Oh, so you haven't heard of Holy Worms? Well, it's because they don't exist. For real!

I mean, we had to capture a few bone worms, subject them to a few 'experiments'. A Raise Dead or so. Completely against their necrotic undead nature, but they manage. The upside is they're now completely immune to thunder and lightning, while losing their previous immunity to poison.

What can I say? Management wants a holy worm, management gets a holy worm.

I wouldn't hit 'em with any necrotic attacks though. Who knows what's going to happen should they revert to form?

Beegraks takes 5 radiant damage.
Worm B took 22 necrotic damage from Beegraks.

Uh... what did I just say? Some people just don't listen, sheesh. Don't say I didn't warn you!

Von Brandt's up next. He's knocking them all down! Not just that, he's tossing something nasty at...

Whirlwind inflicts 11 damage to both; knocked prone.
Thunder Bomb does no damage, but slows both worms.

Oh, looks like the thunder immunity's holding. They're getting back on their feet, counterattacking poor Smothas!

14 radiant damage to Beegraks.

Is it my imagination, or are these things a little bigger?

:savepoint: Beegraks (+1 x9), Von Brandt (+1 x5), Holy Worms

After hearing his partner in crimes story about the women in the inn, Zehir's champion is starting to understand why they had been put in this arena together. He thought for a second that he might have competition in the female companionship department if he didn't show his obviously superior physique off, and so he went ahead and ignored the warnings that unholy attacks might not be best in the current battle. Spinning his trusty flail once more for good luck, he slams it into the worms one after the other.

Arcing smite on both tubs

Well, at least in his head he slammed it into them. In reality, he was once again starting up a streak of "what will I miss now". So, so sad.

Action point!
Virtuous strike on tub B
24 damage (?)
Saved against ongoing damage
Shift to P10
Divine challenge against tub A

Well, it seemed the streak might not be a long one, as it had been at the very least broken temporarily.

Suddenly, Beegraks imagined himself standing next to a giant wheel, not unlike the one that he had once torn of a wagon to beat down its driver with, and it had all kinds of sparkling goodies represented on it. A little voice in his head kept telling him to spin it, so he did.

:cmb:

The worms are immune to Cyrus' shocking repertoire of electricity-based spells. But maybe he didn't need the electricity. Maybe... maybe if he really put in the mental exertion, he could tear them apart with the POWER OF HIS VERY MIND. Staring at the worms, he concentrates with all his might, willing their hearts to stop.

Use 2 minors to remove Gauntlets of Blood and don Coercive Gauntlets
Spend my last surge to toggle the Coercive Gauntlet power on
Lightning Strike Worm A
Fffffffffff

Cyrus winces, rubbing his temples. That didn't work at all. He definitely needed the lightning. He also needed a drink.

:plant:

What's Von Brandt doing, Larry? He's just standing there, changing his bracelets.

Oh. Oh! Ah, okay.

Folks, we think Von Brandt is now trying to mind control the Holy Worms. It doesn't seem to work though. Perhaps he should stick to sorcery. Or wizardry. Sorcerers and wizards, two sides of the same coin. Same difference.

You know, I swear that worm to the north of Beegraks grew a little bit. If this keeps up, it'll be big enough to... Nah, not a good idea. You can't domesticate those mindless things. They'd sooner eat you than obey you. Case in point, look what's happening to Beegraks!

5 radiant damage to Beegraks at beginning of his turn (ended by save).
33 radiant damage to Beegraks, bloodied..
5 ongoing radiant damage (save ends).

:savepoint: Beegraks (+1 x1), Von Brandt (+1 x6), Holy Worms

Beegraks, reeling in pain from the Tubes intense shedding of light, suddenly transforms into a marble statue of a holy man. Slipping away from the worms, he takes the time to renew his challenge on the smaller of the two tubs before this happens, and wacks him with his flail as a parting gift. For good measure, of course.

Divine Challenge on Tub A
Bishop's move, free attack vs. tub A
7 damage :(
Shift to K14
Second Wind with cloak of walking bloody as all hell
Ongoing damage ended

As he turns back to his former handsome self, the dragonborn, somewhat unbalanced by what had just happened, takes time to reflect upon his experience by hiding from the light in his cape for a while.

:cmb:

"Th' hell? Two sides of the same coin, my ass. Here's what a wizard does."

Cyrus adopts a mocking falsetto.

