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Message: <blockquote data-quote="talien" data-source="post: 4496490" data-attributes="member: 3285">Soul of the Serpent: Part 1b – The Holding Area“Where’s the caster?” shouted Vlad. He blocked a scimitar blow with the flat of his longsword and retaliated by clubbing the opposing ssanu with his shield.“It’s here somewhere!” snarled Beldin.  He beat back another ssanu’s attack.  His armor was still smoking from the scorching that the invisible caster’s spell had inflicted on the dwarf.Kham growled.  “So this is the Sskethvai cult, huh?” He leaped past the pair of ssanu and rolled to his feet, his scimitar Talon in one hand, Coomb’s stiletto in another.  Vlad went slack-jawed, suddenly switching to a defensive position.  He backed up.“I told you not to look in their eyes!” shouted Sebastian.  “Whatever they just told you, resist!”Vlad shook his head, unable to look away.  The ssanu turned away from Vlad, no longer considering him a threat.  It joined its companion in attacking Beldin.Sebastian shook his head.  “Fine, if you can’t resist through force of will alone… medicates privates!”Vlad lowered his sword and shield and stared at Sebastian.  “Get back in there and kill those ssanu!”Beldin fell backwards.  Just as one of the ssanu was about to skewer the dwarf, Vlad crashed into it with the full force of a warrior embarrassed by his show of weakness.  The snake man went down in a flurry of hacks.The other ssanu looked on in surprise, unprepared for an opponent it though neutralized.  Then Beldin’s axe severed its spinal cord. With a lunging stab, Kham speared the air in front of him.  A human-like face contorted in rage was frozen in ice as Coomb’s stiletto froze the invisible foe.  Kham spun with Talon and backhanded the ice sculpture, shattering the frozen head into a thousand pieces.A bloody snake stump shimmered into existence.  It writhed a few times and then fell to the ground.“What the hell was that?” asked Vlad, staring at the corpse.  “A human-headed snake?”Kham sheathed Talon and the stiletto. “They all look alike to me.”“I found something,” said Beldin.  “Marks on the wall indicate there were prisoners held here not long ago.  We must have just missed them.”“They were priests of Althares,” said Sebastian, his face grim.“How can you tell?” asked Kham.Sebastian tossed Kham a wooden hammer, the holy symbol of Althares.“We’ll never find them down here,” said Vlad.  “The prisoners could be anywhere.”“Sarish’s ass,” muttered Kham. “I know where they are.”“Where?” asked Vlad.“This guy Gresty has a crazy theory,” explained Kham.  “He said that several of the temples in Freeport were actually built over ssanu breeding pits.  That’s why they keep attacking the temples; humans are trespassing on their sacred ground.”“And that temple would be…”“Egil’s Temple of Althares,” said Kham. Sebastian turned to Beldin.  “Can you figure out how to get to the Temple of Althares from here?”“Are you part devil?” said Beldin gruffly.  “Of course I can, I’m a dwarf!”They took off at a sprint.</blockquote>

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