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Pathstomper2 part 3

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Pathstomper

Hours later, back at the inn, the various part members have their dinner and take a few potions to heal their wounds, except King Joe who gets a hammer and a curious multi-tool to fix damage to his form. Silver Fang came back after the rest did and returned to his room to rest up, planning to talk to the group in the morning. Before bed, he drank some hot tea and ordered fresh bread and some meat sent to his room. The falls asleep at what seems to be 8:30pm and everything fades to black.
With a flash from across the street, Silver Fang wakes up.  He sluggishly hobbles over to the window to peer out and sees flames rising from one of the shops on the other side of the road. He snaps out of his funk, quickly equips himself for battle, and bolts out the door, even though his armor weighs him down considerably. He passes by a wall clock in the hall, noticing it is a few minutes after eleven o’ clock  as he charges on.  Ansmaro meets him on the bottom floor with Vrondi Piscine. “What’s going on?!” Ansmaro asks in a panicked tone.  “I don’t know, but we have to react!” shouts Silver Fang and with that he crashes through the door.
Outside the night air is heated by the fire across the street. A shop that sells cheeses, salted meats, wines, and various other things is burning brightly as the trio enters onto the street. King Joe follows out the door about forty seconds after. “Where’s Bonesmasher?” asks Vrondi frantically and King Joe merely shrugs. Then with a “THUD!” Bonesmasher crashes behind them and they all take notice. “You fell out from the window?!” Ansmaro yelps. “No. Decided to jump out, but I lack aerodynamicness,” Bonesmasher says as he gets up on his feet and rubs his head. They all are standing outside in the dark of night as the flames from the burning building cause the shadows of darkness to retreat.  In front of them and before the building three figures appear-three ghosts of a Guts with a mace; a Daigerun whose bloated, ghostly body dwarfs the other two ghosts with its jaws from its flat, ray-like head drip with ectoplasm saliva; and an insectoid Baltan that is glad in ghostly hide armor.
“GHOSTS?!” Vrondi Piscine screeches in horror as the triad of ghosts draws closer. Silver Fang gives a cry and uses “Smite Evil” upon the Daigerun and withdraws his scimitar. Bonesmasher takes off and tries to club the Guts, however he passes right through the specter. The Guts ghost does smack Bonesmasher with the mace, knocking him out cold. King Joe tries using a spark blast from his face knobs, and does seem to harm the Baltan a bit. Vrondi Piscine generates a lightning bolt that strikes the Baltan ghost, doing a bit more damage, however it still rises to its ghostly feet. Ansmaro looks around and is puzzled at what to do and then sees Silver Fang take another shot at the Daigerun who (because he wasn’t watching Silver Fang much) has its ghastly maw latched onto Silver Fang’s forearm. The blade pops through the translucent head of the Daigerun; the foul, ghostly creature looks surprised; and begins to discorporate. The Guts draws closer to an unconscious Bonesmasher with his mace. Silver Fang drops his weapon, slaps his hands together, and kneels all of the sudden. “Channel positive energy!!!!” he shouts as loud as possible and a wave of light erupts from his position. The two remaining ghosts are caught in the light and disappear He gets up and retrieves his weapon, “So that’s that.” Ansmaro looks at him and shouts, “Ghosts? Where did they come from?!” Silver Fang looks at the group and dryly says, “Long story, rather save it for morning.” Before Silver Fang can go back into the inn, a gaggle of constables and firefighters arrive on the scene. The town’s sheriff, a Salamandora, comes onto the scene and says in a deep, raspy voice, “I seen what you did back there, Silvergon. Tomorrow I want you in my office at 10 am or I’ll send someone to bring you in.” Silver Fang looks at him and facepalms, “All right.” Scene fades to black.
The next morning the group is in a waiting room to see the sheriff.  “I can’t believe that there is an army of ghosts about to leave the prison and besiege this town,” Vrondi says in a tone that still reflects his surprise on the entire situation. Earlier, Silver Fang told the entire group of what was about to happen and what did happen in the ruins of the prison. King Joe autones away, “I have met undead before. My alkahest bombs are designed to combat corporal undead, but not ghosts.”  Vrondi starts to levitate all the sudden and begins to chant quietly and the rest of the group note this. “Cut that out!” snaps Silver Fang as he grabs Vrondi’s tail and forces him back down into his seat. “Sorry that spell book you gave me…does…THINGS,” he adds in an embarrassed tone. A Shaplay in office worker clothes calls to the group, “The Sheriff shall see you now.” They all get up and Silver Fang looks at them and mutters, “Don’t screw this up.” Then the scene cuts away.
