Legacy of Fire Gameplay

Giex focuses, tossing his chakram against the ground a few times to test their edges. They were as keen as ever, and they were nearly leaving dents in the floor. Giexmund focuses, bringing images of efreeti and other fire djinni to the forefront of his mind, and letting that flow directly into Fido. ”One more gig, buddy. Then the tent’s gotta leave.” Fido flares with a brilliant green razor’s edge once more, and the carnie smiles, and takes a moment to center himself. ”I feel more ready for this than I’ve felt for anything in a while,” he comments to nobody in particular.

"Good, because after this is done, we're putting on the best gods damned show that Kelmarane has ever seen," Felliped grins to Giex between casting his spells.

”Yeah, child’s play next to this,” Giex agrees.

Once the minute has passed, the group makes their way towards their final fight. True to his word, Jhavul stands in the chamber immediately west of where the diamond wizard had been, a room where the hellish light of a huge lake of lava lights the immense cavern. To the west, a wide ledge of stone rises out of the lava, creating a tenfoot- high cliff above the molten rock. Sprawling atop this ledge, half embedded in the rock wall and looming over the molten lake below, is a colossal skeleton, fossilized by time, of a vast snake-like monster. A deep thrumming noise, like a colossal heartbeat, reverberates through the rock, the skeleton’s ribs forming a cathedral-like dome while its skull hangs over the surface of the lake below. Standing atop the skull  a 22-foot-tall muscular efreeti with crimson skin, smoldering eyes, huge black horns, and a fierce and arrogant expression. He wears an elaborate bronze breastplate that is scorched by flame and still seems to be on fire in places. He favors elaborate gold and brass jewelry and wields a huge, burning scimitar. "Can you hear it?" he roars, adopting a maniacal grin and readying his massive saber.

Felliped launches into his most rousing song of all and casts a spell to even further empower Mahvash, improving her ability to avoid harm.

[Hey Nobs edit Felliped into your last post]

Mahvash, made invisible by Felliped's magic, takes a deep breath and flies across the lava. Her magical agility helps her loop around Jhavul, and she thrusts Tempest into him. Unfortunately, his armor makes it difficult for her to land a proper weak point even with catching the efreeti off-guard, and Mahvash cringes as she sees Jhavul looking right at her location. Silently, she apologizes in advance to Lydia for what's to come.

"What did I say about tricks?" Jhavul taunts Mahvash before hitting her with a wicked slash, though Lydia manages to absorb much of the damage, then he flashes invisible to all but Krunk.

Krunk watches the efreeti attempt to turn invisible with malicious glee, keeping his eyes on the warlord the whole time. Raising a finger, he smugly announces, "He's right there. Right above the lava."

With Krunk pointing out Jhavul's location to her, Nari summons a cloud of glittering golden dust onto Jhavul, making him visible to all. She retrieves a scroll, casting the incantation and tossing the parchment to the side as the magic takes effect. Nari disappears in a blur of movement, and when she is done, four blasts of icy fire explode almost simultaneously around Jhavul, as tentacles spring from the floor, and bars of force begin to materialize around him.

One fireball fails to pierce the Jhavul's protections against magic, and the Efreeti manages to dodge the brunt of another, but the warlord takes the full brunt of two, Nari's magic easily overcoming his cold resistance to deliver a significant, but not life threatening wound. The tentacles and forcecage fare less well, with Jhavul disrupting the cage's formation with an angry slash, and the tentacles unable to find purchase on Jhavul's limbs due to one of his rings.

Krunk roars a challenge as he speeds through the air, straight for Jhavul's face, laughing all the while. He slams into the efreeti with jaws spread wide, chomping down on Jhavul's nose. As electricity crackles across his entire body, Krunk jeers, "You thought you could hide?"

The stinger on Krunk's cloak springs to life, jabbing deep within a gap in the warlord's armor. Jhavul avoids one wild swing of the barbarian's claws, but catches the second right across his face. Cackling wickedly, the barbarian bellows, "You thought you could run?"

Krunk catches the warlord off-guard with a knee to the throat, then performs a surprisingly athletic flip kick to bash Jhavul in the chin with both hooves. Mockingly, Krunk shouts, "You thought you were unstoppable, puny man?!"

