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Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 2861316" data-attributes="member: 143">Due to copyright issues (since my story relies heavily on WotC and Paizo IP), I can't offer it for sale; it's strictly a fanfic. But I appreciate the sentiment!You don't have long to wait! We'll see what they're up to on Friday (with a cliffhanger, natch!).* * * * * Chapter 597The companions emerged from the final spiral staircase onto a scene of horror and wonder. The chamber at the top of the Skull had been completely transformed.  Only the presence of the burning pillar on the far side of the room identified this as the same place where they had completed the Test of the Smoking Eye, the same place where they defeated the demon prince Adimarchus.  The chamber now resembled a great hall, with huge thirty-foot pillars buttressing the vaulted iron ceiling above.  Dark and sinister forms had been carved into the pillars, which separated huge windows of stained glass that depicted intricate scenes of vice and depravity.  Those panes were utterly dark; the originals had opened onto the unholy skies of Azzagrat, but these were backed only by layers of thick stone and iron.  To either side recessed alcoves appeared to open onto further galleries.  This was an optical illusion; the Skull simply did not have the physical capacity of the Argent Palace.  But it gave the chamber the impression of being much larger than it actually was.  The room was not empty.  To the left, a row of six massive figures stood, giants with thick wings spreading out from their backs, visages wreathed in smoke, and massive weapons in their hands—a whip in the left, and a burning sword in the right.  These were Graz’zt’s generals, six of the mightiest of the balors, the Fingers of the Dark Lord’s Fist.  They were so realistic that for a second several of the companions lifted weapons and spells to defend themselves… before the ruddy red glow of the pillar revealed them for what they were, representations formed in iron, copies frozen in poses of respect to the Great Throne. Of those six lords of demonkind represented in metal, two had been in Zelatar when the Disaster had struck, and had been vaporized along with much of the city.  Another had been slain seventeen seconds later, when a gate to one of Graz’zt vassal worlds had opened, and sixty cornugons had stormed through.  One had actually been missing for years; it was believed that it had been trapped by mortals upon one of the Primes where Graz’zt had been struggling for dominance.  The last two balors, true to their kind, had turned coat the moment the magnitude of the Disaster had become known, switching allegiance to two of the Prince’s many rivals. On the other side of the hall, another row of creatures recreated in iron paid homage.  These statues were less distinct: twenty mariliths, their features only vaguely represented in the metal.  These effigies too represented the fallen, either in the Disaster or in the desperate struggles that had followed, when Graz’zt’s legions had been fallen upon by eager foes from every quarter.  Few of those had even survived long enough to betray their allegiance. There was a last group slightly behind the throne, to the side.  They represented only a small fraction of Graz’zt’s fabled harem, but their features were precise, their faces perfectly captured in the cold iron.  They were the only fully distinct features in the chamber; everything else was slightly off, warped or imperfect.  All of those depicted had been destroyed within the first second of the Disaster.    The throne itself was empty, although there was a shriveled husk of something on the floor beside it. “He’s here,” the Voice said, moving into the room, the celestial’s sword hovering in the air before it. “Spread out,” Lok whispered, walking slowly forward, his axe at the ready.  The others followed behind, their eyes and their magic peering into every corner, every shadow.  “Show yourself, demon!” Arun shouted, his voice echoing in the sepulchrave emptiness of the hall.  “Or do you fear suffering the same fate as Adimarchus?”“I am here,” came a voice from everywhere, echoing throughout the chamber, and inside their heads.  All eyes turned to the throne, where the air rippled, and a tall figure stepped through the distortion to face them.  It was the Prince, his wrecked face revealed, his wavy-bladed greatsword dripping acid in his hand.  The gray shine of the Heart of Axion shone from the cavernous socket of his ruined eye, and a suit of silvery scales rippled over his muscled torso; Synesyx had found a new Master.“I have long waited for this confrontation,” the demon said.  “At last the architects of my downfall are within my grasp.  Along with a new set of champions, who cheated me out of enjoying the torments of my favorite rival.”“You brought your fate upon yourself,” Lok said.  “All we wanted was our friend.”“And you lost him as well, in the end,” Graz’zt said.  “For nothing that is Mine shall I relinquish, even unto its utter destruction.”“Looks like you lost a big chunk of your fa…” Mole piped up, only to trail off as the demon’s one eye fixed upon her.  “Your rule is at an end, demon,” the Herald’s Voice said.  “Occipitus rejects you.”“Occiptus is mine.  As are you.”  His gaze shifted slightly, to Cal.  “Your thoughts already betray your despair.  Do not place hope in your missing companion; the priestess of Selûne has already fallen into a snare that I laid, with your little demonspawn boy as bait.”“You’re forgetting something, fiend,” Beorna said, lifting Aludrial’s Shard.  “We’ve already taken down one Prince, in this very room.  One more won’t be that much of a bother.”“We will finish the job that Delem began,” Lok said, with finality. “Yeah!  Ah… you’re toast, Grazzy!” Mole added.The Prince chuckled.  “Mortals.  You are always so amusing.”“Delem was mortal,” Cal said.  “And yet he destroyed the world that you’d created.  Centuries of effort, torn down in an instant.”“Millenia,” Graz’zt responded.  “And that is how long I will extend my torments of each of you.” “Might as well get started then,” Dannel said, lifting his bow and firing his readied arrow in a single fluid motion. The missile streaked across the room toward the Prince, its path perfectly aligned to intersect with the demon’s remaining eye.  But Graz’zt spoke a word of power, the Heart of Axion flared, and a surge of dark energy erupted outward from the fiend.  Dannel’s arrow hit that wave and froze; the missile hung in midair for a split second before it shivered and evaporated.  The spellsurge hit the companions like a wave, knocking each of them down.  Graz’zt seemed to hover within a black halo of roaring energy that swirled around him like a breaking tide.  “THE HOUR OF YOUR UNDOING IS AT HAND!” he said, each word filling the chamber, echoing off the walls and building until they formed a crescendo that drove all else, including conscious thought, fleeing before them.</blockquote>

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