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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 4890903" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 73Carzen thrust back a snarling evistro with his shield, and glanced up at the monstrous skeleton lumbering ponderously across the chamber toward them.  “What’s the plan?” he yelled at Vhael, his voice edging just slightly toward shrill panic.  “Hold and fight!” Vhael roared back.  The evistro he’d been fighting launched itself at him again, darting inside the reach of his sword, but he smashed the hilt across its face, crushing its nose and driving it back.  With another roar, he drove the sword down, cutting off half of the demon’s face, sending it spinning around and to the ground.  Somehow the grim thing still lived, but it was not enjoying the experience. Gral unleashed a barrage of icy rays at the skeleton, but the frosty blasts seemed to have little effect upon it, passing through the empty spaces between the bones of its torso.  Vhael lifted his sword to meet it, but the undead monster had an incredible advantage in reach, which it put to good use as it smashed its club down and knocked the warlord clear off his feet.  Vhael was flung back and landed squarely on his back in front of Gral, who helped him back up.  “Hits… hard…” Vhael wheezed.  But he still held onto his sword, and even as he struggled for breath, he started to stagger back forward to reengage.  But before he could regain his place in the line, the evisto he’d crippled sprang forward again, seizing his right arm.  The thing’s face was mangled beyond recognition, and it could only see out of one eye, but it clung to him with desperate strength, pulling him off-balance, tearing at the battered armor that covered the limb with its claws.  Vhael felt sharp, stabbing pains as the demon’s claws savaged his elbow joint.  He tried to break free, to win room to use his sword, but even as grimly hurt as it was the demon’s ferocity seemed unabated, and it held onto him with an iron grip.  The barlgura had followed in the skeleton’s wake, in no great hurry, the demon content to let the undead creation handle the hard work of sundering the enemy’s line.  It was eager to rend, to tear with its oversized claws, but as it ambled forward, it suddenly stumbled, its left leg giving out under it with a sharp stab of pain.  The demon snarled furiously, coming back up quickly into a ready crouch, its claws sweeping out to rend whatever attacker had dared to assault it.  But it caught only empty air, and as it swiveled its squat head around, casting out with its sharp senses, it likewise only found shadows. A guttural growl rumbling in its throat, it turned warily back toward the battle.  The skeleton had engaged, and was blocking the route forward, but its gaze shifted, toward the huge iron cauldron. “Holy crap!” Carzen exclaimed, ducking and just barely managing to avoid the sweeping arc of the giant skeleton’s club.  The evistros had just become a lesser threat by comparison, although they still pressed him, coming in low under his shield in an attempt to take his feet out from under him.  One turned to deal with Jaron, who’d been successfully harrying it with his small sword, but Carzen smacked it with his shin, knocking it roughly over onto its back.  There was no time to follow up with another attack, though, as the skeleton pressed closer, its club coming up in anticipation of a downward stroke that would likely relocate his skull to somewhere between his knees.  “Oh crap,” he muttered.  He started to retreat, formations and defensive lines be damned, but he almost stumbled as the other evistro locked onto his right leg.  It snarled up at him, not bothering to try and worry through the heavy steel greaves he wore, content merely to hold him in place until the skeleton finished its work.  “Oh crap!” he repeated, as the club started its downward arc.</blockquote>

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