Broccli_Head
Explorer
wow..what a short post.
hope the next one doesnt' tease so much
hope the next one doesnt' tease so much
Shackled City Epic: "Vengeance" (story concluded)
- Thread starter Lazybones
- Start date
Lazybones
Adventurer
Broccli_Head said:
I try to get them in between one and four pages of text in Word. At least I post frequently!
* * * * *
Chapter 404
“Give it up, priestess,” the drow said, hefting his rapier. Even though he was approaching, like the others, at a wary and even pace, his arms were twitching, moving quickly, too quickly, and the part of Jenya’s mind that was still allowing rational thought noted the presence of a haste effect.
The struggle against the balor had almost unnerved her, but a sudden calm filled her at that moment, standing alone against the Cagewrights and their minions. When she spoke, there was no hint of a tremor in her voice.
“We will never yield.”
Another arrow struck her, but she barely felt the pain as she uttered a holy word.
The spell had an immediate and significant effect, the echo to the devastating blasphemies spoken by the balor. Two of the three shadow-elves shrieked and dissolved, their forms for a split-second revealed for what they really were, hulking and fearsome death slaad that vanished as they were banished back to the chaos of Limbo. The third elf staggered back, clearly discomfited by the holy word, but a moment later he was gone, obscured by some dark art.
Viirdran was likewise sorely stricken, temporarily losing sight and hearing. He could not hear Kyan calling his name, or see her angrily reach for another of the long, deadly arrows that stuffed her quiver.
Alurad Sorizan was a bit stronger than his peers, and merely lost his hearing briefly, the echo of the holy word sounding inside his skull. That sound merely took up residence among the other voices he heard in there, and he rushed forward, eager to confront this champion of Good who defied Adimarchus.
Of course, in his insane mind, it was he who was Adimarchus, but that was a minor detail in the face of the reality of a charging warrior in full plate waving a big bastard sword about menacingly. His dire badger did not join him, dead or paralyzed from hearing the holy word.
But before he could reach his foe, a golden light flared brightly before the blackguard. It cleared to reveal a massive, perfect figure of a man, its skin a shining gold, white wings spread behind it, a huge sword of white light in its hands. Blocking Alurad’s advance, it extended a hand in warning. “Begone, Cagewright, for these are under My protection.”
Alurad screamed and blindly assaulted the solar, swinging his sword in a violent arc. The celestial surprisingly—and adroitly—jumped back, giving way as “Adimarchus” followed, laughing as he swung at it, just narrowly missing each time.
“A solar!” Kyan Winterstrike breathed, in stunned awe. The arcane archer had faced many odd foes since joining the Cagewrights, but she was beginning to feel a bit overwhelmed. First a balor, and now this!
“It’s an illusion, you gullible fool,” Thifirane said, her voice thick with disgust as she watched Alurad taken in by the ruse. “No doubt the gnome wizard is in there somewhere, directing it, trying to buy some time.” With a wave of her hand and a few words of magic, she dispelled the image. Alurad looked around in confusion, before turning back to his original quarry. Meanwhile, Thifirane screamed as an arrow glanced off of her forehead. Her stoneskin protected her from serious damage, but the holy power of the missile nevertheless had hurt.
“Blast it!” she said, looking up at Cal’s bralani, still flying high above the battlefield, fitting another arrow to its holy bow.
Jenya Urikas knelt over the immobile form of Arun Goldenshield, calling forth the power of her god to purge the lingering effects of the demon’s blasphemy. As Arun stirred, his body gradually returning to his control, she pressed his weapon into his hand.
“We yet face dire enemies!” she said, as the paladin struggled to his feet.
“Do what you can for the others!” Arun said, lifting his sword in time to meet Alurad’s charge. The paladin took the blackguard’s powerful swing on his holy avenger, the two weapons meeting in a flash of energies as the holy power of the paladin’s sword clashed with the corrupt power infused in the blackguard’s blade. For all his variegated forms of madness, the Cagewright was still a master swordsman, and it quickly became clear that his heavy armor—not to mention Arun’s exhaustion—gave him a significant advantage. Arun managed a solid blow that dented the black plates covering Alurad’s right torso, but in turn he took a devastating critical strike that forced him back, blood oozing from a great rent in his stomach.
“Taste the justice of Adimarchus!” the blackguard gleefully intoned.
The shadow-bralani let out a high-pitched cry as a salvo of empowered magic missiles slammed into it, the first contribution to the battle from Ssythar Nahazir. The yuan-ti pureblood was concealed deep within the sheltering foliage of the jungle, perhaps a bit skittish from his recent demise. Thifirane had recognized the true nature of Cal’s creation, and the thing seemed to lose some of its substance as the bolts crashed into it. A moment later it dissolved into wisps of shadowstuff as Kyan impaled it with a perfectly-placed arrow that would have pierced its heart, had it been a true living creature.
Arun felt a chill as something intangible touched the edges of his awareness. Even with Alurad in his face, unleashing powerful if inaccurate swings at him, he sensed that there was another danger here, something nasty moving thought the mélange of smoke and shadows that pressed in upon the halo of light that surrounded his sword.
Alurad lifted his sword to strike again, but a black ray stabbed out from the smoke of the common room, striking the blackguard in the breast. The enervation sapped his life energy, diminishing him, although he proved how dangerous he remained as his blow drove under Arun’s shield and cut a fresh, bleeding gash in his left shoulder.
But then Arun’s wounds suddenly knit together, the dwarf feeling reinvigorated as healing power poured into him. Jenya Urikas, lacking another remove paralysis spell, had instead added her efforts to the fray by casting a mass cure critical wounds. She then attempted to hold Alurad, but the spell had no effect upon the blackguard.
Thifirane Rhiavati, however, had noted the contribution of the high priestess. Ssythar had attempted to balance the scales in the melee between the two champions of light and dark by hitting Arun with his own enervation, but as the beam lanced out at him his holy avenger, seemingly of its own volition, cut into the path of the black ray and absorbed its dark energies.
