NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 2813619" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 558Having fought through fiendish gargoyles, chasme demons, and a flight of misshapen hordelings to reach the Bastion, now a single huge creature remained to intercept their escape. Mole saw it all, knew what the giant fiend’s intentions were even before the sizzling sound reached her ears.  A great gob of green goop exploded from its mouth, shooting out at her friends.  Lok and Beorna took the full force of the acidic spray, but all of them were hit with at least some of the caustic stuff.  Worse than that, the entire back half of the carpet was splashed, and black smoke began to waft almost immediately from it as the acid quickly did its work.  Almost without thinking, Mole dove toward the monstrous fiend, although it wasn’t immediately obvious what even sneak attacks could do against it.  The thing resembled a lump of stone with arms, legs, and wings, and a tail that extended for a good fifteen feet behind it.  A bony ridge rode down its back, all the way down to the end of its tail, which culminated in a broad bony plate like the head of a shovel.  Its head was a massive oblong lump, dominated with those huge jaws and hooded slits for eyes.  Black spikes jutted from its skull, horns that gave it a vaguely tauran—or draconic—visage.  Gods, it’s ugly, she thought, the sentiment reinforced a second later as she got close enough to smell it. The carpet, still descending rapidly, began to slow, as the acid began burning away not only at the fabric, but at the magical power that animated it.  She saw Arun step to the smoking back edge, his holy sword hissing from his scabbard, surrounding him with a bright golden aura. Mole saw something slither across the back of the giant hordeling.  What in the hells is that?  It looked like a splatter of black mud, only it moved, independent of the rhythmic stretching of the muscles that powered the fiend’s wings.  For an instant, she caught sight of something that might have been a head, and dark slits that held dim red coals for eyes.  Its gaze passed over her for only the barest instant, but it was enough to send a cold chill through her body. Then it looked up at her companions on the carpet.  Something shivered in the space between them, the faintest haze that Mole, no stranger to magic, recognized as a spell or power of some sort. Even as Arun leapt off the carpet, calling upon Cal’s granted flight to carry him forward to intercept the threat, all of his magical wards and protections, including that provided by Cal’s wand, failed. Mole watched in horror as the paladin’s leap became a free fall, with nothing to stop his fall but the horde of eager demons waiting three hundred feet below. Chapter 559The black dragon Nbrathux was a queen among her kind, favored of the god-dragon Tiamat. The drake was already a blight upon the fading world of Karas-dhun when she was summoned to Avernus, the uppermost layer of Baator, by her mistress to serve in her court of power. The honor of the appointment was exceeded only by the potential for even greater power, but Nbrathux was a creature of vast ego, a trait which did not serve her well in the court of that most powerful of dragons.  Nbrathux had barely served two decades in her post before a rival betrayed some indescreet plottings to Tiamat, and the ancient black was cast out in disgrace.  Perhaps as a nod to the black dragon’s chaotic leanings, or maybe as a last ironic punishment, the Queen of Dragons hurled Nbrathux into the Abyss. Unable to return to the Prime of her own devices—her sorceries were potent, but she lacked the ability to plane shift on her own—the dragon spent a desperate year alone in the Abyss, crossing across several layers via portals or through the assistance of powerful demon princelings who lacked the power to slay the dragon, but likewise did not want her dwelling within their realm.  The dragon only narrowly escaped destruction on several occasions.  The power of Nbrathux was considerable even in comparison to the demons that other fiends that populated the dark layers of that plane, but she was alone, compared to millions upon millions of fiends that were not adverse to taking on a superior foe with the advantage of numbers. After the collapse of several temporary alliances with lesser abyssal magnates, the dragon found herself in the company of a fellow band of outcasts, a small company of hordelings that been brought to the Abyss in the service of the dark lord Kotischtche, only to be abandoned when the demon lord’s interest shifted to other matters.  The dragon found the creatures pliant enough to fill the role of servants, and the hordelings in turn were delighted at the power that the dragon added to their cause. If she had chosen to lay low, and given time to establish connections with other powers, the dragon might have been able to survive the Abyss, and even rise to some minor position of notoriety.  As it was, however, the dragon did not even survive her own choice of companions.  The hordelings, chaotic as they were, bristled at the pretentions of their new mistress, and following an unpleasant instance of chastisement, fell upon her in a rage and tore her to pieces. But the dragon’s legacy did not end there.  Perhaps it was perversion, or merely a recognition that her own line was about to end, but before she was slain the dragon mated with several of the fiends.  Hordelings are incredibly fecund; they almost have to be, for their race is prey not only to almost every intelligent and mindless species of the lower planes, but the chaos that they embody also causes them to turn upon themselves as often as not.  