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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 1126031" data-attributes="member: 143">Who said we're done? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />* * * * * Chapter 42“Mole!  Are you all right?” Zenna shouted, rushing over to her friend.  She herself felt faint, as blood continued to ooze from the wound in her shoulder.  Ironically, the gnome rogue was the only one of them who remained uninjured.  They were all battered, with Fario wavering on his feet, but refusing to sheath his swords, keeping a wary eye about for any new threats.  On seeing that Mole was all right, Zenna ran up the stairs, giving the still-twitching corpse of the howler a wide berth, knowing already what she would see.  Ruphos was dead, there was no doubting that.  He lay in a heap, one side of his body lying over the motionless form of Arun, covered in blood.  Arun... no, as Zenna reached for them, she caught the faintest hint of movement, the slightest swelling of the dwarf’s torso.  Her vision half-ruined by her tears, she checked the dwarf’s body.  “Arun’s alive!” she sobbed, her voice cracking.  Somehow, whether through his own incredible fortitude or his patron god’s intervention, he’d stabilized, though he was still unconscious and close to death.  Mole, who’d spent those few moments helping Fario stem his own bleeding wound with a bandage, turned to help her, but hesitated as she looked down at the body of Kazmojen.  Had the slaver... there, again, there was no doubting it...“He’s still alive!” Mole cried, but the tone of her voice made it immediately clear that she was not talking about Arun, but their fallen adversary, who was stirring, his body heaving as it somehow crawled back toward life.  Fario spun and quickly moved forward, but Mole was there first, stabbing the fallen dwarf repeatedly with her sword.  “Die!” she yelled, stabbing him in the neck, under the back edge of his helmet.  “Die!” she repeated, thrusting her sword through whatever gap she could find. “He must have some regenerative ability,” Fario said, arriving to help drive the slaver back across the line into unconsciousness, closer to death. “Well, how do we kill him for good?” Mole asked. “Fire.  Or acid.”  Mole was already digging into her pack, pulling out her last torch.  Zenna knelt over the body of her friend, her tears flowing freely now, feeling as helpless as she ever had before in the face of this final loss.  She did not even have the power to help Arun, who could slide over the razor’s edge into death at any moment.  She heard her friends’ shouts as they dealt with Kazmojen, but could not even will herself up to help them.  She felt weak, a weakness that penetrated to her very bones.  A sound drew her attention.  Looking up, she saw the three children still shackled to the pillar, staring at her with expressions that were dark and haunted.  Seeing them allowed her to finally cut through the pain that held her in its grasp, and she slowly pulled herself to her feet. A sickening stench of roasting flesh greeted her nostrils.  Turning, she saw that Fario and Mole had finally taken care of Kazmojen for good, and a small pyre continued to smolder over his corpse.  Mole still held her torch, in case it was needed.  Zenna scanned the room, her gaze lingering briefly on the ravaged body of Endercott.  They hadn’t even gotten to know him, she thought.“What happened to Fellian?” Fario looked up at her, standing at the top of the stairs.  “He is well,” the fighter said.  “He and I...”He paused, and did not get to finish his statement as a loud thump drew their attention around.  The double doors moved, the hobgoblin javelin jammed into their handles rattling as someone tried to force their way through from beyond.  Whoever it was, it did not appear that they would allow that flimsy barrier to stop them, as the noise increased, and the javelin began to bend with the force upon it. Fario shot her a questioning glance, but Zenna shook her head.  “We can’t leave Arun, or the children,” she said.  The half-elf nodded, and bent to retrieve a discarded javelin before moving to join her.  Mole recovered her crossbow and did the same, reloading as she went.  For her part, Zenna reloaded her own weapon, a resigned look falling into place on her features.  The doors thumped, and the javelin cracked...</blockquote>

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