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!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 4241376" data-attributes="member: 143">Three day weekend!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> * * * * * Chapter 47SACRIFICES FOR THE CAUSEA guttural roar rose from Dar’s throat as he lurched forward to meet the treant’s attack.  Behind him, he was dimly aware of answering yells, of Kiron and Aldos charging at his flanks, at Qatarn and his soldiers following behind.  There was fire, and lightning, and in the end at last even a series of blazing pulses, magic missiles that left tiny black pocks in the treant’s body.  He took more wounds, and Allera and Maricela healed them almost as quickly.  Everything else was battle and chaos, a blur that did not end until the last of the guardians hit the ground and shattered, bits and pieces of it scattering across the room almost to the far door in the opposite wall.  Allera was at his side at once, a look of concern on her face, but she only lingered for an instant before rushing off to help someone more in need of her aid.  Looking around, Dar saw that everyone else was on their feet, although some of them barely.  But for Primus and Petrellia, it was too late. Aldos bent over one of the larger pieces of Petronia, his body shaking in what might have been rage, grief, or a part of both.  “Why?” he said, rising quickly, turning away from the carcass.  “We came with the guardian’s blessing... why did it hurl these... these... things at us?”“These were not constructs, but elementals, sentient things, but bound to this place,” Letellia said.  Dar noticed that her voice was as cool as a bank of snow.  The woman he remembered would have paled at the sight before them, even as she drew upon her inner strength to get past it.  But this person, it was as if what she saw was just pieces of meat, no longer connected to the living woman who had been their companion just a few moments ago.  “The magic infusing this place is ancient; I can still feel it now, seeping into my thoughts like the warmth of a flame.”  There was none of that warmth in her eyes, however.  “I imagine that they were compelled to attack anyone or anything that attempted to pass through this chamber.  It is likely that Amurru had no power over them, and she did warn us of that, if you recall.”Anger flashed in Aldos’s face for a moment, but Kiron caught his gaze, sending a silent message.  The knight turned away from them, drawing his emotions back into the private confines of his mind. “I can bring them back, across the veil,” Allera said.  “Petronia and Primus both.”  Her hand fell to the pouch at her hip, where a double-wrapped bag of diamonds rested, a fortune sufficient to buy a palace—or in her case, sufficient to resurrect a full half-dozen people, even a corpse as violated as Petronia’s.  She commanded an even greater power, one that she had only used once before, in the battle with Orcus twelve years ago.  She had not spoken often of that experience, not even with Dar, but there were times when she looked at things blankly, and her fingers trembled with the force of unbidden memories.  “I just need a little time.”“Time is one thing we do not have,” Dar said.  “Wrap the bodies; we’ll be back for them when we can.  Anyone who’s still hurt, talk to Allera or Maricela, even if it’s a freaking splinter.  I want everyone to be at full strength.”Aldos had turned back at Allera’s words, and at Dar’s statement he turned back to the carcass of Petronia, unfastening his cloak.  The brief look that they’d gotten of his face said that his anger was not going to soon fade. Kiron brought something that might have been an arm over to the pile of Petronia’s remains.  After placing it down, he came over to Dar.  “I am sorry for Aldos’s outburst,” he said quietly.  “He... he cared for her greatly.”Yeah, while everyone knows that Corath Dar doesn’t give a crap, Dar thought.  But he only said, “Make sure everyone’s ready.  Don’t leave anything behind that we might need.”It took less than a minute to complete their preparations, and continue ahead.  The vault door at the far end of the chamber yielded to Dar and Kiron’s strength, but as they drew it open another hazard was revealed. “What in the hells...” Dar began, and Kiron echoed his sentiments with a muttered invocation to the Father.  Stepping forward to allow the others to move past the open vault door, Dar held up his torch to get a better look. “You have got to be freaking kidding me.”The whistling blades were moving so fast as to be barely visible as a line of shimmering blurs in the corridor.  They sent a faint breeze toward the companions, who gathered at a safe distance, looking in vain for a way past. “Maybe there’s a way we can jam the mechanisms,” Kiron began, but Dar shook his head.  “The bad guys bypassed this somehow, so can we.  Zethas, any secret doors or panels on our side?”The scout was already looking, with the soldiers providing what help they could, tapping the walls with the hilts of their daggers.  “Nothing, general,” the wiry Eremite said, his eyes returning frequently to the whirling storm of blades that blocked their way. “They used magic to move past this,” Letellia said suddenly.  “Can you transport us past it?” Dar asked her.  She held his gaze squarely for a few heartbeats before nodding slightly.  “It will require the use of several successive dimension doors, but it should work.  Form two groups of five, close together, touching hands.  Do not do anything else unless I direct it.”There was a slight shuffle as the companions complied with the sorceress’s directions, but Dar hardly heard it.  A flare had gone off in his mind, and his thoughts flew back to the confrontation with the stone trees in the last chamber.  Letellia and her impassible barriers, and her ability to dimension door, an ability, Dar knew from experience, that allowed one to bypass a wall of force. “Are you all right?” He shook his head, looking down at Allera as he came out of his reverie.  Too late, for Primus and Petronia.  But was it too late for the rest of them as well. “I’m fine,” he replied, watching as Letellia took hold of the circle of Kiron, Maricela, Selaht, Zethas, and Aldos.  Her magic wasn’t flashy; one moment the six of them were there, the next they were at the end of the passage, just beyond the last of the deadly blades.  She pulled away from the others as soon as the spell was completed, and lingered only a few seconds before her magic surrounded her again, and she returned to them.  The three remaining soldiers pressed in close around Dar and Allera, joining hands.  Dar’s expression remained fixed on Letellia, trying to read the depths in her dark eyes.  Her power had already been critical to moving them forward, but he recognized something in her stare, an intensity that he had seen in men on the battlefield, men who had lost everything but the single-minded focus on the objective.  When a man reached that point, even survival became secondary, unimportant.  It was a feeling he understood, but as a leader responsible for the lives of those under him, and for many more lives beyond that, he knew that sometimes, that kind of focus could be dangerous. He did not turn his eyes away as Letellia drifted down and extended a hand, touching Allera on the shoulder.  Power flared, and there was a brief moment of disorientation as reality shifted around them.</blockquote>

Verification