The Unrestricted Zone

[Tassadar]

The arena where anything goes. It's only a mental construct, and all memory of it is erased afterwards, but characters can use any powers, spells, or weapons when inside. Any additional rules must still be agreed upon between parties, and matches in this place do not count toward arena records.

Sort of like an amalgam of Keylo's and Host's suggestions.

Normal settings:
All abilities can be used freely.
Victory can be achieved through any normal means, including knock out.
Characters start in full gear.

Alternatively:
Non-buff spells still work, but cannot be used on other PCs. Only on summons.
The same can be applied to skills and such. Only usable on summoned creatures.
Summoned creatures cannot attack characters, only grapple them.
Characters cannot win via HP damage. Characters reduced to 0 HP are instead stunned for 1 round, and then filled up to full. Victory can only be achieved through orgasm

Because I haven't yet made any of them, DG2 stats will be used for monsters like demons and fey, if they are summoned.

As usual, additional rules can be agreed upon.

 

[Host]

Re: The Unrestricted Zone

The two insects' chance meeting suddenly changed its location; a red twilight phased through the island's blue sky, as the ground became barren and empty. Hell.

There was a discrepancy between the real demon realm and this one, however; an unnatural, very thin mist rolled along the ground. When looked at intently, shapes could be made out... grass, and some larger plants - the same forest floor that they had left behind before, as if separated by only some thin boundary. Unfortunately, however, there did not seem to be any way to escape through the mist, back into the presumably-real world on the other side.

The only thing of note in hell's desolate landscape was the titanic, almost organic structure jutting out of the ground behind Nerzalil. The 'building' had the same shape as a traditional castle-spire's turret, though it was itself easily the size of a small castle, and made from the same solid black as both female's carapaces. Several holes that may have been either windows or entrances littered every level of the structure. It was also the only reason Nerzalil had not immediately torn into the other bug upon arrival - she had been staring up at it in awe... or perhaps wistfulness.

The Shadow Demon ‘queen’s empty eyes slowly took in the rest of the environment, including the things the other would not notice… the stillness of air that once hummed with activity, the plainness of the ground that had once held the footprints of a legion, the dullness of the Hive, once glossy from the eternal work of the stags…

Finally, she took in the familiar, comforting and comfortable feeling that she had overlooked; the bands golden armour, trophied by her kind was around her – and her twin fangs at her hip.

“…How fitting.” She finally said, as she turned to the travesty she was to correct – and drew her shortswords, closing the minimal distance between them and attempting the same mauver she had before… just this time with bladed weapons.

(Full Attack Both Weapons)

Sheet:

Spoiler

(I have concatted the shit out of most descriptions to make things simpler. Or, well, more conservative, anyway.)

Name: Nerzalil
Class: Warrior
Race: Shadow Demon
Sex: F

Body: 40
Mind: 14
Spirit: 20

(EV’s noted in-case armour comes off)

HP: 97
PP: 44
EP: 47
Speed: 17 (-3EV)
Dodge: 27
Armor: 10
Resistance: 28
Perception: 9
Stealth: 12 (–3EVx2)
Grapple: 40

Skills:

Spoiler

Whirling Death (Activated) (+8 melee dam and AV, -4HP. Requires Two Weapon Fighter.)

Flurry (Activated) (2 attacks with each weapon, -12 attack rolls and damage. Requires Two Weapon Fighter.)

Scissor Defence (Activated) (Cannot attack on same turn as using this ability. -10 Dodge, +12 AV, auto-counters all melee attacks with both weapons. Requires Two Weapon Fighter.)

Terrify (Passive) (On kill, all enemies in 30ft with line of sight perform Resistance check vs Neri or are unable to attack that round. Failing twice in one fight causes a creature to retreat/surrender. Check bonus is: -10 + (killing blow’s damage/10) * (monster tier).)

Strong Willedx3 (Passive) (+5 Resistance vs attempts to control/alter Neri’s actions.)

Spirit Ceiling: 5 (–3EV)

Powers:

Spoiler

Dark Armor (Cost: X. Upkeep: X. Abilities: +3X Armor, melee damage and Grapple. Usable while Bound/held/in Submission Hold.)

Piercer (Cost: X[+1 for each target after the first]. Range: 60ft. Damage: (1d12+2)*X.)

Patch of Darkness (Cost: 5. Ability: to player specified targets, blocks all sight and light, and causes blindness status when inside. Range: 100ft. Size: 30cubic ft.)

Inv:

Spoiler

Unarmed (2d4+12)
SD Shortsword x2 (Attack Roll: 1d20 +46, Damage: 2d6 + 16)
(fluffed chainmail) [AV = 10, TP = 40, DU = 5] Weak vs Piercing. Strong vs Slashing.

Notes:

Spoiler

Demon (-5 Fire and Force damage taken)
Plant Lover (+8pp damage from plants)
Fetish[dominating] (+10PP damage taken while dominant)
Open Soul (+4EP damage taken)
Strong Willedx3 (Passive) (+5 Resistance vs attempts to control or alter Neri’s actions.)
Terrify (Passive) (On kill, all enemies in 30ft with line of sight perform Resistance check vs Neri or are unable to attack that round. Failing twice in one fight causes a creature to retreat/surrender. Check bonus is: -10 + (killing blow’s damage/10) * (monster tier).)
Supernatural (No corruption, pleasure damage from Neri causes an equal amount of corruption to target)

 

[lurker]

Re: The Unrestricted Zone

Spoiler

Name: Six
Class: Warrior
Race: Part Demon

Body: 30(26+4)
Mind: 18(12+6)
Spirit: 20(12+8)

Hit Points (HP): 49 [30+(18/2)+(20/2)]
Pleasure to Orgasm (PP): 43 [(30/2)+18+(20/2)]
Spirit Energy (EP): 44 [(30/2)+(18/2)+20]
Speed: 24 [Square Root of (30*10) +8-1]
Dodge: 54 [(30+18+20)/2+10+10]
Armor: 8
Resistance: 15 [30/2]
Perception: 9 [18/2]
Stealth: 43 [30/2+12+16]
Grapple: 30

Experience:
Corruption:

Talents:
Unarmed Fighter: The character deals Improved Unarmed damage when attacking without a weapon. In addition, the character gets a +10 bonus to Dodge so long as they aren't holding any weapons.
Pain Resistant (2): The character has some sort of natural resistance to pain, be it deadened nerves, scars, scales, thick skin or what have you. Increase the character's AV by 4.
Stealthy: The character gets +12 to their Stealth stat. In addition, whenever the character attacks a creature that is unaware of them, they automatically hit and deal double damage (after armor) on all attacks.
Heavy Hitter: The character deals +8 damage on all melee attacks.
Pain Resistant: The character has some sort of natural resistance to pain, be it deadened nerves, scars, scales, thick skin or what have you. Increase the character's AV by 4.
Quick: Increase the character's Speed stat by 8.
Hard to Hit: Increase the character's Dodge stat by 10.
Sneaky: The character gets a +16 bonus to their Stealth stat.

Flaws:
Infertile: The character cannot, for any reason, become pregnant. Nor can they cause anything to become pregnant.
Unlucky: The character takes a -3 penalty to all of their non-damage rolls.
Mutated (x3): The character gains 3 mutations of your choice.
Bloodthirsty (RP) : The character cannot, under any circumstances, back down from a fight. Even if defeat seems certain, and/or engaging in battle endangers their allies, they must fight until they themselves fall, or every enemy has been defeated.
Sensitive: The character takes an additional 4 PP damage whenever anything would cause them to take any.
Tainted Bloodline: The character gains corruption 1.5 times as fast as normal. Note: Characters of a race that cannot gain corruption cannot take this Flaw.

