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The Thorns of Winter -(updated 8/1/2023)
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<blockquote data-quote="Nthal" data-source="post: 8826350" data-attributes="member: 6971069"><p><h2 style="text-align: center">The Coils of Death - 11/14/2022</h2><p></p><p></p><p>The towering fiend lunged at me, eyes aflame with malicious glee as they raised a pair of blades overhead. The pair whistled as they cut the air and I attempted to roll out of the way. The first blade sank deep into the ground, as I rolled to my left. But too late did I realize that was what it wanted, as the second one, pierced my outstretched thigh. The steel of the blade felt white hot, and as it sank first into the muscle, and then all the way through me and pinning my leg to the earth. I fell on my stomach, losing my grip on my rod, mouth agape and unable to make a coherent sound, my free hand sank into the cold frozen earth gripping it in pain, while I tried to twist and pull my shield over me. But the fiend held the blade in place preventing me from moving. Laying there I was exposed, as I lay on my shield making it almost impossible to use it as a barrier.</p><p></p><p>As my mind raced on how to extricate myself from this position, I heard the swishing sound of flames igniting on Sage’s armblade, followed by the clang of a parry, and the sound of a blade skating of the edge of a shield, and the grunt of a warforged. I could hear arrows in the air, and striking something, but I had no idea if they had found their mark, or even hurt the tanar’ri. Turning my head and I saw the fiend, unconcerned with the others attacking her, smiling and ready. Behind her, I could Rosa struggling weakly, within the serpent coils, while Doxx struggled to pull her free from the clutches of the fiend’s tail. A white beam of light then struck it in the chest from Bookshelf’s fingers and I watched it slide off, seeming to have no effect.</p><p></p><p><em><strong>Your trite magic will not affect me. And I do love to see you, groveling in the dirt, you filthy lily!</strong></em></p><p></p><p>She twisted the blade embedded in my leg and couldn’t hold back the scream of pain. The blade felt like a hot iron in my flesh, searing skin and even charring bone. I glared at the tanar’ri and threw a dark strand around her and pulled it tight. But the miasma of darkness seemed to slide away from it, leaving her unharmed. Groaning, and unable to move all I could do was stare at the grinning fiend, her comely face and fine braided hair a mockery of mortal beauty. She smiled as she looked down on me, content on my position when she then suddenly roared in anger.</p><p></p><p>Straining to look I saw in the clutches of her tail, now instead of a small halfling, there was a very large and very angry brown bear, and it had just sunk its teeth deep into her scaley flesh. She thrashed her head about and tore out a chunk and spat it upon the ground. Greenish blue blood poured from the open wound, and it the hunk of meat seemed to melt on the ground. The marilith’ s face contorted with rage, and she screamed in anger at the bear, while the bear retorted with a roar of its own. I could see the muscles around the marilith’s face tense for a moment, and the bears roar became weaker, and with horror I hear the snapping of bone as the coils squeezed Rosa, snapping her ribs. Blood spurted from her mouth as she was elevated into the air, and two blades of the marilith cut deeply into the bear’s hide,</p><p></p><p>“No!” and Doxx swung her staff at the fiend in a whirlwind like frenzy. The first swing was wild, and the second was deflected by the one of the many wicked blades the marilith held. But that didn’t stop her from planting her staff into the ground and vaulting her body up into the air, where Doxx landed two hard kicks in the backside of the demon. IT grunted and swung a blade in a chopping motion and caught an overextended Doxx. The blade sliced through her midsection, and she landed on her feet, staggering, as Doxx clutched her belly in pain.</p><p></p><p>“Foul thing!” Sage yelled and ignited his armblade once again and swung. But the marilith was faster by far and with a quick flick of her wrist she knocked it aside, and reposted, shearing through Sage’s shield and clipping him in the shoulder. Sage managed to raise his shield, preventing a nasty draw cut by lifting her blade off him, only to find that one of the fiend’s lower arms thrust a sword straight into his belly. She twisted it once and retracted it, causing the great juggernaut to stagger and shake its head.