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: 2842598" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 593Mole felt a stinging pain that cut through the haze that had fallen over her senses.  She remembered coming up here to the room where they’d battled the lich; the nexus had been gone, that she’d noticed at once.  The place seemed otherwise empty, although the darkness… well, there was something odd about it.  She’d started to investigate, but then, the ground where she’d stepped had suddenly started to glow.  She glanced down—mistake!—and saw something inscribed there, some sort of symbol…After that, it was all kind of vague.  Someone had said something to her, and she’d done what it said, standing there in the middle of the room, serving as bait…The pain came again, hitting her with as much force as the realization of what had happened.  That symbol had been a spell!  But she had a more immediate problem, as another gash cut through her shirt, slicing deep into her arm.  And it was hot, too.  Really, really hot. She was standing in the middle of a blade barrier, with a wall of roaring flames right behind it, sizzling hot against her back. “Oh, crap!” She leapt forward, and found herself in the midst of chaos.  There were four—no, five Bad Guys, she saw… no wait, Bad Gals, looked like—what was up with that lady with the wings?  Later…  There was Arun, being beat on by a number of the Bad Gals.  He didn’t have his hammer, for some reason; that might explain why he was looking as badly off as he did.  A few of the others were hanging back, spellcasting.  Beorna was on the ground, imprisoned by some sort of metal wrappings.  Mole saw a blue-skinned woman running at Arun.  The gnome leapt into a forward somersault and came down charging, her little rapier snicking out of its scabbard.  With a battle cry—or a gnomish approximation of one—she bounced into the air, her rapier extended ahead of her like a spearpoint toward the duelist’s face.  The genasi smoothly sidestepped, and Mole went flying past.  The gnome flipped forward and landed in a roll, her momentum slowing until she came back up to her feet about seven feet away.  Arun grabbed the long strand of the whip that connected him with the succubus, but drew his hand back as the long barbs dug through his gauntlet into his hand.  His neck felt like it was on fire, but the rest of his body was starting to feel numb.  The wounds inflicted by the duelist’s weapon continued to throb.  Even with the bolstering power of order’s wrath filling him, he knew that he could not take much more punishment.  “Give up, warrior,” the demon hissed at him, the words backed up by the power of another magical suggestion.  “Yield, and you will be shown mercy.”  The barbs in the wounds around his neck twisted, as if promising him a dire alternative.  “Not bloody likely,” Arun growled, resisting the effect.  Avellos had used his backup weapon, an adamantine battleaxe; they never did find the weapon after the violent melee with the maws.  That left him only a non-magical light hammer.  Well, that would suffice, if need be.  The paladin started toward the succubus, but was drawn up short as the water genasi returned, stabbing him deep in the side with her sai.  Arun grunted and turned, too slow to avoid a second blow that rang hard against his helmet, narrowly missing one of the narrow slots that would have meant big trouble. “Arun!  Heads up!” He looked up to see a welcome sight; his holy avenger, flying right toward him.  Mole’s move against the genasi had not been an attack at all, but rather had placed her directly at the spot where the blessed weapon had fallen.  The genasi’s sai shot out to intercept the warhammer, but she was just an instant too slow.  Arun’s fist closed around the haft and brought it down in one motion.  The genasi saw it coming and tried to get out of the way, but the hammer clipped her—hard—on the side of the jaw, and she twisted into a spiral that ended with her on the floor, coughing up blood.  The lamia came forward again, intent upon finishing off Beorna once and for all.  But she was distracted by a low rumbling, which became a roar of battle as Lok exploded through the layered blade barrier and the wall of fire.  Ignoring the painful effects of both, he charged into the lamia.  The fell creature darted back and to the side, but could not avoid a slash that tore deep into her shoulder.  She stepped back and hit Lok point-blank with a violated cone of cold.  The white blast, infused with swirling black tendrils of negative energy, enveloped the genasi, covering him from view for a long second.  The angle of the cone intersected the wall of fire beyond, causing a violent explosion of gray steam that engulfed most of the chamber, instantly dropping visibility to only a few feet. But the lamia L’haxia did not get a chance to appreciate the consequences of her action, for the next thing she saw was an axe that exploded out of her cone, followed by the frost-rimed form of the armored genasi.  There was no time for any more spells as the warrior slammed that axe into her torso, once, twice, then once more again. And then it was done. The succubus snarled as the steam hit her, hiding the battlefield from view.  The noxious, tainted vapors offered no threat to her, of course, but the concealment offered by L’haxia’s foolish action provided a tactical advantage to their foes.  But she still had a connection to one of them, at least, as she drew the taut strand of her whip toward her. The dwarf paladin appeared, his golden warhammer ready to strike.  He swept the weapon around in an arc that caught the succubus solidly in the stomach.  The holy power of the weapon drove her back, and she crumpled, falling into a crouch.  But she did not release her grip on the whip, and when she looked up again, an unholy smile appeared on her face as she licked her bloody lips.  “A solid blow, champion of Good,” she said, drawing out a long black blade the size of a shortsword from a shealth strapped to her right thigh.  Arun lifted his hammer again, but before he could strike, the succubus blackguard beat her wings and lunged forward, stabbing the sword into Arun’s chest, smiting him.  The cursed steel pierced his breastplate, piercing the flesh beneath, entering his lung.  Blood spurted from the wound, covering the succubus’s hand.  With a feral look on her face, she wrenched the weapon free.  Arun staggered back, his hammer falling from his hand, but the demoness gave her whip a hard yank, and the paladin fell on his face at her feet. “Evil triumphs,” she hissed, lifting the sword to finish him.</blockquote>

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