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Message: <blockquote data-quote="howandwhy99" data-source="post: 1244907" data-attributes="member: 3192">Short Calromian InterludeHefting the dead hag’s bloodied axe and feeling the weight of it in his hand, Calrom thought, “this should come in useful”.As much progress as the team had made in the last few hours, he was actually very frustrated. Always trying to bring his bow to bear around sharp corners and backing off from advancing foes was wearing him thin. It may be his weapon of choice, but his bow wasn’t really doing him any favors lately. After being Orc-rushed so many times, the blood dripping axe might be better after all.Drip Drip Drip. Yep, still dripping; I wonder why that is, anyways?Darian and Alya were watching him closely while talking quietly in a corner. Calrom stared back. “Yeah, that right. I plan on using this little holiest of the holies”.The rest of the group was moving now about six rings deeper into the core. “Baneheart”, Calrom thought, “banes have no hearts.”Sully was demonstrating his new ability to ‘door’ people from one space to another. Rather weird really, but damn if the little guy wasn’t useful. Unfortunately, Calrom got to ride down, if you can call being hauled underarm by a dire bat and some celestial bird-like creature riding. It irritated him to no end when they did that. Why did the two elves feel so compelled to shapeshift every five seconds? How do they expect him to tell them apart from potential foes? Maybe he’d shoot one in battle next time on ‘accident’. That would be funny. Well, okay maybe not funny. But who do they think they are swinging him over a mile deep pit that holds all the evils of the world, while the others simply –pop- down? At least Marcus of Tyr had to undergo the same injustice.He liked Marcus, but often times he didn’t exactly seem all there. Sure, he was valiant and all that, but charging into battle on a tightrope across a cavern ravine? Nope, Marcus was not his kind of hero; certainly no Kelerescent. Damn, Damn! He didn’t know if he could ever forgive himself for that one. But how did he know that giving into the has-been elf’s wishes would lead to Kelerescent’s death? It all seems so unwarranted now; Alya no longer being an elf and the Sword of Lies almost in their grasp. Or the Sword of Truth. Or whatever name the hell-cursed thing had now.Sully was speaking up ahead. Apparently, the door to the sword had already been opened. “…one hundred twenty feet below, in the Baneheart, through the East door…” Sully was reciting what the accursed armor of Tiran Invir had told them above. With the rest of the group hanging back on the curved balcony and bridge of the Baneheart, Calrom and Fiddle advanced into the room.Well, actually, first Fiddle spied into the room and seeing a large metal statue like the spiky one above decided to toss his glowing coin at it. The room was unnaturally lit just like the Baneheart. Fiddle’s coin cracked against metal and fell five feet from the statue. THEN Calrom advanced into the room a few feet, tugging Fiddle alongside.The room was shaped like a two pronged fork with both of the far passages leading away to the East. The metal statue stood guard in the center.Both tiptoed forward and Fiddle moved closer to retrieve his coin. His hand out, grasping but a few inches away from the coin, Fiddle froze in place. The statue SCREEACHED as it changed into a defensive poster. No one moved for a few seconds. Then slowly, very carefully, Fiddle reached down and grabbed his coin. He pocketed it and moved back near Calrom.The metal statue remained motionless; it’s posture on the hair’s breadth of charging forward.“Left or right?” whispered Fiddle. Hmm… “Let’s go right”, replied Calrom. “Why right?”“I don’t know, because it’s closer to us and farther from the statue?”Traveling a few feet into the right passageway they could see a door on the right-hand side in the familiar style of the banedoors. Odd shields hung along the walls. Calrom’s superior vision allowed him to see a little farther. The end of the passage opened into a room.They waved the rest of the team forward. Still the statue remained motionless.The group of six spread out down the hallway and started inspecting. Darian, Marcus and Arendel moved to the front of the party leading most of them into the room a little ways ahead. It was small with one door to the left. Seeing a mural along the back wall of the room they crossed check it out. Sully and Alya hung back in the hallway near the first door trying to listen for noise. Calrom listened at the door in the room.