Antaratma smiles in triumph and shouts, raising his clawed hand and living whip dramatically, “Mual-Tar – destroy the Flame!”
There is a thunderous roar of response from the Chaos Serpent as more of its length pours into the chamber through the gaping crack in the floor, but it shows no signs of following the daelkyr lord’s command. Instead, it violently hurls its mass forward, smashing the occupants off their feet and crushing them painfully against the floor or walls.*
Luckily, while the impact of the many tons of unnatural flesh would have slain most normal enemies, none of those present in the chamber—from the diminutive form of Jaela to the varied members of the Guardian Angels to the troll-guards of Sora Maenya to the towering elementals that Nameless has conjured—can accurately be described as normal, so they are only left bruised and battered.
Even Antaratma is hurled backwards, a look of surprise flashing across his perfect features, barely managing to keep his feet at the impact. The expression is swiftly replaced by one of wrath, though tinged perhaps with alarm, as he cries out, “No! You must obey me!”
“Doesn’t look like it, Auntie,” rasps Nameless, brain churning madly as he attempts to formulate a viable plan. How do we keep them away from the Flame? Mual-Tar is too large and if Antaratma gets near…. And then he stops to mentally slap his forehead. Of course! Before snapping at the other Angels, “Try to keep the damn snake off me. I have a plan!”
“Great!” replies Korm, looking up at the coils of Mual-Tar. “Just do it quickly,” he says, feeling a couple of his protective enhancements wink out at the creature’s proximity. “We don’t have much time!”
Despite his words, the Gatekeeper doesn’t hesitate, hurling himself at the gigantic creature. His meteoric blade flashes down, striking a scale as large as his torso and cracking it, causing dark blood to gush from the wound. Korm grins in relief at the fact that he can hurt the thing, until he realizes that in comparison to the Chaos Serpent’s size, this is only a little scratch.
Beside him, Gareth too hews at Mual-Tar, with similar success. A command from Six causes the trolls to rush the serpent too, but they have almost no effect, even their powerful blows simply bouncing off the creature’s scales as if they were pounding on an animated mountain. Six’s chain, however, has similar effect to Korm’s and Gareth’s weapons.
An instant later, there is a roar from behind the group as Luna appears just outside the chamber in the form of a huge bear, albeit one dripping with salt-water. “Finally!” The druid’s mental shout reverberates through the minds of those unfortunate enough to have a telepathic link to her, as she bounds forward too. Though completely dwarfed by Mual-Tar, she rears up to bite and claw at it, but with no more effect than the trolls have.
At Luna’s roar of baffled fury, Jaela calls out, “Keep attacking! Don’t give up!” The words are backed up by a powerful spell, which provides healing energy to almost the entire group.
Meanwhile, with his foes distracted by the newer adversary, Antaratma again causes his form to shift and morph, closing many of his wounds. The angry frown fades from his face into a smirk. “No matter,” he says, “Mual-Tar will slay you all and then we will take the Flame.” He meets Nameless’ gaze and smiles triumphantly. “You know you cannot damage me enough, Nameless,” he says.
“Maybe not,” rasps Nameless, with a grim smile, “But there IS something here that can.” He shouts a command in the rumbling tones of the elementals, and his two summoned creatures surge forward. As they reach out to Antaratma, the daelkyr continues to smirk. “Fool! You know they cannot hold me.”
“Who’s holding?” replies Nameless with a smile, as the elementals reach out. Just as he had commanded, instead of attempting to strike or grab onto the daelkyr lord, they simply use their giant arms and rocky bulk to drive him backwards.
Caught off-guard by the maneuver, Antaratma takes a couple of seconds before he can respond, again attempting to simply flow away from them. But the width of the huge arms and the fact that the elementals are simply working in unison to propel him backwards means there’s no empty space to move to. And before he can think of something else, it is too late.
The elementals shove Antaratma inexorably backwards, across the chamber’s now cracked and broken floor … and right into the pillar of the Silver Flame. The belatedly dawning look of comprehension on his face is instantly replaced by one of agony. And then, for the first time in many millennia, the agonized scream of a daelkyr lord is heard in Khorvaire.
