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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 3204487" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 51UNTO DEATHCaught by surprise, Allera cried out as the wight charged at her.  Aelos, likewise startled by the monster’s sudden appearance, could not react in time to intervene. The creature slammed into her, raking with its claws.  The healer’s magical armor withstood the attack, however, and the life-draining claws did not touch her flesh.  The wight, furious, tried to grab a hold of her, and drag her down into a grapple. Allera had been caught off guard, but she quickly recovered her wits.  “Begone, abomination!” she yelled, placing her own hands upon its head.  She grimaced as the deadly chill of its skin crept into her fingers, but she called upon her own magic to defeat it, unleashing a powerful surge of life-giving positive energy into the undead monster.  Now it was the wight that screamed, as its corrupt flesh was blasted from its bones.  It fell back, smoke rising from its scorched skull.  Talen was having difficulties.  He had yanked off the wight clinging to his back, but as he turned to stab it the second one had come at him from behind, charging into him and catching the captain in close between them.  Thus far his armor had protected him from being energy-drained again, but with the wights in so close he was having a tough time bringing his sword into play. Varo rushed forward, his divine focus held up in one hand.  “I command you in the name of Dagos, back!” he shouted.  But nothing happened; the wights were not affected, and the one that Allera had blasted was already recovering, even though only one eye still glowed within its ravaged skull.  “Aelos!  Call upon the Father!” Varo urged. The holy cleric was already acting, lifting the sigil of the silver torch, and presenting it to the creature.  “Begone!” he said, echoing Allera’s earlier command.  The cleric’s voice, thick with power, echoed through the room, and the wight in front of them cowered, drawing back until the cavern wall ended its retreat.  One of the pair facing Talen likewise fell back and fled, running across the cavern until the darkness swallowed it up.  The last one held its ground, but the departure of one of his foes gave Talen a chance to sweep his sword across its body, opening a terrible gash in its torso.  “Aaarr!” Dar yelled, finally joining the fray, leaping up from the tunnel to charge to the captain’s aid.  He’d drawn Valor, and as the wight turned toward him, claws outstretched, he swept the blade across its body in an all-out power attack that cut, and just kept on going. The two halves of the wight’s body fell to the ground in a bloodless heap.  Varo was bludgeoning the injured one cowering against the nearby wall.  “Find and destroy the last one,” he said to Dar.  The warrior had sheathed Valor, and was looking from the sword to the body of the monster he’d destroyed.  At Varo’s command he nodded, and headed across the chamber to where the last creature had fled.  Aelos followed him, bringing his staff so that he could see. Allera came over to Talen.  “Are you all right?” “Yes.  I feel... cold.”“The effect of the wight’s touch; it has drained some of your life essence.  You may be able to fight it off, in time, but we don’t have that right now.”  The healer reached into her satchel and drew out a small pouch.  She took a pinch of fine dust from it, and sprinkled it over the soldier, whispering soft words of power as she did so.  Talen shuddered as his stolen life was restored to him.  It didn’t take long for Dar to return.  “Last one’s destroyed.  I didn’t see any more, but it looks like there’s a lot of small tunnels leading off this chamber.”“Let’s take a look,” Talen said.  “Stay together, and keep an eye out; those things were damned good at remaining undetected.”But they didn’t find any more wights lurking in the shadows.  They did find a small tunnel that opened onto a passage of worked stone.  All of the other crevices appeared to lead to dead ends, or to tunnels too small for them to navigate, so they headed in that direction.  The passage, formed of ancient stone blocks, was only five feet wide, but after the crawlspaces of earlier, it seemed relatively spacious.  Talen took the lead, and after about sixty feet guided them into a large, roughly diamond-shaped room.  This chamber was also deliberately crafted rather than naturally occurring, but like the last was almost empty, populated only by dirt and assorted debris.  A small door in a recessed threshold was just visible on the far side of the room. After a brief search, they ended up at the door.  Talen listened at it briefly, and then gestured for the others to take up ready positions.  For once, Dar did not make a comment, instead standing beside the door, and lifting his club.  He nodded at the captain when he was ready. Talen yanked the door open.  Beyond was a narrow, twisting passage.  The illumination from Talen’s sword and Aelos’s staff revealed nothing ahead, but at the edges of the light shone on what looked like another room at the end of the corridor. They moved on.  The room at the end of the corridor was a long rectangular chamber about forty feet wide and thirty deep.  There was one immediate difference obvious about it; this place showed signs of intelligent residents.  “Looks like somebody called this place home,” Talen said. There were six beds, human-sized, arranged in two rows in the center of the place.  Six plain wooden chests were arranged at the feet of the beds, facing the center of the room.  Rolled up bedrolls along the edges of the room suggested that more people sometimes slept here, and brackets for torches set in the walls suggested that whoever they were, they utilized artificial light sources.  There was another door in the wall to their left, set with a bronze casting of a leering humanoid face at eye level.The companions moved into the room, wary. “We are close,” Aelos said.  “There is a powerful evil aura near this place.”  “Where’s it coming from?” Talen asked.  Aelos pointed to the door. “I can feel it too,” Varo said, taking up a position along the wall.    “We must be near the evil temple,” Allera said. “Well, if they gotta sleep, then they can be killed,” Dar said simply.  He’d gone over to take a look at the chests, and he flipped the latch of one with his boot, and kicked it open.“No, don’t...” Talen began.He was cut off as a blast of electrical energy erupted from the chest, slamming into Dar’s chest.  The fighter staggered back as the bolt tore through him, draining away in sparks that leapt to the floor and to the other chest and bed across from him.  He stood there, his chest blackened, smelling of burnt flesh and ozone.“Ouch,” he said. Allera started toward him at once, but Varo stopped her.  “Look!” he said, pointing at the chest that the lightning bolt had hit after passing through Dar.  Dark green vapors were seeping from the chest where the bolt had scorched it, spreading out into the air in ominous tendrils.  “Back, everyone!” Talen commanded.  They retreated into the corridor, where Allera summoned her power to treat Dar’s injuries.  “That was stupid,” she told him. “Anybody ever tell you that you’ve got an awful bedside manner?” he replied.  Varo and Talen had kept a close eye on the room.  The vapors had formed a small cloud in front of the chest, hovering in the air for a minute or two before dissipating.  “Burnt othur,” Varo said.  “Nasty stuff.”“Is it safe?”“Give it another few minutes.  And I would recommend not touching that chest further.”“Nobody touch anything,” Talen said to all of them, his gaze lingering on Dar.  “All of them might be trapped, for all we know.”    They waited until the othur fumes had dissolved completely, but even so were careful to give the chests a wide berth as they made their way back into the room.  “So now what?” Dar asked. “The answers we seek are through there,” Aelos said, indicating the door with his staff.  “Orcus cultists,” Talen said, drawing his sword.  Varo whispered something to Dar; the fighter nodded and walked around the room to the area the far door, although he made it clear that he wasn’t going anywhere near it. “We may be able to catch them off guard,” Allera said.  “The Father will watch over us, and grant us victory,” Aelos said. “Maybe, but I don’t think that’s what you have in mind,” Varo said.  Aelos looked at him in surprise.  “What do you mean by that?” Talen asked.  “What I mean,” Varo said, his words stabbing through the air like daggers, “Is that he’s a traitor.  Aelos Sinaris is a priest of Orcus.”</blockquote>

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