Only a short while later, you hear Sparhawk yell down the stairs, "Friends coming down!" as he charges down the stairs with his sword drawn. Sparhawk and the rest of the party stop at the bottom when they see the dead demon, the symbols on the floor, and the 3 frightened students.
"Hm, seemed we missed all of the fun," Sparhawk quips.
Entering they see Tyekanik catch his breath as he slowly, again, shrinks back to his normal, half-giant, height. "Hah! That was the most excitement we've had! Even if it only lasted a second! They're gonna need to send bigger ****ers next time. I didn't even work up a sweat!" Then looking around says, "I'll let you book folk figure out what the hell they were up to. We got here just in time to stop the dead one from sacrificing a young girl."
"Sacrificing a young girl!?" Khessa's blue eyes seem ready to send flames towards the three students "I hope you realize what you were taking part in! But what did you think it was, killing? A game? A pastime? You would have ruined multiple lives, unfortunates! That of the victim, first of all. But at the same time yours, reckless fools! How much time do you think would have passed before the demons took you and your souls too? Did you think they would always be satisfied with your sacrifices alone?! Which they would have had the slightest gratitude for you?! They would have dragged you into their spiral of corruption, toying with you... and then making you end your earthly existence in a horrible way - and enjoy the torture of your souls throughout your eternal afterlife!"
“Of course,” the blonde arcane warrior brings the unsettling necrotic energy-laden tip of her Death Lance in the direction of the three “you know that the penalty for murder is death. And you were committing murder, no more, no less. But since you could be useful to me, I will commute your sentence. Instead of condemning you to death... I will condemn you to a suspended death. I will summon a powerful lord from the underworld. A lord to whom I will donate your lives, which until now you have shown to be wasting. If you ever get close to dark magic again, or to new murders... it will be free to collect them - and drag you into the eternal damnation of his kingdom! And you, in exchange of this second (and last) chance you have to live properly, will tell me all you know about eventual other guys like you doing things like those. Plus, from now on, you will actively discourage from using dark magic anyone you'll see taking interest in it".
"I summon you, Lord Akkron, Dark Devourer, Master of Torment, Ace of Remorseless Pain Giving!" the tall adventuress cries aloud, thunderously banging the Death Lance's butt on the floor, while turning for a moment towards the stairs (down which her lich friend will now have almost descended) and casting a terrible invocation which causes the place to fill with groans of pain of souls imprisoned in eternal torment "I call you back from the Bottomless Depths of the Restless Pits! Come to our dimension to mortgage these tainted souls whose pain and desperation you love to revel in for eternity! Leave your mark on them!"
After that, she waits for the 'terrible undead' to come and 'curse' the boys... hoping that the fright will be enough to make them refrain from that kind of behavior in the future - and to make them suddenly quite collaborative.
Akkron follows the others into the room after a moment and looks around at the carnage... so, the students actually managed to summon a demon. That is something.
"It seems we did..." Akkron says in reply to Sir Sparhawk, tapping on the slain demon's head with his staff.
Then he turns his empty eye sockets on the three students.
"Now then, what have we here... it looks like three would-be necromancers who got burned playing with fire."
He steps towards the three prisoners, studying them dispassionately. He lets them stew in uncomfortable silence as he stands before them.
(OOC: Well, he arrived and he scolded them... it's not like he said or did anything to contradict what Khessa said. And he can certainly still curse them)
Stifling a laugh Mal will approach Sparhawk and pull him aside, while the others are having their fun. She will explain what has gone on and give a description of the girl that was almost sacrificed and hand over the piece of her clothing that she gathered. In case they can not get her name form the 3 remaining idiots and they need to magically scry on her. She will then explain what transpired since she left the others at the school and followed the idiots to this location and Try joining her. Culminating with the demon being summoned and of her helping Tye kill the thing, before it could do too much damage, though she thinks it was able to gather the souls of the dead before they could kill it.
She will then continue her search of the room and rooms beyond as Khessa and Akkron have some fun with the remaining prisoners.
