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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 4255679" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 51SPAWN OF THE RAVAGERThey barely had time to lift their weapons before the monstrous creature slammed into them.  It did not slow in its rush, just snapped its head around as it barreled into them, scattering the group as it tore by.  The defenders managed a few hits; Aerim’s sword bit into its shoulder a moment before he was knocked flying, while Falah’s khopesh opened a gash in one of its legs, before the Razhuri vanished under its pounding claws.  Ozmad brought up his mattock like a lance, but the impact of the creature nearly tore the weapon out of his grasp.  The ogre was flung aside like a wooden pin in a game of bowls, and he took down Ghazaran as well, knocking the cleric onto his back.  Jasek and Parzad hurled themselves out of the creature’s path, narrowly avoiding the churning claws, and the Seer simply turned and ran, moving out of the rush of its charge, and not looking back until he was at least ten paces clear.  His first action once free was to invoke an invisibility spell, and he vanished from view in mid-step.  The spawn’s rush took it almost to the wall, and it lifted its frontmost claws to bite into the stone, lifting its head a good fifteen feet off the ground, almost brushing the bottom of the metal gantry above.  It twisted its head almost full around, and no sooner had it marked its targets than it was pushing off, leaving deep gouges in the wall at it spun its body to face them again.  It was remarkably fast for a creature of its size.  The companions were slowly getting to their feet.  Some had been hurt more seriously than the others; Falah staggered as his left leg nearly gave way under him.  The Razhuri had been trampled under the creature’s claws, and blood spurted from a series of deep gashes in the savaged limb.  Despite the grievous wound, the fighter stumbled toward where his sword had fallen, grimacing against the pain.  Aerim seemed less injured, and the fighter even managed a flourish with his great blade as he took up a defensive stance, waiting for the creature’s second rush.Ozmad barely looked at the creature as it turned around and started toward them again.  “We must act now, before the guardian recovers,” the ogre said.  Reaching down, he grasped Ghazaran’s shoulder roughly.  Dismissing his antimagic field, the ogre spoke a word of magic, and both of them vanished.  A moment later, Amurru hurled its own magic at the companions.  The lich was still prone, a number of its bones crushed under the rough treatment of the ravager spawn’s arrival.  But its power had not been inhibited by the damage it had sustained, and with a faint flicker both Falah and Jasek suddenly disappeared.  Amurru slowly pulled itself to its feet, scanning the chamber as if looking for something. Aerim found himself standing nearly alone against the ravager spawn’s wrath, but the Duke did not seek flight.  Instead he fell into a crouch as the creature reached him, hurling himself two paces to the right as its head lunged for him, its jaws opening wide to engulf him in a mess of sharp teeth.  This time the creature’s rush was tempered, its efforts focused on this singe foe that had wounded it in its first blind charge.  The thing was fast, adjusting its lunge to account for the Duke’s evasion.  But Aerim was quick as well, spinning his body around in mid-air, agile despite the heavy weight of his armor and weapons.  The spawn’s jaws snapped closed on empty air, but its snout pounded into the Duke’s shoulder with the force of a battering ram, knocking him back and nearly off his feet.  But the Duke recovered swiftly, sweeping his sword up before the monster could pull its head back.  The strike delivered only a clipping blow, but a jet of black blood spurted from the wound under its jaw, and its roar was anything but mild.  At that point it might have been wiser for the Duke to withdraw, to open the gap between himself and the creature, but instead he stepped forward and drove half of the length of his blade into the juncture where the creature’s neck met its body.  If the spawn’s initial roar had shook the chamber, this one made it seem like the place was coming apart.  Aerim twisted the sword in the wound, and leaned forward to push it deeper, but he never got the chance. The ravager spawn’s head snapped down, and seized the Duke in a crushing grip that trapped his left arm and most of that side of his body, from his shoulder to his hip.  It lifted him like a dog manhandling a squirrel, and as it rose up, its forelimbs coming off the ground as it settled its weight back, it tore into the trapped fighter’s sides with its razor-sharp claws.  For an interminably long second it dug those claws deeper into the body of its prey, then it sudden snapped its head up, jerking to the side as it opened its jaws in a spray of red, releasing its victim.  Aerim went flying across the room, landing just shy of the curving wall.  His sword clattered loudly some distance away, making more noise than the Duke, who landed with a dull thump despite the weight of his mail.  Aerim lay there, somehow clinging to consciousness.  Blood lay splattered on the ground all around him, and he could just make out the remains of his left leg, which lay on the floor about ten feet away.  His left arm was trapped under his body, but it was obvious that if that limb was still attached to him, it was only by the most tenuous of connections.  Making noises that did not sound human, the Duke quivered and bled.  A bolt of black energy sliced across one side of the creature’s face.  Gore trailing from its head, the creature twisted nimbly to face the source of this new attack.  It fixed immediately upon Navev.  The mummy had moved fully into the chamber, keeping in the shadows along the curving wall.  It seemed unconcerned with having been detected, although no living thing could have been so calm when faced with the vicious monstrosity that came charging forward, intent on repeating what it had done with Duke Aerim.  Navev stopped walking and waited to receive that rush.  The creature was only a few paces away, its head already darting forward to seize its victim, when the mummy’s figure shimmered slightly.  The ravager spawn’s head tore through the illusion left behind by the warlock’s flee the scene invocation.  It recovered quickly, but its head and shoulder still glanced off the chamber wall with enough force to leave long scratches in the wall.  The magical stone quickly healed, the marks disappearing within a few seconds.  The damage done to the creature’s disposition, however, was not as quick to disappear.  The creature’s charge had covered for a new noise in the chamber, as the vault door leading to the laboratory slowly creaked open.  The company that entered the vast room was larger than the one that had accompanied Ozmad into the place less than a minute previously, but they were no less wary.  All eyes turned to the ravager spawn as it bounced off the wall and clawed its way back toward the center of the room. “Oh, gods damn it all,” Dar said, echoing the sentiments of everyone there. The creature’s attention turned on them a moment later, or rather, it was drawn to the sudden appearance of a new adversary.  The thing that suddenly appeared behind the ravager spawn looked much like the creature, only slightly smaller, and white where the other was red.  The second creature lifted itself up onto its hind limbs, its claws slashing the air as it issued a roar that was obviously a direct challenge.  The ravager spawn clearly took it as such, spinning around and darting forward at this new enemy.  But the white spawn drew back with surprising speed, bounding back in a way that should have been impossible for a creature of its body structure, remaining just out of reach of the snapping jaws of the red ravager, and its slicing claws.  But its charge was taking it straight toward the newcomers standing in the entrance.  “Scatter!  Take cover!” Dar yelled, but his commands were all but drowned out in the noise of the creature’s rush, and then it was upon them, and all hell broke loose.</blockquote>

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