Terras' Preparation

After Aaronax disappeared, Terra stood there baffled at who she had just seen. "Could it really be him?," she thought to herself. She tried to recall what she knew of the first Arch-Magi. Not much at this intant, other than that he had vanished with no trace and never seen again. That is, until now. Could he really be the man behind this whole evil scheme? But, why? The arch-magi were put on each world to protect them from evil. "I will have to travel back to the council and tell them what I have seen. And, I will need to find out all the information I can about this being."

Silently, Terra turns around and walks towards her tower, not hearing anything other than than the thoughts in her head, and feeling as though she is walking through a thick fog. "Many preparations need to be made. So much has changed. Things are not as I had once thought. I am up against someone much stronger than I, someone who is who I am."

As she walks into her tower, she heads for her secluded study, where she knows no one can find her. She tells a servent, "If anyone is looking for me, tell them I am busy and that I apologize for not being able to gather with them. I'm sure Gildere will understand, if no one else."

She sits in her study, silent, deep in thought. "What to do ... What to do. I wish Forge were still here." Dearest Forge, Terras' mentor from the beginning of her Arch-Magi training. He helped her become who she was today. She and her companions had no choice but to destroy him as he stood in front of her that day. Tears came to Terras' eyes as she remembers back to that battle. The tears don't stop. Not for a long time. She felt so lost, so alone. Who would really understand? The other Arch-Magi? Possbile, but not probable.

She beings to write a letter to Gildere, explaining all that would be happening in the upcoming months and years. How she was going to be unreachable while in this meditative state. She writes that she will get in contact with him when the time is right. She also tells Gildere that while she is in this state, that, if he so chooses, the tower is his for his use except for this room. Any items in this tower will belong to him, and the servents, minus Terra's personal servent, will obey only him. She also leaves something for each of her other companions. For Elladan she has prepared Bracers of Archery(1). For Aiden Helm of the beserker(2). Endel shall have Blades Bane(3). And for Balden Dwarven Full Plate +2 of Repair(4).

Terra then begins to write a note to the Arch-Mage council. She explains in detail her journies to stop Kurgen, and then the final 7 days, and Aaronax posing as Kurgen after he killed him. She then explains to the council what she will be doing and how she will not be able to be contacted, through any form of communication. She instructed them that if there are any questions to direct them towards Gildere because he is a respected and trustworthy friend.

She was going to need time. Lots of time.

Terra started chanting, slipping into a deep trance. Concentrating, thinking, drawing forth whatever power she could gather within herself. This trance lasted for many months, which gave way to years. Within this trance, all recollection of her compainions faded. All sense of time has stopped. To her, only minutes has past, while outside it has been years. She feels no emotion, no sense of hunger or thirst, no feeling of exhaustion. She only hopes that she can find an answer . . .

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(1) Provides a +2 to hit and a +1 bonus to all ranged attacks as well as lets the wearer fire into melee combat with no penalties to hit allies. On a roll of a 1 however there is still a 50/50 chance of the shot being a miss and hitting a friend.

(2) This items lets you attack as if you were a fighter of the same level for 1 round/level once per day.

(3) Elven Full Plate +1, Standard armor except if any opponent rolls a natural 1 or 2 on a swing and that roll would be a miss the weapon used must make a saving through vs. crushing blow at -4 or be destroyed. I.E. - They swing and the weapons shatters when it hits the armor.

(4) Standard effects of dwarven plate however the armor auto-repairs the HP bonus that it provides at a rate of 1 per 2 hrs or 12/day.

The Morning Comes On the Last Day

Well, for what I think to be the last day of my life. I am prepared for whatever is thrown at us. If it is my final death, then so be it. I will die saving the world. If it's meant to be, then it's meant to be.

We head out in the morning of the seventh day. When we clear the parapet, we see Kurgen and nothing else. He is standing there by himself...no army.


"Despite this minor setback, I will soon get things back on track," said Kurgen. "You can enjoy this short lived victory."

Kurgan reaches down and pulls back his hood. Gabriel says,"this isn't Kurgen." Terra says,"this is Aaranax". He is the first Malkieri and first Archi Magi on this world. Elladan says, "where is Kurgan?" He replies,"he's dead, when he brought me out, there were consequences, much like Gabriel, so I killed him. This is my plan."

"It will probably take me some time, but I will get get another warlord and come back to this world. I will fulfill my plan." says Aaranax.

Gildere whispers, "grab on"

Aaranax winks and disappears.

I open my eyes...

Sabathius is standing over me. Wow, I feel like crap but I'm alive. I get up and Gildere/Terra are discussing what to do with raising Forge so that he won't smoke us when he gets up. I'm trying to get my barings and the wolf comes in. It breathes on Baldin and he stands up and appears to be ok. I lean over and puke behind my table. Sabathius resurrects Endel and the 5 of us are back.

I go over to Elladan take an arrow from his quiver and leave the room. I head out on the upper balcony and start to fashion the arrow head into a necklace and wear it around my necklace. Elladan and I have been through many many battles together. I get up and get some breakfast and head out to the parapet. I stop and see Elladan sitting next to Baldin. I sneak up on him and pull out a small throwing dagger and hold it near Elladan. He swings and punches me in the face. It figures, I could never sneak up on that guy and I could have sworn that I had him this time. Oh well. We wait until everyone else comes out, including Gabriel now.

Gabriel and Elladan tells us what has been going on. Elladan has been traveling different planes owning up. He was encased in the opalruby that Gabriel broke. Gabriel tells us that he and Elladan (and the ninja and multiple man paladin) will take care of the army. We have to take care of Kurgan and Grog.

