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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 3196229" data-attributes="member: 143">Thanks for the kudos, guys, as always your posts are greatly appreciated. This week I will post on a M-Tu-Th-F schedule. * * * * * Chapter 48PUNCHING BAG“Oh, crap...” Talen said.  The nearest ogre reached for him.  The fighter showed the creature the error of that strategy, as his blade snicked across his forearm, opening a deep bleeding gash.  The ogre snarled and drew back, but its fellows took the opportunity to unleash a world of hurt upon the surrounded fighter.  Pain exploded in his back as a club smashed across his shoulder blades.  He staggered forward and nearly fell, only to see another club coming straight for his face.  He hurled himself aside, narrowly avoding the powerful swing, only to be hit again by a third ogre that slammed its weapon into his left arm.  Talen heard a loud snap, and the arm went limp.  He was too overwhelmed to feel pain, but he knew that it was coming, bringing with it an avalanche of agony.  Assuming he lived long enough to feel it. Aelos crawled forward and emerged from the tunnel in time to see the ogre standing beside the opening hurl Talen out into the room.  There were ogres everywhere, but the cleric bravely fired a beam of searing light into the face of the first as it turned back toward him.  The ogre roared in pain as the holy energies blasted it, but it had more than enough fight in it to reach down and seize the cleric, dragging him out into the room.  It rolled him toward another ogre, which lifted its club to crush the hapless priest’s skull. Allera emerged from the tunnel mouth to witness a scene of utter chaos and destruction, with her companions on the receiving end.  Her breath froze in her throat as she saw an ogre slam the head of its club down toward Aelos’s head.  The cleric barely rolled out of the way, although the club crushed his right hand, the one holding his staff, and he screamed in agony as the bones in his hand were pulverized.  Reaching out with his left hand, the cleric grabbed onto the ogre’s ankle.  Allera was surprised to see the ogre cry out and stagger backward, and became even more surprised when it fell to the ground.  But there were more immediate concerns to deal with, including the ogre that loomed over her.  As it turned to face her, she could see the burns on its face from Aelos’s searing light.  But even worse, behind it she saw Talen getting smothered by a ring of at least six other ogres.  As she watched, unable to intervene, an ogre smashed him in the arm, spinning him around into the waiting blow of another.  The fighter cried out, and collapsed in a mangled heap.  Allera had known fear many times since coming to Rappan Athuk, but overlying those surges of panic and terror lay a much deeper commitment.  She was a healer, and those she cared about were suffering.  Her power came at her call, filled her.  Not even looking at the ogre standing above her, she started walking toward Talen.  The ogre lifted its club to crush the woman, but before it could strike, it hesitated.  It looked at her as she passed, a bewildered look on its face.  It was still looking after her when Dar exploded from the tunnel, and stabbed his punching dagger deep into its back. The main group of ogres, cruel and evil things, laughed at the bloodied mess of battered flesh and broken bones that lay on the ground between them.  But they were also practical creatures as well, and several of them were quick to reach for the downed fighter, eager to get dibs both on loot, and choice bits of human flesh.  But as the first grabbed onto Talen’s ankle, it felt a strange confusion fall over it.  It looked up at another ogre that was picking up the downed man’s glowing sword.  A rage filled it.  The second ogre looked at its kin in surprise, which became confused alarm as the first lifted its club, and brought it down on the other’s head in a powerful two-handed blow.  The ring of ogres exploded into chaos as the ogres started fighting amongst themselves, hurling powerful body-crushing blows back and forth.  Even those that had not succumbed to Varo’s confusion were drawn in to the melee, which quickly absorbed the full attention of all six of the ogres. Varo had become visible with the casting of his spell, but the ogre guarding the tunnel entrance had its own problems.  It bashed Dar with its club, but the blow seemed to only drive him to a greater intensity.  Taking up his own club, the fighter smashed the ogre’s left knee, knocking it to the ground.  The ogre screamed and tried to get up, only to take another hit to the side of its skull that put it down for good. Dar looked up to see Allera walk calmly into the middle of the raging melee in the middle of the room.  “What in the hells is she doing!” he said to nobody in particular, rushing after her. One of the ogres broke away from the melee in the center of the room, its face bloody where a blow had broken its nose.  It ignored the slender woman walking by, focusing instead on the charging warrior carrying a club almost as big as its own.  Varo’s spell clouded its mind with rage, and it rushed to meet its foe, lifting its club to strike.  Allera dodged between a pair of raging ogres that were raining down blows on each other.  Another saw her and attacked, the confusion overwhelming the protective power of her sanctuary spell.  She leapt forward, taking a glancing hit that nevertheless sent an explosion of pain through her side.  Two ribs broken, she thought reflexively.  