After a dramatic rollover, and a mix of twenty roleplays and co writes, we're finally to the Finale. Oh, but there's still a lot of story to go! After all, our heroes arestill stuck in Hey Daze and scattered. And several of them are under attack!

It's the first part of four, all by Dash.. me. And as I tend to, I throw in a few new challenges for our player characters, even as they face the ones established in the roleplays.

And - another trademark of mine- it's long and full of action.

 
Note:: Part I by Dash

In Hey Daze itself and with the fate of the world potentially resting on it, the battle for Catrina's soul raged on mercilessly. Meanwhile, four visitors to the planet were left in the Distant Woods to guard the gate. To guard it from anyone getting in to compromise their allies’ mission to save Catrina. From anything getting out of Hey Daze which shouldn't.

"The area should be secure shortly," Jen reported. "As requested."

"Excellent," Aleena responded. She had no shortage in confidence in Jen or their other two allies, but the Feline Empire weren't to be taken lightly. "Then all we have to do is sit here and make sure everything goes according to plan."

Jen nodded, knowing it couldn’t possibly be that simple. Aleena's next words leant weight to the thought. "Just in case the energy field isn't enough to keep trouble out - or in - I've got something else in mind. Another stronger line of defense."

 
---------------------

 
"Run down house, center of Hey Deze, kitchen rug and trap door," Jay repeated to himself, mumbling it under his breath like a mantra, least he forget it in his haste. "Down the house, center of kitchen, trap the door. No wait." "Run down house, center, trap door under the kitchen rug."

That lasted until he got to the center of Hey Daze when he realized, "Waitaminute.. ALL of these houses look worn down!!"

 
---------------------

 
Kadlin Bearsmasher was smart enough to stop just short of the energy field spliced around random trees and would have even if her next generation of brutes had not wandered into them blindly, only to be shocked, stunned and thrown away from the barrier like leaves in a storm.

"Stand back," Kadlin warned, immediately firing up a spell to blast through it. Although bigger and stranger looking than Brutes, the new line of Goblins jumped back with amazing speed despite being unaware of the dangers or, in fact, being aware of what the word 'danger' meant anymore.

Several dozen goblins pulled as far back as they dare. Without warning, Kadlin fired off a massive blast at the force field. It caught a stray Goblin, disintegrating him. Kadlin ignored the demise of her underling, focusing instead on the barrier. No observable damage. Well, other than to her minion, whose charred body was barely recognizable as having once been a living, cowering creature.

But no relevant damage. One of her most trusted scientists, the one who'd convinced many of the others Kadlin's purpose was noble, stepped up to observe. "Hmmm, it would seem to be absorbing your magic."

She turned and dropped him dead with a single small spell, using but a fraction of her power. Her way of warning the others not to interrupt when she was busy. Xandador, now a gleaming skull, immediately instructed a nearby Gnollish necromancer to revive the dead scientist. Xanny kept the fact he'd been looking for an excuse to turn that guy into a mecha zombie to himself.

Kadlin threw another variety of the spell at the barrier. This one resulted in sparks of energy raining on herself, the Goblins and the members of the New Elite. A strange voice dared to interrupt her.

"Alight, yous," came the Italian accepted penguin voice. "Whatever yous are up to, we got a little taxation policy to discuss.. Boys, show 'em in advance what happens when someone refuses to pays up on uses."

Kadlin rolled her eyes and prepared to dispel the intruders (and maybe a few casualties on her side) with a single spell. Unfortunately, a fin, sturdy as steel, caught her across the jaw and send her flying.

 
---------------------

 
Moments ago, Jarlsboris Wildfall and the Honorburg hero known as Cyber Sunset found themselves separated from the others and in some twisted version of Lonestar, under attack from a giant monster.

Surprisingly typical story for someone that's spent time patrolling Honorburg, actually.

The beast's grip was hellacious, too. Big monster, big monster muscles.

"Can't you just teleport out?" Wildfall asked through gritted teeth. He could feel his body being crushed. Very painful experience.

"Can't.. focus.." Sunset said. Teeth gritted, eyes clinched closed. They wouldn't be holding up long under this assault. Wildfall could already feel the air being forced out of him. The monster seemed intelligent enough to keep them off balance. If they didn't get free soon, they'd be paste!

 
---------------------

 
The image of the fight between the succubi and the vixens summoned by Todd lingered in Todd's mind as he made his way away from the scene. Beautiful, erotic, disturbing, but soon enough forgotten. One problem down, Todd thought to himself. But this place is a maze. The original was bad, this this takes the cake. Even if the whole thing is a lie... the maze, I mean. More and more, each new twist seemed to lead to another dead end. Even when he was sure he'd just come from that path..

