As the breath weapon settles on him Arulas chuckles. "Full Environmental Armor you daffy lizard." As the strikes come in he attempts to dodge. As Polk's strike comes in Arulas somehow evades the strike gracefully. "You need to remember who your friends are. If I wanted you hurt I would hurt you. Please don't make me hurt you. FIGHT it you daffy lizard!"

Arulas runs at the tree not knowing if Polk will follow hoping he will. He reaches the base of the tree and starts to run up the side he reaches the point at which he can't maintain upward momentum and jumps straight at Polk if he followed slamming the Mace down in a two handed strike.

Not sure if Polk will follow or if I have enough Attacks to complete the maneuver. As soon as I know either then I will roll.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:40, Thu 22 Dec 2016.

In reply to Sir Arulas (msg # 120):

Yes, Arulas has enough attacks to pull this off.

2nd Melee Actions

Kalista continues to slice away at the MDC's of the tree Armor Bizarre protection. The tendrils of the monster's protective shell suddenly shrivel and crumble off.The psi-sword blow finishes off the armor; the second damages the tree's own MDC. 35 megadamage total.

Doc corrects his aim and sinks a shot into the trunk of the soul tree. Although the tree is invisible again, it's a stationary target against which the cyberknights are playing Paul Bunyan, so the penalty to strike an invisible target is being ignored here.

After the hatchling's poison breath rolls off Sir Arulas, the elf parries a tail swipe. He turns and bounds towards the tree.

Ethan holds his action as he peers as the technically invisible soul tree.

The protecting wraith with the sword demonstrates patience as it continues to hack at the force field. 18 points of mega-damage

Nyx answers with another shot from his revolver at the patient wraith. The construct shatters with a noise like chopped tree falling. It collapses to the ground as a pile of scattered human bones. The sword is laying on the ground also. This wraith is now incorporeal also.

The final wraith, still ethereal, completes an incantation. For those who can see it, a charge or electricity is gathering in the wraith's outstretched hand. For those who cannot, the sound of crackling electricity fills the air.

Samuel only has one target left so I will roll for him. His rifle strikes the tree with an excellent shot which singes its upper trunk. 29 points of mega-damage

The tree takes no action at the moment.

Polkitain does give chase following the orders to stop the cyberknights.
When he gets close to the tree he tries to drag Kalista away.

"Stop, stop, stop attacking the tree."

Seeing the tentacle armor dissolve and fall away from the tree, Ethan has mixed feelings. On the one hand he is glad he was able to help but on the other he can't see the bloody damn tree anymore.

"And that damn ghost is still..." a sudden shot from Nyx's revolver drops the flying skeleton and the wooden sword it was using to beat on Ethan's force field, interrupting his thought. "Well one less thing to worry about," he said to no one in particular.

Since the only threat against his force field was now just an untidy pile of decaying bones, Ethan decided to summon another disc and hurl it at a spot in between the two maniacs whacking away at it with their psychic swords.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:58, Thu 29 Dec 2016.

With the wraith finally dispatched, Nyx draws his attention away from the immediate and - keyed by Ethan's wild laugh - continues his shots at the gap between the two cyberknights as well

Doc fires at the tree again.


08:21, Today: Doc rolled 10 using 3d6.  dmg.
08:20, Today: Doc rolled 5 using 1d20+2.  shoot tree.

Kalista continued her assault.

The montra of 'stay on target' goes through Samuel's head. He fires again knowing he will have to change out his eclip soon.

As the battle went on shots both hit and missed the evil soul tree.
Below it's withered branches Polkitain dragged Kalista away only to have her break free and rush back.

As Arulas and Kalista combined their strikes like expert lumberjacks huge chunks of rotted wood filled with crawling insects fell to the ground.

The tattered magic net finally started to fray and snap. The gunslingers came out shooting in concert. Their shots dangerously close to where the Cyberknights chopped to insure they would hit the invisible tree.

Then it happened like a visible sigh and the whole of the graveyard shook with several tombstones toppling.

Spirits rose from the broken earth in rage over their rest being disturbed.
Ethan was able to keep the spirits at bay with his field as they battered it in an attempt to remove this threat to their tormentor.

Polkitain ran back to stop the cyberknight interposing himself between the tree and their attacks.

Something happened as the last strike whether bullet or glowing blade the spirits turned and returned to their graves though some rushed the tree so angry were they at the corruption of this foul being.

The sound of the tree falling and flattening several tombstones and part of the cemetary wall signaled the end. After that all was deathly silent save for the breathing of the adventurers.

 Arulas looks at Polk a little funny and says "You alright now you daffy dragon?" as the air in his lungs gets pulled through the enviroseal. Over the sounds of everything old movie buffs would hear a sound associated with a well known villian from a space opera. He thumbs off the neural mace and hangs it from his hip.

