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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 2813518" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 531Arun grunted as the nightwalker’s powerful claws slammed into him, driving him back almost into the ruin of the shed behind him.  He started forward to counter, but his leg snagged on a broken farm tool, and he had to catch himself before falling flat on his face in front of the massive undead creature. Gah, blast it! the Chosen of Moradin thought. Beorna yelled a challenge as she descended toward the nightwalker looming over Arun, her sword shining in her hand, holy power radiating from it.  The undead creature looked up, and fixed her with its dark gaze. Beorna’s will was considerable, and she should have been able to easily shrug off the corruptive power in that stare.  But as she looked down, and saw Arun, tiny in contrast to it, she felt a momentary twinge of doubt, and fear.  That opening was all that the creature needed.  Unleashing the power of its gaze attack, the nightwalker drove a spike of terror through the templar, who, overcome, turned and fled like a streak through the night.  “Burn you!” Arun roared, hurling forward with his hammer coming up in a powerful arc.  The holy weapon smacked meatily into the nightwalker’s thigh just above the knee, driving white energy into it as he smote it.  The nightwalker let out a high-pitched keen, and turned its attention back to its foe. Umbar, having dismounted after an awkward landing, commanded the griffon to attack as best it could.  As the celestial creature rose into the air, it met a pair of shadows that had followed him down.  The undead creatures assaulted the summoned griffon eagerly, avoiding its frenzied counters.  But Umbar’s focus was on the massive worm that undulated menacingly only a short distance away.  Taking up his hammer, he ran toward it, calling upon the power of his god as he ran.  A white glow began to form around him, shining from the gaps in his armor.  The crawler, sensing his approach, blasted him with a quickened cone of cold, followed immediately by a finger of death. The cleric staggered through the storm of ice, simply absorbing the damage, and likewise shook off the full effects of the deadly ray.  Pure determination drove him on, although it was obvious that the crawler’s magical assault had hurt him.  He lowered his head and charged, but as he drew within its reach, the worm’s fat head came crashing down toward him.  Seeing that it would hit long before he could reach its body to attack, the priest readied himself, crouching and hurling himself aside at the last instant.  It was a maneuver of a veteran combatant, and against a normal foe, it would have worked. But the nightcrawler was a thing of dark energies and ancient potency.  It adjusted slightly, and as its head struck the ground with colossal force, its neck twisted and it snared the dwarf with the very edge of its jaws.  Bone-white teeth as long as shortswords pierced his shoulder, tearing through his armor.  Umbar cried out as the chill of the grave entered him through the creature’s bite.  He tried to pull free, but the thing was insanely strong; he may as well have been trapped in a vice.  He was wrenched roughly back, lifted off his feet as the crawler brought its head around in a wide sweep.  His hammer went flying into the night, but he still was infused with the power of his dispel evil spell, and as he was lifted up into the air he wrenched himself around enough to splay his hand upon the black hide of the creature.  White light flared from around his fingers into the creature, but it was just too powerful.  As the flare dissipated, the spell having failed to send the nightshade back to whence it had come, the massive worm abruptly spread its jaws wide, engulfing the cleric, who vanished into the blacker than black interior of its body. As Umbar was swallowed up by the nightcrawler, Arun fought for his life against the nightwalker a scant hundred feet away.  He slammed it again with his hammer, smashing the magical bludgeon against one unnaturally long arm as it reached for him.  The thing was almost indestructible, but even with its damage resistance, the paladin’s smites were causing it serious injury.  It came at him again, but as Arun steeled himself for another full attack, the walker suddenly lunged ahead and closed its fist around the haft of the paladin’s hammer, just below the head.  Surprised, Arun tried to pull his weapon free, but the nightshade, far stronger than he, tore it from his grasp.  Wisps of greasy gray smoke rose from the edges of the walker’s hand, evidence that the holy weapon did not appreciate the maneuver, but the undead creature’s unholy eyes blazed with something akin triumph as it lifted the weapon high above Arun’s reach, and closed both hands around it. And squeezed.  Chapter 532Cal resisted the crawler’s mass hold monster spell, but as the fog of ice crystals cleared he quickly saw that his companions had not been so fortunate.  