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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 1888669" data-attributes="member: 143">Thanks all for your suggestions. I chose a cliffhanger post from the black dragon encounter in "Zenith Trajectory". Looking back on it, I should have picked one that had more action perhaps, but I was in a rush last night. * * * * * Chapter 277Arun and Beorna grappled Mole—normally a difficult task, but made easier due to her confusion—and held her until the power of Abradius’s spell had faded.  The companions gathered in the circular chamber where the mage had waited, healing their injuries and discussing their next course. “That was close... too close,” Dannel commented.  “Those lightning bolts nearly killed several of us, and that was just the first few seconds of the battle.”“We fell prey to the same ambush that caught the Stormblades,” Zenna said.  “He was waiting for us in a confined space, where we could not avoid the bolts.  He was powerful... his spells were improved through the use of metamagic, a talent well beyond what I can manage with my own magic.”“What do you think he meant by the ‘soul pillars’?” Mole asked. “What we’re here to find, I’d presume,” Arun said. “What do you make of this?” Shensen said, drawing their attention to the center of the room.   They gathered to examine the only distinct feature in the room, a patch of what looked like black ice that covered the floor in a roughly circular outline about eight feet across.  Dannel bent to examine the floor, his skilled eye noticing faint scuffs where the others only saw gray stone.  “I’d say our wizard friend spent a good deal of time standing here,” he told them. Zenna came over, and cast a spell, focusing on the ice for some moments.  “It’s a divination device,” she finally reported.  “Let me see if I can discern its operation...”She closed her eyes, her brow furrowing in concentration.  Flickering images began to appear within the ice, finally coming into focus with a startling rapidity.  They could see the evil loremaster, Fetor Abradius, standing in a darkened chamber.  Before him, in the shadows, a pair of slender pillars rose out of a great pit in the floor to ascend high above, out of their field of view.  For some reason, even through the shadowy image of the magical viewer, those pillars filled each of them with a sinister feeling of dread.  Hodge muttered a curse, and Beorna added a whispered prayer to Helm, her hands tightening on the hilt of her sword.  Something stirred in the shadows, a long, sinuous form.  Then Abradius spun suddenly, snarling as he looked directly at them.  The companions drew back in alarm, but then the mage waved his hand, and the ice went black once more. “Well, I guess he doesn’t like being spied upon,” Dannel commented.  “So much for him fleeing the scene,” Beorna said.  “And more importantly, we know he’s gathering reinforcements.  Whatever that... thing was, I didn’t like the looks of it.”“Should we retreat?” Dannel asked. Arun shook his head.  “He knows we’re here, and we’d never get out of the complex before he could attack us, if that is his goal.”“And even if he did allow us to retreat and recover our strength, the next time we meet him he’d have those same spells ready again, or something even more nasty,” Zenna said.  “Well then, let’s be about this while our wards persist,” Beorna said simply, leading them out of the room back into the corridor. They returned to the intersection, and the iron door there.  Beorna started toward it, but Zenna held her up.  “Wait,” she said.  “Each door we’ve opened thus far has concealed an enemy.  And for all we know, the wizard’s ambush lies beyond this one.  Maybe, just this one, we should be prepared.”“What do you propose, Zenna?” Arun asked. “Give me some time,” she said.  “I know that the minutes are precious, but in this case, I think the knowledge we may gain may be worth the cost.”She knelt before the doors, and began an intricate casting.  The others waited—some, like Beorna, clearly impatient—as she wove a complex divination spell.  Finally, she lifted her hands to her forehead and raised her head, her eyes shut.  Almost immediately she jerked back, and quickly stood, letting the spell dissipate.  “What is it?  What’s the matter?” Dannel asked.  Zenna looked at the door as if she thought the portal itself would animate and attack.  “Behind that door, another chamber filled with an ice lattice.  And waiting in the middle of it... another fiend.”“What kind?” Arun asked.“I did not recognize the species,” she said.  “It was big, fat and bloated with some sort of greenish sludge covering its form.  I think it sensed something, because it started turning toward me, and so I quickly broke the spell.”“Well then,” Beorna said, and her voice held a surprising degree of satisfaction as she lifted her sword to her shoulder.</blockquote>

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