-
The VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Travels through the Wild West: Book IV
- Thread starter Lazybones
- Start date
Broccli_Head
Explorer
Too bad the lamia didn't think to ask the heroes for help against her nemesis. I guess she was flustered.
Are magic circles that easy to break?
Are magic circles that easy to break?
Lazybones
Adventurer
Broccli_Head said:
I created S'reth as a deeply flawed villain; more of her motives and shortcomings will come out in the next few posts, I hope. Still, it would have been interesting if she had asked the group for their (voluntary) assistance (of course, Cal never would have gone along with such a plan, and Lok would have backed him up)!
As for the magic circles, yes, Horacio has it right. In fact, one story hour author (Kid C, IIRC) had one trapped demon released by a trap that rolled marbles across the edge of the circle! Since this one was actually a part of the stone, it took a more physical effort to break. But they are invulnerable to attacks from within, as Horacio noted.
Maldur: yeah, it feels good to be writing TttWW again! Thanks!
* * * * *
Book IV, Part 2
The six companions traveled warily down the corridor, following the trail of the fleeing lamia. They didn’t have very far to go; about forty feet down the passageway, their route ended in a narrow opening blocked by a heavy slab of solid stone.
Lok didn’t wait for encouragement, immediately crossing to the opening. After briefly probing at the stone he placed his axe down against the wall below the opening and pushed, his compact frame exerting the full force of his considerable strength against the massive stone. His efforts were to no avail, as the stone did not budge. Benzan moved to join him, using his height to push above where the genasi was braced, and while the were able to feel the slightest shift in the stone under their combined efforts, it wasn’t nearly enough to move it.
“Maybe there’s more stone piled up against it on the other side,” Delem offered.
Benzan pulled back from the narrow opening. “Yeah, well, that doesn’t help us get out of here. Can’t you magic it open or something?”
“Our spells aren’t really suited for that sort of thing,” Cal said, but Delem had a thoughtful look on his face as he regarded the barrier.
“What about digging our way out?” Dana said. “There were some breaks in the stone walls back in the chamber.”
“We could try that,” Lok said, “But I sense that we’re under a fair heap of earth between us and the open sky above. And I don’t smell any fresh air—with each breath, we’re using up what’s left in here, and when it’s gone…” He didn’t finish, as the implication of his words was obvious to all of them.
“Well then, what can we do?” Elly asked.
“I’ve got an idea,” Delem said. When the others turned to face him, he seemed to shrink slightly under their scrutiny, but he quickly dug into a pouch at his belt, searching for something. “I know we agreed that we would wait, but…” he said, finally producing a ring—the bronze ring they’d found in the cavern back on the Isle of Dread.
“How can it help us?” Cal asked.
“Well, I tried it on,” Delem admitted, “when we were back on the island. I’m not completely sure, but I think it has the power to move things.”
“Telekinesis,” Cal said.
“Yes. I don’t know if it can move that rock…”
“Well, let’s give it a try!” Benzan said.
They made a space for Delem, who put on the ring and regarded the implacable barrier. The sorcerer raised his hand slowly and took on a look of intense concentration, but nothing obvious happened to indicate that anything was happening. Delem held his position for almost half a minute, then he lowered his hand and let out a tired sigh.
“I can’t move it… It’s… it’s just too heavy,” he said.
“So much for your new toy,” Benzan snapped, his frustration at being trapped here clearly wearing on him.
“Wait,” Cal said. “Don’t give up just yet; perhaps if you and Lok push, while Delem uses the ring…”
Benzan’s look was skeptical, but the suggestion was too practical not to try. Lok paused to take a vial from his pouch—a potion of strength given to him by the phanatons back on the Isle of Dread—and quaffed it before returning to his place before the stone. Benzan stepped up behind him to add his strength, and Delem stood behind them, ready again with the ring.
“All right then, all together!” Cal cried.
At first it looked as though even their combined efforts would be of no use against the implacable barrier. Then, however, the stone began to move. At first it just shifted slightly, resisting their efforts as it scraped against the edges of the opening, and then with a final great heave it tumbled outward, falling to the side and letting in a sudden gust of cold air from outside. Several large stones that had been piled against the slab were jumbled haphazardly around the opening, but there was still enough space for one of them at a time to escape. Lok went first, squeezing his armored body through the opening into the open air beyond.
