Why are you special?

The ice sculpture's Locate Creature ability doesn't work (she gets it for free due to her nature), but mine does. I guess Fred is mind blanked? That grants immunity to most divinations… but I ignore immunities.

We go down a hallway of dark stone, encountering many zombies along the way - for each, I resurrect them, quickly let them know this is a rescue operation and I will explain in more detail once there's less time pressure, and use Plane Shift to send them to the demiplane I made for the purpose.  They'll be safe… as long as I don't die for good here and they all starve. Umm. To head that off, I cast Summon Monster IX to get a Trumpet Archon; they cast as clerics, which includes the spell Create Food and Water, and so she should be able to keep them alive. I give my summon the appropriate orders, and Plane Shift her over.

… and it is really creeping me out that all the zombies are female.

What's more creepy, though?

My own corpse.  I find it in a bedroom; he apparently fixed it up with Dress Corpse prior to applying Fleshy Facade, and yes, also preserved it with Gentle Repose.  And there's a milky liquid that smells a lot like fish running down the creature's inner thighs. And it looks like me, other than that it's dead and is missing the tattoo on my left hand.

Ugh.

And somebody's soul is trapped in there.  I wonder what happens if I raise her? My soul isn't available, because I'm alive. But somebody's in there.

Let's find out! I cast the spell… and am immediately looking at a live copy of me.  She's a little disoriented… "Hi… this is a rescue operation, I'm Donna. What's your name?"

My doppelganger (no, not the actual creature) looks at me, "David… why do I sound so funny?"

Not a copy of me. Is that a good thing or bad? "Because someone used a very evil spell. I am sending you to a holding area while I rescue other people… I can give a longer explain then. Please be patient until then, all right David?"

HE nods, and I send him to join the others. He's going to need a longer explanation… and maybe a Polymorph spell or two.

Continuing, I pass quite a few bedrooms… most of them occupied. I wonder why I'm not seeing any male zombies, until I run across a storage room, full of rows upon rows of identical little bottles. Analyze Dweomer tells me what they are: Elixirs of Sex Shifting. Harmless little potion normally: It allows the imbiber to choose any sexual characteristics that are valid for their race, and gives it to them… in an instantaneous manner: It changes the drinker's base form, once it's done, there's nothing to dispel. But if the person using it is under some form of control… well, the mind control is the evil bit, but it's a great way of customizing slaves, isn't it?

I figure David could use one to get back to a bit more like what he used to be, and possibly quite a few of the other rescued folks if Fred has been at this for a while, so I toss them all in a bag of holding from a spell (normally Secret Pockets would be temporary, but for me, it's all permanent… I could probably make a quick killing in the magic item market with those… also Quick Potion).

I actually do a lot of looting. Fred's apparently accumulated quite a lot of treasure over the centuries. And now a bunch of it is mine… stored by way of Telekinesis, after checking it for traps via Greater Arcane Sight, Analyze Dweomer, Find Traps, and a Dispel Magic to be safe: I'm familiar with the trigger object option of the Trap The Soul spell - and he has my name. I don’t want to be stuck in a gem forever with no save or spell resistance allowed.

I talk to my ice sculpture as we go, "So… I'd like you to focus on dispelling and counterspelling when we encounter our quarry. You won't be able to dispel anything on yourself if he has Spell Turning up, but you might get some of his buffs, and you'll burn through his Spell Turning either way. I'll focus on trapping him so we can deal with him permanently. Remember: If you kill him now, he won't stay dead."

"Certainly mistress," comes the immediate reply. Winding Key gives her a bonus standard action every round, Borrowed Time gives her an extra Swift, and Mythic Haste gives her an extra move… she should be fully capable of shutting him down, magically speaking, until she runs out of Mythic power - which should take several rounds.  And in a fight, several rounds is "the rest of your life" when you're prevented from actually acting.  And we don't care if he draws swords on us; Mystic Shield negates the magic in his weapons, and Starmantle destroys non-magical weapons: It's a combo to make melee cry.

Soon enough, we're at the vault where he seems to be hiding: Where all his Wish items are stored. It's built of adamantine - tough stuff, puts steel to shame… if you have to get through with an ax or something. The spell Disintegrate, though, doesn't care how tough a nonliving object is. If it's not properly magical or held? It just gets rid of a ten foot cube. Not ten cubic feet, a cube ten feet on a side, turning it into a small pile of dust. Creatures take damage, and turn to dust if they run out of hit points … no matter how big they are. Oh yes, and as a curious quirk of wording, it does exactly nothing to a normal, mundane, living tree. Because that's a living object, and the spell doesn't specify anything for them. Magic is weird.

And the door is gone with one spell. It would normally be a waste - adamantine is expensive because it's so durable - but this is just construction via the Create Demiplane spell. It's not entirely real.

Behind? Yeah, it’s Fred. And he is positively glowing with magic. And we have a plan.  I need him good and disenchanted, but he’s going to have Spell Turning. So I need the girl Fred… Freda? … to do the deed. Well, unless I exhaust his Spell Turning first… and I do get to go first (Divine Providence rocks). So I exhaust his Spell Turning… by casting Demand twice. It's an eighth level spell that sends up to a twenty-five word message, and forces a will save to avoid following the instructions. I just send one word: Live.

Why? Because it doesn't matter if it gets reflected or not, that's why! Two of them fully exhaust any Spell Turning he might have… letting me drop two Greater Dispel Magic spells on him, watching  several of his buffs crumble: a warm up for the one I really want to land: Scribe's Binding.

Mind, I don't trust that he won't have any Immediate action spells available, so I spend a point of Mythic for an extra standard, and combine it with a more action (I get a lot of those, and don't have much to do with them) to get a full attack in… and manage to hit with both claws, but not my bite. Oh, he howls.  And then I try my target spell.

Scribe's Binding is a fun one: It turns the target into a book, with one page for each day of their life, with everything that happened on that day on the page - even if the target has forgotten. Anything that edits the book, edits their memories if they're ever freed from the book, which requires specific spells. And while they're a book, they don’t get a save vs. anything that edits memories.

Sadly, I don't catch him this time. But my ice sculpture is up. She follows the plan - she's twisted by an all-consuming need to kill her original, but she is also under my absolute control at all times, and thinks I plan to permanently kill him. So she's obeying the plan.

I'm giving her a half-truth. I do plan on hitting him with something he won't come back from… but it's not death in the classic sense.

She hits him with Disjunction; I didn't want to use that one, as it might take down buffs I've applied… but when she does it, no big deal, and I watch as all of his buffs collapse. I should have delayed… she also stands ready. He casts Trap The Soul, my ice assassin Counterspells, and the spell Fred tried fizzles out. He casts another… and I counterspell as an immediate action. There are some fun buffs in 3.5: That one is called Duelward.  It's a discharge effect, so I'll need to re-cast… but well worth it.

Oh, and he can spend Mythic power for extra actions too. That option doesn't let you cast a spell… but it does let him control one already cast. He uses the ejection option of the Create Demiplane line. Yeah, I Divine Providence the save on that one. I'm staying right here until I'm good and ready to leave, thank-you-very-much.

I cast Scribe's Binding again… and he goes for an Emergency Force Sphere. Did you know there's more than one spell that does basically the same thing? I did. Which is why I also have Battlemagic Perception up, which lets me counterspell the Emergency Force Sphere as a free action. And without his buffs, the spell lands. Fred is magically shrunk and twisted as he rushes towards me, turning into a heavy tome bound in silver and gold.  And that, as they say, is that. There's no more threats here… and the world fades.