Mutations:
Skyclad - You feel uncomfortable when wearing any sort of clothing or armor and take a -2 penalty to all non-damage rolls when not nude (save for belts or other gear).
Night Eyes - You see very well in the dark, but not so well in the light. The character receives a -2 to Perception in very well lit areas, and a +2 to Perception in darkened areas.
Claws: Claws sprout from the character's fingers, causing them to deal +2 damage with unarmed attacks but to take a -2 penalty on any attack rolls made for Weapons or Spells.
Tail: The character grows a tail. It can be of any kind that you like. This mutation can be taken as many times as the character likes.
-Dangerous Tail: The character's tail can be used to deal unarmed attacks. If so, it deals an additional +4 damage but has a -3 penalty to the attack roll. Using their tail to attack is optional.
Odd Skin: The character has unusual skin in some way, whether that be by just having an odd skin color, or by having fur or scales.
Reverse Jointed Legs: The character's legs are reverse jointed rather than forward jointed.
Fearsome Maw: The character has a mouth filled with Razor Sharp teeth. They deal -4 pleasure whenever they use their mouth during sex, but whenever they deal unarmed damage to creature that they are in a grapple with, they can choose to bite them. If they do, they deal an additional +4 damage.
Clawed Feet: The character has claws on their feet. They cannot wear shoes, which doesn't really matter all that much mechanically. They get a +2 bonus to Resistance checks made to resist being knocked Prone, but also take a -1 penalty to Speed.
Demon: The character is a demon. They gain resistance to Fire and Force, ignoring the first 5 points of damage from sources of either type.
Warped: The character has started becoming something other than completely human. Characters with this mutation cause any creatures that do not have this mutation to take an amount of corruption equal to 1/2 the pleasure that they deal. Racial Mutations and other Special Mutations do not count toward getting this.

Skills:
Sudden Strike (Activated) – The character can take a -10 penalty to their attack rolls and a -10 penalty to Dodge until their next turn. If they do, they may make a Stealth check at a -10 penalty against any creatures that they attack, and if they win, those attacks count as sneak attacks. Requires Stealthy.
Blinding Strike (Activated) – The character may trade their bonus damage from making a sneak attack in order to force the creature they’re attacking to make a Resistance check against them. If the creature loses this check, they gain the Blinded status until combat ends. Requires Stealthy.
Head Over Heels (Activated) – When the character makes a sneak attack, they can choose not to do damage, and instead knock the creature that they’re attacking on its ass. The creature must win a Resistance check against the character or be knocked Prone. Requires Stealthy.
Shattering Blow (Activated) – The character can choose to take a -10 penalty to their attack rolls and damage, and in exchange, any attacks that hit deal double damage until their next turn. Requires Unarmed Fighter.

Inventory:
N/A

Bio/Description: Six, as she is now known, looks like something out of a nightmare. A beastial visage, covered in black, glossy plates, the normal human form of this part demon was coaxed beneath the surface and armed to the teeth with powerful living weaponry. Nowhere in the poor girl's redesign by whatever dark masters morphed her body was for compassion or remorse. The subtle irony being the factor that they made her far more powerful then they could contain, however, is much more worrysome.

Six doesn't even remember her old self, not even if she was just a normal villager or anything. Now she's been mutated with some form of daemonic artifact from her captors, her monsterous form, with glowing green eyes, almost razor-sharp short black hair, and blackened, hardened skin. Even darker parts of her personality were drawn out from the mutations has broken her mind into something much more primal.

How she was transported and dropped into a tournament where sex is survival, then, is as much a question to her as anything else, and probably at least partly glad that her masters had not fully developed herself into the killing machine they were envisioning.

The OOC section:Six don't like cuddling, and finds signs of affection alien. Expect her to play hard to get for a while until she figures out that fact...
In addition, thanks to Host enlightening me on the subject, picturing Six's half demon part as Shadow Demon would probably be best for both non-storyworld breaking, and linking her better ingame as a whole ^^;

Six had barely able to tense up as the creature had resorted to blows, but before either of them could react, it would seem the Island's masters would resolve the issue for them, thrusting them into another place...

Six hissed a bit as she hit the pale dirt, her spine tingling as she felt the demonic lands around her. The desolate wastes felt... odd. Six herself did not know these lands, but somewhere, the beast she was forced to become knew. Though Six at least idly noted that the paint was no longer there. Perhaps she wasn't in as deep a danger as she thought, she mused, stretching her black body like a cat.

"Ignorance may be one thing..." she retorted, teeth clenched as she stared her opponent down, "But it seems we are both holding that certain idiot stick in ample supplies. Instead of bothering to listen through, you directly assault. Very well then, claws and teeth instead of diplomacy then..." She hissed deeply, tensing up before releasing her coiled body in a rush of movement!

Spoiler

Sudden Strike GOOOO!!!

 

[Hafnium]

Re: The Unrestricted Zone

Stats, round start

Spoiler

Nerzalil: HP = 97, PP = 44, EP = 47, Status = None.
Six: HP = 49, PP = 43, EP = 44, Status = None.

Rolls!

Spoiler

Initiative: Nerzalil = 7, Six = 9

Six: Sudden Strike vs Nerzalil
Stealth: 15 + 43 - 3 - 6 = 49 vs 15 = 6 + 9. Six wins.
Attack: 18 + 30 - 3 - 10 = 35 vs 27. Hit.
Damage: 7 + 8 + 8 + 2 = 25 - 10 = 15 * 2 = 30 damage. Chainmail at 35/40 TP.

Nerzalil: Attack Six.
Attack: 6 + 46 = 52 and 46 + 4 = 50 vs 41 = 54 - 3 - 10. Both hit.
Damage: 9 + 16 - 8 = 17 and 5 + 16 - 8 = 13 damage.

Stats, round end

Spoiler

Nerzalil: HP = 67/97, PP = 44, EP = 47, Status = None.
Six: HP = 19/49, PP = 43, EP = 44, Status = None.

 

[lurker]

Re: The Unrestricted Zone

Six's claws strike true, however the creature's sheer... ferocity caught Six off-guard, sending her flying into the sides of one of the structures from the force of the strike with a sickening smash. Collapsing to the ground, Six gave a groan. She hurt everywhere, it seemed this... thing, that attacked her out of nowhere had the strength behind her anger, perhaps misguided as it was.

Grunting as she tried to push herself up, her green fluids leaking from the rends, Six found herself collapsing again. The wounds... Six spat at the ground and hissed. Of course, when she actually gets a proper fight, she gets entirely messed up the first strike.

Glaring at her opponent, she manages to get shakily onto her claws again, and stares the beast down. "Go ahead then... get your petty anger and fear of me out. I fear no death, not when all I meet act like this."

Spoiler

Sadly, when ya cause a pinprick to a mountain, sometimes it's better to say big words but just, well, concede.

 

[Host]

Re: The Unrestricted Zone

“I don’t fear you.” Neri said, simply, in response to Six’s statement, walking to her. “I pity you.” In truth, though, the shadow demon was less composed than she allowed herself to show. The girl was truly responding without fear of death - despite her almost lack of knowledge, Six continued to show traits of ‘her species’… Neri had to fight herself not to tear up.

Standing over the green-blooded bug girl, Neri took a ceremonious second to prepare… and decapitated her. Six didn’t die, though, even as Neri continued to watch her. While the sensation of not having a body was more than a little disturbing, it didn’t hurt beyond the first cut… in fact, should she try, the warped human would find herself actually capable of speech – somehow even continuing to breathe, making the unreal nature of this realm quite apparent. Realising that she was unable to bring death to the girl, Neri became furious. With a shout of “Why won’t anything die!?”, she grabbed Six’s severed head, preparing to smash her against the ground until, surely, no life could be left her.

…But… Nerzalil placed Six’s head back down, punching the ground instead in impotent fury. She knew there was no way to kill the ‘other shadow demon’, not really; smashing her to pieces would just be overly cruel.

“I’m sorry.” She said, finally, not looking at her opponent. “I thought I could release you from what you’ve become, without you needing to know the extent of your curse. But now I know that the island won’t let me kill you… and you have the right to know what you are. …Or, I should say, I don’t have the right to keep my disgrace from you.”Neri turned to show her defeated opponent a much softer, though considerably sadder expression than Six had seen from her before. In fact, going by expression alone, one could be forgiven for thinking the shadow demon had been the drawn-and-quartered loser.

