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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 3745633" data-attributes="member: 143">Heh, more resolution than cliffhanger in today's update, but I can promise some... interesting twists when they get to the last temple next week. Someone might not walk away from that one...* * * * * Chapter 245THE BLASTING“Let them have it!” Talen yelled. Explosions rocked the interior of the temple.  Letellia and Alderis, using their wands of fireballs, laid down a pattern of exploding spheres along the edges of the repulsion field.  The incorporeal undead swarmed around that invisible barrier, seeking to avoid the bursts.  The more clever of them, the wraiths and spectres, sought sanctuary from the barrage by vanishing into the floor.  But most of the shadows lingered too long at the edge of the barrier to escape, and when they did break at last, they simply tried to get away any way they could, in some cases blundering into another fireball as they fled.  The other companions unleashed their own hail of destruction upon the undead.  Nelan hit them with order’s wrath, and followed that with a flame strike that blasted a half-dozen shadows into oblivion.  Allera’s mass cures tore more of the monsters to pieces, while Selanthas’s magically enhanced arrows punched through others, blasting them with discharges of electrical energy.  The warriors had nothing to do but watch the powerful display of raw magical power.  The air in the temple grew noticeably warmer as the blasts of magical fire roared through the place, and several of the bronze pillars began to glow as they absorbed the heat.  When the arcanists lowered their wands, the place was still once more. “The repulsion aura is fading,” Alderis said.  The elf spoke words of magic, and rose up into the air, replacing his wand of fireballs with another, the wand of magic missiles he’d taken from Theodorus Zosimos, slain in Rappan Athuk in another temple not so far from here. “All right, everyone, watch the floor!” Talen warned, taking up a ready position. As if summoned by his words, the misty outlines of spectres and wraiths rose up to attack, their insubstantial claws digging at the legs of the companions.  Their initial attacks scored several hits, and a majority of the defenders suffered drains to their life energies in that first surge.  But the companions had been ready, and in turn they unleashed a devastating counterattack upon the undead as they rose up into view.  Allera blasted them with her last mass cure.  While her most potent spells had been used earlier in the battle, even her mass cure light wounds was powerful enough to blast devastating rents in the bodies of the undead.  Nelan did not bother to attempt to turn the malevolent creatures; the cleric could feel the evil pervading this place, and knew that he could not channel enough of the power of the Father to overcome the negative potency of the temple.  But his spells worked well enough, as he blasted a wraith with his second searing light.  Two other wraiths swept in at him from the flanks, but their claws had no effect; the cleric had taken advantage of the earlier lull to protect himself with a death ward. Talen had likewise been protected by Allera, and as a half-dozen undead swarmed around him, clawing uselessly at his armored frame, he tore into them with Beatus Incendia.  The blessed blade found purchase in their incorporeal bodies more often than not, and within seconds three wraiths, already weakened by Allera’s mass cure, were torn to pieces.  The survivors drew off, seeking other targets, but the knight harried them mercilessly, surging white fire leaving glowing trails through the air as he swung the holy sword back and forth. Streaking magic missiles filled the air, as Letellia and Alderis unleashed their magic.  Mehlaraine and Selanthas stood back to back, defending themselves against several wraiths at point-blank range.  Their stoneskins were of no use against the wraiths, but both elves were possessed of superhuman agilty, and Mehlaraine was further bolstered by Alderis’s mage armor.  Surrounded on all sides, they could not avoid all of the wraiths’ attacks.  But while they lacked the fortitude of their human companions, the wraiths could not stand up to their attacks, bolstered as it was by the firepower raining down from the wizard floating above.  Within ten seconds the elves outnumbered the attackers, and the outcome appeared to be inevitable. But the undead, driven by a force beyond themselves, continued to press their attack with an almost desperate intensity.  Letellia blasted a pair of spectres that assaulted her at point-blank range; the first faltered against her layered shield and mage armor, but the second pushed around her flank, digging its claws through her body.  The sorceress cried out as life was ripped from her, but before the monsters could exploit their advantage she straightened and fired off another series of blasts into the spectre she’d damaged.  The monster was not destroyed, but a moment later it came apart as Shay thrust her spear through its head, severing the last tendrils of unlife that gave it existence.  Letellia spun and shifted her shield around just in time to meet the next attack from the other spectre, which hissed in frustration as its claws were turned away from her flesh. Dar found himself hazarded by another several wraiths, but they were finding it difficult to affect him with their draining touch, given his incredible fortitude.  In turn, he was not having much luck with Valor, as the axiomatic blade passed harmlessly through the creatures in his initial series of attacks.  The fighter suddenly felt an icy chill stab into his body from behind.  He turned to see a black form hovering there.  A shadow, but this creature was bigger than the ones they’d blasted into oblivion before, a hoary ancient thing, full of negative power.  It seemed flush with the strength it had stolen from Dar, and it eagerly surged forward again to feed upon him once more.  “I’ve already got a shadow,” the fighter spat, slashing at it with Valor.  But once again the sword cut through empty air, and he could not help but pale as the terrible thing reared up over him, claws diving toward his chest.  But then the monster reared back, its grim outline contorting as it felt pain.  The source of its suffering was just visible through its dark form: Allera, pouring a cure critical wounds into the creature.  The healer grimaced as she touched it; she had not taken the time to ward herself from its negative energy, instead using the precious seconds to help her companions.  The shadow, sensing this, turned upon her.  It swiped a claw across her face, and she screamed, staggering back. The sight drove Dar to a fury of violence.  He drove Valor through it, through, back, and through again, his strokes as agile as though the heavy longsword was a wooden switch.  The first attack passed through it harmlessly, but on the second and third strikes the magic of the sword, perhaps augmented by the will of its owner, found purchase in something substantial, and the shadow let out a shrieking hiss as it came apart.  Several wraiths continued to claw ineffectively at his back, and he spun to face them.  “WHAT!  Do you want some of this?”As the individual battles raging around the circle began to resolve themselves in favor of the living, the last knots of undead came under heavy attack.  Finally, belatedly, their instinct for survival overcame the drive to destroy, but for the remaining undead it was too late.  The last spectre was vaporized by a barrage of nine magic missiles, while the one wraith that got away from Dar was hit by several magical arrows from Selanthas’s bow, and long trails of dissolving gray mist swirled in its wake as it passed back into the floor.  “Is that it?  Is that all of them?” Talen asked.  The companions stood there in the pale circle of light from their magical torches, weakened and pale, but alive.</blockquote>

Verification