Reclamation of Rugome Fort | Page 3

Reclamation of Rugome Fort​

The revelry had been too soon, and the adventurers capitalized on the hope of the goblins as their leader returned. As the berserk rage of the basher subsided in the awe-inspiring presence of Shulgana’s Champion, Seigi’s fist struck home, the second primed machination roaring to life as the human-sized goblin’s chest caved in from the horrifying might of steel and spring. White ribs burst out from its side, as it stumbled backwards, shocked at how easily death came for it. Organs ruptured beyond the possibility of healing, Bachilles dropped his twin clubs before keeling over, a final deathly whisper rattling out of his bloodied teeth. His eyes never left the gaze of his roaring tormentor, even as he fell onto the blood-soaked ground, joining his lover in death.

The archer brothers also paid for their sigh of relief, finding the courage to rise out from their hiding places once more, only to be met with an unending salvo of magical and scientific projectiles. Still the stronger of the two, Beezus leapt in front of Argus moments before his flesh blackened under the heat of a fire bolt, charred flesh eviscerated soon afterwards by a cruel mechanism that launched razor-sharp blades like demented boomerangs. As chunks of his older brother fell upon him, Argus, always cowardly, always accustomed to looking at that broad back from behind, realized that their efforts truly were useless.

Even if the adventurers were to die, that didn’t mean his brother would come back to life, so really, what was the point of continuing?

A broken smile crested his features as the arcane bolt flew through the air, weaving between gaps in the battlement to end his life with a silent explosion.

It truly was a mercy killing.

And what of the one that saw it all, having arrived much too late to stop the slaughter of his comrades? What of him, the one decreed as Shulgana’s Champion, his grief and his loss mocked by a spearman many times his inferior? What of him?

Bury it. They were once many, but by the time they made it to safety, they were only five stalwart souls, and now…only he remained.

Overhead, the sun was drifting downwards towards the horizon, the sky burning ablaze with the honor bound anger that raged in the Skull Faced Goblin’s heart, as he smouldered and shuddered, suppressing the knife wounds in his heart that never, ever got easier.

And then, he disappeared.

A flurry of grass strands burst upwards as the Skull Faced Goblin reappeared before Lady Briar in a momentous burst of speed, spear already poised for a thrust. Digging deep into the Felis chaos spearman’s gut, he impaled her deeply before hoisting her up and swinging in a crescent motion, sending her flying against the wall that two others cowered behind. Blood burst from @Lady Briar ’s feet as she struggled to land properly amid the sudden agony, but already, the Skull Faced Gob was moving again, his eyes burning with soulfire. Digging the butt of his spear into the ground, he somersaulted upwards like a pole vaulter, twisting into the air.

For a moment, the sanguine glint of his spear glowed with a demonic light, before he landed with many times the speed of his ascent, cracking the earth with a powerful strike. A crimson shockwave radiated from the epicenter of the powerful strike, a dozen cuts bursting onto the skin of @Lady N , @Seigi , and Lady Briar, as the walls around them crumbled, breaking apart with the force of that mighty strike.

But their blood did not feed the earth.

Torn from their wounds by an otherworldly force, their sanguine life force swirled around the crouched figure of Shulgana’s Champion, congealing into a barrier of blood as, within, the goblin posed, spear outstretched, roaring out a grand battle cry, a hate-filled declaration to the immortal monsters that slew so many of his people.

“SHULGANA EST GARIM!”​

The crimson light that had first unveiled itself during his earth-shattering blow now shone threefold, rivaling the exorable flames of the dying sun, as the Sunderer of Immortals prepared to unleash his full power, ready to protect this place even at the cost of his soul.

The stage was set. The actors have presented their final hands.

Now, there was only one choice to be made.

Fight or flight?

OOC​

@Lady Briar @Lady N @Sean Poteitoku @Jace Vale @Seigi @Wally Bertrand

• Minimum of 100 words and maximum of 500 words.
• 1 post per character per cycle, with DM posts resetting the cycle every 24 hours.
• All dice must be rolled in this thread.
• This is the deciding point. Individuals may run, if they so desire, and will not incur any sort of penalty.

Hidden: Post Template

Code:

[bg]
[health]### / ###[/health] [zone]#[/zone]
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[CENTER][b2]Action (mention others if it affects them)[/b2]
[score]Roll + Bonuses = Total[/score]
Roll / Tracker
xxx/??? (count damage upwards)
[/CENTER]

 

Cycle 4
Battle Conditions

​

Zone 7 Skull Faced Goblin [19/???]
​

Damage:

• @Lady Briar receives 25 damage.
• @Lady Briar @Lady N @Seigi receives 20 damage.
• @Lady Briar receives 10 damage due to Caltrops (moved from Zone 5 to Zone 7 forcibly).
  