It was like the maze was changing around him and.. Todd nearly facepalmed as the obvious dawned on him.

Ohh.. yeah.. that.. Todd stopped, sat crosslegged on the floor, closed his eyes and focused his attention on finding the nearest ally.....

 
---------------------

 
Transformed into a full werewolf, the mercenary guide known as Wolf threw himself into action against Hunk, ducking under one of Hunk's massive attacks. Taking on Hunk with Dr. Darth still free to intervene would be dangerous, but Wolf had to stop Hunk before lethal levels of damage could be reached on Cattaras. Wolf anticipated and avoided several of Hunk's attacks.

"That all you got, ugly?" Wolf taunted. He knew pitting his speed against Hunk's was dangerous - Dr Darth had illustrated that against the far faster Cattaras - but going toe to toe with the mammoth brute wasn't an option. He supplemented his claw attacks with a short crossbolt and obsidian knife. Meanwhile, as many of Fumblies forces began to rally after taking the brunt of the initial assault, Becky Joy squared off against Dr. Darth. Darth's armor protected him from the assaults, but he was being pushed backwards, kept on the defensive.

 
"Foolish child," Darth proclaimed, voice distorted and amplified by the mask. "Your tricks mean less than nothing to me."

"Tricks are for kids!" Becky screamed. "I'm a big girl, I'm gonna beat you up! I like puppies! You're evil!"

"Enough prattle!" Darth slid back a panel, from which a tiny missile ejected itself, flying at Becky. Becky quickly blasted it with an ice torrent, but it exploded anyway, sending her and her allies flying backwards. "Die."

Darth fired at Becky but a couple of Sir Fumblies' brave Knob Goblins pulled her out of the way, allowing her to barely avoid the dangerous blast. The rest of the Goblins under the command of Sir Fumblies were preoccupied with Bones, who rode an oversized skeletal dragon. That wasn't his only threat. He seemed to have hordes of spectral warriors, ghosts, zombies and skeletons to throw at his foes.

"Brutes!" Fumblies commanded between blasting at Bones with his best elemental magic attacks. "Kindly take away Bones' new ride and be quick about it."

The brutes quickly and obediently pulled themselves to their feet (those who'd been taken down by the attack) and swarmed after the skeletal dragon. Unfortunately, it must have been a being of quite large stature in life, as even its skeleton was both huge and heavyset. Beyond that, Bones rode it with a preternatural accuracy. He commanded the dragon skeleton to dodge back as the first two got close. A massive swipe of the dragon's boney arm sent the first brute flying back. The second brute proved prepared for a follow up attack, grabbing the dragon's leg and tearing it off.

That brute was subsequently buried by half a dozen warrior skeletons. More were pouring out, along with zombies and ghouls. Fumblies eyed the situation and realized he would have to do something to shut this down before they were overwhelmed totally.

 
---------------------

 
Todd cursed at the fates. "I wanted to find the nearest ally, not the nearest alley!"

And indeed, that was where Todd had found himself, in a run down, demonic looking alley with trash, garbage, newspapers and brittle skeleton bones filling up the scenery. He wasn't quite sure how he'd gone from the maze to a seemingly random alleyway, as he had been quite busy focusing on manipulating the world around him in hopes of reuniting with the others.

He figured Hey Daze would be rough, but as he circled around a random building, his defenses still went up at the sight of several thugs, bodies beaten and mauled. They were obviously all dead. The way the bodies were laid out indicated they were all fleeing from the same direction, an ally between a thick crunch of buildings. It lead him, oddly, to a plains area just outside of the city. The sound seemed muffled, further away than it should.

Lying, well, kneeling in the middle of the bodies, was Fahari herself. Todd briefly wondered if she'd come across the carnage and was praying for it, but Todd could see and smell the blood matted in her fur and hair and on her claws. This was most likely her doing. Fahari, for her part, didn't react to Todd's sudden presence; she had a faraway look in her eyes.

"There you are," Todd said, trying to sound casual.

Fahari seemed to be looking past him at first. Suddenly, her attention seemed to snap to Todd. She stood up, carefully looking around. "Oh my. Someone has been quite busy. Is this your handiwork?"

Todd shook his head, smiling. "Nope, not my style. I figured it was your doing."

Fahari had taken a few steps towards Todd but stopped dead in her tracks. "I.. I don't know. I cannot seem to remember how I got here either. It's most.. frustrating. The last thing I remember, dear goddess.."

Fahari looked like she could collapse, burying her head in Todd's shoulder. He did his best to comfort her. She was normally so unshakable and in control. It was quite unnerving to see her looking vulnerable. "It happened again..."

"'It?'" Todd wasn't sure he'd want to hear the answer.

