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The Gate Pass Irregulars: A War of the Burning Sky Campaign
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<blockquote data-quote="Cafu" data-source="post: 6157814" data-attributes="member: 6692807"><p>I quickly followed his instructions, charging down the nearest vertical corridor that led us back to the lift room. The others quickly joined me and for a brief moment, I was able to see everyone in the hall. I took full advantage of that as I cast my speed spell on everyone; Felix did the same except that he cast a spell which boosted everyone through the power of his religion. He called out a mighty imprecation to his deity and it replied to the power of his prayer.</p><p> </p><p>Then everything became more complicated as another wall of flame appeared in front of us. That meant that my wall to the right must have finally finished and that the other skeletons must have pushed through. We then split into two fronts. Grellfinn quickly swept up the northern parallel corridor. As he did so, a wild eyed figure suddenly rushed in from behind us. It was Oller! His eyes were red, from weeping, his hair was disheveled and his hands were clutching a pair of bottles full of holy water. He was screaming crazily:</p><p> </p><p>“Where is he? Where is he?”</p><p> </p><p>I wasn’t quite sure who he was talking about but it was almost on queue that the incorporeal suddenly came through the wall next to Drudge and tapped him. I presumed that the ranger than suffered the same effect that both Victor and I had. However, the thing hadn’t counted on a berserk gnome hurling abuse, imprecations and most importantly holy water at it.</p><p> </p><p>“Take this and this and this you filthy spawn of a……”</p><p> </p><p>Oller was spraying the water everywhere and had managed to get quite a bit of it on the incorporeal, who recoiled visibly. In fact, as I saw, the water was burning it as smoke rose from where it landed on its robes. Everyone immediately took notice of this very effective weapon. The enemy immediately vacated the space, sinking through the floor.</p><p> </p><p>As we were engaged in our own drama in the rear, it became apparent that the skeletons were making an attack. Victor and Grellfinn made a double pronged front, one in each corridor as they met and fought and stopped each of the undead. At this point, we retreated into the lift room to give ourselves somewhere to maneuver but of course those cursed orc skeletons put another wall of flame across the doorway, so we lost sight of our two warriors.</p><p> </p><p>I moved up to the rear of the corridor where I could keep an eye on the warriors when the incorporeal appeared again. This time Longhelim was nearby and the paladin summoned the power of his deity and managed to land two powerful, holy blows on it, causing it to visibly stagger for the first time. Oller had rushed up the corridor, screaming again, looking for enemy to kill and as soon as he realised that the main enemy was in the rear of the group, he was quickly rushing back again.</p><p> </p><p>Immediately, I tried to cast a couple of spells on the creature but they both bounced off some sort of defensive magic. In return, it dissolved most of my defensive spells which was a great problem. Without my defense against fire and with so many walls of flame around, my movement was going to be severely limited; especially as they were so intense. Then the creature sank through the floor again; that was very annoying; I could have sworn that I could see its inhuman features grinning tauntingly at me as it did so.</p><p> </p><p>Suddenly, the flame wall behind me ceased to exist, suggesting that either Victor or Grellfinn had succeeded in slaying another of the orc skeletons; quickly, I scurried back into the lift room where I immediately went into a corner; and not a moment too soon as another wall of flame appeared, bisecting the lift room east and west, separating it into northern and southern halves. I was stuck in the northern half and unable to move due to the heat of the spell; the others were out of my sight now but they were in the southern half. However, they were not constrained by the walls as their fire defences were still intact.</p><p> </p><p>Briefly, I saw one of the orc skeletons appear and begin to advance towards Felix and the others in the other half of the room. Just before he disappeared through the wall, I managed to cast my spell of weakening on it. Unlike the incorporeal, this enemy had no defences against my spell and it was well and truly struck.