Neverwinter Knight
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Anyone else sense a twist coming up?Lazybones said:
Shackled City Epic: "Vengeance" (story concluded)
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Lazybones
Adventurer
Chapter 368
The Heroes of Cauldron, now bolstered by the Travelers, set out once again deeper into the Cagewright stronghold. Despite having just met, both groups contained veterans of untold combats and deadly situations, and they combined their skills to best advantage. Benzan and Mole, cloaked in invisibility, took the lead. Behind them came the three warriors, Arun, Lok, and Hodge, forming an iron wall of defense. Just behind them came Dannel, able to shoot over the shorter fighters with his longbow, Dana’s planar ally at his side. The deva’s superior senses would help ensure that they were not caught off guard, and his presence in the middle of their order ensured that everyone but the scouts could benefit from the protective aura that it radiated against all things evil. Cal and Dana brought up the rear. At Dana’s direction the deva had blessed them all with divine aid, a temporary but useful warding that improved their durability significantly.
The tunnel beyond the double doors on the far side of the Cagewright meeting room started curving almost immediately to the right, the bend in the passage obscuring anything more than maybe forty or fifty feet ahead of them. They pressed on, their light sources indicating a side tunnel opening off to the left. As they neared the split, Mole appeared suddenly ahead of them. “Torture chamber, empty, no exits,” she said, fading back into invisibility even as she finished speaking.
“Could be a trap or a secret door,” Dannel suggested.
Arun nodded and halted. “Let’s check it out, quick but thorough.” But the room proved to be as empty as Mole had said, and after a minute’s delay they continued down the main corridor.
“So much pain here,” Lok commented.
“The demodands are the masters of Careri,” Cal explained. “The entire plane is basically a giant prison. Creatures from throughout the multiverse are trapped there… and there is no parole, or time off for good behavior. The demodands are the warders, and from what I read, they take great joy in their duties.”
“Just gets better an’ better,” Hodge grumbled.
“And these Cagewrights seek to transform the Realms into an extension of that place?” Dana said. “Madness…”
“They delude themselves into thinking that they would hold power, when the portal opened,” Arun said. “Ultimately, though, any revolution ends up consuming those who first ignite it.”
“Your military exterior betrays the heart of a scholar, paladin,” Cal noted.
Mole’s voice hissed in interruption out of thin air. “Sheesh, you guys are as loud as a gnomish circus! Keep it down… there’s a chamber up ahead, looks empty, but Benzan is checking it out.”
Thus chastened, the group continued—with the clank of the heavy armor worn by the dwarves, only moderately more quietly—forward.
The place was a fairly large bedchamber, dominated by a comfortable four-poster bed. Mostly-empty shelf and workbench space carved into the stone decorated the walls, and an elaborate summoning diagram covered almost half of the floor space. For being in a dungeon, the place was fastidiously clean, without a single speck of dust in evidence upon the floor or any of the other surfaces. There were no obvious exits, making this an apparent dead end.
“Either there’s a secret door somewhere, or that woman is still here,” Dannel said.
“As always, yer grasp o’ the obvious be amazin’, elf,” Hodge offered.
“Invisible?” Lok asked.
“There is nothing invisible within this chamber,” the deva said.
“I don’t sense any live auras,” Arun agreed. “But dark things were done in this place.” The warriors moved slowly into the room, avoiding treading upon the summoning circle in the floor.
The deva turned, his heavy mace coming up into a ready position. “Something comes,” he said. A heartbeat later, they could all hear it, a rumbling noise that seemed to sound through the very walls near where the corridor met this room.
“What in the hells…” Hodge began.
He did not get a chance to finish his thought, for the wall abruptly erupted outward, and a huge figure strode into the chamber in an explosion of shattered stone and dust.
The Heroes of Cauldron, now bolstered by the Travelers, set out once again deeper into the Cagewright stronghold. Despite having just met, both groups contained veterans of untold combats and deadly situations, and they combined their skills to best advantage. Benzan and Mole, cloaked in invisibility, took the lead. Behind them came the three warriors, Arun, Lok, and Hodge, forming an iron wall of defense. Just behind them came Dannel, able to shoot over the shorter fighters with his longbow, Dana’s planar ally at his side. The deva’s superior senses would help ensure that they were not caught off guard, and his presence in the middle of their order ensured that everyone but the scouts could benefit from the protective aura that it radiated against all things evil. Cal and Dana brought up the rear. At Dana’s direction the deva had blessed them all with divine aid, a temporary but useful warding that improved their durability significantly.
The tunnel beyond the double doors on the far side of the Cagewright meeting room started curving almost immediately to the right, the bend in the passage obscuring anything more than maybe forty or fifty feet ahead of them. They pressed on, their light sources indicating a side tunnel opening off to the left. As they neared the split, Mole appeared suddenly ahead of them. “Torture chamber, empty, no exits,” she said, fading back into invisibility even as she finished speaking.
“Could be a trap or a secret door,” Dannel suggested.
Arun nodded and halted. “Let’s check it out, quick but thorough.” But the room proved to be as empty as Mole had said, and after a minute’s delay they continued down the main corridor.
“So much pain here,” Lok commented.
“The demodands are the masters of Careri,” Cal explained. “The entire plane is basically a giant prison. Creatures from throughout the multiverse are trapped there… and there is no parole, or time off for good behavior. The demodands are the warders, and from what I read, they take great joy in their duties.”
“Just gets better an’ better,” Hodge grumbled.
“And these Cagewrights seek to transform the Realms into an extension of that place?” Dana said. “Madness…”
“They delude themselves into thinking that they would hold power, when the portal opened,” Arun said. “Ultimately, though, any revolution ends up consuming those who first ignite it.”
“Your military exterior betrays the heart of a scholar, paladin,” Cal noted.
Mole’s voice hissed in interruption out of thin air. “Sheesh, you guys are as loud as a gnomish circus! Keep it down… there’s a chamber up ahead, looks empty, but Benzan is checking it out.”
Thus chastened, the group continued—with the clank of the heavy armor worn by the dwarves, only moderately more quietly—forward.
The place was a fairly large bedchamber, dominated by a comfortable four-poster bed. Mostly-empty shelf and workbench space carved into the stone decorated the walls, and an elaborate summoning diagram covered almost half of the floor space. For being in a dungeon, the place was fastidiously clean, without a single speck of dust in evidence upon the floor or any of the other surfaces. There were no obvious exits, making this an apparent dead end.
“Either there’s a secret door somewhere, or that woman is still here,” Dannel said.
“As always, yer grasp o’ the obvious be amazin’, elf,” Hodge offered.
“Invisible?” Lok asked.
“There is nothing invisible within this chamber,” the deva said.
“I don’t sense any live auras,” Arun agreed. “But dark things were done in this place.” The warriors moved slowly into the room, avoiding treading upon the summoning circle in the floor.
The deva turned, his heavy mace coming up into a ready position. “Something comes,” he said. A heartbeat later, they could all hear it, a rumbling noise that seemed to sound through the very walls near where the corridor met this room.
“What in the hells…” Hodge began.
He did not get a chance to finish his thought, for the wall abruptly erupted outward, and a huge figure strode into the chamber in an explosion of shattered stone and dust.
Lazybones
Adventurer
Chapter 370 offers a good cliffhanger for this Friday, so today will be a double-post day. Here's 369; tune in for 370 later today.
* * * * *
Chapter 369
Cal and Dana, who’d remained near the entry of the chamber, found themselves directly in the path of the exploding wall and the huge intruder who materialized through the cloud of debris. Shards of shattered stone struck Cal in the face and upper body, but bounced off of his skin, which had been magically treated with a stoneskin spell. Dana, lacking such protection, staggered as a piece of volcanic rock the size of s sling bullet caromed off of her temple. She spun away from the force of the blast and darted back as a massive stone limb swept through the open space where she’d been standing. Cal threw aside dignity and hurled himself back down the corridor, narrowly avoiding being crushed by the tread of a giant stone foot as the creature moved forward through the breach in the tunnel wall.
The companions responded swiftly to the sudden appearance of the greater earth elemental. Dana’s planar ally spun and hurled itself at the foe, his mace lifted to strike, but the elemental’s considerable reach allowed it to pummel the deva before it could close to deliver the attack. The elemental’s punch landed with devastating force, and the deva’s forward momentum was instantly reversed as he flew roughly back to land hard on the floor several paces behind where he had started.
That display offered a powerful caution, but did not stop the rest of the companions from pressing the attack. Dannel and Benzan drew back from the deadly circle of the elemental’s reach, already drawing their bows taut to fire, while Lok and Arun rushed in to engage the stone monstrosity in melee. Great chunks of pulverized rock were shorn from the huge creature’s frame as axe and sword clove into it, while cracks were driven into its upper torso as steel-tipped arrows infused with magical power struck hard and drove deep into its body. Against foes such as these, its advantages of size, strength, and the durability of its physical form were of little avail, proven again as Dana struck a considerable blow with her longspear at the joint of its left arm and torso, widening a crack already opened by Benzan’s arrow.
But despite the injuries it had taken, the elemental did not falter, or pause, or retreat. Instead it surged forward another step, shaking the floor with its movements. Its shin connected with Lok, who brought his shield up and caught the blow. Unfortunately the elemental’s mass overwhelmed Lok’s by several orders of magnitude, even with his adamantine armor and heavy kit. The impact lifted the genasi from his feet, and he too clattered heavily to the ground several feet away, battered but not serious hurt.
