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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 3968552" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 326THE INEVITABILITY OF DEATH“As inevitable... as death...” The words were followed by a harsh, rasping noise that might have been laughter.  It came from Talen Karedes. The knight pushed off of the ground with his left hand, and rose into a kneeling stance with his sword scraping along the rough stone of the floor.  His crumpled helmet still covered his head, but through the opening in the front his smashed visage was partially visible.  His right eye was gone, and dark matter oozed down the side of his face from his shattered temple.  Mercifully, the helmet obscured the rest of the damage. As Maphistal turned back toward him, Talen shifted his other hand to the hilt of his sword, and slashed it across the demon’s body once more.  Again the enchanted steel bit on demonic hide, but again the blow did little more than scratch the monster.  Maphistal did not bother with the mace this time, and instead merely reached out and seized the fallen knight by the throat, yanking him up into the air until their faces were just a few feet apart.  “No, slave... yours will be an eternity... an eternity of suffering.”  The demon tightened its grip, and bones cracked beneath the iron pressure of its fingers.  But Talen merely laughed, a sick sound that hissed out between his lips as a weak wheezing.  Varo struck the demon with a greater dispel magic.  Its unholy aura dissolved, but Maphistal merely shot a contemptuous glance in the direction of the cleric.  ”You waste your powers, priest.  I can restore that with a thought.”But Varo’s effort had opened a small opportunity, one that was exploited a moment later as Allera unleashed another mass heal, and in its aftermath Corath Dar leapt at the demon, Valor blazing bright in his hand. The fighter smote the demon, and this time the axiomatic steel bit hard and deep, cutting Maphistal’s right arm through corrupt flesh and muscle and rot until it carved the hard bone beneath.  The demon shrieked and turned on Dar, but he was not yet done.  Coming up under the demon’s sweeping, stricken arm, he thrust Valor up into its body, the point of the sword piercing its torso just under the protruding ribs and sliding a foot up into the hollow beneath them.  A foul issuance of corruption slid from the wound, and for a moment the demon actually faltered, suddenly unsteady on its feet as it staggered backward.  But the moment was over swiftly, and Maphistal recovered within the space of a heartbeat, malevolence and hate radiating from it like the light of a bonfire. Talen had taken advantage of the distraction to escape, transforming himself into a cloud of mist that drifted back to the floor before reforming into a solid form, materializing in a catlike crouch.  And as the knight rose, his followers formed up behind him.  Saracek had succumbed to Allera’s second mass heal, the spell weakening it to the point where Talen’s followers could hack it to pieces.  One of the vampires had claimed the skeletal lord’s greatsword, which pulsed with evil potency in its hands.  On the opposite side of the chamber, Shay was bending to recover her longspear.  The mind flayer had apparently fled; the creature was nowhere to be seen. ”This changes nothing,” the demon told them. Varo came forward.  “Tell your master that the words of the Codex will come to fruition.”Maphistal’s response was a look of terrible power, which the cleric withstood without flinching.  Talen and Dar started toward it in the same instant, but before they could close to again strike at it, the demon twisted reality around it once more, and it vanished from the chamber in a surge of black energy that flared once and then left them alone.  Dar held his ground as Shay walked around him, taking her place at Talen’s side.  Now that the battle was over, it was instantly obvious what she was from the pallor of her flesh, even before she smiled and revealed her long fangs. “Shay, by the gods, no,” Allera said.  Behind her, Letellia and Varo came up to join Dar, facing the vampires. “So,” Talen said, his eyes fixed on Dar.  “We meet again.”</blockquote>

Verification