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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 3402893" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 125A SLENDER THREADThe shadows surrounding Talen pressed their attack aggressively, unwilling to yield their prize to the wraith.  At this point, it seemed like a race between them to consume him, for Talen could do nothing to stop them. Suddenly a wave of power exploded around the knight.  Unlike the blazing radiance of the priests of the Father, this burst was more like a storm of insubstantial violet-black shrapnel.  The power of the spell, aptly named undeath to death, passed harmlessly through Talen’s body, but those vaporous shards tore into the shadows with devastating force.  All six of those around Talen were blasted into non-being in the blink of an eye.The wraith resisted the spell, and if anything it dug deeper into Talen, refusing to give up its victim.  Talen’s face was twisted into a rictus of agony, but there was nothing he could do to stop it; his physical strength was utterly gone, and only the involuntary clenching of his muscles kept him standing at all.Then Allera collided into him, knocking him down, tearing him free from the wraith’s enfolding grasp.  The creature let out a cold hiss, and turned to finish its feast, but before it could touch the knight once again, Allera infused him with the power of a sanctuary spell, driving it back.  Frustrated, the wraith turned on Allera, slicing its insubstantial claws deep into her chest, drawing life from her body. The priest Braethan had been a blacksmith before he had been called to the service of the Father, and his thick arms still bore much of the strength with which he’d wielded the forge hammer.  The shadows had drained him deeply, but he still managed to lift his divine focus, filling himself with holy energies that he released in a greater turning.  All three of the shadows facing him dissolved before that flash of white light, but the reprieve proved temporary, as the four shadows that had killed Meaghan descended upon him in a violent fury.  They enveloped the brave cleric, obscuring him from the light as they bore him down to the ground.  Within a few seconds, his struggles had ceased, leaving his pale face frozen into a mask of horror. A scant few paces away, Serah likewise fought for her life.  Her protection from evil spell, cast at the beginning of the battle, had helped her weather the initial surprise attack, but one of the three shadows attacking her had gotten through her defenses, draining a portion of her strength.  She did not have the power of the Sun domain to call upon as Braethan had, but still she lifted her sigil, and called upon the light of the Father to drive these foes back.  Her holy symbol flared with light, but the divine power faltered against the shadows of the dark.  As the radiance from her focus flickered and died, the shadows surged into her, driving her back into the wall of the nearby cottage, screaming. Varo had obscured himself with a hide from undead spell at the start of the battle, but that protection faded as soon as he’d hit Talen’s attackers with his undeath to death.  The four shadows that had just killed Falfighar rounded on him with a vengeance, surging forward to deliver touch attacks.  Varo made no effort to evade them, but as their insubstantial claws pierced his body, the shadows recoiled. “Dagos protects me, dark wretches,” he said, as his death ward foiled their assault.  He presented his own divine focus, the same golden idol he’d crafted in Rappan Athuk. “He commands you to obedience.”The shadows tried to retreat, but three of them were overcome by the cleric’s power.  Two hovered before him in thrall, while the last drew back, rebuked.  The last vanished back into the ground, but whether it was fleeing in earnest or just repositioning for another attack was uncertain.A scream came from the house where Attius had taken shelter earlier, but none of them could spare any attention for the Guild mage at this point. Just a few yards away from the desperate battle with the shadows, the Guard armsmen and Talen’s pair of young knights were engaged in their own fierce struggle with the remaining skeletons.  The five had formed a rough line at the barricade, the armsmen on the left of the cart, the knights on the right.  Their position allowed them to protect their flanks, while using the cottages on either side to anchor their position.  A canny opponent would have sent part of their force around to come at the foe from behind, but the skeletons attacked without any concern for tactics or subtlety, relying upon sheer numbers to overcome the defenders.  The living warriors fought with heavy maces, smashing into the bodies of the skeletons, shattering one of them into splinters with almost every blow.  All save Galen; he used his magical battleaxe, relying upon its power and his own skill with the weapon to overcome the skeleton’s natural resistance to cutting and piercing attacks.  