NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 722971" data-attributes="member: 143">Indeed, Dungannon: Book VIII will be the final book of Travels, and it won't be nearly as long as Book VII (more like about the length of the earlier books, 30 chapters or so).  I've already started it, although as always I'll likely take a break for a while before I start posting, perhaps request temporary mod powers and prune the thread some.  I've already plotted out the dramatic conclusion of the series (at least I hope it's dramatic <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> ), and there will be an epilogue that reveals something of the ultimate fate of the survivors of the little band that first met at a lonely crossroads out in the empty vastness of the Western Heartlands. But for now, the conclusion of Book VII.  Thanks all for reading and the many positive comments from my regular readers, as well as those who delurk to offer the occasional praise.  * * * * * Book VII, Part 54Delem held the thunderlance a pace away from Benzan, who could do nothing to stop him from thrusting it into his body and ending him. “Time to die, ‘friend’.”His arm tensed, but before he could release that short killing thrust, Delem jerked suddenly back.  Tendrils of white electrical energy flashed from the head of the arrow stuck in his shoulder, adding to the damage from Lariel’s arrow.  Delem turned to face them—the elf, standing in the entry to the chamber, flanked by Cal on one side and Lok on the other.  “Give over, Delem!” Cal said, his voice billowing to fill the room.  “Never,” the sorcerer hissed.  He glanced at Guthan, and said, “Kill them!”  As the undead former-cleric started forward, he lifted his hand and called once more upon his magic. But the companions were ready for him.  Even as he spoke the first word of his spell, a bolt of acid from Cal’s wand struck the sorcerer in the chest.  Delem, caught by surprise, clearly felt the pain this time as the acid burned into the mottled flesh of his demonic skin, and he staggered backward, his spell lost.  Cal was already running forward, but toward the motionless form of Dana, not toward their foe.  By the speed of his movements, it was clear that he’d once again enhanced himself with haste.  Lok rushed straight for Guthan, his axe raised to strike, while Lariel calmly stepped to the side and readied another arrow, tracking the movements of the wounded sorcerer.  He held his fire, waiting for the signs of another casting.  Lok met the undead cleric in the center of the room, the two exchanging all-out blows from their weapons.  The fallen priest’s mace clanged loudly off of the genasi’s shield, while the warrior’s return stroke clove deeply into the torso of the undead thing.  Guthan stumbled and nearly fell, his body torn with a rent that would have sent any living creature instantly into death, but the unholy life force that inhabited the human shell drove him on to attack.  He managed to stagger back up to his feet and lift the mace again, but before he could strike, Lok’s axe came around in another deadly arc, backed by the full force of the genasi warrior’s strength, and severed his head from his shoulders.  Delem tried another spell, but Lariel’s aim was once again true, penetrating the sorcerer’s defenses and slamming this time half the length of the shaft into Delem’s side.  His body now rent by wounds and punctures, somehow Delem still stood, and kept his feet.  His eyes shone with an unholy light as he staggered forward, picking up speed as he lowered the point of the thunderlance toward Lok’s head.  Cal crouched by Dana’s side, fearing for the worst.  He saw the dark blotch that had spread across half her face, and quickly diagnosed what had happened to her.  He held his breath as he checked her pulse, feeling a flood of relief as he detected the faintest hint of a heartbeat, an erratic throb of someone just clinging to this side of death’s door.  His own healing wand had been spent earlier, but he quickly found Dana’s, still in her pouch.  He knew that she’d used it heavily to treat the ailing Asbravners, and whispered a silent prayer as he pressed it to her face and called upon its power.  He felt relief as the familiar blue glow spread out from the wand into her body, a flow that he augmented by singing a soft melody, a song empowered with the intricate flows of his own healing magic.  She did not stir, but he continued to work both magics, pouring life into the body of the ravaged woman.  “Lok, look out!” Lariel’s warning came even as Lok spun from the headless, collapsing body of Guthan, and Delem charged in from the side toward the genasi.  The thunderlance came on toward Lok’s face, but jerked to the side at the last moment as a final arrow sank into the sorcerer’s arm, the long shaft jutting through his bicep and out the other side.  Lok lifted his axe—reluctantly, it was clear—and swung.  The head of the weapon crashed into Delem’s chest just below the breastbone, knocking him off his feet to slam heavily to the floor a few feet away.  Lariel had started toward Benzan, another arrow nocked and ready just in case, but the tiefling had already stirred, and was fumbling with the cork of a healing potion he’d taken from his bag.  Cal was still tending to Dana, so it was Lok alone who stepped forward to stand over the fallen man.  Delem was still conscious, but blood flecked his lips and ran in twin currents down his cheeks, and more bubbled up from the gaping holes in his torso.  He looked up, his eyes already glazing, and it was with great difficulty that he managed to focus on Lok.  The genasi had already dug into his pouch for a healing potion, but the sorcerer shook his head. “Don’t bother,” he managed to say, weakly. There was a stir of movement behind the genasi, and the others came up to join him.  Dana was leaning on Lariel, her features still deathly pale, and Benzan, limping with blackened char crusting his exposed skin, seemed little better off.  “Heal him!” Dana urged, but Cal had already moved to kneel at the sorcerer’s side.  Dana’s wand was empty, and he’d used all his own spells, but he still had the minor curative power within his magical lyre, which he strummed as he concentrated on the dying man.  “I’m sorry...” Delem said.  “I’m sorry, for everything.”  He seemed lucid, but as the blue glow of healing spread into him, he stiffened.  “He has me still... I cannot escape his grasp, even here.”  With a great effort, he managed to lift himself up enough to stare at Dana.  The young woman stood there as if paralyzed, unable to look away.  “I love you,” he said.  “Don’t come for me.”Then his body twisted, wracked by some internal agony that they knew was not related to his wounds.  Lok tried to hold him, to pour the potion down his throat, but he coughed up most of the liquid, shaking his head.  Suddenly, his entire body grew rigid, and then... deflated.  It was as if all of the inner stuff of his body suddenly dissolved, muscles and bones and organs alike, and his alien skin sagged limply, an empty shell, distending into something almost unrecognizable.   A glowing outline was momentarily visible, superimposed on the form that had just been the body of their friend.  Even as that body dissolved, the form began to shimmer, twisting and fading into an ever-smaller point, until it—and what was left of the physical remnants of Delem—disappeared. The last thing that they heard was a faint echo, a whisper of a cry that sounded like a drawn out, lingering scream.  Then they were left in silence, with only Dana’s sobbing breaking the utter quiet. “Delem!” she cried, a sound of despair.  “DELEM!”END OF BOOK SEVEN</blockquote>

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