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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 1802749" data-attributes="member: 143">Cliffhangers=supsense=returning readers. <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=";)" />I think of this as one big Saturday serial from the B-movie era, 'cept I update more frequently.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool    :cool:"  data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" /> * * * * *Chapter 240“Thus far, your spell-weaving has done little to impress me,” Kavorek said, regarding the shamans with thinly veiled contempt.  Uk’bek drew himself up to confront the war-leader.  “We have laid our most potent wards upon you and your ogres, Great One!  The foe will not stand against your charge!” “Thus far they seem to be standing well enough,” the orog said, turning toward the battle.  He nodded to the first of his brutes, and the creatures started forward.  Kavorek intended to join them, but a cry drew his attention around. Uk’bek was clutching at his back, twisting around, his acolytes rushing about him in confusion.  Kavorek saw that a small crossbow bolt jutted from his back, perfectly positioned for maximum effect.  “Ambush behind us!” one of the lesser adepts cried, darting for cover behind some nearby rocks. “Oh, Gruumsh’s balls,” Kavorek cursed, tempted to strike the idiot down and be done with him.  No doubt the hidden archer was the same one who’d conducted the ambush, and he suspected that there was only one foe up on the cliffs, perhaps two.  He caught the attention of some of his own archers still up there, and pointed toward the sniper’s approximate location with a slash of his hand. The archers nodded, and a half-dozen hurried in that direction. “Stay here then, and pray for victory,” Kavorek said, before turning his back on the shamans in disgust and starting after his ogres toward the battle.  The adepts were incompetent for the most part, but as the orog exulted in his enhanced strength and stamina as he ran across the field of battle toward his foe. Zenna felt a stabbing pain in her side as one of her remaining foes caught her with a glancing blow that managed to cut through both her shield and her mage armor.  Grimacing, she blasted both with another burning hands, and the orcs collapsed, their flesh blackened by the flames.  She could see that other orcs were pushing up the slope, however, and would be upon her in moments.Zenna retreated into the ring.  She met Dannel, who tossed aside his second quiver—empty, now.  “There’s more coming behind me!” she warned.  “Yeah, me too,” he said, dropping the orc bow and taking up Alakast.  “Go help Arun and Hodge.  Those ogres are coming and they look tough.”“What about you?”“I’ll hold your backs.”“There’s too many...”“Go.  Trust me,” he added, with a wink.  Reluctantly, she did as he said. The elf turned to see several orcs already appear through the gaps in the ring of boulders.  They were cautious, now, willing to wait for numbers before coming at him. Dannel laughed, and let the song fill him.  As the melody washed through his body, bringing his magic with it, he felt his body... change subtly, his skin growing tough and leathery, his facing reforming into a reptilian visage.  “All right, whenever you’re ready,” he hissed, facing them now with the form and features—and the natural armor—of one of the lizardfolk.  The first ogre charged up the steep ascent, heedless of the orcs it trampled in its rush.  The others were close behind it, and the ground shook at their coming.  The orcs gave way, forming a cheering corridor around the charge, eager to watch these enemies that had blooded them so destroyed.  The ogres carried massive two-handed swords nearly as big as they were, and as they came ahead they flew into a violent rage.  One stumbled on the loose rock and fell, delaying it for a few moments, but the other five formed a wedge that drove straight toward the waiting dwarves. And then, suddenly, the upper slope was shrouded in murky darkness.  Some of the orcs cried out in superstitious fury, but the ogres, blind in their rage, paid barely any heed, rushing into the shadowed zone heedlessly.  They knew where the enemy was, and would not be denied the death and destruction they had been promised. Unfortunately, that upper slope was littered with orc corpses and loose rocks.  A loud crash echoed from within the darkness, and then another, as charging ogres stumbled and fell.  The lead ogre let out a resounding roar of pure guttural fury as it exploded from the darkness and saw Arun standing before it.  It brought its sword up to strike down the paladin.  There seemed no way it could miss...And yet, somehow, it did, the heavy blade crashing down into the rocks less than a hand’s span from the dwarf.  For the two dwarves there was no mystery, for the warriors of their kind, whether a shield dwarf of the North or a gold dwarf of the Great Rift, all share that special skill and training that allows them to avoid the powerful yet clumsy attacks of giants.  Arun came up under its guard, stepping forward and drawing his holy sword in a brilliant arc across the ogre’s gut, sundering its armor and smiting it with the pure holy energy of his divine patron.  The ogre staggered back, its entrails draining from the massive gash drawn across its lower body, and it toppled slowly backward like a great oak felled by the skill of a veteran lumberjack.  Two more ogres emerged from the darkness, slightly disoriented, but quick to spot the two dwarves.  Hodge had recovered his spear, and stabbed one in the torso, driving the weapon deep into its body.  The ogre roared in pain but quickly countered, smashing Hodge’s shield to splinters and catching him on the shoulder with the tip of its blade.  The dwarf’s armor plate held, but the blow nonetheless staggered him.  But that didn’t stop him from dropping the spear and hefting his axe, and rushing at the ogre.  It tried to bring its sword to bear again, but the dwarven miner-turned-warrior was faster.  He didn’t even bother to go for its body, sweeping the axe low and taking off one of the ogre’s legs at the knee.  The ogre fell, but Hodge didn’t have time to finish it off, as the last few ogres had already recovered from their falls, and were coming forward cautiously through the darkness, their huge forms reduced to amorphous blobs in the shadowy depths of Zenna’s spell. The dwarf rubbed at his wounded shoulder; he knew that he couldn’t take many more hits like that.  And there were still all those orcs on the far side of the darkness... “All right, come on already!” he yelled, brandishing his bloody axe, careful to move out of the reach of the still-thrashing ogre he’d crippled.  To his right, Arun stepped forward to join him, limping slightly.  He’d taken out his second ogre in much the same manner as the first, although that one had managed a crushing blow against his thigh that his armor had only barely held against. Even as another ogre materialized from the shadows, a bright lance of coruscating flames shot down over the heads of the dwarves, flaring over the giant brute’s body.  The ogre cried out in pain, but did not falter.  Hodge glanced over his shoulder and saw Zenna standing between the boulders, the familiar glowing shield before her, bright nimbi of magical energy outlining her hands as she worked her magic.  Hodge had never been all that impressed with her spell-working (although he certainly had come to appreciate her healing talents), but at that moment she had the look of some avenging spirit, wrapped in shadow, the very powers of the universe coming at her call. But that instant was all the time he had for such musings, as the ogre was joined by the last two of their kin, and as they emerged from the darkness they hurled themselves at their enemies in a final violent rush.</blockquote>

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