• @Lady N receives 5 damage due to Poison.

Important Combat Information
The Skull Faced Goblin is protected by a Barrier of Blood which must be destroyed before attacking him directly. This Barrier has 60 HP, and extra damage dealt to it will not transfer over to the Skull Faced Goblin.

Choose your attackers wisely and finish what you have began.

Zone 11 - 2 The top of the ruined tower. Ranged attacks targetting those in this zone receive a -20 penalty, unless it is a Geomancy or an Aeromancy attack.

Zone 11 - 1 The bottom of the ruined tower. Roll a d100 and add +5 for every tier of either Hunting, Tinker, or Rogue if you enter this area.

Zone 2, 5, 8 Tall, wild grass, waist deep if you're short. Roll a d100 and add +5 for every tier of either Hunting, Mobility, or Rogue if you enter this area.

Zone 1, 4, 10 Short, grassy terrain with short, half-crumbled walls. Ranged attacks targetting those in this zone receive a -10 penalty, unless it is a Geomancy or an Aeromancy attack.

Zone 7 The earth is fractured and walls have all crumbled. Ranged attacks into this area no longer incur any penalties.

Zone 3, 6, 9, 12 Piles of rubble from toppled over walls and structures fill the area. A treacherous path if you recklessly advance.

Movement Every turn, you may move to one Zone adjacent to your current one for free. You may also spend your action for this round and move to another Zone after your free movement. Ending your turn on certain Zones may trigger events.

Range Ranged and Magical attacks can reach any zone. Melee attacks can only target those within the same Zone as the attacker. Tinker can be used to either add additional modifiers to melee attacks, acting similarly to Berserk, Hunting, and Dual Wielding, or be used to temporarily change a melee master into a ranged attack.

Actions

Everyone is allowed to perform one of these actions per cycle. RP-wise, you can do a number of things, but the system only counts the action you pick from the spreadsheets.

• Tank - Protect allies, disrupt enemies, and mitigate zonal damage.
• DPS - Damage, damage, and more damage.
• Support - Heal, buff, and dispel conditions from allies.

Hidden: Feats

Feats are special actions that can be performed at the cost of one's HP. These are to signal truly desperate times, and outside of Strenuous Effort, can only be used once per Challenge.

Strenuous Effort By permanently sacrificing HP (reduce both your current HP value and your maximum HP value), you can gain a bonus modifier to your roll equal to the amount of HP spent. This modifier can not be applied to Buff rolls.

Soul Filled Strike This is the climax, the final clash. Offer up your heart in exchange for godly strength and ensure that your nemesis falls. Roll a d100. If your result is 70 or below, you die. If your result is 71 or above, your HP is set to 1. Your next attack is (100 + modifiers + buffs) x 2.

Bravery's Gift You swore to yourself once that you will never see a friend fall, and now, it's time to fulfill that promise, even at the cost of your own. This Feat can be used retroactively. Usage of Second Wind is sealed. In place of a maximum of five others, take two times the damage they would have taken during this turn.

The Last Prayer If there is Divinity that watches upon, then with your earthly desires, pull them down from their lofty throne and force a miracle out of them. Select three targets and give each of them the following: a single target attack buff lasting three turns, a single target heal, and the removal of all debuffs. At the end of this turn, you die.

Death caused directly by the usage of a Feat can not be overturned with a Ressurection spell.

 

Reclamation of Rugome Fort​

A pillar of flame cleaved through the veil of blood, radiant flames chasing away the crimson barrier in a singular stroke.

But he endured.

The unnaturally hard skull of a warrior struck him in the helm, empowered by the essence of guts and effort, love and justice.

But he endured.

The reaping slash of the Felis b- he endured. The arcane beam of t- he endured. The spinning razors o- he endured!

Agony fed the volcanic rage as he endured the vicious, bloodying blows that had downed his allies, holding onto the last vestiges of his sanity as he gave everything to this singular strike. For those who have given up their lives protecting this cradle, for those who still lived yet, hiding within these ruins, for those who were neither, he will dedicate this one strike to them and silence the wretched invaders that would sully his territory!