“The priestess!” Thifirane hissed. “Destroy her!”
“Embril said she was to be taken alive,” Kyan said calmly, as she fired an arrow that knifed into the melee, hitting the paladin in the bicep of his weapon arm.
In the darkness, and with the elf turned away, she could not see the terrible look that crossed Thifirane Rhiavati’s face in that instant. Calling upon the full potency of her magic, she brought her own power to the balance, defying her “superior” in the haphazard hierarchy of the Cagewrights.
Her second disintegrate beam found its target, highlighting Jenya Urikas in a green halo for a moment before the cleric was blasted into oblivion.
Broccli_Head
Explorer
wolff96 said:
Yah...how does a high-level priest fail a Fort save?
Lazybones
Adventurer
Well, Jenya's a solid NPC (16th level cleric), but she isn't tricked-out like the Heroes. With her Con 10 and without any bolstering stat/save items, her +10 Fort save is good, but not awesome. Remember she hasn't had much time to buff... her spell resistance is pretty much it, and while she got lucky with the balor, Thifirane has Spell Penetration.Broccli_Head said:
Thifirane, on the other hand, IS very good at what she does. With fox's cunning up, and her Spell Focus (transmutation), the save for her disintegration is DC23.
So actually, Jenya would have needed better than average luck to make her save.
* * * * *
Chapter 405
Mole watched, wide-eyed, at the titanic struggle developing before her eyes. It was as if she was outside of her own body, a disembodied participant in a drama far beyond her, a legend being written down for bards to share around warm firesides in crowded common rooms on cold winter nights.
Only she was here, now, on a cold night, in a common room that was being destroyed around her. Her friends were still held by the balor’s power, helpless to do anything to affect their fate as they struggled for their lives. She felt her heart pound in her chest as Jenya had faced the balor, releasing the breath she’d been holding when the priestess successfully banished it back to whence it had come.
But then another ambush had followed immediately upon the heels of the first, and Mole saw more enemies emerging from the forest, confident in their victory. She could hear the soft sounds of Cal’s chanting nearby, knew that her uncle was calling on his magic again, adding what he could to the fight. Yet she could only stand there, a mouse hiding in the shadows, surrounded by cats and dogs engaged in a bloody struggle for survival.
Still, a part of her marked each of the enemies, balanced the strengths and weaknesses that she could see, identified the spells they cast, the way they moved. Jenya’s holy word did not affect her, but she reveled in what it did to their enemies. But then the bad guys were coming again, delayed only momentarily by Cal’s illusion. Cal’s shadow-ally distracted the spellcasters in the jungle for a few moments, but then they destroyed it, too, and turned their attention back to the melee. Jenya got Arun on his feet, and then healed him when the enemy warrior had gotten a few good licks in against the virtually unarmored paladin.
All during that, she just stood there, watching. Her crossbow hung neglected at her side, her rapier dangled uselessly from the opposite hip. It was as if she’d forgotten how to move, how to do anything but suck in breaths made painful by the gathered smoke.
And then the enemy wizard disintegrated Jenya Urikas. Jenya, who’d been so welcoming to her and Zenna, when they’d just been strangers in a harsh, foreign city. Jenya, who had healed their wounds so many times, had protected them against the powers of their enemies. Jenya, who had given the people of Cauldron help when so much had been falling apart around them…
It was as if someone had thrown cold water in her face. Shaking, but able to move, the gnome darted out from her shelter, leaping out from the ruined frame of a window. Invisible, silent, she was swallowed up in the nearby undergrowth at the jungle fringe in a matter of seconds.
Arun, healed by Jenya, was holding out against Alurad Sorizan, but his situation was rapidly growing more dire. First, the effects of the high priestess’s holy word were beginning to fade; out of the corner of his eye he could see the drow fighter coming forward again, moving faster as he shook of the lingering blindness effect of the spell, coming to his right around the melee, likely to establish a flanking position. That was bad enough, but they also had allies still concealed in the jungle fringe; he’d already taken one arrow to the shoulder and narrowly avoided several others, and one spell that he’d somehow blocked with his sword. He knew without looking that his friends were still helpless; he’d been hit with a blasphemy before and knew that it took several minutes to fight off the paralysis.
Several minutes may as well have been ten years.
Arun gritted his teeth. Jenya clearly did not have another remove paralysis spell at hand; for whatever reason she’d chosen to use it on him, so it was up to him to hold of the Cagewrights for as long as it took. So he gave ground before Alurad’s assault, forcing the blackguard to follow, not allowing him to get set for a full attack. He did not see Jenya disintegrated, did not know just how alone he was. Another attack from the forest—a blast of ochre magic missiles that he absorbed once more with his sword. There were probably others that he didn’t see—more than once, he felt a sudden icy touch upon his soul, which quickly faded as he fought off whatever it was that tried to affect him. More arrows, which found their way past Alurad as if they’d been launched in anticipation of the blackguard’s movements, darting through Arun’s defenses to score his flesh. Thus far he’d avoided a hit that would have crippled him, but it was only a matter of time before he was too slow, and one pierced something vital. But he also felt his reflexes suddenly increase, his limbs feeling light and agile, and he knew that Cal, at least, was still with him, aiding him from cover.
He’d just darted back from another powerful rush, calling upon Moradin’s power to heal him, when the shadows around him came alive.
At first the paladin thought he was seeing things. But then a wisp of shadow wrapped around him, and he felt pain explode across his back, real pain. He lashed out at another shadow with his sword, but his sword passed through it; it had no substance, was no conjured monster or undead thing.
Arun was too veteran a fighter to let his guard down, but even so he nearly had his head taken off when Alurad leapt in, swinging his sword in a decapitating arc. Luckily he’d donned his helm when he’d hastily left his quarters, but even so he felt a ringing echo in his skull as he staggered back, briefly stunned.
