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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 1656635" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 179The elf continued his barrage, trying to force arrows through the terrible defenses of the hag.  The other hag shifted the dark power of her gaze to fall upon him, and for a moment he felt that same surge of evil that had threatened Zenna.  But Zenna had also laid a protective ward upon him as well, and after a moment the agony of the eyebite faded.  He drew yet another arrow, sighting at the injured hag... and she vanished, drawing down once more a cloak of protective invisibility.  Instinctively he fired his arrow, but the hag must have moved swiftly, for it only passed through empty air.  He shifted his aim toward the second creature, but felt a redoubling of the earlier evil assault upon him as the hag focused upon him yet again with the fell power of her spell.  This time his defenses failed to hold, and his bow fell from nerveless fingers as he fell back, waves of pain and nausea washing over him, the hag’s cackles echoing through his mind. Zenna drew back as Morgan whipped his club through one of the mirror images, the glamour vanishing as though popped by the force of the blow.  She had no more spells to hold him or sway his mind; she’d used up the bulk of her clerical powers on protection from evil spells for her allies.  Still, she was not without resources.  She fired off a color spray into his face, a brilliant barrage that had left tough foes stunned and vulnerable.  But even as the colors faded, he was attacking again.  This time a pair of images vanished before his fury, and the cold eyes on the other side of the black mask promised death.  So be it, then, she thought. Even as the cleric lifted his weapon to strike her down, she unleashed her second scorching ray at point-blank range into his chest.  His skin blackened and crisped where the ray tore into him, but the man did not cry out, nor did he falter, though the wound had to be incredibly painful.  Instead he lashed out again, and this time his club clipped a solid form, tearing through her shield and her mage armor and striking painfully against her shoulder.  She fell back against the nearby wall.  The club came in again, but once again, distracted by the last remaining image, which continued to shift around her, he missed and drove the club heavily into the wall a foot from her face.  Not hesitating, she reached out and grabbed the club, releasing a powerful jolt of electrical energy through the metal weapon into the cleric.  The shocking grasp tore into him like a raging flood, and he stiffened, dropping the heavy weapon from charred fingers.  But driven by a combined fury that originated both within him and from outside, the cleric surged at her again before she could pull herself up, and his powerful fingers locked onto her throat, driving her back into the wall. Even at that moment, as the dwarves finished off the two giants, and Dannel succumbed to the fell power of the hags, Mole reached the top of the platform, her cloak drawn close around her, a dark shadow amongst the confusion of the battle.  She saw the one hag, but while she could see bloodstains on the floor where Dannel had shot the other, she could not see it.  That was the leader, she knew, the one that had dominated Morgan, the key to this confrontation.  But where is she, she thought, suspecting that she knew the answer.  She heard a flapping sound in the air above, among the pillars, but when she looked up she saw nothing there either. “Damn you, Kymzo,” she heard a voice say quietly, so close that she almost jumped up and gave away her position.  She crouched lower in the lee of the stairs, and focused her senses out over the platform.  There.  A droplet appeared in mid-air, falling to the floor, smeared a moment later by a passing foot.  Heading for one of the two doors that exited the chamber from the platform.  Mole was off like a shot, crouched low to the ground.  “Come sister, we must flee this place...” The voice, coming from thin air, gave Mole her target, and she leapt.  Belatedly the consequences for a mistimed attack flashed through her mind, and then she was hanging on the hag’s back, to all outside observers dangling there in mid-air three feet off the ground.The hag hissed in anger, and Mole could feel powerful claws tearing at her arms and face.  But the hiss had been what she was waiting for, and it guided her as she tore with the knife.  The hiss turned into a broken gurgle as the hag staggered and fell, Mole following her down, driving the knife again and again into her throat.  It was like trying to stab a tree, the hag’s thick skin like bark, but the initial surprise assault had done its work, combined with Dannel’s arrows jutting from its gnarled body.  Splotches of blood appeared on the floor beneath her, and then the hag appeared, quivering as it bled out the last of its life upon the stone tiles of the floor.  Mole drew herself up and looked up at the other hag, who had turned to see the death of her sister.  She was a sight, blood covering her sleeves and splattered on her face, the knife in her hand a mess of gore.  She lifted her arm and pointed at the hag with the knife. “You’re next.”The hag turned invisible and fled. Zenna saw flashes of light flare across her vision as Morgan squeezed, cutting off the flow of air and blood through her neck.  She struggled against his grip, which felt like iron, but he was too strong. “I... I didn’t kill your family,” she gasped.  Mole had told her the whole tale of woe, but it didn’t seem to matter now, as the cleric strangled her. Dimly she heard the cry of the hag, somewhere beyond the face of the man whose hate-filled visage dominated her vision.  But then, as she looked up into his eyes, she saw the spell that had controlled him snap, sensed the iron bonds of control that the hag had established over his mind and body shatter with its death.  But the hatred was still there, and the pressure around her throat hadn’t eased.  If anything, it grew stronger, infused with the madness that now burned through the narrow slits in the black fabric. Consciousness faded, and the black embraced her.</blockquote>

Verification