NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 1314100" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 96The companions, coming to the aid of a dwarf caught in a dire struggle against a pair of displacer beasts, found themselves engaged in yet another violent melee.  Zenna held her ground against the charge of the second displacer beast, although her legs felt like gel and her entire body shook with fear.  The magic came at her call, however, and a blaze of colors engulfed the creature.  Its displacement power was not enough to move it from the path of her spell, and it hurtled forward blindly, the momentum of its charge carrying it ahead.  Zenna spun and leapt to the side, but something heavy crashed into her, and she went flying, landing hard in the rocks, pain jabbing into her side from the force of the impact.  Mole dodged the first lashing tentacle that slammed down toward her, grimacing as the blow snapped the rock she’d been standing on in two.  Suddenly her brave charge to aid the poor hapless dwarf didn’t seem quite so reasonable as it had a few moments ago.  That decision seemed even more ill-favored a heartbeat later, as the displacer beast’s huge jaws snapped forward, catching her on the shoulder and lifting her painfully into the air.  She found herself flying—and not in the good way—before something hard smashed into her back, and she could feel her flesh tearing as the sharp ridges of the beast’s tentacle ravaged her cloak and armor.  For a moment a flash of fear punched through her... oh no, not my magical pack!  Then pain penetrated thought, and everything broke apart as she landed head-first in the wooden wreckage of the sluice.  Dannel’s let out a harsh cry and rushed into the beast that had so battered his friend, stabbing with his slender sword.  In close quarters his blow struck more truly than his arrows earlier, although he cut only into the beast’s shoulder, and not its heart as he had intended.  The creature snarled and lunged at him, but abruptly staggered as the dwarf smashed his spade two-handed into the back of its skull.  The displacer beast stood there a moment quivering, uttered a plaintive cry, and collapsed.  The second creature shook off the effects of Zenna’s color spray just in time to see Arun charging right for it.  The beast lashed out with its tentacles, but they glanced off of the dwarf’s shield or the bright plates of his heavy armor.  The beast’s form continued to shift, but Arun had judged its true location based on the source of those strikes, and when the hammer came down it connected with solid flesh.  That made it mad. Zenna shook her head, trying to clear it of the fuzziness born of the pain that continued to shoot through her battered body like jolts of electricity.  She felt something jar her boot, and looked up to see the displacer beast all but on top of her, snarling at it battled with Arun.  Without hesitation, she opened her mind to her magic, calling upon the words of a spell.  The creature apparently didn’t hear her over the noise of its clashes with the paladin, who deflected another tentacle strike with his shield before taking a punishing stroke that glanced off of the side of his helmet.  Zenna could feel her skin crinkling with the magical power she’d called as she reached out for the hind leg of the displacer beast.  Her hand passed through it, but as she swept outward, she felt her fingers brush against rough skin, and she released the power of her spell. The displacer beast roared as the electrical energy from Zenna’s shocking grasp tore through it.  Snarling, it made the mistake of rounding on the mage, who drew back in alarm as the tentacles lashed out at her.  One caught her on the arm and tore away a long strip of flesh, while the second snapped across her back, driving her roughly down into the rocks.  Zenna crumpled, lying there unconscious and bleeding.  The creature had removed that threat, but its assault had left it vulnerable to the assault from the dwarf.  Arun charged right into the side of the creature, bringing his hammer down in a deadly arc.  Again the dwarf was able to strike through the displacement effect, and the beast staggered as its spine snapped with an ugly crack.  Its tentacles flailing aimlessly, it fell backward and spent out the remainder of its existence thrashing about among the rocks.  Arun was quick to reach Zenna’s side, and calling upon the divine power of Moradin stabilized her.  The battle had been brief but bloody.  Two of the companions had gone down, and the battered dwarf was barely standing.  Still, he managed to make his way to a bundle laid out among the ruins of his camp, and from within it he drew out a massive single-bladed axe and a fat leather pouch.  From the latter, he drew out a small vial and quaffed it.  Despite the blood caked onto his garments from the rents in his tough hide, the dwarf regarded them calmly, leaning slightly upon the axe, his hands slick with blood as they tightened on the shaft of the weapon.  Dannel had brought Mole around with a dose of healing energy from his wand, and now handed her a potion as she gingerly propped herself back up.  