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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 2813553" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 537Dana felt like she was floating, the surroundings of Ghur’s lair replaced by an empty gray expanse that seemed limitless in every direction.  She felt a thrill of terror at Ghur’s—attack, betrayal?  But the emotion slipped from her grasp, neutered by the void that was this place.  Her thoughts flickered back upon the past, to Zelatar, and older treacheries, and Graz’zt. Her attention was drawn back to the moment as the gray began to form shapes around her.  The empty void was replaced by a landscape of black towers and squat buildings laid out like bricks below her; a cityscape.  She was flying above it, incorporeal, a hollow observer.  She recognized the place instantly; even two decades could not mute the memory. Zelatar.  The corrupt city of the Lord of Shadows, sprawling across three layers of the Abyss, Azzagrat, demesne of Graz’zt. She could see demons, vrocks flying lazily through the air, swarms of quasits, there a succubus on some private errand.  None paid her any heed.  Below, the streets filled with creatures of all shapes and sizes… demons, yes, but others as well; planar travelers, yugoloths, daemons, slaad, tieflings, humanoids, giants, and a thousand other species all represented.  Zelatar was far from friendly, but it was cosmopolitan, a collection of lost souls and the jetsam of a hundred realities, bound together in fear and respect for the Argent Lord, the Prince who ruled it all. There.  The Argent Palace, a massive complex that was visible from anywhere in the city, on any of the three planes on which it existed.  There, the place that their enemy lurked in security, planning his wars, twisting plots through the fabric of dozens of worlds.   Dana felt something strange… a tendril of power intruding upon the edges of her consciousness.  Something… familiar.  She could not identify it, but it drew her attention to the depths of the Palace, to a collection of spires that rose hundreds of feet into the air, above a building large enough to hold a considerable town inside. Something… popped. A flash, erupting suddenly, blinding her.  She covered her eyes with an insubstantial arm, blinking against the spots in her vision.  She knew that she wasn’t really here, but even so the flare had been painfully bright.  She still couldn’t see when the blast wave hit her.  She was driven back, although she could only feel the pulse of solid wind like an echo.  As her vision began to return, she saw a vrock that flew past her as if shot from a catapult, there and gone in an instant.  She looked down.  The city was… Ruin.  The Palace was a smoking pit.  A massive orange cloud shaped like a billowing mushroom rose up from where the spired cathedral had been.  A wall of flame continued to spread outward in a rapidly-broadening ring; within the ring everything was red fire and black smoke.  A giddy feeling rose up in her; madness came with it, she knew.  In the nebulous shadow-state in which she floated, the feelings shore off of her like water upon an oilcloth cloak.  She drifted, destruction everywhere she looked.After a time, the scene shifted.  Zelatar was still visible in the distance; a plume of black smoke hung over the city like a shroud.  Columns of refugees stretched from the city in long strings.  As Dana watched, a crevice in the ground disgorged a ravening pack of abyssal ghouls, who descended upon the nearest cluster of hapless souls fleeing the ravaged city.  Demons and others fought the undead in knots, leaving mounds of shredded carcasses…Another shift.  A gray-green portal as big as a house disgorged a legion of heavily armored fiendish troops.  A bat-winged woman in full plate atop a nightmare watched as row after row of soldiers poured into the bleak scene.  She held a longspear aloft like a pennant; atop its summit hung a pair of severed heads, female…Another shift.  Carnage in a strange cityscape.  Bodies rotting in the streets.Another.  A frozen landscape, frost giants with glowing red eyes, ambushed by huge wraiths that rose out of the ground, enfolding them until even their screams were engulfed. Another.  Another.  Another.Dana pressed her palms into her eyes, trying to blot out the images.  A part of her knew she had to watch, had to absorb whatever clues were being revealed to her in this litany, but it was too much, too much…DaughterThe soft voice calmed her.  She cautiously opened her eyes, only to see that the neutral gray expanse had returned.  She reached out with her mind.  Moonmother?Daughter, came the voice again, bringing peace, filling her with the benevolent touch of her patroness. Were those things I saw real?  Did Ghur betray me?  Oh, mother… where is Benzan?Hush, child.  I have little time here, and you must save your strength for the trials that will come. Ghur can only be what he is; ultimately he can only betray himself.  He can give you the information you need… but the price will be high.I will pay it, Dana thought, but she felt a tiny thread of caution through the link.Do not be hasty, daughter.  Some prices are too great to pay, if they cost us the thing for which we paid.What would you have me do, mother?  Speak it, and I will obey.I cannot—no, I will not—take away that agency that is granted you.  I cannot make this course any easier, daughter.  But nor will I abandon you.  Long have you carried my standard, and what grace I can bestow… I freely grant. A soft glow penetrated the gray murk, a shaft of silver moonlight that bathed Dana in its radiance.  At the touch of that light the fog that had hung over her senses melted away, and she felt a bright rapture as a divine glow spread through her.  