Shackled City Epic: "Vengeance" (story concluded)
- Thread starter Lazybones
- Start date
Broccli_Head
Explorer
Lazybones said:
Mole and madness...no way!
Lazybones
Adventurer
Fewer Demon Princes this time around. You'd be surprised how much of a difference that makes.wolff96 said:
Not much of a cliffhanger this week, but next week we have a fallen celestial temple, demons, intraparty squabbles, a huge battle, and a very nasty situation to end out the week. Stay tuned!
* * * * *
Chapter 194
For all that she was now as much a cleric as she was a wizard, Zenna did not think of herself as very religious. But when she got her first look at Occipitus, her first thought was, By all the gods...
The place was utterly alien, rushing in to assault their senses from the moment that Kaurophon’s plane shift spell ended.
They were on a great open plain. Visible in the distance was a great line of black mountains that formed a curving line across the horizon. Turning, Zenna saw that the mountains appeared to encircle the entire plain, forming a great bowl that had to be hundreds of miles across.
Above, the sky was a sea of roaring flames, a flowing red conflagration that swirled only a few hundred feet above them. Prominent in that ember sky were cohesive eddies of living fire, maybe a dozen paces across, that danced in the maelstrom, occasionally dipping down from the higher reaches to flirt with the more open sky below, as if considering dropping down to the ground below.
Belatedly she realized that the plain was flat, that the reason that she could see so far was due to the fact that there was no curvature to the world beneath her feet. And thus she could clearly mark the white mountain in the exact center of Occipitus, an unnaturally-shaped mound that Zenna was quick to identify.
A giant skull, lying on its side. And out of the dark, empty shadow of its eyesocket, a steady stream of ugly gray smoke streamed. As she watched, one of the fiery plasms erupted from that fissure, rising slowly up to join the others in the flaming sky above.
She looked down, at the ground beneath her feet. The soil was spongy, and textured strangely. Not soil at all, she realized, her stomach twisting with understanding. Like flesh...
To turn her mind from that disgusting thought, she lifted her gaze and took another look at their immediate surroundings. There were few terrain features of note close by, just some pale pillars that jutted from the landscape like the rib bones of some huge creature that had fallen and been partially absorbed into the landscape.
Hodge was right beside her, and she could hear his reaction to Occipitus. “Oh, great, just bloody flaming dark-double-damned great. Bloody bloomin’ fantastic. ‘Oy, let’s take a little outin’ to the bloody Abyss, eh?’ Damned demon bloody damned...”
She saw Morgan sink down to one knee, and stepped toward him with concern. Arun, too, she saw was experiencing difficulty, his face pale, though he fought to conceal his discomfort. The cleric extended a hand as if to block her, and grimly pulled himself to his feet. “I am all right,” he said. “It passes...”
“What happened?”
“This... this place. Chaos... taint... It is... overwhelming.”
“Arun?”
The paladin grimaced. “It is powerful, but it can be borne.”
She looked around at her other companions, but while they all seemed uncomfortable as they adjusted to their surroundings, they did not seem as affected as Morgan and Arun. She looked over at Kaurophon. Their guide was also scanning their surroundings, getting his bearings, she thought. Finally, he turned to them.
“What are those things?” Mole said, pointing to one of the drifting clouds of fire.
“Plasms,” the sorcerer replied. “Very dangerous, and the reason why flying is not practical here. If you see one drifting down too close to the ground, best run away as fast as you can.”
“That giant skull,” Dannel asked. “Is that the location of the test?”
“It may be part of it,” Kaurophon admitted. “The central plain is... not hospitable. But our immediate destination is the ruined cathedral of which I spoke, which lies in an area of celestial ruins about a hundred miles north of here.”
“And your magic cannot transport us there directly, I presume,” Morgan said.
The sorcerer shook his head. “I am afraid we will have to walk.”
“Walk a hunnerd miles, w’out food?” Hodge said.
“I thought dwarves were stout folk,” Morgan retorted. Hodge’s face turned red with anger, but Kaurophon quickly interjected.
“The landscape here is not friendly, but there are resources here for the clever traveler. Fiendish bison, for example, which may be used as provender.”
“Demon steak. Great.”
“We should get going,” Dannel suggested. “I presume there is no cycle of day and night here, Kaurophon?”
“No. In that, at least, Occipitus is constant.”
They gathered themselves, and started north, their footsteps making only the slightest noise on the spongy surface of the plane.
Lazybones
Adventurer
Chapter 195
Zenna leaned against a pillar that still bore faint markings in Celestial. She was tired, but she suspected that the exhaustion that suffused her to her very bones was not just due to the long hike. Occipitus... wore on you, and she wondered again, not for the first time, and Kaurophon’s revelation that he’d spent a fair amount of time here. What did that do to a person... or did his partly fiendish nature protect him? What might it do to her, whose ancestry was also rooted to the dark planes?
For all her complaints, she knew that the others felt it worse. Especially Arun and Morgan. The paladin withstood it stoically, but Morgan... Morgan had grown irritable and cantankerous, alternating between moody outbursts and periods of long, sullen silence. She saw that he now carried Alakast like a standard, both of his hands wrapped around the pale wood so tightly that his hands were nearly as white as the staff. His face had grown pale to match, his features tight and drawn, looking unnatural under the flaming red glow of the burning sky above.
Mole trudged up to her, plopping herself down on an uneven shelf of shattered white marble beside her. “Are we having fun yet?” she opined. Zenna forced a smile. Her friend, if anything, seemed immune to the weighty impact of Occipitus, although her upbeat attitude had been somewhat muted by the sheer overwhelming force of their surroundings. But likewise her curiosity had been fully unleashed in this strange place, and she eagerly absorbed both the wonders and the horrors that they had encountered over their journey.
The last four days, since their arrival here, had not been easy. Kaurophon had told them that the outlying edges of the plain were scarcely populated, but that hadn’t stopped them from encountering a demon on the first day, just a few hours after they had set out. It had come up on them from ahead along their course of march, flying low to avoid the plasms, a terrible combination of humanoid and vulture. A vrock, Kaurophon had called it. It had obviously seen them, and despite being outnumbered, it let out a nasty screech and dove straight for them. Dannel struck it with an arrow as it dove, but its demonic resistances clearly protected it from harm. The rest of them readied their weapons to meet its diving rush. Kaurophon cast several protective spells upon himself, and laid a spell upon Arun to bolster his stamina.
That was about all she remembered of that encounter. Just before the demon reached them, it let out a terrible screech, and she vaguely remembered falling, stunned. Afterword, Dannel had told her that the battle had been brief; Arun and Morgan had both laid into it with their powerful weapons, and rather than remain the demon had elected to teleport away to recover from its wounds.
After that, she resolved to meditate on magics that would prove effective against demons.
The next day they’d had another encounter, with a giant lion that had likewise bounded across the plain upon detecting them. This one did not retreat until Arun had cut its head off with a powerful stroke of his sword, and afterwards her healing talents were needed to help Dannel and Hodge, both of whom had been injured in the brief but bloody battle.
Later that same day—although by now, it was getting difficult for her to separate time into those units, without a day or night to mark the passage of days—they had encountered a small herd of the fiendish bison that Kaurophon had mentioned. The creatures looked much like the ones Zenna had seen in her travels across the vast eastern plains of Tethyr... except that their hides were mottled and ugly with diseased gray splotches, and their eyes shone with a bright malevolence. Instead of retreating at their approach, the bison had pawed the ground and snorted angrily. Finally, without warning, they had surged toward them, in a stampede that shook the ground beneath their feet.