"'Lo, I have made the ground somewhat slippery. Now our enemies will find it marginally more difficult to approach us! Further, I have conjured this skeleton to carry my baggage. Prithee hast any of thee seen my spell-booke."

He coughs, his voice returning to its ordinary tone.

"Here's what a sorcerer does."

And with that, a sizzling green dart flies from Von Brandt's outstretched palm, penetrating the nearest worm and sending it flying backward past Beegraks. With a snap like dry twigs underfoot, something bursts underneath the surface of the worm's hide. Little rivulets of blood and acid trickle out of fresh wounds.

Acidic Implantation vs Worm B
7 damage. Slide Worm B to R11
Secondary attack: burst 1 centered to R11
Trigger Good Timing on the miss vs Worm A
Still miss. Cyrus takes 5 damage
Overall Worm B takes 10 damage. At least Beegs is unflanked.
Switch my gloves back, since I got no more surges to spend anyway.

:plant:

Oh, so that's what sorcerers do. Fascinating. Your new partner thinks you're a wizard though.

Wow, what was that? Whatever it was, you did a number on that worm. It's... flinching? No, it's changing colors? Did you just break the conditioning on that worm? It's coming out of your winnings, Von Brandt.

Worm B looks confused. Bloodied.

Beegraks is... he's following in Von Brandt's footsteps! Oh, he's going to take a nasty spill on that... what? So that's what the boots do! I wonder why Von Brandt didn't just glass up the whole arena -- never mind. It's just as well.

The other worm's attacking Beegraks. It doesn't seem to notice its partner is missing from the fracas!

12 damage to Beegraks. 5 radiant ongoing again.

:savepoint: Beegraks (+1 x2), Von Brandt (+1 x7), Holy Worm

Emerging from his cloak to find that the light was just as bright as before, Beegraks decides it is time to invoke the god of shadows to rid this world of these pesky oversized orifices once and for all.

"Don't make me doubt my manhood!" He shouts as he steps into flanking position of the final light tube.

Shift to L14
Divine Strength
Valorous Smite on Tube
31 damage (?)
Smiles like an idiot at finally hitting something half for shit

:cmb:

Cyrus spots his last target undergoing a strange metamorphosis over in the corner of the ring. He feels sad. And tired. And confused. He's not spent this much time wrestling with swollen worms since his brief and unpleasant enrollment at the Arcane University.

"Listen, worm. I don't like you, and you don't like me. But that's no reason for us to have to squabble like this. Look, I'm just going to back away, and hahahahahaha you completely fell for it."

Shift to K17
Acid Orb the nearest worm
14 damage to it, unless it's the bloodied one, in which case 16 damage.

:plant:

5 ongoing damage to Beegraks; bloodied.

Pow! Wham! Look at that! They're whittling the worm down, just like that. Oooh, bright lights. That worm's just exploded... Oh man, all those experimentation down the drain.

Ongoing radiant damage ends.

Looks like they've calmed down. What's the other worm doing? Aaaah! It's attacking the barrier!

5 force damage to B.

What are you waiting for? Finish them! They're useless to us now! And don't think we'll give them to you as pets or anything! We have a strict no pet policy in this arena!

http://upload.jetsam.org/images/bone-worm.png kekekekeke

:savepoint: Beegraks (+1 x3), Von Brandt (+1 x7), Bone Worms

As the second worm metamorphosizes back into his boney form, Beegraks breathes a sigh of relief from the extinguishing of the light. No time to stop now though, as these things still seem to be ready to devour him and his partner. Well, at least one of them does. The other seems to be enjoying a bout of masochism with the energy barrier. Somewhat aroused, the dragonborn decides to make its companion join in the fun.

Divine Challenge on whichever worm it is I'm close to
Basic melee attack on same worm
15 damage

BLAM! What a charitable action from our dragonborn. He takes a step back to admire his work.

Shift to J15

:cmb:

"I don't want to tell you folks how to run things — well, actually, I do. Here's my suggestion, I hope you find it constructive: enemies that would rather try to kill us than themselves. This is how mad science works, people: you can create an abomination, but it's always going to figure out that it's Not Meant To Be and then, well. At least this one's going out the violent way, instead of just sulking in its pen and refusing to eat."

