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: 3551970" data-attributes="member: 143">Glad you're enjoying the new story, jonnytheshirt.* * * * * Chapter 176THE SPECTRAL GUARDIAN“Talen!” Shay tried to hold up Talen as he collapsed.  Blood spurted through her fingers as she tried to stop the flow of blood from the self-inflicted wound.  It was futile; the cut had been deep, and it had severed the major blood vessels connecting the head to the body.   “Varo, Allera, help!” the scout yelled.  The ghost rose up out of the fading knight, a satisfied expression the dead elf’s face.  Dar roared and hacked at it with Valor.  Again the sword cut through the wispy form, but this time, the edge of the blade flared blue as it passed through its insubstantial outline, and something that might have been pain flashed on the ghost’s face.  Varo, his expression torn with frustration, had been ready to hit the ghost as it left Talen, but aborted his attack to aid the stricken knight.  He knelt beside him, pouring a potent healing spell into the dying man.  The flow of blood eased, and after a desperate second or two Talen drew in a struggling breath.  The glint of life returned to his eyes.  An arrow passed harmlessly through the ghost.  Kalend had survived the fireball and unlimbered his bow, but the non-magical arrow had absolutely no effect.  Instead of trying another shot, the thief instead came forward again to help Baraka, who lay unmoving on the ground.  He grabbed the ranger by the shoulders and dragged him back out away from the melee.  The goblins that had survived the fireball, including Filcher, remained back, unwilling to risk a direct confrontation in the crowded melee around the ghost. Dar lifted his sword to finish the ghost, but the creature drifted forward again, clearly intent on gaining another powerful puppet to control.  Dar drew back reflexively, but the ghost was too quick to escape.  “Get off me, you dead prick...” the fighter snarled, as the ghost passed through his armor, its cold touch suffusing his flesh.  Valor flared in his hands, and the ghost was rebuffed, its lean face twisting in an expression of anger.  Dar swept his sword down in an arc that would have decapitated the floating elf, had he been mortal.  But this time Valor failed to bite into the incorporeal form, and Dar staggered to the side, thrown off-balance.  The ghost began spellcasting once again. Allera suddenly appeared, lunging past Dar.  Burns streaked her head, neck, and slender arms.  Snaggletooth was partially visible on her shoulder, the faerie dragon surrounded by a cloud of drifting char that highlighted the outlines of its tiny form.  It hissed angrily, but managed only a smoky cough.  The healer surged around Dar and stabbed her fingers into the ghost’s lower body.  Blue light erupted from her hand, tearing into the fabric of the ghost.  The cure critical wounds spell ravaged it, and a hollow shriek sounded from the undead entity.  The ghost drifted upward toward the ceiling, its spell aborted, focused now on either escape or a tactical retreat.  But before it could get away, Shay leapt up into the air after it.  Beatus Incendia flared in her hand.  Her vertical leap carried her up through the ghost, and as she passed through it, the holy sword carved a broad swath through its body.  With a final empty cry, the insubstantial elf came apart, dissolving into nothing.  Shay landed on her feet, sagging wearily.  Talen’s sword fell from her grasp as she knelt beside him; the knight was already trying to get up.  He tried to talk, but blood still choked his throat, and he could not speak.  Varo pressed him down, and touched his healing wand to the knight’s ravaged throat. Allera and Serah had already turned to aid the other fallen.  Two of the hobgoblins were still alive, but the cleric of Dagos did not stir; he was dead.  Two goblins had perished within the fireball, but the other four had evaded the blast, and were in good shape.  Baraka was alive, and quickly stirred under the touch of Allera’s healing wand.  Black, ruined flesh crinkled off him as the blue glow spread through him, revealing new pink skin underneath. “So much for our guide,” Dar said, looking down at the corpse of the hobgoblin.  “We’ve found our own way before,” Allera said, snapping at him.  Shay stayed with Talen until a few more charges from Varo’s wand had helped him recover enough to stand.  He’d coughed up more blood, and it stained his face and the breastplate of his armor in gory trails.  “Thanks,” he rasped, as Varo stepped away to attend to his own injuries; the fireball had not spared him. “Sorry,” the knight said to Shay and Dar.  “There was nothing you could do,” Shay said.  She brought Talen his helmet, battered even more after the recent encounter.  The strap was once again ruined, but there was no time for repairs now; Talen made do with settling it on his head for now, adjusting it as best he could and leaving the bent visor in the up position.  “If only your will was as strong as mine,” Dar said.  “Still, beating the crap out of you had a certain... satisfaction, commander.”  He turned and walked away, leaving the pair of them looking after him. It was Kalend who finally found the secret door, although getting it opened required a crowbar, as they could not locate the hidden latch.  The portal, once revealed, opened onto a tunnel that led about eighty feet before ending in another concealed door.  From this side the latch was obvious, and they opened it to enter yet another considerable chamber. The purpose of this place was obvious from the diminutive sarcophagi that lined the walls.  The place had a dark, sinister aura to it.  For a moment, Varo held them back, not even letting the scouts go ahead into the room. “What’s the matter?” Talen asked. “Chaos,” Varo said.  “Evil.  It pervades this place.”“I see nothing,” Dar said, looking through the open doorway. “It is not something that can be seen...” Varo said, but was interrupted as Shay said, “Look!”Tendrils of black fog had appeared, drifting down from the ceiling above.  They were insubstantial, like wisps of thread drifting off some garment that had been torn asunder, but even so there was something darkly malevolent about them. “That doesn’t look promising,” Allera said. “Let’s send a gobbo in and see what happens,” Dar said.  Talen frowned.  “How do we get past?”  Varo looked at Serah.  “Priestess, you have the power to repel chaos.”The cleric of the Father nodded.  “I do not know if the protection will be enough to repel... that.”“Let us hope that the spell is stronger than your faith,” Varo snapped.  “I believe it is our best option, commander,” he said to Talen.  “We will all have to remain close to Serah; the protection of the spell only extends to a few paces distant from the caster.”“All right,” Talen said.  He drew Beatus Incendia, while Shay passed on Varo’s instructions to the goblinoids.  They crowded around Serah, as she cast the spell.  Varo had to suppress a grimace as the casting was completed; the spell made his skin prickle.  “How long does the spell last?” Kalend asked, as they gathered around the entrance to the room.  The tendrils of mist had thickened, until they resembled a forest of vines dangling down into the chamber.  It looked virtually impossible to avoid them, now.“A little over an hour,” Varo said before Serah could respond.  “Remember, we’re just looking for the way out of here.  Don’t touch anything,” Talen said, looking at Dar as he spoke the last.  “Let’s just hope it doesn’t touch us,” the warrior quipped.“All right, stay close to Serah,” the knight reminded them.  He took the lead himself, the others pressed in close around.  A few tendrils of fog probed toward him as he stepped into the room, but they were diverted aside as they struck the barrier of Serah’s spell.  With the thirteen of them forming a tight circle around Serah, they shuffled forward into the room.  The fog swirled around them, probing at the edges of the magic circle as if alive, but it failed to penetrate the sphere of protection.  They made their way to the far side of the room without incident, but found only an unbroken expanse of cavern wall.  “All right, let’s check the perimeter, but give those stone coffins a comfortable berth,” Talen said.  It took the better part of five minutes, but they finally found the secret door, about halfway across the room on the eastern side.  This one, once pried open, accessed a smaller cave, a barren chamber with a single exit that led out into a twisting warren of catacombs.  The fog did not follow them through the secret door, and after warily testing the edge of Serah’s spell, they spread out again, the goblins cautiously moving ahead to search.  Shay sniffed the air.  “Air’s moister here, and fresher,” the scout reported.  “We must be getting near another underground river.”“Let’s keep on,” Talen said.  “We may need to come back this way, and if so we’ll need Serah’s ward intact against that fog.” They headed out into the next tunnel.  A number of small chambers, similar to the one they had just left, exited off the passage.  Bending low, shining her everburning torch upon the ground, Shay indicated faint traces on the ground.  “It looks like the traffic heads this way,” she said, indicating a tunnel that twisted into darkness to the north.  Filcher started in that direction, but before the rest of them could get moving, a strangled cry of alarm drew their attention around.  One of the goblin scouts emerged from one of the side chambers, his face deathly pale, his steps uncertain. The source of the creature’s discomfiture became obvious a scant second later, as a wraith followed it out of the chamber, a vaprous form that seemed to swell with the life energy it had stolen from the hapless creature.  The goblin looked over its shoulder and let out a chirrup of terror as the monster descended upon it, its insubstantial arms extended to enfold the poor goblin in its embrace.</blockquote>

Verification