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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 4869165" data-attributes="member: 143">Thus far I'm keeping the new project a surprise. I'll start a new thread with a teaser post in the near future. * * * * * Chapter 62Gral would have liked more time to examine the dagger they’d recovered from the chamber of blood, but duty was duty, and as soon as he heard Vhael’s shout he placed it within the rune circle.  The runes flared into life, erupting with a soft yellow glow that filled the circle and limned the dagger.  The wizard could feel the power gathering; it tingled on his skin.  Then the dagger abruptly disappeared, and a roar, louder and deeper than Vhael’s shout, echoed through the complex.Turning, he saw that the water in one of the pools had come alive.  A swirling vortex had caught up the water, which rose up out of the basin, taking on form, extending toward him. Carzen almost casually tossed the carved wooden mask into the rune circle.  He was wary as the runes lit up, but knew enough to keep his distance and leave it alone.  But when the mask disappeared and an ugly roar sounded through the open doors, he reached for his sword and turned toward the far exit, toward the rendezvous that Vhael had set.  But between him and the doors a pair of odd mechanical devices had appeared, dropping down from openings in the ceiling that he would have sworn had not been there a minute ago.  The mechanisms, attached to some machinery hidden within the ceiling, swiveled around, revealing steel-tipped bolts that came to point unerringly at Carzen’s chest.  Gez did what he was supposed to do when he heard Vhael’s shout.  He didn’t want to touch the book in his bare hands, so he’d wrapped it in his cloak.  He didn’t even want to hold it, but he followed orders, and once the signal was given he quickly set it down in the rune circle and stepped back.  He was amazed by the sudden glow from the runes, but it wasn’t enough to make him linger.  He was already running toward the far exit toward the rendezvous when the book disappeared.  The roar caught his attention, but it was followed by a closer, more terrible cry that seemed to come from the carved columns around the edges of the room, filling the place with a sound that echoed off the walls until it reached a deafening crescendo.  The sound filled Gez’s head, pounding like a hammer and scattering reason like an explosion.  He veered off his course, running in a blind panic through the open doors into the central corridor.  A rumbling noise drew his attention, and he looked up to see a huge orb of black death bearing down upon him.  Once he’d given the signal, Vhael placed the golden bell within the circle and turned to depart.  He glanced at the sealed doors as the runes began to glow, and hesitated.  Yes, they were beginning to open, but slowly, incrementally, the gap between them emerging as a narrow crack.  It would take a while for the doors to open enough to let anyone through, he realized; he’d been right not to have the group rush here upon initiation of the ritual, hoping to escape the Guardian through sheer speed. That thought reminded him of his own role to play.  He’d deliberately given himself the most distance to cover to the rendezvous.  The bell had vanished, and a terrible roar reached his ears through the open doors at the far end of the hall.  But as he turned, he saw that the bones of the assorted skeletons had started to reform, drawn together by the same magic that suffused this place.  His delay had proven costly; even as he ran across the room the still-forming skeletons reached for him, trying to stop his escape.  He made it almost to the far doors when a skeletal hand closed around his ankle, almost bringing him down.  Turning, he smashed down his sword, doing once more what he’d done before, crushing the ancient bones into powder.  He tore free, but the skeleton started reforming almost at once, the bones crawling together of their own volition.  Another claw scraped at him, but Vhael dodged back, and then he was through, and at the doors.  As he dove through them into the outer corridor, he looked up at a scene that sent a spike of horror through him.  Surina knew that the others had completed the ritual when the roar from the mouth of the shaft shook the chamber.  Vhael had expected a quick response, but when she stepped forward to the edge of the pit, a globe of fire materializing in her hand, she could already sense it coming, surging up the shaft, even in the darkness that seemed to press up against the light in the room above.  The warlock kicked the altar stones perched upon the edge of the pit; balanced as precariously as they were, they toppled forward easily and vanished into the darkness.  No sooner had they disappeared out of her view than Surina heard another roar, this one tinged with anger and pain.  She drew back from the pit, drawing her magic into her, tasting the sweetness of it, the purging power that filled her and made all else seem pale by comparison.  The Guardian burst from the shaft, the barrier at the top slowing it for barely a fraction of a second before it was clear, the force of its rage focused on the dragonborn warlock who stood alone before it.</blockquote>

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