Farenth's Game, Finale
Lochenvare gave another shout of pain. Crimson welled from his back, his side; an unseen blade flicked out, cutting him again. He whirled and jabbed at the unseen enemy with his trident, but he thrust through empty air. Where was his enemy?
Argh! Behind him!!
Grimly, Lochenvare staggered away from the stinging blade.
I’m leaking, he thought faintly.
Gloating, Chanticleer, powdered into invisibility by the
dust of disappearance, pressed her attack, springing at the paladin bitch again. Her sword
clanged into Lady Charlotte’s armor, then sliced along Charlotte’s face.
While Charlotte haplessly tried to fight the invisible villain, Dexter grimaced and shouted, “Farenth, let her go! This is between us!” Farenth smiled wickedly and kept his dagger at his prisoner’s throat.
He’s going to kill her, Dexter realized sickly.
I have to stop him! Even blind, Dexter was gripped by determination. He gripped his
staff of combat tight in both hands and moved forward. “Let her go!” he cried again, activating his
gloves of mirror image.
Rajah, meanwhile, activated his
animal affinity to gain the powers of smell that tigers possess. He knew that even if he couldn’t
see an enemy, he could
smell them out.
***
3:06 p.m.
“Where’s Chanti? Chanticleer, are you here?” Delilah’s voice edged on panic.
If she just ran ahead, she might spoil the whole plan! the conjuress thought. A tight spasm of fear ran through her.
“She must have gone ahead,” rumbled Urdor Darkwind, cleric of Bleak.
“We have to go after her.” That was the voice of Vosh. All of the pirates were invisible thanks to the dust.
“But the plan-“ protests Delilah. Then she pauses. “She can’t take them alone, and she’s our leader. Let’s go.”
***
3:08 p.m.
Malford cast a
burning hands into the air, blistering around Chanti and momentarily outlining her form. Lochenvare and Charlotte both struck immediately, and Lochenvare landed a glancing blow. Seeing the splatter of blood, he grinned raggedly. “Now we’re talking!” he snarled. “We’ve got you now!” Rajah, too, attempted to strike, but Lochenvare blundered into his way, fouling his blow.
But Chanticleer had already bounded back, twisted to the side, and come in behind him. Another stab in the arm to Lochenvare and the fighter was barely standing. “A little help here, Dex!” he groaned.
Then, suddenly, an arrow of acid sliced from empty air through one of Dexter’s images. He gave a cry of surprise, and then the sound of galloping hooves thundered into the chamber, and a cry from nowhere-
”BLEAK!!!”- and the other invisible villains crashed into our heroes like swords against shields. Suddenly, Malford, Charlotte and Lochenvare were all fighting for their lives, beset by the unseen enemies, while Delilah conjured a fat, venomous spider on Dexter. Unfortunately it was just one of his
mirror images, and the illusion popped as the spider bit it.
Dexter turned and swung his
staff of combat, and it rang off of an invisible shield. With a grunt, the blind cleric spun his staff defensively, trying to fend off the rebuttal; but Urdor’s invisible axe only cut down an image. A few still remained. Then Delilah hurled a vial of liquid at Dexter, and it struck the real man and shattered, spilling what looked like water on him. But it burned! He hissed in pain.
Unholy water, he realized.
Whoever these invisible people are, I think they’re agents of Farenth!
Charlotte gasped as she parried another blow from the invisible Chanti, but then suddenly she stiffened in pain. Her armor was heating up! Vosh, invisible, had cast
heat metal upon her. From behind the paladin, his deadly sharp scimitar sliced in, cutting her across the back. She staggered, blood pouring from her, as the centaur’s hooves battered her. Her arm weakened as she fell to one knee, shaking her head. She tried again to lay hands upon herself, to channel the Light to heal herself.
Chanti ran her through.
Lady Charlotte Keen fell, dead, to the ground. The first to fall in this monumental battle.
Dexter groaned inwardly. Malford shouted in dismay and cast a
mirror image to defend herself.
Farenth watched.
Very clever, he thought.
Lyr and her companions have come in unseen. And it looks as though they will win handily. Well, I can’t have that- after all, they must pay as well! Grinning savagely, he triggered the
dispel magic in his ring.
It washed over the room, getting everything except for Farenth and his prisoner, and suddenly, the situation changed. The villains were visible. Much to Farenth’s surprise, one of the villains was only inches from him: Akakathan, bard and merellin.
“Chanticleer!” exclaimed Malford.
“Yes,
captain,” the villain said mockingly. “We’ve come back to give you your reward for your treason against Galliger!”
Lochenvare grinned. “Now that we can see you,
we’re gonna reward
you for coming by.” He stabbed at Chanti with all his strength, and only her quick reflexes and skillful parry stopped her from being skewered! Even so, his blow tore her along the side, and blood sprayed all over. Chanti staggered, grimacing as Dexter cast a
cure light wounds on Lochenvare. Then he began to radiate light- a new prayer he had researched himself, the
radiance of Galador. Chanti hissed; it was blinding her!
Urdor Darkwind laughed, reaching into the darkness that was his god, and
despoiled light. The radiance flickered and died. Dexter cried out in surprise.
