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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 2813603" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 552Cal, holding two wands in his left hand, started rapid-firing buff spells onto his companions.  With the entire plane locked to summonings and his shadow-spells, the gnome knew that his best contribution to the battle would be in the form of magical enhancements.  As the others watched the demons spread out into an attack formation—or rather two, as the vrocks and chasmes were definitely not working in concert—the gnome cast fly on each of them with his wand, followed by magic circles against evil from the second wand upon Arun, Umbar, Lok, and Beorna.  He followed that up with a cat’s grace upon Beorna. Beorna used an align weapon spell upon the arrows in Dannel’s quiver; her own borrowed axe got a bless weapon.  She then infused herself with divine favor.  Umbar did the same, and put a few ability enhancements upon himself and the other companions, including an owl’s wisdom on Lok.  “Shoot straight, elf,” he said. As the demons closed to a few hundred feet Dannel started opening fire.  The carpet was not the most stable firing platform, and it was moving to boot, but the elf easily adjusted, targeting the left wedge of chasme demons.  His first shot hit, striking a chasme solidly in the torso. “Cal?” Arun said, tightening his grip on his hammer. “Go!” he said, casting a haste that empowered all of them.  He didn’t stop there, and as the paladin, Umbar, and Lok all lifted up off the carpet, forming a defensive wedge, he was already continuing with his second round of buffs, casting displacement on Dannel, and then shrouding him with greater invisibility.  Normally such layered wards would be superfluous, but Cal suspected that the chasmes, at least, could see invisibility.  And keeping Dannel active would be key to surviving this battle, he thought. “C’mon uncle, I need that greater invis you promised…” Mole said, as Cal surrounded himself with mirror images.  He’d elected to stay visible, for this battle, because with his spells either cast or unusable, he’d be more effective as a target and distractor.  He slid his buffing wands into the case at his hip, drawing another out with a smooth motion.  He had almost a dozen of the magical devices in his inventory, but the magical case provided the one he wanted each time with a simple command; in this case his wand of enervation. “I’ll get to you in a moment, Mole,” he said, launching into another spell.  What he didn’t tell her was that he feared that she would not be able to resist the buzz of the chasmes, and would be easily carried off by the foul demons.  The two wings of chasmes had slid around the vrocks, ignoring their angry shrieks as they buzzed down toward the companions.  Arun, Umbar, and Lok rose to meet them, hoping to keep them far enough away so that their buzzing would not impact those on the carpet below.  At least the rivalry between the two groups of demons had aided them in one respect; none of the vrocks had hesitated to call mirror images.  That would probably change once the battle was joined, however. The first chasme faltered and plummeted downward, several of Dannel’s arrows jutting from its body.  Beorna had unlimbered her own heavy bow, keeping her axe close beside her, but her own shots were largely ineffective against the demons’ damage resistance.  But six chasmes from the second wing detached and shot around the defensive wedge of warriors, clearly coming for those on the carpet.  The first was hit by an arrow that nearly exploded through its body, a critical hit that dropped the foul demon like a rock to splatter on the ground below.  The elf’s barrage continued and a second likewise fell out of formation, its wings still fluttering as its claws tore at the two shafts jutting from its face. Cal directed the carpet into a wide turn that would keep them fairly close to the defending warriors above, firing off an enervation that lanced into one of the chasmes, draining some of its life-energy.  “Uncle Cal!” Mole urged, all but hopping as she casually fired off a bolt from her little crossbow that had no effect. The three flying companions felt a soft wave of tiredness wash over them as the chasmes dove at them.  But their wills, bolstered by their own dedication and Cal’s magic circles, let them fight off the deadly lull of the chasmes’ buzzing.  The three formed a tight formation, protecting their flanks and letting the demons come to them.  The demons tried to break that defensive knot with sheer force, several of them bashing their fat bodies into the smaller dwarves, but each time they were rebuffed by shields or raised weapons.  Their drones became screeches of frustration and pain as the companions’ weapons lashed out in a violent counter, and the fly-demons fell in clumps to the ground below.  Seven went down in that initial flurry. “Fine, I’ll use my own ring then!” Mole said, impatient at the delay that was keeping her from joining the battle.  But before she could use her ring of invisibility, the chasmes came close enough for the power of their drone to impact those upon the carpet.  “I’ll show those… bas…” Mole managed, before she slumped unconscious to the fabric.  Cal finally made her invisible then, sliding her into the center of the carpet, right next to where he was standing.  