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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 1614812" data-attributes="member: 143">Because there is!* * * * * Chapter 161Even as the bar-lgura demon cackled its monstrous laugh, Dannel drew, aimed, and fired.  The steel-tipped arrow found its target, knifing through the giant ape-demon. The creature was unaffected; the arrow had simply vanished into it without a trace. Zenna was the first to realize what had happened.  “It’s an illusion,” she warned.  “Remember the noises—in the forest!”The companions looked around for the inevitable assault, but before they could act the world around them was plunged into shadowy darkness.  Voices filled the darkness, calling out, seeking direction, and again it was Zenna, who was all too used to the power of the darkness spell, who cut through the din with a warning.  “Spread out... get outside of the radius of the spell!”She heard the clink of metal and the trod of footsteps that indicated that the others were moving, but over that she could discern the clear voice of Morgan, calling upon the power of his god.  She did not speak Celestial, but she could see the results a moment later as a brilliant shine of daylight exploded from his uplifted sword, banishing the darkness and filling the clearing with its radiant glow.  The light revealed the companions spread out in a ring, facing outward as they had each sought their own way out of the darkness. Unfortunately it also revealed a trio of bar-lgura demons, already closing in on them with great loping strides. The ape-demons had been drawn to the loudest of them, and two hurled themselves at Arun and Hodge, leaping upon the dwarves to rend with claws and bite.  The third was making a beeline for Morgan, although it drew back as the bright light erupted out from his sword, snarling as the holy light burned its eyes.  The cleric saw it, and turned to face the demon, lowering the sword until it pointed toward its chest.  “Prepare to be sent back to the pits of the Abyss, demon!” he shouted.Arun barely had time to lift his hammer before a demon leapt onto him, its weight threatening to bear him to the ground beneath it.  With a dwarvish cry he drove it back with his shield, giving himself enough room to wield his hammer.  Pain shot up from his hip where the demon’s claw had slammed into him with crushing force, but the demon’s other attacks had been turned by his magical armor and shield.  But his elation turned into concern as his hammer glanced harmlessly off the magical hide of the bar-lgura, the creature’s unholy laughs reinforcing the futility of the attack.  Hodge, on the other hand, had a magical weapon, but he also was less fortunate in the face of the second demon’s rush.  A claw clipped the side of his head, opening a bloody gash across his temple, and as he tried to raise his shield the bar-lgura tore his arm aside and bit down on his exposed shoulder.  Hodge cried out in pain, and tried to chop at it with his axe, managing only a feeble blow that failed to penetrate its hide.  Zenna realized that her spells would be of little use against these foes; the same resistances to elemental energy that she possessed would be shared by them, only in greater potency.  Instead she ran to where Dannel was trying to take aim on the demon savaging Hodge.  The elf looked up at her in puzzlement, but she ignored him and reached out to touch his bow, drawing upon her power as she did so. “That might help,” she said.Dannel nodded and took aim, releasing a shot that caught the demon high in the shoulder.  The arrow, imparted with magical power through the bow by the agency of Zenna’s magic weapon spell, sank into the demon’s hide.  The bar-lgura roared in pain, but the attack only made it redouble the violence of its assault upon Hodge. Morgan took advantage of his adversary’s pause to call upon Helm once more, enlarging himself to twelve feet in height.  He took a step toward the demon, but it grinned as it called upon its own fell power, stripping away the cleric’s spells, causing him to shrink back to his normal size, and the brilliant light upon his blade to fade to its normal pale glow.  Barking out a foul laugh, it charged toward the priest. Arun, recognizing that he had little chance against his foe with his mundane warhammer, held his ground against another vicious all-out assault from the demon.  He shrugged off painful blows that tore skin and bruised muscle beneath his armor, but he avoided the creature’s powerful grasp, and drove it back again with a powerful shove of his shield.  Rather than pressing his advantage with another attack, however, he stepped back and called upon the power of Moradin, asking his patron to bless his hammer.  He felt the divine surge of energy pass through him into the weapon, but before he could attack the demon was on him again, biting and clawing. Hodge found himself hard-pressed, unable to find a moment’s respite against the demon’s ferocious assault.  