He found himself in ruined chamber, perhaps thirty feet square, open to the gray skies above. The place was apparently below ground level, for Lok could make out more extensive ruins above the fifteen-foot walls of the chamber. Opposite the opening to the subterranean passage there was a rubble-choked stair that led up to the ground floor.
Only that route was blocked by the two ogres who shouted a cry of alarm and then hefted massive spears to hurl at the genasi.
* * * * *
S’reth heard the shout, and knew then that the tiefling and his… allies… had somehow pushed through the slab and the rocks that the ogres had hastily piled against it. She still wasn’t sure what had happened, but she felt fear, and that feeling drove her as she tore through the stash personal items she’d left in the ruined chamber she’d turned into a dwelling since they’d arrived here. From what little she knew about the art of summoning, the lamia fully believed that the demon-spawn she’d called would not stop until it had caught up to her and slain her, or she would have fled at that moment and not looked back, leaving her allies to buy her whatever time their deaths could purchase.
She knew it was here, somewhere… she hadn’t even dared to carry it, the final item she’d stolen before her flight from her kin. It’s power was well beyond her, she knew, and she didn’t like the reminder that deep down, T’roth was right, that she wasn’t much more than a novice as a sorceress, that for all of the considerable innate abilities of her race that she possessed, she would never be more than that. Certainly, she would never be able to command the power of T’roth and the others who led beside him, the power of mighty sorcerers who could shape the very world around them with their mighty magics…
That reminder of her situation brought a renewed surge of anger and resentment that almost—almost—overcame the realities of her current plight. She tossed aside a leather satchel holding supplies, and saw it, saw what she was looking for. She could hear the sounds of battle from nearby in the ruins, but her attention was on the small tube of worn leather that she lifted from a crevice in the rocks.
Her hands trembled as she pulled it open.
djrdjmsqrd
First Post
*Bump*
I am away in CA on Band Tour, get back with a new book waiting to be read and it's fallen to page two?! Com'n people, keep this up on page 1!
It's hard to get really well written FR stories.
Djordje (Yes, I am both a FR/GH fan thank you. ;p)
I am away in CA on Band Tour, get back with a new book waiting to be read and it's fallen to page two?! Com'n people, keep this up on page 1!
It's hard to get really well written FR stories.
Djordje (Yes, I am both a FR/GH fan thank you. ;p)
Lazybones
Adventurer
Book IV, Part 3
Lok took the first spear on his shield, but the second slammed hard into his shoulder. Although his magical plate mail held, the force of the impact sent tendrils of pain through his body as he staggered back a step. The ogres, holding the high ground at the top of the stairs, and partially screened by low mounds of rubble, reached for more spears.
Lok, of course, charged.
Behind him, Benzan drew his bow in a single smooth motion, sighting and firing a long steel-tipped arrow. His quiver was nearly empty, as they had exhausted all of the bundles of arrows that Lok had stockpiled in his bag of holding in the course of their adventures on the Isle of Dread. Still, this arrow found its mark, scoring revenge for the hit on Lok as it stuck deep into the shoulder of one of the ogres.
Behind Benzan, however, Dana was not particularly impressed with the tiefling’s marksmanship. “You’re blocking the way out!” she yelled, as she pushed past him out the narrow opening. The delay gave Cal just enough time to touch his wand of mage armor to Dana as she passed, protecting her with its potent aura. Benzan bit back an angry response and followed her. The others were close behind, with Delem and Elly pausing only to help the shorter Cal make his way up through the narrow opening.
Lok charged heedlessly across the cracked, rubble-strewn floor toward the stairs, his booted feet finding secure purchase on the uneven surface. The ogres hurled another pair of spears at him, but even with their incredible strength the missiles glanced harmlessly off the heavily armored figure of the genasi fighter. As he reached the stairs and started up the ogres unlimbered huge axes that looked mighty enough to fell a not-inconsiderable tree with a single powerful stroke. Lok did not hesitate, although as he rushed up the stairs he could make out the sounds of other creatures moving through the ruin, approaching the site of the battle. He knew that his companions would be quick to come to his aid, and he didn’t want to give the lamia and her allies time to adjust to their emergence from the underground tunnel.
He paid the price a moment later, as the first ogre, with its far superior reach, slammed its axe hard into Lok’s torso.