Arun shifted his position and lifted his holy sword to strike. But the elemental’s movement had brought its right arm around, and before the paladin could unleash his attack its fist drove into his shoulder with the force of a siege ram. Arun’s battered armor held against the onslaught, but he nevertheless was knocked to the side like a sporting pin struck by a lead ball. Dana only narrowly avoiding being struck by the paladin, who crashed into the wall and sank down in a dazed heap.
The elemental had gotten a few good licks in against its foes, but it was clearly showing the effects of the damage that had already been wrought against it. Hodge rushed forward to take Arun’s place in melee; the elemental took a powerful swing at him as he drew close to melee range but the dwarf judged the distance well and darted underneath the blow with uncharacteristic agility. He’d left his holy sword in his scabbard, choosing instead his old favored axe. Even as arrows continued to slam into the elemental’s upper body, the sturdy dwarf hewed at the elemental’s legs like a berserk lumberjack. Great shards of stone and packed earth went flying under the onslaught, and the elemental staggered back. A sizzling sound became audible from the back side of its body; Cal had retreated to a safe distance and hit it with an acid arrow from one of his wands.
The elemental reared, now barely cohesive, and lifted its arms for a final strike against the enemies it had been summoned to destroy. But it was spent. The final blow was struck by the deva, which had recovered and flew straight at the creature’s head like a missile shot from a catapult. Its blessed mace struck one final blow, and the creature collapsed into a heap of inanimate rubble.
Lok and Arun got up, accepting healing from Cal and Dana. Dannel quickly surveyed the passage from which the creature had emerged, verifying that there were no more immediate threats in that direction. Mole, whose tiny weapons had been of no use against the creature, continued her search of the chamber, while Benzan gave the elemental a quick examination to verify that it concealed no further surprises.
“That wasn’t so hard,” the tiefling commented.
“You didn’t feel its punch,” Arun observed, twisting his arm to make sure that his shoulder was still properly in its socket.
“I think what he means is that they had the jump on us; I’m surprised that they only sent the one elemental to attack us,” Dannel observed. The elf had taken up a position at the edge of the tunnel behind the secret door that the elemental had blasted through.
“Maybe they’re running out of resources,” Lok noted. “The giant admitted that he and his haraknin comprised a significant portion of the Cagewrights’ military forces.”
“I hope you haven’t forgotten that there are thirteen of them,” Dannel replied. “We’ve only faced two, maybe three, thus far.”
“Kaurophon is here as well,” Arun reminded them.
“Another old friend?” Dana asked.
“Let’s just say that we have a score to settle,” the paladin replied.
Cal had been musing over the situation. “I think the elemental’s purpose was to reveal this secret tunnel to us, without making it look overtly obvious,” he said.
“So you’re saying this is another trap,” Benzan said.
“I could’a told ye that, and I ain’ no wizzerd,” Hodge said.
“There may be another way to get to the Tree,” Dana said.
“You may be right,” Arun said. “But time is against us.”
“How long until the ritual is completed?” Dana asked, turning to the deva.
“The paladin speaks truth,” the deva acknowledged. “The evil power within this place grows exponentially, but I cannot be more specific.”
“Well, let’s be about it, then,” Benzan said, turning to the passage. “If we’re going to make a grab for the bait, we may as well have both feet within the jaws of the trap.”
“Wait a moment,” the gnome said. “Dana, what about your find the path spell? It may reveal an alternative route to the Tree of Shackled Souls.”
The mystic wanderer nodded, summoning the power of her connection to Selûne. The casting took about twenty seconds, during which time Dana kept her eyes closed, her mouth moving as soft syllables filtered out, fading as soon as they hit the ears of the gathered listeners.
Finally, however, she opened her eyes, her frustration clear on her face. “Something is not right. I am not getting a clear reading.”
“Maybe the Cagewrights are interfering with your spell?” Dannel suggested.
“No, I don’t think so,” Dana said. “The spell may fail, however, if there is no clear physical route to the stated objective.”
“They may have collapsed the tunnels leading to it,” Arun said.
“If that is the case, I may be able to help,” Cal said. “But I’d prefer not to start burrowing blindly, given our current locale.”
“Here’s an idea,” Benzan said. “Let’s find us a Cagewright, and direct a few… pointed questions at him. They must have a way to get to their precious tree.”
“I will go ahead to spring the ambush, if you wish,” the deva said. “I do not fear evil.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Hodge chimed.
“I do not like the idea of splitting up,” Cal said, even as Dana added, “I do not consider you expendable, Alyx.”
At that moment, Mole appeared again, shedding her invisibility to appear in their midst.
“Gah, girl, ye goin’ to take a year or ten off me life, if ye keep doin’ that!” Hodge exclaimed.
“Your niece has light feet,” Benzan said to Cal. “I have to admit, I didn’t hear her at all, although the deva’s eyes shifted when she came out of the tunnel, which did serve as a giveaway.”
“You scouted ahead while we were talking?” Dana asked. “Don’t you know how incredibly foolish that was?”
“Yer wastin’ yer breath, lady,” Hodge said. “Gnomes don’ grasp common sense stuff like that. Somepin’ broken in their heads, me thinks.”
“Tell us what you found, Mole,” Cal said.
“Well,” she replied, with a slight huff at Dana, “The tunnel heads east for maybe forty feet or so, then bends sharply to the right. There was some lava-light in that direction, and a pretty nasty smell of demodands. Both kinds, I think. I didn’t see any of them, but I’d bet they were down there, invisible or hiding.”
“Demodands can see invisible creatures,” Dana said. “I think it’s pretty safe to assume that they know we’re coming, now.”
“Hey, I’m pretty hard to see even without my ring,” Mole said defensively.
“I believe it is moot—I would be stunned if the remaining Cagewrights did not know exactly where we are,” Cal said. “The result of Dana’s spell suggests that they have already shaped the battlefield to their choosing. We either go forward or back, or blindly strike out in another direction. The deva and I can manage the last, if it comes to that, but that approach also has its risks.”
“Yes, burrowing into passage flooded with lava would be most inconvenient,” Dannel noted.
“So our choice is made. There is no going back,” Arun said. “Mole, if you would… Mole?”
There was no sign of the diminutive rogue.
“Gnomes,” Hodge muttered under his breath.
* * * * *
Chapter 369
Cal and Dana, who’d remained near the entry of the chamber, found themselves directly in the path of the exploding wall and the huge intruder who materialized through the cloud of debris. Shards of shattered stone struck Cal in the face and upper body, but bounced off of his skin, which had been magically treated with a stoneskin spell. Dana, lacking such protection, staggered as a piece of volcanic rock the size of s sling bullet caromed off of her temple. She spun away from the force of the blast and darted back as a massive stone limb swept through the open space where she’d been standing. Cal threw aside dignity and hurled himself back down the corridor, narrowly avoiding being crushed by the tread of a giant stone foot as the creature moved forward through the breach in the tunnel wall.
The companions responded swiftly to the sudden appearance of the greater earth elemental. Dana’s planar ally spun and hurled itself at the foe, his mace lifted to strike, but the elemental’s considerable reach allowed it to pummel the deva before it could close to deliver the attack. The elemental’s punch landed with devastating force, and the deva’s forward momentum was instantly reversed as he flew roughly back to land hard on the floor several paces behind where he had started.
That display offered a powerful caution, but did not stop the rest of the companions from pressing the attack. Dannel and Benzan drew back from the deadly circle of the elemental’s reach, already drawing their bows taut to fire, while Lok and Arun rushed in to engage the stone monstrosity in melee. Great chunks of pulverized rock were shorn from the huge creature’s frame as axe and sword clove into it, while cracks were driven into its upper torso as steel-tipped arrows infused with magical power struck hard and drove deep into its body. Against foes such as these, its advantages of size, strength, and the durability of its physical form were of little avail, proven again as Dana struck a considerable blow with her longspear at the joint of its left arm and torso, widening a crack already opened by Benzan’s arrow.
But despite the injuries it had taken, the elemental did not falter, or pause, or retreat. Instead it surged forward another step, shaking the floor with its movements. Its shin connected with Lok, who brought his shield up and caught the blow. Unfortunately the elemental’s mass overwhelmed Lok’s by several orders of magnitude, even with his adamantine armor and heavy kit. The impact lifted the genasi from his feet, and he too clattered heavily to the ground several feet away, battered but not serious hurt.
Arun shifted his position and lifted his holy sword to strike. But the elemental’s movement had brought its right arm around, and before the paladin could unleash his attack its fist drove into his shoulder with the force of a siege ram. Arun’s battered armor held against the onslaught, but he nevertheless was knocked to the side like a sporting pin struck by a lead ball. Dana only narrowly avoiding being struck by the paladin, who crashed into the wall and sank down in a dazed heap.
The elemental had gotten a few good licks in against its foes, but it was clearly showing the effects of the damage that had already been wrought against it. Hodge rushed forward to take Arun’s place in melee; the elemental took a powerful swing at him as he drew close to melee range but the dwarf judged the distance well and darted underneath the blow with uncharacteristic agility. He’d left his holy sword in his scabbard, choosing instead his old favored axe. Even as arrows continued to slam into the elemental’s upper body, the sturdy dwarf hewed at the elemental’s legs like a berserk lumberjack. Great shards of stone and packed earth went flying under the onslaught, and the elemental staggered back. A sizzling sound became audible from the back side of its body; Cal had retreated to a safe distance and hit it with an acid arrow from one of his wands.
The elemental reared, now barely cohesive, and lifted its arms for a final strike against the enemies it had been summoned to destroy. But it was spent. The final blow was struck by the deva, which had recovered and flew straight at the creature’s head like a missile shot from a catapult. Its blessed mace struck one final blow, and the creature collapsed into a heap of inanimate rubble.