</p><p></p><p>Adrissa then dropped her bow, drew her swords and charged at the tanar’ri carving up her friends. She swung with her blades, and found success, creating a gash in the side of the fiend and causing more blue green blood to spray everywhere. She cut again and again, each time, creating a pair of smaller wounds. The fiend snarled and then noticed that frost had formed on her blade. Confused for a moment she raised five of her blades overhead and started swinging wildly. Great chunks of ice and rime fell from the sky and struck her and missed everyone else, as Bookshelf expertly manipulated their spell, to cause no damage to anyone close by. But the fiend looked more annoyed than hurt as she snarled at the warforged. But her gaze snapped back to Adrissa who now nervously regarded the large fiend as we all could hear what it was thinking.</p><p></p><p><em><strong>I think I will carve you up next, once I remove the limbs from this troublesome trollop! </strong></em></p><p></p><p>I gulped, and saw the fiend turn its gaze to me once again. One blade still was thrust through my leg and held me fast to the ground and I shook with fear as I saw the other five sweeping down to do what the fiend said. I didn’t think I just curled up and threw all but one of my dark strands around me, while that single thread reached out to the beyond, and channeled something even colder than Bookshelf’s storm.</p><p></p><p>The blades swung down and hit solid ice within which I was now entombed. The fiend grunted with frustration as the quintet of blades could do nothing to me as they carved away clean slices of ice away, but none came close to my curled-up body. Snarling, she twisted the blade embedded in my leg, and pulled it free from the ice. I could feel no pain from it though as the ice numbed me and staunched the bleeding in my leg</p><p></p><p><em><strong>How novel to hide yourself in ice. I will have to carve it, and your flesh from your bones!</strong></em></p><p></p><p>Through the fractured prism of ice, I saw her raise all six of the blades and was ready to carve me out of my icy redoubt, when I saw a pair of arrows sink deeply into her chest. She looked down at them and looked over and past me, her eyes narrowing in hate.</p><p></p><p>“Take that fiend! I will bring you to justice after I…woah woah woah WOAH!”</p><p></p><p>From my supine position, I watched as the marilith melted away into black smoke. The Blade lowered his bow for a moment, and then suddenly dove forward, as the tanar’ri emerged from a detonation of smoke. I watched as the elf scrambled and a pair of swords slashed through the air, followed by the sound of tearing leather. “It’s after me! Do something citizens!”</p><p></p><p>“Do something?” Doxx said exasperated. “You ran away to get a shot, and now <strong><em>we </em></strong>have to run and catch up!” I could feel the earth shake as the juggernaut ran past me, and I had a glimpse of Adrissa running past me, along with the bear form of Rosa, battered and bleeding, but with plenty of fight left in her. I could then see Bookshelf stand over me and as they made motions, and this time cast a bead of light over me. I could see the light of flames illuminating his form, as what I presumed was a ball of flame engulfing the fiend in a warm embrace.</p><p></p><p>I then saw cracks forming in the ice around me, and after a moment it shattered and fell away, freeing me. Bookshelf extended a hand, which I took and pulled myself upright, and turned around to see what had happened. The Blade was running, his legs lifting off the ground in an awkward, yet effective stepping motion to keep away from the fiend. Who easily slithered and caught him, cutting him with two deep wounds. But Sage and Doxx managed to flank her and attempted to keep her from perusing him to no avail, as each of their blows were knocked away by her swords. Rosa had in the meantime changed back into her halfling form and was now shouting and guiding a glowing figure of bear of light around the battlefield, running it through the group and causing their wounds to close.</p><p></p><p>“It is difficult to hurt it,” Bookshelf calmly remarked. “Many of the spells I am using it seems to easily will away from hurting it.”</p><p></p><p>I could only nod grimly as I bent down and picked up my rod. I then reached inside myself for a dark strand and cast it over its head, leaving the strand intact between us. It barely took any time as I then pulled from power from light strand and two bolts of light streaked from my rod and struck her. Each time they did, the dark strand pulse and pulled power from me and pushed it into the marilith causing it to shudder as the black energy, sapped its own causing the fiend to grunt in pain. Still winded from my wounds I muttered aloud. “Just be direct and…”</p><p></p><p>“And what?” Bookshelf asked?</p><p></p><p>“Pray.”</p><p></p><p>It then took the time to glare at me and appeared ready to slither over to me when Sage pounded forward and intercepted it. As he did so, his form became indistinct and hazy, and I could barely make it out. He swung with his armblade, which clipped on it its flank. It turned and gave the warforged a wicked smile, shaking their head.</p><p></p><p><em><strong>I see you behind that pitiful excuse of an illusion.