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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 2171446" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 370They didn’t have to go very far to find their enemy. The tunnel was fairly broad, its smoothed walls indicative of its origins as a lava tube.  After making some elementary preparations, including the casting of several wards, the companions proceeded cautiously to the bend that Mole had scouted.  The dim light of exposed lava became evident ahead even before they reached the sharp kink in the passage.  They could also smell the distinctive stench of demodands that Mole had identified earlier, the odor growing stronger with each step. “This wall is new,” Arun said, noting the unnaturally smooth surface to their left.“Conjured, likely, to block another passage and direct us right,” Cal suggested. “Well, maybe we should take it down and…” Dannel began. He didn’t get a chance to finish his statement, for the deva abruptly lifted his mace and shifted into a ready stance, pointing with the weapon to the south.  “Invisible fiends!” he said, following his statement with a holy smite that filled the corridor maybe twenty paces to the south beyond the bend.  The angry screams of demodands revealed the truth of the celestial’s report. The demodands were quick to counterattack.  Coruscating beams lanced down the length of the tunnel, rays of enfeeblement that stabbed into the warriors at the front of the group.  Lok was hit and seemed to sag as the thieving energies sapped his strength, but a second evaporated as the ray splashed against the aura cast by Arun’s holy avenger.  Acid arrows also sought out their targets, with one catching Benzan with a glancing impact across the arm that seared a hole in his cloak, sizzling through the links of his mithral chain shirt to burn the flesh covering his bicep.  Another targeted Dana, but the mystic wanderer moved in a sudden blur, and it missed her to splash harmlessly against the tunnel passage behind her. As the fiends attacked, they became visible; massive, bloated kelubars, flanked by the lean and grotesque farastus.  But the worst was last to appear, the massive figure of a shator demodand that regarded them with hateful eyes sunk deep into a distended face.  Keeriv laughed as it ambled forward to meet the deva, which did not hesitate in lifting his own weapon and surging into battle. The shator’s reach allowed it to draw first blood, pounding the deva with a heavy two-fisted slam to the chest that staggered the angel.  But the celestial did not fight alone, and Lok, Arun, and Hodge swiftly charged into the fray.  Lok struck the fiend a solid blow with his thundering battleaxe, and Hodge, having selected again his holy sword, echoed his attack with a deep thrust that slid into the shator’s thick leg.  A farastu lunged around the larger demodand, ignoring Hodge as it reached out to grapple the celestial and divest it of its deadly mace.  But before it could complete its attack Arun drove into it, his holy blade shearing a two-foot gash in its body, driving it back in pain. Arrows knifed through the air, stabbing into demodand flesh.  Dannel’s missiles, even enchanted with the potency his song, did little against the fiends’ fell resistances, but Benzan was using a bow specifically designed to bring an end to creatures such as they.  The shator cried out as an arrow pierced its arm, jutting from the meat of its tricep, trailing black lines of ichor that splattered in fat drops to the stone floor. “Unleash a holy word!” Dana cried to the celestial.  But even as the deva summoned its power, the Cagewrights unleashed the second half of their ambush. The wall at the bend of the corridor shuddered with a solid impact, a five-foot vertical crack appearing in the volcanic rock.  Before the significance of that could even be registered, a second blow burst open a six-foot square segment of the wall.  Thin plates of shattered stone fell forward to reveal the tiefling monk Ardeth Webb, snapping a set of adamantine nunchaku under her arm as she smoothly stepped aside.  Freija Doorgan’s eyes glowed with intensity as the conjurer released her prepared spell.  The prismatic spray flared out into the corridor, engulfing almost the entire company of intruders.  Only Cal, who’d remained back at the bend in the passage, was outside the path of the deadly beams.  The deva, the target for the center of the spray, was struck by two of the twisting beams that pierced his spell resistance, electrical energy stabbing through him as the yellow beam knifed through his torso, while a sickly dark aura surged outward from his leg as the limb was intersected by a green ray.  The rest of the companions were hit by other colored shafts, dealing various quantities of fire, acid, or electrical damage, or other ill effects.  Fortunately the deva’s protective aura, combined with the wards they’d cast earlier, enabled them to overcome the most devastating effects.  Hodge, struck by a blue ray, resisted being turned to stone, while Dannel fought off the mind-rending power of the indigo beam.  But Dana and Lok both suffered damage from the rays, and even with his sword Arun could not fully resist being drained of vitality by the green ray that intersected his wrist after passing through the deva’s leg.  The power of the spell was not selective, and the rays continued into the ranks of the demodands.  A farastu was struck by a violet ray and vanished, screaming, while a kelubar recoiled as flames erupted from the red ray that splashed across its chest.  The fiends were tough and resistant to many forms of magic, however, and the beams winked out altogether as they intersected the shator, which snarled as the true nature of Freija’s plan became apparent to it. Even as the prismatic spray wrought its colorful swath of destruction down the length of the corridor, a roaring pillar of flame conjured by Grehlia Cairnis marked a grim sequel.  The flame strike struck the ground and spread outward in a merciless swath, searing at the flesh of the companions gathered in the tunnel.  The spell looked devastating, but as the wisps of flame cleared it was obvious that the companions had not suffered as much damage as was first evident.  Several of the companions had been warded against fire, and even in the confined space their agility allowed others to escape the full force of the blast.  Arun, surrounded by the nimbus of his holy avenger, was unaffected, and his presence shielded Hodge, just a step away.  Likewise the deva resisted the spell.  The ambush had been clever and well-timed, the attacks telling, but through luck, preparation, and sheer fortitude the companions had held up well against the initial volley.  But that changed a moment later as Shebeleth Regidin, standing behind his allies in the secret side-tunnel, unleashed a word of blasphemy.</blockquote>

Verification