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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(contact)" data-source="post: 480452" data-attributes="member: 41">Coldeven 1725:  Sometimes You Miss Your Old Friends, and Sometimes You Crit Them.Heydricus fights against the poison blurring his vision and grits his teeth.  He studies his foes for a moment, while debating how to best attack.His former companions display an abnormal quickness and strength.  Their eyes gleam with a sort of inner fire, and their skin seems stretched and shiny.  .Heydricus hastes himself, then whirls on his toes.  He levels Prisantha's New Favorite Wand at Aelniir, and is pleasantly surprised when the resulting fireball completely immolates the undead crusader, and Aelniir's very skin catches fire!Lucius and Egil wade into Heydricus, flanking him and cutting him badly.  Lucius' voice is whispered and raspy, no doubt due to the massive crushing head blow that ended his natural life.  "Surrender to this death, Heydricus, and lead us again in the next life."-----"Why, Keriann," Jespo says as he answers his door. "Back so soon from your dinner?  Did those rapscallions refuse you service?  If those wastrels . . ." Jespo trails off.  "What was that you said?"Keriann is standing in the doorway, staring at Jespo with a level gaze."Daern," comes a voice from behind her, out in the night.  "What!  Who said that?"  Jespo backs away from the door as Fräs hisses.A trio of magic missles arc out of the night and sear into Jespo Crim as a familiar voice taunts him.  "It should have been you, Jespo.  You're the reason I died!  Daern!  Daern!  Daern!"Keriann raises her hands above herself and mumbles a vile litany of Iuzian blasphemies.  A stinking pit of negative despondency opens out away from her, poisoning the air with its invisible command to despair.As Keriann finishes the desecration of the area, Fräs leaps into her face, hissing and clawing for all she is worth.  The former nun of St. Cuthbert shrugs aside the ferocious feline, and grins wickedly at Jespo, who is fumbling for spell components and desperately wishing he still had a magic item or two.As Jespo completes his spell, a radiant hound-headed celestial appears with a righteous fury in its eyes, and steps to the door-lintel swinging a glowing two-handed sword.  As the hound archon attacks Keriann, it is leapt upon by a hidden halfling wielding a pair of short swords.  The halfling curses as he misses, and melts back into the darkness without a sound.Keriann steps away from the door, just as a lightning bolt rips through the air, passing harmlessly through the archon's minor globe of invulnerability and striking Jespo square in the chest.  "Daeeeeeeern . . ." comes the moaning cry in its wake."Talk about holding a grudge," Jespo mutters as he tries to catch his breath.At that moment, Keriann calls upon the Old One and dispels the hound archon, laughing all the while.  "Just die, Crim and save us all some bother.  I don't even think you're worth reanimating, you pathetic little man.  I never did like you."Jespo screws up his courage and summons the poor overworked archon for a second time.  "I will not be undone!" he shouts, rather unconvincingly, as the hound archon charges forward again.  Fräs leaps back into the fray herself, hoping to smite Keriann, but finds the nasty nun's taut skin to be hard as stone.A second group of magic missiles veer around the combatants and burn into Jespo, sending his system into shock.  Fräs cries out as Jespo collapses to the ground, his breathing shallow.  The archon is forced to step back and lay on hands, absorbing a terrible blow from the evil cleric as it does so.Jespo rises to his knees and calls Evard's Black Tentacles to him.   The area around the doorframe extending both into the house and into the street is filled with writhing black pseudopods that grow out from the floor to blindly grasp at any nearby movement.Keriann has seen this spell kill Jespo's companions before (Gnomishic in the battle with Zinvellon), and she wants no part of it.  "Rest well, Crim," she taunts as she retreats, "knowing that we are coming."-----Heydricus cleaves into Egil, putting his sizeable weight behind each blow, using his haste and true strike to ensure that each attack counts.  Egil stands toe-to-toe with Heydricus, but not for long.  Egil's features are severely marred, despite whatever regeneration magics were used as part of his reanimation, and Heydricus almost has trouble recognizing his former ally's features.Almost.  A word that applies to most of Egil's adventuring career as well as this phase of his unlife.  Egil wounds Heydricus, almost enough to force the Liberator to desist.  Egil repulses Heydricus, almost enough to have some effect on his morale.  And in the end, Egil almost survives Heydricus' third and final blow. Lucius has found his poisons lacking, and as Egil's body looses animation for a second time, the Iuzian assassin whispers, "We'll meet again," before spider climbing up and over a nearby building.Heydricus pauses for a minute to catch his breath, then picks up the corpses of Aelniir and Egil and places them over his shoulders.-----The minstrel rasps a fencing-sword from the hollow of his lyre and swipes at Prisantha.  The four other highwaymen, including the farmer, were so surprised at Dabus' feat of strength that they lost their ambush!  