</p><p> </p><p>I was now fairly much constrained in the northern half of the room; suddenly, though, I was struck with horror as I saw the incorporeal rise through the floor and confront me. It reached out and tapped me several times. That was the last thing I remembered………</p><p> </p><p>The next thing that which I consciously perceived was me, lying on the floor in the large room with the dragon skeleton mounted on the wall, staring at me. Everyone was moving slowly and carefully, as if suffering the aches and pains of a major battle just past. Felix was kneeling next to me with a wand. I was feeling very groggy but then he tapped me with it, and I immediately felt better; he tapped me again, and this helped enormously again. Longhelim was also nearby and he handed me a water bottle. I swigged some of the water, trying to wash out the taste of soot and fire out of my mouth. Finally I looked around me, trying to get my bearings.</p><p> </p><p>It was horrible. There were signs of fire and combat everywhere. I was still lying on the ground, but I could see that Oller was on the ground and so was…..Victor. Both were blackened and smoking.</p><p> </p><p>“How’s Victor?”</p><p> </p><p>Longhelim just shook his head.</p><p> </p><p>I couldn’t believe it! Not Victor! He was indestructible.</p><p> </p><p>The paladin continued:</p><p> </p><p>“It was that leech thing. It just drained him. He was the bravest of warriors and I would back him in a fight against most things every time, but not some monstrous undead that just leeches his life from him. There are things in the realm of the undead which are so inimical to any sort of life that they will kill almost anyone and we met one of them. I have never come across anything like this before. Anyway, even then, from what we can work out, it wasn’t just that but it took him into that room.”</p><p> </p><p>He pointed behind my head and I twisted my neck. What I saw made my hair stand on end.</p><p> </p><p>A fairly small room contained a ring of black fire with lightning that crackled within. Even from here, I could feel that manifestation of….wrongness about the whole chamber. Shakily I stood up and walked closer to the entrance. I ventured only so close. It was one of the strangest, most evil things I had ever seen. I had to sit down again; I wasn’t feeling that well and that room really wasn’t helping.</p><p> </p><p>Longhelim had come up behind me:</p><p> </p><p>“Even just being in the same room will hurt you. I walked into the ring and that really, really hurt.”</p><p> </p><p>Still looking at the ring, I said:</p><p> </p><p>“Please tell me everything. I need to know.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m not sure up to what point you remember but you disappeared beyond the wall, into the upper part of the lift room. After that, we had a huge battle against two of the orc skeletons and the leech, as you call it. We also had to deal with some sort of giant invisible cat. It was at the front of the tunnels. In the end, Grellfinn, Drudge and Victor dealt with it but it was touch and go for a little while. The whole fight had split into various parts all of which were not visible to each other because of the walls of flame: Grellfinn and Victor were fighting the skeletons at the front of the tunnels. Adding to all of this, they discovered this cat thing.”</p><p> </p><p>A giant invisible cat? That rang a few bells.</p><p> </p><p>“So, what happened?”</p><p> </p><p>“Drudge shot it in his own inimitable style and once he finished with it, it appeared and then disappeared again in one of those flashes of fire.”</p><p> </p><p>“What did it look like?” I asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Pretty much like a giant lion, but Drudge did say that for brief moments, it seemed to be full of light and sparks.”</p><p> </p><p>“Ah,” I said. “It was a hell cat, a kind of devil. They’re almost invisible to see in light. Drudge must have extraordinary eyesight for him to have actually shot it. When you say it disappeared in a flash of fire, it was being sent back to its own plane.</p><p> </p><p>Wait a minute! You said earlier that Drudge was with you. How did he suddenly end up in the corridor shooting a hell cat?”</p><p> </p><p>Longhelim stopped:</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, I did say that, didn’t I? To be honest, Faden, I lost track of people. There were so many walls around and more often than not, the only person I could actually see was my opponent; even then, sometimes I was just blindly slashing beyond the wall into a space where I thought the enemy was. The main reason why I said that Drudge got the hell cat was because I was told it was full of his arrows, so it must have been him. I suspect that he managed to do some extraordinary moving and shooting; you’ve seen him do these maneuvers; but as to when and how he did them, well that’s pretty hazy.”