“Run!” Dannel had yelled. “Take shelter among those columns!” he’d added, identifying another of the bleached-pillar formations nearby. “I’ll draw them off!”
The elf augmented his speed with an expeditious retreat spell, and firing arrows to draw the attention of the herd, he drew them in a wide circle that ultimately brought them back to where the companions had taken shelter. The twenty bison made a fearsome sight, but they weren’t overly intelligent, and they weren’t much of a threat to the companions behind the cover of the thick stone pillars. When the herd finally broke off and fled, they’d left half of their number behind, lying in heaps across the barren landscape.
Hodge and Mole had initially been excited at the prospect of a real meal, but the meat of the bison had been tough as rawhide, and suffused with an oily taste that had left it barely palatable. The only fuel they’d been able to find were the long, twisting strands of fibrous material that jutted from the plain at uneven intervals, and that burned fitfully, releasing clouds of noxious gray smoke that caused violent coughing when inhaled.
Still, with their own stocks depleted, “demon steaks” was all that they had, and so they made the best of it, Mole salting some of the meat to carry with them as they departed. At least with her ability to create water, they wouldn’t die of thirst...
Zenna’s thoughts were drawn back to the present by the sounds of shouting nearby. She rose, Mole only a step behind her, and found Dannel and Morgan facing off, arguing about something.
“Bah, it’s truth and you know it, elf! I’ll not take it back, not for all your threats!”
“You’re walking a thin line, priest,” Dannel replied, and there was iron in his voice.
“I walk where I care to, elf,” Morgan spat back. “You can have your little fiendling, if you wish...”
Zenna suddenly felt cold. They were arguing about her, she knew it as sure as she knew her own name. Dannel saw her and flinched, but Morgan, unaware of her presence, opened his mouth to say something else stupid and hurtful, no doubt. Rushing forward, she hurried to forestall him.
“Idiots!” she said, letting her fury fuel her words. “Do we not have a difficult enough time in this place, without you fighting like spoiled boys! Are you fool enough not to see what this place is doing to you?”
Arun and Hodge were approaching, Kaurophon walking in their company. The dwarves had demonstrated their endurance over the long march, but their short legs meant that they had to work harder to keep up with the rest of them, and they’d gone from leading to bringing up the rear. Kaurophon seemed content to blend into the background, and often hours passed without Zenna even noticing that he was there.
“What’s going on?” Arun demanded.
“Nothing,” Morgan said, his anger fading, though his lips remained tight in an expression of barely-contained contempt as he strode away.
“We draw near to the cathedral,” Kaurophon said. “We should be able to see it soon, I think.”
“Not soon enough,” Dannel said. He too turned away, walking forward but not quite in the direction that Morgan had gone.
“Men,” Mole said softly, but Zenna could hear the sadness in her voice. She couldn’t blame her friend; everything had grown so complicated...
Trying to ignore the protests of her tired muscles, and the aching in her tired heart, she joined the others as the companions resumed their march.
Zenna leaned against a pillar that still bore faint markings in Celestial. She was tired, but she suspected that the exhaustion that suffused her to her very bones was not just due to the long hike. Occipitus... wore on you, and she wondered again, not for the first time, and Kaurophon’s revelation that he’d spent a fair amount of time here. What did that do to a person... or did his partly fiendish nature protect him? What might it do to her, whose ancestry was also rooted to the dark planes?
For all her complaints, she knew that the others felt it worse. Especially Arun and Morgan. The paladin withstood it stoically, but Morgan... Morgan had grown irritable and cantankerous, alternating between moody outbursts and periods of long, sullen silence. She saw that he now carried Alakast like a standard, both of his hands wrapped around the pale wood so tightly that his hands were nearly as white as the staff. His face had grown pale to match, his features tight and drawn, looking unnatural under the flaming red glow of the burning sky above.
Mole trudged up to her, plopping herself down on an uneven shelf of shattered white marble beside her. “Are we having fun yet?” she opined. Zenna forced a smile. Her friend, if anything, seemed immune to the weighty impact of Occipitus, although her upbeat attitude had been somewhat muted by the sheer overwhelming force of their surroundings. But likewise her curiosity had been fully unleashed in this strange place, and she eagerly absorbed both the wonders and the horrors that they had encountered over their journey.
The last four days, since their arrival here, had not been easy. Kaurophon had told them that the outlying edges of the plain were scarcely populated, but that hadn’t stopped them from encountering a demon on the first day, just a few hours after they had set out. It had come up on them from ahead along their course of march, flying low to avoid the plasms, a terrible combination of humanoid and vulture. A vrock, Kaurophon had called it. It had obviously seen them, and despite being outnumbered, it let out a nasty screech and dove straight for them. Dannel struck it with an arrow as it dove, but its demonic resistances clearly protected it from harm. The rest of them readied their weapons to meet its diving rush. Kaurophon cast several protective spells upon himself, and laid a spell upon Arun to bolster his stamina.
That was about all she remembered of that encounter. Just before the demon reached them, it let out a terrible screech, and she vaguely remembered falling, stunned. Afterword, Dannel had told her that the battle had been brief; Arun and Morgan had both laid into it with their powerful weapons, and rather than remain the demon had elected to teleport away to recover from its wounds.
After that, she resolved to meditate on magics that would prove effective against demons.
The next day they’d had another encounter, with a giant lion that had likewise bounded across the plain upon detecting them. This one did not retreat until Arun had cut its head off with a powerful stroke of his sword, and afterwards her healing talents were needed to help Dannel and Hodge, both of whom had been injured in the brief but bloody battle.
Later that same day—although by now, it was getting difficult for her to separate time into those units, without a day or night to mark the passage of days—they had encountered a small herd of the fiendish bison that Kaurophon had mentioned. The creatures looked much like the ones Zenna had seen in her travels across the vast eastern plains of Tethyr... except that their hides were mottled and ugly with diseased gray splotches, and their eyes shone with a bright malevolence. Instead of retreating at their approach, the bison had pawed the ground and snorted angrily. Finally, without warning, they had surged toward them, in a stampede that shook the ground beneath their feet.
“Run!” Dannel had yelled. “Take shelter among those columns!” he’d added, identifying another of the bleached-pillar formations nearby. “I’ll draw them off!”
The elf augmented his speed with an expeditious retreat spell, and firing arrows to draw the attention of the herd, he drew them in a wide circle that ultimately brought them back to where the companions had taken shelter. The twenty bison made a fearsome sight, but they weren’t overly intelligent, and they weren’t much of a threat to the companions behind the cover of the thick stone pillars. When the herd finally broke off and fled, they’d left half of their number behind, lying in heaps across the barren landscape.
Hodge and Mole had initially been excited at the prospect of a real meal, but the meat of the bison had been tough as rawhide, and suffused with an oily taste that had left it barely palatable. The only fuel they’d been able to find were the long, twisting strands of fibrous material that jutted from the plain at uneven intervals, and that burned fitfully, releasing clouds of noxious gray smoke that caused violent coughing when inhaled.
Still, with their own stocks depleted, “demon steaks” was all that they had, and so they made the best of it, Mole salting some of the meat to carry with them as they departed. At least with her ability to create water, they wouldn’t die of thirst...
Zenna’s thoughts were drawn back to the present by the sounds of shouting nearby. She rose, Mole only a step behind her, and found Dannel and Morgan facing off, arguing about something.
