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: 2851108" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 595Flying demons screamed as they circled the Iron Skull, their cries amplified by the loud din coming from below, where the press of thousands of their kin pressed around the base formed a scene of pure chaos.  Hundreds of demons had already perished trying to force their way through Cal’s prismatic wall, and the attempts of others to tear away enough of the mountain to get around it had likewise failed.  Demons hung impaled from the spikes that jutted from the fortress, and others lay trampled into the ground, crushed by their own kind.  Order was threatening to break down entirely among the ground-based majority of the demon horde, with even the nalfeshnees appointed by Graz’zt barely able to assert any kind of order among the gathered mass.  The heavily armored enforcers had created a perimeter around the entrance for now, their dictat enforced by the jagged weapons of abyssal steel that they brandished.  Within that circle the higher-order demons continued to work at the barricaded entrance, although it looked as though nothing would be entering until the wall’s duration expired.A new figure appeared in the sky above the fortress, flying fast from the direction of the Bastion.  A wing of demons ascended to meet it, ready for battle, but they withdrew when the newcomer got close enough for them to identify.  A few shouted queries at the intruder, but he ignored them all, flying directly toward the summit of the Skull. Malad, mounted upon a fiendish griffon, descended upon that jagged peak.  Once there had been an opening here, the Smoking Eye from which plasms had risen into the roiling sky.  That had ended with the defeat of Adimarchus, and now with the ascendancy of Graz’zt the opening too was gone, sealed by an implacable barrier of iron.  There wasn’t even a clear place to land, as spikes and jagged ridges protruded everywhere from the fortress’s apex.  Malad barked an order to his mount, and as the creature hovered he leapt free, using his own powers to carry him safely down to a precarious perch on a jutting ledge ringed with spikes.  The tiefling bent into a crouch, and ran a hand along the rough surface of the structure.  He felt a momentary sting as a small jutting edge sliced open his hand; there was nowhere on the Skull that was truly safe.  But the sorcerer’s focus was on other things, and he barely felt the pain as his blood oozed out over the metal. I cannot feel Him, he thought.  He closed his eyes and extended his perceptions, letting Synesyx feed him sensory input that went beyond what even his augmented senses could discern.  But he did not detect anything more than the obvious and potent energies of Occipitus itself, which was focused on this place.  Could that overwhelming aura be masking the presence of Graz’zt.  Of one thing he had no doubt; the intruders from the Prime were here, inside the Skull.  Malad doubted they had already found his Master; that he would have felt, no matter what the distance or intervening obstacles filled the space between them. The tiefling felt a tingle and shifted his attention to a particular spot.  Idly he nodded; as always the sentience within his armor had anticipated his thoughts. He spread his arms and rose slowly into the air.  The griffon, sensing that something unpleasant was about to occur, immediately lifted off and flew away.  A number of the flying demons had also begun to circle immediately overhead, curious about what was happening. Malad seemed to vibrate with power, and the air around his hands began to shift and distort.  The tiefling did not waste time reveling in his magic; unlike his dark lord, he was much more practical in his application of power.  He flung one, then a second, sonically-substituted fireball at the spot that Synesyx had indicated, where a seemingly impenetrable iron plate buttressed a squat, uneven tower.  The structure jutted from the top of the skull like a wart, and seemed to have no purpose, lacking both windows and doors to the interior.  But one familiar with Occipitus might recognize its location as perched atop what had once been a gaping opening in the skull, the “smoking eye” that had been the plane’s most recognizable landmark. The echoes of the blast exploded through Occipitus’s turbulent sky.  Demons shrieked and drew further back, confused.  Malad did not cease, firing off a sonic chain lightning that ran along the perimeter of the bulkhead, and then another sonic blast, and then another chain lightning. The air around the target point was rippling with the distortions released by the tiefling magic, but the surface of the Iron Skull resisted the assault. Malad began to slowly drift downward, firing off more blasts as he descended.  Three more sonic explosions, and his last chain lightning, and then a rapid-fire stream of sonic rays that ended with him almost atop the bulkhead, blasting it at point-blank range.  Blood was streaming down the tiefling’s face from his nostrils, as the backlash from the released energy washed over him.  But the sorcerer’s expression was focused entirely upon the spot that he was hitting, pouring destructive magic against the iron bulkhead.  And the metal was clearly reaching its breaking point.  The bulkhead was crushed inward, the iron rivets holding it in place twisted and cracked.  A loud and ominous creak that sounded even over the energy of the sonics rose from deep within the structure, as the weight of the tower above began to exert an additional pressure upon the ravaged iron plate.  Malad fired off one last sonic, so close that he almost have stretched out to touch it.  The bulkhead exploded inward, vanishing into the darkness beyond.  The creaking noise became an angry screaming, as the full weight of the tower superstructure began to tilt over the new gap.  Malad did not hesistate, vanishing into the void.  A number of demons, watching the entirely scene, dove after him.  A pair of vrocks reached the dark gap at almost the same instant, which was also the same moment that the tower collapsed, thousand of tons of iron toppling over in a crescendo of destruction.  The vrocks were utterly obliterated, smashed between implacable masses of iron.  The other demons drew back in alarm, one chasme failing to react quickly enough to avoid being spitted on one of the long spikes that rose from the new summit of the Skull.  The others rose up and continued their orbit, looking for gaps that did not exist.  The falling tower had completely covered the gap, leaving the fortress of Graz’zt as impervious as it had been a few minutes before.</blockquote>

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