Some demonologists theorize that this is due to a profound self-hatred experienced by these unfortunate creatures, but as far as it is known no interrogations with a hordeling have ever been able to prove or disprove that hypothesis. Three children were born of those unions, twisted things that combined the traits of the dragon mother and the unpredictable mutability of the fiendish fathers.  The half-dragons were possessed of certain advantages over their cousins, but were given no special exemption to the hazardous lifestyle practiced within hordeling “society”, and two were quickly slain by their bretheren over assorted trifling offenses. The final scion survived, and even prospered, after a fashion.  The creature was known merely as Nax, and as it grew swiftly to adulthood, it developed talents that set it apart from its kin.  It spent some time on its own, serving in the hosts of several warring nalfeshnee lords upon a layer of the Abyss that was under contest.  This experience allowed it to develop its strength, and soon it was a force to be reckoned with even by the standards of the Abyss.  While demons bore a certain resistance to the acid that the young half-breed could already discharge in copious quantities, their durability did not extend to grabbed and ripped in half, a tactic that Nax quickly perfected.  Its strength was prodigious, but the creature also made a number of enemies.  Its prospects, like those of any unique being in the chaotic Abyss, were quite uncertain. Soon thereafter, it came upon the creature Yavuv. Yavuv had been a babau of no great distinction, one of the countless legions of lesser fiends that infested the Abyss like flies upon a corpse.  It spent four hundred years in the service of the nalfeshnee J’bok’a, until it displeased its master in a serious instance of negligence, allowing one of its rivals to seize a key advantage in their centuries-long on again, off again war.  For a lesser offense, the babau would have merely been obliterated, perhaps to reform as a dretch in a few thousand years, but Yavuv would not be allowed to get off so easily. Demons are masters at the craft of inflicting torment, but Yavuv was doubly unfortunate in that J’bok’a was the owner of several unique powers in this area.  The babau attempted to flee, but was brought before its master, where it was subject to [word].  In other words, the demon’s bones were liquified within its body, leaving it in a permanent state of heaped languor, unable to even rise, and forced to exist in a constant state of intense, penetrating pain.  Having thus chastened its minion, J’bok’a opened a portal to a random layer of the Abyss, and hurled Yavuv through. In this circumstance, a quick demise was the almost certain outcome.  But somehow, in defiance of all the odds of fate, the demon persisted.  Driven nearly insane by the constant agony in which it faced existence, something snapped inside the babau’s mind.  It lost much of what it had been, but in gained something as well, in the form of a rare manifestation of psionic ability.  Perhaps it had been latent in the demon all along… but in any case, even with that gift, the demon only narrowly survived by stealth and trickery.  Despite surviving its altered condition, it was still virtually unable to move under its own power, and even the simple task of standing upright was forever lost to it. Yavuv’s fate would have likely emulated that of Nbrathux, but for a chance encounter with Nax.  The half-dragon was intelligent enough to recognize the benefits that the crippled fiend could offer it, and so began a symbiotic relationship that allowed both creatures, each unusual in its own unique way, to prosper. Shortly thereafter both of the warring nalfeshnees were betrayed to a rival balor, and the pair found themselves free agents.  Yavuv had heard a report of a charismatic new general in the Blood War who was recruiting mercenaries to his banner, and so the two found themselves tying their fate to that of the once-great Prince Graz’zt. * * * * *Dannel knew nothing of this, of course, as he drew an arrow back to his cheek, and took aim at the ascending monstrosity.  Before he could loose, Arun was hit by the targeted dispel magic from the parasite Yavuv, and started to fall.  The elf immediately aborted his shot and channeled the power of his song into a feather fall spell, which enfolded the paladin a scant instant before he fell out of range.  Arun’s descent immediately slowed to a soft drift, but there was still nothing below him but a wave of demons. “Cal!  Bring the carpet around!” Dannel urged.  But the gnome was having difficulty just keeping the magical rug under control, as the acid from Nax’s breath weapon ate away not only at the fabric, but also at the potency of the spell within the device. Beorna didn’t wait.  With wisps of black smoke still rising from the crevices of her armor, she dove head-first off the carpet, plummeting like a stone toward Arun.  Thirty feet away, on the opposite side of the creature, Umbar had also seen the paladin fall, and was only a few paces behind her, both converging on Arun’s drifting form. Mole’s gaze had remained fixed on the parasitic creature clinging to the larger demon’s back, so she saw its head turn, following Beorna’s movement as she dove after Arun.  The gnome did not have to stop to think to know what was about to happen.  Her hand shot into her bag of holding, closed around something familiar.  She didn’t think, she just acted, drawing out the object and hurling it with precision at the demon.  The fat clay flask struck the back of the half-dragon hordeling right along the bony ridge that ran up its back, less than a foot above where the black mass of Yavuv began.  The jar exploded in a white-hot flash of alchemist’s fire, spraying down around his body in the backblast of the hordeling’s powerful wings.  