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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 1699649" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 195Zenna leaned against a pillar that still bore faint markings in Celestial.  She was tired, but she suspected that the exhaustion that suffused her to her very bones was not just due to the long hike.  Occipitus... wore on you, and she wondered again, not for the first time, and Kaurophon’s revelation that he’d spent a fair amount of time here.  What did that do to a person...  or did his partly fiendish nature protect him?  What might it do to her, whose ancestry was also rooted to the dark planes?For all her complaints, she knew that the others felt it worse.  Especially Arun and Morgan.  The paladin withstood it stoically, but Morgan... Morgan had grown irritable and cantankerous, alternating between moody outbursts and periods of long, sullen silence.  She saw that he now carried Alakast like a standard, both of his hands wrapped around the pale wood so tightly that his hands were nearly as white as the staff.  His face had grown pale to match, his features tight and drawn, looking unnatural under the flaming red glow of the burning sky above.  Mole trudged up to her, plopping herself down on an uneven shelf of shattered white marble beside her.  “Are we having fun yet?” she opined.  Zenna forced a smile.  Her friend, if anything, seemed immune to the weighty impact of Occipitus, although her upbeat attitude had been somewhat muted by the sheer overwhelming force of their surroundings.  But likewise her curiosity had been fully unleashed in this strange place, and she eagerly absorbed both the wonders and the horrors that they had encountered over their journey. The last four days, since their arrival here, had not been easy.  Kaurophon had told them that the outlying edges of the plain were scarcely populated, but that hadn’t stopped them from encountering a demon on the first day, just a few hours after they had set out.  It had come up on them from ahead along their course of march, flying low to avoid the plasms, a terrible combination of humanoid and vulture.  A vrock, Kaurophon had called it.  It had obviously seen them, and despite being outnumbered, it let out a nasty screech and dove straight for them.  Dannel struck it with an arrow as it dove, but its demonic resistances clearly protected it from harm.  The rest of them readied their weapons to meet its diving rush.  Kaurophon cast several protective spells upon himself, and laid a spell upon Arun to bolster his stamina.   That was about all she remembered of that encounter.  Just before the demon reached them, it let out a terrible screech, and she vaguely remembered falling, stunned.  Afterword, Dannel had told her that the battle had been brief; Arun and Morgan had both laid into it with their powerful weapons, and rather than remain the demon had elected to teleport away to recover from its wounds.  After that, she resolved to meditate on magics that would prove effective against demons. The next day they’d had another encounter, with a giant lion that had likewise bounded across the plain upon detecting them.  This one did not retreat until Arun had cut its head off with a powerful stroke of his sword, and afterwards her healing talents were needed to help Dannel and Hodge, both of whom had been injured in the brief but bloody battle. Later that same day—although by now, it was getting difficult for her to separate time into those units, without a day or night to mark the passage of days—they had encountered a small herd of the fiendish bison that Kaurophon had mentioned.  The creatures looked much like the ones Zenna had seen in her travels across the vast eastern plains of Tethyr... except that their hides were mottled and ugly with diseased gray splotches, and their eyes shone with a bright malevolence.  Instead of retreating at their approach, the bison had pawed the ground and snorted angrily.  Finally, without warning, they had surged toward them, in a stampede that shook the ground beneath their feet.  “Run!” Dannel had yelled.  “Take shelter among those columns!” he’d added, identifying another of the bleached-pillar formations nearby.  “I’ll draw them off!”The elf augmented his speed with an expeditious retreat spell, and firing arrows to draw the attention of the herd, he drew them in a wide circle that ultimately brought them back to where the companions had taken shelter.  The twenty bison made a fearsome sight, but they weren’t overly intelligent, and they weren’t much of a threat to the companions behind the cover of the thick stone pillars.  When the herd finally broke off and fled, they’d left half of their number behind, lying in heaps across the barren landscape. Hodge and Mole had initially been excited at the prospect of a real meal, but the meat of the bison had been tough as rawhide, and suffused with an oily taste that had left it barely palatable.  The only fuel they’d been able to find were the long, twisting strands of fibrous material that jutted from the plain at uneven intervals, and that burned fitfully, releasing clouds of noxious gray smoke that caused violent coughing when inhaled.  Still, with their own stocks depleted, “demon steaks” was all that they had, and so they made the best of it, Mole salting some of the meat to carry with them as they departed.  At least with her ability to create water, they wouldn’t die of thirst...Zenna’s thoughts were drawn back to the present by the sounds of shouting nearby.  She rose, Mole only a step behind her, and found Dannel and Morgan facing off, arguing about something. “Bah, it’s truth and you know it, elf!  I’ll not take it back, not for all your threats!”“You’re walking a thin line, priest,” Dannel replied, and there was iron in his voice. “I walk where I care to, elf,” Morgan spat back.  “You can have your little fiendling, if you wish...”Zenna suddenly felt cold.  They were arguing about her, she knew it as sure as she knew her own name.  Dannel saw her and flinched, but Morgan, unaware of her presence, opened his mouth to say something else stupid and hurtful, no doubt.  Rushing forward, she hurried to forestall him. “Idiots!” she said, letting her fury fuel her words.  “Do we not have a difficult enough time in this place, without you fighting like spoiled boys!  Are you fool enough not to see what this place is doing to you?”Arun and Hodge were approaching, Kaurophon walking in their company.  The dwarves had demonstrated their endurance over the long march, but their short legs meant that they had to work harder to keep up with the rest of them, and they’d gone from leading to bringing up the rear.  Kaurophon seemed content to blend into the background, and often hours passed without Zenna even noticing that he was there. “What’s going on?” Arun demanded. “Nothing,” Morgan said, his anger fading, though his lips remained tight in an expression of barely-contained contempt as he strode away. “We draw near to the cathedral,” Kaurophon said.  “We should be able to see it soon, I think.”“Not soon enough,” Dannel said.  He too turned away, walking forward but not quite in the direction that Morgan had gone.  “Men,” Mole said softly, but Zenna could hear the sadness in her voice.  She couldn’t blame her friend; everything had grown so complicated...Trying to ignore the protests of her tired muscles, and the aching in her tired heart, she joined the others as the companions resumed their march.</blockquote>

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