He himself resisted the droning, along with Beorna and Dannel with his augmented willpower. The four demons dove eagerly at the companions, their vicious claws outstretched.  They must have empowered themselves to see invisibile objects, or maybe they’d pinpointed where the arrows killing them had come from; either way, they made a beeline for Dannel.  Beorna intercepted the first with a powerful blow from her axe that clove deeply into its body, knocking it aside from its target.  A second tore through empty space, fooled by Cal’s displacement.  The third did manage to get through the elf’s defenses, digging an ugly gash across his temple with its claw, but as its momentum carried it past it took a blast from Cal’s wand of enervation, draining it.  The fourth demon never got close enough to attack, as Dannel unleashed a full barrage of arrows into it at point-blank range.  Lok, Arun, and Umbar continued shredding the chasmes that dared to press their attack.  More were unleashing spell-effects now, hitting the defenders with circles of nausea and waves of grief.  Arun’s hammer shone with golden light, however, and again most of the fell magic of the demons dissipated against that radiance.  The dark energies that did get through failed to overcome the grim determination of the three warriors.  The surviving demons fell back, overcome by the ferocity of the defense.  But the vrocks were right behind them, and now they descended upon the distracted warriors with terrible effect.  Far stronger than the chasmes, they slammed into the defenders with powerful force.  Several unleashed powerful screeches, and while Arun and Lok were able to resist their potency, Umbar was momentarily overcome.  A moment later a vrock caromed into him like a falling boulder, knocking him out of his place in their formation, demon and cleric intertwined as they descended rapidly toward the ground below.  But Lok and Arun had their own problems, as eight vrocks swarmed over them from forward, above, and below, tearing and slashing with their long talons. Above, two small groups of vrocks had already begun the intertwined pattern of their dance of ruin. Caught up in the intensity of the battle, neither side noticed the shadowy forms that appeared in the air high overhead in the distance, approaching swiftly from the direction from which the chasmes had appeared earlier. Chapter 553Caught up in his song, firing aligned arrows from a bow empowered to slay fiends, Dannel created a storm of death around the magic carpet.  The two chasmes that had assailed him quickly recovered and dove at him again, hoping to take advantage of the momentary distraction offered by their fallen comrade, and by the one that Beorna was still fighting at the front of the carpet.  But Dannel spun suddenly, an arrow seeming to jump into his string as he drew and fired.  The first chasme, already weakened by Cal’s enervation, took an arrow right through its left eye socket and fell.  The second attacked, but by the time it realized it had again been mislead by the elf’s displacement, long shafts were already piercing its body, one even passing through it to continue its flight off across the plain.  “Above!” Cal warned, bending to slap Mole’s cheeks, hoping to rouse his niece in time to deal with the next threat.  The companions looked up to see Arun and Lok surrounded by a veritable explosion of wings and claws, the two warriors almost invisible within the nest of swarming vrocks.  Umbar was falling, a vrock grappling with the cleric.  Above they could see at least two formations of dancing vrocks, and that still left another half-dozen, several of which were already coming around toward their position.  At least two, he saw, had now taken the time to call upon their mirror images, which suggested they’d taken at least a clue from the decimation of their rivals at the hands of the companions.  “Incoming!” the gnome added, in case the others hadn’t all seen the threat.  As Mole groaned, coming around, he shot off an enervation, but his streak ended as the beam disintegrated against a vrock’s spell resistance. Lok and Arun came together, back to back, and fought off the vrock horde.  They were truly surrounded, but if they cared, they did not show it.  They fought together like warriors who had campaigned at each others’ sides for years on end, covering their flanks, and turning in unison to unleash truly awesome blows into the attacking demons.  Arun’s hammer slammed into the face and torso of a vrock, each blow crushing demonic bones, until the fierce thing had become a mangled ruin.  Even as it fell back, Lok disembowled a second vrock, tearing its body open with a pair of violent swings of his axe.  The few surviving chasmes chittered angrily around the perimeter of the melee, denied their victims by the vrocks, but there might have been the smallest hint of relief in those cries, given how quickly their kin had been savaged by this pair.  Umbar recovered from being stunned to find a flapping vrock in his face, driving him rapidly downward.  The cleric concentrated momentarily upon his fly spell, slowing his descent greatly.  He brought his hammer up, but the vrock seized it, holding it in its claws, while its sharp beak snapped at his helm, splatting his face with foul-smelling spittle.  