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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 3808272" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 266ONE OF THOSE DAYSDar felt a tingling sensation creep around the edges of his mind.  With an angry snarl, he forced it away with a violent thrust of his will.  With Allera’s help, he had been learning to focus his thoughts to resist mental intrusions, and that extra bit of concentration helped him to overcome whatever nasty spell had been cast on him.  He met Talen’s initial thrust with a parry from Valor, and countered with a quick swing that the vampiric knight likewise turned away.  Those preliminaries aside, the two faced off against each other.  “From the moment we first met, I thought it might come to this,” Talen said quietly.  The knight’s sword was about a foot shorter than Dar’s, but its steel had a slightly greenish tinge to it, and it was flawless; almost certainly a magical weapon.  “I can’t say that—AARGH!” Dar’s reply was cut off as the enemy wizard unleashed a cone of cold that blasted through the vault, engulfing everyone save for the cleric of Orcus and those trapped within the forcecage.  Something hard smashed into Dar’s chest, and he staggered back, trying to fight off the disorientation he’d suffered from the icy blast.  As his senses returned, he could see that at least Talen looked to have been hit pretty hard by the spell as well; ice choked the gaps between the steel bands of his armor, and the blood covering his face had frozen, giving him a particularly ragged mien. “Looks like your new friends aren’t too worried about your well-being,” Dar managed to say, although his teeth chattered loudly over every syllable. Talen’s lips twisted into a feral snarl, but as he stepped forward to attack again he cried out in pain once more.  Dar knew what had happened even as the healing flowed into him, bringing warmth back into his battered body.  “Keep it coming, angel!” he yelled. Talen wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.  Without turning, he pointed at Shay, who had not moved from where she had fallen after Dar had charged into her.  “Shay.  I want you to kill Allera,” he said.  The scout stirred, and slowly pulled herself to her feet.“You bastard!”  Dar lunged forward, swinging Valor around in a powerful arc.  But another spell struck before he could connect; an unholy blight that exploded through the chamber.  Dar grimaced as his muscles stiffened and his stomach clenched from the dark energies of the spell.  This time, he noticed, Talen was not affected in the least.  Dar was starting to wonder just how much of this punishment he could take. He glanced to the left, trying to sort out what was happening with Shay and Allera, but Talen was on him in an instant, forcing him to raise his guard.  He just managed to turn the other man’s blade, but Talen smashed him across the jaw with his free hand, knocking him back.  The blow felt as though he’d been punched by an ogre; whatever Talen was now, he was damned freaking strong.  “You punch like a girl,” Dar said, spitting blood.  Fortunately Allera’s death ward still protected him, so his life force remained intact.  At the moment, he had little enough of that to spare. His declining tally was further reduced as a series of magic missiles peppered him, each one digging a knife of pain into his body. “You’re getting down to the weak stuff, eh, wizard!” he yelled.  Talen lunged forward, but Dar was ready for him this time, and he brought Valor up into the vampire’s gut.  Steel crunched and gave way, and this time it was Talen who was driven back.  The blow would have crushed a few organs on a living man, but the vampire seemed merely a bit winded.  Dar didn’t give him a chance to recover.  The fighter rushed forward, his blade flaring with axiomatic energy.  Talen stabbed him in the side, and Dar felt something give as the short blade penetrated metal and entered his flesh.  But in turn he smashed Valor down hard into the vampire’s skull.  The hit he’d taken coming in had made it a glancing blow rather than a skull-crushing strike, but even so there was a loud crack as bone crunched, and Talen was driven to the ground, a large swath of his scalp dangling from the vicious wound, his sword clattering out of his grasp.  The blow would have certainly killed a mortal man, but somehow Talen clung yet to existence, groaning as he struggled to get up.  Dar stepped forward, Valor coming up again.  He never would know if he would have delivered the killing blow, for at that instant, several things happened.  A woman screamed, and Dar became aware of the new threat an instant before the high priest of Orcus attacked.  Kept at bay by the cleric antilife shell, Dar had made the mistake of eliminating the priest as a melee threat.  That assumption proved a costly one, as the cleric stepped forward and swept his scythe into Dar’s side.  The smoky black blade cut through Dar’s armor like the metal wasn’t even there, leaving no mark upon the breastplate as it lanced deep into his side.  Dar cried out, blood exploding from his lips as the weapon slashed through flesh, bone, and lung.  He fell to the ground in a heap, his surroundings in the vault retreating into a red haze, the fell laughter of the evil cleric pounding loudly in his ears, then rapidly fading away as the black rushed in to claim him.</blockquote>

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