Triple Team [Agamemnon]

The importance of Siurlang's sacrifice - whether it was intentional or not - in our defeat of A is for Anus should not be underestimated.  However it was only one part of a very well devised and executed strategy, all parts of which had to function for us to have succeeded - and for me to have survived.  It was Shades' insanely ballsy plan to paddle-ball the demon which gave us the breathing space we needed.  Myr was a large part of the reason that only the sorceress was lost on the stairs.

But the bald faced audacity of the dwarf, the orc and I should not be forgotten.  We went into that room with every expectation that we might not come back out again.  Not a fuck was given.

Snooks: I resist poison and disease.
Me: I'm a priest, it's my responsibility.
Mort: Things will need to be hit or this won't work.

Back up plan?  No.  All in.  Not recklessly, but because this was our best and likely only chance to cleanse Mr A from the land.

Not to imply a lack of courage on the other end of the plan - they fully intended to face off against A is for Arsehole itself, after all.  Ballsy fuckers.  Seriously ballsy.

I took more damage that day than I have ever taken before.  That was despite Mortimer keeping the worst of the attacks away from me.  How in the name of the gods those priests thought they would be able to survive the residual damage from their cleansing amulet I do not know.  I took so much scalding steam in the face I feel like a freshly laundered Toldean doublet and look ten years younger for lack of wrinkles, though I have picked up very nasty scarring on my shoulder, arm and chest that not even clerical intervention has been able to entirely remedy.

I want to recount how we actually pulled it off at our end.  Partly for posterity, but mostly because I want it down in writing so that whichever of the three of us survives the longest can tell it by the camp fire to whomever replaces those of us who don't.

The round room had a depression in the centre where an alter stood, obscured beneath a layer of filth that fountained up around it as a shell of obscene protection when we began our assault.  Poison and vermin were everywhere.  Poisonous zombies stood guard, two yellow slimes circled the diseased well, and three-quarters of Applesauce the filth demon hovered in the air, reforming himself.  He attempted a bargain, realising we had a slim chance to take him out and needing time to reach full strength.  We didn't give him any time, intending to make straight for the altar.  But I would have died attempting to reach the well itself, swiped repeatedly en route before getting there.

Enter the ramrods.  An enlarged Mort hurled two of the fuckers backs.  Snooks, as nimble as a dwarf isn't supposed to be, zigzagged through the guards, drawing their attention, and their attacks, opening a path for me to sprint to the altar and throw myself into the pit of vile corruption.

What we didn't plan for was the actual effect of the necklace of hands.  It caused the putrescence to boil off in the form of steam.  Ulman later explained to me that causing water to turn to steam so quickly caused it to be more hot than usual.  It was hot enough to nearly kill me, and combined with the persistent attacks of one zombie which followed me into the hole I very nearly didn't come back out of there.  Thankfully, right there behind me were Snooks and Mort.  Mort reached down and forcibly removed my antagonist from the well, keeping all others at bay while Snooks took hit after hit, channeling healing energy to keep me conscious.

After all the vitriol had boiled away, A-A-Achoo was done.  But alas he was not immediately vanquished.  And he was going to kill us - all three of us, probably, but me definitely, because I was so close to death already, and he seemed especially pissed at me for having the amulet of his undoing.

At that point, thank the gods for Siurlang.  Which gods specifically I'm still not sure, but thank them anyway.