Lok and Arun got up, accepting healing from Cal and Dana. Dannel quickly surveyed the passage from which the creature had emerged, verifying that there were no more immediate threats in that direction. Mole, whose tiny weapons had been of no use against the creature, continued her search of the chamber, while Benzan gave the elemental a quick examination to verify that it concealed no further surprises.
“That wasn’t so hard,” the tiefling commented.
“You didn’t feel its punch,” Arun observed, twisting his arm to make sure that his shoulder was still properly in its socket.
“I think what he means is that they had the jump on us; I’m surprised that they only sent the one elemental to attack us,” Dannel observed. The elf had taken up a position at the edge of the tunnel behind the secret door that the elemental had blasted through.
“Maybe they’re running out of resources,” Lok noted. “The giant admitted that he and his haraknin comprised a significant portion of the Cagewrights’ military forces.”
“I hope you haven’t forgotten that there are thirteen of them,” Dannel replied. “We’ve only faced two, maybe three, thus far.”
“Kaurophon is here as well,” Arun reminded them.
“Another old friend?” Dana asked.
“Let’s just say that we have a score to settle,” the paladin replied.
Cal had been musing over the situation. “I think the elemental’s purpose was to reveal this secret tunnel to us, without making it look overtly obvious,” he said.
“So you’re saying this is another trap,” Benzan said.
“I could’a told ye that, and I ain’ no wizzerd,” Hodge said.
“There may be another way to get to the Tree,” Dana said.
“You may be right,” Arun said. “But time is against us.”
“How long until the ritual is completed?” Dana asked, turning to the deva.
“The paladin speaks truth,” the deva acknowledged. “The evil power within this place grows exponentially, but I cannot be more specific.”
“Well, let’s be about it, then,” Benzan said, turning to the passage. “If we’re going to make a grab for the bait, we may as well have both feet within the jaws of the trap.”
“Wait a moment,” the gnome said. “Dana, what about your find the path spell? It may reveal an alternative route to the Tree of Shackled Souls.”
The mystic wanderer nodded, summoning the power of her connection to Selûne. The casting took about twenty seconds, during which time Dana kept her eyes closed, her mouth moving as soft syllables filtered out, fading as soon as they hit the ears of the gathered listeners.
Finally, however, she opened her eyes, her frustration clear on her face. “Something is not right. I am not getting a clear reading.”
“Maybe the Cagewrights are interfering with your spell?” Dannel suggested.
“No, I don’t think so,” Dana said. “The spell may fail, however, if there is no clear physical route to the stated objective.”
“They may have collapsed the tunnels leading to it,” Arun said.
“If that is the case, I may be able to help,” Cal said. “But I’d prefer not to start burrowing blindly, given our current locale.”
“Here’s an idea,” Benzan said. “Let’s find us a Cagewright, and direct a few… pointed questions at him. They must have a way to get to their precious tree.”
“I will go ahead to spring the ambush, if you wish,” the deva said. “I do not fear evil.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Hodge chimed.
“I do not like the idea of splitting up,” Cal said, even as Dana added, “I do not consider you expendable, Alyx.”
At that moment, Mole appeared again, shedding her invisibility to appear in their midst.
“Gah, girl, ye goin’ to take a year or ten off me life, if ye keep doin’ that!” Hodge exclaimed.
“Your niece has light feet,” Benzan said to Cal. “I have to admit, I didn’t hear her at all, although the deva’s eyes shifted when she came out of the tunnel, which did serve as a giveaway.”
“You scouted ahead while we were talking?” Dana asked. “Don’t you know how incredibly foolish that was?”
“Yer wastin’ yer breath, lady,” Hodge said. “Gnomes don’ grasp common sense stuff like that. Somepin’ broken in their heads, me thinks.”
“Tell us what you found, Mole,” Cal said.
“Well,” she replied, with a slight huff at Dana, “The tunnel heads east for maybe forty feet or so, then bends sharply to the right. There was some lava-light in that direction, and a pretty nasty smell of demodands. Both kinds, I think. I didn’t see any of them, but I’d bet they were down there, invisible or hiding.”
“Demodands can see invisible creatures,” Dana said. “I think it’s pretty safe to assume that they know we’re coming, now.”
“Hey, I’m pretty hard to see even without my ring,” Mole said defensively.
“I believe it is moot—I would be stunned if the remaining Cagewrights did not know exactly where we are,” Cal said. “The result of Dana’s spell suggests that they have already shaped the battlefield to their choosing. We either go forward or back, or blindly strike out in another direction. The deva and I can manage the last, if it comes to that, but that approach also has its risks.”
“Yes, burrowing into passage flooded with lava would be most inconvenient,” Dannel noted.
“So our choice is made. There is no going back,” Arun said. “Mole, if you would… Mole?”
There was no sign of the diminutive rogue.
“Gnomes,” Hodge muttered under his breath.
Broccli_Head
Explorer
Hurry up with that next post, LB. I am brimming with anticipation!
Lazybones
Adventurer
Chapter 370
They didn’t have to go very far to find their enemy.
The tunnel was fairly broad, its smoothed walls indicative of its origins as a lava tube. After making some elementary preparations, including the casting of several wards, the companions proceeded cautiously to the bend that Mole had scouted. The dim light of exposed lava became evident ahead even before they reached the sharp kink in the passage. They could also smell the distinctive stench of demodands that Mole had identified earlier, the odor growing stronger with each step.
“This wall is new,” Arun said, noting the unnaturally smooth surface to their left.
“Conjured, likely, to block another passage and direct us right,” Cal suggested.
“Well, maybe we should take it down and…” Dannel began.
He didn’t get a chance to finish his statement, for the deva abruptly lifted his mace and shifted into a ready stance, pointing with the weapon to the south. “Invisible fiends!” he said, following his statement with a holy smite that filled the corridor maybe twenty paces to the south beyond the bend. The angry screams of demodands revealed the truth of the celestial’s report.
The demodands were quick to counterattack. Coruscating beams lanced down the length of the tunnel, rays of enfeeblement that stabbed into the warriors at the front of the group. Lok was hit and seemed to sag as the thieving energies sapped his strength, but a second evaporated as the ray splashed against the aura cast by Arun’s holy avenger. Acid arrows also sought out their targets, with one catching Benzan with a glancing impact across the arm that seared a hole in his cloak, sizzling through the links of his mithral chain shirt to burn the flesh covering his bicep. Another targeted Dana, but the mystic wanderer moved in a sudden blur, and it missed her to splash harmlessly against the tunnel passage behind her.
As the fiends attacked, they became visible; massive, bloated kelubars, flanked by the lean and grotesque farastus. But the worst was last to appear, the massive figure of a shator demodand that regarded them with hateful eyes sunk deep into a distended face. Keeriv laughed as it ambled forward to meet the deva, which did not hesitate in lifting his own weapon and surging into battle.
The shator’s reach allowed it to draw first blood, pounding the deva with a heavy two-fisted slam to the chest that staggered the angel. But the celestial did not fight alone, and Lok, Arun, and Hodge swiftly charged into the fray. Lok struck the fiend a solid blow with his thundering battleaxe, and Hodge, having selected again his holy sword, echoed his attack with a deep thrust that slid into the shator’s thick leg. A farastu lunged around the larger demodand, ignoring Hodge as it reached out to grapple the celestial and divest it of its deadly mace. But before it could complete its attack Arun drove into it, his holy blade shearing a two-foot gash in its body, driving it back in pain.
Arrows knifed through the air, stabbing into demodand flesh. Dannel’s missiles, even enchanted with the potency his song, did little against the fiends’ fell resistances, but Benzan was using a bow specifically designed to bring an end to creatures such as they. The shator cried out as an arrow pierced its arm, jutting from the meat of its tricep, trailing black lines of ichor that splattered in fat drops to the stone floor.
“Unleash a holy word!” Dana cried to the celestial. But even as the deva summoned its power, the Cagewrights unleashed the second half of their ambush.
The wall at the bend of the corridor shuddered with a solid impact, a five-foot vertical crack appearing in the volcanic rock. Before the significance of that could even be registered, a second blow burst open a six-foot square segment of the wall. Thin plates of shattered stone fell forward to reveal the tiefling monk Ardeth Webb, snapping a set of adamantine nunchaku under her arm as she smoothly stepped aside.
Freija Doorgan’s eyes glowed with intensity as the conjurer released her prepared spell. The prismatic spray flared out into the corridor, engulfing almost the entire company of intruders. Only Cal, who’d remained back at the bend in the passage, was outside the path of the deadly beams. The deva, the target for the center of the spray, was struck by two of the twisting beams that pierced his spell resistance, electrical energy stabbing through him as the yellow beam knifed through his torso, while a sickly dark aura surged outward from his leg as the limb was intersected by a green ray.
The rest of the companions were hit by other colored shafts, dealing various quantities of fire, acid, or electrical damage, or other ill effects. Fortunately the deva’s protective aura, combined with the wards they’d cast earlier, enabled them to overcome the most devastating effects. Hodge, struck by a blue ray, resisted being turned to stone, while Dannel fought off the mind-rending power of the indigo beam. But Dana and Lok both suffered damage from the rays, and even with his sword Arun could not fully resist being drained of vitality by the green ray that intersected his wrist after passing through the deva’s leg.
The power of the spell was not selective, and the rays continued into the ranks of the demodands. A farastu was struck by a violet ray and vanished, screaming, while a kelubar recoiled as flames erupted from the red ray that splashed across its chest. The fiends were tough and resistant to many forms of magic, however, and the beams winked out altogether as they intersected the shator, which snarled as the true nature of Freija’s plan became apparent to it.