But that pain was nothing compared to the agony that exploded through his side as a shadowy form appeared out of the darkness behind him, sinking a wedge of what felt like frozen death deep into his body.
Lazybones
Adventurer
Chapter 406
Arun felt death brush against his soul as the Cagewright shadar-kai Xokek backstabbed the paladin with his shadow dagger. The semi-substantial blade caressed the paladin’s heart, urging it to cease its unflagging efforts, but the paladin marshaled his will, tearing himself away with a desperate cry. He yet drew breath, but the wound was nevertheless a serious one.
Now, surrounded by two foes who knew how to take advantage, Arun’s situation had grown significantly grimmer.
Cal experienced a similar sensation as a considerable section of ceiling collapsed onto the curving bar of The Lucky Monkey’s common room, showering him with sparks and a rolling cloud of smoke that burned at his lungs as he struggled to draw breath. Thus far he’d remained in a fairly secure position, crouched beneath a heavy table close to the gaping opening created by the balor’s rampage of destruction through the inn. Although the drifting smoke occasionally blocked his view, and he could not discern the enemies that he knew lurked in the nearby forest, he otherwise had a good view of the battlefield. Shrouded by greater invisibility, and protected by various other defensive magics, he was in a perfect position to provide covert magical support with his remaining spells and his considerable arsenal of magical wands.
But Arun was taking a pounding, the others remained helpless to intervene, and the collapse indicated that the security of his redoubt was rapidly becoming untenable.
When he saw the shadowy rogue appear behind the paladin and strike, he thought for a moment that it was all over; the thrust looked deadly. But Arun pulled away, clearly hurt, trying to reset his defenses against two nasty foes.
Cal had been holding a gambit in reserve, a spell that he’d doubted would have worked against the enemy warrior threatening Arun. But against a shifty wizard-rogue…
The gnome’s stratagem proved effective a moment later, as the deadly shadar-kai darted behind Arun with incredible speed, his shadow dagger poised for another sneak attack. Xokek suddenly staggered, his eyes widening as his body collapsed in upon itself, leaving behind another fat, bloated slug.
The drow Viirdran had been about to join the fray when he saw what had happened to his comrade. He bore little concern for the misanthropic Xokek, but he was worried about an enemy magic-user throwing around powerful spells. Scanning the interior of the ruined roadhouse, his keen eyes caught a hint of movement. Viirdran was much more than just a mere warrior, and a brief incantation brought a fireball that blossomed in the wreckage of the building, adding a new intensity to the already spreading fire. The blast also engulfed a few of the helpless enemies still scattered about from the balor’s earlier antics, and caught up both the paladin and Alurad.
Viirdran grinned. A bit of friendly fire couldn’t always be helped.
Just a few dozen feet away, the jungle remained relatively quiet in contrast to the violent battle raging in the ruined roadhouse. Ssythar let out a hiss of frustration as his latest enchantment—another slow spell—again failed to take hold upon the dwarven knight. He considered simply unleashing one of his favorite enchantments, the black tentacles, but he’d faced Alurad’s ire before, and thus he was not quite so casual about engulfing his allies in area-effect spells. He glanced over at Thifirane and Kyan, but there didn’t seem to be much in the way of effective destruction coming from that direction either. The yuan-ti clucked, considering other options…
He never had any warning. Pain exploded through his lower body, and as his legs buckled he fell forward, hands flailing at the surrounding brush in a futile effort to arrest his fall. A thought shouted in his mind… must escape! But his teleport spell was gone, permanently wiped from his mind by the trauma of being raised from death to life.
This time, he wouldn’t get a second chance. He still hadn’t seen his attacker when something sharp tore into his throat, and the last thing he felt was his own hot blood spraying out from his severed jugular, and then… darkness.
Mole didn’t even bother to clean her blade, vanishing back into the jungle.
Arun staggered back, not seeing the shadowy rogue that had stabbed him, unaware of Cal’s intervention on his behalf. The fireball had washed over him, but even though it had overcome the resistance offered by his holy avenger, he hadn’t been seriously injured by the flames.
After all, once you’d been dragged down into molten lava by a massive pyroclastic dragon, regular fire just didn’t seem quite as imposing.
But the fact remained that despite the healing that Jenya had provided before her demise, and his own laying on hands, he was in bad shape. He’d taken hits from numerous sources: Alurad’s sword, the backstab, arrows from the forest. Only the protection against magic provided from his sword had kept him from being blasted by several spells from the hidden casters in the jungle. And he couldn’t keep running from Alurad; he’d seen the drow caster and knew that another enemy was on the way.
But as Arun gave way once again, luring the blackguard after him, Alurad suddenly stopped. Instead of chasing after Arun again, the Cagewright instead shifted a few steps to the side, broken masonry crunching under his heavy boots. Arun recognized his tactic even before he reached his destination: standing over the immobilized form of Lok. The genasi had been on guard duty, and so was clad in his adamantine armor, but that would be no protection against a coup de grace delivered from the blackguard.
Arun knew that the Cagewright was luring him into the range of a full attack, but he had no choice. If he hesitated, Lok was dead. Lifting his holy sword, he roared out a challenge, and rushed at the deadly enemy warrior.
Meanwhile, behind the paladin, someone stirred in the rubble. Beorna, lying face-down in a pile of debris, extended a trembling hand, shaking with effort as she reached for the hilt of her sword.
Alurad smiled as the paladin fell for his ruse, rushing into the fray to save his crippled friend. As the dwarf drew near he smoothly reversed his blade from the killing stroke he’d intended for the fallen warrior, sliding into a ready stance to meet his enemy’s charge. Arun saw it but kept on coming, his own weapon raised to strike.
A roar from the ruined common room drew Alurad’s attention briefly to the side, nearly breaking his concentration. Something appeared from within the smoky interior, highlighted by the surrounding flames as it clawed its way to the edge of the field of rubble, leaping onto a fallen beam that gave it a clear view of the battlefield.
