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: 1693111" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 193“Well?” Zenna asked, once Kaurophon had gotten out of earshot. “Well what?” Hodge asked.  “It be insane, and that’s all there be to it.”“Ah, come on,” Mole said.  “Haven’t you ever wanted to visit the Outer Planes?  My uncle Cal told me stories... he visited the Abyss once, did you know?”  Her eyes glimmered with what could have been curiosity, the thrill of adventure, or madness—or maybe all three.“I want to visit one plane, and that be Moradin’s Forge.  An’ I ain’t in no hurry to be goin’ there again either!”“Arun?” Zenna asked.  The paladin wore a thoughtful look.  “He bears taint,” the dwarf said. “Well, that’s obvious,” Morgan interrupted, but Arun forestalled him with a raised palm.  “It’s there, true, but the man is not as steeped in it as some.  It could be that his two sides are warring, as he said, or he could be masking his aura in some fashion.”“Even if he is lying about his motivations, we also have to consider these rivals of which he spoke,” Zenna noted.  “If either of them secures control of the plane, then it definitely will be lost to evil.”Hodge smacked his hand into his fist.  “What business of that be ours?”Zenna’s reply was soft, almost under her breath.  “Those who follow the Path of Light are not always allowed the luxury of choosing their own battles.”Morgan flinched as though he’d been struck.  He knew the words she’d quoted, although they were not spoken by his patron, but by the god Torm, the divine being incarnated as a man in the Time of Troubles.  Torm and Helm were rivals, but shared many of the same precepts of faith, and both stood strong against the forces of the Dark.  She knew that Morgan knew the words, and kept them to his heart, but she did not know the extent to which they now ruled in a heart sundered by his own sufferings. “But can a mere man always know where the path lies?” he whispered.  “There’s one other thing,” Mole pointed out.  Zenna suspected that she’d already hopped merrily onto the Lets All Go To The Abyss bandwagon.  “In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re stuck somewhere in the middle of an apparently endless desert, without supplies.  If we do go with Kaurophon, we can always use one of his scrolls to zip back to Cauldron, if things go bad.”“A caution,” Zenna insisted.  “The spell is not an exact means of travel.  You appear anywhere from a few miles to a few hundred miles from your destination.”“So you could pop in o’er the bloomin’ Shinin’ Sea!” Hodge exclaimed. “Yes, that is correct,” Zenna said.  “Although you can target an area more inland, to mitigate that possibility.”“Have I pointed out that yer all a bunch o’ ravin’ lunatics lately!”Morgan’s head had dropped until his forehead was nearly touching the shining white shaft of Alakast, held upright in both of his fists before him, its base touching the floor at his feet.  Finally he looked up, and there was a clarity in his expression that Zenna found reminiscent of his “old” self.  “So our options are thus: remain here, and slowly starve to death, or travel on a mission to a realm of great evil, to pursue a quest that may end in our destruction, or may redeem a plane for good.”“I am only one of six, but I say that the road lies forward, not back.”“Me too!” Mole said instantly, her hand shooting up. Hodge looked almost beseechingly at his mentor, but Arun’s gaze was fixed on the knight of Helm.  “Very well,” Arun said.  “But we must be vigilant.”“I may know something about vigilance,” Morgan said with what was almost a chuckle, as he touched the sigil on the holy symbol at his throat. “Zenna?” Mole asked. She had helped prod this along, she knew, but had her own misgivings.  How could she not, she thought... given that they were for all intents and purposes going to be traveling to the place where her own dark side had its origins?  And yet, like her father before her, she felt a grim fascination with what she would find... and a part of her needed to confront what it was, what was inside of her, part of her being. She nodded. They all turned to look at Hodge, whose face had twisted into a grimace.  “Well, I guess me choice is made fer me, since I ain’t gunna stay here in this godsforsaken sandbox an’ starve.  Though I ain’t gunna stray far from yer two that got them scrolls, mark me!” And with that he strode off, though only a short distance. “There’s one more,” Mole said, but Dannel, whose sharp elven ears had listened in on both exchanges from his position watching the exit, had already made his decision, and he nodded as Zenna’s eyes met his own. “Then we’re decided!” Mole said, her obvious excitement failing to ease the anxiety clearly visible in the faces of the others.  Even as she ran across the vault to fetch Kaurophon, they struggled with the reality of what they were doing, and where they were going. The Abyss. A realm of nightmares.</blockquote>

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