After a few moments of consideration, Akkron decides to give these jerks the scare of their life... he approaches one of them at random and reaches out a boney hand. He looks into the student's eyes, filling the student with paralyzing dread (using the Hollow One feature Unsettling Presence to give the student disadvantage on the saving throw for what he does next). Then he mutters an incantation, as an eerie green mist flows from his fingers and overwhelm the would-be dark wizard, twisting around him (or her, I don't think we really got a description of these idiots).
(OOC: Akkron casts bestow curse at 5th level on the student. The student must make a DC 24 Wis save at disadvantage. On a failure, the student will be forced to make another Wis save every round or waste its action doing nothing... I think this could be flavored as an all-consuming paralyzing dread. This effect will last for 8 hours, no concentration required. Oh, and if the student somehow succeeds in spite of disadvantage on the roll, Akkron will use silvery barbs to make him/her roll again)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Unhappy that the market got rid of individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
(OOC: Now we are talking! This is what Khessa was expecting... something a little dark-overlordish to scare those wretches for life!)
As Master Akkron proceeds, Khessa, counting on the fact that the three poor people will be mainly focused on him, uses Prestidigitation to add to the scene, already enlivened by echoes of heart-rending screams, a bit of the smell of sulfur mixed with the sweetish one of putrefaction and in the meantime she commands: "Remember well... No more things even remotely similar to what you were doing... Or the few minutes you are now spending here with the cruel Lord Akkron, the sadistic Dark Devourer, undisputed Master of Torment, and proud Ace of Remorseless Pain Giving, will become... your eternity! And now tell me, do you know of other professors who taught this type of Dark Magic, or of other wretches who allowed themselves to be seduced into practicing it?"
"Sacrificing a young girl!?" Khessa's blue eyes seem ready to send flames towards the three students "I hope you realize what you were taking part in! But what did you think it was, killing? A game? A pastime? You would have ruined multiple lives, unfortunates! That of the victim, first of all. But at the same time yours, reckless fools! How much time do you think would have passed before the demons took you and your souls too? Did you think they would always be satisfied with your sacrifices alone?! Which they would have had the slightest gratitude for you?! They would have dragged you into their spiral of corruption, toying with you... and then making you end your earthly existence in a horrible way - and enjoy the torture of your souls throughout your eternal afterlife!"
“Of course,” the blonde arcane warrior brings the unsettling necrotic energy-laden tip of her Death Lance in the direction of the three “you know that the penalty for murder is death. And you were committing murder, no more, no less. But since you could be useful to me, I will commute your sentence. Instead of condemning you to death... I will condemn you to a suspended death. I will summon a powerful lord from the underworld. A lord to whom I will donate your lives, which until now you have shown to be wasting. If you ever get close to dark magic again, or to new murders... it will be free to collect them - and drag you into the eternal damnation of his kingdom! And you, in exchange of this second (and last) chance you have to live properly, will tell me all you know about eventual other guys like you doing things like those. Plus, from now on, you will actively discourage from using dark magic anyone you'll see taking interest in it".
"I summon you, Lord Akkron, Dark Devourer, Master of Torment, Ace of Remorseless Pain Giving!" the tall adventuress cries aloud, thunderously banging the Death Lance's butt on the floor, while turning for a moment towards the stairs (down which her lich friend will now have almost descended) and casting a terrible invocation which causes the place to fill with groans of pain of souls imprisoned in eternal torment "I call you back from the Bottomless Depths of the Restless Pits! Come to our dimension to mortgage these tainted souls whose pain and desperation you love to revel in for eternity! Leave your mark on them!"
After that, she waits for the 'terrible undead' to come and 'curse' the boys... hoping that the fright will be enough to make them refrain from that kind of behavior in the future - and to make them suddenly quite collaborative.
The three students stammer in fear. "No, no, please. It wasn't our fault, it was Robert's. We didn't think he would actually do anything like this."
Akkron follows the others into the room after a moment and looks around at the carnage... so, the students actually managed to summon a demon. That is something.
"It seems we did..." Akkron says in reply to Sir Sparhawk, tapping on the slain demon's head with his staff.
Then he turns his empty eye sockets on the three students.
"Now then, what have we here... it looks like three would-be necromancers who got burned playing with fire."
