Volkanenborg

[Sareth]

I nodded my agreement. "Shooting people is my specialty." Still, my quirky little quip (at least I hoped it came off as a quirky little quip) was masking a little but of concern. The phrase "evil psycho necromantic elf" was not exactly encouraging. I mean, I'd shot people I'd describe as psycho, and I suppose some of them might have counted as evil, or at least seriously misunderstood. But necromantic? Not so much. And elvish? Hell, I'd met my first elf just yesterday...

Come to think of it, if yesterday's elf was an example of the species, this might be cake.

I took up a good firing position oriented down the cave, ensuring anything that might move would find a hot reception. So far I'd managed to not fire inside the cave, but at this point I'd managed to knock enough of the guards over the head that surely someone would have noticed that something was seriously amiss. It was only a matter of time.

"Hey, Marcus!" I called over my shoulder. "You or your girlfriend there noticed anything that might be good for cave fighting? You know, like grenades or something else that could go around corners? Cause I'd really hate to find out they had something of that nature the hard way."

[Viking-Sensei]

[OOC - Sorry, everyone, gotta borrow your characters for a couple of lines here]

Lucas hated taking an inactive role in the rescue, but with the stress of everything going on, who knew what his personal distortion field might be doing to the magic users on the other side of the wall. In the distance, he heard some muffled screams and thought he caught a glimpse through the trees of a body flying through the air... some more of the kidnappers must've discovered Ayiee, who he left guarding one of the other cave entrances. "Well, that's good... at least we can't be flanked." he muttered to himself, feeling useless.

"Friend Lucas!" Grope called. "The hole is not large enough yet for them to escape, but you might be able to fit through now going down."

"Alright." Lucas said, standing up and setting aside his battle coat. "Let's hope they're done spellcasting then. Keep working on the entrance once I'm through... we may need to escape quickly."

He slid, on his butt, through the hole, emerging feet first through the rapidly expanding gap in the wall inside the cave. There was a smell... one that made Lucas briefly miss standing next to Grope. Better the stench you knew, after all. "Hey, guys, sorry for the late rescue, got held up on the freeway, you know how it is. Right, Gro... eh, the troll is currently making the hole big enough that we can safely crawl back out. Now, Marcus, where's Saiko?"

Marcus indicated towards the woman whom he had escaped with.

"Um..." Lucas said, pulling out his revolver. "Marcus, buddy, have you checked yourself for enchantments yet? Because that's not Saiko. That's what appears to be your animated skeleton, only with a pumpkin for a head and wearing one of Saiko's dresses and a bad wig." Lucas reached out and touched her... it... whatever, and the illusion shattered so everyone including Marcus could see it's real form.

Meanwhile, in the hall, two figures appeared... one, Neverinal, grinning like a stalking cat. The other, a taller figure wearing a white mask and a black cloak, moved silently behind him. Both appeared to be magically shielded.

[AdamZero]

At Jamie's question I laughed. "You'd have to have a deathwish to use grenades in an abondoned mine...gas or explosives, though if you had a mask or the right spell, gas would work, unless it was acid gas, that'd suck."
---
I nearly jumped out of my skin as the illusion fell and the pumpkin dropped off the now collapsed skeleton. The temporary puppting spell Neverinal must have set up fall apart with the illusion and Lucas's own field. The illusion and the images though, had been formed with Grey from a living person's suffering... The tortures I'd seen 'Saiko' go through the real woman had endured herself, just not in front of me, but 'her' eyes had looked right at me... what had she been looking at, past Neverinal, another prisoner? A mirror? I sighed as I pulled off the remaining strands of the other necromancer's meddling and rearranged the bones before slipping my left arm inside, turning it into something of a large, sharp, arm guard.

I frowned as I checked myself, sure enough there were various enchantments keeping me from seeing things clearly. Neverinal must have cast them while I was unconcious. "Seriously overkill." I sighed as the Red One himself walked into view. He had some weird glove weapon, with glowing blades that floated just at the edge of his knuckles, almost claw like curves.

"Well shit." I sighed. Holding my wrench up high. "Lucas.... why don't you walk over there... see if you can get his blades to blow up in his face?"

[Graybeard]

Grope stood on the surface above the new entrance, feeling distinctly guilty, and also dejected.