The demon was largely unaffected by the hot fire, protected by its inherent resistances, but Mole had clearly gotten its attention.  As it emerged from the billowing plume of smoke, flames hissing around its misshapen black body, its glowing red eyes fixed hatefully upon the gnome.  Uh oh, Mole had time to think, before the sky suddenly became insubstantial around her, as the magic sustaining her flight dissipated.  She knew what it was like to fall, but somehow, with the ground black with crowded masses of demons three hundred feet below her, the sensation that filled her gut as she looked down was just that much worse. Chapter 560As gravity started to exert its inexorable hold on Mole, there was no time for casual pondering, only desperate action.  The acrobat snapped her body, made a desperate lunge, and grabbed onto the only thing within reach that could possibly arrest her fall. Arun remained calm despite the still-rapid approach of the ground below.  The demons were packing together in a cluster below him, eagerly shrieking in anticipation of tearing him apart.  It seemed like all of the occupants of the canyon were focused on the battle raging above them now, and there continued a sporadic barrage from the half-fiend mercenaries whose violated arrows lanced up at the assorted combatants.  As Arun drifted downward on the feather fall, he drew more of their focus, and soon arrows were plinging off of his heavy armor, seeking the slightest vulnerability to pierce through to the flesh beneath.  He continued to fall, two hundred thirty feet above the ground, two twenty, two ten, two hundred.  The demons could now be individually picked out, masses of skeletal babaus, bar-lgura, black jovocs, half-fiend warriors in red and black plate, hordelings, countless dretches filling ever space between.  A few larger beings, greater demons, in the press, reluctantly granted space by their lesser bretheren.    “Arun!” Beorna cried, drawing the paladin’s attention up.  The templar shot down like a heavy stone, adding the impetus of Cal’s spell to the natural draw of the ground below, streaking down in a barely controlled dive.  Umbar was not far behind her, converging on the paladin’s position.  Arun sheathed his sword, and extended his hand. But even as the templar extended hers to grasp him, Arun was buffeted roughly to the side.  Below, in the crowd, a bar-lgura cackled as the paladin shot thirty feet distant, hovering briefly before he began once more to fall.  The telekinesis attack had one silver lining, as an unholy blight hurled by a hezrou missed him, only briefly catching Beorna on the edge of the effect, who shrugged off the dark power with her divinely-granted mettle. Arun felt more mental thrusts gathering around him, but he gathered his will and resisted the various assaults.  Umbar had shifted his course and now reached for him; Beorna was now behind him, but was hastening to adjust.  A chaos hammer hit them, and a moment later Umbar grunted as an evil arrow pierced the calf muscle on his left leg.  The cleric ignored both pains, and snapped his hand around Arun’s.  A moment later Beorna wrapped her arm around the paladin’s back, the two dwarves cooperating as they lifted Arun toward the summit of the Bastion’s shield wall.  The celestials manning the defenses did their best to cover them, firing arrows or hurling pots of holy water into the massed demons below.  Those attacks wrought heavy damage, but the defenders were few, while the demons and other assorted fiends numbered in the thousands.  For a few moments it looked like they would make it, despite the furious intensity of the missile and spell attacks.  But Arun’s fall had dropped them low enough for the babaus to extend their own power, and the cluster of dwarves were hit by a barrage of general and targeted dispels.  Again the flight granted by Cal’s wand was the weakest link, and the spell upon Umbar failed.  The dwarf started to fall, but Arun still held his hand.  Beorna now found herself supporting both of them, their combined weight overwhelming the potency of the spell upon her, dragging all of them downward. “Let me go!” Umbar urged. Far above them, the battle with the half-dragon hordeling and its warped symbiant raged on.  The Herald’s Voice dove down to meet Nax as it flew up toward the passengers still upon the stricken carpet.  The sword archon let out a clear cry as he challenged the evil thing that was his antithesis, his holy blade taking form before him.  Nax eagerly lunged forward to meet him, but at it extended its long claws, the archon darted inside its reach, slashing at its body with the glowing shaft of force.  The blow opened a long gash in Nax’s body, a bright cut that spewed forth a deluge of putrid black ichor that steamed as it entered the air and fell in fat droplets to the ground below. But the archon paid quickly for its attack, as Nax closed its huge arms, enfolding the celestial and pressing it tight against its body.  The Voice tried to pull free but was caught as the half-dragon’s claws dug into its torso.  One wing snapped, and the creature tore a cry of pain from him as it dipped its massive jaws and bit a chunk out of the celestial’s shoulder.Arrows slammed into the hordeling’s arms and shoulders, as Callendes and Dannel fired off several shots.  The failing carpet was becoming an unstable platform even for Dannel, and he was not able to fall into the rapid-fire sequence of arrows that he typically managed.  Callendes, his wings keeping him aloft as he hovered, was less distracted, but by stopping his movement the avariel made himself a more attractive target.  Before he could release his third arrow, he staggered as a jagged, red-tipped violated arrow slammed into his torso just below his left breast.  