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[Lazybones]

Merry Christmas to all my readers, regular posters, long-time lurkers, and newcomers alike!

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Chapter 60


“He’ll drown in there!” Jaron yelled, as Elevaren helped Devrem back to his feet.

“We have to find a way to destroy those statues,” the cleric growled. “Without getting hit by that damned stone dragon!”

Mara looked from the cleric to the trapped halfling, then at the dragon statue. “Let me worry about the dragon. You three get that field down!” Without waiting for a response, the fighter turned and started toward the stone dragon.

Devrem and Elevaren shared a quick look, then turned together back toward the cherub statue that the cleric had attacked moments ago. The two summoned their magic, hurling the silver flares of divine power and the twisting multicolored strands of fey magic at the statue together. Both currents flashed bright against the stone, but it was difficult to see what effect, if any, they were having.

“Hold on, Beetle!” Jaron yelled. He fired an arrow into the statue, the steel head chipping off one of the ears of the cherub.

Once again the dragon statue responded, flinging a bolt of energy at those attacking the cherub. This time Mara stood in its way, and she intercepted the blast with a parry from her long blade. The force-bolt passed around the steel as if it wasn’t there, and hit Mara on the arm just below her elbow. The impact spun her around and numbed the entire limb; Mara gritted her teeth against the sensation and grimly pressed forward. I can’t absorb too many of those, she thought to herself.

Within the trap, Beetle was being swirled around by the whirlpool, which was growing stronger as the water continued to rise. It was now deeper than he was tall, and he kept vanishing below the surface as the current spun him wildly about. He caromed hard off one of the pillars, but there was nothing for him to hold on to, no shelter from the increasingly dangerous waters.

Finally, as he came back around toward the front of the annex, he vanished underwater, kicking hard off the floor and coming up right under one of the cherubs. He lunged and hooked his hand onto the edge of its jar, barely keeping his grip against the still-powerful rush of water coming from it. His other arm hung limp at his side. Grunting with the effort, he pulled himself up under the flow of water, hooking his legs around the statue’s body. The flood continued to pull at him from behind as he hung there, and he nearly lost his tenuous position as he released his grip on the jar, relying on his legs to hold him in place. But he did hold on, and he drew a knife with his good hand, and started chipping away at the stone arms holding the jar in place.

More magic blasted into the other statue, as Devrem and Elevaren kept up their assault. Jaron rushed over to the other side of the alcove in an attempt to help Beetle. But while his cousin was less than a foot away, the shimmering barrier that separated them meant that he may as well have been on the other side of the world. Frustrated, Jaron fired an arrow point-blank into the side of the cherub that he could reach, but the missile only shattered on the hard gray stone.

Mara blocked another force-bolt with her body, and charged to attack the statue before it could strike again. But the stone dragon could defend itself, and it unleashed another blazing cone of energy as its cohort had against Beetle earlier. Mara was not nearly as nimble as the halfling, and she could not avoid the surge, which blasted her back several feet and launched her hard onto her back. Groaning, she tried to get up, but the room seemed to sway around her, making movement difficult.

The water level rose steadily, and soon it engulfed Beetle anew. But the halfling somehow held on, and his dagger still flashed within the surging floor, carving at the cracks that were now visible in the statue’s stone arm. The statue on the other side of the alcove was showing signs of wear, now, with spiderwebs of cracking where Devrem and Elevaren continued to lash at it. With Mara down an energy bolt from the stone dragon got through, hitting Elevaren hard on the shoulder and knocking him down to his knees. Devrem, roared in defiance and thrust his staff into the densest part of the damage marking the cherub, releasing a final surge of magic into it. Opposite him, Jaron fired another arrow that struck the neck of his target, at the same time that Beetle’s dagger finally bit through the statue’s damaged arm, and everything seemed to come apart at once.

A wall of water surged outward from the annex. Devrem and Jaron were knocked off their feet, and Elevaren was caught up and spun around, finally ending up tangled with the priest back toward the center of the room. Jaron, closer to the edge of the barrier, was not launched quite so far, and as the flood eased he quickly crawled toward his cousin, who was lying on his back a few paces distant, not moving.

“Beetle! Beetle!” he yelled, shaking the waterlogged halfling. When that yielded no response he knelt and breathed into his cousin’s mouth. Suddenly Beetle shook and coughed, spitting up a considerable quantity of water. He moaned as he shifted onto his injured arm. “Your shoulder is dislocated,” Jaron said. “Hold on… Devrem!”

But the cleric was not in an immediate position to help. As the cleric started to rise, reaching down to help the battered Elevaren, he heard a groaning noise above and behind him.

He turned to see the huge stone warrior swinging his massive blade down toward them.

As if that wasn’t enough, the doors at the far side of the alcove burst open, and a horde of zombies surged forward into the room.