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: 4178303" data-attributes="member: 143">I'll give you a few hints; Ghazaran's spell was Greater Planar Ally (he just hit 15th level, thus Ozmad's biting comment about his brain capacity), and it wasn't a standard creature, but something from the SRD with a template. * * * * * Chapter 24A NEW SWORDDar was slightly out of breath as he approached the top of the stairs.  While he was still in pretty good shape, despite the encroaching hand of age upon his frame, he wasn’t used to wearing forty pounds of metal, and it showed.  Still, he nodded in greeting to the clerics in the small nook at the top of the stairs.  Maricela was there, looking quite different than she had the other times Dar had seen her.  The young priestess was clad in a breastplate of shining mithral sized to her lithe figure, and a flanged mace as big as her arm was slung across her back like a broadsword.  Behind her stood two tall, muscled, and probably teenaged young men who flanked a small wooden chair with handles attached to its legs.  A torch, probably magical, glowed brightly over the door at the top of the stairs, reflecting bright spots off of Dar’s armor upon the walls.  “His Holiness is expecting you,” Maricela said, pulling open the door and stepping aside to give him room. Dar entered; the door closed soundlessly behind him. The private office of the Patriarch of Camar was appointed with functional but good quality furnishings that were a bit subdued; Decius Jaduran lacked the sense of opulence of his predecessor.  There was a bit of dust visible on the shelves along the far wall, and there was a slightly stale scent in the air, both testifying to the infrequent use to which the room had been put of late. Jaduran was standing at one of the windows that offered a spectacular view of Camar, and the curving bay to the east.  Down in the city it had still been night, but up here one could see the brightening of the horizon out over the ocean, as dawn crept steadily nearer. The most powerful cleric of the Shining Father in Camar turned as he entered.  “Sorry to make you trudge all the way up here.  I wanted to get a look at the dawn.  I don’t get up here very often, all those steps, you know.”  The cleric made his way over to his desk, and clasped a slender hand to the back of the tall chair there.  There was a bundle of the desk, a long wrap of pale leather bound with cords of cloth-of-gold.  “We are nearly ready downstairs,” Dar said.  “Yes.  Yes.”  The cleric ran his other hand across the surface of his desk.  He looked up.  “I see you have a new sword.”Dar shrugged, and the hilt jutting up over his right shoulder jerked a bit.  “Octavius had an extra blade in his armory.  No fancy spells on it, but sharp enough, I suppose.”“Perhaps that is all you should ask of a sword.  Still, I have spent some time working on... this.” The cleric unbound the cords on the bundle, and unwrapped the leather to reveal a longsword, lying there bare. Dar could not fully suppress a gasp of surprise.  The pommel, hilt, and crossguard were plain enough, blocky and functional, the hilt wrapped in black leather and elongated to suit a two-handed fighting style.  But the blade... the blade was alive, or it seemed to be, glimmering with streams of silver, gold, and blue that traveled up and down its length as the lights of the room played upon its surface.  As he looked closer, Dar saw that there were striations within the steel, distinct channels of blue running through bands of lighter and darker steel.  It made the weapon look flawed at first glance, but as he stared at it he realized that there was a pattern beneath the surface, a fundamental sense of order that he could somehow feel resounding within his very bones.  He looked down and realized that he’d reached out and touched the blade without conscious thought.  He looked up at Jaduran with an astonished expression. “Yes.  There is a part of Valor in it, and some of Beatus Incendia as well.  I had the remnants you brought back reforged, along with some... older... materials that we had in the Vault.  I thank the Father that I had gotten into the habit of keeping it up here, instead of down in the Vault.  I haven’t worked on it for years, but it’s been waiting here.  Waiting for you, General Dar.”“What is its name?”“It is Sanctus Justicia, the old cleric said.  “Or more simply, Justice.”Dar took up the sword.  It felt right, and he could feel the thrum of magical power pass through him.  “Exceptional,” he said.  “Thank you.  It had been a good twenty years since I’d enchanted a blade, but I’d like to think that the Father worked through me, on this one.”“What are its properties?”“It is axiomatic, as was Valor.  But you will also find that Justice does not suffer easily the existence of undead.”Dar nodded.  The cleric uncinched the belt of white leather that encircled his waist.  Dar raised an eyebrow, but the cleric said, “This is a belt of health, which provides a potent boost to one’s constitution.  I know that you already have a magical belt, but Allera could...”  He trailed off as he removed the belt, and sagged forward against the desk.  Dar hurried over to catch him before he fell, but the cleric shooed him away, clutching at the back of his chair for support.  “I... I am all right.  I did not realize how much I had come to rely upon it...”“Maybe you’d better keep it, Patriarch.”“No.  Allera will have greater need of it.  It will be her strength that will carry you forward on this mission.  Hers... and yours.”“All right.”  Dar accepted the belt, slinging it over his shoulder. “If you would please get Maricela, let her know that I am ready.  We should not keep the others waiting.”</blockquote>

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