Unfortunately his stature limited the benefit granted by his high perch; he could not clearly see out over the battlefield.  And even if he could, he mused, as he shook the rime of frost from his cloak, it was too dark to clearly resolve anything much in the way of details in any case. We need help, he thought.  Calling upon one of the few higher-order illusions he’d memorized that day, he drew forth strands of shadow and infused them with potency.Unfortunately, those weren’t the only shadows to come upon the battlements; as he cast his spell, dark forms drifted up through the crenels, eagerly seeking out the adventurers.  The paralyzed companions were unable to resist as several of the shadows settled upon them; Cal drew a pair who lunged at him, their dark touches pressing against the protective barriers created by his bracers of armor and ring of protection.  The gnome ignored them, focusing on his spell as his conjured shadowstuff took on the form of a quartet of lantern archons. The archons did not wait for commands, immediately blasting the shadows with their energy beams.  One of the two shadows menacing Cal evaporated, hit by several beams in quick succession.  The second quivered as a beam struck it, and retreated through the stone floor beneath them.  Cal ran past it to Mole, who shook helplessly as another shadow greedily drank her life-essence.  The gnome drew a wand and stabbed it; as he released a cure moderate wounds into it the shadow let out a hollow shriek and vanished.  The last shadow, which had started to drain Hodge, was set upon by all four archons and was quickly dispatched.  “There is a giant undead worm at the foot of this tower,” Cal said to the archons.  “Spread out, assail it.”As the archons hurried to comply, Cal lifted Mole up and quickly examined her.  The gnome woman shook, still caught in the paralysis, but her eyes rolled up to meet Cal’s and she was even able to nod slightly.  But then her gaze drifted up behind him, and her eyes widened. Lok had not had much luck against the nightwing since their initial clash.  He lost sight of it as it vanished into the night, he’d known that the undead flyer wasn’t done with him yet.  His suspicion was proven correct as he caught sight of it drawing closer from another direction, having completed another broad turn out over the fields of Ember Vale.  Almost as soon as he spotted it, he was hit by an unholy blight that washed over him and left him feeling violently ill.  Still, as the wing drew nearer he screwed up his face and flew at it, lifting his axe with both hands firmly tightened around the long haft. The wing, however, apparently did not care for another collision.  Instead, it banked away, its speed enough to let it easily outpace the genasi.  Lok felt a cold chill hit him like a mule’s kick, and focused his will against whatever spell the undead creature was throwing at him.  His will was considerable for a warrior, and the feeling passed in just a few moments.  Frustrated, he had started to head back toward the battle that continued to rage on the far side of the tower, when he was hit by a greater dispel and started falling.  Arun watched as the nightwalker lifted his precious hammer in both hands and started to squeeze.  The weapon was incredibly tough, he knew, but a high-pitched whine of protest issued from between the black claws as it brought its strength to bear.  Even the holy avenger, almost an artifact itself, could not long withstand the dark power of the nightshade. Arun did not intent to let it have the chance.  With a snap of his arm his shield flew away, and with a quick tug of his other hand his adamantine battleaxe pulled free from the loops holding it across his back.  Invoking Moradin, the Chosen rushed forward.  The nightwalker ignored him… until the axe came around in an arc, slamming into the creature’s left knee.  Arun held nothing back.  He knew it was a gamble, sacrificing finesse and accuracy for all out power.  But the axe hit its target, and as Arun released his third smite into the joint his holy power penetrated its defenses, cutting through black flesh and the putrid essence within.  The nightwalker keened as its leg was severed, and it tumbled backward, caroming off the façade of the nearby building before slamming hard into the packed earth of the road.  There was no blood from its wound, but black wisps of vapor issued from the stump of its leg, oozing out like a thick fog.  It still held onto Arun’s hammer with one clawed hand, and it brought the other up clutching for the adversary that had wrought this hurt upon it.  Arun leapt atop its chest.  In desperation, the nightwalker tried a last gambit, summoning the power of a plane shift to cast its foe into the deepest pits of the Abyss.  But against the paladin’s gathered will, the nightshade’s power faltered for a final time.  