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Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 1709970" data-attributes="member: 143">Here we are already at chapter 200... in just over 420 days since the story started last June, a pretty brisk pace if I do say so myself. I may never get Sepulchrave's # of views, but at least I can drown him in volume. <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 200Seeing the salamander destroy her friends, one after another, Zenna felt her heart freeze in her chest.  The thing was wounded, seriously it seemed, but with their three warriors all dead or dying—no, she saw, Hodge somehow still clung to consciousness, kneeling almost at its “feet”—how could they withstand its power?Even as that thought filled her mind, she was rushing forward, inexplicably, to try and save one of them.  To her own surprise she ran toward Morgan, who was closer, true, as Arun lay nearly on the far side of the creature, as well a thousand leagues away.  She’d watched the cleric struck down, and knew that she only had a few seconds to do anything, if it was not already too late.  But she underestimated the salamander’s reach.  She saw too late the glowing red spearhead, threw herself forward as pain exploded across her shoulder and back. Strangely, it was not as bad as she’d thought.  She was lying on the ground—could not remember how, there was a gap of a second or two between when she’d seen the descending spear and now.  She could not see the salamander, but knew it was close, perhaps already lifting the spear to end her life.  But she saw Morgan, lying on the ground just a few feet ahead of her, looking at her, the light in his eyes already fading, blood covering his lips.  She would never know why she did it, why she chose to save him, of all people, instead of herself.  But she reached out, and as she touched him, life flowed from her fingertips, and she knew that he would live. For a heartbeat, at least... before the salamander killed them both. But the salamander was having its own difficulties.  Three arrows now jutted from its body, and it turned from its spear-work to deal with the elf.  Safely thirty feet away, Dannel was out of the immediate reach of the spear, but as the creature lifted a hand to point at him, the flames building in its grasp, he knew that this time, dodging aside would not be enough to save him.  Then a tiny form darted out from the shadow of the rubble along the edges of the great hall.  The salamander saw her, but like so many foes before it, deemed her a lesser threat than the other foes that had already hurt it.  Indeed Mole looked puny in contrast to the deadly monster as she ran up, holding her little mace.  But then, to everyone’s surprise, especially including the salamander, she bounded up into the air, landing atop Hodge’s back, and using the startled dwarf as a springboard, arced out in an unbelievable leap.  The salamander twisted around, but too late, now, and as the gnome passed it, she drove her mace with the full force of her tiny body and the inertia of her leap into the side of its head.  There was a loud crack.  Mole cried out, dropping her weapon as the searing heat of the monster passed through it into her hand.  She landed in a smooth roll, however, and her knife came out as she regained her feet. It wasn’t necessary.  The salamander gyrated in place, unsteady, its deadly spear falling from its hands.  Then another arrow slammed into it, sinking six inches into its chest.  The monster tottered, and fell in a smoking heap.</blockquote>

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