“Bah, it’s truth and you know it, elf! I’ll not take it back, not for all your threats!”
“You’re walking a thin line, priest,” Dannel replied, and there was iron in his voice.
“I walk where I care to, elf,” Morgan spat back. “You can have your little fiendling, if you wish...”
Zenna suddenly felt cold. They were arguing about her, she knew it as sure as she knew her own name. Dannel saw her and flinched, but Morgan, unaware of her presence, opened his mouth to say something else stupid and hurtful, no doubt. Rushing forward, she hurried to forestall him.
“Idiots!” she said, letting her fury fuel her words. “Do we not have a difficult enough time in this place, without you fighting like spoiled boys! Are you fool enough not to see what this place is doing to you?”
Arun and Hodge were approaching, Kaurophon walking in their company. The dwarves had demonstrated their endurance over the long march, but their short legs meant that they had to work harder to keep up with the rest of them, and they’d gone from leading to bringing up the rear. Kaurophon seemed content to blend into the background, and often hours passed without Zenna even noticing that he was there.
“What’s going on?” Arun demanded.
“Nothing,” Morgan said, his anger fading, though his lips remained tight in an expression of barely-contained contempt as he strode away.
“We draw near to the cathedral,” Kaurophon said. “We should be able to see it soon, I think.”
“Not soon enough,” Dannel said. He too turned away, walking forward but not quite in the direction that Morgan had gone.
“Men,” Mole said softly, but Zenna could hear the sadness in her voice. She couldn’t blame her friend; everything had grown so complicated...
Trying to ignore the protests of her tired muscles, and the aching in her tired heart, she joined the others as the companions resumed their march.
Lazybones
Adventurer
Chapter 196
The cathedral rose out of the ruined expanse before them, a shattered remnant that still bore enough of its former grandeur to hint at what once had been. The entry, a recessed archway of cracked white marble, contained a pair of heavy doors of patterned stone.
“Well, here we are,” Dannel said, testing his bowstring. He’d replenished his store of arrows from Alek Tercival’s quiver back in the vault, but even so his remaining supply was dwindling, a few more used up in each encounter, and it did not look like they would encounter a fletcher anytime soon.
“And this first test lies inside?” Morgan asked. He frowned, examining the designs etched into the stone, designs that still seemed incongruous in this alien setting.
“Yes,” Kaurophon replied. “There are chambers under the place, that contain the trial.”
“Anything inside we should know about?” Arun asked.
“No, the cathedral itself is empty,” Kaurophon said.
“Very well then, let’s get about it,” the paladin replied, moving to the doors. The one on the left opened easily at his prodding, but the one on the right ground against the floor, resisting his efforts. Finally he gave up on it and pushed the left door open fully so they could enter.
Beyond the doors lay a wide foyer. The place was scattered with odd clusters of rubble, and while most of the ceiling was intact, there were sufficient cracks to allow the ruddy crimson glow of the fiery sky above to enter. The floor was slightly off-kilter, as though the entire building lay upon its foundations at a gentle but noticeable slant. In the center of the floor was a great open pit, about ten feet square, descending deep out of sight. Across from them lay another set of doors nearly identical to the ones through which they’d entered.
“I do not recall that pit being here before,” Kaurophon said.
Zenna frowned; there was something odd here, something she couldn’t quite place. She stood there in the doorway, as Morgan and Arun moved forward around the edge of the pit.
“Ewww, do you smell that?” Mole said.
Zenna cast a minor cantrip, enabling her to sense magical auras. She scanned the room, noting immediately the pale glow surrounding the pit. But there was a stronger aura, drawing her attention upward, to the ceiling...
Too late, she saw the danger, as the magical shrouds of invisibility fell from the two creatures hovering near the ceiling. They were horrible things, an unholy combination of a giant spider, grafted to the upper body of a dark elf. She opened her mouth to scream.
But the driders were already launching their attack. A dense explosion of sticky, clinging webs filled the foyer, snaring them around the legs, tugging at their arms. Zenna’s gaze was held by the malevolent look of the second drider, magically floating in a far corner of the ceiling above, its eight legs positioning it against the touching walls. Dannel yanked an arm free from a cloying strand and lifted his bow, but before he could fire the creature pointed at him, and unleashed a jagged bolt of lightning that darted down from its corner into the elf. For all that the webs were wrapped around his lower body, Dannel still managed to twist out of the path of the bolt, although tendrils of energy scored him as it passed.
Zenna, however, standing right behind him, cried out as the lightning bolt caught her squarely in the center of her torso. Her innate resistance to electrical energy did not obviate the burning pain that erupted from her body from the point of impact, and she felt her muscles quivering uncontrollably, only barely able to keep from collapsing.
Despite the entangling effects of the web, the companions were quick to respond to the drider ambush. Arun threw one of his light hammers at one, while Morgan unlimbered one of the javelins he’d been carrying around unused all this time, and hurled it at the same foe. Unfortunately the obscuring webs, clinging insistently to the warriors’ arms, impaired their accuracy, and both missiles missed their targets.
Dannel, however, would not be hindered by a few spiderwebs, and his first arrow sank meatily into the spider-body of the drider that had cast the lightning bolt at them. The creature snarled at them in pain, uttering a curse in its own speech that sounded unnaturally like the screech of a wounded beast.
Kaurophon, standing slightly ahead of Zenna, opposite Dannel, focused his concentration and cast a spell. As he vanished, Zenna’s first thought was that he’d turned himself invisible, but then she saw that the webs that had held him had collapsed, that he was truly gone.
Great, she thought. Why am I not surprised?
Of course, getting out of this situation suddenly looked like a really good idea, as the driders started casting spells again. She elected to go for defense, conjuring a magical shield canted upward toward the driders.
The driders unleashed their second round of spells, reversing their initial volley as the lightning-caster added to the entangling mesh surrounding them with another web, while the second shot its own lightning bolt. The target was again Dannel, who seemed most able to threaten the floating driders with his bow. Again the elf avoided the worst of the blast, but again Zenna was blasted by the follow-through, the left leg of her breeches turning black as the bolt mercilessly scorched the limb beneath.
“Zenna, get back!” Dannel cried, drawing another arrow.
Have you not noticed the webs, you fool! she thought, but she bit back the words, not wanting to distract him from the important task of putting arrows in their enemies. She was standing in the open doorway, only a few feet from cover, but the webbing held her fast, and with her limited strength there was no way she would be able to pull herself free.
There was another option, she thought, remembering her wand of burning hands, but with the webs wrapped around their bodies, the cure might in this case be worse than the disease...
Arun let out a curse as his second hammer missed. Morgan’s second javelin scored a glancing hit on one of the creatures, but now both warriors were without missiles, unable to effectively harm the two driders.
Hodge let out a few general-purpose curses as he fought the clinging webs to load his heavy crossbow. He finally managed to lift the weapon and fire, but several strands of webbing had fouled the bolt, and the shot veered pathetically wide.
“Somebody get these damned blasted webs off us!” the dwarf demanded.
“I can burn them off, but it’ll hurt you as well!” Zenna said.
“Do it!” Arun’s cry came back to her.
Grimacing, Zenna reached for her wand. But before she could unleash its power, the dense lacing of webs shimmered, and vanished.
“Right! Good job!” Hodge said.
“But I didn’t do anything!” Zenna protested. She realized what had happened, and even as she drew back out of the now-clear doorway, she saw Kaurophon standing outside. The sorcerer nodded to her, and she felt a momentary twinge of guilt at judging him prematurely earlier.
