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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 4019715" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 345A TENSE AFTERMATHThe companions, blooded and weary, gathered as Talen’s vampires leapt down from the edge of the reverse gravity effect.  Allera drew out her wand of lesser restoration, and started treating those who had been affected by the ghosts’ draining attacks.  They were in pretty good shape overall, thanks to their defensive wards and Allera’s mass cures during the battle.  “Well now, that wasn’t so bad,” Talen said.  In fact he still felt drained, empty, but his natural regenerative powers were quickly restoring the vitality that had been destroyed by Nelan’s heal spell.  Apparently Talen’s slaves felt the same, from the hungry looks on their faces as they watched their living allies, their eyes lingering on the spots of blood on their clothes where the vrocks had managed to cut them through their stoneskins.  Hedder and Drudge even started sidling toward Letellia, who looked alarmed until Dar stepped in front of her, his hand on the hilt of Valor.  Annoyed, Talen ordered his vampires to guard the door.   “This was just a preliminary test,” Varo said.  “To force us to deplete our resources.”“What else can we expect to face?” Shay asked, wiping the demonic ichor from the head of her spear before the caustic gunk could sear the blade.  “The demon Maphistal still bides his master’s call,” Alderis said.  “And it just wouldn’t be a full day in Rappan Athuk without Navev showing up to hit us with those freaking blasting spells of his,” Dar said.  “I swear it, the next time we meet, that bastard’s head is going to be shoved so far up his ass that he’ll have to fart to speak.”“What else, Varo?” Talen asked. “Whatever you least expect,” the cleric said enigmatically, meeting the vampire’s gaze squarely, despite the danger there.  It was Talen who finally turned away first.   They were distracted by a flash and a loud noise, a deep thump, from the double doors.  They turned to see the vampires falling back from the doors in alarm.  Or at least most of them; a flare of black light was already dissolving around what was left of Utar, a greasy charcoal smear on the white stone.  One of the doors was ajar, only slightly, but enough to identify them as the likely source of the disturbance. Talen got there first.  He didn’t bother to ask what had happened.  Instead, he looked at his remaining minions with a cold stare. “I’d often wondered which of you lot was the most stupid; each day one of you has done something new to take the top slot.  Now, however, I know for certain.”As the others watched, he and Shay applied themselves to the doors, and pulled them open fully, revealing a long hall beyond. This place was starkly different than the white entry chamber, yet no less remarkable.  To the right, the floor was covered in white bricks, separated by only the tiniest of seams.  The wall was covered with an intricate mural, so well-crafted that they could not see any missing stones or gaps in its construction.  The scenes depicted there were gentle, peaceful, pastoral settings occupied by figures clad in white tunics and flowing robes.  To the left, the hall was quite different. The bricks there were red, and the scene upon the wall was the antithesis of that on the right.  Armies crept along that surface, and men and beasts died in a rage of violence.  The workmanship was such that even individual drops of blood could be seen, spraying from the sundered victims of the chaos.  The two sides of the hall were separated by a strip of greenish metal, perhaps two feet wide, that ran from the entrance at their feet to the distance ahead, as far as they could see.  “More writing,” Shay said, indicating the floor.  The message, engraved in thin lines of silver, was clearly comprehensible, written in an archaic script form of the common language. Alderis was standing some distance back, and did not have a clear view of the runes.  But the elf spoke the words, his voice oddly thick, as if he’d taken ill. ”The struggles of life for the good are manyFor the evil are few and dictate the path chosenWar and peace, one and the sameTo fail in war is to lose peace, and war the way To win it. ‘Tis a fine line the good men walk.”“What does it mean?” Allera asked. Varo opened his mouth to say something, but he didn’t get a chance to respond.  Hedder had been pushing forward to get a better look, and as the healer asked her question, the vampire stepped over the threshold of the door, onto the red tiles to the left.  There was a flare of power, like an invisible wind that raised goosepimples across the flesh of the companions.  A noise that sounded like the braying of warhorns echoed around them, the source everywhere and nowhere at once, or maybe only within their own minds. But the change that occurred by the mural was anything but imaginary.  The scene of war and conflict shimmered and shifted, and for a moment the scene was alive, bodies twisting as they were pierced and shorn and crushed.  One tiny figure within that vista stepped out of the mural, onto the ruddy stones of the hall.  A few inches in height when it first emerged, it was somehow a full six feet tall when its boots landed on the floor.  Its face was familiar; in fact it was a precise copy of Hedder, down to the yellow teeth and tangled nest of matted black hair.  The duplicate yanked out its shortswords, exact copies of the ones that Hedder carried, screamed, and charged.</blockquote>

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