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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 4059550" data-attributes="member: 143">Thanks, Cerulean_Wings! When I was approaching the last part of the story, I wondered if the final confrontation would live up to the buildup. The module doesn't provide much guidance except for, "Here's Orcus and a bunch of undead: go kill some PCs." I'm pretty happy with how the story turned out; I hope that you all enjoy it.I'll post another update before I leave tomorrow. * * * * * Chapter 361 VAROVaro stopped time. As Allera had opened her gate, Varo had drawn upon his own power, the raw and powerful energies of his patron god.  The spell was the most powerful he had ever cast, granted to him only that morning, a power that Varo could not have imagined in the hands of a mere mortal even weeks before.  With that power, he could do almost anything, but he had kept that potential close within, had not shared anything of it with his companions, for fear that Orcus would divine his intent. But now, as the demon almost casually disrupted Allera’s spell, a magic of equal potency to his own newfound power, he felt overwhelmed by doubt.  Within the time stop, everything around him took on an indistinct, almost surreal quality.  The visual traces that surrounded magical auras in this place filled the air with subtle streaks in dozens of colors, bright around the companions, dark around Orcus and its minions.  He saw a pair of zombies that he hadn’t noticed earlier, frozen as they lunged toward Letellia, who was herself locked into immobility in the midst of dragging herself up to her knees.  Allera’s face was frozen in a look of horror behind her collapsing gate, now just a bright circle barely two feet across.  It was continuing to shrink even now, closing slowly despite his spell, and Varo knew that he only had a few moments to act.  The cleric half walked, half stumbled toward the gate.  He spared only a glance for Orcus, enough to see that the demon was moving too, slowly, ever so slowly, but coming right for them.  He thought he could feel an awareness in that ruby stare, that a part of the demon was aware of him even within the bubble of accelerated time.  Varo could believe it, from the power he had witnessed already within this chamber.  Seconds, precious seconds of relative time.  Too long... and then he was there.  The gate was only a foot across, now.  It would collapse the moment the time stop ended.  Varo did not hesitate, extending his hand and his awareness toward the remnants of the planar portal. Instantly, he could feel the barrier that Orcus had described, the blockage that had defeated Allera’s attempt to bring divine aid to their cause.  It was more than the demon’s will, although that was a part of it, a thick, cloying film that held him at bay.  This place, all of it, was part of it as well, the chaos of this constructed reality an unbreakable obstacle.  Their plan had been foolish, a mad dream.  In a few seconds, Orcus would destroy them all, and the last hindrance to its plans for Camar would come to an end. And then, he remembered the words of the Serah-apparition, in the alternate reality that had been the gateway to this place.  Certainty. Doubt. Truth. And a word he had used often, himself, come back to him.  Faith. There was no time for hesitation.  The cleric drew out his other hand, clutching the bag that had pressed against his chest, under his armor.  He stabbed it at the gate, at the barrier, and as it hit Varo drew upon the last of his power, and summoned a miracle. Magic coursed through him.  As his hand touched the barrier, the spell shattered the seven crystals, the Tears of the Gods, that he had won at high cost from the tomb of Amar-Sina.  Each crystal held divine potency that Varo had painstakingly infused into them, stored spell power that now joined with his own divine magic to smash into the barrier, through it, breaking the unbreakable with the force of a sledgehammer.  Almost at once there was a backblast through the portal, and Varo felt the same sudden intensity that had almost overcome Allera a moment ago.  His hand passed through the closing gate into the space beyond, unlocking the opening between this realm, his consciousness straddling the space between this place, and the one beyond.  In the same instant, Varo realized two things.  The first was that Orcus had been right about one thing; while he had forced his way through the gate, nothing beyond could use that breach to come through.  The plan he had suggested to Allera would not work; no god would step through to fight their fight for them.  The second realization was the truth, the truth, of what Serah—or whoever, whatever she had been—had been trying to tell him.  Time returned to its normal rate as Varo’s time stop spell ended, and the cacophony of chaos and activity resumed around him.  Varo stood there transfixed, his arm vanishing at the elbow, caught within a ring of white fire that raged against a gathering blackness that stormed in from all directions.  The tear in realities did not close completely, but the powers of this place were actively fighting him, threatening to tear both him and the gateway apart.  Tears streamed down the cleric’s eyes, and agony twisted his face as he fought to do... something...Orcus’s burning stare fixed upon the cleric, and some dark realization flared within the demon as well.  Orcus hurled magic at Varo, a devastating column of dark energy conjured from the very fabric of this place.  The black streamers materializing from the nether almost enveloped the man, and they had an obvious effect, piercing his body like long needles.  But Varo did not fall, and within the smothering black the demon could see the white fire through the man, flickering but intact.  The demon lifted its black blade and charged, moving at a blinding pace, the ground shaking with its coming.  Varo, caught within a prison of warring powers far greater than his own, could do nothing but stand there, transfixed, as the demon descended upon him, the chamber of bones trembling with the force of its coming.</blockquote>

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