The Eye of Terror: OOC Thread IX

[Shadow Chorus]

I believe, from what I've read, that the silence spell follows Soul Reaver, which I think means Gulgrim's not in it right now on the Plague Daemon since he's moved over to Jharm and Danyael. Correct me if I'm wrong on that. Either way, his powerful lungs are trying to break through the silence.

[Soul Reaver]

Decided not to hold off posting any longer - but I encourage people to reply now!

- Soul Reaver shattered Danyael's barrier
- Apparently he's also hit Danyael (wasn't aiming to, but did)
- Danyael held Soul Reaver for a moment, however...
- Since the barrier is down, a Chains of Agony spell has triggered.  This has unleashed a mass of daemonic, razor-edged chains that have bound anyone inside its area of effect and binds them suspended near the centre of the area of effect.  Danyael was definitely in the area, and Jharm too unless he was thrown a significant distance away by Danyael first (I'll let Jharm and Danyael decide on how far he was thrown)
- The Chains of Agony basically prevent their victims from moving at this point.  They are powerfully magical and thus very difficult to damage or break.
- Soul Reaver is about to attack his prone victim, so someone really should stop him

- Gulgrim and the Orks have the Plague Daemon on the ropes - it's about to die
- Gulgrim's war shouts have broken the Silence spell
- The Plague Daemon is making a final attack in the form of a giant overhead chop with its mace straight onto Gulgrim while he's expending energy dispelling the Silence spell.  Keep in mind that the Plague Daemon is phenomenally strong, so if it connects it will hurt a lot.

[Shadow Chorus]

I figured Gulgrim getting out of that alone would be getting a bit stale at that point, so he's gotten some help from what basically amounts to his elite generals and advisers. I'll have to give each of the Eight a name at some point, or at least those that survive this fight. They are part of the figurative power behind the throne, and serve as the enforcers and generals who keep Gulgrim's forces in line when the boss ain't around.

Gulgrim's the only person here who doesn't know Soul, so he'll keep his focus on the Daemon for now, until it's finally dead or somebody needs him elsewhere.

[Veldanya Venalla]

Well....Jharm took a beating from the chains but managed to escape.  Pretty much he is charging full speed at Soul Reaver.  His aim is simple - close combat....warrior vs warrior....Light vs Demon....etc.  No more of this fancy spells and whatnot...it's time this nonsense ended.  Hehe

[Shadow Chorus]

This is getting super intense. I'm incredibly hyped to see where this fight is going, and who is going to die and who is going to live.

[Soul Reaver]

I had really hoped for some posts from a few other people (Sepher and Cameron, I'm looking at you), but I've finally posted a reply.

- Plague Daemon is thoroughly dead now - it was pretty much breathing its last anyway, so the Orks have most definitely killed it.

- Kitharsis managed to get Danyael out of the area of effect of the Chains of Agony spell.

- The Chains of Agony spell has two phases.  In the first, it fires chains to restrain anything in its area of effect.  This was still happening when Kitharis' skeletons attacked and was still active when Jharm charged.  As such, a bunch more chains have fired out to restrain Jharm and Kitharsis' minions.  The second stage causes the chains to retract, trying to tear their victims apart.  I don't want to god-mod by posting what this does to either Jharm or the skeletons - Jharm likey was at least partially protected by the shield around him and Kitharsis explicitly said those skeletons were tough - but keep in mind this is a very high-level Daemon spell.  Unless there's a good reason, those summoned minions likely wouldn't survive it.

- Soul Reaver cast a Mass Insanity spell over Gulgrim's forces - this includes Gulgrim and his generals, though I'm not sure it would have much effect on Gulgrim itself.  It drives its targets into an unreasoning, berserk frenzy and turns them against their former allies.  Soul Reaver's chosen to make the Orks see Gulgrim as a prime target, while Gulgrim (if affected) would see his fellow orks as traitors.  The spell can be resisted (typically based on the intelligence/mental ability of their target); Gulgrim probably would be able to resist, and his Deff Dred generals might be able to as well (depending on how clever they are), but run-of-the-mill Nobz and Boyz would probably have trouble.  Note that affected victims become more vicious and stronger fighters than normal and have little regard for their own safety.  They won't be very tactically minded while under the effects though, preferring a maddened charge.

[Soul Reaver]

Here's an update for everyone:

Sadly, Fei's retired his character.  I'm currently working out with Cameron how to handle his departure.

Also, I'm hoping for some posts from all the other participants.
Kitharsis - can you let me know if any of the minions survived the Chains of Agony spell somehow (and what he does next, if anything, since he's close to the battle)
Danyael - could you give us an idea how your character's doing/responding to the others' efforts to help?
Cameron and Sepher - both have some catching up to do

[Cameron]

I'll do what I can to have a post up by the end of the weekend. I'll reach out to Sepher and see what his schedule looks like.

[Soul Reaver]

Whelp, it's been ages since the last post.  Part of the reason for that is that I haven't managed to get an answer from Fei on how to manage his character's departure.

At this point I'd actually be inclined to cut our losses and post something on behalf of Fei's character to remove him from the plot.  However, this is complicated slightly by something else: I'm going overseas for a month in just two days and probably won't have much opportunity to post during that time (nothing worse than trying to post from a tablet on fully-packed days with spotty internet access).

So that's where I stand at the moment.  If it's up to me, I'd prefer to wait out that month until I'm back - after all, it's already been ages, so what does a month matter?  It'll give Fei more time to get back to me and let me know what he'd like to do.  If he doesn't reply by then, I will need to take action to restart this thing.

Alternatively, Cameron's the real Battle Host, so if he wants to do something to move things forward before that time, that's good too - if that happens, I will try to post if I get a chance.

