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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 4353647" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 66IT BEGINSDar made a motion to Kalen, who lifted a torch affixed to a long pole, waving it above his head to alert those on the other hills.  The action was unnecessary; it was impossible to miss the coming of the ravager spawn.  Sultheros touched Dar on the shoulder; the general felt a sudden flush of magical energy that faded within a few seconds.  The elf then rose into the air and streaked out over the valley, followed by his apprentice Callyse, and then, to Dar’s brief surprise, Jalla Calestin.  Mehlaraine was already aloft, the silvered head of her pike gleaming off the light of the torches.  The elven archmage drew ahead of the women as he dropped to about a hundred feet above the shaft leading down to the Well.  He moved his hands, speaking words that faded over the distance separating him from the others.  A small bead of red light appeared in one hand; he dropped this, watching as it descended swiftly and vanished into the opening.  The delayed blast fireball exploded in a violent burst, and a plume of liquid fire erupted out of the hole.  The flames accompanied the snarling, darting form of one of the ravager spawn, which hurled itself into the air, clawing and snapping at the elf.  Even with its strength, however, it could not jump that high, and it flipped over as it arced back down toward the ground, landing on all six of its feet about fifteen paces away from the opening of the shaft.  A second spawn, its face blackened with char from the blast, was already emerging, slightly more cautious than the first as it gripped the edges of the shaft and scanned the area.  It hesitated only a moment, but it was suddenly thrust forward as a third spawn pushed out past it, snarling as it extracted itself from the shaft.  The defenders were already unleashing their fire into the things.  Arrows and bolts lanced out of the night from the surrounding hilltops, but the three huge monsters barely seemed to notice them.  They were not quite so dismissive of the scorpion bolts, but the initial volley was unlucky, scoring no hits.  The long shafts of the missiles snapped as the steel heads were deflected by the monsters’ dense hides, or they spun harmlessly away as the creatures twisted and turned, moving with a speed that was amazing for things of their size.  Lightning flared from above, as Callyse shot one of the creatures with a lightning bolt from a wand.  Hovering thirty feet away, Jalla Calestin added a fireball that briefly flared around all three of the creatures, inflicting slight damage upon them.  The plan involved focusing as much as their attacks as possible on a single creature until it was taken down, and then shifting to the next target.  But the ravager spawn did not wait for that plan to come to fruition, and they were already moving, their claws churning up great plumes of dirt and stones as they sought out targets.  The first tracked Sultheros’s movements with its eyes as the elf drew back slowly toward the hilltop where Dar’s command resided.  The elf was almost invisible in the night sky, and well out of the creature’s reach, but the spawn’s keen senses had no difficulty keeping him in view.  Taking heavy fire from the hilltop, including several well-placed shots from Selanthas that stung at the tender flesh around its nostrils and eyes, it picked up speed as it followed the path that the first ravager spawn had taken less than twelve hours previously.  The defenders, including Dar and Kiron and his knights, were waiting for it, but this time the odds were much less in their favor.  While the clerics had refreshed some of the glyphs of warding within the shaft, they’d not had a chance to rest and recover more spells, and the dwarves had not had the time to reset their traps.  Still, holy and arcane magic continued to pour into the beast as it surged up the hill.  Callyse hit it with another lightning bolt, followed by a pair of scorching rays from Jalla Calestin.  Maricela had not yet arrived, but the few lesser clerics among the defenders added a ray of scorching light and a sound burst that did not seem to faze the creature in the slightest.  Sultheros summoned his own magic again as the lead spawn approached the summit, and the protruding forest of stakes that had not managed to slow its slain brother.  But this time, a large chunk of the hillside gave way under its claws, and the spawn fell in an avalanche of stones and dirt back down toward its base.  But the rockslide was more than just that, as the plume of debris coalesced into a vaguely humanoid form that landed squarely atop the creature, crushing the spawn beneath almost fifty thousand pounds of rock.  That would have killed almost anything, but the spawn was merely stunned, and as the earth elemental pulled itself up, its huge fists coming up to further punish the foe, the creature twisted its head almost full around, seizing the elemental in its massive jaws.  The second spawn had been drawn to the right of the first by a series of hits from the dwarven sappers entrenched in the emplaced position where the huge onager rested.  The dwarves had mounted a number of heavy arbalests almost as big as they were on the embankment that sheltered their position, and had added a pair of small spring-operated launchers that sent pots of alchemist’s fire arcing into the ground at the creature’s feet.  Neither the bolts nor the blazing flames really hurt the creature, but they drew its attention, enough to draw it forward in a violent charge that shook the ground.  The dwarves somehow managed to stand their ground in the face of that surge, and even managed another volley of the burning pots, one of which struck the creature’s left shoulder, leaving it trailing a stream of blazing fire in its wake.  The logs and stones of the emplacement shook as the creature neared, and the crossbowmen dropped down behind the shelter of the low wall, a move that looked to be of dubious help against such a terrible foe.  The dwarves manning the onager held their ground, watching with stoic expressions until the thing was almost on top of them.  Then they slammed their hammers against the stays holding the huge central wheel in place.  The tension released, the stubby throwing arm spun in a blur, picking up speed as it turned on the wheel’s axis.  