“I don’t know if you were born away from our kind, or if you were tortured until your mind broke, but what you are is called a Shadow Demon. We lived here, and in other places all over hell, alongside but separate from the rest of demonkind. It was also in this spot that I lived… and eventually betrayed our entire species to slavery.”

The necessary dramatic pause gave Six a decent chance to correct the Shadow demon about her origins, though she could also let the moment pass out of simple curiosity.

 

[lurker]

Re: The Unrestricted Zone

"...Someone forgot the Island's rules, obviously..." Six managed to get out, though the fact she was literally without body below the neck surprised her. Weapons, armor, bodily damage... this arena, something odd was about it....

After listening to the Shadow Demon talk, Six quietly shrugged a bit, her headless body curling up as she sighed. "Take heart in at least one thing then, as I do not think I was, well, one of your kind before I was... mutilated... by my old masters. I do not know what I was before, though. For all I know, human. And before you ask, you need not worry about them either. They have been.... dealt with. Though considering some discrepencies of this world in comparison to... some fights I've had since coming here..." Six started to partly wonder, before cutting herself off.

 

[Host]

Re: The Unrestricted Zone

“I haven’t forgotten them…. I’m just trying to break them. I haven’t tried killing you, killing anyone with a weapon, or killing anyone in this arena before. I had to know that it wouldn’t work.”

When the human-come-part-demon informed of her more terrestrial origins, Neri refused to believe her, at first. “…What? No, that couldn’t be possible; when the Shadow Demons convert a human, the end result looks like me, not you. And it’s not like we cause corruption the way other demons do. We don’t have the equi…” Of course, the problem with her statement hit Neri pretty quickly as she looked down at herself. Sighing, her head went *donk* as it hit the ground.
“Except we do have the equipment, now. So you really are a human, then…?” Honestly, Neri wasn’t too sure that a human mimicking her kind’s appearance wasn’t a bit blasphemous itself… but it was definitely better than the alternative, and she could let it slide. She put the mutant’s head back on her body, which healed the cut, despite everything ‘normal reality’ would have one suspect.

Neri rolled off of Six and lay next to her, changing the explanation she had been going to give. “Those bug-like parts of your body are quite likely from shadow demon corruption. It probably also has had some impact on your mind; do you feel overly paranoid, and unwilling to act without approval? Do you feel the desire to obey commands given to you by your friends? Do you feel alone even around other people, but still prefer to be in groups, perhaps? These are all endemic aspects of my species.” Neri paused briefly, lying on the grass next to Six. The island hadn’t even allowed her punch to connect, tripping her but taking the mutated human down with her. The conversation had been heated, but the misunderstanding was cleared up before it came to blows, as both are well aware. The idea of an arena in which you could actually fight… well, the two bug-women would find that preposterous.

“So you suspect demons are running this island?” Neri looks fairly thoughtful, for an overly melancholy insect. “I was told it was a daemon running a contest, but demons would explain a bit about its torturous nature. Although, I have my own theory... around some of the earlier invasions, before humans really knew what hell was, there were these odd ideas that it was the place irredeemable people went when they died, and that they were tortured there forever. Obviously, that idea was wrong… but if such a place did exist, well, I don’t know anyone more fitting to end up there than me.”

(What, you expected a cheerful Neri? Bzzzt. Following the place's general Lost theme, she believes herself dead and in purgatory. Also, back to the main thread now.)

 

[lurker]

Re: The Unrestricted Zone

Some things in the Shadow Demon's description did strike a chord, however there was still discrepencies as well, Six thought, as her head was reattatched with surprisenly little effort. "To be fair, I'm quite sure I wasn't curropted by one of your kind. The worst part is, after they... changed me is where my memory begins. I cannot remember proper before the event, just fragments of my... conditioning, torture, and then my eventual release. I took a break in my flight, only to find myself plummiting into the oceans of this land."

Six peered over the other Shadow Demon closer, examining the species that may as well be part of her birthright. Seems that like her, she also had the proper bodily equipment, though the thought confused her. "You're saying... that you were not sexualized before? No wonder my new mind detests such actions. Between the enforcement of orders and use of it as punishment for me, I could understand it as well, but I guess now I got yet another connection..."

"As for the sences you mentioned, only the extreme desire to follow orders and trying to avoid contact... as far as I know. I don't trust others much, though to be fair, it's not like many to not instantly scream at my approach... and my old masters enforced my actions via stern commands. I swear, at just the right tone, I just... lock up. I can't quite ignore them..."

"As for a demon running this, I do not 'suspect', I've been confirmed of this. Though I see what you mean by a form of purgatory... especially as we both detest the basic flow of what they require as, well, combat," Six hissed, gritting her teeth. "See, unlike the exchange of blows we just had, most of the battlefields are designed to titulate sences we both detest. First to break an opponent that way, or by blows, is the winner. I know not what this fighting is for yet, though, or even if there is purpose..."

And yet, even as Six spoke, the arena fell into darkness, and the combatants would suddenly feel drowzy...

((Still want to check with Tass-sama on if EVERYTHING is forgot upon exiting the arena. I'd hate to have Six and Neri do all this discussion, only to eventually repeat the cycle upon regaining consiousness out of the battle ^^; ))

 

[Host]

Re: The Unrestricted Zone

Nerzalil remained silent for several seconds after trailing off, beginning to adopt a slew of nervous thinking habits, from scratching her face to cupping her chin; making thoughtful sounds, but apparently not making progress on beginning her story. Looking increasingly embarrassed as her mind continued to fail her, she spoke up to work through the mental block.
“Ah, it’s really hard to find somewhere to begin… in order to understand anything about the things that happened to me, you need to know lots of things about the Shadow Demons. The physical differences… the mental, philosophical, societal differences… Grrr- alright, maybe it’ll make sense if I start from the beginning.”

Adopting universal tone of those telling stories, Neri began. “My kind, the Shadow Demons, lived in Hell, alongside the Demons. I don’t know what you’ve heard of the place, but for as long as any of us can remember, Hell has always been a blasted land of sunless red skies, and scarred earth. It was supposedly different before the Destroyer came from your world, and blasted ours, but whatever the place had been like beforehand, I do not know.”

The idea of it came quite easily to Neri’s audience, quite easily imagining the red earth and cragged cliffs; the buffeting winds on seemingly endless plains, broken only by the physical scars in the world’s surface.*

“The Shadow Demons and our ‘regular’ counterparts have always worked together, though it was hardly because of any goodwill between our different kinds. They were… put off by us, and couldn’t understand us – a mutual situation. We used to find their… ridiculousness to be incomprehensible.” Without expanding on the notion, it is nevertheless obvious what Neri is talking about; vague silhouettes of alternating intercourse, lying and cruelty spring to mind, without any actual reason for the thoughts to do so. Despite the typically odd nature of the sudden thought, the people present fail to think of it as unusual. “Of course, each side thought they had the upper hand on the other; the demons thought to be using us as spare bodies for the war effort against your world, and we thought we were controlled Demonkind, making them as happy as possible and adding them to the swarm.”

The bitter look Neri made told everyone all they needed to know about which group had been right.

“I still don’t quite know why it happened, but the All-Devourer, the Shadow Demon’s highest authority, declared war on demonkind and immediately attacked them, a few dozen years before the third invasion.” The thoughts that appeared to the women were sketchy and dark, a great black mass marching across a red stretch of hell at the behest of some indistinct flying behemoth. “Up until then, we had quite seriously believed that the All-Devourer was more powerful than the demon’s god, He-Who-Devours. The similarity in its typical name, ‘The Devourer’, almost made us think that the God was likely a myth, or at least based on our own ruler. ..Whatever the case, we were dead wrong about its power.” The army of marching black suddenly turned into roaring red and yellow, a bath of fire replacing the indistinct mass, while its leader seemed to have been severely deformed by the force of some unknown blow.