The impact, a critical hit, caused the winged elf to falter, and his face twisted with agony with each beat of his wings, as he fought to remain aloft. Lok had paused on the edge of the carpet, knowing that another dispel would turn him into a burden rather than an aid in the ongoing battle.  But it was clear that his bow would not make a significant contribution to this fray, even with his strength, not against foes such as these.  Grimacing, he dropped the bow and drew out Coldburn, the potent greatsword he’d recovered in the stronghold of the Cagewrights under Cauldron.  The blade was damaged, etched with the marks of babau acid, but there was naught to be done for that now.  Stung by the arrows, Nax hurled the broken celestial aside and surged up again toward the carpet, which was losing altitude quickly as it continued toward the wall of the Bastion.  They were still above the level of that fortification’s summit, but they still had more than a hundred feet to cover to reach it, and the carpet continued to smoke as the hordeling’s acidic breath continued its grim work.  Lok disciplined himself to not look down.  Commending himself to fate, the genasi lifted his sword and leapt at the onrushing monster.The hordeling’s powerful movements while it engaged the Voice had caused its tail to lash back and forth wildly.  The small form clinging to the spade-like plate at the end of that appendage was hurled left and right, barely holding on with one hand as the wind whipped crazily around her.  As it dropped the Voice and surged ahead, Mole was finally able to swing herself up and snap her legs around its tail just above that broad tip.  She figured she should do something to hurt it, but at the moment nothing effective seemed to come to mind.  Still, it seemed like a good idea to start climbing up the tail; the bony segments at least would make that task easier.  But when she looked up, she found herself staring right into the eyes of the black thing clinging to the hordeling’s back.  Malice washed over her like a wave, and she heard a sinister voice sound within the depths of her mind.  Let go, that voice said.  The suggestion did not seem to be a very good one, no sirrie, but it was backed with magical compulsion, and she let out a sob as she felt her hands loosening their grip. Don’t listen to it, Mole! came an echoing voice in her mind, a sound familiar and yet not her own.  She shook her head, made an obscene gesture toward the fiend, and with her legs holding her in place, she snapped up her other hand from behind her back, throwing her little knife at it.  The non-magical missile caromed off its head, doing no damage, but she did succeed in pissing it off just that much more.  It responded with another mental attack, but rather than another suggestion, this time a wave of pain exploded through the head of the hard-pressed gnome.  For a moment everything faded into gray around her, and then a memory returned with startling clarity; she was in the Malachite Fortress under Cauldron.  She’d gone there with Zenna and Arun and Ruphos to find the missing children from the orphanage, and she’d climbed up a statue draped with chains.  The chains had been some sort of golem creature, and she’d nearly died there.  The pain now felt exactly as it had back then, and for a moment she nearly threw herself free, before she remembered where she really was.  Grimacing, she looked up at the demon-thing, and snarled one of Hodge’s dwarven curses at it.  She locked her hands around the hordeling’s tail once more, and prepared to climb up to where she could do some damage. Unfortunately, before she could so much as crawl a foot forward, the world suddenly whipped rapidly around her, and she found herself and her perch flying through space at an incredible speed. The hordeling battered Lok with an incredible blow that knocked him roughly aside.  The genasi recovered and started back toward Nax with his sword trailing streamers of flame and ice behind him.  The half-dragon started to turn to face the warrior, but another arrow slammed hard into its shoulder.  It looked up at Dannel in time to take a second hit that caromed hard off its angular forehead, opening a gash above its left eye.  Ignoring Lok, the hordeling pounded its wings, and lunged through the sky, covering the last forty feet or so that separated it from the struggling carpet.  The maneuver gave Lok a chance to get close enough to swing at its torso, but the wound was minor at best, barely grazing its armored hide.  He prepared for an all-out attack, but out of the corner of his eye he saw something sliding across the monster’s back, and caught a glimpse of evil red orbs staring at him that sent a chill down his back. But before either he or Yuvuv could act, Nax spread his wings and spun in mid air.  His left claw swept out and smacked Lok hard across the face, knocking the genasi backward again.  At the same time, its tail came around in a deliberate arc, the plate-like end accelerating with whiplike force until it smacked hard into the flying carpet square in the center of what remained of the fabric. Dannel was standing about a foot from where the tail hit, and went flying like a boulder shot from a trebuchet, his left leg trailing behind him at an obviously unnatural angle.  The carpet snapped around the tail and was yanked with it as the hordeling drew it back.  Finally the ruined scrap of fabric tore free, no longer animated with even a vestige of magic, and it began fluttering toward the ground below, still trailing wisps of black smoke.  Rid of that trouble, the hordeling turned its full attention upon Lok. Of Cal and Mole, there was no sign.</blockquote>

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