</strong></em></p><p></p><p>She then swung four of the swords at the juggernaut. One was knocked aside with his shield, but the sound of three of the swords impacting his metallic armored skin rang out with the crunching and scraping of metal on metal. Oils and other thick fluids sprayed from the Juggernaut, who staggered under the blows. On the last sword blow, Sage sank down onto a knee, and with a shaky raised his shield overhead.</p><p></p><p><em>CRACK!</em> The marilith grunted and twisted around found Doxx swinging her staff overhead and again and bringing down on the back of the serpent followed by her pounding her fists on its scaly hide. With a snarl, the marilith’ s tail coiled up and then struck, surrounding Doxx in its scaley grasp.</p><p></p><p><em>You pretend to be an old frail woman.</em> <em>No matter, your bones will snap just like one.</em></p><p></p><p>The Blade stopped running and pivoted kneeling on the ground. He levelled his bow parallel to the earth and took careful aim before releasing two arrows from his bow. Both found their mark, sinking deep into the belly of the tanar’ri. It turned and swung a sword down splintering the arrows. Still holding Doxx in its clutches, it twisted its torso and flung a pair of her blades at the elf. The Blade raised his bow and deflected one blade away, but the second one sunk into the elf’s chest, causing him to grunt in pain. It slithered to the elf, retrieving one blade, and then grasping the pommel of the second. It lifted the elf up, and he slid down the length of the sword. The Blade grasped the edges with his gloved hands, trying to avoid slipping down the blade. His attempts were in vain as he sunk to the hilt, his face contorted in pain. The marilith lifted The Blade upwards until he was at eye level, her face in a triumphant smile.</p><p></p><p>“Let him GO!” Adrissa snarled, as she twisted and cut into the coils of fiend’s serpentine body. The girl was now covered with ichor and blood as she carved into the tanar’ri, her eyes streaming tears with each blow. The marilith turned and looked down at the girl with disdain.</p><p></p><p><em><strong>As you like little one. </strong></em></p><p></p><p>The marilith swung her arm wide, and The Blade flew off the blade and sailed through the air, his leather cloak flapping in the air, before finally striking a tree. His body fell to the earth in a heap. The elf started to slowly push himself off the ground with one arm, as his second clutched his abdomen, his jaw clenched in pain.</p><p></p><p><em><strong>Now shall we see to you now?</strong></em></p><p></p><p>“Don’t…don’t…you…touch…her!” Doxx gasped, still entangled in the coils of the tanar’ri. The fiend didn’t even deign to acknowledge the old woman, and instead whipped her tail around in an arc. Doxx then flew into the air, and she sailed until she slammed straight into Rosa, bowling her over. Doxx rolled to a stop next to the halfling, her eyes closed and unmoving. But the marilith simply continued her stare at Adrissa and with one of her lower arms, made a quick swing the sword whistling as it cut through the air.</p><p></p><p>My world slowed to a crawl as I saw a great gush of blood spurted away from Adrissa’s neck. Her swords dropped and stuck in the earth pommels up, as she dropped to her knees and slumped to the ground unmoving. The fiend smiled and turned to look my direction. She slowly slithered towards me, when I saw Bookshelf step in between us, saying only “Stay in the ring.” The warforged extended a small wand from their forearm, then spun quickly. One the ground, a ring of blue fire erupted surrounded us. But I could feel no warmth from the blue flames.</p><p></p><p>“That’s not going to work,” I said moving closer to Bookshelf. “They are resistant to fire and magic.”</p><p></p><p>“It will have to stand in it to reach us.” The warforged said. “Just do wha—”</p><p></p><p>The marilith charged through the wall of flames. They licked her skin and scale, causing them to crack and smoke as she embraced the warforged, and she carried him and pushed them through the curtain of flame and held him tight. She simply smiled at him, as wooden parts of their limbs caught aflame, and he thrashed in her arms.</p><p></p><p><em><strong>I have face the fires of Avernus with others of my kind. No fire you can conjure can compare. But I suppose for a lesser creature, it is a a difference is without distinction.</strong></em></p><p></p><p>The blue flames evaporated into nothingness, as the warforged ceased to struggle. The marilith tossed the limp form of metal and wood aside, and tilted its neck, cracking the bones within. With cold eyes she looked at me, and with smile that widened with delight she addressed me again.</p><p></p><p><em><strong>Now…that we are done with foreplay, shall we get to down to business?</strong></em></p><p><em><strong></strong></em></p><p><em><strong>Session Notes:</strong></em></p><p></p><p>This fight was now a distant memory, and the details are foggy. But it was not a forgone conclusion we would survive this encounter. The marilith actually had more health than a standard one for the simple reason it wouldn't survive The Blade's sharpshooter hits, or Doxx's pounding. The fight wasn't nice, nor fair. But it was fun.