“If you ask a demon about the ‘ten-second rebellion’, they’ll laugh about how utterly we were destroyed, our innumerous swarm reduced to… not more than a hundred. …and those hundred-…” Neri visibly stops and changes tracks. “No, you’ll need to know about me – wait, you’d need to know about the hive mi– ah, but I guess… augh…”
Fumbling, Neri fails to pick up the train of thought for a minute, before deciding to give up on it for the moment. “…Look, I’ll probably figure out where I need to start when I stop thinking about it. I’d recommend the same advice about your amnesiac past, but I suspect you’ve already tried that…”

(Shameless segway, awaaaay!)

(*Might not actually be an accurate description. Can’t remember what hell looks like and I couldn’t quite find one of the posts that describes it.)

 

[Shrike7]

Re: The Unrestricted Zone

((One of the posts describing hell is in my own thread, actually XD))

Alberik nodded and listened intently, her eyes straying from Nerzalil's face a few times to view their surrounding's change, and the images come and go. She made a mental note to examine how surprised she wasn't later, but chalked it up to the nature of the place for the time being.

She took up the conversation, to give her companion time to think on her own story. With a nod, she started. "I have tried that. And dozens of other things, anything I or a score of others could think up. All I have are images, still scenes that don't make any sense, and dreams of situations I'm clearly part of. But everything is out of context, and hardly ever seems to make sense with anything else in my head. And there's a voice, rarely. It sounds like it's watching everything i do, and filing it away to use later, but for what, I have no idea. It sounds so familiar, too..."

She sighed and shook her head, starting to go through the mental images she had collected. The images appeared in the air around her as she spoke, displaying them as she described verbally. "There was some sort of tree, holding up a mottled sphere, looking like it was hollowed, and lit up from the inside. An underground city, people living in stalactites hanging over a massive underground lake, bridges spanning the distance between them. A place full of floating islands, far as the eye can see. A stone hoop big enough to grip easily with your hand, ancient and covered in some sort of runes or writing. I sketched that one out before, it or something similar was in the Lich King's possession at some point, but I haven't had time to search for it. I'm sure it's important though, that hoop has shown up in two dreams, and several images." She explained, the image of the hoop staying while everything else faded. It gained depth and texture, slowly becoming more real, the image floating to right in front of her. She stared down at it, slowly running a hand over it, causing the image to waver. She looked slightly disappointed.

 

[Host]

Re: The Unrestricted Zone

It was one thing to have unusually vivid mental images… and quite another to see them physically floating around someone. However, as images appeared and disappeared, Neri and Alberik both reacted with absolutely none of the surprise that someone might have expected of them. It wasn’t that they couldn’t feel surprised… but more like the idea of finding the events surprising was foreign to those watching it; almost like the way strange things could come together and seem natural to a dreaming mind. Barely perceptible, and just as normal as everything else, a thin mist seemed to have rolled in.

“Do you think it’s a god?” Neri asked, quite bluntly, when Alberik pointed out that she heard voices inside her head. “The only things I’ve heard of that talk into your head are mages, gods, and my kind’s hive mind… and the mages I know normally just use their mouths.” A god might just be able to do something to the prison they were trapped in, though that thought seemed unimportant to the ‘last’ Shadow Demon.

With her hands folded behind her back, Neri scrutinised the images of her companion’s past. “…No, I’ve never seen any of these. The hive could have helped you, I’m sure; all shadow demons can know everything any shadow demon has ever seen… well, they should, but the Haze- …ah, I’m getting ahead of myself again.” Alberik could feel the problem that Nerzalil worked through, trying to find the beginning of a thread of information; they were all tangled up around one, singular, incredibly important and complicated event.

The living women seem to fade somewhat, becoming transparent for reasons that would soon have relevance, the big bug beginning somewhat sarcastically.
“You may not have noticed, but the body of a shadow demon like me has some subtle, minute differences to that of a human or demon. Most immediately important is the way we are born. A Shadow Demon begins from a Shadow Seed; a chunk of spiritual energy passed from a Shadow Demon to the seed’s mother.” Alberik experiences the distinct sensation of something metaphysical entering her, a foreign presence taking root in her soul. It was potentially off-putting, but entirely non-threatening; the manifestation still seemed to be very much an imagining rather than a real event, and so did not carry any more threat than one of Alberik’s own thoughts. While she couldn’t particularly feel the creature doing anything, she was aware that something had definitely changed, no longer feeling like she could use power after power for as long as she wanted.

“The Seed must be grown in the soul of another, consuming pieces of their mother’s energy and using it to mature. The process requires that the mother-soul is not connected to a body – and so we had ways of finding a soul, freeing it from its body, and restraining the spirit for our purpose. Eventually, the young would gain the ability to create a body, and birth themselves into the physical world.” Birthing a Larvae proved to be a somewhat unsettling experience for Alberik, a chunk of her soul seemingly detaching and leaving her without too much warning. The parasite seemed to grow a body of black and glowing-white fluids - quickly forming a solid body in what was effectively her stomach, floating out of her transparent form as if it was not there and then falling to the ground. The creature was quite similar in appearance to a glow-worm, if a glow-worm’s glow was bluish-white, and if it was a little larger than a sausage. It inched around on dozens of tiny little nubs, assumedly legs, apparently disoriented. Having now seen the otherwise unseeable creation of a Shadow Demon Larvae, the women returned to their usual opacity.

“However, some of our kind, at the Hive Mind’s behest, could consume their mother entirely, effectively causing them to become a Shadow Demon. It usually required an active effort to spiritually mutate the Seed into one that would convert the whole of its mother; most of the resulting Shadow Demon strains were connected to our Hive Mind… but at least one isn’t.
My strain.
Whatever my mother was before it became me, it gave its mind up wholly, converted fully to the truth of my collective.”
While the situation itself might inspire no panic or reprehension, Alberik’s conversation-partner’s own retelling was not so exempt. Quite casually, the insect had admitted that her kind were parasites that infected the souls of the dead, who could kill simply for the sake of souls to reproduce from, sometimes completely turning the essence of the fallen into one of their own. Neri hadn’t stopped there, either.

“My creation was considered reprehensible by my own kind; to create a creature unable to connect to the Hive is immoral to us. The Hive Mind provides the intimacy of countless others, all thinking with you and supporting you, every Shadow Demon adding in their own thought to everyone else; they disburse and share all pain, discomfort, desire, and displeasure; they allow each individual Shadow Demon a breadth of experience far surpassing an individual – but most of all, the Hive Mind eliminates all confusion, panic, and fear. Anyone who has to suffer an existence without the hive is pitied to the highest degree – including myself. However, the need for my creation was pressing… as I said, my brothers couldn’t understand the demons… but they needed to. Creatures that lived like the demons do go against almost everything we knew to be true – and the fact that they still existed anyway was… worrying. The only way to solve the issue was to have an outside perspective – a Shadow Demon cursed with independence.
Again, me.
The nature of my mutation meant that I was never connected to the Hive; while my Seed had fragments of my father’s memory of it, I never personally experienced it. My whole martyred existence was to be around demons and discover just what made them tick. Unfortunately, well before I was ready to leave the hive, that little rebellion happened…”

There was more than a little that was horrifying about the Shadow Demons as Nerzalil described them – to human ears, at the very least. Though only one Larvae lay on the beach, Alberik felt as if it was so much more; a representative of everything wrong with the insects, both their fairly horrific reproduction and their intensely alien manner of thought. Whether or not the idea of these bugs was horrible enough to merit its destruction, however, was another matter. And, despite it all, Alberik couldn’t bring herself to dislike the female she conversed with on grounds of her species; it was almost as if the grub was sucking up the concept of their existence, leaving Neri nothing more than an odd looking woman to Alberik’s mind.


At any rate, whatever odd thing was occurring here was becoming more distinct; first, just thoughts, then images, fog... and now an actual creature, moving and quite capable of being interacted with. The pair would probably have been quite worried, if the oddity of it had actually reached their minds...