Next scene opens up to the Sheriff sitting at his desk and rubbing the top of his head under his crest and groaning, “Really? That ghost attack was because cultists removed the ghost of the warden that keeps the other ghosts trapped in Ravengro Prison?” Silver Fang nods, “Essentially, yes.” “So if something is not done soon, Harrowstone will be turn into Spook Central?” he questions again and looks at the group with mild antipathy. “Right. You know mass hysteria, the dead rising from the grave, and dogs and cats living together,” quips Ansmaro. “I really don’t even want to know how he got in your group,” growls the Sheriff, “However if you can go and mix this problem, Harrowstone would be in your debt.” Ansmaro scratches his chin and his eyes narrow, “You don’t say-UMF!” before getting silenced by a smack against his back by an irate Silvergon templar. “Do you know what the names of the leaders of the riot that caused the prison to catch fire were?” questions the Sheriff dryly. They all shake their heads and the Sheriff clears his throat and says, “The Illsmarsh Piper, Farther Charlatan, The Mosswater Marauder, The Lopper, and the Splatter Saur.”  “Well you should be off and plan what you are going to do,” continues the Sheriff and the scene shifts again back to the inn right before he shouts, “That means get a’ movin’!”.
The group is sitting at a table and they throw back ideas for what they should do. “Well, we could all set off tomorrow and try to get into the dungeon,” says Vrondi Piscine very confidently. “How about the lift?” questions Ansmaro. “I can fix it, possibly,” King Joe autounes in. “But we’ll need supplies against ghosts, since most of us aren’t equipped for them,” Silver Fang adds with reason. “I can go to a church of Pharasma and get some holy water and possibly acquire ghost capture bottles, “Vrondi says, and then the group looks at him and in unison, “That’s a great idea!” “I can use the substances you imparted to me earlier today and see what I can produce, “says King Joe to Silver Fang. “Agreed, and I do believe setting off tomorrow and having us take shifts sleeping and watching outside tonight so we don’t have a repeat of last night is a good course of action,” Silver Fang declares and the rest nod. “So another montage?” asks Ansmaro and Silver Fang cries, “YES!” with much enthusiasm.
The montage starts with Vrondi going into a church with a giant spiral symbol on it and coming out with a big bag of stuff and then the next frame shows Ansmaro practicing with his rapier before screen slides off camera and is replaced by another frame. This time with Silver Fang sitting and meditating before getting up and beginning to get his armaments. Then the screen flips over to the room of King Joe being kept lit with a multitude of candles and him mixing various chemicals and substances together while Thomas Dolby’s “She Blinded Me with Science” plays in the background. He grabs a jar from the inside of his open chest panel and mixes the slimy, grey contents with a yellowish, translucent fluid in a larger beaker. The next frame shows Bonesmasher perched on one of the ledges of the inn they are at, watching the townscape in the night for supernatural phenomenon. The scene then melts away to the next morning with the group outside of the prison.
“Here we are,” Silver Fang says to the group as they stand at the open gouge in the wall of the prison. Ansmaro looks at the muddy water and takes a walk backwards a few feet, then takes off running toward the water, and then finally launches himself with his fins elongating and thus turning himself into a living hang-glider. He lands on the other side, turns, and waves to the group, “Hey! That was pretty easy! Come on guys!” Silver Fang begins to wade into the water and mutters, “I hate that guy so much.” King Joe actually hovers over the water and Silver Fang grumbles. Vrondi is able to walk over the water due to his water affinity and Silver Fang snarls. Bonesmasher, like him, wades through the water, but doesn’t seem to care about the mud or grime. They go toward the main gate of the prison and it yawns eerily in front of them (mostly because Silver Fang didn’t shut it after he left). “The best course of action to get to where we are supposed to go-,” begins Silver Fang before getting interrupted by Bonesmasher, who pushes Silver Fang to the side and the yellowish, muscle-bound kaiju cries, “MONTAGE!” “NOT YET!” screams Silver Fang in rage, “We can after I do one thing.”  Silver Fang enters the first room and like the first time and the doors begin to slam repeatedly and ghosts fly out at him. He quickly kneels and cries, “Channel positive energy!” and a wave of light emits from him, causing the ghosts to disappear. He smiles and nods to Bonesmasher.
