Defenders of Daybreak

Velendo shakes his head. "I don't think so. Someone of that power almost certainly has defenses in place to prevent that sort of thing."

"But he knows where we are now," argues Nolin. "It's not like we'd be telling him anything other than that we can scry. Ooooh, big surprise."

"How long would it take to cast the spell?" asks Mara. Luminor, her war horse, nuzzles at her shoulder affectionately.

He's interrupted by a scream from Luminor as a wispy, translucent tentacle darts out of the floor. It unerringly sweeps across Mara's belly and through her shield, plunging in to her gut and wriggling greedily. It pulses several times, like a snake swallowing a mouse.

Mara feels a horrible sense of pain and loss as coldness sweeps through her. Breath rasping, she doubles over in pain, and the long twitching tentacle disappears back into the floor before anyone can strike it.

"Tentacles!" thinks Agar in delight, clapping his hands together as Proty soars around his head. Wisely, he keeps his mouth shut.

"But what was that?" asks Tao. She draws both her swords with a rasp and looks around.

"Trouble," answers Malachite grimly, hefting Karthos. "Some sort of wraith, I think. I've never seen anything like it before. They're usually humanoid, and they don't have tentacles."

Before anyone can answer, the monster answers for them. Another tentacle swipes up from the floor, this time penetrating Splinder's legs. He shouts and jumps away before it can pulse, and the transparent tentacle glides back into the floor.

"Form up for a mass haste!" shouts Nolin, his voice carrying. In the distance, he's picked up the noise of dwarven weapons being drawn; apparently, the dwarves are under attack as well. Even as Nolin casts the spell, another tentacle twitches upwards towards Galthia, who easily dodges it. Then the group goes into combat mode, as the heroes who can start to fly or levitate. Up near the ceiling a tentacle slashes downwards at the flying Velendo, who is hit but who manages to shake off the feeding tube before it can drain his essence.

"This is frustrating!" says Tao. She takes a slash at another tentacle that emerges, only getting one stab in before it sinks back into the rock -- and as several times before, her blade goes right through it. "I think there are four or five of them. Half the time I can't even hurt them, but they're using their reach to strike at us without letting us close on them! Should I turn them?"

"Better not," answers Velendo from above. "Then they'll just scatter. Better to kill them once and for all right now."

"Well, one thing is for sure," says Malachite. "They're wraiths of some kind, and wraiths . . . hate . . . sunlight!" He swings Karthos over his head, and the light of Aeos illuminates the cavern. Pure sunlight trails after the sword's blade, forming a sphere of light around the Defenders. As he does so, a tentacle emerges from the rock to wrap around his foot. It begins to smoke in the sunlight, and as it swipes at the Hunter of the Dead it passes through his body without even a tingle. Malachite nods once in approval.

"Oh," says Mara, annoyed. "Well, I wish you'd told me that earlier. I can create sunlight as well." Malachite just gives her a look. "If I go ethereal, can I fight them on the ethereal plane?"

Malachite shakes his head. "No. They aren't ethereal. They're insubstantial. Different things." Mara scowls and twirls her mace, waiting for the next target.

Deprived of their foes, though, the tentacle wraiths move towards the nearest other source of life force that isn't lit by sunlight: Newt, Tao's pet riding lizard. He's clinging to the cavern wall, and hisses in pain as a ghostly tentacle slices down across his back. "Newt!" shouts Tao, and readies a searing light. The lizard scampers towards her, pursued by several hungry wraiths. A ray of blinding light shoots from Tao's hand, badly injuring one of the undead.

"Feh!" spits Splinder. "This is dumb. They can't hurt us, but we can't hurt them. I'm goin' out there to serve as bait."

"What, are you stupid?" asks Velendo. Then he turns his head up to the cavern roof above him and asks the same questions again, this time to his God. "Is he stupid?"

"Better me than the lizard." Splinder strides forward with his axe ready, and by exiting the sunlight he triggers several attacks from the hidden undead. The Defenders have been waiting for this, though, and they unleash simultaneous counter-attacks, slicing off and dissipating two of the writhing tentacles even though several of their blows simply glide through the undead as if they weren't there.

