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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 2813575" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 543The first to appear were a cohort of babaus and a half-dozen apish bar-lgura, which teleported in anywhere from a few paces to fifty feet distant to the ring of companions.  Wherever they were, the demons immediately let out bloodthirsty howls and leapt to the attack, covering the ground separated them from the nearest mortal in a mad rush.  A few of babaus cannily hurled untargeted dispel magics into the knot of adventurers, hoping to strip away some of their defenses.  The effort was mostly unsuccessful, as their magical potency was greatly inferior to the long-lasting wards cast by Cal and Umbar, but Beorna lost a protection from fire.  “Defensive ring!” Umbar yelled, invoking the power of Moradin to fill himself with righteous might.  The action drew attention to himself, and three bar-lgura fell upon him, leaping up to cling to his torso, clawing and biting.  The warriors fell back into a tight circle, shielding Dannel, Mole, and Cal within, protecting each others’ flanks.  The demons, confronted with a firm defense, evoked no subtlety, hurling themselves at their enemies to claw and bite.  For a moment the demonic rush seemed inexorable, as the emaciated babau and the shaggy bar-lgura swarmed over their foes, striking their armor and shields with powerful blows.  The companions, caught off guard, did not immediately counter, which only seemed to embolden the demons further.  More fiends materialized around the perimeter, another half-dozen babau accompanied by a fat toad-like hezrou.  These moved to join their fellows, the hezrou pausing to hurl a chaos hammer into the fray before leaping forward on its powerful hind legs. But the companions were not falling back or delaying their counterattack out of confusion or despair.  No, every movement was planned, buying time and space to prepare as they consolidated their position, summoned powerful magic, and prepared. When they did unleash their assault, just ten seconds after the first demon had materialized, it was devastating. Arun held his spot in the circle as two babaus clawed at his armor, looking for any vulnerability.  They didn’t find any.  His very presence bolstered his allies; not only did he radiate a calm assurance against fear, but the hezrou’s hammer did not touch him or those next to him, and the magic circle against evil that he’d created helped all of them to defend against the demons’ ferocious assault.  Now, his shield came down, and his hammer, the blessed holy avenger, came out.  Trusting in the sacred weapon’s ability to resist the caustic effects of the babaus’ slime, he drove in the chest of the first with a pair of truly colossal blows that laid it sprawling upon the turf a few feet back.  The second one thought to use its comrade’s death to gain advantage, but even as it reached for Arun’s weapon-arm it realized its mistake.  The paladin turned the hammer and sent it flying again with a smooth snap of its wrist, crushing one side of the demon’s torso in with a devastating straight-on blow.  The demon staggered, and before it could recover a fourth attack smote it on the bridge of its nose, driving a shard of bone into its corrupted brain. Beorna, just a step away, had faced a babau and a bar-lgura.  The ape-demon had elected to simply try and bear her down, leaping upon her in the hopes of overwhelming her quickly.  It found this more difficult that it appeared, as Beorna caught its weight, and taking one hand off of the hilt of her sword, grabbed its chest and hurled it back into the onrushing babau.  The demons quickly recovered and came at her again, encouraged by the fact that she hesitated rather than striking at them.  As with the two that had threatened Arun, they learned that hesitation did not mean weakness, as they found when the templar attacked fortified with divine power and a holy sword.  A few seconds later, the only difference between her foes and Arun’s were that hers were hacked apart rather than crushed. Lok was rushed by three babuas.  He had no buffing spells to cast, and no need to pause.  Once he had fallen back to his assigned place in the line, he set his feet in a defensive stance, and waited.  As soon as the demons entered his reach, he was ready.  Three more demons down. Umbar’s concentration held as the three bar-lgura tore at his torso, and he too called upon the divine power of his patron.  The demons clinging to him dug in with their claws and tried to rip open gaps in his armor, but the magical mail was dwarven-forged, and it withstood their best efforts.  Empowered with an incredible strength, he tore one of the demons easily from its grip, thrusting it down upon the ground.  The bar-lgura sprang back up, but before it could attack again the cleric drove his warhammer down into it, smashing bones with the force of the blow.  Within the protective circle offered by the warriors, Dannel plyed his bow.  He did not have any more holy arrows in his quiver, but his song of power infused even the mundane missiles with magical potency, enough to punch through the damage resistance of the demons.  His shock bow was of little avail against demons, with their immunity to electricity, but he now wielded Benzan’s bane longbow, which was a different matter entirely.  The bow, specifically designed to harm evil outsiders, tore into the bodies of demons mercilessly.  His first arrow had struck one of the bar-lgura threatening Umbar, but on seeing the hezrou appear, he immediately shifted targets to that foul demon.  His first shot coincided with the blast of its chaos hammer, which the elf weathered with no ill effect.  