Even as the prismatic spray wrought its colorful swath of destruction down the length of the corridor, a roaring pillar of flame conjured by Grehlia Cairnis marked a grim sequel. The flame strike struck the ground and spread outward in a merciless swath, searing at the flesh of the companions gathered in the tunnel. The spell looked devastating, but as the wisps of flame cleared it was obvious that the companions had not suffered as much damage as was first evident. Several of the companions had been warded against fire, and even in the confined space their agility allowed others to escape the full force of the blast. Arun, surrounded by the nimbus of his holy avenger, was unaffected, and his presence shielded Hodge, just a step away. Likewise the deva resisted the spell.
The ambush had been clever and well-timed, the attacks telling, but through luck, preparation, and sheer fortitude the companions had held up well against the initial volley. But that changed a moment later as Shebeleth Regidin, standing behind his allies in the secret side-tunnel, unleashed a word of blasphemy.
They didn’t have to go very far to find their enemy.
The tunnel was fairly broad, its smoothed walls indicative of its origins as a lava tube. After making some elementary preparations, including the casting of several wards, the companions proceeded cautiously to the bend that Mole had scouted. The dim light of exposed lava became evident ahead even before they reached the sharp kink in the passage. They could also smell the distinctive stench of demodands that Mole had identified earlier, the odor growing stronger with each step.
“This wall is new,” Arun said, noting the unnaturally smooth surface to their left.
“Conjured, likely, to block another passage and direct us right,” Cal suggested.
“Well, maybe we should take it down and…” Dannel began.
He didn’t get a chance to finish his statement, for the deva abruptly lifted his mace and shifted into a ready stance, pointing with the weapon to the south. “Invisible fiends!” he said, following his statement with a holy smite that filled the corridor maybe twenty paces to the south beyond the bend. The angry screams of demodands revealed the truth of the celestial’s report.
The demodands were quick to counterattack. Coruscating beams lanced down the length of the tunnel, rays of enfeeblement that stabbed into the warriors at the front of the group. Lok was hit and seemed to sag as the thieving energies sapped his strength, but a second evaporated as the ray splashed against the aura cast by Arun’s holy avenger. Acid arrows also sought out their targets, with one catching Benzan with a glancing impact across the arm that seared a hole in his cloak, sizzling through the links of his mithral chain shirt to burn the flesh covering his bicep. Another targeted Dana, but the mystic wanderer moved in a sudden blur, and it missed her to splash harmlessly against the tunnel passage behind her.
As the fiends attacked, they became visible; massive, bloated kelubars, flanked by the lean and grotesque farastus. But the worst was last to appear, the massive figure of a shator demodand that regarded them with hateful eyes sunk deep into a distended face. Keeriv laughed as it ambled forward to meet the deva, which did not hesitate in lifting his own weapon and surging into battle.
The shator’s reach allowed it to draw first blood, pounding the deva with a heavy two-fisted slam to the chest that staggered the angel. But the celestial did not fight alone, and Lok, Arun, and Hodge swiftly charged into the fray. Lok struck the fiend a solid blow with his thundering battleaxe, and Hodge, having selected again his holy sword, echoed his attack with a deep thrust that slid into the shator’s thick leg. A farastu lunged around the larger demodand, ignoring Hodge as it reached out to grapple the celestial and divest it of its deadly mace. But before it could complete its attack Arun drove into it, his holy blade shearing a two-foot gash in its body, driving it back in pain.
Arrows knifed through the air, stabbing into demodand flesh. Dannel’s missiles, even enchanted with the potency his song, did little against the fiends’ fell resistances, but Benzan was using a bow specifically designed to bring an end to creatures such as they. The shator cried out as an arrow pierced its arm, jutting from the meat of its tricep, trailing black lines of ichor that splattered in fat drops to the stone floor.
“Unleash a holy word!” Dana cried to the celestial. But even as the deva summoned its power, the Cagewrights unleashed the second half of their ambush.
The wall at the bend of the corridor shuddered with a solid impact, a five-foot vertical crack appearing in the volcanic rock. Before the significance of that could even be registered, a second blow burst open a six-foot square segment of the wall. Thin plates of shattered stone fell forward to reveal the tiefling monk Ardeth Webb, snapping a set of adamantine nunchaku under her arm as she smoothly stepped aside.
Freija Doorgan’s eyes glowed with intensity as the conjurer released her prepared spell. The prismatic spray flared out into the corridor, engulfing almost the entire company of intruders. Only Cal, who’d remained back at the bend in the passage, was outside the path of the deadly beams. The deva, the target for the center of the spray, was struck by two of the twisting beams that pierced his spell resistance, electrical energy stabbing through him as the yellow beam knifed through his torso, while a sickly dark aura surged outward from his leg as the limb was intersected by a green ray.
The rest of the companions were hit by other colored shafts, dealing various quantities of fire, acid, or electrical damage, or other ill effects. Fortunately the deva’s protective aura, combined with the wards they’d cast earlier, enabled them to overcome the most devastating effects. Hodge, struck by a blue ray, resisted being turned to stone, while Dannel fought off the mind-rending power of the indigo beam. But Dana and Lok both suffered damage from the rays, and even with his sword Arun could not fully resist being drained of vitality by the green ray that intersected his wrist after passing through the deva’s leg.
The power of the spell was not selective, and the rays continued into the ranks of the demodands. A farastu was struck by a violet ray and vanished, screaming, while a kelubar recoiled as flames erupted from the red ray that splashed across its chest. The fiends were tough and resistant to many forms of magic, however, and the beams winked out altogether as they intersected the shator, which snarled as the true nature of Freija’s plan became apparent to it.
Even as the prismatic spray wrought its colorful swath of destruction down the length of the corridor, a roaring pillar of flame conjured by Grehlia Cairnis marked a grim sequel. The flame strike struck the ground and spread outward in a merciless swath, searing at the flesh of the companions gathered in the tunnel. The spell looked devastating, but as the wisps of flame cleared it was obvious that the companions had not suffered as much damage as was first evident. Several of the companions had been warded against fire, and even in the confined space their agility allowed others to escape the full force of the blast. Arun, surrounded by the nimbus of his holy avenger, was unaffected, and his presence shielded Hodge, just a step away. Likewise the deva resisted the spell.
The ambush had been clever and well-timed, the attacks telling, but through luck, preparation, and sheer fortitude the companions had held up well against the initial volley. But that changed a moment later as Shebeleth Regidin, standing behind his allies in the secret side-tunnel, unleashed a word of blasphemy.
Neverwinter Knight
First Post
You're spoiling us, Lazybones, but keep on doing that, please !!! 
No falling to page two for this story hour... Been reading the tales of the wild west (and not getting any work done because of it.) Got to give you a round of applause Lazybones, your writing is excellent and I have no doubt that you will be published sooner or later.
Although I was really hoping that <censored>* were going to get together, only to have him <censored>* by the <censored>* and then to have his <censored>* sent along to <censored>* only to be tortured by <censored>* just because <censored>* was just cruel.
*censored for those who haven't read it. If you want to know go read it, its well worth the time spent.
Although I was really hoping that <censored>* were going to get together, only to have him <censored>* by the <censored>* and then to have his <censored>* sent along to <censored>* only to be tortured by <censored>* just because <censored>* was just cruel.
*censored for those who haven't read it. If you want to know go read it, its well worth the time spent.
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Lazybones
Adventurer
Glad you're enjoying Travels. I've been going back and rereading a lot of it recently, for obvious reasons.
* * * * *
Chapter 371
Regidin’s blasphemy had a devastating effect. The spell rippled outward from the dread loremaster like ink poured into a pool of clean water, searing through the consciousness of the heroes. Everyone, even Arun, was dazed by the spell, and greatly weakened by the wave of disruption unleashed by the magic. Hodge collapsed, paralyzed, and likewise the deva, although he resisted being banished back to his plane of origin, fell helpless to the ground, his mace clattering from limp fingers.
Emboldened by the effectiveness of their leader’s tactic, the Cagewrights and their remaining allies pressed the attack upon their suddenly discomfited foes. The shator Keeriv laughed terribly as it reached out with its long, gangly arms and took up the deva in its claws, its muscles tightening as it crushed the helpless celestial’s body.
The remaining farastu likewise took pleasure in attacking Arun. With Arun able to offer little resistance, it tore the dwarf’s holy sword from his grip, hissing at the blessed steel burned at its flesh. It hurled the weapon away over its shoulder, far out of his reach. The kelubars could not easily move their bulky bodies into melee, but they continued their barrage of acid arrows, striking Dana and Dannel with fat gobs of corrosive goo.
Ardeth Webb leapt forward through the opening she’d created. She let her nunchaku fall to the floor, instead leaping into a fully-extended snap-kick that connected solidly across Dana’s chest, knocking her roughly to the floor. The monk sneered as she effortlessly twisted back to land on her feet, her hands tightening into deadly fists as she loomed over the fallen priestess.
Behind her, Grehlia stepped forward, her own fists covered by spiked gauntlets that glowed faintly with an ember aura of dark power. Seeing that her ally had the enemy priestess well in hand, she cast about for a target, settling finally upon Benzan with a dark smile.