The thing was phenomenally strong.  But Umbar Ironhammer was a consecrated priest of Moradin, and as such he could call upon the power of the forge to crush his enemies.  “Burn in the righteous fire of the All Father!” he shouted, slamming his gauntlet into the demon’s chest, unleashing an inflict critical wounds into it.  The demon shrieked and released the dwarf’s hammer—a mistake, as it turned out, as the cleric drove the axiomatic weapon into the back of its neck, snapping its spine. Thus far the battle had been heavily one-sided; only Dannel had been seriously injured, and the gash on his forehead from the chasme’s claw, although it continued to ooze blood, wasn’t immediately life-threatening.  But as the demons brought their numbers to bear, the situation quickly evolved.  Lok and Arun came under heavy attack, both from the claws of the vrocks, and from a cloud of spores that found the gaps in their armor and begun digging into their bodies.  One of them grappled with Arun, immobilizing his weapon arm with a solid grip, while the one opposite grabbed onto his body, driving its claws through the layered plating covering his gut into the muscled flesh beneath.  Lok likewise took several telling hits, although he avoided being grabbed. The defenders upon the carpet likewise found themselves suddenly beset.  Having dispatched the last chasme, Dannel lifted his bow to target the diving vrocks.  But before he could release his arrow, a stunning screech from one of the vrocks staggered him, and he fell, dropping his bow.  Cal, likewise, reeled.  Beorna hacked at one of the vrocks, but managed only a glancing blow as all six of the demons landed on the carpet, their weight driving it quickly down to the ground below.  Meanwhile, less than a hundred feet above, the demons continued their dances of ruin.  Sparks of energy began to flare around the twisting circles, rising now to a building crescendo. Arun had briefly caught a glimpse of the vrocks driving the flying carpet down to the ground.  “We’ve got to take out those dancers!” he said, grunting as a vrock claw caught him squarely in the middle of his face.  Were it not for his helm, the blow would have taken both of his eyes.  The paladin tore free from the demon holding his arm, and launched upward, the energy of Cal’s spell carrying him upward.  As he passed out of the ring of vrocks he took several attacks of opportunity, but shrugged off the painful claws that snagged momentarily on his limbs.  Lok was already ahead of him, and behind them came the vrocks, eager to finish off their foes.  Again the two cooperated in concert, splitting in unspoken agreement as Lok shot toward the rightmost cluster of dancing demons, while Arun rose toward the ones on the left.  But breaking free of the grapple had taken a few precious seconds, and as Arun ascended slowly toward the gyrating circle of demons, he sensed that he would not be in time.  Chapter 554Dannel felt a blaze of pain in his gut as a vrock stumbled over him, the demon nearly falling before a flap of its wings recovered its equilibrium.  Quickly sensing that it had an invisible foe nearby, it lunged at him with its claws.  Dannel tried to roll away, out of its grasp, but a claw snagged on his cloak, and the demon eagerly seized upon it.  A few feet away, Beorna and Cal were coming under heavy attack.  The templar swept a powerful blow toward one, but managed to hit only mirror images.  Cal fired a blast from his wand at another, but once again the attack was foiled by spell resistance.  The demons, on the other hand, proved quite effective in their assault, with Cal’s foe getting lucky, scoring a hit through the gnome’s own shifting nimbus of images.  Only his quick leap back saved him from being grappled and borne down.  Beorna drew more attention, with several vrocks leaping at her, trying to flank her.  Vrock spores filled the air, and the companions soon had to struggle with the agonizing pain of the burrowing tendrils.Dannel tried to shake out of his cloak, as the demon quickly dug his claws up its length, trying to find its owner’s head.  The demon let out a triumphant cackle as a claw brushed his cap, but then it let out a screech of pain and staggered, allowing him to pull free.  Dannel rolled off the carpet, grabbing his bow as he went.  Another vrock heard his movements and leapt at him, but it misjudged his position, and its attack caught only empty air.  The arcane archer called upon his song, and as it filled him and his bow he made the demon pay for its error. The one that had grabbed Dannel did not follow; it had its hands full with Mole.  Shrouded by her uncle’s greater invisibility, she could spring in and out to unleash sneak attacks upon it with impunity, easily avoiding its attempts to grab her.  Frustrated, the demon lifted itself six paces into the air, and summoned mirror images to defend itself.  That was fine with Mole, who shot the one threatening Dannel with a bolt that found a nasty spot in its backside.  The vrock barely had time to screech in protest before the elf finished it with a final arrow to the chest.  As Umbar took down his foe, hovering a mere two paces above the ground, he started almost at once flying back up to rejoin Lok and Arun in the melee.  But he saw the vrocks force his allies down upon the carpet, only about forty feet from his current position.  