The barbarian sees an opening and lunges up, flying straight towards the bottom of Jhavul's head. He viciously lashes out with tusks and fangs, ripping and slashing his way up through Jhavul's skull. With one last frenzied rush, Krunk tears his way out of the warlord's skull. Triumphantly, Krunk screams, "THERE IS NOTHING I CANNOT KILL!" As the warlord begins slowly sinking towards the lava, the massive thumping noise within the chamber ceases. Almost as an afterthought, the barbarian flies down and catches Jhavul by his armor, hauling the carcass back towards the shore.

Mahvash flies back to rejoin the group, where Krunk brings the body, as Felliped dispels her invisibility. ”Good work,” she acknowledges to Nari and Krunk. She looks at the body of the efreeti a moment, then drives Tempest into a vulnerable area with abrupt venom.

Nari barely sees Mahvash's signing, already beginning to fly off to find where Zastoran and Almah were kept prisoner.

Giex lowers his chakram and blankly looks towards the fallen efreeti. "Wait, is that IT?" he yells, almost pissed off that the man had fallen that quickly.

Still chuckling to himself, Krunk is suddenly silent for a moment. With a grunt, he mutters, "Hey. Mahvash. I need to talk to your sword."

Lydia stares at Jhavul's body, then at the minor wounds she incurred from his attack on Mahvash. "I'm not remotely complaining, but that didn't seem just a bit anticlimactic to anyone?"

"I'M complaining! How the fuck am I supposed to tell a story about this!?" Giexmund yells, throwing his chakram towards a wall irritably, barely surprised when it still zips back to his hand from muscle memory. "We broke into the keep and I watched my friends kill him! Wooooo!"

”Giexmund, go help Nari before your armor wears off if you’re just going to whine,” Mahvash comments in a flat tone. ”You don’t have to go through me, Krunk, I’m not Vardishal’s manager.”

"Anticlimactic is good," Felliped chuckles at Lydia and Giex. "And Giex, remember the key to good storytelling is embellishment," he adds with a short laugh. "I'm already envisioning a story where Jhavul, the diamond wizard, and the miracles all happened in this room, and we could see Xotani's bones beginning to stir and move."

Vardishal materializes himself in front of Krunk with a wide grin splitting his weathered spiritual features. "What is it? And good work there, I never envisioned anyone tearing through Jhavul that fast."

Meanwhile, when she moves south, Nari finds a room split by the lava river, of which one half is blocked by a barrier comprised of pure force with a single hole at the top, big enough for someone to travel through or drop supplies in. On the other side sit a wizened old halfling, looking half-starved and completely exhausted, Zastoran, and Almah, her fine clothes ripped and torn and with scorch marks all over her arms and face. Both perk up immediately and wave frantically to Nari, not bothering to call out to the deaf girl.

"Yeah, I can help Nari. Sure," Giexmund says, activating his armor and zipping off after her.

With an unfamiliar tone, Krunk mutters, "I did mean to leave you the last hit, but the shithead died too quick. Sorry."

Vardishal just chuckles there. "It's fine. I wanted to finish him, but getting to cut into him first was nearly as good. And I think every one of you had just as much right to kill him as I did, he destroyed your home and made you lose five months of your lives."

The last comment prompts Mahvash to look to where her wand is tucked away. This isn't the time for it, though, and she resumes cleaning poison off Twilight while waiting for the conversation.

With a grunt, Krunk replies, "As long as we're clear."

When the exchange is wrapped up, Mahvash takes her own advice and flies off to help Nari before her armor's magic wears off.

Nari flies straight into Zastoran's arms, giving him a warm hug, taking care not to hurt the frail old halfling, even in her excitement. After a moment, she frees one arm enough to levitate her chalk and board out of her bag, writing "It's good to see you're alive."

That draws an even wider smile out of Zastoran, who replies, "I'm the one who was fretting over a broken ring," he reminds Nari of the time that she did actually die.

"Sorry about that," Nari signs with a grimace. "Too many archers. You two are hurt, though," Nari signs, starting to cast the first of several spells to bring the two back to health.