It tried to grab him in its clawed hand, but the paladin avoided the clumsy grab, lifted the axe, and with a final invocation of divine justice he brought the weapon down with full force into the center of the nightwalker’s face. Warned by the subtle shift in focus of Mole’s eyes, Cal turned around to see the nightwing bearing down upon them, gliding toward their position from above.  It was… huge.  He reached for the rod that hung from a long throng at his hip, but before he could act yet another unholy blight erupted in a cloying storm over them.  It only lasted a few seconds, and when it cleared, the nightwing was still there, closer now, looming over them like a massive stormcloud A silver streak knifed up through the night to meet the descending creature, intersecting its path at the point where its body opened up to reveal a maw of utter blackness.  The wing shrieked and began to turn away again, but Dannel continued his barrage, sending silver arrow after arrow up into it.  The elf, having finally fought off the hold from the other nightshade, got payback as his missiles tore violent rents in its substance.  The nightwing pumped its wings and began to turn as it ascended, perhaps preparing to hurl another nasty attack at the foes atop the tower before it disengaged. That tiny delay cost it, as Cal disintegrated it.  Dannel sagged against the battlement, still in pretty bad shape from the multiple attacks they’d suffered.  “Need more… arrows,” he said.  He had plenty of regular missiles in his quivers, but he was referring to the ones he’d coated with silversheen, most of which had been blown away by the cone of cold.  A few, however, lay scattered across the stone roof of the tower, almost invisible in the darkness. “I’ll get them,” came a weak voice.  Cal turned to see Mole, still moving stiffly as she pulled herself up and began looking for the enchanted missiles. Cal rushed over the nearest crenel and looked down to see what had become of the nightcrawler.It was still there, and much closer than he’d expected. The archmage barely had time to draw back and grab a firmer hold upon the stones before the worm slammed into the side of the tower a mere eight feet below his perch.  The Traveler’s Rest shuddered with the impact, and for a moment Cal thought that the entire building would come down under the massive strength of the creature.  But the Rest was of solid construction, fortified with magic, and it held.“What’s it doing?” Dannel asked, falling against a merlon as the tower shook again. “It can’t quite reach us… I think it wants to bring us down to its level for a chat.”“Even this tower won’t hold up long against that,” the elf said. Cal nodded, and turned back toward the edge… only to clutch at the stone again as yet another unholy blight erupted just above the lip of the battlement.  As he voided his stomach upon the already slick stones he thought grimly, How many of those can we take?Glancing back at Dannel, who was barely on his feet now, his face an ashen gray, he knew that this had to be decided quickly, one way or the other.  In his brief glimpse of the creature he’d seen no sign of his archons, or of Umbar.  He had a strong suspicion of where the dwarf cleric would be found; which made defeateing the creature now all the more imperative.  “We have to finish it,” he said, more to himself that to any of the others, for his voice snagged in his throat, which felt hoarse and raw with bile.  Crawling forward, he waited for the next slam, and the sound of crumbling stone that he knew would mean disaster. But the next slam did not come.  Reaching the edge of the roof, he leaned forward and looked down.  The worm had shifted, falling back into a coil at the base of the tower that had to be a hundred feet long.  Its head had turned away from them, and he could see that its tail, a sinuous extension tipped with a vicious-looking sting, stabbed down at something on the ground, striking with a loud metallic clang.  It took him a moment to realize what it was. Lok!The genasi took the hit and countered with a two-handed strike with his axe that tore into the rubbery body of the crawler.  From his perch Cal could not see if it inflicted any serious injury, but from what he’d seen thus far of the undead creature’s damage resistance, he doubted it.  Still, the genasi’s assault had drawn its attention, and the huge maw opened as the head slammed down to meet the daughty warrior.  Against that, Cal knew, even Lok had no chance. Dannel staggered forward to the edge of the battlement, clutching a handful of silver-tipped arrows—all that Mole had been able to find.  The elf looked unsteady, and for a moment Cal feared he would stumble and fall into the crenel, knocking the both of them over the edge of the tower.  But the elf braced himself between the two adjoining merlons, and as his face took on that look of concentration that accompanied his archery, Cal heard a faint hint of a melody on the night breeze.  Dannel’s arrows stabbed down and vanished into the body of the worm.  The thing reared violently, the attack clearly inflicting a lot more harm than Lok’s assault had.  