Summary: ~1,200 words; I guess maybe the Magic Guard wasn't enough to stop a single cultist. Obviously the solution is to throw mercenaries at the problem until it goes away.
Characters: Rythian, Zoey, Teep, Nilesy, Ravs, Parv, and Will Strife.
Warning: Parv's still down with blood magic and sacrifices and stabbing things and getting blood everywhere and wow this is one dark as hell Minecraft mod.
I’m using D&DO’s Eberron world because I have, like, five minutes experience with the various pen n’ paper D&Ds.
And to expand the characters a bit:
Parvis the Bloody: Chaotic Evil SpellBlade of the Blood of Vol. For some unknown reason, Xephos needed Parv to become acquainted with magic before returning to Eberron. Unfortunately, he did not specify which form of magic. And Parv being Parv, chose the most dangerous, effective, and downright in-your-face school the planes had to offer.
Warforged Strife: Lawful Neutral. One of Lord Xephos' chief artificers and engineers. Despite practically begging not to be assigned to help Parvis and 'why are you sending an engineer to teach this idiot magic he's only going to destroy everything,' he begrudgingly follows Parv around. Should he live through this, a whole lot of "I fucking told you so's" are in order.
“Parvis! What the hell is all this, man?!” Rythian pulled his mask up higher to try and lessen the horrible stink of blood boiling and corpses rotting all around him. “And I certainly don’t think Lord Xephos would approve of this going on right under his nose!”
“Actually, I think he would, Rythian. Especially since he sent me an excellent artificer, tutor, and advisor to get me started. Isn’t that right, Will?”
A large, red and black Warforged stopped pacing back and forth behind him only to answer in agitated, quick reverberations. “Parvis, you asshole, this isn’t what he intended. You cut me up for blood crystals as soon as you knew how and stuffed my soul into this… rather well-made monstrosity, I have to admit.”
“Technically you’re still alive. I could have just flat out killed you like the rest of my volunteers here. But I like you, Will. You’ve had some good solutions to my various problems, when you’re not whining about my methods. That’s why I turned you into one of those weird constructs you like so much.” He smiled and jammed his sacrificial dagger into the robed man suspended midair over the blood altar. He wailed pitifully for only a second, then choked as the demented blood wizard cut him open from throat to groin and drained liters of blood into the silver and stone pit. “Anyway! What’s up guys? I mean, you never came to visit before when I invited you all for tea, and suddenly we’re all here in my secret underground lair?”
Zoey nodded a bit, then realized everyone was staring at her, expecting her to be horrified. “Uhh, wow. That’s… that’s really terrible. You just cut that guy right open there. …So, just how much ultimate power are we talking about?”
“All of it.” An orb of blood swirled out of the altar into his left palm, while the right hand tossed the lifeless shell of his sacrifice to go join the others. The corpse dropped aside and rolled down the altar steps into a pile of others before it.
“Cool, cool.”
“Zoey, no.” Rythian sighed.
“He’s got a point there, Rythian. To be honest, that guy he just killed? Kind of a prick. Except he did owe me ten gold and now I’ll never get that back. Thanks a bunch, Parv.” Nilesy grumbled and leaned on Zoey’s shoulder.
“He’s been kidnapping innocent people and killing them! What is wrong with you two?!”
“Chaotic aligned.” Ravs snickered.
“WHOO! Chaos!” Parv pumped his fist in the air. “But you guys still haven’t told me what you’re here for. I know you’re not here to stop me. Not after how I dealt with Lalna and Sjin.”
Rythian’s staff tapped on the floor to the rhythm of his annoyance. “Actually yes, we are. Because one, like I said, the murdering for blood magic and souls has to stop. Two, as much as those two were a couple of bumbling idiots, they didn’t deserve… that thing you did. Three, you’re perverting magic and it’s all going to your head.”
“Oh, you are not going to lecture me about impure magic, Mr. Courting the Dark Six and Skirting Warlock Territory!” Parv waggled his dagger at the half-elf.
Rythian narrowed his eyes. “That wasn’t my choice. Shut up.”
“Okay now, let’s all calm down here. Let’s not let our tempers choose what happens next.” Nilesy motioned for calm with his hands and took a deep breath. “Parvis. I can understand what you’re going for here. Me? I’m not gonna lie, if there were a way to turn this into money, I’d say balls to this freelance business and be down. But I think that maybe you’ll want to dial back the kill…ing…”
Parv’s unsettling grin widened as he pulled a Bag of Holding made of golden silk from his belt, and turned it upside-down over the altar. Hundreds of little glittering diamonds, emeralds, and gold nuggets poured endlessly from the impossible dimension inside. Nilesy bit his tongue as the little beauties littered the floor, and the ones landing in the altar popped into red flames like ice in hot oil.
