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Tales of the Legacy - Concluded
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<blockquote data-quote="Delemental" data-source="post: 3735095" data-attributes="member: 5203"><p>They arrived, nearly exhausted, at the site of the cultist’s fortress just before midnight. The structure was still under construction; the palisade wall was mostly complete, as was the first floor of the keep. Several other buildings were in various stages of completion, as was the outer wall surrounding the entire complex. Yuri and Osborn were sent to do reconnaissance, while the others caught their breath.</p><p></p><p> They returned after about an hour. “Well, we know that all those missing people from the villages are here. They’ve got the elderly working as guards and carpenters, going day and night.” Osborn reported. “And there is some religious symbolism incorporated into the keep – sort of.”</p><p></p><p> “What do you mean, ‘sort of’?” Arrie asked.</p><p></p><p> “There’s a black cat’s tail nailed to every ninth board on the wall,” he said with disgust. “Nine is a sacred number for Ladta.”</p><p></p><p> “What else did you see?” Arrie asked.</p><p></p><p> “The children are there too,” Yuri said. “They’re inside the keep, chanting.”</p><p></p><p> “Chanting what?”</p><p></p><p> “It’s some sort of ritual or prayer,” Osborn said. “There’s one adult with them, leading the chanting. I really can’t tell what its purpose is – maybe some sort of consecration or warding, given the number of people involved. It has elements of a Ladtan devotion, but its been twisted – like they refer to Ladta as the ‘One True Goddess’, which isn’t at all part of her teachings. Unfortunately, I haven’t had a lot of formal training in this sort of thing.”</p><p></p><p> “How long would it take you to get back there?” Tolly asked.</p><p></p><p> “About ten minutes, why?”</p><p></p><p> “Once you’re inside, I can scry on you and use that to help identify the purpose of the ritual,” he said.</p><p></p><p> “They were chanting in Anarchic,” Osborn said. “You don’t speak the language.”</p><p></p><p> “Scrying doesn’t permit me to hear the target anyway,” Tolly said, “but I’ll be able to see the motions they make, the materials they use, any symbols or diagrams they have.”</p><p></p><p> “It’d be a lot easier with a <em>telepathic bond</em>,” Osborn commented.</p><p></p><p> “I just checked on him,” Autumn said. “Kyle’s still out of commission.”</p><p></p><p> “The scrying will take an hour to prepare,” Tolly said. “Rest, and then make your way back to the keep. Stay there about fifteen minutes, then come back.”</p><p></p><p> An hour passed, and found Tolly staring into a silver basin filled with blessed water, staring at the images inside. He muttered and mumbled to himself as the scene shifted and changed with Osborn’s movements, but he refrained from commenting until Osborn was back with the rest of the group.</p><p></p><p> “It’s definitely a type of warding,” he explained. “They’re placing a combination of a <em>zone of anarchy</em> and a <em>forbiddance </em>on the altar. Once it’s complete, it will be difficult for us to enter. However, they are making a number of mistakes in the ritual.”</p><p></p><p> “I could hear them having to start over more than once,” Osborn said. “And I noticed something else weird that I missed before. All of the kids have both ears pierced.”</p><p></p><p> “Obviously something the cultists did,” Arrie said, “but why?”</p><p></p><p> “No idea. I suggest we find out.”</p><p></p><p> “But let’s rest now, and go later,” Autumn suggested. “We should be fresh when we go in.”</p><p></p><p> The night passed, and the party woke up just before dawn. “How should we approach?” Arrie asked quietly.</p><p></p><p> “We could fly in,” Autumn suggested.</p><p></p><p> “No, <em>you </em>can fly in.”</p><p></p><p> “I could as well,” Tolly said, “if Kupa carries me.”</p><p></p><p> The dragon just stared at Tolly. “What are you going to give me?”</p><p></p><p> Tolly’s lips pursed at the unexpected demand. “Since you are following me, let’s say I won’t charge you for any healing.”</p><p></p><p> “Let’s say I don’t care about that,” Kupa replied.</p><p></p><p> “Very well,” Tolly said curtly. “You can explain your unwillingness to serve to Ardara.”</p><p></p><p> “It’s a couple of hundred yards between the outer wall and the palisade,” Yuri said. “There are buildings in between for cover.”</p><p></p><p> We should try to avoid being seen,” Arrie said. “I don’t know if the old folks guarding the place are being coerced into serving or not, but either way I’d rather not have to carve my way through them.”