Benzan saw his friend take a hit that would have crushed the life out of most warriors, even the most stalwart. Lok staggered, but did not go down, and the tiefling knew that the genasi had a lot of fight left in him. He also knew, however, that even Lok could not take many hits like that one. The second ogre was moving to engage the hard-pressed warrior from the opposite flank, but staggered as Benzan fired his bow twice in rapid succession. Both arrows stuck in the thick hides that the ogre wore about its torso, and one bit deeper, stabbing through into the leathery flesh underneath. The ogre let out a roar of pain, and rushed down the stairs in a fiery rage at this troublesome archer that had now wounded it twice.
Only Dana was already coming up the stairs, blocking its path.
The ogre barely registered this puny human female as a threat, and almost ran right over her in its fury to get at Benzan. Its impression changed, however, as Dana sliced into its exposed calf with her kama. The wound was superficial, but it drew a response. The ogre brought its axe around in a mighty arc, forcing Dana to quickly dodge back. The edge of the huge blade just brushed against her torso as she dove to the side, but the mage armor that Cal had placed around her protected her, if only just barely.
The delay cost the massive creature, however. A pair of magical bolts from Delem streaked into its chest, blazing holes in the matted hides and leaving smoking craters in its flesh. Cal attempted to lull it to sleep with a spell of his own, but the gnome’s magic had no effect upon it.
“They must be tougher than normal ogres,” the gnome remarked to no one in particular. “Be careful!”
“Yeah, thanks,” Benzan said, as he drew his sword and rushed to help Dana against the wounded but still-dangerous behemoth. Elly fired her crossbow at it, but her shot too stuck harmlessly in the thick hides it wore.
Lok, meanwhile, had closed to melee range against his adversary, and as his axe finally came into play he began to strike telling blows against his adversary. The ogre held its ground, however, giving at least a part of what it got with its own massive weapon. Lok was hurting, now, and his situation was not improved when another pair of ogres appeared from the rubble just a few paces away. One immediately rushed to flank Lok, while the second moved to assist its fellow engaged with the remainder of the companions below.
Just a stone’s throw further away, out of sight behind a low wall of crumbling stone, S’reth approached the edges of the battle. It was her fault that the ogres had been split and unable to react quickly to the emergence of the companions from the tunnel; she’d taken a pair to guard her while she searched for the scroll. Now she held that prize in her hands while her servants raged against the beings she’d inadvertently summoned. She clambered upon a pile of rubble at the base of the wall and risked a look over it, hoping that the course of action she was considering would not be necessary.
The ogres fought with berserker rage, swinging their deadly axes with speed and skill. The ogres of the far north were renown for their toughness, even among a species already famous for its ferocity. But they were engaged with opponents who had faced many horrible challenges together and emerged victorious. The companions fought as a team, complementing each other’s strengths and covering their weaknesses.
Lok stood his ground against a pair of adversaries, focusing his own attacks on the ogre he’d already wounded. He deflected a glancing blow on his shield, but was unable to avoid the flanking attack of the newcomer, and felt pain blossom through his lower body as the axe slammed down hard on his armored hip. The genasi gritted his teeth and launched another sequence of attacks on the wounded ogre, chopping into its leg with the full force of his strength. Predictably, the ogre lurched forward as the crippled limb gave way, and as it fell Lok brought his axe down hard onto the side of its neck. The ogre went down hard, and did not move to get up again. Even as he turned to face his remaining adversary, however, Lok took another hit, a sweeping stroke that only just caught the top of his helmet but which left his head ringing as he tried to recover.
His raging opponent continued to press him, and suddenly things were looking grim for the hard-pressed fighter.
His companions were having difficulties of their own, however. As the second ogre rushed down the steps to join in the melee, its axe raised to strike, Cal summoned the power of an illusion. With a burst of smoke a figure appeared in the air directly ahead of the charging ogre, causing it to draw up in surprise. The illusion was difficult to ignore, for the slithering form that Cal had chosen to create was that of a kopru, the sinister and terrible creatures that they had confronted in the underground bowels of the Isle of Dread. The hovering creature was easily the size of the ogre, and its hooked tentacles darted and wove in the air as it lunged at the confused barbarian.
The ogre responded in the time-honored barbarian fashion—it attacked. Its axe of course passed harmlessly though the figment, but Cal had his creation rear up and hover directly over the ogre’s face, tentacles flailing in an undamaging but confusing display.
Delem, meanwhile, stepped to the side, carefully aligning his targets as he called upon the power of his magic once more. The flames rose eagerly to his call, extending in an arc from his outstretched hand into his enemies. The young sorcerer’s experience in targeting his magic showed clearly as the stream of flame lashed first into the lead ogre, and then continued into the second. Both let out cries of pain as the flames splashed over their exposed flesh.