Lightning Strike Worm A, arc to Worm B
Apply Storm Power damage to second worm
14 damage to A, 6 to B (assuming the resistance IS moot now)

:plant:

http://upload.jetsam.org/images/bone-worm-enemy.png Xdsss....grrrr!

Oh, oh! I don't think the worm liked it! But it had to be done. Good work, boys. Hope that didn't hurt too much.

Don't worry, I'll make it up to you. If you survive.

Now, get to work on that other worm. Make sure it sees you attacking it, so it can stop hitting our poor force field!

Basic Melee: 15 damage to A.
Lightning Strike: 7+7+2=16 damage to A. 3 damage to B.
Beegraks takes 8-5=3 necrotic damage. Subject to 5-5=0 ongoing necrotic damage. Save ends :tpg:
Bone Worm A takes 6-10=0 necrotic damage from Divine Challenge.
Bone Worm B takes 5 force damage.

:savepoint: Beegraks (+1 x4), Von Brandt (+1 x7), Bone Worms

Well now. This is more like it. Trying to bring down a chosen of the god of shadows with attacks filled with dark energy? These worms truly are out of what little minds they do have.

Shift to K14
Basic Melee Attack Vs Worm A

Oh. Beegraks is back to his old tricks it seems. No reason to not keep taunting the things though.

Renew Divine Challenge

:cmb:

Cyrus looked at the worm. And the worm looked at Cyrus. And then they both realized that the worm had no eyes, so it was real awkward. Cyrus decided to punch the worm in the face. To ease the tension.

And by punch I mean stab.

11 stabbin' damage
Whew these enemies sure continue to not die
Despite not really presenting a threat to us
Yup

Looks like the all-mighty sorcerer's plumb tapped out. Ahahahaha, he's stabbing the worm. Well now, he's a darn good stabber by the looks of it. That worm's about to collapse.

Well, looks like our shield's holding up to the worm's attack. No need to bother with it if you don't want the reward. Man, we ought to get better worms next time.

12-5=7 necrotic damage to Beegraks. Taking 5-5=0 ongoing necrotic damage (save ends).
Worm B takes 5 force damage.


:savepoint: Beegraks (+1 x5), Von Brandt (+1 x7), Bone Worms

And here he goes again folks. Still trying to hit the worm with that flail of his.

Basic Melee attack vs. worm

Who would have guessed it. The dragonborn misses again. Seems like the only way he'll get to see this worms end is to keep egging it on while the magic man does his best to dispatch it.

Renew Divine Challenge on worm
Cry a little bit on the inside

Cyrus tottered away from the worm. He was exhausted. Little sprays of lightning were dripping off the ends of his fingers and bouncing everywhere. It was really kind of gross. Magic incontinence effects 30% of sorcerers over the age of 35. Talk to your chirurgeon. He can help.

Shift to J18
Lightning Strike A, arc to B
Apply Storm Power damage to second worm
10 damage to A, 6 to B

Pang, how are you computing for 6 damage to B? I'm calculating 5: 3 from Storm Power, 2 from Gauntlets of Blood. Well, tiny difference of 1, but :tpg:

Boy, Beegraks looks tired. Another thunder strike, and another area glassed over! The worm's finally dying! One to go!

Looks like they're both tired. Well, alright gentlemen, you can go ahead and rest now. Here's a cookie for each of you. You can eat them now as a minor action or save them for later.

You've both been very helpful, so here's your reward while our wizards deal with that worm. We have an experimental hazard here which I like to call "rocks fall, someone dies." Come closer, we don't want the audience to tip off your enemies!

We basically levitate this huge ass boulder like so. Yeah, see it hovering over your head? Now, all you got to do is to mark where you want it to fall on. And in six seconds, whichever unlucky soul it falls on is squashed flatter than a warforged's chest. For safety reasons, it will only fall within the arena. Obviously we won't use this too often - bad for business. But handy for the occasional uncontrollable beast, like that so-called Tarrasque R&D's been magicking up.

I completely understand if you don't want to deal with such a dangerous death trap. You may instead take this set of eight nearly-expired fire blastpatch bombs. Usable on your next battle - it'll lose its potency by tomorrow.

Choose between:
And oh yes, your reward for making it this far. Something you put on your hips , and oh! 616 gold pieces. Isn't this great?

Again, enforced short rest. Last battle for today coming up after your posts.

"I'm inclined toward the explosives, but the lizard wants a giant rock and I'm disinclined for an argument right now. Let's... Rock."

