Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 3225857" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 59  REUNIONVaro’s muttered comment had been to himself, but Dar, coming up from behind, had heard it. “What?” Dar said.  “Him?” he squinted up at the prisoner, who hung limply from his tenous perch. “Cut him down!” Varo urged. “I hate to break it to you, chief, but he’s long dead.  Looks like a side of slow-roasted beef.”“No,” the cleric said.  He started toward the stairs, barely able to put one foot in front of the other, but Dar quickly stopped him.  “What are you doing?  Are you crazy?”“Cut him down,” Varo coughed.  “Please... at once.”Dar looked at the cleric, then over at Talen, who had moved Allera away from the scene of the battle, and had covered her with the remains of his cloak.  “Talen!  Give me a hand over here!”Moving carefully on the stairs, the two fighters were able to cut the elf free and lower him to the ground.  Varo was at their side at once, and he looked incredibly relieved to find a pulse beating faintly in the man’s throat.  “I don’t know how anyone could have survived that,” Talen said with incredulity.  “His arms are both out of their sockets... and his skin...”  The entire front half of his body was a cherry red, blood oozing from where his skin had cracked and scabbed over, only to be reopened as he was moved. “He’s crazy,” Dar said, looking down at both the cleric and his patient.  But Varo did not look up, his hands moving fast as he did what he could for the elf’s terrible wounds.  “We need to rest, and recover our strength,” Talen said.  “We should prepare a litter for Allera, maybe from one of the beds in the other room.”“She and the elf should not be moved,” Varo said without looking up.  “We cannot leave here, not yet.”“Ah, weren’t you just saying a minute ago that we could expect enemy reinforcements at any minute?” Dar said.  “We cannot stay here,” Talen added.  “This place is utterly indefensible.” “I suggest we find a way,” Varo said.  He stopped his workings for a moment and looked up at them. “Look at it this way,” he said.  “The caverns are clearly not safe.  In addition to the ubiquitous rats, there are creatures like the wights, the spiders, and the wererats.”“Max was pretty helpful at covering us,” Dar suggested. “Allera won’t survive being dragged through those little tunnels, and we’re all likely to die from gangrenous infections if we linger in the otyugh’s chamber in our current condition.  I can treat disease with my magic, but I cannot restore limbs that have to be amputated due to putrefaction.  To be honest, I’m surprised one of us hasn’t come down with filth fever already.”Talen looked at Dar, who hadn’t taken his eyes off Varo.  The cleric met the other’s gaze calmly with his one intact eye.  Finally, the mercenary broke the stare, and looked around the chamber.  “We’ll need to get ready.”Talen helped Varo bring the elf over to the side of the room where Allera lay.  Dar lingered behind a moment, looking over the scene of carnage.  Looking the other way across the room, he could see a massive statue he’d missed before, an obscene form of a goat-headed humanoid carved in black stone.  The ruddy light coming from the lava pit seemed to glint off its eyes, making them seem to follow the fighter as he walked across the room.  “It just gets better and better,” he said, his expression as dark as the lusterless black walls of the chamber.</blockquote>

Verification