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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 3344800" data-attributes="member: 143">Glad you guys enjoyed that scene, it was a lot of fun to write.Heh, I have no plans on stopping anytime soon.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> We're approaching the end of Book II; we'll reach it by the end of next week. Expect some... interesting... developments.  <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":]" title="Devious    :]" data-shortname=":]" /> * * * * * Chapter 104THE FLICKERING MOTES OF FATEThey were not attacked again as they left the evil temple.  Talen carried the body of Zosimos, while Shay and Varo dragged the armored form of Valus between them.  “Well, we’re not going to sneak up on anybody,” Shay commented, grunting as Valus’s armor scraped on the stone floor. They did not have to explore far; they found a complex of unoccupied rooms not far from the passage leading to the caves where they’d battled the displacer beasts.  The corpses from their last battle there were where they had left them, but Shay pointed out fresh hoofprints tracked through the blood, suggesting that the others had indeed stumbled upon the site of the battle earlier, alerting them to the presence of intruders in the complex.  “Lucky for us we didn’t find them until after we’d taken out the temple,” Talen said.  The others agreed; if the minotaurs had come upon their rear during that battle, it was almost certain that they would all have shared the fate of Zosimos and Valus. After checking several rooms, they found one that was defensible, and made preparations to rest.  Varo and Malerase were given preference, as always; they needed to refresh their spells.  That meant long shifts for the others, but despite showing clear signs of exhaustion, none of them complained.  Dar took the first watch, Valor sitting bare across his lap.  He let Varo heal him, but he said nothing to the cleric, either before or after.  When Talen woke to take over for him several hours later, the fighter merely rolled over and went to sleep, his sword still clutched in his hand.  Talen lingered on his watch, but finally he could not keep his eyes open any longer, and he nudged Shay, who woke at once and spelled him to collapse into his bedroll.  More hours passed, and finally Varo woke on his own, nodding to the scout as he took himself a short distance off to pray.  Shay prepared a cold breakfast of trail bread and hard cheese, and then took several bits of charcoal, a waterskin, a small iron pot and cooking frame, and a fist-sized cheesecloth bag out of the bag of holding.  These tools came together with practiced efficiency to make coffee.  The smell woke the others, who gathered around the tiny flame to take draughts of the almost magical elixir and shake off the last vestiges of sleep.  Only Malerase refused any of the coffee, instead sipping water while he reviewed his spellbook a short distance away.“Gods, Shay, this is better than a healing potion,” Talen said, cupping the beaten iron mug in both hands, letting the steam rise up into his nostrils.  Dar downed his ration in a single gulp, then got up and walked over to the far side of the room to piss noisily into a corner.  “What do you think about all of this?” Shay asked Talen.  “I don’t know,” the captain replied quietly.  “I do not trust Varo any more than he does,” indicating Dar with a nod of his head.  “But I’ve seen enough with my own eyes to know that he’s not lying about the threat posed by these madmen.  And he’s our only chance, right now, for Allera.”“What if... what if her soul is...” she trailed off. He took her hand in his.  “We’ll do whatever we can,” he told her.  “You lovebirds want some quiet time?” Dar said, as he returned to the camp.  “Shut up, Dar,” Shay said, getting up to attend to her own personal needs.  Varo finally stood and returned.  He looked haunted, and his glass eye was cocked to the side, its pupil off-center, but in the other burned a furious intensity that belied his calm exterior.  “When will you attempt the commune?” Talen asked.  “I have already completed the spell,” the cleric said, as he took a small piece of biscuit.“What?  I thought that we were going to do it together...”Varo interrupted him with a raised hand.  “A commune is among the most personal experiences that a cleric can initiate,” he said.  “It is not like an idle conversation; it involves direct communication with the intermediaries of a god, if not some fragment of the god’s consciousness itself.  It is not something that can be shared.”“What did Old Creepy tell you, then,” Dar said.  “If you feel you can share that much.”  The fighter had calmed considerably since the previous day, but there was still a clear undercurrent of danger in his tone, and Valor still sat naked against his hip, the sword shining blue in the light of their continual flames. Varo took something out of his pocket, and held it out in the palm of his hand. “Where did you get that?” Dar began angrily.  He reached for it, but Varo snapped it back.  