Enemies:

Spoiler

SD Larvae

Allies:

Spoiler

SD Larvae

 

[Shrike7]

Re: The Unrestricted Zone

"I'm not sure who or what the voice is. Most likely I am simply going mad, but I feel that the voice should be familiar, that once I find out who it is, it would seem so obvious afterwards..." She mused, shrugging and letting her own tale drop for a bit, as Neri picked her own story back up again. Her eyes widened as the pair became as seemingly incorporeal as the hoop that seemed to now be floating at her side, as if attached to a belt loop or something.

She jumped a bit at the seeming disturbance inside of her, but once she made the realization that it was all part of the explanation, the odd sense of being a bystander returned, and she settled down again. She listened to and felt the explanation simultaneously, watching as the larvae floated out from her, and they both returned to normal. She bent down and scooped up the tiny larvae, examining it closely, and considering all she had been told. She found their methods repulsive, but at some deep level, she felt like she could identify with it, and the hive mind as well. She had no idea why, considering the Shadow Demon's methods differed only slightly from that which she had been fighting for so long...

She looked up from her examination of the slug, slowly placing it back on the ground. "What happened next?" She asked the other woman, intrigued.

 

[Host]

Re: The Unrestricted Zone

Neri had an oddly wishful look for Alberik, when the woman idly examined the larvae. It turned gloomy, however, when she was asked to continue. “Next was… far too innocent a day for the events that occurred on it. At the time, I was – heh, still emulating my brothers like a child.” Neri scratches the back of her head, looking more than a little embarrassed at the admission. She stood next to a small group of creatures much like her; humanoid, but quite imhuman, with insectile heads, bodies made of alternating black carapace and white-glowing organs. Even though they were only milling about, it was clear that the creatures were all linked, unusually alert and moving entirely in synch, no two Shadow Demons looking at the same place. Alberik could immediately knew them to be border guards, despite there being no way for the human to know that. The mists made it difficult to see the normally quite wide expanse of Hell, the blasted land the group was standing in. Still, they were already aware of their surroundings; a demon village was just a short march to the east, and their hive directly behind them to the west.

“It was stupid, really, for me to cling to the side of my kind like I did – I was meant to be independent, and yet I was championing the values and preaching the brilliance of Shadow Demons more than they themselves did! …of course, the collective didn’t have the heart to try and discipline me into what they had actually intended for me to be – not the one they had forced to suffer the ultimate curse. I would become what I was meant to be in my own time, or not at all. …The only fault I could find in the Hive Mind is that it was, perhaps, too kind for its own good.” Neri smiled sadly at one of her kin, who turned and solemnly lowered its head, before turning back to its post.

“It took me the better part of my life to come to terms with no longer being a part of the hive, just getting over my incomplete inherited memories… but I did. By the time the day came, I was strongly independent, able to do anything I wanted without needing the hive’s approval first. I even had different opinions to my species… if only because I found them to be even more brilliant than they themselves did.”

“When my kind declared war, it came without warning. Even now, I still don’t know why they started the fight… just that they did. They all spoke at once, but I have never made sense of their reasoning.” On cue, the Shadow Demons around Neri all speak at once, a bubbling, clicking voice passing through them. To Alberik, it sounded like a voice that was normally emotionless – but at this moment, the words blazed hot enough that the ground smoked, as the demons speaking it marched. Neri followed, though not quite wanting to, already knowing what was going to happen. The voice spoke in fractured Demonic, but the human understood it completely…

“COMPREHENSION…! ANGER!
VIOLATION…! CEASE!
PARASITE…! EXPELL!
DARKNESS…! ILLUMINATE!
INDEFENSIBLE…! DESTROY!

WAR!”

Only a few moments later, the voice came back, addressing… something.

“ANTITHESIS…! ABOMINATION!
ALLQUESTIONED…! UNCONTESTED!

YOU WILL NOT STAND!”


Neri winced a few moments ahead of the next sound, anticipating it – the screech of each shadow demon around her as they stopped marching, collapsing with looks of terror and distress. It was clear that all the others were doing the same – because, as could be immediately seen in their eyes and their distress… the species’ Hive-Mind was no more. Fire and noise reigned as the demon god and its queen began roasting the remaining shadow demons; though they must be kilometres away, in the mist they can be seen dying en-masse, not even putting up a fight. A few giant, furious Shadow Demon figures were still rampaging, but were nothing to the fury of the Demon’s god, melting them to slag as soon as it entered the fray.

“…What I am about to do is unforgivable, and I will never truly be able to repent for it.” Neri warned, quite clearly not looking forward to reliving the moment. She sighed, immediately before the demon queen appeared; a beautiful succubus that Neri reviled, ready to turn yet another group of the Shadow Demon species to ash in the unending extermination.

“We surrender!”

The voice came, of course, from Nerzalil, the only Shadow Demon in any state to think after the loss of the Hive Mind, far less panicked and far more forlorn than she must have been at the time. The queen of demon-kind looked mildly amused, enough to delay killing the group. Still, the expectant look she gave Neri showed she clearly wanted more. Lying down with far more resistance than she had on the actual day, Nerzalil sat with her head against the ground, in absolute submission. The voice that came from her was far more urgent than she outwardly appeared, and came from an entirely different voice – far more masculine… and absolutely horrified.

“Please; we surrender completely – please stop!”

The actual Neri that Alberik spoke to sighed, continuing to kneel in place. “My actions were heretical, but the only thing I could think of. If I hadn’t surrendered, my kind would have been wiped out then and there. Of course, as you already know, I only ended up delaying our extinction… and the price of our survival was high.”

The Shadow Demons that remained were on display, Neri chief among them. Now, however, ‘she’ looked completely different… completely un-gendered, though shaped closer to a male than a female, with a far less human face than the one Alberik knew. The other Shadow Demons with Neri had been left in a very bad way by the sudden onset of independence, reverting to little more than drones, only acting under command from Nerzalil.
Before a crowd of demons, the victors revealed the losers’ punishment. The queen of demonkind worked a spell of complex and significant proportions, intending to make quite the example of the short-lived rebels. Not being particularly sensitive to normal magic, Neri’s memory lacked any of the underlying magical pyrotechnics of the magic being weaved, but the physical results themselves spoke for the spell’s potency. The souls and bodies of all the Shadow Demons were warped; each one being gendered with distinct, male organs – and as Nerzalil would come to learn, desires. Her own punishment, as effective spokesperson and figurehead for her kind, was more intricate and specific. The queen’s next spell was aimed solely at her, warping her body in a similar and opposite manner to that of her now-brothers. It agonizingly twisted her face, her insides, her outsides… it left her the female Alberik had been talking to.

“They didn’t just change the way we looked…” Nerzalil pointed out, face still somewhat grimacing from the changes to her body. “Several aspects normally inherent in our nature were changed. We lost our normal method of reproduction entirely; the Shadow Seed could no longer be passed from Shadow Demons to an open soul – only a method quite similar to that of demons could be used, expelling the seed into a female. Of course, we did not get much chance to reproduce; the Demons wouldn’t have that of their new slaves, though that’s not to say the changes to our bodies weren’t put to use.” Nerzalil was a great distance from Alberik, at the other end of two rows of demons; the variety of species and genders represented was myriad, and it was easy to tell which was which, as they were all very naked. The fairly attractive humanoid knight at the end closest to Alberik winked at her knowingly, but otherwise she remained unmolested. Her companion, on the other hand…

“The first few weeks were the worst. We hadn’t exactly done much to the Demons before we were beaten, but simply daring to challenge them netted us quite a punishment.” The Shadow Demon remarked, beginning to walk down the passage of demonic bodies. As she passed the first one, she flinched, a cut appearing in her abdomen and spilling her glowing blood. “The demon queen could have broken us immediately, but she… ugh… wanted us to suffer. They-” Neri screamed, a force from the demon she passed tearing her right arm off at the elbow. Each demon she passed added a few more cuts and bruises, until the shadow demon looked more than half dead. Finally, however, a demon she passed immediately shot a load of its seed over the bug, who flinched away from it. “…they knew more than one way to be cruel.”

