Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 2933526" data-attributes="member: 143">Heh, nothing like being predictable!* * * * * Chapter 613A massive set of double iron doors stood within darkness.  Rust and time had pitted the thick metal slabs, in some cases carving out depressions over an inch deep.  But this did not steal anything from their imposing durability; if anything, the doors seemed eternal.  Multiple reinforcing bands were affixed to the heavy slabs with thumb-thick iron rivets, culminating in not one but two bars, thick slabs that rested in long grooves built into the substance of the doors.  These were portals designed not only to withstand siege, but a cataclysm. A muted clang penetrated the doors, then another.  The metal quivered, but held.  But then the stone threshold to either side and above began to shift, the black granite moving, drawing back, as if abandoning the barrier it had supported for so long.  As the retreated stone revealed the recessed hinges, the doors clanged loudly again, and pocked iron creaked as it gave way before a superior force.  The bars held, but the doors in their entirety tore free of their weakened moorings, plunging down to slam onto the ground below with a terrible noise. Lok was the first to step through, with Arun and Beorna flanking him.  All had their weapons at the ready, the others close behind. The chamber beyond the doors was much more irregular than those in the rest of the fortress, more like a natural cavern that had been generally shaped and expanded than a proper chamber of worked stone.  The air was thick with dampness, and the slightly irregular floor was broken by frequent pools that ranged from a few paces across to as wide as eight feet.  The water was dark and brackish, and shone with a glistening slick in the light cast from their spells and weapons.  The place extended backward for quite some distance.  Cal lifted a hand and uttered a brief melody that called a light spell into being along the ceiling.  The light drew back the darkness, and while the long shadows could have concealed much, they could now see what occupied the rear of the chamber. The Demon Prince Graz’zt sat upon a throne that resembled a knot of coral.  The demon did not seem to notice them, despite the flickering light that played upon his features.“Wow, he’s really in bad shape,” Mole commented.  The gnome’s assessment was impossible to deny.  The Prince was only barely recognizable as the fiend that they had battled inside the great iron skull on Occipitus.  His features still bore the mark of the eruption of the Heart of Axion; half of his face was melted like a wax candle left too close to the hearth, with a puckered black sore gaping empty where the Heart had once resided.  His other eye stared blankly out into space; the orb was a milky white, and it was doubtful whether the Prince could see at all.  Graz’zt still wore Synesyx, although the scales only covered a narrow strip between his belly and his hips.  The rest of his flesh was drawn tight against his bones, and a red sheen covered his skin, as though he had been sweating blood.  “It’s a trap,” Dannel said quietly, an arrow ready in his bow.“Well, naturally,” Beorna said.  “But do we spring it from here, or get closer?”“I will do it,” Dana said, as a silver glow sprang into being around her.  She lifted her hand, and a surge of white moonfire erupted from between her fingers.  Cal, who had called upon his arcane sight as soon as they had come in, tried to stop her, but was too late.  The blast of energy formed a knife that lanced across the chamber, pulsing toward the supine form of the Prince.  But as it neared the coral throne, the moonfire sprayed against an invisible barrier, a shield that flickered in striations of deep aqua and sinister black.  The flows of power interacted for a second, and then both faded, leaving the scene as it had been a moment before. Dannel had lifted his bow to fire, but on seeing the failure of Dana’s effort, he held his shot.  Graz’zt looked up.  His voice was a faint rasp, but somehow the companions heard each syllable clearly from fifty feet away. “So.  You have come to finish your work, have you?”  Just the very act of speaking seemed to drain the demon, and thin streams of viscious fluid trailed down his mangled chin with the words.  “You are persistent, and your hatred of me has given you strength.  But I am not without resources, and I will not passively await the slaughter!”  The last words were spoken with a hint of the Prince’s earlier fire, but that faded as the demon bent in the chair, caught in a violent spasm of coughing. “Lo, how the mighty have fallen,” Dana said, her voice echoing through the chamber without need of magical augmentation.  “It is you who have let hatred consume you… and it has brought you to this end, fiend.”“Have you identified it?” Dannel whispered to Cal.  “It’s analogous to a cube of force,” the gnome responded.  “Emitted from the throne, I think.” “Can you teleport through it?”“No.  It extends through the ethereal… and even if I could, my lock still holds.”“There’s no place left for you to run, fiend,” Beorna said, lifting her sword with one hand, the point of the heavy blade steady as it pointed straight at Graz’zt’s chest.  “Your enemies have taken what little you had left, and soon you will be naught but a memory, a foul taste in the mouth.”Graz’zt laughed.  “I do not think I will be forgotten so quickly.”  His eye—seeing or not—focused on Benzan, and his chuckle took on a sinister undertone.  The tiefling, almost overcome with emotion, began to tremble. “I will forget you, demon,” Benzan whispered. “I see you restored your ugly wench, paladin,” Graz’zt said.  “A pity… I believe that my blade improved her appearance.”“Enough banter!” Arun shouted.  Lifting his hammer, he started forward, Beorna at his side. “So how do we get through it?” Dannel asked.  “We hit it with everything we got,” Cal said.  He put his words into action, lifting his rod, and channeling a disintegrate through it.  The green ray splashed against the shield, which roiled with chaos as it absorbed the destructive energies of the spell. The companions added their strength to Cal’s effort.  Dannel’s bow sent arrows infused with electrical energies into the shield, while Benzan, his own fiendbane bow restored to him as well, sent several shots into it as well.  The warriors formed a wedge and rushed forward, their weapons lifted high to send sheer strength and determination against the barrier.  Dana walked behind them at a slower pace, a dark look on her face, and Mole, naturally, was nowhere to be seen. “The fury of Agamatheo take you!” the demon screeched, and he held up a claw that was still scorched black where the fires of the Heart of Axion had blasted it.  Dark waters rushed up through the holes in the floor at the Prince’s command, surging into the chamber with explosive energy. “He’s trying to drown us!” Dannel exclaimed.  “No… look!” Cal said, as the waters rose into discrete shapes, massive figures that were like crashing whitecaps that had been frozen into a roughly humanoid form.  They were the ancient spirits of the seas of this world, once pristine and somber, now corrupted into foul mockeries of what they had been by the being that now sat broken in the coral throne.The huge creatures, a half-dozen in all, surged forward to attack, while Graz’zt, secure behind his shield, cackled madly.</blockquote>

Verification