</p><p></p><p>On a more serious note, my writing productivity has been significantly curtailed due to pain. Pain I hope to have corrected with surgery this week. I hope this addresses things, and let's me get back to some productive writing once again.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Nthal, post: 8826350, member: 6971069"] [HEADING=1][CENTER]The Coils of Death - 11/14/2022[/CENTER][/HEADING] The towering fiend lunged at me, eyes aflame with malicious glee as they raised a pair of blades overhead. The pair whistled as they cut the air and I attempted to roll out of the way. The first blade sank deep into the ground, as I rolled to my left. But too late did I realize that was what it wanted, as the second one, pierced my outstretched thigh. The steel of the blade felt white hot, and as it sank first into the muscle, and then all the way through me and pinning my leg to the earth. I fell on my stomach, losing my grip on my rod, mouth agape and unable to make a coherent sound, my free hand sank into the cold frozen earth gripping it in pain, while I tried to twist and pull my shield over me. But the fiend held the blade in place preventing me from moving. Laying there I was exposed, as I lay on my shield making it almost impossible to use it as a barrier. As my mind raced on how to extricate myself from this position, I heard the swishing sound of flames igniting on Sage’s armblade, followed by the clang of a parry, and the sound of a blade skating of the edge of a shield, and the grunt of a warforged. I could hear arrows in the air, and striking something, but I had no idea if they had found their mark, or even hurt the tanar’ri. Turning my head and I saw the fiend, unconcerned with the others attacking her, smiling and ready. Behind her, I could Rosa struggling weakly, within the serpent coils, while Doxx struggled to pull her free from the clutches of the fiend’s tail. A white beam of light then struck it in the chest from Bookshelf’s fingers and I watched it slide off, seeming to have no effect. [I][B]Your trite magic will not affect me. And I do love to see you, groveling in the dirt, you filthy lily![/B][/I] She twisted the blade embedded in my leg and couldn’t hold back the scream of pain. The blade felt like a hot iron in my flesh, searing skin and even charring bone. I glared at the tanar’ri and threw a dark strand around her and pulled it tight. But the miasma of darkness seemed to slide away from it, leaving her unharmed. Groaning, and unable to move all I could do was stare at the grinning fiend, her comely face and fine braided hair a mockery of mortal beauty. She smiled as she looked down on me, content on my position when she then suddenly roared in anger. Straining to look I saw in the clutches of her tail, now instead of a small halfling, there was a very large and very angry brown bear, and it had just sunk its teeth deep into her scaley flesh. She thrashed her head about and tore out a chunk and spat it upon the ground. Greenish blue blood poured from the open wound, and it the hunk of meat seemed to melt on the ground. The marilith’ s face contorted with rage, and she screamed in anger at the bear, while the bear retorted with a roar of its own. I could see the muscles around the marilith’s face tense for a moment, and the bears roar became weaker, and with horror I hear the snapping of bone as the coils squeezed Rosa, snapping her ribs. Blood spurted from her mouth as she was elevated into the air, and two blades of the marilith cut deeply into the bear’s hide, “No!” and Doxx swung her staff at the fiend in a whirlwind like frenzy. The first swing was wild, and the second was deflected by the one of the many wicked blades the marilith held. But that didn’t stop her from planting her staff into the ground and vaulting her body up into the air, where Doxx landed two hard kicks in the backside of the demon. IT grunted and swung a blade in a chopping motion and caught an overextended Doxx. The blade sliced through her midsection, and she landed on her feet, staggering, as Doxx clutched her belly in pain. “Foul thing!” Sage yelled and ignited his armblade once again and swung. But the marilith was faster by far and with a quick flick of her wrist she knocked it aside, and reposted, shearing through Sage’s shield and clipping him in the shoulder. Sage managed to raise his shield, preventing a nasty draw cut by lifting her blade off him, only to find that one of the fiend’s lower arms thrust a sword straight into his belly. She twisted it once and retracted it, causing the great juggernaut to stagger and shake its head. Adrissa then dropped her bow, drew her swords and charged at the tanar’ri carving up her friends. She swung with her blades, and found success, creating a gash in the side of the fiend and causing more blue green blood to spray everywhere. She cut again