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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 3839684" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 275THE BRONZE SERPENTAnku did not wait for the creature to close with them.  The barbarian tribesman lifted his curved sword and charged, letting out a guttural roar of challenge as the battle-rage of his people filled him with strength.  The soft heels of his light boots barely scuffed on the stone, as he rushed the bronze serpent with catlike speed and grace. The serpent, however, was surprisingly fast for a beast of its size.  The blunt head shot down at the onrushing tribesman, its fangs lashing out like twin daggers.  Anku sprang and darted under its reach, narrowly avoiding its attack of opportunity.  He arrested his leap with an outstretched hand and came up a mere stride from the creature’s long body.  Before it could react, he smashed his falchion into a junction of two of the metal’s snake’s segments, intending to sever it in twain. The blow was powerful, but the monster’s durability was in more than the mere metal that comprised its body.  Steel, even magical steel, could not cut the bronze, and while the blow opened a small crack in its body, that was all it accomplished. Anku staggered back, his arms trembling from the backlash of his hit.  The snake, quick to recover from its initial lunge, twisted and snapped at him again. “Anku, look out!” Esir warned.  The barbarian crouched and leapt once more, intending to vault the serpent’s body and come up on its other side.  But this time he was just a shade too slow, and one long fang snared Anku’s shoulder, tearing his zurqa and snagging on the light shirt of mail links he wore underneath.  The tribesman cried out in pain as the metal snake bit down, driving the fang through his body, while a surge of electrical energy shot through him, causing his arms and legs to spasm uncontrollably. Esir glanced back at Tammuz, but the mystic was still lost in his incantation, preparing some spell that would hopefully disable or destroy the serpent.  The tomb-raider was not without courage, but he knew his strengths, and close-fighting was not one of them.  He lashed at it with his whip, hoping to distract it.  He scored a hit, but not only did he fail to note any damage from the hit, the injury that Anku had inflicted upon it earlier flashed with white sparks, and the gap in the bronze closed.  The thief’s eyes widened as he realized that far from hurting it, he may have actually benefited the creature.    Anku had recovered enough to grab onto the snake’s head with his muscled hands, trying to pry its jaw open.  He’d dropped his sword when the snake had grappled him, and his feet kicked empty air several feet above the ground, giving him little leverage against it.  But the snake was obviously quite strong, and he was unable to so much as budge its grip upon him.  Anku’s face twisted into a paroxysm of agony as it sent another jolt of energy through his body.  Blood was pouring down the man’s body from the vicious wound in his shoulder, but he refused to give up, fumbling at his belt for his pick.  Meanwhile, the snake began to coil its long body around the man’s torso, rapidly enfolding him in a crushing grip that would soon grind the hapless warrior’s bones into powder.A flash of red smoke and a hissing noise announced the completion of Tammuz’s ritual invocation.  The brief eruption faded quickly, revealing a huge, hulking horror.  It was an ape, easily eight feet tall, with a monstrous visage and an extra set of arms jutting from its torso.  It was covered dirty white fur streaked with crimson, making it look like it was covered in blood.  The fiendish girallon fixed at once upon the snake, and charged forward at it.  The serpent, engaged with Anku, was not able to defend itself adequately as the ape smashed into it, attacking with all four of its huge claws.  It got a good grip with two claws about six feet below its neck and twisted.  Metal groaned as the bronze bent under the strain of the ape’s incredible strength, and tiny flashes of energy flared around the abused joints in its body.  The ape, not quite done, even tried to bite the serpent’s body, but it only suffered a shattered tooth from the attempt.  The violent and furious assault finally accomplished what Anku had been unable to do on his own.  The snake’s jaws opened wide and it tossed its captive aside, focusing on the dangerous threat posed by this new adversary.  The ape saw those deadly fangs coming down and it tried to intercept it, seizing the construct’s jaws in its uppermost pair of claws.  For a moment abyssal muscles contended successfully against the serpent’s artificial strength; the snake’s body creaked with the effort, and the eight hundred pounds of summoned creature was driven back, a foot, then two, its hind claws scratching deep on the stone.  