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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Medriev" data-source="post: 4895466" data-attributes="member: 21864">Chapter 23 - Lost Souls (Part 5)Dulvarna looked back toward the two elves and the ghost beyond them and knew that the battle was becoming increasingly desperate. She felt the voices of the souls trapped in the black walls tearing at her mind while blood flowed down her side from the scimitar wound she had suffered. The skeleton before her snarled as she parried another of its blows but then Dulvarna swept her blade around to the right and smashed it into the creature’s side. It lurched into the wall but then brought the two scimitars in its left arm sweeping down and into Dulvarna’s hip. The warrior woman lurched to her left and into the wall herself, the skeleton’s other scimitars sweeping down where she had been standing. Then she sensed movement to her left and, looking down, she saw Thorn, now in human form, stirring. His eyes opened and his face sharpened into the half-wolf features of his ancestry. For a moment, Dulvarna though that the battle was not yet over but then a terrible shrieking filled her head from the other end of the corridor. She looked past Lavren and Telkya and met the eyes of the elf spirit and knew that she faced her doom.Enlishia managed to raise her bow and fire at the ghost at the far end of the passage, sending an arrow and then another through its insubstantial form. Still she could not make her legs move her forward to aid her companions. Beside her, Erlmoor stood similarly paralysed but softly, he was uttering prayers to Lathander to save their friends. As Enlishia raised her bow again, she saw the elf spirit pass from view only for the four armed skeleton that Erlmoor had faught to step across into the opening. It snarled at the ranger and the paladin and as it did, another of the creatures passed behind it and then moved to stand beside it. If they were to reach their friends, Enlishia realised, there would be a fierce battle. Suddenly, a shower of light motes lit up the dark corridor before the ranger and then another just in front of it. Telkya and Lavren appeared in the passageway and promptly slumped against the wall, as tired and shaken as Erlmoor and Enlishia were.“We had to get out,” Telkya said in a weak voice, turning toward Enlishia with tears in her eyes. “We had to get out.” Enlishia could only nod as tears filled her own eyes. Dulvarna and Thorn were trapped beyond the doors and surely lost.Dulvarna looked down at Thorn as he tried to gather the strength to stand and knew that she had to defend him for as long as she could. She lashed out at the skeleton, smashing more of its ribs and driving her blade into its spine. It staggered back a step and snarled as a chip of bone fell from its back but then it lashed its scimitars downward and though Dulvarna parried quickly, one nicked her left shoulder and another cut open her left arm. She fell back again, desperately trying to get her legs to move but they would not. The warrior woman nodded and silently thanked Lathander for the life that she had had, however short it had been. She would die here beside a druid of the Hullack in the fervent hope that her companions escaped this terrible prison.Erlmoor raised his voice in prayer and propped his sword up against his right shoulder. Raising his left hand, he finished the prayer and from his outstretched fingers, poured ribbons of light. The skeletons in the doorway shrank back from the divine power and the ribbons seared between them to strike the black wall of the passage at their backs. Both raised their scimitars and snarled what might have been a challenge to the four adventurers that had escaped. Erlmoor tried desperately to get his legs to drive him forward but still they would not obey him and he knew that every moment he could not move took Thorn and Dulvarna closer to their end. Enlishia’s bow sang again and again, sending arrows along the corridor. One drove into the neck of one of the skeletons but still the creatures snarled at the helpless friends. Then, from down the corridor came another terrible shriek from one of the elf spirits and the four companions shrank back, fearful for the fate of their friends.Dulvarna staggered back as the second ghost shrieked again. The sound tore at her mind and dimly, she felt a trickle of blood flow from her left ear. To her left, she saw a flash of flame engulf one of the ghosts and realised that her companions still fought for her despite the hopelessness. She smiled to herself as she parried another of the skeleton’s scimitars but then she heard the howl of the other ghost. She looked to her left and saw the creature lunging forward, its skin peeling back from its face and the white of its skull beneath. Dulvarna staggered again and from somewhere near the doors she heard a crack as another spell assailed her enemies. It would not be enough, she knew, and looked down at Thorn, who would die beside her. The druid shifted to wolf form as she watched and leapt at the skeleton but the undead creature danced back easily, beyond the reach of Thorn’s snapping jaws. Dulvarna roared in anger and surged at the skeleton, raising her blade above her head as she did so. She twisted around the thrust of a scimitar and then brought her blade down, smashing through the creature’s skull and cleaving into its neck beneath. The skeleton wobbled and then collapsed into a pile of loose bones. With faint hope suddenly returning to her, Dulvarna turned and roared at the ghosts that blocked her path to her friends.“For Eveningstar!” she called out, and charged the translucent figures.Erlmoor heard Dulvarna’s battle cry and knew that it signalled a last, desperate charge. He roared and forced his legs to move as he bade them. Raising his sword, he roared again and then charged at the skeletons.“For Eveningstar!” he shouted, and around him, the others took up the cry.Enlishia moved in front of the dragonborn, loosing arrows as she advanced that drove into the skeletons. From somewhere ahead of the companions, the elf spirits howled again and almost as though she stood near them, the friends heard Dulvarna’s battle cry die away into a scream of agony. The skeletons beyond the doors twirled their scimitars about them in anticipation of the renewed battle to come and one by one, the battle cries of the four faded as Dulvarna’s had. Telkya hurled a bolt of divine light from her amulet that flashed past the skeletons and then she turned to block Erlmoor’s path, tears flowing freely down her cheeks.“We have to go,” she said softly. “They died so that we might escape.”The dragonborn paused and let his sword drop toward the floor. Behind Telkya, Lavren hurled another blast of eldritch energy into one of the skeletons and drove it back into the far wall of the passage. He turned back to look at his wife and the paladin, tears filling his eyes as well.“We cannot leave them,” he said desperately. “Dulvarna has led us from the beginning.”“And she has saved us now,” Telkya answered, her voice breaking.“That she has,” Erlmoor said quietly. “That she has.”The dragonborn raised his head to the ceiling and let out a terrible roar of grief, of anger and perhaps of promised vengeance. Then he turned away from the others and made his way slowly back up the passageway and away from his oldest friend.</blockquote>

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