“The artwork in this place has been awful”, he thought. “Did no one know how to paint thirteen hundred years ago?” Still, he probably should have looked closer at the dragon ceiling fresco yesterday. All those metallic dragons cavorting in such a nicely drawn sky, it was obviously a warning. “It would at least have saved me from having to change my clothes after that incident”. Calrom heard quiet footsteps from the other side of the door. He tried the handle: locked."CALROM, COME HERE!" Fiddle shouted from somewhere far down the hallCalrom knocked on the door. It was obvious to him now that the halfling was also on the other side. "NO, YOU COME HERE..." he yelled.Suddenly the door near Alya and Sully opened. Two bestial humanoids strolled out. The gnome and kobold immediately started casting, but were quickly razor-cut into their vitals by a black-skinned she-devil –popping- into existence between them. Sully still managed to get a spell off electrifying the air as sparks lit up the small area. Calrom couldn’t quite see, but learned later that Alya went down right away in a bloody mess. Arendel began humming to himself as a cloud of smoke formed above his head spilling across the ceiling of the room and into the hallway. More lightening flashed as strokes shot from the cloud into the woman. Darian drew his crossbow and fired at one of the large, muscular creatures, while Marcus charged the other with his axe in hand. Calrom hefted the blood dripping axe from the dead hag, “Well, now or never”. He charged at the nearest beast-human. As he drew near he noticed it had a head like a wolf or a jackal. Swinging the battleaxe high over his own head he attacked with all his might… and hit it squarely in the chest. Calrom smiled. But the skin of the beast showed no sign of damage at all.Calrom saw red. Anger swelled within him and he howled in frustration. Flinging the useless axe to the ground he coiled his legs and leapt at the wolf creature. The growl in his throat died before it could escape. He missed badly.Marcus swung his own axe also missing. Lightening from Arendel’s cloud crackled again to highlight the point. Without warning a glint of silver flew over Calrom’s shoulder and tore into the creature’s flesh spoiling a newly made wound. “Darian’s crossbow!” he thought.The four-horned devil-woman fled the hallway out towards the Baneheart. One of her hirelings ran over to pick the sword she had flung, while the other attempted to block the advancing party. Calrom got a good look at the sword: ornate, but vilely carved it was made of metal black as pitch. Sully the Gnome, ever backing away now from the battle because of his grievous wounds, let loose with another electrical blast. A sphere of blue-black lightening opened up in the far room as all the color in Calrom’s sight went negative. Fiddle twisted away from the effect, but the two wolf-beasts weren’t so lucky. One fell smoking to the ground.The other ran to the door of the Baneheart for all it was worth. The Sword of Lies was still in its paws.Marcus ran ahead to strike at the creature while it still stood in the doorway. He must not have been thinking to clearly as his axe still had no effect. Darian ran to keep up passing under the false danger of the metal statue. Calrom was running past him when Darian shoved the silver bolted crossbow in his hands. Tapping Marcus on the shoulder to see past, “Dodge right!” Calrom fired a shot straight into the chest of the creature. Another foul wound blossomed.Sully yelled out the name of the sword again and the wolf beast threw it as far from himself as possible… straight into the Baneheart pit! Thinking quickly the gnome snapped his fingers, and the sword floated downward gently.Over Calrom and Marcus’s heads a large hawk flew out the door... “Maybe I should shoot him now?” thought Calrom. …and plucked the Sword of Lies out of the air before anything else could reach it. “Or maybe not”Darian, Arendel, and Calrom made short work of the last werewolf. Its body fell into the depths of the pit. Arendel still in dire hawk form sped after it. The lady demon-drow was nowhere to be seen.Later Calrom would learn that she was one of the Vladaam’s. Apparently, Fiddle got a pretty good look at her between dodging lightening sparks. For now, Calrom simply slumped to the ground breathing heavily. This was beginning to be all too much for him. Hiding trips were supposed to be easy. This… this was not easy.</blockquote>

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