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: 1778768" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 230The cone of cold was perfectly placed for maximum effect, catching up Arun, Morgan, and Zenna in the blast.  Mole was on the edge of the spell but darted like a shot out of its freezing path, coming up in a roll with her crossbow already seeking out a target.  Morgan’s exposed skin was blue, and frost caked the joints in his armor, with tiny icicles falling to the ground with a faint tinkle as he stepped forward, his muscles stiffened into near immobility.  For a moment it seemed that somehow, impossibly, he would still attack, but he’d taken too much punishment from the golem, wounds that could not be healed.  He managed two steps before he toppled over, his armor clattering loudly as he impacted the floor. Arun had taken the full force of the blast as well, but despite the obvious damage he’d suffered, the paladin drew upon his incredible fortitude and rushed forward toward the mummy.  He’d seen the point where the cone of cold had originated, just beside the mummy, and rushed toward it with his sword trailing bits of ice that dropped from the blade as he ran.  The mummy ignored him, but his stroke met only empty air—the sorcerer had already moved aside. Dannel too had seen the blast, and even as his friends were engulfed by the cone of cold he lifted his crossbow and fired.  His bolt hit something, but glanced off instead of penetrating to cause damage.  Rather than bothering to reload, he dropped the bow and started running forward, unlimbering Alakast.  As awareness of her surroundings returned in the wake of the cone of cold, Zenna teetered on the brink of unconsciousness.  She’d thought that her innate resistances and her magic would have given her at least some protection against Kaurophon’s spells, but the sorcerer’s power was greater than even she had imagined.  She felt a momentary tendril of despair that she crushed ruthlessly.  She called upon a potent healing spell, letting the positive energy bring warmth back into her body, and started running forward.  And as she ran ahead, Kaurophon appeared, twenty-five feet away, moving back around the perimeter of the room near the geyser, revealed by the invisibility purge that she had cast upon entering the room.  He was moving fast; too fast, suggesting haste.  A magical shield was hovering before him, and Zenna could see the faint shifting of his outline that indicated that he also had a displacement spell up. More surprises, she thought, figuring that he probably had a few other buffing spells in place in addition to his obvious wards.  Unfortunately she’d had to sacrifice her dispel for the invisibility purge spell, although she suspected that she’d have had little chance of affecting him with the former in any case. The sorcerer instantly realized what had happened, and turned to face them.  “Cleverly done!” he exclaimed.  He began casting a spell.  A dart from Mole’s crossbow bounced harmlessly off of his shield, and he did not flinch as Hodge came running at him, his spear lowered to skewer him.  Zenna was not surprised when the spear passed harmlessly through him; the dwarf had been fooled by the displacement.  Dannel and Arun were close behind, but before they could reach him Kaurophon completed his spell and disappeared. “Is he still here?” Arun asked, sweeping his head around. “No, my purge is still active—he must have teleported out,” Zenna said, even as she knelt beside Morgan.  “But he’s somewhere close,” she said.  She cast her last cure moderate wounds on the knight, who started to stir, his body still shaking from the blast of cold he’d suffered.  “Where could he have gone?” Mole asked, as she reloaded her crossbow.  “The stairs!” Dannel exclaimed.  “No...” Zenna said, even as the elf darted back toward the entrance of the room.  “No, he’ll probably just transport back in...”  Knowing that her purge only covered a fraction of the room, she elected to remain in the center, casting another detect magic to begin sweeping the room in a slow turn.  At the stair, Dannel had done likewise, conjuring the same spell with his magical song, watching the stairs for the sorcerer’s return.  Morgan groaned and stood.  Zenna ignored him, focused intently upon her scan, so he recovered his sword and stepped away, toward Arun.“Stay spread out,” the dwarf cautioned.  Hodge moved back toward the entrance, giving the mummy—which continued to watch them impassively, not interfering in the Test—a wide berth.  “Maybe he’ll wait, until our spells expire, until we let down our guard,” Mole suggested. “No,” Zenna said.  “He has to act now, lest we complete the Test ourselves.”“But we wouldn’t—“ “It doesn’t matter, not to him,” Zenna interjected, cutting her off.  “He doesn’t think like that.  I should have seen it, before, but I wanted to believe that he could be better than that...” She trailed off, her brow furrowing as her scan detected an aura...And then a brought shower of glittering motes exploded around her.  She was nearly blinded for an instant, but her vision cleared to reveal traces of the glitterdust covering her, outlining her invisible form.  “Zenna, are you all right?” Dannel asked. She’d lost her concentration upon her detect magic, but she remembered where she’d detected the aura earlier.  “There!” she said, pointing at a location along the wall.  She’d been the only one caught in Kaurophon’s spell, and while no permanent harm had been done to her, he’d successfully pinpointed her location...She felt a sharp pang stab through her, as a dispel magic slammed into her with a force that felt like a punch.  Her spells dissolved; the invisibility, shield, and mage armor she’d conjured upon entering the room. And more importantly, her invisibility purge, their only means of defeating the sorcerer’s invisibility.</blockquote>

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