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: 854265" data-attributes="member: 143">There's a bit of a twist to this one: a bonus to the reader who figures it out:* * * * * Book VIII, Part 23The demon roared something incoherent, and took a tentative step forward, and then another. “Foul demon!” Dana hissed, her face tight with fear and anger.  Her companions were already moving, with Benzan fitting a long shaft to his bow, Lok hefting his magical axe, and Cal dipping his fingers into his pouch for the components to a spell.  The demon cried out again, a harsh, guttural sound, but the companions were already moving to the attack, all too aware that even a moment’s pause would give their foe the chance to summon any one of an endless variety of potent spell-powers upon them.  Benzan’s first arrow caught it solidly upon the shoulder, driving it back against the wall.  The arrow, empowered by Dana’s greater magic weapon spell, pierced the fiend’s defenses and sank deep into its muscled flesh, drawing another violent yell from the demon.  For a moment it glanced back up the chute, as if considering retreat, but as Lok rushed at it, the genasi’s axe cleaving a path before him, the demon shifted its attention back to defense.  The demon slashed out suddenly with its thick arms, and Lok was knocked roughly to the side, his armor grinding against the stone as he rolled.  With one foe down, the demon staggered forward again.  Cal conjured up an illusion, a complex weaving of a pair of celestials that flew down at the demon, glittering swords flashing.  The demon paid the distraction no heed, instead shifting its attention to Benzan, who was already drawing his second arrow.  The demon lifted a clawed hand and made a small gesture, and a magical shield sprung into being, just in time to deflect the flaming missile.  For an instant Cal looked at the demon in puzzlement.  That was such a minor spell—didn’t this creature have anything more potent in its arsenal?  His musings were interrupted as Dana leapt to the attack, lunging with her spear.  The demon adjusted with surprising quickness, narrowly dodging the thrust and grasping the haft of the weapon with a thick claw.   With a twist of its body it slammed the spear across roughly, launching the mystic wanderer halfway across the room.  Dana was able to land in a roll, however, absorbing most of the force of her impact upon the rough stone.   The demon tossed down the spear and came forward again.  It was clear now that its focus was not on the adventurers, if it ever had been; rather, its fiery stare was fixed on the shimmering surface of the planar gate.  Something flared in those eyes—a hunger?  It looked down as Benzan leapt into its path, his bow discarded now in favor of his familiar  longsword.  The bronze blade caught the strange mixture of lights in a way that made it seem to blaze with a fire of its own as the tiefling slashed the blade across the demon’s torso.  The sword cut into its side, though not as deeply as it might have fared against a less doughty enemy, and a thick runnel of demonic ichor oozed from the wound.  Benzan nimbly darted back and prepared for another assault, a lunge that would have plunged his sword deep into the demon’s body.  But even as he started forward, the demon abruptly balled up one muscled hand into a fist and slammed a crushing blow into Benzan’s face.  The impact laid the tiefling out flat on the floor, where he lay there, groaning as he tried to get his bearings.  By the looks of Benzan’s battered face, the blow had broken his nose and possibly his jaw as well.  The demon could have finished him, perhaps, but again it turned toward the portal, moving forward again, ignoring Cal as the gnome darted out of its path, the speed of his movements demonstrating that he was once again moving with haste.  It looked as though nothing could stop it now, but then Dana, having bounced back up to a ready crouch, launched her manriki-gusari in a spiraling cast that caught the demon’s fat legs in a tangled knot.  The demon fell, landing hard with enough force that the companions could feel it through the floor.  The demon roared again, now clearly frustrated, and clawed at the thick mithral links with its powerful but clumsy hands.  Lok was up again, and Cal was helping Benzan, while Dana was already moving to recover her spear.  Lok came forward, but before he could reach the demon, it lifted a clawed hand, and a huge wall of hot, hungry flames roared into being between them.  The companions drew back, feeling the heat even through their magical protections.  Cal helped Benzan to his feet, the tiefling still a bit wobbly despite himself.  “The planar blade would be more effective,” the gnome prodded, and Benzan glanced down at the bronze sword still dangling in his grasp, as if he’d forgotten it.  While Benzan got his bearings, Cal turned back to the wall of fire, a frown deepening on his face.  The words of a dispel magic spell were already on his tongue, but he hesitated.  Around him, everything seemed to slow down slightly, as if the world around him was submerged in water.  It was a familiar side-effect of the haste spell, a trick of the mind that he was used to.  But something nagged at him in the spinning whirlwind of his own thoughts, something not... right.  It went beyond the inherent wrongness of this place, every little aspect of which shouted inconsistencies at him, threatening to undermine his very sanity if he stopped to ponder it too deeply.  