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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 2812969" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 522The axe and the centipede struck at the same time.  A gout of blood erupted from the centipede’s head, and one of its mandibles went flying, severed by the magical sharpness of the blade.  But even though it did not get a solid bite, the centipede’s head caromed hard off of Hodge’s arm, knocking the axe flying and spinning the dwarf nearly half around.  Hodge looked around for his weapon, half-blinded by the bloody gore that caked the front of his helmet, but all he saw was the writhing mass of centipede bodies, both the ones still living and the still-moving ones he’d killed. “Hodge!” came a loud, familiar voice from above.  “Get out of there… fly upward!” It was the gnome, his voice augmented by some kind of magic.  The dwarf looked up, but couldn’t see anything except the wide open black of the night sky.  Then he saw something… a small bead of golden light, falling from above toward him.  For a moment the distractions of noise and blood and centipedes slamming into him faded into the background, as he watched the bright object descend.  It fell to the ground right in front of him, a shining gold pellet perhaps the size of his thumbnail.  Fly!Something clicked in his mind, and even through the haze of violence he felt a sudden flash of embarrassment.  He’d forgotten that he was still empowered by the gnome’s magic!  A loud chittering drew his focus back to his surroundings.  A pair of centipedes had risen up out of the mass, and were driving at him from his left and right, jaws gaping.  Instinctively he leapt up, trusting the magic to know what he wanted to do.  It did, the still-active fly spell carrying him straight upward. But the centipedes did not give up their prey so easily; several lunged upward, their upper bodies extending dozens of feet into the air as they snapped at the dwarf’s feet.  Bereft of his shield and axe, Hodge could only flail his legs as he willed himself upward.  “Faster, ye damned spell!” he shouted to the air.  And then, below him, the night exploded into day, as Cal’s second shadow evocation erupted into the blazing sphere of a delayed blast fireball.  The centipedes were vaporized by the blast, and when it faded a circle forty feet across had been scorched into the street, that radius full of the steaming carcasses of the centipedes.  A few still twitched, parts of their bodies outside of the area of the blast, but the impact had been devastating nevertheless. Hodge looked down in amazement.  Now that was something!But then he heard a loud buzzing coming nearer, and he realized that his troubles were only just beginning. Beorna flew backward in a desperate surge as the beetle surged up over her, slamming its flat head downward in an attempt to crush her against the paving stones of the road.  A jutting segment of hard cartilage glanced hard off her shoulder, yanking her roughly down and around, but she continued her flight, narrowly darting out under its looming form moments before the beetle impacted the ground.  The blow was hard enough to crack the pavement, but even though the force of it had to have injured it, it quickly lifted up its body, spreading its damaged jaws as it drove again toward Beorna. It didn’t have far to go.  The templar was surging forward to meet it, timing her stroke precisely to cleave her blade deep into the center of its gaping maw.  A huge hunk of its jaw went flying with the first stroke, and she did not relent, spinning into another swing that crunched mightily into the other side of its maw before erupting out of the side of its head in a spray of blood and jagged fragments of shattered chitin. Despite its incredible size, the beetle was clearly feeling the effects of its wounds.  Its front end was now a bloody ruin, but it still thrust itself forward, using its head as a battering ram as it drove into Beorna.  The templar was unable to get out of its way in time, and the impact of its considerable mass drove her roughly back, flying straight until she caught the protruding edge of a building’s roof that jutted out over the street.  With a cry she twisted and fell in a clatter of roof tiles and wood fragments, landing with a jarring thud upon the ground below.  She grimaced, clutching onto her sword with one hand; the other lay at her side, her shoulder dislocated by her collision with the roof. She staggered to her feet, looking up to see the beetle charging straight toward her, with no place for her to go to escape it.</blockquote>

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