“Fool boy, the darkness ever overwhelms the light,” the evil cleric mocked.
Shaken, Dexter yelled back, “The Light shall pierce all darkness in the end!” He uttered another invocation to Galador, another new spell he had created, and launched a series of small motes of sunlight from his chest at the Bleakist. They impacted on Urdor Darkwind with flashes of light and power, and blew the dwarf from his feet. He groaned, dazed.
“Let the girl go,” Akakathan said sharply to Farenth atop the dais. He whipped his rapier from its sheath. “Or I’ll run you through.”
“Oh?” Farenth’s voice was mocking. “I’d watch my back, if I were you! In case you hadn’t noticed, you’re busy fighting for your lives here! Now where’s Captain Lyr, boy?”
“She’s gone- dead,” the merellin spat. Farenth’s face darkened in anger.
Chanti and Lochenvare were locked corps a corps. They struggled, each trying to gain the advantage, until Lochenvare smashed his gauntlet in Chanti’s face. She staggered back, blinded for just an instant, and he threw her off of him. As she pitched back, he jabbed forward with the peryton-horn trident.
Chanticleer shrieked.
His blow hit her between the legs, impaling her pelvis. Blood gouted massively as she jerked and thrashed for a moment; then Chanti fell, twitching, to the floor. Her eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling.
A great cry of despair arose from the villains. “Captain!” cried Delilah.
“Let’s go!” roared Lochenvare, spinning and stabbing down at Urdor Darkwind. The dwarf raised his shield, but Lochenvare punched right through it, and Urdor felt the trident stab into his throat- then nothing more.
“Flee!” cried Delilah, instantly taking her own advice. Vosh turned and began thundering away, but as he did Malford sank the
hook of rending into him, and it began squirming and tearing at him. He and Delilah pounded up the stairs.
”Don’t let them get away!” cried Malford, casting
fly and zipping up the stairs after them. Rajah tore after him.
“What about this fellow?” Lochenvare jerked a thumb at Akakathan, still faced off with Farenth.
“I don’t want to fight you!” cried the merellin to Lochenvare, then stabbed savagely at Farenth.
His blade pierced the man who had brought them to this place, but it went right through him as if he weren’t really there. Farenth laughed mockingly, then bowed. Then he let his
projected image vanish.
“Good enough for now,” grunted the burly fighter, bounding up the stairs after the others.
The sea was near the house, and it was to the sea that Delilah and Vosh raced. Delilah was in the lead; Malford sighted on her and fired a
Melf’s acid arrow, landing solidly in her back. She grunted and staggered, but kept running. Vosh grimaced, his green hair whipping in the wind, and struggled forward through the sand. The
hook of rending in his flank was doing terrible damage, churning of its own volition in his flesh. He reached the surf, gasping, and grasped the hook. If it stayed within him any longer it would be the end of him! He grimaced, seeing Dexter, Malford, Rajah and Lochenvare rushing towards him. But he had to get it free... he groaned. The pain was too much! He was fading- fading-
As Vosh collapsed, a great wave pulled his corpse out to sea.
Delilah staggered into the water. Behind her, Malford grimly fired his bow, landing another arrow in her. He knew the acid from his spell would be quickly washed away underwater. He bit his lip as the conjuress disappeared under the waves, and flew overhead warily for almost ten minutes before alighting and sighing. “Well, either she had a way to breathe underwater, or she surfaced somewhere I didn’t see, or she’s dead,” he said.
The party returned to the house, Farenth’s nest, and Dexter immediately freed Sheila from the slab. She was sobbing in fear. He held her against him for a moment.
“Charlotte’s dead,” Lochenvare growled. “And what do we do with this guy?” He jerked his thumb at Akakathan, who was sitting on the floor looking ill. “Should I just kill him?”
“No,” Dexter says sharply. “But I’m not sure what we should do with him.”
Rajah shot a hard look over at the merellin. “To start with, we should question him.”
“I’ll answer anything I can,” Akakathan said unhappily.
“Where’s Farenth?” snapped Dexter.
“I’m afraid I don’t know. That was a
projected image,” Akakathan explained.
“He had to be somewhere close by,” Malford said, and the group made a search of the surrounding areas; but they were too late. Farenth was gone. He had escaped.
***
He was not quite the only one.
Shaking in fear of Dexter, after two days Delilah the Damned finally accepted that she was the last survivor of her band. She trudged underwater along the Forinthian coast for quite some time before she emerged; the last thing she wanted was to come out of the water near Dexter and his band!
We should have stuck to the plan, she thought wryly.
The mud churned around her feet as she walked across the sea bottom.
Well, she said to herself,
I think I’ve had enough of piracy for now. I need a nice, safe place to work on spells, so I can create Dexter’s debilitation,
so if he comes after me I have a defense. Some money, maybe some servants...
Delilah, mind always racing, turned upslope.
Well, folks, that’s the ‘first cycle’ of Cydra: the Early Years. I don’t know yet if I’ll keep this thread going (perhaps following Dexter’s band) or switch to some other earlier adventures in a new thread, or neither, or both... I guess we’ll see! But this closes out the first major story arc in Cydra. I hope you enjoyed it!