Shackled City Epic: "Vengeance" (story concluded)

[Lazybones]

Yeah, this part of the adventure is just one cliffhanger after another. And we're just getting warmed up, at this point...

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Chapter 119

Zenna forced herself back to her feet, trying to ignore the shooting pains that shot up her legs from her bruised knees. She stumbled forward, slipping again on the slick stone as she neared the source of the outpouring water. Nearly going down again, she threw herself up against Dannel’s back to balance herself. Water coursed around her ankles, and for a moment she hung on to the elf for dear life, as she tried to place her boots more or less solidly against the floor.

“Get back, Zenna!” Dannel urged, the words hissed between clenched teeth as he and the dwarf futilely worked the axe wedged into the door.

Ignoring him, Zenna drew herself up. With spray flashing in her face, and her clothes soaking up the water, she focused her concentration, and with one hand clutched to Dannel’s shoulder to steady herself, passed the other before her in a complex pattern while she uttered the words of a spell.

Despite the various distractions, her concentration held for the crucial instants of the spell, and as she finished the enchantment a glowing blue globe appeared before her, a magical shield. The translucent plane of force tilted upward at the wizard’s command, deflecting the sheet of water jetting outward from the slit in the doorframe, passing above the three adventurers in a sheet and forming a cloak of water at their backs as it fell to the stone of the platform a few paces behind.

“All right, give it a heave!” Dannel yelled in encouragement, as he and Hodge renewed their efforts at the door.

Slowly, incrementally, the gap widened.

Although she hadn’t been attacked, Mole could sense that Arun was in trouble, and she knew that the evil cleric would deal with her as soon as the more dire threat was neutralized. Springing up for another breath, she twisted and kicked off from the ceiling, propelling herself in the general direction of where she guessed the kuo-toa to be. Abruptly she sensed movement in front of her, and a vague shadow materialized in the water before her. For a moment she hesitated, worried that she’d confused her position so drastically that she’d come up on Arun, instead of Margh-Michto.

Finally, with a mental shrug, and a fleeting thought, Oh well, we’re dead anyway, I guess, she kicked forward and stabbed her little sword into what she hoped was the head of the kuo-toa priest.

The blade jerked in her hand as she hit something hard, but the sudden thrashing ahead of her indicated that her thrust had had some effect. She tried to kick away, back up to the surface for another breath, but before she could put some distance between her and her enemy a webbed hand grasped tightly onto her ankle, drawing her down. Pain exploded from the touch, a terrible, sick pain that drove up her leg into her body like needles under her flesh. She cried out, but the water muted the sound, and water poured into her throat, choking her.

Suddenly everything began to fade, as the pain began to give way to the soft gray of unconsciousness.

Arun struggled against the pinning grasp of the metal claw around his neck, trying to free himself even as his lungs felt like to burst and the powerful grip of the high priest on the far end of the pincer staff pushed him further back. His arms felt leaden, and his struggles grew weaker as his strength flowed out of him like the water holding him in its cold embrace. At that moment, he knew he was dead, and he felt only a forlorn sense of regret, of choices not taken, words not said.

Even as those thoughts formed in his mind, however, something changed. The water around him was moving, swirling, drawing it backward with him in the direction of the door. He felt the grip on the staff loosen slightly, the hard pressure that had driven him toward the ground easing, and with a sudden desperate surge Arun yanked back, tearing free of the staff’s grip with a painful jerk. He tried to rise, knowing that he’d never reach the surface of the water as laden as he was, but to his surprise, as he stood, the current helping to draw him up, he momentarily crested the surface, his face breaking into open air. He barely had time to draw a fraction of a breath, however, before the tumult of the water drew him back under again, and he was fighting to regain his footing once more. But that momentary respite had given him hope, and now he was fighting with all of his typical vigor, clawing back toward the faintest sliver of life.

