[Realms #372] Some Like it Hot...
Huzair had no idea what that creature was, but he did know one thing: Morier was screwed. "I'll help Morier and-" he started to say in the the Ring of Communication, but Ayremac's voice in his own ear cut him off.
"No, Huzair!" he said urgently. "Keep going for that jewel! We can't hold out very long""
The wizard was invisible, so no one had to see the look on his face as he moved toward the glow, leaving his friend to twist in the wind.
"Shamalin, could you grant me some healing?" Ayremac asked as he considered the ten foot jump required to attain the next island of obsidian. "I am going to try to help Morier!"
"Not now," the priestess said. "My resources are nearing depletion and this battle is far from over." She clutched her holy symbol and started muttering a prayer.
Even as Ayremac turned toward the cleric with an exasperated look on his face the first of the things in the lava reached their shelf and hauled itself up over the lip. It looked like a miniature version of the creature menacing Morier, complete with red-hot glowing spear. Its two brethren scrambled up on either side of it and Karak stepped forward, leading with his axe.
The weapon let out a horrible seething hiss as the ice-rimed blade bit into the thing's steaming flesh, but the sound was drowned out by the short, painful gurgle as the creature watched one side of its ribcage explode in a shower of bone and gore from the force of the dwarf's blow. Even as it was falling back into the lava floe, Karak cleaved into the creature beside it, opening a wound in its arm that bled steam. (1)
"Yer not so tough!" the dwarf shouted at the thing, eyes wild above his still smoldering beard.
"QUICKLY! BACK INSIDE THE TUNNEL!" Stoneblade urged, pointing toward the Wall of Stone that it had created. But Morier had other ideas.
"And get stuck in there like a rat in a trap?" He jumped, landing on another island of polished obsidian almost forty feet from where he'd started. "I don't think so!"
"BAH! YOU TAKE THE COWARD'S WAY!" the sword grumbled. "PERHAPS I WAS WRONG NOT TO CHOOSE THE DWARF!" Morier rolled his eyes.
"We can discuss that later," he quipped, sparing a moment for a glance back over his shoulder. The huge fiery creature loomed over the far end of the stone tunnel that the sword had created, coils of its serpentine tail rising up behind it.
Its already ugly face twisted into a rubbery sneer and it snarled, "Du strong-tor dungiri kahm!"
Seeing that Morier was out of the thing's immediate reach, Ayremac took a step back from the creature before him and drew the Wand of Cure Light Wounds from his belt. He activated the device and felt the pain in his burned shoulders abate somewhat. He was just putting the wand away when he heard the shriek of another fireball hurtling toward him. He saw it impact the shelf that Morier was standing on, but well in front of the eldritch warrior, positioned so that as it blossomed it caught both Ayremac and Karak as well.
The holy warrior threw himself flat against the obsidian again, avoiding the full brunt of the magical assault. Beside him, Karak ducked into the shadow of one of the creatures he was fighting and thus avoided any injury from the blast at all. Ayremac knew he likely wouldn't survive another fireball, but looking up, he saw Morier's smoking form laying prone 30' away.
Shamalin saw it too and cursed under her breath. She let the Detect Thoughts she had been preparing lapse uncast and instead stepped forward, readying a Reach Cure Light Wounds spell. It was always Morier, it seemed, and some dark part of her considered how much more help she'd be to everyone in the future if she were too late to save him now.
One of the half-snake things saw her casting and lunged toward her with its spear, the power of her Sanctuary spell overcame its will to attack, however, and it trembled before her with its spear poised to stab.
Its fellow, already injured by Karak recognized the dwarf as the greater threat and it stabbed violently at him even as its tail whipped around and slapped at the air above the doughty warrior's head.
"This be how it's done!" Karak growled, swinging his waraxe in a mighty overhand chop that very nearly took off the creature's left arm at the shoulder. He reversed the blade's direction and brought it back up, splitting the thing from belly to throat. Whirling, he tried to smack the last of the creatures with his follow-through, but he was too off balance and the blade found nothing but air.
Mouthing a brief prayer to Umba, Ayremac clenched his longsword tightly and jumped, landing a few feet from the near edge of the closest island. Morier lay 15 feet away, and to Ayremac he didn't look too good. The elemental sword lay a few feet from his outstretched fingers. Beyond him, the large creature was moving toward the outcropping, wading threw the lava as if it were cool water.
Ayremac licked his lips and shouted, "I care not for your firestorm, beast! Take me on without wizardry, if you dare!!"
The thing smiled at that. "And who are you to issue challenge to Rafrarrl, Noble Servant of the Mighty Sultan of the City of Brass?" it said, moving still closer. "Speak, kindling, I would know the names of those I burn." It gestured and a Flaming Sphere appeared on the shelf.
Shamalin concentrated on Morier, ignoring how close she was to the edge of the lava floe. She could just barely see him through the heat haze, and the healing ray struck the ground uselessly a few feet from the albino's smoking form. She cursed, despair rising into her throat like bile.
The creature that had been thwarted by her Sanctuary spell hissed at her and gave up, Turning, it stabbed instead at Karak, the point of its spear burning a gap in his gorget, and sending blood sizzling down the dwarf's breastplate.
Undeterred, Karak stepped in close and drove his waraxe into the creature's belly. Steam rose up from the wound, momentarily clouding the melee.
"I am a powerful warrior of Umba," Ayremac shouted. "Move aside or you will feel the wrath of Umba's harsh judgment!" He handled the large gold holy symbol that hung on a chain around his neck, invoking the power of Sacred Healing.
"Long have I lingered here, tasked with the guarding of a key," Rafrarrl hissed. "With no company but the darkness that seeks this place. And that darkness has whispered to me of your Umba." It gestured and the Flaming Sphere rolled onto Morier's supine form. It leered darkly as the fire licked the albino's unmoving body. "I will enjoy crushing you in my coils, kindling!"
The creature stabbed again at Karak, but this time a sweep of his buckler drove the point aside before it could find his flesh. Its long tail swept in low and wrapped itself around the dwarf's legs, trying to pull him off balance. But Karak was a dwarf, and not prone to losing his footing easily. He stood his ground and pulled free of the constricting tail with little effort.
There was magic here.
It didn't take a genius like Huzair to know that was going to be the first thing he learned with Detect Magic, so he was little surprised with the result. He continued to concentrate, blocking out the sounds of battle nearby. There were six distinct magical signatures hidden on the outcropping below, with the most powerful being of artifact-level power. Undoubtedly, that was the Elemental Key of Fire and he sent Sparky down to hunt them out while he willed himself not to turn and watch the battle.
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(1) Nothing like starting the combat off with a solid critical hit for x3 damage!
