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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 3353506" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 107JUST A COUPLE OF ZOMBIESFor a moment, the explosive yellow cloud obscured Shay, Dar, and the zombie.  Talen barely came to a halt at its edge, shielding his face against the spray of deadly spores. “Shay!” he yelled.  For a moment, it looked as though he would ignore the danger, and charge forward heedless of his own safety, but Varo forestalled him.“Hold!” the cleric urged, coming up to join him.  “You will not help her at all if you join her!”Allera had come forward as well, using the wall for support.  “We must... help them before the spores can fully infest their lungs,” she urged.  But as the mold blast cleared, showing Dar and Shay on the ground, coughing violently, it also revealed an additional threat; the other two zombies, closing rapidly.  Dar’s blow had driven the first back into the side chamber, but it still hovered in the doorway, still animated but under the effects of Varo’s rebuke. “Bow to the will of Dagos, mindless creatures!” Varo said, as he lifted his holy symbol again.  Another wave of negative energy poured into the passage, but as it washed over the zombies, it flickered against something, a dark, shadowy nimbus that flared around the creatures once, and then faded. “Some power counters mine... they are resisting my rebuke!” Varo warned. Malerase was already acting, and as Varo finished speaking the elf lifted one of his wands and shot a fireball down the passage.  The blast engulfed the two approaching ogres.  Neither went down, but perhaps more importantly, the flames destroyed any more of the mold that might have been growing on their bodies.  The two creatures continued forward, shuffling on legs that still bore the marks of the wounds that had killed them. Talen and Allera knelt beside Shay and Dar, who were still gripped by violent spasms of coughing.  Dar tried to get up, but Allera pushed him roughly back down, holding his head in her hands as she examined his eyes and throat.  “Can you do anything for them?” Talen asked, holding Shay as her coughing grew weaker, interspersed with desperate gasps for air.  Blood flecked her mouth, evidence that the mold was wreaking havoc on her lungs. “I don’t have any diamond powder... I cannot purge the mold from them!” she cried.  “I can try a lesser restoration... it may be enough... but I only have one of those...”“Captain, we still have a situation,” Varo said calmly, as the zombies drew within range.  “Hit them again!” he said to Malerase, who launched another fireball down the passage.  Both zombies were once more caught in the flames this time, the backblast of which was close enough to ruffle the cloaks of Talen and Allera.  But the zombies proved capable of withstanding considerable damage, and while their flesh was blackened with char, neither fell.  The passage was filled with the sickly sweet odor of roasted flesh.Varo called upon his patron once more, sweat beading on his brow from the heat of the fireballs and the strain of fighting the strange surge that was resisting his will.  Once more negative energy erupted from his sigil, and this time the first zombie hesitated, trembling a moment before it staggered back, cowed.  But the second was unaffected, and it pushed forward past its comrade.  It still had its club, and it lifted the weapon to strike the unprepared defenders.“Talen!” Varo yelled. The captain looked up to see the zombie looming large above them.  Tearing himself away from the weakening Shay, the captain lifted his sword and slashed at the ogre’s left leg.  His sword tore through the leathery flesh down to the bone, and the ogre staggered, nearly collapsing as the injured limb faltered under its weight.  The zombie tried to smash at Talen with its club, but the off-balance blow glanced off the captain’s heavy armor, doing no damage. Allera, caught between Shay and Dar, hesitated.  “Varo... I need your help!” she said. The cleric lifted his holy symbol for a final rebuke attempt on the crippled zombie, but it became unnecessary as Malerase hit the creature with a quintet of magic missiles from another of Zosimos’s wand.  The zombie, battered beyond the ability of its animating force to keep it intact, collapsed.  Varo knelt beside the healer.  “Unfortunately, I used my lesser restoration this morning, on you,” the cleric said.  “I do not have access to the greater version of the spell.  You will have to choose, and the other will have to fight off the effects of the mold on his or her own.” Talen turned from the ruined corpse of the destroyed zombie, and looked down at Shay, and then at Allera.  The healer’s expression betrayed her feelings at having to make the choice, and for another second she hesitated, caught between the two coughing victims of the mold.  But then she fell forward, as Dar grabbed her and thrust her roughly toward Shay.  The gesture cost him; the fighter fell to the ground, his body wracked with coughing that left a red spray on the tiles at his feet. Allera looked back at him, then cast her spell on Shay.  The lesser restoration eased her coughing some, but she was still clearly weakened, wheezing for breath. Talen started toward her again, but Varo forestalled him with a raised hand.  “Captain, we still have a situation.”  He pointed toward the zombie that stood in the doorway a pace away from them, still cowering.  “My rebuke will last only a few more moments, and I am not one hundred percent certain that I can reestablish it.  We must move out companions back, so that Malerase can destroy them for good.”Nodding, Talen helped the cleric drag first Shay, and then Dar, away from the cowering undead creature.  Dar grabbed onto Talen’s arms and used them to pull himself up; he was still unsteady, but he was able to remain upright on his own as the captain returned to Shay’s side.  The scout was far worse off, her chin covered with bright red blood coughed up from her abused lungs.  Allera had healed her jaw, and she was starting to breathe easier, but she remained very weak.  Another rush of flames erupted through the passage as Malerase fired off a last fireball.  The last two zombies, already seriously damaged, collapsed as the flames ravaged their bodies, leaving only a mangled heaps that continued to smolder as a thick smoke drifted down the length of the passage, only slowly draining out through the exits.  The companions, huddled in a group around Shay a short distance away, rubbed their tearing eyes and held cloths over their mouths to filter the air enough to breathe.  “Are you all right?” Varo asked Dar. “Peachy freaking keen,” the fighter said, rubbing his mouth with the back of his hand, leaving blood on the leather of his gauntlet.  “How’s the scout?”Allera looked up.  “She’s alive, but very weak,” the healer said.  “We’ll need to carry her, until she can rest and regain some of her strength.”“This may help her,” Malerase said.  The elf knelt beside the scout, and removed a small amulet from a slender silver chain around his neck.  “It belonged to Zosimos.”  Allera helped him by lifting Shay’s head, and tucked the amulet under her tunic.  The effect was almost immediate; the scout groaned, and her eyes fluttered open.  She tried to speak, but Allera quieted her with a finger to her lips. “Save your strength,” she said. “You’ll need it,” Dar said.  “Let’s get out of here.”Talen helped Shay to her feet; with her constitution bolstered by the amulet of health, she could walk, if barely.  Talen remained at her side, an arm around her waist to bolster her.  For once, she didn’t complain about his assistance. “You’d better be right about the way out,” Dar said to Varo as they moved out again.  “I don’t think they can handle another fight.”Varo said nothing.  As Dar headed after the others, the cleric turned to see Malerase staring at him.  There was an odd look in his eyes, which flashed within the depths of his cowl.  Neither the priest nor the elf spoke for a long moment, then both turned and headed after the others, toward what was hopefully a way out of Rappan Athuk.</blockquote>

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