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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 4053704" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 359DESTINYDar thought that the marilith’s swords had hurt, but the burning pain of the gashes in his thigh, forearm, side, neck, and shoulder paled before the crushing grip of its coils as they tightened around his body.  He could not even manage the breath for a cry of pain as his left arm gave with a nasty pop, and he could almost feel his ribs bending toward the point where they would snap en masse, crushing everything they protected.He looked up at the demon, which seemed amused at his predicament.  He knew he could try to cut at the coils that held it, but without leverage or position, he doubted that he could do more than scratch it.  He also knew that in a few seconds it would be moot, as he would lose consciousness.  So with limited options, he lifted his arm and hurled Beatus Incendia directly into the demon’s face.  That clearly caught the marilith off guard; it reared back and brought up a pair of swords to deflect the missile, but Dar had been too close, and the holy sword slammed hard into its chest just above its left breast.  The demon shrieked and fell, slamming Dar to the ground as its long body twisted and flexed violently.  The fighter, as battered as its foe, was punished further as the marilith’s struggles intensified.  Its screams sounded painfully, accompanied by metallic scraping and clattering as its swords skittered across the floor, the weapons now forgotten in its suffering.  Orcus’s approach took it within five paces of the crippled demon.  As it passed, the Prince looked down at its handmaiden, and spoke a word of power.  The demon’s noises and struggles ceased at once, and it crumpled, instantly dead.  Orcus held its dread wand over its supine form, and they could see tendrils of black substance rise up from the marilith, through the wand, and into the body of the demon lord.  The demon sucked in a deep, greedy breath and trembled slightly as it absorbed the stolen potency of that last fleeting vestige of life.Then it turned to the companions.  It ignored Dar, still struggling in the now-loose folds of the marilith’s body.  As it approached the spellcasters, it seemed to swell ever-larger in their perceptions, until it seemed to almost scrape the ceiling high above.  It was an optical illusion, but there was nothing illusory about the power wielded by this monstrous being. “VARO!” Allera hissed.And then Orcus was right there, and there was no time for anything as the demon prince lifted its wand, and a black fire exploded around the head of the artifact.  EMBRACE DEATH, MORTALS.Time seemed to slow to a crawl.  Dar, staggering to his feet, Beatus Incendia hissing as its flames burned off the demonic ichor covering the blade, screamed something that was lost in the chaos.  Allera tried to summon her power, but the energies flickered and twisted in her grasp, as though the magic had been placed behind a curtain that she could not quite penetrate.  Varo just stood there.  Letellia screamed and clutched her head with her hands.  And Alderis.  The mad elf of Rappan Athuk, Malerase, Elegion Alderis, Archmage of the Elven Conclave of Aelvenmarr, he was the only one who seemed able to react as the Wand of Orcus swept down toward them.  The elf’s scream was one of madness, but also held rage, and frustration, and loss, all bound together as one as he sprang forward, arms outstretched.  The pathetic remnants of his robe gave way, parting to reveal the huge crystalline mass that clung to his chest, extending from his neck to his arms, and down to his hips.  As the artifact struck him, a note like the shattering of a thousand windows pierced the chamber.  And then, chaos chased darkness into a chasm of utter oblivion.</blockquote>

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