As the narrow gap of the door widened to a hand’s space in width, the spray of water became a torrent that washed over the three adventurers. Zenna’s shield deflected a good portion of it from their upper bodies, but it still felt as though an angry giant was grabbing at their legs, trying to pull them down and away into the rush of water. Hodge’s face was tight, his jaw locked, his muscles taut like iron cords as they continued to hold the door open. But without a proper fulcrum, there was only so much that could be done with the axe, and it looked like the gap was as large as it was going to get.

“Hold it a second longer!” Dannel cried, thrusting himself into the gap. Hodge grunted and held his ground against the deluge, as the elf pulled himself bodily against the rush of outpouring water into the opening. Grasping onto the lintel and the edge of the door, almost entirely submerged in the flood, he pushed. The escaping water to some extent countered the pressure on the far side holding the door shut, and he was able to draw the gap open another few inches, pulling his body into it to function as a brace and give him more leverage to push. Water swirled all around him, and as the wedge opened Hodge’s axe and Dannel’s sword were both carried free, washed away by the flood. The dwarf, without the axe to hang onto, was likewise cast backwards across the platform, tangled up with Zenna as the two flailed in confusion within the rushing waters. The elf held on, unable to even draw breath as the water rushed over him, knowing that the lives of his companions depended on hanging on, for just a bit longer!

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the flood began to ease, and Dannel realized that he could breathe. Standing up, water continuing to rush out around his legs, he saw that most of the room had drained out. His bow and sword were both gone along with Hodge’s axe, presumably somewhere in the pool that now covered the entire floor of the outer chamber below. His feet were more than a bit unsteady as he pulled himself forward into the room that they’d gone through so much trouble to reach.

Arun was there, near the door, still conscious but clearly battered, his throat oozing blood, lying on his side. But the elf’s attention was drawn to the kuo-toa high priest, who was even now getting to his own feet. As he rose, Dannel’s gaze shifted to the limp form lying in a heap at his feet, half-submerged in a puddle of dank water.

Mole.

 

[Broccli_Head]

Gotta hate those inflict spells cast spontaneously by evil clerics

 

[wolff96]

Checks watch.

Yep, it's Friday all right. Hang in there, Mole!

 

[Lazybones]

Chapter 120

“Mole!” Dannel cried. The elf started forward, but came up short as Margh-Michto turned to face him, the evil priest bleeding slightly from a gash in the side of its neck, but otherwise quite intact—and dangerous.

It was at that point that Dannel remembered that he didn’t have a weapon.

A clank of metal behind him startled him, before he remembered Arun. The dwarf paladin drew himself up in cumbersome motions to his feet, pausing only to close his fingers around the haft of his warhammer, pressed up against the base of the door where the rushing waters had cast it. The kuo-toa regarded them with clear hatred in its eyes as the battered paladin stepped forward, sagging a bit with each stride. His shield had been torn away in the chaos of the flooded chamber, and he held his weapon tightly in both hands.

“I believe you were about to die,” Arun said, lifting his weapon with a clear effort, pointing its head at the chest of Margh-Michto.

The kuo-toa cleric let out a roar and came forward to meet them, calling upon the power of its fell goddess. It did... something to Arun, calling down a curse upon the holy warrior, but the dwarf’s innate resistances and the dedication of his calling allowed him to shrug off the baleful effect of the spell. The dwarf, in turn, lashed out with his hammer, striking the kuo-toa a two-handed blow to the side that it clearly felt, even through its nearly invincible armor.

Dannel knew that he could do little against the creature unarmed, but he also knew that despite his initial success, Arun couldn’t take much more of a beating. He cast about for a weapon, and his eyes alighted upon the creature’s staff, torn free by the escaping waters and now lying apart toward the far side of the room. Dannel was there quickly, and scooping up the weapon darted toward the melee. The weapon was ungainly and awkward, and he didn’t even bother with the pincer-construction at its business end, instead holding the blunt end like a quarterstaff as he came at Margh-Michto from the kuo-toa’s flank. He thrust the improvised weapon at the creature’s side, trying to force it back from Mole unmoving form.

