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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Iron Chef BBQ" data-source="post: 1076310" data-attributes="member: 1844">The Saving of Hooffall (run of 07-29-03)In the distance the party can hear the howling of wolves.  Their time in daylight is rapidly coming to an end.  They all realize that they had better find and kill the abbot before those wolves descend.Lucre pulls Borin into the sunlight.  Kel turns undead.  Light radiates from him in a circle.  As the light reaches Borin, he flinches.  Kel begins to cast protection from evil and approaches Borin who bolts in the opposite direction.  Kel breaks off the spell and casts again.  “Stop!” he commands, and Borin freezes.  Lucre sprints in and ties his cousin with a rope while Kalina casts dispel magic.  They have immediate proof that the spell worked because Borin gains control of himself, the hold spell is gone.  He struggles against the bonds.  “Untie me,” he bellows.  “Don’t move,” Lucre orders and hits him with the flat of his sword.Marja takes a moment of quiet to make Deke fly and turn him invisible.  Kenyan starts to sing and looks into the grave.  “Hey, there’s a body in here.”  Marja and Kel help him pull the body out into the light.  The body is dressed in a good quality gown.  Kel recognizes her as the woman from his visions.Borin rages and breaks the ropes casting them and his backpack aside.  Marja rapidly casts detect magic and sees nothing unusual about him just as Lucre is about to swing.  “Lucre, stop!”  Lucre swings wide just barely missing his cousin’s temple.  Kalina steps in with her glowing green hands and lays her healing touch onto Borin then Deke’s voice comes from above them, “Guys, four wolves, five minutes away.”Kalina calls everyone into a huddle and casts invisible to animals and they all prepare to move into the main hall when Kel notices that Borin’s backpack was cast off into the shadow of the temple.  He grabs it and chucks it into the light.  Borin opens it, but nothing is inside it any longer.  They all rush to the temple where Brother Niall is waiting alone.In the shrine Niall turns to see the glowing red eyes of the abbot in a dark recess of the room.  A booming voice commands him, “You will serve me!”  “NO!”  shouts Niall defiantly.  “I serve Corean!”  Niall casts turn undead and pulls out his holy symbol.  “May this symbol pull the love of your god from the depths of your soul,” he prays.  “Have faith.”“Nice try,” chuckles the abbot’s voice from behind the red glowing eyes.  Niall screams in rage.Outside, the party redoubles their run.The abbot reaches out with both his hands and clamps onto both sides of Naill’s face.  The monk struggles, but feels sharp teeth sink into his neck.  “I am done,” he thinks as he feels his life force slipping away.  His eyes roll up in his head, and as he gazes upwards, just before everything goes black, his eye catches the last rays of the setting sun shining through the blue eye of the white horse in the stained glass window overhead.  “I will not loose faith.  Corean,” he prays, “Let me be the instrument that saves your temple.  I give you my body and my life.”  He struggles against the bite and regains his center and pushes the mouth of the abbot away.  Niall struggles again to cast, but cannot concentrate.  The abbot chuckles, “Don’t fear for your life, Niall.  I’m not going to kill you.  I’m going to make you like me.”  He grabs Niall’s neck tighter and bites again, but Niall resists.Borin rushes in first and moves to attack.  “You can’t have him,” the abbot admonishes.  “He’s mine.  He killed my wife!”“Who are you kidding?” the invisible Deke interjects.  “She spent all her time boinking all the other guys in the place.”  The abbot turns to find the source of the voice, and Borin strikes making a line of red across the abbot’s chest.  Lucre lectures the creature about keeping faith as he strikes, but his blow is forced away.  Likewise, Marja’s and Kalina’s spells bounce off a field of protection.Niall picks himself up off the floor and reaches out seeing his own blood on his hands.  He prays for all the souls of the other brothers whose blood has been spilt while his was spared.  He reaches into the depths of his soul.  “I summon the love of Corean!”  A ray of Corean’s light emanates from Niall and hits the abbot full in the face.  “Don’t speak his name,” the abbot shrieks and runs to cower in a corner.Borin charges in, but as his hand brushes against the creature he feels a tingle along his arm.  His arm looks burned, but still functions normally.  Deke shoots a crossbow bolt.  They’re wooden after all, but it misses.  Marja sends three magic missiles searing into the abbots body.  Niall approaches and pins him in the corner.  Kel rushes forward and speaks.  “Renounce your evil and return to Corean.”  The abbot begins to cry.  “My Althea is gone.”  Kels words turn more tender.  “No,” he says, “Her spirit is in this place.  I have seen her.”The abbot reaches out and touches Borin who is still, fortunately, protected from evil.  Deke flies around to the abbot’s back and stabs him with his rapier, but the wound heals as soon as he removes the blade.  Borin and Lucre both swing with wooden stakes, but both miss as do Kenyan and Niall. Kel swings his longsword and feels it snap a collarbone in two.  “Think of your wife,” he says.  “She longs for you to return to her.  Embrace Corean, and you will be together again.”  The abbot looks almost like he might relent.  Kel feels that if he can only reach out to him a little longer, his faith would return.  Kel reaches out with his healing touch.  He sees the glowing rays shoot from his hands and burn into the abbot’s face.  “Do not serve Corean.  He cannot help you,” the abbot cries.  Kel feels evil wash over him, but he is sure of Corean’s grace.  He feels the gentle touch of Brother Niall behind him and knows that Corean’s love is here.Borin succeeds in pinning the abbot.  Kel offers one last chance for redemption which the abbot answers by trying to turn into mist, but Borin’s grip can not be shaken.  Finally, Borin holds a steak firmly against the abbot’s chest, and Kel raises his sword.  “Corean forgive us both,” he whispers to the abbot.  He brings the hilt of his sword down hard against the steak.  The abbot crumples.Borin jumps up to his feet and carries the body into the last of the day’s sunlight.  The body shrivels and begins to crumble.  Kel looks out at the horizon and once again sees the figure of the beautiful dark-haired woman on the white horse.  A single tear falls from her cheek, and she turns and rides across the lake.</blockquote>

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