If anything, the blast of energy drove him to a renewed intensity, his hands almost blurring as he transferred arrows from his quiver to the string, drawing and firing almost instantly.  He felt an added surge of speed—a haste spell from Cal, no doubt.  Never had he felt the song so keenly in his veins, the bow singing in his hands in harmony with its melody.  The hezrou’s thick hide may as well have been the parchment of a tournament target, for all the hindrance it offered to his shafts.  The demon’s gaze fixed upon the archer, and in those alien eyes, Dannel thought he saw fear.Unleashing its most fell power, the demon croaked a word of blasphemy.  But the heroes were warriors of legend, and the dark word washed over them, its menace fading like a fireside tale of horror remembered in the reassuring light of the full day.The demon’s foul word had barely faded when Dannel’s next arrow slammed through its open jaws, and through the roof of its mouth into its brain. Thus far, the demonic attack had accomplished little but to litter the ground with riven fiendish corpses.  But the hollow flares of more teleportations went on around them, as more attackers continued to appear.  Another dozen babaus appeared, along with another hezrou, and in the air above them, five vrocks materialized.  The vulture demons dove down toward the companions, but instead of attacking, they formed into a ring, locking claws as they spun in a mad, gyrating dance.  And if that wasn’t enough, a massive form appeared another fifty yards behond the vrocks, its bloated body held aloft by stubby wings jutting from its hairy back.  Nevuuz took in the battlefield and the ring of slain demons, and smiled.  Mortals, caught here by the surprise invasion engineered by its evil master.  The nalfeshnee already had a quartet of archon scalps bound to the throng it wore across its body, enough for a fair bounty.  Cutting this knot of defenders would bring a fine reward; perhaps even a succubus as a personal attendant?   Surrounding himself with an unholy aura, the mighty demon descended toward the battle.  Meanwhile, in the center of Occipitus, an ebon-hued figure appeared in the air over the skull.  Spreading his arms, he rose slowly up into the air toward the golden ceiling above.  Peals of thunder wracked the plane, as if Occipitus itself were announcing his arrival, and dark webs of energy began to form across the sky, as chaos surged. Chapter 544The companions turned from the task of slaying demons long enough to note the loud din that resounded across the plane.  “Now what?” Beorna shouted, twisting to avoid a claw that swiped hard at her helmet, and following it with a thrust from her sword that ran a babau through the chest.  When she withdrew the weapon, she saw that the blade was smoking from the acidic gunk smeared along its length.  Swearing, she dropped the damaged weapon, which encouraged the next two babaus that leapt eagerly forward.  “I don’t know… but…aagh!” Lok said, as an unholy blight settled onto them, courtesy of the latest hezrou to join the fray.  When it cleared, it revealed another pair of babaus trying to trip the genasi, who snarled as he grabbed one by the neck and slammed it to the ground at his feet.  Cal’s voice sounded from directly behind Lok.  The gnome had made himself invisible almost as a reflex, and naturally Mole was nowhere to be seen as well.  “We have to take out those vrocks… if they finish their dance, we won’t like the effect one bit!” “On it,” Dannel said, already lifting his aim and choosing his target.  Cal put his words into action by casting a shadow evocation, hurling a delayed blast fireball made of shadowstuff into the midst of the vrocks.  The creatures let out a terrible screech, but did not interrupt their dance, even when Dannel dropped his target with a direct hit. “We need more firepower,” Cal said, even as a blast of lightning stabbed down from above them, splaying across Umbar’s broad shoulders.  The cleric merely grunted and kept up his task of mashing the demons still fighting to bring him down.  One of the bar-lgura had crawled up onto his back, out of easy reach, and was moving for the gap between his helmet and neck when it suddenly lost its grip and fell.  Mole briefly became visible, dangling from a strap of the giant priest’s armor, then she kicked off and fell blade-first onto the demon’s chest. “Fly me, and I’ll go,” Lok said.  But Cal saw that without the genasi, they’d never be able to hold the line; already several of the babau were threatening sneak attacks as they continued to swarm around the defenders.  Grimacing, the gnome began casting again, hoping that he would be fast enough to outpace the beatdown he knew was coming. A wave of pure stench swept over them, as a hezrou barreled into the melee.  The frog-demon took a hit from Arun as it reached for Beorna.  The templar tried to stab it, but the hezrou seized her bodily with both claws and stuffed her head-first into its gaping maw.  For a moment the demon’s head engulfed the dwarf’s head and shoulders, but then it shuddered, its body spasming suddenly.  A second later the demon disgorged its captive along with a flood of bloodly gore, and staggered back; Beorna, calling upon a feat of strength granted her by Helm, had smote it from within.  It managed to croak at her in a violent fury, recovering for another attack, but unfortunately its movement took it within Arun’s reach, and that was that. “Dannel… take the one with the scorched left wing!” Cal’s voice urged.  The elf nodded and let fly, his arrow stabbing up into the vrock, joined a heartbeat later by a second.  The vrock faltered and broke free of the circle, its wings flapping wildly as it tried to arrest its descent.  The demons smoothly closed ranks, the three remaining ones intensifying their dance as flickers of blue energy began to erupt in their midst.  