</p><p></p><p> They eventually decided on a multi-pronged approach. After casting a few preparatory spells, Tolly crawled into Osborn’s <em>portable hole</em>, and the hin made a stealthy approach to the keep, running from building to building. Arrie and Yuri took much the same approach, though Arrie made use of her psionic powers to make extradimensional hops through the area, while Yuri did more physical hopping. Autumn opted for an aerial approach, dropping directly behind the inner wall after circling around behind the hills. Kupa and Rupert were left to guard both the camp and Kyle, who was brought out of the <em>portable hole</em> and left in a tent. Kupa was instructed to take the catatonic wizard to Vargas if they did not return.</p><p></p><p> Miraculously, the Legacy managed to penetrate the outer perimeter of the complex without being seen, and made their way inside the keep from various entrances. Soon they could all see what Osborn had; a group of fifteen to twenty young children, arranged randomly around the room and chanting. Two adults, dressed in full plate, also occupied the room; one was the cultist who had been leading the chanting the night before, the other stood off to one side, watching. The cultist leading the prayers had several chakram hanging from his belt, which was not an unusual sight on a Ladtan priest. But these chakram had serrated edges, another abnormality which only added to suspicion that this cult had been somehow corrupted. The cultist at the end of the room was armed with a fairly normal looking longsword and shield, but the engravings on his armor told Autumn that he was a member of the crusader sect known as the Anarchs, who were devoted to spreading disorder. No one in the room seemed to be aware of the party’s presence.</p><p></p><p> Their attack was swift and brutal. Arrie ran in to engage the anarch, and Yuri and Autumn moved toward the priest in the middle of the room, but were intercepted by two figures in breastplates, wielding spiked chains, who charged out from a nearby alcove. Osborn opened up his <em>portable hole</em> and released Tolly, his body formed of living iron and followed by a bright mote of divine energy that hovered over his head. Tolly immediately made his way to where the other priest stood in the middle of the room.</p><p></p><p> “In Ardara’s name, I declare you false!” he shouted, and attempted to <em>imprison </em>the priest. But the spell failed to capture him, and the man laughed.</p><p></p><p> “Your bitch-goddess has no power over me, Ardaran!” he sneered. Ignoring Tolly, he instead cast a spell at Autumn, summoning a translucent chakram made of divine energy that began to slash at her.</p><p></p><p> Meanwhile, Arrie and the anarch traded vicious blows, any one of which would have felled lesser warriors. The anarch, who was as proficient with his shield as he was with his blade, slammed the shield into Arrie’s face, sending her stumbling back long enough for him to shift toward the center of the room and slash at Tolly. Tolly cried out as the blade’s chaotic energies pulsed through him, reacting to his own orderly nature. In response Tolly tried to <em>implode </em>the anarch, but was unsuccessful. Arrie took advantage of the brief respite to down a healing potion, and then went after the anarch again.</p><p></p><p>Yuri and Autumn each squared off against one of the two new combatants, who were pointing at them and shouting curses. Yuri felt a sudden wave of unease, a lack of confidence that showed in her attacks. Her movements seemed to be just a little bit too slow to get into position, her spear thrusts just a little too shaky to strike true. Autumn, apparently, was not affected, as she sliced into one of the men with enough force to shatter bones. Osborn, who recognized the two new warriors as hexblades, threw daggers at the one fighting Yuri, but his blades were just a bit off target.</p><p></p><p> “Foul heretics!” Yuri shouted, frustrated at the inexplicable decline in her skills.</p><p></p><p> Both hexblades briefly touched rods hanging from their belts and muttered spells, and then attacked again. Autumn was struck by a spiked chain several times, but in the midst of the flurry the hexblade reached out and touched her arm, draining her vitality and absorbing it for himself. The other hexblade, seeing that Yuri was at a disadvantage, began to target Osborn with both steel and spell, though only the former managed to do any damage.</p><p></p><p> Bleeding from several wounds caused by both the hexblade and the priest’s <em>spiritual weapon</em>, Autumn’s face grew red with fury. “Enough!” she shouted, and slammed her falchion into the hexblade with unnatural power, rupturing organs inside him. The hexblade gasped in pain and his defenses faltered, and he was barely able to cast a spell, vanishing. Tolly, who had prepared a <em>true seeing</em> spell before the battle, could see that the hexblade was not gone, only invisible. He reached out a hand and touched him. For the others in the room, there was a sudden strangled cry from out of nowhere, a wet, popping noise, and then the sound of a body crumpling to the floor.