A silver dragon—not a big one, but a dangerous adversary nonetheless.
“The wizard’s made his appearance,” Kyan said, drawing another arrow from her quiver. Thus far she was not happy; she’d scored a number of hits on the paladin, even with the added challenge of having to shoot around that lumbering brute Alurad, but the heavy smoke swirling around the melee had caused her to miss twice.
She did not like missing.
“I see him,” Thifirane said. The transmuter was equally unhappy with the progress of the battle thus far. Embril had not given her adequate time to refresh her spell selection after the battle with the planetar, and the paladin’s spell resistance and innate durability had already thwarted her several times. But she had a little surprise in store for the wizard, and now that he’d finally shown himself, he would learn what it meant to earn the ire of Thifirane Rhiavati.
But even as she called to mind the trigger words for her resilient sphere spell, a growl from behind distracted her. She started to turn, only to stagger as something darted out from the brush, tangling itself in her legs. The once-noblewoman let out an undignified scream as she toppled to the ground in a heap. Something stabbed into her side as she fell, but her stoneskin still protected her, and she avoided serious injury.
“Shoot her!” Thifirane shrieked, finally identifying her attacker as the gnome rogue, Mole Calloran. She’d revealed herself prematurely to interrupt Thifirane’s magical attack on her friends, and she would pay for that mistake, the wizard thought as she tried to kick free of the diminutive little wretch.
But in the next instant her attention became fully absorbed by the wolverine that leapt onto her head, tearing and scratching. With her stoneskin it could do little real harm, but it certainly made it difficult for her to focus her concentration.
Kyan snickered, taking pleasure in the ridiculous plight of the wizard, but the arcane archer nevertheless quickly backed off and started firing deadly arrows from her frost longbow. Mole moved like greased lightning, somehow dodging out of the way of the arrows, but still two shots grazed her, cutting gashes in her right arm and left leg, wounds that froze shut instantly as the arrows released their magic into her. She suffered more damage as Thifirane lifted a crystal wand and fired a salvo of four magic missiles into her, attacks that she could not avoid as they blasted painfully into her torso.
But Mole Calloran was not only sneaky and fast; she was also incredibly tough.
Arun charged forward, taking the hit from Alurad, and it hurt as much as he’d expected. His chain shirt was now little more than bloody tatters, and it barely hindered the sword that crunched into his side. The paladin dropped to one knee as fire exploded through his gut. Something vital had been hit, he knew, and he felt blood on his tongue as he coughed, sagging from the force of the blackguard’s readied attack.
“Now it is time for you to die!” Alurad screeched, bringing his sword up to finish it.
Arun felt death brush against his soul as the Cagewright shadar-kai Xokek backstabbed the paladin with his shadow dagger. The semi-substantial blade caressed the paladin’s heart, urging it to cease its unflagging efforts, but the paladin marshaled his will, tearing himself away with a desperate cry. He yet drew breath, but the wound was nevertheless a serious one.
Now, surrounded by two foes who knew how to take advantage, Arun’s situation had grown significantly grimmer.
Cal experienced a similar sensation as a considerable section of ceiling collapsed onto the curving bar of The Lucky Monkey’s common room, showering him with sparks and a rolling cloud of smoke that burned at his lungs as he struggled to draw breath. Thus far he’d remained in a fairly secure position, crouched beneath a heavy table close to the gaping opening created by the balor’s rampage of destruction through the inn. Although the drifting smoke occasionally blocked his view, and he could not discern the enemies that he knew lurked in the nearby forest, he otherwise had a good view of the battlefield. Shrouded by greater invisibility, and protected by various other defensive magics, he was in a perfect position to provide covert magical support with his remaining spells and his considerable arsenal of magical wands.
But Arun was taking a pounding, the others remained helpless to intervene, and the collapse indicated that the security of his redoubt was rapidly becoming untenable.
When he saw the shadowy rogue appear behind the paladin and strike, he thought for a moment that it was all over; the thrust looked deadly. But Arun pulled away, clearly hurt, trying to reset his defenses against two nasty foes.
Cal had been holding a gambit in reserve, a spell that he’d doubted would have worked against the enemy warrior threatening Arun. But against a shifty wizard-rogue…
The gnome’s stratagem proved effective a moment later, as the deadly shadar-kai darted behind Arun with incredible speed, his shadow dagger poised for another sneak attack. Xokek suddenly staggered, his eyes widening as his body collapsed in upon itself, leaving behind another fat, bloated slug.
The drow Viirdran had been about to join the fray when he saw what had happened to his comrade. He bore little concern for the misanthropic Xokek, but he was worried about an enemy magic-user throwing around powerful spells. Scanning the interior of the ruined roadhouse, his keen eyes caught a hint of movement. Viirdran was much more than just a mere warrior, and a brief incantation brought a fireball that blossomed in the wreckage of the building, adding a new intensity to the already spreading fire. The blast also engulfed a few of the helpless enemies still scattered about from the balor’s earlier antics, and caught up both the paladin and Alurad.
Viirdran grinned. A bit of friendly fire couldn’t always be helped.
Just a few dozen feet away, the jungle remained relatively quiet in contrast to the violent battle raging in the ruined roadhouse. Ssythar let out a hiss of frustration as his latest enchantment—another slow spell—again failed to take hold upon the dwarven knight. He considered simply unleashing one of his favorite enchantments, the black tentacles, but he’d faced Alurad’s ire before, and thus he was not quite so casual about engulfing his allies in area-effect spells. He glanced over at Thifirane and Kyan, but there didn’t seem to be much in the way of effective destruction coming from that direction either. The yuan-ti clucked, considering other options…
He never had any warning. Pain exploded through his lower body, and as his legs buckled he fell forward, hands flailing at the surrounding brush in a futile effort to arrest his fall. A thought shouted in his mind… must escape! But his teleport spell was gone, permanently wiped from his mind by the trauma of being raised from death to life.