One by one, the Defenders leave the globe of sunlight that Newt has now entered. In a frustrating game of cat and mouse, they poise themselves, striking at the feeding tubes whenever they show themselves. Finally, the last of the wraiths is destroyed by a positive energy burst, and the dwarven soldiers run up to report.

"Killed one creature, Sir, using standard tactics of shuffling troops. Got a few men in bad shape, but no one dead. And we need more magic items." Splinder nods, and Velendo congratulates the dwarven troops.

Everyone gathers in a group, and Velendo casts sovereign wall in a huge sphere around them. "Pick up your feet, everyone!" he calls, and as they do the wall fills in where their feet used to be. Now the heroes and their troops are standing inside a large, clear bubble of force that can only be pierced by a wish, a miracle, or a rod of cancellation. Velendo then casts Calphas' Comfortable Castle, and the group files into the warm, safe, food-laden main hall.

"I'll stay out here a while," says Priggle Gembreath, their svirfneblin scout. "It won't hurt to keep a watch. Come get me in a bit." He looks worriedly around the silent and darkened cavern.

"Fair enough," says Velendo. "I'll bring you some food." The magical door closes behind him, leaving Priggle alone with his thoughts.

Sagiro:

Here's a small preview of things to come; I hope I'm not giving too much away, as the Story Hour is still a few runs behind.

Lest anyone forget that Piratecat is a right rat bastard, consider the following. Velendo is a 17th level Cleric with a 20 Wis, and as such gets a big ol' pile of spells every day. Seldom does he come close to using them all up, especially as he is very conservative, and almost always saves spells in case of dire emergencies. He also has only one magic item that will some day run out of charges, and is extremely stingy with that one -- it's a Wand of Maximized Dispelling (yes, despite the usual fact that Dispel can't be Maximized). It had seven charges when he found it, and up until recently it still had seven charges. Like I said: stingy.

Anyway, I thought I'd share with you a list of the spells Velendo has cast in the last 24 hours -- almost every one, especially at the higher levels, was spent in fairly desperate circumstances. I'll start with the small, and work upward:

Endure Elements: Cold Endure Elements: Fire Endure Elements: Electricity Bull's Strength Bull's Strength Endurance Endurance Endurance Owl's Wisdom Invisibility Purge Magic Circle vs. Evil Searing Light Searing Light Restoration Unfailing Endurance Mirrored Wall (like a Wall of Force, but with one side mirrored) Dispel Evil Flame Strike Positive Wall (a wall that only hedges Undead) True Seeing Flexible Wall (like a Wall of Force, but infinitely shapeable) Blade Barrier Greater Dispelling Heal Heal Calphas' Comfortable Castle (essentially Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion) Holy Word Summon Monster VII Iron Body Firestorm Mass Heal Sovereign Wall (like a Flexible Wall, but larger, longer lasting, and even harder to get rid of: it's the 9th-level spell in his Wall Domain.)

In addition, Velendo used a Miracle to spoof the druidic spell "Spellstaff," and has kept another Mass Heal in it. And he used that.

And, he felt compelled to use two of the seven charges from his Wand of Maximized Dispelling.

And, after having the horrible experience of [details redacted to preserve suspense], he had to use his power of Disbelief, which he only gets to do every three months.

Also, Velendo was not the only one similarly taxed. That same period has included, among many other spells, Agar casting Disintegrate, Limited Wish and Cone of (Sonic) Cold; Nolin casting multiple Mass Hastes, multiple Healing Circles, and Fire Seeds; and Tao casting multiple Flame Strikes and Gate, with which she called in a [details redacted to preserve suspense] to aid us, though in hindsight I wish she had saved it to help us fight the [details omitted this time because I haven't the slightest idea what it was, other than unspeakably horrific].

And Malachite used up all of his Positive Energy Bursts.

Piratecat has, of late, been voicing concerns about it being difficult to challenge a party of 15th-19th level characters.

It doesn't seem to be a problem, really.

Yeesh.