The Blood-Binding scar was aching -- not itching now, but definitely painful. He was pretty sure he'd (grudgingly, to be sure) allowed Lucas to descend into a situation infinitely more dangerous than what he'd been facing when Grope found him here. And there wasn't a Growf-damned thing he could do about it. The hole he'd made was about as large as it was ever going to get without explosives. It was a tight enough fit for a reasonably lean Small One, and someone of his own bulk had no chance whatever of getting through. He'd be all but impotent underground even if he did make it down there; 9-foot-tall bipeds don't fight well in 7-foot-tall passages, and most cave passages and mine tunnels weren't even that big. And there was always the matter of the Red Elf, one of the few things in the world that could terrify a troll...

But I must do something; honor demands it.

Finally, he hit on two things that might help, or might not. First, using the birding net, a spare garment (even for this, he couldn't sacrifice the Many-Fathers-God-Wisdom-Robe), and a length of vine growing fortuitously nearby, he fashioned a crude rope of sorts, anchored the top end to a tree, and dropped the bottom end into the hole he'd dug. It wasn't much, and he wasn't even sure it would reach the bottom of the passage below. But if Lucas and his friends could reach it, they'd have an escape.

And so on to the second thing. I must find a way into this maze. He guessed there had to be a cave entrance somewhere on the south side of the ridge, not far from where he stood; the one Small One who had survived the weird bombardment by sand bags had run in that direction, presumably to get back underground to safety. It might be large enough to admit a troll. So Grope retraced his steps, heading back past the incinerated magical eagle, on to where the two men lay dead, and up to the main line of the ridge ...

... And that was when he noticed a stagecoach being driven hard up a road in the valley to the south, toward exactly the place he was trying to reach.

[Viking-Sensei]

Lucas looked at Marcus, then at Neverinal. "Unfortunately,it doesn't actually work that way... I don't really have control of it. But it's worth a try, I suppose." He braced himself against the side of the barricade and tried to focus his field at the approaching elf. Magical lamps on the walls flared and exploded, casting the hall into intermittent darkness, and Neverinal's shield rippled and crackled, but didn't fail.

"Awww... you broke my puppet." Neverinal said, from a few feet away, still firmly behind his magical shield. "It's a pitty. It was so much fun, watching you drag that thing around pretending like it was a real person. Still... I'm sure Hymie would have appreciated the care you were treating him with, had he survived. Which he didn't."

The figure behind Neverinal turned and looked at him, or at least the white mask mounted on the amorphous black shape reoriented it's attentions on Neverinal.

"What, boss? You ordered me to kill them all anyway." Neverinal said defensively to the other figure. "Besides, I didn't have a skeleton handy, and making the boy suffer and dance to my jig was just too tempting."

The figure shrugged... or, again, at least the shoulderish areas wobbled up and down in a shruglike motion.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Ayiee spotted a troll moving up the ridge. She searched her memory banks and, upon confirming via facial recognition that he was designated friendly unit 'Grope', she approached from his side, making sure he was aware of her presence (she had no smell, so her memory banks indicated that she needed to alert him in advance so as to not surprise him). "Query, Unit Grope: Where is Unit Lucas? Additional query: What is going on?"

[Graybeard]

"Query, Unit Grope: Where is Unit Lucas? Additional query: What is going on?"

Startled, Grope turned to look at Ayiee. Where had she come from? He remembered the golem from the end of the battle in Kiyoka, only a few days ago in real time although it felt like a subjective eternity. She'd made his magic-phobic antennae vibrate back then, but she was clearly someone -- something? -- that Lucas trusted. That was enough for him.

"He is down below." An idea started to form in his mind, as he watched four armed men pile out of the stage down where ridge met valley. The southern entrance suddenly didn't seem like a good place for him to enter the picture. Meanwhile, this blue woman was smaller (if heavier) than Lucas, and he'd fit through the hole just fine, so she should also ... "Come, I will show you." He motioned to Ayiee to follow him as he climbed down to the hole he'd dug on the northern slopes of the ridge.

[Sareth]

[OOC: Gonna borrow Neverinal for just a sec... Hope that's okay.]