The ape’s lower claws tried to grab onto the neck of the snake lower down, but with the bulk of the girallon’s attention focused on the head, they could not find a secure purchase.  Then, when it looked as though the two had come to a stalemate, the snake’s tail whipped around, smashing hard into the girallon’s lower body.  The blow distracted the ape for just a second, but it was enough for the snake to tear free and slam its jaw down onto the girallon’s shoulder.  The girallon’s roar of pain shook the chamber with its intensity. Esir had circled around the melee, doing his best to avoid getting killed by the thrashings of the snake or its adversary.  Tammuz reached Anku just as he did.  The barbarian had fallen against one of the pillars fronting the alcove, where he lay coughing up blood.  His zurqa had been torn away, and there was a long rip in the mail shirt underneath, revealing the ugly, gaping wound in his shoulder.  The man’s flesh had been blackened where the energy discharge from the monster had poured into him, and while the wound had been cauterized shut, it was clear from the way that bright red blood continued to burst from his mouth that his lung had been punctured.  He was obviously dying, but his hand continued to fumble on the handle of his pick, and his legs continued to scratch at the ground, trying to get enough leverage to push him back up. Esir fumbled for a healing potion, but Tammuz was quicker, falling into a crouch beside the stricken tribesman.  Ignoring the violence taking place behind him, the man uttered a brief incantation in a low voice.  Esir, with his sharp ears, heard part of it: “Dagos defaeca, malum seca...”  A flickering glow appeared around the mystic’s hand, and as he seized the injured warrior’s shoulder, not quite roughly nor in a gentle manner, that energy seeped into Anku’s body. The effect was remarkable.  As a man in a risky profession, Esir had naturally witnessed magical healing on multiple occasions, and in fact he carried a variety of curative balms, serums, and elixirs secreted about his person.  But he’d never seen healing like this before.  Anku’s eyes shot open, and the barbarian’s body convulsed once, and then, just like that, was whole.  Esir blinked as he realized that the wound in the man’s shoulder was just gone. Their attention was drawn around by a last desperate roar, as the girallon went limp, its body crushed within the bronze serpent’s coils, its neck locked in its jaws.  As it expired the summoned monster dissolved back into a red mist, which vanished in seconds. “My sword...” Anku said, casting around for the blade even as he pulled himself to his feet.  “Use your pick,” Tammuz commanded.  “That black metal is adamantine; it should prove more effective.” The barbarian nodded and took up the weapon as the snake’s head revolved around to face them once more.  Wary now, Anku waited for the beast to come to them, using the adjacent pillar to offer some degree of cover.  Esir and Tammuz fell back.  The thief looked down at his whip.  “My weapon is useless... worse than useless, it heals the thing.”“Trust in the gods,” Tammuz said.  The pair watched as the serpent lunged again at Anku, but the barbarian darted behind the pillar at the last instant, avoiding the lunge.  The impact of the snake’s blunt head ripped out a considerable chunk of stone, sending a plume of debris across the floor of the chamber.  Anku came around the far side of the pillar and struck the serpent’s body with his pick.  True to Tammuz’s advice the head of the weapon bit into the serpent’s body, releasing a geyser of electrical sparks.  Anku ripped the weapon free and dove forward as the construct’s head came around the pillar, seeking the flesh of its tormentor. “Anku, get free!” Tammuz shouted.  The barbarian heard over the noise made by the serpent, and leapt forward even as the snake lunged after him.  “Pyrotatus!” the mystic shouted, lifting a fist into the air in an invocation of power.  A column of fire exploded down from the ceiling, driving into the center of the bronze serpent’s body.  The inferno engulfed the creature, overcoming its magical defenses to ravage its metallic body.  As the flames died, the serpent fell to the ground in a loud clatter, its joints fused by the heat of the blast.  Steam rose from cracks where the bronze had faltered, and the air above it wavered as heat continued to radiate from its body.  The companions gathered and watched the sundered construct in silence.  Finally, Tammuz gestured toward the opened doors. “Come, gentlemen, our fortune awaits.”Behind him, Esir and Anku exchanged another meaningful look.  But they followed the mystic, Anku recovering his falchion as they departed the chamber.</blockquote>

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