Nir raised her open hand with the claw armor. Arcs of dark energy crackled between her fingers. The hairs on Nir's limbs stood up, and buzzing static filled the air causing pressure to build in the party's ears. At its apex, Nir locked her gaze onto
Dawn and unleashed the blast! The blast of energy caught
Dawn by surprise and exploded when it hit his face.
Dawn retreated behind the ruined tower as the robed men began to fire strange longbows that seemed to cause them to bleed every time they fired. The arrows also seemed to try to adjust themselves trying to hit their target. Meanwhile, Kaliaros and Krinos rushed the bridge to jump the river. Fennan speaks an incantation and a small mote of fire springs to life in his hand, which he then used to blast at the robed men firing upon them. Kaliaros fires back using a crossbow and providing healing to his fellow council who have been hit by the strange arrows. Fyx focused on inspiring the rest of the party, ensuring they succeed where they may have failed while trying to flank
Dawn by crossing the river near the ruined tower.
Now with Kadmos and Krinos on the north side of the river. Kadmos grabs his club and with a sudden, groaning creak, the ordinary-looking club cracks as small branches sprout from within and over the piece of wood. The club became a dense shillelagh with branches serving as bards. He and Krinos begin to pound the robed men while the rest of the party continued to use ranged attacks. One by one, the robed figures seem to dissipate, leaving behind only their robes and weapons.
Fyx is about to flank
Dawn, Fennan and Nir are still on the south side of the river, Kaliaros and Kadmos are on the north side of the river, near the riverbank while Krinos slowly approaches
Dawn, ready to pounce. Just as Fyx and Krinos go to pincer attack
Dawn, he begins to shout:
"Anger, pity, tears, laughter... death. Everyone dies one day, whether they are ready or not... that day will certainly come for ALL. TODAY IS THAT DAY FOR YOU!"
Dawn pulls out a shinning pink crystal which he shatters, from it erupts a thick pink cloud that expands into the forest covering the entire clearing. It's so thick no one could see more than 5ft into it. There's a scream that comes from
Dawn and everyone from the council felt some pain in their head but nothing serious. After a few seconds, the pink fog dissipates and everyone seems to be fine. However,
Dawn is on his knees visibly in pain.
Dawn looks up at the council members and is in shock, he winces in pain and begins to say
"How... are... you...". But before he can finish the sentence he begins to vomit a mixture of blood, bile, and what seems to be pieces of flesh.
You hear a large crack as
Dawn's back bends unnaturally backward, he collapses with his back to the floor. With another crack his chest splits open, four tentacles erupt from his chest and you see his skin begin to fall off and his bones begin to morph into a creature of nightmares.
The battle was intense, Fyx trying to break the monster's mind through dissonant whispers, Kadmos and Krinos pummeled at it with shillelagh and claw, Fennan continuously conjured motes of fire to try to burn the creature (though he often missed and started a couple of small fires that thankfully didn't spread), Nir fired blast after blast of dark energy while also cursing the monster and Kaliaros attempted to disable the monster while also ensuring his friends remained alive.
However, the monster was fierce, Kadmos nearly was taken out but was saved by Kaliaros. This forced Kadmos to retreat though. The monster pounced Nir and will a well-placed bite Nir fell unconscious. Even though unconscious, the monster still slammed Nir's unresponsive body while everyone watched in terror wondering if Nir was still alive. Kadmos and Fyx recklessly rushed to Nir who was at death's door. The creature caught Fyx with his tentacles and then swallowed him. Fyx knew that if he remained for more than a few seconds within the beast's maw, he wouldn't survive.
After what seemed like hours but in reality less than a minute trying to overcome this monstrosity, with a blast from Fennan's firebolt and a well-placed swing to the head from Kadmos with his shillelagh, Kadmos manages to crush the monster's skull against the bridge's floor. As that happens, the mouth on the monster's back opens up and Fyx manages to escape, though covered in blood and bile. Kaliaros and Kadmos rushed to Nir's aid managing to back from the brink.
After taking a breather, Fyx goes to wash in the river, though the smell of rot persists. Kaliaros inspects the creature's corpse and finds that
Dawn's belonging had become fused with the creature's flesh. Spending some time, Kaliaros retrieves 50 platinum, a silver funerary mask, and a purple rose with a strange glow to it. Kadmos checks the belongings of the robed men and decides to take two broken scimitars, one unbroken scimitar, and two longbows that he notices have strange thorns on the grip. Nir spends some time around the area where
Dawn broke the crystal and gathers up what remains of it.
Meanwhile, everyone was feeling a strange presence from the faintly glowing statue within the ruined tower. After a short rest, the team decides to inspect the ruined tower. The statue is a female human with a staff, on her shoulder was a perched raven. At the base of the statue were some runes that didn't match runes any on the council had previously seen. Approaching the statue to try to read the runes, Nir's eyes began to burn and glow, once the pain subsided she was able to read the runes and said out loud: "Echo". As Nir said the word, the statue moved to stand to attention.
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