</p><p></p><p> Arrie spared a moment from her battle with the anarch to look around the room. The children were milling about uncertainly; they had moved out of the way of the battle, but showed no signs of trying to escape. <em> Why don’t they run?</em> she wondered.</p><p></p><p> The Ladtan cult priest tried to dispel Tolly’s <em>iron body</em>, but as the spell came at him, the mote of light over his head flared to life, intercepting the spell and turning it back on the priest.</p><p></p><p> “Your faith is weak, heretic,” Tolly said.</p><p></p><p> “We shall see,” he replied, as he reached out and healed the remaining hexblade, who was now pursuing Osborn around the chamber. Yuri ran past both the hexblade and the priest, jabbing her spear at each as she sprinted by, but the curse that afflicted her caused her to miss the priest entirely, and only strike a glancing blow on the hexblade.</p><p></p><p> The priest laughed at the Sargian’s failed attack, and laughed again when he saw the anarch charge into Arrie, practically impaling her on his blade. “It seems that the One True Goddess favors our cause,” he mocked. “You have yet to even strike me.”</p><p></p><p> “That changes now!” shouted Autumn, as she leapt in and struck the priest across the back with Faithful Avenger, sending a shock wave of holy power across the room. It passed over the children without harm, but the anarch cried out as the power burned his flesh. Autumn’s triumphant grin turn to a stare of horror as she saw that her blow had done little damage to the priest. Instead, bolts of red lightning shot out from the priest and struck a half-dozen of the children nearby, who screamed in pain as gashes identical to the ones that Autumn had made on the cultist appeared on their backs. The children collapsed, and appeared dead. Everyone immediately backed away from the priest, as if he had suddenly burst into flames.</p><p></p><p> Osborn, who had seen the entire event, had also noticed that the earrings being worn by the children had glowed red when Autumn’s blow fell. “Children!” he shouted, “Take off the earrings!” They made no move to comply. Still calling out to them, Osborn renewed his attack on the hexblade, who had turned invisible like his former companion. But thanks to Osborn’s magical blindfold, which he had donned before battle, he could sense the hexblade’s presence without seeing him, and several daggers found a home in the body of his curse-spewing enemy. Tolly, similarly immune to the hexblade’s illusion, struck him with another <em>implosion</em>, but he resisted.</p><p></p><p> Arrie and the anarch circled each other, both leaving a ring of blood on the wooden floor. “I tire of fighting you,” the anarch said suddenly, and without warning he turned and charged at Autumn, his sword blazing with chaos-fire. The end of the blade struck the sentinel in the chest, burning its way through her armor, through her chest, and emerging from the other side, between her wings. Gurgling, Autumn staggered back against the wall, alive only by sheer will.</p><p></p><p> A terrible scream echoed in the room, from more than one person. Yuri was the first to rush in, her anger finally overcoming the power of the hex as she struck at the anarch again and again. “Faithless son of a bitch!” she screamed as she pressed the attack. The anarch turned to meet her assault, and then screamed as Autumn staggered up from behind and landed a devastating blow of her own. “I will not be vanquished so easily!” she spat at him.</p><p></p><p> A few feet away, the hexblade leapt from Tolly to Osborn, landing blows on each even as he tried unsuccessfully to avoid Osborn’s daggers. Tolly kept his concentration on the priest, though he was now wary of the unholy power he wielded over the children. He saw Arrie come up from behind and strike the priest across the back of his knees with Anyweapon, sending him tumbling to the ground. Tolly attempted to use his last <em>implosion </em>on the rogue Ladtan, hoping the sudden power would kill the priest before he could transfer his wounds to the children. But the priest easily resisted the spell, and in response dropped a <em>flame strike</em> on Tolly and Osborn, as well as a few of the children. The charred corpses of the kids dropped to the ground with a sickening crunch. Those who watched the horrible scene saw wispy, translucent forms rise up from each corpse, and then suddenly get pulled down into the ground below the keep.</p><p></p><p> Arrie held her weapon on the priest, waiting for him to rise. “Run!” she shouted at the children still milling about. “Why don’t you run?” But she could see the glazed stares of fanatics reflected on each young face, and knew her pleas were falling on deaf ears.</p><p></p><p> The hexblade came around and slashed at Arrie, hoping to draw her away from his master. But she stood her ground, and instead Osborn rolled past her and flung four daggers at him, which managed to find their mark. Still running, the hexblade staggered and hit the ground, dead before he came to a stop.