The almost-salutes of moneyshots continued as Neri made her way slowly down the path, still quite beaten, trying to shield her grimacing face but ultimately failing quite significantly. Some of the demons, though, were having a different effect than just leaving her messier. Stopping, Neri let out a cry of pleasure, her body only able to shudder for several moments. The combination of orgasms, seed-drenching, and occasional torture continued until Neri was nearly laid low by it, finally crawling out the other end in front of Alberik.

“…I’m sorry you had to see that…” She pants out, looking significantly worse for wear.

Allies:

Spoiler

Nerzalil: HP 1/97

 

[Shrike7]

Re: The Unrestricted Zone

Alberik did her best to observe impassively, but what started as a light scowl as she watched the demons change both Nerzalil and the other surviving insectoids was nearly a rage by the time Nerzalil made it, crawling through the gauntlet of pain and perversion both physically and in memory. She looked incredibly pitying, even through her alien features, as she reached down to help the woman back to her feet, mumbling words of magic as she did so, sending magic along with her touch to try and help the woman recover.

"It's nothing I wouldn't expect from them, given what I have seen and heard." She answers, trying her best to sound neutral, but given the way her facial tendrils were twitching, it was pretty clear the planeswalker was disgusted by the horror Nerzalil had to go through. An image flashed through her mind and the air beside her of what appeared to be a city wall, made of a slowly writhing mass of souls, all obviously in torment. "But from what you said earlier, you sounded like you weren't under their thumb before you came here..."

Spoiler

Healing touch, 3rd level. (2d6+8)*3 HP recovery. Twice if necessary, once with each hand there, since I'm pretty sure we aren't going round-by-round yet.
4 EP each, and she succeeds on the casting check on a 1, unless there's other penalties involved. If that's the case, her base casting is 19.

 

[Host]

Re: The Unrestricted Zone

Looking even more like one of the slimy invaders with her new covering, Neri took the hand offered to her. Her injuries were disappearing under Alberik’s touch, and the rest of her slavery’s impacts quickly vanished as well; with only two disgusted flicks of her arms to remove the sticky fluid, it all simply disappeared, including that which had ended up on the human’s helping (and healing) hand. She visibly flinched away, however, when the image of a wall of tortured souls started superseding the land behind Alberik. “That’s… horrific! I’ve never seen something so pointlessly cruel, to so many! Not even in my slavery…”

When the human woman pointed out Nerzalil’s current freedom, she shrugged off her disgust, instead grinning at the memory of her victory. ”Oh yes, we got out from under their heel… I took to slavery, and the demonic idea of subterfuge, far better than the demons had been planning on. That’s not to say that it was ever fun, for me or my few brothers. The rest of my species were little more than toys, sometimes used for demonic pleasure, sometimes used in their infighting… but they never broke. Their minds were too withdrawn to break. The demons also found me myself to be unbreakable, but not impossible to train. Over time, my heritage became unimportant, and the… skills I developed were the deciding factor in my worth to demonic eyes. They had taken away my preferred method of fighting, but had also given me a new way to work the world in my kind’s favour… and even started training me in it. I learned very fast.” The Shadow Demon looks about as fiercely determined as she must have back then, standing next to a rather brutish demon with a collar around her neck. The world changed in a flash, to a small orgy centred on Nerzalil, and then almost immediately back… the demon she was with looking slightly different. It was followed with flash after flash of memory, displaying more sex acts than Alberik could identify, and several images of the insect watching closely as a succubi manipulated another demon. With each flash back, Neri’s owner looked more ragged, worn out, or cowed, until it was quite clear exactly which of the two was the master and which the slave.

“It took a lot of… work, and enough manipulation to make a succubus proud, but in the end I brought myself to a good position; owned by a high ranking demon I had some ability to manipulate, I was able to have him collect the rest of my kin… then pissed him off enough to have him demand that we were to be the first sent through the gate.”

Walking away from her last, most important act of manipulation, beaten but happy, Neri was interrupted by a smug and intensely feminine woman – the same one she had surrendered to, now many years ago. ”The queen of demons… knew what I was planning, and taunted me about it – both how similar I had become to her kind, and how pathetic my hope of victory was… but she allowed us to leave, expecting that we would simply be killed in the battle, or at least not be able to threaten hell again from the other side of the portal. …Well, she was wrong about our survival, at least.”

A little over four hundred of the Shadow Demons, some humanoid and some beelte-like creatures, walked through the dark gate into the blasted ruins that had, a few moments ago, been Artmirst. “…Uh, I was kind of expecting more people.” Neri said to Alberik, noting the lack of any defences – and only a handful of recently-warped humans coming to terms with their changes. In that moment, it felt more to Alberik like she was standing in the ruins of Artmirst than having a conversation with the last Shadow Demon – and it seemed odd to call her the last, given that four hundred others were standing right there. But, a moment later, it passed. “Alright, gather up the women and get going! I don’t want anyone still here when the rest of the demons come through!”

The fight for Artmirst was fairly hectic, though the Shadow Demons managed to get in ahead of the first fey response. “We kept to ourselves when we could, defending ourselves more than helping the rest of the demons. When we knew enough about the new world, and found somewhere close that we could potentially hide, we immediately set out.”

The journey was long, and not particularly kind to the alien insects. Nerzalil had the vague hope that their fortunes would reverse, and the humans would welcome traitors to demonkind. The first village they stumbled upon met them with arrows, and was razed in kind, the bugs killing anyone who tried to flee and taking any female for recovering their losses. They couldn’t afford to have the world at large know they were here, not while they were still weak and easily destroyed. Unfortunately, human women didn’t seem to keep well – certainly, they didn’t survive the same things Shadow Demons expected them to. Starvation, exhaustion, and physical damage all did in the females they took, keeping their population steady until they ran into another settlement. It wasn’t how Neri had wanted to do things, but it was clear that the humans were enemies, and refused to be anything else. Finally, some distance into a jungle, the insects settled.

“We survived, occasionally growing, occasionally shrinking – but surviving; for two years. We might have kept on surviving… maybe even thrived… but then I ended up on this damn island.”





A street spread out from Alberik’s feet, the jungle turning to stone, the trees morphing away to form beautifully crafted houses… familiar houses. “…Wait, where are we?” Neri asked, Gods Reach totally unfamiliar to her, but less so to her companion.

Turning around, Alberik found two people who definitely hadn’t been there a moment ago – one, a picture of typical elven features, still in his armour and with is sword at his side; the other, an obviously elven blond. …Erik… Sera…

…wait, didn’t she just ask him something about breakfast?

“I would be glad to join you for a quick meal. I think that.... What's that?"

Erik pointed out into the courtyard,

but Alberik didn’t need to see the shadow, nor look up to know what had Arrived.

She already knew everything about the invaders, despite this being her first time fighting them. She had spent two years warring against the creatures… and yet, this, her first sight of one of their monstrous ships paralysed her. She knew what was coming, and what would have to be done to stop the attack… but could do nothing but stand and watch as the first specks started to appear under the fleshy mountain. She needed to move, to summon Tariel – to summon any angel. Nobody here had the power to hold this off but her… and she wasn’t doing anything.

Hundreds of people will die because you were too slow to reac-

The beat of wings next to her broke Alberik from her reverie, giving her control of her body again. A grabber, about to fall on the group, was carved through by the twin blades of the shadow demon in mid-air. Her carapace had thickened, her body and face covered in a spiked helmet and armour of the substance… and her skeletal wings had expanded to several times their previous size, beating to keep herself airborne. She looked far from an angel, but the help was still appreciated.