But they are still quick on their feet, and they leap to the offensive, sneak attacking both Pris and her new friend.  A furious melee ensues, and Pris is cut deeply before she can activate a stoneskin spell.Dabus calls upon the grace of Tritherion and summons His righteous wrath, growing to giant size and vowing Retribution. Dabus looks quite at ease battling these would-be muggers, but he is completely taken aback when the farmer's ox snarls like a giant cat and pounces upon him, biting deeply into his flesh and raking him with its back hooves.  Raking him?As Dabus staggers back, his attention is drawn by a frightened cry from above him.  A young boy, no more than ten years old, is watching the fight from a second story window, his eyes the size of dinner plates.Prisantha swiftly dominates one of the rogues and turns him against his fellows, shrugging off several sword blows as they scrape against her stony flesh.  Dabus is held down and mauled by the ox and stabbed again by one of the thugs, but manages to win free and retain his feet.Prisantha summons a celestial lion to the fray, and it pounces upon the ox, who rears up on its hind legs and lets out a lion-like roar of its own and tangles up with the great cat.  The thugs back away warily, unsure how to proceed.Prisantha is distracted by a soft giggling from a nearby rooftop, and turns just in time to be on the receiving end of a magic missile spell released from the fingertips of a young straw-haired lass.Pris, of course, does not recognize Tisha the invoker, nor the half-orc warrior who steps into view at the other end of the alley, hoisting a greatsword in one hand, and a steel shield in the other.Dabus, shaken and badly bleeding, heals himself in the name of his God, and readies his spear.  Pris swiftly feebleminds one of the thugs, sending the now-moronic lass stumbling into the night.As the lion and ox wrestle with one another, the half-orc woman strides into the melee, and is backed up by a human female wearing light leathers and wielding a flaming longsword.Prisantha has the thugs wrapped up, and her summoned lion is holding its own, but unfortunately, her defensive spells cannot protect her from the lightning bolt set upon her by the straw-haired lass.  The electricity rips through Prisantha, and she falls to the ground with a soft sigh.Dabus focuses his faith, and releases a positive energy burst that overwhelms the three undead adventurers, and sends them fleeing into the Chendl streets.  At this moment, the massive ox rips the throat from Prisantha's lion, and as it is about to pounce on Dabus, it suddenly disappears with a throaty howl, leaving behind a silver circlet that radiates magic.Dabus fends of a pair of feeble sword-blows from the two remaining thugs, and cures Prisantha, mending her burned skin and restoring her to consciousness.  As she rises to her feet, the two thugs scatter and flee, but not before Dabus can strike one of them in the back with a ray of searing light, killing him."You struck him from behind!"  Exclaims the boy in the window."And he had it coming, too," says Dabus.  "Now close that window and go to bed!"Pris and Dabus dash back to Jespo Crim's house, only to find the front of it surrounded by black tentacles.  "What on earth is going on here?" Pris asks.  She swiftly dispels the tentacles and tries the door, only to find it locked."Who goes there!" a frail voice demands from behind the door."Jespo, it is Prisantha, let us in.""Prove your identity or suffer the consequences!" Jespo screeches."Well," Pris thinks for a moment.  "When we were fighting Zinvellon, you tugged upon the sleeve of the celestial and demanded that he raise your Fräs from the dead.""And what did he say?""He demanded that you fight.  'Not now, Crim', he said.  'Fight evil!'"The door flies open.  "Oh Prisantha, it was terrible! Keriann is dead, and she had Anton with her!  I am sure that dastard Reine was behind all of this.  Why Fräs, someday we shall have our revenge . . ."Dabus and Prisantha step inside, and Dabus begins curing the group until all are whole again.  Pris scrys Heydricus, hoping to warn him about the ambushes.  She spots the new Holy Liberator of Tritherion at the door of the Provost Marshall's home.  Heydricus responds to her message with the terse reply that he is aware of the ambush, and has just now convinced Reine to let him hide the bodies of Egil and Aelniir in the Provost Marshall's wine cellar.That night, Dabus returns to the Temple of Tritherion, while Prisantha teleports Heydricus, Jespo and herself to the mines at Curruth."Once I scribe reduce into my books," she says, "I will be able to take us all along.  Be well, Dabus.  We will return for you soon."-----Elijah's first reaction to the teleporting trio is to rip her swords from their scabbards, but she relaxes when she sees the familiar faces of her friends.  Heydricus bounds over to her and wraps her up in a bear hug, which she stiffly wrestles free of, frowning slightly."There's been no further trouble here, Heydricus.""Well then," Heydricus says as he glowingly looks over the remaining carnage.  "Let's go get the Aiman and set these Tenha free!"-----Next:  An arrangement is made for Curruth, and the Liberators circle their wagons.</blockquote>

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