</p><p></p><p> “That’s two of your people dead, priest,” Arrie shouted. “Surrender now!”</p><p></p><p> “No, my dear,” he cackled, “instead let’s even the score, shall we?”</p><p></p><p> The priest reached out and grabbed at Arrie. Instinctively she jabbed at him with her weapon before she could stop herself, cutting into his flesh. Red lightning arced, and two children fell over dead. His spell went off, sending waves of negative energy into her that tried to tear her soul out of her body. She hung on, barely, but the spell left her shaken and weak.</p><p></p><p> “Yes,” she heard the priest mutter, as his eyes darted toward the two ghostly forms being sucked into the ground from the dead children, “yes, more souls for the Soul Well. It must be fed!”</p><p></p><p> “That will be quite enough!” Tolly bellowed, as he picked up the priest and pulled him to his chest, pinning his arms to his sides to keep him from casting any more spells. Arrie, seeing her chance, willed Anyweapon to take the form of a mancatcher, and used it to hold the priest in place. But the cultist only laughed again, and easily slipped out of Tolly’s grip and the mancatcher’s arms, aided by magic.</p><p></p><p> Autumn and Yuri closed in on the anarch. With both hexblades dead, Yuri could feel the curse starting to lift, though it still hampered her actions. The anarch stepped back, and using his sword as a defensive device to ward off his enemies’ blades, slammed his shield into the ground. The earth rippled from the impact, sending waves out in all directions. Autumn barely kept her feet, but Yuri was knocked down, though thanks to years of acrobatic training she was back on her feet again in seconds. Autumn hit the anarch with another bone-splintering strike, but he held on defiantly, seemingly unconcerned with the damage.</p><p></p><p> “What unholy power is keeping you on your feet?” Yuri cried out.</p><p></p><p> With two of his allies on each opponent, Osborn decided to try to get the children to safety. He stood atop the altar in the center of the room and held up his holy symbol of Ladta. “Come with me!” he shouted at them. “Follow me in the name of the True Goddess!” Some of the children looked at him, and seemed uncertain what to do. A few began to walk toward him as he made his way toward a door.</p><p></p><p> “No!” shouted the priest. “Come to me, children! They are leading you astray!” He reached out again and touched Arrie, sending more necromantic power into her and stripping away her life force. But this time Tolly intervened with power of his own, repairing the damage that had been caused to Arrie’s soul. The anarch shoved his way past Yuri and Autumn and charged Arrie, hoping to help the priest eliminate one foe. Still woozy from the priest’s assaults, Arrie was only barely able to avoid his blade. Suddenly, his sword began to blaze with chaos-fire again, and he raised it up to strike Arrie down.</p><p></p><p> And then Yuri was there.</p><p></p><p> Stab.</p><p></p><p> “You!”</p><p></p><p> Stab.</p><p></p><p> “Will!”</p><p></p><p> Stab.</p><p></p><p> “Not!”</p><p></p><p> Stab.</p><p></p><p> “Win!”</p><p></p><p> Yuri pulled her longspear out of the bloody chunk of meat that had once been an anarch, and stepped over it as it fell to the floor.</p><p></p><p> Now the Legacy was faced with only one opponent, but one they dared not harm. Arrie was first to act, pulling out a pair of bolas and hurling them at the priest, tying up his legs and sending him crashing to the ground again. Tolly hit the priest with one dispelling after the other, stripping away his defensive spells. Yuri dropped her longspear and switched to a flail, which she used to land blows meant to incapacitate rather than kill. With no blood being drawn, the red lightning did not come again, except for one short burst when Autumn struck the priest with the flat of Faithful Avenger and the holy energies of the blade reached out to scorch the evil cleric’s flesh. Even Osborn, who could see he was making little progress with the brainwashed children, rushed into the melee, drawing a seldom-used short sword and clubbing at the heretic with it.</p><p></p><p> Desperate, and seeing that the party could overwhelm him, the priest cast another spell. A blast of frigid cold filled the room, drawing all of the heat out of the air and into the priest, who seemed revitalized even as everyone else suffered. The sudden shock struck Yuri and Osborn the hardest, and Autumn, who was already on her last legs, succumbed to the cold, the damage to her body too much. She would have fallen then, if not for the <em>fortunate fate</em> spell that Tolly had placed on her before the battle had even begun. Her wounds closed, and her lungs filled with air.