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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 1546788" data-attributes="member: 143">Snappyapple nailed it.  Welcome to the story, by the way, and thanks for posting.* * * * * Chapter 140Mole could not move as the breathdrinker extended a tendril of its own substance toward her.  She felt an icy chill as the fog caressed her lips and nostrils, probing inside.  Then she was jerked roughly backward, falling on the stones.  She saw Zenna step into the place where she’d been standing, a wand in her hands.  She fired a spray of roiling flames into the creature, a fan of burning hands that seared the edges of the fog, but did little to stop it.  The creature did not press its attack, however, instead turning back to face the critically injured Maavu.  “Arun!  We need you, now!” Zenna cried, the shout lost in the chaos of the still-roiling crowd. Maavu had used the few moments of respite to raise some magical defenses, and quaff a potion that healed some of the wounds he had taken.  Realizing that he could not flee against the speed of the creature, he turned to face it even as it surged once more to the attack.  For a fleeting instant his defenses held; then a final cutting slash of cohesive fog tore through his shields and into his chest, a critical hit that scored to the ribs beneath cloth and flesh.  With a groan, the merchant staggered backward and slumped to the stones, blood oozing from the wound. The creature darted forward to finish its assignment, but before it could reach the merchant an acid arrow sizzled squarely into the middle of its form.  The breathdrinker spun to face Zenna, who now held a second wand, a faint wisp of smoke lifting from its tip.  “Come on then,” Zenna said, a sudden and unexpected vehemence in her voice as she spat the words at the creature. Come it did, surging toward her in a deadly rush.  Zenna held her ground, her mage armor absorbing its first strike, her jaw tightening around a gasp of pain as its second cut deeply into her side.  A loud noise, a clatter of metal combined with a dwarven battle cry, drew her attention to the side. “You had your chance,” she told the creature, which seemed unconcerned, forming another wind-scythe in preparation of another assault upon the wizard. Before the creature could attack, however, Arun appeared from around the platform, charging headlong into the fray, his hammer clutched in a ready position.  The breathdrinker shifted but did not avoid the hammer as it tore into its otherworldly substance.   And tore through it, the wisps of fog reforming in the hammer’s wake, nearly unaffected by the blow. “It’s only harmed by magic!” Zenna exclaimed.  She punctuated her point by firing another acid arrow into it, the fat droplets of searing green disintegrating the wisps of cloud as the two interacted. As if on cue, Hodge appeared from the opposite side of the platform, charging forward with his axe raised in an echo of Arun’s rush just moments ago.  The breathdrinker, perhaps sensing that this battle was lost, turned and dove toward Maavu, intent upon finishing its task.  It had nearly reached the wizard when the charging dwarf caught up to it, driving his axe—late of Zenith Splintershield’s possession—through it.  The effect was markedly different than Arun’s assault, and as the axe sundered its form the creature let out a hollow shriek before it disintegrated into wisps of nothingness. Zenna quickly moved to help the crippled merchant, while Arun tended to Mole.  They could still hear the noise of the crowd in the square, although the immediate area around them had grown suddenly quiet. “You know, maybe this axe isn’t so bad after all,” Hodge said, examining his new weapon. Zenna poured the potent energies of a cure moderate wounds spell into Maavu, and helped the wizard/merchant to his feet. “Thank you, my dear,” the man said.  “Though I fear that this is only the opening sally by my foes.”“And whom exactly are they?” Zenna asked. “I am afraid I cannot linger to discuss the matter,” Maavu replied.  “But come to Redgorge, to the Redhead Miner’s Inn... speak the word “mortar” and they will let you in.  Alec Tercival will be there, and I am certain that will wish to talk to you of the threat...”“Wait,” Zenna said.  But the man had already taken up another potion vial, and before she could do anything to stop him, he quaffed it.  Almost immediately his body began to dissolve into the shape of a cloud of mist eerily similar to the form of the breathdrinker.  Then it rose quickly into the sky, where it vanished amidst the rooftops of the town.  Cries of pain drew their attention back toward the Town Hall.  The mob was definitely breaking up, with people fleeing out of the square along the three main avenues out from the intersection. “What’s happenin’?” Hodge asked. “The Town Guard is firing into the crowd,” Zenna said.  “Why, those bastards,” Arun said.  He started in that direction, but Zenna held his shoulder. “I have to put a stop to it,” the paladin said. “The riot is over,” Zenna said.  “This battle is already lost; help the injured, if you must, but it would be best if we left this place quickly.”  She glanced up at the sky where Maavu had disappeared.  “I will meet you at the Morkoth, later; there are things to discuss.”  Without waiting for a reply, she stepped back, incanted briefly, and vanished from sight.  “Girl’s getting’ a bit hoity,” Hodge grumbled.  “Tho’ she do have a point ‘bout not hangin’ ‘round ‘ere, me thinks.”Mole, leaning against Arun, finally stirred herself, shaking off the linger effects of the breathdrinker’s gaze.  Sheathing her sword, she tossed up her hands, and exclaimed, “Would someone please tell me what is going on?”Arun and Hodge exchanged a look.  They had no easy answers for her. Meanwhile, the square emptied out, as the protestors fled the violence of the mercenaries of the Town Guard.  Or at least most fled; a half-dozen bodies remained sprawled in bloody heaps on the broken cobbles, reminders of a bad day in Cauldron.</blockquote>

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