But there was a lot of fight left in the ogres, as Benzan found out to his dismay as he leapt to the attack against the critically injured lead ogre. His sword flashed in the wake of Delem’s fading flames, and penetrated into the creature’s exposed side. The ogre staggered as yet another attack hit home, but to Benzan surprise it still managed to bring its axe around for a defensive strike. Benzan reacted just a shade too late, and the heavy edge caught him hard on the side of the neck. The mithral links of his hauberk kept his head attached to his shoulders, but the blow still tore a deep gash in his throat, releasing a gushing deluge of hot blood as he spun into a crumpled heap on the rough stone.
The ogre did not have time to enjoy its victory, however, as a bolt from Elly’s crossbow slammed into its throat, finally pushing it over that line that served as the border between life and death. It staggered backward and fell into its companion, who was still trying to shake off the confusing presence of Cal’s illusion.
Dana let out a startled cry and dove toward Benzan’s side. The tiefling, somehow still conscious as his lifeblood poured from the vicious wound, saw the young woman’s face framed against the gray sky above. He tried to say something, but the words were lost in the red haze that swam across his vision and dragged him down into unconsciousness. The last thing he saw was a dark shadow that seemed to creep up on him, a vague presence that somehow filled him with a sensation of unrelenting terror. It was familiar, that presence, calling to him…
“Damn you, don’t die on me!” Dana cried out, trying to hold the gaping wound in Benzan’s throat together with her hands while she called upon the power of Selûne. She saw the light in Benzan’s eyes fade, then his face became blurred as tears filled her eyes. She was only dimly aware of the battle still raging around her, her attention focused entirely on saving the fallen tiefling’s life. The sudden flow of healing energy through her into the battered warrior. Dana brushed aside her tears with the back of a bloody hand as she looked down at Benzan’s face. The wound had closed, but there was no other sign of life.
“No…” she whispered.
Then, suddenly, Benzan’s chest rose and his mouth opened as he drew in a breath. He was still unconscious, still pale from the incredible loss of blood, but once again the tiefling had stepped back from death’s door.
As soon as Benzan went down, Delem found himself moving to aid his wounded friend. Dana reached Benzan first, however, and for all his concern he could not help feel a familiar pang of jealously as the priestess of Selûne tended to the fallen warrior.
For the moment, however, there were other, more pressing concerns, as the second ogre, its head still shrouded by the persistent flailings of Cal’s illusory kopru, staggered blindly down the steps to where Dana was crouched over Benzan. Even blinded, Delem knew that the ogre would easily trample the pair. Cal was still concentrating on maintaining the illusion, and Elly could not stand before the creature. Lok was engaged in a desperate combat of his own, and could not intervene.
So it was up to him.
He moved to the side, so that the ogre would have to turn aside from Dana to get to him. He would have liked to have summoned a protective shield, but there was no time. Instead, he reached a position on the ogre’s flank, and with a confidence he didn’t fully feel shouted, “Over here, you stupid brute!”
Just in case it didn’t hear him, he followed the challenge with an Aganazzar’s scorcher, blasting another row of fire across the ogre’s torso. The ogre spun and faced the sorcerer, ignoring the distraction of Cal’s illusion in its rage and lumbering down the final stretch of stairs to reach him. Delem retreated a few steps, only his mental discipline keeping him from outright flight, although there was no place for him to go to escape the creature’s attack.
Still, he tried. He waited until the last instant to dodge the inexorable course of the ogre’s axe, but could not fully avoid the stroke that tore through his coat and dug a deep gash in his unprotected side. He groaned as he spun with the impact and nearly stumbled on the loose rubble underfoot, all too aware that the ogre was lifting its axe to strike again.
“Um, excuse me,” Cal’s voice came from behind the monster’s knee. The ogre looked down in surprise at the diminutive form of the gnome, just in time to take a color spray right in the face. The ogre staggered, stunned by the brilliant display of colors.
Delem took advantage of the respite and fired a fan of flames from his fingertips into the ogre’s side, ravaging its lower body. From the opposite flank, Cal reached out and lightly brushed the ogre’s leg with his fingertips. An arc of electrical energy fired from his hand into the ogre, tearing mercilessly into it.