</p><p></p><p> A few of the children in the room fell dead, frozen in place. As their souls lifted from their bodies and were sucked into the ground, they all felt a disturbance in the earth beneath them, like a small tremor.</p><p></p><p> The party renewed their efforts to render the priest unconscious. Blows rained down on him from all sides, but he stubbornly refused to succumb. Finally, as he prepared to cast another spell, Osborn pulled out a sap and hit him at the base of the skull. The priest blinked, and his pupils went wide. Before he collapsed, senseless, he muttered one final phrase, punctuated by a low rumble emanating from beneath their feet.</p><p></p><p> “The Soulkeeper comes!”</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Delemental, post: 3735095, member: 5203"] They arrived, nearly exhausted, at the site of the cultist’s fortress just before midnight. The structure was still under construction; the palisade wall was mostly complete, as was the first floor of the keep. Several other buildings were in various stages of completion, as was the outer wall surrounding the entire complex. Yuri and Osborn were sent to do reconnaissance, while the others caught their breath. They returned after about an hour. “Well, we know that all those missing people from the villages are here. They’ve got the elderly working as guards and carpenters, going day and night.” Osborn reported. “And there is some religious symbolism incorporated into the keep – sort of.” “What do you mean, ‘sort of’?” Arrie asked. “There’s a black cat’s tail nailed to every ninth board on the wall,” he said with disgust. “Nine is a sacred number for Ladta.” “What else did you see?” Arrie asked. “The children are there too,” Yuri said. “They’re inside the keep, chanting.” “Chanting what?” “It’s some sort of ritual or prayer,” Osborn said. “There’s one adult with them, leading the chanting. I really can’t tell what its purpose is – maybe some sort of consecration or warding, given the number of people involved. It has elements of a Ladtan devotion, but its been twisted – like they refer to Ladta as the ‘One True Goddess’, which isn’t at all part of her teachings. Unfortunately, I haven’t had a lot of formal training in this sort of thing.” “How long would it take you to get back there?” Tolly asked. “About ten minutes, why?” “Once you’re inside, I can scry on you and use that to help identify the purpose of the ritual,” he said. “They were chanting in Anarchic,” Osborn said. “You don’t speak the language.” “Scrying doesn’t permit me to hear the target anyway,” Tolly said, “but I’ll be able to see the motions they make, the materials they use, any symbols or diagrams they have.” “It’d be a lot easier with a [I]telepathic bond[/I],” Osborn commented. “I just checked on him,” Autumn said. “Kyle’s still out of commission.” “The scrying will take an hour to prepare,” Tolly said. “Rest, and then make your way back to the keep. Stay there about fifteen minutes, then come back.” An hour passed, and found Tolly staring into a silver basin filled with blessed water, staring at the images inside. He muttered and mumbled to himself as the scene shifted and changed with Osborn’s movements, but he refrained from commenting until Osborn was back with the rest of the group. “It’s definitely a type of warding,” he explained. “They’re placing a combination of a [I]zone of anarchy[/I] and a [I]forbiddance [/I]on the altar. Once it’s complete, it will be difficult for us to enter. However, they are making a number of mistakes in the ritual.” “I could hear them having to start over more than once,” Osborn said. “And I noticed something else weird that I missed before. All of the kids have both ears pierced.” “Obviously something the cultists did,” Arrie said, “but why?” “No idea. I suggest we find out.” “But let’s rest now, and go later,” Autumn suggested. “We should be fresh when we go in.” The night passed, and the party woke up just before dawn. “How should we approach?” Arrie asked quietly. “We could fly in,” Autumn suggested. “No, [I]you [/I]can fly in.” “I could as well,” Tolly said, “if Kupa carries me.” The dragon just stared at Tolly. “What are you going to give me?” Tolly’s lips pursed at the unexpected demand. “Since you are following me, let’s say I won’t charge you for any healing.” “Let’s say I don’t care about that,” Kupa replied. “Very well,” Tolly said curtly. “You can explain your unwillingness to serve to Ardara.” “It’s a couple of hundred yards between the outer wall and the palisade,” Yuri said. “There are buildings in between for cover.” We should try to avoid being seen,” Arrie said. “I don’t know if the old folks guarding the place are being coerced into serving or not, but either way I’d rather not have to carve my way through them.” They eventually decided on a multi-pronged approach. After casting a few preparatory spells, Tolly crawled into Osborn’s [I]portable hole[/I], and the hin made a stealthy approach to the keep, running from building to building. Arrie and Yuri took much the