CrusadeDave said:
That is a nice combat. 16 rounds long so far? (Duration of the Chilling Tentacles.)
Plus or minus. I admit, sometimes on the chaotic scenes like this I hand-wave a few of the details.
As for what's up with Dar... well, read for yourselves.
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Chapter 333
OLD FRIENDS
Talen grunted as his follow-through sliced through the body of the last astral construct, destroying it. He’d taken a beating, but his body was already restoring the physical damage he’d suffered, and there was no threat to his mind; he perceived the mental attacks of the illithids and their Overmind as a dim buzzing on the edges of her perception.
He glanced down at Calla, who was slowly getting up. Her jaw moved but only odd sounds came out; the construct had smashed her hard across the face and shattered bone in half a dozen places.
She would recover. Talen turned and started walking toward the pillars again. The mind flayers were still there, watching him, but there was nothing they could do to stop him.
He caught the flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye, heard the familiar clank of metal. Once more he did not appear to take notice until the last minute, when he spun and whipped his sword around in a blazing arc.
Metal clanged hard on metal once, again. Dar was incredibly strong, and Talen could feel the hatred radiating from
Valor, but
he was the stronger, now, and it was the human fighter who gave ground in the initial exchange.
“You weak-minded fool,” Talen said.
Dar’s only response was a violent attack. Again the magic swords clashed, and this time both combatants took wounds. Talen grimaced as
Valor bit into his side under the edge of his breastplate, while red blood poured down Dar’s arm from a long gash just below his shoulder.
“Dar, no!” Allera shouted, running up behind him. She tried to grab him, but he thrust her away, not taking his eyes off of Talen as he moved into position for another assault. Blood trailed from the elbow of his wounded arm, forming patters on the ground in his wake.
“Can you clear his mind?” Talen asked, likewise adjusting.
“I can break the enchantment... but the spell takes a full minute to cast...”
“Well then, hopefully you can resurrect the corpse,” Talen said, meeting Dar’s attack with a visceral eagerness shining in his dead eyes.
Swords blurred and bit, crunching through armor and flesh. Talen ducked a blow that might have cut his head off had it connected, countering with a thrust that punched through the layered armor protecting Dar’s flank. Dar brought
Valor down hard onto Talen’s shoulder, crumpling the plate there and savaging the joint beneath. Talen nearly lost his grip on his sword, but he lashed out with his other hand, smashing Dar across the face. The fighter staggered back, stunned for a moment. Talen used the interval to reassert his grip on his sword.
“To think, I was once impressed with your skill.”
Dar snarled and started forward again, but before the two could collide once more, Allera leapt in front of Talen, facing Dar. “If you wish to strike him, you will have to kill me first,” Allera said to the
charmed fighter. Talen started to thrust her away, but she would not relinquish her position.
“You take a grave risk, healer,” he said, his eyes locked on Dar’s.
Dar lifted
Valor, and Talen tensed. But then he froze, the blade quivering in his hand.
“I cannot... hold... they are in... my mind...”
“Go!” Allera yelled back at Talen, rushing to Dar. She turned him away from the vampire and the pillars, grasping his head, pouring what healing she could into him.
Talen did not linger longer. He saw that Shay had her foe well in hand, darting in and out of its reach, tumbling out of the way of its spear-hand, delivering sweeping blows that left long gashes in its substance. He couldn’t quite make out Varo and Letellia clearly; the far side of the room where they’d been was thick with smoke from the cleric’s summonings and evocations. He could hear the sounds of violence, which suggested that at least one of the two was still alive.
But his attention was focused ahead, on the mind flayers. There were still a lot of them left, a half-dozen at least. They watched him in silence, no doubt working their dark powers on his human allies.
“They do not leave the protection of the pillars!” Shay yelled at him, ducking under another thrust from the construct. She leapt into the air and kicked off its chest, her sword lashing out to carve a deep runnel across its face. As it started to come apart, she reached down and recovered her spear.
Talen paused some fifteen paces distant. The buzzing noise in his head intensified, but he easily thrust it aside. “Your pathetic powers cannot protect you from the likes of me,” he said. He gestured to Shay, who came over to join him. Calla crept up from behind, giving Dar and Allera a wide berth.
“Give me your bow,” Talen said to Shay. He took the weapon, a compact Legion bow with a strong pull, and calmly set the string.
His first shot caught a mind flayer solidly in the chest. The creature staggered back, but made no sound.
A pulse of psionic energy filled the room. Dar screamed and crumpled. Letellia’s cry followed on his. Allera clutched her head, trying to fight off the power that surged over the mental walls of her will.
Talen ignored it, loaded another arrow, and shot a second flayer in the shoulder. Shay, laughing, drew out her throwing axe and buried it in the gut of another illithid.
Suddenly the mind flayers surged forward, abandoning the protection of the pillars to attack. They closed the distance quickly; one dropped as Shay lowered her spear and impaled it, but the others came on, their almost skeletal claws extended to attack.
Calla started forward, but Talen held her back. “Wait for it,” he whispered.
The illithids staggered as a group as power tore through them. Varo’s
mass inflict serious wounds spell was devastating, and while their innate resistances and strong will protected them to some degree, six of the seven remaining illithids suffered grievous wounds that opened all over their wretched bodies.
Still, they came on.
Talen’s sword flashed, taking off the head of the first illithid. The next lunged forward to touch him, but his follow-through smoothly severed its arm at the elbow. It crumpled. Two more leapt over the bodies of the first pair, but Talen met them with a blur of steel. One did manage to touch him, but he resisted its power, and a few seconds later ended it with a blow that sliced off half its skull.
Calla and Shay made short work of the others. None of the illithid attacks had succeeded.
Talen was already walking forward over the bodies, toward the pillars. A wall of flickering energies was starting to coalesce between the pylons, but as Talen reached it he lashed violently down with his sword, and the barrier parted before it could on solid form. The vampire thrust himself through into the space beyond.
The buzzing noise in his head had become a crescendo. He thought he could hear voices in it, now.
Whatever the Overmind had to say was of no importance to the vampire. He strode forward, toward the basin, lifting his sword.
Blue fire flared outward, engulfing him. The Overmind’s power caught him up like a child’s doll, and he was flung back, landing hard at the edge of the circle of pillars.
“This may not be as easy as I thought,” Talen said, as Shay helped him up. His skin was covered with electrical burns where the energy discharge had touched him.
Those burns got worse a moment later as a bolt of lightning streaked out from the far side of the room. Shay dodged out of the path of the bolt, but Talen was struck full on, and was blasted back against the nearest pillar.
“The sorceress!” Shay hissed in warning, as Letellia materialized out of the smoke. Her clothes were torn and blackened, and she moved with a jerky, hesitant motion. But there was no doubt that she had been the source of the attack.
“The big guy’s coming again, too,” Calla said, drawing their attention back behind them. Dar was coming steadily closer, and they could see the vacant, empty stare in his eyes. This was no mere charm; their companions were thralls to the Overmind, their bodies enslaved by the grim entity that occupied the pool in the center of the room. If they needed confirmation of that fact, it came when they saw Allera lying on the ground behind Dar, her face covered in her own blood.