But first things first, and they were still in a lot of trouble here. Unfortunately the driders had been outside of the range of Kaurophon’s dispel, and from their secure position they continued their spell assault upon the companions.
Mole had been quiet in the initial moments of battle, but again that was by design. First she’d tried to slip free of the double-nest of webbing, but when that failed she focused instead on remaining undetected and loaded her small crossbow. When the webs were dispelled by Kaurophon she moved quickly into the shadows, moving until she was almost directly under one of the driders.
Then she shot her bolt right up into its abdomen.
The drider didn’t like that one bit. The creature twisted its body so that it could look down at her, and then fired a trio of magic missiles at her. She tried to dodge, knowing it wouldn’t work, and stifled a cry as the three glowing darts stabbed painfully into her body.
Dannel continued his barrage, firing arrow after arrow into his target. The drider now looked like a pincushion, with multiple feathered shafts jutting from its body. The thing hissed at him, like a serpent. It lifted a slender black arm as if to hurl another spell at him, but it hesitated, perhaps doubting that a continued exchange of lightning bolts for arrows would work in its favor. It could not know that Dannel was laboring, his chest and arms burning where needles of electricity had stabbed into them. The elf, lost in the song of battle that he poured into his missiles, revealed nothing save grim efficiency, one with his bow.
So instead the spider-thing summoned another spell, and vanished.
Dannel had already drawn out another arrow, and as the drider disappeared he closed his eyes, drawing the feathers of the long shaft back to his cheek. He listened, and in the purity of the song he heard the clatter of its feet along the stone, as it skittered along the border of wall and ceiling. Almost reflexively, he loosed, opening his eyes to see the arrow stab into nothingness, almost its entire length vanishing from view. There was a loud, almost painful screech, and moments later a loud concussion as the drider fell, becoming visible as it convulsed for a moment amidst the rubble, finally falling still.
Upon regaining his freedom from the webs, Arun leapt forward, seeing one of his hammers lying upon the floor. He seized it up, and with a powerful snap of his wrist sent it flying up into the body of the drider who had just blasted Mole.
The drider was now injured from several wounds, and with the death of its fellow the tide of the battle had shifted decidedly against it. The ghastly creature, however, did not yield, nor seek quarter. It did shuffle across the ceiling, its levitation power holding it upside-down against the cracked ceiling of the foyer. Its movement took it to a position almost directly above the exit doors, indicating a possible intent to seek escape.
Dannel was blocking the exit, however, and he quickly shifted his aim to this adversary, bending backward to give him an angle to shoot. Before he could fire, however, the drider pointed at him, unleashing a coruscating beam of deep violet that struck the elf and splayed over his body in a nimbus of fey light. The effect was instantly obvious, as the elf staggered, greatly weakened by the ray of enfeeblement.
The drider started down the wall toward the doors, but it had to contend with Morgan, who lifted Alakast above his head and charged at it. The drider hissed and drew out a pair of slender steel daggers from sheaths strapped around its torso, but the fallen knight’s longer weapon allowed him to inflict a punishing blow to its chest before it could move into position to strike. Blood fountained from its jaws as the staff’s impact drove a rib into its internal organs. All thoughts of battle replaced by an instinct to survival, the creature released its spell of levitation, all but falling onto the ground in an awkward clutter, its bulk knocking Dannel roughly aside. It turned toward the open doors, startling Zenna and Kaurophon with the suddenness of its appearance. Before it could seek freedom and escape, however, it felt the bite of Hodge’s axe, cleaving deeply into its bulbous spider-body. The creature sagged against the doors, dying, until finally another series of bloody strokes from the gathered warriors put a final end to it.
Hodge and Morgan drew the dead creature aside, out of the doorway, so that the two magic-users could enter. Hodge grimaced as the thick, sticky gore from its wounds clung to his hands, sticking in his beard.
“Gads, that’s foul!” he said, trying to wipe the gunk from his beard, and mostly managing to bury it deeper in that filthy nest.
“Are you all right?” Zenna asked Dannel.
The elf nodded. “Weak...” he said, tiredly, sagging under the weight of his armor and equipment. “Need... a few minutes... spell... temporary...”
“I thought you said that this place was empty,” Morgan said, shooting a hard look at Kaurophon.
The sorcerer looked apologetic. “It was, the last time I was here,” he said. “This place, it bears a strong celestial... ‘echo’, I guess, would be the best word. Most fiends avoid it, from my experience, unless they have a strong reason not to.”
“He aided us greatly by dispelling those webs,” Zenna said.
Morgan turned away, dropping the matter. He took out a rag from his pack, and started cleansing from Alakast the patters of drider gore that had marred its smooth length during the battle. Dannel used healing wand to treat his injuries, and after a few minutes indicated that he was feeling better, the effects of the drider’s enfeebling spell wearing off. Arun led them to the doors on the far side of the foyer, which appeared to lead into the main part of the cathedral.
At the dwarf’s insistent push the doors swung open. Beyond lay a great hall, nearly a hundred feet in length. Here the damage they’d seen earlier was even more pronounced, with great gaps in the ceiling that showed the bright burning sky above. Rubble choked off great areas of the room, forming jagged mounds. About halfway down the hall the chamber narrowed, with doors offering onto side chambers, but at its far end it opened again to a broader space. There was a stone statue there, a good ten feet tall, of a dusky gray stone that contrasted with the white everywhere else, but it was too far distant for them to clearly identify.
They scanned the chamber cautiously, but there was nothing threatening evident, at least not that they could see from the shelter of the doorway. The rubble could have concealed anything.
Afterwards, Zenna would wonder why none of them had thought to look up as they entered, especially after what had just transpired with the driders.
Arun entered first, followed by Morgan. The rest of them had just started into the room, when a lithe, female form swooped down from above, landing directly before Morgan. Startled by the suddenness of its appearance, they could not react in time to stop it from lunging at the knight of Helm. She was an amber-skinned beauty, if one could ignore the great bat-wings, the claws, and the tiny horns that jutted from her head. She carried a slender spear, but did not hold it in the manner of a weapon. Morgan’s eyes widened, caught off guard by the startling juxtaposition of loveliness and horror. But instead of tearing into him with its slender claws, the demon-woman grasped his head with both of her hands, and sank into him with a deep, penetrating kiss.
“Hey!” Mole said, shattering the spell of surprise. “Hands off our cleric, demon!”
They started to Morgan’s aid, but suddenly a violent wall of roaring flames rose up from the floor, drawing a line twenty-feet tall across the room, driving them back with the searing heat of the flames.
Separating Arun and Morgan—and the succubus—from the rest of them.
The cathedral rose out of the ruined expanse before them, a shattered remnant that still bore enough of its former grandeur to hint at what once had been. The entry, a recessed archway of cracked white marble, contained a pair of heavy doors of patterned stone.
“Well, here we are,” Dannel said, testing his bowstring. He’d replenished his store of arrows from Alek Tercival’s quiver back in the vault, but even so his remaining supply was dwindling, a few more used up in each encounter, and it did not look like they would encounter a fletcher anytime soon.
“And this first test lies inside?” Morgan asked. He frowned, examining the designs etched into the stone, designs that still seemed incongruous in this alien setting.
“Yes,” Kaurophon replied. “There are chambers under the place, that contain the trial.”
“Anything inside we should know about?” Arun asked.
“No, the cathedral itself is empty,” Kaurophon said.
