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: 1672637" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 187Morgan lifted Alakast to strike again, but his actions were still slowed from the aftereffects of the chaos hammer, and the demon responded faster.  Ignoring the other companions, who thus far had not greatly hurt it, the demon reached down with its other pincer-claw for the cleric.  With his reflexes already impaired the knight of Helm had no chance to evade the attack, and the glabrezu easily caught him up, lifting him into its body where its smaller claws could rend him, and his slavering jaws bite at his flesh.  Those jaws caught his arm, crushing the limb through his armor, and he nearly dropped Alakast.  But the cleric, bleeding from his wounds, his breath crushed from his body by the demon’s fell strength, nonetheless refused to surrender.  Drawing upon a strength that had been augmented by the amaranth elixir, the same beverage given him by the hags that had weakened his will and helped hold him to their service, he jammed the magical staff into the joint of the demon’s pincer.  The glabrezu loosened its grip as the staff drove painfully into the joint, and Morgan fell free, landing on the hard stone with a hard jolt.  Battered to the edge of consciousness, his legs gave out and he fell prone, gasping for breath. Thus far the battle had only lasted moments, and already two of them were down, one almost certainly dead.  Mole had moved around the perimeter of the chamber, coming up on the demon from the side.  She was confident that it hadn’t seen her.  If she’d known how sharp the senses of demons were, honed by centuries in the unforgiving cesspot of constant betrayal that was the Abyss, she might have hesitated, but the fact was, Nabthatoron saw her and dismissed her, a puny threat compared to the warriors of Helm and the blessed weapons that they carried. And in fact, it seemed as though the demon’s assessment was correct, for Mole’s first attack, a leaping blow at the back of its knee with her mace, did not even draw its attention.  She considered climbing the wall, to give her a shot at its head, but the surface was smooth, with few cracks to offer a viable ascent.  She drew out her small crossbow, and took a shot at one of its eyes, but the bolt merely grazed an ear, not even sticking in the thick hide.  The demon didn’t even acknowledge that she was there. Biting her lip in frustration, she tried to think of something to do. Hodge had recovered swiftly from the fell chaos power of the demon, but he hadn’t followed Arun into melee.  As he looked up at it, he felt a horror fill him that he hadn’t experienced since they had fought the dragon, back in the mountains north of Cauldron.  His knees buckled, and it was only through an effort of will that he kept himself from falling to the floor, to hide from the monstrous and alien majesty of this terrible thing.  It’s just another monster! he growled at himself, in his thoughts.  Attack!  Attack!But he could not, he could only watch in horror as it caught up Alek, crushed him, and tossed his corpse casually across the room.  A splatter of something struck his cheek, and he slowly lifted a finger to touch it.  His fingers came back wet with blood.  The knight’s blood. Like Mole, Arun was likewise frustrated, as another powerful blow glanced harmlessly off the demon’s thigh.  Its hide was like steel plate, and his sword was unable to penetrate its resistances, even with his strength behind the blows.  He felt a grim chuckle within his mind, and he knew that the demon was exulting in his ineffectiveness, knew that he was next, once it had finished off Morgan.  He lifted Morgan’s heavy sword above his head, knowing that it was hopeless, determined nonetheless to go down swinging.  Then the sound of the clatter of metal on stone reached him over the sound of battle, and he turned to see Alek’s sword lying there, a few paces away.Calling to him.Dannel continued firing arrows into the demon, the enchanted missiles digging into its torso.  Several had failed to penetrate its hide, but still black ichor drained from three deep punctures in its body, and it could no longer afford to ignore him.  Even as it dropped Morgan, and Dannel took aim for yet another shot, it extended a long arm—the one splashed with the blood of Alek Tercival—and swept it across the vault.  Too late Dannel realized that the thing’s reach extended all the way to where he stood, and the claw cuffed him a mighty blow that knocked him flying sideways.  For a moment he felt himself being drive inexorably toward one of the pillars, but he managed to disengage himself from the claw and tumble free a spare moment before the claw slammed into the pillar with enough force to crack the massive stone.  The elf rolled back, his side throbbing where the demon had hit him, but he already had another arrow in his hand, fitting it to his bow, the song filling him once more. Zenna, meanwhile, had crawled to where Morgan lay, his body heaving as he tried to fight through the pain and rise to face the demon again on his feet.  The demon could have crushed her, but Dannel’s painful sacrifice bought her the few seconds she needed to reach him, and to pour one of her last remaining divine spells into his shattered frame.  Morgan’s gaze met hers, and he nodded, using Alakast as a prop to draw himself up, turning back to face the death embodied in the demon’s ageless and purely evil gaze.  Nabthatoron had been hurt, but in turn he’d dished out incredible punishment among them, killing Alek, critically injuring Morgan, and inflicting serious blows upon Zenna and Dannel.  And the demon knew that few of his enemies could hurt him; the dwarves had thus far proven utterly ineffective, the gnome with her puny attacks had yet to scratch him, while the piddling tiefling woman had yet to demonstrate any usefulness at all, save for putting that damned knight back on his feet again.  Nabthatoron looked once more at the staff once wielded by his nemesis, and felt his rage build once more.  There was also a faint undercurrent of fear, but among these foes was no Surabar Spellmason, of that it was certain.  No.  This would end right now.  The demon’s massive claws came up once more, to finish it. Everything seemed to happen at once. Dannel released an arrow that stabbed through the air, knifing into the thick bicep of one of the demon’s huge arms.  The wound wasn’t serious, but it added to the demon’s tally of injuries.  Arun leapt for Alek’s fallen sword.  The demon saw him, instantly realized the threat, and brought a huge claw down to strike.  The claw slammed across Arun’s back like a sledgehammer, and the dwarf was blasted down to one knee.  For a moment, there seemed to be no way that his spine could be intact, after such a blow. And yet, somehow, inexplicably, the dwarf got up.  He lunged for the sword, which almost seemed to spring into his hand, and he brought it up even as the other pincer came down toward his head.  With a dwarven cry of battle, invoking the name of his patron god, Arun brought the holy sword around in a glittering arc, the shining steel intersecting with the descending limb.  There was a clarion note, like a tuning fork being struck, that filled the vault with a momentary sound of peace.  Then the demon’s roar shattered that idyll, and it fell back.  Leaving a great, oozing claw lying on the ground at the paladin’s feet. “I AM NOT FINISHED WITH YOU!” the demon roared, and then, suddenly, it vanished, leaving a faint miasma of ugly gray smoke in its wake. The companions just stood there for a moment, overwhelmed by what had just happened.  They had won.* * * * * Monday evening: Epilogue</blockquote>

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