</p><p> </p><p>I had to keep quiet at this point; as accurate as I wanted to keep the accounts, I also realised that sometimes it was impossible to keep track of everything and everyone; especially if I was almost dead at the same time and if there were also walls of flame around everywhere which blocked sight.</p><p> </p><p>Longhelim continued:</p><p> </p><p>“Well, anyway, as Drudge was shooting into this devil cat, everything else was becoming more and more confused because no one could see anything. We were still fighting the leech and the orc skeletons; there were no more skeletons appearing from the corridor so we assumed that Victor must have played merry hell at his end, but there was no sign of him.</p><p> </p><p>So, John moved to Victor’s last known place, at the front of the corridor and that’s when he shouted back that there was no sign of Victor or his body. John then moved into the big room with the floating debris and screamed that he could see Victor’s body. That’s when the leech disappeared through the floor again.</p><p> </p><p>Once he was gone, dealing with the two orc skeletons was fairly easy, especially as one of them was as weak as a kitten. That was you I take it?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, just before the leech got me.”</p><p> </p><p>Longhelim nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, by this point, it was pretty much John, Drudge and I who were left. Grellfinn was alive but in pretty bad shape. I rushed to this large room and into then into the chamber with the ring of black flame, together with Oller. There, I found John, Victor’s body and the leech; somehow, it dragged Victor’s body into the ring; again, I didn’t realize that they could do that if they were incorporeal and Felix assures me that normally they can’t; then again, it wasn’t really normal, was it? Anyway, by this point, even it looked much the worse for wear and we went at it inside the black flame. Of course, the effect in the room which was hurting me, was helping it. Thankfully, Drudge began to shoot into it but all his arrows burned up so it was just me and my sword; and Oller.”</p><p> </p><p>Longhelim then smiled and said:</p><p> </p><p>“It must have really been badly hurt by what we all did to it as it didn’t take that much to finally defeat it. I swung my sword into it and it and suddenly it was a pile of dust in the ring of fire.”</p><p> </p><p>Suddenly, something urgent struck me!</p><p> </p><p>“If Victor’s dead, what’s happened to the Living Blade of Innenotdar? What’s happened to the Forest?”</p><p> </p><p>Longhelim looked up and said:</p><p> </p><p>“Ummm, John’s got something to tell you about that.”</p><p> </p><p>I looked over and saw that John was helping Grellfinn to carry Jorine’s body into the large room at this time so I decided to ask him about this new development later.</p><p> </p><p>Longhelim then asked:</p><p> </p><p>“Can you get up, Faden? I want to show you the room a little better and show you a few more things in there. It’s better to show you rather than tell you.”</p><p> </p><p>I was still very stiff and sore and my head felt as if someone was pounding it with a large hammer. As I was pulled to my feet, I staggered a little as I felt a sharp pain in my left ankle; this then settled into a dull ache and I knew I was going to be limping for a while unless I managed to snag Felix’s attention for a few moments. The priest looked fully occupied at the moment as he was examining Jorine’s body. It had been badly mangled on the way up the lift and frankly, it looked like a mess. Grellfinn was looking on anxiously as Felix was making his deliberations.</p><p> </p><p>I looked around the room. It was still as strange as before with the various pieces of debris floating in the air. Two sets of stairs led to a large pair of doors; these were open. The floor was strewn with bones now and we had all brought our things; and above all, that dragon skeleton, mounted on the wall, still glared balefully at us. So, it had not animated…..yet.</p><p> </p><p>Longhelim then helped me to limp over to the entrance of the room on the opposite end to the doors. The fiery ring was quite dim now but outlines of shapes of people in the room were quite visible. However, what immediately grabbed my attention was a carriage that was floating in the air. It was more of a sled really; it didn’t have wheels but rather runners. It was beautifully carved with intricate designs and looked as if it had padded seating. It was also fairly large and looked as if it could easily accommodate quite a group of people. It looked like an incredibly luxurious piece of magic; and if it did actually fly….. then it was also an extremely powerful piece of magic, if fairly ostentatious. Everyone was certainly going to remember if we were going to start using that. </p><p> </p><p>“What’s that?” I asked.