The ogre, painfully hurt by the twin attacks, recovered from the effects of the color spray and tried to sweep its axe against the magi hurting it, but the huge weapon dropped from nerveless fingers to clatter on the hard stone. Delem and Cal dodged aside in surprise as the creature toppled forward, revealing Elly, her magical spear clutched tightly in her hands, its head bloody from where she had plunged it into the ogre’s back.
The three looked up the stair to see a massive form tumbling down toward them. It was the final ogre, its body ravaged from multiple blows of Lok’s axe, and as it fell they could see Lok standing at the top of the stair looking down at them. The genasi bled openly from a number of deep gashes, and he looked as though he could barely hold his axe, but he had defeated both of his adversaries.
“Lok, look out!” Delem cried, as another form appeared from the ruins behind the battered genasi.
* * * * *
S’reth watched the desperate melee, transfixed by the titanic struggle between her ogres and the adventurers. For a long moment, when one of them struck down their tiefling leader, she though that her intervention would not be necessary, but then her adversaries rallied and began to decimate the last vestiges of her band.
While Lok was struggling against his final opponent and Cal and Delem were squaring off against their ogre, S’reth crept back down from the wall and unrolled the scroll. Spidery runes ran across the page in neat lines, forming words written in the language of magic. S’reth understood that speech, although the spell written there was well beyond her own magical abilities, and she only dimly understood the nature of the power trapped therein. The scroll had been scribed by Marag himself, not that long before T’roth and his cronies had finally killed the old sorcerer.
Still, with no other options left to her, she began to read.
She read through the entire scroll, not even sure if she was pronouncing all of the mystical syllables correctly, and when she finished she wondered if her attempt had failed. Even as she stared at the scroll, though, the runes flashed and began to dissolve, and she felt power flow into her half-human, half-leonine form.
Her heart froze in horror as the power twisted inside her, wreaking the transformative power of the strange and potent magic of the scroll. She felt herself changing, her mind clouding under the intrusive touch of the magic. She could not escape even if she’d wanted to; it was too late, and her last conscious thought before the magic took her fully was that she’d read the spell wrong, that her quest for power and vengeance had finally led her to a foolhardy final choice.
Then the magic swept all that doubt and indecision away, and she laughed as the power of the transformation filled her.
She felt her earlier weakness fade, replaced by strength. The pain of her wounds was replaced by a feeling of hardiness, and she felt her blood surge within her with the promise of vitality. She lifted her dagger, a puny weapon, but it would do, for now.
Her powerful limbs carried her in a smooth rush around the wall. She caught sight of the dwarf fighter, barely able to stand at the top of the stairs, and did not hesitate. She came on in a full charge, and even as the injured warrior turned, she slammed her blade with the full force of her newfound strength into him. She felt the welcome crunch of steel penetrating steel, and the warrior crumbled. She laughed and kicked out with her front limbs, normally weak and useless as weapons, and the genasi tumbled down the steps, following in the traces of the ogre he’d just slain.
The lamia regarded the puny beings that faced her at the bottom of the stairs, and laughed again. She reached down and picked up the weapon that the genasi had dropped, a battleaxe with a blade slick with the blood of her ogres. The axe flared slightly to her touch, the blade surrounded by a nimbus of cold energy that seemed almost alive.
How excellent.
The lamia charged.
* * * * *
I'm heading to New York tomorrow for a five-day vacation, and will have the next post up when I return. Sorry to leave you on a cliff-hanger! (I'm sure you're used to it by now...
)
Thanks for reading,
LB
Lok took the first spear on his shield, but the second slammed hard into his shoulder. Although his magical plate mail held, the force of the impact sent tendrils of pain through his body as he staggered back a step. The ogres, holding the high ground at the top of the stairs, and partially screened by low mounds of rubble, reached for more spears.
Lok, of course, charged.
Behind him, Benzan drew his bow in a single smooth motion, sighting and firing a long steel-tipped arrow. His quiver was nearly empty, as they had exhausted all of the bundles of arrows that Lok had stockpiled in his bag of holding in the course of their adventures on the Isle of Dread. Still, this arrow found its mark, scoring revenge for the hit on Lok as it stuck deep into the shoulder of one of the ogres.
Behind Benzan, however, Dana was not particularly impressed with the tiefling’s marksmanship. “You’re blocking the way out!” she yelled, as she pushed past him out the narrow opening. The delay gave Cal just enough time to touch his wand of mage armor to Dana as she passed, protecting her with its potent aura. Benzan bit back an angry response and followed her. The others were close behind, with Delem and Elly pausing only to help the shorter Cal make his way up through the narrow opening.
