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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 3097682" data-attributes="member: 1210">Assault on the Bastion of Law!9/8/371 O.L.G., 9:45 a.m., the Bastion of OrderThe room is laid with all of the trappings of a diabolic temple.  The air near the altar bears the tangy scent of blood, though the inhabitants are far too neat and organized to leave a mess on the block itself.  Still, it is clear that a neck could be laid down and head cloven cleanly from body across this sinister piece of stone.Surrounding the altar, on alert for the imminent attack of our friends (and how would they know, really, given that the party is completely mind blanked? hmmmm....), nine horned devils in smartly-pressed, identical uniforms await the alarm.  Their tactics are both simple and brilliant.  When the alarms go off in a certain chamber or other, three of them will greater teleport in and make a quick assault- then greater teleport out to the Galadorians waiting to cast various healing spells on them.  Meanwhile, three more devils will ‘port in to the alarm chamber and attack.  The odds are (or so the devils’ thinking goes) that the intruders won’t be able to tell one of them from the next, and so the nine devils will appear to teleport madly around the battle, always healed of the damage they just took!  The fiendish quickening linked to the altar should help them avoid a lag between arriving and attacking.  Yes, as soon as the forces of Chaos break into the Bastion and make it to the alarm chamber, the devils will make mincemeat of them!Of course, the devils might also be called to join a general attack on the enemy.  Should they show up in full force, most of the Bastion’s defenders, not to mention the Arrows of Law themselves, are ready to spring the trap.  Why, walking into the Bastion is as good as sticking their head in the noose!  Yes, all contingencies are covered, reflects one of the devils, and there is no way that the enemy will be able to stand up to the full power of Law.There is, however, one minor catch, the devil realizes to his chagrin an instant later.It never occurred to anyone that, somehow, the enemy might arrive by teleporting in right here.The crackle and spark and smell of ozone that marks Orbius’ chain lightning happens before the devils even realize how wrong things have gone.  With a cackle of glee, Gerontius slips his blade into one of the devils’ kidney (or whatever it is that sits in a devil’s body where a kidney does in a human; from the devil’s reaction, it’s clearly a tender organ).  Thrush hacks an arm off one of the surprised devils, and then Alcar utters a holy word.  The devils vanish, banished back to the Hells from which they came.  The steaming arm remains, lying severed on the floor in a pile of hot black fiend-blood.We’re in! thinks Lillamere excitedly over the link.***Elsewhere in the BastionThey’re here, Prayzose tells the others telepathically.  It’s time.  Grimly, he pulls on his gauntlets.  I don’t want to fight them, he sighs, but they’re making it inevitable.  Unfortunately, if they oppose Law- and if they actually threaten Law- I cannot abide their interference any longer. For a brief moment, he bows his head in prayer.  He is about to be forced into battle with one of Galador’s angels.  How can both of them survive with their faiths intact?***A cell in the Bastion of LawBeads of sweat roll down Veil’s brow.  She trembles, shackled to the wall.  What’s happening to me? she croaks mentally.Shhh.  Trust me.  It is for the best.The voice comes again, as it has for the last few hours.  She groans aloud at the pain in her hands.  Somehow, she is changing.  Here, shackled, her normal ability to alter her shape seems to be... gone.  Somehow, she is constrained by this prison.  But something is... helping her?She glances down, and to her surprise she notices that the Shield of Graz’zt is still by her feet.  Touching her leg.  The hand spiked to the shield’s boss twitches slightly, and her hands twinge.Glancing back up at them, she realizes suddenly that she has six fingers on each of her hands.***The devil roomThere are two doors out, and without hesitation Alcar strides to one and throws it open.  Instantly, he is slammed by a great whirlwind of silver-green sand and energy.  It tries to force him back, but to no avail; he grunts and holds his ground against the strange temporal construct.  We fought one of these at least once before, he thinks, long ago, in Bile Mountain.  But these ones are stronger!*  Another one whirls up to the doorway, where is begins pounding at the Angel of Food, destroying a bestowed mirror image laid upon him by Orbius.  Behind him, Alcar can hear Zyltha begin to sing, and he begins striking back with his mace.  Hyliss and Thrush attempt to far strike the weird creature- but they both find that their blades sometimes go right through it as if it weren’t there!Even as the warriors find their abilities to be hampered by the strange whirlwinds’ ability to temporally displace themselves, the newest member of the party, Jibber Junior steps up.  His strangely froglike grin stretches across his faced and his pupils dilate as his mind taps inot the power of Chaos with a wild surge and an anarchic surge both.  A blast of freezing cold seethes out of him, leaving icicles and a rime of frost all over the Bastion’s defenders.  Behind the two whirling constructs, a powerful-looking inevitable dimension doors away, smoking and almost destroyed.Everyone pours on the blows and magic, but the whirlwind-like constructs seem able to avoid almost everything our heroes throw at them!  Disintegrates from Lillamere (shape changed into a planetar) -and Mabrack (shape changed into an elf so as to make for easy transportation and fitting within the Bastion’s halls) go through their temporally displaced forms ineffectively.  Weapon after weapon does likewise.  A few blows land true, but it is clear that luck is not with our heroes at the moment.  Still, those few blows count, and after struggling for a few seconds, our heroes manage to push their way past the doorway.  Sybele hustles in and uses her bow, shooting at one of the whirlwinds and finally destroying it in a shower of silver-green sand!  An instant later, Alcar uses a miracle to ape a Marius’ deconstruction on the other one.  He chuckles at the irony- destroying Marius’ servants with his own spell!Then, suddenly, six Marii teleport into the room, surrounding our heroes.Next Time: Things are just getting started!!  At last- the Seventh Arrow revealed!!*For those of you who’ve been with this story for a couple threads, these are chronal repeaters- advanced ones.</blockquote>

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