</p><p> </p><p>“I was hoping you might have been able to tell us,” replied Longhelim.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ve never seen or read about anything like it. Does it move? Has anyone tried to do anything with it?”</p><p> </p><p>“No. We can’t really experiment by going into that room. It hurts to go in, remember?”</p><p> </p><p>“Sorry, as I said, doesn’t ring any bells at all.”</p><p> </p><p>Longhelim’s mouth twisted in disappointment:</p><p> </p><p>“One last thing: when we were in the room, just before we left, we saw that the Ragesian army had arrived. They’re camped outside. We saw them through the window; and yes, there’s a group of elves with them. They could be prisoners but it doesn’t look like it. They’re all very nicely dressed and in their own little group.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, we knew they were coming. Any thoughts about how to get out?”</p><p> </p><p>“Felix has an idea. I’ll let him explain it. I think we’re reasonably safe up for here for the moment. By the time that army sorts itself out and battles all the undead below and works out how to get up here, well I think we still have a little time. Oh, by the way, the dark fire was quite a bit stronger and brighter until we killed the leech. Then it dimmed substantially.”</p><p> </p><p>I pointed at the outlines of people on the walls.</p><p> </p><p>“Were those there?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, they were already in the room. As I said, Victor was in the pyre and Oller was killed while in it, fighting the leech; brave gnome. Any idea what this is?”</p><p> </p><p>He indicated at the ring of flame.</p><p> </p><p>“No, again, never seen anything like it. This is another of those places that seems to be an anomaly. Any idea about the size of the Ragesian army or what’s in it?”</p><p> </p><p>“We couldn’t stay in the room to look at it but it looked substantial, shall we say.”</p><p> </p><p>We turned around and I went back to look at Victor. The warrior looked horrendous. He was badly burned, with oozing blisters on the skin of his face and neck. His armour was blackened and I dreaded to think about the condition of his hands beneath his gauntlets. There were still wisps of smoke coming out from apertures in his armour and charred bits of cloth could be seen beneath his greaves and parts of his breastplate. Most of his hair had been burned off with only clumps left and there was no sign of his beard, only a charred mass of skin on his chin.</p><p> </p><p>There was no sign of his falchion; and that reminded me…..</p><p> </p><p>I moved over to John.</p><p> </p><p>“Longhelim said something about you and the Living Blade of Innenotdar…….?”</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Cafu, post: 6157814, member: 6692807"] I quickly followed his instructions, charging down the nearest vertical corridor that led us back to the lift room. The others quickly joined me and for a brief moment, I was able to see everyone in the hall. I took full advantage of that as I cast my speed spell on everyone; Felix did the same except that he cast a spell which boosted everyone through the power of his religion. He called out a mighty imprecation to his deity and it replied to the power of his prayer. Then everything became more complicated as another wall of flame appeared in front of us. That meant that my wall to the right must have finally finished and that the other skeletons must have pushed through. We then split into two fronts. Grellfinn quickly swept up the northern parallel corridor. As he did so, a wild eyed figure suddenly rushed in from behind us. It was Oller! His eyes were red, from weeping, his hair was disheveled and his hands were clutching a pair of bottles full of holy water. He was screaming crazily: “Where is he? Where is he?” I wasn’t quite sure who he was talking about but it was almost on queue that the incorporeal suddenly came through the wall next to Drudge and tapped him. I presumed that the ranger than suffered the same effect that both Victor and I had. However, the thing hadn’t counted on a berserk gnome hurling abuse, imprecations and most importantly holy water at it. “Take this and this and this you filthy spawn of a……” Oller was spraying the water everywhere and had managed to get quite a bit of it on the incorporeal, who recoiled