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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 2301653" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 406Arun felt death brush against his soul as the Cagewright shadar-kai Xokek backstabbed the paladin with his shadow dagger.  The semi-substantial blade caressed the paladin’s heart, urging it to cease its unflagging efforts, but the paladin marshaled his will, tearing himself away with a desperate cry.  He yet drew breath, but the wound was nevertheless a serious one. Now, surrounded by two foes who knew how to take advantage, Arun’s situation had grown significantly grimmer. Cal experienced a similar sensation as a considerable section of ceiling collapsed onto the curving bar of The Lucky Monkey’s common room, showering him with sparks and a rolling cloud of smoke that burned at his lungs as he struggled to draw breath.  Thus far he’d remained in a fairly secure position, crouched beneath a heavy table close to the gaping opening created by the balor’s rampage of destruction through the inn.  Although the drifting smoke occasionally blocked his view, and he could not discern the enemies that he knew lurked in the nearby forest, he otherwise had a good view of the battlefield.  Shrouded by greater invisibility, and protected by various other defensive magics, he was in a perfect position to provide covert magical support with his remaining spells and his considerable arsenal of magical wands. But Arun was taking a pounding, the others remained helpless to intervene, and the collapse indicated that the security of his redoubt was rapidly becoming untenable. When he saw the shadowy rogue appear behind the paladin and strike, he thought for a moment that it was all over; the thrust looked deadly.  But Arun pulled away, clearly hurt, trying to reset his defenses against two nasty foes.  Cal had been holding a gambit in reserve, a spell that he’d doubted would have worked against the enemy warrior threatening Arun.  But against a shifty wizard-rogue…The gnome’s stratagem proved effective a moment later, as the deadly shadar-kai darted behind Arun with incredible speed, his shadow dagger poised for another sneak attack.  Xokek suddenly staggered, his eyes widening as his body collapsed in upon itself, leaving behind another fat, bloated slug. The drow Viirdran had been about to join the fray when he saw what had happened to his comrade.  He bore little concern for the misanthropic Xokek, but he was worried about an enemy magic-user throwing around powerful spells.  Scanning the interior of the ruined roadhouse, his keen eyes caught a hint of movement.  Viirdran was much more than just a mere warrior, and a brief incantation brought a fireball that blossomed in the wreckage of the building, adding a new intensity to the already spreading fire.  The blast also engulfed a few of the helpless enemies still scattered about from the balor’s earlier antics, and caught up both the paladin and Alurad. Viirdran grinned.  A bit of friendly fire couldn’t always be helped. Just a few dozen feet away, the jungle remained relatively quiet in contrast to the violent battle raging in the ruined roadhouse.  Ssythar let out a hiss of frustration as his latest enchantment—another slow spell—again failed to take hold upon the dwarven knight.  He considered simply unleashing one of his favorite enchantments, the black tentacles, but he’d faced Alurad’s ire before, and thus he was not quite so casual about engulfing his allies in area-effect spells.  He glanced over at Thifirane and Kyan, but there didn’t seem to be much in the way of effective destruction coming from that direction either.  The yuan-ti clucked, considering other options…He never had any warning.  Pain exploded through his lower body, and as his legs buckled he fell forward, hands flailing at the surrounding brush in a futile effort to arrest his fall.  A thought shouted in his mind… must escape!  But his teleport spell was gone, permanently wiped from his mind by the trauma of being raised from death to life. This time, he wouldn’t get a second chance.  He still hadn’t seen his attacker when something sharp tore into his throat, and the last thing he felt was his own hot blood spraying out from his severed jugular, and then… darkness.  Mole didn’t even bother to clean her blade, vanishing back into the jungle. Arun staggered back, not seeing the shadowy rogue that had stabbed him, unaware of Cal’s intervention on his behalf.  The fireball had washed over him, but even though it had overcome the resistance offered by his holy avenger, he hadn’t been seriously injured by the flames. After all, once you’d been dragged down into molten lava by a massive pyroclastic dragon, regular fire just didn’t seem quite as imposing. But the fact remained that despite the healing that Jenya had provided before her demise, and his own laying on hands, he was in bad shape.  He’d taken hits from numerous sources: Alurad’s sword, the backstab, arrows from the forest.  