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: 2813625" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 561The companions, having fought through the initial waves of demons warding the Bastion, now scattered before the assault of the half-dragon monstrosity Nax and its symbiant passenger, the once-babau Yuvuv.Beorna’s helmet fell from her head as her body tipped downward.  She struggled with all her might to maintain her grip on Arun, but with Umbar attached to the dwarf, she was now essentially trying to carry over five hundred pounds of dwarf, armor, and gear forward.  She was falling, and the relative safety of the Bastion seemed still too far away. “Let me fall!” Umbar shouted again.  The dwarf was trying to pull himself free of Arun’s grip, but the paladin held his hand like a vice.  “I’ll not drag you to your deaths!”“No…” Arun said, between clenched teeth.  He shucked off his shield, which tumbled in the air as it fell, and locked Umbar’s hand in both of his.  “Beorna!” “Too… much!” the templar grunted.  An unholy blight struck them, and she nearly lost it, there.  Emerging from the explosion of dark power, she fixed her eyes on the battlements of the Bastion’s defensive wall.  They were almost level with that line, now, and still losing altitude…Beorna drew focus from deep within her, calling upon that strength that had served her as an outsider, growing up among people different from her.  “HELM!” she said, the syllable startling clear over the chaotic noise of the demons below.  She filled herself with the strength of her patron, and heaved herself up, her own will augmenting the faltering power of Cal’s magic.  With Arun and Umbar trailing below her, she went straight for her target, a gap in the massive merlons that ran along the summit of the wall like a row of perfect white teeth.  More attacks continued to impact them, and several other dispels sought to unravel the tenuous thread of magic that kept them all aloft, and send them plummeting down to certain destruction.  But luck, or determination, or perhaps the benevolent eye of some higher power, protected them.  Her arms felt like they were being torn out of their sockets; that was nothing, an externality beyond the border of her iron discipline.  An arrow pierced her side, sending a wave of nausea through her gut; she ignored it, lost in her solitary focus on her destination.  That was all there was in the world, and she drove for it with all of her being.  The gift of Helm’s strength began to fade, but with a final surge she lifted herself and her passengers up and forward, and the three of them passed between the gap, and over the battlement.  Umbar’s lower body slammed into the lip on the edge of the wall, and he would have fallen, had not Arun yanked him bodily up and over.  Lok and the hordeling exchanged a violent flurry of blows, each seeking to undo each other through sheer physical, brutish power.  Coldburn, backed by the genasi’s phenomenal strength, had opened a pair of gashes in the half-dragon’s body, but in turn Lok’s body had been roughly battered, with several of his armor plates dented seriously in a way that had to be causing him incredible pain with every movement.  But he did not falter, lifting himself up over Nax, intending to descend upon him with a two-handed strike to the head. But that plan was foiled again by Yavuv, who had crept up across the back of its host, and now bent its head up over Nax’s shoulder on its shapeless neck, allowing it to strike the warrior with its power. Once again, the dispel took hold, and Lok faltered.  But the genasi had seen the others fall before him, and as the spell faded, and he started to fall, he shifted his grip and drove Coldburn downward.  His own weight combined with the power of his thrust, and the greatsword tore through the half-dragon’s left thigh, and Lok’s fall abruptly ended, with the genasi dangling tenuously from the hilt of the weapon protruding from the fiend’s body.  Nax screamed, and seized the warrior in both of its claws, tearing him from his uncertain perch.  Those claws had torn apart demons twice the fiend’s size, and now they crushed the genasi’s already battered body.  Lok struggled, tearing one arm free of its grasp, but before he could do more, the hordeling opened its massive jaws again, and blasted Lok point-blank with an incredible spray of conentrated acid.  Chapter 562Mole’s world was comprised of two things; pain, pain that suffused her entire body, and a vague sense of falling.  She couldn’t see anything; she was enfolded in a tight web of fabric that clung to her, wrapping her up tight like a knot of lettuce inside a spring roll.  The comparison was so odd that it shook her out of her mental fugue enough to realize that it might be a very, very good idea to get out of here!  She got her hand on her dagger, and drew the magical weapon, cutting away the cloth holding her at key points, giving her additional freedom of movement.  The fabric—the flying carpet, or what was left of it, she realized—fluttered in several long trails that trailed above her.  Above was the sky of Occipitus.  That meant that below…She slid free, not fully releasing the rug; though depleted of magic, the shredded mass was still slowing her fall, the strands causing friction on the air.  When she looked down, her breath caught in her throat.  Demons, everywhere.  She was less than a hundred feet from the ground now, and just a few seconds from an impact that would be decidedly unpleasant for her.  