This Neverinal character looked back from his conversation with the masked fellow, regarding us. His eyes looked into the eye I was focusing on him over the barrel of my rifle, then drifted on upwards to regard Marcus and Lucas. His lips cracked into an even broader smile.

"Marcus, Marcus, Marcus. What is it you are attempting to do here? Escape? I don't see why you would think that I'd ever allow that. You've been far, far too enjoyable a guest for me to even begin to want you to leave. You make such beautiful music during our time together. Alas, though, it seems that you no longer wish to continue this party, and far be it from me to hold you here against your will. The party, it seems, is about to end. Allow me to"*BABLAM!!!!*

Neverinal pitched backwards, his head snapping back in a way that caused his entire body to spin, feet coming out from under him. He flopped to the floor in an untidy heap, his collapse completed before the considerably loud (and painful) echoes of my rifle firing even began to cease. I jacked another round into the chamber as smoke drifted out of the end of my rifle.

The masked figure looked down at Neverinal, then up at me. I could sense that an eyebrow was arched under the mask.

"What?" I asked. "I hate monologues. Time to go, boys." Smiling, I lowered the rifle to point it at the masked figure.

And that's when Neverinal sat up.

"Whaaaaaaaa?" I asked, as articulate and well spoken as always.

Neverinal smiled, and plucked the bullet from his forehead. "I'm a necromancer with several thousand years experience. What did you expect to happen? I will admit the conservation of momentum was unexpected though."

"Awwwwww son of a biiiiiiiiii..."

[Graybeard]

"I am worried that the rope will not hold you," Grope told the golem as they reached the man-made (troll-made?) pit entrance.

From the sounds they were hearing below, they'd better find something to do, and soon. The noise of Thundering Metal Things was almost deafening up here; how could the people below continue to function at all? Yet somehow they did. Curses rose through the opening as soon as the concussions died down. This didn't sound good.

"My mate was wise," Grope thought out loud as they pulled up the improvised rope. "What would she have done here? ... Ah." It was a long shot, but what wasn't?

Summoning the impossible ability that Zhbrigeeul had somehow bequeathed him from beyond existence, Grope stroked the Robe, then stroked the rope. Mend, he thought. As though you are the Many-Fathers-God-Wisdom Robe itself.

As he backed away from the pit, almost exhausted, Grope once again saw the faint magical glow that he'd seen once before, when without thinking about it, he'd somehow repaired Keyes' rope. Might this have made the line strong enough to hold a golem, or even a troll? He didn't really think so, but it was worth a try ...

"Go," he told Ayiee. "The man Lucas is down there. And he is in danger."

[AdamZero]

I growled, wishing I had Boris's head right now. Curious actually to the location of said skull, I decided to be blunt, and to the point, and after a quick wave of my wrist to get the elf's attention, asked the sick, disgusting sociopathic immortal.

"Where's my buddy's skull?"

Like I said, blunt. I couldn't, or rather shouldn't don any magic around Lucas, oh crap Neverinal's personal cache of spells.

"Also, just for the sake of all of us, could you avoid any spell casting near this guy?" I thumbed a... thumb... at Lucas. "He's got some weird field... thing. I dunno. It makes magick go sideways backwards and Q, so your spells.... well those things shouldn't be cast to begin with, so it'd probably be best NOT to cast them near a guy who makes leviation spells into...." I turned to Jamie. "What happened to those Wabbits, again? I mean before you shot them."

[Sareth]

"Uh," I replied, a continuance of my rather excellent display of verbal skills. "Do you mean the part with the giant carrot smashing one into goo, the part where the giant rabits started going carnivorous, the part where they turned strange colors, or the part where they started floating midair? Cause that all got pretty strange..." I kept my rifle pointed at Neverinal's head. Sure, I apparently couldn't kill him, but I'd knocked him over once, so that, at least, meant something. "But are you sure no magic should be cast? Because frankly, considering what the likely outcome might be if we just rely on my guns, I'm willing to take the risk."

Neverniral smirked. "Are you quite finished discussing your certain doom yet?"

I shot him in the head again, knocking him backwards a second time.

"Hush, the adults are talking."

"Adults?" Neverniral sat up, plucking another bullet out of the shield around his face. "You're how old?"

"Shut up, Neverniral."