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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 4041598" data-attributes="member: 143">Well, he doesn't have as much backup as you might expect (I will address that in the story), but yeah, they're screwed.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> Thanks for delurking to post. I enjoy that plot device as well, and it fit particularly well with where the story ended up going. Next week we finally meet the Big Guy. But for this Friday cliffhanger, a bit more tenderization is on the menu first for the DBs:* * * * * Chapter 354THROUGH THE GAPING MAW OF UTTER DESTRUCTION“How long have we been here?” Letellia asked.  The sorceress’s face had a bleak look, but she kept on moving, pushing one foot after another to keep up with Dar’s steady and unrelenting pace. “Ten, twelve hours?” Allera ventured.  “Not a full day... I think.”  The healer looked up at the sky, but the chaos-scape offered no clues, and there had been no change in the intensity of the light that diffused through the air here. Which was not to say that they had not encountered changes in their environment.  The place was suffused with chaos, eddies of which had found them in their journey through the maze.  Unpredictable changes in temperature, sudden gusts of wind, even a mini-tornado that had nearly swept up Alderis before they could stagger out of it, Dar all but dragging them forward as a group.  And there had been enemies.  No sudden onslaught of demons, as Dar had feared, but they’d already battled three groups of shadows, including an assault from five of the stronger, bigger variety that rose up out of the dark pits flanking the path, attacking them before they even realized they were there.  Fortunately Allera had still had a stronger mass cure available to her, or that encounter might have been devastating.  There had been corporeal foes as well; a knot of dretch that they met on one of the paths, and which had surged forward to destruction at the blade of Beatus Incendia.  A vrock that had appeared out of nowhere.  Luckily the demon had seemed as surprised as they were, and they were able to blast it before it could marshal its magical powers against them.  At one point they saw a glabrezu, deeper in the maze, but the creature did not appear to detect them.  At least it did not come their way.  Varo had suggested that the chaos in the maze interfered with the demons’ natural teleportation abilities.  But he could offer no explanation of what this place was, or what recourse they had save to go forward, and seek out the end. Allera had treated each of them with her wand, easing their exhaustion.  There was no talk of stopping to rest, not here.  She used it twice on Alderis, depleting the wand’s power completely.  The elf was flagging, but Dar had refused to slow, moving forward with a dire certainty of purpose, Beatus Incendia a beacon in his hands.  “We need to rest,” Allera finally said.  Dar stopped, but Alderis kept going for a moment, until he was adjacent to the fighter.  “There is something ahead,” the elf said, the first words he’d uttered in hours.  “Is there anything else you can do for them, Allera?” Dar asked.  When Allera shook her head, he said, “Five minutes for food and drink.”They mechanically consumed victuals from their supplies.  Everything they carried had taken on a bland, empty taste, but they ate to keep their bodies sustained.  When they were done, and Dar had tossed the empty wrappings into the abyss, they pressed forward again, toward that which the elf had spotted.  As they drew nearer, they could all see it, a gaping opening that rose up ahead of them on the path.  It was like a cave mouth, suspended in mid-air upon the path.  It bore more than a passing similarity to a gaping mouth, complete to the jagged rocks that might have served as teeth.  The path vanished down its gullet, fully twenty feet wide.  Dar glanced at Varo.  “This is the first likely route we have seen,” the cleric said.  The fighter turned back to the lead.  “Stay alert,” he told the others, needlessly.  The tunnel proceeded forward for about fifty feet before it opened onto a ledge that overlooked a large chamber.  The place extended for over two hundred feet square, and looked to be hewn from a dull black rock that drank up the light from their torches.  Bones were strewn about the floor, and clung to the walls in random patterns, affixed by some sort of resin that filled the place with a sick stink of rot.  The ledge stood some thirty feet above the level of the floor below, toward which a staircase descended along the wall to their right.  They could see vague details by the light that filtered down through the tunnel behind them, but most of the chamber was sunk within deep shadows that became utter blackness that gathered in the place’s corners.  The only sound was the quiet clink of their gear and the raspy noises of Alderis’s breathing. “It’s quiet,” Letellia said.  Varo took his torch, shining with a continual flame, and tossed it out over the ledge.  The brand flickered as it arced across the chamber, landing in the approximate middle of the place.  The torch formed a lonely circle of light, and the shadows shifted in response, but the edges of the room remained deep within shadow. “All right, let’s go,” Dar said, starting toward the stairs.  They descended slowly.  The rough stone was slightly sticky, and faint sucking noises accompanied their steps.  The stairs were broad enough to ride horses down two abreast, but they lingered near the wall, close enough to touch the ancient bones that jutted from the pitted stone.  “There’s nothing here,” Allera said quietly, as they reached the bottom of the steps. “There could be anything in those shadows,” Dar pointed out.  “Stay close; I don’t like the feel of this place.”He started forward, but had barely covered three paces when Alderis staggered and nearly fell.  Letellia held him up as his fingers clawed at his chest, his expression a mask of agony.  “What is it?” Allera asked, starting back toward him.  Varo held his ground, peering into the darkness that enfolded them.  “They... are... coming...” the elf hissed.  Dar lifted Beatus Incendia into a ready stance, just as two mariliths teleported into the chamber. The demons materialized at the far edge of the circle of light cast by Varo’s torch, in the middle of the chamber.  The half-light only intensified their terrible, alien features, an amalgam of feminine humanity and demonic potency that bespoke their great power.  Each was over twenty feet long from head to tail, and gold and jewels sparkled on their arms and torsos.  That finery was matched equally by the deadliness of the six swords they carried, long hacking blades that glowed faintly with crimson energy.  The demons were clearly prepared for battle; the dark energies of unholy auras protected them, and they were quick to unleash their spell powers upon the companions.   Varo actually struck first, but while his flame strike bracketed the demons, blasting both with divine fire, the demons seemed barely injured by the potent display.  One conjured a blade barrier that stretched across the chamber at the foot of the stairs.  Letellia let out a shriek as the blades started cutting into her and Alderis, who were standing in the midst of the barrier at it appeared. Dar snarled and started toward the demons, but the second lifted a hand and with a desultory gesture snared the fighter with telekinesis.  Dar was flung up into the air and roughly backward.  Allera reached for him as he shot past, but could do nothing to stop him as he flew into the raging storm of the blade barrier.  The effects were predictable, even before he hit with a grinding crash and a spray of red droplets that hung in the air for a moment, before splattering to the ground.  Dar kept on going, hitting the wall fifteen feet above the floor, and hung there for a moment before he toppled forward and landed hard face-down at the base of the stairs.</blockquote>

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