Ravs clutched Tee’s arm to steady himself. “So is that bag that full of diamonds or am I that drunk?”
The stoic orc looked down at him and shrugged him off. He could see the wheels grinding and clanking together in the cleric’s head, but said nothing.
The smug was almost tangible as Parv could see all the greed and jealousy oozing in front of him. “And I can pull even rarer delights from every plane in existence. But hey, playing goodie-two-shoes might get you a rusty shit chest in a dungeon every once in a while.”
“Nilesy, I swear to the gods, if you don’t pull it together right now.” Rythian rubbed his face and wondered if it was too late to gather a party that didn’t have such a short attention span.
“But Rythian…” He whined.
“That’s okay, we can steal it all off his corpse. Dibs on that bag, by the way.” Ravs grinned and palmed his mace. It started to glow with a Blessing of Ward Evil.
“We were only supposed to stop him before he destroys everything and bring him in, not straight up kill him!” Rythian tried to grab Ravs and Nilesy to stop them, but they’d already split off in different directions.
“If that were true, why’d Xeph send all five of us against one guy?” She slapped his back. “Okay, Parv. It’s five against you and probably the Will guy over there, but it’d be kinda dumb to help you after you turned him into a shell of metal and disembodied agony.”
“It’s not so bad, actually. It doesn’t hurt, or anything. I do miss food, though.” The Warforged Strife spun up the glowing gears in his joints. Standing upright, he was far taller than even Tee, and his matching scythe was just as large. “Xephos says I still owe him, and until that debt’s paid, I have to stick with this sick bastard. Sorry.”
“Oh, don’t be like that, Will. I’ll even give you your body back, later. If I can find it.” He twirled the blood dagger in his fingers and shrugged.
“You’d better find it, Parvis!” The construct hissed steam from where its ears would have been.
Tee snorted and cracked his knuckles. Rythian could only shake his head at this point as any plan he had for coordination was now swirling into the sewers with the kobolds. He stepped aside and gestured him along. “You know what? Go for it. Zoey and I’ll handle Parv.”
“Will you now?” He burst into laughter, then started scooping up handfuls of blood. It was thick and gooey; trailing between his fingers, down his arms and body, and spreading out into dark ruby plates of armor. Distorted faces and gore twisted all over him as ‘living’ embossed designs. Another palmful of blood and fiery diamond chunks congealed into a wicked blade. “Come on, then! Let’s see if you fare better than the foolish Magical Guard!”
So, this happened. In about two hours. Why do I even do this to myself...
Also I can't draw orcs and elves are tall, right?
And that's Rythian at the end, you guys might not recognize him without that mask. It's an alternate universe, so I guess he doesn't need one here... that's my excuse for forgetting, anyway.
Because of Rythian's earlier post of a Blackrock D&D AU, I decided to have a go and come up with some ideas based on my own perceptions of the characters.
I'm going with Pathfinder/3.5 classes and races (it's what I'm most familiar with), so, here goes...
Rythian - Lawful Neutral Human Sorcerer (Shadow Bloodline)/Alchemist. Basically, an amalgamation of his personas from Rising and Rebirth. Shadow bloodline sorcerers get a lot of spells relating to darkness, as well as limited teleportation powers. As for being an Alchemist, EE2 was pretty much centered around alchemy and its principles, plus Rythian has a lot of potions in Rebirth, so that sort of played into things too.
Teep - Chaotic Good Kobold Ranger/Gunslinger. Pretty obvious this one. Teep's a dinosaur, Kobolds are lizard people. I went for the Ranger/Gunslinger combination because of his skill as a sniper and hunter, and the fact that Rythian gave him a proper rifle in Season 3.
Zoey - Neutral Good Half-Elf Cleric of Gozreh. Zoey was a tricky one to figure out. At first, her connection to nature would make you think of her as a Druid. But because of her robot arm from Season 3, I decided that would somehow interfere with that connection. Then, I figured she would make a decent Ranger. But Rangers are more the hunter archetype than your innocent wardens of nature. So, I decided to compromise by making her Cleric of a nature deity instead.
Ravs - Neutral Good Human Cleric of Cayden Cailean. Yes, another Cleric, but this one with good reason. In Pathfinder, Cayden Cailean is the god of three things: bravery, freedom, and booze. He's basically the personification of Scotland (if you believe what you see in Braveheart). And Ravs, as Blackrock's resident brewmaster/Scot, I couldn't think of any better fit.
Nilesy - Neutral Human Rogue. Blackrock's other resident Scot, and dealer of pools & pool-related accessories. Whether friend or not, he still charges 10 diamonds and/or friendship for his services. Money is his game, and so a Rogue seems to be what I think to be the perfect fit for Nilesy.
