Lazybones
Adventurer
Oh, she's there.Neverwinter Knight said:
This isn't going to be a good week for the Heroes of Cauldron.
* * * * *
Chapter 360
The companions, caught flat-footed by the suddenness of Freija’s disintegration of the barrier between them, found themselves caught in an unenviable tactical position.
Arrows knifed through the air, powered by the mighty bows of the haraknin warriors. Their aim was expert, but the companions, warded by Nidrama’s protection from arrows magic, avoided serious injury in that initial barrage. Unfortunately the protection was not sufficient to fully absorb the oblong iron missile the size of a man’s skull hurled by Ti’irok Coalfire. The giant had laid his ammunition into the lava pool in anticipation of the battle, and the superheated lump, half-melted by the brief immersion, caromed off of Arun’s shield, driving the paladin back a step as hot droplets of molten metal splashed onto his helmet.
Arun’s situation grew more dire a moment later. Nabthatoron had not forgotten the foe that had taken its claw, and the glabrezu was not in a mood to mess around. Even as Ti’irok’s missile struck hard and bounced off its target, the demon hurled a power word, stun that send the paladin reeling, staggering back against the wall of the passage.
Seeing Arun blasted by the demon’s power, and noting in a quick glance the enemies arrayed against them, Dannel exclaimed, “Fall back!” But even as he reached for Arun, hoping to be able to drag the stunned dwarf free of this exposed position, he heard the sounds of creatures approaching from behind. He looked up to see a pair of kelubar demodands approaching, filling the tunnel with their bulk. Behind them, he could just see the outlines of an armored man, easily twirling a long length of spiked chain in his hands.
“Damn,” the elf said.
And that’s when the horrid wilting hit.
Freija Doorgan chuckled as she observed the effects of her magic upon the intruders. Thus far the ambush was going perfectly; while the adventurers seemed protected against the arrows of the haraknin—not that she’d expected much from the mercenaries in the first place—the glabezu’s magic had taken out their toughest fighter, and the screams as her horrid wilting ravaged them were quite… stimulating. The presence of a celestial had been a surprise; Shebelith’s briefing had not indicated that any of them had the power to summon such an ally. But the deva looked hard-hit by the wilting, and the next spell would likely finish off the lot of them.
The half-fiend sorcerer made a desultory comment that she couldn’t quite identify. Kaurophon had not seemed pleased when she’d ordered him to remain back, at her side. His cone of cold might have helped hasten the inevitable outcome here, but she didn’t want to have to worry about allies getting in the way of her spells. The sorcerer was shrouded by greater invisibility, which was a problem for her, given her inability to cast divination spells, but thus far the sorcerer’s mutterings had allowed her to keep track of his presence. She hadn’t seen the gnome rogue yet, but was ready for Mole Calloran, if and when she made her appearance.
The elf, moving quickly despite the agony of the wilting, lifted his bow, an arrow already fitted to the string. For a split second, Freija thought she heard something odd—a few melodic notes?—but then the elf released his shot. She’s known that the elf was an arcane archer, but even she was surprised when the arrow shifted as it left the blow, and suddenly multiple missiles were knifing across the room. Several haraknin took hits, and one arrow even knifed narrowly past her, fortunately piercing the false image projected by her displacement spell.
The conjurer mentally placed the elf on the next-to-destroy list.
The haraknin, following their orders, had already taken up their greataxes and started forward. She turned and barked a single-word command to her summoned vrock, but even as the creature eagerly leapt forward, flapping its wings to attack, a cloud of green vapors erupted around their enemies.
“That fool Baiul!” she exclaimed. “I told him, no obscuring spells!” The acid fog might further injure their foes, but it also gave them concealment, and would injure their own forces as they closed to melee. And Freija’s tactical acumen extended to a simple principle: hit first, hit hard, and hit often, until your foe is no longer a threat. She did not want to give these enemies a chance to retreat, or to recover the initiative.
“It would appear that your friend is not as effective at controlling fiends as you are,” Kaurophon said.
Freija’s response was like ice. “Dispel the fog,” she commanded, already focusing her mind on her next spell. What to bring next? Fiendish vermin were always enjoyable, but the space here was limited, and with the haraknin charging the melee would already be crowded. Perhaps a pack of yeth hounds? With their resistance to any but silver weapons, those were always a pain in the ass to deal with. Folding her hands in an intricate gesture, the conjurer began the familiar incantation that would draw minions across the barrier between worlds.
Intent upon her summoning, she did not even see the celestial erupt from the cloud, a fierce cry erupting from her lips, her sword lifted high as she flew in a line toward the glabrezu. The demon dominated the room, towering over the deva by an easy eight feet, its head nearly touching the ceiling above. But Nidrama did not hesitate in the face of this deadly adversary. Consumed by the urge to destroy the classic enemy of all celestials, the demon representing the polar opposite of all that she was, the deva flew directly at the glabrezu. Her sword seemed to sing as she drove it down in a glimmering arc that tore viciously into Nabthatoron’s shoulder, releasing a spray of hot ichor that sizzled as it hit the air.
The wound was considerable, but it would take far more than that to destroy this adversary.
The mists of the acid fog faded, the magic holding it together disrupted by Kaurophon’s dispel magic. The spell also had the salutary effect of stripping away a few of the wards that Nidrama had laid upon the companions, but it likewise removed some of the magical benefits enjoyed by the nearest of the Cagewright forces, already closing upon the companions. This included the two kelubar demodands, who eagerly lumbered forward to destroy the trapped intruders. With Arun stunned and defenseless, Hodge, despite feeling terrible from the wilting, stepped forward to meet them. The corridor was too narrow for both demodands to easily assault the dwarf together, but they did quite effectively block any route of escape. The nearer of the two lunged at Hodge with its long arms, but the dwarf merely stepped into its reach, shrugging off a painful blow to the shoulder, and laid into it with Arun’s holy sword. Hodge used the weapon much as he would his axe, cleaving into the fiend’s flabby torso, opening a terrible gash nearly five feet across, spilling its organs out in a mess of slime and gore upon the bare stone of the corridor floor. The kelubar gibbered in obvious distress, but it continued its attack, slashing and tearing eagerly at this foe a fraction of its size.
