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: 4184856" data-attributes="member: 143">Lots of posts! Thanks for your interest in the story, everyone. Well, I have the entire thing in a Word file (all 1,329 pages), so it's easy to search for details like that. * * * * * Chapter 27OLD FRIENDSLetellia drifted closer, but Dar noticed that she kept clear of both the hole in the ground and the reach of their weapons, coming to a stop about six feet away.  She was almost eye to eye with Dar; her feet remained about six inches above the ground.  “Letellia... what happened to you?” Allera asked.  The healer had started to come forward, but she had sensed the same thing Dar had, and had halted in her initial move to embrace the sorceress.  The others shared an uncomfortable look; they knew that something was wrong, but they did not understand the subtext.“Allera, there is no time,” the sorceress said, her voice thickened and deepened with more than just the usual changes of age.  It sounded like the words were trapped in her throat, rattling around inside before they were able to escape.  “If Ozmad is here... he’s sought out Rappan Athuk for a reason, we have to stop it.”“I don’t know who this ‘Ozmad’ is, but we’re here to stop some murderous bastards from releasing the Ravager,” Dar said. Letellia paled.  “Gods, no...” she said, and suddenly turned, vanishing down the shaft as though she had been hurled down into it.  Her robes flared about her, and then she was just... gone.“Letellia!” Allera yelled after her, but the only response she got back was the echo of her shout. “Secure ropes, now!” Dar yelled, but Allera interrupted him.  “The wind walk spells are still active...”Dar smacked his forehead.  “Right, I’m an idiot.”  His brow tightened, and as he concentrated, he slowly began to dissolve back into his mist form.  The others imitated him, although it took time to complete the transformation, and it was almost thirty seconds before the Camarians descended into the shaft.  Maricela cast a light spell before she transitioned, and the globe of illumination followed them down, glimmering as it passed through their misty outlines. They reached the Well quickly.  Dar had been there when it had been sealed, twelve years ago.  Five clerics casting stone shape spells had closed the opening, and had then warded it with magical glyphs.  That had stopped the intruders no more than the tons of earth and stone; the opening was sundered now, its jagged edges forming a black mouth around the deeper, older shaft beneath it.  There was no sign of Letellia, so Dar kept going, the others trailing behind.  The air grew colder as they descended, and moist; droplets of moisture and slicks of lichen clung to the walls of the shaft.  He found the sorceress at the bottom.  She hovered over a flat plane of dark water.  She carried no light source; apparently she no longer needed it to see.  As Maricela’s light reached them, Dar could see that the water was only a few feet deep; under its surface, partially obscured by new mud, he could see the mithral hatch. Sealed.  “Damn it,” Dar said.  “We’re too late.”</blockquote>

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