He steps towards the three prisoners, studying them dispassionately. He lets them stew in uncomfortable silence as he stands before them.
The three students prostrate themselves on the ground before Lord Akkron, and begin to mumble words that are not, for the most part, in common. Rather, the words sound a poor example of the Zemoch speech you have previously heard.
"No, not necromancers my lord," one of the students states. "We were not aware more of the faithful were here. We were practicing on our own what the professor was showing us, to become a sorcerer like he is."
Another one of the students tries to explain. "Yes lord, we were doing this without the professor's knowledge, we thought he was not showing us everything. So we began practicing ourselves. Robert stole some items from the professor, and we began doing our own rituals. We are not worthy, and see we must have performed them wrong if you are here."
The third student explains, "We just wanted the power, we were no bodies. We had a taste of it, and wanted more. No one respected us, girls laughed at us. We wanted revenge on them and once we had some of the power, we wanted more."
Stifling a laugh Mal will approach Sparhawk and pull him aside, while the others are having their fun. She will explain what has gone on and give a description of the girl that was almost sacrificed and hand over the piece of her clothing that she gathered. In case they can not get her name form the 3 remaining idiots and they need to magically scry on her. She will then explain what transpired since she left the others at the school and followed the idiots to this location and Try joining her. Culminating with the demon being summoned and of her helping Tye kill the thing, before it could do too much damage, though she thinks it was able to gather the souls of the dead before they could kill it.
She will then continue her search of the room and rooms beyond as Khessa and Akkron have some fun with the remaining prisoners.
Perception: 16 (Reliable Talent)
Investigation: 11
As you search, behind some old boxes you find a bag, where you find candles, chalk, and something small wrapped in a black cloth, in a humanoid shape. This must be the materials they were using to create the ritual. You are not sure what the wrapped object is.
After a few moments of consideration, Akkron decides to give these jerks the scare of their life... he approaches one of them at random and reaches out a boney hand. He looks into the student's eyes, filling the student with paralyzing dread (using the Hollow One feature Unsettling Presence to give the student disadvantage on the saving throw for what he does next). Then he mutters an incantation, as an eerie green mist flows from his fingers and overwhelm the would-be dark wizard, twisting around him (or her, I don't think we really got a description of these idiots).
(OOC: Akkron casts bestow curse at 5th level on the student. The student must make a DC 24 Wis save at disadvantage. On a failure, the student will be forced to make another Wis save every round or waste its action doing nothing... I think this could be flavored as an all-consuming paralyzing dread. This effect will last for 8 hours, no concentration required. Oh, and if the student somehow succeeds in spite of disadvantage on the roll, Akkron will use silvery barbs to make him/her roll again)
Your curse takes full effect as the students have no resistance due to their fear.
Akkron-As you stand in disgust of the three students, you look at the ritual circle and recognize the basic pattern for a sorcery/summoning circle, but poorly drawn. Some of the arcane symbols are not drawn correctly, which may have accounted for a demon arriving, instead of whatever the students were trying to do. They had opened the gate, yet based on the size of the demon, somehow they had the power to do it, yet you do not sense that power in them. You do sense though, that where Mal is searching, there is something of power over that that may have been what gave the students just enough to perform the ritual, though wrong.
Sparhawk sheaths his sword, and with Brother Maynard go over to examine the demon. Maynard kneels down, takes out a note book, an ink pot and quill, and begins taking notes of the demon, and of the ritual circle. "These bloody fools are lucky that we found them, I don't believe they were trying to summon a demon of this size. They screwed up the incantation or something. Seeing their ritual required a blood sacrifice of a girl, I suspect it is a ritual to Azash. We really need to find out what the professor was teaching them."
(OOC: Now we are talking! This is what Khessa was expecting... something a little dark-overlordish to scare those wretches for life!)
As Master Akkron proceeds, Khessa, counting on the fact that the three poor people will be mainly focused on him, uses Prestidigitation to add to the scene, already enlivened by echoes of heart-rending screams, a bit of the smell of sulfur mixed with the sweetish one of putrefaction and in the meantime she commands: "Remember well... No more things even remotely similar to what you were doing... Or the few minutes you are now spending here with the cruel Lord Akkron, the sadistic Dark Devourer, undisputed Master of Torment, and proud Ace of Remorseless Pain Giving, will become... your eternity! And now tell me, do you know of other professors who taught this type of Dark Magic, or of other wretches who allowed themselves to be seduced into practicing it?"