Freija remained in the side tunnel, content to strike from a distance with her spells. She had not forgotten the archer who had wounded her earlier, and upon seeing him restored to life even felt a bit of grim pleasure at the ability to torment him further. Even though she’d spent her most powerful spells already, she was still more than equipped to inflict that torment, which she proved as she unleashed a trio of scorching rays that blasted into the elf, each knocking him a step backward until he was driven against the far wall of the tunnel. Already seriously wounded by the flame strike, only the benefits of the deva’s earlier aid spell kept him standing at all.
Freija smiled. He was tough, that elf, but she’d already destroyed him once, and it wouldn’t take much more to finish him a second time. And this time, there wouldn’t be anyone left to raise him.
Regidin likewise held his position, calmly summoning a blade barrier into place in the corridor leading back to Freija’s quarters. The whirling barrier appeared a few paces behind Cal, effectively blocking the only way out.
The companions began to recover from the initial effect of Regidin’s blasphemy, although they remained gravely weakened by the spell. Cal reinforced his allies with a mass bear’s endurance spell, eschewing a defensive ward for the moment. He paid for that a moment later when a shadow materialized behind him, unleashing an unexpected full attack upon him. The gnome staggered as Wiejeron’s rapier tore into him mercilessly. Even though the assassin had not taken enough time to set up a death attack, the blows were nevertheless telling. Only Cal’s stoneskin kept him from being taken out immediately, although as the slender blade of the man called the “Fish” punched a hole into his lung, he could feel the chill hand of death creeping closer.
“I don’t know what Freija was so worked up about,” the assassin said, his eyes cold as he regarded the crippled gnome. “You don’t strike me as a particular challenge.”
“Yeah, we get that a lot,” Cal said, spitting a gob of blood. Wiejeron lifted his rapier to finish him, but Cal was ready with the words of a spell, hurling the magic at his attacker. Wiejeron’s eyes widened as the transmutation took hold, and his body shimmered and shifted until the deadly assassin had been replaced by a bloated sea slug, maybe two feet long, making an ugly sucking sound as it quivered against the stone floor.
“New taunts, same idiots,” Cal said, lifting himself up to his feet despite the hot knife of pain that stabbed anew through his body at his movement.
Dana, meanwhile found herself hard-pressed against her own dangerous foe. She nimbly snapped her back and sprang to her feet, although the maneuver left her open to a driving punch from Ardeth, which slammed into her chest with enough force to crack ribs. Dana staggered back, fighting for breath, while the tiefling regarded her with a bemused expression.
Benzan had started toward Dana to help her, but the tiefling was quickly forced to defend himself by Grehlia’s approach. The evil cleric’s spiked gauntlets looked nasty, and were marked with the tell-tale smear of poison. And there was that red glow surrounding the steel gloves—Benzan didn’t know what spell she had placed on her weapon, but he had no doubt that whatever it was, it was bad.
Grehlia noted his interest. “Yeth, hath-breed, your death ith here,” she lisped, springing forward. Under her ochre robe she wore a chain shirt, he saw.
He narrowly avoided her first violent lunge, twisting his body back to avoid the sweep of those deadly gloves. She tried a backswing that would have caught him across his face, if he hadn’t sprung back five feet, out of her reach. He’s always been fast and nimble, and the magical gloves he wore enhanced those attributes to almost superhuman levels.
Even as he opened the small gap between them, he was drawing out another of the white-fletched arrows from the magical quiver at his hip. Grehlia spun in time to take an arrow that punched through the side of her torso. She shrieked as the energy of the holy arrow drove through her. The impact delayed her enough for Benzan’s second shot to hit her, this time a low impact that stabbed deep into her body just above her left hip. She staggered toward him, snarling like a feral beast. Benzan loaded another arrow, and held his ground as she lifted her gauntleted right fist like a hammer.
“Die!”
“You first, bitch.”
He released the shot, which drove into her chest with apparent finality. Benzan knew he’d hit something important by the look on the evil cleric’s face. But even though she was clearly dying, Grehlia was driven by a force beyond herself. To Benzan’s surprise she suddenly extended her body toward him, thrusting the gauntlet with its embedded harm spell at his throat. The tiefling started to dodge back, knew that he was too late.
Uh oh, he thought.
* * * * *
Chapter 371
Regidin’s blasphemy had a devastating effect. The spell rippled outward from the dread loremaster like ink poured into a pool of clean water, searing through the consciousness of the heroes. Everyone, even Arun, was dazed by the spell, and greatly weakened by the wave of disruption unleashed by the magic. Hodge collapsed, paralyzed, and likewise the deva, although he resisted being banished back to his plane of origin, fell helpless to the ground, his mace clattering from limp fingers.
Emboldened by the effectiveness of their leader’s tactic, the Cagewrights and their remaining allies pressed the attack upon their suddenly discomfited foes. The shator Keeriv laughed terribly as it reached out with its long, gangly arms and took up the deva in its claws, its muscles tightening as it crushed the helpless celestial’s body.
The remaining farastu likewise took pleasure in attacking Arun. With Arun able to offer little resistance, it tore the dwarf’s holy sword from his grip, hissing at the blessed steel burned at its flesh. It hurled the weapon away over its shoulder, far out of his reach. The kelubars could not easily move their bulky bodies into melee, but they continued their barrage of acid arrows, striking Dana and Dannel with fat gobs of corrosive goo.
Ardeth Webb leapt forward through the opening she’d created. She let her nunchaku fall to the floor, instead leaping into a fully-extended snap-kick that connected solidly across Dana’s chest, knocking her roughly to the floor. The monk sneered as she effortlessly twisted back to land on her feet, her hands tightening into deadly fists as she loomed over the fallen priestess.
Behind her, Grehlia stepped forward, her own fists covered by spiked gauntlets that glowed faintly with an ember aura of dark power. Seeing that her ally had the enemy priestess well in hand, she cast about for a target, settling finally upon Benzan with a dark smile.
Freija remained in the side tunnel, content to strike from a distance with her spells. She had not forgotten the archer who had wounded her earlier, and upon seeing him restored to life even felt a bit of grim pleasure at the ability to torment him further. Even though she’d spent her most powerful spells already, she was still more than equipped to inflict that torment, which she proved as she unleashed a trio of scorching rays that blasted into the elf, each knocking him a step backward until he was driven against the far wall of the tunnel. Already seriously wounded by the flame strike, only the benefits of the deva’s earlier aid spell kept him standing at all.
Freija smiled. He was tough, that elf, but she’d already destroyed him once, and it wouldn’t take much more to finish him a second time. And this time, there wouldn’t be anyone left to raise him.
Regidin likewise held his position, calmly summoning a blade barrier into place in the corridor leading back to Freija’s quarters. The whirling barrier appeared a few paces behind Cal, effectively blocking the only way out.
The companions began to recover from the initial effect of Regidin’s blasphemy, although they remained gravely weakened by the spell. Cal reinforced his allies with a mass bear’s endurance spell, eschewing a defensive ward for the moment. He paid for that a moment later when a shadow materialized behind him, unleashing an unexpected full attack upon him. The gnome staggered as Wiejeron’s rapier tore into him mercilessly. Even though the assassin had not taken enough time to set up a death attack, the blows were nevertheless telling. Only Cal’s stoneskin kept him from being taken out immediately, although as the slender blade of the man called the “Fish” punched a hole into his lung, he could feel the chill hand of death creeping closer.
“I don’t know what Freija was so worked up about,” the assassin said, his eyes cold as he regarded the crippled gnome. “You don’t strike me as a particular challenge.”
“Yeah, we get that a lot,” Cal said, spitting a gob of blood. Wiejeron lifted his rapier to finish him, but Cal was ready with the words of a spell, hurling the magic at his attacker. Wiejeron’s eyes widened as the transmutation took hold, and his body shimmered and shifted until the deadly assassin had been replaced by a bloated sea slug, maybe two feet long, making an ugly sucking sound as it quivered against the stone floor.
“New taunts, same idiots,” Cal said, lifting himself up to his feet despite the hot knife of pain that stabbed anew through his body at his movement.
Dana, meanwhile found herself hard-pressed against her own dangerous foe. She nimbly snapped her back and sprang to her feet, although the maneuver left her open to a driving punch from Ardeth, which slammed into her chest with enough force to crack ribs. Dana staggered back, fighting for breath, while the tiefling regarded her with a bemused expression.
Benzan had started toward Dana to help her, but the tiefling was quickly forced to defend himself by Grehlia’s approach. The evil cleric’s spiked gauntlets looked nasty, and were marked with the tell-tale smear of poison. And there was that red glow surrounding the steel gloves—Benzan didn’t know what spell she had placed on her weapon, but he had no doubt that whatever it was, it was bad.
Grehlia noted his interest. “Yeth, hath-breed, your death ith here,” she lisped, springing forward. Under her ochre robe she wore a chain shirt, he saw.
He narrowly avoided her first violent lunge, twisting his body back to avoid the sweep of those deadly gloves. She tried a backswing that would have caught him across his face, if he hadn’t sprung back five feet, out of her reach. He’s always been fast and nimble, and the magical gloves he wore enhanced those attributes to almost superhuman levels.
Even as he opened the small gap between them, he was drawing out another of the white-fletched arrows from the magical quiver at his hip. Grehlia spun in time to take an arrow that punched through the side of her torso. She shrieked as the energy of the holy arrow drove through her. The impact delayed her enough for Benzan’s second shot to hit her, this time a low impact that stabbed deep into her body just above her left hip. She staggered toward him, snarling like a feral beast. Benzan loaded another arrow, and held his ground as she lifted her gauntleted right fist like a hammer.
“Die!”
“You first, bitch.”
