NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 4145262" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 13A FIGHT TO THE FINISHThe vrocks might have stepped out of a two-dimensional mural, but they sounded real enough, and the air reverberated with the pounding of their wings as they leapt to the attack. Navev lifted a hand and blasted them with an eldritch blast that struck the leader, and then forked into secondary arcs that hit the other two an instant later.  All three vrocks were blasted roughly back by the beams, although none appeared to be seriously damaged.  That changed a moment later, as Zuur’ka and Falah descended upon the fiends.  The demons lashed out at their attackers with a violent frenzy of claws and bites, but in turn suffered heavily.  Falah carved a deep cut across the body of one vrock, his magical khopesh unleashing a thunderous roar of sonic energy as he struck.  The vrock, already battered, fell back dazed.  Zuur’ka fell upon a second, springing up and then descending upon the demon with raking claws.  The vrock recovered quickly and counterattacked with its own natural weapons, but the two fiends’ respective resistances made them somewhat difficult to hurt badly.  The demon, however, had one edge, as it released a pulse of toxic spores that began to burrow into the nycaloth’s arms and chest.  That attack drove Zuur’ka into a greater frenzy, and the nycaloth seized the demon in two of its arms and hurled it down upon the ground, while unlimbering its new axe with its other pair of clawed hands. The third vrock sprang up and tried to aid its companion by taking the nycaloth from behind.  It dug a claw into its back and might have gotten a dangerous hold, except that Navev hit it solidly with another eldritch blast, knocking it halfway across the room.  Ghazaran glanced over at the Seer, who was watching the battle dispassionately.  “You do not feel any need to intervene?”“My resources are finite, and it seems as though our companions have the matter well in hand.”Falah was having difficulty with his opponent; while he had gotten the upper hand in his initial rush, the vrock was proving more durable that it had first appeared.  It sprang up into the air, its wings flapping madly as it descended upon the fighter, tearing at his shoulders and head with its hind claws.  Falah slashed at it with his big sword, but while he scored another hit, this one was a mere glancing blow, nowhere near as serious as the first.  The demon unleashed its own cloud of spores, and suddenly the fighter was in serious straits, with blood coursing down his body from the vicious wounds opened by the demon’s claws. “Oh, very well,” the Seer said, peppering the demon with a barrage of magic missiles.  Ghazaran contributed with a mass inflict wounds spell, and all three demons shrieked as the spell penetrated their resistances and tore into their substance.With that, the battle turned quickly against the demons.  The demon that Navev had twice blasted elected to take the fight directly against the casters, but by the time that it had recovered and dove at them the warlock’s power had built up again at its call.  No sooner had the demon dug its claws into Navev’s withered body than the mummy flared a final eldritch blast into its chest, at point blank range.  This time the demon had expected the attack, and was able to keep from being driven backward.  It knocked Navev off its feet as it landed, but it was now seriously hurt, with blackened scars covering its body where the three blasts had scored.  Before it could exploit its temporary advantage over the fallen warlock, Ghazaran stepped forward to deliver a touch attack.  The demon buffeted him with a claw, but the cleric’s concentration held as he unleashed an inflict critical wounds spell.  The demon’s body twisted as the deadly magic coursed through it, and it collapsed, its false body dissolving around it to reveal the quasit inside.  The small demon sought to flee, but Navev, still on the ground, tracked its passage as it fled, and vaporized it with a well-placed blast. Falah’s foe was now seriously discomfited, but it pressed its attack upon the seriously injured fighter.  But the spellpower of his allies had given him a brief respite, and the vrock’s assault was met by a powerful downward slice of the khopesh that took the fiend’s leg off at the hip.  The demon fell to the ground, its body dissolving as rapidly as had the first.  The quasit screeched as it rose up into the air, out of Falah’s reach.  The fighter turned to give assistance to Zuur’ka, but his wounds were too great, and the spores that had sprayed across him continued to burrow deep into his flesh.  He made barely two steps before he collapsed, the deadly khopesh clattering to the ground a moment before his body hit the floor. Zuur’ka and the final vrock had exchanged a vicious and bloody attacks at close quarters, but due to their innate resistances to physical damage, all of the wounds suffered had been mostly superficial thus far.  Blood coursed down the vrock’s chest from a blow from the nycaloth’s new axe, but in turn the ‘loth’s upper torso trailed long growths where the demon’s spores had deeply infested its flesh.  The vrock had gotten back to its feet, and unleashed a full attack that culminated with its beak tearing a deep gouge in Zuur’ka’s neck.  The ‘loth attempted to deliver another punishing blow with the axe, but the vrock seized hold of the nycaloth’s wrists, pinning them. Unfortunately for the demon, Zuur’ka had four arms. Lifting the axe, and the vrock’s arms, Zuur’ka dug its lower claws deep into the vrock’s torso.  The demon gave up nothing in size or strength to the nycaloth, but Zuur’ka was in a battle frenzy, and lifted the vrock up like a sack of grain.  The vrock fought back with its hind claws, opening terrible gashes across the front of the nycaloth’s legs.  But Zuur’ka ignored the wounds, roaring as it hurled itself forward, the vrock held captive against its own body.  They slammed into the far wall hard enough to crack the plaster.  The demon, stunned, lost its grip on Zuur’ka’s wrists, and the nycaloth slammed the axe down hard into its face, cracking its beak.  The demon hissed in pain and tried to get up, but Zuur’ka did not ease off, smashing the axe down again, crushing one of the demon’s eyes in its socket.  It just got worse from there.  When the vrock started to come apart, the nycaloth was ready.  The quasit tried to get away, but Zuur’ka seized it, holding it tightly in two of its claws.  The little creature tried to babble something, but its cries turned to terrible screams of pain as the nycaloth tore its wings off, then its arms, and finally its legs.  By the time that it finally crushed the little thing in its claws, it had already stopped moving. The nycaloth turned to see the others watching, waiting.  Ghazaran had brought Falah back from death’s door using his healing magic, and continued to pour positive energy into him from one of his healing wands while the fighter stood unsteadily, covered in his own blood and the shriveled remnants of the vrock spore tendrils.  The nycaloth tossed down the messy remains of the quasit onto the floor.  “I require healing,” Zuur’ka said.  “Of course,” Ghazaran said.  “Well done.”They took a moment to catch their breath, and for Ghazaran to finish healing those injured in the fight.  The cleric burned through one healing wand entirely, tossing it aside before drawing out a second from one of the pouches at his waist.  When he saw the Seer looking at him, he said, “I have spent years preparing for this day, wizard; I will not be denied now through scarcity of resources.”“Not all of us can afford to be so profligate,” the wizard said.  He walked over to the left wall, where the plaster showed an image of a giant cavernous maw swallowing up the tormented souls of the dead.  “The entrance to the inner vault is here,” he said.  Navev shuffled forward, black energies crackling around its fingers.  The undead warlock unleashed a barrage of eldritch power that tore away the plaster like a barbed whip slicing through tender flesh.  There was a door of stone behind the covering, but Navev kept up its barrage, and soon that too crumbled, leaving a gaping opening in the stone.  “Come,” Ghazaran said, returning with a now-healed Zuur’ka.  “Let us see if the guardian awaits our arrival.”</blockquote>

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