Yet again, another montage begins, this time showing them move at a sped-up pace through the dank hallways. Next off five Mudons challenge the group and Bonesmasher charges them with club in hand. He uses both hands to bring the club crashing down upon one and shattering it. The others draw near and Bonesmasher swings the club’s end into one of the Mudon’s chests and breaks the undead thing into splinters. Another Mudon barely misses him and Bonesmasher drops his club, trying to avoid the creature. He slams it in the head with both fists at once, shattering its skull.  Another charges at him and he grabs it head-on! He swings it into the other Mudon and both shatter into a pile of bones! Bonesmasher sits in the pile and smiles at the group and the next scene pops up. Next scene shows Ansmaro running from a bunch of ghost guards.  The next frame shows Silver Fang still trying to clean the mud off his armor from crossing through the pond to get on the prison’s grounds and grumblings.  Finally the montage ends with King Joe using an alkahest bomb to deal with a Mudon who is chasing him. The explosion damages the undead saurian and the alchemical fluid also finishes the job by dissolving it.
The group eventually comes to the hole in the floor that is the opening to the dungeon. They all gather around it with their various lights like Bonesmasher’s alchemical torch, King Joe’s lights, and Ansmaro…who apparently has the ability to see in the dark and doesn’t need a light. He looks at the front of the screen, “Dark vision. It’s a Rayja thing.” “That’s a long way down,” notes Vrondi as he uses his senses to determine his surrounding, since he is indeed blind. “How do you know that?“ asks Ansmaro curiously. “Electrical perception, don’t ask really it’d only confuse you,” responds Vrondi as King Joe opens his chest compartments and grabs various tools. “I’ll handle this,” he autounes and sets to fixing the lift. For an hour King Joe works hard, and the rest of the group ends up playing two games of cards, which Ansmaro suspiciously wins both.
All of the sudden, “It can’t be fixed,” is heard from King Joe. The group reacts in astonishment and horror, “What?!”  “I can fly down there with someone,” he says in his mechanical voice, “It would be easier.” Ansmaro scoffs, “I can go down there myself, see!” With that he spreads out his fins, jumps into the pit, and glides down, after which he yells back up, “See? Easy.” King Joe grabs Vrondi and levitates off the ground and descends into the pit and comes back up within minutes-much to the chagrin of the sorcerer, “See. I can do this.” He grabs hold of Silver Fang and starts to wobble as the robot kaiju takes off and again and descends into the shaft. Silver Fang is let go of on the floor and King Joe ascends to grab Bonesmasher. Silver Fag directs his bullseye lantern down the hallway on the left, “I think we should explore this first.” Before hearing Bonesmasher and King Joe land with a “CLANG!” “So heavy…” grumbles King Joe. Before they head to the first cell block they hear eerie piping.
The group looks around and they see a ghostly flute hover in mid air. It’s incorporeal and just hovers, playing its eerie melody that chills each and every one of them-well not King Joe, but whatever. Silver Fang uses his “Smite Evil” power on the floating flute and it stops for a few seconds, before starting again. Silver Fang notices in the dim light that Vrondi Piscine and Bonesmasher are completely paralyzed and seem to be in a trance. “What’s wrong with you two?!” he cries in panic. “Remember the flute? Give it to me!” Ansmaro orders Silver Fang. The Silvergon rummages through his bag and delivers the flue to the Rayja that stand before him. Ansmaro begins to play a tune on the flute and the other ghostly one stops and starts to vibrate violently. Silver Fang reaches for a little item that looks like a fancy bottle in one of his belt pouches and opens it toward the phantasmal flute. The flute turns into a mist, is sucked into the bottle, and Silver Fang shuts it with a sigh of relief. “So ghost traps DO work, “Silver fang muses and then places it inside the pouch again, and adds, “Where did you learn to play?” Ansmaro smirks, “Gotta entertain yourself somehow on long voyages. Lemme guess that was the Illsmarsh Piper we took down?” Then Ansmaro slaps Vrondi back to his senses with an “Oooow!” escaping Vrondi’s mouth. The group checks themselves and they head into the first cell block.
The group enters the cell block and notes its surroundings. The cell block is a two-floored giant room about two hundred ft long and one hundred feet wide. The sources of light they wield seem to just cut pieces out of the oppressive darkness of this area. The smell of decay is rife in the area and skeletons and other debris are strewn around wantonly. King Joe autotunes abruptly, “Bonesmasher wait!” The Red King stops and asks, “Why metal Joe tell Bonesmasher to stop?” “Look!” points King Joe to an opened bear trap. “They ghosts probably have placed traps all over in a conspiracy to indirectly kill us all,” Vrondi stammers.  “Get a hold of yourself, salamander!” responds Silver Fang, “We can just be very careful.” He waves around his bullseye lantern as he climbs the stairs. After, fifteen minutes, it is determined this cell block is abandoned or the ghosts in it are not in a fighting mood. As they leave, this cellblock, they do note that there are a few other traps lined up, and Bonesmasher’s survival skills note that the dust there seems only recently disturbed.