The skies above darkened, as the last desperate attack of his foe was insufficient to felling him. Beneath the shadow of the looming cloud, Shulgana’s Champion raised his spear upwards, an eldritch light bursting out of the seams, the fracturing spear unable to handle the sheer amount of power that was fed into it. He could hear it, his Goddess’s whispers, asking for the full consignment of his soul, but no. Not today. Not ever. The Skull Faced would not cross the line from Champion to Revenant yet.

Before the horrified eyes of his foes, the spear struck the earth with cataclysmic force, a foul life essence corrupting the very life force of the planet. Red lightning raced all over the ruins of Rugome Fort as great sanguine spikes burst out, skewering all those within the clearing. Friend or foe, it did not matter, as the magical attack indiscriminately targeted all. Against the onslaught, @Seigi was the first to fall, instantly torn in half as a too-large spike drove through her body. @Lady N followed soon after, mercifully slain by poison stopping her heart before the blood-spikes rammed through her body. @Sean Poteitoku came last, the scraps of leather he called ‘armor’ doing little to prevent his unsightly demise. @Lady Briar , @Jace Vale , and @Wally Bertrand too suffered as their bodies were punctured and brutalized from the subterranean assault, fortunate enough to be tossed upwards by the erupting force instead of straight up staked.

The three remaining adventurers struck the hard ground painfully, bouncing up once, twice, as they tumbled onto the ruined landscape.

Against this unholy onslaught of magical fury, only the tower remained unmolested, the landscape all around turned into a hellscape of rubble and pits. And, as the blood-stained dust settled, the diminutive, yet overwhelming presence of the Skull Faced Goblin remained present. Blood seeped beneath the cracks of his armor, and his great spear had shattered into infinitesimal pieces as a result of that mighty blow, but he remained undaunted, burning eyes digging into the very souls of those that had survived.

A guttural voice, unaccustomed to the human tongue, sounded beneath his battered horn-helm.

“Leave.”

Half the party laid broken by his feet, torn to shreds by that fear-inspiring might. In the face of a being that had transcended the physical limits of his race, his status, his self, what would their choice be?

To fight this malignant avatar to the last breath, for the sake of the fallen and for the sake of their own valorous task? To shield themselves of the shame of being the ones that retreated in the face of adversity?

Or to retreat despite the sacrifices they had already made, knowing all too well that they would be unable to bridge the gap between themselves and the existence that was a ‘monster’ in the truest sense of the word?

In this virtual world, death may not be permanent, but it was never without a cost.

OOC​

@Lady Briar @Lady N @Sean Poteitoku @Jace Vale @Seigi @Wally Bertrand

• Minimum of 100 words and maximum of 500 words.
• 1 post per character per cycle, with DM posts resetting the cycle every 24 hours.
• All dice must be rolled in this thread.
• This is the last combat round.

Hidden: Post Template

Code:

[bg]
[health]### / ###[/health] [zone]#[/zone]
[/bg]

[CENTER][b2]Action (mention others if it affects them)[/b2]
[score]Roll + Bonuses = Total[/score]
Roll / Tracker
xxx/??? (count damage upwards)
[/CENTER]

 

Cycle 5
Battle Conditions

​

Zone 7 Skull Faced Goblin [319/???]
​

Damage:

• @Seigi @Lady N @Sean Poteitoku have received 100 [50x2] damage, and have fallen in battle. May this death strengthen, rather than cripple, them.
  
• @Lady Briar @Jace Vale @Wally Bertrand have received 50 damage.

Important Combat Information
This is the final round of this fight. Those who decide to retreat shall be safe. Those who decide to fight shall not be. Choose, between dying pointlessly for honor, or surviving in shame.

Zone 11 - 2 The top of the ruined tower. Ranged attacks targetting those in this zone receive a -20 penalty, unless it is a Geomancy or an Aeromancy attack.

Zone 11 - 1 The bottom of the ruined tower. Roll a d100 and add +5 for every tier of either Hunting, Tinker, or Rogue if you enter this area.

All other zones The land is ravaged and filled with deep pitfalls. The soil is slightly damp, stained in an ichorous substance.

Movement Every turn, you may move to one Zone adjacent to your current one for free. You may also spend your action for this round and move to another Zone after your free movement. Ending your turn on certain Zones may trigger events.

Range Ranged and Magical attacks can reach any zone. Melee attacks can only target those within the same Zone as the attacker. Tinker can be used to either add additional modifiers to melee attacks, acting similarly to Berserk, Hunting, and Dual Wielding, or be used to temporarily change a melee master into a ranged attack.

