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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 2500054" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 440“Dana.”The voice drew at her across a great gulf.  She was floating in darkness, but it was calm, reassuring, not the shadows that filled the place where the voice originated.  She did not want to go back there, but the voice was insistent. “Dana.  Come back to us… we need you.”She wanted to turn away, but could not.  She was brought back across the boundary, back into a light that was blinding, painful.  She lifted her eyes to shield them, and realized that she could do so; she’d regained physical sensation and awareness of her body without realizing it.  Vision came somewhat slower, as she gradually recognized the forms that hovered over her. “Wha… what happened?” she managed to ask.  Her throat felt as dry as the sands of Anauroch. “Drink this,” Cal commanded, offering her a waterskin.  The water tasted amazingly good, but her throat was unable to handle it all, and she choked. “Careful, slowly,” Cal said, easing her head up enough so that she could recover, before offering her the skin again.  She couldn’t quite get up, not yet.  “What happened?” she repeated. “You took out the lich,” Cal said.  “It was really quite dramatic.”“I remember that,” she said.  “If by ‘dramatic’ you mean ‘crazy’.  What happened after that… is everyone all right?”“Dannel is dead,” the gnome said.  “Lok nearly joined him, but he stabilized at death’s door.  Fortunate that he’s as tough as he is.”Dana turned her head—it took some effort—and looked around.  They were still on the ground floor of the prison.  She saw that the door and a big part of the surrounding wall leading to the golem lab had been torn away.  “Arun and Beorna took out the demonflesh golem,” Cal said.  “I burned an entire healing wand and most of my remaining buffs keeping them standing, but they did all the hard work themselves.  They also killed the vrock that the lich had summoned; Mole was able to keep it busy long enough for them to come and help.  I saw it chase you out; when it came back without you, I’d feared…”“As soon as I cleared the outer doors I dimension doored up to the top of the citadel,” she explained.  “Once there I used my adamantine nunchaku to batter a small opening in the wall, enough to just slip through.  There’s a huge chamber at the top of the spire; somebody’s up in a cage up there, but I didn’t get a good look.”Cal nodded; he had a good idea of who it was, but they had more immediate concerns at the moment. “Help me up,” Dana said. “You’ve taken a heavy beating—not just physically, but mentally and spiritually.  You should take it slowly…”“Help me up,” she repeated, in a way that did not brook disagreement.  Sighing, the gnome complied.  Her body was responding to her commands, although she felt more than a bit unsteady.  She called upon Selûne’s power and cast a cure serious wounds spell upon herself.  It helped, some, although Cal was right; she’d been battered in ways beyond the power of a simple healing spell to resolve.  In particular, that dark voice that had spoken in her mind, at that last moment…“Dana, what is it?”“I’m all right,” she said.  “Where are the others?”“They are helping Lok.  Ah, look, there they are.  Come on, I think he’ll need what healing we have left.”They gathered together again, surrounded by the debris of battle and the remains of their enemies.  The mad cries of the imprisoned had resumed at their full strength, and the weary companions felt oppressed by the aura of the place, somehow stronger now that they had overcome its guardians. “Let’s get out of here,” Mole said.  They’d done for Dannel what they could, gathering his possessions and wrapping his body as they’d done for Benzan, putting what was left of the elf into one of their bags of holding.  “We are not finished here,” Beorna said. “We have little strength left in reserve, Beorna,” Cal said.  “Adimarchus would be too much for us, in our current state.”“Even at full strength, that might be the case,” Lok noted. “There is another thing to consider,” Arun said.  “Assuming that the lich was the final guardian, then Adimarchus’s prison is now without defenders.  What would stop any of the Cagewrights from entering this place and releasing him?”Cal frowned.  “We don’t even know how to release him.”“If anyone has that knowledge, it would be his servants,” Lok said. “I agree that retreat may be necessary,” Beorna said.  “But I would first look upon the one responsible for Jenya’s death, and all of the suffering unleashed upon the good people of Cauldron.”Cal looked up into the great shaft that formed the interior of Skullrot.  The heights above them were lost in darkness, but the spire had been where the lich had come from, and its deadly golem. “Come on then,” he said, starting toward the nearest stair. Slowly, they began to ascend.</blockquote>

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