He released the shot, which drove into her chest with apparent finality. Benzan knew he’d hit something important by the look on the evil cleric’s face. But even though she was clearly dying, Grehlia was driven by a force beyond herself. To Benzan’s surprise she suddenly extended her body toward him, thrusting the gauntlet with its embedded harm spell at his throat. The tiefling started to dodge back, knew that he was too late.
Uh oh, he thought.
Lazybones
Adventurer
Chapter 372
The battle between the Cagewrights and the Heroes of Cauldron, augmented by the Travelers, raged on in a desperate, no-holds-barred struggle. Each side had released their initial volleys in the ambush, and now fought in an all-out melee in the confined space of a tunnel within the Cagewright stronghold.
With both the deva and Hodge taken out by Regidin’s blasphemy, and Arun disarmed of his potent holy weapon, the battle against the demodands at the far end of the tunnel was turning against Lok and Arun. The shator Keeriv had grappled the helpless astral deva, and chortled with glee as it crushed the life out of the celestial’s body. Behind it a pair of kelubar continued their directive from Freija Doorgan, hurling acid arrows and the occasional ray of enfeeblement into the melee.
Arun found himself hard-pressed by a wounded but still-potent farastu. Standing over Hodge, disarmed, seriously weakened by the blasphemy, there was nothing he could do but fight on. The farastu tore at him with its claws to little effect; despite the drains to his strength and vitality that he’d suffered he was still incredibly durable. But Arun knew that his friends were in dire need, and that he was certainly not invincible. That was confirmed a moment later as an acid arrow splashed across his chest, filling his helmet with noxious vapors that made his head spin.
With a roar, holding the farastu back with his shield, he reached down and picked up Hodge’s sword, his own former weapon. The demodand gibbered something—worried, perhaps?—and tried to intercept the sword by grappling with the holy warrior. But Arun, despite his temporary weakness, was still a veteran fighter. The sword clove into the farastu’s upper arm, driving to the bone. Had he been at full strength, he might have taken off the limb, but even as it was the farastu screamed and drew back, critically wounded now.
Lok tried to aid the captured angel, sweeping his axe at the shator’s flabby body. Even with the ray of enfeeblement he’d taken, and the lingering effects of the blasphemy, the genasi was still stronger than the average man. But the shator’s resistances protected it from weapons not consecrated to good, and they’d not had the opportunity for Dana to align the weapon at the start of the battle. For all that, he still managed to hurt it with his strokes… but not enough. The shator looked down at its foe, tiny in comparison to its own considerable bulk, and laughed as it tensed the fat muscles in its arms. There was a loud snap, and the shator hurled the broken body of the astral deva down in contempt of its foe.
Something very cold appeared in the genasi warrior’s eyes. Even as the shator reached for him, intending perhaps to duplicate its feat, the genasi lifted his axe, driving it into the center of the shator’s torso. A deep reverberation erupted from the blade as it shattered Keeriv’s breastbone, sending a devastating sonic pulse through its body, converting its foul organs into splattered messes of quivering gelatin. The shator looked down at the warrior in surprise before the inevitable took hold, and it fell backward to smack heavily upon the floor.
The two kelubars took a look at each other, then at the warrior, and promptly turned invisible.
Dannel, clinging to consciousness through sheer determination—and magical augmentation—felt an uncanny calm fall over him. The song still filled his mind, sharpening his senses, binding him to the bow. Despite the battle raging all around, some of the exchanges a mere three or four paces away from his current position, his own attention was fixed like a knife’s point upon the conjurer standing in the ruins of the shattered wall on the far side of the tunnel. Freija’s eyes met his, and the conjurer smiled in anticipation of his destruction.
Well, if she’d forgotten what his arrows felt like, he’d be happy to provide a reminder.
Even diminished by the ordeal of his resurrection, and critically burned, Dannel remained a peerless archer. The song filled his limbs as he drew and fired, reloaded and fired again, all at a speed almost too fast for the eye to follow. Freija had refreshed her defenses, but even so a pair of arrows struck her, one driving deep into almost exactly the same spot where Dannel had hit her in their earlier confrontation. Her thoughts of revenge temporarily overcome by the instinct for survival, she ducked back behind the still-intact portion of the wall, giving her full cover. She glanced back at Regidin, perhaps slightly nervous, but the cleric was lost in the depths of a summoning—a potent one, she realized with a faint tinge of envy.
Dana was not an untrained novice when it came to hand-to-hand combat, but she was also experienced enough to realize when she was outmatched. The monk was blindingly fast, and Dana knew that she would have no time for a summoning spell, or any other complicated stratagems. The tiefling was covered with tattoos that seemed to move of their own volition as their owner’s body shifted, a mesmerizing effect that almost cost Dana dearly as a driving punch sliced the air less than an inch from where her face had been a split-second before. Dana spun and gave ground, falling back toward the north, the monk following her every move. Unfortunately there was nowhere to go in retreat, unless she was willing to endure the blade barrier. One glance was enough for her to know that the barrier was empowered, a spinning wall of death as effective as a ten foot thick stone wall in blocking their escape.
There was only one more place that she could go. Darting back, calling upon her goddess, she drew power into her. The monk leapt in to stop her, but even as Ardeth’s fists knifed in at her she leapt backward into the air, flying upward to almost the level of the ceiling fifteen feet above.
She’d thought that she’d gain at least a momentary reprieve, but to her amazement the monk leapt forward, springing lightly into the air. It didn’t look like she would come even close to reaching Dana, but her plan became evident a moment later as she struck the wall behind them, ran three steps up the smooth surface, and then kicked off directly toward the flying priestess.
Dana’s own reactions felt sluggish compared to the speed and grace of the woman monk, and she could not avoid her in time as the tiefling grappled her, snapping her legs around Dana’s lithe torso.
“Time for pain,” the woman hissed.
Benzan knew he was going to take the hit, and whatever vicious spell the evil cleric had loaded into those nasty gauntlets. But an instant before the blow landed, Grehlia shifted, the razor-sharp spikes slicing empty air an inch beside the tiefling’s head. Benzan fell back in surprise as the woman collapsed at his feet, but the mystery was resolved a moment later as he saw the small rapier jutting from the back of the cleric’s neck, its owner materializing an instant later beside her.
“Help your wife,” Mole said, recovering her weapon. “I’ve got to do something about those wizards in the tunnel.” Before Benzan could respond, she’d tumbled off like an acrobat fired from a ballista, using her hands, feet, and even head interchangeably as she passed effortlessly through the close and crowded battlefield.
A flare of black smoke and a potent stench of brimstone announced the arrival of another combatant, back in the tunnel at Regidin’s side. Although he would have preferred to bring another demodand to service, the disruptions caused by the Tree forestalled that option. So instead, he’d reached across the planes into the depths of the Abyss to bring a hezrou demon. The disgusting frog-like creature looked down at its summoner and then at the outer tunnel where the sounds of battle raged, its eyes already betraying its eagerness for battle. But Regidin forestalled it with a raised hand.
“Do not waste your time trying to blaspheme,” he said in Abyssal. “These foes are potent and would resist your magic. Likewise, teleportation magic will not function in this place… and do not utilize a chaos hammer. Use a blight, if you wish to weaken a number of enemies at once.”
“Is there anything else, human?” the hezrou groused impatiently.
Regidin did not rise to the bait, his tone remaining perfectly neutral. “Do not strike any demodand, or any creature wearing this sigil,” he said, indicating the ring he wore that bore the mark of the Cagewrights. “Go.”
But even as the hezrou leapt eagerly for the gap in the wall, the entire tunnel became filled with webs. The hezrou was ensnared, as was Freija Doorgan, but the webs refused to touch Regidin, who clucked with slight annoyance. The hezrou likewise quickly adapted; after a few tentative tugs upon the strands holding it, it simply shifted into gaseous form and slipped out through the opening into the far tunnel where the battle continued. Freija, however, reacted rather more dramatically to being caught up in the web. Despite the fact that the spell was a relatively common phenomenon to an advanced spellcaster such as she, her cold logic and self-control evaporated as she stared down at the sight of the hundreds of sticky strands enveloping her body, touching her fine red robe, tugging at her hair, dangling from her skin…
“Get them off!” Freija shrieked, tugging at the clinging webs. Her actions only served to draw the webbing tighter around her, and pulled a thick tangle of webs across her face. “Get them off!” she screamed again, louder.
“Calm yourself, my dear,” Regidin said coolly. From his perspective, the web was not entirely unwelcome; for one thing it offered a useful barrier between him and the intruders. The enemy archers were not in a good position to target him, not yet; from his position further down the side tunnel from the sundered wall he was virtually invisible to anyone not directly in front of that opening. Of course, that also meant he had a more difficult time seeing what was happening… but that did not hinder him from contributing to the destruction of the intruders.
If anything, it made him more deadly.
Without sparing the slightest thought for his allies, he conjured an empowered flame strike that filled the space just beyond the opening with a roaring storm of liquid fire. The rush of heat that surged through the tunnel blasted back Regidin’s robes, although the flames did not reach him. The same could not be said for Freija; eager tongues of fire spread outward through the web. The backblast of the strike lasted only a moment, and they freed her from the web, leaving her robe, her slender fingers, and her pristine face marred with black char. The woman fell to her knees, coughing, looking down at her ruined hands in horror.
The conjurer screamed, and for once, in a rare event, Shebelith Regidin’s lips twisted in a slight approximation of a smile.
The battle between the Cagewrights and the Heroes of Cauldron, augmented by the Travelers, raged on in a desperate, no-holds-barred struggle. Each side had released their initial volleys in the ambush, and now fought in an all-out melee in the confined space of a tunnel within the Cagewright stronghold.
