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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sagiro" data-source="post: 6320845" data-attributes="member: 726">Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 392Sister ActTheir sleep is deep and peaceful, untroubled by nightmares or worry, but Aravis has a vision of the surface. It is the most momentous he has had yet.The location – underground, probably?   It’s a place that’s so well protected from divinations, even this vision from the Maze is a bit cloudy around the edges.  But wherever this sanctum lies, it is being assaulted.  The room into which your vision extends has recently seen some immense magical energies.  The rock walls are fractured and scarred. Shattered glasswork is scattered everywhere, and scorched paper scraps still waft here and there through the charged air.  It’s also a bloody mess.  Bodies litter the floor, killed by means various and gruesome.  Judging from their descriptions, you guess that five of them were the adventuring group led by the siblings Jerzembeck and Junaya, whose vital missions for the Spire never brought them into the Company’s sphere.  Others you are saddened to recognize more clearly. The golden head of Five Silent Crow has been crumpled like tin, as if it had imploded in on itself.  Isabel Horn is a statue, her left arm broken off at the elbow.  The bodies of Anhaya Sunblossom and the Pikonish priestess Cornelia are scorched ruins.   Attrius and Portia, the bodyguards assigned to keep you safe at Verdshane, seem to have hacked one another apart, judging by their wounds and bloody blades.  Sagiro Emberleaf’s sprawled body is in better shape than some of the others, but his left leg from thigh to ankle is charred to the bone.  His face has been scalded and half of his moustache has been burned away.In fact, only two beings seem to still be alive in this chamber. One is Parthol Runecarver, injured but not near fatally.  He dusts off his robes and stretches his neck, then smiles cruelly at the kneeling man before him.  That man is Tor Bladebearer, who looks like he was rendered solidly paralyzed in the act of standing up.  An ornate flaming sword is gripped tightly in his right hand, a useless appendage to the statue Tor has become.“Well, wasn’t that interesting,” says Parthol.   “Twelve against one, and you still couldn’t manage it.   None of you could even lay a hand on me!  You just weren’t in my league.  Though if it makes you feel better, you wouldn’t have bested Naradawk, either.”He idly flicks a piece of fallen ash from Tor’s shoulder.  “But now my job has become more difficult.  At least you would have weakened his forces somewhat.  Now there’s no one of any significant power – myself excepted – standing between Naradawk and complete control of Charagan.   I’m going to have to spend more serious effort and firepower taking the place over from him.  What an annoyance!  I hope you feel good about yourself… Tor, is it?  Or would you prefer Darien?”Tor, of course, says nothing.“I suppose I could leave you alive,” he says.  “You and Isabel are both salvageable.  But no, now that you’ve found a way to breach my defenses, I can’t let you live.  Naradawk might capture you and make you squeal.  I suppose I really do have to make an end of you.”He puts a hand on Tor’s head.  “I might as well try this first,” he says.  “It worked for Glade and Royce, eventually.”  He casts disintegrate, and sweat pours down Tor’s face, the only sign of the pain he feels.“If I run out of disintegrates before you’re dead, what should I try then?” asks Parthol.  “Would you think less of me if I just magic missiled you to death?”  He casts another disintegrate, and again Tor resists, but his eyes are bloodshot and watery.“Third time’s the charm, they say,” says Parthol.  But before he can invoke another spell, he himself seizes up, his eyes going wide with surprise.  On the ground behind him, Sagiro’s body has dragged itself over to lie next to Parthol’s feet.  Sagiro’s eyes are still closed, his mouth hanging slack, but his right hand has reached out, seemingly of its own volition, and closed around Parthol’s ankle.Parthol straightens, takes a step back, and waves his hand. Tor feels the paralysis lift, and surges to his feet.  Your vision of the scene suddenly becomes much sharper, clearer.“Gah,” says Parthol.  “That’s the first time I’ve ever gotten someone unconscious to move.  It’s a sickening feeling, honestly."His body convulses, his arms bending at painful angles, his facial muscles contorting wildly.“Sooner would be better,” Parthol gasps.  “He’s resisting something fierce.  I think I’ve removed all of his abjurations and resistances, but damn, his mind is strong!  He’ll have them back in less than a minute.”Tor nods, and cocks his sword over his shoulder in anticipation of a tremendous swing.  