Only the protection against magic provided from his sword had kept him from being blasted by several spells from the hidden casters in the jungle.  And he couldn’t keep running from Alurad; he’d seen the drow caster and knew that another enemy was on the way. But as Arun gave way once again, luring the blackguard after him, Alurad suddenly stopped.  Instead of chasing after Arun again, the Cagewright instead shifted a few steps to the side, broken masonry crunching under his heavy boots.  Arun recognized his tactic even before he reached his destination: standing over the immobilized form of Lok.  The genasi had been on guard duty, and so was clad in his adamantine armor, but that would be no protection against a coup de grace delivered from the blackguard. Arun knew that the Cagewright was luring him into the range of a full attack, but he had no choice.  If he hesitated, Lok was dead.  Lifting his holy sword, he roared out a challenge, and rushed at the deadly enemy warrior. Meanwhile, behind the paladin, someone stirred in the rubble.  Beorna, lying face-down in a pile of debris, extended a trembling hand, shaking with effort as she reached for the hilt of her sword.Alurad smiled as the paladin fell for his ruse, rushing into the fray to save his crippled friend.  As the dwarf drew near he smoothly reversed his blade from the killing stroke he’d intended for the fallen warrior, sliding into a ready stance to meet his enemy’s charge.  Arun saw it but kept on coming, his own weapon raised to strike.  A roar from the ruined common room drew Alurad’s attention briefly to the side, nearly breaking his concentration.  Something appeared from within the smoky interior, highlighted by the surrounding flames as it clawed its way to the edge of the field of rubble, leaping onto a fallen beam that gave it a clear view of the battlefield. A silver dragon—not a big one, but a dangerous adversary nonetheless. “The wizard’s made his appearance,” Kyan said, drawing another arrow from her quiver.  Thus far she was not happy; she’d scored a number of hits on the paladin, even with the added challenge of having to shoot around that lumbering brute Alurad, but the heavy smoke swirling around the melee had caused her to miss twice. She did not like missing. “I see him,” Thifirane said.  The transmuter was equally unhappy with the progress of the battle thus far.  Embril had not given her adequate time to refresh her spell selection after the battle with the planetar, and the paladin’s spell resistance and innate durability had already thwarted her several times.  But she had a little surprise in store for the wizard, and now that he’d finally shown himself, he would learn what it meant to earn the ire of Thifirane Rhiavati. But even as she called to mind the trigger words for her resilient sphere spell, a growl from behind distracted her.  She started to turn, only to stagger as something darted out from the brush, tangling itself in her legs.  The once-noblewoman let out an undignified scream as she toppled to the ground in a heap.  Something stabbed into her side as she fell, but her stoneskin still protected her, and she avoided serious injury. “Shoot her!” Thifirane shrieked, finally identifying her attacker as the gnome rogue, Mole Calloran.  She’d revealed herself prematurely to interrupt Thifirane’s magical attack on her friends, and she would pay for that mistake, the wizard thought as she tried to kick free of the diminutive little wretch.  But in the next instant her attention became fully absorbed by the wolverine that leapt onto her head, tearing and scratching.  With her stoneskin it could do little real harm, but it certainly made it difficult for her to focus her concentration. Kyan snickered, taking pleasure in the ridiculous plight of the wizard, but the arcane archer nevertheless quickly backed off and started firing deadly arrows from her frost longbow.  Mole moved like greased lightning, somehow dodging out of the way of the arrows, but still two shots grazed her, cutting gashes in her right arm and left leg, wounds that froze shut instantly as the arrows released their magic into her.  She suffered more damage as Thifirane lifted a crystal wand and fired a salvo of four magic missiles into her, attacks that she could not avoid as they blasted painfully into her torso. But Mole Calloran was not only sneaky and fast; she was also incredibly tough.  Arun charged forward, taking the hit from Alurad, and it hurt as much as he’d expected.  His chain shirt was now little more than bloody tatters, and it barely hindered the sword that crunched into his side.  The paladin dropped to one knee as fire exploded through his gut.  Something vital had been hit, he knew, and he felt blood on his tongue as he coughed, sagging from the force of the blackguard’s readied attack. “Now it is time for you to die!” Alurad screeched, bringing his sword up to finish it.</blockquote>

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