This time, he wouldn’t get a second chance. He still hadn’t seen his attacker when something sharp tore into his throat, and the last thing he felt was his own hot blood spraying out from his severed jugular, and then… darkness.
Mole didn’t even bother to clean her blade, vanishing back into the jungle.
Arun staggered back, not seeing the shadowy rogue that had stabbed him, unaware of Cal’s intervention on his behalf. The fireball had washed over him, but even though it had overcome the resistance offered by his holy avenger, he hadn’t been seriously injured by the flames.
After all, once you’d been dragged down into molten lava by a massive pyroclastic dragon, regular fire just didn’t seem quite as imposing.
But the fact remained that despite the healing that Jenya had provided before her demise, and his own laying on hands, he was in bad shape. He’d taken hits from numerous sources: Alurad’s sword, the backstab, arrows from the forest. Only the protection against magic provided from his sword had kept him from being blasted by several spells from the hidden casters in the jungle. And he couldn’t keep running from Alurad; he’d seen the drow caster and knew that another enemy was on the way.
But as Arun gave way once again, luring the blackguard after him, Alurad suddenly stopped. Instead of chasing after Arun again, the Cagewright instead shifted a few steps to the side, broken masonry crunching under his heavy boots. Arun recognized his tactic even before he reached his destination: standing over the immobilized form of Lok. The genasi had been on guard duty, and so was clad in his adamantine armor, but that would be no protection against a coup de grace delivered from the blackguard.
Arun knew that the Cagewright was luring him into the range of a full attack, but he had no choice. If he hesitated, Lok was dead. Lifting his holy sword, he roared out a challenge, and rushed at the deadly enemy warrior.
Meanwhile, behind the paladin, someone stirred in the rubble. Beorna, lying face-down in a pile of debris, extended a trembling hand, shaking with effort as she reached for the hilt of her sword.
Alurad smiled as the paladin fell for his ruse, rushing into the fray to save his crippled friend. As the dwarf drew near he smoothly reversed his blade from the killing stroke he’d intended for the fallen warrior, sliding into a ready stance to meet his enemy’s charge. Arun saw it but kept on coming, his own weapon raised to strike.
A roar from the ruined common room drew Alurad’s attention briefly to the side, nearly breaking his concentration. Something appeared from within the smoky interior, highlighted by the surrounding flames as it clawed its way to the edge of the field of rubble, leaping onto a fallen beam that gave it a clear view of the battlefield.
A silver dragon—not a big one, but a dangerous adversary nonetheless.
“The wizard’s made his appearance,” Kyan said, drawing another arrow from her quiver. Thus far she was not happy; she’d scored a number of hits on the paladin, even with the added challenge of having to shoot around that lumbering brute Alurad, but the heavy smoke swirling around the melee had caused her to miss twice.
She did not like missing.
“I see him,” Thifirane said. The transmuter was equally unhappy with the progress of the battle thus far. Embril had not given her adequate time to refresh her spell selection after the battle with the planetar, and the paladin’s spell resistance and innate durability had already thwarted her several times. But she had a little surprise in store for the wizard, and now that he’d finally shown himself, he would learn what it meant to earn the ire of Thifirane Rhiavati.
But even as she called to mind the trigger words for her resilient sphere spell, a growl from behind distracted her. She started to turn, only to stagger as something darted out from the brush, tangling itself in her legs. The once-noblewoman let out an undignified scream as she toppled to the ground in a heap. Something stabbed into her side as she fell, but her stoneskin still protected her, and she avoided serious injury.
“Shoot her!” Thifirane shrieked, finally identifying her attacker as the gnome rogue, Mole Calloran. She’d revealed herself prematurely to interrupt Thifirane’s magical attack on her friends, and she would pay for that mistake, the wizard thought as she tried to kick free of the diminutive little wretch.
But in the next instant her attention became fully absorbed by the wolverine that leapt onto her head, tearing and scratching. With her stoneskin it could do little real harm, but it certainly made it difficult for her to focus her concentration.
Kyan snickered, taking pleasure in the ridiculous plight of the wizard, but the arcane archer nevertheless quickly backed off and started firing deadly arrows from her frost longbow. Mole moved like greased lightning, somehow dodging out of the way of the arrows, but still two shots grazed her, cutting gashes in her right arm and left leg, wounds that froze shut instantly as the arrows released their magic into her. She suffered more damage as Thifirane lifted a crystal wand and fired a salvo of four magic missiles into her, attacks that she could not avoid as they blasted painfully into her torso.
But Mole Calloran was not only sneaky and fast; she was also incredibly tough.
Arun charged forward, taking the hit from Alurad, and it hurt as much as he’d expected. His chain shirt was now little more than bloody tatters, and it barely hindered the sword that crunched into his side. The paladin dropped to one knee as fire exploded through his gut. Something vital had been hit, he knew, and he felt blood on his tongue as he coughed, sagging from the force of the blackguard’s readied attack.
“Now it is time for you to die!” Alurad screeched, bringing his sword up to finish it.
Solarious
Explorer
Annnnnnd... Cue The Friday Cliffhanger! ![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
Great chapter! Mole takes down a silly sorceror and proceeds to agitate the hell out of 'Mrs. I Used To Have A Beholder's Eye In My Forehead But It Rotted Off'. Bwee!
And Aurn hovers on the door of impending death! Of course, Beorna might have something to say about that, but she might not get a chance to voice her displeasure. At least, that's what I'm hoping.
Go TPK anyways!
Great chapter! Mole takes down a silly sorceror and proceeds to agitate the hell out of 'Mrs. I Used To Have A Beholder's Eye In My Forehead But It Rotted Off'. Bwee!
And Aurn hovers on the door of impending death! Of course, Beorna might have something to say about that, but she might not get a chance to voice her displeasure.