visibly. In fact, as I saw, the water was burning it as smoke rose from where it landed on its robes. Everyone immediately took notice of this very effective weapon. The enemy immediately vacated the space, sinking through the floor. As we were engaged in our own drama in the rear, it became apparent that the skeletons were making an attack. Victor and Grellfinn made a double pronged front, one in each corridor as they met and fought and stopped each of the undead. At this point, we retreated into the lift room to give ourselves somewhere to maneuver but of course those cursed orc skeletons put another wall of flame across the doorway, so we lost sight of our two warriors. I moved up to the rear of the corridor where I could keep an eye on the warriors when the incorporeal appeared again. This time Longhelim was nearby and the paladin summoned the power of his deity and managed to land two powerful, holy blows on it, causing it to visibly stagger for the first time. Oller had rushed up the corridor, screaming again, looking for enemy to kill and as soon as he realised that the main enemy was in the rear of the group, he was quickly rushing back again. Immediately, I tried to cast a couple of spells on the creature but they both bounced off some sort of defensive magic. In return, it dissolved most of my defensive spells which was a great problem. Without my defense against fire and with so many walls of flame around, my movement was going to be severely limited; especially as they were so intense. Then the creature sank through the floor again; that was very annoying; I could have sworn that I could see its inhuman features grinning tauntingly at me as it did so. Suddenly, the flame wall behind me ceased to exist, suggesting that either Victor or Grellfinn had succeeded in slaying another of the orc skeletons; quickly, I scurried back into the lift room where I immediately went into a corner; and not a moment too soon as another wall of flame appeared, bisecting the lift room east and west, separating it into northern and southern halves. I was stuck in the northern half and unable to move due to the heat of the spell; the others were out of my sight now but they were in the southern half. However, they were not constrained by the walls as their fire defences were still intact. Briefly, I saw one of the orc skeletons appear and begin to advance towards Felix and the others in the other half of the room. Just before he disappeared through the wall, I managed to cast my spell of weakening on it. Unlike the incorporeal, this enemy had no defences against my spell and it was well and truly struck. I was now fairly much constrained in the northern half of the room; suddenly, though, I was struck with horror as I saw the incorporeal rise through the floor and confront me. It reached out and tapped me several times. That was the last thing I remembered……… The next thing that which I consciously perceived was me, lying on the floor in the large room with the dragon skeleton mounted on the wall, staring at me. Everyone was moving slowly and carefully, as if suffering the aches and pains of a major battle just past. Felix was kneeling next to me with a wand. I was feeling very groggy but then he tapped me with it, and I immediately felt better; he tapped me again, and this helped enormously again. Longhelim was also nearby and he handed me a water bottle. I swigged some of the water, trying to wash out the taste of soot and fire out of my mouth. Finally I looked around me, trying to get my bearings. It was horrible. There were signs of fire and combat everywhere. I was still lying on the ground, but I could see that Oller was on the ground and so was…..Victor. Both were blackened and smoking. “How’s Victor?” Longhelim just shook his head. I couldn’t believe it! Not Victor! He was indestructible. The paladin continued: “It was that leech thing. It just drained him. He was the bravest of warriors and I would back him in a fight against most things every time, but not some monstrous undead that just leeches his life from him. There are things in the realm of the undead which are so inimical to any sort of life that they will kill almost anyone and we met one of them. I have never come across anything like this before. Anyway, even then, from what we can work out, it wasn’t just that but it took him into that room.” He pointed behind my head and I twisted my neck. What I saw made my hair stand on end. A fairly small room contained a ring of black fire with lightning that crackled within. Even from here, I could feel that manifestation of….wrongness about the whole chamber. Shakily I stood up and walked closer to the