With both the deva and Hodge taken out by Regidin’s blasphemy, and Arun disarmed of his potent holy weapon, the battle against the demodands at the far end of the tunnel was turning against Lok and Arun. The shator Keeriv had grappled the helpless astral deva, and chortled with glee as it crushed the life out of the celestial’s body. Behind it a pair of kelubar continued their directive from Freija Doorgan, hurling acid arrows and the occasional ray of enfeeblement into the melee.
Arun found himself hard-pressed by a wounded but still-potent farastu. Standing over Hodge, disarmed, seriously weakened by the blasphemy, there was nothing he could do but fight on. The farastu tore at him with its claws to little effect; despite the drains to his strength and vitality that he’d suffered he was still incredibly durable. But Arun knew that his friends were in dire need, and that he was certainly not invincible. That was confirmed a moment later as an acid arrow splashed across his chest, filling his helmet with noxious vapors that made his head spin.
With a roar, holding the farastu back with his shield, he reached down and picked up Hodge’s sword, his own former weapon. The demodand gibbered something—worried, perhaps?—and tried to intercept the sword by grappling with the holy warrior. But Arun, despite his temporary weakness, was still a veteran fighter. The sword clove into the farastu’s upper arm, driving to the bone. Had he been at full strength, he might have taken off the limb, but even as it was the farastu screamed and drew back, critically wounded now.
Lok tried to aid the captured angel, sweeping his axe at the shator’s flabby body. Even with the ray of enfeeblement he’d taken, and the lingering effects of the blasphemy, the genasi was still stronger than the average man. But the shator’s resistances protected it from weapons not consecrated to good, and they’d not had the opportunity for Dana to align the weapon at the start of the battle. For all that, he still managed to hurt it with his strokes… but not enough. The shator looked down at its foe, tiny in comparison to its own considerable bulk, and laughed as it tensed the fat muscles in its arms. There was a loud snap, and the shator hurled the broken body of the astral deva down in contempt of its foe.
Something very cold appeared in the genasi warrior’s eyes. Even as the shator reached for him, intending perhaps to duplicate its feat, the genasi lifted his axe, driving it into the center of the shator’s torso. A deep reverberation erupted from the blade as it shattered Keeriv’s breastbone, sending a devastating sonic pulse through its body, converting its foul organs into splattered messes of quivering gelatin. The shator looked down at the warrior in surprise before the inevitable took hold, and it fell backward to smack heavily upon the floor.
The two kelubars took a look at each other, then at the warrior, and promptly turned invisible.
Dannel, clinging to consciousness through sheer determination—and magical augmentation—felt an uncanny calm fall over him. The song still filled his mind, sharpening his senses, binding him to the bow. Despite the battle raging all around, some of the exchanges a mere three or four paces away from his current position, his own attention was fixed like a knife’s point upon the conjurer standing in the ruins of the shattered wall on the far side of the tunnel. Freija’s eyes met his, and the conjurer smiled in anticipation of his destruction.
Well, if she’d forgotten what his arrows felt like, he’d be happy to provide a reminder.
Even diminished by the ordeal of his resurrection, and critically burned, Dannel remained a peerless archer. The song filled his limbs as he drew and fired, reloaded and fired again, all at a speed almost too fast for the eye to follow. Freija had refreshed her defenses, but even so a pair of arrows struck her, one driving deep into almost exactly the same spot where Dannel had hit her in their earlier confrontation. Her thoughts of revenge temporarily overcome by the instinct for survival, she ducked back behind the still-intact portion of the wall, giving her full cover. She glanced back at Regidin, perhaps slightly nervous, but the cleric was lost in the depths of a summoning—a potent one, she realized with a faint tinge of envy.
Dana was not an untrained novice when it came to hand-to-hand combat, but she was also experienced enough to realize when she was outmatched. The monk was blindingly fast, and Dana knew that she would have no time for a summoning spell, or any other complicated stratagems. The tiefling was covered with tattoos that seemed to move of their own volition as their owner’s body shifted, a mesmerizing effect that almost cost Dana dearly as a driving punch sliced the air less than an inch from where her face had been a split-second before. Dana spun and gave ground, falling back toward the north, the monk following her every move. Unfortunately there was nowhere to go in retreat, unless she was willing to endure the blade barrier. One glance was enough for her to know that the barrier was empowered, a spinning wall of death as effective as a ten foot thick stone wall in blocking their escape.
There was only one more place that she could go. Darting back, calling upon her goddess, she drew power into her. The monk leapt in to stop her, but even as Ardeth’s fists knifed in at her she leapt backward into the air, flying upward to almost the level of the ceiling fifteen feet above.
She’d thought that she’d gain at least a momentary reprieve, but to her amazement the monk leapt forward, springing lightly into the air. It didn’t look like she would come even close to reaching Dana, but her plan became evident a moment later as she struck the wall behind them, ran three steps up the smooth surface, and then kicked off directly toward the flying priestess.
Dana’s own reactions felt sluggish compared to the speed and grace of the woman monk, and she could not avoid her in time as the tiefling grappled her, snapping her legs around Dana’s lithe torso.
“Time for pain,” the woman hissed.
Benzan knew he was going to take the hit, and whatever vicious spell the evil cleric had loaded into those nasty gauntlets. But an instant before the blow landed, Grehlia shifted, the razor-sharp spikes slicing empty air an inch beside the tiefling’s head. Benzan fell back in surprise as the woman collapsed at his feet, but the mystery was resolved a moment later as he saw the small rapier jutting from the back of the cleric’s neck, its owner materializing an instant later beside her.
“Help your wife,” Mole said, recovering her weapon. “I’ve got to do something about those wizards in the tunnel.” Before Benzan could respond, she’d tumbled off like an acrobat fired from a ballista, using her hands, feet, and even head interchangeably as she passed effortlessly through the close and crowded battlefield.
A flare of black smoke and a potent stench of brimstone announced the arrival of another combatant, back in the tunnel at Regidin’s side. Although he would have preferred to bring another demodand to service, the disruptions caused by the Tree forestalled that option. So instead, he’d reached across the planes into the depths of the Abyss to bring a hezrou demon. The disgusting frog-like creature looked down at its summoner and then at the outer tunnel where the sounds of battle raged, its eyes already betraying its eagerness for battle. But Regidin forestalled it with a raised hand.
“Do not waste your time trying to blaspheme,” he said in Abyssal. “These foes are potent and would resist your magic. Likewise, teleportation magic will not function in this place… and do not utilize a chaos hammer. Use a blight, if you wish to weaken a number of enemies at once.”
“Is there anything else, human?” the hezrou groused impatiently.
Regidin did not rise to the bait, his tone remaining perfectly neutral. “Do not strike any demodand, or any creature wearing this sigil,” he said, indicating the ring he wore that bore the mark of the Cagewrights. “Go.”
But even as the hezrou leapt eagerly for the gap in the wall, the entire tunnel became filled with webs. The hezrou was ensnared, as was Freija Doorgan, but the webs refused to touch Regidin, who clucked with slight annoyance. The hezrou likewise quickly adapted; after a few tentative tugs upon the strands holding it, it simply shifted into gaseous form and slipped out through the opening into the far tunnel where the battle continued. Freija, however, reacted rather more dramatically to being caught up in the web. Despite the fact that the spell was a relatively common phenomenon to an advanced spellcaster such as she, her cold logic and self-control evaporated as she stared down at the sight of the hundreds of sticky strands enveloping her body, touching her fine red robe, tugging at her hair, dangling from her skin…
“Get them off!” Freija shrieked, tugging at the clinging webs. Her actions only served to draw the webbing tighter around her, and pulled a thick tangle of webs across her face. “Get them off!” she screamed again, louder.
“Calm yourself, my dear,” Regidin said coolly. From his perspective, the web was not entirely unwelcome; for one thing it offered a useful barrier between him and the intruders. The enemy archers were not in a good position to target him, not yet; from his position further down the side tunnel from the sundered wall he was virtually invisible to anyone not directly in front of that opening. Of course, that also meant he had a more difficult time seeing what was happening… but that did not hinder him from contributing to the destruction of the intruders.
If anything, it made him more deadly.
Without sparing the slightest thought for his allies, he conjured an empowered flame strike that filled the space just beyond the opening with a roaring storm of liquid fire. The rush of heat that surged through the tunnel blasted back Regidin’s robes, although the flames did not reach him. The same could not be said for Freija; eager tongues of fire spread outward through the web. The backblast of the strike lasted only a moment, and they freed her from the web, leaving her robe, her slender fingers, and her pristine face marred with black char. The woman fell to her knees, coughing, looking down at her ruined hands in horror.
The conjurer screamed, and for once, in a rare event, Shebelith Regidin’s lips twisted in a slight approximation of a smile.
Lazybones
Adventurer
Chapter 373
Dana cried out as the merciless tiefling monk slammed a punishing blow into her gut. The priestess felt pain twist her insides as the blow pulverized tissue and ripped muscles hard from training. The monk was locked to her in a deadly embrace, and all of her attempts to escape were proving futile thus far. The legs locked around her torso may as well have been steel bars for all her struggles did to loosen their hold.
“I would make it last longer, my sweet,” hissed a voice close to her ear… close enough for her to feel the monk’s hot breath. Her voice was soft, a deadly whisper. “But your friends, they need my tender ministrations.”
“They’ll kill you… bitch…” Dana hissed before a sharp, snapping pain in her body cut off her breath. There was nothing she could do; she could not even draw breath to cast a spell.
No. There was one thing she could do, realization that stabbed through the pain. It took only a thought to become action, as she dove straight toward the ground below, Ardeth Webb still locked to her.
