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: 1761425" data-attributes="member: 143">As for Morgan's fate... servants of Helm haven't fared too well in this story thus far, but his character has grown on me as well (when I first introduced him in Book 1, I had no idea where he was going to go).  On the other hand, I haven't killed anybody off in a while, and my long-term readers know how much restraint that takes. <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=";)" /> The ending to this Book is already written, and we'll get to it before too long, but I'll just say this: not everyone in the current group makes it back to Faerun...<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />* * * * * Chapter 223Dannel turned in time to see Zenna struck, and his cry drew the attention of the others around.  He could not help her as she crumpled unconscious—gods, let her be only unconscious! he thought—but at least he could do something about the figure that became visible behind her.  It looked like a cross between a tiger and a man, with a fierce feline visage complete to a powerful set of jaws full of sharp teeth.  An intense intellect shone in its eyes, but there was also a corruption there, a passion for dark things and raw power.  It held a lantern similar to Zenna’s, its edge smeared with blood from where it had struck Zenna down with the improvised weapon. “You may have struck him down,” it hissed at them, “But you will not stop me from achieving my goal!” Its response was an angry roar of battle as Morgan charged toward the rakshasa.  The tiger-man stood his ground, but as the holy sword struck a light flared around it, indicating that it had magical wards upon its person.  Even so, the knight’s blow penetrated and should have cut deep... only the rakshasa’s hide absorbed most of the force of the stroke, and only a faint blackened streak from the holy energy of the sword marked its fur as it spun back and recovered its equilibrium.  “You cannot defeat me... flee this place, weak human!” The words carried the force of a suggestion spell, but Morgan had been driven beyond the point where even magical compulsion could sway him, and he came on again in an all-out assault.  This time the holy sword drew blood, though the wound still did not look serious, but the rakshasa’s confidence seemed shaken by the fierceness of this attack, and the rage that burned like a fire in the eyes of the man who swung that blazing sword with total abandon. Hodge and Dannel, meanwhile, had rushed to the assistance of Arun and Zenna, respectively.  Hodge was no cleric, but he knew that Arun had been carrying one of their last remaining healing potions, and he quickly found it in the paladin’s pouch, trickling the precious fluid down his friend’s throat.  Dannel relied upon the power in his bard song to achieve the same result, drawing Zenna slowly back into consciousness with the healing power infused in the melody.  But even as Hodge started to help Arun back to his feet, the dwarven cohort saw another wave rippling up the tunnel toward them.  “Watch out, ‘ere come another one!” he shouted, trying to stabilize Arun before the surge running up through the ground reached them. This wave was not as forceful as the first, but it still wrought havoc in its wake.  The dwarves, holding to each other, kept their footing, but Dannel found himself torn from Zenna, the elf knocked roughly to his back while Zenna was thrust semi-conscious twenty feet down the passage.  Both the rakshasa and Morgan were likewise knocked roughly prone, but Mole, who’d been moving around to flank the melee between the two, did a back-flip that carried her over the cresting surge to land lightly on her feet.The rakshasa and knight both clambered awkwardly to their feet, each staring at the other in a gaze that shared an equal portion of hatred on both sides.  The tunnel-wave had separated them, and before Morgan could charge forward again, the rakshasa spoke a word of power and disappeared... Or rather, started to disappear, for a moment after he flickered out of sight, he suddenly materialized again, a look of confusion on his face.  Arun thrust his sword into Hodge’s fist.  “Go, join the attack!” he yelled. “Yer can barely stand!” “Go!” the paladin retreated, thrusting the other dwarf forward to punctuate his statement.  Hodge obeyed, glancing back once before turning and rushing to catch up to the ongoing battle, the holy sword blazing brightly in his hand. The rakshasa spotted both Hodge and Mole moving to join the battle, and while it could not see the enemy mage who was counter-spelling its own magic, it knew it was outmatched by these foes.  Thus far its potent resistances had protected it from serious harm, but the holy weapon carried by its foe hurt it, and it knew that its defenses could not protect it for long.  It avoided the knight’s initial rush, abetted by the fact that Morgan was still launching an all-out attack, powerful swings lacking any finesse whatsoever in an effort to cut through the tough outsider’s resistance to physical attacks.  It retreated and drew out a scroll, but before it could begin reading the magical words scribed upon it, a third wave rolled down the tunnel.  Once again the combatants were knocked prone, driven a few paces down the length of the twisting passageway by the force of the pulse.  Zenna had regained awareness, and clung precariously to it despite the battering she was taking from the tunnel waves.  She found that staying prone helped her to weather them better, and she called upon her clerical powers to channel positive energy through her body, clearing the stabbing pain from her head and steadying her grip on consciousness.The rakshasa stood once more, but was forced to retreat again as Mole flanked it, trying to drive it back toward Morgan.  It slipped around her, ignoring the ineffectual blow from her mace, and once clear began reading the scroll again.  But once again, a dispel sliced into the fragile lattice of gathering magical power, and the rakshasa snarled in frustration as the assault disrupted the strands of energy that would have carried it from this place, to escape.  With an angry cry it lifted its weapon, the magical lantern that served effectively as a flail, and rushed at Morgan.  The two weapons clanged off of each other in a noisy cacophony.  Another pulse rippled through the tunnel around them, but this time it was weaker, and they only fell back a moment to steady themselves before the two combatants met again in another violent exchange.  Morgan took a solid hit across the shoulder that drove him back a step, but in turn the rakshasa suffered a cut across its body that was a real injury, now, bright red blood pouring from the cut to clot in its mottled fur. Then Mole and Hodge arrived belatedly, and surrounded, the feline outsider was quickly overwhelmed.  The companions gathered again, fighting to keep their footing as the pulsing waves continued to roil through the corridor at regular intervals, each just a few seconds after the other. “We can’t stay here!” Morgan exclaimed.  He’d taken up the rakshasa’s magical lantern, which appeared to be similar to the one that Zenna carried, its shaft of light paralleling hers in pointing up the tunnel ahead.“We’re not ready for another battle!” Dannel noted, gesturing to Zenna and Arun, both of whom bore serious injuries despite the healing they’d received. “I can fight, if need be,” Arun said, taking his sword back from Hodge.  He’d used up some of his daily reservoir of divine magic to steady himself, although he still looked battered. “Forward, then!” Morgan said, cursing as another pulse knocked him roughly to his knees.  Alternating staggering with running as the waves passed, the companions rushed up the tunnel.  The peristaltic pulses slowly began to fade, but it was a good twenty or thirty minutes before they were finally able to slump to a more stabled ground, exhausted.  “Hey, I think I still see the rakshasa,” Mole said.  As her companions hastily drew weapons and looked back down the corridor in alarm, she quickly amended, “No, I mean the body.  I think the tunnel waves pushed it up after us.”Morgan sheathed his sword with a grunt.  “If that was an attempt at humor, little one, I think we can do without.”“Hey, that wasn’t a joke, honest!  But hey, have you heard the one where an elf wizard, a dwarf fighter, and a halfling rogue all walk into a bar...”“Hsst,” Dannel interrupted.  “Do you hear that?”They all drew quiet—even Mole, reluctantly—and listened.  The noise was only dimly audible, an irregular pounding noise that drifted down from around the bend of the tunnel up ahead.  “That doesn’t sound promising,” Arun noted. “Prolly some’pin else that wants to kill us,” Hodge grumbled.  Zenna noticed something else.  “Where’s Kaurophon?”</blockquote>

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