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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 3972544" data-attributes="member: 143">Actually, mass heal is "one or more creatures", so it can be targeted rather than just affecting everything in a predetermined radius.I'll let Dar's alignment issues play out in the course of the storytelling. I try to never come out and say, "He's [insert alignment] now," but you should be able to tell how things go from the context behind the story. * * * * * Chapter 328THE OVERMINDThe chamber was vast by any measure.  The smallest sounds echoed off the sheer walls, distorted and twisted as they bounced across the huge underground space.  A pair of huge iron braziers, easily ten feet across, illuminated the room with a flickering, bluish light that died well before it reached the edges of the chamber.  The center of the room was dominated by a ring of thick pillars of black stone, around which the light seemed to gather and shine with a cerulean aura.  In the center of that gathering there was a broad stone basin, easily twenty feet across.  A thick, briny stink filled the air, accompanied by a stale hint of decay.  Around the pool stood nine illithids.  They faced inward, silent and motionless, sunk deep into some torpor of communion with the entity that occupied the basin.  There were other things in the chamber, grimlocks that huddled beyond the pillars, and still others further out, shadows that stood immobile in a row along the north wall, awaiting command. Another dark form materialized on one of the staircases that ascended into the chamber under the struts of the iron braziers.  This one had the form and shape of a man, and strode forward without concern for the place’s guardians or the unholy blue glow around the pillars.  A pair of grimlocks moved to intercept him, but the newcomer let his hand drop to the rod he bore at his side, and the creatures recoiled, letting him pass without challenge. He entered the circle of the pillars, a simple feat beyond the capability of most living men.  But the newcomer, though once a man, was no longer living. One of the mind flayers turned to address him.  Its tentacles flared around a mouth that hissed unaccustomed sounds; it was not used to normal speech, but the newcomer’s mind was impervious to its intrusion.  “Speak, warlock.”Zafir Navev’s mouth twisted slightly; perhaps some part of what he had been still remembered the revulsion that the illithids inspired.  “Maphistal launched an assault upon Corath Dar and his companions that survived your ambush.  Somehow, the Camarians have been reinforced; they were able to drive off the demon.”The mind flayer’s alien features betrayed nothing of its reaction to the news.  “Yes, we know,” it finally said.  “Talen Karedes is with them, and Licinius Varo.”The undead warlock did betray surprise at the announcement.  “But... Karedes serves the Master, now.”“His collar is not as firm as the one you wear, warlock.”Navev bristled; flickers of black energy flashed around his fists as they clenched.  The mind flayer did not react, and the other eight had not so much as stirred since he had arrived.  “They will likely come here, to recover the bodies of their fallen friends.”The mind flayer’s face remained inscrutable.  “Yes.  They are coming.”  The creature turned away from him, rejoining the circle around the basin.  Navev looked into it for a moment, at the foulness within, but felt nothing.  Apparently his earlier reaction to the illithid had been only fleeting.  The only emotions left to him, it seemed, were hatred and anger.And pain.  Yes, he could still feel pain. The undead warlock left the circle of pillars, drawing his power close around him.  Destruction was still within his purview.  Maphistal had not invited him to join in the assault upon the fugitives.  He had spent the time after the initial ambush in a tiny room, alone, convulsing in agony as power had surged uncontrollably through him.  Orcus’s varied legions had all fallen before his erstwhile companions like wheat before the farmer’s scythe, but he was still here.  His powers had grown beyond any reckoning he might have made when alive, but that was not enough to fill the gaping emptiness that existed within him like a vast chasm.  It sucked at him like an open wound. All he could do was try to fill it with more hatred and anger.  He hated his Master, but was powerless to do anything to vent that fury.  If anything, Talen’s defiance only stabbed at him like a sharp knife, widening the wound inside.  But there was something he could strike at.  Those who had brought this upon him, who had left him to die in this accursed place, and then had left him behind to fall into the grasp of the dark powers of Rappan Athuk.  Corath Dar and Licinius Varo, at least, could pay.  Would pay.Zafir Navev lifted a hand, pressed it into a fist.  Black power surged around it, a crackling nimbus that felt raw, pure, potent.</blockquote>

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