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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 2476640" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 436The companions staggered as the dark magic tore through them, drawing moisture from their flesh and organs, turning breathing into an agony, tightening their throats until even their cries of pain rattled in their gorges like dice in a cup.  Even Beorna, weakened as she was by her earlier clash with the devourer, could not resist the effect, and Dannel and Mole were each particularly hard hit. “Where?” Cal hissed, coughing as he fought the word out. “Above!” Arun said, lifting his sword to point into the cavernous empty interior of Skullrot rising hundreds of feet above where they stood. Looking up, they could all see it, sixty or seventy feet above them.  Wrapped in diaphanous robes that were little more than shreds of black silk, it was a monstrosity straight from the most depraved nightmares of sickened minds.  It was skeletal, part man, part something other, with huge wings that were only struts of bone jutting from its back.  Those wings could not keep it aloft, yet somehow it flew, drifting slowly down toward them.  It carried a scythe with a black blade that seemed to ooze bloody red light, and its eyes were points of black fire that were somehow darker than the deepest night, mesmerizing orbs that drew the viewer in, releasing them only with an effort of will. “What… is… that…”  Mole chattered. As if in response, each of them heard a voice within their minds, a rustling of wind through a graveyard.  I am the Dark Myrakul, mortals… and you have violated the sanctum of the Great Lord… Rejoice in your last instant of free thought, for the rest of your existence shall be spent as wards of Skullrot, trapped in an eternal prison of your own suffering…“A lich…” Cal breathed, the sound of his own voice breaking the spell of the Dark Myrakul’s fearsome appearance and terrible words.  “Spread out!” he warned, following his own advice as he retreated back into the doorway to the golem laboratory.  He cast a spell—not at the Myrakul, for he knew that his wands and few remaining attack spells would be of little use against it—but at his companions, bolstering them as best he could against what he knew to be coming. As the others spread out across the floor of the wide main hall of the asylum, drawing out their missile weapons or preparing their own defensive magics, Dannel stood his ground and unleashed a barrage of rapid-fire holy arrows.  Equipped with Benzan’s greater bracers of archery, his shots were even more devastating, and while the skeletal body of the lichfiend was largely immune to even Dannel’s potent arrows, the holy missiles discharged their blessed power into the body of the fell monstrosity with each hit… one, two, three impacts that drew a mental scream from the creature. “That’s it, blast it, Dannel!” Mole said, shouting encouragement.  The gnome rogue was at a lost for what to do herself, given that she had no holy ammunition for her bow, and she thought (in hindsight, as her shout echoed through the interior of Skullrot) that it might not be a good idea to draw its attention to her in any case.  Darting into one of the shadowy stairwells that occupied the corners of the hall, she tried to think of something to do.  Dana ran toward the stairs that led down to the exit, not intent upon escape, but merely on gaining position for the battle against the lichfiend master of Skullrot.  She cursed herself for choosing to give up her undeath to death spell for the heroes’ feast that she’d cast that morning; not that the spell would likely have worked against this foe’s mental defenses in any case.  She was drawn by Lok’s call. “Dana!  I must close with it!” She nodded, and opened her mind to the goddess as she ran over to the genasi. Beorna and Arun moved together across the hall, drawing out their heavy bows.  “If we cannot bring it into melee, we will be hard pressed to harm it,” the templar muttered.  Arun agreed, but while he had no doubt that its scythe was a terrible weapon in close quarters, he suspected that it would most likely remain high above them, raining down destructive magic from its secure perch in midair.  Dannel was really the only one who could hurt it, with his incredible skill with the bow, combined with the holy arrows in his quiver. He was right on both counts.  The Dark Myrakul had come to the same conclusions as the paladin, and as the brilliant white shafts continued to fly up into the empty hollow of the fortress’s interior from Dannel’s bow, the lichfiend drew upon the fullness of its dread power, and calling upon the most potent of its magics it imploded Dannel.  Even with Cal’s magic bolstering him, the elf could not resist the spell, and his body crumpled in upon itself, his deadly bow clattering to the stone floor beside the crushed heap of flesh that had been the arcane archer a heartbeat before.</blockquote>

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