The evil high priest refused to give ground, taking the blow against its side and turning to the paladin. Calling upon its patron yet again, it called upon the dark energies of a spell and reached out to touch the paladin. Arun did not flinch, even when dark energies ripped into him, pushing him even closer to the brink between life and death. He took the full force of the inflict wounds spell—thankfully, the cleric’s greater magics had been expended, and the spell was only of lesser effect—and with a roar brought his hammer down in a two-handed, overhead strike that sank with a mighty plop into the moist skin of the cleric’s head. The blow struck with such force that the flanges of the mithral half-helm it wore over its ungainly skull were driven deep into its shoulders, and the remaining contents of its head squished outward around the edges of the impact, one bulbous eye popping with a sick sucking sound.

The evil cleric, clearly dying, remained standing for a full second, a terrible sound coming from the compressed slit of its jaw. To his horror, Dannel realized that the sound was laughter, a sound that persisted even as the creature collapsed in a heap on the floor.

A moment later, Arun joined him, the dwarf finally pushed beyond even his remarkable endurance by the abuse he’d suffered, slipping down into unconsciousness.

Zenna appeared in the doorway, a sight with her clothes soaked and torn about her, her face a pale death’s-mask. Dannel was already crouching beside Mole, singing a magical song infused with urgency, his wand of healing already glowing blue in resonance with the tune.

“She’s not breathing...” he said, turning her over to reveal a face that was white, still.

Zenna half-ran, half staggered over to her friend. She pulled one of the kuo-toa scrolls she’d confiscated earlier from her pouch; falling to her knees with a splash beside the fallen gnome, she read the words scribed therein, calling upon the power stored upon the parchment. The source of that power had originally been the dark goddess whose servants had caused the suffering she now battled, but the healing energy nonetheless responded at her call, and she focused it into the small, frail form now lying before her.

Mole stirred, and her mouth opened as she sucked in a gasp of air, before coughing out a flood of gray water upon the stones. Dannel held her, helped her as she cleared her drowned lungs.

“Help Arun,” he told her.

She nodded and turned to the paladin. She did not have much of her own power left to her, but she called upon what she could through the muddled and exhausted frame of her mind, channeling positive energy into the paladin.

Hodge appeared in the doorway. “Check the other clerics we battled, they might have more scrolls,” Dannel told him. The dwarf took in the scene inside the chamber in a weary look, and nodded.

“Oh man, oh man,” Mole said, finally recovered enough to speak, looking utterly miserable.

“Arun, I expect to go rushing off blindly into a trap,” Zenna said, as she emptied the last of her divine magic into the paladin, who stirred groggily. “But I expect you to be more careful, Mole!” The worry and strain written on her face, however, took some of the sting off of her words.

“Zenna, it wasn’t her fault,” Dannel said, gently, continuing his soft melody, the soft blue glow flowing into Mole’s body until the nimbus around the forked end of the wand faded. Zenna saw it too, and didn’t have to ask the elf what it portended. That was that; no more magical healing.

Meanwhile, outside, Hodge rifled the corpses of the two dead kuo-toa priests they’d battled earlier out on the platform in the temple chamber. He’d come across Dannel’s longbow, precariously balanced on the edge of the platform near the stairs where the rushing waters had deposited it. The floor of the room was now a small lake, one that no doubt contained his precious axe, Betsy. Yeah, that was fair, he thought, the elf’s pansy bow stays up here, while my axe is washed away down there.... With a grunt, he picked up the longbow and turned to the bodies. He found a scroll on one and pocketed it; crossing to the second, he bent to examine its pouches but was distracted by a faint crack followed by a hissing sound that came from the air above him, before the ugly statue of the lobster-woman.