The next cellblock is defiantly in worse shape. The roof is partially caved into the common area in the middle of the block, leaving a pile of rubble about seven feet high and twenty feet wide in it. There is also part of one tier on the far end of the cell block from the entrance giving way to ruined top floor. Upon entering the cell block, the air feels heavy and which prompts Silver Fang to concentrate and cast the spell, “Sense Evil.” Within seconds he is struck by a foul presence which makes him cry out, “Dear sweet Apsu!” In a few moments afterward, over the rubble, a bizarre two-coned object appears floating in midair. Silver Fang squints and all the sudden he hears faintly in his brain, “I got a natural 20 on a religion roll.” It merely confuses him about where these faint voices are coming from or what they mean, however he then snaps back and knows what the object is! The object manifests two copies of itself side by side as the group gasps in fear/astonishment. “It’s a Zombayu!” cries Silver Fang as he draws his mace, and continues, “It’s an undead thing created when angry souls merge. The ritual that involved the warden’s ghost probably fused the lead ghosts into one entity!” Bonesmasher responds inquisitively, “Does Silver Fang believe a “MONSTER FACTS” is needed for this one?” “NO!” yells the enraged templar and then he releases his triad of blue fire balls that strike each target. Two of the copies disappear and one in the center turns and reveals a great, blue, pupil-less eye and a giant mouth on its side. It lands and its body takes on a tent-like shape with a huge maw filled with teeth and huge, cumbersome hands.
The creature chortles aloud in a disturbingly heavy voice as it faces the group. The party readies themselves for combat and the first strike goes to Ansmaro. Ansmaro deftly takes a shot at the creature. The munition, that he treated with holy water by the way, pierces the undead thing’s bulky hide to deal some damage, but not much. The creature looks at the group and strikes Bonesmasher with three beams that hit both legs and the arm he wields his club with. The appendages glow and begin to move by themselves, against Bonesmasher’s will. “What? Arm and legs get tired of Bonesmasher?! Bonesmasher will bite you!” cries the confused knucklehead. The Zombayu blasts Ansmaro with a beam that knocks him off his feet and then the scene cuts to the gaming table where the GM and his horn rimmed glasses stare back at the stocky guy named Richard.
“Richard, make a fortitude save,” the Game Master says dryly. The other player rolls a twenty-sided die and calculates his bonus, before saying sadly, “12” The GM shakes his head, “Lose 3 CON and your HP is lowered by 6.”  “What?!” he shouts. The GM nods, “Just try to make your FORT save the next time, or the one after, or your character dies of Con drain.” Richard is aghast and the GM smiles, “Good luck!” before thinking to himself, “Man, this die I’m rolling is TOO good.” He thinks this while holding the green, twenty-sided die.
King Joe throwing an alkahest bomb at the undead thing is the first thing seen after the cutscene. It detonates when in contact with the Zombayu’s leathery skin and does noticeable damage, even though not much. The undead thing cries aloud in a hollow, sorrowful cry and gives the robot a gaze that could kill. Bonesmasher, whose limbs are under the Zombayu’s control, charges at Silver Fang and strikes him with his club-almost causing Silver Fang to lose his balance! He rights himself through the pain that reverberates through his bones, “Fight that thing’s control!” Bonesmasher just responds in a frantic manner, “I can’t!” Vrondi chants in a focused manner as mist and vapor form around him. Then in a quick burst of force, a blast of concentrated water splashes the frumpy, cyclopean creature.  Silver Fang, after regaining his balance, uses “SMITE EVIL” upon the Zombayu-this causes the creature to look queasy and in pain. Silver Fang cries “POWER ATTACK” and slashes the Zombayu deeply with his already-drawn scimitar. The cut is deep and open wounds crease across the undead thing’s front and bleed with glowing miasmic protoplasm.

The Zombayu is obviously hurt after the attack and cries with pain and fury. Ansmaro tries to fight off the effects of the beam, but fails. A familiar player voice is heard off camera, “CRAP!” However, Ansmaro does reload and take shot again, but misses the targeted horror. Kinge Joe fires an electric spark at the Zombayu, dealing minimum damage, as the alkahest fluid still eats away at the undead beast’s pseudo flesh. Bonesmasher beans Silver Fang against the head, cracking a few of the Silvergon’s teeth and giving him a jarring, aching pain that shoots through his head and spine. Vrondi fires a “Magic Missile” at the Zombayu, although mildly grazing the creature. The Zombayu fires a powerful beam at Vrondi, just like the one that struck Ansmaro. It connects with Vrondi, knocking him on his backside. However unlike Ansmaro, he is able to save against the effects. Silver Fang’s world spins like a merry-go-round of pain, however he does take his scimitar with both hands and deals another severe blow to the horror that torments his group. The Zombayu recoils and cries in sheer horror and pain. Before the next turn, it summons three copies of itself to confuse the group.