Polkitain looked around as if coming out of a daze.

Dropping to all fours he hung his head. "I, I, I am sorry."
Polkitain ran off feeling a deep shame and an embarrassment.

Doc put his rifle away, "Don't worry about it Polk, we'll get better about that possession stuff... you ok?"

Doc will find Polk sulking like a little kid who was caught raiding the cookie jar.
Head hung low and trying to hide behind a boulder.

He glanced up hearing Doc, "I did really bad didn't I ?"

Kalista slumped again something, be it bolder or left overs from the tree, and closed her eyes to let her natural healing abilities kick in and heal any injuries she might have suffered.

Arulas walks slowly over to the hatchling. "I forget sometimes that you are still a kid. We aren't taught to think of Dragons as anything other than adults. So it is easy for me to forget that I am a good bit older than you. You didn't do bad at all Polk. It tried to turn me into a glass statue. Believe me it wasn't easy resisting. Fact is Polk you did the best you could do this time. Next time I'm sure you will fight harder." he is crouched down close to the ground. So that he is as eye level as one can be with a sulky dragon.

"I might have hurt you or my other friends. I am also dissapointed that I couldn't stop you. I did try to fight it but I remember everything that happened I almost sacrificed myself to the tree to give me magic to it. I don't like those evil trees, Sir Arulas."

Nyx clenched and unclenched his fingers carefully, shrugging off the effects of the paralysis spell with a grimace. When his movement began to ease up he methodically went about checking his pistols, focus entirely inward now the threat had passed. His motions were practised, almost ritualistic, and when he raised his head slowly to take in his companions his eyes were full of anger. He stepped carefully over to where his brother and the younger knight spoke to the young hatchling, scanning them for injuries but saying nothing. Finally one eyebrow raised, "Well. That was fun"

Ethan was happy or at least pleased about a few things in his life right now. First he was glad when the possessed tree was finally turned into so much mulch and splinters. "A fracking possessed tree" he thought to himself. "What will this world throw at me next?"

The many ghosts or whatever they were that had rose up to assault his force field were gone now too, something else he was happy about. Lastly their resident dragon, who turned out to be a kid in dragon terms, had stopped attacking them.

With no threats visible and nothing attacking him or his friends, he dropped his force field. When his arm started to function once more, he picked up the beef jerky stick that he had dropped. He had no intention of eating so he finished removing it from the wrapper and tossed it aside. He simply didn't want to litter. "Which, know that I think about it, is probably one of the sillier things to be concerned about but old habits and all that," he thought.

He walked over to his friends, shoving the wrapper in one of his pants pockets. "Yes," he said to Nyx. "I can't remember the last time I had that much fun." A lope sided grin was on his face. "Now that we have destroyed the true source of the psycho weapons...and we did destroy it right?" he asks before continuing, "So we can now go back and report our success to the Lady in Green, collect our reward and hopefully never have to deal with ghosts and soul sucking trees again."

Samuel first changes out his weapons eclip, just to be ready for anything else that might want to attack. Eventually he puts the sword in it's sheath and slings his rifle.

"Well Polk, thanks for resisting, as it were.....Ethan, I am afraid that this world is full of really strange and freaky stuff like this. Good on all of you for at least defeating this strange threat to our planet. Hot chocolate in the lounge in 10 minutes!"

He heads back to the Behemoth, stows his armor and such, and goes to the lounge to make hot chocolate.

Polkitain, "I did try."

Polkitain heads to the tree and tries to uproot it and pry it's roots out of the ground.
His eyes narrowed and some of that draconic horror factor was going on but it was all focused on the tree.

  "Yeah Polk you did. Be proud that you did. Be proud that you have friends that will knock the snot out of you to keep you from hurting anyone." Arulas walks towards the Behemoth. He looks at Ethan and says "That isn't dead just banished for a good while from our dimension. That is what matters. As for weird nah that is fairly normal. Splynn slavers is a whole different matter."

As he catches up to Samuel "Hot chocolate? What is that?"

"A fluid that is sweet and warm. It was a commonly imbibed on this continent, before the coming of the Rifts, on cold days and for celebrations."

Ethan chimes in, "Some people actually prefer it to coffee," he says. "Myself among them though I will admit I like to add a shot of espresso to it." He grins as they all walk back to the Behemoth. "It gives it a little bit of a kick, perfect way to start the morning."

Samuel raises and eyebrow as he looks over to Ethan, "I will have to try that tomorrow morning instead of a regular cup of coffee."

He raises his voice, "Polk whenever you are done, come get a treat in the lounge."