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!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Iron Sky" data-source="post: 5101999" data-attributes="member: 60965">Session 29, Part 5 Harold cursed as the crushing rock pulled back again.  “Everyone still alive?” he gasped. “Yes,” Velea said weakly from nearby. “Barely,” Kormak said.  “How about we not wait for Bail and head down now?” Harold didn't say anything, just began moving down the stairs as quickly as he could in the narrow confines.  He heard the others coming down close behind him.  Several minutes later, he saw light ahead, and motioned for Velea to stop. They proceeded slowly, moving onwards until the tunnel was as bright as day.  Ahead, Harold saw the stairs end in a hole, shining with light as though it opened to the noon-day sun.  “I think we're there,” Harold whispered. “We're where?” Kormak said loudly. “Shhh!” Harold said. “Don't shush me.  I just got smashed by a pyramid twice.  I'm in no mood for-” Harold squeezed past Velea and the Guardian and grabbed Kormak's collar.  The dwarf immediately, twisted out of his grip and pushed him back, but he shut up. “We're at the bottom, there might be something down there,” Harold said, glaring at the dwarf. “Well, why didn't you say so?” Kormak said, straightening his clothes. Harold returned to the hole and was about to peek in when Bail's voice boomed out.  “Glad to see you are all alive, thought I might have-” Behind him, someone quieted Bail. “-thought I might have to drag more of you out,” Bail finished at a whisper. Harold turned to Velea.  “You have some fortifying magics, don't you?” She nodded.  “I can help with some of the injuries anyone took when the stairwell closed on us.” “Do it then.” Velea began quietly chanting, then lightly touched Harold, Kormak, and Bail in turn.  Harold wasn't sure exactly what she did, but the pain and abrasions of the crushing stone faded slightly. She had just finished when a refined, eloquent sounding voice called out from below. “You there, healing yourselves in my stairwell...” They stared at each other for a moment, then Harold sighed and leaned out into the hole.  He leaned back and sighed.  “It's a round room with a beholder in the center of it.”  He looked in again, then turned to the others, his brows furrowed.  “Strangely, it looks like there's a pile of gold on the ceiling...” *** Abrogosian stared at the newcomers as they crawled out of the gravity-flux stairwell.  He wondered how long it would take these ones to figure out how the spherical rift distortion affected gravity in the chamber. He wasn't surprised when they figured out that the entirety of the spherical chamber wall was “floor”, climbing out of the hole and walking around.  Considering they had survived two “experiences” with the gravity-flux, he wasn't especially surprised.  Now what did surprise him was that one of them, a humanoid with a variety of magically-imbued equipment including a quiver that opened into a small extra-dimensional pocket, was carrying what seemed to be the True Stone of Lightning. “I only see three of you... four counting your silversteel Elarim guardian-golem.  Where's the other one I heard?” They glanced amongst themselves, then one, a the half-dragon off-breed of a gold dragon, it appeared, looked at him and said, “there were only the three of us, you must be mistaken.” Abrogosian paused and thought for a moment.  They seemed to have noticed the magic-damping affects of his primary eye, and were spreading out around the room so he could only have one in view of it at a time.  He made sure to have at least two eye-stalks following each of them.  “Do you know what I am?” “A beholder, a creature made from the chaotic energies beyond the stars mixing with the stuff of reality,” the female said.  “Yes, I know you.” “Ah, excellent.  It is good to be known, yes?” The humanoids exchanged glances that he assumed conveyed confusion.  Excellent, he thought.  With creatures of this power, I must be careful.  If they had enough power to claim one True Stone... He often counted the time between gravity-fluxes in one part of his mind, and now one was nearly there.   “Hm.  Wait for it... wait for it...” They stared at him, then looked at each other in confusion, then the pulse of a gravity-flux hit and the stairwell ground closed. By the way all three of the humanoids' attention shot to the stairwell, he knew he was right about his count.  “Oh, was someone still in there?” he said, turning from side to side to imitate the motion he'd seen other humanoids make with their heads.  “It does that.  Now, if you had told me you had another guest that was shy and still hiding in the stairwell, I could have warned you it was about to close again.  Most unfortunate.” A minute later, the stairwell re-sorted itself and their was a pained groan from the stairs.  “Come on in, friend,” he called, giving his finest toothy grin.  “I assure you, it's much nicer in here than it is in there.” Crushed two, three times and still alive?  These creatures are powerful indeed.  Must float carefully...</blockquote>

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