His first instinct was to preserve the Chosen, but almost at once he felt the hard grip of Duty settle upon him.  He started toward that melee, but had barely covered half the distance when a pair of chasmes, survivors from the earlier melee, descended upon him, forcing him to defend himself.  Both hit him with spell-powers, and one did manage to finally shear him of his temporary ability of flight with a targeted dispel, dropping him to the ground ten feet below.  The other weakened him with a ray of enfeeblement, but the cleric stood his ground, blasting the nearer of the pair with a ray of searing light that penetrated its spell resistance and scorched its ugly hide.      High above the battlefield, Lok slammed into one of the vrock dances.  Knowing that he could not likely kill one in a single blow, his tactic instead was to bull rush one of the demons, slamming it with his shield and taking it bodily out of the circle.  His effort was successful, in that it broke up the demonic ritual.  Unfortunately, however, the three demons immediately leapt upon him, joining the three coming up from below to surround him in a surge of violence.  As Arun looked up at his own target, he caught sight now of the shadowy figures in the air above, pale white streaks like clouds coming forward at great speed.  As he wondered what new threat this might portend, the insubstantial aura around the figures parted, and they resolved into a quartet of newcomers.  The one in the center drew the paladin’s gaze; a glorious figure of a man, clad in a white breastplate, with white wings spreading from his shoulders in lieu of arms.  The others, he saw, included a pair of winged elves carrying longbows, and a mechanical half-man, half-horse creation that he recognized as a zelekhut, an inevitable.  The newcomers appeared to recognize the greatest danger at once, directing an immediate assault upon the vrocks engaged in their dance of ruin.  The sword archon hit them with the reverberating energies of an order’s wrath.  The vrocks shrieked, blasted by the lawful potency of the spell, but they resisted the dazing side-effects of the wrath, and did not halt their ritual.  But the arrows of the two winged elves succeeded where their comrade’s word of power had failed, as white-fletched holy missiles transformed one of the dancing vrocks into a pincushion, scoring five hits, including a critical hit that pierced its throat, putting an end to its chant and its life.  Arun’s pursuers and the surviving two demons from the dance let out a terrible cacophony, and shot up toward the celestials, ignoring the paladin in the face of their hatred of their traditional foes.  Arun smashed one with his hammer as it passed, but it ignored him, flying like an arrow toward the archon.  The majority of Lok’s foes likewise disengaged and turned toward these new enemies, leaving only a pair that continued to press their attack against the genasi. The zelekhut released spiked chains from its wrists as it descended to block the vrocks’ charge at the sword archon.  The inevitable tried to hold a vrock, unsuccessfully.  The demons looked like they would just try to slip past it, but when it lashed one of its chains around the neck of a vrock, the demon fell upon the construct, its claws tearing deep goughes in its metallic hide.  Upon the ground below the arial battle, the companions continued to find themselves pressed hard by the surviving demons.  Beorna wielded Arun’s adamantine axe, blessed with Helm’s power, as if she’d borne the weapon her entire life.  Each blow tore deep into demonic flesh, and as one went down hard in a thrashing heap, her backswing caught another solidly in the side, sundering a rib.  That seemed to drive the demon into an even greater fury, and as it lunged at her, a third flew down almost atop her back, trying to tear her helmet off her head.Cal, meanwhile, was assailed by his enemy, which chased after him, tearing at his mirror images.  Each hit upon a false gnome caused the image to disappear.  Cal shot it with a ray of exhaustion from another wand, but again the device failed against the vrock’s resistance.  The demon slashed through a pair of images before it pounced upon one of only two remaining instances of the archmage.  Cackling as its claws dug into solid matter, it tried to snap up the gnome in its arched beak. Cal, finding himself in a sticky situation, didn’t stop to think.  Instinct took over, and magic flowed through him.  Intellectually, he knew that his maze spell could not function within the dimensional lock, as it relied upon an extradimensional portal.  But as the power flowed through him he… tweaked it, channeling the flow into a different outlet. Silver fire erupted from his hands, pouring over the vrock.  The demon, more than a little surprised, dropped Cal as the arcane fire savaged it.  Its resistances were of no avail as the flow of liquid energy tore into its body.  It wasn’t enough to kill it, but it gave the gnome a moment to react, which he used to dart out of its reach.  The demon recovered quickly, and beat its wings furiously as it leapt after the gnome.  Cal didn’t retreat this time.  Again he called upon the power of his magic, this time deliberately directing his greater shadow evocation into another blast of arcane fire.  