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: 1695033" data-attributes="member: 143">Fewer Demon Princes this time around.  You'd be surprised how much of a difference that makes.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> Not much of a cliffhanger this week, but next week we have a fallen celestial temple, demons, intraparty squabbles, a huge battle, and a very nasty situation to end out the week.  Stay tuned! * * * * * Chapter 194 For all that she was now as much a cleric as she was a wizard, Zenna did not think of herself as very religious.  But when she got her first look at Occipitus, her first thought was, By all the gods...The place was utterly alien, rushing in to assault their senses from the moment that Kaurophon’s plane shift spell ended. They were on a great open plain.  Visible in the distance was a great line of black mountains that formed a curving line across the horizon.  Turning, Zenna saw that the mountains appeared to encircle the entire plain, forming a great bowl that had to be hundreds of miles across.  Above, the sky was a sea of roaring flames, a flowing red conflagration that swirled only a few hundred feet above them.  Prominent in that ember sky were cohesive eddies of living fire, maybe a dozen paces across, that danced in the maelstrom, occasionally dipping down from the higher reaches to flirt with the more open sky below, as if considering dropping down to the ground below.   Belatedly she realized that the plain was flat, that the reason that she could see so far was due to the fact that there was no curvature to the world beneath her feet.  And thus she could clearly mark the white mountain in the exact center of Occipitus, an unnaturally-shaped mound that Zenna was quick to identify. A giant skull, lying on its side.  And out of the dark, empty shadow of its eyesocket, a steady stream of ugly gray smoke streamed.  As she watched, one of the fiery plasms erupted from that fissure, rising slowly up to join the others in the flaming sky above.    She looked down, at the ground beneath her feet.  The soil was spongy, and textured strangely.  Not soil at all, she realized, her stomach twisting with understanding.  Like flesh...To turn her mind from that disgusting thought, she lifted her gaze and took another look at their immediate surroundings.  There were few terrain features of note close by, just some pale pillars that jutted from the landscape like the rib bones of some huge creature that had fallen and been partially absorbed into the landscape. Hodge was right beside her, and she could hear his reaction to Occipitus.  “Oh, great, just bloody flaming dark-double-damned great.  Bloody bloomin’ fantastic.  ‘Oy, let’s take a little outin’ to the bloody Abyss, eh?’  Damned demon bloody damned...”She saw Morgan sink down to one knee, and stepped toward him with concern.  Arun, too, she saw was experiencing difficulty, his face pale, though he fought to conceal his discomfort.  The cleric extended a hand as if to block her, and grimly pulled himself to his feet.  “I am all right,” he said.  “It passes...”“What happened?”“This... this place.  Chaos... taint... It is... overwhelming.”“Arun?”The paladin grimaced.  “It is powerful, but it can be borne.”She looked around at her other companions, but while they all seemed uncomfortable as they adjusted to their surroundings, they did not seem as affected as Morgan and Arun.  She looked over at Kaurophon.  Their guide was also scanning their surroundings, getting his bearings, she thought.  Finally, he turned to them. “What are those things?” Mole said, pointing to one of the drifting clouds of fire. “Plasms,” the sorcerer replied.  “Very dangerous, and the reason why flying is not practical here.  If you see one drifting down too close to the ground, best run away as fast as you can.”“That giant skull,” Dannel asked.  “Is that the location of the test?”“It may be part of it,” Kaurophon admitted.  “The central plain is... not hospitable.  But our immediate destination is the ruined cathedral of which I spoke, which lies in an area of celestial ruins about a hundred miles north of here.”“And your magic cannot transport us there directly, I presume,” Morgan said. The sorcerer shook his head.  “I am afraid we will have to walk.”“Walk a hunnerd miles, w’out food?” Hodge said.  “I thought dwarves were stout folk,” Morgan retorted.  Hodge’s face turned red with anger, but Kaurophon quickly interjected.  “The landscape here is not friendly, but there are resources here for the clever traveler.  Fiendish bison, for example, which may be used as provender.”“Demon steak.  Great.”“We should get going,” Dannel suggested.  “I presume there is no cycle of day and night here, Kaurophon?”“No.  In that, at least, Occipitus is constant.”They gathered themselves, and started north, their footsteps making only the slightest noise on the spongy surface of the plane.</blockquote>

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