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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 3795197" data-attributes="member: 143">A quick notice, readers: I am going to Hawaii in early October. This one's a pleasure trip and I won't be taking my flash drive, or making any effort to connect to the Internet for a week.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  So no updates the week of Oct 8-12. I think we'll be approaching the end of Book 4 around then; I'll see if I can leave you with a juicy cliffhanger.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool    :cool:"  data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" /> * * * * * Chapter 262FIRST STRIKEThe companions had been expecting an attack, so the flame strike did not catch them entirely off-guard.  Even so, almost all of them took damage from the spell.  Shay sprang forward as the column blasted into the end of the hall, avoiding injury, while the elves, with their superior agility, sprang back to the edge of the strike and suffered only superficial wounds.  Honoratius had protected himself against fire, but the divine energies inherent in the magic still wracked his borrowed body.  But the archmage maintained his equilibrium, and as the unholy flames cleared he fired off his own readied spell. The room was clearly the inner sanctum of a temple to Orcus.  The far side of the chamber was dominated by a large stone statue of the demon lord, lit by an eerie red light that shone down from somewhere above.  A broad stone altar, all edges and spikes, stood in front of the statue, while the space between it and the door they had just opened was occupied by another great stone font, a pool of roiling gelatinous fluid easily ten feet across, from which a terrible sucking and slurping sound emitted as the red substance sloshed about its container.  And standing between the pool and the altar, in the center of the room, the forces of evil stood arrayed against them.  As the archmage looked upon them, he mentally catalogued and classified them, marking the greatest threats. The enemy cleric dominated the chamber.  At first glance the armored figure, twelve feet tall, looked like a fire giant, but Honoratius recognized the effects of a righteous might spell, which suggested that the man was a priest of considerable power.  The creature standing next to him likewise first appeared to be a summoned lion, but the archmage sucked in a breath as he gauged the being’s true identity.  A jarilith.  That indicated a planar ally, which boosted his estimation of the cleric’s potency up another notch.  There were four of the black skeletons warding the priest, forming a line before him, and an armored fighter standing off to the side.  Honoratius’s gaze flicked over him, noting the almost certainly magical banded armor he wore, the blocky helm of black metal covering his face, and the greataxe that burned with magical flame in his hands.  Several spells warded him, although Honoratius could not immediately identify them at this distance.  All of this the archmage assimilated in the course of a heartbeat, as he unleashed his chain lightning spell.  But rather than the twisting bolt of electrical energy, the power that erupted from the arcanist’s fingertips was a concentrated pulse of sonic vibrations, which distorted the air as it shot across the chamber. The sonic blast struck the evil high priest in the chest, overcoming his own protections and savaging his body.  It then split and hit both the demon and the armored fighter, damaging both of them before it ran through the ranks of the skeletons, vaporizing all four of them.  Alderis attempted to dismiss the demon, but the jarilith resisted the spell. Selanthas lifted his bow, an arrow at the ready.  But he held his shot for an instant while Nelan imparted a spell upon the shaft of the missile.  As soon as the silence settled upon the arrow the elf fired, sinking his shot into the meaty part of the high priest’s left thigh.  The cleric’s face twisted and he opened his mouth to shout in pain, the sound lost within the radius of Nelan’s spell. Thus far the Doomed Bastards had given better than they’d gotten, but they were all aware that the enemy likely held more surprises in store. One of those surprises appeared just a moment later, as Shay, landing in a crouch as she evaded the flame strike, lifted Beatus Incendia and charged the enemy cleric.  She ran around the stone pool, and had almost cleared it when the substance within rose up and split, revealing one of the creatures that had been concealed within the pool underneath.  The thing looked almost like a water elemental, taking on a rough humanoid form as it emerged from its lair, but its color and substance were the bright acid crimson of fresh blood.  Shay twisted out of its path as the blood golem struck, but one of its tendrils smacked her in the shoulder, knocking her back.  The scout cried out as the brief contact revealed the fell power of the creature; its touch sucked blood from her body, leaving her weakened.  She gave ground as it emerged fully from the pool, looming over her as its full size became apparent.  Dar had been only a step behind Shay, but he’d gone around the other side of the pool.  He started to come back toward the scout, but Shay stopped him with a shout.  “No!  Get the cleric!” she yelled, holding back the golem’s second attack with a swing of Beatus Incendia that merely grazed its unwholesome form.  The sword hissed as it struck the construct, a terrible stench rising from its body as the holy flames seared it.  But the weak attack did not seem to hinder it in the least, and it surged forward to envelop the scout as its long pseudopods of arms lashed around her arms and slapped hard into her back.  Shay screamed as her blood was torn from her body, absorbed by the creature. As if that wasn’t enough, a second blood golem was rising from the dregs of the pool, facing the casters.  Honoratius stepped forward, and began casting again.  But even as he lifted his hands, the slender fingers forming the complex gestures of a high-level evocation, the defenders unleashed another surprise.  Something flickered in the shadows to the left, along the edge of the chamber, and Zafir Navev became visible as a black eldritch blast erupted from its fingertips, streaking with deadly precision at the archmage and the casters flanking him in the doorway.</blockquote>

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