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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 2663796" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 473Dannel felt a bit lightheaded as the trio of elves continued their mad dash through the forest, their soft boots barely touching the dense carpet of fallen leaves as they darted between the maze of thick trunks.  At one point they ran through a small clearing where a massive bear was drinking from a small pool; Dannel barely had time to meet the surprised bear’s eyes before they were past, continuing their sprint.  He was bringing up the rear, with Eldren at the front and Jannae only a few paces distant, and only by digging deep into reserves of strength he didn’t know he had he’d been able to keep up with them at all.  He doubted that they would stop for him, if he did not keep pace; the look on his cousin’s face at Jannae’s news had told him that much.  At the start of the sprint he’d called upon magic to enhance his speed, but clearly the other elves had similar abilities, for even with the longstrider spell in place, he could only just keep up.  But the anticipation of battle gave him enough of an edge to dig deeper, to press on.  His bow was strung and an arrow fitted to the string at his side, his fist locked around the shaft to keep it in place.  He only hoped that when they reached their destination that he still had enough breath left in him to use the weapon effectively.  As if summoned by that thought, he heard sounds from up ahead; all-too-familiar cries of battle, the noises of conflict muted somewhat by the blanket of surrounding vegetation.  His cousin and his companion rushed ahead, reenergized by the proximity to their destination, but now finally Dannel put on a burst of speed of his own, energizing himself through the song of power that exploded through his limbs with the power of an expeditious retreat spell.  But in this case his objective was attack, and the other elves regarded him with surprise as he shot between them, weaving between the low-hanging branches, clinging bushes, and fallen limbs that posed constant obstacles in the forest undergrowth. “Dannel!” Eldren’s cry came after him, but whether the call was a warning or a request, the arcane archer never knew.  For in the next moment he caught sight of the outpost, and his attention was drawn entirely to the scene of carnage developing before him. He had never been to Korul Ulgor prior to his departure from the Wealdath so many years ago, but the outpost matched the familiar pattern of other similar bases he’d remembered.  The main focus was three platforms perched in sprawling treetops spaced approximately sixty to eighty feet apart, ranging from as low as fifty feet off the ground to just over a hundred.  The platforms were normally connected by rope walkways, but those had all been cut now, and Dannel could see that the lowest of the platforms had already been overrun, horrible figures crawling over the wreckage of the defenders, who had been hurled to the forest floor below or torn to pieces where they stood.  The invaders were fearsome undead, skeletal humanoids, perhaps once elves themselves.  But unlike the mindless lesser creations that adventurers of all stripes had been destroying for century upon century, these monstrosities were clearly faster, stronger, and possessed of an animating cunning that guided their actions.  Plant matter clung to their bones, sinuous vines woven through their skeletal forms, and a packed mass of loam that seemed to pulse with life jammed into the empty hollow of their ribs.  They clung like ants to the thick trunks of the two trees that supported the two remaining outposts, and some had already reached the lowest of the struts that formed the foundation of the lower of the two, eighty feet above the forest floor.  Dannel could see elves atop both platforms, not more than a dozen in all, fighting desperately to repel the attackers with bows and long spears.  Neither, of course, was ideal for combating skeletal undead, he knew, and some had reversed their spears, using the ends as staves to try and dislodge their foes from their ascent. Even as his mind took in it all he was drawing and firing.  His first arrow, a white-fletched holy missile, slammed into the skull of a skeleton as it fought its way onto the lip of the lower platform from below.  The impact dislodged it from its precarious hold and it fell, tumbling in midair before impacting hard on a cleared stretch of packed earth.  Dannel had already fired two more arrows and scored two more hits by the time that the creation landed, and to his concern he saw that it had not been destroyed by his missile or the long fall, the vegetation clinging to it cushioning the impact and holding it together as it slowly clattered to its feet. And he also saw that he was not alone.  Several of the skeletons were still on the ground, a few also having survived being knocked to ground by the defending elves, and they quickly caught sight of him, heading in his direction.As worrying as that was, it was nothing compared to the loud crash that drew him around, in time to see a massive, lumbering hill of earth and rotting flesh in the rough shape of a giant crash through the bushes and come surging toward him.</blockquote>

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