Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 2584419" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 455“NO!” Beorna yelled, redoubling her assault, again to no effect.  Blind with fury, she simply threw herself at him, hoping at least to grapple or hinder him in some way, but Adimarchus merely shrugged her off, knocking her away to fall hard upon her back.  A storm of attacks came in from all directions, all but ignored by the Prince, who seemed to act according to his own altered perceptions of his surroundings.  Arrows from Dannel’s bow, melee attacks from the warriors, even a disintegrate from Cal that dissipated harmlessly as it struck his spell resistance.  The attacks may as well have been made with wooden practice weapons.  They were hurting him, if gradually, but in his demonic form Adimarchus continued to heal, the wounds knitting shut even as the companions watched. “Keep attacking!” Lok urged, stabbing again with his rapier, without effect.  Beorna tried a new tack, turned her assault toward the Prince’s weapon, but Adimarchus wielded the Ashen Blade like an extension of himself, easily turning aside Beorna’s sunder attempts like a master defeating the clumsy strikes of a beginning student. The marut finally got lucky, smashing its fist across Adimarchus’s face as the demon prince turned around.  A thunderclap sounded from the force of the impact, although Adimarchus was again barely moved by the punishing blow.  Still, when the marut’s fist came back, a faint trail of black blood could be seen running down his face from one nostril. Ignoring the foes that continued to hack at him furiously, Adimarchus lifted the Ashen Blade and drove it into the body of the huge construct.  Half of the length of the greatsword vanished into its torso, and the thing let out a high-pitched screech as red fire burst from its gut and its back.  Adimarchus drew out the sword and the inevitable fell backward, smashing a pair of statues as it crumpled and fell still.  Morgan let out a loud yell as he dropped to the ground, crashing his sword into the back of Adimarchus’s head.  The Prince shuddered from the impact, but only slightly, and he quickly turned to confront his adversary. “You will now be destroyed, pretender,” he said, bringing up the Ashen Blade.  Morgan lifted his sword to strike, but Adimarchus moved in a blur of speed, the greatsword crashing into him even as the deadly tentacles seized his body.  Although his life force was protected by his ward, his defenses could not shrug off the deadly impact of the Prince’s blows.  Despite his divine protections, and the fact that he doubled the Prince’s size, Morgan was driven back, pursued at each step by Adimarchus.  The others tried to distract him, but even though Lok managed another solid jab into the Prince’s side, Adimarchus seemed fixed on his chosen enemy.  Finally the demon lord drove his weapon into Morgan’s gut, and the knight fell to his knees, blood spilling from the terrible wound in a torrent.  Morgan’s allies lashed at the demon from behind, trying to stop him, but as he met the eyes of the Prince of Madness the knight realized that at that moment, Adimarchus didn’t even know they were there.  Morgan felt his divinely-granted power fading from him, and he shrank back to his normal size, all of his wards and protections fleeing before the demon lord’s power.  He could do nothing to resist at Adimarchus seized him by the throat in an iron grip, the Ashen Blade held over him in the Prince’s steady right hand.  “Now you shall have the fate you have earned, you who would claim MY throne.  But another will bear witness to your failure, servant of Good.”  The last word was a sneer, infused with the deep contempt only possible to one who had known the extremes of both the Light and the Dark.Adimarchus glanced across the room, toward the mighty throne, and made a subtle gesture.  The stone chair began to change shape, its thick base coming apart to reveal a hollow space within.  Within there was a figure, crushed into a compact shape.  Black wings and pale, marked flesh were visible, revealing the identity of the prisoner even before he lifted his head.  Saureya. “Come forward, slave,” Adimarchus intoned.  “It is my wish that you witness the death of hope, and learn that none but I will be master of Occipitus.”The fallen deva rose and came forward slowly, clearly fighting pain with every movement.  His wings were both crumpled against his back in jarring positions, obviously broken in multiple places; his left knee was also bent in an unnatural angle.  His expression, however, was utterly devoid of feeling, and his eyes were the empty cavities of one who knew he was damned, and no longer cared.  He came to within ten paces, and stopped.   “Do what you will,” he said. Morgan’s companions hurled themselves at the Prince, trying to distract him from his prey, to free the knight from the doom that awaited him at the hands of their adversary.  But the three—Morgan, Saureya, and Adimarchus, seemed locked in a separate drama that they could not pause or derail.  Morgan and Beorna tried attacks that simply failed, and Dannel, while he manage to stick a pair of arrows into the demon lord’s back, did not even draw a glance.  Lok tossed his shield aside and stabbed the rapier through his belt, leaping upon Adimarchus from behind, trying to grapple him, to tear him away from Morgan.  The genasi was stronger than any of him, but he may as well have been grappling a statue cast in steel.  He did draw a counter from the Prince, as two of the tentacles sprouting from his back seized him, siphoning life from the warrior’s body.  The attack broke the genasi’s grip, and Lok trembled and staggered back, a significant portion of his life force torn from him.  Dana dove down at Morgan, intent on attempting a dimension door to free him from Adimarchus.  The Prince’s eyes flickered upward as she descended, and while he did not alter his grip on Morgan, another of the tentacles flicked forward at his command. “Do not interefere, Moonmaiden,” he growled.  The tentacle’s “mouth” spread and grasped onto Dana’s throat, and before she could even cry out the Prince sent her to another plane of existence.In desperation Cal hurled another disintegrate at Adimarchus, but again the spell-beam dissipated against his spell resistance. “You feign disinterest most convincingly,” Adimarchus said to Saureya.  “But I know what it is to have hope.  Learn what I have learned… hope is an illusion, a cruel trick!  Hope is naught!” And with a cruel laugh he drove the Ashen Blade down into Morgan’s skull, piercing through his head deep into his torso.  As the sword penetrated the knight’s body it flared out with unholy fire.  Adimarchus kept pushing until the point of the sword clanged down into the stone of the floor, then he planted his foot on the ruin of what had been a man, drawing the artifact free, holding it up.  “And so is the fate of all who oppose me,” the Prince of Madness said.</blockquote>

Verification