Ignoring the dwarf, he rushed over to Zenna, his concern written on her face as he used more healing to bring her back to consciousness.  Arun, the side of his own face bloody where a swipe of a tentacle had caught him, turned to the dwarf.  “Well met,” the paladin offered. “Well met yerself,” the dwarf replied, spitting a gob that was more blood than saliva against the rocks.  “Don’t mind him, he’s always like that,” Mole said, dusting herself off as she rose and stepped in between the two dwarves.  “I’m Mole, he’s Arun, the elf is Dannel, and his girlfriend over there is Zenna.”“Balthazar Hodge,” the dwarf replied, though he didn’t offer his hand or make any other gesture of greeting.  “Call me Hodge.”“Hodge?  That doesn’t sound like a dwarven name,” Mole opined.“That’s cause I’m really a fairy elf princess,” the dwarf spat.  “HAR!” he roared, his laughter more than a little jarring.“That’s a good one!” Mole enthusiastically offered.  She glanced back and saw that Dannel was helping Zenna carefully to her feet.  “So, you a miner or something?” she asked, glancing about the ruins of the camp.  “Gotta check on me helpers,” the dwarf said, hefting his axe as he headed down the ravine toward the bend around which the second creature had appeared.  Mole and the others followed.  The rest of the campsite was in worse condition than the first area.  A second mule lay dead, along with more battered equipment and another tent.  Worst of all was the battered remains of a pair of humans, clearly dead even before Zenna moved to examine the bodies.  “I’m sorry about your friends,” Dannel said. “Don’t be,” the dwarf said, spitting noisily again.  “Said ‘ey could handle ‘emselves, ‘ey did.  Guess ‘ey was wrong.”  “If we hadn’t come along, looks like you would have had a bit more than you could handle yourself,” Arun said, clearly offended by the dwarf’s casual dismissal of his comrades’ death.  The dwarf shook his head in derison.  “Dem beasties would nay be gotten de best o’ me, if’n I’d ‘ad a chance to get me fingers on ol’ Betsy here.”  He patted the smooth steel flange of his axe, and spat.  “What I deserve, I reckon, trustin’ to de likes of these to be keepin’ watch.  Like as not ‘ey were watchin’ a bottle, ‘stead of their duty.”“What language is he speaking?” Zenna whispered covertly to Dannel, who shrugged, as if the idiosyncrasies of dwarves was just another of those things beyond his understanding or control. “Your axe is named Betsy?” Mole asked, fascinated by the strange dwarf and his unusual manner. “Ay, she is!  After a girl I knew once... now there was a wench, oy!  But this Betsy be a mite easier to ‘andle, she be!  HAR!”The dwarf walked out into the ruined camp, occasionally stopping to poke at something with his axe.  Arun moved over to the two slain humans, and after righting their bodies as best he could, started gathering stones for a cairn.  Zenna quickly moved to help him, although she could barely move rocks that the dwarf lifted easily in one hand.   “There weren’t any others of your party?” Dannel asked. “Nay, elf, just me an’ Daric an’ Morse, here.”  He paused over the slain mule.  “Best pair o’ mules I ever owned, too,” he lamented.  “Blasted bloody bleeding bastards!” he roared, shaking his axe in the general direction of the dead displacer beasts.“So, what are you going to do now?” Mole asked, glancing over to make sure that Zenna was fully involved in helping Arun, and therefore not likely to overhear the conversation.  “Back to Cauldron?”“Total bleeding loss,” Hodge was saying, scratching his thick hair with a hand crusted with dirt and blood—mostly his, of the latter.  Belatedly he seemed to realize that he’d been asked a question, for he turned and regarded the gnome.  Weighing the question, he finally spit.  “Back to that cess-hole?  Not blasted likely.  No...”  He regarded the gnome thoughtfully, and ran an appraising glance over her companions as well.  “Yer all treasure hunters or somesuch?  There ain’t much out thisaways, but stones and dirt.”“Oh, no,” Mole said cheerfully.  “We’re—”“We’d best be making our way onward,” Dannel said, interrupting as he came up behind the two of them, his sword cleaned and sheathed and his bow ready again for any further sign of trouble.  “There are other menaces in these mountains, and they may be drawn to this place by the smell of smoke and blood.”  “Right,” Hodge said, fixing the elf with a canny look.  “Travelin’ north, are ye?  I was thinkin’ of headin’ that way meself, maybe try my luck on the far side of these rocks, along the Lake.”Dannel opened his mouth to say something, but Mole quickly said, “Wonderful, why don’t you travel with us, then!  Strength in numbers, of course, and if we meet anything else that’s nasty you can use Betsy to teach them whatfor!”  “Just so,” Hodge said.  “Lemme gather a few things.”As he trudged off, Zenna came up, rubbing her slender hands together.  “Guess what, Zenna?” Mole said.  “Hodge is going to go with us!”Zenna looked at Dannel with an expression that might have been accusatory.  “Another dwarf.  Wonderful,” she said dryly.</blockquote>

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