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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 3967274" data-attributes="member: 143">Shh... shilsen, you'll let my secret out...  <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=";)" /> Thanks for the posts, everyone. Hope you all have a great New Year!* * * * *Chapter 325REUNIONConfronted by the awesome power of the demon Maphistal, Dar could see his own death shining in its terrible red eyes.  Protected by its unholy aura and a hide that was deceptively dense, he suspected that even Valor would have little effect upon it.  His second attack was more precise, abandoning sheer strength for more finesse, and this time he felt the edge of his sword bite into the demon’s flesh, just below the angular protrusions of its ribs.  His sword was as eager as he was, but neither blood nor ichor issued from the foot-long gash, and the only indicator that the demon had felt the hurt was a sinister hiss that sounded from deep within the hollow of its skull. He aborted any follow up and instead drew back, hoping to lure the monster after him and avoid a full attack.  But Maphistal did not need a full flurry of blows; it merely stepped forward and drove its mace down hard toward the fighter’s head.  Dar brought Valor up to parry, but the demon’s attack hit him with the force of an avalanche.  Pain crushed through his arms, and Valor clattered to the ground as both hands went numb and loose.  The fighter nearly followed the weapon, trying to fight the twisting agony as the bones of his arms knit together.  Behind him, his companions were hard-pressed, and unable to come to his aid.  Varo stepped up to the hezrou that was thrusting Allera deeper into its gullet, delivering a harm spell through a gentle touch to its flank.  The demon choked as black blood poured from a dozen wounds that opened all over its body, and as it staggered back Allera fell free of its jaws, collapsing to the ground in a bloody and battered heap.  The last two ju ju zombies, though greatly weakened by Allera’s earlier mass heal, nevertheless pressed the attack, leaping at Varo and hacking at him with their weapons, forcing the cleric to defend himself. Saracek had selected Letellia as its target, and even as the sorceress staggered to her feet, recovering from the paralysis of Maphistal’s blasphemy, the undead knight laid into her with a powerful two-handed stroke from its unholy sword.  The blow would have cut her in half had it not been for her magical protections, but even so the blade bit deep, and blood arced through the air as the young woman screamed and fell back against the wall.  The skeletal lord stepped forward, lifting its weapon again to finish her. Dar reached down to pick up his sword, but his fingers were clumsy and failed to obey his commands, and he could only fumble at the hilt.  Not that it would make any difference, not with the demon standing above him, but he wanted to die with his sword in his hand.  A dark streak caught the corner of his eye, and he saw something appear out of the corridor to the right, moving incredibly fast.  It was overkill, really, as the charging form, clad in black garments that swirled and shifted around its form, came rushing toward him.  His attention was focused more on the demon right in front of him, which lifted its mace to deliver another crushing blow.  His questing fingers finally locked around the familiar hilt of his weapon, and as Dar lifted Valor in another futile attempt to block, he heard himself scream a deep, guttural cry of defiance up at it.  Then Maphistal shifted, and Dar realized he’d been wrong in his assumption, as the newcomer sprang suddenly into the air, rising without apparent effort almost to the height of the ceiling.  It bore a longspear, a weapon with a shining silver head that Dar recognized with a start of surprise.  The spearhead flashed as its owner drove it into Maphistal’s side, sinking deep into the demon’s gaunt body with a solid thunk.  At that moment the light of their torches penetrated the newcomer’s cowl, revealing the features inside, but Dar had known who it had to have been the moment he’d recognized the spear.  Even so, the sheer unreality of it drew an exclamation of surprise from his lips.   “Shay!” The demon roared and turned to face the new threat, but its tormenter used the impact of the spear to push off, shifting the arc of her jump to land just outside of its reach.  As the scout's feet hit the ground she yanked the spear free, the weapon trailing after her as she kept running past.  Maphistal’s counter was well late, the mace slicing through only empty air.  