The dwarf’s eyes widened in amazement, and his mouth fell open as he regarded a strange and wondrous sight. There, hanging in the air twenty feet above him, was a woman—or at least a creature with the look of a woman. Her features were exotic, her olive skin offset by the brilliant red of her hair, which flowed down in a wave over her shoulders and down her back. Throngs of leather covered her body in a less-than-decent fashion that caused even the vulgar dwarf to color slightly. Wings of long white feathers speckled in red spots the color of blood jutted from her back, but she was not using them to keep her aloft; she just... floated there, hanging in space.

The newcomer looked down at him. “That’s it? I’m brought here for a single filthy dwarf?”

“Hey, this dwarf’s more than enough man fer ya, lady...” Hodge began, but he trailed off as he saw... something... in the flying woman’s eyes that gave him pause. It was only then that he noticed that the woman was carrying a huge longbow, which she loaded with an arrow from the quiver at her hip, and in a smooth, effortless motion drew and aimed down at him. As the head of the arrow touched the shaft of the bow, it burst into eager red flames, which cast an unholy glow upon the sinister features of the woman, their flicker reflected in the dark orbs of her eyes.

“Um... on second thought...”

 

[wolff96]

You know, I was just beginning to like Hodge, too. Eep.

Succubus, maybe? Or an Erinyes? No mention of a lobster head, so I don't think it's an avatar of the god-whose-name-I-will-never-be-able-to-spell.

 

[Jon Potter]

You know, I was just beginning to like Hodge, too. Eep.

I agree. He was a nice balance to Arun. I hope he still is after the next update.

Succubus, maybe? Or an Erinyes?

Erinyes was my guess.

 

[Guillaume]

I hope so to. This starting to be very deadly for characters that join the core group. They seem to loose every "NPC" that join them. If this keeps up, they won't be able to count on any back-up !

 

[Lazybones]

Yeah, I myself am torn; on the one hand, I like Hodge too, but on the other hand, he's clearly an NPC, and we all know what happens to them...

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Chapter 121

Dannel helped Mole to her feet, the gnome looking rather unsteady still even after Dannel’s magical healing. Arun was even slower to rise, the dwarf looking like a man who’d been beaten within an inch of his life, and then smacked on some more for good measure.

Hodge’s cry of pain and alarm drew their attention toward the half-open door. While Arun bent down to recover his hammer yet again, Dannel gestured for Zenna to stay with their injured companions while he ran toward the door. He reached it just as Hodge burst through, a smoldering arrow jutting from a puncture in one of his shoulder-plates, his expression one of alarm as he turned and pushed the heavy door shut.

“What is it?” Dannel asked.

“Demon... woman... very bad...” the dwarf panted. He slammed the door shut, and leaned himself against it, wincing as the action aggravated the wound in his shoulder. “Here, take this,” he said, handing the elf his bow. The elf took the weapon and tested the string—still sound, though it would have to be changed after the soaking they’d taken.

Suddenly a small crack and a familiar hiss sounded in the far corner of the room.

“Oh, damn,” Hodge said.

They all turned to regard the strange woman, hovering a foot above the floor, her majestic height causing her head to nearly brush the ceiling above. She regarded them with a haughty and terrible expression, and naught but cold death burned in her dark eyes.

Dannel didn’t need encouragement, as he immediately drew an arrow and fired.

The woman turned smoothly out of the path of the arrow, but it nonetheless punched through one feathered wing as it sliced past, causing the woman’s face to flicker slightly in what might have been pain, but which Dannel feared was more irritation. She regarded him coldly and flicked the hand not carrying her bow at him in a desultory gesture.

Instantly a cloying, familiar cloud of roiling chaotic energy erupted around Dannel and Hodge. The elf felt a terrible rending sensation inside him as the unholy blight ripped into him, and Hodge’s curses a pace away said that the dwarf was suffering as well.