Most of them would not be able to see her, perhaps, with her ring cloaking her in invisibility, but enough had the ability to pierce that veil to make escape rather unlikely. Oh, damn… she thought, her vision momentarily obscured by a blur in her vision.  Then she grimaced.  Damned if she wasn’t going to go down without a fight, not crying like some kind of… girl! Her confidence thus restored, she started to move, but her attention was drawn upward by a soft fluttering in the air.  There was nothing there, but she grinned nonetheless, and extended her hand, becoming invisible again just as she felt a sudden grip that snagged on her wrist, and she was yanked off the carpet.  She watched with rapt fascination as the remains of the carpet fluttered down into the ranks of the demons, which tore it to pieces in violent frustration.  She was sad to see the flying device destroyed, but it was definitely better than having her still be on it when it landed. The grip holding her was tight, and felt like a claw.  But even polymorphed, she could still recognize the touch of her uncle, and she smiled. Lok’s body was burning agony.  Enough of the acid blast had torn through the slit in his helm that he was effectively blinded, and the only thing he could smell was the stink of his burning flesh mixed with the caustic odor of the acid.  He did not know whether his blindness was temporary, caused by the burning fluid and the sizzling smoke, or whether his eyeballs even now were being transformed into runnels of fluid within their sockets.  The pain was too universal to distinguish.  But the genasi’s perceptions focused on his free hand, which closed around the familiar haft that jutted out under his left arm, across his back.  His ears, which alone of his senses seemed to still be functioning normally, were his guide.  The fiend’s cries echoed within the confines of his helmet, distorting but giving him just enough guidance as he swept his thundering axe up and around.  The timbre of that demonic voice changed as he hit something solid, accompanied by the familiar noise of blood gushing from a vicious wound, and the cacophonous pulse that thrummed through his body as the weapon, empowered by his long-time friend, released its power.  And then he was free, and falling.  “Cal!” Mole shouted, pointing with her free hand at the falling figure before belatedly realizing that she was invisible and couldn’t see it.  The archmage, changed into the form of a small dragon, was not in a position to intervene, but another individual was.  Mole let out a little shout as the Herald’s Voice, his devastating injuries partially healed by his magic, flew up to meet the falling genasi.  Lok could not see him coming, but the archon smoothly intersected his path, falling with him for a hundred feet before he spread his wings and rose, the genasi clutching tight to his muscled frame.  The companions and their allies converged on the shield wall of the Bastion.  Beorna had landed with Arun and Umbar, the three dwarves staggering wearily to their feet as a pair of hound archons assisted them.  Dannel, knocked free of the carpet by the smash of the hordeling’s tail, had recovered enough to fly down to the battlements, assisted by Callendes.  He landed awkwardly on his right leg, the left broken in several places from the impact of the tail smash, but even so it was not clear which of the two was lending more support to the other.  The avariel’s vicious wound still trailed bright blood, and he looked wan, barely able to hold his bow.  Cal and Mole, both invisibile, flew up over the battlement themselves, the gnome dropping free to land easily on her feet.  Finally came the Voice, bearing the crippled genasi warrior. The hordeling was descending on them, injured but still full of fight, Lok’s sword still jutting from its leg.  Those celestials manning the defenses fired missiles up at it, but the wounds they inflicted seemed tiny on its massive frame.  The battered dwarves pulled themselves to their feet and readied weapons, and Dannel leaned against a merlon and fitted a fresh string to his bow, his face twisting with pain with every slight movement.  Mole just looked up in awe, knowing that a colossal collision was about to occur. Nax spread its wings, and extended its lower legs, claws extended.  But a scant second before it would have hit the battlements, it suddenly shrieked and veered off, sweeping aside into a dive that quickly took it out of view. Stunned and mostly intact, the companions limped, crawled, and walked into a circle behind the shelter of the fortress battlements. They had arrived at the Bastion. Chatper 563Benzan came back to consciousness with a pleasant, warm glow suffusing his body, which was always a bad sign. Reluctantly, he lifted his head from where it had fallen across his chest, and opened his eyes.  He saw what he’d expected to see, and dreaded.  Yeela shot him the familiar smirk that he’d learned to hate as she slipped her empty syringe back into its red leather case.  His languor was already fading as the substance she’d injected him with did its work.  Soon, he knew, she would be ready to begin again; she never brought him around unless she was fully rested for another session.  They could last hours, days; by the end he was not in any condition to gauge the passage of time. “Ready to begin again, my pretty?” the lamia said, as always reading his thoughts with uncanny accuracy.  By now, she knew him better than a friend, better than a lover.  