Its head snapped up, and Cal knew that another magical blast—another blight, or a cone of cold—would be coming in seconds.  Dannel, he knew, would not survive another magical attack, and while his stamina was considerable, he had his doubts about how many more such blasts he could withstand.  Let it work, he thought, calling upon something… a prayer?  He wasn’t especially religious, but in that instant, he thought he felt a presence, something external to himself as he sucked in magical power, amplified through his rod, and unleashed it through the triggering words and gestures, culminating in a finger pointed down at the creature.  The green ray struck the worm in the midsection.  For a moment the beam flared out in a pale halo of soft light, and Cal thought that the spell had failed, defeated by the worm’s considerable resistance ot magic.  But then a segement of its body, about ten feet of its length, vanished, crumbling into dust. The worm collapsed, both halves thrashing with an incredible violence.  The tower shuddered against repeated impacts, and Lok was hit and knocked roughly back, falling in the shadow of the recessed doorway to the tower.  But the worm’s struggles were clearly its death throes, and they grew steadily weaker, until it finally—almost a minute later—stopped moving altogether. As the worm finally expired, a gory figure slaked in black ooze staggered out from one of the ends.  Umbar made it all of about five paces before he collapsed. Chapter 533The rain promised by the gathering clouds the night before had come and gone so swiftly that the ground was barely damp.  A bright winter sun in a sky of startling blue could not banish the chill in the air, but it made the morning much more pleasant than the dreary overcast ones of the last tenday.  As the sun rose, with it came the stir of life in the hills that surrounded Ember Vale, for even in this unfriendly season animals dwelled here, although they gave the settlement in the valley’s center a wide berth. There were no sounds of animals in the brush, or birds scattering at their approach, as the companions descended on their flying carpet into a rocky dell overgrown with dense brush and other vegetation.  Cal, kneeling at the front of the carpet, pointed to a compact clearing below, and the carpet descended in that direction.  Weapons were readied, and spell components checked for easy access. But only silence greeted them.  They were still a good thirty feet above the ground below when Dannel saw the first body.  They were not surprised; Cal’s prying eyes that had found this place had given them warning of what they would find.  Still, they were alert for any sign of an ambush, as the carpet settled a few feet above a wide stone outcropping, and they dismounted, spreading out to watch in all directions.  Dannel remained on the carpet, an arrow nocked and ready to fire. “What manner of man is that?” Beorna asked, as Cal knelt besid the first body.  Umbar’s voice carried from the far end of the dell, indicating that he’d found another.  The “man”, if he was that—he was of no race any of them had ever seen—looked to have been abused.  His body was covered with dozens of what looked like tiny cuts, which on closer examination were found to be tears in his flesh, as though his body had simply started to come apart under some incredible stress.  His eyes were clouded, staring sightlessly ahead nothing, and his jaw was locked so tightly that blood trickled from the corners of his mouth.  They found a broken staff nearby, and a depression in the ground that was caked with dried blood. “There were more of them here, at some point,” Mole said, checking the ground. “That one over there, his throat was slit,” Umbar said.  “He did it to himself… His hand was clutched on the blade so tight that I’d have to hack off the hand to get it, I think.”“I sense no Taint,” Arun said.  “There is a lingering darkness in this place… but he, at least, feels clean.”Looking down at the bloody hole in the ground, Beorna said, “It is… wrong.  What was done here was evil.”“Perhaps,” Cal said, still looking at the ruined figure at his feet.  “I don’t know if we’ll ever know who these beings were, or why they came here.”“Seems pretty obvious ta me,” Hodge said.  “Assumin’ yer ain’t forgotten last night.”“Do you think that’s the end of it?” Mole asked. Cal lifted his head and looked at his companions.  He saw the answer in their eyes.  “No,” he said.   “So where do we go from here?” Dannel asked. “We go forward with our plans,” Arun said.  He lifted his hammer.  “We know who the ultimate enemy is.  And while…”  He abruptly stopped in mid-sentence, and his eyes grew momentarily unfocused.  “What’s the matter?” Beorna asked.  The others turned to him, concern on their faces, but Arun forestalled them with a gesture.  When he finally spoke, his voice was grim. “We are out of time,” he said.</blockquote>

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