entrance. I ventured only so close. It was one of the strangest, most evil things I had ever seen. I had to sit down again; I wasn’t feeling that well and that room really wasn’t helping. Longhelim had come up behind me: “Even just being in the same room will hurt you. I walked into the ring and that really, really hurt.” Still looking at the ring, I said: “Please tell me everything. I need to know.” “I’m not sure up to what point you remember but you disappeared beyond the wall, into the upper part of the lift room. After that, we had a huge battle against two of the orc skeletons and the leech, as you call it. We also had to deal with some sort of giant invisible cat. It was at the front of the tunnels. In the end, Grellfinn, Drudge and Victor dealt with it but it was touch and go for a little while. The whole fight had split into various parts all of which were not visible to each other because of the walls of flame: Grellfinn and Victor were fighting the skeletons at the front of the tunnels. Adding to all of this, they discovered this cat thing.” A giant invisible cat? That rang a few bells. “So, what happened?” “Drudge shot it in his own inimitable style and once he finished with it, it appeared and then disappeared again in one of those flashes of fire.” “What did it look like?” I asked. “Pretty much like a giant lion, but Drudge did say that for brief moments, it seemed to be full of light and sparks.” “Ah,” I said. “It was a hell cat, a kind of devil. They’re almost invisible to see in light. Drudge must have extraordinary eyesight for him to have actually shot it. When you say it disappeared in a flash of fire, it was being sent back to its own plane. Wait a minute! You said earlier that Drudge was with you. How did he suddenly end up in the corridor shooting a hell cat?” Longhelim stopped: “Yes, I did say that, didn’t I? To be honest, Faden, I lost track of people. There were so many walls around and more often than not, the only person I could actually see was my opponent; even then, sometimes I was just blindly slashing beyond the wall into a space where I thought the enemy was. The main reason why I said that Drudge got the hell cat was because I was told it was full of his arrows, so it must have been him. I suspect that he managed to do some extraordinary moving and shooting; you’ve seen him do these maneuvers; but as to when and how he did them, well that’s pretty hazy.” I had to keep quiet at this point; as accurate as I wanted to keep the accounts, I also realised that sometimes it was impossible to keep track of everything and everyone; especially if I was almost dead at the same time and if there were also walls of flame around everywhere which blocked sight. Longhelim continued: “Well, anyway, as Drudge was shooting into this devil cat, everything else was becoming more and more confused because no one could see anything. We were still fighting the leech and the orc skeletons; there were no more skeletons appearing from the corridor so we assumed that Victor must have played merry hell at his end, but there was no sign of him. So, John moved to Victor’s last known place, at the front of the corridor and that’s when he shouted back that there was no sign of Victor or his body. John then moved into the big room with the floating debris and screamed that he could see Victor’s body. That’s when the leech disappeared through the floor again. Once he was gone, dealing with the two orc skeletons was fairly easy, especially as one of them was as weak as a kitten. That was you I take it?” “Yes, just before the leech got me.” Longhelim nodded. “Well, by this point, it was pretty much John, Drudge and I who were left. Grellfinn was alive but in pretty bad shape. I rushed to this large room and into then into the chamber with the ring of black flame, together with Oller. There, I found John, Victor’s body and the leech; somehow, it dragged Victor’s body into the ring; again, I didn’t realize that they could do that if they were incorporeal and Felix assures me that normally they can’t; then again, it wasn’t really normal, was it? Anyway, by this point, even it looked much the worse for wear and we went at it inside the black flame. Of course, the effect in the room which was hurting me, was helping it. Thankfully, Drudge began to shoot into it but all his arrows burned up so it was just me and my sword; and Oller.” Longhelim then smiled and said: “It must have really been badly hurt by what we all did to it as it didn’t take that much to finally defeat it. I swung my sword into it and it and suddenly it was a pile of dust in the ring of fire.” Suddenly, something urgent struck me! “If Victor’s dead, what’s