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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Altalazar" data-source="post: 3095339" data-attributes="member: 939">Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Thirty-Four – Seeing the Forest for the Dracolisks    We continued up the path toward the abbey, moving cautiously, spreading out on the old cobblestone road.  The land around it was very rough and untended, making us wary of ambush.  As we got closer, we saw the old white stone steps that led up to the entrance of the abbey.  Just before it there were trees from a long-untended forest.  Ee suddenly got the look in his eye that told me he saw something he could kill.      “Me kill!” Ee shouted and then ran toward the trees to our right.  Morwen followed him, as did Kyrnyn and his owl.  I found myself sitting in the middle of the road, our left flank exposed, when I heard from the trees to the left a low growling.      “Perfect,” I thought to myself.  “Leave the lawyer alone for melee.  I could really use a champion of my own right now to protect me while my companions run off.”  Then a stabbing pain shot through my mind, and I saw bright flashes of light filling my vision.  I worried what strange attack this beast was making on me, but the beast was not yet there.  I looked around in confusion.  Then the beast really was upon me, and I dropped and rolled, its long stream of acid breath narrowly missing me.  I turned around from my roll and looked up at the beast in the sky, a black beast that reminded me of the black dragon we had fought, and yet was slightly different.  From the mind of the owl came the word “Dracolisk,” a cross between a dragon and a basilisk.  The beast seemed to be surrounded by a halo of white light as it flew over me, and then I blinked and the halo of light took the form of a female warrior, a Valkyrie of good, a champion of light, flying in the air right next to the dracolisk.      “Where’d she come from?” I wondered aloud as she swung her mighty, shining greatsword again and again against the hide of the foul beast, matching its flight with her own.      I watched, open mouthed, as they fought, taking the time only to strengthen the shield protecting myself as the battle ensued in the sky above me until finally, the beast above fell to the earth below.      Meanwhile, to my right, my companions were slowly killing the other, similar beast, wearing her down as she slowly retreated.  My champion then landed before me, knelt and said to me with her mind, “My name is Valaria, and I am here to serve you in the fight against evil in all its forms.”      Her beauty was overwhelming, as was her strength.  I gazed upon her a moment and said, “go up toward that abbey on the hill, to its entrance.  Tell me of any evil intent you feel as you walk and especially as you stand before its massive doors.”      “It shall be done,” she said with a thought and she began walking the path toward the abbey.  It almost seemed as if her feet never quite touched the ground.          Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Thirty-Five – The path to the abbey ends with danger    My companions slayed the other beast, and were beginning to search for its spoils as my Champion Valaria ascended the cobbled stone stairs to the abbey.  She reported back to me with her mind that there was nothing she could sense, right up until she reached the doors themselves.  Then she said, “I sense something, very faint.  It is almost as if…”    Then the doors burst open and a mighty beast burst forth, almost knocking Valaria from her feet.  The beast had two heads and was quite large, seemingly covered in shiny metallic plates that glistened in the sunlight.  Valaria bravely engaged it with her mighty greatsword, while sending me another warning.  “There is another inside.”      True to her word, another beast stepped forth, a large, two headed humanoid twisted into a fiendish grimace of hatred.  He also engaged Varalria, who bravely stood against them both.      By now, my companions had realized that there was another fight, and put their searches on hold to charge into the fray.  I slowly walked toward the abbey as well, watching Valaria fight with undisguised amazement and pride.      Kyrnyn was the first to reach her, charging up the steps, the ground shaking with every move as Kyrnyn had once again taken on the might of his god, making him as tall as the ettin.  Kyrnyn reached the ettin’s pet and slashed it with a mighty blow, sending its entrails flying down the steps.  The beast roared a roar of agony, and then let loose its foul breath, enveloping Kyrnyn and Valaria in its fetid embrace.      Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Thirty-Six – Kyrnyn makes a handsome statue    When the air cleared, Kyrnyn was standing still, his tone now brown and stony, his arms still raised in the triumphal pose from his mighty blow against the beast.  He had been petrified, solid as a rock.  Worried, I tried to see if Valaria had met a similar fate, but she seemed completely unfazed.  Her voice warmed my mind, “fear not, my master, such things cannot affect me.”      My reverie was broken as arrows from Ee whizzed past my head, finding purchase in the beast’s thick hide, sending it sprawling to the cobbled path.  It was then I noticed Morwen standing behind it, the beasts foul ichor dripping from her rapier.      Morwen and Valaria then chased down the ettin as he slowly tried to make his escape, finally cutting him down.  I could not take my eyes off the statue of Kyrnyn as I realized that the only one of us capable of restoring him was Kyrnyn himself.  I quickly reached out my mind to one of Tuvstarr’s apprentices, and informed her of our plight.      I asked her to either find Tuvstarr or someone who could teleport to our location and restore our petrified companion, and that we had good coin if that was needed.  Her apprentice said she knew exactly who to get.    Ee pointed his rod of wonder at the statue of Kyrnyn again and again, hoping for a beneficial result.  Instead it rained, it made the air shimmer with color, and finally, it changed Ee’s entire form a rather startling bright green, but Kyrnyn remained what he was, a giant statue of an orc.      Meanwhile, the ettin gone, I suddenly saw appear from nothing a large, beautiful, white unicorn.  It bowed down before the owl, then walked up the steps, a scroll clenched in its teeth.  It murmured white words of magic and the scroll crumbled to dust.  Tendrils of magic wrapped themselves around the statue, melting into it and starting to turn Kyrnyns stone back to flesh, but then the tendrils suddenly broke and fell away like water splashing out of a broken pot.      At that moment, the air shimmered and Tuvstarr appeared.    “Oh, I see what you need,” she said, and she began to recite words of arcane power.  This time, the tendrils of magic found purchase in Kyrnyn’s stony form, and he became himself, or rather, he became himself, turned into an orc, made twelve feet tall.      Ee asked Tuvstarr, “you fix me too?”  She nodded and spoke again, magic enveloping Ee, but he stayed stubbornly green.  “I’m sorry Ee,” she said.      “That ok,” Ee replied, “Me can hide in grass good!”      I suggested to Tuvstarr that she could undertake further research about this, and she readily agreed, excited.  I also offered her a copy of my journal with the promise from her that she would return it once she made her own copy.  Now she would know all about our travels and exploits.  That could be helpful some day.  She may see things in the weave of intrigues we call our lives that we do not.  She then vanished in a shimmer of light.      “I must depart now too, master,” Valaria said as well, and she too vanished in a shimmer of light.  As she faded away, her voice in my mind lingered, “call on me when you have need of me, I will always be there…”      Sir Cordozo – Chapter One-Hundred Thirty-Seven – Smelly, rotten, tall, golden throne    Thus restored, we peered through the large open doors to the abbey.  Inside was a large room with a large golden throne.  It stank like rotten meat and statues that I suspected were something more flanked us in alcoves by the entry.  Morwen searched the room and found a hidden compartment on the east wall that contained a small pearl on a golden chain.  Doors faced us to the right and left.  I wondered what foul beasts would spring forth when we approached either of them.      “After you, Ee,”</blockquote>

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