She looked up and saw the ogre coming forward to finish the job, only to stagger back as another one brought its club down across its shoulders, knocking it to its knees.Allera crawled forward to where Talen lay, forgotten in the chaos of the melee.  A quick check revealed that the fighter still breathed, but was very close to death.  She did not hold anything back, opening a torrent of healing power into him.  The fighter stiffened, sucked in a breath, and opened his eyes wide.  They focused on Allera, then shifted to the space over her shoulder. “Allera... look out!”The charging ogre smashed Dar in the chest with enough force that the fighter thought he could feel his insides being shuffled around to new positions.  He staggered past the creature, his own counterattack ruined and feeble, barely enough to draw a grunt from the giant.  The ogre lifted its club to finish off the battered human.  Trying to draw a breath into his battered lungs, Dar brought the club up in what was an admittedly hopeless attempt to parry.  But the blow did not land.  Looking up, the fighter saw a glowing torch smash into the ogre from behind.  The ogre, more irritated than injured, turned around.  It saw the real threat too late to respond.  “Embrace the oblivion of Dagos,” Varo said, touching the ogre’s side, releasing an inflict serious wounds into it. As the ogre fell, Varo came to help Dar, who looked ready to charge into the melee, despite the fact that he seemed only a few steps from collapsing himself.  There were still four ogres left standing, one of them waving around Talen’s magical sword.  “Let the spell finish its work,” the cleric said, touching the gold icon at his throat as he cast a healing spell to aid the battered fighter.  “The ogres are confused right now, but will attack anything that provokes them.”“But Allera went into there.”“Yes, after the captain.  She is tougher than she looks, and in any case you will do her no help by getting put down as soon as you enter the nearest ogre’s reach.”“Damn it,” Dar said, breaking away from Varo, even as the cleric’s cure serious wounds took effect.  Lifting his club, he rushed toward the nearest ogre.  As he ran, he felt a familiar soothing energy pulse through him.  The healer was nowhere to be seen, but the feeling was unmistakable, easing his wounds, touching him in a way that Varo’s more bracing healing had not.  He came up behind the ogre holding Talen’s sword.  The creature was wrestling with another ogre for the weapon, so it did not see the fighter until it was too late.  Putting all his strength behind the swing, he brought his club around in an arc that intersected with the base of the ogre’s spine.  With a loud snap as its back was broken, the ogre screamed and toppled, dragging the other one down with it.  With the ogres out of the way, Dar could see Talen standing beyond them, his dagger stained bright red with ogre blood that covered his arm up to his elbow.  The captain looked wild and battered, swaying back and forth.  He stood astride Allera, who was conscious, despite the fact that the left side of her face was covered with blood.  “What took you so long?” the captain said, his words thick and slurred.  Allera touched his leg, ignoring her own grievous wounds as she poured more positive energy into Talen’s battered frame.  He’d taken a total of seven hits from the ogres, enough to kill him several times over, and only Allera’s presence had kept him standing.  That and the confusion that still muddled the minds of the surviving ogres.  Even as Dar finished off the one that had been dragged down to the ground in the death-grip of its fellow, the last two remaining beasts seemed to realize that there was a greater threat present here than each other.  They turned from attacking each other to attack Talen and Dar with their clubs.  Dar felt all of the pain of his wounds explode back alive again as the ogre smashed him in almost the exact same spot as its comrade had a few seconds before.  Talen, infused with new life by Allera’s touch, likewise was staggered as the other ogre’s club clipped his body, smashing ribs that had been healed and broken at least twice already.  Somehow, defying the basic realities of the human body, he remained standing.  But both men were in little shape to effectively counterattack.  Yet somehow, they did.  Dar thrust his club up into the ogre’s groin, drawing a fearsome cry of rage and pain from it.  Talen’s dagger was almost pitiful against the sheer size of the ogre, but when he buried it to the hilt in the ogre’s thigh, it certainly noticed.  All four of the combatants, the two remaining ogres and the human fighters, were all barely standing now, covered in bloody wounds and ugly bruises, and in even worse shape inside.  Talen’s foe lifted a meaty paw to grab the fighter’s head, but before it could get a grip, Aelos’s spiritual weapon smashed into its head.  The divine weapon struck with the force of a real club, and the ogre fell back, collapsing with a ground-shaking impact as all six hundred pounds of it hit the floor.  Dar had no such assistance as he and the ogre came at each other for a final time.  Dar struck just a heartbeat ahead of his foe, hitting its elbow with his club, and sending its club flying as the bones of its arm shattered.  The ogre went down, but as it did its other forearm smacked hard into the fighter’s face.  Dar tried to keep his footing, but his body had taken just too much abuse.  As the last ogre fell, he staggered a few steps away, looked up at Varo, and collapsed into unconsciousness.</blockquote>

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