This time the demon’s head was engulfed in the flame, and although it was able to lash out at Cal, striking him a glancing blow to the head with a claw, the demon’s time had come to an end.  Cal recognized it, too. “Time’s up, pal,” he said, a moment before the first arrow slammed hard into its back. The sword archon held its ground against the vrock charge, calling down a flame strike that swept through a dense knot of the vulture demons.  Two that were already injured plummeted to the ground below, charred and blackened by the holy evocation.  But the others eagerly swarmed upon the celestial, tearing at his arms and wings with their claws.  Another went down, pierced by arrows from the elven bowmen.  The archon maintained a look of calm even as the demons tore deep gashes in his limbs.  He looked helpless before them, but then something flared in his eyes, and a white glow formed in front of him; a plane of wispy energy that took on the shape of a sword.  The archon swept this insubstantial weapon before him, and where it intersected with a demon, corrupt flesh was torn asunder.  Demons died, but this only drove the remaining ones into a fury, intent upon taking at least this celestial with them.  But then Arun reached the melee, and put an end to those hopes.  Even as the battle began to wind down, the demons did not attempt flight or retreat.  The two winged elves joined with Dannel in putting down the stragglers with precise shots, knocking down the last vrocks fighting Lok and Beorna, and the chasmes that menaced Umbar.  The only casualty was the zelekhut, which they found entangled with the vrock that had killed it, bloody gears strewn around the spot where the two combatants had hit the ground.  The surviving celestials lowered themselves to the ground slowly, along with Arun and Lok, joining the others near the grounded flying carpet.  The sword archon brushed Arun with his wings, healing him of his injuries.  Cal and Beorna were already tending likewise to the others.  “We’re glad to see you guys,” Mole offered, as the archon, his limbs still trailing blood, landed and walked up to them. “Yeah, we were starting to think that demons were all that were left here,” Dannel said. “Saureya sends his respects,” the archon said.  “I am the Herald’s Voice.  These are Abrigen and Callendes, of the avariel,” he added, indicating his two companions.  The two winged elves inclined their heads slightly in greeting, but they did not shift their wary gazes from the surrounding landscape.  They resembled sun elves from Faerûn, but one look at them was enough to indicate the celestial influences in their heritage. “What is the situation?” Arun asked.  “Graz’zt has launched an all-out invasion of Occipitus,” the Voice reported.  “The initial wave came via five temporary gates through which approximately four hundred demons, most capable of teleport, came through.  We were able to neutralize two of the gates almost immediately, but the demons were surprisingly coordinated, and were able to quickly annihiliate the majority of our patrols.  Realizing that the attack was a prelude to a full invasion, Saureya ordered all forces to fall back to the Bastion, where we have established a final line of defense.”“The Bastion?” Dannel asked.  “I don’t remember that from our last visit.”“A few things have… changed.  The Bastion of Helm was created through the will of the Herald.”“The Herald… do you mean Morgan?”“That is the name by which you knew him,” the celestial acknowledged.“I think that there is a lot going on here that we do not fully understand,” Cal said.  “I think we need to…”“Incoming demons,” one of the avariel said, interrupting the gnome.  All eyes turned to mirror the winged elf’s gaze.  Their eyesight did not match the acuity of the avariel, but they could see the long black line, writhing slightly, upon the horizon roughly in the direction of the central spire. “We do not have time,” Arun said.  “Can you get us back to the Bastion?”“There is a demonic army between us and it, in the canyon,” the Voice said calmly.  “But their arial superiority has been heavily diminished, and while additional forces are mashalling at the Skull, we may be able to slip through.  Abrigen, wind walk back to the Bastion, and inform Saureya that we will be coming through.”  The avariel nodded, and began shifting back to the insubstantial form they had worn when first arriving upon the scene. “I regret that I do not have another spell prepared to transport you, but Callendes and I will escort you upon your conveyance.”“How many demons are we talking about altogether?” Umbar asked, as the companions gathered back upon the carpet.  Beorna and Arun did their best to get as much of the demon corpses off it as they could, but it was clear that the device was going to need a thorough cleaning once they were through here.  “Our reconnaissance is hindered by the lock that has been laid upon the plane,” the Voice said.  “Neither we celestials nor the demons can teleport at will.  In essence, we have been reduced to a conventional army, to a campaign the likes of which you mortals may be familiar.”“Best guess,” Umbar persisted. “It would appear that the Shadow Lord has committed the majority of his remaining forces to this action.  Approximately fifty thousand demons.”For a long moment, there was only silence.</blockquote>

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