Even the others in the chamber pause to look. They see Antaratma suspended within the Flame, writhing in pain and struggling vainly to escape. The elementals stolidly hold him in place, even though their rocky arms are charring away. The effect on the daelkyr’s unnatural form is far more drastic. His skin peels away in seconds and is vaporized, followed by the flesh beneath and then the internal organs. The living whip attached to his arm flagellates for a moment and then withers away.
But, despite the incredible damage, the daelkyr lord’s incredible constitution and aberrant nature attempt to compensate, his body swiftly morphing and trying to regrow the parts that are being scoured away by the divine flames. Incredibly, Antaratma remains alive, and with a desperate effort he slides past the giant fists that are holding him in the Flame and steps out of it.
Damn – they can’t hold him in there long enough! For a moment, Nameless considers having his elementals drive the daelkyr lord into the Flame and then leaping in himself, using the hemisphere of force his staff can erect around him to hold them in there. Which would kill me, but destroy it too. I wonder if Gareth would finally trust me if I died defending the Flame. No … no, he wouldn’t.
Luckily, the alienist doesn’t have to put the theory to the test. Following his lead, Luna now speaks the words of a spell, drawing on her druidic connection to the land of Khorvaire to complete it with exceptional speed. Another giant elemental appears, extending its arms to bar the daelkyr lord’s path. Antaratma shifts position, trying to get by it, but the momentary delay is enough for Six. His magical chain flashes between the elementals, punching into Antaratma’s chest and driving him a step backwards. The daelkyr lord teeters, trying to catch his balance, and the three giant elementals drive him back into the Silver Flame, again barring his escape with their own bodies.
Antaratma screams again … for the final time. The renewed damage is too swift and too powerful. In a second, the daelkyr lord is reduced to a skeleton, which somehow continues to struggle for a few moments more, before crumbling to nothingness.
Which still leaves the Guardian Angels and their allies with one colossal problem.
Mual-Tar too had paused to consider the sight of the daelkyr lord withering away in the Silver Flame, but now it again flows forward and around the chamber, grinding and crushing its foes. While doing so, it emits another roar which—for lack of a better word—seems utterly gleeful, seemingly unconcerned at the multiple enemies pounding away at it.
As she struggles back to her feet from the latest assault, Jaela begins to cast another powerful healing spell, while warning, “I can keep this up for a while, but not indefinitely. And my magic….” She stops, gasping in horror as the spell’s magic simply dissipates with no effect, leaving her allies just as damaged as they were.
“It’s the damn aura,” growls Luna. “See – I told you guys how much it sucks!”
“Yes, Luna,” grunts Korm, casting a swift spell and feeling slightly surprised—and very relieved—as it takes effect to close some of his wounds, “You told us so. You were right. Yay!” Shaking his head, he continues to strike at the snake.
So do the others in the room, with Nameless’ elementals joining the battle, though with barely any more success than the trolls from Droaam. The alienist, unable to affect the Chaos Serpent with any direct magic, begins to cast bolstering and protective spells on the group, some of which also fizzles out.
Of all the foes assaulting it, only Korm’s, Six’s and Gareth’s weapons seem able to really hurt Mual-Tar, a fact which it seems now to have realized. As the paladin strikes a tremendous blow, one which would have felled a giant but in this case only cuts a gash in the Serpent’s hide, Mual-Tar pauses.
Seeing the gigantic coils stop flowing past him, Gareth looks up—and up, and up, and up—until he sees the head of the Chaos Serpent towering far above him. Its two slitted eyes, each much longer than the paladin’s own height, are focused on him, and as Gareth meets their gaze he stands stock-still. The two eyes are utterly dark and expressionless, but as he looks into them he sees faint movement. There are tiny lights within them, like stars in a cloudless and moonless sky. No, he suddenly realizes, though he cannot say from where the knowledge comes, They ARE stars. In a space … beyond. Somehow, with utter certainty, the paladin knows that he is looking into what is contained within the Chaos Serpent, an entire other cosmos, not just stars but planets and moons and an entire other order of creation.