It blazes with enchantments infused into it by scrolls from the Vault.  “Farazil, by the power invested in me as a Knight of the Spire Guard, I hereby grant you citizenship in the Kingdom of Charagan, with all its attendant duties and protections.”  So saying, he brings his sword down upon the possessed and defenseless Parthol Runecarver, and shears the head from the old wizard’s shoulders.A cheer goes up from the Company at hearing Aravis recount his dream.  Their mercy toward Farazil has been amply rewarded.  But two troubling truths go unspoken.  First, that the ability of their friends on the surface to resist Naradawk has just been badly diminished.  And second, that none of this will matter if they fail to stop Seven Dark Words from awakening or summoning the Adversary.Kibi finds he can stone shape an exit from the dome with the merest thought.  A smooth, wide boulevard now stretches away to the east.  As they prepare for what could be the day of confrontation with the Evil Trio, casting spells and making plans, Morningstar notes that Laramon’s Jade Clover is still warm, and may be a little bit warmer than it was yesterday.They step out of the dome, and the rank radiation of Essence strikes them.  Dranko’s head prickles uncomfortably.  Wind walk fails to function, and even phantom steed fails;  no spell will work if it invokes something misty or insubstantial. Kibi is not surprised. This is the Deep Earth.“We started out on foot,” says Ernie.  “We’ll finish this on foot.”It feels good to have their boots on solid stone, and they march, their last march, to face the greatest danger Abernia has ever known.  The heat of Essence grows stronger as they go, battering their protection from evil spells.  Ernie stands in front, the Ward of Drosh around his neck allowing them to progress.  Without it, none of them would be able to take even a single step forward.Then, up ahead, the passage widens, and some three hundred feet distant it ends at a flat black wall.  In the very center of that wall is something shiny and white, but they’re too far away to make out any details.  Dranko, whose sight is keenest, peers into the gloom as they approach, and what at first is just a white oval against a dark background, resolves into a face.  The corridor widens further, and now they are only a hundred feet from the black wall.  The length of the wall they can see, stretching across the entire width of a small cavern, is mildly convex to them, as though it’s only one small section of a great circular barrier.  The gleaming white face, twenty feet in diameter, is dead center to them, as if set to watch this very approach.  The wall is dead black, giving no cues of depth, and the marble face is unnaturally clean, such a pure white that its features are hard to make out.  The only thing that gives shape to the face are little black dots that slide across its cheeks, its forehead, its eyeballs.The wall, they realize, is made of pure congealed Essence.  And embedded into it, is the head of the Sister God Wlaqua.Closer now. Wlaqua’s enormous white marble eyes dart back and forth, and its mouth opens.  She lets out a terrible howl, filled with anguish, frustration and shame.“Well, look at that,” says Grey Wolf.  “It’s warning someone that we’re here.”He casts indomitability on Kibi.Dranko and Flicker move forward together, though it’s not clear how they might flank something set into a wall.  The eyes swivel to watch them, and Wlaqua screams, “Gooooo baaaaaack!”Magical energies blast outward from Wlaqua’s head, striking most of the Company.  Morningstar’s mind status spell pings: something has tried to dominate Kibi, but failed. It pings again, as Dranko resists a feeblemind.  Ernie is turned to stone.  Grey Wolf resists a disintegrate but suffers minor burns.  And Dranko… Dranko starts to caper and prance, struck by Otto’s Irresistible Dance.“Flee for your lives!” screams Wlaqua.  “Go back!”“You’ve made a terrible mistake,” Morningstar says to Her. “We’re here to restore things.”“Yes!” agrees Wlaqua, Her voice desperate. “You have to slay me, but you can’t!  I’m a God!”Aravis casts protection from spells upon Grey Wolf, Flicker, Morningstar and himself.  Morningstar casts holy aura on everyone.  Kibi uses break enchantment to restore Ernie to flesh, before quickening xorn movement and sinking into the ground.Ernie (who felt his skin grow hard for a moment, but who must have resisted a petrification) casts mass doughy folk, giving all of his allies further protection.“Can’t we circumvent you by finding another way through the wall?” he asks Wlaqua.“They’ve placed me at the weak spot!” She screams. “It’s the way they went through.  It’s the only way to…. Aughhhh!”  