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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 3674616" data-attributes="member: 143">Thanks, Nightbreeze!* * * * * Chapter 222SPAWN OF THE RAVAGERTalen shot a look back at Letellia, but the sorceress had taken on a vague look, and as he watched her eyes rolled back into her head.  She remained standing, but it was clear that otherwise she was no longer present with them. “Take that thing out!” the knight yelled.  Shay fired an arrow at it, but even the holy missile, blessed by the church of the Father, had no effect, glancing harmlessly off the monster’s shoulder.  Just in case they hadn’t gotten its attention, Nelan hit it with a flame strike a moment later. The ravager lowered its head and charged up the valley slope toward its foes, moving with an impressive speed for its size.  Headstones shattered in puffs of pulverized stone as its claws struck them, but none of the obstacles appeared to hinder it in the least.  “Come to daddy, you bastard,” Dar rumbled, moving down to a position that offered a good, stable stance a short distance ahead.  Allera tried to calm it, but her spell had no effect upon the creature.  If anything, it intensified its rush. The creature came right for Dar, and it hit him like an avalanche.  The fighter roared and swung Valor at it as it lunged, but even as the axiomatic blade bit into its dagger-shaped head it snapped the center of its skull up through his body, knocking him flying.  Dar flipped end over end and had started a second revolution when he hit the ground ten feet away, landing hard and awkwardly on the rocky earth.  Valor knifed into the soil a pace away, its hilt quivering back and forth.  “Damn... it...” the fighter managed to groan. Talen was on the beast before it could follow up on its charge, slashing at its side with Beatus Incendia.  The holy blade bit into its shoulder, but the creature’s skin was like steel plate in its thickness and durability, and the blow barely cut the flesh.  The monster rounded on Talen in a violent fury, snapping its jaws down onto his shoulder, pinning him as its front four claws tore at him in a storm of violence.  Only his armor kept him from being torn to pieces, but even so he suffered vicious wounds that took him from full health to the brink of destruction in the space of a few heartbeats.  Even worse, the creature seemed to draw sustenance from the damage it wrought, and the few wounds that Talen and Dar had managed to inflict upon it drew closed, leaving its hide whole once more.  Talen somehow remained conscious, and even lifted Beatus Incendia to strike again.  But held as he was, he could manage only a feeble thrust that again failed to inflict anything more than a trivial wound upon the creature.  Shay let out a terrific shout and abandoned any pretense of stealth as she rushed at its flank, hoping to distract enough to release Talen.  Her attack, backed by the momentum of her charge, allowed her to penetrate its skin at the juncture of one of its rear legs.  The monster reacted, swinging its head around like a whip, smashing Talen into her like a club, knocking both of them flying. “Be gone, creature of the darkness!” Nelan cried, as he hurled a dismissal spell at the monster.  The spell had no effect, but the creature must have detected some threat in the attack, for it immediately spun around and came charging forward, a thousand pounds of unstoppable death. Nelan started back before that rush; it was no cowardice to flee before such a monstrosity.  But then he glanced back to see Letellia standing a few paces behind him, still distant, utterly vulnerable.  Turning back, the cleric lowered the faceplate of his helmet, and lifted his mace in a hopeless gesture of defiance.</blockquote>

Verification