It took less than a second for them to descend, but that was enough time for the monk to react. Just before they would have impacted the hard stone below, Dana felt herself flung wildly aside as the tiefling snapped their link, driving her back to land heavily and awkwardly on the ground a few paces away. Benzan, caught off guard by the sudden movement, drew his sword; but before he could strike Webb had already regained her footing, and swiveled gracefully into a defensive stance.
“Let us dance then, brother,” she hissed.
Her senses detected the danger an instant before it struck. She could feel rather than see the looming form behind her, for when she darted aside, turning to view the corridor behind, she saw nothing there but Regidin’s still-spinning blade barrier blocking the passage. But she felt the massive claw that grabbed her by the arm, crushing the limb with incredible strength.
“Good timing, Cal,” Benzan said, moving behind the still-struggling monk into a position to deliver a critical blow. He felt a welcome surge of positive energy as Dana unleashed a mass cure serious wounds spell, easing some of the pain from the still-burning kelubar acid searing his arm.
But that’s when Regidin’s flame strike hit.
Benzan was standing right where the blast of divine fire hit. There was nowhere for him to escape, no clever dodge he could undertake to avoid the force of the blast. His innate resistance to fire was of little help against the screaming rage of the evil spell, and even with Dana’s healing he found himself fighting through a wave of dizziness and nausea as the smell of his own burned flesh filled his nostrils.
But he was better off than most. Dannel and Dana both lay prone, dead or unconscious, wisps of smoke rising from their flame-ravaged forms. Benzan could make out the outlines of Cal, polymorphed into the shape of a gray render, by the wisps of gray smoke that framed his nine-foot body in silhouette. Clearly the monk could too, for she twisted in the render’s grasp to deliver a powerful kick to Cal’s torso. The blow was enough to loosen his grip, and the monk dropped free to the ground, landing in a wide spider-like stance. For all that she’d been held stationary a few feet from the impact zone of the flame strike, she somehow did not seem to be seriously burned.
Benzan tore his eyes from Dana’s immobile form. Suddenly he didn’t feel quite so secure about his ability to handle this deadly adversary.
“You are not alone,” a voice came from behind him. Arun Goldenshield stepped forward, holding his old holy sword, his armor splattered with farastu slime and the greasy stains of kelubar acid. The dwarf looked like he could barely hold his weapon up, but his eyes were pinpoints of iron determination. Benzan spared a look down the corridor, where the sounds of battle continued as Lok engaged the two kelubars in a violent melee forty feet away.
As he turned back toward the monk, he saw a cloud of ugly yellow smoke issue out from the gap leading to the side tunnel. Even before it drifted to the ground and began to take on a solid form, he knew that this was Not Good.
Just a few feet away from where Ardeth Webb stood outnumbered but undaunted against three seriously hurt foes, another drama played out. Freija Doorgan looked up at Regidin, who regarded her with an icy, calm expression.
“The enemy has been dealt a serious blow, but fights on,” he said. “Inflict a cloudkill upon them; I will conjure another barrier to block their escape and channel them toward us.”
He started forward toward the opening, but Freija’s expression had not changed; a intense stare of fury, agony, and madness that was fixed upon Regidin like an aimed crossbow. Regidin saw it and paused.
“Do not be a fool. We draw near to what we have worked for, the hour of Rebirth, when worlds will be transformed.”
What little remaining threads of sanity that Freija Doorgan possessed abruptly snapped. She spat the words of a spell, hurling a wedge of magic upon the mind of Shebelith Regidin.
Regidin’s mind was a complex maze of potencies. He was not the warped genius that Freija was, but his will was like a stone castle built to withstand any siege. His spell resistance was not enough to stop Freija’s spell, but the force of who and what he was shielded him against almost any mental assault upon him. He had once slain a mind flayer with his own hands, and had traveled to planes where most mortals would have been reduced to gibbering idiocy in the space of seconds. He was insane, true, in the sense that all of the Cagewrights were, but that did not detract from the gifts that he possessed. Even with her vaunted intellect and spellpower, Freija’s sudden attack could have been hurled at him twenty times, and nineteen of those times he would have laughed at the futility of her betrayal before he crushed her beneath the power of his divinely-granted might.
Nineteen times out of twenty, that would have happened.
Unfortunately for Shebelith Regidin, fate took a hand, as Freija’s spell knifed through a split-second’s window of surprise, and she feebleminded him.
Dana cried out as the merciless tiefling monk slammed a punishing blow into her gut. The priestess felt pain twist her insides as the blow pulverized tissue and ripped muscles hard from training. The monk was locked to her in a deadly embrace, and all of her attempts to escape were proving futile thus far. The legs locked around her torso may as well have been steel bars for all her struggles did to loosen their hold.
“I would make it last longer, my sweet,” hissed a voice close to her ear… close enough for her to feel the monk’s hot breath. Her voice was soft, a deadly whisper. “But your friends, they need my tender ministrations.”
“They’ll kill you… bitch…” Dana hissed before a sharp, snapping pain in her body cut off her breath. There was nothing she could do; she could not even draw breath to cast a spell.
No. There was one thing she could do, realization that stabbed through the pain. It took only a thought to become action, as she dove straight toward the ground below, Ardeth Webb still locked to her.
It took less than a second for them to descend, but that was enough time for the monk to react. Just before they would have impacted the hard stone below, Dana felt herself flung wildly aside as the tiefling snapped their link, driving her back to land heavily and awkwardly on the ground a few paces away. Benzan, caught off guard by the sudden movement, drew his sword; but before he could strike Webb had already regained her footing, and swiveled gracefully into a defensive stance.
“Let us dance then, brother,” she hissed.
Her senses detected the danger an instant before it struck. She could feel rather than see the looming form behind her, for when she darted aside, turning to view the corridor behind, she saw nothing there but Regidin’s still-spinning blade barrier blocking the passage. But she felt the massive claw that grabbed her by the arm, crushing the limb with incredible strength.
“Good timing, Cal,” Benzan said, moving behind the still-struggling monk into a position to deliver a critical blow. He felt a welcome surge of positive energy as Dana unleashed a mass cure serious wounds spell, easing some of the pain from the still-burning kelubar acid searing his arm.
But that’s when Regidin’s flame strike hit.
Benzan was standing right where the blast of divine fire hit. There was nowhere for him to escape, no clever dodge he could undertake to avoid the force of the blast. His innate resistance to fire was of little help against the screaming rage of the evil spell, and even with Dana’s healing he found himself fighting through a wave of dizziness and nausea as the smell of his own burned flesh filled his nostrils.
But he was better off than most. Dannel and Dana both lay prone, dead or unconscious, wisps of smoke rising from their flame-ravaged forms. Benzan could make out the outlines of Cal, polymorphed into the shape of a gray render, by the wisps of gray smoke that framed his nine-foot body in silhouette. Clearly the monk could too, for she twisted in the render’s grasp to deliver a powerful kick to Cal’s torso. The blow was enough to loosen his grip, and the monk dropped free to the ground, landing in a wide spider-like stance. For all that she’d been held stationary a few feet from the impact zone of the flame strike, she somehow did not seem to be seriously burned.
Benzan tore his eyes from Dana’s immobile form. Suddenly he didn’t feel quite so secure about his ability to handle this deadly adversary.
“You are not alone,” a voice came from behind him. Arun Goldenshield stepped forward, holding his old holy sword, his armor splattered with farastu slime and the greasy stains of kelubar acid. The dwarf looked like he could barely hold his weapon up, but his eyes were pinpoints of iron determination. Benzan spared a look down the corridor, where the sounds of battle continued as Lok engaged the two kelubars in a violent melee forty feet away.
As he turned back toward the monk, he saw a cloud of ugly yellow smoke issue out from the gap leading to the side tunnel. Even before it drifted to the ground and began to take on a solid form, he knew that this was Not Good.
Just a few feet away from where Ardeth Webb stood outnumbered but undaunted against three seriously hurt foes, another drama played out. Freija Doorgan looked up at Regidin, who regarded her with an icy, calm expression.
“The enemy has been dealt a serious blow, but fights on,” he said. “Inflict a cloudkill upon them; I will conjure another barrier to block their escape and channel them toward us.”
He started forward toward the opening, but Freija’s expression had not changed; a intense stare of fury, agony, and madness that was fixed upon Regidin like an aimed crossbow. Regidin saw it and paused.
“Do not be a fool. We draw near to what we have worked for, the hour of Rebirth, when worlds will be transformed.”
What little remaining threads of sanity that Freija Doorgan possessed abruptly snapped. She spat the words of a spell, hurling a wedge of magic upon the mind of Shebelith Regidin.
Regidin’s mind was a complex maze of potencies. He was not the warped genius that Freija was, but his will was like a stone castle built to withstand any siege. His spell resistance was not enough to stop Freija’s spell, but the force of who and what he was shielded him against almost any mental assault upon him. He had once slain a mind flayer with his own hands, and had traveled to planes where most mortals would have been reduced to gibbering idiocy in the space of seconds. He was insane, true, in the sense that all of the Cagewrights were, but that did not detract from the gifts that he possessed. Even with her vaunted intellect and spellpower, Freija’s sudden attack could have been hurled at him twenty times, and nineteen of those times he would have laughed at the futility of her betrayal before he crushed her beneath the power of his divinely-granted might.
Nineteen times out of twenty, that would have happened.
Unfortunately for Shebelith Regidin, fate took a hand, as Freija’s spell knifed through a split-second’s window of surprise, and she feebleminded him.
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