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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 530660" data-attributes="member: 143">Book VII, Part 13The half-dozen massive stag beetles scuttled forward.  They didn’t move very fast for their size, but they didn’t have that far to go before reaching the companions.  The four adventurers did not wait for them to close the range.  Even as Lok stepped forward and hefted his axe, the others were launching spells and attacks.  Flaming arrows appeared from empty air as Benzan rapidly plied his bow, and even though the beetles’ carapaces seemed as hard as armor, a violent screech told of at least one hit telling.  Cal cleared his mind for another spell.  Beside him, Dana looked about to do the same, but she found herself fighting the reins in her hand as her horse backed away, panicked by the appearance of the beetles.  The others had already either dropped their reins as they prepared for battle, or hastily lashed them to whatever was nearby.  Benzan’s horse was tied to a wagon shell close to the approaching beetles, and the animal neighed in desperate fear as it reared and tried to get free.  Its struggles only attracted one of the beetles, which made its way toward the trapped horse.  Dana cursed as her horse dragged her off balance.  She dropped her spear and hurriedly wrapped the reins around a sapling that tilted at an angle just off the road.  Leaving the horse, she quickly recovered her spear and returned to the fray.Lok stood his ground, waiting for the first beetle to reach him.  The ground shook with the combined weight of the six giant vermin, but as the first loomed over him he felt a surge of magic flow into him.  With his speed boosted by Cal’s magical haste, he tore into the beetle’s head with his axe.  Even without the rime of magical frost from his old familiar weapon, now resting in a room deep under the ground hundreds of miles away, his new blade tore deeply into the thing’s hide.  Fetid ichor sprayed onto his arm as the beetle snapped at him with its mandibles, but with his enhanced speed he easily brought his shield around in time to block.  The thing’s sheer weight threatened to drive him back and overpower him, but with a yell he unleashed a flurry of powerful strokes, his axe tearing vicious gashes in the beetle’s head.  Before the thing could manage another attack it shuddered as a final blow slammed hard into its braincase, and collapsed to the ground in a quivering heap.Before he could rejoice in his victory, though, he turned just in time to see a second beetle that surged over him, trampling him into the ground.  Cal found himself unpleasantly exposed as a pair of beetles surged toward him.  In a flash he quickly catalogued his remaining spells; while a polymorph could transform one into a harmless form, casting the spell on an unwilling foe depended largely on overcoming its inherent fortitude—and these beetles looked pretty tough, from his current vantage.  A web might immobilize them briefly, but with them already on the road there was no way to place the spell that would not capture Lok and possibly Benzan as well.  Reluctantly, he drew out his wand of color spray, and as the beetles entered its range unleashed a barrage of blinding light.  Even if the beetles were too tough to knock out, the display should stun them for at least a few seconds, give him and Dana time to act...Only when the colors dissolved, the beetles were lumbering toward him, unaffected.Benzan continued to ply his bow at his chosen target, even as it turned aside and chittered eagerly toward the wagon where his horse grew increasingly and understandably desperate in its struggles.  He trusted in Cal’s invisibility to protect him as the creature trampled past within a few paces of where he was standing.  Three smoldering arrows already jutted from holes he’d blasted in its armored form, but the stupid thing seemed ignorant of its pains as it focused on its prey.  The tiefling shouted in a last-ditch effort to draw its attention, but instead of turning it swept forward and snapped its mandibles firmly around the torso of his hapless horse.  The horse screamed as a loud snap filled the clearing, then went down thrashing as the beetle drove it forward from the wagon.  The reins, still fastened to the burned out shell, tore a huge chunk of wood free and dragged after the vermin and its meal. “Damn...” Benzan said.  He raised his bow to fire again, but turned as he heard a familiar cry from behind him.  Lok felt the mass of the beetle over him, pressing him down roughly into the damp ground, threatening to smash him through sheer weight.  Grunting he shifted his arms and planted his weight firmly, heaving up with a strength that forced the beetle off two of its legs as it pivoted and tried to get at the crunchy morsel it had trampled.  The beetle slid off his armored body and twisted to bring its mandibles to bear, but staggered as Lok slammed his axe into its side.  Its carapace cracked as the axe tore through into the soft flesh underneath, and the beetle let out a screech that grated like fingernails on slate.  Lok raised his axe to strike again, but before he could attack he sensed another large form looming behind him.  Before he could fully turn he felt something like iron bands snap around him, and a massive weight crushing his body squeezed him tightly within his armor, the metal plates bending under the stress.  He tried to twist free, but it was like fighting against the inexorable press of a mountain.  Looking up, he saw the wounded beetle had turned and was coming forward, its own mandibles working eagerly as they sought to tear free their own bit of flesh from this troublesome snack.Cal gave way as the beetles surged at him.  He leapt aside as the first nearly trampled him, and even though he avoided being caught under it he felt a thick leg clip his side and knock him roughly aside.  He managed to roll with the impact and come back onto his feet, just in time to see the second beetle charging straight toward him, mandibles snapping toward his head.The battle was not going well.</blockquote>

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