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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 4012420" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 343GUARDIANS OF THE GATEBolstered by Allera’s very timely holy aura, Dar weathered the attacks of the ghosts well, although he could feel the icy touch of their power along the fringes of his soul, like the chill of a wintry breeze.  He heard Letellia cry out, and turned to see the sorceress stagger back, the skin of her face and hands crinkling like the skin of an old apple.  That was enough for Dar.  He knew that ghosts were hard to hurt, but Valor would serve, if necessary.  But then the glabrezu appeared, and the equation changed.  Talen’s vampires needed no urging to attack.  Even as Talen had raised his sword they had swarmed forward, hacking at the ghosts.  But their weapons passed harmlessly through the incorporeal undead, and the former bandits staggered through their vague forms, which were utterly unaffected.  The ghosts proved that the reverse was not true a moment later, as Alexion raised his pick and drove it into the side of Drudge.  The ghost-weapon pulsed with black power, and it bit deep into the solid flesh of the vampire, tearing open an ugly wound despite his considerable resistances to most forms of attack.  “Attack the demon!” Talen shouted at them, as the huge glabrezu emerged from the pillars, their long pincer-arms giving them an easy reach to attack any of them.  Ignoring the ghosts, he rushed at the nearer of the two demons.  But as he rushed past Nelan, the priest reached out and touched him.  The vampire was caught off guard as positive energy tore into him, and he screamed as it pierced him like a hundred arrows, tearing deep into the corrupt core of his being.    “How?” he cried, as he staggered back, trying to recover.  “I serve a new Master,” the cleric said, his eyes reflecting the vampiric knight’s torment.  Varo had been ready with the power of Dagos, and even as the ghosts released their power he countered it with his own.  Nelan’s horrific appearance nearly overcame him, but Allera’s protective ward gave him enough strength to resist it.  The attacks of the lesser ghosts were no real threat, nothing against the swelling surge of power he commanded.  But his attempt to rebuke the ghosts failed.  He knew that this place bolstered undead through the dark potency of Orcus, but even so the sheer intensity of it caught him by surprise.  The power of this place that had nearly overwhelmed the sorceress’s senses was like a solid wall a hundred feet high, against which the might of his divine patron pounded as uselessly as a crashing wave.  He recognized the subtle attempt to undermine his will, and angrily he shook it off.  He reached out again, this time drawing in his power for a potent summoning spell.  Once again his effort failed, as his magical calls vanished into the chasm between realities, blocked by the power of Orcus. The demons, however, had no such difficulty.  Upon their arrival, each of them immediately set upon conjuring aid, and unlike Varo, their summons were answered.  Sick ripping noises accompanied by a visual distortion in the air above as reality twisted, and a pair of vrocks appeared, flapping their wings as they surveyed the scene of developing carnage.  The few seconds it took to complete the summons gave Dar the initiative as he stepped forward to engage the first demon.  Such was its size that the fighter had only to take a few steps to attack, but even so the demon’s superior reach gave it an advantage.  It stabbed one of its pincer-claws at him, trying to snap his neck in its grip.  Dar batted it aside with Valor, shearing off the lower half of the demon’s claw with the blade.  Valor sung with potency as it fulfilled its purpose, and the demon was given pause by the power it recognized in that weapon.  For a moment, it considered a temporary withdrawal, to prepare defensive wards and a better tactical position.  But then Dar opened his mouth. “Is that the best you got, you freaking dog?” The glabrezu roared in rage, and unleashed a full attack upon the diminutive wretch.  Its damaged claw could no longer grasp, but it could still hit, and the demon smashed the little man across his helmeted face with a backswing.  Before he could recover, it snapped its other claw down hard.  It tried to seize him by the waist, but managed to get only a leg, clamping down just below the hip.  Still, that was enough to lift the human up high enough for the demon’s smaller claws to reach him, and they tore at his chest, reaching up under his helmet in an attempt to crush his scrawny throat.  Finally, the demon lunged forward and bit at the man’s wrist, seeking to end the threat of the magic sword once and for all—which would make a fine prize to take back to the Abyss.  The assault would have left most men broken and dying.  Unfortunately for the demon, it had picked probably the worst possible man in all of Camar with which to tussle.  The glabrezu had his leg good, but it hadn’t yet gotten a solid purchase on his neck, and Dar was able to tear his arm free of its bite.  The pincer-claw was perhaps the greatest worry, so he sliced down with Valor and took the entire arm off at the elbow.  Its weaker fore-claws were not enough to hold him, and he fell, wincing as his damaged leg stabbed agony with the impact.  The demon roared in pain, but its head was way up above him now, out of reach.  Dar decided to rectify that and smashed Valor down into the left knee.  He’d intended to cripple the joint, but managed to score a critical hit, severing the leg entirely.  The glabrezu toppled to the size, now in serious trouble.  It tried to call its magic to flee, but before it could concentrate through the pain of two severed limbs it felt the human leap onto its back, a moment before two feet of axiomatic steel entered through the base of its skull, putting a sudden end to it. The other demon wasn’t exactly having a good time on the far side of the room.  Shay had engaged it as soon as it had appeared, rushing at it and thrusting her longspear deep into its armored side.  The demon had ignored her until it had summoned its vrock, and then turned to face her.  It yanked the spear out of her grasp as she tried to draw it back, but she avoided getting snared herself, dodging back out of its reach as Talen’s vampires leapt upon it in a violent frenzy.  Their attacks were almost futile against a creature of the demon’s power, but it was forced to take them seriously, especially when the little Calla struck it across the back of one leg, sucking life energy out of it into herself. While the demons engaged with the warriors on the fringes of the battle, power flared back and forth through the center of the chamber, as the ghosts and spellcasters contested.  Allera unleashed a mass cure that ravaged the ghosts.  Their incorporeal existence protected them to some degree, making even odds that she could affect them at all, but she caught Marcus and Zahera in the first attack, the blue fire opening ghastly rents in their misty outlines.  Zahera responded with an arrow that proved all too substantial when it hit, the hazy black shaft piercing her holy aura and biting deep into her flesh.  The healer responded with equanimity, yanking out the shaft and firing off a second mass cure.  The black arrow vanished into nothing along with the ghost of the woman knight, and this time both Nelan and Alexion felt the power of the spell as well.  Nelan had been fencing with a much warier Talen, but as the mass cure wrought damage upon him he turned and hurled a flame strike into the midst of Allera, Letellia, and Varo.  The summoned vrocks had held back thus far, taking the time to ward themselves with mirror images.  But they were quick to take advantage of the strike, and one dove forward in the wake of the flames.  It uttered a devastating shriek that stunned Alderis and Letellia, and then landed in the midst of the casters, ready to rend and destroy.  The second one saw a juicy target in Allera, and dove onto her, bearing her down under a flurry of cutting claws and tearing beak.  The healer screamed and tried to get away, but the demon, surrounded by a flickering field of mirror images, engulfed her in a shifting swarm of violence.</blockquote>

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