What Gareth looks into is utterly alien, far beyond any kind of consciousness that he can conceive of, but there is one thing he recognizes in its gaze – hunger. Mual-Tar is a form of creation that exists primarily, or perhaps only, to devour what lies beyond itself. The paladin has no idea from where or how it was planted in Khorvaire in the ancient ziggurat in the Shadow Marches, but he knows now with utter clarity why the daelkyr planned its arrival. So that it could utterly consume the life that inhabits the world of Eberron, from the tiniest plant to the mightiest of the dragons, leaving the planet to those who would transform it to whatever they chose – the lords of the daelkyr.
In that one, long moment Gareth experiences a little of what Nameless is constantly aware of. That the long history of Eberron, of humanity and all that came before it, is only a tiny mote in the eye of eternity. It is what lurks beyond, in the utter darkness between the stars and in the invisible folds between the planes, that is truly timeless, laughing as it watches tiny creatures scurry over the surface of the planet and awaiting the inevitable moment when all that they are is reduced to the dust they arose from. The universe is ruled not by light and order, but by darkness and chaos. And here, made manifest before him, is that darkness made flesh.
The only thing that protects Gareth’s sanity at this moment is his mind blank, a barrier which halts even the Chaos Serpent’s power. But for only an instant, before its will simply shreds the powerful magical ward as if it were paper.
That instant, however, is just long enough for Gareth to pull his gaze away, though the effort of doing so leaves him shaking. As he looks away, the Endless Blade, mentally attuned to its master, says, “Hey, boss – what’s wrong?”
“I’m fine,” says the paladin, “Just…,” but before he can continue the Blade snaps, “Look out!”
Gareth snaps his gaze back up, just in time to see Mual-Tar’s descending jaws, which close around him.
The others gasp in horror as the Chaos Serpent’s mouth hits the ground where Gareth stood and which, as it lifts slowly upwards, is now an empty space.
“Oh, no,” gasps Luna, “Not again!”
But it’s not quite the same as the last time Gareth was ingested by Mual-Tar, primarily because he is still alive. The paladin can see nothing, feeling only a nauseatingly sticky wetness enveloping him. With most of his protections gone, destroyed by the creature’s aura, he feels a terrible coldness enter him, the debilitating chill of negative energy.**
Again, the paladin is incredibly lucky. One of the few dweomers still protecting him is a freedom of movement, and as weakly struggles weakly, he feels the wetness around him give way.
The others see Gareth suddenly appear above them, sliding out of Mual-Tar’s mouth and dropping awkwardly to the ground.
As he hits, Luna is next to him, reaching out a giant paw to heal him. And then she swears vituperatively as the spell fades away. “F*ck, f*ck, f*ck! We’re dead!” Behind Luna, her elemental and one of Nameless’ disappear as the Serpent’s aura increases its effect.
Though the others desperately renew their assault, Mual-Tar continues to ignore them for the moment, its gigantic head swaying slightly as it considers the paladin and the growling bear crouched protectively over him. And then it turns away.
Perhaps whatever passes for a mind within it is disappointed at the escape of its prey. Perhaps it is simply tired of the myriad attacks, at least some of which are wounding it, though not seriously. Perhaps it no longer finds entertainment in what it has been doing so far. Or perhaps it notices the figures rushing through the doorway, as Cedric charges into the room, followed closely behind by the planetar Samarien and the dragon Essirise.
Whatever the reason for its decision, the Chaos Serpent turns away. And hurls itself head-first into the Silver Flame, which simply breaks apart as Mual-Tar impacts it.
The giant fiery column breaks up into a myriad individual sparks, which flow down and away. Most of them descend into Mual-Tar’s form, sinking in and disappearing without a trace. A much smaller number are scattered around the chamber, which float swiftly towards the Guardian Angels, Cedric and Jaela, entering each of their forms.
