Chapter 614
By unspoken agreement, Beorna and Lok turned to face the onrushing elementals, while Arun surged forward toward the shield protecting the Prince. Several of the creatures surged forward toward the warriors, who looked insignificant in contrast to the massive walls of water descending upon them, filling the room almost up to the cavern roof forty feet above.
Dana spoke a holy word, but the power of the utterance could not overcome the ancient potency of the warped elder elementals. One of the creatures slammed into her, carrying her off in a wild surge.
“Dana!” Benzan exclaimed. He rushed after her, but the elemental plunged back into one of the gaping holes in the floor, dragging its captive down with it.
“Look out!” Dannel warned, as another elemental rose up behind Benzan, sweeping forward like a black tide. The elf fired several electrically-charged missiles into the elemental, which kept on coming toward its target.
Cal had considered and discarded the prismatic wall; while the spell would have likely kept several of the elementals at bay, it would also have been easy for the others to bull-rush his friends into the barrier. And it was likely that the holes in the floor were all connected with a larger body of water below, which would have made the wall an only temporary obstacle. He did, however, have another new spell, one which was particularly suited to this circumstance.
He hit the fiendish elementals with a horrid wilting, blasting through their spell resistance easily. The spell vaporized a good portion of the creatures’ substance, and they seemed to pulse with what might have been agony, had they been normal mortal beings. The last of the elementals had been surging toward Cal and Dannel, but it now drew back from the tiny but deadly archmage, a primordial instinct for survival overcoming the urge to destruction that filled its being.
That didn’t help Benzan, however, as he turned around to take a punishing blow from a heavy surge of water that plunged into his face and chest, knocking him down. The water that made up the creatures was thick and polluted, and where it splashed against the tiefling’s skin, it seared his flesh like acid.
Beorna and Lok likewise came under heavy attack. The templar cut a deep swath into the first surging wave with her sword, but was struck hard and overborne by an impact that knocked her roughly back. Lok, facing the opposite direction, set his feet heavily upon the stone, taking up a defensive stance. Two elementals surged into him, but while the waves crashed against his shield and armored body with the force of a tsunami, they broke to reveal the warrior, holding his ground, hewing at the substance of the elementals with his axe. Like Benzan, both were affected by the caustic touch of the water, against which armor and clothing were of only marginal protection.
Arun splashed through water that had risen to his knees, and lifted his hammer. He had marked where the shield began, and slammed the holy weapon into it with the full force of his considerable strength behind it. The shield flashed but held, rebuffing him as a backblast of energy surged through the weapon into the paladin. Arun fell back, staggering to one knee. Within the shield, Graz’zt sat waiting, his features indistinct through the distortions still trembling through the shield from the fury of the dwarf’s attack.
Grimacing, he lifted the hammer and came forward again.
“Get the shield… I’ll keep them off!” Dannel said to Cal, as he unleashed a rapid-fire barrage of missiles into the nearest of the elementals. He continued to target the one that had attacked Benzan, sending arrow after arrow into it, aiming high so as not to threaten the tiefling, who was all but immersed in its bulk. The substance of the watery creature roiled madly as the empowered missiles tore through it. Critically wounded, it turned toward the elf, but then suddenly sagged, and disintegrated into a spray of water that quickly drained toward the nearest of the holes in the floor. As the elemental came apart, Benzan was again revealed, swinging his sword blindly around him. The rapidly receding waters pulled at his legs, dragging him down again. Dannel was there in a moment to help him up. He looked to be in bad shape, his eyes swollen and red, his skin seared a harsh pink from the pollutants in the water.
“Dana…” he managed to say.
“She can handle herself, trust me,” the elf said. And in any case, there’s nothing we can do for her, he didn’t add.
Lifting his bow, he shifted his aim toward the next foe.
Lok was surrounded by a vortex of swirling water as the elementals continued to bash at him. One reared up over him, forming a white crest that brushed the ceiling, but that huge wave disintegrated as Lok slammed his axe through it, opening a gash that tore through its entire “body”, slaying it. The other surged through the gap and buffeted the genasi heavily, but his stance held, and he maintained his position even as the caustic water rushed around him and sizzled against his armor.
