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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 2886247" data-attributes="member: 143">Heh, when I didn't get any posts over the weekend, I began to think that I'd misjudged the emotional impact of that particular cliffhanger. Thanks for the feedback.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> As for Dana, well...* * * * * Chapter 602Benzan dove into the storm of fire, coughing as the acrid smoke burned his lungs.  Around him, the iron undergrowth of the metal forest was melting into glistening pools, and the thick branches of the surrounding trees were beginning to soften and droop.  Fortunately Dana’s protection from fire ward held, and he was not harmed by the raging flames of the titan’s fire storm.  The screams of the hezrous began to fade behind him.  The demon he’d been fighting had been hit hard by the initial surge of flames, which had overwhelmed its fiendish resistances.  One of the others had tried to grab him as he’d headed after Dana, but Laertes intercepted it, delivering a punishing blow to its side.  Corumbus finally released his magic, and the flames quickly died.  The smoke remained, obscuring his view, but he was drawn forward by an ominous sound of something big moving ahead.  As he stumbled forward the haze parted, and he saw a creature of nightmare battling Dana.  The thing was humanoid in only the vaguest sense; armored plates covered its arms, legs, and torso, and sharp blades protruded from its fingers.  Wings jutted from its back, but were obviously far too small to have any chance of lifting the huge thing aloft.  It walked huddled forward, its spine bent at a sharp curve, but even so it had to stand at least ten feet tall.  Its face was a horror, with thick ridges of protruding bone over its eyes and along the lines of its jaw, which spouted curved teeth that jutted out a good six inches or so from its face. Dana was moving like a zephyr, avoiding the powerful but clumsy swings of the creature as she slammed it with her adamantine nunchaku.  She still shone with the bright light of her holy aura, but that did not seem to faze the demon as it relentlessly dogged her evasive movements.  She was wounded, he could see; bright red gashes showed in her left torso as she spun around and leapt over another vicious swing.  Benzan ran forward, a guttural cry sounding in his throat, his sword at the ready.  The thing either did not detect him or did not care; it lunged at Dana, bringing one long arm down to block her path, its claws digging into the hard ground.  The priestess darted back, but the fiend brought its other arm down behind her, giving her the choice of full-on retreat, or facing it head-on.  The priestess, dropping into a crouch, looked up at the monstrosity looming over her, her nunchaku swirling in one hand.  The other hand started to glow red.  The fiend lunged, its head darting down, its jaws opening wide.  Dana grinned, and leapt to meet it. Its jaws snapped shut, closing hard… on empty air. The fiend reared up, revealing Dana, the chain of her nunchaku looped over one of the teeth protruding from its jaw.  Swinging around, she touched it with her other hand, unleashing her harm spell. Tendrils of negative energy surged outward from her touch, opening vicious wounds in its throat and chest as the potency of the magic spread.  The creature seemed to sag before the onslaught of power.  But then it abruptly snapped its head forward, sending Dana flying into the open air before it. Benzan reached the demon, and slammed his sword hard into its knee.  His stroke avoided the dense armor plates that protected its thigh and calf, but its hide was like boiled leather, and he barely managed to gash the skin covering the joint.  The demon, focused on Dana, ignored him.  Its jaws split open wide, the flaps of its cheeks folding back, revealing an opening large enough to swallow a human skull.  Dana reached the apogee of her flight and began to fall…Three long tentacles shot out from that dark opening of the fiend’s jaws.  Each terminated in a small sucking maw surrounded by several inch-long fangs the color of ashes.  Dana tried to shift in mid-fall, but could not avoid being impaled by two of them, which stabbed into her body.  The last twined around her ankle, yanking her roughly upward, her feet lifting above her head as it turned her upside down.Dana screamed as currents of black energy trailed from Dana into the creature, as it sucked life energy from her.  She tried to break free, but her movements were feeble, and she failed to untangle herself from the iron grip of the suckers digging into her torso.  Benzan hacked again at its knee, desperation adding strength to his swing.  The blow cut deeper into the joint, releasing a jet of steaming ichor, but the damage was not enough to cause it to lose its footing.  It swept its arm around, hitting him hard in the gut with its elbow.  The tiefling went flying, his sword clattering from his grasp as he landed hard on his back.  Looking up, his vision was filled by the sight of Dana, dangling from the monster’s grasp, her life fueling its dark strength.</blockquote>

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