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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 1975654" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 310The explosive fireball filled the grand hall, blasting the decorative woodwork, engulfing tapestries, consuming the carpet to reveal scorched hardwood beneath.  The dark woods had apparently been treated to resist fire, for the structure itself did not immediately catch flame, but the fragments of carpet and nearby tapestries continued to burn, threatening the house and shedding a lurid light upon the ongoing battle. The naga’s spell had been dramatic, but the companions had faced dragon’s breath and potent wizards, and while they had been scorched by the blast, all of them weathered it more or less intact.  “Naga... nagas, up above!” Zenna cried in warning, drawing the attention of her friends to the more serious threat.  As she looked up, she saw another pair of the creatures appear around the perimeter of the second-story balcony, moving to block the stairs, shifting under the effects of the all-too-familiar magical displacement. Well, that I can deal with, she thought, grimly calling up the trigger words of a spell.  For the moment, she held off on her dispel, instead conjuring necromantic powers to unleash a series of waves of fatigue that enveloped the nagas.  The three creatures unleashed angry shrieks as the spell sapped at their vitality, dulling their reflexes.  Mole, who’d taken the opportunity to finish the held guard, and who’d completely avoided the fireball, looked up at Zenna’s warning.  And met the gaze of one of the nagas.  Mole lacked Zenna’s strength of mind, and as the creature snared her in its powerful charm, her face cracked into a fascinated grin, and she sat down on the chest of the man she’d just killed, looking up at the creature in bemused admiration. The gnome was not the only one caught up in the fell power of the nagas.  Hodge, turning from a falling half-orc, was likewise snared, and both Dannel and Fario, each drawing their bow to fire, suddenly lowered their weapons, their arrows falling out of suddenly limp hands to clatter harmlessly to the floor. All in all, it was a devastating and effective attack against her weak-minded friends, Zenna thought.  “Don’t look directly at them!” she shouted, wondering if the warning would avail them. “I’ll deal with them,” Fellian said to her, indicating their charmed friends.  “Take those fiends out!” Beorna and Arun, their wills fortified by their commitment to their respective gods, continued to press the attack.  One half-orc still stood, but with a gushing wound in his shoulder, his face blackened from the fireball, he’d clearly had enough of this fight.  He turned and ran toward the exit, rushing past the charmed archers unhindered.  The dwarves let him go, instead turning to rush up the stairs toward the waiting nagas.  One slid down the steps to meet Beorna, while the second blasted Zenna with a quartet of magic missiles.  The third creature, the one that had cast the original fireball, took the opportunity to protect itself with its own shifting aura of displacement. The dwarves clambered noisily up the stairs, their heavy boots sending splinters of flame-scored timber flying with their progress.  They reached the division in the staircase and split, with Beorna charging left toward the descending naga, and Arun moving to the right.  The naga hissed a challenge at the templar, who responded with a powerful swing that passed harmlessly through its displaced body.  A few paces opposite, Arun rushed up at the naga that had blasted Zenna.  The gold dwarf attempted to keep his gaze averted, looking at the creature’s sinuous body rather than its face, but as he lifted his sword into readiness his eyes happened to meet those of the naga.  The paladin was a steeled veteran, but even his hardened will was not immune to the dark whispers that filled his mind, the treacherous grip of the creature’s evil power.   The naga let out a triumphant keening as it drifted down to meet the paladin, twisting its coils around Arun’s motionless body.</blockquote>

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