Lok charged heedlessly across the cracked, rubble-strewn floor toward the stairs, his booted feet finding secure purchase on the uneven surface. The ogres hurled another pair of spears at him, but even with their incredible strength the missiles glanced harmlessly off the heavily armored figure of the genasi fighter. As he reached the stairs and started up the ogres unlimbered huge axes that looked mighty enough to fell a not-inconsiderable tree with a single powerful stroke. Lok did not hesitate, although as he rushed up the stairs he could make out the sounds of other creatures moving through the ruin, approaching the site of the battle. He knew that his companions would be quick to come to his aid, and he didn’t want to give the lamia and her allies time to adjust to their emergence from the underground tunnel.
He paid the price a moment later, as the first ogre, with its far superior reach, slammed its axe hard into Lok’s torso.
Benzan saw his friend take a hit that would have crushed the life out of most warriors, even the most stalwart. Lok staggered, but did not go down, and the tiefling knew that the genasi had a lot of fight left in him. He also knew, however, that even Lok could not take many hits like that one. The second ogre was moving to engage the hard-pressed warrior from the opposite flank, but staggered as Benzan fired his bow twice in rapid succession. Both arrows stuck in the thick hides that the ogre wore about its torso, and one bit deeper, stabbing through into the leathery flesh underneath. The ogre let out a roar of pain, and rushed down the stairs in a fiery rage at this troublesome archer that had now wounded it twice.
Only Dana was already coming up the stairs, blocking its path.
The ogre barely registered this puny human female as a threat, and almost ran right over her in its fury to get at Benzan. Its impression changed, however, as Dana sliced into its exposed calf with her kama. The wound was superficial, but it drew a response. The ogre brought its axe around in a mighty arc, forcing Dana to quickly dodge back. The edge of the huge blade just brushed against her torso as she dove to the side, but the mage armor that Cal had placed around her protected her, if only just barely.
The delay cost the massive creature, however. A pair of magical bolts from Delem streaked into its chest, blazing holes in the matted hides and leaving smoking craters in its flesh. Cal attempted to lull it to sleep with a spell of his own, but the gnome’s magic had no effect upon it.
“They must be tougher than normal ogres,” the gnome remarked to no one in particular. “Be careful!”
“Yeah, thanks,” Benzan said, as he drew his sword and rushed to help Dana against the wounded but still-dangerous behemoth. Elly fired her crossbow at it, but her shot too stuck harmlessly in the thick hides it wore.
Lok, meanwhile, had closed to melee range against his adversary, and as his axe finally came into play he began to strike telling blows against his adversary. The ogre held its ground, however, giving at least a part of what it got with its own massive weapon. Lok was hurting, now, and his situation was not improved when another pair of ogres appeared from the rubble just a few paces away. One immediately rushed to flank Lok, while the second moved to assist its fellow engaged with the remainder of the companions below.
Just a stone’s throw further away, out of sight behind a low wall of crumbling stone, S’reth approached the edges of the battle. It was her fault that the ogres had been split and unable to react quickly to the emergence of the companions from the tunnel; she’d taken a pair to guard her while she searched for the scroll. Now she held that prize in her hands while her servants raged against the beings she’d inadvertently summoned. She clambered upon a pile of rubble at the base of the wall and risked a look over it, hoping that the course of action she was considering would not be necessary.
The ogres fought with berserker rage, swinging their deadly axes with speed and skill. The ogres of the far north were renown for their toughness, even among a species already famous for its ferocity. But they were engaged with opponents who had faced many horrible challenges together and emerged victorious. The companions fought as a team, complementing each other’s strengths and covering their weaknesses.
Lok stood his ground against a pair of adversaries, focusing his own attacks on the ogre he’d already wounded. He deflected a glancing blow on his shield, but was unable to avoid the flanking attack of the newcomer, and felt pain blossom through his lower body as the axe slammed down hard on his armored hip. The genasi gritted his teeth and launched another sequence of attacks on the wounded ogre, chopping into its leg with the full force of his strength. Predictably, the ogre lurched forward as the crippled limb gave way, and as it fell Lok brought his axe down hard onto the side of its neck. The ogre went down hard, and did not move to get up again. Even as he turned to face his remaining adversary, however, Lok took another hit, a sweeping stroke that only just caught the top of his helmet but which left his head ringing as he tried to recover.
His raging opponent continued to press him, and suddenly things were looking grim for the hard-pressed fighter.