and again, each time, creating a pair of smaller wounds. The fiend snarled and then noticed that frost had formed on her blade. Confused for a moment she raised five of her blades overhead and started swinging wildly. Great chunks of ice and rime fell from the sky and struck her and missed everyone else, as Bookshelf expertly manipulated their spell, to cause no damage to anyone close by. But the fiend looked more annoyed than hurt as she snarled at the warforged. But her gaze snapped back to Adrissa who now nervously regarded the large fiend as we all could hear what it was thinking. [I][B]I think I will carve you up next, once I remove the limbs from this troublesome trollop! [/B][/I] I gulped, and saw the fiend turn its gaze to me once again. One blade still was thrust through my leg and held me fast to the ground and I shook with fear as I saw the other five sweeping down to do what the fiend said. I didn’t think I just curled up and threw all but one of my dark strands around me, while that single thread reached out to the beyond, and channeled something even colder than Bookshelf’s storm. The blades swung down and hit solid ice within which I was now entombed. The fiend grunted with frustration as the quintet of blades could do nothing to me as they carved away clean slices of ice away, but none came close to my curled-up body. Snarling, she twisted the blade embedded in my leg, and pulled it free from the ice. I could feel no pain from it though as the ice numbed me and staunched the bleeding in my leg [I][B]How novel to hide yourself in ice. I will have to carve it, and your flesh from your bones![/B][/I] Through the fractured prism of ice, I saw her raise all six of the blades and was ready to carve me out of my icy redoubt, when I saw a pair of arrows sink deeply into her chest. She looked down at them and looked over and past me, her eyes narrowing in hate. “Take that fiend! I will bring you to justice after I…woah woah woah WOAH!” From my supine position, I watched as the marilith melted away into black smoke. The Blade lowered his bow for a moment, and then suddenly dove forward, as the tanar’ri emerged from a detonation of smoke. I watched as the elf scrambled and a pair of swords slashed through the air, followed by the sound of tearing leather. “It’s after me! Do something citizens!” “Do something?” Doxx said exasperated. “You ran away to get a shot, and now [B][I]we [/I][/B]have to run and catch up!” I could feel the earth shake as the juggernaut ran past me, and I had a glimpse of Adrissa running past me, along with the bear form of Rosa, battered and bleeding, but with plenty of fight left in her. I could then see Bookshelf stand over me and as they made motions, and this time cast a bead of light over me. I could see the light of flames illuminating his form, as what I presumed was a ball of flame engulfing the fiend in a warm embrace. I then saw cracks forming in the ice around me, and after a moment it shattered and fell away, freeing me. Bookshelf extended a hand, which I took and pulled myself upright, and turned around to see what had happened. The Blade was running, his legs lifting off the ground in an awkward, yet effective stepping motion to keep away from the fiend. Who easily slithered and caught him, cutting him with two deep wounds. But Sage and Doxx managed to flank her and attempted to keep her from perusing him to no avail, as each of their blows were knocked away by her swords. Rosa had in the meantime changed back into her halfling form and was now shouting and guiding a glowing figure of bear of light around the battlefield, running it through the group and causing their wounds to close. “It is difficult to hurt it,” Bookshelf calmly remarked. “Many of the spells I am using it seems to easily will away from hurting it.” I could only nod grimly as I bent down and picked up my rod. I then reached inside myself for a dark strand and cast it over its head, leaving the strand intact between us. It barely took any time as I then pulled from power from light strand and two bolts of light streaked from my rod and struck her. Each time they did, the dark strand pulse and pulled power from me and pushed it into the marilith causing it to shudder as the black energy, sapped its own causing the fiend to grunt in pain. Still winded from my wounds I muttered aloud. “Just be direct and…” “And what?” Bookshelf asked? “Pray.” It then took the time to glare at me and appeared ready to slither over to me when Sage pounded forward and intercepted it. As he did so, his form became indistinct and hazy, and I could barely make it out. He swung with his armblade, which clipped on it its flank. It turned and gave the warforged a wicked smile, shaking their head. [I][B]I see you behind that pitiful excuse of an illusion.