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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 2813483" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 523Cal heard the buzzing of the wasps well before Hodge detected them coming.  Still protected with greater invisibility, he nevertheless knew that whoever was directing the vermin would be able to guide them to his general location as long as he was casting spells.  He’d already used a major image to distract the three wasps that had come after him, sending them on a futile hunt around the tower, but he knew that tricks and misdirection would only keep them at bay for so long.  And besides, Hodge, now hovering sixty feet above the street, made an all-too-inviting alternative target. The wasps had spotted the dwarf as well, and made directly for him while he tried to collect his bearings.  Using his rod to empower the spell, Cal disintegrated the first one, but the next two merely flew through the haze of fine ash left behind by the spell. “Fly down, take cover!” he warned the dwarf.  “Fly up!  Fly down!  Make up yer bloody mind, gnome!” he shouted, but he nevertheless complied, descending behind the cover of the partially intact roof of the inn.  One of the wasps followed him, but the other headed for the source of the spell, buzzing loudly toward the point where the disintegration ray had originated.  It stabbed its stinger ahead of it, but it passed through only open air.  It quickly turned and headed back to join its fellow in attacking the dwarf. It only got a little way, though, before another green ray impacted it, disintegrating it as well. Hodge ducked behind one of the inn’s chimneys, but the maneuver granted him only an instant’s respite as the wasp stung through the construction, knocking the dwarf back along the roof in a shower of shattered bricks.  Hodge slid back and tumbled off the roof, but fortunately he remembered this time that he could still fly, and he recovered before he hit the ground below.  He tried to dart behind the building, but the wasp was right on him following close behind as it tried to maneuver into position for thrust from its stinger.  Hodge, already bitten and battered to the brink of unconsciousness, felt no desire to stop and engage it.  He took the corner in a tight turn only moments before the wasp clipped the building, knocking hunks of wood and shattered masonry free from the structure.  The turn had not slowed it significantly, and there was no place else for Hodge to go as the wasp descended upon him.  Its stinger knifed forward…And vanished, as Cal’s third disintegrate ended it. Hodge drifted down the six or seven feet back down to the ground, breathing heavily as he glanced up at the sky.  “Took  ye bloody well long enough,” he groaned. The colossal beetle clearly wasn’t planning on stopping as it charged straight toward Beorna and the building right behind her.  The templar could not move her left arm, but she lifted her sword in her right, spitting out a challenge that ended in another invocation of Helm.  But before the beetle absorbed the full span of her vision she caught sight of a streak of movement behind it, and felt a surge of relief pass through her. Arun, covered in dust and blood, shone nevertheless in the bright nimbus of golden light that emanated from his hammer as he flew directly at the beetle from behind.  Ignoring its lumbering bulk as he passed above it, he rose up about fifteen feet above before descending in a steep dive toward the back of its head.  The cry of the Chosen of Moradin shattered the night as he drove his warhammer with both hands into the flat center of its head, smashing a plate of chitin the size of a dinner table and driving it down several feet into the soft mush below.  The beetle’s brain, a tiny lump uncomplicated by mammalian features, was somewhere within that crushed mass, but it took a few moments for the insect’s body to get the message that it was dead.  Beorna leapt aside as the beetle caromed hard into the house behind her, half of the structure collapsing in upon itself in a loud crash of wood, glass, and bricks.  The thing actually rebounded, staggering out into the street before it collapsed in a noisome heap.  Arun flew down to where Beorna lay, knocked prone from a random blow from one of the beetle’s thick legs in its death throes.  “Are you all right?” he asked, helping her up.  She grimaced as the motion stabbed pain through her injured shoulder.  “Shoulder… dislocated…” she managed to say.  “Yank it back in for me.”Arun did as directed, adding a flow of healing magic that eased the templar’s injuries.  The paladin himself was in worse shape, his body battered from his treatment as a dwarven battering ram by the beetle, so she immediately started channeling her own magic into him, the soft blue glow fading from her hands into his body.  “What about the others?” Arun said, not pausing to enjoy the relief that Beorna was offering, already looking about for more foes.  The sky was clear of wasps, however, and the only other vermin that still moved were a few centipedes that were clearly in the last throes of life. “Umbar was carried off by one of the wasps,” Beorna said.  “I saw Hodge… over there, by the main gate.”  She didn’t have to be more specific; they could both see the scorched mass of dead centipedes that dominated the street. “We’d better start looking for them,” Arun said, lifting up into the air once more, Beorna only a moment behind him.  But even as they rose up above the wreckage of the village’s main street, Arun caught sight of Umbar flying through the night sky toward them.  A moment later, Hodge emerged around the corner of the ruined inn, walking with a clear limp, gesturing for them to join them rather than flying up to meet them.Umbar joined Arun and Beorna as they landed in the street a short distance off from the blasted circle of bugs.  “Not natural, all this flyin’ about,” Hodge grumbled, as Beorna healed some of his wounds. “Where’s Cal?” Arun asked.“I am here,” the gnome said, materializing out of the sky above them, before drifting down to hover a foot above the ground, enough so that he could meet the dwarves at eye level. “Where did those vermin come from?” Umbar said.  He looked battered but apparently had already healed himself, as he seemed no more the worse for wear from his encounters with the wasps.  “We have huge insects in the Rift, but I’ve never seen an attack upon a settlement like that.”“It was a coordinated assault,” Cal said.  “There was an intelligence behind the vermin, directing their attacks.”“Who would have a motive to assault you?” Umbar said. “We have made more than a few… enemies,” Cal replied.  “There’s one in particular, who would have an incentive to seeing myself and my companions dead.”He looked at Arun as he said it, and the paladin nodded; he knew who the gnome meant.  Beorna, too, frowned, her expression darkening.  But Arun merely turned, sliding his hammer into the sleeve that lay across his back.  “The people here will need help.  We should check for survivors.”The five of them turned to the task of helping the battered people of Ember Vale, who began to trickle out of their cellars, looking around in bewildered amazement at the destruction that had been wrought upon their village. * * * * * In the overgrown thicket behind the ridge, a little over a mile from Ember Vale, the Shaman of the M’butu opened his eyes.  His black hide was slick with icy droplets of sweat that clung to him like frozen tears.  But despite the lack of clothing the cold of the night did not touch him.  He was momentarily disoriented, but his iron control did not falter, and he merely swayed for a few seconds before he had fully recovered from the j’kala trance.  The drug would hinder him for some hours yet, but he had learned to deal with that. The odd white moon of this Reality had set, leaving the dell cloaked in a deep darkness, but the Shaman did not need its light to sense his surroundings, or to see his Soldiers keeping their silent vigil around him.  His initial gambit had failed.  He would have to sacrifice much for the next effort.  The Shaman did not welcome that sacrifice, nor what the ritual would do to him, but the price would be paid.  He did not trust the messenger of the Six Fingered Man, but for a chance for freedom for his people, no price was too high to pay. The Shaman settled back upon the rough earth.  The first attack had been just a probe, to test the defenses of his enemy.  He would rest, gather his strength.  His enemy might flee, or otherwise seek escape, but he did not believe that it was so.  His intital attack had given him some degree of insight into his enemy.  No, it was more likely that this first attack would alert them, drive them to caution, and perhaps draw the foes of the Six Fingered Man together.  In other words, exactly what the Shaman of the M’butu wanted.</blockquote>

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