“Your invaders, I take it?!” she shouted down to the human, fighting fiercely to carve the helpless falling slime monsters into chunks. This was decidedly not a conversation – Neri was fighting for her life, and soon, Alberik would be as well,

as something landed in front of them. It uncurled itself from a crouch, the humanoid creature quickly rising to its full, twelve foot height before them. Muscles rippled beneath it's plain, grey flesh, and they could practically feel the things physical power as it stood up. At first, it's head was perfectly round and featureless, but as they stared at it, a maw appeared on it. A maw filled with rows of razor sharp teeth, that opened wide enough that it could probably have fit any one of their torsos inside of it, and issued a high pitched, nearly deafening roar, a sound so filled with mindless rage and hatred that it's violent intentions were clear even before it raised a fist in preparation.

Elsewhere in the courtyard, more such creatures were landing, followed swiftly by smaller creatures. The smaller ones were only about three feet tall, but they had no features save for about a dozen slimy tendrils that waved out around them, and a quartet of long spindly legs that supported a ball-shaped body. The elves response was nothing short of violent to these invaders, and Erik and Sera prepared to do much the same.

(Aaand you can take it from there. This is now decidedly out of a simple rehash of events; the arena has made things real enough that we will now have to actually fight battles rather than just running through them.)

 

[Shrike7]

Re: The Unrestricted Zone

Alberik frowned in agreement when Nerzalil flinched back from the image of the tortured souls. There was something about it. right on the tip of her tongue... "They're... Godless?" She said slowly, almost questioning herself. then it faded again, and the Shadow Demon's story continued. Alberik listened and watched, hardly recognizing any of the terrain and events she was shown, but not really needing to. The entire process as they travelled felt disgusting to her, considering from both sides of the multiple encounters. The humans an villages attacking in fear before anything could be asked or explained, the demons quickly putting them down in retaliation, the thoughtless care of the captives that were taken, and what was done to them. She made no comment though, the past was done, and not much could have changed the circumstances even if the events were to happen again...

As if the universe itself heard her thoughts and decided to taunt her, the jungle faded away, replaced by the streets and architecture of Gods' Reach, as it had been the day Alberik had last been there.

“I would be glad to join you for a quick meal. I think that.... What's that?"

Erik pointed out into the courtyard,

She started when she heard Erik's voice, having known the man to be dead for nearly two years now. turning around, she found herself nearly face to face with them, just like on that day, which appeared to be repeating itself.

Thoughts of that dreadful day, of all the mayhem, and the first and nearly only time she had been in the full grip of one of those aliens, gripped her with fear. She stood there, staring at Erik as he pointed up at the massive flying ship, paralyzed by the knowledge that she'd have to wake up to find him dead again. Her reverie was shattered by he sounds of broken grabber flesh hitting the ground, and she finally looked up, to see Nerzalil was in the air, fighting them.

"Yes, this is God's Reach, last real stronghold of the elves, in Crolia. This was the second day I can remember clearly, we routed them, but not without great cost." She explained. "That ship holds thousands of creatures, we need to keep it from expelling them over the entire fortress." She told the shadow demon, immediately focusing her energy and chanting out a summoning, calling out for an angel as she had before.

The first juggernaut landed in front of them, slowly unfolding as it stood to it's full height just as Tariel appeared. Alberik recognized her even from this distance, but the angel didn't seem to recognize her as well. She felt hollow, just like Erik and Sera did as well, now that she thought of it. They were all actors on a stage in her mind, but real enough to take and cause harm, if Neri's combat with the grabbers was any indication. The angel formed a connection to speak with her, but the outsider started speaking first. {I'm well aware of the cost involved. Gather the winds around that thing, keep it from sending more of it's spawned monstrosities from infesting this fortress.} She commanded with certainty, then turned to face the monstrosity in front of them. "Surround it and kill it quickly, we need to get inside!" She called out, starting to call up her white fire. She knew it didn't really matter, but she was suddenly determined to do better, this time around...

Spoiler

Not entirely sure Where you want to go with this, if I got the wrong idea, feel free to call me on it. Not sure if you're still handling the rolls, either. I suppose I can take over, if you like. Aside over, off to actual actions!

First round: Call Tariel, 16 EP. Story reasons, we can pretty much handwave anything she does as simply keeping close to what happened before. can probably skip her calling up half the host, and keep her just holding the winds, if we want to go up and explore the ship.
Round two: Holy fire, targeted, 15EP. (3d4)*15 damage to the juggernaut.

 

[Host]

Re: The Unrestricted Zone

Tariel formed, looking impressive and judgemental towards Alberik as she had the first time around – at least until the warped human connected back to her and dismissively noted the statement she was going to make. To make matters worse, the Shadow Demon behind her made comment on the angel’s appearance, as well. “Oh great, not another of you bird bimbos!”

The comment and dismissal combined was outlandish enough to the Angel to leave her in complete confusion, looking between the two and quite clearly not having any idea what was going on. “What- I… but… Oh, forget it!” she announced, turning to the alien transport and summoning up the full power of the wind, beginning to blow the first bunch of falling specks away from the city.
The total bafflement on the angel’s face was so utterly out of place that Alberik could have spent the rest of the battle doubled over in laughter, had there not been monsters to kill.

With two years to relearn and remaster her powers, Alberik was far from the unsure person she had been when the demons first struck, only remembering abilities moments before she used them. This time, the spell hit completely home, and the alien monstrosity was covered in white flames, screeching from its recently formed mouth, the slime boiling off of its body. Before the fire could properly clear, Neri fell like a bird of prey, her blades digging into both of the warped giant’s shoulders and sinking to the hilt. She pushed off of the creature backwards, the momentum stumbling it and tearing twin holes in its back, nearly severing both its arms. Almost unperturbed, the horrific creature turned to face Nerzalil, its arms still unbelievably working, each one pushing the other back into place, the wound seemingly healing as slime covered the creature again, though far more patchily, even stunning the shadow demon with its impressive regeneration.

“How in Hell…!” she breathed, before the creature’s mouth reformed, screeching at her, though considerably more quietly than the fearsome shriek it had made on landing. Its boneless body whipped around to strike her, but was immediately cut into by the two Falling Leaves, defending their home as much as the new arrivals. Finally, the creature fell dead at the Shadow Demon’s feet.


Stats:

Spoiler

Nerzalil:
HP: 97/97
PP: 0/44
EP: 41/47
Dark armour 3 + wings: 2 upkeep

Alberik:
HP: 58
PP: 68
EP: 92/123

 

[Shrike7]

Re: The Unrestricted Zone

Alberik watched, ready to send another blast it's way if the juggernaut continued standing after that. Turns out their combined efforts were enough, however, and it collapsed. The wind the angel was summoning started picking up, blowing snow and ice everywhere, Alberik much worse off than last time, due to her much more revealing clothing. "Quickly, inside!" She called out, pointing them to the same door they had taken shelter in the last time.

The group made it in quickly, closing the door behind them. Alberik shivered, but did her best to ignore it, as she started passing out commands again, reaching out to touch each of them in turn, casting a spell and expending more of her energy to make her allies more potent. "We have to hurry, there's a combat going on on the other side of the building, I'm too slow to make it in time. Nerzalil, I hate to ask this, but... Can you carry me?" She asked, sounding more distressed than nervous about such a prospect.

[Inner strength, lvl 2 buff on each. Boosting body by 12 on Nerzalil, Erik, and Sera. 2EP each, 0 upkeep]

They four of them made it through the corridors in record time, at least compared to what Alberik remembered. The scene they came upon was only slightly less grisly. The outsider had the demon put her down, and they opened the dors to the sounds of combat.

Where before Alberik remembered a single Elder lord, two juggernauts, and several of the smaller grabbers, with a dozen more grabbers and 2 juggernauts dead around, this time there was quite a few more. In addition to those numbers, with only three grabbers dead, there was a second lord teleporting in, with a fifth juggernaut and three more grabbers. The elves fighting were already overwhelmed, backed into a corner with three of the women already in the arms of grabbers, being stripped as the rest tried to push through to save them. The door they arrived through was slightly behind the line of invaders, they must have made a break to escape the last time around, and been cut down as they fled...

Alberik sized up the forces with a glance. "There's... too many." She said quietly. "We have to try, back into the hall a bit, we have to bunch them up..." She said, acting quickly. She reached out to one of the lords with her mind, dumping a mass of energy into simply burning out the creatures thoughts, leaving it a blank shell...