[/B][/I] She then swung four of the swords at the juggernaut. One was knocked aside with his shield, but the sound of three of the swords impacting his metallic armored skin rang out with the crunching and scraping of metal on metal. Oils and other thick fluids sprayed from the Juggernaut, who staggered under the blows. On the last sword blow, Sage sank down onto a knee, and with a shaky raised his shield overhead. [I]CRACK![/I] The marilith grunted and twisted around found Doxx swinging her staff overhead and again and bringing down on the back of the serpent followed by her pounding her fists on its scaly hide. With a snarl, the marilith’ s tail coiled up and then struck, surrounding Doxx in its scaley grasp. [I]You pretend to be an old frail woman.[/I] [I]No matter, your bones will snap just like one.[/I] The Blade stopped running and pivoted kneeling on the ground. He levelled his bow parallel to the earth and took careful aim before releasing two arrows from his bow. Both found their mark, sinking deep into the belly of the tanar’ri. It turned and swung a sword down splintering the arrows. Still holding Doxx in its clutches, it twisted its torso and flung a pair of her blades at the elf. The Blade raised his bow and deflected one blade away, but the second one sunk into the elf’s chest, causing him to grunt in pain. It slithered to the elf, retrieving one blade, and then grasping the pommel of the second. It lifted the elf up, and he slid down the length of the sword. The Blade grasped the edges with his gloved hands, trying to avoid slipping down the blade. His attempts were in vain as he sunk to the hilt, his face contorted in pain. The marilith lifted The Blade upwards until he was at eye level, her face in a triumphant smile. “Let him GO!” Adrissa snarled, as she twisted and cut into the coils of fiend’s serpentine body. The girl was now covered with ichor and blood as she carved into the tanar’ri, her eyes streaming tears with each blow. The marilith turned and looked down at the girl with disdain. [I][B]As you like little one. [/B][/I] The marilith swung her arm wide, and The Blade flew off the blade and sailed through the air, his leather cloak flapping in the air, before finally striking a tree. His body fell to the earth in a heap. The elf started to slowly push himself off the ground with one arm, as his second clutched his abdomen, his jaw clenched in pain. [I][B]Now shall we see to you now?[/B][/I] “Don’t…don’t…you…touch…her!” Doxx gasped, still entangled in the coils of the tanar’ri. The fiend didn’t even deign to acknowledge the old woman, and instead whipped her tail around in an arc. Doxx then flew into the air, and she sailed until she slammed straight into Rosa, bowling her over. Doxx rolled to a stop next to the halfling, her eyes closed and unmoving. But the marilith simply continued her stare at Adrissa and with one of her lower arms, made a quick swing the sword whistling as it cut through the air. My world slowed to a crawl as I saw a great gush of blood spurted away from Adrissa’s neck. Her swords dropped and stuck in the earth pommels up, as she dropped to her knees and slumped to the ground unmoving. The fiend smiled and turned to look my direction. She slowly slithered towards me, when I saw Bookshelf step in between us, saying only “Stay in the ring.” The warforged extended a small wand from their forearm, then spun quickly. One the ground, a ring of blue fire erupted surrounded us. But I could feel no warmth from the blue flames. “That’s not going to work,” I said moving closer to Bookshelf. “They are resistant to fire and magic.” “It will have to stand in it to reach us.” The warforged said. “Just do wha—” The marilith charged through the wall of flames. They licked her skin and scale, causing them to crack and smoke as she embraced the warforged, and she carried him and pushed them through the curtain of flame and held him tight. She simply smiled at him, as wooden parts of their limbs caught aflame, and he thrashed in her arms. [I][B]I have face the fires of Avernus with others of my kind. No fire you can conjure can compare. But I suppose for a lesser creature, it is a a difference is without distinction.[/B][/I] The blue flames evaporated into nothingness, as the warforged ceased to struggle. The marilith tossed the limp form of metal and wood aside, and tilted its neck, cracking the bones within. With cold eyes she looked at me, and with smile that widened with delight she addressed me again. [I][B]Now…that we are done with foreplay, shall we get to down to business? Session Notes:[/B][/I] This fight was now a distant memory, and the details are foggy. But it was not a forgone conclusion we would survive this encounter. The marilith actually had more health than a standard one for the simple reason it wouldn't survive The Blade's sharpshooter hits, or Doxx's pounding. The fight wasn't nice, nor fair. But it was fun. On a more serious note, my writing productivity has been significantly curtailed due to pain. Pain I hope to have corrected with surgery this week. I hope this addresses things, and let's me get back to some productive writing once again. [/QUOTE]
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