“Very well then, let’s get about it,” the paladin replied, moving to the doors. The one on the left opened easily at his prodding, but the one on the right ground against the floor, resisting his efforts. Finally he gave up on it and pushed the left door open fully so they could enter.
Beyond the doors lay a wide foyer. The place was scattered with odd clusters of rubble, and while most of the ceiling was intact, there were sufficient cracks to allow the ruddy crimson glow of the fiery sky above to enter. The floor was slightly off-kilter, as though the entire building lay upon its foundations at a gentle but noticeable slant. In the center of the floor was a great open pit, about ten feet square, descending deep out of sight. Across from them lay another set of doors nearly identical to the ones through which they’d entered.
“I do not recall that pit being here before,” Kaurophon said.
Zenna frowned; there was something odd here, something she couldn’t quite place. She stood there in the doorway, as Morgan and Arun moved forward around the edge of the pit.
“Ewww, do you smell that?” Mole said.
Zenna cast a minor cantrip, enabling her to sense magical auras. She scanned the room, noting immediately the pale glow surrounding the pit. But there was a stronger aura, drawing her attention upward, to the ceiling...
Too late, she saw the danger, as the magical shrouds of invisibility fell from the two creatures hovering near the ceiling. They were horrible things, an unholy combination of a giant spider, grafted to the upper body of a dark elf. She opened her mouth to scream.
But the driders were already launching their attack. A dense explosion of sticky, clinging webs filled the foyer, snaring them around the legs, tugging at their arms. Zenna’s gaze was held by the malevolent look of the second drider, magically floating in a far corner of the ceiling above, its eight legs positioning it against the touching walls. Dannel yanked an arm free from a cloying strand and lifted his bow, but before he could fire the creature pointed at him, and unleashed a jagged bolt of lightning that darted down from its corner into the elf. For all that the webs were wrapped around his lower body, Dannel still managed to twist out of the path of the bolt, although tendrils of energy scored him as it passed.
Zenna, however, standing right behind him, cried out as the lightning bolt caught her squarely in the center of her torso. Her innate resistance to electrical energy did not obviate the burning pain that erupted from her body from the point of impact, and she felt her muscles quivering uncontrollably, only barely able to keep from collapsing.
Despite the entangling effects of the web, the companions were quick to respond to the drider ambush. Arun threw one of his light hammers at one, while Morgan unlimbered one of the javelins he’d been carrying around unused all this time, and hurled it at the same foe. Unfortunately the obscuring webs, clinging insistently to the warriors’ arms, impaired their accuracy, and both missiles missed their targets.
Dannel, however, would not be hindered by a few spiderwebs, and his first arrow sank meatily into the spider-body of the drider that had cast the lightning bolt at them. The creature snarled at them in pain, uttering a curse in its own speech that sounded unnaturally like the screech of a wounded beast.
Kaurophon, standing slightly ahead of Zenna, opposite Dannel, focused his concentration and cast a spell. As he vanished, Zenna’s first thought was that he’d turned himself invisible, but then she saw that the webs that had held him had collapsed, that he was truly gone.
Great, she thought. Why am I not surprised?
Of course, getting out of this situation suddenly looked like a really good idea, as the driders started casting spells again. She elected to go for defense, conjuring a magical shield canted upward toward the driders.
The driders unleashed their second round of spells, reversing their initial volley as the lightning-caster added to the entangling mesh surrounding them with another web, while the second shot its own lightning bolt. The target was again Dannel, who seemed most able to threaten the floating driders with his bow. Again the elf avoided the worst of the blast, but again Zenna was blasted by the follow-through, the left leg of her breeches turning black as the bolt mercilessly scorched the limb beneath.
“Zenna, get back!” Dannel cried, drawing another arrow.
Have you not noticed the webs, you fool! she thought, but she bit back the words, not wanting to distract him from the important task of putting arrows in their enemies. She was standing in the open doorway, only a few feet from cover, but the webbing held her fast, and with her limited strength there was no way she would be able to pull herself free.
There was another option, she thought, remembering her wand of burning hands, but with the webs wrapped around their bodies, the cure might in this case be worse than the disease...
Arun let out a curse as his second hammer missed. Morgan’s second javelin scored a glancing hit on one of the creatures, but now both warriors were without missiles, unable to effectively harm the two driders.
Hodge let out a few general-purpose curses as he fought the clinging webs to load his heavy crossbow. He finally managed to lift the weapon and fire, but several strands of webbing had fouled the bolt, and the shot veered pathetically wide.
“Somebody get these damned blasted webs off us!” the dwarf demanded.
“I can burn them off, but it’ll hurt you as well!” Zenna said.
“Do it!” Arun’s cry came back to her.
Grimacing, Zenna reached for her wand. But before she could unleash its power, the dense lacing of webs shimmered, and vanished.
“Right! Good job!” Hodge said.
“But I didn’t do anything!” Zenna protested. She realized what had happened, and even as she drew back out of the now-clear doorway, she saw Kaurophon standing outside. The sorcerer nodded to her, and she felt a momentary twinge of guilt at judging him prematurely earlier.
But first things first, and they were still in a lot of trouble here. Unfortunately the driders had been outside of the range of Kaurophon’s dispel, and from their secure position they continued their spell assault upon the companions.
Mole had been quiet in the initial moments of battle, but again that was by design. First she’d tried to slip free of the double-nest of webbing, but when that failed she focused instead on remaining undetected and loaded her small crossbow. When the webs were dispelled by Kaurophon she moved quickly into the shadows, moving until she was almost directly under one of the driders.
Then she shot her bolt right up into its abdomen.
The drider didn’t like that one bit. The creature twisted its body so that it could look down at her, and then fired a trio of magic missiles at her. She tried to dodge, knowing it wouldn’t work, and stifled a cry as the three glowing darts stabbed painfully into her body.
Dannel continued his barrage, firing arrow after arrow into his target. The drider now looked like a pincushion, with multiple feathered shafts jutting from its body. The thing hissed at him, like a serpent. It lifted a slender black arm as if to hurl another spell at him, but it hesitated, perhaps doubting that a continued exchange of lightning bolts for arrows would work in its favor. It could not know that Dannel was laboring, his chest and arms burning where needles of electricity had stabbed into them. The elf, lost in the song of battle that he poured into his missiles, revealed nothing save grim efficiency, one with his bow.
So instead the spider-thing summoned another spell, and vanished.
Dannel had already drawn out another arrow, and as the drider disappeared he closed his eyes, drawing the feathers of the long shaft back to his cheek. He listened, and in the purity of the song he heard the clatter of its feet along the stone, as it skittered along the border of wall and ceiling. Almost reflexively, he loosed, opening his eyes to see the arrow stab into nothingness, almost its entire length vanishing from view. There was a loud, almost painful screech, and moments later a loud concussion as the drider fell, becoming visible as it convulsed for a moment amidst the rubble, finally falling still.
Upon regaining his freedom from the webs, Arun leapt forward, seeing one of his hammers lying upon the floor. He seized it up, and with a powerful snap of his wrist sent it flying up into the body of the drider who had just blasted Mole.
The drider was now injured from several wounds, and with the death of its fellow the tide of the battle had shifted decidedly against it. The ghastly creature, however, did not yield, nor seek quarter. It did shuffle across the ceiling, its levitation power holding it upside-down against the cracked ceiling of the foyer. Its movement took it to a position almost directly above the exit doors, indicating a possible intent to seek escape.