At least, that's what I'm hoping.Go TPK anyways!
Lazybones
Adventurer
Chapter 407
Arun knew he only had one more attack left in him, and as he unleashed it, he felt a power surge within him. In that heartbeat, a thousand miles away, the sacristans in the holy sanctuary of Moradin, deep within the Rift, uttered the blessing that marked the start of a new day. Arun had stood within that place when he’d uttered his vows of lifetime service to the Soul Forger, and ever since that day, that ritual, unseen and unheard by the exiled dwarf, had signaled the restoration of the powers granted to him by his patron.
He called upon that power now, and drawing in every last bit of it he smote Alurad Sorizan with the divine power of his god. The holy blade crushed armor plate and kept going, completing its circuit in a bloody path that bisected the blackguard’s torso, emerging in a spray of hot blood that covered the surrounding debris.
For a moment the Cagewright looked down in surprise, then he was falling, his upper half clattering to the rubble a full second ahead of his lower.
Arun stood there, gasping in agonized breaths, his body slick with his own blood, barely clinging to consciousness. He awaited the last blow that would kill him—a common iron dagger would do it, now—and was vaguely surprised when it did not come.
He heard the drow yelling, and looked up to see a silver dragon—Cal, it had to be—swarming over it, biting and scratching. For all that Cal was no fighter, he seemed to be getting the better of his foe, at least for the moment. Then he heard a familiar voice, and turned to see a welcome sight.
Beorna looked as battered as he was; lying in the rubble, she’d been caught in a fireball and scorched by the flames that still ravaged the roadhouse. Her armor was blackened, and she still moved swiftly, fighting off the lingering effects of the demon’s earlier blasphemy. But she was no less beautiful to him for all that.
“By Helm, you look a sight,” she said, coming over to him, channeling healing energy into him. She looked down at Alurad’s two halves, and nodded in simple approval before turning back to him. “Well? What are you doing standing around here, when the battle rages on! You’re not going to let a gnome finish off the foe?”
Arun grinned, and lifted his weapon.
Thifirane tried to get up, pulling away from the storm of fur and claws that was the wolverine, but she collapsed again as Mole tumbled through her legs and kicked the backs of her knees. The gnome was looking battered now, with an arrow stabbing through her shoulder in addition to the multiple impacts she’d already taken, but she fought on with an almost insane determination. As Thifirane fell the gnome stabbed her again with her magical dagger. Her stoneskin was holding, but Mole seemed to be able to find vulnerabilities even through the spell’s protection, and the wizard felt another sharp pain twist her insides as something in her side gave way.
“Get her off of me!” Thifirane shouted, blasting the gnome with another volley of magic missiles that only seemed to drive her to a greater fury in her assault.
Even before he saw Alurad’s demise, Viirdran was starting to think that the time was fast approaching for a quick withdrawal. He quickly recovered from the surprise of a small dragon leaping onto him, tearing and slashing with claws, wings, and bite. Small in a relative sense anyway; it was still bigger and heavier than he was. But he was fast, and still augmented with magic, and within a few moments he’d inflicted several wounds upon it with his adamantine rapier.
When he saw the two dwarves coming, he did not panic, spinning away from the dragon’s continued assault while snapping a small globe at the two warriors. The bead of force exploded as it struck the ground at their feet, knocking them roughly back. The paladin was able to fall free, escaping the globe of force that resulted, but the woman was trapped inside, furiously but uselessly hacking at the sphere with her own adamantine weapon.
The drow saw that the paladin got up only with difficulty, and for a moment he reconsidered; maybe this battle wasn’t hopeless after all? No further help appeared to be forthcoming from the wreckage of the inn, and he thought he could take the dragon, which hadn’t been as impressive as he’d first thought. But he glanced over his shoulder back at the forest fringe. No more arrows had been coming from there, and with his darksight he detected violent movements within the brush.
“Kyan!”
His decision made, the drow turned and dashed toward the wood.
“Die already, you little bitch!” Thifirane shouted, hurling a lightning bolt at the gnome as she crawled backwards, trying to get free. The gnome dodged the blast easily, but it slammed into the wolverine, vaporizing the little creature conjured from her bag of tricks.
Mole turned invisible—not a problem for Thifirane, who’d enchanted herself to see through that obscuration earlier—but then as another arrow from Kyan’s bow stabbed into the gnome’s thigh she tumbled around the bole of a nearby tree, disappearing from view.
“That’s right, run away, you little pest! It won’t save you, or your friends!” Thifirane said, favoring her side as she pulled herself up against another tree.
“Time’s up for you, Thifirane,” came the return, from somewhere nearby.
“Thifirane, we’d better get out of here,” Kyan said. The elf looked back toward the roadhouse, where the polymorphed wizard was just dispelling the sphere holding Beorna. Viirdran was running toward them, with the paladin not far behind him.
“Behind you, my love!” Kyan cried, drawing her bow to fire. But the elf screamed as a tiny crossbow bolt slammed into her neck from behind, causing her shot to go awry, bouncing harmlessly off the paladin’s shield.
“Taste the kiss of shadow, dwarf!” Viirdran said, spinning and releasing an enervation that blasted into Arun. But the elf had apparently not heeded the lesson learned earlier by Ssythar, for the paladin’s blazing sword intercepted the beam, dissolving it into nothingness.
Putting on a sudden and surprising burst of speed, Arun leapt forward, and unleashed his second smite of the day.
Viirdran screamed as the sword clove his torso, opening a great rent in his chest to reveal heart, lungs, and intestines, now a ruined mess. The drow screamed and collapsed, falling back onto the turf in a bloody heap.
Kyan screamed.
Standing over the remains of the drow, Arun started forward again. The paladin, covered in blood, looked more like some vengeful fiend than a holy knight, but the effect was the same. “You’re next, archer,” he said, blood spraying from his lips as he spoke.
