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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 4387383" data-attributes="member: 143">My original plan was to have this be the final confrontation. But as I wrote the scene, I kept coming back to the question, does the Ravager just sit and take it when it can't effectively fight back against foes that overcome its DR and push it steadily toward death? I figured it was a dumb beast, but not quite that dumb. Plus this outcome let me take the story in some new directions. I promise it will wrap up shortly, though. I want to get to my new Shadowfell story. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />* * * * * Chapter 73SURVIVORA day after the Ravager’s emergence from Rappan Athuk, the scene of the first battle between the Camarians and the creature remained desolate and stark.  Dar and the other leaders of the group had departed late on the morning after the confrontation, using wind walk and teleport spells to return to the populated lands of the north.  Only a handful of legionaries and dwarven sappers that had survived the assault remained, keeping watch.  It was a precarious duty, for all that the arcanists had agreed that it was unlikely that the creature would return here.  There were other, richer targets to sate its hunger, Letellia had pointed out, in a tone that had sent a chill down the backs of those who had been close enough to hear.  Legionaries in tattered and dust-covered livery poked through the rubble, persisting in their tasks despite their dazed expressions.  The events of the previous night—from the desperate battles with the spawn, the appearance of the Ravager, up to the opening of the heavens themselves to give battle—had overwhelmed these men, whose lives had been commonplace up until this moment.  One soldier, a youth of twenty years by the name of Livius Tartha, looked over the dark form lying in a niche in the rocks three times before he nearly stumbled on it.  Shaking his head to clear it, the legionary bent to examine the form, before starting in surprise.  “Centurion!  There’s a live one here!”Three others came running, including a bald-headed veteran, his armor dinged with almost as many scars as his creased flesh.  The centurion was the first to reach the youth, and as he knelt beside the unfortunate victim, his experienced hands quickly confirmed the soldier’s words.  “Water!” he yelled, accepting a skin from one of the other men.  He lifted the head of the man lying in the rubble, and poured a thin stream of water between his cracked and blood-flecked lips.  The man was clad in garments that might have once been of quality, but were now as torn and ragged as those of most of the survivors of last night’s engagement.  He was clearly a man of status, though; he wore a necklace of silver links tight around his throat, and there was chasing of the same metal on his belt buckle.  Oddly, the centurion saw flecks of color in the dirt caught in the man’s clothes, or maybe it was just a trick of the uncertain light.  He wasn’t clad in legion garb, and he obviously wasn’t an elf, so that made him one of the “specials” that had been sent here to try to stop the demon-beast that had come up out of the ground to wreck destruction upon them. The man stirred, and coughed.  The centurion helped him as he turned his head and unloaded a surprising amount of dirt from his lungs.  It was amazing that the man hadn’t suffocated, with so much crap jammed down his throat.  There was something stranger, as well; the man’s face showed signs of exposure, his nose and ears looking almost like they’d been sorely frostbitten.  It had been chilly, the last few nights, but even if he’d been lying here since the battle with the Ravager, it shouldn’t have been bad enough to leave such marks on him.  “Get a stretcher,” he said to two of the legionaries, who rushed off to comply.  The centurion and the soldier who’d originally found the man remained with him, offering him water again once he’d finished clearing his throat and lungs of debris.  The unfortunate accepted mechanically, although he was anything but lucid.  “Just take it easy, mate,” the centurion said, looking up as the pair returned with the stretcher.  They loaded him onto it, then the centurion directed the two bearers to take him back to the command tent for immediate treatment from the last cleric to have remained with the small remnant of the company. “I thought we’d found the last of the live ones,” the young legionary said.  “Who do you think he was?”“A damned lucky bastard,” the centurion said.  “Continue your sweep, soldier.  Maybe we’ll find another one.” The soldier saluted, and moved off.  The centurion lingered for a moment, glancing down into the rocks where they’d found the man.  The crevice went deeper than it first looked, and a sour smell rose up from below.  It was a familiar stink; the same odor rose up off the rotting corpses of the dead spawn that lay in heaps around the bases of the hills.  “Lucky bastard,” the centurion repeated, then he moved off toward the tent, to check on the status of the survivor.</blockquote>

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