Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jon Potter" data-source="post: 5060203" data-attributes="member: 2323">[PLAIN][Realms #503] Race to the Finish, part 2[/PLAIN]Not taking his eyes off the distant carpet of rats, Maleko dug in his pocket and produced a tiny vial that he held out to Ledare. It was little bigger than a shot glass with a stopper of pewter worked into the delicate shape of a hummingbird. "Ledare, with this potion you can Fly safely to Morier," the elf said, turning to look her in the eyes. "I will cast Expeditious Retreat and evade this rat swarm." The Janissary balked, gently but firmly pushing the vial aside."I won't leave you to-" she began but the mage-priest cut her off, thrusting the tiny bottle back into her hands."I have the power to protect myself," he said with total confidence. His apprehensive glance back toward the smoke from his burning Web gave away the truth of the matter: he was afraid, perhaps more so than he had ever been in his life. But he was trying to conceal it and Ledare could appreciate that. She'd known trained soldiers who quailed in the face of the enemy and did less to hide it than Maleko was."Go and do not look back," he explained firmly and she acquiesced. "I knew Morier would surround himself with capable allies," she told the elf as she took the bottle and pulled the stopper. "Well done!" She brought the bottle to her lips, inhaling its fragrance - like boiled chicken - as she did so. The translucent yellow liquid was on her tongue by the time Maleko drew the proper roll of parchment from his Infinite Scrollcase. She felt a sensation of effervescent lightness spread through her body as he began to intone the spell on the scroll, and as that scroll crumbled to dust in the elf's hands, Ledare had lifted off the ground and was Flying away up the leg of the God Isle."Run while you can!" Ledare heard the rats squeaking somewhere behind her. "There's no where for you to go!"Morier flew along at an exhilarating, dizzying speed, up the thickening peninsula of the statue's leg, and thence over twisted shapes that seemed imprisoned within the surface of the stone. He could glimpse them only in passing, but they seemed like stone statues of animals and people, half-fused to the rock as though they had been partially trapped when the god isle formed. There was a profound sadness in their frozen stillness, and Morier was glad when the growths gave way to the smooth hillock of the island's belly.He shot upward, tracing the gentle curve as it steepened and when he crested its crown he had a strange, ant's eye few down the rocky torso. He could see the dark crater that was his destination some miles away, an ugly wound between the mountainous breasts. Seen from here it seemed ominous indeed, a rent that should have shown the inside of the god isle but instead showed only darkness.As he paused, contemplating the view the ground beneath him and all along the slope of the belly began to crack and crumble. And from each patch of disturbed soil arose a creature of wood. Here rose a lion, there a trio of wolves, over there a crocodile of prodigious size - all made of living wood. Their limbs lacked joints or seams, but they moved with a whip-like speed just the same, creaking and groaning as they pulled themselves from the ground. The thorny horrors that served them as mouths left little doubt as to their intent and Morier willed himself away at once, easily outdistancing the strange, wooden creatures.The ability to fly was exhilarating, or rather it would have been if Ledare's thoughts hadn't been consumed by the fact that Morier would easily reach their goal before she and Maleko did, making them of no help to the eldritch warrior. It was also darkly amusing that Maleko, running on foot below, was quickly outdistancing her.  She had momentary visions of herself in her Janissary plate struggling to keep up with Finian and Kirnoth. Of course, Maleko was exerting a lot of energy running and Flying took only as much effort from Ledare as walking.It was perhaps a minute or two later that Maleko was forced to slow his pace as the headlong charge took its toll. Ledare began to close the gap and was thinking that she might catch him in another minute or so when an expanding wave of sepia energy washed over them, dispelling both Fly and Expeditious Retreat.Ledare felt the buoyancy go out of her body and she dropped gradually to the ground. Ahead of her she saw Maleko stumble and fall prone, propelled by his own momentum. Once she landed, she raced over to him."What was that?" she asked the mage as she helped him to his feet. Maleko straightened his clothes and smoothed his hair."An Epic Dispelling, I think," he said, sounding a bit winded from his run. "But magic at that level is purely theoretical. I don't know of any wizard who's passed the Ninth Circle limitation and you'd need to transcend that in order to cast magic of that magnitude.""Perhaps Morier's reached the heart?" Ledare suggested and Maleko nodded."Perhaps," he agreed. "What do we do now? I have another scroll of Expeditious Retreat but I can only cast it on myself. And I don't have another Potion of Flying."Ledare looked around. There was no sign of the pursuing rats, but she didn't suppose that truly meant they'd abandoned the chase. Ahead and to the left, at the limits of her vision she saw a strange warren of twisted statues. The strange misty quality of the air on the astral plane obscured them in part, but they seemed like stone statues of animals and people.Those statues blocked the shortest path to their goal, and circumventing them would add time to their journey.He made good time in vapor form and covered the distance between belly and breast in well under a minute. His attention was drawn to the vast black pit that filled the floor of the valley between the two stoney drumlins. The void seemed to fill his senses and tug at his guts, gaping, waiting to-His thoughts stopped abruptly as an expanding wave of sepia energy washed over him, dispelling his Wind Walk (and, he realized belatedly, his Owl's Wisdom as well). He became solid and flew through the air at great speed for another thirty feet before plowing into the rocky ground and tumbling grotesquely along it for another fifteen. It would have killed anyone else, but Morier had the Heart and it protected him from most injury. Still, the crash was disorienting and it took him a few moments to collect himself and get unsteadily to his hand and knees."Sorry about that," a woman said from his left. He looked up and saw the speaker standing nearby. She was beautiful in a dark, unearthly way that was at once disturbing and arousing. Her hair was a wild mane of black locks and her eyes burned with a dark intensity that made the eldritch warrior's limbs go weak. And her eyes commanded his attention so much that for several moments he didn't notice that she was utterly naked apart from a leather cloak that was clasped at her throat and trailed down over grave-pale shoulders. In her hands she carried a greatsword in a sheath of leather that seemed to be perpetually crumbling away into dust though it never fell entirely to pieces.She smiled and took a languid, enticing step forward. "Sometimes I forget my own strength," she said lightly.Morier felt another wave of apprehension turn his guts to water. He'd felt this before. Before he'd gotten the Heart, when they'd been confronted by Dridana's demiurge. There was no mistaking the Primal Dread he felt. And it could only mean one thing.Whoever this was... whatever she was... in some part at least, she was a god.</blockquote>

Verification