The green stone flickered slightly in his grasp. “I found it on Allera,” he said.  “Her life force, her soul, is trapped inside the stone.”  He looked at Dar.  “I take it you have some knowledge of the device?”Dar muttered something under his breath. “If we are to help her, I must know what it is,” Varo persisted. “I found it on the body of one of the clerics we fought in the first temple,” Dar said.  “Not the boss guy, but one of the reinforcements.  I gave it to Allera... as a gift.”“Interesting, that the priests of Orcus would just let her keep it,” Varo said.  “There is a very complex weave of enchantments upon it.  I do not fully understand it myself, but I believe that it saved Allera from having her soul drained away into the cult artifact.”“Can you free it?” Talen asked. “Possibly,” the cleric said.  “I have prepared a spell that should be able to weaken the enchantment enough to free her, and another to restore life to her body.  Mind you, this will require a great investment of my power, and I cannot guarantee success.”“Do it,” Dar said, rising, pointedly taking his sword into his hand as he stood.  He went over to where they’d stored the bodies of their erstwhile companions.  The corpses were starting to stink, but all of them were so covered in blood and sweat and dirt that they barely noticed. “What about Zosimos and Valus?” Shay asked. Varo shook his head.  “It is as I feared; they are gone.”“Did you ask about the cult’s plans?” Talen asked. “I did.”“And?”“The response was... not clear.”“I thought you were talking to your god.”“Even the gods are not omniscient,” Varo said.  “And such matters grow complicated when more than one being of divine power is involved.”“Enough of this crap,” Dar said, as he brought Allera’s body over to them.  He kicked out Talen’s bedroll fully, and laid her upon it.  “Do your magic, priest.”Varo nodded.   He came to kneel in front of Allera.  He looked up at Dar.  “Stand watch, if you please.  I will need some space.”Talen took the fighter by the shoulder.  “Come on,” he told him, drawing him off a short distance. “Shaylara,” Varo said.  He indicated the space opposite him, on the far side of the dead healer.  When she had knelt there, he handed her the green gemstone.  “Hold this a few inches over her chest.  Don’t do anything else unless I say so.”She nodded, and held the stone as directed. As the others watched, he first took his divine focus from around his neck, laying it on the floor before him.  Then he drew a small drawstring pouch out from under his armor.  He sprinkled its contents upon Allera’s body, a fine, sparkling powder that glittered brightly in the light of their flames. “What’s that stuff?” Dar asked. “Diamond dust,” Varo said without looking up.  “Now kindly do not interrupt me again; this requires considerable concentration.”He began casting, muttering syllables in no tongue that any of them could comprehend, all the while making complicated motions with his hands.The spellcasting went on for a full minute.  As the cleric’s chant reached a crescendo, the gemstone in Shay’s hand began to pulse with tiny surges of light from within. Then, the cleric spoke a final word, and the gem shattered. Shay started in surprise, but kept her hand in place as a pair of silvery wisps emerged from the pieces of the broken gemstone.  Varo was already chanting again, moving his left hand out over Allera’s body.  One of the two wisps flashed in the air, and descended toward Allera’s chest.  The diamond dust he’d sprinkled over her began to glow softly, and it was as if her body was infused with the light of a dim starscape.  The others watched in amazement as the cleric completed his spell, and the mote vanished into Allera’s body.  The glittering sheen of dust flashed once and then faded.  She lay there for a heartbeat, and then her stricken body convulsed once, and she took a breath.  “By the gods,” Talen whispered. “Indeed,” Varo said. The other mote, meanwhile, had also begun to descend.  It settled upon Allera’s chest as Dar and Talen came up and knelt beside Shay.  Faint tendrils of substance began to take shape around it.  “What’s happening?” Talen asked.  “Is that part of the spell?”“The spell is complete,” Varo said, sagging slightly as he leaned backward upon his haunches.  “This is not my doing.”As they watched, the flickering mote was obscured as a body took shape around it.  It only took a few seconds, and when it was done, there was a tiny dragon sitting on the healer’s softly rising chest.   At least it looked like a dragon.  In truth, it was unlike anything any of them had ever seen.  Its entire body was maybe a foot and a half long from head to tail, and colored a faintly orangish hue of brown infused with a silvery sheen in its scales.  Tiny silver horns jutted from its head, matched by little silver claws.  Instead of typical dragon wings it possessed a pair of brightly colored, almost delicate butterfly wings, which flapped slightly as it materialized.  It seemed a bit disoriented, and as it looked up at them, it opened its tiny jaws and let out a tinny little bleat.</blockquote>

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