Dannel was blocking the exit, however, and he quickly shifted his aim to this adversary, bending backward to give him an angle to shoot. Before he could fire, however, the drider pointed at him, unleashing a coruscating beam of deep violet that struck the elf and splayed over his body in a nimbus of fey light. The effect was instantly obvious, as the elf staggered, greatly weakened by the ray of enfeeblement.
The drider started down the wall toward the doors, but it had to contend with Morgan, who lifted Alakast above his head and charged at it. The drider hissed and drew out a pair of slender steel daggers from sheaths strapped around its torso, but the fallen knight’s longer weapon allowed him to inflict a punishing blow to its chest before it could move into position to strike. Blood fountained from its jaws as the staff’s impact drove a rib into its internal organs. All thoughts of battle replaced by an instinct to survival, the creature released its spell of levitation, all but falling onto the ground in an awkward clutter, its bulk knocking Dannel roughly aside. It turned toward the open doors, startling Zenna and Kaurophon with the suddenness of its appearance. Before it could seek freedom and escape, however, it felt the bite of Hodge’s axe, cleaving deeply into its bulbous spider-body. The creature sagged against the doors, dying, until finally another series of bloody strokes from the gathered warriors put a final end to it.
Hodge and Morgan drew the dead creature aside, out of the doorway, so that the two magic-users could enter. Hodge grimaced as the thick, sticky gore from its wounds clung to his hands, sticking in his beard.
“Gads, that’s foul!” he said, trying to wipe the gunk from his beard, and mostly managing to bury it deeper in that filthy nest.
“Are you all right?” Zenna asked Dannel.
The elf nodded. “Weak...” he said, tiredly, sagging under the weight of his armor and equipment. “Need... a few minutes... spell... temporary...”
“I thought you said that this place was empty,” Morgan said, shooting a hard look at Kaurophon.
The sorcerer looked apologetic. “It was, the last time I was here,” he said. “This place, it bears a strong celestial... ‘echo’, I guess, would be the best word. Most fiends avoid it, from my experience, unless they have a strong reason not to.”
“He aided us greatly by dispelling those webs,” Zenna said.
Morgan turned away, dropping the matter. He took out a rag from his pack, and started cleansing from Alakast the patters of drider gore that had marred its smooth length during the battle. Dannel used healing wand to treat his injuries, and after a few minutes indicated that he was feeling better, the effects of the drider’s enfeebling spell wearing off. Arun led them to the doors on the far side of the foyer, which appeared to lead into the main part of the cathedral.
At the dwarf’s insistent push the doors swung open. Beyond lay a great hall, nearly a hundred feet in length. Here the damage they’d seen earlier was even more pronounced, with great gaps in the ceiling that showed the bright burning sky above. Rubble choked off great areas of the room, forming jagged mounds. About halfway down the hall the chamber narrowed, with doors offering onto side chambers, but at its far end it opened again to a broader space. There was a stone statue there, a good ten feet tall, of a dusky gray stone that contrasted with the white everywhere else, but it was too far distant for them to clearly identify.
They scanned the chamber cautiously, but there was nothing threatening evident, at least not that they could see from the shelter of the doorway. The rubble could have concealed anything.
Afterwards, Zenna would wonder why none of them had thought to look up as they entered, especially after what had just transpired with the driders.
Arun entered first, followed by Morgan. The rest of them had just started into the room, when a lithe, female form swooped down from above, landing directly before Morgan. Startled by the suddenness of its appearance, they could not react in time to stop it from lunging at the knight of Helm. She was an amber-skinned beauty, if one could ignore the great bat-wings, the claws, and the tiny horns that jutted from her head. She carried a slender spear, but did not hold it in the manner of a weapon. Morgan’s eyes widened, caught off guard by the startling juxtaposition of loveliness and horror. But instead of tearing into him with its slender claws, the demon-woman grasped his head with both of her hands, and sank into him with a deep, penetrating kiss.
“Hey!” Mole said, shattering the spell of surprise. “Hands off our cleric, demon!”
They started to Morgan’s aid, but suddenly a violent wall of roaring flames rose up from the floor, drawing a line twenty-feet tall across the room, driving them back with the searing heat of the flames.
Separating Arun and Morgan—and the succubus—from the rest of them.
Broccli_Head
Explorer
Still here...Still reading.
Going out of town for a week, so I'll have a lot of catching up to do when I return!
Going out of town for a week, so I'll have a lot of catching up to do when I return!
Jon Potter
First Post
Lazybones said:
And we know Arun's safe. Nobody ever wants to kiss the dwarf.
Lazybones
Adventurer
That may change, in future installments...Jon Potter said:And we know Arun's safe. Nobody ever wants to kiss the dwarf.
* * * * *
Chapter 197
Morgan reeled, stunned. The kiss had nothing of love in it; it was a taking, violent, and he could feel the life energy escaping from him, leaving him diminished.
Unfortuately, he felt as though his will was lost in the flood, and as the succubus drew back, her eyes glistening terribly, he knew that he was in her power. He felt a surge of desire course through him like a flood. He knew it was false, hated himself for it, but he could not resist. Alakast fell from fingers that had suddenly grown soft, and the staff clattered harmlessly on the bare stone floor at his feet.
“Get off of him, demon bitch,” Arun snarled, his sword a gleaming shaft of steel in his fist.
“Protect me, lover!” the succubus said to Morgan. Her sibilant voice tickled at his consciousness, and he felt compelled to obey. But his muscles felt stiff, reluctant. He looked down for his weapon, and the staff seemed far away, as if he had suddenly become thirty feet tall, looking down from a lofty height.
Arun was faster.
The succubus screamed in alarm as the dwarf charged her. She tried to dodge behind Morgan, but the holy sword lashed out, the full force of the dwarf’s strength behind the blow. He smote her, the sword cleaving into her torso squarely, and her scream halted as the sword tore through her tainted body, and the two halves, upper and lower, flopped to the ground below.
Surprisingly, there was very little blood.
“Naugh!” came a loud, angry voice from the far side of the cathedral, by the statue. Arun and Morgan, the latter still somewhat unsteady, turned to see a terrible, flaming creature emerge from behind the statue. It had the body of a serpent, but with muscular arms jutting from its torso, and a face that, while bestial in its visage, showed clearly the look of intelligence. It slid forward, upright, carrying a longspear its hands, its body surrounded with tongues of flame, the air around it distorted by the heat radiating off of its form.
Arun took one look at it and charged. Morgan, fighting through his own disorientation, reached down and recovered Alakast. Behind him, the wall of fire shimmered and disappeared, removed by Kaurophon’s magic.
Suddenly, their surroundings... changed.
Zenna’s nature had partially protected her from the wall of fire, but the others, she saw, were not so fortunate. Hodge looked as though he would charge right through the roaring flames, but the intensity of the roaring barrier drove him back, patting furiously at his smoking beard. Kaurophon, she saw, also appeared to be little affected by the flames, and as she watched, he called upon his magic, sundering the tendrils of magical power that maintained the spell. He was powerful, she knew, noting his calm control in a chaotic situation, his focus upon the energies that he was manipulating.
When the flames ceased, she stepped forward. She saw the dead succubus, Morgan and Arun, and the huge flame salamander. But she started as there was a faint flash, and everything around her changed. No, not everything... the combatants were still there, both her allies and their enemies, but the cathedral...
The cathedral was as it had been, when it was whole. The walls and ceiling were fully intact, shining with a benign white glow. White feathers drifted idly through the air, and a song, faint but distinct, filled her with an overwhelming sense of peace and contentment. The statue at the far end of the cathedral was likewise different, the blunt stone shape replaced by a glimmering marble statue of such beauty, she felt her breath catch in her throat...
