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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 23114" data-attributes="member: 143">Part 25“Stay close, everybody,” Cal said, as the four companions searched the darkness for their still-unidentified assailant.  “I think—aaahhhh!” Delem cried out, collapsing to the ground as a dark shadow materialized behind him.  The others turned to face their enemy.  In the faint light cast by Cal’s spell he was just a shadow in the shape of a man, a dark figure in an enfolding cloak that shrouded his lean form.  He carried a longsword in his hand, the blade slick with Delem’s blood, the steel black like a slick of oil upon water.  “Let’s dance, shall we?” he said, taunting them, blocking the route to where Delem lay bleeding out his lifeblood upon the stone.  Benzan and Lok both charged, but before they could reach the man, he split into a quartet of images, identical copies of himself that followed his every movement, blurring in and between him until his confused attackers could not identify which was the real foe.  Benzan snarled and launched himself at one anyway, but his blade passed through empty air, causing the mirror image to vanish.  Lok came forward to strike, imitating Benzan’s strategy, but before he could swing his axe the images all lunged nimbly at him.  His heavy armor was proof against most attacks, but this enemy found a crease between plates and stabbed deep, causing the genasi to grunt in heavy pain.  The genasi returned with a powerful arcing swing, but his attack too clipped only an image, leaving two—one of which had to be the real foe.  Cal, meanwhile, was trying to circle around to help Delem, but was having difficulty getting around the battle.  He considered using a sleep spell, but realized that it might inadvertently catch one of his friends as they battled their dark adversary in a swirling melee.  Instead, he cast a minor illusion, causing the sound of clanking metal to appear behind their enemy in an effort to distract him and give Lok and Benzan an opening. The enemy warrior, however, paid no heed.  “Nice try, gnome!” he said, lashing out again, this time at Benzan.  His sword again struck hard, drawing a cry of pain from yet another adversary as he penetrated the tiefling’s armor and the shoulder beneath it with a thrust from his dark blade.  Benzan staggered, but retaliated with a swing that actually connected, but which was deflected by the hard coat of mail-links that the dark warrior wore under his shroud.  “He’s armored!” Benzan said, to warn Lok.  “Indeed, foolish tiefling, my armor is quite—arrgh!”Their enemy’s taunts were suddenly cut off as Lok barreled quickly in, slicing into him with a powerful sweep of his axe into his torso.  The blow clearly had an effect, tearing through the man’s armor to cut flesh, but he spun with the impact and danced back, still dangerous.  “It would seem that I should not underestimate you,” he said, waiting for them to come again.  The exchange had given Cal time to get to Delem.  The gnome crouched over his unconscious friend, and was amazed to see that somehow, the deep wound had already closed, seemingly without volition from the stricken sorcerer.  Delem was still unconscious, but not in danger of dying.  There was no time to consider this mystery, however, so Cal drew out his wand of healing and called upon its power.  The pale blue glow suffused Delem’s form, restoring him to consciousness.  “You’ll have to do the rest yourself,” Cal said to him with urgency as the sorcerer-cleric stirred.  “The others need my help!”Indeed, the battle raged on.  The unknown adversary, still with one shifting image obscuring his form, came at them again.  He thrust at Lok, who had proven himself the more dangerous adversary, and again hit, although this attack only tore a slight gash in the genasi’s weapon arm.  Benzan moved to flank the dark warrior, coming in from behind to sneak attack him.  His stroke was perfect, but unfortunately found only an image, causing the last figment to vanish but leaving the warrior just a few feet away unharmed.  “Damn!” the tiefling cursed.“Wait your turn, now,” the warrior said without turning.  “I’ll get to you in just a moment.”With the last of the images gone, and his target now clearly defined, Cal strode deliberately right up to the edge of the melee, one of his wands ready in his hand.  The dark warrior sensed him and turned toward him right as the gnome released a color spray full into his face.The splash of blinding colors lasted only a moment, but when the brilliance faded, the warrior was still there, unfazed.  “Fool!  Your petty enchantments cannot harm me!  The darkness is my cloak, my shield!”  With his words he slashed out at Cal, connecting with a devastating blow that sent the gnome reeling.“Let’s see how you do in the light, then,” Delem said, as he staggered to his feet a few yards away.  He lifted one hand, and summoned the power of a spell.  Four twinkling lights came into being, forming a box around the warrior.  Each was only half the brightness of a torch, but collectively, they dispelled the shadows around the warrior and for the first time clearly revealed their adversary.He was a powerfully built man, still in the prime of youth, but his skin was a sickly gray color, like ashes in a fireplace, and his eyes were dark orbs that bespoke the corruption of whatever fell magics had created him.  The rent in his black shroud caused by Lok’s axe revealed a coat of silvery gleaming mail links underneath, although as they watched it seemed like the cut in his flesh was already healing, the flow of blood all but stopped.   “What manner of demon are you,” Benzan breathed.  “You cannot begin to comprehend the truth of what I am,” the man said, his scowl taking in all of them at once.  “Your corrupted societies will come to understand soon enough, though.”“Whatever you are, prepare to taste steel!”  Benzan shouted, charging at him as Lok came in from the opposite side.  The dark warrior seemed weakened, slower in the ring of light, but he still reacted with speed and fury to the combined assault.  His blade turned Benzan’s attack, but he staggered as Lok chopped into his hip with a powerful sweep of his axe.  Delem had moved to help Cal, but the gnome had already retreated from the battle, using his healing wand on himself, so the sorcerer fired two magic missiles into the warrior.  