She knew things about him that even Dana had no inkling of.  Benzan had no idea how long he’d been in the creature’s “care”, but he suspected it had been a long time, months or even years, perhaps. He tore his gaze away from her, and looked around, more as a gesture of defiance than out of an interest in the chamber.  He already knew every detail, every dangling tool, ever pore in each one of the wooden and metal constructs situated around the perimeter of the room.  He could not see behind him, could not even twist his head beyond a few degrees, but he knew the rack upon which he was currently stretched better than any of them.  Even the splinters that touched his bare arms and legs were mapped in his mind, deviant sensations that Yeela allowed him to feel. The lamia chuckled as she examined her table of implements carefully and deliberately.  That meant that she was allowing him his momentary defiance, and that he would pay for it later.  Benzan was developing an air of fatalism, but he could not help but feel a sense of cloying dread at that.  For all of the ministrations that he’d experienced at the hands of Yeela, she was always able to come up with something new, a new horror that his body and mind could not anticipate, and not adapt to. The lamia lifted an instrument and turned to him.  “Today, I think we will apply ourselves to your manhood.”Benzan’s heart clenched in his chest. The lamia came forward, her claws clacking slightly on the bloodstained stone tiles of the floor, but before she could touch him the door to the chamber swung ponderously open.  Yeela frowned; Benzan knew that she hated interruptions.  Another creature entered the chamber.  Her soft face and slender frame were representations of the ideal of feminine beauty, marred by the charcoal wings that spread out from her back.  She was clad in a clinging outfit that left only just enough to the imagination to add a certain something to the aura of raw sexuality that she radiated like heat from a bonfire.  Something flickered in her eyes, but it might have only been the reflection of the lanterns that danced brightly in them as she entered the room.  Benzan did not know her, but that meant nothing; the succubi changed appearance the way that other creatures changed their clothing.  They’d had their turn with him as well, and their torments, while different in nature than those practiced by Yeela, were no less destructive to body, mind, and soul. But he was helpless to intervene in any case, so he merely observed, grateful for even a few moments of relief from the lamia’s attentions.  Yeela shot him a knowing glance, as if to promise him that he would come to regret that feeling, then she turned toward the newcomer. “Welcome, my dear Kireen,” the lamia said, although Benzan could tell that she was anything but welcoming.  Some demons practiced torture as a performance art, but Yeela was different, enjoying the solitary bond that existed between the torturer and victim.  “What brings you down to the cells this day?”“The Great Lord has an interest in this one, Yeela.  I was commanded to look in on him, from time to time.”The lamia flicked her wrist in a gesture of annoyance.  “I am following the Master’s mandate to the letter, with this one,” she said.  “I do not need anyone second-guessing my skill.”The succubus spread her hands before her in a conciliatory gesture.  “I certainly did not mean to challenge your admirable proficiency in the art,” she purred.  “In all honesty, I would as soon attend to my own concerns, but with the Master gone…”Benzan perked up slightly at that.  Graz’zt had left the citadel?  He didn’t know whether he considered that good or bad news, but it gave his starved mind something to turn around.  The lamia chuckled.  “Your whelp is off at the Master’s side now…  He has come far fast, but it should be interesting to see how he fares at the forefront of events.  Prestige is a double-edged sword, especially when it comes to the intrigues among the great ones.”The succubus’s mouth tightened into the barest hint of a scowl, just for a moment.  But she quickly mastered herself, and turned to Benzan.  “He does not look to be lucid,” she said, examining him with the expert eye of one seasoned to pain. “Oh, he’s awake,” the lamia said, turning to her tools.  The moment she’d shifted around enough to take her eyes off of Kireen, the succubus twisted her wrist, and a short white rod, perhaps two and a half feet in length, appeared in her hand.  The demoness pointed it at Yeela and spoke a word of power.  Benzan felt a screaming sound rip through him as a sonic evocation, maximized by the white rod, erupted in the confines of the small chamber.  Clinging to consciousness, he saw that Yeela was much worse off; she’d taken a direct hit, and blood poured down her body where blood vessels had exploded through her flesh. But the lamia was a durable creature.  Snarling, trails of bright red blood draining from her nostrils and ears, Yeela snatched a jagged hook-edged blade from the table and lunged at the succubus.  Kireen ducked back with superhuman agility, but could not avoid a gash that drew a bright red line across her belly.  Yeela lifted the weapon to strike again, but before she could stab the knife down into her attacker’s chest the succubus fired off another sonic at point blank range.  This time, the world exploded in a surge of red, and Benzan lost consciousness.</blockquote>

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