same approach, though Arrie made use of her psionic powers to make extradimensional hops through the area, while Yuri did more physical hopping. Autumn opted for an aerial approach, dropping directly behind the inner wall after circling around behind the hills. Kupa and Rupert were left to guard both the camp and Kyle, who was brought out of the [I]portable hole[/I] and left in a tent. Kupa was instructed to take the catatonic wizard to Vargas if they did not return. Miraculously, the Legacy managed to penetrate the outer perimeter of the complex without being seen, and made their way inside the keep from various entrances. Soon they could all see what Osborn had; a group of fifteen to twenty young children, arranged randomly around the room and chanting. Two adults, dressed in full plate, also occupied the room; one was the cultist who had been leading the chanting the night before, the other stood off to one side, watching. The cultist leading the prayers had several chakram hanging from his belt, which was not an unusual sight on a Ladtan priest. But these chakram had serrated edges, another abnormality which only added to suspicion that this cult had been somehow corrupted. The cultist at the end of the room was armed with a fairly normal looking longsword and shield, but the engravings on his armor told Autumn that he was a member of the crusader sect known as the Anarchs, who were devoted to spreading disorder. No one in the room seemed to be aware of the party’s presence. Their attack was swift and brutal. Arrie ran in to engage the anarch, and Yuri and Autumn moved toward the priest in the middle of the room, but were intercepted by two figures in breastplates, wielding spiked chains, who charged out from a nearby alcove. Osborn opened up his [I]portable hole[/I] and released Tolly, his body formed of living iron and followed by a bright mote of divine energy that hovered over his head. Tolly immediately made his way to where the other priest stood in the middle of the room. “In Ardara’s name, I declare you false!” he shouted, and attempted to [I]imprison [/I]the priest. But the spell failed to capture him, and the man laughed. “Your bitch-goddess has no power over me, Ardaran!” he sneered. Ignoring Tolly, he instead cast a spell at Autumn, summoning a translucent chakram made of divine energy that began to slash at her. Meanwhile, Arrie and the anarch traded vicious blows, any one of which would have felled lesser warriors. The anarch, who was as proficient with his shield as he was with his blade, slammed the shield into Arrie’s face, sending her stumbling back long enough for him to shift toward the center of the room and slash at Tolly. Tolly cried out as the blade’s chaotic energies pulsed through him, reacting to his own orderly nature. In response Tolly tried to [I]implode [/I]the anarch, but was unsuccessful. Arrie took advantage of the brief respite to down a healing potion, and then went after the anarch again. Yuri and Autumn each squared off against one of the two new combatants, who were pointing at them and shouting curses. Yuri felt a sudden wave of unease, a lack of confidence that showed in her attacks. Her movements seemed to be just a little bit too slow to get into position, her spear thrusts just a little too shaky to strike true. Autumn, apparently, was not affected, as she sliced into one of the men with enough force to shatter bones. Osborn, who recognized the two new warriors as hexblades, threw daggers at the one fighting Yuri, but his blades were just a bit off target. “Foul heretics!” Yuri shouted, frustrated at the inexplicable decline in her skills. Both hexblades briefly touched rods hanging from their belts and muttered spells, and then attacked again. Autumn was struck by a spiked chain several times, but in the midst of the flurry the hexblade reached out and touched her arm, draining her vitality and absorbing it for himself. The other hexblade, seeing that Yuri was at a disadvantage, began to target Osborn with both steel and spell, though only the former managed to do any damage. Bleeding from several wounds caused by both the hexblade and the priest’s [I]spiritual weapon[/I], Autumn’s face grew red with fury. “Enough!” she shouted, and slammed her falchion into the hexblade with unnatural power, rupturing organs inside him. The hexblade gasped in pain and his defenses faltered, and he was barely able to cast a spell, vanishing. Tolly, who had prepared a [I]true seeing[/I] spell before the battle, could see that the hexblade was not gone, only invisible. He reached out a hand and touched him. For the others in the room, there was a sudden strangled cry from out of nowhere, a wet, popping noise, and then the sound of a body crumpling to the floor. Arrie spared a moment from her battle with the anarch to look around the room. The children were milling about uncertainly; they had moved out of the way of the battle, but showed no signs of trying to escape. [I] Why don’t they run?