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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 1257539" data-attributes="member: 1210">The Battle ContinuesThe blood-curdling scream of the solar Azekia echoes through the candlelit hall.  The black flames are burning on her very soul.  She tries to dispel them and fails, and again gives out a mournful cry.  Orbius backs away from the licking ebon flames, wincing as pain shoots through his entire body at the merest touch of the fire.  He manages to avoid catching fire, however.  He casts a greater dispelling and the fire dies!  With a sigh of relief and gratitude, the solar pulls out her bow, spreads her white-feathered wings and flies towards Nazzgarr. Sybele and Thrush continue to fire punishing arrow shot after arrow shot into the crawling head.  It winces, flinches, and roars, then snaps at Patyn again, chomping his right knee.  The hunter of the dead almost falls but catches himself and manages to dodge and parry the horror’s root-like flesh tendrils, however.  Rotting flesh falls in gobs as his blade hews at the horrible monster; then he tenses and unleashes another positive energy burst.  The dazzling blast of energy burns away layer after layer of putrescent grey head-matter!  The head gives another great cry, even as more of Sybele’s arrows land in it.  A final large arrow from the warrior of chaos tags it in the eye and it slumps, finally destroyed.  Nazzgarr, meanwhile, has engaged Angelfire in melee.  His flame-bladed sword swipes out, leaving bloody lines across the templar’s chest and arm, and then the demon’s whip snakes out, striking and wrapping around the Coilite!  As it struggles to pull her into its flaming body she gets a look at her arm- and her skin has lost its scarlet tinge!  She’s vulnerable to fire again!*  Redoubling her struggles, Angelfire manages to avoid being grappled against the roaring flames of the balor.  With a roar, Nazzgarr flicks his whip free and cracks it again, preparing to renew his assault on Angelfire; but she’s too quick, and her falchion strikes like a serpent, slashing the balor’s forehead.  Its flame-blood drips into its eyes, blinding it!**  A terrible, loud growl emerges from Nazzgarr; he teleports to the center of the hall, shaking his head.  A rain of droplets of fire sprinkles out as he tries to clear his eyes!Absalom steps up behind Patyn and unleashes a rain of blows.  The hunter of the dead turns to face him just in time, catching the first blow on the edge of his shield, the second on the flat of his sword.  Thankfully, his armor catches the other two blows, but he’s pressed for a moment before recovering his balance.  Rex steps in to give him a hand, though, and his slashing claws tear wounds along Absalom’s face and chest.  There’s blood, but-It’s cold, thinks Rex with a chill.There’s a blast of electric energy as Lester chain lightnings the vampires, destroying Harrow, and then Rex presses his attack, flanking with Patyn, and tears Absalom’s belly open deep.  Guts spill out and for an instant the man looks surprised- then he dissolves into mist. “VAMPIRES!” cries Lester.A cheetah- Ulla in a very fast form- streaks towards the remaining vampires, then seems to morph into a stone golem.  Payton turns on the headmistress, smiting undead, and deals her a telling blow.  She smiles evilly and flips away, tumbling rather skillfully for a necromancer, but not skillfully enough to avoid a slap from Verzavi!  The githzerai’s blow doesn’t deal any damage, however, and the necromancer vampire reaches a safe distance and creates a prismatic sphere about herself!Thrush drops his bow and charges towards the balor.  Somehow his sword’s gotten into his hands.  He screams a battlecry as he rushes in and slices!  As he rushes forward, the balor’s whip, snapping through the air, catches him and trips him, foiling his attack.  Then Horbin hits the demon with a quickened lower resistance, which works, and a feeblemind, which fails.  “All right, you stupid vampires, take this!” the L cries, and shows the resourcefulness that has led him to a successful career as an adventurer.  Well, as long as you don’t count the jail term and indentured servitude, but we’re not talking about that here.  Channeling the power of elemental earth, Lester reaches out with his power and triggers an earthquake!  A tremendous rumble emerges from the entire area as the ground shakes- and, as Lester had hoped, the roof caves in!  Rubble crashes down above Ferrranifer, disintegrating as it falls through the prismatic sphere, but the collapse allows a huge shaft of sunlight to pour in the hole!  The vampire necromancer screeches in displeasure as smoke starts rising from her skin, and teleports out of sight.Then Blaesing makes his move, stepping out from the shadows he’s been hiding in and attempting to assassinate Orbius.  Unfortunately, he misses!  The Eye yelps as he sees the new figure grinning at him.  Then Blaesing steps into the shadows with a wink and just seems to vanish, hiding- again- in plain sight.  Verzavi and Angelfire both rush in on the balor again.  The demon, still blinded, gives out a terrible howl of anger.  The solar’s arrows are flying at the balor, but most miss.  For a moment the demon dominates Thrush, but Horbin uses another greater dispelling to free the fighter, who just looks madder as he turns and exchanges another series of blows with Nazzgarr.  Blood is running down the fighter’s arms and leaking from a rent in the breastplate of his armor.  Our heroes are now moving to focus on the demon, Orbius even going so far as to attempt to disintegrate it- alas, to no effect, though it does convince the balor to employ a power word stun on the Eye, leaving him reeling and unable to do much of anything.  Sybele’s still firing her bow, but now that the crawling head’s out of the fight- she spares it another quick glance just to double check- she’s firing at the demon as well.  Lester’s air elemental ally*** moves in to aid the party as well.Our heroes are showing their wounds, so Horbin does what Horbin does best: he unleashes a mass heal, which instantly restores the flagging morale of the wounded, along with their strength.  They pile on the balor, though the L sticks next to the stunned Orbius to be safe.  That assassin is somewhere! he thinks, knowing that Orbius is doomed if the assassin gets to him while he’s stunned.  Then the balor re-dominates Thrush, and Horbin’s greater dispelling fails to shake him free as he starts cutting at Patyn, dealing immense damage.  The party keeps pouring the attacks on the balor as Ferranifer reappears and tries to imprison the solar and the solar tries to imprison the balor and both fail, though the ground threatens to open them up and pull them below!  The angel and demon slam together and grapple back and forth like Captain Kirk and any of his many worthy foes, breaking apart after a few moments of flaming struggle.  Another disintegrate ray shoots at the angel from a new figure at the passage from which the crawling head came- a grim-looking character with a single undead arm.  “A pale master!” cries Patyn, his voice full of hate.  Peeking out behind him is another, cadaverous looking fellow who fires off a quickened enervation and another enervation, but to no avail (he misses Orbius due to his mirror images and fails to penetrate the solar’s spell resistance).  Sybele and the balor exchange heavy blows that damage both of them seriously, but her more than him.Lester surveys the damage around them grimly.  This is a tough fight, he thinks grimly.  It’s going to take some extreme measures to finish these guys!  The balor still seems to be doing all right, there’s the pale master, that new necromancer guy (probably, anyway), Ferranifer, that  assassin guy sneaking around somewhere- This fight’s not over yet.*Apparently the last time she used the Deleter it removed the Fire subtype she’d gained previously from a touch of Chaos.  **The result of a critical hit, using my colorful critical hit system. <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=":)" />***Who everyone forgot about until that round.Next Time: The big fat battle concludes!  Will all our heroes survive??</blockquote>

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