Fahari looked up at him. There it was again, that vulnerability in her eyes. "We.. should hurry. This can wait."

Ah, that familiar sense of responsibility. Even so, Todd replied, "We're in Hey Daze, hon. Time kinda loses its meaning here. Maybe this is something you should talk about."

"Very well," Fahari said, straightening up. "We can speak as we walk, then."

Todd thought of arguing it. While he was debating it in his head, she solved the issue by walking off, same determined sway in her steps. Clearly, she was ready to put this behind her and get down to business.

Todd wasn't buying that for a moment.

 
---------------------

 
Things were simple not long ago. Catrina, Zed Shinestone and Konall Bearsmasher were fighting minotaurs while psychotic newcomer and Mr. Bean ancestor Jay was distracting them in the time honored tradition of cross dressing as a female minotaur and dancing. With the others distracted by Jay's dancing, nicknamed later as ‘the sick abomination of nature two-step,' Catrina found herself taking on a couple of female minotaurs who wisely chose to ignore the crossdressing dancing for obvious reasons.

Catrina's sword strikes seemed somewhat ineffective against this armored minotaur, but she was holding her own. Until the others showed up. Some were completely naked yet moved almost as fast as Catrina. Others wore obsidian colored robes and fired magic blasts at her.

"Little help here, guys?" Catrina glanced around, which's when she realized the fight had somehow moved to another part of Hey Daze. She had no idea how it could have happened, but for the moment, that didn't matter. Survival did. They had her surrounded - and she was in trouble.

At the location she'd vanished from, Zed Shinestone and Konall Bearsmasher dealt with a second smaller wave of minotaurs, which they did without much trouble, although it was becoming tiresome.

"Think that's the end of them, boss?" Zed asked, relaxing a little. Some intuition told him it was, but to stay on guard just in case.

"Hope not," Konall said. "I was just getting warmed up. Where's Jay?"

"Hopefully missing," Zed answered flatly. "He seems to come and go as he pleases."

"Yeah, well him I don't care about. But we came here to get Catrina, and I don't see her around anywhere, do you?"

"Oh crap." Zed looked around, hoping she was nearby and Konall had simply not noticed her among the carnage. No such luck.

Konall growled in frustration. He then slammed his haxxor into the chest of one of his fallen enemies, which seemed to help a bit. "Better. We need to track her down. Any ideas on where to start?"

"Just one," said Zed, closing his eyes to focus. "I just hope this works as advertised."

 
---------------------

 
Sebastian Dash and space elves Glyn and Tarvel had their own problem - they were surrounded by otherworldly beasts. It was, indeed, a fierce battle from the start. Dash's sword proved to have a hard time hitting the faster enemies, who seemed well prepared. Glyn and Tarvel fought them hand to hand. The demons were tough, however, and razor sharp claws required Dash's full attention, reflexes and experiences to deal with. The beasts seemed to have an answer to everything. Although a few of the leather skinned beasts fell to the Morlencir lasers, many were able to avoid them. Others healed from the blasts with uncanny speed. A few seemed unaffected by the lasers altogether. Those would be the dangerous ones.

"I can see why you consider them such dangerous enemies," Glyn said, ducking under an attack from a near eight foot tall beast. The beast wasn't slow, just slow compared to Tarvel. Then again, it was also one of the beasts which the lasers seemed to have no effect on. Nearby, Gyln formed a shield, choosing to fight defensively and analytically instead of going all out, the style chosen by Sebastian and especially Tarvel.

Dash squared off against one of the larger beasts, figuring to take it out of the game before it could do any major damage. The creature lunged into Dash, sending him off balance. Another creature nearly took the opportunity to attempt to behead Dash but Sebastian was able to recover and avoid the attack. "I don't know if this is a fight we can win."

"We'd better come up with a way," Tarvel answered as she sliced the arm off a beast, only to watch it grab the arm and swing it at her. "I don't think we can get out safely against all those monsters and quite honestly, I don't think a retreat is justified; they’d just flank us again. We can take them!"

"Try to hold them off," Glyn said, dodging to the side. "I'll see if I can't do a little expert hacking."

"Easier said than done," Dash said, rolling to the side to avoid an attack. Tarvel nailed one best with a kick that should have taken the beast's head off but instead merely staggered it. She somersaulted between another two of the beasts, bringing her outside of the ring of circles, allowing her to attempt to fight them at range. Unfortunately, almost as soon as she did, four more seemed to appear out of nowhere to surround her.

"I have a feeling," Dash said, "that this is going to get a lot worse, very fast."

To be continued in part 2 of 4

Lots of action, huh?

Stories where the groups are split up are tough to write, but fun to read. Let's see what happens in part two!