But just as the dance of ruin was coming to its peak, Cal hit one of the demons with an empowered disintegrate, vaporizing it.  The two remaining vrocks let out a frustrated shriek, and promptly surrounded themselves with a halo of mirror images as they withdrew to a safer distance to regroup.“Nice one!” said Mole, as she rolled back to her feet beside them.  “Say, could you hit me with a quick improved invis?  A fly would be nice as well…”But before Cal could respond, there was another series of all-too-familiar distortions that announced more demons arriving.  All around them, in an uneven ring, babaus, bar-lgura, and hezrous materialized, almost fifty in all.  And the sky above blackened as more vrocks, at least twenty, teleported in, accompanied by a few sleek succubi. “Oh, damn it all,” Lok said, summarizing the feelings of everyone present. Chapter 545Prince Graz’zt felt power surge through him as he rose into the air above Occipitus.  He’d invested a fair amount of his power into the opening of the gates that had allowed his legions to transfer here, but that had been offset by the use of the Heart of Axion to siphon off energy from some of his minions to fuel the process.  The complete annihilation of two hundred demons would be an incentive for the remainder to perform with vigor in the coming campaign.  Now, as the sky around him surged in useless resistance to his presence, it was time to ensure that victory would be the conclusion of that effort. Extending his gaze, Graz’zt looked down at the base of the skull below.  Three massive portals shone like oozing sores around that perimeter, each disgorging a column of fiends upon the plain.  They were of all sorts and sizes.  The demons were by far the largest contingent, and included hulking goristo, rutterkin, squat jovocs, endless slavering dretches, quasits, and even a few scattered glabrezu and jariliths.  There was a knot of mercenary hordelings, no two of which were alike, and a full company of massively armored cambions, including a cohort of cavalry mounted upon fiendish dire lizards that were the size of cottages.  The half-demons were the spawn of one of Graz’zt’s lesser harems, and all had been blooded in the eternal struggle against the devils.  The harem was another pleasure that was lost to him, now, destroyed in the ruin of Zelatar…The Prince allowed his anger to fill him, to fuel the growning flood of potency that gathered in him.  For a few moments he hovered there, hundreds of feet above his armies, savoring the moment.  Even for one such as he, what would be wrought here would be… remarkable. Finally the columns began to thin.  The noise of a sonic evocation reached his ears; the signal from his general that the deployment was complete. Graz’zt did not rush the process.  He was an entity of passion and fury, but he was also possessed of an incredible cunning, and a patience that had allowed him to bring down rival after rival over untold centuries of struggle.  He was diminished, now; that could not be denied.  His seat of power had been reduced to rubble, and others squabbled over the scraps he had been forced to leave behind.  But this place, Occipitus… here, in this place which lay upon the cusp of possibility, a morphic reality teetering on the brink of redemption, here, he would begin anew.  It could take millennia to recover what he had lost.  But Graz’zt was patient. He gathered his Will.  As the gates below faltered, he siphoned off their power as well; every little bit would help for what would come. He reached out through the Heart of Axion, and drank of Occipitus. It was time.  Reveling in his might, the Prince unleashed two epic spells. A massive crack shook the plane, followed by a rumbling that sounded like the end of the world.  At Graz’zt’s bidding the massive white mountain that marked the heart of Occipitus began to shake and tremble, caught in the eddy of the Prince’s Will.  The bleached white exterior of the fiendish pillar began to distort, hardening into grim plates of dull gray metal, marked by bands of jagged spikes and angles sharp enough to cut flesh.  Spires and battlements jutted from the perimeter of the place in no particular pattern.  Every hollow and overhang that could offer even a modicum of shelter from their view grew long, narrow spikes.  The drained pool and tunnel that provided access to the place grew a massive iron door, surrounded by narrow slits that were similarly ringed by sharp edges.  The transformation took all of five seconds.  When it was done, the mound of the skull was completely gone, replaced by an abyssal citadel from the depths of a nightmare. But even as the reverberations of that dramatic alteration echoed across the plain, Graz’zt uttered the words of his second dramatic casting.  The eddies of energy that the Prince had drawn to himself exploded outward in a cascade of sick emerald light that tinted everything upon the surface of Occipitus with its glow.  Graz’zt spread his arms wide, drawing more and more power, screaming with the intensity of it.  Again the spell developed rapidly, with the glow spreading to engulf the entirety of the plane in its radiance within a few seconds.  When it had reached its furthest extent, the Prince drew upon a final reservoir of energy, and rooted the effect to the very fabric of the layer. Graz’zt had set a dimensional lock over the entirety of Occipitus, sealing the plane. Exhausted, the Prince half-drifted, half-fell downward toward the fortress of his creation.  The armored iron roof bristled with spikes that looked ready to arrest his descent by impaling him, but at the last moment an opening appeared, the metal groaning as it gaped open and accepted the falling demon into its embrace.</blockquote>

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