Actions

Everyone is allowed to perform one of these actions per cycle. RP-wise, you can do a number of things, but the system only counts the action you pick from the spreadsheets.

• Tank - Protect allies, disrupt enemies, and mitigate zonal damage.
• DPS - Damage, damage, and more damage.
• Support - Heal, buff, and dispel conditions from allies.

Hidden: Feats

Feats are special actions that can be performed at the cost of one's HP. These are to signal truly desperate times, and outside of Strenuous Effort, can only be used once per Challenge.

Strenuous Effort By permanently sacrificing HP (reduce both your current HP value and your maximum HP value), you can gain a bonus modifier to your roll equal to the amount of HP spent. This modifier can not be applied to Buff rolls.

Soul Filled Strike This is the climax, the final clash. Offer up your heart in exchange for godly strength and ensure that your nemesis falls. Roll a d100. If your result is 70 or below, you die. If your result is 71 or above, your HP is set to 1. Your next attack is (100 + modifiers + buffs) x 2.

Bravery's Gift You swore to yourself once that you will never see a friend fall, and now, it's time to fulfill that promise, even at the cost of your own. This Feat can be used retroactively. Usage of Second Wind is sealed. In place of a maximum of five others, take two times the damage they would have taken during this turn.

The Last Prayer If there is Divinity that watches upon, then with your earthly desires, pull them down from their lofty throne and force a miracle out of them. Select three targets and give each of them the following: a single target attack buff lasting three turns, a single target heal, and the removal of all debuffs. At the end of this turn, you die.

Death caused directly by the usage of a Feat can not be overturned with a Ressurection spell.

 

Reclamation of Rugome Fort​

The clang of steel rupturing steel sounded through the shattered landscape of the Fort. A final effort, a final strike, drove the proverbial stake through the demon’s chest, finally piercing the armor that had remained unbroken before the might of so many blades. Pushed up to her very hands, scarlet blood, the same as her own, spurted onto her hands, warm and sticky as an involuntary shudder ran through the body of the Skull Faced Goblin. Had she done it? Had she attained victory?

The silence, broken only by the pattering feet of her allies, laid heavily upon the hellscape wrought by Shulgana’s sanguine might, her Champion breathing thinly, unmoving.

Victory?

No.

Merely a moment of respite.

Before the bloodstained Lady could tear her spear out of his chest, gauntleted hands grabbed her face and crushed it to pulp. Gore spilled between the dull gray armor as Lady Briar’s body fell onto the marred earth, a puppet with strings cut.

The curse of the adventurer activated then, flesh reknitting itself as a white skull pieced itself back together from broken fragments, covered up by meat and skin and fat. <<Second Wind>> the auto revive ability of all those bearing tank masteries. In any other case, it would be the signal of a counterattack, but with no allies to cover for her, it was much too easy for the Skull Faced Goblin to crush that battered face a second time, casting her into oblivion. No amount of curses would change the cruel difference between a single immortal adventurer and a monster that only had a single life. From the very beginning, there had been a difference in resolve, in desperation.

As the sun set, long shadows cast by the dying light of day, the Skull Faced Goblin turned back to the great flesh-beast he had slain that day and, grabbing it by the legs, began to pull it back.

One step at a time, until he couldn’t take it anymore. Then even more steps past that.

Arstorus.

Scarlet drops seeped from the length of the spear still embedded in his chest.

Bachilles.

Each limb screamed even as they numbed, his heartbeat weakening as grains of sand tumbled into endless infinity.

Argus.

Each whisper robbed another shred of his sanity, his resolve being chipped away like diamond by the persistence of the fiend-goddess.

Beezus.

But still, he stood, pushing himself against the exterior wall of the tower, untouched by the great fight that had occurred. It took everything from him, and then some, but in the end…

Another day.

For beings like himself, neither pretty enough nor intelligent enough, this was the price of ‘tomorrow’.

Ah. Ahahaha.

His legs gave out beneath him, a red streak painting the wall that he could no longer draw support from. His vision was darkening, his ears already shot, his body slowly freezing over as the death-chill overcame the last beats of his heart.

At the very end of his life, it was neither a prayer nor an oath that the Champion of Shulgana made.

It was a contract.

OOC​

@Lady Briar @Lady N @Sean Poteitoku @Jace Vale @Seigi @Wally Bertrand

• Good effort, guys! I'd say better luck next time, but the next Reclamation is going to be nothing like the first...and I'm certain you're sick of these Special Ops Gobs anyways.
• Lady Briar is dead. Post in the Morgue whenever convenient, June.