happened to the Living Blade of Innenotdar? What’s happened to the Forest?” Longhelim looked up and said: “Ummm, John’s got something to tell you about that.” I looked over and saw that John was helping Grellfinn to carry Jorine’s body into the large room at this time so I decided to ask him about this new development later. Longhelim then asked: “Can you get up, Faden? I want to show you the room a little better and show you a few more things in there. It’s better to show you rather than tell you.” I was still very stiff and sore and my head felt as if someone was pounding it with a large hammer. As I was pulled to my feet, I staggered a little as I felt a sharp pain in my left ankle; this then settled into a dull ache and I knew I was going to be limping for a while unless I managed to snag Felix’s attention for a few moments. The priest looked fully occupied at the moment as he was examining Jorine’s body. It had been badly mangled on the way up the lift and frankly, it looked like a mess. Grellfinn was looking on anxiously as Felix was making his deliberations. I looked around the room. It was still as strange as before with the various pieces of debris floating in the air. Two sets of stairs led to a large pair of doors; these were open. The floor was strewn with bones now and we had all brought our things; and above all, that dragon skeleton, mounted on the wall, still glared balefully at us. So, it had not animated…..yet. Longhelim then helped me to limp over to the entrance of the room on the opposite end to the doors. The fiery ring was quite dim now but outlines of shapes of people in the room were quite visible. However, what immediately grabbed my attention was a carriage that was floating in the air. It was more of a sled really; it didn’t have wheels but rather runners. It was beautifully carved with intricate designs and looked as if it had padded seating. It was also fairly large and looked as if it could easily accommodate quite a group of people. It looked like an incredibly luxurious piece of magic; and if it did actually fly….. then it was also an extremely powerful piece of magic, if fairly ostentatious. Everyone was certainly going to remember if we were going to start using that. “What’s that?” I asked. “I was hoping you might have been able to tell us,” replied Longhelim. “I’ve never seen or read about anything like it. Does it move? Has anyone tried to do anything with it?” “No. We can’t really experiment by going into that room. It hurts to go in, remember?” “Sorry, as I said, doesn’t ring any bells at all.” Longhelim’s mouth twisted in disappointment: “One last thing: when we were in the room, just before we left, we saw that the Ragesian army had arrived. They’re camped outside. We saw them through the window; and yes, there’s a group of elves with them. They could be prisoners but it doesn’t look like it. They’re all very nicely dressed and in their own little group.” “Well, we knew they were coming. Any thoughts about how to get out?” “Felix has an idea. I’ll let him explain it. I think we’re reasonably safe up for here for the moment. By the time that army sorts itself out and battles all the undead below and works out how to get up here, well I think we still have a little time. Oh, by the way, the dark fire was quite a bit stronger and brighter until we killed the leech. Then it dimmed substantially.” I pointed at the outlines of people on the walls. “Were those there?” “Yes, they were already in the room. As I said, Victor was in the pyre and Oller was killed while in it, fighting the leech; brave gnome. Any idea what this is?” He indicated at the ring of flame. “No, again, never seen anything like it. This is another of those places that seems to be an anomaly. Any idea about the size of the Ragesian army or what’s in it?” “We couldn’t stay in the room to look at it but it looked substantial, shall we say.” We turned around and I went back to look at Victor. The warrior looked horrendous. He was badly burned, with oozing blisters on the skin of his face and neck. His armour was blackened and I dreaded to think about the condition of his hands beneath his gauntlets. There were still wisps of smoke coming out from apertures in his armour and charred bits of cloth could be seen beneath his greaves and parts of his breastplate. Most of his hair had been burned off with only clumps left and there was no sign of his beard, only a charred mass of skin on his chin. There was no sign of his falchion; and that reminded me….. I moved over to John. “Longhelim said something about you and the Living Blade of Innenotdar…….?” [/QUOTE]
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