And then it was gone, back to the way it had been, ruined, desecrated. The transition was so jarring that it was almost painful, and she felt a profound sense of loss.
“Did you just see that...” Mole asked.
“Yes, but we don’t have time to talk about it now!” Dannel said. He’d drawn out an arrow, and he took aim at the salamander.
But the fiery creature beat him to the attack, pointing at them. A small dot of flame darted from his fingertips, streaking down the length of the cathedral. Zenna watched it come, frozen, knowing what was going to happen, unable to stop it.
The world exploded in fire.
Lazybones
Adventurer
Chapter 198
The fireball lasted only an instant, but when the roaring flames faded, the devastating effects of the blast became evident.
Zenna lay on her side, pain flashing through her body. She forced herself to move, even though every slight adjustment sent fresh jolts from her blackened flesh through her already savaged nerves. She’d been at the center of the blast, and this time her natural protection had availed her little against the power of the flames.
She drew herself up and looked for the others. Morgan was lying on his face, the armor across the back of his body scorched terribly, as she knew was the flesh beneath. But the knight drew himself up in what had to be agony, reaching out, taking his staff into his hands. Rushing into battle like that was suicide, she knew... but he went anyway, limping slightly.
Hodge was little better off; the dwarf’s beard had been partially burned away, along with his thick brows. But he too was already stumbling forward, and for a moment Zenna felt a stab of pride, that these men were her companions, men who would simply not accept defeat.
Mole and Dannel looked far better off, having rolled with the force of the blast, although Dannel too looked more than a bit scorched, his fair features marked with the red glow of fresh burns. She glanced up and saw that Kaurophon had drawn back; his robes were not marked, but she could see the slight blackening of his exposed hand, a sign that he had not escaped the flames unscathed earlier.
Okay, the battle’s not over, girl! she thought, drawing herself up. She was not going to rush into battle tottering on the brink of consciousness, though, and paused to call upon a potent healing spell, letting the positive energy wash away some of the pain of her wounds. She was far from “okay,” but it would have to do for now.
She hurried after Hodge and Morgan, hoping to do some good before they got themselves killed.
Arun’s charge had carried him beyond the radius of the fireball. But the salamander, seeing him coming, calmly set its spear to receive his charge, the steel head of the weapon, glowing red with heat, pointed unerringly at the dwarf’s chest. Arun was too experienced to rush blindly in and impale himself on that deadly point, so he drew up, lifting his shield and moving in cautiously.
The salamander was fast, though. It adjusted to his shift in speed and approach, and the paladin felt an explosion of pain as the spearhead drove into his shoulder, penetrating his armor and searing through him like a wedge of liquid flame. He tore himself away from the spear before the salamander could drive it through him, knocking the shaft of the weapon aside with his sword. Damn, that thing’s strong! he thought, realizing grimly that he was outmatched by this foe.
But he’d seen the fireball that had streaked past him to blast into his companions, had felt the fierce roar of its burst, and he knew enough about magic to know that his friends would not be able to take another shot like that one. He knew also that the other warriors, Morgan and Hodge, were behind him, wounded. The salamander would tear them to pieces, he thought, even without having to resort to another magical attack.
And so the dwarf lunged forward, feeling the heat radiating from the salamander scorch his face. The creature seemed taken aback by the ferocity of his assault, and it hissed in pain as Arun’s holy sword clove into its torso, release a steaming cloud of ichor that filled the air with a sickly stench.
It drew back slightly, to give it room to wield its huge spear, shifting its grip before driving it down into the dwarf.
And as it tore into him with a violent storm of blows, tearing through his defenses as if they were nothing, he knew he’d been right.
The fireball lasted only an instant, but when the roaring flames faded, the devastating effects of the blast became evident.
Zenna lay on her side, pain flashing through her body. She forced herself to move, even though every slight adjustment sent fresh jolts from her blackened flesh through her already savaged nerves. She’d been at the center of the blast, and this time her natural protection had availed her little against the power of the flames.
She drew herself up and looked for the others. Morgan was lying on his face, the armor across the back of his body scorched terribly, as she knew was the flesh beneath. But the knight drew himself up in what had to be agony, reaching out, taking his staff into his hands. Rushing into battle like that was suicide, she knew... but he went anyway, limping slightly.
Hodge was little better off; the dwarf’s beard had been partially burned away, along with his thick brows. But he too was already stumbling forward, and for a moment Zenna felt a stab of pride, that these men were her companions, men who would simply not accept defeat.
Mole and Dannel looked far better off, having rolled with the force of the blast, although Dannel too looked more than a bit scorched, his fair features marked with the red glow of fresh burns. She glanced up and saw that Kaurophon had drawn back; his robes were not marked, but she could see the slight blackening of his exposed hand, a sign that he had not escaped the flames unscathed earlier.
Okay, the battle’s not over, girl! she thought, drawing herself up. She was not going to rush into battle tottering on the brink of consciousness, though, and paused to call upon a potent healing spell, letting the positive energy wash away some of the pain of her wounds. She was far from “okay,” but it would have to do for now.
She hurried after Hodge and Morgan, hoping to do some good before they got themselves killed.
Arun’s charge had carried him beyond the radius of the fireball. But the salamander, seeing him coming, calmly set its spear to receive his charge, the steel head of the weapon, glowing red with heat, pointed unerringly at the dwarf’s chest. Arun was too experienced to rush blindly in and impale himself on that deadly point, so he drew up, lifting his shield and moving in cautiously.
The salamander was fast, though. It adjusted to his shift in speed and approach, and the paladin felt an explosion of pain as the spearhead drove into his shoulder, penetrating his armor and searing through him like a wedge of liquid flame. He tore himself away from the spear before the salamander could drive it through him, knocking the shaft of the weapon aside with his sword. Damn, that thing’s strong! he thought, realizing grimly that he was outmatched by this foe.
But he’d seen the fireball that had streaked past him to blast into his companions, had felt the fierce roar of its burst, and he knew enough about magic to know that his friends would not be able to take another shot like that one. He knew also that the other warriors, Morgan and Hodge, were behind him, wounded. The salamander would tear them to pieces, he thought, even without having to resort to another magical attack.
And so the dwarf lunged forward, feeling the heat radiating from the salamander scorch his face. The creature seemed taken aback by the ferocity of his assault, and it hissed in pain as Arun’s holy sword clove into its torso, release a steaming cloud of ichor that filled the air with a sickly stench.
It drew back slightly, to give it room to wield its huge spear, shifting its grip before driving it down into the dwarf.
And as it tore into him with a violent storm of blows, tearing through his defenses as if they were nothing, he knew he’d been right.
Lazybones
Adventurer
Okay, this was supposed to be last Friday's cliffhanger, postponed due to the board outage.
* * * * *
Chapter 199
Morgan was sometimes brave to the point of recklessness, but despite what Zenna thought, he was no fool. As he rushed toward the salamander he drew out one of the small vials that they’d won in Vaprak’s Voice, doffing the cap and downing the contents in a single draught. The powerful healing potion eased his wounds, but he knew that he was far from at his best. He could also feel the lingering effects of the succubus’s kiss, the weakness from the life energy she’d drawn out of him.
But what he had left would have to do.