Dannel hurled himself to the side, narrowly avoiding the first diving assault of the summoned vrock. Behind it, he was all too aware of the line of mercenary warriors who were rapidly closing in. With Arun temporarily—he hoped it was only temporary—out of the fight, he had to hold the line. But his attention remained drawn to the enemy wizard, the source of the horrid wilting. Dannel knew enough about magic to know how dangerous this made the enemy spellcaster, and through the chaos of battle, the shouts and rapidly shifting figures, his sharp eyes caught a glimpse of the woman moving her hands in an intricate pattern. Another spell, on the way, and if it was taking this long, it would have to be a nasty one.
He did not hesitate. Even though it exposed him to the vrock hovering a few feet above, and even though it meant that he would be open to the charging haraknin, he drew back his bow, letting the song fill him once more, and released.
Freija, lost in her summoning, did not see the elf’s shot; with all of the intervening foes and the added benefit of her displacement, she considered herself secure. Their enemies contained no spellcasters to threaten her, and while their swords were said to be quite effective, there was no way for them to reach her…
Pain exploded in her shoulder, as Dannel’s seeker arrow, navigating the shifting openings through the melee, found its target. Her concentration, normally an unbreakable steel sphere of self-control, was broken as the missile pierced muscle and grated painfully off her clavicle before jutting out of her back. The wound was not life-threatening, but the pain was certainly no less intense for that.
For an incredulous moment Freija looked down at the arrow jutting from her shoulder. Then her gaze shifted down to the blossoming field of darker red that was spreading across her pristine velvet dress, transforming the expensive white lace trim into an ugly red mess.
At that sight the pain disappeared into the background, and Freija let out a terrible shriek.
“You… you… GOT ME DIRTY!” she screamed.
For all her pathological fixation on cleanliness, the next words that came from the conjurer’s mouth were decidedly… filthy.
While Freija Doorgan dealt with her personal demons, the Cagewright ambush, for all its initial clockwork timing and execution, had quickly devolved into a desperate and chaotic melee as the Heroes of Cauldron fought for their lives.
Dannel dropped his bow, drawing out Alakast as he tried to dodge the shrieking assault of the vrock. Unfortunately, this distraction meant that the elf could do nothing to protect Arun from a pair of haraknin warriors, who rushed in to finish the stunned paladin, their huge axes raised to strike.
But even as the first lunged in to deliver a critical blow, it stumbled on something. As it fell, the second mercenary was caught off-guard as a small but ferocious boar—coming out of nowhere, it seemed—appeared and attacked. The animal’s tusks failed to penetrate the haraknin’s thick hide, but they did get its attention.
The diminutive figure of Mole appeared across the fallen warrior’s back, slamming her rapier deep into the gap where its arm met its torso. The haraknin were durable combatants, however, and almost immediately the injured creature started to rise. Its companion, ignoring Mole’s conjured boar, spun and brought its axe around in a controlled sweep designed to remove the pest from its perch. But the gnome saw the attack coming, and at the last instant she sprang up above the sweep of the crescent blade, thrusting her little weapon out at the haraknin’s face. The creature was forced to dodge back, but even so it took a nasty gash across its brow. The boar continued its persistent attack, although its tusks barely scratched the haraknin’s leathery skin.
Mole’s efforts had won a few critical moments, but there were another seven haraknin behind the first pair, including a massive figure that muscled its way to the fore. This huge specimen, half a foot taller than its kin, wielded a two-handed sword that bore an obvious and seemingly contradictory enchantment; one edge was covered with hot licks of flame, while the other was surrounded by a rime of white frost.
“Uh oh,” Mole said, as Aszithef, Ti’irok Coalfire’s second in command, stepped forward with her magical sword Coldburn, ready to do some serious damage.
The glabrezu reeled from the initial ferocity of Nidrama’s assault, and for a few seconds the two seemed insulated from the rest of the melee merely by virtue of the demon’s height. The two, fiend and celestial, were acting out a rivalry that existed back to the beginning of time, and the deva’s ferocity seemed unmatched as she swept her blade deep into Nabthatoron’s body.
But her brave charge could not obviate the fact that Nidrama was greatly outmatched by this foe. The glabrezu’s thin inner claws reached out and took hold of the deva’s arms, seizing her long enough for it to bring up its huge pincer arm, equipped with the deadly adamantine claw that had been its prize for joining this struggle.
Nidrama saw her destruction coming and tried to draw away. But she’d been already seriously battered by the wilting, and she’d foresworn the full powers of her celestial ancestry by her decision to intervene in this mortal conflict. Wincing in pain she tore free from the glabrezu’s claws, but too late to avoid the descending metal limb. The pincer caught her solidly in the chest, crushing her body, driving her down into the ground ten feet below with enough force to shake the volcanic stone. Her sword flew from her grasp, twisting end over end before it clattered noisily to the ground a few paces away.
The celestial, still somehow conscious despite the sundering of her body, looked up in defiance as Nabthatoron loomed over her. “This is not the end, demon,” she spat, the words all but lost in the gurgling of her blood from her shattered torso into her lungs and throat.
The glabrezu’s response was its heavy foot upon her chest, crushing what was left of her against the stone.
and did so with Travels as well.
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