It seemed to work; in the first rush he destroyed two of the man-sized skeletons, easily deflecting several other counters with his heavy shield.  On his right, Medelia held her ground against three others, parrying several attacks from spears and clubs, and tearing free of a skeleton’s grasping claws before she crushed its skull with a solid blow from her mace. The line buckled as the first three giant skeletons slammed into the barricade, but it held.  Septimus took a titanic blow from a spear that snapped as it drove through the plate covering his shoulder, but his comrades came together to protect him, lunging forward to smash the ogre skeleton’s legs with heavy blows.  As the undead monster fell to the ground, the armsmen had to swiftly turn to face another of the larger undead.  Its fire-blackened bones suggested that this one had been a troll, in life.  It had no weapons, but its claws were deadly enough, and its jaws were still full of jagged, protruding teeth.  Within moments, both men were hard-pressed.  Galen and Medelia could not immediately move to their aid, as an ogre skeleton engaged them from the right, swinging a long wooden club almost as tall as the knights.  Against the bigger foes, the barricade was little more than a footstop, providing little in the way of cover for the defenders, especially given the larger monsters’ extended reach. The two young knights responded as they’d been trained, falling back a step to lure the enemy forward, then rushing in to flank it and strike as it navigated the barrier.  Galen deflected the first powerful swing of its club with his raised shield.  Ignoring the weaker blows from the man-sized undead that continued to harry them over the barricade, they came in together under the skeletal ogre’s reach.  Medelia smashed its arm as it tried to bring the club around for another swing, causing it to drop the weapon.  Galen drove his axe down through its chest, shearing away the left side of its ribcage, and digging a deep gouge in its spine with an effective power attack. The knights, as yet not seriously injured, had the initiative, but that changed a moment later as Galen suddenly stiffened, paralyzed by an unseen attacker.  Medelia sensed that something was wrong, but as she turned the ogre hit her across the brow with its other hand, driving her to her knees, stunned.  Three man-sized skeletons leapt over the barricade and fell upon Galen, hacking and clawing at their suddenly helpless opponent. Shay had rushed to Talen’s aid as soon as he’d been surrounded, but her elven-crafted sword, for all its magic, passed harmlessly through the incorporeal creatures.  As Allera broke him away from the wraith’s touch, Shay reached down and picked up Beatus Incendia from where it had fallen inert to the ground.  The sword flared to life as she grasped it, and she felt an odd sensation fill her as its holy flames engulfed the blade, almost as if part of that fire was pouring into her, not harming her, but nevertheless wreaking a subtle change with its touch.  There was no time to ponder this effect; she quickly mastered herself, and slashed the sword through the wraith’s back.  The magic of the sword bit on something hard, and the creature screamed as the weapon’s power tore into its substance.  The wraith spun on her immediately, but before it could attack, Allera lifted her hands, and unleashed a mass cure light wounds though the area.  She focused the healing magic not on her companions, whose lost strength could not be restored by that spell, but on the undead, and the corrupt wells of negative energy that powered them.  The weakened wraith shrieked and dissolved, and the shadows that were swarming about the clerics likewise were damaged by the wave of positive energy.  But the power of the spell was limited, and none of the shadows was fully destroyed by the healer’s efforts.  It did, however, draw their attention, and as Braethan fell, dead, the four that had killed him turned and flew directly toward the healer.  Shay saw them coming, she yelled a warning as she lifted Beatus Incendia into a defensive stance, stepping in front of the healer and Talen.  Allera drew out the small pouch of diamond dust she carried for her restoration spell, but that casting took time, and she knew that her sanctuary spell was not infallible against a determined opponent.  If even one shadow were to touch Talen, in his weakened state...A momentary indecision gripped her, but then Talen touched her arm weakly, and pointed toward the nearest cottage.  She looked up to see that their situation had just gotten worse.  There had been nothing but silence from the adjacent cottage since Attius’s single scream, a few moments ago.  But as Allera watched, a pair of wraiths emerged from the place, ignoring the half-open door to drift straight through the whitewashed wall.  They were followed, a moment later, by a third wraith.  This last one had a more defined form, its wispy features still clearly recognizable, as the twin red points of its eyes fixed upon her. Attius. The undead creatures converged upon her.</blockquote>

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