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: 1703438" data-attributes="member: 143">That may change, in future installments... <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=";)" />* * * * * Chapter 197Morgan reeled, stunned.  The kiss had nothing of love in it; it was a taking, violent, and he could feel the life energy escaping from him, leaving him diminished.  Unfortuately, he felt as though his will was lost in the flood, and as the succubus drew back, her eyes glistening terribly, he knew that he was in her power.  He felt a surge of desire course through him like a flood.  He knew it was false, hated himself for it, but he could not resist.  Alakast fell from fingers that had suddenly grown soft, and the staff clattered harmlessly on the bare stone floor at his feet. “Get off of him, demon bitch,” Arun snarled, his sword a gleaming shaft of steel in his fist.  “Protect me, lover!” the succubus said to Morgan.  Her sibilant voice tickled at his consciousness, and he felt compelled to obey.  But his muscles felt stiff, reluctant.  He looked down for his weapon, and the staff seemed far away, as if he had suddenly become thirty feet tall, looking down from a lofty height. Arun was faster.  The succubus screamed in alarm as the dwarf charged her.  She tried to dodge behind Morgan, but the holy sword lashed out, the full force of the dwarf’s strength behind the blow.  He smote her, the sword cleaving into her torso squarely, and her scream halted as the sword tore through her tainted body, and the two halves, upper and lower, flopped to the ground below. Surprisingly, there was very little blood. “Naugh!” came a loud, angry voice from the far side of the cathedral, by the statue.  Arun and Morgan, the latter still somewhat unsteady, turned to see a terrible, flaming creature emerge from behind the statue.  It had the body of a serpent, but with muscular arms jutting from its torso, and a face that, while bestial in its visage, showed clearly the look of intelligence.  It slid forward, upright, carrying a longspear its hands, its body surrounded with tongues of flame, the air around it distorted by the heat radiating off of its form. Arun took one look at it and charged.  Morgan, fighting through his own disorientation, reached down and recovered Alakast.  Behind him, the wall of fire shimmered and disappeared, removed by Kaurophon’s magic. Suddenly, their surroundings... changed.Zenna’s nature had partially protected her from the wall of fire, but the others, she saw, were not so fortunate.  Hodge looked as though he would charge right through the roaring flames, but the intensity of the roaring barrier drove him back, patting furiously at his smoking beard.  Kaurophon, she saw, also appeared to be little affected by the flames, and as she watched, he called upon his magic, sundering the tendrils of magical power that maintained the spell.  He was powerful, she knew, noting his calm control in a chaotic situation, his focus upon the energies that he was manipulating.  When the flames ceased, she stepped forward.  She saw the dead succubus, Morgan and Arun, and the huge flame salamander.  But she started as there was a faint flash, and everything around her changed.  No, not everything... the combatants were still there, both her allies and their enemies, but the cathedral...The cathedral was as it had been, when it was whole.  The walls and ceiling were fully intact, shining with a benign white glow.  White feathers drifted idly through the air, and a song, faint but distinct, filled her with an overwhelming sense of peace and contentment.  The statue at the far end of the cathedral was likewise different, the blunt stone shape replaced by a glimmering marble statue of such beauty, she felt her breath catch in her throat...And then it was gone, back to the way it had been, ruined, desecrated.  The transition was so jarring that it was almost painful, and she felt a profound sense of loss.“Did you just see that...” Mole asked. “Yes, but we don’t have time to talk about it now!” Dannel said.  He’d drawn out an arrow, and he took aim at the salamander.But the fiery creature beat him to the attack, pointing at them.  A small dot of flame darted from his fingertips, streaking down the length of the cathedral.  Zenna watched it come, frozen, knowing what was going to happen, unable to stop it. The world exploded in fire.</blockquote>

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