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: 3767894" data-attributes="member: 143">Payback? Heh, you might want to skip this update. <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":]" title="Devious    :]" data-shortname=":]" /> * * * * * Chapter 252THE TURNINGDar managed to roll just enough to avoid the axe blade that came crashing down into the stone where his head had been an instant before.  The sound was deafening.  He tried to smash the skeleton’s knee with his club, but his stroke was ruined as something grabbed onto his left ankle and pulled, hard.  He looked down to see the one-armed skeleton, dragging him up into reach of its horns.  But before he could react to that alarming development, another skeleton came at him with an axe, and he was forced to brace his club to block.  The club caught the haft of the axe just below the blade, stopping it scant inches from his face.  Then the skeleton holding his leg heaved again, and he found himself upside down, dangling a few feet above the stone floor.  “Oh, for the love of...”The fighter didn’t get a chance to finish his statement, as something hard crashed into his back, knocking the air from his lungs.  His club went flying from his grasp, clattering on the floor, just out of his reach. Talen was flung back by the force of Navev’s eldritch blast, a wave of blood forming ahead of his body as he shot through the pool.  Somehow, through some instinct or reflex born of desperate strength, he kept his grip on Shay, holding the paralyzed scout even as his legs hit the stone rim on the far side of the pool, and he was flipped over its edge to fall battered and bloody to the ground on the edge.  His body shaking with pain and effort, he looked up to see Shay hanging limply over the edge of the pool, face down in a spreading mess of blood.  It had gotten darker; he’d lost Beatus Incendia somewhere along the way.  He would not have been able to hold both her and the sword, he realized; he’d made his choice instinctively.  With the low stone barrier blocking his view again, he could not see Navev.  He reached out toward Shay; realized that there was nothing he could do for her.  No, there was one thing.  He grabbed onto her, dragging her motionless form to him, behind the shelter of the stone rim of the pool.  He could not tell if she was breathing, and there was no time to check.  The barrier offered scant protection, he knew.  Navev would only need to walk a short distance before they would be revealed, and he could hit them with another of those deadly eldritch blasts.  From what the others had said of the warlock, there was no limit to the number of times that he could hurl those invocations.  Or rather, only one limit that Talen could see.  The knight grabbed onto the stone rim of the pool and dragged himself to his feet.  He reached down and grabbed the hilt of the sword at Shay’s hip, drawing her holy sword, the twin of Beatus Incendia, from its scabbard.  Blood covered him from head to toe, dripping down his armor to form a growing pool at his feet.  Navev had not moved; the warlock stood there at the far edge of the pool, waiting for him.  “Let’s finish this, warlock,” Talen said. The revenant nodded.  “Yes, let’s,” he said.  His hands came up, and another globe of dark energy formed between them.  Nelan recognized the red glow surrounding the goblin cleric’s hands as a harm spell.  He tried to cast his heal spell to counter, but Tribitz was faster, lunging forward to touch the cleric’s armored leg.  Nelan flinched, expecting the deluge of negative energy to devastate him. Nothing happened.  Nelan had forgotten his death ward; it protected him against any negative energy attacks.  “The Father protects me,” he said, almost to himself. “Your Father is a pathetic wretch, who has lingered beyond his time,” the cleric said, lifting its morningstar.  Despite the small size of the weapon, it looked wicked, its head covered with jagged black spikes that radiated a cold malevolence.  Nelan cast his second and last searing light, but once more the goblin’s spell resistance protected it from harm, and the beam dissipated as it struck Tribitz’s chest.  “You cannot harm me, while I am sheltered by my Master’s touch,” the goblin said, cackling as it smashed its mace into Nelan’s side.  The cleric of the Father grunted in surprise and staggered several steps away from the blow; for all its apparent frailty, the goblin hit hard.  And the weapon it was using was unholy, created to kill beings such as Nelan. Nelan knew that he could not take many more of those hits.  The goblin followed him, calmly, as he fell back, trying not to fall.  “Yes.  Now, you understand,” it said. A ring of blue fire erupted around Dar.  The fighter raised his arms to protect himself from the new attack, but all he felt was a soft healing glow that eased his hurts and poured new life into his battered body.  And then he was falling; not far, but hard enough to remind him of the pain he’d just had healed as his shoulder was jammed into the hard floor.  Grimacing against the pain from his still-tender leg, the fighter pulled himself to his feet.  The skeletons that had surrounded him were all destroyed, lying all about in heaps of shattered black bones.  He didn’t need to look far to know the source of his salvation; Allera was not far away.  She’d stopped running to cast her mass cure, but that gave the skeleton chasing her a chance to catch up.  “Allera, look out!” Dar yelled, already running—or the best he could do on his damaged leg—toward her.  The healer turned even as the skeleton seized her up in its arms, yanking her up off her feet and crushing her against its body.  There was no sound; the silence spell that Tribitz had put on the creature earlier was still in effect.  But Dar could see Allera’s mouth open in a soundless scream, and he growled as he drew Valor from its scabbard. Talen knew that he would never get to Navev before the undead warlock could blast him again.  And with the power to knock him back with each discharge, how could he possibly get close enough to do any damage?  But there was nothing to be done for it except to try. Navev waited just a few seconds, firing his eldritch blast as Talen rounded the circumference of the pool.  The knight knew it was coming, and did not even bother lifting his shield, just lowered his head and charged forward into the attack. The blast missed. It was hard to say who was more surprised, the knight or the warlock.  The streaking black bolt passed close enough to Talen to vaporize the tiny droplets of blood that streaked his helmet, but then it was past, almost before he could realize what had happened. Talen’s momentum carried him forward, and before the warlock could react, he laid into it with his sword.  The blade bit deep into the revenant’s body, the weapon’s holy fire searing its flesh, but its unnatural toughness protected it, and no blood spurted from the deep gash that the stroke opened in its side.  Navev merely glanced up from a hit that would have punctured the lung of a living man, a dark malevolence shining in its eyes.  Talen lifted his weapon to strike again. Navev stepped forward, and lifted its rod.  The device was heavy, the black skull at its head giving it the shape and mass of a mace, but the warlock did not use it as a weapon.  Instead it merely pressed the face of the skull against the front of Talen’s helmet, and invoked the dread power of its Master. Talen stiffened, and with a soft groan he collapsed to the ground, his life force snuffed out in an instant.</blockquote>

Verification