly point above you. The bodies of fish and fishmen are drawn into it, and torn apart by the sheer force of it. The tip rapidly approaches, and you draw upon the last of your divine power to brand another Truth to the world, that your body cannot be harmed by the water.

The whirlpool hits, but instead of tearing apart your body, it merely spins you and flings you away, deeper into the lake. Your divine energy spent, you swim towards the lake bottom and the ground, where you have the advantage. Feet away from it, a bubble forms around you, drawing you back up towards the surface and your foe.


You turn and look at your foe. He is panting in the water, his glowing eyes dimmed. He has exhausted most of his power as well, you can tell.

“You won’t escape that easily, Lich.” The prophet pants, spear of water forming at his side.

You raise your hands crackling with your eldritch power. “I won’t need to.”

Your power boils out of your fingers like lightning, coursing through the water and boiling his flesh, the ancient fish man cries out as he sends out his own spear, darting into your chest.

Your body repairs the hole it left, his slowly disintegrating body does not. An amulet sparkling with power reveals itself, and you swim over and take it, seeing at a glance it's enchanted with powerone that aids the wearer in understanding the world and how to effect it.


+2 Amulet of Wisdom gained (Note that your own powers are too strong to be affected by petty enchantments like this. Good for an ally or as a gift!


A cry ripples out through the water. You turn in its direction and see a makeshift underwater town rising from the lakebed. Fish people swim frantically about it, grabbing weapons and organizing themselves. You feel the gods' presence there. It is wounded, having invested some of its power into the prophet you just defeated. It would be a good time to strike.


However, your own energies are spent, and your body is somewhat damaged by your fight. You would be renewed in time to fight again tomorrow, but your enemy will as well.


(0/4 Effort remaining, 7/15 health)


What do you do?

A- Retreat, gather your strength before coming back.(Can fight again tomorrow, or gather more strength before attacking.)
B-Attempt to negotiate now.

C- Attack while they are on the backfoot. You don’t have much energy to fight with, but boldness wins the day. (Dangerous).

D- Something Else?

[Glass]

C
Thing is, we have A Heart Apart. If we die, then we come back in a day perfectly fine and with all our Effort so long as our Phylactery isn't found and destroyed - something I consider to be rather improbable. And hey, we may have the opportunity to retreat through the ground with Borer Beneath if things go poorly but we don't immediately get killed.

Also, it occurs to me that a better use of Effort in the encounter would have been using Fist of the Grave to regain health, as it's dedicated only for the scene and gives back twice the damage dealth. But oh well.

EDIT: We should 100% do whatever we can to make sure we can use Borer Beneath for hit and run shenanigans.

[Glass]

A Rowdy Bunch

Deep underground - well, okay, not that deep, it's just a large cavern chamber - underground, a group of soldiers - rebels - they're definitely soldiers, they're allowed to be both-

Listen. There's a bunch of men and women with armor and weaponry and they're congregated around a table in a cave. It's not that complicated.

Ahem. So.

It's approaching late evening - not that anybody there can see that, but they do know it because they've got hourglasses roughly keeping time - it's approaching late evening, the day shift has finally been released from training and other duties, and the soldiers are doing what any soldiers do when they get out of work and onto their break.

Drinking. And, considering their high spirits, having fun with it, rather than drowning any potential sorrows. Indeed, somebody started singing a drinking song.

"The friar once called him a blight on the world,
A vector of darkness, the evil unfurled;"

One rather... unique.

"He hasn’t said shit since the Truth has come out-
That bastard can’t crap without having to shout!"

Well, okay, the tone wasn't unique. And it's not like the church and state weren't common targets of lampooning in such music.

"He’s clammy and skinny, no meat on his bones;
Mama says to eat, but he’s nothing but groans!"

Really, it was their choice of champion. It wasn't often that undead of any variety became folk heroes.

"But drink, oh he drinks, and we drink along with him
We’ll toast and we’ll cheer for the the great Magnimian!"

Of course, most undead didn't set out on missions to make a good impression. Well, no, they frequently did, but those impressions were nearly universally of the bitten-out variety, rather than that of cultivating a reputation.
Regardless, with the opening of the chorus came the full rabble of voices joining the song.

"And deep underground will the Empire fall
As Truth rings aloud and is heard by them all!
They’ll know that the bones of the Earth truly hold
The greatest of hearts cast in glorious gold!"

One rebel, recruited from the "witches" Friar Gerus had taken, chimed in with the start of the next verse:
"The Church, how it hates him, he makes them look horrid,
The villages love him for bones by the hundred!"

And after her, another, once a member of the Leahorn Royal Guard, followed:
"The Baron despises how he cannot find him;
Our Red Fox adores him for just the same reason!"

Theatrically, at one end of the table, a rebel swept an arm out, hushing the rest of the crowd. He whispered,
"He’d know when you’re sleeping and when you’re awake-"
-before jamming his mug into the air with a wild grin, and shouting:
"If he gave a shit what we do on our break!
But he knows the Truth that the Empire hates:"

And as the group prepared for the chorus, some jumped in early.
"We’ve got our own business, get out of our face!"

Beer, wine, and other spirits were being sloshed around, the gleeful rebels caring little for the lost alcohol as they all swept into the chorus once again.

"And deep underground will the Empire fall
As Truth rings aloud and is heard by them all!
They’ll know that the bones of the Earth truly hold
The greatest of hearts cast in glorious gold!"