She shrieks louder, as though some painful compelling force cut Her off, not wanting Her to say more.Grey Wolf casts ironstorm, centered on Wlauqa’s head. Flicker runs forward, thinking Dranko is by his side.  “Come on, Dranko, keep up!  Can’t you… oh, for the Gods’ sake.” “I’m sorry” Wlaqua screams.  She erupts with another burst of magic energy. Flicker sags, struck by a potent energy drain.  Ernie feels his own energy drain forced out of his own mind and cast back upon him, though – thanks to the Spell Resistance granted by Morningstar’s holy aura, he is unaffected by it.  Aravis resists feeblemind and Ernie shrugs off hold monster.  Dranko is stripped of his own highest level spell:  cure serious wounds.Aravis casts maze on Wlaqua.  To all of their surprise, the Head vanishes.  It doesn’t leave a hole behind, just more solid black oozing Essence.  It seems that it’s not Wlaqua’s severed head that fights them, but merely her sliced-off face.The Company moves forward, but Wlaqua soon reappears.  Even in death, the Sister God radiates a furious power that competes with the evil of the wall of Essence. They’re not sure they have the wherewithal to harm Her, and eventually Her magical blasts will prove  too much for them.They need help, and Morningstar knows how to summon it.  She casts miracle. “Yavin!” she shouts.  “We face your Sister. She is insane. We require your assistance.”There is a ripple of power in front of Morningstar, so strong that the ground shakes and the air ripples, though the Black Wall doesn’t react at all.  A being appears in front of Morningstar, a twenty foot black marble giantess holding a black sword.It is the Sister God Yavin, and She is dead. Her black body is riddled with holes, and large pieces have been hacked out of Her, leaving weeping wounds.  One of her eyes has been gouged out, and the gap where it once was goes nearly all the way through her head.“Sister!” wails Wlaqua. “I killed you, and I’m sorry!”“I am sorry too,” says Yavin. “But it appears I have been given another chance to set things right. You were very, very foolish, Sister. You knew what you were dealing with.  Are you at all surprised?”“Have mercy, Sister!” screams Wlaqua.Yavin looks down upon Morningstar. “You have brought me back from the Necroplis of Naslund,” she says, her voice powerful but underscored with cracks. “My time here is very short. What would have me do?”“When You go back, take Your sister with You,” says Morningstar.“I cannot.  She can only go if She is dead, but the Adversary’s foul power keeps Her alive.”“Then we need to get through this wall,” says Morningstar. “Right where Your Sister is.”Yavin understands. She raises her enormous black sword.  “I take no pleasure in this,” She says to Wlaqua.  And the Sister God Yavin, who once resolved conflicts peacefully but who in death is freed from that tenet, takes a mighty swing at Wlaqua’s head. A large chunk of white marble is knocked free from Her cheek, and it lands on the ground with a heavy thud. More, a spider-web of cracks appears, running through the entire Head, and it no longer radiates its aura of indomitability.Yavin steps back and motions to Her sister, while Wlaqua screams in pain.Kibi casts cone of cold, and it clearly damages the Head. Aravis casts a maximized chain lightning into the ironstorm and Wlaqua screams again.  “Let me introduce you to Ell.” Morningstar closes, quickens divine power, and strikes once with Ell’s Will.  It knocks another piece out Wlaqua’s head.  “It hurts, it hurts!” She cries, and though Her pain is genuine, the Company thinks Her voice also sounds almost encouraging, as though She wants them to hurry and make an end of Her.Dranko strikes with his whip, and Grey Wolf dissolves most of Wlaqua’s nose with a acid orb.  The black spots on Wlaqua’s face roil, and sympathetic lesions burst out on Yavin’s dead countenance.“I’m sorry!” Wlaqua shrieks.  “It’s not me that’s doing i!”“It is you, Sister,” says Yavin. “You made this happen, and now you are paying the price of it.”Once more Wlqaua unleashes magical energies on her attackers.   Aravis is set to dancing, and Flicker is struck blind, but everyone else resists the various effects.Dranko lines up his whip strikes more carefully this time, and connects twice, knocking a hole straight through Her cheek.  They can see the Black Wall behind it.  Kibi pops up from the ground and casts greater dispel magic on Aravis, curing him of his unwanted disposition to tango.  Aravis immediately casts disintegrate, and the Head fails to resist.  The entire thing flashes and becomes a gritty white powder, falling to the ground like a bucket of white sand upended by a giant.“I’m sorry, Milady,” says Dranko to Yavin.“Thank You for Your help,” adds Ernie.“You are welcome,” says Yavin, “but this is no longer my place.” She nods, and vanishes.…to be continued…</blockquote>

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