While still looking down at the ground, avoiding your gaze, they all shake their heads no. "No mistress, no. Just our class, there is no one else teaching or showing this to other students."
Tyekanik chuckles, gripping his, now again oversized for his body size, axe, “Does that mean this one,” pointing down to the student shot by the first arrow, “ended up being the sacrifice that brought that demon in? Looks like he got what he wanted in the end.”Then looking to the group that joined asks, “Ah… so what happened with the prof anyway?”
"The professor? He's awaiting to experience a role reversal..." Khessa winks "...getting interrogated!"
"At least as soon as we get back to him" the blonde arcane warrior looks around. "Well, Lord Akkron has finished marking the lives of these criminals - if they deviate from the right path once more..." she does her best to raise a sadistic light in the depths of her blue eyes "the Bottomless Depths of the Restless Pits will open under their feet! If all of you have finished here too, we can return to dedicating ourselves to the professor. It wouldn't be nice to keep a luminary like him waiting".
Mal pockets everything and then takes the wrapped item, making sure not to touch what is under the cloth over to Akkron, "You might have more interest in this than I can make of it." then she carefully hand him the wrapped item. "I have found no other evidence of anyone else being down here or signs of more than these idiots being here." Turning to Sparhawk, "though I would keep an eye on the place to make sure no one else comes looking about."
Mal pockets everything and then takes the wrapped item, making sure not to touch what is under the cloth over to Akkron, "You might have more interest in this than I can make of it." then she carefully hand him the wrapped item. "I have found no other evidence of anyone else being down here or signs of more than these idiots being here." Turning to Sparhawk, "though I would keep an eye on the place to make sure no one else comes looking about."
Sparhawks nods. "I'll let the inn keeper know, he will make sure this place is not used again."
Akkron finishes cursing all three idiots (so, using his three 5th-level spell slots), before taking the item that Mal offers to him.
"Interesting," he mutters, taking it over to a table so he can examine it a bit more thoroughly...
Ever cautious, he starts by casting identify as a ritual and, once he determines that it won't explode in his face, he stands a few feet back and carefully unwraps the item by use of mage hand
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Unhappy that the market got rid of individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
Only a short while later, you hear Sparhawk yell down the stairs, "Friends coming down!" as he charges down the stairs with his sword drawn. Sparhawk and the rest of the party stop at the bottom when they see the dead demon, the symbols on the floor, and the 3 frightened students.
"Hm, seemed we missed all of the fun," Sparhawk quips.
Entering they see Tyekanik catch his breath as he slowly, again, shrinks back to his normal, half-giant, height. "Hah! That was the most excitement we've had! Even if it only lasted a second! They're gonna need to send bigger ****ers next time. I didn't even work up a sweat!" Then looking around says, "I'll let you book folk figure out what the hell they were up to. We got here just in time to stop the dead one from sacrificing a young girl."
PbP 🎲: Tyekanik; Moneo Noree; Korba Muris; & occasional DM:
"Sacrificing a young girl!?" Khessa's blue eyes seem ready to send flames towards the three students "I hope you realize what you were taking part in! But what did you think it was, killing? A game? A pastime? You would have ruined multiple lives, unfortunates! That of the victim, first of all. But at the same time yours, reckless fools! How much time do you think would have passed before the demons took you and your souls too? Did you think they would always be satisfied with your sacrifices alone?! Which they would have had the slightest gratitude for you?! They would have dragged you into their spiral of corruption, toying with you... and then making you end your earthly existence in a horrible way - and enjoy the torture of your souls throughout your eternal afterlife!"
