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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 4039844" data-attributes="member: 143">High praise indeed, thanks!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool    :cool:"  data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" /> * * * * * Chapter 353A SLICE OF THE ABYSS“He’s coming around.”“Varo, can you hear me?”The priest blinked.  It took him a moment to recognize Allera, looking down at him, strands of hair protruding from around the edges of the leather cap she wore.  She is still alive...“Varo.  If you can understand me, say something.”He felt a deep emptiness inside of him, but quickly recovered enough to speak.  His throat was tight, and he felt as though he had gone a hundred days without a drink of water.  “Where... where are we?” he croaked.  “Where we are is well and truly screwed,” Dar’s voice came from a short distance away. Varo tried to get up.  After a moment’s hesitation, Allera helped him to a seated position, where he could look around at their surroundings.  They were on a platform of pale white, featureless substance, not stone or wood or earth or any other material he could identify.  The “sky” above them was a wild medley of chaotic whirls and vague distortions; one moment it looked almost like a solid roof a few dozen feet above their heads, and the next it seemed to go on forever.  The platform dropped off at its edges into sheer drops that descended into utter blackness.  Noises rose up from those depths, echoes of cries and fearsome shrieks and other noises unidentifiable except to clarify that he did not want to go in that direction.Looking out along the horizon, he saw that the platform connected to a maze of twisting pathways that extended out as far as he could see.  It looked like the maze extended in only one direction, but in that way it branched and forked at least a dozen times.  There were no walls, and some of the pathways seemed close enough for a man to leap between them, but something quiet whispered in his mind that such a course would be exceptional hazardous. “Well.  You’re awake.”  Varo blinked and looked up at Dar.  “What... what happened?”Dar lifted his sword.  Or rather, what was left of it; Valor now ended a few inches above the crossguard, the blade ending in a jagged tear of metal.  “Your sword...”“Ruined.  The sacrifice I had to make.”  He looked at Allera, and Varo felt the meaning there, although his mind was not yet sufficiently unscrambled to make full sense of it.  The memory of what he had experienced beyond the gateway was too fresh, and it had torn away all of the assumptions that had brought him here. “Alderis?”Dar jerked a thumb, and he saw the elf, lying awake but stunned on the far side of the platform.  Letellia was talking to him.  Varo could see his body shaking from here. “What...”“His magic.  All of it, he said.  He can’t even manage a freaking magic missile now, not even from his wand.  He’s a bit... upset.  You knew, didn’t you?  You knew that this would happen.”Varo shook his head, still rather overwhelmed.  “No... no, I didn’t...”  He glanced at Allera, and for a moment Dar’s expression darkened, and his fist tightened so around what was left of his sword that Varo would have retreated, had he seen it.  But when the cleric turned back to the fighter, Dar had regained control, and the rage had retreated back to a cold anger.  “What did you have to give up, priest?” “I... I don’t know for sure, yet...”“Yeah, right.  So, do you have any ideas, about how we’re going to face Orcus, now that our most powerful weapon is useless, and our strongest wizard is barely able to throw rocks?  And if you say, ‘faith’ again, I swear by the gods that I will toss you over that freaking edge right now.”“I do not think the gods can hear us, in this place,” Varo said.  But even as he spoke the words, he felt something twist inside him, and he had to stifle a sob that threatened to overcome him. “I can still feel my magic,” Allera said.  “There’s a... a power that shadows everything here, but I can still heal.”“That’s good,” Dar said.  “Because I think we’re going to need it.”Varo rose, again with Allera’s help.  Dar went over to Alderis and Letellia, and while Varo could not overhear what was said, the elf got up, shuffling forward with the sorceress behind him.  “Let’s get moving,” Dar said.  He took the lead, stepping out onto the path that led into the maze.  He put the remains of his sword away in his pack, and drew out Beatus Incendia.  The holy sword burst into flames, but even though it was not that dissimilar in size from his own weapon, he held it uncomfortably, as though its fires could burn him as well.  Behind the fighter, the others followed, still dazed and tired, but driven forward by some reserve of determination to see their quest through to its end.</blockquote>

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