Dana let that glow fill her until she thought she would burst.  At that moment, she let go. Her eyes opened.  She was looking into the face of the medusa, who started in surprise.  Dana saw that she was not what she appeared to be.  How could she have missed it, before? “She is awake!” She stepped back and to the side.  Dana saw that her cloak lay on the ground in front of Barrat Ghur, with several of her items laid out upon it.  The fiend looked at her with an expression of interest upon his face.  She started to step forward, only to realize that her arms were pinned, each held in the iron grip of one of the maug guards.  Since she could not move, she fixed Barrat Ghur with a cold stare. “I have gained insight from what you have shown me, but I still lack the information I seek,” she said coldly. “You have surprised me, and I am impressed by your ability.  But that does not change the fundamental reality of the situation that I alluded to earlier.”“It does not have to go this way.  I suggest you consider this; your interests and mine can coincide in this matter.” “Had you come to me even a short interval earlier, I might have been inclined to agree.  As it is…”His gaze shifted for just a moment, but it was enough to confirm what Dana had already begun to suspect.  “Who are you?” she said to the medusa.  “Surely it does not threaten you to reveal the truth, not at this point.”The medusa let out a short, unpleasant laugh.  “If you wish.”  Her form shifted, and her already lean body elongated, her features altering.  The transformation only took a moment, and when it was done a tall, impressive figure stood before her.  A cloak of shiny black chitin covered most of its body, obscuring most of its form, but it was still identifiably humanoid.  Its head, however, resembled that of a jackal, with milky yellow eyes that shone malevolently within deep sockets in its canine skull.  Inwardly, Dana felt a flutter of worry in her gut.  But her voice was calm as she said to Ghur, “So.  You have elected to throw your lot in with the yugoloths.”Ghur tilted a hand apologetically.  “Your comments upon my motivations were insightful, for the most part.  But as you noted, it is very difficult to avoid taking sides.  I do not make the rules…”“We all make our own rules,” she said, quietly.  “And we must live by the consequences of our choices.”“I would have enjoyed seeing the ultimate outcome of your clash with my former employer,” Ghur said.  “But as it is, I am afraid that your quest must now come to a premature end.”He turned to the yugoloth lord.  “She is yours.”Chapter 538Dana spoke a holy word.Everything happened at once.  Dana, her senses hyperattenuated by the expectation she’d had for this moment, all of the contingencies she and LL and Eleva had worked out, sensed the attempt of the pale asexual humanoid to counter her effort, but it failed.  The power of the word filled the chamber with a resounding echo of pure Good.  The merceanary maugs released her and fell back, stunned.  The arcanaloth seemed momentarily discomfited, but she was not especially surprised when Barrat Ghur was not affected; his only response to the spell was a brief lapse of his calm features into a hint of a scowl.  Likewise, the Silent showed no ill effect. Ghur responded immediately with a powerful word of blasphemy.  His invocation was even stronger than Dana’s, and without any sort of spell resistance she should have been dazed and seriously weakened, at least. Fortunately, the fell magic was one against which she’d prepared a spell immunity before entering Ghur’s stronghold, and the sinister echoes of the magic slid off of her without harm.  The aranaloth tried to hit her with some sort of hold spell but with her will augmented by the divine gift of Selûne, that too did not affect her.  Fortunately, she had returned to awareness before the creature had found and taken her pearl of wisdom, which nestled between her breasts under her tunic.  They want to take me alive, she thought.  That gave her an advantage, perhaps, albeit a small one; if they did manage to ensnare her, then she was as good as dead in any case. The battle had only lasted a second, and while Dana had withstood the initial display of power from Ghur and his allies, she knew that the odds were still against her. Well.  She would have to do what she could to shift them back. “Selûne’s might!” she screamed, kneeling and smacking her fist into the floor.  As she struck, she unleashed a massive wave of energy, an earthquake that seized the room and shook it madly, tearing through the foundations of the structure and rippling outward.  The yugoloth and white humanoid were thrown briefly off balance, while Barrat Ghur was tossed roughly off of his divan, as the floor shifted at an awkward angle beneath him.  The construction of the place was durable, so the room did not collapse, but cracks appeared in the ceiling and floor, and the metal of the iris-door behind her creaked loudly in protest as it warped in its threshold, sealing them in. When Ghur stood, his face had finally betrayed an expression of anger.  “You will pay for that,” he said, his voice cold. For a few seconds the four combatants just seemed to stand there; to an outsider it might have seemed like a casual gathering rather than a battle between earnest adversaries.  But to one sensitive to the flows of magic that were hurled back and forth, the room would have been louder than a castle siege.  Ghur shifted his tactics, focusing a greater dispel at Dana in an effort to shear away her magical defenses.  But that spell too dissipated before it touched her; she’d anticipated the tactic and had included that spell in the four protected by her spell immunity. Thank you, Mocker Darr, she thought wryly, before she felt another sharp surge against her Will.  