“Of course,” the blonde arcane warrior brings the unsettling necrotic energy-laden tip of her Death Lance in the direction of the three “you know that the penalty for murder is death. And you were committing murder, no more, no less. But since you could be useful to me, I will commute your sentence. Instead of condemning you to death... I will condemn you to a suspended death. I will summon a powerful lord from the underworld. A lord to whom I will donate your lives, which until now you have shown to be wasting. If you ever get close to dark magic again, or to new murders... it will be free to collect them - and drag you into the eternal damnation of his kingdom! And you, in exchange of this second (and last) chance you have to live properly, will tell me all you know about eventual other guys like you doing things like those. Plus, from now on, you will actively discourage from using dark magic anyone you'll see taking interest in it".
"I summon you, Lord Akkron, Dark Devourer, Master of Torment, Ace of Remorseless Pain Giving!" the tall adventuress cries aloud, thunderously banging the Death Lance's butt on the floor, while turning for a moment towards the stairs (down which her lich friend will now have almost descended) and casting a terrible invocation which causes the place to fill with groans of pain of souls imprisoned in eternal torment "I call you back from the Bottomless Depths of the Restless Pits! Come to our dimension to mortgage these tainted souls whose pain and desperation you love to revel in for eternity! Leave your mark on them!"
After that, she waits for the 'terrible undead' to come and 'curse' the boys... hoping that the fright will be enough to make them refrain from that kind of behavior in the future - and to make them suddenly quite collaborative.
Akkron follows the others into the room after a moment and looks around at the carnage... so, the students actually managed to summon a demon. That is something.
"It seems we did..." Akkron says in reply to Sir Sparhawk, tapping on the slain demon's head with his staff.
Then he turns his empty eye sockets on the three students.
"Now then, what have we here... it looks like three would-be necromancers who got burned playing with fire."
He steps towards the three prisoners, studying them dispassionately. He lets them stew in uncomfortable silence as he stands before them.
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(OOC: Tzk Tzk, Mister_Whisker... I would have expected Lord Akkron to play along...)
(OOC: Well, he arrived and he scolded them... it's not like he said or did anything to contradict what Khessa said. And he can certainly still curse them)
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Stifling a laugh Mal will approach Sparhawk and pull him aside, while the others are having their fun. She will explain what has gone on and give a description of the girl that was almost sacrificed and hand over the piece of her clothing that she gathered. In case they can not get her name form the 3 remaining idiots and they need to magically scry on her. She will then explain what transpired since she left the others at the school and followed the idiots to this location and Try joining her. Culminating with the demon being summoned and of her helping Tye kill the thing, before it could do too much damage, though she thinks it was able to gather the souls of the dead before they could kill it.
She will then continue her search of the room and rooms beyond as Khessa and Akkron have some fun with the remaining prisoners.
Perception: 16 (Reliable Talent)
Investigation: 11
After a few moments of consideration, Akkron decides to give these jerks the scare of their life... he approaches one of them at random and reaches out a boney hand. He looks into the student's eyes, filling the student with paralyzing dread (using the Hollow One feature Unsettling Presence to give the student disadvantage on the saving throw for what he does next). Then he mutters an incantation, as an eerie green mist flows from his fingers and overwhelm the would-be dark wizard, twisting around him (or her, I don't think we really got a description of these idiots).
(OOC: Akkron casts bestow curse at 5th level on the student. The student must make a DC 24 Wis save at disadvantage. On a failure, the student will be forced to make another Wis save every round or waste its action doing nothing... I think this could be flavored as an all-consuming paralyzing dread. This effect will last for 8 hours, no concentration required. Oh, and if the student somehow succeeds in spite of disadvantage on the roll, Akkron will use silvery barbs to make him/her roll again)
Unhappy that the market got rid of individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
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(OOC: Now we are talking! This is what Khessa was expecting... something a little dark-overlordish to scare those wretches for life!)
As Master Akkron proceeds, Khessa, counting on the fact that the three poor people will be mainly focused on him, uses Prestidigitation to add to the scene, already enlivened by echoes of heart-rending screams, a bit of the smell of sulfur mixed with the sweetish one of putrefaction and in the meantime she commands: "Remember well... No more things even remotely similar to what you were doing... Or the few minutes you are now spending here with the cruel Lord Akkron, the sadistic Dark Devourer, undisputed Master of Torment, and proud Ace of Remorseless Pain Giving, will become... your eternity! And now tell me, do you know of other professors who taught this type of Dark Magic, or of other wretches who allowed themselves to be seduced into practicing it?"
