Oh, my goodness...
OK.
I dropped the (08+2M) for Critical Tests because I realised that it just was too out of order with the 2d12 methodology I have adopted for resolution rolls, so now it is simply the Secondary Modifier (2M) plus their Ethnic modifiers, plus any purchased through Point-Design. It may be adjusted yet again, but the lower results restored the term 'Critical' to those tests, and success was not as frequent or of the intensity it had been these past few sessions.
--Just proves that what ought to be sound maths rarely survives contact with actualities of play, thus the necessity of 'playtesting'.
Tyb, Darius, and Ylliya rushed off to the Ahzenbakh mansion to warn lady Miren of the approach of the demon, and found the dark haired lass in the front garden with a paralysed ('held') two-headed dog, caught in a vicious snarl, at her feet; a white rose in Miren's hand, her finger pricked and bleeding.
--After warning the lady, she called for her coach, and then granted the driver to fetch his wife and daughter for the evac.
---Dame ?Dienem? (not certain of her name at this point, I'll correct it later) exited the house and began a droll conversation with the Governor until a seismic wave shook the property, knocking loose a few shingles from the roof, and a shutter from an upstairs window. Then the Dame began to wretch and cough. A moment later, fingers came out of her mouth and whatever was inside her began to try and crawl out her distended maw as she was dying a very ignoble, painful, and lengthy death. Miren was suitably shocked, and was unable to act for a couple of Rounds, having already discharged her pistol into the two-headed doggie before calling for the coach.
A couple or few Rounds of combat, resulting in frostbite damage to Tyb as he stabbed the thing inside the Dame's gesticulating, gyrating body, but held on to the Black Metal dagger, and stabbed it with a poisoned blade, finally finishing-off the Dame, but not the critter. Said thing began to make literal headway out of the cadaver and was promptly smashed by Darius using his Spiritual Weapon-enhanced mace from afar, breaking it at the waist and knocking it into the white rose-bush, which then withered and burst into the same sickly-yellow-green flames that had consumed the Merry Tea-time house not a half-hour prior.
--The driver, his wife and daughter had all been audience to these horrors and were rather ... disturbed, shall we say, but were able to collect themselves and get on the carriage just before the house' interior lit up in the same flames, with screams of terror and nastiness filling the rain-pounded air. An unfortunate soul, well immolated in the stuff, ran out onto the long balcony over the front 'porch' of the mansion, and its skeleton, freed of the consumed flesh, turned to some sort of crystalline material, which then shattered in b'zillion pieces on the parkway below.
---The (N)PCs bolted out of there as a second quake struck and nearly collapsed the wall upon them. Looking back, the house burst into the yellow-green flames and then crashed into its cellar as a funnel of the flames reached upward into the storm clouds and strengthened them into cyclonic action.
Ashta and Mela sped over to the House A in the Sphere, but saw that gouts of the same flames shot forth from the various tunnel system openings, and Abbekqorru, Men-at-Arms, and Pirates were making rapid movement from those apertures, some engulfed in the corrosive flames. It was noted that the Abbekqorru were flinging men left and right in an attempt to save as many lives as possible.
--Eight of these bear-dog-men looked up and pointed at the Sphere, and began to keep pace as best possible until Ashta scooped them up into a TK field and brought them along, the warriors thrilled to be 'flying', and psyching themselves up for a righteous bloody battle wherever 'Lady Death' was headed, shouting her praises and generally adoring the pale amazon.
The two groups met as the re-animated corpse of the two-headed doggie had transformed, during its chase after the carriage, into a bone-winged humanoid of clearly nastier origin. These eight Abbekqorru launched into the thing and the scrum tumbled down the hill into thick vegetation for a few Rounds.
--Meanwhile, out of Ylliya's mouth, an ectoplasmic manifestation of The Worm from that other place began to speak to Tyb (accusing him of causing the god to lose face via their successful escape and re-absconding with the fae daughters) and the other occupants of the carriage and then bit Darius for 30 points of spiritual damage (that'd be 10 points for D&D folks). Darius, with anti-undead mace a-hummin', began to speak an exorcism of sorts, based on his Astrogator secret knowledge (of the things that have power over each star), and drove the spirit-form into an unhappy state, driven off in conjunction with a (magic missile) from Miren.
---The three (of eight) surviving Abbekqorru attack the spirit-form of The Worm, but only one is able to strike it, but his sword is deformed and he too suffers frostbite in the attack. Ultimately, it is Ashta's Sphere-launched electrical attack (lightning bolt) that dissipates the creature.
I'll split the rest into a second post...
