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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 4049723" data-attributes="member: 143">Who's to say that's not the ending?  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> * * * * * Chapter 357  WEARING DOWNThe darkness was all encompassing, swathing them and muting their lights, their voices, and their life energies all at once.  The power was incredible, stronger than anything the had faced before in Rappan Athuk, for now they faced the source of the corruption within the Dungeon of Graves, dark energy in its purest form. And yet, within that enfolding black, there was a flicker of light, a pulse that slowly brightened.  That faint glow brightened, shone until it became discrete, separating into five spheres of illumination around which the darkness roiled.  In the center, a white spear of light flared and stabbed out into the dark, cutting it away like a knife.  And then, as suddenly as it had come, the darkness vanished, and the five companions from Camar stood once more in the chamber of bones, wavering and dazed, but intact.  The Demon watched them from its throne.  Something that might have been anger smoldered in its eyes.  YOUR RESISTANCE IS IMPRESSIVE, BUT YOU ONLY DELAY THE INEVITABLE.Orcus made a small gesture, barely a shift of a finger.  The marilith lifted her swords and let out a sibilant hiss, and the undead gathered around Orcus surged forward as one, their focus upon the five mortals that defied their master. Allera and Varo threw up layered repulsion auras almost at the same instant.  Here, the normally-invisible barriers appeared as pale, translucent globes of green energy, one embedded within the other, their surfaces crawling with a shifting skein like that of a soap bubble.   The charging undead splayed against those barriers, their phalanx splitting around it as it struck, seeking in vain for a way inside.  Fully half of the undead were halted by the outer barrier, almost a hundred feet out from the five companions.  The second barrier was much closer, less than thirty feet across, and the undead descended upon it, the flying undead diving down from above as their corporeal comrades surged forward on foot.  Most of the weakest undead lingered at the outer barrier, but many of the others, including ghouls, ghasts, wraiths, and spectres, were able to push through, their own will augmented by the terrible power that radiated from their patron and its grim throne.  More of the undead were arrested upon the inner barrier, hissing and shrieking in frustration as they clawed in vain upon the shimmering green obstruction.  But twenty incorporeal undead and twice as many physical creatures pierced this one as well, their cries forming a wall of sound ahead of them as they rushed at the defenders.  Orcus seemed content to watch, for now.  The Prince’s handmaid and general slithered forward behind the legion of undead, penetrating the outer repulsion aura with ease.  The marilith hurled magic into the center of the circle of defenders, but nothing happened.  The companions formed a ring around Alderis, who remained lost in some reverie, seemingly unaware of what was going on around him.  He stood stiffly, bits of crystal protruding from the gaps in his shredded robe, jutting out from under his collar and the tears where his arms met his body.  Dar glanced back at Allera, but the healer was looking at Varo.  The cleric stood calmly ready, holding his divine focus tightly in a mailed fist.  Dar spun to meet the charging undead horde.  The leading wedge of the charge, comprised almost entirely of ghouls and ghasts, were almost upon him when a brilliant white plane of ice materialized ahead of him.  Letellia’s spell delayed the physical undead, but the incorporeal ones simply drifted over it, coming down on the companions from above.  A pair of wraiths dove at Dar, but most of them focused upon the spellcasters, their claws extended eagerly to suck away their life energies at the behest of their Master.Allera felt a slight pressure against her defenses as three shadows swarmed over her.  Fortunately her death ward still held, and their attacks had no effect upon her.  She glanced again over at Varo, who was being swarmed by half a dozen undead creatures, which likewise appeared stymied thus far.  The cleric could not see her from within the chaotic swirl of dark forms, but she could see enough to realize that he had not lost the iron control that had characterized the man ever since she had first met him, deep within the bowels of Rappan Athuk.  She felt a twinge of awareness, as her foresight spell gave her an instant’s warning before Orcus acted.  Watching the developing fray atop his throne, the Prince of the Undead was clearly not pleased.  Orcus waved a hand and dug a fraction of its power from deep within, hurling it into the midst of the companions.  The power visualized as a spear of black energies that materialized and stabbed forward from the demon.  As it penetrated the repulsion auras, they popped as though they were soap bubbles.  The undead gathered along their borders surged ahead.  Orcus’s greater dispel also tore through Letellia’s wall of ice, and as the barrier dissolved, the companions looked up to see hundreds of undead rushing toward them in a wave.</blockquote>

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