Hodge half-ran, half-hobbled forward, a few paces behind the taller human. His face felt as though it had been cut by a thousand tiny pixies with daggers dipped in salt. Looking upon the salamander, he saw a creature beyond his comprehension. A year ago, he’d have run, no question. But now, he’d been changed somehow, had undergone a transformation into someone or something new. Whatever it was, it seemed to involve him charging into sudden death repeatedly... But each time he’d come out alive, and he knew the reason, knew it in the form of the man who’d rushed alone ahead of them against a terrible foe, greater than all of them.
And so he ran once more at Death.
“Hodge, wait!”
Zenna’s voice drew him around. To be honest, he’d been nearly about to collapse anyway, and he fought not to show her how weak he was as she ran toward him.
“Canna wait, girl!” she said, gesturing with his axe at the salamander.
“Go then,” she said, touching her hand to his scorched face. It was a tender gesture, one that caught him off-guard, but he understood an instant later as healing energy poured into him. Feeling restored, he nodded at her, and ran toward the fray.
The salamander’s long body shook as an arrow caught it in the shoulder. Arun could see, however, that Dannel’s shot hadn’t penetrated far, and even as the missile stopped quivering its long wooden shaft was consumed in a blast of flame. The shot was followed by a series of pale blue darts, magic missiles that smoked briefly as each was absorbed by the burning monster.
Dannel came walking deliberately down the center aisle of the cathedral hall, drawing and firing as he came. His second shot narrowly missed as the salamander reared up and laid into Arun, slashing him across the body with its spear. Although designed as a thrusting weapon, the spear nonetheless tore through his layered armor, opening a gash in his belly that was instantly cauterized by the heat of the steel.
Arun grimaced but did not cry out. But the salamander struck again, tearing the dwarf’s helmet from his head by another expert slice from the spear that left him a smoking, three-inch gash in his temple that laid the white bone of his skull out bare. Arun staggered, and suddenly the salamander swung its body around with surprising quickness, slamming its tail into his chest. The dwarf went flying, and landed a few feet away on his back, smoke rising from him, unconscious or dead.
“Arun!” Zenna cried, already starting toward the dwarf. But her allies—friends, too, of the fallen man—responded to the defeat of the paladin not with fear, but with rage, rushing forward into a blind assault upon the salamander.
Morgan ducked a powerful sweep of the spear as he entered the deadly radius of the salamander’s reach. By some miracle the steel head failed to connect with his head, although he could feel the heat as it passed inches above him. He swarmed in, driving Alakast ahead in a sweeping arc. The staff, created to destroy evil outsiders, seemed to sing as it carved the air, striking the creature with a reverberating bang. The salamander, clearly hurt by the blow, let out a foul curse in its alien language, its eyes promising death to the warrior as it recentered itself and drew its spear back for another combination assault. It paid no heed at all to Hodge, whose rush, though brave, ended in a wide swing that missed its torso entirely. Another arrow slammed into its body, but it likewise ignored that assault, focused entirely upon the knight of Helm.
Morgan, knowing what was coming, stood his ground.
The spear came down in violent fury. He somehow caught the first thrust on Alakast, narrowly deflecting the weapon. But with an almost insane speed the salamander drew the longspear back and stabbed again, and this time the cleric could not withstand it. Pain blossomed in his chest as the spear drove through his armor and into his lung, and he was falling, backward, his lifeblood pouring down over his body from the terrible wound, even as it smoked and bubbled from the heat. He looked up at the monster, which as an almost casual afterthought swept its tail out at Hodge, knocking the doughty dwarf to his knees.
They were done, he thought, defeated.
Consciousness, mercifully, fled.
* * * * *
Chapter 199
Morgan was sometimes brave to the point of recklessness, but despite what Zenna thought, he was no fool. As he rushed toward the salamander he drew out one of the small vials that they’d won in Vaprak’s Voice, doffing the cap and downing the contents in a single draught. The powerful healing potion eased his wounds, but he knew that he was far from at his best. He could also feel the lingering effects of the succubus’s kiss, the weakness from the life energy she’d drawn out of him.
But what he had left would have to do.
Hodge half-ran, half-hobbled forward, a few paces behind the taller human. His face felt as though it had been cut by a thousand tiny pixies with daggers dipped in salt. Looking upon the salamander, he saw a creature beyond his comprehension. A year ago, he’d have run, no question. But now, he’d been changed somehow, had undergone a transformation into someone or something new. Whatever it was, it seemed to involve him charging into sudden death repeatedly... But each time he’d come out alive, and he knew the reason, knew it in the form of the man who’d rushed alone ahead of them against a terrible foe, greater than all of them.
And so he ran once more at Death.
“Hodge, wait!”
Zenna’s voice drew him around. To be honest, he’d been nearly about to collapse anyway, and he fought not to show her how weak he was as she ran toward him.
“Canna wait, girl!” she said, gesturing with his axe at the salamander.
“Go then,” she said, touching her hand to his scorched face. It was a tender gesture, one that caught him off-guard, but he understood an instant later as healing energy poured into him. Feeling restored, he nodded at her, and ran toward the fray.
The salamander’s long body shook as an arrow caught it in the shoulder. Arun could see, however, that Dannel’s shot hadn’t penetrated far, and even as the missile stopped quivering its long wooden shaft was consumed in a blast of flame. The shot was followed by a series of pale blue darts, magic missiles that smoked briefly as each was absorbed by the burning monster.
Dannel came walking deliberately down the center aisle of the cathedral hall, drawing and firing as he came. His second shot narrowly missed as the salamander reared up and laid into Arun, slashing him across the body with its spear. Although designed as a thrusting weapon, the spear nonetheless tore through his layered armor, opening a gash in his belly that was instantly cauterized by the heat of the steel.
Arun grimaced but did not cry out. But the salamander struck again, tearing the dwarf’s helmet from his head by another expert slice from the spear that left him a smoking, three-inch gash in his temple that laid the white bone of his skull out bare. Arun staggered, and suddenly the salamander swung its body around with surprising quickness, slamming its tail into his chest. The dwarf went flying, and landed a few feet away on his back, smoke rising from him, unconscious or dead.
“Arun!” Zenna cried, already starting toward the dwarf. But her allies—friends, too, of the fallen man—responded to the defeat of the paladin not with fear, but with rage, rushing forward into a blind assault upon the salamander.
Morgan ducked a powerful sweep of the spear as he entered the deadly radius of the salamander’s reach. By some miracle the steel head failed to connect with his head, although he could feel the heat as it passed inches above him. He swarmed in, driving Alakast ahead in a sweeping arc. The staff, created to destroy evil outsiders, seemed to sing as it carved the air, striking the creature with a reverberating bang. The salamander, clearly hurt by the blow, let out a foul curse in its alien language, its eyes promising death to the warrior as it recentered itself and drew its spear back for another combination assault. It paid no heed at all to Hodge, whose rush, though brave, ended in a wide swing that missed its torso entirely. Another arrow slammed into its body, but it likewise ignored that assault, focused entirely upon the knight of Helm.
Morgan, knowing what was coming, stood his ground.
The spear came down in violent fury. He somehow caught the first thrust on Alakast, narrowly deflecting the weapon. But with an almost insane speed the salamander drew the longspear back and stabbed again, and this time the cleric could not withstand it. Pain blossomed in his chest as the spear drove through his armor and into his lung, and he was falling, backward, his lifeblood pouring down over his body from the terrible wound, even as it smoked and bubbled from the heat. He looked up at the monster, which as an almost casual afterthought swept its tail out at Hodge, knocking the doughty dwarf to his knees.
They were done, he thought, defeated.
Consciousness, mercifully, fled.
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