The mind flayer scurried out of the way in alarm, but the newcomer paid the creature no heed, spinning and shifting the grip on her spear to bring the head back up toward the foe as her momentum ebbed.  The head of the spear hissed with some trace of blackness; she had managed to draw blood where Dar had failed.Shaylara was not alone; a small knot of dark-clad figures appeared out of the tunnel mouth in her wake.  In their van was Talen Karedes, armored in a dark breastplate of blacksteel, with the shimmering sword of Mailliw Catspar gleaming in his hand.  He pointed, and the five scraggly figures trailing behind him hooted and screeched as they leapt to assault the demon’s allied forces.  Saracek turned to meet three of them, his long blade slashing out to catch the first with a solid blow across the body that knocked it sprawling.  The other two came in heedless of concern, hacking at the skeleton with short swords that clanged hard off of the dead knight’s ancient armor.    The other two of Talen’s followers attacked the crippled hezrou.  Their crude weapons, a long-handled wood axe and a jagged-edged scimitar, were not able to penetrate the fiend’s resistances, but they certainly got its attention.  A few feet away, Varo was withstanding the attacks of the last two zombies with aplomb. His heavy plate armor, likewise of blacksteel, turned their blows, and their bodies, broken by holy power, were not strong enough to lay hold of him.  He stepped away from the pair and began incanting another spell.  One of the zombies turned toward the fallen healer, seeking perhaps easier prey, but that assumption proved utterly false a moment later as Allera unleashed a mass cure critical wounds spell.  Both zombies were utterly vaporized by the healing magic, even as life poured into the bodies of the healer and her companions.  Allera pulled herself to her feet, her clothes tattered and ruined from her brief stay in the hezrou’s gullet.  As she gathered her bearings she cast about for Dar, and as she saw him, her heart froze in her chest. “You’re mine, demon!” Talen shouted, as he charged toward Maphistal.”You dare, slave?” the demon responded.  It met the fallen knight’s rush with a blow from its mace that crashed down upon his left shoulder with devastating force.  Talen bore no shield, and the impact would have crippled a living man.  But Talen Karedes was no longer a living man. The vampire shrugged off the hit and darted inside the demon’s reach with impressive speed.  Catspar’s sword knifed up through the demon’s unholy aura, piercing its side just above its left hip.  The demon clearly felt the stroke, backed by the unnatural strength that was a product of Talen’s transformation. But the demon was stronger yet by far.  As Talen started to tear his blade free, Maphistal reached down and seized the vampire’s arm at the elbow, joining them in an embrace linked by muscle and steel.  Talen tried to break away, but Maphistal held him in an iron grip, and the demon brought down its mace in its other hand, smashing it hard into the side of the fallen knight’s head.  Talen’s halfhelm crumpled like an eggshell, and with it half of his skull. “Talen!” Shay yelled.  The spearhead caught the light as the scout leapt into another charge.  Dar felt power flow through Valor as he laid into the demon with a furious barrage of attacks.  Allera’s latest spell had healed the worst of his current injuries, but his bones still clacked together, and his strokes felt awkward, each turned away by the potency of the demon’s evil aura or by the incredible durability of its hide.  Almost casually, Maphistal released Talen, who clattered to the floor in a heap, and then spun, driving the haft of its mace into Dar’s face.  The nose guard of his helm shattered, and he screamed as the jagged end of the weapon’s haft plunged into his left eye.The fighter fell, his face a bloody ruin.  Shay’s legs were a blur as she rushed toward the demon.  But this time, Maphistal saw her coming, and in the instant before the silver head of her spear reached his chest the demon’s hand shot out, and seized the weapon a foot below the head.  Shay’s momentum carried her forward, sliding up the length of the weapon.  She abandoned the spear and reached for the sword at her belt, but before she could draw she met the demon’s dark gaze.  Maphistal’s power seized her, and she was flung bodily across the room, smashing into the far wall with enough force to crack the ancient stone.  She hung there for a moment, and then fell hard to the ground ten feet below.  ”The Master comes,” the demon intoned, its voice hissing like water striking fire.  ”The doom of your world is as inevitable as the creeping touch of death.”</blockquote>

Verification