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Message: <blockquote data-quote="spyscribe" data-source="post: 2345011" data-attributes="member: 5808">Part the One-Hundred Twenty-NinthIn which...Annika unshrouds her everburning torch.  Lira casts light on Euro, ready to send the glowing mustelid to wherever illumination is needed.  Reyu—keen eyes unhindered by the dimness—dashes forward to where the corridor widens into a central chamber, and casts light on a stalagmite, revealing to the others what she has already seen:A pale, sallow figure with sunken eyes and claw-like nails.  Although it was clearly once human, now…  From Petros’ description, it can only be a wight. Behind, it is flanked by two ghouls and a squad of skeletons.Unfortunately, running forward to shed some light on their attackers has left the elf in front of the rest of the party, alone and vulnerable.As her companions watch, a wight—who bears no resemblance at all to Petros—reaches forward with an emaciated hand, skin drawn tight over bones, nails grown into talons, and slashes down the side of Reyu’s neck.The elf takes a step back, gasping.  She brings a hand to her neck, and although it comes away bloody, she can tell that the wound is not severe.  Still, she feels… drained.It doesn’t stop her from swinging back with her shillelagh and cracking the wight in the ribs.  Benedic also comes forward and joins the fray.  He slashes viciously with his sword, but in getting close enough to reach the enemy he is also within reach of its toxic nails.Not so good, mate Benedic thinks as he struggles against the drain of the wight’s attack.  Whatever he might have thought next is lost as he is entirely distracted by the ear-splitting blast of Lira sounding Sheesak’s hunting horn.###Anvil barely glances at the undead approaching the rest of the party.  When the lights went out, he was already halfway into a large adjoining chamber which appears to have once served as the keep’s kitchens.  Now, in the glow of Annika’s torch and Lira’s familiar, he can now clearly see that another wight emerging from the gloom.A wight with a bone white goatee.Anvil backs up rapidly, shouting, “The gem!  The gem!”Kiara is still in hybrid form, but the ceilings of the underground cavern are too low to give her room to maneuver.  Worse yet, even as Anvil shouts, a ghoul moves into the doorway, immediately between her and Petros’ animated body.Still, Kiara has been given a vital job, and she is not about to let anyone stop her from doing it.Taking a deep breath, Kiara dashes forward, weaving between Eva and Thatch, past Anvil and runs straight for the gibbering creature.  At the last possible second, she takes a flying leap and using its head like a stepping stone summersaults over the ghoul to land in a crouch at the wight’s feet.The Petros wight looks down at her and hisses.  He brings a hand back to strike and, at that moment, Kiara slips under his guard, punches forward, and slams the gem holding Petros’ soul right into his body’s chest.>Boom!<A sudden gust of wind explodes from the point of contact between the wight and the gem.  Kiara brings her arms up to shield her face from the blast and barely manages to stay on her feet.  When the wind dies, she looks up.  Petros has been blown across the kitchen.  It lies still for a moment.  Then, gradually struggles to raise its head.  Finally, it manages to focus on the other side of the room, and makes eye-contact with Kiara.When it does, she can see that its skin is no longer quite so sallow.  Its nails are long and ragged, but no longer the sharpened claws that moments ago menaced her.  And when she looks into its eyes, there is a light that was not there before.Petros’ familiar voice croaks, “What…?”Kiara grins.On the other side of the cavern, Annika gapes—caught between pride and terror.###Meanwhile, the echos of Sheesak’s horn die away just as the blast which reunited Petros’ body and soul does and a silvery green vortex appears behind the wight that attacked Reyu and Benedic.Benedic drops into ready stance, preparing to ward off another blow from this, still very much undead, wight.  But as the wight moves to strike, its back arches, as if in sudden pain.  It shrieks, once… twice, and then, with a small gurgle, falls.It’s then that the party can finally see that the silver-green vortex has solidified into a very large, very angry, wolverine.Benedic straightens, momentarily off-balance now that his nearest enemy has been so abruptly eliminated.  Lira barely smirks.Eva looks at the wolverine and shudders.###Anvil dispatches the ghoul in front of him and charges into the kitchens.  He finds that any food preparation in this room is but a distant memory, and the center of the floor is now dominated by an eight-foot arch.  And as approaches, he sees that it appears to have been constructed from human bones.It is a massive, foreboding presence, thrumming with evil magic.  In the center of the arch, a slight shimmering, like an invisible curtain, ripples.   Anvil draws still closer, and realizes that the vague unease that pervades the lands of Bountiful is no longer vague in any way.  This thing is a foul, black heart, pumping waves of unholy energy that besmirch all that was once good and light in this place.  Calling upon Kettenek to grant him mighty strength, Anvil plants his feet and attempts to push the arch over, but as he touches the bony surface, a ghostly figure appears before him, and forces its incorporeal hand into Anvil’s face.  The figure seems to be human, but like no human Anvil has ever seen.  He is a great, seven-foot tall figure, but his shape is indistinct.  He seems to be clad in rotted furs, but they ebb and flow like dark mists around him.  Whatever face he might have had is lost in the dark of a sickly looking headdress of matted fur and feathers.  In life, the headdress would no doubt have been some badge of distinction—the mark of a chieftan of the Go’nah-li.  Now, it is a cowl of decay, from which two glowing red pinpoints of light shine through, right where his eyes should be.His touch is deathly cold, so cold it seems to burn.  And as the pain penetrates deeper and deeper into Anvil’s flesh the ancient chieftain roars with a voice like gravel in the wind, “These are our lands!”Anvil can feel the cold pulling at him, trying to drain away his health, his stamina, his very life.  He resists, reaching inside, searching for the rock in his core that is the center of his faith.  He shouts back: “Kettenek cares not whose lands these are!” Anvil breaks free, holds his holy symbol out before him, and calls upon his god to banish this abomination.The wraith laughs with the sound of the dying.###The rest of the party has done their work.  Three wights and their ghouls lie in pieces on the stone floor, and the Wolverine crushes the last skeleton between its mighty jaws.  Thatch holds his sword at the ready; he can almost feel Anvil’s enchantment on the blade, crying out for the chance to strike.  He glances back to the others.  Lira has just cast a cure spell on Reyu to bring the Druid back to something closer to fighting shape.“Ready?” he asks.“That was my last cure light wounds,” Lira warns him.“Then we’d better be the ones doing the damage.”The others nod.  Thatch raises his sword, and the group descends en-mass on the incorporeal ancient chief.</blockquote>

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