Ansmaro finally saves from the effects of the Zombayu’s ray, fires one more shot at the quartet of Zombayus, and strikes one that fades away on contact with that shot he fired. Ansmaro grumbles and passes out, due to exhaustion. One of the Zombayus crashes into Bonesmasher! It strikes him with great force and hurls him across the room. “Huuuurrrrkk! Bonesmasher thinks Bonesmasher has discovered the real one,” he grumbles as he gets back on its feet. However, the Zombayu runs back into the group and they shift around, hiding the real Zombayu once again. King Joe reaches inside a pouch along his belt and grabs and primes a grenade. He throws it at the group of Zombayus and it explodes before striking an actual target, however metal pellets from the blast reveal the real Zombayu by spreading the ball bearings everywhere-forcing the imposters to disappear. The residual alkahest burns the Zombayu dealing the little damage to the creature as it still could. Bonesmasher charges the undead terror and slips on the wet stone (leaky roof much?) beneath his feet and crashes into the rubble of the center of the room.  Vrondi strikes the Zombayu with a lightning bolt from his horns and Silver Fang takes advantage of the creature’s pain. Silver Fang delivers the final blow to the creature by hacking it in half with his scimitar! The Zombayu gives a vile shriek and dissolves into a mist that Silver Fang quickly catches in the ghost trapping bottle. “Whew! Now that THAT is finally done,” he mutters and then the ghost of the warden’s wife appears! “You have avenged my husband and defeated the head of the spectral invasion. You are heroes,” the bug-eyed ghost says to the group and delivers them a “Thank You,” before fading away. Silver Fang looks at Ansmaro on the ground and says to the group, “We better grab him and get out of here.” The scene fades to black….
Credits roll and on a side screen a scene appears that says in bold letters “HISTORY OF NUMERIA AND THE TECHNIC LEAGUE.” King Joe narrates, “About two thousand years ago, in the River Kingdoms region of Avistan a massive object fell from the sky.” The scene shows a flaming object crash into a windswept plain near a river. The flames fade and debris is everywhere, but a metal tower stands alone in the debris field. “Many believe it was a vessel from the stars. When it came down, it made large gashes in the land, but it came down in pieces and spread its influence all over what would be Numeria,” the narrator autotunes away. Then the landscape shows a rapid sun setting/rising, dirt and plants collecting over the wreckage, and the river changes course several times and King Joe adds, “Centuries pass and about 1500 years ago, the first Technics are born from the Silver Mount.” With that small mechanized organisms crawl around the area that look like spiders and other odd, little things. “About 1300 years ago, these primitive Technics have a fraction of them that become intelligent,” the narrator says when a few robot-like creatures appear on the horizon. “These Technics eventually start building the city of Starfall near the Silver Mount, Torch in the center of the country, and Chesed in the northeast. They create the Technic League to represent them in Starfall and gave power to the first King Joe, my great grandfather,” he narrates as a table sided with flags with gears imprinted  on them is seen with various robots on each side and at the head of the table is a robot that looks like him. “The first three centuries were rocky and new Technics were being birthed from the power that surged from the Silver Mount at two specific times of the year. The city of Starfall expanded and found, 800 years ago, the birthing pods. These metal pods are connected to a giant terminal that eats scrap metal and after three months from these oblong pods, new Technics pop out. These were discovered underneath moss and dirt that was cleared for the southern portion of the city,” he says as the screen shows a Crazygon pop out of one of these elongated pods waving its long arms around. “Generations followed and new kings took over, new explorations into the Silver Mount revealed its honeycombed nature, from the discoveries from it and elsewhere alchemy grew,” as scenes of labs with various chemicals in containers come into view. “However, about 700 years ago, King Joe Red, my grandfather, united the various barbarian tribes within the nation and gave them some representation at the Technic league,” he says as a red King Joe gives a bag of gold to what appears to be a scarred-up Gomora barbarian with furs and animal teeth necklaces. “Then we went outside and made contact with other nations. The Technic League’s Numeria has prospered since then through trade of alchemical and armament goods outward and raw materials inward. Even during the civil war caused by a Technic named Deathfacer and his turncoat Imperializers and Legionoid forces, we were at a great profit,” he says as a shadowy figure in a flaming background stands with various Legionoid robots stand in the foreground. He finally ends with, “Even with the World Wound vomiting out its horros in the north and Ustalav with its undead horrors in the west, Numeria stands firm.”
Finale part of Episode 2
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