[/I] she wondered. The Ladtan cult priest tried to dispel Tolly’s [I]iron body[/I], but as the spell came at him, the mote of light over his head flared to life, intercepting the spell and turning it back on the priest. “Your faith is weak, heretic,” Tolly said. “We shall see,” he replied, as he reached out and healed the remaining hexblade, who was now pursuing Osborn around the chamber. Yuri ran past both the hexblade and the priest, jabbing her spear at each as she sprinted by, but the curse that afflicted her caused her to miss the priest entirely, and only strike a glancing blow on the hexblade. The priest laughed at the Sargian’s failed attack, and laughed again when he saw the anarch charge into Arrie, practically impaling her on his blade. “It seems that the One True Goddess favors our cause,” he mocked. “You have yet to even strike me.” “That changes now!” shouted Autumn, as she leapt in and struck the priest across the back with Faithful Avenger, sending a shock wave of holy power across the room. It passed over the children without harm, but the anarch cried out as the power burned his flesh. Autumn’s triumphant grin turn to a stare of horror as she saw that her blow had done little damage to the priest. Instead, bolts of red lightning shot out from the priest and struck a half-dozen of the children nearby, who screamed in pain as gashes identical to the ones that Autumn had made on the cultist appeared on their backs. The children collapsed, and appeared dead. Everyone immediately backed away from the priest, as if he had suddenly burst into flames. Osborn, who had seen the entire event, had also noticed that the earrings being worn by the children had glowed red when Autumn’s blow fell. “Children!” he shouted, “Take off the earrings!” They made no move to comply. Still calling out to them, Osborn renewed his attack on the hexblade, who had turned invisible like his former companion. But thanks to Osborn’s magical blindfold, which he had donned before battle, he could sense the hexblade’s presence without seeing him, and several daggers found a home in the body of his curse-spewing enemy. Tolly, similarly immune to the hexblade’s illusion, struck him with another [I]implosion[/I], but he resisted. Arrie and the anarch circled each other, both leaving a ring of blood on the wooden floor. “I tire of fighting you,” the anarch said suddenly, and without warning he turned and charged at Autumn, his sword blazing with chaos-fire. The end of the blade struck the sentinel in the chest, burning its way through her armor, through her chest, and emerging from the other side, between her wings. Gurgling, Autumn staggered back against the wall, alive only by sheer will. A terrible scream echoed in the room, from more than one person. Yuri was the first to rush in, her anger finally overcoming the power of the hex as she struck at the anarch again and again. “Faithless son of a bitch!” she screamed as she pressed the attack. The anarch turned to meet her assault, and then screamed as Autumn staggered up from behind and landed a devastating blow of her own. “I will not be vanquished so easily!” she spat at him. A few feet away, the hexblade leapt from Tolly to Osborn, landing blows on each even as he tried unsuccessfully to avoid Osborn’s daggers. Tolly kept his concentration on the priest, though he was now wary of the unholy power he wielded over the children. He saw Arrie come up from behind and strike the priest across the back of his knees with Anyweapon, sending him tumbling to the ground. Tolly attempted to use his last [I]implosion [/I]on the rogue Ladtan, hoping the sudden power would kill the priest before he could transfer his wounds to the children. But the priest easily resisted the spell, and in response dropped a [I]flame strike[/I] on Tolly and Osborn, as well as a few of the children. The charred corpses of the kids dropped to the ground with a sickening crunch. Those who watched the horrible scene saw wispy, translucent forms rise up from each corpse, and then suddenly get pulled down into the ground below the keep. Arrie held her weapon on the priest, waiting for him to rise. “Run!” she shouted at the children still milling about. “Why don’t you run?” But she could see the glazed stares of fanatics reflected on each young face, and knew her pleas were falling on deaf ears. The hexblade came around and slashed at Arrie, hoping to draw her away from his master. But she stood her ground, and instead Osborn rolled past her and flung four daggers at him, which managed to find their mark. Still running, the hexblade staggered and hit the ground, dead before he came to a stop. “That’s two of your people dead, priest,” Arrie shouted. “Surrender now!” “No, my dear,” he cackled, “instead let’s even the score, shall we?” The priest reached out and grabbed at Arrie. Instinctively she jabbed at him with