Zenna’s breath froze in her chest as she saw her friends swallowed up in the roiling cloud, but she realized that the creature—an outsider of some sort, she calculated—had made a small mistake. By focusing the blight on Dannel, she, Arun, and Mole had been just outside of its effects. She had no doubt that neither Arun nor Mole, seriously hurt as they were, would be able to withstand such an assault. As she regarded the woman, she doubted their ability to triumph against such a foe. Even were they not depleted and injured as they were, she knew that the creature’s resistances would make her spells all but useless, and that their weapons would likely also be of little use.

The others may have felt likewise, but such despair did not hinder Arun, who hefted his hammer and charged. The outsider saw him coming and drew out an arrow, but even as she pulled the string back the dwarf rushed into her in an awkward but powerful rush, his armored shoulder slamming into her hip even as he propelled his hammer into her gut. The blow should have crippled her, unarmored as she was, but the woman was only flung lightly backward, and she effortlessly kicked off from the corner wall, drifting into the center of the room.

“You’ll pay for that tickle, dwarf!” she hissed, in a manner that indicated that she could deliver on the threat.

Another arrow from Dannel’s clipped her on the shoulder as she turned, a shot that should have sunk deep only drawing a slight trickle of black ichor as it glanced off her unnaturally tough hide. Hodge was charging as well, his dagger looking pathetically underwhelming in his hand, and even the pale Mole started forward, looking for a way to flank this deadly adversary.

The woman, surrounded by her adversaries, suddenly flickered, and in a slight puff of greasy brown smoke reeking of sulfur, vanished from sight.

“She’s gone?” Mole asked timorously.

“Don’t bet on it,” Dannel said, clutching his side as he fought through the lingering nausea brought on by the blight.

“Our weapons barely scratched ‘er,” Hodge said, grimacing as he yanked the arrow from the wound in his shoulder. Arun did not comment, only sagging back weakly, barely able to stand.

“Did you find any scrolls?” Zenna demanded, knowing that time was likely not on their side, as she crossed to where the others stood gathered. Hodge nodded, handing over the rolled parchment he’d found earlier.

Zenna took the scroll and unrolled it, glancing at the contents. “Spread out,” she said to them. “Clumped up like this, one more blight will take us all down.” Her voice held the tone of command, sounding unfamiliar even to her, but the others nodded and complied, glancing warily at all corners of the spacious chamber, where the devil-woman might appear at any moment. “Wait, Arun,” Zenna said, reading the words off the scroll and touching the battered dwarf on the shoulder. The healing spell was only of average potency, though stronger than the curatives she herself wielded. The dwarf in turn sank to one knee and offered a prayer to his patron, Moradin, sanctifying himself against the inevitable confrontation that would follow.

Mole, meanwhile, had moved to check one of the side exits. “An anteroom, here,” she said. “Smaller than here, less room for her to ‘port around in.”

“Also less room to avoid those spells of hers,” Dannel observed. “I think we should stay here, but spread out, as Zenna suggested. If and when she appears, all attack with whatever you’ve got.”

“We don’t got a lot right now,” Hodge grunted, favoring his shoulder as he reloaded his heavy crossbow.

Zenna unrolled the last scroll she’d taken from the kuo-toa earlier, in the aftermath of their battle against the priests and warriors outside, in front of the temple. This spell was an enchantment to boost one’s endurance. It would not last long, she knew, but she suspected that the woman-outsider would not wait indefinitely to resume her assault.

She was right. Even as she laid the bear’s endurance upon Arun, the air shimmered in the center of the chamber with the now-familiar crack and hissing sound, and the woman reappeared, a blazing arrow already fitted to her bow.

 

[wolff96]

Greater Teleport at will.

I love that ability. It makes demons and devils such a major PAIN to deal with.

Oh, and the flaming bow shows Jon Potter to be correct -- that's an Erinyes weapon.

Looking forward to seeing the rest of this one, LB!

