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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 3677973" data-attributes="member: 143">Thanks, Goonalan!* * * * * Chapter 224BEATINGSThe ravager’s black eyes blazed with a cold premonition of death as it loomed over Dar and Allera.  The healer had fallen to the ground beside the fallen fighter, ignoring the painful scrapes to her legs from the stony ground.  Her talent with healing magic was such that she barely needed to focus the thought for the positive energy to flow, but time seemed to slow to a crawl of seconds as the monster’s head split open, and a foul gust of death rushed over her.  Even as Dar’s body responded to the potency of Allera’s heal spell, the ravager’s head stabbed down toward them, its huge jaws lined with rows of teeth like black daggers.  There was a streak through the air; Allera perceived it as a slight whistle over the hiss of air from the creature’s jaws.  The creature shuddered, its attack aborted and ruined as its head jerked roughly back.  One of its claws stabbed the ground a scant foot from her right leg, spattering her and Dar with fragments of shattered rock.  Still caught up in the heightened moment as the last of the healing energy from her spell coursed through her, Allera spotted the fletchings of an arrow jutting from the back of the creature’s neck, the missile’s head buried deep into its skull.  Looking up, beyond the creature, Allera saw three slight, nimble forms dart down from the sky, their cloaks flapping wildly about them from the wind of their passage.  One broke away from the formation and dove; one of the others selected another arrow from the quiver at his hip, and the second pointed a wand at the ravager.  Whatever spell the caster hurled from the wand had no obvious effect, but the arrow had clearly discomfited it, and it spun around, looking for the source of its pain.  The diving figure was a woman, to all appearances unprotected by armor, and armed only with a slender sword that she kept close against her leg as she streaked down toward the back of the monster.  It spotted her and bent back upon itself as it lunged into the air, extending its body out to a surprising length as it snapped its jaws upon the woman.  But again its teeth closed only on empty air.  Moving with an incredible speed and grace, the woman spun into a barrel roll, coming up under its jaw as it snapped at where she’d been an instant before.  Her arm shot out and back so fast that the sword was just a blur.  There was a cacophonous pulse of sound, and as the woman streaked past and free, the ravager jerked back, its head snapping over as it twisted over, unbalanced, and fell hard to the ground.  Dar narrowly avoided being crushed, and staggered away, Allera holding his arm for support, or perhaps supporting him.  The ravager was quick to rise, rolling over again to its feet in a violent thrashing blur that sent a cascade of scattered earth and stones out in every direction.  Talen weathered that barrage, small fragments of stone pinging loudly off his metal armor.  He struck at the creature’s flank with Beatus Incendia, but once more could manage no more than a slight gash upon its incredibly resistant hide.  It was enough to get the creature’s attention, though, and as it rolled back onto its feet, it rapidly twisted to face the knight once more. Before it could strike, however, a lance of pulsating, violent sonic energy slammed with great force into the creature’s head.  Each of the companions felt the backblast of Honoratius’s sonically-substituted chain lightning as a piercing vibration that felt like it was going to shake all of the teeth out of their heads, but that was nothing compared to what the monster felt.  Its durable inherent nature absorbed some of the force of the bolt, but even so its crimson visage was marred by lines of dark substance that oozed from the slits of its ears and nostrils.  The monster spun to focus upon the source of its agony, but it saw nothing, only empty space.  The monster had incredibly keen senses, but surrounded by a chaos of battle, with the aftermath of the sonic blast still clouding its senses, it could not determine the source of the attack.  Instead, it took its frustrations out on those close at hand. Dar broke away from Allera and rushed back at the creature.  As it turned toward Talen, one of its long claws clipped his leg, an accidental impact that nevertheless send a knife’s wedge of pain up the limb.  Grinding his teeth hard enough to draw blood, he narrowly avoided falling down despite the agony each step on that leg shot through him.  He targeted the next leg down as it slammed into the ground, and tore into it with enough force to nearly sever the limb from the creature’s body.  The monster had hit seized Talen with another bite, but with Dar’s hit it released the knight and twisted back toward the fighter.  It brought back the claw that had injured him earlier and now tried to stomp him into the ground with it.  Dar narrowly avoided a punishing blow that potentially could have snapped his injured leg entirely, but even the grazing hit along his hip drove the armor plate deep into his flesh, knocking him roughly back a step.  As the creature completed its turn another claw smashed into the ground with enough force to sunder a boulder the size of a horse’s torso.  One fragment caught him on the side of the head.  Had he not been wearing his helmet, the impact would have shattered his skull; as it was, the crimson form of the creature wavered for a moment before him, and he felt the world start to spin precipitously around him.  But then a cool wave of healing surged into him, and clarity returned to replace the fleeting pain of his wounds.  The monster was continuing to draw strength from the wounds it was unleashing, and its regenerative abilities were further closing its wounds and salving the injuries it had suffered in the brief but violent melee.  The leg that Dar had nearly severed could still not fully support its weight, but now it was definitely moving, the severed tendons and muscles rejoined.  Blood had stopped trailing from the armored slits in its head. But the creature was taking abuse faster than even it could heal.  In quick succession it was hit by a barrage of weapons and spells.  Nelan’s searing light drew a black line across its chest, moments before a barrage of magic missiles from the flying spellcaster above blasted pocks across its back.  The archer continued his fire, his skill evident in the way he adjusted for the inherent instability of hovering in mid-air.  None of his follow-up shots had had the efficacy of his first, but three more arrows jutted from its head and neck.  Unfortunately, with its incredibly tough hide, it was not clear if the shots were having any effect at all. The monster unleashed its fully fury upon Dar, but this time the fighter stood his ground, and gave as good as he got.  Allera’s magical healing had bolstered him to the point where he could stand up to the creature, taking hits that would have killed an average man, even a veteran fighter with less experience than Dar.  But his instincts had been honed by three trips into the Dungeon of Graves, and each time he was able to turn a killing blow into another grim but bearable wound.  When the monster’s last claw glanced off of his breastplate, and it settled back to the ground, fresh dents covered his armor, and blood trailed down his legs, but he remained standing.  The ravager merely reared again and opened its jaws to start anew. But now it was Dar’s turn to dish out the pain.  He lunged forward, drawing his sword across its chest, the two-handed strike cutting deep into its flesh.  The monster drew reflexively back, but Dar knew better than to chase after it.  Instead he fell into a slight crouch, his blade held back low against his left leg.  He watched as the creature roared in pain and thrashed about, dimly aware that his companions were continuing to harry it from its flanks.  But none of them were hurting it as much as he had. Then, inevitably, it focused on him again.  It surged back forward and down in a sudden blitz of speed that would have caught most men off guard.  But Dar had been waiting for it, expecting it.  Valor came up with speed to match the creature’s assault.  The ravager opened its jaws so wide that Dar could see deep down its gullet, its throat lined with ugly gray spines that seemed to promise an uncomfortable trip for anyone making the journey down it.  He did not try to dodge as it snapped its jaws shut around his body, but even as the black dagger-teeth seized him, crushing his armor with the sheer power of its bite, he grasped the hilt of his blade tightly in both hands, and drove the enchanted steel through its left eye, deep into its skull, and into the gray mass of its brain. The ravager collapsed in a paroxysm of thrashing limbs that sent its nearby foes flying back.  Dar, still pinned in its death-grasp, was dashed to the ground repeatedly, and when the creature’s violent struggles finally ceased, he lay there upon the stones, broken, bleeding, and unmoving.</blockquote>

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