It was from the Silent, she thought; it was impossible to be certain, because the creature did not stir, it just stood there with its arms at its side, only the slight shifting of the flaps of its mouth indicating that it was alive at all.  The alien creature might be the most dangerous of the three, she thought; she was certainly familiar with its ability to shift reality and sever her grip on consciousness.  But her mental defenses were fully alert, her will gathered like a suit of armor, and she resisted whatever assault the creature was launching at her. The arcanaloth blasted her with a ray of enervation.  But Dana’s death ward, cast immediately before she’d entered the Ghur’s lair, neutralized the spell.  Thus far her layered wards were holding… but she knew that her enemies almost certainly had their own protections up.  So be it.  She summoned another powerful spell, lifting her hands high above her head, filling the room with the emerald glow of a dimensional lock.  Ghur, recognizing what she was doing, hit her with a power word.  She hadn’t protected herself against that one, but was able to resist the effects—barely, swaying slightly as the spell’s power reverberated against her will. “You play well, but you cannot withstand us forever,” Ghur said.  “I have twenty fiends in my service, who will be here in moments!”  As if in response to his taunt, a loud crashing noise sounded through the damaged iron door. The arcanaloth shifted its form, shapechanging back into the blue-skinned medusa she’d first seen when she’d entered this place.  It immediately fixed her with its petrifying gaze, but Dana’s resisted its potency, tearing her eyes away from that deadly stare. The priestess knelt again, touching her palm to the cold stone at her feet.  Divine power flowed through her, spreading outward from her touch.  The effect wasn’t immediately obvious, and as she stood, she was hit by a devastating spell from Ghur. A scream was torn from deep in her throat as the flesh on her arms and legs began to tear itself from her body, dangling in long strips.  Blood trickled down her limbs as she looked down to see bare muscle pulsing garishly in the room’s unsteady light.  As if that wasn’t bad enough, she began to hear voices whispering at the edges of her awareness, building in intensity.  She glanced over at the Silent, who stood motionless at his place, as unreadable as before. “Ah, didn’t expect a flensing, did you?” Ghur said.  “Savor the pain, Dana… it is only the beginning of the agonies that you will experience.  If Amok Vorr is willing to amend our bargain, perhaps I will keep you for a time, and teach you the true depths of your ignorance about the Planes.”Chapter 539“Go f*ck yourself,” she hissed, and imploded the Silent.  As the pale humanoid collapsed in a bloodless heap, Ghur’s neutral façade cracked for the second time, now betraying a look of surprise.  The arcanaloth, perhaps realizing that the situation had grown a bit more serious, abandoned subtlety and tried to disintegrate Dana.  The green ray tore a painful swath across her torso, but when the beam faded she was still there, her expression cold as she turned toward the yugoloth.  The arcanaloth shapechanged into a pit fiend, but even as it lunged at her she focused her will and imploded it as well. She paid a price for that, as Ghur kept up his attack, sending waves of agony through her as more of her flesh ripped free of her body.  But she was not unaccustomed to pain, and her focus had reached the level where dedication and insanity were too close to distinguish.She set her gaze upon Ghur.  In an act of desperation, he laid a destruction upon her.  The black fire scorched her exposed limbs, but even as it did a blue glow surrounded her, and the wounds were healed as the contingency she’d laid upon herself earlier—courtesy of a miracle spell—took effect. The fiend turned and darted into one of the recessed alcoves nearby.  But the secret door there refused to open; Dana’s earlier stone shape had sealed all of the room’s exits.  Given time he could have forced it, but as he turned he saw that he had no time left.    Another heavy crash sounded, this time filling the room as the iron door buckled under a massive impact.  The sound seemed to restore Ghur’s courage.  “You can destroy me… but if you do, you will never find your lost love!  It is time to make a decision, priestess!”Dana snarled and lunged at him.  Ghur screamed as the unholy red glow of a harm spell surged through him.  Ravaged by the spell, he lashed out at her one last time, striking at her with a surge of fire that scorched both of them with eager red tongues.  But that too faltered against one of the five protection from elements wards she wore. Judging how injured the fiend was from her harm, she hit him with an inflict moderate wounds spell.  The spell easily overcame his spell resistance, and while Ghur resisted the full effect of the destructive magic, what got through was still enough to knock him unconscious.  The door crashed again, the metal squealing as it was torn free of its moorings.  Staying close enough to Ghur so that she could keep track of him, Dana stood and turned to face the newcomer.  With a final loud scream of protest, the door crashed free of the threshold and fell into the room.  The figure that stepped through the doorway was not what Dana had expected, and her heart sank as she recognized the massive reptilian form of Dhur’s fiendish door warden.  The demon’s features twisted into a violent snarl as it caught sight of her, and as it spread its claws they thickened and elongated, pulsing with an infusion of black shadow-energy.  Dana hit it with a holy word. The demon, unaffected, stepped forward. Oh, crap.</blockquote>

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