As with Cal, however, the magic faltered upon whatever arcane resistance the shadow-man possessed, the bolts dissipating into nothingness as they touched him.  There was still a lot of fight left in the dark warrior, though, as the companions quickly learned.  He staggered back a step, as if trying to disengage, but as Lok and Benzan pressed him, he suddenly lunged and thrust powerfully at Lok.  This time, however, the genasi was ready for the attack, and took the blow on his shield.  Side by side Benzan and Lok attacked again, but their thrusts missed, Benzan’s swing glancing once again off of the warrior’s resilient coat of mail, and Lok’s powerful swing missing the mark as the warrior dodged nimbly out of its path.  As they moved, Delem summoned another quartet of floating flames, keeping their enemy completely bracketed by light.  That seemed to weaken him, and in fact his face twisted into a dark scowl as he stared at the sorcerer.  “This isn’t over!” he hissed, and he suddenly changed direction, darting back from Lok and past Benzan, his cloak billowing out behind him like a cloud of smoke.  Lok could not reach the quick-footed warrior, but Benzan did not stand idly as he passed.  The scimitar slashed upward so rapidly that it was just a gleaming blur in the light of Delem’s dancing flames, intersecting with the black shadow that was the warrior as he darted in the direction of the exit.  A sudden cry rewarded him as he finally hit with a critical blow, the keen weapon slicing deep into the warrior’s neck.  For all his fell powers of the dark, he bled common red blood, a fountain that poured down his shoulder relentlessly with every step he took.    But the warrior kept going, staggering away, calling upon some reserve of fortitude as he made for the promise of the darkness just a few yards away.  And in fact, as he left the muted radiance of the lights, he seemed to recover some, his steps growing surer, his pace growing faster.  “Not so fast,” Delem said, and he spoke a word of magic.  A flare of sudden, brilliant light exploded in front of the warrior’s face, dazzling him.  His magical resistance could not protect him from the flare, and he stumbled, the light stabbing pain into eyes accustomed to the dark, but causing no real damage.  But that moment of hesitation was costly.  Even as the warrior started forward again, a crossbow bolt from Cal’s bow slammed into his back, penetrating the links of mail and stabbing deep into a lung.  The dread warrior still staggered forward, reaching out as if to grasp the cloying darkness.And then Benzan came up from behind him, and ended it with one final blow.  “By the gods,” Delem said, moving quickly to help Lok, who was grievously wounded.  They were all injured, and cognizant of how close they had come to disaster.  If the warrior had landed that third strike and dropped Lok, he would not have tried to flee, and opened himself to Benzan’s counter.  As it was, they were amazed at the punishment that he had taken, and the dark magics that he had summoned forth.  “Good thing he wasn’t that smart,” Cal said.  “Or he might not have given us the clue needed to defeat him.”  And a good thing that Delem somehow managed to survive that first strike, the gnome didn’t add out loud, curious at yet another unusual power manifested by the surprising young human.  After Cal and Delem worked some needed healing upon them, they gathered around the body of the fallen warrior.  There was little more that they could divine about him now that he was dead, except that the armor he wore turned out to be a finely crafted suit of chainmail fashioned of mithril, an incredibly rare and expensive metal that was both light and durable.  “You might have left him alive, so we could question him,” Cal said to Benzan.  “Under the circumstances, I didn’t want to take the chance,” the tiefling replied unapologetically.  “Who knows what other tricks he might have had up his sleeve?”The tiefling had crouched over their dead foe, and was beginning to remove the man’s armor when he paused.  “Hello, what do we have here,” he said, pulling a tightly rolled scroll from the man’s cloak.“Careful,” Cal cautioned.  “Sometimes there can be danger in the written word.”“Spoken like an educated man,” Benzan replied lightly.  But the others noticed that he handled the scroll with caution as he unrolled it and held it up in the light so they could all see the writing upon its surface.  “What language is that?” Delem said.  “It looks like scribbles to me.”Benzan sighed.  “It is Draconic—a language used by wizards.”“And you understand it?” Cal asked.  The tiefling nodded.  Cal knew there was another story there, but he let it rest for the moment as Benzan read to them the contents of the scroll.    “I am pleased that you could return to Elturel on such short notice,” Benzan read. “I apologize that we cannot meet in person; with so many eyes watching, it is too great a risk even given your particular talents.  I hope that you will find the armor in the enclosed package to your satisfaction; it was quite difficult to acquire.  At the bottom of this scroll you will find detailed descriptions of the four men requiring your attention; I leave it to you to decide the time and place of their elimination, so long as they are removed swiftly and quietly, without any evidence.”  There was no signature to the missive, but by now they had all gained a fairly good idea of its origin.  Benzan scanned the bottom of the scroll, and looked up at them.  “Wow, their descriptions are pretty thorough… I don’t really have an ‘irritating manner,’ do I?” Despite Benzan’s attempt at lightening the mood, for a moment the companions said nothing, only looking at each other in gazes that said much.  Finally, it was Cal who spoke.  “We have unfinished business, it seems.”“Some of us are still injured,” Benzan said.  “Not for long,” Cal replied, taking out his wand.  “Your other magic?” Benzan asked.“I still have most of my spells remaining,” Cal said.  He looked over at Delem, who nodded in response.  Benzan walked over to where the box they had found lay discarded on the stones, and picked it up.  He lifted out the metal mold, and examined it.  “Then let’s finish it tonight,” the tiefling said.</blockquote>

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