Grog states that, "he has something to say". Kurgan says, "I'll give you one last change. You know the rest of your forces won't last the day." Gabriel arches an eyebrow at Kurgan as he is talking. Kurgan says,"You only have 4 guys remaining. Does anyone have any final words before I send my Warlord to finish you."

Kurgen says the opening of Arcanum. (which is pretty freaking cool).

After some dialogue, Kurgan says that he is on a time line. And just to make this fight fair. He raises his hand and my new cool sword shatters. Crap. A person appears behind Baldin, says "here, you dropped this somewhere." Baldin takes his hammer and the symbol of Tyr appears on the outside of Baldins armor.

He turns and walks away, Grog walks through the gate. Elladan leans to me and says, "Don't forget, he's an Ügre." (that is an Über ogre). Now I know why I missed Elladan so much.

IT IS ON!!!!!

Endel charges and swings into Grog. Grog plunges a mace into Endel knocking him aside. I stoneskin from my sword (the first time I've ever done that). Gildere's armor glows, sprouts wings and basically looks like Gabriel did yesterday. I swing and just miss. I took time and made sure to try and wreck him but missed. That is weird. He hit me, but took away over half of my stoneskin. Terra threw two energy nets the first one hit and the second one was about to hit, but a ghost of Bolo came out of Grog's armor and negated the energy net. I can't seem to get him in my target's sights. I keep missing horribly. He moves to Terra and he opens up a can on her. There is nothing she can do, he opens up on her and she falls over dead. We continue to trade blows. Grog thumps Baldin and he falls. What the heck are we going to do? Again, we trade blows and Grog is just smacking the crap out of everyone but me. Endel goes down and he's bleeding visibly. I run over and slap my periapt of wound closing on him and go back to swing at Grog (like it's going to matter).

Gildere and Grog trade blows and Gildere swells up and swings with all his might, driving his flame of the void home and Grog starts to fall over. As he's falling, his armor explodes and sends a shockwave through out the land, knocking everyone over, including the entire army.

Gabriel slams the gates closed, grabs a body and heads inside. We follow him in the tower. Endel coughs and wakes up. John raises Terra and resurrects Baldin. We are back up and running (John is the priest from the other world that smoked everyone). So the gameplan is -

After we do enough damage to Kurgan he will cast a bubble on him, at that point he will go nova and destroy the entire world around him. Terra memorized a spell that will reverse the effects of the nova and destroy Kurgan himself.

Baldin hands me a scroll of Cure Critical Wounds and I head to bed to think about where we are going to be tomorrow.

Day Six

Wake up, feeling good and ready for whatever Kurgan throws at me today. I head out with the rest of the group and see 6 people standing below the wall.

Jaton
Forge
Elladan
Fiston
Mydok
Jeff (Gildere's Dad)

Wow, are we supposed to fight these guys? These guys are known to me and I can't fight these guys. I mean, I have fought next to Elladan for years and years, how am I expected to kill him. I won't...I can't.

Gabriel jumps up on the parapet and says "I'll take care of the army." He pulls out a opalruby "all the brute force in the world can't compare to a little preparation" and shatters the opalruby. He jumps down, sprouts wings, his armor turns to bright white and starts walking towards the army and leaves behind flaming footprints. The rest of the guys that Hades brought with him join Gabriel.

Gildere throws a forcecage on Jaton, which gets dispelled by Fiston. Screw that guy. I use my dimension door and stab Mydok in the back. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Elladan pour about 9 arrows into Fiston!!!

HOLY CRAP, he's on our side!!!

I turn back to Mydok and stick my sword into him full hilt. I lean into him and say to him "That's right dirtbag, he's on our side!!" I unsheath my sword from his body. He staggers back and frowns at me. I look past Mydok to see Gildere's dad and Jaton swing into Endel and he falls to his knees. I swing into Mydok again. He casts harm and my ring triggers. He cut my life in half..stupid harm. Elladan looks like he was dehydrated and falls over dead. A lot of missiles are shot at Terra and she looks pretty bad off. Mydok gets in a heal and then harms me again. I'm at 2 freaking hit points. Mydok drops to Terra's wilting (turn about is fair play). I start tumbling to see if I can last a couple more minutes and get Gildere's Dad to swing at me. However, he casts a fireball at his feet which takes away the remaining life I had left.

I'm dead...


Enter 3rd person -
Gildere swings and kills his dead and Baldin charges Forge, Death Wishes (transfer HP to damage) and drops Forge. It's a good thing Elladan's cat was taking away stoneskin ticks from Forge.

When it hit the proverbial fan...

And the morning of day 5 rolls around, we are feeling great and we are kicking ass and taking names. What could we possibly face today that would be worse than what we have faced so far. I mean c'mon, 7 dragons, what could be that bad. The last paladin summoned a Shioken Grove and that pretty much kept the army at bay for the entire day. And then over the grove comes the following -

Baatezu
Balor x2
Maralith x2

That is a significant amount of damage heading our way. The Maraliths get dropped off on the wall and I try to go invis. Evidently they see me cause they take a swing. Endel basically smokes the Baatezu, with the help of Terra's Energy Net and we help to finish it off. I swing into the Maralith with a backstab and get some damage in, the second Maralith attempts to swing at me, misses with the tail and falls off the wall. The Maralith that I am fighting wraps its tail around Baldin and chokes him. Luckily he doesn't pass out. He breaks out and we drop that Maralith. The rest of the part drops a Balor and Gildere Forcecages the other Balor. The remaining Maralith gets smoked and the Balor in the force cage throws some fire at his feet and hits us with it. Gildere gets wrapped up by the Balor's flamewhip and he drops the forcecage. We are able to gut him and call the day victorius. What more could be done to hurt us...


....


...the answer is not enough.