He felt his body weaken as it ripped at him again with its claws and bite, tearing another gash along the side of his jaw, one black claw narrowly missing his eye.  He stumbled back, knowing that another hit would finish him, but to his surprise the demon suddenly roared and drew itself up to its full height, clutching at its back.  Mole had entered the fray, giving the dwarf the opportunity to stagger back, blood oozing from his several wounds.  Unfortunately for her, the noble gesture drew the demon’s full ire upon her, and its claws seemed huge as they reached down for her diminutive form. “Back off!” Zenna yelled at it, firing a brilliant spray of colors into its face.  She could feel the demon’s innate resistance fighting her spell, but was gratified as she saw it hesitate, momentarily confused by the color spray.  But she knew that the spell would only stun it for a few seconds... and she had no further magic with which to hinder it. That was okay for Mole, who fearlessly darted in and stabbed it again with her tiny sword, knowing full well what would happen when it recovered. Morgan met the demon in a violent charge.  The holy knight’s sword sang as it cleaved the air, biting deeply into the side of the bar-lgura, drawing great orbs of black ichor that steamed as they hit the ground, instantly charring the surrounding vegetation into ash.  The demon countered with its own furious assault, but the cleric’s magical armor absorbed most of the strikes, leaving him virtually unscathed. Arun took another hit from a claw that drove pain through his armor, but now, as he lifted the hammer infused with the power of his god, the demon looked in his eyes and knew fear.  The hammer slammed into its shoulder with the force of an avalanche, snapping bones and driving the demon backward.  Heavily wounded, it yet had fight left in it, and it snarled as it leapt up and charged him again, seeking either its own destruction or the utter annihilation of the man who dared to stand before it. Mole cried out as the demon seized her in its claws, grabbing her and thrusting her into its huge, gaping maw.  The rogue managed to twist in its grasp, however, and instead of chomping down on gnome flesh, its jaws closed on empty air as Mole kicked off its nose and broke free, somersaulting in the air to land on her feet.  She was hurt, though, and without the advantage of surprise, there was little she could hope to do to it with her non-magical and tiny sword. But before the demon could rush forward and tear her to pieces, it staggered as a long arrow slammed into its side.  The demon spun, its face a rictus of fury, but before it could respond to the attack a second arrow found its throat, sinking to the feathers in the demon’s neck.  Black ichor ran in a torrent from the wound down the creature’s chest, dripping through its matted black fur, causing its body to glisten in the bright morning light.  It let out a cough, and then, slowly, toppled backward.  Morgan’s blade still shone brightly despite the black demonic blood that now marked most of its length.  The demon had turned to brute force to overwhelm this foe, but the cleric’s shield always seemed there to turn a claw, and the snapping jaws were met again and again by a sweep of the shining sword.  Finally, the demon darted back and called upon its power, seeking to lay some terrible spell upon the priest. But the power, whatever its nature, faltered against the grim will of the Helmite, and as he strode forward the mighty sword came down once more, and ended it. Arun’s breath burned in his chest as the demon pressed its attack again.  The two combatants exchanged blows that drove though hide and armor alike, but neither faltered in the face of destruction.  The demon drove the paladin back with a blow that crushed the dwarf’s weapon arm, threatening his grip on his weapon.  As Arun drew back to regain control of the hammer, the bar-lgura howled and leapt atop him, its jaws opening in a huge arc to enfold his face and rip it from his torso.  But the paladin stood his ground, and as the gaping maw drew down upon its target, Arun drove the hammer with his full strength into the fetid opening.  The demon choked as teeth exploded and the hammer’s broad head crushed its throat, but the sound drew off into a gurgle as the force of its charge combined with the dwarf’s strength drove the weapon up through its head and into the tangled mess of corruption that served as its brain. Relative quiet returned to the clearing as the companions drew together, facing the bodies of the three slain demons, the only sound the soft chants of healing spells.  Morgan was the first to turn toward the dark opening of the pipe, after calling upon the power of Helm to purge his wounds and wiping the demon-blood off of his sword with an old rag.  “Let us be about this, then,” he said, leading them into the darkness, the light of his sword showing them the way.</blockquote>

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