One a few seconds had passed, when he finally cast his spell.  But instead of the dispel that he’d been going to cast, he instead channeled his mind through the intricate spirals of a divination.  Immediately, Cal felt a wave crashing down upon him, a deluge of cackling, driving, tormenting thoughts, penetrating all of his defenses and blasting through every corner of his mind.  His awareness of the world around him disappeared as he fell away inside himself, trying to hold onto some shred of his identity against the hostile forces invading his mind. Cylyria had been right; here in the Abyss, divination magic opened a door to a power that was too dangerous to control...But even as he took a shuddering breath, even as he managed to hold on and break the link, end the spell, he cast out in the direction that he’d originally intended.  The connection only lasted a fraction of a second, far less than the time usually needed to draw any useful information through the spell, but somehow, even that momentary brush was enough. “Cal!  Are you all right?”  Cal looked up and saw Benzan crouched over him, concern written in his eyes.  The gnome realized that he’d fallen to his knees, only Benzan’s steadying hand keeping him from collapsing entirely.  The gnome looked around, restoring himself to the moment—the smoky cavern, the wall of fire, Dana and Lok standing nearby, their weapons ready, facing the flames...“Delem...” he said. “What?” “Delem,” Cal repeated.  “It’s Delem, the demon, it’s Delem!”“What... but, how...”Cal could not offer explanation, did not understand himself.  He only knew that there was no time.  “We can’t let him reach the Portal,” he said, each word a hiss.  Only moments had passed in that interval of mental struggle, but Cal knew that even those seconds could cost them now.  Suddenly he shot up, dragging on Benzan’s arm to pull himself up, ignoring the protests of his head as sharp daggers of pain shot through his skull.  Still affected by his haste spell, he called upon the spell he’d originally planned to cast, its words still fresh in his mind despite the ordeal he’d drawn upon himself through the detect thoughts spell.  His magic knifed through the weavings of the wall of fire—so familiar, now—and the flames wavered and vanished. The demon had used the delay to free itself from its bonds, and had already covered half the distance to the portal.  It glanced back at them as its spell was sundered, then turned and lumbered forward with purpose.  There was no way they could catch it before it reached the gateway...But Dana had already cast her own spell, and even as the others started after it, she opened a dimension door and stepped through it, reappearing directly in front of the shimmering portal, blocking the demon, her spear clutched tightly in both hands, its head pointed at its breast with a jagged nimbus of electrical energy a storm around the blade.   The demon lifted its hand as if to crush this human female that blocked its path to its destination, but hesitated.  She, in turn, stared up into that alien visage, fighting the surge of feelings that threatened to drown her as well.  She’d heard Cal’s words, and had seen enough to understand the cruel depths of the trick that had been played upon them by the masters of this place, by the evil thing that had enslaved their friend.  The words of the Oracle—her warning—echoed in her head, and she could sense the desire in the demon even through its unfathomable appearance, could almost feel the way it craved the release offered by the portal.  But that could not happen, for if the demon touched the portal, it would secure a gateway into their world that could spell destruction for the Western Heartlands, if not the rest of Faerûn with it...Dana felt her heart beat, pounding once like a drum.  She felt frozen in time, as the two confronted each other. The demon uttered something, a harsh string of broken syllables without meaning.  Dana could see what lay beyond the dark surface of its eyes, past the outer shell that was the demon, and understood.  Through her tears, she nodded,  “I know... and I’m sorry.”The spear bit as she thrust its gleaming head deep into the demon’s body.  She could feel the resistance as its thick flesh resisted the thrust, absorbing the impact.  She felt as if it was tearing her, as well, but she forced herself to follow as it staggered back a step, driving the weapon deeper into its massive body, twisting the weapon savagely as if she were striking at the source of all her pain, rather than into the body of her friend. Benzan and Lok struck nearly simultaneously, Lok driving his axe into the base of the demon’s spine, Benzan sliding his sword—now the sword of planes—into the demon’s back just below the shoulder.  The fiend went down, the demonic body crumpling as the stolen life that filled it fled, although it managed to look up once, fixing its dark eyes on Dana’s tear-streaked face...The companions drew back as the demon’s body dissolved, leaving nothing but a noxious stain that spread slowly across the cracked floor where it had fallen.  For a moment, they only stared at that spot, too overcome even to speak.  Then a faint hiss drew their attention back behind them, to the Portal.  The shimmering plane within the arch flickered, and then drew in upon itself in a sudden rush, finally fading into nothing.</blockquote>

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