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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 3683518" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 225NOT QUITE OVERNot surprisingly, Allera was there first. “Dar!” she yelled, cradling his head in her lap as she poured another potent healing spell into the fighter’s broken body.  For a moment her heart froze in her chest, then she let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding as he sucked in a gasp of air, and groaned.  He blinked, and after a moment his eyes gained focus as he looked up at her. “Remind me again why I signed up for this?” he asked. “Because you’re crazy,” Allera said, but there was clear relief in her voice. Talen and Shay appeared through the haze of dust kicked up by the creature’s death throes.  Above, the three flying individuals descended slowly toward them.  They were elves, and as they drew closer, Talen recognized the spellcaster.  But before he could hail their unexpected allies, Honoratius appeared nearby, walking briskly toward them. “I am relieved to see that you all live, commander, but this battle is not quite over,” he said.“What?” Talen asked, but even as the words left his mouth, he felt a faint tremor beneath his feet, and he understood.  He spun to see the ravager stirring with new life.  Its wounds, while still dire, were beginning to knit shut.  It was still far from being able to get up again, especially with Valor still protruding from its eye socket, but it was a lot closer to life than it had been a few seconds ago, and it was clear that the gap was closing.“Gods damn it all,” Dar said, staggering to his feet.  Allera tried to stop him, but he reached for the hilt of his sword, only to belatedly realize that his weapon wasn’t there.  He reached for his club, but the weapon’s throng had been snapped during his pounding at the hands of the ravager, and was nowhere nearby. “Nothing’s ever easy,” the fighter said, as he started toward the creature.  Talen was already heading toward it, but Honoratius stopped them.  “Your weapons are not capable of putting a final end to it,” he said.  He pointed toward Shay, who was hacking at its neck, without much success.  Even in death, its hide retained its amazing resistance to wounds.“How do we kill it, then?” Talen asked.  “Quickly... we don’t have much time...”  To punctuate his words, the body of the creature shuddered again, and one of its claws twitched.  The elves, having recognized what was happening, readied weapons and spells once more, and their wizard fired another spray of magic missiles from his wand that peppered its body with black pocks.  The archmage opened a pouch at her waist, and reached inside it.  Talen felt a moment of slight vertigo as her hand vanished into the pouch up to her elbow, but he was used to magic and its ability to violate the laws of the physical world.  She recovered what she had been looking for and drew it out, offering the hilt to him. It was a dagger, a wedge of silvery steel—mithral, it appeared—set in a handle of the same material.  There was a bright red gem embedded in the hilt, a ruby, perhaps, but larger than any such gem that Talen had ever before seen.  “Tribune Tiros used this weapon to put a final end to the creature at Highbluff,” Honoratius said.  “It inflicts vicious wounds that do not heal.”Talen reached for it, but Dar shouldered him aside and took the weapon.  “I’ll do it,” he said.  He walked over to the creature’s head, and saw that Valor now jutted about a foot more from its left eyesocket than where he had left it; apparently the creature’s regenerative abilities were enough to drive the impaling weapon from its skull. As Dar looked down at it, its other eye blinked open.  The fighter drove the dagger, along with his fist, into the monster’s eye.  The eye exploded, dousing him with foul fluids, but he kept pushing, until half his arm had vanished into the socket.  He felt something hard against his thrust and probed with the dagger until he felt a softer spot, and then drove the blade home.  This time, the creature did not struggle; it just seemed to deflate, and lay limp and unmoving once more. “It is done,” Honoratius said.  Dar drew back, grimacing at the filth covering his arm.  “Stuff burns,” he said, taking the towel that Allera offered him with a nod of thanks.  Dar cleaned off the dagger and returned it to Honoratius, who nodded and replaced it in her magical pouch. The companions gathered around the head of the slain monster.  The elves drifted down to meet them, the archer and the swordswoman flanking the spellcaster.  As they landed, the Camarians could see that their flesh bore the subtle but noticeable grainy texturing that was a product of the stoneskin spell. “Hey, elf,” Dar said.  “Welcome back to the show.”“Malerase,” Talen said, with a nod.  The elf wizard seemed unaffected, but the woman to his left bristled at the name.  “He is not forgotten, human!”  The other man, the archer, added, “You address Lord Elegon Alderis, and he is worthy of your respect.”Talen lifted a hand to placate them, but Dar spoke up before he could speak.  “So.  You got a new name, eh?  I guess it beats, ‘the mad elf’.” The younger elves’ expressions darkened, but before the exchange could develop further, Alderis stepped in.  “Indeed, Corath Dar.  My circumstances have changed somewhat since our last meeting.”“What are you doing here, Mal—Alderis?” Talen asked.  “When we last saw you, you vanished on our escape from Rappan Athuk.  We did not know if you were alive or dead.”Alderis nodded.  “I apologize for my hasty departure.  I felt it necessary, at the time; there were matters I needed to address before I could return.”Dar finished wiping off his arm, and he tossed the now-ruined rag away.  “Why did you come back, elf?  And why now?  There has been some heavy <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> going down, in case you weren’t aware.”Alderis looked at him.  He seemed to have aged decades since they had last seen him, and his eyes were sunken in his head, like the entrances to dark caves.  When Dar had first met him, the elf had been like a coiled spring, nervous energy waiting to be unleashed.  Now, he looked as though a stiff breeze would snap him in twain.  But there was something powerful in his eyes, and Dar felt it like a physical touch as they focused on him. Talen interrupted the moment.  “It is a valid question, Alderis.  Varo said you were drawn to Rappan Athuk, before.”Alderis blinked and shifted his attention to the knight.  “Yes.  Yes, I am drawn here by the same thing that has drawn you here, humans of Camar.”“So you are intent on going back inside.”“I can no more turn away than you can, Talen Karedes.”“That may be.  But if we are to accept your aid, then we must be able to trust you.”“If Lord Alderis gives his word, that is all the bond you need, human,” the archer said. “If you’d seen him as a raving lunatic, you’d understand our caution,” Dar said. “Dar... you’re not helping,” Allera whispered.  And indeed the younger elves now looked like they were considering using again the weapons that they had wielded so efficiently in the battle with the ravager.  But Alderis forestalled them with a subtle gesture of one hand.  “This is Mehlaraine, my daughter, and Selanthas, her consort,” he said by way of introduction.  “You brought your freaking daug—omph!” Dar said, interrupted by Allera stomping on his foot.  Talen introduced each of his party, referencing the archmage simply as “Honoratius,” without elaboration on her unique situation.  The two sides simply looked at each other for a long minute, and then Alderis spoke. “You are right, of course, to question my motives.  I have not been entirely forthright with you in the past, although in my defense I hope you will understand the circumstances that constrained me.  As Dar so forthrightly noted, my mental state was not... was not ideal, when I was here.”  His gaze traveled down toward the depth of the valley before them, and for a moment a twinge of something crossed his face, an old pain that vanished swiftly.  “Our talents are not inconsiderable.  I will agree to serve your cause, captain, and aid you and your companions to the best of our ability.  We seek the same goal, I believe.”Talen glanced at Allera, who nodded.  He turned back to Alderis.  “Very well.  I do not doubt that we will have need of your talents.”“So what’s next, commander?” Dar said.  Talen’s gaze headed past him, down into the valley.  “We see where that thing came from.”</blockquote>

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