The second lord noticed immediately, regardless of her success or not. About half of the force terrorizing the elves broke off and went straight towards them, supported by the new arrivals from the second lord.

[Mind Worm, x=12, so 16 EP total. Resistance check vs 55, or be vegetable-ized]

Allies:

Spoiler

Nerzalil
Alberik
Erik
Sera
7 male elves (2 wounded)
15 female elves (3 grappled)

assume the nameless elves are 20/10/10, with skillne handed swords and duelist. skip armour, too much effort.

Invaders:

Spoiler

2 elder lords
5 juggernauts
19 grabber spawn (3 grappling)

Invader's tactics:

Spoiler

Elder lord will focus on Alberik, the rest will simply press towards either the elves or the heroic group, depending on which half of the split they're on. heroic side are about 50ft away, give or take for the sheer number of them, the half on the elves are 10 or 20. Simple, for a first larger encounter.

 

[Host]

Re: The Unrestricted Zone

(...*Phew*)


The group got out of the sudden, minor snowstorm that the angel had conjured up, taking the blessing Alberik provided, Erik and Sera clearly surprised at just how well the amnesiac of last night seemed to be handling herself, but far too busy to actually make mention of it. The pair also seemed vaguely apprehensive about the odd bug woman, as if they couldn’t quite remember how she had ended up there; a problem Alberik herself had for a moment. Quickly, she remembered meeting Neri, the insect and her kind going through much the same process as she had, even being found clean of foul intent towards the elves by their telepaths. Despite that, the demons had still been segregated even more severely than the merely warped human, Nerzalil separated from her kind in what was probably a protective measure, stopping her from ordering them against the inhabitants of God’s Reach. They might have been peaceful, but there had clearly been something worrying in the minds of the insects…



Being asked for a ride was far from the kind of order Neri expected to receive. “What? …Er, okay…” she replied, making a couple of false starts as she tried to determine a way to pick the human up. Far from a genteel creature, Neri simply wrapped her arms around the mage’s waist and took off; she would have probably tired quite quickly if she had to keep it up for an extended period, but at the speed they were traveling, the pair arrived well before it became an issue.

“We’re going to fight this?” the Shadow Demon asked, incredulously observing the alien group bearing down on the city’s natives. “…You’re the expert…” she conceded, though far from happy at the odds.

Alberik’s mental assault on the Elder Lord brought the creature down in one blow, the inhuman intricacies of its mental workings simply washed clean by the human’s overwhelming spiritual force. Whatever kept the creature in the air died as it did, the yet-living body squelching weakly into the ground.

“So, the goal is to save the humans with the pointy ears? Well, I suppose I was already a martyr…” Neri announced, and the demon’s eyes seemed to focus on a point at the other side of the room. Her luminescent organs began glowing visibly through her armour, the shadowy hide itself within seconds beginning to look like boiling water. Droplets of now-fluid carapace peeled away from her in clouds, crossing the length of the room and massing between the invaders and the natives, forming a patch of anti-light. ‘Idiot’ might have been a relevant descriptor for Neri, given that she apparently thought the darkness would actually stop the eyeless invaders, but apparently the creatures did, in fact, still visually perceive things in some manner. Confused, a few of the grabbers that had been going for the now hidden elves wandered into the cloud, and one of the juggernauts waited, searching around with its head, but most decided to pursue the visible target. Idiot was quite possibly still a valid claim, however, given that the main bulk of the invaders were now clearly bearing down on only four defenders. “Now to group them up! …You do have something in mind for after they’re grouped, right?”


While the remaining elder lord could have easily dispelled the cloud of darkness, it perceived the mage that had killed its comrade as the greatest threat – quite probably correctly. It sent the power of its own mind back in response to Alberik’s mental assault, holding her body immobile. The creature assumedly wanted her alive. There was no way for her to know, no features to recognise, but that did not stop the warped woman from realising that she was bound by the very same creature that she had enjoyed the company of, the last time this happened. By all means, it seemed to be looking to repeat history…

Alberik was the postergirl for human magical and spiritual potential, but she didn’t compare to the abilities of the alien holding her, well beyond something she could fight her way out of. “Shit…!” Neri breathed, realising that the only person potentially able to win the day was also trapped, with only one avenue of freedom. The only way out was to kill the monster doing the holding, which would be a task to itself. Her arm out, Neri focused on the beast. A jagged, small piece of shadowy carapace cut into the magically capable alien, doing apparently little actual harm. The creature was slowly turning towards its attacker when the second and third shards tore through its skirt of tentacles, the fourth and fifth striking its upper body and unbalancing the creature with their impact. Another three bolts of shadow drilled holes through the alien’s craning neck, another smashing a piece of flesh out of the top of the creature’s head before Neri flinched, her body agonised by rapid-firing projectiles that normally took her biology several seconds to create.

The alien lord’s body failed to heal properly, clearly quite heavily injured – but not injured enough. It raised a tentacle, keening in Neri’s direction, perhaps in pain, perhaps in anger, as it prepared to deal with the unexpected threat.



Like so many leaves in the wind, the elves burst from the darkness roaring like a gale. Neri had given them sight inside her shadows, unlike Alberik, who was on the wrong side of the room for it to be of any use – and they had carved the confused lesser aliens up in seconds. Perhaps they had heard Neri making mention of the plan, or perhaps they simply went for the most weakened opponent available… but one way or the other, they were out for the master alien’s blood. The distance from the cloud to the beast was barely ten feet, but the alien was faster than the elves. Countless tentacles from its skirt lashed out, battering two groups of elves into walls with one sweep. An elf reached it, only to find the creature floating to the side as he tried to stab it, a tentacle tripping him a moment later. Two elves that jumped from the sides were immediately rammed to the ground by tentacles, another three charging it an instant later being bitchslapped to the ground with a tentacle each. One elf got within centimetres of the creature, jumping at it from directly in front before it could recover from the five simultaneous attacks, only to be punched back by the creature’s arm – and then the slip of a girl running directly behind him ran her sword through its neck. The creature wailed in what was probably agony, the elf clearly using great force as, screaming, she continued the cut upwards, splitting its head almost cleanly in half.

The keening died down, the elven woman losing her footing as the creature’s body fell to the floor, no longer supported by whatever power had kept it floating – and Alberik felt the force pressing at her body die with it. The nameless elf’s victory scream was drowned out by a much more agonised one, a fallen elf’s leg crushed by the foot of the juggernaut still waiting at the far end of the room, the scream ending as his head was moments later crushed by its fist. There were still four juggernauts coming at the four people on the other side of the room, Alberik included, and they’d be here in a moment to deliver much of the same. The grabbers were further away; the giant creatures were slow, but took much larger steps, allowing them to outpace the smaller monstrosities.



(Turn 1: Cloud of darkness from Neri, Mind Worm from Alberik, juggernauts and grabbers move at their speed towards us bar five grabbers and one juggernaut. The elder lord telekenesis binds Alberik. Erik and Sera skip-go, letting the ranged attackers have their fun. The elves absolutely eviscerate the gropers, doing around 300 total damage.

Turn 2: Alberik cannot win her check, so I’m delaying her action for the moment. That’s probably not how the rules would actually work, but I don’t think Tass has ever really been strict about turn or action order. Neri uses piercer 10 to attack the elder lord, doing 120 (–4armour) damage out of 130 HP. The elves attack the elder lord, and all but one miss. The last one does 16 damage after all calculations, killing the lord with 2 damage to spare. (This epic scene brought to you by: the Random Number God!) Alberik now is unbound, and gets her turn. (The far juggernaut kills an elf, because there’s not really any way to stop that.))

Stats:

Spoiler

Nerzalil:
HP: 91/97
PP: 0/44
EP: 21/47
Dark armour 3 + wings: 2 upkeep

Alberik:
HP: 58
PP: 68
EP: 72/123 ...I -think- that's right...