There is a soft sound, that of the swift inrush of air into the space that the column had occupied for centuries. Jaela, Cedric and Gareth—likely the three most blessed worshippers of the faith on Khorvaire—all hear a tremendous scream in their minds, seemingly composed of a myriad voices crying out simultaneously in great agony, which instantly fades into dying whispers. And with it they feel their divine powers, whatever they might be, die away.
Like them, across the entire continent of Khorvaire, worshippers of the Silver Flame with divinely-granted powers, from the humble acolyte who can barely conjure up a globe of light to the high priest sanctioned to call down holy wrath on the church’s enemies, feel their connection to the Flame wither and die. Where there was once hope and joy and light, there remains only darkness.
And in the chamber of the Flame, in Flamekeep, that darkness takes a palpable form. As the horrified onlookers gaze at the now vacant spot where the Flame had burned, they see a shape hanging in mid-air. Seemingly composed of moving shadows, it stands taller than Nameless’ elementals and is more clearly humanoid than them, with clearly defined arms and legs, ending in paw-like extremities. Its form is topped with a broad, squat head, set low between its broad shoulders. The shadowy features, difficult to discern, seem to be a cross between demon and feline, vaguely resembling a rakshasa’s. But what are clear about it are the two glowing red catlike eyes, which glare up at Mual-Tar.
Almost exactly seven hundred years ago, Bel Shalor, one of the rakshasa overlords from the Age of Demons, had broken free of his bonds and walked the surface of Khorvaire. But before he could fully regain his power, he was brought low by the paladin Tira Miron and a mighty couatl, whose combined sacrifice led to the appearance of the pillar of Silver Flame. Bel Shalor was imprisoned in the pillar, held there for centuries, unable to affect the world outside except by whispering his dark suggestions through the Flame itself.
And now Bel Shalor, the Shadow with the Flame, walks free.
With a tigerish roar, the shadow-creature leaps forward, latching onto the Chaos Serpent with its claws. A fanged mouth opens and bites down. Where it strikes, the shadows seem to seep in like poison, causing the area around the wounds to darken.
And this apparently has some effect on Mual-Tar. The Chaos Serpent emits a roar in which, for the first time, pain is evident. It twists and turns, throwing a constricting coil around the much smaller shadow-beast and snapping its gigantic jaws vainly. Unable to reach its attacker, since it is too close to Mual-Tar’s head, the Chaos Serpent hurls its bulk back and forth, smashing the creature—and itself—against the walls of the room.
Already weakened by the Chaos Serpent’s appearance through the floor, the chamber’s stonework groans under the assault and then begins to collapse, huge cracks radiating out from the spots where Mual-Tar and the shadow-beast strike it, while pieces of stone begins to rain down from overhead.
Jaela, who had staggered back as the Silver Flame disappeared, clutching at her face in horror, moves her hands and looks up. Tears are streaming from her eyes, but when she speaks her voice still sounds much too mature for her age and rings with the commanding tone of the Speaker of the Flame. “Get out!” she snaps, “This battle is over – and you can’t afford to die here!”
“Nor can you,” says Cedric quickly, already in motion. Raising his shield above her head, he scoops up the young girl and runs towards the doorway, shouting, “Follow me!”
“But …,” growls Luna, waving a paw at the battling titans.
“But nothing,” says Six, striding quickly past and dodging falling rubble, “This is over.”
Nobody else pauses to argue. The Guardian Angels and their allies quickly retreat into the tunnel outside the chamber and hurry away. The last they see of Mual-Tar and the creature released from the Flame is the latter continuing to chew on the Chaos Serpent, though now more weakly than earlier as the constricting coils continue to smash it into the walls. And then the entire chamber collapses in on itself, giant stones raining down from above to hide its contents from view.
* 8d8+36 pts of bludgeoning damage, with a DC 64 for half. Yup, you read the DC right.
** Bite attack: Reach 50; +56 vs AC; 6d8+41/19-20 (includes PA) + grab + constrict + energy drain (3 negative levels)