Beorna was in a less enviable position. Her foe had knocked her down in the initial clash, and the elemental continued to smash at her, dragging her toward the hole in the floor through which it had emerged. Thus far, only the templar’s considerable weight, a fair portion of which was comprised of the adamantine shell that she wore, had kept her from suffering Dana’s fate. But the elemental was strong, and each surging rush of water drove her closer to the dark opening.
She tried to stand, only to stumble again as another wave overbore her, and the rushing water around her feet made standing difficult.
“Bloody bast—“ she began, only to be cut off as a surge of water flushed over her face. Tendrils of smoke were rising from her, as the toxins in the liquid seared her gear and skin. The water withdrew, but she was another three feet closer to the hole. Looking up, she saw the wall of water reforming again, with twin points of blackness in the surge that seemed to stare at her with a cold malevolence.
“By HELM!” she shouted, invoking the divine energies of her patron. The power of righteous might filled her, and she rapidly grew in size, feeling the strength pulse through her body as the magic took hold.
The wave rushed in, twin “arms” of water extending to pummel her. She did not even bother to try to stand, instead sweeping her now-larger bastard sword around in an arc that slashed through the base of the elemental. The creature quavered as the sword tore through its life-essence, and while it still managed to unleash its attack, the blows landed ineffectively upon the templar’s armored legs.
Pulling herself up, she said, “Now we see what’s what, you oversized sludge-bucket!”
The elemental swept forward, trying to knock her down again, but it found the task considerably more difficult with Beorna’s enhanced size and weight facing it. She held her ground, and as the core of the elemental blasted her, she swept her sword through it. The blade intersected something that resisted its tearing path, and then the monster just came apart, draining away into the gaps in the floor.
While he was not insensitive to the melee that raged around him, Cal’s attention was focused on the shield protecting Graz’zt. Drawing out a wand, he touched it to his arm before sliding back into the magical quiver at his belt. Rising a few feet above the swirling, unstable ground, he started forward across the room. As he watched, Arun readied himself for a second attack upon the ward. Above him to his right a threatening wave gathered, but Dannel blasted it with a rapid-fire barrage of arrows, each punching a fist-sized hole in its center as the potency of the arcane archer’s magic tore into it. Still it came onward, but Benzan met it with a running slash of his sword, cutting a swath eight feet long in its base. The wave toppled over, coming apart as it hit the floor. The tiefling and elf were pulled from their feet by the explosive surge of water, but it only splashed the gnome’s robe as he pressed forward.
Lok, meanwhile, was doing for his second foe. The elemental, already shorn of huge swathes of its substance by the genasi’s axe, abruptly abandoned its assault, falling back to the nearest gap in the floor, and then vanishing through it. The genasi turned to see if Beorna needed his help, but the templar had already handled her opponent, and was now moving toward the last elemental, which wisely elected to join its companion in retreat.
Arun took hold of his hammer, and unleashed another all-out attack upon the shield. Once again, the invisible barrier took on solid form for a moment as the clash of energies sent roiling waves of black and aqua across its surface. But it held, and again Arun was driven back.
But Cal had been waiting for that moment. Before the shield could reform itself, he blasted the same spot that Arun had hit with another empowered disintegrate. The green ray spread outward from the point of impact, forming striations in the ward that thickened and twisted through the threads of the barrier. Behind the shield, Graz’zt threw up his arms.
And then, after a second that seemed much longer, the shield collapsed.
Arun strode forward, his hammer at the ready. But Graz’zt drew out his good hand from behind his back, something concealed in his fist.
The paladin hesitated, wary of another devious stratagem.
“You shall never have me!” the demon screeched, hurling the object he’d hidden. As it left his hand it split, into a spread of tiny balls that scattered outward. None of them reached as far as the paladin, landing in little splashes upon the puddled floor.
At once things began to grow from the fell seeds. The little balls swelled, sprouting long, segmented legs, and ugly gray hairs. They took on oblong shapes that became distinct, with a head emerging from the front, dominated by multifaceted eyes and huge, dripping fangs.
Graz’zt, leapt from the throne, and darted toward a hole in the floor a short distance from the coral seat.
Within the span of a heartbeat over a dozen monstrous spiders, each larger than the paladin, stood before Arun. As soon as their explosive growth had finished, they let out a collective screech and rushed forward, moving faster than a line of charging warhorses.