Apologies for not acting sooner, but I was (and still am) reluctant to move foward without guidance from Fei.

[Cameron]

The situation with Fei is such that I would not anticipate getting any kind of reply. But since you're heading out for a month anyway, we can continue the holding pattern. I definitely want to move on if he hasn't gotten back to you by then, and will leave any god-modding that would need to occur with his character up to you.

This is actually good timing, as we are about to make a major upgrade that will change the way things have been running around here. I should have that completed before you come back.

[Shadow Chorus]

Hopefully this will wake people up around here. The Epic battle is the beating heart of this website, and if it stalls, the other battles tend to also fall by the wayside, despite my best efforts to keep the blood flowing.

[Hanako]

Per the Idle/Inactive Battle Rules, this Battle has fallen idle and is now subject to STAGE 1 of the Idle Battle Process! The Battle Master has been contacted. Further action will be taken if 7 more days pass without an update. In the meantime, anyone who has not replied to the Battle Master's last post in encouraged to do so now so that we can move on as quickly as possible when the Battle Master returns!

EDIT: After hearing from Soul Reaver, this battle has been placed ON HOLD until November 1st, 2015. I would encourage all idle players to post and catch up before that time!

[Kitharsis]

I am returned.

I'll have a reply up sometime this week.  I am also post.

Soul Reaver I am jealous of your holiday!!

[Soul Reaver]

Alright, I want to give everyone an update:

I just got back from holiday yesterday .  I am, however, up to my eyeballs in catching up at work (so not much spare time there for whipping up a post) and I am also sick with a cold and jetlag (so I'm having some trouble concentrating).

I'm also faced with the very difficult prospect of writing a god-mod post to indefinitely remove Fei from the storyline in a way that will be in-character and that won't be lame - it's the sort of post that I honesty dread writing.  I really want to make this a good post, so I will need to spend time on it.

I hope to get that post up by the end of this month.  In the meantime, sorry for the long absence, and I hope to get things moving again soon.

[Cameron]

I am working on a post. It's a big one. I have a lot to catch up on. I'm not sure when it will be done. But at this point, even if I finish it beforehand, I'm going to wait to post it until after Soul Reaver posts. I don't want to give him anything else that he needs to work into his next post, and also want to be able to edit my post in case I need to react to anything in his. So I'll get it ready, and endeavor to post it as soon as Soul's post is up.

[Soul Reaver]

Ok, I've posted.  First some cursory basics:

- The Orks aren't just doing their usual 'overthrow the warboss' schtick - they're actually insane at the moment, so attempts to restore order will fail.  They're crazed berserkers and won't stop attacking until they're dead, or Gulgrim (and whatever gets in their way) is.

- Soul Reaver's cast a Darkfire Wall spell to block Jharm's advance.  It's wide and very, very tall.  Jharm can TRY to walk through it if he wants, but he would likely suffer extreme damage from trying that.  Also, I don't think Cameron would be able to maniuplate the fire - Darkfire is a type intense flame made of Dark Sorcery, and not normal fire.
The easiest solution is to run/fly/walk around it, but that will take some time.

- Soul Reaver has hast a Mirror Image spell just prior to attacking the Skeletal Golem.  The 'fake' Soul Reaver is attacking Kitharsis.  It can't cause him any harm, and will dissipate as soon as it takes a solid hit.  Its only purpose is to keep Kitharsis distracted long enough for the 'real' Soul Reaver to land his attack on the Skeletal Golem.

- The Skeletal Golem's taken a nasty hit.  The physical impact probably isn't that much of a problem for it, but Blooddrinker's sucking out it's animating energies - that will probably do more damage than the blade itself

[Soul Reaver]

I'd also like to say a few things about my god-mod post and Fei's departure...

Normally, a god-mod post wouldn't be too difficult - it's usually a case of keeping a character around and in-character without having too much of an impact on the battle/plot, just so they keep up.  But this was different: Fei is one of the longest-running and most iconic characters in the Epic Board Battle, and has a long relationship with Soul Reaver - and now, suddenly, he's left, and it's uncertain if he'll return.

I found this post very, very difficult to write.  I've tried to get guidance from Fei on how he'd like to see his character out, but I didn't get any replies, so in the end, I was on my own with this.

On the one hand, I considered just phasing Fei out quietly.  In some ways that would be the easiest thing to do, but it just seemed wrong to me, to so unceremoniously remove a long-running character from the plot, and it didn't seem in-character at all.

So instead I've opted for something big: a courageous final battle between two former friends (which, in truth, harkens back to plenty of scraps that Soul Reaver and Fei had back in their early days).  I've done my best to keep Fei in-character and keep his powers as described in his character description.  It ends with Fei gone, but of course, we cannot tell if this is a permanent end - he's vanished and returned before, and lived through worse.

Fei's blow to Soul Reaver isn't fatal, so this isn't the end of the current battle either, but perhaps it is a turning point - depending on what the rest of you folks do now, of course.

I won't god-mod any other players yet - though I likely will before my next post if there are no responses by then.

Sorry to have kept you all waiting, and I hope I've done Fei's departure some semblance of justice.

[Shadow Chorus]

I myself am uncertain what is going on with Gulgrim right now. The way the next round of posts progress will decide where the Warboss goes from here, but this post is a set-up for whatever may come in the future. He is always equidistant from Soul Reaver in a sort of imaginary circle around him whenever he teleports. He isn't attacking right now, but that may change next post depending on what goes down and what seems appropriate.

[Kitharsis]

I have my post outlined in my head, just waiting until Cameron posts so Kith can react to whatever happens.

[Cameron]

I have my post outlined in my head, just waiting until Cameron posts so Kith can react to whatever happens.

You really don't need to wait on me if you don't want to. My post is only about 30% done, so it may be a little while yet.