A blacksmith from Saunder’s Vale, there to help with equipment maintenance, chimed in:
"They call him a Lich Lord, focus on the first-
They’re shitting themselves thinking of zombie hordes!
But here is the secret they cannot abide:"

He - and half a dozen of the other revelers - taps his forehead.
"He’s scary ‘cause he is a Lord with a mind!"

Unseen by the men and women, from a tunnel nearby, the Red Fox stalks out, face stern from another day of managing a rebellion.

"So sing and be merry, let’s have us a toast
To that benefactor who trusts us the most!"

However, as he draws nearer, one after another sees him. The song starts to peter out, but some still sing...

"When down comes the Empire, we know who’ll step in:"

...until only one oblivious drinker is singing.

"Our glorious, dirt-covered Magnimian!"

The man finally notices the flickering, candle-made shadow over him, as he turns to look at the dark face of his leader. After staring at each other in tense silence for a moment that seems to stretch on forever, the Red Fox looks up, casting his baleful gaze around the table. Multiple rebels gulp, some on spirits, others on the last saliva of suddenly-dry mouths.

Then, suddenly, the Fox grabs an unattended mug of ale, downs the entire thing in one go, and then holds it out to the table, before belting out:
"And deep underground will the Empire fall
As Truth rings aloud and is heard by them all!
They’ll know that the bones of the Earth truly hold
The greatest of hearts cast in glorious gold!"

Faces aglow, the rebel leader's soldiers once again raise their voices in revelry, as the song of rebellion echoes in its cavern home.

[King Zultan]

C Let's go kill a god!

[Rockeater]

C

[chubby2man]

You have this monster on the back foot, and though you yourself are wounded and weary, this Ralovlacus had invested power into its prophet now lost to him.

You plunge into the lake bottom, a hole swirling open through the mud and debris and welcomes you into the earth’s embrace.


You tunnel towards the source of the rage and power you sensed earlier, surrounded by the ramshackle underwater settlement. You travel for long minutes, water dripping into dark slurry beneath your feet as the mixture of stone and dirt opens in front of you and seals shut behind.


Eventually you come to a concrete wall. While you cannot tunnel directly through it, the magic that comes to your hand begins digging through it. You peer inside, and seeing no danger, step through.

It is, of course, entirely submerged in water. Machines and workstations spread before you, coated with lichen. You can barely see the other end of the room, from the distance and rusted hulks of the factory machines. The closest machine, worn away by water and time, reveals little but for the origins. You almost whistle.

Who would expect to find the remains of a Taviresh maufactury in their lake?

Of the Taviresh even you had little more than scraps of lore pertaining to them. An ancient people, they made wonders and miracles. Some say they even made the gods themselves. A Great War shattered them, and in their shadow other races like the elves and dwarves arose. Their artifacts are still greatly sought after, for their knowledge and lore ran deep.

You walk forward through the hulks. Great machines, lathing and pressing and forging. After thousands of years, it is a wonder that even this much remains of them.

At the center of the room lies a dozen fallen statues in a haphazard. Man height, most of them made of marble, and though finer detail on their face was worn away by the water and by time, you can still sense the glimmer of magic in the stone. The spears in their hands were similarly enchanted, steel bright and sharp.

However,on top of pile, lies a masterwork in steel. Taller than the others by half a meter, it shone with magic where the others glimmered. However, it still lay dormant, a socket in its chest lay empty. A socket for a power source, you reckon. There were tales of the legions of stone and metal men, forged by the Taviresh. Some say they stormed the very gates of heaven.

You look around, but do not see any sign of the power source in this room. You follow a ramp up at one end of the room, and you see the sun shining through the murky water, silhoutting the patrolling fishmen.


A squat temple looms ahead of you. Whatever purpose it originally served has been buried by a tangle of debris, wooden and metal, placed and carved into crude effigies. A lazily spinning whirlpool of water churns above it.


What do you do?

A-Barge through the front door and start blasting.

B-Tunnel underground and try to surprise from beneath.

C-Something else?


*Edit D-Attempt to sneak around using tunnels and to try to find the power source for those automatons* (And hope they are friendly)


(0/4 effort, 7/15 health)

[Glass]

B

Specifically, we should be using Borer Beneath to briefly pop out to make strikes, before swiftly shifting back into the solid stone where retaliation against us is made dramatically more difficult. If we cannot be seen, and there are a dozen feet of earth and stone between us and our attacker, they will find it rather difficult to properly damage us, while we will still have the ability to strike back at them.

[King Zultan]

B

[Madman198237]

B

Specifically, we should be using Borer Beneath to briefly pop out to make strikes, before swiftly shifting back into the solid stone where retaliation against us is made dramatically more difficult. If we cannot be seen, and there are a dozen feet of earth and stone between us and our attacker, they will find it rather difficult to properly damage us, while we will still have the ability to strike back at them.

+1

[King Zultan]

B

Specifically, we should be using Borer Beneath to briefly pop out to make strikes, before swiftly shifting back into the solid stone where retaliation against us is made dramatically more difficult. If we cannot be seen, and there are a dozen feet of earth and stone between us and our attacker, they will find it rather difficult to properly damage us, while we will still have the ability to strike back at them.

+1

+1 Probably better than the generic B on its own.