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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 2282048" data-attributes="member: 143">A somewhat special milestone today: 400 chapters!  I was tallying up my master word doc earlier today, and where I am in the story now (well into book XI), I've just passed 500,000 words for the complete Shackled City story. That's compared to 462,000 words for the complete Travels, 100,000 for the average fantasy novel... and 560,000 for Tolstoy's War and Peace.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> Thanks to all my readers who stuck with me for so long! Now, back to our regularly scheduled armageddon:* * * * * Chapter 400Night descended upon The Lucky Monkey, and the refugee camp that had been extracted from the jungle surrounding it.  The place looked almost unreal in the filtered moonlight that made it though the scattered cloud cover above; more an illusion than a real outpost, the jungle crowded close around the structures as if eager to reclaim this clearing for itself.  It was quiet, even the animals of the forest apparently content to go about their business in silence on this dark eve.  The night was not entirely empty; vigilant watchers stared into the night from concealed positions in the summits of trees, or in shelters installed in the crevices upon the roof of the roadhouse.  And high above, another kept watch as well. Behind the roadhouse the jungle encroached hard upon the structure, despite the obvious efforts over the years to trim back the growth.  There was a low mound where a waste trench had been dug earlier and covered over, and a faint smell of ordure still hung over the place, discouraging visitors.  There was absolutely no warning.  One moment the small clearing behind the roadhouse was empty, the next it was full of sound and light.  A massive figure rose up over the mound, twelve feet tall, a miniature sun immolated in a nimbus of living flame. Ndulu had arrived. The guards atop the roadhouse had barely time to register their doom before the balor lifted his hand and transformed the night into a sea of flame.  The firestorm descended in sheets upon the building, engulfing huge swaths of it in flame, transforming the sturdy structure into a pyre.  Even as those inside became dimly aware through the haze of sleep that something was wrong, the demon lord strode into the flames, lifting its huge sword and sweeping away a twenty-foot face of the structure with a single mighty sweep of the burning weapon.  Several people were killed instantly as the outer wall exploded into their room, and others looked up from their beds, frozen in terror as they were suddenly exposed to a face out of their worst nightmares. An avian cry shattered the night sky, as an avoral—this one called by Dana’s planar ally spell to guard the night—dove toward the demon.  It fired magic missiles at the demon’s back as it dove, but the little violet streaks vanished as they entered the fell aura of power surrounding it.  Still crying out its alarm, it pulled out of its dive and winged over the forest before turning for another pass.  Its course took it briefly over the road that ascended into the mountains, toward Cauldron. Suddenly it staggered in mid-flight, spinning awkwardly aside to reveal a black-fletched arrow embedded deep in its breast.  Its wings pounding fiercely in an effort to regain control, it flew away from the road, where the arrow had originated.  A moment later a lightning bolt rose up from the same area to slam into it, but the avoral was not injured by the energy that flared briefly around it. “Fool, it’s a celestial, immune to electricity!” Thifirane Rhiavati said to the man standing beside her, a resurrected Ssythar Nahazir.  The yuan-ti pureblood hissed something in return, but did not offer further comment. “Let me show you how to do it, sorcerer,” Thifirane said, lifting her hand, focusing upon the avoral as it tried to get away.  It had nearly disappeared back over the forest canopy before a thin green ray erupted from the wizard’s finger, flashing instantly through the night, hitting the outsider and disintegrating it. The remaining Cagewrights turned toward the sounds of destruction that continued to rise from the location of the nearby roadhouse.  Screams now added to the sound of breaking wood and shattering glass, a cacophony that sounded out over the jungle night.  The trees blocked a direct view of the site, but they could see the bright glow that rose from the flames, and they knew that the balor was already well into its work.  There were eight of them there on the road.  In addition to Thifirane and Ssythar, they included Kyan and Viirdran, the two oddly juxtaposed elves.  There was a heavily armored man clad in full plate and shield,  a bare bastard sword easily balanced in his right hand, his bare face marked with a web of red tattoos.  The warrior was shadowed by a huge four-legged beast the size of a man, a mere mound of fur in the night shadows.  Embril and her spellweaver cohort were present.  Finally there were three others who were felt rather than seen, individuals so at one with the night that even the sharpest-eyed would have failed to see them standing there on the road.  These three simply hovered at the edge of the gathering, as if bored with the proceedings. “Go, kill everything,” Embril said, the tall, lean form of the spellweaver looming behind her, its pale flesh like scoured bone in the diffuse moonlight.  “With one exception.  The priestess—Jenya Urikas.  She is to be taken, and brought to me at Shatterhorn.”“What?” Thifirane exclaimed.  “You abandon us now?”“Do not forget, we have a greater goal,” Embril said, her voice like a silken purr.  “I must attend to the completion of our plan.  Do not fear, dearest Thifirane, you shall not lack for your reward when the Master is restored to us.  Go!  Instruct these fools what it means to interfere with the Cagewrights.  Destroy the pathetic remnants that they seek to protect.  Slay every man, every woman, every child, every animal that breathes its life at the sufferance of a civilized soul.  I suspect that you will not have much to do, once the balor finishes its work, but I am finished with equivocation!  They must be ended.”“They shall rue their decision to interfere in the whims of Adimarchus!” the tattooed warrior exclaimed.  “They shall be made to suffer for their crimes!”“What of the demon?” Viirdran asked, flexing his muscles, his hands drifting close to the hilts of his twin rapiers. “He has his own interest tonight.  The balor is compelled by the Compact to obey its obligation, but you would be wise not to trust its forbearance,” Embril said with a chuckle.  “Of course, it has been called, not summoned, so its fate on this plane is binding upon it.  If it were not to return to Graz’zt’s side, to report what it knows…”The Cagewrights each nodded, understanding the theurge’s implication clearly. “Let it wreak destruction… and pick up the pieces.  But Urikas!  She must be recovered, alive, that is my mandate to you!” “Well, if we hope to find her alive, we’d best hasten,” Viirdran said, turning toward the refugee camp.  The others joined it, but Thifirane paused, glancing back over her shoulder, meeting Embril’s gaze momentarily before the woman called upon her power, and along with her unnatural companion teleported away. But even as the Cagewrights made their way toward the burning roadhouse, the Heroes of Cauldron were already finding themselves in a world of hurt.</blockquote>

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