The three students stammer in fear. "No, no, please. It wasn't our fault, it was Robert's. We didn't think he would actually do anything like this."
The three students prostrate themselves on the ground before Lord Akkron, and begin to mumble words that are not, for the most part, in common. Rather, the words sound a poor example of the Zemoch speech you have previously heard.
"No, not necromancers my lord," one of the students states. "We were not aware more of the faithful were here. We were practicing on our own what the professor was showing us, to become a sorcerer like he is."
Another one of the students tries to explain. "Yes lord, we were doing this without the professor's knowledge, we thought he was not showing us everything. So we began practicing ourselves. Robert stole some items from the professor, and we began doing our own rituals. We are not worthy, and see we must have performed them wrong if you are here."
The third student explains, "We just wanted the power, we were no bodies. We had a taste of it, and wanted more. No one respected us, girls laughed at us. We wanted revenge on them and once we had some of the power, we wanted more."
The three continue to grovel and beg mercy.
As you search, behind some old boxes you find a bag, where you find candles, chalk, and something small wrapped in a black cloth, in a humanoid shape. This must be the materials they were using to create the ritual. You are not sure what the wrapped object is.
Your curse takes full effect as the students have no resistance due to their fear.
Akkron-As you stand in disgust of the three students, you look at the ritual circle and recognize the basic pattern for a sorcery/summoning circle, but poorly drawn. Some of the arcane symbols are not drawn correctly, which may have accounted for a demon arriving, instead of whatever the students were trying to do. They had opened the gate, yet based on the size of the demon, somehow they had the power to do it, yet you do not sense that power in them. You do sense though, that where Mal is searching, there is something of power over that that may have been what gave the students just enough to perform the ritual, though wrong.
Sparhawk sheaths his sword, and with Brother Maynard go over to examine the demon. Maynard kneels down, takes out a note book, an ink pot and quill, and begins taking notes of the demon, and of the ritual circle. "These bloody fools are lucky that we found them, I don't believe they were trying to summon a demon of this size. They screwed up the incantation or something. Seeing their ritual required a blood sacrifice of a girl, I suspect it is a ritual to Azash. We really need to find out what the professor was teaching them."
While still looking down at the ground, avoiding your gaze, they all shake their heads no. "No mistress, no. Just our class, there is no one else teaching or showing this to other students."
Tyekanik chuckles, gripping his, now again oversized for his body size, axe, “Does that mean this one,” pointing down to the student shot by the first arrow, “ended up being the sacrifice that brought that demon in? Looks like he got what he wanted in the end.” Then looking to the group that joined asks, “Ah… so what happened with the prof anyway?”
PbP 🎲: Tyekanik; Moneo Noree; Korba Muris; & occasional DM:
"The professor? He's awaiting to experience a role reversal..." Khessa winks "...getting interrogated!"
"At least as soon as we get back to him" the blonde arcane warrior looks around. "Well, Lord Akkron has finished marking the lives of these criminals - if they deviate from the right path once more..." she does her best to raise a sadistic light in the depths of her blue eyes "the Bottomless Depths of the Restless Pits will open under their feet! If all of you have finished here too, we can return to dedicating ourselves to the professor. It wouldn't be nice to keep a luminary like him waiting".
Mal pockets everything and then takes the wrapped item, making sure not to touch what is under the cloth over to Akkron, "You might have more interest in this than I can make of it." then she carefully hand him the wrapped item. "I have found no other evidence of anyone else being down here or signs of more than these idiots being here." Turning to Sparhawk, "though I would keep an eye on the place to make sure no one else comes looking about."
Sparhawks nods. "I'll let the inn keeper know, he will make sure this place is not used again."
Akkron finishes cursing all three idiots (so, using his three 5th-level spell slots), before taking the item that Mal offers to him.
"Interesting," he mutters, taking it over to a table so he can examine it a bit more thoroughly...
Ever cautious, he starts by casting identify as a ritual and, once he determines that it won't explode in his face, he stands a few feet back and carefully unwraps the item by use of mage hand
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