07.11i: A Face Full of Roaches

[Joshua]

In the same place that everyone else just left. Alys will arrive about in time to see some sort of horrid roach-abomination clutching a dead, pasty-faced vampire*.

The room has a throne, chains from which Rogbar recently escaped, several deep claw-marks on the floor, and walls.

The roach-monster will bellow. "You! You know who took her from me?!!!** Where is the other Lunar?! Where is the one who took the beastman?!!"
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*: Or a reasonable shadow thereof.
**: Half-bad-stuff, half-you-have-claws, and half-I-don't-care-I'm-killing-something.

[Wyvern]

Alys, back in her almost-human form*, leans calmly against one of the walls and looks the roach monster up and down.

"So you are the source of those annoying zombies, then. Tell you what - cancel that spell, and I will answer those questions to the best of my ability."

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* As established here.

[Joshua]

One of the benefits of the moonshadow-caste is the highly abusive cross-charm fun... such as: "Howl of Death-Rage*!" He blurs toward you. This isn't the all-or-nothing go for broke BS that Daq pulled. This is a highly focused, fast attack almost on par with** you at your fastest. Roach-lines sprout from his back, and 4 of them plus his materialized sword are headed your way.
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*: Relentless Lunar's Fury
**: His strength and warfare are on par with yours***.
***: Thankfully, this is his final form. Also thankfully, he's violating his motivation by seeking 'justice' so cannot use the ultra-broken charm he started with.

[Wyvern]

"Tsk, tsk, not feeling particularly reasonable are we?" Alys chides as she dives out of the way, her sword licking out once* as she tumbles under the attack and comes back up in a fighting stance a few meters to the side. "You do realize she would likely still be alive if your zombies had not slowed me down, yes? I am not in the habit of allowing people to kill someone I wish to interrogate."

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* It's a minor, probing attack directed not at the monster's leg, but specifically at a roach or two in that leg - Alys wants to see how the creature reacts to damage to its constituent parts.

[Joshua]

He is well beyond that level of threat and he's not fighting casually (plus, without going defensive, that multi-attack charm really hits you hard). A simple roll leaves three roach-mandible incisions on your back and side.

A few probing tests with your sword does indicate that he bleeds when the things in his legs are cut. Meanwhile, you've got a three half-inch cuts on your forearms and one on your side, and two smaller ones on your back. He's trading you blow for blow, but he's going for vitals and to disrupt your ability to hold a sword. There is no time or quarter for playing with him here and he's continuing to mix swords and conjuration/power-words, using the local magic for fast and stronger flares of attack.

[Wyvern]

Alys is taking the combat threat seriously - but that doesn't stop her from talking.

Still, if the roach monster isn't responding at all, then there's really nothing useful to be done beyond killing him. And the quicker that gets done, the better; Alys hasn't seen the Striders' desperate fight outside, but she's got enough warfare to know full well the zombie summoning spell wasn't aimed at the prisoners.

She goes full defense for a few seconds - scanning the room to double-check if there are any observers she might have trouble tracking down and eliminating after the fight's over - and then* offers roachface an opportunity to knock her sword out of her hand entirely. It's a trap, of course, and he's got enough warfare to know full well that it's a trap - but Alys is pretty confident he'll go for it anyway, which will give her an opportunity to switch the battle to strength.**

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* Assuming no such observers-with-a-reasonable-chance-of-escaping exist...
** Why strength? Because it's faster than warfare; even if the thing can match her in both stats, the fight will be over much sooner using strength instead of warfare. Of course, initiating a grapple as a human would be lethally foolish; Alys is planning to combine this with going avatar form, since, unlike her red dragon form, that's something she can do more-or-less instantly, without it taking enough time to warn roachface what he's up against. And that, in turn, is why she took the time to double-check for observers; she has no intention of allowing any of the necrolizards to see her avatar form and survive to tell anyone about it.

[Joshua]

He takes it, but... His sword dips down, and knocks yours to the side, leaving you wide open for three of his four roach-tendrils to strike you in the shoulder, side and gut. They… burrow, for lack of a better word.

You can grasp them like a rope and pull him into grappling fairly easily. Although, that's when they de-interlock from each other and go for your exposed flesh*.
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*: Ow.

[Wyvern]

Alys accepts the hits; it's going to be a pain and a half healing all this damage later - and it's likely that some of it is beyond her (current) ability to regenerate via shapeshifting - but so it goes.

As soon as roachface can no longer avoid the grapple (apparently those tentacles are about 8' long), she goes avatar form - and instead of 'exposed flesh' the accumulated cockroaches find themselves biting into plates of super-heated obsidian armor backed by white fire. The resulting conflict is very much a clash of shapeshifters; Alys is not holding back on anything that would give her an advantage, and has every intention of making certain that not even one roach has a chance to escape.

[Joshua]

In this context, you win. His shapeshifting is bound by strict rules of the shadow and yours is not. He's not able (due to the charm he's using) to break off combat* so burning him is a simple matter of letting your shapeshifting keep your armor plates from being too gnawed.

It only takes a few moments for his charm to slowly run out... His body apparently reforms for death, charred and burning... He will whisper... "Mistress..." before his zombie-not-girlfriend** shatters your sword attempting to run it through you.

They both incinerate fairly quickly and without further ceremony.
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*: Or die.
**: Animated as a 1hd undead***... Still hurts to get shanked though.
***: Animating your dead not-girlfriend (stalker-victim) to pretend she's trying to save you… kinda creepy****.
****: I'm not normally this bad.
+: He wasn't actually maintaining the conjuration. Sorry...

[Wyvern]

Alys - oblivious to the fact that the summoned zombies didn't end with their summoner - takes the time to make certain neither corpse is going to get up again. And then takes the further time to hunt down and eliminate any necro-lizards that might possibly have seen her use of her avatar form.

This is likely to keep her busy for a bit. On the plus side, it's plausible that she might find Rogbar's stuff while she's at it.

Edit: Apparently she's going to be doing that hunting in red dragon form, since all of her weapons are gone and roachface's sword apparently weighs about half a ton. She's still going to take the thing as a trophy, but she doesn't have the support from local magic she'd need to wield it as an actual weapon.