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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 3319684" data-attributes="member: 143">Thanks for the posts! It's Friday, so you know what that means...* * * * * Chapter 96THE RITUALAs the sack was torn roughly from her head, Allera could see that she was in a huge chamber, surrounded by the servants of Orcus. The place was shaped like a giant cross, and stretched for hundreds of feet in each direction.  She knelt upon a symbol carved into the stone beneath her, part of a very large and very intricate pentagram that stretched across the center of the room.  Directly in front of her stood a broad stone altar, upon which hovered a slowly spinning crystalline orb that flashed with a dizzying mélange of colors.  It made her eyes hurt to look upon it, but it took some effort to tear her gaze away. To the sides of the pentagram she could see large stone pools to the left and right.  Ugly red splatters around the perimeter of those basins hinted at what was inside; that and the foul stench of this place—an odor of decay—caused her gorge to rise in her throat. She could not move; the cruel barbed cords were wrapped tightly around her body and legs, binding her limbs to her, and holding her in a position that was a mockery of prayer.  She was not the only prisoner; there were two others held in similar poses in adjacent positions along the perimeter of the pentagram, goblins.  One knelt with its head down against its chest, either dead or unconscious.  The second met her gaze with intelligence shining in its yellow eyes, but also a grim resignation.  They were not alone.  She tried to swivel her head around, but moving her body caused the barbs to bite painfully into her flesh, and so she could only manage to turn enough to sense vague forms at the edges of her peripheral vision.  There was a power here, a slowly building feeling that caused a prickling sensation against her skin.  She felt her stomach twist with terror, and it was only by summoning her will and her faith that she kept from collapsing in a paroxysm of frantic sobs. “It will soon be over, priestess,” came the familiar voice of Gudmund from behind her.  She could feel the priest’s presence as he came closer, could feel the hot warmth of his breath against her skin.  His voice became a silken whisper, words for her ears alone.  “You and your friends helped me bring down Zehn... the least I can do is grant you the gift of oblivion.  You will not witness the destruction of your world... but you can go to your doom knowing that you have helped to bring it about.”“You will fail,” Allera said.  “The powers of Good will not suffer you nor your abomination of a master to live.”The evil high priest stepped past her, moving into view.  He was clad in full plate armor that clanked as he moved, the whole covered by unholy vestments dominated by a bloody red sigil of the horned god he served.  He wore no helm, but his face was covered by a mask in the shape of a skull, its white surface edged by what looked like splatters of fresh blood.  He dominated her, a dread prince of darkness himself, full of his power and the power of his patron.  And he was not alone.  Terrors out of nightmare accompanied him, one passing to her left, another to her right.  The vrock screeched at her, gobs of spittle trailing from its beak, while the glabrezu merely looked at her coldly, like a piece of meat beyond its notice.  The conscious goblin struggled, although its bonds were as tight and as painful as those holding Allera.  “This will mean an end to our alliance, priest, and war between my people and yours,” the creature croaked. Gudmund turned to him, and laughed.  “That arrangement was merely one of convenience, wretch.  Your people shall be chaff before the reaper’s scythe, their souls provender for the True God.”The glabrezu’s gaze shifted to fall upon the goblin, and its bravery collapsed before that otherworldly stare.  The creature let out a keening sigh and subsided, shivering.  But Allera had drawn some strength from the creature’s defiance.  “You may kill me, but others will come to destroy you,” she said.  “Of course they will,” Gudmund said.  “I am counting on it.”He lifted his arms, letting his robe fall back to reveal scarified flesh upon his hand and forearms; he wore neither gauntlets or bracers.  He drew out a knife from under his mantle, and used it to add another cut to his own flesh.  Bright red blood dropped in fat orbs upon the floor.  The shimmering aura from the crystal globe obscured his body, blurring his features, making him almost impossible to see clearly.  But his voice rang out through the chamber, ever syllable crashing against the healer’s ears. “Blood of the True God!” he shouted.  “You came here to serve, to bring about the Final Coming!”A dozen voices, maybe more, echoed from behind her in response.  “His coming shall wipe away all before him!”  The voices were male and female, young and old, and she knew them.  The voices of her captors, her tormentors.  The acolytes and priests of Orcus, Prince of Demons.  The energies coming from the crystal sphere seemed to pulse in cadence with their words.  Gudmund’s face had become hazy, blurred, but she could still see his eyes, fixed upon her.  “We bring these offerings, so that their lives may speed his coming!” She sensed movement to her sides, and saw hooded and robed priests come up behind the goblins.  Daggers flashed in their hands, and blood spurted as one yanked back the head of each goblin, while another drew his blade across their throats.  The goblins, already near death, deflated, their bodies sagging back as their blood exploded from the deep cuts.  And then, as Allera watched in horror, a miasma of gray tendrils swirled out of the bodies of the dying creatures.  Tiny motes of light flickered within those insubstantial clouds, which were drawn out of the bodies and forward, toward the center of the pentagram.  The sparkling wraiths grew longer and thinner as they passed the high priest’s outstretched arms, finally dissolving into the crystal sphere, which pulsed brightly as they were absorbed. Allera instinctively knew what had happened, knew enough about the tenuous flicker of life to recognize that the sphere had devoured the souls of the hapless prisoners.  She looked up at Gudmund in horror.  The evil priest’s eyes shone deep within the hollows of his skull mask. “Yes,” he said.  “Yes, you understand.  And your soul, burning so much brighter than those wretches, will help sunder the bindings upon the door.”  She struggled, ignoring the sharp pains that pierced her body from the barbed cords.  Fresh blood soaked into her already sodden shift.  A scream bubbled up within her as rough hands grabbed her head, but she felt a sudden calm come over her, and she did not give them the satisfaction of crying out.  She trembled as her head was yanked back, and steel flashed before her eyes. “So strong,” she heard Gudmund’s voice.  “Yes, yes.”She never felt the actual stroke, but felt the hot warmth pouring down her chest.  Her strength seemed to ebb away with that flow, and her senses began to drift.  The flashing energy of the sphere muted everything else as her vision clouded, and she could feel it tugging at her.  She tried to fight it, but her will faded with her lifesblood, and she could not.  But then she felt another presence there with her, taking her into its shelter, and that evil pull faded as the blackness deepened around her. Gudmund watched the healer bleeding out her life, her blood seeping through her ruined clothes, and spreading out upon the floor, seeping into the carved runes of the unholy circle.  The ritual had reached its climax, and he waited for his reward, as the woman’s bright soul was drawn into the Sphere.  But as her life faded, nothing happened.  The woman was dead, that much was obvious.  Her slashed throat had stopped its gory fountain, and she’d slumped down, kept upright only by the tightness of her bonds.  Frowning under his skull mask, Gudmund lowered his arms and stepped forward.  The two priests standing behind her exchanged a look, realizing that something had gone wrong.  As the priest came forward, he saw something.  Under the blood-soaked remnants of her garment, there was a faint flickering flash, just between her breasts, close against her heart.His moment of glory had been denied him; he had been cheated of his prize.  The high priest’s face twisted with fury, and he’d started forward to grab the dead woman’s body when suddenly the outer doors to the temple burst open, and a dire wolverine charged forward into the unholy chamber.</blockquote>

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