A/N: Finals week is over, thank God. I'm going to enjoy being a lazy ass next week for all it's worth.
It's been a while since we had an "Epic Fantasy Adventures" chapter, hasn't it? I'm still exhausted from doing all my med school shit, so I think now as good a time as any to write an "isolated" chapter.
A very important announcement before we begin, however. The past events of FNAF mentioned in this chapter have been RETCONNED so that the Bite Victim / Evan now dies AFTER Elizabeth. This detail may not seem very important right now, but it will have MAJOR ramifications for a future arc that I have planned. I've also retconned SL to happen before FNAF2, but this change isn't as important.
And with that being said, hope you enjoy the chapter!
BlauOrange: Mike gave Lefty an Endo at some point between FNAF6 and the start of MNGF, since he and Charlie were going to have to destroy the Puppet eventually (though they obviously didn't know the details about how that would pan out) and Mike wanted to give Charlie an extra animatronic body to possess after Charlie's soul was released. Since there's no Remnant involved, she won't be enslaved to the animatronic.
Chapter 57 – Epic Fantasy Adventures, High-Level Version
The dining room was buzzing with excitement as Mike strode in, carrying his Dungeons and Dragons equipment as he did so. The kids' characters had all become much more powerful as time had passed and they leveled up, but so had the intensity and difficulty of Mike's campaign to match their growing strength. What had once been weak bandits and the most basic forms of undead had been replaced with miniature armies of deadly warriors and powerful creatures of evil. Mike had also upped the brutality and cunning of his tactics to match the kids' own teamwork and strategy – it wasn't unheard of for two or even three party members to be killed in battles where he pulled out all the stops.
"I am SO glad that Liz got her fighter killed and swapped her for a second Cleric all those weeks ago," Gabe muttered as Mike started handing out the character sheets. "We would have gotten TPK'd a long time ago if he hadn't."
"Yeah, magic users really shine in the late game, though you still need other party members to balance it out," Mike agreed. "Anyway, you guys ready to go?"
"Yeah!" the ghosts all shouted eagerly.
"Great. Now where were we…" Mike pretended to think, "…ah, yes. You guys had joined forces with an army of giants and had just killed a Nysrock that had been terrorizing the area. Unfortunately for you, that was only just the beginning…"
/
"A Nysrock?" Charlie exclaimed as she watched the cobra demon's body dissolve into ashes. "What the hell is that thing doing here?"
Jeremy shrugged helplessly. "I don't know!" he replied. "A demon as powerful as a cobra demon shouldn't have been able to just wander around the mortal plane doing whatever the hell it wants. Something that strong would've needed to be summoned first."
"But the giants didn't report any cultists or evil rituals happening around here," Susie piped up. "They told us that yesterday in their report."
"That's what worries me," Cassidy muttered. "Either they missed something really big, or…"
The ground suddenly started to rumble and the team looked up in horror as the sky began to darken. An unearthly shriek of triumph echoed in the far distance, and they could hear the giants shouting orders at each other.
"The barrier between planes is weakening," Liz whispered in a fearful tone. There's a portal to the Abyss opening up somewhere. Demons can crawl over from the Chaotic Evil plane to our world!"
Before the team could fully sink in this revelation, one of the giant chieftains rushed over to them with surprising speed. "A huge fissure leading straight into the Abyss is opening up!" he rumbled. "We need to form ranks now!"
The team scrambled to join the rest of the army. Despite being only human-sized in the midst of giants, they had long proven their skill and worth to be stationed in the front lines. As they held their weapons in battle formation, a gigantic fissure that glowed with unholy red light began to crack from one side to the other. The rumbling of the Earth grew even more violent as the two sides of the fissure separated, revealing a massive chasm leading into the depths of a nightmarish dimension far below. The shrieks of laughing demons grew louder as all manner of unholy creatures began to crawl or fly out, signaling the beginning of what would easily be the team's greatest challenge.
A claw suddenly reached out and grabbed the edge of the fissure, which Charlie immediately deduced to be the claw of an Aeshma. The Rage Demon climbed onto the surface, letting out a bestial scream of hatred as it focused straight onto the group of adventurers. Even as more demons clamored from the depths, it charged straight towards them, the first of many monsters in a battle to defend creation itself from unspeakable chaos and corruption.
/
"Roll for initiative," Mike declared. "And make it count, because you're stuck with that initiative for a while."
Fritz smirked. "Well, it's a good thing I took Mythic Improved Initiative, then, isn't it?" he boasted.
Mike raised an eyebrow. "Waaaaaaaaaaait a minute…" he mumbled, "did you ALL take Mythic Improved Initiative?"
The ghosts nodded.
"So you ALL start with what's functionally natural 20s," he continued.
The ghosts nodded again, maniacal grins stretching across their faces.
Mike groaned. "Fuck me, I forgot about that. Okay, well, this demon doesn't have any Mythic levels, so unless I also roll a natural 20," he rolled the dice on the table, "…aaaaaaaaaaaand a 3. Yeaaaaaaaaahhh…until I start breaking out the big guns then rolling for initiative for every demon is practically worthless unless by some miracle I also roll a 20." He rolled his eyes. "Hooray for metagaming…"
His children laughed at his grumpiness, but then Cassidy suddenly realized something. "Wait a minute…" she pondered, "…big guns?"
/
As soon as the Aeshma was close enough to fight safely without fear of falling into the Abyss, Fritz roared and charged at the demon. The creature snarled and swung its spear down upon the Barbarian, but the warrior was so consumed by his own rage that he barely noticed the damage the Rage Demon inflicted on him. Fritz slammed his axe down upon the Aeshma, attacking the monster with such brutality that the creature felt the vicious wounds even with its unnatural durability.
The rest of the party had not been idle. Jeremy marched forward and intercepted a group of demons, enduring their hits with his superior fortitude and striking them back with his holy fury and consecrated blade. Gabe zipped in and out of sight, striking at the demons from the shadows whenever he was able while staying behind cover of the giants, whose hulking frames easily concealed him from view.
The spellcasters, in the meantime, began firing off a barrage of offensive spells from behind the safety of the giant frontline. Liz and Charlie both blasted any demons that came close to them or their allies with Holy Smites, while Susie had transformed the flora in the area in front of them into a mass of writhing black tentacles that grabbed at any demons that stumbled onto them. Cassidy summoned up a lightning bolt and tossed it at a nearby demon, but the bolt simply diffused harmlessly off the creature and it trained its eyes straight onto her, snarling menacingly.
/
"Wait, what?" Cassidy spluttered. "That didn't work?"
Jeremy facepalmed. "Cass, demons are immune to electricity attacks."
Her eyes widened. "Oh, crap!" she exclaimed. "I forgot about that."
"You didn't pick all electricity spells, did you?" Liz asked worriedly.
The former Golden Freddy inhabitant shook her head. "No, but I didn't think about demon immunities and resistances when I picked my spells," she confessed. "Is there anything else that demons are immune to?"
"Poison," Charlie helpfully supplied.
Cassidy sighed in relief. "Oh, thank God, I forgot to take poison spells. Guess that's a good thing in this context, though," She shook her head, clearly exasperated with herself. "Aww, there goes my dream of zapping demons with lightning bolts like a maniac then."
Gabe shook his head. "Can't be making mistakes like this, Cass," he warned. "You're lucky you only wasted a lower level spell on a weaker demon, but that could've been really bad if you blew a high level spell on a boss or something."
Mike smirked. "I should also point out that you've just attracted the demon's attention by shooting an energy bolt at it."
Cassidy rolled her eyes. "Greaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat…"
/
Cassidy started panicking as the demon let out a bestial roar and rushed towards her, claws outstretched to tear her to shreds. In its haste, it failed to notice Jeremy right next to him, who quickly took advantage of the distraction to slice at its side with his sword. The creature howled in pain, but still advanced until it was in front of Cassidy. The demon raised its claw and slashed at the wizard, who gasped in pain as gaping wounds were torn into her stomach.
Charlie's eyes widened as she noticed her friend in pain. "I've got you, Cass!" she exclaimed as she quickly cast a healing spell on her. Cassidy sighed in relief as she felt the comforting energies wash over her, closing her wounds. Gabe, in the meanwhile, had taken advantage of the demon's distraction to sneak around and strike it from behind with his sword. The demon screamed as he cleaved its head clean off its shoulders, making certain that it would never harm his friend again.
"You need to be more careful," Gabe chastised, the rogue's eyes narrowed at the corpse that was rapidly dissolving into ashes.
"I know," Cassidy murmured. "Thanks for saving me, all of you."
Charlie smiled. "Just as long as you're fine," she assured her.
Their moment was interrupted with another horrific shriek, and they turned to see another group of demons rushing towards them. The giants next to them had done their best to stem the tide, but one of them had fallen and created an opening for the demons to charge at them while the others struggled to hold them at bay. "Looks like we've got company!" Jeremy shouted.
Cassidy's eyes narrowed. "I'm not going to let them get at me like that again," she growled. "Let's see how they handle this!" Her eyes started to glow with power, and suddenly the sound of a mighty trumpet echoed in a cone in front of her. The advancing demons all shrieked as the heavenly sound tore at their ears. Some of them managed to overcome the power of the spell and shake off their disorientation, but others stumbled backward and began clutching their heads in pain, completely helpless.
/
"Wait, are you serious?" Fritz asked, his eyes positively glowing with excitement. "All paralyzed?"
"Yep!" Cassidy smirked. "All paralyzed. For…" she rolled her dice, "three turns."
"Is that an invitation to go full-blown coup de grace apeshit on their asses?"
"Assuming that Charlie or Jeremy don't get to them first," she answered.
The look on Fritz's face disturbingly reminded Mike of Foxy's sinister grin back in the pizzeria. "Don't mind if I do."
/
The moment he saw the group of paralyzed demons standing helpless in front of him, Fritz charged towards them, laughing all the while as he swung his battle-axe on them over and over again. The rest of his team cringed slightly as they watched Fritz brutally slaughter all of the demons in his battle frenzy, while the others that still had their wits intact desperately tried to attack the frenzied Barbarian that had entered their midst. Their distraction gave the rest of the party the opportunity to retaliate with their own vicious assault.
"You are enjoying this WAY too much," Liz muttered as she watched Fritz tear off the head of the last of the demons."
"Eh," Gabe shrugged. "They're demons. Who gives a shit?"
"Fair enough," Liz admitted as she fired another Holy Smite at a group of monsters that had successfully endured Cassidy's Archon's Trumpet. The few that weren't outright destroyed were blinded by the brilliance of her blast, giving Jeremy and Gabe ample opportunity to finish mopping them up.
"Wow," Jeremy commented as he sliced the bat-like wings of a Nabasu. "This has been surprisingly easy so far. I think we can handle this just fine!"
/
Every single one of his siblings turned to glare at him. "You are an idiot, Jeremy," Susie grumbled.
"Why the hell did you have to say that out loud?" Fritz asked with a growl.
"I would've expected this kind of idiocy from Fritz, but not from you!" Charlie muttered. The former Foxy inhabitant glared at her slightly, but the majority of his ire was still focused on his brother.
It was now Mike's turn to grin sinisterly. "Not hard enough, eh?" he asked in a tone that made the figurative hearts of every ghost there sink. "Don't you worry, Jeremy, I can fix that little problem for you juuuuuuuuuuuust fine."
"Thanks a lot, Jeremy," Liz groaned as she buried her head in her hands.
/
The earth rumbled again as a hate-filled, savage bellow echoed throughout the battlefield, this one even louder than the others. Charlie immediately noticed that the demons fighting them seemed almost…revitalized by this latest development, and they began fighting with renewed fury and savagery.
"Something's changed…" Liz murmured, "something that's good for the demons."
"And bad for us," Gabe added grimly.
"What's happening?" Susie asked, a bit frantically. As a Druid, she lacked the expertise and knowledge of demons that some of her more holy-oriented friends did.
The answer came a split second later. A hideous reptilian demon, larger and emanating more power than any of the demons that the defenders had fought against up to that point, had climbed out of the fissure and onto the battlefield. The creature was absolutely hideous to gaze upon even by the standards of demons, with a quadruped dinosaur's lower body, a humanoid upper body, and a head that seemed to be some unholy combination of dinosaur and dragon. The Vavakia let out another roar and charged straight towards the party, having identified the humans among the giants as easy prey for it to slaughter.
/
"Boss time!" Mike declared in a singsong voice.
The ghosts immediately began chattering and strategizing amongst themselves, thankful that the chaos of battle didn't translate to reality and that they could take all the time they needed to plan out how to beat the powerful demon Mike had summoned for them to fight. "At least we have Mythic Improved Initiative, right?" Fritz asked hopefully. "We can all go first before this thing does and frontload everything we need to before it even makes a move!"
Mike was about to retort that they could do nothing of the kind, but then he actually looked at his character sheet. "Oh, wow," he noticed, "I picked the one high power demon that actually has a shitty initiative modifier. It doesn't even have Improved Initiative as a feat. Okay then, looks like you actually CAN pull that on me…this tie."
"I don't like the sound of this time," Gabe muttered as he put the last two words in air-quotes.
"You'll see what I mean," Mike promised. "But for now, make this first turn count. You won't like what happens if you fuck this one up."
"Is there anything this demon is immune to besides electricity and poison?" Susie asked.
"What an excellent question," her father grinned. "It's also immune to fire."
Cassidy and Susie looked at each other and both groaned. "Well, shit."
/
"We've got to take that thing down quickly before it kills all of us!" Jeremy exclaimed.
Fritz held his battleaxe in his hands. "It's a good thing I had this axe consecrated before this whole mess started."
Charlie and Liz looked at each other. "You do damage, I do support?" Charlie asked.
"Sounds good to me," Liz agreed.
After Charlie quickly blessed all of her friends with a spell that would empower their Endurance and Cassidy did the same for their Dexterity, Jeremy and Fritz charged at the Vavakia. The two of them struck at the demon repeatedly with all their fury, Jeremy calling upon the holy energies of his heavenly patron and Fritz slamming his axe down upon the demon with all his hatred. The Vavakia roared in agony as Jeremy's sword and Fritz's mighty battleaxe tore into its corrupted flesh. Gabe faded into the shadows thanks to his Mythic-empowered Stealth, while Liz decided to conserve her more powerful spells and cast a weaker but still powerful Holy Smite on the creature. Not wanting to unleash her most powerful spells yet, Susie instead decided to cast a spell that granted her allies additional Wisdom, hoping that it would be enough to help them overcome whatever foul curses the demon inflicted.
And it was a good thing that she had done so, for it was now the Vavakia's turn to attack. The creature took in a deep breath and let loose a torrent of sickening green fire that seemed to writhe and coil with the agonized faces of a thousand screaming ghosts. Cassidy, Susie, and Charlie had been lucky enough not to be within range of the attack, but the rest of the party was caught in the unholy breath of the demon, and many of them screamed as they could feel the corrosive breath tear not just at their bodies, but also at their minds and souls.
/
"Roll to deal with all sorts of nasty shit!" Mike cheerfully declared.
"What kind of nasty shit?" Gabe asked suspiciously.
"Oh, nothing to worry about," his father assured him. "A reflex save against 20d6 damage and a fortitude save against losing 1d8 Wisdom. Both of them are 30, by the way."
Everyone groaned. "Well, thank God that Charlie put Bear's Endurance on us first," Jeremy muttered.
"Oh, and I almost forgot…the Vavakia gets 1d8 health for everybody hit!"
The ghosts didn't bother dignifying that with anything but a glare.
/
"Filthy creature!" Jeremy snarled as he watched the demon re-consume the hordes of tormented souls that it had unleashed. "I'll end your evil once and for all!"
He was about to raise his sword to continue his attack, but someone had beaten him to it. Gabe had taken his earlier turn to sneak up close to the demon with a cold iron blade he had prepared for dealing with demons. Even with its heightened perception, the Vavakia had failed to notice the Rogue thanks to being distracted with Jeremy and Fritz. Lunging out of the shadows, Gabe struck at the Vavakia from behind. The demon screamed as the blade plunged into its core, the deadly precision of the Rogue overcoming even its own supernatural endurance. Jeremy and Fritz took the opportunity to strike at the Vavakia once more, and the combined attacks were too much for the demon to bear. With a final agonized scream, the demon erupted into ashes, leaving no trace behind.
/
"Oh, thank God," Gabe breathed a sigh of relief as Mike plucked the demon figure off the table. "That wasn't too bad. I'd hate to think about what would have happened if that battle had gone for too long."
Mike nodded approvingly. "Yep. You guys handled that warm-up boss pretty well."
"Wait, WHAT?" Liz exclaimed. "A Challenge Rating 18 demon with fire breath made of corrupted souls was the WARM-UP boss?"
"Yup, and part of me was hoping that you would screw up your strategy and waste your highest level spells on it," her father grinned. "Congrats, you didn't. I was honestly thinking about using a Balor as a warm-up boss, but I decided to be nice since we haven't done this in a while. Judging from how you handled that Vavakia, it looks like you didn't need me to go easy on you."
"I don't like the sound of that," Charlie muttered.
Mike's grin only widened in response. "And speaking of Balors…"
/
The party barely had time to heal up and empower themselves before another deafening roar suddenly echoed across the battlefield, this one louder than anything that had come before it. A giant shouted something unintelligible in the distance, and the party could only watch as a massive red demon soared into the air before smashing his feet onto the ground in front of his minions. The demon towered over even the giants, covered in black scale-like armor. In his right hand he carried a sword with a cruel, vicious blade, and in his left hand he wielded a vicious whip covered in flames.
Charlie's eyes widened in horror as she slowly backed away. "B…B…B…Balor!" she all but shouted.
The rest of the party looked at the demon with fearful expressions, the new arrival giving even Fritz pause. "What's a Balor?" he asked.
"One of the most powerful demons of the Abyss," Liz murmured. "Powerful enough to take down entire armies."
"That's not just a normal Balor, either," Jeremy added grimly. "With all that armor he's wearing, it HAS to be a Balor Lord. The only things more powerful than a Balor Lord in the entire Abyss is a full-blown Demon Lord."
"Maybe he hasn't noticed us?" Susie asked unconvincingly. Her months of adventuring with her friends had thoroughly established that whenever shit well and truly hit the fan, it usually happened to them most of all. "Maybe the giants can take care of him?"
The towering demon's burning gaze suddenly shifted towards the party of humans. The demon shouted something in an unholy language and took one massive step towards them.
"He's picked us as his targets," Charlie groaned.
Cassidy tried to look on the bright side. "At least he's by itself, right?" she asked, attempting to raise their spirits. "The seven of us between just one demon, we'll beat this thing easily!"
/
Mike smirked. "Unfortunately for you guys, the Balor Lord ALSO has Mythic Improved Initiative. So all that cheese bullshit you tried with your max 20? I can do the exact same thing. And wouldn't you know it, I have an initiative bonus higher than anything you guys can do. So yeah, no first-turn BSing THIS time around."
None of the ghosts looked even the slightest bit happy with this development. "This is gonna suck…" Fritz muttered.
"Oh, but don't you worry," Mike assured them soothingly. "I'm not going to attack with my Balor Lord this turn."
Susie looked up hopefully. "You won't?"
"Nope!" Mike answered cheerfully. "I'm just going to use this turn to have him summon two more!" The ghosts all watched in horror as he plopped a two figurines in front of the first, dangerously close to Jeremy, Fritz, and Gabe. "Congratulations, you now get to fight the equivalent of three Lord of the Rings Balrogs at once, one of which is more powerful than the others! Good luck!"
"You can't do that!" Gabe protested. "I'm looking at the rules for Balors right now! The Balor Lord can only summon one CR 19 or lower demon! He can't summon one Balor, let alone two!"
Mike only laughed at his son's protest. "I'm the DM. So that means I can invoke House Rules."
"Which means…"
"Basically I can do whatever the fuck I want!" Mike declared triumphantly.
As her siblings desperately tried to come up with strategies to counter the shitshow that Mike had thrown them into, Charlie gave her father a dirty look that would have put the Freddy Fazbear animatronics' death glares to deep and everlasting shame. "You are an ASSHOLE," she growled.
Mike's only response to whip out a pair of sunglasses and place them squarely on his face. "Deal with it."
/
The summoned Balors roared upon fully manifesting on the plane. The party barely had any time to react before huge torrents of roaring flames erupted around them, causing them all to scream in fear as the flames licked hungrily at their flesh. The magic wielders had taken it upon themselves to cast protections against fire on the party at the beginning of the battle, but such protections were easily shredded by the sheer power of a fire storm cast by one of the most powerful demons that had ever been spawned by the Abyss.
Not for the first time, Susie thanked whatever God was watching over them that she and her friends had received the foresight to buy Greater Rings of Energy Resistance from Fire long before this battle. Thanks to their extensive planning, they had not suffered too badly from the dual fire storms, but all their protections had been rendered null and void.
Liz forced herself to ignore the flames licking at her body, as her ring would ensure that the fires were functionally harmless. "I don't know about you guys," she muttered, "but I do NOT want to be fighting three Balors at the same time."
"We need to focus everything on the weaker ones first, and one at a time," Charlie decided. "If we're lucky, we MIGHT be able to kill it before it can even get a chance to attack us."
"Then let's get to it!" was the last thing Gabe said before he disappeared into the chaos of the battle. He snuck towards the Balor closest to him and struck with a devastating Sneak Attack. The Balor roared in surprise as he was caught off-guard, giving both Fritz and Jeremy the opportunity they needed to charge at the Balor and attack him with rage and holy fervor just as they had done against the Vavakia. Jeremy had granted Fritz the ability to Smite Evil just as he could, and the holy blessings surrounding the two of them tore at the Balor's profane flesh. The demon snarled in pain as Cassidy cast a Mythic Consecrated Fireball with its element changed to Cold straight in the middle of the Balors, blasting all three of them at the same time. The Balor roared again, and this time he could not hide the true pain that he felt at the combined force of the attacks. With a smile, Liz raised her arms and fired off a Consecrated, Empowered Mythic Holy Smite to finish things off.
The creature let out a hideous death scream as he exploded, dousing the battlefield around him in a deluge of unholy fire. The group of heroes felt the flames sear at their flesh, the unholy nature of the flames bypassing some of the protection offered by the Greater Rings of Energy Resistance. The Balor Lord snarled hatefully at the party of heroes, promising a hideous death to its foes in the Abyssal tongue. Realizing what was about to happen, Charlie called upon her strongest available spell and sent a wave of powerful healing energies through her friends. The more vulnerable spellcasters in the back lines felt the positive energies close away the many wounds they had suffered thanks to the now destroyed Balor's fire attacks. Susie, knowing what she did now about the Death Throes of a Balor, cast a Protection from Energy on her friends in the back lines, hoping to keep them all safe from a repeat.
/
"We did it!" Charlie cheered. "We killed the Balor in one turn!"
Jeremy laughed. "Man, Smite Evil is so OP at high levels, especially when I can let Fritz do it too!"
Liz grinned. "And did you see that super-powered Holy Smite? I had no idea a spell could be that strong when you buff it up the right way. 75 damage to all three of them, can't get better than that!"
Mike smiled. "Yes, congratulations. It's a very good thing you managed to kill one of the Balors in one turn, because otherwise you REALLY wouldn't have liked what would've happened if you didn't. Actually," the smile turned into an unnerving smirk, "scratch that, you're not gonna like what's about to happen anyway."
The ghosts gulped. "Uh, oh…" Susie muttered.
Mike turned towards Charlie. "Roll a Fort Save," he instructed. Charlie nervously did so, and her eyes widened in horror as she saw the number.
"Oh, God…" she gasped, "I just rolled a 1. I'm fucked, aren't I?"
Her father grinned. "Ooh, that was a VERY bad fortitude save to fail, and you had a decent chance of making it too. Congratulations, Charlie, you have just suffered 200 health points' worth of damage by having your body collapsing in on itself." Ignoring the horrified look on everyone's face, he continued. "And now that I've fucked over one of you, it's time to fuck over more of you!"
/
The remaining Balor growled something unintelligible at his master and his eyes flashed with hellish flames. Charlie let out an agonized scream as her body began to implode, the Balor laughing cruelly as he magically crushed her until there was nothing but a hideous pile of gore. Even as his subordinate carried out its cruel spell, the Balor Lord began to chant in an unholy tongue. Black, foul energies began to swirl around the creature. For several seconds, the evil magic of the demon gathered around him, until suddenly it erupted outward in a devastating, profane explosion. Fritz, Jeremy, and Gabe flailed about in agony as their bodies and minds were assaulted by the Balor Lord's mighty Blasphemy spell, and each hero had to fight with all their mind and strength not to be obliterated by its sheer power.
/
"Wait, WHAT!" Jeremy exclaimed in horror. "We're ALL paralyzed?"
Mike laughed. "That's right," he smirked. "You're all more than 5 levels below the Balor Lord, so you're all dazed, weakened, AND paralyzed. If you're lucky, you'll make your save and will only be paralyzed for one turn. And if not…well…the phrase sitting duck best comes to mind."
Fritz rolled his dice and let out a curse as he rolled a 5 against the paralysis. "Shit, I am sooooo screwed…" he groaned.
"Well, look on the bright side! At least you're less than 10 levels below the Balor Lord. Otherwise, you'd be rolling not to instantly die," Mike offered helpfully.
"That makes me feel SO much better, dad," Gabe rolled his eyes. "Thanks."
"And lest we forget, paralyze means you're helpless," his father warned. "And I think we all know what happens to characters that are helpless."
"Shit, shit, shit…LIZ!" Fritz frantically turned to his sister. "I need you to Greater Restoration on me! If you don't, I'm going to get Coup de Grace'd next turn! You can do that at a range thanks to that Mythic Feat you took, right?"
"Yeah, but what about Gabe?" Liz countered. "He's just as screwed as you are!"
Gabe shook his head. "Fritz is much better at fighting Balors straight-up then I am. Use it on him."
/
Liz rushed towards her friends until she was closest enough to restore Fritz at a distance. Not sure what else she could do, Susie instead decided to try and finish what Liz had started on the second Balor. She raised a pair of two massive rocks and sent them smashing towards each other, with the Balor caught right in the middle. The demon let out a cry of shock as he was smashed in between the boulders, but he was far from beaten. At the same time, Cassidy fired a Mythic Polar Ray at the same Balor, gravely weakening him but not quite finishing it off.
The Balor glared hatefully at the two spellcasters and reached out a hand towards Susie. The wizard let out a shriek as she felt a force pulling her towards the demon until she was right in front of it. The Balor began to viciously strike at Susie with its whip, tearing gaping wounds all over her body. At the same time, the Balor Lord turned towards the still-helpless Gabe. With a churlish grin, he raised his sword and swung it down upon the rogue's head.
"Gabe!" Everyone screamed as he fell backward, his bloodied corpse joining Charlie's on the cold, unfeeling battleground. Jeremy and Fritz both attacked the Balor Lord, but in his haste Jeremy had forgotten to bestow the powers of Smiting upon his Barbarian friend, and the damage the creature took was piddling compared to what it would have been otherwise. In the meantime, Liz cast a Heal upon Susie to remove the damage done to it by the Balor, and Susie finished it off with a Consecrated Cold of Cone specifically cast to only hurt enemies.
Just like the last one had done, the second Balor exploded and doused the battlefield in its unholy fires. The protections that Susie had recast earlier did their work, and this time they only suffered damage because of the flames' unholy nature. But both Jeremy and Fritz had been grievously wounded by the combined Death Throes of the two destroyed Balors, and while Fritz's rage allowed him to ignore the damage done by the demon to some degree, Jeremy seemed on the verge of falling unconscious. It didn't help that the Balor Lord seemed much, MUCH healthier than he should have been.
/
"Why is this thing not dead already?" Fritz complained. "We've been whaling on it with everything we have!"
"That would be because Balor Lords have an ability that can heal 200 damage every time they kill someone," Mike explained with a smirk. "And wouldn't you know it, he's killed someone just a few seconds ago! Funny how that works, huh?"
"Greeeeeeeaaaatttt…" Jeremy rolled his eyes.
"Hey, at least I only went with the base capabilities of a Balor Lord," Mike countered. "Unless any of you wants to roll a Fortitude save against having your soul sucked out by a Balor Lord and be reborn as a new demon?" He grinned as the ghosts all frantically shook their heads. "Didn't think so."
/
"Just you and us now, jackass," Fritz snarled. Jeremy remembered to share his holy blessing this time around, and together they attacked the Balor Lord with everything they had. Jeremy was able to hit it twice and Fritz was able to hit it three times, destroying some of the vitality it had regained with Gabe's death. Liz decided to focus on keeping her friends alive that turn, using her own Heal, Mass to restore the health of the two warriors. Cassidy summoned a hail of magical arrows on the Balor Lord, focusing the spell so that her two friends were safely out of range. And Susie finished things off with a Consecrated Mythic Ice Storm.
The Balor Lord growled furiously as he swung his whip at Fritz's head. For all his savagery, he also possessed a vicious cunning, and had aimed his attack straight towards Fritz's neck…
/
"AHAHAHAHAHA!" Mike exclaimed triumphantly. "I rolled a 20! And now just to confirm the crit…" he rolled the dice, then let out another victorious laugh. "YES!" He reached over to Fritz's character and plucked it off the battlefield. "You're dead!"
"Wait, WHAT?" Fritz spluttered. "But I was near full! And I have extra HP thanks to Rage!"
Mike waved off his complaint with a laugh. "Vorpal weapon, kiddo. Doesn't matter how much HP you have. I roll a crit and confirm it, you get your head cut off. The end."
"All right, that's it!" Jeremy exclaimed. "I'm kicking this demon's ass!" He rolled four dice for his attacks, and to his delight all of them hit. "Guys, let's kill this Balor Lord right now!"
"I hit him with another Consecrated Empowered Holy Smite," Liz declared, and Mike quickly crossed off another 75 hit points off the Balor Lord's health total.
"You might actually kill him this turn," Mike noted. "Better make your last two spells count."
Cassidy smiled angelically. "Oh, I don't think I'll kill it this turn. I KNOW I'll kill it this turn. I cast Mythic Consecrated Disintegrate!"
Mike dropped his pencil. "Oh, fuck, that might actually do it." He rolled a dice and his face fell. "Well, shit…I just rolled a one. So now you do…" he snorted when he saw the calculator. "306 damage. Even if it succeeded the Fort save the Balor Lord still would've died after whatever Susie did on her turn, but holy shit! You would've cut the thing's health by more than half if you'd pulled that off at the beginning!"
"Great job, Cassidy!" Susie hugged her sister as the rest of the ghosts cheered at their victory. "You just won the fight for us!"
"And you wonder why I keep saying wizards are OP," Mike muttered with a defeated sigh as he plucked the Balor Lord's figure off the board.
/
The sickly green ray struck the Balor Lord, and as weakened as he was, he could not withstand their power. The demon lord's death scream was even louder than those of his kin, and it exploded in a wave of fire and unholy energy just as the other two Balors had done. Though the pain of the Balor Lord's destruction was nothing new to the victorious adventurers, it was still enough to badly incinerate all of them. Both the demons and giants stared in shock at the small party of heroes that had managed to destroy three of the Abyss's most powerful demons.
Cassidy fell to her knees, utterly exhausted. Three of her friends had been brutally killed and the rest of them weren't much better. But before the demons could try and take advantage of their weakness or the giants could step in to defend them, the sound of a heavenly horn echoed in the sky. The demons shrieked in terror and the giants cheered as angelic figures suddenly descended from the sky, striking at the Abyssal outsiders with blade and holy magic alike.
A giant chieftain rushed over to them with two guards. "It's the archons!" he declared. "They've come to help us! Quickly, let's get your fallen friends and retreat to the back lines. You'll be able to resurrect them in peace while the archons are keeping the demons busy!"
None of them needed to be told twice. As quickly as possible, the giants picked up the fallen bodies of Charlie, Gabe, and Fritz, and all of them retreated through the lines of giants as quickly as possible. Liz knew that they had accomplished a great victory by killing one of the main warlords leading the demonic invasion, but with half of her friends dead she didn't feel like celebrating. As soon as she got the opportunity, she would resurrect Charlie from whatever nightmarish spell the Balor had inflicted on her, and the two of them would get to work bringing the rest of them back to peak condition.
Only then would she feel like celebrating.
/
"You know, if I REALLY wanted to be a dick, I would have used Telekinesis on Cassidy and whaled on her with the Balors at the beginning of the fight," Mike commented dryly as they packed up the game's many components. "I wouldn't say I went easy on you, but I definitely wasn't as vicious as I could have been. You're not far from level 20 now, and I promise you that I won't be so merciful when I put you up against the demon lords. Also," a sheepish look appeared on his face, "I forgot to use rage on the Balor Lord. Whoops."
"A Raging Balor Lord," Gabe replied dryly as he helped collect the character sheets. "Because that's just what we need."
"You know, it's kind of funny. We KNOW Hell exists. We KNOW demons are real," Liz wondered. "And I can't help but wonder what Nightmare would say about the way this game divides the different types of evil into different afterlives and different monsters."
Mike snorted. "Who the hell even knows what's going on through that monster's head right now…"
Meanwhile in Hell…
"WHO THE FUCK CARES ABOUT WHETHER I'M LAWFUL, NEUTRAL, OR CHAOTIC EVIL?" Nightmare Foxy shouted as he tossed his character sheet aside. "I JUST WANT TO KILL SHIT ALREADY!"
"THERE ARE SPELLS THAT AFFECT YOU BASED ON ALIGNMENT, YOU BLITHERING IDIOT," Nightmare Freddy snarled. "THOUGH CONSIDERING HOW UTTERLY INCOMPETENT YOU ARE AT ANYTHING REQUIRING PLANNING AND ORGANIZATION, IT'S EASY TO IDENTIFY WHICH TYPE OF EVIL YOU ARE."
"AND WHAT IS THIS GARBAGE ABOUT EVIL CLERICS NOT BEING ABLE TO HEAL?" Nightmare Chica complained. "THAT IS DISCRIMINATION AND BIGOTRY! AND I THOUGHT WE WERE SUPPOSED TO BE THE EVIL ONES!"
"I JUST ROLLED A 1 ON MY INITIATIVE! ARRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH!" Nightmare Bonnie roared as he hurled the dice into the fire pit.
Nightmare groaned as he buried his head into his game master folder. Nightmare Fredbear gave him a look of amused sympathy, while Nightmarionne had a shit-eating grin that clearly said "I told you so". "I AM SURROUNDED BY IDIOTS…" he growled, already regretting the suggestion to try a D&D campaign of his own.
Hopefully the new torture he had just come up with for William Afton would relieve the ever-growing migraine.
/
A/N: Because I can't resist using the Nightmares whenever I can get away with it :P
Wow, this chapter took a LOT longer than I thought it would to write. I had to do quite a bit of research for this one as well as contact one of my friends who's been DMing games like Pathfinder for quite a long time. Funny how the "filler chapter" ends up longer than some of the major plot chapters XD Consider it my way of making up for the extended absence.
Hopefully this was exciting for you to read and didn't get too repetitive. The turn-based nature of boss fights like this means that some fights tend to be "everyone attacks and then the boss," especially since the Balors all attacked at the same time. Since this was meant to be a high-level, intense battle, I wanted to make sure that some of the ghost kids' characters actually DIED this time around.
As promised, the next major plot event will be the Rockstars. Hope you guys enjoyed!