Cyrus puts on his smoked-glass spectacles.

"As for that belt, Beegraks, it's yours; if you ever see me sacrificing anything, kill me right then and there because I've been replaced by a doppelganger."

Cyrus tucks the cookie into his belt for safety. It's a sturdy cookie.

3 damage from my Dex mod (from Lightning Strike itself), 3 from Storm Power (which just adds the Dex mod again). I completely forgot about my gauntlet damage waaaaaugh

"Ah! Thank you magic man! Mr. Vvvvvon Brrrrandt."

Says the dragonborn as he fits the belt onto his hips of swinging doom snuggly.

Beegraks then proceeds to scarf down his cookie and rest up a bit, what with the blood spurting out of him every which way and everything.

Put on belt
Mmmm Cookie
use one Healing Surge on top of the cookie

:cmb:

Cyrus realizes belatedly that he had just sacrificed ownership of the belt. He stares at his hands in silent horror. They'd already gotten to him! BUT HOW? Something in the cookies. Drugged. They must be keeping the real Cyrus in a cage somewhere, forcing him to teach his arcane secrets to a succession of duplicates. Copying his powers! His memories! His precious, precious paranoia!

No wonder these battles were so exhausting. He was only an inferior copy. There would be plenty of time later to rescue himself. He'd have to be killed along with all the other duplicates in the end, of course. It's a good thing he was tainted with the disgusting flaw of self-sacrifice, or he'd balk at that.

For now, of course, he could give no sign. If they knew that he suspected, they'd kill him on the spot and he'd be replaced with a less wily duplicate. He would have to bide his time.

All right then, let me teach you the sequence!

You put your right foot in, you put your left foot out;
You put your backside in, And shake it all about.
You do the Hokey-Pokey, and you turn yourself around.
That's what it's all about!

Get that? Good. The first one to do this, will trigger the sequence.

Your final fight is a another blast from the past. Don't look so worried, Beegraks. It's not you they're after this time. Seems like once they caught wind that their former "partner" is now fighting in Waterdeep, they begged us to let them join in the fray!

http://upload.jetsam.org/images/mercenery-wizard.pngCyrus, it's long past time for you to die. I have nothing else to say to you. You! Spread out, don't let him get to you with his blasts! Flank him, and cut him into pieces. Him and that pet dragon of his!

They're moving in, keeping their intervals wide! Oh, for a moment I thoguht one of them was going to slip on the glass. They know what Von Brandt is capable of. One of them is throwing a dagger at -- oh, it just bounced off Beegraks' armor!

Poison Dagger: +14 vs AC. Miss.
Thug B and both Assassins take the Total Defense Action.

Terrain: Red shades: slippery; blue shades: difficult and blocks line of effect
:savepoint: Von Brandt (+1 x7), Beegraks (+1 x5), Mercenary Wizard, Street Thugs, Death Squad Assassins

Defenses:
Street Thug: AC 21 Fort 19 Ref 20 Will 17
Assassins: AC 21 Fort 18 Ref 20 Will 19
Wizard: AC 19 Fort 16 Ref 20 Will 20

"Reynolds. It's been a long time. I understand you being sore about the medusa lair, but one of us had to go in first. You just drew the short straw! Somebody was bound to show up with some stone to flesh potions eventually, right?

Now, I grant you: it's a real shame, you spending those 5 years locked in a stone prison of your own petrified flesh, fully aware of the passage of time but unable to either move or speak. But I'm sure you got a lot of deep thinking done.

Most importantly, you didn't age a bit in that statue. Look at you, not a day over 46. I'd be jealous, if I didn't know how badly I'm going to wreck your face in the next five minutes."

With that, he sends a bolt of lightning flashing past one of Reynolds' hired goons: it misses the assassin by inches.

"That's the only warning shot you'll get. Reynolds wouldn't be able to afford four of you if you were any damned good, so take a hint. Bitches, leave."


Move to I-16
Lightning Strike Assassin A
Uuuuuugh

"Huh? Magic Man, what did you do to these weaklings to get them so pissy?"

Beegraks inquisitively asks of his partner, Barely noticing the knife that bounced off of him.

"smells like poison. You guys like poison?"

He says as he turns towards the Assassins.

Move to F12
Dragon Breath from the Southwest corner so as to hit both assassins
9 damage to assassin A

"Tasty, isssn't it?"

:cmb: