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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 4009824" data-attributes="member: 143">Thanks as always for the kudos, Richard. * * * * * Chapter 342FALLEN ALLIESFor a moment, the Doomed Bastards merely looked at their former companion, who regarded them with a deeply melancholy expression.  Allera started forward, but Dar blocked her with a hand.  He’d drawn his axiomatic sword.  “Nelan, what are you doing here?” “I guard the Way,” the cleric said, his voice thin and hollow.  “I am sorry, friends... the Demon... it is too powerful, it claimed me...”“There is no shame in it,” Varo said.  Talen, who had mastered himself after his initial moment of surprise, chuckled.  “Easy for you to say, deceiver, given your culpability in his fate.”  The vampire turned to Nelan.  “Stand aside, cleric.  I bear you no ill will, but you cannot stop us.”Something flashed in the dead cleric’s eyes.  He looked at Dar and Varo.  “You are making a mistake, allying with the likes of these.  They will betray you...”Talen laughed again.  “You have a lot of gumption, ghost, to speak of betrayal.  Now stand aside, or make whatever feeble move you are capable of.  No doubt you can wrinkle the spirits of my mortal companions, but your powers are of no use against one such as I.”“You are wrong, commander.  And I am not alone.”The air behind him wavered, and several other ghosts materialized.  Their faces, too, were familiar—Marcus, Alexion, Zahera.  Like him, they bore the arms and armor they had carried in life, although their weapons were as insubstantial as the rest of them, and it was not clear what damage they could wreak against corporeal flesh.  Having dealt with ghosts in the past, however, the companions were wary.  Varo glanced at Allera, fixing her with his stare for a moment before essaying a subtle nod.  The healer’s jaw tightened, but she was already ready with what might have to be done. “So not one of you could resist him, eh?” Talen said, walking casually in front of them as if they had not just threatened to attack him.  Behind the ghosts, the others could see Shay, a barely visible shadow, moving into position near the double doors.“There was no resisting,” Marcus said, the dead cleric’s voice thick with inner torment.  “He is too powerful.”Talen spun and confronted the ghost.  “I resisted it.  I felt that call, that compulsion... but I fought it!”  He shifted his attention to Alexion and Zahera.  “What you are saying, is that you were weak!  I chose you to serve Camar, but your oaths were nothing, in the end!”The two dead knights did not respond.  “Talen, what purpose does this serve?” Allera asked, coming forward despite Dar’s caution.  She glowed with a soft golden light, a holy aura cast in anticipation of a confrontation.  The glow extended around Dar, Varo, Letellia, and Alderis, but she did not include the vampires in its protection.  Likely Talen was right, and they did not need it; could the power of undeath harm those already dead?“You are right,” Talen said, without turning.  “It serves nothing.”  He focused on Nelan.  “So, cleric, are you going to step aside?”“I cannot.”  “So be it,” Talen said.  He lifted his sword.  “No, wait!” Allera shouted. But it was too late, as several things happened at once.  Nelan, his face tinged with regret, lifted his arms, and... changed.  Black tendrils of power twisted through his incorporeal form, and his face transformed into a visage of unnatural terror.  The power of his new master surged outward, the horrific appearance of the ghost stabbing into the life energy of the living foes that confronted him.  Behind him, the other ghosts unleashed their own power, their corrupting gazes striking like daggers at the vitality of the companions.  But these attacks were not the final sum of the gateway’s defenses.  The unnatural carvings on the pillars that flanked them on either side twisted and took on life, bulging and growing as they stepped away from the rock that encased them.  The skeletal figures that had decorated the pillars were replaced by a pair of glabrezu, their hulking masses looming large over the smaller enemies recoiling before them.</blockquote>

Verification