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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 2101438" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 349They caught up with Jenya at an outcropping at one of the numerous places where the steep road from Cauldron switchbacked down the mountain.  Below them, a line of refugees stretched down the blackened slope like ants, continuing for at least a mile before vanishing into the hills below.  Behind them was only the outline of the city walls, wreathed in thick plumes of smoke that continued to rise out of the shattered city.  Those columns rose into the gathered clouds that seemed now to hang low over the city like a blanket, almost low enough to touch the few spires still visible over the black line of the city walls. Jenya stood atop the projecting stone like a statue as they descended toward her.  A handful of guards and priests remained with her, serving as rear-guard for the detritus of overwhelmed humanity that fled the destruction of Cauldron for what might have been a fleeting hope of safety in the lands beyond.  The High Priestess’s face hardened as she noticed the burden that they were carrying between them.  A stranger might have thought Jenya Urikas cold for the way that she regarded her former ally, but those who knew her understood that the cleric’s veneer of control was thin indeed, reinforced as a bulwark against the storm of chaos that all of them had battled this terrible day of days. “How did she fall?” the cleric said, her lips compressed as though they could keep the depths of her emotion from pouring out in an uncontrollable flood. “She fell in the triumph of battle, smiting her enemy,” Arun intoned, his own voice thick with the exhaustion of grief and suffering.  The weary Hammers laid her down gently on the stone as they came to the outcropping.  They had not found her holy sword, lost somewhere over the city when the dragon had dropped her, but her second blade, forged of adamantine, lay across her body, its sheathed tip protruding beyond her boots, its pommel nearly touching her bloody chin. “So it’s over... and we lost,” Mole said.  “Cauldron is gone, the gate is opening, and we never found...”  She glanced over at Dannel, but didn’t need to finish; the fate of their missing companion, even in the face of the greater destruction wrought upon the city, was still at the forefront of all of their minds. “Evil is triumphant,” Dannel said, his body slack with the weight of exhaustion and worry.For a heartbeat there was silence.  Arun’s hand tightened on the hilt of his holy sword, but confronted with the hard reality of the dead woman at his feet, he did not speak. “Evil wins only if Good surrenders the fight,” came a voice from nearby.  Everyone there turned to see Nidrama step out from behind the sheer stone bulk of the outcropping onto the trail.  Her familiar white robe had been replaced by a breastplate of shining steel over a white tunic, and her greatsword hung bare from one slender hand, golden flames flaring up the length of the weapon.  A collective gasp came up from the gathered Hammers, who were not so inured to the wonders that surrounded the Heroes of Cauldron that they were not amazed at the appearance of a celestial in their midst.  Several fell to their knees or bowed deeply, overcome with emotion and piety. Nidrama smiled warmly at those, but her expression quickly steeled as it turned upon the companions, and at the corpse in their midst. “We have done all that we can, celestial,” Jenya said.  “And we would give yet our lives, if we knew the source of the threat, and had a target for our remaining strength.”The deva nodded, and for a moment something intangible hung in the air, a quiet exchange between the celestial and something... else.  But then, before any of them could put words to the questions in their thoughts, Nidrama nodded and stepped forward.  Something changed in that instant; it was as if the glow about her faded somehow with that single step, although outwardly nothing had changed in her appearance. “I will help you,” she said.  The companions gathered close. “It is not too late to stop the plans of the Cagewrights,” she told them.  “The ritual to tap the power of the Shackleborn, and through the corrupted conduit of the Tree of Shackled Souls open the gate to Carceri, has begun.  The lives of those unlucky souls are being used to shatter the barriers between worlds.  By the time that the sun rises anew over this region, it will be complete... and at that point, there will be no undoing what has been done.”“Zenna?” Dannel asked. “She is one of the Shackleborn,” Nidrama said.  “She will share their fate.”“And Cauldron?” Jenya asked. “Once the full power of the Shackleborn is channeled through the Tree, Cauldron will become a Gate Town, host to the gathered hordes of Carceri,” the deva replied.  “Armies of fiends will descend upon the city, to begin the transformation of the town into the first of many infernal prisons.  From there they will begin their conquest of this world.”“How do we stop this from happening?” Arun asked. “That answer I do not have, knight of Moradin.  But the Tree is situated within a dark bubble underneath the mountain, where the Cagewrights make their lair.  The place is shielded from both divination and magical transportation, but a mundane route to their citadel has been opened through the stirrings of the volcano, through the lava tunnels.  There, we will find the remainder of the Cagewrights, and perhaps the means to stop what is being wrought.”“We?” Mole asked. The deva nodded.  “I have made my decision, and will pay the price demanded.  This Evil would overturn the balance between worlds, and lay waste to the lives of millions.  This cannot be allowed to stand.”  She raised her sword before her, so that its burning steel stood between them, surrounding her features with wisps of cleansing flame. The companions shared a look.  Inwardly, each agreed with the words of the celestial, but they had spent nearly a full day engaged in a constant life-or-death struggle within the stricken city.  They had fought fiends, a dragon, and the mountain itself.  Their enemies would expect an assault, and would have mustered the full force of their strength against them. Arun’s head came up, and with a sudden surge he slammed his sword point-first into the stones of the path at his feet.  The blade sunk half a foot into the rough ground, quivering there as he released the hilt.  “I swear by the blood in my veins, the stones of this mountain, and by the forge of Moradin, that I will not rest until these fiends are destroyed, and their evil plans sundered, or until I draw breath no more,” the dwarf said, and there was no weariness in his voice, no hesitation or doubt that he spoke nothing but unvarnished truth. Hodge said nothing, but he stood behind Arun with his axe propped up against the ground before him, as if daring anyone to challenge him. Dannel came forward.  “I will find Zenna,” he said, to no one in particular. Finally, Mole stepped into the circle.  “Well, we’re beat up and wiped out, and there’s a whole lot of bad guys who want us dead just waiting for us to get to them so they can kill us.”  Her face cracked into a grin.  “This’ll be fun.” THE END OF “FOUNDATION OF FLAME”COMING SOON: “THIRTEEN CAGES” * * * * *I'll begin posting book nine next week.</blockquote>

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