Tears streaming down her eyes, not even feeling the pain from her injury, the elf just stood there, staring at the corpse of her beloved. But as Arun approached, she reached up and grasped an amulet dangling around her neck. “I will avenge you, my love! Our salvation awaits… in Carceri!”
And with that, she vanished in a cascade of streaming violet light.
Thifirane, too, had decided she’d had enough. She had another teleport ready to whisk her out of this charnel mess, but as she spoke the word of power to activate the spell, a small crossbow bolt shot out from high above, catching her in the left eye. Her stoneskin wasn’t enough to save her from an agonizing wave of pain as the missile struck true, and she screamed, her spell lost, as she fell back against the trunk of the tree at her back.
Clawing at the bolt, mewling piteously, she never even saw the thrust that ended her life.
Arun withdrew his sword, his face twisted in a grimace of disgust as the limp form of the wizard collapsed in a heap. He and his companions had been victorious, but he only felt exhaustion, and it took a supreme effort of will not to lie down next to the body of the dead woman and slip into the depths of sleep.
Mole reappeared, dropping down easily from the branches twenty feet above, at the same time that Beorna stepped forward through the brush. “I think that’s the last of them,” the gnome said.
Arun looked down at her. “You did well, Mole,” he said. “Thank you.”
She met his gaze, and nodded, somberly.
“We must attend to the living,” Beorna said. “Our friends are in danger, and some may yet live inside…”
They turned to the roadhouse, which was now a raging inferno. They could see Cal, still in dragon form, dragging their still-immobilized companions out of the wreckage, and they quickly moved to join him.
They had won, but the Cagewright assault had exacted a heavy cost. Thirty-seven people lost their lives in The Lucky Monkey, including several of the clerics of Helm, and the most senior of Arun’s Hammers, Alowyn Tristane, who’d dared to stand before the balor with his spear. The ceiling of the roadhouse had collapsed upon him, and they only recovered charred remains.
Hodge too was dead, struck down by the balor’s blasphemy.
And finally, Jenya Urikas, high priestess of Helm, was gone. Disintegrated by Thifirane Rhiavati, caught in the destruction of the roadhouse, they found only a few fragments of burned cloth, and her silver holy symbol, the only thing to survive the flames undamaged. Of the cleric herself, there was nothing, not even the bits of debris needed for a resurrection.
Morning came to the camp at the edge of the Forest of Mir, and with it the flames that consumed the roadhouse died, leaving only a charred reminder of the power of the enemy.
Arun knew he only had one more attack left in him, and as he unleashed it, he felt a power surge within him. In that heartbeat, a thousand miles away, the sacristans in the holy sanctuary of Moradin, deep within the Rift, uttered the blessing that marked the start of a new day. Arun had stood within that place when he’d uttered his vows of lifetime service to the Soul Forger, and ever since that day, that ritual, unseen and unheard by the exiled dwarf, had signaled the restoration of the powers granted to him by his patron.
He called upon that power now, and drawing in every last bit of it he smote Alurad Sorizan with the divine power of his god. The holy blade crushed armor plate and kept going, completing its circuit in a bloody path that bisected the blackguard’s torso, emerging in a spray of hot blood that covered the surrounding debris.
For a moment the Cagewright looked down in surprise, then he was falling, his upper half clattering to the rubble a full second ahead of his lower.
Arun stood there, gasping in agonized breaths, his body slick with his own blood, barely clinging to consciousness. He awaited the last blow that would kill him—a common iron dagger would do it, now—and was vaguely surprised when it did not come.
He heard the drow yelling, and looked up to see a silver dragon—Cal, it had to be—swarming over it, biting and scratching. For all that Cal was no fighter, he seemed to be getting the better of his foe, at least for the moment. Then he heard a familiar voice, and turned to see a welcome sight.
Beorna looked as battered as he was; lying in the rubble, she’d been caught in a fireball and scorched by the flames that still ravaged the roadhouse. Her armor was blackened, and she still moved swiftly, fighting off the lingering effects of the demon’s earlier blasphemy. But she was no less beautiful to him for all that.
“By Helm, you look a sight,” she said, coming over to him, channeling healing energy into him. She looked down at Alurad’s two halves, and nodded in simple approval before turning back to him. “Well? What are you doing standing around here, when the battle rages on! You’re not going to let a gnome finish off the foe?”
Arun grinned, and lifted his weapon.
Thifirane tried to get up, pulling away from the storm of fur and claws that was the wolverine, but she collapsed again as Mole tumbled through her legs and kicked the backs of her knees. The gnome was looking battered now, with an arrow stabbing through her shoulder in addition to the multiple impacts she’d already taken, but she fought on with an almost insane determination. As Thifirane fell the gnome stabbed her again with her magical dagger. Her stoneskin was holding, but Mole seemed to be able to find vulnerabilities even through the spell’s protection, and the wizard felt another sharp pain twist her insides as something in her side gave way.
“Get her off of me!” Thifirane shouted, blasting the gnome with another volley of magic missiles that only seemed to drive her to a greater fury in her assault.
Even before he saw Alurad’s demise, Viirdran was starting to think that the time was fast approaching for a quick withdrawal. He quickly recovered from the surprise of a small dragon leaping onto him, tearing and slashing with claws, wings, and bite. Small in a relative sense anyway; it was still bigger and heavier than he was. But he was fast, and still augmented with magic, and within a few moments he’d inflicted several wounds upon it with his adamantine rapier.
When he saw the two dwarves coming, he did not panic, spinning away from the dragon’s continued assault while snapping a small globe at the two warriors. The bead of force exploded as it struck the ground at their feet, knocking them roughly back. The paladin was able to fall free, escaping the globe of force that resulted, but the woman was trapped inside, furiously but uselessly hacking at the sphere with her own adamantine weapon.