 

[Lazybones]

Chapter 122

The companions turned to reengage the erinyes as she teleported back into the chamber, ready for battle.

Rather than fire, however, she turned instantly toward Arun, and unleashed a lengthy coil of rope at her hip opposite her quiver. The rope unwound like a whip, but its head seemed almost sentient as it twisted toward the dwarf, seeking him out. Arun had little chance of avoiding the probing rope, but even as it closed to within arm’s length, Mole leapt out into the middle of the room, intercepting the untangling coil by landing on it in mid-length. The rope shot out and met its fullest extension a foot from the dwarf’s face, and then recoiled upon the diminutive figure that had interrupted its mission. Mole yelled as she went down in a tangle of rope and limbs, trying ineffectually to cut at the thick strands with her sword.

Dannel reached into his quiver, and drew out an arrow—his last arrow, one of the missiles forged in silver as a gift for aid rendered long ago. The silver arrow was more of a token than a weapon, long kept in his quiver as an emergency ever since the adventurers had come up against the deadly lyncanthrope Tongueater a few months ago. But without his sword, he lacked any other alternatives as he drew the unusual arrow to his cheek and released.

The silver arrow streaked into the side of the devil, hitting squarely but only barely piercing the skin. The arrow hung there in her side as the erinyes turned, plucking the arrow casually from her side as she fixed Dannel with a hard stare.

“Foolish elf,” she said. “Allow me to demonstrate the craft of a true archer.”

Even as she finished speaking she drew and fired, the arrow bursting into flame as it streaked across the room toward him. Dannel tried to dodge, but the shot was true, catching him squarely in the chest. His armor absorbed some of the force of the impact, but nevertheless three inches of sharp steel forged in the dark pits of the Hells sank into his body, and flames erupted from the point of impact, searing him with their terrible fingers.

Pain replaced all other sensation, continuing to ravage him even as he fell, until only pain and darkness was left.

“No!” Zenna screamed, turning to the demon, rage engulfing her in a torrent, replacing her fear and indecision. She spoke a word of magic, and vanished from sight as a cloak of invisibility settled about her. Beside her, Arun had already charged, his hammer lifted high, but as he rushed across the chamber one of the coils of rope snaked across his ankle, and he stumbled, falling hard to the ground.

Hodge, meanwhile, had finished loading his heavy bow, and took quick aim and fired. But his shot was ineffective, striking the devil on the hip and bouncing harmlessly from her unholy flesh.

“You, I think, I will save for last,” she said, casting an idle glance at Hodge.

Hodge spluttered, threw down his crossbow, and drew his dagger. He hesitated, however, as the devil met his gaze and laughed.

Zenna felt something tear within her as the world around her was swallowed in a red haze. Dannel was down, a long shaft jutting from his pierced chest. Mole’s struggles grew weaker as the animated rope tightened its grip around her. Hodge stood transfixed, holding his dagger that looked tiny in contrast to the majestic evil of the devil. Arun scrambled to his feet... Arun, their only real chance, now...

Abruptly Zenna ran forward. Tiny splashes on the floor revealed her steps, but she didn’t care. She only knew that she had to do something. She only had her color spray and shocking grasp spells... pathetic cantrips, against such a creature. She knew even without trying that her wand of burning hands would have no effect upon it.

The erinyes turned to her, drawing back slightly, not in any way a retreat, but rather just to let her squarely face the charging wizard. “Little wizard, you think to hide yourself from me?”

Zenna did not cease her rush. The words of a spell came to her lips, and she called down a blinding spray of colors that washed over the hovering outsider.

When the color spray faded, however, the erinyes was completely unfazed.

“Really, is that the best you can do?” she said. Almost casually she drew out another arrow, pulled it back, and let fly. Time seemed to freeze around Zenna, with only her, the arrow, and the devil in the entire world. She stared at the arrow that grew until it seemed to fill her vision, and then she was flying backward.

Mercifully, the blackness claimed her.