His companions were having difficulties of their own, however. As the second ogre rushed down the steps to join in the melee, its axe raised to strike, Cal summoned the power of an illusion. With a burst of smoke a figure appeared in the air directly ahead of the charging ogre, causing it to draw up in surprise. The illusion was difficult to ignore, for the slithering form that Cal had chosen to create was that of a kopru, the sinister and terrible creatures that they had confronted in the underground bowels of the Isle of Dread. The hovering creature was easily the size of the ogre, and its hooked tentacles darted and wove in the air as it lunged at the confused barbarian.
The ogre responded in the time-honored barbarian fashion—it attacked. Its axe of course passed harmlessly though the figment, but Cal had his creation rear up and hover directly over the ogre’s face, tentacles flailing in an undamaging but confusing display.
Delem, meanwhile, stepped to the side, carefully aligning his targets as he called upon the power of his magic once more. The flames rose eagerly to his call, extending in an arc from his outstretched hand into his enemies. The young sorcerer’s experience in targeting his magic showed clearly as the stream of flame lashed first into the lead ogre, and then continued into the second. Both let out cries of pain as the flames splashed over their exposed flesh.
But there was a lot of fight left in the ogres, as Benzan found out to his dismay as he leapt to the attack against the critically injured lead ogre. His sword flashed in the wake of Delem’s fading flames, and penetrated into the creature’s exposed side. The ogre staggered as yet another attack hit home, but to Benzan surprise it still managed to bring its axe around for a defensive strike. Benzan reacted just a shade too late, and the heavy edge caught him hard on the side of the neck. The mithral links of his hauberk kept his head attached to his shoulders, but the blow still tore a deep gash in his throat, releasing a gushing deluge of hot blood as he spun into a crumpled heap on the rough stone.
The ogre did not have time to enjoy its victory, however, as a bolt from Elly’s crossbow slammed into its throat, finally pushing it over that line that served as the border between life and death. It staggered backward and fell into its companion, who was still trying to shake off the confusing presence of Cal’s illusion.
Dana let out a startled cry and dove toward Benzan’s side. The tiefling, somehow still conscious as his lifeblood poured from the vicious wound, saw the young woman’s face framed against the gray sky above. He tried to say something, but the words were lost in the red haze that swam across his vision and dragged him down into unconsciousness. The last thing he saw was a dark shadow that seemed to creep up on him, a vague presence that somehow filled him with a sensation of unrelenting terror. It was familiar, that presence, calling to him…
“Damn you, don’t die on me!” Dana cried out, trying to hold the gaping wound in Benzan’s throat together with her hands while she called upon the power of Selûne. She saw the light in Benzan’s eyes fade, then his face became blurred as tears filled her eyes. She was only dimly aware of the battle still raging around her, her attention focused entirely on saving the fallen tiefling’s life. The sudden flow of healing energy through her into the battered warrior. Dana brushed aside her tears with the back of a bloody hand as she looked down at Benzan’s face. The wound had closed, but there was no other sign of life.
“No…” she whispered.
Then, suddenly, Benzan’s chest rose and his mouth opened as he drew in a breath. He was still unconscious, still pale from the incredible loss of blood, but once again the tiefling had stepped back from death’s door.
As soon as Benzan went down, Delem found himself moving to aid his wounded friend. Dana reached Benzan first, however, and for all his concern he could not help feel a familiar pang of jealously as the priestess of Selûne tended to the fallen warrior.
For the moment, however, there were other, more pressing concerns, as the second ogre, its head still shrouded by the persistent flailings of Cal’s illusory kopru, staggered blindly down the steps to where Dana was crouched over Benzan. Even blinded, Delem knew that the ogre would easily trample the pair. Cal was still concentrating on maintaining the illusion, and Elly could not stand before the creature. Lok was engaged in a desperate combat of his own, and could not intervene.
So it was up to him.
He moved to the side, so that the ogre would have to turn aside from Dana to get to him. He would have liked to have summoned a protective shield, but there was no time. Instead, he reached a position on the ogre’s flank, and with a confidence he didn’t fully feel shouted, “Over here, you stupid brute!”
Just in case it didn’t hear him, he followed the challenge with an Aganazzar’s scorcher, blasting another row of fire across the ogre’s torso. The ogre spun and faced the sorcerer, ignoring the distraction of Cal’s illusion in its rage and lumbering down the final stretch of stairs to reach him. Delem retreated a few steps, only his mental discipline keeping him from outright flight, although there was no place for him to go to escape the creature’s attack.
