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Message: <blockquote data-quote="StalkingBlue" data-source="post: 1531996" data-attributes="member: 645">[Pallas's account, by Pallas's player: ]Apari woke me up. It was still night. Little time had passed. He showed me his arm. A thin black chain was wrapped around it. It was tightening of its own volition. I looked at him. I didn’t know what he wanted. It was his chain. Carefully he unwound and dropped it. I hit it with my vardatch. Then I stopped. The chain was harder. Apari looked at it again. He picked it up and wound it around his arm. It tightened again. He said he felt better. He put his sleeve over it. It disappeared from my sight. Then he said he felt fine. I looked at him. This was strange. I had never seen or heard of anything like that. But he was an elf. Elves were strange. Maybe it was something elvish. I was settling back to sleep when he shook me again. We should go back to the mansion. He said he felt well now, capable of doing his magic. I didn’t know how he had done that. Didn’t want to know. Zana and Jez were dead and the legate still had the earthlight crystal. Many of his guard were dead. He and his channeler had cast some magic already. They would be weakened. We would never get a better opportunity. We gathered the horses. As we did so, Apari pointed. In the distance, silhouetted against the moonlight, figures were coming this way. They knew we were here. They must have trackers. Stealth was pointless. We mounted and rode fast. Towards the mansion. Apari was bursting with confidence. Unseen, he would sneak into the mansion and look. Then he would get me and together we would assault the remaining enemy. We stopped a few hundred yards away from the building. He left. I waited. A little later he came back. He told me he had left a back door open. This led into a large room full of horses. The horses were restless and would help in masking any sound I made. He didn’t make any. We approached. It was as he said. Closer to the house, he became unseen. I entered the house and stayed out of sight next to a set of stairs going up. I waited for him to call. I had a little time to look around. A bare room. It smelt of horses. There were four of them, one a little bigger than the others. The orcs were no stable hands. Looking a little closer I saw a sword on the bigger horse. It was Zana’s. I moved over there and took it. Then I moved back. Still no call. Suddenly, a mass of grey sticky strands erupted from the stairs. Apari had told me about the web magic. I thought it was the halfling channeler but I heard no call. I moved up the stairs. A little inside the webbed area I saw the large plains cat. It was struggling inside the webs. I drew my bow. Then a nightmare. A horrific translucent creature emerged from the cat. It was indescribable. As if made from many parts of animals and other creatures. It opened its mouth and screamed. I lost control of my body. I ran. As fast as I could. Out of the mansion, into the fields. Then I heard hooves behind me. They were getting closer. Still I ran. The big horse ran by me, kicking out as it did. It was mad. Its teeth were bared. It was lathered and its eyes were rolling. I regained control. Something may have been inside that horse it still fought like an animal. A little later it was dead. It did manage to kick me a couple of times. Mostly it left bloody marks on my shield and sword as it hurled itself against me. I ran back to the mansion. I found the web was gone. I heard Apari’s voice. I moved towards it. Up the stairs, following a hallway, then left. Then I entered a lit room. I was surprised. Zana was alive. So was Verity. The oily voiced legate and the fat, spell-casting halfling were sprawled in the wreckage of a room full of books. The legate’s stomach had been ripped out. Jez was also lying on the floor near the doorway, dead. I didn’t say anything. It was better not to at these times. I had seen it before. People losing friends. I just gave Zana her sword. She thanked me. Then she grieved. Apari moved around silently. He had been around the house. Whispering, he asked me what happened to the mage hunter. I presumed he meant the translucent thing. I told him I killed it. Later I needed to ask him what that was. I would tell him what had happened. Apari moved around, searching the legate. He found the crystal. Then we stood silently. A little later, Apari whispered to Zana. She shook herself, wordlessly moved aside and turned her back. Apari took a sword and decapitated Jez. He moved out of the room. Then I picked her up and took her downstairs. Apari was already there. He had another halfling with him. He looked terrified. Mounting the horses, we left the building. Then we dug a grave. I thought. We had the make several decisions. I still wanted to destroy the temple. Apari had an amazing ability to sneak around unseen, which was the core of the idea for the temple. The halfling Apari had found had been to the location of the temple. If we were lucky he might even have been inside the building. I didn’t know how strong Apari felt about his magic. I didn’t know how strong Zana was after her ordeal. We had a company of orcs behind us with trackers. Soon this place would be roiling with Shadow. So the question was: Rest or go to the Temple now? I also thought about Jez. I didn’t know how she died. Zana hadn’t spoken since we left the mansion. Maybe she would tell me, maybe she wouldn’t. I hadn’t known Jez well. She had a good swordarm and she was amazingly fast. She cared about people. There was a time I did as well. Then they all died. Her face would join the many I often saw at night.</blockquote>

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