The drow saw that the paladin got up only with difficulty, and for a moment he reconsidered; maybe this battle wasn’t hopeless after all? No further help appeared to be forthcoming from the wreckage of the inn, and he thought he could take the dragon, which hadn’t been as impressive as he’d first thought. But he glanced over his shoulder back at the forest fringe. No more arrows had been coming from there, and with his darksight he detected violent movements within the brush.
“Kyan!”
His decision made, the drow turned and dashed toward the wood.
“Die already, you little bitch!” Thifirane shouted, hurling a lightning bolt at the gnome as she crawled backwards, trying to get free. The gnome dodged the blast easily, but it slammed into the wolverine, vaporizing the little creature conjured from her bag of tricks.
Mole turned invisible—not a problem for Thifirane, who’d enchanted herself to see through that obscuration earlier—but then as another arrow from Kyan’s bow stabbed into the gnome’s thigh she tumbled around the bole of a nearby tree, disappearing from view.
“That’s right, run away, you little pest! It won’t save you, or your friends!” Thifirane said, favoring her side as she pulled herself up against another tree.
“Time’s up for you, Thifirane,” came the return, from somewhere nearby.
“Thifirane, we’d better get out of here,” Kyan said. The elf looked back toward the roadhouse, where the polymorphed wizard was just dispelling the sphere holding Beorna. Viirdran was running toward them, with the paladin not far behind him.
“Behind you, my love!” Kyan cried, drawing her bow to fire. But the elf screamed as a tiny crossbow bolt slammed into her neck from behind, causing her shot to go awry, bouncing harmlessly off the paladin’s shield.
“Taste the kiss of shadow, dwarf!” Viirdran said, spinning and releasing an enervation that blasted into Arun. But the elf had apparently not heeded the lesson learned earlier by Ssythar, for the paladin’s blazing sword intercepted the beam, dissolving it into nothingness.
Putting on a sudden and surprising burst of speed, Arun leapt forward, and unleashed his second smite of the day.
Viirdran screamed as the sword clove his torso, opening a great rent in his chest to reveal heart, lungs, and intestines, now a ruined mess. The drow screamed and collapsed, falling back onto the turf in a bloody heap.
Kyan screamed.
Standing over the remains of the drow, Arun started forward again. The paladin, covered in blood, looked more like some vengeful fiend than a holy knight, but the effect was the same. “You’re next, archer,” he said, blood spraying from his lips as he spoke.
Tears streaming down her eyes, not even feeling the pain from her injury, the elf just stood there, staring at the corpse of her beloved. But as Arun approached, she reached up and grasped an amulet dangling around her neck. “I will avenge you, my love! Our salvation awaits… in Carceri!”
And with that, she vanished in a cascade of streaming violet light.
Thifirane, too, had decided she’d had enough. She had another teleport ready to whisk her out of this charnel mess, but as she spoke the word of power to activate the spell, a small crossbow bolt shot out from high above, catching her in the left eye. Her stoneskin wasn’t enough to save her from an agonizing wave of pain as the missile struck true, and she screamed, her spell lost, as she fell back against the trunk of the tree at her back.
Clawing at the bolt, mewling piteously, she never even saw the thrust that ended her life.
Arun withdrew his sword, his face twisted in a grimace of disgust as the limp form of the wizard collapsed in a heap. He and his companions had been victorious, but he only felt exhaustion, and it took a supreme effort of will not to lie down next to the body of the dead woman and slip into the depths of sleep.
Mole reappeared, dropping down easily from the branches twenty feet above, at the same time that Beorna stepped forward through the brush. “I think that’s the last of them,” the gnome said.
Arun looked down at her. “You did well, Mole,” he said. “Thank you.”
She met his gaze, and nodded, somberly.
“We must attend to the living,” Beorna said. “Our friends are in danger, and some may yet live inside…”
They turned to the roadhouse, which was now a raging inferno. They could see Cal, still in dragon form, dragging their still-immobilized companions out of the wreckage, and they quickly moved to join him.
They had won, but the Cagewright assault had exacted a heavy cost. Thirty-seven people lost their lives in The Lucky Monkey, including several of the clerics of Helm, and the most senior of Arun’s Hammers, Alowyn Tristane, who’d dared to stand before the balor with his spear. The ceiling of the roadhouse had collapsed upon him, and they only recovered charred remains.
Hodge too was dead, struck down by the balor’s blasphemy.
And finally, Jenya Urikas, high priestess of Helm, was gone. Disintegrated by Thifirane Rhiavati, caught in the destruction of the roadhouse, they found only a few fragments of burned cloth, and her silver holy symbol, the only thing to survive the flames undamaged. Of the cleric herself, there was nothing, not even the bits of debris needed for a resurrection.
Morning came to the camp at the edge of the Forest of Mir, and with it the flames that consumed the roadhouse died, leaving only a charred reminder of the power of the enemy.
Solarious
Explorer
Well, Aurn survived... again. Hodge died... again. 
Mole rocked... as usual. 
Jenya is dead... and not comming back until our friends get their grubby hands on a True Ressurection. We still have the rest of Shatterhorn to get through, but it's just not the same without Cagewights to breathe down their necks. 
At least they can loot the place for the wealth neccessary for more (True) Ressurection spells. Still lots of danger and goodies awaiting there, but simply no drama left in it. Problem.
Well, the book hasn't ended yet, which probably means there is some more ahead of the Heroes of Caldron. But once it does...
Muhahahahaha!
Oh, the fun.
Mole rocked... as usual. Jenya is dead... and not comming back until our friends get their grubby hands on a True Ressurection. We still have the rest of Shatterhorn to get through, but it's just not the same without Cagewights to breathe down their necks. At least they can loot the place for the wealth neccessary for more (True) Ressurection spells. Still lots of danger and goodies awaiting there, but simply no drama left in it. Problem.Well, the book hasn't ended yet, which probably means there is some more ahead of the Heroes of Caldron. But once it does...
Muhahahahaha! Oh, the fun.
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