The ravager spawn launched itself up over the embankment at the same moment that the last dwarf still standing threw another lever, and the heavy retaining arm of the catapult shot up into position, stopping the throwing arm on its next traverse, and launching the contents of its basket into the face of the spawn.  Those contents—twenty razor-sharp disks of black adamantine, ruined the features of the creature in an instant, pulping one of its eyes, shearing away a dozen black teeth, and burying themselves in its thick hide.  The monster, far from being mortally wounded even by that devastating attack, was nevertheless driven into a mad frenzy, and it hurled itself upon the engine, tearing and crushing.  The onager was transformed into kindling in the blink of an eye, and two of the five dwarves were instantly killed.  The sappers were no cowards, but were smart enough to know that standing their ground here would result only in death.  They fled, another of their number dying as the creature shredded him with a flailing claw.  The spawn, half blind and seriously injured, spent another few moments tearing up the emplacement, then started looking around for something else to kill.  “We have to intervene!” Allera yelled, but Dar shook his head.  “Wait for the big one!” he yelled, even as he leaned out over the now-gaping cliff, firing his heavy bow down into the violence below.  Sultheros’s summoning had come just in time, but it had shorn off the front of their entrenchment, and Dar and Kiron had come close to following the creature back down the hill.  Everyone who could hold a bow was firing now, and with the sheer volume of fire some of the shots were telling.  But the spawn were incredibly resilient, and Dar knew that they were fighting the creatures’ regenerative powers, hoping to overcome them before they could simply tear the Camarians and their allies apart. He caught a glimpse of the third spawn as it surged up one of the other hills, which was held by another group of dwarves, bolstered by a handful of Camarian legionaries.  The spawn’s furor was explained by the scorpion bolt jutting from its left shoulder.  Like the others it had no difficulty with the steep ascent, but its climb was made difficult by the traps laid by the dwarven sappers.  Boulders the size of horses tumbled down onto the creature, smashing off the spawn with loud thunks.  One dwarf leaned precariously over the edge and dropped a large cask directly onto the creature’s head, which shattered into a bright flare of white fire that engulfed the spawn.  The monster, enraged and blinded by the attack, hurled itself upward into the defenders.  The dwarf that had thrown the cask was knocked flying, toppling over the edge and bouncing down the steep cliff before landing in a limp heap at its bottom.  The Camarians were there to meet the creature, stabbing it with their long spears, but it was the abrupt collapse of the ledge at the top of the cliff that saved them, sending the spawn back down in a rough trip that copied the fall of its brother a few moments ago.  One of the legionaries followed it, screaming before his helmet was intercepted by a jutting boulder.    The first spawn, despite the disadvantage of its position, had managed to push itself up and out from under the elemental, ignoring the powerful slams that the summoned creature rained down against its head and neck.  Shrieking in a red fury, the spawn seized hold of the elemental with its claws and teeth, and tore it apart in a display of raw strength.  Even as huge clods that had been part of the elemental were falling to the ground, the spawn was shooting up through them, back up the hill once more.  Twin bolts of lightning from Sultheros and Callyse flared around its head, casting it in grim relief for an instant before the discharges faded.  Magic missiles from Jalla peppered its back, but the tiny bolts seemed almost like gnats as they vanished against its hide.  More mundane missiles shot down from above, stabbing into its body at point-blank range, and at that distance a few penetrated.  But the creature was beyond feeling pain, and this time it would not be denied.  Allera threw up a repulsion spell, hoping to forestall it, but the thing went right through it without slowing.  Time seemed to slow as the spawn surged through a wild cloud of swirling dust, whizzing arrows, and raucous sound.  A scorpion loaded too quickly broke as it was fired, sending the bolt arcing high into the air across the valley.  The spawn surged toward the summit; forty feet away, thirty, twenty.  Finally, as its claws bit into the summit, Dar roared a challenge and leapt off the cliff to meet it.  Its jaws twisted sideways and snapped around his torso, but he was already driving the sword forward, through its left eye, into the brain.  Justice flared white in his hand, then was yanked from his grip as the monster spasmed.  Creature and man fell together.  The spawn’s jaws clenched and then sprung open, dropping Dar to roll down the cliff after it.  Fortunately the spawn’s multiple trips up and down the cliff had sheared away most of the larger boulders, but landing on its body was hardly softer than landing on the packed earth around it.  The spawn died faster than its brethren had before, its limbs clenching once, then falling still.  “Damn it, I am getting too freaking old for this crap,” Dar said, grimacing as he tried to get up.  His helmet had vanished, and he could feel blood trickling down the side of his head.  His hair clung to his scalp, soaked with sweat and blood, and coated in a thick layer of dust and dirt that likewise lay in a patina over his armor and clothes.  He started looking for the creature’s head, to recover his sword, but his attention was drawn back up the ridge by Allera’s shouting his name. “DAR!” The fighter looked around for the threat, but realized that it wasn’t he who was in danger.  As the dust whirled around him he caught sight of the second spawn, climbing the southern face of the hill, approaching the position he’d just vacated from its flank.  He could just hear the yells of the defenders as they shifted to meet the new threat, but then the monster reached the crest, and everything devolved into a confused, violent melee.  One down, Dar thought, all too aware that this was still the warm-up, and that even now the Ravager itself was likely rising out of its aeons-long slumber, ready for a snack after its long rest.</blockquote>

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