her weapon before she could stop herself, cutting into his flesh. Red lightning arced, and two children fell over dead. His spell went off, sending waves of negative energy into her that tried to tear her soul out of her body. She hung on, barely, but the spell left her shaken and weak. “Yes,” she heard the priest mutter, as his eyes darted toward the two ghostly forms being sucked into the ground from the dead children, “yes, more souls for the Soul Well. It must be fed!” “That will be quite enough!” Tolly bellowed, as he picked up the priest and pulled him to his chest, pinning his arms to his sides to keep him from casting any more spells. Arrie, seeing her chance, willed Anyweapon to take the form of a mancatcher, and used it to hold the priest in place. But the cultist only laughed again, and easily slipped out of Tolly’s grip and the mancatcher’s arms, aided by magic. Autumn and Yuri closed in on the anarch. With both hexblades dead, Yuri could feel the curse starting to lift, though it still hampered her actions. The anarch stepped back, and using his sword as a defensive device to ward off his enemies’ blades, slammed his shield into the ground. The earth rippled from the impact, sending waves out in all directions. Autumn barely kept her feet, but Yuri was knocked down, though thanks to years of acrobatic training she was back on her feet again in seconds. Autumn hit the anarch with another bone-splintering strike, but he held on defiantly, seemingly unconcerned with the damage. “What unholy power is keeping you on your feet?” Yuri cried out. With two of his allies on each opponent, Osborn decided to try to get the children to safety. He stood atop the altar in the center of the room and held up his holy symbol of Ladta. “Come with me!” he shouted at them. “Follow me in the name of the True Goddess!” Some of the children looked at him, and seemed uncertain what to do. A few began to walk toward him as he made his way toward a door. “No!” shouted the priest. “Come to me, children! They are leading you astray!” He reached out again and touched Arrie, sending more necromantic power into her and stripping away her life force. But this time Tolly intervened with power of his own, repairing the damage that had been caused to Arrie’s soul. The anarch shoved his way past Yuri and Autumn and charged Arrie, hoping to help the priest eliminate one foe. Still woozy from the priest’s assaults, Arrie was only barely able to avoid his blade. Suddenly, his sword began to blaze with chaos-fire again, and he raised it up to strike Arrie down. And then Yuri was there. Stab. “You!” Stab. “Will!” Stab. “Not!” Stab. “Win!” Yuri pulled her longspear out of the bloody chunk of meat that had once been an anarch, and stepped over it as it fell to the floor. Now the Legacy was faced with only one opponent, but one they dared not harm. Arrie was first to act, pulling out a pair of bolas and hurling them at the priest, tying up his legs and sending him crashing to the ground again. Tolly hit the priest with one dispelling after the other, stripping away his defensive spells. Yuri dropped her longspear and switched to a flail, which she used to land blows meant to incapacitate rather than kill. With no blood being drawn, the red lightning did not come again, except for one short burst when Autumn struck the priest with the flat of Faithful Avenger and the holy energies of the blade reached out to scorch the evil cleric’s flesh. Even Osborn, who could see he was making little progress with the brainwashed children, rushed into the melee, drawing a seldom-used short sword and clubbing at the heretic with it. Desperate, and seeing that the party could overwhelm him, the priest cast another spell. A blast of frigid cold filled the room, drawing all of the heat out of the air and into the priest, who seemed revitalized even as everyone else suffered. The sudden shock struck Yuri and Osborn the hardest, and Autumn, who was already on her last legs, succumbed to the cold, the damage to her body too much. She would have fallen then, if not for the [I]fortunate fate[/I] spell that Tolly had placed on her before the battle had even begun. Her wounds closed, and her lungs filled with air. A few of the children in the room fell dead, frozen in place. As their souls lifted from their bodies and were sucked into the ground, they all felt a disturbance in the earth beneath them, like a small tremor. The party renewed their efforts to render the priest unconscious. Blows rained down on him from all sides, but he stubbornly refused to succumb. Finally, as he prepared to cast another spell, Osborn pulled out a sap and hit him at the base of the skull. The priest blinked, and his pupils went wide. Before he collapsed, senseless, he muttered one final phrase, punctuated by a low rumble emanating from beneath their feet. “The Soulkeeper comes!” [/QUOTE]
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