The Secret of Castle Doom Chapter 2: The Celestial Judgements
 

OOC: It's time we started a new thread as the old one's reached the limits. Here we go. By the way, I've said some stuff in the discussion thread but it hasn't been moved up because I just edited my last post.

Hopelessness is running like a plague through the knights. The spectres circle, probing the defenses of the mystical shield that is the only thing preventing them from scything through the ranks of the knights. But the shield is weakening and soon it will fall altogether. The spectres, sensing weakness, concentrate their efforts on a single part of the shield. They look like a dark wedge of malign shadows, individual features almost impossible to make out. Arthus feels the shield begin to waver, on the verge of failing completely.

OOC: Super short post.

BiC:

The spectres' action was the thing that Arthus was waiting for. Already anticipating that the shield would soon fall, and that it will fall sooner when the spectres began concentrating on a single point, Arthus had readied a spell just for this opportunity.

At the point when the shield was about to crash, and the first spectre was coming in, Arthus focused his energies into a single palm, and with grim determination he cast the spell which he hoped would destroy the ghosts once and for all.

"Urathar Impus!(Divine Light of the Sun)" Arthus shouted out the words of power. The energy in his palm intensified at his words, and with a bright flash, a beam of light surged through the ranks of knights directly through towards the grouped spectres. If all worked accordingly, the beam of light would "incinerate" all the spectres in one shot.

Note: Spell works only on undead.

Wind changed again, draining more of her energy for the nigh-impossible flash-change. Her smooth, quicksilver scales roughened and seemed to go haywire, suddenly jutting out like a huge shell. A massive, backward-facing pouch, protected by smooth plates, formed over her belly. Just before her arms stiffened into deadly burrowing claws, she slipped both Shuren and Aeris into the warm, stuffy pouch. Her head became angular and slightly more streamlined than the dragon’s broad nose. Then she landed.

Well, it was more like hitting the ground at high velocity and seeming to just fall straight through. Protected by her hard outer shell, the great earth wyrm slid into her domain like a snake through the long grass, leaving behind a 20-foot-long-in-diameter hole that collapsed in on itself to prevent the enemy from following.

Beneath the earth, Wind churned for a while, knowing full well that, although she herself is able to survive down here indefinitely, her friends would soon suffocate.
“<Shuren,>” she rumbled in almost intelligible feral, “<If you are not too incapacitated as of now, [tell] other pack member to open pouch next time I surface.>”

OOC: when pouch is opened, it will in fact inflate into a little bubble room of warm air. Enough for 3 hours of comfortable breathing between 2 people. Wind’s movements, however, will be hindered slightly, as she will constantly be trying to protect the bubble of air from squeezing out.

Aeris tried to hold onto something when they impacted the ground, but the smooth pouch was just as it felt, Smooth. After rattling around and finally coming to a stop, Aeris groaned, "Uhhgh... What happened?" then, silently whsipering a keyword, illuminated her staff. "Hmm. I don't remember this being the inside of a dragon's claw," she muttered sarcastically.

"Well, my luck keeps getting better." the Cleric thought to herself, "Now I've no idea where I am, although we are most likely submerged, It would be difficult to figure out how deep we are." Then, adding with a bit of a frantic afterthought, "I sincerely hope Wind is still alive, or at least able to move. Being submerged in solid rock inside an unconcious dragon would be most unfortunate..."

Unfortunately it seems that in the heat of the moment, Wind had forgotten that Shuren does not speak any of the human languages. The werewolf weakly replies, incoherent from pain. But he pushes at the pouch when he feels them surface and Aeris, seeing what he is trying to do, helps. The pouch fills with air.

* * *

Arthus fails to consider the buffer effect that the undead would have. The ray of holy light strikes the cluster of spectres, the front ones flashing away in a silent scream. But the stubborn shadows cling and resist the purifying light. The spectres at the front shield their brethren from the worst of the spell. The sacrifice of them had ensured that the others would survive. The spectres spread out and flow forwards towards the knights, the shield holding them back no longer.

Wind dove into the earth once more after surfacing once to expose her only slightly-protected underside. She felt Shuren and Aeris try to push open the mouth of her pouch, and rolled further onto her backside, allowing the air to rush into the pouch and creating a small bubble room. Then, carefully, her left 'flipper' closed and sealed the pouch with a resounding slap before she clumsily dove back into the ground, both of her front-claws protectively closed around the bubble of air that contained her passengers. Her wyrm's tail, in the form of a great whale's tale, flicked upwards into the air once, before she slid easily back down again. Now, she has to make slower progress towards the mountain than before. Nevertheless, they will make it within 2 hours. She moved forward with quick flips of her tail, swimming through the earth as if she was swimming through water, her only hindrance Shuren and Aeris.

OOC to Arhra: Dammit! Can't you just let me kill them all off for ONCE! :P

BiC:

Seeing a potential disaster unfolding before his eyes, Arthus quickly began to simultaneously cast the quick lesser spells that he had reserved in his "pocket". Streams of blazing balls of light began to sizzle through the air towards the spectres, not enough to kill them all, but enough to hold them back while his knights could recover.

"Charcion, we need you!" Arthus shouts for Charcion, who is nowhere in the vicinity to be found. Cursing his luck, he drew Armaggeddon's Blade and charged at the spectre's, even as his knights tried to use their own magic to defend themselves. Arthus hoped that the Blade's divine powers should be enough to slay these restless ghosts.

OOC: Evidently not. I'll leave you to introduce the tiamoth by the way.

The spectres draw back from the light for it is anathema to to them. They skirt around, splitting off from their group to attack individually. Oddly though they seem to be keeping their distance from Arthus, either unwilling or unable to engage him in battle. They have no compunctions against attacking the rest of the knights though. Arthus' spells have bought them time but already another knight falls to the spectres' deadly touch.

* * *

Shuren is in pain. He is injured physically, badly scratched by the gorecrows' needle-like talons and beaks but he is more badly hurt spiritually. He is suffering from the backlash of having his magical abilities awakened to full power without any training. Bad enough that they had been buried deeply but it was even worse that they had been forcibly torn wide open. There had been no time for a more gentle awakening of power and it was quite possible that without outside interference Shuren's potential would never have developed into true power. His being feels aflame and he feels oddly fragile.

Aeris notices Shuren's wounds, and, attempting to keep a good balance with Wind moving around and digging through the rock, she carefully attempts to get concentration for her spell. All of the three of them were wounded, so it would be a good time to finish the spell she was trying to cast while in the air, but never actually got the opening to take advantage of.

Gripping her staff and attempting to ease it around in the pouch (I'm assuming it's a bit cramped in here) She gets it into a good position for a somatic gesture, and begins casting. "Aletari Circulus!" (Healing Circle) Within the pouch, it was difficult to discern the dull blue circle in its circularity, however it was most assuredly circular. Aeris and Shuren were completely effected, their wounds visibly healing, and Wind was partially affected. The gentle hum of the positive energies bringing a soothing feeling to the weary warriors.

OOC: yes, it's pretty cramped, but there's enough air for 3 hours.
BIC:
Wind felt a wave of healing power wash over her throbbing body, temporarily easing her discomfort. The wound she received a while back throbbed a bit, then closed. She gave silent thanks and pressed forward with more energy than before. She could do nothing but lent a mental support to the pain that she felt emanating from Shuren's aura. The pain had nothing to do with his physical hurt. Something inside him boiled with such shocking intensity that Wind became worried. What's wrong with him? Why has his ability suddenly.... awaken? This is too sudden...