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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 2591852" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 456Adimarchus arched his back as Lok drove into him from behind, using both hands and all of his strength as he pierced the demon lord’s body with his cold iron rapier.  This time the weapon sank deep, penetrating Adimarchus’s body until its point jutted from the front of his body just above his left kidney.  The Prince roared in pain, and the weapon snapped off just above the hilt, smoke and ichor rising from both openings where the metal shaft entered and exited his body.  Lok fell back, already reaching for his axe. The Prince spun, bringing up the Ashen Blade to grant Morgan’s fate to another foe. As he turned, the smoking greatsword intersected the descending arc of Beorna’s adamantine blade.  Infused with the power of Helm to serve as a holy sword, this time the mighty bastard sword crashed full onto the evil artifact, driven by mortal muscle against the inexorable strength of the demon prince.  Adimarchus reflexively shifted to draw off the force of Beorna’s strike, but this time he was a barest instant late in adjusting. There was a flash of light and a scream of pain, and when they could see again, the companions could see the demon’s blade riven, with a jagged edge wreathed in smoke ending less than a foot from the end of the sword’s hilt.  “You fool!” Adimarchus shrieked.  Beorna lifted her weapon to follow up with a strike aimed at the demon lord himself, but before she could unleash the blow the demon seized her, tentacles pinioning her arms as he reached out and grabbed onto her body with his hands.  She too had been sheltered by a death ward, so her life force withstood the draining touch of the Prince, but his mundane strength was sufficient to lift her off the ground, armor and all, and hurl her bodily across the room.  She landed twenty feet away, almost on top of the twin statues before the remnants of the throne, stone giving way before her adamantine-sheathed form.Stunned, it took her a moment to regain her bearings.Another arrow slammed into the demon’s shoulder.  Turning toward Dannel, the Prince snarled and hurled an unholy blight at the archer, injuring and sickening him.Mole leapt past, stabbing at the Prince as she went by.  Her blow managed only a tiny gash in his upper arm, but this time she drew a response; one of the tentacles shot out, snared her by the wrist, and hurled her across the room into the dark stairwell, out of sight.  Lok came in again, hefting his axe this time.  He drove the weapon into the demon lord’s chest, unleashing a blast of sonic energy as the power that Cal had infused into the weapon was released.  Through that cacophonous blast the genasi thought he heard a faint crack, but he could not be sure.  Adimarchus was certainly not weakened by the attack, it seemed, as the Prince lashed out with his tentacles, striking the genasi in the chest and arms, sucking more life from the warrior.  Lok, weakened now almost to the point of death, still tried to hold his ground, but Adimarchus struck him solidly in the head with the back of his left hand, knocking him out flat upon his back, unconscious.  “It is over, you puny fools,” the Prince intoned.  But although he continued to heal, it was obvious that the demon lord had taken a beating.  Wounds crossed his body, and several arrows jutted from his torso.  He turned to Saureya.  “I command you to heal me,” he said.  Saureya came forward. Beorna fought to get back up; the room seemed to spin a bit around her, and the weight of her armor made it difficult to extract herself from the ruins of the statues.  She thought she heard a whisper in her mind. In His enemy, His destruction lies.She glanced down, and saw a gleam of silver jutting from the still-intact portion of the bent and kneeling statue. A whisper of rushing air and a faint gleam of light was the only announcement of Arun’s return.  The paladin, finally escaping Adimarchus’s maze spell, immediately spotted his enemy—and the few of his friends that remained—and charged.  Opposite the demon lord, Beorna rose, holding Morgan’s sword, Aludrial’s Shard, bright in her hand.  Saureya extended a hand, and grasped his master on the arm.  Adimarchus looked into the eyes of his slave, and reveled in the emptiness that he saw there.  Battered, he let down his defenses for the instant it would take to fully restore him. In that instant, he knew his mistake. Saureya’s grip tightened, even as the whiring storm of a blade barrier erupted around the two.  The fallen deva was too close to avoid the barrier himself without releasing Adimarchus, and he made no effort to do so.  In fact, his face twisted into a slight smile as the storm of blades cut into his flesh.  Adimarchus, far more durable, suffered less from the cutting blades, but even so black droplets flew from the wounds cut into his body by the spell. “You will have an eternity to regret your betrayal,” the demon prince said.  His defenses lifted again, and the magical blades began to dissolve as they impacted his spell resistance. Arun and Beorna charged in from opposite directions, their rush perpendicular to the plane of the blade barrier.  The two dwarves each carried a weapon anaethema to the Prince of Madness.  Adimarchus, realizing his danger, started to teleport away, but Saureya, still locked onto him, knowing his master’s thoughts even before he did, disrupted the magic as it gathered. Arun and Beorna each yelled a dwarven cry of battle, fused with a deep invocation to their respective gods, as they struck.  Two holy blades pierced Adimarchus’s body. The demon prince staggered, and fell away from Saureya, crumpling to the ground, his face frozen in a look of dark despair.</blockquote>

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