Still, he tried. He waited until the last instant to dodge the inexorable course of the ogre’s axe, but could not fully avoid the stroke that tore through his coat and dug a deep gash in his unprotected side. He groaned as he spun with the impact and nearly stumbled on the loose rubble underfoot, all too aware that the ogre was lifting its axe to strike again.
“Um, excuse me,” Cal’s voice came from behind the monster’s knee. The ogre looked down in surprise at the diminutive form of the gnome, just in time to take a color spray right in the face. The ogre staggered, stunned by the brilliant display of colors.
Delem took advantage of the respite and fired a fan of flames from his fingertips into the ogre’s side, ravaging its lower body. From the opposite flank, Cal reached out and lightly brushed the ogre’s leg with his fingertips. An arc of electrical energy fired from his hand into the ogre, tearing mercilessly into it.
The ogre, painfully hurt by the twin attacks, recovered from the effects of the color spray and tried to sweep its axe against the magi hurting it, but the huge weapon dropped from nerveless fingers to clatter on the hard stone. Delem and Cal dodged aside in surprise as the creature toppled forward, revealing Elly, her magical spear clutched tightly in her hands, its head bloody from where she had plunged it into the ogre’s back.
The three looked up the stair to see a massive form tumbling down toward them. It was the final ogre, its body ravaged from multiple blows of Lok’s axe, and as it fell they could see Lok standing at the top of the stair looking down at them. The genasi bled openly from a number of deep gashes, and he looked as though he could barely hold his axe, but he had defeated both of his adversaries.
“Lok, look out!” Delem cried, as another form appeared from the ruins behind the battered genasi.
* * * * *
S’reth watched the desperate melee, transfixed by the titanic struggle between her ogres and the adventurers. For a long moment, when one of them struck down their tiefling leader, she though that her intervention would not be necessary, but then her adversaries rallied and began to decimate the last vestiges of her band.
While Lok was struggling against his final opponent and Cal and Delem were squaring off against their ogre, S’reth crept back down from the wall and unrolled the scroll. Spidery runes ran across the page in neat lines, forming words written in the language of magic. S’reth understood that speech, although the spell written there was well beyond her own magical abilities, and she only dimly understood the nature of the power trapped therein. The scroll had been scribed by Marag himself, not that long before T’roth and his cronies had finally killed the old sorcerer.
Still, with no other options left to her, she began to read.
She read through the entire scroll, not even sure if she was pronouncing all of the mystical syllables correctly, and when she finished she wondered if her attempt had failed. Even as she stared at the scroll, though, the runes flashed and began to dissolve, and she felt power flow into her half-human, half-leonine form.
Her heart froze in horror as the power twisted inside her, wreaking the transformative power of the strange and potent magic of the scroll. She felt herself changing, her mind clouding under the intrusive touch of the magic. She could not escape even if she’d wanted to; it was too late, and her last conscious thought before the magic took her fully was that she’d read the spell wrong, that her quest for power and vengeance had finally led her to a foolhardy final choice.
Then the magic swept all that doubt and indecision away, and she laughed as the power of the transformation filled her.
She felt her earlier weakness fade, replaced by strength. The pain of her wounds was replaced by a feeling of hardiness, and she felt her blood surge within her with the promise of vitality. She lifted her dagger, a puny weapon, but it would do, for now.
Her powerful limbs carried her in a smooth rush around the wall. She caught sight of the dwarf fighter, barely able to stand at the top of the stairs, and did not hesitate. She came on in a full charge, and even as the injured warrior turned, she slammed her blade with the full force of her newfound strength into him. She felt the welcome crunch of steel penetrating steel, and the warrior crumbled. She laughed and kicked out with her front limbs, normally weak and useless as weapons, and the genasi tumbled down the steps, following in the traces of the ogre he’d just slain.
The lamia regarded the puny beings that faced her at the bottom of the stairs, and laughed again. She reached down and picked up the weapon that the genasi had dropped, a battleaxe with a blade slick with the blood of her ogres. The axe flared slightly to her touch, the blade surrounded by a nimbus of cold energy that seemed almost alive.
How excellent.
The lamia charged.
* * * * *
I'm heading to New York tomorrow for a five-day vacation, and will have the next post up when I return. Sorry to leave you on a cliff-hanger! (I'm sure you're used to it by now...
)Thanks for reading,
LB
